I cannot be the only person with this opinion:The Sims has always been a series where you are supposed to build your idea of a perfect neighborhood with your unique sims. Doesn't the neighborhood stories update ruin this? I among many people agree that, like in TS3, there should be the option to disable neighborhood stories. Imagine you, like many players, have spent countless hours raising sims' skills, relationships, careers, essentially making them perfect in your view. And then, an autonomy update comes along. Now Sim You is calling up your active household members, of which they barely know, asking if they should have a baby or quit their career they've worked so hard for.Would you let your neighbor make these insane life choices for you? No. Obviously not. So why is there no toggle off for this mode? I firmly believe that this was a huge mistake on behalf of EA. I would like to hear the opinions of this community; tell me what you think of this update.

I love it, made my gameplay and phone calls more interesting, but then I can’t relate to others who have gotten so many strange calls tbh and I only got from Sims my Sims are friendly with so it just feels like my Sims personally chatting on the phone. The off switch to my mind is to just click no on the options it’s really not a big deal for me I’m hanging up on Bess and turning down festival invites all the time, but maybe in future there will come an off switch in the settings, besides the phone silencer. I don’t really see it like they are asking the Sim to make the decisions, but also asking me as the player, so I like it because I play rotationally and I get to change things without switching houses, like build friendships. Maybe they should make it so that only good friends / best friends ask certain types of questions, like career/pregnancy questions and they should limit ages so adults don’t ask teen Sims etc. and certainly toddlers shouldn’t be using the phone at all. I think there are many things they can do to improve it, like add an answering machine, add more questions like have a friend call saying they found a stray kitten or puppy and do you want to adopt it, or offer donated items like do you want this teapot I’m cleaning my kitchen, fun stuff like that, but I really like it so far.

I agree that players should have options, which ideally includes turning neighborhood stories off completely without mods. So hopefully they'll add that in the future, but I also think the addition of this sort of gameplay is a welcomed change and not a mistake. I haven't played much since the update, but my Sims haven't gotten any calls from neighbors at all. I had one odd interaction between Sims in my household that seemed like it came with the update, but the interaction was cute and funny. I don't want an answering machine, because I don't think the data from missed calls is particularly important and would rather the game not keep track of that for a ton of Sims.

If you are not opposed to using mods then Bienchen has a mod that allows you to disable it. I just downloaded it to fix issues with the calls not making sense and I noticed it includes the options to disable it.

I like it. I only have one main household so I'm not too concerned with what happens to the rest of the neighborhood.

The return of Story Progression, or some version thereof, was highly requested by many players from the beginning. Regardless, I was always against it, out of fear that it might mess up the sim world I've spent years carefully creating. So when the Neighbourhood Stories feature was introduced, I did have my doubts.After playing with it for a while, though, I have to say I find it rather unintrusive and easy to manage. Neighbours will only call after you've socialised with them, and even then, only once until you meet with them again. If you don't like the life changes they're proposing, you can just say no, and in my experience, they will always heed your advice. One sim even turned down his "dream job" after I told him to, because... I gave you the job you already have because that is your dream job, who are you to disagree with my decisions, you puny little pixel person??However, if they're planning on extending this feature to make it more complex and less avoidable in the future, I hope an OFF button will eventually be introduced. As it is now, I don't have a problem with it.

Sims 4 Neighborhood Stories: A Mistake From EA?

fufufluke
3 years ago
Well, when will the next neighborhood story get an update?
CAPTAIN_NXR7
Seasoned Veteran
3 years ago
SIMS 4 NEIGHBORHOOD STORIES: A MISTAKE FROM EA?

It would be a “mistake” if EA didn’t even try to implement something that has been requested by so many players.

I haven’t been able to dedicate much time to my live mode adventures so I can’t say anything about it.
Some people say the calls are too frequent, others say they are not frequent at all. What can you say?

The fact that the neighborhood stories on/off button hasn’t been added yet might just be because EA wants to learn how players react to these calls and what answers they choose. Right now it’s forced, so you have to choose, even if it’s by opting out during the phone call. I dunno. I’m just blabbering.

Personally I would prefer a toggle per save though. Neighbourhood stories would suit some of my saves, but not most.
I have many “phones don’t exist here” saves which makes me a “get that phone out of my face” kinda guy. Write it on a piece of parchment and send a messenger for crying out loud.

“A baby? Why even ask such a foolish question?! Babies are banned in my Kingdom! Off with your head! NEXT!”
EmmaVane
Seasoned Veteran
3 years ago
"Mstybl95;c-18025039" wrote:
I find this system annoying as all heck and I've completely shelved sims 4 now. The previous phone calls were enough to drive me bonkers, but add in this random mess and none of it has anything to do with what is happening in my actual game.

I dunno...in a game where you play how you want and there's no "story" to it, the made up nonsense is just distracting and unnecessary. So for me, I hate this new system because every single character in my game is my own and all have their own lives going on that I created and am very aware of. This just adds garbage in a pile and ruins what I have going on in my world. I'm happy for those who want it, but now I don't have a game to play.

I wish EA would put out tools that the community can use to personalize their games. I'd love a world builder, to make my own whims to make a government system, to create community events, etc.

Government systems are somewhat in game with NAPs, IL Environmental Manager career (setting laws etc) and CL Politics career.
Barracudasuv
3 years ago
I was not happy when I first heard about this, but I feel a bit better after reading some of the comments here. I haven't played Sims since it was first implemented, because all of the housed Sims in my main game save are part of my rotational play. There are hundreds of them and I was afraid that it would break all my relationships and stuff that I have spent so much time building.
I'm going to give it a try, now and see for myself. I have a saved game that I use primarily to test stuff out with, so I'm going to play that for a while and see how it goes. Hopefully, I can get back to playing my main save as well.
Lonewolf1044
Seasoned Spectator
3 years ago
Promises can be broken and EA/Maxis broken promises quite a few times. They are releasing options in parts now instead of doing it at one time, I will not hold my breath.
LiELF
Seasoned Veteran
3 years ago
Keep in mind that Neighborhood Stories is not supposed to be the same thing as TS3 Story Progression. The devs have explained that in TS3, Story Progression was one giant system so deeply integrated into the game that it was an " all or nothing" approach but the "all" still wasn't "all". Turning it off was still limited and left certain things running.

With NS, they are doing segments so that there will be multiple toggles (as I understand it) so that players can better customize it to their own games. This recent patch was more preliminary and I suspect, something of a minor test run. They will most likely be tweaking it as they go.

I'd recommend to keep leaving feedback regarding what we like and don't like and what works and doesn't because this is going to be a process, and not a simple one.
LiELF
Seasoned Veteran
3 years ago
"NorthDakotaGamer;c-18030317" wrote:
@LiELF my fear is that the "neighborhood stories" feature is done with interrupting phone calls. That seems to be their "go-to" for everything. I want ZERO phone calls. So unless they can make it happen without having other sims call my family it is not a good feature whatsoever.

I understand. I've always wanted a way to turn off the phone completely to get no calls and no texts at all. I still want to be able to do that. It's always been rather intrusive. Oddly enough, I've found that since this first installation of Neighborhood Stories, I've been getting fewer calls in general and mostly from Sims that my own Sim knows and has some sort of friendship with. I don't think that's the case for everyone, though.
VWoodsong
Seasoned Observer
3 years ago
Now that I've updated my game, my opinions on this feature may actually be relevant. I don't mind phone calls in general because I often get a lot of emergent gameplay from them, which can sometimes translate into interesting story elements. But I didn't want Neighborhood Stories in my game at all because its core concept simply does not work well within my own creative process. Thankfully Bienchen made a mod that allows me to turn it off in its entirety, so I finally updated the game. That's just how much I do not want this feature in my game.

That said, I still think the mistake wasn't the concept itself but was releasing the feature before it felt finished. It's hard to tell if their promised future ways of giving players more control will be complete enough for everyone, and I can't help wondering if they also made a mistake in assuming that people would be ok with that.
ncisGibbs_BOSS
3 years ago
"Elliandre;c-18024517" wrote:
I think there are many things they can do to improve it, like add an answering machine, add more questions like have a friend call saying they found a stray kitten or puppy and do you want to adopt it, or offer donated items like do you want this teapot I’m cleaning my kitchen, fun stuff like that, but I really like it so far.

As there’s still a mailbox, how about Sims getting the odd letter from neighbours. I don’t understand why it’s all by phone. Even an email would be a nice change.
I’ve been playing Sims 2 over the holidays and Sims automatically checked for new emails.

I’d love stray pets to be added to the choices! ??.

So far the calls haven’t been spammy but this is only stage 1. What happens when it’s all Sims you have not just known neighbours ??‍♂️?.
Chicklet45368
Rising Traveler
3 years ago
"VeeDub;c-18030482" wrote:
Now that I've updated my game, my opinions on this feature may actually be relevant. I don't mind phone calls in general because I often get a lot of emergent gameplay from them, which can sometimes translate into interesting story elements. But I didn't want Neighborhood Stories in my game at all because its core concept simply does not work well within my own creative process. Thankfully Bienchen made a mod that allows me to turn it off in its entirety, so I finally updated the game. That's just how much I do not want this feature in my game.

That said, I still think the mistake wasn't the concept itself but was releasing the feature before it felt finished. It's hard to tell if their promised future ways of giving players more control will be complete enough for everyone, and I can't help wondering if they also made a mistake in assuming that people would be ok with that.

I too waited to update my game and only did it last week after I read @83bienchen created a mod to shut it completely off.

I'm always ok with more options available to players to customize their game how they want, but by releasing this WITHOUT any way to shut it off for those of us who never wanted it or would never use, is what I have an issue with because I do NOT trust the devs to ever provide that option for us even tho they stated it would be more customizable later.