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: