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Building a Supernatural-Friendly Vacation Hood
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#1
14-09-2018
So while I was laying the foundation for my "Hotel Simsylvania" lot in Three Lakes so that my vampires would have a vampire-friendly place to stay while on vacation, I got to thinking: Why settle for plunking down a paranormal-friendly hotel or campground in Three Lakes, Twikkii Island, Takemizu Village and Hoar Mountain (the Mountain hood that I created just to satisfy all of my Sims who rolled up that pesky "Buy a vacation home" Want) when I can go all the way to Halloweentown and build an entire vacation hood for my supernatural Sims?
Some basic ideas and concepts that I'm chewing on:
1) Put the entrance to at least one building on every lot right on the sidewalk, near the spot where the shuttle drops Sims off. Because you just know that that shuttle's going to drop a vampire off when it's after sunrise, and that vampire needs to scramble inside in a hurry.
2) Be sure to place several coffins inside each hotel! Campgrounds may take the form of no-frills underground crypts with alcoves and biers for coffins. Again, vacationing vampires.
3) Keep the lots small. Smaller lots may mean fewer tourist Sims and native Sims wandering onto those lots, meaning fewer Sims that may start losing Aspiration as soon as the werewolves start howling their fool heads off.
4) Keep the lots compact, with the lot's attractions and features not too far apart. Don't force the zombies to shuffle half a mile to get from the dining room to the toilets.
5) Add a few hotels and community lots with greenhouse lights and lots of water features, such as swimming pools and shower rooms with plenty of Strut Your Stuff showers. The PlantSims will need them at some point.
6) I'm not sure what to add or remove to make lots witch-friendly. I downloaded some witch cauldrons that are available in the Buy Mode catalog, but I haven't tested them yet to see if they work the same as the cauldrons which witches and warlocks can buy from the High Witches. Plus, I still don't have any Buy Mode spellbooks for witches at all. There might not be very much that I can do for witches; they're just like regular Sims, but better.
7) It's tempting to add an observatory/mad scientist laboratory with a few expensive telescopes, so that any visiting aliens can "phone home". But what happens if someone gets abducted by a UFO which still hasn't spat them back onto the street by the time the shuttle arrives to take them home from vacation? I've never tried doing that yet, and the possible bad voodoo from doing that kind of scares me out of trying it.
8) What about creating a bunch of new, theme-compliant Sims, changing their Life States (into werewolves, zombies, et al) with the Creature Shack, then using the Sim Blender to turn them into natives for the vacation hood? Possible problems: These supernatural townies showing up in every vacation hood of that type; create a bunch of werewolves for a "Halloweentown" Mountain hood, and don't be surprised if they start showing up in Three Lakes. And is there any way to stop nonplayable vampires from showing up during the daytime?
9) Speaking of the three types of vacation hoods, possible themes:
9A) Mountain: A "Carpathian Mountains"-like vacation hood, heavy on Gothic and Medieval architecture, like something out of a Dracula movie. Lots of terrain altering on each lot for the rocky, mountainous look; even though I'm trying to avoid huge lots (see Idea #3), there's simply not enough room to create a manor atop a foothill with a 2x2 lot. I also have some vardo-building goodies from Parsimonious, and what's a good Old-Transylvania-like mountain pass without superstitious old Roma-like folk and their Gypsy caravans? Seasons: One Spring, no Summer, one Autumn and two Winters. The secret lot will still be the Hidden Burrow, of course, but Bigfoot's a sasquatch, and sasquatches aren't just for North-America-like regions anymore.
9B) Tropical: Twikkii Island has big temples and pyramids. Who else (in our own world history) had big temples and pyramids that could be replicated with the Simmy Tropical-themed Build Mode and Buy Mode stuff? Certain Native American tribes, particularly those hailing from Central and South America. But the North American tribes (who rarely built permanent buildings or settlements because they were considerably more nomadic than the Central and Southern tribes) apparently had far more legends and tales about shapeshifters similar to werebeasts...Coyote the Trickster, the Deer Woman of Cherokee legend, the Wendigo of the Algonquian tribes, and plenty more. There are undead too; one of the first instances of the animated skeleton that we see everywhere from Halloween to Dungeons & Dragons may have been in early Iriquois folklore. So perhaps blend the whole mess into some sort of "Lost Village of Wapanecket" (or some similar name); the Tropical natives can pass for jungle-dwelling, Native-American-like folk well enough, and the Witch Doctor should fit in pretty well too. Seasons: Two Springs, no Summer, two Autumns, no Winter.
9C) Far East: It may not seem like the most supernatural-friendly type of vacation hood, but it can work. China has the jiangshi (a "hopping corpse" vampire; think "something like Hsien-Ko from the Darkstalkers games, minus all the junk that she pulls out of her sleeves and slings around"), Japan has the onryo (a revenant or zombie of sorts, seen everywhere from Samara in "The Ring" to Hisako from the "Killer Instinct" reboot), Malaysia has the penanggalan (a vampire known for detaching its head from its body and sending its head out to fly around and bite people)...Japan also has the kitsune (which is pretty much a werefox), and China has the wu jen (a kind of sorcerer). So: Far Eastern-styled graveyards and tombs, a few peasant huts for hotels and campgrounds (along with one or two of those graveyards for visiting vampires and zombies) and maybe a werewolf-friendly bamboo forest and a dark-colored pagoda for the witches. Seasons: Three Springs, one Autumn, no Summers or Winters.
10) The nice thing about the vacation hood types is that you can set any seasons you want for them. It may not make much sense to have a bunch of barefoot, half-naked Tropical natives moseying around in a foot of snow, but you could make a Tropical hood all-Winter if you wanted to! You could make a Mountain hood without any Winter (like one of those mountains in Mexico or equatorial Africa), and the Far East theme can easily have any seasons you want, from a frosty analog of Northern Mongolia to a steamy analog of Vietnam or Thailand! So whatever hood type can combine with whatever season(s) to make the perfect vacation spot for paranormal Sims, I'm all for it.
Any thoughts, ideas or feedback thus far? I'm all ears.
Some basic ideas and concepts that I'm chewing on:
1) Put the entrance to at least one building on every lot right on the sidewalk, near the spot where the shuttle drops Sims off. Because you just know that that shuttle's going to drop a vampire off when it's after sunrise, and that vampire needs to scramble inside in a hurry.
2) Be sure to place several coffins inside each hotel! Campgrounds may take the form of no-frills underground crypts with alcoves and biers for coffins. Again, vacationing vampires.
3) Keep the lots small. Smaller lots may mean fewer tourist Sims and native Sims wandering onto those lots, meaning fewer Sims that may start losing Aspiration as soon as the werewolves start howling their fool heads off.
4) Keep the lots compact, with the lot's attractions and features not too far apart. Don't force the zombies to shuffle half a mile to get from the dining room to the toilets.
5) Add a few hotels and community lots with greenhouse lights and lots of water features, such as swimming pools and shower rooms with plenty of Strut Your Stuff showers. The PlantSims will need them at some point.
6) I'm not sure what to add or remove to make lots witch-friendly. I downloaded some witch cauldrons that are available in the Buy Mode catalog, but I haven't tested them yet to see if they work the same as the cauldrons which witches and warlocks can buy from the High Witches. Plus, I still don't have any Buy Mode spellbooks for witches at all. There might not be very much that I can do for witches; they're just like regular Sims, but better.
7) It's tempting to add an observatory/mad scientist laboratory with a few expensive telescopes, so that any visiting aliens can "phone home". But what happens if someone gets abducted by a UFO which still hasn't spat them back onto the street by the time the shuttle arrives to take them home from vacation? I've never tried doing that yet, and the possible bad voodoo from doing that kind of scares me out of trying it.
8) What about creating a bunch of new, theme-compliant Sims, changing their Life States (into werewolves, zombies, et al) with the Creature Shack, then using the Sim Blender to turn them into natives for the vacation hood? Possible problems: These supernatural townies showing up in every vacation hood of that type; create a bunch of werewolves for a "Halloweentown" Mountain hood, and don't be surprised if they start showing up in Three Lakes. And is there any way to stop nonplayable vampires from showing up during the daytime?
9) Speaking of the three types of vacation hoods, possible themes:
9A) Mountain: A "Carpathian Mountains"-like vacation hood, heavy on Gothic and Medieval architecture, like something out of a Dracula movie. Lots of terrain altering on each lot for the rocky, mountainous look; even though I'm trying to avoid huge lots (see Idea #3), there's simply not enough room to create a manor atop a foothill with a 2x2 lot. I also have some vardo-building goodies from Parsimonious, and what's a good Old-Transylvania-like mountain pass without superstitious old Roma-like folk and their Gypsy caravans? Seasons: One Spring, no Summer, one Autumn and two Winters. The secret lot will still be the Hidden Burrow, of course, but Bigfoot's a sasquatch, and sasquatches aren't just for North-America-like regions anymore.
9B) Tropical: Twikkii Island has big temples and pyramids. Who else (in our own world history) had big temples and pyramids that could be replicated with the Simmy Tropical-themed Build Mode and Buy Mode stuff? Certain Native American tribes, particularly those hailing from Central and South America. But the North American tribes (who rarely built permanent buildings or settlements because they were considerably more nomadic than the Central and Southern tribes) apparently had far more legends and tales about shapeshifters similar to werebeasts...Coyote the Trickster, the Deer Woman of Cherokee legend, the Wendigo of the Algonquian tribes, and plenty more. There are undead too; one of the first instances of the animated skeleton that we see everywhere from Halloween to Dungeons & Dragons may have been in early Iriquois folklore. So perhaps blend the whole mess into some sort of "Lost Village of Wapanecket" (or some similar name); the Tropical natives can pass for jungle-dwelling, Native-American-like folk well enough, and the Witch Doctor should fit in pretty well too. Seasons: Two Springs, no Summer, two Autumns, no Winter.
9C) Far East: It may not seem like the most supernatural-friendly type of vacation hood, but it can work. China has the jiangshi (a "hopping corpse" vampire; think "something like Hsien-Ko from the Darkstalkers games, minus all the junk that she pulls out of her sleeves and slings around"), Japan has the onryo (a revenant or zombie of sorts, seen everywhere from Samara in "The Ring" to Hisako from the "Killer Instinct" reboot), Malaysia has the penanggalan (a vampire known for detaching its head from its body and sending its head out to fly around and bite people)...Japan also has the kitsune (which is pretty much a werefox), and China has the wu jen (a kind of sorcerer). So: Far Eastern-styled graveyards and tombs, a few peasant huts for hotels and campgrounds (along with one or two of those graveyards for visiting vampires and zombies) and maybe a werewolf-friendly bamboo forest and a dark-colored pagoda for the witches. Seasons: Three Springs, one Autumn, no Summers or Winters.
10) The nice thing about the vacation hood types is that you can set any seasons you want for them. It may not make much sense to have a bunch of barefoot, half-naked Tropical natives moseying around in a foot of snow, but you could make a Tropical hood all-Winter if you wanted to! You could make a Mountain hood without any Winter (like one of those mountains in Mexico or equatorial Africa), and the Far East theme can easily have any seasons you want, from a frosty analog of Northern Mongolia to a steamy analog of Vietnam or Thailand! So whatever hood type can combine with whatever season(s) to make the perfect vacation spot for paranormal Sims, I'm all for it.
Any thoughts, ideas or feedback thus far? I'm all ears.
Pizzatron-9000, proud to be a member of LeeFish since Aug 2018.
(This post was last modified: 14-09-2018 11:56 AM by Pizzatron-9000.)
#2
14-09-2018
I can't help you out much, re: your questions - as I haven't actually 'played' many of the supernatural characters. But, I'm definitely intrigued by your idea, and will be watching this thread eagerly awaiting updates
Good luck!
Good luck!
#3
14-09-2018
Aw, thank you. 
I'd love to go with the Mountain hood idea (because a setting like Old Romania — or Old Europe in general — is what I and many others have come to identify with the elements of traditional Gothic horror as well as the monsters of the old Hammer films), but I already have two Mountain hoods and I'd also like to balance things out a little — and break a little tradition — with the Tropical or Far East ideas.
I'll think on it. Ideas are welcome, of course; I think that Checkers and Domino already proved that.
I'd love to go with the Mountain hood idea (because a setting like Old Romania — or Old Europe in general — is what I and many others have come to identify with the elements of traditional Gothic horror as well as the monsters of the old Hammer films), but I already have two Mountain hoods and I'd also like to balance things out a little — and break a little tradition — with the Tropical or Far East ideas.
I'll think on it. Ideas are welcome, of course; I think that Checkers and Domino already proved that.
#4
22-05-2019
I know this is an old thread, but if you sill need help with a buyable spell book and cauldron that actually work, you can find them at Pandorasims in the TS2 booty. They include all the maxis spell, plus some original spells created by Pandorasims. Warning: Pandorasims is an adults only site.
#5
26-05-2019
On the subject of making a Sim into a Vacation Local, you can not use The Sim Blender it only makes Townies/Downtownies and it does not make Vacation Local Sims, to turn a Sim into a Vacation Sim you need Argon's towniebrick, it is available on MATY...get the updated one.
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