Wow.... So, where to begin?

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So, yeah... new member here, first of all. "Hi". Now then, that's out of the way... I got bit by the "nostalgia" bug & decided, what the heck i'll play PoR & BG. I might even take a stab at Dark Sun for my 4th run through it.

Anyway, my first PoR (which ended in a game killing crash/bug) must have been "lucky" by comparison to the last 4 hours of free time that I wasted (maybe? maybe not! if you can plz help).

*Sigh*, so my first run I got through the original dungeon sprawl, connected the drawbridge & pushed forward into another dungeon, and I can't recall exactly what happened, but I believe I got to an unavoidable video that caused a system crash deep in the 2nd dungeon. So I thought, surely nearly 10 years later, there must be patches & fixes for this sort of stuff.

OH HAPPY DAYS, there *is* a 1.4 patch. SWEET, I can finally finish this game. I did so enjoy it last time, and got so frustrated when I couldn't move forward last time.

So, I make my little party all level 1 barbarians, planning to make 2 fighter/cleric, 1 sorceror, 1 rogue (for lockpick/trap/ extra xp). Just started them all as Barbarian for the HP, Rage, & early Thaco. Took me about 10 minutes to figure out that there was an entire level of objects not being rendered. Yeah, treasure chests, fountains, tables, barricades (that you have to smash to move through), even walls, totally invisible, not rendered at all. I had to reduce graphics acceleration. Think god i didn't have to cut off anti-aliasing, cause I couldn't figure out how

I swear to christ, only my thief made it to level 3, the rest are level 2. I got those sweet sorceror boots & was heavily encumbered with all 4 party members, so I was dragging my precious hefty baggage to sell at Nottle (bottle? sp?) on only my 2nd smash>grab>cash run. I come back into the dungeon & what's this??? BOTH doors are shut again. No matter... I have those keys right.... ummm which pocket did I put them in again? SON UVA BISCUIT! no keys? Not only did i NOT drop or otherwise lose the keys, i damn sure didn't shut those doors, they did that on their own

Yeah, only 4 hours in & I'm stumped again with a game killer. My first run was much luckier by comparison Also, hilarious is the fact that 1.4 specifically mentions that it fixed the key bug... well, guess what, it doesn't.

So... my rant is done. I'm going to try to go run a trainer tonight after work & see if i can hack the keys into my inventory... but I haven't had much luck seeing that as a solution for anyone else on this board.

I can't believe this game friggin' got me AGAIN! bah!

Alright, mini-rant is done.

I visited http://www.sorcerers.net/Games/PoR2/index.php & could not find anything other than a trainer that says you can change "just about anything", hopefully adding "Key of Living" & "Key of Dead" to inventory falls into the "just about anything" category

If anyone knows how this can be done, or if it can be hex-edited or something (which i am epicly stupid at, i cannot figure out how, it's beyond me, explain it to me like i'm a 2 year old & blind)... please, I would like to finish this god forsaken hell hole of a campaign

PS - despite all this games flaws, i genuinely like it, i just wish it were semi-playable :/

PPS - WOW... i'm always amazed when super old games still have followers. Simply awesome guys. MM IX only made it to like beta version, company died off completely & their fans finished the program & added additional content, but PoR still can't get from point A to point B.... *sigh* so sad. lol

---------- Added 3 hours, 10 minutes and 1 seconds later... ----------

So, update... trainer can train stats, not modify equipment. *lame*

Well, that was a short run, damn.

 

I'd say that you need to install one of the patches, I can't say which one, but you said you did check here for patches.

That incident with the keys happened to me too, but patching up to 1.3 did fix it.

Did you use all four patch utilities, or did you go directly to 1.4?
I think you can skip the 1.2 patch utility, but I think you need the 1.1 (for uninstalling), 1.3, and 1.4.

 

What he said.

 

I gave up on PoR long, long ago. It's horrendously buggy.

 

I gave up on it because it was dull, if i remember correctly. Fights too forever.

 

3rd run

I think part of the problem is that I patched the game after I had already started playing, I think whatever key issues were there at the start, continued even after I updated the game.

I have started a 3rd run, with patch 1.4 already in place from the beginning. So far, so good... I deliberately make it a point to save BEFORE i leave the dungeon & and I save as soon as I enter the dungeon, so far the doors remain open & disaster free. We'll see how long it lasts :/

It's not so bad really, I don't even use the speed mod for fighting, it would be nice to have a little more RPGing, but, I like the idea of being cut-off from any real help or support & going it alone. I actually like POR, when it is playable.

Besides, there are plenty of other games out there, if you are looking for more in depth story or character interactions.

 

I hope you stick around hun. You sound like the kind of nutcase we like to have on these boards!

 

That's probably the problem. VERY often with game patches in general, if you try to play a save from an unpatched game or a previous patch it messes things up because a necessary game data file has changed and the computer can't resolve the differences.

Sometimes they go seamlessly, other times the new fixes don't show up in your old saved games, but sometimes the patches can make the saved games go FUBAR. PoR2 is one of the latter.

 

well.... so far so good... I'm in "The Prisons" catacombs level 4, so far no key issues, though just in case i always save before i leave the dungeons & before i re-enter.

i think i'm approaching the area with the video that i could not avoid or pass the 1st time around. *keep your fingers crossed* :-)

on a side note, i'm juuuuust about sick of combat & i'm almost done with the game, so i guess that didn't work out TOO horribly... at this point i'm just drudging through to get the "V"

i do believe that the patches must be applied before the game ever begins... geez, what a pain in the ass... the next time the "nostalgia" faery says 'OOOH OOOH play *this* one' i'm going to punch it in the face.

 

Patches being invalidating the saved game is nothing new. Back in the really old days (since the time of games like BG and PoR2 are now the "old days") it wasn't that uncommon.

Of course, back in ancient times such as when the original Pool of Radiance Gold Box game came out, we couldn't get patches at all. Companies were forced to actually throughly test their products and make sure they were ready for release.

The ease of distributing patches via the internet is in some ways a minus, since it encourages companies to rush the products out the door before their ready. Microsoft is the worst offender, as neither XP nor Vista were ready when they were released. Trying to use either without at least the first "service pack" is asking for trouble. The automatic patching feature is a crutch and an excuse to ship unfinished products and let the BUYING public do the beta testing.

Yeah, it saves costs and development time being able to rush shoddy work out the door, but it rankles compared to the "good old days' when I was a little boy. Bugs were generally far fewer back then by the time the product got out the door.

Of course, the selection wasn't as large either. Stores would generally carry several platforms of products (Commodore, Apple II, "IBM" (now it would be called MS-DOS), so you could only look at a fraction of the store. Much like when you shop at a place like Game Stop and have to ignore the X-box and Nintendo stuff and can only look at Playstation.

 

okay then... interesting side rant

Finished Pools of Radiance RoMD... and not a moment too soon, endless combat was getting mind numbing

on to Baldura's Gate 1 ! lol