Where are the Samples?

You see, I keep thinking to myself, “Hey, I’m working on getting the Samples moved into their new home, and I’m not actually playing, so I should be able to use the time to get the blog caught up to the present.

In reality, setting up Avalon has taken every moment I can spare for anything Sims-related, and it’s not going well.

Let me explain. No, it’s too much. Let me sum up.

Avalon as released does not have any lots, and the creator envisioned adding them with the in-game world editing tools. This turns out to be essentially impossible. The in-game world editor is bizarre and flaky. It’s good for putting down a few lots here or there, but not for designing a town that makes any sense.

So the creator ALSO made the Create-A-World source files available. I decided to stop banging my head against the game world editor and just do the logical thing.

Of course, I’m running a Mac, and Create-A-World only runs on PC. So I get access to a PC. Then I discover that I have to reinstall a copy of all my games on Windows 7 so that Create-A-World can access, I don’t know, stuff. So I get a hold of installers for my game and expansions and do that.

And it is beautiful, and I lay all the lots I need for a lovely game.

And then when I installed the new world into my game in order to add the lots, the Map View and Edit Town were black.

Bwuh?

I’ve now tried a half-dozen ways to resolve this, and I am really getting grumpy. Nobody in the vast realms of Google-searchable Sims forums seems to be having this particular problem with Create-A-World. And the creator himself released the lot-free version that does NOT have this problem, so there shouldn’t be a problem with his source files. Heck, I even did a (simpler than it sounds) little trick I read about on ModtheSims to pull the source files back out of the compiled Sims3Pack version of the world that I know works, and when *I* touched those files with CAW, the problem came back.

So it’s me. I’m cursed.

I’m posting about this to the forums to see if anyone who knows the tool better than me can point to whatever button I’m not clicking. If that fails, I am just going to have to abandon the project. I have a fabulous collection of fantasy and historic-themed buildings at this point. I ought to be able to find another world. But this world was so lovely, and I already spent a bunch of time looking for fantasy-themed worlds and not finding anything useful.

Bah.

To make things worse, the Samples in Sunset Valley have seriously destabilized. I had to give up on throwing the triplets a birthday party because the game crashed 5 times in succession when I tried, and it still crashed once more before all three kids were teens (I was saving after each age-up :-p). I have got to move them someplace, and now. At this point, with Supernatural on its way in another week, it might be logical to just go there after all. I’ll see how things are in another week.

In the meantime, I’ve fallen behind on some of my reading, so don’t worry that I might have gotten bored with your legacy!

0 thoughts on “Where are the Samples?

  1. Oh no, that's such a shame. Avalon looked really lovely. I'm sorry that you're having so much trouble. If it would help, I did see a medieval type world a few days ago. I didn't download it, so I don't know how well it works, but I can find you the link if you'd like.

    I hope you manage to figure out a good solution to your problems.

  2. Actually, I've just done a quick search, I've found a couple of worlds that at least look non-industrial if you want links – even if you don't I think I'll be downloading some of these.

  3. The best I've found so far are:
    Misty Valley (http://www.thesims3.com/assetDetail.html?assetId=5088549#) – very large, heaps of completely empty, pre-placed lots, plenty of spawners. The creator has a video showing it off here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0euygtC4hA&context=C38e430fADOEgsToPDskJBz9-9FUsUdwBntZgh6SBX) and if I had to describe it I would say "lovingly created".
    Roseninsel (http://www.janas-creatives.de/blog/?page_id=230) Rose Island. The lot names are entirely in German, but I'm already around halfway through translating it with the help of google translate. I quite like this one, it comes with a number of houses and community lots.

    There's another one that I haven't downloaded – desertquest (http://calinselene.wordpress.com/desertquest-world-unpopulated-with-lots/) I have no idea if it's any good or not. I think that these can all run without Pets (you don't have that, right?)

  4. Wow, I hadn't heard of either of these.

    I went back and looked at a couple I'd considered previously but couldn't install, presumably because I didn't have enough expansions. Now I have more expansions. Of those, I'm considering Zukutra http://www.janas-creatives.de/blog/?p=5081, which is a charming world half-fantasy and half mundane. Rose Island is adorable, and it looks like it's by the same creator, or at least it's on the same blog — I'm using Google to translate the pages, so I'm not sure the purpose of the blog :).

    I'm installing Rose Island presently to compare it to Zukutra. I'm also looking at Charlton Island, which isn't at all fantasy, but it's lovely from the pictures. I'm probably going to wipe out most of the lots and put down the stuff I already picked out anyway.

    I'm kind of attached to a lush setting, so I don't think DesertQuest will be the right feel. Now that I think more, I really don't want a large world. Avalon was a small map, and I was looking forward to seeing if that would improve my game performance.

  5. Zukutra does look lovely. I didn't suggest it because I thought you said somewhere that you didn't have Pets (which I think is "simply beastly" that we keep seeing on the translated pages).

    What expansions do you have?

    I've finished translating Rose Island, so I do plan to install some more community lots later (it doesn't have career lots (except a stadium?) or most rabbit holes). If you decide that you want it I can send you the save game, or my notes to make it easier.

    My absolute favourite neighbourhood I've gotten lately is Storybrook County. It's exactly the sort of neighbourhood I've been looking for for months. And it's almost up to the standard I consider playable (every sort of lot ever!).

    DragonWife – I love custom worlds, but they have an awkward tendency to destroy my game in a fireball of pain and confusion. Thankfully, this lot have all installed without any issues.

  6. I picked up Pets relatively recently. We haven't even gotten to the point where I installed it in the blog yet :). That seems to have opened up a lot of worlds that I couldn't install previously.

    I have WA, AMB, LN, GEN, and now Pets. I do not have Showtime yet. As an attempt to control the amount of money that gets dumped down the pit of this game, I don't buy expansions when they're released; I haunt Amazon Downloads until they pop up for $15. This happens with shocking regularity, actually, but it means I'm always about 6 months out of phase.

    I had really built a personality into Avalon, which is why I've thrown so much good time after bad to get it working. Part of my theme was taken from some tours I took of old British and European cities like York, which are literally thousands of years of building on top of each other. (Being American, I find this endlessly fascinating. I don't think I even know where you're from.) I'm using the Jynx Rabbithole rugs/doors, and I have all my rabbithole buildings chosen already. I really am perfectly happy with a world filled with blank lots. It's just that the world needs to have AMBIANCE :).

  7. Woo, I loaded them both up, and they're both lovely. I will say that Rose Island has a pretty impractical dependence on walking paths. I really do want my sims to get to work in the morning. It's fixable, of course.

    I think I'm going to play around with Zukutra first, since it does have a fantasy theme. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with all that blue terrain pain, though. It's not like the houses I downloaded have any blue grass. Heh.

  8. Pets is pretty awesome.

    I can understand why you tried so hard to fix Avalon, you've been working on it for a while from the sounds of it.

    I'm from NZ, so only a baby country, but I've been briefly to England as well as a few European Countries and I get what you mean. We were driving through London on our first night there and it was like shops, Victorian style hotel, cafe, restaurant, more shops Roman monument! More shops …

    It was pretty cool.

    I'm slightly terrified of the Jynx rugs. For some reason I'm positive that they're going to break everything.

  9. Heh. If New Zealand is a baby country, the US is a whiny gradeschooler. Which actually explains a lot, come to think of it.

    That'd exactly what I was thinking of — the mishmosh of historical architecture, renovated in whichever way will work.

  10. It does. It really does. And you have nuclear weapons.

    It's an awesome style, I wouldn't mind living somewhere like that. Where ever you end up settling on will probably be really gorgeous by the time you're done with it.

  11. Yikes! Sounds like a nightmare!
    But on a happier note I didn't realize that Amazon had a downloads section or that you could download eps from them for much cheaper. I'll definitely have to check that out more frequently. 🙂 Thanks!

Leave a Reply