Silverdrake's Blog
:
June 2009
Starting Fresh
POSTED ON
06/17/09
Although I liked the idea of story progression, I didn\'t like it that the townies aged much faster than my own sims, so I got the MATY hack and turned it off. I figured I\'d better start all over, since most of the other sims were at death\'s door, and we\'d have a massive ghost infestation. I started a completely new town and moved Din, Raul, Zinc, Lyks and me into a new house. I made us all YA\'s, so that we\'d have time to get some skills and advance in our careers. It amuses me that Zinc is a criminal, and Raul is a police officer - I wonder if Raul will ever arrest Zinc? Zinc did get carted off to jail one night, but used the time to make contacts. Din\'s been fixing everything in the house and writing novels, Lyks has a crush on another soldier, and I\'ve got my garden going nicely and am working up at the lab. Raul threw a party last night, and I thought Thornton Wolff was hot stuff! Too bad he\'s married.
Yikes!
POSTED ON
06/13/09
I was absolutely shocked when Lyks turned up at my son\'s birthday party, and he had become an emaciated old man :O I went to MATY and downloaded the updated version of the awesome package,and I think I will start over completely. That way, I can prevent all the sims not in my household from aging, and I can have children with blended skins. My town is becoming like Leisure World, with all the prematurely aging sims, while my house stays young forever - it\'s creepy!
Whew! Reset Sim :P
POSTED ON
06/13/09
I found the command in help - d\'oh! I\'d forgotten about that. It\'s resetSim first name last name. Completely fixed the phantom baby problem - yay!
Surprises & more observations
POSTED ON
06/12/09
So I switched over to Zinc\'s house to advance him on the Path of Evil, and when I switched back to my house, I WAS PREGNANT AGAIN!!!! and I do not think of my sim as a family sim, but she keeps popping out the babies. Hasn\'t she heard of birth control?! She has almost no time for writing and gathering seeds, and I still can\'t figure out how to make the babysitter come every day. Luckily, Raul, who doesn\'t even like kids in RL, helps out a lot, and his boyfriend comes over and plays with the babies, too. ---\r\n\r\nOne thing I do love is the vegetarian trait. I had a hack for TS2 that changed the food to veggie, which solved that little suspension of disbelief issue I ahd when my self-sim ate hamburgers - blech! So it\'s lovely to have that option in TS3 (although shouldn\'t it be the norm, and everyone else has to choose to be a carnivore?). I was a little miffed that it took up a trait slot, but hopefully it comes with cooking and fitness skills. ---\r\n\r\nI\'m also glad that one can\'t make balloon-**** barbie amazons in TS3 (I see enough of those in SL). That said, I can\'t make my RL body, because I\'m more X shaped, and if I make the top big enough, the hips get grotesquely huge. No biggie - I still prefer the more realistic shape. I felt like the so-called fat sims in TS2 looked more normal than the skinny ones. ---\r\n\r\nI\'m having an issue: my sim forgot the **** baby at the beach, and I had to send her back to get it before it died. Ever since then, she\'s been stuck in this baby-carrying animation, almost like she has a phantom dead baby, because she waves her arms and makes a gag face. It\'s driving me nuts, and I don\'t know how to reset her. She\'s my favorite sim, so I don\'t want to delete her and start over.\r\n\r\n
First Observations on TS3
POSTED ON
06/11/09
I wasn\'t going to purchase TS3, even though I was an avid TS2 player, because I didn\'t want Securom on my pc. But after they got rid of it, I was was thrilled, and bought TS3 right away.\r\n\r\nI really enjoy being able to wander through the town. Collecting things was one of my favorite parts of Animal Crossing, and I\'m glad to see it in TS3. I much prefer games with surprises and hidden places to action games.\r\n\r\nI like it that the town keeps evolving while I\'m playing a house, but the downside is that sims I created lose their jobs, and I have to go back into their house and re-do their careers. The other annoying thing is that I find my gay sims, who have flirted with men, have girlfriends when I return to their homes! I also think that the townies are all getting old, but I suppose I can make a new city and play their houses.\r\n\r\nI was frustrated that I couldn\'t bathe a toddler. Luckily, changing the diaper of an already potty-trained toddler solved the hygiene problem anyway. I like the toddlers better than in TS2, although I wish they had a charisma toy. I still haven\'t figured out how to make the babysitter come on a schedule.\r\n\r\nA couple of things I miss from TS2 are memories and horoscopes - I feel that I don\'t know as much about my sims\' experiences. But I do love the personality traits so much more than the abilities. It was a drag having to hack my Taurus self-sim to have my personality traits.\r\n\r\nCAS is a LOT better, especially the color wheel, and it\'s wonderful to be able to do recolors on the fly. I do wish there were a color wheel for skin color, since I can\'t accurately achieve my pale redhead skin, although the freckles are good. I also wish that genetics was more of a combination of tones rather than one or the other of the parents\' eyes/skin/hair.\r\n\r\nI haven\'t tried creating my own textures, which I did in TS2. I\'ve heard that it\'s difficult. It makes me wonder if EA is trying to limit the creation of custom content to their own textures and meshes. I miss my building meshes, especially the circular staircases, landings, and ladders. The new staircases take up a ton of space, and I\'ve had trouble placing them next to walls. I do like that you can choose the width.\r\n\r\nThe wide variety of plants and rocks is great for landscaping! I also adore planting seeds, although a large garden takes up a lot of time. I would like to have rounded pool corners and diving boards. I really miss having nightclubs, but hopefully they will be in the next expansion. I would say my favorite TS2 expansions were Night Life, Seasons and Pets. I hated Uni, and I didn\'t buy the others because of Securom.\r\n\r\nMy sims has an Opportunity to make cookies, but I have no idea how to make them! There\'s still a lot to figure out.
