Since there've been all these attractive pictures of neighborhoods on the board lately, I thought I'd post a map of Neighborhood One (accurate as of when I first posted it; there are a few more houses now!):


Still the only neighborhood I've ever played.
Except that one time in Pleasantville, but I didn't save.

I'm pretty sure it's based on the standard "alpinloch" terrain, but I wouldn't bet money on it. The loch is to the south (Casa Townie is almost lakeside). The Bus Stop is off the map to the north, as indicated. The streets that run north-south haven't been named; not much communal civic-mindedness in this town! (Note also that the houses seem to be trying to stay as far apart as possible, with the possible exception of the Danverses and the Langeraks, and Sally Raptor's Love Nest and Damion Cormier and Suzette Somnius up there at Romance Corners (Gina's place sort of conceptually belongs there also, but she didn't want to be that close to her mom).

I think all of these houses have figured in one story or another of mine, with the possible exception of the London house, where Randy London lives with his finacee Regina from SSU. They're going to get married sometime soon, as are Jane Stacks and Martin whatsisname from the Bright house (they're now living in the little house marked "Stacks" on the map; she's a prominent artist, and he's a fresh college grad just starting to think about a career).

Rooms to Let barely made it into the picture on the north side of town there (but it has a detailed layout in its own thread), and the water tank (for which Tank Street is unimaginatively named) is almost cut off.

I keep meaning to build an actual building on a commercial lot. The only enclosed spaces at The Place (clothes and grocery shopping, a hot tub, and a dance floor with genuine recorded music) and The Other Place (live music, a bar, a swing set, and a bubble pipe) are the public restrooms. At The Pool even the restroom is outdoors (just a little wall hides the stalls from the bathers). The Pool is famous for its gravity-defying art platform (but in fact hardly anyone ever goes there, 'cause it's too much trouble).

The Test Lot is where the picture of the Doom-derived textures was taken, and otherwise I just mess around with experiments on foundation height and stuff.

Needless to say, Neighborhood One isn't based on anything remotely resembling reality... *8)

The Records

In the spirit of recording everything that can possibly be recorded, I'm going to keep the Master List of Neighborhood One Sims in this here initial entry, updated as necessary.

First, the ordinary births, organized pretty much by household, and in no more order than you'd expect:

Eleanor Raptor (now Eleanor Cox)
Gina Raptor
Rose and Dawn Raptor [twins]
Georgia Bendett (Zoom) (Danvers)
Hermes Zoom
Aaron Almassizadeh
Brett Almassizadeh
Charlotte and Daphne Almassizadeh [twins]
Jane Danvers
Joan Danvers
Jan and Jen Danvers [twins]
James Danvers
Zachary and Olivia Langerak [twins]
Kyle Langerak
Gabriel Raptor
Violet Hanby
Samuel ("Smoke") Stacks
Roger London

(Current twin rate: 4 for 18. Woo!)

Then the CAS sims, in chronological order (I think):
Ransom Zoom
Sally Raptor
John and Jean Danvers
Suzette Somnius

Imports:
Peran Nolstovski (from Carrot)

Adoptions:
Justin Danvers
Phoenix Raptor

NPCs and Townies moved in in the main neighborhood, in some random order:

Marisa Bendett (moved in, and later married, by Ransom Zoom)
Kaylynn Langerak (moved in by Eleanor Raptor)
Brandi LeTourneau (moved in by Eleanor Raptor)
Kennedy Cox (moved in by Eleanor Raptor)
Benjamin Long (moved in, and later married, by Kaylynn Langerak)
Sandy Bruty (moved in by Brandi LeTourneau)
Mitch Lawson (moved in by Sally Raptor for the Townie Project)
Melissa Fancey (moved in by Eleanor Raptor for the Townie Project)
Christy Stratton (moved in by Sandy Bruty; Townie Project)
Joe Carr (moved in by Eleanor Raptor; Townie Project)
Arcadia Bradshaw (the elder; moved in by John Danvers; Townie Project)
Remington London (moved in by Sally Raptor; Townie Project)
Regina Tsvirkunov* (moved from SSU to the neighborhood by Randy London)
Lucy Hanby (moved in by Damion Cormier)
Dawson Day (moved in from SSU to the neighborhood by Gina Raptor)
Ivy Copur [the adult one] (moved in by Remington London)
Danielle Kody (moved in on a whim by Suzette Somnius)
Mackenzie Gast (moved into Casa Townie by Joe Carr)
Tara Fuchs (moved in by Remington London)
Madeleine Phillips (The Diva; moved in by George McCarthy)
Komei Turner (Mr. Big; moved in by Madeleine Phillips)
Chloe Gonzaga (the college student; moved in from SSU by Jan Danvers)
Ally Pedersen (moved into Casa Townie by Mitch Lawson)
Lora Mace (moved in Downtown by Dawson Day)
Ericka Jayapalan (the gardener, moved in by Sally Raptor)

Those moved in at SSU:

Taylor Almassizadeh (by Gina Raptor)
Candice Ng (by Taylor Almassizadeh)
Damion Cormier (by Joan Danvers)
Camryn McGaw (by Hermes Zoom)

Townie teens sent directly to college:

Randy London (because Gina Raptor wanted him)
Sophie Miguel (because Zachary Langerak wanted her)
George McCarthy (to keep Sophie company)

Maxis pre-built controllables actually played (all from SSU):
Allegra Gorey
Jane Stacks
Martin Ruben
Castor Nova
Ashley Pitts (rather briefly)
Joshua Ruben (rather briefly)
Kevin Beare (rather briefly)

If I haven't forgotten anyone (unlikely) that's a total of sixty-nine controllable Sims in my game at the moment, thirty-two of them former townies / NPCs (or thirty-four if you count the adoptions). Getting crowded! *8)

* I'm not actually sure if Regina's last name was originally Tsvirkunov, or just something sort of like it. Randy married her awhile after moving her in, and the game seems to have forgotten her maiden name entirely.

(Speaking of Romance Corners, All-Star Damion Cormier brought home a friend from work today, and it was Gina Raptor (which is odd because I could swear she quit her job so as to avoid having to leave Gabriel with those annoying nannies; but maybe I never got around to doing that). Between when they got off work and when Gina left shortly after nightfall they went from 25/5 or whatever a previously unknown friend that you bring home from work is at, to making out noisly on the front lawn; I think that's a Neighborhood One land-speed record. Maybe there needs to be a zoning ordinance to keep too many unrelated Romance Sims from living in one area; the place might spontaneously combust...)

dmchess wrote:

... Maybe there needs to be a zoning ordinance to keep too many unrelated Romance Sims from living in one area; the place might spontaneously combust...

Aha! A Mrs. Grundy Law! (Or Mrs. Crumplebottom, as it were.) As every schoolboy knows, having too many Romance Sims living in close proximity is a prime cause of global smarming!

Are "The Place" and "The Other Place" the community lots?

Greg wrote:

Are "The Place" and "The Other Place" the community lots?

Yep, and "The Pool". I'm great at naming stuff! *8) As the brochure says, Neighborhood One's three sophisticated community lots offer the finest in open-air music, shopping, drinking, and amatory recreation. (In particular, The Place has both two changing booths for genuine public woohoo and a nice expensive hot tub for sort of public woohoo.)

The Place is by far the most popular, both for the abovementioned features and because it's the only place to buy clothes or groceries.


Suzette and Professor Anna (her secondary backup professor from the challenge) arrive at The Place for some amatory recreation and clothes shopping
The dance platform is just visible at top right, although since the music fills the whole lot hardly anyone ever bothers to walk all the way back there. The tiny buildings in the background behind the changing booths are the public restrooms.

The Other Place is notable primarily for Joanne Kim, the friendly and vivacious bartender.


Sally meets Joanne Kim
The stairs at the back lead to a hilltop with a streetlight and a garden gnome; this may be some obscure Narnia reference. Note the performance platform with pews for the audience, and Benajmin Long Langerak playing on the swings.

And the Pool, while rarely visited (that "Go Swimming" want delivers so few points that it's hardly worth the trip), features the magical floating art platform.


Eleanor meets, um, some kid.
(Edit: I think that's Aaron Almassizadeh; sorry Aaron!) Note how the tree sticks artistically through the hole in the platform. When seen from above, the platform's floor is non-transparent.

I really have to build an actual building on a community lot someday... *8)

dmchess wrote:

The Other Place is notable primarily for Joanne Kim, the friendly and vivacious bartender.

Speaking of which, the bartenders and baristas and such are Young Adults, aren't they? But Joanne Kim isn't in the Campus Directory at SSU (the Uni neighborhood attached to Neighborhood One). So they're Young Adults who don't actually go to college? If an adult Moves one In, does it work the same way that moving in a college student does (they count as graduated or dropped out depending on the status of the adult)? What if they meet a college student (at a party in the main neighborhood to which they're both invited, say)? Can the college student later Move them In, and do they then become normal in-college YAs? (I'll have to try one of those with Joanne sometime.)

Ooooh! Magically floating art on a magically floating art platform! Do the sims do anything up there? I don't see anything to attract them unless you just want them to sit and talk (which seems to be what sims do most).

I've noticed that same problem with "go swimming." When I was a kid, my family would undergo elaborate plans and rituals just to immerse our bodies in water, so a measly 500 points seems niggardly compared to real-world human behavior.

The vagueries of young adultery remain a mystery to me. Sometimes I can convert an adult sim to young adult and start a college career; other times they show as graduated when they get to campus. Sometimes moving in a young adult in the neighborhood results in an age transition and sometimes they're stuck as young adults. I can't make sense of it.

Greg wrote:

Ooooh! Magically floating art on a magically floating art platform! Do the sims do anything up there? I don't see anything to attract them unless you just want them to sit and talk (which seems to be what sims do most).

I don't think any controllable's ever been up there; I don't have the patience to wait while they walk up all those stairs. *8) The random passerby do go up there sometimes, but I haven't been on the lot often enough to have observed what they're doing.

(Does the contents of a lot influence who the noncontrollable visitors will be? I have the subjective impression that The Pool tends to be mostly a kid and teen hangout, while the other commercial lots have more adults.)

Greg wrote:

The vagueries of young adultery remain a mystery to me. Sometimes I can convert an adult sim to young adult and start a college career; other times they show as graduated when they get to campus. Sometimes moving in a young adult in the neighborhood results in an age transition and sometimes they're stuck as young adults. I can't make sense of it.

How odd! So it is possible for a YA to live in a normal neighborhood residential lot as an ordinary controllable? Would such a YA be effectively immortal, since there's no YA-to-Elder transition, and the available YA-to-Adult transitions (graduation, dropping out, etc) all depend on living at college?

Fascinating...

"Young adultery": that's funny!

Hmm... I don't think I've ever tested whether young adults age normally in the neighborhood. It's worth a try!

Woo, I just played around with Cameraman Mode on the neighborhood screen for the first time. I didn't realize there was so much sparkling detail available! Here's a view of Neighborhood One seen from the Loch:


Complete with sailboat and swan, and watertower.

The imposing structure closest to us is of course Casa Townie (complete with its impossible hill-climbing street). Beyond and above it is Gina's place, and other plumb bobs are scattered around correspondingly. The unbobbed structures in the middle distance to the right are probably the public restrooms and performance stage at The Other Place. Or maybe a secret CIA listening post...

DC wrote:

I just played around with Cameraman Mode on the neighborhood screen for the first time. I didn't realize there was so much sparkling detail available!

That view is beautiful! I didn't know that Cameraman mode works in the neighbourhood view... I'll have to try that sometime.

DC also wrote:

The unbobbed structures in the middle distance to the right are probably the public restrooms and performance stage at The Other Place. Or maybe a secret CIA listening post...

What about an alien listening post? Or is that too wierd for the neighbourhood?

DC,

That would be a NSA listening post, right?

-SCG

Nihale199 wrote:

That view is beautiful! I didn't know that Cameraman mode works in the neighbourhood view... I'll have to try that sometime.

Thanks! Yeah, it's pretty neat; you can zoom 'way in, and even go inside houses. Things are very sketchy at that distance, though. (Except for one or two objects which surprised me by being rendered at almost full resolution.) I took quite a few pictures, but restrained myself and only posted one. *8)

Nihale199 wrote:

What about an alien listening post? Or is that too wierd for the neighbourhood?

SimCityGallery wrote:

That would be a NSA listening post, right?

Or perhaps a joint CIA / NSA / Alien listening post, in these days of tight budgets... *8)

That's neat!

What's "Cameraman mode"?

Greg wrote:

That's neat! What's "Cameraman mode"?

The thing that Tab toggles (I may have the name wrong!).

Oh! I just didn't know what it was called.