Generic Lots are Still Ghost Towns

"Gullveig;15613051" wrote:

"SimsLovinLycan;15611343" wrote:

"Gullveig;15610794" wrote:
Then, to OP, are you sure? In my game, I always have problem with crowd. Even if it is a generic lot, I always seem to have people coming especially the clubbers.

Yep. I've played this lot multiple times and it's always empty, even though I'm using the MC Command Center mod to increase traffic on community lots. It works perfectly for parks, gyms, and most other public venues...but the Generic lot is emptier than an outdoor water park in the dead of winter. It's crazy!

"Ninoochat;15610639" wrote:
On topic. I think generic lots were made so that you can pretend to own another lot for your family, like a personal museum or a secondary house (maybe a fancy vacation house on the island of Windenburg!), so that no one can intrude in your property. I like to use it on cemetery, those places aren't usually full of people.

You can create any type of lot and just hide the required items in a closed off basement, just pick any lot type close enough to what you're creating!

The thing is, though, that I shouldn't have to settle for a pre-defined lot type and make a nook somewhere to squeeze in and hide the checklist items just to get people to show up. If a second home property is what they're aiming for, they should put in a "Purchase Alternate Home" option somewhere. To me, it seems like a total cop-out for these lots to be devoid of life for reasons of "random, undisturbed makebelieve". If Generic lots can't be improved to automatically attract more NPC's just by default, then they should change the lot type to "Quiet" and add an "Advanced Mode" community lot with no checklists that, no matter what you put there, will attract sims who will come and do things there.

Honestly, I really do miss how hassle-free TS2's community lots were. You just picked a lot size, plopped it down, chose "Community Lot", and no matter what you put there you would get sims coming in and using the facilities. No checklists, no deadzones, just sims showing up and doing stuff. That's really all I want--a checklist-free community lot type that will still be full of activity.

Like I said before, the checklists are great for beginners. They give novice players a framework to work off of to get the feel of how to make a community lot. However, for someone like me, who cut their teeth on the unbridled freedom of previous games in terms of what to put on community lots, it can just get grating to have to put up with that all the time and the lot checklists become almost chore-like to follow. In TS2, I can build a community lot that's nothing but 30 chess tables and chairs and sims will still come. TS4? It's follow the checklists or you get nada! *head-desk* :s

Well, you can try this. Add a few club that use the generic lot as gathering spot or attend the event which held in the specific generic lot. It might trigger the crowd boost.

I'll try that when I get Get Together, but for now that's not really an option for me (My leisure budget is totally cleaned out from the holidays still and my cash flow situation is...complicated).

But do you know the most frustrating thing in all this? The Generic lot type's tool tip description (when you hover over the option in the lot type drop-down menu) specifically says that visitors are allowed which, logically, should mean that NPC sims should be spawing in and using the facilities like any other community lot. So, this is a pretty clear indication that there's a glitch here...either that, or it's a poorly worded tool tip that's been causing players like me a whole lot of confusion and frustration for the past couple of years. Either way, workarounds notwithstanding, the dev team needs to do something about the situation with Generic lots. Fix the NPC spawning, change the tool tip description to better reflect what the purpose of the lot type is, add an advanced level community lot...something, because as things stand now it just feels like some sort of cruel bait-and-switch.