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Alchemist
Original Poster
#1 Old 31st Oct 2017 at 10:41 PM
Default lot/neighborhood settings
this thread is to talk about the time/place settings of lots/neighborhoods/sub-neighborhoods. ones we create and/or pre-made.


me; I do not set up any particular time/place setting for lots/neighborhoods I create.

pre-made; I do not pay much attention to the time/place settings of those lots/neighborhoods/sub-neighborhoods.
though Medieval/Renaissance Europe might fit Veronaville's shipped version start. not sure for the other pre-made neighborhoods/sub-neighborhoods.
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Scholar
#2 Old 1st Nov 2017 at 12:10 AM
I play my Veronaville as a "threshold country" or "newly industrializing country". In my headcanon they have lots of untapped ressources, but neither the technology nor enough educated workers to do something with them. That's why the nation's primary concern was to build relationships with Twikkii, Three Lakes and Takemizu. Some of the premade teens attended college in Takemizu and brought home much-needed knowledge, unfortunately Three Lakes would very much like to get it's hands on the Veronvaille oil for free, aka is looking for a justification to invade. The population varies and you'll find every lifestyle from farmers that save up for a stereo to households with their own internet connection.

As for the other neighborhoods, they are pretty much in the eternal nineties for me.
But here's food for thought: When the game released a premade like, for instance, Angela Pleasant would have been born around 1985. The same sim would have been born around 2000 to a player who opens the neighborhood now. Now assume those two versions of the same sim met - how would they differ, where would they see eye to eye...?
Mad Poster
#3 Old 1st Nov 2017 at 12:59 PM
All my neighbourhoods are essentially modern, though TS2 always has a slightly "retro" feel to it -- more 1990s than 2017. Of the pre-made neighbourhoods, the one I'm most certain about is Strangetown: it's somewhere in the deserts of America/Simerica. I'd say Arizona or Nevada. It's a former military base now abandoned due to budget cuts, much to the despair of General Grunt, who longs for the order of the old days. It's set slightly earlier than Pleasantview, to account for the presence of a rather lost and disorientated Bella Goth who hasn't yet found her way home. I don't intend to play it long term through the generations where this might become a problem, but if I do, I'll try to keep her as a townie, on the periphery of things, so she just might be Bella from Pleasantview, dropped by for a visit.

Veronaville is probably in Europe. Its half-timbered "Veronavillesque" eastside buildings date largely from the renaissance / early modern period: i.e. the 16th and 17th centuries. The market and the church are probably slightly older, having their origins in the late medieval period. Unlike the rest of my game, planning regulations are strict in eastside Veronaville, guaranteeing the area's historic ambience for the future.

Pleasantview could be anywhere, but it's probably in America/Simerica.

Of my custom neighbourhoods, New Desconia is a very remote sub-tropical island accessible only by small sailing boat. The Romance teens who live there are free to live their own sort of hedonistic free love utopia. It's pure escapism.

Peni is very precise about the location of Land Grant University -- it's at the confluence of the Simmissippi and Simourris rivers. So the location of Baldrair Bluffs, to which it is attached, is similarly precise: it's 3 days sailing upriver on the Simourris River. With the current on their side, river steamers only take two days coming the other way.

I'm vaguest about the location of Elswyn, my newest 'hood. But its landscape (M.M.A.A.'s Oceanside County) has a familiar look to me, so it's probably European.

I don't have Seasons, so the climate in my game is always warm and benign. My Sims can always go outside in their swimwear, or, come to think of it, their underwear! It's never to hot or too cold -- it's always "just right". Truly my Sims live in the Goldilocks Zone.

All Sims are beautiful -- even the ugly ones.
My Simblr ~~ My LJ
Sims' lives matter!
The Veronaville kids are alright.
Mad Poster
#4 Old 2nd Nov 2017 at 3:01 AM
I always thought that Baldrair Bluffs sounded as if it was in Scotland. XD
Mad Poster
#5 Old 2nd Nov 2017 at 10:45 AM
Quote: Originally posted by Charity
I always thought that Baldrair Bluffs sounded as if it was in Scotland. XD
That's not surprising. The settlement at Baldrair Bluffs was originally founded by Scots immigrants. The word "Baldrair" is an Anglicized / Simericanized term derived from Scots Gaelic and means something like "underpants town". (baile town, drathais knickers, pants) Which, if you think about how my Sims like to dress, is rather appropriate!

"Bluffs", as I understand from Peni, is an American English term for high ground above a river.

All Sims are beautiful -- even the ugly ones.
My Simblr ~~ My LJ
Sims' lives matter!
The Veronaville kids are alright.
Alchemist
Original Poster
#6 Old 2nd Nov 2017 at 10:52 PM
read some pages of the wikia site.
they tell that part of Pleasantview is a trailer park. and takes place 25 years after Sims1.
Strangetown, they do not tell any location or time.
Veronaville; they tell that the river divides the neighborhood into English and Italian sides; Capp & Summerdream on the English side, Monty on the Italian side.

Strangetown taking place before or after Pleasantview; that would depend on when Bella left Pleasantview and when she came to Strangetown.
Scholar
#7 Old 3rd Nov 2017 at 12:37 AM
i always thought that all neighborhoods were set at the time they were made eg pleasantview set in 2004 and i'm guessing all neighborhoods are in america since well living in england i know veronaville isn't there and has anyone thought about strangetown being in a desert country?
Mad Poster
#8 Old 3rd Nov 2017 at 2:09 AM
I always figured Strangetown was meant to be set in New Mexico - Roswell and all that sort of stuff.

I'm secretly a Bulbasaur. | Formerly known as ihatemandatoryregister

Looking for SimWardrobe's mods? | Or Dizzy's? | Faiuwle/rufio's too! | smorbie1's Chris Hatch archives
Mad Poster
#9 Old 3rd Nov 2017 at 2:34 AM
Most of my neighborhoods are firmly set in the 20-and-a-halfth century.

Ugly is in the heart of the beholder.
(My simblr isSim Media Res . Widespot,Widespot RFD: The Subhood, and Land Grant University are all available here. In case you care.)
Scholar
#10 Old 3rd Nov 2017 at 11:35 AM
i'm pretty sure all sims games are set in america hmpf unfair! we need more sims 2 worlds which are not american!
Mad Poster
#11 Old 3rd Nov 2017 at 12:02 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Emerald1234
i'm pretty sure all sims games are set in america hmpf unfair! we need more sims 2 worlds which are not american!


Except Veronaville. I always imagined that to be the Sims version of 'fair Verona, where we lay our scene'.
Inventor
#12 Old 3rd Nov 2017 at 1:03 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Emerald1234
i'm pretty sure all sims games are set in america hmpf unfair! we need more sims 2 worlds which are not american!

They don't have to be though. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't recall anything in the TS2 premade hoods that explicitly says they're in a real world location, and the Sims worlds don't necessarily correlate with our society anyway - they all speak one language, age up in one day instead of gradually, and get free, invisible Therapists from the sky. Will Wright may have stated that the series was meant to be a satire of U.S. consumer culture, but there's nothing stopping us from playing them as Martians or whatnot. Technically, the purpose of the thread is to even discuss the settings we've given our neighborhoods.

Consider that the Goth Family naming schemes implies German, English, Hispanic, Italian, and Greek heritage but you can play them however you want. Veronaville is supposedly divided into English and Italian sides, but there isn't a street sign in the hood that clearly says so, not to mention that if we go by their sources, Hermia Capp is Greek. The same goes for any other sim. The Sims 2 is your sandbox, after all - they gave us the tools to do whatever we wish with them, which is probably its strongest appeal, and modders have made so many other seemingly-impossible things commonplace. Those premade biographies about coming from the certain places? They're editable. If you don't want Nina Caliente to have Mediterranean roots, that's up to you. You can even ignore all of the premade neighborhoods, use empty templates, and default replace most of what's in the game.

It'd be nice to have hoods that are more diverse, yes, but with the premade ones of The Sims 2, this is what was given to us. I don't intend to be harsh; it's just that these can and have been changed by simmers. We'll just be making ourselves miserable if we lock ourselves in the notion that they're all strictly in the U.S.A when we don't want them to be, or that we can't make any other hoods to our specifications, and I don't see the point of that.

So as not to be completely off-topic, I've never made a hood that's based on a real-life location, nor have I ever thought of any of them as being in specific locations; they're just there with anything I feel like dropping in for them (for better or worse, I have horse-drawn carriages with high-tech telephones).
Mad Poster
#13 Old 3rd Nov 2017 at 5:21 PM
Hell, you can even make an alien colony world with alien townies and give them lots of different skins, or even make these aliens the Elerians from Master of Orion 2. Or you could make the werewolves be Mrrshans and Bulrathi, while the vampires would probably be Darloks, plantsims... dunno... probably they would be the Sakkras, while witches could be the Psilons. You could even make your own sim-versions of the buildings available from that game. That's what I like about Sims 2 - you can use your imagination with a lot of things!
Alchemist
Original Poster
#14 Old 9th Nov 2017 at 10:50 PM
the place settings of Bon Voyage's sub-neighborhoods seem somewhat obvious.
Takemizu Village:: Asia
Three Lakes:: some mountain area
Twikkii Island:: tropical island

time settings; not yet sure.
Mad Poster
#15 Old 9th Nov 2017 at 11:13 PM
The trouble with Twikkii is that "tropical" is a really big zone, and they've shoveled as much of it as they could into the space. Pirates of the sort depicted are normally associated with the 17th century Caribbean. The temple pyramids are vaguely Central American. The grass skirts, hula, and fire dancing are from the Pacific. The "Witch doctor" is an African stereotype; but the voodoo doll is associated with a set of beliefs which developed from African roots in the Caribbean.

The only thing to do there is throw up your hands and roll with it, or make your own.

Ugly is in the heart of the beholder.
(My simblr isSim Media Res . Widespot,Widespot RFD: The Subhood, and Land Grant University are all available here. In case you care.)
Lab Assistant
#16 Old 10th Nov 2017 at 1:09 AM
All of my neighborhoods (I never play the Maxis ones) are eternally in the 2000's. The town itself has been around for a long time, though, since I always make Victorian houses. I'd like to think they're all in New England states, somewhere with rich history and historical architecture but everything inside is modern. Except if they're aliens, then I just like, forget about time to be honest.

"'Why is Shinji blushing over everything Kaworu does,' you ask? He's gay..... gay gay gay gay gay" -Actual Kaworu
Scholar
#17 Old 10th Nov 2017 at 1:57 AM
SimHampton is currently set in D'End, Year of Shadow, somewhere in SimNation. It's about a week north-west of SimCity by monorail (SimNation is a huge place, with about 40,000,000 known settlements and huge amounts of natural land between many of them) at the moment and on a rough day, is slightly closer than that to Discworld. Occasionally, if there's a really bad cyberstorm, it moves a few dozen miles in one direction or another. The calendar doesn't match up with real-life time any more than the location matches with anywhere on Earth.

Polgannon seems firmly set in the 1970s, 1980s or possibly early 1990s, and is a short walk west of SimHampton's current location.

The Drioru Forest is two days' walk north of both SimHampton and Polgannon. The ancient elven city of Télanen is based right in the middle of it, much as the elves wish it wasn't. Both are hard to place because they've avoided certain technologies for quite a long time and it's changed their thinking in a way that cannot easily be parked on a timeline. Other elven settlements are dotted in the general area; one of the more welcoming to non-elves is Takemizu Village.

The Valgon Islands are in the faaaar north-west of SimNation. So far north-west that nobody has any idea how the Valgons/Valgonians got any of their number so far south-east as to feature in my copy of the game. I imagine it to be a lot like mid-5th-century Ancient Athens, both in terms of attitudes and in much of the architecture.

Two hours south of SimHampton is the somewhat smaller town of Testville. It is large enough to have its own minor university. I imagine it being based in the 1970s - among other things, Testville's servers are almost as large, and employ almost as many people, as said minor university.

Des Moines is almost, but not quite, a day's train ride east. It's squarely based in 2017 and always moves with the times - I imagine it as a stereotypically pleasant American large town, good to do the shopping for large items not available in smaller places like SimHampton (let alone Polgannon or The Drioru Forest). Oddly, it seems to have a road connection to Earth, though no Sim is quite sure where on Earth you'd be if you ever took that road.

Throne-O'-Sims is a pleasantly warm, though not tropical or even sub-tropical, beach town that caters mostly to tourists, on the west coast of SimNation. The only practical ways to get there are by plane or spacecraft. It is very loosely based on the 1950s.

Alegnia Viaduct, Borealis and SimColony are all on other planets, reachable only by spacecraft. The former is based on 2017. Borealis is much older - perhaps 15th or 16th century, with certain anachoristic elements. SimColony is impossible to define in age - it's as variable in vibe as SimHampton but in quite different ways.
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