Story Progression Toggle: Is it borked?

[Kyna]

I can confirm a little something here. Story progression has been set to off since a little time after starting the game. Recently, I moved in a family I made into a house on edit town mode, never switched to them. Saw them walking about town for about week. My kids met their kids at school. Then, I check the newspaper to see that they've moved away.

WHAT?  How could EA stuff this one up so badly?  What's even worse is that it sounds like a feature, not a bug.  The moron at EA who decided to include this "feature" needs to be fired.

[DigiGekko]

I know. I didn't believe it myself at first. But sure enough, they had left. I don't know why it would matter whether or not I actually played them. I put them there for a reason. It shouldn't matter if I make them active or not.

[Scotty]

What an asinine feature.

[Zazazu]

It probably just runs a random roll among households for possible eviction. Anyone but the family you are currently in is included.

Week Two report:

• Wedding report for the family in play (private home exchange in pjs is an extravagant ceremony? Ok...)
• Pate family moved to neighborhood
• Brandie Pate and Marco Carbone married
• Frio family left neighborhood
• Baby announcement for family in play
• Pate family moved out (that was fast)
• Bennie born to "Working Friends" household

Going slower right now, but that's because I'm raising three toddler boys at once. I'm hating that maternity leave is enforced, and on the mother only. Way to be sexist, EAxis. My workaholic has to stay home with the babies, while the father goes to work.

[GayJohnScarritt]

It probably just runs a random roll among households for possible eviction. Anyone but the family you are currently in is included.

That explains the missing ONE and ONLY Friend my starting sim lost.  This will also play havoc with any future planning on which family I might like to marry my spawn into.  Who's to say they'll even be there when my now teenage son grows up?

[Quinctia]

Sounds like that would be a big deal breaker for people who would want to play legacy style!

[TashaYarrr]

Going slower right now, but that's because I'm raising three toddler boys at once. I'm hating that maternity leave is enforced, and on the mother only. Way to be sexist, EAxis. My workaholic has to stay home with the babies, while the father goes to work.

Wow. I've read a lot of negative stuff about the game but for some reason that one really irks me. I love my non-traditional families where Mom hands off the baby to stay-at-home Dad and heads back to the office.

[seanachai]

Going slower right now, but that's because I'm raising three toddler boys at once. I'm hating that maternity leave is enforced, and on the mother only. Way to be sexist, EAxis. My workaholic has to stay home with the babies, while the father goes to work.

WHAT? That is ridiculous!

[rufio]

I'm hating that maternity leave is enforced, and on the mother only. Way to be sexist, EAxis. My workaholic has to stay home with the babies, while the father goes to work.

How is this any different from TS2?

I can see myself getting used to families randomly leaving town for no reason - I'm getting the feeling generally that playing TS3 is going to involve forgetting about any kind of micromanagement of the neighborhood and accepting that the game is often going to play itself, and that might actually be a relief from TS2, since my TS2 neighborhood is going through a period of being extremely boring and predictable (or that might just be because my sims are all in college now...).

[Sigmund]

I'm hating that maternity leave is enforced, and on the mother only. Way to be sexist, EAxis. My workaholic has to stay home with the babies, while the father goes to work.

How is this any different from TS2?

I can see myself getting used to families randomly leaving town for no reason - I'm getting the feeling generally that playing TS3 is going to involve forgetting about any kind of micromanagement of the neighborhood and accepting that the game is often going to play itself, and that might actually be a relief from TS2, since my TS2 neighborhood is going through a period of being extremely boring and predictable (or that might just be because my sims are all in college now...).

Both TS2 and TS3 seem pretty inherently sexist regarding maternity leave, but at least TS2 doesn't FORCE the mothers to stay home. They had the option of going back to work, and either having the father stay (if he had enough vacation time) or calling a babysitter. Apparently, EA is intent on cramming this outdated bullshit down our throats.

[seanachai]

Yeah ... though I actually forgot that for a minute, because I have the hack that lets you choose which parent stays home in my game. But at least you don't HAVE to stay home in the vanilla game.

[rufio]

Uh, I've never been able to send pregnant sims to work.  They have to stay home.  Always, until the baby is born.

[Kyna]

Uh, I've never been able to send pregnant sims to work.  They have to stay home.  Always, until the baby is born.

They had to stay home after the first bump, until NL.  Once the household had a car, you could send pregnant sims to work in the car.  if you have AL you can make pregnant sims walk to work, just like you can make snowbound kids walk to school.  The only time a pregnant sim can't go to work if you have NL and/or AL is if they are due to give birth before they'd get home from work.  If you have these EPs and your pregnant sims can't go to work by driving themselves or walking, then a hack must be interfering.

Zazazu is talking about after the birth.  In TS2 you could choose which sim stayed home, by not letting them go out to the car pool or school bus.  It sounds like Zazazu is saying there's no way to send the mother to work in the few days after the birth in TS3.

[rufio]

They had to stay home after the first bump, until NL.  Once the household had a car, you could send pregnant sims to work in the car.  if you have AL you can make pregnant sims walk to work, just like you can make snowbound kids walk to school.  The only time a pregnant sim can't go to work if you have NL and/or AL is if they are due to give birth before they'd get home from work.  If you have these EPs and your pregnant sims can't go to work by driving themselves or walking, then a hack must be interfering.

No matter what method I use to try to get the sim to go to work, it complains that it is too pregnant to leave the house.  This has been the case since long before I installed any hacks or even downloaded any CC of any kind, although I obviously did not have AL at that point, so walking to work may in fact work.

Zazazu is talking about after the birth.  In TS2 you could choose which sim stayed home, by not letting them go out to the car pool or school bus.  It sounds like Zazazu is saying there's no way to send the mother to work in the few days after the birth in TS3.

Well, that sucks. 

[TashaYarrr]

Zazazu is talking about after the birth.  In TS2 you could choose which sim stayed home, by not letting them go out to the car pool or school bus.  It sounds like Zazazu is saying there's no way to send the mother to work in the few days after the birth in TS3.

This. Even if Mom had 3 days' paid leave, she could still go back to work the next day (or heck, the same day depending on when the birth was) as long as another adult was there to babysit. If I'm understanding correctly, Mom is not *allowed* to go back to work till a set time.

[Zarifeke]

I haven't been religiously checking the paper, but every time I do, I get none of those announcements. All I've seen is random useless news tidbits.

I also happen to be playing with free will OFF and story progression ON, and lifespan set to epic if that makes any difference. Could free will somehow be the option that does what we think Story Progression should do?

I'm gonna make more of a habit of checking the paper every day, to see if I get any of those kinds of notifications.

Maybe everyone should also make a note of what your free will setting is on, to see if that might have anything to do with it. Either way, something is seriously wonky. Story progression should be controlling ALL of it, and thus has to be broken somehow.

OR the toggle is indeed flipped, and story progression ON is what stops all that from happening.

[seanachai]

If your Free Will is off though I'm surprised the Sims you aren't playing aren't dropping dead!

[Zazazu]

Zazazu is talking about after the birth.  In TS2 you could choose which sim stayed home, by not letting them go out to the car pool or school bus.  It sounds like Zazazu is saying there's no way to send the mother to work in the few days after the birth in TS3.

This. Even if Mom had 3 days' paid leave, she could still go back to work the next day (or heck, the same day depending on when the birth was) as long as another adult was there to babysit. If I'm understanding correctly, Mom is not *allowed* to go back to work till a set time.

Exactly. If you try from the career tab, it tells you that your shift does not start until 2 days, X hours from now, despite it definitely being normal work time. If you try from map view, it says your shift has not started.

This is outside of the main topic, though, and we already have a random gripe thread. On subject, I'm now doubting the newspaper headlines. On a Sunday, I was told that the Wainwrights had moved out. On Tuesday, first spawn brought Hilda Wainwright home from school. A quick check shows the Wainwrights sitting pretty in their old house.

[rufio]

Actually, I've been wondering - is it possible for adults to leave the lot when there are <= 6s there?  Does the social worker come?

[Zarifeke]

If your Free Will is off though I'm surprised the Sims you aren't playing aren't dropping dead!

That's the thing: everyone else does things autonomously PERFECTLY fine from what I can tell! When I go to the park for example, people arrive and eat and hang out and talk to people and whatever. It really doesn't seem like free will is off for them. So it seems like the free will setting is only affecting my own playable sims.

Edit: And setting free will to high didn't seem to make a single difference. They all still did the same exact things they did when it was off. Only difference was my sim was doing things on her own.

[Insanity Prelude]

rufio: I think they can? I'll have to test further.

Zazazu: More EAxis borkedness?


Heh. I'm actually kind of having fun- I guess because it's different, but Sims 2 is really better in a lot of ways.

[Zazazu]

Actually, I've been wondering - is it possible for adults to leave the lot when there are <= 6s there?  Does the social worker come?

Either an adult or babysitter must be on lot if a baby or toddler is left there. This does not apply to children, who can be latchkeys.

[professorbutters]

Actually, I've been wondering - is it possible for adults to leave the lot when there are <= 6s there?  Does the social worker come?

Either an adult or babysitter must be on lot if a baby or toddler is left there. This does not apply to children, who can be latchkeys.

This is perhaps the only improvement I've heard about.  I've always thought that it was dumb that kids couldn't be left along in the house for *one single hour.*  I put it down to the helicoptering parents of this generation.  The women being forced to stay home for maternity leave does sound irritating, though, and I hope that's moddable or fixable. 

[Lum]

The more I think about it, the more I believe that the legacy-style gameplay really IS the intended was to play the game.

Yes, we can switch houses, but the option is hidden away in 'Edit Town', sort of like a last-resort option. That's why we lose the wishes and some sims move away if you don't use them. It's probably bad design, but switching households shouldn't have to have such dire consequences unless they wanted to discourage it.

Like I said on the 'HORROR' thread, this is starting to feel an awful lot like 'My life as a king' from the Wii and other similar tactical games, where you send your little people on missions and you twiddle your thumbs while waiting for them. You're not suppose to see the action, only buy them the right equipment.

[kiki]

It probably just runs a random roll among households for possible eviction. Anyone but the family you are currently in is included.

That explains the missing ONE and ONLY Friend my starting sim lost.  This will also play havoc with any future planning on which family I might like to marry my spawn into.  Who's to say they'll even be there when my now teenage son grows up?

See, I kinda like that realism - people in meatspace move away all the time. Though I think it should be NPC famblies only, not a fambly you've made.