Just curious what neighborhoods are your favorites. I've gone through dozens of user-created worlds in the past few days, trying to settle on a few favorites! I've browsed similar threads on MTS, The Sims Daily, and on the officials, but I wanted to get some opinions from the lovely members here at Cstyles!

Do you tend to stick to one save file, or play several?

I haven't personally tried out any of the store worlds, except Riverview, of course, but I never really kept a game there for long. My longest running save was actually played out in Twinbrook.

So, what kind of worlds do you all tend to prefer? City, rural, large, themed? How have different worlds performed over time, did you find any to be super smooth or laggy? (maybe post your specs?) If you've got any cool finds, feel free to share!

I've sorted my sims into families/households and populations and am contemplating starting saves in:
1.) Pounawea (for my couples and small families)
2.) Dragon Falls orrr Sunshine Island 2.1 (I want a mostly asian population)
3.) Redwood Harbor
4.)....I'm debating on this one! Considering Eltham's Drift, but I'm going to take a look at Storybrook County ( I love MySimRealty <3 ) and maybe try loading St. Clair. And anything else I obsessively download in the next few days is fair game.

It depends on what kind of game I want to play, but I tend to enjoy city worlds mostly. I love Bridgeport for the high rises and lounges, and Jericho for its whole atmosphere. The only store world I really, really love is Sunlit Tides, it's just so pretty! I like Twinbrook, too!

Oooh, I haven't really played much in the city - I feel like I am missing out! I downloaded Jericho back when I had a crappy computer, so the two didn't play well, but I think I really need to revisit it. How did it run for you?

I Have A Family In A Few Different Worlds

Monte Vista

Sunset Tides

Starlight Shores

Im looking for the right world to make look like washington DC i found a world someone made f DC but there is NO people living there that totally sucks

My opinion they did really good on Bridgeport from Late Night just my opinion

I really feel like I need to revisit Bridgeport - all of the city type worlds lagged for me on my old PC, so I think I was just scared away.

Tru, are you talking about this version of DC?:
http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/336502.page

It looks very cool from the pictures, but I have nooo idea how it plays. X__X I grew up in DC/Northern VA so maybe that's why I have been gravitating to worlds that are the total opposite.

I liked the size of Starlight Shores - I had a save there for a little while. I really like the versions of the rabbit holes they added with the Showtime EP (all of the recent ones actually, I'm glad they are combining them now, makes it a lot easier to place).

What's the travel like in Sunlit Tides?

BTW, off topic, but the lighting mod by Buhudain that mixes elements from dDefinder's, Sunlit Tides, Lucky Palms, Latoya's Blue Dream, and his own tweaks is sooo amazing. It will automatically work for all worlds custom or EA (EP & Store) because he made it using a color ramp instead of only editing .ini files - so you can install it like a regular package. He made versions for players with and without seasons (it works beautifully with weather), so I would definitely try it out. :D Haha, I sound like an advertisement...but it makes every world 200% prettier! The photos are nice, but you have to see it in game. The sunrise/sunset colors are gorgeous - and you get a nice bright sky without too much bloom on the objects.

My favorite worlds would be:

* Sunlit Tides - SOOOOO beautiful !!
* Hidden Springs - Love the country side with the "forests" and the mountains !
* Bridgeport - I think it's the world I've played the most with. Like the city life

* Monte Vista - Not played this world much yet, but I love the Italian countryside and the whole atmosphere resembling Tuscany

I want Sunlit Tides so badly! I downloaded the arr'd, but for one reason or another I'm finicky to install it. I have the store clothes/hairs that I used installed this way (even stuff I did purchase - so I can retexture the hair more easily, etc), but for some reason I am hesitant to do it with worlds - so I will just save and wait . Sunlit Tides, Monte Vista, and Lucky Palms are all so tempting.

Yeah those are great (EA) worlds indeed !! I can recommend them to anyone !
I would be hesitant too, to install an EA world, not purchased and downloaded through the EA store. It's different indeed as compared to EA clothing and stuff.

I've tried the arr'd worlds also and refuse to try them anymore. They just seem to fudge up my game and I end up uninstalling my entire game and having to reinstall!

I think thus far, Sunlit Tides is by far my fav!!! Hidden Springs is my next fav and I've yet to try Monte Vista, I do look forward to trying it out also.

I don't have Lucky Palms...I only wanted it for the Casino so I held back on getting it. Just too much money to spend on just one piece and the Casino alone cost like $17...way too much!! I like the option of being able to play the world I want and just move different items, like Seasons little fair area, into it, though I haven't been able to play it yet...I so love the whole concept of that!! I hope they don't create a new world for University because I don't want to leave Sunlit Tides just yet.
I haven't tried playing several worlds at once...might do that at some point because the idea seems fun. Can I do a storybook style game play in one world but use my regular controls for other worlds?

Oh...and on game play...Hidden Springs by far is the best world to play. Less lag for some reason!! And I prefer the beachy type of worlds.

I agree with you, it's tempting to grab the pirated worlds (geez, they're so expensive! *cries*) - but I'm just too paranoid, and I'd rather not worry about having to decrapify this or that. I'm fine with it for the clothes and hair, just....not the worlds or premium content. It's too confusing to keep track of for me, personally. (Don't we all spend enough time organizing our CC as is, right?)

When I was comparing worlds last night (size, number of lots, etc...it was also helping me select a custom world by comparing the number of community and residential lots) - Hidden Springs had the smallest amount of premade sims/houses - so I think this probably lends to a lot less lag. So, I think you're right, Cece. Even though we can of course delete any/all sims from the population - a certain number get created to fill the various roles around town. Perhaps the routing is also less glitchy.

I like the beachy/rural/basically everything but city-type worlds. I think this is mostly because I don't like how the high-rises/elevators work in game and not so much because I don't want to play a city. I wish Bridgeport was a bit smaller.

It's funny, because Sunset Valley has the most lots/sims, and the rabbit holes are all spread out space-wasters (the recent EP/Store worlds have combined a lot of the rabbit hole locations, making them so much easier to access).

You can change *most* of the controls per world - aging settings, seasons, weather types - but some of the controls for other options are global, mostly the ones dealing with story progression and which species/sim types are allowed. I think this is kind of silly, because it makes more sense to disable/enable some of the Supernatural types per world. Of course, if you instead control these things through mods (Like Twallans) - you could customize it per world, by using a different set of mods depending on the save you're loading (or setting it up with CC Magic or AnyGameStarter).

Instead of starting a new thread, since I discussed a lot of the worlds in here already, I figured I'd share some pictures of how they look in my game.

This is Redwood Harbor, which I've decided to call Gotska Sandön (many of my Swedish simmies live here as well as a few families who originate from Belarus) even though the real-life place is uninhabited - the location is just what I imagine when I play this tiny little wooded island:

Double-posting, but I didn't want to stuff too many pictures into a single post.

The hillside around Meadow Glen is quite pretty:




But I decided to move my self-simmie and a few other families into Eltham's Drift. It rained the first night there, but it was spooky and atmospheric.

This isn't the actual house I moved into...I was just camera gliding around the world and started taking some pictures. I need to get some pictures of our actual house soon. Fillyfoal did an awesome job on this world and it's a nice small file-size (yay, fast loading!):




My simmie ended up going to a small bar around the corner. I don't understand why she always makes weird confused faces. :p
This chapel was pretty!







She stayed at the bar for a really long time...-___-


And saw a cute cat that belonged to one of the neighbors.



My sim has been looking perpetually cross-eyed and silly lately. Need to tweak the iris position sometime soon. No HQ mod in any of these pics of course, 'cause I was just playing.

My favorite EA worlds:

1. Starlight Shores


2. Lucky Palms


3. Sunlite Tides


4. Moonlight Falls

My favorite custom worlds are:

1. New York, New York


2. Los Aneigos


3. Red County


4. Westerberg

Ohh great pics of both Redwood Harbor and Meadow Glen, Ameenah!! Love both worlds.
I especially like the whole atmosphere of Redwood Harbor or Gotska Sandön as you call it. Love the surroundings, the seaside, the houses (wonderful!! and they really add to the whole world)
You have a download link for the world?? I would love to try it!

Lucky Palms is probably the world I want the most from the store right now - there's just something about it. :D :D

Sleepy, do you have trouble running Westerberg or Los Aniegos? I LOVE the atmosphere, but they are just too huge for me. Not as far as gameplay (I want to play a big world), but just as far as running the town with seasons. It's so lovely and detailed, but there are a lot of lots, and I feel oddly guilty removing them.

I actually haven't installed Red County, but I've heard it's a little bit smaller than Los Aniegos, so I might give it a spin sometime soon.

Thanks, Eva!
Here are the links:
Redwood Harbor:
http://mysimrealty.com/WORLDS_RedwoodHarbor.html
Meadow Glen:
http://mysimrealty.com/WORLDS_MeadowGlenUpdated.html

Redwood is a small world on a medium map, and Meadow Glen is a medium world on a large map - both run extremely well (so they're great for low-end PCs/the impatient/CC addicts, hehe) for me, and Redwood Harbor has a tiny file size. I know you have a monster computer though, so you can run any world. :p

The creator is working on an expanded version of Redwood, which I'm curious about, but I kind of like the size right now. <3 I'd call it a "mini Hidden Springs" if I were to compare to an EA world.

Westerberg plays better on my game than LA does, but it is still playable. :/

Meadow Glen looks awesome. I am going to download that.

all worlds are lovely!
but that dont mean they are good for playing
so that something to look out for
ummm
the world that came with my games.
i loved egypt
love the desert im weird, cause i hate the heat!
loved the look of lunar that came out
the world that looked like palm beach was nice looking
as for tropical , sunset world is pretty tropical to me
i like like of green trees as i live way in canada which has lots and lots of tree eh
the swamp world annoyed me for some reason. what that one called , it came with the games.
bridgeport does look gorgous at night for sure

Sleepy, I wanna see pics! If you install, take some screencaps - and if you run Los Aniegos again, I'm curious to see what it looks like on your compie.

Yes, that's true for sure, some worlds are super beautiful, but they are designed more for looks rather than gameplay. I would say this is true of St. Claire - I finally gave it a spin the other day, and while I absolutely adored it, I can understand why it's a lag-factory. (I actually prefer Pounawea and Queenstown, which is funny.)

For my custom worlds, I've searched for minimal to no CC "attached" to the file (you can add on as much as you like, but when it's "stuck" to the world it can create problems), less than 100 lots (for the most part, sometimes worlds come with empty lots, for players who prefer to expand), a medium-sized playable area, and less than 90 MB in file size. Of course testing, routing, overall layout, and support with coming EPs are the first things to consider and absolutely paramount.

worlds that are not to big and have left behind problems from moving lots around. yeah . one world i wanted to try is based on miami ,looked gorgous it over at mod the sim and been around long time now.

i would just like a gorgoug pride prejudice country side kind of setting for a change.

Bridgeport looks great at night, but Monte Vista has become my favorite, along with Sunlit Tides. I've wanted to try out Fresh Prince's Vice City, but have been kind of hesitant because I don't have all of the EPs and SPs.

I have to install Monte Vista. I hope EA does a England-eaque world. I loved the Capps family.

The Montys are in Monte Vista...much younger, of course. I used to love playing Veronaville because of the Montys and the Capps.
Goopy GilsCarbo is in Monte Vista also, as a toddler.

I know. I didn't like the Monty's.

Fresh Prince's Vice been around a while tool , yep that the city i was thinking off! good call wow.

dach has good recommends on world i think, she very very picky.
and buffy at http://therewasnothingleft.tumblr.com/
made very tiny worlds .
the monty family is like romeo juliet story yeahh.
a nice england landscape be nice for sure.hidden valley i think was too green for others to like so much hehe , it sounds like ireland though dont it

what that world barnacle bay like m i heard the sims family in it is good for playing but the world itself get boring or somthing?

Yeah, Buffy's version of Strangetown looked very awesome! That's one world I haven't tried yet but am definitely going to in the future.

I tried out Vice City on my old compie, but not since I upgraded, I have to re-download it sometime! It looked very cool. I'm so weird, I never play cities and always go for islands/small countryside towns instead, but I feel like I have to give them another chance!

buffy does make some nice looking ones. there are world that are made to looklike winter but now we have seasons to make weather now mmmmm. mmmm

Wait, do you mean Winter Wonderland by rflong7?

oh winterwonderland by rflong7 yesssssssssssss!

Ameenah, I downloaded Redwood Harbor and can't stay away from it!LOL I have gotten so much lag lately and this world downloaded in half the time. When looking at the Boat Houses a sailboat went by and I just fell in love with the world. I'm updating the middle Boat House for my simmie and hope to have him in by late tonite or tomorrow, really excited!!!

Ameenah wrote:

Thanks, Eva!
Here are the links:
Redwood Harbor:
http://mysimrealty.com/WORLDS_RedwoodHarbor.html
Meadow Glen:
http://mysimrealty.com/WORLDS_MeadowGlenUpdated.html

Redwood is a small world on a medium map, and Meadow Glen is a medium world on a large map - both run extremely well (so they're great for low-end PCs/the impatient/CC addicts, hehe) for me, and Redwood Harbor has a tiny file size. I know you have a monster computer though, so you can run any world. :p

Thanks for the links Ameenah !! LOL, I maybe have a "monster computer" but I also have a lot of CC and other worlds, as well as all EP's and SP's installed, so I really need the "monster" bit And even then a world or game may take sometime to load ;) I'm not complaining though