Plathville (06.02.23 UPD)

SCREENSHOTS
Downloaded 1,751 times 64 Thanks 15 Favourited 18,216 Views
 Say Thanks!
Introduction:
Once upon a time I decided to create a neighborhood to explore my own limits in creativity. That's not my first one I ever created tbh, but the first one I ever share. So I am bit nervous. Last two years I was following lives of Plath family who are starring "Welcome to Plathville" reality TV show. I was so excited by their story that decided to make the whole neighborhood in game that I know many years. In the Sims 2.

I know there were a lot of creators who made already stuff that based on reality. But that was new to me and now I realized them suffer. Whatever I entered the game to continue, I always remembered words written by Simooligan at Waterford Residence thread. The filming usually takes place on certain views. I was struggling when made a whole house when saw just its wall. I tried to be as accurate as possible to show it in neighborhood and you can see that through comparison pictures. I noticed Discovery peeling an eye on any illegal TV show sharing. Though I found really good resources to watch this show using TV or tablet, there was a tricky part to find good quality streams for making those comparison pictures using laptop. It was a challenge putting the puzzle pieces together... and though it’s not absolutely exact, it was fun to translate the essence of each house and each person from those family friendly reality. Would be a great pleasure to see one person, who's native to region to say, "Hey! I been there!" LOL!

There were already two TV show seasons released now and third season was announced just recently and should be upcoming this year. I am so excited! I think there is a sign! There won't better time to release my neighbourhood. So I made an effort to finish in time and now I hope you'll have fun when play it.

Statistics:
  • Population: 29 sims, 10 families, no NPC sims and no townies.
  • Number of community lots: 12
  • Number of residential lots: 18
  • SPs and EPs for populated version: University, Nightlife, Happy Holidays and M&G stuff
  • SPs and EPs for unpopulated version: Nightlife, Happy Holidays and M&G stuff
  • Terrain type: Lush

Features:
Read just bold text if you are not interested in plot.
Story tells about nine flaxen-haired children in the Plath family have never had a soda, have never watched TV, living remotely in rural Georgia with their "follow their own rules" parents Kim and Barry Plath. Kim is local land lord who owns many houses and lease it, while Barry is supportive husband, sometimes clumsy and childish, overshadowed by his domineering wife. The devoutly Christian parents prefer to homeschool and keep their kids away from technology and mass media such as TV and movies. A farm seems like the perfect place to live in that kind of isolation. That's why in this neighborhood neither of Plath family children goes at school. Here in the Sims 2 all children are sharing enthusiasm in music likewise in TV show (poor children).
Plot the neighborhood takes place between 1st and 2nd seasons when children grow up and start pushing the limits. Two brothers and two sisters decide to move out from family farm with a place of their own - Hosanna and Ethan moved to live with their spouses, while Micah and Moriah moved together to rental house next door to Plaths. Whereas there are four households in this neighborhood that are parts of Plath dynasty.
During their journey, they meet a lot of people who become their neighbors and friends. Those were also from original story however I was slightly deviate in this part from original. Origin of Myers, Jensen and Burrows families is based on 90's comedy movies. Burrows family is drawn from "Mr. Destiny" movie characters, Jensens are from "Look Who's Talking" and Myers continue storyline of family from "It takes two" but after their marriage. Whereas kids from those families are not from the movies but starring the original TV show. I liked those movies in my childhood and think it fits since both those movies and TV show are family-oriented.
As for buildings. I tried to find a plenty of community lots with different functions. The whole Cairo Town is relating to downtown, while other creek bank is considered rural part that calm and peaceful. There are a lot of parking spaces in all houses. There are three churches, three wedding venues and many of places for celebrations and parties. Starter houses with BD and BA count in names were placed from lot bin, I was lazy and did not change their names, just BR and BA count as needed. I’ve been rebuilding all to accept parking space on the left front lot corner and made extra bedrooms for families with two or three children. This neighborhood has a plenty of fully furnished starter houses with three bedrooms which might be good for big starter families. For example for new pair with their grandparents, or just married who plan to have a baby and would like to have one room left in case of twins or triplets. All excluding three houses has space for the vehicle with animation. I did not attach all pictures of houses, you might compare how they've been changed yourself. There are three wealthy houses over 100k simoleons cost. Two of those houses has five bedrooms, and one has two garages.
There are a lot of help provided by MTS club members Jawusa, simsample and CatherineTCJD and there were two houses made by other MTS creators used. The map was created from Garden Heights by Hood Building Group with also Catherine and Jawusa in it. It was tweaked a lot using just in-game tools so there is no sc4 file available for sharing. There is nothing else special after all for this neighborhood.
Finally, few words about current cottagecore theme. I never seen about this word before. I found in the net it is centered on ideas of simple living and harmony with nature. Quite simply, cottagecore celebrates the return of simple and wholesome life and escape from the dangers of the modern life. Those are exactly ideas that shared by senior part of Plath Family. Though it's not sweet and ruffled like pictures found when I googled it. And there is a conflict between senior and junior Plaths, juniors seems to disagree with that kind of living. I see it's kind of current interest.

About Map
As said before, this neighborhood is recreation of reality show "Welcome to Plathville". It takes place in a family farm in US Georgia. Small stream called Turkey Creek divides Plathville into two parts: Cairo Town and Orange Springs. I made two map guides with descriptions for each in the next scrolls:







Information about CC:
I found a bunch of fixes for this neighborhood to help you to play with families. Although they are not not strongly necessary, there first two in the next list are most essential. Without them this and even other neighborhoods woudn't work properly.
There are a lot of variations of mods. f. e. that turns on all the lights outdoors till dawn, not just street lights. ilikefishfood and Cindy both were shared a huge collection of recommended mods. Look through that lists for your interest.

General tips to place and use the neighborhood:
  • Better to have all of EPs and SPs. I find Happy Holidays is least necessary for both versions. It was used throughout in churches and slightly in THE AMERICAN lot.
  • Populated and unpolpualted versions are slightly different in furnishing. That's because unpopulated version was created a bit earlier and does not contain University objects. Unpopulated version is NPU0 (Neighborhood Plathville Unpopulated vers.0), and populated is NPP1 (Neighborhood Plathville Populated vers.1). Both versions can be used at the same time.
  • No special mods for watering plants and cut bushes are required.
  • Neighborhood camera mod is not required as well.
  • Plath parents has private access to their bedroom from separated doors. Marsha Doll also has private bedroom and closet doors. All other families have their bedrooms and insuite doors settled for households.
  • You may use and do whatever you want with all lots, sims and anything I created for this neighborhood as well as any of my creations. Just don't share entire neighborhood and claim it's yours. You may refurnish houses and edit sims. But please don't change its descriptions. Most of sims were created with custom made unlocks and pre-made relationships, so move them anywhere will break their family tights and may cause neighborhood corruption.

About Storylines:
Here I have some words to say about characters and real life references for sims who are living in this neighborhood.
  • There are some characters from 2nd season of Welcome to Plathville. But they don't know each other yet. And Plath Family New Home is a replica of the house from 2nd season.
  • Kim confessed in second episode she had 10th baby dead by unfortunate accident. Babies death is not allowed in Sims 2, however she still has a strong want to have 10 babies.
  • Timothy and Hosanna Nobles has no their stories in storybook, and are not appearing on Neighborhood entrance menu shot. That's because they were not take part in the TV show. But they were mentioned in the first episode. So they exist in this neighborhood.
  • Timothy, Hosanna and Marsha were attended to college. Timothy and Hosanna graduated Economics, and Marsha Doll passed Drama Major. Due to those fact and skills learned by Timothy, he could change his job to Concert Pianist (same as real life Timothy), if you have Sims 2 Seasons installed.
  • Cory Marshall has maximum of hidden writing. So he has an extra source of money.
  • Mikey's storyline is based on "Look Who's Talking" movie. He can talk, unsurprisingly.
  • Larry's storyline is based on "Mr. Destiny" movie. He was waiting for a miracle to come. But he wants to be abducted by aliens in the Sims instead. Aliens are miraculous, aren't they?

Known issues:
In some houses newspapers are not delivered to front doors. So better to have mod that alters front door.
  • I had four leftover DNA files in neighborhood files from driver sims. Sim creation index has been set to 01 hopefully to make leftover DNA files repository for future NPC sims and not to cause neighborhood corruption.
  • Even with children not to go to school and despite their TV show characters, Barry and Kim still tend to roll their usual wants of kids to have good grades. I set Barry and Kim's panel to have 7 wants to compensate this issue because half of it won't be fulfilled.
  • All wants and fears tend to reroll once you unpause the game. Check out twice if you want to lock or unlock any. Some of them really makes sense.

Additional Credits:
All creators are mentioned many times in topic, but there are also a lot of extra credits I want to mention here.
Many thnks to simsample and Jawusa for looking through neighborhood with my first steps, for troubleshooting and their knowlege about neighborhood building. aman19942 for super useful mods in house descriptions.
I used a lot of mods to create this neighborhood. Many thanks to creators who makes a lot of useful stuff. Here is the list of almost all stuff was involved in creating process:


Aren't you tired from such a long post? Want to know more? Well. No more. That's all.
Regards Vic ^_^
Creator Recommendations:
Other Download Recommendations:
More downloads by Victor_tor: See more
Back to top