Hobby Dorms Reloaded

So now I'm sitting on a new installation in a new neighborhood, and with what I believe to be all the requisite patches and modded in fixes (so no vampires biting the Crump, which contributed to the thorough corruption and ultimate destruction of my last game). And with that, I've decided to get back to work on building more Hobby Dorms, though which Sims can indulge in their favorite hobbies (and perhaps even earn a side income from those hobbies) while pushing themselves through University.

But I won't even be trying to upload the packages for these Hobby Dorms to make them available for download anywhere anymore, as I'm still very "once bitten, twice shy" about my experiences of trying to do just that over at The Big, Ugly Sims Site and its community, which is so incredibly toxic that 20 years of mithidatism wouldn't prepare people for it.

I originally created both my Fruityboo Farms dorm and my Abstractivism NOW! dorm with zero Custom Content to ease approval and upload over at Mod the Sims, only for both uploads to get repeatedly denied by the Upload Manager over such bull-schott reasons as "The roof angle is too steep" (It was a standard 45 degrees all around, or 25 degrees for Fruityboo's useless but decorative little water tower), "The dorm rooms aren't all on the same floor" (Nevermind that I can name six official EA dorms that come with University which divide the dorm rooms among the bottom two floors, just like Fruityboo does), "You have not included the Lot Price on your upload (They're dorms. They don't cost anything to move into!) and "This contains custom content which is not present on the lot" (...bwuh? Like hell it does! I turned the CC selections off before I even plunked down the lots in my Dorm Test Hood, which was before I even started to build my dorms! So the Upload Manager was accusing me of doing something which was made practically impossible through my process).

Meanwhile, other people's homemade stuff — including stuff that's broken, irredeemable rubbish — continues to get uploaded, approved by the Upload Manager and made available on the site's Downloads sections.



So after realizing how clandestinely political that site's Uploads/Downloads process is, I gave up on sharing my Hobby Dorms and other stuff altogether. But with that resignation came a realization: If I'm not striving to get any site's Upload Manager's approval anymore, then do I really need to leave the CC out of my creations anymore?

So now I'm back to Simming, I'm also back to going hog wild on building Hobby Dorms to cover every hobby, even two or three hobbies if the hobbies mesh together well, like with the Brick Gymhouse covering both Fitness and Sports; they're both athletic hobbies which demand and cater to Active Sims, particularly to those working on their Body skills. So Sports and Fitness go quite well together. Nature and Cuisine don't have any Simmy personality traits in common (Sloppy and Playful versus Neat and Lazy), but Nature Sims are great at growing fruits and veggies as well as catching fish, all of which can make a Cuisine hobbyist's food even better (and more likely to win a Food Judge's approval and a blue ribbon, if your Cuisine Sims are into food contests).

(Of course, now almost every one of my dorms has at least a 2 x 4 garden patch with a 180-degree sprinkler and a ladybug house or two — even if my University Sims have to buy them out of pocket — ever since I figured out that the fast track to University success and a 4.0 GPA is to feed my Young Adult Sims a steady diet of eggplant smoothies, interspersed with several three-day vacations — preferably to Takemizu Village — and all the Refreshed benefits that come from that. )

So, Hobby Dorms that I've already built (though alas, some of their .package files have since been lost somehow):

• Chef Rocco's Dormitory (Cuisine)
• Fruityboo Farms Dormitory (Nature + Cuisine)
• Abstractivism NOW! Dorm (Arts & Crafts)
• Hwang Motors Dorm (Tinkering)
• Uncle Bub's Junkyard (also Tinkering, with a smaller lot, fewer junk cars and more tinkerable appliances; abandoned after Dormies started taking showers and baths outside, walking their dishes all the way to the dishwashers outside and causing various other problems)
• Aspirational Laboratories (Science)
• Bellum Center for Xenobiology (also Science, but better)
• The Fens (Nature + Fitness)
• The Brick Gymhouse (Fitness + Sports)
• The Hypatian Archive (Film & Literature)
• Wild Deuces Cards and Lodging (Games)


Dorms that I've merely planned thus far:

• A 'Powerdance Studio' dorm, for Fitness + Music & Dance (connection: Active trait).
• A 'Capoerjutsu Dojo' dorm, for Music & Dance + Fitness + Sports (connections: Active and Outgoing traits, bonus if active Sims come home from several vacations and teach all the Dormies Slap Dance, Hula and Tai Chi).
• A currently nameless arena-style dorm, for Sports + Games (connection: Grouchy trait).
• A 'Monet's View' dorm, for Arts & Crafts + Nature (with lots of easels under outdoor overhangs overlooking gardens, a pond and a grove; connection: Sloppy trait).
• A 'Dinner and a Movie' dorm, for Cuisine + Film & Literature (with a couple of small theaters with the largest televisions and a large 'concession stand' kitchen joining them; connection: Lazy trait).
• A 'Food Trek' dorm, for Science + Cuisine (with a 'flying starship' theme and my concern that Star Trek's food replicators would annihilate the culinary arts; connection: Neat trait)
• An 'Our Wondrous Cosmos' dorm, for Science + Music & Dance (with a large observatory platform and several telescopes surrounding a sunken orchestra pit; connection: Serious trait, and with several Melodysheep videos inspiring me).

(Yeah...like that one.)

I'm probably overlooking several more ideas, though. What might those be? What sorts of Hobby Dorms do you think would be good options here?

Abstractivism NOW! dorm:





















(Think that's enough screenshots yet? )

One thing I've learned (in the uploading process trials and tribulations) is: that you can't please other people. Build and 'present' because it is fun for you, and don't expect anybody else to like it.
Remember this is a game - build what your sims want, and have fun playing the game

...I like your mixed majors themes, BTW.

That's what I finally accepted or resigned myself to. Even if the majority of the people in my "What I'm building now" threads over there were offering words of support and "I want to download this dorm when it's done!" — and with only about half a handful of detractors, including Prah and his usual, predictable and petty Dislike-sniping and unhelpful "You should have posted this in the forum that I wanted you to post this in but never said anything about in advance!" comments — I ultimately had to disappoint my supporters due to all the insurmountable upload-blocking. So sayeth the Powers That Be.

Apologies if I sound bitter about that whole mess, but I still am.

You're right, though; we should create for ourselves and for our own wants, needs or tastes first and foremost, because that's where the love comes from. And if we get to share our creations with a kindred spirit or three, then that's wonderful, but it's ultimately incidental. I still cringe at Pescado's baby-barbecuing grill, but if that's what he wanted to make his Sims games complete, then I'm sure he had his reasons and more power to him for carrying those reasons out and finding other Simmers who like his "Babycue Grill" too. But on my end, still...eww. Poor Simmy babies.

And thank you! I'm really looking forward to building those Hobby Combo dorms, prettying them up and making them work! Do you think I should eventually plunk down a 6x6 lot and build a "Hobbicus Maximus" dorm which has wings for all ten hobbies, or would that be too much (and possibly defeat my reason for coming up with Hobby Dorms in the first place)?

(And didn't I peek in over there recently and see you rolling out some floor recolors? I could always use more floors! )

The Brick Gymhouse:





























As much as I want to change the English letters for Simlish ones, I worry that the overall effect might be lost. Thinky-thoughts?

(Also, kudos to @Ocelotekatl. His goodies are great! )

Not a fan of Simlish... just sayin
I know others like it, but I like to know what it says. (And I stink at anything but American. Believe me, I tried.)
That ^ looks great, btw!

Also - I did not know Prah was at MTS? I thought they were only at T$R? And YES, to floors

Oh, yes. That wonderful specimen of a wannabe moderator is indeed at MTS, alas. https://modthesims.info/m/1522404

I avoid T$R like a contagious skin disease, but he's over there too, eh? He's not doing his usual passive-aggressive rubbish, Dislike-sniping, running behind the Admin's skirts when people call him out on his shenanigans and acting like he's more important than he actually is over there too, is he?

But I suppose that I should leave the English letters as they are, for the sake of legibility and comprehension. Besides...





...they light up at night. And they sure are pretty!

Okay, going shopping for CatherineTCJD floors, BRB!

Love it!

...and I really like the windows going into the pool. Wait! Those aren't windows - that's a paint stripe. Right?
Do you have a basement level? You should put windows in down there - then sims could watch other sims swim around the moat.

Alas, those are indeed paint stripes. I tried putting windows in a rebuilt foundation once upon a time, but I never could get the windows to fit in there right; even with Move Objects on, the windows caused problems like not erasing the walls that I put them in.

If I ever find a trick for putting windows in a rebuilt foundation (since I won't even touch straight Maxis foundations anymore) and putting a pool in next to it, I'll let you know. Or I'll make a big forum post about it, like I usually do.

Also, the Catherine floor-downloading rampage resumes soon, after I finish cleaning and reinstalling an old window unit here at my house. Gifties shall ensue!

I'm glad you are liking the floors
I knew I made them for some reason... Ha ha ha

Yeah - foundation walls won't allow windows or doors as a rule. You can either build your foundation with regular walls and CFE (if on a slope) or use Moo's Converti-Wall tool to change them to regular walls. THEN, you can easily place windows and doors. (I use Moo's tools.)