Voting for the Screenshot Contest is now live! Choose your favorite three out of the eleven entries, and the top 5 vote-getters will win. Voting closes Apr 30th, so vote now!
I got tagged in this a while ago but I didn’t answer all the questions since I wasn’t actively playing a historical save so feel free to send me some numbers!
1. What has been your favorite time period to play in or which one are you most excited for?
2. Do you have a favorite piece of historical cc? (CAS or BB)
3. Who is your favorite sim currently?
4. What is your favorite world?
5. Are you more gameplay or story focused?
6. Do you like to play with pets in your historical saves?
7. What’s your biggest immersion breaking pet peeve with the game?
8. What’s your favorite in-game historical item? (CAS or BB)
9. What would you like to see as a new pack or asset to the game?
10. What pack do you think is invaluable as a historical simmer?
11. Do you have a favorite mod to enhance historical gameplay?
12. What’s your ideal family size for playing?
13. Do you use poses?
14. Do you use any overrides in your game?
15. Do you, or did you, play off-the-grid during your game?
16. What lifespan do you play on?
17. What inspired you to start playing a historically?
It seems like Box has changed their link redirection again. If you're clicking and getting redirected to an "app.box.com" link that doesn't work, change that bit to "m.box.net" and hit enter to try it. That's worked well for me to get past seemingly dead Box links. I can't guarantee it'll work for you, but give it a shot if you're having trouble.
no shade to the teens and early twenties bloggers but it’s hard finding people within my age group that are active and continue to contribute here in the community.
also idk if anyone else experiences this but sometimes it can be difficult relating to the younger population due to generational differences, pop culture, etc.
please reblog or comment if you fall into the 30+ age simblr category.
On May 3rd, Google released 8 new top-level domains (TLDs) -- these are new values like .com, .org, .biz, domain names. These new TLDs were made available for public registration via any domain registrar on May 10th.
Usually, this should be a cool info, move on with your life and largely ignore it moment.
Except a couple of these new domain names are common file type extensions: ".zip" and ".mov".
This means typing out a file name could resolve into a link that takes you to one of these new URLs, whether it's in an email, on your tumblr blog post, a tweet, or in file explorer on your desktop.
What was previously plain text could now resolve as link and go to a malicious website where people are expecting to go to a file and therefore download malware without realizing it.
Folk monitoring these new domain registrations are already seeing some clearly malicious actors registering and setting this up. Some are squatting the domain names trying to point out what a bad idea this was. Some already trying to steal your login in credentials and personal info.
This is what we're seeing only 12 days into the domains being available. Only 5 days being publicly available.
What can you do? For now, be very careful where you type in .zip or .mov, watch what website URLs you're on, don't enable automatic downloads, be very careful when visiting any site on these new domains, and do not type in file names without spaces or other interrupters.
I'm seeing security officers for companies talking about wholesale blocking .zip and .mov domains from within the company's internet, and that's probably wise.
I really want to reiterate how this can go wrong frequently and fast, folks.
A malicious actor sets up a page with an auto-downloader squatting on a domain name that matches a common zip file name like photos DOT zip. This website is set up to start an auto downloader upon being visited, downloading a zip file with the same name as the URL which contains malicious software (virus, worm, keylogger, etc).
Scenario.
Someone you know well sends you an email or text with promised photos attached. The email even reads something like this.
Because .zip is now a TLD, that plain text is automatically formatted into a link to malicious actor's website without them having to send you anything.
Folk with family with iPhones or iPads that are sent multiple photos in one go might be familiar with iCloud's tendency to automatically compile them into zip file for the sender and less savvy tech users have trouble NOT doing that.
These same less savvy users, or even just someone just not thinking in the moment, will click that .zip link, not realizing it isn't the the same as clicking on the promised attachment.
They download a file that matches the name they expected. They open it because they were expecting that file and it's from a trusted source. Except the file they downloaded isn't the one that was sent by their trusted source and now they have malware.
Another Scenario.
An IT person tries to send you an email with instructions on how to resolve a problem with a commonly used filename like install-repair DOT zip or to install new software like microsoft-office DOT zip.
The email may start with instructions of where to go get the legitimate file to do the install or repair, but now a line later in the instructions is also has a link to a .zip URL. A user, already frazzled by IT problems, may click it to ensure they have the right file. Again, they download malicious code from a squatting website or it prompts them with a fake login and now the squatting website has stolen their login credentials for a legitimate site. All due to an expected email from a trusted source.
Above you can see microsoft-office DOT zip is already out there with a fake Microsoft login screen waiting to steal your credentials.
These risks are already out there now because the TLD has been activated.
Plain text on old post are already being resolved into links to the new websites.
Here you can see a tweet from 2021, long before .zip was a domain name, now resolves that plan text into a clickable link. You'll start seeing this everywhere, and malicious actors do not have to lift a finger to send it to you.
Yes, a lot of users aren't going to click that, but a lot of folk will. Whomever is squatting on photos DOT zip domain name has made a one time payment to have access to anyone that ever sees that file name typed out.
In an example of an existing squatter site, clientdocs DOT zip is exactly one such pre-setup .zip domain name that initiates an automatic download. This one may be harmless, but the set ups are already out there and waiting to catch folk.
It's an unnecessary and risky can of worms that's been opened up.
This is about to be very important in the sims community, given how many mods and cc are formatted as .zip files and what an issue malware and data collection can already be. Anyone using .zip mods should be on the lookout for this ASAP, and if possible protest Google doing this.
Tagging some other sims blogs I know to spread it around if you want!
Samberry - Skell’s Samantha Dress for CF Retextured
This is my oh-so-creatively-named take on this dress by Skell, based on the Cranberry Party Dress worn by American Girl doll Samantha Parkington. My original intention was just to retexture the sash and make recolors, but I wound up almost completely retexturing it with bits and pieces borrowed from Andavri. The lace on the bib was also replaced with the lace on the original’s collar. (Skell’s is more faithful to the mega-lace on the doll’s dress, to be honest, but I liked this better.)
The dress comes in two patterns, one in Andavri’s Disney palette (custom swatch) and one in Van’s Ladies of Verona palette (custom swatch). Each pattern has one variant with dark lace - the Disney one because it could be used for mourning and the Verona one because it just looked adorably goth. Samantha’s era is turn-of-the-century, right on the cusp between Victorian and Edwardian/Progressive, so the dress could work for games of either era. It could also work in more modern games for dress-up occasions.
The lace bib does clip a bit (back, back with clipping), particularly over the shoulders and in the back, with normal game movements. It doesn’t really bother me, but if it bothers you, well, now you know.
The files are all labeled, tooltipped, and compressorized. Custom swatches and the mesh are included. The outfit is categorized as casual and formal.
After coming back into contact with Stas, Sunni's widower, the plans for the Keep have changed. Disregard most of what was posted above.
We WILL be remaining open for the foreseeable future, accepting both new members and new content. The site will remain a historical- and fantasy-focused Sims 2 forum.
Going forward, the Keep will be managed by a "Regency Council" instead of just one Regent. This will consist of PBK moderators CelestialSpider, Davina Ojeda, and rugrat0ne, as well as Discord moderators Fire_flower and Sonikku3.
Fractured Moonlight will be stepping back into something of a "silent partner" role so she can focus on creating. We thank her for her years of service running the Keep all by herself, especially out of the blue. We know it was not easy.
We are already establishing better lines of communication with Stas in hopes of avoiding the annual early March panic, and reminders have been set for February fundraising.
There will be annual fundraisers on GoFundMe or similar sites to offset the cost, and to provide more transparency than we've been able to provide in the past.
Meanwhile, archiving efforts will continue until the site is fully backed up, as a failsafe. We will also periodically archive new content in the future.
Many, many thanks to those who pitched in on the archiving project, to those who donated, in this year and previous ones, and to everyone who supported and continues to support Plumb Bob Keep.
Hi, I'm @winterinverona and this is my new Sims 2 custom content archive. PBK is down, but I have my CC & pics all backed up. Reposts will start soon. Any archivists can safely move on to other creators!
Just reblogging this from my new Sims 2 custom content archive, @winter-cc. (I actually made it a while ago and kind of forgot about it until the troubles with PBK. Anyway...)
Alright, the new computer with Windows 11 is up and running and Sims 2 has been installed. These are the steps I took to get it running and looking pretty:
Installed the game through EA App
I installed "George" so I won't need to start the game up through EA App and let it waste resources and spy on me.
I ran the 4GB patch on the Sims2EP9.exe and TS2BodyShop.exe
I ran Graphics Rules Maker and tweaked things through that enabling it to use my full texture memory etc
I installed the EmptyStandbyList since without it I got pink flashing very quickly
????
Profit.
If this helped somebody else out, you're welcome! :)
(long, pretty messy and image heavy version of this process written as I did it is behind the cut. I mean it, it's very long!)
added my graphics card in the video cards file manually
did the common graphics rules tweaks (these) manually
applied 4gb patch to bodyshop and game exes
tested bodyshop, it started up but has no smooth edges, otherwise textures are good and new projects export and import as supposed. 4GB patch works as supposed. It'll likely require tweaking it through nvidia control panel so leaving that for later.
Started up game, after turning the edge smoothing on it looks this good (no mods thus the boxy shadows):
6. However my log is reporting only 1gb of RAM for the game to use, will have to reapply the 4gb patch and try again. But it's using all 12 gb for texture memory so that's cool, I probably won't need to worry too much about pink flashing but I'm going to stress test it a little.
View distance maximized:
Shaders work:
"I probably won't need to worry too much about pink flashing" I said earlier and then left the lot and:
:'D But looking at task manager I see my standby memory has filled up the remaining RAM already so this is actually working as expected, I just forgot one step.
7. installed the EmptyStandbyList.
8. This is where I closed game, applied the standby memory fix, rechecked my exe and remembered that you weren't supposed to run it in compatibility mode so I turned that off but just in case I also reapplied 4gb patch and restarted the game. Now it's correctly showing me 4GB of RAM to use for the game so that should be handled.
Side note: Mr. Humble spawned, I haven't seen him for years as I have mod to stop him from appearing. Was this sim always so ugly? It looks like his face is melting.
No pink flashing after leaving the lot this time:
But it crashed when I clicked on the sims icon.
New try, game restarted and this time we'll go straight to CAS and... *immediately gets distracted* There are this many bin families by default?
I've used clean templates for years so this was an unpleasant surprise. I don't like them, you're all getting nuked soon once I've made sure the game runs as supposed and can go ahead installing clean templates. So then to the CAS, it loads and I click to create a sim and....
Oh. Okay then. :| Guess I'm missing some tweak still. Let's try graphics rules maker instead, it should also easily fix my resolution etc since I forgot to do that manually.
One restart later, are you fucking kidding me?
but hey, nice crisp textures. Too bad it's so tiny I can't see shit. (I realized this was my error after a moment, I thought graphics rules maker said minimum resolution in the spot I didn't change but it actually says maximum, so I fixed that and all is good) But I'm gonna ignore that now and try loading CAS again, pls work.
.... Hell yeah, at least that finally loaded up as supposed.
She is beauty, she is grace, maxis defaults really ruin her face.
After the final restart with screen size etc fixed I went back and forth to different lots trying to make it flash pink and it never did so I'm going to say this was success.
So to recap:
Installed the game through EA App
I installed "George" so I won't need to start the game up through EA App.
I ran the 4GB patch on the Sims2EP9.exe and TS2BodyShop.exe
I ran Graphics Rules Maker and tweaked things through that enabling it to use my full texture memory etc
I installed the EmptyStandbyList since without it I got pink flashing very quickly
????
Profit.
And seriously, that's all, even if this post ended up this long.
I still need to get smooth edges in bodyshop but that will likely be done with nvidia control panel rather than texture settings. Here's one more random maxis sims image to end this with a pretty picture instead of just huge wall of text.
jbbartram-illu
blakekathryn
ellievsbear
janainaart
jacobvanloon
gummygunk
yousharknotpass
