Leaving Sims 3 On Overnight

In its preview of the Sims 3 back on March 10th, IGN touted that the game’s free will system was quite intelligent, and that “[y]ou could leave the game running overnight and wake up to an entirely different situation”. Naturally, when I got it, I wanted to test that statement and see what would happen if I left the game for an extended period of time.

Now, I’ve read comments from fans saying, “Why would you do this? Wouldn’t it be more fun to play the game yourself than to let the computer play it for you?” I say, ludicrous. You can have more than one save slot on the Sims 3, and why not spend it on something that’s just as pointless as raising completely fictitious and unrealistic people?

So, bold and fearless, I started a new game in Sunset Valley. I decided upon the Roomies household to be the active household, because I figured five diversely different adults would be interesting subjects for the experiment.

I just loaded them up, pressed 3 for “ultra speed”, and went to bed. I was dimly aware that pressing 3 would be pointless, as the game would automatically reset to normal speed whenever the carpool came, but I decided, meh, I just want to see what happens.

What happened was: I woke up 8 hours later and came back to find that Tamara had received an opportunity on work, and the game had been waiting patiently for a response. In-game, it was week 1, day 2, the day right after I left it.

Disappointment was an understatement. I began looking up for info on turning off opportunities, but EA had the daftness to not include an option to turn them off. The only way to not get opportunities is to install a mod called the Indie Stone Story Progression Mod and do a “wolfing run” with it. Of course, in order for the ISSPM to work with the latest patched version of Sims 3, you also had to install the Awesomemod from another website and delete the ISSPM core mod package, etc etc. I studiously followed the instructions, made a single man with the last name “Wolfrun”, put him in his own house, added a TV, told him to watch TV, set the game at “ultra speed”, and went off to class.

I came back 4 and a half hours later to find it was now week 3, day 2. That was better, but I was expecting a lot more. Inspecting the house, I found that his television had broken down, and that Go Wolfrun had spent most of his time either reading from the bookcase or sleeping. The game resets its speed to 1 whenever somebody wakes up from sleeping, but since Go’s needs never dropped, I can only imagine he went to bed as a way of mocking me.

Still, I decided to check out the neighborhood and see how things had changed. At the Roomies household, Tamara was gone from the group; she had gone off to marry Xander Clavell. Hard to imagine why, seeing as how he had commitment issues. His bio itself explicitly states he wasn’t planning on getting married, but I guess Tamara was just a manipulative bitch.

I also looked around to see what else happened. Holly Alto got her own place, and the two adult Altos had two children, Imelda and Iris. The Landgraabs also had two children, Jarred and Weston. I’m especially interested in Jarred because his two traits were “evil” and “genius”, and you know putting those two words together is always a good thing. Thorton and Morgana Wolff, even though their bios say that children is the last thing they’d plan on doing with their marriage, had a baby girl named Krissy.

There was also Claire Ursine, who was both raising her daughter Terra and going out with Connor Frio. Jared Frio, meanwhile, was going out with Monika Morris, who I assume is one of the Working Friends Household.

There were other Sims who’d moved in from nowhere; a couple, German and Faye Rhinehart; the Lain family, consisting of two musically-inclined parents, their equally gifted daughter, their more brutish son and daughter; and the Gutierrez family, who I didn’t really bother looking at. There were also some Sims who weren’t living anywhere, like Zelda Mae and Parker Langerak, and Ethan and Lisa Bunch. I tried calling Zelda Mae over and then saying goodbye to her so I could see where she was staying, but she went over to Jamie Jolina’s house and disappeared, even though Jamie lived alone.

So, having inspected Sunset Valley, I went back to Go Wolfrun’s home, and continued the speed run…