First overhaul of Sims is disaster and here's why:

[TeoTeoTe0]

@PugLove888 Thanks! On the subject of the necklace, I'd love it if it was just the classic necklace design but with the plumbob symbol instead of the tear drop-looking gem but I guess that would require making a new asset. I'm okay with the new dress. Looks a bit more elegant to me which fits her given personality more imo. Especially with her character at an older age.

Sims 1 and 2 Bellas look strikingly similar already even with the different hairstyles. Facial feature-wise they share a lot of similarities. Very similar nose, mouth, eyes, and eyebrows. The only big differences can be chalked up to artstyle since The Sims 2 is a bit more stylized like with the slightly bigger eyes and expressive models. When making my slight tweaks to the new version, I just wanted to make it look more like the original designs while also trying to incorporate her other versions. Essentially trying to go for the Bella Goth that appears in someone's mind when they think of that Sim. An ultimate amalgamation of every version essentially.

On the subject of TS1 Bella in terms of eyes and demeanor, I think that interpretation is more related to how Sims in the first game didn't have facial expressions. Personality-wise, TS1 Bella seems to land more on the friendly and elegant side similar to someone like Princess Peach except she takes a liking to the gothic aesthetic. Her bio in Sims 1 is, "Elegant and athletic are two qualities that describe Bella. She enjoys a variety of activities from golf to miniature golf." She's listed as having a playful level of 4 and a nice level of 6. By TS4 she's given the traits of good and gregarious so I don't see it as a contradiction design-wise since her character feels like it never was trying to be too serious. More so a balance between things that works well for her as the face of the series. Please put her on the cover again Sims team! She's the face of Sims in the same way Steve and Alex are the face of Minecraft.

What's odd about the ages/life states of Bella and Mortimer is that Mortimer becomes older after Bella disappears. So they seemingly were the exact same age in TS1-3. (I may be wrong here since it has been forever since I played TS2 but I remember him aging up to an elder after Bella was gone in the memory section.) Bella just didn't age anymore as she was removed from the world. The Strangetown version which is where she ended up is odd since she's still young but if it works like TS3, separate worlds don't really age at the same time. That or she was kept in suspended animation for the amount of time she was kidnaped by aliens so she didn't age. I guess that could be the excuse for why she's also young in TS4? That game also mentioned she's disappeared before but aliens don't seem to be the reason in this new timeline and her older face in the latest re-design just makes it look like a mistake on the designers' part now to keep her as a young adult.

The age stuff is kinda odd. Feels like they wanted to keep the Goths youthful for Sims 4 and then the redesign corrected that a bit but made it more confusing by not correcting the ages fully. This might just be me, but instead of retconning the ages, I would've preferred Bella looked young for her age as an adult (think J-Lo or Shakira) while still making her an actual adult who would be the same age as Mortimer. However, the Adult state in Sims 4 makes everyone look older no matter what so I understand why that can't be done. The more I think about it, a refresh would've been more interesting if they changed the timeframe for those characters a bit. If they want the most iconic Sims to still feel youthful like other characters on the game cover, they could do one change to make that work. Considering the timeline placement of the game, it could work to make both Bella and Mortimer halfway through young adulthood with a toddler Alexander and child Cassandra. It is definitely a bigger change compared to what we have had for the past few years but it would've worked better as an in-between of the timeframe seen Sims 1 and 2. (Even if those games got retconned). I know that's unlikely but that change does have a lot of potential for the Goth household to truly feel fresh.

@valohim666 Thanks! No problem. I just posted it to the gallery. Here's the link: https://www.ea.com/games/the-sims/the-sims-4/pc/gallery/EB9F5112EDCF11EC8123DCB82ACC7C81?category=al... 

If that doesn't work, you can also look up my name in-game to find it too. I didn't make redesign the kids so it's just Bella and a small Mortimer redesign I also ended up making. Enjoy!

[PugLove888]

@TeoTeoTe0 , Yes, while that plumbob necklace has a strap that is a bit casual for Bella's style, you really can't change that, and the shape of the plumbob, as well as the color really does capture TS2 Bella's necklace!  
I do mind the dress they choose since (not counting TS3's child Bella) all of the other Bella's have a strapless dress with a sweetheart neckline, that is fitted with a strait skirt.  This new one they picked, while very pretty (and something I would prefer to wear) is not at all the iconic Bella dress. 😓

See, I never thought that the TS1 and TS2 Bella's looked that much alike.  Mostly it was the eyes.  i get that TS1 Sims didn't really show emotion, and TS2 Sims are more stylized, but I find TS2 Bella with a more wistful, innocent expression.  I have to tell myself that it is because she is more of a blank slate with no memories of her life before, and then her expression works, but unless I do that, it doesn't match for me. Also I find the shapes of there faces to be very different.  TS1 Bella has more of a pronounced jaw, giving her a square face shape, while TS2 Bella has a tapered face with not much of a jaw.  Other than that, their eyes are the most different.  I actually think the eyebrows are completely different, but I think that is due to the lack of expression in TS1 eyebrows. The mouths are not quite the same, but passable, and the nose is spot on!  But I do tend to over-analyse things a lot! 😅 I do tend to be detail-oriented, as well as visually oriented, so maybe these things don't matter to a lot of people.   I understand that Bella was always more friendlier than she looked in TS1, not to mention TS4, as I thought she always looked more mysterious and stand-offish, even though her personality says otherwise.  I think that was what a lot of people liked about her... she looked serious, mysterious, stand-offish, and maybe even snobbish, but when you got to know her she wasn't any of those things!  It was like a nice surprise.  😎

I see what you are saying about how they could have retconned the Goths so that Bella is a Young Adult and then moving Cassandra down to a child and Alex to a toddler or baby, but I really like Cassandra as a teen.  I also like that there is not such a big jump in her and Alexander's ages.  I would rather them just make Bella and Mortimer Adults instead of Young Adults!  

And I totally agree that Bella is the face of The Sims!!! She really should be on the cover for the game!  But they now only put young Sims on the cover, not mom's with a teenage child! 😒😓

Yes, I had forgotten about TS2 Mortimer having memories of ageing up after Bella gets abducted.  Perhaps this was to give the impression that her disappearance was very stressful to him.🤷‍♀️  

It was hinted at that the Caliente sisters might have had something to do with Bella's abduction.  There is a theory that since the Calientes have some Alien ancestry, that they got their Alien relatives to come to Earth to abduct her (and that Don Lothario might have been in on it!) 😮👽

@valohim666 , Yes, since you had stated elsewhere that you only have the Legacy Edition on PC, which doesn't get new updates, I can see why if you already had an Xbox or PS4 that it would just be easier to play the game on console.  At least you have the Kids Room Stuff Pack because I found that helpful so as not to get bored with all the kids rooms looking the same , especially with the base game stuff! 

You have helped explain why I had so much lag, and also why some people didn't.  That CASt should really have come with a warning! Well, if they ever do it again, I will be fairly warned!  The problem was that I really didn't like the open world (except to find rocks and bugs) because there was almost never any other Sims on the commercial lots by the time my Sim arrived, so I didn't like TS3 , except for the CASt tool! So I spent a LOT of my time making new swatches and making Sims with the new swatches in order to have fun closer to the level of fun I had with TS2.  That open world was the bane of my existence! 😅
And while I have TS2, I am afraid to play it much because as much as I love TS4, no game can compete with TS2, not by a long shot! 🥰  And then if I was playing TS2 all the time, I couldn't really help people with TS4 very well, and I also enjoy doing that, and it is also a better to help people!  But I hope you can get TS2 to run smoothly one day! 

Yes, it is easy to get derailed in a conversation (especially how my ADHD mind works!) I remember on the forums for TS3 a bunch of us were discussing the various foods that were in the game (since not all countries had all the foods that the game had) and somehow the conversation ended up to where several of us were sharing Mac & Cheese recipes! (I mentioned adding pepper jack!). 😂 

[valohim666]

@TeoTeoTe0 Thank you for sharing it. I had issues trying to search for it on my Xbox, though it was simply because of how I had my privacy options set lol. I'm simply not a social person, so I had most of the social and sharing options disabled which seemed to prevent me from even searching at all. Once I sorted that out, or I think I have anyway, I found it and added it to my gallery so thank you again.

@PugLove888 I'm not sure it's actually the legacy edition since it's a digital version I bought on Amazon back in 2016. All I know is that by choice I just haven't updated it since it seems that so many updates just add new problems, and it seems my last update was when Realm of Magic released. I actually just went back to the PC version (and still won't let it update lol) because I've been having so many issues on console lately. I may be missing the updates, some of which include some free content, but I already had a bunch of mods and CC installed so that helps make up for the free content. One bad thing is I can't find mods anymore since you really can't find archived mods, though luckily I can at least do simple things myself like tuning mods.

Even without the CASt, Sims 3 will struggle anyway. I've personally tried all sorts of things to make it run smoothly from patches that let it use more ram, to optimization and cleanup mods, various option setups, and lord knows what else but in the end it still struggles. One other thing from TS3 I was thinking about a couple days ago that I'd love to see return is the option to fast forward through an interaction. Not sure if you remember it or not, but basically it put the game on the highest speed but only until the sim finished their active interaction. And hey you don't need to play Sims 4 that often to help others with it, just when updates release so you can experience the many problems for yourself!

At least it wasn't grilled cheese, or I might have assumed you had the grilled cheese aspiration but in real life lol.

To get back on topic, what is with the children between the new Mortimer and Bella? In my current save the story system gave them a daughter that looks a lot like Alexander, though even worse. Then in another save (which I accidentally saved over.... UGH) it gave them even more of the same. It's as if the couple simply aren't capable of nice looking kids, except for Cassandra (though I think she's adopted lol). To be fair I feel like most of the pre-made EA families (base game anyway) never have decent looking children. For example I'm not sure I've ever seen the Landgraabs have a decent looking child, and whenever the Pancakes have any they always seem to look like Bob. Alice Spencer-Kim and Eric Lewis have what I feel is the best one however, because they have a daughter in my current save that looks EXACTLY like Alice but with slightly darker skin and I've always loved Alice's look.

I will also forever hate the new Bella because she ruined one of my sim's marriages, which just happened to be with Cassandra. Bella had the incredibly bright idea to flirt with my guy WHILE Cassandra was sitting right there, and because of the oh so lovely sentiments system Cassandra seemed to permanently hate him. He even rejected the flirt, yet she still flipped out on him and completely ignored Bella. I even built their relationships back up and had them re-marry just before they became elders, which they were originally in the young adult stage when Bella ruined the first marriage, and even then Cassandra was still doing mean interactions to the point I just said "forget this" (though in a much more obscene way) and switched to a different household.