“Dear GSC Member and friend,

It is with a heavy heart that I will be closing the Gay Sims Club. After nearly 6 years, it’s time to shut it’s doors, The GSC has been our home for a very long time, we’ve all become like Family. When I first opened the GSC all those years ago, I had no idea how it would take off, or what an impact it would have on the Sims Community.

This is very difficult for me, and I did not make this decision lightly. I’ve been agonizing over this for weeks, wondering what I was going to do with the forum. Finally reaching my decision to close down.

We have until November 29th until the servers shut down. If there is something you need or want, I highly suggest you come to the GSC and get it, whether it be a download, or to say goodbye to some friends. In the future, I may open another forum, if I do, I will be sure to let you all know. For now, you can find us at this site: http://www.ladymoiraine.com/forum/index.php?action=collapse;c=10;sa=expand;sesc=7c74af009d25cb56c8c5173d997e8970#10. The HoT covers a lot of games, and it has a section for the Sims. If I do create another forum, I will be announcing it there.

Thank you all for the past 6 years. For all the laughs, all the wonderful friendships, the tears, and even the drama! There are so many memories here, that its hard to just let go. Thank you. I love you all.

Scotty”

LINK: http://www.thesims3.com/assetDetail.html?assetId=4253151

STATS:

Name: Frankie Feliciano
Gender: Male
Age: Young Adult
Fitness: None
Weight: Normal
Sub Type: Human
Traits: Artistic, Neurotic, Dramatic, Hot-Headed, Absent-Minded
Bio: Who could put up with such a lonely and difficult Sim that sweats the small stuff? Frankie is quite his own in various ways. Always artistically creative with an edge, he prefers to live in an avant-garde city full of like-minded Sims. He hopes to reach his lifelong passionate dream of becoming a best-selling novelist of the drama, romance, and/or trashy genres. Still… he hopes to share his life with that special Sim. Only time (and patience) would tell.

REQUIREMENTS: Ambitions EP for the hairstyle and dramatic trait; everything else is from the base game.

Thank you, Jud, for having me post about this.  And thank you, JamiePG, for informing us about the magazine.  :)

Source: http://www.extrasims.es/web/noticias/ya-en-los-kioscos-el-n%C2%BA25-de-la-revista-oficial/

More details and screen shots here: http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/273938.page

Here is a link to the official statement by SimGuruHydra: http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/227444.page

The Wand:
The wand can be found under Hobbies/Skills. The wand cost $100. As of now, the mesh is not recolor able, but hopefully that will change in the near future. The mesh was created by Flabaliki.

The Skill:
To obtain a skill in magic one must A) Buy a wand and B) Put the wand in your Inventory and then C) Use the practice magic interaction on any mirror. The skill comes with two statistics and two challenges

Statistics:

• Good Spells Cast
• Evil Spells Cast

Challenges:

• Master Wizard
• Master Wizards are fond of friendship and can help all of their friends in their needs. 50 spells devoted to friends help one along the way to become a Master Wizard. Master Wizards obtain the power of resurrection.
• Warlock
• Warlocks choose the way of the dark arts. They specialize in casting dark and evil spells. They have dedicated at least 50 spells to such arts. Warlocks obtain the power of Mind Control.

The Animation:
As custom animations are not really possible yet, this is not a new animation. However it is pretty close to looking like the real thing. Sorry for the hand grip being a little off, but it is unavoidable because it is not a new animation.

Interactions:
Mischief…

• Dirty Object: Level 1
• Set Fire: Level 2 (can only occur on current household’s lot)
• Delete Object: Level 3

Bless With…

• Creativity: Level 4
• Irresistability: Level 5
• Fast Learning: Level 6
• Observance: Level 7
• Fertitility: Level 8
• Long Life: Level 9

Kill by…

• Electricution: Level 10
• Old Age: Level 10
• Fire: Level 10
• Starvation: Level 10

Master Wizard Interactions

• Resurrect (can either resurrect ghosts that are visible, or click on their urn stones to resurrect. Resurrected Sims will return their previous household, unless it not longer exists in which case a new one will be created and they will move to a random lot. Sometimes, if the original household does not exists they will be stuck there and be homeless. Twallan’s Story Progression mod should help)

Warlock Interactions
Mind Control…

• Get Raise
• Make Friends (and of course you cannot make anyone like yourself)
• Make Enemies (and of course you cannot make anyone enemies of yourself)

Is this/Does it require a Core Mod?
Absolutely Not! I do my best to stay away from them so that everyone is able to download and enjoy it!

Help! I can’t get it into my Inventory or something else doesn’t work!
This mod has been tested by at least 5 different people with all different versions and expansions with the game. This mod should not conflict with anything so it most likely is a problem in your framework. If you do all of the following and then delete your caches and restart the game and it still doesn’t work then you are aloud to post.

Wow, I forgot how fast The Sims 3 is on it!  I can now play more frequently since it ran a little choppy on my laptop.  And this is on max settings (except that the lot detail section is set to 3 instead of 16 but only because I need a better video card).  Now I just need an HD monitor (I still have a CRT) and I’m all set. 

However, I am not patching my game to 1.8/2.3 for obvious reasons.  I will wait for a fix for that.  I still recommend for others to do the same if they have issues with the latest patch.  And the speed issue is indeed package-format-CC-related because my game is just as fast with WA installed than without it (for those who said otherwise).    There is not even the slightest difference, so that’s good.  But of course, that’s old news.  I just can’t wait for the next fix, though.  Happy Simming! 

The Winter holidays are all about family and thinking of others, including our beloved pets. There is no better gift than a Mochi’s Doggie Present for your favorite pooch. This wonderful present is decorated with a lovely bow and a plush “Mochi the Dog” doll embracing the package.

Many comments seem to agree with Claeric and are happy, but it seems as if many more still prefer weather. 

So, what do you think?  Could this be true, or could it still be a SuperStar remake as hinted in the Brazilian WA fan event, or will it instead be something totally different?  I personally think that this is a real hint because of the strong focus on pets when we don’t even have them in our game.

Link: http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/141184.page

INTRODUCTION

Well! What a major difference when you experience a pleasant game play! This review will be based off WA that is installed on my laptop due to previously explained issues with my desktop. My game is also patched/up-to-date because I decided to just go ahead and try the patches since there was another one afterward. I had no CC when I first began and then later I added only Store CC because of the latest .package issues.

SPEED

The installation took quite a long time (over ten minutes) but fortunately no issues occurred like for some of you. The game loaded very quickly; about a minute. No WA version of “Reticulating Splines!” I was a bit bummed because that became such a famous trend and it was fun to see how each new EP or SP would revise it. I also liked how in the loading screen you see a plane quickly flying around the WA logo.

Once the game fully loaded, I went to visit all three countries first in the “edit town” section, but I didn’t edit them. I just wanted to see how quickly they would load and they loaded in less than one minute. I chose Agnes Crumplebottom as my first Sim to test the game with and played around with her through Sunset Valley for a moment just to test the speed, and still, the speed has not changed since having the base game alone. This also includes CAS, which loads fast, and saving and quitting. Also, like The Sims 2 Bon Voyage, you cannot change active households while on vacation. This is a major bummer for those who want to take a very long vacation. You’ll have to leave the trip early if you get bored of playing in a vacation destination for too long or because you are impatient to wait until you play with the next family.

When your Sim sets the travel arrangements, a taxi can come and pick you up (unless you have your own vehicle) and you drive around your home town for a few seconds until the loading screen that takes you to your destination begins. This is so that you can see the Sim driving but you get the idea that it is driving to the invisible airport. Sometimes your Sim will just take a few steps after hanging up the phone and the screen will immediately load to whatever destination. Sadly, you can only stay for three days until earn a higher visa level. I also looked through the families that lived in each country and sadly you cannot choose to play with them. They are NPC’s until you marry them or ask them to move in.

FRANCE

Only because I chose this location first when I tried to play WA on my desktop, I figured I’d continue here to explore some more. I have to say that France is rather beautiful because of the European architecture and it has a very clean rural style. Some spots could look a bit avant garde, which I absolutely love because I‘m very artistic in real life. The houses are beautiful and France seems to have the most lots (or at least homes) of the three locations. The locals there are all with French names and they look French, more or less. But of course they still sound exactly like the rest of the Sims.

In France you do not start off at a campground with tents like hinted in various WA reviews, but at a huge house that seems more like an inn. It makes sense since France has always been looked at as a luxurious trip. The inn, however, is still known as the base camp because it’s just the name of the place you start off at for each location, regardless if the lot has tents or not. The inn is very nice and cozy with five bedrooms, four of them with a double bed in each while one has six single beds. Best of all, it’s free, as it doesn’t function like a hotel but more like your own house in your home town (no hotels or any of the like in the game). So, you can cook and use any household objects as normal. However, you can go out to eat at the café if you prefer.

When you order food from the café, a list of meals pop up for you to select from and this list is the only one so far that offers the French-exclusive foods. Agnes tried crepes and she was stuffed immediately. The general store is nice because it sells many useful objects such as a tent, scooter, camera, incense, etc. It even sells three different qualities of dried food (price difference and most likely moodlet difference), which just looks like a block of green coal or something of the sort. There are random tourists there from China and Egypt whom you can interact with like with the locals. I found it cute that when you hover over their names, if they are special NPC’s like tourists or store clerks, it will specify with a comma after their names. The default vehicle you ride in is the scooter. There are no cars here. One thing I have notice that could seem like a bug was that this tourist from Egypt came near me and he was in decent shape and all of a sudden… BOOM… he blew up and became very overweight. I just though that was a bit strange. I’ll consider this to be the first bug I found.

I also enjoyed finding treasure chests and opening them to collect coins and money. For some you need a key to open. Later on I decided to look for places to visit in search of keys, coins, and secrets until I noticed a public restroom in the middle of nowhere that actually had gender-specific doors. Looks like in this pack EA decided to put them in the game. Thank God! No more downloading the ones that the one creator at MTS had found (which I was grateful for at the time) and it‘s still great for those without WA. Then I tried some nectar at the nectary and apparently you can have free tastes which serves up to four glasses per bottle. But one glass barely fills up your hunger. Then I tried a cheese plate, which is a new food in France for only $10. It filled up the hunger bar all the way, which is a bit strange for just a cheese plate.

Aside from the stores, the only other place I had Agnes visit was a cemetery which had five little rooms and each room had a treasure chest in it. The middle one was locked and I didn’t bother finding a key. I gave her a makeover as well, just to try out the new WA styles. Since Agnes kept thinking of the “return home” symbol, I figured it meant she wanted to go home, and it was also a wish of hers. So, I left a day early. When you call to return home, the screen immediately loads back to the home neighborhood. There is no driving back or anything. Now, when the home neighborhood is loaded, then the car Agnes used randomly appeared in a spot on the street away from her house and then she drove home. I guess this is to pretend as if she drove from the invisible airport. One thing that struck me as a bit odd was that she reverted back to her original appearance. Either this is a bug or when you plan outfits and change appearance in a travel location, it is only for while you are there. What a waste of time planning outfits. The whole point was so that she could remain with her new look. Oh well.

CHINA

Because you have to wait two days before going back to a vacation destination, I chose another Sim to play with to avoid the wait. I chose Erin Kennedy and decided to try China. I wanted to focus on single-family households so that I wouldn’t have to feel as tied down or feel badly for leaving the other members at home. China loaded in about a minute; the usual loading time in between destinations so far. And that is just for the first load, as when I return to a saved game, it speeds up.

The first thing I noticed was that in China, just like France, you do not start off at a campground. Perhaps you do start at an inn at each destination. This inn was huge with ten bedrooms, each with a single bed except for one, which has a double bed and is all the way up in the third floor. And what was pretty cool about the inn was that you now get to have “roommates” in it. They are titled explorers and are NPC’s that stay with you. This was a surprise, as none of the reviews I had read even mentioned this. I’m not sure if the inn in France does this because I had not noticed any NPC staying with Agnes. And it makes it easier to socialize and meet new people.

Aside from making some physical changes to give her a more sporty look, I decided to focus on martial arts for the time being by buying a book to learn the first few skills. After about skill 3 (which I reached), you have to learn the skill physically. And since Erin is athletic and in shape, it’ll suit her well.

So far from the random Sims I have seen who are from there, it doesn’t seem as if they have a special face template because they didn’t seem to look as Asian as I had hoped they would, but more Eurasian. That was disappointing because I was expecting a better Asian facial type. But maybe it’s just me and my old eyes.

I visited a few places, including the Terra Cotta army, which takes forever just to walk there. Having not realized that time flew by, I accepted my first adventure via the cell phone. At the fist retreat, I stood on this floor matt object with footprints on it and it opened a stairway nearby that was invisible at first, which led to a basement with a locked door where I was able to use the pick ax to clear two rubble piles, one revealing a switch and the other revealing eight ancient coins. One thing I noticed was that while axing, the ax is faced backward. Shouldn’t the sharp point face forward? I smell a mod coming. So, I went to “report in” to the lady who requested for me to find an ancient relic and I was given ten visa points and I would receive a handsome reward if completed. Above the moodlets section, a new transparent tab appears that tells you what to do next when it comes to adventures, which you can collapse if it is in your view (it’s not that large, honestly). I tried looking for a tomb since it was supposed to be nearby. Wow, lots of walking you have to do around many areas! But when you don’t walk, you ride a bike, as there are no cars in China. After several gems and coins found, I found another tomb in the basement of some place in the village market. I have to admit, I am starting to like these tombs. Though I have yet to explore many of them, I can already tell they are going to be very interesting. I can only imagine the ones in Egypt! So, I completed my first tomb which was very easy and not dangerous at all, and I got a decent reward. Tombs have lots of treasure chests and some of them even contain dried food to help you along the way.

Because I only had hours left before my trip was over, I didn’t bother to explore anymore. I received a total 45 visa points (looks like you need 50 points per level) and I’m at 90%.

EGYPT

For Egypt, I chose to play with Christopher Steel, just to play with a male Sim for once for this review. So looks like Egypt is the only one that starts you off at an actual campground, as there is no inn in this one. But it’s cute; I like it. It’s surrounded by palm trees with plenty of single tents to choose from. The restroom is partly covered with huge stones and there is a kitchen area and bathroom as well. A tomb is very near; in the same grounds, but just a little bit away from the kitchen area.

This time I decided to go ahead and explore more tombs since I had not realized before how fun they truly are. When you check for adventures in the post with the mailbox, it gives you a different request at a time. You just have to cancel and select the option to check again until you find one you are interested in doing. Finally I accepted a seemingly easy one where I had to help clear the traps in the basement of the Rashid household, which is a tomb.

One thing I noticed that could be a bug is no matter how well I got to know the general store clerk, the traits remain unknown. Home, which says Egypt, Career, and Partner are known, though. I already know he is childish because of the way he acts. I know his favorite color from chatting, etc. But my Sim is like if he knows nothing else about him. That was strange. I hope that gets fixed.

So after a few purchases, I started the tomb. I noticed that I was able to pick away at the rubble pile. I guess we never really needed to go to China just to get the pick axe since it automatically appears when we choose to clear the rubble pile, despite what past reviews had said (could have been a cancelled idea). That’s cool. Well! This tomb sure was not safe, as I got electrocuted many times (though you don’t die, you just get a negative moodlet for being singed). I’m sure you could die if you get electrocuted again while still singed or soaked with water. There were fire and dart traps everywhere as well. But this tomb wasn’t too difficult overall, just slightly. Then I finished another tomb which was much easier.

I eventually made a romantic interest with an Asian explorer there who stayed at my base camp and I invited the Sim over when I went back home. It takes about a half day for the foreign Sim to arrive after inviting them over to your house. You can also chat long distance over the phone.  Unfortunately, I still wasn’t able to figure out the traits of the Asian explorer after even doing woohoo and going steady.  This is definitely a bug.

CONCLUSION

I had a very fun time playing the game. I thought I was not going to be much of the adventurous type, as I didn’t get WA for the tombs and what not. However, it’s now great to have that option because it’s so much fun and it’s still fun for those who enjoy that aspect of the game. I still mostly like going to the locations for a vacation purpose, though. If only Sims could swim in the ocean so that the vacation could be even more enjoyable. But other than that, it’s a fun EP. It’s definitely not going to be my favorite, I can already tell. I always have preferred nightlife, weather, and apartments. I’m sure we will get them in due time, though. Two things I noticed that I liked very much as new features were the gender-specific restroom doors and the ability to drag the windows of the relationships and inventory panels in order to view more at once. Regardless, I will enjoy the game with a vacation aspect because it‘s still more to the game than just the base game. I think many of you will enjoy it, too.

A summary of the issue by Claeric @ MTS:

We have pretty much undeniably determined that package files are in fact slowing WA considerably.

What SEEMS to be happening is the game doesn’t understand how to use them. .package is the default filetype the game uses for important game files it loads. And as a modding community, we’ve basically forced the game to use ours, too.

But WA’s infrastructure seems to be making the game think of them as core game files. This makes the game take an eternity to load at startup(as it is loading each file as if it was a major one), as well as making the game lag during play(as it is loading/”using” the files even when they aren’t on screen or anything close to being used.)

And we have, through lots of testing with lots of people, found that Sims3Packs do not usually have this effect (and if/when they do, it’s likely an outside problem). Sims3Packs, when installed, are all clumped into ONE file- ddcache, which is somewhere I don’t know where. But that one file contains all Sims3Pack stuff that has been installed. Therefore, the game only loads it, and the game doesn’t try to load it during play- both load time problems and gameplay lag problems cease tp exist when there are no .package files and only installed Sims3Packs (assuming the player doesn’t have lag to begin with).

So what is needed is either a way to further fiddle with the game’s infrastructure to make it load the .package content properly(I wouldn’t recommend it, as one expansion managed to destroy the work already done here), or a way to mass convert drag-and-drop .package files into sims3pack files for installation.

This would undoubtedly fix any and all CC-based lag and long loading problems.

We’re forcing the game to do something that, from base game to expansion, it no longer understands how to manage. Who is to say it won’t happen again with the next expansion? We can’t keep using a file type that will require a revamp of the system to use each time. The safest solution is to only use Sims3Packs, it seems.

For more details, you should read the following two threads that are currently discussing this issue (they are the only ones I went through so far but there could be more sites):

MTS
TSR

Jeez, what a day!  I get so excited to pick up my copy of WA expecting to spend a good amount of playing so that I can get my review up and ready and even answer questions from any of you, and now this happens.  So I’m on my new laptop that I purchased at BestBuy two weeks ago, which has Windows 7 and good specs, but the Sims 3 doesn’t run quite as fast on it and the settings are almost maxed, not as maxed as in my desktop (though still faster than after installing the latest patch on my desktop).  It must be the graphics card in this case because the other specs exceed the minimum requirements, but laptop graphics cards cannot be replaced.  I’ll still try to play WA on here and see if it’s tolerable.  If so, I may not do my review right away but I can still answer questions.  And as I said in a comment a few minutes ago: I’d be careful with buying WA for the time being because that patch is bad news.  EA truly has been slacking off with getting their patches function correctly.  I don’t get it.  Whatever happened to “Let There Be Sims?”  I wish another and more respected company took the series over.  I have owned every pack, too, so it’s not like they’re not getting my money.  *sigh* 

/rant

This does not count as my review, so I will still post a review in the near future; just not sure when.  This is more of a rant and a slight warning in case this happens to anyone else.  I’m off to take care of my PC, so wish me luck (I’m going to need it)!  I’ll update if and when there are no issues.

CHINA

General Store (15 items including three different qualities of dried food, tents, cameras, shower in a can, fireworks, bikes, etc.)
Bookstore (26 new books, including martial arts, fishing, and a new Jimmy Sprockett novel)
Foods (stir-fry and egg rolls)
Special Merchant (8 items, including keys)
Exclusive collectibles (1 beetle, 3 butterflies, 4 gems, 4 metals, 7 meteorites)

FRANCE

General Store (10 items including three different qualities of dried food, tents, cameras, shower in a can, incense, etc.)
Bookstore (23 new books, including nectar-making, fishing, and a new Jimmy Sprockett novel)
Foods (cheese plate, bouillabaisse, crepes, frog legs)
Special Merchant (10 items, including keys)
Exclusive collectibles (3 beetles, 5 butterflies, 5 gems, 4 metals, 7 meteorites)

EGYPT

General Store (14 items including three different qualities of dried food, tents, cameras, shower in a can, snake charming basket, mummified teddy bear, scooter, etc.)
Bookstore (22 new books, including photography, fishing, and a new Jimmy Sprockett novel)
Foods (shawarma and falafel)
Special Merchant (8 items, including keys)
Exclusive collectibles (3 beetles, 3 butterflies, 5 gems, 4 metals, 7 meteorites)

*Exclusive Jimmy Sprockett Novels:

Jimmy Sprockett and the Cave of the Dragon (China)
Jimmy Sprockett and the Chalice of Nectar (France)
Jimmy Sprockett and the Mummy’s Curse (Egypt)

(So you know there will be a new Jimmy Sprockett novel in each EP.  It seems as if that is the most popular novel in Sims world.)