Sims 3 Legacy - Testing Towns - Starlight Shores

Hello! While I still haven't finished my current legacy (I'm SO close, 9th generation has just become a young adult and will probably have a baby in the next few Sim years) I was too excited about my upcoming legacy to not do anything about it. So I quickly created a new version of the guy I use as the founder for all my legacies, Mike McKenzie, and saved him to the Sim Bin. I was so quick about it that I forgot to take a screenshot or anything, and I've forgotten his traits. I think they're Flirty, Charismatic, Natural Born Performer, Rebellious and...I forget the last one, I'll check it. Sorry.

The story behind Mike McKenzie is that he was a minor character in a YA trilogy that I started and never finished because I'm shit at seeing things through (like blogging) and I decided to use him as my legacy founder rather than a major character because he doesn't really have his own story but he's a pretty cool character. In the books he's kind of an asshole but eventually turns out to be okay, and that's generally how I play him in my legacies.

Look at that asshole face. Nice Metallica shirt, asshole.

 Another reason I picked him is because he's attractive and charming, and that means I can use all those traits that make it easy for Sims to make friends. Because it's pretty boring to play a legacy at first when your founder has no friends. And since I always make Mike a magician, he doesn't meet any coworkers, he has to just go down to the library and start talking to people (something that doesn't work in the real world).

Chatting up girls in the kids corner. Don't do this. 

So I've got my founder all picked out, but WHERE AM I GOING TO PUT HIM?! It's a big decision. You can't just up and move your legacy family to another town (technically you can, but it's Against The Rules) so you've got to be a bit careful choosing what town to settle down in. In the past most of my legacies have been set in Bridgeport. It looks good, there's lots of nightlife, and heaps of celebrities (part of me hates the celebrity system, but part of me gets excited when my family is super famous. Even if they're not famous for anything. Like the Kardashians. In fact, that's partly why I make Mike a musician, so he can become famous for a reason and then the rest of the family can ride on his fame, like, oh, you're the daughter of famous magician Mike McKenzie. I should close my parenthesis now). And there's a really good spot for your legacy lot, once you get rid of that butterfly park. It's perfect because it's central, easy to get to, and has a million collectables spawning on it, which is great for alchemy. I like alchemy.

The only reason I'm not picking Bridgeport again this time is because I've played it SO many times that I'll probably get bored. I know all the townies, I've played most of them. There's no MYSTERY. Also there's that annoying glitch where you can't make a SimBot, which really pissed me off when one of my Sim's lifetime wishes was to make 3 monsters. SHE FAILED AND IT'S ALL YOU FAULT BRIDGEPORT.

My current legacy is set in Lucky Palms, the one that's based on a town in California. It's the first time I've played a legacy there, and it's gone really well. My family live on the outskirts of town but they're not TOO far from the CBD and there's lots of places you can put your own community lots if you fancy it. Which I do. I fancy it much. 9/10 would play again. Obviously I'm not going to play again right now though, which is why I have to find another town. Another town!

RIGHT so, first contender, Starlight Shores. It's the one that came with the Katy Perry pack, I mean Showtime. So it's got lots of performance venues there, which is good for Magician Mike. (Should I call him Magic Mike? That seems cheap. I'll just call him The Dark Lord or something). It's also got a nice beach and it's fairly pretty. 

Nice beach. Fairly pretty.

HOWEVER I noticed when I tried to find a spot to build my house, it doesn't have a whole in the way of available legacy lots. You need a 64x64 lot for it to be legacy lot, and to get that in Starlight Shores you needed to bulldoze some stuff. I'm fine with that but not when it's like, the cemetery or the military base. One time I accidentally deleted the hospital and only figured out when my Sims kept having their babies at home. And then guess what? I couldn't replace the hospital. It's not in the community lots bin. So my Sims lived in a dark, lingering fear of becoming sick (kind of like in the US) and continued to give birth on the living room floor. It wasn't ideal.

The only suitable place I found for a legacy lot that was close enough without deleting anything too crucial was on the outskirts of town over here:

Oh. You can't see it. It's that patch of green in the top centre of the picture.

At first I was like, oh yeah, that's not too bad, pretty close to the equestrian centre and that big stadium there. This will work out. What I didn't realise was that THERE ARE NO ROADS there. See those squiggly lines? They're like, walking tracks. No cars. Which means that anytime Mike wants to go somewhere, he spends a fucking hour jogging.

This would suck if coupled with the home birth situation.

It's in the middle of nowhere. Plus, and this isn't a problem with the town, just my ill fated test game, they plopped the Future Portal on my lot. Right next to my rubbish bin. I know I can move it, but I don't waaaaaannt to. I want the game to decide where to put it. And put it somewhere ELSE.

I will write a strongly worded letter to the council.

There is another 64x64 that I could use, but it's probably the furthest away lot from town in the game, and I feel like I could do better. So all in all, I probably COULD make this town work for a legacy, but it's just way too much effort. I thought about deleting one of the theaters to make a legacy lot, and I suppose I still could, but they're concretey, those lots, and as I was saying before TOO MUCH EFFORT. I am a lazy Simmer. So no thank you, Starlight Shores, you are too difficult, I'm going to find another. I may come back to you if all the other towns turn out to be really shit.

In conclusion...

Starlight Shores

Pros:

• Lots of performance venues. Good for singers, acrobats and musicians
• Good downtown area and beach
• Well laid out - nothing is too far away (except that one legacy viable lot)

Cons:

• Need to add a lot of community lots (Late Night etc) and there's not many places to put them
• Only legacy viable lots are difficult to get to

7/10, will maybe play if the others aren't any better.

Next up: Monte Vista