A Few Graphics Questions and Updates

I've been gone for awhile, I know. *sigh*

September 7th was my birthday (woohoo!), and also the day that I started school (not so woohoo), so I've been a little busy since then. Also, my wisdom tooth is killing me. And I don't think I can continue playing TS3 as much until I do something about my graphics card (and game), because the game itself has been crashing a lot (nothing new) and I predict my 9500 graphics card blowing out on me in the near future if I continue simming as much as I did. Seriously, I smelled the lightly masked smell of smoke after a couple of hours of playing. I'm so done with nVidia.

So, my questions to you guys today are:

1. Would you guys recommend ATI Raedon, and which card would you recommend? I want a really good one that will make my graphics show up a lot better, because I'm currently experiencing graphics envy. *sad violin*
2. When/if you guys purchased Ambitions, did it improve your graphics any? I noticed that in the earlier stages of TS3's patches, my graphics improved with the patches, and the graphics kind of decreased with the installation of WA.

Also, I'm going to add on another blog. Not to replace this one, but to use as an "Author's Corner". I want to tidy up this blog and make it pretty much exclusive to the Dillards and their world saga, and keep my random musings and unrelated game updates in a different blog. It'll look a lot neater, methinks. :)

Again, thank you guys so much for sticking around and reading my updates, even after my frequent involuntary hiatuses. It means a lot.

Now, I'm going to go catch up on some blog reading!

Lightning-Quick Update!

It's rambly time! I'm extremely hyper right now. Extremely. This is what coffee does to you, kids. Anyway, I really really want to make this post because I want you to get to know the residents of SH, and their personalities as well as their offspring. And plus there's a whole bunch of other crap that I wanted to tell you guys and never did so this will be the post to do it!! (P.S. if you're new to the blog, or you just want to be "shocked" the next update, there are *spoilers* in this post. Don't know where yet, but I have loose lips. Or is that fingers?) So...ready? Let's begin!

 1. Where do the Dillards live?

So, I've been meaning to do a house tour for awhile now, but I wanted to wait until the living room and the kitchen were fixed up (it's very, very plain, and even a little messy since I'm interrupting the story). Oh well, I'll just let the kitchen be a surprise for readers/downloaders. btw, there will be no pictures of the 2nd story hallway. It's cramped up there, so trying to get a good pic of the hallway would be torture. And without further ado, I present...

The Dillard Homestead (click the link)

http://s288.photobucket.com/albums/ll177/Cheezypuff_2008/The%20Sims%203/Dillard%20Family/?action=view&current=bcd9dea3.pbw

This sounds incredibly cheesy, but I'm so proud of them. They're living the simmy suburban dream. :') The house will be uploaded as soon as I get enough funds to update the kitchen, living room, and backyard. Thank God Brandon is at the top of his career now, woooo!

2. Who all live in Saskan Harbour?

Saskan Harbour is populated mostly with my sims, and a little with sims the game spawned. I haven't grown attached to most of them, admittedly, since they were all just meant to woohoo like bunnies and throw pretty babies for the Dillards to woo. Also, I wanted the world to seem less...lonely, and more populated.

Since I have enough sims to make me not want to do an entire world tour, I'm just going to show you my favorites:

(Some Of) The Residents:

Also known as "Angelina's Nice Twin".

Name: Geneva Watts

 Impact on story: none

Dear Mandie, I'm so sorry I never actually played you. But you're awesome anyway.

 Name: Mandie Jenner

Impact on story: minimal (Sandy's boss)

My favorite family. After the Dillards, of course.

Names: (from L to R) Allen Francois-Gale, Anya Francois-Gale, Trudy Francois-Gale, Kiana Francois-Gale

Impact on story: yes

side note - Chelsea sadly broke up with Dequan. *weeps*

Name: Chelsea Oliver

Impact on story: none

  

 3. Where did Angelina go?


Angelina took a hike, lol! The rivalry is no more, I'm sorry to say. Angelina is a doting mommy (and a semi-faithful girlfriend) now, and Sandy seems to be preoccupied with cramming as many babies into her simmy uterus as she can at the moment.

3. Who is Jia Kia Lin?  (spoiler alert, but it may help you understand "Kyle's Story" more)

Why, my dear friends, what a wonderful question! Jia Kai is the result of a fragmented thought of mine.
 It all started with a moral. A moral that if we loved with all our hearts, life would be better. But what if not all love is good? What if some love is obsessive, dangerous, toxic, and foolish? And what would you do with a love like that? Of course, there are faults in that logic (hence the "fragmented" part, since I didn't think it all the way through) but I figured it would be something interesting to attempt.

Bad Jia! No drinking while your parents are gone!

Jia Kai is, in essence, toxic. Admittedly, she's also a greatly amplified manifestation of my own toxicity. I can't say that I have the same history as Jia, or the same "forwardness", but she's also a manifestation of the toxicity of others. She's a jumble of outside influences, lol. She's dark, manipulative, alluring, and violent. One surprising fact about her is that she can't stand liars. Don't let her exterior fool you however, there's a soft spot deeep deeeeeep down, and it'll take a special person to bring it out. I kind of look forward to unraveling the layers of her personality as well as Kyle's, they're both rather complex. And now that we're done talking about the mysterious Jia Kai....

4. Tell me more about Kyle, he's such a cutie! *more spoilers*

Liar liar, chess on fire

Yep! But he's also a bit of a compulsive liar. He wants to be cool at SH high, but in reality, he's just as much of a nerd as his mother and his two younger siblings. He makes up lies to stay in with the "cool crowd", but the girls he makes up lies about don't mind because he's *oh so charming*. Even as a baby, Kyle was quite the attention seeker, so it doesn't shock me that he'd stoop so low. But boy oh boy, Jia will be pissed if she ever finds out.

5. Who is Shao Lin?

No one. He doesn't matter. *stiff smile*

And now it's time for...

BONUS QUESTION!!

I need a bigger world. I need you guys to pick a world. Wait, that wasn't really a question. Okay, bonus request then.

Sooo, pick 'un!

http://mysims3blog.blogspot.com/2010/08/orchard-new-neighborhood-by-babolat.html
http://mysims3blog.blogspot.com/2010/08/georgia-falls-new-neighbourhood-by.html


Pretty sure at least one of them needs Ambitions, but eh...

Annnd,

BONUS PICTURE

Everyone reacting to the doorbell. Hilarious.

Enter: the confused ramblings of a sick person...

I felt the need to make this post because I haven't made one in awhile and I wanted it to be known that I'm not giving up on it. Just recently I got sick (again, I know. remind me not to hang around little kids without taking some vitamin c tablets first), but even before then, I wasn't making regular updates. That is because I experienced a feeling of "burnout", which I often get when playing or blogging too frequently and running into a wall, and I also got stuck on what way I should re-do their home. Thankfully I've got the home taken care of now, so when I start playing again that'll be done. :D Still needs some fixing up though, so I think I plan on skipping a little story-wise. Don't worry, you won't miss much. ;)

Anyway, here are a few pictures from my last playing session...enjoy!

p.s. Kyle = cutest thing ever, even as a kid



And last but not least, the result of their somewhat-limited funds
Keep in mind that the inside is still basically nothing but walls and cement, lol

What the...?

Well, just to prove that my game likes to hold grudges, it totally spazzed on me when Sandy and Brandon came back from their vacation. Yesterday it was somewhat fine until they arrived back to Saskan Harbour, and then Brandon's thumbnail picture disappeared (it was blank), and he was still in his work clothes and unable to change out of them. I figured that if I saved, quit, and deleted the SimCompositorcache so it could generate a new one, it would fix it. It didn't. Instead, the UI disappeared completely. I removed all my mods, and the same thing happened. Now I'm going to download a program that will help me find corrupt CC (that is, if I can find a program that does that). If there's no corrupt CC, I might have to start over with a new Brandon and a new Sandy. It's a bit sad because even though they're still the same sims, they're just...different, you know? They're clones, instead of the originals. It doesn't feel the same. :(

And on top of that, Blogger has been acting strange (which I'm sure is no surprise to you guys, since as I've seen by reading other simmers' blogs, the comments are goofing up for everyone). Now that I'm done whining, I'll show you the final pictures that I took before some bug completely killed the save file.








R.I.P. Sandy Alcott and Brandon Dillard, see you again soon.

*sigh* I give up...for now.

This time, my lack of blogging isn't because I've forgotten to blog. It's because life, again, has not been the most cooperative, and my inspiration for Crescent Hills has fallen flat. It would be a lot easier for me if I just continued to play my sims and blog about that (while entering CAW whenever I feel my mind is fresh enough) as opposed to focusing full-speed ahead on CAW and having an extreme lack of updates because I haven't been in CAW in probably about a month.

Right now I am downloading money mods to help with the "sim-to-sim" vibe I want , because it was genius, it made the game fun, and I haven't seen many Sim-To-Sim sites for the sims 3 yet in that style, and I'd looove to give it a go. It made gameplay in TS2 interesting, and unfortunately, by the time I already got into the style of s-to-s writing and playing, TS3 came out. I'm also cleansing my game files of cc I don't really use, so that there's room for the mods without noticeable lag.

The way I started this project in TS2 was that there would be six founders, and they would all be young adults. One for each career path, basically. :) One would specialize in medicine, one would specialize in crime-fighting, one would specialize in business, and one would specialize in politics. Slowly but surely, I worked in the crime, music, art, and education careers. I will be following a similar suit for TS3, and hopefully it will work out well. :) A really good mod I found would be this: http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=391254. I haven't tested it out yet, but it'll help with the taking of loans and such. I try to make it pretty realistic, because then it gets fun.

Off to go play now, and hopefully, I'll be able to get some pics up tomorrow! :)

March 13- 2010- More Create A World!

I did some quick editing (about 30 minutes to an hour) in CAW today, and I have some new pics to show you guys. :)

Crescent Hills

Crescent Lake

Bridge (I removed the other bridge)

Rock bed (I don't know if you can tell, but the rock bed is right next to the cluster of rocks show in in the picture. I took some landscaping rocks as well as some smooth granite rocks and sunk them a little below the ground to add realism. Hopefully you'll be able to see them if you click on the picture)

Things seem to be coming along nicely so far.

*Also, judging by some of the pictures, the dirt and the terrain look very messy. I promise you that this is merely a side affect of CAW, and that it looks as it should when zoomed in far enough. :)

March 10, 2010- First day in Riverview

Anya made her way to the community gardens so she had something to do while I scoped out more of Riverview's scenery. I always noticed how pretty it was, but I never really went around the neighborhood and took pictures as inspiration for my own world. I got some pretty good pictures.

Since I left the game running while looking for new pictures, I neglected poor Anya for about 8 or 9 sim hours. However, I was tremendously shocked when I found that she pretty much took care of herself. Now, for the most part, TS3 sims are better to leave along compared to TS2 sims, but they still pretty much pee and fall over and die if I leave them attended for too long. Maybe Anya will be different.

And speaking of Anya, she is CC free and ready to be shipped to your game!

http://www.thesims3.com/assetDetail.html?assetId=2100204

Enjoy!

March 09, 2010- She may look familiar to you...

I was fooling around in CAS today, and I remade a pre-made that I used for one of my stories. If she looks familiar, it's because it's Selma, but modified, renamed, and childless. I figured that I needed to spend some time actually playing the game (especially Riverview, which I think is the most scenic) if I want to get a good start on my world. So I'll be playing her through Riverview for a bit.

Meet Anya Francois: a good, easily awoken, flirtatious, excitable, and clumsy sim who would love to become an international super spy. Unfortunately, her adventure doesn't quite begin just yet. I don't have enough time to play and blog, so right now I'm just getting back into the habit of blogging with this post. Her adventure will start tomorrow, and will hopefully be up by Thursday.

On a side note, I've become "addicted" to making sims with minimal cc. It inspires you to try harder, and to go outside of the box so all the sims don't look the same...which was difficult enough in TS2, lol. I think Anya turned out rather nicely in contrast to Selma. I smoothed out some of the rougher edges, and fixed the nose because it bothered me a lot. I see a lot more personality in Anya than I do Selma.

March 04, 2010 An apology as well as an update

So I just wanted to apologize for being away for so long, again, and thank you for continuing to read this blog. I'm going to start on a new template (again), and hopefully, this one will be even better than the first and the second. CAW is all about trial and error, so some things don't really work out as planned. With that said, I think I'm going to make a landlocked world slightly based on New Zealand. It will still have a beach, or maybe a beach-like area, but I've been in a CAW slump for so long, so over the past month I have done virtually no changes to the template, and when I saw some pictures of NZ yesterday, I was amazed. It's truly a beautiful and scenic place, which I think is something we would all want as a base world. :)

Since I plan on having this be a landlocked world and not an island, the template probably won't look like NZ itself. The pictures at the top of the blog are pictures of NZ that I'll be using as reference points.

This may or may not wind up requiring WA, I'm not too sure. I'll see how far I can get with some imagination and creativity, and then if I still need some WA objects like plants, bridges, and rivers, I'll go ahead and install WA. Hopefully it can remain WA-free. :)

February 13, 2010- Pobreza Update #2

Selma starts off her Tuesday afternoon teaching Lily how to talk on her day off from work. She finally got the sleep she needed, and boy did it pay off! She's feeling pretty lucky; maybe she'll get a raise at work soon. Or even better, a promotion.

And while Selma was teaching little Lily about the Simlish language, I was busy making what could very well be Selma's dream home. With 3 bedrooms, 1 bath (but the middle bedroom can easily be converted into another bath), this home was spacious, affordable, and in a "better" neighborhood. Not to mention it's only 10 or 20 sim minutes away from the daycare and the school. Unfortunately, Selma only has $256 dollars to her name, while the price tag for this house is about $21,000. Here's hoping for that promotion!

Selma took advantage of the fact that the daycare was open 24 hours of the day, and decided to begin teaching Lily how to potty, and how to read. Overall, it was a peaceful day.

That all ended at about 2AM, though. Lily wouldn't stop crying, and Selma was once again extremely tired. That, and the sink broke! It seems her luck is wearing off.

When she woke up a few hours later, the entire room was flooded! Unfortunately, Selma didn't have time to mop up the puddles. However, she was able to repair the sink entirely on her own.

Selma was disheartened when she saw the steep price on her bills. $885 was quite a bit of simoleans and she didn't have enough money. She had to sell her sofa set and replace it with a smaller, cheaper love seat. It wasn't a huge trade, but it still bothered her that she couldn't even make ends meet.

Selma left for work, hoping that if she arrived early and worked harder than usual, her luck would turn around. Thankfully Selma remembered to hide the TV before the babysitter came.

Selma arrived home from work tired, burned-out, and stressed. She wondered why she worked so hard for a $98 paycheck, and thought about quitting and working full-time at the local police station, or maybe the community theatre. Then, she was reminded of Lily and the fact that she can't take care of herself just yet, and she was also reminded of the crappy babysitter who would surely let her baby starve to death if she left her in her hands for 8 hours. Selma decided it would be best to wait until Lily was of school-age to apply for an actual job.

Oh, and Lily finally learned how to talk!

She was also potty trained on the same night. Lily's growing up so fast!

The workshift on Thursday was like every other workshift Selma's had so far at the Pobreza Day Spa. She's worked her butt off, only to be berated for being so stressed out, and rewarded with only a $98 check.

Friday was a different story, however. For one thing, Lily learned how to walk! And it's a good thing too, since Lily's birthday is today. Which also means that Selma can finally get the "real job" she's been looking for. No more minimum wage!

Lily grew up into a child later on that day, and is taking quite a bit after her father. She'll start attending Plumb Elementary in two days.

While Lily enjoys her cake, Selma is busy hunting for easy bacon. She sent her resume to Hogan's Deep-Fried Diner, and they accepted her. Finally, she'll be getting more money in! Of course, she's not much of a chef, but if it pays the bills...

-----------------

Wow, we're on Friday already?! Only two more days until Sunday, which would make it a week. I think I'll extend the deadline, since I need to test out the school and Lily won't be attending school until Monday. So make that two weeks in Pobreza!
I'm really happy for Lily and Selma. So far, things seem to be looking up for them. More income, less babysitter, less whiny Lily...the works. :)
And also, Lily's new trait is Frugal! I figured it'd be fitting, considering the lifestyle that Lily's lived so far. The more money saved in this household, the better!

February 09, 2010 - A Week In Pobreza (Days 1-3)

*So today I created some families (some might show up in the official neighborhood, most are just fillers created by EA) and I decided to have the Langston family be my testers. I'm really excited to show you this part of New Haiven because for the most part, everything turned out like I hoped it would. A lot of places in Pobreza can be accessed by merely walking, cars aren't really necessary (which is why it annoys me when the carpool to take Selma to her job when it was only a few steps away). And unfortunately, the daycare doesn't work as I thought it would; it would still prove to be handy if you had a child that needed entertaining or if you had a child who could watch over the toddler/baby in the household. It appears you can't just drop off infants and toddlers without being left with a child or older.*

Welcome to Pobreza, New Haiven!

A city that was once full of life is now a community stricken of poverty and neglect. Formerly named Spruceville, it has been renamed by City Hall to match its current financial state. Full of crime and petty theft, Pobreza is far from the ideal place to live. It also has some shady characters. Mix that all up with a suspicious warehouse and an understaffed police department, and you have a rather unsafe town.

*some background*

Selma (Marx) Langston wasn't always poor and didn't always live in slums. In fact, how she got to Pobreza is actually a very long story. Selma was in love with a man named Lucas Langston, and they met each other in Sunset Valley. Amazingly enough, the were both very Flirty and Commitment-phobes. Selma and Lucas tried having an open relationship, but they got jealous very easily. They made a promise to battle their commitment phobias together for the sake of love. They got married and moved into a nice family home. They were considered upper-middle class by the residents of Sunset Valley.
Then, disaster struck. Lucas was staying "at work" late for many nights; sometimes he wouldn't make it back in until 4AM. Selma tried to let him "sew his wild oats" for as long as she could until she found out she was pregnant with his child; then she confronted him about his assumed infidelity. He denied it, and Selma moved into her mother's home. While Selma was staying at her mother's abode, Lucas set the house on fire by accident, leaving nothing but ashes and dust behind. Of course, Lucas perished in the fire. Selma found out when the Sunset Valley fire department contacted her. As soon as she got the news, she went into a deep bout of depression, even threatening to run away to Riverview to start anew. She gave birth to Lily a day before expected, making her premature. (think: day= month) Thanks to Selma's healthy Vegetarian diet however, Lily was born healthy, even though she was slightly underweight. For such a Lucky girl, Selma sure didn't feel lucky at all. A few days after Lily was born, she found out that her husband made investments in a local criminal scam, and the Police took all of Selma and Lucas' illegally-acquired savings leaving her only $17,000. On the bright side...Lucas wasn't lying when he said he wasn't having an affair. With what little money she had, she picked up her things and headed to Pobreza, New Haiven in hopes that maybe things will turn out right the second time around.

This is the place that Selma and Lily Langston dwell in. It has roaches in the front yard, and very little space, but it was pretty cheap!
Selma still has some job-hunting to do, so I sent her out to the Day Spa to apply as a receptionist. But it looks like Selma forgot something. Or more accurately, someone.

"...Mama?"

"Lily!" Selma ran back to her trailer after forgetting about poor Lily.

"But where can I put you? I can't take you with me..." Selma thought for a second. What was that one place she once read about in the newspaper ads?
"Oh yeah, the Plumb Daycare Center! How 'bout it Lily Pad?" She said, smiling at Lily. Her only reply was a giggle.

"This is...interesting." She said aloud. This is by far the cheeriest place she has come across in Pobreza, but that's not saying much. It's also the cleanest (but again, not saying much). The siding was stark white and the steps looked like they were cleaned regularly, but the weeds and the dead plants concerned her slightly. Would this be a good place to leave her child?

"Wow, this is nice!" She exclaimed. Everything looked so neat and orderly, which pleased her Perfectionist side. Too bad that the daycare is closed.
"I guess I'll just have to take you back home for a bit, Lily Pad." she sighed. Baby sitters were so expensive nowadays, and it's bad enough that she has to use them while she's at work. Thankfully, Lily won't be a toddler for much longer.

After taking Lily back home and leaving her with a sitter, Selma made her way to the Pobreza Day Spa. She got the job almost immediately after walking in; who says that job shortages are a bad thing after all?

Selma went back home and got Lily so they could go to the Bookstore together. She wanted to get Lily some developmental books, but she wound up chatting with a few of Pobreza's "odd" residents.

She got along rather well with Stephen Braxx, the resident bad-boy (who still lives with his sister) but his hot-headedness annoyed her. One minute, they were flirting, and the next, he was yelling profanities at her right in front of her daughter! No thank you!

Then there was Donovan Delano, who was also employed in the Criminal career track. Boy oh boy, did he make her heart flutter! But when she found out he was a married man, she ruled him out. Maybe the old Selma would have went for the challenge, but now that Selma has a daughter, she's matured a lot since then. And evil or not, Donovan seemed to love his wife quite a bit.

Finally, Lily broke free of Selma's grasp with her mastered squirming technique. It's a good thing too, because Lily was getting rather bored watching her mother talk to random men.

She then started talking to Clive Harper which was going pretty well until he had the nerve to complain about and criticize her daughter who was innocently playing with her toy! Selma fought back by calling him a baby, and then quickly walked away before she had the urge to declare him a nemesis.

Selma took Lily back home because it was getting late and she had a date with Stephen. Even though he was rather hot-headed, she decided to try and keep her mind off of that. Stephen wasn't her type and his life of crime and foul mouth wouldn't be a good influence on Lily, but she was getting lonely. A bit of socialization would do her well.

Selma and Stephen made their way to Mike's Bar for their "date". She heard the profanities in the music blasting from the stereo, and was very glad that she decided to leave Lily at home.

For the most part, their date was fun. They played some foosball and drank a few glasses of juice. But for Selma who was a recovering juice-a-holic (she became addicted shortly after Lily was born), "a few glasses quickly became a few bottles.

And "a few bottles" quickly became "a few too many" bottles.

---Next Day---

"Where am I?" Selma mumbled to herself.
She passed out at Mike's Bar, still feeling slightly intoxicated with juice. Stephen was nowhere to be found; in fact, no one was there. She looked at the clock: 7AM.
"7AM...oh no...LILY!!!"

With as much energy as she could muster, she ran back home to Lily and hoped that the babysitter didn't have a hefty fee for her to pay.

And just in time too, because as usual, the sitter is crappy.
After changing Lily's diaper and putting her to bed, Selma went into the kitchen to have a snack before work.

Unfortunately, she passed out in the kitchen in between taking care of Lily and trying to eat.

After Lily settled down, it was already 11AM and she barely had time to eat, let alone nap.
She later passed out again outside of the day spa; her co-workers found her and woke her up. She was late and hungover for her first day of work!

When she got home from work, she dismissed the babysitter and promptly passed out. The babysitter didn't even bother to wake her; she just left without a sound. Thankfully, Lily's screams woke her up.

After taking care of Lily again, Selma finally got to sleep on her bed for the first time since she's moved to Pobreza. This would prove to be an interesting week.

-----------------------

This was an interesting update! So before I tell you what wasn't staged, I think it'd be easier if I tell you what was staged:

1. The meet-up at Mike's bar
2. The history of Selma and Lily

That about narrows it down! Lol! She actually did pass out in front of the Day Spa, and at the bar, and twice at home; she actually had me worrying for a bit. That is the last time she's going out partying! The background is something I actually wanted to play out in-game for this testing, but I decided that would be too much work just for a neighborhood test. So that would have been their background/history if it weren't for the fact that they're CAS sims. ;)
And for some reason, none of the sims were drawn to the bar (or anywhere else for that matter), but they all frolicked to the bookstore. Hmm....are these criminals in disguise, or nerds in disguise?

This isn't exactly what I planned for a tour, but I think it would work out. Instead of showing buildings and the description of those buildings, it would show how sims in Pobreza live. That being said, do you think your guys' sims would last a week in Pobreza? I actually doubt that Selma and Lily will, lol! And man, I wish that roaches carried diseases like they do in real life...