Richmond Reborn...

Anyone who follows me on Twitter or Tumblr will know that there are some big changes happening around here.


This blog has been quiet for a while... there was some real-life stuff happening, but along with that, I found my interest in playing/blogging had faded a bit... as things tend to do, when you've been doing them a long while. But the stories of these characters were still very much alive in my head, and I expected that eventually my enthusiasm would return and I'd get back to telling them.

Meanwhile, a few weeks ago, my much-loved ancient laptop finally died. Well, not completely, but only one USB port would work, and the screen only worked properly with a large binder clip on the corner of the screen. I'd already replaced the screen once. And the keyboard. And added a lot more memory and a SSD. I probably could have fixed the screen and the port... or used an external monitor and a USB splitter... but I decided it was finally time to call enough and move on to something better. A nice, fast entertainment and gaming laptop with a ridiculously high resolution screen.

Despite the lack of play recently, TS2 was still one of the first things I loaded. A couple of hours of disk/license code/patch/disk/license code/patch... Then I moved over my folders and hit Run.

And then the trouble started.


Yeah, it's about the size of a business card, and nothing I could do would change it. Including playing in fullscreen mode.

I suspect the problem was that ridiculously high resolution display - there was nothing like that around when the game was made. I really hadn't expected problems as it had worked fine when I upgraded the old laptop to Windows 10... guess its different on a new install.

Google tells me I'm far from the first person to experience this problem. It also found me a number of potential solutions. I spend a whole Saturday and a big part of Sunday trying them, with no success. I was all but tearing my hair out over it, but I was also thinking...

About a year ago, I played TS3 a lot, with this in the back of my mind - that someday I might not be able to play TS2, and TS3 could become home to Richmond. I tried out mods, came up with some vague ideas of how I might make it work.

That Sunday afternoon I eventually gave up on TS2 solutions, and started finding a suitable TS3 world, and then started recreating the first of my Sims in the game... just to prove to myself that I could...







... so there's a whole bunch of us over here now, the result of about two weeks of spending most of my spare time in CAS.  Not everyone is there, and even the ones that are aren't completely finished, and its going to take a bit longer to sort out everyone's relationships, careers, money, etc.  But there's enough to start playing and telling stories again, so here we go.

I have one final TS2 update, I had most of the pictures already taken for it, and I'll just work around what I don't have. Then it's on to TS3. I'll also be making some gameplay/behind the scenes posts about how this is going to work.

Could I have saved TS2 Richmond if I'd tried harder? Probably. There were probably some other things I could have tried, people who might have been able to help me... but I always knew there'd be a time when I wouldn't be able to play TS2 anymore. It's happened with other older games I have.

Even if I got it working this time, eventually there'd be a software update, or eventually another computer... and I decided that, like my old laptop, this is the time to let it go. And along with that was the thing with my waning interest... I'm dying to get going with this now, so a different game with new things to discover and play with might  be exactly what I need.

Time to tell some more stories..


Comments

  1. I'm glad that you are still going to be around with Richmond, definitely have some unfinished stories. I'm looking forward to seeing Richmond in TS3.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hope your move to TS3 goes smoothly! Looking forward to seeing your sims' lives continue in a new game.

    ReplyDelete
  3. You have put in a lot of hard work, and sadly had to give up on TS2. Still, the prospect of seeting Richmond up again - and in a new incarnation - is exciting, isn't it!
    I feel a bit like that about New Maximiliania. If I should one day be unable to Play TS2 and/or my favourite 'Hood, I have several ideas for what I'd start then.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks for the comments, everyone! Richmond TS3 is kind-of up and running... about 2/3 of my sims are there in some form, and I'm actually playing it now. Looking forward to continuing the story.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Sorry to hear that your laptop died and all the trouble you had with your TS2 game. It can be really disheartening (and not to mention frustrating) when all you want to do is play and tell your stories.
    Congrats on the move to TS3 though and I hope you enjoy it and that your game runs better! :)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thanks for reading and commenting!

Popular Posts