Indy Stone Mod development stops - News at 9

[JBoat]

Some interesting news from Lemmy & Binky regarding Indy Stone and the future of the mod.  Apparently they are handing in the towel, and offering up the mod for someone else to take over.  This was an excerpt from the mod's listing over at MTS:

Hello all!

We have a forum quoted in the download page which is where all updates on the mod are announced. We've not been able to continue development for various reasons, and are looking for another modder / mod team who would like to continue work on the mod.

Details here: http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=361706

Thanks and love to all those who have supported us, and apologies we never managed to make the patch jump, and screw you all the people who were unneccessarily rude about the lack of an update, like you were paying us or anything.

Love,

lemmy&binky

While I only used the story portion of the mod for a short time along with AM's core, I know they had a good following.  Certainly makes AwesomeMod's Story Mode version stand out a bit more, now that it is available.  It will be very interesting to see if someone else in the community has the cohones and skill to take up where they left off.

[shannon_elaine]

That's disappointing to hear. I liked lots of the features of Indie Stone and being able to use it with Awesome Mod was almost perfect.   

[Kaliban]

And a very bad news for those who don't intend to use Awesomemod.

[uknortherner]

Well, to be fair, Lemmy and Binky are drawing fire on two fronts here. On the one hand, EA's latest patch won't install for them (which makes any further mod development pointless and obsolete if they're still running from 1.2.7) and on the other, you have a lot of ungrateful arseholes lining up to bitch and moan about the lack of updates.

[Motoki]

Well, to be fair, Lemmy and Binky are drawing fire on two fronts here. On the one hand, EA's latest patch won't install for them (which makes any further mod development pointless and obsolete if they're still running from 1.2.7) and on the other, you have a lot of ungrateful arseholes lining up to bitch and moan about the lack of updates.

Do they have the Mac digital download for which there isn't a patch available yet or can they just not figure out how to get the patch to work? I really hope it's the former and that people who can code for a fairly complex mod would actually be able to problem solve and figure out a way to patch.

[veezee]

Psst...Pescado...anything in Indy you'd like to take for awesome?

On a more serious note, it's a shame that they're stopping development on it, because it was a godsend, especially in the early period. No more OAP neighbourhoods. We still have a ray of light to hold onto though, in that AwesomeMod is really beginning to be put to good use with it's Storymode overrides.

Will be interesting to see the direction it will take, should a new team of modders take up the task. If not, RIP Indy.

[uknortherner]

Do they have the Mac digital download for which there isn't a patch available yet or can they just not figure out how to get the patch to work? I really hope it's the former and that people who can code for a fairly complex mod would actually be able to problem solve and figure out a way to patch.

They don't really elaborate except to say that even on a fresh install, the patch won't work (so presumably they must be working with the PC version), but in the thread linked by the OP, Lemmy does point out that they've not had the time to really investigate it further. Another posting further down gives another clue to their abandonment of the mod - namely they've got a big project going on which needs their full attention and they can't spare any more time updating ISM, hence the offer to hand it over to someone who can.

[Doc Doofus]

...and screw you all the people who were unneccessarily rude about the lack of an update, like you were paying us or anything.

That part sounded sincere!

Have they put their source up for download?  I'd like to get in on this.  I've been playing ISM+AM for a week now, and I have a lot of good ideas about tweaks I would like to make to it. 

[Motoki]

...and screw you all the people who were unneccessarily rude about the lack of an update, like you were paying us or anything.

That part sounded sincere!

Have they put their source up for download?  I'd like to get in on this.  I've been playing ISM+AM for a week now, and I have a lot of good ideas about tweaks I would like to make to it. 

People can be demanding and ungrateful for sure, but when they leave a project unfinished for a significant length of time, especially when it becomes unusable due to a patch, then people are going to grumble. I think a lot of us are kind of spoiled too with Pescado's constant toiling away and frequent updates.

As for a continuation, you know, I like aspects of both ISM and ASM and in other areas I feel like they go to two different extremes (ie too much obvious arbitrary and random events that don't always make sense vs too much of a demand for realism for events I'm never going to see and don't care about; too much spawning and updates vs not enough etc).

We've got a top down and bottom up approach, but what about a middle path or a hybrid?

[J. M. Pescado]

People can be demanding and ungrateful for sure, but when they leave a project unfinished for a significant length of time, especially when it becomes unusable due to a patch, then people are going to grumble. I think a lot of us are kind of spoiled too with Pescado's constant toiling away and frequent updates.

Accept no Kewian-based substitutes!

As for a continuation, you know, I like aspects of both ISM and ASM and in other areas I feel like they go to two different extremes (ie too much obvious arbitrary and random events that don't always make sense vs too much of a demand for realism for events I'm never going to see and don't care about; too much spawning and updates vs not enough etc).

We've got a top down and bottom up approach, but what about a middle path or a hybrid?

Well, you could actually show up and make suggestions, but I'm not really certain how you can have a "middle" path. Either you take character motivations for actions seriously, or you don't. One results in "demand for realism", as you put it. Other just spews forth totally random shit that happens without any apparent explanation. You really can't have it both ways: Either something happens for a reason, meaning it has to have underlying realistic motivation, or shit just happens for absolutely no reason, because it said so. There's no middle ground to this.

[crunk]

and screw you all the people who were unneccessarily rude about the lack of an update, like you were paying us or anything.

Am I the only one who read this and thought "Why WOULD anyone be paying you?" Also, I'm not really sure what I think about two people who started something and couldn't follow through with it for more than a month or so - a quick glance at TS2 modding would have clued them into what a time sink it is.

[alyria]

I don't think it was about the money, I think they wanted more gratitude.  But come on, you really like something, a patch comes out and breaks it.  You want it fixed.  You don't think back to the good ole days when it did work. People's memories aren't that long.

[Doc Doofus]

I don't know.  The complainers remind me of the people that show up on your doorsteps without costumes on Halloween and, as you're reaching for more candy to give them, bang the screen doors and go, "Hurry up, I ain't got all day!"  Yes, people can be that way, but I can't blame L&B for being pissed off and exhausted about it.

[Motoki]

Well, you could actually show up and make suggestions, but I'm not really certain how you can have a "middle" path. Either you take character motivations for actions seriously, or you don't. One results in "demand for realism", as you put it. Other just spews forth totally random shit that happens without any apparent explanation. You really can't have it both ways: Either something happens for a reason, meaning it has to have underlying realistic motivation, or shit just happens for absolutely no reason, because it said so. There's no middle ground to this.

Yes but the point I tried to make to you many times is I don't play the whole neighborhood and thus things like how Joe Schmoe gets a promotion doesn't matter to me. I don't know if he actually went to the library and read up on skill books when I wasn't looking or the game just upped his skill level or it promoted him without the skill level. Furthermore, I don't care. Same with cribs. I don't give a shit if some house I will never look at has a crib. Who cares? It just creates more tedious work for me because then I have to go 'Oh damn, I wonder if they aren't breeding because I don't have enough cribs in town. Better go look in all the houses *heavy sigh*'.

I also don't really care if sims who are paired off are a good match for each other or not. You know what? I know plenty of bad matches in real life and some have mind boggling stayed together for a very long time.

I feel like some degree of random stuff that happens that I don't see is okay. Random shit happens in life. I just want the neighborhood to be alive and running itself without a lot of input from me.

The thing is though that Indie Stone ruins the suspension of disbelief because the degree of promotions is excessive and it has sims do obvious nonsensical things like have Goths move from their 300k home to a 100k one. I may not play those houses, but those are the kind of things that hit you in the face and you can't help but notice.

A facade is perfectly fine with me as long as it looks reasonable on the outside to the observer. I don't ever intend to go inside. It's like the rabbit holes. Who the hell knows what's in there. Who the hell cares? In reality we all know it's nothing at all, but the outside of the building and sound effects give the illusion there is something inside. It ultimately doesn't matter that there is not. The game is just about making you believe what's going on and keeping your suspension of disbelief up. I don't care at all about the numbers or what goes on behind the scenes as long as gives the appearance of normal neighborhood activity and I don't have to go chasing after all the houses and organizing the whole town. This isn't Sim City and I don't want to play Sim City.

[Doc Doofus]

The thing is though that Indie Stone ruins the suspension of disbelief because the degree of promotions is excessive and it has sims do obvious nonsensical things like have Goths move from their 300k home to a 100k one. I may not play those houses, but those are the kind of things that hit you in the face and you can't help but notice.

Suspension of disbelief.  Way to put it.  I actually think those things can be addressed though through some fine-tuning and user feedback, like what you posted.  What they have now is a VERY good first step.  As I posted once before, I would prefer a hybrid approach.  But, yeah, I don't care how they get their promotions or their new homes when I'm not looking as long as it doesn't slap me in the face with its unbelievability.  I try to come to the game with a certain level of suspension-of-disbelief as it is.  I would just like to be met part-way.  ISM should operate on the basis of making things that COULD happen DO happen, but just without the necessity of playing out all the behind-the-scenes details.

[Motoki]

ISM should operate on the basis of making things that COULD happen DO happen, but just without the necessity of playing out all the behind-the-scenes details.

Yeah, that's how I feel. I don't necessarily need events to really happen but I want them to seem reasonable to me as an outside observer and I also want those events to happen on their own and the neighborhood to take care of itself without any input from me other than indirectly when my sims interact with other sims.

Here's the thing, I'm not opposed to those behind the scenes events really happening or the math adding up etc. Again, I don't see it so it doesn't matter to me how it happens just that it happens.

All I know is with ISM I had a population explosion and it was really out of control and my game started to slow down and get really laggy after a while with so many sims in town. Sims were moving to town like crazy and breeding like rabbits.

ASM is the other end of the spectrum for me. It hasn't generated many sims (admittedly I started a new game and nuked everyone and started from an empty hood) and quite frankly I have not has a single birth in this neighborhood that I didn't initiate.

I feel like I have really had to do a lot of nudging and switching households and forcing things to happen and creating new sims etc to really get this neighborhood going and I'm still doing it and it's still not what I would consider stabilized and self sufficient.

[Kaliban]

I agree with Motoki and the Doc on this.
Or, to put it otherwise : I don't need rational sims or event.
The Indie Stone mod would just need a litle more features, like the possibility for some sims to have children without marrying - or illegitimate children, elder sims retiring from work or rich sims staying unemployed if they don't have a work LTW or the workaholic trait.
In short, events should respect the traits of the sims.

When you play only one family, you don't need more - events are a background. Bu I know that I will be happy to find AwesomeStory when I'll want to play six families at a time.

[kuronue]

As long as I can tweak AwesomeStory to my specifications the way I can currently tweak EA story, I won't particularly care what method is used. That ought to be fairly easy for Pescado to add in, right? Then oddballs like Motoki and I can turn off the crib thing and still use the better logic.

[Cedia]

I also agree with Motoki.  I only play one family, unless you consider nudging along a couple other top breeding stock couples to time birthings for future romance options, and I personally love ISM's randomness.  It's amusing and reminds me of how real life can be so strange sometimes.  But doesn't it just figure that Victoria Andrews finally kicked that deadbeat Beau out after giving her six children in a 1 BR 1 Bath house?  Hehe.

The problems I had with "ancestral" families moving around I solved by simply going into the options and setting it so that they can't move in or out anywhere.  Then if I got the message that they had married, I'd decide which generation needed to move out of the ancestral home if there was no room.

The problem with immigration I solved by simply turning it off completely.  I play on epic lifespan, so, so far, this has not affected my town's population.  There are plenty of births happening all the time, however, and I like that.

The problem with homeless townies is still an issue, but that is an EA issue.  When my game starts to take longer and longer to save, I just destroyalltownies and it goes back to normal.  My one family doesn't really run into these legions of homeless clones, and if so, how would they know one from another?  It's a nonissue to cull them, just a minor annoyance at at this point.

It is a sad day for me, and I hope that ISM just keeps working like it has been hand in hand with Awesome.  I like ISM over what Mr. Pescado is working on for story progression, no offense to him, just because I don't want to futz with all these rules and regulations.  I micromanage my own life, I don't want to do that for my sims.  I just want to see them live out their random and sometimes weird life stories.

[J. M. Pescado]

The thing is though that Indie Stone ruins the suspension of disbelief because the degree of promotions is excessive and it has sims do obvious nonsensical things like have Goths move from their 300k home to a 100k one. I may not play those houses, but those are the kind of things that hit you in the face and you can't help but notice.

A facade is perfectly fine with me as long as it looks reasonable on the outside to the observer.

Yeah, see, that's the thing. Without a system of motivation that WORKS, there are NO BRAKES ON THE SYSTEM. Without a clear sense of WHY things happen, the computer can do nothing except spew out random crap utterly devoid of context or bounding. Which is why you GET utterly nonsensical behavior. Without something DRIVING the system under the hood, without a system of RULES of WHY THINGS CAN HAPPEN, what you have is a chess game where the pieces are moved at random by a toddler with no understanding of how the game is supposed to play.

[rhodaloo]

After installing AwesomeStory, I managed to have one spontaneous pregnancy.  Unfortunately it occurred to my matriarch the one time I switched lots so I could check on one of her adult children. There was much raving, ranting and gnashing of teeth on my part as it had not occurred to me to make any family sacred. At least the baby's father was the matriarch's husband.  

Need to put cribs in all the houses keep up the gene pool?  *Sigh*

[Cedia]

Without something DRIVING the system under the hood, without a system of RULES of WHY THINGS CAN HAPPEN, what you have is a chess game where the pieces are moved at random by a toddler with no understanding of how the game is supposed to play.

Maybe my life has been unusually picturesque, but honestly, it does feel like whatever supreme being is placing those pieces is indeed a toddler.  I would have never guessed that the love of my life would be nineteen years younger than myself, just as an example.  

[Motoki]

Yeah, see, that's the thing. Without a system of motivation that WORKS, there are NO BRAKES ON THE SYSTEM. Without a clear sense of WHY things happen, the computer can do nothing except spew out random crap utterly devoid of context or bounding. Which is why you GET utterly nonsensical behavior. Without something DRIVING the system under the hood, without a system of RULES of WHY THINGS CAN HAPPEN, what you have is a chess game where the pieces are moved at random by a toddler with no understanding of how the game is supposed to play.

Well I think it depends on what you are talking about. Some things need rules to operate on to make sense. Like sim families generally shouldn't be moving to a cheaper home unless there is some good reason. That is a very blatant and noticeable thing.

But other things like romance to me is fine being random. I don't think it matters if they are compatible or not. In fact, it's kind of realistic if some couples weren't so compatible.

And how do I know that some townie sim who just got a promotion wasn't sucking up to the boss and then asked for a promotion while at work away in a rabbit hole? I don't. It doesn't matter as long as the amount of promotions in town is tweaked to not seem excessive.

I don't know, maybe I just don't have a very logic and mathmetical oriented mind and maybe I just feel like the end justifies the means as long as the town seems alive and runs itself okay.

Maybe my life has been unusually picturesque, but honestly, it does feel like whatever supreme being is placing those pieces is indeed a toddler.  I would have never guessed that the love of my life would be nineteen years younger than myself, just as an example.  

Haha I was totally thinking that too, that sometimes life does seem like some toddler is just moving pieces around randomly.

[moondance]

Actually, with immigration set to "off" for the entire time, and using just the sims that were already in Sunset Valley, the population in my game is stable and reasonable. There are a few families that breed like rabbits, but others that have only one or two children, and quite a few babies grow up and never marry or reproduce themselves, so it's evened out pretty nicely. I tried the same thing with immigration "on" though, and yeah, it was a mess. 

To me, "somewhere in the middle" between Indie and Awesome would mean something like this:  Indie is just pure chaos.  Awesome is pure logic. I think realism falls somewhere in between. For instance,  Indie regularly pairs YAs up with elderly mates for no good reason. I'd imagine that the finished ASM would never allow this to happen. Personally, I think it should happen once in a very great while--if the YA in question has a "gold digger" LTW and the elderly mate is rich, it would make perfect sense. A "family-oriented" sim who marries a "dislikes children" sim should stand a really good chance of winding up divorced after one or two children. Two "dislikes children" sims who marry one another should have an extremely small chance of ever having a child at all.

I think that one of the things that Indie did "right" though was to make it so configurable, and pretty easy (if annoying) to set up to suit almost anyone's taste. No two people are likely to agree on how much romance is too much or how much is not enough, for instance, and Indie lets the player decide between a range of progression speed settings, or turning things like romance off altogether. 

[Chocolate Milk]

and screw you all the people who were unneccessarily rude about the lack of an update, like you were paying us or anything.

Am I the only one who read this and thought "Why WOULD anyone be paying you?" Also, I'm not really sure what I think about two people who started something and couldn't follow through with it for more than a month or so - a quick glance at TS2 modding would have clued them into what a time sink it is.

I think their point was more that people don't have a right to ISM updates. Which I agree with. It's completely their prerogative to update or stop updating.

Also, from reading the thread, it sounds like they got a real life opportunity they weren't expecting, which is why they couldn't devote time to trying to make the patch work.

And I'm looking forward to trying AwesomeMod storymode out, though. I'd probably never take the plunge otherwise, so in that sense I'm glad.