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Selkirk County (WIP)

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artenissimmer55artenissimmer55 Posts: 40 Member
edited March 5 in Nominated Threads
Hello, everyone! Yesterday was my first time I actually posted on this forum - I had a few posts on the forum on the Sims 3 website before they got rid of it - and after seeing all of the amazing worlds that others have been making, I decided I should write about my own!

Selkirk County was made out of a desire for me to play Hutterite sims. Hutterites are communal Anabaptists who live on colonies scattered across the Midwest of the United States and the Canadian prairies. As you can probably foresee, the problem with this type of gameplay is that there isn't really a world out there fit for this gameplay. So, I decided to make it myself, since I have had some experience with CAW in the past.

But I am going to be honest here: I didn't exactly build this world from the ground up. I, unfortunately, do not have the patience for that. So I downloaded a CAW form of Riverview, stripped it of everything that made it "Riverview", then molded the world to my liking. Since then, I've made not only a Hutterite colony, called Oak Lake Colony, but also a Native American reservation, some countryside, and a town called Selkirk, to provide it that Midwestern feel.

I'm actually probably around 75% finished with this world. The world has around 100 lots and I'm in the process of finishing up building them and planting trees...lots of trees. You'll see how many in the pictures lol. Around 8 of the houses in my world are not of my own creation, though, as I took them from the game library when I finally got fed up with building houses...I'm not a good builder, you see. Also, all of the houses I built admittedly do not have curtains, because after years of playing I've gotten fed up with having seemingly over 300 types of windows but only 80 types of curtains.

So, now that that's all said, I haven't quite figured out how to embed pictures on this site, so here's a link to the album of pictures I made instead: https://imgur.com/a/mbkweh3

I'll try to get some more pictures either later today or on Tuesday if I can.

Until then!
Post edited by EA_Cade on

Comments

  • MissyHissyMissyHissy Posts: 2,022 Member
    Fascinating background to the town. I love what you've done with the RIverview map though! It does look very different and perfect for what you're doing <3
    *All my mods can be found on The Daily Plumbob*MiAqoAE.png
  • artenissimmer55artenissimmer55 Posts: 40 Member
    @Hidehi, thank you! I love rural worlds; I think they're my favorite type of world to play in this game.
    @MissyHissy, thank you as well! I was a little nervous when I was just starting this world when it came to using the Riverview map. But besides the hills I don't really even see Riverview in the world anymore, especially with all the trees and the architecture.

    I added some more pictures to the album (still at the same link as before: https://imgur.com/a/mbkweh3) today. I haven't done much else with the world besides adding more trees, placing world objects, and adding a few more library lots in EIG, although I did spruce up one of the library lots a little besides adding trees. Building my own lots will probably have to wait until this weekend, along with more pictures.

    Until then!
  • MemoriiValentineMemoriiValentine Posts: 1,911 Member
    I love the look of this! very nice and I wish you luck! I will definitely play and test this when available
    Happy Simming!♥
  • MissyHissyMissyHissy Posts: 2,022 Member
    Looks wonderful. I love the resort you've done. It feels very countryfied <3
    *All my mods can be found on The Daily Plumbob*MiAqoAE.png
  • artenissimmer55artenissimmer55 Posts: 40 Member
    edited August 2019
    @MemoriiValentine, thank you! I very much appreciate your willingness to test the world as well! Hopefully it'll be ready for that by next weekend.
    @MissyHissy, thank you again! I had a lot of fun building the resort, especially because I partially based it off of a hotel chain that I've frequented a lot in the past. :p
    @StephSteb, thank you as well!
    --
    I think I figured out how to put images in my posts now; if not, the new pictures are in the same album with the other ones.

    Over the past four days I've placed a lot of trees in the world. The town of Selkirk is now completely covered in trees and is ready to go, besides the remaining houses I need to build. The good news there is that I built another two houses, so I only have two houses left to go!:
    L3xG4Jl.jpg

    This is the first of the two new houses I built. It took me a lot of trial and error runs to build it, but I'm happy with the results. It's called the Roman Villa and has two bedrooms and two and a half bathrooms:
    sJJ8XAN.jpg?1

    The second house I built is called the Patio Elite. It didn't take me as many trial and error runs to build it as the Roman Villa did, but it still took me a few tries until I finally got it how I wanted it. It has three bedrooms and two and a half bathrooms:
    CqXeYwY.jpg

    I also got another library lot spruced up for the countryside. I think I'm going to let the two remaining lots there remain empty, instead of just one. That way, there are four empty lots to build on if desired:
    acjCfjV.jpg

    Last picture of the day. This is how much land I have left to place trees on!:
    Goxkdhw.jpg

    Besides building, I did some calculations today on how many lots I have, the size of them, etc. Selkirk County has 101 lots total, with 42 lots in Selkirk, 38 lots in the Two Tribes Reservation, 15 lots in Oak Lake Colony, and 6 lots in the countryside. Of these lots, 66 are residential and 35 are commercial. As for the size of these lots:
    -8 are 64x64
    -2 are 50x50
    -28 are 30x30
    -8 are 25x25
    -27 are 20x20
    -And the remaining 20 are odd-sized lots, like 30x40, 64x32, etc.

    Like I said above, hopefully this world will be available by next weekend. If not, I'll let you know.

    Until then!
  • MissyHissyMissyHissy Posts: 2,022 Member
    That looks lovely. I love what you've done with the houses, they look wonderful. I particularly like the creeping plants over the garage in Patio Elite. Beautiful, I love doing that myself quite often <3
    *All my mods can be found on The Daily Plumbob*MiAqoAE.png
  • HidehiHidehi Posts: 1,109 Member


    Looking very much forward to exploring Selkirk County :) !!! Love all the trees that must have taken you ages! <3
  • KhemKat19KhemKat19 Posts: 129 Member
    Selkirk County looks amazing! You can't even tell it used to be Riverview, it's so lush and your buildings are beautiful! The "backstory" of your play-style is very cool, I've never tried something like that but it sounds neat!
  • artenissimmer55artenissimmer55 Posts: 40 Member
    Well, I'm sorry to say that I am not going to be able to upload Selkirk County this weekend like I thought I was going to be able to. :disappointed: All I had left to do today was build one more house, but I guess EIG finally had enough because it crashed on me twice. I'm going to be busy tonight, tomorrow, and on Monday as well, so I'll have to build the house and upload the world on Tuesday. I'm very sorry for the delay and for not having any pictures to post, as I decided to wait until after I built the last house to take any (that probably jinxed me more than anything else...).

    @MissyHissy, thank you so much again! I definitely loved putting the creeping plants over the patio, so much so that I put them on the second to last house I built as well!
    @Hidehi, thank you as well! The trees were definitely tedious, tedious work and probably took up a large chunk of the time I put into making this world. After a while, though, I was able to place them in what seemed like no time at all!
    @KhemKat19, thank you! The gameplay that I made this world for is definitely something different, but then again I wanted - perhaps needed - something different. Playing the same types of saves over and over again has gotten really boring and I just needed a breath of fresh air, y'know?
  • artenissimmer55artenissimmer55 Posts: 40 Member
    Alright! I can gladly say that after much work today, Selkirk County is finished! The work today wasn't so much from the houses than it was from trying to get the world downloadable, to be honest. Apparently I don't have a network (...?) to upload Selkirk County onto the Exchange, so I wound up putting it on mediafire instead. Link is here: http://www.mediafire.com/file/2e0u2cfpe2sn03h/Selkirk_County_%28Beta_Unpopulated%29.Sims3Pack/file

    As for those last two houses, I'm really happy with how they turned out. The first one is called Veranda Manor and it has five bedrooms (one more than Crumplebottom Manor, I realized after building it) and four and a half bathrooms.:
    xe0YMSt.jpg

    The second and last house is called The Tree House and it has four bedrooms and three and a half bathrooms. It's slightly similar to Veranda Manor, but not overly so:
    SWNHYcG.jpg

    And here is an aerial view of the world that I used for the thumbnail picture! It's a nice after picture, if I'm being honest:
    OYaRzD4.jpg

    The before picture, in case anyone didn't look at the imgur album:
    v8y1fqg.jpg

    Getting this world uploaded onto the internet took a lot more of the time that I had than I expected it to (2+ hours), so I didn't have time to test it out myself. That is the goal for tomorrow, hopefully. If the download doesn't work for some reason, please let me know, although I might need instructions on how to fix it because this is not just the first world I've made, but the first thing I've uploaded onto the internet besides pictures. :sweat_smile:

    Oh, and one last thing: thank you all for your comments and general support! It's really meant a lot to me! :blush: And a future thanks to anyone who has decided or will decide to test out this world!
  • HidehiHidehi Posts: 1,109 Member


    Hi @artenissimmer55 :) ,

    glad to see that you have managed to upload your awesome looking world!

    I've downloaded Selkirk County and would love to check it out in game but I've had to make the decision not to install.
    I always custard check every download and I'm afraid your world came up with a couple of cc items which I am sure are quite okay and will not cause anybody any trouble but as I personally prefer a cc free game I'm afraid I will not be adding Selkirk County to my collection.

    Which is a shame as it is a beautiful world!!! ... I am certain that there will be many simmers who will have a lot of fun exploring Selkirk County. :)

  • artenissimmer55artenissimmer55 Posts: 40 Member
    @Hidehi,

    Thanks for letting me know about this problem. I do have some cc in my game, but I don't believe I put any of those items in the finished version of Selkirk County. I did once in the beginning (back when I wasn't sure if I was going to make the world public or not), but I made sure to delete the cc when I was finalizing things. I also saved the CAW file under a different name when I finished everything to prevent the cc from still being in the files, but maybe it's (the cc was only one item) somehow still in there? Otherwise, I'm not exactly sure why that message popped up.
  • KhemKat19KhemKat19 Posts: 129 Member
    Oh I love those houses!! So pretty with the stone and the heathered pergolas!
    And that aerial shot is awesome :)<3
    If I have time I'll download and check it out this weekend!!
  • fxchrfxchrfxchrfxchr Posts: 329 Member
    edited August 2019
    I was also looking forward to this but as Hidehi points out, there is CC:
    https://postimg.cc/cgTVmj4Q
    I don't have much luck with CC that comes in a world, sometimes finding that I can't uninstall it after because of "dependencies" which means I am stuck with it unless I uninstall the world too.
    Firby nurbs!
  • Bettyboop55Bettyboop55 Posts: 2,646 Member
    I just love how green and inviting your landscape looks <3

    On the subject of cc many world builders offer two versions, one with cc and one without. That way more players can use your lovely creation.
    I no longer use Origin or My Page. You can find me on YouTube or Twitter as Bettyboop711000. You are welcome to contact me as I explore options for a PC sandbox life simulation game.
    Wherever I am friends call me Betty

    Sim enim est vita
  • artenissimmer55artenissimmer55 Posts: 40 Member
    @fxchrfxchr, thank you for the screenshot! When I saw that last night I knew exactly what those objects were and then went into the save I currently have of the world to look for them. Unfortunately, I couldn't find them. There's only a handful of places that those objects could be in and after several double, triple, and quadruple checks (as well as a quick dive into EIG mode), I've determined that they're just not...there. I think I know what might've happened, but I think I'm going to need to check with somebody I know (they're a lot more familiar with this stuff than I am) first to see if 1) what I think happened actually did and 2) how to fix it. I'm seeing this person tomorrow, so hopefully I'll have it figured out soon!
    @Bettyboop55, that's definitely the goal! Like I said before, I wasn't aware I even had this cc in my world, but I'm determined to fix it if I can. Thank you for the help!
    @KhemKat19, thank you again! I wasn't quite sure what I wanted the world picture to be and was quite stumped until I realized an aerial shot might be the best way to go. I've been testing out the world myself the past couple days and it's been going really well. I'll post some pictures either later today or tomorrow if I can.
  • KiearaPhoenixKiearaPhoenix Posts: 212 Member
    Beautiful aerial shot! Man allllll those trees, I am impressed! I have to keep taking breaks in btwn planting trees for myself. Did that take a few days or did you just do it all in one chunk?
  • artenissimmer55artenissimmer55 Posts: 40 Member
    @KiearaPhoenix, thank you! The trees were done by section as I went through the world. Once I finished placing and building lots, I would place the trees, so they were a constant thing on my to-do list. I would say out of the ~330 hours it took me to build this world (that's an underestimate, it probably took around 360 hours), ~110 of them were placing trees. So yeah, a lot of work lol.
    --
    Sorry for the delay! This week has been rather busy for me. I was unable to talk with my friend Monday, but I did some Tuesday and they were, unfortunately, baffled by the current problem. They suggested looking in the CAW files, but I was unable to find anything even remotely fruitful in them. As best as I can figure, the launcher must somehow be involved, as I've had troubles with it in the past. I'm unsure of how to fix it, though, as the problems I've had with it before have had easy solutions, or at least easier than this.

    I'm very sorry to all of you that are going to be unable to download the world because of this. If anybody has any other idea for me to check out short of uninstalling the game or CAW (I don't think my computer could handle either of those things, as it is very, very old), I'm willing to try it! Otherwise, I'm not really sure at this point what to do. :(

    Also, due to my week being so busy, I wasn't able to take as many pictures as I wanted to. I'll get some more over the next few days and post them when I can.

    Until then!
  • fxchrfxchrfxchrfxchr Posts: 329 Member
    edited August 2019
    Third party CC is stored in the files ending in .dbc in the DCCache folder. You could try moving your current .dbc files to a safe location, clear your caches, start up CAW, export Selkirk again and examine the resulting sims3pack with CUSTARD to see if the CC is gone.
    Firby nurbs!
  • artenissimmer55artenissimmer55 Posts: 40 Member
    @fxchrfxchr, thank you for the advice! I did everything you said and I believe it worked. I didn't see anything in CUSTARD and the new version of the world is actually slightly smaller than the old version of the world. Download link for the new version is here (the Exchange still isn't working for me for some reason): https://www.mediafire.com/file/ik7gjtgmweesp0d/Selkirk_County_(Beta_2.0).Sims3Pack/file

    Also, here's some pictures of the world that I've taken so far:
    JCIQoHA.jpg
    Rj9iZaE.jpg
    BuPIXiH.jpg
    bY6aBgB.jpg
    SFmqgfs.jpg
    VRWU656.jpg
    hIGhWu4.jpg

    While I was playing in the world, I did wind up running into a problem with one of the bridges. It's not noticeable unless you look at it from a certain angle, but once you see it you can't un-see it, if you know what I mean. I left it in the new version of the world for now, as the world is still in its "beta" stages and I want to make sure I've found every problem so I can fix them all for the final version. Otherwise, knowing me, I'll wind up forgetting to fix one problem and I'll have to keep uploading new versions of the world.

    Anyways, the problem with the bridge is this:
    pGju3rb.jpg

    Other than that, hopefully the new version of the world is CC free. If not, I guess we're back to square one. :#
  • HidehiHidehi Posts: 1,109 Member


    Hi @artenissimmer55 ,

    thank you very much for trying so hard to upload your world without CC!!!
    I'm very glad that I'm finally able to explore Selkirk ... it's as beautiful as your screenshots indicated!! ... all those trees in autumn are absolutely breathtaking <3

    WLvzJF7.jpg?1

    I've noticed that your bridges may need a slight height adjustment as well ... although they function without problems :) :

    N59303w.jpg?1

  • fxchrfxchrfxchrfxchr Posts: 329 Member
    Just checked Selkirk with CUSTARD and definitely no CC. I'm glad it worked out because I am looking forward to trying out this world. :)
    Firby nurbs!
  • artenissimmer55artenissimmer55 Posts: 40 Member
    @Hidehi, I'm glad you're liking the world so far! Truthfully, I'm not sure what I would've done had deleting the cache files not worked; I was kind of at my wits' end when I deleted them lol. But I definitely agree about the trees; I had to actually stop and admire them for about five minutes when I realized how beautiful they were! As for the bridges, I noticed the need height adjustment as well and will make sure to fix that in the final version.
    @fxchrfxchr, I actually breathed a sigh of relief when I saw your post! Thank you so much again for your advice and I can't wait to hear about your experience with Selkirk County!
    --
    Well, I found another problem the day before yesterday. I'm not sure if it's just a problem in my save or if it's a problem that will need to be fixed for the final version, but I'm going to fix it for the final version anyways just in case. Anyways, the problem is that the basements of the Hutterite homes are, well, underwater:
    zlNXnNP.jpg

    Thankfully, this is an easy fix, as all I've had to do is just rebuild the houses (which I already did, but forgot to take pictures of the new houses... :|). The basement of the resort does not appear to be affected, but then again it is a proper basement - unlike the basements in the houses. I'll try to get some more pictures, the new Hutterite houses included, uploaded when I can, but they'll probably have to wait until next weekend. I'll also fix, or at least start to fix, the problems with Selkirk County then, provided that another problem doesn't spontaneously show up Saturday.

    Until then!

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