Behind The Scenes of Apple Valley

ROS: 2012-2013

2012-02-05T09:42:00.000-06:00

Opps, I'm late in posting this, so sorry ^_^ but good news, this is a much better ROS for Apple Valley :)

ROS for the 2012-2013 rotation

Charity strikes-donate $700 to charity-Interesting. I might give this simmie the generous trait as a result of this ROS.
Facing the Fear-fulfill biggest fear-Not a fan at all, this is so unfortunate for this family.
Sign music deal, $8000 bonus, perform 8 days, visit vacation lot, get double tips-Very exciting, can't wait for this to play out, but now I need to make more careers and set up new lots as a result.
Win the lottery, $400000-This family isn't struggling, but the money is more than welcomed. I'll have to see how they will spend it.
Cheapstake, attempt to leave on bill-I know just how to write this one up, which should be funny.

Follower Series: Nicky

2012-01-20T10:13:00.014-06:00

I've always found interesting new blogs by looking through the lists of followers and commenters, not only on my own site, but the sites of others. I thought that I would do a monthly profile of the followers and commenters of Apple Valley so that others can see some of the other great blogs that are out there. I only chose the sim related blogs of followers or commenter (no personal or non-sim blogs) and of course there are many followers and commenters that do not have a personal blog.

This month, I'm profiling

Nicky

Nicky has a sim's related blog called Brookdale.

It's a brand new TS2 blog about a Sims 2 neighborhood called Brookdale and the residents in it as they grow and populate the town. Since it's brand new, there are not a lot of posts, which makes it easy to discover the background of the stories fairly quickly.

New Year!!!

2012-01-05T18:32:00.022-06:00

Ok, it's not exactly the new years anymore, but happy new years to everyone out there! I decided to make a few resolutions/goals for the blogs and since sharing helps you commit to them, well, here they are.
First, let's look at this year in review!

Over at Apple Valley Blogs, June was the month with the most pageviews with 2,944 views. Besides the databases such as Education Note: State of Education and the Resident Database, the post Recess Duty, 2006 was the most viewed blog post.

Now, resolutions!!!

Behind the Scenes

Continue the Follower Series and release the post on the 20th of each month.
Try to keep posting inventive ideas to enhance the game play, as well as let you know the changes and current status of previous ideas.
Start the character studies that you guys voted on!
Maybe try a interactive game with some prizes.

Apple Valley Downloads

Update at least monthly, but aiming for twice monthly. If you're a member of N99, then you have probably gotten access to the goodies earlier than the other blog readers. I'll continue this.
My talent lies in buildings, so I want to challenge myself more with building cheats and designs, so expect a bunch of buildings to download. Also expect some re-releases as I make modifications to correct issues and achieve better playability and add more landscaping and other details to existing lots.
That said, I would like to increase my skill in recoloring, which is limited at the moment due to my ancient photo shopping program. Honestly, I'm waiting for it to just refuse to turn on one day, especially since it was made to run with Windows 95.
Finish bringing over all of my old downloads to the blog

Apple Valley Blogs

Continue to update every 3-4 days
Increase the number of polls so I can get feedback from you guys
Respond to comments everyday instead of twice a week
De clutter the blog appearance so it's not as distracting to readers

Any other suggestions? What are your blogging and simming resolutions?

Follower Series: Flit

2011-12-20T10:52:00.000-06:00

I've always found interesting new blogs by looking through the lists of followers and commenters, not only on my own site, but the sites of others. I thought that I would do a monthly profile of the followers of Apple Valley so that others can see some of the other great blogs that are out there. I only chose the sim related blogs of followers (no personal or non-sim blogs) and of course there are many followers that do not have a personal blog.

This month, I'm profiling

Flit

Flit has a sim's related blog called, Verre Tranquille

Verre Tranquille is a sims 2 neighborhood. It's unique in that it includes 7 diffrent lands all sharing the same government and working together called the Verre Tranquille alliance. The first round is at the blogspot address, but the new entries have moved to the wordpress address. Not only will you be amazed by the story, but the pictures are wonderfully done as well.

Character Studies

2011-12-05T00:25:00.000-06:00

Decided to try some character studies.

I will try to add lots of details and a concise backstory for each simmie.

Below is a poll to see if some of these simmies are interesting enough to get a little more background info on. There is an other option, so feel free to chose that if you want to know more about a simmie not listed below since listing all the simmies in my hood would create such a long poll!

Who would you like to know more about?

Follower Series: Blackcat

2011-11-20T10:58:00.009-06:00

This month, I'm profiling

Blackcat

Blackcat has a sim's related blog called Richmond Sims.

It's a TS2 blog that follows the lives of the sims that live in Richmond. You'll recognize a lot of the sims since Richmond started off as Pleasentview. You have the Beares from Sim State, Dee Ottamas, Meadow Thayer and even Leo Deppiesse. The storytelling is fantastic as the blog follows all of the families in addition to the founding family-the Greens.

Then and Now, Some of My Simmie Couples

2011-11-05T16:36:00.012-05:00

I was going through some older photos and decided to share some of my simmies. This is just the couples for now, so enjoy the walk down memory lane.

Jorge (Herendez) and Jolie Dawson during university, they thought that each other was hot

Now 19 simyears of marriage, five children and four different careers later

Jadhira and Johan (Dawson) Shazad enjoying a meal at his parents' house shortly after her arrival from Simborough

Now 18 simyears of marriage, three kids and two careers later

Sazo (Kent) and Sandy Warwick on their first date, they fell in love fast and hard

Now, after 20 simyears of marriage, 2 daughters and lots of simoleans richer.

Rebecca and Julio (Herendez) Wilsonoff as "just friends" playing video games as teens

Now 15 simyears of marriage, three children and much drama later

Nicole and Lyndon Humphrey shortly after their return from living in Sokitumi (another simmer's hood)

Now 32 simyears, three adopted/foster children later

Fiona and Jesse (Carr) Kent's first date and she is being introduced to his adopted son, Bill Carr

They look very well for 13 simyears of marriage, five children and two grandchildren (or more, knowing Bill) later

Ginger and Grex (Mendenhall) Grey on thier first chaperoned date (Ginger's twin sister, Marilyn is watching in the background)

15 simyears of marriage, two affairs, six children and countless special "showers" for Ginger later

Follower Series: Nonikk63

2011-10-20T11:23:00.000-05:00

I've always found interesting new blogs by looking through the lists of followers and commenters, not only on my own site, but the sites of others. I thought that I would do a monthly profile of the followers of Apple Valley so that others can see some of the other great blogs that are out there. I only chose the sim related blogs of followers (no personal or non-sim blogs) and of course there are many followers that do not have a personal blog.

This month, I'm profiling

Nonikk63

Nonikk63 has a sim's related blog called, Nonikk's take on Riverblossom Hills.

Riverblossom Hills is a pre-made neighbourhood in the game Sims 2. Pre-made means that it is already inhabited, but then of course you are free to change just about everything: their appearances, their homes and last but not least - their fates.

Nonikk63 starts the blog off with a series of makeovers of the Riverblossom Hills families. After then, the blog begins with chapters of the families and their stories.

Nonikk63's Riverblossom Hill is a finished story and for those simmers that love maxis premades, Nonikk63 has started another blog, Nonikk's take on Pleasantview which will follow the Pleasantview sims.

Culling Downloads, Part 2

2011-10-05T14:24:00.000-05:00

Thanks to a combination of Delphy's Download Organizer, DJ's Compressorizer and grunt work my downloads folder is a nice slim 2.01GB. I am not done culling downloads, there are still a few more files that I need to delete, mostly duplicates and things that I need to view in-game before deleting.

Now I'm on a mission for faster load times. In spite of culling my downloads, my load time has crept back up to almost 15 minutes. It may not seem like a lot, but when you only have an hour to play, you want every minute to count. Also, 15 minutes seems so long now since I've installed TS3 and can start playing within 5 minutes. Then again, I don't have any downloads for TS3 besides some store items :P

My Sims 2 Folder is 3.62GB, so over half of it is downloads. I have moved on to other ways of decreasing the load time.

Remove photos from the Storytelling folders periodically. Currently I move photos from the neighborhood storytelling folder to another folder on my computer after each simyear. I might start doing this after each playsession. I have never moved the photos from the overall storytelling
Remove the Testing Hood that I created. I have no need for this hood anymore since I use my building hood to test items now.
Remove items from my Saved Sims folder, especially my own recolors.
Remove unused terrains from the SC4Terrains folder from 47.2MB to 19.3MB
Remove unused lots from the lot catalog

This has lead to a slight decrease in loading time.

For comparision, my game, without the downloads folder, loads in 5 minutes from bootup to the neighborhood.

With the downloads folder included, the load time is 13 minutes from bootup to neighborhood splash screen.

Obviously my downloads folder needs to be whipped back into shape as 13 minutes is still a bit too long.

My ideal time would be somewhere about 7 minutes, which means that if my downloads adds an additional 8 minutes of load time, then my computer loads about 0.251GB every minute and that I still need to get rid of 1.5GB to get my ideal time. My bodyshop downloads alone are 1.0GB!

Yikes, back to the drawing board about decreasing my load times...I guess I could always try and revert to the barest of downloads and see how I enjoy that (I doubt I would enjoy it very much). Maybe a more realistic ideal load time is 10 minutes, which means cutting about 0.75GB of downloads.

My next plan of action is simply removing my clothing downloads folder (over half of the bodyshop downloads folder space) and then adding outfits-ONE AT A TIME-per sim preferences, not mine. Since for the most part my sims tend to wear the same things day after day :P

Ugh, it's either that or upgrade the computer...

Follower Series: Sari

2011-09-20T11:04:00.000-05:00

This month, I'm profiling

Sari

Sari has a sim's related blog called Wellington.

It's a TS2 blog that follows the lives of the sims that live in Wellington. When I first started reading I was blown away by the quality of the photos and the amazing details of the familes. The blog has been around for a while, so I suggest that you start with the Beginner's Guide in the sidebar to get advice on navigating the site. Otherwise dive right in.

Kent Decor Scheme: Final Product, Part 3

2011-09-05T16:03:00.000-05:00

Decided to do a post detailing step by step my process for decorating my sims homes.

Meet Jesse and Fiona Kent, readers of my story blog are familiar with these two. Their house burned down-aka, I broke it ^_^ and after rebuilding a new house, they now need to decorate it. We're going to start with the living room.
In Part 1, we saw their design scheme using their favorite colors and design preferences. In Part 2, we went "shopping" for dream items and now in Part 3, we'll put the final living room together.

After deciding on items, I tend to put the room together through trial and error of furniture placement then determine what elements I'm missing. In this case I only had to do three small recolors:

the damask curtains,

the rug

and the brown damask pillow

In the end, the final product looked like this.

I used a combination of Maxis items and custom pieces as well as family photos to personalize the space. It's still a bit plain, but that's all that their simoleans would buy...at the moment.

So how do you go about decorating your simmie's places?

Follower Series: Shana

2011-08-20T12:09:00.000-05:00

I've always found interesting new blogs by looking through the lists of followers and commenters, not only on my own site, but the sites of others. I thought that I would do a monthly profile of the followers and commenters of Apple Valley so that others can see some of the other great blogs that are out there. I only chose the sim related blogs of followers and commenters (no personal or non-sim blogs) and of course there are many followers and commenters that do not have a personal blog.

This month, I'm profiling

Shana

Shana has a sim's related blog called Pine Hollow.

Pine Hollow is a TS2 and TS3 blog. Pine Hollow began in February 2008 as a Sims 2 blog. It started with four original families–the Gates, the Smiths, the Craigs, and the Lloyds. In April 2011, the hood migrated to Sims 3 with the same families due to computer issues. The blog features updates into the lives of the families during rounds and there are plenty of sidebar links to help you navigate the site.

ROS Simyear 2010-2011

2011-08-18T08:55:00.001-05:00

This is the ROS round of death. Ugh, three of the five ROS deal with death, so expect a very sad time in Apple Valley.

ROS for the 2010-2011 rotation

Fatal disease Not looking forward to this one. This one is perhaps the reason why I have been avoiding starting this round.
Pursue a relationship with the Sim you're most attracted to. This should be interesting, it fits with this sim's character, but I wonder what the consequences will be.
Fire! Again? Really?
Death by Fire Not a fan, but it will open up for some interesting consequences and mysteries
Death by starvation Hate this ROS. How does one die of starvation? Might have to reword this, but there will still be a death.

Kent Decor Scheme: Part 2-Shopping

2011-08-05T20:20:00.000-05:00

Decided to do a post detailing step by step my process for decorating my sims homes.

Meet Jesse and Fiona Kent, readers of my story blog are familiar with these two. Their house burned down-aka, I broke it ^_^ and after rebuilding a new house, they now need to decorate it. We're going to start with the living room.

I already chose the colors and patterns, but now I need to do some shopping. I personally perfer Maxis meshes, so the first stop is PiggiSims to see if there is anything that I like.

I find the sofa mesh that I want-but not the color. I make note of the sofa and the color choices I want for the seating.

along with the chair

or or

or even this beautiful damask from Blake Boy's Annie Seating

I do determine that I will be using the Maxis Colonial Collection for most of the furnishings. The patterns give a nod to Jesse's contemporary desires so now I need artwork and rugs.

I tend to recolor my own rugs using a Maxis mesh to cut down on my downloads folder, so I am looking for rug patterns. I want something more contemporary to balance out the traditional seating and surfaces in the room.

For artwork, I take into account thier other interests like they both love jazz and love abstract art especially considering that their daughter is an art prodigy at the tender age of nine. I imagine that they would have several of her original works in the house. I picture them as fans of Debra Hurd's abstract jazz and cityscapes as well as Paul Brent's abstract jazz art

So with this in mind, I have a bit of recoloring to do, or not, and then we'll see the final product.

Follower Series: Danielle

2011-07-20T12:04:00.000-05:00

I've always found interesting new blogs by looking through the lists of followers and commenters, not only on my own site, but the sites of others. I thought that I would do a monthly profile of the followers of Apple Valley so that others can see some of the other great blogs that are out there. I only chose the sim related blogs of followers (no personal or non-sim blogs) and of course there are many followers that do not have a personal blog.

This month, I'm profiling

Danielle

Danielle has a sim's related blog called Crystal Creek.

The Crystal Creek neighborhood started in 2007 and the blog started in 2010 and follows the lives of six main families. The blog features updates into the lives of the families during rounds and there are plenty of sidebar links to help you navigate the site.

Kent Decor Scheme: Design Inspiration, Part 1

2011-07-06T00:15:00.000-05:00

Decided to do a post detailing step by step my process for decorating my sims homes.

Meet Jesse and Fiona Kent, readers of my story blog are familiar with these two. Their house burned down-aka, I broke it ^_^ and after rebuilding a new house, they now need to decorate it. We're going to start with the living room.

Using their design preferences I make note of them:

Jesse: Black, contemporary
Fiona: Red, traditional

I then search for the perfect color combination, I use Color Combos to see the combinations, they have a combo library of pre-set combinations as well as a combo tester to pick your own color combinations. I chose three colors to be used for their living room.

After picking the colors I make a list of what I will need for the living room. The Kent family doesn't watch television and they need space for a television in their living room. Fiona is in the law career and entertains quite often while Jesse works at a high school and prefers to lounge while listening to jazz.

Sofa

Loveseat

Arm Chair (2)

Pillows

Rug

Curtains

Artwork

After the list, I chose a few patterns for the room. The patterns will be used on the curtains, pillows, walls and even seating.

Now I am ready to go "shopping" with a few ideas in mind.

Follower Series: Rachel

2011-06-20T11:37:00.000-05:00

I've always found interesting new blogs by looking through the lists of followers and commenters, not only on my own site, but the sites of others. I thought that I would do a monthly profile of the followers of Apple Valley so that others can see some of the other great blogs that are out there. I only chose the sim related blogs of followers (no personal or non-sim blogs) and of course there are many followers that do not have a personal blog.

This month, I'm profiling

Rachel

Rachel has a sim's related blog called, Creating Charleston.

It's a TS3 blog full of building posts and is mostly devoted entirely to world creation. If you like hood building and creating worlds in TS3 or TS2, then you will gain a lot of ideas from this site. The photos are beautiful and the backstories for the lots are very detailed and insightful.

Rachel has started another blog, Charleston City Sims which will follow the Charleston City sims once the world is fully created.

Education in Apple Valley, Part 3.5

2011-06-05T15:32:00.000-05:00

Today, we're discussing obtaining a vocational degree. In the original series, I didn't include a vocational school as I planned on sending my sims to a fellow simmer to utilize her technical school. However her game died :( and my simmies have a need for vocational education.

I wanted there to be some variety in education levels of the sims. Either you went to college or you didn't, according to MAXIS. Even if you didn't go to college, you could be a doctor...um, how about no.

Some sims do not attend university, graduate from university, or simply obtain an associate's degree in thier life. Now, some sims are content with that and their goal isn't to be a surgeon, so being a nurse or EMT is great for them. Other sims want to excel in their careers a bit more.

Any resident of Apple Valley may undertake vocational training course with WilTech at any time. Tuition varies according to the certificate. Bronze certificates are $1,000 in tuition, silver certificates are $2,000 in tuition and gold certificates are $3,000 in tuition. There are no entrance exams for WilTech and classes are available in both online, via Monique's computer, options and lecture options. Students must participate in some hand-on training, so 100% of the certificate program can not be online.

Students are able to chose one of seven vocational certificates:

Cosmetology
Flower Arranging
Robotics
Sales
Toy Making
Pottery
Sewing

In summary,

Vocational Certificates
-bronze, silver or gold levels in each vocational area

Follower Series: Carla

2011-05-20T08:30:00.000-05:00

This month, I'm profiling

Carla

Carla has a sim's related blog called Sullivan.

It's a TS2 blog that follows the lives of the sims that live in Sullivan. The posts start from 2008 and continue to the present, so it's quite a lot of reading. Sullivan does have handy links in the sidebar including one for new visitors to guide them on how to read the blog and where to start. The blog starts with the introduction of a few families such as the Kirby, Draper and Novak families and continues in rounds.

---

Simmish Life Insurance

2011-05-05T19:09:00.000-05:00

This was inspired thanks to the unfairness of my ROS. It gave me three death ROS and this made me wonder about life insurance. Sims get life insurance payouts if they die from old age, but that's not how it is in real life. So since apparently the sim government gives elderly sims life insurance but not adult sims.

I used the current maxis method of life insurance payouts and modified it for adult sims. The maxis method depended on the elderly sim's aspiration level, since I just need a plain and simple life insurance policy, then I decided to use the middle level-gold.

Elder in Gold:
Spouse gets 10,000
Kids get 5,000
Grandchildren get 1,250
Friend w/Lifetime 75-100 get 500
Friend w/Lifetime 50-74 get 250

Since sims are paying for the life insurance via an increase in taxes, then I thought that the benefits wouldn't be as generous. Thus sims in my hood only get a modest life insurance package:

Spouse gets 10,000

Kids get 5,000

All sims that pay taxes, ie-all adults, have a modest life insurance policy until they reach their elder years and then the maxis life insurance kicks in.

"Rounds" and ROS Simyear 2008-2009

2011-04-23T12:05:00.000-05:00

For those who have been following Apple Valley for a while, you may realize that time moves so slowly :) It's killing me as well watching other bloggers zip through their generations while mine seem stuck. To make time move a bit faster, but not too much faster, which was the whole reason of blogging in this new style, I'm switching to 2-year rounds, but non-rounds :P

I'm splitting my families to be rotated every two simyears, but we'll see from them each simyear via other families updates and a few mini-updates thrown in for good measure. It's a work in progress, so we'll see how much I like it and how long it stays around.

ROS for the 2008-2009 rotation

Re-roll your turn-ons, eeek, hope you still like your partner!...This sound be interesting
Mid-Life Crisis: Change your aspiration and lifetime want! It makes perfect sense for this sim since they are approaching "mid-life"
Fire! Not the best, I just redecorated :(
Signed modeling deal, $12000 bonus This family needs the money and it evokes some of their past modeling as well.

Education in Apple Valley, Part 4.5

2011-04-15T15:16:00.000-05:00

What and Why
A while back, I decided to do a series on how education in Apple Valley works, especially with the forthcoming changes. I explored education from elementary school to obtaining an advanced degree as I wanted to move away from excessive skilling in my game and focus more on character development. The changes served two purposes, one, it allowed me to hone in on each sim's individual personality and preferences, two, it prevented excessive success. Right now, most sims are able to obtain a level 7 job without any trouble aside from making friends. This left very little room for variety in the game and most sims were financially well off. To ensure that I stayed focused on this, I decided to try and do away with most toddler skills-instead focusing on teaching them how to walk, talk, etc.

FSBS-Lingo
The primary ways of educating the sims in all levels of education are skills, hobbies and interests. I often refer to skills as scores on "skill exams" (the number of skill points they have in a certain skill) or "core skill evaluation"-CSE (the number of total skills they have). Hobbies and interests will also be referred to in a similar manner. Now that the background is out of the way, let's move on.

Master's Degree
Today, we're discussing obtaining a master's degree. In the original series, I didn't include a master's degree as I didn't want to have too many levels to keep up with. However looking at Heredon Cove's notes and the careers, I noticed that some careers needed more than a bachelor's, but significantly less than an advanced degree (modeled after a PhD).

I wanted there to be some variety in education levels of the sims. Either you went to college or you didn't, according to MAXIS. Even if you didn't go to college, you could be a doctor...um, how about no.

Some sims do not attend university, graduate from university, or simply obtain an associate's degree in thier life. Now, some sims are content with that and their goal isn't to be a surgeon, so being a nurse or EMT is great for them. Other sims want to excel in their careers a bit more.

Any resident of Apple Valley with a bachelors degree may undertake master's correspondence course with Pierce University at any time. Tuition is $10,000 for the entire degree program and students must have at least a score of 20 on their entrance exam (Score on Core Skills Evaluation + #simyears work experience).

To complete their degree, students must graduate with at least a score of 27 on their CSE. Assuming the lowest possible CSE score of 20 from graduation from university, the student will be required to earn 7 skill points throughout their coursework.

Students are able to chose one of seven master degrees. A student's degree choice determines which skill, interest, and hobby they will focus on maxing.

•Master's Degree in Fine Arts: creativity/Culture, Entertainment, Fashion/Arts & Craft, Film & Literature, Music & Dance

•Master's Degree in Culinary Arts: cooking/Food/ Cuisine

•Master's Degree in Business Administration: charisma/Money, Work /Film & Literature

•Master's Degree in Technology: mechanical/Weather/Tinkering, Science

•Master's Degree in Applied Science: logic/Animals, Environment, Paranormal / Science, Nature

•Master's Degree in General Studies: cleaning/School, Sci-Fi, Toys, Travel / Cuisine, Fitness, Games

•Master's Degree in Public Service: body/Crime, Health, Politics, Sports /Fitness, Sports

In level one, students must score a 8 on their skill exam correlated to their major and a 27 on their CSE (ie, a student focused on the Advanced Degree in Culinary Arts must have at least 8 cooking skills and at least 27 skill points total).

In level two, students focus on refining their studies. Students must earn at least a 8 on their CIE in their focused skill. Using the example above, our Culinary Arts student must have 8 interest points in food. If multiple interests are listed, students chose one interest to focus on. Students will use magazines and sharing interest conversations to earn interests.

In level three, students continue to focus on refining their studies. Students must earn at least a 4 on their CHE in their focused skill. Using the example above, our Culinary Arts student must have 4 points in cuisine hobby. If multiple hobbies are listed, students chose one hobby to focus on. Students will use any means available to develop their hobby.

In level four, students focus on perfecting their studies and finishing their thesis. Students will use the computer to write a novel, this novel is their thesis. Upon completing of thier thesis , students graduate with a Master's Degree and a dandy little diploma to hang on their walls. Their options have now opened to the purple sections on the career table.

In summary,

Master's Degree
-27+ CSE graduation
-degree focus skills via computer
-CSE score of 8 in focused skill
-CIE score of 8 in focused interest
-CHE score of 4 in focused hobby
-thesis

Favorite Apple Valley Sims

2011-03-10T20:57:00.000-06:00

Over at N99, the focus for the month of March is on favorite sims. I've been sharing some of my personal favorites from Apple Valley, but then wondered, which sims/families are your favorite from Apple Valley and why?

So post a comment here telling why they are your favorite. Feel free to post as often as you like!

Also, if other bloggers do the same, feel free to put your link in your comment as well so others can go and check our your blog. I can't wait since I have my own personal favorites from some of my favorite blogs.

Calculators for All

2011-03-01T14:34:00.000-06:00

Decided to put my calculators in a stand alone excel file for a few reasons:

This allows simmers who don't have massive spreadsheets to enter in the necessary data for the desired information.
This allows for easy intergration into simmers' databases.
To share calculators that I no longer use, but others might find useful.

What is included in the calculator worksheet?

Simbology

Aspiration Calculator: Input personality data and thie calculator gives you an aspiration that is well suited for your sim (according to my own aspiration assigning method).

Finances

Pension Calculator for Owned Businesses: Now sims who retire from owned businesses can collect a pension as well. Input business rank and salary information to get the pension amount for your sim.
Child Support Calculator: Figure out child support for those seperated sims. Input salary information and children information to get a child support amount.
Spousal Support Calculator: Figure out spousal support for those seperated sims. Input salary information and relationship information to get a spousal support amount.
Business Tax: To determine how much business tax your businesses owe based on business value, number of employees and rank.
Government Assistance: Input the salary and family information to get an amount for government assistance.
Rental Fee (pre AL): For those without AL, input the size of the apartment and amenities to get a rental amount. Also good for those who have sims living in the basement or renting a room in a house.

See the spreadsheet here

Magnetic Non-Couples 2011

2011-02-28T11:11:00.000-06:00

Valentine's Day is over, and I promised a surprise for you guys. Here are my top 10 magnetic non-couples in Apple Valley. I ranked them by attraction score instead of overall score.

These are the couples that could be, but are not.

10. S'Ahmisa Warwick and Benjamin Endeavour, 103

They are friends and they did kiss a little in university. Now Benjamin is non-exclusively seeing S'Ahmisa's best friend, Ming, and S'Ahmisa is exclusively seeing Benjamin's roommate, Rashid. They are far too busy wrapped up in their current loves to think about each other, though S'Ahmisa does occasionally dream of the tall basketball player.

9. Sazo Warwick and Suzanna McMillan, 106

Maybe if Jesse had introduced Suzanna to Sazo instead of Bradford, things may have gone differently. However Sazo and Suzanna are both happily married and only pass each other occasionally.

8. Brandon Peterson and Susie Wren, 108

Susie seems to be every man's fantasy including strict military man, Brandon. Thankfully Brandon is a dedicated husband who only enjoys "admiring God's creation" from afar.

7. Jolie Dawson and Jesse Kent, 110
Perhaps it's their mutual love of food that keeps the attraction sparking. These friends have remained friends so far and haven't acted on their mutual attraction. Let's hope they keep it that way considering Jolie has one affair under her belt so far.

6. Julio Wilsonoff and Suzanna McMillian, 110
These hot medical powerhouses could probably cure every disease known to sims if they got together. Right now their relationship is strictly professional. They respect each other and their marriages too much to even pay attention to the attraction.

5. Walt Jones and Susie Wren, 112
A spring break trip and a few hours spent in the bed, hot tub and shower was the start of their story. Susie is now married and Walt is the father of Susie's sister's children. They have kept the secret and Susie has successfully avoided being alone with Walt, while Walt wouldn't mind picking up where they left off...at least for a few hours.

4. Rashid Cunningham and Lainey Barchet, 122
Rashid and Lainey are mutual friends-Rashid is dating Lainey's on and off boyfriend's ex-girlfriend. It's suffice to say that Rashid and Verde have similar taste in women, but Rashid didn't move to Apple Valley to be with just anysim and Lainey only has eyes for Verde...at the moment.

3. Bill Carr and Ginger Grey, 123
Maybe Ginger could tame the wild man-child Bill, or maybe Bill could keep Ginger's romantic appetite filled in the bedroom. Either way, this attraction would be hot, steamy and more than likely shortlived once they started to have a conversation.

2. Bill Carr and Ming Wuu, 143

It's not wise to have a crush on your wife's friend, but Bill isn't known for being the wisest sim around. He does however value his immaculate looks and health, so Ming remains a fantasty for now.

1. Jorge Dawson and Susie Wren, 149

Maybe it's her unusual features that cause so many men to get weak in the knees around Susie. Jorge does like what he sees, but he is very happy with his wife and children.

---

Any surprises?

Magnetic Couples 2011

2011-02-14T13:45:00.000-06:00

Just in time for Valentine's Day! Here are my top 10 magnetic couples in Apple Valley. I only did 10 since I have only 18 couples and that included former couples as well. I ranked them by attraction score instead of overall score. There have been some new additions to the ranking and some changes as well. This year, the surprise was that the couples had the same ranking when I looked at their total scores-aka, how stable are they-so I'm including both here. I have a little surprise for the second part :)

The first number is the attraction score and the second number is the total score

10. Brandon and Ilila Peterson, 73/178

The newest couple to immigrate to Apple Valley. They met while he was in basic training, she was the daughter of his drill sergeant which also meant that she was off-limits, not to mention the fact that she was still a senior in high school. After her college graduation they bumped into each other at a different military base in the commissary's produce aisle. She walked away with more than a bag of apples that day.

9. Abel Wilsonoff and Myra Shazad 87/191
They've been friends for years and Abel has always had a crush on Myra since the tender age of six. Now they're finally teens and unofficially officially dating since both sets of parents don't allow them to date so young, but both sets of parents also know that the two are inseparable already.

8. Jadhira and Johan Shazad 89/194
They met when Jadhira arrived to Apple Valley from Simborough as part of the Gender Exchange. The great flood hindered their romance, but in spite of the natural disaster, they fell in love rather quickly over nerdy talk. Now the couple is busy embarrassing their children with their nerdy foreplay.

7. Ginger and Grex Grey, 98/203
Their romance started as teens and during the great flood they couldn't help but build their love while spending time in the close quarters of the shelter. Four children, six pregnancies, two affairs and several deaths later, this couple is still clinging to each other.

6. Antonio and Carmela Herendez, 109/214
Somethings father does know best. Antonio accepted an arranged marriage so that he could gain the family business. Years later the couple is growing hotter and hotter. It's an unconventional type of love, in fact they wouldn't even call it love, but it's working.

5. Ming Wuu and Benjamin Endeavor, 112/217
For a non-exclusive couple, Ming and Benjamin have major chemistry. They met through mutual friends at a party in the dorm and have been seeing each other ever since. They enjoy shooting hoops, kicking a soccer ball around and spending time with each other whenever they are not occupied with their other...special friends.

4. Anthony and Susie Wren, 114/219
Susie knew from the moment Anthony laid eyes on her at a pool party that he would be her undoing. Despite her attempts to run from the intensity of their love and her fear concerning her past, Anthony managed to keep Susie by his side and now they are starting a family...a bit unexpected, but at least the pregnancy managed to get Susie to agree to a wedding date.

3. Bill and Emma Carr, 122/227
Bill never thought that he would settle down but he did thanks to an unplanned pregnancy and a forced marriage, though his father in law likes to say that Bill had a choice between marriage and a bruised and bloody body. The couple is slowly coming around from having a love so passionate that it almost consumed them with hate, to being able to direct their fierce passion for each other in more acceptable ways.

2. Julio and Rebecca Wilsonoff, 138/243
They liked each other as teens, but his age kept her at a distance. When Rebecca entered university and was finally legal, Julio wasted no time in claiming her. They've remained one of the most stable (and sometimes boring) couples in the hood. Their love has grown even deeper with the birth of their youngest child.

And finally the number one most magnetic couple in Apple Valley is.....

1. Verde Herendez and Lainey Barchat, 162/267
The couple met during basic training and Verde respectfully kept his distance due to his relationship. After his relationship came to an end, Lainey and Verde have been inseparable, however Lainey is growing a bit tired of waiting for a ring. Hopefully Verde won't let her get away.
---
Any surprises?

Welcome ModtheSimmers

2011-02-02T18:47:00.000-06:00

Lately I've been getting a lot of traffic from MTS and I just wanted to say a hearty welcome to everyone. Feel free to browse the archives, ask questions and visit my other blogs as well.

Welcome and Enjoy Your Stay!

Culling Downloads

2011-01-30T08:34:00.000-06:00

I've been on a mission to cut down on custom content as much as possible. Why?

I happen to like maxis style items.
I need my load times to be quick so I can get more play into my busy schedule.
I tend to declutter in RL as well, so of course it's going to happen to my game as well.

So how am I cutting down on custom content?

Download ban for two-three months during the process. I can still download, but the downloads may not enter the game.
Mercilessly delete duplicate recolors, I don't need 7 shades of white.
Mercilessly delete poorly made recolors, I tend not to use it anyway, so why let it take up space.
Mercilessly delete recolors that I don't use frequently.
If I like a texture, but don't want to use the custom mesh, then I will move the texture to a maxis mesh. This is mostly for paintings and rugs and the occasional seating item.

I do have a plan for deleting object items.

I'm deleting duplicates of recolors, poorly made recolors and recolors that I don't use frequently item by item. Yes, that means going through the catalog and shifting through each and every item and deleting recolors.
This obviously can quickly becoming tedious, boring and overwhelming, so I of course broke it down into smaller tasks.
For the initial pass I will go through the following subcategories within six months: Comfort, Surfaces, Decorative, Plumbing, Appliances, Electronics, Lighting, Hobbies, Miscellaneous, Community Lot-Only.
For maintance, I will go through the catergories once a month just to make sure I am not shifting through a ton of unnecessary custom content.

My plan for deleting body shop items is very much the same.

I'm deleting duplicates of recolors, poorly made recolors and recolors that I don't use frequently item by item. Yes, that means going through the catalog and shifting through each and every item and deleting recolors.
For hairs, I will only allow two shades of the same color family for each mesh. Ie, a nouk curly mesh can only have two red recolors,
This obviously can quickly becoming tedious, boring and overwhelming, so I of course broke it down into smaller tasks.
For the initial pass I will go through the following subcategories within six months: Hair, Adult Clothing, Elder Clothing, Children Clothing, Teen Clothing, Toddler Clothing
For maintance, I will go through the catergories once a month just to make sure I am not shifting through a ton of unnecessary custom content.

Wish me luck!

Design Preferences

2011-01-15T09:09:00.000-06:00

I've been trying to expand a bit when it comes to decorating my sims houses. Design preferences have come and gone and have come back again to Apple Valley. Originally based on Simmerville's system, it has been modified for Apple Valley residents.

I now use a combination of my sims' favorite color and their two design styles randomly (or not randomly) chosen from ten options.

The design styles that I use in my hood are: Coastal, Contemporary, Cottage, Country, Eclectic, Exotic, Modern, Rustic, Traditional and Vintage.

Each design style has a few different key words to help me visualize a sim's preference.

A Vintage design style can mean anything from Mid-Century Modern, Hollywood Glam, 1950's Simplicity, Art Deco to Retro 1970's.

A Country design style design style can mean anything from Wine Country, Southwestern, to...well, Country.

An Exotic design style can mean anything from Tropical, Asian, Ethnic, Moroccan or something evoking that sim's cultural background.

A Traditional design style can mean anything from Classic, Arts & Crafts to Colonial.

A Rustic design style can mean anything from Western to Mountain Lodge.

A Coastal design style can mean anything from Nantucket to Mediterranean and all the coasts in between.

A Modern design style, besides Modern and Minimalist can also mean Zen.

A Cottage design style can mean anything from French, Shabby Chic to English Country.

A Eclectic means anything goes and can also mean Bohemian

A Contemporary design style is comfortable and welcoming without being cluttered and dark.

Sometimes I am able to use some of my sim's traits and One True Hobby (OTH) to assign design styles. I don't do this as often as I find that design styles and personality often don't match and I prefer the more randomness of rolling a design preference.

Personality & Design
My neat sims are more likely to like modern or contemporary styles thanks to the clutter free aspect. If they like exotic, then it will be more of a clean zen style.

My serious sims tend to prefer a traditional style.

OTHs & Design
My nature loving sims are more likely to like rustic, cottage or country styles with their natural and organic cues.

My tinkering sims are more likely to like modern styles with lots of metals and glass.

By looking at a sim's favorite color and two design traits, I consider their background and why they have those design traits (besides the fact that it was randomly rolled). My database is allowed to roll the same trait twice, ie Cottage, Cottage. To me, this signals that the sim's design style is pure 100% Cottage.

A Few Examples of This is Action

Jane Smith
You might remember, Jane Smith from my previous post on traits and personality. Jane was assigned Modern & Exotic as her design styles. This gives me three keywords to work with when designing her first apartment: Yellow, Modern, Exotic. Due to her earlier travels around the world as an animal linguist, she collected a lot of souvenirs for her apartment. Considering that she's very neat, she hates clutter and prefers a minimalist style. In fact, it was during a trip to Kimikura that she fell in love with the zen-like design and has tried to incorporate it into her apartment.

John Doe
John Doe lives across the hall from Jane Smith. His design preferences are Grey, Modern, Rustic. He moved with his father to the city as a teen after spending his childhood with his mother in the country, hence his combination of sleek modern with touches of rustic elements to remind him of home.

Designing for single sims is easy, but once you have two or more sims together, then it gets complicated.

The Doe Family: John, Jane, Jack and Jill
Of course, John and Jane eventually bumped into each other at the mailbox and it was love at first sight. Three months later they were married and eight months later they delivered their extra wedding guests twins, Jack and Jill. Their design traits are Jack: Black, Rustic, Vintage. Jill: Brown, Contemporary, Coastal. This gives me a total of 10 design preferences: Yellow, Grey, Black & Brown; Modern, Rustic, Vintage, Contemporary, Exotic, Coastal.

The family must compromise in the living area of their home. Since the John and Jane pay the bills, the living area is mostly a combination of their styles, but a few touches from the teens can be found as well.

---
If you decide to try this out in your game, let me know how it works for you.

PS: If you want to take a fun little design quiz yourself, head over to Sproost.

Deeper MAXIS Hobbies, Part 2

2010-12-30T03:55:00.000-06:00

Assigning Money Management Styles Based on Simology

2010-12-15T03:17:00.000-06:00

I've been wondering how to add a bit more dimension to my sims, especially when it comes to debt and spending habits. Thankfully I came across an article about money management styles and I wondered if I could apply that to my sims.

Basically each money management style is seperated by traits, actually thier serious score and thier money interest score, so there's nothing new for me to randomly roll, I just look at my simmies' stats. Also, the nature of their money management style is pretty fluid as well. Here's a brief overview of the money management styles.

Worrier (Serious 5+/ Money Interest 5-)
Binger (Serious 5-/ Money Interest 5+)
Spender (Serious 5-/ Money Interest 5-)
Hoarder (Serious 5+/ Money Interest 5+)

We'll examine each one in detail including thier thoughts on debt and some examples of how thius works in my hood. As always feel free to borrow or steal or modify away, I'd love to know how you modify and adapt it to your hood.

Worrier

Serious 5+, Money 5-
The worrier lies awake at night worrying about simoleans but aren't actually sure how much is in their savings account. This sim is pretty serious, but lacks the money knowledge to feel comfortable with thier money.

Thoughts on Debt
The worrier sim will take on debt, but will neglect to read the fine print or even know the terms of thier loans. This results in being overwhelmed with debt and worried about thier financial health.

Example
Bill Carr is a worrier, his serious nature makes him aware that money is pretty important and that he should create some sort of financial plan for his family, but he doesn't. Instead he doesn't look at the details of his debt is is surprised when debt collectors start calling.

Hoarder

Serious 5+ / Money 5+
The sim hoarder loves sales and is a bargain hunter. They are conservative with money, and highly conscious about savings.

Thoughts on Debt
The hoarder doesn't mind taking on debt of appreciating assets, however they are usually very careful about adding debt to their lives. They perfer paying in cash or saving up for a large purchase instead of taking on debt.

Example
Rebecca Wilsonoff is a classic hoarder. She looks for sales and discounts and often saves up for large expeneses. She is very conservative with money, instead of taking on large amounts of debt for Ana Rayne's surgeries, she sold the large family home and downsized to an urban townhouse to free up the necessary simoleans.

Spender

Serious 5- / Money 5-
The sim spender does exactly that spend freely. A spender thinks that buying and owning new things makes them happy, and feel unhappy if they can't afford things that friends have. They like to stand out and thier purchases are status symbols.

Thoughts on Debt
Whatever it takes to get what they want, spenders will max out multiple lines of credit and often have a deck of credit cards.

Example
Li Yoo is a spender. She enjoys the finer things in life and is willing to pay dearly for it. The nicest loft in the metro, the latest designer shoes, picking up the tabs for expense lunches with friends and flying across the simworld in first class.

Binger

Serious 5- / Money 5+

The sim binger is a combination of hoarder and spender. These sims keep on top of their debt, and can find the lowest rate on a debt vehicle. At the same time, the binger's will buy flat-screen TV just in time for the sports party.

Thoughts on Debt

Managed debt is ok, according to the sim binger. They often pay for their splurges with either savings or a small short-term debt before paying it off.

Example

S'Ahmisa Warwick is a binger. She is a whiz with money, increasing her stock portfolio and making wise investments to increase her very cushy nest egg of more than $250,000. However she splurges all the time for her friends and herself. She will buy tickets to a far away place at the last minute because she needed a break, she will partake in massages after a hard class or even send secret gifts of groceries or needed supplies to families in need when she feels the need.

Traits, Part 2

2010-11-30T03:57:00.000-06:00

Apple Valley Academy

2010-11-15T11:24:00.000-06:00

The newly renovated Apple Valley Academy is complete and ready for it's close-up. The school sits on the largest allowed piece of property (3x3) in the county and has a third level that is currently storage, but can be expanded if the need arises.

The first level features the principal's office, art classroom, music classroom, auditorium, library and cafeteria. Outside there is plenty of space on the playground, basketball court and school garden to relax and enjoy the crisp days of fall.

Antonio Herendez volunteers once a week to teach students the basics of art appreciation,

while Nicole Humphrey works part-time teaching music, or torturing her ears, depending on the student.

The cafeteria is stocked with healthy eating options such as mac and cheese, vending machines and the addictive coffee.

The library has a bank of computers as well as an ever growing book collection for student research.

Benjamin Endeavor leads an outdoor physical education class part-time whenever the weather is nice, otherwise the class is moved indoors,

much to the dispair of the secondary students who hoped to see Benjamin without his shirt once more. Students also enjoy the outdoor garden and fish pond.

The second level contains the dance room (and indoor physical education room), technical arts room, secondary classroom (6-12); lower primary classroom (K-2) and upper primary classroom (3-5).

Ilila Peterson manages to keep her students seated and focused as they compare their reading materials. Her classroom contains most of her travel momentos,

classroom fish tank (that the secondary students love) and bright, cheerful paintings.

Jasmine Frankson perfers a more laid back teaching style for her students as she allows them to explore the delights of thier surroundings. The students are surrounded with a classroom wombat, plant station, activity table, large table for reading and writing and plenty of floor space for fun and games.

Jesse Kent is just glad that he doesn't have to deal with taunts of "booger face" though he now has to try to teach his students the strange world of algebra. When students are not glued to their seats wishing for lunchtime, they can be found exploring the bookcase full of magazines and university information in the back.

Susie MacAstral doesn't have that problem with her dance class

her students are usually very dedicated,

nor do the students complain when it's their turn in the techincal arts room. Harriet and Henry work hard on their respective crafts while ignoring each other as siblings often do.
---
Download the 3x3 lot!

Deeper MAXIS Aspirations, Part 2

2010-10-30T22:30:00.000-05:00

As I have been playing for quite some time with my personality and trait system, I decided to update you on the changes I made in game. As always, feel free to borrow/steal/use them in your game and tweak them to suit you. Ask any questions, concerns or comments as well.

Aspirations, Reduex

At first I chose aspirations based on the family members. For example, if the parents were family and fortune then the children would be one or the other. Now aspirations are chosen based on thier personality, wants as a child, interests, traits and OTH-if known. Aspirations can change as the sim ages or based on a ROS, so they're more dynamic.

I assign aspirations as follows.

Fortune:
-personality= mostly serious, not lazy or shy sims
-interests = Money, Work, Crime
-OTH= n/a

Knowledge
-personality= mostly serious, shy and neat sims.
-interests = Environment, Paranormal, Weather, Sci-Fi, Health
-OTH= Science, Nature, Tinkering

Family
-personality=mostly nice sims, not lazy sims
-interests= School, Toys
-OTH: Culinary

Popularity:
-personality= mostly outgoing and playful sims.
-interests = Culture, Entertainment, Fashion, Politics, Sports
-OTH: Sports, Music & Dance

Pleasure:
-personality= mostly playful, lazy sims.
-interests = School, Toys, Travel,
-OTH: Games, Sports

Romance:
-personality= mostly outgoing, playful and nice sims.
-interests = Culture,
-OTH= n/a

Grilled Cheese (secondary aspiration only):
-personality= mostly lazy sims.
-interests = food
-OTH: Culinary

Behind the Aspirations
Aspirations mean slightly different things to me. They give me the why behind some of the wants that my sims roll up. They can also be described using some of the TS3 traits.

Fortune: This sim is very ambitious, disciplined, and at their worst is a workaholic. They can be a bit neurotic and snobbish at times, however they love art and the finer things in life to bolster their reputation.

Knowledge: This sim can be described as a bookworm, always reading and can be a bit clumsy. They can also be a whiz with technology, eccentric and often are geniuses.

Family: This sim often likes children and animals and are very family oriented. Decisions are made based on the family.

Romance: There are two versions of this aspiration in my game
-Romance-Commitment Issues: This sim often dislikes children, can be very flirty and is a great kisser and woohooer.
-Romance-Hopeless Romantic: This sim loves romance novels and stories of true love. This is how I try to reconcile those family/romance sims.

Pleasure: This sim can tend to be a bit childish and a couch potato. They are often easily impressed with just about everything and are often heavy sleepers. They are heavy party animals

Popularity: This sim is very charismatic and a natural sales sim. They can be dramatic at times and a party animal.

Grilled Cheese: This sim is a food addict with a narrow obsession with cheese.

Apple Valley Police Station

2010-10-15T09:09:00.000-05:00

In the heart of the Metro lies a crop of buildings including the plain police station clad in white stone.

Once you enter the station you encounter the reception area where you must wait until or if you are allowed upstairs to the offices or holding cells.

The station serves as home to the Apple Valley police force and intelligence department.

During their daily routines they work on cases, uncover evidence,

and keep an eye on inmates in the holding cells.

Occasionally those inmates, who live far from the lap of luxury,

receive visitors who must also be carefully watched through the visitor's speaking cell.

Otherwise, things are usually quiet around the station.

Deeper MAXIS Personality, Part 2

2010-09-30T06:06:00.000-05:00

As I have been playing for quite some time with my personality and trait system, I decided to update you on the changes I made in game. As always, feel free to borrow/steal/use them in your game and tweak them to suit you. Ask any questions, concerns or comments as well.

Deeper MAXIS Personality-Reduex

I haven't really given MAXIS personality much play. Yes, my sims have it, but since I can control them even messy sims clean up thier homes. Recently, I've been looking at the traits in depth and really thinking what each one entails. So in addition to what the game programs them to do, I arranged for the personality traits to give me clues about various other traits (such as glasses/weight/career choice and aspiration/etc).

Neat: [5+ points] organized, neat-freak. This sim would color code recipes, clean up immediately and freak out over messes. Pays bills as soon as they come in, always remembers birth control (ACR birth control is on). Clothing is neat and ironed, hair is perfectly styled, more likely to wear a watch and leave for work or school as soon as carpool arrives. Gains cleaning skills much faster at a rate of 3:1 (for every third skill point they earn by studying, they gain a bonus one through SimBlender)

Messy: [4 or less points] disorganized, cluttered. This sim would have more clutter, lose bills and forget payments and birth control (ACR birth control is off). Clothing is wrinkled, mismatched, barefoot. Wears PJs most of the day. More likely to leave for work or school at the last possible minute, or late most days.

Outgoing: [5+ points] Attire is more trendy and skimpy, more likely to wear lots of jewelry, dyed hair. Gains charisma skills much faster at a rate of 2:1 (for every one skill point they earn by studying, they gain a bonus one through SimBlender). Gains friends much faster by having an initial relationship boost of 20 with all new sims (using SimBlender, relationships with new sims start at 20)

Shy: [4 or less points] More likely to have glasses, hairstyle will be such that sim can hide behind, attire is more conservative

Active: [5+ points] Wears gym clothes most of the day, more likely to be fit. Gains body skills much faster at a rate of 3:1 (for every third skill point they earn by studying, they gain a bonus one through SimBlender)
Lazy: [4 or less points] Wears PJs most of the day, more likely to be overweight. Automatic entry into secret society. Will ask sims to complete their homework, term paper and assignments.

Playful: [5+ points] Will play on playground equiptment to increase fun, chose play with interactions to increase fun, will wear hats and face makeup, attire is more trendy, dyed hairstyles. Have a very high dancing skill (modified with SimPE).

Serious: [4 or less points] genetic disposition to wear glasses :P attire is more conservative, more likely to be designated "genius" and allowed Smart Milk during toddler years. Gains logic skills much faster at a rate of 3:1 (for every third skill point they earn by studying, they gain a bonus one through SimBlender). Have a very high meditation skill (modified with SimPE).

Nice: [5+ points] More likely to perform errands for others, give gifts, easily influenced, will have an easier time making friends. Gains friends much faster by having an initial relationship boost of 20 with all new sims (using SimBlender, relationships with new sims start at 20).

Mean: [4 or less points] Likes to torment, argue. Will have a harder time making friends and will become easily furious with other sims and stay furious longer. Relationships grow at a slower rate by having an initial relationship decay of -20 with all new sims (using SimBlender, relationships with new sims start at -20).

I've Tasted and Now I'm Addicted

2010-09-15T04:06:00.000-05:00

For some reason my game went from loading in 10 minutes to taking over 20 minutes to load. With a full doctoral course load and research responsibilities, I didn't have time to wait that long for a study break. I took out the download folder and everything loaded in 5 minutes. It's by no means the 1-2 minute load times that I've heard around the community, but 5 minutes is a pretty sweet number in my book. I know that I won't get to 5 minutes since I will use downloads, but to have a less than 10 minute load would be nice.

I know that I have gotten my download folder bloated and needed to cull it, but my piece meal effort of ingame deletion wasn't working. So what did I do? Start anew.

I took all the downloads out and redownloaded or moved over the files that I knew that I needed to play my game-things like skintones, signature hairstyles and genetics like eye color.

My Downloads folder is organized as follows:

Downloads>
--Buy Mode / creator / object
--Build Mode / type / creator
--Body Shop / type / creator
--Hacks & Mods / creator
--MAXIS
--Temporary / unopened & currently testing

My next step is deleting downloads with multiple recolors, like some of Piggi's object recolors or Fakepeeps clothing since I don't need multiple shades of blue for a nightstand and I don't need ten recolors of a dress that only three of my sims will wear. This part is more tedious. I don't know how much space I'll free up and if it will matter, but at least I won't have to shift through the recolors during gameplay.

To be honest, sometimes I wonder if this is a case of diminishing returns, more work on culling downloads to shave off a minute or two with load times...is it really worth it?

Assigning ACR's Ideal Family Size Based on Simology

2010-08-28T22:21:00.000-05:00

Many people have a preset number of children in mind that they want to have and then no more. While others never really feel like their family is complete. Thanks to ACR's newest feature of "ideal family size" sims can have the same preferences.

I decided that a sim's ideal family size would be dependent on their personality and aspiration. We all know that family sims love children while romance sims could do without them most of the time. Also, pleasure and popularity sims would want less children than knowledge and fortune sims, but to to a smaller degree of difference.

Since I assign aspirations based on personality, I had to look to see if any aspirations were based on high outgoing or nice score. Since popularity is mostly outgoing, I assigned it a higher Aspiration ACR rank, also since knowledge had to be shy (low outgoing), I gave it a smaller Aspiration ACR rank so that my knowledge sims would at least desire some children. As a result, I coded each Aspiration ACR rank as follows:

family= 1

knowledge= 2

fortune= 3

popularity= 4

pleasure= 5

romance= 6

Looking at personality, I decided that the more outgoing a sim was, then the more likely they would like to have more sims in their family. Also since niceness was a requirement for the family aspiration in my hood, I decided that the nicer a sim, the more children they would like to have. As a result I developed a personality dependent score as follows:

Outgoing + ( 0.5 * Nice )

And the final ideal family size formula as follows:

Outgoing + ( 0.5 * Nice ) / Aspiration ACR Rank = Ideal Family Size

This formula fits into my spreadsheet quite nicely without having to collect any additional information such as interests or making the formula complex by considering family background (would those sims from large families prefer large families as well since they enjoyed the experience, or would they prefer smaller families in an attempt to give each child more attention)

Based on primary aspirations only, the formula gave pretty ideal results of what I envision each sim as desiring for their ideal family size. There were a few surprises, such as Jesse (Carr) Kent wanting 14 children since he's a very nice, outgoing family sim. Which leads into the next topic, that just because they have that ideal family size doesn't mean that they will have that many children. Thanks to ACR try for baby based on aspiration and my own birth control rules, then some sims won't have their ideal family size-sorry Jesse. I also noticed that as of now, the average ideal family size for my hood is 3.6 which fits into what the size of most families. I have also included a chart of how the fertile sims (teen and older) in my hood view their ideal family size.

Of course, the actual size of the family is also regulated by finances (can the couple "afford" another child?) , age (older sims have lower fertility rates with ACR), unplanned pregnancies, medical issues (the "barren" trait), spousal preference (for those sims who want 2 children vs 7 children) and of course their wants (if they both roll wants for a child, then I remove birth control, if the partner with the lower child tolerance rolls a want for a baby, then I also remove birth control) .

Veronika Kent Medical Centre

2010-08-15T13:20:00.000-05:00

The Veronika Kent Medical Centre is located on the 39th Street block in Apple Valley Metro.

The 39th Street block us also home to many other local civic buildings

including the police department and a reputable hotel.

The centre was named after Veronika Kent, a successful architect and supporter of medical technology from the TS1 era of Greymount.

The clinic boasts of a recent renovation that added an a second level. The renovation has allowed for additional doctor offices, exam rooms and patient beds to be added.

The first level features several doctors' offices, waiting area, lobby and employee cafeteria.

The second level features exam rooms, surgery room, lab and patients beds.

Patients are greeted with a set of double glass doors that open into a spacious lobby.

Beyond the lobby, patients check in with the nurse on duty

and have a seat until they are called for their appointment.

Patients will either meet with Dr. Julio Wilsonoff, current Medical Centre Director (2005-2009) and General Family Medicine,

Dr. Suzanna McMillian, head of Obstetrics & Gynecology

or Dr. Donna O'Dale, head of Pediatrics.

Patients are seen in either one of two exam rooms,

depending on their age.

For patients that need sugerical care, a state of the art surgery lab is in process,

as well as the famous lab that discovered the cure to the Plumbbob Virus.

While recovering patients can stay in comfortable beds before returning home.

Career Choices for Simmies

2010-07-30T05:20:00.000-05:00

Sometimes my simmies have career related LTWs...other times, it's up to me to decide what career they go into. How do I do this? Several ways:

Look at the wants panel. Sometimes they'll roll a want for a specific career. If so, then I chose from one of those and they take the first one available and the one that fits their personality and lifestyle.
Look at a combination of personality, aspirations, interests and hobbies-which is what this post will talk about. Of course the usual, feel free to borrow/steal/use these in your game and tweak for your own hood.

Usually by the time my sims are teens, I will start thinking about their career and what they want to persue as their career. Here's the list that I use to think about which careers would work for each sim. It is not necessary for a sim to have EVERYTHING listed, but it's more like a score. The more qualities a sim has for that career, then the better suited that sim is for that career.

Athletic
-Personality = Active, Outgoing
-Aspiration=Fortune, Popularity
-Interests = Sports,
-Hobbies = Sports, Fitness
-Traits = n/a

Business
-Personality = Serious, Outgoing
-Aspiration=Fortune, Family
-Interests = Money, Work
-Hobbies = n/a
-Traits = workaholic

Criminal
-Personality= Active, Mean
-Aspiration =Fortune
-Interests = Crime, Money
-Hobbies = Fitness
-Traits = brave, rebellious

Culinary
-Personality = n/a
-Aspiration = Popularity, Grilled Cheese
-Interests = Food
-Hobbies = Culinary
-Traits = food addict,

Law Enforcement
-Personality = Active, Serious
-Aspiration = Family
-Interests = Crime
-Hobbies = Fitness, Sports
-Traits = brave

Medicine
-Personality = Serious, Neat
-Aspiration =Fortune, Knowledge
-Interests = Health
-Hobbies = Fitness
-Traits = n/a

Military
-Personality = Active
-Aspiration = Popularity
-Interests = Work
-Hobbies = Fitness, Sports
-Traits = brave, disciplined

Politics
-Personality = Outgoing, Serious
-Aspiration =Fortune, Popularity
-Interests = Politics
-Hobbies = n/a
-Traitsu = activist

Science
-Personality = Neat, Serious
-Aspiration =Knowledge
-Interests = Animals, Environment, Weather
-Hobbies = Science, Tinkering, Nature
-Traits = eco-friendly

Slacker
-Personality = Outgoing, Playful
-Aspiration =Pleasure
-Interests = Travel, Toys
-Hobbies = Film & Literature, Games
-Traits = rebellious

Artist
-Personality = n/a
-Aspiration = Pleasure, Family
-Interests = Culture, Entertainment, Fashion
-Hobbies = Arts & Crafts
-Traits = n/a

Natural Science
-Personality = Neat, Serious
-Aspiration =Knowledge
-Interests = Animals, Environment,Weather
-Hobbies = Science, Tinkering, Nature
-Traits = eco-friendly

Show Business
-Personality = Outgoing, Active
-Aspiration =Fortune, Popularity,
-Interests = Culture, Entertainment, Fashion
-Hobbies = Film & Literature
-Traits = trendy

Paranormal
-Personality = Neat
-Aspiration =Knowledge
-Interests = Paranormal, Sci-Fi
-Hobbies = Science, Tinkering
-Traits = brave

Adventurer
-Personality = Active
-Aspiration = Popularity
-Interests = Culture, Weather
-Hobbies = Fitness, Sports
-Traits = brave, adventurous

Education
-Personality = Outgoing
-Aspiration =Knowledge, Family
-Interests = School, Toys
-Hobbies = Science
-Traits = patient

Gamer
-Personality = Playful
-Aspiration = Pleasure
-Interests = Toys
-Hobbies = Games
-Traits = rebellious

Journalism
-Personality = Outgoing
-Aspiration = Popularity
-Interests = Travel, Weather, Work
-Hobbies = Film & Literature
-Traits = n/a

Law
-Personality = Outgoing, Serious
-Aspiration =Popularity
-Interests = Crime
-Hobbies = Film & Literature
-Traits = n/a

Music
-Personality = Outgoing
-Aspiration = Popularity
-Interests = Culture, Entertainment, Fashion
-Hobbies = Music & Dance
-Traits = n/a

Architecture
-Personality = Serious
-Aspiration =Knowledge
-Interests = Environment
-Hobbies = Arts & Crafts, Tinkering
-Traits = n/a

Dance
-Personality = Active
-Aspiration = Popularity
-Interests = Culture, Entertainment
-Hobbies = Fitness, Sports, Music & Dance
-Traits = n/a

Entertainment
-Personality = Active, Outgoing
-Aspiration =Fortune, Popularity
-Interests = Culture, Entertainment
-Hobbies = Music & Dance, Film & Literature
-Traits = n/a

Intelligence
-Personality = Neat
-Aspiration =Knowledge
-Interests = Work, Travel
-Hobbies = Film & Literature, Tinkering, Science
-Traits = brave

Oceanography
-Personality = Active, Serious
-Aspiration =Knowledge
-Interests =Animals, Environment, Weather
-Hobbies = Fitness, Nature, Science
-Traits = eco-friendly

Let's use Si'Enya Warwick for this example. Her OTH is nature, aspiration is popularity and her traits are insecure, trendy and perpetual bachelorette. Personality: Neat 5; Outgoing 3; Active 7; Playful 3; Nice 7. Topic three interests: Environment=10; Weather=10; Animals=9

So we're looking for a career that needs a sim with an Active, Nice, Shy and Serious personality, that loves the environment, weather and animals; persues popularity and their OTH is nature. Which is actually strange that Si'Enya is popularity, she is better suited for Knowledge. I may have assigned her aspiration back when I was looking at the surrounding family members to pick aspirations. Ok, let's fix that.

So NOW we're looking for a career that needs a sim with an Active, Nice, Shy and Serious personality, that loves the environment, weather and animals; persues knowledge and their OTH is nature. Whew, makes more sense. Now it's time to start narrowing down the careers. We're going to narrow it down by Personality, Aspiration, Interests, OTH and traits (if applicable). You will see that you get a different list depending on how you narrow it down.

By narrowing the careers down according to aspirations we get:
Medicine

Science

Natural Science

Paranormal

Education

Architecture

Intelligence

Oceanography

By narrowing the careers based on OTH we get:
Science

Natural Science

Oceanography

By narrowing the careers down according to interests we get:
Oceanography

Architecture

Natural Science

Science

[one match only]

Journalism

Adventurer

By narrowing the careers based on personality we get:
Law Enforcement

Oceanography

[one match only]

Military

Athletic

Business

Criminal

Medicine

Science

Natural Science

Show Business

Adventurer

Architecture

Dance

By looking at all the lists we get a few career choices that stand out for Si'Enya

Oceanography
Natural Science
Science

This is where it get's interesting and you have to get your creative juices stirring, let's look at Si'Enya's life so far. She's been hard at work trying to complete her bug collection and she has worked two summers as a camp counselor leading nature trails. We also have to look at the career caps (currently 2 playable sims per career with few exceptions)-thankfully all three careers are open. We can eliminate oceanography as Si'Enya hasn't shown an interest in marine life during her teen years.

"I know what I want to do!"

"Excuse me, Si'Enya, you're interupting the process."

"Isn't this process about me?"

"Well...yea..."

"So shouldn't I have an opinion?"

"Um...ok...?"

"I would like to be a project leader."

"What?"

""I would like to lead researchers and students in entomology studies concerning the effects of the changing environment on our insect population and how the changes in insect population effect our environment. It's a very serious issue you know, why do you think I've been trying to catalog the insect species in Apple Valley?"

"Ugh...I thought you were collecting them."

"No and can you believe that I can't find the Paratrooper Spider, they used to be abudant in this environment, but I can't find it. Don't you think it has something to do with the changing environment?"

"Umm, yea...sure."

Well, it looks like Si'Enya has chosen the science career. Looks like a good choice.
If you perfer to have someone else do the work for you, then try Simmerville's Career Planner. You answer a series of questions for your sim and they provide a list of recommendations based on skill level, personality and family situation. I don't think they have the free-time career tracks added to the database.

Montalcino

2010-07-15T20:24:00.000-05:00

Montalcino Vineyard and Resort is located several hours from Apple County.

The lower level features a world class resturaunt, on site market and breathtaking courtyard.

The upper level features several rooms that overlook the surrounding vineyards.

Guests are greeted with the vineyard's onsite market with local postcards and posters

as well as tables heavy with the freshest produce, milk, seafood and eggs delivered by local farmers each day.

The world class resturaunt boasts of an extensive nectar bar with vintages from the TS1 era

fresh nectar tasting stations for guests to sample the nectar of the day under the guidance of the host. After tasting such nectars, guests are welcome to view the process of nectar making and even try their hand at stomping the tender grapes to coax thier sweet juice out.

The resturaunt consistently serves delicious food that utilizes fresh herbs from the vineyard garden.

The chef prides herself on maintaining a fully stocked kitchen and offers cooking classes to vineyard guests. Guests can learn how to cook nectar crepes, chicken with black figs and lavendar, or even fresh basil salad.

The resort is one of the best, it has superb service that anticipates guests' every need including books from local author Elaine Mautneryia, customized tours of the surrounding area and a comfortable ride to the local airport.

The resort features clean and comfortable rooms that feature en-suite dining

or smaller rooms that adequately service your sleeping needs

and the spacious suite, also known as the Montalcino Suite

with private balcony dripping with plants that overlooks the vineyards. This suite is reserved months in advance.

When guests are not enjoying their lavish accomadations, they can be found in the breathtaking courtyard listening to the local radio.

The courtyard is complete with an area for weddings

and lavishly catered receptions

a space to relax in the hot tub

and plenty of seating areas and gaming tables shaded with hanging plants and grapevines heavy with fruit.

The courtyard is the jewel of the vineyard and resort.
---
Download the 4x3 lot here!

Poll Results

2010-07-07T03:20:00.000-05:00

The recent poll has closed and the results were very interesting.

The behind-the-scenes tidbit that you'd most like to see is:

Gameplay Background, followed by a tie bewteen Lot Tours and Technical Gameplay.

With that in mind, I plan on posting at least one gameplay background post a month with either a lot tour or a technical gameplay post once a month as well. I have also linked some important and much used game-play documents in the sidebar.

Since you want to see more gameplay posts, is there anything in particular that you would like to see? Post a comment and I'll do my best to present it in a post.

Simmish Cultures

2010-06-30T22:02:00.000-05:00

I was asked to give a little bit more detail about my simmish cultures and heritages of my simmies. I love learning about different cultures and since the world is full of them, here are a few of the current cultures in my hood. There will be more cultures as I delve deeper into my simmies lives and build the corresponding locales for them to visit as well. Feel free to steal/borrow/use these in your games as well. I hope to start adding downloads of the buildings in the future for those who are interested in recreating the locales in their game.

Inherited Cultures
These are cultures that I inherited from other simmers when their sims moved to my hood.

Sokitumi-Nicole Humphrey was originally from Sokitumi, an island nation that had several goddesses including the famed goddess of love, Goddess Lahubutaniya and the god, Anghj. This simmer did an excellant job of fleshing out Sokitumi from native words such as Melihari (hello), government names (Peaceful Regency) and a beautiful background. To hear this simmer discuss Sokitumi it seemed like a magical society untouched by modern spoils. You can check out Nicole's former blog and Nicole and Lyndon's conversations for more insight on this culture. I created Sokitumi on one the islands of my tropical subhood which uses the Emerald Isles from Amber's Journey. Sokitumi is also the only tropical island where the default Maxis tropical vacation clothing makes sense.

Simborough-Sandy Warwick and Jadhira Shazad arrived in Apple Valley after a Gender Swap with Simborough. Simborough is a FSBS hood and because this simmer is from the UK, that's what I envisioned Simborough as. You should browse through the website and learn more about Simborough's multicultural hood.

Native Cultures
These are cultures that I developed for my simmies based on gameplay options. Most of these are a result of Bon Voyage and not wanting to use the standard vacation hoods that shipped with the game.

Kimikuria: this is my "asian" vacation hood using the Ellis Island from Amber's Journey. It's loosely based on the east asian countries like Japan, China and Korea. Kimikuria is the land of zen gardens, old wise men, and mahjong . The lots are mostly the oriental series downloaded from wolfsim68 at TSR. The lots that I built use the same exterior wallpaper and roof color so that all the lots are uniform in apprearence. Li Yoo is originally from Kimikuria and the Warwick family spent three simyears there on assignment. The name was chosen based on the "asian" sound of it.

Hacienda Bay: this is the hometown of the Herendez family, starting with Alfonzo and Margurita Herendez (Greymount TS1, Apple Valley TS2) who immigrated from the bay. It is loosely based on the caribbean islands like Puerto Rico with it's british colonial style buildings, lush plants and ocean views. Currently this is only one lot in my "tropical" vacation subhood. I am in the process of rebuilding it since my first version will not "place" on the neighborhood thanks to the fact that it's a beach lot. The goal is to make it one complete island as my tropical subhood is the Emerald Isles from Amber's Journey. I don't remember exactly how or why I chose this name since it was during TS1 days (2004).

Tiki Isle: this is the hometown of the Kent family, starting with Toby and Veronika Kent (Greymount TS1, Apple Valley TS2) who immigrated from the isle. The isle is loosely based on the caribbean islands of Cayman Islands and Jamaica. The isle features a rich culture in terms of food, dance and "juice" exports. Currently this lot is in the planning stages and will eventually take up an entire island in my tropical subhood (Emerald Isles from Amber's Journey) as well. This name was chosen based on the shipped Tiki sets with the game.

Ozian: this is the birth place of Elphaba Mendenhall, who was born with a rare skin disorder that made her pigment a bright green. For those familar with the Wizard of Oz and Wicked, then you will recognize Elphaba as the Wicked Witch of the West. This place doesn't exist in the game yet, but I might consider creating this locale for Anthony and Susie to explore.

Thaindia: this is the hometown of Jadhira Shazad and I'm very excited to be starting the building of this island that is loosely based on the south east asian cultures like Thailand, India, Singapore and the Phillipines. Currently it's a single island set as a "asian" vacation subhood. I've included a sneak peek of one of the structures on the island. This name is basically a combination of Thailand and India :P

Starr Grey Administration Building

2010-06-15T08:26:00.000-05:00

I've been begging for a lot tour and just realized that I haven't given one of my own recently. Here's a brief lot tour of the Starr Grey Administration Building following it's remodel. The building was originally designed by Wolfsim68 as a bank and was retrofitted to operate as the administration building. The building is named for the first spokessim of the hood-Starr Grey, who was the spokessim for years of Greymount (~2003)

The county council recently alloted a nice chunk of simoleans aside to remodel the administration building. Li Yoo headed the project and offered to give the tour before the building was reopened to the public.

But first she needs to get rid of some pests.

Here's an aerial view of the first floor. There is the gift shop and archives library, conference room and offices for county members Carmela Herendez and Rebecca Wilsonoff. There's an empty office as well.

An aerial of the second floor. County Council President Fiona Kent's office, a small wedding chapel and a auditorium for press conferences. Also a few snacks and the loo.

The Gift Shop sells deposits on vacation trips. The gift shop has posters of different travel locales (in addition to the Bon Voyage posters, I also use posters from MTS2 and I am currently creating similar vacation destinations to match). If a sim purchases a poster, this is thier indication to me that they would like to travel to that location. The cost of the poster serves as thier deposit for the trip.

The Archives Library is a little corner with some books and computers for research. Eventually, Jadhira Shazad would like to see a public library for the hood, but at the moment there isn't a need for it.

The offices contain a desk and chairs for visitors and there's a photo outside the door for easy identification.

Carmela's office is where residents would go for complaints on neighbors and questions about cultural events.

Rebecca's office is for financial situations, loans and tax payments for example.

Upstairs is the county council president's office which has the best view.

Fiona's office is for the remainder or if residents simply want to talk to the top woman.

The Conference Room is for county council meetings or legal proceedings such as adoptions and divorces. Legal proceedings will start to be moved to the law office once I finish remodeling it.

The Auditorium is for press releases and speeches

The Wedding Hall is very simple, just the basics for a low key wedding.

---
I'm not satisfied with the building yet, I want a custom Apple Valley flag and simlish signs for outside. Also, I feel that the wedding hall is too fancy for a simple place to get married. I would like it to look more courthouse like in apprerance. I'm also debating adding a courtroom since I have law offices on another lot.

Calendar 2006

2010-05-25T12:09:00.000-05:00

Spring
Hapar Yoo
Hood President's Plans for Term
Hapar McMillian
Hapar AVA update
Hapar Humphrey
Lovar Wilsonoff
Lovar PU
Lovar PU
Lovar PU Graduation
Lovar McMillian baby due

Summer
Patar Peterson-
Education Director Plans
Patar Grey baby due
Patar Carr
Patar Apple Festival
Remar Warwick
Medical Director Plans for Term
Remar Sweeny baby
Remar Grey
Remar mini update
County Council Comp Plan

Fall
Havar Humphrey-Faith baby due
Havar AVA update
Havar PU
Financial Director Plans
Havar Humphrey-Faith
Resar Medical Centre update
Resar Kent
Resar mini-update
Resar Sweeny
Resar County Council Meeting

Winter
Givar mini-update
Community Director Plans
Givar Dawson
Givar mini-update
Givar MacAstral
Peacar mini-update
Peacar Herendez
Archives/Technology Director Plans
Peacar mini-update
Peacar Shazad

ROS

Opps-knocks up next sim you woohoo with
Yikes, there's a flood in your house
Suffer depression
Fulfill biggest want

Extras 2005

2010-05-20T19:38:00.000-05:00

Susie isn't a fan of the mascot hitting on her. Doesn't he know that she's off the market?

I got tired of seeing this

and this

and Bill's groveling didn't work-neither did strawberry juice, they kept kicking his butt. Thus, a new home.

Lainey was all over Verde during basic training and he kept denying her. However he chose a strange way to do so.

Why strip down and cuddle on the couch only to put the brakes on things-at least the game recognizes that no means no, even if you're in your undies.

Poor Lainey, she's so confused

and sad :( Imagine this happening several times during the course of basic training with Lainey's ACR driving them to the bed and sofa and Verde turning her down at the last minute.

Had to move Uma in for the birth and as soon as I did, this happened.

Thank goodness Bill had a high enough relationship with her to save her life. I was doubtful since he had already moved on with Emma.

Anthony tries to get used to his future family. Awkward first meeting your future sister-in-law as she announces her pregnancy. Susie's not helping, instead she's distracted by the cat.

Si'Enya stayed in the gym. Everytime I went to the lot, she would arrive and work out. I guess she was more self concious about the extra weight she had picked up during her growth spurt.

Jorge wouldn't leave well enough alone and instead has started to stalk poor Grex. I guess it's pretty easy considering that they're basically neighbors.

Here are some shots of the Frankson family, a non-playable family. Jasmine and Harris met at some party Faith had and they fell in love. They were so cute together and I would always find them in the photo booth-not taking photos :P

So I snatched them up to be my tester family and they spent most of their time testing out my apartment lots

over and over again.

Soon afterwards they wanted to get engaged, married and have babies. I should have seen it coming considering their family aspirations.

so I indulged them (this is their oldest, Erricson) since otherwise they wouldn't have much of a life.

Their oldest son, Erricson turned out to be a cutie

and then he quickly developed a crush on Harriet Mendenhall (the daughter of Grex's sister, Giselle Mendenhall and Jolie & Johan's brother, Joey (Dawson) Mendenhall-hmm, that means Jolie woohoo'd her brother-in-law) and I found them in the movie room in their undies. Yikes!

You'll see more of Jasmine as she's working at the school now and Harris works in intelligence. They are so cute and I'm really enjoying the whole non-playable playable townies.

Changes in the Blog

2010-05-09T23:10:00.000-05:00

Good news, I've been accepted into the doctoral program that I applied for. I'm excited about starting the process for my PhD.

Bad news, studies and research will take up a lot of time. As a result, postings won't be as frequent. Instead of three posts a week, I will have to start doing one post a week. According to my plan, there should still be plenty of posts stored in the hopper that will allow me the freedom to continue to play the game in the rare cases of free time I have, yet still provide timely posts. I will also continue to update the BTS blog, so if there are items that you're curious about, leave me a comment or email and let me know.

I hope you understand and continue to visit and comment. If you haven't signed up to subscribe or follow, go ahead so that you don't have to anxiously check everyday for posts.

How Big is Yours?

2010-03-27T06:26:00.000-05:00

Ok, round up! Time to compare!

How big is your download folder?

Yep, that little folder that we shamelessly fill to the brim with goodies for our simmies. Please note if you used some great program-like the compressorizer, or keep additional files in your download folder that would help other simmers out.

Stable Couples

2010-03-22T03:57:00.000-05:00

It's the hubby and I's anniversary and in celebration here are my top 10 stable couples in Apple Valley. I only did 10 since I have only 18 couples and that included former couples as well. I ranked them by overall score instead of attraction score. Since we all know that attraction doesn't always lead to a stable relationship. Also, this only includes current couples-cause if you were a stable couple, you'd still be together.

10. Jolie and Jorge Dawson, 137

They met during university. She liked his assets and he liked her assets. Mutual appreciation of each other's assets lead to an engagement and fairytale wedding. Five kids, three cookbooks and one unexplained and very much secret affair later, they are still going strong.

10. Tobi Sweeny and Cameron Smith, 137

Maybe Tobi finally got it right, third's time the charm, right? No engagement ring yet, but they are parents to a newborn baby boy.

9. Fiona and Jesse Kent, 138
They might not have the highest attraction for each other-she harbors a secret sexy crush on a neighbor, but this couple is the power couple Apple Valley. Nothing can shake them, political scandal or unexpected pregnancy. Behind every powerful leader is a dedicated spouse.

8. Sazo and Sandy Warwick, 154
She was a part of the revolutionary gender exchange with Simborough and he was looking for a wife. Opposites not only attract, but produce stable relationships as Sandy's party-loving ways bring nothing but pleasure to her financially minded hubby. Besides, their coupling produced one of my favorite sims.

7. Suzanna and Bradford McMillian, 171

Suzanna traveled from Eden to visit little brother, Jesse, and to take a break from her stressful career. During her stay, Fiona introduced her sister-in-law to her "hottie coworker" and her brother made her promise not to drool over the man. Who wouldn't fall in love with the handsome man and his cute daughter. The couple was fire from day one and quickly discovered that their fire had produced a pregnancy. Suzanna immigrated to Apple Valley and the duo has been on fire eversince, proving that you can find love later in life. Not only are they on fire, but they support each other.

6. Brandon and Ilila Peterson, 178

Together for almost five years, Brandon and Ilila are the newest couple to immigrate to Apple Valley. They met while he was in basic training, she was the daughter of his drill sargent which also meant that she was off-limits, not to mention the fact that she was still a senior in high school. After her college graduation they bumped into each other at a different military base in the commisary's produce aisle. She walked away with more than a bag of apples that day.

5. S'Ahmisa Warwick and Verde Herendez, 182
Best friends since the beginning of junior high school and soon afterwards they were exclusive. Not too soon, S'Ahmisa declined Verde's first proposal to go steady-claiming they were too young. Even now, S'Ahmisa's shooting down any talk of marriage as they're still too young. Hopefully their romance will last during the turbalent university years.

4. Susie MacAstral & Anthony Wren, 202
They're a new love, so new that Susie is still scared to call it love. Anthony on the other hand knows exactly what he wants and he wants to be with Susie. Again, it will be good since this couple made both countdowns. (97 attraction score)

3. Julio and Rebecca Wilsonoff, 203
They liked each other as teens, but his age kept her at a distance. When Rebecca entered university and was finally legal, Julio wasted no time in claiming her. They've remained one of the most stable (and sometimes boring) couples in the hood.

2. Ginger and Grex Grey, 203

Their romance started as teens and during the great flood they couldn't help but build thier love while spending time in the close quarters of the shelter. Four children, six pregnancies, two affairs and several deaths later, this couple is still working on building their marriage.

1. Antonio and Carmela Herendez, 232
Somethings father does know best. Antonio accepted an arranged marriage so that he could gain the family business. It's an unconvential type of love, in fact they wouldn't even call it love, but it's working and they're still together after all these years.

---
Any surprises?

EDITED: Included #4 which is no longer top secret

Education in Apple Valley, Part 5

2010-03-15T08:22:00.000-05:00

What and Why
I decided to do a series on how education in Apple Valley works, especially with the forthcoming changes. We will explore education from elementary school to obtaining an advanced degree. I wanted to move away from excessive skilling in my game and focus more on character development. This serves two purposes, one, it allows me to hone in on each sim's individual personality and preferences, two, it prevents excessive success. Right now, most sims are able to obtain a level 7 job without any trouble aside from making friends. This leaves very little room for variety in the game and most sims are financially well off. To ensure that I stay focused on this, I have now decided to try and do away with most toddler skills-instead focusing on teaching them how to walk, talk, etc.

FSBS-Lingo
The primary ways of educating the sims in all levels of education are skills, hobbies and interests. I often refer to skills as scores on "skill exams" (the number of skill points they have in a certain skill) or "core skill evaluation"-CSE (the number of total skills they have). Hobbies and interests will also be referred to in a similar manner. Now that the background is out of the way, let's move on.

Advanced Degree
Today, we're discussing obtaining an advanced degree, a terminal degree. I wanted there to be some variety in education levels of the sims. Either you went to college or you didn't, according to MAXIS. Even if you didn't go to college, you could be a doctor...um, how about no.

Some sims do not attend university, graduate from university, or simply obtain an associate's degree in thier life. Now, some sims are content with that and their goal isn't to be a surgeon, so being a nurse or EMT is great for them. Other sims want to excel in their careers a bit more, ok a lot more.

Any resident of Apple Valley with a bachelors degree may undertake an advanced correspondence course with Pierce University at any time. Tuition is $15,000 for the entire degree program and students must have at least a score of 20 on their entrance exam (Score on Core Skills Evaluation + #simyears work experience).

To complete their degree, students must graduate with at least a score of 35 on their CSE. Assuming the lowest possible CSE score of 20 from graduation from university, the student will be required to earn 15 skill points throughout their coursework.

Students are able to chose one of seven advanced degrees. A student's degree choice determines which skill, interest and hobby they will focus on maxing.

•Advanced Degree in Fine Arts: creativity/Culture, Entertainment, Fashion/Arts & Craft, Film & Literature, Music & Dance

•Advanced Degree in Culinary Arts: cooking/Food/ Cuisine

•Advanced Degree in Business Administration: charisma/Money, Work /Film & Literature

•Advanced Degree in Technology: mechanical/Weather/Tinkering, Science

•Advanced Degree in Applied Science: logic/Animals, Environment, Paranormal / Science, Nature

•Advanced Degree in General Studies: cleaning/School, Sci-Fi, Toys, Travel / Cuisine, Fitness, Games

•Advanced Degree in Public Service: body/Crime, Health, Politics, Sports /Fitness, Sports

In level one, students must score a 10 on their skill exam correlated to their major and a 35 on their CSE (ie, a student focused on the Advanced Degree in Culinary Arts must have at least 10 cooking skills and at least 35 skill points total).

In level two, students focus on refining their studies. Students must earn at least a 10 on their CIE in their focused skill. Using the example above, our Culinary Arts student must have 10 interest points in food. If multiple interests are listed, students chose one interest to focus on. Students will use magazines and sharing interest conversations to earn interests.

In level three, students continue to focus on refining their studies. Students must earn at least a 10 on their CHE in their focused skill. Using the example above, our Culinary Arts student must have 10 points in cuisine hobby. If multiple hobbies are listed, students chose one hobby to focus on. Students will use any means available to develop their hobby.

In level four, students focus on perfecting their studies and finishing their thesis. Students will use Monique's computer to write 3 research papers on their core skill (3 different articles on the their focus skill). After completing their research papers, students must write their thesis. Students will use the computer to write a novel, this novel is their thesis. Upon completing of thier thesis , students graduate with an Advanced Degree and a dandy little diploma to hang on their walls. Their options have now opened to the darkest green sections on the career table.

In summary,

Advanced Degree
-35+ CSE graduation
-degree focus skills via computer
-skill max in 1+ skill
-interest max in field
-hobby max in field
-3 research papers
-thesis

Education in Apple Valley, Part 4

2010-02-27T03:43:00.000-06:00

Entrance ExamsSims must have a certain score on their entrance exam (which consists of the summation of several scores, including skills, hobbies, etc) in order to qualify for entrance to the university.

High School GPA (3pts=A, 2pts=B, 1pt=C)
+ # Extracurriculars (1pt each)
+ # Skill points
+ # Hobby Points
+ # Years Work Experience
======
Entrance Score

Students must have a minimum of 15 on the entrance exam to qualify for admission to the university.

CostIf students meet the entrance exam requirements, , they must have funding for their
university degree-upfront. Yes, upfront. This forces my sims to really save and plan for university. This funding can come from savings, scholarships (MAXIS and
Apple Valley's) and/or loans. Currently tuition is §8000 for the entire degree.
Any grants earned during university are nullified either by making upgrades to
the campus or via family funds. Since the university is now within the hood,
students have more housing options. If they chose to stay on campus, the room
and board fee is §2000 for the entire duration.
- §8000 for tuition plus fees for private housing and board provided by the
student
-§10000 for tuition, room and board.
Students can earn the standard MAXIS scholarships and/or custom Apple Valley
scholarships. The Inter-hood Affiliate Scholarship is available for students from affiliate hoods and is a one time §1000. The Needy Sims Award is a renewable scholarship for §1000 a simyear. It is limited to students whose family pays Tier VI taxes (poverty level) or pay Tier III taxes (lower class) and their net worth is less than $10,000/sim. For example, the Doe family has a net worth of $40,000 however there are six sims in the family, which is less than $10,000 per sim. Their children would qualify for the scholarship until the financial circumstances change.

There are a few work-study options for students, including positions in the cafeteria, labs, gym, tutoring department and more. Finally there is a Military ROTC program (Verde Herendez took was the first to take this option). In exchange for a service commitment, the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) program provides the student with full tuition and a stipend of $2000 for room and board. Students must take all required military courses and training along with their other college courses
and, upon graduation, enter the service as a commissioned officer.

SpaceOnce a student has passed the entrance exam and secured funding, then we look at if there is space in the university. I only have room for three males and three females to reside in the dorm, then students must reside at home or in an apartment. If a student can pass the first few hurdles, then as long as they find housing (including going to class from home) they should be able to attend.

During university students must pass their CSE with a score of at least 20 and their CIE with a score of at least a 5 in the area associated with their major.
Interests and Majors
Animals = BIOLOGY /HISTORY /MATHEMATICS /PHYSICS /PHILOSOPHY
Crime = ECONOMICS /PHILOSOPHY/ POLITICAL SCIENCE /PSYCHOLOGY
Culture = ART /DRAMA /HISTORY/ LITERATURE
Entertainment = ART /DRAMA/ LITERATURE
Environment = BIOLOGY/ MATHEMATICS/ PHYSICS
Fashion = ART /DRAMA
Food = BIOLOGY /PHILOSOPHY/ PSYCHOLOGY
Health = BIOLOGY /MATHEMATICS /PHYSICS /PSYCHOLOGY
Money = ECONOMICS /PHYSICS /MATHEMATICS/ POLITICAL SCIENCE
Paranormal = DRAMA/ HISTORY MATHEMATICS /BIOLOGY /PHYSICS /PSYCHOLOGY
Politics = ECONOMICS/ POLITICAL SCIENCE /PSYCHOLOGY
School = PHILOSOPHY /PSYCHOLOGY
Sci-Fi = PHILOSOPHY /PSYCHOLOGY
Sports = PHILOSOPHY /PSYCHOLOGY
Toys = PHILOSOPHY
Travel = DRAMA /ECONOMICS /POLITICAL SCIENCE
Weather = BIOLOGY /HISTORY /MATHEMATICS /PHYSICS
Work = ECONOMICS /POLITICAL /SCIENCE
Study Aboard
Students also have the opportunity to study aboard in Kimikura. Students must apply for admissions to Kimikura University. Students must have a score of at least 15 on their entrance exam, at least a 3.0 GPA, and at least 15 skill points to enter.

+ # GPA points (4pts-4.0, 3.9 pts-3.9, etc)
+ # Extracurriculars (1pt each)
+ # Skill points (1pt each)
+ # Hobby Points

Each class is limited to two sims each.
Tuition for Kimkura University: §4000/year

Senior Year and Graduation
During a student's senior year they focus on perfecting their studies and finishing their senior project. Students are assigned a project depending on their major, for example art majors will need to present an art exhibit, science majors will need to publish a paper, etc. Senior projects have no effect on grades and serve to add more depth to game play. After completing their projects, students graduate with a Bachelors Degree and a dandy little diploma to hang on their walls. Their options have now opened to the darker green sections on the career table, but not the darkest green. Those options are reserved for those with an advanced degree.

In summary,

Bachelor's Degree
-20+ CSE on graduation
-MAXIS style
-senior year projects/internships
-interest generation 5+

Education in Apple Valley, Part 3

2010-02-22T03:21:00.000-06:00

Associate of Fine Arts: creativity/Culture, Entertainment, Fashion
Associate of Culinary Arts: cooking/Food
Associate of Business Administration: charisma/Money, Work
Associate of Technology: mechanical/Weather
Associate of Applied Science: logic/Animals, Environment, Paranormal
Associate of General Studies: cleaning/School, Sci-Fi, Toys, Travel
Associate of Public Service: body/Crime, Health, Politics, Sports

In level one, students must score at least a four on their skill exam correlated to their major and a 17 on their CSE (ie, a student focused on the Associate of Culinary Arts must have at least 4 cooking skills and at least 17 skill points total).

In level two, students focus on refining their studies. Students must earn at least a 5 on their CIE in their focused skill. Using the example above, our Culinary Arts student must have at least 5 interest points in food. If multiple interests are listed, students chose one interest to focus on. Students will use magazines and sharing interest conversations to earn interests.

In level three, students focus on perfecting their studies and finishing their senior project. Students will use Monique's computer to write 2 term papers on their core (2 different articles on the their focus skill). After completing their term papers, students graduate with a Associates Degree and a dandy little diploma to hang on their walls. Their options have now opened to the medium green sections on the career table.

In summary,

Associates Degree
-17+ CSE on graduation
-SE 4+ in focused skill
-CIE 5+ in focused interest

Magnetic Couples

2010-02-14T03:49:00.000-06:00

Hopefully I haven't missed the whole let's look at couple's chemistry for Valentine's Day, so here are my top 10 couples in Apple Valley. I only did 10 since I have only 18 couples and that included former couples as well. I ranked them by attraction score instead of overall score.

10. Ginger Grey and Tobi Sweeny, 65

Close friends since they were teenagers and nursing secret crushes on each other for about as long. Their romance was short-lived and they went their seperate ways leaving Tobi with a divorce and Ginger in marriage counseling.

9. Suzanna and Bradford McMillian, 66

Suzanna traveled from Eden to visit little brother, Jesse, and to take a break from her stressful career. During her stay, Fiona introduced her sister-in-law to her "hottie coworker" and her brother made her promise not to drool over the man. Who wouldn't fall in love with the handsome man and his cute daughter. The couple was fire from day one and quickly discovered that their fire had produced a pregnancy. Suzanna immigrated to Apple Valley and the duo has been on fire eversince, proving that you can find love later in life.

8. Susie MacAstral and Bill Carr, 71

Susie is one hot mama on campus and Bill just had to get a piece of the action. Well he did and he broke her heart into pieces. Sometimes you simply just get burned.

7. Brandon and Ilila Peterson, 73

The newest couple to immigrate to Apple Valley. They met while he was in basic training, she was the daughter of his drill sargent which also meant that she was off-limits, not to mention the fact that she was still a senior in high school. After her college graduation they bumped into each other at a different military base in the commisary's produce aisle. She walked away with more than a bag of apples that day.

6. S'Ahmisa Warwick and Verde Herendez, 77

Young love is always the hottest. Best friends since the beginning of junior high school. She continually beat his butt on the soccer field, but eventually he worked his way into her heart. She declined his proposal to go steady-claiming they were too young, even now, S'Ahmisa's the one to put the brakes on in the relationship, shooting down any talk of marriage as they're still too young. Hopefully their romance will last during the turbalent university years.

5. Jolie Dawson and Grex Grey, 87

They both still can't explain what happened that day nor which sim took the photograph and blackmailed them into leaving for the Plains. It was hot, it was quick and their romance left a huge trail of damage.

4. Anthony Wren and Susie MacAstral, 97
It's new and very promising, we'll see where this couple leads us. At least we know that it's going to be hot!

3. Julio and Rebecca Wilsonoff, 98
They liked each other as teens, but his age kept her at a distance. When Rebecca entered university and was finally legal, Julio wasted no time in claiming her. They've remained one of the most stable (and sometimes boring) couples in the hood.

2. Ginger and Grex Grey, 98

Their romance started as teens and during the great flood they couldn't help but build thier love while spending time in the close quarters of the shelter. Four children, six pregnancies, two affairs and several deaths later, this couple is still clinging to each other.

1. Antonio and Carmela Herendez, 137

Somethings father does know best. Antonio accepted an arranged marriage so that he could gain the family business. Years later the couple is growing hotter and hotter. It's an unconvential type of love, in fact they wouldn't even call it love, but it's working.

---
Any surprises?

Education in Apple Valley, Part 2

2010-02-10T19:27:00.000-06:00

Today, we're discussing secondary school. All secondary students, grades 6-12 (ages 12-18), attend Apple Valley Academy and are taught by Jesse Kent.

The goal of secondary school is that each student graduates with at least a score of thirteen on their CSE (fifteen for honor students) , have an increase of 3 points on their CIE (core interest exam) and have an increase of 3 points on their CHE (Core Hobby Exam). Secondary school is the place where students will continue to explore their hobby and begin to focus on their post-secondary plans.

The typical day for an secondary school student is upon entering the school, their current score on the CSE is checked. If they are lacking any points, they are directed to skill or listen to a lecture on a skill. In cases where the skill can be combined with hobby exploration, then the student is directed to explore their hobby. This is done such that the student can increase their CSE and CHE scores at the same time. Students also spend their school days earning additional interest points in their top interest via reading magazines or sharing interests with other sims.

Since most secondary school students are beginning to think about post-secondary plans, the secondary school dismisses early so that students can hold part-time jobs or internships. In addition to focusing on relationships and building hobby interests, secondary school students continue to expand their extracurricular activities.

When students enter their senior year, they are responsible for a senior project, in addition to individual class projects. Students can chose from the following projects:

Science and the Natural World=Collect a 15 insect specimen
Art =Bring in 3 photographs displaying the theme of "Apple Valley's Best..."
Music & Dance =Perform a 15 minute solo recital
Home Economics=Participate in three regional cooking contests
Simmish & History=Write a three page paper on Monique's Computer and prepare a 15 minute speech on life in the old dimension
Simmish Literature=Read and discuss three books with teacher.

The projects must be completed prior to graduation. In addition to the senior project, students can receive assistance in making their post-secondary plans whether it be attending university locally or aboard, or entering the workforce.

In summary,

Secondary School
-13+ CSE on graduation/15 CSE honors
-CHE 3+
-CIE 3+
-Senior projects

Extras, Birthday Style

2010-02-09T03:42:00.000-06:00

It's my birthday so I thought I would share some extra shots that didn't make it into stories.

I'm not sure what Julio is examining in this photo, but I agree, Nicole does have some nice legs.

Uh oh, looks like someone is trying to convince Rojo to consider his career options.

Why wouldn't he like to join ranks with this guy and pick the pockets of unsuspecting sims.

Little sister Serendipity doesn't think he can handle. "Dude, it's not that serious! I call everyone lettuce brain!"

Umm, perhaps Carmela should have changed before helping Rojo with his homework, maybe he would take it more seriously if she didn't look like an extra from a bad music video.

A streaker visits Krissy, but the show goes on deaf ears and blind eyes since Krissy is dead tried from maintaining that 3.9 GPA.

Look, she has feelings! True, they're not "Omigoodness, he's having an affair!" feelings, more like "Omigoodness, he doesn't want to woohoo in the photo booth!" feelings. Um...I think he might have been busy Krissy.

When I moved the Peterson's into the hood, who should be their welcome wagon? None other than Fiona and her sister-in-law. Makes perfect sense.

Looks like Susie has stopped caring about Bill,

maybe it was because she was expecting a little company from her spring break fling.

Looks like he got around during his trip to visit Susie. Yep, that's foster sister Faith sinking her claws into another goodie. I hope these two don't share men all their lives.

As soon as I moved the Warwicks back to the hood from their overseas assignment, what did they do? Yep, dance to some good ol' classic simmish music. Hey, you can't dance like that to kimikurian music.

Cute Cameron wanted to go birdwatching. She's so quirky at times that I wonder if she's not missing a few marbles.

The sisters-in-law comparing pregnancy bellies. I think Suzanna wins.

Jesse hanging out with his twin girls. He better not have delivered another set of twins to Fiona's uterus. She's been haunting my dreams. "Why did you do this to me?" Um, Fiona, I had nothing to do with it. Somehow you two snuck off and got knocked up. "It better not be twins again!" Um, you might have to take that up with your hubby.

Education in Apple Valley, Part 1

2010-02-01T03:33:00.000-06:00

My ROS (and more) Files

2010-01-24T23:28:00.000-06:00

Other simmers have been uploading their ROS files, so I decided to follow suit, but my ROS file is contained within a larger database and I'm including that as well.

My ROS (and more) File
You will have to download/view the excel file since formatting is screwed up via google documents. Sorry.

Don't care about replicating the formulas and just want to see the data in a funky formatting?
My ROS (and more) file-GoogleDocs Style

Guide to the DatabaseI only listed things that other simmers might be interested in. Some of the pages are works in progress or saved copies of other documents. They are hidden in my copy, but I'm not sure if they are hidden in your copy.

Yes, I am a proud excel whore, I love excel :)

AV Resident Data: My files on all my simmies including marriage, traits, networth, etc.
AV Trait System: My random generator for traits for Apple Valley Residents
Resident Random Generator: My older random generator modified from Life of a Sim
ROS: My ROS file that pulls three sims (from the Resident Data section) and the ROS
Hood Details and Census: My reports on the hood status including population stats, taxes, etc. Also included are calculators for child support and spousal payments.

Combined Terrain, Part 3, Townies

2010-01-15T20:43:00.000-06:00

I'm very picky about my game and what goes into it. I used to play on a laptop and I wanted to ensure that I didn't spend hours waiting for the game to boot up. With AV, I create custom townies and use hacks to keep the numbers low.

I plan on having six sims in each of the five social group for a total of 30 adult social townies. They would be equally spilt bewteen male and female as well as skin tones and genetic diversity. I plan on randomly generating thier names, family ties, personality, aspirations and zodiac. Thier career level would be chosen based on thier social group.

•Gearheads
--Low social class
--Careers (level 4 and below

•Bohemians
--Low or middle social class
--Careers (levels 2-5)

•Jocks
--Middle social class
--Careers (level 4-6)

•Techs
--Middle or high social class
--Careers (level 5-7)

•Socialities
-High social class
-Careers (level 7 and above)

This pool of social townies would be the main pool that my sims find thier mates once the family ties become too intermingled.

In addition to the 30 townies, I plan on having eight teen townies and eight children townies, again equally spilt and diverse, and a countessa or count.

When creating each townie I plan on giving them a bit of a backstory as well as relationships bewteen the townies (ie sibling groups, single parents, family groups, etc). I will also create six vacation townies for each vacation subhood (a total of four subhoods, one for each season which means 24 vacation sims) and six young adult townies to populate the college campus.

In all there will be 76 nonplayables for my sims to interact with and possibly find mates. In terms of the FSBS sims that frequently visit Apple Valley, they will be made into tourists. Accessable when needed, otherwise out of sight.

Combined Terrain, Part 2, Hood Decor

2010-01-06T17:31:00.000-06:00

Once the buildings are created, I then start adding hood decor. This is what makes the hood come alive. In this view you can see the lighthouse, old pond and rocky cliffs. You can also see the farm fields and vast amounts of green space.

You can start to see Apple County come to life with it's urban center and rural area. The aerial view allows you to see to the far edges of the hood, such as Lady Starr, the waterfall and the trail along the coast. Let's have a closer look.

The Apple Dumpling Children's Park. The addition of the carasoul near the trail emphasized that this it the kid zone.

Here is the Simonian statue flanked by the visitors center and Alisa Crawston Park. The statue and courtyard are hood deco, so no up close and personal visits just yet. The information sign and entrance to the wooded area are also deco...I wish my sims could go back there.

We're now entering Apple Plains. The community garden is completed and ready for volunteers to come and plant the new seeds. Rural farm deco emphasize the small town feel.

A quick trip to Apple Valley Metro, or "The Metro" as residents call it. Some parts of the metro are not a sight for sore eyes, instead some residents wish that these areas could simply disappear. Maybe in the future they will, but right now Fiona has her hands full with other projects.

Here's a nicer area of the city, at least the recycling bins are clean and there's even a bus stop for those late night taxi cab rides for when the walk is too long. There are no cars allowed in Apple County, except for taxis, social services vans and emergency vehicles. Residents walk to their destination which allows for some creative city planning.

A view of Pierce University. The campus is pretty much self contained on one lot, but the students enjoy a view of the coast and Lady Starr.

On the other side of the island sits Li Yoo's baby. She hasn't revealed much about her plans for the bay, but residents are excited to see what she has in store.

---

How do you make your hood? Do you try to have the hood complete before moving sims in or do you allow the hood to grwo over time with your sims?

Rough Calendar 2005

2009-12-25T18:02:00.000-06:00

Spring
Hapar- Wilsonoff
Hapar - Herendez
Hapar - Kent
Lovar - PCU
Lovar - Graduation (S'Ahmisa & Verde) & School update
Lovar - mini-update
Lovar - Hood Council Meeting

Summer
Patar-McMillan Baby Due
Patar -Shazad
Patar-mini-update
Remar-Wilsonoff & Sweeny Baby Due
Remar- McMillian
Remar- Warwick

Fall
Havar - Grey
Havar - PCU (S'Ahmisa and Verde enter PCU)
Resar - McMillian
Resar - Humphrey (Faith)

Winter
Givar - Humphrey
Givar - Yoo
Peacar - Sweeny
Peacar - Christmas Party (Wilsonoff)

ROS:
-Pick silly fight with sim of highest LT

-Host a sports party @ house

-Pick a fight with sim of lowest LT

-Go on Spring Break

-Sickness strikes community, one sim will die. YIKES

Combined Terrain, Part 1, Building

2009-11-12T20:52:00.000-06:00

Here's a peek at the progress so far for Apple County-the combined terrain for Apple Valley, Apple Plains, Apple Valley Metro and Pierce University. I want to show you a step-by-step overview of the progress of building the new combined terrain.

Recall the plan for combined terrain, above. I always start with a plan, no matter how loose, there is a plan. I tend to build using the principles of new urbanism so taller buildings are restricted to a certain area of the hood, the hood is laid out in a pedestrain friendly manner.

To help me create the necessary lots I keep a list, taken from the Isle of Thyme tutorial linked on my main website, and check off as I create that lot (current according to snapshot in time #1):

Bookstore/Coffeehouse/Bakery = CupaJava, done

Baby/Toy Store = Toy Shoppe

City Hall/Newspaper Office = S.Grey Administration Bldg, done

Clothes Store/Salon/Jewelry=39th Ave, done

Clothes, Bridal=TBD

Farmer's Market = Grey Farms, done

Gentlemen's Club = not sure if I will put this in the hood again.

Gym = 39th Ave, done

Nightclub = 39th Ave, done

Park/Playground = I have several of these in my hood, 39th Ave/School/Jonagold Lane/TBD

Performance Hall/Music Venue = TBD

Pool Hall/Bowling Alley = TBD

Pub/Restaurant = Several, 39th Ave; Apple Square;

Art Gallery/Photo Studio = Herendez Art Gallery

Church and Cemetary= Memorial Church

Medical Center=39th Ave, done

Firehouse = TBD

Jail/Police Station = TBD

School = done

Hotel = 39th Ave, done

The Brothel/House of Ill Repute = TBD

University Campus=Pierce University Campus, done

Beach lot = TBD

Residential Lots

Dawson home = done

Humphrey home=done

Humphrey, Faith home=Metropolis Apts, done

Grey home = done

Wilsonoff home=Jondgold Lane, done

Herendez home=Jonagold Lane, done

Kent home=Jonagold Lane, done

Warwick Home=Jonagold Lane, done

McMillian home=Metro Townhomes

Sweeny home=Metro Townhomes

Yoo home=Metro Lofts, done

Shazad home=Daniels Townhomes

Snapshot in Time #1

Behold, the work in progress, snapshot in time #1. Pierce University has been moved to be closer to the Metro (the beige buildings near the rocks) otherwise the plans have stayed the same as the original plan. A few pieces of essential hood decor have been added such as the train tracks, Lady Bella and some rocks blocking the view of the train tracks from the Metro-they intefer with the whole urban vibe.

I tend to custom build most of my lots so that I have have the crowded city like vibe needed. Most pre-built lots don't give me the same ambience when placed around in my hood, unless I use the same builder, which I don't.

For example the Apple Valley section above is actually only five lots. The school (dark brown building) is a 3x2 lot, next to a pre-built, but highly altered 2x2 shopping lot (which I'm not happy with the height towering over the rest of the buildings, so it may face the chopping block soon), in the middle is a 3x5 lot with a "street" going through it and four homes and private spa/playground/pool in my 'apartment style, but not apartments' gated community style. On the other side is a 3x2 custom lot for formal events, outdoor dining and basic shopping, next to another pre-built, but highly altered 2x2 lot which contains the admistration offices.

Snapshot in Time #2

I borrowed quite a few of the lots from the other Apple Valley neighborhood. Why reinvent the wheel when I have handcrafted some lots that I truly love, playtested and am happy with. As a result, I deleted some of the prebuilt metro lots and rearranged the Metro. The way it looks now, Pierce University has the land reserved near the rocks for future expansions while the Metro then spills over the to the rest of the upper island. The lofts are towering over other buildings in the Metro and it looks so lonely without any buildings around it, so I plan on adding some taller (4+ levels) buildings near it or simply adding some neighborhood urban building decor.

Apple Valley has expanded a bit beyond it's quadrant with the addition of some parks, sim-owned businesses, church and additional housing. I added more neighborhood decor in the form of lighthouses, waterfalls and rural decor in Apple Plains.

You might notice that there are some empty lots. They are reserved for certain functions, but until I can come up with a plan, they will sit empty.

Combined Terrain Found

2009-10-25T20:25:00.000-05:00

Finally found a combined terrain that's larger than my current terrains, but not huge. Aptly named "The Island" it's from ClicknPyscho at MTS.

I plan on have the quadrant become Apple Valley Metro, bordered by Apple Valley, Apple Plains, Pierce University (which could be moved to border AVM instead of AV) and then I made some beach frontage areas so there can be some beaches for the hood.
I've started building some of the core buildings and progress is going slowly. After building all the buildings and adding neighborhood decor, I will do a clean sweep on the character files and start creating townies and dormies.

Combined Terrain Sooner?

2009-10-19T22:42:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite couples has experienced the jump bug. Yikes! I created clones and moved them into the hood and successfully killed off one sim, but the other one is walking around as an elder townie. The sims in the hood still have lots of memories with the original couple and I can detect that things will start getting glitchy as evidenced by the static thought bubbles and occasional strange occurances.

As a result, I fear that I may need to move to a combined terrain sooner. Why not just deal with the affected family? I can, it would be tedious in terms of memories, but it should even out after a generation. However, since I've been playing around with combined terrains, perhaps this is the push I need. I'm not ready to pull the plug on AV and move all the residents. I still haven't found a terrain that I'm happy about, most of them are too large, even the smaller ones. I guess when you're used to using tiny terrains, everything seems large if you have to move the camera around to see any part of the terrain :P

Randomizing Zodiacs

2009-10-08T16:10:00.000-05:00

I've been running reports in excel for my sims and noticed that the zodiacs were in no case random-more like I continuously clicked either Gemini, Aquarius or Libra for my simmies. I've decided to reassign zodiacs-mostly for children, but a few single adults as well, to make the numbers more random and inject a bit more genetic diversity. I'm curious to see if this bumps up my low ACR scores in the hood.

Thus far ACR scores have increased, however, they have not increased like I thought they would. For example, before changing zodiacs S'Ahmisa and Verde had a solid 1 bolt. I didn't alter thier zodiac, yet when I viewed thier ACR, they were a solid 3 bolts. Perhaps this is because they were set to independent teens.

I have also noticed that the scores change a bit more, perhaps this is because of the dynamic token status. Nothing major, but my couples seem to alter scores by +/- 4 points depending on the time of day :P

I'm happy to finally have a little more variety, it won't really take place until I alter personality traits as well. I think I'll alter the genetic personality traits of children and younger so that the personality can pass on via DNA.

Education in Apple Valley: Post Secondary

2009-09-23T22:19:00.000-05:00

With the start if another school year, I decided to share a little bit about how university works in Apple Valley.

The University

The university has the basic MAXIS majors and is located on a small island.

Entering University

It is not always required that teens have the want for university, as some teens will be forced to attend university by thier families if they do not have the want, but both parents have the want, money and relationship with the teen.

Teens must pass the entrance exam (since everyone that wishes to attend college can not) with at least a score of 15. They must also have a minimum of 15 skill points.

ENTRANCE SCORE=
GPA (3pts-A, 2pts-B, 1pt-C)
+ Extracurriculars (1pt each)
+ Job Experience (1 pt for each level)
+ # Skill points (1pt each)

Dishonorable Discharge from University

Students aren't allowed to gain skill points, do homework, go to class, attend group study sessions, or write term papers unless they have a want to do so, or have a want to make Dean's List.

If a student fails, then they just let me know that they're not interested in college. Depending on the situation the student either withdraws from university or is expelled.

Semesters & Seasons

Students are played in one year rounds of two simdays with one simday for each semester. The fall semester is focused on school and going to class to earn skill points, not MAXIS class (unless they don't need skill points), but an actual lot where the academic buildings are located. The buildings have skill objects to help with gaining skill points needed for that major. Thus, my art majors gain creativity points in art class, fitness buffs take athletic classes such as tai chi, yoga or ballet, etc.

During the spring semester, grades are randomly chosen and students have the option for a spring break. If they chose not to go anywhere for break, they spend thier free time building up hobbies, reading and generally having fun.

Whoopie!! Breaks!

University Students have spring break each academic year. One student plans a trip and invites a few friends to party it up! Students are also allowed to visit home on weekends and winter break.

How is this Aspirationally Possible?

2009-08-12T09:14:00.000-05:00

Meet Suzanna (Carr) McMillian. Hailed from Eden, age 38, currently in the medical field and employed at the Veronika Kent Medical Centre as Head of General Medicine. Primary Aspiration: Fortune, Secondary Aspiration: Knowledge.

Now, keep those aspirations in mind as I tell you a little story. Bradford and Suzanna visit a friend after the birth of thier first child. I take control of the sims as I normally do, but I do not interfer with thier free will and ACR of course.

00:00=I notice Suzanna has a want to woohoo with Bradford. The elevator is free, so I indulge her.

00:01=The want rolls away, only to be replaced by-Woohoo in Bed. Oookaayyy, I find a nearby bed and indulge her.

00:03=The want rolls away, only to be replaced by-Woohoo in Bed. Are you serious?! Didn't you just go at it twice?!?! Ok, fine once more.

00:05=The want rolls away, only to be replaced by-Woohoo in Bed. Now, I see this as a dare-almost like she's taunting me. At this point, Bradford has finally rolled the want to woohoo with Suzanna. I indulge them-again.

00:06=The want rolls away, only to be replaced by-Woohoo in Bed (except Bradford, who rolls a nice fortune sim want of buying an expensive painting).

00:26= This cycle of indulgement continues. Those times to the side are not sim-time, but real-life minutes. Which is basically about an entire simday (thank goodness for max motives and set hour).

00:31= I begin to wonder why Suzanna's hormones are so...agressive to say the least. Maybe it's her way of saying that they want another baby, hey, they are getting up there in age-but why doesn't she just roll the want for a baby instead of the multiple wants of practicing for a baby.

00:38=My fingers are getting tired from the routine clicking and the owner of the bed would like to use it for her own...indulgence. Ugh! I check the ACR lot settings-it's not brothel-then I remember that ACR isn't at play here-this is pure wants. WANTS!!! These are romance sim wants and Suzanna is anything but.

00:48=I realize that I've almost wasted an hour indulging this sim who is not giving up this stupid want! Even Bradford is tired at this point, my hubby is wondering when I'm coming to bed and Suzanna is standing there with this smug smile and the want-Woohoo in Bed.

00:52=I give up! Suzanna has beat me. I'm tired, I'm sure Bradford is tired and believe it or not-after all that woohoo, there wasn't an oppsie pregnancy. So even if Suzanna was trying to tell me that she wanted to have another baby-no such luck.

00:53=I power down the game, Suzanna's smug smile and Woohoo in Bed want taunting me.

I should have seen the clues before. The constant kissing, the pregnancy by ACR...sims, what are we going to do with them?
----

Have you ever had a sim behave in such a way that you had to recheck thier aspirations?

Combined Terrain vs Individual Terrians

2009-08-05T09:41:00.000-05:00

I've been debating switching to a combined terrain for Apple Valley instead of the subhoods. That's how the world really works, right? Basically I would use one neighborhood map and there would be sections on the map to represent the three areas of Apple County, well-four if I decide to have a base hood university.

What about townies, downtownies and social groups?
As long as I have apartment buildings, then I will have social groups. These social townies pretty much nullify the need for townies and downtownies. I plan on having six sims in each social group for a total of 30 social townies. I would have a few teen townies, a countessa and count and a Diva and Mr. Big. The main difference is that in custom creating the townies, I would create relationships bewteen the townies (sibling groups, single parents, family groups, etc). I will also create six vacation townies for each vacation subhood (a total of four subhoods, one for each season which means 24 vacation sims).

Individual Terrains
(+) Pros
----able to use small terrains such as Amber's Journey with faster loading times.

(-) Cons
----load time of the subhoods
----seems silly to explain how far each subhood is to account for the fact that you can't see glimpses of the Metro from Apple Valley and vice verse.

Combined Terrain
(+) Pros
----lack of load time for each subhood
----simulated seamless neighborhood

(-) Cons
----not very many "medium" hood terrains. Most as either very tiny or large. I would want something that has a variety in roads to accomadate three different types of "subhoods" but is small enough to not have to scroll around without a camera hack to see it all. I like the Lake Crossing Terrain, but smaller with a lot less roads. I've been thinking of buying SC4 just to create the smaller hood I envision. I did finally contact Amber's Journey to request the perfect hood (a combination of three of her hood terrains). She just had a baby-congrats!-and understandably isn't playing the game as much. So we'll see.

The last question would be how to explain the new terrain from a FSBS prespective?

Rough Calendar 2004

2009-08-01T09:30:00.000-05:00

Spring
Hapar- McMillian Wedding
Hapar - Shazad
Hapar - Warwick
Lovar - PCU
Lovar - Graduation (Harvis & Susie) & School update
Lovar - mini-update
Lovar - Hood Council Meeting

Summer
Patar- Grey
Patar -Shazad
Patar-mini-update
Remar- Dawson
Remar- Humphrey (Faith)
Remar- McMillian Baby Due

Fall
Havar - Sweeny (Tobi)
Havar - PCU (Susie & Harvis enter PCU)
Resar - McMillian
Resar - Yoo
Resar - Kent

Winter
Givar - Humphrey
Givar - Herendez
Peacar - Wilsonoff
Peacar - Christmas Party (Kent)

ROS:

-Get a makeover!

-Go gambling, spend $1300 at poker

-Raise money for charity

ACR vs Wants Induced Romance

2009-07-11T04:12:00.000-05:00

Ok, by now many of you know about the Dawson/Grey/Sweeny drama. For those who don't simply read through the Dawson and Sweeny's entries as a recap.

Background

It started with ACR pulling rank. Grex Greyand Jolie Dawson-without any wants-proceeded to make-out with each other and then woohoo. Whoa! Where did that come from? They have two bolts, but ranked thier spouses higher. Since it was a one time thing, I decided to go with the storytelling view that it was an attack of passion, they didn't know what had happened.

Then we move on to Ginger Grey and Tobi Sweeny. They have three bolts with each other. For some reason Tobi's attraction score is more for his wife (his total attraction score), but when ranking bolts, Ginger is higher (He has 100/100-love with both, but is BFF with Ginger). I guess the game gives bonus points for that wedding ring since Ginger's attraction score is higher for Grex as well. They are both attracted to each other more than thier spouse-both ACR attraction (not total attraction score) score and bolts, but haven't acted on it based on ACR. Instead, they farted hearts all over each other and then rolled romantic wants. This proceeded in a want induced affair.

ACR vs Wants
Now that we have the background, how do I determine which trumps what? I decided that if the sim rolls the want, then they have logically thought it out-sometimes-and REALLY want that. However, ACR can just be hormones raging.

So Grex and Jolie shared a one night stand that is not to be repeated, while Ginger and Tobi embarked on a blown out affair. We'll see where this takes us.

Overview of Apple County

2009-07-04T20:38:00.000-05:00

I recently combined Apple Valley, Apple Valley Metro and the brand new Apple Plains into Apple County. Here's a brief overview of the tiny hood and subhoods. How tiny? The largest lot-not including the massive beach lots-is 3x3. I use Amber's Journey terrains from MTS2.

This might change since I've been debating switching to a larger terrain that would combine the three areas. I've had the seperation mostly due to the downtownies that spawn downtown-such as Mr. Big and the Diva and the Countessa and Count. If I move to the one terrain, I would create my own townies and then create the Count and Countessa.

Totally snatched this from Laura at Lakeside Heights.

Apple Valley

Apple Valley is a quiet suburb, great for families however land prices are increasing and forcing families with smaller paychecks to look elsewhere for housing. The hood lies on a tiny island with jutting rocks surrounding it, making transportation to the hood very difficult. Apple Valley looks different from past views because it's growing and residents are demanding that facilities are updated.

Apple Valley Metro

Apple Valley Metro lies on an island smaller than Apple Valley about a 40 minute ferry ride west from the suburb. A light rail connects the urban mecca to a nearby airport and train depot. Lady Starr stands to the west of the island. Some cheap housing can be found, but for the most part young professionals long for the city life and everything at thier fingertips.

Apple Plains

Apple Plains is the last land incorperated into Apple County. A rural landscape and rich soil are abundant here. Notable properties include an historical train station, farmer's market and general store. Land is plenty and cheap as well, however amenities are few.

Cleaning Up

2009-06-17T13:21:00.001-05:00

Been doing some cleaning up in Apple Valley. Got the downloads folder down to 1.99 GB. I noticed that my Sims 2 folder is 2.90GB, so over half of the space was the download folder.

My downloads are sorted by the following:
Downloads/
-Body Shop
---Accessories -> Type
---Beards
---Clothes -> Male/Female/Mesh -> Age Group (Adult/Child/Etc)
---Eyes / -> Default
---Eyebrows
---Hair/-> Creator
---Make-up/-> Type
---Skintones/ -> Default
-Build Mode ->
-Buy Mode -> Creator
-Hacks and Mods -> Creator
-Temporary (all files being tested)

Once I realized that most of my Sims 2 folder was devoted to downloads, then I got on the clean up vibe pretty quickly-amazingly it also spilled over into real life so I'm multi-tasking by cleaning the house, blogging and loading up the game. :)

So far I culled it from 2.28 GB to 1.99 GB, but you won't believe what actually took up the most space! Those lot packages that you have to click and then they load. Well, you better delete those things afterwards since those lots are now in your game. Those files were HUGE! I'm talking thousands of megabytes! Then the next largest is a MAXIS file from the EA Store. That's right-one file! It's a hefty 10,000 KB !!! Yikes!

My goal now is 1GB for downloads. That would mean I will have to be pretty harsh when it comes to downloads and subsequent storytelling. Those themed lots-like Fish & Chips resturaunt, might have to be conveyed via Maxis objects. I'll also have to stay away from all those beautiful websites with WCIF info on yummy objects!

Speaking of yummy objects, what CC is a MUST keep for you? I vote for my blakeboy modular seating and a very beautiful modern chair from Bella Forum-I think.

Does anyone know how big the Sims 2 is without any CC, saved sims or uploaded lots? Basically the memory stats for the game only. I guess that's not quite true since I also deleted the shipped neighborhoods (Pleasentview, Strangetown, etc).

How does that reflect on game time. I have a very basic desktop-Compaq Presario with 1GB of memory, 250GB Hard Drive and AMD Athlon processor.

13 mins for game to load to start-up screen

1 min to load neighborhood of choice

slight lag of 4 min when click apartment lot and for family choice to load (not sure if this is because I'm on the net at the same time)

3 min to load family

So about 20 minutes to load and start playing. Not bad since it used to take a good 35 minutes to load. I want to get my load time back down to 10 minutes, I downloaded something recently that really lags the system. I have some clues as to what it might be, so I'm off to cull some more.

Rough calendar 2003

2009-06-08T08:08:00.000-05:00

Rough calendar 2003:

Spring
Hapar-Grey
Lovar-Dawson
Lovar-PCU-Spring Break
Lovar-Sweeny Baby Due

Summer
Patar-School Update & Apple Festival
Patar-Sweeny
Patar-Dawson Emergency Update
Remar-Kent

Fall
Havar-Warwick
Havar-PCU Fall Semester
Resar-Herendez
Resar-Humphrey

Winter
Givar-Shazad
Givar-Dawson/Grey Babies Due
Givar-McMillian
Peacar-Wilsonoff

ROS:
Make Like Rabbits-Woohoo 15 times in the next 24 hours. This will probably result in a pregnancy.

Vacation-ok, this was due for this family anyway.

Crafting Obession-Toy Bench: Craft until gold badge recieved. Will be funny :)

Herendez Art Foundation

2009-06-04T19:33:00.000-05:00

A quick intro to the Herendez Art Foundation. I'm a visionary, but suck at the details. One of the great things about sims is that I can try things out in the game quicker than in real life.
---

The Herendez Foundation for the Arts will increase awareness of and appreciation for the quality of arts produced and presented in Apple Valley and Apple County by providing programs and services to promote and assist Apple Valley Artists.

The Herendez Foundation for the Arts has two arms.

The Arts in Education arm supports artist education in the elementary and secondary levels. This includes donations of supplies, equiptment and funding to expose students to local art and culture through field trips, lectures and hiring artists/teachers as well as scholarships for students showing high artist merit.

The Partner in Art arm supplies fellowships for artists to move to Apple Valley to persue thier artist endeavours. This arm also provides funding to establish a community art collection, hire artists for various events, lectures and teaching positions, and host booths during the annual summer Apple Festival.

HAC (Herendez Artist Community)
Highly qualified adult sim writers, visual artists, composers and performance artists are invited to apply via email to HAC. Residences vary in length from 1-3 simyears, afterwards the artists may immigrate to Apple County or return to thier home hood. During this time, a furnished space is provided for in the enviromental sensative artist community. Artists are given a stipend of §500 for thier bills, supplies and food costs during this time. A community garden is provided to supplement food costs for the artists and each residence is responsible for thier own plot, while the harvests are shared amoung the group. Up to eight artists can be accomadated at a time.

-How does this work, really?

The HAF affects the game by allowing me to move in sims with a purpose (besides the whole, I need fresh DNA) both from CAS and from other sim-to-sim hoods. HAF will also allow the Herendez Art Gallery to offer the crafted products of other artists, which frees Antonio up for retirement and allows there to still be a nice selection of art to chose from.

Pregnancy in the Hood

2009-05-20T18:37:00.000-05:00

Since so many of my sims are pregnant and will be delivering from 2002 to 2005 (yep, some families are that far ahead), and to calm my own baby cravings, I decided to post about pregnancy in Apple Valley.

Since the SimLonic calendar has 1 rotation/1 simday=1 simyear (or 8 SimLonic months), a pregnancy can't be 9 months and I also don't want to "speed my pregnancy" vis Tombstone of L & D and miss all the cute belly shots. So here's how I deal with it:

Once a pregnancy is "confirmed" either through throwing up, pregnancy scanner or -it too late-belly pop, then I continue to play that household for the three simdays until the birth. Instead of turning aging off, whenever it gets to be 5 o'clock PM, I set the hour to 9 o'clock PM (since at 6 o'clock the sims age).

Using this method, babies are due 6 SimLonic months after conception and will be featured in a mini-update :)

Building Downtown-Part One

2009-05-13T18:51:00.000-05:00

Decided to do a post about building a custom downtown which is what I had to do once I decided to expand Apple Valley's borders. AV is small since I wanted maximum time playing, but after a while I grew bored of suburban living. I'm a city girl at heart (and an island girl in my soul, but that's another post). I decided to allow my simmies a downtown and Apple Valley Metro was born. (note-AVM is still a work in progress and like AV will always be).

Let's start at the very beginning.

Inspiration

I decided to go for a New York City/Chicago (especially Chicago) vibe since they are both waterfront cities and Apple Valley Metro would be an island. Why an island? The terrain is smaller and faster to load! I LOVE Chigaco and would live there if it wasn't so cold (remember, I'm an island girl in my soul). I knew I wanted a beach boardwalk for closer beach access than a vacation and some urban apartments. I added Lady Starr (the Bella statue) by editing the terrain and building up a small island to place the neighborhood decor. Using MTS I found some ferry decor and pier decor to make a small walkway and Lady Starr Isle was born (modeled of course after Lady Liberty). Lady Starr is not named after my webname-starrsim, but it is named after Greymount's (Apple Valley's TS1 roots) first spokesim-Starr Grey.

Terrain

I decided on Amber Journey's Sunset Island as the terrain since it was smaller than Apple Valley's terrain (Golden Bay Island) and had the makings for a ferry dock. I love small terrains, it allows loading times to run much faster and it would provide a very dense appearence to the urban city once lots were added.

Layout
Apple Valley Metro couldn't be much of a city, mostly crowded and urban. The ferry access is to the north. Luxury apartments and penthouse are towards the north, seady cheap residences are towards the south. The beach is to the east while Lady Starr lies to the west. The center is the business and civic center and a small apartment complex based on a set of lofts (I've found that my commerical lots made with Lot Adjuster lots don't seem to work as well so I'm in the process of creating commercial lots on default maxis lots-ETA: Duh! There's a seperate download for community lot adjuster lots-whoopie! Now I can still have tiny commercial lots!). Not much room for other neighborhood decor except a raised train and a few billboards.

Construction

AV Metro is still in process and undergoing lots of construction and reconstruction until I like it. I recently took out a lot of the apartment buildings (there was room for about 45 sims, which I barely have that many in the main hood) and replaced them with more green space.

Apartments

Needless to say, the apartments went (are going) under multiple renovations, deletions and rebuilts. I deal with mostly 3x3 and smaller lots, which meant that sometimes entire apartment units would have to fit on a 2x1 or 1x1 lot. At the moment the city is overcrowded with apartments. There are 12 lots total, 8 are apartment lots. I am working on decreasing that number to 4-5. Why? Well, I want various lifestyles represented and space is limited so I narrowed it down to the following apartment types:

Morningside Co-Op [2x2]
Description: 2-2 bedroom luxury apartments with one 2 level penthouse (north). Penthouse includes a lower level rooftop garden. Common area includes bowling alley, business center and sauna. Heavily based on this building from dacyco which I couldn't download :(
Construction Progress: Complete, currently being playtested. MAXIS thinks this expensive lot should be for low class ($1,230 (for the smaller apartments) and $6,450 (for the penthouse) in rent?!!?) I am testing it with the cheat-lot class changer, but I have to reset it each time I enter the lot/add a family. Grrr! I am looking for something a bit more permenant in terms of changing the lot class.
Social Groups: Socialites

Metro Center Lofts [2x1]
Description: 2-Mid-Range Apartments in Loft Style (center). Each apartment has a large lofted bedroom and 1 full baths. Features exercise room, party room with bar and buffet and rooftop .
Construction Progress: Complete, currently being playtested and reworked. Will probably add additional floors to showcase an urban view or simply add a penthouse. However, the lofts are in the center of the city, which would mean the other lots would need to be built higher as well as I don't want the lofts to be the highest building. I added rooftop amenities instead and remove the sauna and massage center to add more square footage and am currently playtesting the changes. Social Groups: Techies

Oakwood Townhomes [2x4]
Description:3-Mid-Range Townhomes (west). Each townhouse has four bedrooms, three full baths, enclosed backyard and front yard. There are no common areas...unless you count the bus stop by the street. Great for families.
Construction Progress: Complete, being playtested. Again, for some reason MAXIS thinks this expensive lot should be for low class ($4,450 in rent?!!?) I am testing it with the cheat-lot class changer, but I have to reset it each time I enter the lot/add a family. Grrr!
Social Groups: Jocks, Techies

Carmela Artist Community [2x2] or [1x4]
Description: 3-4 Mid-Range Apartments. This is the urban Artists Colony with community garden (south). I am experimenting with building with containor crates, but I also like the look of Black Orchid's Green Village.
Construction Progress: 2x2 complete and playtesting, 1x4 in progress.
Social Groups: Gearheads, Bohemians

Economy Studios (south)
Description: I would love to have cheap cramped studio apartments, we'll see where they fit in since AVM is so small and the seedy part of town is really close to the the nicer parts of town (there's pretty much no seperation!)

Facilities

Current Commercial Lots in Progress or Built:

39th Street
Cultural Musuems (Regional Aquarium, Musuem of History), Coffeehouse, Clothing Store & Salon, Gym, Pet Shop, Electronics Shop

8th Ave
Seedy Nightlife (dance club, strip joints, hotels)

9th Ave
Art Gallery, Indoor Skating, Concert Halls (Regional Orchestra, Regional Ballet). In Progress: Jazz cafe

White (or East) Shore
Pier and Boardwalk with beach access.

Dimensional Park
Parks & Green Spaces with view of Lady Starr

FSBS Confusion

2009-04-26T19:32:00.001-05:00

I've been reading and recieving emails about confusion over FSBS (for sims by sims) hoods. Many of the questions involve "Can I join the SUN?" "Please let me in the SUN"

The SUN (Sims United Neighborhoods) is not a club or secret society-though it would be cool to have a limo take us to a secret location and we can hack our grades, but I digress. Applying for the SUN is very very simple. Simply submit the required information about your hood and viola! You're in the SUN! It's a two part process and it can take a while, not because of approval but due to volume of applications and real-life.

Once a SUN member, please take time to enjoy the SUN boards and chat with other sims in other hoods. You can arrange a SUN Exchange with another neighborhood, submit a guest article to the website or simply browse around and read the older articles.

Second source of confusion, "What are the rules for FSBS?"-the simple answer, there are none. FSBS isn't a challenge, but more of a style of playing. The simmer speaks through thier sims to other simmers in a type of role playing. For example, if Sandy Warwick wanted to contact her family in Simborough (another FSBS hood), then I would post on the boards as Sandy. Each sim has thier own personality and nuances in speaking style. Sandy for instance, is "sim-british", so I try to make sure her spellings are british as well as her ideas. In terms of websites/blogs-if you chose to have any, then typically every service in your hood is provided for by one of your sims. If you upload houses for downloading, then one of your sims is the architect behind those beautiful homes, if you publish a newspaper online, then your sims are the writers and editors.

I've been a SUN member and playing in a FSBS style since about 2004 and I've met some awesome simmers, gained some great ideas and reinvented my hood several times. I hope this post clears up some confusion, if you have any questions-post/email me. Also, if you have a FSBS site, please post below any additional comments to clear the general confusion regarding this playstyle.

Website Updates

2009-04-26T17:39:00.000-05:00

Ugh, my blogs are updated, but I have neglected my website. I have a long to-do list:

-Reorganize website to reflect that all the dynamic news happens in the blog or the BTS blog
All resident journals are on the blog and I've been keeping BTS updates here, so the only thing on the website is laws, community information and links to blogs. I decided that the only thing on the website will be:
---Administrative Office (laws and links to council notes, council meetings and simyearly census reports in the main blog);
---Community Life (information about clubs-Historical Society will have it's own page, as well as AVA and Pierce University; Apple Valley News-see below; link to tours which will be updated in the blog);
---Yellow & White Pages (links to blog, SUN yellow pages; Pennelson Inc, Pahala Shore and A.Pentragnani)

-Update the administrative laws
With the merger and changes in the way I play the hood, some minor updates need to be made.

-Update tours and decide on a publication schedule for tours
Tour of the neighborhood will be linked from the BTS blog. Will start with a hood/county overview; followed by tours of individual lots and some gameplay on those lots-if applicable. Would like to publish a tour once every 4-6 weeks.

-Publish a few newspapers.
I haven't gotten the publication rate for the newspaper settled yet and would like some suggestions. Should I publish a paper at the end of every simyear (ie about 1 every 4-6 weeks) that has the updates for the simyear and few articles-or some other schedule (if you think some other schedule, please let me know what you have in mind.)

Suggestions? Comments? Please post them below.

Taxes and Fees

2009-04-15T21:14:00.000-05:00

In honor of tax day, thought I'd share some insights of how Apple Valley collects taxes and fees.

The Old Version
The hood used to collect $750 per family and $1000 per owned business as a tax every Monday. Well, with only nine families and three owned businesses, that wasn't a lot of money (less than $10,000). Even after raising taxes to $1000 per family and $1500 per owned business the result was $13,500 every seven simdays. With the fact of the new simlonic calendar, this wasn't enough money to last 7 years!

The Possibilities
I debated property and income taxes, but with the sims living in apartments, thier net worth is a lot lower and besides, if they spent most of thier money on depreciable objects, then they won't have as large of a tax bill to pay, which seems like a tax shelter for those greedy wealthy sims that love to buy everything in the catalog. Not to mention making note of net worth or income before taxes were due was a little too much like work for me :)

The New Version-The Numbers
The sims are divided into tiers: wealthy (net worth $100,000+), mid-range (net worth$50,000-$99,000), low (net worth$25,000-$49,000) and proverty (net worth below $25,000). Thankfully with only nine families, I can easily tell where each family lands.

Then each tier pays a tax based on the number of sims in that household.
Tier I (wealthy)=$2000/sim
Tier II (middle class)=$1500/sim
Tier III (lower)=$1000/sim
Tier VI (proverty)=$500/sim

Misc Taxes:
Pet tax of $1000 per animal.
Luxury Tax of $5000 for each vacation home
Business Tax of $5000 for each owned business

Credits:
$1000 for each child
$1000 each married couple
10% of significant donations ($10,000 or more) up to $5000.

So for example the Herendez family. Tier I, 5 sims, 1 business, 1 vacation home, no donations, 3 children, married. $10,000+$5000+$5000-$3000-$1000=$16,000 tax bill.

The Humphrey family. Tier VI (not making much on that pastor's salary), 5 sims, no business/vacation home/donations, 3 children, 3 pets, married. $2500+$3000-$3000-$1000=$1500 tax bill.

Continuing for the rest of the families
Kent=$6000
Wilsonoff=$5000 (donated to Simmington Hills & footed the bill for the new university building)
Shazad=$3000
Grey=$10,000
Dawson=$2500
Sweeny=$1000
Warwick=$16,000

Total of $61,000 from the playable sims. Then to make things fair, each townie and NPC pays a modified tax, they use the community lots and public transport as well, brings in another $150,000. So $211,000 is the budget for 4 years.

The Timing
So every Monday and Thursday, the hood council president will collect taxes (this is about every 3/4 years). The current president visits the administrative office and using familyfund cheat, I'll collect the taxes and fees. Then the hood council will tell me in thier meeting ( via thier thought bubbles :P ) what to spend the money on and notes will be made in the council notes. As of now there isn't a seperate account for the hood council president and the hood's funds. I'm thinking of creating a placeholder sim and that sim will be the hood's accounts. We'll see since I'm more of a this lot cost about this much instead of a this lot was exactly this many dollars and cents type of player.

At Home in Kimikura

2009-04-11T21:28:00.000-05:00

Recently I drew a ROS for a family to live abroad for 3 years. Ok, that's a lie. The ROS was for the wife to leave the husband, but this couple are ALWAYS in the bed thanks to ACR and ALWAYS walking about in thier undies-even when the kids have friends over for dinner-a bit embarrassing if you ask me, but I digress. Since this couple is rock solid, I decided to chose another option in the ROS. The ROS is actually "Your family decreases" and it choses one of six options. So I chose the live abroad option. After brainstorming how and why the family would live aboard I then had the task of creating a dwelling place for them. The best part is that since the house is provided to them at a discounted cost I could spend a bit more than usual.

The spoiler for the ROS is that the family moves to Kimikura for thier time aboard. As an additional teaser, here's a preview of the home. Those who follow the Apple Valley families may be able to determine which family is moving away, but since the home is a traditional Kimikurian home and decorated in that sense, it may be a bit difficult.

Anyhoo, without further adieu, here's the tour of the new home.

Entrance of the home flanked by two statues rumored to bring good luck, health and blessings to the occupants of the home.

The foyer features space to put mail from family and friends back home in Apple Valley.

The kitchen/dining room is a cozy spot with bar, plenty of open shelving, bright green curtains and effecient kitchen layout (opps, I forgot the sink! Need to add that!)

The living area is sectioned into a comfortable seating arrangement for watching TV in Kimikurian (with simlish captions!) or chatting about the new culture. There is a desk area for emails, business reports and research, school work and basic bill paying and list making.

Upstairs are three bedrooms

one for each child. The oldest one insisted on plenty of room to study, especially with university so close, there isn't time for studies to go lacking.

The master suite has a private bath and balcony with room for a tea table and private tea ceremonies.

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Did you guess which family is going to leave Apple Valley for a little while?

Thank Goodness for Exit Without Saving!

2009-03-30T21:20:00.000-05:00

I left my computer after I thought I turned off the game. Needless to say when I returned the next evening, I found that my computer hadn't "gone to sleep". Curiously I turned on the monitor and lo and behold (I always wanted to say that) the game was still running and it was on pause. The live mode was disabled.

Apparently my family died and the twins taken away. How? I have no clue. I thought they were on free will, but who knows. The tombstones were littered about the house (the parents were in the bedroom, one tombstone in the bathroom, the other tombstone in the other bedroom) and roaches were crawling about. So a bad case of the flu could have been to blame.

Thank goodness for exit without saving.