Why do some towns look like episodes of Hoarders?

EvolWayz

Yeah, they're ugly. I have a few of those as neighbors. Since I'm at less than 100 friends right now, they stay, but if/when I hit 100, they'll be among the first to go.

So far I've only dropped one neighbor, his/her town opened up to nothing but a vast field of white houses that crashed my game every time I tried to go in after the Christmas event started.

[Deleted User]

Yep- have a couple of those....

One who has a little land as they can squish all of the buildings they have on with on small street everyone is out walking on. Drives me crazy!
Several five star seekers who just have piles and piles of cop cars and tether balls and junk just in rows and rows.....

Blah!

LPNintendoITA

'cause they have so much money they don't need the char. to do jobs and they leave them roam

bren1960

Yea, I delete. Figure they're not really into playing.
You want more friends then go to the add me thread & in a day or two you'll be maxed out

ToucanBonanza

I have a few as neighbours too - I don't get it - isn't the whole point of the game to design a town?

HWick_Bluenose

I have one that has what can only be described as a forest of stop signs. Maybe as many as 500. And rows of Kwik-E-Marts and Krusty Burgers. I just don't get it.

forevermadne

I have a few neighbors like that as well. Kind of stresses me out whenever I go into their towns, everything just crammed into the space they have. They have Squidport tiles to tap though, so I keep them.

LPNintendoITA

HWick_Bluenose wrote:

I have one that has what can only be described as a forest of stop signs. Maybe as many as 500. And rows of Kwik-E-Marts and Krusty Burgers. I just don't get it.

seriously???
ok during xmas if you had stop sign near ur depot it meant u don't want bags anymore but now? doesn't make sense.

I have char. roaming around town cause as i said i've so much money i don't care but my city is always updated and i visit friends everyday so people know i'm alive

annettemarc

If i see the squishing together is largely consisting of buildings. If so, i keep an eye for whether they're advancing questlines. To me, that means they're focusing on accumulating buildings, which are costly but earn money, before they buy up land, which is costly and does NOT earn money. Money from the buildings (and the characters that accompany each of those buildings) isn't the most glamorous way to earn your land, but it is the most intelligent.

As far as characters walking around ... Hmmm. I used to keep my characters on one-hour tasks most of the day. Though it was tiring and boring, it was the best way to earn money. I rarely came back to my town at the exact moment they completed their one-hour tasks. Keep in mind that when a visitor to your town comes in when a character has finished the task, THEY see the character wandering aimlessly. If I had Moe carrying the panda around, when I returned 65 minutes later, I would see him in my town still lugging around that panda, with a thumbs-up overhead. The only thing a visitor would see at that same moment is Moe wandering around.

When keeping characters on repetitive, one hour tasks to try and make the most money, the only way to round them up quickly is to have them in a confined area. Hence, a limited number of streets.

Obviously there are EXTREMES to which some go, but some of the factors you are pointing out may just be symbolic of a person working their hardest to get money to build their towns.

epolng

Yep. Got some of those. One guy seems to buy only as much land as he needs to cram in the buildings released with the new update. Seems like he doesn't get it. But it drives me nuts going into these places where they have all the land and have every building on what would be it's own 5 acre lot in real life. Some of the buildings really do look better right next to each other like a real downtown. Every building doesn't need fifteen parking lots, especially if you put several buildings in a row. It just makes the buildings look small and lonely. Plus, nobody in these SFs drive, so they really need a town planned for walking. Grrrr.... at least I give the crammers slack for being lazy. I don't know what the thought process is for the folks who spread everything out so thinly.

direwolf987

Some of those towns may be side towns (feeder towns). A couple of the towns described above sound exactly like my side towns.

One had 1000+ white houses. I was farming for xp's and it worked nicely. Probably got 30 doughnuts from it. It also gave me something to do during non-events. I take them down for visiting events. This time I just left them down.

My other two side towns have all the buildings crammed into the corner and I have just enough land for the crammed buildings. Someday I will get around to designing these towns, but right now I don't have time. But, when I do get to designing these towns they will have all the event buildings. That's why I keep them going.

I have a few friends in each side town. I do visit my friends from my side towns during events as well.

kungpao214

annettemarc wrote:

If i see the squishing together is largely consisting of buildings. If so, i keep an eye for whether they're advancing questlines. To me, that means they're focusing on accumulating buildings, which are costly but earn money, before they buy up land, which is costly and does NOT earn money. Money from the buildings (and the characters that accompany each of those buildings) isn't the most glamorous way to earn your land, but it is the most intelligent.

...snip....

I've got a neighbor that does this! He/she's got the WHOLE parcel of land covered in bldgs and i see springfielders roaming around in between them. There's no rhyme or reason just all crammed into one little space! I figure he/she's gotta buy land soon!

One thing's for sure though, it takes creativity to fit all of those bldgs into the little space and cover all the land.

Oh and this particular neighbor is a daily visitor.

dcacooper

kungpao214 wrote:

One thing's for sure though, it takes creativity to fit all of those bldgs into the little space and cover all the land.

Tapped Out Tetris anyone?

Starman_thc

annettemarc wrote:

If i see the squishing together is largely consisting of buildings. If so, i keep an eye for whether they're advancing questlines. To me, that means they're focusing on accumulating buildings, which are costly but earn money, before they buy up land, which is costly and does NOT earn money. Money from the buildings (and the characters that accompany each of those buildings) isn't the most glamorous way to earn your land, but it is the most intelligent.

As far as characters walking around ... Hmmm. I used to keep my characters on one-hour tasks most of the day. Though it was tiring and boring, it was the best way to earn money. I rarely came back to my town at the exact moment they completed their one-hour tasks. Keep in mind that when a visitor to your town comes in when a character has finished the task, THEY see the character wandering aimlessly. If I had Moe carrying the panda around, when I returned 65 minutes later, I would see him in my town still lugging around that panda, with a thumbs-up overhead. The only thing a visitor would see at that same moment is Moe wandering around.

When keeping characters on repetitive, one hour tasks to try and make the most money, the only way to round them up quickly is to have them in a confined area. Hence, a limited number of streets.

Obviously there are EXTREMES to which some go, but some of the factors you are pointing out may just be symbolic of a person working their hardest to get money to build their towns.

Thank you for pointing some of this out. My town somewhat may resemble some of what is said here. Since I started, I focused on progressing, and as you mentioned, it seemed best to progress by completing quests and such rather than buying land. Now that I am 'caught up' so-to-speak (almost done with 38 ) AND have gone premium, cash is becoming MUCH less of an issue, so I am starting to buy up as much land as I can, and then I will be spending more time laying things out properly.

Sometimes reading posts on here, I get a bit miffed at how some see others' towns (and slightly defensive). They assume things that are not necessarily the case. I have been thinking all along that I had a house farm, and was kind of feeling slighted in here. Turns out that my puny 12 brown houses and 6 KEM's that were all jammed together are NOTHING compared to what a real house farm is (for the record, it was not cash I was after, it was the rating).

edit for inadvertent smiley...lol

darthraven0

Mine was very bad for having to many buildings cramped in too small of a space. I have finally got enough land and have spread things out to where my town isn't craptastic anymore though still a long way from where I want it.

TankGirl2925

Ok, no one said it already (although I did kind of skim the first page of comments), but I've come to believe that there has to be some young kids playing on their parents devices (permission based I hope). It may look strange to us folks who are over ...a certain age, butttt, have you ever seen a young boy play with his legos, transformers, GI Joes and dinosaurs all in one space, making this horrific soup of an imaginary play-scape that only he knows what is what...? That's what I see in those "hoarders" towns

EldarOfSuburbia

My daughter's been playing about a year (on her own device(s)). I won't reveal her age, just that she's still too young for a Facebook account. Her SF kinda resembles a proper town. Except the bits where she's decided to be a bit surreal. (She also has a Task Book about a mile long, and finally finished the Thanksgiving quest line after the Christmas update went away! )

She takes after my wife's urban planning skills, though. My wife's SF, whilst improving, has such things as buildings just dumped in the middle of grass, buildings with their backs to roads, and other stuff that just plain offends my sensibilities.

Alkurian

For some, its just the playing style.

i've noticed alot of people have been redecorating since christmas has ended.

TankGril makes a good point, watching my nephews play builder/designing games, some stuff looks garbled or crazy but they actually have reasonable thoughts of why they did it.

Right now my own SF is a garbled mess. building from my nw corner out while i buy up land and work on quests. lvl 38 and just finally built sir putts a lot.

so where as my forest area is taking shape, i do have alot of buildings stuffed together in the se with old designs in the middle.

general003969

Ultimately these threads sound like this

"Why can't people fall in line and act like everyone else."

Why don't we just lineup the house farmers, lazy town owners, and road less warriors and execute them Russian SS style?

Ultimately these threads end the same way - "If you don't like how their towns look, de-friend them. There is no overlord forcing you to make friends, stay friends, or even visit their towns. I know I never visit my friends outside of events.

craighk01957

wickedwife42 wrote:

Yep- have a couple of those....

...
Several five star seekers who just have piles and piles of cop cars and tether balls and junk just in rows and rows.....

Blah!

Hi Neighbor! Is this what you mean by rows and rows of junk? I'm not trying to collect stars, just having fun setting up the Muntz "Oscar's Obstacles" family business!

If anyone is familiar with the Davis-Monthan Air Force base in the US, that's where they store old aircraft instead of disassembling / recycling parts... I tried to model my SF after that!





EDIT.... ok, I tried to follow CL891's instructions on posting pictures, but obviously I'm missing something. Sorry.

EDIT 2: fixed links, thanks KungPao and LPN!

kungpao214

duplicate post not necessary as it's been corrected in the first post.