Who is twallan? Nraas mods appreciation

I have fond memories of twallan interacting with simmers on the old forum. I could be wrong but I was under the impression that he made the mods for his wife.

Yeah, he did retire and basically said that he was busy with other things and that he had lost interest in the game. The timing was good, though, because it was well after the last EP, ITF came out. And the friendly people at NRaas Industries have kept hosting and updating the mods, and are really great at helping simmers. :smiley:

There is a short "biography" about Twallan and NRaas here: https://www.nraas.net/community/NRaas-Industries-Archives

Twallan was actually among a group of a hundred or so players who visited an EA/Maxis studio in Canada by invitation to take tours and get to test play a very early version of what later became SimCity 2013. He reported back that he had a blast although the limitations of the game they were getting to test were pretty apparent very early on.

Before the rumors begin again that we have had him locked in the basement all this time, he never really existed and was actually a combination of people, etc., let's just say he is a very talented programmer/coder who for many years shared an intense passion for TS3 with his wife. His job allowed him to devote a lot of time, on and off throughout the year, to this project of his. He is also remembered for setting a standard for kindness and helpfulness to players that is rarely seen in the gaming world.

None of us have heard anything from him since his Jan 2014 announcement and the retirement of his persona on what was the older version of this forum and the other forums on which he participated. This is according to his wishes and should be respected. He may have moved onto other things entirely or he could be right here, lurking and watching our every move. There is really no way to know but we hope he likes the look of what we have been able to do with NRaas since his departure. :)

I was a huge fan of him during Sims 3! His mods honestly saved my gameplays. I also had a big crush on him. In fact, this is my first post in years on here. I just had to show my admiration for him. I had no idea he was married lol. Lucky lady out there! I just recently got into Sims 4 after being on a huge sims hiatus. I was also curious if he was still around here somewhere. Perhaps lurking. If so, sending you lots of good vibes Twallan *swoons*

I also would love to know more stories about him if anyone has any heh.

@summermistx3 - Twallan was (is) a very private person. He lives in Edmonton, Alberta (or at least he did up until six years ago). He often referred to his partner as "the missus" in relation to the game and occasional trips to visit her family, I think in Ireland. He likes the color orange, but that shouldn't come as a surprise. I only know of one player who claims to have met him in person, but I don't know how reliable that information really was and they had the wrong Canadian city although of course people are allowed to move around and be on business trips.

An example of his humor we all loved so much was his response when players would ask him why he wasn't working for EA. He said a couple of times that coding for sims games was his hobby, not his profession, and he would rather bag groceries at Safeway (a huge supermarket chain) for a living, if it came to that. :)

He was lovely, so kind and helpful and tried so hard to include so many requests in all his mods. He was also very humourous in some of his responses; his sense of humour was delightful. I still miss seeing him around.

I do hope life has been good to him and his family. It is because of him, and those like him who who spend so many hours fixing bugs, annoyances, and making fun mods that TS3 is still playable, since its own official developers gave up on their halfassed attempts to patch the game with sticky tape and butcher's twine and stuffed it in the "too hard" basket.

Before I knew about Twallan's mods, there was this other mod I was using that was similar, except that it was developed by a complete whose forum was flooded with players so toxic and abrasive you'd think they weren't also playing a game about making houses for virtual people to live in with their families.

By the time I did learn about Twallan's SuperComputer (which later became NRaas Master Controller), I had already been using the other person's mod for a while and didn't know if it was worth it to switch. Then, one day in 2010, I thought, "Wait, wouldn't it feel better to use a mod by someone who is kind and helpful and indirectly encourages others to be similarly kind and helpful simply by existing as an example?"

And so I did, and I was much, much happier. Having Twallan's mods and Twallan's help on the old forums was a godsend at a time when EA was breaking parts of the game with every patch and rarely interacting with Simmers (apart from the occasional community-building thread, like posting a picture of toast on International Toast Day and asking for more pictures of toast). When Twallan eventually said goodbye to the community, I was heartbroken and downloaded a statue of him that's been in my Sunset Valley Central Park ever since. He is kind of like the Jesus/Keanu Reeves of my game -- so much so that when I briefly had NRaas's Simself in my town, I wouldn't let my Sims flirt with him for fear of them embarrassing themselves. That is how weird my adulation of Twallan is.

Thanks for all the information, this has been really insightful! He sounds like an awesome guy

@igazor I didn't realise you were part of NRaas, now I feel like a famous person has come onto my thread lol

"Archivist;c-17448436" wrote:
...whose forum was flooded with players so toxic and abrasive you'd think they weren't also playing a game about making houses for virtual people to live in with their families.

To be fair, that was all just an act. More than one of those former "senators" have shown up at MTS since then explaining that they had to act that way and encourage toxic behavior towards players with questions in order to keep their exclusive status. It was meant to be a different kind of "awesome" player support experience that bordered on funny (I guess). That doesn't make their behavior any more pleasant or acceptable, but really quite a lot of what Twallan accomplished near the beginning was based on what that mod does, except in a much more flexible and scripted way instead of making one giant Core Mod out of the whole thing, accept it all or nothing, with only a limited number of user-configurable options. His mods were originally, in the very early days, hosted over there as well, and it's pretty clear that both developers respected each other despite their very different opinions on what the end product should look like and what it means to genuinely be nice to someone.

I used both that mod and NRaas together when I was a much newer player myself, there are ways to manage that so they don't collide, but eventually lost patience with the Core Mod's heavy-handedness and got rid of it as well. It should also be noted that while NRaas isn't exactly a hotbed of activity that would make Amazon or Google jealous these days, we are still alive, kicking, and helping players out as best we can while that other place gets something like two or three posts a year now on its forum boards. :)

I just can underline every good thing which you´ve already stated about Twallan!
He was so kind and patient with all kind of stupidity I threw at him in my early days of simming! I was so clueless how to use mods, without him (and later without his heirs (thank you @igazor and Chain! <3 ) I wouldn´t still simming!
I can´t even express what a life saver for my Sims and my game his mods are.
I have both statues and the bench placed in my main world to worship him. :) ;)

And I would like to thank the nice and very helpful and very knowing people at NRaas who do their best (and even more!!) to keep the high standard Twallan has set!