Hood Council Agenda-Midterm Election Cycle-2022

It's midterm election cycle, so the hood council is putting forth memos about that status of our agendas.

Graduate School Curriculm: Bradford McMillian School of Law

I realized that I needed a set of standards in place for my graduate programs. The undergraduate programs are mostly covered with the University pack, but since graduate studies is something I made up for my game, I need a bit more guidance. 

Architectural Permits and Fees

I'm always looking for new ways for my simmies to suffer, I mean, live. I've been upset that remodels don't cost anywhere near as much as they do in real life and often sims can get paid when they remodel-what?!?!?!

So I'm introducing a system of permits and fees for remodels done in my hood. The fees will help it to be a bit more realistic and will force some of my families to either work with what they have, save up to make big changes or move.

Simlish Credit-Worthiness

In my game, my sims have had it too easy to get loans. I've basically given any sim a loan that needed one. Since I want more financial variety in my game and some difficulty, I've decided to create a simlish credit-worthiness score and alter my existing loan calculators.

Chance Cards and Simmies

Over at N99 there was a discussion about chance cards and since I haven't shared how I do chance cards, I decided that a post was in order.

Follower Series: Choco

I've always found interesting new blogs by looking through the lists of followers and commenters, not only on my own site, but the sites of others. I thought that I would do a monthly profile of the followers and commenters of Apple Valley so that others can see some of the other great blogs that are out there. I only chose the sim related blogs of followers or commenter (no personal or non-sim blogs) and of course there are many followers and commenters that do not have a personal blog.

This month, I'm profiling

Choco

Choco has a sim's related blog called Winfield Township.

It's a TS2 blog that follows the lives of the sims that live in Winfield Township. You'll quickly find your favorites to root for such as Jerome and Brynn Watson or Shelley Lang.

Follower Series: Mizzgin03

I've always found interesting new blogs by looking through the lists of followers and commenters, not only on my own site, but the sites of others. I thought that I would do a monthly profile of the followers and commenters of Apple Valley so that others can see some of the other great blogs that are out there. I only chose the sim related blogs of followers or commenter (no personal or non-sim blogs) and of course there are many followers and commenters that do not have a personal blog.

This month, I'm profiling

Mizzgin03

ROS: 2014-2015

Here are the ROS for the next round

Character Studies: Bradford McMillian

Name: Bradford Oliver McMillian
Hair: Black
Eyes: Hazel
Likes: smooth jazz, doing his daughters' hair, dancing with his wife
Dislikes: dead batteries in smoke detectors, green beans, sticky things stuck to the bottom of his shoe

Multiple Births

I use the multiple birth hack in my game and modify it several different ways. I also combine this with the family aspiration reward for increased chance of twins and the cheesecake twins cheat as well.


Fertility Treatments
IVF treatments get increased odds for multiples as follows: 45% single, 30% twins, 15% triplets, 10% quads.

This is what happened with Ilila and Brandon Peterson, they received fertility treatments and their odds for multiples increased and they birthed little Jude and Brooklyn.

Advanced Maternal Age
Advanced maternal age (over 35 years old) get increased multiple odds: 55% single, 30% twins, 10% triplets, 5% quads.

Fiona and Jesse Kent fall into this category (though they also fit into other categories since Fiona and her mother are twins) since Fiona was about 35 when she conceived and gave birth to Jessica and Jennifer.

Generational Multiples-single case
If either parent to be or grandparent is a multiple: 45% single, 35% twins, 15% triplets, 5% quads.

Ray and Lydia birth twins Ari and Ava thanks to this, since Ray's father, Ajani, is a twin.

Generational Multiples-multiple cases
If both parents to be (or grandparents, or any combination of ) are a multiple: 40% single, 40% twins, 10% triplets, 10% quads.

Rebecca and Julio Wilsonoff birthed twins Abel and Amanda due to this. Julio is a twin, while Rebecca's father, Ajani, is also a twin.

Ginger and Grex Grey fall under this one multiple times. Ginger is a twin, her mother Cassandra was a twin, and her father Matthew was a triplet. Grex is also a twin. If these two didn't have any twins, I would be more surprised. But Annie and Bryant were their first and only set of twins.

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What methods do you use to determine multiple births?

Follower Series: Riverdale

I've always found interesting new blogs by looking through the lists of followers and commenters, not only on my own site, but the sites of others. I thought that I would do a monthly profile of the followers and commenters of Apple Valley so that others can see some of the other great blogs that are out there. I only chose the sim related blogs of followers or commenter (no personal or non-sim blogs) and of course there are many followers and commenters that do not have a personal blog.

This month, which also happens to be the one year anniversary of the series, I'm profiling

Riverdale

Riverdale has a sim's related blog called Riverdale Up to the Minute.

It's a TS2 blog that follows the lives of the sims that live in Riverdale. Riverdale has been around the scene for a while and has a website to go with the blog as well as a behind the scenes blog. The hood is a FSBS hood and there are plenty of visits bewteen simmies of other hoods there as well.

Maxis Scholarships, Expanded

My post on SPATs garnered a lot of attention and a few simmers have adapted different ways to have university admissions into their games. During a discussion on N99 I was reminded that I hadn't posted anything about my system for scholarships. Here's briefly some ways that I make Maxis scholarships expanded as well as some suggestions on how to adapt it to your hood.

SPAT, Reloaded

Since my original post, this system has proven to be a bit more complicated than I would have liked for my play style, so I tweaked it some more.  It is now much more simple and easy to calculate without depending on excel and it only uses two major aspects of simology to calculate now-skills and hobbies.

The SPAT and Colleges

I use SPAT scores to determine acceptance into Pierce University. The SPAT was developed by Laurel Crossing as a test to measure achievement for students applying to colleges and universities. SPATs are comprised of three sections: CSE (core skill evaluation), CIE (core interest evaluation) and CHE (core hobby evaluation). The CSE, CHE and CIE were discussed previously here.

While complying the SPAT scores for my high school seniors as they prepare to enter the great world of higher education I realized that I couldn't just do a simple addition of each subset. The CSE ranges from 0-70, the CIE ranges from 0-180 and the CHE ranges from 0-100, meaning a simple addition could have SPAT scores in the hundreds. Which wouldn't be a problem except most of the FSBS hoods and their universities had minimum SPAT scores in the 15-30's. I couldn't send my simmies there with SPAT scores in the 100s, yet I couldn't ask so many hoods-including mine-to change their entrance requirements.

Follower Series: Tanja

I've always found interesting new blogs by looking through the lists of followers and commenters, not only on my own site, but the sites of others. I thought that I would do a monthly profile of the followers and commenters of Apple Valley so that others can see some of the other great blogs that are out there. I only chose the sim related blogs of followers or commenter (no personal or non-sim blogs) and of course there are many followers and commenters that do not have a personal blog.

This month, I'm profiling

 Tanja

Tanja has a sim's related blog called SimsVille.

It's a TS2 blog following residents in SimsVille. It is an attempt to create a cohesive neighborhood, with as much reality as possible. There are plenty of families to get to know and love such as the Penninkmeijer, Terrano and Min families.

ROS: 2012-2013

Opps, I'm late in posting this, so sorry ^_^ but good news, this is a much better ROS for Apple Valley :)

ROS for the 2012-2013 rotation

• Charity strikes-donate $700 to charity-Interesting. I might give this simmie the generous trait as a result of this ROS.
• Facing the Fear-fulfill biggest fear-Not a fan at all, this is so unfortunate for this family.
• Sign music deal, $8000 bonus, perform 8 days, visit vacation lot, get double tips-Very exciting, can't wait for this to play out, but now I need to make more careers and set up new lots as a result.
• Win the lottery, $400000-This family isn't struggling, but the money is more than welcomed. I'll have to see how they will spend it.
• Cheapstake, attempt to leave on bill-I know just how to write this one up, which should be funny.

Follower Series: Nicky

I've always found interesting new blogs by looking through the lists of followers and commenters, not only on my own site, but the sites of others. I thought that I would do a monthly profile of the followers and commenters of Apple Valley so that others can see some of the other great blogs that are out there. I only chose the sim related blogs of followers or commenter (no personal or non-sim blogs) and of course there are many followers and commenters that do not have a personal blog.

This month, I'm profiling

Nicky

Nicky has a sim's related blog called Brookdale.

It's a brand new TS2 blog about a Sims 2 neighborhood called Brookdale and the residents in it as they grow and populate the town. Since it's brand new, there are not a lot of posts, which makes it easy to discover the background of the stories fairly quickly.

New Year!!!

Ok, it's not exactly the new years anymore, but happy new years to everyone out there! I decided to make a few resolutions/goals for the blogs and since sharing helps you commit to them, well, here they are.
First, let's look at this year in review!

Over at Apple Valley Blogs, June was the month with the most pageviews with 2,944 views. Besides the databases such as Education Note: State of Education and the Resident Database, the post Recess Duty, 2006 was the most viewed blog post.

Now, resolutions!!!

 

Behind the Scenes

• Continue the Follower Series and release the post on the 20th of each month.
• Try to keep posting inventive ideas to enhance the game play, as well as let you know the changes and current status of previous ideas.
• Start the character studies that you guys voted on!
• Maybe try a interactive game with some prizes.

Apple Valley Downloads

• Update at least monthly, but aiming for twice monthly. If you're a member of N99, then you have probably gotten access to the goodies earlier than the other blog readers. I'll continue this.
• My talent lies in buildings, so I want to challenge myself more with building cheats and designs, so expect a bunch of buildings to download. Also expect some re-releases as I make modifications to correct issues and achieve better playability and add more landscaping and other details to existing lots.
• That said, I would like to increase my skill in recoloring, which is limited at the moment due to my ancient photo shopping program. Honestly, I'm waiting for it to just refuse to turn on one day, especially since it was made to run with Windows 95.
• Finish bringing over all of my old downloads to the blog

Apple Valley Blogs

• Continue to update every 3-4 days
• Increase the number of polls so I can get feedback from you guys
• Respond to comments everyday instead of twice a week
• De clutter the blog appearance so it's not as distracting to readers

Any other suggestions? What are your blogging and simming resolutions?

Follower Series: Flit

I've always found interesting new blogs by looking through the lists of followers and commenters, not only on my own site, but the sites of others. I thought that I would do a monthly profile of the followers of Apple Valley so that others can see some of the other great blogs that are out there. I only chose the sim related blogs of followers (no personal or non-sim blogs) and of course there are many followers that do not have a personal blog.

This month, I'm profiling

Flit

Flit has a sim's related blog called, Verre Tranquille

Verre Tranquille is a sims 2 neighborhood. It's unique in that it includes 7 diffrent lands all sharing the same government and working together called the Verre Tranquille alliance. The first round is at the blogspot address, but the new entries have moved to the wordpress address. Not only will you be amazed by the story, but the pictures are wonderfully done as well.

Character Studies

Decided to try some character studies.

I will try to add lots of details and a concise backstory for each simmie.

Below is a poll to see if some of these simmies are interesting enough to get a little more background info on. There is an other option, so feel free to chose that if you want to know more about a simmie not listed below since listing all the simmies in my hood would create such a long poll!

Who would you like to know more about?