What Is This Site For?

Well, I love The Sims and I love designing websites. The site is a way for me to do both while also keeping up with my many, many Sim families. The name for this site (Skasimlaki) is just an uninventive add-on to my domain name skatoolaki.com.

Over time, this site - and my Sims - have evolved into a "virtual state", replete with parishes and a state government. This has helped me keep up with the growing number of 'hood add-ons from expansion packs, and to integrate guides and information to showcase new content to my readers. Skasimlaki is a completely fictional U.S. state that exists only on my computer and in my mind; the various government agencies cover content and are guides to functions and interactions within The Sims 2 game and it's expansion packs.

As for me, I'm a 30 year-old i.t. tech, web designer and writer with a passion for pc games and an unhealthy obsession with "playing god" with The Sims; which I've been doing, off and on, since the original game was released in 2000. I own The Sims + all expansion packs, as well as The Sims 2 + all of its expansion & fun packs.

This site can be accessed at either skasimlaki.com or mysims.skatoolaki.com.

How My Game Is Set Up

The following will tell you how I categorize things, and keep track of my Sims for this site and my own records. You may also want to view the Site Key to help in understanding some of the symbols/abbreviations I use here.

Also, I urge you to take a second to read the entries in the How I Play category over at Skasimblog, which explains - in detail - how I do things for the purpose of my gameplay and this website.

Neighborhoods
Some families hail from the default neighborhoods which came with the game, while others are neighborhoods of my own making. Which is which should be fairly obvious by the names. All families are listed under the neighborhood which they live in or have moved to.

Neighborhoods are, in my game, the parish (or 'county' for you non-Louisiana types) seat of a particular parish in the U.S. state of Skasimlaki. Each parish consists of the "seat" (the original neighborhoood), along with various other communities (uni, downtown and shopping districts).

Families
In case you're confused, this is how I define things for the purpose of my gameplay and this site:

How Families Are Listed

• Original Surname
  • Maxis-created families are listed under their original surname; regardless if the name later changes through marriage.
    
    Example: The Burbs - The Burb family will always be listed under Established Families as "Burb", regardless that Amy Burb married and the family's surname is now Monif.
    
    
• Married Surname
  • CAS families are listed under the first CAS Sim's surname; unless that Sim was a female and married. The family will then be listed under the CAS Sim's married surname.
    
    Example: The Wills - CAS Sim, Millia Erude, married Uni NPC, Mark Wills. The family is listed as "Wills" under CAS Families; not "Erude".

How I Categorize Family Types

• Established Families
  • These are already established families created by Maxis that came with the game; these generally have ancestors that go back a few generations.
    
    Example: The Goths - this family has a line extending all the way back to the original Sims game. This family is listed under Established Families as "Goth".
    
    
• CAS (Create-A-Sim) Families
  • CAS families sometimes intermingle with default (came with the game) Sims and their families. A family that was started as a CAS family, however, will be listed under "CAS", even if they later mingled with default game Sims.
    
    Example: The Alins - Aaron Alin married default NPC maid, Aiyanna Dallas, but the family is listed under CAS Families as "Alin".
    
    
• Starter/Bin Families
  • These are ones who were started with NPCs and/or Townies in game (in a sub-neighborhood or uni hood, for example), mixing with other Default or CAS Sims. Though the Sims were already in game, they did not have established families to begin with.
    
    Example: The Stacks - Jane Stacks was a playable, starter Sim in University. She graduated, married, and moved to town; the family is listed under Starter NPCs with Jane's married surname of Rusewicz.
    
    There may be more than one of these families in different neighboorhoods. For example, Checo Ramirez and his family come with Bluewater Village - every 'hood can have a Bluewater Village connected to it, so every 'hood has a chance to have a Ramirez family in it (if I choose to play them in that 'hood).
    
    Example: The Ramirezes - Checo Ramirez runs Ramirez Fine Furniture in Bluewater Village (part of the Open for Business ep). If I played the Ramirez family in my B.V. connected to Pleasantview, then the Ramirez family would be listed, on this website, under Wright Parish underneath the "Starter/Bin Families". I also play the Ramirez family in a B.V. connected to Desiderata Valley (called Chretien Point). *That* Ramirez family is listed, on this website, under Idlewild Parish underneath the "Starter/Bin Families".

Family Ancestry
Maxis Family Ancestors
For default game Sims, actual Maxis-created family trees were researched and ancestors' names indicated when and where possible. NPC's that do not have a family history have "Unknown" listed for their parents.

CAS Family Ancestors
CAS Sim Families start with the first family member(s) created. Parent names were created for these Sims even though the Sims were never played in game. This was done simply to give some meat to my CAS families' family trees.

The Technical Jargon

I play The Sims 2 on a custom-built desktop computer with a 2gh AMD Athlon™ XP Processor, 2g RAM and a NVIDIA GeForce™ 7300 GS (512mb DDR2 RAM) with two hard drives; 80g & 120g. His name is Mimir. My The Sims 2 Downloads folder is over 5g in size. Some design work for this site was also done on my laptop, Hermes, an Acer™ TravelMate 8100.

I own all six expansion packs as well - University, Nightlife, Open for Business, Pets, Seaons and FreeTime, along with all fun stuff packs: Happy Holiday Stuff, Family Fun Stuff, Glamour Life Stuff, Holiday Mini Pack, Celebration Stuff, H&M® Fashion Stuff Pack, Teen Style Stuff, and IKEA Home Stuff.

Graphics are created and manipulated using Adobe Photoshop 7.0 and, later, Adobe Photoshop CS2. Some Sim photos (deceased or Maxis-created) are taken using SimPE and TS2 Enhancer (which a lot of this information wouldn't have been possible to find without) . All web design is done using Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004 and, later, Adobe Dreamweaver CS3, Crimson Editor, and 10+ years of web design experience.

The The Skasimlaki Genealogical Research Society uses frames, though this portion of the site does not; both should be viewable in all browsers and resolutions, but work best with Mozilla Firefox.

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