I was in my Homesteader's challenge town setting up the two lots I need from the start of live play and testing new installs while I was in that game session.

We had a few shake-ups in Pleasantview. It all started with Daniel Pleasant's death due to old age. I thought he got there fairly quick, but maybe he didn't grow up well. He had been having a good ongoing affair with Nina Caliente at the time, and he died in platinum. Nina even stayed over for at least two days before his death and antagonized Angela a lot. So Nina was pretty shaken up when he died. Looking for comfort, of course she called up Don--and she also thought he should get to know his son better now that he had grown up some. Their date was going pretty well, and suddenly Nina rolled the want to marry Don. So she asked him to leave Cassandra, and he agreed. They quickly eloped before they could get cold feet, and now Don is trying to get closer to Rhett.

In the Goth household, Cassandra paid out the divorce settlement and otherwise seemed pretty OK with this turn of events. Her marriage had not been good for a long time, and she has the children to occupy her. She invited Alexander over for a visit, and he brought Lucy Burb with him. They proceeded to autonomously woohoo in the hot tub. (They were good friends and used to date in high school, but he is now married to Dina and Lucy is engaged to Beau.)

So I went over to Lucy's and Beau's to see how this was going down. Lucy has a daughter from a previous relationship and a baby with Beau. While Beau was at work, Alexander showed up uninvited to continue the affair. They fell asleep, and Beau caught them in bed together. He was very unhappy and slept on the sofa.

Then over to Alexander's. Recently, the Sim City Council had begun deporting all alien-skinned hybrids to Area 51 so they wouldn't intermarry with the human populace. Dina has alien genes and strong ties to the Area 51 community, and her daughter with Mortimer (Alexander does not know but he suspects) has alien skin. So Dina decided to leave Alexander and take her daughter to join her people. Immediately, Alexander rolled the want to marry Lucy. He didn't have to even invite her over--she showed up, he asked her to leave Beau and proposed, and Lucy moved in with her elder daughter. Beau retained custody of their younger son.

Also, Darren is widowed again. His wife, Ivy, died of food poisoning, still angry at him. Their son is still quite young, so I hope he won't be orphaned.

It's sooooooooooo slow!
I think I said before how my old windmill popped and my brother put my hard disks into this... sloth of a PC. Didn't I even ask on here before what specs I need for a new machine? I dimly remember.

Not a lot. So I liked simsample's idea of taking donated goods to sell in a charity shop. I built a shop but changed my mind from community to residential, to make it a home business. On doing so, the telephone and commercial trashcan were still there. I deleted them but the residential mailbox and trashcan did not appear. Then began the hunt for a buyable mailbox, which I'm sure I had but couldn't find. Downloaded another. Made my Sim to move into the shop but she didn't have enough Simoleons so I moved her into a cheaper lot. However, I had forgotten that this cheaper lot was partially furnished and I wanted it to stay that way. Then began the hunt for the stay things shrub which I was also sure I had. After much searching, etc, I found I had only placed it in my medieval downloads folder. I put a copy into my normal folder and yay, I could finally move my Sim into her shop! But such a slow, frustrating start!

My first born-in-game Sims have graduated college and are starting their own lives now. They are Bobby Broke, twins Jane and Juliet Burb, and Atticus Goth, the heir apparent of the Goth fortune. The Ottomas twins also graduated, but fortunately, no one wanted to marry them.

Bobby and Jane were high school sweethearts. Both are Family, and they wanted to get married right away, so they did in a ceremony at the Broke trailer. They don't have any family money so they had to take out a hefty mortgage to buy their own house. Jane immediately got pregnant, and they had Baldwin. Their lives are pretty quiet and nice so far. They like to play chess together.

Atticus and Juliet were also high school sweethearts. He wanted to get engaged but never rolled a want to get married, so she sort of had to nudge him in the right direction. The wedding was at the Goth mansion, where the cut scene bugged out so that it looked like Atticus was marrying an invisible person and then he contorted his arms around his back to kiss the air, but they were married. They took Mortimer's bedroom. The house is very crowded with Cassandra and Atticus's younger brother and sister, but Juliet is Popularity, so she likes all the people around and wants to be friends with the whole family. She also got pregnant right away. Youngest brother Magnus was set to age up, so his teen sister threw him a birthday party and filled the house up with teen girls plus Don. Since Magnus grew up to be Pleasure, that was a very nice birthday gift for him. At the end of the party, Juliet gave birth, and all the girls crowded into the bedroom with her to ooh and aah over the baby, Jude. I believe it was a good time.

Nothing much else of note has happened except that Nina Caliente took Beau Broke out on a date and seduced the poor boy just for fun. I guess that was nice for him. He's been pretty lonely since he and Lucy broke up.

Gavin Loner (aka Newson - Ajay and Mort/Nervous adopted them) has been struggling to find a partner since he started at university. None of the female dormies interested him at all, so as he likes fit sims I sent him to the gym to see if he could find anyone. One of the guys, Vincent, walked past and wolf whistled him, so I figured this was a sign that Gavin was trying the wrong gender and he must be bi. They had a chat and a flirt and they've got two bolts - yay! So after class Gavin invited Vincent on a date downtown.

They arrived at a nice restaurant and all seemed to be going well when Brian Grunt (aka Buck) showed up. Apparently Vincent once dated Brian and as soon as he arrived all Vincent's thoughts turned to him: "Talk to Brian", "Play with Brian", "Fall in love with Brian". Then Vincent spotted the card table and promptly settled down there and refused to move. So Gavin ended the date and headed home.

The next morning I thought I'd try "scope room" in the middle of the busy cafeteria, and one of the male dormies was highlighted as "William is HOT". So I sent Gavin to chat and flirt with him - but apparently "HOT" is only one bolt. So it seems Gavin will have to go on looking.

Quite a lot going on at the Goth house today, but first some sad news. Darren Dreamer passed of old age. If I am aware of the meter, I always like to see what they choose to do on their last day. Darren finally attained his goal of maximizing the creativity skill via painting. Then he called Cassandra over and they woohooed for the first and last time. It was a good last day for him. His son, Dante, was only 14 when he died, so he had to move in with his half-brother, Dirk. He barely knows Dirk or his family, but he wants to make friends with them and vice versa, so that's a good sign. Also, the sale of Darren's house paid off Dirk's mortgage and will put all of the kids through college.

Speaking of college, several more teens have gone. They are: Arabella Broke, daughter/only child of Dustin and Angela; Charlotte Goth, Cassandra and Don's middle child; Daisy Dreamer, Dirk and Lilith's oldest child; and Lyra Burb, Lucy's illegitimate daughter conceived in college. The sad thing about Lyra is that she always felt like an outsider in the household when her mother married Alexander, and he doesn't intend to convey any of the Goth fortune to her, so she will have to make her own way in life.

So finally to play the Goths. Atticus had gotten his wife, Juliet, pregnant again in the hot tub, and she was due. She started giving birth late in the evening, and it was twins! (They are Jacy and Jessamyn.) During the birth, Cassandra woke up and aged up badly to elder because she wanted to be married and have another baby. Even though she has gotten three grandchildren! And I'm still trying to deal with the new babies when I see a bright light in the backyard. Cassandra's teen son, Magnus, was back there in the hot tub, and suddenly he was dead! I have no idea what killed him, but it wasn't raining, so I have to assume it was a ghost. Poor Magnus, we barely knew you.

I’m setting up a hood to play test something I want to record on twitch. Today, I loaded up my premade townies and townified them. Tomorrow I’m going to see if I can assign townies NPC roles so the game won’t generate ransoms. I hope I can figure it out.

I know this isn’t gameplay, but it is what’s happening in my game right now. If there’s a board where people talk about daily updates to creating please let me know!

To distract myself from TT's imminent deaths, I created a beginning PV (not the one featured here) using the original families from the series, and using someone else's houses (surprisingly well made and playable.). It's kind of a repeat of one I had been doing, but I threw that one out as being hopelessly muddled.

I might just get a playing beginning PV yet. It's only been 4 tries so far...

Cassandra threw a birthday party for her 2nd child, Isabella, who grew into a family teen. The party was a success, even though Don crushed it and went straight for baby Frida, his and Cassandra's 4th and last child. Darren stayed after the party and when the kids were asleep, Cassandra proposed to him on the rooftop and they got married on the spot. So now, I have a household with six sims...

Dina gave birth to Liliana, her first and last child with Rodney Jung. She also has twins Nighat and Nestor from Mortimer. Mary-Sue died and I decided to move Angela's woohoo with Alexander to the next rotation. Right now, she's filling up her hunger by drinking at the bar and sleeping in her mother's bed.

Dustin's cheerleader wife, Lucy, gave birth to Maggie. They've moved out in a bigger house with 2 bedrooms and I reaaally hope they won't want other babies in the future. Dirk and Lilith go to work, build skills, party, and repeat. On one hand I want them to have a baby but on the other I really don't; I have more than enough family sims, thank you very much.

Boohoo. Forget my last few updates. I had a bad bug and had to restore a backup of my neighborhood. I lost about a week's worth of play, so Darren is still alive and so is Magnus. I really need to back up more often. Let this be a lesson to you kids.

The only silver lining is that I'm not sure what caused the bug, so maybe the backup was old enough that it was before whatever I did to cause it. It seemed to happen when I tried to move a Sim out using Find My Own Place.

My hood is acting quirky, so I'll share some fun things from a few Sims.

So apparently Cassandra became the "Big Woman in Campus" as a working adult (unfortunately no photo, removed it in SimPE a while back). General Buzz Grunt somehow learnt to teleport from the Ninja despite never going on vacation. Jason Greenman wants every single teenager in the Uberhood to get a scholarship. Phoebe Adams the Infallibly Good Witch had her First Kiss and First Woohoo with 2 different Sims and magically earned the "Had an Affair" memory despite never being married or going steady. Dustin Broke, Goneril Capp & Rick Contrary, probably a few more, have rolled the want to inherit money from their parents, how lovely! I mean.. Goneril I can understand but Dustin? Poor kid doesn't understand his surname. And as for Rick? Honey, I know you don't like your parents, but they still have a way to go before they're even considered elderly..

I think there is something going on in your neighborhood, because for everyone to suddenly get 'inherit money from'-kind of like a murderous cult. Especially since the parents aren't even close to dying from old age..I'd be careful around those pixels, and for god's sake, don't give them weapons!

Lmao how much simolends can Dustin possibly inherit? 500? I mean CC is so cheap that he may furnish a whole new house.

If the player has the vanilla version of the game (without the 'non-elders insurance' hack) he can receive $10,000 from his mother dying at the proper time. If the player does have the hack, if she dies early, he can get the same amount far, far earlier.

So that might give him incentive if they don't get along very well, or he gets overly greedy. However, I've had one of her kids (the one she had when her husband died,) roll the same want, but never acted on it, because her death would have triggered an emotional breakdown. You can lock the want to fulfill later, because it is a fortune want, and not all pixels are very high-minded about not knocking off their parents.

I think it's a fair amount of money to inherit in the game. I mean I'd be happy to inherit that kind of money, wouldn't you?

See I always go the opposite way, I have the no inheritance after elder dies mod I just find it ridiculous the way the money appears (ping!) from nowhere. However I've never seen those wants - maybe the mod nerfs the wants as well.

What I do instead is if a sim dies and is the last on their lot, I note the value of their lot and cash on hand and portion it out among their relatives. I also tend to find someone they know to take on their pets unless nobody can, then they do unfortunately end up in the adoption centre If they have no living relatives, the money would go to their friends. This can be tricky if they die unexpectedly and I didn't make a note of who their best friends are. Sometimes I just pretend they donated it to charity instead, or maybe create a new community lot using their name as a memorial, something related to their interests/hobbies/life in general.

In my game:

Toddlers have acquired a whole new world of skilling possibilities as I went and downloaded every toddler skilling item I could find (and liked!) and changed the skill gains to something that makes sense to me and gives a bit more of a range than just Logic/Creativity endlessly. I am starting to get the first generation of toddlers in my challenge hood, so it's good to have something they can play with.

@Fyren5 very interesting, I've never seen the inherit money want before!

Beau is in college right now and I was prepared to be completely bored by him, but he rolled a want for his childhood friend Marsha Bruenig to join him in college and voila, they have two bolts. I've already decided on their daughter's name lol. In my last Pleasantview he was married to Allegra Gorey and while they had three bolts, all romantic interactions were initiated by Allegra, which I found quite odd for 3 bolters. Anyway, here's hoping it'll be different with Marsha.

Brandi also moved out to an actual house with her son, Skip Jr., and her much younger husband Drake Steele (ex dormie). They met online.

@Fyren5 -That is much like what happened to me once when playing Pleasantview just after installing the base game on my old computer.That town shipped out already corrupted in the base game and it sounds like what's happening in your game.I've had three saves in TS3 get corrupted from sims being imporperly deleted when social workers took children away in those saves.
@FranH -I've also got a Pleasantview Epic Challange which is starting out with ancestors of the Pleasantview families as I suspect they might've been in the 17th century.Im playing it using an empty terrain template version and recreating the couples that settle in as colonial settlers there.I would start with settling the town using a template and recreating ancestors of the modern Pleasantview families with them being slowly moved in one couple at a time like in mine.I used to get hopelessly muddles like you when I just filled towns up and played them as already filled.

Y'all, Magnus Goth died on me again. He was even younger this time, since I had to go so far in my backup, just turned a teen. I had only just opened the Goth house to play it after restoring the backup and he fell down dead in the front hallway. I didn't get a popup but I think it was food poisoning because I thought I saw him eating out of a trashcan as a walk-by when I was playing someone else's house. I guess some pixels are destined to die young.

Working on adding a toddler hair to an existing hair, and going into Bodyshop the only hair that shows up properly is the toddler hair (and by "properly" I mean there's a piece missing, but other than that ). I mean...

And of course, Bodyshop threw a "NOPE!"
I knew there would be issues, but come on!
Alright, I'll fix those 3DIRs if that's what you want... *sigh*

(No ingame fun so far today, but here's to hoping if I can get Bodyshop to work with me ).

Mortimer Goth frowned, tapping his pen irritably on his desk as he read the PI's report. The man calling himself Jhonattan Goth had once lived in Pleasantview as Jhonattan Crumplebottom - Mortimer vaguely remembered him now: a bit of an odd kid, and allegedly alien-born with regular skin. He had left for college and never returned.

According to the report, however, Jhonattan was not alien-born but was the son of Mortimer's grandfather, Victor Goth. The Sure-Footed Llama Insurance Company had confirmed it, and the Llama wasn't called "Sure-Footed" for nothing; indeed, it was rumoured that their information came from the Reaper himself.

Mortimer might have been willing to accept his father's long-lost half-brother as a Goth, despite his irregular birth, had Jhonattan been of good character. Alas, however, the PI reported that Jhonattan had followed Miss Vera Wentworth home from work one evening, and had proceeded to hang around the lot, insulting Mrs Wentworth and attempting to pick a fight with her teenage son, Delaney. The Goths had a long-standing policy of noblesse oblige; insulting a widow and abusing a boy most certainly did not meet with Goth standards of behaviour. Mortimer had no choice but to disown him.

Rather than call his lawyer and begin a long and no doubt expensive legal suit, Mortimer decided to see if Caesar Rafferty would earn his keep as mayor. Caesar heard him out, and quite agreed with him: illegitimate children should not be permitted to use their father's name unless they had been formally legimitized by public proclamation. (After all, Caesar didn't want Cola Penoski, or the fortune-hunting Wentworth twins, to start trying to cash in on the Rafferty name!).

A formal bylaw was proclaimed, and Jhonattan Goth was thereupon required to change his name back to Crumplebottom immediately.

What's been going on in my game lately is a lot of marriage and procreation. I think I mentioned JG Vandermorgan wanting not to be the last of his line? Now he isn't - he and Breanna had a son, KB Vandermorgan, and moved out to a larger (Custom Content) house on the outskirts of Downtown, as they intend to add at least a few more children. (It's customary for Vandermorgan men to be known only by their initials.)

Buddy Grant married his childhood sweetheart, Jill Smith, as soon as both graduated from La Fiesta Tech, and set up housekeeping in a cottage on the north coast of Bluewater Village. To date they have a daughter, Jennifer Smith-Grant, named for her grandmother, and her only trace of alien heritage is slightly pointed ears.

Will Marshall, having resigned his guardianship of the Grant boys now that both of them were of age, moved next door with his wife Katelyn and started raising his own family. To date they have three boys, Matt (who inherited recessive red hair from Will's side of the family), and fraternal twins Dan (blond like Mommy) and Dick (brown hair like Daddy). [Matt is named for Marshal Matt Dillon of "Gunsmoke", Dan for Marshal Dan Troop of "Lawman", and Dick for the second son of William THE Marshal (Richard).]

Stella Terrano, rogue Birth Queen, married Jamyl Moon, after learning that Jamyl had been abducted and modified by her people as a teen (he had had to give the baby up for adoption because he was too young to be a single parent). This meant that he could, and was willing to, double as male parent and surrogate-mother, so despite a lot of coarse "Mr. Seahorse" jokes, he gave birth to their son, Amir Moon, who has just attained Childhood. Jamyl is willing to go through it all again, but Stella thinks maybe they should put in some more time on this one first.

KB and Amir have met the youngest Smith children (Justin, Jeremy and Julia), and they seem to be getting along just fine.

Chloe Curious has just invited Abhijeet Cho to move into the "Singles" household without (yet) benefit of matrimony. They are both Romance Sims, so fidelity may be a problem - especially with Abhijeet and sister Lola making eyes at each other behind Chloe's back.

Erin Beaker moved out on her own, intending to track down Alvin Lucas (the Infallibly Good Warlock) and ask him to teach her to be a Good Witch. They have met at the Smith house, and made a good start at making friends with each other.

I don't know why everyone is so puzzled as to why insurance comes from a pixel's death-in real life, it happens that way, too, for a lot of people-if the person who died had life insurance, it will pay out to immediate family almost immediately, and I'm sure some of you have had the displeasure to receive a check from it.

Although I remember one story in RL I read that someone in a bank had marveled over a very large check to be deposited, and remarked on it. The person depositing it shut them down by saying, "I'd rather have my husband than this check."

I found out that I had accidentally duplicated a few bin families. Easy explanation: aliens did it. So, I plopped them into empty lots, wiped their skills, relationships, ties, and memories, randomized their personalities and true hobbies, and gave them new names (with their doppelganger's first names as their last names). For easy identification, I also changed them into aliens and plantsims with supernatural painting. I gave them all grow up aspiration, rerolled LTW to wipe it, quit any jobs, and aged them down into toddlers. In SimPE again, I changed their genetic and expressed dominant eye color into alien. Finally, I went back into their lots, and turned them all into townies, so that I never have to see them again for a long time, but I know that they exist and it's easy to summon them if I want.

Abhijeet Cho was Chloe's first woohoo in my game, and she's always been fond of him - though never interested in marriage. They have a daughter Diana, who has red hair, her father's skin, and alien eyes.