I received in my message:
<Name> has invited you to accept their Calling Card: a polite overture to other social actions! Accept, and they’ll become an Acquaintance.
I then click on [color=#ffffff][[/color][color=#ff9900]Respond[/color][color=#ffffff]][/color]
Goes to "[color=#ff9900]Accept a Calling Card[/color]"
I click on "[color=#ff9900]Accept, and encourage them to call upon you soon[/color]"
Takes me to a new screen in which i need to "[color=#ff9900]Select an existing contact[/color]" or "[color=#ff9900]add a new contact[/color]"
However, there us an arrow that says "[color=#ff0000]Show contacts that I can’t invite[/color]"
I click on it, & that person’s name is there.
charactername (charactername) [somewhere else]
Q1
Why can’t I respond to them?
Q2
Why are they listed as ‘contacts that I [color=#ff0000]can’t[/color] invite’?
Q3
What does the descriptive [somewhere else] mean?
It seems i have no way of responding to them? edited by 1stHeretic on 9/16/2018
They might not be in ‘London’ at the moment, which can happen if they send you the calling card from ‘London’ and then enter a special area which doesn’t count as being in London, even though it may geographically still be in the city.
I suppose it might also be possible that a person could send out multiple calling cards and then reach the cap on Influence, making it impossible to add another acquaintance or protégé.
Indeed, [somewhere else] indicates they’re unable to respond to any social actions or access the Bazaar. This is the usual reason one cannot invite contacts. In the case of CCs, they also may have overcapped, as Gillsing stated. Wait a few days to see if their status changes! One thing to see if they are capped on Acquaintances is if you are able to invite them elsewhere as contacts (granted they are not “somewhere else”) and asking.
The easiest way is to just wait and deal with the invitation later; hopefully they will be in London proper by then for social interactions.
If you must contact them in game urgently, the Write A Letter action allow you to send a message and bypass any geographical restriction. They might not have the ability to send you a message back, though. So it isn’t all that great.
Places that are "not" London, but geographically in London, include locations such as: A Place of Some Confusion (the Royal Beth hotel), the Cave of the Nadir, and more conceptual locations like On a Heist. Basically, it’s in London if you can use the Travel button to leave, even if you can’t use the Travel button to get there.
Everywhere geographically outside London are mechanically outside London as well.
Each Acquaintance is worth 1 Influence, but they aren’t to be confused with your contact list; Acquaintances are people to whom you’ve sent a Calling Card, or vice versa. And while you can have up to 100 Influence, if you become an Acquaintance’s protege, that takes up additional influence.
To put it another way… There is a distinction between being In London in terms of story/setting, and In London in terms of game mechanics. This thread is discussing the latter.
Generally, any location that is Out of London in story/setting is also Out of London in game mechanics. But the reverse is not always true: some locations that are In London in story/setting are Out of London in game mechanics (eg. the locations Optimatum listed).
A way to determine whether you are In London in terms of game mechanics is to go to the Bazaar tab. If the Bazaar is available for you to buy and sell inventory, you are still In London. If it says "The Bazaar is out of bounds!" and you can’t do any buying/selling, you are considered to be Out of London. So someone who is in one of these Out of London locations (regardless of whether it is in/outside the city of London in story/setting) (a) cannot buy/sell in the Bazaar, (b) is listed as [somewhere else] on the contact list and is not available for social action responses. edited by Vega on 9/17/2018