There's another custom neighbourhood available for download here at MTS! Meadow Creek, an inhabited basegame neighbourhood, has been uploaded :-)

I downloaded it earlier today and have started checking out the families and making over lots and sims before I start playing. I wanted a place to share my stories about the 'hood when I get started, hence this thread :-) I hope that other people will share their Meadow Creek adventures too!

As does everyone who has contributed! I still haven't loaded the finished product and played it; nor do I know when I'll get to it, because the thing is massive, and there's one house that I'll have to do horrible things to before I even play it, because my balance issues simply don't allow me to play the game at the angle necessary to view basements. It's an ingenious house and I can only mess it up.

I suggest you play and study the Military Friends and Harris households before making them over, because they're little gems of efficiency. Each change in each of them will have cascading effects. And in one of them, change is coming fast!

I won't be making over the majority of the houses. Just the Blair house, because although it's really cool (and I couldn't for the life of me figure out how the creator made the swimming pool look like that!) I just can't cope with basements. I didn't change it much - just removed the swimming pool and the stairs down to the basement and added some extra bedrooms instead of two of the terraces on the first floor (second floor, I think, for Americans - the one that's one up from the ground). I doubt that I'll change much in the other properties, beyond a few purely cosmetic changes if there are any overly patterned carpets because my brain can't cope with them. Stupid brain.

I will be making over all of the community lots, though. The Green Gnome is now a restaurant/diner, owned by Felicity Blair, and the community centre will become a library. The grocery store will remain a shop, but the clothes shop may become something else. Not sure what yet, though! Maybe a small community college.

Time to go check out the County family! :-)

Well, just remember when you look at their lot, the house is supposed to be a bit of a hot mess! I was surprised how well the bathrooms playtested, though.

I'm setting up the hood right now. I added a university, downtown, and the vacation hoods, and started on rebuilding the Blair lot. I hate trying to get into basements to see what a Sim is doing, so I usually get rid of all basements. I have seasons so I'll see if I need to weather proof the other houses.

Now see, I like basements. I know what I'm doing when I finish downloading all the Plasticbox houses. (Why hadn't I before? Because they mostly require NL, and that was the very last expansion I got, and by the time I got it they weren't up front on the site anymore. On page 20, wish me fast downloading speeds!)

Weatherproofing should not be necessary - we were all looking for things like that. If you look at the houses, some of them have room deliberately left for driveways, gardens, and other things you only get in later EPs.

I'm glad to know somebody will get to use that clever basement!

Definitely going to play this hood - thanks to all of you who made it

Not that I got to the house with the basement last night. I hit a family of ten and stopped right there! (Some of you are surely aware of my liking for big families. I'm typing this, right now, with my two little girls 'helping'.)

So, the Military Friends family. Amusingly, both men rolled turn-ons for black hair, and both wives have black hair. But while Mary Ellen shares one bolt with each man, George and Pauline have three together. (This would be the dad of the one girls and the mom of the boys, for those reading and unclear about who I'm writing about.) Those six kids are lucky I'm not one of the players who breaks up marriages when a spouse meets a three-bolt partner--so far the two couples have been loyal.

Things were pretty naturally chaotic, George and half the kids wanted a telescope, so I put it in the middle of the roses, where it can't actually be used. This is good, as Pauline wants to spend the day spying on neighbors.

Sirius Stahr and the Goodwins made up the welcome wagon. Sirius has two bolts with both ladies, the Goodwins escaped to the chess table until it was time to go home.

While John's first priority was kissing Pauline, George's was getting the girls into private school. This they did on the second day, with John, as a pop sim with the top perk, doing the honors. Pauline made Holiday Roast for the dinner, and all six kids got in easily. Candice (?) the oldest of the children grew up in the middle of all that, in just a sliver of green. Between her fairly balanced personality and the fact that she just wasn't doing well aspirationally in the middle of that household, I let her become a romance sim. She'd like to meet a creative guy with brown hair, and has a LTW of the slacker career. Daddy wants her to get a scholarship. He brought home a promotion, so finances look okay.

Neither of the mom's want to get a job or anything much. They want cooking and cleaning skill points, but are high enough in both of those that only Mary Ellen has achieved them. They both want babies, but so far, no luck. Pauline's LTW is six grandkids, Mary Ellen's is Golden Anniversary, or maybe it's the other way around. John wants five top level businesses, George wants to be an architect. Nope! Not in this incarnation, anyway.

I was amused to find out that Sims can "recite poetry." (I re-built the house and included the microphone to help give creativity points.) After Jack and Felicity Blair got done with ACR woohoo Jack autonomously went to the microphone and started to recite poetry. I got Felicity back into her clothes before she went outside so she wouldn't stargaze naked. Felicity has a want for a baby, but they haven't ACR tried for baby. No baby chimes the whole time I played the household, and the twins became children.

Edit to add:

I remodeled the Wilson house so it was easier to deal with the babies (put two nurseries near the kitchen, I don't like having babies' rooms upstairs because of the trek to and from the fridge) and played the household until the quads were toddlers (it comes with quad babies, I don't have TwoJeff's trips and quad mod). I am not going to like that house hold the next rotation trying to get the quads to children.

I split the Military Friends household because large families personally drive me crazy. Also the children didn't show up in the loading screen properly (it looked like two of the boys were merged until I moved the second family out.) I moved the McClellan (or however its spelled) family into their own house, and remodeled the house for the Mosby's

Thank you so much for downloading Meadow Creek. We'd love to read what you've done with it.

You could put a fridge in the nursery.
Ms. Barrows at TSR did one https://www.thesimsresource.com/dow...dges/id/753884/
(haven't tried this one)
Ellatrue at MATY did one http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/s...ic,10753.0.html
(don't recall if I used this one)
And the one I know I've used in the past, I can't seem to locate. Someone had redone Targa's Suprafidge to allow for only the baby bottle function and get toddler food ... (or am I remembering wrong?)

BoilingOil modded Targa's Suprafidge to only do baby bottles because of a request here: http://www.simbology.com/smf/index....62785#msg162785

I don't remember why I don't put BO's version of the fridge in my nurseries.

I've also been playing Meadow Creek. So far, I've devided up the families in 'old timers' (the families that have lived in Meadow Creek for generations) and 'newcomers' (those families that have just moved there now the developers have gotten their grubby little hands on Meadow Creek). One member of each old timer family serves in the town council, which rules Meadow Creek. So they have all the power - for now. Tension between the old timers and newcomers might play a role in some of the stories I'm going to tell.

I've played the Goodwins (newcomers), Blairs (old timers), Kleins (old timers), Wilsons (newcomers), Stahrr (old timers), and Yangs (newcomers). I still need to play the County family (newcomers), Harris family (old timers) and Military Friends (newcomers). So far, I have tentative storylines for the Wilson family (which will include the Goodwin family), Klein family and the Yang family in mind. Everybody else I am still getting to know and they have to let me know what they're all about.

So far, I'm loving it! I'll be showing what I do with Meadow Creek over on my Tumblr (see link in signature) later today.

I peeped into every household - this hood is adorable Love all the cute kids. Have not really played yet, but I will

Woot!!! I love what you're doing with the Blairs - that's exactly what I had in mind

Thank you so much! I loved playing the Blairs. Big enough to be fun, small enough not to be completely overwhelmed right from the start. (I don't mind big families, but it's always so hard to get to know big families if they're big right from the start.) And there's an interesting story to explore with Todd. Poor thing is gonna end up being diagnosed with SLD (Simblender Learning Disorder).

SLD - love it!!! :D

And I still didn't get to the house with the basement! I clicked on the Countys. "Oh, these are Peni's sims, they'll be interesting!" And they were. Guthrie puttered around being the homemaker. Bear did toddler training for two days before his first night of work (and promotion, of course). The kids were adorable. Guadaloupe kept rolling wants to jump rope. Dade wanted a job so he got one and a promotion, too. Bear wants to earn $1000,000, and Guthrie wants to marry off six kids, but he hasn't rolled an adopt want for another yet. The baby, what is it, Marin? got to walking and talking.

The next house I clicked on was the Wilsons, where contrary to his bio Sebastian is terrified of falling out of love with Tiffany. Diapers are less scary than falling out of love. So, she hired a nanny for when she was at work, so he wouldn't have to worry about diapers and baby feeding and stuff, and then he got a job in art. Then they went on a date and went to the clothing store and got their public woohoo. Well, the next day he got promoted and she got fired. She promptly wanted a new job, so got one in politics. Hey, it must be an election year, they'll take anyone! Then it was time to grow up the quads, the nanny came wandering in for no good reason, and between trying to get rid of the nanny and grow up four kids, it was a moment before I got it.

And now I just want to know how did you guys do that? That's so cool!

Did what exactly?

I don't want to spoil the surprise for other players. Grow up the Wilson quads, you'll see.

I got to play a bit with the Blairs. That is a very cool basement. Daddy Blair (didn't get his name down) is dead set on teaching Little Boy Blair to walk. Danielle threw a sports party and planted a first kiss on Dade County right at the front door when her friends arrived. My husband got a new job and bought me a video card so I jumped over to my very cc heavy medieval game to test it out, so I'll get back to the Blairs next time I play.

Not much love for this thread, alas. But I am really enjoying this hood!

Finishing up the first week. Here is the more interesting news:

Blair: Danielle is racking up friends, and had her first kiss with Dade, but I'm using ACR's friend zone to keep all the young teens fairly innocent. Once they are halfway through teen-hood I'll lift the friend zone and let them have ACR autonomy, get jobs, drive, etc. Something new I'm trying with this hood. Danielle did throw a party on Saturday, and of course it was a success! The twins are in school, and Jack and Felicity are expecting another baby.

Goodwin: Alice Goodwin has added both Sebastian and Carlos to her conquests. She is now pregnant, and I know who the father is, but it could be Melvin, Sebastian, or Carlos. Alice got a job right before she began showing, just for the maternity pay. Melvin is employed in the criminal career, and doing pretty well. He has no clue about Alice's activities while he's at work.

Harris: The new baby's name is Owen. I haven't really connected much with this family yet, I must say. But they spent nearly all their money remodeling the house for more bedrooms and some minor changes to the overall layout.

Klein: I retconned this family a bit - made it a matriarchy with Constanze being the one who inherited the farm. Therefore, when Carlos married Shelly, he took the Klein name instead. Both the babies are born, named Karl (Marvin and Daiki's - I think I'll rename him something else, though) and Stanzie (Shelly and Carlos's). Carlos cheated on Shelly with Alice, but she doesn't know anything about it. I figure considering how quickly they got together, it might be understandable that he'd stray. The family has started their garden/farm, but most of them also have other jobs. Once they have a bit more of a kitty in the household funds, I'll focus more on the farm.

Military Friends: They're still together, but I gotta say, all those sims in that tiny house is very challenging! I used the Pets EP floor dividers and Uni no-privacy showers to greatly increase bathroom potential, but it's really tough! Mr. McClellan and Mrs. Mosby have excellent chemistry, and I'm pondering some way of encouraging some havoc with it. Candice, Cindy and James are all teens, all the sprog have learned to study, and are getting good grades. I don't think many of them will get scholarships, though.

Starrh: This family's beginning to grow on me. I aborted Sirius's alien baby and re-impregnated him so that the child's alien parent would be from a multi-PT set. Sirius and Stella seem completely uninterested in each other in a romantic way, and don't seem too interested in Rigel, either. About the most interest Sirius has shown towards Rigel is wanting him to get into private school, which I did after Stella had given birth and Sirius was near term, exhausted and starving. What can I say, I am pro with headmaster visits, even though it's been ages since I've done one! The babies' names are Celestia (human) and Nash (half-alien).

Wilson: I retconned this one a tad and changed the woohoo memories so Sebastian knocked up Tiffany and only married her because she was pregnant. Sebastian cheated on Tiffany with Alice Goodwin, right in front of Tiffany. So, they're not getting along at all, but Tiffany is afraid to break up with him, and he wants to fall back in love with her. So he is staying with her, because he feels guilty for knocking her up and saddling her with 4 babies, and then so flagrantly cheating on her. I just can't make him completely heartless. Now that the quads are toddlers, I think I'll have to reinstall the toddler blanket and endless bottle. I can manage 2 toddlers easily without CC objects, but 4 - I need help!

Yang: Kristina got fired on her second day of work in the dance career, thanks to a chance card. But she got right back on the horse and is trying out the slacker career. Parker rolls lots of food-related wants, even though it's not his hobby, and he has very little interest in cuisine. I may need to cheat for him to have it as a hobby. The kids - not too much to report. All the neighborhood children and teens are forming friendships, though.

County: Lots of fun to play, and Medina is so cute as a child! I like all the sims in this household, but the children are not really connecting with each other too well. Which is actually quite interesting, when you consider that they're all adopted. I play my households alphabetically, but I had to save the most exciting news for last, because look who got abducted!!! Another little County is on the way!

I absolutely, positively love Meadow Creek and have invested several very enjoyable hours ( not all at one go!) playing each of the households and setting up a rotation schedule.

The homes are (in my opinion) all very well done and add a lot of variety to game play.

After playing my way through town I have ended up focusing on the County family. The two oldest children have graduated from Brainania U, thier adoptive parents are nearing elder hood and have, over the years, remodeled the entire downstairs of thier barn home as well as the upstairs. In addition their bit of land has been made into a small organic farm ( vegetables, apple orchard, flowers and fresh caught fish).

Yes, I know I'm adding to a year-old thread and since this is a Hood Building Group neighborhood I could simply make a quick "thanks" post.

Wanted to give another neighborhood a try and downloaded Meadow Creek. Thus far have only played the Kleins and discovered I should get some baby names ready. Shelley and Carlos got married and found jobs rather quickly, both of them in business, so everyone decides that Carlos isn't so bad after all. They all have a turkey dinner that night to get to know each other.

Also, despite the shear number of kids (looks like a neighborhood I'd create through too much "try for baby"), I decided to add my own family, the Jones, four people total who are actually two families that decided to move to the neighborhood/town together. Guess I'll see if that changes any of the neighborhood dynamics over time.

I don't think the necromancy rules apply in quite the same way for neighbourhood discussion threads since people keep downloading and playing them (and enjoying them). I'm pretty sure others like to get updates every now and again (not least the people who made them in the first place ).