Hooray, Ambitions is here! I’ve gotten everything installed properly (even added HELS to the mix), put all my custom content back in (in the new location), and updated my Twallan mods (Story Progression and SuperComputer for now). I’m sure I’ll see some weird glitches and bugs as I proceed — and it’s possible I already have — but everything seems to be running smoothly for now. So, moving right along with the Shanleys, my Wishful Living Challenge family!
In the last update, third generation heiress Violet Shanley was in the process of moving out of Skunk Haven and into her own abode. Here’s where I ran into a little trouble. According to the rules of the challenge, the third gen heir has a spending limit of §39,999 for the home — that’s for the lot itself, not any decorating or upgrading they do afterwards. Well, at the time I moved Vi out, there were NO houses that cost under §39,999, not even an ugly little shack.
I consulted with my Simming friends who created and tested the challenge, and one of them suggested I merge two families with the same name (reuniting them, in a sense), thus freeing up a house for Violet. I looked around Riverview and saw that a Newbie family was living in the Garage Apartment (near the Broke trailer park), and elderly Barry Newbie was still on the McDermott Farm. So the younger Newbies moved in with Uncle Barry to take care of him in his old age, and Vi moved into the Garage Apartment at 17 Lost Willow Road.
It cost Violet around §39,100, so it was right up to the limit of what she could spend. After she purchased the lot and moved in, I divided her old home’s family funds by four (for four grown adults) and gave Vi her portion. I couldn’t do it in the moving screen, and the familyfunds cheat is tricky when you have two families with the same name, so I just “kachinged” a bunch of times. Heh.
She ended up with around §40,000 with which to play in renovating the good ol’ Garage Apartment, and man, she needed it — the place was a total bachelor pad! Which makes me feel a bit sad for the family of four (including two children) who lived here before.
Apparently Hal Breckenridge was the original inhabitant a few generations back, and his bio states that “Hal is quite the man about town. He’s a love ’em and leave ’em kind of guy.” A-ha! That explains the “seduction lair” bedroom, complete with heart-covered bedspread and wall of mirrors…
It took me several hours to remodel the house, but I had a total blast. I basically sledgehammered everything except for the outer walls, which I had to keep intact according to the rules of the challenge. I did repaint them, though!
The stairs leading up to the entrance on the second floor were relocated inside, and the old entrance area is now a deck. I moved the living/kitchen area to the main floor, and put the bedrooms and study on the second floor. I also bought Vi a yellow Beetle, because they’re just darned cute.
The backyard is pretty small, so I just made a little patio and a spot for the Sultan’s Tabernacle. I love that thing — you don’t even really need bedrooms with that around, but I still like a “traditional” house, so I made bedrooms anyway.
For being on the “cheap” side of town, the Garage Apartment has beautiful views of the river and surrounding countryside:
Right after Vi moved in, her twin sister Fern came by to visit! They had a nice chat and a hearty chuckle outside (Vi has a Good Sense of Humor and tells hilarious jokes, apparently).
They watched some TV inside, too, and I snapped a pic of their profiles — you can see they both share the notorious Lothario nose.
I just liked this expression on Vi’s face while she watched TV. Also, it shows the one painting of hers that she brought along with her (my Simming buddy Angelia wanted to see some paintings, so there’s one, at least!).
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I think my favorite part of Ambitions is being able to register your hobby as a profession. You can now be a painter, writer, etc and have it show up on your job tab! No more silly unemployment or your sim rolling up wishes for a job they probably shouldn’t want anyway. ;)
I LOVE what you did with Hal’s old garage apartment. That looks amazing! I like being able to customize everything in TS3, but sometimes I get lazy.
I really like Twinbrook, you just need to a bug zapper to get rid of the rampant fugly in that town. It’s not only overpopulated, every sim looks like they got beat with the ugly 2×4!
LOL, Mao! I’ve only seen a couple of Sims in Twinbrook, but one of them was definitely the ugliest Sim I’ve ever seen (Juan Darer, the inventor…yikes!!). I’m with you on being able to register hobbies — I absolutely love that option. That’s what Violet did, and she was able to pick up some extra cash that way. Plus yeah, no more rolling up job wishes. Very cool.
Yay for Ambitions! Oh, and thank you for enlightening me on the Twallan’s Story Progression Mod needing both v128 and v129 … as well as typing up how to change the settings to reduce the number of popups. You’re a peach! But back to your update. :O)) Are you ready for another long post? >:O))
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I bow down to your decorating greatness, jenba. With TS3, I’ve barely scratched the decorating surface. Once I get back into doing my WLC (I gotta decide who my founder is going to be), I hope to work the Create-A-Whatever things to the limit (or something like that). :O) I really love the windows you put out … and you’re right … FABULOUS views. I’ll have to try to remember that about the merging of the households. Damn that Lothario nose!
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WHY oh WHY is it that when things are going well for our sims, that infamous burglar shows up. And you know what I’ve noticed? I have yet to see any male burglars in TS3 … mine have always been female. What the heck is up with that?! I can’t wait to have a sim who is excitable … just to see the hilarity. Congrats to the happy couple and the impending birth. :O)
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Yay for (eventual) testosterone in the family! *cheers* Those violet eyes are PENETRATING ME!! Gibby? *snicker-snort* My condolences on the loss of Hope. :O( And now a baby girl! You shoulda named her Georgia Hope. :O)) Gibby … *snicker-snorts* Darn birthday cake fires … =__= Aww! Peekaboo! :O)
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Gibby sounds like Bibby to me. :O) Funny thing with the whole upchucking at the family reunion thing. What a nice radioactive green it is. *snicker* Maybe Gibby doesn’t like his aunt’s guitar playing? MacKenzie is CUTE. Seems a lot of people are having trouble with the Architectural Design profession. Either EA screwed up, or there’s a trick to it that non one has quite figured out yet. I, too, like the laundry system. I think once you get three sims and up living in a household, it might get REALLY old. But for now, I’m enjoying it. :O)
And last, but not least, Page 5:
I love doing Transfigurations. I’ve gotten several magic gnomes via that method. :) Gotta LOVE those soulpieces! :O) I believe the “Foundations on the Roof” thing is some sort of cheat code. I haven’t really read up on it much … but someone had posted about it on Mod the Sims. Lemme see if I can find the link. Ah! Here’s the link to the forum thread: http://modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=405419 … :O) That “Zac Efron” special hair works for him. :O) Love his new outfit, too. :O) Magical gnomes!! I can’t wait to see what strange poses it does. :O)
Thanks for another great update, jenba. :O)
Wheee, another long comment! I thoroughly enjoyed reading that, thank you. :) Ooh, and thanks for the link to the frieze cheat! I was wondering how they did that. Very cool!
I hate to pass judgment on those poor Sims in Twinbrook, but I don’t understand why they would fill that town with so many ugly people. Thank god for Twallan – maybe after a couple of generations of having NPCs marry in it will be diluted and I can find someone for my legacy to marry.
Also, in my play-testing, I spent a bunch of time with the architect and stylist careers and I was having serious issues with both. I got one review that was better than “ok”, and I still haven’t figured out how that happened. And the stylist career needs a better instruction manual with it. It will tell you to give them a new athletic look and a new everyday look, but the vast majority of the time I would get the client claiming that I totally failed the objective and didn’t give them everything they wanted. It was frustrating.
Given your extreme skill with decorating both homes and sims, I’ll be curious to see what you manage to do with the new careers and the problems we both seem to be having.
Good update, so happy to have checked in and found you back to writing stories!
Hi Megan, thanks for your comment! I agree about the rampant ugliness in Twinbrook…I know EA just wants to give their Sims personality and variety, but wow…scary. I’m thinking of dropping a few of my own families into town just to help the dilution of the gene pool, as you put it.
I haven’t tried the Stylist career yet, but as you can see my experience with the Architectural one was not so good. I think they might be bugged. Or I just suck at it, heh. We’ll see how it goes later on. ;)
Hey Jen, loved it, as always :)
Just like your Gibby, my 3rd gen heir (ok, one gen earlier, but still), got violet eyes too, without anybody in the family having had violet eyes before. And she has blond hair too :)
As you can see, I’m playing TS3 now with lots of fun, and the Wishful Living Challenge is a real blast! Currently I’m at teen-stage with my Gen 3 heir Alanna, who’s hoping to become a hit movie composer some time in the future. The spare heir, her brother Sebastian, is trying to fulfil the body/mind LTW, let’s hope he manages soon.
Thanks for your motivation! I won’t bother buying the EPs so soon – except if you’re too fascinated by ambitions ;)
I simply LOVE what you did with Vi’s new home, it looks sooo fabulous! I’m really not much into decorating and house-building, but as soon as Alanna has to leave her home, I’ll try with her new house (playing in Sunset Valley though).
Thanks so much!
Eva
Yay, Eva! I’m glad you’re having so much fun with your WLC family. That’s funny about the blond hair and violet eyes. I’ve been seeing that crop up in other families, too. Not sure why that happens! Must be some weird coding in the game. I don’t mind it, though — it’s nice to have surprises once in awhile. :) Good luck with your family, and I hope you keep having fun!
OMG I can’t tell you how much I love the new look of Hal’s house. It’s just amazing!
Aw, thanks, Hannah! :)
Great update Jen! I love how you decided on the name Gibson, very original and it really fits him. The new house looks awesome after its makeover, especially the outside. I would die to live there!
My WLC founder became an Architectural Designer too. Most of my renovations seem to be “just OK” also. She’s currently lvl 5, and she’s only had maybe 2 renovations that were better than OK. The owners tend to like it better when you add additional things like decorations or chairs (when they’re not asked for) and if you add personal paintings/sculptures that you made yourself.
I enjoyed this new career alot for the first few simdays, but the decorating is getting kind of old! Lol, I’ve never been much of a builder/decorator. But I have always enjoyed fiddling around with it. But doing 2 renovations a day for 5 days a week, gets a bit boring after awhile! And my sim is only at level 5!
Thanks for the tips on the architectural career, Mandie. It sounds like it’s definitely a challenge! I hope it picks up for you soon…it’s no good if you get bored with your founder! I’m not sure I understand the LTW for the architectural profession – achieve 100 top scores sounds impossible. But there’s always that “Change Lifetime Wish” reward if it proves to be too much of a pain in the butt. Anyway, good luck!
Oooh, nice update! I’m dying to get Ambitions, but I’m waiting for Amazon to drop the price (and hoping they’ll do so while they still have WA for $20, so I can pick ’em both up at the same time).
Gibby is adorable (especially as a toddler)! And that’s funny about the woman puking on the gazebo; I had one of my sims’ sisters over visiting the house once, and the sister went to go home, a cab showed up, a cab left without the sister, the sister vomited all over the sidewalk and then hailed another cab. It was both entertaining and bizarre. XD
Hi Audrey! LOL at the puking/cab incident! :D
Between your updates and Mao’s, I feel like I’m getting quite a good picture of Ambitions! Thanks for posting all these pics. :D This pack looks like a lot of fun.
Yeah, I’m having a great time with Ambitions so far. It’s not perfect by any means, but I am quite happy with much of it. And Mao is posting some great stuff!
Uh, yes, waiter, I’ll have the extra-hot chilli with special Sky Peppers, please! Seriously, though, Jen, your Georgia is the first Sims 3 sproglet I’ve seen that’s not erky looking. Nice one! I have to save some cash to get Ambitions now. And, who the heck is Zac Efron?
LOL, Scally! I don’t think I’ve heard the word erky before. Heehee. Oh, and Zac Efron is a 20something actor who is beloved by tweens for being in the High School Musical movies.
*quiet whimpering* I want that expansion pack so badly! It’s funny, it seems like EA is following in Windows’ footsteps: one EP will be crap (World Adventures) and the next one will be awesome (Ambitions). I’m going to cool my heels until the price drops, though.
Also, I love that the Sims 3 Lothario has as strong features as the Sims 2 one. That is one Sim where they managed to get things right, unlike the weirdness that is for example their attempts at the Goths or Kaylynn. Urgh.
I totally agree, I like what they did with the Don. Not so much with Kaylynn or the Goths — to me they look nothing like their TS2 counterparts. And I never played with the Grunts or Nigmoses, but I hear ya on that, it’d be cool if they did a Strangetown redux in a future expac (and brought aliens back, maybe!).
Also! I’m puzzled that we get the Curious family but no other Strangetown ancestors. I miss my Grunts and Nigmoses. :(
Wow.. you really did make that house look WAY nicer!
Okay, the Lothario nose doesn’t actually look that bad on women… and on Fern it looks even softer with the addition of glasses.
Wow.. so visitors can bring someone else’s kids along with them? I would have panicked too if I saw my heir’s intended spouse carrying a toddler. (Did EA ever fix that glitch where singles would randomly spawn kids with no other parent?)
AWw.. Benny looks like he’s head over heels for Violet. I love that photo where his hands are up near his heart and it looks like he’s sighing..and she’s in his thought bubble.
Oh..now that’s totally cool that gardens will spawn seeds..go money trees!
Giving birth in real life – epidurals are your friend. As in pain? What pain? (LOL)
Aww a Shanley boy! I like Gibson as a name..and of course I like the violet eyes. Brandon has them. ;)
LOL at Benny’s blasé “I’m gonna keep eating while you..yanno.. give birth and stuff.†And of course I like the name Georgia. Hehehe (Gee, wonder why?) The peekaboo pic is UBER cute!
Oh man… too right… if someone barfed at a family gathering in my family it would be talked about for years! If people can talk about family members cheating, you think they’d include something like that too.
I’ll have to try that with the gem thing..sounds cool.
And the mechanical gnome looks cool too!
I’d like to explore Twinbrook too but I don’t want the Mystics to lose their vacation homes.
Yeah, it’s a pain to lose the vacation homes…but since it seems like in my family at least, every generation goes to one of the WA locales at least once or twice, so it shouldn’t take too long for me to get them back. I don’t blame you for not wanting to move, though.
And Benny brought his cousin Deakin over because he was living on the same lot as him — I don’t think he would have brought him over had he lived elsewhere. The game must consider any adult on the lot to be a “caregiver” for any toddlers on the lot and treats them like parents. I dunno, it’s weird. I’m not sure if they ever fixed that glitch you mentioned…I haven’t played with vanilla EA story progression in so long!!
Not sure how i missed this update. ah well, i see it now and i love it. Such fun things to explore with a new EP and oooh i love Joe!!