Lindsey asked me to post some profile portraits of Gary, Tebbany, and the twins, so I thought I’d put them up before I go to bed. My apologies for crummy quality on the Lennan pic — all I have is Windows Paint, and I’m pretty inept with graphics programs in general! Anyway, it’s interesting to note the similarities in the faces. Sim kids change quite a bit from child to teen, so I’ll have to redo them when the kids grow up to see how it changes.

Gary and Tebbany

Scottie and Lennan

That’s it for tonight; I played some but I’m saving the update for Monday evening. Check back then!

Hey guys! Thanks for all of the comments while I was on vacation. I had a nice time away but I have to admit I got a little homesick! I think some of that was internet and Sims withdrawal, crazy as that may sound. Anyway, I finally got back tonight (after spending 12 hours in transit, oy) and plan on catching up with my Sims very soon. I’m hoping I’ll be able to post an update sometime tomorrow! Also, I’ve decided that since I only have three weeks to reach generation 10 of my Legacy Challenge family, I’m going to put my Legacy family satellite houses on hold for now. I can always go back to them later and catch everyone up. It just won’t be as cool as if I had aged them all together. But I’m really eager to finish the challenge, so that’s how it’s gotta be.

OK, off to rest and do laundry and all that good stuff. See you soon!

I’ve signed up with Tribal Pages so I can create a more “interactive” family tree for the Shanleys. It contains my other Sims 2 story families as well. I only have a few pictures uploaded at this point, but eventually I want all of the family members to have photos in the tree. It’s kind of cool to click on the different charts and see how the family branches out. It makes me want to start a parallel legacy challenge family so I can eventually marry two 10th gen heirs and have one ginormous family tree. :-) Yeah, I’m nuts. Anyway, it’s a work in progress, but it might come in handy if you’re confused about who’s who. Feel free to check it out!

Also, I didn’t get a chance to play Sims last night, so in lieu of a real update, I offer you some information about me (thanks to ChattyKathy for the inspiration!). You know, in case you’re the curious type. I hope to play Sims tonight, so look for an update on my Legacy Challenge family in the near future!

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This may be old news to most of you, but I was excited to read yesterday that we’ll be able to send teenage townies to college in the new expansion! I got the information from this transcript of a press conference with Tim LeTourneau (via Snooty Sims). Here’s the blurb about the townies:

Once you’ve chosen a Campus, a screen will apear that let’s you choose which Sims you want to send off to University. You can send off a maximum of 8 Sims at a time. And here’s a scoop for you: you can not only send your own teens to College, but the townie-teens as well! This will make the townie-teens playable characters, and thus you can let them grow up and move into one of your own households. So for all those players who have always wanted to let their Sims mary their highschool-love, this is your opportunity!

There is a TON of cool stuff mentioned in that same transcript. Some of the things that really caught my eye were:

• A new cheat which will allow us to build more than 5 stories high (although it will slow down the game quite a bit, it sounds like)
• Sims will be able to have 5 or even 6 wants in their aspiration panel at one time, although they have to “unlock” them first
• One of the new career objects is a Home Plastic Surgery Kit which allows you to change a Sim’s features — now you can mold those moved-in townies to suit your liking! (It won’t change their DNA, though, so they will still pass on their original features.)
• The campfire is back! Let’s make s’mores!

You can find loads of more tidbits in the transcript. I’m getting really psyched for this expansion and starting to think about who I’m going to send to college…maybe my 10th gen Legacy heir and a bunch of his/her cousins? And Meadow Thayer, of course. She needs to grow up already!

I’ve done a crazy thing. I’ve started up a forum called SimScribes. Anyone who has a Sims 2 blog or is thinking of starting up a Sims 2 blog is welcome to join! The reason I created the forum was so we could have a more convenient place to discuss our blogs, starting up a blog, which software to use, etc. It’s not a place for us to post stories — I don’t want it to replace our blogs. I just thought it might be handy for discussion type stuff.

If you want to join, just go to the forum and click on “Register” to submit a username, e-mail address, and password. Within a minute or so an activation link will arrive in your e-mail. Click on that, log in, and you’re good to go! Let me know if you run into any trouble.

Just a note: You don’t have to join the forum if you want help starting up a blog. I will still update my “Creating a Sims 2 Blog” and check the comments in that post. I am hoping the forum, however, will be easier to read and follow!

Since there have been a few questions lately on how to set up a Sims 2 blog, I thought I’d dedicate a post to it. I will also link to it permanently from the “General” section in the sidebar. Comments are enabled, so feel free to ask questions, and I will do my best to answer them!

I’m happy to help anyone who wants to start up a Sims 2 blog, because I love reading Sims 2 stories (and I find the Sims 2 Exchange blogs to be a little cumbersome), but I have to give you one caveat: I’m not super knowledgeable about the blogging world, nor am I very techno-savvy, so the focus will be primarily on this blog and how I got it up and running.

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OK, I’m starting to get really excited for this expansion pack. That’s not saying much, though, since they could release an expansion pack consisiting entirely of wallpapers and I’d be happy. Anyway, Snooty Sims has posted the latest letter from Tim LeTourneau, the Senior Producer for The Sims 2: University. The letter reveals very little information except for this little nugget: the Young Adult life stage will last 20 days. That’s a little shorter than I expected, since they originally said it would be about as long as the Adult life stage. It’ll still be weird, though, to have Sims at college aging more slowly than the ones at home. We’ll just have to play them disproportionately, I guess.

There are also two very interesting pictures at the end of the letter. It looks like we’ll be getting such objects as pennants, mini-fridges, a vanity table, a bulletin board, and a fountain. They mentioned some of those in the chat transcript, but it’s cool to see them anyway. And there’s a huge-looking column in the outdoors picture — could be one of the new multistory columns they’ve promised us. There are apparently new interactions being shown in that picture, too — some of the students are playing Hacky Sack while others sort of lounge in the grass, having a conversation. Looks cool!

Well, it looks like the rumors were true — the first Sims 2 expansion pack is going to have a university theme, as stated in EA’s press release. There are even preview shots posted on Snooty Sims.

I have mixed feelings about the announcement. I am currently working on a university story myself, so obviously I like the theme, but I guess I was hoping for something else — I’m just not sure what. The new career paths will be awesome (especially if one is Musician, which looks like a possibility given the pictures), and as long as there are new objects and interactions, I’ll be happy.

I’m wondering, however, if I should continue with my college storyline (in which all of my primary families finally converge), or scrap it in favor of something else, and do a much more in-depth (and probably easier to accomplish) college story once the expansion comes out? Food for thought.