Existing lot type for graveyard. Graveyard gameplay. «12...Next Go

Harukotyan

I know there are mods to have Graveyard lot trait and funeral events. But I wonder in your opinion without mods which lot type works best? Generic is not an option since it excludes opportunity to have clubs/parties there. Retail would allow selling flower bouquets and coffins there. But then it'll be strange to see random townies shopping for coffins non-stop there. So a park or a lounge maybe?

How do you usually set your graveyards (if any)? And do you have any interesting gameplay ideas regarding them?

Evalyn326

I usually place a graveyard on a generic lot type and I only invite the closest family members to travel to that lot. But I you want to plan an event I think it's best to choose a park lot. Although you probably don't want other sims to show up there.

musteni

I have used lounge, museum and a cafe but all those lots have a building (cathedral or church) so it's not just a graveyard.

Without mods there is a risk of the ghosts getting culled. My solution is to move the most meaningful ghosts in and create a played ghost household with them. It's nice because the ghosts will haunt their tombstones but you can also create a club to gather at your chosen location.

Edit: Not using a lounge, but arts center.

alyssa123

i use generic with the private dwelling lot trait, but park might work if you want to hold events. i don't know if the private dwelling trait works on parks though if you're worried about random townies showing up

caliposs

since almost every world has a park, I usually use them and make a little section for the graveyard

nerdfashion

I use a park for graveyards, then just throw some of the required items that don't make sense for graveyards in an inaccessible basement. Like, for example, a piece of playground equipment.

FurSimsOfficial

I have made one into a park lot, cause sims will just come there and visit the lot in peace. I placed benches and a nice evironment, so it all fits well.
(LITTLE TIP: What I do to avoid putting objects that I do not like in the setting of a lot, I put them locked in a basement, so no one ever sees them or tries to interact with these objects and the lot sees it as completed)

Then I made a little community center building in the middle, placed some candles (where sims can sing a song together), flowers and a food table if there is a ceremony and guests need to eat of course.

One of my sims mother died and I created a club with family members and close friends to visit the funeral and place her graveyard stone I kept in my sims inventory. In the club i gave sims the task to hug each other and be friendly. I set the clothing setting to black. It was pretty neat! They kept on hugging the entire ceremony and it was kind of nice. I lit some candles, let the kids sing and then placed the stone and planted some flower seeds. After that I kept that day on the calendar and remembering the death day and had no idea this was even an option. I set some suiting tasks like mourning for someone etc. for that day so every year they all come together and visit the grave if they have time. Works out great!

I also need to come back to water the plants now and then though.

Cement

I made mine a residential lot homed by ghosts.
Since it was filled with urns and owned tombstones, the nights were pretty amazing. I also didn't have to deal with complete strangers since the only ones that would come around were family, and visiting with a different household was a little more private vs a park.

However, their needs didn't do so hot for the graveyard aesthetic, so I opted for a haunted mansion instead. ...Also it was a little off putting that visitors would have to knock on the mausoleum door.

Simmerville

I have typically 1 graveyard per world. Most are in Parks, but one is on a Spa lot, and another is on a Bar lot. I like that a graveyard can be a corner of most any kind of lot. I never missed a specific graveyard lot trait, because I'd see it as wasting my lots - we already have way too few lots.

I have a few traditions when sims die. The family will normally keep the stone/urn at home for 1 year. It gives them plenty time to mourn. Within 1 year they have a funeral gathering, moving the grave to the graveyard and releasing the spirit. Yupp, in my game it's not allowed to keep a spirit, there are a few graves around and about though, of very old residents who were never released, so a couple lots are haunted. Besides, Windenburg is outside my Region 12, so most rules don't apply to them.

I never build a church or other monumental building on my graveyards. The ceremony only takes place next to the grave and is normally just a quick gathering for relatives. There will normally be a "floral wreath" decorating a new grave for about 1 year, then graves are mostly decorated with a living plant. I remove those plants for very old graves with no relatives around to tend.

In the future I might build underground chamber(s) for storing urns - if graveyards become full. Then there might also be a ceremony chapel room, sort of. That's not gonna happen very soon, though.

Pamtastic72

I generally use the park lot trait. I like it because when visiting other sims will be there sitting on benches, or speaking to the gardener, whom I pretend is the cemetery grounds keeper. I usually include some statues, and a fountain, and some landscaping. I will put park items that aren’t appropriate for a cemetery such as playground equipment in a second level basement reserving the first level basement for an underground crypt with a mausoleum up top, should I need extra space. I tend to put the haunted and vampire nexus traits on the lot too. I usually put one in Newcrest that serves that town, Willow Creek, and San Myshuno as I see them as being all connected. Then I put one on Oasis Springs to serve that town, Strangerville, and Del Sol Valley and another in Windenburg to serve it, Forgotten Hollow, Brindleton Bay and now Glimmerbrook. I really have never missed not having a specific graveyard lot.

Harukotyan

FurSimsOfficial wrote: »

One of my sims mother died and I created a club with family members and close friends to visit the funeral and place her graveyard stone I kept in my sims inventory. In the club i gave sims the task to hug each other and be friendly. I set the clothing setting to black. It was pretty neat!

That's something I was thinking of doing - using clubs for funerals and then holidays for mourning.

Simmerville wrote: »

I never build a church or other monumental building on my graveyards. The ceremony only takes place next to the grave and is normally just a quick gathering for relatives. There will normally be a "floral wreath" decorating a new grave for about 1 year, then graves are mostly decorated with a living plant. I remove those plants for very old graves with no relatives around to tend.

I was thinking about something like a funeral house. As a matter of fact I had one long-long ago (set with some cc). And was trying to throw something like a funeral event there.

But mostly sims were just roaming around doing nothing or doing nonsense. Now I want to makeover it with all new packs and make sims behavior there more appropriate with clubs system. And I guess as most of you mentioned Park is a nice lot type for it.

Probably a separate club can be set for a single sim to appear as a caretaker there.

Simmerville

Harukotyan wrote: »

FurSimsOfficial wrote: »

One of my sims mother died and I created a club with family members and close friends to visit the funeral and place her graveyard stone I kept in my sims inventory. In the club i gave sims the task to hug each other and be friendly. I set the clothing setting to black. It was pretty neat!

That's something I was thinking of doing - using clubs for funerals and then holidays for mourning.

Simmerville wrote: »

I never build a church or other monumental building on my graveyards. The ceremony only takes place next to the grave and is normally just a quick gathering for relatives. There will normally be a "floral wreath" decorating a new grave for about 1 year, then graves are mostly decorated with a living plant. I remove those plants for very old graves with no relatives around to tend.

I was thinking about something like a funeral house. As a matter of fact I had one long-long ago (set with some cc). And was trying to throw something like a funeral event there.

But mostly sims were just roaming around doing nothing or doing nonsense. Now I want to makeover it with all new packs and make sims behavior there more appropriate with clubs system. And I guess as most of you mentioned Park is a nice lot type for it.

Probably a separate club can be set for a single sim to appear as a caretaker there.

Yupp, that's sort of a problem with this game, rather hard to make up your own stuff. If funerals was an event option in the calendar, with matching stuff to do, it could have worked out easily. Clubs might help, I don't recall if any club activities would relay to funeral ceremonies. Worth a try anyway. Nice pic, btw!

Writin_Reg

I use Day of the dead stuff on a small park lot and any real graves I have..

Gordy

Simmerville wrote: »

I don't recall if any club activities would relay to funeral ceremonies.

I believe there's a Give Speech activity, so you can pretend that sims are giving eulogies. Also, you can give the club a strong sad vibe - not an activity, but it could make sims cry and let your sim offer support to others.

Simmerville wrote: »

Nice pic, btw!

Agreed.

GrumpyGlowfish

My graveyard is a bar... Is that bad?

WaytoomanyUIDs

I've only had a graveyard in one save and I made it a park. to me that seems to work best. If you make it a lounge you might get too many wrinklies showing up and popping their clogs, although that would be quite funny.

Harukotyan

GrumpyGlowfish wrote: »

My graveyard is a bar... Is that bad?

That's awesome TBH )))

Gordy wrote: »

I believe there's a Give Speech activity, so you can pretend that sims are giving eulogies. Also, you can give the club a strong sad vibe - not an activity, but it could make sims cry and let your sim offer support to others.

Great ides thank you! For some reason I didn't even thought about emotional vibes.

PurpleSweetTart

I agree that a bar is a good lot type because after a lot of funerals, there is a gathering of sorts so it makes perfect sense to me.

ChampandGirlie

I have a graveyard as a generic lot but it's a small one in Newcrest. I didn't want to make it a park by adding a grill or bathrooms at the time especially since there are some nearby in the landscape. It's just a quiet place with fountains.

Recently, a religious wave has come over the save and several new churches have been built in different styles. This means that I will start having more public funerals as well as weddings and maybe other stuff. I added bird feeders as baptismal fonts. Some sims are religious and some aren't so this gives them some differentiation. I know it's a sensitive subject for people. I've said that the churches cannot be torn down.

I ended up downloading very pretty churches from the gallery, so I have an old Victorian pioneer church in StrangerVille, a small Catholic chapel on the Windenburg Island and a church in Oasis Springs that is newer and modern. Anyway, more funerals will happen in those and if there is space for a graveyard, some sims may end up in those lots. The other graveyard continues to be a general town graveyard, so sims have some end of pixelated life options.

kalaksed

i've got two graveyards in my game (and crypts beneath vlad's house and the castle one of my vampire households owns), though each one is intended for different purposes and both are vampire-related

the first one is a bar i placed in willow creek, opposite the goth household. i started working on it around the time the vampire pack was announced, wanted it to be loosely based on the vampire bar beneath a graveyard in bridgeport in the sims 3
it's got two entrances intended for use by two different vampire clubs, a direct one through a mausoleum with the club's symbol next to the door, meant to look like they just threw the casket aside and dug beneath it, complete with a random pile of bones in the corner, the other through a secret passage at the bottom of another mausoleum that is used for viewings before a sim is buried

this one is also where i place all the sims that die in my game, since i'd originally cheated in tombstones and urns to place among the decor ones, so have been slowly destroying those and replacing them with 'proper' ones so the ghosts can visit occasionally, as the lot has the haunted trait

the second one is residential, as it's where a group of rebellious type vampires live (they're loosely based on a mix of anarchs and sabbat from white wolf and the vampire pack from the movie 'the lost boys') on one of the 30x30s in forgotten hollow. similar to the first one, the main entrance to the crypts is through a mausoleum, but this one takes up more of the lot's surface than the other graveyard, which had multiple smaller buildings compared to this one's one large one. down below, they've knocked out walls, expanded various parts of the build and customized the place similarly to the cave from 'the lost boys', including 'found' objects either taken from some of their victims, stolen from various places or actually found on the side of the road... so, an eclectic mix of decor objects, piles of rubble and coffins piled in random places. they've also managed to build a basketball hoop inside, to keep themselves occupied when not listening to the radio or whatnot


also, on the funeral thing, you could make a holiday of it, instead of relying on clubs. or use the two together... holiday traditions like 'appreciate an object,' 'festive lighting,' and 'remembrance' can help with the feel quite a bit

phantasmkiss

I usually set my cemetery as a museum. Urns count toward the decorative objects needed, and it means that Sims who show up tend to walk around and look at things. It was great until a celebrity showed up. Oh. My God, Judith. Why are you jumping on that grave and whooping? So disrespectful.

musteni

phantasmkiss wrote: »

I usually set my cemetery as a museum. Urns count toward the decorative objects needed, and it means that Sims who show up tend to walk around and look at things. It was great until a celebrity showed up. Oh. My God, Judith. Why are you jumping on that grave and whooping? So disrespectful.

I like museums for that exact reason, the coded lot behaviour fits well for a graveyard. You could also have small statues near graves that sims would look at. I didn't actually know that urns count towars decorative objects, that's good info.

I mentioned earlier that I also have an arts center and cafe. The arts center I think fits for a joyful community that gathers at the church whereas the cafe works well for a historical building where sims could go sightseeing (museum would work here as well).

fallenangel66

Can you use a museum as a wedding venue? I'd like to build a church/graveyard, and I'd like the behavior of the museum.

PurpleSweetTart

As long as it has a wedding arch you can but weddings also require a piano, a bar, some sort of kitchen (for the caterer and the cake) and seating for the guests.

PurpleSweetTart

phantasmkiss wrote: »

I usually set my cemetery as a museum. Urns count toward the decorative objects needed, and it means that Sims who show up tend to walk around and look at things. It was great until a celebrity showed up. Oh. My God, Judith. Why are you jumping on that grave and whooping? So disrespectful.

Oh, good, I can remodel a museum instead of having to build a new lot, thanks so much for the info!

phantasmkiss

Just to clarify, I meant the decorative urns in the game count toward decorations. The cemeteries I use have a lot of decorative urns/headstones, with the goal being to eventually replace them with the real thing. Museums also want you to have an easel somewhere. I put a painting from my Sim's inventory on it so that it looks like purposeful decoration instead of something fun for the visitors to do.