All Simmed Out

Well, I am sad to say it, but it seems I’ve hit the end of the road with the Sims franchise, at least for the foreseeable future. I haven’t felt the urge to boot up the The Sims 3 in weeks now, and I’m not even remotely excited about the upcoming expansion pack. Strange that this should happen a mere two months after the game’s release, but there you go. I think, for me, it’s just too much like The Sims 2 in some ways (such as basic gameplay and recycled objects/animations) and not enough like TS2 in other ways (no neighborhood creation). At the same time, it killed TS2 forever for me because now that I’ve experienced TS3’s gorgeous graphics, TS2 feels very flat. I feel no desire to go back to it, despite it being (at least with all the EPs installed and loads of custom content) a superior game.

Of course, I’ll never say “never”; maybe once a neighborhood creation tool is released, I’ll find my way back to the game and its awesome community, but I think, having spent nearly nine years with Sims games and five years blogging about them, it’s time to move on to other creative pursuits. One thing I’ve been trying to do for the last 20 years is write a book. I’m going to focus on that for awhile and see how it goes.

Hope you’re all having fun with whatever you do, and thanks again for being such wonderful readers and fellow Simmers.

Introducing Good Maithferry

I spent the better part of this past weekend creating Sims, building, and decorating. Super fun. I’m really going to miss custom content when The Sims 3 comes out.

Here’s a sneak preview of my next story project, a town called Good Maithferry. This tiny rural village almost became a ghost town after the local factory shut down, but a famous toymaker named Melvin Kirshaw is bringing it back to life.

I don’t have any pics of Melvin and his toy shop yet, but here’s one of the shabby old cottages in Good Maithferry. I’m not sure who’s going to live here yet, but I started decorating and couldn’t stop. :-p

Good Maithferry

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Wow, It’s 2009 Already

Hey all, I hope you had a very happy holiday season. I’ve been Simming a little lately but don’t have anything I can share just yet. Mostly I’ve been trying to prune my downloads folder down to a more manageable size (it’s at almost 30,000 items right now – yipes) and build up Gnomesby (which is on it’s umpteenth iteration).

Well, that’s about it for now. It’s not much but I at least wanted to let you guys know I’m still alive and wish you a Happy New Year! Take care all.

Some Credits

For Meg, who asked about the dining chairs and curtains from 109 Cypress Avenue:

Curtains: MM Dazzle Drapes by CTNutmegger @ N99 Forum Paks
To get the polkadot texture, you will also need the bedding from the Pompadour Set at MangoSims (the Dazzle Drapes take their textures from the bedding).

Dining Chair: Set by Shannanisims @ MTS2

Pic below for reference:
Credits

More links can be found on my Holiday Hills credits page (which is sparse at the moment but ever-growing).

And We’re Back

Well, that was fun. Without warning, my domain name expired, and it took me a couple of days to get it transferred to a new registrar. So my site and SimScribes disappeared from the web for awhile. My apologies to those who tried to access either while this was occurring. Anyway, just wanted to let you know what was up!

Unretirement

I decided I’d rather have one blog than two, so Greetings from Mt. Geneva has been un-retired, and Gnomesby has been merged with it. Now all of the Franchesca Diaries stories are in one happy place, yay. And since I like the WordPress layout I had at Gnomesby so much, I’ve decided to use it here, too.

Currently I’m working on a Fran update and a few other things that are just for kicks. One of the things that falls into the latter category is a retro ‘hood I’m calling Holiday Hills. It’s a throwback to the 1950s (with a little late 1940s and early 1960s mixed in) — not the actual 1950s, of course, but kind of an impressionistic rose-colored glasses Simsian view of the era. A fantasyland.

I’m not sure if I’ll actually play with the ‘hood or just build stuff and take pictures (because it’s funnn!), but anyway, I thought I’d share a few of a work-in-progress. Here we have a modern ranch house on the beach.

Holiday Hills

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My New Site

Hey, folks! Hope your new year has been super swell so far. I just wanted to let you know that my new site is up. There’s not much there yet — just an introductory post — but there will be more by the weekend, if not sooner.

Visit Gnomesby

It’s basically a blog about my attempt to build a Sims 2 town from scratch, kind of like what I was doing with Shady Bluff and Ahanu Bay. This time I have no real goals in mind — I’m just taking it bit by bit and doing whatever I feel like doing. Feel free to stop by and take a look around!