6c and the Farwalker Girls

Yeah, I know I said I'd have comments about Chapter 6c of Texas' legacy (3 Dates for Brother Cleveland) here and I know that picture up there certainly doesn't like the sims, but I'll get to Cleveland's bad luck in a moment. First let me say thanks to everyone for reading this little creation of mine and I'm sorry that I'm slow with getting back on comments and such. Work's had me busier than (insert cheesy "busier than" cliche here)... well anyway, I've been way busy. Aeronwy has asked about DDO earlier and since giving my thoughts about it is OT in the group, I figured I'd post it here. I'll also explain "Gormless" (since I didn't get that question answered either) and comment about on what's up with the Holldums.

So click on Read more to listen to be babble on about the Holldums and DDO

You here? Keen. First, let me say that the flu sucks but Tamiflu sucks even more. Dr Drew, I luv ya, you're a great doctor (The Roomie and The Roomie's Woman both agree) but I think that, even with the 2 days of 102° fever, I would've gotten better a lot faster without the drugs.

Second: Now, on to the Holldums. The boys are almost out of college. I've got one more chapter (coincidentally named "6d") to go before graduation day. The fun begins after that, since back about Xmas Strangetown horked on me and I had to restore it to my backup (which I'd made right before I graduated the boys) I'm debating whether I should try to recreate what happened before the crash. You see, Kasson became the heir (proving that having a spare to the heir is a good thing) Cleveland gave Berg the reindeer a big ol' kiss and promptly electrocuted himself. No problem, I send Waylon running out to plead for his favorite son except... Waylon "choose poorly". That's right, Waylon failed to beat the reaper. He's only the second sim I've had fail to beat the reaper (my first was the father in my very first Sims 2 family; his wife died while pregnant and he failed to save her) Kasson got promoted to heir and I suddenly had to figure out what to do about Euphemia, since as heir Kasson couldn't marry her now. Of course, the bizarreness that is Strangetown came into play the next night, when Kasson decided to plunk himself down at the telescope. Yep, abduction time and I hadn't even been trying to get him abducted. So that kinda solved the Euphemia situation and I figured that about the time his alien spawn (a boy named Adel, after the town where my car broke down when I was visiting my folks last fall)was a child I'd move Kasson out to raise his own family with Phemey and let Texas and Waylon raise one more. Alas, the neighborhood horked when Adel was still a toddler. Would've been an interesting Legacy, no? So right now I have no idea what's going to happen when Cleveland and Kasson move back home; normally I'm one chapter ahead of what I'm blogging (when I post I like to have one I'm writing up and be playing the one after that)

For the curious, the current status of the college-age Holldums (and their loves):

Cleveland: Knowledge asp, LTW = Become a Criminal Mastermind
Kasson: Popularity asp, LTW = 20 simultaneous best friends
Salina: Wealth asp, LTW = Earn §100,000
Euphemia Retrorocket: Popularity asp, LTW = Become a Hall of Famer
Cirrus White: Knowledge asp, LTW = Max 7 Skills

Third: Aeronwy asked about "gormless". Being a geek in the IT field, I read've the webcomic UserFriendly religously for years (sometimes it's way too close to the stuff I deal with at work). Anyhoo, one of the characters, Stef, is described as 'gormless' on more than one occasion. I'd picked the term up in college off ISCA BBS, but had forgotten it until UF started using it regularly. Wikipedia describes it as "dull, lacking intelligence, sense or discernment, often implying lack of capacity of will to remedy the condition" See the Wiki article for more.

Fourth: Aeronwy had also asked about DDO - Dungeons and Dragons Online. Unfortunately (or would that be fortunately?) I've managed to avoid the lure of World of Warcraft so I can't compare it against WoW (I mainly play Asheron's Call and City of Heroes). One of my best friends does play WoW and is a serious D&D player(he's been a tester for some of their books and modules). He's really enjoyed it (I don't think he's played WoW since he got in the DDO Beta) but does comment that the play style is very different between them. I've been impressed with how well Turbine has been able to translate the aspects of Pen and Paper (PnP) D&D into an online game -- skill checks, search and spot, feats, etc. DDO is based on 3.5 edition in the World of Eberron. It's definately a group game; while the right character class and build can solo, it's extremely slow after the first level or two. Since it's class based, there's not a lot of flexibility in what skills you can take and while you can multiclass it can make things kinda rough. (I'm used to Asheron's Call -- another Turbine game -- where as long as you have the points you can take any skill you want and there's no such thing as 'class') Monster AI is pretty good and can make combat a challenge; for example, you can shoot an arrow past a mob and they'll go investigate it... just realize they'll probably bring friends back to help them fight. Loot is still being tweaked, but the magic items are classic out of the D&D pnp games. Graphics are absolutely gorgeous (as you can see above -- click it for the big pic, 720 x 720) but then I'd expect nothing less from Turbine. The figures above are 4 of my characters; all my characters have the last name "Farwalker". In the top row, the brown haired woman in half-plate is my cleric Nioba; the red haired elf is my rogue Avarhys. In the bottom row, the red haired character in leather is my bard Brice and the mail clad brown haired one is my ranger Vayne. Niobia's been my primary of late and I've recently multiclassed her to cleric/rogue.

Anyhow, enough of my babbling. Get back over and read the latest Holldum chapter if you haven't already. I'm going to chase Bimpy off the back of my chair and go see what I can round up for lunch.