I don’t like Mondays!

I really don’t like Mondays, the most stupid day of the week, well that’s my opinion.
Today started like any other monday, the alarm went of at 5 am, but unfortunately my personal alarm went of way earlier, my personal alarm named Rohan, and not just by a couple of minutes no Rohan found it was necessarily to wake me up at 4 am by getting on top of me, giving me kisses and his personal favorite miauwing in my ear *sigh* so i sort of slept the last hour.
But today i wasn’t going to work right away, my car, Lucifer, was still in the garage and my mother was so nice to lend her car to me, but she didn’t want to start at 6 am LOL
So i just checked my mail, facebook and stuff until it was time to go to my mother.
And then…. traffic jam ugh now i remember why i start so early, no one is around when i start so no need to drive slowely ^^ and on mondays it always seems that there is a lot more traffic jam then other days of the week.
Well we made it to work in a reasonable time LOL.
Work was like always, it was work
After work we went to pick up Lucifer, thank goodness it wasn’t that expensive, but i’m glad we’re not giving any christmas presents this year LOL.

Picture of Today:

Isilya

The only cat who didn’t want to be in the same picture as Pikachu GRRR LOL.
Isilya was the 1st kitten i had, we picked her up on a Wednesday, and that’s why we called her Isilya, it means Wednesday in the language of the Elves in Lord of The Rings ^^
She was born on June 9 2003, her actual name was “maantje” (little moon) but i didn’t like that.
On March 3 2008 we found out that she has cat asthma, so that means that from time to time she has difficulties with breathing, for now we can tread it with a shot at the vet, but when it becomes worse we need to use an inhaler :s We hope we don’t have to do that anytime soon!

Already Sunday?

Gah the weekends go way to fast A year is over before you know it, it’s December already and before you know it we’ll be in January again.
Luckily it’s still December, so another day another blog, wow 3 days in a row it’s a record!
As promised i made some pictures today, but i’m not going to post them all today, i’ve really been busy with taking pictures of my cats today, they won’t sit still!
Dogs are more easier to photograph.

1st picture of today:

Our Christmas tree ^^

We’ve got an alternative nativity scene lol, the 3 wise men from Tunesia, but 2 fell of their camel
Rudolph is also in the picture without his Christmas hat….. cause PIKACHU has it!!!

Christmas Pikachu!

Muhahahaha! Ok 1 more photo then LOL, prove that i’ve got them too!

Sims 2 Ball

Oh look what i got

Gah doesn’t sound right at all in English LOL, today is Sinterklaas here in the Netherlands, for more info on Sintklaas look here
It was a good saturday, doing nothing all day ^^
Sleep in, playing games on facebook, neo and pogo.
Didn’t even notice it was Sinterklaas today lol, perhaps it’s because the Christmas tree is sparkling in the living room ^^
I also played a bit with the layout of my blogs today, and i’m a bit more happy about them.
Since i last used it, 1 year ago, they didn’t have some cool features they do now, so i had too add some of them ^^
On the right side there is now a section with all the people who are involved in the December Blogs, and i’ve put the language behind the names so en is for English blogs and nl is for blogs written in Dutch, so now you know
Also the battery of our camera is loading so i can post some pictures soon, i want too take pictures of our cats (it sounds easier then it is lol) and of course my famous Christmas Pikachu

I really didn’t do anything today lol, just watched 2 movies with my boyfriend, and i loved them both

The 1st movie: Inkheart.

A nice family film, and i really liked Andy Serkis in it, it was funny to see him without the CGI, but sometimes you could hear a little bit of Gollum lol

The 2nd movie: Fast & Furious

Part 4 is with the usual concept gorgeous men, woman, cars and of course unbelievable action! Funny thing at the end of the movie there was a diclaimer with the “Don’t try this at home” warning LOL

So now what?

Well it’s been a long long time since i’ve posted a normal blog, well uhm yeah twitter is the new blog i think, but still 140 characters isn’t that much
So what happened in the meantime uhm…. well we have 6 cats now LOL, Rohan has joined our family, unfortunately we had to let our rabbit Del Piero go in April of this year, he was 7 years old but it was still difficult.
I’m still working in the same hospital and still on the same place, holy crap! That’s the longest time i’ve worked on the same place ever, it’s a new record :O
But a lot has changed there, a new man in charge and mostly these people don’t know nothing about the work you do and try to make your life as difficult as possible just so they won’t look stupid.
Sometimes i wonder if you can have a job that’s fun? I do hope so, but at the moment i can’t seem to find it, oh well it’ll work out someday…. i think …. i hope.

So Mogway what’s up with the blogging now? 1st you don’t write for more then a year and then you start again…. Well a couple of friends have started with December Bloggers , the purpose is that we blog as much post in the month December.
I thought it was funny to see if i can blog a whole month long (oh well 4 days have already passed but still ) and to write as much nonsense as i can LOL, i guess it won’t be that spectacular but who cares

W00t we have our Christmas tree already ^^ i’ve been nagging for about 1 week already to get the tree down and voila here it is, been listening to Christmas songs too for some time now…. i’ll be alright LOL

Had to go to the garage today with my car (aka Lucifer), he thought he was a Formula 1 car, the exhaustion pipe almost made a really bad sound, so it was broken
Damn what a month to choose to break down…. let’s hope it won’t be that much.
Fortunately we aren’t booked for Christmas this year, we’re going to have a quiet Christmas at home w00t finally, for the 1st time in 7 years we’re staying home.

Well i wonder how long i can keep this up lol, watching back on the history of this blog my blogging isn’t really active LOL…. See you guys tomorrow?????

Uhm Hello my name is…..

*couch* wow what a lot of dust here.
*runs off to clean dust and make her blog shiny again*

MySims Kingdom Wii (and DS), My Sims PC preview

Yesterday (08-09-2008) DMS2c was invited to a producer tour of MySims Kingdom, MySims pc and MySims Kingdom for DS.
First Tim LeTourneau told us about MySims Kingdom

MySims Kingdom WII
If you’re thinking great another expansion, well then i’ve to disappoint you, because MySims Kingdom is a standalone game and it’s not like the 1st MySims game!
MySims Kingdom is a puzzle adventure game and is not really focused on building like the 1st game.
The game has some mini puzzles you need to solve to get further in the game.
Of course there are some sims you know from the original MySims game, like Buddy, Elmira, Violet and more, but there are also new sims like King Roland, Princess Butter and Gonk.
Also your sim is able to jump now and you’ll have to use it as well.

In MySims Kingdom you can choose to play a boy or a girl, that’s new

There are new outfits, new hairs and when you play the game you’ll unlock more clothing, but also furniture, walls and other stuff.

When you start the game a story will come up and tell you stuff about the game and your role in it.
It’s like opening a fairytale book and you become part of that fairytale.

You are a wandolier, and it’s your job to help King Roland and other people.

After the cut-scene you’ll begin in front of a house, where you’ll be given your 1st task.
The game is all about tasks and solving puzzles and of course saving the kingdom.
When you’re done your friend Buddy will give you another task.
During these tasks you’ll learn how to play the game and how to jump and stuff like that.
All these things come automatically and sometimes even with a cut-scene.

After that you’ll meet up with Lyndsay, she and Buddy will stay with you through the whole game.
And they will help you with advice and also bring a nice funny element to the game

Then it’s time to meet King Roland himself, and new sims of course.
King Roland turns out to be a funny guy as well.
After everyone is set you’ll be taken to a magical island where you’ll learn how to handle your wand.
When you play the game you’ll notice that you almost have no loading time between changing to the building mode or anything.
And mostly you’ll get a really funny cut-scene as well.

The Travelogue contains a lot of useful information, like the tasks you’re working on and more.
The currency they use is called Mana and you can collect Mana from shaking the trees.
But something has changed when you want to chop down the tree you really need to make chop movements!
You still need to collect essences and build things, but it all works to get further into the storyline.
You can also trade essences for Mana with Lyndsay.

These are the lands you can travel to and do tasks for sims.
There is a cutetopia, a spooky island and my personal favorite: an Island with Elves

On every island there are new and old sims you can talk with and get tasks from.
And of course Buddy and Lyndsay will follow you.
When you select an Island, you’ll get a funny cut-scene with the 3 sims on a boat.

When a sim has an exclamation point above their head they will have a task for you.
A funny twist will be the story of our favorite goth sim Violet, but you’ll have to find that out on yourself.

If you want to place anything you’ll need your wand, and for solving puzzles you’ll need it as well.

With the right amount of essences you can even get more power with your wand.
You can find essences on trees, in walls and of course you can treasure hunt for essences.

You can unlock several things, and to build / place them you’ll need the Mana.

You can build things on top of each other, and sometimes you’ll need to build stairs or bridges.

There are also some new things you can do between sims, this makes the game more fun.

Conclusion
MySims Kingdom is really different from MySims because of the puzzle element, it’s also funnier and the controls are still the same.
I doubted the original game of MySims but having played that game at home it changed my opinion completely, with MySims Kingdom i just know that if you liked the 1st MySims you’ll love this game as well.
Also because of the puzzle – adventure type gameplay it’s more fun to play, then just build stuff.

Then Erik Zwerling producer of MySims for the pc told us about this new game.

MySims PC

Well this looks familiar, and it is.
MySims for the pc is just like the WII version of it, but it has a little more then the WII version.

Ok a little recap, you’ll get into a town and sims have left, your the towns new builder and you need to build houses and furniture for the sims that want to live there.
Everyday new sims will arrive in the hotel and you decide which sims will live in your village.

In the pc version there are 5 new NPC’s, and 1 of them is Wendolyn, you might recognize her, because witches and warlocks in the Sims 2 apartment life can make a statue of her

Besides new NPC’s there are also some new things you can build.
But still the game is the same as the Wii version, except for 1 big thing!

With the pc version the trainstation has a purpose
Through it you can go online and chat and play online with your friends! For Free!

You can see which friends are online, and which are not.
To play online you either need to invite people or you need to get invited.
A total of 8 sims can play online together in a place called the garden.

You’ll need to know the exact MySims name of your friend, because it’s not like an online chatbox, it’s a private garden.
When you invite your friends you can exchange things you’ve made, or essences, just chat, play tag or even redecorate the 8 houses.
Only 1 person at a time can change a house.

There are also other structures so you can even play hide and seek as well.
There are over 50 new animations to the game.

Conclusion
MySims for the PC is really great due to the fact you can play with your friends online and you can really share your creations with everyone.
You can give things you’ve made to your friends or put them on a website for everyone to download.
The game is also laptop friendly, and the building system works the same as the building on the WII.

Then Tim told us a bit about the DS version of MySims Kingdom
We didn’t have a lot of time left so the information will be short.
The plot line is you’ve come to a kingdom and everything is gone, you need to fiend out who did it and why.
Through 9 mini games and talking to people you’ll need to solve this mystery!

The games will come out at the end of October.
Of course i propably forgot stuff to mention lol, but it gives you an idea about the games, well except for the DS game, we spend most of our time on the new WII MySims kingdom game.

We would like to thank Tim and Erik for telling us about these new games, and also we would like to thank EA Netherlands for the great day!

Sims 2 Apartment life preview

Last thurday DMS2C was invited to yet another preview of the latests expansion Apartment life, you can read all about it on our website
Here’s the direct link of the news page: http://dms2c.net/info/?p=220

Bye *Boing 33 kaas*

It’s been quite some time since i’ve posted here, i know But i’ve got my reasons, a very good one i might add!
Well the story i’m about too tell isn’t pretty, as usual like my post about my real life are a good news show
Ok the tittle, first off all kaas means cheese in Dutch so the tittle is: Bye *boing 33 cheese* weird tittle huh.
But some people know what it means, but for those who don’t i’ll explain it.
On Friday 24th of June i was invited for the 1st time to attend a meet & greet for the sims 2, it was the Nightlife presentation at that time.
We agreed to meet a bunch of other people who would go there as well, so we set up a rendez-vouz at Schiphol (a big airport in Amsterdam)
When you park your car in the garage there all the rows have numbers and pictures, like windmills, cows and cheese.
I parked my car at row 33 Cheese.
The Nightlife presentation was held at boing avenue so i kept saying *boing 33 cheese* i thought it was funny, still think it’s kind off funny
I didn’t had my car that long so *boing 33 cheese* became the nickname of my car.
Yeah i’m weird i know, but you should have know that already by now
So my Renault Clio Symbol 1.2 was called *boing 33 cheese* from that time on.
And now he’s no longer with us well he still is he hasn’t been demolished (yet).
So what happened?

On Friday 20th of June i had a car accident, how? I was going home from work, and because they’re working on a sort of highway right now i have to ride through the town to get out of it, and a lot of people had to do the same thing.
Unfortunately for me some people didn’t know the way, so what happened was that the signs we’re too late, and people had to switch lanes very fast, so they just switched lanes and we all had to hit the breaks.
The last part went wrong, well i hit the breaks but it was already too late and then b00m, i parked my car in the rear off the car before me.
Immediately my car started smoking from the engine and inside as well, so i got out of the car as fast as i could.
Thankfully he didn’t blew up.
Then all sorts of thoughts entered my mind, i didn’t know what to do.
After a few seconds i pulled myself together and realised that i should be lucky that i didn’t had any injuries, the man who i bumped into didn’t have anything either.
The weird thing is that my car was fully checked a week before the accident and they had replaced the direction indicator hood, and that was still intact, but the other parts of my hood were bumped.
To give you an image of what it looks like, see the 2 pictures below:

To make a long story short, i heard the next monday that it would be to expensive to let *boing 33 cheese* be repaired, the costs were to high and since it was an old car it wasn’t worth it.
So i had to get a new car i really didn’t want to get a new car because i really liked this one, and it was still a good car (especially when you look from it’s back now )
So i needed a new car, a safe one with big bumpers please
Fortunately for me the garage had a nice car, that wasn’t to expensive.
So now i’ve got a Peugeot 106 it has some nice features more then that my old car had.
But the best thing of this new car is it’s color: Rouge Lucifer
To make a long story even shorter (i’m very good at it ) i’ve got my new car and it already has a nickname!
I had the nickname even before i was sure i was the new owner of it!
Well world meet Lucifer

The roads are officially unsafe again

I had a lot more then this but i did something wrong and the whole post was gone gheheh, i’ll try to push the right button next time
But the most important stuff is in it now

pictures

I’ve added pictures to the MySims preview, thank you Starrats!

MySims preview

Preview in Dutch

On Monday June 4 DMS2C was invited for a preview of MySims! for the WII and the DS. Because there was an embargo on this preview we weren’t allowed to post about it until today.
Unfortunately we don’t have any pictures because our camera is broken, but when the other previews come online you can look at their photo’s (links will follow shortly)
Also we didn’t get a real impression of the DS version because there was only 1 DS, so this preview is mostly about the WII version.
Pictures in this preview are used with permission of starrats!

The MySims preview was held in Utrecht, and it was lead by Tim LeTourneau and by Robin Hunicke ( she also worked on the sims 2, her first experience with the sims 2 was with the expansion pack OFB, she worked on the crafting tables)

MySims is really different then what we are used to of a sims version, this is mostly because MySims is designed for Nintendo.
Because Nintendo is Japanese the sims look a little Japanese as well.
When you start with the game it’s really weird because they don’t really look like the sims we know, but after a while you start getting used to them and they’re just sims again.

The game is played in a ghost town, well at first because when you start playing the town get’s more alive.
The goal is to rebuild the town again, a 5 star town to be exact.
You start the game by creating your sim.

You create your sim in a sort of cas, but it’s different the the cas of the sims 2, you’re not getting a screen with all the clothing that’s in the game, but you have to click your way through it until you see something you like.
You can change your sim just by clicking on it, head, hair, clothes.
When you start a new game you only have a little selection of options you can choose from, but when you start to play it you’ll get more options.
There are a lot of clothes and hair styles you can unlock during the game.
You can also change the voice of your sim, there are 5 voices and you can make them very high or low.
There isn’t an option to choose a male or female sim, you just create a sim that looks male of female.

When your done creating your sim you can go into town. The fun thing is that in MySims you’re not bound to a house, but you can walk freely through the town! And even better, you can create all the furniture and houses yourself! YES ALL!!! You have a workshop, there you can create the furniture with help of a blueprint.
Again when you first start the game the blueprint will be rather simple but as you progress in the game you’ll unlock new blueprints to create the weirdest looking furniture you’ve ever seen, or not if you just want normal furniture.
After creating you give it a texture, again it’s limited at first.

The goal of the game is to get your town rated with 5 stars, this means the town is living again. To get stars you need to fulfill tasks from other sims who live in your town.

The 1st sim you’ll meet is Poppy, the local florist, she’s going to ask you to make her something. To make objects you need essence, there are many different sorts of essences, you can get essences by making a sim happy, or sad or later in the game you unlock special essences fields.
The game doesn’t have a money currency, you collect the things you need or just steal them.
When you’ve accepted Poppy’s task you can go to your workshop to build the object she wants.
In your workshop you’ll get a blueprint of the object you need to build, you can use blocks to build the object.

There are a lot of different types of blocks so you can create everything like chairs, tables, beds and tv’s.
Now you can decide if you want to make Poppy the thing she wants and make her happy or just create something you like!
If you create the thing Poppy wants you’ll get a nice happy looking town, if you create somethings people don’t want your town with get a Gothic look.

Whatever you choose it’s going to determine the type of sims that want to live in your town, also you decide which sims are going to live in your town.
When sims want to live in your town they’ll go to the hotel, from there you can decide whether they’re going to live in it or not.
There are about 80 NPC’s in this game.

Besides the furniture you also create all the houses in the game, you can also redesign the houses that are already in the game.
Again you build the houses with blocks, when you start to build a house you’ll see a green grid where you can build your house on, there are a lot of creations you can make with different sizes of blocks, but you can’t make something like a cathedral.
It’s very easy to build a house, you just put the blocks on the grid and give it a nice color.
You’ll get more colors during the game, there is also a lot of decoration for around the houses and you can even place things on the roof.
You can build a 1st floor, but there are no stairs in the game, so it’s there only for decoration.

The gameplay is very easy, you meet new sims, you talk to them and ask them what they want, then you’re going to collect the things you need to make the object, after collecting everything you’ll go to your workshop and create it, then give it back to the sim.
At first the tasks will be easy, but the further you get the harder they’ll be!

There’s also a garden where you can make essences grow, we’ve been told that it’s possible to grow an eyeball tree for a specific kind of essence.
You can also chop down your trees to make room for new trees. You just plant the seeds and give it water and a new tree will start to grow immediately!

It’s a single player game, and you only play with the sim you’ve made, there is no family connections and the sims don’t have needs.
At one point in the game you’ll get a costume shop, there you can give your sim a new outfit, you can dress your sim up as a social bunny, or the cute panda bear suits for toddlers, or just dress your sim up like a pirate or a princes.

There is no connectivity possible between the DS and the WII, because they’re both different games.

In the DS version you control a holiday island and you need to satisfy all the people who come there for a holiday.
The DS versions also has mini games.

A release date isn’t known at this time, but it should be somewhere this fall.

Conclusion:
MySims is a very fun game, especially for someone who’s never played the sims on the pc. For the sims 2 players it will be getting used to because of the graphics of this game. Whether “die hard” simsfans will like this game really depends on the simsfan.
A really great aspect about the WII version is that you can create new furniture without using other programs to make new meshes.

Of course we would like to thank EA Benelux for inviting us, and giving us a great afternoon in Utrecht!

DeKDeS with producer Robin