Story Mode
Mandapotpie:
Quote from: tallinn on 2009 July 15, 14:38:21
I really love the way the awesome-mod allows me to play more then one household, but frankly speaking: its storymode "improvements" are not improvements, they are just removing the rather unsophisticated solutions to certain problems EA has built into the game.
Pescado has said before that he hasn't had time to really improve story mode yet, just remove all the stupid stuff from it. Have patience and we will see an New and Improved Story Mode from him in the future
tallinn:
Thanks for the answers. I did not know of the efforts already taken place to achieve compability between the two mods, and got the wrong impression from the MTS site that Indie is happily taken code from Pescado. It would be very nice to see the two mods getting compatible. I apologize for causing the impression that I want to criticize Pescado. That was not my intent. The initial statement starting the thread made me think that Pescado did not like the Indiemod and would not bother about people who want to play with both. As that is obviously not the case I will just wait until things have been sorted out.
The other point I made is about Pescados ideas being "ambitious". I am still thinking that Pescados project has a high risk to fail. If I understand his ideas correctly, Pescados story mode implementation will be some sort of the good old life game, where the overall structure developing is determined by the micro behaviour of the single elements. From that game we know that obtaining a somewhat stable situation over generations is a good piece of luck. You can have all sorts of developments from a fast-dying-out population over a locally or overall cyclic population to an exploding one. For the purpose of the game only the stable populations would make sense IMHO. Of course one can fix odd developments by moving families in and out of the neighborhood whenever there is a need for that. But that is what the EA code does, and people don't seem to like it. There is a lot of ranting about "where are my families?" in the sim forum I normally read. And as the families the players want to stay in the neighbourhood not only include those actually played but as well those that are friends of the families actually played, the number of families available for moving out may be very limited.
The concept to simulate the population toward a stable condition by applying statistical heuristics like the Indiemod does has the advantage that stability is built in right from the start. It is nothing you have to hope for, you can expect it.
The other problem I see is that micromanaging all sims in the neighborhood will overwhelm ordinary PCs. Although it would be nice to be able to watch initially dating sims, first kisses and all that stuff, I am more interested in having interesting sims to meet by those that I play. The Indiemod does deliver them.
Pescado, I did not understand your comment that the sims are not motivated to get jobs :-) If I start a new family one of their first wishes is always to get one. If I would have to create a concept how to micromanage sims by the PC I would follow the path created by the wishes that appear. Most often they make sense.
Enelen:
Quote from: tallinn on 2009 July 15, 17:55:34
Pescado, I did not understand your comment that the sims are not motivated to get jobs :-) If I start a new family one of their first wishes is always to get one. If I would have to create a concept how to micromanage sims by the PC I would follow the path created by the wishes that appear. Most often they make sense.
That might be a good idea in my opinion. I just noticed it, too, that their wishes seem to make sense in TS3. For example, the sim I was just playing got an order to befriend another sim, and poof, he has a wish to befriend her. Then he gets a promotion, and he instantly gets a wish to befriend the boss. He needs a skill for promotion, there's a wish to improve it (or buy an object that lets him improve it). I was like :o This is very different from TS2 where they always got a wish to improve a skill you just improved instead of something they needed. Too bad it only works for the selected household...
ForkInToaster:
I was thinking the other day about the storymode difficulties and trying to think of "bottom up" instead of top-down solutions. I hade a small spark of an idea.
By not having an open neighborhood, TS2 gave townies plenty of time to build social lives with each other. When you loaded up a public lot, they were forced out of the woodwork into wherever you were. If you didn't socialize with them, they would socialize with each other. Eventually, they would form friendships or make enemies based on their social interractions. Sometimes this would create a little drama -- I remember in my games Benjamin Long and Marissa would always have a slap fest and frequently saw Goopy getting the stuffing kicked out of him by several different female sims. Whenever I'd marry a townie into my family, they'd always come with several friends of various different levels. It wasn't much of a story, but the sims were interracting with each other in such a way that I think some people would like the townies in TS3 to interract.
Unfortunately in TS3 there is too much space for the townies and they are pretty much forced to hide in their houses when you're not out in public. Maybe there could be some sort of beacon-like item you could drop in certain public places. When the beacon was on, non-active-household sims and townies would be encouraged to congregate in an area with a beacon whether or not there were active playing sims there. (Loner sims would have a stronger resistance to the beacon than others, of course) Once they were all together, they'd be left to socialize on their own.
With a mod similar to ACR, but toned down a bit so the sims don't all break down into constant public orgies -- they'd just be able to romantically interract with a close friend (or multiple friends, or nobody at all, depending on their traits). I think this might be a way to handle the social aspect of story mode.
I know when the town is more crowded, that they will end up congregating in places on their own, but they still don't do it enough to really develop friendships and when you destroyallhumans, they barely do it at all. I think a beacon that sort of forced the townies to congregate in one location if they weren't busy working, sleeping or doing whatever it is they need to do, they'd get more socially active and have more opportunities to make their own stories.
EDIT: And I think this would work even better if there was some way they could drag each other away from chess set, laptops or reading. Why is it once someone sits at a chess-table you can not interract with them in any way except to play with them? Townies should be able to break each other from the chess trance.
Motoki:
Quote from: kewpie on 2009 July 15, 19:42:41
Unfortunately in TS3 there is too much space for the townies and they are pretty much forced to hide in their houses when you're not out in public. Maybe there could be some sort of beacon-like item you could drop in certain public places. When the beacon was on, non-active-household sims and townies would be encouraged to congregate in an area with a beacon whether or not there were active playing sims there. (Loner sims would have a stronger resistance to the beacon than others, of course) Once they were all together, they'd be left to socialize on their own.
Err, the game already did this but Pescado felt it was a stalkery 'feature' and squelched it, though you can turn that off in the awesomeconfig. However even if you do they really do a piss poor job of interacting with each other when you are not interacting with them, if you ask me.
And I too also kind of miss the various feuds and slap fest dramas from TS2. ;D
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