Possible bug: forced to leave dinner prematurely?

Although it hasn’t happened to me directly, in the past month I’ve had two acquaintances exit prematurely from dinners that I invited them to, and in both cases they reported that leaving was the only possible option. I don’t know if that means the choice to exit was the only one visible, or if the requirements for the option to continue with dinner were somehow not met.

Has this happened to anyone else? And if so is there any way to prevent from happening this in-game, or should it be reported as a bug if it happens again?

You or they should probably send a bug report. I have had something similar happen to me as well. I was engaging in a sparring bout and attempted an attack, but when I tried to send my move as a social action, was unable to select their name. The only option that worked was calling off the bout. They reported that they did not call off the bout first. Perhaps a new bug found its way in with the social action upheaval?

In this case, it’s possible that your sparring partner went outside of London or to some other inaccessible location. If you select ‘Show contacts I can’t invite’ below the contact list, you should be able to see a list of your contacts that you can’t invite or respond to for that particular action, and the reason why (&quotlacks qualities&quot, &quotsomewhere else&quot, etc.).

For the dinners, though, both acquaintances were able to make it through the first stage of the dinner (meaning that they had a Free Evening to accept the invitation), but were unable to progress through stage two. I can’t think of what would prevent that, so as you say it may indeed be a bug.

[quote=James Sinclair]Although it hasn’t happened to me directly, in the past month I’ve had two acquaintances exit prematurely from dinners that I invited them to, and in both cases they reported that leaving was the only possible option. I don’t know if that means the choice to exit was the only one visible, or if the requirements for the option to continue with dinner were somehow not met.

Has this happened to anyone else? And if so is there any way to prevent from happening this in-game, or should it be reported as a bug if it happens again?[/quote]

I’ve had that happen to me, twice. Leaving prematurely was the only option - no backing out or continuing. Both times it was on the phone app, but I didn’t have time to think about it much at the time, or try to figure out what was going on. I thought maybe the person who invited me has left London, or something like that.

Social actions on the app are generally iffy at best. Coffee at Caligula just outright doesn’t work there. So I just try to make sure to do all dinners on the computer, not the app.

I’ve been a dumpee at dinner, though since it was a new acquaintance (and I had previously been unable to oblige them following a request), I assumed it was an intentional snub. Cold shoulder for mains, as it were. But maybe not with this new evidence.

I have also had acquaintances run into that issue. As Tozh observed, in each case they were using the app. When they switched over to the browser version of the game, the problems ceased. I don’t know if it’s an issue Failbetter’s aware of (probably is), but I would got ahead and have your acquaintances submit a bug report for it. (It’s really their issue, so they should be the ones submitting, if possible.)