The Ward Family, Part 1

I'll admit, the above picture is here solely for Drew's benefit.

Fortunately, working on this blog is fairly simple, non-time-consuming since I just take pictures while playing anyway, and I can actually sneak time in to do it during any lull at work. So, since I have it easy with this, I thought I'd take this opportunity to post something for a change. I'm sorry that Guardian's Key and Wake the Dead have suffered lately, but I do hope to get back into the Sims2 game before long and build the set that I need for the next GK update.

Last week I did pick up Late Night and even though, surprise, surprise I didn't start by creating a vampire, I have been playing it. I'll post my stuff on Scott Phury, Actor, before too much longer, I hope.

Gage Ward and his family are the longest existing TS3 family I have. After I created both Gage and Meggie, I spent some time messing around with Sunset Valley checking out what kind of playable characters EA had put into the game. During that time away from them, Gage and Meggie met and when I came back, I got a popup that said that Gage wanted Meggie to move in with him. So, okay, in she moved.

Over their time in the game, Gage has become an Astronaut and Meggie is an acclaimed Romance Writer. Gage also has a lifetime want to have three Visa Points in three countries. We're in the process of working on that. Needless to say, they've also become rather rich. Meggie is also a perfect gardener and has planted every plant available in the game and takes them to the consignment shop to sell. Between that, her writing, his salary, and the money he gets adventuring, they have a boatload of the stuff.

Above, is Gage with baby Grant, and Hamilton and Meggie. Birthday time for Grant.

Hamilton's a pretty terrific kid and he really likes his brother. Meggie has red hair, Gage and Hamilton brown, I'm still trying to figure out where the black hair for Grant came from since Gage and Meggie are first generation for the genetics.

Okay, I love the read to kids ability in the game, and I've found if you do it enough, you can really give a head start on their future.

Hamilton reading in bed. Hamilton's a genius and a virtuoso just to name a couple of his traits. Seriously, he's the kind of kid I would have hated in school, and once he becomes a teenager, which you'll see eventually, he's even more "one of those kids." He's rich, handsome, talented and really well liked. Also with Late Night the game gave him one celebrity point - apparently teenagers can be celebrities even if their parents aren't.

Meggie and Grant.

I told him to sit there while I was waiting for someone to go to the bathroom so they could go out to eat. You'd think he was telling me to shove it, wouldn't you?

Just a cute dad and son picture.

A better picture of Hamilton. He has his dad's looks, but his mom's bright green eyes.

I just love the family fun things to do. Hamilton's tossing a baseball with a neighboring kid, Gage is reading to Grant and Meggie's barbecuing.

Another day, but this one's here because of Hamilton on the trampoline. It's a favorite in the family.

Grant liked to do this autonomously.

Another Grant birthday. I was experimenting with Meggie's hair - this did not last long after this picture was taken.

One of the first things Grant did when he grew to a child.

TV watching time, don't think Grant's too happy with Hamilton talking through the show.

No explanation for these, they're just pretty pictures.

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The Ward Family, Part 2

Ah, my all-time favorite part of this game, adventuring. Yes, I do believe in many ways World Adventures is my favorite expansion. But that's because it combines my two favorite things: adventure games and The Sims.

Beware, pictures galore of one trip Gage took to Egypt.

Typos, you gotta love them. Notice the second to the last sentence:

"A fee paid in Simoleons will be paid upon disbarment of the final trap." Yup, the lawyers are going to just toss that puppy out. :) We won't comment on the overuse of the word "paid" either.

Really should have given Gage the "Brave" trait. Every time he sticks his hand in one of those holes and comes back with creepy-crawlies he freaks. Fortunately, it doesn't stop him from sticking his hand back in. I have enough times something freaks him out and I have to have him meditate to drop the moodlet so he can move forward.

Zenport, it's really cool, actually. The best way to adventure is to start with China since it will give you everything you need to adventure in the most effective way. Zenporting allows a Sim to move around quite freely in and out of the tombs.

Wandering around that basement to "disbar" the traps. Note, traps are not always to easy to find.

"Ward, Gage Ward. Breaking and entering is my new pastime." Yup, you break into this office to get into that laptop.

Hey, Lara Croft never stripped to her swimsuit to traverse a puzzle. Maybe it would have kept her boots from being soggy.

Yup, Gage, this place was pretty cool, but gee, I'm sure you've been in other tombs - wait I know you have.

Pretty, but really, I'm not sure it's that impressive. There are neater places to be found in the three countries.

Good body skills really can come in handy. Gage is athletic, and I believe he's maxed out on body skills, but pushing walls can still be a challenge for him. At least, they don't seem to snap back and smash his hand any more.

As I said, always be on the look out for traps.

Hey, he's a Sim. Got to keep those social points up. So, a call home once the tent is set up in the tomb is imperative. Hope he has free overseas roaming charges.

This is an autonomous action when in Egypt.

However, in this case, I think there must be more than just water in that canteen since he took the swig after seeing this poor soul. Guy didn't even get the goodies before the tomb fell on him.

You can grab this hammer in China during an adventure and it's the only way to get past these boulders, so once again, it's a good idea to start with China.

Yup, he really did do this autonomous athletic trait move after breaking that boulder. Boys.

Whoops. See, I said always watch out for those traps. I missed this one and had him moving the statue from the wrong side.

An apple, a Shower in a Can and a tent for a good night's sleep and he'll be good as new. Since Meggie has perfect apples growing in her garden, I make sure Gage has a number of them before I send him on his adventuring ways. They're free, easy to make sure he has and when perfect do as well if not better than the dried food blocks you can get in the Market Place.

I think there are things in this EP that EA has excelled at. And the tombs are absolutely part of that.

What's an adventure game without something to shove/pull around? Add a maze, and you've got the perfect combo.

Yup, the man's scared to death of creepy-crawlies, but he'll stick his arm in a sarcophagus without thinking twice.

Back out of the tomb, and wow this looks like a great place to fish. He caught a mummy fish.

I love the lighting in this game.

The same table during the day this time. Gage is going home today. I actually took this picture because of the way the sand dunes are reflected in the glass, but it turns out I love his wistful look as though he's really starting to miss his family and wants to get home.

Thought I'd have Gage take a picture of the snake charmer.

Ah, yeah, and these are the results. Sometimes EA's just: "Huh?"

Lastly, there are a number of these "magic gnomes" that you find throughout the game. This is just a quick example of what they do. As far as I can tell, except for popping up in odd places and changing positions, I can find no real use for them. I should also mention, outside of moving the one from the table above because he's in the way when they grill, I never touch him.

Take care,
Lachesis

Next up: Scott Phury, Actor, and some initial impressions of Late Night. I'm getting ready to see about creating a Vampire, so we'll see where that goes. Also, I have lots and lots more pictures I've taken of the other families living in Sunset Valley.
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Mack Stone, Private Eye

This catches me up to what I have so far.

Unfortunately, this is Mack Stone, Private Eye, with my original default skin replacement which is not as detailed as the one I'm now using. I've also changed from EA's eyes to a new custom content default replacement. So far I haven't made it back to Mack's house to see how the new eyes look, but they're quite nice on Gage Ward so I have high-hopes for Mack.

And lastly, I've been working with my graphic settings. I have an older machine and I've been tweaking with the settings ever since I got the game trying to find the best of all worlds. Over the weekend I tried one last thing, turn smooth edges off and turn up everything else to high, and this finally worked. Smooth running game that looks good with nice reflections and good detail. About damn time. Despite what EA says, this is not a game that's easy to run on an older system with a low-end graphics card. But with messing around with it, I think I finally have something that will make nice looking pictures. But those pictures will be future ones, not these.

I can put Mack in any clothes I want to do his work in, except when he's looking for clues, doing a stakeout, digging through trash, or dusting for prints, then he'll change into the default PI clothing, which now that he's at level 10 in the Profession is different from this one. This is the mid-level clothing. The low-level clothing looks like something a two-bit cheap detective would wear.

Mack in the pool with his son, Walter, fishing. Yes, Walter's a bit odd, but he is a really cool kid, he's made about level five of the invention skill. Mack is married to Julienne Knack from a default family in Twinbrook. They also live in the family home; early on I kicked the parents out. Mack lucked out, he was really struggling before he met Julienne, now he's considered rich, and he is.

Mack after his swim and my first real look at his new skin that I'm now using and probably won't change. I haven't changed his eyes yet at this point, but with the sunglasses you don't know that. I was really floored when I saw this, I thought, "Oh, my God, a TS3 hunk." Now he really does look like Mack Stone, Private Dick, er, Eye.

Unfortunately, I don't seem to have any pictures of Julienne, but since she was from a default family in the Ambitions neighborhood, probably not that necessary. However, I really hated the Sim, she annoyed the hell out of me. Since the only death I'd ever seen in TS3 was the aborted death of Gage Ward, I decided to kill her off and make me happy and find Mack someone worthy of him.

So, first try, Mummy's Curse. Thought that would be cool, so I shipped her off to Egypt by herself, found a sarcophagus that according to Carl's Sims 3 Guide could contain a mummy and had her open it, twice. Then remembered I'd replaced her snob trait with lucky. I doubt she'd ever find a mummy with that. So, I tried to fry her with a fire trap. Although she stepped on it an fried, she didn't die and refused to step on it again.

O-kay. When that didn't work, I set her on the far side of island to starve. That didn't work, she was shipped back home at midnight of the third day hungry, stinky and tired, but alive.

Now it was war to kill the bitch. So, I walled her up in a small room at the back of the lot with a fireplace. I'd read this would be a sure-fire (pun intended) way of killing her by fire. First day, nothing so I stuck curtains in, when that failed I added a rug. By the second day I was slapping myself on the head because I'd forgotten I gave Mack the Lifetime Reward to fireproof the house.

Last resort, ignore her and let her starve to death. It seemed to take forever, I was just about to give up and save and close down the game and try again the next day when I got notice that the Grim Reaper was coming for a family member and did I really want to close down. Of course not, I'd been waiting all evening for this.

Julienne pleaded, but...

The Grim Reaper was of the same opinion as I was, no way in hell.

So, I followed the Reaper...

Through the kitchen (walls are down)...

Down the basement stairs...

Into Mack's office...

He was on the computer no more than a second - must have tweeted her death to the Underworld blog page.

Okay, yeah, I broke Mack's heart, but his stats never fell out of high green plumb-bob.

Do I feel bad?

A little, but not enough to bring her back in any way, shape or form, and it was cool to see how EA handles death these days. Besides, Julienne is still hanging around, I have some new pictures to add when I get back to the family.

Later...

(The Sims Wikia.com page for the Knack Family)
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