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The Land of Oz - WIP - Updated Munchkinland and the Emerald City 20th August.
angel_lillie
Posts: 47 New Member
![a-little-bit-wicked2.jpg"width=640"](http://thepurplefreezerbunny.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/a-little-bit-wicked2.jpg"width=640")
Introduction:
This project has come about from my love of all things Wicked. It's my all-time favourite musical, and I started to read the books in January 2010. In the inside cover of Wicked is a map of Oz, which immediately made me think of creating it for The Sims 3. But, thinking it would be a lot of work just for me, I dismissed the idea. I then came across (purely by chance) a thread on here by Evergreen226 asking if anyone was making Oz. I volunteered and started this in February 2010.
I have learnt to mesh specifically to make things for this world. Usually, I'm put off downloading houses or sims that require a lot of CC, so I really like to keep CC to a minimum in my creations. Unfortunately for this world to work, it's needs CC for 'flavour' I suppose. I have also used content from Ambitions and World Adventures.
More info here: http://thepurplefreezerbunny.com/todolist/the-land-of-oz/
A little about me:
This is my first thread here, but not my first post. I usually lurk on these boards. Anyway, I'm a custom content creator, I usually go by the name sleepalldaypartyallnight and (shameless plug) I upload to both MTS and my blog (link my siggy
)Progress so far:
I've worked on and off on this since February. Very recently I was going to give it up altogether, but that made me want to work on it even more. I'm hoping that by putting this thread here, I'll be spurred on to finish it. I really interested to see what you guys have to say about it, I'd love feedback (good and bad!) I want this world to be the absolute best I can make it (because I'm a real perfectionist!)
This is a really huge project (I like a challenge) but I really don't like giving things up. I have no idea when I'll finish the world. Hopefully soon.
This whole project consists of the world itself complete with lots, sims, objects/CC I make for it. Jynx has given me permission to clone and edit his Rabbit Hole Rugs so that I can rename them so that they're more appropriate for Oz. There will also be a save game file.
Pictures:
~pictures down until I re-upload them to a new host~
Questions and Comments:
I would really, really love and appreciate some feedback. Hopefully some of you are interested in this!
Feedback good and bad is welcome. My skills with CAW has vastly improved since I first used it, but there is still a lot of room for improvement, especially with the terrain painting . . .I've typed this out very quickly, so somethings might not make sense, and I've probably left things out too. If you have a question/suggestion, I'd love to hear them!
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Comments
Munchkinland:
Residential:
9 Farmhouses
Mansion/Large House representing Colwen Grounds (where the Eminent Thropp lives.)
Community:
Munchkinland Governor's Mansion
Two orchards
Quadling Country:
empty atm.
Gillikin:
empty atm.
The Emerald City:
Community:
The Wizard's Palace
The Vinkus:
empty atm.
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The Sims Creators' Consortium
did you notice the google's 71st anniversary for wizard of oz logo
soon as i saw it i though .. oh yeah that would be a good world, hope someone makes it ...
drowssap, I did see google today. In fact, it was that which made me think I should do some work on it today!
auntielynds, thanks, that yellow brick road is a path, but I'm not sure whether it should actually be a road. Thoughts? Or maybe it could be both?
I'm so glad people are interested. It will mean all the work won't go to waste.
I've just been reworking some of the rivers because of tears in the water, but they're all gone now.
As far as OZ goes well it's sort of a good idea, but we need little people I would think as it might look odd with all regular Sims, and play would get boring with just the stories characters - never mind the fact your Sims need CC and Simmers here in CAW are not big on CC in worlds because the game has yet to prove consistantly stable with CC. I can't see the point of having to keep uninstalling/.reinstalling everytime I update my game or add an ep or sp. Too much hoop jumping and never mind the fact it messes up the launcher with just having CC in the game. Nevertheless, like the Hogwart's world, I will probably watch the development of OZ with interest and maybe even wishful thinking, but as long as jinx's rugs continue to be so unstable with each game patch and ep, never mind the amount of CC this world will probably need for the realism factor, I will never download it, but I will give it a heads up to people who don't mind all the CC hoop jumping like I do.
Perhaps one day CC creaters and EA will come to some kind of terms so the hoop jumping stops. It did come to somewhat tolerable ranges with Sims 2 - so here's hoping that eventually in 3 it will also. Anyway good luck with your world, and I just hope you can figure out how to make a Munchkin. hehehe
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
The reason I use CC skins is because they are more realistic, and have more shading/highlighting and little details on them than the EA skins do. I try and avoid non-default skins because of the charcoal problem you mentioned, having said that, LFB's done some brilliant non-default skins (E.g. her burn skins and her asian faces) which are appropriate for some sims and not for others, so they aren't that useful as defaults.
I completely understand what you mean about CC. I absolutely hate downloading houses or sims that require a ton of CC, and in fact (this is more when I used to play TS2, than now) I used to just skip the house/sim altogether. Which is why I really try to minimise the CC required/used when I create things. Although I am creating CC for the world it will be optional. It will look better with it, of course, but playable without it. With the exception being the Rabbit Hole rugs. I'll admit I wasn't aware that they were unstable (I've never had problems with CC in my game, but maybe that's because I really minimise what I download.) I could always do a version with no CC and place the EA rabbit holes underground, though they would then have the EA names and not names from Oz.
There is a height slider, but I wasn't planning on using it. It will only make sims taller and not smaller (that caused problems IIRC.) The smaller munchkins will just have to be left up to downloaders' imaginations. I wouldn't get bored of the storylines, and in fact the story lines have caused a problem of where to go with the save game story line. I don't know whether you've read Wicked, or seen the musical, but those storylines combined with the Wizard of Oz story lines provide lots of different ways to go with the characters, I think.
BIG SPOILER WARNING if you haven't read Wicked the novel and seen the stage show.
For instance, and the Wizard of Oz ends the Wicked Witch of the West (or Elphaba as she's know in Wicked) dying because Dorothy killed her because she wanted to go home. In Wicked the novel, Elphaba dies at the end because Dorothy throws a bucket of water over her because Elphaba's dress is on fire, and Dorothy doesn't know the Elphaba's allergic to water. In Wicked the musical, Elphaba doesn't die, she escapes through a trap door when Dorothy throws the water over her and escapes to another country (presumably) with Fiyero. Fiyero's storylines differ in the two Wicked's as well - will he choose Glinda or Elphie for instance. I guess it's only if you're a huge fan that you'd know all the story lines though.
As to Jinx rugs, well for now they are good, but I belong to a site where Jinx is also a member and he seemed to have a heck of a time getting them to work right after both the last 2 patches and Ambitions. Apparently each new ep and patch will require people to keep uninstalling/reinstalling them or they don't work right and I may be wrong but I don't think he is really hep at this constanct having to update them. But he almost sounded as if he didn't think they would work before the last update he did on them. I just don't know how you will feel having to keep pulling your world and reloading the new updates as knowing EA every ep and sp has a new game engine alteration which is why we have to have all those silly pre-patches for the eps to install.
It does go against what EA said when the game first came out about people not needing the net to play the game - as they should have been aware the game won't install crap if you don't update the stupid game engine. But because of it a lot of the modders seem to be getting a bit frustrated.
It's odd because I was a mega CC user and even did a good dead of creating in Sims 3 and always had oodles of skins. I mean in Sims 2 you could not have a decent sim without at least skins, and you didn't have the need to have to re-skin every sim every update. My problem in sims 3 is fixing ingame sims skins as EA did not make it easy to get them back into CAS without a mod. So you are stuck with charcoal sims and deleting them is never a good option because Sims still fragment in the game files and will eventually make the save unusable if not the game itself. But nevertheless your sims are lovely to look at anyway and I do look forward to seeing the development of Oz. I still watch WOZ at least once a year when it comes on tv and do occassionally see Oz the musical when A&E runs it a few times a year.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
With regards to the sims, I hadn't realised you meant sims3pack sims, I don't download them because of the problems you mentioned. The sims I download (and create) are always in .sim format, meaning you put them in your Saved Sims folder and have to get them from CAS, so if they go black it isn't a problem.
Anyway, I've updated the first post with a few pictures. More tomorrow, it's getting late in the UK.
Well in CAS they aren't a problem, but if you have those sims in your world and we get an update, the ones in my world go charcoal and there is no easy way ingame to fix them without something like Twallans mod or something to reapply the skins - at least this is a problem I have encountered myself before I finally gave up on CC, and I'm getting on the tech boards when I help out. The changes made to the game engine for Ambitions actually have made this problem even worse, which I won't get into as it is super off topic. EA - I wish - would meet creators at least half way and make it possible for either skins to update with every update they make or give us a way to put sims ingame back into CAS to fix their skin as well as their make up.
By the way i just encountered charcoal sims again this week -end as I believe it was Crazy town I went to that is remaking some Sims 2 worlds and they had up theor Pleasantview plus sims that you put right into the Sims bin, well half those sims were charcoals and I just had to delete them all. I got so frustrated I just uninstalled everything - world, sims, all of it. They had their sims both as households and CAS sims and all of them were charcoal.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
@Writin_Reg: I had absolutely no intention of using non-default skins anyway. So there won't be a problem with charcoal sims in my save game. If people don't have the default skins I use in my screenshots, the sims will just look different.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
And thanks MATZ. Updates coming later.
Writing Reg, I think that you must have gotten sims that use a non-default skintone. The creator of the mod that makes non-default skins possible clearly states that it is not a good idea to share sims with a non-default skintone. Since LadyFrontBum makes both non-default and default versions of her skintones, the sim creator may have been confused. There's probably a cheat that would allow you to edit a sim in CAS, but I don't know what it is. I just use Twallan's computer. You really shouldn't have a problem if they only use default replacements, but maybe something changed with the last patch. Personally, I almost never download sims, it's much more fun to make them.
There are now short sliders too, check the relevant threads over at MTS. Look for jonha, they've been doing lots of stuff with sliders. Sharing sims that have been made with custom sliders shouldn't cause any problems, but they will snap back to default if they are edited in CAS.
But thanks for the info. I know we are getting better sliders in the new EP, which I look forward to for sure.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
I also have some news with regards the rabbit holes rugs. I was primarily intending to clone them because they would then be able to have more appropriate names (e.g. 🐸🐸🐸🐸 University was going to be the School, I know it doesn't make a huge amount of sense, but it's the only school that's mentioned and it's better than whatever it is that the EA school is called, my minds gone blank.) But they would have the added benefit of taking up less room and I would then be able to build the Rabbit Hole lots however I wanted. There are other ways of doing this though (either putting them underground or using moveobjects on and building a 'shell') Anyway, there is possibly a way of renaming them, but not exactly sure how it will work yet.