My 20 Years Anniversary

I just realized it's been 20 - TWENTY! - years since my first The Sims web site was released in February 2002*! So to celebrate this amazing anniversary I invite you to dive into the past to explore bits of this journey.

My first site was for The Sims 1, and already back then I had a community focus with a council, experts on food and babies and much more. It was perhaps the first sims site out there that was "for sims, by sims". SUN, anyone? The site had guest writers from other games, and it turned out as a nice role playing universe.

Updated Heading

Not really worth a blog post, but as Google/Blogger has some problems uploading a header without a blurry result, I had to post the image on the blog. It did not help a bit, so forgive me for leaving the blurry header as is, and I'll give it another try eventually.

It was on time the header got an update as it still thought it was 2014 with all TS3 graphics. You might recognize a few of the new faces, and you might even smile when you notice who is smelling the fart from that cow. The cow will be there for the Cottage Living release only, so the farting will not go on forever...

Nobility: Rank and Titles

 (Year 225) It's been a while since I introduced nobility to my Region 12. Historically, the first peers have been around since Year 2, and I know the detailed story of each house.

Nobility from several districts gathered at the wedding of Auphor Saxor, Baron of Verde. Left to right: Elvy (Rab-Saxor) Ross, Baroness of Shiningham. Bennet Ross, Baron of Shiningham. Ribra Lynn (Thebe) Ross, Duchess of Rossie. Jarret Ross, Duke of Rossie. Gloria (Roxenfox) Saxor, Duchess of Meadows. Victus Am. Saxor, Duke of Meadows. (Groom) Auphor Saxor, Baron of Verde. (Bride) Morgan (Fyres) Saxor, Baroness of Verde. Dominic Fyres, Lord von Dresden, of Deadgrass and von Haunt. Moira (Rattle) Fyres, Mrs Dominic Dresden. Miss Siobhan Fyres.

In this post I want to focus a bit more on how my nobility ranks, and their titles. There are four levels, royalty (they reside far away and I don't play them), high nobility, low nobility and noble titles (which often counts as low nobility). I did some RL research over the past year, and I was amazed by the complexity! I had to make my own routines, but there are still certain elements based n RL nobility.

New year and more projects

Happy new year! I've started 2020 with diving into my game's old history! I love story telling and history, and whenever I create something in my game I also like to know its origin. I want all my sims to have a background spanning many generations, even if those were never played out.

The past week I really dived deep, exploring the past of my Region 12. My year count is currently at Year 222, so I went right back to Year 0 - I imagine this was when the community transferred from TS1 to TS2 and time was no longer static. They started a new and needed to define a top level of society, to control community but also handle politics and wars. There was established an organization called the Royal Chamber, with the power to approve the best man for each peerage. Many families claimed a noble background from TS1, but brought no proofs. Hardly anything could be verified.

The Royal Chamber introduced the King of SimNation, Baltazar II of the De Froux family. This family had a Coat of arms already that could actually be verified, and left no doubt about high nobility (pictured). But for the rest?

My Stock Market

Well, I don't really have a stock market to share, like I did for The Sims 2, but I do have many stock companies in my game, and I keep track on all details regarding ownership and their annual yield. So, I decided to share some of this...

I keep track on everything in a spreadsheet. Numbers are percent ownership that year. Grey/blue background is Top 3.

Residents of my Region 12 can establish a personal holding company, which I tend to do for showbiz people and those focusing a bit on investments, but in general the complexity of larger stock companies is more fun! I have a rule that when a company is worth more than §1.000.000 or has more than 5 owners, a set of rules must be followed.

Elections - Rules & schedule

In my Region 12 there is an election taking place on 1st day of Spring every 5th year. The election decides who the 5 councilors will be for the coming 5 years.

This is where the 5 Councilors work minimum 2 days every week.

Feel free to copy some of this if you want to try something similar. Also find several articles on the
Year 220 election on this blog and on my Youtube channel - tagged "How I Play".


The election runs like this:

Give your Sims a custom Lottery

With Seasons EP there was introduced a world wide lottery, where your sims can participate to win great prizes. I've played 4 full years now, and never seen the lottery, and I know other simmers have not got this random calendar event, either.

So, if you want an alternative way to run your own lottery, read on!

Back in the days of The Sims 2, I ran the busy Simmerville Hood website. The site was packed with ideas for your sim community, including organizations and a few tools to add fun activities and calculations. One tool was the Lottery presented by the Grey Sims Organization. It's basically a small JavaScript making it easy to run your own local lottery. Your browser must allow JavaScript and popup windows, I think most browsers do these days.

Go to this page and enter details like lottery title, how many prizes, what each prize is, and then how many lots were sold. Then you will need to add names on those participating, or just a lot ID if you rather like to refer to some other listing you already have. Finally you will get a notice with a random winner of each of your prizes.

Do a test run with just a handful lots to learn how it works.

Sims must be charged manually, and prizes must be arranged manually as well. Using the "money" cheat will fix both. Prizes can of course be anything that you find a way to add to the winning household, money or a TV or a dinner for four sims at a nice restaurant? Think of something that might add to a story or the way you prefer to play. If giving each resident one lot each, you don't really need to charge them because they will all get the same. It's all up to you :)

Bimbo NL - Simmerville's webmistress of the past

Among tons of sims, from all 3 The Sims series, one character was my clear favourite for a long time; Bimbo NL. She was the webmaster of my Simmerville website covering the development and gossips of my main games - both in The Sims 1 and 2.

Her full name was Bimbi O'Brian, and I recall she originated from a made up hood called Rosewood. She moved to my TS1 Simmerville hood, together with a high school friend, Jim Loveless. He was just a bi character though, as Bimbi NL grabbed all the spotlight :)

Bimbo NL was concerned with the Simmerville website (although it was actually Jim that initiated it). She covered local politics as well as more glitzy stuff. She even investigated, and from the top of my head I recall a top secret military operation, involving aliens, where Bimbo went a bit too far to get the scoop she wanted.

Well, here is Bimbo NL's personal TS1 diary! Note there are a total of 3 pages covering 2004, 2003 and 2002 (linked on bottom line).

Anyone following my Simmerville site back then, might recall the ambitious project where my TS1 hood prepared themselves to move into TS2 - the return of a lost demention. Bimbo NL was probably the only TS1 sim who was allowed to visit the new TS2, with the generous help from EA's very own Lucy Bradshaw. Bimbo NL was simply recreated in the new CAS, then sent to EA Games who returned a few pictures :)
Bimbo NL was of course wearing a tank top with the "logo" of Simmerville website - those 4 yellow dots.... Here's the article including those early TS2 pictures.

Oh, I just discovered that Bimbo NL (and a few other sims from several hoods out there) wrote a transformation diary, supposed to cover her first 5 days in the new TS2 place. How cool is that! I had forgotten all about that!

So how did life handle Bimbo NL in the new TS2 hood? She did rather well, she married (hm, did they ever marry?) and had to kids. She was 52 when marrying Simbille Ballong. She quit the webmistress job, and bought Café Cornell. At 55 she wrote this in her diary:

"I attended the annual Golden Star Awards, and guess what! Simmerville won the community website award again, and I was given the surprise lifetime achievement award, including a Dame title from the King of Simborough! My friend Anthony Troy must have put in a good word I think, lol, cool!"

So she was Dame Bimbi O'Brian Ballong :)  Check out her TS2 diary, with more pictures!

Well, I knew Bimbo NL through many years of simming, so when she passed I was pretty sad, no wonder. I found this posted on my TS2 Simmerville's 45th year:

"Bimbi "Bimbo NL"(O'Brian) Ballong (75)
Simmerville's coolest websimtress ever, Bimbo NL, died today, while drinking her daily espresso. Also known for several bestselling books and for owning local Club Cornell. Married twice. Leaves husband Simbille Ballong and their teen son Simerin, and her adult daughter Claira O'Brian from first marriage with Joe Carr. Bimbi Ballong reached status of platinum and will be found at the Cemetary d'Honour. R.I.P."

 You do get attached to those sims, don't you?