Bugs - LITERALLY

I'm playing ToEE again, after having given up last time due to some "dead-end" bug. I've got a couple of questions though, because I'm running into trouble again, of a different kind.

A) On many maps I am getting an OBSCENE amount of insects flying about in several locations. For instance, in the Deklo Grove I had an entire white ball of several thousand midges circling a single spot. It got much worse at the Moathouse, where there were a bunch of little insects were causing a severe drop in framerate (VERY severe) even when off-screen and outside vision range (I.E. in the black fog of war). It's made the game virtually unplayable... I had a lot of butterlies spawning outside the Hommlet Inn as well, but they did little to affect framerate there. Does anyone know if those effects can be turned off completely somehow? I wouldn't mind less atmosphere if it meant I could PLAY THE GAME...

B) I hope not to run into any game-breaking things like I did the first time I played the game. In particular, in my first game I had apparently missed some item which caused the game to be impossible to complete. Some sword or scepter, I don't remember (it was a long time ago). Realized my error after reading a walkthrough which explicitly stated "don't forget to take this item or you won't be able to finish the game" , or somesuch. Do any such game-breakers still exist? What should I avoid, or pay special attention to?

For the record, I am playing with Co8 5.5.0. I've turned all of the graphics options in the options menu OFF, which absolutely hasn't helped at all.

Thanks in advance.

EDIT: Here's a screenie of the bug thing. If I let the game run, especially during combat with the frogs, everything slows down to a crawl.


(Click thumbnail to enlarge...)

 

did the 'bug' occur pre-co8 patch? and does it occur if you swap the module to vanilla toee in the front end?

I'm generally not much help with this kind of thing, but its usually useful to know your system specs too

graphics card
operating system
etc

 

I've done some testing. It appears that the bug is some sort of corruption in the game. Once it occurred, nothing I did could make it go away. It only affected SOME groups of ambience effects, but not others. Mostly affected were gnat swarms, green dragonflies, and butterflies (which were so pretty! Ahem). Not all groups of these were affected either, although when revisiting an area, the same groups of insects were always suffering (or not suffering) the same glitch as they did the previous visit.
Also, the glitch appeared to affect other graphics, and even made combat very dodgy (getting stuck during a character's turn, or characters getting glues to the ground unexpectedly). Flickers and screen tearing also became abundant.

Fortunately, going back to one of my earlier saves allowed me to avoid the bug, although for the life of me I can't tell why or how. It has popped up once since then, and I did the same thing to avoid it a second time. Still, the prospect of coming up against this issue again in the future is not heartwarming.

I'm using co8 5.5.0 on a fresh, patch-2 installation. Using the 33k No-CD, with player characters set to 8 in the front-end, these are the only changes I made. System specs are Intel E6400 Duo with ATI 1950x, 2.5GB RAM, WinXP 32. I've had graphics toned down ever since, hopefully that'll help keep the monsters away.

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Still, I would like to repeat my second question, for which I have received no answer yet: Does the game still contain dead-ends that are caused by missing an important item, person, conversation, or perhaps selling an important item? "Dead Man Walking" situations are amongst my most hated things in the world, and I ran smack into one on my first and last play of ToEE, several years ago. If they still exist, I would be very thankful if you could point them out (or tell me where it says what they are). If I run into another one this time, I will probably stop playing ToEE forever (and cause a lot of damage to my surroundings), which would suck because this game is so highly enjoyable...

 

How do you think those frogs got so big, you don't see any "Giant Gnats" in the game, they have to eat several thousand regular ones everyday.

 

Or adventurers...

 

Interesting, although I did not use any previous version nor played any games before installing and activating co8. I started a game with 5 Player-characters, then upped the value to 8 and started a new game immediately. Maybe somewhere along the way I caused that specific corruption...

In any case, I've been playing alright so far. On occasion I get the feeling that the game is about to get screwed and I reload an older save and go again, which usually works. Sometimes the music fades out and doesn't come back, which apparently "heralds" further problems, which is good because I don't waste time "walking into a bug". I just hope this lasts until the end of the game

Also, another question: If I sell a quest-related item to a merchant, will that item disappear from his inventory the next time it is recalculated? In other words, is it possible to lose crucial quest items through selling them by mistake?

And one more question, if it's not too much of a bother: Is there any use for the Backpack or Pouch items? I couldn't manage to put anything into them, they can't be worn or used, so are they just "ambience" or do they have some actual practical use?

 

okay I've never heard of the bug thing your talking about but I think if you have it set for 8 pcs then you cant get followers so that may prevent you from doing some things later in the game.

 

I wouldn't mind skipping side-quests for lack of room in my party, but if you mean some MAIN quests require adding an NPC, then I guess I'm screwed... Can anyone confirm/deny? Also, if it does turn out to be true, can I change it back to 7 PCs and dismiss one of my teammates without having to restart the game?

 

To answer the first question, no. I've never had anything I've sold disappear. But to be safe, try storing those kinds of items in the chests in your house in Nulb. The extraplanar chest works as well. Just DON"T put ANY crafted items in there.

For the second question, nope. They have uses in Keep on the Borderlands, not ToEE.

 

You don't need any NPC's to complete the MAIN quest. They're handy/crucial in some of the side quests, though. However, having a full 8 PC's WILL prevent you from properly completing some of the rescue missions, later in the Temple.

You can remove PC's by using the Guest Book in the inns in Hommlet and Nulb (??, pretty sure there's one there too.). Just click on the book dealie on the counter.

 

Firstly, thank you all for your answers. This is certainly smoothing out my second attempt at the Temple.

Actually what I meant was what happens if I accidentally sell a quest item which I didn't know was a quest item (until suddenly realizing so, later). So far, I've had one occurrence where an inventory was "wiped" - I had sold a ton of equipment to Smyth and a few days later it had all vanished and replaced by his usual array of items. This is before acquiring the Giant's Head, so this wasn't due to the switch to Masterwork items. Earlier I had also sold him (or maybe the Hommlet traders) Terjon's starburst pendant, only to realize a short while later that I had done so. Fortunately, the pendant was still there so I simply bought it back. I'm just worried whether some quest items are sellable and might actually disappear completely if left in a trader's inventory for a few days.

When I do this, do I also need to set the number of PCs down to 7 (to enable an NPC to join), or can I just leave it at 8?

Also, I've read on this forum that there was some bug associated with adding and removing custom characters from the group. Does the bug still exist in Co8 5.5.0, or has it been squashed?

 

Yes, you are correct - most merchant's inventory respawns every few days, so if you sell an item to a merchant it may not exist later if you want to buy it back. While I can't think of any game-stopping items you could sell, there are definitely quest items you could lose that way.

I'm not sure if you can change the max # of PCs/NPC in a game without restarting - my hunch is no, but I can't say so for sure.

There used to be a bug with using the inn guest books, but IIRC that was fixed by Spellslinger a while ago.

 

No, you can leave the number as is. Dismissing a member just opens up a free slot for an NPC. The number of PC's dictates the number of controllable PC's you can have. The default is 5, I believe.

In regards to items, I must state that my answer may have been skewed. In CRPG, I'm a MASSIVE pack rat. I'll only sell mundane (common) items or ones personally useless to my style of play. Everything else is HOARDED.

Hmmm..... I think I might have issues. :twitch: