AL Island playtesting part 2

 Since the last time I posted, Anastasia has continued her career as a fire fighter and adopted another cat: Mittens. Mittens is a yellow tabby and better behaved than Weskers seems to be - at least he doesn't jump up on the table and put his furry little head in Anastasia's pancakes.

This is a huge world, and the fire station is way on the other end, so I added another closer to where Anastasia lives. It's on the edge of the big city, and shares the lot with a pub.

Despite this station being closer and showing as her workplace in the map tags, when she gets picked up for work, she is always driven to the far one - probably because she went out there to apply for the job? I was having routing issues with the far one - the sims would go around back to enter the building, and would not use the stairs. They would go to the base of the stairs and just stand there. This building comes with elevators, but I discovered they won't use them to go to the upper floors unless they woohoo first. 😆

Anastasia might lose her job if she keeps up this risky behavior! If I direct them to use the elevator without woohooing first, they just go to the base of the stairs and stand there. I hovered over the stairs, and it had a text that said something about toddlers, so I assumed Dylan had the toddler's mod and it was activated as he was building. Replacing the stairs solved a few problems: Sims now enter through the front door and will take the stairs to the upper floors. I don't know if it's Anastasia's personal preference, but if I point to the elevator and tell her to go to an upper floor, she takes the stairs instead. If I point to the stairs and tell her to go to a lower floor, she slides down the pole. At least those upper floors are now accessible. I think the firetruck might be glitched because it never has the "maintain" option and has a ghosted "improve horsepower" option that say Anastasia isn't at a high enough level to do that. 

This stairs issue also is evident at the campground. Anastasia wouldn't use the stairs to the buildings and the sims that managed to use them had issues:

Again, replacing the stairs fixed the problems. While Anastasia was there, she was accosted by mean girls.

I have no idea what their problem was. Also, because I messed up on the CC installment, I noticed that there were no RVs (or Caravans) in the camping spaces - just tents that could not be placed as opened up. After I sorted out my CC issue, I tried starting another game to see if the CC was there - it still wasn't. Instead I had Anastasia go home while I went to edit town and went to each camping spot and deleted the tents. Then I placed some of the RVs and gave Anastasia a "tent allowance" to purchase a few tents and take them and place them in some of the lots. There are still some empty places for those who want to bring their own gear. 

Another thing I noticed was that all the camping spaces were marked as No Visitors Allowed, and the  buildings in the area were also marked that way. I wanted there to be Sims when my Sim went camping, so I changed them all to Visitors Allowed. A few of these places were marked as empty houses, which I thought was really cool. This way if it's a vacation world for your sim, you can place them there, or if you want to start a rags to riches challenge, they can start at the campground.

Next to the fire station where Anastasia works is  a bus terminal. It's really cute, but as there aren't any buses in the game, I put a basement under it and a subway terminal so it's functional as well as ornamental. There are other bus terminals in the world, and I'm adding the subway line to them as well.

For some reason, when the fire alarm rings and Anastasia clicks to go to the fire, the bell turns off and the fire icon goes away. But she did manage to go to an emergency - it seemed a plant monster was taking over a spa in the Whitney area. This is a really cute little hamlet, but it had three grocery stores, two spas, and two bookstore rabbitholes all clustered together. It was enough to establish the aesthetic. But I felt it needed more variety. The lots were too small for any other rabbithole choices so I kept one grocery store, the spa/bookstore combo, and the University bookstore but deleted the other ones and built a mercantile (consignment store) with a salon upstairs, added a dive bar I built a long time ago, a coffee shop from a 10x10 challenge, and built a laundromat on the same lot as the coffee shop. The coolest feature of this area is the church that Dylan built. I need to go and add the CC now that I have it. Here are some pictures of this little town (taken at night).

Cow themed coffee shop, dive bar, and University bookstore.

Front of consignment store/salon.

Consignment store/salon, spa/bookstore rabbithole, and church in the background.

Laundromat next to the coffee shop (on the same lot), and bus terminal next to it. (There's a lot more detail to the terminal, it just isn't rendered from this distance.) Grocery store rabbithole is in the background.

Anastasia went and playtested the area - but I don't think she tried going into the bookstore rabbithole that's attached to the spa, which I suspect might have the door too close to the road. There are several rabbithole buildings with this problem. Sims can't go in them and stand inside the walls.

By the way, this is the wife of the co-worker Anastasia sent a love letter to and got the "last I checked we aren't the only two people left on the earth" response. I don't remember who the kid standing in the wall is, but goofy-dressed guy I believe is called Darron Goth. Maybe he's a distant relation to the Sunset Valley/Pleasantview Goths, but he is not wealthy. This outfit is supposed to be his work outfit and he's a cop. I think Anastasia is telling the woman about it, and maybe doubting that he is really a cop with that outfit. Maybe he's working undercover or something. 

Anastasia did invite him over to hang out, whipped up some Goopy Carbonara, and they became friends.

Later, he asked her to hang out at his house.  It turns out he lives on the sketchy side of town.

However, he seems to have been promoted, and now gets to wear a real uniform, so he might be able to move up to something classier at some point.

He has told her that he's married, so I think they will just be good friends. If she ever decides to go beyond random elevator-woohoo with people she barely knows, she will probably take up with Devon Brinson, the mascot. They are good friends.

However, it's good to know a cop, especially when a burglar keeps showing up and stealing your cat condo!

It happened twice so far. Maybe she should invest in a burglar alarm. She complained to Devon about it.

She definitely thinks there should be a stronger police presence in her area. I'll have to check and see where the closest police station is. For now, she thinks a spa day is in order,

Then maybe a scenic jog and a cat cuddle.

As for the rabbitholes in the downtown area, the grocery store works as does the movie theater. I deleted the bookstore rabbithole and built back a different bookstore. This is a walk-in store using the book register from World Adventures and a rabbithole rug. The store is still functional without the rug, but the rug makes it possible to work there or to complete opportunities there. 

Anastasia has been wanting to take a writing class, but so far hasn't found an accessible business rabbithole. I think I'll add in my walk-in version to Doo-Peas Tower somewhere downtown and remove the inaccessible rabbitholes. I want to do a camping trip too, and see how that turns out, but as you can see by the pictures above, it's getting cold. Fall has arrived. So much more to explore.