Story Progression Toggle: Is it borked?

[Zazazu]

Oh, and belated update on my earlier statement. Babies are popping up again, so Story Progression toggle is still ineffective in the later game version. Four new sprogs in two days.

[J. M. Pescado]

Tests are currently being conducted in #grah. The Pumpkin may want to appear more often.

[blackjackii]

I read in the paper that somebody died of starvation.  I also have had kids who I thought were doing their homework (because I saw them do it) grow up and deny me the option to choose a trait for them because of their "indifferent study habits." 

So this makes me think that when you're not looking Sims can do things like NOT do their homework and not EAT. 

[Mikkey]

Story Progression turned off doesn't work for me at all. In 8 sim days I've had 4 births, two deaths, one wedding, one new family in town and two moved away (including the one I made and played earlier - nice  )
And I checked, they really are gone.

[Lyn]

I've had Story Progression enabled and Free Will on low for about 2 sim weeks and I haven't had anything happen.  None of my sims have gotten married, had babies, or moved away while I was playing another family.  I've been checking the paper and have seen from the neighborhood view that nothing has happened except the normal aging.  This seems very odd.

[blackjackii]

Maybe turning free will down to low is more effective than story progression off? 

[vagabondher]

I thought I read that turning Free Will on low is like giving your neighborhood a death wish? It may have just been complete speculation that has since been debunked, but if someone could confirm this for me, that would be great.

[Mikkey]

But shouldn't it work regardless of whether free will is high or low? Those settings are global, I don't want my sims to stand around waiting for every order, especially in large households. I assume low means they will only do something when their needs are in the red and otherwise just stand there, no?

[simsdesperado]

Where exactly in the newspaper does it say about sims moving away, dieing or getting married? Whenever my sim checks the newspaper there are only news about sporting events, chess tournaments and eating contests. From what I've noticed around the neighbourhood, the original townie sims are all still there and the houses I've entered had only one family in them. My game is set on high free will, epic lifespan, aging is disabled, story progression is on.

[sanmonroe]

Where exactly in the newspaper does it say about sims moving away, dieing or getting married? Whenever my sim checks the newspaper there are only news about sporting events, chess tournaments and eating contests. From what I've noticed around the neighbourhood, the original townie sims are all still there and the houses I've entered had only one family in them. My game is set on high free will, epic lifespan, aging is disabled, story progression is on.

In the read part.

You can test it, invite a part full of sims over. All the ugly ones. Add them to family, drag their hunger to starvation, and then read the next day's paper. It will have lots of obits. Then you can be sure you are reading the right part.

Days nothing happens you only get athletics stories. And I have noticed that not all things appear int he paper. Babies appear without notice sometimes.

[Mikkey]

I have now moved some of the adult kids out and turned free will on low. Now all my sims just stand around and story progression still doesn't work as it should. Two days after I turned it on low one of the sons adopted a baby (he didn't even have a job yet, just moved out of the parents' home) and some couple got married 

[J. M. Pescado]

Unrelated, and the baby parthenogenesis issue has been noted already.

[Slymenstra]

I stupidly recreated all of Pleasantview to match Bella and Mortimer.  I then made them all houses to match their needs and money status.  Decorated them, moved each family in and got them jobs. This part was fun.

Then I was playing with Mary-Sue in the park and noticed this old man carrying Darren Dreamer.  I was like...why??  Went to "Edit Town" and found:

The Lotharios just up and disappeared, the Dreamers MOVED in with the old couple, the Clavell's. and then Darleen Matlapin's (Dirk Dreamer's Mom) up and moved off the planet as well.  In one sim day!

No messages in the newspaper of their moves either

Will this be fixed in the upcoming Awesomeness?  Why the hell can't the game move around the stupid EAxis townies!  Why my carefully made sims!  I didn't even get to enjoy them for 1 day...lame.  I knew this could happen because I saw it before...but 3 families totally changed in 1 day.

[Lerf]

It's a feature!  You're going to learn to love it, honest.  Real Simmers keep assuring us that you should only play one Sim at a time anyway.    

[simsdesperado]

Could it be that changes to the town population are affected by the life length of the neighbourhood, and they happen with a lesser frequency on epic lifespan? I have played for about 30 more sim days and I still haven't found any notices in the paper about sims moving, dieing, or new births. Eventually, I did find a new baby in the Clavell household where I knew there wasn't one previously. I checked on the baby and indeed it has no mother.

[mrtauntaun]

I have confirmed the Story Progression option is simply utterly borked as nothing in the game actually checks it, so it appears sims will continue to do their thing even if you toggle the option. The Goggles do nothing! I have also fixed it. yay Awesomeness!

How did you fix it?  How can I do it?  I HATE this feature, I want to control my sims utterly!!!

[cheezwiz]

I've had Progression toggled off and Free Will on the medium setting forever.  There have been no spontaneous babies to my knowledge; in fact, the only one I've ever seen is a mother with a toddler in the park on occasion.  I once got a phone call announcing that $random_old_townie wasn't going to live forever, you know, and then another call the next day announcing that she'd keeled over.

I haven't been keeping up with the newspaper, unfortunately, so I can't say whether these things are happening without my knowledge or not.

[Zazazu]

I have confirmed the Story Progression option is simply utterly borked as nothing in the game actually checks it, so it appears sims will continue to do their thing even if you toggle the option. The Goggles do nothing! I have also fixed it. yay Awesomeness!

How did you fix it?  How can I do it?  I HATE this feature, I want to control my sims utterly!!!

Pescado is awesome and can bend files to his will. Learn to do so, consolidate your exclamation points, and then come back.

[mrtauntaun]

Of course he can, he is more awesome than I am.  But how do the rest of us mortals do it?

[J. M. Pescado]

You join the testers for Awesomemod. Due to the monolith blob format, we can't put out individual minifixes like TS2, so everything has to be done at once.

[mrtauntaun]

Would love to, sign me up.  How do I do that?

[dcornish]

Count me in for wanting to sign up as well.  It's very irritating seeing created sims move away.

David

[Gelina]

Count me in for wanting to sign up as well.  It's very irritating seeing created sims move away.

Check the downloads section.

[Trickster]

In one of my families they had 3 children, 2 of them I threw out after they became Young Adults. They showed up fine in the family tree after that, but when the newspaper and a visit in their home revealed they had children of their own, those and their new husbands did not show up in tree at all.
I'm wondering if that's a bug (inside the story progression thingy) or a feature. Does someone have an idea?

[Zazazu]

Cousins, nieces and nephews do not show on the tree. Strict generational line from progenitor to progeny only, with immediate siblings. Click on the spawn to get their tree.