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Add "Manage Neighbourhood" - Control Townie Creation, Assign Your Sim as NPC!

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TerraTerra Posts: 1,353 Member
edited July 2016 in The Sims 4 Ideas Corner
Do you ever create a neighbourhood with a certain ‘theme’, but get frustrated as the game constantly generates new townies who do not match? Maybe you are recreating a certain country, such as Japan, and want all of your Sims to have names and appearances that match. Or maybe you are playing the History Challenge and get sick of editing the inappropriate Party Outfits of every new NPC. You might like to recreate your favourite movie, book, or game universe, using only characters who exist within that world.

With the current system, the Sims 4 generates new townies at every opportunity. These Sims often have very similar body types and faces (especially female Sims) and mismatched outfits. If you don’t mod out culling, these Sims create an additional strain on your population that gets worse with every new expansion or game pack and its slew of new NPCs. (Restaurant employee applicants, I’m looking at you.) Even those of us who play with MC Command can’t fully stop the generation of inappropriate townies, and editing them every day to make them fit the theme can be tiresome.

But what if you had the option to tweak the settings that govern the generation of NPCs?

I’m proposing a setting found alongside ‘Household Management’ called ‘Neighbourhood Management’. Certain NPC roles would be ‘Core’, and the neighbourhood could not function without them. These would include jobs such as Postal Worker, Gardener, Maid, and Librarian, and for expansion packs, they could include positions such as Ranger, Bear, and Food Critic, for example.

The system would be like that in Sims Medieval - when you placed a new building, you had the option to customise your own Hero, or use one that the game randomly generated for you. In the Sims 4, when starting a new save file you could have the option to do something similar for NPC positions within your town. That way, for Simmers who are happy to have the game generate random NPCs, it would be very easy to let this system continue. This would work best as the default setting. But for those of us who want more control over who lives in our neighbourhoods, we would have the option to customise uniforms - and even to make one of our own Sims fill these roles.

How would it work to have your own Sim assigned as the Postal Worker or other NPC? It would be very easy! This would be a ‘rabbit hole’ career. It doesn’t even need to have any levels - simpler than even the Part-Time jobs for teens. Inspiration for this system could come from the Sims 2: Open for Business; if your played Sim got hired as a retail employee, they went to work from 9 to 5 with no questions asked. And when your other Sims visit the library, or have their mail delivered, you have the option of seeing a familiar face doing this work.

Do you want Cassandra Goth to work among dusty tomes in the library? Or Geoffrey Landgraab to lose everything and wind up cleaning your toilets? With this UI change, the possibilities would be endless!
Post edited by Terra on

Comments

  • TerraTerra Posts: 1,353 Member
    The original post was a little mixed up about what I mean by a 'Core' role, but here is a clearer explanation:

    Core NPCs are the NPCs who are not dependent on a venue type, but appear in your neighbourhood no matter what. These include the Postal Worker, Repairman, Maid, and Pizza delivery person. These are the NPCs I envision appearing in a 'Neighbourhood Management' menu.

    Lot-based NPCs are the NPCs who come with specific venues. I imagine that when you place a Library, you would be prompted to hire an existing Sim as a librarian, customize your own librarian, or allow the game to generate a random librarian. This would be very similar to the Hero system in Sims Medieval, with the added option of choosing a pre-existing Sim to fill the role. This goes for any type of lot - Gardeners and Fishermen for parks, Food Critics for restaurants, Rangers for national parks, Reflexologists for spas... the list goes on and on.

    Your Sim could work as a core NPC or lot-based NPC; either way, that Sim treats the NPC job as a rabbit hole career, and leaves your household from 9 to 5 every day. When you're playing another Sim, you would be able to see this Sim in action, whether coming to fix your toilet, giving your Sim a massage, or judging your culinary creations.
  • dg51829dg51829 Posts: 300 Member
    This is a really cool idea. It drives me nuts having to go through each person and set clothes. It is even worse with mod clothes. Like I'd have a sim in civil war outfit for no reason. I get so sick of so many townies being generated or why the are female or single mothers. What about single dads and couples?
  • TerraTerra Posts: 1,353 Member
    Thank you! I agree; when you download CC to meet a theme that you only use in one or two files, it is frustrating when townies come wearing it. (This happens to me with medieval dresses!) It's also frustrating when the townies generated do tend to follow those patterns you mentioned. I've noticed that whenever you try to adopt Sims, the game generates a family with a single mom family for every potential adoptee - including the one you choose to adopt! If you've tried adopting, that might be why you're having so many single moms.

    I forgot to add in the OP that a CRUCIAL aspect of this feature would be the inability to completely turn off townie generation. In some stories you want a very limited population. The problem of "Well then where do I get my NPCs?" would be solved by the above-described mechanism for choosing pre-existing Sims to fill NPC roles.
  • dg51829dg51829 Posts: 300 Member
    edited June 2016
    Terra wrote: »
    Thank you! I agree; when you download CC to meet a theme that you only use in one or two files, it is frustrating when townies come wearing it. (This happens to me with medieval dresses!) It's also frustrating when the townies generated do tend to follow those patterns you mentioned. I've noticed that whenever you try to adopt Sims, the game generates a family with a single mom family for every potential adoptee - including the one you choose to adopt! If you've tried adopting, that might be why you're having so many single moms.

    I forgot to add in the OP that a CRUCIAL aspect of this feature would be the inability to completely turn off townie generation. In some stories you want a very limited population. The problem of "Well then where do I get my NPCs?" would be solved by the above-described mechanism for choosing pre-existing Sims to fill NPC roles.

    That is a bit questionable. So kids are only taken away from single moms. And only single moms give kids up. I'm just saying that is very questionable. I can't believe nobody has said anything about that. Your system is really awesome. It would really solve the issue with turning off townies.
    Post edited by dg51829 on
  • dafadollydafadolly Posts: 1,215 Member
    Great idea!! This would definitely solve a lot of problems. I have a historical world I play where I've replaced everything with old pubs and castles and stuff and it's so weird when 21 century sims pop up around my medieval ones. (despite the fact that most the surrounding neighbourhood doesn't fit the theme either lol)
  • TerraTerra Posts: 1,353 Member
    @dg51829 - Yeah, my sister noticed that several months ago! It puts us off adopting because we feel like we're taking the kid away from the mother, and also because it leaves all these single moms who tried to put their kids up for adoption but then nobody took them. It is a really weird mechanic that seems so unnecessary considering it has never worked that way in any other Sim game!

    @dafadolly - Yes, that's exactly what happens to me and my sister!! That's why I would love to be able to turn off townie generation, and to be able to customize the uniforms of NPCs/put my own pre-designed Sims in NPC jobs. I'm glad that you also play medieval castle worlds. :D I find Windenburg the most immersive environment for that, even if there are some modern parts.
  • SilentKittySilentKitty Posts: 4,665 Member
    Yes please!

    Many of my saves turn out to have a very specific theme, and then all the sims in that save are edited to suit it. It is distracting with the ones that clearly don't fit it. Would really like to be able to assign a specific sim to a npc-job. I would love to be able to decide what generated sims are allowed to wear.
  • PhilaminaBPhilaminaB Posts: 64 Member
    I love this idea! If I could just add to it..? I find it annoying how Sims from Willow Creek can be found strolling around a park in Windenburg, even though in my head, Windenburg is a far way away from Willow Creek. Additionally, the townies you make end up in all worlds, not just the one you make them in. I think I'd like travelling between worlds only accessible to the active household. I don't know, am I the only one?
  • SimsLovinLycanSimsLovinLycan Posts: 1,910 Member
    This sounds like a great idea! I'd love to be able to bring in sims I've made and are sitting in my gallery to fill in roles like Repair Man or Pizza Delivery Boy/Girl. In fact, if I ever decided to make a sim of Fry from Futurama, being able to make him the Pizza Delivery NPC would just put a smile on my face as broad as the continental U.S.!

    Having an option to limit townie generation to necessary NPC's would also be nice. That way, you could have just the sims you import to your game from the gallery and any pre-made sims you want to keep around and not have to worry about culling. And any time an NPC dies of old age or by random accident, the game will automatically generate a replacement.
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  • TerraTerra Posts: 1,353 Member
    @PhilaminaB - Thanks! :smiley: I think it would be interesting if they introduced an optional toggle for that. Sometimes when I play Sims in the poorest neighbourhood of Oasis Springs it doesn't feel realistic to have all of the prim townies from the richest neighbourhoods in Windenburg and Willow Creek strutting past. Most of the time I don't mind Sims crossing over from one to the other, especially in legacy files when my Sim's relatives are spread all over the worlds and it's fun running into anyone regardless of which world they live in.

    @SimsLovinLycan - Yay, I'm glad you feel like this feature would work very well for you! :smiley: Yeah, sometimes I like to recreate my favourite video game casts in TS4 and I'd love to see some of the characters in the NPC roles!
  • v12creatorv12creator Posts: 3,626 Member
    You know what the great problem is - You cant create your own themed world, because you cant simply create your own world at all.

    Your ideas and the CAW petition threat together would be awesome for story-tellers, specially me who aways wanted to created a full-fledged Strangetown mixing up all diferent versions from the different platforms of Thesims2. I tried it with Thesims3 but the life-less of sims in that game ruined it, TS4 sims are perfect but the town seriously need some tweaking.
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  • TerraTerra Posts: 1,353 Member
    @v12creator - It's funny you mention Strangetown - lately I've been remaking Sims from TS2 GBA and DS as townies for TS4. I LOVE Strangetown in the GBA version of TS2. Yeah, I think this idea would go really well with CAW. I do think Oasis Springs captures the feel of Strangetown, but I'm a huge supporter of adding CAW to the game. :smiley:
  • v12creatorv12creator Posts: 3,626 Member
    edited June 2016
    Terra wrote: »
    @v12creator - It's funny you mention Strangetown - lately I've been remaking Sims from TS2 GBA and DS as townies for TS4. I LOVE Strangetown in the GBA version of TS2. Yeah, I think this idea would go really well with CAW. I do think Oasis Springs captures the feel of Strangetown, but I'm a huge supporter of adding CAW to the game. :smiley:

    Yes, i have some Strangetown sims myself. You can look my name on the gallery.

    https://www.thesims.com/gallery/browse?category=households&searchtype=ea_origin_id&sortby=downloads&time=all&searchquery=V12creator&max=50&maxis=false

    Here is my thread of StrangeTown recreation. I did not continue it because honestly, it is better to ask for features individually , but it has a good database already, and shows clearly why i need a CAW tool so much. And using your management tools would be great to asign characters to certain buildings as they are in the handheld games.

    http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/843221/strangetown-project-updated-august-27#latest
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  • Namor98Namor98 Posts: 42 Member
    I agree! I've had one of my played households hire another sim from another played household to work at a restaurant and they were super well trained and everything, but when I played with the hired sim, it said they didn't have a career and I had to hire a different sim to work at the restaurant. It would be nice to have my sims to work at a retail store or restaurant or a simple job such as a gardener, postal worker, gardener or maid.
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  • TerraTerra Posts: 1,353 Member
    @v12creator - Those are awesome! Love your versions of the Strangetown Sims - you really got their likeness! :smiley: You can search for me and my sister's creations under terra575 on the gallery. (We share this account.) She makes the Urbz Sims, and I make the TS2 GBA/DS ones.

    @Namor98 - Exactly - implementing a feature like this would help alleviate some of the Dine Out drama. At this point I don't think they'd go so far as to make the Chef, Waiter or Host playable in spite of player backlash, but if I could at least hire my Sim as chef and watch her do her thing while I'm playing the manager or a restaurant visitor, without her having to be unplayable and homeless, I'd be happy!
  • TerraTerra Posts: 1,353 Member
    I've just edited the title of this thread to better reflect the content inside. :smile:
  • LuciferMongooseLuciferMongoose Posts: 123 Member
    Yes! I loved how Twallan's mod for TS3 could assign anybody to NPC roles, and I really, really, want to be able to do it in TS4. Why assign a random badly-dressed sim that I don't care at all about to a role when I could be using Sims that I actually already have a story for?

    If this were the case, I'd be making a whole lot more Sims!
  • TerraTerra Posts: 1,353 Member
  • mikamika Posts: 1,733 Member
    This is an awesome idea. It'd be so easier to create stories for my households
  • TerraTerra Posts: 1,353 Member
    @mika - Yay, I'm glad you think that! :smile:
  • keFUNKNEY101keFUNKNEY101 Posts: 658 Member
    I really love this idea! I love the added customization to the neighborhood it adds. Whenever I start a new game, I spend a lot of time changing the neighborhoods and this would make it so much more personal. :)
  • TerraTerra Posts: 1,353 Member
    edited July 2016
    @keFUNKNEY101 - Thanks for your comment! I really agree. :smiley:
  • mrnhmathmrnhmath Posts: 750 Member
    Nice ideas!
  • TerraTerra Posts: 1,353 Member
  • OMGiLoveIceCreamOMGiLoveIceCream Posts: 603 Member
    edited September 2016
    @Terra I wish hope this will be added!
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