back from a long hiatus

It's hard to believe that it's been more than six months since my last post. What have I been up to in that time?

almost ready to update again

I spent all day installing Boot Camp, but when I downloaded and installed The Sims 2, I didn't have very much space left on the partition. I think Windows 7 takes up more space than Windows XP. So I have to repartition the drive again tomorrow. At least this time it'll go faster. But I tested The Sims 2 briefly, and it loaded very quickly. I'll probably spend a day making sure The Sims 2 works on Windows 7 before transferring all of my CC and neighborhood files.

trying out The Sims 3

While I've been waiting to set up The Sims 2 on my new laptop, I went ahead and bought The Sims 3. I've been wanting to play it ever since it came out, but my old laptop couldn't handle it. I really wanted to try out the new features, and while I'm still getting the hang of it, it's a lot of fun and I think it's very different from The Sims 2.

The main difference, of course, is Story Progression. Since the rest of the neighborhood ages together, there's no need to rotate households. For me at least, I find it harder to play an entire neighborhood since they're doing stuff when I'm not looking. But it's a lot easier to play a single household. I've been playing a legacy family in Riverview, and I like that their friends, extended family, and neighbors keep aging and changing along with them. I am a little worried that there aren't enough babies being born though. What if my legacy kids don't have anyone to marry? Maybe I should download one of the Story Progression mods.

I've also been trying to play the whole Riverview neighborhood, which I've found very hard. I want to keep switching households, but then I worry about what's happening to the other households when I'm not playing them. I think for me The Sims 3 is better for playing a single family, while The Sims 2 is better for controlling an entire neighborhood.

What do other people think? What did you think about the differences between The Sims 2 and The Sims 3?

update coming soon!

I have my new computer now (woo!), but since I haven't had time to set up my Windows partition (I've been a devoted Mac user for about four years), I don't have an update yet. I'm hoping to get everything set up this weekend, and have the next update finished sometime next week.

But in the meantime, here is a teaser pic:

real life interrupts

I've been trying to get back on a regular posting schedule, but I keep getting delayed. The main problem is my computer. My poor MacBook Pro is over three years old, and the cooling system is completely shot at this point. I have to keep the fan on maximum at all times, and even then it frequently overheats when I try playing The Sims 2. This is especially problematic because I'm working on the college update, which requires me to play four households for three days each. But I ordered a new one last week, and it should be here soon. It'll take me a while to get everything transferred, but then I'll be able to play for longer than an hour at a time.

The other distraction has been setting up a new neighborhood. I've been watching a lot of Revenge, a wonderful prime-time soap about duplicitous Hamptonites, and it inspired me to set up a Hamptons-like beach neighborhood for my Sims. So I scrapped my old version of North Port (which you haven't seen, but it's where Tina Traveller and Isaiah Gavigan grew up), and have been building a new neighborhood from scratch. I'm using Phaenoh's lovely Sand Simoleon Point as the neighborhood and have been slowly adding houses and community lots. I don't have any pictures of it to share with you, but I have uploaded two of the lots on Mod The Sims, a residential lighthouse, home of Trent and Trisha Traveller, and Trisha Traveller's restaurant. Next I'm working on a beach house for the Gavigans based on the one in Revenge.

I'll be back soon!

I just realized that I only posted two entries in April, and I haven't posted in several weeks! It will probably be a few more days before I get back to a normal posting schedule, but I promise I haven't abandoned this blog. I actually think there will be some interesting updates ahead; the new teenagers and college kids should provide plenty of drama. I already have a bunch of pictures for my next update, and I'm hoping to post it by this weekend.

new schedule

I've decided to change the way I update my Sims. Instead of writing about four households per year (one household for every season), I'm going to use a two-year-round system like over at Lakeside Heights, where I write an update for every Sim month, and after two Sim years I've covered almost every household. I'm also going to start including school updates for the elementary and high school kids. I'm really excited about this new schedule, although it may take me some time to get used to it, so the next few updates may be kind of late.

I haven't been updating very much lately because I've been very distracted by setting up a downtown. I finally created the perfect neighborhood terrain using Sim City 4, and I've been slowly putting in buildings. It's still very sparse, but once it's more developed I'll include pictures. I've also been trying to fill in some of the gaps in the Providence neighborhood so I can include neighborhood photos. But I've put the building on hold so I can keep going with the storytelling.

my computer returns!

I just got my computer back, and it's working great and doesn't appear to have any memory loss. I'm so relieved. I was really worried that I'd have lost the Providence neighborhood and have to start all over again. So stay tuned; there will be new updates shortly.

real life interrupts

So I was planning to post an update today, but real life intervened and metaphorically kicked me in the face. Yesterday my laptop totally died, like it won't even boot up. I took it to the Apple Store, and the guy at the Genius Bar said it has a hardware problem. Hopefully this will get resolved soon, and since he doesn't think there's anything wrong with the hard drive, hopefully (but not definitely) all of my files will still be in tact. I should get my computer back in a few days, so we'll see.