Sims 3 - Can't make my mind up, needs HELP!

[Avilan the Grey]

Completely unrelated to my Sims Medieval playthrough:

I just created a new household for Sims 3, three young artistic women that are friends since highschool and now have all moved to X to pursue their artistic careers:

Now, I just can't decide between:

Twinbrooks
Bridgeport
Riverblossom Hills (custom town, rural; a re-make-but-better than the town from Sims 2)

Can someone leave some imput? What town do YOU think is the most fun to play of these?

[JeminiZero]

I believe Bridgeport has built-in support for Ambitions material (i.e. starting there with Ambitions installed will automatically place a Scrapyard, a Firestation, a salon etc). And of course, it supports Late Night gameplay (celebs, nightspots etc).

The only downside is that most of the lots are apartment types, which is comparatively expensive, and somewhat inconvenient to play (lots of build/buy restrictions, mailbox not obviously placed, time consuming to go up and down elevator). There ARE standard "flat land" lots available, but most of these are inconveniently located. Although you could drop a Subway station on an adjacent community lot to ease transport woes, and once you get a teleport pad, you can beam around.

Between Twinbrook and Bridgeport, I would recommend: go for Bridgeport, buy a flat land lot, with Subway station added nearby.

I can't comment on the custom neighbourhood, but *usually* these are quite large with far more lots/sims than the pre-built ones. And that usually puts a serious dampener on your FPS, and load/save times. That was apparently a significant problem encountered by one of the abandoned Sims 3 lets plays. Certainly if you haven't played Bridgeport before, there is no point going for the novelty of a custom town yet.

[Avilan the Grey]

I believe Bridgeport has built-in support for Ambitions material (i.e. starting there with Ambitions installed will automatically place a Scrapyard, a Firestation, a salon etc). And of course, it supports Late Night gameplay (celebs, nightspots etc).

The only downside is that most of the lots are apartment types, which is comparatively expensive, and somewhat inconvenient to play (lots of build/buy restrictions, mailbox not obviously placed, time consuming to go up and down elevator). There ARE standard "flat land" lots available, but most of these are inconveniently located. Although you could drop a Subway station on an adjacent community lot to ease transport woes, and once you get a teleport pad, you can beam around.

Between Twinbrook and Bridgeport, I would recommend: go for Bridgeport, buy a flat land lot, with Subway station added nearby.

I can't comment on the custom neighbourhood, but *usually* these are quite large with far more lots/sims than the pre-built ones. And that usually puts a serious dampener on your FPS, and load/save times. That was apparently a significant problem encountered by one of the abandoned Sims 3 lets plays. Certainly if you haven't played Bridgeport before, there is no point going for the novelty of a custom town yet.

I have had no problem with any custom 'hoods except Los Aniegos. Why I do not know. I have started a game in Riverblossom Hills and it was no problems.

(I do have graphics setting slightly too high anyway, so it usually takes a few seconds to render a new scene; but the animations and interactions never lags. I am now used to it and simply pauses for the 1-5 seconds it takes for the computer to correct things if an area I enter has grey, non skinned objects)

My experience with the apartments is the opposite; the starter apartments are cheap; this is my main draw to Bridgeport; I can get a studio apartment for way under 4000 S. That gives me 17 000 to buy starter gear for.

A starter home is usually much more expensive.

[Jahkaivah]

Whatever you do make sure you build a goddamn toilet.

[JeminiZero]

My experience with the apartments is the opposite; the starter apartments are cheap; this is my main draw to Bridgeport; I can get a studio apartment for way under 4000 S. That gives me 17 000 to buy starter gear for.

Well a 3x3 lot usually costs ~1.8k, and has more than enough space than you'll ever need, even without building a second storey. You simply need to design your *final* floor plan early on, and build just the toilets initially. The rest of the house can go without walls until you have the cash to add them on (as any legacy player will tell you).

[Avilan the Grey]

Well I settled for Bridgeport, despite it's known issues (buggy pathfinding, buggy elevators etc). I use the Overwatch mod anyway and it really helps in Bridgeport (apparently) especially by collecting lost sims once every day that otherwise would just wander until they starve to death, taking up CPU resources.

Anyway I bought the cheapest studio apartment and I managed to squeeze in a sculptur's desk, an inventor desk, a piano, a drawing board and three beds...