According the the sticky on Common Issues and Solutions, Gaear posted: quote: "Symptom: You can no longer access different areas of the map via the use of the stair and door icons, and/or you can no longer locate secret doors and stairs. Solution: You must delete all saved game files and start a new game. At the moment there is no other solution for this problem." I'm currently at the 3rd level of the Temple and I noticed that I can use secret doors only on the first time I use them. After that, the secret doors are either permanently closed or open but impassable. The secret passage connecting Falrinth's room to the main temple is also missing. I'm at this point where I'm deciding whether or not to start a new game as advised. My question is: does the solution to this bug mean that I should never keep saved games? Or would it be that if I delete all my saved games and start a new game, this bug would not recur during my new game even if I keep saved games? I started the game with a brand new install having no existing saved games to begin with and yet I am experiencing this bug, so I'm not so sure if I would want to delete my current game and start up all over again only to experience the same the same bug all over again once I get to the Temple. Any advice on this? Just in case some are wondering how to get the orb without having to start over again, I got to kill Falrinth and the werewolves even with the bug by using the Dimension Door Spell to get to the areas behind the secret door, As for the werewolf room, just have your summoning spells and an Otiluke's Resilient Sphere ready. Your character wizard/sorcerer will be going solo, so you better be ready for getting outflanked by two werewolves in a cramped room. The item in the werewolves' chest might not be worth the hassle but the suspense definitely was.
I thought the bug might've been associated with re-using characters from a previous playthrough, but I'm not sure myself.
Where you're at now, I would probably try to go ahead and finish the game. Most people seem to experience the secret door bug first in the Moathouse, so restarting means less to re-do (though still a pain.) I know I've only ever experienced this bug once, and I restarted after deleting all my saves with the same characters w/o re-installing and had no further problems. Interesting work-around for the werewolves' room, BTW.
Thanks for the advice guys, at least I now know I would still be able to play the game again without the secret door bug, just in case it starts to become unbearably peeving. At this point I'll just make sure to use all secret doors once. Too bad I'd still have to enter the temple through the main entrance every time I return from town instead of through the burnt farmhouse that would take me straight to level 3, since that entrance is secret-door-dependent. Unless somebody knows another shortcut perhaps?
If you have the Golden Orb (which I gather you do) you should be able to use the throne in the top level of the Temple to go directly to the 4th level. I don't recall if this counts as a secret door or not, though. If you are playing the Co8 mod, when you complete the Desperate Housewives quest you will receive an item that will allow you to teleport directly to the 4th level also. The great thing with this item is you can use it from anywhere, and it also lets you teleport right back out to Nulb or Hommlet - no more trudging back and forth.
Wow, thanks that advice. I didn't install the desperate housewives "campaign" since I got tired of doing errands around Hommlet and decided I could get more experience killing Trolls and Ettins in random encounters. I didn't know it had real nice perks. Now my question is, would it be possible to install the desperate housewives part without having to uninstall the game or corrupting any files? Even If I have my Co8 already patched to 5.0.5?
If you can get to the elemental nodes, and kill one of the guardianns, you can use the stone they drop to teleport directlly to that node. This is the most common way for me to get back and forth, teleport spell to get to hommlet, and a node stone to get back in again.
