The MacEpic Legacy: Movin’ Up

It’s been a while since I played The Sims 3, and a while since the MacEpic family got any love. I’ve played since my last update, though I didn’t report on what happened. I’m sure I’ve forgotten some things, but here are the basics.

I went ahead and had Frederick and Elisabeth have another child. It’s another boy, and I named him Jack. I currently have no plans for a specific Lifetime Wish for him. He’s in elementary school now, and is already a Genius, Insane, and a light sleeper. He may be hell to raise, and I may feed him to the time stream rather quickly. His brothers, on the other hand…

Heath, new heir to the MacEpic legacy.

Name: Heath MacEpic

Favorite Music: Kids
Favorite Food: Fruit Parfait
Favorite Color: Orange

Traits: Couch Potato, Clumsy, Neat, Hydrophobic

Lifetime Wish: Creature-Robot Cross Breeder

Heath is the heir. He is currently in high school, working as a Fitting Room Guard at the Spa. My dreams of him taking up grandma’s failed rock star crusade have wilted in the face of his strong desire to merge chinchilla DNA with robots. He’s been a great disappointment to me, but I’ll just have to deal with it. I have been too lazy to take him directly to the science facility to see if I can get him a job in science at the teen level, but he’s headed right into full employment as soon as he gets old enough.

Caspian MacEpic, the second son.

Name: Caspian MacEpic

Favorite Music: Pop
Favorite Food: Dim Sum
Favorite Color: Blue

Traits: Absent-Minded, Couch Potato, Excitable, Bookworm

Lifetime Wish: Master of the Arts

Caspian is currently in high school. He has no job, since his lifetime goal revolves around guitar and painting, and I want him to have plenty of time to practice. I had a couple of opportunities regarding foreign travel, so I took the family on a vacation to Egypt and had him play guitar the whole time, so he’s mastered that, now. He’s taken on a funky punk hairdo to match his argyle sweaters.

He'll be famous when he makes news anchor!

Name: Tertius MacEpic

Favorite Music: Classical
Favorite Food: Egg Rolls
Favorite Color: Lilac

Traits: Neurotic, Excitable, Artistic, Vegetarian

Lifetime Wish: Star News Anchor

Getting Tertius to pick a Lifetime Wish besides Illustrious Author (which is dear old Dad’s Lifetime Wish) was a pain in the butt. I must’ve told him no three or four times before Star News Anchor came up. He’s just reached his teenage days, so I’m finally able to start working on his charisma skill in the bathroom. A standing mirror for his room may be in order, actually.

Grandpa Kevin is haunting the house. Sometimes he lays down in his bed to sleep; sometimes he gets on a computer and appears to keep working on the book he was writing when he died; every now and then he just walks through the walls and disappears. He freaked Elisabeth out once, but hasn’t caused any real trouble besides that.

He rattles the Internets instead of chains.

Frederick, now that I have Ambitions, has quit his day job to become a freelance writer for a living. He is a Small-Town Scribe whose only job responsibility is Earnings — to make moola by writing. It’s going rather well; he specializes in Romance novels, which take lots of time to write but pay lots of money. He should get paid some 13,000 simoleons in royalties this coming weekend. Since he only has about 250 simoleons to go before his job level increases, I find myself wondering how many levels he’ll be skipping when his royalty check comes in.

Elisabeth has achieved her Lifetime Wish. Now that there are four children and I’m not planning to get her pregnant again, she’s just a money maker. If the house gets too crowded — once Heath marries and starts having kids of his own — she’s my first choice for feeding to the time stream. That’s right, I’m willing to ditch the wife.

Current legacy score: 13

The MacEpic Legacy: Two Deaths, a Marriage, and Three Births

Sorry, lady, you overworked yourself.

I’ve actually gotten quite a bit of Sims 3 in, even though I’ve been busy with rehearsals and work and school. It’s easy to play 15 minutes here, 15 minutes there… and harder to chronicle things as I go in the process.

Zelda MacEpic perished as soon as she got off work one day. Literally. I failed to get 100,000 aspiration rewards points for her. However, she fulfilled her primary function — giving birth to the heir. I was so close to getting her Lifetime Wish granted, though. Very sad.

I made Frederick go pick up her grave and move it to the graveyard. I was too busy having Kevin perform experiments on everything in sight, trying to get as much use out of his science career as I could before he kicked it. I managed to set things on fire three times in one day doing that, but no one died as a result. In fact, in two of the instances, we got the fire put out before the firemen arrived.

Frederick MacEpic, Heir the First.

Name: Frederick MacEpic

Favorite Food: Fish and Chips
Favorite Music: French
Favorite Color: Sea Foam

Traits: Neurotic, Natural Cook, Easily Impressed, Hopeless Romantic, Never Nude

Lifetime Wish: Illustrious Author

Frederick MacEpic has reached adulthood. He quickly picked up Illustrious Author for his Lifetime Wish, and I agreed. He stays home, writing and painting while his lovely wife works her way up the Military career track. (When she isn’t popping out children, that is. She ended up having about a week and a half off, by the time the third one was born.) And speaking of the wife…

The second MacEpic matron.

Name: Elisabeth (Donner) MacEpic

Favorite Food: Hot Dogs
Favorite Music: French
Favorite Color: Blue

Traits: Loner, Loves the Outdoors, Friendly, Family-Oriented, Evil

Lifetime Wish: Martial Arts Master

Her Evil trait has been the most interesting one to deal with. When Kevin was setting things on fire in the name of science, she had a wish to see a family member die in a fire. She also keeps wishing to steal candy from her own children. Although I’m kind of curious to see how that would affect her relationship with her children, I’m on a mission and have resisted that temptation.

Her Lifetime Wish has made China the new cool place to go on vacation. Every time her travel debuff goes away, I send her back so that I can work her up the tournament. I need to work on her visa level a bit more, though… the more days she can stay at a time, the more likely she is to make it to rank ten in the tournament before going the way of Zelda. Since practicing martial arts works the athletic skill, too, she’ll have no problem keeping her athletics high enough for promotions at work.

Frederick and Elisabeth have had three sons. Their names, by order of birth, are Heath, Caspian, and Tertius. They were born just far enough apart that I was able to get by with only two cribs. I’ve been building bedrooms in a 6×4 square format with bed, desk, and laptop. Since you can recolor anything and everything in this iteration of the franchise, I’ve just been using the same textures with new color schemes. The basic scheme of the common rooms of the house are remaining red and pink, in honor of Kevin and Zelda.

Kevin has also gone the way of Zelda.

Kevin MacEpic perished without seeing the birth of his third grandson. He never retired from the science field, stocking up enough money for the family to live on for a while until Frederick’s and Elisabeth’s careers get off the ground. He was in the middle of writing his third book at the time — a pastime he took up in his later years after Elisabeth took over the gardening.

I’m planning to encourage Heath to take up music as soon as possible; I’d like to shoehorn him into the Rock Star Lifetime Wish in grandma’s place. I have no particular plans for the other children. I may feed them to the time stream… or I may keep them as eternal bachelors against the event of Heath’s demise.

I’m also undecided about having more children. Elisabeth will only be of childbearing years for so long… but on the other hand, I’m bringing in more money from traveling and completing adventures than I am from either of the adult’s jobs. Decisions, decisions.

The MacEpic Legacy: The Heir is Born

These are a few of my favorite colors.

I took some time to color-coordinate the house in red and pink, Kevin’s and Zelda’s favorite colors, respectively. I then expanded the house, making sure to have enough room for an addition to the family. The incoming kid would get its own room; the addition of a dining room enabled me to put the high chair in the kitchen. The bathroom is tiny, so the training potty is in the study. I just realized I don’t have a TV or a place to watch one… but I also don’t care too much.

The baby was born! A boy, whom I named Frederick. Frederick MacEpic. He was born with two traits (yay, baby books), which randomized out to Easily Impressed and Neurotic. I already have to renege on my intent to feed all non-greenies to the time stream, though, since mama just turned too old to have kids.

Damnation!

Another side effect of Zelda’s aging is that I may not be able to fulfill her Lifetime Wish of becoming a Rock Star. She’s only at level 2 on the music track. So, like many old folks, she’s taking up travelling. I’ll be damned if I’m gonna let her die without having done SOMETHING cool.

I took Zelda to France, and used up some of the family funds to buy all three books on nectar making. It’s gonna take an additional 2700 simoleons to get a nectar maker and a good rack; I didn’t have the money, so I decided to buy the actual nectar-making supplies later. I then sent her into a tomb as part of an adventure. Her exploration ended up netting her enough money for the nectar maker and rack. In fact, before buying those, I was back up to almost as much money as I’d had before I started the vacation. Not bad for an old woman.

I’ve continued to send Zelda to France every few days, and will do so as long as she keeps coming back with more money than she left with. I hope she doesn’t die on vacation. That would suck. The museum in France had a martial arts dummy, so I gave her a skill point in that, but she has no way to practice at home, since I haven’t sent anyone to China yet. I got some of the special grapes from France and set her to using them to make nectar upon her return.

Kevin is now a mad scientist (with a spiky hairdo and killer shades as part of his work uniform), and Fredrick has aged up. He got one trait, which randomized to Never Nude. As soon as I set him to playing chess, his logic leveled to 4. I have yet to try him on the guitar yet, since I keep it in Mama’s inventory so she can practice. I refuse to give up on trying to get her Rock Star status just because she’s turned gray around the edges.

Speaking of, she got a job opportunity requiring her to go to Egypt and talk to people about music. I decided to take the whole family, since Kevin also had a book-delivering opportunity. I forgot to take the book, though, so… oops. He’s currently hanging with Frederick while Zelda goes about her merry, adventuresome way.

To help secure the line, I’m planning to get Kevin up to 15k lifetime reward points and give him No Jealousy so he can knock someone else up without losing relationship with Zelda. I am also hoping to turn Fred into an artist so I can paint portraits of Mum & Dad before they kick it.

Current Legacy Points: 3

The MacEpic Legacy: Wedding Belle

It's actually kinda homey now. Not the coolest house ever... but not a shack.

While watching the first live action Death Note movie (and the first half of the second), I worked on the MacEpic Legacy. He received two promotions in quick order, thanks to some opportunities and the fact that his Lifetime Wish and job requirements work together well. With Kevin making more money, upgrades to his house came much faster.

I expanded twice, adding two decent-sized rooms. The first room became his bedroom; I moved the bed and the trashcan into it to make room for the chair and table in the entryway/kitchen. The second room I added became the study. I made it bigger than its purpose requires to leave room for anything else Kevin might want or need. I was unable to buy a computer yet (needed to wait for the next pay check), so I sent Kevin to bed with the room as it was.

A burglar came in the night and stole his desk chair and his solitary sink. I got off light (good thing the computer was yet unbought), but damn that was annoying.

The coworker I had hoped to hook Kevin up with aged up and is now too old to bear children. Now I have to go find him a woman who is young and unmarried. Turns out she’s married anyway; Kevin met her daughter at the library and started chatting with her to see if she was romanceable only to find out that she’s yet a teenager.

I ended up adding one more room to the house. This should be plenty of rooms until Kevin has children, so I started trying to woo Zelda Mae. In spite of some traits I’d rather not deal with, her name is Zelda. Kevin gets his very own princess to kick off the family!

Kevin also aged up to adult male status. When he tried to blow out the candles on his cake, it caught on fire. He was able to keep it from spreading long enough for the fireman to get there, so I only lost the cake and the table.

I’m quite vexed about the fact that aging has taken away Kevin’s rice picker hat and I seem unable to get it back.

On the plus side, Zelda accepted Kevin’s marriage proposal. Between promotions and job income and all that jazz, the household’s cash on hand is over 10,000 simoleons. As soon as mama gets home, they’re tryin’ for baby. Her Lifetime Wish is to become a rock star, so I would like her to keep her job. Luckily for me, her schedule and Kevin’s work out (at the moment, at least) such that at least one of them is always home. Hooray!

Not really all that pretty, is she?

Name: Zelda (Mae) MacEpic

Favorite Food: Peanut butter & Jelly
Favorite Music: Indie
Favorite Color: Pink

Traits: Flirty, Party Animal, Childish, Easily Impressed, Green Thumb

Lifetime Wish: Rock Star

I fully intend to ignore her Party Animal trait; I dislike parties in The Sims even more than I do in real life. Green Thumb will come in handy, though — she can help Kevin keep the garden in order if he falls behind, though he needs the skillups for work. She can also satisfy her social needs by talking to plants, and while I expect to rarely take advantage of that… it’s certainly amusing.

For all the advancements I made this session… I’m still at 2 legacy points.

The MacEpic Legacy: The Jolly Green Hobo

Having created my Sims 3 Legacy Challenge Scorecard, I’ve started a legacy of my own. The family name is MacEpic, and I’ve dubbed the founder, Kevin, the Jolly Green Hobo.

Howdy-ho!

Name: Kevin MacEpic

Favorite Food: Pancakes
Favorite Music: Kids’ Music
Favorite Color: Red

Traits: Bookworm, computer Whiz, Family-Oriented, Lucky, Good Sense of Humor

Lifetime Wish: The Tinkerer

I’m not sure why green and blue are skin color options in Sims 3, but I’m running with it. And by running with it, I mean that everyone born into the family without a bit of green in their skin tone is getting fed to the time stream. I may be dooming myself to an early end for my first run, but that’s okay — Kevin has a rice picker hat.

Having addressed the “jolly green” portion of the title, allow me to elaborate on his hobo-ness. The first thing I did after buying the lot was try to build Kevin a house. I say “try” because the label “house” is too grand for his shitty 3×3 shack. It has a light, a bed, a sink, and a toilet. No floor. No refrigerator. His table and chair are outside the shack. Pa-the-tic.

Kevin's shitty shack. It doesn't even have a floor. It does have a roof, though -- those are free, and turn invisible as needed.

Almost instantly, Kevin wished to join the science career track. Rather than waiting for a newspaper (and wasting precious time — this dude needs some cashmoney), I trotted him right up to the science lab and got him a job as a lab rat.

His newest lifetime wishes at this point involved learning the basics of the logic skill, so I took him to a park to play chess with himself until bed time. Lucky for fridgeless Kevin, there was also free picnic food at the park. I was able to concentrate more on expanding his house and less on buying him a fridge by taking advantage of that on a regular basis.

He was extremely stinky by the time I got him a shower stall. I crammed it in between the bed and the toilet across from the door. His mood was negatively affected by the lack of paint and flooring, so I upgraded that.

Observant observers will note that the table and chair are still outside.

By the end of the session, Kevin’s house had two rooms. The main room had the kitchen, trash can, and bed; the second room was the bathroom. Both rooms had red walls and floors. The outside was painted brick. Kevin needs to improve his gardening abilities to advance in the science career, so I had him take a gardening class, out of which he came with seeds to plant a small garden outside near the table and chair. Kevin has received a promotion, and is getting ready to expand his house again, so that the living room won’t also be the bedroom.

Total points for the Legacy Challenge currently stand at 2. Since that’s the base amount, I’m not going to bother with a breakdown.