The pics look great Lee!
Im thinking of some ideas for 406 west main st.
Where is you graveyard? Because I was thinking a curch in the city with a small gravyard attached would be pretty cool. It would be based on the church and graveyard where Edgar Allen Poe is buried in Baltimore. Its for a small corner lot.
startspring:
A cemetery can be a beautiful place A little scary at night, perhaps... hehe, glad you like it.
Sleep tight. chris2chris:
There is actually already a flower shop in the downtown area, built by nkuhlwind back when. You can still add that if you want to as it perfectly reasonable to have more than one of those around.
I was thinking, also, that if you wanted to put like a salon in one of the empty lots, you can do that too - but try to put a "mock" version together for the official town - one in which you don't included any actual Ambitions objects. Then you could make an alterate version of the lot where Ambitions objects are included to make it a functioning Beauty Salon for those who own Ambitions to download and replace with in town... happyjme:
The graveyard I built is on 7 Mortis Rd. (north of the Farmlands, close to the forest).
Now, I really like your suggestion of that Poe graveyard (doesn't exactly hurt, since I'm a horror buff), but I'm still not sure I would want a second graveyard. But, then again - why not? As long as you don't include the Mausoleum rabbit hole it wouldn't really hurt to have another place to bury the dead. And, this way we get some ghosts close to the city at night.
If you decide to build it, I may very well use it I won't reserve the lot for you though, just yet. Let's get the Northview homes done first.
EDIT: You know... as I loaded up the town, and saw the area the Poe Graveyard would go in, I began to wonder if it wouldn't be spectacular with that kind of lot right there... it's right next to the Criminal Warehouse and in close proximity to my downtown city dump yard... it would make it all seem like a bit of a rough neighborhood... still can't reserve the lot for you, but just letting you know I'm getting more excited about the idea (still no Mausoleum... that has to be reserved for the "main" graveyard).
Hi guys! I just finished the King St Apartments and they turned out pretty decent. The only thing that ticks me off is that I wanted the ground floor flats to have basements, but the darn basement tool won't do as its told :evil: You can add it yourself though if you'd like.
Some pics:
Front View
There are 4 2 bedroom units ground floor and 4 1 bedrooms at the top.
Backyard with pool, garage and relaxing facilities (I put a spot for the hot tub (Late Night) in the relax house)
I think I managed not to use any Ambitions or pay/store stuff, but if I did feel free to rearrange it as you like :-)
Hey those apartments look real nice startspring.
And Chris, I like the idea of a bakery or some kind of market. Has anyone built a general or consignment store that would go along with ambitions? Without the register of course.
Lee, I totally understand that you don't want it to look like part of a bad neighborhood. Are you set on the dump being downtown? Perhaps it should be out of the city. Most people wouldn't want their dump downtown anyway lol! But I can understand the difficulty it moving a build that's already been designed for a specific Lot. I haven't even started building the church yet anyways. I'm concentraiting on the northview houses.
startspring:
Those apartments are great! Wonderful interior as usual with your builds. I got it place in town yesterday... just didn't get to reply here (explanation in my update below).
I noticed you had built them on 1410 King St., but I will keep them on 1408 in the release.
It would be great if you want to do the Mall! It's a shame I haven't heard from Markiem32 who was working on a massive build for that lot back when - I was really looking forward to that one. But, I gotta get this finished, and the Mall is a large lot to build on. I do have a few ideas for you to take into account, if you will:
Front Large Parking Lot (INSPIRATIONAL IMAGE)
A nice looking Parking Lot towards the street, with some green areas or something.
Large 2/3 Story Mall with many store spaces (you can leave quite a few empty ones, so people can build what they want inside)
Any questions - just let me know. I'll reserve the Mall for you right away! chris2chris:
Sounds great! Bakery and Toy Store would be new for Overlook Bay. happyjme:
Oh, no - you got me totally wrong there I was beginning to really like the idea of the area looking a little "rough". With the run-down criminal warehouse and the junk-yard close by. I'm a big fan of not everything looking peachy... Never seen a real life city that doesn't have it's bad parts of downtown.
So, once you're done with the Northview homes, I would be very interested in giving you that lot. UPDATE:
I'm starting to think that Overlook Bay is cursed! Ran into some serious trouble again yesterday, and now it's the cursed Error Code 12 that's giving me fits. I can only save once out of every three times, so that means I have to redo exit the game and redo everything until I am able to save it.
Does anyone know what the heck this Error Code 12 is? I tried looking around in the forums yesterday, and found some threads on it - but none that explained what this is. Most of them quite old as well. I did find a suggestion for a solution written by Writin_Reg, which I tried out. I removed all the saves in my directory with .bad extension, and then I deleted all of the cache files. After that I redid what I had lost and saved, and it worked... but I'm still worried the Error Code 12 problem is going to continue. I sure hope that isn't something that will affect the saves you guys start up based on these.
It seems like a serious bug (I mean, what's the point in playing anything if you can't save your progress?), so I'm shocked ... well, it IS EA... that it hasn't been fixed in a patch.
Either way, I will continue to work on this. No way I'm giving up so close to finishing. But, I guess frustrations will continue for a while longer.
Don't have much time to spend on this today, but I'll try to put together some new Teaser Pictures and post later today.
I kinda went ahead and started building on the mall yesterday and finished it off today, but I think I got everything you asked for anyway. The parking space is not in the front but it looks pretty good the way it is.
Front
Parking lots (you can drive all the way around the building)
Playground for the kiddies
Part of the interior
There are plenty of "shops" both up and downstairs but most of them are empty. The only place sims can actually do something with is the arcade. No cashregisters included and it's playtested for a couple of hours with no flaws :P
i have one solution, but its definitely not an ideal one, export the heightmap, and all the terrain layers and re-open it as a new world, the roads and trees would have to be re-done though, unless you went into the packaged file and copy'd your road and tree map files,
other idea is, have you tried doing "save as" so then it appears as a new world in CAW,
iv had that error 12 a few times, but i often get that error 16,
:shock: OH geez Lee! I hope everything works out for you this time around. I'm crossing my fingers.
Soo ill keep the church,gravyard lot in mind once I finish the others.
No mosoleum, check.
I also want to make sure drowssap knows Im letting her take 10 old pier if she wants it.
startspring:
Wow! You're quick And, that mall looks great! Never mind parking in front - parking in the back works just as well. Very much like I had in mind! I just finished placing it in the hood, and it fit in nicely.
Another great submission from you! drowssap:
Oh, there would be no way I'd start over in CAW even with the height map. I spent 2 months sculpting, placing terrain, effects and other objects in that neighborhood. If it were to come to that being the only option left, I'm afraid I would sent Overlook Bay to the grave for good.
Good news is that I've got it up and running again... for the time being. happyjme:
Yeah, I fixed it for now. I'm worried the Error Code 12 issue will re-appear, but I'm making sure I store plenty of back-up files, so whatever happens, I'm quite confident I'll be able to get back on track reasonably quick.
Ok. I promised some new preview pictures today, and with the limited time I have for The Sims on this particular Sunday, I threw together some pictures of various Beach areas in Overlook Bay. With summer nearing an end for most of us, I thought it was a good idea to feature something which really represents summer. Enough chit-chat - on to the pictures!
TEASER PICS (BEACH LIFE)
Updated: Aug 15, 2010
The view from the largest beach in Overlook Bay (lot built by Valana). In the near distance you can see the hotels lining Oceanview Drive. Some hot summer nights and wild beach parties to look forward to around here!
This is another build by Valana, and it was the first completed house for the beach areas. The lot itself is probably my personal favorite location in all of Overlook Bay, with a beautiful beach promenade leading out to a small beautiful island which you can see in the background. I know for sure that one of my Sims will be living here at some point during my playing time.
The very narrow stretch of land shown here is lined with some gorgeous beach houses built by kattenij. He did a tremendous job on those houses, and the whole area is very pleasing to the eye, and will be a wonderful place to live and visit. Each house has it's own private beach.
I felt that I needed an area with more Modern style beach homes as well, in contrast to the more traditional ones. These luxury homes are all state of the art, and with it's close proximity to the Sports Stadium, should be an excellent choice for the athletic Sims.
One of the smaller beaches in Overlook Bay, with the "Fun In The Sun" pools in the background. The perfect place for the whole family to find fun and relaxation in the hot summer sun!
im working on my little beach area right now, just placing a few trees, before i go back to uploading lots, but oh! your showing my world up, guess its all the time an effort you put into it, really shows
i will have the lot done for you by tonight, i most likely will be having an all nighter, as i have a 4am bus to catch 8) fun stuff
Welcome back, Lee. It's good to see you around here again. It's good to know there's a chance Overlook Bay will see completion.
One thing I found for creators who have been away awhile is that they aren't aware of the "evil doll" issue. That's a piece of CC that attached itself to many items on the Exchange. It is an actual doll, found in the toys section of the Buyable catalog. The problems with this doll are many. First, its presence in game seems to cause a wide range of ill effects, like freezes and crashes. Secondly, the file for it attaches itself to pretty much any kind of upload to the Exchange, even a pattern or a Sim or anything you wouldn't think would be associated with a doll. It's been found in houses from The Exchange.
You can find it on search engines by looking for "Sims 3 Evil Doll". The doll was not supposed to be evil. It was just a matter of the creator uploading the wrong file. It was not an intentional "virus" or anything meant to cause harm. "Evil Doll" is just the nickname the doll got. It is a Victorian style doll that looked a bit haunted to begin with.
So you might want to check your existing files for this doll file. Don't freak if you find it--it can be deleted as per the instructions found on that link I posted and elsewhere.
SummerSong86:
Thanks. Glad to have you back as well.
Oh, and thanks for the info on the Evil Doll. I've heard about it a little, and figured I'd have to look it up some day. I've now checked my files, and there is no such doll present. Guess I managed to avoid the issue since I never launched the game in 6 months.
By the way - that thing is successfully removed from the exchange now?
I'm not sure it's been removed. People use something called Custard by Delphy on MTS to check their downloads for it. I'm sorry but I don't have that utility installed so I can't say how it works. I don't generally download from the Exchange anymore unless it's an item by someone I know whom I know checks their items for the doll file. There are more problem items proliferating these days so don't hesitate to ask your builders and contributors if they've tested and checked their files and their finished products.
chris2chris:
Sweet! Glad to have you back so I can (soon) see what you have come up with for the lot. Starting to get excited now, as there are only 4 more (maybe 5) lots that need be added to the world before I am completely done! I am currently working on families for the Story Save right now, and have gotten most of those in place as well. Gonna have to create a couple more, because Overlook Bay is a big town and even with 25 families added it looked a little uninhabited
Hope you had a great time on your vacation! katyshewan:
Thanks. Glad you like it.
I started this project way back in December of ´09... but then I took a break from the Sims all together for almost 6 months. The frustrations of CAW got to me so bad that I didn't even want to look at the Sims (surprised myself by not returning for so long). But, actively - yeah, I've been hard at work on this town for a good 3+ months and would not be anywhere near close to completion if it weren't for the excellent help I've gotten from people here on the forums and the Sims community in general, who have helped build most of the 168 lots for the town. Leaving me to focus mostly on the Rabbit Holes and a number of other locations I had very specific ideas for (like The Overlook itself).
So, it's been a long journey - but a fun one. I'm dying to get my legacy game started here though. Sick and tired of building... now I wanna play Heck! I haven't even ever tried going on vacation in WA yet... despite having had the game installed since December. So, now I'm really looking forward to moving into the run-down trailer park and begin working my way up.
omg! wow your my role model lol
but my forum hasnt been going so well so ive decided to take a break from my world then see what i should do.. my computer can take the strain of it all so it's kinda hard to work with if you are always running to a dead end
i hope i will be able to continue but i cant tell just yet with school back on and everything.
but i am so happy for you and your world! and you got so much help! its amazing!
chris2chris:
Sounds great! Snowman5678:
Thank You. Shouldn't be much longer now. Four more lots to add, and they're all being built as we speak. Then I'll add a couple more families, play test for a Sim Week or so to make sure everything is in order...
By the beginning of next week it should be ready to go live! katyshewan:
Tell me about it! I've run my computer to the max on this project, and it's been a real struggle sometimes. It's gotten to the point where I had to set all graphics settings on minimum to be able to save the game without getting the Error Code 12 issue.
But, hopefully - all the hard work will have been worth it soon enough!
Comments
Im thinking of some ideas for 406 west main st.
Where is you graveyard? Because I was thinking a curch in the city with a small gravyard attached would be pretty cool. It would be based on the church and graveyard where Edgar Allen Poe is buried in Baltimore. Its for a small corner lot.
A cemetery can be a beautiful place
Sleep tight.
chris2chris:
There is actually already a flower shop in the downtown area, built by nkuhlwind back when. You can still add that if you want to as it perfectly reasonable to have more than one of those around.
I was thinking, also, that if you wanted to put like a salon in one of the empty lots, you can do that too - but try to put a "mock" version together for the official town - one in which you don't included any actual Ambitions objects. Then you could make an alterate version of the lot where Ambitions objects are included to make it a functioning Beauty Salon for those who own Ambitions to download and replace with in town...
happyjme:
The graveyard I built is on 7 Mortis Rd. (north of the Farmlands, close to the forest).
Now, I really like your suggestion of that Poe graveyard (doesn't exactly hurt, since I'm a horror buff), but I'm still not sure I would want a second graveyard. But, then again - why not? As long as you don't include the Mausoleum rabbit hole it wouldn't really hurt to have another place to bury the dead. And, this way we get some ghosts close to the city at night.
If you decide to build it, I may very well use it
EDIT: You know... as I loaded up the town, and saw the area the Poe Graveyard would go in, I began to wonder if it wouldn't be spectacular with that kind of lot right there... it's right next to the Criminal Warehouse and in close proximity to my downtown city dump yard... it would make it all seem like a bit of a rough neighborhood... still can't reserve the lot for you, but just letting you know I'm getting more excited about the idea (still no Mausoleum... that has to be reserved for the "main" graveyard).
Some pics:
Front View
There are 4 2 bedroom units ground floor and 4 1 bedrooms at the top.
Backyard with pool, garage and relaxing facilities (I put a spot for the hot tub (Late Night) in the relax house)
I think I managed not to use any Ambitions or pay/store stuff, but if I did feel free to rearrange it as you like :-)
Link: http://www.thesims3.com/assetDetail.html?assetId=2920173
I'm beginning to find my feet here
And Chris, I like the idea of a bakery or some kind of market. Has anyone built a general or consignment store that would go along with ambitions? Without the register of course.
Lee, I totally understand that you don't want it to look like part of a bad neighborhood. Are you set on the dump being downtown? Perhaps it should be out of the city. Most people wouldn't want their dump downtown anyway lol! But I can understand the difficulty it moving a build that's already been designed for a specific Lot. I haven't even started building the church yet anyways. I'm concentraiting on the northview houses.
Those apartments are great! Wonderful interior as usual with your builds. I got it place in town yesterday... just didn't get to reply here (explanation in my update below).
I noticed you had built them on 1410 King St., but I will keep them on 1408 in the release.
It would be great if you want to do the Mall! It's a shame I haven't heard from Markiem32 who was working on a massive build for that lot back when - I was really looking forward to that one. But, I gotta get this finished, and the Mall is a large lot to build on. I do have a few ideas for you to take into account, if you will:
Front Large Parking Lot (INSPIRATIONAL IMAGE)
A nice looking Parking Lot towards the street, with some green areas or something.
Large 2/3 Story Mall with many store spaces (you can leave quite a few empty ones, so people can build what they want inside)
Inviting Interior (INSPIRATIONAL IMAGE)
Any questions - just let me know. I'll reserve the Mall for you right away!
chris2chris:
Sounds great! Bakery and Toy Store would be new for Overlook Bay.
happyjme:
Oh, no - you got me totally wrong there
So, once you're done with the Northview homes, I would be very interested in giving you that lot.
UPDATE:
I'm starting to think that Overlook Bay is cursed! Ran into some serious trouble again yesterday, and now it's the cursed Error Code 12 that's giving me fits. I can only save once out of every three times, so that means I have to redo exit the game and redo everything until I am able to save it.
Does anyone know what the heck this Error Code 12 is? I tried looking around in the forums yesterday, and found some threads on it - but none that explained what this is. Most of them quite old as well. I did find a suggestion for a solution written by Writin_Reg, which I tried out. I removed all the saves in my directory with .bad extension, and then I deleted all of the cache files. After that I redid what I had lost and saved, and it worked... but I'm still worried the Error Code 12 problem is going to continue. I sure hope that isn't something that will affect the saves you guys start up based on these.
It seems like a serious bug (I mean, what's the point in playing anything if you can't save your progress?), so I'm shocked ... well, it IS EA... that it hasn't been fixed in a patch.
Either way, I will continue to work on this. No way I'm giving up so close to finishing. But, I guess frustrations will continue for a while longer.
Don't have much time to spend on this today, but I'll try to put together some new Teaser Pictures and post later today.
Front
Parking lots (you can drive all the way around the building)
Playground for the kiddies
Part of the interior
There are plenty of "shops" both up and downstairs but most of them are empty. The only place sims can actually do something with is the arcade. No cashregisters included and it's playtested for a couple of hours with no flaws :P
Link: http://www.thesims3.com/assetDetail.html?assetId=2926174
other idea is, have you tried doing "save as" so then it appears as a new world in CAW,
iv had that error 12 a few times, but i often get that error 16,
mm
Soo ill keep the church,gravyard lot in mind once I finish the others.
No mosoleum, check.
I also want to make sure drowssap knows Im letting her take 10 old pier if she wants it.
Wow! You're quick
Another great submission from you!
drowssap:
Oh, there would be no way I'd start over in CAW even with the height map. I spent 2 months sculpting, placing terrain, effects and other objects in that neighborhood. If it were to come to that being the only option left, I'm afraid I would sent Overlook Bay to the grave for good.
Good news is that I've got it up and running again... for the time being.
happyjme:
Yeah, I fixed it for now. I'm worried the Error Code 12 issue will re-appear, but I'm making sure I store plenty of back-up files, so whatever happens, I'm quite confident I'll be able to get back on track reasonably quick.
Ok. I promised some new preview pictures today, and with the limited time I have for The Sims on this particular Sunday, I threw together some pictures of various Beach areas in Overlook Bay. With summer nearing an end for most of us, I thought it was a good idea to feature something which really represents summer. Enough chit-chat - on to the pictures!
TEASER PICS (BEACH LIFE)
Updated: Aug 15, 2010
The view from the largest beach in Overlook Bay (lot built by Valana). In the near distance you can see the hotels lining Oceanview Drive. Some hot summer nights and wild beach parties to look forward to around here!
This is another build by Valana, and it was the first completed house for the beach areas. The lot itself is probably my personal favorite location in all of Overlook Bay, with a beautiful beach promenade leading out to a small beautiful island which you can see in the background. I know for sure that one of my Sims will be living here at some point during my playing time.
The very narrow stretch of land shown here is lined with some gorgeous beach houses built by kattenij. He did a tremendous job on those houses, and the whole area is very pleasing to the eye, and will be a wonderful place to live and visit. Each house has it's own private beach.
I felt that I needed an area with more Modern style beach homes as well, in contrast to the more traditional ones. These luxury homes are all state of the art, and with it's close proximity to the Sports Stadium, should be an excellent choice for the athletic Sims.
One of the smaller beaches in Overlook Bay, with the "Fun In The Sun" pools in the background. The perfect place for the whole family to find fun and relaxation in the hot summer sun!
im working on my little beach area right now, just placing a few trees, before i go back to uploading lots, but oh! your showing my world up, guess its all the time an effort you put into it, really shows
i will have the lot done for you by tonight, i most likely will be having an all nighter, as i have a 4am bus to catch 8) fun stuff
Thanks. Glad you enjoy the pictures
One thing I found for creators who have been away awhile is that they aren't aware of the "evil doll" issue. That's a piece of CC that attached itself to many items on the Exchange. It is an actual doll, found in the toys section of the Buyable catalog. The problems with this doll are many. First, its presence in game seems to cause a wide range of ill effects, like freezes and crashes. Secondly, the file for it attaches itself to pretty much any kind of upload to the Exchange, even a pattern or a Sim or anything you wouldn't think would be associated with a doll. It's been found in houses from The Exchange.
Here's a good page with info and more links: http://www.infinitesims.com/news/1590/sims-3-exchange-doll-virus/
You can find it on search engines by looking for "Sims 3 Evil Doll". The doll was not supposed to be evil. It was just a matter of the creator uploading the wrong file. It was not an intentional "virus" or anything meant to cause harm. "Evil Doll" is just the nickname the doll got. It is a Victorian style doll that looked a bit haunted to begin with.
So you might want to check your existing files for this doll file. Don't freak if you find it--it can be deleted as per the instructions found on that link I posted and elsewhere.
Thanks. Glad to have you back as well.
Oh, and thanks for the info on the Evil Doll. I've heard about it a little, and figured I'd have to look it up some day. I've now checked my files, and there is no such doll present. Guess I managed to avoid the issue since I never launched the game in 6 months.
By the way - that thing is successfully removed from the exchange now?
Thanks. Glad you like'em!
SummerSong86:
Thanks, again. I'll be keeping a close eye on my files to ensure nothing weird gets in there.
i want my world to be as good as yours one day! lol
Sweet! Glad to have you back so I can (soon) see what you have come up with for the lot. Starting to get excited now, as there are only 4 more (maybe 5) lots that need be added to the world before I am completely done! I am currently working on families for the Story Save right now, and have gotten most of those in place as well. Gonna have to create a couple more, because Overlook Bay is a big town and even with 25 families added it looked a little uninhabited
Hope you had a great time on your vacation!
katyshewan:
Thanks. Glad you like it.
I started this project way back in December of ´09... but then I took a break from the Sims all together for almost 6 months. The frustrations of CAW got to me so bad that I didn't even want to look at the Sims (surprised myself by not returning for so long). But, actively - yeah, I've been hard at work on this town for a good 3+ months and would not be anywhere near close to completion if it weren't for the excellent help I've gotten from people here on the forums and the Sims community in general, who have helped build most of the 168 lots for the town. Leaving me to focus mostly on the Rabbit Holes and a number of other locations I had very specific ideas for (like The Overlook itself).
So, it's been a long journey - but a fun one. I'm dying to get my legacy game started here though. Sick and tired of building... now I wanna play
Good luck on your world!
but my forum hasnt been going so well so ive decided to take a break from my world then see what i should do.. my computer can take the strain of it all so it's kinda hard to work with if you are always running to a dead end
i hope i will be able to continue but i cant tell just yet with school back on and everything.
but i am so happy for you and your world! and you got so much help! its amazing!
Sounds great!
Snowman5678:
Thank You. Shouldn't be much longer now. Four more lots to add, and they're all being built as we speak. Then I'll add a couple more families, play test for a Sim Week or so to make sure everything is in order...
By the beginning of next week it should be ready to go live!
katyshewan:
Tell me about it! I've run my computer to the max on this project, and it's been a real struggle sometimes. It's gotten to the point where I had to set all graphics settings on minimum to be able to save the game without getting the Error Code 12 issue.
But, hopefully - all the hard work will have been worth it soon enough!