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!
After quite a while of messing around in Sims 4 (and a brand new computer when my old one crashed), I’ve finally decided to put some time into Sims 3 again. Whether I can get any of my old saves up and working is another story entirely. I have started a new Apocalypse challenge, though, so that might make it’s way on here. Unfortunately, Sims 3 is as buggy as ever, and insists on crashing for me every few hours. Very annoying since I’m running a basically vanilla game (no stuff packs, and only the towns installed)… which may also preclude getting any of my old saves up and working. Part of the reason I stopped was frustration at Spectres not working out like I wanted it to.. so I may not ever get back to it. Which may require a redesign of this website… but one day at a time.
Continue reading →I have both mostly done, just some more pics to add and proofreading to do.. so both will be posted tomorrow! Oh yeah, and only 50 days left til sims 4! (and another yay, this is my 50th blog post on here!)
Continue reading →Just noticed that sometime yesterday, I passed 4,000 views for the blog! Yay! 🙂
Continue reading →Just a quick aside that I just updated the “Home” page of this blog with lots more information. Added a list of current projects, challenges, and planned challenges, as well as a couple notes on plans regarding the soon-upcoming Sims 4. (58 days!!)
Also, I just posted a new chapter for Spectres, and am working on another now!
I’ve also done a re-vamp of the site menus, and added navigation links to the challenge blog chapters, so it’s easier to move around the blog. 🙂 Plus, there’s now a “featured posts” section on the top of the homepage where I’ll keep the newest chapters of each challenge, and any highlighted posts!
Continue reading →I spent most the beginning of the year on my new obsession, knitting. 🙂 Lots of fun projects and stuff to make. Started playing sims again about the time Sims 4 was officially announced to be coming out in fall, and definitely spending a lot of time in game as soon as the actual date was released. However, I haven’t been working on any of my building stuff, or my challenges.. I’ve been pushing myself to get as many achievements in Sims 3 as I can before 4 releases. At this moment in time, I have 60 days til release, and I have 123 achievements completed (out of 265)… which means I have 142 achieves to go (averages out to about 2.4 achieves per day.. haha!) Anyway.. so it’s a lot of achieves. And most of them take a whole lot of time!! Also, been researching the issue I had with my Spectres save, and I think I figured it out, so all should be ok. I really didn’t realize how far behind I was on blogging that challenge, so I think I’m going to put some time into challenge blogging to catch up on them. Also been doing quite a bit of simporting, trying to get all the stamps in there.. which takes quite a lot of time. Soo.. yeah.. I’m still here! 🙂
Continue reading →Having finally slept through the night last night for the first night in what seems like ages (but was really only a week or two), I got to sit down and actually play Sims with more than half a brain working. 🙂 A definite improvement! Dug out my Supernatural Orphanage Challenge, and spent some time on it… two of the kids are now teens… and the toddler genie-girl aged to child is SOOO cute!! Managing all six kids plus the daycare business.. and making sure the lone pet in the house, the horse Cameo, isn’t neglected keeps me on my toes though. Making it through this generation may be tougher than I anticipated! However, with as far along as I am, I think I’ve pretty much decided not to blog the challenge. I have quite enough on my “plate” with the four challenges I am blogging! Provided I sleep again tonight, I plan to sit down and write a chapter on at least two of them – preferably one for each – to start trying to catch up on them. I haven’t felt confident enough in my brain being awake enough to actually come up with a coherent story post in the last few days – which is why I was working on testing lot upgrades for the “Nothing is Free” challenge spreadsheet I’m working on… which is coming along quite nicely.
On another note.. I finally moved one of my random play saves (one of the ones I just play for achieves, or just fun, etc..) to their new town. I created the family (single mom, lots of girls – witch, fairy, werewolf, vampire, alien, plantsim (and her imaginary friend that hopefully will be real), soon to be baby genie and baby mermaid) while waiting for Island Paradise to come out, and called them the “Beach Bunnies”.. hehe! Plan on having them explore lots of the University stuff – social groups, majors, and new careers.. and let them party around the Isla town. However, moving them from Sunlit Tides and their HUGE house.. I had trouble picking a house, so I ended up grabbing a large houseboat and starting to build my own. I get the house shell mostly built (an hour and a half later..), and then go to all their “packed furniture”.. well, yeah.. I was still decorating two hours later.. and there’s STILL stuff in there!!! 0.o Yeesh. Crazy houseboat! hehe.
Continue reading →I’m busy working on and testing lot prices and upgrades and requirements for unlocking for a helpful table-type resource for NiF’ers. I have some early prototypes up on it on the mod the sims post on the challenge, but my goal is to have it on this website for everyone to be able to refer to. So If I don’t get to updating my challenge stories for a couple days, that’s where I am. Those are next on my list after this! 🙂
Continue reading →I’m still tweaking things around, but I think this one will allow me some more flexibility to show some more content, like informational tables and such. As I said, I’m still messing with it, but everything still works. Hope you Enjoy! .. and Feel free to comment.
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
