Yes, I think most are doing their rotation by season.

Ha ha, accidents do happen. I love bakeries but wouldn't be able to stand lag either. The easiest accident would be a fire I think.

Well, I came to the conclusion that the lag was caused at least a little bit by my ginormous CC collection, so I spent the last few days ruthlessly cleaning out my Downloads folder. I had over 12000 CC in there. Im not done weeding out all the clothing recolors that I no longer use but now Im closer to 8000 CC and I plan to keep it under 9000 from now on. If I get something new then something old has to go.

The bakery still lags more than I like so it is no longer owned by the Jacquet family...I won't go into detail right now, there is 3 days left in their round so once I finish playing it Ill do an official update and get their story on the Blog as soon as I can.

All this plus RL issues has made this week very un-fun... Im looking forward to Friday & the weekend.

O My word! 12,000 CC? I can't imagine my game would run with that. I have a pretty good desktop computer and as soon as I start adding CC it get's a bit laggy that when in fast forward mode it's really more like mid mode which drives me crazy. So I try and keep the CC content down but if I didn't have to do that, wow I would be in heaven except when it came to cleaning up the download folder. Sounds like the tough job that you are doing right now.

Aww, sorry to hear your week is being un-fun but you still have thursday and friday to turn it around!

Well the un-fun-ness of my life has reached a disgusting level... Last week I found out a family member got hurt in a car wreck (they are fine just going to be down a while to heal)

Then on Friday night our house was broken into... My desktop computer was stolen, 2 of our TV's, 2 DVD players, my camera, some of my jewelry, a bunch of tools from the garage and my bike were all stolen.

So I no longer have a computer capable of playing the Sims 2 at this time... Thank Heavens for backups because I have my Pleasantview and all my recoloring/creating stuff backed up on an external hard drive that was hidden under my desk. So nothing is lost. I just have to wait for a new computer to be ordered and sent. Meanwhile Im just quietly submitting some stuff I was holding for upload and I can do basic recolors and build S2 homes on my laptop here but actual gameplay is very laggy on this thing, unless I play with Base, Uni and NL and no CC at all. Any other expansions and it just doesn't go.

I will update when my new computer arrives and I get it all set back up again.

Oh wow, that's horrible loosing all your stuff like that. Glad you at least had the game backed up, but still having to replace everything sucks.

I haven't played for a while. I alternate hobbies, and right now I've put aside simming for jewelry making. Next week is spring break at the Uni I work for, so I'll probably start playing again then. I've still been enjoying everyone's stories while I'm not simming though, looks like you all have some interesting stories going on.

Yeah, we have to wait for the insurance company to approve the value of our claim and send the check before we can start replacing stuff. There was damage to the house too and a LOT of cleaning up to do. Our carpets are cream colored and we don't wear shoes in the house. After the thieves stomping around in dirty shoes and then the police stomping around in dirty boots and then that fingerprint powder stuff all over things, it was such a mess.

Im spending the time building lots and doing recolors on my Laptop, mostly just to keep busy and not think about what happened. I miss playing, but the laptop just doesn't play the game well with all the EP's. And there are certain CC items I wont play without. I backup my game every other day or so and I will have to play the second week of the Jacquet family again...Im going to do my best to duplicate the events that happened in the first playthru. I had just started playing the Ramirez Round before the break in so I didn't lose too much game play.

So sorry; makes me think again about backing up stuff. Actually, I only care about my (huge)downloads. I have a flash drive some where with old stuff; need to redo. Hope your insurance does right by you.

Ouch Kittylynn, that's awful to hear. I too hope your insurance pays up.

I'm glad you didn't lose your gameplay as well; I've just had to reset my entire laptop thanks to some adware that got into my system and wouldn't go no matter what I did. At least it was a simple case to backup the important bits (hoods, downloads and saved sims) onto my external hard-drive first, but reinstalling Sims took me a good couple of hours

I've now made the executive decision to spend the Easter weekend sorting through my (massive) downloads folders... no matter how much I actually want to play.

I get to sort and clean out my downloads all over again, because I did my last backup before I spent 2 days doing the cleanup last week.

Im looking at the bright side though, I lost a Frankenstein (upgraded to an inch of its life) 8 year old Dell computer and I will be getting a shiny new Dell Computer with better graphics, processor and a hard drive twice as big... Already have it picked out on the Dell site. I will just have a couple weeks or so to wait for it... Ill survive, my laptop is letting me do recolors and build lots to submit here so I won't go too crazy. lol

so sorry Lynn to hear of the bad things that have happened in your life. Wow, when it rains it pours. Hope things get amazingly better in the weeks to come.

Started playing again after taking a break. I've located my pets disk and installed it, so every family will be getting a pet of some sort this round. I plan to roll to keep it random on how many and what kind they get. As I don't care for strays, in my game they never stick around long enough to be adopted I plan to cheat a bit and use simblender to give them good relations with families that roll pets to have them adopted.

I'm facing a bit of a problem in my game right now. I've written myself into a corner, lol. I planned to turn Don into a vampire, so I wrote that Dina gave him the head vampire's number. When I last played her I summoned them both to her lot and attempted to introduce them, but had no luck. So now that I'm playing Don's he needs to become a vampire, but doesn't know the Count. I've been sending him to community lots all night hoping they would meet but have had no luck yet. I looked through the summon menu on simblender, but couldn't find the count, so I couldn't bring him to the lot. My next option is to summon Dina, make her selectable, and have her call the count. I'm going to give that a go tonight and hopefully it'll work with no problems. If nothing else it'll let me get a pic of Don and the Count talking for my story, but I really want to get the bite. Poor Don, he didn't realize what he was going to get when he decided he wanted immortality. On a side note, Kaylynn had Don's baby, a little girl, I think I named her Adriana, I know it starts with an A. They will not be joining Don as vampires. I'm debating whether Don will leave them, Kaylynn will divorce him, or if they just won't realize what happened. They will have to move to a new house though as their apartment is on the third floor and has tons of windows.

Vampires - aaarrrgggg. I've never been able to play them.

The only other time I played one he died trying to go to work, but I like to keep the game interesting and I figure that as Don wants to be a party guest he shouldn't have a problem being a vampire. Besides, if he dies I can blame it on Dina. She didn't tell him exactly who the count was after all.

I like playing vampires, I even downloaded a custom vampire career for them. The only supernatural I haven't played with much was werewolf, they seem so destructive and out of control. I think my fave supernatural is Plantsim though, they are so easy to take care of.

Ana - If you move them into a house, make it one with an attached garage. The indoor car location will protect him from direct sun while he is trying to leave for any daytime job. Actually there are some apartments in Belladonna that have attached garages too, those townhouse looking ones...

Thanks for the advice, I'll keep it in mind when i make his new place. I'm thinking of waiting to turn him until the end of the week, so he starts his new life as a vampire next rotation. (Plus I should be able to arrange things so that he moves on a Monday that way.

So I've been playing some more and have almost finished out the week at the Lorathio's. By change Don meet the vampire at a club, so I didn't have to call Dina over and everything. He also meet an evil witch that he has been flirting with. He has a good memory of having an affair with her and wants to be best friends with her, but has not yet rolled wants to kiss her and (luckily) has fears of being a witch himself. Adriana grew up into a toddler with her father's eyes and ...no hair.... she has black eyebrows, so her hair color would be black. I'm letting her go with the bald look. If she keeps it as a child I'm taking it as a sign she is deathly ill and will roll for her to survive, stay sick, or pass away. Kaylynn and Don kept hopping back into bed together and now she is expecting again. Don is a level 8 slacker, which is still a daytime job, so I'm hoping he can get promoted by the end of the week as he's only got two days before becoming a vampire. He wants to be a pro-party guest, so I'd hate for him to have to quit his career. Because he had several days off in a row, and was constantly playing with his daughter I had him teach her to talk. He's working on potty training and talking. Kaylynn will be having multiples, I'm not sure how many though, so we'll see if Adriana got lucky with her dad giving her attention or if he really is a great dad. Kaylynn sold her first novel, and once Don turns I plan for her to quit her day job to stay at home during the day to care for him and the kids. After all, now that she's caught him she doesn't want anything to happen to him, like their house burning down again. However, if she catches him cheating I suspect she will take the kids and leave him with nothing. They will move into their new vampire/baby/toddler friendly(ish) home at the beginning of the next rotation.

I've never made a sim into a vampire. I did download custom werewolf stuff to try it out recently. They looked cool but I didn't find it that much fun. I made a zombie once with a phone call to the grim reaper but deleted five minutes later. Wasn't something I enjoy. I have checked out plantsim and even though I love how their needs are low they really aren't apart of my game. I have played witches and I guess that is the most used alternated sim.

Just this month was the first time I adopted a stray. I never knew this was possible. Always called in to adopt one. It seemed pretty easy to me but perhaps I just lucked out.

Re strays: I've almost NEVER been able to adopt a stray, and then was sorry I did! What I like to do is CREATE a stray! I start the same way I populate the adoption pool, by having people raise the sort of pet I like, and putting them up for adoption (sometimes as trained, even employed, adults). You create strays by selling or giving an adult to a townee. The neat thing about that is you can create a scam: if you have a high relationship with the pet when you got rid of them, they will visit often and you can adopt them right away...and resale them. Too bad the puppies I given away never show up as strays, that would be so cute.

I FINALLY had a successful, non-cheated, stray adopted. Cyd Roseland now has three dogs, the one he came with, one he picked up from the shelter, and the stray boxer called Tiffany. The only reason he was able to get Tiffany is because she kept coming back to eat the other dog's food. Usually in my game once they leave the lot I never see them again.

So I've played a few more houses, Don and his family went ahead and moved into the vampire house I built them even though he hasn't turned yet, because their apartment was way too small as Kaylynn gave birth to twins, Bethany and Caleb. Adriana is still a toddler, but first day of next round she will become a child. When Don gets home from work next round, with or without his promotion to a nighttime position he will become a vampire. If he doesn't get the promotion I will roll to see if he goes to work or not, and if it kills him, well, it's the luck of the draw.

I added Cyd to the rotation. I've moved him into the tiny house on the outskirts of town, where he lives alone with his three dogs. He has a career in adventure, and is doing fairly well. I plan to have him live alone until old age, as I see him being always away on adventures and never taking the time to fall in love. Should ACR have other plans I'll rethink things.

The next family I played was the Gavigans. I had Mary as an elementary school teacher and Nathan as a doctor, and wanted them to stay there, but through chance card she got promotions. They had a new baby, a little girl named Elizabeth. Isaiah aged to a teen, I think he rolled fortune and he wants to be a city planner. I have the summer break mod, but I had my seasons set wrong, so he had a spring break instead of a summer break, lol. I'm going to change the neighborhood to summer instead of spring so all the kids can have breaks at the proper time. I really enjoyed this mod, because it meant Isaiah could stay home and babysit his little sister while his parents worked. Nathan taught her to talk, Mary taught her to walk, Isaiah taught her a nursery rhyme and finished up her potty training. The last day of rotation she aged up into a child. Their house was too small to add an extra bed, but with the promotions they had gotten they were able to move to a new house, which they will start at the first day of next round. They also adopted the Critters, because I figure it was incentive to persuade the kids to leave behind their friends and move. As they moved to the 'rich' part of town the kids will now be added to private school with the other rich kids. The way I play it you can't just be smart to go to private school, you have to live in the right part of town.

I've been reading some other people's way of playing which includes setting sims as low/average/and high motivation, so I'm going to calculate everyone's motivation and add that to my game play in order to populate my poor part of town, which is a set of cheap houses and apartments near the downtown insane asylum and prison. The first family I moved in that area had a welcoming committee consisting of prisoners, lol. As of now I've a set of Uni dropouts due to pregnancy and two sims who flunked out of Uni living there along with the sims at the asylum, the prisoners, and the Ottomas family (Peter is in jail) who drew the short end of the stick when I was assigning sim bins to living areas.

I finished up another round of Uni, resulting in three drop outs, one who I haven't assigned a house yet, two Dean's lists and several 'B's and 'C's. I also had a walk by get struck by lightening and keep on walking.

Im missing my game!!! Ive been playing a base/uni setup just for fun and working on a large recolor project. Also been building lots for submission. Still waiting for the insurance company to send a check.

Love hearing...erm...reading, your update Ana. Too cool about the new pets in our neighborhood. Ive played the Critturs before...not my fave pets but they are a good experiment in breeding if you make them a challenge. Can the Critturs become smart, good looking pets?

I like your idea of having different class levels in your town and determining who lives where by assigning them a motivation level... Hope you don't mind if I adopt the idea once I can get back to my game?

Help yourself because I stole it from someone else.This blog has a list of what they can and can't do at each motivation level.

This is how you calculate it: Action - Playful. -10 to -5 is low motivation, -4 to +4 is average, and +5 to +10 is high.

I also read a post about calculating ideal number of kids and risky woohoo calculations for ACR that I've decided to use. They are posted in this thread. I've just now started calculating all this for my game and I've noticed a few interesting things.Dina is a low motivation sim with a high chance of risky woohoo, which suits her because I play her so that she is woohooing herself into money and extended life. All three of her kids inherited her low motivation, which suits as they are all spoiled rich kids. Peter Ottomas only wanted one kids, but has the highest risky woohoo of all my sims, Samantha wants 8 kids and has a fairly high risky woohoo setting, so that's how they ended up with so many kids, lol. Poor Nina though, according to the calculations she has a high motivation and a low risky woohoo rating, but I got her knocked up and made her go insane. Maybe she can make a comeback next round and get her life in order.

Motivation stats for my neighborhood are: 6% high motivation, 79% average motivation, and 14% low motivation. My highly motivated sims are: Uni student Phineus, Michael Dreamer (Darren's son), Nina Caliente, and former Uni student Ellen (poor Ellen, I needed space for a sim, so I forced a pregnancy on her and moved her and the baby daddy out of Uni, maybe she can pull the family out of the gutters.) Low motivation sims are: Dina Goth, her three kids Bella, Mortimer II, and Rose, Ginger Newson, Chester Geike, Uni student Joe Carr, Uni student Mitch, and Isaiah Gavigan.

I think this will make things pretty interesting as I now have several sims with career LTWs who won't have the motivation to reach the top.

It sounds as though it was really developed for S3, but it can still translate to S2. Im looking forward to applying it to my game, I play my Sims too nicely and they all get rich and then I get bored with them. And it goes right along with my current apartment housing project (if anyone has read my journal they know my madness already) to provide more levels of housing from low-income starting out places, to luxury high-end condos.

My feeling is that Sims should have a progression in their lives more like RL. Its too easy to plop them on a lot and add on to their house until eventually they all have mini-mansions and live too comfortably. So more like RL, if they start to outgrow their current place, they must move somewhere larger and potentially more expensive, on the flip side of that older couples with the children gone will need to move somewhere smaller in order not to waste their retirement on too much space. Im going to have more of my Sims in apartments, duplexes and condos. Only the VERY rich (and now High motivation) will own a home.

Oh I know, I used to motherlode all my sims and give them everything they could ever want. Everyone had perfect grades, semi-perfect lives, beautiful homes, and top careers. Now my sims have to work a little harder for what they want. I downloaded a set of grungy row houses which I placed near the prison and asylumn, as well as a few grungy community lots. Sims who live in this area of town are only allowed to visit these lots, and if I see a more prosperous sim in the area I know I need to write that they had a reason for being there.

I was going to start a kidnapped story for the Ottomas family, Peter is in prison for robbing a bank with a CAS sim named Justin, Justin got out of prison after beating up a guard, so I decided to write that he escaped and kidnapped Sharla to force Peter to tell him where the money is, but the first walk-by he had was the prison guard, so i had to change the story. The guard walks by Justin's house three times a day or so, so I decided that Justin was released, but the guard still suspects that he is up to something and constantly walks by to see what is going on. So right now Justin is making a living by adopting and selling strays as was suggested by grammapat.

Sorry to go OT, but I must tell happy news!!

We got the insurance check this afternoon! So I just placed my order for THIS>>> Dell XPS 8500

I got it as its listed... none of the upgrades that they try to push, plus added a 22" Monitor to it. I still have my nearly new speakers from my old compy so Ill just use those.
They said it should be shipped in 3-5 days. EEP! Im so happy! :lovestruc

EDIT: does the linky work? It took me to a weird page...

It took me to a page where it's trying to sell upgrades or something, but on the side of the page was a computer, which I assume is the one you are getting. Glad to hear you insurance finally came in.

So currently I'm playing the Newson kids. They live in this huge abandoned warehouse. They have been digging through junk yards and garage sales to piece together a livable home. They found some cabinets to make a sort of kitchen. Gavin has a job at the local gas station and he earned enough money to pick up a second hand fridge and a campfire stove, so they can cook a bit. It is summer time, so no one has to worry about school. They have several stray dogs living with them, which the toddlers love. Both toddlers have high motivation, but as everyone else in the family is average or low they didn't really learn much. Gavin taught Garret to talk, and that was about it. Gallagher cleans up after everyone, Gabriela plays with the dogs, and Ginger whines about not having yet been kissed occasionally between moaning about how horrible life is and yelling at the dogs she finds time to make a few sandwiches. I pretty much let them run free while I was playing them, because I figure with no parental direction they are on their own. The toddlers aged up to kids just before I saved to leave for work. When I get back home I have two more days of them before I move to the next house.

Wow!
I never thought keeping track of what happens in your neighbourhood could be so fun until I was reading all your stories.
I just hope that my neighbourhood can have just as interesting stories as the ones I've read here.