I've been away for a while but there is not much to tell. I've been playing TS2 all the time; I had to change my drivers twice, so I had to change my resolution rules twice as well - a long and really tedious process, but solvable. I still have to type in the "intprop maxnumofvisitingsims" command when my Sims leave the home lot, though. (This is not a request for help - there is a good guide to batch files on this site and I tried out all the combinations of upper and lower case letters I could think of, but nothing works.) Other than that, no problems.

As for my game itself, it's like a really, really bad soap opera: if you happen to know Turkish or Greek soap operas (no, I am neither, but they are quite popular where I live), think about them, multiply the result by at least ten and you will be near my level. (If you know only Central/South American ones, you have to multiply by a hundred, and if you know only British/USA ones, you have to multiply by a hundred and ten.) The only real change in my game is that I don't care about synchronization any more - I play the household I am interested in ATM, so one is in winter while the other is in summer, etc. It may look strange but i am used to it by now and it suits me just fine.

And I still think TS2 is the best variation of The Sims. If there was any justice in the world TS3 would be better (and TS4 much better), but since there is none ...

Well! This is kind of exciting -- I finally finished a play round in my BACC neighborhood, Acorn Bend! This is a major accomplishment since there are now 71 households (plus 3 university households). A bunch of new college graduates have settled down and begun their adult lives. I use ACR and Lamare's lovely mods that allow for young adult pregnancy and I guess my sims are really bad at birth control because a lot of that seems to happen. So they've gotten a great head start on the next generation.

Most of the citizens of Acorn Bend are growing increasingly suspicious of aliens in their midst. Felix Harris, one of the first half-aliens born in Acorn Bend, was abducted himself several times as a teen. He's pretty closed-mouthed about what happened while he was gone, but he came back determined to spread what he considers superior alien genetics as far and wide as he can. And he has a certain magnetism that has made him very popular with the young ladies. He's also unusually fertile -- whether he comes by it naturally or it's the result of some kind of modifcation the aliens made is anyone's guess -- so that most sims he, er, spends time with end up pregnant, and they have a high rate of multiple births.

However, most of these young women are unmarried and still in school and don't have the resources to support children on their own, especially not twins or triplets. And their families are... a lot less willing to help out when the children in question have green skin or weird black eyes.

So a great many children with visible alien characteristics are being placed in the children's home or the group home for teens, so much so that those facilities are becoming overwhelmed. The children's home is housing four children, two infants, and EIGHT toddlers. It's... a lot. The teens at the group home are more self-sufficient, it's true, but there are eleven of them now, and eventually there won't be enough room if it keeps growing. Perhaps in this next play round we will see some of those children or teens placed with families. And maybe someone will figure out what Felix is up to... or maybe he'll recruit more half-aliens to help with his little project to make Acorn Bend greener.

We can also expect to see a wave of deaths this play round as the first generation of sims are reaching the end of their lifespans. Nearly all have lived full and fulfilling lives and leave behind loving families. There hasn't even been too much fighting about who'll inherit those big ramshackle family homes (since most of the new adults starting out prefer to buy or build their own place).

In other neighborhood drama, the richest family of Acorn Bend, the Grants, have always prided themselves on being a cut above everyone else. Evan is older now; his hobby is slapping the spit out of people who spy on their neighbors with telescopes. Meanwhile, Isabella is focused on the younger children. It's only a few years until they're teens and then before you know it they'll be off to college! The only problem is their older daughters: Imogene is set on marrying her high school sweetheart, Frank Picketty, the son of a car salesman. And Adalene has been living together at college with Ryan Yont, whose mother couldn't even TELL you who his father is. At least their son Charleston is... well actually he's horndogging his way around town, but his parents aren't too worried; he's a respectable young man and he'll settle down eventually. (They think.)

Anyway, I could go on all day but I'm excited to see what trouble everyone gets into in the next round!

So far in Farnham, there are:
1 set of Quads to Lord Hugh Fitzwilliam and his wife Martha-3 boys and 1 girl
1 set of triplets to Ralph and Ellen Fitzalan-2 boys and 1 girl
1 set of twins to Thomas and Agnes Appleby-2 boys
1 daughter to Michael Thornton.

With at least 5 couples who have not yet had children, it's beginning to be a lopsided sex ratio. The boys outnumber the girls, and I sure hope that the other couples do have enough girls to continue family lineages, or else there will have to be adoptions.

But I'm sure they will endeavor to correct this situation. All they ever do is talk about sex and have lots of it with one another.Of course this is Medieval England, and they don't have a lot of other things to do besides that...

On the one hand, I now have no townies in my megahood. On the other hand, I have no children to start my orphanage with. On the gripping hand, Peni shared some extracted Drama Acres kids on her tumblr, so custom orphans it is! (There are no clues in Peni's documentation as to how they're related to each other, by the by, so I'm going with same surname=siblings, even though I'm pretty sure it's more complicated than that, so if some relationship comes across as totally wrong, well, that's why.) The Hawkins kids are the first family group into the home, so y'all might want to wish the Larsons best of luck!

I play a Megahood. Today Emily, a Sim who lives alone in Bluewater Village & works as a chef, went out with some friends to a nightclub downtown. She called a cab to go home & when she did, two mean warlocks & a witch came home with her. She used to date one of these warlocks & still has pink hearts for him. When they arrived home it was hailing outside. They went in & hailstones started falling through her bedroom ceiling. She said "There's weather in my house!" but there wasn't a way to stop it ... never seen that happen b4. ?

@lizard49
Emily is living in a house built before Seasons, the solution to the weather in the house is to rebuild the roof. Me I would take off the existing roof and add another floor and then put a new roof on the house. This has always worked for me and I like to add another floor as that way there is more room available in the house. I almost always add one or more floors to existing houses in my game.

Hope that this helps.

I play an Ãœberhood as well, I think it is a lot of fun to have all of the pre-mades in one game. I get to mix and max Sims from various neighborhoods.

I've been slowly populating and adding houses to my new medieval hood, Abergwaelod (I'm from Wales, gotta keep some Welsh representation going on here!)
King Ieuan has recently taken the throne after his father's untimely death. He needs to find a wife and produce some heirs, and fast. But with such a small kingdom, the number of possible suitors is very low.

For the hood, I'm using a lovely Powys-inspired terrain that @lauratje86 made for me for Secret Santa. It's the same terrain with one road layout that then gets expanded on in four iterations, so you can make your town grow with HoodReplace.

Well, this is exciting -- as the end of winter break nears, I've been able to leave adulting for long enough to return to my megahood a little! I just played the quite uneventful single-room-occupancy building and the orphanage, trying to get the feel of it again...

~

Max Flexor insisted that Mitch come over for soup and comfort...which included blocking the second-floor hallway by making out demonstratively at a narrow point. He did make Mitch feel much better, despite the unpleasant circumstances in the larger world.

~

Ripp Grunt did nothing except write, sleep, eat snacks, and have Daniel Grey over for WooHoo...and express concern over the neighbours who were having a screaming fight with each other in the common room when he went down to make his dinner. One was Erik Swain, while the others were all townies. I don't know what that was about, but two of them stunk terribly...

~

Erik Swain himself had an interest in Ripp and wanted to flirt with him -- as well as have lots of kisses and WooHoo. To Erik's shock, Ripp's lack of a formal commitment with Daniel did not signify any desire not to be monogamous, and he reacted to Erik's seduction attempts with shocked scorn and requests to interest himself in Christian Love the townie neighbour. Erik also tried flirting with Max, and got a similarly unimpressed reaction -- although he felt he should expect that, with Max actually being married.

~

Hera and Demeter Beaker arrived at the SimCity Orphanage (Jim Subject is remaining in the adoption pool to be claimed by Patrizio Monty), somewhat disconcerting Asher and Leon and causing Skippy to return to utter silence. Demeter watched Baroness Lupina cause a little mayhem with the telescope and the properly-paranoid John Burb and soon decided that that was much more entertaining than the playground equipment. Eventually, Asher and Leon's antics convinced her to be little more sociable, but she deliberately hit Leon several times while playing catch and made fun of Beau. Hera was put in a crib for a nap by Lupina, only to escape and flood a bathroom with toilet-splashing. Skippy returned to the solace of mute lemonade-selling, and got Leon and Demeter to buy some from him. That at least improved his mood to the point of occasionally muttering one-syllable responses to questions.

Beau and Lupina argued about Erin discarding her wolfishness. Lupina eventually told Beau that if he was so angry about his gift being discarded, he could invite her back that night with the excuse of seeing her nieces and savage her again. He did, and who should come wandering back while they were engaged in a massive fur-against-fang brawl on the sidewalk than Patrizio Monty? I'm inclined to think that he wanted to make off with Jim himself, but didn't realize he wasn't at the orphanage. He thought Beau was a beast and booed him before shambling off as the fight ended and Erin rose from the sidewalk with fur sprouting from her pallid skin. So she's back to being a vampire-werewolf, which is not improving her already...ah...distinct...Beaker temper. She didn't even stop to inquire about her nieces before going off in a huff.

It was a busy, busy day in the Garden. Foster-child Riane Atkins arrived early in the afternoon, and a little later the two Plantbabies, Cactus and Edelweiss, grew up. Poor Riane, she's very shy and finding herself thrust into the middle of a large and chaotic household after the peace of the desert must have been quite a trial for her. Luckily, though, she'd met Dandelion on a community lot the evening before, so at least there was one familiar face, and she stuck to him like glue for that first evening.

Herbert Goodie's ghost spawned shortly after nightfall, but unlike Faith he only spooked somebody once, and otherwise spent most of his time hanging out around the pool - sorry, Herbert! I'd have built you a pool while you were still alive if I'd known you wanted one!

Matriarch Rose went into labour with Jason's child around dawn, to the complete horror of the other Gardeners present, who had no idea that human births were so different from Plantbaby production (their expressions were really quite comical! ). The little one was named Seth, after his paternal grandfather.

As the Garden was now completely full, Jason and Rose decided to move out. Their plan was that they would set up home as a regular human family, just the pair of them with Seth and Riane. But Rose worried about needing help with the baby, and Riane was so obviously attached to Dandelion that they decided to include him, too. With the help of a big mortgage, they bought the Roths' old place, which had the needed three bedrooms. It also had fruit trees and a greenhouse full of near-ready tomatoes, so it seems Rose will be running it as a Garden after all. With so many unhappy plants in the greenhouse, she invited Cactus, her youngest Plantbaby, to join them and start crop-whispering. It will take them a long time to buy off all those mortgage bushes, but at least there's a good crop in their near future to help them get started.

Herbert's grave was sent to the cemetery, where he is now buried beside Faith, ready to spook any ghost-hunting Sims who care to visit after dark.

This left Daisy as Matriarch of the original Garden, aided by her son, Edelweiss. With plenty of room in the new household, she grew another Plantbaby, a girl named Willow, thus securing the matriarchal line.

I'm so jealous of you medieval simmers! Your games always look so gosh darn beautiful :lovestruc

Believe me, it's taken quite a bit of work and some very talented modders (GreatCheesecakePersona to be specific) to make these kinds of pictures possible.
I love how the horizons meet so very nicely in this set. I had to layer them to get it, but it's gorgeous I think!
Various places in Farnham:

THOSE HORIZONS THOUGH!

And GreatCheesecakePersona is so cool :lovestruc I cannot believe I hadn't heard of them. I'm going to see how I can incorporate their work into my game. Their clean UI project especially looks promising!

So to simplify what you're looking for, here's the Tumblr site for GCP-downloads:
http://greatcheesecakepersona.tumbl...tagged/Download

There have been also notable contributions to skylines and horizons by Lowedeus, Withered Lillies, criquette, Icad, and YAE.

Once you get started in on this you'll want all of them. There's a lot of variety now and it has changed a lot of games from ordinary to extraordinary.

I've been trying to get a ghost to wander around town, so far... no.

But, I have hit upon a solution to implementing another story idea. Samantha and Amanda (twin sisters) Ottomas have a father they've never known who abandoned them or died or went to jail... nobody knows... and left them with their aunt Endora... well, he may or may not be alive and wandering around Widespot. I've thought a lot about how to handle him, so, to make him, I cloned one of the Ottomas children and aged him up changing a few details to make him look like I imagine he would after his long absence, then I turned him into a townie so he'd wander around. The cool thing is that he's the only townie in the hood because all the other townies have been turned into downtownies, with no downtown added, to disappear them from play. There are comparatively few non-residents in the hood, but there are some, the npcs, some of the remaining Jocks, Socialites, Bohemians... not many, but enough so he can blend in but also show up randomly a lot. I'm pretty sure if I put in his proper family ties, he'll appropriately stalk his relatives. I added the family tie to Amanda in SimPE, but had to make him meet Amanda in the game before SimPE would let me edit their relationship, then I made him have a family relationship with her, but her not have it with him, since she's not supposed to know him in the game. We'll see how that works.

And here he is! He showed up at the Widespot public library.... wonder what he's researching....



Now the ghost... not so easy.

This last week up until day, I have made good progress in Veronaville. I play the Capps and Consort passed away from old age, while everyone else did well. One Sims was glad that he was gone and that was Bianca Monty Capp, who married into the family. Bianca had a child by one of my Aliens and she named him Séamus. Bianca managed to have another two children, Brenda and Brooke, this time by her husband and she is sending her children, now teens off to University. Patrizio and Isabella managed to have one more child before their old age, and now their child is a teen and they and the all of the teens in the household, Séamus {Scorpio}, Brenda {Scorpio}, Brooke {Gemini}, and Ronaldo {Scorpio} are off to University.

Then I went to the Monty household and played them and there were babies! After several fun sessions of me playing them, they sent their teens, Aldo {Aries}, Avelina {Libra}, Gina {Turus}, and Isolde {Gemini} off to University as well. I thought it was worthy of note that Ronaldo Capp likes Isolde and Gina. Maybe there is a match there?

The we come to the household I am currently playing, The Beare Household is made up of Dubhghlas Beare, who is an Alien Hybrid belonging to the FitzHugh Clan of Strangetown, Diana Beare wife and Beverly F Beare wife, and Cathal J FitzHugh {Alien Hybrid} and Barbara E FitzHugh his wife. Cathal J has just moved in recently and has no children at this point. Dubhghlas has had three sons, Bran {Aries green skin}, Caradog {Aries}, and Manawydan {Aries green skin} all of which are teens and all of them are going to University soon. Bran had a Party and he had the Capp and Monty girls there, and during the party Avalina made it clear that she thinks Bran is hot by kissing him impulsively. {Note I don't play with ACR} So I guess that it might be Bran and Avalina instead of Bran and Isolde like I was thinking might happen. Caradog is thinking of making a match with Brooke Capp after she liked his moves on her at the party and Manawydan is thinking Gina is maybe a good match for him.

So maybe Ronaldo will have a clear shot at Isolde Monty as the soon to be infamous Beare Brothers have picked someone?

Séamus and his half sisters Brenda and Brooke are still not matched with anyone. Likewise Brooke and Brenda's cousins Ronaldo Capp and Aldo Monty. So maybe then some of the other Aliens in Veronaville that I haven't played yet will have someone that these Sims will have a 3 Bolt thing with?

Note: Every Match my Sims make always has 3 bolts.

It's a sure bet that Amanda Ottomas (Samantha's twin in Widespot) has no idea who her husband, Doug (Peter's cousin) is bowling with! Her still unrecognized long lost father showed up at the bowling alley today and picked up a game with the unsuspecting Ottomas.



Meanwhile, Nathan Gavigan (he dyed his hair during his identity crisis) and Cydney Rose, who share a house and a polyamorous pregnancy with Mary (to them it doesn't matter who the father is), decided they might as well share a job, too. They both hope to sit in the upstairs office one day as Manager of the Bowling Alley, but they are starting off as waiters.



*These are NPCs made to look like playables with SimSurgery. I like my businesses to run themselves. Btw, Cyd's NPC spawned as female. I wasn't sure it would work to change gender with SimSurgery, but I did it anyway also changing the gender flag, and it worked fine.


Ginger Newson finally stopped fighting with her brother and got a job at Widespot General Store. She's probably swooning over Trent. He's the lifeguard at the local pool. And here's Amanda Ottomas looking at the dog collars. They must be thinking of adopting a couple of those strays who hang out in their yard.



*Ginger is also an NPC. That she's wearing her clothes was a happy accident. She would usually be wearing the uniform as the waiters are. I aged the adult NPC that spawned for this spot down to teen before using Sim Surgery and, in aging down, she lost her uniform and was set as everyday. I liked it, though, that Ginger would show up to work dressed like this, the same way she goes everywhere else. I'm sure I'll use this again on purpose somewhere. Meanwhile, she goes by G.G at work so I don't mix her up with her "other" self. Another happy accident, G.G. is quite expressive as she stands there, I think because she's under the speaker and reacting to the music.

Jules O'Mackey graduated from university and moved in with her mum, then invited her longtime boyfriend, townie Waylon Menon, to move in with them. She and Waylon were chatting about this and that, when Waylon said, "You know, Jules, I run my own business and we could really use a sharp mind like yours. Would you like to come and work for me in the Social Security Recipient career, as a Social Security Recipient? It's a great opportunity as it's not an entry-level job." Really? For some reason, Jules declined, and instead found herself a well-paying gig as a Bit Player on the Entertainment career track.

The family couldn't really fit into Alexandra's tiny cottage, though, so they've moved again, and are now renting a spacious two-bedroom townhouse in Belladonna Cove. I think Alexandra will miss fishing, but at least she can make up for the years she missed with Jules.

Those are some funny looking 'maters.

Love the pics and the details, @Sunradar

Lester Simonik has lived a long and full life and knows the reaper will be coming for him soon. Normally I control my sims pretty closely but since it is his last day I figured I'd let him do whatever he wants...

He's spending his last day going around the house looking at all the paintings he made of his children (most of whom are grown and moved out now).

<3 <3 <3

The usual birthdays and whatnot. A few pregnancy bumps.

Oh and then Bunsen Beaker (The Beaker's oldest daughter) activated the first Servo bot in this megahood - t063 Beaker, as yet again her cleanbot broke and threw up garbage all over the livingroom and kitchen. t063 has triple bolts for all females in the house and as such has been quite a busy little robot between chores. Even though Bunsen is engaged, I keep noticing them trying to flirt or kiss (but then the interaction would disappear and t063 went off to do chores). Wildly more concerning when you consider my default replacement servo basically looks like a trashcan with legs (though I feel it would be more entertaining if it was the metal godzilla default I found a while ago). He did end up woohooing Brannare (The Beaker's youngest daughter) and they fell in love... which has wildly changed the dynamic of the family. It feels like something from the Jeremy Kyle show "Help! My teen daughter is woohooing our sentient robot butler".

Oh, Arthur! This looks soooooo suspicious!

Right now in Lacuna Delta, Sherman Boggle is attempting to sell a small nuclear reactor to Mrs Crumplebottom.

Hahahahahaha, it worked! For a couple of days, I've been very involved in trying to set up the details for a business and learning how to have uni in the base hood and getting to know a couple of families I haven't really played before and it got late and one of the new families were hanging out on their lawn talking to various neighbors and, suddenly... the ghost!

I had worked for such a long time to set up the ghost of my hood's founder who would appear on various lots at unexpected times because I wanted to be surprised. And, I was! I had totally forgotten about her. I only have a totally horrible pic because I was totally caught off guard! Awesome! :D


EDIT: Ok, it happened again! And I was surprised AGAIN! This is so fun. But I had the presence of mind to get a decent pic or to hit pause, anyway.

So, today, we have a few things happening. The first is this all day project that I STILL can't make work. I want "Hamilton, the bartender" to wear this outfit but he keeps coming to work in that bartender uniform (he's an NPC). In any case, at this moment, it was awesome, cuz there's nothing like having Mom show up at your workplace for an extended family chat.



While I was busy, the stories have been spreading all over Widespot, and sure enough... when least expected, Endora Waters showed up at the Mann's!



Rich appeared not to notice the spirit of the town's founder and richest citizen, but as soon as she left....

In a hood where nearly every child born has been a boy, Ana Patel has beaten the odds to produce two consecutive girls. Little Maida grew up just in time to free up the crib for baby Jessie, while Ana and Ramir cleared out their art room to give Maida her own bedroom.

Since King Peter recently announced the new Children's University Savings Plan (CUSP), children and teens are allowed to have up to $25,000 (the cost of tuition) of parental funds in a savings account with Monique's Online Banking. This makes a nice tax haven for the parents, since money in the bank doesn't appear as part of their net worth. It's only for tuition, though, so if the Sim doesn't go to college, the money reverts to family funds and tax has to be paid on both the capital and any accumulated interest immediately. The Patels have already given Maida her full allowance, which will reduce their next tax bill to pretty much zero, but they're going to have to work hard to put Jessie through college as well - especially as Ana wants another baby!