My comments don’t appear to be working — at least, I get a “Page Not Found” error when I try it out. I’m working on fixing the problem. In the meantime, if you have any comments or questions, feel free to send me a note.

In the comments under my Christmas card post, Lindsey had asked about making Sim babies look different from each other. Since I can’t answer there, I’ll answer here:

Lindsey, if you’re talking about clone children, try this: just before your Sim is about to give birth, save and go back to the Neighborhood view. Go into “Create a Family” and generate a random Sim (I usually click on the “dice” a few times). Give the Sim an aspiration/name/turn-ons, etc. (otherwise it won’t let you save), save him/her, and go back to the Neighborhood. Leave the random sim in the Sim bin for deletion later. Go back into your Legacy house, and proceed with the birth as per usual. Sometimes you still end up with very similar kids (especially if the genetic pool isn’t too deep yet), but it is highly unlikely that they’ll be exact clones.

Some people also create two new Sims and “roll the pacifier” in Create-A-Family a few times to give them a child. This shuffles up the randomizer so that when you go back into your lot, you’re less likely to have a clone of your firstborn.

Also, if you have the two births in the same gaming session, they’re less likely to be clones (which is why Sim twins often look very different from each other).

Since this question comes up quite a bit, I’ve created a FAQ section and posted it there. That’s the only question listed at the moment, but if you have any other questions, or more information that would help fill out the answer, feel free to drop me a note!

Elsewhere in the news, I finally finished taking pics for the Burr update. WOO! This one was a doozy. Anyway, I’m hoping to work on the text tonight, so it should be up within the next couple of days.

Hey, everyone! I hope you all had a very safe and enjoyable New Year’s Eve. The holiday craziness has wound down for me finally — I had my last of four Christmas celebrations just this past Saturday — so I will be returning to my Sim stories very soon. My plan is to finish up the Burr Legacy (or at least reach Gen 10) by the release of the Seasons EP. I had planned on focusing solely on them for the next couple of months, but I might throw a Ravelo or Shady Bluff update in there, too — who knows! I’ve been particularly inspired to work on both the past couple of weeks, but it might be awhile before I get an update together.

One of my goals for this week is to catch up on everyone else’s stories. I’ve really been missing out! Here’s just a sampling of some the great Sims storytelling going on out there:

Fortune Shores – Mandie is still going strong with her Prosperity Challenge families. She has wonderful pics, and her stories are very entertaining.

Confessions of a Simmer presents Worlds Apart – Kara has been giving her readers a very special treat with a Christmas story featuring characters from her Worlds Apart series. Her pictures are so gorgeous they make me drool.

Shana’s Sims – Shana is an awesome writer who has a couple of different stories going on at the moment — her Weston Legacy and the “Here With You” series.

Knock It Down – Incredible pictures and a most intriguing story make up this supernatural series by Mao.

Okines Sims – Naomi has recently posted the beginning of her Graham Legacy, which looks very promising!

And Vivi has updated her Bui Family story! Awesome. I’m embarrassingly far behind on everyone’s stories, but I’ll be working on catching up all this week. Call it a New Year’s Resolution.

Also, to keep my list o’ Sims stories current, I’ve gone through my sidebar and deleted dead links and links to sites which haven’t updated in the past 6-8 months. If I deleted your link, and you decide to come back to blogging, do let me know, and I will be happy to put you back in.

Happy New Year, everyone!

I’m still working on the Burr update, but I wanted to take some time to wish you all a very Merry Christmas! Here’s a little holiday snapshot for you:

If you’re wondering who the heck these people are, you might want to check out the close-ups below. There’s also a little outtake at the end, as well as credits.

Hope you’re all enjoying the holidays with your loved ones!

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Due to some family issues and general holiday craziness, there has been a delay in my next update for the Burrs. I’m doing a special “interlude” for this one, so it’s taking a little extra time in that regard as well. I want to thank all of you for continuing to check my blog. Hopefully I’ll have a story up by the middle of next week!

In the meantime, enjoy a few more previews of the upcoming Seasons EP…I’m looking forward to this one more than any other EP we’ve had. Right now it’s a major pain in the heiney to make a whole neighborhood look wintery. With Seasons, it’ll be a breeze. (Har. Har.) I can’t wait!

Simfantastic preview

The Sims Resource preview

The Sims 2 Community preview, Part 2

Seasons on the official site:
Announcement
Info & screenshots

Happy Simming and happy holidays!

Good afternoon, all! If the fates allow, I will be posting my next Burr update sometime tonight. If you’re really eager for this bit of Burriness, you could send me some good vibes as encouragement. Or maybe some cookies. Yes, cookies would do it.

For those of you who don’t enjoy the Burrs, I am sorry. Thank you for visiting anyway! I have to warn you I will probably be posting on the Burrs exclusively until I have completed their legacy. This means no Ravelo or Shady Bluff updates for a good while. Since a few of you do seem to like the Burrs, and I’m enjoying them quite a bit myself, I am determined to play them until that very last rosy-cheeked Burr is born in my little Sim-fantasy version of the 1980s. And who knows, maybe by then I’ll be tired of them, or maybe I’ll want to play them to the 2000s and have them move to Shady Bluff. As I mentioned before, I’m wretched at multi-tasking and have a hard time juggling several stories at once, so this seems to be the best solution in my eyes.

As for Maude, she has relocated to Shady Bluff herself, as you may recall from her remarks during the Scavenger Hunt awhile back. If you haven’t figured it out already, I’m setting up Shady Bluff as a sort of “new” Mt. Geneva (since I lost the old one), a catch-all for my favorite Sims and stories. That way I don’t have to juggle as much — everyone will be part of the same plots and sub-plots and chronology. I have a bunch of stuff up my sleeve for that one, but there’s still much to do in preparation, so I’m working on it here and there in between playing the Burrs. I apologize since I probably did the Shady Bluff teaser with Kaylynn way too early. It has evolved into a much larger project now, and I want to make sure I do it justice.

In the meantime, I’ve set up an account at FeedBlitz so that you guys can subscribe to receive my updates via e-mail. If you sign up, you’ll receive an e-mail whenever I post something new. It’ll contain just the headline and a few lines of text, so you can determine whether or not you want to read it. This way you could watch out for the Ravelos or Shady Bluff or whatever you enjoy most. It’s also an option for people who want to be notified of updates but don’t like to use RSS readers and the like. Just sign up below and the notifications will start rollin’ in. Let me know if you have any questions about it or problems with it.

Sign up for updates via e-mail through FeedBlitz:

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(NOTE: You can click on “Preview” to view a sample e-mail.)

Oh, and doesn’t the new Seasons EP sound awesome already? I can’t wait! SNOW!

Happy Simming!

Hey everyone, I have good news: there will be an update TONIGHT! I have all the pics in order, so all I have to do is write up the text. I’m dedicating my entire evening to it, so it will be up! By midnight at the latest. I’m making a promise this time, that’s how much I believe in this update occurring.

Now for some more news, although whether it’s good or not, I’ll leave up to you to decide. The reason why I’ve been a bit quiet the past week is that I’ve been having a kind of Sims crisis. You may be familiar with this concept. It comes from having about a billion things I want to do with the game and not enough time to do them all. And when I try to do them all, I lose focus and don’t get anywhere with anything.

You may remember me having this same problem awhile back, when I had the Braytons, Shanleys, Maude’s Tales, and Annabel Island all going on at the same time. It was too much, and I had to streamline. The Braytons ended up going to Annabel Island, Maude’s Tales were put on hold, etc. At any rate, I am feeling the need to streamline once again. I pondered the possibilities all week long, and here’s the plan:

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Hey guys, generation 3 of the Burrs FINALLY graduated from college last night! I’m hoping to do an update on them tonight or tomorrow. I just wanted to share the wonderful news (well, it’s wonderful to me, anyway. I did a little dance in my chair last night). I don’t know why it took me three weeks to play them through University, but it was almost painful at times. It did get easier at the end — I rolled back to a much older driver for my Nvidia card and was able to play in triple-speed without getting the dreaded bluescreen/hourglass spin. The Burrs are going to be very busy bees what with their flower shop, preparation for Gen 4, and of course, their new furry friends. Heehee. Stay tuned!

Also, if you haven’t already, check out Mao’s Knock It Down stories. She’s taking a break from her wonderful ISBI challenge commentary and doing an urban fantasy/supernatural kind of story. It’s really awesome so far. Her characters are fascinating and her pictures are amazing!

Happy Simming!

Has your Sims 2 gameplay become a bit stale? Are you wishing you could add more unpredictability to your Sims’ lives? Then you might want to check out Jade’s Random Occurrence Scenarios (or ROS)! She has created a huge list of random events that can happen to your Sims and spice up your storytelling and/or gameplay. To pick an event, you roll a set of numbers using online dice, then find the numbers on the list and follow the instructions. The situations run the gamut from a minor things like winning a small cash prize to major life-changing events such as kidnapping, alien invasions, and even death (which is quite life-changing, you must admit). Just reading through the list is highly inspiring. I personally can’t wait to try these out, and will most likely be incorporating them into my Shady Bluff stories. I also think it’d be cool to come up with a storytelling challenge involving the ROS. Maybe I’ll work on that after I finish the fifteen other projects I have going on…

Jade’s also doing a tutorial on how she set up her neighborhood, Thyme. She has posted the first part of the tutorial, which covers choosing a terrain for your ‘hood, installing it, and cleaning it up. In future installments she’ll explain how to set up your own Sims economy. She has her player Sims doing NPC jobs and the like, and I’m dying to know how she does it. Anyway, if you haven’t checked out her site, you really should! It’s totally unique in the world of Sims 2 storytelling.

Also, one of my favorite Sims 2 storytellers and all-around awesome person Amy (known to some as the Evil Overlord, mwaha) has posted a really touching episode of Confessions of an Heiress (make sure you watch the video!). What can I say — it made me cry. Maybe I’m just a big old sap, but I have to give Amy credit for being so close to her characters and presenting their lives in such a way that they feel real. If you’ve been following her stories at all, her latest installment is a must-see. And if you haven’t been following her stories, then you’re missing out on some awesome stuff (The Heiress should be required reading for all fans of Sims 2 stories).

Happy Simming!