Dodecahedron quest hang (spoiler)

Ieo · Post by **Ieo** » Sat Jul 12, 2008 1:17 am

Firstly, I'm glad to see there's still fan activity for such classic games like this and the Baldur's Gate series, my favorite CRPG ever. I *just* picked up P:T and am very happy with it so far.

Unfortunately, I've come to a major snag and it's making me quite sad. I've picked up the dodecahedron off the shelf and tried to open it, but the quest text always hangs at the last "begins to open in your hands" part (there are no dialogue options, no "click for next" button on the right).

I've already done a reinstall of my 2CD set, and here are the mods I used both times in order:

NoCD crack (I need this for my laptop. It uses a "full" install that puts CD2 on the HDD and requires an INI edit. I undid the INI edit to see if requiring CD2 would help, but it didn't.)

Spellhold Studios Ultimate WeiDU Fixpack

Qwinn's Tweak Pack (Not all of it, maybe half)

And that's it. I've tried to use some earlier saved games, but they all end up the same and I'd rather not start over.

What other options are there? Something up with those patches? Can I edit the saved game itself somehow, or can someone else look at it?

Thanks.

Qwinn · Post by **Qwinn** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 4:19 am

I'll take a look at this.

For the record, if you'd also posted about this over at the Fixpack forum, I would've started looking at it when you first posted it almost two weeks ago. I do try to visit other forums once in a while, but I can't visit every forum every day. Please help me help you by posting problems where I know to look for them every day

My fixpack forum is here: http://www.shsforums.net/index.php?showforum=552

Qwinn

Qwinn · Post by **Qwinn** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 5:08 am

Ieo:

I took a look at it, and can't reproduce the problem I'm afraid. I would ask you to send me three files.

1) SETUP-PST-Fix.DEBUG in your main torment directory.
2) DP_JRNL.DLG which you should find in the override directory.
3) The save game folder from right before you encounter this bug.

With those 3 things I -should- be able to nail the problem.

Zip 'em up into a .RAR file, and you can attach them at the SHS forum to pretty much anything, either a PM directly to me, or to a post in my fixpack forum.

I'm hoping to release version 2.0 of my fixpack soon (as soon as the guys doing the german translation are done, which could be any day now) and if this is indeed a bug rather than an install issue of some sort, I'd love to be able to nail it before that version goes out. Note that my fixpack does touch that dialogue file, but not anywhere near the place where you're having a problem, so it's not something I would think my mod is causing. Doesn't mean it can't be a legitimate bug.

Qwinn

P.S. One thing I might try is healing up to full before playing with the dodecahedron. It is possible for it to do damage to you (it is trapped), and maybe it's something weird along the lines of it causing -exactly- the damage required to kill you or something like that.

Ieo · Post by **Ieo** » Sat Jul 26, 2008 11:01 pm

Oh, thanks for the late reply anyway.

I ended up reinstalling (a few times) and finally got past the dodecahedron dialogue freeze without any mods besides the noCD crack, and managed to finish once through. At the moment I'm using only Platter's fixpack and seeing how that goes.

(As an unrelated note, the spell video glitches I'm getting are amazingly annoying, though.)

Vrikk · Post by **Vrikk** » Tue Jul 29, 2008 4:18 pm

I would like to say that I am having the exact same problem at the exact same moment of the game. I have been playing it on my Vista laptop, and it freezes whne I try to open the cube. I tried installing the game on my XP desktop and just ran into more errors, so after that I did a clean install back on my Vista laptop with only the full install + 1.1 patch + no-CD hack. I heard that a lot of the mods caused problems, so I thought the no-CD and 1.1 patch wouldn't cause any big deal. Prior to this lock-up I had it fully modded and had not ran into any problems. If, when I get this fixed, I can redo all the mods and continue in the game that would be wonderful.

Nevertheless, both a clean install, and the full + 1.1 + no-CD are giving me the same lock-up. User, is there anything else you did that made the game continue correctly? It looks like I'm doing the exact same thing and I'm not having success like you did.

Also, is there a way to simply bypass the movie so I can continue on? It seems like the video trying to load is the problem. Thanks!

Qwinn · Post by **Qwinn** » Tue Jul 29, 2008 8:33 pm

Vrikk,

Did you try being healed to full before playing with the dodecahedron, as I suggested?

I don't think a video is supposed to play at that point.

Thank you for confirming that it's a problem in the original game, and not my or any other mods, btw.

(One thing that might be helpful is if you can post what your character's stats are at the point that you're trying to open the dodecahedron. That would let me figure out if you're getting hit by the trap or not.)

Qwinn

Qwinn · Post by **Qwinn** » Tue Aug 05, 2008 7:57 pm

Ieo,

I tried to PM you but you apparently aren't enabled to receive them.

I need to ask you an important question. By any chance did you have the Clan Dlan spanish translation installed when you encountered the dodecahedron hang error?

Qwinn

P.S. BTW, a way to bypass the bug would be to bring yourself down to less than 25 hp before attempting to open the dodecahedron (or maybe between 26 and 50, if your intelligence is -really- low). The trick is for the trap to kill you at the point where the game would hang if you survived. You'll die, but you'll resurrect with the trap disabled.

Qwinn · Post by **Qwinn** » Wed Aug 06, 2008 9:59 am

Sorry guys, never mind about the Clan Dlan thing. It wasn't their fault (in fact, they fixed it in a circuitous way).

I did find the problem. But I don't know where the problem originally came -from-. Let me explain.

There is a version of the dodecahedron dialogue out there that, instead of having no reply for that "begins to open" state, has a -blank- reply. Meaning, instead of:

IF ~~ THEN GOTO 12

it has

IF ~~ THEN REPLY #46192 /* ~~ */ GOTO 12

The blank reply is what's messing things up. It gives you no reply to click on, and it deactivates the "Click for More" option on the right, which makes the game hang exactly as you guys described at exactly the spot you described (it should be noted that it only happens if your INT is less than 16, the 16 INT or greater option doesn't run into the bad reply).

Here's the mystery though - that blank reply doesn't exist in my version of the unmodded game. Nor is it added by any of my mods. But the fact that Clan Dlan had a version of it, and I don't think they would've added it deliberately, makes me think that that bad version must have been distributed by Black Isle somewhere along the way. I don't know how though. It's not a file distributed by the 1.1 patch, and it doesn't exist in my 4CD version.

Ieo says he had the 2CD version. Vrikk, do you as well? If so, maybe that's what we need to look into.

If so, this makes yet another issue with the 2CD version that doesn't exist in the 4CD version. For people looking to pick up this game on ebay or something, I'd recommend the 4CD version, it seems to have a lot less issues.

Qwinn

Ieo · Post by **Ieo** » Thu Aug 07, 2008 4:42 pm

Hi!

Ah, a difference between the game distribution versions. That doesn't really strike me as too surprising somehow. And yes, at the first hang, I think my TNO's Int was less than 16. On my second run through, I had made it 16, and I've since finished with no problem. Next up, I'll try to use a bunch of mods.

P.S.: Also thanks and kudos for flushing out this problem for anyone else who may run into it in the future!

Qwinn · Post by **Qwinn** » Thu Aug 07, 2008 5:09 pm

Hiya Ieo.

Actually, it's gotten more mysterious. I got a PM over at the SHS board from a player who reports having this problem... with the 4CD version of the game. Heh. *groan*

I'm having him send me his copy of DP_JRNL.DLG (assuming he has one in his override directory) so I can verify what I think is the bug. Will let you know if anything else weird turns up.

Oh, and hold off on the bunch of mods playthrough for a week or two if they're going to include mine, as I've got a nice shiny version coming up any day now that has about 35 more bug fixes and even a new component.

Qwinn

Ieo · Post by **Ieo** » Thu Aug 07, 2008 5:13 pm

Pffft, oh man.

Well, I'll see if I can reproduce the error later as well. Curiouser and curiouser.

Oh, cool on the new mod! I'll wait for it.

Thanks again.

P:T is amazing stuff. No one makes games like this anymore.

Qwinn · Post by **Qwinn** » Sun Aug 10, 2008 1:18 am

Hey, Ieo. I think I figured it out. You were using either Platter's or my "Use Floating Text Font Globally" tweak, weren't you?

I think what happened is that, with that tweak, the whole text of that entry doesn't fit on one screen, and if you have that happen in a state with no replies, it hangs just as you saw. When I tested it with this, I in fact -did- get a "Click for More", but when you click it you get one more line with no -additional- "Click for More" and it just hangs.

If you confirm for me that that was in fact the issue, then I will fix it the same way Clan Dlan did. Cause I think that's why they had that reply in there... it -wasn't- blank in their translation file, it said "Continue.". I think they added it precisely to solve this problem, and they ran into it first because their translation was just sufficiently longer than the english version to run into the problem without the Font tweak.

I hope I'm right on that. If so, then the universe makes sense again. Thank God.

Qwinn

Ieo · Post by **Ieo** » Sun Aug 10, 2008 3:41 pm

Ooh, yes, I remember the Floating text tweak, and I believe I had that turned on.

I commend all you mod-writers for the painstaking bug fixes, you know. Especially in a game like P:T with the incredible amount of branching dialogue variables, wow.