Indoor/Outdoor Tasks

I've noticed this, too. It started with the valentine update, presumably because neighbors needed to tap on characters. I guess they just never got rid of it.

It seems to me that any random outdoor task can show up, so long as it doesn't require some building or item (e.g. Lisa will not appear to be cleaning up randomly, because it requires debris.) If a character has no outdoor task that doesn't require something else, they'll just wander around. Skinner is a good example; he needs a tree to birdwatch and the school for crossing guard. Even if those things are available, he won't use them unless assigned to do so.

I guess this thread should be deleted then! I remember clicking on buildings during Valentine's Day and having characters exit and then quickly return. I don't remember randomly assigned outdoor tasks for characters who were in buildings.

neuroheart wrote:
It seems to me that any random outdoor task can show up, so long as it doesn't require some building or item

That's good to know.

Pinpal00 wrote:
If you're like me, you try to put your characters on outdoor tasks so neighbors have something to look at when they visit. I just discovered that, if you send a character to a task in a building, that character will usually appear to your neighbors as being on an outdoor task. For instance, you can send Selma to look for a date at the prison, and she will appear to your neighbors as either hula dancing or taking a smoke break outside the building; the Sea Captain can read up on nautical literature in the library but appear to you neighbors as practicing a standup routine, etc.. In each case, the buildings' animations worked, but there doesn't appear to be any rhyme or reason for which task a character gets assigned. Also, in a few cases, characters wandered aimlessly about the town when they were on 24-hour tasks in buildings.

Perhaps this is old news, and if that's the case a moderator should delete this thread. If it's a glitch, here's to hoping EA doesn't fix it! I've always had some characters permanently at the same tasks in certain areas since I view them as part of that area's decorations. This can be hard to pull off when a character's task lasts only an hour. That no longer appears to be the case.

The irony is this ... If I want Agnes sitting on a bench, and I put her on that one- hour task, then at the end of the hour a visitor sees her wandering aimlessly around town. Same as it was before. If I put her on her silhouette night task (12 hours indoors) and EA randomly cooses feed the pigeons as her visible task, then a visitor will see her on the bench for 12 hours before wandering off aimlessly. I happen to like both of her outdoor tasks (feeding pigeons/1 hour and sweeping town/6 hours), so I just keep her on her 24 hour indoor task at the retirement home, and she is seen by visitors on one of the neat visible ones. :)

neuroheart wrote:
I've noticed this, too. It started with the valentine update, presumably because neighbors needed to tap on characters. I guess they just never got rid of it.

It seems to me that any random outdoor task can show up, so long as it doesn't require some building or item (e.g. Lisa will not appear to be cleaning up randomly, because it requires debris.) If a character has no outdoor task that doesn't require something else, they'll just wander around. Skinner is a good example; he needs a tree to birdwatch and the school for crossing guard. Even if those things are available, he won't use them unless assigned to do so.

You sure? Ive gotten Agnes on her bench instead of indoors taunting old people. Only reason I noticed was that when I did my morning cleanup, she was on the bench with no thumb over her head even though I had assigned her to taunt old people... The bench happens to be outside the retirement home, but I doubt that's a factor. I'll see if I can recreate it tonight.

I've also been trying to get her to go on a date with the comic book guy ... Wonder if that would ever happen.

EDIT: I just realized that what happened to me was different than we were talking about. This bench and thing happened when I came to my OWN town. It still doesn't explain why she was outside, thumbless, after I'd put her on her 24 hour indoor task the day before, but it's not the same as the original poster's question.

annettemarc wrote:

neuroheart wrote:
I've noticed this, too. It started with the valentine update, presumably because neighbors needed to tap on characters. I guess they just never got rid of it.

It seems to me that any random outdoor task can show up, so long as it doesn't require some building or item (e.g. Lisa will not appear to be cleaning up randomly, because it requires debris.) If a character has no outdoor task that doesn't require something else, they'll just wander around. Skinner is a good example; he needs a tree to birdwatch and the school for crossing guard. Even if those things are available, he won't use them unless assigned to do so.

You sure? Ive gotten Agnes on her bench instead of indoors taunting old people. Only reason I noticed was that when I did my morning cleanup, she was on the bench with no thumb over her head even though I had assigned her to taunt old people... The bench happens to be outside the retirement home, but I doubt that's a factor. I'll see if I can recreate it tonight.

I've also been trying to get her to go on a date with the comic book guy ... Wonder if that would ever happen.

That sounds like something weird in your own town, rather than how neighbors view your town. In neighboring towns, I always see Agnes cleaning up Springfield, even though she's probably taunting old people or doing silhouette night. I almost never see her feeding birds in a neighboring town, presumably because it's her hour task and very few of my neighbors are going to be doing that often enough for me to see it.

neuroheart wrote:

annettemarc wrote:

neuroheart wrote:
I've noticed this, too. It started with the valentine update, presumably because neighbors needed to tap on characters. I guess they just never got rid of it.

It seems to me that any random outdoor task can show up, so long as it doesn't require some building or item (e.g. Lisa will not appear to be cleaning up randomly, because it requires debris.) If a character has no outdoor task that doesn't require something else, they'll just wander around. Skinner is a good example; he needs a tree to birdwatch and the school for crossing guard. Even if those things are available, he won't use them unless assigned to do so.

You sure? Ive gotten Agnes on her bench instead of indoors taunting old people. Only reason I noticed was that when I did my morning cleanup, she was on the bench with no thumb over her head even though I had assigned her to taunt old people... The bench happens to be outside the retirement home, but I doubt that's a factor. I'll see if I can recreate it tonight.

I've also been trying to get her to go on a date with the comic book guy ... Wonder if that would ever happen.

That sounds like something weird in your own town, rather than how neighbors view your town. In neighboring towns, I always see Agnes cleaning up Springfield, even though she's probably taunting old people or doing silhouette night. I almost never see her feeding birds in a neighboring town, presumably because it's her hour task and very few of my neighbors are going to be doing that often enough for me to see it.

Yeah, I just edited my post with a comment about that. Really weird.

ultimatechick wrote:
So THAT'S why I keep seeing Homer on his mypad in friends' towns. I thought it was extremely odd that I kept visiting neighbors during the 45 seconds that Homer was performing that task.
Mystery solved, thanks for the info.

We were talking about it a short while back.

Hopefully the others won't mind if I repost this picture, since it shows what were talking about.

When I had my town assigned to drink in the pub, what a neighbor would see if the pub task had not expired was a view of the whole town coming out to do an outdoor task. And if the random task EA chose at that moment happened to be a stationary one, the character performing it would stand right in the doorway. Problem was, there were a BUNCH of characters assigned stationary tasks.

Below is a view from a neighboring town. Notice moe is walking pandas and Hank Scorpio is flame throwing, but the Texan, Smithers, Booobarella, Barney, the sea captain, and even Patty and Selma all stayed in the doorway.

They just stayed like that. Each time the town was reloaded the characters were different. (Nelson isn't part of the topic. I placed him there on purpose ahead of time. )

I really wish they would return it to the old way. I want my friends to see my town the way I see it. I also like seeing the types of tasks my neighbors like to put their characters on.

lightestbulb wrote:
I really wish they would return it to the old way. I want my friends to see my town the way I see it. I also like seeing the types of tasks my neighbors like to put their characters on.

100% agree. There are some of the outdoor tasks that I find personally disturbing.

Plus, towns load a lot more slowly for me when there are 72 animate objects in them. The burden on EA servers must be staggering. Unless there's something I don't understand about servers and animation and use of resources. Especially when I have, for example, everyone on twelve hour tasks. If I visit my main town from my feeder, it lags because the church has so many characters all amassed in that tiny area.