Re: Why does locking doors/gates not work?
@Vyo4 The mockup looks great and those are some great additions! I really appreciate the work you put in making it! ^^
Especially agree on the Highschool EZ Exit window! I remember now that I've had issues with random sims CRAWLING IN FROM MY TEENAGER'S BEDROOM WINDOW like if that's not creepy then I don't know what is! If I remember correctly it's the sims with no boundaries coming to ask to be best friends by intruding my house through a window. :D So I'd really appreciate more options on locking those and more over an option to direct a sim to climb through it any time. (I often use a mod that let's you do just that when playing with teenagers, can highly recommend!)
To your questions:
- Celebrities disrupt gameplay by making sims stop what they are doing to react to the celeb posing. I know this is intended but on some lots I'd rather choose to not have it. It takes long enough to dine at restaurants already without the interruptions and I don't see why Judith Ward needs to visit my scrungy public pool with a filthy laundromat. (I wish we could stop celebrities visiting some lots altogether but I'll at least lock them out if possible!)
- NAP inspectors aren't that big of an issue. If you talk to them they might start considering themselves as "normal guests" and do whatever weird stuff visitors tend to do.
- Yeah not sure if it's a bug or not with the mail carriers. I've seen it in my game (and let's plays too) where they come inside to judge décor. Just don't buy Dream Home Decorator and you'll be fine. :D
And to the Sims team, Please make doors/gates on community lots lockable! There are several good reasons:
1) This would help a lot with keeping staff at their posts to keep gameplay.. well, playable with staffed objects staying occupied with hired or automatically hired sims. Also works the other way around so patrons won't walk behind the counter to the bartender or barista's side to get their drink.
2) we can build performance stages for lots like lounges and nightclubs and it would be best to be able to lock doors/gates to the stage so that unskilled sims don't go there to plunk the piano and ruin the ambiance. Only performers need to get there.
3) some players like to pretend their sim is the owner of, for example, a bar and they "live" in a flat above the business. Giving us the option to lock doors on community lots would give more opportunities for various creative gameplay ideas like these. Like in the bar example we could make the flat only accessible to the "bar owner" and patrons and bartends would stay on the business side.
4) Creating proper changing rooms. I would like to be able to assign changing rooms to male/female/nonbinary sims separately. It's especially disturbing when adult male sims can enter spaces that are meant for little girls. Certain horrible real life things are luckily not possible in the game but the anxiety arising from situations as described is very much real. The threat is so real in the real world that even in a simulation game it's impossible to forget its existence. We often play this game to escape the real world and to feel safe and relaxed.
5) Creating new custom lot types. The lot types currently don't support some gameplay that simmers want to have in their games but using locked doors/gates creatively could make it possible to build new types of lots. Examples: cemetery lot with a locked private family mausoleum, a secret vampire hangout on a community lot where other sims couldn't enter (think Werewolves pack bar lot but for vampires!) or a magic boarding school with separate dormitories for boys and girls.
