The University of Clayhurst

[markouellette]

Is it sad that I check the LEX daily for any sight of the expansion pack?   
I didn't think so.

Every day? Probably unhealthy.  Every other day is perectly normal.

[Runnerguy347]

I'm still waiting for the expansion pack to be released. It will make my college campus that much better.

[vester]

Chill friends.

JB hasn't been visiting since August 14.

[JBSimio]

 





JB

[ScottFTL]

Welcome back!  We've been waiting for you... 

[hkboondoggle]

Great to see you back, JBSimio! Pretty nice hall, it's lovely. 

[cubby420]

I like it. 

[RippleJet]

This is my favourite smiley... I've found it useful over and over again...

Welcome back, Jon!

[Zacharuno]

^^ Agreed. I've been waiting and I'm excited to see you back. It looks great.

[vester]

WB, Jon. Like the new bat. Maybe add some chairs, tables ect. to the middle with the nightlight.

[calibanX]

Very nice JB. Always great to see you posting your new creations. Welcome back.

Geoff

[Girafe]

Good to see you back 
Winterton Hall is really nice 

and the smiley is so funny 

[Jack_wilds]

Hey JB long time no hear... 

[TiFlo]

Look who's peeking out of the woods. Beautiful residence. Or whatever this is. 

[Ciuu96]

Welcome back, have been waiting for update on this project, and here it is! Looks great! 

[JBSimio]

Thank you everyone for the warm welcome back.  It's been a long time coming, and while I know everyone will tell me it isn't needed, I feel some explainations are in order:

With most of my previous camps, summer was indeed the busiest part of my year by far.  Apparently, that really isn't the case anymore.  Summer is still busier, but not by much.  Camp is doing extremely well, thanks in large part to our gaining a new program which nearly doubled our Outdoor Education numbers overnight.  (This happened in September, by the way.)  To illustrate, humor me for a moment while I explain how my life works.  Camp's fiscal year runs from July 1 through June 30.  My personal measurement of "busy" is something called mealcounts.  Basically, each person I feed a single meal to is one mealcount... so if I have 100 people at camp all day that means 400 meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner, and evening snack).  In the previous fiscal year (July 2009 through June 2010) we did a total of 51,000 meals.  That was the entire year.  So far this year, from July 1 up through last Friday, we've had a total of 56,000 meals!  Give or take...  Either way, it's been a huge jump.  But Jon, weren't you hiring some help in the cook department?  Yep... he's been here since the summer.  While this eventually made my days a bit shorter, they're still at least 10 hours long.  There are also more of them.  We used to have a few more gaps in the schedule.  We don't anymore.  I've had maybe 10 full days off since August... 5 of those have been in the last three weeks.  Anyway... to make a long story short: (too late!)  I've been really busy.

Even with all that, I'm sure I could have found some time to keep up better, but the honest truth is that I just couldn't motivate myself to get back into things.  I think I just burned out for a while there.  I often felt like I should get back over here... but it wasn't until a few weeks ago that I really got the itch and wanted to get back.  I love this community... playing the game... BATting... and especially this project.  At the same time, this project especially is so large and complex that everytime I thought about it, I got overwhelmed and it struck me as another job to be done instead of a fun way to relax.  I just needed to be ready is all.

And now I am! 

So... Winterton Hall is nothing new, really.  If you scroll back a couple pages, you'll notice that I've been sitting on it for a while.  I just finally got around to getting it exported and placed on the lot.  It is the final dormitory for this pack... and counts as a small dorm.  (So this pack has one small, three medium, and two large dormitories included)

Where does that leave us?  Pretty darn close actually.  I have three commuter lots to make before I will call EP1 completely filled.  These three commuter lots are key to the "regional" idea for the whole university.  The game really won't allow us to make a true regional school of any kind, so this is the best work around that I could come up with.  These commuter lots can be plopped in city tiles where you don't want a full campus built.  They'll basically "fool" that city tile into thinking it has a university... and you can pretend everyone in that city is just hopping onto a shuttle to the main campus.  Yes, I said three of them to make... "why?" you ask... because I like to make things difficult, of course!  Actually, the reason is to have a small, medium, and large option (large is still only 3 or 4 x2 tiles) depending on how large your "suburb" city's population is or how much of it you want to cover.  These lots will actually backtrack a little bit to the starter pack.  They will be available at the same time, or just before, the first university building has been with the Starter Pack.  You will be able to choose a commuter lot or begin an actual campus.  If you place a commuter lot, the rest of the university becomes unavailable for that city tile (unless of course, you bulldoze the commuter lot later... this is also how you would upgrade to a larger commuter lot if necessary)  Make sense?  Probably not... but I understand it anyway. 

Everything else is done on my end.  I know we left a couple quad ideas hanging, but for the sake of moving this along, I've decided to skip those for now.  I'll come back to them in the next pack.  Before everyone gets too excited, let me also remind you that ME being finished is not the same as the whole pack being finished.  It will still have several people and steps to go through for final modding... reward chains, translations, icons, and whatever else I don't do very well myself.  I apologize for holding this up as long as I personally have... but, just because I'm finally back, certianly doesn't give me any right to (and I refuse to) rush those who are generous enough to help me with finishing touches.  I've been gone so long that I'm not sure what anyone else is doing these days or how much time they have.  I can only say that I plan to begin sending files across the ocean (actually, I have to cross the rest of the country first now) in a week or so.

Thanks for bearing with the long update type of post... and thanks again for all the interest and support!

JB

[Jack_wilds]

 

all is good... 

[cubby420]

Sounds ambitious and exciting. When its done its done and then we can all enjoy! 

[noahclem]

Glad to hear things are going well for your camp! I spent five years working at a camp (I was a counselor, not a cook) and count them among my best summers. And it takes a lot to compete with the three I spent waterskiing for a living    In any case, is great you got the time off you needed and are back now because you want to be.

The project is sounding really great and its exciting to here it's getting close to fruition. The commuter lot concept is really clever. I wonder if something similar for airports has been considered.

[Glazert]

Thanks for the explanation of the commuter lots and the idea of a regional university. I like the idea, and look forward to seeing it in practice some time in the future.