Guess what day it is!

I'm totally stealing this idea from Laura, but I played the game for a bit and of course I have a new sim dad today.

Happy Falker Satherhood Trigger!

They happily welcomed a young girl sim which they named Felicia.


Amberle also gave him a new desk and had one of his fish mounted. Doesn't a mounted fish over his desk just say "Dad?" Now we just have to get him into golf.


But that wasn't all. Amberle also made him his favorite food for dessert: cookies.

I should have gotten video of him eating his favorite food 'cause OMG it was cute! He had this dopey grin, and he'd clap his hands before he'd take another bite.


Also, these two had one of their first serious conversations while over lunch... but I was too amazed to get pictures. Having a baby has put some added tension on their relationship. Amberle seems a little perturbed that he can do whatever he wants while she has to stay home. So shortly after that, I had her take a "me" day. (For Amberle, that meant going fishing up near the mountains.)

Second Life

So Amberle did it. She took the plunge.

She asked him on one of their very innocent dates. He was certainly surprised. What did he think they were working towards all this time?


The wedding was something of a sad affair as it was only attended by one person-- Aiden Jones who happened to be their boss.

I have always gotten the feeling that Aiden really liked Amberle. It was just bad timing that landed her in Trigger's arms instead of Aiden's. And now Aiden seems to feel he's just too old, so he's happy to support the married couple and wishes them well.



Married life in the little house by the river is amazing.


Now Amberle has someone to help her with her garden, someone to cook her breakfast in the mornings, and an extra tinkerer in the house to repair the things that break.

Sometimes she can't believe it. She'll stare at her ring and just sigh. When he's in the room, she feels so happy it simply hurts. It is possible for one bad luck sim to hold all that love in one sim heart?


Well, you know what follows after.

She just got the news, and she can't believe it. The first night, while Trigger sleeps, she slides out of bed to stare at her flat stomach. Hard to believe that while she sleeps, a little life is growing in there. Something that she and Trigger both created.



These two are SOOOOOO excited. I have to admit it's pretty cute. He right away got the want to read a parenting book and buy a stuffed animal (nevermind the fact that we hadn't added the extra room yet). They now both have the want to have a girl.


Both of them are in the science career, and Trigger has heard that eating watermellons ensures a girl. It is scientific fact-- he heard it at work. So she snacks on these little mellons like crazy.

Other cute wants: Amberle read a parenting book then wanted Trigger to read it too. She also randomly had a want for a high chair. And then Trigger, in the second day of the pregnancy rolled a want to specifically "Have a child with Amberle."





Notice, new eyes? These are SO much prettier than the flat colors from before.

Varina Jupiter and Kamil Eloy

Meet Varina and Kamil.

They've just moved into Sunset Valley on a whim to follow their dreams. They've known each other since they were little and have always bonded over art. (I think there's some story about Varina dumping paint on him in the second grade, but Kamil really doesn't like to talk about it.)



Varina is blue. I suppose you could tell that, but she wasn't always. Her parents were sort of odd and artsy. It's probably where Varina gets it from. She believes that true art comes from stuggle and hardship and more struggle-- ok, not really. Really, she likes to have fun and she's sort of childish at times. But she is struggling.


So here's Kamil. He's going to be famous.

If not for his music, then probably for his skills. He's rather charming, and so far in his first day in Sunset valley, he's had three girls swooning (though one was a teen so she really won't count for a few more years) and met one over drinks. Kamil is generally lucky-- things just aways seem to go his way.


Varina tried to convince Kamil that they needed to just get a cheap house and they could move later once he moved up in his career. But Kamil would have none of that. "It's all part of the image!" Of course, Kamil won't be able to bring his lady friends home for a while.

So their first day was spent trying to make money so they could at least buy beds.

Kamil did what he does best. He started making friends. He's got this way with people, and so before you know it, even the most frugal sim is handing him money willingly.

Varina started by gathering precious stones. She found a few good ones, and so she was able to get enough money to buy them both beds.


It wasn't long before Varina actually managed to sell her first painting, so she treated Kamil out to some fried chicken at the local diner where the most recent incident happened.

Kamil was hanging out front minding his own business.


He says now that he sort of suspected something, but I'm sure that he had no clue. He was too busy day dreaming.

"AHHH!" It's probably not fair to say he screams like a girl, but he does.



Other random picture:

Varina went to the art museum. She didn't look impressed.

But while I was getting that shot...

THIS guy suddenly walked into the camera. Is it just me, or is that a smug smile?

Claire Ursine

Claire called to me. A lonely angler living by the ocean, how could I not pop in on her?

She starts out larger, and I didn't snap a picture of her surprisingly. I started her on the treadmill right way because she had the want to work out until fatigued and I wanted to see how long it would take her to lose the weight.

Not long at all.

Oh you look fine Claire! Don't make that face. Though we should talk about that hat...



Claire works at the Outstanding Citizen Corp. It's a job she likes. People have always been looking down their noses at her since she was little. And her little bit of payback is to work her way up to master thief. She hates people, but it's okay because they hate her too.



When she left the warehouse, the cops were onto her, and they gave chase.

Ok, so what really ended up happening, I got a pop up that they were after her, and then she RAN to the car. It seems she knew that they couldn't hold her. The food is good anyway, plus she likes the solitude of being locked up for a night. She spent the night working out, but she was sick to her stomach the whole night. Maybe it was something she ate before entering the slammer. The evil cook at the warehouse is always trying new agents on anyone who mistakenly trusts him.

No, it turns out it was that one time on that one mission in the back seat with the look out. It had been a spur of the moment what-the-hell kind of thing. This was her take apparently.

I loved watching her stomach grow gradually over the course of the three days.

So that one day, when she was sitting down to burnt waffles, she felt a pain. The time and come, so she calmly called a taxi and went to the hospital. (Come to think of it, she probably really shouldn't have. She's a criminal! What if someone had recognized her?)


She came out with Kirsten.

So will she change her life for this little girl? Or will she continue down the same path? Claire had wanted a boy. Boys are supposed to be tough, but this little girl, swaddled in the delicate pink blankets the hospital gave her, has her worried. Could this innocent little thing be her heir?

Did Claire ever look so sweet and innocent like this? She must not have, because her earliest memories are of her father yelling at her and smacking her around. This girl she only wanted to protect and keep safe in the only way she knew how.

*********************

So I installed Awesome Mod and customized it. Sims can still randomly die from things that are not game play related, but they won't lose inventory (YAAAAAY!), they won't move, and they won't have babies with only one parent.

Now I can have fun visiting many different families and really getting involved. That bug from the last post was a real downer and I didn't want to play after I discovered that.

I've lengenthed their lives to 190 days now, instead of 90. That way I can keep story progression on, visit multiple families, and not loose too much time in their lives. I don't mind missing some days, but 90 days was too short for them to really accomplish anything.

Not cool man!

Ok, so I decided tonight to give rotation style play a chance.

I just had a back and forth recently about an issue someone was having with sims she left alone who lost EVERYTHING in their inventory. All the food she'd grown-- some of which had been stashed in the fridge, and the rewards she'd earned which were in the sim's inventory were just gone.

So I decided to test this out. I made an extra save file and went to town.

In one sim night, I touched on four houses and went back to Amberle. Amberle had nothing in her inventory. Nothing.

The only option is to create save files if you want things to be saved exactly as you left them and with everything in their inventory. The problem is that each save file is essentially another 'hood. So if in one save file Angie has twins while I'm playing another house, and then I move to the save file where Angie is the active house hold-- she will not have twins. She'll be exactly as I left her.



This is another strike against the game for me to be honest. I get bored playing the same family over and over, but if I switch families, then ones where I worked all hard to get them special things in their inventories (like fruits or seeds) they'll all be gone.

What's weird, is that Amberle has been working on upgrading her tub. It's about 80% complete. When I went back it was still at 80%. So if the game could remember that, why can't it remember what she had in her inventory?

In Sims 2, NPCs would come with stuff in their inventories. Why couldn't they keep that feature? I really can't get that.

Living another life

I've been focusing on Amberle's sim these past few days. Making her garden and cook, and having her fixing stuff has been really fun. As sims improve their skills, they can do more. Like Amberle can upgrade things so they'll never break. She's already upgraded the dishwasher so it runs silently.


So Amberle went to work one day when she was feeling unlucky, and there was an accident. It wasn't too bad, she came away only "slightly singed" and with a matching moodlet. XD


Her garden is absolutely coming along. The stuff she has growing: tomatoes, cabbage, grapes, limes, watermelons, onion, garlic, and apples.

She's still not a great cook though she does keep trying.




Amberle has been romancing her co-worker Trigger Broke. They went out to the bistro and ate inside which is fun because you can get change cards.

Amberle was served some bad food, but she kept quiet about it. The waiter noticed, and so their food was on the house plus she came away with some excellent veggies. Unfortunately, she got sick on the side walk.

Trigger didn't seem to mind, he still comforted her even though he seemed rather confused about it.



Maybe he was just surprised to have a girl this cute in his arms, because Trigger often does not know how to behave.

He's moody. He's rejected her kiss already once, but it might have been this night here where she vomited on the sidewalk.


Just WHAT is Billy (that guy on the right) laughing at?


Also, he's boring. She invited him to her birthday party, and he sat there reading a book rather than socializing! (Although, he does get points for bringing food to the party.)



Amberle was only thanking this guy for her promotion. I'm a little worried about this relationship. I don't like the way he's watching her. And he kept trying to get between them all night.

Also, everyone else who left said they had fun, but Trigger only said it was "...nice." Just like that!

Will these two get married? Amberle isn't a young adult anymore. It's time to think about starting a family.



Other cute pics:



The animation for the handy sim. I think her face is cute, and rather appropriately Amberle actually. XD I imagine that would be the look on my other Amberle's face the first time she surprises Henry by fixing his car or something.


This here was darn adorable. The maid for some reason decided she would brush her teeth while on the job.


The problem was that Amberle was going to take a bath and had just hopped in. Amberle screamed while in the tub, then climbed out.

I told her to take a shower once the maid had left, and Amberle had this thought bubble over her head:


Then I noticed she had an embarrassed moodlet!

My review and thoughts

I really like this game. It's fun, there's a lot to do, and the customizing is SO FUN. (Seriously, take that tool away from me!)

BUT there is one huge problem for me. Maybe it's more a bunch of little problems thrown together and maybe it's more my problem than the game's.

I can't bond with these sims. While I'm playing I sort of care, but I care in the way I care about my Harvest Moon farmer. I just want my Harvest Moon farmer to reawaken the goddess, plant good crops, and have that baby.

It's the same in TS3. I find that very often, playing a sim isn't about the story, but about getting tasks done. Get that promotion, pass on those genes, get that garden!

Since I can't hop around to see what is going on in the other house holds without loosing out on what another family is doing, I can't really bond to anyone other than the sim I am playing. And even then, they are only a vehicle for me to do what I want. They are cute, and there are a lot of surprises, but all in all, I don't feel my sim has a personality.

Maybe I need to play more or watch my sims closer. Amberle sim is cute, but other than her moodlets, I can't really get any feeling from her. You know how romance sims walk that walk when they're going to hit on someone? Or how shy sims look at you with the "why me" when you tell them to do something like flirt with someone? Yeah, none of that. Or how I catch Alberta looking awkward or with her eyes closed in pictures like all the time-- none of that either.


Now, I don't want to sound pessamistic or like a regular Sims 3 hater. I really like the game. It's pretty fun. But I do find myself getting bored of playing one family, and then I find myself too scared to move on from that family to play another because they'll lose inventories and wants.

Also-- no memories! As we've seen countless times, those memories can be handy. Sometimes sims surprise you when you aren't paying attention. But when I visited Angie, I have no idea what she's been up to. Has she had her first kiss? Did she date anyone in high school? Why does she dislike that one sim so much?

I'm pretty sure the answer to all of those is no, of course. But I wish there was a way to keep in contact with sims like that. Like writing letters or something! Can you imagine how fun that would be? Angie moves out and I follow her. Her parents can send her letters letting her know what's going on in their lives. Like "Dad won the eating contest over at the Bistro!" or "Mom got a promotion. She's on her way to World Leader!" That way I would care about those sims and they wouldn't just become NPCs with no personality or lives.

Revisiting Angie

I have done a lot with Amberle. But all of it has been pretty boring. It's go to work, work on garden (which she doesn't gain fun for-- Sims 2 sims love gardening!), go to sleep, and sometimes do other stuff inbetween.

I would like to play her like a legacy sim and continue on with the line.

But first, so what ever happened to Angie? She's an adult now.



So I checked out the home. I am playing with story progression on and high free will.

Both of the parents are exactly how I left them. Same jobs and same level of jobs too. Same skills even from the looks of it! Norm's garden is even in the exact same state I left it in.

Maggie has of course grown without me. Her traits are: couch potato and loves the outdoors (traits she had to start with), loner (trait I picked) and good and friendly (traits her mother happens to have). She has no job and is unemployed, but she does have some skills. Writing being one.


Also, sims dress themselves. Unlike Sims 2 where sims would stay the way you dress them, they will randomly change their clothes so even if I wanted to give her a better look she would randomly just change her clothes.

I'm kind of wondering what to do if they move. How would I find them again. Is there some hidden search feature? XD


The house even looks exactly the way I left it. Angie still has toys in her room. And no siblings.

Finishing one and starting another

To finish up with the Felix house hold-- I played her last night and so I know her name. It's Aubrey Feliz. And she's pretty awesome. She's the only sim I have that will actually use all of her outfits regardless of the occasion. She seems to enjoy wearing her swimsuit to work on her book.

So I sent her out to check on Norm, Angie, and Maggie because she only lives down the street.

So guess who's a teen?



I hadn't realized that that much time had passed. Here she is politely trying to explain that she's a loner and no she would not like any company.


When Aubrey got home, there was a burgler already at her house!



What does she take? The precious stones on the table behind her? No, she runs off with Aubrey's stove!

Well along with being insane and inappropriate, Aubrey is brave, so she kicked the robber's butt.




She didn't get her stuff back, or any money or anything. Just a negative moodlet because her stuff was stolen. :(


So I also spent some time redecorating her house because I think she's love a more colorful house.



I had a lot of fun just trying out different things. On the front of her desk, she's using contact paper she found which inspired her to stain her desk and chair green.


Other neat things about Aubrey-- she enjoys making inappropriate forum posts, and if she doesn't get a response, she gets a negative moodlet. When she does get a response (she got one from someone who said people like her were the reason he would no longer visit the forums) she gets feindishly delighted for a few hours.

And she likes talking about people's mothers and conspiracy theories and asking if they've caught anything even if they haven't been fishing.

Oh and she's over emotional. So any moodlet she gets gives her more of a boost.




So then last night, someone gave me the idea to try re-making someone in Sims 3. I'm not good at these things, but I think you might know who this is.



I need to work more on her hair, but that's as close as I could get to Amberle. I used this and this as a reference.

The actual Amberle has this awesome mesh by H.Lin that I got from TSR. The texture on the mesh looks brown, but under direct light looks red. It's such an amazing texture.

Anyway, Amberle is clumbsy, unlucky, a green thumb, handy, and she loves the outdoors.


So I then proceeded to build Amberle a house (possible premonition of future events).



I'm weird. I like the building sparkles.

Her house has a spot for gardening and she's close to the river (it is right behind her house.)



This is the inside her house. I clearly need to have the coloring tool taken away from me. XD Green is Amberle's trademark color and her favorite. So I figured I should make the house interesting. Not everything is green-- just most things.

And what's nice is that the recoloring is free, so a poor sim can redecorate too if they want.

Testing time

Angie as a child! She's actually pretty cute, I think.


Norm with the new skin which can be compared to this picture. I see no difference other than the skin is pixelly, but HP warns in her post that it will be like that due to the way skin are rendered in game. I would guess that's why the normal skins are so flat.

Norm running for another comparison.


Being a kid is sort of hard in TS3! The homework takes a while, and both of Angie's parents work now, so they're too tired by the time the family gets home to help her. I haven't managed to get her to skill in anything other than fishing, and that's only because she wanted to fish and it's a great father daughter bonding time.

It does seem like there is a lot more skilling. There is also a lot more sitting around with the game on fast forward waiting for the sims to finish their tasks. You can get help in the form of the opportunities. They will give you skilling and relationship boosts.


So tonight I abandoned Norm, Angie and Maggie and picked up my new character.

Meet girl who's name I can't remember. I remember her last name is Feliz, that's it. She is a complete tester sim. She's innapropriate and insane among other things. (She also is using the original skin here, not the default replacement.)

Her mission (my test) is to see if a sim can make a living doing something other than having a job.

There is plenty to do besides skilling and moving up the job ladder.

The first thing I had her do was to start collecting. It was cool, but not necessarily viable. She has to wander from one side of town to the other (lots of waiting time for me), and she doesn't necessarily get much from collecting. She might though if I have her keep at it.

Here she is sending stones away to be cut. They can then be displayed at home.

Check out her desk:

I love that clutter can be placed now without the use of something like OSMPs.


Ms. Feliz has taken to writing. I had her start on a trashy novel, but then she was given an opportunity to write a drama for someone that will pay well and give her a relationship boost with the person who asked for it.

So she's working on it now. I've been having some fun with her. Since she doesn't have a job or any responsibilities, I've just had her wandering around town. There are plenty of ways to make money other than jobs.

You can: get a part time job at a local business, you can invest in local businesses if you have enough money, you can find a random opportunity (these will show up as special icons on the map-- Norm ran across an eating contest that offered money.)

But money still remains difficult to accumulate. I would guess that it'll get easier with more EPs just like it did in Sims 2.

Just making sure...

Everyone knows about this right? MTS2 has already worked out a way to add mods.

So far I've gotten rid of the "zzzz" when sims are sleeping and gotten rid of the intro movie.


AAAAND the big news: we have default replacement skins
already.


Although there is this issue for existing sims:

"Unlike TS2, default skins will not automatically update on existing sims! You will have to Change Appearance and Plan outfit (and make actual changes, not just click the checkbox without changing things!) for every outfit type for each and every sim, if you use these skins with existing sims. For this reason, it is much better to use these skins with a fresh neighborhood or with all new families."

They're watching you!

Ok, so last night Angie aged up and I threw her a tiny little party! But I have no pics of her aged up. She's actually really cute.


This is Heather standing near Norm. She was a sim that Maggie was supposed to take out to dinner for work, but I couldn't figure out how to do it. Once I did figure out how, things got all screwy.

The deal is that when the boss tells you that you need to go to dinner with someone, you're supposed to zoom out to map view, and then click on the special icon which follows that sim around. Then you go to that sim and I suppose do whatever you're supposed to at that time-- but Heather, when my sim found her, was inside someone's house, so that broke the action. And my sim could not just ask her, there were no special commands, and actually inviting her out DID NOT complete the opportunity surprisingly. So I was told to take her to dinner, but taking her to dinner didn't work.

On the plus side, because I tried everything, Maggie has a new friend which she invited over to her daughter's birthday party. Well Heather didn't show up alone. A huge plus in my book after that earlier frustration was that she showed up with her husband. I'm sure he complained the whole way, but he did show up and we had an okay party.


Here's the disappointing part:



The exact same animations as Sims 2. I don't mind that sims do all the basic things the same as Sim 2 sims, but something about this just seemed lazy.

To get Angie to the cake was a lot of work. There was a huge traffic jam in the living room when Norm tried to take Angie over to the cake. That first picture is Norm trying to pick up Angie, but Heather is standing in the middle of the room. The baby moves a lot now to try to help be picked up, so she and her father kept circling Heather who stood still like that totally in the way.



I thought this was cute:



Norm is a frugal sim, so he can clip coupons from the paper, which is really cute. He finds some great deals! If I get them a computer, he can apparently do the same on the computer. Ironically, because he gets these coupons, we end up going out and using them so I think they end up spending more money-- but don't tell Norm that. Cutting coupons is his past time.

Oh OH, and he went out and got a job. His first day he got a promotion. And he also came home with a mirror stolen from the fort. Hahaha! I forgot that Norm is also a klepto. Don't invite him over to your house.


Last one:



It's that creepy eye thing they do sometimes. Don't they both look like they're up to no good? It's really kind of freaky when I'm playing and they make those faces.