A Medieval Legacy?

Submitted by maruutsu on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 16:18.

So, I've been wanting to do both the Kingdom and the Legacy Challenges for a while, but my own laziness has stopped me. I have actually redone the families about five times, and I have a pretty good idea of how I'd like the story to develop... But, two challenges at once? Two stories at the same time? When I've never finished neither of those things in my life?

And then it ocurred to me, what if I did a Medieval Legacy? I could easily use the storylines and characters I had planned for the Kingdom Challenge (legacy is TEN freakin' generations, after all), while saving time and space.

Anyway, what I wanted to ask is, do you think it's a good idea? Would you say it would be worth a read, or is it just too small scale/silly/whatever to be medieval (I plan for my founder to be king)?

General Discussion

I think it's a good idea.

Submitted by Van on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 17:18.

I think it's a good idea. From my experience, stories based on RKCs eventually kind of come to focus on just the nobles anyway, because that's where all the action generally is, and the peasants kind of just fade into the background, so you might as well just have the royal family and do a medieval-themed legacy. It would give a lot more focus to the story right off the bat.

The one thing I would suggest for a medieval legacy, however, is that you find a nice-looking set of default replacement Townies and NPCs, because you'll probably need extras and servants, as well as people to marry into your legacy family. But if you want my advice, maybe don't do the whole "assigning Townies a class by hair color" thing--it helps some people keep organized, but it's nice to have some variety in your gene pool, since your royal legacy family will probably only be marrying nobles.

And yeah, you can use hacks like InSim and probably Sim Blender (though I'm not sure about this second one because I don't have the required EPs and have therefore never used it) to dress the Townies and NPCs accordingly".

Good luck with the dual challenge. Post a link when you start the story--I can't wait to read it

I don't really remember the

Submitted by Lothere on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 17:50.

I don't really remember the rules of the RKC, and I don't think I ever quite new them for the Legacies... but from my uninformed perspective, I say WHY NOT?? It seems like the obvious solution to your problem.

Speaking from personal experience with my own brand of RKC-storytelling... I would say, don't worry about the founder being a "King", because even an RKC with 8 or 10 families is still pretty small-scale and unrealistic in terms of kingdom size. If the Kings and Queens are interacting with peasants, there's something wrong. (Look at the earliest chapters of Lothere, where the lowliest people could be seen in the King's castle, and vice versa. )

But more seriously, with what I know now, I don't think an RKC is a good starting point for a story anyway, if the storytelling is seriously what you're after. First of all, there are too many families, making it hard to find a MAIN character. *cough* Second -- and partly due to the first problem -- the years pass, and you never get to know any of the the characters very well. Supposing I had done 10 generations, and supposing I round up to 4 years of KoL... that is still less than five months spent per generation. If you assume that a person lives on average through two or three generations... Alred, Sigefrith, Egelric, and all my founders would have been dead by January of 2007. And what's more, NOBODY WOULD HAVE CARED because we never would have known them well enough to get attached.

I think a medieval-themed Legacy is an awesome idea. To anyone starting a Sims-related story (whether or not actual gameplay is involved) I would advise against a RKC and more towards a medieval Legacy. Focus on one character / family. Alternatively, do what I do and write a story about lots of people, but (effectively) a single generation or two. Otherwise it tends to read like the history blurb I just wrote.... this year so-and-so had a baby, this year so-and-so died.

Of course if you're in it for the gameplay then HAVE AT IT! Making Sims get married and have babies is fun, but then you get bored and want to move on to the next generation.

I was actually wondering how

Submitted by maruutsu on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 18:11.

I was actually wondering how I was going to manage to dress up all the townies and NPCs. I have every single hack known to man (or sim?), except for InSim. Weird I know. I guess I'll have to download it now.

Lol, I don't know the rules either, but I don't intend to follow them in any case. I'm not in it for the points or whatever. It's all about the story and the characters, so I'm not planning on moving particularly fast. But I guess that I'll have to at the beginning, and then slow than the pace and introduce more characters as the King's (yes, he'll be King ; after all it always comes down to the nobles, like Van said) kids need marriage partners and whatnot.

So I guess in the end it'll be like a KC only it started as a legacy? I don't know. I guess I'll see.

I couldn't last three

Submitted by Lothere on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 19:45.

I couldn't last three minutes without InSim.

I don't remember how Legacies work, but it's not like desert island situation, is it? You just take a guy... someone who never expected to be king, say... and plunk him down in the middle of the kingdom and say "It's all yours... now find a wife and start a dynasty." Right? That could be fun.

But if you're in it for the story, then do whatever the heck you like. Sometimes the rules make it fun (especially when you're playing it like a game) and sometimes the rules just get in the way. I don't even remember the rules, which is good proof of that.

...So is it true that sims

Submitted by Van on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 20:18.

...So is it true that sims can actually use a toilet? As in... use it? Woah! Here I was, thinking those were just for decoration! To think, all this time, I've just been using the Motives Adjuster to keep them from wetting themselves!

Well, not quite that bad. But when I think back on how I used to play the game before I got InSim, I can't remember how to do it. Why spend hours making a sim chat up another sim and have them getting rejected for various flirt reactions on their way to woohoo/marriage/whatever when you can just spawn the pink heart balloon and make them love each other instantly? It used to be fun for me, but now that my laziness has found a way... even on the off chance I actually play once in a while, I still use InSim. It's like caffeine--you never know you need it until you're thoroughly addicted, and then you wonder how on earth you ever got anything done!

Yeah, that's a legacy in a nutshell. Rules can be found here, in case you're curious: http://www.legacychallenge.com/lcnewrules.html

Funnily enough, I still remember most of the RKC rules (even though I gave up on them and threw them away the minute the last founder couple came out of CAS). I still get emails from the challenge Yahoo group too, which are sometimes fun to read--I'm glad people have fun actually playing, even though I myself haven't actually played the challenge.

If you have the more recent EPs, maruutsu, the last version of InSim still hosted online since the founders bailed might not be recent enough for your game. However, I've heard that this hack will do everything InSim does except for kill off your sims, which is fine because there are other ways of doing that, and I've found I like repurposing them better anyway, as it saves file space. Here's the link:

http://www.simbology.com/smf/index.php/topic,20.0.html

Yeah, I guess it will eventually end up like an RKC, only one that focuses mostly on the royal family. Actually... it will probably branch out further, if you chose to make the second son a duke, the third son an earl, etc. So yeah, it sounds like, in theory, it would turn out like an RKC.

But like Lothere said--if it's a story, it can be anything

Hey now thanks Van! I just

Submitted by Lothere on Sat, 08/29/2009 - 05:51.

Hey now thanks Van! I just downloaded that SimBlender for -- get this -- the "Copy first name to last" option. Whenever I repurpose Sims I have to remember to open SimPE later to change their last name too, and my forgetfulness is of the same superhero-cape-wearing, way-finding caliber of your laziness. Then I have creepy stuff going on in my neighborhood, like Edina Wodehead and Derbail Selle. And it's a single item, too? My lots always look like my buy catalog exploded on them, with all the bits of the InSiminator scattered around.

Also, I have all the EPs up to Apartment Life (except Free Time) and InSim is working fine for me... at least the parts of it I use, which are legion.

I am going to resist looking at the Legacy rules. Every time I do that, I get a hankering to actually play the game. I have never actually sent a Sim to University, never had a business with OFB, never went on vacation with Bon Voyage, never had a multi-family residence with AL... *sigh* But you're right, I think the need to make Sims pee would drive me bonkers.

You're welcome I didn't

Submitted by Van on Sat, 08/29/2009 - 10:37.

You're welcome

I didn't even notice that function, but I suppose that's okay because I don't have any EPs anyway and I think the blender requires at least Night Life. I've been using the "Copy last name" hack, which I think I got at the graveyard. It's basically a portrait that will allow you to copy the last name of a sim from any other sim on the lot, but of course that's not always useful if I want an entirely new last name (I've taken to repurposing sims to save file space, since I have four stories now--I can't do plastic surgery without uni, sadly, but I'm finding just skins and eyes can make a huge difference).

Really? The Legacy rules are a huge turnoff for me in regards to actually playing the game--I see the words "ten generations" and my head begins to spin (I think the most generations I ever played a sim family for was three). But that's just me

I did have InSim a few years

Submitted by maruutsu on Sat, 08/29/2009 - 14:18.

I did have InSim a few years ago, but ironically that was when I actually played the game instead of just creating characters, downloading CC, and coming up with stories that I never finish or publish

I have only Pets installed, Van. I've already downloaded InSim and used it to change the age of a couple of sims. Can I uninstall it and replace it for SimBlender, or will it cause problems?

Also, I accidentally gave my founder a skintone that I haven't assigned a value to yet. Should I worry?

One more (sorry I'm so annoying haha): is there a hack to make sims do certain expressions or actions at your command? I know there are Pose boxes or whatever, but there's a million of them and they only seem to generate specific modeling-like poses, which is not what I want at all.

What do you mean by repurposing a sim, Van?

I must be in a curious mood today.

Heheh... I can't actually

Submitted by Van on Sat, 08/29/2009 - 14:48.

Heheh... I can't actually use SimBlender, but I don't see why that would be a problem. I've never heard of anyone having problems with having both hacks at once.

Eh. I wouldn't worry about skintone. Skintone genetics are pretty strange anyway if you're after realism, and from my experience, the recessives pop up quite a bit with all the genes. If you have a heterozygous sim, which the children would be, his/her kids may not like anything like them. For example, I have this one black-haired male sim with a recessive blond gene. He has five kids with three different female sims. Only one of the kids has black hair, and that's because his mother was homozygous for the black hair gene, and I actually CAS'd this one because he was one of my founding nobles (I gave him his father's recessive blond gene in Sim PE to make his kids more interesting). The rest of the kids--who were born in-game--all have blond hair. I'd suspect first-born syndrome if their facial features weren't all different.

Hmmm... there's the Hula and More hack, which allows you to click on a sim and they'll do a few certain reactions, some of which are custom. I'm not sure if that's still around though--I can't seem to find it. If you want, I could search through my downloads folder and e-mail it to you or something, but that might take some time because I'm moving on Monday and don't know when I'll have internet again. There's also the reaction tester that can be unlocked using the cheat "boolprop testingcheatsenabled true" (but make sure to set it to "boolprop testingcheatsenabled false" after you're done using the cheat). This looks like a posebox, but will actually give animations from the game, such as crying or laughing at something, etc.

By repurposing a sim, I mean drastically altering the appearance of a deceased character's sim in order to pass off the same sim as a new character. It helps if you have University and can therefore actually do plastic surgery and tinker with facial features, but I'm finding changing skin, eyes, stretch (if you choose to play with it), and hair color is sufficient if done correctly. I've only done about three of these so far, and I think they turned out okay considering I don't have Uni. Here are the links with some before and after photos, in case you're interested:

http://dinuriel.livejournal.com/7237.html
http://dinuriel.livejournal.com/9824.html
http://dinuriel.livejournal.com/13314.html

Curiosity is never a bad thing! I'll keep searching for that Hula and More hack--I'll post the link here if I find it.

Okay, I found it:

Submitted by Van on Sat, 08/29/2009 - 14:54.

Okay, I found it: http://www.insimenator.org/showthread.php?t=9544

Enjoy!

Thanks! I also found

Submitted by maruutsu on Sat, 08/29/2009 - 15:09.

Thanks! I also found this: http://community.livejournal.com/simhaven/45119.html
But for now I'm sticking to the Hula Dance thing. *resists urge to download*

Wow, those repurposed sims look great! Particularly the last one, he doesn't look like his previous incarnation at all. It's definitely a great idea.

Yeah, I've noticed sim genetics can be weird like that. But seriously, 4 blonde kids? Maxis must have been thinking about diversity and all, but geez.

I heartily recommend the

Submitted by Lothere on Sat, 08/29/2009 - 16:40.

I heartily recommend the face overlays. In fact, I was just sitting down to recommend it when I saw you had already found it.

My most-frequently-used expression and animations mods are all by decorgal. That includes the face overlay mod you found -- I use that a lot when I want to use arm/body gestures from a certain animation but the facial expression is all wrong for the mood of the scene.

I use her Talk Sitting and Talk Standing mods a ton. Unfortunately if you don't have many EP's then most of the animations in those two won't work for you.

I do use Hula & More for things like dancing, panicking, or other non-conversational animations. I also use the reaction tester on occasion since it has overlay capabilities. For example, making a Sim do Cry...Mild as an overlay and then have her make out with a guy... nice pictures of crying/cuddling that way.

I have a ton of pose boxes, but I hardly ever use most of them. The only one I feel really comfortable with using is (big surprise) decorgal's modeling pose & overlay mod -- those poses are mostly quite nice and natural-looking. But I find that many of the other pose boxes poses are very stiff and wooden-looking. Personally (being a more story-oriented than picture-oriented person) I find the explosion of pose box popularity has not been a good thing for Sims storytelling. Not only does it make the Sims look more like marionettes than people, it seems like sometimes the posing aspect leaks into the writer's consciousness to the point that the story begins to read like a sequence of descriptions of poses. I'm really afraid that will happen to me if I use too many of those. Also, I am damned lazy in addition to forgetful, and pose boxes are annoying because you take one picture and then have to go out and unpose the Sim again so you can keep moving forward. I'll take gawky animations any day.

Wait, what was the question???

Oh, as for the skins, if you're worried about genetics, you can change the genetic of the skintone later by editing the skin package itself with SimPE. All Sims currently using the skin will be affected... meaning that if they have babies afterwards then the correct genetic inheritance rules will apply. (Obviously if they had kids before you edited the skin then the kid's skintone won't magically change.)

The same is true for eyes. Hair is different, as you may know.... as Van will surely agree, make sure you create your Sims in CAS with a binned hair color, and if you want them to have a custom hair, give them the hair with the mirror once you're in game. Otherwise the only way you can get their hair genes working correctly is to change their hair color in their package file with SimPE.

I know you don't have Seasons and therefore don't have the body hair overlay mod, but if you or someone else reading this did, it has the same problem. If you create a Sim in CAS with a custom hair, the body hair overlay won't work for them unless you change their hair color with SimPE.

Yay! downloads it

Submitted by maruutsu on Sat, 08/29/2009 - 23:02.

Yay! *downloads it* Unfortunately I can only download the Custom Modeling Poses Overlay Hack V2

I actually want to install other expansion packs, but I'm not sure if my poor laptop could handle it. It works great with Pets and all the CC I got, but...

It's true about the poseboxes. I hate it when authors abuse them, it just feels like reading a story with pictures of plastic dolls posing for the scenes or something. I don't care much about the pictures, but I do want to look at something that doesn't freak me out.

Yeah, I figured about the hair. I read it in one of Van's comments, as a matter of fact.

You guys, it's done! The

Submitted by maruutsu on Mon, 08/31/2009 - 12:15.

You guys, it's done! The prologue is over here: http://medieval-legacy.livejournal.com/843.html. I can hardly believe I made it in one piece, it was so exhausting.

Thanks for all your help!

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