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Thursday, May 8th, 2008
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11:30 am
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| Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008
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10:37 am - Friends only
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FYI: I've just turned all public entries up to 2008-01-01 "Friends only". When I have time I'll go through them and turn some of them back into public, mostly reviews and such.
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| Friday, April 11th, 2008
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11:46 pm - SimCity Societies
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I bought SimCity Societies today and have played it for a couple of hours now.
It's a bit mind numbing. I haven't found it challenging yet. It's more of a city building game than a city planning game, like SimCity used to be. In SimCity you zoned for residential, commercial and industrial. In SimCity Societies you place the actual buildings - a cottage here, a florist shop there. The town is much smaller, you can follow each sim and see what they're doing, and you get absolutely no overview of your city since you're looking at details.
I can't say if I like it or not yet. I can understand why many people don't like it if they were hoping for a new SimCity. It is quite cute though.
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| Thursday, March 20th, 2008
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6:33 pm
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Now I've seen the screenshots of Sims 3 and read a couple of articles.
If I understand this correctly, you get a whole town of sims to play with. Probably you'll be able to control whichever sim you like, whenever you like. You will also not be able to keep track of them all at once. You give a push here, a nudge there and hope that it all turns out allright. Or you play one sim, and let the rest run entirely on AI. I guess that could work. It's a whole different game though.
As for the new "traits", "dreams" and "buffs", I'm not worried. I trust they'll make a functioning game out of it. The graphics look nice and I also trust that they will figure out a way to make the user interface usable.
I see only a couple of problems, from my point of view:
I'm a control freak. I will want to build the whole town from scratch. That will take ages.
It looks like this game will require much more computing power than what I have right now, unless they've really focused on optimizing the engine. I guess that could be a reason why it won't be released until the end of next year. People simply won't have that kind of computer power available before that.
Now, back to playing more Sims2 and waiting for a patch for the FreeTime expansion...
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| Wednesday, March 19th, 2008
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7:12 pm
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It's not just a coincidence that http://thesims3.ea.com and http://www.sims2.com are fairly slow to load right now.
The first page at the Sims3 website says that the game will be released in 2009. I managed to get a glimpse of the thumbnails of the screenshots before I got another page load error. Of course they looked nice, as far as I could see. The "about" page refused to load, and the press release posted at the Sims2 website didn't say much more than what I have managed to puzzle togheter from chat and forum comments.
A nice touch on the sims3 website was that when I selected the UK flag (I prefer that to the sometimes quite awkward Swedish translations) I got the website in UK English :-) It has been a while since I saw the spelling "neighbourhood"...
Oh well, I have some webshop business to attend to and an episode of Lost to watch on TV later tonight, so the Sims3 news will have to wait until tomorrow.
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| Tuesday, March 11th, 2008
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4:56 pm
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I was searching for news/rumors on Sims 3 and SimCity Creator (rumored working title of the next sim city game) and found this forum. Finally a place where people write in full sentences without using colours or other blingbling and aren't allowed to use signatures. Ron Humble himself seems to be active there. Of course, they seem to pick their members carefully too. I'm not interested in joining (not for the moment), but reading what Mr Humble and friends have to say about Sim games is interesting.
The only annoying thing on that forum is the people who call themselves "core players" and claim that "core players" laugh at Sims 2 and think that it's only a moneymaking machine for EAxis. Why on earth would players of FPS games and similar be the only ones that count as "core"? I've played most genres - FPS, RP, racing, strategy, puzzle and sim - and I've seen moneymaking games in all categories. The expansions to Sims 2 do add to the game, and the people who play and like Sims 2 usually play and like the expansions too, just like people who played and liked Halo usually played and liked Halo 2.
Also: http://www.thesims3.ea.com. I'm hoping they'll post information on the global time that people are discussing in forums. Adding aging in Sims 2 was radical but turned out great, but global time? I want to know exactly how they plan to do that (if they do), because I'm sceptical.
I also checked out various opinions on SimCity Societies. It is a completely different game than SimCity 4 and previous games, but it doesn't sound that bad. They say it is easy - so what? I enjoyed both Castaway and Viva Piñata, and neither of them is really challenging. It's a sandbox game and I happen to like sandbox games (yes, I learned that term today).
On the other hand I hope that this simplifying trend will turn soon. It's great that they remove annoyances (like in Oblivion vs Morrowind), but they're removing a lot of the challenges as well (again, like in Oblivion vs Morrowind). Too many games are turning into interactive movies with perhaps the occasional battle scene, or into an unlimited bucket of lego. I want other challenges than hack'n'slash/shoot-em-up, and lego is more fun when you have a limited amount of building blocks. Yes, give me Oblivion, but also give me a challenging RP, and now that SimCity Societies is out I hope EA will turn back to Maxis and let them build a SimCity 5 that is more or less an updated version of SimCity 4. And yes, I'm looking forward to Sims 3, at least a little.
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| Sunday, March 2nd, 2008
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9:06 pm - The Sims 2: Free Time (expansion pack)
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Today I bought and installed the Free Time expansion to The Sims 2. Now the sims develop an interest to whatever they're doing. Let them play computer games, and they develop an interest in gaming. Let them birdwatch or plant tomatoes, and they develop an interest in nature. There are ten fields of interest, and the sims can develop any of these. One of the interests is predestined, which makes the sim a bit faster in developing an interest for that.
A long time ago a sim's life was about developing basic skills (logic, cooking, cleaning etc), making friends and keeping their mood up. Then they got "talent badges", which is more or less a patch for grading their skills in additionall fields. The whole talent badge system feels quite poorly integrated into the original game. I mean, shouldn't cooking and cleaning be talents too, if fishing and gardening are talents? Now they finally have interests. The interests are integrated quite smoothly though, so it's not as much of a bother as the talent badges. Almost everything they do develops one interest or another.
One very annoying thing is that each time a sim develops a bit of interest for something, a person from the hobby club in that field calls them and tells them that they can be invited to the club if they increase their interest. With four adults in the house, the calls come quite frequently. I hope this will be cured in a patch soon.
However, the most interesting thing in this expansion pack is the computer delivered by a Mr Humble to each Sim household. On this new computer, the sims can play a game called The Sims 3. The speculations are many. I only speculate that Maxis will let the simming comunity chew on this for a month or two, and then start talking about when and how to expect The Sims 3.
Another hint that The Sims 3 is under development: Considering the quality of the previous expansion (Bon Voyage), I'd say that the stars among the developre team behind The Sims 2 have moved on to the next project. BV felt like it was made (and tested) by summer interns...
Anyway, I hope I'll manage time to complete The Legacy Challenge before The Sims 3 is released. I'm about half way through, so it may take me another year...
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| Thursday, February 28th, 2008
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4:07 pm - Gunnar
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A few days ago I finished Gunnar, a book by Bob Hansson. I read it in Swedish, and I have no idea if it has been translated to any other languages.
The book is about a man called Gunnar. Gunnar has had a heart transplant and has been put on early retirement due to his condition. He feels generally miserable and would really like to go back to work, but people won't let him. He is also experiencing strange dreams and visions.
The first part of the book is a lot about Gunnar's thoughts around self loathing. There's some wisdom in there, even though Gunnar is overly pessimistic. At least it makes you think about it. After a while the author tries to introduce some sort of plot, including romance and mystery, and at the end the book is mostly about this plot. It's a bit trivial, but not bad. Some parts of the book are quite funny. In a way it reminds me of Arto Paasilinna's books.
After having met the author, I believe I can safely say that the author's own thoughts and values shine through. A lot. That's not necessarily a bad thing though.
Summary: Generally nice reading with some food for thought.
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| Thursday, February 14th, 2008
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8:41 am
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It's that day again.
A few years ago all my colleagues were talking about their plans for Valentine's. They had booked restaurants, bought gifts etc. One of them asked if Ola and I had any plans. I had started feeling a bit queasy about the whole thing with spending money just because some commercial powers decided that this would be yet another good excuse to get people to spend money. So I replied that I was going to donate money to charity, the "heart and lung fund" to be exact (since Valentine's is called "All hearts' day" in Sweden that felt appropriate). So instead of fancy restaurants, chocolates and whatnot I donated 500 SEK.
After that they kept sending me letters to ask for more donations for at least two years. Just because of that I didn't make it a tradition.
This year I might actually do another donation. Not to the same organisation though.
And Ola? He gets a hug or two. He doesn't need (or want) chocolates or fancy dinners to know that I love him.
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| Wednesday, February 6th, 2008
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3:23 pm - Grades
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The government proposes a new grade system for schoolkids. Now it's A-F again.
When I went to school it was 1-5, where 3 was "average" (the average grades for the entire country were supposed to be 3 in each subject), 1-2 were below average and 4-5 were above average. None of the grades denoted "failure". The only way to "fail" was to not attend at all, in which case you wouldn't get any grade at all. Some people (including a few teachers) thought that the average for each class was supposed to be 3, which meant that the number of high grades per class would be limited. That wasn't really true though, since you could have a whole class of kids who were above the national average (our class got an average of about 4,1 in the national tests in Swedish, for example).
Then they changed it to IG - G - VG - MVG, where "IG" is "fail" and the others are different levels of "pass". Instead of aiming at a given average across the country, you'd "pass" if you passed certain demands and "fail" if you didn't, and if you do more than pass you get higher grades. It took a few years before everyone (especially the teachers) got used to the new system, and I think many kids are upset when they "fail". The whole point with the system would be that everyone could get the highest grade, but unfortunately it also means that everyone can fail.
And now they propose A-F, where "F" is fail and the rest are what you'd excpect them to be. When averages are calculated, the letters will be translated to numbers. I guess they're still intending to have defined goals for each grade rather than ranking the kids according to a national average.
And what's my opinion on this? My opinion is that I don't really care what they call the grades, except that changing the system every now and then will just bring confusion all around and comparing grades is getting impossible. And why "A-F", if you're going to translate them to numbers anyway? Why couldn't they just have stuck with the numbers from the start? Or stuck with A-F back when they changed it to 1-5...
Oh well, I don't think I'll be using my school/high school grades for anything in the future anyway. I don't even have much use for my grades from college. Not that they're bad, it's just that nobody really cares. If I go looking for work, they'll count my years of work experience first and be happy with a copy of my diploma. If I apply for at course at the colleges/universities I will most likely be able to use my eleven terms of previous college/university studies as a merit. Besides, the types of education I might seek would most likely pick people on completely different merits than just numbers on papers.
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| Monday, February 4th, 2008
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10:02 pm
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I won third prize (a gift certificate of 100 SEK) in a jewelry making/designing contest at Sirlig :-) The theme was "Marie Antoinette", and the only additional requirement was that something in the piece was bought from Sirlig. I owned exactly one bead that I had bought from Sirlig, an oval sunstone bead that I had vague plans for (plans involving my small sunstone beads that I had bought earlier from GeoArt). The contest was a perfect excuse to do something about those plans. I designed a coiled pendant inspired by the late 18'th century style. I used the sunstones and gold-filled wire (gold feels very typical for that period, Versailles is gilded all over...). The result can be seen at Sirlig: http://sirlig.se/inspiration.php (it's currently the third one from the top, with my name above it). I gues I'll have to upload a copy of the photo somewhere of my own too.
I have no idea what to do with the pendant now.
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| Thursday, January 31st, 2008
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9:25 am - Burnout Paradise (Xbox 360)
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I've been playing a little bit of Burnout Paradise the last couple of days, probably not really enough to write a review, but enough to say a couple of words at least.
First, the right way to introduce me to this kind of games is first to let me watch for a while, then give me the control when I ask for it, tell me the basics on steering and let me play around. Some people insist on wanting to show me the "cool tricks", and wanting to make me try them too. "Just head to that purple thing over there, press A and B while you tap L and hold R and then release X at the right moment" or something like that. Of course, I fail to even find "the purple thing over there", which makes me feel like a complete failure. Just playing around, or driving around aimlessly like in Burnout Paradise, does not make me feel like a failure. When I get bored I ask how that cool little jump I saw earlier was done. And then I head along from there. Ola lets me do it like this. Sometimes he points out things of interest (usually too late for me to react), but he doesn't insist on that I try them at once or make me feel like a failure because I don't try them. Sometimes he wants the controls back for a while because I found a nice spot for a stunt and he wants to try it, but mostly he lets me do what I want.
So, back to the game. Basically, you drive around in a city with surroundings, smash into cars (and the occasional wall), jump off rooftops, race from point A to point B etc. There are a lot of areas to explore and tricks to try. If you participate in events (races etc) or do some other cool stuff you get more cars to choose from. I of course use my involuntary "drunk-fu" driving style, so I pick the sturdy "aggressive" cars so that they don't go breaking all the time (when the car is wrecked you automatically get a new one free of charge and can continue doing whatever you were doing, but it's annoying anyway). The aggressive cars are more difficult to steer, but to me it doesn't make much difference since I over-steer anything I "drive" in a game like this.
The graphics look good, the controls are good and overall feeling is nice.
I haven't been that interested in the previous "Burnout" games, but this one caught my eye. I will probably play it from time to time, or at least steal the controls from Ola occasionally. I would probably not have been as interested without the sturdy "aggressive" cars though ;-)
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| Wednesday, January 30th, 2008
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10:13 pm
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During January I've sold about twice as much in my webshop as I did during December. Last week was crazy, with several orders every day. Then, a sudden drop. Only one order in two days. I was starting to worry that the sales were going down to much less than one order per day again. But today I got two more orders (hey, make that three... a third one just droped in although I won't pack it today), one of which was a bit larger than average too.
It's always like that. Just when I start thinking that everyone hates me and nothing will ever work again, something turns up to prove me wrong. On the other hand, just when I start thinking that everything works perfectly and will continue to do so and that everyone likes me, something will turn up and prove me wrong again.
Now, to something completely different (no, not larks). I don't know if I'm well or not yet. I felt quite okay yesterday, so I went to work today. That didn't feel quite okay, so I went home early. Now I don't know if I should go to work tomorrow or not, or if I'll be able to tell how I feel tomorrow morning.
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| Friday, January 25th, 2008
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11:10 pm
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Now I've spent a week at the silversmithing course. This week's result:
- One piece of silver with a picture of a fountain cut out with a saw. I have no idea what to do with the piece of silver. This was our first project (saw some figure into a piece of silver).
- One warped "message ring" or "affirmation band" with the text "PERFECTION". This was just a "pause project" while I was waiting for other things to happen (usually when the party ring was in the pickle).
- One half finished party ring. This is the second project.
- One almost finished heart pendant with the text "DIN MAMMA" ("your mother"). Another "pause project".
- Sketches of: my hand, two chairs, a plant (synthetic, but that doesn't show in the sketch), three tomatoes and a silver teapot. We had some drawing exercises.
- One friend (I knew her a little bit before, but now we've had lunch together every day and I know her a bit better. She seems to have a very similar way of communicating as I do.)
- No ideas for the next project, which is supposed to be a neck band in jugend style.
Now the course continues at a slower pace, only one day each week (Fridays). I can't wait until next Friday :-)
Photos will come some time after I've had time to take photos. And actually finish something more than just the message ring.
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| Sunday, January 6th, 2008
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9:41 pm - The Sims2 Castaway (Wii)
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I haven't played through the entire game yet, but I think I've played enough to review it.
The Sims2 Castaway is a standalone game available on most gaming systems (on PC there's a "Castaway Stories" which I assume is similar). We bought it for Wii.
You start by creating a crew of sims in a sailboat. The sailboat sinks and your "main" sim wakes up and finds herself (or himself) on a sandy beach on a tropical island. All you have are the clothes on your back, a knife, a sleeping mat and some toilet paper(!). The game consists of exploring the island(s), collecting resources (fruit, fish, rocks, pieces of wood etc) and building items. As you find new resources or build items your sim(s) figure out plans for more items. The goal is to find and assemble a radio transmiter and build a boat so that you can get off the island (whereafter you can return, since life in the tropical paradise is of course much nicer than paying bills at home). Of course you have to keep up your sim's motives - hunger, bladder, fatigue, social etc. Food is plentiful, so you don't have to worry about starving to death, which is basically the only way to kill your sims.
Anyway, the game is interesting as long as there are new things to explore. Near the end you start to run out of places to go, and the only goals you have left (except leaving the island) involve collecting a lot of resources. Collecting resources gets a bit tiresome in the end.
It's a fun game to spend a number of hours on, the islands are pretty to look at and the gameplay is fairly easy. There are some glitches, like sims suddenly turning invisible, or items turning invisible while they're used, and the shadows are in odd places now and then, but other than that it works okay.
Worth the money? Except that it's a bit short I'd say yes.
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3:11 pm - The Sims2 Bon Voyage Expansion Pack
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Now I've tried (almost) all of the things there are to do in the Bon Voyage expansion pack to Sims2. I sent my current Legacy challenge family on three vacations - one to each of the resort types. They've collected (almost) all of the "mementos", so I've seen most of the things there are to do.
The pre-built resorts of course have the annoying tendency to include only one or two of the "things to do" on each community lot, so that your sims have to visit a whole bunch of lots to do everything. It gives you more to do, but less efficient for the power-simer. I haven't tried building my own vacation resort neighbourhood yet, I started on one but haven't finished it yet.
Aparently the expansion pack was quite buggy when it first came out. I installed the patch before I started playing it, so I have no idea how much the patch has fixed, but now it seems stable enough.
Worth the money? I've stoped asking myself that a long time ago when it comes to The Sims and The Sims2. It's a virtual doll's house and "all-in-one" social simulator game where each expansion adds new interactions and some new toys. The value of that is quite impossible to measure. I wouldn't have stoped playing The Sims2 yet without the expansion, but the expansion was interesting and gave some useful new possibilities to the game.
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| Friday, January 4th, 2008
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11:46 pm - Desperate Housewives Season 1
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I borrowed the Desperate Housewives Season 1 DVD box from my parents. It took a few afternoons to watch through. Easy to digest, simple, clear and it made me want to play The Sims.
I mean, with the Seasons expansion, it rains more in Sims2 than in Desperate Housewives.
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| Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008
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10:14 pm - The Happy Challenge!
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Comment and write a list of things that make you happy! It doesn't have to be anything overwhelming or out of the ordinary, as long as it makes you happy. It can be items, persons, events, things you've done, concepts... There are a couple of rules though:
- Write only positive things - no negations of negative things! Do not write "I'm happy because I don't feel sick anymore". Write "I'm happy because I feel well" instead.
- No complaints about other things related to the happiness. Do not write "I'm happy about my cup of hot tea since the weather is so cold". Skip the complaint about the weather and only write that you're happy about your cup of tea.
I just want to see a load of happiness in here! Respond even if you don't feel generally happy for the moment - there must be something that makes your day at least a little bit brighter!
I may shout out this challenge now and then, so be prepared... and feel free to pass it on if you like it :-)
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Some things that make me happy right now:
- Ice cream
- My husband :-)
- Sims2 Bon Voyage and Sims2 Castaway
- I've finished my tubular peyote tube
- I've fixed some things in my webshop today
current mood:  happy
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