#beta opportunity

[roselinbooks-archive]

Beta Opportunity Opening Soon!

In an effort to, you know, actually publish more, I am working on a short story/novella about a trans prince who hatches a dragon. I am seeking beta readers for the first three chapters to check in with the following points:

Is the story interesting? Do you care about the characters enough to want to know what happens next?

Is the writing suitable for 4th/5th grade (9 to 11 year old children)?

See my website for contact information if you are interested. You can also join my discord server by following me on Patreon (no pledge required) as I also communicate with beta readers through discord.

[just-ornstein]

[JK]  My first job was as an Assistant Producer for a video game company called Interplay in Irvine, CA. I had recently graduated from Boston University's School of Fine Arts with an MFA in Directing (I started out as a theatre nerd), but also had some limited coding experience and a passion for computers. It didn't look like I'd be able to make a living directing plays, so I decided to combine entertainment and technology (before it was cool!) and pitched myself to Brian Fargo, Interplay's CEO. He gave me my first break. I packed up and moved out west, and I've been producing games ever since.

[JK] I loved my time at EA. I was there for almost a full decade, and learned a tremendous amount about game-making, and met the most talented and driven people, who I remain in touch with today. EA gave me many opportunities, and never stopped betting on me. I worked on The Sims for nearly 5 years, and then afterwards, I worked on console action games as part of the Visceral studio. I was the Creative Director for the 2007 game "The Simpsons", and was the Executive Producer and Creative Director for the 2009 game "Dante's Inferno".

[JK] I haven't played in a long while, but I do recall that after the game shipped, my wife and I played the retail version for some time -- we created ourselves, and experimented with having a baby ahead of the actual birth of our son (in 2007). Even though I'd been part of the development team, and understood deeply how the simulation worked, I was still continually surprised at how "real" our Sims felt, and how accurate their responses were to having a baby in the house. It really felt like "us"!

Now for some of the development and lore related questions:

[JK] So I ended up in the incredibly fortunate position of creating the shipping neighborhoods for The Sims 2, and recruiting a few teammates to help me as we went along. 

Around the same time, we started using the Buy/Build tools to make houses we could save, and also bring them into each new build of the game (correcting for any bugs and incompatibilities). With the import tool, we could load Sims into these houses. In time, this "vanguard QA" process turned into a creative endeavor to define the "saved state" of the neighborhoods we would actually end up shipping with the game.

On playtesting & the leftover sims data on various lots:

Basically, we were in the late stages of development, and the Save Game functionality wasn't quite working. In order to test the game properly, you really needed to have a lot of assets, and a lot of Sims with histories (as if you'd been playing them for weeks) to test out everything the game had to offer. So I started defining a set of characters in a spreadsheet, with all their tuning variables, and worked with engineering to create an importer, so that with each new build, I could essentially "load" a kind of massive saved game, and quickly start playing and testing. 

It was fairly organic, and as the game's functionality improved, so did our starter houses and families. 

The thought process behind the creation of the iconic three neighborhoods:

I would not say it was particularly planned out ahead of time. We knew we needed a few saved houses to ship with the game; Sims 1, after all, had the Goth house, and Bob Newbie's house. But there wasn't necessarily a clear direction for what the neighborhood would be for Sims 2. We needed the game to be far enough along, so that the neighborhood could be a proper showcase for all the features in the game. With each new feature that turned alpha, I had a new tool in my toolbox, and I could expand the houses and families I was working on. Once we had the multi-neighborhood functionality, I decided we would not just have 1 starter neighborhood, but 3. With the Aging feature, Memories, a few wacky objects, plus a huge catalog of architectural and decorative content, I felt we had enough material for 3 truly distinct neighborhoods. And we added a couple of people to what became the "Neighborhood Team" around that time.

Later, when we created Strangetown, and eventually Veronaville, I believe we went back and changed Pleasantville to Pleasantview... because I liked the alliteration of "Verona-Ville", and there was no sense in having two "villes". (To this day, by the way, I still don't know whether to capitalize the "V" -- this was hotly debated at the time!)

Pleasantview:

Anyway, to answer your question, we of course started with Pleasantview. As I recall, we were not quite committed to multiple neighborhoods at first, and I think it was called Pleasantville initially, which was kind of a nod to Simsville... but without calling it Simsville, which was a little too on the nose. (There had also been an ill-fated game in development at Maxis at the time, called SimsVille, which was cancelled.) It's been suggested that Pleasantville referred to the movie, but I don't think I ever saw that movie, and we just felt that Pleasantville kind of captured the feeling of the game, and the relaxing, simple, idyllic world of the Sims.

Pleasantview started as a place to capture the aging feature, which was all new to The Sims 2. We knew we had toddlers, teens, and elders to play with, so we started making families that reflected the various stages of family life: the single mom with 3 young kids, the parents with two teens, the old rich guy with two young gold-diggers, etc. We also had a much greater variety of ethnicity to play with than Sims 1, and we had all new variables like sexual orientation and memories. All these things made for rich fodder for a great diversity of families. Then, once we had family trees, and tombstones that carried the actual data for the dead Sims, the doors really blew open. We started asking ourselves, "What if Bella and Mortimer Goth could be characters in Sims 2, but aged 25 years? And what if Cassandra is grown up? And what if Bella is actually missing, and that could be a fun mystery hanging over the whole game?" And then finally the "Big Life Moments" went into the game -- like weddings and birthdays -- and we could sort of tee these up in the Save Game, so that they would happen within the first few minutes of playing the families. This served both as a tutorial for the features, but also a great story-telling device.

Anyway, it all just flowed from there, as we started creating connections between families, relationships, histories, family trees, and stories that we could weave into the game, using only the simulation features that were available to us. It was a really fun and creative time, and we wrote all of the lore of Sims 2 within a couple of months, and then just brought it to life in the game.

Strangetown:

Strangetown was kind of a no-brainer. We needed an alternate neighborhood for all the paranormal stuff the Sims was known for: alien abduction, male pregnancy, science experiments, ghosts, etc. We had the desert terrain, which created a nice contrast to the lush Pleasantville, and gave it an obvious Area 51 vibe.

The fact that Veronaville is the oldest file probably reflects the fact that it was finished first, not that it was started first. That's my guess anyway. It was the simplest neighborhood, in many ways, and didn't have as much complexity in terms of features like staged big life moments, getting the abduction timing right, the alien DNA thing (which I think was somewhat buggy up until the end), etc.  So it's possible that we simply had Veronaville "in the can", while we put the last polish on Pleasantville (which was the first and most important neighborhood, in terms of making a good impression) and Strangeville (which was tricky technically).

Veronaville:

But my personal favorite was Veronaville. We had this cool Tudor style collection in the Build mode catalog, and I wanted to ship some houses that showed off those assets. We also had the teen thing going on in the aging game, plus a lot of romance features, as well as enemies. I have always been a Shakespeare buff since graduate school, so putting all that together, I got the idea that our third neighborhood should be a modern-day telling of the Romeo and Juliet story. It was Montys and Capps (instead of Montagues and Capulets), and it just kind of wrote itself. We had fun creating the past family trees, where everyone had died young because they kept killing each other off in the ongoing vendetta.

[JK] You know, I have never seen The Lone Gunmen, and I don't remember making any kind of direct references with the Strangetown Sims, other than the general Area 51 theme, as you point out. Charles London helped out a lot with naming Sims, and I'm pretty sure we owe "Vidcund" and "Lazlo" to him ... though many team members pitched in creatively. He may have had something in mind, but for me, I largely went off of very generic and stereotypical ideas when crafting these neighborhoods. I kind of wanted them to be almost "groaners" ... they were meant to be tropes in every sense of the word. And then we snuck in some easter eggs. But largely, we were trying to create a completely original lore.

[JK] Well, I think we kind of pushed it with The Sims 2, to be honest, and I remember getting a little blow-back about Bunny Broke, for example. Bunny Broke was the original name for Brandi Broke. Not everyone found that funny, as I recall, and I can understand that. It must have been changed before we shipped.

We also almost shipped the first outwardly gay Sims in those neighborhoods, which was bold for EA back in 2004. My recollection was that we had set up the Dreamers to be gay (Dirk and Darren), but I'm looking back now and see that's not the case. So I'm either remembering incorrectly (probably) or something changed during development.

In general we just did things that we found funny and clever, and we just pulled from all the tropes of American life.

[JK] The alien abduction started in Sims 1, with a telescope object that was introduced in the "Livin' Large" expansion pack. That's when some of the wackier ideas got introduced into the Sims lore. That pack shipped just before I joined Maxis in 2001; when I got there, the team had shipped "House Party" and was underway on "Hot Date". So I couldn't tell you how the original idea came about, but The Sims had this 50's Americana vibe from the beginning, and UFOs kind of played right into that. So the alien abduction telescope was a no-brainer to bring back in Sims 2. The male pregnancy was a new twist on the Sims 1 telescope thing. It must have been that the new version (Sims 2) gave us the tech and flexibility to have male Sims become pregnant, so while this was turned "off" for the core game, we decided to take advantage of this and make a storyline out of it. I think this really grew out of the fact that we had aliens, and alien DNA, and so it was not complicated to pre-bake a baby that would come out as an alien when born. The idea of a bunch of guys living together, and then one gets abducted, impregnated, and then gives birth to an alien baby ... I mean, I think we just all thought that was hilarious, in a sit-com kind of way. Not sure there was much more to it than that. Everything usually came from the designers discovering ways to tweak and play with the tech, to get to funny outcomes.

[JK] Possibly we were just testing the functionality of the Wants/Fears and Memories systems throughout development, and some stuff got left over.

[JK] I can't remember, but that sounds like something we would have done! I'm pretty sure we laid the groundwork for more stories that we ended up delivering :) But The Sims 2 was a great foundation for a lot of continued lore that followed.

--

I once again want to thank Jonathan Knight for granting me this opportunity and taking the time from his busy schedule to answer my questions.

[stars-obsession-pit]

Phantom, the King of the Infinite Realms, is an omega.

A single omega.

Which unfortunately means there’s unending swarm of alphas trying to win him over because of his position.

And Danny is fucking TIRED OF IT.

He’s happily single! He doesn’t want a relationship, and certainly not with any of those assholes who are only interested in the crown! If he has to hear one more speech about how his position “isn’t suitable for an omega” and he “needs to get a proper mate to rule the realms instead”, he’s going to End someone. Probably several someones.

Quite frankly, he’d prefer if the whole relationship system didn’t exist.

…Actually, that’s an idea.

The Realms are essentially infinite, so maybe if he explores far enough, he’ll find a place without all this bullshit. Or at least somewhere remote enough that he can seclude himself from everyone trying to bother him.

…he might as well give it a shot. It can’t possibly be much worse than staying where he is now.

[pupcha]

hum!Welcome Home sketches!!!

For some reason lately I've started thinking about beta!Wally and ordinary Wally.... I make headcannons and think about the difference between these two, even though they have the same appearance 🤨🤨🤨🥄 (my first attempts to draw a beta!Wally. two versions, because I'm undecided)

AND THEN HOWDY, BECAUSE I ADORE HIM..... YEAH (I'm still thinking about what I want him to look like in my artstyle—)

redraw (You are what you eat, they said. But I don't remember eating such a handsome man. Thanks to @//eechytooru for the idea :]]

I dunno how to comment on this, so just keep more sketches ☠️

[pyreo]

does anybody want to check out the petsite I've been playing for a while?

I think Santae is really cute, nostalgic, almost like a modern Neopets without the accumulated jank. It keeps things basic - you adventure to unlock pets, change their colours to your liking, and have them explore or forage for you to gain items.

The pet style is super endearing, here's a few of them

The basic colours are easy to grab, but the special colours have nice art direction - these examples Pipsqueak, Regal, Synthwave, and Netherflame. All the possible colours and species can be browsed over here

The site is still in beta so things are being tweaked and added all the time. As a beta tester you can get a daily gift as well as generous site handouts!

Because it's still in beta testing, you need a referral link to join during the referral window - I think it's open until Feb 15th.

>>Click Here to sign up<<

It's got constant updates right now, and I almost forgot, you can collect customisation for your personal avatar as well.

It's a dressup game too! And some backgrounds and accessories are animated. They had a wildly successful kickstarter and a robust content roadmap. Right now there's item collections, live events with prizes, hidden forum avatars, discord giveaways, and three teased upcoming new colours (tidewalker, gilded, and petrastone), all that jazz

I'll definitely send along a welcome pack to anyone who wants to check it out!

[please-humiliate-this-slave]

Recruitment Advertisement ...

A chance for losers (like me) to have a purpose in life!

Apply Now... If you want to be useful and want to have a purpose in your life.... Like me!!

@virginloserfoundation

@celebrity-femdom-alliance

[nestinqomega]

i want someone to lay on me to keep me warm like a big weighted blanket please

[swan2swan]

Happy 9-year anniversary to the day Darius Bowman met his new family!

[fluffalpenguin]

rest in peace cross duel, here are my fanmade cross duel gijinkas i did donkey months ago (these two are based off kraken and penguin, my favourite fluffal and frightfur!)

the dimensional dragons are all girls because i wanted them to match odd-eyes and i even cooked up a fantasy plot for them to be actors in (more in tags)

i had a vision of green hair girl to be a harem queen a la gudako so bad

[c1trvswurld]

For every overwatcg omegaverse 300k+ fic a devil gets forgiven and gets his wings in heaven

[anotherdayforchaosfay]

Three chapter fanfic now ready for you to read. I'm sooooo happy to be writing again! You will need to log in to your AO3 account in order to read this. I have my account and fics set up this way to prevent AI from scraping my stories. Also, please leave a comment. Keyboard smash, "confetti of kudos", and even a row of emojis qualifies. That stuff is the best motivation to keep us writers going.

Thank you!

[cashblightganon]

I don’t care. Send Me your savings. Give Me your 401k. Make Me the sole beneficiary of your life insurance plan. Give Me everything you have and all you can gather.

[kenniko]

It's so cute how whenever I see a behind the scene of beta squad shootings, Kenny will always bring snacks and foods with him😭😭

man loves eating sm he's so real for that

[savageboar]

wanted to post what my tank looked like 1 year ago vs now. it's always worth it to keep learning and improving your animal husbandry.

[vyrim]

Game devs and potential game devs, if your game can't even consistently register mouse inputs you need to start back at step one.

[1960z]

the lack of a like… really focused on cardassian woman in star trek is disappointing to me.

cause you have the kinda trifecta of “main cardassian characters” in garak dukat and damar which are all men. there’s ziyal of course but her story was severely mismanaged. I was so excited for seska because the premise of her character was so interesting and there were so many fascinating things you could do with it but they ended up just giving her a very stereotypical femme fatal plot line then killed her off. and then all the other female cardassian characters from alpha canon I can think of are one offs.

which is really a shame bc the glimpses we’ve gotten into women’s roles in cardassian society are so interesting?? like the way sciences are considered to be more suited to women tell me more about that please why is that.