The Sims 4: Oughties Big Rapids Living Stuff

The Sims 4: Oughties Big Rapids Living Stuff is a custom stuff pack developed as part of the DzMD product line-up for Dozerfleet Labs, designed to work with various existing official DLC packs of The Sims 4. It was initially released as "Version 1.0" on May 1st of 2020 via the Dozerfleet Labs blog on Blogger. On May 3rd, some slight fixes were made to pack contents, for "Version 1.1."

On July 23rd of 2020, Version 2.0, dubbed "The Merre Edition" was released, which improved lot accuracy by approximately 25% on lots, as well as adding Sims to the pack - including Merre Bowmaster.

While DzMD mostly specializes in making character and story packs, Oughties Big Rapids Living Stuff is the second non-story-specific custom DLC pack to focus on developing an entire theme, rather than an single narrative. The first such pack was the much smaller Into the Future Conversions Stuff from 2017.

While the predecessor custom DLC pack was intended to augment the Swappernetters Story Pack Series almost exclusively, Oughties Big Rapids Living Stuff intends on recapturing the Dozerfleet founder's experience of attending Ferris State in a nutshell, across a span of several years. Therefore, the pack's theme and content overlap with every Dozerfleet project that is specific to that era.

Official description
The pack is officially described this way on the Labs blog:

Are you turned off by Discover University being so cute, plush, and generic? Do you want to challenge your Sims to live in a real college town, or at least be inside buildings based on ones from a real college town?

Do you wish to have them flaunt school spirit for an actual school?

Would you love a pack that lets you do all this, while incorporating history lessons about life in a real town in a real time period???

Don't think the Discover University expansion tortures them enough?

Then Oughties Big Rapids Living Stuff may just be the pack for you! This pack pursues brutal realism wherever it can, even if your Sim doesn't like it!

Early inspirations
Inspiration for the pack went all the way back to discovery of a TDMP program at Ferris State, as well as a graphic design field there, all the way back in 2006. From there, the founder of Dozerfleet took in his experiences, and utilized them as best as possible toward developing the brand.

Upon arrival, came discovery of the music style and feel that were culturally relevant for the time. This included local band Unlisted, who played for the Flying Flamingo Casino event at Brophy-McNerney Hall in October of 2006, as well as the slightly more popular Grand Rapids-based band Broken Sunday.

Not long afterward, the Dozerfleet founder got to know Scotty Hicks and Jimmy Blankenship from the band. He and the latter would remain Facebook friends for many years afterward. He'd grow a strong affinity for Broken Sunday's "The Answer," off their album Identity from 2004, as well as for the She is Nectar album by Unlisted, which was officially released early in 2007 after the band had toured its music.

Upon the founder's first day on campus, he got to see Snakes on a Plane in theaters at the local Carmike Big Rapids Cinema - eventually having the entire theater to himself, as everyone else attended the Meijer Madness event that same evening.

In the spring of 2007, he took a class in design survey, to explore getting into the graphic design major. When that didn't work out, the TDMP program was chosen. Had he known about New Media Printing and Publishing, he may have pursued that instead, as the field is more stable.

Also, having to deal with the roommate politics of Brophy and McNerney proved annoying, so he relocated to North Bond Hall. He saw TMNT in theaters the spring semester before that.

The Carmike's alleyway proved to be an important scene for Mutt Mackley and Gambino Penguin's "Somewhere I Belong", and was almost used for Volkonir 2008. It would later be given significance for the webcomic of Blood Over Water, as well as for Sorbet.

While seldom visited, the Szot's Bar and Grill was considered a nice place to be in the fall of 2008. A friend worked at the Rapids Suds n' Dry for a time, leading to a visit there.

Several areas around campus inspired Dozerfleet works long before this pack. The Viron University clock tower in 2007's Ciem was inspired by the one on the Ferris campus. In that same webcomic, the Scarr Building was designed in The Sims 2 as a blatant knockoff of the Starr Building. There had been some desire to build an entire campus in-game, but this was eventually scrapped.

In the fall of 2008, a disturbing multiple false awakening dream about being trapped in a dorm room in North Bond during a zombie apocalypse became the basis for Sorbet. However, the story itself wouldn't be formed as a premise, until first inspired by some raspberry sorbet from Mitchell's Fish Market in Lansing's Eastwood Towne Center, consumed as far later on as 2011.

TV practicum class
In the fall of 2009, the Dozerfleet founder got another chance at crafting some tie-in material for The Gerosha Chronicles, as well as one of the single largest inspirations for this pack: the miniseries of Blood Over Water. He had previously dated local Merre Bowmaster in the spring of 2009 briefly, which would inspire the Merre Edition when her health deteriorated further.

Blood Over Water began its life as Mackley's Wardrobe, but was quickly replaced with Kozerlen. This, in turn, was replaced with The Twin Conspiracy. As it was refined further, it would become Mountain of Cabal, and then Bogged, before finally settling on Blood Over Water as a title.

The miniseries of five episodes in length spanned an entire semester to create, and took its cast and crew of 6 across several locations that would be of critical inspiration to the latter remake:


 * 516 N. Michigan Ave.
 * Various neighborhoods in Big Rapids
 * Hillcrest Oakwood Apartments
 * Ewigleben Sports Complex
 * FLITE Library
 * Starr Building
 * Bishop Hall
 * A pond near the Ice Mountain plant of Stanwood
 * The IRC building
 * Lot 47

In many scenes, the FLITE Library's study rooms were used as Ice Mountain / Sleet Mountain offices. It was determined a few years after the miniseries was made that a webcomic or novel remake would soon become necessary, as the footage was degrading rapidly - and the class rights to the soundtrack expired after so many years of no longer being on campus. This is one reason, among others, why the miniseries was taken down from YouTube in 2019.

For a remake, a more believable Sleet Mountain office design would be needed. More locations in general would be needed, thus prompting exploration into homes in town that would be believable places for characters to live. Many of these locations wouldn't be discovered until early 2020, via sites such as Zillow and Realtor. Due to time constraints, lesser characters (such as Ashley and Kyle) were denied any exploration into their residence in the miniseries. The webcomic would seek to remedy this issue. Chris Kennal's exact residence is also left unexplored in the miniseries, as Chris Wilson's apartment was used as Mark Stefflin's. George Lawence, likewise, was not offered any real character development, nor an assigned residence. This was also something addressed for the webcomic, as a possible issue to remedy.

Senior Sequence
In January of 2010, ads for Fox 32 Cadillac and for Ferris State Live, as well as Ferris in Focus, required the TVPR 499 class of that year to split into teams. The Dozerfleet founder's team, which also included Tabby Young, were assigned to work with Marianne Evans-Christianson, the manager of the local Mancino's Pizza and Grinders, to make an ad for them. She was arguably one of the easiest and most pleasant clients to work with. Other teams were a tad more frustrated working with their clients, such as the team that had to work with Gilberts' Carpets Plus.

Lot construction
See also: Lots in OBRL

Machinomic rationale
After Ciem: Inferno: The Grand Tour, it was determined that Blood Over Water would need its webcomic treatment handled before Ciem: Inferno could be properly, formally written, in order to establish Purge-Flare and Navyrope mythology, and explain Gleeful-N'-Young and Clyde Spendelworth taking sudden interest in Gerosha.

Sorbet was reimagined no longer as a novel, but as a potential pitch for a video game. Variants of the concept of Hadley's journey were furthermore made into gameplay for The Sims 3 and The Sims 4, while trying to keep the concept generic enough to remake as a Far Cry 5 Arcade level, or even envision it as a Big Rapids-set variant of concept with gameplay not unlike that of The Last of Us, or even Death Stranding.

However, this lowered the priority level of a Sorbet pitch release, allowing Blood Over Water to take center stage for development first. In early 2020, a short story was crafted, dubbed Purge-Flare: Stickin' it to Pencil, about Chris Kennal's assassination of Clyde's point man in Cincinnati. However, Chris soon realizes that he's not only putting Module in mortal danger by taking out Pencil; but that taking out Pencil guarantees that the much more dangerous Frank Morvel will take Pencil's place in the Gerosha run.

In this way, Stickin' it to Pencil serves as both a setup for the skip-ahead in Blood Over Water in its intro, as well as a quick prequel to Ciem: Inferno. However, that still required Blood Over Water to be published before the release of Ciem: Inferno.

The logistics of remaking Blood Over Water as a webcomic rather than a miniseries on video meant that sets from Big Rapids would need to be re-created in The Sims 4 to allow this to be possible.

As the need to bring back DzMD as an operation independent of Mod The Sims grew, so did desire to utilize the PS4 version of The Sims 4 as a filtration method for cleaning Gallery uploads. Dozerfleet Main had its hard drive updated to a solid state drive, in order to make the process of using the PC version more bearable.

It became clear that a Sleet Mountain set or several would be needed for the company scenes. However, key areas of the Ferris campus and around town in Big Rapids would also be essential to conveying the look and feel of the drama tale happening authentically in Big Rapids.

Residential lot crafting
Emphasis on homes and buildings had to follow a few rules:


 * 1) With the exception of North Bond and Hillcrest, lots were not to use the 64x64 tile lots in any neighborhood of Sims 4.
 * 2) Ideally, lots needed to be cross-platform whenever possible, so that PS4 and XBox players wouldn't be left out of gameplay.
 * 3) The closer scale ratio accuracy possible with any lot, the better.
 * 4) Lots had to look as closely as possible to their late-2000s forms.  The exception being Mancino's, which was set to its renovated January 2010 look.
 * 5) Residential homes ideally had to have pictures on Realtor, Zillow, or Google, to aid in their construction.
 * 6) Residential homes needed to be at a tiny budget, to imply them being rented, or that residents had minimal commitment to living there long-term.

By November of 2019, an early draft of a remake of North Bond Hall was added to Mod the Sims, to commemorate its use for Sorbet. Later, in 2020, a Sims 3 version of the same blueprint was made for application on DzMD. Throughout 2020, the North Bond Hall build would get updated several times, as new pack releases for Sims 4 allowed for improved accuracy in re-creating the building.

It didn't take long to realize that other buildings would need to follow. First emphasis was placed on residences, since the Sims taking over for the TV practicum class needed places to reside for their expanded story roles.

Trips to Realtor and Zillow led to 516 N. Michigan Ave. being re-created very closely to its 2008-2009 specs. Other houses were remade as closely as possible, based on these same options.

Only one of the houses wound up qualifying for Tiny Living Residential status, for the Tiny Living Stuff pack, and that was 246 Bronson Ave. 430 Spring St. was chosen as the Monica Shelly residence, being the second-smallest. Chris Kennal was given 417 S. Michigan Ave. only because it was listed with a handful of images to aid in depicting its appearance. However, specs for the Sims build were not capable of matching the house in real life identically.

The 514 Marion Ave. house was remade solely to give the Celestines a home to be in as they were moving out, so Aaron could meet up with Meredith there briefly. Due to sculpting and landscaping issues, the build in the pack doesn't include the basement that's on the lot in real life.

Commercial lot crafting
As the residential homes were being drafted for use in Blood Over Water in early 2020, there was quick realization that commercial lots would be needed to add further credulity to depicting Big Rapids as a Sims world for the webcomic. From there, the idea sprang forward that the effort required made it pointless to make the pack just a Blood Over Water Story Pack, let alone a Sorbet Story Pack! Smaller versions of these packs were, however, created for The Sims 3.

Instead, there was a desire to expand to the entirety of the Big Rapids theme, making it a Big Rapids expansion pack. However, lack of new gameplay and world creation modding talent at Dozerfleet Labs led to the expansion pack or game pack mod plan being shelved indefinitely. Instead, a stuff pack was settled for. This also meant objects, music, etc. would have to be added. But residential lots would nowhere near be enough.

The GKC Carmike Theater of Big Rapids, more commonly dubbed "Big Rapids Cinema" back then, was the most dramatically overhauled for The Merre Edition. Much of the difficulty came with its roof elements, which glitched heavily on the PS4. In spite wanting to ensure maximum cross-platform compatibility on lots, to ensure some Blood Over Water scenes could be shot on the PS4, glitches in the PS4 version led to The Merre Edition migrating remakes of buildings to the PC version of Sims 4.

The theater's lot was placed in Del Sol Valley for generation. A furniture store, pool supplies store, and miscellaneous other store are implied to exist on the far north end, while the two shops in the middle are shells. The theater was reworked to be more architecturally correct. Of all the builds, the Carmike proved one of the most challenging. A large part of this is due to how much of the build had to be constructed from fading memory. In March of 2020, the AMC Theater that Carmike became was closed due to the Globalist Scamdemic. They didn't care about the heroic efforts of women like Celeste Solum and Kate Shemirani to expose what was really going on; instead being more concerned about facing the wrath of rogue dictator governors in several states. Problems with management and poor building upkeep, as well as customer complaints and failing equipment, further doomed the theater.

Given the theater was permanently shut down, no one from Dozerfleet Labs was able to gather any interior photography of the building. Pictures of the exterior were very helpful for decor placement for building a better replica of the Big Rapids Cinema building; but they were useless for depicting the color schemes in accordance with 2008-2009 standards. For that, images taken on scene had to be cross-compared with Google Street View depictions from around 2011 and 2012.

Even more depressing, was the news that AMC showed no interest in improving the theater after assuming new ownership of it. The exterior was made blander, more generic, and more devoid of character. The fence in the alleyway separating the theater further from the building next to it was removed - a fence iconic to the area! According to many reviews on Yelp, AMC also was unwilling to renovate the theater's interior, in spite multiple issues that put the theater in jeopardy of a crackdown by the health department.

Mancino's and Boost proved to be more cooperative with regards to shooting footage for making The Merre Edition and a trailer for it on YouTube. However, the Tracy's shop was closed to walk-ins. Rise Smoke and Vape was left off the list, since the store was a Re/Max in the targeted time period. Most of this location was in good shape and fairly accurate as of version 1.1, with only slight repositioning of items in Boost Mobile to reflect reality better. The Merre Edition scrapped native PS4 and XBox support, keeping the custom Mancino's and Boost signs intact. Interior footage for the trailer wasn't possible, since no one was allowed inside Mancino's due to the Globalist Scamdemic.

The remake of Szot's Bar and Grill for The Merre Edition replaced the three elderly apartments on the third floor with only two, in keeping with a logical floor plan. It also transformed the place from a karaoke bar to a regular bar in the game, to be more consistent with the real location. Interior layout information was lacking in Version 1.0 and 1.1, leading to an inaccurate take on Szot's. The new build promised to be "25% more accurate."

Likewise, a trip to Big Rapids for filming for the trailer led to revisions to the Rapids Suds-n'-Dry building's Sims 4 re-creation. However, this revision was much smaller a project than repairing Szot's or Big Rapids Cinema.

Perhaps the most fun of the lots to make in any version was the re-creation of Biggby Coffee of Big Rapids. The staff were ecstatic to hear that their store was being turned into a game add-on. The trick was in keeping the store consistent with its look in 2009, in spite the modern store having been repainted inside considerably. The Biggby store was also featured briefly on Mod the Sims, but taken down after a moderator called it "too commercial," and "violating MTS policy on advertising by virtue of existing."

Gallery-exclusive lots
On the Sims 4 Gallery, Darby's Den and Larry's Lagoon from the Brichester world were re-stylized to resemble Ferris State buildings. These redux files aren't included in the PC download, however, as noted in the instruction manual.

Development of Sims
Due to the excess time required to make them cleaned for export, Jimmy and Jackie Blankenship's Sims were put on the cover art, but not included in the official pack as downloadable characters. Volkonir was excluded only because of his involvement in the Volkonir Story Pack. Cassie Helm was likewise left out, as was Dereck Tumbine and any Gwirdon Treaders.

Inclusion of the cast of Blood Over Water seemed an obvious choice, as did including Hadley Mint. The Evancris, Marianne and John, are based on the real-life Christianson family. Marrianne Evans-Christianson in particular was an inspiration behind Marianne Evancri, the Sim manager of Mancino's. She was included as part of a minigame, utilizing the mechanics of the Dine Out game pack to encourage players of the stuff pack to challenge themselves. The challenge was to see if they could successfully run Mancino's of Big Rapids the way the real-life Marianne did, right up until her retirement in 2020.

After the death of former Dozerfleet founder girlfriend Merre Bowmaster was announced, she was made into a Sim in this pack, as part of a promise to ensure she was not readily forgotten.

Development of clothing
See also: Clothing in OBRL

Upon realization that Oughties Big Rapids Living Stuff would be a proper stuff pack, rather than a simple character or story pack, a rush was on to include some objects and clothing. Only a handful of clothes were made for the pack, however, as lots and Sims were the lion's share of what was being promoted. With the exception of Zach Foster's Placido Polanco 14 Detroit Tigers shirt, nearly everything else in the pack's wardrobe has (or had) a Ferris State Bookstore equivalent in its online catalog.

All items were repaints of default clothes in the game, assembled with Sims 4 Studio.

Development of objects
See also: In-game objects in OBRL

Most objects were cloned and recolored from default objects that come with the game, or one of its add-on DLC packs. The most common pack that objects were cloned from was Discover University.

Szot's Bar and Grill required two custom signs, and one of these a custom mesh. Likewise, Mancino's and Boost Mobile required custom signage, as did North Bond Hall to include the Glenn C. Bond Hall sign. Biggby, likewise, required custom signage.

Custom signs were repaints whenever possible. When a custom mesh was required, the sign was generated with Microsoft Paint 3D. From there, it went through Microsoft 3D Builder, and was then exported to Blender for translation and decimation. The end-resulting mesh was swapped out of a default cloned from the game, and imported via Sims 4 Studio to make a custom package file.

Development of icons
As an extra bonus, several folder icons were generated for players, based on various companies involved in the pack. The icon files were included in Windows ICO, Mac ICNS, and PNG format, the last one with Linux users in mind.

The Sherpa Patch
On November 22nd of 2021 around 8:33 PM EST, a "Sherpa Patch" was released to the Labs blog. This patch allowed players to install into the game a version of the 300 poster that includes the "Tonight We Dine In Hell" quote, to add historical accuracy to Chris Wilson's old apartment. It also featured a Sims 4 rendition of Matt Kamrowski's "Sherp" character, from his 2007 film The Sherpa Sheriff. Finally, the Sherpa patch, upon completion, featured remakes of the folder icon scheme from The Merre Edition, redesigned around Windows 11 and Mac OS Mojave folder design paradigms.

The patch stopped just short of also providing an updated Jackie Blankenship Sim, to celebrate her promotion to Mrs. Michigan - and her being a contestant in late 2021 for Mrs. America. The patch also was going to at one point include a re-release of 526 N. Michigan Ave., as the initial release is listed having one bedroom too many. However, this was seen as an unimportant detail, given that the upstairs of that house is never all that significant to Blood Over Water.

Cover art for "The Sherpa Patch" includes Sherp and Squatch on the cover, the latter being played by a mannequin dressed up in Photoshop brushes. However, Squatch was not able to be adapted as a playable character in the final patch, as the suit used by Matt and his friends for that character was a very specific design for which Sims 4 had no known mesh.

The Relisted Patch
"The Relisted Patch," was made available around 11:30 AM EST on Thursday, November 15th of 2021. This small update provided an off-Gallery option for players to install Unlisted in their games, as the band was previously only available through the Gallery. This version of the band members is the no-CC version, making it possible for players with both a PC and a console to import into their libraries, re-upload to the Gallery, import into their consoles, delete their Gallery upload, and then be able to play this version from console. (Or download the version already on the Gallery to play on console.) Players with CC installed may add whichever CC they feel best to improve the aesthetics and realism of band members.

About Merre Bowmaster
Main article: Merre Bowmaster

Merre Bowmaster, whom the founder of Dozerfleet dated in 2009, has also been added to the pack. Therefore, the second edition was dubbed The Merre Edition, in honor of her memory. She became the official mascot for Oughties Big Rapids Living Stuff from that point onward, replacing Jimmy and Jackie in the role. She features prominently also in the cover art for "The Sherpa Patch," where her placement makes more explicit the fact that she has replaced Jimmy and Jackie to become the official mascot.

Lots
Main article: Lots in OBRL

This pack adapted numerous lots, primarily so they could be of use for Blood Over Water and Sorbet, but also for Volkonir 2008. The major emphasis was on residential locations, such as North Bond and Hillcrest Oakwood Apartments. However, key restaurants like Biggby and Mancino's were included, as well as somewhat time period-accurate re-creations of buildings such as the old Carmike Theater.

Adaptation of lots had to meet the following criteria:


 * 1) Can at least fit on 64 x 64 in-game tiles, preferably with a 1:1 or near-1:1 scale ratio for re-creation.
 * 2) * This quickly ruled out Meijer, Wal-Mart, the FLITE Library, the Ewigleben Sports Complex, and any Ferris dorm that wasn't North Bond. North Bond bends the rules, given it was truncated by a few rooms and included anyway.
 * 3) Must look as period-accurate as possible.
 * 4) * This meant that the Big Rapids Cinema and its attached strip had to be reverted to somewhat resemble 2007-2010 appearances, and that the AMC Classic 4 paint job effects needed to be undone in builds.
 * 5) * Boost Mobile is given a free pass in the stuff pack build. In reality, its large sign wasn't present on the building until some time after the game's targeted time period.  The earliest date for its large sign according to Google Street View is actually 2014 - within the domain of Merre's Echo; but still well after the events in either Sorbet or Blood Over Water.
 * 6) * Anything post-2020 is especially off limits for pack depiction, as Merre's Echo cannot show that version of any location to anyone. Her domain is tied to the life of Merre Bowmaster, so she can only show those she gives visitation to glimpses into Big Rapids from 1983 - 2020.
 * 7) ** Even then, her domain is faint in the years 2002 - 2005, as Merre was living with her then-husband Joe in another state at that time.
 * 8) Residential lots needed to be either already relevant to Blood Over Water or Sorbet based on historical precedent, or else had to be somewhat easily made retroactively relevant for comic creation purposes.
 * 9) Residential lots not visited or visitable in the past or present by Dozerfleet needed to have sufficient internal photography available on realtor websites to make re-creation in the game of a reasonable proximity to the real life house a logistically-feasible goal.
 * 10) Commercial lots within the game's size limits needed to meet similar criteria as residential lots for ease of visit.
 * 11) * Given past visits and existing photos, Whitmer unconstitutional lockdown protocol-era Mancino's was given a pass on strict adherence to this rule.
 * 12) Any building or building interior needed for Sorbet or Blood Over Water that would prove too complex for a full-scale build, would be used in those comics as a series of sets instead.  No full-blown lot build of these buildings would be made, nor included in the pack.
 * 13) * This ruled out the IRC building, the Rankin Center, the old Music Building, the Rec Center, the Starr Building, the Williams Auditorium, the Blue Cow, and Star Shooter's. Szot's was also almost not included, due to complexity.
 * 14) ** Dairy Queen was left out, due to the game not allowing brazier mechanics in Dine Out to happen normally - which was also an issue for the Grillitan Diner pack.

Clothing
Main article: Clothing in OBRL

All clothing items are either based on nostalgia from the late 2000s, or based on clothes that someone at one point could have (or maybe still can) purchase through the Ferris State Bookstore Official Catalog (via Barnes & Noble College.)

Objects
Main article: Objects in Oughties Big Rapids Living Stuff

These objects were either based on items that were at one point available for purchase through the Ferris Bookstore official catalog, or are based on nostalgic items from the time period.

System icons
Main article: Icons for OBRL

The pack comes with several folder icons, in PNG, ICO, and ICNS format, made with Photoshop Elements 2019 and IcoFx 1.6. They are set up that way to be compatible with Windows, Mac, and Linux platforms. Folder icons were initially designed using the same standard as a 2020 Dozerfleet folder icon. The Sherpa Patch adds Windows 11 and Mac equivalent re-stylized folder icons.

Anyone who has business with any of the companies that have folders featured, may be able to customize their Windows/Mac/Linux folders according to that company.

Music
Three different tracks are provided for players to add to the Alternative music station in their games, all of them off the Unlisted album She is Nectar from 2007. "Nothing Like Me" features in an ad for the pack on YouTube and Facebook, along with "Carry On" and "Ten Steps."

"Carry On" is a slower, more somber song about reflection on regret. It has that Big Rapids garage band sound that epitomizes the spirit of the time. The final song featured is "Ten Steps," an anti-suicide ballad.

Songs were approved for release in this pack by Jimmy Blankenship of Unlisted.

Advertising
Main article: Trailer for Oughties Big Rapids Living Stuff

In late June and early July, the Dozerfleet founder headed to Big Rapids to shoot video and stills for side-by-side comparison with in-game builds. Conditions brought on partially by the Scamdemic led to considerable difficulty finding locations that were cooperative with indoor filming, however. As such, many locations are only shown in the video from their exteriors.

The trailer took a total of 2 months to complete, and was released to Facebook and YouTube late in the evening on Saturday, August 23rd of 2020.

Endorsement
In addition to the Jimmy endorsement mentioned above, several other places were quite flattered to have been featured in the pack. Biggby staff was quite happy to hear that their store was included in the pack, even being promoted with custom signage. This cross-endorsement was also well-received by downloaders of a version of the file that was included on Mod The Sims, but which was later taken down due to issues with a spiteful moderator.

Boost was mildly impressed by the idea of featuring; but could only allow one inside picture due to corporate policy. Mancino's was flattered, and the owner impressed to learn of Dozerfleet history with the place in 2010. However, he didn't want to get in any trouble for violating the policy of not letting anyone in the store. He did offer a free drink, however.

Hillcrest Oakwood Apartments allowed for a tour of their interior, to ensure better accuracy with the rebuild. Staff even supplied a business card, and said they were eager to see the ad for the pack when it was uploaded finally.

The only place that took issue with featuring, was the leasing office for 417 S. Michigan Ave.