With all the attention around seasons and it’s features, one of them involves said weather and world changes happening naturally, automatically, progression of the sort. The same can be said for the general feature in base game involving sims aging naturally, as time passes, people grow older, get jobs, some form relationships (its rare but some can form relationships with random and or neighboring sims) and get as close to story progression as one sim can before it bows out. The software is there and with seasons being so immersive, does that mean story progression is bound to follow soon after as what is seasons if only one household enjoys the environmental changes with each passing month!? I’m not going to say “how hard it is to add two extra steps to the sims? Just enable them to get married and have kids!” Because game design and the like is very difficult and it’s ridiculous to say it’s not. But, that doesn’t mean we can’t ask the question “what about story progression?” Where is it? Why do we have half of it? Why can we age, get jobs, have relationships but not go all the way and get married and start a family? Why do we only receive half of a feature we should’ve had from the beginning? With seasons I’m hopeful this means they’ll look at the big behind the scenes feature and get everyone together to say “we need story progressions because how can simmers games be immersive if they can’t go down the street and see neighbouring homes playing in the sun or running in the snow? Why have we made seasons with all these holidays if only the players household can interact with it when it should be all the sims interacting” EA are finally listening to us so why not use seasons as a microphone to hype up story progression? Whether it’s now, next week, next month, next year, we could get story progression and have our games be a little more realistic. Just imagine your household grows up and expands, your sims daughters left home and met this cute guy and your son from another marriage has already popped the question to their partner and they’re having triplets! We could have that, and I’m hoping seasons brings us the ability to have that. Tell me what you think seasons will bring apart of new weather. What you do think it’ll open us up to for the future?

Well I hope you get the option but I also seriously hope it can be turned off. Nothing annoyed me more in ts3 than when the game tampered with my households(usually by moving them out or killing a sim off). One of my Sims daughters getting married and having kids with out my say so would be grounds for abandoning a save for me. :| I still support having the option for those who want it though. As long as it is exactly that, an option.

I hope not if they add forced story progression on my Sims that's when I quit playing and toggles seem to hard for them to do.

Story progression is my favourite feature in The Sims history. Because TS4 doesn't have real story progression the game feels empty and shallow to me.And before someone says it: Yes there are mods for that, we all know it.

"BeJaWa;c-16507195" wrote:Well I hope you get the option but I also seriously hope it can be turned off. Nothing annoyed me more in ts3 than when the game tampered with my households(usually by moving them out or killing a sim off). One of my Sims daughters getting married and having kids with out my say so would be grounds for abandoning a save for me. :| I still support having the option for those who want it though. As long as it is exactly that, an option.It would be an option. I’m not saying “WE NEED STORY PROGRESSION WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT” I just mean, have it as an option. Fully respect those who don’t want it because back in sims 3, as much as I loved the ability to leave a house for so long and come back to a whole new generation created by the games match making, it was also a bit of a pain if it meant I couldn’t marry a specific sim off to one of mine without there being some friction. Introduce it as an option which can be turned off or filtered in some way, like a sim can do so much without your say so but they can’t go passed said point. Just give simmers who want it, that ability.

"ItsJanier;c-16507234" wrote:Story progression is my favourite feature in The Sims history. Because TS4 doesn't have real story progression the game feels empty and shallow to me.And before someone says it: Yes there are mods for that, we all know it. Mods aren’t the be all and end all for everybody. That’s the issue for vanilla simmers who can’t use them, don’t want to and so on. Don’t get me wrong, the mod creators go harder than the actual creators of sims which is amazing but it doesn’t solve the problem. Not everyone can rely on mods, or just don’t wanna have to which is understandable. Story progression needs to be added via an update, whether it’s now or later, but eventually EA need to accept it’s a vital part of sims

Does Seasons mark the beginning of story progression?

XxAirixX
7 years ago
I would love a story progression as that is what makes things fun when not playing with sims. Maybe make it an option where we can turn it on or off. I read that they discuss the idea all the time, so hopefully it will happen soon. For now I use MCCC mod the as it is the closest thing we got to Story Progression.

Problem with mods is that they break and can even mess up a game. Some never get fixed at all and while some are fun and modders are appreciative, we also shouldn't have to rely on mods for some basic features.
EmmaVane
New Hotshot
7 years ago
They could do it similar to how they have changed Manage Households and culling.

You can save families you don't want culled by clicking the <3 button.

Maybe you can select families you want to progress on their own in a similar way.
Louise_Goethals
7 years ago
I want story progression for non-played households :) If NPCs don't have kids, the world pretty much just grows old and dies, then randomly gets replaced by a new family that will remain static until they die. This is especially annoying when my sims have kids and there aren't many other sims of their age for them to grow up with.

I'd prefer my own households to remain untouched, but that's where toggles come in handy.
BeJaWa
7 years ago
"EmmaVane;c-16508474" wrote:
They could do it similar to how they have changed Manage Households and culling.

You can save families you don't want culled by clicking the <3 button.

Maybe you can select families you want to progress on their own in a similar way.

I would be fine with that option.

"Godleyjeans;c-16507246" wrote:
"BeJaWa;c-16507195" wrote:
Well I hope you get the option but I also seriously hope it can be turned off. Nothing annoyed me more in ts3 than when the game tampered with my households(usually by moving them out or killing a sim off). One of my Sims daughters getting married and having kids with out my say so would be grounds for abandoning a save for me. :|

I still support having the option for those who want it though. As long as it is exactly that, an option.

It would be an option. I’m not saying “WE NEED STORY PROGRESSION WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT” I just mean, have it as an option.

Fully respect those who don’t want it because back in sims 3, as much as I loved the ability to leave a house for so long and come back to a whole new generation created by the games match making, it was also a bit of a pain if it meant I couldn’t marry a specific sim off to one of mine without there being some friction.

Introduce it as an option which can be turned off or filtered in some way, like a sim can do so much without your say so but they can’t go passed said point.

Just give simmers who want it, that ability.

I agree with everything you have said :)
ShaddBoi1
7 years ago
I would be happy with story progression as long as---as many said above---there is an option to turn it off or on.

I was not always happy with the way it tampered with families that I had a clear plan for. Some sims I create are meant to be single, or live in a particular house...but sometimes the progression would change that. But, for other sims, it works pretty cool..randomly pairing up sims and having families come and go, just like in real life. And it was always interesting to see how the kids and teen would grow up.

I recall a time in Sims 3 when I got sidetracked by one particular family and was playing them for a long time. Then, while playing them, I noticed a ton of vampires walking around town. After checking, literally half of Sunset Valley had become vampires during story progression. If any of you have ever read Stephen King's "Salems Lot", it was just like that haha. I was going to go back to a previous save and start over, but then decided to change course and try to just play it out.
GamingTweety
7 years ago
I don't want story progression because I play rotationally and I don't want something happen to my sims when I'm not watching them. But if there would be an option, why not...
Hermitgirl
New Spectator
7 years ago
I got a little snappy with my last response but yes I wouldn't mind them adding it in but we have to be able to turn it off. I set up some worlds quite intricately and I just don't want them choosing a job for my sim that I didn't chose for them or marrying them off. Right now I'm playing a world based on characters from stardew valley and I already know who I want them to pair off with, when and if I ever get to all of them. I already know what I want their careers to be and I know when I don't want them to have careers. I also play a lot of very non traditional, fantasy, sci-fi based or nonconforming stories. Men might have the babies in one of my worlds for instance. It just wouldn't work if they just all grew up, got married, popped out a few kids and lived heterosexually ever after.
Actually when I think about it I'm sure the makers of this game know how differently we play due to telemetry, so I'm not really worried this would ever be forced on us if only due to the normalcy of non-traditional households at this point in time.
Sigzy_29
New Spectator
7 years ago
I loved the story progression feature. You would see what other sim's lives were going wiht out you interfering. It gave more life to the world around the sims I was controlling because there was always something happening.

In TS4 you just see sims playing with the gameplay objects or walking into random spots or doing scripted things. Like everytime we go into a CL nighborhood there has to be someone playing a guitar. The sim didn't actually had a guitar on it's inventory and decided to play it.
janyses
Seasoned Spectator
7 years ago
"peeangg;c-16507965" wrote:
I don't really see a problem with forced story progression. Relationships are pretty easy to build up and break down in every sims game. Plus there's the manage worlds option which lets you do it yourself if you don't want the game doing it for you and there's a cheat relationships option if you shift click a sim. I don't see much of a downside to it either. I know there's people who micromanage every part of their sims life and story, but I think they're a small, vocal minority as most people probably play this as a video game more than a story telling device. IMO lack of story progression is not a feature, it's a flaw, it's going backwards. They should've improved upon story progression rather than get rid of it completely like they did with a lot of other things.

I just want them to add story progression. I'd like it if they added it in even if forced. The people who don't want it can just erase the relationships they don't like with cheats and add the ones they'd like and if they have aging off they'd have enough time. Sims have always done things we don't want them to do and it's always only been a minor inconvenience. I just see it as an extension of autonomy/free will, which is also a vital part of gameplay to me.

Toggles would be ideal. I'm optimistic and I could see them pulling it off even if everyone thinks they'd fail at implementing them. MCCC has really good options for it, I wish there was something like it in vanilla, but testingcheats does let you do a lot of things.

Who wants to spend all of their game time constantly fixing and adjusting the effects of story progression? No way. If we get story progression, it must come with multiple options to choose how it affects played and non-played families. It shouldn't be forced on anyone who doesn't want it.
janyses
Seasoned Spectator
7 years ago
"LiELF;c-16508119" wrote:
"peeangg;c-16507965" wrote:
I don't really see a problem with forced story progression. Relationships are pretty easy to build up and break down in every sims game. Plus there's the manage worlds option which lets you do it yourself if you don't want the game doing it for you and there's a cheat relationships option if you shift click a sim. I don't see much of a downside to it either. I know there's people who micromanage every part of their sims life and story, but I think they're a small, vocal minority as most people probably play this as a video game more than a story telling device. IMO lack of story progression is not a feature, it's a flaw, it's going backwards. They should've improved upon story progression rather than get rid of it completely like they did with a lot of other things.

I just want them to add story progression. I'd like it if they added it in even if forced. The people who don't want it can just erase the relationships they don't like with cheats and add the ones they'd like and if they have aging off they'd have enough time. Sims have always done things we don't want them to do and it's always only been a minor inconvenience. I just see it as an extension of autonomy/free will, which is also a vital part of gameplay to me.

Toggles would be ideal. I'm optimistic and I could see them pulling it off even if everyone thinks they'd fail at implementing them. MCCC has really good options for it, I wish there was something like it in vanilla, but testingcheats does let you do a lot of things.

Oh dear god, no. In my game, there would be a HUGE problem with forced story progression because I'm a population player and I kick out the premades and fill all of the neighborhoods with my own Sims. The very last thing I want is the game taking control of my households and marrying them off to each other. I don't want my Sim world filled with nuclear families and more children running around, or forcing all of my Sims into tropes.

Story progression only makes sense if you're a single household player. That's why it made sense in Sims 3 because that game was built for single world, single household play. The Sims 4 went back to the direction of Sims 2 and brought back the ability to play rotationally and connect worlds. Story progression just doesn't make as much sense because it would potentially interfere with too many people's games. If it ever were to make a return (and I really think it shouldn't) it must include a toggle to disable it. But it's already been stated that toggles are very tricky and risky to implement in Sims 4, so it would be a huge waste of resources.

I agree with you that forced story progression would be bad, however it's not only used for single household play. I play rotationally and definitely want story progression but only for my un-played families. There's no reason why it has to affect every household.