Since you said you have lots of 'deco' lots, did you mark them 'no visitors allowed'? Sometimes that helps in keeping the sims who are out and about too scattered so you see more of them at hot spots.
The Sims
Where are we going, and why am I in this hand basket?!
Yep, I mark them 'no visitors', and if it's one that isn't for player development I also make it a hidden tomb (things like fountains and random world statues etc).
After discussing the slippage issue with some of you on apartment doors, I'm more than likely going to remove all the apartments from the world - and I've a good mind to delete all the spiral stairs too! That's 8 new residential lots I'll need to do and heavens knows how many stairs :shock:
This will set me back quite a bit, but will be worth it in my quest to create a smooth running city style world - or at least as close as I can get given the limits I'm discovering!
All spiral stairs and appartments removed from world due to problems with Pets/Showtime..
Problems with families being unable to move to new properties resolved.
Fingers crossed, I'm in the final stages of testing now :thumbup:
Rem checks that everything works in the pool dance club, unfortunately the food isn't quite to his taste!:
(note: spiral stairs featured are no longer there!)
And quick crowd check just to make sure a decent crowd will turn up:
One of the live show locations with a cool view, especially as the sun goes down:
Hi Rem,
Ive been following your build from the start. I like small worlds and always find it a challenge to get everything placed while still having it look nice. And I agree about the whole square thing. As long as it looks good from play level, who cares. Everything looks good so far. Can not wait to see the finish. One thing, almost all of your trees are the orange/yellow ones.Personally I think a few green ones would look better mixed in.
Great job
kim
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.
Abraham Lincoln
kimjo313: I think a few green ones would look better mixed in.
Ahh, the cottonwoods. Yes, I did use a lot of those as I instantly fell in love with them. They animate so beautifully in the game and really help to lift the spirits of the city with their vibrant colour, which was important to me. But don't worry, I've also used plenty of Eucalyptus and Aspen too; it's just they seem to disappear from map view more easily when you zoom out. There's also ground planting, so when you're actually in game you'll see more variety. On the richer lots you'll find even more diversity and of course, the compulsary palm!
I was, however, very conscious to limit the species of world tree in a bid to keep performance speed high and enable the game to cluster them as easily as possible. Also, in streets, city planners tend to use avenues of the same species of tree - not sure if that's for aesthetics or because they got a great deal from some plant nursery
I I I...I don't knw what to say. But I love it and I am going to annoy my husbond senseless because when this is released I am going to start Simming again!! :-D
I have been watching this world in the works...I've downloaded and rec. Thanks for making it. I am looking forward to loading this. A small city for my lappy.
I'm really looking forward to seeing this world in game. It looks beautiful. Your Positano has been a favorite since I installed it so I'm sure this will be amazing, too. :-)
Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud. - Maya Angelou
And typically, just after I upload I find a bug! No biggie though. The stairs in Taser Tats (tatoo parlour) are causing my sims problems and bazarly preventing the tatoo artists from working. Easy fix is to to delete the stairs to the roof (or move them), they're not really needed.
I'm glad I ran across your post in RFlong's discussions. I have gotten horrible at keeping up with new worlds. I clicked on your banner and saw the world description. User made worlds have become very problematic for a lot of Mac users. This is the type of world I was looking for for my last Mac laptop. I have a new Mac with great specs and still have problems due to Cider emulation not being up to par. I am going to give this a try. I appreciate the concept, the execution as viewed in the screenshots, and seeing my old friends' sims!
It looks like a CC pattern from TSR might have attached to your world. When I checked my installed content after installing I saw at the very top of my listing your world and above it, a pattern called AMv3@TSR_Canvas.
I am pretty sure it's from your world because I haven't downloaded anything in a while in which a new pattern showed up in the launcher. You might want to doublecheck with Custard to see if any other CC crept in. I am on Mac so I am not quite sure how to use Custard with my OS.
As long as that's the only CC that's come in I don't mind. I can either remove it or just leave it be. I doubt it will harm anything. It's clearly labled so I should be able to avoid it in my own uploads. But just in case, I will be reverting to a previous installation after I am done checking out your world.
EDIT to ADD: Okay, it seems it can NOT be removed. It shows up in the launcher but when I try to uninstall the pattern it says it can not be removed with dependents. It's firmly stuck, whatever it is. I don't know much about CC so I'll have to see what that all means.
JM I explained in the WE thread what that means. I checked the world with Custard and the pattern is the only thing that shows up. it doesn't provide any kind of identifying info other than the alpha-numeric name though, so the exact name you gave him should help Remmo find it.
Remmo the alpha-numeric name is listed below. If you do not have this pattern installed on your machine then check your DCBackup folder for this file.
0x1d60052f51de3d80417475afe8a0693f.package
The Sims
Where are we going, and why am I in this hand basket?!
Remmo, one other issue, and while it's fixable, it's unfortunately going to be a real pain in the cat tail for you to fix if you've done this in many lots.
The reason your Tatoo Parlor gave you route fail in your tests is due to the use of stacked staircases. That's when you do what seems to be the reasonable and space saving trick of building one staircase over another. Unfortunately stacked staircases have been "broken" for us since several patches and EP's ago. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't, and they rarely work for anyone who is not the builder who has downloaded either a lot or a world with these stacked staircases.
I put my test sim (one of my own) into the little brownstone townhouses (gorgeous by the way) and she could not get to the second floor to her bathroom because of the stacked staircases. She simply went up the stairs and back down again without being able to exit the staircase to get to the second floor.
I have gone through this in my own lot builds a few months ago, so I am certain of the issue and familiar with the problem.
It's why my own buildings have the seemingly space wasting arrangement of stairs being awkwardly placed in places that do not look as sensible and attractive as stacked stairs do. It's not because I'm a bad designer but because EA broke this ability for us to have stacking work.
The good news is in my preliminary look-through the world was gorgeous and the graphics loaded pretty quickly for me despite the lots being close together.
I'm on a Mac so I generally don't volunteer for beta testing anymore because Mac running Sims 3 via Cider emulation produces its own problems. But I've got enough experience as a beta tester to recognize certain problems that are not due to Cider. Since I do have this experience and I do love your world concept and I've already got it installed, I will go through and look for more potential issues and report back to you as I am able.
I am a mom on a tight schedule so my opportunities to play are unpredictable, but I will devote the rest of my spare time this week to giving this world the best going over I can and report any other issues I see.
But please go ahead and revise your title to indicate that the world may need further testing and fixing. Unfortunately sometimes even though creators give their worlds a thorough workover before release, some things slip past and it helps to have friends beta test and report.
I'm not sure what you should do about your world being on the exchange with the issues it's got. Only you can decide what you want to do. My advise for the sake of your reputation, since you promote the world as being free of CC but it is in fact containing a CC pattern from TSR no less, that you pull it just on that basis alone. It's a shame we can't edit our Exchange notations to indicate something needs further testing or fixing.
I will also try to see if I can spot the use of that CC pattern in game.
Remmo I tested all the stacked stairs in all of the brownstone town houses. Some of them did work, some did not. Here is why, as described by Tangie over in the World Explorers thread when I talked about the world there and described my issue with the stacked stairs:
"I wonder if he built the lots in the world or built them elsewhere and placed them there? If they were created in the world they should have been OK - so I'm guessing he 'imported' them. I have lots that used the stacked stairs and as long as the lot is oriented in the same direction as the original site then the stacked stairs work. Unfortunately there's no way to tell, at least that I know of, which is the 'right' orientation other than if they do not work. Then you need to place it on a lot that goes in the other direction (north-south or east-west or vice versa). Anyway I stopped uploading any lots where I've used them, but I can usually get mine to work by changing the orientation when needed.
Now if he did build the lots on the same spot they're located on in the game, then maybe the issue has become more serious. But I placed a house with stacked stairs in Suburban Springs yesterday and lucked out because it worked right away, did not even have to move it.
This game is just downright wacky, I tell 'ya."
The houses I tested whose stacked staircases WORKED:
710 Creek Side
720 Creek Side
770 Creek Side and 760 Creek Side
The houses I tested that had stacked staircases that did NOT work:
730, 740 and 750 Creek Side did NOT work. I tried sledgehammering and rebuilding the stacked stairs but that did not work. Once an orientation as been changed from the original, that it is it, stacked stairs apparently won't work anymore. The game somehow has remaining data of the original orientation and it causes a conflict with stacked stairs--that's my best guess anyway.
In the Felice household of 800 Pit Hole End I did find stacked spiral stairs. Those worked fine. I only mention them because I think you said you don't have any spiral stairs left, but maybe you only meant in community lots. I'll have to re-read your original description. There is always the possibility they might not work for everyone all the time. Spiral stairs are sometimes persnickety that way. So if you want to be on the cautious side, you should be able to replace them fairly easily with conventional stairs. You had left yourself plenty of room to do so from what I recall. But if you want to leave it as-is, that ought to be okay, too. At least there was no fencing put up around the spiral stairs. That's what mostly seems to cause route fail around spiral stairs, when people use fencing sort of like a protective rail.
Speaking of fencing, I am a bit concerned about the decorative fencing outside of the Creek Side brownstones. Sometimes horses get trapped in fencing in all sorts of odd ways. I will keep an eye open for that...IF they spawn. Is this world designated as a true city? If it is I'm not sure horses will spawn in it. Again I need to re-read your original description.
I will keep reporting anything I come across.
On the positive side the sims I've seen so far are very interesting and nicely sculpted. The town looks lively and bustling. It looks great as I drive by--the graphics do load just fine for me. I like some of the pop song and pop culture references I've caught in some location names.
I'm not much of a city-world gal but this city is very beautiful and compelling so far. Now that I've got the routing issues related to the stacked stairs in the brownstones taken care of, I look forward to continued exploration and trying the community buildings more and more.
EDIT: P.S. I'm sorry for the long walls of text. I'm not a good writer and flail at explanations and descriptions and stuff like that. I will try to improve my feedback as I go along.
Re: stacked stair cases
Yes, I had used that as a solution to get round the problems I encountered with some of the spirals I found. I hadn't realised that reorientating the build would break them. For these, I created the shell first, transfered it to each of the lots, then decorated each individually. On my fix list.
Re: pattern
I can only think that this must be a wall paper created with Create a Pattern, an EA tool, so not generally considered 3rd party cc. I will investigate further just to be sure. I don't use The Sims Resource, so not sure what's going on there. On my list
Re: horses
I flagged the world as a true city using s3pe. Not sure if it's the same on macs, but for me, when you see a true city in the neighbourhood pannel, you should see a blue icon in the bottom right of the city picture that looks like high rise buildings. Horses won't randomly spawn in cities. The only thing you get is the unicorn, but he stays on the fishing lot, or at least, he has for me so far!
Thanks for the feed back!
EDIT: Just got back from work and looked into that pesky pattern. If you uninstall my world, it will let you remove it just fine. I've no idea what it is either! It seems to be a rather plain white pattern, from the icon. Custard shows nothing else there, other than that pattern, heavens knows how i managed to miss it the first time round. I'm usually very thorough :oops:
I'm sure you are very thorough, Remmo. I don't have much interaction with CC myself but Tangie/HappySimmer who posted here, has done a lot of wrangling of CC and I've seen her post about how some of it resists removal and detection. She and others have talked about having to root it out at cache level. She did post here, go back a few posts and look for her post and she gives you the exact file name to look for in your own cache files to take it out. At any rate, I'm sure you did your best to keep the world CC free. This sort of thing just happens.
I'll keep checking out the world. I have unfortunately to do a lot of housecleaning and chores today and then my daughter and I are scheduled for a few social activities this week so my free time is kind of spotty. But every chance I get, I'll get into the game and try to go house by house looking for anything and of course testing the community lots, too. Even in the heyday of my testing days I wasn't quite up to the level of Writin Reg or Dolldrms or HappySimmer and my testing skills are very rusty--I haven't done a thorough beta test in well over a year, but I'll do the best I can inside the restrictions of my Mac system. If I have any oddities I'll report them but then we'll need to confirm them because sometimes Cider produces issues that will NEVER affect pc users ever.
Mostly I'll be looking for obvious things and of course, noting any forgotten items like spiral stairs that conflict with the written description of your world.
Remmo. Im inlove with your tiny little city. Cant wait to play it. Me and my Friend Cy.berqueen are anxious to get our legacy started there. Can you say when it might be back up for DownLoad? No rush mind you. Just wondering.
Comments
Since you said you have lots of 'deco' lots, did you mark them 'no visitors allowed'? Sometimes that helps in keeping the sims who are out and about too scattered so you see more of them at hot spots.
Where are we going, and why am I in this hand basket?!
Yep, I mark them 'no visitors', and if it's one that isn't for player development I also make it a hidden tomb (things like fountains and random world statues etc).
It's a top tip though
After discussing the slippage issue with some of you on apartment doors, I'm more than likely going to remove all the apartments from the world - and I've a good mind to delete all the spiral stairs too! That's 8 new residential lots I'll need to do and heavens knows how many stairs :shock:
This will set me back quite a bit, but will be worth it in my quest to create a smooth running city style world - or at least as close as I can get given the limits I'm discovering!
All spiral stairs and appartments removed from world due to problems with Pets/Showtime..
Problems with families being unable to move to new properties resolved.
Fingers crossed, I'm in the final stages of testing now :thumbup:
Rem checks that everything works in the pool dance club, unfortunately the food isn't quite to his taste!:
(note: spiral stairs featured are no longer there!)
And quick crowd check just to make sure a decent crowd will turn up:
One of the live show locations with a cool view, especially as the sun goes down:
Can't wait till it's finished!!!
Ive been following your build from the start. I like small worlds and always find it a challenge to get everything placed while still having it look nice. And I agree about the whole square thing. As long as it looks good from play level, who cares. Everything looks good so far. Can not wait to see the finish. One thing, almost all of your trees are the orange/yellow ones.Personally I think a few green ones would look better mixed in.
Great job
kim
Abraham Lincoln
Ahh, the cottonwoods. Yes, I did use a lot of those as I instantly fell in love with them. They animate so beautifully in the game and really help to lift the spirits of the city with their vibrant colour, which was important to me. But don't worry, I've also used plenty of Eucalyptus and Aspen too; it's just they seem to disappear from map view more easily when you zoom out. There's also ground planting, so when you're actually in game you'll see more variety. On the richer lots you'll find even more diversity and of course, the compulsary palm!
I was, however, very conscious to limit the species of world tree in a bid to keep performance speed high and enable the game to cluster them as easily as possible. Also, in streets, city planners tend to use avenues of the same species of tree - not sure if that's for aesthetics or because they got a great deal from some plant nursery
Anyhow, that's my thinking behind it all
Well!
I guess there comes a time when you just have to stop testing and tweaking and let it make its own way into the world.
World ready for download (link in first post)
I really hope you have fun
Ps: I've started a known bugs section in first post too, so if you encounter anything that needs fixing for future releases, please do let me know
And typically, just after I upload I find a bug! No biggie though. The stairs in Taser Tats (tatoo parlour) are causing my sims problems and bazarly preventing the tatoo artists from working. Easy fix is to to delete the stairs to the roof (or move them), they're not really needed.
Clearly, Doc Sprocket and Auntilynds were a little shocked by the unexpected mosher!
Gah, that must've been one of my cheeky dev team, I certainly wouldn't write anything like that in my promo posters
But inside Remmo is saying "Oh yes I did!"
heh heh! The world is super cool!
I am pretty sure it's from your world because I haven't downloaded anything in a while in which a new pattern showed up in the launcher. You might want to doublecheck with Custard to see if any other CC crept in. I am on Mac so I am not quite sure how to use Custard with my OS.
As long as that's the only CC that's come in I don't mind. I can either remove it or just leave it be. I doubt it will harm anything. It's clearly labled so I should be able to avoid it in my own uploads. But just in case, I will be reverting to a previous installation after I am done checking out your world.
EDIT to ADD: Okay, it seems it can NOT be removed. It shows up in the launcher but when I try to uninstall the pattern it says it can not be removed with dependents. It's firmly stuck, whatever it is. I don't know much about CC so I'll have to see what that all means.
Remmo the alpha-numeric name is listed below. If you do not have this pattern installed on your machine then check your DCBackup folder for this file.
0x1d60052f51de3d80417475afe8a0693f.package
Where are we going, and why am I in this hand basket?!
The reason your Tatoo Parlor gave you route fail in your tests is due to the use of stacked staircases. That's when you do what seems to be the reasonable and space saving trick of building one staircase over another. Unfortunately stacked staircases have been "broken" for us since several patches and EP's ago. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't, and they rarely work for anyone who is not the builder who has downloaded either a lot or a world with these stacked staircases.
I put my test sim (one of my own) into the little brownstone townhouses (gorgeous by the way) and she could not get to the second floor to her bathroom because of the stacked staircases. She simply went up the stairs and back down again without being able to exit the staircase to get to the second floor.
I have gone through this in my own lot builds a few months ago, so I am certain of the issue and familiar with the problem.
It's why my own buildings have the seemingly space wasting arrangement of stairs being awkwardly placed in places that do not look as sensible and attractive as stacked stairs do. It's not because I'm a bad designer but because EA broke this ability for us to have stacking work.
The good news is in my preliminary look-through the world was gorgeous and the graphics loaded pretty quickly for me despite the lots being close together.
I'm on a Mac so I generally don't volunteer for beta testing anymore because Mac running Sims 3 via Cider emulation produces its own problems. But I've got enough experience as a beta tester to recognize certain problems that are not due to Cider. Since I do have this experience and I do love your world concept and I've already got it installed, I will go through and look for more potential issues and report back to you as I am able.
I am a mom on a tight schedule so my opportunities to play are unpredictable, but I will devote the rest of my spare time this week to giving this world the best going over I can and report any other issues I see.
But please go ahead and revise your title to indicate that the world may need further testing and fixing. Unfortunately sometimes even though creators give their worlds a thorough workover before release, some things slip past and it helps to have friends beta test and report.
I'm not sure what you should do about your world being on the exchange with the issues it's got. Only you can decide what you want to do. My advise for the sake of your reputation, since you promote the world as being free of CC but it is in fact containing a CC pattern from TSR no less, that you pull it just on that basis alone. It's a shame we can't edit our Exchange notations to indicate something needs further testing or fixing.
I will also try to see if I can spot the use of that CC pattern in game.
"I wonder if he built the lots in the world or built them elsewhere and placed them there? If they were created in the world they should have been OK - so I'm guessing he 'imported' them. I have lots that used the stacked stairs and as long as the lot is oriented in the same direction as the original site then the stacked stairs work. Unfortunately there's no way to tell, at least that I know of, which is the 'right' orientation other than if they do not work. Then you need to place it on a lot that goes in the other direction (north-south or east-west or vice versa). Anyway I stopped uploading any lots where I've used them, but I can usually get mine to work by changing the orientation when needed.
Now if he did build the lots on the same spot they're located on in the game, then maybe the issue has become more serious. But I placed a house with stacked stairs in Suburban Springs yesterday and lucked out because it worked right away, did not even have to move it.
This game is just downright wacky, I tell 'ya."
The houses I tested whose stacked staircases WORKED:
710 Creek Side
720 Creek Side
770 Creek Side and 760 Creek Side
The houses I tested that had stacked staircases that did NOT work:
730, 740 and 750 Creek Side did NOT work. I tried sledgehammering and rebuilding the stacked stairs but that did not work. Once an orientation as been changed from the original, that it is it, stacked stairs apparently won't work anymore. The game somehow has remaining data of the original orientation and it causes a conflict with stacked stairs--that's my best guess anyway.
In the Felice household of 800 Pit Hole End I did find stacked spiral stairs. Those worked fine. I only mention them because I think you said you don't have any spiral stairs left, but maybe you only meant in community lots. I'll have to re-read your original description. There is always the possibility they might not work for everyone all the time. Spiral stairs are sometimes persnickety that way. So if you want to be on the cautious side, you should be able to replace them fairly easily with conventional stairs. You had left yourself plenty of room to do so from what I recall. But if you want to leave it as-is, that ought to be okay, too. At least there was no fencing put up around the spiral stairs. That's what mostly seems to cause route fail around spiral stairs, when people use fencing sort of like a protective rail.
Speaking of fencing, I am a bit concerned about the decorative fencing outside of the Creek Side brownstones. Sometimes horses get trapped in fencing in all sorts of odd ways. I will keep an eye open for that...IF they spawn. Is this world designated as a true city? If it is I'm not sure horses will spawn in it. Again I need to re-read your original description.
I will keep reporting anything I come across.
On the positive side the sims I've seen so far are very interesting and nicely sculpted. The town looks lively and bustling. It looks great as I drive by--the graphics do load just fine for me. I like some of the pop song and pop culture references I've caught in some location names.
I'm not much of a city-world gal but this city is very beautiful and compelling so far. Now that I've got the routing issues related to the stacked stairs in the brownstones taken care of, I look forward to continued exploration and trying the community buildings more and more.
EDIT: P.S. I'm sorry for the long walls of text. I'm not a good writer and flail at explanations and descriptions and stuff like that. I will try to improve my feedback as I go along.
Re: stacked stair cases
Yes, I had used that as a solution to get round the problems I encountered with some of the spirals I found. I hadn't realised that reorientating the build would break them. For these, I created the shell first, transfered it to each of the lots, then decorated each individually. On my fix list.
Re: pattern
I can only think that this must be a wall paper created with Create a Pattern, an EA tool, so not generally considered 3rd party cc. I will investigate further just to be sure. I don't use The Sims Resource, so not sure what's going on there. On my list
Re: horses
I flagged the world as a true city using s3pe. Not sure if it's the same on macs, but for me, when you see a true city in the neighbourhood pannel, you should see a blue icon in the bottom right of the city picture that looks like high rise buildings. Horses won't randomly spawn in cities. The only thing you get is the unicorn, but he stays on the fishing lot, or at least, he has for me so far!
Thanks for the feed back!
EDIT: Just got back from work and looked into that pesky pattern. If you uninstall my world, it will let you remove it just fine. I've no idea what it is either! It seems to be a rather plain white pattern, from the icon. Custard shows nothing else there, other than that pattern, heavens knows how i managed to miss it the first time round. I'm usually very thorough :oops:
I'll keep checking out the world. I have unfortunately to do a lot of housecleaning and chores today and then my daughter and I are scheduled for a few social activities this week so my free time is kind of spotty. But every chance I get, I'll get into the game and try to go house by house looking for anything and of course testing the community lots, too. Even in the heyday of my testing days I wasn't quite up to the level of Writin Reg or Dolldrms or HappySimmer and my testing skills are very rusty--I haven't done a thorough beta test in well over a year, but I'll do the best I can inside the restrictions of my Mac system. If I have any oddities I'll report them but then we'll need to confirm them because sometimes Cider produces issues that will NEVER affect pc users ever.
Mostly I'll be looking for obvious things and of course, noting any forgotten items like spiral stairs that conflict with the written description of your world.
Will run a few more exports and double check it's not piggy backing on the back of anything else, just to be sure. :shock:
I've fixed all the stacked stair cases too. It's not a pretty fix, but needs must