Most of the opinions I hear about Desiderata Valley is that the 'hood is just boring...


I barely ever do tend to play with any of the 'hoods that are not the base 3, but as a kid I found desiderata valley fine, so why is it quite literally the most hated 'hood in the sims 2?

P.S. Nobody ever seems to mention Riverblossom Hills lol - probably because its a bootleg pleasantview

Hard for me to call the families "boring", but my biggest criticism for Desiderata Valley is easily...

Ok tbh that is FUGLYYYYY! I dont really ever remember seeing that build but omg

For me, the best theme that suits the atmosphere/spirit/mood of Desiderata Valley would be:



Quite fitting for a long summer day with so much free time and yet nothing to do...

The beginning highkey sounds like something straight out of spongebob

They did some interesting things in Desiderata, but the houses are very boxy, and it echos parts of several of the other premade hoods when it could do something else. EA was also up against taste constraints that fan creators are not: they had to make something that isn't going to turn anyone off playing. As picky as just the MTS players are . . . well, I wouldn't want to be EA trying to cater to us, would you?

Honestly, I think Maxis developers failed with all of the post-BG Premade 'hoods. They could've really went all-out theme-wise like they did with (almost) all of the TS3 worlds, but all the post-BG 'hoods in TS2 feel cookie-cutter and generic.

For desiderata in particular the houses are boxy and generic and the families feel uninspired. I get that they themed it around hobbies, but they could've done much more. But I suppose to be fair, they probably only had 7-ish months to develop it so that would explain why they put less focus on the neighborhood itself and more on the pack features.

I happen to like Desiderata Valley.

I don't find the families boring; yes, some of the houses are rubbish but I just made them all over (that is part of playing imho.

This is the hood where I first had freelancers, painting, singing, writing for a living. I also had my first sims teaching other sims things on community lots here, and this is the hood where I had a number of new owned businesses and decided that my sims will buy only from each other. (Many of these things have remained in my game until today and it has become the norm for me rather than the exception).

laughs at the riverblossom jab cos it's true + i hated how the bridge did not align with the land like HUH


granted I could've fixed this with modifyneighborhoodterrain BUT! I only learned that recently.
and the accumulated hate for that particular spot since my childhood is too strong

but back on topic!! yknow... this makes desiderata very ripe for makeovers
if only I had the time

I did fix it with Modify Neighborhood

I cannot see the problem. XD

The bridge is too high above the terrain, so you can't even think that cars could drive on it (they don't anyway - bridges are purely deco).

Desiderata Valley has one deco feature I haven't seen elsewhere - a little steam train that runs up the tracks at random intervals. Does anybody know how they did it, and whether it's doable for other neighborhoods? (I'm using, and heavily modifying, a cleaned subhood version of Desiderata Valley.)

That's in-game hood deco- under effects.

The only real problem I had in Desiderata Valley: Bells had another child, a daughter as white as a baby can be.

I knew, of course, that Isaac was the father. I checked his and Hannah's family trees - no white people there (though it's hard to be completely sure with those grisaille portraits). Neither seemed to care, though, so I did not do anything.

Ooh, thanks. I must have totally missed it. I've been using the monorail as my Hogwarts Express. XD

Hmmm....if you want to make it part of the gameplay, give the child pale blue eyes and very pale blond hair, and say she's an albino. They do occur, though rarely, in all types of families.

If you have SimPE, you can use it to check for recessive genetics - can't imagine why Maxis would do that with premades, but you never know....

Thank you, but I lost that Desiderata a while ago when I bought a new PC, along with other old Maxis' neighborhoods (a stupid backup mistake). - I remember wondering if she would change her skin color when she became a toddler, etc., but she did not.

These things can happen in real life, even if they're very rare. I remember when I was at school, hearing about a white couple in apartheid South Africa, who had a black daughter. Presumably a couple of their ancestors had had some sort of interracial relationship in the dim and distant past. Once she reached her mid teens, under apartheid laws, she was no longer allowed to live in the same house as her parents. To keep her with them, they had to employ her as their maid -- then she was "allowed" to live in a shed in the garden. So if I ever have a baby of the "wrong" colour in my game, I think I'll just run with it, as just one of those things that, just occasionally, happen. I vaguely remember mentioning that South African couple once before in a post when I was a real newbie here.

There's nothing wrong with the neighbourhood, but it lacks the soap opera drama that the basegame neighbourhoods have. In the basegame you get actual drama with Sims being knee deep in affairs, alien babies being born, and possible murder storylines.
In Desiderata Valley? "This family likes sports....BUT will they continue to like sports in the future? dun dun duuuuun!"

At that point I might as well make my own neighbourhood and would probably have more fun doing so than playing Desiderata Valley.

John Mole is kinda fun, though.
And at least they didn't do that thing I really dislike about some of the other expansion neighbourhoods, where they had families that were "parodies" or "references" to the basegame families (you know the Cordial Sisters pretty much being the Pleasant Twins, and the Roth family being the Goths)...at least I think Desiderata Valley didn't have any of those.

They are called doof doofs and there are nine (or, to be exact, 4 1/2) of them.

The Proof

Here's an idea, how about if Desiderata Valley was based on a previous neighborhood, but not Pleasantview, Strangetown, or Veronaville...

...but The Sims 2 for console.

Think about it:

Cliffside Retreat - Cuisine
(Culinary ambitions between Don Treadwell and Rico Banana)
Sunset Canyon - Film & Literature
(Red S. Hirt is an aspiring writer)
Orbit Room - Music & Dance
(Pretty much the same plot as the original)
Mesa Gallery - Arts & Crafts
(Jasmine Yves and Willy Weir with their adopted teen Patricia)
Shoreline Trails - Fitness/Sports
(Torin Namaste and Farah Moonbiscuit and their adopted teen Timmy)
Tranquility Falls - Games/Nature
(washed up celebrity couple Larry Liu and Candi Cupp retreat to a more tranquil setting/neighborhood)
Andromeda Arms - Science/Tinkering
(career-oriented immigrant couple looking to fit in and raise a family)

That wouldn't have been the Desiderata Valley I know and love, but I think it would have been a much more engaging introduction to the Free Time activities than Desiderata was! I wish they had tied the console games and the PC games together more than they did. But Desiderata Valley is probably my favourite premade neighbourhood, so I feel a bit like a traitor saying that...