I'd be very much interested in playing it in challenge mode - it would resemble Sims Castaway Stories in a way. By your description, it would fuse the linearity of Castaway Stories through storytelling and discoveries about the world, and the non-linearity of World Adventures tombs, where the player wouldn't be taught what to do every step of the challenge, but rather figure things out on their own? If so, I think exiting the game to find additional information, background stories and keys required to advance the challenge would be a fantastic addition.

Perhaps not much so for players with low-end computers, but a world this big isn't really suited for such machines anyway.

The world looks wonderful!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I really like the idea of the challenge but if I have to go in and out of the game constantly that will drive me nuts. If there is external information that we can print out and refer to that would work for me. We can follow what is there as we play along. I do that with game walkthroughs so do not have to go back and forth and back and forth and..........

This is all very exciting news! Thank you for the update!

Je suis extrêmement intéressée. Si il y a une liste d'inscription, je me note !

Please post in english or provide an english traslation when posting on this site.

Thanks for all your comments and insight! I'm glad that you like the idea and that you are interested Let me reply to your questions and comment on some of the things you mention:

@jje1000, these are all important things to consider, thanks for taking the time to put all this together, it's very helpful!


This will be definitely a narrative challenge, so much closer to the WA worlds than to the Midnight Sun Challenge. All players will end up in the same place and go through the same events of the same story, so no open ending here. Maybe at some points there might be small deviations if it's interesting, realistic and easy enough to do, but they will take you shortly back to the same track as everybody else. It will be about following a story rather than making your own, so yes, active storytelling and quests, as you say. It could also be described as a role playing challenge in a life simulation game.


Yes, that's it! We'll include as much as possible in-game, but there will still be a website, at least to host the download page of the world, the general instructions for the challenge and a guide on how to set up your game before you start playing, plus useful links, pictures and information for those who want to learn more. I also thought about making a map


The .sims3pack world file will be unpopulated, and the populated version prepared for the challenge will be uploaded as a save file.


World Adventures, Ambitions, Late Night (just for a few objects), Showtime, Supernatural, Seasons and Island Paradise. No SPs or Store content.


Maybe you’re referring to the Traveler mod? It won’t be necessary, you will play the challenge in Uranesia as a “home” world, so no limit of days to complete it. The length will depend on how fast each player's progress is. So story progression will need to be turned off to stop sims from ageing, doing crazy stuff and messing up everything.


We’ll use NRAAS to prepare the save file but very likely the players will also need to download some mods to control some options. About NPCs, we’re planning to have a pool of custom NPCs so that the game uses them when necessary.


Exactly!


This is what we are trying to figure out at the moment so I can’t give a detailed answer. The tomb objects and mechanisms from WA will be useful in different ways, not only for actual tombs. I will also use recolored inscriptions and images to convey useful information, and I think there should be some other ways but probably not a lot more.


None of these creatures will be included in the population. Zombies will still pop up automatically, unfortunately, so, since it seems like they can be disabled with NRAAS Returner, that will be mentioned in the guide for setting up the game.


Probably there are, but for this challenge I don’t think it will be necessary to make the default basic conditions of the game more challenging or limited, since it won’t really feature survival elements or this sort of hardships. About the other questions, some of these additions would be nice, like blocking the cellphone or a custom UI, but since that’s a lot of work and doesn’t really affect the active storytelling playing aspect we won’t change it ourselves. However if someone wants to do it be our guest! Limiting the build-buy options won’t be necessary because the challenge won’t require you to go into the buy-build mode. We did say that it would be nice to edit the titles of the books that you can buy at the registers so that they are suitable for Uranesia. But in general, if it’s stuff that doesn’t directly impact the authenticity of what is featured in the story and the lore, we’re not really planning to mod it.

About the questions from the second list, I think my responses and comments so far answer them too. I’ll just say that the NPC outfit editor looks like it could be useful, thanks for the link!

@topp, I never really played the Sims Castaway Stories, but that sounds a bit like it!


Yes! There will be instructions but they will not always be straightforward. You’ll have to put yourself in the protagonist’s shoes and figure out what to do in some situations with the information you have at the moment.


This is probably the biggest problem for the challenge and just playing in general. Even though the world is not as big as it looks, it is very detailed and that means that not all computers can run it comfortably. The world was always meant to be big, but still I’ll try to make is as accessible as possible.

@daisylee

This is a very valid concern. All the information that needs to be external will be hosted on the Uranesia webpage, and it will be organized and easy to access and navigate, but I’ll also provide the same information as PDFs (as somebody suggested on tumblr) so it can be printed or accessed without Internet connection. Another option would be checking the webpage from a cellphone or another device so you don’t need to minimize the game. In any case, the challenge/story will probably be divided in chapters, and I’ll try to avoid mixing in-game and external info during the chapters, trying to concentrate everything in two differentiated parts. You’ll probably won’t play a lot chapters in one (real life) day, so the going back and forth will be minimal

@doctorimu, at the moment there is no such thing because the testing period is still far, so stay tuned for news in future updates!

Hum, I am sorry, I touhgt the automatic traduction was in two direction. I said I ma very interested to test the challenge of Uranesia. It's a wonderful world ; my favorite.

There is a mod for that
https://www.nexusmods.com/thesims3/mods/107/?

It's really a wonderful, magic world. You are the best !

@Nilxis :

Just like everyone else in this thread I am totally amazed by this world and the idea of a related challenge. It is such a huge project and it is already inspiring to see someone putting so much work and dedication in it over so many years. I would love to play in this world and I don't care about how much info needs to be retrieved from external sources for that Thank you so much for all the wonderful moments you've created for all of us over the last years and thank you in advance for this beautiful creation.

By reading through the first post again, I realized that you've specified that Showtime is needed as EP for this world. Unfortunately this is the one out of two EPs I've skipped until now, because I just don't like the content... and it is getting difficult to get EPs for a fair amount of money nowadays (actually I don't want to pay 40 Euros for a game expansion that is as old as Showtime and that is the current price when you go the straight forward Origin approach ) So I thought I could carefully ask how important Showtime is for the world and the challenge to work...? If you need to get this genie lamp from a magician playing dominoes to pass chapter 3 of the story... well than I'll have to get my stuff together and buy this EP. But if it is only for some really pretty trees or some inhabitants will be mad at me for not having a chin-up bar in the gym So If you can give me a hint on how important it is to fetch this EP, I will be very grateful.

I'm so amazed by this world.
The creativity is just mindblowing, not to mention the passion and commitment.
I'm looking forward to playing this world so much!

Your questions, if player/admirer input is still need:

Will you be interested in playing the challenge?
What do you think about the interactive story + exploring + quests format?
Oh yes, very much!
I love World Adventures and I always wanted there to be more adventure worlds with quests, so this format is very interesting to me!

But I also appreciate that the world file will be empty, because I wonder if the world will be playable at all without the save file?
Would I be able to move in my own sims and build in this world without having major part of it unavailable because it is set up to work as a challenge with the save file?

How would you feel about playing this challenge if, because of the game's restrictions, the in-game part has to be combined with getting information from an external web page, and thus going back and forth between the game and this page throughout the challenge to get all the information and follow the story?
I wouldn't mind that at all, I already use my phone and tablet to look up all kinds of things relating to Sims while I play.
I would of course want the major part of all the information to be in game, but I'm well aware of the game's restrictions and I wouldn't want to miss out on in-depth gameplay/lore just because of this.
I also really like that there will be a site with information on how to set up the game to best present the challenge. I'm a big friend of game-changing mods, so it is not a problem for me to need to download something specific for this world.

Looking forward to the next update!

• Will you be interested in playing the challenge?
-- Okay, but maybe we can also have a free playing version.

• What do you think about the interactive story + exploring + quests format?
-- I think it's ok if I can finish everything in some short playing sessions. For EP1:WA I activated testingcheatsenabled, etc all the time to prevent motives decay and teleport, when playing a new save game I don't want to repeat everything all over again.. I really appreciate all the scripted/RPG elements but I know I will end up mostly just enjoying the view around or making some new buildings with Store content, sometimes finding something new when walking around is cool too, some remote ruins there aren't really that hidden I think and we can easily check if one lot have a hidden basement so maybe you could leave some hidden gems like that.. Naturally when we are searching for collectibles spawner or buying things we will explore many spots too ^^

• How would you feel about playing this challenge if, because of the game's restrictions, the in-game part has to be combined with getting information from an external web page, and thus going back and forth between the game and this page throughout the challenge to get all the information and follow the story? You would still end up spending most of the time in-game, but we are afraid that taking players out of the game might disencourage some people
-- It's fine, we can use our phone or tablet to check that while playing.

@Smyrrna, sorry for the late reply! I haven't used a lot from Showtime, it's one of the least used EPs from the bunch along with Late Night and maybe Seasons. Here's an approximate visual guide about which objects I have used and how much:



When it comes to lot types, I think Uranesia only includes the live show venue (at the theater), and I think there's some clothing items too but @FuruFuruu will be able to tell you better. In regards to the challenge, at the moment I can't think of any key moment or mission that will require a Showtime interaction, like meeting or playing with a genie, but I can't tell 100% for sure. So, yes it's one of the least used EPs in comparison to WA or IP for example, however I'd still recommend that you get it for the full experience. Also I'm not sure how your computer would be able to handle the world without it, it depends on how powerful it is. Some people might some others might not. But if you get it please don't rush! Probably it will be much cheaper by the time the world is finished


Yay, good to hear that!

@Eehna, thanks for the positive feedback and glad to see you wouldn't mind those restrictions

The savefile will be optional and the world will work just fine without it, it will just be unpopulated and not suited for the challenge. I encourage everyone to play the challenge first with the savefile, and then you can remove it and play other types of gameplay if you want.

@Valgon57, good to see you're flexible about this too!

Since the challenge won't have a specific duration or time limit, you can "pause" it whenever you want and then go back to where you were, without having to start all over again. It's a bit like reading a book, just remember where your bookmark is. And if, while playing the challenge, you want to "freestyle" a little bit and do other things, you can do that too. Just be careful because if you go to certain places you might find spoilers, and I wouldn't recommend messing with the buildings either for this reason. Again, just like if you were reading a book and you're in chapter 4 and then you want to jump to chapter 9 or start drawing on chapter 10's pages, do it at your own risk

Yeah sometimes we find a flashback or spoiler-y part in a story

Is there any chance you can upload The Medieval Career Replacements by Inga again. I can't find it anywhere

@Nilxis Any new info? ^^
Can't wait to explore Uranesia..

Hey @Valgon57, thanks for the interest!
I've been quite inactive these past months: I started a side project that was supposed to be quick but it took a long longer than expected (this building), and right after that my computer broke down. I had to get a new one and move all my files there, but now finally everything is set up and I've already started to work on Uranesia again.
I don't know when I'll have more updates but the project is active

@Nilxis
Okay great, thanks for the info

UPDATE TIME!
Happy new year, everyone!
Here's a small update about the changes I've been making in different buildings, especially inside the temples, where I wanted not only to improve the look but also to make the colors, textures, decoration, etc. more representative of the deity/natural element the temple is dedicated to, or its history. Let's see it:



That's all, hope you like it and hope I can post more updates soon!

It is stunning !! You really have an eye for color and shape!

It's amazing !

I wish to run away there and get lost in one of those majestic temples!

Nice update

The story arc might be finished too, can't wait for the release