Story Mode
pbox:
Quote from: Motoki on 2009 July 14, 20:19:54
Well that's just it, I feel like I shouldn't have to make things happen for gossip. It should be things going on in the neighborhood in families other than mine.
I understand what you mean, but honestly I believe that's how it already works, in fact -- I know for sure that the one death my sims were gossiping about (I've had only one, so far) was a death I didn't witness -- i.e. it happened in a household that was not the active one at the time.
That said, I can understand it is boring for you when gossip is so dominated by one topic, as you describe. It could surely use some way of tweaking. (I've never looked for any gossip-related XMLs though -- perhaps it is already tweakable?)
Motoki:
Quote from: pbox on 2009 July 14, 20:26:34
I understand what you mean, but honestly I believe that's how it already works, in fact -- I know for sure that the one death my sims were gossiping about (I've had only one, so far) was a death I didn't witness -- i.e. it happened in a household that was not the active one at the time.
That said, I can understand it is boring for you when gossip is so dominated by one topic, as you describe. It could surely use some way of tweaking. (I've never looked for any gossip-related XMLs though -- perhaps it is already tweakable?)
I guess I feel like forcing the gossip to vary its responses is sort of like attacking the symptom rather than the cause, but I'm looking at it from the perspective of the story mode and what's going on in the town. So to me if they keep gossiping about the same type of event happening to various different sims then it makes me wonder why that is happening so much. I makes me think something is out of balance with the neighborhood.
ForkInToaster:
There are some things on modthesims I didn't mention on the Indie Stone thread, because they are less about how the mod works and more about my personal tastes vs. the creators. But here are some of my observations from it.
I ran in wolfing mode and kept the camera on the central park in the city. I figured out really quickly how Indie Stone worked by doing this. The first thing I noticed was that I saw two sims talking to each other near the swingset, and then one vanished and the other sim walked off. I got some random message that a sim had an untimely death. It was a bit creepy and funny at the same time. Less funny but more common, I remember watching a sim sit at a picnic basket in the park and while she was eating and seemingly minding her own business, she got married and concieved a baby! This happened a quite frequently.
Even though the events are forced by the game, you could see the results in towns, townies were randomly walking around with their buddies and making out with each other. While their relationships were artificially constructed, the behavior resulting from the construction was real. That was my favorite part of the mod. It was great to look around town and see the townies behaving like people and interracting in somewhat realistic ways. It really did put a certain something in the neighborhood that wasn't there before.
And yes, three or four times I saw pregnant sims going into labor in town. Once was in the library and I got to hear the horribly annoying screeches that children make when they see labor. (Seriously, they sound like they are getting disemboweled while alive. It's really annoying) This leads into some of my gripes about Indie Stone.
I hate the baby generating madness. Even with his tweaks to calm it down, it seemed odd that the sims would constantly be getting pregnant and making babies all the time. I got a zerg swarm at the school within 2 sim weeks. It gives my game sort of a fundamentalist religious flavor that I don't like.
I don't like that there is a town floozie but no manwhore equivelent. Also don't like that it seems to be pretty rigid about making straight couples -- I've read reports that people said it broke up gay couples and put them into straight relationships. I am not sure of the details about that, but if it's what people have been describing, it gets a thumbs down from me.
Still, I like the idea of rolls being assigned and sims and "helping" the engine make a story, but the samples of text I've read are kind of cheesy. I never actually produced a floozie or a geek or whatever, but I read the samples of their interractions on line. It needed to be much shorter and less "whiny" -- especially the flavor text about a woman who became single and she was all forlorn and alone. Pul-eez. I know it was just flavor text, but I didn't like the flavor.
ingeli:
I agree on the philosophy of Pescado regarding this - sim driven story lines are better than "story driven" sims. Will be very interesting to see what comes out of it.
Motoki:
Quote from: kewpie on 2009 July 14, 22:19:33
There are some things on modthesims I didn't mention on the Indie Stone thread, because they are less about how the mod works and more about my personal tastes vs. the creators. But here are some of my observations from it.
I ran in wolfing mode and kept the camera on the central park in the city. I figured out really quickly how Indie Stone worked by doing this. The first thing I noticed was that I saw two sims talking to each other near the swingset, and then one vanished and the other sim walked off. I got some random message that a sim had an untimely death. It was a bit creepy and funny at the same time. Less funny but more common, I remember watching a sim sit at a picnic basket in the park and while she was eating and seemingly minding her own business, she got married and concieved a baby! This happened a quite frequently.
Hmm, that kind of stuff should really be staying behind the curtain. There should be a check to make sure it is not happening while said sim is being observed.
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Even though the events are forced by the game, you could see the results in towns, townies were randomly walking around with their buddies and making out with each other. While their relationships were artificially constructed, the behavior resulting from the construction was real. That was my favorite part of the mod. It was great to look around town and see the townies behaving like people and interracting in somewhat realistic ways. It really did put a certain something in the neighborhood that wasn't there before.
Yeah, I mean it's not perfect but it's still interaction and change rather than stagnation and stasis. I don't think this game is ever going to be a proper, realistic neighborhood simulator so I think some shortcuts are fine as long as they aren't too blatantly obvious like conceptions while picnicking. :D
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And yes, three or four times I saw pregnant sims going into labor in town. Once was in the library and I got to hear the horribly annoying screeches that children make when they see labor. (Seriously, they sound like they are getting disemboweled while alive. It's really annoying) This leads into some of my gripes about Indie Stone.
I've seen this happen even without Indie. At least I think it was when I wasn't running Indie that it happened a couple of times. As a side note, if you take the pregnant sim dropping her kid to the hospital you'll get a big moodlet bonus for a whole day. ;)
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I don't like that there is a town floozie but no manwhore equivelent. Also don't like that it seems to be pretty rigid about making straight couples -- I've read reports that people said it broke up gay couples and put them into straight relationships. I am not sure of the details about that, but if it's what people have been describing, it gets a thumbs down from me.
Agreed on both counts. If you play Riverview then you have Don Lothario in your town and we all know about him! Actually, Indie paired him off with another sim in my game, he took her last name (this was before they made an option selectable to always choose the man's last name. woman's last name or just random) and had them have a kid. I feel like it doesn't really look at certain traits either like a sim's commitment or baby issue traits or a sim's past history of having interacted romantically with the same sex.
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Still, I like the idea of rolls being assigned and sims and "helping" the engine make a story, but the samples of text I've read are kind of cheesy. I never actually produced a floozie or a geek or whatever, but I read the samples of their interactions on line. It needed to be much shorter and less "whiny" -- especially the flavor text about a woman who became single and she was all forlorn and alone. Pul-eez. I know it was just flavor text, but I didn't like the flavor.
Yep, again, It's perfect but to me it's preferable than a completely broken system or a super harsh survivalist no cheating and no soup for you system where everyone ends up a grumpy single elder and the only population expansion going on is in the cemetery. :P
Quote from: ingeli on 2009 July 14, 22:29:51
I agree on the philosophy of Pescado regarding this - sim driven story lines are better than "story driven" sims. Will be very interesting to see what comes out of it.
It sounds good in theory. I am curious to see if he can make it work in a reasonable fashion that will keep the neighborhood turnover going pretty well without a lot of player interaction behind the scenes with cheat codes and making other households temporarily selectable and other hoops to jump though like that.
Part of me feels like expecting this game to make the AI controlled residents behave in anything resembling a realistic and harmonious fashion is fighting an uphill battle, but I'm open to see what Pes has in mind. He's pulled off some pretty complex stuff before.
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