Well, a Scot was only a man, after all, under the kilts. – “You expected to see a wolf’s pelt?” he whispered.
Do you have free will on or off for your characters

Submitted by Sonia on Wed, 02/27/2008 - 12:22.
The reason why I ask is because I tend to let my Sims do as they please. sometimes their autonomous actions add a little something different to the story itself.
But on another note, do you ever force your characters to do something they don't want to, just for story purposes?
- Login to post comments

Who's online
There are currently 0 users and 0 guests online.
Recent comments
- I love that you're out there
2 years 2 weeks ago - If anyone is interessed, I
2 years 12 weeks ago - Tainted as it's been by the
3 years 15 weeks ago - So, so sorry to hear that.
3 years 15 weeks ago - To readers of this story I
3 years 18 weeks ago - It had something to do with
3 years 38 weeks ago - That sounds so fun,
3 years 38 weeks ago - Well, I did made the top
3 years 39 weeks ago - Hello Lothere,
Maybe you
3 years 39 weeks ago - Oh, man, I forgot about the
4 years 24 weeks ago
Who's new
- Stephanie
- Lady Dora
- Finn
The only time I ever have
Submitted by Lothere on Wed, 02/27/2008 - 15:44.The only time I ever have free will turned on is when I'm doing party scenes with lots of people supposedly mingling and I don't want to deal with making everyone talk to each other manually.
Sometimes it leads to craziness, however, such as at the party after Paul's wedding. Ethelwyn and Hetty were all over each other, Dunstan was swooning over Vash, Flann was pigging out on jello and flirting with Sir Sigefrith, etc.
I also have a Selective free will mod of some sort, that lets me turn off Free Will on individual Sims while leaving it on for most of them. I find that very handy.
In terms of the actual story, I don't think I could deal with the randomness so much. I already have a pretty good idea of what I want to have happening in the story when I start taking pictures. And especially since Sims do such stupid shit when you set them free, like swinging from refrigerator doors and throwing water balloons at each other.
Do I ever force my characters to do something they don't want to? That is all I ever do!
I don't even think of it in that way... my Sims are actors, and I'm the director, and I just tell them where to stand and what to do. I write their lines later.
Oh my, those pictures are
Submitted by Sonia on Wed, 02/27/2008 - 16:28.Oh my, those pictures are really something. Especially the one with Flann stuffing herself with Jello in the background.
I can understand your need to be in control, especially when there's a large crowd, or things just might go slightly awry.
Wow, talk about being extremely involved.
Thanks for that little bit of useful information.
Flann was about three months
Submitted by Lothere on Wed, 02/27/2008 - 16:34.Flann was about three months pregnant at the time so I guess we have to forgive the jello cravings.
Flirting with Sir Sigefrith over their respective jello plates, not so much. (Although if I were sitting next to Sir Sigefrith I'm not sure I could resist...)
Oh, those are GREAT. Who
Submitted by Cassie on Wed, 02/27/2008 - 17:03.Oh, those are GREAT. Who knew Hetty had it in her?
And making a pass at Shosudin, too!
Hitting on Sir Sigefrith over jello? Sounds pretty good to me.
I LOVE those pics! They are
Submitted by Verity on Thu, 02/28/2008 - 11:25.I LOVE those pics! They are so funny! I always have free will turned off too but maybe I will put it on sometimes just for fun. My sims still do annoying stuff sometimes. Like Noah and Harndall are always making that happy face and swaying from side to side with their hands clasped. It just doesn't suit them at all. It really freaks me out when they look up at me sometimes (like "Verity why are you making me do this again? I don't want to kiss that guy" that is weird... and they never do it when I actually want them to look into the sky... meh).
I think I am going to leave it off sometimes now just for fun to see what happens. I really love those pics... especially emo vash being pooey and Vash and Dunstan getting along like a house on fire
And poor Flann pigging out on jello.
OK, as long as we are on the
Submitted by Lothere on Thu, 02/28/2008 - 11:36.OK, as long as we are on the topic of Sims autonomously doing weird things even with the free will turned off, I have to ask this rather embarrassing question...
What is up with Eithne?? She has this fascination with Cian's groin. Half the time when she is done kissing him, she glances down at his waist, like "Did it work?" Or even spontaneously for no reason with this goofy grin on her face. The "chicken neck" thing was my own invention, but the pictures of Eithne looking at Cian's lower body are totally spontaneous. Like this one and this one and this one, and others I didn't take pictures of...
So, errr... has anyone else noticed this behavior?
Off, they're to
Submitted by Taryn on Thu, 02/28/2008 - 11:42.Off, they're to unpredictable with freewill. Plus, like Lothere said, having them play water balloon fights in the background of a medieval story is not quiet realistic
But during normal gameplay, where I play them just for fun, then I turn it on, otherwise its to much like hardwork making them do every little thing, like watch tv for fun etc.
Lol to the Eithne pics, maybe she's not as shy as we'd like to believe she is, he he.
Now that you mention it, I
Submitted by Lothere on Thu, 02/28/2008 - 11:48.Now that you mention it, I never had free will turned on when I played, either, way back when. I was a bit of a micro-manager, skill-leveler, money earner, etc. I worked those Sims hard. But occasionally I would discover that setting when fiddling around with the game, and I would be all, "You can do that?? Oh yeah..." So I think if I had gotten in the habit of free will I probably would have had some fun with it. Just watching romances randomly bloom would have been interesting. Still, the Sims are pretty stupid when it comes to fulfilling their own needs.
At first when I played the
Submitted by Taryn on Thu, 02/28/2008 - 12:00.At first when I played the sims, I didn't even know you could turn freewill on and off, so I'd pause whenever they were finished doing what I had commanded. It made playing the game very, very, very long
So I was like you to, always controlling them. Never really letting them have fun unless they needed it. But since, its just become to much effort to keep cancelling actions that they continuously do, so instead I let them get it out of their system. Although I'm still somewhat controlling. At one point I continously used maxMotives and had them constantly skilling inbetween work and socializing for promo's. I can't say I'm to good at the game though, if I didn't cheat they'd constantly be waving their little pixel arms at me and going into aspiration failure. I'm actually terrible at controlling them, and don't get me started on trying to keep up with all the friends they need for promo's. Darn its hard to keep that up, at one stage I tried to cheat and make them friends through boolprops sim modder, but they always ended up falling in love with one another instead. So at one stage the entire hood loved everyone, it didn't help matters when everyone started slapping everyone else and getting the 'you cheated on me' memory. Had to cancel that hood eventually because no one would speak to anyone..........would have made an interesting soapie though.
Now I cheat and change the aspirations to mostly non career based ones, its just easier
Silly sims
When I'm actually playing
Submitted by Verity on Mon, 03/03/2008 - 13:59.When I'm actually playing the sims I'm a complete control freak... like "You will pee NOW! Stop doing that.... don't talk to him... go study cooking!" poor little guys. I guess it works out something weird in my system. Otherwise maybe I would be saying similar things to my boyf. So it is probably a good thing.