Dreamer

What are Dreams and Promises ?

What is a "Dream" ?

• The terms "Dream", "Wish", and "Want" are synonymous in The Sims 3, and the developer has a tendency to use them interchangeably.
  • The mod is named the "Dreamer" namely because it sounds better than say the "Wisher".
  • The developer uses the term "Dream" as that is what the system is called on the coding side. "Wish" and "Want" are more commonly used by end-users.
• They are represented in-game by the five icons displayed to the left of the portrait of your sim in the interface.
  • The top icon is actually a scrollable list, displaying up to three most recently unlocked dreams at any one time
  • The bottom four icons are save locations for promised dreams

What is a "Promise" ?

• A promise is a special type of dream, one which the user has locked into one of the four save locations available for each sim.
  • EA Standard has unpromised dreams timing out after a while, so that new ones can be listed and selected by the user.
  • To retain a dream for a longer duration, a user is allowed to store up to four of them for later completion.

So how does Dreamer alter this system ?

Over and above error catching routines common in most of the suite's mod, Dreamer alters the Dream Management system in the following ways :

1. It allows for the completion of the three most recent unpromised dreams, those listed in the selection box above the promised locations.
   • This increases the number of possible satisfiable dreams to seven
   • It also allows inactive sims to satisfy dreams, as the user no longer has to promise the dream in order to complete it.
   • Note that since Lifetime Wishes are simply special dreams, inactives can also complete those dreams and receive points for them.
2. The mod has tuning available to disable the timeout for unpromised dreams
   • In doing so, unpromised dreams will simply remain in the background listing, accumulating until physically cancelled by the user
   • Note that only the three most recent unpromised dreams will appear in the selection box.
     • If you want to see the others, you will need to promise one, or cancel it.

What do I need to do to allow inactives to retain or complete wishes ?

EA Standard drops a sim's Dream Manager whenever they become inactive. So when you switch out of household, and into a new active family, the managers for the old household are deleted.

• To bypass this limitation, you must use a "Dream Catcher" enabled switching mod, such as MasterController, StoryProgression, PortraitPanel, or Selector
  • MasterController has a "Retain Dreams and Opportunities" option that must be enabled to enable the "Make Active (Dream Catcher)" interaction.
  • StoryProgression also has a "Retain Dreams and Opportunities" option, however it can be toggled on and off for specific households, rather than being global over the entire town.
  • PortraitPanel has a "Dream Catcher" option that allows you to left click on inactive portraits displayed on the panel and immediately switch to the new family
  • Selector has a "Dream Catcher" option that unlocks the ability to right click on inactive sims to make them active.
• Note that enabling the "Dream Catcher" functionality in one mod does not make it active in any of the others.
  • If you enable it in MasterController you must use "NRaas \ Master Controller \ Make Active (Dream Catcher)" to switch if you want to retain the dreams and opportunities.

Warning : The reason EA deletes inactive dream managers is because the Dream Management system is extremely processor and memory intensive.

• If you leave the system running on too many sims in town, you will eventually encounter save-game bloating, and lagging issues.
• It is best to use the functionality sparingly, as a means of switching between a small number of families in town.
• MasterController contains an interaction called "NRaas \ Master Controller \ Town \ Drop All Dreams And Opportunities" that can be used to erase the dream managers from all inactive sims in town, if you find that you have too many of them running in your game.
  • Doing so will remove the bloat and performance issues related with those managers, until you restart them by actively playing the families.