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Dragon Valley Medieval Makeover
MiaSkywalker
Posts: 3,436 Member
My Lords and Ladies, pray attend! His most Excellent Majesty, King Simbeline, hast looked upon the Dragon Valley and found it to be most in need of attention. Those buildings which house the populace, those of communal use for the improvement of mind and body, and even those markets for the buying and selling of goods are in need of improvement.
He has therefore called upon these most gentle women, the Ladies MiaSkywalker and Creativemetaphor, to turn their hand and skill to his use and provide, through their design and architecture, renewed plans for the buildings and plots which fall within this fair town.
Let all henceforth know that these ladies shall act on His behalf and in His name, for the betterment of all the Kingdom, until such time as their duties are fulfilled and their task concluded.
Signed and sealed on this day, being the tenth of September, by My own hand,
King Simbeline
He has therefore called upon these most gentle women, the Ladies MiaSkywalker and Creativemetaphor, to turn their hand and skill to his use and provide, through their design and architecture, renewed plans for the buildings and plots which fall within this fair town.
Let all henceforth know that these ladies shall act on His behalf and in His name, for the betterment of all the Kingdom, until such time as their duties are fulfilled and their task concluded.
Signed and sealed on this day, being the tenth of September, by My own hand,
King Simbeline
My Sims 3 Profile Page, since the forums don't connect to our Sims 3 profiles anymore.
The only kind of garden I can grow is a virtual one.
Dragons - must haz dragons!
The only kind of garden I can grow is a virtual one.
Dragons - must haz dragons!
5
Comments
This will include reworking some buildings or lots and remaking others from scratch. The goal is to make the town feel as truly medieval as we can while still being fully functional. All the lots will be available on the exchange to download and enjoy.
There will be absolutely no CC or CAP in any of our builds, however there will potentially be any EP, SP, or store item.
We may accept requests for specific buildings to remake, we will work out the logistics on that shortly.
If we feel particularly ambitious we may also make-over all the Sims as well.
Stay tuned for more updates!
The only kind of garden I can grow is a virtual one.
Dragons - must haz dragons!
The only kind of garden I can grow is a virtual one.
Dragons - must haz dragons!
The only kind of garden I can grow is a virtual one.
Dragons - must haz dragons!
I've decided to post images of the lots as they are/were before we modified them. That way you'll be able to see WHY we decided to do this!
First, let's take a look at some of the rabbitholes. Here's the bookstore.
Not a lot going on there. A lot of empty space not being used. And the furnishings they DO have... what ugly chairs. Pretty sure those are from base game. Well, that's going to be changed!
Now, let's look at the community garden. (Named - both appropriately and boringly - "Community Garden")
That's just boring. All of the plants are base game, of course, and all are of normal quality. We are going to do something about that!
Next, we'll look at the grocery store. Yes, as I said, we are even going to modify the rabbitholes. Make them more interesting, as well as (hopefully) more medieval!
Not too bad, but not very exciting. There are some tables in the back, although no way to cook there. No other activities, either. I can think of a few things that would be appropriate here.
Now for the gym. Let's see how EA decided a medieval gym to look.
Really? They can't be serious. Five exercise machines in the entire place? One television (exactly how is a television medieval?), and one stereo. Hmph. I can do much better than this. (And I already have... but I'm getting ahead of myself!)
Now let's look at the library.
I'm not sure the point of the decor on the second floor. Is that supposed to be good and evil, or something? I just don't see the point of it, and I dislike how if you're on one side of the second floor, you can't get to the other side. There's something very inefficient about this build, and I can't stand inefficiency. I like the basement area... which I just might expand on.
Now for the pub, Dragon Tavern.
The outside is OK, but the inside is rather... um... plaid. Or something. I guess they're trying to get the whole Irish pub look, but it's not one that I care for. It also looks too much like a residential house. I suspect it originally was, and then someone from EA decided to make another bar lot, but didn't change the outside to do it.
All right, so all of these are going to be changed (plus more on the way). Once I finish my revamps and have tested them and gotten them uploaded, you'll get links to them.
The only kind of garden I can grow is a virtual one.
Dragons - must haz dragons!
It was great seeing the pictures of the original lots.Your revamped lots and new builds will be a great improvement
Happy simming, building, furnishing and landscaping!
http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/817478/hello-come-and-introduce-yourself
http://tinyurl.com/OneRoomOneWeek
http://tinyurl.com/rosemow
My Showcase thread https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/948861/rosemow-s-rooms-showcase
The ones I've shown the "before" pictures of have already been renovated and are in testing (or are in the final stages of renovating), although you KNOW how it goes; you think you're done, then you think of something else, and then off you go, having to change a bunch of things again!
CM has been working on the residential lots. Quite frankly, I am unable to keep within a budget, so there's no point in me remaking a home that a family already lives in. The commercial lots give me a bit more freedom, plus it gives me the option to include a hidden underground area for the player to explore.
I really think the creators of DV kind of slacked. Many of the builds are very boring, or just seem like no thought was put into them. Maybe most of the builds were done before they had created all the items for the world, I really don't know. But using only base game furnishings and not the ones that came with the world, just seems like someone was being lazy.
The only kind of garden I can grow is a virtual one.
Dragons - must haz dragons!
A revamp of Dragon Valley's Community Garden.
There is a non-tomb version uploaded as well, for people with lower end systems.
While I haven't uploaded it yet (I'm still testing the underground area), I thought I would show you the garden.
I didn't just add the harvestable plants; I added flowers outside the garden for more color, as well.
Beehives, for all your honey needs.
What IS this strange, secluded alcove for? And what is that sign doing there? Guess you'll just have to read the inscription and find out!
This garden has every EP and store fruit or vegetable in Perfect quality, with the following exceptions: It has no carrots, death flowers, mermaid kelp, or forbidden fruit. The first one is simply because I forgot (and because there are no auto-soils for carrots, I couldn't add it in later); the other three were deliberate omissions.
Kelp would have been inappropriate; this garden is not underwater.
The forbidden fruit was deliberately omitted because I have no intention of having townie Sims randomly turn into plantsims. If you want a plantsim townie, use Master Controller, or have your own Sim purchase the lifetime reward.
Death flowers were omitted because this garden is SO large that will have to use a dragon to harvest from it, and if you harvest with a dragon when there is a dead or barren plant in the garden (death plants die after a single harvest), then your Sim will reset. It's a glitch that EA never fixed, and I know of no way to get around it. My feeling about death flowers is that they should all be in the cemetery, or maybe in a tomb or two.
You actually CAN get several death flowers on this lot... just not in the garden. You'll have to explore a bit, and see what you can find.
The only kind of garden I can grow is a virtual one.
Dragons - must haz dragons!
Sims will very much enjoy visiting the garden and harvesting the plants!
http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/817478/hello-come-and-introduce-yourself
http://tinyurl.com/OneRoomOneWeek
http://tinyurl.com/rosemow
My Showcase thread https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/948861/rosemow-s-rooms-showcase
I should probably put in a warning that I definitely recommend using either a green dragon, or Doug Veiga's gardening spells to harvest here. Harvesting by hand would take forever.
Perhaps I should put that information in my post above, along with the link to the upload once I have it. I just have one more thing to test on it, and it should be good to go.
Note that although this garden is a weird size (25x40), you can add it into any world, and it wouldn't look anachronistic. You might want to use the "Add any lot size" mod to add that size lot in, before you do, if you don't want to waste a 40x30 or 40x40 lot.
The only kind of garden I can grow is a virtual one.
Dragons - must haz dragons!
There is a non-tomb version uploaded as well, for people with lower end systems.
Warning: Placing the tomb version will take several minutes, as there are many goodies in it for your Sims, which apparently take time to place. The non-tomb version only takes a few seconds, at least on my computer.
The only kind of garden I can grow is a virtual one.
Dragons - must haz dragons!
I'm actually finished with all of those, and they're in testing now. I'll work on some others after those are done. The gym has been up in my studio for some time, because I made it as a gift to CM a few months ago. The library is there too, but I've made some changes to it, and want to upload my improved version.
I have a tendency to put tombs under my buildings, btw.
We're even thinking of doing the Sims themselves, after we're done with all of the buildings. I've long been convinced that EA intended all of the residents to be supernaturals, but they couldn't make them that way as a default, since none of their worlds is designed to require any expansions. But they're all berries, and almost all of them have pointed ears, so I do not believe that any of them are supposed to be human. (Other than the two Pleasantview Sims who got transplanted there.)
The only kind of garden I can grow is a virtual one.
Dragons - must haz dragons!
I will have pictures up of what I have in work soon, but testing takes a while for me so it may be a bit before any of them are ready to actually download. But I should have pics of the BuildnShare challenge house as a preview, but because of the budget for the challenge I will likely change some of the items out before I consider it done for here
The only kind of garden I can grow is a virtual one.
Dragons - must haz dragons!
I cheated today and actually PLAYED rather than building or testing. Last night I found myself playing with my testing Sim rather than actually testing with her, so I realized I needed to take a break today and actually play.
The only kind of garden I can grow is a virtual one.
Dragons - must haz dragons!
Which is what I did, I put a foundation around the outsides, then I put friezes one floor up around the outsides, and then another and another. The only real difficulty I had with them is half the time they wanted to place on the floor below where I wanted them, and then half the time they wanted to place a floor above. Getting them to place properly on the floor I was on was a trick that never seemed to work the same way twice! lol
Anyway, as friezes are only... what like 4 per block instead of 70 for a single wall, you can build HUGE castles for relatively little. If I get around to it, maybe I'll make a short tutorial video
But YOU, it sounds like, have gotten really good with it. Wow!
The only kind of garden I can grow is a virtual one.
Dragons - must haz dragons!
Always "River McIrish" ...and maybe some Bebe Hart. ~innocent expression~
This is just making all the walls regular height, which you can do by placing a couple of frieze pieces, then deleting one. If CFE is set to false, deleting a piece will auto push the adjoining pieces to full-height walls. Then level the rest of them and you're done.
I think I will make a tutorial!
The only kind of garden I can grow is a virtual one.
Dragons - must haz dragons!
Originally "The Practice Pit"
A revamp of Dragon Valley's gym
I had some issues with this lot, because first of all, I actually like the outside of the original lot, and second, they used friezes, and I'm not comfortable with that yet. That meant that I couldn't add a floor to this lot (not without changing the looks completely, so I had to build downward.
I did brighten up the colors on the outside walls and columns, however, along with extending and modifying the pool. I made it into the shape of a sword, or as closely as I could to that, and added some interesting fountain effects to it.
Absolutely NONE of these screen shots - or any other screen shots I've done, for that matter - have been Photoshopped. I use a lighting mod in my game to make the light in my worlds brighter (I have problems seeing when things are dark), but otherwise everything is exactly as it will appear in your game.
Outside
Floor plans
First basement level: Archery ranges and martial training areas (i.e. training dummies, excerise machines, etc.)
Second basement level: Relaxation floor
Floor overviews
Martial training floor
Relaxation floor
Close ups
Martial arts training level
Relaxation level
Inside the tomb
WARNING ABOUT THE TOMB
Just a warning about the tomb in this one. It's probably the most complex tomb I've made yet, and it's quite long. You also can't exit to the beginning once you enter; you have to reach the end of the tomb to get out of there, and it's very linear. The linearity means that you can't get to the next room until you finish the puzzle of the current room. Of course, if you can teleport - either with zenoport or the Nraas GoHere module - you can get around those limitations.
I do not include any restroom facilities in the tomb (there ARE restrooms in the training area), nor a place to rest or eat in the tomb, so I recommend several things. Either you play a witch who already has his/her needs charm spells, or you have the Steel Bladder LTR along with some invigorating and bliss potions, and some fruit to munch on.
The end is worth it, at least I think so. But there are quite a few puzzles, and I spent a long time making things as complex as I could. I learned an awful lot about tomb building in the process, including how to use the CPU.
@creativemetaphor: This hasn't been changed since I made it for you, so if you've already downloaded it, then you have the current version.
There are a few cosmetic changes you will find when you install it into your game. I was making this for CM, and she didn't have certain expansions at the time. It also turned out that I had a piece of CC in this that I hadn't been aware was CC (the multi-colored flowers in the bucket), which I removed before uploading, but I never retook those shots. It's pretty minor cosmetically, but I just thought I would mention it.
One more warning. The game has a glitch where if you place a fountain effect on any level other than the ground level, the game doesn't know where to place it. I found that after placing the lot that I had to go into build/buy mode, select the fountain that's in the basement level, and then hit escape. After that, it should appear properly.
Also, if you want to do the tomb, do not - and I repeat: DO NOT - use the testing cheats build/buy mode on the lot before doing the tomb. I've found that if you do that, then all treasure chests and spawn points will be empty. This is true for ALL tombs; I found this out the hard way, when doing the Great Pyramid in Egypt.
The only kind of garden I can grow is a virtual one.
Dragons - must haz dragons!