Dissapearing Actors

[Wesley]

for some reason at times i lose NPCs even ones vital to the plot...

whenever they dissapear they end up usually at a location that the npc status window shows as 4092,4090,00

whenever i try the teleport option i get a screen in spinebreaker and my party is where i left them just the screen scrolled.

i have played U7 3 times so far using hint books and just the Alt-T teleport to mouse location...

first game i lost the mage lord of monshae but he was fixxed when the banquet sequence ran

second game i lost gwenno after i was done with her so no problem

current game i lost frigidizzai before i can sleep with her so my game is stuck.. i dont have a save from before it happens unfortunately.

running exult 1.2 with windows me with all updates.

is this a known problem and how do i fix it?

i tried editing the npc business log and sleeping for 3-4 days but she didnt show up.

[Thepal]

OKay...

Are you sure those people are meant to be in the game at those times? Hmm... The Mage Lord is meant to be in his house the whole time, with just the doors locked, hey? I guess this is the usual bug then.

Serpent Isle likes to make people disappear sometimes. I'm not really sure of the reason (perhaps something to do with a lot of people on the screen at once). The most well known is of course the Pikeman at the List Field.

As for Frigidizzai, are you sure you lost her? She only appears after the banquet, and you can only talk to her once you have the spellbook I believe. If you're using Exult press F3 and teleport to the room at the far northwest of the map. See if she is in there. If not, then yeah, she's probably disappeared.

[Bomb Bloke]

Maybe a tool to teleport a given NPC to the location of the avatar is in order.

[Thepal]

In this problem the NPC ceases to exist though. So you can't teleport them to you because they don't exist (there is a difference). Maybe creating a new copy of them...

[Bomb Bloke]

Ah, fair enough. So the NPC actually gets completely wiped from the game?

...

In the original, NPCs could bever be removed (I think), they went to the house of the dead at worst, or they were respawned. As I understand it, Exult doesn't use the house...

So, um, would creating a new copy of the characters be easy, or hard? Could such an option be added to the cheat menu or something?

[Thepal]

In the original the NPCs disappeared in the exact same way. They were no longer where they should be, and they were not in the "House of the Dead". If you tried to teleport to them you would be teleported off the map where nothing exists (because the NPC no longer exists so it doesn't have any real coordinates). You could edit their Business Schedule, you could cheat to make them join your party, but they would never appear because they were gone. It is weird.

[Gradilla Dragon]

That's not true. NPCs never disappeared in the original. They always ended up in the house of the dead. The only exception was Batlin, who never used the same NPC number. Always used a spawn number (the same used for monsters). I did not check his henchmen, so I don't know if they use such numbers as well.

[Gradilla Dragon]

Just to clarify, in the original, NPCs with a number of their own will end up in the house of the dead, and NPCs with spawn numbers disappear. Those with spawn numbers include monsters, Monitor pikemen, Fawn guards, Moonshade rangers, animals, Batlin and I guess his company too.

In Exult, those NPCs don't even have a number. Turn on the NPC Numbers with Ctrl+N and see for yourself.

[Wesley]

she isnt in the house.. and i manged to talk to her before the banquet.. she was in her house.. but then i did the spellbook before the banquet...

i talked to her and she told me to go to her house, did the banquet, bought spells from her, then following the original origin hint book did the mage isle rather than mtns of freedom which i usually do mage isle after mtns of freedom.

hrm... is that what messed it up? doing the spellbook before the banquet? just occured to me too.

black gate plays fine other than constant freezes.. but that could be my moms comp not exult.

frigidizzai shows up on the npc list as alive and waiting.. it looks like

14 4090 4092 wait

or something like that.. not sure of first number and i cannot find where the tile she is at is. and editing her npc schedule didnt work.

the reason i did the spellbook before the banquet is i did silver seed before even being a knight in monitor and wanted to be able to use shals ring so got my spellbook right after getting shals ring in SS, then did the rest of the SS quest, then got knight and did the rest blah blah blah...

so if the game deleted her for some reason how do i get her back? or did i hose the game?

[Gradilla Dragon]

Frigidazzi is in the house of the dead before the banket, both in exult and in the original. Something is way wrong with you...

And to get the spellbook you usually need to go to Monk Isle and get mandrake roots from there. The necesary mandrake roots appear only after you complete certain quest I can't remember. To go to Monk Isle you need the jawbone. To get the jawbone, you must talk to the Mad Mage in his isle. THEN you can do Frigidazzi and the Mountains of Freedom quest. You should never be able to do it before that.

Something definitely broke.

[Gradilla Dragon]

Oh, and to do the Mad Mage quest, you have to do Pothos' Quest first. Pothos, just like Frigidazzi, is in the house of the dead at the beginning of the game. Pothos appears after the banket.

[wjp]

Just a note, it might apply: do _not_ use teleport cheats in SI unless you know what you're doing.

[Gradilla Dragon]

Another thing: Did you visit the house of the dead before the banket? If so, then Frigidazzi might have "detected" you and initiated her schedule, that means going to her house when she shouldn't.

[Achile]

I have the same problem with Karnax. I use the teleport cheat to go to monk Isle after the holocaust

[Wesley]

its not banket.. its banquet.

and the house of the dead thing... whats that and where is it on the map?

so basically i need frigidiazzi to do the mtns of freedom portion and then im done with moonshade.

if she is in the house of the dead where is she?

and how do i get there?

how do i get her out?

and why is she in the house of the dead? she hasnt died yet.

[Gradilla Dragon]

Simply put: If you say her coordinates are around 4000,4000, then she is NOT in the house of the dead.

Also, you have nothing to do in the house of the dead. All you will cause is more severe game corruption due to proximity with NPCs you should not meet yet in the first place. The house of the dead is a place where NPCs you MUST NOT meet are placed. You meet them, you screw it. Got it?

So, if you met Frigidazzi before the banquet, that means something got screwed up. Restart your game. Period.

[Wesley]

yea i kinda figured my game was hosed.. started over this time and doing quite well.

[Gradilla Dragon]

There is a new entry in the FAQ and it is related to your problem. Read it

[Wesley]

ok... another wierd thing... i even started new games and did the f3 teleport thing to verify it.

1) start a new game

2) f3-teleport to the exit into the mtns to the frozen north with the dying trapper

3) follow that left mtn range north to 2-3 exits at the most

4) you will enter a room with 4-5 ghosts running around that dont attack you and you dont automatically talk to them

5) talk to each of the ghosts.. each one is the chaos heirophant and you can run through the whole conversation way before you are supposed to.

anyone duplicate this? i have even with multiple serpent installs.

[Gradilla Dragon]

This is a very well known bug in the usecode. It has nothing to do with Exult, but with SI.

[Bomb Bloke]

There is another place you can find that glitch. As a general rule, it is not a good idea to talk to random ghosts.

[Achile]

You mean in the firework factory. I use it when I can't call the Hierophant of Chaos

[Bomb Bloke]

Erm, this is kinda embarrising, but I was wondering whether any of the new snapshots (which I've ignored, because I'm happy with the stability of the 1.2 release) have the option to raise the dead?

In SI, that is...

I've been playing through the game, and I'm nearly at the end. Unfortunately, I've been referring to my memory as I go, which hasn't informed me fully at all times...

Uh, I'll elaborate...

You get the Philander's Friend, which belongs to Torriso. I went to him in Moonshade, after the banes were released, and he took the wand off me. My memory sparked at this point, saying I might have trouble getting the thing back (I still hadn't used it), but I hadn't saved for a while so I continued play...

Anyway, I talked to the students, who said I needed the wand. I then went back to Torriso, and clicked the conversation option 'magic wand'. Nothing happened at all.

Some sort of usecode glitch, I think, as that happened to me in the original. I referred to my memory again, which told me that last time round I'd killed the fool to get the wand back.

So I did.

I got the wand and continued play, but now I need Torriso to get the Soul Cage spell. And he's dead.

My memory now took the opertunity to tell me that last time I'd used the NPC debugging menus to bring him back, but I can't do that under Exult. (Most) characters don't go to the room of the dead, they get removed from the game world. Last time I'd just tweaked a few flags, and hey presto, but NPCs don't seem to have a 'dead' flag any more...

I tried a bunch of things, including giving him hitpoints, putting him in my party and calling Thoxa, etc.

So, yeah. I'm stuck. Is there any way I can bring Torriso back, or have I broke my game?

Incedently, I referred to the walkthrough included with my copy of SI (in case I could do without him), which noted that a good way to get the wand back (as opposed to killing Torriso off) was to use the vibrate spell. It also said you might be able to make him drop his swordstrike that way. Interesting, I didn't know you could do that...

[Gradilla Dragon]

You broke your game. Golden rule: NEVER EVER KILL ANY NPC IN SI!!!!!!!!

And, what do you think the Vibrate Spell is for?

[Bomb Bloke]

I thought the vibrate spell was some sort of weak earthquake spell, used for causing damage. I never thought they'd program in a spell that'd let you dump NPC's equipment on the floor - why would I? If they put a note in the manual, I musta missed it.

Besides, it seems to me that you could get hold of some very odd items that way. Spell items, for example, which you shouldn't be able to see (though I have found them on dead mages, on occasion, under Exult - is that a bug? I thought those items were supposed to be removed from corpses). You could also take items NPC's were supposed to have, though I doubt that could break the game.

Well, I presume the spell dumps items on the floor. I still haven't used it yet.

Ok, so the game's broken. Oh well. A method to tweak such things would be a nice addition to Exult, however...

[Gradilla Dragon]

Lets see... *opens the SI manual*

An Grav Ex (Vibrate)
Reagents: Black Pearl, Blood Moss, Mandrake Root, Spider's Silk
This unusual spell surrounds a specified target with intense physical energy, as if a giant troll were grasping the target and shaking it to find loose gold. The effect not only damages its subject, but also loosens any hold on possessions.

Not even a clue that it dumps an NPC's items on the ground? I see it very clearly. Just by reading "shaking it to find loose gold" gives me the idea that it is for making the NPCs drop stuff.

You should read the manuals. I don't think you do

By the way, you can cast that spell on pikemen, and they won't attack you. Then you can sell their chainmail armor to the armourer for 50 monetari.

[Bomb Bloke]

50 monetari. Uh. Right. Riches.

Easier just to slaughter a bunch of them and drag them back to town, armor and all. But then, easiest is not bothering, as SI has so much loot it's tricky to carry it at the best of times. By the time you have the vibrate spell in your book, money should not be an issue.

I got Ultima VII on a EA collection CD (+ Savage Empire etc), and that had a manual, which I read to death in my youth. SI came with the collecter's edition, and I only ever bother to read the text file manual when I feel I have to... As I didn't think there would be much of interest in there, besides the basic plot stuff.

You are correct, though, the manual is fairly obvious.

[Dominus]

well, if you are going to cheat you can also just use the pickpocket cheat to loot NPCs. Unfortunately no way to bring him back to life...

[Robert]

however, it doesnt currently seem to be damaging them in Exult when its used...

[Dominus]

huh, what do you mean? What does not seem to damage who?

[Gradilla Dragon]

I guess he means when casting the vibrate spell.

[Robert]

yeah

somehow i think it was supposed to incur at least 1 point of damage to the target, enough to get teh guards called on you if you tried using it on a townie (like for example the Moonshade mages ;p)

[Dominus]

I don't think it ever did that in the original. I remember casting it a couple of times.

[Robert]

i know that

im saying that i think it never even worked right in the original, hence why you can still get the various spell icons form the mages and such, and why you could get the wand of detainment in earlier versions.. it never worked like it was actually supposed to

[Bomb Bloke]

I managed to resurrect him in the original...

Just thinking, is it possible to have clones in the game?

I remember a while back, an old glitch in Exult meant that resurrecting one character sometimes resulted in a different NPC appearing. I brought Sentri's body to be healed, and I was much surprised when he turned into a female fighter!

Anyway, I didn't check, but the NPC who appeared was the fighter chic who guards the cube generator. I should have went to that spot to see whether she was still there, or whether the game had simply shifted her... I presume the later is true.

[SB-X]

The clone spell in U6 is one of the best ever.