I have heard that you can adjust how long Sims live (I would imagine this would include an 'aging off' feature) and free will is on a slide bar. So you can set it to off, low (meaning they won't make life changing decisions without you) or high (will get married and have kids without you).

Just thought I would post it because I felt it would relieve a lot of story makers out there who are otherwise looking forward to the game.

I got this from Snooty Sims review of the creator's camp.
http://www.snootysims.com/thesims3index.php?id=info

That's good news. I am SO excited for this game to come out!

That's very good to know, I was worried about that!

I was planning not to get the game until I heard that. Now I'm having to rethink it slightly. The last thing I would want is to be working on Cloud and Sephiroth's First Kiss, only to find that while I wasn't looking Reno left Tseng and got knocked up by Hojo!

And you can do this for each individual Sim or does it affect everybody? Otherwise, this is perfect!

I think you can do this for every individual Sim...at least, from what I have read (I did some research), that's what it looks like.

This is a relief. I was scared if I left them on free will, I'd turn my back and they'd marry someone off the side of the road.

Do you have a link to where you saw this?

This is from http://simcitytimes.blogspot.com/

"Feel free to experiment with leaving the family do their thing overnight while you sleep. You might see some interesting results. (Free will turned up of course)."

and

"Free Will has three settings, Off, Low and High. Low is emergency only, High is how it's like in Sims 2."

Just from the way that "the family," is worded, I think it means each family individually, the specific family you choose to play. At least that's how it seems.

Hm. I like what that says, but still, that's not straight from a developer's mouth, so I'm retaining just a little suspicion. In the "Wikipedia Era," I'm less likely to believe something until I see its original source.

I certainly HOPE its accurate, though.

Lol that made me laugh Anyways thats a pretty good thing to know because I thought with all the sims playing at once..well...I'm just glad I can control what they decide when I'm not playing them :P