Virgil Morel, P.I., and His Myriad Siblings

Hopefully no one is watching.

Virgil, first born son of Aegon and Jodie Morel, upon finishing high school, decided he wanted to be a private investigator, so, curious, I let him do it. I'd never had a sim follow that career path. Turns out, being a P.I. in the Sims 3 is a lot of picking locks and digging in trash cans for evidence. And talking to people. Lots of talking to people.

 Not so much on stakeouts and photo evidence. Honestly, the lack of incriminating photo-taking surprised me. I guess I was expecting more Veronica Mars and less, well, less approaching the klepto breaking-and-entering socialite.

He also has the option to do 'low-level police work,' which, as it turns out, is just going to the police station and disappearing down that rabbit hole for a few hours.What does he do there? Paperwork? Reports? Drink coffee?

It was hard to enjoy the career as well because the house, at that point, was so.... full. There was Aegon and Jodie, the parents; Virgil, their young adult son; Caesar and Sol, the twin teens; and Willow, Ash, and Cypress, the triplet toddlers. Life was hectic indeed. So hectic, that it really started to take a toll on Jodie. She became incredibly absent-minded and couldn't seem to finish the simplest of tasks, and in the end, went back and forth between caring for the triplets and taking naps on the couch outside their room. I began to feel sorry for her.

The garden fell into ruin, and most of the plants are overgrown now. I tried to get Jodie to take care of it, like she used to, and I even managed to get Sol to help every once in a while, but Sol is a bit of a snob and doesn't like to get her hands dirty.

Aegon and Mojo

Aegon seemed absorbed in his work and did little to help. In fact, Virgil and Caesar did more to help than their father did. Willow and Cypress reached elementary age just fine, but Ash.... Ash not so much. He was the first Sim in this whole endeavor whom I was not allowed to pick a trait for upon his birthday. The game picked for me.  I was a little perturbed.

The house was incredibly crowded, what with the eight people and the tiny kitten, Mojo. In fact, Mojo was so tiny he usually got lost in the shuffle, and I had to make it a special point to make sure he was well looked after. He was a favorite of Aegon's. Well, I say favorite like there were lots of other kitties in the house. There aren't. Just little Mojo. In fact, I was beginning to wonder if the game was going to let me have pets again at all, after one of the horses was collected by social services. I still wish I could've appealed that. There was nothing wrong with that horse. But they took him anyway, and prevented me from adopting anymore animals for a couple weeks, which in game-time is of course a very long time.

But it is odd how just a while ago I was complaining about how big and empty the house was, and now, all of a sudden, it's bursting at the seams. Someone is always awake, there is always a mess somewhere, something is always broken - it's almost like real life, just ... worse. I refuse to add onto it. It's big enough as it is, and the only way to go from here is up, and I hate dealing with multiple stories anyway. I was actually thinking about downsizing the house once the family size goes back down. As soon as I can get some of these younger kids grown and moved out. The house is so full, Virgil can't even propose to his girlfriend and get married, because she'd have nowhere to live.



I have got to make some progress. I feel like the generations have really slowed down. At this rate, I won't make it to 20 before the deadline comes along.

Tulsi Sweetbasil, the unintentional porter

For almost as long as I've been gaming, whenever I'm given a choice of class in fantasy rpgs, I've gravitated towards high dps classes - usually ranged and usually elfish. Just to make sure I wasn't playing my myriad hunters/rangers/snipers out of ignorance, I tried a couple years ago to make a healer on LotRO, a minstrel named Sioned. She was dragged, kicking and screaming, into Moria (it only took two years) and then, she was abandoned because I simply couldn't take it anymore. I am not a good healer. I don't enjoy healing.

I assumed that because I hated healing, that I would hate tanking as well. As a joke, and more to say I had a guard than to really put any effort into it, I created my first tank - a hobbit guard in LotRO named Tulsi Sweetbasil. I leveled her to 15 and then forgot about her. I had somewhere else to store stuff, I had an extra crafter if I wanted to take the time, but really, who wants a hobbit tank?

Then, a very good friend of mine (who happens to play a guard very well) decided it would be fun if we leveled our baby guards (he had created a new one) together. Tank lessons. This should be fun.

  At first, I will admit, I was confused. I had a vague knowledge of the class (and when I say vague I mean vague in the sense that I might as well tell you the plot of a book I've never read and only heard about from a friend of a friend who's sister's boyfriend's cousin read three years ago). Also, at first, it was very boring because it seemed that all anyone ever wanted Tulsi to do was carry things. Case in point, consider the next few screenies:

Carrying a chicken

The hobbits of Oatbarton and Northcotton were particularly bad about needing things carried, and after a while I stopped taking pictures of the random things I was asked to tote from one end of their village to the other. Some of their requests started to sound like Aiel punishments.

Now for a pie!

No carrying this time!

Holly Hornblower, can, for all I care, choke on her spoiled pies. I carried so many of those things to her. If she has the nerve to cook a bunch of spoiled pies, she should at least have the gumption to go collect them all herself.










Finally, in Dwaling, things started to look up. No carrying for Tulsi! I get to blow glass! The head glassblower said I had made a 'thing' they would 'have to find a use for. Maybe an ash-tray for pipes.' Hooray! At least my future as a carrier isn't in jeopardy with any budding talent in glass-blowing.

Que the Sousa tunes

To celebrate my lack of carrying things for a while, I went down to the Shire and set off some fireworks for the fourth of July. No one else was there, except a fox, and even he ran away. They were some noisy fireworks.

She takes all this work with a smile

My celebrations were short-lived though, for as I moved up towards Tinnudir, I was quickly being forced to carry things again. What, does toting a shield around make one's arms especially suited for porter work?

Venison for dinner.

I really was learning about tanking though, in between all the courier work. Here we have me picking on a herd of deer, while my friend and teacher stands by and cheers.

I killed them all.

Not my friend, but the deer.

My first real solo challenge

 We both started to feel after a while that I was beginning to get a handle on this whole being a tank thing, so I set off on my own to see how much I had learned. By now I was in the wastes of Angmar, and not long after leaving Aughaire I saw my first challenge - a shard-dropper with three times my morale. This should be fun.

 I steadied myself, ate a quick couple bites (vitality and wound resist never hurt) and Let Fly! He came after me right away, rather indignantly, and the battle was joined.

I quickly realized that besides having three times my health, he was also four times my height. Was Tulsi mad? Had she gone suicidal in her solitude?



The fight was over sooner than I thought it would be, and yes, I used all my cooldowns, but it was worth it. I felt accomplished, watching that hill-beast fall to the ground in front of me. His adamant shard is something I will treasure forever (or at least until I get to a vault-keeper).

Tulsi, the victorious.

 

I won't be a real tank until I can __________.

A Day with the Loremasters: Horse Envy and Menial Labor

So Squid and I began work on Volume III the other day, and it didn't exactly begin as epicly as the other volumes had. It was all menial labor - as in the screenie to the right, where I am toting pumpkins for Butterbur. Silly innkeeper can tote his own pumpkins for all I care. We were also required to tote various other produce, but I didn't feel the need to record each and every step of the way, as soon after I finished playing carry-all, I met up with sis in the common room of the Pony for a pint before we headed out.
Silly elf was finding Barliman's benches way too comfortable and refused to move for a while. I felt the need to scold her while she took an inordinately long afk. I took this time to notice, as if for the first time, the messy state of the Pony. You'd think that all that time I spent carrying vegetables that the proprietor could at least wipe down a table or right a stool or something. Anything. But no, it's all a mess, and it's been a mess, and it will always be a mess, and all Butterbur will do is stand there saying "So much to do!". You're telling me. Go do some of it, you lazy innkeeper bum.



After Squid finally decided to move, we set off for the northern edge of Bree, where we had to fight off a ruffian who had been insulting Squid's sabercat, Ronon. Ronon took great joy in beating the tar out of this ruffian, as did Squid. Except she called down fire and lightning, like Taborlin the Great (sorry, had to put that in there) and he ran off squealing, much like a little piglet. Excuse my big head in this screenie, but I was awestruck by how awesome Lightning Storm looks when seen from the third person. I usually don't get that sort of view.

Then, Squid decided she needed to show off her newest horse, the Steed of Night. She managed to acquire it the day before it left the Lotro Store (forever?) and made no attempt at hiding the fact that she had a horse I did not. I have to admit, it's a nice looking horse, moreso when I don't have one myself. Le sigh.

One day I will have the most amazing horse in the game. I just need to decide which horse that is first.

The Sims 3: Ambitious?

The new Sims3 expansion pack, Ambitions, was released today, and after the UPS man was kind enough to bring it straight to my door, I loaded it up to see what had changed. I mean, after all, with this expansion EA was supposedly finally giving us the option to see our sims while they were at work. We could supposedly have complete and total control over our sims 24/7 - for whatever that's worth, anyways.

After loading the expansion and fiddling about with the new bits for a while on my legacy family, I decided that the family I had been playing had way too many children, and way too many ghosts. I knew it would take forever before I had a sim high enough in the "Ghost Hunter" profession to catch them all and leave my house ghost-free, therefore my only option was to start a new legacy. I'm crazy. I know.

Since I don't play by the official legacy rules (point-keeping, etc) I decided to put my new family in the new city of Twinbrook. Only problem is, they had no money, so they had to buy a cheap house in the swamp on the poor side of town.

To compensate, I had my legacy founder get a career as a stylist at the salon in town. Ooh! One of the new jobs! I can control her at work! One of her first customers was this fellow, who only wanted some new formal-wear to celebrate his recent job promotion. That was it. New suit. I was to leave his horrible hair alone. *shudder* I am beginning to learn, through several botched jobs and unhappy clients, that when they tell you what they want, that is all you are to do. No more, and no less.

When she was not working, my founder would head upstairs to the drafting table and work on new sketches (which so far I have found have absolutely no effect on her abilities/performance as a stylist, but it is a nice touch). It also seems that her artistic abilities have little to do with the outcome of her sketches other than the fact that as her painting skill increases her sketches have moved from pencil/charcoal to colors, possibly paints. I don't know. I think I'm putting way too much thought into this.

I also found that the new careers are salaried jobs, that earn sims a certain amount of simoleons per week (with added bonuses earned per job completed, I suppose as some sort of commission), while the original jobs are still wage jobs, earning per hour. I have yet to determine which is more profitable in the long run.

My founder's husband I had join the Law Enforcement careers, one of the original careers in the game. This, to my disappointment, I saw had not changed at all. Apparently it's only the NEW careers that can be controlled. All the original ones are still off in the land of whoknowswhatsit. And so, for the first time, TS3 falls flat on a promise (that of complete and total control) but I'm sure it's for a reason. I mean, if I had the max limit of playable sims (eight) at a time and was trying to control all of them at work at the same time, each at a different job, I would probably go crazy and quit the game. EA doesn't want me to quit, so I suppose that's why they made the game the way they did.

Work and gameplay issues aside, I am enjoying some of the changes in the home. My favorite, in a sort of ironic way, is the new laundry feature. Before, when sims would change clothes or get in the shower or go swimming or anything, their clothes would magically change to whatever was needed. Now, when they change, there is a little pile of clothes on the floor. Which they then have to pick up and put in the hamper. When the hamper is full, they have to wash the clothes, and then either put them in the dryer or hang them out on a clothesline (gasp! Just like IRL!!!! Only, irl I don't do the laundry, and it just keeps piling up). Of course, the more appliances you have in a house, the more chances there are for things to go wrong, like the little episode pictured above. My poor Sean was trying desperately to keep the thing under control (at one point he actually had the option to "subdue" the washing machine, which required him to then hang onto the thing in terror while it jumped and shook like a thing possessed). 

Most all the other elements of the game remain the same, but then I have still only dabbled at the surface of Ambitions.  Babies still look adorable playing with blocks on the turtle table, and there is still no weather (give me seasons, EA!!!) but I am still just as addicted as ever to the game.



 On a side note, I think the game's randomizer when it comes to generating styling jobs can be a bit too random at times. I received a notice that a Coy Jones-Brown wanted a complete wardrobe do-over to celebrate being hired for a new job. I get to the house of the client, ring the doorbell, and who answers, but this guy, my client.  A child. A very, very, creepy looking child. What kind of town is this Twinbrook, that they hire children? And what is in the swampwater, to make them look like that?