Create A World Released!

[RockinRobin]

I do have a question about CAW for anyone who has worked with it......

When you're in the "render panel".....is there a way to zoom out so that you can see more of the world at a time?  Mine seems to be zoomed ALL the way in so that I can only see a zoomed in version of the ground wherever the camera is pointing. I can right-click and hold the mouse button down and pan around to other areas, but since it's zoomed in so close, I have no idea which way to go. I can't seem to orient to where the center of town is. I'm sure there must be a way to zoom in and out, but I haven't found it yet.

Anyone know where that is??

[RockinRobin]

Nevermind, I think I found the answer in the tutorial under the keyboard controls.

[MegTrog]

I'm still waiting for Christmas to get my copy of Sims 3, but I've been very intrigued by the idea of Create-a-World (not tried downloading it yet to see if it works without the game installed).  My big question is can you build a neighborhood that has no career buildings or a school?  One of the things I always wanted to do with a proper Sims game is the 'castaway stories' theme, where Sims are obliged to live off the land, without modern day conveniences around...  Does this tool allow you the freedom to really subvert the whole neighbourhood concept in that way?  If you tried to play a neighbourhood like that, would it work successfully or would the game need to give you bills, policemen and social workers, etc?

[RockinRobin]

That's a good question. But I think the game itself will want to somehow keep the Sims alive, meaning that they will have to cook food, have indoor plumbing, and yes.....bills. (unless you buy the "no bills ever" LTR) As of right now, there are not any options available to have your Sims pee outside or eat plants that they don't prepare in a kitchen. I bet that you could still build a very rugged world, but you'll have still have to have some "outhouse" facilities, and a place to prepare food.

If you're good at modding, you could always make a toilet that looks like a tree stump and they would use that. You could also make kitchen appliances to look like trees or boards. There's a lady over at TSR that makes just that kind of stuff. She made a bunch of it for Sims 2 but I don't think she has yet made any for Sims 3 yet.

[Pam]

As of right now, there are not any options available to have your Sims pee outside or eat plants that they don't prepare in a kitchen.

Actually, Sims can eat anything they harvest from wild plants without cooking.

[RockinRobin]

Well I knew they could eat the fruits....but I never had them try to eat anything else.

[cory4shrt]

That helped tons, thank you so much. I've been fooling with it for a little bit and I think I've got it for the most part. It's not as hard as I first thought. 

[cory4shrt]

The advice from the manual is to test your game before sharing it. The only way I see to test it is to put it into your game. Is there anyway to do that and then go back and fix any problems? I read that once you put it in your game you can no longer edit in CaW. I'm confused.

[PJSim]

I haven't used CaW at all but from what you're describing I'm thinking you should be able to use a backup?
I mean make a copy of what you've created in CaW then install that copy to your game. If you want to make changes you should be able to go back and work on the original.

[RockinRobin]

Yeah PJ, that's what I was going to suggest. Just save the same world with two different names....test one and have one to fix any problems. I saved mine as "testworld" but I haven't gotten very far on it yet. It's going to take some time and patience to work on it. My "testworld" is just that....a place to kinda learn the program. I doubt that one will ever be playable. I'm just trying out a bunch of different things to get a feel for it.

[cory4shrt]

YES!! I'm a dolt. Thank you very much!

[MegTrog]

That's a good question. But I think the game itself will want to somehow keep the Sims alive, meaning that they will have to cook food, have indoor plumbing, and yes.....bills. (unless you buy the "no bills ever" LTR) As of right now, there are not any options available to have your Sims pee outside or eat plants that they don't prepare in a kitchen. I bet that you could still build a very rugged world, but you'll have still have to have some "outhouse" facilities, and a place to prepare food.

Rather belatedly, thanks for that.  I'm hoping that as the expansion packs come out, there will be more options for Sims to live off the land.  Considering how popular non-modern themes seem to be among customisers, I've always felt there should be more official ways of getting your Sims away from modern day civilisation.

But essentially, you could make a neighbourhood without any buildings then?  Except for your playable sims house?  That wouldn't make your game unworkable?

I should get my game tomorrow, and I expect I'll be too busy just exploring the vanilla game to worry about it for awhile, but I'd still love to know.

[17irish11]

I have been playing with the create a world and am wondering if anyone has figured out how to insert a river into one of the flat maps, I am slowly figuring it out by trial and error.

[RockinRobin]

I have been playing with the create a world and am wondering if anyone has figured out how to insert a river into one of the flat maps, I am slowly figuring it out by trial and error.

Yeah, it's in the MetaData under Game Objects. Scroll down the list until you find the different river inserts and then just put them where you want.

[kat]

I can't wait to try out the new Create-A-World! I'm going to work on it this weekend I think. My daughter wants me to make Norway, because that's where my ex-husband is from and so she's half Norwegian and goes there every summer to spend time with her family over there. I told her that would be a pretty country, so I might attempt to start working on it this weekend.

I need to do a little research first on what a quaint city in Norway looks like....the terrain, and the building styles. I plan to do it mountainous with hopefully, snow covered peaks. Norway is a beautiful country, so if I can do it justice, it'll be really cool.

Sounds great, can't wait to see pictures!!

I'll get used to it. And by the way, it doesn't open up in the game. It's pretty much seperate.

really? I thought it would open in the game, like when you could edit 'downtown' in TS2. Thanks for letting us know :-)