Time Relevance System
I’ve been wrestling with changing our time relevance to something a little ‘warmer sounding’. I wanted something that actually reflects where we are in time, instead of referencing a Period #. ( Period #s were used because I thought it was easier to see how many rotations we’ve made around the hood. With 5 simdays in a rotation, Period 5 meant that we’d be approaching 25 simdays in the hood.)
I’ve talked with a handful of my Mayor friends from Apple Valley to Harper’s Cove to Riverdale, over this issue. My interest in time relevance was renewed after seeing Lakeside Heights. My good buddy Mayor Antwan Snowden of Riverdale told me his plans, and I eventually decided I would do the same thing. No more “Period # talk”, in the future.
We now have Rounds to signify our rotation around the hood. A Round is another word for rotation. Each Round is broken down into 24 months, and random households will be played during each month in the simyear. There's no set way to decide which households will be played each month, it just depends on what is going on.
There were two major issues I had to take into consideration before changing our time relevance:
1. Where do we start and,
2. How do we make it work?
Well, when did we start? December 10, 2006, human time (ht). Starting from the RL year our town was founded, we'll mark our Rounds starting with 2006. Each Round lasts for 2 simyears.
We have a Calendar Page to reference where we are in the rotation, and to mark any special events coming up. Each entry is linked to its blog update, for convenience. Located under "About Simmington Hills" on the top right, there is a link to the Calendar page.
How could we not pay homage to when we first started? And while we know that it doesn't seem like we've moved that far along if you're looking at the simyears at face value (starting in 2006, and only being in simyear 2007 currently)...It's still been a long time. We make note of how many actual Simdays we've been in existence on the Calendar page. I’m excited that we’ve reached 25 simdays. That's 25 simyears of existence! And it truly feels like 25 simyears, too.
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THE BREAKDOWN:
Also read Laura's "Time in a Bottle" notes.
It works like this: We visit each household for 2 simdays, which equates to 2 simyears in our world. (1 simday = 1 simyear: we all age at 6 pm, every simday.) So currently we are on Round 2006, which lasts from March 2006 thru February 2008. The next Round will be Round 2008, from March 2008 thru February 2010. (The Round number is the simyear that the Round begins in.) Aging is played OFF all the time. I manually age my Sims now. I keep up with their ages on Flashnote and list what they should be for each simyear. Thanks to Carla of Sullivan Sims for these ideas! It's been a tremendous help!
Simmington Hills’ seasonal order is, Spring - Summer - Fall - Winter.
March - April - May = Spring
June - July - August = Summer
September - October - November = Fall
December - January - February = Winter
Round 2006: March 2006 to February 2008
(Simday 24) 2006-07 March, April, (Spring), May, June, July, Aug., Sept., Oct., Nov., (Fall), Dec., Jan., Feb. (SB)
(Simday 25) 2007-08 March, April, (Spring), May, June, July, Aug., Sept., Oct., (Fall), Nov., Dec., Jan., Feb. (SB)
You can see above that there are two Fall semesters and two Spring semesters within one rotation.* That is because you break each college grade level into their segments, and play the semesters one at a time. ie. (Fall 2006) is Freshman semester 1, (Spring 2007) is Freshman semester 2. (Fall 2007) is Sophomore semester 1, and (Spring 2008) is Sophomore semester 2, and so on....you'll end up with a Sim that's been away to college for 4 simyears, if they graduate. :)
-Sen. Sabien Cunningham, Sr., Spokes Sim
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