Edit: the pics should work now. Curse you, Photobucket! *shakes fist*

So since TS3 pretty much enforces legacy-style playing on you, I decided hey! I may as well play a legacy family! TS3 is also addictive and therefore I have spent far too much time playing this family, which led to me making this post because if I don't I'll soon forget what the hell was going on at the time I took these screencaps.

Note: I didn't realise that my screencap programme was including the mouse in the pics, so there are several points where the mouse is clearly visible in the picture. Oops. Please ignore for now - I've changed the programme settings now so it shouldn't do that any more. :D

Tsutsul Legacy Part One: Poverty and Gold Diggers

Here we have our lovely founder, Bronwyn Tsutsul. She's a Bookworm, Artistic, Hopeless Romantic, Great Kisser and ... something I've forgotten. It's clearly very important. (Edit: Brave!)

Her LTW is Illustrious Author, AKA to max out the painting and writing skills. Which is why the first (and only) thing I bought her was an easel - she can use the gym in town for hygiene needs, and eat at the diner until I get her the Discount Diner perk, which makes eating at the (much nicer) bistro/restaurant thing free.

The red streaks in the hair don't stay, BTW. I got fed up of them after about five seconds.



At the end of Bronwyn's first day, this was her home. An easel and a bed on the lawn. Only since I'm using the 60x60 lot on a hill overlooking Sunset Valley, she gets a +30 "Beautiful Vista" moodlet that goes on about the house being awesome, which is hilarious because you're living on the freaking lawn.




Bronwyn's not getting any younger, though, so it's off downtown to find a potential mate. After feeding her at the diner, I saw this guy and directed her to talk to him, since he's not completely objectionable in the looks department. This is unusual for Sims games so I pounced.

Turns out his name is Grady Elfman, and he's a maid. It was about this time that I had my first experience of flirting/romance in the Sims 3 world - I got them to "good friends" through romantic interactions, hence the top picture where they're leaning into each other, but I still had no option to get him to move in.

Then I switched to friendly interactions, and lo and behold she got the option to ask him to move in. It seems interactions (funny, friendly, romantic or mean) are all impetus-based, so you need to build up some steam in those interactions before it'll let you get to the good stuff.

Grady brought a lousy 1K with him, but that's fine since that was all Service Sims brought in TS2. He's a Brave, Neat, Charismatic, Kleptomaniac. WTF.

(Yes, that's only four traits - as a maid, he has a hidden trait that means he never makes anything dirty. Kinda lame, really. I want a fireman - pyromaniac hidden trait, wooh!)

I got him a job in the Law Enforcement career track, because it was that or the Criminal career track, and when I dabbled with the game before I ended up hating the Criminal career because my Sim got arrested every other time she went to work. Being Brave should help with the Law Enforcement side of things. At least, that's what the game tells me.



However, there's a problem with Grady.

His Lifetime Wish.

It's Gold Digger.

Which means he wants to see the ghost of a rich spouse.

Not only is this rubbish in terms of reward points - only 20K, when most are 30K+ - but it kind of puts a stop to any progression he and Bronwyn might make in terms of engagement/marriage etc., since a) Bronwyn is nowhere near rich and b) there ain't no way in hell I'm killing her off early. Novel writing can rack up some pretty nice paydays, so I intend to have her writing until she cops it. Plus, she's my founder! I have a sentimental attachment to her!

And then I remembered Agnes Crumplebottom, pictured above with a truly thrilled expression on her face.

Agnes Crumplebottom, for those who haven't played previous Sims games, was known as "Mrs Crumplebottom" in both and would turn up on community lots solely for the purpose of interrupting your dates by beating you with her purse while berating you for your immoral ways. In TS3, which is supposed to be a prequel to TS1 the way TS2 was a sequel of sorts, Agnes is still an adult and newly widowed. She's Grumpy, a Bookworm, Frugal, Hopeless Romantic and a Loner.

I carry a grudge against her from previous games, and she's currently sitting alone in her lovely rich manor, which makes her PERFECT.

Except that she's a grumpy little sod, which made romancing her really bloody difficult. Plus she'd already managed to get a boyfriend while I wasn't looking, which meant I had to work things up to the point that Grady could ask her to break up with him.



Got there eventually, though.




That same evening Grady invited her home and popped the question, then immediately got hitched. And here is where stupidity point #98256020552 of TS3 comes into play.

Agnes Crumplebottom (now Agnes Elfman) was living in a house worth roughly 150K. She had about 50K of cash to play with. When moving her in, the game asked me if I wanted to sell her old place, to which I clicked "hell yes". 200K in two Sim days? Count me in!

Except she brought 22K to the household and that. Was. It.

WTF. What did you do with your money, Agnes? Shove it up your arse? Bury it in the hills near the stadium? Were you actually renting that house?

Luckily for me, Agnes had driven both her and Grady to the Tsutsul lot in her car, which got magically shoved up her arse in her inventory. Her car was worth 84K. Kaching!




With that money in the pot, I set about actually making a house for the family. Yes, it's a box. I'm not an architect, sod off.

I hadn't realised that the water tool in TS3 is now free, though, or I would have added the lake to the lot much earlier. The lot is so huge that the only way I would feel comfortable playing it is if most of it was covered in something large and decorative. Actually getting trees etc. and planting them was way too much like work, so - lake!

Plus this means I get to make a pier out into the lake and put Bronwyn's easel on it for great justice profit.



With Grady and Agnes married and Agnes fenced into a back corner of the deck so she won't run around being a nuisance before she cops it, Bronwyn and Grady were free to get it on. Despite all the flirting they'd done before, he didn't show up on her relationships tab as a romantic interest. Weird. Smooching soon cleared that one up.




Ain't nothing classier than conceiving the next generation with your beau while his caged, stinky wife watches through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows. It took her about half an hour to work out what was going on in there. You ain't the brightest bulb in the box, are you, Agnes?



I really like this effect, though. Way better than the fireworks that came out of the bed in TS2, which were really difficult to catch on camera.



Ah, puking. Tried and tested Sim method of determining whether a babby is on the way. I didn't quite get the shot in time, but in TS3 it seems that Sims have actually learned how to puke into the loo, which is more than they could do in TS2. (The less said about TS1, the better.)

Plus I learned the hard way that if there isn't a loo around, TS3 Sims will puke on the floor. They just got a comfort drop in TS2.



Huzzah! Not-completely-hideous maternity clothes!

I didn't actually try to change the clothes, but I wouldn't be suprised if I could, within limits. At some point I shall investigate this.

Also, hah, Agnes pissed herself and passed out. *is twelve*



I thought this was really sweet and totally random. I've found that normally Sims only snuggle when they've realy romanced it up beforehand, but Grady decided to snuggle Bronwyn the day she got her official "pregnant" status. Aww.



Unfortunately, Grady and Bronwyn still weren't hitched because it was taking forever for Agnes to die. She went through a series of three moodlets - first came "hungry", which was neutral, and lasted for three Sim hours. Then she got a "very hungry" moodlet, which lasted 40 hours. Two days. Great. Then, when that expired, she got a "starving" moodlet, which lasted for 80 hours. Hence why I got gen two started while Bronwyn was still technically single.

In some ways, TS2 was better for starvation deaths. Your hunger bar emptied at the same pace all the way along, and when it was empty - bam, that was it, dead.

Agnes? Noooo, Agnes just kept going. And going. And going.



BUT NOT FOREVER.





I really loved Grimmie in this one. It was hilarious. Menacing, forboding music heralds the arrival of the Grim Reaper, a mist spreads from the body of the deceased as a headstone appears, and the body morphs into a transparent spectre that then pleads for its miserable, worthless life.

Grimmie stands there, head tilting to one side, almost as if it is listening - nope! Actually, Grimmie just doesn't understand what this glowy soul thing is babbling on about, and punts it aside with a negligent but hilariously executed swing of the scythe before departing to get on with the harvest. These Sims ain't gonna die on their own, you know!

I wasn't quick enough to get a picture of the punt, but it was the funniest thing I have seen in ages. Bye bye, Agnes!



"So, honey, you know how your wife's dead now and all? You think maybe, just maybe, now that I'm pregnant with your child, really hormonal, and know where you sleep you might agree to be my boyfriend?"

TBC.