Before I begin, I think maybe I need to give a better explanation of what Story Mode is than I have thusfar, since that helps explain some of the stuff I do and talk about. If you don't care, feel free to skip down to the first pic.
In the first two Sims games, time worked a certain way. While you were playing family A, families B, C, D, and so on would be frozen in time. They would not age and no major events would happen to them unless you invited them to your place or hung out with them in public and initiated or witnessed them yourself. This was great if you played multiple families, because it allowed you to pick up where you left off. It wasn't terribly realistic, though.
In this game, things DO happen to families that you don't play. They age, they get married, they have babies, they get jobs, and generally carry on life without your personal input. The game, of course, needs some sort of programming to help it figure out exactly WHAT is going on with these Sims while you aren't looking at them. This is called Story Mode, or the Story Engine, or Story Progression, or the Story Driver, or even just the Story.
As is often the case, gamers weren't happy with the story driver that came with the game. Modders have put lots of effort into making a driver that does a better job of making rational decisions rather than choosing events randomly. I've gone through a few of those in this legacy alone.
I have one now that I like, and that's what we're looking at every time I give you a screenshot of some popup telling us what's going on with Sims I haven't been playing. That's my story driver updating me on the goings-on in town. Mostly it's only set to tell me about friends and relatives, but there are certain exceptions. I like to know about marriages and divorces and births because I like to keep track of potential spouses for my Sims. There are also four Town Personalities with my particular mod (town Casanova, town bike, town thug, and town loon) that I like to get updates on just because. The update about the random chick who was talking to herself in the last chapter was the town bike. (I really hate that term, by the way. I guess my preference for "town whore" isn't all that much nicer, though.)
I think that covers it.
Now it's time for me to struggle to remember what these pictures I took oh so long ago were of!
The game has assigned some silly task or other to Andrea, as it does, and she needs to get into this building to complete it. She's having a hard time, though, because this doof died over here and now his ghost is blocking the doorway.
Fortunately one of my mods allows me to clear away ghosts. I shoo him with glee.
Well... this is Alastair. I guess he aged to a toddler and that's why I took this? We'll go with that.
Onil is a spaz and he has broken the dishwasher. Thanks, Onil.
Andrea, who is pregnant again, is about to give birth! She is more concerned about the dishwasher than the child pushing its way out of her body. She has two kids already and one phantom child that she gave birth to in an alternate reality. She is not at all interested.
BOG is losing his shit, though.
Welcoming Spare #2 and Son #3, Rambo Bumblefudge!
Not only did the birth interrupt Andrea's dinner, it also came around bedtime. Poor Andrea is exhausted, starving, and stinky, and the dishwasher is STILL broken. The idiot in the yellow shirt on the doorstep is a babysitter, but for some reason the NPCs are going through a phase where they refuse to enter the house.
It's really awesome in situations like this one where you have two babies who are crying and mom is exhausted and everybody else in the house either need to go to work or school or are wurwolf. Really awesome.
Fortunately the same hack that let me clear out that ghost from earlier let me cheat lightly to keep the babies needs in check. I don't consider it to be too awful, because if that dumb babysitter were working properly, he'd have been doing it.
It's Hero's birthday! Again, the clothing chooser picks silly clothing. I take a swing at it.
Very nice! And now you have to leave.
The moving process was a little scary this time. I didn't have enough money to get Hero a home, so I just clicked on "kick out" and hoped the story driver would find him a home. I'm nervous about it, though. I have grown to really like Hero, and I want him to have a good life. I don't want him to get caught in one of the sweeps that the driver occasionally conducts (it likes to throw homeless Sims out of town).
I'd be happy to let Hero stick around a while, but this house is way too crowded. This game just drags when there are too many Sims in the house.
Here he comes, ready to walk into a new life.
I expect him to grab a cab, but instead he just walks off the edge of my screen.
By the time I can get my camera turned around to follow him, he's gone.
Bye Hero. Good luck.
Onil and Alastair are both playing blocks, but not together. Onil needs to quit that, though, and have his birthday.
And, like a little bitch, he goes and hides behind the table to do it. Dick.
Onil is a funny guy.
A funny guy with Fabio hair. Time to send him for the traditional birthday makeover.
Pout for the camera, Onil! Yes! Just like that! I like it!
Yeah, it's girl hair. I like how some of the girliest hairs you can download are enabled for both genders, so you can make a town full of beautiful, beautiful men.
Yes, I'm leaving it this way. What's wurwolf gonna do about it? Read this and tell me to change it? HA HA HA HA HA!!!
This maid is not the picture of professionalism.
Sim tongues gross me out. Keep your tongues inside your little pudding heads, people!
I'll leave you with this beautiful scene of family togetherness.See you next time!
Take care.
3 comments:
Maybe Hero never existed. Maybe his family invented him to cope with some trauma they never dealt with properly. Maybe it was all imagined.
I don't like the other families going on without supervision. I'm a big old control freak. I must rule over my Sims (2 version) with an iron fist.
It isn't bad if you only play one family at a time, so the rest of the people in town are just random townies you don't care about anyway. It is also nice to be able to send Spares you don't care about off into the world and know that the game will take care of them so you don't have to babysit.
If you like switching back and forth between multiple families, though, it can make things rough. You can get back to a family you haven't visited for a while and find extra babies around, or that your once young Sims are old or dead, or that they lost their jobs... stuff like that. The game has even been known to make families move out of town so you never see them again. Some people are ok with that. Lots aren't. I would only be ok with that if the game played my Sims in a sane non-random way. It doesn't, though, and that's why there are Story hacks. I like the one I've been using because it is so highly customizable.
There are also mods that let you protect certain families from the Story (basically turning it off for them) or to reinstate Sims 2 style aging (kind of turning off the Story altogether). These wouldn't be practical for the legacy I'm running here, so I haven't tried them.
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