Still alive, but a bit broken!

Just a quick explanation for those of you who have been wondering why I haven’t posted anything lately and for any of you who tried to access my work-based site and need to discover it’s down-I’ve not fallen off the planet. However, I have fallen! At the start of June I had surgery on my left shoulder for an injury that been plaguing me for a couple of years.

Less than a fortnight after my surgery and the day before I was due to return to work, I tripped over a crate left on the floor of the supermarket and fell face first, fracturing my elbow in the process-on the opposite arm to my bad shoulder! As you can imagine, having two arms out of action for a while has been incredibly difficult. I’ve been having physio and hospital appointments and both arms have got a decent range of movements now-however, I’m still struggling quite a bit with pain and it will be some time before they’re both at full strength.

In the meantime, I forgot to renew the hosting on my work-based website and it went off-line and I haven’t managed to put it back online again because using computers is not the easiest thing right now. I went back to work today on a phased return, but it will be sometime before back to full capacity-and the same is true of simming. I’m entering into Boolprop’s Next Top Model because it is a pretty easy thing to do, but at the moment any sustained computer use is a bit difficult, and writing my Sims blogs is no exception. I have played further and have more to post: including the final entry of the Knights which has been played through in game, and I can’t wait to show you the last gen (if I can remember their names after all this time!) Although I am managing to write lengthy blog posts and Word documents using voice software, I haven’t quite figured out how to use that to do the picture heavy updates that the sim blogs require so as soon as I can get my arms working properly, I’ll be back updating them, playing and generally being a bit more lively than I have been for the past few weeks.

Hope you’re all well 🙂

And another Daye update!

I haven’t been well this week, so I’ve been working at home and I haven’t been out anywhere in the evenings or weekends – which has meant my evenings and weekends have been spent simming (inbetween sleeping)… and that means another Daye update, a mere week after the last one! Enjoy as we go back and forth between the future, the present and island living…

We still exist!!

So real life has been its usual busy self, both with work and another play. But with things settling down and my finally getting on top of umpteen gaming glitches, we’re back. The penultimate gen of the Knights are 9. Spiralling, whilst the Dayes continue their EP explorations in Long time no sea.

I actually up Daye-ted!

Another Dayes entry squeaks its way out: The first resort. Knights are about halfway through Gen 9 and still crashy. Can’t wait to end that little legacy! And now I’m going to catch up on some sim blogs for the first time in months!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! Have a never-used shot from the last round of Boolprop’s Next Top Model by way of a card! The Dayes are back with a shocking turn of events and I also snuck out a Knights update, 8. Knock on Wood, a couple of weeks ago. A combination of real life and crashy games has meant I’ve not been around writing or reading as much as I would have liked this year but rest assured the Dayes and Knights are still going. I’m not sure if I will get Sims 4 or not yet, and I still have a lot to do with my research data, but we’ll see how the game is looking by the time I end the prettacy and I might get it then. In the meantime, the Dayes still have loads of TS3 to play with and we may not even get to the end of all that before TS5 is out!

Research update

My Sims 4 post-release survey has now closed – thanks for everyone who completed either this or the pre-release survey.    I will possibly run another survey after Christmas and/or after the first EP release.  I gave another presentation today, this time I was mainly looking at the marketing and PR – not sure how much sense the slides will make in isolation but here they are if you want them!

Now to start analysing all the data and writing the findings… will keep you all posted.

New Dayes

Yes, after a couple of months because I was in another play, the Dayes are back in I’ll have a blue Ice Pop in which they get to Isla Paradiso. Or some of them, anyway.

The Knight kids are teenagers now so expect an update soon-ish.

I’m presenting another Sims 4 paper this week and will put the slides online later. The surveys have closed now, so I have a few months of analysing the data and writing about things – am keeping an interested eye on developments too…

Sims 4 research updates and other things

I just got back from London where I presented some of the very preliminary findings from the Sims 4 pre-release work several of you took part in.  You can access the slides here. The post-release survey is still open until the end of October – I would love to hear from everyone, whether you have the game or not, on your responses to it since it’s come out – either through playing it or through seeing what others have done with it.

As for my own sims, I have been away so many weekends lately – and no real let up until November – so I’ve barely played them. I miss those Dayes and Knights though (although the Knights crash out on me every single time at the moment) and am looking forward to playing them.

By the way, I don’t have TS4 myself yet – I will maybe get it eventually but there is so much TS3 I have left to explore that I’m in no rush.

Sims 4 post-release survey now live!

I have now closed the Sims 4 pre-release survey with around 800 completions and will be working my way through the data.

Now The Sims 4 is out (in most of the world anyway…) the post-release survey is live. I’d love as many people as possible to complete it – whether or not you have TS4, and whether or not you completed the earlier survey.

There will be two types of questions – a set for those who have played TS4 and a set for those who haven’t. The survey will be live until the end of October. If you are planning on getting it before then, please can you wait until you have played before completing it? But if you have already played or you know you won’t be getting it before the end of October, go right ahead!

As before, it’s entirely anonymous (and this survey is a bit shorter too). Results from the pre-release survey are likely to be available late September and I’ll keep people posted about the results of this one.

http://pinto.hallam.shu.ac.uk/limesurvey/index.php/549839/lang-en

Many thanks

Rad

More Dayes

The Dayes are back again in Dayes of Plenty – whereby our supernatural mania goes a bit crazy.

The Knights are children at the moment so watch this space for them.

New Dayes

The Dayes are back in a post that seems quite short but represents a LONG time of playing: Six degrees of sim frustration. Eh. The Knights’ next gen have been born and I’m hoping to update both again by the end of the month.

Sims 4 surveys – I need your input!

As most of you know, I have an alter ego as a Principal Lecturer in Media at Sheffield Hallam University, and part of my job involves lots of different kinds of research relating to different aspects of the media. Some of you may remember, a couple of years ago, completing surveys and interviews for me for some research I was doing on Sims fans. Some of those findings are in a paper I presented at the Internet Research conference last year (slides here, short paper here), some aspects were mentioned in a paper I co-authored in Participations journal. I have also written an article using these findings which will be published in the journal Transformative Works and Cultures next year and have another 2-3 articles in progress.

Given the release of Sims 4, I wanted to use this opportunity to gather player opinions on the new game, both before and after its release, and so I’m asking anyone who can to fill in two short(ish) anonymous surveys relating to the game. The pre-release survey is now live and I would appreciate you recirculating the link so I can get as many people as possible to complete it (I had around 1.5K responses last time – thanks all!): http://pinto.hallam.shu.ac.uk/limesurvey/index.php/298684/lang-en

The second survey will be posted after the game is released (probably within the first week rather than on the day of release as I’ll need to discover what its features actually are so I can create appropriate questions). I’ll post reminders when it goes live, but the address is: http://pinto.hallam.shu.ac.uk/limesurvey/index.php/549839/lang-en Please note, this survey and its follow-up are entirely anonymous.

If you want any more details, you can email me: r.a.deller@shu.ac.uk or visit my website. Thanks!

In which prettacies get hard

So a prettacy is proving harder than an uglacy. Who knew? Anyway, gen 7 of the Knights are here: 7. Circle of Life. One of the spares is also my entrant in Boolprop’s Next Top Model at the moment.

The Dayes are a crashy mess at the mo, it might take some time to sort it 😦

The Knights are back! (As are the Dayes)

I am very aware of the irony of an ultra-speedy legacy being the least frequently updated thing ever, but the Knights are back in 6. It’s hip to be square. Gen 7 are children now, so you may see them this side of Christmas.

The Dayes are also back, in Ten’s Nervous Headache.

Also, for those interested the the research side of things, I’ve submitted a paper about Simblr that will hopefully come out next year, am working on one about Electronic Arts which I’m intending to submit once TS4 is out and I have a couple more planned to work on over the next few months. Will keep you posted.

The Dayes of Gen 10

So the Gen 10 heir has taken over and the Dayes are off back to uni in Starter for Ten. I have pretty much enough for another post soon as well…

…now to see if I can get through more than an hour of the Knights…

Dayes update and Gen 10 heir poll

The time has come for another heir to take on the somewhat dubious honour of holding the reins of the Daye family. So have a read of the new update, Sometimes you win and vote in the poll at the end!

New Dayes!

So, I’ve been busy here with real life as usual, but I snuck out a new Dayes chapter last night and I’m hoping another one will come soon-ish (along with Gen 10 heir poll): What does the Fox spray?. Knights might have to wait a while, until I next have some time off work – I have plenty of leave coming up over the summer.

New Dayes!

Been a while, but they’re back: Make one change – bitch at Quorn

More Dayes… and more of the Knights

The Knights are lucky I love them because the amount of crashing and freezing they put me through… anyway, a new chapter has finally been squeezed out: 5. Starry Starry Knights.

The Dayes are being just as annoying, but in different ways, in their new chapter In which I want to kill Dracula all over again.

Double Dayes

Oh, the fun of being off work for a few days – two Dayes updates for you!

We fail at going Into the Future in Future-Proof and we repeatedly fail at sim-killing in Killing in the Name Of.  We also get very sad about Twallan’s retirement when our game glitches all the freaking time and we realise we can’t ask him how to make it better any more (but thank you for EVERYTHING, Twallan, you are a LEGEND).

A note on links…

Just a note about my links – I’m going to be editing my link list over the next few days. I want to narrow things down to three main categories by the end of the tidying-up:

Active stories/sites – these are the stories/sites I want to keep up with. If content hasn’t been updated for several months, I’ll remove links but if you update again, let me know and I’ll relink. I’m going to be adding a few new links here as and when I get time to read things – you are welcome to let me have your link so I can see what you’re up to but I may not add it straight away.

Completed stories – These are stories I followed all the way through and really loved and think you might like too. I’m not going to check if these sites are still live but if you follow a link that’s dead, let me know.

Resources I’ve used – an incomplete record of sites I’ve grabbed CC and mods from, mainly for my own reference. Again, not really keeping these up to date, so may be some dead links, and let me know if so.

I will not be adding Tumblr blogs here as a general rule of thumb, but I have my own infrequently updated Tumblr, http://radsims.tumblr.com and will happily follow Simblrs from there.

Bit of housekeeping… bear with

Happy new year! I thought the blog was long overdue a spring clean, hence the new template. Will be having a bit of a tidy up in the next few days and re-assessing how I use links because it’s such a slog to keep them up to date (and yet I find them personally useful to keep track of some of my favourites).

Dayes update should hopefully be with you this week and Knights… when I can play them long enough without crashing for it to happen. Cosmic gen are currently children in game.

Taken: the finale

So, a story that was meant to take a year to tell is over after three-and-a-half years. Thank you so much to everyone who has read and commented and offered support in various forms. You can now read the final chapter: 70. Ending

I’ve also written five epilogues:
Standing
Freedom
Living
Horizons
Merry Christmas

And now I’m going to enjoy Christmas and enjoy actually playing the sims again for a change. Looking forward to meeting the Dayes and Knights again!

Penultimate Taken chapters…

So the finale will be with you either tomorrow or Tuesday. In the meantime, the next two chapters of Taken are ready: 68. Born and Bred and 69. Men and Women

Two more Taken chapters

Two more Taken updates for you today. One thread of the story closes here, whilst another kind of closes (you’ll see what I mean in time). Started shooting 68, 69 and 70 tonight although they’re quite chunky chapters with a lot of characters to get through. Have already shot two of the planned epilogues as well. My intention is to release all of the epilogues at the same time as chapter 70 but we’ll see how I get on.

So the new chapters, then. 66. Light at the End and 67. Flight.