Behind the Scenes of Lemon Creek

Reminiscing...

2009-07-05T01:48:00.000-07:00

I've spent these wee hours of the morning going through old SUN stuff...and I mean OLD. Think '05. Think StarCity boards. Yeah. It's gotten me strangely sad! There was so MUCH activity in the community. Most of it silly, dramatic, fame-whoring...but exciting! Everyone was chatting with everyone. I missss it! Haha. It's probably not quite normal to be so into FSBS but, whatever.

I know Apple Valley was around way back when. Anyone else from the "old days" still around? (BTW I will NOTTT reveal who my sims were, hahaha. Way too embarassing! My dramatic, emo sims are dead and buried. :P)

If anyone else is around, anyone else miss it as much as I do? I know we can get there again! We just need to kick the community in the butt, get more events happening, and get more sims to talk to other sims.

It seems most hoods are just operated on their website in their own little untouchable world. This is For Sims By Sims, not For Neighborhoods By Neighborhoods. :P

ROS Attempt

2009-07-02T17:02:00.001-07:00

I thought I'd try out this ROS thing that everyone seems crazy about. I like to try new things. :D So here are a few.

Die. Sorry, it's your time to go.
Identity Crisis. Change your hair and your clothing style.
Get a promotion!
You're fired. Maybe you shouldn't be such a slacker!
Moving time. Some things have fallen into place and now you get a new house. Lucky you!

Hobbies!

2009-06-06T21:17:00.000-07:00

I finally purchased FreeTime! The hobbies and secondary aspirations are totally cool. I'd definitely recommend it! :P

Sims will indulge whatever hobbies they want with free will, but I also direct them according to personality. Asher Meridian is all about music, so he likes music and dance. Craig Silverstein is a video game creator, so his main hobby is gaming.

Secondary aspirations are also determined by personality, if they have enough aspiration points to earn one, that is. For example, Claire Abbott's aspiration is Family, but since she is the spokessim and into politics, her secondary asp. would be Popularity. If I'm totally unable to decide, I'll roll some dice. :D

How To Hire A Maid

2009-05-27T16:25:00.000-07:00

The Crow family (my new faves, can you tell?) are rich enough to hire a maid, and they're too lazy to clean. Ever. It's a little infuriating.

I didn't want to hire the regular townie maid. Townie's are icky and it seems so...impersonal. I wanted to have a resident of the town do it. I picked Abbey Grimm because she was broke and her dreams don't require a separate job. I figured I could have Eve invite her over every morning, then I could select her and tell her to clean...but that would be tedious.

So I had an idea. I had Ryen start a home business. I bought the open/close sign and closed it immediately. Eve invited Abbey over and Ryen hired her. He set her wages to Fairly Paid and assigned her to "tidy up". I hid the open/close sign in a storage room, and poof! Paid maid service!

Maybe this will help someone who wants a local for a maid?

Sooooo...

2009-05-23T21:53:00.000-07:00

So to keep things easy, I'm going to consolidate two blogs. The resident journals are now going to be written story-wise, and put in with the news. But the titles of the journal blogs will say the family name and the subject, for example, if it's the Abbott family getting an update, it will say Abbott Family - Engagement.

Hopefully this will cut down the annoyance of having multiple blogs to search through, as well as spice things up for myself. I'm still going to keep the journal entries short, though!

Any thoughts?

Conversion...

2009-05-22T21:51:00.000-07:00

I've been asked how I'm updating Lemon Creek for TS3. Wellll...

I DO intend to convert eventually. I've got a new computer that can handle it. However, I definitely won't be doing it before Christmas. (I won't buy the game for myself, I wait for presents! :P) I don't even have all of the expansions for TS2. Mind you, I didn't switch from the old sims for over a year and a half, so it might take even longer.

My reasons? When I switched to TS2, I was furious because of one thing. Lack of custom content. I really can't handle Maxis...anything, really. The eyes were the worse. *Shudder*

I also don't like that my sims will age without me, or that I won't get to use my own neighborhood. I'll have to wait until hacks come out to stop their aging without me and other stuff like that before I even consider it. So there. :P

Orphanage!

2009-05-10T17:52:00.000-07:00

I opened the Lemon Creek Orphanage! The couple running it, plus the six children, maxes out the possible openings for kids. We need to get these kids adopted, ASAP! The infants are not up for adoption out of the hood, just because it's impossible to send an infant's DNA without a boatload of problems. They will be toddlers and available for adoption pretty soon.

To adopt a child from LCO, send an email with information about the family that wants to adopt, which child they want, why they would make good parents, etc. to lemoncreekpo@yahoo.com

I need to make room for new kids, so I'd appreciate if anyone wants to link hoods together like this! :D It's a great way to get neighborhoods to get to know eachother.

Oh, and by DNA, I mean their data. Haha. :)

Fully functional!

2009-05-04T16:12:00.001-07:00

I've finally finished! On the main site, all the residents have descriptions and GASP! pictures. It took me long enough. =P

I also opened an orphanage (I'm not gonna lie. I've gotta tip my hat to Ashby Falls for that one!) because it was necessary. I guess I just make irresponsible sims, but I couldn't let those kids just go to waste. The Rivera's opened it, and I'm really irritated because their skin shows up super light in the pictures, but the skin I'm using for them has this really pretty deep complexion in game. Am I doing something wrong?

Oh, and there's some natural romance going on in Lemon Creek. I'm stoked!

Almost up and running!

2009-05-03T16:41:00.000-07:00

Real Life has gotten in the way of prepping Lemon Creek, but now, save for some family information and a few pictures, Lemon Creek is up and running! :) I'm really wanting to have LC be a hood that interacts with many others, so if anyone is up to inter-hood travel, pleeeease let me know! :D

I thought I'd start the BTS posts by dishing a little about Lemon Creek.

It's a small neighborhood with few residents but plenty of behind-the-scenes drama. The culture is really rural and friendly. I'm excited for the Lemon Festival which is a summer-long event that they have. Each house has to host a party at which every resident must attend. It will let all residents get to know each other and will be a great opportunity for story progression.

I've also decided that I'm going to age my sims slowly. I like to have my sims around for a long time and have their stories unfold slowly, so I'm going to break the mold and have slow aging sims. :) That's the way I've always done FSBS, so that's how I'm going to keep doing it.

Things are coming along!

2009-04-28T15:32:00.000-07:00

I'm working hard as I can on Lemon Creek. I have my families planned, just not made yet. So far, the only residents are the Abbott and the Grimm families. The Abbott's own the local orchard/farm, and Nadine Grimm is the local crazy being cared for by her younger sister. Three more families are to come. I think five households is a decent number to keep track of when you cut out all the difficult stuff.

There is going to be one restaurant in Lemon Creek, but if any sims want to open other restaurants, they are more than welcome.

There will be a town hall place, with the only stores, political hubs, etc. in town held on one lot.

There will be a fishing lake/park for entertainment!

I think that's enough for a simple little town.

This is going to become my mantra: Keep it simple, keep it simple... Haha! :P

Starting fresh!

2009-04-26T20:29:00.001-07:00

Ellicott became too much of a burden to run, so I decided to start fresh and simple with Lemon Creek! :D