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Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#1 Old 20th Aug 2017 at 6:47 AM
Default how do you manage the aging/deaths of townies/npcs?
yet again, I'm spending more time thinking about the sims rather than playing it, and this topic keeps buzzing around in my head...

I've never been very good at getting sims past generation 1, so have never really had to deal with this issue. I don't really like the idea of having the same townies/npcs roaming around seemingly immortal while 3 generations of playable sims have gone past

This makes me consider making npcs who are immortal/supernatural types, so it'll make sense in my head; the passage of time means nothing to those sims. For example, a servo bartender. Servos make sense, too, (they're built to serve!) but I'm not sure if it's feasible/safe to do that? However, I've yet to find an ideal servo replacement, and I don't really like how servos don't seem to have a lot of options for making them look more like individuals.

Anyway. I guess the solution is to have a small number of townies, so there are less to manage, or none at all. The latter being my preferred idea, because the concept of townies has never sat well with me ever since I started playing ts2, (where do they live????!????!?).

Basically, I'd rather focus on the aging of my playable sims, and having to worry about npcs and townies as well just seems like a minor headache to me.

I know one expansion pack added a feature for aging up townies/friends on playable sims birthdays, and you can also send them to college, but it's been a while since I've seen that in game (because time is frozen whenever I play - aging off, always!! I need to try a legacy challenge to break out of my comfort zone, I stg...)

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Mad Poster
#2 Old 20th Aug 2017 at 6:57 AM
Quote: Originally posted by LOLBAG2
Anyway. I guess the solution is to have a small number of townies, so there are less to manage, or none at all. The latter being my preferred idea, because the concept of townies has never sat well with me ever since I started playing ts2, (where do they live????!????!?).


That one. No townies at all. And NPCs are NPCs, my sims interact with them as less as possible.
If there is good match for any of my sim, teen NPC will be sent to colledge, adult gets his/her own home.
Needs Coffee
retired moderator
#3 Old 20th Aug 2017 at 7:08 AM
I have a few townies the ones I made myself, I see them as tourists. To add to that I have Ancient Highways NPC aging mod, any NPC on the lot at 6pm will age along with my playable sims. Isn't much but it is a slight nudge. Also its easy to make any townie playable, do some aging and turn back into a townie. In my last large hood I grabbed old ones going past my retirement home as residents.

"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives." - Unknown
~Call me Jo~
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#4 Old 20th Aug 2017 at 7:45 AM
Quote: Originally posted by joandsarah77
To add to that I have Ancient Highways NPC aging mod, any NPC on the lot at 6pm will age along with my playable sims.


I'd never heard of that mod. It sounds really good!! *runs off to go find it*

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Forum Resident
#5 Old 20th Aug 2017 at 8:02 AM
I also see townies as tourists just passing through town, but I currently prefer having a them around than not - mostly for customers, but also to avoid having the game choose an unsafe NPC for those after-date follow-up calls, meeting people on hikes, and the like. I got spooked after a sim met a break dancer while hiking, and though I don't think it was dangerous, I haven't played without townies since. That said, once my town gets into the second generation my playable sims rarely interact with the townies, unless the playable has wants for first dates and the like. If a townie does become friends with my sims, I sometimes make the townie playable and add them to my rotation; often, I only do this if they move in permanently with the sim or have fathered children. Sometimes townies become significant but I don't want to add them to a normal household - they become candidates for a challenge-based lot, such as an asylum lot.

Mostly, for the townies that aren't important to my playables, I ignore them. My sims might occasionally bring them home from work or chat with them on community lots, but I don't worry about how that townie's past relationships fit in with my playables. In subsequent generations, I just figure it's a sim that shares the name with one that my current generation's ancestors knew, perhaps a namesake descendant. This is one of the reasons I don't use mods to have townies keep their memories when they move in - if a townie went on a couple of dates with my sim's grandparent, it's easier for me to pretend they are someone else if they don't have memories of those dates. If their unchanging appearance begins to get trying, I either suggest a new outfit or haircut to them at a player owned business or use a hacked clothing rack to give them a new outfit.
Needs Coffee
retired moderator
#6 Old 20th Aug 2017 at 8:13 AM
Only age by one day though I meant-not a birthday age up.

"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives." - Unknown
~Call me Jo~
Mad Poster
#7 Old 20th Aug 2017 at 8:38 AM
I do not have that problem, since I have a big hood and may playables have married townies, etc. - so I have aged up quite a lot of them on my own Sims' birthdays.

Then - in smaller hoods, I just go - they are famous, they're gonna live forever
Mad Poster
#8 Old 20th Aug 2017 at 8:41 AM
I make townies over periodically, with ChristianLove's Gussy-Up plug in. If they look different they don't bug me.
Townies who have made it into the storyline get aged up along with sims. When they hit elder, if they haven't been moved in somewhere, they get moved into a retirement home where they can practice their hobbies, run businesses, have affairs, throw parties, find true love and get married right before they die, etc.

Ugly is in the heart of the beholder.
(My simblr isSim Media Res . Widespot,Widespot RFD: The Subhood, and Land Grant University are all available here. In case you care.)
The Great AntiJen
retired moderator
#9 Old 20th Aug 2017 at 10:54 AM
Townies for me, of which I have made a good few now, are simply set dressing or animated props. They're there to make the place seem convincing. I don't really have sims interact with them (unless they do it themselves) and don't move them in. I made all of them in Little Carping and don't really see them as anything but moving scenery. With NPCs, I use SimPE to write over their appearance with a playable sims - for example, the newspaper teen is currently one of my playable teens (in appearance) - Bill Cox I think at the moment - I imagine it's his school time job (I have written a whole pile of custom NPC jobs for my sims).

I no longer come over to MTS very often but if you would like to ask me a question then you can find me on tumblr or my own site tflc. TFLC has an archive of all my CC downloads.
I'm here on tumblr and my site, tflc
Lab Assistant
#10 Old 20th Aug 2017 at 11:09 AM
I usually have townies just roam around the hood for a bit - they're only townies temporarily. Once I have a house for them, they become playable, and they become like any other sim
Scholar
#11 Old 20th Aug 2017 at 11:24 AM
I just leave the Townies be. However, I will select a few in the age-up with Sim dialog.

The drop off has been made. You've been warned.
Mad Poster
#12 Old 20th Aug 2017 at 12:29 PM
Townies are extremely important in my game (and to me) - I love the maxi townies; I know them so well, I probably know everyone's aspiration (Look, here comes Jill, she is a social Sim, you will get along well/ Oh, it is Neil - knowledge, you will have plenty to talk about/ you may be shy but you need to talk to Jace, he is a fortune sim just like you - Oh, you find him handsome too ) - they are totally incorporated in my game on all levels.
Mad Poster
#13 Old 20th Aug 2017 at 12:56 PM
I think of townies as "extras" rather than real characters in my towns. Same as NPCs. The name is just a placeholder, really that sim is "Generic mailperson" or "Young woman" or "Little boy who likes sports" or "Teen girl who wears excessive make up". My sims might befriend or become romantically involved with townies or NPCs, however, and then what happens is that when my sim has a birthday, I make the townie or NPC age up too. They stay as a townie, though (NPCs sometimes seem to stick in their role and sometimes just become ordinary NPCs when aged up) unless it makes sense for them to become playable - because they are a romantic partner who has moved in, because they are a teen going to uni (I like busy uni lots). Any sims who bore me enough that I don't want to play them any more, which includes (sometimes) former NPCs/townies who've become playable, perhaps after a break up, I will turn [back] into townies. This is usually the fate of the university "extras" unless they become particularly interesting and I decide I want to play them. Oh yes and like Peni I have a retirement home in most of my hoods, so if townies become elders, or elder townies become playable somehow, I move them in here so that they can naturally live out their final years. It keeps the retirement home populated.

When the pool of townies seems to be running low I create new ones but this tends to happen with the kids and teens most often.

I use the sims as a psychology simulator...
Scholar
#14 Old 20th Aug 2017 at 12:57 PM
I don't mind townies when they have no relation with any of my Sims.
I mean, if they never ever talk to the maid then I can believe that maid is just a figure which represents the concept of maid. Not an actual person.
But if they become friends, or something more, or enemies, whatever, then I can't think of them that way and I need them to age.

So when one of my Sims grows up I always select those townies who have any sort of relation with them to grow up as well.
This helps a lot but it's kind of limited imho.
So I do several things:

* One of my playable Sims run an elder care home.
Townies which have been around for a while are moved into this place, where I pretty much ignore them but they will be aging up at a normal rate and eventually die.
If they are adults I usually change the days left in SimPE to 0, so they will become elders right away.

* I send teens to college.
I play them but not as much as my actual 'playables', just enough to ensure they may become adults at a certain point.
When they go back to the neighbourhood I usually townify them, but I could drop them in the elder care home and assume they work there or something like that.

This allows them to have a chance to interact with my playables, often forging friendships and sometimes more, so they might end up becoming of my regular Sims.
For example, in my current hood Martha Smithers just married Donte Reiner who was living in the elder care home. I have never really played him before, but now he's a playable playable - if that makes any sense - and I'll be playing him every time the rotation comes to their home.
Mad Poster
#15 Old 20th Aug 2017 at 1:14 PM
I do not have a retirement home. I have a retirement subhood
Scholar
#16 Old 20th Aug 2017 at 1:24 PM
You must have lots of townies then :D
I just have a few, so a home is quite enough most of the time.
Mad Poster
#17 Old 20th Aug 2017 at 1:52 PM
Yes, @Amura - I have lots of them, and 152 playable families - a retirement home was not enough. (Good to see you, by the way )

I have played without the townies and with tiny hoods a couple of times - they always get restored, I just miss the buggers too much. I stuck it out for months once - and it was such a moment when I opened my older hood and here comes Goopy to visit Herbert Goodie - I am not sure I will really be able to play without them with the same enjoyment. So the plan is now to play this hood for some time; it seems to last well this far - (I have slowly been building another one, but no hurry yet).
Instructor
#18 Old 20th Aug 2017 at 3:28 PM
I don't care if the townies aren't aging. Once I had the same townies for at least 10 generations. I like them being around, always staying the same no matter what terrible things are happening to my Sims (unless my Sims marry them/move them in). It gives a kind of continuing feeling to the 'hood. I just don't care if Sims make out with the same townies that made out with their greatgrandparents.
Field Researcher
#19 Old 20th Aug 2017 at 7:01 PM
I figure that in the Sim world aging isn't the same as ours. We could create a playable family, put them in a house, then go play generations' worth of other families/lots and that other playable family would age at the same rate as those townies.

More often than not in my game, if there's an adult townie that an adult playable Sim likes enough to be in a relationship with, they'll get married/joined and move in, which is built-in to the game. I've also used the aging cheat so a teen sim could keep and marry his girlfriend in adulthood. When I started using the teleporter, I realized that I could move in townies of other life states as well, and have occasionally created the 'good friend moves in' scenario and/or orphanages, that sort of thing. (I also don't have the expansion that added the aging dialog.)

I've also had other stories that would only be possible in a game. Like the time I sent four teen siblings to a community lot park in the morning on a Saturday, after quite some time had passed I realized that I'd lost track of one of them. Turns out the entire time he was playing chess with an adult female townie that he just so happened to like. Or, yes, a grandparent could introduce his grandchild to Meadow, Tosha, Orlando, whomever.
Scholar
#20 Old 21st Aug 2017 at 10:30 AM
I assume that the Sims I play with are a subset of the Sims who actually live in town, and that townies live in a different bit. They are definitely individual people, and like playable Sims pick up character and shared experiences (all of them have an assigned belief system, job and background, which enter into the plot as if they had been playable). When it comes to dating, moving in and things like that, they're treated as an equally valid option as a playable in the same situation would be.

If a Sim is friends with a townie, and the game presents me with the option, then the Sim and townie are likely to age together. Townie teens are also eligible for university (this is randomised since the game doesn't naturally give townie teens varied school grades and SimHampton University requires an A- or better of all students). On a couple of occasions, this has led to townie children becoming adults through multiple grow-ups. Some are still townies by that point!

I've never had a problem with townie Sims congregating in the Elder age group because it is common for townies to become playable during their adult lives for one reason or another. As for townies knowing many generations of playable Sims... ...it's true that they do, but thanks to Elixir of Life, so do a bunch of my playables. A town which tells stories about the 19-child couple whose eldest son raised his own child alongside the youngest of the "19 children" is hardly going to be surprised at a townie dating three generations of Sims and had previously dated a fourth (from different families each generation, in the one example that's happened so far in my hood).
Lab Assistant
#21 Old 21st Aug 2017 at 10:32 AM
I just let them be townies. I'll let my sims interact with them, become friends with them, etc, but I don't age them along with my playables for fear that I'll end up with too many townies. If I could be bothered to play them or kill them along with my playables, I'd age them up but as it stands, whenever a townie ages up I'm just adding a new, say, elder townie to the game and then a new adult spawns to replace the one I just aged up and they get to be too many. I don't think I'm making sense but I don't know how to better explain it in English, sorry.
Theorist
#22 Old 21st Aug 2017 at 9:23 PM
I use Ancient Highway's NPC aging mod.
In my current hood (18 playables ATM), I only have 6 adult townies (3 males and 3 females). I started with 2 but felt it wasn't enough.
I still have two single playables and I hope they'll find their SO before they die.
Mad Poster
#23 Old 21st Aug 2017 at 9:35 PM
How does Ancient Highway's NPC aging mod works?

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Alchemist
#24 Old 21st Aug 2017 at 9:45 PM
townie/NPC death; one in shipped version is University's Cow Plant (Natural Science reward). other shipped version deaths I take to be rare for townies/NPCs. Old Age death I take to be excluded for townies/NPCs.
townie/NPC aging; with 1 or more college sub-neighborhood attached, teen townies/NPCs could be sent to it. University. with Freetime when a playable sim age transitions, I take up to 3 townies/NPCs of same age could age with him/her.
Mad Poster
#25 Old 21st Aug 2017 at 10:11 PM
Do you mean Syberspunk's townie aging mod? I think I had that for a while. It's supposed to be less broken than the Maxis version (added in Freetime).

I use neither, I just do it manually.

I use the sims as a psychology simulator...
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