Mystic Worlds

Big Ole Update

I just finished publishing a catch-all update on Alysianah's World of Star Citizen. It talks about what I'm doing in the SC space as well as a couple of other games I've been dabbling in. With most of my free-time still being allocated to Aly's World, there's not a whole lot left over for much else. However, I have managed to tiptoe around in World of Warcraft Legion and The Sims City Living expansion pack.  Hop on over here if you'd like to read more.

A Night with The Sims

I stumbled on two new Twitch channels that I’m really enjoying. What I find appealing in my current state of mind, is the chill and relaxed atmosphere. Both of their play styles are very “take it as it comes” and they’ve cultivated a very friendly audience.

If you’re looking for a nice place to watch Black Dessert Online and can watch any time between 8 AM and 6 PM EST, give Chris from CRobbNation a try and tell him Alysianah said hello. He’s very helpful to new players and answers questions regularly. If he doesn’t know, someone else in the chat will.

What led to revisiting The Sims 4, was chilling in the Tinner10Tin channel. I’ve watched many Sims channels over the years but rarely stick with any of them. Big crazy whack-a-doodle households don’t interest me. Although popular on Twitch, I find the murder and torture type scenarios even less appealing.

Tin’s channel is like CRobb’s.  He’s funny as a host, doesn’t take himself or the stream too seriously and spends a lot of time interacting with the chat room. His house is one-story and moderately sized which is also what I tend to build. The slow-mo relaxed vibe he has going, inspired me to re-install and make a casual build too.

Welcome to It Might be You B&B

One of the household setups I enjoy is running a residential type B&B. I manage the meals and property through a specific character, leaving residents on their own. After facilitating them all acquiring a job, I turn them lose to do whatever comes into their crazy little Sim brains. Oh the things I’ve seen Sims get up to under those circumstances is hilarious.

The character that I’m controlling as the property manager has her own private accommodations to prevent others from cooking or burning the joint down.  Yep, that’s a thing in The Sims. I’ve done free-roam/will households before and have walked back to the PC to find half of them have died in a house fire.

To avoid that calamity, the Sim I’m controlling makes meals at regular intervals and places them in the dining room. The others can eat or not depending on their hunger at the time.  During the day, she keeps the rooms tidy and maintains a large garden to offset food costs.

Using a cheat code, I collect rent by only keeping 50% of the income the other Sims are earning. My goal is to run the household through one complete generation without it going bankrupt under that rule set. The careers I selected for the residents are freelancer writer, chef currently a dishwasher, Tech guru currently doing phone support, doctor currently an intern at the local hospital, Web Designer currently doing phone support.

House Cleaning

Too many icons for games I have no intention of playing again.  I don't see any point in keeping them installed.  Games I liked but declined interest or needed a break from remain.  I only un-installed games I have zero intention of playing again.

Games that got the axe:

• Star Wars: The Old Republic - tried it until level 25 and that was enough. Loved the class quests and instance content the rest was uninspired

• Defiance - what the hell was I thinking?  I don't FPS and nothing tied into the show as far as I could see.

• Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn - amazing graphics, great instanced content, fun crafting but the rest was a grind.

• Rift - too little, too late sirs.  If it takes too long for new levels and zones to come out, I'm likely on to the next thing. I might have come back but by then GW2 was out and I wouldn't have left that for Rift and still wouldn't now.

• Dragon's Prophet - all round meh experience.

• World of Tanks - what was I thinking part deux!?!

• The Secret World - knew it wasn't my cup of tea and it wasn't.

• Asheron's Call 2 - answered the age old question, can you ever really go home? NO.  At least I couldn't.

• Pirate 101 - I wanted W101 in a new theme, classes and enemies but with the same deck building mechanic.  This was not it.

Long Time No Blog

I’m in a MMO gaming slump. Granted, I don’t have nearly as much free time to play but the time I do have, I guard carefully. My free-to-play journey with Sarzan stalled after Dragon’s Prophet. Arena Net’s strategy of providing temporary content has not interested me enough to return to GW2 either. I’ll be back if/when there’s an expansion pack. I need new levels, completely new zones, skills and crafting recipes. Until then, my adventures in Tyria are over – much to my disappointment. 

Final Fantasy IV wasn’t the Ticket

I was hoping, more like praying, that FFXIV would fill the void. It did for a short period of time. It’s a gorgeous game! I enjoyed the crafting and promise of player housing. My class quests were VERY interesting and fun. The main storyline quests are too. Unfortunately, that’s not the vast majority of leveling content and the rest is an utter bore. Ugh, so uninspired. The WORSE ESCORT QUESTS OF ALL TIME!! Escort quests are bad enough with NPCs who are in dire trouble yet walk slowly and deliberately into every dangerous mob they can find. FFXIV takes the cake however, because the NPC requires you to use the beckon emote every few steps to make them follow you. OMG, who thought that was a good idea??? I’ve done way too many emote quests, some back to back which makes me feel like they couldn’t even bother.

SimCity 5 Here I Come!

Not too shabby for a new Mayor

Launch nonsense aside, I’ve decided to join the masses playing SimCity 5. I’ve never played SimCity of any kind. For several years, I was a huge The Sims fan. I’ve played and owned every version and the accompanying expansions through The Sims 3 Apartment Life. I even played The Sims Online and was in the beta no less. Oh how the fall of that game broke my heart. It was like the designers had never played The Sims. *Cries big splashy tears*

A couple of years into playing MMOs, my love of The Sims slowly waned. The attraction of micromanaging a bunch of Sims in a solo play environment was less than appealing, with each new MMO adventure. Gradually, no one in our household or any of our immediate friends played The Sims anymore, having opted for massive online experiences instead. Most of my gal pals ended up in Second Life - *hurl*. While my immediate and extended family fell head over heels for fantasy MMOs and co-op console titles.

On a break from Guild Wars 2 and not wanting to burn out on Tera Online, I was in the market for a casual friendly game when I saw Gary Gannon’s play through of SimCity 5 on GBTV. I just noticed a second play through that I'll watch tonight.  

Delving into The Sims 3 – Part 2 of 3

Why I waited
I’ve been playing The Sims for many years.  I started back with Sims 1, had all the expansion packs and continued forward with The Sims 2.  And it’s not just me, my daughters and girlfriends all play.  We’ve all been playing for years since I was the first one in and corrupted the others.

A cornerstone of my playing until now has been to live rather large.  I didn’t see the point in struggling financially in The Sims.  I have enough budget management in my real life.  I’ve also been a self-employed Sim long before The Sims 2 actually added gaming mechanics to support player run businesses.  Back in the day, I used hacks to modify in game objects that produce small items you could sell back to the game, as a source of income.  There were custom skins to turn the canning object into a chef’s stove, flowers into fruits and vegetables, the robot maker into chocolate candy station, etc.  I had working farms, cafes, bookstores and the alike – all home based businesses.  But the revenue generated wasn’t enough to sustain a household.  I had to use money cheats to make ends meet, and that’s how I played Sims for several years.  The Sims 2 Open for Business changed all that, allowing me to use native game mechanics to build my home businesses.  The Sims 2 Seasons expansion let me drop the game hacks that turned weeds and flowers into produce and I was in Sim heaven.

One of my chief reservations about The Sims 3 was starting up the next generation of the game without the two expansions that crystallized my particular gaming focus.  I didn’t feel like delving back into game mods and hacks to have my own business.  I’d purchased The Sims 3 (TS3) for myself and my daughters but I hadn’t bothered to install my copy.  I figured I’d wait for some of the generation 3 expansions to be released.  Discussing this choice with my best friend, she informed me that I could do something small scale from home.  She explained that gardening was part of the base game.  Additionally, the writing performed on your home computer now translates into a career with aspirations and rewards. Whachoo takin’ ‘bout Willis?  Say whaaat?  This was the catalyst for me giving TS3 a try now.  What would be cuter than to have a novelist career path on my Sim while producing a side income by gardening/farming?  In my book, nothing would be cuter and in I went.

My Sim starting her garden in TS3

Delving into The Sims 3 – Part I of 3

I’m in the jumping off part of the second screenwriting workshop I’m taking this summer.  Gaming and blogging time have been sparse.  The first of two student critiques provided some interesting food for thought and some laughs along with valuable feedback. 

First was a marriage proposal since I’m a woman who loves sci-fi enough to write about, has a blog and plays MMOs.  *Smile*  Of course the proposal was said (written) tongue in cheek but it was quite funny.  The same person suggested that I stop playing games and shut down the blog until I finish the screenplay.  He said the he found it impossible to write to his potential while gaming.  He probably has a point there.  It’s something I’ve certainly considered.  However, I’m trying to use discipline over extremes.  To that end, I’ve spent very little time playing games the past couple of weeks.  And when I did, I felt like I needed a real alone experience and turned to playing The Sims 3.

 
Affordable bedroom community I built on the outskirts of town.

The second was more encouragement about the premise of my story and the uniqueness of some of the plot elements.  That's always a good shot in the arm to help you keep going when you're tired and want nothing more than to slack off.  I didn't do much slacking off but when I felt like playing The Sims, I took small steps toward building my little community and establishing my character, while learning the new and wondrous changes in The Sims 3.

Fundamental Changes to My Personal Game-Play
The Sims 3 changes some of the fundamental mechanics and constructs of its predecessors.  My opinion on those changes and their impact to how I personally play The Sims, is too large for a single posting.  As the title explains, I’ll be doing this in three parts.  Welcome to part one.

The Sims is Serious Business

When the next generation of a game sells 1.7 million copies in the first week even though adopting this version means eventually re-buying all the expansions you had in the previous version, that game must be a monster hit.  The Sims franchise is the monster hit of which I speak.  Being among the top selling PC games of ALL TIME, playing The Sims is s-e-r-i-o-u-s business!

While many Western MMORPG players are grappling with the idea of micro-transactions for virtual goods, The Sims community of players has been doing that for years.  For many, playing The Sims (TS) is all about beautiful, bling and over the top.  Unfortunately, the designing skills of the developers building TS has been shall we say, lacking in diversity and quality.  The community creates massive amounts of custom content for every aspect of the game that can be shared by others.  There’s a lot of free content but the amazing looks so real that it boggles the mind sort of content, comes at a cost.  You can pay by the item from a wide variety of player run websites.  Or you can subscribe to one or more of the better stocked sites for a few months.  That’s what I do.  And I’ve never worried nor cared about that fact that I was basically paying a monthly subscription, to a third party, just to have “pretty” virtual content in my game.

Although I purchased a copy for myself and one each for my daughters, I’m not playing TS3 yet.  But I ran across something while searching for a veranda for my daughter, that completely blew my mind.  I mean, TS is serious business but damn – the Living Sims magazine takes it to a whole new level.

ALL the rooms are created using The Sims!!

Apartment Life – New The Sims 2 Expansion Pack

I’m all over this like white on rice.  This is what will slack my thirst until the WAR Headstart.  In case you missed it, I’m going to be out of town on business during the Open BETA.  *Cries hysterically!*  My family remains proud members of the TS2 fan club.  We own all of the expansion packs bar none.  Granted, I don’t play so much anymore.  The whole alone in an RPG doesn’t work long for me these days.

I’m as excited about AL as I was Open for Business and Seasons because it eliminates the laborious efforts I was taking to simulate playing in a connected community of autonomous Sims.  OFB stopped me having to find ways to work and make money from home without resorting to cash cheats.  My storylines always revolved around a home-based business.  Seasons stopped me needing to download and use re-skinned flower models that looked like vegetables so I could have a garden or simulate a farm.

Calling All Sims 2 Content Creators!!

Every year I treat myself to something nice for Christmas.  It’s usually a geek gadget, peripheral or something cool I want but haven’t been able to justify purchasing.  This year, I want something really original – new content for my Sims 2 game!

That’s right, you heard me.  I want to commission custom designed content for me to use with the Sims 2 Open for Business and Seasons.  I want to negotiate a price to have a neighborhood built and sent to me.  We can work out the details of how many homes and the level of customization required, but here’s the general gist…