The Story Album collected any shots you took during gameplay and saved them into each family's album book.
The preset neighborhoods, Pleasantview, Veronaville, and Strangetown also had their own neighborhood story book that told you more about the town and its residents. This was especially fun when you can make your own custom neighborhood and enter your own stories.
In each premade family, they had photos already inside that gave context about the familys' past. The one below a simmer added a caption.
You can edit the caption in any photo, and rearrange the photos. It's almost like reading a graphic novel.
Simmers used to go to Sims2.com and upload their stories all the time. There was a way to link it in-game and upload your stories in-game. Below is pictured with a downloadable sim. But you could also upload your own stories here. I used to spend hours reading Sims 2 stories by Simmers!
Each family and community lot also left a space to write a description. Sims 2 was great for telling stories.
Your sim also had a bio you could type read later. Some people like Grim, has some really funny bios.
I went from The Sims 2 to Sims 4 then finally Sims 3. When I played Sims 4 I was so confused at first. Where is the story album? In fact, it was the reason why I joined the forum to ask about it back in 2015:
https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/856270/bored-with-the-sims-4-why-is-there-no-create-a-story-write-a-story-option#latest
The sims 3 & 4 memories are a joke. Sims 2 puts them to shame in that aspect! ofc, I advocate for other systems i feel like are missing - chemistry,personality, etc.
Can you imagine TS4 with something like this? Or perhaps the next game?
If you played with the Sims 2 story album or any descriptions, are there any features you think should be added?
For me I'd say:
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- An in game editor. A way to bold or italic is what I mean. I also believe there was a character limit. No limits please!
- Better tools for rearranging photos. I think it could be optimized with another look. For example, you can not click and drag a photo into order. You must place it and then click before,before,before etc until you get it in the spot you want.
- I think Sim bios should be able to be viewed by anyone. In TS2, for example, I cannot read Grim's bio unless he is the active player. I'd like to be able to read any Sim's bio in the relationship tab./list]
Comments
Too Good at Goodbyes forum thread
Too Good at Goodbyes blog
Unfortunatelly i started a thread some time ago asking players about this feature and the answers were mostly that there was no need for it as there are a lot of possibilities to do it outside of the game.
I was disapointed with this answers as i think that this should be a feature of a game that 'sees' and latelly markets itself as a tool for storytelling.
I never felt like my stories were good enough to upload XD but I had hours of stories written in my game. It was like stepping into another world lol;;
I used to even read Sims 1 stories waaay back in the day.
Personality,depth,humor,consequences,lore,customization.
Yeah, just because its possible to do some things outside of the games I don't think it should be omitted! Its a fantastic feature and I'm sad it hasn't been a reoccurring feature. It's so useful and makes your game so much more personal.
Personality,depth,humor,consequences,lore,customization.
Yes a few editors would be cool. Maybe like some preset poses for photos too that can help "stage" a scene.
Personality,depth,humor,consequences,lore,customization.
What was it? if you mean the memories then they still exist.
It's a lot. If you don't mind a long post, I'll tell you:
Although the memories used to work better than they do now, it wasn't just about the memories.
Individual households all had their own albums. Now (unless something has changed since I used the in-game screenshot manager), the screenshots from every household are all mixed together into one huge, unwieldy mess.
The original manager always kept photos in strict chronological order. At some point, the chronology got bungled and I don't know that EA has ever fixed the issue.
With the original manager, Sims from separate households all got tagged for the picture. For example, the Sims in my signature pic are made up of four individual households. If I had taken that pic with the old screen manager, every individual Sim would have shared the same pic in their album, not just the Sim that was under player control at the time. If the player didn't want other Sims to share the memory, it could be deleted from their albums.
The best part was that memories were much more in-depth. Currently, the game chooses the memory associated with a screenshot based on the emotion of the selected Sim. Unfortunately, that means that most memories will be happy ones. Happy emotions from things such as full needs, a good meal, or a well-decorated room can all run roughshod over any other emotions. The old screenshot manager got around that issue by allowing the player to decide what emotion was assigned to a screenshot. Better still, each Sim that was present could remember the event in a different way.
For example, the little boy in my pic would remember the moment as a happy event. His parents on either side of him would remember it as an uncomfortable situation. The woman in the yellow dress would remember being furious. The two Sims on the far left would remember being bored about taking a stupid family portrait in the first place.
All in all, the system was incredibly detailed, powerful, and satisfying. It allowed for greater depth in storytelling by providing shared memories and, at the same time, allowing Sims to experience moments as individuals with their own interior monologues. A player could become lost in the minutiae of managing the screenshots. Or, they could ignore the system altogether.
Unfortunately, the original system got chucked and was replaced by what we have now -- basically a large collection of unassociated pictures that don't follow a linear timeline. I suspect that the developers removed it in order to save on disc space and memory. Still, I don't see the benefit of removing an organized system and replacing it with the jumbled mess that we still have today.
You're welcome.
I have no idea why the devs got rid of it. All I have is speculation and that is part of the problem with TS4 from the start. They make very odd decisions with no explanation that I know of. They simply do it. This has been the most closed-off version of the game that I can recall. Sure, Guru's socialize on Twitter, drop hints, and post pictures. Nevertheless, I feel that solid information is lacking. Except for the recent push for inclusion within the game, I have absolutely no insight as to their trains of thought and the rationale for anything that they do. At least, none that make sense. (It's too hard, it's too expensive) They had a very useful tool that was complete and already in the game. One day, a patch just took it away. That was it.
I can only speculate that the feature was too successful. A lot of people may have been using it and the devs were afraid of bloat. Maybe it was easier to simply get rid of the feature rather than to deal with it when the issues came home to roost. They won't have to worry so much about screenshot bloat now. As you said, some people don't even know that the screenshot manager still exists. In a way, it no longer does.
ts4 its just dull like my husband just died but im just gonna do push ups on their grave
which in itself isnt bad mood either but sometimes you just want them to be bit more dramatic u kno
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I don't even remember if those Sims 2 vids were all on YouTube, or if The Sims 2 had a platform for videos, or what... my memory fails me there... Haha.
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It was also super useful for rotational playing, as sometimes i could forget what I was planning in a family, but I could check what i wrote last time I played them. Its tiresome to open a notepad or write it down on paper.
There may have been other places to watch the videos, but the TS2 website itself had the capability in the video section. Click on the one(s) you wanted to watch and you were off and running. Same goes for the album type stories.
It bugs the hell outta me that the Sims 3 has a "memories" scrapbook of all the terribly framed screenshots it took at the random moments the game deems worthy of sticking into the scrapbook but it doesn't allow you to add your own photos/screenshots and captions like the sims 2 did.
I always loved the Story function in the sims 2 both as a movie making thing and for it's (presumably) intended purpose of chronicling a sim's life like a real scrap book.
It'd be amazing if someone could make a mod to allow you to add your own screenshots to the sims 3 scrapbook (seeing as you can edit the title and description of those automatically added so the only thing that'd need programming would be the ability to take and add your own screenshots to it.)
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