@Duvelina I've only ever used Wordpress, so I can't recommend any other platforms to you, but Wordpress so far has been pretty user-friendly. I believe the first blog you get is free, and you need to pay for the 2nd or 3rd one that you make (but don't quote me on that, because I'm not 100% sure).
It takes a little time to figure out how make a pretty layout when you just get started, but making posts is really easy! You can put your posts on a timer if you want to publish them at a certain moment, too.
Hosting D&D sessions on the side. Interested in playing through some fantasy-themed shenanigans? Send me a message 😘
@_sims_Yimi Thanks for your thoughts! I'll look into Wordpress some more to follow up on the multiple blogs costing money thing. Blogger is completely free, even if you have multiple blogs. I was thinking of making a blog specific to this story and not for me as a user, but if only the first blog is free, it seems like I wouldn't have a choice if I'd go for Wordpress.
Edit: Seems like it's free? It's not exactly clear to me though.
@Skeilah I'm finally all caught up! I wanted to make sure I had nothing else going so I could focus on this. I'm into it!
(Also, sorry about all the comments on your website, I binged and commented on eeeeeevery post, haha )
1. What were your first impressions on Liz?
I like Liz! I was happy to read about how you created her randomly, I think one thing I spend TOO much time on with my stories is taking aaaaages to create just one character in CAS. Your approach of randomizing Liz was simple and I like that, and in this case, I think the randomizer made a beautiful character! I like her personality, from what I've seen from her, she's pretty good at getting ahead in her career and doesn't let her gloomy trait get in her way, which is great. I like her!
2. What do you think about the concept of my Legacy Challenge? It's not a normal Legacy Challenge but one related to the MySims Trophies.
Oooh boy, legacy challenges and I have a complicated history, mainly because I just can't seem to complete them... haha. I read all the rules and I like this challenge! The fact that you incorporate an element of collection (not just the MySims trophies, but also collections related to each generation, like the Experimental Food Prints collection and the City Living recipes for Liz's generation) makes this instantly more interesting to me because I love collecting things and there's nothing like completing a collection. I like this challenge a lot because of its twist, and your writing about it makes it so much fun to follow.
3. What do you think about the way I write my chapters?
I like the simplicity. The way you've structured the chapters with screenshots really makes your challenge easy and fun to read. I like that you slowly added more dialogue in to mix it up from simple narration. One thing I like about your writing is that you, as the narrator, seem to interact with Liz directly. Like, she knows you're there watching and that's an interesting and clever way of framing the story. This also adds some nice humor, like when Brent also knows you're following and immediately tells you to stop. I chuckled.
4. My Chapters are classified in Sim days. Do you (dis)like that?
Personally, I think this is a good choice. It allows you to really focus the action in one specific time frame and the story flows well like that. In my story, for example, I have to write things like "and then they all went to bed and this conversation happens the next day" (not exactly like that, but you get it, haha), to explain why characters change settings and clothes, etc. The way you've structured your legacy to have each chapter coincide with a day in the life of Liz (and later the heirs) is relaxing, it's a nice slice of life kind of structure. I like it.
Chapters 2. Which parts in the available chapters did you (dis)like? Why is that?
If I had to choose specific parts, I would have to say that I like the sections of dialogue here and there. I enjoy the way you "communicate" with the characters, and that spices the whole thing up. I think, since you're mainly narrating what's happening and not writing underlying storylines for the whole plot, these sections of dialogue do a good job at cutting up the narration with bits of tongue-in-cheek humor. It's my favorite part of your chapters so far.
3. How do you like Ninja and Brent joining the Ridley family? What are your thoughts on these characters?
OK, first of all! Ninja is ADORABLE. I really love that little pupper, and your screenshots of him (her?) are so cute. When he aged up I was almost disappointed because I just wanted him to stay tiny like that forever (story of my life with my own doggy ), but big and chonky Ninja is also adorable. I like Brent joining the story, as well. I've never played with his Sim but I like him. The way you write your interactions with him show a sassy side to him that makes me giggle, and he's a nice breath of fresh air. Since he's not really the focus, his parts are nice breaks from Liz's development in the challenge. Side note: I always find it so hilarious that Sims meet, begin dating, get married, and have babies in just a matter of days. Can you imagine if this was the case for people in real life? Haha!
4. Does everything in the story make sense for you?
I think it does! I read all the rules of the challenge first, so I was pretty clear on them and understood the goals. I occasionally take a peek at the goals or the rules if I feel like I've forgotten. The story itself is pretty straightforward.
5. Is the story easy to follow? Do you need more information or less?
I think you have a good, simple way of writing that makes the story easy to follow. Having screenshots of everything including the popups is a great way of really making me feel like I'm somehow also playing the challenge, and they add details to the story that flesh out Liz and Brent. Your lists on the side of the website also help, I like that we know exactly what goals are yet to be completed. In terms of wanting more information, well, I don't think your legacy really lends itself to writing a lot more about the screenshots since it's mainly based on the action happening and the challenge goals rather than being plot-driven. I think the information you give is sufficient for the genre of story you're telling, and I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything so far.
6. What are you expecting for next episodes? (they are already played and written but not yet published but I like to see your thoughts about this)
I'm expecting to see more trying for babies since we have to get a male heir! I'm sure that Brent and Liz are going to continue trying until a boy comes along. In the meantime, I'm excited to see what Alison is like as she grows up. I'm sure Liz and Brent are going to be good parents.
7. Any questions for me?
I can't think of any at the moment, but if any come up, I'll definitely ask!
About the Brant/Brent thing: I really don't ever take the pre-made Sims' established backstories into account when writing my own story. I can only think of two pre-made Sims that appear in my story (Mitchell Kalani and Bella Goth) and only Bella has 'canon' details, but that's because she's a veeeery minor character with no bearing on the main story. My Mitchell, for example, has nothing in common with the pre-made Mitchell. So, I say, write the characters in any way you want! EA might have created them, but you're fleshing them out and making them your own.
@Duvelina I use WordPress as well, and it's a sleek, simple blog software. I use the free version because, well, I'm poor. I recommend WordPress because it's pretty simple to do everything you need and you can have a nice website with it. As far as I know, you can have more than one blog for free under your username, though I haven't tried to open a second blog yet.
I'm looking into blogging platforms which I could host my story on. I can see everyone here has a blog. Which one would you guys recommend? I have a bit of experience with the Blogger platform, but I don't think that's what I would want to use here. I am pretty interested in Wordpress, but I want to make sure I'm making the right decision and not missing anything.
I use Weebly. The version I use is free (I have like 5 websites, all free) and I like it, but overall people choose Wordpress over Weebly. I've never worked with Wordpress so I don't know which one I like more. I never felt the urge to try something different when I already found something that works for me.
@ajamkeevin I'm going to read your input soon. Can't wait!
Great question @Duvelina. I've found WordPress to be the most versatile and helpful for what I want it to do. There's lots of tutorials out there too so you can look stuff up easily. I've been using WP for over 10 years now and I'm happy with it. I also used Blogger/Blogspot back in the day, but I haven't been on recently so I'm not sure I can give you accurate feedback. Well wishes with finding a good platform. Feel free to message me or comment here if you have further WP questions.
Oops I'm late to the party! And I'm so sorry guys questions like this activate the Nerd in me. So long unasked for comment incoming.
@Duvelina Among all sites WP has a larger simmer base compared to the others so you connect much easier with other writers/readers. It's easier to update yourself on other people's readings with the wordpress reader feature if you 'follow' a wordpress blog. I find this much handier compared to Blogger's 'Follow' feature because I have a Blogger and when I follow a simlit I like, but I do not get notifications in Blogger. This meant I must enable email notifications to keep up with reading, something I don't prefer since my email is cluttered enough. So there's one strike for me in terms of updates.
Visibility wise, SEO engines especially Google, favor Wordpress over Blogger, and Weebly is the worst. (I don't know why, maybe WP bribed google or something ) Basically if you were to search for Sims Stories on google, it'll list a whole bunch of wordpress sites instead of the other two, even if you added the same tags in both sites.
For WP, you can make up to 3 blogs free with one username. The free version of WP disallows plugin and widget use. So you won't be able to embed fancy calendars or chatboxes or grammar check software etc. Free version also disallows CSS coding (i.e. if you want to tweak background colors, use your own font instead of supplied, add sparkles and jazz)
But you can still tweak background colors provided you use a 'Theme' that enables you to do so. As you are browsing the 'Free Themes', take a look at the left side bar of what you can tweak. Some allows you to tweak only 5 elements. My theme allows for 11 customisations including changing background color/putting my own BG pic, and customising font. If this is all too overwhelming, I started off with an easy theme of 5 customisations, then got familiar with it and switched to the current one. A warning though, if you switch themes they'll remove the content on your homepage lol. So have that backed up so you can copy and paste your blurbs back.
Then there's statistics. Blogger and WP have similar statistical data for your analysis, but (correct me if I'm wrong, I heard that) Weebly does not. For example, on WP you can track lurkers who come to your blog and read, but do not comment nor like. On Weebly, if no comment or like is given, the author has no idea if anyone has read their work.
The good thing about Weebly though is their media storage is much larger than WPs. For my story, I'm reaching the maximum storage space for pictures since I take so much (80% now). You won't get this problem on Weebly.
Ok sorry for information purge I'm pretty sure it'll happen again so you've been warned.
@mercuryfoam Thank you so much! That was super helpful. I looked into Wordpress but I think creating the layout is as intuitive as they say it is. It's pretty hard for a newbie! Now I'm also worried about the storage space. What do you do if it's full?
@Duvelina Hihi yes if you're creating from scratch while just starting out, it's too nerve wrecking. (I tried it ) The best is to pick one of the themes and fill in the blanks that comes with it, and learn tips from there. Don't worry about it not looking fancy enough. I've followed simlit where the writer is starting out and they started with a picture and a blurb. 3 months later, its a full-on blog so you'll get there. Everyone's pretty forgiving about the designs. They stay for the story!
There's this neat trick someone told me too on how they managed to figure out tumblr. They had a main tumblr and a ghost tumblr. They'll try out all the layouts, edits, themes etc on the ghost tumblr and once they figure out something they like, they copy their designs on their main. So that's one way to experiment without losing your blog or content.
Ah there's quite a good amount of storage space: 3GB. You can do a lot with that. Take a look at @CathyTea's SimLit Antropology where she has 20 stories and they're all under one blog. The reason why mine's full is because I have "comic" chapters. My latest chapter has 122 screenshots.
If you want to conserve as much space as possible, a good idea is to lower your screenshot resolution before posting it on your blog. This free site is good to reduce picture size in bulks. (A life saviour for my kind of story) My pictures are 1920x1080. And I find reducing them to half their size doesn't affect the picture quality of my stories, so readers still enjoy the experience.
First of all, thank you for all the compliments on the General-part! Together with the input of everyone else, I actually have the feeling I'm doing pretty good^^ That makes me happy.
Chapters
3. Hehe, Ninja is a male. :P Sims are quite fast when it comes to dating/marrying/having kids, I agree. But then, those people (living in Normal life span) only live 90+ days in their WHOLE life. I'm 23 at the moment so I've been alive for.... (365*23=) 8395 and a little bit while a starting young adult in the Sims 4 only has lived like 40 days. So, if WE have lived 210 days, they have lived 1 day (if my calculations are correct. I'm not that good with math hehehehe). THAT'S INSANE, right?!!! So, of course everything is going much faster. They don't have the time we have.
I also wanted to react on this comment on my blog here because I just had to :')
"So, is the show Liz is watching Kev & Get It? Eh? It better be! Haha :P Brent commanding you to not follow him has to be my favorite part of the legacy so far. I laughed! Poor Liz is getting overshadowed by Ninja's general adorableness and Brent's sass."
Of course it's Kev & Get It! What else would it by? I also like the thing that it's not only Liz in this story. It's Liz and her family. I don't want the focus on the Legacy Challenge (or well, I'm trying to. Sometimes I just can't) and I just hope I'm succeeding a little bit in that.
@mercuryfoam statistics in Weebly are rather sad indeed. I can see the unique visitors per day, pages viewed per day and the average number of pages per unique visit. If I want to see more detailed things, I'm obliged to pay for my website. But I don't really mind. I never really look at these things. This blog is only for use on this forum and people who want to read can read, people who don't want to read don't. :P
For anyone who doesn't know, if you use an image hosting service like this one for your blog pictures, it won't take up any storage space for your blog so you can keep posting pictures forever.
@ajamkeevin Thank you 😊 I already assumed it would work that way and I was also pretty lucky because that meant I could copy and paste the links from my thread to the blog and I didn't need to save all these pictures first. But because @mercuryfoam was talking about filling up the 3GB storage space, I thought I'd say something.
Of course it's Kev & Get It! What else would it by? I also like the thing that it's not only Liz in this story. It's Liz and her family. I don't want the focus on the Legacy Challenge (or well, I'm trying to. Sometimes I just can't) and I just hope I'm succeeding a little bit in that.
Yesss, I knew Liz was a K&GI stan! ajmkv will have to give her a shout-out on an episode I agree that your story is not just Liz, but also her family. I'm excited to see how it is as her family expands! There's so much more to be seen. I think you're doing a good job at staying within the guidelines for your challenge but also expanding a story beyond them. And goodness, you pointing out that 1 Sim day = 210 normal days... that really puts things into perspective!
Oops I'm late to the party! And I'm so sorry guys questions like this activate the Nerd in me. So long unasked for comment incoming.
@Duvelina Among all sites WP has a larger simmer base compared to the others so you connect much easier with other writers/readers. It's easier to update yourself on other people's readings with the wordpress reader feature if you 'follow' a wordpress blog. I find this much handier compared to Blogger's 'Follow' feature because I have a Blogger and when I follow a simlit I like, but I do not get notifications in Blogger. This meant I must enable email notifications to keep up with reading, something I don't prefer since my email is cluttered enough. So there's one strike for me in terms of updates.
Visibility wise, SEO engines especially Google, favor Wordpress over Blogger, and Weebly is the worst. (I don't know why, maybe WP bribed google or something ) Basically if you were to search for Sims Stories on google, it'll list a whole bunch of wordpress sites instead of the other two, even if you added the same tags in both sites.
For WP, you can make up to 3 blogs free with one username. The free version of WP disallows plugin and widget use. So you won't be able to embed fancy calendars or chatboxes or grammar check software etc. Free version also disallows CSS coding (i.e. if you want to tweak background colors, use your own font instead of supplied, add sparkles and jazz)
But you can still tweak background colors provided you use a 'Theme' that enables you to do so. As you are browsing the 'Free Themes', take a look at the left side bar of what you can tweak. Some allows you to tweak only 5 elements. My theme allows for 11 customisations including changing background color/putting my own BG pic, and customising font. If this is all too overwhelming, I started off with an easy theme of 5 customisations, then got familiar with it and switched to the current one. A warning though, if you switch themes they'll remove the content on your homepage lol. So have that backed up so you can copy and paste your blurbs back.
Then there's statistics. Blogger and WP have similar statistical data for your analysis, but (correct me if I'm wrong, I heard that) Weebly does not. For example, on WP you can track lurkers who come to your blog and read, but do not comment nor like. On Weebly, if no comment or like is given, the author has no idea if anyone has read their work.
The good thing about Weebly though is their media storage is much larger than WPs. For my story, I'm reaching the maximum storage space for pictures since I take so much (80% now). You won't get this problem on Weebly.
Ok sorry for information purge I'm pretty sure it'll happen again so you've been warned.
@mercuryfoam What a useful overview! You shared things I didn't even know about WP. Thanks for giving a much more helpful response than my feeble one.
@Skeilah Alright finally getting around to answering the questions.
General
1. What were your first impressions on Liz? --- She's so pretty! I love redheads. I populate my Sims world with them. They are only 2% of the real world, and I'm one of the 2% so represent Liz! I also love how "excellent" cooking comes easily to her. What luck!
2. What do you think about the concept of my Legacy Challenge? It's not a normal Legacy Challenge but one related to the MySims Trophies. --- I love it! I think I found my next challenge! No... I have too many already that I've got to finish. Wow... how ambitious! I am terrible at moving quickly through challenges so I wish you luck. I like the uniqueness of this challenge and anything that ties the Sims games together makes me happy. I also tend to be bad at collecting in the Sims and almost always end up "cheating" just a little so kudos to you for sticking with it.
3. What do you think about the way I write my chapters? --- love the humor! I sort-of amble through the chapters at a leisurely pace. You write in a way that's easy to read. I can definitely relate to the common Sims "issues" that crop up in Liz's life.
4. My Chapters are classified in Sim days. Do you (dis)like that? --- I think it works well the way it's set up. Bite-sized makes it easy to get through (unlike mine )
Chapters - not sure about the numbering of these..
1.
2. Which parts in the available chapters did you (dis)like? Why is that? --- I think Liz is bold for asking Brent to divorce Brant so quickly. They're definitely moving at a Sims-trope pace... meet, date, kiss, marry, have baby all in one day. I think my favorite part is Brent telling you not to follow him.
As I mentioned over on the blog, in the very first TS3 game I ever played, my main character started dating a married man and she didn't even know until his wife showed up in their bedroom late at night to yell at them. *gasp* I didn't even know how to lock a door yet. Talk about spicy!
I'm glad Brant found happiness again.
I think someone else mentioned this - Liz's personality. I feel like it would be nice to see a little more of the My Sims influence for this generation (the Chef Gino) in the chapters. I can see a lot of your personality in the chapters, but it would be nice to see a little more of Liz's.
Not sure how I feel about Liz's stinky bathroom wedding. I would've liked to see them have an actual wedding (it would feel more legitimate), and maybe Brent make amends with Brent. Also if they were going to elope, it would've been nice for Liz to at least take a shower and then they could walk somewhere pretty.
What are her traits? I can't remember if you mentioned these or not. Sorry if I'm forgetting. I recall Gloomy, but I'm not sure what else.
I do think parts of Liz shine through pretty well - like when she whimmed for a pool - did she actually go swimming? Or when she drank alcohol and practiced mixology while pregnant. Bad Liz! Lol. She seems to be a hard worker and that helps her get ahead in life. She also seems to know what she wants and she isn't afraid to go after it (even if it's a bit of nudge from the writer).
3. How do you like Ninja and Brent joining the Ridley family? What are your thoughts on these characters? --- love Ninja! He steals the show! Literally every scene he's in makes me go ... aww... It was hilarious that Ninja keeps walking in on them. Perhaps they should buy some toys for Ninja to play with to distract him or they should lock the door when they're going to get romantic.
I'm not sure how I feel about Brent. He went on a date with Liz while still married, and then broke up with his husband for her. That's a bit of a bad beginning pattern so I hope he's faithful to her.
5. Does everything in the story make sense for you? -- Yep.
5. Is the story easy to follow? Do you need more information or less? -- I think I've already answered this. I'm enjoying the pace.
6. What are you expecting for next episodes? (they are already played and written but not yet published but I like to see your thoughts about this) -- can't wait to see Alison grow up and their next new addition.
7. Any questions for me? -- you mentioned in one chapter you have detailed notes about the food booth schedules. That's great. I'm religious about taking notes too so I'm curious what you use/do for your notes.
How do you plan your chapters?
What do you plan to do with the spare heirs (like Alison)? Will you include them in the story or will they get side adventures or will you primarily focus only on the heirs?
When do the heirs take over in the next generation? (maybe this was mentioned in the MYSims legacy challenge rules, but I can't remember).
For anyone who doesn't know, if you use an image hosting service like this one for your blog pictures, it won't take up any storage space for your blog so you can keep posting pictures forever.
Oof! the funny thing is I am already using imgbb for hosting my images for the forums. I never thought to use it for my blog! Thanks for the tip! Why didn't I think of that 😄.
I posted it in the Writer's Lounge as well, but I think it could be fun to put it here too. This asks about your storytelling method. I'm wondering, you can reply here or there, but do you guys plan your story or interpret your sims' actions? I can imagine the stories with poses are mostly planned and a legacy challenge mostly isn't, but maybe there will be a surprise in there. I already commented on the thread.
This is a great question! I don't know if I could honestly take the poll because I do both. I have a tendency to plan my stories. I'm a plot-driven writer by nature, but the Sims has helped challenge me to try different things. Pretty early on, I realized that my characters were still going to do their thing and deviate from my original plans. KCLKF is very plot-based and I have notes through multiple sequels. However, Kass still did a good bit of autonomous things in game that made me realize I wanted to incorporate aspects of gameplay and Sim personality.
I view the game as a co-author of sorts. Sometimes I like to sit back and just watch what they'll do in game. That's a very newish thing for me and it's still a bit outside my comfort zone. I'm still learning to interpret and incorporate. When I starting writing TS4 stories, I planned to write/game similarly to the way I always had, plot-driven. And then my Sims started making really unique decisions that were all their own. I won't spoil it for anyone but at the end of my first part of my Simself's ISBI, two characters did absolutely shocking things (in a good way) and I loved it! Because these characters/Sims asserted themselves and made it known that I wasn't the only one writing the story.
So this is all very long winded but I try and respect autonomy as best as I can and respect my Sims asserting themselves. It makes for great drama too!
@Skeilah oh i am totally with you on stats. I'm writing for fun and self-expression. Not planning to make money or be the next social media celebrity. I outlined it just in case anyone else is interested in stats. The one thing I like about wordpress stats is it shows you the country your reader resides in. I love diversity so looking at the cute flag symbols make me go ngaww. Other than that Im not concerned about the numbers.
@Skeilah oh i am totally with you on stats. I'm writing for fun and self-expression. Not planning to make money or be the next social media celebrity. I outlined it just in case anyone else is interested in stats. The one thing I like about wordpress stats is it shows you the country your reader resides in. I love diversity so looking at the cute flag symbols make me go ngaww. Other than that Im not concerned about the numbers.
I'm a data nerd in life and for work so I don't mind stats at all.
4. Does everything in the story make sense for you?
Everything mostly makes sense, but I do have some opinions. I was a little surprised when Liz asked Brent to marry him right after a dinner party but I could get over that. But then they got married in her bathroom (?) even though Liz needed a shower. I'd go all-out and make it a special occasion instead (or I don't know, not stinky in the bathroom? 😂).
@Duvelina I felt that way too. At least take a shower first, Liz. @Skeilah I hope we get weddings in game in the future. I do love to see how other gamers handle/portray weddings.
1. What were your first impressions on Liz?[/b]
I think she has a confident personality and is opinionated. She loves animals and is good-natured. She’ll be the friend you want, the kind that stands up for you and tell you the truth instead of what you want to hear.
@mercuryfoam I think this is a great description of Liz! Confident was the word I was looking for when I was trying to describe her in my answers post above.
1. What were your first impressions on Liz?
I like Liz! I was happy to read about how you created her randomly, I think one thing I spend TOO much time on with my stories is taking aaaaages to create just one character in CAS.
@ajamkeevin I have this perpetual problem too. In fact, I have a running series on Tumblr - I Spend Way Too Much Time in CAS.
Side note: I always find it so hilarious that Sims meet, begin dating, get married, and have babies in just a matter of days. Can you imagine if this was the case for people in real life? Haha!
About the Brant/Brent thing: I really don't ever take the pre-made Sims' established backstories into account when writing my own story. I can only think of two pre-made Sims that appear in my story (Mitchell Kalani and Bella Goth) and only Bella has 'canon' details, but that's because she's a veeeery minor character with no bearing on the main story. My Mitchell, for example, has nothing in common with the pre-made Mitchell. So, I say, write the characters in any way you want! EA might have created them, but you're fleshing them out and making them your own.
@ajamkeevin I try to incorporate townies as much as possible, particularly in my TS3 stories. I am actually kinda obsessed with interconnecting games and stories.
But I had to comment because you mentioned Bella and Bella has her own canon in my Simworld. You'll see her crop up in a way in KCKLKF.
Actually, I do think you have a refreshing approach to characters. I wish I could leave pre-made stories and lore alone. On this note, @Skeilah, I do think you are making the characters your own and I like that!
Congrats @Duvelina for creating a WordPress btw. Looking good!
I would've been happy to follow along on the forums, but it'll be easier to leave comments after each chapter on the WP.
I like how you gave the little bios and the star signs. Out of curiosity, are you using a mod to have star signs in game? I use one in mine. And the traits... you've got some non-EA ones. So cool. I use traits mods too.
@AdamsEve1231 Yes! I use so many custom traits. The zodiac traits are up on Mod The Sims. I think they're a fairly recent addition, but they're reward traits you can buy for zero points so it doesn't take up one of your trait slots. They give your sims whims based on that trait. And I love me some diversity in whims.
Thank you about the blog. I was noticing that it might put people off from trying to read the story and if I can cater to anyone this way, why not? It took me all day to figure out Wordpress but it was a fun project so it's all good.
You made me curious about your ISBI for sure! Shocking decisions made on their own? Sign me up.
@mercuryfoam Glad I could help regarding the image host!
@AdamsEve1231 Thank you for your input! Let’s see what you got for me…
Chapters
2. I’m personally not a fan of wedding parties but I’m going to take everyones stinky-bathroom wedding comments with me and not do that again :P I’m far ahead with my screenshots as everyone knows, but the next heir actually got a real wedding (spoilerrrrr). I’m so proud of myself for doing that. Non-heirs won’t get an actual wedding (sorry, that’s just too much for me :’)), but I made sure they were not stinky, hungry, had a full bladder or something else.
Another spoiler: in Chapter 1.15 (comes out next Saturday), Brent and Brant will meet each other once again to settle things
Liz’s traits are summed up on the side-bar on my blog, but I’ll also mention them here for you:
- Foodie
- Clumsy
- Gloomy
3. I never thought of locking the door :’) Oops. He does have toys from the start. He just never plays with them.
I can tell you, Brent is faithful to Liz
7. I’m curious what you ude/do for your notes
I have a MacBook so I just use the Notes app which is also synchronized with my iPhone. So when I’m playing the game I use my phone to keep notes and when I’m not playing I switch to my MacBook to look at them. It looks like this. I can easily check the ones I finished:
How do you plan your chapters?
I don’t plan. Mostly I play 1 or 2 Simdays, just see what the game will give me today, then I close the game and write the unpublished version of the story. When I’m going to publish it, I rewrite it a little bit to make sure it follows the story.
What do you plan to do with the spare heirs (like Alison)? Will you include them in the story or will they get side adventures or will you primarily focus only on the heirs?
I can tell you about that because Alison is already an adult in my game As a kid, Alison met someone and that person became her soulmate. I’m doing this with everyone by the way. They became a couple when teenagers and got engaged/married when young adults. From that moment, Alison moved in with her spouse and she’ll have her own life but no worries, she won’t disappear. Just as in real life, siblings will see each other now and then.
When do the heirs take over in the next generation?
The next heir needs to be young adult, because parents can’t live with the next heir when actually taking over.
In my case: the next heir got his actual wedding party (whoopwhoop!), Brent and Liz slept in the Ridley Residence for one day and that’s the end of Generation 1. The next day will be Chapter 2.1 where the next heir will take over and Brent + Liz will take their leave to the Ridley Retirement Home (I love how all these words start with R hahahahah); But okay, that’s still suuuuuper far away!
I hope everything is clear!
Also, I learned about custom traits today thanks to you guys. I never heard of it before but whoa, zodiac traits sounds awesome. Wait a second. Sims 2 or 3 had zodiac signs implanted, right? OH MY NOW THAT IT HITS ME I miss these things so much.
Comments
It takes a little time to figure out how make a pretty layout when you just get started, but making posts is really easy! You can put your posts on a timer if you want to publish them at a certain moment, too.
Edit: Seems like it's free? It's not exactly clear to me though.
Too Good at Goodbyes forum thread
Too Good at Goodbyes blog
(Also, sorry about all the comments on your website, I binged and commented on eeeeeevery post, haha
I like Liz! I was happy to read about how you created her randomly, I think one thing I spend TOO much time on with my stories is taking aaaaages to create just one character in CAS. Your approach of randomizing Liz was simple and I like that, and in this case, I think the randomizer made a beautiful character! I like her personality, from what I've seen from her, she's pretty good at getting ahead in her career and doesn't let her gloomy trait get in her way, which is great. I like her!
2. What do you think about the concept of my Legacy Challenge? It's not a normal Legacy Challenge but one related to the MySims Trophies.
Oooh boy, legacy challenges and I have a complicated history, mainly because I just can't seem to complete them... haha. I read all the rules and I like this challenge! The fact that you incorporate an element of collection (not just the MySims trophies, but also collections related to each generation, like the Experimental Food Prints collection and the City Living recipes for Liz's generation) makes this instantly more interesting to me because I love collecting things and there's nothing like completing a collection. I like this challenge a lot because of its twist, and your writing about it makes it so much fun to follow.
3. What do you think about the way I write my chapters?
I like the simplicity. The way you've structured the chapters with screenshots really makes your challenge easy and fun to read. I like that you slowly added more dialogue in to mix it up from simple narration. One thing I like about your writing is that you, as the narrator, seem to interact with Liz directly. Like, she knows you're there watching and that's an interesting and clever way of framing the story. This also adds some nice humor, like when Brent also knows you're following and immediately tells you to stop. I chuckled.
4. My Chapters are classified in Sim days. Do you (dis)like that?
Personally, I think this is a good choice. It allows you to really focus the action in one specific time frame and the story flows well like that. In my story, for example, I have to write things like "and then they all went to bed and this conversation happens the next day" (not exactly like that, but you get it, haha), to explain why characters change settings and clothes, etc. The way you've structured your legacy to have each chapter coincide with a day in the life of Liz (and later the heirs) is relaxing, it's a nice slice of life kind of structure. I like it.
Chapters
2. Which parts in the available chapters did you (dis)like? Why is that?
If I had to choose specific parts, I would have to say that I like the sections of dialogue here and there. I enjoy the way you "communicate" with the characters, and that spices the whole thing up. I think, since you're mainly narrating what's happening and not writing underlying storylines for the whole plot, these sections of dialogue do a good job at cutting up the narration with bits of tongue-in-cheek humor. It's my favorite part of your chapters so far.
3. How do you like Ninja and Brent joining the Ridley family? What are your thoughts on these characters?
OK, first of all! Ninja is ADORABLE. I really love that little pupper, and your screenshots of him (her?) are so cute. When he aged up I was almost disappointed because I just wanted him to stay tiny like that forever (story of my life with my own doggy
4. Does everything in the story make sense for you?
I think it does! I read all the rules of the challenge first, so I was pretty clear on them and understood the goals. I occasionally take a peek at the goals or the rules if I feel like I've forgotten. The story itself is pretty straightforward.
5. Is the story easy to follow? Do you need more information or less?
I think you have a good, simple way of writing that makes the story easy to follow. Having screenshots of everything including the popups is a great way of really making me feel like I'm somehow also playing the challenge, and they add details to the story that flesh out Liz and Brent. Your lists on the side of the website also help, I like that we know exactly what goals are yet to be completed. In terms of wanting more information, well, I don't think your legacy really lends itself to writing a lot more about the screenshots since it's mainly based on the action happening and the challenge goals rather than being plot-driven. I think the information you give is sufficient for the genre of story you're telling, and I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything so far.
6. What are you expecting for next episodes? (they are already played and written but not yet published but I like to see your thoughts about this)
I'm expecting to see more trying for babies
7. Any questions for me?
I can't think of any at the moment, but if any come up, I'll definitely ask!
About the Brant/Brent thing: I really don't ever take the pre-made Sims' established backstories into account when writing my own story. I can only think of two pre-made Sims that appear in my story (Mitchell Kalani and Bella Goth) and only Bella has 'canon' details, but that's because she's a veeeery minor character with no bearing on the main story. My Mitchell, for example, has nothing in common with the pre-made Mitchell. So, I say, write the characters in any way you want! EA might have created them, but you're fleshing them out and making them your own.
Kev & Get It • Forum Thread
Kev & Get It • Forum Thread
I use Weebly. The version I use is free (I have like 5 websites, all free) and I like it, but overall people choose Wordpress over Weebly. I've never worked with Wordpress so I don't know which one I like more. I never felt the urge to try something different when I already found something that works for me.
@ajamkeevin I'm going to read your input soon. Can't wait!
Find me elsewhere:
My EA App ID: livinasimminlife
Livin' A Simmin' Life Stories
My Worldbuilding Blog
Simblr
My Sims Pinterest
@Duvelina Among all sites WP has a larger simmer base compared to the others so you connect much easier with other writers/readers. It's easier to update yourself on other people's readings with the wordpress reader feature if you 'follow' a wordpress blog. I find this much handier compared to Blogger's 'Follow' feature because I have a Blogger and when I follow a simlit I like, but I do not get notifications in Blogger. This meant I must enable email notifications to keep up with reading, something I don't prefer since my email is cluttered enough. So there's one strike for me in terms of updates.
Visibility wise, SEO engines especially Google, favor Wordpress over Blogger, and Weebly is the worst. (I don't know why, maybe WP bribed google or something
For WP, you can make up to 3 blogs free with one username. The free version of WP disallows plugin and widget use. So you won't be able to embed fancy calendars or chatboxes or grammar check software etc. Free version also disallows CSS coding (i.e. if you want to tweak background colors, use your own font instead of supplied, add sparkles and jazz)
But you can still tweak background colors provided you use a 'Theme' that enables you to do so. As you are browsing the 'Free Themes', take a look at the left side bar of what you can tweak. Some allows you to tweak only 5 elements. My theme allows for 11 customisations including changing background color/putting my own BG pic, and customising font. If this is all too overwhelming, I started off with an easy theme of 5 customisations, then got familiar with it and switched to the current one. A warning though, if you switch themes they'll remove the content on your homepage lol. So have that backed up so you can copy and paste your blurbs back.
Then there's statistics. Blogger and WP have similar statistical data for your analysis, but (correct me if I'm wrong, I heard that) Weebly does not. For example, on WP you can track lurkers who come to your blog and read, but do not comment nor like. On Weebly, if no comment or like is given, the author has no idea if anyone has read their work.
The good thing about Weebly though is their media storage is much larger than WPs. For my story, I'm reaching the maximum storage space for pictures since I take so much (80% now). You won't get this problem on Weebly.
Ok sorry for information purge
Too Good at Goodbyes forum thread
Too Good at Goodbyes blog
There's this neat trick someone told me too on how they managed to figure out tumblr. They had a main tumblr and a ghost tumblr. They'll try out all the layouts, edits, themes etc on the ghost tumblr and once they figure out something they like, they copy their designs on their main. So that's one way to experiment without losing your blog or content.
Ah there's quite a good amount of storage space: 3GB. You can do a lot with that. Take a look at @CathyTea's SimLit Antropology where she has 20 stories and they're all under one blog. The reason why mine's full is because I have "comic" chapters. My latest chapter has 122 screenshots.
If you want to conserve as much space as possible, a good idea is to lower your screenshot resolution before posting it on your blog. This free site is good to reduce picture size in bulks. (A life saviour for my kind of story) My pictures are 1920x1080. And I find reducing them to half their size doesn't affect the picture quality of my stories, so readers still enjoy the experience.
Too Good at Goodbyes forum thread
Too Good at Goodbyes blog
Chapters
3. Hehe, Ninja is a male. :P Sims are quite fast when it comes to dating/marrying/having kids, I agree. But then, those people (living in Normal life span) only live 90+ days in their WHOLE life. I'm 23 at the moment so I've been alive for.... (365*23=) 8395 and a little bit while a starting young adult in the Sims 4 only has lived like 40 days. So, if WE have lived 210 days, they have lived 1 day (if my calculations are correct. I'm not that good with math hehehehe). THAT'S INSANE, right?!!! So, of course everything is going much faster. They don't have the time we have.
I also wanted to react on this comment on my blog here because I just had to :')
"So, is the show Liz is watching Kev & Get It? Eh? It better be! Haha :P Brent commanding you to not follow him has to be my favorite part of the legacy so far. I laughed! Poor Liz is getting overshadowed by Ninja's general adorableness and Brent's sass."
Of course it's Kev & Get It! What else would it by? I also like the thing that it's not only Liz in this story. It's Liz and her family. I don't want the focus on the Legacy Challenge (or well, I'm trying to. Sometimes I just can't) and I just hope I'm succeeding a little bit in that.
@mercuryfoam statistics in Weebly are rather sad indeed. I can see the unique visitors per day, pages viewed per day and the average number of pages per unique visit. If I want to see more detailed things, I'm obliged to pay for my website. But I don't really mind. I never really look at these things. This blog is only for use on this forum and people who want to read can read, people who don't want to read don't. :P
I also worked SO hard on my blog and it's finally done! If you see any mistakes, please let me know.
https://ts4toogoodatgoodbyes.wordpress.com
Too Good at Goodbyes forum thread
Too Good at Goodbyes blog
And yeah, I use Imgur to upload the bulk of my screenshots so I don't fill up my storage space on Wordpress
Kev & Get It • Forum Thread
Too Good at Goodbyes forum thread
Too Good at Goodbyes blog
Yesss, I knew Liz was a K&GI stan! ajmkv will have to give her a shout-out on an episode
Kev & Get It • Forum Thread
@mercuryfoam What a useful overview! You shared things I didn't even know about WP.
Find me elsewhere:
My EA App ID: livinasimminlife
Livin' A Simmin' Life Stories
My Worldbuilding Blog
Simblr
My Sims Pinterest
1. What were your first impressions on Liz? --- She's so pretty! I love redheads. I populate my Sims world with them. They are only 2% of the real world, and I'm one of the 2% so represent Liz! I also love how "excellent" cooking comes easily to her. What luck!
2. What do you think about the concept of my Legacy Challenge? It's not a normal Legacy Challenge but one related to the MySims Trophies. --- I love it! I think I found my next challenge!
3. What do you think about the way I write my chapters? --- love the humor! I sort-of amble through the chapters at a leisurely pace. You write in a way that's easy to read. I can definitely relate to the common Sims "issues" that crop up in Liz's life.
4. My Chapters are classified in Sim days. Do you (dis)like that? --- I think it works well the way it's set up. Bite-sized makes it easy to get through (unlike mine
Chapters - not sure about the numbering of these..
1.
2. Which parts in the available chapters did you (dis)like? Why is that? --- I think Liz is bold for asking Brent to divorce Brant so quickly. They're definitely moving at a Sims-trope pace... meet, date, kiss, marry, have baby all in one day.
As I mentioned over on the blog, in the very first TS3 game I ever played, my main character started dating a married man and she didn't even know until his wife showed up in their bedroom late at night to yell at them. *gasp* I didn't even know how to lock a door yet.
I'm glad Brant found happiness again.
I think someone else mentioned this - Liz's personality. I feel like it would be nice to see a little more of the My Sims influence for this generation (the Chef Gino) in the chapters. I can see a lot of your personality in the chapters, but it would be nice to see a little more of Liz's.
Not sure how I feel about Liz's stinky bathroom wedding. I would've liked to see them have an actual wedding (it would feel more legitimate), and maybe Brent make amends with Brent. Also if they were going to elope, it would've been nice for Liz to at least take a shower and then they could walk somewhere pretty.
What are her traits? I can't remember if you mentioned these or not. Sorry if I'm forgetting. I recall Gloomy, but I'm not sure what else.
I do think parts of Liz shine through pretty well - like when she whimmed for a pool - did she actually go swimming? Or when she drank alcohol and practiced mixology while pregnant. Bad Liz! Lol. She seems to be a hard worker and that helps her get ahead in life. She also seems to know what she wants and she isn't afraid to go after it (even if it's a bit of nudge from the writer).
3. How do you like Ninja and Brent joining the Ridley family? What are your thoughts on these characters? --- love
I'm not sure how I feel about Brent. He went on a date with Liz while still married, and then broke up with his husband for her. That's a bit of a bad beginning pattern so I hope he's faithful to her.
5. Does everything in the story make sense for you? -- Yep.
5. Is the story easy to follow? Do you need more information or less? -- I think I've already answered this. I'm enjoying the pace.
6. What are you expecting for next episodes? (they are already played and written but not yet published but I like to see your thoughts about this) -- can't wait to see Alison grow up and their next new addition.
7. Any questions for me? -- you mentioned in one chapter you have detailed notes about the food booth schedules. That's great. I'm religious about taking notes too so I'm curious what you use/do for your notes.
How do you plan your chapters?
What do you plan to do with the spare heirs (like Alison)? Will you include them in the story or will they get side adventures or will you primarily focus only on the heirs?
When do the heirs take over in the next generation? (maybe this was mentioned in the MYSims legacy challenge rules, but I can't remember).
Find me elsewhere:
My EA App ID: livinasimminlife
Livin' A Simmin' Life Stories
My Worldbuilding Blog
Simblr
My Sims Pinterest
Oof! the funny thing is I am already using imgbb for hosting my images for the forums. I never thought to use it for my blog! Thanks for the tip! Why didn't I think of that 😄.
@AdamsEve1231 I'm glad you like my info load. 🙂
This is a great question! I don't know if I could honestly take the poll because I do both. I have a tendency to plan my stories. I'm a plot-driven writer by nature, but the Sims has helped challenge me to try different things. Pretty early on, I realized that my characters were still going to do their thing and deviate from my original plans. KCLKF is very plot-based and I have notes through multiple sequels. However, Kass still did a good bit of autonomous things in game that made me realize I wanted to incorporate aspects of gameplay and Sim personality.
I view the game as a co-author of sorts. Sometimes I like to sit back and just watch what they'll do in game. That's a very newish thing for me and it's still a bit outside my comfort zone. I'm still learning to interpret and incorporate. When I starting writing TS4 stories, I planned to write/game similarly to the way I always had, plot-driven. And then my Sims started making really unique decisions that were all their own. I won't spoil it for anyone but at the end of my first part of my Simself's ISBI, two characters did absolutely shocking things (in a good way) and I loved it! Because these characters/Sims asserted themselves and made it known that I wasn't the only one writing the story.
So this is all very long winded but I try and respect autonomy as best as I can and respect my Sims asserting themselves. It makes for great drama too!
Find me elsewhere:
My EA App ID: livinasimminlife
Livin' A Simmin' Life Stories
My Worldbuilding Blog
Simblr
My Sims Pinterest
I'm a data nerd in life and for work so I don't mind stats at all.
Find me elsewhere:
My EA App ID: livinasimminlife
Livin' A Simmin' Life Stories
My Worldbuilding Blog
Simblr
My Sims Pinterest
@Duvelina I felt that way too. At least take a shower first, Liz.
@mercuryfoam I think this is a great description of Liz! Confident was the word I was looking for when I was trying to describe her in my answers post above.
@ajamkeevin I have this perpetual problem too. In fact, I have a running series on Tumblr - I Spend Way Too Much Time in CAS.
Haha... I made this comment too!
@ajamkeevin I try to incorporate townies as much as possible, particularly in my TS3 stories. I am actually kinda obsessed with interconnecting games and stories.
But I had to comment because you mentioned Bella and Bella has her own canon in my Simworld. You'll see her crop up in a way in KCKLKF.
Actually, I do think you have a refreshing approach to characters. I wish I could leave pre-made stories and lore alone. On this note, @Skeilah, I do think you are making the characters your own and I like that!
Find me elsewhere:
My EA App ID: livinasimminlife
Livin' A Simmin' Life Stories
My Worldbuilding Blog
Simblr
My Sims Pinterest
I would've been happy to follow along on the forums, but it'll be easier to leave comments after each chapter on the WP.
I like how you gave the little bios and the star signs.
Find me elsewhere:
My EA App ID: livinasimminlife
Livin' A Simmin' Life Stories
My Worldbuilding Blog
Simblr
My Sims Pinterest
Thank you about the blog. I was noticing that it might put people off from trying to read the story and if I can cater to anyone this way, why not? It took me all day to figure out Wordpress but it was a fun project so it's all good.
You made me curious about your ISBI for sure! Shocking decisions made on their own? Sign me up.
@mercuryfoam Glad I could help regarding the image host!
Too Good at Goodbyes forum thread
Too Good at Goodbyes blog
2. I’m personally not a fan of wedding parties but I’m going to take everyones stinky-bathroom wedding comments with me and not do that again :P I’m far ahead with my screenshots as everyone knows, but the next heir actually got a real wedding (spoilerrrrr). I’m so proud of myself for doing that. Non-heirs won’t get an actual wedding (sorry, that’s just too much for me :’)), but I made sure they were not stinky, hungry, had a full bladder or something else.
Another spoiler: in Chapter 1.15 (comes out next Saturday), Brent and Brant will meet each other once again to settle things
Liz’s traits are summed up on the side-bar on my blog, but I’ll also mention them here for you:
- Foodie
- Clumsy
- Gloomy
3. I never thought of locking the door :’) Oops. He does have toys from the start. He just never plays with them.
I can tell you, Brent is faithful to Liz
7.
I’m curious what you ude/do for your notes
I have a MacBook so I just use the Notes app which is also synchronized with my iPhone. So when I’m playing the game I use my phone to keep notes and when I’m not playing I switch to my MacBook to look at them. It looks like this. I can easily check the ones I finished:
How do you plan your chapters?
I don’t plan. Mostly I play 1 or 2 Simdays, just see what the game will give me today, then I close the game and write the unpublished version of the story. When I’m going to publish it, I rewrite it a little bit to make sure it follows the story.
What do you plan to do with the spare heirs (like Alison)? Will you include them in the story or will they get side adventures or will you primarily focus only on the heirs?
I can tell you about that because Alison is already an adult in my game
When do the heirs take over in the next generation?
The next heir needs to be young adult, because parents can’t live with the next heir when actually taking over.
In my case: the next heir got his actual wedding party (whoopwhoop!), Brent and Liz slept in the Ridley Residence for one day and that’s the end of Generation 1. The next day will be Chapter 2.1 where the next heir will take over and Brent + Liz will take their leave to the Ridley Retirement Home (I love how all these words start with R hahahahah); But okay, that’s still suuuuuper far away!
I hope everything is clear!
Also, I learned about custom traits today thanks to you guys. I never heard of it before but whoa, zodiac traits sounds awesome. Wait a second. Sims 2 or 3 had zodiac signs implanted, right? OH MY NOW THAT IT HITS ME I miss these things so much.