* At Swamp, entering Bayjim tunnel, both Vi and Madras refuse to come with me.
* Do my thing at Bayjim, go back to Arnika and pick up Vi.
* Go to Trynton via preset portal and no Madras. I presumed he would be in his observatory like a previous time I dropped him, but he is not.
* I have searched the whole tree and there is still no Madras anywhere!
* I have no saved game to load with Madras in it.

I realise other people have had similiar disappearing NPCs but I am yet to read about Madras disappearing. Is this problem going to be fixed? Madras was the star of my party! I have stopped playing until this problem can be fixed. That is ok, I guess it is about time I did something else, like sleep. ; -)

Is this going to be fixed?

This looks like a problem you'll need to take to:
Wizardry 8 Tech Support Forum

Best of Luck!

I did that first, actually, Moni!

I have had the same thing happen with Sparkle. But I am running version 1.00 (no patches).

What version patch are you running? You may want to try upgrading to a later version.

Yikes!
I have never heard of Madras disappearing in anyone's games before!
Were they able to offer you any help or even a promise to look into it?! They are usually right on top of thingts.

Well he disapear if you kill him :D

Yes, the game is fully patched and always has been!

Linda from Sirtech was amazing. Unfortunately she was unable to fix the problem, but put in the 'original' Madras in my saved game as a partial solution. Apparently they are looking into it.

Her customer service made me feel all warm and fuzzy.

My game is patched to the current as well, and I have the same problem, only one further. Here is a list of NPC's that I've had at one time, then released... only to never see them ever again:

Vi - released her on my own, as she wasn't pulling her own weight. I realized this was just cause I didn't give her time to develop, yet she is nowhere to be found in Arnika.

Madras - released him after draggin his sorry butt through a few levels. I absolutely hated this character, but when I went back to see the "DON", I made a wrong turn on the way there. Ended up in Madras' observatory. Looked for him to buy/sell from or to see if he held a grudge against me for letting him go, but he was nowhere to be found, anywhere.

Sparkle - Recruited her just to hear some of the sayings she has "in party" and quickly found her to be almost as annoying as Madras. Released her while still in the Umpani camp. Went and did a few quests (Find the POW Umpani in Bayjin) and then returned him to home. Sparkle was nowhere to be found in Umpani camp.

I've recruited Urq the Mook Psionist as well, then released him after traveling to Trynton. I haven't been back to Arnika to check and see if he's back in Mook Hall or not though.

That's it so far. My days of taking NPC's are over since adding the wonderful RFS-81. He puts my Ninja to shame as a fighter, even though my ninja has 118 in critical strike, he hardly ever gets any. RFS-81 has only 73 in critical and does many more than my ninja ever dreamed of.

The only problem i've had with NPC's is Vi in the statues butt... but as far as your ninja sucking, check his senses... if they are lower than RFS' then that might be why you're not getting many crits...

To add to the muddy waters, I lost Myles and Madras.

I didn't take it up with customer support because I didn't rely on either character, but if I did it would have been an enormous headache. It serves as a warning not to get too attached to any NPC, although I agree that RFS-81 is the best of the bunch.