ladysilverwolf (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ladysilverwolf) wrote2017-10-03 10:54 am
ladysilverwolf) wrote2017-10-03 10:54 am
Entry tags:
History of my Sim Interests
Originally I started playing The Sims what seems a lifetime ago. I got my hands on the "The Sims Complete Collection" when it was on sale and the copyright information indicates that was somewhere around 2005, but I think it may have been a year after its release that I actually purchased it. I played it off and on, downloading custom content from places like TSR, Around the Sims, and a few others. I would play it until it crashed, then walk away from the game frustrated, feeling as if I had not had the chance to finish my simmy stories, only to come back around a couple of months later to start anew.
This went on for several years, and I never looked for solutions, or asked questions simply because I had not thought to even look into communities for that kind of information. Then one day, I found the Sims2 Double Deluxe version on sale, and purchased it even though I could not install it. My low-end system simply could not handle the graphics nor did it have enough memory. So it was a couple of years later that I finally managed to install it (suddenly having found it buried in the back of my desk drawer) but only after another failed sims1 session had crashed yet again. When the crashed happened, I said, "That's it, not playing sims1 anymore, oh wait!- I have sims2!!!! " This all happened during the summer of 2014.
Six years after its released I started playing the Double Deluxe Edition. I only got to play for two sessions. On session three, when I logged in to play, the entire neighborhood was flashing blue, and I realized the game was messed up. I figured it had to do with some content I had downloaded so I went out in search of answers and that is when I discovered there was still a very active community.
Believe it or not, the very night I was looking for answers on the web, I found that Origin was also releasing the Ultimate Collection. So, of course I immediately downloaded it and installed it and thought it would fix my problem since, well to be honest, it was a newly released version and surely Maxis fixed their 'borked' software with the latest and greatest of it's version releases! (boy was I WAY off the mark on that assumption!)
But again, the flashing blue hood still existed.
I was beyond frustrated. I had this Brand Spanking New and FREE software and I was going to enjoy it! So I went back to the internet and started searching the fringes of the sims2 community and really started reading postings/forums and realized ... how broke the game was.
I was on a mission to find answers and fixes. "I WILL ENJOY THIS FREE SOFTWARE!!!", I told myself.
Started at MATY, but never asked questions there because of the environment; it was intimidating, but I did download the fixes they had and felt I had walked into a gold mine of information. Then I found Mod the Sims, because I simply could not stand the advertisement-overload and screen pop-ups of TSR (and the weblayout is unfriendly to my eyes), and decided then and there I would not play the game until I found all the fixes and necessary software I needed to enjoy telling my sims stories.
Flash Forward to Present day, October 2017.
I have a TON of downloads now. I saw so many different ideas, creations and themes that stories just began popping in my head. To be honest, to-date, I have downloaded nearly 70 GBS woth of custom content, (30K+ files), spread across 1300" folders on my cloud drive (thank goodness for cloud drives!). Some of it is duplicated because of themes, and some of it I have not even figured out which hood I will use it in, -- yet! And some of it I simply need to toss out because it was early on downloads I have come to realize may be faulty.
I have found many wonderful places to read, watch, lurk in, and download custom content, fixes and mods. Places like Plumbbob Keep [PBK], Mod the Sims [MTS], The Medieval Smithy, Sims2Artists, Garden of Shadows [GoS], Parsimonious, and a host of so many other sites. Sunni and Celestial Spider over at PBK also managed to get me to thinking about creating for TS2. But my problem is I get EASILY distracted by shinnies and other gaming software that I enjoy playing (such as Minecraft, Toontown Rewritten, and World of Warcraft). And of course, living life, because yeah, I DO live life.
But now here I am finally posting to my Dreamwidth journal (created back in 2014 just for storytelling purposes!), ready to begin my journey into digital storytelling.
I have a Modern Hood, a medieval hood all in the planning phase, and I am really wanting to try out the Apocalyptic Challenge found on MTS. I also want to play the Mystery Hood "Polgannon" created by maxon at MTS, but I need to create my environments because yes, you know it, I do not want crashes. And although I know I can create backups and save constantly, it's the idea of starting out 'right' I am tracking on. Not including the fact that I am distracted by shinnies.
My Current Shinny distractions are as follows:
There is texturing work I am currently plying to my resource pack for Minecraft.
There is also my Faux Wall Project for TS2 I am working (and reworking) on, that I truly want to complete since it is for a part of my Hospital-Research facility for my Modern hood. [and yes, one object is holding me back from completing it! - to me it is that important!]
And I always find myself going back to World of Warcraft, which I have been playing since October 2007 [Fury of the Sunwell - Patch 2.3].
Finally, there is TownTown Rewrittten, because there was joy in it when I played it with my children when Disney first released it years ago. [I still have the collector cards for it too!]
So understand, my stories that are rolling about in my head that I want to put into digital details here on the web, will take time. If you are interested in following what I do, please feel free to signup and track. Just take note updates will not happen on a daily/weekly basis, unless I have a 'TS2' Itch I need to scratch!
This went on for several years, and I never looked for solutions, or asked questions simply because I had not thought to even look into communities for that kind of information. Then one day, I found the Sims2 Double Deluxe version on sale, and purchased it even though I could not install it. My low-end system simply could not handle the graphics nor did it have enough memory. So it was a couple of years later that I finally managed to install it (suddenly having found it buried in the back of my desk drawer) but only after another failed sims1 session had crashed yet again. When the crashed happened, I said, "That's it, not playing sims1 anymore, oh wait!- I have sims2!!!! " This all happened during the summer of 2014.
Six years after its released I started playing the Double Deluxe Edition. I only got to play for two sessions. On session three, when I logged in to play, the entire neighborhood was flashing blue, and I realized the game was messed up. I figured it had to do with some content I had downloaded so I went out in search of answers and that is when I discovered there was still a very active community.
Believe it or not, the very night I was looking for answers on the web, I found that Origin was also releasing the Ultimate Collection. So, of course I immediately downloaded it and installed it and thought it would fix my problem since, well to be honest, it was a newly released version and surely Maxis fixed their 'borked' software with the latest and greatest of it's version releases! (boy was I WAY off the mark on that assumption!)
But again, the flashing blue hood still existed.
I was beyond frustrated. I had this Brand Spanking New and FREE software and I was going to enjoy it! So I went back to the internet and started searching the fringes of the sims2 community and really started reading postings/forums and realized ... how broke the game was.
I was on a mission to find answers and fixes. "I WILL ENJOY THIS FREE SOFTWARE!!!", I told myself.
Started at MATY, but never asked questions there because of the environment; it was intimidating, but I did download the fixes they had and felt I had walked into a gold mine of information. Then I found Mod the Sims, because I simply could not stand the advertisement-overload and screen pop-ups of TSR (and the weblayout is unfriendly to my eyes), and decided then and there I would not play the game until I found all the fixes and necessary software I needed to enjoy telling my sims stories.
Flash Forward to Present day, October 2017.
I have a TON of downloads now. I saw so many different ideas, creations and themes that stories just began popping in my head. To be honest, to-date, I have downloaded nearly 70 GBS woth of custom content, (30K+ files), spread across 1300" folders on my cloud drive (thank goodness for cloud drives!). Some of it is duplicated because of themes, and some of it I have not even figured out which hood I will use it in, -- yet! And some of it I simply need to toss out because it was early on downloads I have come to realize may be faulty.
I have found many wonderful places to read, watch, lurk in, and download custom content, fixes and mods. Places like Plumbbob Keep [PBK], Mod the Sims [MTS], The Medieval Smithy, Sims2Artists, Garden of Shadows [GoS], Parsimonious, and a host of so many other sites. Sunni and Celestial Spider over at PBK also managed to get me to thinking about creating for TS2. But my problem is I get EASILY distracted by shinnies and other gaming software that I enjoy playing (such as Minecraft, Toontown Rewritten, and World of Warcraft). And of course, living life, because yeah, I DO live life.
But now here I am finally posting to my Dreamwidth journal (created back in 2014 just for storytelling purposes!), ready to begin my journey into digital storytelling.
I have a Modern Hood, a medieval hood all in the planning phase, and I am really wanting to try out the Apocalyptic Challenge found on MTS. I also want to play the Mystery Hood "Polgannon" created by maxon at MTS, but I need to create my environments because yes, you know it, I do not want crashes. And although I know I can create backups and save constantly, it's the idea of starting out 'right' I am tracking on. Not including the fact that I am distracted by shinnies.
My Current Shinny distractions are as follows:
There is texturing work I am currently plying to my resource pack for Minecraft.
There is also my Faux Wall Project for TS2 I am working (and reworking) on, that I truly want to complete since it is for a part of my Hospital-Research facility for my Modern hood. [and yes, one object is holding me back from completing it! - to me it is that important!]
And I always find myself going back to World of Warcraft, which I have been playing since October 2007 [Fury of the Sunwell - Patch 2.3].
Finally, there is TownTown Rewrittten, because there was joy in it when I played it with my children when Disney first released it years ago. [I still have the collector cards for it too!]
So understand, my stories that are rolling about in my head that I want to put into digital details here on the web, will take time. If you are interested in following what I do, please feel free to signup and track. Just take note updates will not happen on a daily/weekly basis, unless I have a 'TS2' Itch I need to scratch!