Let's go back, Into the Future!!!

So Sims 3 Into the Future is finally here! The last Expansion pack so it's a bit bittersweet. Still, I feel Sims 4 will be a worthy successor and it's release date next Fall, gives me some time to enjoy this expansion pack!

Especially in my case they kept the best for last. I'm huge Sci Fi freak. I love Star Wars, Star Trek, Back to the Future, Logan's Run, the list is nearly endless. I just started watching Dr Who and I love it already! (Yeah, I'm pretty late to the Dr. Who party, but better late then never I guess?)

So the pack is full of delicious little winks to various of the biggest Sci Fi movies ever made :D

 

Like this, the Three Seashells from Demolition Man!

Still, no idea how to use them! There are tons of reviews/ Let's plays out there, so for all the gameplay I refer to friends like Ipodzeke, SimSupply, Simified, SimsTruelife for Polish friends and so on. I think Rachybop did a review too. PlatinumSimmers Sims News Network, SimsVip and many more!

I'm more of a builder, so I'll approach this from a builder's point of view! Using my new build to show the new things off!

So there it is, a High Tech, futuristic Tree Village. I relied of course heavily on Into The Future, some things from Movie Stuff, like the big Ray gun. I also used loads of the Showtime props and the FutureShock Store sets. 

Snazzy new columns, supporting my teleporter room. With a window from the Casino set. I really thought it looked very futuristic!

The Quantum power suit, can be found under Miscellaneous Electronics (I looked for SO long!)
It's what you get with the limited edition version. The Blue tool on her hand and the boots have a definite Mass Effect feel about it! I got a bit giddy when I saw that. That means I get to play out all my Mass Effect scenarios!
Nice bonus also. It basically maxes your motives and let's you scan for people and valuables!

The chairs from Movie stuff, with the holograpic background, coffee table and Tesseract mirrors. That means cubic prims, or the Source of Power from the Avengers!
 You can change the background to a volcano, futuristic cityscape and in the big one, there is even a wink to Sims 4. And yes, you saw correctly. GLASS TILES! Builders have been clamoring for those since Base Game :D

The pursuit of Knowledge! The holo Library sign! I put it on my windows, so it feels as if the sign ins inside of it. Gave a pretty cool effect. The book cases reminded me of the Jedi Library.
You can also so the glass elevator, the holo book repository and the new table and chairs. The lamps also come in Into The Future and the Orb you see is actually a computer. Your sims can do everything on it, including, browsing the Holo Web. You gain High Tech skill by this.

Kitchen it up a notch. Instead of slaving over a stove, your Sim can now program a dish et voila! (Good?) food!
It's completely based on the Star Trek replicators and I love it!

Here you can see a beautiful lit shelve. The Holo television, The Plumbot charger and a piece of the new carpet, which I used allover. It's just such a futuristic shape.

Here we can see the Dreampod, which let's you influence your Sims' dreams! You can also see those strips of light on the wall, new lamps beside the bed, new rug and one of my favorites, holographic plants! You can change their colors into whatever you like! They come in about 4 shapes per emitter. The bigger 4-tile emitter has some bigger plants, which look nice too. I used a couple throughout.

Late Night offers some nice modern touches like these windows. Here you can see one of the Sprites. They are like little virtual critters that you have to take care of. Very cute! You can also soo the new chairs and hanging plants.

Create a Plumbot! The CAP itself is pretty straightforward, but when you want to create custom trait chips and nanites, you'll need to find some materials throughout the world.

Here's the new sectional sofa. You can also see the Plumbot charger, rug, coffee table and new floor light.

So here's the build to go with it! :D

Download me!

My thoughts about the Sims 4 release in the Fall of 2014

One word? Yaaaaaaaay!

I saw many people complain and cry about this on Twitter, as people thought of March as the possible month of release.

So that means, a year from now. The younger people see this as an insurmountable amount of time.
As a 31 year old with kids however, this is peanuts. It seems everytime I look up, my kids have grown a little taller.

This also means that they are NOT rushing production and that my friends is a blessing. I'm thinking back about the release of Star Wars, Knights of the Old Republic II, the Sith Lords.

Now this game was amazing, a real improvement in customization of weaponry upon the first game. And it was just fine, until you hit the later levels. Where the first few planets were full of details and good side quests. The last planet, Malacor 5 felt absolutely rushed. The same repeating background, practically no conversations and plot holes that never got fixed.
Turns out, it WAS rushed. LucasArts wanted it done before Christmas so they wouldn't have to miss the Christmas rush.
Fans took it upon themselves to restore all the unused content they found on the disc and make a big mod.

This is why I'm happy the Sims devs are taking their time. I love this franchise, always have.  I'm glad they are taking time to make the Sims 4 awesome. I look forward to it!

World of Warcraft, trials and tribulations.

I love playing World of Warcraft. It has enriched my life for many years now and I made a couple of good, now also real life friends through it.

There is also another side, which I find both annoying and highly entertaining at the same time.
The infamous P.U.G. Short for, Pick Up Group. Basically, you queue up to do a dungeon or instance and the system throws you into a group with a bunch of total strangers. 80% of the time, when you say "Hi" you can expect a "Sup" or "Hi" back, but don't count on it. The duration of the dungeon, usually half an hour or so is spent in total silence.
Every once in a while, you get a "Ty" after the run is over.

Sometimes you get the most wonderful people and you hit it off immediately and you're kindda sad it's over already.

Other times, you get the downright rude whinos who have their fingers glued to the CAPS lock. People get a lot more talkative when mistakes are made.
Like recently. I found myself in a Looking for Raid, or LFR (WoW people sure love their abbreviations!)

So I was really tired and my Bullshit-tolerance level is absolutely Zero then.

The fight was a bit rocky, and someone starts calling everyone 'Morrons'

I'm no grammar or spelling cop. I think it's very low to point out mistakes when you can't win an argument.

This situation was different however. If you spout flack, you will get flack back.
So he calls us 'morrons' for shooting the wrong target.
I call him on his bullshit.  (Clicky on the picture for a bigger version!)

He quickly retorts that I was probably one of the idiots that was shooting the wrong target.

Where I point out that I was a healer, thus not one of the damage dealers (DPS'ers, another abbreviation!)

And the rest was silence out of that one.

The morron-virus seems to have spread too.

Then a hunter fancies himself the raid leader who thinks he had to kick people who didn't "perform" well enough. Yes, there is a vote to kick option. It's usually used for people that are offline for way too long and burden the rest of the raid.

He starts listing all his "achievements" and that doesn't go down too well with people.

The abbreviation FFS, feel free to look that up is also widely used. At first you ask nicely. If a demand doesn't get fulfilled within the first nanosecond, resort to name calling and Caps!
WoW-logic!

  

Sometimes I wonder how these people are in real life. I really do believe your play-style in MMO's is a reflection of your character. Cause unlike other games, you are dealing with real, feeling people here.The ineptitude to show at least minimal restraint towards others speaks volumes. It isn't all bad tho. Most of the time, these 'morrons' are very entertaining.

Reader's letter of the month! It seems :D

So, in one of my previous posts, I talk about games and violence. This was prompted by a facebook post that I saw by CHIEF, Dutch gaming magazine.

GTA V was getting heckled for inciting violence in our youths. I wrote a whole post about it and linked in the comments section.

A day later I get a message from one the CHIEF editors if I could abbreviate my blog post some, as they would like to publish it in their reader section!

My husband and I both read the mag, so I was really stoked! The news got better and my post became Letter of the month! Landing me a game!

It became Remember me! Can't wait to try it out this weekend :D

That and I need to buy at least five copies so I can prove it to the kids later! Yo momma was so cool, I was in a gamer mag! ;)

New build, the Little Castle.

Hey guys!

Here's a new build I made for the D.N.A. request team :D It should look like this one :D

 Here's my version. This house is a bit of a mash-up of styles, but I really loved building it. That's the beauty of request work. You get new ideas to try your hand at builds and styles you usually wouldn't come up with :D

Download me here!

 

Games and violence. A neverending debate. English version.

Games always did it.

Thanks to Jan Hautekiet, a Belgian radio personality, the gaming debate is in full swing again. The bad guy this time is GTA V. Why it should be forbidden!

It’s true that this series is notorious for the amount of violence in it. Now the whole debate is about how games like these would put children and youths up to extreme violence.

Newsflash, GTA V is an 18+ game, as rated by PEGI. That means it is developed for the adult mind, which should be able to discern the political satire and social criticism. 

So it's up to the parents/care givers to draw the line. Not knowing anything about games or computers is no excuse. The age indications on those boxes are crystal clear, 18+ means 18+. It's called parenting.

I read a couple of reactions on the Radio 1 forums and my stomach just turned. People that dared to speak in favor of the game were slandered as computer addicts and degenerates. 

The reactions of the non-gamers were much more venomous and personal. 

If you feel like some Google translate fun here you go.

http://www.radio1.be/hautekiet/de-productie-van-grand-theft-auto-moet-verboden-worden#more 

Games like this one should be forbidden, according to these people. Let's expand upon this line of reasoning then shall we?

Soccer hooliganism. So because a fraction of soccer supporters are violent fighters, we need to ban this entire game?

Religion. How much blood has flowed in the name of religion? Shall we cancel those too?

Movies. In high school, as a minor, I saw American History X in school. This movie is about the extreme racism of the White supremacist movements. Someone's teeth get knocked out there while his head is on the sidewalk. Gruesome, my skin still crawls thinking about it.

Did I feel like repeating it, just because I saw it? No. And know why? Because this film was shown to us to warn us about Racism and it was placed into a context.

The Internet. In the beginning days, people feared that young people would construct bombs at home or watch porn all day. Also, all human contact would go down the drain and the poor Celebs wouldn't make any money because their songs would get downloaded for free.

In mean while, nearly everyone I know is on facebook, planning parties, exchanging recipies and posting pics of their cats or children, who, I might add, are mostly playing outside.

TV in general and the news specifically should be banned too then. What's happening is Syria is very real at the moment. Real people and children are getting brutally slaughtered. Maybe we should stop covering that war, suppose we get the same idea!!

And what about alcohol and tobacco? And let's not talk about certain music styles either...

I can of course only speak for myself. Yes, I'm sure there are people out there that use games as an inspiration/scapegoat to do bad things. 

Surprise, we had murderers, rapists and overall evil people 30 years ago too. They blamed TV back then.

You can also read some passages out of the Bible, what was happening back then. Who did they blame for it? Don't you think it's time that people took responsibility for their own actions, instead of blaming it on everything else. 

I'm a gamer, my husband is a gamer. Fifty percent of the people I know are gamers and you couldn't find a nicer and politer bunch of people if you tried. My kids, even though small, are well behaved and well loved wherever they go. 

My dear husband and I have been together for over 10 years and we literally NEVER fought, even with all those games, rotting our brains. 

My point is, like with everything in life, balance is key.

We're gamers, but also parents, family members, friends, co-workers and employees. A person that eats to much gets overweight, a person that eats too little might die. Do we blame the food? Should we ban food because of that?

We live in a digital world. We have to raise our kids to be able to cope with "their" world.

The Good Old days, when all of us played outside, without all the technology, are not coming back. It's not like we're going back to hand-wash, now that we have washing machines either.

I'm going to try and raise my kids into responsible adults, with a good mixture of everything and yes, that includes games. The ones that are suitable for their age that is ;)

Games en Geweld, een eindeloze discussie.

The GTA franchise has always inspired debate. Also in my little country. Some radio show let some actor talk about how anti-social his son got when playing video games. The reactions were downright appalling. Gamers get labelled as the worst of the worst.  Here's my reaction in Dutch and English.

De games hebben het altijd gedaan.

Dankzij Jan Hautekiet is het gamer debat weer brandend actueel. Hier gaat het dan vooral over GTA V.

Het klopt dat deze reeks bekend staat om het geweld dat erin komt.  Nu is de hele hetze dat dit de jeugd zou beinvloeden en zou aanzetten tot buitensporig geweld.

Newsflash. GTA V is een 18+ spel. Ontwikkeld voor de volwassen geest, die dat geweld kan plaatsen en de politieke, en maatschappij-kritische satire erachter kan smaken.

Het is aan de ouders om die grens te trekken. Niets afweten van computers of games is echt geen excuus. Op die doosjes staat heel duidelijk om welke leeftijdscategorie het gaat. Opvoeden heet zoiets.

Ik heb een paar reacties gelezen op het forum van Radio 1 en mijn maag keerde. Mensen die in het voordeel van de game durfden spreken werden meteen uitgemaakt voor computerverslaafden en ontaarden.

De reacties van de non-gamers waren een stuk venijniger en korter voor de bocht. U kan ze hier lezen.

http://www.radio1.be/hautekiet/de-productie-van-grand-theft-auto-moet-verboden-worden#more

Games zoals deze zouden volgens hen verboden moeten worden! Want ja, ze zetten aan tot extreem geweld. Laten we deze redenering even doortrekken dan?

Voetbalhooliganisme. Omdat een fractie van de supporters op de vuist gaat, moet daarom het hele voetbal-spel verboden worden? Nee toch?

Religie. Er is al veel bloed gevloeid in de naam van religie. Afschaffen die handel dan maar?

Films. Ik heb in de middelbare school (minderjarig dus) American History X gezien in de klas. 

Deze film gaat over de extreme rassenhaat van de zogenaamde White supremacists.  

Daar wordt iemand met zijn hoofd op de stoeprand gezet om zijn tanden op dusdanige wijze te verwijderen.  Heb ik hierna de neiging gehad hetzelfde te doen? Nee, want deze film is gepresenteerd in het kader dat rascisme niet kan en ik heb er conclusies uit kunnen trekken.

Het internet. In de begindagen werd er gevreesd dat jongeren thuis bommen zouden maken, of hele dagen naar porno zouden kijken. Ook zou het menselijk contact volledig verwateren en die arme Popsterren zouden geen geld meer verdienen omdat iedereen hun muziek gratis zou downloaden.

Ondertussen zit bijna iedereen die ik ken op facebook  sociaal te wezen, recepten uit te wisselen en titels van liedjes te ‘googlen’ waar we niet op kunnen komen.   

En aan de foto’s op facebook te zien, wordt er nog duchtig buiten gespeeld door de kinderen.

Tv in het algemeen en het nieuws in het bijzonder. Wat er in Syrië aan het gebeurenis, is echt. 

Daar worden echte mensen en kinderen op beestachtige wijze omgebracht. Dan zou de verslag geving ook moeten stoppen, want wij hier zouden wel eens op hetzelfde idee kunnen komen.

Over alcohol en tabak zullen we het maar niet hebben… Of over bepaalde muziekstijlen.

Kortom, de logica is ver zoek.

Ik kan natuurlijk allleen spreken uit mijn eigen ervaring. Ja, er zullen mensen ter wereld zijn die games als inspiratie/zondebok gebruiken om slechte dingen te doen. Verrassing, 30 jaar geleden waren er ook moordenaars, verkrachters en slechte mensen in het algemeen. Toen had de tv het gedaan.  Je moet ook de Bijbel er maar eens op nalezen, wat er toen allemaal gaande was. Wie was toen de schuldige? Kan het gewoon zijn dat er gewoon slechte mensen zijn, die zelf maar eens verantwoordelijkheid moeten nemen voor hun daden, in plaats van het op derden te steken.

Ikzelf ben een gamer. Mijn man is een gamer.  Vijftig procent van mijn vriendenkring is gamer. Het zijn de liefste, evenwichtigste mensen die je je kan inbeelden. Mijn kinderen, hoe klein ze ook zijn, zijn beleefd, vriendelijk en ik kan overal met ze komen.

Mijn echtgenoot en ik zijn meer dan tien jaar samen en wij hebben nog NOOIT ruzie gemaakt.  Je zou nochtans zeggen, met al die games die onze hersens hebben aangetast…

Mijn punt is, als je verstandig omgaat met games, is er veel leed te vermijden. 

Wij zijn gamers, maar ook ouders, familieleden, vrienden, collegas en werknemers. Wie teveel eet gaat dik worden, wie te weinig eet kan sterven. Is het de schuld van het voedsel? Moeten we dat dan ook maar verbieden?

We leven in een digitale wereld, we moeten kinderen opvoeden om evenwichtig te zijn in “hun” wereld. 

The Good Old days dat wel allemaal nog buiten speelden, zonder al die technologie, komen nooit meer terug. We gaan immers toch ook niet terug met de hand wassen, in plaats van met de wasmachine.

Ik ga pogen mijn kindjes op te voeden met een goede mix van alles, en daar horen ook games bij. Die geschikt zijn voor hun leeftijd, welteverstaan ;)

English version coming shortly.