In making The Sims 3, the question that had to be answered was this: How can The Sims 2 be improved? Aside from the desire to move a sim around the neighborhood seamlessly, which The Sims 3 corrected very well, there was an interesting problem involving aging.
Many players have had moments where a family becomes dull. In fact the day-to-day management of a household of sims is an excellent sleep-aid. This prompts the question, How can this be fixed? How can The Sims 3 avoid this dullness?
One of the answers they came up with was called Story Progression. As it turns out, it’s a mixed bag!
What Is Story Progression?
The idea behind Story Progression has to do with the town itself aging. Players that have made a household often find themselves bored with it. Perhaps they hate raising toddlers, or children. Or maybe Betty is just…boring. This is unavoidable.
Often the player leaves to play another household. But in The Sims 2 this just left boring Betty alone. She didn’t age. Nothing changed. She was frozen in time. That left her potentially young while her descendants aged and died in other households. Story Progression changes this in The Sims 3.
Now when a player leaves Betty behind in The Sims 3 she will age. When the player checks in on her again things may have changed dramatically! If they left her with a job she will have been making money without spending it. Story progression is a great way to increase cash because the sims won’t spend.
Children will age and grow up, possibly curing boredom. Also, alarmingly, Betty might suddenly have a baby! The goal of this is to surprise players and excite them, but it backfires.
Story Progression Is Bad
So, why is this bad? As many players are finding, a household left to the control of Story Progression is out of control. Betty might have a baby, but the player is not there to name it. Also, if Betty was unmarried the child will pop up out of nowhere, as if conceived in a vacuum. Who knew that Betty was able to reproduce on her own!
Also there have been horror stories by players of lost families. A player may make a family and move them in, then switch households, leaving Story Progression to automatically care for them. Then, later, the player looks for them, and can’t find them because they moved away. Yes, Story Progression does this. It moves families in and out, diversifying the neighborhood to give it a feeling of reality. The player’s family is up for grabs. Beware.
How To Turn Off Story Progression
Now for what every reader was waiting for: turning off this pesky new feature of an otherwise enjoyable, albeit confusing game. First players should find the Options menu, which is located on the lower left part of the main user interface and looks like three dots: “…”
After clicking there the player will see the screen settings part of the options menu. Navigate the tabs at the top to find the Game options menu. From there it should be easy to see the options to turn off Aging, Story progression, and the Lessons the game offers to guide players. If there is confusion, readers can look to the pictures at the bottom of this article for visual guidance.
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