Sunday, December 11, 2011

What Is Beacon Falls?




Beacon Falls
This is a custom made neighborhood for use with The Sims 2 game. It was originally put together in 2006 by myself and eighteen other forum members from TSR (listed below). With 'the team' now pretty much gone from the community, I have been updating this new version through October and November 2011, after having scanned them with Mootilda's HoodChecker program. There have also been a few 'housekeeping' changes made, such as weather proofing the houses and community lots for use with the Seasons EP.
I've rewritten some of the family descriptions and bio's, and I have changed the spelling of Aimee Pembroke's name, to just Amy! The memories Hood Checker found there was something wrong with have all been fixed, and in some cases the order other memories appeared in have been altered so that they make sense, or they might have been changed to appear 'red' (if this was applicable). Two Sim aspiration levels have been changed to reflect their storyline, and there are other 'odd little things' where I wondered "why did I do that?", and these have been changed. Hopefully for the better!


Updates: Oct 2010 - The subhoods Balloth, Prometedor and Isle St. Croix, according to Mootilda's subhood tutorial.
Updates: Oct/Nov 2011 - The neighborhoods Beacon Falls 'Full' and 'Lite', and the subhoods Balloth and Prometedor, according to Mootilda's HoodChecker program.
Update: Jan 2021 - Edited the Isle St. Croix - Add-on and Extra Lots section with a new download link to both of the Isle St.Croix community lots. 

The full version of Beacon Falls contains the main town of Beacon Falls, it's vibrant downtown area, Lustre Point, and the local college, Balise University. As with the EA/Maxis original neighborhoods, Beacon Falls includes families already edited and set up in certain situations, for you to take a look at and decide to play out their dreams, or wreak havoc in their lives! For people with slower connections, lower specification computers, or those not wanting to use the downtown and university provided, there is a cut down version called Beacon Falls Lite. This only includes the main town, and has fewer townies. You can find both downloads in their respective posts, the Lite version has a link to files for the missing Uni and downtown, if you want to add any of the buildings or sims from either of those to the game yourself.
Please note that the Balise and Lustre Point BF'Lite'-Lots+Families files have not been weather proofed, or otherwise updated.
In the links to the right of this page, each neighborhood or subhood will be clearly labelled, as will the installation instructions, add-on lots and extra downloads. New Stories pages have been added to give you an idea of the families, so that you'll know what you're getting!
New for November 2011, some of the downtown houses have been made into proper apartments, please note that many of these will require EP's and SP's up to Mansion and Gardens, and can be found on the Downloads pages.

Beacon Falls 'Full' requires - The base game/ University/ Nightlife/ Open for Business EP's, as well as the Family Fun Stuff SP. (Or any of the later expansion packs)


Beacon Falls 'Lite' requires - The base game/ University/ Nightlife/ Open for Business EP's. (Or any of the later expansion packs)
 
Balloth requires - The base game/ University/ Nightlife/ Open for Business EP's. (Or any of the later expansion packs) This is a business district containing ready made families with their own storylines.

Prometedor requires - University/ NightLife/ Open for Business/ Seasons and Bon Voyage.
You NEED to have Bon Voyage installed. This is an island Bon Voyage vacation destination based on a Spanish/Mexican/Baja Coast theme with its own custom locals and tourists. If you still want Prometedor but have missing earlier EP's, it would be a good idea to check the lots before sending sims on holiday there in order to replace any missing items with other wall coverings, floorings and/or furniture.

Isle St. Croix requires - University/ NightLife/ Open for Business/ Seasons and Bon Voyage.
You NEED to have Bon Voyage installed. This is a mountain Bon Voyage destination, but with no added sims. If you still want Isle St. Croix but have missing earlier EP's, it would be a good idea to check the lots before sending sims on holiday there in order to replace any missing items with other wall coverings, floorings and/or furniture.

Mootilda noted in Balise University, that there had been a few kitchens with no available space for food preparation...these have been checked and fixed! I also have added extra want slots and locks to sims supposing to have attended university, and you will find their diplomas either on their house walls, or in their inventories. I have made a couple of edits to the 'Lite' version so that it better matches the 'Full' version, such as jobs and aspirations. Though I will not promise that both versions are exactly the same, bio and family description wise!
No characters have been added or taken away, none of the neighborhoods have been further played, except for the Fairfields in each version; because the lot had a floating chimney problem, and the game had to be unpaused for two sim minutes to enable Pescado's stuckobjectremover to zap the offending thingamyjigs!


Creator List

The creators for lots and/or families in Beacon Falls were: simnamedchris, babajayne, HazyFlowers, mistwind, ferretlover7lana, moza, jfade, bazdez999, ChickFlick9207, mselah, wildstar24, miss_c_Bong, misswhitneys, venusdemilo, CheetahBaby, TeXaSrOsE, Gyrus, Zaefire, and lechapeau.

Lots for Balloth came from: elpemmy, R.Quest, Cadiva and lechapeau, after a request for a business district from elpemmy.
Lots for Prometedor came from: daisylee, Cadiva, billybop428 and lechapeau, after a request from msblue1979, asking for two vacation destinations.
Isle St.Croix was made by lechapeau, it was tested by lechapeau and daisylee.
Credits and thanks go to each of the creators listed above, and also the people requesting the subhoods. Also credits and thanks to Moza who originally put together and hosted the Beacon Falls website, and to both Moza and daisylee for editing the SC4 files for Prometedor and Isle St. Croix.

Thanks to all of the above people, to anyone who has ever contacted me, inspired me or has made a suggestion. And thank you  to all who have downloaded any of these neighborhoods, subhoods and extras!
Many thanks to Mootilda, to cwykes, and to anyone else who has helped in some way.
lechapeau