A little post about my view on Story Progression, and a little dilemma i'm having!

[awacko]

Well, I think Story Progression is fantastic, I just think it's going to take a little getting used to thats all.

I made a sim called Tori Tucker. She married Stiles McGraw, and they had a son called Trey. I then switched to play with the goths and when I came back to the Tuckers, they had had two twin girls, Janie and Reagen. Now I am happy with this... except Stiles is now an elder, and Trey is a young adult.

My dilemma is... I really want to play with Trey and get him established, but I also have a great plot idea for these two twins. One got the evil trait, the other got the slob trait - randomly, as they had a "bad upbringing" when i was at the Goths :(

So if I play Trey, then by the time I want to play with the twins, they will probably be adults with hundreds of randomly assigned kids. But if I turn aging off... then Trey won't age will he, so I can't get him married and have kids and grow old...

Is there any way around this or any tips on what I should do?

I think this is a big flaw in the Sims 3, because even though a seamless neighbourhood is amazing, I don't wanna miss out on all these great opportunities for sims, unless I just stick to one child per sim.

Do you get where I am coming from? or am I not making any sense... hope I am!

Thanks in advance for your replies guys!

Alex
Xx

[tikkall]

You could keep them in the same household and play them all.

[Floraflora2]

Yes, we all know where you are coming from - the game as it is now is designed to be played in "Legacy style". Not a good news for those who like to play "Desperate houseviwes" style (several families simultaneously). :(

I'm also thinking about how to solve this (because I'm also a DH style player) but I'm sure I will. Maybe I will turn ON then OFF the Story progression very frequently, repeatedly. When I'm in the middle of a story-twist or scandal, I turn it OFF, then when I closed the actual episode and I step forward, I turn it ON... don't know yet.

[Floraflora2]

So if I play Trey, then by the time I want to play with the twins, they will probably be adults with hundreds of randomly assigned kids. But if I turn aging off... then Trey won't age will he, so I can't get him married and have kids and grow old...


Your solution for this very case is turning Aging OFF, then go to Trey (or whoever you like) and force him aging by the birthday cake. He will grow to the next life-stage, but aging will still be OFF, for all sims and for him, too. He will remain in the very first day of his life-stage.

[Erynn]

The birthday cake will age up any sim you tell it to who is on the lot. I believe including guests, though I didn't try it the option to age them does come up.
testingcheatsenabled also lets you age a sim up without aging on.

[awacko]

Thanks so much for your input but to me that doesn't really feel right. I really want them to live their lives, rather than just growing old whenever I want them to, it wouldnt seem real enough. I hope someone can release a mod to sort this, I want to play DH style too! :(

[ani_]

I'v been pondering the same thing, and this is the solution I'll most likely go with, if a town aging off/household aging on hack doesn't exist when I start having multiple households.

1. Story progression = off, + must have the maty fix for it.
2. Aging on
I currently have one household, and this will be the household where aging will always be turned on.
When ever the current household's kids move out, I'll play them, but aging will be off.

Then when i play the first household again, I'll turn aging on again. It's not foolproof, and you'll still end up with a messed up timeline, but it's the closest I'v come to solving the problem, without loosing too much.

This would best work with rotation (which I don't like to do)
1. play the original household for X days, aging on.
2. play other household for the same amount of days aging off.
so at this point, they should all be in the same aging time wrap.

[Floraflora2]

Very constructive. There must really be a solution in frequently mixing the OFFs and ONs, one after the other. I'm very optimistic we find the right mixture. (With the help of Great Modders.)