hsaar
Gibberling
Posts: 15
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Post by hsaar on Feb 25, 2015 19:42:47 GMT
Hello, So I've updated my NWN to 1.69, since our polish version was stuck behind for several patches and I found something that seems to be amiss. While walking around Shaori Falls, in the Tower, precisely, this thing looted from an enemy. I couldn't pick it up or give it my henchman to hold. What's that? Why is it there? I have never seen such a thing before and I was wondering if it had anything to do with my recent patch or...whatever. There's one more thing that I find a little bit odd. When my henchman rages into the battle, he usually laughs like a psycho or shouts. Or at least - he used to. Since the update, Valen says absolutely nothing. I don't have other henchman who could overpower his battle cries, but still, it makes me sad that he is not as "passionate" as he used to be before. Could it be that patching has somehow changed it?
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andarian
Kobold
Computer Scientist and Fiction Writer
Posts: 63
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Post by andarian on Feb 26, 2015 0:08:52 GMT
So I've updated my NWN to 1.69... this thing looted from an enemy [followed by an image of a PC Properties Skin]. I couldn't pick it up or give it my henchman to hold. What's that? Why is it there? You're seeing the result of an annoying and intermittent bug that was introduced by the 1.69 patch. The PC Properties Skin is what's called a "creature skin," and it's used kind of like "armor for monsters." All characters (including PCs and NPCs, as well as creatures) have a hidden slot for this "natural armor," but normally it's only used to give special defensive abilities to monsters. There are invisible attack slots as well for creature "weapons" like claws, teeth, stings, etc. Since PCs were never supposed to use this slot (for them it was always empty), the folks who implemented the patch coded the game to create a PC Properties Skin with certain special abilities, and put it on the PC at the start of any game. You never see it, but it's there, and it can never be taken off or moved from the inventory it's in because its "undroppable" flag is set. It's used by the patch to implement certain new game features related to mounts (horses, etc.). Unfortunately, the scripting for the patch is slightly bugged. So every once in a while, the game will decide arbitrarily to create a PC properties skin on a monster, not just on the PC. When it does and you kill it, it will show up in the creature's remains. (Those who played my module, The Sight, may remember that I had precisely this problem with the skeletal demon in the North Forest, who randomly kept dropping one of these. I spent hours tearing my hair out trying to figure out what was causing it to no avail.) So in summary: it's a known NWN 1.69 bug, and you can safely ignore it.
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hsaar
Gibberling
Posts: 15
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Post by hsaar on Feb 26, 2015 9:12:59 GMT
Good to hear I have nothing to worry over. I don't like patching, especially when the previous version was totally fine. I always expect something strange or bad to happen, because they usually fix one bug to cause another to occur. Either way, thank you for sharing your knowledge on this topic. There's, however, one thing that still makes me wonder. Does going mute have really something to do with this patch and is also known as a bug, or is it that I have a bad luck? My game, as I mentioned somewhere earlier, is currently bilingual. So when Valen walks around, he sings, he drops some wise remarks - everything in Polish. His written parts are in English. Yet when it comes to the battle, he remains silent. I don't know why, but this bothers me a lot. And I probably would have not notice it if it wasn't for the fact that I'm always very, very suspicious and careful after patching anything. I just jot down all the oddities. For example, another thing I discovered now: from the loading screen, when all the saves are listed, the current save lacks my character's portrait. There's just a white rectangle there. I've been playing NWN for all these years without the newest version installed. Suddenly, when I have to confront with 1.69 I go psycho about anything that I find to be amiss.
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andarian
Kobold
Computer Scientist and Fiction Writer
Posts: 63
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Post by andarian on Feb 26, 2015 12:04:42 GMT
Unfortunately, I don't have any insight into Valen's sudden quietness. If you noticed it right after patching I can see why you'd think the two could be connected.
The white portrait, however, is another known bug (I've been seeing it for a while now), that must have been introduced by one of the later patches. It's intermittent, and usually doesn't start to show up until you save after you've been playing for a while. It also doesn't break anything, although I thoroughly agree that it's annoying and that it looks awful.
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hsaar
Gibberling
Posts: 15
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Post by hsaar on Feb 26, 2015 15:37:40 GMT
Too bad, I was hoping that there is, maybe, a fix for that. Maybe it will somehow repair itself when I start playing once again. Time will tell. I'm going to observe everything carefully though. But I'm starting to think that I should find a complete list of known bugs for this patch, just to not be too surprised when I notice some of them. Anyway, thank you for your help, Andarian!
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hsaar
Gibberling
Posts: 15
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Post by hsaar on Mar 2, 2015 8:20:29 GMT
So
...Valen is muted... ...I had to defend the Lith My'athar five times, due to the strange bugs in the sequence where The House of Maevirr betray me and the Seer (my character was seen double. One was active, the other one was like an NPC, plus, I couldn't talk to the Seer after killing Myrune. I had to restart over and over again, but it finally worked)... ...some strange things drop all the time from enemies around... ...the white rectangle is still visible when my character's portrait is supposed to be...
But these are just inconveniences I can deal with (mostly). What I've discovered today, however, looks a little bit more serious. Aribeth is missing in Cania. She's not in the cave, she's nowhere to be found. I did the Scrivener's quest and wanted to add her but she's simply not there. I tried different combinations. Only with Valen, then with Valen and Nathyrra thinking that maybe the game wants me to make a "hard choice" there. I tried doing her quest as the first, before I do anything else, I tried with the Sleeping Man's ring on, I tried on another save...
Nope.
What now? I couldn't find any solution to this problem. It's not that I like Aribeth so much that I need her in my party (I planned to beat the game only with Valen, as both him and my character are already OP for this level of difficulty anyway), but still, I don't like the idea of my game being bugged. Is this possible that my modded version has something to do with it? Can I force spawn Aribeth? Will it cause some additional problems?
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