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.

Continue reading →

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.

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.