FRIENDS...how many of us have them...FRIENDS

[Chocklitkiss]

You spend hours creating the perfect sim, get them married to the perfect mate, have some brats, make it almost to the top of their careers.....and then suddenly BAMMM!! Skanksville!! Suddenly, rumours of urinary problems and false accusation make your sim the talk of the town. Even when they haven't left their home!!

Do friends work the same as in TS2? do I have to be worried about NOT making my career goal, because of the Big Mouth Betties in game?

Thanks in advance for your responses!

[Splatedpumpkin]

No it's much better than in sims 2. You do have to make a few friends in some careers, but only with your boss(es), and your coworkers. You don't have to be best friends with each other either, although the better friends you are the more you excel at work.
Some careers require a lot of friends, like the politician career because you need to get money from them, and in WA & Ambitions, the quests you do sometimes require you to know the person a bit more, or be friends with them. That is like sims 2, but it's pretty easy. Most of the time you just need to talk to them sometimes, and there are buffs and lifetime rewards to help you with that.

[pico22]

This is one of the biggest TS3 pluses for me. I hated the "collecting friends to advance" idea in TS1 and TS2 as it stands against everything I believe in, so I disabled it as soon as it was possible. It is implemented much better in TS3, as pointed out above. If you want to become "leader of the free world", lick arses; if you don't want to do that, don't become a politician - there are professions in which you don't need any friends at all to advance.