#murfeel

I continue the story of the WaterFireGod, for part 1 click here

(1) Remember the gate, where the humanoid aliens came through?:

(2) It changed a lot after them humanoids arived -

(3) The second invasion started at dawn. It all happened very fast:

Some very mighty guards came through the gate...

(4) ...and them tiny fragile blossoms, that arrived earlier with the humanoids, grew within seconds into all kinds of - plants?! :

(5) At the same time, a second gate opened…

(6) … spitting out some more "visitors"…

(7) … all kinds of pretty agressive fellas!

(8) The whole garden of our little unnamed sim changed into a nightmare.

Well, he called them, and they came, right?

(9) They forced him to sit down and stay put on an alienesh-crystal-stone-stool-thingy…

(10) …and startet talking…

(11) … to their GOD! The WaterFireGod. Our well known dragonfish.

(12) Then they told our little unnamed sim, that they will return to their home planet through that portal, together with their god...

(13) … right after they solved this kind-a-tricky problem, that they just learned about from the little fish - sry, your highness, of course -

(14) Turns out, unfortunatly they can not just kill the sim, and leave with their god, as they intended…

(15) … because their god can not survive without our little unnamed sim, due to the bond that exists between them. This bond must be broken of course. Or else!

(16) (Moment of akward silence)

(17) They startet negotiating. Meanwhile it was bright daylight.

(18) They discussed during the whole day…

(19) …and also the whole next night.

(20) It turned out, there is more to the good old dragonfish than we ever imagined:

When he spits fire unterwater, while living with a sim that he has a very special bond with, the fire sinks down on the ground, and turnes into gold.

And you know what they say about dragons… they protect treasure.

Next time I will tell you:

What kind of bond the sim + the dragonfish do have,

what the sim is doing with all this gold?!,

and what the "Fisch des Grauens*" has to do with all that

ITS YOUR TURN NOW!

I want you to have the option to influence the story. You can choose 1 of these 3 options, what you want me to put into the story next:

No 1 - Someone will die

OR

No 2 - No one will die

OR

No 3 - Something will happen that has to do with owls.

Just write it into the comments until the End of April, then we will wrap it up and count the voices for 1/2/3!

* Please someone tell me how this fish is called in English, I couldn´t figure that out! (the dark-greenish fella living in the ponds of graveyards, killing all other fishes, and that can be used for prolonging live) - Or maybe I´ll just make up a new name for it :-D , you can recognize it anyway by the pictures I will take then.

The mods I used here for the first time:

Asparagus densiflorus, from alex_stanton1983

Lotus Lamp, from 4Sims

Floor-Lamp Skoll, from sim_man123

From @murfeelee :

TW3 Archespore Miniset

Skyrim Blackreach Giant Mushrooms as Outdoor Lights Miniset

AMR Small Plants Group

Junk Pile as Coin Pile

Deniisu_TS4 to TS3 RoM Rug Medallion as Floor Light

Thank you, @murfeelee! Love your stuff since I played the first time with the telvanni-village, and that was on my old computer (meanwhile, this computer I´m using now is pretty old).

I will also continue the 10-things-challange, weeks ago I already picked the items for the next round - but at the moment, I want to finish that alien-story first!

And yes, I still have to finish the sorting of my mod-collection. That has highest priority, not just because I want to continue playing, but also because of this 10-things-challange I started. For both I need a well-sorted, richly filled mod-folder (lol).

Well. The last weekend I spend downloading nearly everything that Murfeelee ever published :-D ! Just the sorting of this murfeelee-collection alone will take a week, or two, or whatever it takes :-D.

I started yesterday evening with the Letter A. Today I will do the B… like in "babysteps". Like in "Baby Yoda as Teddybear", that is the first mod beginning with a "B" in my murfeel-folder.

Just imagine, this green little fella, how well he would have fit in my alien-story, if I would have known this mod a week before.

You all have a good time :-)

Here's how to enjoy all the benefits of the Sims 4 Snowy Escape pack without having to sell your immortal Simming soul to the Glitterturd.

Murfeel's got a lovely big pile of goodies ready for you to put in your game

... with one in particular being the catalyst for all this:

We decided to get some expert help in looking over those pieces we've designs for in our existing gameplay ...

Once again,

Hail To Victor! And Satan. A little bit.

Okay, does anyone have an explanation for this?

One of us has been testing out some CC they’ve been making, using the Fresco Mesh by Dyokabb at Les Sims Angels.

The only problem is that whereas in their own game, they look like this:

(Yes, that’s over on the Fairy Realm before you ask)

... in your humble narrator’s, all of a sudden anything with this mesh ...

... turns to this when either far away or when taken straight from Build/Buy Mode ...

The strange part is that all paintings using the Fresco Mesh by Dyokabb appear to be affected now, so wondering whether it could be some sort of custom content clash, or a game setting peculiar to one of us but not the other.

POSTSCRIPT!

Thankfully, Murfeel came up with the solution:

Sure enough, she was spot on:

Which means they've been doing this every time they used that mesh over the last ten years.

Cue an awful lot of money going into their swear tin, trying to fix it, and 'dropping' the end result redone using the fixed medium mesh or whatever for muggins to retest this very night under pain of death.

(Word to the wise people, never work with renegade Granny Eaters!)

Yep, working properly.

Strong with the Force, it is - mmmm?

Those who stayed with the Pastel side of the Force, their Green Gizmo is only decor.

But for those on the Snark side of the Force, theirs is useful, theirs is a valuable child's toy. Or anyone else's.

Strong with the force is Murfeel.

You'd wonder why EA never thought of doing it.

This whole episode sums up EA and its bin-fished code Sims 4 ...

Okay, now it's Murfeelee’s turn:

We’re hoping this will appear legible, but if not, we’ll replace the pictures you see below with text (or just click on the link above if you can’t wait that long!)

We found the ParaPets video disturbing - the animation style was a little too close to that of the old Rabies Kills public information film adverts (as you all know, one of us is a little bit obsessed with rabies ...)

Good to note that he realised he wasn't up to the creation of the Parafolk at an early stage, although that in turn begs the question he ought to have realised that sooner - certainly before publicly committing himself, but that's another topic for later.

Ah, see this is another crux of the problem. If what you're saying is true, this isn't even Alpha, he and the rest of them are revealing too much too soon surely?

You can get away with ultra basic progress tasters if you're a Crowkeeper showing off Dusk Realm/Mermaidia on an indefinite timescale and not looking for financial reward (or coffee vouchers if you're Potato BalladSims/Jje10001 ...). But if you're looking for people to give you money, you need to be only showing tangible shots of what the finished product will be near enough looking like bar the tweeking.

First impressions last - the poor shadowing and rather marked style difference between Maggie Parafolkie and the background in particular would have us wondering whether it was an ex-Hanna Barbera employee behind it. Point taken though about the in-game colour wheel - which would be a plus point for the established gamer. For the fickle gamer in the street (whose sales, let’s face it, will be the ones to make or break this) ... mmmm, not so sure.

Yes, the lack of a colour wheel in the Glitterturd is perhaps the most damning part of the whole farrago - even more than no open world.

To leave out what has now become all but industry standard in a game where colourisation - or rather, the ability to colour it any bloody way you liked - is part of the mainstay of the whole Sims 3 thing was beyond parody - and before any Simgurus claim otherwise, weren't you the very ones licking up to Berrypie back in the day for the way her Berry Sweets pushed the Sims 3 colour palette to the limit (and our eyeballs, but that's another story!)

Yes, we are in full agreement with Rflong7/13 that what they did tools wise in Build mode was excellent, for CAS however we're more in agreement with Nikkei_Simmer that people just needed to learn to use the slider tools from Sims 3 properly - the lack of any numbering guide to what one is doing in Sims 4 CAS when using the sliders was another 'dude, seriously?' moment for us.

Of course, it would have been nice - nay, in fact downright appropriate - for the bumnuggets to give some instructions to Simmers on release on how to use said sliders, but that was too much like hard work for the Simgurus and players were left to find out for themselves or await help from others posted on the net ... not very edifying, and a portend of the sort of customer care to come.

Granted, the gaming industry had been drifting more towards (at times clumsy, at times brilliant) in-game tutorials, but there was a very large element where Sims 3 was concerned of being flung in at the deep end for the user.

Was it any wonder someone like Aarin turned up on the EA forum ... now there was a monster the Simgurus must share the responsibility in creating!

Come Sims 4, you'd have thought at least that lesson might have been learned .... ahahahaha, some hope!

Which brings us to the following point.

Part of this we've already answer earlier, so will try to take a different angle here.

The other half disagrees with what your humble narrator typed yesterday (grrrr!) and reckons the Sims series doesn't have and never did have a total monopoly of life simulations, only of a human cradle-to-the-grave one.

Most life simulations tend to be around animals - indeed, contrary to the gaming journalism myth, Little Computer People was not the first 'Life Simulation Game' ... that honour belongs to the long forgotten Survival  by Five Ways Software for MacMillan Publishing and Sinclair Computers' respective software wings - a way ahead of its time 'educational game' aimed at primary schools where players had to move a chosen creature from a fly to a butterfly (sadly not 'of Doom' ...) to a mouse to a robin to a hawk to a lion and find it food and water while avoiding predators and hazards. Unlike other strategy games, play was in real time with no pauses for thought, so players had to think fast and learn fast if their particular creature was to survive.

But we digress.

Hence why the nearest thing the Sims  has to an actual competitor (and that's stretching it) is Animal Crossing. No death, no ageing and lots of cute furry creatures - just the way most gamers like it. As Darkslayer remarked way back in 2009, gamers tend to be squishy by nature ... (albeit either being squishy or trying to squishy everyone and everything else, if you get our drift!)

To a certain extent, EA encouraged the belief of their monopoly (heck, they had to feel they were top at something when getting their arses royally kicked in every other genre!), when more and more games incorporated what we'd regard as 'Simmish' elements (eg. Skyrim ) because outside of the Simming community, most gamers found it all a bit too much and preferred cherry-picked elements.

Back in 1991, a proto-Sims, Jones In The Fast Lane by Sierra (it of 'King's Quest' fame and 'Leisure Suit Larry' infamy ...) was a complete flop - which may have been a deterrent to anyone considering doing a Sims copy cat - by the time of the success of the third in the series and any notions of it being a 'fad' being misplaced, it was too late for newcomers - or so the feeling went in an increasingly unadventurous gaming industry tied to their accountants' apron strings to deliver only guaranteed hits and leave 'innovation' for competitors to risk.

You only have to look at the seismic shock 'Cities: Skylines' caused - the industry's 'common wisdom' (ha!) considered it complete suicide to muscle in on the SimCity market - especially after the disastrous 2013 reboot and the rewriting of the narrative by gaming business people and journalists alike that the genre perhaps had 'had its day' (wrong again!). Even after that, the industry still regards it as merely an aberration rather than the problem being their own myopia.

But that myopia cuts both ways. We are no more stuck begging EA for anything any more than we choose to. The fact remains that we can kill them or force them to their knees by our indifference - something that never crossed the Glitterturders minds when they were dumb enough back in 2014 to back down to Grant Rodiek's threats.

In a gaming market place of choice and of excellent older games still being added to and updated by dedicated fan bases (Sims 2 and 3 are but two ...), we as customers are sovereign. The problem is - as in the world of politics - we have allowed ourselves to be conned by them into thinking they are our masters and we their servants, rather than the other way around.

Which is part of the dilemma we have with Paralives. Whether they choose to acknowledge it or not, their main hook is in being an alternative to the Sims series in a marketplace where it has no competitor offering at least a 'close to' experience - there's the danger if we're not careful of falling into the same trap - 'keep giving us money if you want this finished product to be better' - rather thank making it clear to them money is dependent on them having something to show for themselves that will make us want to part with ours.

And at that juncture, we're going to have to agree to disagree.

There's also of course one other danger ... those at Paralives showing too much of their hand, too soon. If they think EA are going to sit back and let them cut into their territory, they don't know what awful bastards these people are - any good idea Alex Massé may have you can be damned sure they'll pinch and patch into the Glitterturd to steal his thunder - probably breaking half-a-dozen other parts of their glorious clusterfuck on toast(ers) with extra cheese, true, but they'll not care so long as it makes his future release look less attractive.

But yes, at the end of the day, we wish Alex well and hope his project is a success. He does however need perhaps to exercise a bit more caution rather than show the customary impatience of creators wishing to demonstrate how far they are with their pet project. That's all well and good when you're the amateur producing to the Corinthian spirit - hence Potato Ballad taking forever with Boroughsburg and the end result a masterpiece. Once money becomes involved ...

Especially at at time EA are on the ropes anyway and by the look of it this time will not be forgiven (even by the craven masses whose capability to take it from EA would have put Gregorina with Cororon to shame) - never interrupt your opponents when they are busy making mistakes!

This is a partial reply to Murfeel’s rant about Glitterturd werewolves and the usual EA laziness.

Didn’t want to reply reprinting the whole thing, partly for the sake of length, partly so not to be included with the rest of the usual bumnuggets who ‘Like’ or reblog someone else’s hard work to fill up their own Dumblr without contributing diddly squat to the actual narrative, one of those parts of Dumblr which is a pisser.

Someone makes an elaborate post and you enjoyed it, give it the courtesy it deserves with a proper reply.

Grrrrr!

But anyway, to the following part:

Funnily enough, one of us is reading Carlo Ginzberg’s excellent ‘The Night Battles’ just now, about the fun and games the Venetian Inquisition had dealing with the Benedanti and werewolves (the latter known as ‘the hounds of God’) who were tasked every year to protect the crops at harvest from the ruinations of witches and warlocks in league with the devil.

The Benedanti used fennel sticks. The werewolves used iron bars - but they had the harder task of taking out the witches and warlocks when in flight.

You can imagine the headache for the Venetian Inquisition listening to this stuff being brought to their attention.

On the one hand, they knew very well that the Friuli area had its own particular cultural traditions brought about from being a heady clash of Italian, Slavic and Germanic traditions and legend - with a certain dash of local artistic licence.

On the other, they knew that Rome (and more to the point the Papal States - a military and economic friend/enemy ...) took a dim view of anything which sounded like magic, leaving them with the problem of coming down too hard on people for ‘blasphemy’ and ‘heresy’ (and maybe pissing off the locals when they said they were doing so to fight satanic witches) or doing not enough to please the hardliners in Rome which wanted anything non-Catholic stamped on with hobnail boots in the middle of Europe’s combined witch-craze and Reformation madness.

(Venice was an independent country for almost 800 years until Napoleon Bonaparte and the bloody Hapsburg inbreds dismembered it, before any of you ask)

Another part the book mentions is that Livonian werewolves also fought to protect their communities from demonic attack - being in areas where the predominant religion of the period was Lutheran, the local authorities were a lot less tolerant ...