New shop ideas for downtown--anyone?
John Grabowski
the limited choices you have with the game. With some of these you
can't really "buy" anything, but they are fun and add atmosphere to the
game. Here are some of my ideas--I'd be interested in hearing anyone
else's:
Fitness club: "Club Sim"--Install the treadmill, weightbench, hot tub
(sauna), etc., and even maybe have a little game room upstairs--darts,
pool, etc. The only problem is, I've discovered Sims can't use the
weight bench and treadmill downtown. For a joke, I put a pack of
cigarettes on the counter next to the clerk. Sims comes in to the
fitness club to have a smoke.
Chess club: This one is real easy... just a room full of chess tables
and chairs. I also put a guy behind the counter to head the club. Of
course he really does nothing but stand there, but it makes it feel like
a real chess club. For additional realism, it's low rent, up a flight
of steps in a back alley, with brickface on all the walls, since chess
clubs don't bring in a ton of cash. The only thing that makes this
*unrealistic* is babes like Molly Townie go there. In real life you
don't find babes in chess clubs.
Curio/antique shop: Again start with someone behing a counter. Fill the
shop with all sorts of things that don't belong together: dartboard,
pool table, teddy bear, odd chairs and old tables, unusual lamps, oil
paintings. I even put in the upright player piano and placed velvet
ropes around it as though it were some rare treasure. Maybe Jelly Roll
Morton played on it!
Swim club: Another one that's real easy. Just start with a large
building, with appropriate aqua tiles and flooring. Create a giant pool
(or two, or three, whatever's your pleasure), install some showers in
the back, put a guy behind the counter again even though he doesn't
really do anything. Maybe he's the membership coordinator. Or he's
there to administer CPR...
Art boutique: My favorite. Fill a small corner shop with paintings and
sculptures. Since I've got everything from pre-Raphaelite paintings to
Impressionism to modern art, this shop looks very convincing. And for
once, the fact that the clerk doesn't do anything plays beautifully into
the game: this is one of those shops where you wonder how they stay in
business because they probably make about three sales a year. So all
the Sims go into the gallery, but nobody ever buys anything.
I thought about doing a library, but that seemed really boring.
On that note, I saw the Clown Burger sign in the game but was wondering
if there's a special way to create a fast food restaurant. The way I
see it, you can either create a Clown Burger restaurant that's just like
a regular restaurant, in which case no one eats Clown Burgers but rather
plates of steak/meatloaf/whatever, or you can create a restaurant with
just a "cheap eats" counter at the head, but then Sims just eat their
burgers and hotdogs standing up. (And I can't believe Maxis was cheesy
enough to make the hamburger-eating animation just the potato
chip-eating animation with a burger substituted for the chips. Even the
sound effect is the same!) Is there any better way to pull this off?
John
--
The punishment which the wise suffer who refuse to take part in the
government, is to live under the government of worse men. --Plato
Briar
"John Grabowski" <jg...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:3D644627...@earthlink.net...
> I've been trying some new shop ideas for downtown, because I'm tired of
> the limited choices you have with the game. With some of these you
> can't really "buy" anything, but they are fun and add atmosphere to the
> game. Here are some of my ideas--I'd be interested in hearing anyone
> else's:
>
> Fitness club: "Club Sim"--Install the treadmill, weightbench, hot tub
> (sauna), etc., and even maybe have a little game room upstairs--darts,
> pool, etc. The only problem is, I've discovered Sims can't use the
> weight bench and treadmill downtown. For a joke, I put a pack of
> cigarettes on the counter next to the clerk. Sims comes in to the
> fitness club to have a smoke.
>
> Chess club: This one is real easy... just a room full of chess tables
> and chairs. I also put a guy behind the counter to head the club. Of
> course he really does nothing but stand there, but it makes it feel like
> a real chess club. For additional realism, it's low rent, up a flight
> of steps in a back alley, with brickface on all the walls, since chess
> clubs don't bring in a ton of cash. The only thing that makes this
> *unrealistic* is babes like Molly Townie go there. In real life you
> don't find babes in chess clubs.
I did put a number of chess tables in the techno park I built for the hood I
call the Kingdom
>
> Curio/antique shop: Again start with someone behing a counter. Fill the
> shop with all sorts of things that don't belong together: dartboard,
> pool table, teddy bear, odd chairs and old tables, unusual lamps, oil
> paintings. I even put in the upright player piano and placed velvet
> ropes around it as though it were some rare treasure. Maybe Jelly Roll
> Morton played on it!
>
> Swim club: Another one that's real easy. Just start with a large
> building, with appropriate aqua tiles and flooring. Create a giant pool
> (or two, or three, whatever's your pleasure), install some showers in
> the back, put a guy behind the counter again even though he doesn't
> really do anything. Maybe he's the membership coordinator. Or he's
> there to administer CPR...
>
> Art boutique: My favorite. Fill a small corner shop with paintings and
> sculptures. Since I've got everything from pre-Raphaelite paintings to
> Impressionism to modern art, this shop looks very convincing. And for
> once, the fact that the clerk doesn't do anything plays beautifully into
> the game: this is one of those shops where you wonder how they stay in
> business because they probably make about three sales a year. So all
> the Sims go into the gallery, but nobody ever buys anything.
>
> I thought about doing a library, but that seemed really boring.
I put an art gallery and library in a resturan called the Old Palace expresso
machines so it was more like a book store or reading room.
Libby
news:3D644627...@earthlink.net:
> Sims comes in to the
> fitness club to have a smoke.
>
John, has anyone ever mentioned to you that you're quite perverse?
*snigger*
--
Libby
"Usenet isn't a right. It's a right, a left, and a swift uppercut to the
jaw."
-Computer Museum, Boston
www.ad-libster.com/ngqa.shtml
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The Simposium
<bar...@bookpro.com> wrote in message news:ak1jm9$40k$1...@news1.Radix.Net...
| On Thu, 22 Aug 2002 02:02:24 GMT, John Grabowski <jg...@earthlink.net>
| wrote:
|
| >I've been trying some new shop ideas for downtown, because I'm tired of
| >the limited choices you have with the game. With some of these you
| >can't really "buy" anything, but they are fun and add atmosphere to the
| >game. Here are some of my ideas--I'd be interested in hearing anyone
| >else's:
| >
| >Fitness club: "Club Sim"--Install the treadmill, weightbench, hot tub
| >(sauna), etc., and even maybe have a little game room upstairs--darts,
| >pool, etc. The only problem is, I've discovered Sims can't use the
| >weight bench and treadmill downtown. For a joke, I put a pack of
| >cigarettes on the counter next to the clerk. Sims comes in to the
| >fitness club to have a smoke.
|
| what site.
|
| Themes by Pam (http://themesbypam.crosswinds.net/) has walls for a
| gym. I'm planning to make one at some point, as long as the Cheap
| Frills exercise tiles can be enabled for Downtown.
|
| >Chess club: This one is real easy... just a room full of chess tables
| >and chairs. I also put a guy behind the counter to head the club. Of
| >course he really does nothing but stand there, but it makes it feel like
| >a real chess club. For additional realism, it's low rent, up a flight
| >of steps in a back alley, with brickface on all the walls, since chess
| >clubs don't bring in a ton of cash. The only thing that makes this
| >*unrealistic* is babes like Molly Townie go there. In real life you
| >don't find babes in chess clubs.
|
| more suitable. That's what I did in my sleazy downtown.
|
| >Curio/antique shop: Again start with someone behing a counter. Fill the
| >shop with all sorts of things that don't belong together: dartboard,
| >pool table, teddy bear, odd chairs and old tables, unusual lamps, oil
| >paintings. I even put in the upright player piano and placed velvet
| >ropes around it as though it were some rare treasure. Maybe Jelly Roll
| >Morton played on it!
|
| suppose anyone has seen a sign for a pawn shop?
|
| Another idea is an auto dealership with showroom, desks and chairs for
| salesmen, etc.
Now there is a different idea! It's just a pity that most themes are
confined by the game and are mostly for show.
|
| <snip>
|
| BW
Julie Carrigon
She has dozens of different shop themes, including Ghostbusters :)
I have an idea for the Burger food. I just haven't tested it out yet. If
you use the food replicator from SimSlice at http://www.simslice.com/ and
make it available to visitors and available downtown, you can have burgers
and fries. You can even have a taco, I think, with it. Alternately, you
can just download all the Star Trek food and just stick it on tables
downtown, so you'll have all different kinds of food. It should be noted
that the sims seem too stupid to realize the food is there with the
replicator and Trek food and I always have to tell them to eat it, plus they
seem to only eat it standing up. I have no idea why. But I'm very grateful
to SimSlice for the different food textures. John, you must have missed my
recent post about the food replicator. It's a great item and totally free
at SimSlice.
The most I've done downtown so far is I made a kind of observatory with
telescopes, the sims seem to like it. I did it on the second floor with a
balcony and put all the telescopes out there. I also made a few
"relaxation" rooms with lots of showers, hottubs, beds. I'll probably do a
little Chinatown since I downloaded tons of stuff for it. Actually, most of
the stuff I got was Japanese, so I guess it'll be a combo. And I got tired
of the long wait at the restaurants for my sims to eat, so I put grills all
over the place and alot of the sims cook on their own, so there's always a
plate of burgers available.
Carrigon
--
http://www.mindspring.com/~carrigon/tips.html
Carrigon's Sims Tips, Tricks, Cheats
<(©¿©)> @>---
"John Grabowski" <jg...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:3D644627...@earthlink.net...
> I've been trying some new shop ideas for downtown, because I'm tired of
> the limited choices you have with the game. With some of these you
> can't really "buy" anything, but they are fun and add atmosphere to the
> game. Here are some of my ideas--I'd be interested in hearing anyone
> else's:
>
Morgan S. Brilliant
To each his own! I don't have HD yet, so no downtown, but I'd love to make a
library, like the one I grew up in. An old schoolhouse, with 2 classrooms,
one on either side of the hall. Children's room on one side, adults' room
on the other, circulation in the hall. Very small, very cozy. And I'd read
most of the books in the kids' room by the time I was 12. Still, I have fond
memories of it. I noticed the library theme at Pam's Themes a while back
and wished then that I had a use for it.
I suppose townies don't read? Ah, well, just for show would be okay for a
while.
Blaze
RegionalGirl
message. It also wouldn't let me access the folder where my iff files were
that I wanted to edit, just the desktop.
<bar...@bookpro.com> wrote in message news:ak2ot0$ok0$1...@news1.Radix.Net...
> You could do that in the neighborhood, maybe have the librarian live
> in a little room upstairs. You would need to enable the bookshelves
> for visitors, which is easily done with MenuEditor from
> http://blueprint.thesimsresource.com. I think you can probably make
> the bookshelves more attractive to them, too, and possibly change the
> Fun value.
>
> This can also be done for downtown. The townies *do* read books. In
> my downtown convenience store, the Coke and Pepsi cases are cloned
> from bookshelves, and the townies frequently pull a book out of them
> and sit down to read.
>
> A library is on my list of things to make for downtown (sometime soon,
> I hope--haven't had time to play since I got home from vacation
> Sunday).
>
> BW
Libby
news:ak2vp1$sjv$1...@news1.Radix.Net:
> On Thu, 22 Aug 2002 09:47:12 -0400, "RegionalGirl"
> <sarahb...@girlofyourdreams.com> wrote:
>
>>I couldn't get blueprint's menu editor to work. There was this error
>>message. It also wouldn't let me access the folder where my iff files were
>>that I wanted to edit, just the desktop.
>
> MenuEditor isn't the easiest program to use. I hate that you can edit
> only one file and then have to start all over after you save. I find
> it easiest to use Windows Explorer to go to the folder where the .iff
> is, and then drag and drop the file onto my MenuEditor shortcut on the
> desktop.
>
> Sorry you couldn't get it to work. Did you e-mail Bil about the error
> message?
>
> BW
She might also want to make sure all those files aren't read-only. Might make
a difference.
Bellaake
nice with fire-fighters, trucks etc.. Think I'm going it right now :)
"John Grabowski" <jg...@earthlink.net> schreef in bericht
news:3D644627...@earthlink.net...
Tuppence
> the limited choices you have with the game. With some of these you
> can't really "buy" anything, but they are fun and add atmosphere to the
> game. Here are some of my ideas--I'd be interested in hearing anyone
> else's:
One of my downtowns has an oceanarium, wirh various aquariums and
terrariums(sp?) built in, I used wallpaper from Pam's Themes and even found
a toy tower in the same theme ( some where on TSR I think).
I've got a large Hospital where my sims read in the waiting room or eat in
the canteen, Thanks to Mintha's they can gain logic points with her test
tubes/chemistry sets ( cloned from chess ).
I've built an antique shop with stuff from Sim Muse and a supermarket which
was a bit of a waste of space really.
Sleepy Hollow has a cigar shop, a mushroom shop ( do they *exist*?) and a
herbalists which I'm getting round to building.
Tupp