GIMP is a great little program, but coming from Adobe...it's a fucking pain-in-the-ass. I hate that it's not intuitive like Adobe Photoshop Elements...it's also laborious to work one's way around in order to get the output that you want. Can't afford to re-up Photoshop again at this point so I have to work with what I have...and who knows maybe I might get better at this.
Maybe I'll be able to get back to actual photography sooner than later.
Trying to make a Sims family tree seems to be the most complicated and irritating thing possible to do in a Legacy. The Plumtree App continues to drive me insane because it doesn't separate both Founders so that you can individually put their parents in. Only one seems to get the ability to put their parents in while the other is orphaned. I wish it was possible to separate nodes for founders at least so you could put their family members (in short: parents) in. The only way to do this is by making a family tree yourself.
Trying to make one while working with software I don't understand is a task that makes me want to hurl this keyboard through the nearest window.
I'm intrigued by this mod, however, I have yet to purchase Dragon Valley, as I had been holding out for the Dragon Valley Gold Edition, since it comes with the bonus "Black Dragon".
And just for your information Lost Pantheon. I am distressed that your mod didn't come with the ability to turn an entire town into a baked charnel house.
insert ~evil cackle~
In other posts, the Mares have always made me laugh with such intricate and cunning wordplay; an absolute delight.
This gem had me in stitches for darned near close to an hour. Well-played, Mares. Love it. "Unwanted bangings"...🤣
Kimber: It just had to happen. The Pentagon carked up our separation pay.
Kimber: This has never happened before, how am I going to explain this to the rest of the gang.
Animal: Of course, it's not my XO's fault. She filed the forms properly. It was the Department of the Navy's payroll department that messed things up royally.
Meg: I don't have my pay...and I have to put up with HER? And I thought I was going to get Tosh all to myself.
Mac: Harm, if you even so much as blink in Little Miss Aviator Commander's direction, I'm going to geld you.
Harm: (looks at Commander Kimber "Jugs" Benton) She's sooooo pretty.
Here's the third factory reset of the year coming up and that's par for the course for Sims 3. I hate this when this happens right as I'm getting into the meaty part of my legacy.
Looks like I have to get all my mods back in and I've figured out a way of making sure that my characters in "my family" look like they did. I'm going to set up a folder that has all the CC that I use on my family so that they don't ever end up looking out of place or sans proper skins and I'm labeling that as ChikamorifamilyCC.
I've got my NRAAS mods in and I'm going to go ahead and look through my mods folders and find all the cc for River and Haruo and make sure that they look the way they're supposed to. Then I'm going to go in and deal with Yasunobu and the rest of who is supposed to be "family" and those hairstyles are going to be exclusive to Haruo/River and the rest of the Chikamori family.
Might take a while to get her back to looking like this...but once that happens, I can go on with the Legacy.
The Chikamori Selfacy is now The Chikamori Legacy.
After multiple false starts of rebooting this legacy; meaning the desire to reboot it was there, the story-line just wasn't (when you don't feel the story-line...it just doesn't come out the way you want it to...so several of those storylines just got chucked in the garbage - or the delete bin) and it was a battle between starting them off as adults or throwing a long backstory in. I compromised. I went with River as a teen and Haruo just on the cusp of Young Adulthood. I went with a Prologue and then got into the story with Chapter One.
Prologue: The Seeds of Dissent
Chapter One: Loss and Gain
I'm currently working on the screencaps for Chapter Two and writing Chapter Three. But it's currently slow going at the moment.
The story is heavily River/Haruo R and I'm doing a (homeworld) University World that was created by another Simmer - Google is no help trying to find out the name of the creator of this world - but it's essentially the University World as a starter world. Which means that I can make it seem like my sims are going realistically for three seasons in a university term and four full years rather than going to university for two weeks and getting their university degree (which is a tad...unrealistic...in my books). I'm looking forward to getting that particular save started but first of all, River has to age up from teen to young adult and then they're off to university.
Keep in mind that the designation of this blog may change with the addition of NSFW content. Right now it's mature, in that there are tough topics being talked about - psychological abuse and family relations, but as Haruo and River mature...their interactions will become...shall we say...a little more "intimate".
I'm debating whether to bring the "Supernatural" into it as well...as a sort of a side-journey and make this into an "Immortal Legacy" which means that the number of family members will grow enormously as each family member will have a choice - do they remain mortal or become immortal: that'll keep things lively.
I'm really glad for certain mods that bring some interesting aspects to this game. Some of Haruo's friends (his school-friends) end up going hunting and Spherefish's Wildlife and Minor Pet Hunting mod really does the trick insofar as making sure that you can get rid of those pesky Malayan krait snakes and other deleterious wildlife that seem to pervade these Sims worlds.
Also might I recommend Spherefish's One With Nature mod which is great for homeless challenges as you can go pee in the great outdoors as well as plunk yourself down anywhere in the world to sleep off your exhaustion. Just make sure that you're not so tired that you end up face down in the same place that you've just peed on.
I have to love Spherefish's mods because they definitely bring a good set of new actions to this game and I'm looking forward to seeing just what Spherefish comes up with next.
Each chapter of my legacy so far has been between 23-24 pages in length which means a wordy 17K-19K words per chapter and thus my legacy will probably be quite long with regards to what goes on in each chapter meaning that my screencap taking will be done in bits and pieces. I'm hoping that I can get to the point where they reach third year university by the time this Christmas rolls around. If not University Graduation - I'm hoping that some ideas hit that may make University at least two chapters in itself. Marriage for River and Haruo may not happen till NEXT year...let alone kids.
Legacies are a lot of work (thank you, Captain Obvious) and since I tend to be garrulous when it comes to writing - perhaps I need to trim a few adjectives and descriptive nouns and adverbs from my writing...or maybe not.
Well, evidently the announcement came today. The secretive Paradox Tectonic has just made its announcement of their new "Life Simulator" called "Life By You". Here is the teaser trailer that was announced at Paradox's New Game Announcements
I'm gonna warn ya right now...
If you play Sims 4 and like that graphic style, you're NOT going to like #LifeByYou by Paradox Tectonic. Rod Humble, I think, listened to those who were unhappy with the direction EA went on Sims 4 and catered to them. He was one of those who had full direction on the way Sims 3 went when he was at EA and thus has leaned more towards that in terms of creativity.
I'm starting to think of this as Sims 3 rebooted with way better graphics. And with the assets and DLC, this is going to stomp Project Rene (Sims 5)'s ass.
I watched the teaser trailer this morning and HOLY ****! I was blown away by the opening shot. I'm getting shades of Cities:Skylines. This is going to take away the monopoly that EA holds on the life-sim genre and turn it on its head.
To me it looks like the spiritual successor to The Sims 3. It looks as though we're getting an open world and cars right off the bat like in Sims 3 in the base game. Also there's a shot of the realistic looking art-style that may put those who like Sims 4 off this game with the argument that it's uncanny valley.
I personally like the realistic style of this game and the various sections of this game that were teased show that Rod Humble (formerly of EA/Maxis on Sims 2 and Sims 3) was making sure that he envisioned a sequel to what he did with Maxis in Sims 3. And he mentioned in a number of interviews that he wanted to pursue deeper gameplay. And I think he's accomplished this with "Life By You".
Now Paradox's game Cities:Skylines tends to call their little people Cims as a sideways barb at Sims. So I'll continue to call Life By You's little people Cims in that same vein.
Most Sims 3 players who haven't migrated to Sims 4 have felt cast off by EA and perhaps ridiculed for continuing to play a game that by all intents and purposes has been considered by devs as "finished". Their opinion is: Time to kill that game and go onto the next one. Except that the next one hasn't met our expectations. I prefer Sims 3 and will continue to play Sims 3 until such time as Life By You is released. Then I expect that I will jump to that game.
Now five and a half months after Project Rene's announcement by EA, we still only have the furniture shots to go by and no actual view of any Sims that have been shown other than a leak on Reddit with some wireframe models, I don't see how Project Rene could be any better than what has been tabled by Life By You from Paradox. Understandably, Project Rene is still in early development, but they still have a lot of catching up to do. If I don't like the Sims, I'm definitely going with Cims from Life By You.
Certainly Sims 5/Project Rene is going to be a monumental project for the development team at Electronic Arts, but unless EA decides that they will cast off their business practices of releasing half-baked, buggy EPs and GPs, nothing will improve insofar as Simmers complaining about them and being rightfully annoyed at the lack of quality control. I'm pretty much done with EA and for the past 7 years I've hoped that somebody out there would come out with a true competition to the Sims franchise: to force it to step up to the plate and give us quality instead of tossing us a bone here and there and telling us to give them money. That tactic doesn't work insofar as making me open up my wallet.
With Rod Humble at the helm of Paradox Tectonic, I'm pretty sure that Life By You is Paradox's go for the jugular as far as life simulations to go after the market share that The Sims monopolizes and it's about time.
