No Thunderstorms Saturday, Yay
May. 17th, 2025 11:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickYeah, the expected rain never showed up, hooray! I mean, it LOOKED like it was going to rain for a good chunk of the morning, but by the afternoon, the sun had come out, and it was like a proper summer's day! ...by which I mean it was hot, humid, and buggy, so no, we did not play beanbags. Poor Mom got chewed up enough while she was planting a bunch of new ferns and stuff she got from a friend this morning. :p This meant I at least had plenty of time to devote to what I wanted to do, and I got a good amount of stuff done --
Tumblr: Another day of nothing happening on Valice Multiverse (I need to find some stuff to reblog over there), but I did spend a little over an hour before lunch working on the “help I think I made my BG3 Tav!Smiler the wrong base class and now I need advice on how to proceed with my next attempt at a playthrough” post draft over on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler). Made some decent progress, and hoping to make more tomorrow so I can post it this week and maybe get some advice before my long weekend (aka the best opportunity I will have to play Baldur’s Gate III again)! We’ll see what happens!
Sims 4: Spent roughly an hour and a half in here after lunch, working on the Polyheart OT3 House and using the Valicer family that lives in that building save to test something very important –
Polyheart OT3 House – I spent most of my playsession trying to finish off this lot once and for all – and while I’m just barely not there thanks to me second-guessing some previous landscaping decisions, I think I made some good progress regardless:
A) I ended up deleting the “Shrubs Full Of Flowers” that I had hanging around the lot for having just too large a footprint (four tiles square instead of just one), then moved the “Cosmic Aster-nots” over to line the wall by the path to the pool. After a little ALTing to get them placed in just the right position so they weren’t clipping into the wall but also weren’t sticking out too far from it, I decided I liked the look of them there enough that I got three more in red, blue, and yellow and mirrored the placement on the other side of the house, having them line the diagonal wall just behind the mailbox. :) So now the trio have some nice shrubs near the front of their house, yay!
B) I moved the flat flower “wheelbarrow” cart thing to the other side of the little heart-shaped greenhouse so it wasn’t obstructing the path to the picnic area, putting it up against the diagonal wall facing the corner of the lot (the one with the three round flowerpots lined up against it on the inside). I liked it there, but I felt like it really needed something to go with it, so I started looking at various shrubs and flowers to see what might go well there –
And happened across the various garden topiary animals. And when I placed down the bunny one from Cottage Living just to see how big it was, to my delight, not only was it a single-tile topiary, it could be placed perfectly next to the cart to make it look like it was wheeling it around. :D So that’s exactly what I did! I think it makes for a very cute view out those particular windows!
C) Speaking of the path to the picnic area, after moving the flower cart (and spending some time messing with all the non-aster-nots flowers and shrubs on the lot – more details on that later), I decided to paint in said path with terrain paint – after all, I’d already done dirt paths to the pool area and the greenhouse! Plus it allowed me to blend in the dirt patch left behind after I moved the cart. It’s a little lighter in spots than the other two paths, but that’s okay – just suggests they might spread out the picnic blanket a little less often than they take a dip in the pool or check on the greenhouse. :)
D) I also put a couple of Seasons “The Wallflower Bouquet” metal flower-shaped wall decorations up on either side of the greenhouse doors (right before drawing in the path above, actually), since I thought it would be nice to have something there – current color scheme is purple-yellow-orange, but I might go through the swatches next time I pop in and see if there’s something I like better. I know not EVERYTHING on this lot has to be yellow, red, or blue, but I do like to keep the color scheme consistent!
E) I moved the hose next to the pool along the wall a bit so it was closer to the bedroom window – I just felt like its previous position was obstructing the path around the top of the pool a bit (don’t need anybody trying to squeeze by it falling into the water! I mean, I know that wouldn’t actually HAPPEN in Sims, but I like the occasional touch of realism).
F) I moved the picnic blanket with its basket so it was directly in front of the Lovestruck “Pride” bench on the side of the house – I just thought it looked better there, and made a touch more sense there too – now during picnics, the trio has the option of sitting on the blanket or the bench, whichever they prefer! This also allowed me to move the telescope into the spot where the picnic blanket was, which I preferred to having it shoved into the very corner of the buildable space on the lot. Meant that I could position it for an arguably better view of the sky. Had to erase and repaint the dirt under it, but that was worth it. :)
G) And, as previously hinted at, after getting the “Cosmic Aster-nots” sorted, I fiddled around with the placement of all the other flowers and bushes on the lot as I started second-guessing where I’d put them originally! Because that is something I do a LOT. *shakehead* I ended up doing this in bursts throughout the entire build session, moving stuff around periodically and even looking up how much sun certain flower types needed on my phone while searching for the perfect spot to stick them. I eventually ended up with:
I. The blue, red, and yellow irises that were under the tree behind the BBQ area moved to in front of the kitchen window on the other side of the house – I wanted SOMETHING out there for the gang to look at during breakfast, but the flower bushes that I had there previously were just too chonky and – again – kind of obstructed the path to the picnic area. The irises, by contrast, were nice and small while still providing some color. Plus they’d get more sun there than under the tree (they’re a sun-loving flower, apparently).
II. A couple patches of base-game wildflowers under the tree, arranged so at least some of the blooms were getting the sun filtering through the canopy – I wanted SOME flowers under the tree, and I felt like these made a little more sense than the irises, and looked better too. I was even able to get them in roughly the right color scheme, with one patch of yellow and orange flowers and one patch of pinkish-red and blue ones. :) (I just straight-up sold the other irises I had under there previously – didn’t have room for them anymore, especially with their brethren now in front of the kitchen window! ...though maybe I could add in some more just lining the wall? Hmmm...)
III. The “Shaggi-lucious” shrubs in front of Victor’s window, between it and the birdfeeder, as I’d moved the shrubs that were previously in that spot out of the way because I thought they looked too “busy” and blocked too much of Victor’s view of the feeder.
...except I just checked a couple of old screenshots of the build to see what I had there before, and – yup. I literally moved the “Shaggi-lucious” shrubs away from that window for being too “busy” – and then put them right back again because I thought they’d look nice there. *facepalm* I, uh, spaced them out slightly more this time? XD Cripes, Vic, your brain sometimes…
IV. And the “Passion’s Kiss” shrubs tucked in between the two bumps of the greenhouse heart in a tight almost-heart-like shape themselves because I wanted to put them SOMEWHERE but I had no idea where. And it’s like – they don’t look BAD there, they just also stick out a little too much...I think I might have to delete them and put something else in that spot. Maybe another small topiary? It’s either that or see if I can resize them…
So yeah – I don’t feel like I’m quite there yet, but I am CLOSE. Like, once I figure out what to do with those “Passion’s Kiss” shrubs, and maybe add in a few more irises by the path to the picnic area, and do one last sweep of the lot for anything I want to add, this build will be DONE. And then I can do another post on my tumblr about everything I’ve done to the exterior, and put this build in my Library, and finally put it to rest. Well, unless anyone wants me to put it up on the Gallery? I’m willing – there’s no modded stuff or CC in the build – I just don’t think there’s any audience for something so closely themed to my own OT3. *shrug* We’ll find out, I guess!
Build Save Valicer Family – And I spent the very end of my playsession over here with these guys, testing – as previously mentioned – something very important. Namely, if the April 29th patch, which claimed in its patch notes that “Child Sims with Vampire Eyes will now stay instead of reverting to normal Sim eyes” (taken from SimsVIP, thanks) had actually fixed the issue with all occult eyes changing to regular eyes on all ages of Sims. So, after figuring out how to get the “cas.fulleditmode” cheat to work (I thought you could enter it in CAS itself, but nope – you have to do everything in Live Mode, then shift-click on your Sim and choose “Modify In CAS”), I sent the local Smiler to CAS, turned them into a spellcaster, fixed their teeth (because ONCE AGAIN for some reason they had the ones with the weird curved-back canines instead of their usual regular buck teeth), slapped on the bright yellow eyes that both vampires and spellcasters get access to, then saved my changes and returned to their lot –
Aaand the eyes did not immediately revert back to green! :D I did a few interactions with them – tried to have them feed Dogmeat (who lives with this group) a treat, then had them just chat with Victor when Dogmeat ran off to bark at a reading Alice instead – and the eyes remained that lovely bright yellow throughout! So it looks like that bug might actually be fixed, yay. :) We’ll see for sure if it is the next time I load into the game – since this is the family that pops up on my start screen, it should be pretty obvious if Smiler’s got the right eye color or not. Though, sadly, the “vampire eyes no longer glow properly” bug IS still in effect, meh. I mean, I’ll take Smiler just having yellow eyes so I can start a new save file where I do more than build stuff, but I’d really like the glow back if I can get it. If anyone has any advice, I am more than happy to take it!
Writing: Finished outlining “The Van Dort Vacancy” today – though it took me WAY longer than anticipated, as I had to redo one bit where I read the dice wrong, and then think really hard about what everyone would be getting for XP and what they’d be doing in downtime. But I got it all done in the end:
A) First, I finished off the score itself, which involved –
I. The gang very easily making it back through the trapped hallway into the main house with their ill-gotten gains (since they already knew where all the traps were now, and the Fortune Roll I did was kind enough to give them a 6)
II. Victor leading a Prowl group action to the “tradesman’s door” so they could sneak out undetected – only for Nell to catch them right before they could get there and start demanding to know what was going on (this is the bit I had to redo, as the FIRST time I rolled Barnaby’s dice, I thought he’d gotten a 6 and ensured them a clean getaway – and then I remembered, no, I am pretty sure he has NO dots in Prowl and thus he has to take the LOWER number of the pair. Which, I didn’t remember what that was, so I had him roll again and take the 5 that came up (with another 6, of course). At least poor stressed Victor didn’t have to take any additional stress from Barnaby outright failing the Prowl!)
III. Barnaby trying to distract her by praising her home and her decorating – and then rolling a 3 for the Consort roll (BARNABY). *sigh* I allowed him to successfully sweet-talk her, though, and instead represented the failure by having another servant run in to report the drugged guards and the still-slightly-ajar door, making Nell realize chicanery was afoot
IV. Alice getting Something To Do in this score (beyond help out in the kitchen and coach Victor on commanding hulls) by having a brief skirmish with said servant when they tried to take her bag – got a “success with a complication,” meaning she successfully defended her bag, but then more guards showed up to try and kick everyone’s asses –
V. Kasimir throwing down the previously-established smoke bomb and everyone escaping in the resultant haze (though Barnaby made sure to complain later that his coat now smelled of smoke – mission Ruin Barnaby’s Coat accomplished :P), with Kasimir and Barnaby splitting off once it was safe; Victor, Alice, and Smiler then started their hike back to Six Towers, with Alice noting that they’re probably officially criminals now, and Victor trying to mitigate the damage by saying his parents might not raise TOO much of a fuss just to disguise his involvement in the caper (though I decided that they’ll raise ENOUGH of a fuss that the Three Pillars will start their career as an official crew with 2 Heat now – one from killing Bumby and one from this)
VI. And finally, the three running into Nessa from the Gray Cloaks upon reentering Six Towers, who asked who they were – cue Victor blurting out “The Three Pillars” (because his brain though their name had to be architectural, like the neighborhood), Alice giving Nessa the purse of money she found in Bumby’s (equivalent to a Coin’s worth of cash) to “pay proper respect” to her gang and make sure she left them alone, and the three finally making their way home :)
B) Then I did the end-of-score round-up and assigned XP – everybody had 6 stress by the end of this score, thanks to pushing themselves and/or helping others to accomplish various tasks, poor peeps! As for the XP totals –
I. Alice got a whole 2 XP – 1 for fighting the servant (because I wanted her to do something Cutter-y), and 1 for expressing her background (in the kitchen – technically BEFORE the score happened, but I did make a roll to see how well she and Smiler did, so it felt fair). However, that was all she needed to get a new dot in one of the Insight actions, since that filled up the tracker she’d been working on! I had her get Hunt because that meant everybody had at least one dot in every action. :) I’ll figure out a good way to justify it narratively later (though I have an idea about her following people around Six Towers to see how they live…)
II. Victor got 4 XP – 2 for addressing challenges with knowledge (because he knows his own house pretty well) and 2 for expressing his background (again, this all happened in his own freaking house). I had him dump it all in Prowess, since I figured he would want another dot in Prowl after all the mostly-successful sneaking around they did in this score
III. And Smiler got 3 XP – 2 for addressing challenges with deception (trying to convince the cook they were new servants – I rolled for it!) and technical skill (lockpicking the door into the vault), 1 for expressing their beliefs (namely “Everyone deserves to be happy, and Victor will be a lot happier if he gets away from his awful parents” XD). Their XP also went in Prowess, because they too need a Prowl dot – if they’re gonna be doing more scores like this, they need to be sneaky!
C) And finally, I picked downtime actions for everyone –
I. Alice ended up indulging her Obligation (to the children of Houndsditch) vice twice, because her first roll to reduce stress was a 1. *facepalm* Fortunately, the second was a 5, meaning she cleared all her stress without overindulging, yay~ I have decided in the story this means she checked in very briefly on Houndsditch, but couldn’t make herself stay long because she was worried how June would react to her...then she ran into June on a trip to the market, where June explained that she was totally cool with Alice’s presence around the place after learning what a monster Bumby was (still wasn’t fun to see him die, of course, but still)
II. Victor indulged his Weird (doing supernatural stuff) vice, clearing 4 stress and making his “fine spirit mask” with Elder Gutknecht’s help. :) I also wanted him to get some presents for Smiler and Alice (a traveling alchemy kit and alchemical storage bandoliers for Smiler, and a replica of the Vorpal Blade for Alice), but I wasn’t sure how to represent that as a downtime action for a while, as the “Acquire An Asset” action is for TEMPORARY stuff, but I wasn’t sure I wanted him to start a “Long-Term Project” to get the items either –
And THEN I was reminded of the fact that you can spend Coin to improve the results rolls for downtime actions. And since I was already planning on Victor spending 2 of the 4 Coin they’d picked up on these presents – well, that made all the difference! I ended up having him do a Study roll to figure out which shops would be the best for his purposes – he got a 5, which got him two segments on the four-piece clock I’d set up, and I used the 2 Coin to up that to a Critical, which actually overfilled the clock with five segments. XD So yeah, Victor got the gifts no problem, and Alice and Smiler were very appreciative!
III. And Smiler indulged their Pleasure (doing fun stuff) vice, also clearing 4 stress and insisting the gang treat themselves to a nice dinner (they got hungry in the Van Dort kitchen, sue them), and went ahead and trained their Prowess attribute a bit more, filling up that tracker by practicing sneaking from place to place in their house while cleaning and getting that dot of Prowl! :D
Yes, this does mean that Victor did not actually get any new dots in anything in a score focused around him and his relationship with his family. XD To be fair, I put some of his XP from the LAST story into his Playbook tracker instead of an Attribute tracker, so he’ll probably be the first to get a new special ability instead. Hopefully that’ll even it all out. :P But yeah, I am now officially Done Planning the story. Next week, we actually start writing, yay! :D
YouTube: Got to this later than I wanted thanks to my writing time overrunning, as per the above, so I didn’t have time to watch the next CaFae Latte video on my list. :( But I fit in everything else that I wanted to watch, and that at least is an accomplishment –
A) First up, we had the OXBoxtra lists of the week –
I. “7 Wild Ways to Measure HP More Interesting Than a Crappy Bar: Commenter Edition” – Ellen and Mike talking about more unique ways games allowed you to get a visual on your health that wasn’t just a simple bar, as suggested by commenters on the last video. From examining just how bloody poor protagonist Henri’s hand was in the inventory screen of Amnesia: The Bunker, to the Isaac Clarke-esque glowing green meter on the Rookie’s proton back in Ghostbusters: The Video Game, to the weird elongating tongue of the fox in Foxx Fights Back (this is a real game, on the Commodore 64, and that is genuinely how you track your health – the more hits you take, the longer that tongue gets), games have all sorts of interesting ways for you to review how hurt you’re getting in them! *looks at that elongated tongue* Though there is something to be said for the traditional health bar…
II. “7 Worst Game Mechanics That Everyone Hated” – Mike, Jane, and Andy talking about utterly horrible game mechanics that everyone hated and should never have been included in a commercially-released video game! Like that horrible beeping when Link was at low health in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time! The need to manually guide your arrows and cannonballs with motion controls in Heavenly Sword! And the need to fucking blink every five seconds at the beginning of the 2008 Alone In The Dark reboot! Like, seriously, game? I would have stopped playing after the third blink, I swear. Ugh.
B) And second up, we had the GrayStillPlays video of the day – “I ruined lives for fame,” aka Gray plays Rock Star Life Simulator! This is a game that is SUPPOSED to simulate going from a guy who plays the guitar at parks and across the street from casinos with his drummer friend Ricky for cash to an actual rock star, complete with writing songs via DDR-style button mashing, PLAYING songs via rip-off Guitar Hero mechanics, earning popularity from playing your music, leveling up your charisma, unlocking special skills in your skill tree, and other such RPG-ish things. What it ACTUALLY simulated while Gray was playing it was:
I. Making a very shiny man with a huge jaw, a big upturned nose, yellowish skin, and green hair and a patchy beard
II. Urinating all over everything with the world’s most janky stream of piss – the game SAID you’d be fined for doing it in public, but Gray quickly found out that wasn’t true
III. Committing multiple counts of vehicular homicide with the main character’s shitty car and getting away with all of them – however, trying to run over a cop revealed they’re invincible and as strong as ten men
IV. Finding and then immediately quitting a guitar repair job, which fined him $25 bucks for not coming in (but again, the constant vehicular homicide was fine)
V. Hitting the bar, getting very drunk off one beer, and poorly flirting with everyone around him
VI. Getting a tip via text from “Hulkster” to visit the casino; playing a few concerts across the street from the casino to earn enough money to go in; then hitting the blackjack tables and FUCKING CLEANING UP – like, seriously, Gray kept making bigger and bigger bets and winning almost every freaking one. By the time he ended he had just over $85,000 to his name
VII. Buying a fancy luxury house at one in the morning for $50,000, spending $25,000 to throw a party for his old neighbors the next morning, and promptly giving up on his rock star dreams to instead spend his days chugging beer from his beer keg, earning yet more cash from the guy offering blackjack by the pool, and urinating in said pool
So yeah. Less “rock star,” more “guy gets lucky at gambling and decides who needs music.” XD Ah, lovely janky simulators, how amazing you are...
Whew -- lot of writing up there! But I'm glad I more or less accomplished everything I set out to do. :) But now I really need to head to bed. Tomorrow, plans include working more on that Tav!Smiler draft; playing Fallout 4 and getting Victor and Ada to the Mechanist's lair; updating the FO4 Playthrough Progression appropriately; getting in a workout; and keeping up with Gray and Jon (via the now-usual method of watching Gray with my workout). *nods* Hopefully all achievable goals! Night all!
Tumblr: Another day of nothing happening on Valice Multiverse (I need to find some stuff to reblog over there), but I did spend a little over an hour before lunch working on the “help I think I made my BG3 Tav!Smiler the wrong base class and now I need advice on how to proceed with my next attempt at a playthrough” post draft over on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler). Made some decent progress, and hoping to make more tomorrow so I can post it this week and maybe get some advice before my long weekend (aka the best opportunity I will have to play Baldur’s Gate III again)! We’ll see what happens!
Sims 4: Spent roughly an hour and a half in here after lunch, working on the Polyheart OT3 House and using the Valicer family that lives in that building save to test something very important –
Polyheart OT3 House – I spent most of my playsession trying to finish off this lot once and for all – and while I’m just barely not there thanks to me second-guessing some previous landscaping decisions, I think I made some good progress regardless:
A) I ended up deleting the “Shrubs Full Of Flowers” that I had hanging around the lot for having just too large a footprint (four tiles square instead of just one), then moved the “Cosmic Aster-nots” over to line the wall by the path to the pool. After a little ALTing to get them placed in just the right position so they weren’t clipping into the wall but also weren’t sticking out too far from it, I decided I liked the look of them there enough that I got three more in red, blue, and yellow and mirrored the placement on the other side of the house, having them line the diagonal wall just behind the mailbox. :) So now the trio have some nice shrubs near the front of their house, yay!
B) I moved the flat flower “wheelbarrow” cart thing to the other side of the little heart-shaped greenhouse so it wasn’t obstructing the path to the picnic area, putting it up against the diagonal wall facing the corner of the lot (the one with the three round flowerpots lined up against it on the inside). I liked it there, but I felt like it really needed something to go with it, so I started looking at various shrubs and flowers to see what might go well there –
And happened across the various garden topiary animals. And when I placed down the bunny one from Cottage Living just to see how big it was, to my delight, not only was it a single-tile topiary, it could be placed perfectly next to the cart to make it look like it was wheeling it around. :D So that’s exactly what I did! I think it makes for a very cute view out those particular windows!
C) Speaking of the path to the picnic area, after moving the flower cart (and spending some time messing with all the non-aster-nots flowers and shrubs on the lot – more details on that later), I decided to paint in said path with terrain paint – after all, I’d already done dirt paths to the pool area and the greenhouse! Plus it allowed me to blend in the dirt patch left behind after I moved the cart. It’s a little lighter in spots than the other two paths, but that’s okay – just suggests they might spread out the picnic blanket a little less often than they take a dip in the pool or check on the greenhouse. :)
D) I also put a couple of Seasons “The Wallflower Bouquet” metal flower-shaped wall decorations up on either side of the greenhouse doors (right before drawing in the path above, actually), since I thought it would be nice to have something there – current color scheme is purple-yellow-orange, but I might go through the swatches next time I pop in and see if there’s something I like better. I know not EVERYTHING on this lot has to be yellow, red, or blue, but I do like to keep the color scheme consistent!
E) I moved the hose next to the pool along the wall a bit so it was closer to the bedroom window – I just felt like its previous position was obstructing the path around the top of the pool a bit (don’t need anybody trying to squeeze by it falling into the water! I mean, I know that wouldn’t actually HAPPEN in Sims, but I like the occasional touch of realism).
F) I moved the picnic blanket with its basket so it was directly in front of the Lovestruck “Pride” bench on the side of the house – I just thought it looked better there, and made a touch more sense there too – now during picnics, the trio has the option of sitting on the blanket or the bench, whichever they prefer! This also allowed me to move the telescope into the spot where the picnic blanket was, which I preferred to having it shoved into the very corner of the buildable space on the lot. Meant that I could position it for an arguably better view of the sky. Had to erase and repaint the dirt under it, but that was worth it. :)
G) And, as previously hinted at, after getting the “Cosmic Aster-nots” sorted, I fiddled around with the placement of all the other flowers and bushes on the lot as I started second-guessing where I’d put them originally! Because that is something I do a LOT. *shakehead* I ended up doing this in bursts throughout the entire build session, moving stuff around periodically and even looking up how much sun certain flower types needed on my phone while searching for the perfect spot to stick them. I eventually ended up with:
I. The blue, red, and yellow irises that were under the tree behind the BBQ area moved to in front of the kitchen window on the other side of the house – I wanted SOMETHING out there for the gang to look at during breakfast, but the flower bushes that I had there previously were just too chonky and – again – kind of obstructed the path to the picnic area. The irises, by contrast, were nice and small while still providing some color. Plus they’d get more sun there than under the tree (they’re a sun-loving flower, apparently).
II. A couple patches of base-game wildflowers under the tree, arranged so at least some of the blooms were getting the sun filtering through the canopy – I wanted SOME flowers under the tree, and I felt like these made a little more sense than the irises, and looked better too. I was even able to get them in roughly the right color scheme, with one patch of yellow and orange flowers and one patch of pinkish-red and blue ones. :) (I just straight-up sold the other irises I had under there previously – didn’t have room for them anymore, especially with their brethren now in front of the kitchen window! ...though maybe I could add in some more just lining the wall? Hmmm...)
III. The “Shaggi-lucious” shrubs in front of Victor’s window, between it and the birdfeeder, as I’d moved the shrubs that were previously in that spot out of the way because I thought they looked too “busy” and blocked too much of Victor’s view of the feeder.
...except I just checked a couple of old screenshots of the build to see what I had there before, and – yup. I literally moved the “Shaggi-lucious” shrubs away from that window for being too “busy” – and then put them right back again because I thought they’d look nice there. *facepalm* I, uh, spaced them out slightly more this time? XD Cripes, Vic, your brain sometimes…
IV. And the “Passion’s Kiss” shrubs tucked in between the two bumps of the greenhouse heart in a tight almost-heart-like shape themselves because I wanted to put them SOMEWHERE but I had no idea where. And it’s like – they don’t look BAD there, they just also stick out a little too much...I think I might have to delete them and put something else in that spot. Maybe another small topiary? It’s either that or see if I can resize them…
So yeah – I don’t feel like I’m quite there yet, but I am CLOSE. Like, once I figure out what to do with those “Passion’s Kiss” shrubs, and maybe add in a few more irises by the path to the picnic area, and do one last sweep of the lot for anything I want to add, this build will be DONE. And then I can do another post on my tumblr about everything I’ve done to the exterior, and put this build in my Library, and finally put it to rest. Well, unless anyone wants me to put it up on the Gallery? I’m willing – there’s no modded stuff or CC in the build – I just don’t think there’s any audience for something so closely themed to my own OT3. *shrug* We’ll find out, I guess!
Build Save Valicer Family – And I spent the very end of my playsession over here with these guys, testing – as previously mentioned – something very important. Namely, if the April 29th patch, which claimed in its patch notes that “Child Sims with Vampire Eyes will now stay instead of reverting to normal Sim eyes” (taken from SimsVIP, thanks) had actually fixed the issue with all occult eyes changing to regular eyes on all ages of Sims. So, after figuring out how to get the “cas.fulleditmode” cheat to work (I thought you could enter it in CAS itself, but nope – you have to do everything in Live Mode, then shift-click on your Sim and choose “Modify In CAS”), I sent the local Smiler to CAS, turned them into a spellcaster, fixed their teeth (because ONCE AGAIN for some reason they had the ones with the weird curved-back canines instead of their usual regular buck teeth), slapped on the bright yellow eyes that both vampires and spellcasters get access to, then saved my changes and returned to their lot –
Aaand the eyes did not immediately revert back to green! :D I did a few interactions with them – tried to have them feed Dogmeat (who lives with this group) a treat, then had them just chat with Victor when Dogmeat ran off to bark at a reading Alice instead – and the eyes remained that lovely bright yellow throughout! So it looks like that bug might actually be fixed, yay. :) We’ll see for sure if it is the next time I load into the game – since this is the family that pops up on my start screen, it should be pretty obvious if Smiler’s got the right eye color or not. Though, sadly, the “vampire eyes no longer glow properly” bug IS still in effect, meh. I mean, I’ll take Smiler just having yellow eyes so I can start a new save file where I do more than build stuff, but I’d really like the glow back if I can get it. If anyone has any advice, I am more than happy to take it!
Writing: Finished outlining “The Van Dort Vacancy” today – though it took me WAY longer than anticipated, as I had to redo one bit where I read the dice wrong, and then think really hard about what everyone would be getting for XP and what they’d be doing in downtime. But I got it all done in the end:
A) First, I finished off the score itself, which involved –
I. The gang very easily making it back through the trapped hallway into the main house with their ill-gotten gains (since they already knew where all the traps were now, and the Fortune Roll I did was kind enough to give them a 6)
II. Victor leading a Prowl group action to the “tradesman’s door” so they could sneak out undetected – only for Nell to catch them right before they could get there and start demanding to know what was going on (this is the bit I had to redo, as the FIRST time I rolled Barnaby’s dice, I thought he’d gotten a 6 and ensured them a clean getaway – and then I remembered, no, I am pretty sure he has NO dots in Prowl and thus he has to take the LOWER number of the pair. Which, I didn’t remember what that was, so I had him roll again and take the 5 that came up (with another 6, of course). At least poor stressed Victor didn’t have to take any additional stress from Barnaby outright failing the Prowl!)
III. Barnaby trying to distract her by praising her home and her decorating – and then rolling a 3 for the Consort roll (BARNABY). *sigh* I allowed him to successfully sweet-talk her, though, and instead represented the failure by having another servant run in to report the drugged guards and the still-slightly-ajar door, making Nell realize chicanery was afoot
IV. Alice getting Something To Do in this score (beyond help out in the kitchen and coach Victor on commanding hulls) by having a brief skirmish with said servant when they tried to take her bag – got a “success with a complication,” meaning she successfully defended her bag, but then more guards showed up to try and kick everyone’s asses –
V. Kasimir throwing down the previously-established smoke bomb and everyone escaping in the resultant haze (though Barnaby made sure to complain later that his coat now smelled of smoke – mission Ruin Barnaby’s Coat accomplished :P), with Kasimir and Barnaby splitting off once it was safe; Victor, Alice, and Smiler then started their hike back to Six Towers, with Alice noting that they’re probably officially criminals now, and Victor trying to mitigate the damage by saying his parents might not raise TOO much of a fuss just to disguise his involvement in the caper (though I decided that they’ll raise ENOUGH of a fuss that the Three Pillars will start their career as an official crew with 2 Heat now – one from killing Bumby and one from this)
VI. And finally, the three running into Nessa from the Gray Cloaks upon reentering Six Towers, who asked who they were – cue Victor blurting out “The Three Pillars” (because his brain though their name had to be architectural, like the neighborhood), Alice giving Nessa the purse of money she found in Bumby’s (equivalent to a Coin’s worth of cash) to “pay proper respect” to her gang and make sure she left them alone, and the three finally making their way home :)
B) Then I did the end-of-score round-up and assigned XP – everybody had 6 stress by the end of this score, thanks to pushing themselves and/or helping others to accomplish various tasks, poor peeps! As for the XP totals –
I. Alice got a whole 2 XP – 1 for fighting the servant (because I wanted her to do something Cutter-y), and 1 for expressing her background (in the kitchen – technically BEFORE the score happened, but I did make a roll to see how well she and Smiler did, so it felt fair). However, that was all she needed to get a new dot in one of the Insight actions, since that filled up the tracker she’d been working on! I had her get Hunt because that meant everybody had at least one dot in every action. :) I’ll figure out a good way to justify it narratively later (though I have an idea about her following people around Six Towers to see how they live…)
II. Victor got 4 XP – 2 for addressing challenges with knowledge (because he knows his own house pretty well) and 2 for expressing his background (again, this all happened in his own freaking house). I had him dump it all in Prowess, since I figured he would want another dot in Prowl after all the mostly-successful sneaking around they did in this score
III. And Smiler got 3 XP – 2 for addressing challenges with deception (trying to convince the cook they were new servants – I rolled for it!) and technical skill (lockpicking the door into the vault), 1 for expressing their beliefs (namely “Everyone deserves to be happy, and Victor will be a lot happier if he gets away from his awful parents” XD). Their XP also went in Prowess, because they too need a Prowl dot – if they’re gonna be doing more scores like this, they need to be sneaky!
C) And finally, I picked downtime actions for everyone –
I. Alice ended up indulging her Obligation (to the children of Houndsditch) vice twice, because her first roll to reduce stress was a 1. *facepalm* Fortunately, the second was a 5, meaning she cleared all her stress without overindulging, yay~ I have decided in the story this means she checked in very briefly on Houndsditch, but couldn’t make herself stay long because she was worried how June would react to her...then she ran into June on a trip to the market, where June explained that she was totally cool with Alice’s presence around the place after learning what a monster Bumby was (still wasn’t fun to see him die, of course, but still)
II. Victor indulged his Weird (doing supernatural stuff) vice, clearing 4 stress and making his “fine spirit mask” with Elder Gutknecht’s help. :) I also wanted him to get some presents for Smiler and Alice (a traveling alchemy kit and alchemical storage bandoliers for Smiler, and a replica of the Vorpal Blade for Alice), but I wasn’t sure how to represent that as a downtime action for a while, as the “Acquire An Asset” action is for TEMPORARY stuff, but I wasn’t sure I wanted him to start a “Long-Term Project” to get the items either –
And THEN I was reminded of the fact that you can spend Coin to improve the results rolls for downtime actions. And since I was already planning on Victor spending 2 of the 4 Coin they’d picked up on these presents – well, that made all the difference! I ended up having him do a Study roll to figure out which shops would be the best for his purposes – he got a 5, which got him two segments on the four-piece clock I’d set up, and I used the 2 Coin to up that to a Critical, which actually overfilled the clock with five segments. XD So yeah, Victor got the gifts no problem, and Alice and Smiler were very appreciative!
III. And Smiler indulged their Pleasure (doing fun stuff) vice, also clearing 4 stress and insisting the gang treat themselves to a nice dinner (they got hungry in the Van Dort kitchen, sue them), and went ahead and trained their Prowess attribute a bit more, filling up that tracker by practicing sneaking from place to place in their house while cleaning and getting that dot of Prowl! :D
Yes, this does mean that Victor did not actually get any new dots in anything in a score focused around him and his relationship with his family. XD To be fair, I put some of his XP from the LAST story into his Playbook tracker instead of an Attribute tracker, so he’ll probably be the first to get a new special ability instead. Hopefully that’ll even it all out. :P But yeah, I am now officially Done Planning the story. Next week, we actually start writing, yay! :D
YouTube: Got to this later than I wanted thanks to my writing time overrunning, as per the above, so I didn’t have time to watch the next CaFae Latte video on my list. :( But I fit in everything else that I wanted to watch, and that at least is an accomplishment –
A) First up, we had the OXBoxtra lists of the week –
I. “7 Wild Ways to Measure HP More Interesting Than a Crappy Bar: Commenter Edition” – Ellen and Mike talking about more unique ways games allowed you to get a visual on your health that wasn’t just a simple bar, as suggested by commenters on the last video. From examining just how bloody poor protagonist Henri’s hand was in the inventory screen of Amnesia: The Bunker, to the Isaac Clarke-esque glowing green meter on the Rookie’s proton back in Ghostbusters: The Video Game, to the weird elongating tongue of the fox in Foxx Fights Back (this is a real game, on the Commodore 64, and that is genuinely how you track your health – the more hits you take, the longer that tongue gets), games have all sorts of interesting ways for you to review how hurt you’re getting in them! *looks at that elongated tongue* Though there is something to be said for the traditional health bar…
II. “7 Worst Game Mechanics That Everyone Hated” – Mike, Jane, and Andy talking about utterly horrible game mechanics that everyone hated and should never have been included in a commercially-released video game! Like that horrible beeping when Link was at low health in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time! The need to manually guide your arrows and cannonballs with motion controls in Heavenly Sword! And the need to fucking blink every five seconds at the beginning of the 2008 Alone In The Dark reboot! Like, seriously, game? I would have stopped playing after the third blink, I swear. Ugh.
B) And second up, we had the GrayStillPlays video of the day – “I ruined lives for fame,” aka Gray plays Rock Star Life Simulator! This is a game that is SUPPOSED to simulate going from a guy who plays the guitar at parks and across the street from casinos with his drummer friend Ricky for cash to an actual rock star, complete with writing songs via DDR-style button mashing, PLAYING songs via rip-off Guitar Hero mechanics, earning popularity from playing your music, leveling up your charisma, unlocking special skills in your skill tree, and other such RPG-ish things. What it ACTUALLY simulated while Gray was playing it was:
I. Making a very shiny man with a huge jaw, a big upturned nose, yellowish skin, and green hair and a patchy beard
II. Urinating all over everything with the world’s most janky stream of piss – the game SAID you’d be fined for doing it in public, but Gray quickly found out that wasn’t true
III. Committing multiple counts of vehicular homicide with the main character’s shitty car and getting away with all of them – however, trying to run over a cop revealed they’re invincible and as strong as ten men
IV. Finding and then immediately quitting a guitar repair job, which fined him $25 bucks for not coming in (but again, the constant vehicular homicide was fine)
V. Hitting the bar, getting very drunk off one beer, and poorly flirting with everyone around him
VI. Getting a tip via text from “Hulkster” to visit the casino; playing a few concerts across the street from the casino to earn enough money to go in; then hitting the blackjack tables and FUCKING CLEANING UP – like, seriously, Gray kept making bigger and bigger bets and winning almost every freaking one. By the time he ended he had just over $85,000 to his name
VII. Buying a fancy luxury house at one in the morning for $50,000, spending $25,000 to throw a party for his old neighbors the next morning, and promptly giving up on his rock star dreams to instead spend his days chugging beer from his beer keg, earning yet more cash from the guy offering blackjack by the pool, and urinating in said pool
So yeah. Less “rock star,” more “guy gets lucky at gambling and decides who needs music.” XD Ah, lovely janky simulators, how amazing you are...
Whew -- lot of writing up there! But I'm glad I more or less accomplished everything I set out to do. :) But now I really need to head to bed. Tomorrow, plans include working more on that Tav!Smiler draft; playing Fallout 4 and getting Victor and Ada to the Mechanist's lair; updating the FO4 Playthrough Progression appropriately; getting in a workout; and keeping up with Gray and Jon (via the now-usual method of watching Gray with my workout). *nods* Hopefully all achievable goals! Night all!
