Help with a bug, possible very small spoiler

Jurosementalistile · Post by **Jurosementalistile** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 7:14 pm

I had a quick search with the search function to see if anyone else has had this particular problem and I didn't find it. I didn't want to search too long however as I am still very early in the game and I don't want to come across spoilers. So sorry if this has been answered elsewhere and I've missed it. The information I'm about to present is from very early in the game and barely gives anything away anyway, but just to be absolutely sure I don't spoil anything for anyone, I'll put in some space here....

Spoiler

My game crashes when the goblins attack in the palisade in the prologue. This is after you've done the fourth mission for Shaewald or whatever his name is in the palisade. The boy comes in and says they're attacking, and the man leaves, then I go out and there is a group right there who I kill, including a goblin called something like Dhaenig riding a wolf or worg or something. But as soon as that fight is over, there is supposed to be a cutscene of some sort I'm guessing, yeah? Because the control panels disappear like they do when you're about to watch something, and the screen starts to move on its own up and to the right a little, toward a circular structure just above the building I came out of. And then nothing. The game freezes and never comes starts up again.
I've tried reloading, I've tried reinstalling and reloading, and I've even tried reinstalling and starting again from scratch (Not TOO bad considering how early in the game it is, but still damn annoying way to spend 2-3 hours when you know it's probably going to come to nothing, which it did).
Has anyone else encountered this problem? Does anyone have any idea how I can deal with it? This is an unavoidable mission as far as I can tell, so unless someone can come up with some useful advice the game is useless to me and I'm writin' Black Isle or whoever and asking for my money back

Any help would be greatly appreciated, thankyou

Brynn · Post by **Brynn** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 12:27 am

Well, in cases like this my usual advices are:

#1. Make sure you have the latest patch OR
#2. Reinstall the game and #1 OR
#3. Get an earlier saved game from someone else and try to complete the mission from there (you can swap the characters to your own.)

Or you can use DaleKeeper II to teleport your party to the next scene and add the XP you should get for completing the mission (yeah, I know it's not an in-game solution but still I don't consider it cheating since it's not your fault you cannot get through that stage).

Jurosementalistile · Post by **Jurosementalistile** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 3:41 am

Thanks Brynn, I forgot to mention that I'd tried the patch and that didn't help either. Messy as it is, at this point I'm willing to use Dalekeeper, but I've just done a google search for it and I can't find any place to download it, might anybody here be able to give me a reliable link please?

Jurosementalistile · Post by **Jurosementalistile** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 3:58 am

OK, one more faint ray of hope. I just tried the game one last time, and I got further than I have before. I tried moving the screen up and right, before the last goblin was killed, and it worked, partially. I saw a scene where a goblin shaman or some other magic user appeared with a group of other goblins, destroyed a section of wall with a fireball and then left the others to fight. But after I finished the goblins I had the same problem again, the controls disappeared and the screen began to move, and then the game crashed.
So, I'm thinking maybe if I can get the screen to all the places it's supposed to be before it tries to take me there itself, it might prevent the game from crashing. (Hopefully just for this one scene, and not for the whole game

)
I know this is a bit of a big ask, but can anyone please give me a rundown on where the cutscenes occur and in what order, so I can be there to pre-empt them? Few of you probably remember something like that, but as much as you can remember would be appreciated, thankyou.

silverdragon72 · Post by **silverdragon72** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 4:04 am

.

1st is at the north wall

2nd is at the west wall

3rd is at the gate

.

Brynn · Post by **Brynn** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 4:09 am

See the Useful Links sticky for a link to DaleKeeper.

As for the cutscenes, iirc there are three bunches of goblins to defeat, and there should be a cutscene before each battle (which is one huge battle, after all). So first you see a cutscene when talking to Shawford and Swift Thomas comes with the news, you got that already. You go outside, defeat the goblins and worg raiders, and then comes another cutscene showing the North-West part of the Palisade with Olaf under attack. You should rush there, save Olaf if possible, and get another "movie" revealing that Caballus the goblin shaman and his minions have broken through the West gate. That's the last cutscene iirc.

Jurosementalistile · Post by **Jurosementalistile** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 7:41 am

OK, thanks for the help again Brynn, and Silverdragon. I had difficulties trying to get to the areas before the cut scenes cut in for various reasons. There's still a possibility that that plan could work, but as it restarts my computer each time, it's a very tedious process.
So I'm now ready to move on to using cheat codes. But I don't really know what I'm doing

I finally got Dale Keeper (couldn't find it on that useful links page at first) and I've also enabled the cheat code console within the game. I can't find any commands within Dale Keeper that allow me to move my party or mess with the missions though, except the Global Variables. I found a webpage that gave useful codes for the cheat console, and after some difficulty finally got some of them to work. I even managed to transport my party out of battle and back to the town, where everyone was assuming that I had defeated the goblins. Problem was, I couldn't get back to the palisade as the door was locked, and when I went back with the console the battle was still raging and I had the same old problem. I set the chapter to chapter one but that didn't help.
So, once again, may I ask for he advice of those more wise and experienced than myself in these matters, to tell me how exactly I should go about skipping this battle, with as little disruption to the game as possible? I'm guessing I need to mess with some of the Global Variables in order to set the status of various missions and towns where they need to be? And I don't know the area codes for any place I haven't already been. The webpage said it would be under the CD2 Data game directory, but it wasn't.
Please help

Brynn · Post by **Brynn** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 7:49 am

[QUOTE=Jurosementalistile] I had difficulties trying to get to the areas before the cut scenes cut in for various reasons. [/QUOTE]
Maybe I don't understand you clearly, but you don't have to get there before the cutscene... Like I said, you defeat the first bunc, view the first cutscene and THEN run to North-West...

Um... Dunno how to do that teleport thing properly with DK, I'd have to look at it...

shift244 · Post by **shift244** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 10:05 am

Hi,

You might have already done this, but from reading the attempted solutions, I'd hazzard a guess that you have not.

I am not particularly surprised that you did not find any solutions on this,as this is the first time I've read about a problem here as well.

Instead of trouble-shooting at what might be wrong with the game, I'd suggest you look into the possibility that the problem might be from a different source, namely your operating system.

By saying that your systems restart upon each crash, I'm guessing tat you are using MS Windows? More specifically Win XP. Perhaps a Home Edition? If I've been right thus far, then I suggest you go to your Start button, and seek out your Control Panel. From there, go to the Systems option*, and find the Advanced tab from the popup window. Near the bottom of this tab page, you should see a Settings button. Click on it. About slightly after halfway down this page, you should see a "Restart Automatically". Uncheck it.

The next time you go into the cut scene, you should still crash, but this time, instead of restarting, you will see a blue screen with alot of numbers and words on it. I cannot recall this blue screen properly, but there should be a line with a series of fully capitalized "phrase", the error code, looking something like SYS_MEM_DUMP_ERR or something. (Note that this serves merely as an example and yours will extremely likely not be this)

* Alternately you can right click on My Computer for the same effect.

I'm sorry that this will not solve your problem, but willl put you a step closer. You can search it in the web yourself, and read up the solutions. Or you can post it here, and I (or those who know, if they post before me) will seek out the problem, and return you with answers... but the instructions will be no different than those you seek yourself.. you simply get some help sort through what might be a though search result set.

I'm further guessing that it has something to do with the system dump or paginating setting, depending on the patch.. if the OS is WinXP, but I'm not relying on guesses and would prefer seeing the result of the blue screen.. evil as that may seem.

Of course, if it is not WinXP, then I'm just making a fool of myself acting as if an expert... of which, I am not of course...

I hope the formatting of this post is readable.. (sorry its past midnight and I dun feel like reformatting into point form, for now) Hope I did not scare you off. If my guess is right, its a common problem. No worries.

Jurosementalistile · Post by **Jurosementalistile** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 12:23 pm

Brynn, sorry, I should have been clearer. I don't know exactly how things are supposed to go, since the game has always screwed up for me at this point, but as I understant it, after the first fight, you see a cut scene of the shaman and his lackey's appearing in the top right of the city and firing a fireball etc. You then go there and kill them. Once done with them, you see another cutscene, to the west, according to what you and silverdragon have told me here. The only times I have been able to see that first cutscene have been when I have had my party at the location where the cutscene takes place, before it begins. This way the screen doesn't have to move to the location. (It is always as the screen is beginning to move that the game freezes). So my plan was to be at each of the cutscene locations before they begin. This is a little tricky though as the cutscenes begin as soon as the last goblin from the previous battle is dead, so I have to be careful to leave one alive, and hope he doesn't get killed by any NPCs, while I get into position. And even then sometimes it doesn't work, and I haven't yet been able to get as far as the second cutscene.

Shift, thankyou very much, and you were about 80% correct. I'm using windows 2000, not XP, but I followed your instructions, and although it was in a slightly different place, I found the box with Restart and unticked it. As for the memory dump message, I think you're right, but I'm not sure. That message you describe is familiar, so I think I have seen it recently. What happens is the game freezes, and then I use ctrl alt delete to get out of it and close it down. The computer does not restart on its own, until I do this. This computer does have a whole mess of problems, and I had considered that the problem was not something to do with the game itself. I initially thought this was unlikely, as the game simply freezes, and doesn't crash or restart the computer until I use task manager to shut down the game. At this point I get an error message or two, before the computer restarts. After following your advice and changing the restart option I tried again. The game froze again, I shut it down, and the computer went to the blue screen. This blue screen didn't have the memory dump message on it, but I think I may have received a similar message from one of the error windows that sometimes comes up just before the computer restarts. So now you have me thinking you may be right, and it may be something to do with the OS getting overwhelmed rather than a game bug. What exactly I can do with that information I don't know

So no, you weren't making a fool of yourself. In the way you write you rather reminded me of myself, when I know what I'm talking about. Or at least when I think I do...

Brynn · Post by **Brynn** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 12:34 pm

Wow, this sounds complicated... Try reinstalling the operating system then

shift244 · Post by **shift244** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 6:09 pm

I made the guess that you were using WinXP as you have stated restart... generally, if there is nothing wrong with the OS, ie. only the game crashes but returns to OS and everything runs normally and you can reenter the game again, one does not restart.. at least I would not.

Win2K doesn't have the auto restart option, at least not that I am aware of... I am not sure on that since I skipped from maintainin Win98 straight through to WinXP.

And do not worry about system dump. It was a problem, but I believe was then handled later in patches. It might not be yours.

If it was a paginating problem, you can attempt to solve it yourself by toggling between one of two modes:

#1. Automatic, let the system handle it. It is the recommended option, but some systems, for some reason unknown to me, refuses to work properly with this setting.
#2. Set it yourself. he recommended value is about twice your RAM, in case you need to know.

What I would suggest you do is to note down the error_code in te blue screen and make a search in http://www.microsoft.com or http://www.google.com. There are some nice forums out there dedicated to this matter, and you might just find your solutions there.

Hope it helps.

Edit: Brynn, not a bad suggestion, depending on how "messy" Jurosementalistile feels his(/her) system is, and if is better worth the effort keeping the current configs and misc data through problem solution, or go the reinstall+repatch route. I personally prefer attempting the former and hitting the "big red button" only when all else seems to have failed. It sucks spending 2-3 hours reinstalling, then repacthing.. not to mention that the problem might not even go away if it was a problem inherent within the system and your particular config/setting caused it to rear its ugly head.

Brynn · Post by **Brynn** » Wed Apr 27, 2005 12:35 am

Juro, is IWD the only problematic application? What if you try running other games?

Jurosementalistile · Post by **Jurosementalistile** » Fri Apr 29, 2005 4:02 pm

Sorry I took a while to reply, been a bit busy.
The computer runs Diablo 2 and one or two other games fine, but now I still think there's a good chance that this is a problem with the computer rather than the game. Problem is, there are hardware faults too. One of the hard drives has given us alot of trouble. So I don't know that any number of reinstalls is going to help.
Anyway, the short version is, I don't really know what I'm doing well enough to sort that out. So now I just want to move on. So I'm going to renew my call for the information to help me do that. Could someone please tell me where exactly you end up after the prologue? You have the battle at the palisade, then go back to Targos town to talk to Ulbrec and get some XP and a new mission, then back to the palisade and through the wall, yes? Where do you end up then? Could someone please tell me the area code for the next area for use with the cheat console? Should be something like 'AR****'. And is it really feasible to skip this area? When does chapter 1 begin, is it once you leave the palisade to head out on the mission Ulbrec gives you? Do you have to come back to Targos, or the palisade?
Alot of questions I know, please help with whatever you can

And thanks to Brynn and Shift once again

**Update**
Woohoo, I did it, and it seems to be working. I got to the Shaengane or whatever river, and it even automatically changed to chapter one (I was afrand the triggers would be messed up and the game wouldn't proceed to the next chapter). There's still a good chance that skipping a section of the game will cause problems of course, but for now I'm optimistic.
But now I'm getting my arse kicked by the orcs. Are there any big experience bonuses I'm missing? I got I think four or five hundred for talking to Ulbrec, but do you get any bonus once all the fighting in the palisade is complete? Is the goblin sorcerer worth alot? Also, any big loot I'm missing? I managed to fightthe first two battles, so I have the dog collar and the gauntlets of +1 to attack. I'm wondering if I'm meant to be third level for this fight though, cause these orcs are a bit harsh against lightly armoured second level characters, without much healing to go around.
Thanks

shift244 · Post by **shift244** » Sat Apr 30, 2005 9:30 am

Hmm.. I am not sure what such an "area jump" would do to the triggers set within the game, but I can tell you, you din't loose out on much. The rest are spoilers, and are written in black. Highlight to see.

After the initial clash led by the Worg Rider, you will face a second group headed by a Goblin Champion. Once that is completed, you more west and face a third group backed-up by a goblin shaman. The leaders should net about 300 xp each, I'd think with each goblin netting about 75xp. Completing the Protect Targos quest will get you another 500 or so xp... I think. I cannot place the xp values since they change with the effective group level with some races that have a higher ECL. Also, it's been awhile since I been there, so they are rough guesses. You should gain about enough xp to be at level 3, depending on the number in your party. You should be almost level 3 even with a group of 6, if your effective group level is about 2.

Money wise, I think you might get about 300-400 overall from selling items and getting the mecenary payment. No real loss of magical items.. except maybe a medium shield, which you might have already picked up, or could when you come back to town to sell loot later. At least, not as I can recall.

I would really look into backing up your save game files, and other important files tho if the HD is pacting up. Having seen many HD crashes before, it is not a nice experience when you have data you want to keep, that are not in a CD somewhere.

silverdragon72 · Post by **silverdragon72** » Mon May 02, 2005 2:49 am

.

what you are missing is one of the hardest battles in the game...

...but no essential magic items

...loot and reward equal to about 1.000 GP

...and depending on the race you should be level 4 with human and ECL1 races and level 3 with ECL2 races after finishing the palisade.

..concerning orcs - they aren't that strong - shouldn't be a serious problem with the right tactic and an adequate party - if you have a problem with a special battle feel free to ask for advice...

.

Brynn · Post by **Brynn** » Mon May 02, 2005 2:57 am

[QUOTE=Jurosementalistile]Also, any big loot I'm missing?[/QUOTE]
Not at this stage of the game. You don't have to worry about the storyline either, if you're already doing the bridge mission you should be fine, I guess.

shift244 · Post by **shift244** » Mon May 02, 2005 6:30 am

[QUOTE=silverdragon72]what you are missing is one of the hardest battles in the game...[/QUOTE]

I can name at least 3 other battles that are at least twice as hard, and two that would make this less than a walkover in comparison. Not to scare you. A 4 character group at ECL 2 each can make this easy....