Career World Horse Ranch update is now live!
It’s finally here! Sorry this update is so late; a minor but time-consuming home repair emergency stopped my work on it for about a month. But now my real-life house is fixed and the update is finally out! The Career World save file, Career Challenge Chart, and the list of study abroad opportunities have all been updated to incorporate horses and all their associated gameplay. And the delay meant I got to add in the new Home Chef Hustle features, as well, so it’s not all bad.
Just because I already teased it, I’ll start with...
Expansion of the Actor Career:
In addition to all the sound-stage filming that comes automatically with the actor career, and the live stage acting I had already added in the form of the Starlight Theatre venue, there are now three on-location filming spots: one for Westerns, one for costume dramas, and one for fantasy/medieval/pirate projects. Each on-location filming site is a residential lot which permanently houses several horses and three behind-the-camera crew members: a horse wrangler/stunt rider, a stylist, and a cinematographer. When cast in certain gigs, your actor should now immediately (but temporarily) move in with one of these households, in the following configuration:
The Sheriff from Alpha Centauri
...move your actor sim in with the PBP Western Crew in Chestnut Ridge.
...move in with the PBP Costume Drama Crew in Henford-on-Bagley.
...move in with the PBP Fantasy Crew in Windenburg. All other gigs you should just do as normal; they have no corresponding on-location filming site.
Once on location, you will find an area set up to house you, marked with a star door (on the Western set, this is a trailer; on the other two, a room within the massive building), as well as living areas for the other crew members, a dressing room / wardrobe area, a video editing space with the video station and lots of drones (plus still cameras for doing promo shots), and locations for filming acting scenes. In the case of Chestnut Ridge, the acting area is on a separate lot located right next door to the living area with the trailers.
Your job while you are here is to get footage, in costume, of your sim (and potentially their co-stars or the horse wrangler acting as a stunt double) acting out scenes on location and riding on horseback through the appropriate landscapes. (Mostly. The pirate stuff may not need to be too heavy on the horseback scenes, but there are plenty of places to shoot acting scenes on the battlements of the castle overlooking the sea, which is why I rolled those gigs in with the fantasy stuff. Plus even pirates get embroiled in problems on land sometimes, and have to make a quick escape on horseback. Everything you do on an actual ship is shot during sound-stage day.) I strongly suggest also taking some still photos as promotional material and keepsakes for both the crew household and your sim.
If your actor sim has no horseback riding skill to start with and looks ridiculous on the horse, you may have to spend some time riding around and skilling up in your regular street clothes before you get all dolled up and dive into filming—unless, of course, you want to get footage of your sim getting bucked off the horse for the movie, in which case get into costume immediately and fire up the drone right away; the cinematographer will edit out all the extra footage of you looking stupid while you wait to get bucked off.
At some point during your on-location filming adventure, you will be called back to Del Sol Valley for the set sound-stage filming day. Don’t worry about this; Plumbob Pictures is a wealthy studio, and can totally afford to send a chopper to whisk you back to Del Sol Valley for a day of filming on set before dropping you right back on location. Take your time and don’t rush it; you are welcome to remain on location as long as it takes to get all the footage you want to get. A word to the wise, however: you will only be able to call your director and co-stars to the on-location filming site BEFORE sound-stage filming day, so if you want to record any two-person scenes, sword fights, or all-cast promo shots with your co-stars, you’ll need to prioritize doing that first and getting your horseback riding shots later. Lucky for you if you’re filming Tournament of Honor, jousting scenes are done in full armor that completely conceals the sim, so horse wrangler Cheyenne Blackwolf is able to act as the stunt double for your co-stars for footage where you need two sims on horseback. Jim Chooli, the horse wrangler in Chestnut Ridge, is a semi-retired actor himself who frequently plays minor characters in the Westerns when a second sim is needed there. And the entire costume drama crew is happy to pop into powdered wigs and ballgowns when extra sims are needed to flesh out a ball or dinner scene.
Because you live with them in the same household during this time, you will be able to control not only the horse wrangler as a second horse-rider when need be, but also the stylist to costume both your own actor sims and your non-controllable co-stars during on-location filming. Likewise, you can direct the cinematographer to control the drones, take photographs, and even operate the non-functional camera equipment for maximum realism. The end goal of on-location filming is to have the cinematographer take all the drone footage you’ve captured, edit it together into a single reel, maximize the quality, and “send it off to the studio”—a.k.a. upload it via the video station. If you get the notification that the footage has been nominated for an award, you may want to remain with the crew household through the following Sunday and all go to the Starlight Accolades together—you could even get some red-carpet shots! If not, that’s a wrap! You’re welcome to move back to your regular residence in Del Sol Valley while you prepare for the next audition.
You’ll notice that with this pack, I’ve been a lot more liberal with adding townies who didn’t originally exist than I usually am. There are two reasons for this: 1) there are so many ways to make money in this pack that I didn’t think I could reasonably cover all the new career options it enabled me to add with only the original townies, and 2) Chestnut Ridge does not spawn its own locals like Sulani and Mt. Komorebi do, so if you don’t add more townies, there aren’t really enough western-dressed, horse-riding folks to flesh out the community lots—and I’m sorry, but Bella Goth just looks really stupid doing the cowpoke dance in that tight dress. So for the new townies, I used some gallery sims (credited in the Chestnut Ridge credits post, coming next), but I also used a lot of the “play with genetics” feature to expand the families of sims who shipped with the pack. Everybody gets a brother! Ok, well, not everybody, but a lot of people got brothers. So here’s what I did with townies:
In early testing, I learned to my disappointment that Sienna Grove works like the special townies from Cottage Living, not like the ones from High School Years—which is to say that the instant you start to play her, she is immediately and permanently replaced as horse trainer with a randomly generated townie. I wanted to retain her as horse trainer in this save file, so (like with Sarah Scott before her), I immediately kicked her out to the homeless bin so people wouldn’t try to play her and lose her the job. That said, for some reason this makes her un-inviteable to places just like Roberto Crinkletop, the mysterious rancher. To counteract this somewhat, I’ve had every household in town make her a keyholder, so she’ll occasionally drop by of her own accord. And of course, you can always come to her for a visit: she is outside the equestrian center from 7am to 7pm every single day, so she’s not hard to find. And pro tip: you can always invite her for a stayover, but for some reason only from the relationships panel, not the phone. The programming on this is weird, man.
Don and Duke Gooseman are now actual champions, as per their backstory. This means that Duke has the special “Champion Horse” trait that gives his foals better qualities, so if you’re going to get into horse breeding as a moneymaking enterprise, I suggest just getting a mare and having her breed with Duke. House rule, though: your sim has to gift Don a thousand simoleons for the privilege. There is now an actual stud service in town! And Don’s been doing a little studing of his own—I’ve made him aromantic since he’s such a loner, but as a sim who loves the outdoors, he constantly gets wants to woohoo in the bushes: so he is now woohoo partners with Roberto Crinkletop, with whom he has the occasional Brokeback-Mountain-style al fresco tryst. Plus I gave him a cat. Don just seems like a cat guy to me.
The Nectar Making Duo have opened a duo of businesses: a country nectary where they live, grow ingredients, and craft and age their nectars, and a small shop in town where they sell them. They’re in a fair amount of debt (used the university student loan system for this), so you can have fun digging them out and making the businesses profitable! They have three main ways to make money: holding ranch gatherings at the nectary (which are basically tasting events to bring in new clientele), using the sales table at the nectary to sell bottles direct-from-the-source, and manning the retail store in town. Some quirks to know about these things:
1) You can’t do a sale on the sales table at the same time you’re throwing a ranch gathering. I was hoping you could, but starting a sale immediately ends the gathering. Sucks, but that’s the way it is.
2) The front door of the nectary is the open-barn-doors arch to allow street sale customers into the nectary so they can buy from the sales table. If you swap these out for real, closed doors, the customers will just hang out nervously at the edge of the lot and then disappear, never buying anything. So if you want to use the sales table, you have to leave the arch. That said, an arch can’t be set as the front door for the purposes of other households coming to visit, so I have put a small, unusable wooden door off to the side of the barn doors and set that as the front door. If you’re visiting the nectary as another household, just knock on this door to make the building appear solid.
3) The nectars available for purchase at the retail store include a mix of qualities and levels of aging. There’s nothing there that is poor quality, and nothing that isn’t aged at all, but the bottles range from lightly aged to finely aged and some are normal rather than excellent. This is so that you can come to the store as a buyer while playing another household and have the option to either splurge on a high-quality bottle or not break the bank and go for something more modestly priced, according to your funds and storyline. Plus bonus: The Nectar Making Duo sub-contract with a few outside suppliers for specialty nectars they can’t brew themselves, so you can find occult nectars here, as well.
And on that note . . . to get Marissa Tracey in with the occult sims who brew the specialty nectars, and also because I think she looks a great deal like him, I have made Marissa—and her new twin brother, Chip—the products of a youthful indiscretion between Wolfgang Wilder and a human sim from Chestnut Ridge. They were both born as “dormant wolves” rather than full-blown werewolves and raised by their mother under her last name, but they know Wolfgang and are friends of the Moonwood Collective. Stocking the Collective’s moonpetal nectar got Marissa’s name circulating in the supernatural community, and now she contracts with the Straud Estate and the famed Madam Zoe herself, as well.
Aside from getting a dog, The Grove family have only gotten minor edits to careers and clothing; I put Umber in the musician career as per his backstory, stuck Juniper in the athlete career (under the new sub-category of show rider!) and let her hair down. It bothers me when the sims team gives two pre-made townies in the same world the exact same hairstyle in the exact same color, as it makes them too easy to confuse. So just like with Cottage Living, where I changed Rashida Watson’s hair to the blue-dyejob teen hair from Parenthood so she wouldn’t be confused with Cecelia Kang from behind, Juniper has now left the side braid to Sienna and adopted a more flowing-hair look that will accent those horse jumps. Oh, and Umber also started a band; he’s the leader of club of local musicians who play down at the saloon most nights—though if you feel like doing an afternoon gig on occasion, I also suggest meeting at the Hay Now! Festival Grounds sometimes.
Look, with the things in this pack, I just couldn’t resist making “Chip and Dale, Rescue Ranchers,” so I did. Chip Tracey (new brother of Marissa Tracey) and his husband, Dale Chooli (new brother of Juniper Grove) run a rescue ranch / petting zoo where children from all worlds can come to learn about animals of all types. The money they get from throwing “ranch animal day” events for kids is pretty modest to support two rescue horses, a cow, a llama, a bunch of mini goats and mini sheep, several chickens, a ton of stray dogs and cats, and some semi-wild rabbits, foxes, and birds, but it sure is cute! And they can always teach kids to ride and bring mini sheep to kids’ birthday parties on the side.
Juniper and Dale’s father, Jim Chooli, has also joined the save file as the horse wrangler for Plumbob Pictures’ on-site Western filming location. He lives in one of the many trailers on location in Galloping Gulch, alongside Barb Henderson (stylist, saloon singer, and local icon) and Giovanni Carrettino, a young cinematographer from Tartosa looking to make his own “penne Westerns.” Jim cares for and trains the studio’s three horses, Molasses, Gun, and Beauty, who play the roles of native American war horse, cowboy horse, and wild stallion, respectively.
Sienna Grove’s former lot is now home to an elderly horse trader named Tallulah Heiheiwuti, who has a bunch of family in Evergreen Harbor. One of them, her eldest granddaughter, has come to stay with her and learn the family business. The problem? She’s afraid of horses! I figured someone had to be, and that storyline just made sense. It also means there is a new family in Evergreen Harbor, which was pretty underpopulated before—Talullah’s son and his wife and kids are now fleshing out the community there and justifying the existence of the Coast Salish art swatch on the Horse Ranch wall hanging, while also giving you the new opportunity to play the botanist branch of the gardener career or the life of a pop-up cupcake baker.
Other things that have changed:
This save file has never featured Faiz Jaleel, the flower-seller from the My Wedding Stories pack, because neighborhood stories killed him off before I had quite figured out that feature and how to manage it. But now, thanks to Roberto Crinkletop’s secret family recipe, he has been resurrected and is in the save file as a living sim! I could not, unfortunately, figure out a way to reinstate him as the flower cart NPC, but he still has all the grapevine gossip interactions about owning it, so just pretend he’s hired extra help to man it sometimes when he’s busy. He has moved into his old childhood home in the big square in Tartosa with the other Piazza Dwellers, where he is trying to get a second business venture, a food stand, off the ground. He’s torn between the classic Tartosan cuisine of pizza and leaning further into the romantic atmosphere with heart-shaped waffles. Can you help him decide and make his new business a success?
Speaking of returning from the netherworld, the save file also never featured Felix Psyded, ghostly founder of the University of Britechester, because the game culled him before I discovered coolspear’s “Delay Ghost Culling Indefinitely” mod. Now that I have it, I have re-downloaded the original Felix from the gallery and made him the resident ghost of Lord Drake Men’s Dorm on the UBrite campus. How did I do this, you say? I’ve enrolled him in the History degree at UBrite in order to make him a proper resident of the dorm. You can keep him there practically indefinitely by having him enroll in only one class at a time while you play with other focus sims in this dorm—and if he runs out of classes and completes the degree, just start in on another degree. By my count, this should enable him to keep haunting this dorm for 156 in-game weeks—and that’s only if he never fails a single class! If you alternate having him fail and succeed so he does it slower but never gets kicked out, that’s 312 weeks, or basically eternity in sim years. He’s here forever! Also, in setting this up, I realized I had not included any woohoo locations in the UBrite dorms, which is completely unacceptable. Who’s ever heard of a dorm without a hookup spot?! I have now added closets to both the men’s and women’s dorms in order to fix this grave oversight. My deepest apologies.
I had previously not moved Wolfgang Wilder in with the other Moonwood Collective sims because I wanted him to remain the NPC librarian in Moonwood Mill, but in the process of making him related to his new children (Marissa and Chip Tracey), I discovered that somewhere along the way the game had already booted him out of that role for some reason. Just like with Faiz, I couldn’t figure out how to reinstate him, so now he has retired from librarianship, moved in with the rest of the Collective, and embraced his writing full-time—which means he still spends a lot of time at the library, since the Collective Cabin is off-the-grid and doesn’t have a computer.
On the subject of townies with NPC jobs, there’s news on the Scotts, the not-quite-playable family I booted to the homeless bin to prevent Sara Scott being supplanted as pub owner in Finchwick. You still can’t play her without losing her job, but her husband Simon is totally fair game, because he isn’t any kind of special villager NPC. So, with the introduction of a large estate needing filming crew for the long-running TV series “Dignity & Decorum,” I decided to rescue him from the homeless bin and make him the cinematographer on the Plumbob Pictures costume drama crew. This has actually allowed me to make the Scotts semi-playable, because even though Sara is still in the homeless bin, I was able to get Simon to ask her to be his NPC roommate, and that completely works! As long as she’s only a roommate and not technically part of the household, she can both be the pub owner and live in the swanky suite of rooms I’ve marked off for her and Simon within the manor house. Admittedly, she’s rarely there because pub hours are serious business, but still! That said, in my experience the game tends to get rid of roommates when you switch households, so you may need to reinstate her as roommate if you want to play with this arrangement down the line. Luckily, that’s very easy; just head down to the pub where she’ll be working and re-invite her under the “roommate…” menu.
Derek McMillan and Ian Moody, the stitchery shop owners in Henford-on-Bagley, are getting on in years and have been finding the crops and the chickens and the llamas and the store a lot to manage, so they’ve made a few strategic decisions to help themselves out. First and foremost, they have refocused on their mission to provide beautiful, high-quality colored wool to their customers by swapping out their chicken coop for a small sheepfold, which they have stocked with a multicolored array of mini sheep dyed every color of the rainbow (except for the colors already covered by their two llamas). They’ve also hired a ranch hand to assist with animal care and the garden, so they can focus their own energy on the shop and their sewing circle club, which is going better than ever now that it’s associated bug has been fixed!
The Watson family has moved off the hilltop to a smaller, flatter, and more organized farm with fewer camera problems down in the valley of Old New Henford. They have added a small flock of sheep to their livestock, and adopted an elderly Irish Draught horse named Dobber. Rashidah has already knitted him a set of leg warmers and a saddleblanket, and animal-lover Imran is learning to ride!
Lucha Harjo has started a side hustle selling popcorn down on the pier in Copperdale. It’s more a hobby than a career move right now, but oh, that satisfying crunch when those teens enjoy their popcorn to the tinny sounds of the ferris wheel music! Truly heartwarming.
Bob Pancakes randomly came home the other day with a tattoo of kitchen utensils on his forearm. Eliza thinks she smells a midlife crisis coming on . . .
Celebrity chef Clara Bjergsen decided that she wanted a whole new expanded kitchen, so she bought one. It’s not like she doesn’t have the money. Her current flavor obsession: reconnecting with her childhood and making heritage memories for her daughters through haute cuisine experimentation with traditional Nordic waffles.
On the opposite end of that career trajectory, aspiring chef Hugo Villareal has been hard at work spending his father’s ill-gotten gains on lots of new equipment to revive the old nectary the family moved into. With his new nectar press, oak barrels, bottle storage racks, pizza oven, stand mixer, and a block of parmigiana and a grater always at the ready, Hugo is all prepped to begin his journey into vineyard-to-table nectars perfectly paired with lovingly crafted Italian dishes. And he’s really leaning into it, too—he also bought himself a whole set of food-themed shirts, so he’s always repping his future career goals. If he could only graduate high school early and get started...
Refugio dei Pirati Resort in Tartosa discovered a long-forgotten Roman bath structure beneath its foundations and, deciding this was too good a find to ignore, tore down their entire building to excavate, restore, and construct an entrance to the thing. They subsequently rebuilt completely from the ground up, and now boast a whole new building with brand-new amenities like a private reception hall alongside refurbished old favorites like the couples’ spa. To celebrate their grand re-opening, they rebranded as the Amorosa Resort. If you’ve never vacationed in Tartosa, now might be the time to start—especially with all the new pizza ovens and functional nectar cellars popping up all over the place!
The shops on the Sulani Promenade have gotten in a whole new shipment of swimsuits thanks to the Poolside Splash Kit. They are now on display and for purchase from a series of colorful new mannequins. Whether you’re looking for tourist-y beach wear or wetsuits and snorkel gear, they’ve got you covered!
That's not the only new stock in this update: The Gnome’s Arms in Finchwick has stocked its behind-the-bar shelves with nectar. It’s not top-of-the-line stuff like you’ll find in Chestnut Ridge, but it does the trick!
SimCity Pizza, the oldest restaurant on The Waterfront in San Myshuno’s Spice Market, has finally, grudgingly, updated their equipment to include a modern pizza oven alongside their so-old-the-food-inspector-banned-them-from-using-it wood fired one. They’re having a “create your own flavor” special right now, where customers can make their own pizzas using off-menu flavors and ingredients. It’s really revitalized the place!
Llamante Llama Ranch in Selvadorada wants all animals to feel welcome, including those who are traveling with their humans. They have converted some previously unused space in the front into a small horse paddock, and added some items for cats and dogs, as well. If you’re looking to go horseback riding around Selvadorada (gorgeous, by the way!), this is the place to rent for your vacation. There are also a ton of juice barrels lined up behind the bar in town—you’re welcome to use a couple of them for horse training, if you want.
San Sequoia has a few more items in the open portions of worlds, including a newly functional lemonade stand alongside the makeshift one down on the docks! It’s a great place to sell ice cream, lemonade, or scout cookies (though you’ll need to make those yourself at home beforehand).
There are no new residents in Brindleton Bay. Nope, not a one. Not a single living soul. But the price has gone down on the old lightkeeper’s house on Deadgrass Isle. For some reason, you can now move in there completely for free…
Thanks for your patience, and for your votes on the expansion of the actor career! Head to the original Career World save file post to download the update and enjoy!
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