Welcome to the new world...are you ready?

Wow, where in the world did 2013 go? I got all caught up in school and haven't updated in months, and somehow the end of the year just kind of slipped by. Oops. Well I'm determined to have some fun in 2014 and The Sims will always be a part of my fun. Here's to me hopefully updating more often in this lovely new year!

Unfortunately there's a very important Simmer who's decided to call it quits this year. :( Twallan is such an amazing modder and I'm really going to miss him. He'd already announced that he wasn't going to make any mods for The Sims 4, but that really didn't matter as it's still the era of The Sims 3. However, Twallan has decided to retire sooner than that and announced a few days ago that he's retiring now. Doesn't seem like all that big a deal since there are no new EPs or SPs, but EA announced that they have at least one more patch in progress for The Sims 3 so...crap. If anything major changes with this patch, all Twallan's mods will be broken. I urge anyone who would like to keep their mods intact to turn off their automatic updates now!

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So anyways, I'm kind of considering changing from Twallan's mods to AwesomeMod. I actually used to use AwesomeMod way back in the beginning of The Sims 3 era, but switched over because Twallan tended to update much more frequently than Pescado. Now I guess there's very little reason to worry about updates though since The Sims 3 era is almost over.

There's also a really big reason I'm thinking of making the change. AwesomeMod has an option to enable Sims 2-style aging, where only your active household ages. I've always missed that, and with my remodel of Sunset Valley this style of aging would be incredibly useful. That way I could age up the Sims I wanted without affecting the rest of the world. I don't like turning aging off, and I don't like missing other Sims aging up. Sims 2-style aging is really the perfect compromise for me. So I'll be mulling that over as I get everything all set up to start being active in the community once more!

Happy 2014! It's great to be back! :)

No more burrito babies!

The greatest piece of CC ever to be released for The Sims 3 has come to my attention today. For the 1st time ever in-game, babies can have arms and legs thanks to QuizicalGin's Sleeper Footies! Goodbye burrito babies, hello normality. It's sad that somehow in the course of this wonderful game series our babies have devolved into little larvae...let's take a look.

The Sims

Babies were more of a object than a Sim. They were made in a weird way too, instead of woohooing Sims would kiss passionately 3 times in a row and get a pop-up asking if they would like to have a baby. It'd appear in a rain of flowers in its little bassinet. You never saw the baby unless a Sim walked over to interact with it, and then it couldn't be put down anywhere other than the bassinet or carried around. Those suckers were hard to keep too! You had maybe an hour of it crying before the social worker would call and threaten to take it away.

The Sims 2

Yay my favorite babies! These are the most realistic of all in my opinion. The little arms and legs, the diaper, the interactions...ah I miss it. They were always bald but their eyebrows reflected what hair color they'd inherited, and their eye color was an inherited feature too. And no more crib attachment! You had to buy the crib, and the babies could be put on the floor and carried around. They also could be bathed and the changing table came with the base game. Oh, and they could be interacted with by multiple adults! One would hold the baby while the other cooed at it, and they could hand the baby to each other.

The Sims 3

And now we devolve. Burrito babies, larvae, caterpillars...all nicknames for what EA did to the previously-adorable age. Before I could stand having a few babies in the house. They were cute. Now I skip through that particular age. What's the point? They aren't cute any more, there are less interactions, and they're just generally annoying. I was so disappointed this time around.

But now, hallelujah! Babies can have arms and legs in The Sims 3! I'm so excited for my next in-game baby. I might actually be able to stand having one in my family now. This CC gets the highest praise from me. Hopefully EA picks up on how much people hate the babies and make them much better in the future.

Adventures in Egypt and cute baby pictures!

I'm still playing the Slayer household, getting them all ready to move to Isla Paradiso as soon as my copy of the newest EP gets here. Marci is just so dang adorable and Elvira will always be my favorite premade. It's a good thing they'll be seen in my legacy, because they're my favorite Sims. I love playing with EP content with them! 1st up was a little vacation / adventure for Elvira and Barry. They got to visit Egypt and see the pyramids.

Barry had lots of fun taking pictures, Elvira explored several tombs and raided them for some very profitable treasures, and they both enjoyed the little break from regular life. Other than the mummy (which Elvira beat the wrappings off of by the way), it was a relaxing vacation. Next I think they'll be heading to China, but by that point Marci will be able to go with them...that's probably a good thing. By the 2nd day both of them were constantly popping up thought bubbles about Marci. They missed their baby.

They are just so dang cute! As excited as I am to see Marci as a child, I'm going to miss her toddler cuteness. Elvira doesn't age since she has that vampire LTW that lets her walk in the sun and also stops aging, so at least one of my Sims will stay the same. She's frozen forever at her current age. My next post will have an older Marci though!

I have one last picture and it's really a strange one. Barry is a painter and he's getting pretty good. His latest painting was clear, worth a small fortune, and...from The Sims 2?

The 1st is the picture that Barry painting. See, even he looks weirded out! The 2nd is the picture from The Sims 2. It's in the Specter family's photo album. I thought it was strange but cool and wanted to share with everybody.

And it's only the beginning...

Okay before I share my lovely new story, I want to update on my current computer status. I'm getting a MacBook Pro soonish. The date isn't really set in stone; it shifts back and forth. I could get it tomorrow, or May, or in August for my birthday. There's really no telling. :( But I am going to eventually get one!

Currently my desktop has all but given up. My ancient computer literally goes into a hysterical meltdown every 20 minutes or so, with flashy colors and the closing of many programs. Stupid computer. And I've tried everything to make The Sims 3 work too! I'm down to no CC at all, and only my EPs, SPs, and store stuff. Yep, the basics. But even then it can only take maybe 30 minutes if I'm incredibly lucky and then either the game CTD's or the computer has a hysterical meltdown...

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Despite many computer issues, I'm still trying really hard to play a little. My latest idea has me chasing Sims around Twinbrook. I've always loved the old Sims 2 neighborhoods Pleasantview and Strangetown, they're easily the best worlds ever to be produced. Because of that, all the remade families that appear in The Sims 3 make me really curious...and speaking of Curious:

Bunny Curious, older sister of Notzo Curious, is a sweet little girl with a real love of horses and adventuring. Not quite the norm for her science-oriented family, poor Bunny usually feels a bit left out. It's not her fault she'd rather be out riding Carrot or searching the town for supernatural Sims instead of staying inside and messing with weird things in bottles or banging on pieces of metal.

Catch the joke? Bunny and Carrot, haha. Like a rabbit. And a carrot. Ok my attempt at humor is now over. But seriously I do love them; their adorable young moments are beyond sweet:

Since I love Bunny and Carrot so much, I came up with  a kinda different idea. Most backstories follow the main character. In the Curious family, this would be Notzo and his descendants, the famous Curious brothers from Strangetown. But what if I followed Bunny? She's close enough to the main characters that she could easily affect what happens in the story. I already have bits and pieces planned out. This way everybody gets a really unique and original view instead of the same story told with a slightly different twist.

If I can really get this rolling, it'll be posted over on Return to Sims, my blog meant purely for recreating Sims 2 stories. I don't have a lot of hope though since my playing time is severely limited these days. I'll try to at least get pictures of the rest of the Curious clan to share, maybe even upload them to the exchange since they are, after all, completely CC free.

The Strangerhood: Watch it NOW!

Oh gosh, I just find so many funny things from past games. Mainly The Sims 2. So this awesome company called Rooster Teeth made a whole series using The Sims 2, but with actually people voices instead of Simlish...and it's hilarious! It's all about how these horribly stereotyped Sims wind up in a strange town with no memories of how they got there or who they are. If you're looking for a laugh, or are just really REALLY bored waiting to for that new patch to finish downloading, watch a few little episodes. They aren't long, about 4 minutes each. The 1st is a tiny bit stale but they get so much funnier! Watch the trailer:

I just like the older stuff, sometimes it's better than the newer Sims 3 stuff. And this is definitely one of the funniest little series you'll find. If you wanna watch the full series either go straight to Rooster Teeth or use their YouTube account. I'm gonna wrap this up with one of my favorite quotes from one of the episodes:

"I'm sorry Tovar but I have to agree with Sam. 

A fish needs a name. How else are you gonna indicate 

which one you wanna eat? You can't just say 'I 

wanna eat Anonymous,' I mean really!"

A blast from the past.

Browsing YouTube is always fun, even more so when you accidentally click an old Sims 2 trailer instead of a Sims 3 trailer. Watching all that old stuff is still fun since I actually wasn't online at that point in Sims history. Then I found the oldest of the old: the original trailer for The Sims 2, which was included in The Sims Makin' Magic. It's even funnier than I remember!

We still can't do most of that. My children can't set things on fire, there's no ceiling fan antics, I've never seen any interactions with window blinds at all, and sadly the adorable napping with your feet on another Sim's lap still hasn't appeared. And Sims definitely don't rip their tops off! Lol at least not that I know of. It makes me wonder what future Sims trailers will show us...

More and more things to do!

I guess I'm just determined to add more and more to the pile of things on my already gigantic to-do list! And of course I really can't do much right now because of my stupid computer...but that'll be fixed in less than 4 months so I can hold on that long. It's like the light at the end of the tunnel. A brand new, top-of-the-line MacBook Pro! With an upgraded graphics card and a ridiculous amount of power. I'm pretty happy.

Anyways, I was flipping through all my old Sims 2 stuff and found a few pictures of Alexander Goth and how his life turned out. This was really cool to me (can't give too much away since I'm planning on writing a whole story about all that) and it made me remember the house I'd moved him into. It was the old 210 Wright Way mansion:

I'd edited the crap out of it as I usually do to any and all EA houses, but the basics stayed the same. I'm planning on beginning to build a highly similar house with my own special twists. I know people have already converted every old Sims 2 house there is, but I think everybody tends to do their own thing with their builds and that makes each one special. So I'll add my own little bits to it, upload it in case anyone wants it, and use it in the future.

To get it started I'm definitely gonna need some help building up the basic shape. To do this I'll need lots of pictures and I'm planning on using OkieOK01's pictures for that. Just wanted to share in case someone else would like to make their own version!