Zeus and Hera's Nectar-Making Invitational

[Pam]

Hannibal and Clarise Nectar!  That's hilarious!! 

[Metropolis Man]

Hannibal Nectar. That's too funny! I just saw Anthony Hopkins in the new Wolfman movie last Sunday. Good stuff if you're into that genre.

[Pam]

Somehow, I just knew you'd like that one, Metro. 

[TheCub]

It's too bad I can't use gardening mods. Hannibal should be able to grow fava beans.

[simfulicious]

Ok, all looks good on my machine, I have started playing again. I am using Asti Spumante and his beautiful wife, Sophie. Thank you.

[Canuckfan]

Well, I'm about half way through the challenge and I think I'm doing ok, but I'm really not sure.  Guess I'll find out when I finish and have my final results.  Not getting to play as much as I'd like now that reading week is over so it's going to take longer to finish than the last challenge.

[xK-la]

I've not really played with Nectar making too much, so I think I'll do a little bit of planning before I start but I'm definitely in.

[TylerDurden]

I'm going to have to withdraw from this challenge, as my laptop blew up last night, and my husband had to reformat, forcing me to lose everything I have done.

Ack. Sorry to hear about that. This is totally out of your control. And I have no problems with you doing the challenge over with another character because of technical issues. I'll leave you in the table for now.

I am curious, is it one attempt?  Or one submitted score you are looking for?  I can understand only one posted score, but suggesting that you can't try several different starts to get a feel for the challenge mechanics seems a bit harsh. 

I'm not going to be doing this as 100 day challenges get too monotonous for me. It's like running a marathon every day for a month to me. But for the shorter ones, I need to know how the system works.

[Metropolis Man]

I am curious, is it one attempt?  Or one submitted score you are looking for?  I can understand only one posted score, but suggesting that you can't try several different starts to get a feel for the challenge mechanics seems a bit harsh.

Well, I don't care if you practice a bit to get a feel for your strategy. I do it and have said as much many times. No, I don't run through an entire challenge as a dry run and then create my real character. That's ridiculous. But, I do either use old challenge characters or quickly create a test character to play for a few days to at least get my initial bearings down for a new event.

But, at some point you need to say — "Okay, practice is over, this is for all the marbles." Then you create your bonafide challenge character and that's it. That's your one attempt. No additional attempts allowed. 

[jmz95]

I'm going to have to withdraw from this challenge, as my laptop blew up last night, and my husband had to reformat, forcing me to lose everything I have done.

Ack. Sorry to hear about that. This is totally out of your control. And I have no problems with you doing the challenge over with another character because of technical issues. I'll leave you in the table for now.

I am curious, is it one attempt?  Or one submitted score you are looking for?  I can understand only one posted score, but suggesting that you can't try several different starts to get a feel for the challenge mechanics seems a bit harsh. 

I'm not going to be doing this as 100 day challenges get too monotonous for me. It's like running a marathon every day for a month to me. But for the shorter ones, I need to know how the system works.

Well allowing multiple starts is just unfair. Even if you'd let everyone do it, it takes the bulk of the fun and the challenge out of the challenge. If you have unlimited tries, you can afford to mess up, but with only one try allowed, you are way more careful and it's more fun, there's more of a thrill.

[Eftyen]

Well allowing multiple starts is just unfair. Even if you'd let everyone do it, it takes the bulk of the fun and the challenge out of the challenge. If you have unlimited tries, you can afford to mess up, but with only one try allowed, you are way more careful and it's more fun, there's more of a thrill.

I think the point here is to give players with little/no experience with the parts of the game highlighted by the challenge a chance to get on even footing with those who have already played around a lot with those aspects of gameplay.

I am curious, is it one attempt?  Or one submitted score you are looking for?  I can understand only one posted score, but suggesting that you can't try several different starts to get a feel for the challenge mechanics seems a bit harsh.

Well, I don't care if you practice a bit to get a feel for your strategy. I do it and have said as much many times. No, I don't run through an entire challenge as a dry run and then create my real character. That's ridiculous. But, I do either use old challenge characters or quickly create a test character to play for a few days to at least get my initial bearings down for a new event.

But, at some point you need to say — "Okay, practice is over, this is for all the marbles." Then you create your bonafide challenge character and that's it. That's your one attempt. No additional attempts allowed. 

Like Metro said, the "multiple tries" are actually just test runs to get the feel of how the challenge aspect of the game works.  Obviously, if you've done a lot of nectar-making in your non-challenge games already you shouldn't need to practice your strategy much, if at all.  For others who have not dabbled in it, I believe it is perfectly fair to allow them to create test characters or muck around with prior-existing ones before actually committing themselves to the challenge.

The "one score" clause really means a couple things: 1) You commit to a single game file, which you play through to the end of the challenge without resetting to an earlier save point if you think you screw something up along the way; 2) Once you officially start the challenge, you cannot abandon that game and create fresh sims at any time - you must play through to the conclusion (100 days for this one) or ask to be removed from the leaderboard.

As has been pointed out elsewhere in the forum, we are all expected to adhere to these guidelines/rules on our personal honor; it's assumed (hoped?) that anyone serious enough about TS3 to want to be playing our challenges will have enough good sporstmanship to hold themselves to the standard.

[Pam]

Eftyen -

I appreciate that you're trying to help here, but it's really Metro's responsibility to clarify the rules of the challenges and to address anyone's issues.  Additionally, we don't have a rule that says you cannot abandon a challenge game until you finish it.  There have been times when we've even specifically suggested that someone take a break from a challenge to play a different game when frustration or tedium starts to set in.

Feel free to participate in discussions, but please leave the rules and clarifications to Metro on the challenge boards.

[Metropolis Man]

jmz and Eftyen — please do not attempt to clarify the rules for individuals. That's my job. And if everyone is throwing in their two cents, then wrong information is bound to be given. The thing is — did Tyler come back and ask for more clarification? No. So, either Tyler hasn't logged on in a while or he read my explanation of what "one shot" means and understood. Whatever the case, your posts were completely unnecessary in this situation. And unfortunately, as Pam pointed out, it would appear that misleading information was given where Eftyen states "Once you officially start the challenge, you cannot abandon the game and create fresh Sims at any time..."

Now, I'm quite certain, Eftyen, you didn't actually mean that the way that Pam and others may interpret it — once someone begins a challenge, you cannot create Sims. Period. You simply were saying once you begin a challenge, you're committed to that one file and can't abandon it and create another one "for the challenge." I got that. But, see the problem here? I'm having to interpret your interpretation of my explanation!   Too much. Definitely, too much. It's not necessary. I appreciate you guys stepping in and offering your feedback, but please just leave it to me in the future.

If for some reason I'm not online for an extended period of time (like a couple days) and someone really needs something explained, then my role falls to Pam.

Thanks everyone.

[ik]

Hi all,

I am still not very far into this challenge due to lack of time and found that I totally misjudged the time necessary to get the garden going compared to the time needed to get the skills up and go to France, so I kind of changed strategies completely in week 3 or so, but i am content with how my Sims are doing so far. I do not have any idea how much their nectar will be worth in the end, but i guess that most everybody else has the same problem .

I will have to take a break from the challenge for the next week or more because i am having my tonsils removed on Tuesday and will have to stay in hospital at least until Sunday next week. I am hoping to be home on sick leaves a few more days after that, so hopefully I will get to play a lot then .

[Metropolis Man]

I hope you have a smooth recovery, ik. I had my tonsils removed when I was a young boy. Can't tell you anything about that procedure since I was too young to remember. But, I do remember waking up in the recovery room after having all 4 wisdom teeth extracted right before I entered college. That is such a bizarre experience to come out of being knocked out. It's like..."Oh, I'm alive!"

[jmz95]

jmz and Eftyen — please do not attempt to clarify the rules for individuals. That's my job. And if everyone is throwing in their two cents, then wrong information is bound to be given. The thing is — did Tyler come back and ask for more clarification? No. So, either Tyler hasn't logged on in a while or he read my explanation of what "one shot" means and understood. Whatever the case, your posts were completely unnecessary in this situation. And unfortunately, as Pam pointed out, it would appear that misleading information was given where Eftyen states "Once you officially start the challenge, you cannot abandon the game and create fresh Sims at any time..."

Now, I'm quite certain, Eftyen, you didn't actually mean that the way that Pam and others may interpret it — once someone begins a challenge, you cannot create Sims. Period. You simply were saying once you begin a challenge, you're committed to that one file and can't abandon it and create another one "for the challenge." I got that. But, see the problem here? I'm having to interpret your interpretation of my explanation!   Too much. Definitely, too much. It's not necessary. I appreciate you guys stepping in and offering your feedback, but please just leave it to me in the future.

If for some reason I'm not online for an extended period of time (like a couple days) and someone really needs something explained, then my role falls to Pam.

Thanks everyone.

Ack! Sorry about that! I will refrain from doing so in the future.

[Pam]

To everyone on the Forum:

The Forum rules have been modified and updated.  Everyone is expected to abide by the rules of this Forum and ignorance is no excuse.  Please click here to read the official Forum Rules.

[Twinmum]

I am still not very far into this challenge due to lack of time and found that I totally misjudged the time necessary to get the garden going compared to the time needed to get the skills up and go to France, so I kind of changed strategies completely in week 3 or so, but i am content with how my Sims are doing so far. I do not have any idea how much their nectar will be worth in the end, but i guess that most everybody else has the same problem

That is part of the good thing about these challenges, they are a learning experience. I did a test subject before the challenge because I really hadn't done any nectar making before, yet I still learned a thing or two about timing and planning while in challenge mode lol. I am currently on week 11 (almost there yay) and have no idea what my nectar is worth.

Norma

[samoht04]

I'm at week five and have no idea how much my stuff is worth! About planning - I didn't do any!  

[Jonna]

Hi!  I would like to sign up for this challenge, please.  Thank you.

[samoht04]

Just had panic attack as for some reason I thought the challenge ended on the 15th?  Silly me should have read it properly 

[saffivort]

I finally found the time to finish this challenge after having weeks of no playing because of work!

I had 2 simple sims to start with Acheron and Artemis Parthenaeopus (from Sherrilyn Kenyon's Dark Hunter series of books, although Acheron is Atlantean not Greek but hey ho!). Artemis was desperate for a baby so I gave her one and produced Vane. And then she died in Week 5 when Vane was a toddler trying to fix a broken Nectar machine twice in a row - oops! There went my gardener and nectar making sim, so Acheron had to take on the role of both single parent and nectar maker! And he was awful at it! Working a job and trying to do nectar making at the same time was just too much for him!

Between them both I got 675 bottles of nectar and it all sold for $200, 378!!

Lesson learnt: don't fix broken things without showering in between!!

Had good fun with this challenge and am ready to sign up for the next one!

Thanks, Saffi

[Metropolis Man]

Saffi, I'm glad you enjoyed the challenge and I'm looking forward to seeing you in others. Technically, you broke a rule by your couple having a baby. There is the rule that you are only to play your 2 Sims. But, I'm not going to press the issue. Just read the rules more carefully in the future. Thanks. I'll update the scoreboard with your results.

[saffivort]

Oops forgot I couldn't have a baby - I guess my female sim dying could be seen as my punishment for breaking a rule

Will read more carefully next time - thanks

Saffi

[Twinmum]

It's done! Finally sold all my nectar for a grand total of 3,478,748
I actually did better than I thought I would.
Now off to find out what a two tract career is for the next challenge.

Norma