From the patch notes:"We have tidied up the Game Options menu a little by removing the Fill In Empty Lots option. This particular option has been superseded with Neighborhood Stories and the “Move In” functionality."I have to disagree with this change. I like the game option to block rando sims from taking all the good lots that are left open intentionally. Also, the Move In option through neighborhood stories made me think that sims would be moving into existing households not taking empty lots I may be saving. In do want sims to be able to move into existing households but I do not want them filling empty lots. It would be nice to be able to fine tune this.

I could do that but I don't want to, I want the lots to stay empty. Randos can move in on the Landgrabs. ;D

@Catzilla I haven't updated the game yet as I am too busy with work to even play, but I wondered about that when I saw the patch notes and was hoping that would not be the case. I too do not like random townies filling in the empty houses and always had it off. I want to choose who lives in the world and who doesn't.@chocolatefrosting I understand what you are saying, but I don't want to spend what little time that I have to play my game on just deleting random townies from households every 5 minutes. I wish they would stop removing/nerfing things in the game that were options. :'(

I have Neighborhood Stories turned completely off, and I also didn't allow random sims to move in before it came along, so the new change won't affect me personally. However, in case some of you are unaware, one thing you could do to take a bit more control over the housing situation is to go into build mode and set the number of beds to 0 on houses that you want to reserve for your played sims. You don't have to actually take beds out, but setting it to zero tells the game "There are no beds here," and it won't move sims into those particular houses. I used to use this method when I did allow move-ins for a little while when I first started playing. But later I stopped allowing move-ins at all because I'm absolutely greedy about my houses. ;)

But why take the option away? The neighborhood stories may move Sims around that were already in the world, but the "fill empty lots" setting prevented the game from automatically moving "Not in World Sims" and newly generated townies from moving into to empty houses. By a conservative estimate including every pack and new crest, that is approximately 117 empty lots and apartments to alter, every time you start your game, rather than a setting in the options that was able to be selected from the beginning.@VeeDub, I simply don't have several hours to do "clean-up" just to have some down time and play. I have very limited time as I work 7 days a week and only have a couple of hours to play during that time.As I said in my other post, I just wish they would stop removing/ or nerfing features that were in the game or came with packs.

I had fill empty lots off but then they gave us the new neighborhood stories and I erroneously thought it was a setting that meant move in/out of existing lots (which I thought would be fun and entertaining) and not fill all the empty houses that I had already toggled off. What I'd like is to have is an alternative to all off or all lots get filled. BTW, Fill Empty Lots On/Off was very specific and clear what it's function was, the neighborhood stories Move IN/Out is not if you're looking to keep the randos from moving into all the good lots you're trying to save for later.

Fill Empty Lots Change | EA Forums

gizzinator1
3 years ago
"VeeDub;c-18102806" wrote:
"DesertSimmer1971;c-18102731" wrote:
@DaWaterRat that still does not stop random sims from moving into the houses even if you turn the neighborhood stories off completely. So it makes no sense why they removed the fill empty lots option

I have Neighborhood Stories turned off completely and no random sims have ever moved into houses in my game. The instructions given by @DaWaterRat would do the exactly same thing because you'd be turning that part OFF if you do use some parts of NS.

What mods and settings are you also using. Vanilla games without the unchecking the fill empty lots would fill up with random sims would take every empty house in the game.
DaWaterRat
New Vanguard
3 years ago
"DesertSimmer1971;c-18102878" wrote:
"VeeDub;c-18102806" wrote:
"DesertSimmer1971;c-18102731" wrote:
@DaWaterRat that still does not stop random sims from moving into the houses even if you turn the neighborhood stories off completely. So it makes no sense why they removed the fill empty lots option

I have Neighborhood Stories turned off completely and no random sims have ever moved into houses in my game. The instructions given by @DaWaterRat would do the exactly same thing because you'd be turning that part OFF if you do use some parts of NS.

What mods and settings are you also using. Vanilla games without the unchecking the fill empty lots would fill up with random sims would take every empty house in the game.

That's just it. it was always technically an "opt in" rather than an "opt out" (even if effectively it was an opt out). The box had to be checked. Yes, it came checked, but the "zero" setting is off, not on. With the box removed, the setting is zero, not one. Off, not on.

Think of it this way. The option to turn it off is still there, they just moved it to the Unplayed Households tab of Manage households, and added a bunch of other options.
VWoodsong
Seasoned Observer
3 years ago
"DesertSimmer1971;c-18102878" wrote:
"VeeDub;c-18102806" wrote:
"DesertSimmer1971;c-18102731" wrote:
@DaWaterRat that still does not stop random sims from moving into the houses even if you turn the neighborhood stories off completely. So it makes no sense why they removed the fill empty lots option

I have Neighborhood Stories turned off completely and no random sims have ever moved into houses in my game. The instructions given by @DaWaterRat would do the exactly same thing because you'd be turning that part OFF if you do use some parts of NS.

What mods and settings are you also using. Vanilla games without the unchecking the fill empty lots would fill up with random sims would take every empty house in the game.

Before Neighborhood Stories came along I had the "fill empty lots" option turned off, so I never had to deal with random sims moving in anywhere. After Neighborhood Stories came along I didn't change any of my other settings, but I did use some mods to turn off the phone calls (those had nothing to do with move-ins; I just didn't want the calls).

After NS was updated to include many more settings and options I turned the whole thing off because I have no interest in any of them being enabled in my game. When the update came in which the old "fill empty lots" option was then removed because it was taken over by NS, I didn't change anything I was doing before, and I still have no random sims moving in (which is as I want it to be).

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