Check out my other story:
Rebuilding Appaloosa Plains:
Stories from a Build A City Challenge
* This site has been replaced by hannahcanada.ca/create-a-world-overview *
About the Project
While I've played with the Create A World tool on and off for a long time, this is the first time I'm sharing my creations. Feedback and comments are always welcome on the forums thread!
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Why am I building this?
While many have recreated neighbourhoods from The Sims 1 & 2, I found many were left unfinished, inaccurate, or only included one small section of what the original games offered. I also couldn't find any worlds that combined TS1 and TS2 neighbourhoods. However, as you may know, street names were shared between different neighbourhoods in the two games.
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The Process
I began trying to puzzle out how they could fit together. I found/took screenshots of each of the four main neighbourhoods I wanted to work with: TS1's Old Town and Downtown, and TS2's Pleasantview and Downtown. Then I outlined and labelled the lots, colour-coded by type; identified named and unnamed roads (e.g. streets with no addresses/properties facing them); and tried to make them line up. With a little maneuvering, they fit into a "T" shape, with Pleasantview - Downtown (TS1) - Old Town (and Neighborhood 1) across the top and Downtown (TS2) attaching below TS1's.
The T-shape meant I had some extra room, so I started looking at what other neighbourhoods might logically be located in close proximity to the other four. Belladonna Cove and Desiderata Valley seemed the most promising, and I decided on the latter since Belladonna Cove's real estate is more expensive than most neighbourhoods and Desiderata Valley has a better ratio of residential to community lots for the world as a whole. As a bonus, Desiderata Valley has a road coming from a mountain tunnel and Old Town has one leaving it.
Next, I made a custom height map as a starting point to help keep my scale accurate and the topography as close to the original neighbourhoods as possible. This allowed me to place all the roads and lots right away and make broad topography adjustments as needed before I started working on individual lots and recreating the neighbourhood details. The detailed sculpting and landscaping is of course still a work-in-progress.
Finally I got to the more fun part - recreating lots from the first two games in the series. I also took some creative liberties in adding lot types from The Sims 3 to make it a fully-functioning TS3 world. The final product will have all of the community lot types from TS3 and its expansions except for those from Supernatural and Into the Future. I'm trying to only use content from expansions and free Store content for the world, although I will be sharing lots and/or a world download using additional store items that make it a closer adaptation of the original neighbourhoods. (For example, some of the Old Town lots work best with content from the Stone's Throw Greenhouse, several TS1 Downtown lots have ice cream machines or could function as a restaurant with the Business as Usual Bistro content.)
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You can follow all my progress on this site or over on The Sims Forums!
About the Creator
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I live in Canada with my partner and our bonded pair of senior rescue dogs, Luna and Zephyr. I'm working towards a Master's degree in-between procrastinating by writing, reading and creating things that are much more fun and less stressful than a thesis ;-)
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My Sim Lit
At one point Appaloosa Plains was a sleepy ranching township, but as the population grew older and people moved away, the town was essentially abandoned and left in disrepair. In an experimental effort to revitalize the area, the government cleared out most of the buildings, repaved the roads, and invested millions in refurbishing an old Victorian-style boarding house to help attract visitors and provide temporary housing for those looking to build homes in the area. Will new residents come together to establish a new era of prosperity, or will starting over prove to be too much?
Rebuilding Appaloosa Plains follows different Sims' stories as the town grows. From the town's first community lot to each household and unlocked rabbit hole, watch the drama unfold as I attempt the Build A City Challenge.
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Part One begins with a community garden founded by Bridget Tevellyn -- a young Sim hoping to build a family away from the bustle of the city and the catty small towns she grew up in -- and shares the stories arise as each new home and community lot are built.
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The town continues to grow alongside Bridget's grandchildren in Part Two, as new faces move in and more venues pop up.