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?

Cinebar
7 years ago
"Godleyjeans;c-16627404" wrote:
"Cinebar;c-16626986" wrote:
I still don't understand if SP was so great why any of you aren't playing TS3, because a 'living world' was it's motto and story progression was part of that motto. ETA: Part of The Sims I think is to protect the rotatioanl player where their other households are protected from forced situations by the game while they are away from them. I don't mean what happens or becomes true on a community lot but things like relationships, marriage, kids, divorces, education, skills, moving around or out of the world, or changing jobs. No, I would not ever want SP in TS4. Or TS2.

ETA: I play the houses and if I want it to remain empty until I bulldoze it then it stays empty. That is control of my world. I don't want the game to have more control, it has enough as it is. Why would someone like me want the game to dictate to me where Sims live and with whom, and if they are naming babies without me.

Some of us ARE playing the sims 3, however we’d appreciate SP being thrown into sims 4 so we can shift into that evolution of the game series, just because we rave about the example of a previous game installment doesn’t mean we have to be playing gosh exact thing to set an example for the future games to come from that said franchise.

Also be aware some of us CAN’T play the sims 3 any longer due to either not being able to run it, having game breaking issues and or just don’t own the game any longer for whatever reason.

Me, personally, ran into a game breaking age freeze bug that halted my games progression completely and even after installing it on a new pc, it persisted, others ran into software conflicting and general problems brought on by that old engine which was scrapped for sims 4, thank heavens.

On the topic of controls for SP, I respect your want of control within your game, hence why myself and others are discussing options with a sims 4 variant of SP WITH the ability to turn SP off totally, therefore leaving YOUR GAME untouched progression wise leaving you able to be in total control of what happens when, how and why. Of course you can also have options on how much control to give the game should you want a small amount of SP to happen while you focus on your current household.

SP is an option we want, but of course for those who don’t want it, we also want there to be options in terms to switching it off and or managing the amount it progresses in game. A complete off switch similar to turning off aging is a must, it means simmers who don’t want it messing with their game can rest easy for those of us who do want it to take control, then the option for it to do that is there.

It’s all about options.

I respect the fact you don’t want it.

But also respect the fact there are simmers who do, simmers how may have loved sims 3 but cannot for whatever reason, play it anymore.

This is a feature we want EA to work heavily on so everyone is happy, or at least most of everyone.
Nothing should be missed and nobody should go unheard.

Considering all the problems you say SP and Open world caused your game and rig, then what makes you think they can do it better this time? What past history proves to you they learned any lessons? Think on it before you go asking them to do this to TS4. Take culling as a fine example. Do you remember meeting a Sim and wanting to have your Sim meet that Sim in TS4? Only to go back to the same spot and that Sim had mysteriously been culled. They thought that was perfectly acceptable for almost two years before they fixed culling to at least allow Simmers to keep a Sim in the panel to try to build a relationship. I'm not saying they can't do things better, however, I have no proof at all they actually will based on what they did to TS4 from the start. They thought Multi Player was a good idea, too, and look at the limitations this has put on TS4.

ETA: SP is the reason you aren't suppoed to delete any Sim in TS3..they are tied to the 'world' so if they are thinking of 'world stories' then you can forget about being able to remove some Sims from the worlds.
Cinebar
7 years ago
"Karon;c-16627654" wrote:
"Cinebar;c-16626986" wrote:
I still don't understand if SP was so great why any of you aren't playing TS3, because a 'living world' was it's motto and story progression was part of that motto. ETA: Part of The Sims I think is to protect the rotatioanl player where their other households are protected from forced situations by the game while they are away from them. I don't mean what happens or becomes true on a community lot but things like relationships, marriage, kids, divorces, education, skills, moving around or out of the world, or changing jobs. No, I would not ever want SP in TS4. Or TS2.

ETA: I play the houses and if I want it to remain empty until I bulldoze it then it stays empty. That is control of my world. I don't want the game to have more control, it has enough as it is. Why would someone like me want the game to dictate to me where Sims live and with whom, and if they are naming babies without me.

I seriously dont understand why there are so many people like you. Come on guys, wake up. The devs should provide ways for both rotational and SP players. We are paying for them, we should get what we want. Why its so difficult for them to implement an "advanced game options" with many toggles for us to customize our games. Thats what Sims is about, customizing... But the devs dont seem to respect that. They dont let us customiza our game options, they dont let us create worlds, they dont let us choose if we want certain occults or not... omg. Why?! You dont need to fight one another, we need to unite for our voices to be louder than they are right now. Lets fight for our rights to be able to play as we want.
The Sims is OUR game, not EA. We pay them to do what WE want, not them. EA is going to ruin The Sims if we dont fight for our passion!

Why haven't they provided a way for rotational players to name the baby from one of their families when they aren't playing them? That is story progression and they don't seem to be bothered this aggravates rotational players. So, where is the toggle (after four years) to turn that off? As I said no proof at all they would add a toggle and or even think of one.

ETA: Where is the toggle that turns off TS4's SP where our own Sims are having affairs with Sims the players never met? Where are those type toggles? then you guys want me to believe they would add more toggles when they haven't even added toggles for the sp that is already in the game.

One more, when TS4 was released our own Sim changed jobs when we weren't playing them. This was finally patched, they didn't supply a toggle for that either. It was not a bug but how it was built so yeah, there has been little proof in this game there would be any toggles.

Wait here is another example of SP in TS4, do any of you remember when you couldn't invite a Sim somewhere because they were at work? This was in the release of TS4. This was patched a few times to change. If you want more empty community lots because Sims are at work, or sleeping, or the closed sign has to go back up at 2:00 A.M. then go ahead ask away. But remember when you want to go on those group outings from GT, the Sims at work won't be available. Nor for a holiday or a birthday or whatever. Wait, and the hospital will have to spawn more townies (causing more culling) to fill the beds since those Sims showing up now, would supposedly be at work whether sick or not.

And thinking of a play date for your kids? No, those kids will be at school. SP isn't only making the town feel alive but way too much reality. And the number one thing you guys are ignoring..empty community lots which was a big complaint of TS3. And it wasn't because someone's machine couldn't handle more Sims but because reality is how SP works. If the town is empty then no Sims out and about and if they all have a job then of course no one would be out shopping. Or grilling.
keekee53
Seasoned Newcomer
7 years ago
I don't want it but I will deal with it as long as they give us a way to turn Story progression OFF. As a rotational player, I still feel like our playstyle is an afterthought and it is frustrating. I didn't enjoy Sims 3 for this reason. I still have to learn a whole caste system in a mod just to somewhat get rotational play out of Sims 3.

Seasons bothers me as a rotational player. I had to once again figure out a rotational plan because they did not accommodate rotational players. I was playing on a seven day rotation and then moved on to the next house. Now I have to play 28 Sim days so each of my families can enjoy all of the holidays. I have to age them seven days and remember to turn it off so they are not aging too far from the the rest of the sims in the world. There should have been a way to pause the seasons, have repeating holidays each week during paused seasons, etc.
Terra575
7 years ago
The only way I want story progression in my game is with a toggle that can turn it completely off. It made Sims 3 almost unplayable for me. I manage my unplayed families' stories too so I don't want it touching them either. If they add it, there must be a way for me to make sure it has no impact whatsoever on my game. Otherwise they'd be fundamentally changing the game I bought and crippling its playability, which is unethical.
karon_shiruba
7 years ago
"Cinebar;c-16629089" wrote:
"Karon;c-16627654" wrote:
"Cinebar;c-16626986" wrote:
I still don't understand if SP was so great why any of you aren't playing TS3, because a 'living world' was it's motto and story progression was part of that motto. ETA: Part of The Sims I think is to protect the rotatioanl player where their other households are protected from forced situations by the game while they are away from them. I don't mean what happens or becomes true on a community lot but things like relationships, marriage, kids, divorces, education, skills, moving around or out of the world, or changing jobs. No, I would not ever want SP in TS4. Or TS2.

ETA: I play the houses and if I want it to remain empty until I bulldoze it then it stays empty. That is control of my world. I don't want the game to have more control, it has enough as it is. Why would someone like me want the game to dictate to me where Sims live and with whom, and if they are naming babies without me.

I seriously dont understand why there are so many people like you. Come on guys, wake up. The devs should provide ways for both rotational and SP players. We are paying for them, we should get what we want. Why its so difficult for them to implement an "advanced game options" with many toggles for us to customize our games. Thats what Sims is about, customizing... But the devs dont seem to respect that. They dont let us customiza our game options, they dont let us create worlds, they dont let us choose if we want certain occults or not... omg. Why?! You dont need to fight one another, we need to unite for our voices to be louder than they are right now. Lets fight for our rights to be able to play as we want.
The Sims is OUR game, not EA. We pay them to do what WE want, not them. EA is going to ruin The Sims if we dont fight for our passion!

Why haven't they provided a way for rotational players to name the baby from one of their families when they aren't playing them? That is story progression and they don't seem to be bothered this aggravates rotational players. So, where is the toggle (after four years) to turn that off? As I said no proof at all they would add a toggle and or even think of one.

ETA: Where is the toggle that turns off TS4's SP where our own Sims are having affairs with Sims the players never met? Where are those type toggles? then you guys want me to believe they would add more toggles when they haven't even added toggles for the sp that is already in the game.

One more, when TS4 was released our own Sim changed jobs when we weren't playing them. This was finally patched, they didn't supply a toggle for that either. It was not a bug but how it was built so yeah, there has been little proof in this game there would be any toggles.

Wait here is another example of SP in TS4, do any of you remember when you couldn't invite a Sim somewhere because they were at work? This was in the release of TS4. This was patched a few times to change. If you want more empty community lots because Sims are at work, or sleeping, or the closed sign has to go back up at 2:00 A.M. then go ahead ask away. But remember when you want to go on those group outings from GT, the Sims at work won't be available. Nor for a holiday or a birthday or whatever. Wait, and the hospital will have to spawn more townies (causing more culling) to fill the beds since those Sims showing up now, would supposedly be at work whether sick or not.

And thinking of a play date for your kids? No, those kids will be at school. SP isn't only making the town feel alive but way too much reality. And the number one thing you guys are ignoring..empty community lots which was a big complaint of TS3. And it wasn't because someone's machine couldn't handle more Sims but because reality is how SP works. If the town is empty then no Sims out and about and if they all have a job then of course no one would be out shopping. Or grilling.

Thats what i am trying to say. Sims 4 was created to run in mroe computers, not to be a rotational game. Thats way its so simple, and thats why it makes mistakes for the rotational players, cuz it wasnt made thinking about them. Those devs are making the game they want to play, not what WE want to play.
You can clearly see that in the community pack, they wanted to do something, but it just got far from what they wanted cuz WE were involved in it. They should do that no only for a single SP, but for all packs. I hate the EA games secrecy and it makes my game worse.
I want to be heard of what i want in the game, just like the devs only think about what they want to put in the game. I am paying them, just like every simmer is. The things we all most want is more and more customization of our games, the rest of the things should surround our love for power within the game.
karon_shiruba
7 years ago
"keekee53;c-16629786" wrote:
I don't want it but I will deal with it as long as they give us a way to turn Story progression OFF. As a rotational player, I still feel like our playstyle is an afterthought and it is frustrating. I didn't enjoy Sims 3 for this reason. I still have to learn a whole caste system in a mod just to somewhat get rotational play out of Sims 3.

Seasons bothers me as a rotational player. I had to once again figure out a rotational plan because they did not accommodate rotational players. I was playing on a seven day rotation and then moved on to the next house. Now I have to play 28 Sim days so each of my families can enjoy all of the holidays. I have to age them seven days and remember to turn it off so they are not aging too far from the the rest of the sims in the world. There should have been a way to pause the seasons, have repeating holidays each week during paused seasons, etc.

I have a tip for you. Create a random sim that you are never going to play, put him/her in a house and use the cheat to max its handiness skill, buy the "Dr. June's Weather Control Device". Upgrade ithe "Temporal Modifier Unit (Level 8)" and that allows you to use the machine to change to any season. Everytime you finish a week playing with a family, go to that sim house and make them use the machine to set the right season.
Cinebar
7 years ago
"Karon;c-16629947" wrote:
"keekee53;c-16629786" wrote:
I don't want it but I will deal with it as long as they give us a way to turn Story progression OFF. As a rotational player, I still feel like our playstyle is an afterthought and it is frustrating. I didn't enjoy Sims 3 for this reason. I still have to learn a whole caste system in a mod just to somewhat get rotational play out of Sims 3.

Seasons bothers me as a rotational player. I had to once again figure out a rotational plan because they did not accommodate rotational players. I was playing on a seven day rotation and then moved on to the next house. Now I have to play 28 Sim days so each of my families can enjoy all of the holidays. I have to age them seven days and remember to turn it off so they are not aging too far from the the rest of the sims in the world. There should have been a way to pause the seasons, have repeating holidays each week during paused seasons, etc.

I have a tip for you. Create a random sim that you are never going to play, put him/her in a house and use the cheat to max its handiness skill, buy the "Dr. June's Weather Control Device". Upgrade ithe "Temporal Modifier Unit (Level 8)" and that allows you to use the machine to change to any season. Everytime you finish a week playing with a family, go to that sim house and make them use the machine to set the right season.

That sounds like the old Mork and Mindy show where Mork was having to pop in and out of places to fix things. :o :p
SilentK008
Seasoned Newcomer
7 years ago
I love the game as it is now and I play rotational with the entire town.

If it is mandatory or harshly implemented it would mean goodbye internet and gallery. I am not joking.

I if can decide which households, mark them with S or something, then it could be a tool for me.

Still, that would be one scary scary update. Can see myself going offline for a few patches just to see how it works in rl via the forum and twitter before letting it close to my game. After the the crazy-relationship-culling-phase there were months during which I kept my own computer and saves offline while playing. I had installed a mod that fixed it and didn’t want to break it again. New patches would be tested on my husband’s computer. It took me a long long time to start using internet and the gallery again.

Story progression could be a useful tool or it could render the game unplayable, it all the depends on how it is implemented and how much control I have over it.
Cynna1065
7 years ago
"agent_bev;c-16617436" wrote:

What would makes sense is a built-in story progression builder. You just choose from a scale of 0-5 in the options, 0 being nothing is happening in the other households.

3 would be like, ok, sims would get married and have kids and get jobs and maybe they could die from old age etc but nothing negative- they would never cheat, never get divorced, never quit their jobs (but also never get promoted beyond what the game assigns them unless you play them).

5 is the freaking wild west- your sims could get abducted by aliens or bitten by vampires, your sims could die from walking in the snow, your sims could get married and divorced and cheat with everyone and impregnant dozens of sims randomly, they could buy a business without prompt, they can move houses, everything is fair game.

The mods should be there for controlling what happens (like oh I’m not playing the Goths but I want Mortimer to divorce Bella), not adding a feature that I think should have been already in the game

Since we can't have an Nraas/Awesome mod/MCCC type menu of toggles, your idea is a great compromise.

My personal choice would be a definite 4. ;)
LatinaBunny
New Spectator
7 years ago
"SilentKitty;c-16632031" wrote:
I love the game as it is now and I play rotational with the entire town.

If it is mandatory or harshly implemented it would mean goodbye internet and gallery. I am not joking.

I if can decide which households, mark them with S or something, then it could be a tool for me.

Still, that would be one scary scary update. Can see myself going offline for a few patches just to see how it works in rl via the forum and twitter before letting it close to my game. After the the crazy-relationship-culling-phase there were months during which I kept my own computer and saves offline while playing. I had installed a mod that fixed it and didn’t want to break it again. New patches would be tested on my husband’s computer. It took me a long long time to start using internet and the gallery again.

Story progression could be a useful tool or it could render the game unplayable, it all the depends on how it is implemented and how much control I have over it.

Yeah, I don’t trust the team to do 100% SP now. There was the lack of tuning for alien invasions, vampire break ins, putting in random lovebirds, having some Sims change to different jobs randomly (though this may have gotten patched sometime ago), and the early infamous culling issues.

We still can’t get simple stuff like color wheels or lounge chairs, so I’m wondering if they would do bits of SP, but not full-on SP. I thought I heard somewhere that some toggles causes saves to break or something? Is that true?

But, yeah, they need to do this really good and provide options if they continue to add SP-like stuff.

The moment they force it upon us with no options is the day I feel betrayed and I would refuse to buy any more content. Hopefully, there would be enough of us rotational players to be a loud vocal group to complain in an uproar (like with the toddlers) if they go this unfair route.

I really doubt they would do this to us, but you never know. They’re only human, and they’ve made some major mistakes before.