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! :)

What. The. Hell.

I can't help posting about this. I really can't. After watching the videos a million times over I'm still in complete and utter shock. My game looks worse than before, my build tools have been downgraded to a box, and my Sims are now moody. Great. That was my initial reaction anyways. I'm slowly beginning to calm down and really take a good look at The Sims 4. Don't get me wrong, I'm still so, so disappointed, but maybe there's a few good things coming out of this after all.

So the graphics aren't exactly the most amazing thing I've ever seen. There's absolutely no arguing that. But if you can get past that image in your head of how it's supposed to look, it can be pretty in its own way. It is a game after all, and cartoony can be adorable. I guess a less-realistic world is okay since I wouldn't want a super-realistic one. It'd be creepy if my Sims looked 100% real. With CC I'm sure those little things that really bother me, like those non-existent line eyelashes, could be fixed and made to look just a teensy bit more realistic. I guess my point is that we should try to get past the graphics and really see the game and how it has improved.

Some of those improvements are the new emotions and CAS. The emotions look like a lot of fun to play with. It's cute that my Sims' lips will quiver when they're really upset, or that their facial expressions really do have more that the standard happy and sad settings. Hopefully EA / Maxis hasn't over exaggerated a ton though. A little flair is great and makes the game fun to play since it has that little silly edge to it, but if my Sims are constantly in a completely over-the-top mood then I can see it getting really annoying really fast. Time will tell. And CAS looks amazing! Pulling at the body shape will make it so much easier to tweak my Sims. Instead of having to hunt through dozens of sliders and having to guess at which little detail each one changed, now you just click and drag whichever bit you want to change. We haven't seen the hair and clothing options yet though, or any other age groups for that matter which worries me, but at least this one thing seems so improved!

The build tools though! :( No more wall tool?! I don't want a box to click and drag! We can do that now but I hate building that way and never do. I'm hoping that the wall tool is still there and they were just emphasizing how easy it is to build houses for those players that don't like building. This is my biggest worry from the videos so far and I'm really gonna worry until I see build mode and can confirm for myself how it works.

The last thing has nothing to do with the videos. At this point in time you can only preorder a digital version of the game...I don't buy a game I can't have a physical copy of. And the company has seemed to hint that there may not be EPs any more but instead will sell new things online like with The Sims 3's store we have now. I will not buy The Sims 4 if there aren't physical copies. Digital copies don't stay forever. I want something I can keep and use years and years from now. This will be the deciding factor on if I move on to The Sims 4. I can handle the cartoony style, the possibly messed up build mode, and anything else but this...this would mean the end of The Sims for me. I guess everything rides on what they release about the game in the year to come.

Exciting live broadcast news!

Today we got the final live broadcast about Island Paradise, which releases in exactly one week. I know that by this point a lot of people have calmed down about it, there's only a week of waiting left and we pretty much know everything by this point anyways, but the live broadcast was worth tuning into for me. Ryan Vaughan gave out lots of little news bits here and there that made it exciting. This is my little overview of all of the stuff worth mentioning.

First up is what the broadcast was supposed to be about: Island Paradise. Like I said, most of the information has been released already, so other than getting to see a bit more of the new world, mermaids, and underwater there was nothing new. Graham Nardone did take us into CAS and showed off the new mermaid coloring system that we get to use to change the color of our mermaids' tails. I was happy to see that there are 4 color channels on the tail. Should be pretty easy to create unique tails with that many options! The only bit of new houseboat information (to me at least) was that houseboats do have an autopilot if you want to have it steer itself to a new location while you're off doing something else. That'll probably come in handy seeing as they move pretty slowly. And of course the underwater lots looked spectacular! The amount of detail completely blows every other lot out of the water. It was a nice little demo that showed the hands-on aspects of the game fairly well, although the lag on that part of the broadcast was annoying.

Next is my own little personal excitement bundle. The Origin preorders hit 4,000 just before the live broadcast and that means that everyone who preordered gets not only the normal preorder bundle and the Origin preorder bundle, but Barnacle Bay too! Yay! Since worlds are so expensive, I refuse to buy them and sadly don't have any other than the free Riverview. So now I do! I know the world itself is the worst they've released, but it's a free world and I'm not complaining. Now if only they'd do that with Lucky Palms...

Finally I have what was arguably the most exciting moment of the whole broadcast. The date of The Sims 4's big information release has been announced! Everybody mark down August 20th, because that's when we will finally have our first little preview of the game!

Bring on The Sims 4!

They've finally made what a lot of us had already guessed official. Coming in 2014, the latest Sims base game will be released! This time around they've said that they plan on "returning to the game's roots," which I'm hoping means that the focus will be on the interactions between the Sims and all the little details that made the game so much fun in the beginning. I've been compiling a list of what my dream base game would have:

• More family interactions. (child dancing on parent's feet, family kiss, snuggling)
• Equal age group focus with a lot to do at each age instead of focusing mainly on young adults.
• No more cocoon babies! I want real arms and legs!
• At least the framework for big gameplay elements included in the base so that they fit in seamlessly later. (weather, pets, vacations)
• Better story progression and possibly more aging options. (whole neighborhood, just the active household, none)
• Plenty of build mode options like the ability to create a garage attached to a house on a foundation without cheats, greenhouses, and an attic tool.
• Better and more realistic animations. (getting in and out of cars, backing out of the driveway)
• Improved trait / personality system where the Sims are actually different people because of their traits / personality.
• In-game CAW where you can create your own lot sizes and edit the terrain.

Goodness I want so much! I know that there'll probably be very little of this, but a girl can dream right? All this new and exciting thinking has made me all nostalgic for those beginning days of The Sims 3, when they'd just announced its pending release and the community was in an uproar over that...remember those days?

That was what used to excite the community; can you image what The Sims 4's intro trailer will look like?! That's going to be a huge day. They've told us to keep the 3rd week of August open, so cross your fingers that we only have a few short months until we get some actual information!