Petition: Make LN Bars and Lounges function doubly as Live & Private Venues. «12...Next Go

tea_and_blues

Edit:There's been a dispute over the fact that I posted this here. We all know that plenty of us never leave this specific forum, but also have an interest in the petition in the Showtime forum, a forum which a lot of us would normally never even check. We're a bit of an insular community in that regards - tight knit in our common interest. Initially I only had the petition linked in auntielynds' sticky post. However, auntielynds recommended I post it here, as not many users really check that thread except the first page of it. So I did. CAW users do, after all, have an uniquely important interest in the lot creep issue, it's really affecting us. I didn't really consider that it might be rule breaking - I should probably have done so - but even then this is not a duplicate of the petition and never has been, even though it quotes a significant portion of it. I find it difficult to see how it's flooding or spamming. In any case, I want to apologise if anyone thinks I'm being unreasonable and unduly rebellious by having posted this here, and by defending the fact that I posted this here.

Sincerely, Kiwi_tea.

_____________________________________

I think a lot of CAW users have noticed the lot creep with each EP, and the disaster of LN adding 9 lots that we HAVE to have for the Mixology skill challenges. Worlds are quickly running out of room, and EA worlds simply have no room without bulldozing res lots. So... ...I'm started a petition for one small change: Make LN bars and lounges function as proxies for the live and private venues. It won't work for Big Show venues, as they work a bit differently, but looking over how venues are controlled in the gameplaydata.package it doesn't look like an enormous request.

So I've started this petition: http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/514989.page#7969952

As EPs build up, and EA continues to avoid subhoods, the number of lots needed in a town is bloating out of any reasonable proportion. We need some way to overcome this, and the most obvious way right now would be to allow Late Night Bars to function as Showtime Live Venues, and Late Night Lounges to function as Showtime Private Venues. This would be patched into the game, as it would seem to take very little coding work to append Showtime functionality to Late Night bars and clubs - the stages and proprietor systems already work on them, they're just not recognised as the appropriate lots for performers. I'm appealing to those of you who are running out of space in your neighbourhoods - or those CAW users suffering from "lot-building fatigue" - to sign in this petition if you are inclined. I'll keep a list of signatories, and if there's not support for this the thread will die. If there is support, I hope SimGurus will make this simple change.

To illustrate the issue, not counting rabbit hole lots:
Base Game
1 - Big Park
2 - Beach (optional)
3 - Small Park (optional)
4 - Art Gallery
5 - Library Gym
6 - Fishing Spot (arguably optional)
7 - Pool
+ Ambitions =
1 - Fire Station
2 - Salon
3 - Junkyard
4 - Laundromat
5 - Hangout (optional)
6 - Consignment Store
+ Late Night =
1 - Fusion Lounge
2 - Exclusive Lounge
3 - Vampire Lounge
4 - Dive Bar
5 - Local Watering Hole
6 - Sports Bar
7 - Disco Club
8 - Dance Club
9 - Poolside Club
+ Pets =
1 - Dog Park
2 - Cat Park
3 - Equestrian
4 - Pet Store (optional & LE)
+ Showtime =
1 - Coffeehouse
2 - Life Show Venue
3 - Private Venue
4 - Big Show Venue
Total discounting optional lots:
25

To have all the features of the various EPs fully functioning in a world already requires 25 lots, and that's NOT including rabbit holes or flavor lots like beaches that are just nice to have. The Late Night lots are a significant contributor to this bloat, ALL are unfortunately required for the Mixology skill challenges, and it would save a lot of space to have Showtime performers recognise some of these as venues.

Sign it or don't. I've never been a huge fan of petitions, but sometimes they net results. Worth a shot, it's a small request.

simsample

This is a good idea, it's impossible to create a large enough world!

Edited to add: I get the 'insufficient priveleges' error when clicking on the link to your petition. Have they moved it or deleted it?

tea_and_blues

Heh, do I count that as a signature, simsample?

Edit: Nope. That'll be the bugginess of the forums. I get that at random sometimes too. I'll include posters in this thread as signatories in the other.

simsample

Gah, even ctrl+refresh won't get it, so it's broken for me! I'll add my stamp when I can get to it.

ETA: Okay, apparently you can't see that forum if your language is Engligh UK. So changing it to English US enabled me to sign.

tea_and_blues

Yeah, being Kiwi I used the English UK option for a long time, but the site just doesn't seem built to be friendly or functional for anyone but US English language users, so I just stay on that now.

Damienf519

Tea_and_Blues

It would be nice if you could have Late Night Night Bars/Clubs function as Live and Private Venues as well for performances, but its unrealistic to expect EA to do this now. It would take a lot of coding to make the changes, and it would be kind of impractical for EA to make these changes at the moment, given the fact that they're working on so much else. I'd like them to add standup comics to Showtime, but I doubt that will happen as well. Also to have bar slash club with both a stage for bands and separate special stage for live performances, would take up a lot of space.

tea_and_blues

I think you're drastically overestimating the amount of work it would take. Almost all the work is done, it's just a matter of connecting the right dots and having that code approved as part of a patch.

It's nothing like adding an additional feature.

The space is an issue, no doubt.

Damienf519

simsample wrote:

This is a good idea, it's impossible to create a large enough world!

Edited to add: I get the 'insufficient priveleges' error when clicking on the link to your petition. Have they moved it or deleted it?

Simsample,

Actually your wrong. Its hard, but not impossible. I've pretty much done it, believe it or not. Norton the map, I'm working on now contains all the venues from every single expansion pack prior to Showtime. It even has all the world Adventures Venues, minus the base camp, in addition to landmark tombs (which are on no visitors allowed lots since Land Mark Tombs doesn't seem to work in the main hood.) It also has multiple variances of some of the same venue, for instance, the city has two consignment stores. Also, Norton includes enough empty lots and lots with fake buildings on them that are there just as place holders for you to be able to easily update it for Showtime, and at least one other future expansion pack.

Here's a link to thread I created for the map if you don't believe me.

Norton (WIP)
http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/479757.page

I'm also considering creating second version of the map (or at least another version of the saved game file) that will include Showtime venues as well as maybe some more apartments, in addition to everything that's already on the map.

simsample

Looks very nice!

The last world I made has 162 lots, but after playing for 5 generations I could really use some more residential! I think any more than around 150 lots is really pushing it, as many lower end computers will struggle. If you have a nice fast computer then you could go more, but I was really talking about making a sharable world that will work for most players.

How many lots will Norton have?

DulceHoney

simsample wrote:

Looks very nice!

The last world I made has 162 lots, but after playing for 5 generations I could really use some more residential! I think any more than around 150 lots is really pushing it, as many lower end computers will struggle. If you have a nice fast computer then you could go more, but I was really talking about making a sharable world that will work for most players.

How many lots will Norton have?

Yes, you're right about that. My laptop is pretty average and will run about 150-160 lots with ease. After that, I'd imagine I'd get some lag. However it's hard to get all of the community lots in (with some variety), without overstepping my comp's boundaries.

I'm not a world creator, but I'd like to sign this petition.

simsample

The EA worlds all have under 100 lots, and if you stick to that it's very difficult to have all rabbitholes and venues!

Damienf519

simsample wrote:

Looks very nice!

The last world I made has 162 lots, but after playing for 5 generations I could really use some more residential! I think any more than around 150 lots is really pushing it, as many lower end computers will struggle. If you have a nice fast computer then you could go more, but I was really talking about making a sharable world that will work for most players.

How many lots will Norton have?

Thanks. It has 175 lots total, but believe it or not, I've actually made worlds with more than that. As for being sharable. I'm going to do my best to make sure it looks as good as possible and runs on as many machines as possible without having to get rid of any of my lots. It will require a fairly fast machine, but not the fastest ones out there.

Writin_Reg

Tea and Blues, just thought I would mention that when I was Beta testing this world I took and turned the Venues into bars by replacing the regular house type bars with the Bartender ones - and back during testing - the bars did work and got mixologists - and performed as bars - BUT within a few sims days I noticed the proprietors basically vanished and sims could not get any superstar type gigs at these bars. Removing the bars and mixologists and putting back the original bars did not fix the issue. Once the proprietors were gone they were like permanently gone. Also during testing we did not have the restriction on the Venues they have now where you had to use the cheat or anything. I had no problem adding a bar to to even the coffee shop outside, but just like the other the proprietor vanishes and without the proprietor there is no performances. All I got was simfests in the park and of course the big Venues still had performances if their was any sims in town high enough a star to perform.

So the problem seems to be if you change it to a bar, the game no longer sees it as a performance building and the proprietor that is necessary to enact the three new careers no longer function. The stage no longer works period - it won't let anyone use it.

It has to be in the programming that proprietors cannot own bars. I tried two seperate time, starting completely over and just changed up the Karaoke bars the second time, and the stages no longer worked and proprietor vanished.

Apparently they must have tried to fix it, as I had mentioned i had turned them to bars, and couldn't get them to do both. It did work for a few nights in one of the Venues, the Private club one, but just like the others the Proprietor totally vanished.

I noticed when the final game came out they had the restricted building code on the buildings also.

I have no clue how they will work around this or I am sure they would have during the beta test.

Johnnywr

Signed.

I`m not looking forward to a time when I have to add 120 community lots for the twelve residential lots I have space left for in town :?

tea_and_blues

Thanks for that info Writing_Reg. I still have hope, but it's always good to have extra information that puts things into perspective as you have done.

Damienf519

Tea_and_Blues,

You know, I just thought of something. Its unlikely that EA will do what you suggested and redo the code for Late Night, however there maybe a way around this. For the most part those clubs/bars may not all be necessary, for a good all in one hood.

What if instead of putting every single one of the bars/clubs from Late Night in your town, you only placed some of them. They are separated into three main categories. Dive bars, Lounges, and Dance Clubs. Why not just make sure you place some of them from each category on your map, but not maybe not all of them.

What if you made a city with only say two of the different dive bars, one lounge and one dance club? If you just made sure that the two dive bars and the lounge had a place for your bands to perform, would that work out okay? It might make it a bit harder for bands to get gigs, and there wouldn't be as many opportunities for celebrities, but other than the food they serve each of the different bars is similar to the others in their category. That might be a way to save space and cut back on the number of community lots.

Also, unlike in Starlight Shores, what if you had only one of each of Showtimes venues in your town? Do you really need more than one live show, private Venue, or big show venue in your town? Your performers could still perform. They'd just keep performing at the same ones over and over again.

Diancarock

^^That's a good idea, and that's what most people are doing right now. That's a current way most people are getting by right now. But the problem with that is, you can't finish the mixology career, or band career without ALL the bars. Showtime is different, I don't think you need all the venues in order to get to level 10 of your career. But but you need a level 1 venue to start off with, a level 5 venue to progress, and then a big concert venue. Our worlds will be huge and our save files will get unmanageable. So that's why he's suggesting to combine venue and clubs.

I sign this petition as well.

HappySimmer3

I think there is a mixology challenge or lifetime want or something like that, and it requires your sim to learn every drink recipe. The only way to do that is to have all the different types of bars/clubs in your world. Or else use a mod that lets all drinks be served in every bar.

I've said it before and I'll say it again; by doing two similarly themed EP's, they've made it really, really obvious that they do not make any of the EP's play nice together.

Which begs the question of why I keep purchasing all of them. :x

Damienf519

Diancarock wrote:

^^That's a good idea, and that's what most people are doing right now. That's a current way most people are getting by right now. But the problem with that is, you can't finish the mixology career, or band career without ALL the bars. Showtime is different, I don't think you need all the venues in order to get to level 10 of your career. But but you need a level 1 venue to start off with, a level 5 venue to progress, and then a big concert venue. Our worlds will be huge and our save files will get unmanageable. So that's why he's suggesting to combine venue and clubs.

I sign this petition as well.

Diancarock,

I didn't think about the master mixology lifetime wish and I didn't realize that about the bands. I guess becouse I never tried to make a band on a map with less than all the bars/clubs. Also all of the different Showtime lot designations are required for simport. For one thing you can't have a sim perform at your big show venue if you don't have one, and you need to be able to have visiting sims perform at one, in order to unlock all the props without cheating. Unfortunately, I really don't think it will matter because I don't think EA will be able to do what Tea and Blues thinks they will be able to do. It won't be as easy as he makes it out to be, and I don't think the folks at EA will see enough of a benefit to go back and make an edition to a past expansion pack like that. EA didn't even make separate Showtime venues for maps other than Star Light Shores. When the game adds them to towns like Appaloosa Plains, they really look out of place, especially with the palm trees.

Damienf519

HappySimmer3 wrote:

I think there is a mixology challenge or lifetime want or something like that, and it requires your sim to learn every drink recipe. The only way to do that is to have all the different types of bars/clubs in your world. Or else use a mod that lets all drinks be served in every bar.

I've said it before and I'll say it again; by doing two similarly themed EP's, they've made it really, really obvious that they do not make any of the EP's play nice together.

Which begs the question of why I keep purchasing all of them. :x

HappySimmer3,

Maybe its because I have a faster machine than you, but I really don't mind making all the different lots. I even tend to do things like make more than one consignment store for my maps, just to make the town seem a bit more believable. I don't know what to tell you, except to maybe make compromises where you can.

Writin_Reg

There is additional problems leaving out any of the big Venues, as one of them also Has the theater in it and another has the stadium for those careers.

I did wonder if one thing was possible - to put all the Live Venues as they are and then bury a bar of each kind in the cellar of each of those lots with a seperate entrance. I haven't tried it yet, as I was not sure how that lot would end up designated and where the different type Venues have different hours of operation if that will set up some kind of conflict in the programming or not. As someone who never uses mods or cheats- I have to play more cautiously than most, because I have nothing in my game that will help me work around any possible conflicts. But where I have played worlds with entire downtowns buried under a park just about with no problem, I wonder if this will work or not. It sure would answer the space problem as all those live show venues are all big enough to contain any other venues underneath it - logically anyway.

Hmmm, just recalled though that generally doesn't work well with the Ambitions lots. The game is known to crash or freeze up if any of the ambitions lots are not on lots pretty much by them selves. It won't designate them for what they are and won't allow workers like register people, tatoo person, etc.

Guess we would just have to fiddle around with some of these ideas to see.

Damienf519

Writin_Reg

I'm glad to hear you're not encountering too many problems. I'm certain we can make our own big show venues without the rabbit holes. I was able to make a coffee shop work without the diner rabbit hole.

syg1523

You can add my name on there. I may be a new CAW player, but I find this idea of yours really great.

tea_and_blues

It won't be as easy as he makes it out to be.

It didn't look excessively complex when I investigated the files/systems involved, but I'm not a skilled modder. As far as I can see, it would take some significant tweaks to the current system, but only tweaks cos the basic functions are all there already. Is there something I'm missing?

Writing_Reg has made a good point that there could already be technological problems with what I've proposed, but it's difficult to see what those would be.

You're right, EA may not see the benefit, but with a petition gathering basically 100 signatures in two days, and with them already acknowledging the thread on Twitter, we're not without hope.

We can't just roll over and *let* them get away with the bare minimum, or that's what we'll get, and less and less if that's what they think they can market for the same price.

Writin_Reg

Sign me for sure, not that it matters as I am not a CAW creator. It surely can't hurt anyway.

ETA: By the way Tea and Blues, congrats on the new house I heard you and the hubby got. Glad it happened for you. It's nice to see good things happen to good people.

GraceyManor

I'll sign, but I don't think Fire Stations, laundry mats, and salons should be live show venues.I mean fire station is for Fire Fighting Career, not watching magicans put on shows XD But yes clubs and bars should.