364 replies to this topic

[Xentropy]

I'm playing through Torment for the first time in years using the latest versions of these fixes/unfinished business/tweaks and I'm loving it! I happen to have just reached the Lower Ward, and have hopefully useful information regarding Hailcii'n and strangeness here.

I have never killed a gith, but Hailcii'n attacked me on sight UNTIL I helped Ana'zi die. After helping Ana'zi die, apparently making Hailcii'n friendly is one of the changes that occurs, along with making the githyanki willing to talk to you to "help recover your memories".

I don't know *why* he wants to kill you before you help Ana'zi die, but this is what happened to me. After helping Ana'zi, he was quite jovial and we had a lovely time chatting.

A couple of other things that have annoyed me in my game, and I don't know if it's something I did wrong or the result of bug(s):

1) I'm not able to start the restored Pendant of Yemeth quest. At all. I talk to Ratbone and have no option to give him rat tails to begin the quest (which is how I understand it is supposed to begin?), despite having plenty in my inventory. I tried saves and reloads and every possible conversational path and just can't find any of note. The only clue I have to the quest's existance at all is the guy wanting to duel me north of the Smouldering Corpse.

2) Hovering over Dak'kon's alignment icon I see he has a morale of 20. But his blade is the "Chained Blade", not the "Streaming Blade", as I understand it is supposed to have upgraded to. I have upgraded Dak'kon himself, and he is currently in the lowest of the three level ranges, so it has the correct stats for Chained at that level, but should be Streaming, no?

Again, great work. I'll post here if I run into anything else. I hate that I know I've seen a couple of other things I found inconsistent (and one simple typo), but didn't think to write them down so you might fix them! D'oh.

Edit: I just headed over to the Clerk's Ward and stared at the drunken mage and bartender for about 5 minutes. No floating text, other than a random townie walking by and saying "Hmm, how curious", and Able Pander-Thought going on and on (and on) about random nonsense. Nothing from the Drunken Mage or Bartender whatsoever.

Edited by Xentropy, 13 June 2009 - 04:14 AM.

[Qwinn]

Xentropy, welcome, and glad you're enjoying the mods And yes, please do note when you find inconsistent stuff!

Okay, talking to Ratbone:

EDIT: Wait, never mind, that's the wrong path, give me a minute to find it and I'll post it here.

Etc. etc.

2) Dak'kon's sword upgrades when he reaches fighter levels 4, 7 and 10, based on what his morale is at that time.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 13 June 2009 - 04:22 AM.

[Xentropy]

Is there a way to get Ratbone into a state where he won't offer you the quest? I have very few dialogue options with him going back there now, and I know in my current saves I've had conversations in the past, so I must have said something wrong to bar the quest from this incarnation forever. (Last I remember him doing was telling me to stay OUT of his rat-catching business and find another line of work, because there aren't enough rats to go around!)

As for the karach blade, is there any chance to change that so it will change forms immediately when/if his morale changes? I know enough about the game to have talked to him pretty early and unlocked the circles, but I'd imagine someone not doing so until Dak'kon was already level 10 being pretty angry that they're stuck with a Chained Blade forever. I know the game's all about choices, but not having done something yet isn't exactly a conscious choice if you don't know it's there to BE done. One of the things I love about this game is you can go back later and nearly always do something after the fact. Losing an upgrade forever because of not finding it until a character had already gained too much XP doesn't sit right with me.

BTW, I edited my previous post with a response to your request. No floating text on the Drunken Mage for my game.

[Qwinn]

Okay, here's the actual guide to getting Ratbone's rat tail quest:

"Can you tell me about this area?"
"Anything to look out for here?"
"Who is he?"
"Collector?"
"What did you mean about 'more to do with'?"
"Ask your favor."

See if you can get that dialogue chain. If not, tell me where it breaks down? The first question should always be available, I believe.

As for Dak'kon upgrading whenever... eh. It would require a pretty big engine fix on scient's part, and we're already running out of room in the engine for higher priority fixes. I'm not that worried about it... it takes Dak'kon a LONG time to reach level 10 as a fighter. Even doing everything very thoroughly, he didn't get there in my test game until Carceri. Pretty close to the end of the game at that point.

And -crap-, I was afraid you'd say that about the drunken mage. Gah. If I load up with all the mods and use the Tome of Cheats to teleport to Lower Ward and run to Clerk's Ward, they talk fine. Bleh. I wonder what could be causing it? For some reason, the bartender's scripts aren't running their OnCreation() block, and I already eliminated Morte's Clerk's Ward banter as a possible cause.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 13 June 2009 - 04:35 AM.

[macabroid]

I confirm: Drunken Mage is silent as a dead fish.

About Ratbone problem: I was having troubles with getting this quest too. The problem was that "Anything to look out for here?" is buried deep within the dialog tree, with no thread returning to the 2-nd level of questions ("Can you tell me about this area?"), just to the root of dialog. Found out what's wrong only on 4th replay. I still think that maybe such a large quest shouldn't be so hard to find, so it'd be nice to restore a thread "Can you tell me about this area?" leading back to 2nd level of questions. But maybe this quest was intended to be hidden this way...

Edited by macabroid, 13 June 2009 - 04:42 AM.

[Xentropy]

Okay, here's the actual guide to getting Ratbone's rat tail quest:

Hmm, I see it now. I swear I couldn't find that path before, but I may've just been blind. Now I have to find some rat tails again since I already turned them all in at the vermin figuring that quest was gone forever. Thank you!

Edit: Yeah, it's definitely a harder dialogue path to find than you'd think. If you ask him anything other than to tell you about the area in general first, you can pretty much never get back there without leaving conversation altogether and starting from scratch. Perhaps a way to reach the quest from asking him about what he's doing there (like you thought it was at first) would be nicer. Not a lot of people are going to ask for information about the Hive in general for the 50th time (as most would have learned plenty by the time they reach this guy).

Edited by Xentropy, 13 June 2009 - 04:43 AM.

[Qwinn]

I'm having a hard time duplicating this issue where you can only ask him that question on your first try. What is it that Ratbone says to you when you have that question available, and when you don't? It seems to me that, after asking any question, you are sent back to Ratbone saying "Go on then, ask yer questions." at which point you should always have that option.

As for the silent drunken mage, gah, I need to find someone who's played -without- my mods who can check if he's silent for them too.

I've narrowed down what's causing that to a pretty narrow range. I loaded up a save game where I'm at the pregnant alley. If I finish the alley's quest, which teleports you to the lower ward, and then run over to the Clerk's Ward, the mage is silent. But if I use the tome of cheats to teleport to the lower ward and then run over, he's talkative as ever.

So something's happening when the Alley ports you over, and I think I know what it is. When I use the alley to enter the Lower Ward, from then on leaving one of the big areas takes you to the world map where you can just click on anything. Clicking on the Clerk's Ward on that map may somehow be preventing the OnCreation() scripts from firing, which would make him go silent. If I used the book to teleport, then no, the world map doesn't appear, if you exit the Lower Ward on the east side you skip the world map and appear directly in the Clerk's Ward, and the mage talks.

Hmmmm.

Qwinn

[Xentropy]

I'm having a hard time duplicating this issue where you can only ask him that question on your first try.  What is it that Ratbone says to you when you have that question available, and when you don't?  It seems to me that, after asking any question, you are sent back to Ratbone saying "Go on then, ask yer questions." at which point you should always have that option.

Nevermind, seems to be there, I guess my issue is a mental block against asking yet another person to tell me about the Hive. Seems more logical to get a quest to give him rat tails by asking him about the rats, not the Hive. Oh well.

If I used the book to teleport, then no, the world map doesn't appear, if you exit the Lower Ward on the east side you skip the world map and appear directly in the Clerk's Ward, and the mage talks.

If you get to the Lower Ward normally (via pregnant alley) then exiting on the east side still gives you the world map. You basically always get the world map on every map transition after getting sent to the Lower Ward via the normal course of the storyline. If this breaks scripts, that could be pretty big, since it means breaking them for a large portion of the game.

For now a simple enough workaround is to enter and leave a house after zoning into any area from the world map screen, since that loads the area "normally". I see the Drunken Mage talk after doing this.

[Qwinn]

For now a simple enough workaround is to enter and leave a house after zoning into any area from the world map screen, since that loads the area "normally". I see the Drunken Mage talk after doing this.

Egad, you're correct! How strange. Yes, after entering any building in Clerk's Ward and then exiting, the mage will talk from then on. Even if you leave and reenter the Clerk's Ward using the world map. So this appears to only be an issue the very very first time you enter the Clerk's Ward, but doing almost anything after that seems to fix the issue. Okay, not going to worry about it any longer.

The good news: Yes, the interaction between a customer and the bartender at the eastern bar is now restored. Though it does strike me as one of those "reversed" conversations... the customer approaches the bar and says "It's about time!", then the bartender says "Here you are.". Oh well. I guess it's possible that was intended.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 13 June 2009 - 05:36 AM.

[Qwinn]

Adding the following to the list:

1. One of Morte's taunts is inaudible and another isn't really a taunt. Replacing them with two other unused sound files that are appropriate.

2. Grace's "Target Immune To Weapon" sound was exceedingly vague and inappropriate for the occasion ("There is nothing I can do."), replaced with the unused sound that was clearly intended for it. ("I cannot wound it.")

Qwinn

[macabroid]

Excellent decisions with the journal entries, Qwinn - both are much better than the ones I suggested! And excellent job with typos too: the first typos I've encountered are way deep in the game. But the game is huge, and so my bugreport continues (mostly minor staff this time, and mostly thanks to Mr.Nihl Xander):

19. Something's definitely not right with the walking scripts of Buried Village inhabitants. 11 of them are near the entrance to Trash Warrens, walking towards the exit or from it (synchronously in one direction only!), looks pretty much ridiculous to me. And, by the way, where are they going? Can't see any Buried Villagers in Trash Warrens, besides those ones that were aggressive and were killed during your first visit to this level.

20. Keldor: "Ask Nihil Xander about his dreambuilder someday." He's not Nihil, he's Nihl. I doubt Keldor would mispronounce the name of their chief engineer.

21. The "Restored Mebbeth" dialog occuring when you sleep in her hut is very important to the future parts of the game, without it the journal entry about Dreambuilder ("so that I may dream again") doesn't make much sense - how does TNO know he doesn't dream? Even Nihl Xander doesn't tell him this fact in his quest-giving dialog. So I think this dialog with Mebbeth should belong to the fixpack, not to the restoration pack.

22. Is there any particular reason why journal record about Dreambuilder quest speaks about "the Dreambuilder", with the first capital letter, and Nihl Xander speaks about "the dreambuilder", without the first capital letter?

23. Rooms on the 3rd floor of the Foundry, on the balcony: when you save the game here, you'll see this level entitled as ...hmm, "small dwelling". Maybe something's wrong with my knowledge of English, but how could anyone dwell in a room with no bed, and how a room inside larger building could be called a "dwelling"?

Also, I confirm Xentropy's report: killing An'azi mercifully heals the Hailcii'n aggressive state. Killing her painfully also makes Hailcii'n friendly. Insane, but it's true.

[Qwinn]

19. Something's definitely not right with the walking scripts of Buried Village inhabitants. 11 of them are near the entrance to Trash Warrens, walking towards the exit or from it (synchronously in one direction only!), looks pretty much ridiculous to me.

I can't argue that it looks very weird. Unfortunately, that's the only basis we have to go on to change it... there are two spawn points, both very close to the area entrance, and each one spawns 5 each, as directly told to by the INI file (spec_qty = 5). Unfortunately even IESDP doesn't really explain how INI files work properly. I've got a pretty good handle on it by now, just from trial and error, but it -is- confusing. In this case, I wonder if the programmers weren't thinking that setting that value would mean there should be 5 creatures max from each "rail" list active at one time, but the five should still come out at the "interval = 600", not all at once. Regardless, I don't think max 5 works either, you enter and leave that area enough and you get a LOT of rail creatures walking around.

I tend to agree that it would be much better and work more like the rails in other areas if they came out one at a time rather than these huge blobs of NPC's spawning at the edges of these areas, but is that enough for me to call it a fix? Maybe they -wanted- the Buried Village to look like Manhattan on a saturday night. *shrug*

20. Keldor: "Ask Nihil Xander about his dreambuilder someday." He's not Nihil, he's Nihl. I doubt Keldor would mispronounce the name of their chief engineer.

Fixed.

21. The "Restored Mebbeth" dialog occuring when you sleep in her hut is very important to the future parts of the game, without it the journal entry about Dreambuilder ("so that I may dream again") doesn't make much sense - how does TNO know he doesn't dream? Even Nihl Xander doesn't tell him this fact in his quest-giving dialog. So I think this dialog with Mebbeth should belong to the fixpack, not to the restoration pack.

You can also realize you lack dreams by talking to Kesai Serris. And since the Xander stuff isn't -dependent- on the Mebbeth resting dialogue... and no one has ever said it "doesn't make much sense" before... I don't think it's that big an issue. Still, I -do- consider the Emoric and Phineas T. Lort sleeping cutscenes to be fixes, so, yeah, I guess it should go in the Fixpack. Just seems weird leaving a few lines of dialogue only as an entire UB component

22. Is there any particular reason why journal record about Dreambuilder quest speaks about "the Dreambuilder", with the first capital letter, and Nihl Xander speaks about "the dreambuilder", without the first capital letter?

Xander actually uses both capitalized and lower-case in the same line:

@6707 = ~"I need just one more item from you, and we can begin the final process of the Dreambuilder. I need a pillow that has lain inside a coffin -- it will stimulate a sleep so profound that you may as well be dead. It opens your mind to the emanations of the dreambuilder. It is, if I say so myself, a touch of inspiration on my part."~

I'm going to stay away from this. I'll correct typos but I'm not going to go nuts with when a noun is considered proper and when it's not. If I go there, I'll spend the next six weeks just standardizing the completely chaotic capitalization of the word 'planes/Planes' in this game.

23. Rooms on the 3rd floor of the Foundry, on the balcony: when you save the game here, you'll see this level entitled as ...hmm, "small dwelling". Maybe something's wrong with my knowledge of English, but how could anyone dwell in a room with no bed, and how a room inside larger building could be called a "dwelling"?

It's a stretch of the term, it's true. I think more was intended for those areas that just got cut, though I have -no- idea what, there's no vestiges of anything involving them left around. Lacking in-game reason to rename them (such as there was with the mortuary embalming room) I'm thinking I'll just leave them be.

Note that re: "and how a room inside larger building could be called a "dwelling"", it is perfectly appropriate in english to describe an apartment within a large apartment building as a "small dwelling". You're right that it usually implies a bed and otherwise a place someone could -live- rather than a small library, though.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 16 June 2009 - 03:49 AM.

[Qwinn]

Speaking of renaming the Embalming Room tag on the map, I have -no- freakin' idea how those map notes are getting put in place, unless it's all in the engine. PS:T Area files do not use the automap notes section. If anyone has any idea how that's being done, please do let me know.

EDIT: Eh, doesn't really make a big difference. There is no original dialogue STRREF that is just called "Embalming Room", so I'd have to create one anyway, so I might as well just overwrite the "Northeast Preparation Room" strref. I'd still like to know the mechanism though, if anyone knows what it is.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 16 June 2009 - 04:46 AM.

[taplonaplo]

Speaking of renaming the Embalming Room tag on the map, I have -no- freakin' idea how those map notes are getting put in place, unless it's all in the engine. PS:T Area files do not use the automap notes section. If anyone has any idea how that's being done, please do let me know.

EDIT: Eh, doesn't really make a big difference. There is no original dialogue STRREF that is just called "Embalming Room", so I'd have to create one anyway, so I might as well just overwrite the "Northeast Preparation Room" strref. I'd still like to know the mechanism though, if anyone knows what it is.

Qwinn

Their loactions are stored externally in the autonote.ini, which have a text reference field maybe that can help?

Edited by taplonaplo, 16 June 2009 - 05:48 AM.

[Qwinn]

Nice one! Never noticed that file before. And yep, that has all the information necessary to create those notes. Cool. Thanks for the tip!

(Again, not really necessary for the Embalming Room fix, but it's nice to know where I have to go should another error need fixing in the future.)

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 16 June 2009 - 06:03 AM.

[Qwinn]

On the Mebbeth dream sequence thing... actually, I think you've talked me into just putting the whole UB Restored Mebbeth component into the Fixpack, including the restoration of the orphaned Mebbeth's Tale of Ravel. There's quite a few other instances of my restoring orphaned states in the Fixpack, and there's nothing about this case that really merits being treated differently.

RE: the Buried Villager thing, I've taken a longer look, and yeah, the BV seems to have more foot traffic than the Lower and Clerk's Ward combined, or any 3 Hive areas. It really is hard to believe that was intended, and hard to explain why you had such trouble finding this place's location when it's practically the Grand Central Station of Sigil. You'd also think that if it was intended to be that crowded you'd have a lot more ambient sound of chatter, etc., but you don't. Lowering it so that each of the rails only produces -1- foot-traffic guy at a time makes for a very different village... not sparse, there's plenty of characters in the area even without them, but less like you're wading through Manhattan streets during rush hour. I -am- tempted to fix it, I really am. Any objections out there to my doing so?

Qwinn

[Qwinn]

Few additional issues discovered while poking around the Dustmen and Soego's dialogues:

1. In one of the various states that Mortuary Soego opened the door for you, the experience award was mistakenly awarded twice.

2. Fixed a bug INT stat check that prevented smarter TNO's from telling Dustmen you were looking for Adahn at the point it would matter.

3. Telling Dustmen women that you were looking for Adahn, you did not get the increment to the Adahn counter and the chaotic hit that you were supposed to and do get in the male dustmen dialogue.

And thanks to my spanish email correspondent who's been doing tons of great testing for me:

4. Subtitled Cutscenes: Fixed the stupid "cutscene breaks after talking to item in inventory bug" YET AGAIN, this time for the cutscenes with Vhailor and Ignus in the Fortress.

5. Expanded Deionarra's Truth: Something is recreating the key NPC in her original location after you finish the quest (even though I -did- deactivate her), put in scripting to make sure she's truly gone.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 17 June 2009 - 06:46 AM.

[Qwinn]

This is really a UB fix, but might as well document everything here:

Fixed a bug in the Pendant of Yemeth quest, if you tried to talk to the Rakechaser during the daytime after Adyzoel was dead, you'd get a dialogue zombie speaking Adyzoel's lines.

Qwinn

[Qwinn]

When Blackrose says "Farewell." in the one circumstance where he leaves peacefully, he doesn't actually leave. This is problematic because he has no valid dialogue states after that point, and it makes sense for him to leave because by that point there's really no reason left for him to remain. Adding an EscapeArea().

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 17 June 2009 - 01:48 PM.