Missed Call?

Callum9432, the part about the texting is correct but not for phone calls in general.

I haven't experienced it myself but I have seen people post about how they have had their Sim call a townie in TS3 only to then see that Sim walking down the road with no phone in sight whilst the call is still ongoing.

That's one of the reasons that some players, and myself, were surprised to see that sending a text actually required the Sim receiving it to look at the phone.

Callum9432 wrote:
Townies didn't even need to have phones; notice you could call them at work even if they didn't have a cell phone.

I've never tried it, but I would bet that if you removed all the phones from that Sim's home, then called them while they were at home, they would still answer.

Thank you for the insight into how the TS2 townies work; that's very interesting. However, both the things I quoted aren't correct. Or else I just misunderstood what you were saying (it happens! :wink: )

If you call a townie during their work or school hours, you get a generic voicemail message ('Hi, Goopy's out right now, try calling back later'). So the game would take into account their 'not being home' and therefore unavailable to talk. However, the game wasn't set to do it the other way around. I've had many townie kids call my sims' homes during school hours! :lol:

As for the second sentence, I'm guessing you're talking about playables? This is how it works: let's plop the Ottomas family onto a lot. Now give Dora Ottomas a cell but no landline for the house. If your sim calls Dora Ottomas (during available hours), she'll pick up. If your sim calls any of the other Ottomi during appropriate hours, you get the pop-up message 'Sam/Peter/Whoever doesn't have a phone! You can't call someone without a phone!' That's the same message you get if the family is in the bin and hasn't been touched at all.

Now let's say the Ottomi have a landline and you call for Peter when Peter is at work. One of the other Ottomi will answer and tell you to call back later when Peter is home, w/o any idea to when that would be (at least in 3, the sim would tell you he's going to be busy for the next X number of hours; that was a nice touch).


Anyway, I'm really pleased to see that simmers don't want the universal cell phones back. Yay! I really, really, really hope EA listens and makes them purchase items again (at least for the playables; or allows you the option in CAS to give them to sims if you want to). And for the love of all that is holy if EA does make them a part of every sim I hope they're NOT smart phones. Ugh. No thank you. After I installed Uni Life I about threw up seeing every single sim out and about in the town staring at their phones. :roll:

I'm in the 'Pay and call for taxis/public transport' camp too. Please, EA! Please?!

(And I'll throw in a 'Can we please go back to having to buy clothes from the store, too? You know, in a real store? A non-rabbit hole store? Yeah, that'd be nice.')

molunchmonkey wrote:

Callum9432 wrote:
Townies didn't even need to have phones; notice you could call them at work even if they didn't have a cell phone.

I've never tried it, but I would bet that if you removed all the phones from that Sim's home, then called them while they were at home, they would still answer.

Thank you for the insight into how the TS2 townies work; that's very interesting. However, both the things I quoted aren't correct. Or else I just misunderstood what you were saying (it happens! :wink: )

If you call a townie during their work or school hours, you get a generic voicemail message ('Hi, Goopy's out right now, try calling back later'). So the game would take into account their 'not being home' and therefore unavailable to talk. However, the game wasn't set to do it the other way around. I've had many townie kids call my sims' homes during school hours! :lol:

Okay, I didn't remember that bit; I haven't played TS2 in a while. It doesn't change the point, though, about why TS2 townies didn't need phones but TS3 townies do.

As for the second sentence, I'm guessing you're talking about playables? This is how it works: let's plop the Ottomas family onto a lot. Now give Dora Ottomas a cell but no landline for the house. If your sim calls Dora Ottomas (during available hours), she'll pick up. If your sim calls any of the other Ottomi during appropriate hours, you get the pop-up message 'Sam/Peter/Whoever doesn't have a phone! You can't call someone without a phone!' That's the same message you get if the family is in the bin and hasn't been touched at all.

Now let's say the Ottomi have a landline and you call for Peter when Peter is at work. One of the other Ottomi will answer and tell you to call back later when Peter is home, w/o any idea to when that would be (at least in 3, the sim would tell you he's going to be busy for the next X number of hours; that was a nice touch).

Thanks for clearing that up; like I said, I've never actually tried it out (I've never really had the need to :P )

Alistu wrote:
Callum9432, the part about the texting is correct but not for phone calls in general.

I haven't experienced it myself but I have seen people post about how they have had their Sim call a townie in TS3 only to then see that Sim walking down the road with no phone in sight whilst the call is still ongoing.

That's one of the reasons that some players, and myself, were surprised to see that sending a text actually required the Sim receiving it to look at the phone.

Hmm, that's odd, I'm sure I've seen townies answering their phones. Though to be honest, I haven't exactly been watching, it's possible I was seeing something else. But if that is the case it means they have even less reason to have TS3 style phones again.

I was speaking about how off world townies are able to call ours Sims when the townie doesn't have a phone. I'm not speaking about whether a playable is in the bin or living on a lot.

I prefer this because you won't see all townies, like Goopy, Benjamin, or Marisa walking around with a cell phone. That is the point.

It seems to be TS3 was designed to play how the Devs of TS3 wanted the game to work and little input of how the players felt about every Sim in every town having a phone whether they were playable or not.

This is why some of us have issues with TS3. It is set up of how the developers wanted the game to work...'very modern' with no second thought of what about if the player wants to live in a shack, or pretend to live in medieval times and do not want to see 'townies' walking around with cell phones.

We can mod out the cars in the game, and replace with default replacements with some other type of transportation, we can mod the roads to all be cobblestone or anything else, and we can alter all the rabbit holes with different meshes to become something else in the game..at least look like something else. But the one thing we can't do in TS3 is get rid of every townies phone. :x

This is why I keep begging EA to please make the games the players want not what you want. Yes, developers have had some marvelous ideas of what and how the game should be played. But when they start deciding what era and time periods and what will be the form of communication in the game they start to limit the player's imagination and that is the problem with TS3.

No matter what the reason, not being able to get rid of each and every cell phone in the game limits the players imagination. Because they are forever stuck in living in a modern world. Where as in TS1 and TS2 just remove a few modern day items, like a TV or mod a new mesh for a freezer they could be transported back in time and that is why they remain the better games even though they are very dated now.

Because they did not impose on the player something they couldn't get rid of. EA if you have ever tried to make a very amateur video of Sims just being Sims and a little bit of staging..nothing professional like you guys do, then you would understand how annoying it is to be filming a Sim you aren't controlling only for them to pull out a cell phone. :x

Don't limit the imagination of players by deciding everyone has to have a phone in the game. Even if that means closed lots, the SP in TS2 worked just fine for about 70% of players, and most hate the TS3 SP if that is the reason for all the phones, after all, most have modded it to be what they want it to be, and nothing at all like the actual SP in TS3 at all. Which btw, is broken.

Cinebar wrote:
Even if that means closed lots, the SP in TS2 worked just fine for about 70% of players,...

TS2 didn't HAVE story progression. If you weren't playing the lot then the Sims belonging to it didn't alter in any way other than relationship scores IF your own Sims interacted with them. If there were no active Sims around to see the inactive Sims then nothing altered with them.

Callum9432 wrote:

Alistu wrote:
Callum9432, the part about the texting is correct but not for phone calls in general.

I haven't experienced it myself but I have seen people post about how they have had their Sim call a townie in TS3 only to then see that Sim walking down the road with no phone in sight whilst the call is still ongoing.

That's one of the reasons that some players, and myself, were surprised to see that sending a text actually required the Sim receiving it to look at the phone.

Hmm, that's odd, I'm sure I've seen townies answering their phones. Though to be honest, I haven't exactly been watching, it's possible I was seeing something else. But if that is the case it means they have even less reason to have TS3 style phones again.

Just to illustrate my point. I just went in game and got my Sim to call one of the other Sims living on a residential lot. You can see from the time in the screenshots that this was happening at the same time.
While my Sim is apparently chatting to him he is busy having a conversation with his wife!

http://i806.photobucket.com/albums/yy346/Alistu-/Sims/PhoneChat_zps468335bf.jpg

Alistu wrote:

Cinebar wrote:
Even if that means closed lots, the SP in TS2 worked just fine for about 70% of players,...

TS2 didn't HAVE story progression. If you weren't playing the lot then the Sims belonging to it didn't alter in any way other than relationship scores IF your own Sims interacted with them. If there were no active Sims around to see the inactive Sims then nothing altered with them.

exactly!, hated how if i played a sim from baby to adult they eventually become older than their parents...

even if the SP is broken in the sims 3 it was kinda nice to have a sims best friend who lived next door. to see them get married and have kids and whatnot :)

Alistu wrote:

Cinebar wrote:
Even if that means closed lots, the SP in TS2 worked just fine for about 70% of players,...

TS2 didn't HAVE story progression. If you weren't playing the lot then the Sims belonging to it didn't alter in any way other than relationship scores IF your own Sims interacted with them. If there were no active Sims around to see the inactive Sims then nothing altered with them.

I beg to differ. :mrgreen: Let's say my controlled Sim goes to a community lot. I see Mary there which happens to be either a townie that lives offworld or even one of my own Sims I'm not playing at the moment.

Lots of things happen to Mary while she is own a community lot which is a sort of SP in small degrees. She can fall in love with another Sim whether they are married or not, flirt, kiss, fight, make a best friend, lose a best friend, make many memories that affect her life, fulfill wants, or lose aspiration due to fears coming true and much more. She can get sick and die, be struck by lighting and die, or autonomously do just about anything else as much as the TS3 townie. And the best thing about it is, she retains these memories so if you ever play her, or ever go back and play her you will know these things happened to her.

The only thing Mary can't do autonomously is get married, and or woohoo.

Mary can even get a job promotion at some point 'if' she is a townie that lives off world. That one is reserved for off world townies. Your own Sims you aren't playing won't get promoted until you play them again.

And one other thing she can't do is have a baby if she is pregnant without your playing as Mary again.

No, they won't age up without you but you can age them up (3) townies with each birthday any of your Sim has while in your control. So, you are controlling the age of the townies in that respect.

Which btw, I like that one better. Since I am in control of when Goopy turns into an old man.

So, if you narrow it down the townies and the Sims you aren't playing that are your own Sims you have played, can do anything the TS3 Sim can do and keep their memories about it, other than 3 things, get married, have that baby without you. And as I said off world townies can get promoted if they work at the same place as your Sim.

Oh and the game won't move them into a house already too crowded. So, yes, there is what I call SP in my TS2 game..and it works when they are seen on community lots. And the next time you play TS2 the Sims on community lots are still doing stuff on the community lot...liking kissing or fighting or whatever, while your Sim is being sped away into a loading screen..they are't leaving the community lot just because your Sim is...things are still happening until you are fully gone.

ETA: and here is a trick to out smart the game. If you have a Sim that never shows up on community lots in TS2 but want them to go to community lots while you play another Sim all you have to do is take that Sim to several community lots. Guess what, that Sim will start to show up on community lots while you play your other Sims. :lol: Therefore, things will happen to them outside your control just like SP. They will gain friends you knew nothing about, or have fights, or bad memories, or good ones, because they went to community lots...which are full of life.

The next time you check their memories you will wonder when did they meet so and so? You didn't see it, or you might of missed it. OR when did this Sim have a fight with Benjamin? Or have an affair with Mr. Big? (flirted etc.) or when did this Sim see a ghost?

Perhaps you can't call it SP in the true sense but to me I like TS2 style better since TS3's SP either mucks up my game, or doesn't work at all.

At first in playing Sims 3 I was glad they had cell phones by default, & I was excited about some of the options on it like memorize a scene especially for artistic Sims.
But after a while it got old especially when a Sim tried to call another Sim & got the default message that Sim was busy & my Sim couldn't leave a message (asking the Sim to call them back or something or even when another Sim called my Sim & couldn't leave a message so my Sim could call them back) or when Sims got calls for dates.
But I understand that that is part of the skill of the game, designed to make the player have less time to do other things because they have to answer the phone.
The Sims 3 game is a time management game after all.
I miss how they could leave messages like in Sims 2 & wish they had that option in Sims 3.
I think it would be cool if in Sims 4, Sims could go to a cell phone store & choose to buy a cell phone after being in the game for a while.
Something they'd have to work & save their money for.
Since they have cell phones in Sims 3 they don't need regular house phones & one of the things I kind of missed was how in Sims 2 the player had to make time for the Sim to be at home so they could use the phone when their socializing skill was low, but at the same time, I liked how they had default cell phones in Sims 3 because they could use it anywhere & this meant they didn't have to be at home to boost up their social level.
In Sims 3, they don't really need the phone for that anymore though because if they have a computer, they can use that.
I do miss Sims being able to call for a taxi & I wish too we'd have an option to tell our Sims to go for a walk.
I think it'd be cool if Sims could just go for a stroll on a lazy afternoon & it build up their fun need, even if they could stop & look at some of nature.