Coming Soon!

Coming Soon December 2012!

Hey guys,

Since December 6th, I do not have class along with not having to work that day, I will be spending the day working on and releasing a Map Guide for your viewing pleasure! This will include ALL community lots and residential lots, including a list of empty lots that come with Monte Vista.

There will also be multiple screenshots of some buildable lots, to showcase all the rooms and features they have to offer!

I hope you guys enjoy the Map Guide come round December 6th =D

- AznSensei

55DSL Clothing Set Review

Hey guys,

AznSensei here reviewing yet another new store release for the month of November (good golly they released so much) as the new 55DSL clothing line from Diesel has made an appearance in the Store.

This time, there are "Three" Sets to get, for a limited time until the end of December 2012.

55DSL Simpoint Bundle:

$20 for 1700 Simpoints + 4 CAS ($15 on Cyber Monday)

55DSL Menswear Fall-Winter Collection: 

1100 Simpoints (660 on Cyber Monday)

55DSL Womenswear Fall-Winter Collection:

1100 Simpoints (660 on Cyber Monday)

With all of these new CAS options, they came directly from the Diesel line and incorporated in a sim version. The problems lies in the price as at original price, it isn't REMARKABLE mainly because it is branded content, which isn't a shocker *points at shakira, etc. sets in the past* 

Anyways, they don't bring a HUGE variety of clothing, but for Diesel fans, these make nice additions to anyone's game who would like some real-world clothing in it. 

Anyways, there really isn't much I can say other than it IS the theme of Diesel, appropriate for Fall/Winter, which btw most of the clothing is categorized as outerwear, and is pretty pricey. 

Other than that, enjoy the screenshots of all of the content these three new sets have to offer!

55DSL Simpoint Bundle:

 

 

55DSL Menswear Fall-Winter Collection:

 

 

 

 

 

55DSL Womenswear Fall-Winter Collection:

 

 

 

 

 

Overall Review:

Price- 5/10- The price is pretty high for branded content, I'm not a fan of the price, but at the sale discount, it makes each of them slightly less than the cost of individual pieces of normal content. Sadly, I wouldn't call it a "steal" or a "deal" but not much I can do when it comes to branded content. 

Theme- 8/10- Fits the 55DSL theme, also pretty much ALL of the clothing comes exactly from the line you can find in the store, so there isn't really much of anything exciting, except the comparisons between these and the ones in real life are pretty much identical. 

Design- 7/10- I kind of wished they picked better outfits, especially the pants in these sets to display for outerwear as I've seen plenty of other clothing in the Diesel Line that would fit in so well. But I guess its up to  Diesel (or maybe even the Store Team) on what to put out in the set or not. Other than that, I'm not disappointed in the top/outfit category. Some of the pants are a huge eyesore, and I think some color channels are definitely bugged. No clue if the Store Team will even bother fixing it, unless they are made aware of it.

Overall- 6.7/10

Stones Throw Greenhouse Fix Tutorial

Hey guys,

As a request from a reader, I have created a short tutorial on how to prevent weather into your Greenhouse. Please take note that this does not solve the dormancy problem, but will make it so snow or puddles from the rain will not appear inside the building.

I hope this helps!  AznSensei

First we will look at the right side of the lot:

Remove all greenhouse roof pieces, except for the end one:

Draw a wall stretching out until it ends at the roof end:

Draw another wall, but halfway across:

Place a Greenhouse Roof Side as pictured below:

Use the Mansard Roof to make a roof over the walls you made and adjust the size to your fitting:

Finished:

Now towards the main area of snow, the centered area:

Remove the two greenhouse roof pieces shown below:

Draw a wall again the same way you did earlier:

Place another Greenhouse Roof Side:

Draw another Roof on top and you are set to go:

The last part is the interior, which is pretty simple:

Remove the wall and arch there so it can be one giant room:

Also, remove this one too:

Add Windows and you are done:

And there you go! A Finished Greenhouse that doesn't have weather entering your lot!

Stones Throw Greenhouse Venue Review

Hey guys,

I will be reviewing the recent addition to The Sims 3 Store: The Stones Throw Greenhouse Venue. This particular venue set was released on November 15th, 2012.

Included in this review also is a link to the Collection File of the Greenhouse found below:

http://www.mediafire.com/?u2nvn48srcqt3fv

One thing to note is that all the items in this venue are not for individual sale, and in order to get any of them, you MUST buy the entire venue set.

The Venue is priced at 1700/1900 Simpoints on sale until 1/01/2013. Sadly the discount seems like it's not a good deal, so in the later part of the review, I hope it is worth it.

This venue set comes with 32 items, which includes: 2 Premium Content Items, 10 CAS Clothing, and 4 new Glass Roof Sculpture pieces. The size of the lot is 40x30 so it should fit in many worlds without any issues! Below are the pictures of everything of the lot place in Moonlight Falls:

 

 

 

 

Seasons:

Winter:

Rain:

Note: It does not protect your indoor areas from the snow! 

There are three gardening areas, two indoor, and one outdoor.

The Outdoor gardening plot has the following plants:
- 4 Tomato Plants
- 4 Onion Plants
- 4 Grapevines
- 4 Lettuce Plants
- 2 Bell Peppers in Plant Pots
- 1 Lime Tree
- 1 Life Plant behind the Gardening Station

The Left Indoor Gardening Area has the following plants:
- 3 Garlic Plants
- 4 Tomato Plants
- 7 Lettuce Plants
- 7 Bell Pepper Plants
- 7 Potato Vines
- 2 Onion Plants in Plant Pots

The Right Indoor Gardening Area has the following plants:
- 2 Bell Pepper Plants in Plant Pots
- 3 Bell Pepper Plants
- 5 Tomato Plants
- 5 Gravevines
- 4 Watermelon Vines
- 1 Flame Fruit Bush in the middle of the Watermelon Vines
- 2 Garlic Plants

Also there is an onion plant in the lobby outside of the left gardening area.

When calculating everything up, the price of the individual items add up roughly to 2875 Simpoints, which is a pretty big amount when combining all 32 items. With the set costing 1700/1900 Simpoints, you're saving pretty much over $10 for this set.

The first Premium Content  is the SwiftGro Gardening Station. This object takes a whopping 6x6 spot on the lot and can be used by children to elders. This object has 5 options below:

- Water Plants
- Talk to Plants
- Identify Seeds
- Open Composter
- Use Composter

For the Water Plants option, the sprinkler system overhead will turn on, watering all the plants under it as shown below:

The Talk to Plants option allows you to talk to the plants using the megaphone. This raises your Gardening Skill, but also can help make the plants grow healthy too if utilized.

When Opening the Composter and adding three types of veggies, fish , etc. (Have not tried fish yet) that can be used as fertilizer, it uses all 3 of those items and fertilize all the plants found under the Gardening Station when using the Use Composter option.

The last option is of course what it says, Identify Seeds. I think that's self-explanatory so I don't need to explain how that works. ;)

The second Premium Content is the Plants VS. Zombies Sunflower. This lovely singing plant will add sunlight to your plants along with providing music to dance with your sims, and even Zombies! There is only one option with this plant, which is the Dance! option.

After a period of time, the Sunflowers release sunlight onto the ground shown below:

Sims can even pick up sunlight and put it in their inventory for a short period of time:

Putting three of these in the composter will provide fertilizer, sunlight, and also transform all your plants into the next growth state! Pretty nifty to have.

The rest of the 30 objects include brand new Glass roof sculptures for your Greenhouse building and other new options in furniture, decor, and even clothing for the first time in a Venue Set!

Below are the pictures of all of the items:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CAS

Females:

 

 

 

Males:

 

 

 

Overall Review:

Price: 8/10- While the price is on sale only for 1700/1900 Simpoints, it may not seem like a huge deal. However, after adding up all of the items, especially with the premium content, they added up around 2700-3000 Simpoints (If by judging the Store Team, they would charge 100-200 for the indoor pot planter, and probably 100- 200 for the Glass Roof Decor). Honestly, this was worth my money personally because I enjoy making greenhouses, and this is a step towards a full glass home.

Theme: 10/10- Who doesn't like a Greenhouse theme? I think this was one of the most requested type of content to have since Gardening came out in the BASE GAME. While this would fit very well in Seasons, it would have fit well with Supernatural too as that was focused in Gardening also in one aspect. Plus, Gardening came with the base game, so this makes a nice addition to make things easier for gardeners. 

Design: 8/10- I love how detailed some of the objects are, including the wonderful stencils they added to a whole bunch of. Plus, I love the overall design of the lot itself along with the addition of the glass roof pieces. The store team did very well in introducing a "staged" Greenhouse and with or without the premium content, it would just "LOOK" like one, not be an actual one. There are some issues though with the glass decor objects. With Season and snow, it seems like even if you place the roof decorations on top, snow will go through. However, you have to go through twists and turns to make it so snow does not show up, which can be a pain to deal with and difficult to do if players do not know how these roof decor work.

Thankfully, I was able to make enough adjustments so the inside of the building is not covered in snow.

Premium Content: 8/10- While I do enjoy the Premium Content objects, I do feel like the Plants vs Zombies Sunflower isn't worth the 500 simpoints should it come out for individual sale. Sure I enjoy some nice music, sunlight, and dancing with it, but that's all it will do. 300 simpoints does sound about right for this sunflower, but it's already out. I do enjoy the nice addition with the gardening station, it has everything a gardener needs into one object. While it may be big, it will help fertilize, water, and help your plants grow. I even LOVE the megaphone addition when talking to plants. 

Overall: 8.5/10- Not much I can say, but it was worth my money and I am pretty glad I obtained this set. Very good work from the store team and this is one set I will definitely be utilizing in many worlds. I hope you guys enjoyed this personal review so Happy Simming!

AznSensei