Although I'm a Sims 2 player at heart, I thought about giving the Sims 3 another shot.

It's only been a day and I'm already somewhat frustrated with it. I accept some of the blame since I don't want to bother with CAW, which I find too time-consuming. It doesn't help that there aren't any official empty templates available to build on, unlike in the Sims 2 where you can choose from a list of empty maps.

I can't even rename Sunset Valley.

Most of the EA worlds are either too beachy or too spacey. The custom worlds made by talented simmers require too many EPs and the few base game compatible ones I've seen? Worlds of suck. Sigh.

I just needed to get that off my chest.

Why can't you rename SV? When you save the game for the first time, didn't it give you the option to name your save game what you wanted?

Edit: Also just found that if you rename a town folder in the "saves" folder, the game loads with the revised town name. So there, one less thing to whimper over!

Doesn't the official town name appear in lots of places? I swear I just read a conversation about this recently... just because the save name is one thing doesn't do anything about little mentions about the town newspaper or whatever in the dialog boxes.

But I'm naming my save, not the town. I'm anal like that.

If Sunset Valley were beautiful, I wouldn't mind moving my sims in and going to town (haha), but that is not the case. The architecture, the interior design, the sims...everytime I see them, I get this strong desire to summon Matrix54 and have him wave his want and magically make it all easier on the eyes.

There was one empty world with nice grass and grittier road textures that I wanted. But it requires World Adventures, which I don't have. I don't even want whatever WA comes with. I just want a plain empty world with darker grass and roads that look like roads. That's all I want.

I shouldn't have to install multiple EPs just to have an empty world to work with.

No, you're naming the town. Go to your main neighborhood menu, the town will be named something else.

. . .
Maybe you'd like some of these older ones by Richdre. They are pre-Late Night. You have to register at Sims Asylum.
http://simsasylum.com/tfm/index.php...ichdres-worlds/
ETA: Oops, they likely need World Adventures.

Thank you. I will try that.

Thanks, but I think they've been updated for EPs. I see a few Late Night rabbitholes and a stadium from...Pets? See, that's another thing.

All these creators update their worlds to make them EP compatible and suddenly the base game versions are nowhere to be found. Why in the name of Joss Whedon are they doing this to me?

Would it hurt to keep a base game version of their world up for people to download?

If you have the base game registered, you have access to Riverview, I think, but I'm not entirely sure since I picked up on Sims 3 around the time Late Night came out.

Maybe download that and give it a try. It might be a little big to get used to easily, but it's definitely not too beachy.

I'm pretty sure there's an empty version of both Sunset Valley and Riverview on here somewhere.

Even so, you can just bulldoze everything in Edit Town and add/remove some world objects with the editor in there to get relatively empty maps.

Very true, othiym28. Riverview is definitely not beachy. (I don't know why that struck me funny. Oh, well.)

I only said that because Riverview does fall within Original_Sim's "too spacey" criteria, assuming he meant it in the sense of too damn much wasted space on the map. I won't assume that he meant that, though, because my first thought about too spacey was, "He's right. Lunar Lakes sucks."

Yes, I was actually referring to Lunar Lakes.

Although I do find most Sims 3 worlds unnecessarily large. Even the lots are too big for me. I guess it's because I've gotten used to my 2x2 lots in the Sims 2. I tried Riverview when the Sims 3 was released, but there didn't seem to be a whole lot to do and I never really connected with any of the characters. Don't even get me started on the furniture.

Sometimes I think that EA may have gotten a little too design-happy with CASt. They tend to pick "noisy" patterns when a simple design would do (e.g. the Keaton kitchen countertops in Sunset Valley).

I guess I'm stuck with empty templates of Sunset Valley and Riverview for now.

All I want is the Storybook Country Lite world from My Sim Realty and the damn thing requires World Adventures. It's unnecessary. There's nothing but roads and rolling hills!

Sookie Lee made Sunset Valley totally empty and replaced all of the Beautiful Vistas. I use this ALL the time and my only beef is the lack of spawners in the world. There are a few, but not many. Otherwise, this is my favorite base game only.

http://customsims3.com/forums/thread-2120.html

I played the heck out of this one. Horses would get stuck all over the place, but I don't remember people having any trouble.
http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=389027

These worlds only have base game. And it's by MySimsRealty, who always makes top quality stuff.
http://mysimrealty.com/WORLDS_ElbaVillage.html (This has Ambitions lots available for download, but are not included with the world.)
http://mysimrealty.com/EMPTYWORLDS_DeeryMeadows.html

I used this world before I got WA. It is Base Game Only

http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=387272

This one only needs Riverview, which is free to download from EA
http://mysimrealty.com/WORLDS_MeadowGlen.html

I have seen a few people post good things about this one, but I haven't played it myself, nor do I know anything about the creator, but it's base game only
http://www.thesims3.com/assetDetail...assetId=1759713

I've heard REALLY good things about this one. But I've never played it.
http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=368549

This one is made by Fresh Prince. He's got a good reputation for making cars but I have NO idea of his world building skills.
http://www.freshprincecreations.com/ts3vicecity.htm

Have you tried playing it anyway? Some things from EPs won't break the world if you don't have it, they'll just be replaced with a base game item.

I tried and it crashed, unfortunately.

Thank you, those do look good. It bugs me that the roads I like are in worlds I hate and the worlds I hate have roads I like. Nua Simoa is beautiful, but it doesn't suit my play style. I know, I know...I'm hard to please.

I downloaded Meadow Glen. I'm thinking of changing the roofs to make it look more like a suburb in California.

Sorry, I derped and we posted at the same time. I'm adding more as I find them. Totally forgot SookieLee's and I use that one all the time.

Believe me, I'd like to try.

The thing is, the worlds that catch my eye require EPs I don't have. Even the ones that are empty and could have easily been made with just the base game. If CAW were as simmer-friendly as the Sims 2 neighborhood view, I'd be building my own town from the ground up.

Sorry about that post. I'm getting tired and I misread something and then didn't see that you replied to my post. I THOUGHT you were complaining about the worlds I found and only wanted Storybrook.

I've got Storybrook, btw. It IS a lovely place, but it has a bunch of serious routing issues. Error Trap (Twallan mod) cleans up sims who get stuck all over the place every night. It's bad enough that I am considering ditching my legacy because it's getting choppy and I think the routing errors are causing lag. So if you feel bad about not having it, you can have some sour grapes over it. It's good, but not worth crying over if you can't get it.

Edited to add: I feel your pain on lack of decent worlds that are base game only. For a long time, I could ONLY use base game only worlds because I had several EPs but not WA. I didn't want to do any adventuring crap and I didn't want to shell out 30 bucks (at the time.. now its only 20) just so I could download worlds. So I scoured and looked really hard for worlds to play and almost always came up empty. Creators really like WAs world objects and trees, so there was almost nothing. I finally got WA on sale for 9 bucks at Amazon JUST for the custom worlds.

This is really the saving grace for that pack, and one of the reasons why I still have it installed. (well, that and Sims Fu.) Although I can't even remember the last time I sent my sim off to China or Egypt, the pack has a TON of great World decor objects. It's one reason so many world require it. It also marked the first (and last) time EA gave us a pack with three distinct styles of decor that actually did a decent job of representing the specific cultures they are based on. Although WA receives a lot of hate for the "quest" type adventuring, it managed to give us some great building tools. Oh, and of course, food registers.

I use WA for the registers mostly.

I put the book merchant in my library behind a bunch of counters serving as a circulation desk. Now my libraries always have a librarian!

I put the food merchant in the park so my sims could have a little cafe going. I don't know how the Storybrook world managed so serve only foreign foods -- mine only serves base world foods unless I remember to put in the mods. I also use the food merchant as a farmer's market.

I put in the general goods merchant on a fishing lot as sort of a park ranger who sells tents and camping supplies (with mods that let him sell WA stuff -- otherwise he sells nothing)

I like the nectary. I can put one in with Twallan's mods. I like to use them in bars.

Basically, if WA ever goes on sale, BUY IT. Almost all creators use it. Even Sunset Valley 2 (totally blank flat world with no lots at all and is based off Sunset Valley) uses it.

Thanks for all the links, Kewpie. And the sour grapes are appreciated. Knowing about the routing issues in Storybrook makes me like it a lot less. I may cave and buy WA one of these days, but I'm not loving that it has a lot of things I might need just to download custom worlds and a lot of things I'd rather not have (i.e. adventures, quests).

I'm downloading Vice City beta right now, which looks beautiful in the screenshots. I'm hoping it doesn't let me down in-game. If that doesn't work out, I'm considering getting the empty Sunset Valley by SookieLee that you linked to and Elba Village.

I wish there was an in-game tool that could let me replace the road textures in Elba Village.

Just remember that Vice city is an unfinished beta, and has some shell buildings that were never built out. If you don't mind finishing the build-out, it's worth a look, but if you want something you can just jump right into, you might want to reconsider. But, if you're considering an empty SV that you will build out yourself, then vice City might be worth a looksee.

Thanks. I'm about to test it soon. As long as the exteriors are decent, I wouldn't mind working on the interiors myself.

EDIT: Vice City's water and sand aren't showing up right for me. I'm not sure if it's cause it's beta or if I need to change my graphics settings. Sunset Valley and Meadow Glen showed up fine.

EDIT #2: I was able to fix it by taking out the lighting and anti-bloom mod. I also deleted the chaches for the Vice City world in my Sims 3 folder.

There is a reason the worlds are so large and so much space is not used. If you want an island world, you can find a more compact one among custom worlds or a few of the store/EP worlds. But a world that is not an island must have unroutable space around it to prevent you from seeing the edge of the world. Some worlds use distance terrains which give you less unroutable terrain but a large "object" that looks like landscape to extend the view of the terrain.

This is common in every game you play. However, in most games, you never see the entire world from top view, only the part that is playable. Unknown to you, there is a think band of land, usually mountainous that surrounds your playable game space. It is not wasted...it is part of the game design. The other option would have been to fog out the edges of the world so you would see nothing. When I build a terrain for a game, I always raise the edges of the terrain a little and I put a boundary some distance in from the edges that prevents players from walking there. New techniques used in games allow unlimited land which generates as you move across the land so you don't have to have that boundary but remember, Sims 3 is no longer a new game.

I suppose it depends on what you consider to be too spacey. I mean how small of a world do you want? I wouldn't consider Sunset Valley to be particularly big at all to be honest. Lucky Palms is big to me, but still not too big.

You have to remember with EA worlds, a lot of people playing are going to have multiple EPs on top of the base game, each of which usually come with new rabbitholes/lots that people often like to place into the world. TS2 didn't really have that to deal with. With the exception of World Adventures and University Life all EP content (if you choose to use it) will be placed in your home world, so you need space. I already find a lot of EA worlds to be too small as it is when I want to include a few lots from other EPs. Starlight Shores (EA EP world) for instance is a bit of a nightmare to add many of your own lots to which is a pity because I really like the world. I could do with it being double the size it currently is. If you're only playing with the base game you probably aren't going to run into that problem.

As for empty templates, why don't you bulldoze all the lots on Sunset Valley if you don't like the buildings or the sims and create something you like for yourself. If you think the world is too big only build in one part of the map and leave the rest empty. If you think the lots are too big only place small ones - there are a number of lot sizes you can choose from. Base game only CAW worlds are harder to come by,maybe you should consider buying an EP or two if you can get them in a good sale?

I do think though at the end of the day unless you're willing to crack open CAW (and I sure as hell am not either) you're never going to have a world that's exactly like what you want, you can't really expect EA or anyone else to build a world completely tailored for you. You're just going to have to mess around until you get something you like, like the rest of us I spend days customising worlds to my liking and even then they're still not perfect but I can live with them.