Hello,
here I come with a world question to those of you who are playing in Mayfield Springs!
After a break due to the death of my computer, I am back to playing the Sims 3 and now finally have a computer that may even be able to handle big worlds! Before, I used to play in a slooow Storybrook County (not the world`s fault, I'm sure my old computer was to blame for the lag), but now feel like trying something new ... and Mayfield Springs looks SO beautiful!
So my question is: Does that world still offer some space for building? I bought some of the venues from the store and would like to put them in, and since somehow the store lots are always huge - I wonder if there is enough space?

I like Mayfield Springs. It has some space for building. Not sure about putting more lots on it, but it has some empty lots. Don't know what buildings you had in mind.

I used to play a lot in Strangetown custom world. It faithfully recreates Strangetown, drawing buildings and ther interior from various games about Strangetown on handhelds and consoles. When you've played them all, it's really cool to see familiar houses, locations, streets, etc.

Sadly I don't remember who created that custom world.

Yes, and there are different versions of strange town made by different folks.

I guess you meant this one .

Yes that's the one!

Lately I've been playing Bleake Islands a lot (on mobile so can't link but it's here on MTS). It's great if you prefer small, compact worlds and don't mind it being unpopulated.

I'm playing Van Crest and I love it. I do have all the EPs but not all the SPs but I haven't seen anything missing from the game.

I've started moving away from these huge mega worlds like St. Claire and Angel City and towards playing smaller town worlds. I still love the huge worlds with there have been so many new worlds coming out that are gorgeous seaside small towns that are great for storytelling, especially among my entrepreneur Sims.

Hi there, I am looking for smaller worlds - Can you point me to where I might find Van Crest and Hylewood? It's been literally years since I have looked for worlds. Thank you!

Hylewood- http://nilxisdesigns.blogspot.com/2014/11/hylewood.html

And Van Crest is made my Catlover800 on tumblr. She's got plenty of pretty kitties and simmies too.

A great source is also Lana CC finds where she indexes all community created worlds, old and new and by size. You can find Van Crest in their list of medium-sized worlds:
http://sssvitlans.tumblr.com/tagged/s3world%20medium

There's also a lot of charming smaller worlds there too that are similar in style and look. My current favorite is Brightpoint.

I would love to use worlds by the creator of Vargfjell or Grey Meadows, as mentioned on this thread, but he seems to use a ton of EPs in them. I try to limit myself to 2, maybe 3, EPs installed because my PC is not the greatest. But I've seen those used in challenges and they seem really great, including the population he added!

I really like Bridgewood. It's a base-game world and has some population in it. I mostly like its design and the designs for the pre-built houses. They even have their own little customized versions of rabbitholes. It is a tad outdated since it's base-game, but I overall think it's a simple matter of editing a few lots to add whatever you want from an EP.

But for an empty world, I'd pick Alocasia. Pretty small in terms of size, but the size is one that I like to work with. I can easily add necessary rabbitholes in it and it's an IP-only created world with Isla Paradiso's diving lots added to it. Great world for a summer island setting, great for making a resort there. The only thing I find difficult is adding ports, because of the sloping on the sandy beaches. But ports are always a tedious thing for me to add...

I've been using Storybrook County over at MySimsRealty and I love it!! http://www.mysimrealty.com/WORLDS_StorybrookCounty.html

Storybrook is my second favourite, but the all time winner is Lago Simiore. I wrote a review of it today if anyone's interested.

http://prodigalstranger.dk/lago-sim...rld-experience/

I am building out a revision of Hylewood now and have the OK to put it on the exchange when done.

Avalon (from here at MTS). I used it for my Snatched by the Fae run, then I used it for a long-running legacy challenge.

Grey Meadows got a lot of play time when I first got the game. It's pretty nostalgic for me.

I don't know where to ask, so I'll try this thread: is there any simple way to make terrain routable, for a newbie? It's so aggravating when you can't assign space to a lot just because the terrain is unroutable. It bugs me both with custom and default worlds, for example, there a really cool huge location walled off by mountains in Bridgeport but you can only place one small lot inside of that huge location, right next to the lake. There is so much unused space!

It probably requires editing the world, and if it's too complicated I probably won't risk doing it, but if it's simple enough...

IIRC it would require editing the world in CAW to remove the painting that marks terrain as unroutable.

Yes, you need to change the routing mask. You could either do this in CAW yourself, or by substituting your sopy of Sunset Valley for one that someone else has modded.

That sounds simpler than I thought. I don't even know where to download CAW, though, and we're really getting off-topic here, so please advise me where else to go asking for details or what kind of FAQ to read?

Mts has a caw forum under the top menu in the Create fan. Click on create-a-world under sims3. You will find lots of information, tutorials etc as stickies in there.
If you need more help, just make a post in that forum.

Is it alright if I make a response here?

I absolutely LOVE Alpine County. It's so beautiful, and big, and you've got literally everything in one place. You've got the creepy hood for those supernatural sims, the rich country club vibe hood with the bright green grass, the view looking out into the distance, the tropical resorts and the many, many clubs and bars....(maybe a little too many, for my liking.) It's detailed and when you follow your sims around to work and to other community lots you get this great feeling of playing an older version of GTA (minus the road killing and the gun shooting, LOL).

But keep in mind this is a huge world, so chances are you'll be experiencing some serious lag fun, especially if your computer isn't as high and all mighty as those monster PC's out there for gaming.

I've got a pretty good build (in can be improved to become better but I'm a broke college student lmao) BUT I've experienced some serious IslandParadiso lag (where the game freezes but time is ticking, plumbbobs are spinning and the steam from the mac and cheese pot is still...steaming) for a few seconds to a full minute before returning to regular gameplay.

I've also experienced some routing issues? Perhaps? I moved two of my sim families from Sunset valley to Alpine....one family is entirely unemployed while the other has one sim working. I try to invite the unemployed family over and for some odd reason the only sim that shows up is the sim you call...the rest of that household "can't make it" AKA GETS STUCK.

I'm not sure if that's a mod causing it (the only mods I have are a few from MTS and NRASS stuff as well as game FIXES) or perhaps a piece of CC. OR it's simply because m y computer can't handle the epicness of this world, haha.

Has anyone else experienced something like this?

How large is your household? It's possible that your processor just can't handle that many more sims being rendered on your lot. It's also possible that the game already gave other 'instructions' to the other sims. I also suspect that the game might do that, refuses to send sims over I mean, because that's supposed to make things more realistic since people IRL can't always do what you want, either. IOW it's supposed to make the game 'harder'. The other issues you're experiencing are likely just due to the world being too big to play well on your PC. But honestly troubleshooting your game should happen in a new thread and not this one.

The past year or so I have gone in the opposite direction, and enjoy playing smaller, sparsely populated rural worlds. I have a saved game going in Angel City, a smaller version of Los Aniegos, and someday I'm sure I'll get back to it eventually but I am less and less interested in attempting to play huge, sprawling worlds that are impossible to play long term without lag and issues because it's just not realistic to expect this game to be able to handle those on most people's PCs. So it all depends on how much you are willing to put up with I guess!

I have an amazing new sci-fi/ fantasy world to share with you. It is named SATURENORN. It has a custom moon and custom lighting and these, along with the lots, custom rabbitholes and plant recolors, all work together to create an atmosphere unlike any other world I have ever experienced. Amazing! Website and download link (at SFS): https://saturenorn.tumblr.com/




Credits: Lighting: nilxis Moon: transcendentcacophony World: nornities satureja13 simblu Upgrades/buildings: nornities satureja13 simblu willky12 ITF Plant recolours: divadoom