stay away from patch 1.21

Ned Flanders · Post by **Ned Flanders** » Wed Jul 24, 2002 9:41 am

Most of you may already know this, but there are some playability patches associated with the 1.21 patch rendering it fairly useless. I won't even touch on the secuROM issues.

It seems when characters level up in the new patch or switch certain items which directly affect a skill, other skills available to the character disappear. This is not only cosmetic, i.e. when viewing your character, special abilities associated with skills will not be available.

It happened to our entire party last night in a multiplayer game. My Ranger/Cleric leveled up, took a level in cleric, bumped up concentration and heal and lo and behold, those were the only two skills available to him. Note: When pulling up my special abilities, hide and animal empathy were no longer available to me.

We were able to duplicate these problems with our exported characters in single player games so the possibility exists it is a character corruption. That said, it is possible BW might be able to fix the problem from happening further but they may not be able to fix corrupted characters.

Pay mind to the bioware forums, this stuff is being heavily covered over there. Just wanted to point this info out to the group here. It is pretty important stuff.

Sirius_Sam · Post by **Sirius_Sam** » Wed Jul 24, 2002 9:49 am

That info is very important. You probably saved me a good 40 hours of playing and levelling out the window. Thanks for the heads-up

S_S

Ned Flanders · Post by **Ned Flanders** » Wed Jul 24, 2002 9:55 am

Your welcome SS, where BW has been lacking with speedy patches previously, the one place they did shine with a quick fix was where hostile creatures were not using their special abilities. BW got this one patched in a day so I have a feeling they'll address this one quickly as well seeing as how it so radically affects gameplay or basically makes the game unplayable.

Magus · Post by **Magus** » Wed Jul 24, 2002 9:56 am

Indeed, your warning is noted, and appreciated.

Rob-hin · Post by **Rob-hin** » Wed Jul 24, 2002 11:13 am

Yeah, I've had problems with the first update and haven't tried one since.
Without it my game works fine. But if I update, the menu text disappears and after the onening movie the game friezes...

Hopefully it won't cause problems with playing in Argyle.

fallenheart · Post by **fallenheart** » Wed Jul 24, 2002 6:42 pm

Yeh, I noticed the same thing myself, but only when I change equipment while stat window open. All the skills disappeard except one. I wasn't sure if it was just display problem or not, so I just reloaded.

Ned Flanders · Post by **Ned Flanders** » Wed Jul 24, 2002 11:06 pm

Reloading will fix the problem temporarily. Once you start to switch equipment around, especially items affecting skills, the bug will happen again. This causes a ridiculous amount of reloading and simply kills multiplayer.

Dave MacGruther and Don Yakeilashek have acknowledged the bug on the bioware forums for NWN and a fix should be promptly available.

archerknight · Post by **archerknight** » Thu Jul 25, 2002 8:04 pm

This may be minor compaired to the problem w skills, but I notice ever since the 1.21 patch in sp my henchmen seem to get hung up at almost every doorway, bookcase, ect. I almost have to go back and lead them by the nose to get them to follow.

NightFallMyriad · Post by **NightFallMyriad** » Thu Jul 25, 2002 8:59 pm

This is actually really bothering me now. I didn't notice it until today because for some reason it hasn't affected any of my characters until now.

Anyway, when I try to level my lvl 7 fighter to lvl 8, the skills I pick in the level up menu become the only skills I have. I tried reloading and leveling again, but to the same effect. It seems that no matter what I do, I will not be able to progress my character beyond level 8 unless I wish to use only two skills...

I haven't been playing online or multiplayer, but have been experimenting with the toolset and using this character in custom modules. Is this what is having the effect? Because I didn't think this was supposed to be an issue in SP.

Also, does this mean that the character files that I saved are now "corrupted" and cannot be repaired?

Angry angry angry...

Sirius_Sam · Post by **Sirius_Sam** » Thu Jul 25, 2002 9:31 pm

If you've archived the 1.20 patch, just go back and reinstall 1.20 over 1.21 and everything should be fine. If you don't have a copy of 1.20 and can't fine one, I'd wait for Bioware's 'fix'.

S_S

EDIT: The 1.20 zip file is about 35 megs, otherwise I could send it to you in an e-mail. I currently don't have a website I could FTP it up to, but a little searching should net you the 1.20 version...at least until the patch's patch is out

Ned Flanders · Post by **Ned Flanders** » Thu Jul 25, 2002 11:31 pm

The character files are corrupted or the character engine itself is. Try exporting a character who you're having problems with and try duplicating the problem in a different game. I had no problems duplicating the problem so the character flaw is transcending games.

Bioware/Infogrames will come up with one of three fixes.

1. A patch that prevents this from happening as well as 'fixing' characters or games with the skills problem.

2. A patch that prevents it from happening but will not fix corrupted games and/or characters.

3. A patch that prevents it from happening and a tool to fix potentially corrupted characters. I say potentially because I don't know if the characters themselves are corrupted or it is a general game engine bug.

The bioware/NWN tech support forum has a lot to offer, however, there is a lot of whining and pointing of fingers that goes on in there. Ah, if only other forums were as constructive as the banshee's.

SS makes a good point in reverting back to 1.20. It isn't that big a deal to do it. If you do check out the bioware forums there is a great deal of complaint of the secuROM copyright protections causing the game not to start. I haven't had a problem with such things although it is the latest rage against BW on the forums.

NightFallMyriad · Post by **NightFallMyriad** » Fri Jul 26, 2002 11:03 am

I reinstalled 1.20 and everything is working like clockwork now. What's with the new patch anyway? Something about secuROM that makes the game suck? Anyone wanna explain how this new program is making the game "unplayable?"

One thing I did notice though, is that my fighter's will saves are lower than his reflex saves. Seeing as how they should both be +6/+6 base (for lvl 20) and that I have no reflex or fortitude only improving items (only universal), it doesn't make sense for them to be so far apart. I think there's a difference of about 5 points between my will saves and my reflex saves. Is this a bug? Or is it because I have a -1 to wisdom modifier? It just seemed that even with a -1 to wisdom, my will saves shouldn't be FIVE whole points below my next closest saves...

Then again, maybe it's just me, but saving throws are not at all what they used to be in BG2. In BG2, if you had crappy saving throws, it was a really bad thing and you could get killed that much easier. In NWN though, I don't think I've ever even had to make one.

Traps always hit, spells are either resisted from MR or hit, enemies either hit or miss, etc... Could be just me though, and could be just because I've only been playing as a fighter and a mage.

Arg... you'd think they'd make this game a little easier to understand...

UberJason · Post by **UberJason** » Mon Jul 29, 2002 8:05 am

I've been following this fiasco on Biowares board with some degree of amusement. Apparently there are two big issues:

1. A major skill point problem wherin all skill points are lost.

2. An update in Securom made the game unplayable on many CD-RW drives.

I am especially bemused by problem 2, which I happen to have myself (my only optical drive is a RW). Here's a little timeline of how to really screw up customer relations:

1. Deny a change in copy protections was made, blame the consumer for not "updating driver."

2. When confronted with evidence from programmers that the copy protection was changed, claim it proves nothing.

3. When you do finally admit, several days later, that copy protection was changed, and yes, it indeed caused problems on many peoples computers refuse to :

a. patch it in a timely manner or;
b. remove the faulty patch from your website or;
c. remove copy protection altogether (I mean honestly, I saw a fully cracked game about 1 day after the game came out)

4. Watch as your forums go down in flames as angry consumers voice their outrage.

I have purchased a lot of games in my time, but this is the first time I have had to download a no-cd crack to play it. I find this whole situation puzzling as Bioware has a reputation as a very service oriented company. I suspect higher-ups are forcing this on them and they have no alternatives.

Quite honestly although I enjoy the game very much this whole experience has left a bad taste in my mouth, and I doubt I will buy anything else from Bioware until I have proof that their product works as it is intended.

What's sad is I called an Interplay rep, and they told me to go online and download a third-party no-cd crack... What the hell kind of support is that? They are sending me to the very websites that they installed copy-protection to avoid! Aahhh, the irony...

UberJason