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A few things to add ! The Computer comes in 2 versions, one that's basegame to pre-FreeTime, and one for FreeTime and up. ⚠️ You can't have both in your game! (I'm sorry for people using the Monique hack. I don't, so I have no idea how to make you guys a version of it.)

There's 2 versions of the Simtendo, a deco version and a functioning one. You can have both in game at the same time ! 🕹️ The one shown in the pictures above is the deco version. The functioning one looks identical, just without the controller wire.

I also added a few SNES cartridge recolors of games I had in my youth. Feel free to request some if you like 👾

The functioning Simtendo is cloned from the Minty Jinx console by Jacky93Sims because I was getting nowhere with the Maxis one 😭

You need at least one copy of LordCrump’s Shadow Files for the shadows to work in your game; I have included a copy in the zip, as always!

Items & Polycounts:

Boombox ——————————————————— 774 poly

Computer —————————————————— 754 poly

Old TV ———————————————————— 1198 poly

Simtendo —————————————————— 1229 poly

Simtendo - Deco ——————————————— 1315 poly

VHS Tapes —————————————————— 446 poly

Download : sfs ; mediafire

All items found under “Buy Mode → Collections → Retro Vibes” (included .collection file)

Q: what did you do?

A: I helped get GoS back online. @julessims did the actual hard work of upgrading the forum. @teaaddictyt played a role by facilitating communication and doing some PR (even if that wasn't received well by many a simmer) and ofc hugelunatic provided files, databases and the occasional bit of relevant information. I approached lunie and provided help with hosting, DNS and ensuring the files were safe and handling some communication. It was teamwork (and jules did most of it if you ask me).

Q: why didn't lunie communicate that it would be rehosted?

A: I'm not sure what lunie's exact motivation behind cancelling the hosting was and if I knew it wouldn't be mine to share, but I do know that @julessims and I upgrading and rehosting wasn't planned. It was a spontaneous action on our ends and so lunie couldn't have told you beforehand. I'm really glad that lunie decided to trust us with this and hope GoS will have many more years!

Q: why didn't you communicate any of this?

A: I thought my time would be better spent actually doing the work instead of playing communications department, fielding questions and countering people's wild speculations. I did think about making a post clarifying matters when it became clear people were making some pretty wildly incorrect statements, but I had other things to do. Better to focus on what matters than to get caught up in more miscommunications.

Q: GoS looks different now. Why?

A: the new look of GoS is a direct consequence of the upgrade. The old theme was not made to fit the new software and the conversion process does not convert themes. Seeing GoS in the default (white) theme felt so wrong, so we picked a good-looking dark theme and @julessims modified it to look more like classic GoS, with great success, I think. Still, it is and never will be truly identical. I don't think it's a bad thing.

Q: is the site in archive mode or can I comment?

The site is not in archive mode. It is a live forum. Posting works, registration works, if anything doesn't work, you should find a mod to message so either they or @julessims or I can try to troubleshoot and fix the issue.

In fact, you should comment! Forums are best when people leave comments and engage. Go express how much you like a piece of CC, contribute to the current theme (fittingly about renovating old things) or talk about something!

Q: why did it have to be upgraded? Couldn't it have just stayed now it was?

A: no. It really couldn't. GoS was running SMF 1.1.21 on PHP no higher than 5.3. The newest version is 8.5. PHP 5.3 had been obsolete since 2014. It would've been difficult to find a host that would be willing and able to host GoS and even if that could be found, it'd still leave it vulnerable to bugs and vulnerabilities resolved in newer versions of SMF and PHP. Credit to lunie's host for having continues to support it for this long, many wouldn't. Now that the forum has been upgraded and is running nicely on 8.3, it should be all good to go for many years to come.

Q: just a forum upgrade? So why did it go down?

A: make no mistake: going from something running on PHP 5.x to 8.x is no small leap and had to be done in steps. There were a lot of issues converting the database to the new format which resulted in all sorts of errors that needed manual database conversions. Upgrading a forum, particularly an old one with more than 600.000 posts is in fact not a piece of cake. There were also traces of a prior attempts to upgrade that complicated matters even more. @julessims made an excellent write-up of the technical bits if you're interested.

Q: who is running GoS now?

A: lunie is still forum admin and it will be up to her to decide what to do about the day to day running of the forum. Whether she'll be running it herself, with the help of others or elect someone else will be her choice in the end. As for hosting: that would be me.

Q: so does that mean we can stop archiving?

You could, but I would honestly suggest at least backing up your own favourite CC, regardless of where it's shared or hosted. Also, you can consider looking up an "auto archiving" extension for your browser that will automatically save pages to the wayback machine. The web archive has a page with resources

Q: *insult angry comment about hugelunatic*

A: you are 100% entitled to your anger and frustration. GoS is an important part of the Sims community and losing it, even for a little bit was a huge blow. It's understandable to be angry. Angry comments, however, were never gonna resolve the issue. Angry comments would not get GoS back nor would comments defending hugelunatic for that matter. What did help was working with hugelunatic. No files+database = no forum. Squabbling was not gonna get either back. Saying that, it's important to acknowledge that I was in a good position to do what needed to be done in regards to skills and connections which is not a privilege most people have. I get why people were angry and given that most were not privy to what was going on behind the scenes, it's no wonder everyone got as upset as they did. I also wouldn't have reacted well if I wasn't in direct communication with lunie and working on getting the site back.

Q: what's the plan now?

A: well, sims2artists still needs an update. I hope we can do that sometime soon. I'll also be keeping an eye out for any errors and aim to implement some extra security headers for the site. We also still need to fix some matters in regards to the domain and DNS. I also hope to have some more contact with the GoS mods so we can discuss hosting and what my responsibility and theirs is. Like, write down who is responsible for what and who can be contacted by my host should I pass away unexpectedly, for example. These things happen, so it's good to have backup plans and emergency contacts.

Q: did you have any freakouts tho?

A: certainly. First, when GoS and S2A went down. I was afraid the files and the S2A DB could be gone for good. I was also afraid that lunie wouldn't be willing to work with us and truthfully I also had the fear that if she got more agitated, we could risk losing the files and database. Fortunately this didn't happen, in fact: lunie gave us the resources and helped us out where necessary so we could get GoS back online. I'm very thankful for that.

I also got dragged by my emotions a bit when an unhelpful reddit post suggested that Delphy of MTS infamy might have something to do with hosting and when lunie mentioned something about an offer of hosting as is, no upgrade required. I may have freaked out and freaked out some other folks in the process (my apologies for that. You know who you are). There were many freakouts and I think it was good I didn't make any tumblr posts about this before we got GoS back. I stand by my decision it wouldn't have helped. Freaking out in private was bad enough.

Q: can you tell us what you actually did technically?

A: certainly! First, I set up hosting and new empty databases for GoS (and eventually: sims2artists). I made sure all the required aliases were in place so that when the DNS records for gardenofshadows.org.uk were switched over, it'd find the correct place on the webserver to go to. I also provided a subdomain on a domain of mine to test the forum live before it'd be moved back to the correct domain.

I also got access to the FTP for the original GoS hosting and was able to grab all the files and reupload what was necessary to the new server. While jules was in PHP hell I also cleaned up some stuff on Sims2artists. It's not gonna be anything you notice, but it's something.

I also did a number of things on the webserver, including changing directories. At some point I accidentally moved the forum to example.tld/gardenofshadows/gardenofshadows/gardenofshadows/index.php if you'd believe it. Finally I helped set the DNS records for the move. An SPF record went missing, but was quickly fixed. I also added some HTTP Headers to be served when visiting GoS and a lil something to hopefully keep AI bots from scraping and spamming HTTP requests. If you notice link previews not working: sorry, that'd be the X-Frame header.

Tldr: webserver and domain and DNS stuff; hosting infrastructure

Q: what about hosting costs?

A: right now they're so low we could call them non-existent. Should that change, I don't expect it to be above €100,- per calendar year. Probably closer to €50,-. Aka: it's not an issue. No need for ads. Should fundraising ever be needed, I will discuss it with the mods first.

Now go leave some comments on GoS!

Kativip has a great rug mesh as part of her Skyrim Objects set. But it has a 2-tile footprint and no recolours. I have fixed both!

Kativip's SK Rug is now a single tile object, with the bonus of having been object relocated from Deco-Misc to Deco-Rugs (because that just makes sense!). The rug mesh remains priced at $100.

But I wanted needed some more recolours! So I pulled the textures from some of my favourite fur rug sets, which not only means more recolours on the one mesh, but you can also remove the other superfluous rug meshes from your game, further reducing the number of OBJD's you have!

First up is Tye's Wolf Rug & Bear Rug, from their Oblivion Middle Class set. These rugs were each on their own multi-tile mesh, neither of which are required any longer! They are shown above with the texture of Kativip's original SK Rug.

Next up is Riekus13's Furs, Pelts & Hides from their Skinner Set at PBK. These were originally on SIP's Living 5 Rug, which is no longer required.

And finally, Lady Lama at The Medieval Smithy included the above textures on her wall hanging as part of The Druid's Set. These seemed a natural add on to the texture of Kativip's SK Rug, so now you can also have matching wall and floor furs!

Files are all compressed, and you can choose to download the recolours either merged or unmerged (mesh has not been merged with recolours and is available in both download options). Preview pics and clearly labelled swatches are included in the folder.

Download Niamh's Fireside Fur Rugs - Merged

Download Niamh's Fireside Fur Rugs - Unmerged

If you run into any issues with these textures, please let me know!

Bonus additional pictures using the Skyrim textures:

➡️ Related Downloads

Skins and links to the originals:

Whysim Misc Skin Blend 32TG

Whysim Tifa 57 Edit TG

Default S1 - Whysim Misc Skin Blend 30TG

Whysim Misc Skin Blend 40TG

Whysim Misc Skin Blend 37TG

Whysim Misc Skin Blend 31TG

Default S2 - Whysim BuffyHP Tan Skinblend TG (my edit: more pink, less orange)

Whysim Ashleydoll Blend Edit TG

Nat Bambi Expanded 7

Whysim Misc Skin Blend 19TG

Whysim BuffyHP Dark TG

Default S3 - Whysim Misc Skin Blend 29TG

Whysim Misc Skin Blend 7TG

Nat Bambi Expanded 10

Nat Bambi Expanded 12

Pooklet My Poor Lover 06

Nat Bambi Expanded 14

Pooklet Mouseyblue Dusk Skin 03

Default S4 - Pooklet My Poor Lover 07

Nat Bambi Expanded 18

Pooklet My Poor Lover 08

Default alien - Tea Leaf Stargazer MPL Zoen Blend

These skins are townified, meaning that new townies and NPCs that spawn can get them. They are also geneticized, meaning that they have genetic values that inform which skintones will be given to babies born in game. Basically babies will always get skintones that fall in between or on the skintones that their biological parents have, as is the case for the four default skintones.

You can see the genetic value that I assigned to a skin at the end its file name. Example: "1_Whysim_MiscSkinBlend32TG_0.05.package" → this skin has a genetic value of 0.05. The skins that are S1-S4 default replacements have respective genetic values of 0.1, 0.3, 0.6 and 0.9. For more info on that and to learn how to change a custom skin's genetic value, see Rikkulidea's tutorial.

If you don't want all 22 skins but just a selection, feel free to pick and choose and it won't disrupt anything when it comes to genetics (if you want to mix them with other skins however, you may want to make sure that all the genetic values really are in a sequence from lightest to darkest). If on the other hand you think 22 skins isn't enough, check you @esotheria-sims's 97 geneticized skins 💖

Please let me know if you encounter any issues or have any questions.

✨Future plans for body shapes: these here skins are regular skins linked to the standard Maxis body shapes. I will be working on showerproof skins for custom body shapes that will be repo'd to these skins, starting with Momma Lisa/Melodie9 fat male. It may take a while but in the end all 22 skins will come in showerproof versions for as many body shapes as I have the mental fortitude to do (making showerproof skins is an excruciating mix of requiring focus and discipline while being extremely tedious).

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