11 August 2010 @ 03:16 pm
Round 1: Desiderata Valley (Part 1)  
I had Gunmod's Lightning System installed while playing Desiderata Valley, which is why the pictures look different. I've uninstalled it after though, I don't think I'm a fan of it.
It surprised me, but I actually found Desiderata quite enjoyable to play, except for the Travellers and the Bell family. I did a lot of reconstruction in this hood and quite a few of the families live in new houses that I built myself, because the old ones just irritated me or looked out of place.

Starting off the Desiderata rotation is the Aspir family. I love Luis, he's a great grandad.






He struck me as someone who made his work out of his hobby, so even after his retirement I let him draft up plans and things.



As well as plan out his own little mini city :) The hobby room is totally Luis', though his son comes in to play around with the train occasionally as well.



Victor (I think that's what he's called anyway) got demoted on his first day of work. Fail.



Somehow he still managed to convince his wife a second child was a good idea though. Blasted ACR.



Granted, he looks kinda cute during potty training, but not so much I appreciated this little surprise ACR threw at me.



Luis' project is taking on shape. He really loves playing around with that train set.



Ever noticed this on the trainset, by the way?



I couldn't stop giggling when I saw it ^^ Floating piggy! Well, deflated piggy, but still. This is one of the reasons why TS3 will never, ever replace TS2 in my regard.



Victor: 'I was actually trying to make tomato soup, but it turned out a little thick, so I made some pasta out of it instead.'
Elizabeth: 'Incompetent, unemployed and knocking me up. Give me one good reason why I shouldn't kill you right now?'



Elizabeth: 'Awh. Okay, maybe I'll let you live for another day or two.'

Grainy because it's a screenshot of the special events movie (which I only just thought of I could actually do, now I don't use the ingame camera anymore to take screenshots. Durr.)



Birthday time for Pauline! She was a super easy toddler to take care of, and got all her toddler skills as well as a few choice skill points. Not bad, Pauline, not bad.



Besides being awesome, she's also very cute :)



Pauline saying hello to her baby brother, Diego. As you can see, they're already bestest friends, even though they haven't had a coherent conversation or anything. She really needs to get to know some kids her own age, cause your best friend being your 1 year old brother is kinda embarassing.



Toddler Diego. Cute as a button :) Looks like the Aspirs have got pretty good genes.


The Goodie Family



I seriously love these two. They are so cute together and are really fun to play for being old folks.



They've adopted a stray kitty named Noodles, who for some reason turned into an elder as soon as they adopted him/her. Weird glitch, that, though I've had it with moved in townies before. Either way, he/she is one cute kitty, and very friendly.



I can't get over his face :D He looks so happy, pretty much constantly.



Faith's One True Hobby is cuisine, so I had her pursue it. She already came with a good few cooking points, unlike those slacker Oldies who apparently did nothing during the entirety of their adult life.



I'd never done a cooking contest before, so I let Faith enter one. It doesn't really surprise me to find Tara Kat at the cooking hobbylot. She looks like the type that enjoys whipping up a nice meal, provided she can keep the cats out of it.



This is my foodjudge, by the way. Stylish.



Tara and Faith look like they could be good friends. I'll definitely have them stay in touch.



The moment of truth...



Faith won! Tara seems to be one sore loser.



One more cutesy pic, and we're off to...

The Contrary Family



This is the only picture I've got of Edward. He and Opal are both in the Oceonography career, so I had them install their own private study tank. Edward spends most of this time in front of it, pulling faces at the fishes.



None of them can cook, and I was tired of skilling up cooking, so they mostly lived on fastfood. Opal doesn't mind at all. She's definitely a girl with cravings.



Leading to the inevitable. I think she looks better as a curvy lady, anyway.



Her relationship with Rick is very strained though.

Opal: 'I could have forgiven you neglecting your studies. Or hanging out with that Jocque girl at all hours. But this, this is just going too far, Rick. It's too much. I think we need to find you professional help.'
Rick: 'I just don't like chinese food, all right? Sheesh.'



It makes me all sad when sim parents do this. He's your kid, Opal! Give him a break!



Oh NOW you're sorry?



She rang up the police immediately, and luckily Rick was found and brought home soon enough. Whew. 



Opal ran up autonomously and started apologising to him. Maybe things are fixable after all? I wouldn't hold your breath though, 10 mins later she got all slappy again. Rick has ran away at least three times so far, the most I've ever had a sim do. He's really not happy at home, and Edward isn't helping with his weird fish obsession. Good thing he'll be going to college after this round.



Look at how sad he looks :( I just want to hug him. Shame on you, Opal! There's no need to work out your frustrations over having gained a couple of pounds on your son!



I had him go out a lot, in order to get him out of the house and away from slap-happy Opal. He likes to play football on the neighborhood football field. That's Ajay Loner playing goalkeep for him.



He usually eats out as well, to avoid the standard family meals of chinese or pizza. I'm proud to tell you that this fine establishment is called Burger Kong. Get it? Burger King? And this is a tropical hood, so I made king into kong because of the... oh never mind. Moving on!

The Bell Family



Something went wrong in my picture folder, and this is the only picture that apparently survived from the Bell family, even though I definitely took at least a few more.
In short: David grew up, his parents were boring, his aunt moved out, bongos were played. That's all, folks.

I'm going to at least play out Round 1 of the Megahood (I only need to do Downtown, and the Universities if I feel up for it), but I might be doing something else after that for a while. I don't think I'll completely abandon the Megahood, but I've been thinking of trying one of those viking legacy things (extra challenges and only 5 generations long appeals to me), and I've got my new shiny Pleasantview/Strangetown hood to play around with as well. And on top of that, as you know, I also need to study. We'll just see what the future brings. :)



 
 
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[identity profile] madame-ugly.livejournal.com on August 11th, 2010 01:51 pm (UTC)
Ooh, you're thinking about a VDSL? Fun. You could put it in the new Pleasantview/Strangetown mashup neighborhood (which I'm loving, too--though I need to add some Ottomases and then it will be PERFECT).

I love seeing your megahood. So many faces I've never really seen (yeah, I ignore the EP neighborhoods for the most part).
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[identity profile] nepheris.livejournal.com on August 11th, 2010 02:00 pm (UTC)
I'm a bit hesitant to put legacies in existent hoods - their spares will clog up the place and if I grow sick of them, they'll still be there, messing up my rotation.

I catch myself missing some of the Megahood sims in PV/ST, like Tara Kat and Cyd Roseland and some of the Veronaville kids. The Ottomasses definitely have grown on me, but not enough to actively miss them yet :)

Before I played the Megahood I always ignored the EP hoods as well, with the exception of Riverblossom Hills, but I never played that one much either. I hadn't even touched Veronaville before. I'm really glad you're enjoying the Megahood though :)
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[identity profile] madame-ugly.livejournal.com on August 11th, 2010 02:47 pm (UTC)
True. If you're thinking of a VDSL you'll need to use a fresh hood so you can populate with p_t sims.

Go over to maxis_taste and you can find the faces you're missing from your P/S hood. They have just about everyone (only two families are missing, I think). But you will have to make your own pets for Tara and Cyd.
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[identity profile] nepheris.livejournal.com on August 11th, 2010 02:55 pm (UTC)
Cheers for the heads up, if I really can't live without them I will add them in ^^ I don't want to clog up PV/ST though, seeing as I will probably make all the townies playable. I love the PV townies, I think they need more love and lives of their own for once.

Definitely going to use PT sims for the legacy hood. :) It'll take me a while to get used to sims with other people's aesthetics, but it'll be more interesting than just generating townies with my prettified face templates.
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[identity profile] meetme2theriver.livejournal.com on August 11th, 2010 05:08 pm (UTC)
Tara's (and the Kims) house can be found in your Pets game folders, if you want her. :)

Copy the contents of:
The Sims 2 Pets\TSData\Res\UserData\LotCatalog
Into:
Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\LotCatalog

And then you can find them in the Occupied Lots bin.
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[identity profile] meetme2theriver.livejournal.com on August 11th, 2010 02:47 pm (UTC)
Like King Kong! I get it. :D

The Aspirs are probably my favourite DV family, closely followed by the Contrarys. Poor Rick! I love Opal's face after he runs away, though. She's very expressive. ...I'm STILL wondering why my adult sims can't fight my teen sims like that, they only have the option of 'throw drink', not even argue or anything. Maybe it's a hack I've got? Or that I DON'T have? Or maybe I need to make their relationship worse (but how do I do that without any fighty options?). :( I want more dramaz.

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[identity profile] madame-ugly.livejournal.com on August 11th, 2010 02:49 pm (UTC)
Couldn't you just inSim their relationship to enemies? OR, just keep doing the few fighty options over and over until the relationship is bottomed out.

(getting a teen to witness parental infidelity is good for relationship tanking)
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[identity profile] meetme2theriver.livejournal.com on August 11th, 2010 05:09 pm (UTC)
Heheh, I like having parents fight in front of the kids too, they'll start crying and run to their room... Yeah, I'm a bit mean.

I could change their relationship myself, but I'd like to be able to do it "naturally". I guess I'll just have to try harder.
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[identity profile] madame-ugly.livejournal.com on August 11th, 2010 05:52 pm (UTC)
I get a good mean thrill when CHILDREN see the parent cheating. It's such a tasty loss of innocence moment.

I forsee a lot of cups of water to the face for that family.
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[identity profile] nepheris.livejournal.com on August 11th, 2010 02:51 pm (UTC)
If you have all of Pescado's hacks, you'll probably have all the fighty stuff too. I never direct my sim parents to do this though, it's all autonomous. I think they just need to be enemies for the option to become available, or something.

Lots of poking, shoving, irritating and bad conversations can get the relationships down enough. Or simply use macro/socialise/unfriendly, that should work :)
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[identity profile] meetme2theriver.livejournal.com on August 11th, 2010 05:11 pm (UTC)
Odd... I've used Pescado's hacks for a long time, but I've never seen any other teen/adult fight option than 'throw drink'. I guess their relationship might not have been bad enough. I'll try the unfriendly macro next time and see how it goes. :)
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[identity profile] pnkpnthr334.livejournal.com on August 11th, 2010 05:58 pm (UTC)
Aw, your Opal looks very cute! The Contrary's are my favorite family in DV. :)

Where is Tara's sweater from? I know I've seen it somewhere, but when I look for it, I just fail.
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[identity profile] nepheris.livejournal.com on August 11th, 2010 06:05 pm (UTC)
I *think* it's this default replacement by dhearest: http://dhearest.livejournal.com/22369.html

It sure looks a lot like it, anyway.
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[identity profile] pnkpnthr334.livejournal.com on August 11th, 2010 06:20 pm (UTC)
No, that's not it. The one Tara is wearing is shorter and without buttons. I either saw it on LJ or GOS, but I stupidly didn't download it and didn't bookmark it for later. :-/
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[identity profile] nepheris.livejournal.com on August 11th, 2010 06:23 pm (UTC)
Hmm, was it this one then? http://dhearest.livejournal.com/17287.html
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[identity profile] pnkpnthr334.livejournal.com on August 11th, 2010 06:27 pm (UTC)
That's it! Thank you so much! :D
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[identity profile] nepheris.livejournal.com on August 11th, 2010 06:28 pm (UTC)
No worries :) Glad I could help.
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[identity profile] katee412.livejournal.com on August 12th, 2010 03:42 am (UTC)
I've never really played around with Desiderata Valley but you've made it look like a lot of fun :D

Also, the deflated pig is awesome!
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