Merry Christmas!

I would like to take this opportunity to wish all my readers a very Merry Christmas! Thank you so much for your support over the past couple of years. I am very touched that you take time out of your life to read my little blog.

You haven’t met this fellow in the picture yet, but you will on January 1st.  Here’s a toast to more great times with the Lazlos in 2012! Be safe and have a wonderful holiday season.

The Lazlo Legacy—Faith 2.4

Welcome back to the Lazlo Legacy. This week, we are visiting Faith’s lot which is now short one child. Last week, Faith’s eldest, Grace, moved in with her boyfriend Sean’s family and got engaged.

Upon entering the house, the first thing I see is Charity talking to TheSituation! I was thrilled because I thought he had been deleted from the game. It looks like my plan to have Charity marry her Imaginary Friend is back on!

The Lazlo Legacy—Grace 3.1

Welcome back to The Lazlo Legacy. This week we are visiting the lot of Grace Russell.

Grace immediately tries to get on the good side of her mother-in-law-to-be, Hilary Bumgarner, by cooking breakfast.

The Lazlo Legacy—Harmony 3.2

Welcome back to the Lazlo Legacy with Harmony Lazlo. Last time, Harmony dumped her high school sweetheart, Alan Murphy. Thank you so much, Generations Romantic Reputation System. Harmony drowned her sorrows at a local pub and made eyes at bartender Mikel Pratt. Mikel moved in, and we’re now waiting with bated breath to see who Harmony chooses.

Warning: This entry has gratuitous shots of male pectoral muscles!

Alan’s first mission is to clean up his reputation. He has four love interests, so he needs to invite each one over and ask them to just be friends.

The Lazlo Legacy—Guardian 3.3

Welcome back to the Lazlo Legacy! Last time--

Whoa! Guardian and Leeann are cooking in the kitchen.

The Lazlo Legacy—Chance 2.3

Hello, and welcome back to the Lazlo Legacy. This week, we’re visiting Chance’s lot. Last time we visited, Nichol finally defeated Chance at sparring, and Serendipity aged up to child.

On Monday, Serendipity invited over a friend after school. If you recall, Chance and Nichol ran into a Story Progression-generated townie at the Chinese Garden who looked liked he had Justice as a genetic parent. That townie’s name is Omari Dunham, and this is his son, Jeff. Yeah, that’s right, Jeff Dunham.

The Lazlo Legacy-Faith 2.3

Hello, and welcome back to the Lazlo Legacy. I know it has been a while since I posted, but Pets was recently released, and new expansion packs always make me lonely for my Lazlos. Twallan, awesome modder god that he is, has already updated his Story Progression Mod for Pets. I opened up the Lazlo save and played it without any problems. This update and the next one were actually played before Pets came out, so we won’t see any of the new features. Anyway, let’s get on with it…

Last time we visited the Russells, Grace had just had a dream prom with her boyfriend Sean Bumgarner. She immediately rolled this wish:

Slow down, missy! You aren’t even out of high school yet! We are still practicing Strict Family Values, so no ringy, no dingy!

Sorry for the Lack of Updates

I’m sorry that I haven’t posted an update for a month. The reason is two-fold. First, my mom has been in and out of the hospital for the last month. She’s now on a feeding tube and oxygen, but it is hard to determine her prognosis. Some days, I’m very hopeful, but other days I feel all hope is gone. It’s been an emotional roller coaster.

The other reason for the lack of updates is that I’m just not into The Sims right now. I haven’t played my saves in over a month. I didn’t install Town Life Stuff until Friday even though I got it the day it came out. Maybe I’m burned out because I played it heavily July 4th weekend.

I also need to concentrate on other areas of my life. I want to organize my house and I also need to improve my own health. Frankly, I need to be putting more hours into EA Sports Active than The Sims.

What does this mean for my blogs? For the near future, it means updates are going to be sporadic. I may focus on my Mega Maxis blog since I only play each family a day at a time, so I can play in short sessions.

I really hate that I’m not able to maintain a regular schedule. I know as reader it is very frustrating. But I also don’t want to “phone it in,” so I hope you can understand. Thank you for continued support!.

The Lazlo Legacy—Harmony 3.1

I admit that when it comes to playing the Sims, I can be a control freak regarding Sim marriages and babies. My favorite part of the game is seeing how the genetics play out through the generations, so I am always eager to see the nooboos. Take Guardian and Leeann for example. I picked her out when she was only a toddler and stalked the poor girl until she married Guardian. I’ve already picked out mates for Harmony, Grace, Summer, River, Leaf, Charity, Hope, and Serendipity (don’t worry Honor, Love, and Courage, I’ll find someone for you too). I’m too impatient to let the game play itself out and see who a Sim’s wishes and circumstances lead to as a mate.

This week was a brutal reminder that the best laid plans often go awry. If last week was an up close and personal experience with the Punishment System, this week was even more so with the Romantic Reputation System. Unfortunately, my Simmies weren’t the only ones who got their hearts broken.

We start the week off with Harmony aging up to young adult. She had a birthday party, but for some reason, I didn’t take any pictures.

The Lazlo Legacy—Guardian 3.2

It’s finally time to visit the lot of the Lazlo heir, Guardian. He lives in this mansion with his wife, Leeann; his parents, Fortune and Tracey; and his younger siblings, Harmony, Summer, River, and Leaf. This home is across the street from Guardian’s aunt Faith.

The Lazlo Legacy—Chance 2.2

It’s time for another visit with Chance’s family. Serendipity has a sour expression because she realizes that neither Chance nor I are really into working on her toddler skills. Chance’s excuse is that he dislikes children. I have always preferred playing the larger households because there is always something to do or someone causing drama. Chance’s family is small and they are mainly focused on skill building, so this week moved slowly.

The Lazlo Legacy–Faith 2.2

Back at the Russell house, we’re madly trying to skill up three toddlers in three days.Thank goodness it is Sunday so that Grace is home to help out.

The Lazlo Legacy--Chance 2.1

This dingy townhouse is Chance and Nichol’s new home. They had a nice home down the street from Fortune and Faith, but the lot was glitched. After visitors excused themselves, they couldn’t leave the lot. Remember the old bug from TS1 where if a house had a fence surrounding it and a visitor excused himself and went out the back door of the house, he could not figure out how to route his way to the front?  Well, the visitors to Chance and Nichol’s house were behaving like that. Seriously, EAxis, eleven years and you still haven’t found a solution to that bug????

I tried removing the fence, but that didn’t seem to help so Chance and Nichol had to move to the seedy side of town.

The Lazlo Legacy–Faith 2.1

Welcome back to the Lazlo Legacy. I know it’s been a long time since the last real post. You’re probably wondering why this entry is titled 2.1 rather than 3.2. I have been using Twallan’s Story Progression Mod to play multiple households in the same neighborhood. The mod has an option called “Stasis” that prevents a family from progressing while it is not being played. I plan to use this option so that I can play every descendant of Justice Lazlo.

So that Faith, Mason, Chance, and Nichol don’t get short shrift, I’ve aged them back down to Young Adult using Twallan’s Master Controller mod. Of course, I could have used the Young Again lifetime reward or the chemistry table to accomplish this, but frankly I didn’t want to wait for them to earn enough happiness points or to learn the potions.

I have also moved the family to a new neighborhood, Harmony by Magic_Dancer.

I mentioned this in the comments, but I want to reiterate here that the focus of this blog has shifted from its original purpose. I had intended to do a straight Legacy Challenge, but I get so darned attached to my Simmies that I don’t want to turn them over to the Time Stream. From the beginning I have always wanted to accomplish three things: 

1) Achieve every Lifetime Wish.

2) Max every skill (including completing all of the skill challenges).

3) Get to the top of every career.

Once these three things have been accomplished, I’ll bring the Lazlos’ story to a close. But that’s a long time off because we know EA is going to release at least one more expansion pack which is sure to come with new LTWs and hopefully new careers and skills.

Ok, enough babbling. Let’s get on with the show…

Welcome to the Russells’ new home. This lot is called the “Beach Mansion.” Most of the lots you will see come with Harmony. There are a few I have added from other neighborhoods, so I will point them out as we come across them.

And the Winner is…

If it’s not obvious from my Custom Content Page, I have decided to go with Magic_Dancer’s “Harmony.” This is a beautiful world with a mix of terrain. It includes bars, clubs, a nectary, and a Chinese garden. I’ve even heard rumors there may be a tomb or two in the town. It also comes with a few families, including some familiar faces. It has everything, and most importantly, it doesn’t make the game lag.

I would have to rank Coasterboi’s “Los Aniegos” second place. I think it is a very well put together world. I also really like that the hood comes with a lot of families. In fact, I ported some of those families over to Harmony. The negative is just a matter of my personal preference. I don’t care for desert terrain. I have always preferred worlds with lush terrain. I never really played Strangetown until I did my Mega Maxis blog because it wasn’t aesthetically pleasing to me. Some people on the forums reported that LA lags after a while. I didn’t play it long enough to experience any lag.

Third place is a tie between Bay City and Red Cliffs. I didn’t experience any lag in Bay City, but I felt the town was too spread out. Also, Bay City does not come with any families,so I would either have to populate it myself or use the Rapid Immigration feature of Twallan’s Story Progression. Red Cliffs looks like a nice town, but it lagged the minute I pressed the play button. This indicates that there are routing issues in the town, and frankly I don’t have the patience to sort it out.

I want to be clear that I am very happy with my decision to go with Harmony. Please don’t read this post as if I chose Harmony because it was the lesser evil. I think it is a superior world. Even if the other three worlds had no issues, I would have chosen Harmony. I’m looking forward to watching the Lazlos explore its treasures.

Download a Lazlo!

Now you can have the Lazlos in your game. Generations 1 and 2 are available for download from the Sims 3 Exchange. Click on the “Family Profiles” tab above, then click on the name of the sim you wish to download. My Sims were created with custom defaults, so see the “Custom Content Credits” tab for more information.

If you do add them to your game, I would love to hear what happens to them.

Another Contender

Today, I came across the world of Harmony by Magic_Dancer on the TS3 Forums. I am really liking this world. It is quaint and has a mix of terrains. This will be my first play test. I’ll post my thoughts in a couple of days.

Changing Things up a Bit

You may have noticed I changed the blog theme. I switched to a template that will allow me to have bigger pictures. I have already updated the more recent posts to use the “Medium” photo size. Eventually, I will update all of the posts to use this same size.

I am also looking for a new neighborhood for the Lazlos. When I first started playing this legacy, I was not using Twallan’s Story Progression mod, so the Sunset Valley residents were at the mercy of EAxian Story Progression. The result is that the majority of the town are now elders and I fear the town is in danger of ghosting. Also, Sunset Valley doesn’t have any of the Late Night venues, and I would like to incorporate those into my blog.

Currently, there are three custom worlds that are candidates to be the Lazlos’ new home.

The candidates are:

Bay City by Docsprock

Los Aniegos by Coasterboi

RedCliffs by Awesims

I will be play-testing these hoods this week, and will let you know my opinions on each hood.

Stay Tuned!

Mother’s Day and Generations

Today is Mother’s Day in the U.S., but I would like to send well wishes to all mothers around the world. If you follow my Mega Maxis blog, you know my mother has been dealing with some serious health issues. I am happy to report that my mom has made tremendous improvement in her swallowing. It is not completely back yet, but it is significantly better. I am very touched and grateful to those of you who have offered your well wishes and prayers.

I also finished the Project from Hell at work. I have never worked so much in my life! I accumulated nearly 300 hours in the month of March alone! This is the first weekend off I’ve had in a long time. Between my mom and my job, I really haven’t felt like blogging. My mind is usually mush by the time I get home so the idea of trying to put a post together is not very appealing.

However, I’ve really been missing my Lazlos lately. Since the next expansion pack, Generations, revolves around families, I think it is the perfect time to revive this blog. Also, now that I have been using Twallan’s Story Progression Mod for a while, I have figured out how to freeze a household while playing another. That means I can follow Faith’s and Chance’s branches of the family tree along with Fortune’s. I’m really excited about that, so look for this blog to resume after Twallan updates his mod to work with Generations.

You might be wondering what I have been doing in the meantime, since I do play games as a stress reliever. I’ve dabbled with The Sims Medieval. It’s an okay game, but I find it gets repetitive after a while. I don’t think I have touched it in months. I have also discovered Civilization V. I am really enjoying that game (so much so that it has kept me up way past my bedtime on a number of nights).  I know a lot of longtime Civilization fans prefer Civilization IV (in much the same way that some Sims fans prefer Sims 2.) Since I’m new to the Civilization franchise, I’m quite happy with CiV.

I have also been getting some Sims 3 in. I’ve been playing out a copy of my Lazlo save game. Playing a copy allows me to get my Sims fix in without having to worry about blogging. I’d like to leave you with a funny picture from that save. I’ve never seen a Simdo this before:

The Lazlo Legacy 3.1

Your eyes do not deceive you. This is Chapter 3.1, which means Guardian is taking over the Legacy reins. So without further ado, let’s get on with his Young Adult birthday.

Say goodbye to teenaged Guardian…

The Lazlo Legacy 2.9

Happy 2011, everybody! Last time, Guardian met his wife-to-be, and Justice sparred with his wife-who’d-been. This week, the triplets age to teen, and Guardian finally gets his girl.

But first, a reader reminded me that I hadn’t given you the triplets traits and favorites yet, so I’ll combine that with their age-up pictures.

The little girl on fire is Summer, the eldest of the triplets. Summer is a grumpy, eccentric child who is easily impressed. She caught on fire while working on a new invention. I knew adults could catch on fire, but I thought children were fireproof in this game. Apparently not. Way to scare little kids, EAxis. Anyway, Summer’s favorite color is blue, and she likes to eat Falafels while listening to Bach, Beethoven and Chopin.

And here is Summer as a teen: