Builders' Boulevard

I'm building the school of the arts for the Summer of Love, and I have a dilemna.  I have a dance studio, a theater, an art room, writing labs, and a music room (plus some other stuff).  The problem is, as a community lot I can't have guitars for the music room.  They're only allowed on residential (and they disappear if I add them as residential and rezone).  So -

1. Community lot with a music room with no instruments

2. Or a residential lot that Sims won't be able to go to freely, but with guitars?

I'm done with the lot other than this decision, so your feedback would be greatly appreciated!

I'd say keep it as community.  I assume that there are easels and desks and bookshelves, which means there are still plenty of art school objects that Sims can interact with. 

While we're on the topic, it is very frustrating that some items are comm only and some residential only, e.g. the guitars and the picnic baskets.  Plus, why no piano?  Come on, EA!

It really is too bad there isn't a piano in game yet.  This is quite the dilemma.  I would probably go with community and just use other ways to give the music room a more music feel... of course, I'm not exactly sure how to accomplish that... hmm, will think on it some more.

I think I read somewhere that you can have your sim leave guitars on a community lot. I haven't tried it but it may worth testing.

I may try that, ricslady99.  If it doesn't work I'll just try to boost the music feel of the room.  Too bad there's only one picture that screams music other than what's-his-name the singer, and the Miley rip-off.  And I totally agree, Anjubee - not having a piano or drum kit or anything but a guitar is just....sad.  I would pay for a piano at the store, without a doubt.

ricslady is right. have a sim go there with guitars in the inventory and drop em off. i've done it before with success it works for anything sims can have in their personal inventory.

Kayllisti at 10:51AM on Jul 28, 2009

ricslady is right. have a sim go there with guitars in the inventory and drop em off. i've done it before with success it works for anything sims can have in their personal inventory.

Hmm. "Anything", huh? The cafeteria is lacking a stove right now for the same reason... 

I don't know why but I just always assumed it would reset the lot and the items would disappear when you left.  Guess I gotta get my Sims out of the house more to try some of these things.  Thanks!

I haven't played enough to actually take a sim to a residential lot, so I don't know if this would work. But if the community guitar drop off thing doesn't work, maybe you could zone as residential and use an arch somewhere instead of a door so your sim could go in whether it was occupied or not? Does that work? They can't do the "nobody's home" thing or not let you inside if it's wide open, can they? How does visiting work, exactly?

Sorry I'm not more help. Would help if I could actually play this darn thing.

Addict

Addict1220 at 04:21PM on Jul 28, 2009

I haven't played enough to actually take a sim to a residential lot, so I don't know if this would work. But if the community guitar drop off thing doesn't work, maybe you could zone as residential and use an arch somewhere instead of a door so your sim could go in whether it was occupied or not? Does that work? They can't do the "nobody's home" thing or not let you inside if it's wide open, can they? How does visiting work, exactly?

Sorry I'm not more help. Would help if I could actually play this darn thing.

 

Addict

Playing might help, yeah.   I do visit the neighbors but I've honestly never gone to an empty house.  I know you can wander around outside any residential lot, so maybe an archway would work.  I'll give it a try tonight before I start fighting with the launcher again - I got the pictures to the forum but the lot kept failing.

Dropping the guitars off didn't work, darn it.  Every time the family left the commercial lot they popped back up in the inventory.  Same thing happened to the custom artwork they brought.  So hopefully the archway idea will be the fix.  Otherwise they'll just be playing the world's smallest violins or something.

I discussed this problem with my boyfriend last night over dinner.  He pointed out that most music students would probably take their guitars home with them after class.  Instead of having the guitars in the classroom, perhaps you could set up some stools and chairs, a teacher's desk, and other materials like that. 

Good point, jayemmpee.  I had chairs set up like a band room, and a teacher's desk, etc, already.  I just liked the way it looked w/ all the custom pattern guitars.  The heart-shaped peace symbol pattern looked GREAT on it.

I uploaded the lot as commercial and just accepted that it's going to be a "bring your own instrument" kind of school.  As for the artwork - eh.  I just thought there wasn't enough variety yet on the in game art, so I was trying to round it out.  I made a few "installation pieces" instead.