"MissNightOwl;c-16701472" wrote:
The idea of these text isn't so bad in general, just the execution is rather poor. I find it also weird that these texts are usually send by Sims that my Sim doesn't know very well. So... what's your point? You're suggesting that you want to be my friend too or what?
The problem is that, like death calls, whoever implemented them did an incredibly sloppy or lazy job of it. With death calls, it seems like all the game does is load the database list of all Sims met by the dying Sim ever, and executes the "death call()" function. The programmer of this little nugget does not seem to have bothered to include some sort of if/else checking routine to check on the relationship status of the recipient of the call. Heck it was done so sloppily/carelessly that
even toddlers get death calls, despite the fact that they don't have a phone. The phone "rings" and when you try to answer it, the game gives you a nasty message telling you toddlers don't have phones, as if you should have known better, and then the toddler who has only ever met this stranger once, gets a 2-day Very Sad moodlet.
The same seems to be happening with these "new friend" calls. Obviously I can't say how it is programmed but from the viewpoint of a player observing the outcome, the game appears, upon you making a new friend with a Sim, to load up the list all other Sims your character has ever met, and then randomly choose one to send you the text. Relationship status is not checked. Even if they are ALIVE is not checked.
Again this is a super lazy, or sloppy, way to implement this. Surely the "friendship_call()" function could include some code to throw out all dead Sims before choosing one of the other random ones. I mean, I can understand how cross-referencing all the possible relationships might be hard -- so although they should NOT have John's wife tell you how happy she is that you and John are now a couple, I can see how coding this might take some effort. But coding an "if alive()" check should be trivially easy. (If it's not, they have much bigger problems with this game.)
