Upcoming pack thoughts, WIP update, new website demo, & more!

I'll spare you the pain - If you don't feel like reading this novel of a post, I plan on doing a livestream this week covering all of this in detail. I will show all my WIP, new website, insights on the new pack, and most importantly - get your feedback on what you all want next! Keep an eye out for a survey to choose a time in the next few days!

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Helloooo friends!

It's been too long hasn't it? Although I haven't released anything in the past few weeks I have been a busy bee! Can you tell from the length of this post?? Let's dive right in!

Current WIP

Toddler Decay Modifier Toy Wrench

• Place in any toddler or child's inventory to give the ability to adjust their need decay rates individually
• Once placed in your simmie's inventory, the interaction to change the decay rate shows up by clicking on the sim
• Each sim can have their own wrench/need decay modifier so you can customize how you like

The idea for this was to give you more options for tuning your game play. As an example, you can fine tune just their hunger needs to decay at 1/4 or 1/2 the normal rate instead of completely disabling it. I originally though of making this object for toddlers... cause, well, #100babychallenge. But if you all want this for adults too let me know!

Off The Grid Cooler With Inventory

• Cooler with fridge-style, shared inventory
• Consumables stay cool on lots with power
• Needs to be refilled with ice on OTG lots
• Can create snacks & lunch sacks

Let's be real, coolers are far more realistic for an OTG house than a big fridge. And the in game coolers didn't have the 'Add Ice' functionality or the ability to store consumable items. I got about 80% way done with this guy, but ran into a roadblock. 

To get into real boring stuff, there are only two inventory types that preserve freshness. And of those two, the fridge is the only one that has the OTG and ice functionality. Where I got stuck was making the cooler animated so the sims actually grabbed the food out of the cooler. Right now you can technically still use it, but you have to live drag and drop and that is no fun. 

Ice Scream You Scream, I am pulling my hair out at this ice cream!

I have had many, many requests to make it easier to get ice cream in the game. I had looked at the ice cream before and was too scared to touch them, but I got brave and thought I would give it another go. To make things harder, I thought it would be super fun to make an ice cream truck market stall that is auto-employed and can spawn randomly by your simmie's house.

Well I got a few weeks in and simplified to just a buffet... and then I realized having the market stall/buffet is making things very complicated and requires both a GP and SP to work. So in the meantime, I decided to make another instant delivery menu for ice cream! This was still a massive challenge in itself. It was so painful. I can't even begin to tell you how awful it was. I even consulted Ice Mun Mun and we were both at a loss. But I love you guys and you are worth it so I pushed through to at least make this. I will have this wrapped up this weekend and to you all shortly! I love how the ice cream truck and buffet were coming along so I will totally revisit that soon, but not until after the new patch/expansion coming up.

Speaking of the new patch/pack.... O.M.G.

I am so, so, so excited! They finally implemented so many features that were needed in the game. The beds splitting in two! The cubbies! The sectionals! The closet set! The kids play tent! The built in ovens and stoves!

As I am sure you noticed, I already did a lot of these items. (Many have reached out with sweet comments about this, but honestly I am just so pumped about the possibilities and the content you all are going to get!) 

I have dissected all the videos and I can tell just by what I have seen that these are major, major changes. Of course I can't say with 100% certainty that this will happen, but I think there will be significant impacts on CC with this one. So just brace yourself and maybe plan on playing Animal Crossing or binging Netflix for a few days because this could be worse than window-pocolypse 2020.

I am of course going to be updating all my CC to be compatible with these new features, including going wayyyy back and fixing my OG sectional. But timing could not be worse on my part because I am also going out of town 2 days after the patch so I won't be able to get through it all right away but it is my top priority when I get back!

Since there are huge changes coming in less than two weeks, I am putting my current projects semi-on hold. Slotting is going to get some big upgrades and all of my WIP will be impacted. If I can get my hands on the patch a bit early I will try to fix what I can before I leave!

Last but not least, let's talk ravasheen.com.

This has been a huge project for me and has taken almost 4 months. I have completely rebuilt my site from the ground up! I know this may not seem like a big benefit to you at first, but a big motivation for improving my site was to give patrons a better experience. The patreon platform is honestly not great for much CC except grabbing a recent early access link. Once you try to go back a few months to find something it is messy. On my end, it is also really hard to manage all of the past posts in addition to TSR etc etc. 

So back at the beginning of this year (it's May already?!) I left SFS because it was just unreliable and didn't allow me to give you all a good UI experience including one-click download links. I switched hosting providers multiple times in hopes of improving things, but this also meant updating 150+ links on my website and on here. I took it as an opportunity to give it a facelift.

After making this new site, I have really realized how hard it is to see things. It is also confusing with everything being split on my website, TSR, and patreon. Don't even get me started on how I did not even have a search bar?! Am I crazy?!  Even my Patron-only page was just a table of links and didn't live up to my standards of the UI you all deserve. 

I know I haven't been posting as much recently but I truly have poured my heart and effort into this. I built both my old and new website from scratch (not using Wix/Squarespace). What made it even more challenging figuring out how to manage a large database and give things away for free. Who knew not many businesses weren't built on that model?! Also note the lack in ads... that isn't your popup blocker. I just really wanted you all to enjoy it. Fingers crossed it makes up for the lack of content!

I will be migrating my site over this week, so it isn't fully live yet but I am sharing a preview link here in case you all have any feedback/requests! Because this demo site isn't using my ravasheen.com domain you will not be able to see the patron-only pages, but rest assured you all have a VIP spot on there! There are several exclusive pages where you will be able to get one click downloads from the index page. So if you have time take a look at the public archive page and let me know if you want changes to make it faster & better for you all to use. And, please, marvel in the filtering... all the filtering you could ever want.

Some features you will have are: 

• The pictures will all be direct, one click download links instead of taking you to a seperate page. 
• All of my forms will now be embedded on my website instead of taking you to Google Forms
• There will be an option to get my full CC library in one download
• & more goodies

Check out the demo here!

If you all want any more features please let me know and I will be more than happy to add them! I have already written a novel so I will spare you the pain of detailing all of the other features of the website... for now. ;)  Hopefully it should be intuitive and easy to use! And, please, marvel in the filtering... all the filtering you could ever want.

Congrats, you made it to the end! If you got this far, bless your beautiful soul! Can't wait to connect with you all this week on the livestream!

💗 rav