Re: Rebuilding Worlds: General Discussion

@MayaRose1138- I like the choose your own adventure idea for the founders, Willow Creek and Oasis Springs would be ideal for that. Then I think I'd like to branch off and have it so you choose your own world after that. Just in case any new shiny packs come out and we want to play in those new worlds like @debjameswhite mentioned. Maybe the options per generation are: floor plan a (small-ish), floor plan b (medium to large) or allow remodel as the options per generation.

Ohh the idea to make Newcrest a destination world is genius! Throughout the different challenges, I've noticed that a lot of us like to have certain venue types for our heirs and their families so I think this is a great idea. I could totally see bowling alleys or cafes there ♥

Picking your own path would certainly allow for those who didn’t have all the packs and would allow us to add any new worlds easily. 

So, have three lots in each world to choose from, then pick either a floor plan or remodel, depending on what the simmer is comfortable with, but still have a budget.  The remodel budget might have to be smaller than the building budget because the exterior walls would already be done.  San Myshuno is definitely going to require remodeling apartments because there’s only one house lot.  Evergreen Harbor has enough house lots but one option could be a remodel of an apartment.  But it would allow people to choose what they’re comfortable in doing and if they didn’t want an apartment, then they wouldn’t go to that world or choose those particular lots.  

With Newcrest, would we make it one venue per generation and tie it to the world the simmer is in (ie. cafe for Windenburg, gym/pool for Oasis Springs, rental for Tomerang) or just have it that by the end of the 10th generation, Newcrest has to be full of different venues?  Given that we wouldn’t be bulldozing any venues in the other worlds, it wouldn’t matter if it was a slow-paced build.  

I’ll write out the list I’ve worked out this afternoon when I get on the computer.  The only world that I’ve had to have blank lots is Tomerang as there aren’t really many lots there that aren’t residential rentals (unless we want to put those in the list of remodelling lots).  And Copperdale doesn’t have a large lot unless you build something on the Totter Park lot.  But with three different size options for each world, if you didn’t want to build anything, you’d go for a lot that did have something to remodel.

So, based on trait/aspirations/careers, these would be possible lots:

active/bodybuilder - gym/pool

loves outdoors/nature aspirations - garden/park

wellness aspirations/high maintainance - spa/bathhouse

bookworm/geek - library

master chef - restaurant/cafe

master Mixologist - bar

Celebrity/actor - lounge

Animal lover of any sort - vet clinic/pet park/horse ranch

art critic/painter extraordinaire - art gallery/museum

jungle explorer/archaeology scholar - museum 

top academic - bowling alley

Family orientated - recreation centre

green fiend/recycle disciple/etc - community space

Thats all I can think of at the moment.  

Good morning 🙂  my opinion is that we definitely should not mandate what world people go to.  If we do that we'll miss out on the expansions again.  Just have options in each as they come out.  I love the idea that they can choose to remodel or build but we should let people decide what house they want to remodel.  Sometimes I've loved downloading houses that one of us has alreay built and used that so that would be a fun option too.  It's one way to feel more connected to each other I think. <3  Also one thing I did love from the last version was passing down a trait through the generations but how about if we made that flexible too?  For example knitting is what I think I picked because it was new, actually I don't even remember if that was it, but maybe it just has to be something from one gen to the next?  Again, just brain storming 🙂

Good morning @debjameswhite Thanks for weighing in!

Sounds like to get started you'll:
- select your starting world for your founders (For this version I think I want everyone to be able to make their own founders.)
- pick one of the three lots to either remodel or build

I definitely like the idea of continuing the traits as well, that was always something special I enjoyed having sims share. And with the family dynamics now I think it will be even more impactful. Since sims can have multiple skills I think making it flexible would work too.

@MayaRose1138- Thanks so much for creating the list for each world!

- For San Myshuno we could do 920 Medina Studios as the apartment
- Copperdale is a difficult one since most of the lots are small or medium in size and the park is the biggest lot

Oh and I have started a document that we can all work on together as well. Let me know if you have any issues accessing it

@Ojenn @debjameswhite - I agree with the skill thing - passing the vet skill down through my Brindleton family has been challenging at times (finding the time) but fun and necessary since the families all have cats.  And I just realised that my Strangerville family, despite doing the museum, will be passing down painting, and my HoB family will be passing down spellcraft.  

Tomerang is a difficult world too, unless we use one or two of the residential rentals for options.  There might be another lot with just the one house on there but I don’t remember off hand.  I was using QC Maps thread to sort out most of the houses but they don’t have the maps for the newest lots and I wasn’t in-game yesterday to work them out (I spent 3 hours going through an old sims 3 thread and finding any updates I posted nearly ten years ago!).  

Do we want to add any rules for the remodelling such as not moving the outside walls but allowing rooms to be added on if there’s space?  Also, we might want to make it clear if people are allowed to change from rebuild to remodel within the challenge.

Maybe have different lengths of the challenge as well?  Short - 5 gen; medium - 10 gen; long - anything over 10 gen.  And we need only have 10 gens worth of spouses as those doing the longer versions can go back to gen 1 and pick someone they didn’t choose the first time.  

My feeling at this time is to keep the core rule regarding diversity but to let the rest of the challenge be flexible.  For example on the world you said would be hard, let people use it if they want, whatever lot they want, or not use it.  I don't think we should put in a lot of rules about how someone remodels a house.  If they want to move walls or add on, let them do it however they want.  If remodeling for them is changing the paint on the walls, that's fine too.  I know some people like a lot of structure, it is a "challenge" after all, but I guess I'm just in a place right now where I feel the fewer "rules" the better.  I'm open though nothing is a deal breaker for me 🙂

I am flexible and happy to go with whatever, for remodeling we can add that in so that folks know that it doesn't need to be a full scale remodel. I know I plan to do remodeling for most of the challenge : ) For the more challenging worlds or world with fewer plots lets make those a free for all and people can pick their lots. So that would Tomerang and Copperdale I think. 

For length of the challenge we can just have one genepool and let people decide if they want to do a 5 gen or 10 gen. Just means we need to provide enough mates for that. Its always the hardest part for me lol

I’m happy with that regarding the remodeling.  From my perspective, I like to know the details of a challenge before starting it, so I’m just anticipating future questions.  If we make it clear that remodeling means something has to change but it can be as little or as much as people want within the budget.  I haven’t decided which way to go yet with this challenge but I’d probably do something along the lines of removing the walls to create a hopefully better floor plan (especially in smaller houses) and then refurbishing.  I’ve done that in a San Myshuno challenge and it was a fun challenge trying to reconfigure the spaces.  Not so much fun decorating but I don’t like that anyway 😆.  I have a while to think about it anyway, given I still want to finish the challenges over on vol 2!  Although, since I haven’t started Isolde’s challenge, she could easily swap over onto this.  

Do we want to have floor plans already sorted for this or get people to find their own, if they choose to rebuild?

I'm thinking we could maybe give some options for the rebuild.  I'd like to link houses we've built for the lots as options, give floor plan suggestions but let people do what they want if nothing calls to them.  i think part of the reason we put in the house floor plans was because the people doing the challenge were having fun using each other's housing or having something similar to what others had or even seeing the differences when we all used the same floorplan.  I think we need to build up participation again to have something that structured.

I was thinking though that if we do have things be really flexible maybe we could do a set of optional side challenges.  Maybe things people could do over the span of the challenge so for 5/10 generations or challenges to accomplish in a generation.  Like maybe with the founders you could start with $0 and try to have $X before moving on to the next generation without cheats.  Or maybe have a full collection of something without cheats in a generation.  Long term ones could be things to pass through the generations like eye color or I don't know what else.  It's fun thinking about it though lol.

@debjameswhite When you’re talking about links to houses we’ve built, do you mean just the shells or fully decorated houses?  And would those be new houses done specifically for the lots or ones we might have already used in the vol 2 challenge?  I like the idea of shells - there have been times I’ve used the shells done in the Blueprint Build thread for my other saves and it saves a lot of work 😆.  People would then be free to decorate how they wish.  

The idea of optional side challenges is a good one.  I’m already doing that in my vol 2 saves (though the eye colour one in Brindleton was unintentional but now I’m going to keep it going since I’ve got it to gen 8).  My Strangerville save has the goal of building a museum by each generation collecting one collection for it, and the entire five generations have to also contribute as many of the paintings as they can.  My HoB one, which I haven’t started, the aim is to keep the spellcaster gene in the main line throughout five generations, complete the magical collection, and have a magical club meeting every week.  Doing this challenge though, I like the idea of rebuilding Newcrest with community lots based on the needs of the heir (ie. if I used Isolde as my founder, I’d build a museum as her aspiration is one of the Selvadora ones.  If her heir was high maintenance or active, I’d build a spa/gym).  I’m not sure I’d actually build those lots, more like download them 😏.  But it makes things more interesting to have a goal to aim towards.  

Catching up on replies now but I just wanted to check in to see if you've all had a chance to look at the Google doc here? I have it set so you can edit things too so feel free to drop things there too so we don't lose any neat ideas 

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@Ojenn wrote:

Catching up on replies now but I just wanted to check in to see if you've all had a chance to look at the Google doc here? I have it set so you can edit things too so feel free to drop things there too so we don't lose any neat ideas 

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I have looked at it but didn’t realise I could edit it.  I might be doing that later today then, depending on whether anyone else gets in first 😏.  Do I need to sign in to save because I don’t know if I have a Google password or user name?

Okay, I’ve come up with some things to put in the document.  I’ll put them here as I’m not sure how to save to the actual document…

Genetics:

- Create a founder.  Find them a spouse from the general population who is genetically diverse from the founder.

OR

- Create a founding couple that is genetically diverse.

- From gen 2 onwards, choose the heir’s spouse from the gene pool for that generation, making sure they will provide some genetic diversity.

Builds:

- Pick your starting world.  Choose from the small, medium or large lot and do one of the following:

a) remodel the existing house as you see fit but try to keep it within the budget.

b) download the house shell for that lot and decorate it

c) use the floor plan for that lot and create your house

d) free build your dream home!

The same options will apply to any of the future worlds.  Once you have finished a generation, choose a world and lot to move to and choose whether to remodel or rebuild.  You can go to any world you like!  Pick your favourites, choose worlds you haven’t played much in before, or use a randomiser to pick for you!  

Optional Challenges:

if you want a bit more of a challenge, here are some ideas to get you started.

- keep the eye, hair or even skin colour of the founder throughout the legacy

- have a trait or skill that each of the heirs has to have (ie. if you want dogs in the family, pass down the trait ‘dog lover’.  If you want to have a hereditary wine business, each heir has to master nectar making).  
- each generation has to complete a collection.  Maybe you could make a museum in one of the worlds and put everything there!

- turn Newcrest into a destination world filled with community lots by placing 1-3 lots per generation.  These could match in with the heirs (ie. an active heir might build a gym, whereas a gardener might build a park),  These lots can be built from scratch or downloaded from the gallery.  See if you can fill the whole of Newcrest by the end of the challenge!

You are a rockstar @MayaRose1138 ♥♥♥ Google Docs autosaves to the cloud so it's all there!

You’re welcome ☺️.  I have a lot of time to think while I’m driving to work, so I can write stuff up in my head then write it down later.

i had a thought today regarding the shells and floor plans.  Given that is a lot of shells to do, maybe we could divvy them up between us (and maybe @tipsycowplant, if they’re available).  We could start of with one world each, do the shells for them, then pick another world, and so on, until we’ve done them all.  Same with the floor plans, unless we want to reuse some of the plans we have in vol 2.  We would have a few months to do it, depending on when we want to launch the new challenge.  Or maybe we could use some of the floor plans from vol. 2 to build the shells, especially for the newer worlds that no one has used yet 🤷‍♀️.  

@MayaRose1138 we could maybe source some shells from the gallery? I think that could be kind of fun 🙂

That would certainly be less time-consuming 🤣.  Maybe we could still divide up the worlds and individually decide whether to create or find a shell for those lots.  I can’t access the Gallery on my computer, only in-game, so I can never get web addresses for links but I should be able to give you the information on them to get those links.  

Are you able to access links on your PC like this one? 

I can access links but I can't do any kind of thorough searches.  I just tried searching 'shell' and only got four results.  I can't even find my own stuff that I've uploaded!  I got confused before - it's not the links I have problems with but the search engine.  It just doesn't seem to work properly for me.  That's why I gave up and only use the in-game Gallery now but doing that means that I don't have a web address for anything I find.  

Ooof!  Sorry I had a couple of nights of "forced family fun" at work so I haven't had much play time this week.  Last night I was determined to finish a kdrama series I had been watching! lol  Anyways, @Ojenn I did look at your document on google docs.  Thank you for always pulling this stuff together for us!  @MayaRose1138 You're awesome taking all our ideas and listing them out.  I'm still really grateful to the two of you for keeping this challenge alive.

I definitely have some houses I would like to donate to the cause.  Some that we've used in the past because I loved them and just some I built but didn't get much use of.  I know I built a couple of houses that I loved but didn't get to play in for whatever reason.  Actually I think a big part was this challenge and doing the different lots.  It is fun going out and finding the lots and the gene pools though so I am in!

Thank you @debjameswhite !  That would be great if there are some houses we can already use.  I reckon I might have a couple from my Brindleton save because I build them in a different save and then put them in my library for use when I need them.  I really liked the gen 4 and gen 6 builds I did - I would just have to see how I saved them and whether I need to go back and empty them of furniture.  And there is a gorgeous house that is listed for HoB’s Nettle Lane that I would love to do 🥰.  Do we want to have any houses as actual shells or give them a lick of paint and some flooring?

@Ojenn - incidentally, the house B floor plan for BBay on Ragdoll Refurb is no longer available.

I also have a couple of sims to consider for the gene pool.  One question - do we want to have any sims of alien colours in the gene pool?  I know we have the starting sim for Strangerville whose kids have all turned out blue but do we want to have any in the gene pool?  I have a sim in mind for the gene pool from a different challenge but she does have blue skin.  I can easily change her skin colour if we want to stick with the more traditional colours though.  

I realised that since I haven’t started Isolde’s challenge in HoB that I could use her to road test this challenge with the house I built for her, but then I realised it was probably way over the budget 🙂. If I did road test this challenge, I think I’d start with the Nettle Lane floor plan A from Vol 2 on the medium block either as a free build or if we wanted to use it for the shell or floor plan for that block.  Keeping it as a five gen challenge, I would then probably go to worlds I haven’t had much to do with yet like Tomerang, Chestnut Ridge and Tartosa.  On the other hand, I really like HoB and wouldn’t mind doing the vol 2 challenge like I had planned…

@MayaRose1138 - I swear links never last long ☹️ I'll look into updating it this weekend when I have a minute. The online gallery is crappy for sure, what I have to do usually is uncheck Maxis Created under Advanced to see most things. I think to help folks find things better we can list lots out like this:

> Basegame Starter Shell by Dedeho
> Family Home Shell by Daniellebuilds

That way people can search while in game like you mentioned (P.S. I really like that family home shell lol) I think having builds as shells would be best but if some have paint already that's ok too. I know I plan to redo interior and exterior paint in my save.

I don't mind having alien sims in the genepool, feel free to throw them in! I have honestly given alot of thought to just starting up v3 with my current's sims kid....very tempted <.<

@debjameswhite - Yay, welcome back from family fun at work lol.

Lets work on adding some info for housing and see what we can come up 🙂