Let your imagination run wild when creating your world, but remember that it will take a lot of effort for your vision to come to life. Any concept can be done well, or done poorly, and your result depends on you.

Even the wildest alien world should still look good and make sense - weird for weirdness sake as a gimmick really doesn't work well for something that will be used as much in the game as a neighborhood/world. Use your imagination, but put enough work into the expression of your idea to make it look plausible.

Does your world/neighborhood look nice, with a good flow to it? Is the layout attractive, interesting, and enjoyable to look at? Do you have a cohesive style or theme that works well and shows throughout the neighborhood? This is hard to quantify, so you may want to get several other opinions (from people who aren't your mom).

The prettiest neighborhood ever made is useless if it's not playable, so it's very important that it's well planned. Consider some of the following:

• Is there enough room for all the rabbit holes, community lots, and plenty of homes?
• Is there room to expand? Consider that new types of buildings will likely be added with later expansion packs.
• Do townies have somewhere to live?
• Is it going to be easy to get around the neighborhood? Are there enough roads and sidewalks, and are they connected up properly?
• Is the routing done right so the sims and player camera don't get stuck?
• Can sims collect bugs and rocks?
• Is your world optimized for good performance?

There's a lot more to it - some covered down below, but put yourself in the player's shoes and imagine what you would want in the perfect downloaded neighborhood and build accordingly.

Rabbitholes

Rabbit holes provide places for your sims to do important tasks as well as attend school and their jobs.

• Full Set: There are 16 different rabbit holes - make sure you include them all for sims to have a nicely functioning neighborhood and be able to get all jobs. If you choose to omit some of them, it should make sense for the theme of the neighborhood, and you should add some extra lots big enough to fit the rabbit hole objects, so players can place their own.

• Decorated: Rabbit hole lots require decoration to make them look part of their neighborhood - benches, trees, terrain paint, etc. - if you're going to tell people where the rabbit holes should be, you should make an effort to decorate the lot so it's integrated into the rest of the neighborhood's style.

Community buildings

• Full Set: You should build all or most of the various community buildings (art gallery, gym, etc.) which are not rabbit holes. If you don't build them all, you should leave empty lots for the player to build or place their own.

Residential buildings

• Enough Lots: You should include several residential buildings in a variety of sizes. Make sure the lot sizes are multiples of 5 (25x30, 50x50, etc.). Some/all residential buildings can be vacant, but all of the houses need to be furnished (see our Lots and Houses Upload Guidelines).

• Quality: If you are doing a full map and including sims for a populated world (including sims is completely optional!), please make sure that your sims meet the MTS Creator Guidelines for Sims. Unique faces for random "other" sims and good likenesses if you're trying to make them look like real people. The standards for sims uploaded with a world are the same as if you uploaded them separately, so make sure they're good!

It's important that you include certain information so that players know what to expect when they use your creation! Part of this is also so the MTS moderation staff knows your world has been made right.

You may want to copy-paste the headings here to use as a template. This information should be in the text description for your upload.

Title

You probably already have a name for your world - it makes a good title for your upload.

Description

You need to write a decent description for your upload. You don't have to write a novel here, just at least a few sentences about world's theme, history, landscape, people, whatever. Let people know you've put some careful thought into your creation. If your English is not good, you can ask for help writing a description in Creator Feedback.

Please also include the following information into your description:

• Map Size: Tiny / Small / Medium / Large

• Spawn Points: What spawn points are there? Are EP spawn points or relic dig sites included?

• Routing Info: Where can sims not go? Where can the camera not go?

• Layering: How many layers do you have?

• Textures: How many textures have you used total? Do you have more than 8 textures per chunk anywhere in the world?

Lots:

• Number: Total number of lots, and lot sizes and quantity of each (example: 50 total lots - 25 of 20x20, 15 of 40x40, 10 60x60)

• Rabbitholes: None / All / Some (list)

• Community Lots: None / All / Some (list)

• Residential: Number of residential lots, and lot sizes and quantity of each (as above).

• (Full Map Only): For the 10 representative lots (5 residential, 5 community) you've chosen to include pictures for, you need to also include the standard required info for them. That means you need a description of the lot in text, describing its purpose, features, style, etc. You will also need the lot size (25x30, 64x64, etc.) and the lot price (the price of the lot, both furnished and unfurnished). For more on where to find and how to provide this info, please see: Lots and Houses Upload Guidelines.
  

Sims (Full Map Only):

• If you are including a save file with sims, or have pre-populated your world, please include some basic information for the 5 representative sims you have chosen to take pictures of.

The screenshots you take will show off the world you have made and allow people to see what they're downloading. Take some nice big (800+ pixels-ish on the smallest side is a good size to aim for), clear pictures to entice downloaders into using your lovely new creation. Please do not take the pictures in Create a World*.

Do not apply filters like sharpen, contrast, etc. to the required pictures, as downloaders want to see what your creation will look like in their game, not your skills at using Photoshop.

You will need to include at least:

• at least ONE picture from high above your world, showing the whole thing. If you can't fit it all in one shot, you can take several different shots as long as it's obvious you've shown everything. You can label the overview pictures with text if you want - just make sure it doesn't cover up too much.
• at least FOUR other pictures of some of the views people will see in your world. This should be nice scenic views, taken from a lower angle (a sim's eye view, or a low player's eye view). You can of course take more pictures to show off all the pretty sights.

Lot pictures

If you have built on the included lots, you will need to post pictures for at least 10 lots - 5 residential and 5 community. You may choose which 10 lots you show, but we suggest you choose lots that are representative of the overall style of the world. We have this requirement so both MTS staff and people who may download your world can see that your lots are good quality.

Please include

• a front picture showing the whole lot of each 5 residential- and community lots you have chosen to show.

You may also include additional pictures like floorplans, backside picture, comparison picture if a lot is based on a real life building. But those are completely optional!

Sim pictures

If you are including sims with a save file, or pre-populating your world, you will need to show at least 5 sims. You may choose which 5 sims, but as with lots, we suggest you choose ones that are representative of your creator style and quality. This is so MTS staff and downloaders can see that your sims are good quality.

Please include

• a close-up picture of the sim's face, from the front, with the sim wearing a neutral face expression (like a mugshot) - not smiling, laughing, etc.

You may, of course, include other pictures like a full-body picture, posing pictures, whatever, to show off your sim how you like, but please make sure to include at least the above. For sims based on a person or character, you can include a comparison picture of the real person, ideally similar to the close-up picture of your sim.

If you have used any custom items in your world, you MUST provide full links and credit for ALL items used in the world. This means any custom build items, objects, patterns, or content used on any included sims must be linked and credited.

Make sure to state whether or not the content is included or not (as downloaders need to know if they need to download it all separately or not). If you do include content, it must be okay with that content's creator. Please check their policies.

If you have included override resources into your world file, such as texture recolors, please list what objects/textures are overridden, so that the downloaders may avoid conflicting files.

For a complex neighborhood, it's likely that your upload will be over the 10 mb file limit that we have at MTS. You will need to upload your creation in parts. To do this, you will need an archive program like WinRAR that can compress a file but split it into multiple pieces.

Because worlds are so complex, it may be easier for you to compose your upload in MTS's Creator Issues Forum rather than going through the regular upload wizard. Create a new thread - the first post will show as the main post on the upload once complete -; make sure to attach at least one picture to the first post and at least one zip or rar attachment. You can use subsequent posts (which will show up as comments on the upload) to attach files and pictures and organize showing off different parts of your world. Once you're done putting together your upload in Creator Issues, private message an Admin or make a new post at Creator Issues, to ask if your world can be moved to the Moderation Queue.