The family left Russ behind and traveled to Shang Simla together. Travis continued working on fairly laid-back opportunities, like catching a certain number of koi fish…
…and learning Sim Fu.
I would have had him explore tombs, but I was too impatient – the man moved like a snail. Besides, I’ll have to do a bunch of tomb-raiding down the road when I try for the Great Explorer LTW.
The rest of the family worked on skilling. I can’t remember what my plans were exactly (and I took horrible notes), but I think I was aiming for for Violet to be the spare and do something like the Visionary LTW (reach level 10 in painting and photography) since it could be completed before she became a Young Adult. So Vi spent most of the trip painting.
Then I figured Fern could be the heiress and go for the one of the tougher writing LTWs like Professional Author. She puttered away on her novels…
…and read books for fun.
Hope continued to collect, fish, and garden. But even with all of the adventuring and skilling going on, there was still time for a hug or two.
Once I purchased the Opportunistic lifetime reward for Travis, he started racking up those Visa points like nobody’s business. Eventually he reached Visa level 3, and it was time to head home, but not before he gave Hope’s old boyfriend Zhan a piece of his mind.
(I guess he was still a bit jealous.)
Back at Skunk Haven, Hope was finally able to harvest some life fruit. She bought the Ambrosia recipe for §12,000 and learned it, then took some of Travis’s deathfish and began crafting the food of the gods.
Travis was 87 days old when he ate it. It’s entirely possible he could have gone to Egypt and completed his LTW without dying before he ate the ambrosia, but I didn’t want to take any chances. Plus I had never made ambrosia in this game, so it was fun to try it out. Travis certainly enjoyed eating it…
…although I think it gave him a bout of indigestion. Sparkly indigestion!
His age bar went back to 74, giving him more time to get stuff done, plus it put him in an excellent mood for the next seven days.
(continued on Page 3)
So many nice pictures in one place! I love those green-flashing gemstones on the grass, I’ve never actually seen them before. And how do you make the gnome move? Or so I’ve heard that they can move, but nothing ever happens in my game. :/ Anyways, I really love your posts! :)
Hi Hannah! I’m not sure why your gnome doesn’t move…you could try kicking it, maybe? Although I think Russ moved before I kicked him. It might be a bug as I’ve heard of other people having the same issue. :-(
Ooh, good update!!! Violet reminds me of this actress, Josie Davis: http://channels.isp.netscape.com/celebrity/gallery.jsp?floc=g_j_davis&gname=j_davis
Dunno if that will work. Oh, for toddler skillin’ I noticed family oriented Sims can skill the toddlers a lot quicker (like Angler does with fishing as you mentioned). LOL at Russ the Gnome and his new friend!!! The mailbox shot cracked me up! Fear the Mailbox!!! :-D
Heh, Violet does look a bit like that actress! Funny. :) Thanks for the tip re: Family-oriented Sims. I might start giving all my Sims that just to make toddler training less painful. ;)
“I really miss smart milk — it takes sooo looong to train kids in TS3, and it’s more important, too, since you need to train them in all three skills if you want to pick their trait.”
Urgh, yes! I wonder if anyone’s made a hack to speed it up.
Love the pic of Travis hassling Zhan! Zhan looks a little worried there.
I adore the Al Simharan house.
Thanks, Carla! And yeah, a hack to speed up toddler skilling would be nice! But it wouldn’t be fair to use for the challenge, I don’t think. Although what Suzicat said about Family-oriented Sims has me thinking I might have to give out that trait more often!
Wow! What a very large update! But that’s okay! I enjoy every aspect of your updates. But I’m going to try to go through each page one by one … and respond to each aspect that I enjoyed the most. :O))
Page 1:
I kinda hope I get Ambitions tomorrow, too, but since today is a holiday, I’m thinking that isn’t going to happen … and I won’t get the game until Wednesday. *sniffles* And since Wednesdays are Aion night … I don’t know how much I’ll be able to play that day. *sniffles* I’m kinda hoping your guys don’t lose as much stuff as you think they might lose when you move them to Twinbrook. So … how do you find out what your totem animal is? And what does the frog signify? That whole trying to get ambrosia … that’s so very complicated! But it sounds like it’s worth it. I’m going to have to try to remember all of that stuff on how to get the angel fish and death fish. Sounds like a blast! I love that shot of hope in her gi. Russ amuses me greatly. *LOL*
Page 2:
I can’t believe that Travis was doing kung-fu in his hat. That’s like an Indiana Jones fetish. Indiana Jones liked to wear his hat pretty much everywhere as well. :O)) I’m really jealous of your decorating skillz, jenba. How long would you say you spend on decorating a house? DANG!! 12,000 simoleons just for a recipe?! Granted … it’s a pretty special recipe, but … STILL!! O__o
Page 3:
O__o … is Russ really like … stuck like that … floating in the air?! The magic gnomes really are freakin’ cool! Looks to me like he’s enjoying playing in the water sprinkler. *LOL* … *blinks at the whole fishing from inside the house glitch* Dang … that nose is very dominant in your family. Yup. I like that whole tag-team-tomb-raiding thing. :O) That mummy is really out of shape. You’d think a decomposed corpse would be a lot thinner than that. Maybe someone stuffed him with treasures or something. Heh!
Page 4:
Gawd!! That view from your Al Simhara lot is GORGEOUS!!!! Heh! A magic pharaoh gnome! I love it! That is really awesome about being able to smash the big space rocks and getting some nice gems out of them. Now … when you say that the cut gems appreciate in value … what exactly do you mean?! O__o
Page 5:
Yup … that nose is dominant. Are you selling all of her paintings? If not, I’d love to see what they all look like completed. Y’know … it still really annoys me that female sims are TALLER than male sims. WTF is up with that?!
GREAT update, jenba!
Holy buckets, that IS a long comment, Ange! I had fun reading all of it. To answer your question about totem animals, I was just being silly, but I do really like frogs. They ARE a rockin’ totem animal, though — they represent cleansing, healing, adaptability, and creativity. Cool, eh? I have no idea how you find out what your totem animal is, though…maybe its whatever animal you are most drawn to? Maybe there’s a special ritual? Heh. I haz no clue. I just know about totem animals from playing Werewolf: The Apocalypse. ;)
As for house decorating, I would say I spend 6-10 hours when I’m seriously decorating. I think it took me about 6 hours to do the first floor and outside landscaping of Violet’s new house. :-p I think it takes longer with TS3 because of CAST — it’s easier for me when I have some limitations to work with. But since I can make anything any color or nearly any pattern — it’s overwhelming.
The green, glowing gems that appreciate in value are Tiberium. I think Vi found one in Egypt, and then Travis got a bunch from breaking space rocks (which you don’t even need to find first; the rocks just appear on the board breaker object!). Anyway, if you send the Tiberium away to be cut (either spire-shaped or heart-shaped), then set it on the ground (I think any surface works, actually), it will multiply after a few days. I think it continues multiplying forever, but I sold mine so Vi would have some extra starting cash. Very nice to have, though! I’m going to have to try to get some of those every generation, I think.
And LOL at the dominant nose! Yup, they all have that Lothario nose. I kind of like it. :)
Woops, forgot to answer your question about the paintings…I did sell almost all of them, unfortunately. There is one hanging in her new house that you’ll see, though!
I have GOT to get me some of that Tiberium!! O__o
If anyone could convince me to buy WA & play TS3 again, it would be you Jen. Your pictures are beautiful and I’m still learning things about WA from you that I didn’t know.
Russ should be very afraid of Mr. Box. We know what evil mailboxes are capable of.
Maybe now that Vi is the heiress, we’ll see some new genetics pop up in the family.
Aw, thanks for the nice words, Lisa! And LOL at the evil mailboxes…I did think of Mr. Box when I saw Russ cowering like that! And good call on the new genetics — some HAVE popped up!
Ack! Run Russ, run! Mailboxes are ebil! *blinks* wait, thats only in Strangetown.. never mind.
*chuckles at Russ jumping for joy* Seriously I love that silly gnome.
Travis may be an old geezer, but that mummy is ancient! Well done Travis. show that mummy who’s boss! *chuckles again*
I have had sims w/ the family trait autonomously teach a toddler to walk. That is a nice lil perk in TS3
Yeah, I gotta try one of those family-oriented Sims one of these days! That’s one of the few traits I’ve never played with (along with Snob and Evil…wouldn’t those 3 be an interesting combo?).
I love the picture of Hope fishing at the pond..even if she did catch your totem animal. What a lovely shot!
I LOL’d at the comment about catching the laptop which she batter-fried and ate for lunch. (snickers)
I took a picture similar to the one you took of Travis getting his visa.. but mine did show three little “stampsâ€â€¦ so yours was bugged… weird! Who cares so much if the graphic was bugged as long as the game itself recognized he’d achieved that..right?
I miss smart milk too.. and if you had twins tag-team teaching is the only way to go!
Hope looks gorgeous in that Chinese outfit! And I love the Chinese vacation home.
I don’t think Russ the Gnome is afraid of mailboxes per se… the bills that can arrive inside them.. yeah, those can be kind of scary!
LOVE the shot of Travis giving Zhan a hard time.
Man, you do get some gorgeous sims! Hope even makes an awesome looking Elder..and Travis is quite distinguished.
Thanks, Tracy! Yeah, I still don’t know what was going on with Travis’s visa, but his travel journal did say he was at level 3, and he did achieve his LTW, so I guess it was just a graphics glitch. :-p
Yay, Shanley update! I’ve been looking forward to this all week. Life turned out pretty good for Hope after all that trouble of finding a man, lol. The kids are cute as can be. Man, you sure are good at achieving LTWs. And you make it look so effortless! I feel so rushed and anxious when I’m playing through my legacy, but you make it look so easy! Loved this update, all of the traveling, and all the new kids. Can’t wait to see the next one.
Oh, and you have inspired me to start my own WLC. Now that Ambitions is out, I’ve created the new hood and plopped down a sim to try out the new jobs. Might as well make a challenge out of it since I’m trying for the new LTWs anyway!
Oh, how cool that you’re doing a WLC now! I hope it won’t make you anxious like your legacy does…I think I’ve made it look easy because I’ve picked really easy LTWs so far, heh. Something like Perfect Garden or Professional Author will probably be tough, at least for me. And some of the new ones with Ambitions sound insane! 100 top scores in Architectural Design?? I’ll be lucky if I get ONE! :) Anyway, best of luck with your WLC!!