#Minus plant because I am particularly lazy

[thesovietonion77]

hehe silly

The four elements

[pudding-parade]

Old Capa's Forest by Vany

I hesitated to overview this one, for reasons which I'll go into under the cut, but in the end, I do think the world is beautiful and deserves some attention, so here we are.

As usual, the title of this post is a link to a page that has the world up for download, and also as usual I have re-uploaded a .world file here, just in case the linked paged vanishes. (The .world file goes in your game install files at GameData - Shared - NonPackaged - Worlds.)

There is also a German-language forum thread here in which the creator describes the backstory of the world and shows in-progress pics, etc. My German is extremely rusty, but sufficient to understand that the backstory is about Native (North) Americans, a famine, and grizzly bears, and then settlers moving in. That being said, much of the world looks very German/Alpine/central European, and while that's very pretty, it doesn't fit as American in any sense, native or otherwise. But as a German/Alpine-inspired world created by a German-speaking creator, I think it's wonderful. In any case, I did manage to glean from the forum thread that the world uses all EPs up to Generations and also the SPs that were released up to that point except for the Outdoor one but I'm too lazy to look up what SPs those would be. Sorry.

BUT ANYWAY! There are several reasons for my hesitation in overviewing this one. Among them…

1) In general with these overviews, I want to feature worlds that are complete enough that you can drop in some sims, maybe let Story Progression create some other families, and just play, without having to do anything else. With this one, you can't do that because the residential houses are all empty, some of them not even partitioned into rooms inside. In order for Story Progression to put families in them, you'll need to go through and put at least a fridge and beds in them, plus cribs if you want families with toddlers to move in.

(But speaking of families, many of the houses are tiny one-bedrooms on teeny-tiny lots, which is a huge minus for me, but I suppose may be a plus for others.)

2) There are a ton of trees and other plants. There are so many that it makes it hard to take pics of the lots, frankly. And even though the playable area of the world is relatively small, there are so many trees that I fear the world will lag when it's fully populated and played, unless they are thinned out. And arguably, they should be thinned out on the lots because many of them intrude into the buildings and/or would make playing more difficult because the "plantings" are so dense. Like so:

Now, it is supposed to be a forest-type world, of course, so there ought to be lots of flora, but I think it's a bit excessive. Many of the lots make me want to pull out a chainsaw and a giant weedwhacker, but maybe that's just me.

3) The blurb on the download page (again in German) says the world uses the rabbithole rugs/doors by Jynx, and there's a link to them. I don't normally use that set, but I went ahead and downloaded them and then installed them in the folder that I use to take pics for these overviews. However, they still don't function as rabbitholes in the world. I don't know what's up with that. So when it comes to many of the community lots, I am uncertain as to what they are supposed to be. Some of them are obvious -- one is called a school (in English, so this may be a lot that the creator downloaded), one is called the Krankenhaus (German for hospital), and one is called Wissenschaft (German for science), and one looks like a military base with a barracks and exercise equipment, etc. -- but there are others that aren't so obvious, and I'm not going to go through them and offer my guesses. So, that will require some fiddling if you want to play this world.

4) The world uses store content, at least some of which I don't have -- particularly doors and windows, as you'll see in some of the pics -- so I can't tell you what all might be needed. Other than the rabbithole rugs (which as far as I can tell don't work even if you have/download them, as I said), it doesn't have or require CC, though.

5) Some of the lots are very, very large. There are a couple that are entire mini-villages including both residential and commercial spaces on one lot, so the size is justified, but some of them are just danged big single-purpose lots. Personally, I don't like huge lots at all unless it's livestock-related, so this is a minus in my book, but of course YMMV.

So there are the big downsides, as I see them. On the up side, the world is gorgeous. For reference, this is the world where I took the pictures for this little 'story.' It's big, but not too huge, and the distant terrain makes it feel larger. I'm guessing it's 2048x2048 (but don't quote me on that), but the playing area is fairly small, so it shouldn't take a long time for sims to get from place to place.

What makes the world unique, IMO, is that, as you can see in the first pic of this post, it's created at high elevation with most of the surrounding distant terrain sitting lower than the playable area, increasing the feeling of height. The height allows for, among other things, some truly massive waterfalls, three big ones and a couple smaller ones. Adding to the feeling of altitude (as well as moisture from the massive waterfalls) is the use of fog emitters, so that you feel like you're up in the clouds.

Layout-wise, the world is broken out into discrete sections, which I like. There is an "old town" area with remnants of walls/gates and small residential and community lots built close together, reminiscent of a German/central European town that dates back to the Middle Ages. Then there's a "newer" part with small, densely-packed, more modern-style lots. Then, larger lots are spread around the rest of the world, mostly on roads that are big circles.

The lots are all original, as far as I can tell. As I said, in my game, many are missing doors/windows because I don't have a lot of build content from the Store, but if you have that stuff, this probably won't be an issue. The world has some, but certainly not all, of the "standard" community lots. There's a library, two gyms, a graveyard, a couple dive bars, a vampire lounge, a nectary, and several markets as well as a couple of "real" rabbitholes, namely the movie theater and the police station.

Overall, I feel this world has some excellent bones to it, and it has some truly spectacular scenery. So, I think it's a excellent world to have if you like to finish/renovate lots but not build them from scratch, especially if you like the architectural style. With finishing and, in my opinion, taming some out-of-control flora, this would be a completely gorgeous world that (hopefully) would run well. Or, if you want to take some beautiful, atmospheric scenery pics, it's good as-is. But, it's not as "plug and play" as I'd generally want for these world overviews I do. I do think it deserves a feature, though, just for the world sculpting/decoration and the prettiness of many of the lots.

But enough talk! Time for pictures. Since the rabbitholes don't work, I'm going to dispense with the usual map view and Edit Town pics and just post a bunch of random pics.

[virmillion]

Ibytm - T minus 58 seconds

Masterpost - Previous Chapter - Next Chapter - ao3

Words: 2,594

Aside from the one confrontation post-petticoat ukulele conspiracy, Logan still hasn’t talked with Cadmium. Really, truly talked to the guy. Tagging along on his tours doesn’t count. Granted, a fair amount of his Tuesdays and Thursdays are occupied with thoughts of Cadmium, but Logan does still have a life outside of him. It comes with no small amount of annoyance that this other life involves dealing with unsolvable problems at his internship.

“I heard there’s no real answer,” Cassidy says. She stabs her pen in the air, writing imaginary equations and scowling at the empty space.

“I heard they had this problem, like, years ago,” Joy says. Logan steeples his fingers under his chin with his elbows propped on his knees, watching Joy spin circles on her chair with her nose pointed at the ceiling. “I bet they already know the answer, and any intern that can’t crack it gets kicked to the curb.”

“Somehow, I feel like excessive alliteration isn’t the answer, Joy,” Micah calls from the water jug. His perspective might seem more valuable if his cheek weren’t flattened against the top of the machine in an utterly pitiful display of boredom.

“Oh, and I bet you already figured it out, huh, smart guy?” Joy’s retort also seems less valuable, as it comes at the same moment that she smacks her ankle into the leg of her desk, her spinning cut short. Logan is getting the sinking feeling that he chose the wrong scientific field.

“Maybe we’re looking at it from the wrong angle. Does someone want to read it again, and we all think of it with clean slates?” Logan glances around the room, hoping that his non-contribution will be sufficient. “Or, hey, Alex, have you got an idea? You haven’t said too much yet.”

Alex’s shock of dyed yellow hair jolts as they lift their eyes to peer over the top of the computer. “Can I get you a handkerchief, or did you dodge the splashback when you threw me under the bus just now?”

“ I’ll read it, you bunch of babies,” Cassidy sighs. “Okay. Riddle me this, folks. Thought experiments for the modern era.”

“Lay off the Mcelroy references and finish the question,” Micah grumbles.

Cassidy wrinkles her nose and sticks out her tongue before continuing. “The ship of Theseus proposes that a ship leaves a location and has every single part of itself periodically replaced before reaching a second location. The question is whether the ship to arrive is a different ship than the one to depart. Bear this in mind while assuming all cultural divides and disparities—cultural, political, scientific, or otherwise—are held in an impenetrable stasis that has no effect on the contents of the riddle, and conclusively solve the following. Jeez, talk about a run-on sentence.

“NASA launches a rocket to Neptune, and the only passenger is the child of a Russian and an American, where the parents were born on Earth and the child on Mars. The inhabited rocket was built half of parts from NASA and half of parts from Roscosmos. It contains enough parts to make an entirely new rocket, all of which were created on the moon. Allowing adequate suspensions of disbelief in favor of the passenger’s ability to build the new rocket and touch down on Neptune alive, which flag should be placed on Neptune as the first to arrive: That of Mars, the Moon, Earth, America, or Russia?”

“Does the moon even have its own flag?” Micah muses.

Joy slams the side of her fist on her desk hard enough to rattle the pens scattered across the floor. “This is such a stupid question. It barely even has anything to do with space!”

“It is about non-mathematical rocket science,” Alex points out.

“You could take the exact same problem and change a few key words to make it about a fish being flushed down a toilet,” Logan counters, “and nothing would change.”

“Is the fish dead?” Micah asks. “Because now you’re introducing aquatic zombies to the equation.”

“No aquatic zombies!” Joy and Alex shout in unison. Logan joins in the cry with a muttered mimic of his own, and even Cassidy looks quite done with Micah, who traces his finger along the side of the water tank before patting the top.

“Aquatic zombies,” he whispers forlornly. Logan isn’t entirely sure how Micah managed to weasel his way into an internship here, but he stopped questioning it a long time ago.

“It’s the moon, isn’t it?” Cassidy tries. This brings about a chaotic storm of argued disagreements through which Logan couldn’t possibly begin to sort.

“But the passenger was born on Mars, so it’s the Martian flag.”

“But their parents were of Earth, do we know where the passenger was conceived? Earthling parents mean it can’t be Mars’ flag.”

“Oh, like the Opportunity rover would plant a flag on Neptune.”

“Rip in pieces, Oppy.”

“Well, wouldn’t it be the country of origin of the mom, since she’s the one that had to carry the passenger to term?”

“That’s sexist, and we don’t know which parent is which.”

“It’s heretonormative, anyway.”

“You mean cisnormative.”

“I know what I meant to mean.”

“Unless you meant both. Trans father for the win.”

“Trans father, transformer, illuminati?”

“Does Earth even have a flag?”

“Where was the passenger raised? That might change the answer.”

The door opposite the stairs slams open as another intern with dirty blond hair and a beanie stumbles in looking particularly disheveled—well, more so than usual, at least.

“The passenger opened a wormhole immediately after being born, and raised themself on Neptune,” Logan deadpans. “Roman, if you haven’t got any good news, I swear to—”

“They cancelled the level eight project,” the man at the door says. Were it not for the bright gold name embroidered along the breast pocket of his shirt—Roman—Logan might believe him to be a random guy from off the street. “They figured out the missing sections—without our input, obviously—and decided the clearance rate was excessive. Basically, they said a toddler with a functioning search engine could crack it, so we should stop wasting our time.”

“Has the toddler ever been to Neptune?” Logan asks dryly. A hollow chorus of laughs ricochets around the room, quieted only by the click of the hour hand on the only analog clock hung on the wall. It must’ve been ages since Logan souped up the old thing to announce clockins, breaks, and clockouts.

“For the next hour,” Joy declares, “Neptune does not exist.”

“Seconded,” the other interns agree, putting their respective monitors to sleep and shuffling for the break room.

Roman lags behind to enter after Logan, prodding the small of his back and tilting his head toward the computers. He clears his throat meaningfully. Logan sighs, casting one last doleful look into the breakroom before joining Roman out on the floor again.

“They did want me to give you this,” Roman murmurs, “but keep it cazh.”

“Nothing is less ‘cazh’ than you shortening the word ‘casual’ like that,” Logan says, nonchalantly stretching an arm over his head. On the downswing, he takes the item from Roman’s hand and threads it between his fingers.

“I think I got the same deal, but don’t mention it, yeah?” Roman steps into the breakroom first, allowing Logan a moment to dawdle and inspect his acquisition. A flat disc, about the size of a well-used roll of scotch tape, with the NASA logo on both sides. Logan pinches the edges beside the first and last letter experimentally, and a USB plug pops out from the bottom of the logo. He pinches again, and it slides away. It looks for all the world like an overly expensive keychain one might find in a cheap museum. Logan shrugs, pockets it, and joins the others in the breakroom.

Only Roman appears to be in any semblance of a good mood—then again, he got clearance to visit the upper offices while everyone else pondered that stupid riddle. After teasing Roman about how he was probably about to get The Talk (the firing talk, that is) from the higher ups, it only took the rest of the floor about five minutes to give up on individual glory and try to solve the problem together. Obviously, it didn’t help.

“We could send someone for coffee,” Cassidy says. At least, Logan thinks that’s what she said. Her voice is a little muffled, what with how her face is pressed against the table.

“And get yelled at for prioritizing caffeine over the crappy cloud juice we’ve already got here?” Alex replies, tracing their finger over the glass front of the vending machine. Its only products are bottled water and expired heath candy bars. Four bucks a pop. “I’d rather dehydrate than take that kind of reprimanding.”

“I am literally going to commit multiple federal and moral crimes if I don’t get some real bean juice in my system in the next hour,” Joy grumbles. A true testament to her name.

Micah, apparently having moved on from the destruction of his aquatic zombie idea, springs to his feet from where he was sprawled across the floor. “We could use Logan’s app!”

This might be a good time to mention that, in padding his resume to apply for this extended internship, Logan made a brief foray into coding, which resulted in an app he dubbed ‘fetch quest.’ Basically a personalized coffee order service, more specialized than door dash, where instead of ordering food straight to your location, you put out a request for coffees—usually from Starbucks, Tim Hortons, Biggby, the like—to be delivered by the colloquially nicknamed fetch kids. Upon getting their coffee, the buyer reimburses the fetch kid for the coffee, as well as an obligatory tip so the fetch kid can turn a quick buck.

To tell the truth, Logan was genuinely too lazy to walk to the campus cafeteria for a coffee while working on homework, and paid his roommate five dollars to do it for him. (He paid in nickels, by the way.) So lazy was Logan, in fact, that he made an app to avoid ever dealing with the inconvenience again.

“I’m down for that,” Cassidy mumbles. “Who’s got the app? Seems kinda rude to do six separate orders, y’know, like ordering a different personal pizza from different locations and having them arrive at the same time, then fight to the death for the right to deliver their pizza first, so they miss the thirty minute limit and no one gets paid.”

“Okay, so Cassidy gets a decaf,” Alex says, swiping around on their phone. “Everyone just getting their usuals? Same as the last fetch quest?” Grunts of agreement are their only answer—aside from Roman, who peers over Alex’s shoulder to design an obscenely personalized drink.

“Pitch in a five dollar tip for the barista,” Logan calls. “I’ll cover it.” Roman perks up at that as Alex taps the appropriate button on their phone. Before he can ask, Logan nods, saying, “I’ll spot you the six dollars.”

“It’s actually closer to seven,” Roman admits, rubbing at the back of his neck sheepishly. “I got a dairy substitute, don’t sue me. I’m broke, anyway, so it wouldn’t help if you won the suit.”

“This is a paid internship,” Joy points out.

Roman looks aghast. “You guys are getting paid?” It’s unclear whether he’s kidding.

“Order placed and transaction pending,” Alex announces, “so start up the charitable donation pool to my wallet.” Roman initiates the process, pulling the beanie off his head and carrying it around the room for everyone to toss their bills in. He can only manage a weak smile when Logan tosses in double what he ought to.

“Wait, Logan,” Micah says, “you didn’t get anything last time.”

“Shoot, yeah, what can I get you? No one’s picked it up yet,” Alex says, pulling the wads of bills from Roman’s hat.

“Just do a fetch kid’s delight, I guess. Price limit five.” Roman darts across the room to grab the proffered bill from Logan, attempting (and spectacularly failing) to parkour over the chair on his way back. The rickety plastic flies out from underneath him and his chin smacks the carpet as he goes down. Before anyone thinks about moving to help, he jumps to his feet and dusts off his knees, pretending as if nothing happened.

“It’s been accepted,” Alex announces.

“Maybe the trick is to work out whether the rocket, being from the moon, is the first to land, or if it has to be a life form in order to count for reaching Neptune first,” Joy suggests. Cassidy lifts her head to respond, thinks better of it, and drops her face back onto the table.

“That’s only assuming you give the rocket living rights to plant the flag,” Micah says.

“Did you guys consider the ramifications of the nationalities of each parent?” Roman asks.

“Yes,” everyone else groans in unison. Even Logan says it, now thoroughly annoyed by how much inconvenience Roman was able to skip in favor of retrieving a little flashdrive.

“Do we need to take into account the heritage of the parents?” Cassidy tries.

“It wasn’t included in the information backing up the question, and we’re only supposed to get an answer based on what we concretely know already,” Alex replies.

“We don’t concretely know already which flag they plant,” Logan offers, “so maybe the answer is that we aren’t supposed to have one.”

“That’s exactly what someone who knows the answer would say,” Joy mutters. This manner of conversation continues for another fifteen minutes or so, until someone knocks on the door at the top of the stairs.

“Liquid inspiration!” Roman shouts, vaulting over the empty chairs on his sprint for the door. As he swings it open to reveal a very familiar silhouette, Alex clicks a few times on their phone, finalizing the transaction upon receival.

Apart from the grey and red plaid scarf wrapped around his neck, Cadmium looks like he walked straight out of one of his own tours, down to the maroon cardigan and black skinny jeans. “Fetch quest fulfillment for Ally-oopsy-olly—”

“Yep, yes, that’s me,” Alex interrupts quickly, not letting him finish saying the username. They take a couple of the cups from Cadmium, stepping aside to let Joy and Micah help with the rest. Cadmium makes eye contact with Logan for a split second, inclines his chin, and turns to leave. He pulls out his phone, the screen angled enough for Logan to see the fetch quest home screen loading in more requests.

“Wait, we didn’t tip you,” Logan calls, surging past the other interns to catch up.

“Yeah, we did,” Alex says, “I put in your five, and I have my account set for an auto-gratuity of twenty—”

“Shut up , Alex,” Logan hisses over his shoulder. He turns to Cadmium, who looks somewhere between amused and bewildered. If he landed on Neptune, which emotion would touch down first? “Here y’are. Thanks.” Logan allows the last word to linger in the air, implying an unvoiced request for a name as he passes Cadmium a ten.

Cadmium glances from his phone—now proudly displaying a cheerful reimbursement and tip breakdown message—to the bill and back to his phone. He nods slowly, taking the ten and heading down the stairs. Logan blinks, watching him go.

“Wow,” Roman says, coming closer to rest his elbow on Logan’s shoulder. “You’ve got it bad, my guy.”

“Oh, shove off.”