ewink

Date: 10/23/2005 11:34:13 PM Author: oroen Nice details with the background information, and the logo and map look great. Of course, I will be most interested in seeing the work of the Department of Tranportation and Transit. quote> You shant be disappointed! The SD2T just issued a map of Sia's waterways. It's not THAT cool, but you have to cut them a little slack. They are working out of the Mayor's car hole till city hall gets built! That map is at the bottom of this posting. (Begin in character; you can click on most pictures to see a larger version.) Life began in the city of Sia, CA on April 22, 2011 when the first construction trucks rolled into town and began to build roads. More and more trucks came as people looking for a life away from the hustle and bustle of LA, SF and central CA boated over to the island. Of the six wards (or districts), the first that began to see development was the Island District. Houses began to be built almost as soon as the roads were paved and the electricity and water started flowing. The first development was in the Rose Park Neighborhood. Rose Park is named after the district's alderwoman, Juliet Rose. There is also a large sea side park that bears her name as well. The intersection of First Street East and Henderson Avenue North will forever be known as the birthplace of Sia. A side note, all N-S streets are designated 'Avenue' regardless of the street type. All E-W streets are designated 'Street' regardless of the street type. The exception to the rule is four lane roadways which are designated 'Boulevard'. Unless they aren't. The first commercial development occurred at the intersection of First Street West and South Pacific Coast Blvd. It was a used book store. The first industrial development occurred on Madison Street East, near Eldon Avenue South. The shop overlooks the Pacific Ocean. Industrial development was going slow for a while till the city council voted 5-1 to dip into the city's coffers and build a shipping dock, known only as 'Dock #1'. It was later officially renamed 'North Dock' after it was obvious that a second dock would be required. Less than a month after North Dock was built, 80% of all available I-2 zoned land was purchased. The city's Planning and Zoning Committee then agreed to zone more available land I-2, and turned over control of North Dock to SD2T (Sia Department of Transportation and Transit). SD2T then had a second dock built that was of course named 'South Dock'. However, South Dock has yet to increase industrial demand enough to pull the city out of its current deficit. Areas down North Pacific Coast Blvd. were quickly zoned C-1 in hopes of spurring commercial growth, since residential growth is exploding. In four months the population of the Island District went from slightly less than 2,000 to slightly under 5,000. Seeing the growth, and knowing the other districts might soon be experiencing the same growth, inter-district transportation needed to be tackled. However building roads across the miles and miles of canals can be expensive. Fifth Street East, (The image says Avenue, but I promise if you mail someone and put 'Avenue' it will be returned to sender. SD2T was at the burger stand when they did this picture...) which began as a two lane street, was converted to a four lane avenue. The Fifth Street Bridge was then constructed over the Hacienda Canal. A second bridge was proposed by the SD2T, but was voted down 3-4 by the city council (the tie breaking vote being made by the Mayor). That bridge would have brought Seventh Street East across the canal as a two lane road. Hopefully the city will be big enough to have a newspaper by the next time I post! Two final pictures, the Executive Mansion located at 197 Rei Avenue South. And a shot of the Rose Park Neighborhood from the air. Current City Council meetings are held at Dominick's Pizza, located at 342 North Pacific Coast Blvd. On the agenda is an ordinance requiring all residents to have smoke detectors (Sponser; Ward 2 Alderman Tiki Mulika.) Also a resolution requiring the SD2T to rename a section, two blocks long, of Third Street East, between Second Street East and Serena Avenue (Sponsor; Ward 3 Alderwoman Juliet Rose.) Apparently the Alderwoman doesn't think it's possible for an E-W street to intersect another E-W street. More details on this controversy to come! Oh, here is the waterway map I promised!

Welcome to the city journal of Sia, California. (Sia is pronounced SEE-uh) In 2006, a previously undiscovered underwater volcano erupted about thirty miles west of the central California coast. This volcano formed an island. The island was quickly annexed by the United States and the State of California. Governor Swartzenburger called it Lava Island, in homage to its formation. It was then officially declared a California county, Lava County. A conglomerate of businessmen from the United States, Korea, China and Japan purchased a majority of the land on Lava island. They had different parts of the island

Thanks for taking a look at my journal! It's not going to be much when it comes to some of the other ones on here, but I will do my best to keep y'all entertained! First, let's do the important stuff... The map is actually a map of Tokyo and Yokohama by arashi_1987. I chose it because I liked the shoreline and the canals and I honestly was planning on doing Tokyo, but changed my mind at the last minute! Anyway, thanks for the map, Arashi. Second, thanks to the people in chat for helping me find the Shore Conforming SeaWalls from jeronij. They will make things a lot better. Third, thanks to Kevdan25 for making all the restaurants you hopefully will be seeing in my city. It's nice to have variety so that I don't have a flea market district. Fourth, thanks to EVERYONE who contributed to the STEX. I have downloaded millions of BATs and they make the cities look so much better. You guys are all very talented. Thanks for taking the time to make someone like myself happy. -- Game Modifications: I tried to stay away from the hardcore cheats. The most drastic modification I have made is to the schools and the hospitals. I adjusted the radius of the schools and hospitals to cover the entire city. It's silly to think that an ambulance can't drve across town. I've also adjusted the schools the same way, as I hold the firm belief that school busses are also able to go across town. I have the Pathfinding Fix by DarkMatter installed. I also have the Street Cul-de-sac Mod by Qurlix August installed. I am also using Rob_2616's Urban Housing Mod. And finally I am using the network addon mod. I am pretty sure that is it for game mechanics modifications. I have downloaded different police cars, trains and busses, so thanks to those who contributed on that front. -- Special Thanks: Everyone. Reading the forums and downloading from the STEX made Sia a reality! Bless you all! Super Special Thanks to Mikeaut1 for his guide on creating suburbs. Another Super Special Thanks to PhilsCafe for inspiring me with Acorn Creek! If I think of more people I need to thank as I go along, I will. And if you notice something you did that is making a big impact on my city, kick me in the bum and make me thank you! I'm very forgetful. On with the story! (Next Post!)

I am loving this region and how you are presenting it. I'm inspired, and though I won't do as well of a job, I am planning on starting my own like yours! Anyway, I am loving this one. Props man.

Date: 10/17/2005 2:49:16 PM Author: Androv 1: Diagonal roads/intersections +/- curved roads - This would make for much more interesting city designs (and realistic!). No more roads having 45 degree turns all over the place! quote> You ain't kiddin' buddy. I love to build a 'Riverside Parkway' but instead it turns into the 'S Curve Highway of Death'. I'd also like to see a 6 way intersection possible. When I lived in Milwaukee there were a few of these where a NW-SE, N-S, and E-W street all met. You mentioned farther down too, but I would love some 6 lane (7 with turn lane) surface streets. We have them here in Las Vegas. Sure you can do a regular road sandwhiched between two one ways, but at every intersection you have a CF of stop lights! Date: 10/17/2005 2:49:16 PM Author: Androv 2: Flexible lot sizes. Not sure how to describe this one. If you had diagonal or curved roads you'd need the lots to fit themselves into those shapes. It would take a lot of programming to get that to work right but the results would be amazing.quote> Amen again. Date: 10/17/2005 2:49:16 PM Author: Androv 4: Sims being willing to drive more than 2km to work.quote> Heh... I had one city where my commute time was 600. I don't know if traffic was just REALLY bad, or they were driving REALLY far. Either way I don't think I'd spend 10 hours in traffic each way... Date: 10/17/2005 2:49:16 PM Author: Androv10: It would be cool to select the 'climate' of the region (maybe by picking it from a map of the world), which would then influence the weather/terrain etc. If they had lots of money to spare they could even have buildings from different cultural areas (you'd need USA; Europe (Eastern/Western?), Middle East, Asia, Africa). I'd like to see Australia myself quote> Another great idea. Though my Sims are bad enough drivers, I don't need snow making things worse. Date: 10/17/2005 5:57:50 PM Author: omegaschlange 1) Mixed zoning - not because of any New Urbanism allegiance, but just because it would add a touch of variety and realismquote> I would love to have a downtown that had shops on the bottom two floors and lofts on the top two. Great idea. Date: 10/17/2005 5:57:50 PM Author: omegaschlange3) For advanced players, the option to have more precise neighborhood zoning. I'd like to dictate whether buildings in a certain area are allowed to be only single-family, multi-family, two story, three story, etc. I think this would build off the option in Rush Hour of having only certain building sets built. In one city I created, I wanted to have a Back Bay, Boston type of feel, so I set the building set for Chicago 1890 and made historical all the row houses, while destroying those buildings that didn't fit what I wanted. Zoning options and building sets could help create small Chinatowns or what-have-you. Overall it would be easier to get a neighborhood feel. 4) As others have said, I'd like more control of the public transport system, specifically fares and routes (and perhaps even schedules if SC5 would have a daytime clock like SC4). I don't really agree with the possibility of building a city with no roads whatsoever. The only place I can think of that's anywhere like that is the old center of Venice - although admittedly it would be pretty cool to be able to build your own Venice in SC5.quote> I think the idea of micro-managing is great. It cracks me up when I will have a group of two story apartment buildings and then a 45 story tower in between. Or a mansion surrounded by ghetto brown houses... heh... As for transit, that would be my idea of a dream. To set routes, determin how many times a bus would come by each stop, ect. It would be nice to set up an 'express' route that would make only like three stops. I'd also like to see a 'transit hub' in game. Somewhere ALL the busses went to, the only place you could go from intra city to inter-city transit. Also where you could hop on the subway, commuter line, el, ect... I'd also like to have the ability, once my city gets very large and rail space is at a premium, to make both sets of track run the same direction (ie both trains on both tracks go the same direction in the am rush, dual directions during the day and overnight and the opposite direction in the pm rush.) Now, to stop commenting on other people's ideas and have some of my own... 1) Schools. School busses do NOT only go X blocks from a school. I should not have to build 5 schools in a town of 6000 people just because the city is VERY spread out. (Actually I don't since I made the schools city wide, but they should come that way!) Neighborhood schools would be better education wise (ie the closer to the school the higher the eq factor) but the schools should take students from the whole city. I'd also like to see something similar to the airports where when the small school becomes over crowded you can upgrade it to a medium school and then a large school before having to build another. 2) Police Nothing bugs me more than the way the cops are set up now. I would much rather see a system where you have one central building and you increase your spending (number of police officers) as your population grows. Right now it's no where near realistic. An example is that I have a city of 1.5 million policed by 115 policemen. That's one cop per 13,000 people. NOT! In reality you should have something along the lines of 1 per 1000 people. Yet my crime is VERY low, all things considered. Of course except near the airport. Now you could have substations that reduce the crime further - ie you have a high crime area, build a substation! But considering that I have never lived anywhere that the cops act like firemen and sit at the station waiting for a murder, the current system has to go. 3) Hospitals and Utilities Someone else mentioned this as well. What kind of wacky socialist city do they think I am running?!?! Free power, water, garbage removal and health care?!?! NOT! (No offense to our wacky socialist friends!) If we are assuming that the fees for power, water, garbage and health are included in the taxes, then the cost of operating each facility should be relative to how much output there is. It shouldn't cost me the same to operate a power plant at 10% capacity as it does at 90%. Or just make it so private buisness can build a hospital, offer trash removal and power... 4) Water Pipes I HATE laying water pipes. Make them like the underground power lines and be automaticly installed when you zone. 5) BUS STOPS!!!!! This should be #1... Where I come from a bus stop is a sign on a post. Not something that takes up a hunk of real estate. Thank God for those of you who modded new bus stops. 6) District-izing cities... I'd like to be able to designate a 4 or 5 block area a 'Medical District', so only medical buildings would build there. Or maybe a Resturant District'... You get the idea. 7) U-Drive-It: SMARTER DRIVERS!!!! I wish I had a simolian for every time I've come screaming down the road, running code three and approach an interection just to have a cement mixer, in an attempt to get out of my way, pull in front of me, resulting in a firey crash and the loss of a fine policeman. Hey Maxis, when moving N-S, the E-W traffic doesn't need to move they just need to #@^@*( STOP!!! Anyway, those are just some of my ideas.

I was offered a TV station, so I built it. Soon as I plopped it the helicopter started to take off, so I followed it to see what the story was.... Must be a slow news day... "Live at 6, the landfill. Sure does stink..." Official ewink promise that this was not a U Drive It deal and the news actually zipped out to the landfill to shoot a story!

Gotta love U Drive It's Graphical glitches.... "Sorry sir, I didn't mean to crash into him, but apparently my brakes don't work on water!!"

---------------- On 8/8/2003 11:32:48 PM Sandman1278 wrote: ive seen popel work at a bus stop its also wierd to see that ur employer is an orange tree---------------- My Sim was CEO of the bus stop!