Lightening Tower

[Mathew]

I've looked all over for a possible cause for this problem but have not found anything. I am at the point now where I am asked to put an orb on the alter at the lightening tower then activate the winch and pull the levers to generate lightening. According to everything I've read after pulling all the levers and then using the winch again I should be struck by lightening and or the orb should explode and I will be teleported to another location. This doesnt happen. When I pull the levers I get only red lightening or blue lightening (red destroys objects, blue places a new object on the spots) and when I use the winch again the storm just stops and nothing happens to me or the orb.
Anyone else have problems simular to this?
I even turned on the egg finder to see if perhaps there was a special place on the alter I was supposed to put the orb, and there is a spot marked on it but it is the same spot I had the orb.
I know I've gotten this to work before way back when I played the game in Dos, I just dont understand why it isnt working now.

Any ideas?

[Gradilla Dragon]

Yea, but what about yellow? Are you getting yellow lightning? You need to get all three kinds, or else you are not completing the task, and that's the reason for the globe not exploding.

[Mathew]

Hmm no I never get yellow for some reason. Is it because the original items are no longer on the spots? I think I got yellow once, but I screwed up and accidently picked the globe up without using the winch.

[Mathew]

I think I am going to have to start the game all the way over. I screwed up by removing most of the original items from the tower. Even replaying a saved game from when I was in prison it didnt work and I got two yellow flashes, but both times they said they didnt see the color of it because it was too bright. So even with red, blue and yellow flashes I did not complete it. After you do it the first time it is impossible to get a yellow flash again.

[Gradilla Dragon]

It doesn't matter. Try EACH lever a hundred times times. The levers don't create one exclusive type of lightning. It's random. You are not trying enough times.

I tested right now and it works fine. Keep trying until one of your party members says you have already discovered the nature of the lightning and their respective colors. After that, your party members will only "bark" the color, something like "That was red", etc. If you use the winch, the globe will explode as expected.

By the way, it was not yellow lightning, but green.

[Mathew]

Ahh ok, so eventually they will stop saying stuff like "blue lightening? he didnt mention that" and "that was close" and just start saying "red" "blue" etc.?

[Gradilla Dragon]

yes

[artaxerxes]

and you absolutely cannot take away any item from the tower without using the winch first. If you do, you screw the game. I know. It happened to me. I was playing (with the original engine) SI, and my characters were starving. So I wandered around, found the tower and there was some food in it. So I picked it up to feed my companions and as a result, I could not complete the task when I was asked to!

Artaxerxes

[Mathew]

Crud, so because I took some of the items from the platforms it wont work period? Because I've been pulling these levers constantly and I only get blue or red lightening.

[Gradilla Dragon]

Okay, the pumpkin is the one generating green lightning. It changes into a chair and back into pumpkin. The plate, trout and hoe generate yellow (yes, it exists), and once they are gone the items there generate red. Any empty space generates blue. As long as you have the pumpkin and one of the items that generate yellow lightning, there is nothing to worry about.

[Daemongar]

I remember the original causing the exact same problems also - I didn't have the problem, but others who connecting to the Origin BBS did - that's where I'd go to get clues/hints/whatnot.

Maybe the exult crew could do Origin one better and cypher this one out?! Not like they have enough to do already

[Mathew]

I ate the pumpkin so unless another pumpkin in the same spot will work then I am starting the game over

[Gradilla Dragon]

Just get any plain wooden chair. It has to be a plain wooden chair. The facing direction doesn't matter, I think. I ate the pumpkin, placed a chair in its place, put the orb and activated the winch. The chair transforms into a pumpkin and back into a chair.

Does that work for you?

[Gradilla Dragon]

And I guess you will have a hard time getting one

There are some at the school of magic, as well as at Gustacio's house. But note that the chair will be changed into one facing north once it's struck by lightning, so if you want to leave everything as it was, take one from the school of magic.

[Mathew]

Yes that worked perfectly! Thanks a million. saved me from having to start all over again

[shortsight]

put the turkey in the chicken and say david hasselhoff 4 times while clicking your heels.

[WishStone Dragon]

I had a few problems there was well.

As someone else said: Use them ALL a LOT OF TIMES!!
You will at one point start to get BLUE lightning and your team will comment that no one mentioned the blue lighting to them. Also, after fiddling a while, the energy globe will burst. When THAT happened, you have indeed gathered all the data needed. (At least that was my signal, nothing happened unless that damn thing exploded...)

[Gradilla Dragon]

WishStone, in fact you only need to use the levers three times. Go to the lever with the pumpkin and use it once (green lightning and morphs into chair), then go to the one with the helm and use it two times (yellow lightning and a cat is left there, red lightning and the cat disappears), and you are done. It is not necesary to find out about the blue lightning. The globe explodes when you use the winch, remember that the winch is used to start/stop the machine.

[WishStone Dragon]

Gradilla: I read the "three times so you see the three coloured lighting" in a walkthough and it did in fact _NOT WORK_ :/

My energy globe didn't burst when I left (the first is multi-coloured, the second only green) and when I returned to transform Ale, it would not work, I constandly got the blue lighting then and my companions remarked on that, but no transformation on any of the platforms no matter how often I used the energy globe. It did burst after a while in then end, but I would not get a second and was stuck with Ale, no shepherd in sight :/

[Paulon]

Swap the multicoloured one for the green one.

[Gradilla Dragon]

WishStone, if you do it the way I said, it will work 100% of the times. I tested it 37 times before posting the procedure and it worked all 37 times.

[Max aka Moscow Dragon]

The pumpkin issue was long ago in Origin's native FAQs.

Do not touch the pumpkin. It must be there in place in order for a thing to work.

I don't remember whether you can buy or find the pumpkin in Moonshade or Monk Isle, possibly yes. If yes - then do this.

If no - then enter cheat mode, create the item, save the game and reload in non-cheat-mode.