Glenn C. Bond Hall

The Glenn C. Bond Hall is a residence hall located on the campus of Ferris State, on the west side of campus, in Big Rapids, MI. It was also the main building for Dozerfleet Productions operations from May of 2007 until May of 2010.

General history
Allegedly, a juvenile female center was once located in this area. But in 1966, Upjohn Company officer Glenn C. Bond became the inspiration for the building to become a dorm on campus, and undergo having its current name. The residential hall setup was broken into three essential components: the Lobby, North Bond, and South Bond. Alterations have been slow to the building throughout the years. In the 2000s, most of Bond Hall still looked mostly the same way it did in the 1980s. It wouldn't be until about 2014 that significant improvements were made to the building.

Bond in the 2000s had a setup in which residents in North Bond lived in single-resident rooms, with the requirement being that they had to be at least a junior and / or be over 21. South Bond had double-resident rooms, with one floor being all-female housing. (But there were no all-male units on campus, because that would've been "sexist" *somehow*.)

Eventually, this setup was altered. The once protected all-female housing setup was replaced with an (almost)-anything-goes sexual behavior housing unit, for giving the severely mentally ill sexual deviants on campus a "safe space" where they could hate on and snipe everyone else - without fear of backlash (unless they were into something like child porn, which is still illegal.)

Dozerfleet real life history
Dozerfleet Productions was moved into this building in mid-May of 2007. It featured a 3-floor building structure, with a kitchenette on the joints of each wing on the second floors per wing, and laundromats on the joints of each wing for the first and third floors. The lobby featured a front desk, a day room, a computer lab, a conference room, two large TVs, a piano, a pool table, a foosball table, lobby courtesy phones, etc. There is also built-in ethernet in each dorm. In 2007, WiFi was theoretical - but most had better luck using the ethernet cable ports in their room walls. Other advantages included carpeted floors, close proximity to Center Ice, and a volleyball pit out back behind the building and near Cramer and Bishop Halls.

In the 2006-2007 school year, the Dozerfleet founder was unfortunately required to park in Lot 47. This continued as a trend for 2007-2008. By the fall of 2008, however, he was able to relocate to parking Lot 5, right outside of North Bond. This remained the de-facto parking lot until he moved out in May of 2010.

May 2007-May 2008
North Bond Room 165 was a left-oriented room in the suite system. As such, it was impossible to properly move the desk from its standard location, put the TV and desk between the bed, and still be able to ensure that the ethernet cable stretched far enough to hook into Dozerfleet Portable. This unfortunately led to a desire to cover up the window, as light pouring in through the curtains would make it difficult to see the laptop screen. This room became a hotbed for early projects. Around this same time, hallmate John DeBruyn was also residing in North Bond. He was almost the actor to portray Prince Volkonir.

Unlike the cold tiles on the floor in McNerney, a cheap-but-warm khaki carpet was in this room. The wardrobe and dresser were switched around from their normal university housing positions. The top of the wardrobe featured a microwave. On the desk bookstand shelf above where the laptop was located, there was a mono speaker / radio system and a blue glitter lamp. At first, the room also had a mini-fridge. Due to the laptop and its accessories, and how tiny the overall desk was, there was no room for sorting paperwork. Initially, piles were made on the floor near the mini-fridge to manage paperwork. When this disorganization became too much of a hassle, the Dozerfleet founder bought a black fold-up card table from Wal-Mart. He also bought some plastic drawers, to further assist with organizing paperwork.

The table also doubled as a place to eat, or as a model setup center for still photography. Free time not spent on homework or on Ciem development was often spent on watching memes, playing Pirates vs. Ninjas on Facebook, or watching TV. Proximity to Center Ice became more and more important as time went on. It was also in this room that Heroes first began to inspire a change in tone for writing Stationery Voyagers.

May 2008-August 2008
In the summer of 2008, the Dozerfleet founder relocated to South Bond Hall Room 308 temporarily, while North Bond was closed for maintenance. It was in this hall that he briefly dated Marta Luka from Luka Underground. Very little of anything interesting happened in this dorm in this semester. He did once play Batman Begins for PS2. This room was also left-oriented.

August 2008-May 2009
North Bond Room 207 was the Dozerfleet founder's next destination for a room to reside in. Work on Ciem resumed in here, though most of what remained in the fall of 2008 were final edits - primarily to the end credits. The DSHW version of that machinomic was finally completed and released on WebCD format in January of 2009. The syndication of it on Mod The Sims was complete by December of 2008, ending a 2-year journey in the comic's creation and compelling a desire to make sequels.

With initial classes out of the way, this room was one for completing what remained of gen eds and advancing to the true junior sequence courses. The fall here focused on geography, video streaming, and script writing. The spring semester was all about writing ad copy for commercial radio and TV, doing electronic field production, and sci-fi literature. This room was right-oriented, allowing for the desk to change positions - so the laptop wasn't directly opposite to the room's window.

The Dozerfleet founder briefly dated Merre Bowmaster while living in Room 207, from February until late March of 2009.

August 2009-May 2010
The Dozerfleet founder was unable to attend the summer classes of 2009, and had to sit out on production of Pine Springs. In the fall, he moved to Room 213. An unpleasant dream in this room later inspired the events in Sorbet, which was made canon to Cataclysmic Gerosha. Unfortunately, this room was left-oriented.

The most emphasized class for the fall semester was TV Practicum, which was split into two factions. "Team Green" focused on making documentaries and propaganda, while "Team White" focused on making entertainment with some small amount of educational value.

Come the spring of 2010, the Dozerfleet founder had to look for a place for internship. SWOCC Studios became that location, though Grand Rapids Community College and WKTV Wyoming were considered. Ferris Dental promotional and a demo reel came out of life in Room 213. However, the lion's share of time and energy went into producing content for Ferris in Focus and assisting with the live studio crew on rotating positions for Ferris State Live.

In April of 2010, a careless fire started in the kitchenette by another student led to the whole building being evacuated.

More time was spent in the labs and on locations than was spent actually living in 213, as edits and exports could take a very long time - and the studio had a limited number of keys. After moving out of Room 213 at semester's end, he was at the Grand Ledge House briefly before moving to 1165 Drakeshire Ln. Apt. 5 at Drakeshire Apartments in Farmington for the summer of 2010. Every other project from 2010 in the catalog was made at that location, which he moved out of in December of 2010.

Literature / comics
While the Dozerfleet founder never resided in North Bond Room 241, its location became pivotal to plot points in Sorbet, which moved events to this location (as opposed to Room 213, where the actual dream that inspired that story happened.) Sorbet became Gerosha canon as of 2011, after a lunch at the Mitchell's Fish Market of Lansing at Eastwood Towne Center. Later, as a running gag, this room became the location where Halal Affadidah was storing his 1-gigaton nuclear bomb in The Gerosha Chronicles: Centipede + 49, a video game premise drafted in 2013.

Film
North Bond, especially room 165, features prominently in Mutt Mackley and Gambino Penguin's "Somewhere I Belong" music video. It is also flaunted in the trailer for Oughties Big Rapids Living Stuff. In this trailer, Merre shows off Bond Hall to a couple. However, they are married; and would require different housing. After saying that singles would love living in Bond, the couple requests Merre to show them other housing. She delivers, by showing off several houses around town. She finally shows them Hillcrest Oakwood Apartments, right before they all decide to explore places in town.

The Sims 3: Sorbet Story Pack
For the Sorbet Story Pack, North Bond Hall was included as an item. This Sims 3 build wasn't part of the original release in 2014, which included only Hadley Mint as a Sim. It was added to the pack retroactively on June 21st of 2020, and modeled after the Sims 4 build included in OBRL.

This dorm was built close to real life as The Sims 3 would allow. It has more general architectural deviations from real life than the OBRL build. However, it does one thing that version doesn't: allow functionality for a working stove in the second-floor kitchenette. Since this 6.18 MB, 64 x 64-tile lot utilizes the most massive lot size possible in the game (and requires all of it, the shoulder joint is modified - just like in Sims 4. The shoulder joint that normally connects the north wing to the lobby is instead made an independent entrance, with no lobby provided.  The game uses student lounges elsewhere to compensate for dorms not having lounges of their own.

Also just like in The Sims 4, this making North Bond so large came at several expenses. The first was that the wing is actually a few dorms shorter in total length than in real life. The second is that there was no room left on the map to include the lobby - or South Bond.

The Sims 4: Oughties Big Rapids Living Stuff
This lot was released in early builds going back to late 2018. In November of 2019, a build became popular on Mod the Sims. In August of 2020, however, a version of this lot was packaged with The Sims 4: Oughties Big Rapids Living Stuff, a custom stuff pack for The Sims 4 by the DzMD imprint of Dozerfleet Labs.

The lot is a 64x64 in-game, making it the largest size possible. In spite of this, there still isn't room for 100% accuracy regarding length or building angles. Also, South Bond and the lobby are distinctly absent from this build. Due to the rules of Discover University, the kitchenette's fire-prone stove had to be removed. It's considered Brichester Housing in the game itself.

This lot was partially created as part of a challenge: to demonstrate that it's entirely possible to make Sims live in conditions similar to what is a real college experience for many students. This was in reaction to the default Discover University dorms, and most Sims game dorms in general, which are often very luxurious in comparison. Visitors to the old Ferris dorms have often commented that compared to more modern housing, the old, cold, institutional look and feel of Ferris dorms has "almost a prison vibe." Weirdly enough, Norwegian prisons are actually nicer-looking than Ferris dorms, in a photo comparison.

Not only was this challenge, plus the desire to make a Sorbet-themed lot, a major inspiration behind re-creating North Bond; but the creation of North Bond (and need for more set pieces for Blood Over Water) ultimately inspired the entire process of creating Oughties Big Rapids Living. An earlier, cruder version of Mancino's had already been attempted for a scene in Volkonir Meets the Power Rangers back in 2017; thus further prompting a Big Rapids-themed pack into existence.


 * Limitations

The lot is noteworthy for both its proximity to the real building in 2008-2010, as well as its in-game limitations. The most noticeable limitation is the inability to have a stove on the lot if used as Brichester Housing. Secondarily, dorms in Discover University are designed the way they are not just on account of creator prejudice on how dorms look, inspired by past experience with universities outside of Michigan; but also because of a desire to maximize the efficiency of NPC spawning to fill the rooms in those dorms.

This build of North Bond Hall openly disregards these AI requirements. As such, the game will get quickly confused by all the rooms. There will never be enough NPCs to fill every room. Players are encouraged to lock the doors to all bedrooms and bathrooms that they never intend to have Sims use, limiting the build's useful dorm rooms to only those rooms that the game can handle. As such, keeping about ten dorm suites open and locking down all the rest is a reasonable method of maximizing efficiency.

Note: * The custom pack is needed for custom Bond Hall signage.

Further viewing

 * Bond Hall on Google Maps