IllusoryThrall's Sims 4 Hub
- Challenges, Tips & Stories
I started this WordPress Blog back in 2012. At the beginning, I assure you, I had no idea what I was starting. I posted a few things… but it wasn’t for several years that my blogging really took off. I dabbled in a few Sims 3 stories (which are still accessible on this site – just check my retired & completed simlit section). By August 2016, however, I was well and truly hooked on blogging, although at that point, I was still waffling between Sims 3 and 4. The waffling didn’t take too much more time, though, before I was thoroughly addicted to Sims 4. Once I hit this point, I’ve never gone back. I still had (and have) periods of writer’s block and inactivity, but I always come back.
Sometime in 2023, this blog really tripled in traffic. And it did so on a very consistent basis. Which made me really start seriously considering the thoughts and ideas for it that I’d had in the back of my head for YEARS. The host I was on prior to this one, wordpress.com .. was great. It was cheap, it was reliable, and it was easy to use. However, the amount of customization and control I had over the website design and add-ons was, well.. very very low. And even if I doubled the cost of the plan I was on, it was going to remain virtually the same…. which is exactly the opposite of what this growing blog needed. With my challenges gaining in popularity, and my livestreaming, I really wanted to be able to upgrade the graphics, layout, and things that the website offered… By October, it was clear my blog was getting 25,000 to 30,000 hits per month on a very stable basis – so when I noticed that my two year subscription to wrodpress.com was ready to renew on the 26th, I decided, spur-of-the-moment, that there wasn’t going to be a better time to upgrade. So I immediately started looking for a way to pay for a new webhost, and researching where I wanted to go, as well as finding out exactly what upgrades I wanted and needed for the site. Originally, I was going to do a fund-raising stream for the money, but a very lovely friend of mine kindly donated the full amount I needed to pay for the next THREE YEARS of hosting. When that’s almost up, I will certainly be looking for ways to raise the money for the next web-hosting fee, but that’s a problem for future me. (If you’re interested in helping to support this site and my streaming, check out my Support Me page. 100% of donations will go to the website and my streaming.)
All that being said, I do try to be pretty transparent on the effort that goes into this website – the background work, the time for upgrading, the work involved in moving the site, as well as what it takes to keep my challenges updated. I’m also in a long process of adding a knowledge database to this website to share the Sims 4 knowledge I’ve accrued over the years (expect that to start happening by January 2024 – I do have a few other major things on my list before I start devoting a ton of time into the toolsnlinks section, but it’s coming.) This transparency led to the need to have a page devoted to collecting the posts about website news and information…. so that’s where this page comes in. Obviously, there’s no real reason to go back to the news I was posting at the very beginning of the website, but it’s there buried in the archives if you’re ever curious!
I have officially finished slogging through re-categorizing and updating links on EVERY. SINGLE. POST. on the blog. (around 800 of them!) All are updated for colors, links, and categories. If you happen to find one I missed or messed up on from this point on, PLEASE let me know asap with a comment on that page.
Beyond that, the site is now what I consider “complete”. I have a few articles left to publish on the Game Awards honorable mentions, and an entirely new section to put together, but that’s just a bonus – and that’s going to be fun to do. The rest of what I had to do to finish to get to this point in the last couple of weeks was NOT fun stuff, in fact, I had to call in help from a friend to keep my brain occupied while working on those posts. (And, huge thanks to Jaynie!! – This would not have gotten done without your help.)
Accordingly, here’s what’s still to come on the site (that I will begin working on this coming week):
After finishing that (or while working on that list..), I will get back to work on challenges, builds, and stories – starting with..
At that point, I will feel finally able to get back to actually playing my off-stream challenges and stories, and posting new updates! I cannot wait!!
Continue reading →After a break, I am back at work on the website. I currently have all but a couple pages linked into the menu and the new site. In other words, I’m in what I would consider the “home stretch”. Below is the current to-do list (with completed things removed)… and it looks SO much better than the previous ones, I have to say. I literally have 9-10 things left to do before I can move on to other (more fun) things! I’m on track to have the entire thing done by February.. and at this point, I won’t have any surprising things that may take more time than budgeted (all those are already done).
Summary: the site is 100% safe to browse and explore now, because everything is at least linked in (page-wise). The major things left are fixing links, color, and featured pics on all 780 ish posts, and writing, organizing, and adding the (last) new section.
Just as an aside.. to give you an idea of the work that’s gone into this… without counting the new section (which is still in progress) – I have added 69 brand new “landing” pages to the website, and edited/reorganized another approximately 90 pages. Also, the category and organization of the website is 95% done – only thing I still need to do is a final check that it’s absolutely correct. That does not include the blog posts (of which there are around 780 to do quick edits on to make sure all their links and colors are okay for the new site) and, as I already mentioned – the new section, which will add probably another 5-10 pages.
Continue reading →The Challenge Rules section is now complete. I still have work to do, but that’s the hardest things out of the way. If you’ve been looking at the actual to-do list, not a huge amount of it is crossed off yet, which is discouraging, but, in reality a good portion of the actual work has been at least partially done. Of things I still need to link in are my challenges that are either on hiatus, retired, or completed.. and adding my on-stream challenges. Then I have the new Tools and Links section to add in, and post links and colors to fix (which will be a monstrous task, but doesn’t need to be done as urgently.
However, I did notice something tonight that is a potential problem, and I’d be interested in seeing if anyone else sees it as a problem. Currently, all the featured images for the new pages are in .png file format. I wasn’t thinking when I uploaded all of them. The pages WOULD definitely load faster if they were in .jpg format. However, it would also create a bunch more work for me. I don’t know yet whether it’s an issue for anyone else.. or whether it will bother me so much that I’ll absolutely need to fix it. … I did figure I’d mention it here. Comment please if you have an opinion. I’ll assume no one thinks it needs to be fixed if nobody says anything… and only do it if my OCD / perfectionism kills me until I have to fix it.
Continue reading →Just finished updating the Master Simmer Challenge for all new content. (Also: added it to the links in the Challenge Rules section.) During this update, I removed the ability to play via the cheat sheet, but the cheat sheet is not gone forever – it will be published on the upcoming Sims Tools page.
If you have any questions, feel free to ask! I also updated the challenge with a new and current google doc for checking off your goal sets. Enjoy!
Continue reading →Things are moving along quite well… although I clearly underestimated the amount of time it was going to take to re-launch. I have a few minor color tweaks (100daycreativity pages come to mind), more content to add in the Thrall LIVE (honorable mention games and the on-stream challenge descriptions), adding the links to my challenge attempts and retired challenges (in simlit), and pretty much the entire Challenge Rules section left to do. There’s also another section coming after all that is done. However, I am extremely pleased with how things are going. As I’m slowly fixing the page sorting, things are getting easier and easier to manage on the back end of things, as well, which is EXACTLY what I was hoping would happen.
Meanwhile, just to keep myself in “line”, here’s the current To-Do list…
Don’t worry, the old content is still here, my brain just ran out of power while I was setting everything up tonight… I apologize. With any luck by morning I will be recharged and will be able to finish the blog set-up tomorrow. Top priority is getting the top-level pages linked and published, then I will dig in on linking all the old things into the new set-up. I do have tomorrow “off”, so, as long as brain heals a little bit, I conceivably have enough time tomorrow to set it all up and finish the initial site transition. I’m trying very hard to get this all done this weekend, but top priority must remain staying mentally healthy and – if pushing myself to get this done will mess with that, I will definitely slow things down and put the rest of the time in over the next week when I have a moment. (Hence my stopping work on the site 2 hours before I ran out of time, simply because my brain was 100% done for the night.)
Another couple of things to look for: tomorrow I will be publishing the next month’s streaming schedule, and the first Game of the Week! My next stream will be Monday at 1-6 pm, playing the number 26 nostalgic game on my list. (Sims content will resume on Wednesday.) See you then!
Continue reading →I am on track to officially relaunch this blog/website/whatever you want to call it by January 1st. That being said, wordpress doesn’t really have an easy way for me to put the website in “maintenance mode” while I add new things and change/update everything else on here without me paying a ton of money each month for a super high level plan… Which I’m not prepared to do. So: please bear with the dust and mess I’m more than likely going to make in the next couple days. Re-organizing a blog as old as this one is to a completely new category system, theme, and menu set is probably not going to go smoothly. However, I have tried to get as much of the new content and revamping/rewriting of the old content done before the actual launch in the next few days. It’s been quite a process, and a LOT of work… so hopefully that will help when I really “dig in” to setting up the new theme and site system as of tomorrow (the 31st) evening. I have taken the 1st and 2nd off to hopefully get everything ironed out in that time, and prepare for the new year and new stuff on the 3rd.
I WILL post again as soon as I have the re-launch completed, which will be on the 1st, or at the latest: the 2nd of January. Once that’s posted, you can message me about broken links I may have missed, or any issues you find with the site. Please just ignore anything like that before I publish that post. In fact, it might be better if you just wait to come back to the site until that “I’m Done” post shows up — Because I can’t guarantee the website won’t be completely broken while I get things situated. WISH ME LUCK!! — and see you all in a few days!
-Thrall
Continue reading →Over the next few weeks, I want to start doing some feature posts on the channel point redeems and builds I have done lately here on my blog. Initially, I had plans to try to hurry myself through the process and get them ALL up before the first, but realistically, I just don’t have that much time. So: Expect to see a post or two in the next couple days to start off the category… maybe. If not, I’ll start posting them after I make all the new changes here live on the 31st of December.
On another note: I wanted to point out that I am crossing things off on the to-do list I published a couple days ago, so if you’re interested in seeing my progress, and how close I might be to publishing all the new stuff, that’s where to check on it.
Meanwhile, I’ll also put up my graphics for my other upcoming events:
I have finally figured out a way to set up this blog so it’ll be easier to get around and find what you’re looking for. At least, I think I did. It’s just in the beginning stages now, but there’s a LOT changing behind the scenes on the site. I plan to re-launch with all the changes in a couple of weeks, at the beginning of the year. I hope it makes things easier, instead of harder. At the very least, I’m hoping it makes the blog easier for me to maintain in the future.
Just for reference, here’s the current to-do list (by date):
Just a notice saying I’ve posted a new challenge that I will be playing on stream starting tomorrow. It’s called the Winchester Mystery House Challenge, and it’s a “short” build and game play challenge based on a REAL LIFE haunted house. Anyway, the challenge is now linked from the above menus and below.
Winchester Mystery House Challenge
Continue reading → 
BIG ANNOUNCEMENT!!
Chapter One – Starting Anew
November 2025 Dev DiarySuperSweetBot Commands for Mods & BroadcastersOctober 2025 Dev DiaryProgress Report!Hacking Situation ResolvedHey all…
Welcome to my new webhost!!
Progress Report on Not So Berry & TimelineExtended Not So Berry 2.0 is coming!!
OMG A Thrall Post?? What?Not So Berry Updating
Jaynie’s Gems: By-The-NumberToday
