First off, thank you so much to those of you who commented in support of my game “reboot”. It means a lot to me that you continue to read this blog through the waxing and waning of my various Simming interests. And my computer is much happier with me now that I deleted those other two accounts. I’m still weeding through my downloads so that I have only the essentials in my folder, but my game already loads in half the time. I feel like I’m ready for Seasons now.

Speaking of Seasons…I won’t say any more lest I veer dangerously into giddyland, but I’ve downloaded the game via EA Link and am all ready to install it once it is released tomorrow afternoon! I plan on playing the new Maxis ‘hood for a little while just to get my feet wet (*snork*) and try out all the neat new shtuff. I guess that means I’ll be experiencing Sim winter first, even though stupid snow is about the LAST thing I want to see right now…(*shakes fist at Mother Nature*) That’s what I get for living in Minnesota.

OK, enough whining about the weather…I want to sing the praises of custom content creators! Especially ones who contribute to free sites. I want to bake cookies for them and throw crazy parties in their honor. Last night I built a town hall for my new ‘hood using macarossi’s classical window set, and I have to say, this is the most gorgeous window set I’ve ever seen. I am in total love with it. With macarossi’s, Marina’s, and phoenix_phaerie’s windows in my Downloads folder, I am a very happy little builder.

(Click “continue reading” to see some pics)

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Hey, folks. After much frustration and contemplation, I’ve decided to make a completely fresh start with my Sims game (coinciding with the release of Seasons).

I’ve simply reached the point again where I have too darned many stories and ideas and partially completed projects hanging around. The Ravelo update just isn’t working out, and I still don’t know what to do with the Burrs. Also, my computer has been running like molasses, and with my multiple Windows accounts and Sims games going on, I figured it was time to do some major deleting and consolidating.

So what does this mean for the Ravelos, the Burrs, and Shady Bluff?

The Ravelos and Burrs, as you know them, will be set aside for now. I haven’t deleted them completely, but they’re tucked away in a folder on my hard drive and will probably stay there for the foreseeable future. That doesn’t mean they won’t make a guest appearance at some point, but the stories that I have been writing for them will not continue. I am sincerely sorry to disappoint anyone, and I hope you’ll stick around and see what I have in store in the coming weeks.

As for Shady Bluff, it will undergo a complete transformation. I’m designing a smaller terrain so that I don’t have to build so many lots. I was pretty foolish to think I could build them all myself — it would have taken me until 2009, for goodness’ sake. At any rate, I don’t want to give too much away, so developments for Shady Bluff (or whatever its new name may be) are under wraps for now. But..there will be stories at some point.

Sorry to keep changing my mind on you guys. I play this game and update this blog for fun, and when it ceases to be so, I have to change things up. Unfortunately that seems to happen quite often. Thanks for being such loyal readers in spite of my scatterbrained-ness.

Have a great weekend!

Hey guys, a few things:

My Avalon house is now available from Mod the Sims 2 as well as here. My first MTS2 upload! Eventually I’ll upload more from my 1926 series, along with some other lots I’ve had sitting around forever. I also plan on building a slightly smaller version of the Ravelo house (the current one is buggy and too laggy, plus it uses a bunch of pay content).

Speaking of the Ravelos, I’m still working on their update. Because of the aforementioned bugginess and lagginess, it’s taking awhile to get all the pictures I need. And my machine keeps crashing when I play them. Sigh. It’s coming along, though.

As for Shady Bluff, I’m ready to take a break from building homes and start on the community lots and businesses. I’m also in the process of “growing” the population of the ‘hood, but I’m in the experimental stage at the moment. If it turns out well, I’ll likely write up a post on it. Sorry if that sounds vague, but I didn’t want to blab about it until I’ve seen if it’ll work or not. I have a bad habit of jumping the gun. Shame on me.

Let’s see, what else? Ah yes, the Burrs. I still haven’t figured out what I’m going to do with them. I had all of the pics taken for their next update, but that was before I decided to boycott pay sites, and there’s some pay content in those shots. So I’d have to re-do it, and I’m not sure I have the mental energy to work on them AND the Ravelos AND Shady Bluff. I’m really bad at multi-tasking, you know. It’s that Sims 2-related ADD Kay always talks about!

Have I mentioned I really need more hours in my day?

By the way, Devilfish wrote a great essay on The Problem with Pay Sites — definitely worth a read. Her Swinging On a Star stories are awesome, too. They have a science fiction feel and are a refreshing change of pace.

Happy Simming! And STAY WARM! (if you live in a freezing cold place, like I do…brrrrr)

I decided to take a break from building and do some decorating instead. Inspired by the “Favorite Room” thread over at the Sims 2 Community, I put together a room for one of my Sims (in fact, I think I’ll post it over there, too). I tried to keep the room cozy and semi-realistic, which is why there’s so much stuff in the pic. I’ve sort of fallen in love with clutter — it gives a room that lived-in look. (I only love it in the Sims, though — I need to get rid of the clutter in my house!)

As with my Sears homes, I’ve listed credits below the pic, and I’m using custom content from completely free sites only. I’ve been finding some great stuff in my search for non-pay sites. My sidebar of links is updated pretty regularly, so check it out if you’re on the hunt for some new (and totally free) creations.

Pimento Room

I’m calling this the “Pimento Room” because the colors and the curtains remind me of pimentos. I couldn’t think of anything else. Believe me, I tried.

Credits:
Bed – Delphine @ Sims in Paris
Elephant pic & books, basket (by bookshelf) – Steffor @ Avalon
Acoustic guitar – atavera @ MTS2
Chocolate linen wallpaper, bulletin board – decorgal @ MTS2
Window shade (“Inosign” curtain), small rug – Sims 2 Play
Beige plush carpet – Ennaedwyn @ MTS2
Slippers – Kjote @ MTS2
One More Slot Package for coffee table – ariffrazalin @ MTS2
Outlet with cord – KevinsHope @ MTS2
“God’s Eye” hanging decor, hanging macrame holder w/plant – CTNutmegger @ N99
Cushions on floor, long curtains, books & picture on table, large rug, bamboo plant, bookshelf – MangoSims
CD shelf (on floor by bookcase) – Sunair Sims

Happy Simming!

Well, pooey. It looks like lots created with Nightlife or Open For Business installed are NOT backwards-compatible; that is, if you do not have NL or OFB, then those lots will probably crash your game when you try to enter them, even if you install them with the Sims 2 Pack Clean Installer. This happened to some of you when you tried to play with the Vallonia lot. I apologize for the crashing and the inconvenience; in the future I will put a disclaimer on my lots, letting you know which EPs you need to have installed in order for the lot to work correctly.

If you do have a crashing lot in your game, you will probably want to remove it. If you can load the game and get to the lot bin in neighborhood view, you can delete it from there. If you can’t load the game, or it crashes when you try to delete it, look in your My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Teleport folder and find the file by the date and time installed. Delete it from there. If you can’t find it in that directory, try looking in My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\LotCatalog.

I’ll be posting more houses this week. They’re all built — I just have to take pics. I’m also working on a Ravelo update and figuring out what I want to do with the Burrs. It occurred to me that since Shady Bluff had a “boom” in the 1920s, and the Burrs are currently IN the 1920s, they could move to SB and live there while I’m building it. It’s a thought, anyway. I just need 18 more hours in my day, as usual…

Hey, peeps. As I mentioned in my last post, I’m rebuilding Shady Bluff, and I plan on sharing each part of the process here on my blog. Like before, I’m following Jade’s most excellent “Creating a Custom Hood” tutorials. In this post I’ll go through Part I and some of Part II.

The first thing I had to do was make some decisions about the kind of neighborhood I wanted Shady Bluff to be. A slightly spooky New England village? A colorful resort town? Your typical midwestern river city? In the end I decided to go for a slightly utopian, slightly old-fashioned Main Street U.S.A. feel. I knew I wanted a few things for sure: a body of water, mountains, a small grid of streets, a town square.

Once I figured that out, I went terrain-shopping. There are a ton of great neighborhood terrains out there, but nothing quite fit my vision of Shady Bluff. So, being the perfectionistic control freak that I am, I decided to build my own terrain. With the help of a couple of handy tutorials (here and here), and after several do-overs, I ended up with this:

At first I wanted to have a river going through town, but my bridges wouldn’t transfer over to The Sims 2 for some reason (and yes, I did use the right bridge, dangnabbit), so I scrapped that idea and went with a lake instead.

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Hey folks! Sorry for the lack of posting going on, but I’m still sorting out things with my transfer. Since I am pretty much clueless about a number of host-related issues, I have a friend helping me out, and I hope to be up and running properly again very soon.

While I’ve had some “down time”, I’ve been doing some heavy-duty thinking about my site, my Sims, and the Sims 2 community in general. In particular, the hubbub over issues with pay sites grabbed my attention, and I’ve been riled up, so to speak. I won’t go into too much detail just yet, but I’ve decided to shift my focus on this site just a bit.

For one thing, I really want to promote free Sims 2 fansites. I have nothing personal against pay site owners or people who donate/subscribe to pay sites (heck, I’ve been one of ’em up till now), but it comes down to this: I think the proliferation of pay sites is hurting the Sims 2 community in many ways, and I’d like to do what I can to repair that in my own small way. If you’re wondering “what’s the big deal with pay sites?” and would like some more information, take a look at this thread at the Sims 2 Community forums. You may also want to read the new Mod the Sims 2 Mission Statement, if you haven’t already. Quite a few owners of free Sims 2 sites are banding together to help promote free content and discourage people from contributing to pay sites — if you’re curious about them, check out the Federation of Free Sims Sites. Even though the federation itself is for owners of Sims sites, anyone can be a member of the forum.

So what does this mean for Greetings from Mt. Geneva? Well, considering I used a crapload of custom content from pay sites in order to build Shady Bluff, I have decided to scrap it and re-build it from scratch, using only content from totally free sites. I know that sounds a bit crazy, since it was a lot of work, but I think it’ll be more fun this way. What I would like to do is post updates on the process as I follow Jade’s tutorials. That way you guys can see Shady Bluff develop from the ground up. I planned on doing that originally, but I got too excited — I wanted to finish it and start playing! But I’d like to put more thought into it this time and share the process with the rest of you.

Another thing I want to do as I re-build Shady Bluff is to make the various houses and businesses I create available for download. I figure that’s a way I can give back to the community a bit more. Not that my houses are much compared to the stuff available at places like MTS2, but it’s something!

Last but not least, I will continue to tell my Sims stories. The Burrs may go away for awhile as I focus on this new Shady Bluff project, but they won’t stay away for long. The Ravelos, on the other hand, will come back into the spotlight as I prepare them for the move to Shady Bluff. They will be my main family in the ‘hood, the one around which most of the stories revolve.

For those of you who remember the Shady Bluff prelude with Kaylynn, you’re probably wondering how she’s going to fit into all of this. Well, I haven’t figured that out quite yet. I had this whole huge storyline planned, but it sort of became an unwieldly monster, and I’m not sure what to do with it. So that’s why I’m focusing on the Ravelos for now.

Whew! Sorry for being so darned wordy. I hope it all makes sense, and that you don’t think I’ve gone off the deep end. I welcome any and all feedback you have about pay sites, free sites, ‘hood building, Shady Bluff, the Ravelos, and the Burrs. Thanks for sticking with me.

Sometime in the next 24-48 hours, my site will be down due to my transferring to a new host. The domain name won’t change, so you shouldn’t have to redo your links or bookmarks. However, I’ve decided to put off posting the Burr update until I know everything is running smoothly on the new server. I was running out of disk space at my old host, but I shouldn’t have that problem with the new one. I’m just crossing my fingers that everything will work properly after the move! I’m sorry to keep putting off the Burr update. It’ll be posted sooner or later, I promise!

In the meantime, I figured I might as well share this little preview snapshot of Shady Bluff. There are still a few blank spaces, and downtown is only half-finished, but it gives you an idea of what I’ve been working on.

The unfinished building in the center of town will be City Hall and the Town Square. The empty lot just south of that structure will eventually be Shady Bluff’s Central Park. To the north I plan on building a public library and a museum.

I downloaded most of the houses from TSR, primarily from creators h3psibah (who did a wonderful series of Sears homes) and TigerBlue (who specializes in Tudors and Georgians). The colonial houses and little white church are by CTNutmegger. The good people at Neighborhood99 were kind enough to send me those, as they’re no longer available for download. As for the rest of the houses, I built a few myself, and a couple of others are by Mandie. You’ll see Mandie herself in the town once we get there!

The ‘hood terrain is something I created myself in Sim City 4. I had to re-do it several times before I got it just the way I wanted it. I enjoyed every bit of it, though! Building this town has been great fun, and as ever I’m thankful for Jade’s awesome tutes on ‘hood-building and the inspiration she provides on a regular basis with her tours and stories about the beautiful Isle of Thyme.