New Expansions (And long overdue blog update)

I want to say a quick thank you to everyone who has checked out my blog, and I hope you've liked the downloads and content. I know I haven't updated in forever, and it's partially because I just haven't had the time to play The Sims 3 :( The last time I played was around Christmas of last year, and finally got to try out Generations and Pets, and I liked those EP's a lot. I never got a chance to talk about them, but I think they a couple of the best ones to date, and sadly I only just scratched the surface of their features (I still have to check out the horses!).

Showtime came out, and I'm not gonna lie...the idea of the EP seemed a bit weak to me. I still have yet to buy it, because the features just seem a bit ho hum (though I must admit, the town looks really nice). I'll probably buy it one of these days. It does seem to have some nice objects at least, but I'm not in a big hurry to play it.

In contrast, Late Summer/Fall of 2012 are bringing two very cool EP's. The first, Supernatural, looks very cool if your get into horror/magic and obviously, the supernatural ;) I've already preordered my copy because the Plants VS Zombies bonus items look pretty cool. Not sure when I'll get around to playing it though. I'm hoping I can find some time in October, since I'm a big Halloween buff and like to spend October doing spooky-related things, hehee! Supernatural would fit nicely, but I have a lot on my plate, so it's just a matter of waiting and seeing how my schedule is.

Supernatural Trailer:



Some new features in Supernatural include:

Werewolf Sims
Witch Sims
Fairy Sims
Vampire Sims (even if you don't have Late Night)
Zombies (yay!)
New Town: Moonlight Falls
Alchemy (New skill to learn, lots of potions to make)
New Lunar Cycle (crazy stuff can happen on the day of the full moon)
Spell Casting
Broomsticks (new vehicle type)
Gypsy Caravan (Fortune Teller career I believe, similar to bartending iirc)

I probably forgetting lots of stuff, but it really looks like a solid pack for those who miss Makin' Magic.

Even more exciting (imho) is The Sims 3 November release of Seasons!!!

Ok, I'm calm again. Seasons looks very very good. They've implemented holidays, which honestly, I never imagined we'd get. To eliminate religious affiliations though, they have based the holidays on real life, but have renamed them. For example, Halloween is called Spooky Day! The attention to detail looks remarkable, and I'm really hoping it's half as good as it looks.

Seasons Trailer:


Some features:

Swimming in the ocean
Pool float
Festivals (a different one for each seasons; changes automatically)
Food stands
Snocones
Tanning Booths (more like spray tanning)
Snowboarding
Roller/Ice Skating
Snowball Fights
Snowman Building
Umbrellas
Pumpkin Carving (pumpkins are grown, so pumpkin patches can be made!)
Haunted House
Bobbing For Apples
Trick or Treating on Spooky Day (omg! omg! omg!)
Costumes
Gift Giving Party (I think this can be done anytime since it's a new party type, but I think it's supposed to be like Christmas)
Easter Egg hunts
Kissing Booths
Slow dancing (finally!)
and obviously...
WEATHER! Rain, Snow, Hail, Thunderstorms, Lightning, Blizzards, Heatwaves

They're cramming in a lot! One minor disappointment is no A/C or heat. Temperature inside Sims' homes is always perfect :/ I would've really loved to seen fireplaces be more useful at least. Maybe they will help thaw very chilly Sims faster...I hope. Oh well. It's not a HUGE deal, but would've added that little extra bit of realism. Maybe some clever modder will be able to add it ;D

So, yeah, I'm actually feeling pretty excited about The Sims 3 again, and I'm hoping I'll have some time to play it around the holidays *fingers crossed*

The one last thing I want to add is, I'm not sure when/if I'll be adding more downloads. I attempted custom content for a loooong time and never did get the hang of it. NOTHING would show up right in game :( So no hope of that unfortunately. I do like making new lots, and I know I had a couple works in progress going awhile back, but I dunno. Since my time has been more limited, when I finally get around to playing the Sims 3 again, I'd rather just play with the Sims themselves rather than build lots, but who knows what the future will bring.

And in case anyone's curious about one of the things that's been keeping me busy, I'm a writer (have been since I was 13 years old), and I just released my first novel on Kindle (shameless plug alert!!). Check it out, if you want ;)

Blog Updates

So, I know I haven't been updating my blog very regularly, and I wanna apologize for that. I took a break from building because of heating issues I was having with my computer, which would cause the game to freeze fairly often, which was making it nearly impossible to get anything built. I finally got around to installing some case fans in my computer and I booted up the game last night and played for a couple hours without much issue at all, so hopefully the problem is fixed for good now.

About this blog, I feel I need to revamp it a little. Originally it was going to be centered around different custom content I could find fitting into themes, but to be perfectly honest, I've grown bored of the tedium of updating the blog with these things. I'd much rather focus on building and possibly original custom content, if I can ever learn to make it :P  So I'm doing away with themes, and I'm also doing away with the "cool items". I wanna make this site more about original content, info about new EP's, funny screenshots, and so forth.

I will be getting rid of the Themes category on the right, but the posts can still be found through the search box or by just just browsing back to older posts.

So! I will be going back to building ASAP, and hopefully there'll be some new downloads soon :)

Cool Item of the Week

I've been so caught up with the excitement of the upcoming Generations EP, I've been neglecting the regular stuff for my blog. I think I forgot to post a cool item last week, oops!

This week's cool item is a collection of wonderful masquerade clothes and masks from Meronin at TheSimsResource:

The Daylight Glare Dress
Tutu
The Crow Mask
Daylight Glare Mask
Nightshadow Mask

All items are free to download, but you do need to register. Many thanks to Meronin for this absolutely lovely collection! :)

Generations - Official Trailer & Announcement!

Well, today we actually got an official trailer from EA, as well as quite a bit of info. Below is the new trailer:



There is an article at Gamespot, a new interview from CVG, and a new interview at GamePlanet

Some of the features included are:

Imaginary friends (quite likely the new "occult" creature)
Pranks
Lots of new playground equipment (spring animals, treehouse, hopscotch, sandbox, see-saw)
Useable strollers (Sims can push their toddlers around in them)
New Parties (Teen parties, bachelor/bachelorette parties with cake dancers, improved weddings, prom, graduation)
Costumes for kids with accompanying actions (ie the Godzilla type costume lets Sim kids smash blocks like they're city buildings)
Midlife Crises for adults (still not a whole lot about this)
Home Movies with new video camera object (possibly a new skill with this too, unconfirmed)
Gift Giving and Flower Giving
Memories
Scrapbooks
Teens can be grounded for misbehaving
Elders can now have canes
Improved Rumor/Gossip (sounds like you can even take incriminating pics and blackmail other Sims)
Dance Class
More Romantic Interactions (sitting on the ground gazing at the stars makes a comeback; looks like chemistry/attraction might be returning too, but it's unconfirmed; and something called "Romantic Reputations")
Daycare Profession

So yeah, looks like a pretty good pack as far as filling in some of the holes between Sims 2 and Sims 3. I'm hoping there's even more interactions and more family stuff, but I'm pretty pleased so far. Just hoping there's more toddler stuff added :)

The pack is slated to be released in June 2011.

The Sims 3 Generations - A Little Info

SimsPrograms has released a bit more information regarding the next expansion pack "Generations": Click Here

That's the Swedish cover art. A few notable things mentioned are:

The return of Memories (hopefully vastly improved over Sims 2), new parties, more drama with an improved gossip/rumor system, getting in trouble for bad grades, chemistry sets, home movies, treehouses, pranks, and the ability to share major Sim moments on your Facebook page or Sims My Page.

Also a few new screenies from SimsSlovenija:

Chemistry Set

Costumes and "Make Believe" for kids

Improved weddings!!

Pranks (also the possible return of private schools with uniforms???)

 
Definitely intrigued by this EP, but hoping there'll be much more to come. It's sounding a tad bare at the moment to me, but the concept sounds so promising I'm keeping my fingers crossed for more improvements as far as family interactions go.

Cool Item of the Week

Sorry for the delay in posting the cool item this week. My sister's getting married tomorrow so I've been pretty preoccupied.

This week's cool item comes from ModTheSims, and it's a functional clothes rack that acts as a dresser! I build lots of closets in my houses, and always wished the clothes rack in game was functional, so this object is perfect for me! :)

Thanks to jen&tonic for making this! :)