My new computer arrived Friday afternoon and it's a monster. I don't think it's the fact I haven't had a tower for five years that makes it look so big, I think it just is big, the specs are pretty monstrous too.

I spent Saturday installing Sims2 and all the expansion packs (a very tedious experience) and then copying all the files on my old computer that I need. There was a brief moment of panic the first time I tried to run the game when it gave me a message about not being able to find any directx 9.0c compatible devices but it turned out I'd installed the noCD crack wrong.

After sorting that out everything has gone smoothly. My loading time (clicking on the icon to being in a house) is down from 2 hours (which I know is ridiculous) to less than 20 minutes. I can turn the game to speed three and zoom all the way out without time slowing to a crawl, even on a 5x5 lot. Like I said I love my new computer.

I'm still stuck on the Discworlds and I don't have office on my new computer so I decided to test the computer by playing a new legacy family (in a new neighbourhood), for fun (and because I've been reading a few of them lately) I decided to make it an awesomesauce legacy (rules). I don't know whether I'll ever write anything about them but I thought I'd show a couple of pictures:


Zydras Farbe - founder

( Couple more pictures )
I was thinking it might help me get back into the writing mindset if I write something like this (no plot, no complicated narrative) but I don't want to abandon the Discworlds for too long.

I've been meaning to do this for a while but kept getting distracted.  This was originally going to be a fairly indepth discussion of the plot so far and what's going on inside some of my sims heads (Esme and Edward in particular) but then I realised that because the plot isn't over yet I was either going to have to be very cryptic and not make much sense or give away a lot of what I'm planning, so now this is just some extra pictures and gameplay comments.

( 20 pictures )

That's it for now.  I've got to get back to writing the next chapter (still got a long way to go on that) and making vacation townies.  The problem with empty templates is that if the game spawns vacation townies they lack the ability to teach the gestures and dances (at least that's what I've read and I don't want to test it out in the Discworld 'hood) so I need to make my own before I can continue with the Esme/Edward plot.

I'm making progress on chapter 20, I'm currently pulling out the pictures I'm going to use and working out what order I want things to happen in.  Hopefully I'll get the chapter up in the next week (which'll be helped if my brain starts giving me ideas for this chapter rather than many chapters ahead).  While I'm waiting for my game to load (so I can shoot/re-shoot any scenes that I need to) I thought I'd share some pictures of the current state of my neighbourhood.

( Read more... )

That's everyone (except Esme of course).  Now back to the sorting and writing.

I really should be revising for my viva on Friday (I still haven't decided if one of the external examiners being my ex-supervisor is a good or a bad thing). However, I spent over an hour battling with the printer and binder so I need a break, and it's my birthday (I really don't feel like I should be 24 already) so I'm doing simming stuff. Not actual playing because my vertigo has reappeared and makes playing unpleasant (think extreme sea-sickness) but clearing up my downloads and finally uploading the multi-PT hack I've had finished for a week or so.



( Multi-PT colourful )

( Multi-PT not colourful )

Credits:
Babblesim for the skins
Fwiffo for the original mod that I used to create this one
simgaroop for the awesome tutorial I used to create this


( Alien spawn )

I know I haven't been around much, or at all really, recently, unfortunately masters stuff has been taking over my life and when I have had time I've just wanted to play.  I've got a presentation tomorrow (which I'm quite relaxed about) and a viva next Friday (which I'm really not - less than an hour = 25% of my masters!), after that I should have a bit more time to spend online (and one of the first things I'll do is post a behind the scenes for chapter 19)

I have been playing an awful lot recently (more than I probably should have been), I've nearly got all the pictures I need for the next chapter, there's just a couple of plotty scenes to shoot and then I can start writing.

( +6 pictures )

Now I really must finish my presentation on pteropods.
 

I haven't really got much further with the next chapter yet.  I also haven't written much for my project yet.  I have, however, managed to fix the ages on all my cc clothes (make all adult clothes also enabled for YA, remove the elder age from adult clothes) and townify it all (should make for some interesting aging up outfits)

And I started a new project.  I've never been 100% happy with my multi-PT hack (because I don't actually think there's all that much variety in it - something only I would probably think because I know how I made the sims) so I've started making a new one.  Pictures of the aliens (that might still be tweaked a bit) below the cut.

( What's distracting me now )

I must start writing this weekend (both legacy and project), which means I really must resist loading the game or bodyshop.
 

I'm getting closer to releasing the next chapter.  I've now got all the pictures I need (I think, I might have to get a couple more to fill in some gaps but I won't know that until later) now all I need to do is write it.  It's taken me longer than expected to get to this stage ( I had hoped to finish it early last week) partly because I completely changed the structure of the chapter during my last week in Amsterdam and introduced a couple of new scenes for which I had to build a whole new dorm (which I'm rather proud of) and landscape my self-sim's garden (which is why I ended up playing her).

Today also marks the two week mark before my project hand-in date which means I'll soon be required to have nothing but planktonic snails on my mind.  I need to get this chapter written, it's been fermenting in my brain for so long I'm having trouble thinking of anything else.  I also owe a lot of comments and there's a couple of chapters of some legacies I haven't even read yet, hopefully I can get everything done by the end of the week.

I just hope that sim!Widget (who goes by the name Eleanor Tutelary in my game) is having my share of bad luck and it isn't a portent of things to come for me.  During the three days I played her, to get the garden landscaped and the pictures I needed taken, she was throwing up about a dozen times a day, she got fired, came home from work with flu twice, and got struck by lightning.  I do like her new garden though.
( Sim!Widget spam )

I had my last day in the lab on Wednesday and got my last sequences back yesterday so what I have now is what I'm going to be writing my project about.  I also finally know when I 'm going to be home - I will be getting on a train back to London on the 14th of August and arrive in London at 7pm, the rest of the night will be spent drinking at the student union bar (are you going to be there Gin?).

I plan on doing nothing that weekend that involves me moving further than the kitchen and I hope to get the next Discworld chapter finished then.  Speaking of which I've started sorting the pictures I've already got so I've got a better idea of what I need to shoot and so it'll be quicker to put them into powerpoint when I'm ready.  Some point soon I'll be uploading a test presentation so I know what need to do to my pictures to make them look good in this form.

I know I could go back to the exchange, especially as I don't have a chapter uploaded elsewhere yet but there are a couple of reasons I don't want to.  Mainly I simply don't want to install the patch, I have no idea what it actually does and a patch to my game to fix an issue with their website just seems strange.  I also like the idea of being able to put together my chapters without having to run the game and there's the additional style flexibility that using powerpoint offers.  At some point I plan on putting all my old chapters into that format as well (whether I'll ever get around to it I don't know).

The custom content deletion is going well.  So far I've deleted about 2,700 files and I've barely touched bodyshop yet and still have quite a lot of furniture to sort through. 

As I'll be home in less than a week I feel like sharing some pictures from the last play session I had before I left.

( Click for picspam... )
 

Sims can be so very frustrating at times.

I've been playing my temporary pseudo-legacy family this evening. It's getting reasonably close to the hnadover of generation 1 to generation 2, the oldest kids are teen, youngest is a child, dad is a week from elderhood.

THEN dad goes and gets himself abducted, 7 days from being an elder so he comes back pregnant, with not one but two little green babies. He's going to be an elder by the time they're children *sigh*.

As I'm talking about them I might as well post some of the pics from the family.

( Short legacy intro )

That's enough for tonight.  I'll post more another day when I'm not so tired/annoyed at Adrian.