02-02-22, 08:36 PM (This post was last modified: 02-08-22, 04:24 PM by maxon.)
This thread is for download of my neighbourhood Polgannon - Polgannon was originally made in 2015 as a complete murder mystery neighbourhood. There have been three new versions of the neighbourhood since then. The details are given below of the changes made in each edition. Please also find links to the files - the most up-to-date version of the neighbourhood is found now on Sims File Share (not on this site as the files are too large). Thanks to SFS for hosting.
PLEASE READ INSTRUCTIONS BELOW FOR DOWNLOAD AND INSTALLATION CAREFULLY - you don't have to read everything. There's a lot of information here but the 2nd and 4th posts are important
LINKs to Files
Polgannon - the neighbourhood file LINK
Polgannon Downloads - all the downloads needed to run the neighbourhood LINK
Polgannon - the neighbourhood file with the extra families in residence. I made some extra families for the empty lots (see other posts for description and how to download them separately). They were not included in the original upload. You can download this version of the neighbourhood folder with them in residence if you would like. They have NO effect on the story. LINK
Before We Start Please read the installation instructions carefully for this download. It is not simply a case of dumping everything in Downloads. See post 4.
Also please take note of the issues and warnings section so that you are aware of potential problems which can be easily avoided.
There's a lot more information about the sims and lots in later posts. Also, there's a list elsewhere in this forum of successful solvers.
Update 13 September 2015 - 2nd edition. Only the neighbourhood file is affected, custom content remains the same. Changes include: SimDNA files for some brown eyed sims corrected; LTW for Tamara corrected; Golf Club lot description added; James Penhaligan's name is now spelt correctly; some corrections to parts of the story including one story picture replaced; other minor adjustments.
Update 11th December 2015 - 3rd edition. Only the neighbourhood folder is affected, downloads remain the same. Fixes include: two statement pictures in Ruan's story updated to show correct information and appearance; reset the marriage status of all married couples to try and combat a problem reported by some players that couples had the 'propose marriage' option even when otherwise showing as married; some minor tinkering with physical evidence and a couple of furniture placement issues corrected.
Update 7th February 2022 - 4th edition. I have had another go at the brown eye issue. I am not sure what is causing this and the fix may not stick this time either. It affects some of the brown eyed sims. An extra gossip panel has been included for one of the family stories to help make the connection between Blaise's murder, the motive and the murderer clearer. Several small corrections to spelling and some small additional details added here and there. Removed extra stove in Ruan's kitchen. I have also updated two of the files in the Downloads folder - the post box and telephone kiosk to make them visible in neighbourhood view. Details over at the CC Fixin's section of this site HERE.
My policy for Polgannon My normal policy is to allow people to share what I make freely (though no pay sites). However, Polgannon is an exception to this rule. It is a large and complex piece of work and it took me a long time to write it. As such, I would prefer not to see Polgannnon shared on any other website than this one and also I will not give permission to convert Polgannon to other uses such as making it into sub-hood or gender-swapped versions. I just don't feel that would be appropriate for what it is. Please respect my preferences here.
Polgannon Documents and Further Information Attached here are some documents about Polgannon you might find useful and/or informative. They are 1. a word file called CrosscheckEvidence&Motives. This is a version of the word file I used to, well, cross-check everything. An empty version. I'm giving you basically the model of how I worked out the mystery - where the evidence is and what it tells you about the characters. There are some brief notes in the file as guidance on how to use it and I left in one example (Tamara Cardew) to show how it works. Tamara didn't kill Blaise (I give you that information for free) 2. the original Publisher version of the Lanscumbe Courier just in case you want to see it plus the jpg version. I had a pile of fun doing that 3. a hand-drawn map of Polgannon that you might find useful for guidance 4. zips of the pictures for Ruan's statements, Margaret's letters, Breoc's statement and the gossip pictures. These are the original pictures and are, therefore, a bigger size than the ones you can see in game (which are rather small and difficult to see clearly). I decided to post these as an optional download so that if you are really determined to solve the mystery you can have a good (and clearer) look at them 5. Picture of the Hoodchecker report for Polgannon just before it shipped
07-02-22, 12:39 AM (This post was last modified: 07-02-22, 01:22 AM by maxon.)
Having said all that:
This just in: read all about it!
Blaise Penhaligan has been found brutally murdered - can you solve the mystery that surrounds his death?
What is this? This is a complete neighbourhood for you to play. It is based around the idea of a typical murder mystery from the Golden Age of murder mysteries and thus it has elements lifted from Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, Josephine Tey, Margery Allingham, Ngaio Marsh and all the rest I could think of (now you know my bedtime reading). I have included practically every whodunnit character cliche I could think of. This is why I wanted to build the neighbourhood in the first place. I wanted to see if I could write a COMPLETE mystery story with a murder, background, motives, character and detectable solution. I am quite pleased with the result, it is not perfect but I have achieved the goal I set myself.
So the neighbourhood encapsulates the first part of a murder mystery story. You have characters, their backgrounds, their histories, loves, jealousies, rivalries and life problems. You can find out how they came to be here in Polgannon and where they might be going. Though where they actually go is up to you since what we have here is effectively the first half of a murder mystery. Blaise Penhaligan is dead but no-one knows who killed him (except me, of course). The idea is, you can find the answer to that by playing out the sim's lives and finding the solution. I would say ...
There are two approaches to playing it:
1. you can play it like any other downloadable storied neighbourhood: get to know the sims resident here and play out their lives. Make your own mind up how Blaise Penhaligan came to meet his fate and let life go on from there. I hope you would find it interesting and enjoyable.
OR
2. you can set out to solve the mystery. Because, you see, there is one.
Or both, maybe.
Solving the Mystery If you decide you want to play detective, you can attempt to solve the mystery - Blaise Penhaligan has been murdered and one of the residents of Polgannon did it. That's your starting point. There is a solution - it's just not obvious what it is and if you want to know, you'll have to work to find it (I bet someone gets it in 5 minutes). There is information and clues scattered all over the place. You will need to explore family stories and pictures, sim memories, sim bios, the neighbourhood story and more. I'm thinking you will probably need to take notes (see the documentation section in the comments for 'help' here). There are motives galore for bumping off the odious Blaise and more alibis than you can shake a stick at. And there is evidence - lots of it - though sometimes this is not clear. It's up to you to work out what information you can trust and what information is a load of old Cornish pasty. The point is though, which alibi doesn't hold up? Who was it who snuck up to Polgannon stone circle at Halloween and stabbed Blaise Penhaligan squarely right between the shoulder blades?
Information sources and 'reading' the story If you want to play it this way, I would suggest starting with DI Ruan Roscarrock* who is a policemen investigating the case. He is staying temporarily in one of the apartments called Boathouse Lets - they are normally meant to be rented out to holiday-makers. Incidentally, there is a holiday-maker living in the next door apartment (Margaret James) who is so intrigued by the local mystery that she has decided to investigate the crime herself. DI Roscarrock has important information in his family story - his story consists of statements from all the residents of Polgannon about what they were doing on the afternoon Blaise was murdered and I'd suggest it's a good idea to find out what everybody said as your starting point (the pictures tell you who it is making the statement). Margaret has also been doing some investigating locally and has been writing to her friend back in London about it (it's in epistolary form). So her family story also has some interesting and useful information. Beyond those two, you will also find a statement by Constable Warne in the Warne family story.
Apart from these there are also various other sources of information. In particular there are items in the family stories that I have called 'gossip'. These are meant to be the inhabitants of Polgannon talking to each other after the murder and can be distinguished by the fact that they have face icons in the pictures (example below). The face icon on the left is the person speaking and the face icon picture on the right is the person being spoken to (you will always find the gossip panel in their family story). Gossip panels are always at the end of the family stories while the beginning of the story will have a brief history of the family in chronological order (as you normally would if you use this feature). There is some information in the family lot descriptions about each sim's background. Finally, in the sim's individual bios you will find a series of 'thoughts' (rather than a personal bio) - these are recent thoughts which have passed through that particular sim's head. Does anyone betray themselves?
Quite a lot of the information at any given point is incomplete and you will have to hunt elsewhere to find the rest of it. Some people might not like this sort of thing. However, please bear in mind that what I set out to do was write a story using the game. If you don't like all the information, feel free to delete it and adapt the neighbourhood to suit your preferences.
That's my guidance. After this, you're on your own.
It is three days since Blaise was murdered when the neighbourhood opens: a wet Friday 3rd November. It's 6am and everyone is just starting their day. (Polgannon is set up to play rotationally but you don't have to do this).
* I may have gone a little overboard with the Cornish names. Just a little.
07-02-22, 12:51 AM (This post was last modified: 24-02-22, 02:58 PM by maxon.)
Solution At some point, I will gather all the stuffs I wrote as I made this neighbourhood and compile all the bits of information into one file and make it available for download. This should (in theory) allow you to see who actually did it. However, this will not be soon since I am a. overwhelmed with the amount of work making this neighbourhood took and b. generally very busy (I have a demanding job). Needless to say, the solution is not stated directly in any of the neighbourhood sources of information.
However, if you think you have solved the mystery, you can PM me. I will simply laugh at guesses so don't send a PM saying "it was X, I know it! They have shifty eyes" - you'll need to tell me:
07-02-22, 12:52 AM (This post was last modified: 19-04-22, 01:35 PM by maxon.)
Installation There are two folders in the zips: the neighbourhood folder called N432 and the CC needed for the neighbourhood called Downloads.
Put N432 in your Neighbourhoods folder - usually: C:\Users\User\Documents\EA Games\The Sims™ 2 Ultimate Collection\Neighborhoods if you have the UC
Put the folder called Downloads into your Downloads folder as usual
About Polgannon Polgannon is built on a custom neighbourhood map. I was attempting to create a sense of place from a visit I made to Cornwall a few years ago. Polgannon is a village tumbling down the steep coastal margin of northern Cornwall towards the sea surrounded by isolating and bleak moors. You will find 37 living sims (plus several dead ones including Blaise), 3 cats and 3 dogs in 17 families with 24 lots (a mix of residential and community) in Polgannon - all unique to this neighbourhood (see first few posts of the comments thread for pictures and more detail). There are four townies plus 2 NPCs (a driver and a landlord). I resisted the urge to include a Chinaman BTW. Polgannon was built in an otherwise empty AGS environment, so initially, that's all the sims you get. There are no sub-hoods, no universities, no downtowns, no shopping districts and no vacation destinations - you can add those yourself.
Issues You will need all EPs and SPs to play - this version was made with the UC version of the game. If you don't have all, you may find stuff missing from lots or lots that won't load - there is nothing I can do about this. If you are missing an EP, it's likely Polgannon won't load at all. If you have missing SPs, you will find stuff missing in lots but you will possibly be able to load the neighbourhood. This neighbourhood wasn't made with the Store Edition.
The neighbourhood has been checked with the Hoodchecker and is clean.
First Load On first load in a regular neighbourhood slot in game, the game might generate some of the hidden sub-hoods. The game will load pets, magic, exotic destinations and various other stealth hoods (unless you have modded your game to prevent this). What it is doing is adding NPCs and townies to your version of Polgannon. This means the initial load will be slightly longer than usual as the game copies the files and folders. There is nothing wrong with the neighbourhood.
NPCs and townies Your game will also generate NPCs as you play. What I tried to do was keep the download file size to an absolute minimum. Although I have play-tested the neighbourhood and had it play-tested by others, the version of the neighbourhood files you will get has only been played for a very short time in order to prevent the game from generating any extra sim files. Thus, there are very few NPCs in the files (there's a driver and a landlord). As you play, your game will generate these NPCs as needed (if you have the no-regen hacks, it will only generate those it actually needs). So you will find that the first time you play a lot through the morning hours, the game will make a newspaper girl/boy and a post-person. This may cause some lagging as you start to play the neighbourhood though it will not last forever - once the NPCs are there, the lagging will go away.
Lots Many of the lots have been fiddled about with Mootilda's Lot Expander. As a result, I strongly recommend that you DON'T try to move them around. They won't go back if you do.
Polgannon is a complicated neighbourhood and there are large lots - it is NOT recommended for smaller, less powerful machines.
Recommendations Polgannon could make a decent stab at winning the Most Beautiful British Town Gardening competition. There are a lot of plants. To keep the gardens looking like they should and to avoid too much gardening gameplay, you might consider 'Perfect Plants' and 'Perfect Gardens' from Simbology
Church Stuff
Versatile Headstones and Tomb by Gromit http://www.modthesims.info/d/93440
CPDesign_CelticCrossGrave01
CPDesign_ObaliskGrave01
CPDesign_Tombx001
Sims Design Avenue - site long since gone but SimsFreaky at Sims Cave kindly uploaded all the SDA sets here: https://www.mediafire.com/?z4j2258mijg31
Lithium_eglise_chandelier
Lithium_eglise_ensemble_ostensoir_calice
Lithium_eglise_fenetre_clocher
Lithium_eglise_fenetre_clocher_diagonal
Lithium_eglise_tombe_1
Wildflowers by Gwenke http://sims2artists.com/index.php?topic=3361.0
all
Gwenke_WildAnemone_seasonal_MESH
Gwenke_WildAnemone_seasonal_rec01-blue
Gwenke_WildAnemone_seasonal_rec02-purplelt
Gwenke_WildAnemone_seasonal_rec03-yellow
Gwenke_WildAnemone_seasonal_rec04-pink
Rock Collection by Nengi65 - Nengi's Box account not currently working
N65_RockCollection_ScatteredRocks_MasterMESH
N65_RockCollection_StandingStone01_SlaveMESH
N65_RockCollection_StandingStone02_SlaveMESH
Shopping Street Bakery
max_DecraChill_Yellow
max_halfDecra_yellow
max_pedastal_yellow
max_roedisplay_yellow
max_yellowthing
all by me
Disemporium - clothing: service sims by Di at Disemporium http://disemporium.dreamwidth.org/9716.html
Police_Helmet_MESH_Dicreasy
PoliceHelmet (black hair only)
Uniform_Tunic_MESH_Dicreasy
Playing with no CC If you don't like downloading extra CC (and I know this is an issue for some), you should know that the neighbourhood has been destruction tested and it will mostly load without CC in place (though it looks bloody odd). Leaving out CC will affect the atmosphere, appearance or functioning of Polgannon. Some of it is minor, some of it will make a big difference. If you don't want all the CC that comes with the neighbourhood, that is up to you but my advice is to pay attention to these items in particular and do something about them if you want the neighbourhood to be workable and look finished.
Invisibleironfence - the layered High Street/Moonraker’s Inn arrangement will not work properly without this
Plants. They were used extensively in every lot build. You can leave them out for the most part without problem but you're going to be going round the entire place and removing a lot of EAxis stuff. However, two lots will sometimes crash without the CC present (the High Street and Boathouse Lets). I think it is because the game struggles to substitute the original items for the CC. Specifically, two pieces of CC seem to cause trouble - that is the Anemones and Small Shrubby Shrub by Gwenke. I think it is because they are slave meshes. I can't see anything wrong with the files and the crashes happen at some times but not others. I recommend always playing the neighbourhood with the requisite CC and especially the plant CC.
Miaokitty_Cashregister_DecorativeMESH - probably not a problem to remove but if it reverts back to the standard cash register, you will have quite a bunch of cashiers in the neighbourhood if you load the High Street in live mode. If you don't want this, I'd suggest editing the High Street lot. It's the only one affected
Police Uniform and Vicar skins - you’ll lose part of the visual characterisation of Len and Breoc
Walls - not important if you leave them out but the Horton walls in particular were used on a lot of lots and will need to be replaced. The plaster and lathe walls are only used on the 2, Church Lane lot and the Moonraker's Arms