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Instructor
Original Poster
#1 Old 2nd May 2016 at 1:51 PM Last edited by TychoH : 2nd May 2016 at 2:14 PM.
Default What's your neighborhood story?
In other words, what makes you play a certain neighborhood for months, or even years? How do you turn the 'hood into a community, and not just a bunch of Sims that live in the same part of the world?

Since I throwed out my worn out 'hood (played it for years in various forms) I start 'hoods and play them until I'm done with what I wanted, mostly after a few Sim weeks. After playing that way for months I'm looking for inspiration to start a 'hood that lasts longer than a day or, at maximum, a few weeks, I want to play a 'hood which has a good story to make me continue playing it, so I'm curious for your neighborhood stories.
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Scholar
#2 Old 2nd May 2016 at 2:28 PM
I always have several active neighborhoods that I switch between depending on my mood. Some I abandon after less than half a sim year. However, there's a couple I always return to, even if laid aside for months. The key in keeping interested in a 'hood, for me, is having a long term goal that all households participate in and several distinct groups of sims that interact with each other. I also throw in the occasinal global disaster or opportunity about once per sim year, events that change the rules for all households sometimes rather drastically.
Another thing that I do is mixing CAS sims with premades (by adding subhoods or cloned versions of the Maxis sims). As the Maxis sims come with their own sketchy stories they provide good storyhooks and of course, change the dynamics between the already existing famies. Starting small with about 4 households and adding new households later always works better for me than fully populating/planning the 'hood from the beginning. Same for community lots.

Some examples:
In Pleasentview/Riverside the two towns were at war up until 12 years ago, so the people of the different communities are tense around each other. In Pleasentview crime is on the rise just as economics decline. Recently there has been an influx of fugitives from a town destroyed by an asteroid (the family bin sims). That gives me some interesting dynamics I can work with. The criminals play a little differently from the townspeople and the imigrants altogether different from both, so I can have different playstyles within the same 'hood.

Port Priesnitz used to be a tourist town until the coast got polluted by an oil tanker accident. The few families that didn't leave town afterwards lived in a rather hopeless state and a mafia clan from Sim Nation took over. So except for a few vigilantes most people are employed in the criminal or political career (depending on whether they are simple thugs or belong to the mafia funded mayors inner circle). But recently a hippie community was established at the edge of town and the seeing the newcomers' way of life gives people hope again.
Forum Resident
#3 Old 2nd May 2016 at 3:36 PM Last edited by natboopsie : 2nd May 2016 at 3:55 PM.
I've worked with a hood story before.

In my old up-to-OFB hood, Vatican Reach, all the original playable sims started in college and then gravitated by personality or die roll to either the Forbidden Zone, which was a desert-wasteland take on a downtown, or an edited version of greenly serene Bluewater Village, which was the residential area protected by the religion-based, militant government, which had started a war that resulted in said very deprived Forbidden Zone. (The main hood was the seat of the government; no one actually lived there.) The gameplay compared the parallels between the lives of the folks living in each; the "parallels" metaphor was intensified by the fact that there was no further contact between the Forbidden Zone residents and those in Bluewater after college.

The Forbidden Zone had alien technologies, but everything was quite run-down (graffiti and abandoned buildings ) and dangerous (only a few careers available, and anyone leaving the house on a given day had a die-roll chance of death and/or money loss). Bluewater Village was largely an idyllic existence, except that some denizens (those who didn't graduate with honors) had a period of compulsory military service, which also could result in death or disability. But nonmilitary sims there were safe, encouraged to own businesses and have babies.

I enjoyed that hood for quite some time, but eventually came to feel that all the random death in Vatican Reach was a bit much for me, even though explained by an overarching war plot. in my current UC game, I play the megahood. I kept and expanded on the BACC feel, and I guess the story is more of how households who need things get what they need from other households who have those things to trade, and the entire hood comes up together that way. I am happier with it; I guess it fits my personal philosophies better! I'm finding that for me, less of a set hood story allows for more character discovery, creating a kind of drama that I prefer.

Hiding the details by which I run my current hood under spoiler buttons because they're long and because you did ask for a "story," which you may not think applies to what I do now.







Whew. Hope that helps!
Mad Poster
#4 Old 2nd May 2016 at 6:47 PM
I've used Pleasantville as my "storyhood" since 2008, maybe even before, and on two different computers (my new laptop unfortunately does not want to run it - not sure why). I've redone it several times, moving houses around and such. I have considered starting over, but I have a huge collection of sims in there, so I've put it off. In a weird way I kinda like the hood as it is, even if it could need a bit of fixing and sifting out simmies.
Alchemist
#5 Old 2nd May 2016 at 10:14 PM
post #2, "half a sim year" is vague. different players might have different opinions on what a whole sim year would be.

original post, I guess "months" and "years" are according to our world.

in past times playing, base game's shipped version neighborhoods were the ones I played most frequently.
I do not remember the amount of time I spent in any neighborhood.
there was one custom neighborhood I spent more time in than other custom neighborhoods. I named it Death Raising; and used the template named Viper Canyon to create it. created a central residential lot and turned it into a graveyard with custom made sims; all those households had Toddler survivors and some had Child survivors. by "central" I mean both neighborhood location and neighborhood theme; the survivors were going to be adopted by copies of pre-made households.
Needs Coffee
retired moderator
#6 Old 2nd May 2016 at 11:31 PM
I think a big part is how the hood looks both in hood view and lot view.

Second is have many things to look forward to. There were many sims and buildings that I left out with certain jobs and shops that I can look forward to placing at some point. I did a hood before with everything and it took so long to go through a rotation and it had everything that it left little to look forward to.

My hood is a community because not only because of the cohesive look (it's a sea side town you won't find any sky scrappers or other things that don't belong.) but because every sim there has a role to play. To run properly a town needs certain things, so I started off thinking what does every small town have? And what might it have after the basics? So I made sure it had a hotel/pub because here in Australia even most hiccup towns as we call it have a pub. Then it needed a police officer, but it's a tiny place so he got a tiny live in station and one cop car. Then I figured they needed a fire station, again rural towns sometimes just have a bush brigade but I put in one firey and his small house/station. Of course it needed some fishermen seeing it's a seaside town known for it's seafood, a farm since people need to eat other things, and they opened a small grocery store. Then I thought a small church and shortly after a small school. Each roll/business in the community is run by playable sims. Everything is connected. My fishermen opened a fish shop and often get a supply of fish from my plant sim farmer. he has nothing better to do all night but fish under a sun lamp. The farmers need the money since farming takes a lot of money. The town also needed a DR since in an emergency getting to a larger town could be dangerous. So in went a clinic/house. All my sims interact and even now that gen 1 have grown up and are having kids most sims still know everybody just like small towns do, but now I have extra sism and more opportunity for things to open. One has opened a pet shop and I have a vet open a animal clinic, another opened the baby shop, another a day care. They don't just live together they use the services/items that each other produce.

My hood doesn't really have a story as such although individuals do.

"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives." - Unknown
~Call me Jo~
Field Researcher
#7 Old 3rd May 2016 at 2:50 AM Last edited by klapaucius : 3rd May 2016 at 6:45 AM. Reason: cant spel gud
I'm in the process of starting a new hood at the moment, and one of the most important things to me is my need to have the back story of each Sim clearly defined. I can't just plonk down a house and Sims and start playing - I need to know WHY they are there. My new hood is filled with the Stealth Bin Sims (Cyd Roseland, the Newsons, Julien Cooke, the Ramaswami family etc.) and honestly, coming up with a back story for each family has been almost as time-consuming as building the houses. There's only so many times I can get away with "So-and-so inherited a house from a distant relative" as a legitimate reason why this particular Sim has moved in. Then, when I'm playing and I want these families to meet and develop relationships, it's not enough for me to have them just happen to wander past and strike up a conversation - for example, if I want Cyd Roseland and Tara Kat to get together, where would they meet? Tara strikes me as a homebody, so not likely to meet a guy in a club or bar. In this case, Cyd is the new vet in Margaritaville (he left his old town and vet practice after his relationship with Mystery Sim broke up) and I've decided he'd likely meet Tara when she came in to get her new kitty vaccinated.

None of these events ever actually get played out - in the game Cyd goes to work with the carpool and there is no physical vet clinic in my hood - but in my mind, that's what happened. And I do this for every family - nobody lives in my hood without a reason why they're there. I thnk this is why I've always preferred playing the pre-mades, because it's easier to believe that they had an entire life, filled with experiences, and I just happened to be playing them from this point on, compared to CAS Sims, who are more obviously freshly minted and without any background at all.

The same rule about back story applies to the actual hood, too - what happened to this town before my people got there? Were there any natural disasters, did they lose a lot of people to war, why are the streets named the way they are, and so on. I have notebooks to keep track of all these stories, both of the hood and the Sims, and I find it makes gameplay so much more satisfying and enjoyable for me.
Instructor
Original Poster
#8 Old 4th May 2016 at 7:39 AM Last edited by TychoH : 4th May 2016 at 8:05 AM.
Thanks for answering.

The last days I've been thinking. About your answers, about the 'hoods I created the last months, and I realised I already had what I wanted. Because my latest hood has a background story (the main family moved to a small islands because the big city was too big), Sims who were born there for a rason (they are family Sims and have about 13 kids), and different story lines (for example, someone is cheating on her husband with one of her brothers-in-law). I think I just needed a little break from it, because now I see that I really like that family I only don't like that the 'hood is so empty (4 homes, no 'hood decoration). That's gonna change.

Thanks for making me realise this.
Mad Poster
#9 Old 4th May 2016 at 12:54 PM
I'm definitely a long-term player. I've been playing Veronaville ever since I first started up the game. (I play other 'hoods as well, but Veronaville stays my first love.) But it's hard to say what the story of Veronaville is. There's the original Maxis story; the old Monty - Capp feud occasionally flares up, but today it's largely a thing of the past, because nobody's got much interest in keeping it going. The Summerdreams in their palatial mansion are partially integrated, but remain a bit detached from the rest of the community, a family of fairies in a rather down-to-earth neighbourhood. There are the newcomers (CAS Sims) who have moved in, mainly because they see Veronaville as a good place to live. There's the story of how Downtown Veronaville has become a centre of gay culture, to such an extent that "straights" are in the minority there. There's the story of how, with the backing of the town council, Veronaville is trying to establish itself as a centre of the fashion industry. There is the story of the establishment of a Christian parish church, and the difference it's ministry is making in the community.

What there undoubtedly is, is a strong sense of civic pride. Veronavillians are proud of their town and resent the bad reputation it has had in the past. The belief that tomorrow's Veronaville can be better than today's is widespread.

But for the most part, Veronaville's citizens, both families and individuals, are going about their day-to-day lives, and dealing with their own challenges, problems and opportunities. There's not so much one story as a mass of intertwined stories. Perhaps that's what makes a great town.

When it comes to what keeps me playing Veronaville, and stops me getting bored, I think I've just answered that in Florenztina's thread. Playing my Sims long-term, I've got to know them well as individuals, and, as I've grown to know them, I've come to care about them and even love them. After a few weeks not playing Veronaville, I long to meet up with them and see how they're doing. I'd find it very hard to accept a future in which I never saw Andrew or Gloria again.

All Sims are beautiful -- even the ugly ones.
My Simblr ~~ My LJ
Sims' lives matter!
The Veronaville kids are alright.
Top Secret Researcher
#10 Old 4th May 2016 at 4:55 PM
Not really advice or anything but I think with time it all just fell into place.

I started with two sims in college, then added a few college sims that I liked while I playing the two sims. They graduated and afterwards I added a few more couples/families and then over time they grew and expanded and intermarried and now after several generations there's just all this history between families that its hard not to feel intertwined with everyone.

My hood was awkward at first but then I had no choice but to add more homes since it was growing so fast. Now its a full blown neighborhood, may not be as pretty or organized or as cohesive as others but its still a community!
Mad Poster
#11 Old 4th May 2016 at 7:32 PM
I like to start with at least 12 Sims - one for each star sign. (I play a hood named Kipling now, which I started with 16 Sims and some townies - it is a military hood and they are there to build a new radar station, so all of them are in the military). I will be adding a business hood later, as well as a farming hood, and when they grow old, a retirement hood. The first graduates will move into the Young Professionals hood, but some may return to their parents' homes, or go to live in those homes when the parents retire and move to the retirement hood (or die).
First hood - 4 and a half years, unmodded, unpatched - blew up eventually.
Second hood - bin Sims only - backed up for later.
Third hood - overpopulated, backed up - that took less than a year.
I lost two other hoods over time
The hood becomes a community when each Sim has a role to play and when they connect. Lots of visits to community lots are what is needed. And a community, if successful, grows in time, so provision has to made for that.
Field Researcher
#12 Old 4th May 2016 at 8:59 PM
Same with what several others have said, I've had so many 'Chris and his/her family just moved to (neighborhood), will they make friends and influence people?' types that I start to think of why someone would want to live in any of the built-in neighborhoods or any of them I've downloaded. Too many families and lots later, Sedona could become a desert Belladonna Cove in no time for example.

I tend to start my own neighborhood if creating a family that wants to live in the middle of nowhere, even though that isn't what Sims games are about. And these only tend to be alright for a generation or two unless making good use of adoptions, safe NPCs, or adding Townies.
To be honest, Pleasantview always seemed like a 'get off my lawn' sort of place, since so many of them are as dissimilar as possible for the base game. Belladonna Cove seemed more like a place for young urban types and singles, given it came with Apartment Life and added a lot of 'urban' things to the game. Ditto with Downtown.

I've also applied this to as much as opening "Create a Sim" since I sometimes come up with more family members than I originally intended to add in that family. ("Whoah this random Sim is cute! OK, I have to keep them even though they don't even look anything like anyone else!")
Mad Poster
#13 Old 4th May 2016 at 11:25 PM
Backstories generate in me apparently spontaneously, as maggots were once thought to generate spontaneously in spoiling meat. But of course there has to be an egg.

I came up with the backstory of Drama Acres to explain why no one had any skill points but the kids would have $20K when they started their own households. Truth is they had plenty of skill points - just not any that were relevant to the modern world. See, this mining company had kept a townfull of miners in a secret company town, enslaved, for generations; only when a huge mining disaster wiped the place out did some worker families escape and the world at large became aware of what had been going on. My six starting families were the sole survivors, and the mining executives were all in jail. The Drama Acres map used to be owned by the mining company but is now the property of its surviving victims, managed in a holding company that sells off lots for development and banks the proceeds for their benefit. This goes into scholarships, death benefits, and of course the $20K handout. And then I sent their teens to college, where the premades were all trust fund babies (hence their $20K), and moved in the Newsons and Ottomai so their kids could have people to play with, and - well it all snowballed. Later I brought in some simmigrant families whose lack of skillpoints were due to their being from other countries and to represent having to learn how to get along in the new society with a new language.

In Strangetown, the backstory is implied, but many of the characters refused to play the roles it assigned them - Loki and Circe were not remotely interested in torturing Nervous when they could be making babies together! So I rewrote the backstory to suit - it was Loki's parents who tortured Nervous, and I developed a pretty detailed history of the Secret War in which General Buzz, though not exactly a hero, was not a villain either and a lot of things that don't match up are forced to make sense.

In the GS Uberhood, I'm carrying out a challenge, and the backstory sets up the parameters within which the absurd rules of the challenge (an Uberhood Challenge, with a sim required to get a baby with one premade from each hood) could reasonably play out, one in which the Idealistic Conservatives are in charge trying to legislate morality and sim nature busts out all over. It's sometimes traumatic, but at every stage I have managed to find some way to fill the requirements of the challenge and keep my protagonist sympathetic.

For me, the important thing to retain interest is to engage with the characters, and the backstories help me do that by filling in missing details. Ask yourself questions about them. Why don't the CAS sims have skill points? Where did they come from? Why do they have the aspirations they do? Why those LTWs? LTWs are generic - they represent something beyond the bare fact of becoming Chief of Staff or getting fifty first dates. So what is the deeper motivation, the experience that set up the LTW?

I have to have a full, diverse population, too - none of these all-adult landscapes in which everyone ages in lockstep. My six starting families in Drama Acres were of varied sizes and ages (though I did not include any elders, an oversight I fixed when I made Widespot!), representing all the aspritations As I played them I worked out who was related to who and made it so in SimPE. The Newsons weren't part of the old mining town, but their adoptive parents were journalists who died covering the disaster.The backstory was not a static entity - it was broad strokes that have filled in over time. I know all about the arranged marriages, the inbreeding, and the Unobtainium poisoning now; I didn't to start with. Leave yourself room for Better Ideas. Be flexible. Make it real to yourself, emotionally.

Ugly is in the heart of the beholder.
(My simblr isSim Media Res . Widespot,Widespot RFD: The Subhood, and Land Grant University are all available here. In case you care.)
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