With the 'awarded once', do you mean that you can only get it for one out of 6 rounds? For instance, if I use no CC in round 1, I will not get bonus points if I again choose to use no CC in a later round. Or is it that you receive 5 points added to the final score per round and not 5 points from each judge?

This only applies to rounds that can include CC, so applies to all those rounds. The extra points will only be awarded once per qualifying round.

So... yes:

And, you may get the bonus in each round that allows CC. (If 4 rounds allow CC; you may get this bonus 4 times.)

Right?


ETA - My internet is choppy today - just FYI

Yes, Cat

Thank you Karen for such a warm welcome. I have been viewing the past few Sims 2 building contests and I finally decided to join this one, I have been working on my entry since I discovered it! And I am proud to present the groundbreaking of.....

Miliken Community College!

A little backstory is behind this including a bit about me. Hi I'm Seth! I have been playing Sims 2 for many many years, and I have come a long way to become the player that I am today. I'm 17, and I just applied to university for Engineering and Mathematics. I own an Apple computer, and I always have, so I have always been limited to the Sims 2 expansion packs. They only made up to BV for mac, so I miss out on the wonderful add-ons brought in by FT and AL. I just want the judges to know that, because I get limited to some of the CC available on mts, and miss out on a lot of other great downloads. Also, I am unable to get a lot of the great maxis items released in the two other expansions and stuff packs. As well, it was incredibly difficult to take pictures of the interior of my building, because I do not have that special option given in AL. Now the history behind MCC, Miliken is one of my neighbourhoods in desperate need of a university to call their own. I have been working on Miliken for over a year now and it is now highly populated with many powerful families. Most of these families have gone to the generic Sim State, but I never really liked it because I didn't make any of the buildings. So this contest is really the push that I need! So here it is, my first entry :
The Frant House

The Frant House, a 5 room Dormitory apart of MCC, is named after one of the very powerful and rich families of Miliken, the Frant family. The Frants are very knowledgable sims and worked hard to get to the richness that they are now, and I am sure they would donate a whole bunch of simoleons to the construction of a university. Because of the programs I decided to pursue next year, I felt that I should make a university that matches the unit of study that I want to pursue, Sciences. So thank you very much for reading my two blurbs, and I hope you like my entry!

And we have our first entrant! Thank you, trambling, welcome to the contest

That's a nice dorm, Seth, and welcome to your first contest! I'm pretty sure though, that Karen and/or the judges will ask you if it's possible to turn up your graphics settings. If it causes your game to run poorly, you can always set them higher, just for the pics, then set them back to where they were.

EDIT: Or not, lol. Since Karen didn't mention it.

Thank you so much and so sorry, the game won't let me do so in windowed mode, the largest the window is is 800x600 pixels. I tried to make the pictures larger but I also had to reduce the quality of them because they surpassed the 800kb limit.

You don't have a window option bigger than that? Hmmm, I've just done a little research and that seems to have been something other players have had issues with. Let me investigate some more, that is if you would be interested in having other sizes...

Ok, if you want other options and are comfortable editing game files, here is a solution. It seems to be the most used solution to this problem. If you don't want to mess with it, that's ok too. Just giving you the option

Yeah I know, maybe it's because I am operating on an old Macbook Pro laptop. I have a screen to plug it in to, and maybe if I try to play in windowed mode on that screen it may let me use a larger resolution and therefore better quality & larger pictures! Hopefully I'll try that and it'll work for next round

AND I WAS RIGHT! On my external screen I am able to select up to 1440x900 pixels! Perfect!

YAY! Seth, our first contestant Lookin' good!
Thanks Jones - for your suggestions... I remember having to do something like that when I got my widescreen monitor a couple years ago.

Karen - can they edit their entries right up until the deadline?


- and Jones, you're more than just a "just"

Well, Cat, now I'm justJones, no numbers, no nonsense (Psst...new pic in HBC thread...)

hey when did you become 'just Jones'? Lol, I love the Phae's Minion part.

Earlier today. Well, I am Phae's minion, at least till the training wheels come off

Thank you Cat! I jumped at it once i discovered this contest and I'm still surprised that I'm the first finished.

I have sims related ADHD I worked on it for a whole two days, then got side tracked with something else, then popped back into an older project, and am now thinking about firing up the game again to get back to my dorm.

Can you tell that I'm a total newbie when it comes to contests?

Sorry, I should have spelt things out a little more exactly. For CC usage -

1. There are free, but limited availability CC (e.g. you need to be a member of a forum, and/or post a certain number of times, etc)
2. TSR - although it's now free, is it considered a free site?
3. self-made CC that is not uploaded anywhere.

1 and 3 are not issues for MTS uploading, but could be considered an issue for contests/challenges because of a level playing field. (I couldn't find a page for contest CC, only creator guidelines). (1, is a time issue, rather than a money issue).

I'm assuming that putting aside the whole ethical thing of pay/free, that the additional reason for free CC, is to make it a level playing field - hence the reason I'm asking.

Question 2:
I've had some interest at a forum I go to, to see pictures of the dorm.
I'm again assuming, that I shouldn't be posting them anywhere else until they're actually submitted here first. That way its all my own work, etc.

Once they have been submitted here, is it OK to post them up elsewhere? Or should I direct them to this thread to look at?

Question 3:
How much of a blurb can I can do? (I can get wordy). And will it affect the scores if I get too wordy?
an example of a blurb

Yes, contestants can edit their pictures up to the deadline.

trambling101: I would edit and replace your images if you can because the more we can see the more points you'll get but we don't mark on image quality.

You can use all of these types of CC, Kiri, as long as you don't pay for it it's fine. We follow MTS guidelines in the contest.
Kiri, you can post pics at the other forum, I don't mind, we share pics of our stuff for the contest at other places as we're working in chat all the time. I would ask that you don't offer it for upload until after the round has finished though.[/QUOTE]
lol, you can blurb, I would suggest they are no longer than you put in your example tho. Most of us find them interesting to read, it won't affect the scores either way.

Yeah, Kiri, I'm totally a Facebook feedback contestant. I almost always post entries on FB before I put them up in the contest

Karen, I think my blurbing helped my village theme score in the last round of ITAV Only because that way you could all see how I was envisioning everything as recycled, even if it looked the same as it usually did, lol.

LOL Kiri I get wordy too - I'll spend days writing up the story (see, it's not really just a 'blurb') ...before posting. Personally, I love reading your story! It helps give me the feel for what you are building; it brings the building to life, if you will.
Write on!

IDK If i should name my Uni Bullgoth or Bullroth

Bullroth sounds nicer :D

Trambling, just letting you know I have trouble seeing your pictures clearly. If you are playing on a computer with lower graphics you could try turning shadows and reflections off and making the details high just for the photo shoot.

Like which pictures? I already mentioned to Jones that I figured out how to solve my issue, because I took the original pictures on my laptop on the highest setting but those were still not-so-good quality. I figured out that by plugging my laptop into an external screen it allows me to select a much better quality to play on. I already replaced a few of the pictures that I could tell were horrible quality to me, but just let me know which other ones and I'll get too it! I just don't want to retake all of them because I don't have AL, so I don't have that fancy option to take those nice in-room pictures.

I don't understand what you mean by the fancy option with in room pictures? Is it lack of ceilings? If so, make sure your camera angle is low enough so that you can't see the sky. I would urge you to retake them, trambling because they were very pixellated, which makes it hard to see the detail in your rooms. Your uni looks good, why not make it look even better!