Preferences for Neighbourhood Layouts?

I'm a city girl. So I enjoy playing in San Myshuno (SM). I enjoy many aspects of SM. I like the food venders, bum npc guy that sleeps on benches, random sims walking around with Starbucks, traffic noise, the subway etc. I love the different districts and the apartments. I just wish there was more of subculture behind each district like in the Urbz (Sims in the City for PS2) game. As such, I like my worlds to be city-themed that encompasses diversity, both culturally and socioeconomically.

I understand what you mean with BB.

Still, I'd like some more urban like areas in the world. I do like the look of San Myshuno even with being confined to apartments and penthouses I do enjoy the different feel of the districts. Tend to have my Sims living down in the spice market area. I like seeing a variety of diversity in the world that's still keeping to the over all theme of the map.

I guess I don't particularly feel the same way. I really like when the worlds are segmented within themselves. Maybe not the way that BB did it (I'm not a fan of BB, either), but the way it was done in Windenburg is really nice. To me, each of the areas in Windenburg presents its own opportunity for design choice when it comes to what type of lots I want to put in each area. I put castle style homes on the country side, tudor style homes in the city, and filled the island with mediterranean themed lots. In a more monotonous world like Oasis Springs, where everywhere is just desert, I find it hard to break it up, and I just end up filling the entire world with the same style of desert themed lots.. and it looks nice that way, but it just bores me

I love San Myshuno as well @meeoun and the diversity of it. And I loved the Urbz and would love more districts like that in the game, like the subway area where they did piercings and had a fight club, and the high rise fashion area. It was such a fun game. I'm glad you see what I mean @LadyKyn and I agree I like to have the overall theme of the world and then smaller sub-sections within that. I like the Spice District best out of all the city areas too and I spend so much time there! @CyrusTheLoser I love Windenburg, I think it's my favourite world with SM a close second and I do like the way it's divided up. I like that the more modern buildings are grouped together in that commercial area and that it has a kind of 'old town' area where the more Tudor buildings are. I like that they have a clear idea for each zone there.

I like the rest of Brindleton Bay a lot. I just don't like how the lounge is kind of plonked in the dock area, it just doesn't fit the rest of that setting!
:D I'd rather they keep the theme of each sub-section much more consistent in the future. Especially avoiding the kind of built up structures around a lot that stop us turning it into something else. I feel like that sort of thing needs to be set further away from the other lots or to have its own area like the manor house in Windenburg or the central park in SM.

Thanks for the replies. :)

The worlds are just too small. I like separate areas - like one area for businesses with a lot more than 4 lots and several areas for residences with a variety of type of places to live with at least as many empty lots as they have pre-done lots. If they have 6 families in a world - then we also need 6 lots with empty residence already built and another 6 lots totally empty to put our own designs in.

I still won't use San Myshuno for many reasons out side of a place to go to festivals and to make friends. I object to many things - but number one is the fact we cannot even build a single apartment building ourselves - never mind the fact there is no residential homes or duplexes period and what about shopping and other types of city type entertainment? San Myshuno represents city living - when in fact it is like a street corner or a couple blocks of a city - not a city at all. It's like welcome to the city block party - not welcome to the city. I mean who every heard of an entire city smaller than all the small towns we already have in the game. Fake backdrops is nothing but a deception and the only reason they can even call it a city.

Cities need stores, lots of parks, restaurants, movie theaters, clubs, museums, galleries, offices - big business, but cities also hold every variety of living style one can find - not just a few brownstones.

I saw people posting on facebook a while back asking what city was San Myshuno even based on. I said probably none as really what about that place looks like a real city - the painted 2 d back drop where your sims cannot even go? It's like a great big lie and then they insist it is a city world. What world exactly - Barbie Land?

I know it is a game - but jeez don't call things something they are not. They just need lots less fakery and a lot more useableness in these worlds. Real places our sims can go and live. My sims can't go into fake buildings. I mean, rabbitholes in the last game were bad enough (and got constant complaints) - but by golly at least my sim could go into the things and get options. Exactly, What is the point of pictures of fake buildings anyway but to waste space we could actually use in this game for if nothing else but to place lots, to build our own buildings then.. The fake needs to go away - period. It's a game, not a picture book.

Something to consider anyway - seeing most of us are not 12 - regardless of what age they were hoping to attract. Incidently even the 12 year old also complain about this - so technically it has no point.

"Writin_Reg;c-16206918" wrote:
The worlds are just too small. I like separate areas - like one area for businesses with a lot more than 4 lots and several areas for residences with a variety of type of places to live with at least as many empty lots as they have pre-done lots. If they have 6 families in a world - then we also need 6 lots with empty residence already built and another 6 lots totally empty to put our own designs in.

I still won't use San Myshuno for many reasons out side of a place to go to festivals and to make friends. I object to many things - but number one is the fact we cannot even build a single apartment building ourselves - never mind the fact there is no residential homes or duplexes period and what about shopping and other types of city type entertainment? San Myshuno represents city living - when in fact it is like a street corner or a couple blocks of a city - not a city at all. It's like welcome to the city block party - not welcome to the city. I mean who every heard of an entire city smaller than all the small towns we already have in the game. Fake backdrops is nothing but a deception and the only reason they can even call it a city.

Cities need stores, lots of parks, restaurants, movie theaters, clubs, museums, galleries, offices - big business, but cities also hold every variety of living style one can find - not just a few brownstones.

I saw people posting on facebook a while back asking what city was San Myshuno even based on. I said probably none as really what about that place looks like a real city - the painted 2 d back drop where your sims cannot even go? It's like a great big lie and then they insist it is a city world. What world exactly - Barbie Land?

I know it is a game - but jeez don't call things something they are not. They just need lots less fakery and a lot more useableness in these worlds. Real places our sims can go and live. My sims can't go into fake buildings. I mean, rabbitholes in the last game were bad enough (and got constant complaints) - but by golly at least my sim could go into the things and get options. Exactly, What is the point of pictures of fake buildings anyway but to waste space we could actually use in this game for if nothing else but to place lots, to build our own buildings then.. The fake needs to go away - period. It's a game, not a picture book.

Something to consider anyway - seeing most of us are not 12 - regardless of what age they were hoping to attract. Incidently even the 12 year old also complain about this - so technically it has no point.

I agree totally and couldn't have put it better myself. One of the things I think would help this would be visitor allowed lots where all sims would just use whatever objects the player decided to put there. This would add so much more to the gameplay and would allow players' imaginations to fire up far more than they do within the limits they have set for us.

I very much agree about rabbit holes. I know how much people complained about them but I used to like them! I really did! My sims used to drive to town, visit the grocery store, have a chat with another sim outside, then wander across to the park before arranging to meet another sims at the bistro. I used to love the sound of the music playing outside the diner and bistro. I could watch the children go to school, meet a partner outside their work place.... My sims used to take handiness classes, gardening classes, cooking classes, see a film at the theatre, tour, make out or even woohoo backstage, make out in the back of the town hall - so many more things to do then! When my sims went on a date, they really did go on a date and they didn't have other sims interrupting them every five minutes. One thing I really used to like were the rabbit hole doors which allowed me to build whatever building I wanted and simply add a door to replicate the rabbit hole so that I didn't have to use the actual rabbit hole building. I could build it in my own style and just have stairs leading down to a door where I placed the rabbit hole. It allowed for so much extra imagination and creativity.

Having been to a lot of ports in my seafaring days, in the US of A and overseas, I can vouch for the fact that dock areas are shabby. Not so much because they are poor, but because the whole focus is on getting work done and not on looking pretty. The customer base is largely made up of sailors, folks who are not famous for being either rich or staying there long. Business profits go elsewhere, not the facilities. The only time I've seen dock areas with the fancy stuff mentioned by the OP is when a dock area no longer hosts freighters and fishing boats but has become a marina for rich folks' floating toys. So, yes, that building needs to go elsewhere.

Of the given towns, Windenburg seems the best balanced, though it would be nice to be able to unlock certain places. San Myshuno is a big disappointment, promising so much and delivering almost nothing. The ladies said it well, so won't try to add to it.

I prefer the base game worlds, out of all of them so far they minimize the amount of dead space in the playable area. Windenburg, and Brindleton Bay both have a lot of dead space, or space that’s reserved exclusively for decoration.

San Myshuno is my absolute least favorite world - period. Out of any Sims world that one is absolutely terrible, and doesn’t deliver upon city life in any meaningful way outside of the static decoration that makes up 95% of each neighborhood. Seriously they went way overboard on the decoration for the city, and that was a complete waste of their time IMO. I would have preferred to have more usable space and not a bunch of decoration. Doesn’t really help the pack that their focus on decoration led to apartments being decorative themselves, that was arguably the worst design choice they made for the pack. I absolutely hate the apartments. They aren’t apartments at all, and are barely a feature of the game.

What I would prefer is a world that minimizes the dead space, maximizes the playable area and number of lots available, and is not littered with large quantities of static decoration that does nothing but limit the look of the world to the look of the decoration. That would probably be too much work for Maxis though. They release tiny little pockets of space that are mostly fake backdrops and then act like they are incredibly revolutionary and difficult to produce. Maxis needs to distance themselves from advertising worlds as features, they are not. Each world operates the same, none are open, and none can be modified in any way other than building on lots. The fact that their last three expansions have put the world in the spotlight is just sad, because it shows they have no idea how little the player can actually do with any world.

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"LilMissSimmer5678;c-16223413" wrote:
I enjoy playing around in San Myshuno, but I also like Newcrest because of all of the empty lots you're able to build on.

I miss cohesion in Newcrest though. It doesn’t feel like a real neighborhood, just like a bunch of lots. There’s no character.

Saving it for when you enter a lot and find all the usual background, some of which you can enter, most of which you can't. Closest they've come to a TS2 neighborhood, only without the neighborhood level ability to add plants, buildings, and such. Presumably what you mean by no character. That leaves it up to the player to define the place via the lots they put down.