Mod News (Patreon)

Hi All,

Hope you're all managing to stay cool in this record heatwave across the globe! I have a new mod to share with you, some info on my work in progress, and what the patch/pack will mean for my mods plus a poll.

New Mod: Writing and Writer Career Overhaul (Early Access)

A complete overhaul of how book writing and the Writer career (both Author and Journalism branches) in the game works. Writer career is now semi-active work from home with new promotion requirements and custom objectives. Writing books is greatly boosted by outlining and research.

Being published means finding an agent through queries and manuscript submissions, negotiating book deals with or without literary agents, making edits, if necessary, to articles and books as directed by editors (it becomes less necessary the better you get/more book you write/if you have degrees,fame,followers,etc), approving book design and printer's proofs. More info in the post!

Sapphire/Violet Release: Today
Midnight/Azure Release: 7/29
Public Release: 8/12

Base Game Update and High School Years Pack

I know no one is buying the new pack so I probably don't have to worry about it.... JK!!!! So first things first, the patch is going to most likely break phones. As you know my mods heavily utilize the phone. Therefore there's a definite possibility a good many number of my mods will need to be updated. I will be updating my mods as quickly as possible but will not post them until after the pack is released as the pack itself will bring enormous code changes. I will work as quickly as possible and endeavor to have it done on July 28th but hopefully no later than July 29th.

Note about Education Overhaul
I will NOT be sunsetting this mod. I will be making some big changes (including breaking the mod into modules) to accomodate active high school and new features of the pack (see more on the poll question) but on the whole since rabbithole school is still an option available by not sending your teen to school the mod will still function as it does currently when your sim attends rabbithole school. This should be available at the same time, but might take longer than the 29th but hopefully before August 1st though it depends on what I end up doing with some feedback from the poll. 

Note about Preteen Mod
Updates to keep it functioning I expect to be done before August 1st, hopefully also on the 29th, but might take longer. I don't think this will change much but we'll see. I know I'll need to make some concessions and changes based on the shallow crush that comes with HSY. I also plan to redo middle school so teens and preteens are in high school together with preteens in Junior High School as freshmen and the regular teens sort of upperclassmen. I also plan to make it so preteens are temporarily excluded from certain events (graduation and career day) and from prom unless they're asked by upperclassmen.

POLL: STANDALONE MOD OR PART OF EDUCATION OVERHAUL

Teen Mod and HSY Social Expansion

As some of you know I've been working on adding some more options for teens for a few months. EA has added many things I wanted in HSY (yay!) but it's not as fleshed out as I was hoping so I'm still going to be making this mod, just with less options than before. I'm still going to add some more parent bans/permissions, introduce dares they can dare each other to do, and add interactions that deal with peer relationships, romantic relationships, and family relationships. I also found the Crush system from HSY shallow so I'll be expanding on that. I also wanted a popularity/social status system. Nothing too harsh, I'm planning on keeping it light, not Mean Girls, but something that makes interactions between teens a little more interesting so I'm adding a popularity/social status ranking system that will also tie into the social group/rivalries idea from below. Sims will either care a lot, be nonchalant, or not care at all about where they are ranked over all.

School Based Changes to HSY

I'm planning on incorporating some changes to HSY in this mod. For instance, I will be looking first thing into making changes to how the classroom works to see if I can put some life into sims during class time and make it so sims autonomously do more around school including working on projects from Education Overhaul,etc.  I'll be changing career day into a college fair, if I can. Prom needs to only be once a year... There don't seem to be consequences for detention or expulsion so adding those. I also was disappointed with HSY that they didn't include more teen traits and aspirations so I'll do one or two of those as well. Also Band, Student Government, and Arts clubs should have been included in HSY so I'll add those. The biggest thing for me that felt missing was rivalries/social ranking outside of just football and cheer club. It's not a pretty side of high school but it's realistic so I will be making school-based  social groups/rivalries. Additionally within each social group there will also be a hierarchy of a leader and normal group members but again, I'm planning to keep it light, not Mean Girls.

All of this to say, do you want this as part of Education Overhaul (my first instinct and what I'll probably do regardless) or standalone? I'm thinking the HSY changes will be part of EO and the other part of the teen mod will be standalone. Your thoughts?