#the sims removed like. half of my mods so they're not as good as they could be

[wheredidalltheusersgo]

man whatever. Daddon family in the sims.

[pudding-parade]

A Distant Glacier by MySimRealty

Are you looking for a world to play a colder-climate scenario in? This might be a good one. It's an old world, from 2010, so from before the Seasons EP, but the terrain painting and roads and whatnot are such that about 1/3 of the playable part of the world is always snow-covered, and there's also frost in the terrain painting of the green parts.

MySimRealty is one of my favorite world creators, and if you are familiar with this creator's other, newer worlds, you'll definitely recognize the rudiments of her style in this world. That said, this world isn't available on her site. I'm not sure why. I think it's a pretty cool (no pun intended) little world, so I can't see how she'd be unhappy with it. I thought maybe it might have some major, unresolved playability issues, but I had NRaas Story Progression create and move in 12 families and let the world run for five simdays to see if there'd be any issues, and there were none. Not a single one, not even a single stuck sim. The only issue I noticed during that time was some oddly-parked food trucks. They'd park across the streets, so that they look like they'd be blocking traffic going both ways, though of course taxis drive right through them. That aside, everything ran smoothly, and my sim and others had no problems using anything on the community lots.

So, I can't figure out why this world isn't out there anymore. In fact, I'm not even sure where I got it. If I had to guess, it's probably on one of the Russian re-upload sites, but I'm not feeling like looking through them to find it, which is why the title of the post isn't a link this time. Instead, I just reuploaded a .world file here or here, so if you want it, get it at one of those links. If you download it, the file goes in your install files under GameData - Shared - NonPackaged - Worlds.

The world only requires Ambitions and Riverview. There's no Store content aside from Riverview items and no CC. It's 1024x1024, but the playable area is only about half of that. It has all of the base game rabbitholes and all basegame and Ambitions lot types. (The firehouse is EA; the others are original.) It has all of the spawners that existed as of Ambitions, except the WA fish ones.

The world has about 80 lots total, split pretty evenly between community and residential. There are 18 empty lots. One of the community lots is built but empty inside, so it's ready to become whatever. Maybe a bar or club or arcade, or it might be good to use as shops if you use a merchant mod. All of the built residential lots are fully-furnished and ready to go. A few of them are duplicates, but they are all original builds, and the majority of them have at least two bedrooms. Two of the residential lots are "apartments," but since the world pre-dates Late Night, they don't function like Late Night apartments. I imagine you could make them do so it if you add the necessary markers.

There is a thread on the official forums from August of 2010 about testing this world here. Some of the issues mentioned in that thread -- particularly trees which have branches that intrude into houses and that can't be removed -- still exist, but they aren't really a problem in terms of playing.

More info and pictures behind the cut!

Here we have map view and Edit Town view of the entire playable area of the world. As you can see, it's split into three sections. There's the "glacier" in the middle, which is permanently snow-covered, and there are the two green areas. The one on the left has most of the rabbitholes. Residential lots are scattered throughout all three areas.

Here are some of the residential lots in various parts of the world:

Most of the houses have exteriors that are a combination of wood and stone in natural colors, which is appropriate for a colder climate. Personally, although they're pretty to look at, I'd get rid of the ever-blooming flowers and flowering shrubs and switch out most of the really green deciduous trees for more conifers, or maybe some birches/aspens, on the residential lots as well as throughout the world. That would make it look more authentically like a colder/taiga biome. But maybe that's just me.

Now for some community lots:

This is a little laundromat. The salon and the consignment shop look a lot like it, with the same roof and the same brick exterior. Also, the laundromat, salon, and consignment shop are all about the same size.

This is the larger of the two gyms in the world. I'm not sure why the world has two gyms, but there's this one, which is in the part of the world that has most of the rabbitholes, and then there's a smaller one just outside the stadium rabbithole in the other green section of the world. I guess the smaller one is convenient for those in the sports career, so maybe that's why there are two gyms.

This is the library that, for some reason, has a really tall roof. I'd lower that sucker by quite a bit. :) Then, on the left side of the pic is a small art gallery.

This is a little chapel. Inside it has some chairs, a stereo, and a fridge. Up front is a table that I guess is supposed to be an altar. It doesn't have a wedding arch. (Did the game not have wedding arches prior to Generations? I can't remember off the top of my head.) You could add an arch and maybe the podium from University Life to make it more church-y, but there isn't a whole lot of room inside or outside, so I don't think you could make it into a proper "wedding venue."

The junkyard and the graveyard.

This is my testing sim using the public pool. I'm thinking that I'd get rid of this lot (as well as the private pools that some of the houses have) because...Well, cold climate. LOL There is an indoor pool at the large gym which can serve the community's swimming needs. I suppose you could pretend that these are hot spring pools, but, as a person who lives in a cold climate, I can say that outdoor non-hot-spring pools aren't really a thing because you can only use them for maybe a few weeks out of the year. :)

This is the grocery rabbithole, which has a community garden on the same lot, which is an interesting idea.

The world also has several parks/playgrounds, a beach, a few fishing spots, and the EA fire station from Ambitions.

And I think that's all I have to say. We'll finish out with some random pics. :)

[kulemii]

so the sims has changed A LOT since my last time playing it like for real, for real and i was playing around with some of the features i'm not quite familiar with. for example, i never used likes and dislikes so i thought that it might've been a good opportunity to play around with it and i'm soooooo glad i did. so glad! it gave me soooo many laughs. i'll share under the cut- this all happened over the course of a couple days now (selfship shit)

so, masa, nishiki and i are sitting around the kotatsu listening to music- i think it was latin pop? and i had set that as one of masato's likes. while we were all chatting he would casually raise his hands to his chest and sigh all dreamily or look over at the smart speaker and nod approvingly at the music selection. or my absolute fave- he would slide from under the warmth of the kotatsu so that he can dance (horribly, my aizawa would never) with the BIGGEST SMILE ON HIS FACE. occasionally, he chimes into the conversation but for the most part it's just him and his tunes UNTIL THE MOTHERFUCKER DROPS DOWN AND STARTS DOING PUSHUPS/SITUPS 😭😭😭

nishiki danced too- horribly! so so bad omg

oh!!! i gave masa the loyal trait too- so he gets really bothered when there's any sort of friction between the three of us. sometimes, if he catches nishiki and i arguing he will get onto us about it and i guess we stop? i still dont understand that. oh but my sim is 'erratic' so then she's mad at him all day for it until he apologizes (which i generally have to force him to do)

with a mod i made it so that there's no jealousy within the protocol (aizawa/me/nishiki), right? and for the most part there's no drama BUT the nishiki sim is jealous by nature- it's literally his trait so he gets in a really foul mood when he hasn't seen me in a while 😭 and it's like babe.. you know i'm upstairs handling business😅 what are you doing? what is this behavior? so long as he knows where i am tho, he's fine.. toxic~~

this may or may not be inspiring a fic

the no jealousy within the protocol setting made for a really, really funny moment where... the me sim and the nishiki sim where in bed (def not braiding each other's hair) and aizawa just waltzes in and started tending to his bonsai tree-- completely unphazed. it was honestly the funniest thing. it kinda wonder what would happen if i removed the no jealousy thing- i think they would fight, physically. and i cannot have that. poor nishiki wouldn't last a minute and the aizawa sim would be crushed because they're best friends!

THE KOISTIES WOULD BE NO MORE!!!

it's been so much. i've gotten soooo many laughs out of this. it's been great!

i talked about it elsewhere but i've been exploring this 'in a relationship with the koisties' thing for a minute now and let's just say... certain projects have made me think about it even more than i have this past year (half year rather)... now, will the sims be the push i need to get me write some damn fics?

[invinciblerodent]

Im The anon that just sent you the ask about DAO thank you so much you made me fall for the entire franchise by reading that! I honestly already have DOA i just need to open it (also still debating if do need visual mods like everyone keeps telling me i need them but i dont exactly like installing mods for every game i have ngl but anyway) im Atleast glad to know the toxic part of the fandom is like all the others in other games tho im also of the school of blocking liberally with both sims and bg3 my block list is an entire street long and with bg3 i live in bliss because after blocking all that i see are gifs fanfiction art and some very good analysis and i treat every game the same way and DAO will be the same! I want to pre block stuff and people but i also have no idea what is going on (going in blind hehe) so i suppose i have to be exposed to some stuff for a while before i curate the space which is fine! Thank you again! Also love the meme saved instantly thank youuu❤️

Honestly, the only mod for Origins that I've ever used for it in any true capacity was one that removed the "boob armor"- that's kind of the only thing that was really important to me about the visuals! (And, of course, adding an extra companion slot for the dog. Gotta have Duster on my team.) But other than that, looking at screenshots now, I still think it overall looks very much decent on its own, for its time! Like, again, a 15 year old game is not going to look like BG3 or anything, but it's not horrible, or unplayable vanilla, or anything of the sort.

(back in my day, we simped for characters who never took off their underwear for sex, and whose whole faces were made up of 3 whole polygons, and we LIKED it that way!!! Back in my day, we accidentally romanced half our squad by trying to be vaguely nice, and we.....!!!! Well, we certainly had opinions. I liked it, because a weird part of me likes to picture the non-romanced party in that situation just yearning something hardcore, but that's just me)

And I'm very glad you feel better! ❤️ It's really not as serious as anyone from the "hard core" of back in the day, or the people who'd complain/warn about it unprompted might make it sound- I'm sure every fandom ever to exist has always had their own flavors of petty squabbles, and, hey, if we look at it rationally? The people who were capable of playing an 18+ game in 2009, they're generally in their 30's now. I doubt many of us have the same kinda time and energy for squabbling as we did when we were in our early 20's, and I hope that'll translate to the life cycle of Veilguard being eventually more mellow, one the initial hype has had a chance to simmer for a bit.

Have fun, friend! ❤️❤️❤️