Better Greet

This mod requires Lazy Duchess' Mono Patcher Library to work properly!
Updated 25/01/2025

• Fixed Sims resetting when inviting or being invited by another Sim to a lot.

Important Update: 28/01/2025

• Mod now requires Mono Patcher Library.
• Implemented optional Require Greet Before Socializing feature.
• Fixed Old Friend Hug not running properly.
• Removed SocializingActionAvailability XML override from the package.
• Fixed "Be Greeted" interaction text not being localized in non-English games.
• Added strings in Swedish, thanks to kaellstroem.
• Made minor adjustments to Spanish strings, thanks to SrtaPatry.

Description
In the vanilla game, greetings are limited almost exclusively to handshakes, with the only exceptions being the cultural greetings from World Adventures and the Proper greetings from Supernatural, as well as a rare ‘wave’ greeting that takes place when one of the involved Sims is carrying a baby or an object.

This behavior seems to be an oversight by the developers, as the Social Data for the Greet interaction includes some rules that in theory would allow Sims to use different animations when greeting friends, romantic partners and so on, but the actual script that handles greetings completely disregards these rules.

This mod aims to solve that and expand upon the possibilities by making Sims’ greetings also take into account things like personality traits, social group and relationship status.

Features
There are a host of new conditions under which Sims can perform the new greeting styles. Some aspects of these conditions can be edited in the mod’s Tuning resource, such as the relationship level or social group level required for a greeting to be performed. By default, the mod is tuned in a way that strangers, acquaintances, friends and romantic partners all greet each other differently.

Though there are no hard requirements, many of the greeting styles rely on expansion packs for their animations or to fulfill certain requirements, such as: World Adventures, Showtime, University Life, Island Paradise, Into The Future. The mod can still be used without any of these packs, the corresponding greeting types will simply not be available.

If UL is installed, Socially Awkward Sims have a chance of performing some greetings awkwardly. The reaction to these greetings depends on the target Sim's traits; friendlier Sims won't mind and will turn an awkward greeting into a successful one.

There are three optional alternate modes available that modify the greeting rules, which can be enabled in the Tuning XML file:

• Require Greet Before Socializing: If this feature is enabled, Sims outside the current household will need to be greeted before they can be socialized with, similar to TS2's behavior.
• Euro Mode: Adjusts the rules of the Double Cheek Kiss greeting in order to mimic the customs of parts of the world where giving a kiss on each cheek is a common greeting. This can be mixed and matched with the Check Gender tuning, which can restrict this greeting to be performed only with female Sims if enabled.
• Historical Mode: Makes Proper Bow and Curtsey the default greetings (SN required) and disables some greetings that might not fit in a historical gameplay setting, such as High Five or Shaka Bra. Players who use the LN Celebrity system to simulate social ranks can take advantage of the Celeb Check tuning, which makes Sims greet with Proper Bow or Curtsey with Sims of a higher celebrity level, and Handshake with Sims of a lower celebrity level.

Gestures
In addition to the improved Greet rules, I’ve added a new Gesture… pie menu category full of custom interactions equivalent to most of the new greeting styles, giving you options to greet Sims however you prefer. This feature can be toggled on or off by editing the Tuning XML file.

By default, many gestures have the same LTR requirements as they do in Greet, but most of them have no trait requirements (exceptions being Bow, Proper Bow and Curtsey.) Some gestures also have a chance of failing if the initiator has the Socially Awkward trait. These can all be modified in the Tuning XML file, so you can disable the Socially Awkward outcomes for gestures or get rid of all LTR/trait restrictions altogether.

To avoid redundancy, some gestures are essentially clones of the socials they share animations with and are only available when the target Sim hasn’t been greeted yet, such as Friendly Hug and all the romantic greetings. High Five and Shaka Bra have been hidden from the Friendly category and made available in the Gesture category instead.

Strings & Language Support
The new Gesture pie menu interactions are translated in the following languages:

• English
• Chinese — zh-TW (by Little Duck Liu)
• Czech (by ProtectusCZ)
• French (by Nostural)
• Italian (by Giuls.ds)
• German (by McNero)
• Polish (by FernPolska)
• Portuguese — pt-BR (by Aeri)
• Russian (by HYDRO1st
• Spanish — es-ES and es-MX (by myself, with adjustments by SrtaPatry)
• Swedish (by kaellstroem

In addition to the brand new strings for gestures, I’ve replaced the strings of some tangentially related interactions:

• In the Spanish versions of the game, the Invite Over phone interaction was incorrectly translated to “Invitar a casa” (Invite Home), despite actually inviting the Sim to whichever lot the active Sim is currently in, not just their home lot. Corrected to “Invitar a solar actual” (Invite to Current Lot.) Other languages this mod is translated in may include their own correction of the string if necessary. All other languages will continue to use the original interaction name.
• The Ask to Leave interaction is renamed to Goodbye across all supported languages. A little less crass sounding if you want to send a visiting friend home.
  Ask Everyone to Leave is renamed to Goodbye to Everyone. Since I couldn’t find the exact string in the game files like I could with “Goodbye”, I've only made this change in English and Spanish (es-ES & es-MX). Other languages this mod is translated in may or may not include their own adjustment for this string. All other languages will continue to use the original interaction name.

Tuning
To edit the mod’s tuning, open the .package file with S3PE and edit the Tuning XML resource in a text editor of your choice.

There are lots of different tunables, including toggles for Euro Mode and Check Gender, LTR values for most greeting types, and Influence level required for the Social Group greetings. I've tried to organize them as neatly as possible in the XML to hopefully make it easier for you to go ahead and edit the values to your liking.

Compatibility

• Conflicts with any other mod that replaces the social_greet jazz script in JazzData.

Credits & Thanks

• Battery’s Script Mod Template Creator: Getting started with scripting quickly.
• nraas: I studied their code and used parts of it to work out how to replace the Action Data of a social interaction, as well as inject the tuning of one interaction into another.
• dnSpy: Peeking into the game’s files.
• Visual Studio 2022: Writing the script.
• s3pe: Exporting/Importing resources, creating the package file.
• Adobe Photoshop: Creating and editing the preview image.
• Thanks to LazyDuchess for helping me with scripting!
• Thanks to MissPat and Zora for testing and giving feedback!
• Thanks to the lovely community at TS3 Creators Cave!