Fraser: Introduction and Traveling

I've decided to branch out a little with my challenge, largely because I've been eager to play with World Adventures stuff, but the flow of life in the Medina-Britt household is proving too distracting for me to focus on that. Plus, I'm still nervous about glitches and such with traveling, because I still keep hearing rumors that some people have bad things happen still when they let their sims travel. With as much time and effort as I've invested into the Medina-Britts, I'd really hate to lose them at this point to a bug. So, a test sim/family seemed to be the answer. Starting with a single sim will allow me to start trying out the traveling in a way that I won't stand to lose so much if things go wonky. I'll most likely have that sim start a family at some point, both to allow for future generations of this tester family, and because I've never tried taking more than one sim on a vacation, nor have I ever tried traveling and leaving some at home, so I want to see for myself how that works as well.

Therefore, going forward, at least for awhile, I'll have a second family and neighborhood being covered in the blog. How long they'll remain with us will depend on whether or not they fall victim to game glitches or not. So without further ado, meet Anya Fraser, my founding sim for the Riverview branch of my completion challenge. Her traits are Adventurous, Athletic, Brave, Friendly, and Vegetarian. Her favorites are Indie music, Falafel, and the color Green. Her LTW is to become a Great Explorer and fully explore at least 6 tombs in each travel destination. I did hand-pick all of her stats instead of randomizing since I wanted her to be as fit for adventuring as possible. Future generations of Frasers will be randomized most likely, unless I really feel the need for a particular trait on one of them.

I moved Anya into a small two bedroom, one bath house that I built for her in Riverview. It is sparsely furnished at present because I didn't want to spend money on anything more than bare essentials right now so that she'd have money to start traveling as soon as possible. Here are a few shots of the house as it was when she moved in.

Although she did have enough money left over to take a trip to China right away, I decided it might not be a bad thing to let her gain a few skills first, so I had her start working on cooking and fishing. She also rolled a want to learn Athletic skill and to take a class in Athletics, so I let her do that as well. Thus, there's not much to report about her first few days in Riverview since they were largely spent skilling, and trying to pad her bank account at least a little before sending her abroad so she'll have funds to buy some of the things she'll need for tomb exploring. I ended up giving her about 14.5 sim days before I finally sent her to China. Longer than I'd intended to wait, but she made good progress with her skills in that time.

She had six days in China since I'd managed to get her the Prepared Traveler reward, along with the Jetsetter reward to make travel cheaper. She spent most of her time there doing adventures, most of which simply involved collecting things, fishing, talking to people, or otherwise running errands. She did manage to complete one tomb while there though, and got to start exploring a second one, though she ran out of time while inside it. I forgot to take many pictures, but I did get a shot of her entering the second tomb, the Dragon's Maw.

She completed Visa level 1 and came close to finishing Visa level 2. She made several acquaintances, but didn't spend enough time talking to any one person to become friends with them. She also learned a couple of Chinese songs from one of the shopkeepers, and a couple of French songs from one of the visiting adventurers at the Base Camp. While she didn't take time while there to learn Martial Arts, she did buy the study book and the equipment for it so she can start studying it at home. She also acquired some cherries, pomelos and plums to add her garden at home, though she still has to raise her gardening skill before she can plant some of them. All in all, it was a pretty successful first trip. She also managed to pick up the Master Manchu Magical Gnome.

The next few days passed pretty ordinarily, with Anya working in her garden and catching up with her few friends. One night, her good friend Aiden Jones asked her out on a date (despite the fact that he's married) and she accepted. At first they just chatted with one another and kept things casual, but after awhile Anya started to try her hand at flirting with  him and found him to be receptive. She ended up getting her first kiss from him that night. He is also now a romantic interest of hers, which is somewhat unfortunate as there is another guy I was thinking of pairing her up with maybe, one who is single but is also still a teenager.

The next day she went over to Aiden's house and chatted with him for a bit, and also met his wife Hannah. She talked with Hannah for quite awhile, attempting to become friends with her (because she needs another friend to raise Charisma), but didn't quite make it. She went home after that, and the following day ended up taking a trip to the graveyard to collect some rare seeds and any gemstones she could find laying around. While there, she decided to explore the catacombs in the mausoleum. She came out a little worse for wear, but seemed to have a good time.

After reading the martial arts book that she'd bought in China, Anya started practicing on the practice dummy and board block she'd bought. It didn't take her long to progress to her third belt.

Before she knew it, Anya's birthday had arrived. She was a bit dismayed by it when she considered how little she had accomplished on her lifetime dream so far, but knew she had plenty of time left still if she used it wisely. So she decided to celebrate the start of the next chapter in her life and invited a few friends and acquaintances over for a party. After mingling with her guests for a bit, she blew out the candles on her cake and aged up to Adult.

After her guests had left, Anya practiced with the board breaking blocks some more and managed to earn her next belt.

The day after her birthday, Anya tended to things around the house to get everything in order, and then called for a shuttle to take her to the airport so she could return to China. Once there, the first thing she did was to go to the Martial Arts Academy to find a sparring partner to try out her new skills with. She found someone willing to spar with her right away, and they had a good match but sadly Anya lost in the end.

After the match, she got cleaned up and then headed over to the Dragon's Maw to continue her exploration there, since she'd had to cut it short to catch her plane last time. Now that she was able to take her time in exploring it, the tomb wasn't that difficult to navigate, though she quickly grew tired. She went to one of the large rooms that seemed pretty safe and pitched her tent to spend the night.

When she awoke, she finished making her way through the tomb, collecting plenty of loot along the way. After finding what she'd been sent in for, she returned to the person that had sent her, though took some time to collect various metals and gems she saw along the way, as well as to do a bit of excavating at a spot that caught her eye. She'd been able to convert them into several thousand simoleans last time, and she knew she'd need the income they could provide to keep funding her travels.

She spent the next few days talking with the locals and doing various tasks for them, hoping to be given an assignment to explore another tomb for someone. Finally she met a guy who was raving about some tool that would smash boulders, and after a little investigation and a bit more errand running for him and another man, she finally was given a key to enter the Temple of Heaven to search for Pangu's Axe. After hours spent threading her way through the maze like tunnels and stairs, and finding and disarming several traps, Anya finally found the axe and claimed it.

She was able to put it to use almost right away as she made her way back to a large boulder she'd seen earlier while exploring. She used the axe to smash it to see what lie beyond and found more treasure she could plunder.

She explored as much of the tomb as she could, but fatigue was starting to get the better of her again by then, and it was coming upon the time she'd have to dash to catch her flight. She took a look down one last set of stairs and found an area she hadn't explored yet, but time was up, so regretfully she had to leave. She promised herself she'd come back again and finish exploring to see if she could get into the few areas she hadn't figured out how to access. She returned home having completed Visa level 2, and was 53% toward getting her Visa level 3 for China.

One of the first things I had her do was go and find Aiden and "break up" with him. They weren't actually going steady or anything since he is married, but they are tagged as romantic interests, so I had her do the "ask to just be friends" interaction to remove that flag so that when I set her up with somebody else she won't be cheating (yes, I know she'll likely still have taken a reputation hit over it, but couldn't be helped). After that she went home to fall into bed exhausted.

(Thought I had a shot of her and Aiden, but I guess I don't.)

I mentioned earlier I'd had my eye on another guy for her. The other guy is Maximus McDermott, and he's now a Young Adult who seems perfect for her in that he has red hair and has a Scottish sounding name that goes with hers. The next evening she invited him over and lost no time making her interest in him clear. Within a few hours they'd not only had their first kiss, but they were engaged.

One thing led to another, and before long they were woohooing in her bed. It wasn't necessarily all she might have desired though...

Despite that, the next morning she asked Maximus to move in with her, and he readily accepted.

Maximus McDermott
Traits: Bookworm, Green Thumb, Athletic, Lucky, Angler
Favorites: Indie music, Tri-tip Steak, Spice Brown
LTW: Become a Superstar Athlete

The next couple days passed fairly uneventfully. Maximus got a job in the sports career to start working on his LTW, both he and Anya went around town looking for rare and special seeds, and Anya went fishing in the dead of night and caught a few deathfish. She also picked up a copy of the Ambrosia recipe when the bookstore was running a sale. In short, I'm planning ahead to her needing to use ambrosia to have enough time as an adult to do her adventuring and have children, because I don't really want to complicate things for her with a child until she's made at least considerable progress toward her LTW. Anya gained another level in martial arts and got a new belt.

And that's where I'm going to leave them for now. Anya and Maximus have both spun up wishes to get married, so that will probably happen first thing or near to it next time. Then I plan to have them travel together as though it were a honeymoon, probably to Egypt next, but I might still decide to just go back to China again first. Whichever I choose, I'm going to have to pick up the pace with the travels, and not spend so much time with her in the neighborhood in between each time or it'll take her forever to finish her LTW. I do plan to Ambrosia her to give her lots more time, but hoping I don't have to do that more than once.

In terms of play schedule for the two different households/neighborhoods, I plan to stick with the Fraser household for a little while longer at least to keep exploring WA content and trying out some of the different travel options to make sure they don't blow up the neighborhood before I try to have any of the Medinas or Britts travel. Once I'm comfortable with it, I plan to start alternating between the two households/neighborhoods for updates. I doubt I'll make any attempt to play each for an equal amount of time, however, but will just play each for however long feels right for an update each time. Looking ahead to when I install other expansions, I'm thinking I'll probably create a new family in a different neighborhood to try out the new stuff with, at least if there's enough new stuff such as LTWs and the like to warrant creating a family to focus on it. We'll see how that pans out when the time comes, however.

Until next time, cheers!