Please let me know if this lot could get accepted?

Okay so I've spent a lot of time creating this community lot. Mainly because it has a nice feel and looks great. I enjoy taking sims there for dates as well as shopping. I included a place for community chess !

I included apartments above the shops for shop owners. You can also use this as a home business if you use the lot zoning cheat.

Requires: Apartment Life, Open for Business, Night Life

























































Custom Content

Gym:
Gym Equipment
Weight Machine
Punching Bag

Other:
Bay Windows
British Phone

Salon:
Free Deco

Children's Store:
Free Deco

My Stuff:
Fae Fieldstone Walls
Cobblestone Flooring
Olde Towne Signs
Large Clock Recolors

Last edited by oreosncreamforjojo : 24th Feb 2012 at 05:31 PM.

This is a nice idea, reminds a bit of the market place in Verona Ville.
I was wondering how the white wall coverings at the house on the left looks in detail. Is is a stone wall? Looks a bit like the "naked" walls when you place them. However, I quite like stone walls.
The rooms look all a bit dark especially the gym. Have placed windows or are they just too small or maybe with grids in front of the glass? I think that you need a little bit more on your spa as well. You have placed the bathing tubs in a quite public area in a not very beautiful way. I donīt believe that your sims would take a bath if someone else is entering the room or sitting in the whirlpool. Perhaps you can build a little room for taking a bath or for showering just like EA did in the TS3 gym. Why did you place two different whirlpools? And why is there an empty room with just a bin in it? I really like the floristic shop, the toy shop and your super market as well. However, your barbershop, your restaurant and your clothing store look a bit too accurate to me. The restaurant is more like a cafeteria and also a bit dark. The kitchen is a way too big in my opinion and makes it look more like hundreds of workers will enter to have meal in their break . Some paintings on the wall would it make more comfortable. The barbershop needs also some more decorative objects. You have this huge (dark) room and the three chairs in front of a mirror with some counters which are quite empty. I think it would look better in a smaller room.
Next, I would like too add some about your coffee shop. I like the idea of creating a nice little cafe with these nice chairs on a big plaza. I think the outer area is really nice but you should work a bit on the inner place of the cafe with the counters. You should add some tables inside because I think there is a lot of rain at some seasons in TS2.
Than, I believe that you donīt need so many chess tables. Not so many sims play chess in their free time . I think three or four would be enough. You could add some other nice activities like a playground or an outdoor stage.
I think that you have noticed that the round roof is a way too big and doesīt really look good on a square building. Its made to be placed on round houses I think. I am not sure about how you can solve the problem because I never use this roof.
Att all, with a bit more work you can create a nice shopping mall for your simmis .

I can see the changes to the spa...

The outer walls are stone and the most stores have plain walls. People can easily change the wall coverings to their taste so I decided to keep them neutral for the upload.

The Restaurant is just a small place for dates and the reason the kitchen is so large is that I like when the sims working there can move around freely. It would have 2 cooks and 2 waiters. I included the large table for a family dinner. (I sometimes take a family of 8 to dinner). I like to put lots of space around tables to avoid sims not being able to move or complaining about things in their way.

Paintings - I'm not a huge fan of maxis' paintings and wanted to limit the amount of custom Content. I was thinking people could add a few of their favorite painting when they downloaded it.

Personally I find the round roof cute but I could change it for uploading.

The chess area is supposed to look like the chess areas in parks and downtown areas. That is more about the look of it than functionality. While I think activity tables would be functional for kids, I do not think it would look right.

The room with the bin is not accessible, it is the base of the clock tower. I had no where else to place the bin and it's sort of useless anyway. I could delete the bin instead??

I can add some ceiling lights to the gym but personally would not like to work-out in a gym with windows in a shopping district. I'd rather only been seen in a gym by other people who are too busy working out to watch me... That was my thought there.

The chairs are spaced out by the mirrors for flow and movement. You can't see them in the top view but there are three chairs for 'drying your hair' [oh, just noticed i'll have to add those to the CC]. I wanted to add more clutter but I do not know where all my clutter comes from and again don't want ppl to have to download too much to use it.

The cafe is modelled after the cafes in Germany. They often do not have any seats inside. The way this lot is built, there is a roof over the cafe so it will not rain in. Note the apartment built above the outdoor seating.

The upstairs is empty. It was built for decorative purposes. The Shops look more like an old shopping street with two floors.

Lastly I'm glad you gave some feed-back and if you disagree with my reply please let me know. I'm trying to learn and hence explaining my opinions as well. I would love to continue discussing/figuring out

I think you have a good start here but I think you need to think about what downloaders would like not necessarily what you would like. (I fell into this trap with my first upload.) I suggest you go and look at some other community lots on MTS and see what other's have done, I don't mean you to copy but to get inspiration.

The rooves look much the same, could you vary the height of some? with regards to the gym you could add blinds to windows to ensure privacy but still let light enter.

You say that downloaders can change the decor, they can, but some don't want to, they want something to use straight away so making it as attractive as possible is better and also more will download your lot!

There is no landscaping - no greenery.

Anyway, it's your lot, we can only make suggestions.

I agree with karen and first of all, I'm sure you know this but in case you don't, your pictures are quite distorted and some are cropped it looks like. In case you don't already know this you will need to take a lot better of pictures.

You should really add some gardens and some greenery. Maybe in the middle of the main walkways you could put a row of flowers. Just spice it up with some exterior decor.

Overall it is a nice idea but you will need to put some more work into it in my opinion. I mostly agree with the others too.

Thanks, nice idea.

I like the idea of this lot. All those chess tables kind bug me though . I agree with Gincgo, maybe you can put a fountain in the center instead? Some in the rooms are a bit empty to me (the clothing shop,spa and the restaurant). The colors in the hair dresser kind of clash (the green sofa, pink counter, purple counter, blue chairs and the white? wall. It drew my eye, but not in a good way. I really like the colors in the grocery store, it would look very pretty with a nice little window to brighten it up. Is the hair dryers in the hair dresser and the restaurant? I understand if your trying to just show the top for realism, but by the looks of it its peeking out in the restaurant. Its going to look out of place, and kill the look of the room . Maybe try creating a small wall behind the chair and place them the same way, so you get the same effect without the peeking out in the other room. Other than that, it's a very good job for your first community lot .

Thank you for your reply, it gave me some answers.

I like your idea that two cooks are working in the kitchen but I made the experience that the restaurant doesn't work that efficient with so many employees. Maybe your sims are a bit more ambitious that they can work so hard while another sim is doing all the work. You have to think of it that if someone is buying the lot and needs to employ some sims to work for him it will get expensive to have two cooks (make this sense?).
In my opinion I also like the round roof but it is not about the the way it looks in general but the way of its appearance on your lot. A "normal" roof would look much better because the building is not round. I agree with Karen that you could change the different roofsī look.
You could place some windows which are in the upper area of the wall. I think these are the cheapest windows you can buy in Base Game. You would light up the room a bit with some daylight and would save the simsīprivacy.
I can understand that you want a fluid work flow in your barber shop but the way the room looks disturbs me a bit. It reminds me to these old hair dressers where you can find a lot of elder people. The colors you have used are very 70s. In contrast to the old architecture you could create a very modern hair dresser.
I come from Germany (this will explain my English writing skills) and there you can always sit inside the cafes because it can get very cold here . I noticed that the area is placed under the first floor. I donīt know how your sims react when it starts raining because the outside area doesn't seem to be a closed room. It is your decision how you want to design the cafe but I would suggest to place some tables and chairs inside, maybe you can create a very homely inside area with a fire place or something like that.
The chess place looks a bit strange to me and I think theres not such a big use for it. You could combine a green area or garden with three chess tables or something like that. Your place wouldīt look so empty and your sims have an area to relax after shopping .