What exactly is the awesome story driver?

[Papitain]

Okay I know this must be a really stupid question for a lot of you guys, but after playing with Awesomemod overnight, and googling trying to figure out some things but with no luck, I thought I'd ask you guys and risk being ripped apart ~_~ I really don't mean to annoy, but I'm totally confused about what the initial set up for AM is.

1.79 patch + 1.79 awesomemod

I'm used to the original indie stone mod (original AM wouldn't load/work for me), and then nraas (which gave me error 12's and 13's consistently so went onto awesomemod) so playing with AM's configuration is new and I'm not that mod savvy.

1) Am I supposed to toggle on the 'enable story progression' under options/game play in the EA menu to get AM's story progression to work? Or toggle it off? (it was toggled off by default from nraas/indie, but I had read somewhere that you were supposed to toggle the EA one on to activate it so I did but I'm not sure if this is right) Under the config menu (showconfig) everything is under the default downloaded settings - AM's progression enabled.

2) Is it normal for sims in established homes (with families) to move out of their digs and onto diff lots? I was playing a family to set them up with proper bedrooms, and living conditions, then moved onto another family. I played the new family for about 3 sim days time and when I came into the edit town menu I discovered that about 5-6 families had moved into different homes in the neighbourhood, and other sims had moved into the homes I had placed the original sims in. Is there a way to keep a family primarily in the house you put them in, but have the option for them to move out/move to diff homes pending relationship issues? But still progress and advance in the game when I'm not playing them?

3) Are there any in game alerts when non played sims have story advancements - or is it kind of a surprise! kind of thing? I saw through googling that previous versions had some sort of 'informing of story' update configuration but I haven't figured that out.

Right now the only indication to me that AM is working is the home moving and the general CTRL+SHIFT+C to see what's changed. But I haven't seen anything else (pop ups or warnings or otherwise), unlike nraas/indie which had updates and you could see new pregnancies, or marriages, firings, etc. Since my only other history of AM was during the starting sims 3 days where it wouldn't load (sims 3 would crash) I keep wondering if it's actually enabled and working or am I just using the EA story progression mod unknowingly?

Sorry for the novel, but I really wanted to know this stuff. Thanks in advance!

[cefwyn]

1. I'm not 100% sure of this, but I think you need to leave story progression enabled. There's a good chance that Pescado has overridden this behavior since AwesomeMod completely replaces everything related to the EA story mode,  but it won't hurt anything to enable it in options.

2. Yes it is normal for sims to move to different lots, unless you set them as sacred, in which case they are supposed to be ignored by the story driver. If you're playing multiple families it's definitely recommended you set the ones you play as sacred unless you don't care what the story driver does to them after you leave them. Unfortunately there are no other control features for AwesomeMod story driver (It would definitely be awesome if the story driver had some sort of configuration menu like Twallan's driver. I know it's a bit harder to do with AM since with it the sims actually do things rather then just giving you popups saying they are doing things while in the mean time they are starving to death in their homes).

3. If you want storymode popups simply enable InformOnStoryAction in the settings. Don't expect anything fancy though as they are really just debug messages, however they will tell you what everyone is doing as they do it.

You'll find that AM story driver and Indie/Twallan's story drivers are completely different animals. With the ISM(and Twallan's story driver) you just got popups saying that some sim was doing something when in fact they just stayed at home and let their motives drop to nothing (very annoying when you want to interact with them and they are never in the mood), but with AM the game actually sends townies out for dates, and to go skilling, but aren't pushed to reach level 10 career as fast as possible. I actually prefer Twallan's story driver due to how configurable it is, but it's been pretty buggy since WA and it still gets annoying having a town full of near-dead people because they don't leave the house to boost their motives.

[Papitain]

1) Thanks! I wasn't sure, but I'll make sure it's toggled then.

2) That's strange about twallan's driver, I thought the sims were "doing stuff" and not sitting at home wasting away LOL. ALthough that explains why ones that would visit under the twallan were always starving or close to passing out. But here's another question - If i do make them sacred, will they still age? And still go to school/work/progress? Or is it basically a putting them in stasis kind of thing? Like no additional relationships, or romance, etc, aging? :/

3) Ohhh that's a bummer :/ I really like that gossipy kind of feature from twallan, but I figure that the added informational overload was the reason I kept getting error 12's

I think I like everything about the AM driver in theory (since I wasn't sure it was working but all my sims seemed to be doing fine). Ugh it's just a bummer about them moving out of their primary homes. I mean I get it if teens want to move out as they reach adulthood but having whole families just move into another home completely and have townies move into their nicely decorated, furnished homes just bites :/ I mean if there were personality reasons, or spats or aging issues that would be fine, but it just seems odd that whole families would relocate when their homes are suitable for their needs? I dunno >.< I just wanted the families I'm actually playing to stay in the homes/neighbourhoods I put them in.

But thanks for the help! I appreciate the info

[J. M. Pescado]

AwesomeStoryDriver is the replacement story driver in AwesomeMod, that replaces EA story mode. It is now the default story driver in the current versions of AwesomeMod, although you can switch it back and go back to EA if you want. AwesomeMod will also detect the installation of the Twallanian driver, and if the Twallanian Story Driver is detected to be installed, you will not be able to run AwesomeStory and your configuration setting will be ignored, as two story drivers = bad. You will have to remove the Twallanian driver to use the AwesomeMod drivers...but that is probably what you want, or why would you have installed the Twallanian driver to begin with?

1) Am I supposed to toggle on the 'enable story progression' under options/game play in the EA menu to get AM's story progression to work? Or toggle it off? (it was toggled off by default from nraas/indie, but I had read somewhere that you were supposed to toggle the EA one on to activate it so I did but I'm not sure if this is right) Under the config menu (showconfig) everything is under the default downloaded settings - AM's progression enabled.

AwesomeStoryDriver respects the global option setting, so if you turn it on, then your selected choice of supported story driver will run, either Awesome (Default) or EAxian. If you turn it off, story progression is suspended.

2) Is it normal for sims in established homes (with families) to move out of their digs and onto diff lots?

Assuming you are running AwesomeStory (EAxian Mode is EAxian and there is no logic, only random nonsensical crap), sims living in established homes will not move out of their homes unless one of several conditions occurs:
1. The home you have placed them in is inadequate, containing insufficient capacity to support the current or desired fambly size.
2. Another fambly that is homeless desires a new home, and no free homes are available that are within that sim's budget and size range. If this occurs, a sim that can afford a different home that is also suitable may sell theirs and move to a new one to make room for th e new sim.

None of this will occur if the home is classified "ancestral" by containing the resident fambly's name.

I was playing a family to set them up with proper bedrooms, and living conditions, then moved onto another family. I played the new family for about 3 sim days time and when I came into the edit town menu I discovered that about 5-6 families had moved into different homes in the neighbourhood, and other sims had moved into the homes I had placed the original sims in.

This seems to be working as designed, then. If there are not enough houses for your sims, people may be moved about.

Is there a way to keep a family primarily in the house you put them in, but have the option for them to move out/move to diff homes pending relationship issues? But still progress and advance in the game when I'm not playing them?

Well, you could name the house after the fambly you put in it. Then they will stay put. But as it stands, it seems to be working fine, you just need to plop more housing so your other sims can be somewhere. Sims won't displace an existing occupant unless there is nowhere else to go.

3) Are there any in game alerts when non played sims have story advancements - or is it kind of a surprise! kind of thing? I saw through googling that previous versions had some sort of 'informing of story' update configuration but I haven't figured that out.

You can turn on the InformOnStoryAction option, which will inform you whenever an Awesome or EA story action occurs through the Voice of God. Alternatively, just find out through the newspaper.

Unfortunately there are no other control features for AwesomeMod story driver (It would definitely be awesome if the story driver had some sort of configuration menu like Twallan's driver. I know it's a bit harder to do with AM since with it the sims actually do things rather then just giving you popups saying they are doing things while in the mean time they are starving to death in their homes).

Does there really NEED to be? AwesomeStory literally has less than a half a dozen actions that actually fire, as it's very "show, don't tell". The Story Driver does not manipulate sim relationships in any way, other than for Romance, because there's no need: Sims can interact on their own without help. Literally, the list of actions is very, very small:
Romance, Get A Job, Move In, Split Household (due to marriages/breakups/kids growing up), Skill, and Starve To Death (For homeless sims to die on the street, which pretty much never happens). That's IT. That's all there NEEDS to be. Less is more! Through these very basic actions, and the events which ACTUALLY OCCUR IN THE GAME NATURALLY WHILE YOU PLAY, the story happens. StoryMode exists only to do what your sims cannot. Not to twist their arms randomly.

[Papitain]

Well, you could name the house after the fambly you put in it. Then they will stay put. But as it stands, it seems to be working fine, you just need to plop more housing so your other sims can be somewhere. Sims won't displace an existing occupant unless there is nowhere else to go.

Hoooooooooold on. You mean....I can have all my families progressing and the only thing I'll need to do is to rename their homes with their family names to get them to primarily stay in the house I made them???

eg: Bob Smith lives in Maple Bungaloo (but keeps moving out)

I change Maple Bungaloo to "Smith Home"  (in edit town) and then Bob will live there till he dies?! No extra clicking or ctrl + shift + c ing commands?

That's all I have to do o.O?!  And that family will continue going to school, work, romance, whatever, but will try to stay in the home until they marry, or name change, or it becomes unlivable?

Cause that's basically exactly what I want - for them not to leave town, and not move out of the homes I put them in unless it can't contain them. I do have a lot of empty plots in my neighbourhood but I'm guessing it's likely be too expensive for the townies to purchase.


oh and I removed twallan due to the error 12ing so I'm only running awesome with a minimum amount of CC (other then the yarr'd TS3 stuff)

But thanks for the info! I had no clue it was that straightforward. I was very used to the IS/Twallan type driver so when I started the game I found it alarming there was no visual prompt to show that AM was running, and no other note that there was no in game menu? But I do like the subtlety of the mod if this works the way I think it does. I just want the unplayed sims to function based on their personalities and needs and not to move out. I dont' really care what else happens as long as it's natural XD (as in not suddenly switching career paths out of the blue when they're already top ranked and cashing in.)

[jolrei]

@jolrei

Are you playing with TS2 style aging on?  Only the active household will age if you do.  I was getting disappointed that none of the other households in town were aging, also, so I switched that off and started using Buzzler's Aging Manager (found in the TS3 Pudding Facory) to manage the aging of my playable households.

I prefer my sims to age.  I generally play one household and occasionally jump to another family if I want something specific to happen (i.e. need a spawn, want them to get a job, etc.)  I leave aging on and use the "rule of 6" aging mod.  That way, my one chosen family is sensible, and random stupidity happens to everyone else, which I find amusing.  Awesome Story is indispensable for my purposes.

[J. M. Pescado]

I change Maple Bungaloo to "Smith Home"  (in edit town) and then Bob will live there till he dies?! No extra clicking or ctrl + shift + c ing commands?

Yup. That's how it works.

I dont' really care what else happens as long as it's natural XD (as in not suddenly switching career paths out of the blue when they're already top ranked and cashing in.)

That will pretty much never happen unless it's part of an LTW. If a sim is in the wrong career, he may switch. Also, there's an LTW that requires you to career hop in order to fill it, and sims with this LTW will career hop appropriately.

[Lion]

With the ISM(and Twallan's story driver) you just got popups saying that some sim was doing something when in fact they just stayed at home and let their motives drop to nothing (very annoying when you want to interact with them and they are never in the mood),

I thought when townie are in their homes, their movies are static (probably all in the green).  So is this movies dropping to death a recent bug of Twallan's story driver when it upgraded to WA? Because I have used Twallan's story driver before, and as far as I can remember, townie's motives were fine.

In fact, I don't really like to have townies kept in the green all the time, because I switch families a lot and I want to see them in different situations when I switch to them.

[cefwyn]

With the ISM(and Twallan's story driver) you just got popups saying that some sim was doing something when in fact they just stayed at home and let their motives drop to nothing (very annoying when you want to interact with them and they are never in the mood),

I thought when townie are in their homes, their movies are static (probably all in the green).  So is this movies dropping to death a recent bug of Twallan's story driver when it upgraded to WA? Because I have used Twallan's story driver before, and as far as I can remember, townie's motives were fine.

In fact, I don't really like to have townies kept in the green all the time, because I switch families a lot and I want to see them in different situations when I switch to them.

The motive decay with twallan's story driver was never enough to actually kill them, however it was enough to make them near impossible to interact with when you invite them over. This didn't happen all the time as some sims would manage their motives well enough, but there are obviously balance issues which may or may not be due to the WA upgrade of Twallan's driver since I didn't use it before WA.

Well, you could name the house after the fambly you put in it.

I had completely forgotten about that feature. Many apologies for my misinformation.

Unfortunately there are no other control features for AwesomeMod story driver (It would definitely be awesome if the story driver had some sort of configuration menu like Twallan's driver. I know it's a bit harder to do with AM since with it the sims actually do things rather then just giving you popups saying they are doing things while in the mean time they are starving to death in their homes).

Does there really NEED to be? AwesomeStory literally has less than a half a dozen actions that actually fire, as it's very "show, don't tell". The Story Driver does not manipulate sim relationships in any way, other than for Romance, because there's no need: Sims can interact on their own without help. Literally, the list of actions is very, very small:
Romance, Get A Job, Move In, Split Household (due to marriages/breakups/kids growing up), Skill, and Starve To Death (For homeless sims to die on the street, which pretty much never happens). That's IT. That's all there NEEDS to be. Less is more! Through these very basic actions, and the events which ACTUALLY OCCUR IN THE GAME NATURALLY WHILE YOU PLAY, the story happens. StoryMode exists only to do what your sims cannot. Not to twist their arms randomly.

In this case I think I'm just being picky, or possibly stupid. With Twallan's story driver all the options makes it feel like I'm controlling the 'hood more even though it's really not doing anything but giving me status updates, while with AMSD things just run, and for the most part quite well, but there just seems to be something missing. I can't really suggest any improvements on that part of AMSD as it really does it's job quite well, but I'm something of an AI enthusiast/hobbiest and the current state of AI in games still disappoints me quite a bit (Sims 3 has particularly lame AI, though it does get the job done even if the pathfinding makes me want to rewrite the whole thing myself).

[J. M. Pescado]

In this case I think I'm just being picky, or possibly stupid. With Twallan's story driver all the options makes it feel like I'm controlling the 'hood more even though it's really not doing anything but giving me status updates, while with AMSD things just run, and for the most part quite well, but there just seems to be something missing.

Twallanian story TALKS TOO MUCH and creates tons of superfluous crap that you can never witness, or influence in any way. Much like ISM, it generates a lot of purposeless noise, although if that entertains you, go for it.

AwesomeStory takes a "less is more", creating a background story you can see in action, by giving sims prods where they cannot. For instance, EAxian/Twallanian story manipulates sim relationships, randomly assigning them friends, enemies, and whatnot. AwesomeStory cares not for such frippery. Your sims will make friends and enemies when they poke and annoy each other in the park. They need no help to do this, and so AwesomeStory does not bother with this. They DO need help to successfully breed, and this is where AwesomeStory kicks in: They need help to mate, get jobs, skill, and move in, out, and apart...and so this is all we do. Everything else? The combination of your sims' traits and the neighborhood will decide their interactions the normal way: Live, as you watch. As such, there's really nothing *TO* configure. There's only a half-dozen discrete actions. Turning any of them off globally renders the entire system inoperative, because they're all interlinked. For instance, if you disable the ability for them to move when appropriate, then they can't breed, because they can't move out of their parents' houses and get married. If you disable the ability for them to get jobs, they will go bankrupt and starve to death, or at least be unabel to pursue their goals, which in turn renders the skilling engine inoperable, because they can't get the triggered needed to gain skills. Then they can't get married, because they can't afford to, and so on. It's an interlinked system: taking out any of the 6 cornerstones would break it and render the neighborhood dysfunctional. Thus, there's nothing to configure: It's very basic.

[Anonym]

I know what I'd prefer with the ASM driver is for it to let us turn on or off any of those 6 things for any given household, plus an option to have it help them (still bottom up) do things like make friends and enemies (by such means as a push to get them interacting in the park).

We can disable them all for a household by making it sacred; but some sims don't need to get jobs, as their fambly has enough money (usually because I use money cheats) without them working.  But the fambly members, which will include some who are employed, still need the help skilling and the like, which I have to disable when I make them sacred.

[J. M. Pescado]

We can disable them all for a household by making it sacred; but some sims don't need to get jobs, as their fambly has enough money (usually because I use money cheats) without them working.

That is actually taken into account. A sim will not seek out work as part of storymode unless they need money or their LTW and/or traits demand it.

But the fambly members, which will include some who are employed, still need the help skilling and the like, which I have to disable when I make them sacred.

You don't have to worry about THAT: This is already part of the system. If a sim has a metric assload of money, they're not going to decide they need a job unless it's part of their LTW or traits to do so. More Awesome Than You, remember?