Moving yet again

I decided I wanted to update this blog a lot more. But I looked on Google, and there is a Sims 3 creator who makes a whole bunch of stuff and has a Facebook page for it and everything, and she also has the handle "Clio". Urgh. That's a large part of the reason I changed my name from my "original" Sims 2 poster name in the first place -- a prolific creator had a name one letter different from mine, and it confused some people. SO.

I am moving everything here: http://lliirasgames.wordpress.com/.  And if anyone else who does gaming stuff uses the name Lliira, too bad, I'm a keepin' it. No more changes unless I get sued by Wizards of the Coast or something.

I Can't Pretend To Be A Man

I have serious problems with games that force "me" to be male. I can play male main characters who are separate from "me", as in typical JRPGs, with little problem, though I'd still rather have a choice. I miss the days of Final Fantasy on the SNES, when you could make any party member be the leader in town and on the world map. But in games that require the player to inhabit a character, as in Bioware-style RPGs, playing as a man makes the game a chore. I can play a woman who's attracted to and romances another woman, though I'm not attracted to women irl, but playing a man just doesn't work for me.

I can only remember choosing to play as a man once, to romance Leliana in Dragon Age: Origins. I would have felt more comfortable playing a woman, but the thought of turning down Alistair again (I'd already done so once to romance Zevran) was too painful. I keep intending to play a man in Dragon Age 2, because it feels silly to only be able to play women, but I doubt it will ever happen. I don't have the impetus I did in Origins, because no matter your gender, if you're nice to Anders, he'll flirt with you. And you can't say, "sorry, I'm not interested" when he does, as you can with characters in Origins -- you have to either flirt back or be a jerk. That's a problem if you're trying to play a lesbian, too, or any woman who's not interested in Anders. I love Dragon Age 2, but it has Issues.

Tangentially, I've decided that buff white forty-something bearded blood mage on the cover of Dragon Age 2 is Malcolm Hawke. Considering how important his story is to the PC's life, I think it makes sense. Though I still think they should not have put a person on the cover.

New Name

I've renamed my blog to "Clio's Games". I'll still be posting Sims stuff here, and the web address will remain the same (since it would be a pain to port everything to a new, re-named blog), but I'll be covering all sorts of computer and video games here. I'll have short reviews, screenshots, hints, etc., along with mods and stories.

Some Dragon Age 2 mods

I've made a few things. Some staves, new skill tables for your companions at the start, some aesthetic changes. Unzip into your Documents/Bioware/Dragon Age 2/packages/core/override folder. I've made them all as compatible as possible with other mods. They're after the cut.

Dragon Age 2

It is not as good as Dragon Age: Origins. Not by a long shot. Later edit: I take this back. It's not as good as Origins in many ways, but now that I've played more, I would say it's not quite as good as Origins, but it does some things better, and some of the things it does better are pretty important. For instance, I have some massive slowdowns in Origins, especially during the final battle, even with no mods installed, though my computer is well over the recommended specs. I have none during DA2 -- zip, zilch, zero. DA2's gameplay is perfectly smooth.

However, in my opinion it is as good as Knights of the Old Republic. DA2 has better graphics and voice acting than KotOR, but the music isn't as good (for obvious reasons). I think it's better than KotOR now. The gameplay's better, imo, and so are the characters. I also like Anders much more than Carth, though I did like Carth. Aveline, Isabela and Merrill are also all WAY better than Bastila (I couldn't stand that woman), and I look forward to seeing the romances with the female characters in DA2. I'm not going to pretend that romances in Bioware games are unimportant. They're central.

As the FoobSims Turn

I haven't even moved everyone into town yet and already my For Better or For Worse Sims have decided to recreate a soap opera. That, or Mad Men with Weed in the role of Don Draper.

Carpet Patterns for Sims 3

I converted some of my Shaw carpet patterns for use in Sims 3. Unfortunately some of my favorites from Sims 2 don't look good in Sims 3, but these all work well. (If anyone can get Solvay to look nice in Sims 3, please send me a link!) Please go to modthesims.info for instructions on how to install .package files.