Prague comes to mind when I look at windenburg. I've been there for some time. But even Prague is slowly becoming mix of modern and traditional, so much that it's starting to look a bit chaotic. I've also seen Vienna... that city's really traditional looking, it's rare to see anything modern stick out. And my cousin's living in Braunschweig which again is more of a town than a city, but even here in my country, towns are more modern than that. Overall, Germany's and neighbouring countries still mostly in traditional style. That's why I said that Windenburg is almost completely accurate. It's how German cities and towns look today.

There are definitely large parts of Germany (and Germany's sphere of influence) where that style is prominent, yeah. Prague is what I imagine a "generic" European capital would look like. It's probably the most typically European of all European capitals.
European capitals are quite consistent, actually. There's strong trends in terms of urban density, of age, of zoning and of architecture. Look at Copenhagen, at Prague, at Amsterdam, at Berlin....Berlin is somewhat different due to its sheer size but you'll still find a general lack of ultra-high density buildings, in favour of the medium density that dominates the others. Arhus is Denmark's second city and has strong modern tendencies. It's too small for skyscrapers and stuff but there's a strong sense of urban renewal. I can't speak for Brno but it doesn't seem to disprove my point. Rotterdam and Frankfurt are two of Europe's greatest post-war metropolises, and have the skyline to show for it.
So if we're to assume that Windenburg is the capital of something, it makes a lot more sense. But as just another city, it's awfully overdone. There's more cobblestone in one Windenburg street than in my entire city.

The USA definitely has swampy areas, especially if you go to the more southeastern part of the country.

Allow me, please, to strongly disagree there, especially with regard to the accuracy claim.
I wouldn't even know where I had to drive to see something even remotely resembling Windenburg. Most of its buildings look more like mock Tudor, something you will definitely not find on the continent, unless it is faked. Admittedly it's placed in a landscape that, on the other hand, you won't find on the British Isles, so, in the end Windenburg is just that, a caricature of some middle European town.

Exactly. It may look German to someone who isn't German, but everything about Windenburg screams genericized, unspecified European country made up by Americans.

Indeed. There are large swamps in NC (the Great Dismal Swamp), South Carolina (the Congaree), Georgia (part of the Okefenokee), Florida (the other part of the Okefenokee, as well as the Everglades), and Louisiana (the Atchafalaya). (Also large ones in the rest of the country, like the Limberlost in Indiana.)

Well, obviously any country is going to play off of stereotypes portrayed by its media, since actually traveling to those countries is a luxury not everyone can afford. In America's case, being American myself, we're very often misrepresented in just how many of us know and learn things about other cultures. And yes, you do really have people here who still think things like kimonos are still everyday attire in Japan, anyone from India works in IT and has poor English, that the Queen's day to day and all the royal intrigue is constantly at the forefront of everyone's mind in the UK, so on and so on. But it works both ways. Just as I know all of those things are false, I know other countries don't think every American is stupid, gullible, what-have-you. But in the end, it all goes back to the game's origin. EA is an American company and the games have typically lent themselves to the "standard" American ideas of foreign culture.

It goes against the idea of The Sims though doesn't it? The world of The Sims is universal, it appeals to everyone. There's a little bit of everything for everyone. The only way to accurately portray a location or a time period is to be utterly pedantic about accuracy. When the devs of a car racing game like Gran Turismo are building a new track, they send out a team to that track to measure it with laser equipment. When Rockstar designs an open world, they send out a team and they don't come back until every one of those people is an expert on the area.

In The Sims, however, it's entirely too obvious that no one went anywhere, and that their reference material was anecdotal at best. They misconstrue that universal, unspecific style of theirs into some ugly idea that they don't have to worry about the specifics of it. And it's one factor that's very noticeable within the context of the franchise's ongoing march downhill. It just strikes me as odd that they're a big studio who are making one of the world's most popular PC game, and yet they can't be bothered to do something everyone else does. Hell, I do better research than these guys. And it's just a symptom of the state of the franchise, sure, but you'd think they knew better.

Not if your mom falls in love with you first.

Well my mom was more of a Molly Ringwald, but yeah, I get the idea.

I don't know why you think I hate the game, or why anything you said in this sentence bears even a shred of truth, but I'm not going to argue about it with you.

I do agree with you, make no mistake. But still, it's EA we're talking about. They hardly give their studios the resources they need in the first place, and as big as The Sims is, it still stands that life simulation has always been viewed as a niche genre. You'll find that game dev companies with a lot fewer constraints typically have entire portions of pre production that completely revolve around reviewing source material through reading, photographs, whatever could be useful. Studios under EA aren't typically given the freedom or resources to do so, because EA doesn't see the need to. They don't view their games as big budget AAA games. They operate on having games developed quickly and having the return be the most it possibly can at release.

I don't think EA has ever done a realistic open world. They always look at least somewhat wonky.

Couldn't that apply to everything involved with them?

Well I just spent 2 hours trying to make 5 Sims dance simultaneously. And in the EA game I last played before TS3, the world suddenly unloaded while I was in the middle of it. So yeah, I'd say it's a theme.

All of this about other cultures has reminded me of how I've always wanted to have an an Asian inspired world in a Sims game that *isn't* Shang Simla. Something like Tokyo or Hong Kong.

Yeah, something that isn't Shang Simla or fucking San Myshuno. I've said it before and I'll say it again. I picked up that pack for €3, but I stil felt ripped off.

In real life, people don't put their toddler at the top of the stairs to go get a book from the downstairs bookshelf to read to the kid, then complain that the kid is blocking their way and they can't read the book after all. (unless, of course, they really didn't want to read to the kid and are just looking for an excuse. In which case, any onlooker older than the kid is going to point out that you have just come up with one of the lamest excuses anyone has ever heard, and it's time to read to your kid now.)
Police don't politely step aside for the burglar who is leaving the house, and then explain that the burglar seems to have gotten away.
Birthday cakes with only 2 candles on them don't start a house fire.
Someone who wants to go fishing before 6 am doesn't go to the fishing hole at 4 am and then pull out a book to read by starlight instead of actually fishing.
And I don't care HOW absent-minded you are, heading to the bedroom for a bit of woohoo does not cause most people to forget what they were doing once they are in the bed. Killing the mood by suddenly out of the blue asking if the electric bill got paid? Guilty! But completely forgetting why we got naked in bed together? No way!


If they were doing that kind of thing in a world that DIDN'T look like someone made it up out of stereotypes it would be even weirder.

I don't know, honestly. It's very easy to accept the imperfections of Sims. They're a computer program. We all know they're not actually real people with any semblance of sentience or intelligence. There's no such thing as "artificial intelligence"; it's just a bunch of if statements and statistics.

But I'd rather have wacky overdone people in a real world than wacky overdone people in a wacky overdone world. The former has been known to be more effective, because us real humans find that juxtaposition to be inherently humourous. The more realistic, the more relatable. The more relatable, the better a canvas for portraying a story or situation. One of the most common ingredients in humour is that of something unusual or unconventional happening within a situation we recognize. Satire, in essence, is an exaggeration of that which is already unusual. So I think The Sims works better in a realistic environment. That's how I try to play it anyway, and it seems to entertain me personally just fine. For me, The Sims is an actively funny game because the Sims themselves provide all the comedy. They violate my natural expectations of a particular situation or environment that I recognise from my real life.

And to think that it was me who started all this by merely suggesting that the hover train could be used in a future-is-the-past world as a tram system

But in case the original author of this thread is still interested, I think that in order for a world to be treated as a future world the relevant byte no. 6 in resource UNKN 0x296A6259 would have to have its value changed to 04, unless I completely misunderstood the principle as demonstrated in this thread: http://modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=424374

Well I think it can, but I'm not sure how it'll look. The track is predefined in plain-text data, using waypoints, so there's no reason it wouldn't be able to run at street level, following the streets or decorative train tracks. Assuming the vehicle is made up of a single part, like the hovertrains and also like old-school trams, I strongly suspect it's entirely possible.

All you need is a custom track layout, a custom tram station with a custom tram model and custom sound effects. I'd recommend yanking the tram model from Transport Fever, because that game has very high quality vehicle models which are up to TS3 spec with little to no modifications.

I had the elevated metro trains in mind, actually, like those in New York, meaning it mainly needed a design change.

Oh right, you could have an elevated train too. You'd just need detailed models for the track and the supports it runs on, too. Unless you want to have it running in a straight line, which'd be exceptionally boring.
Then again, this is all big city stuff. So it has to be big city first.

Great Scott! You have an epic graphics card. That almost looks real.
Where did you get the mod for that, Don?

I dunno, looks like Watch Dogs 3 to me.
Seriously though, I won't rest until I create my Sims a world that gritty and realistic. Basically Bridgeport but cranked up to 15.