Vix Plays Sims

Vix |30| Family👩‍👩‍👧‍👦 / Grilled Cheese🧀🍞 Currently playing: PVWT.

[vixsims]

✨welcome to vixsims (dot) tumblr (dot) com✨

about: vix | 30 | family / grilled cheese sim 

been away from my game for a few years but I have SO many old screenshots from my Pleasantview gameplay to still post from 2020 / 2021. slowly trying to catch up.

💫cc finds blog 🔎 + misc reblogs 🔁 @vixsimsreblogs

🎶 urbz 🎮 console ❇️ sims 1 inspo blog 🌟 @urbzville

WCIF friendly though It’s been a long time since I’ve actually played my main 'hood, so while I will try my best to answer, if it's stuff from PVWT i might end up replying with an "I don't remember" but I will post all WCIFs incase someone else knows! 😅

▶ Currently Building: Urbz / Console / Sims 1.5 Hood

This 'hood will be a mashup of The Urbz (both handheld and console), Bustin' Out (again, both version), the Sims 1 + 2 console, and Sims 1 + 2 PC , featuring characters from all the games. It will mostly focus on the Pleasantview / Strangetown / SimCity areas but Sims 2 characters from other 'hoods may appear. Tentatively I'm envisioning the main gameplay of this 'hood starting in the mid-80s, a little bit after the events of the Sims 1, showing the lives of Old Town / Pleasantview and SimValley. The Urbz era will move up a little bit, instead of being the early 2000s it will be the 90s. Still very much in the earliest stages of building this 'hood. You can see some of my Miniopolis (Urbz handheld) builds here.

▶ Other Gameplay: Pleasantview....with a Twist!

Welcome to Pleasantview! Yes, we all know the story…Where’s Bella Goth? Is Dina only after Mortimer for his money? How, oh how will Brandi manage to raise three kids on her own? Will Angela and Lilith ever stop fighting? And can the Pleasant’s marriage survive Daniel’s affair?….But wait– that’s not the story! Not this time! Something’s changed. They’ve gone off script! It’s Pleasantview.…with a Twist (or a few!)

Pleasantview with a Twist + re-rolled aspirations for all premades + a maybe Epic Legacy Challenge(I suck at legacies so no promises)

WHERE TO START?

*** all links are to chronological tags best viewed on desktop, might not work on mobile *** 

[ PVWT from the beginning ]  

By Year or Season:

YR 1:     ———   ☀️Summer - 🍂Fall - ❄️Winter

YR 2: 🌷Spring

By Family or Generation:

Pleasant | Gen 1 | Gen 2 | 

Oldie | Gen 1 | Gen 2 |

Broke  | Gen 1 | Gen 2 | 

Caliente  | Gen 1 | Gen 2 | 

Lothario | Gen 1 | Gen 2 | 

Langerak  | Gen 1 | 

Dreamer  | Gen 1 | Gen 2 | 

Burb  | Gen 1 | Gen 2 | 

Goth  | Gen 1 | Gen 2 | Gen 3 | 

[ Uni Years ] SSU |

[teaaddictyt]

For anyone wondering

Latest update I have on GOS and S2A is that the old hosting has been resumed (i.e. paid for again) so that HugeLunatic can hopefully access all required files to pass over to the people who have volunteered to assist in upgrading and re-hosting the site, but their c-panel access hasn't yet been restored so it's a waiting game at this stage. I'd also like to offer a formal apology to anyone who was offended by my post yesterday as it did garner negative feedback in comments and reblogs. I have taken the feedback on board. I did not mean to offend anyone with my tone or my words, and feel that most of the negative responses came from people who don't know me very well. I meant to offer reassurance, not condescension. Be that as it may, as I've said I accept my tone did not sit well with some people and I accept why. If you called me out, I have read and accept your point of view. I will not be engaging in further feedback on this post.

Thanks, Tea xo

[vixsims]

PVWT: Uni Years | SSU | Senior Yr: Pleasants 🌷

Castor: 'Sup, bro.

Kevin: Brooo!

Castor: Kev. Put me down! You know I hate it when you do that.

Kevin: Sorry....I just got excited. Haven't seen you since last semester, dude.

Castor: I know, I know. You really live up to your name, huh? Ol' teddy bear.

[vixsims]

PVWT: Uni Years | SSU | Senior Yr: Pleasants 🌷

Angela continues her quest to fulfill her LTW (WooHoo with 20 Sims) by chatting up with Sandy Bruty (who we're going to pretend is not an immortal townie and is actually around her age).

Castor Nova also shows up to hang out with his bro Kevin.

[vixsims]

Some Misc. Thoughts Re: GoS

I've made a few posts about the situation over the past few days, and while I remain critical of the handling of the situation, specifically the lack of transparent communication and have vented my frustrations about that, and about the perceived tone + apathy from HL's responses (or lack thereof) I can also acknowledge that just venting frustrations isn't going to help the situation. And I can also empathize with the fact that the sites' issues have probably been very frustrating for HL. I can understand the desire to just hole away and avoid messages (I think everyone's been there at one point or another). I don't think that's the right way to handle this situation, but I can empathize to an extent. And I know responding with sarcasm and anger and apathy can be a shield when one is already feeling frustrated and worn thin. It's still IMO an unfair way to respond to the community at large who really just wanted to understand what was happening before the hurt and anger took over, but anyway. I get it.

Now, we know things are happening behind the scenes thanks to @teaaddictyt's post. I am linking to the updated post. The post received some mixed reactions due to the initial tone but I appreciated the status update nonetheless. At least we know something now!

Another thing I've been thinking about is: the future of GoS and forums in general.

It seems like part of the initial decision to take down the site when the update failed was due to inactivity / lack of interest and participation. I can't seem to find it now (I've been reading through lots of posts about the situation these past days) but I saw in a reply under some post that apparently HL mentioned something about inactivity being a factor in a discord message.

Nowadays, a lot of us are on the aforementioned discord or here on tumblr or reddit and those older sites like GoS / s2a have become more archive than active. If we want to keep old sites like that alive and around we do have to participate more on them.

IF/When the sites come back I think showing them a little love will go a long way.

Additionally, I think stuff like the GoS monthly events and challenges may need a structural refresh. Events are fun ways to engage the community, but I think, like the site itself, we've all gotten older and likely have less free time to be churning out content for new events every month. As someone who has tried organizing monthly events for another fandom, it can definitely feel frustrating and disheartening when very few people end up participating. You feel like, what's the point! And often times there'd be a lot of interest in the event but then little participation. And sometimes that's down to time, or lack thereof.

So maybe we could introduce some variety. Longer timeframes. Maybe a new theme every other month. Maybe also do some seasonal events. So like a summer-wide event. Fall. Winter. Spring. Some longform or ongoing challenges to really give people ample time to participate. I know I personally suck at deadlines unless I know far in advanced and can plan accordingly, which often means I don't end up participating in things, even if I really wanted to. Another idea is to make a list at the start of the year with all the upcoming Event Themes. Just so people can start getting an idea for things they may want to make throughout the year!

In general I just miss a lot of the community challenges we used to have, like @totallymaxis, the big trade off, and other stuff. I love this community and we have endured for so long and through so much and I want us to keep having fun and making cool things. If anyone has more ideas for how we can breathe some life back into our beloved forum sites and community at large please share and brainstorm away!

[sims2packrat]

should people @ you if we find the original download links to CC that were uploaded to GOS/s2a before the shutdown? do they count as unavailable cc? just wondering

Hello yolkema! I was just about to make a post about this, hope you don't mind me using your ask :-)

I'm aware of the GOS/S2A situation and I've been lurking. I wanted to see how it all turned out before making a post about it. @teaaddictyt shared an update where she explained that GOS/S2A aren't dead just yet, people are working on getting it up again. I've also reached out to @liquidsims if this is something they would perhaps be able to "mirror" like the old ts2 sites they have done before (if all else fails).

In the meantime, @simnostalgia scraped GOS back in 2023 and you can find it here. I also found this sfs link on reddit. There's also the mediafryer archive. For links, you can plop them into wayback, a lot of links has been saved but not all ofc. I've already stumbled upon some links not archived. To answer your question, yes, feel free to share the links you find!

I've seen people post some links etc already, and I will probably reblog those, and until GOS/S2A are up and running again, I will reply to asks looking for GOS/S2A content. But pleeeease include links* if you have them! Even if wayback hasn't archived it. And if the creator is still active, reach out to them first.

*It makes it so much easier for me, it's already hard enough as it is with Google's fucking (sorry) AI shit. If anyone has any recommendations for working image-search and search engines, please enlighten me.

Also, packrat turns 10 today! I was planning on celebrating with something, but it feels kind of odd doing that right now. But nevertheless, happy birthday to packrat! 🎉

[teaaddictyt]

To my dear Sims 2 Community

I need everybody to stop, pause, make some really tight fists with their hands, now shake them out.

Now breathe in, all the way. Hold it - 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 - now breathe out. Now do that twice more.

There are still efforts going on behind the scenes to get GOS back online (and Sims 2 Artists).

New hosting has been secured. The website php needs upgrading and this has not been working, but people are still working on it.

I know its hard when things happen and you don't know what's going on. But please, everyone, just calm down. Instead of panicking, jumping to conclusions, making angry posts, just chill, wait, breathe. Be kind, ask what's happening without getting mad.

And please, remember kindness and empathy. Lunie has been trying to update GOS for months, and she is exhausted. It's down right now, but not dead (yet).

[grimbunnies]

First, I'm happy to hear this, and I want to thank those working behind the scenes on this, and to appreciate the tremendous effort hosting this website must have taken over many, many years.

That said, the issue people have is with the lack of communication. Were this just someone's personal website that only they contributed to, that would be one thing, but GOS especially is such a community effort that the lack of effective and transparent communication through this process was always going to create this perfect storm of tension in the community. At the very least, we must sympathize with the many creators who, knowing nothing of what's going on behind the scenes, have had to take steps to figure out how they can ensure everyone has access to the content they originally shared on GOS. It created work and confusion for the people who help to keep the community on GOS alive.

A lot of this was, speaking plainly, entirely avoidable had there been a greater effort to communicate and spread information, and perhaps to provide periodic updates. This could reasonably be argued to be a burden. I'm sure questions would have poured in, as they have over these last couple of days. That's where members of the community, had they been in the know, could have supported the process, by being the PR team.

I hope that when all is said and done, regardless of whether GOS can be restored or not, we're able to grow from this moment as a community. While we should all be aware of how we get sucked into internet discourse and the impact that has on real people, this community, in general, is extremely positive, supportive, and understanding, and that we see much more frustration in this situation should indicate a need for reflection on what happened, or didn't happen, that created stress, confusion, and grief responses.

[simnationlifebefore]

I still think about the time I got a job by talking about my simblr in the interview

@elvisgrace

Okay so I went to an interview for a company that makes comedy shows in the UK and a friend who had a little more experience than me was also being interviewed, although I didn't know this.

And we discussed my work in the TV/film industry at this point and I had only ever worked on set and this job would be in office which meant I was unlikely to get the job because the type of work is very different.

Until we got to the "tell me about life outside of work" section of the interview and I mentioned a few hobbies and stuff and it was completely normal.

Until I mentioned my Simblr...

And I didn't go into huge nerdy detail, I said "Oh I also use the game the sims to make a mini soap opera" and the producer interviewing me had never heard of such a thing before and asked me to elaborate.

"Well the game comes with a camera you can move around, and over the last 15 years people who play the game have been modding content you can download into it, so you could make a historical drama or a scifi, anything really. And photoshop helps with any other limitations"

Interviewer was really intrested in the modding part so I told her about people I spoke with on various platforms who either made stuff for me or helped me find somthing that I asked for, always for free.

And the thing is, in office when making TV shows you need to make friends and contacts to be able to get things sorted on a short time scale, you'll need to have things custom made and you'll need video and photo editing skills.

All of which I had accidently mentioned I do within the sims community, without knowing it I had a transferable skill.

My friend ended up getting hired because she had the confirmed skills needed but then called me up and said they'd adjusted the budget and would like to hire me as well on a shorter contract and admitted it was the sims talk that made it impossible for them to not want me.

So yeah, got a job by talking about my sims hobby.

[simnationlifebefore]

Reminder that the sims community and all that has been created with it can be transferable skills.

[teaaddictyt]

To my dear Sims 2 Community

I need everybody to stop, pause, make some really tight fists with their hands, now shake them out.

Now breathe in, all the way. Hold it - 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 - now breathe out. Now do that twice more.

There are still efforts going on behind the scenes to get GOS back online (and Sims 2 Artists).

New hosting has been secured. The website php needs upgrading and this has not been working, but people are still working on it.

I know its hard when things happen and you don't know what's going on. But please, everyone, just calm down. Instead of panicking, jumping to conclusions, making angry posts, just chill, wait, breathe. Be kind, ask what's happening without getting mad.

And please, remember kindness and empathy. Lunie has been trying to update GOS for months, and she is exhausted. It's down right now, but not dead (yet).

[twentyfourfirst-sims]

Garden of Shadows: a preservation effort

Like many of us, I grew up with Garden of Shadows. To me, it was more than just a forum. It was a place I could ask for help, learn new skills and, best of all, find amazing content in any style I could possibly want. I loved the board names, the people, the themes; everything, really.

And I admit I was more than a little heartbroken to find it gone.

After mulling it over, I decided that I wanted to preserve what I possibly could. I spent a few hours yesterday running through strategies and ideas about how to best go about it, and the best I could come up with was, well, exactly the same.

So, here it is: the Garden of Shadows mirror forum.

I've only just started, but I hope to add a little bit to it every day. The primary focus will be on preserving all the knowledge and custom content. I'm tackling it myself, but if you feel so inclined, you're more than welcome to join in.

--

PS. I am not here to offend, break Terms of Use, or to step on any toes. This is simply an effort to preserve content and knowledge for a game I have played and loved for over twenty years. Thank you ♥

[papermoonproductions]

Mixed Messaging.

Back in 2023, @hugelunatic-deactivated20260510 gave @simnostalgia shit for archiving/scraping GoS “just in case,” citing concerns over scraping, bandwidth, and preservation itself.

Now GoS and Sims2Artists are suddenly gone, and people are left scrambling through remnants, mirrors, and whatever archives survived.

That is exactly why preservation matters.

You cannot discourage archival efforts and then act surprised when people are upset that massive parts of Sims 2 history vanished with little warning. You also cannot get angry over backlash when there was never any clear, direct communication to the wider community.

People were explicitly told that if GoS was truly at risk of going down, there would be an announcement.

No real community-wide warning was ever given.

And honestly, this is where the messaging becomes incredibly frustrating.

We were told:

hosting costs were manageable,

the site was not going anywhere as long as ads/donations covered most costs,

out-of-pocket expenses were still within budget,

scraping was mainly an issue because it increased bandwidth/server load,

“if I were not willing/able to continue, then there would be an announcement,”

and later posts even made it sound like things were functioning again after the PHP fixes.

Most people interpreted that as stability returning.

So yes, people are understandably confused and frustrated now, because the messaging for years was essentially: “Things are annoying, but manageable.”

Not: “Hey. This is serious. Archive what you can now. I may be done.”

And no, buried technical posts about PHP upgrades and drive failures are not the same thing as directly communicating that to the wider community.

I literally had to use archived Tumblr pages just to reconstruct the timeline before speaking on this.

And honestly, we are lucky @simnostalgia even had the foresight to preserve as much as they did back in 2023, because otherwise even more would likely be gone forever or nearly impossible to piece back together. But that archive is still missing huge amounts of resources, attachments, images, updates, and years of content added afterward.

What makes this even more frustrating is that @simnostalgia received backlash for trying to preserve the site in the first place. At this point, I honestly hope they feel vindicated, because this situation is exactly why archival efforts matter.

People absolutely would have helped preserve, mirror, archive, financially support, or even transition these sites if the situation had been communicated clearly, especially if HugeLunatic had simply said: “I am done. Someone else needs to preserve or host this now.”

[brandinotbroke]

yes yes GOS is down i get it

but i think this is an appropriate time to tell all of you that internet archive/wayback machine is *also* not safe for making backups

they have repeatedly been the target of legal battles, some of which they have already lost (see here and here) and which have nearly bankrupted them

so putting everything on the internet archive and calling it a day is a majorly stupid idea. Ideally, we'd need SEVERAL backups of everything, in different places.

[vixsims]

*Editing this post to re-iterate and emphasize that my main criticism of this whole situation has been the lack of open, transparent communication with the community regarding the status of GoS and s2a. I'm not changing anything about what I said in the post below. And in this post I am a bit pissy and vent some of these frustrations, but I still standby the core sentiment which is: things should have been communicated better and the way people had to hunt for information and the responses that were publicly given once communication was made were not great, and created even more confusion and frustration.*

original post below:

now HL is claiming they told everyone months ago the sites would go down completely if their update efforts didn’t work. Hmm. Where did they say this? On their deactivated tumblr? Did they post this announcement widely and make sure the community knew? Did they actually stress the urgency of the situation? Or did they say it in a flippant, sarcastic way the way they seem to be communicating everything? Did they try to reach out to the community for help with the update or just not think about how losing these sites would impact anyone else?

Knowing they’ve been against archival efforts of their site before it doesn’t seem like they were really sounding the alarms on this one. The apathy and flippant attitude toward something that means a lot to this community just doesn’t sit well with me. The way they did not think to make a proper announcement that the sites were now officially closed, the way people had to try to track them down on MTS. Like come on. Sorry but you do owe people an explanation and transparency. Like I said in my previous post about the situation, at a certain point in a community as small as ours, a site like GoS or s2a becomes communal, and it shouldn’t be up to one person what happens to it. Instead of acting like this was their sole burden to bear they could’ve handed it off to someone else if they lost interest or just couldn’t figure out how to fix the sites.

Now they’re on that MTS thread acting like they told everyone and it’s our faults for not acting or taking them seriously. How are we supposed to take them seriously when during the update the maintenance message was cheeky “it’ll work or it won’t ;)” and their way of announcing the sites were gone was “I stopped paying ;)” like, really?? I would LOVE to see how they worded their supposed post about these sites shutting down if the updates didn’t work. Something tells me it wasn’t very clear or urgent.

[julessims]

About GOS

As a web developer who works on the daily with this kind of stuff (and php!) it makes me sad how little preservation was actually tried. I understand that a php upgrade isn't possible anymore at some point, especially if the base is old, but if you know what to do, you can edit databases, remove all personal data like mails and usernames, leave the threads as is and upload it to an archive.

I think there are several people in this community who could have helped, or still can.

It just makes me sad to see so little care put towards this huge piece of history.

If any of you have an old ass php webpage, reach out to me, I can probably help.

[papermoonproductions]

Thoughts on the Loss of GOS & Sims2Artists

I am not usually someone who gets involved in Sims community discourse or public callout-style posts, but this genuinely breaks my heart to see.

A massive amount of the custom content, creativity, and inspiration behind my work on Vermillion Sins came from communities like Garden of Shadows and Sims2Artists. They were huge pillars of the Sims 2 creative space for years.

What hurts most is not even just the shutdown itself. It’s the lack of warning.

These sites were not just forums anymore. They had become archives of nearly two decades of community history: old creators, inactive creators, forum attachments, resources, tutorials, contests, shared knowledge, and years of creativity that helped shape this community into what it became.

A simple “hey, this may go offline permanently soon, please archive what you can” would have allowed people time to preserve pieces of Sims 2 history before they vanished. Instead, so much appears to have disappeared overnight.

And to be clear, I do not think anyone is owed endless unpaid labor or permanent site maintenance. If someone no longer has the time, energy, money, or interest to continue running something, that is completely understandable.

But I do think the community should have at least been given the chance to help. People absolutely would have pitched in through backups, mirrors, technical help, donations, archival efforts, or simply having enough warning to preserve pieces of history before they disappeared.

The Sims 2 community has survived because people cared enough to preserve things. Without archivists, backups, mirrors, and Wayback captures, huge parts of this game’s creative history would already be gone forever.

And honestly, I hope this becomes a wake-up call moving forward. Preservation should matter.

TOUs and repost policies should not become barriers that result in entire pieces of community history disappearing forever the moment a creator or site owner leaves, especially in a community where everything is interconnected.

I respect active creators wanting credit and boundaries. But abandoned content should not be treated like untouchable lost media while the community watches it disappear forever. Communities preserving older Sims games and their content are a huge part of why those games remained alive and accessible long after EA itself had largely moved on from supporting them, and likely played a significant role in renewed interest surrounding things like the Sims 2 Legacy release.

I hope more people begin supporting archival efforts, mirrors, and preservation projects before more Sims history is lost for good.

[solarsimblr]

so surreal to scroll through the gos archive and see stuff named 'clothes.zip' or just random lyrics or something. whatever's inside those files isn't technically lost, but it's hard to imagine organically discovering any of it again. yes it's possible to track down a download if you know exactly what you're looking for, but what if you don't...?

[grilledcheese-aspiration]

personally, this is a large concern of mine with this whole...thing.

[simnostalgia]

Simscave 01 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

SimCave

The news of what happened to GOS makes this a good time to mention, probably, something that I didn't mention earlier because of the hate I received when I scraped GOS.

But I also scraped SimCave.