A hello, and a request for help.

[Cecil]

First and foremost, let me say hello and well met as this is my first time posting here. Actually, I just found you all yesterday after doing a little internet digging to try and solve a few problems I had while playing through Baldurs Gate II. And now that introductions are made, I'll dive right on in to what I seek advice with. [img]smile.gif[/img]

I (finally) got myself a new computer, so I knew I'd be having to flop some game saves from my old box to my new one. Anywho, my question is this: I moved my 'character' and 'save' files over from my old computer (where I had -been- playing BG2) to my new computer just last night. I logged in, and everything seemed snazzy, all my save games were there, and all items were accounted for. The only thing that -wasn't- there was my reputation points. I was at 19 reputation, but when I had fired up my save game after transferring to my new computer, I found I was now back at the default reputation (12 I believe).

Now then, that itself doesn't bother me in the least, but it did frighten me that perhaps other things (in particular my romance scripts I've worked through) would be gone as well. This simply would not do, as I as well count myself among the followers of the glory that is Aerie. To let down my lady and have to start from scratch again would be just unacceptable!

So has anyone else moved their character and save files to another computer, who can confirm that "indeed, your romance and all interaction decisions with characters will be saved and there with you on your new computer"? I would have thought definatly so, but then I wasn't able to account for why the reputation points didn't carry over - thus the question. I thought I would be clever in this test: I had Aerie attack something solo and let her life get down, and watched happily as Minsc rushed in shouting he must "save his witch!", thinking that solved the question about whether or not they carried over. But then I recalled that I didn't have to actually make/select any choices at all when Minsc adopts Aerie as his witch, so decided perhaps that was simply chapter based and not at all indicitive of my own personal character interactions.

Sorry if I got a bit wordy there to ask such a simple question, I just like to go in depth.

...plus it keeps me from having to get back to this pile of work.

So once again, hello to you all, and could someone please set my mind at ease with this issue. I'm just too impatient to play through to the next time a romance dialog pops up!

Thank you in advance,
Cecil

[ 05-10-2002, 03:40 PM: Message edited by: Cecil ]

[Morgeruat]

hmm, not sure, you could try copying your override folder over too, that's what I did when I reinstalled, and hid my files so they wouldn't get zapped (overcautious I know, but better safe than sorry)

[Sir Exxon]

WELCOME TO IW! [img]graemlins/happywave.gif[/img]

As for the question, I am sorry that I dont know for sure, as I havent tried it myself, but I do believe that your romance scripts are safe. But if you want to be sure, you can go here, and download both the romance-scripts. This should probably fix the problem, if there is any problem.

[andrewas]

HI cecil. Another worshipper of Aerie eh? *sigh* Dont understand it myself, but never mind.

Still, there is an easy way to check on you r problem. Download Shadowkeeper (Cool cheating program that allows you to alter your characters in many cheesy ways, and view/edit all the global variables. You should be able to find a copy easily enough)

Load it up and load in your savegame. Im not sure if you an change your rep here, but if you go into the global variables section you should be able to find one called something like AERIELOVETALK. It should be above zero, since this one counts your progress through the romance.

But im fairly sure your progress will have carried over since its stored in the same way as quest progress and you soon notice if those were screwed up. What im confused about is why your rep didnt change. It must be stored in the save folder somewhere. Weird. Maybe you killed someone and didnt notice the rep drop?

[Cecil]

Thanks for the nice replies everyone, and a pleasure to meet you all as well. [img]smile.gif[/img]

I was a bit boggled by it as well andrewas, but I'm certain it wasn't from taking rep hits from killing. My avatar is a Cavalier, and I try to roleplay him as such as best as possible, so I'm certain it wouldn't have been that. However, those don't bother me at all, it just got my mind to churning that maybe -other- things were tied in to wherever/however that was stored, and I may have lost those things (namely romance files and what not) as well.

I suppose I'm seeing the cup as half empty.

The only reason I haven't been able to dive in and start figuring it out, is I had some issues with the "XXX cannot initiate dialog right now, they appear to be busy." bug with WinXP. I downloaded the most recent patch from Baldurdash, but still no dice as of yet. I did a complete uninstall and reinstall last night of both SoA as well as ToB, and will be downloading the patch again tonight when I get home from work. (this time I'll try from biowares site - maybe I should have gotten that one to begin with? perhaps it's a different patch than that offered at Baldurdash?) By no means am I computer savvy, but I don't think I did anything goofy to have caused it to mess up when I downloaded/installed it - all the same, nothing I could do but take another stab at it. Either that or throw my monitor out the second story window the next time 'XXX' decided that just standing around staring blankly ahead qualified as 'being busy'.

I'll check out that Shadowkeeper and romance script downloads if I do get it back up and running and -do- find a problem however. Thanks kindly for the references!

[andrewas]

You may be roleplaying a cavalier, but mages have been known to *ahem* accidently *cough chough* toast a few civilians. Things like cloudkill are bad for it since the buggers can wonder in after it starts, and you still take the drop. Anyway, I just checked and reputation is alterable in Shadowkeeper. (adjust the reputation number for your avatar, the others are redundant). Im now sure that the rep change is something that happened in game and not during the copy. Unless it also effects your older saves as well, in which case im clueless.

[Cecil]

I know one thing - I'll be happy when I can get off work and head back home to start tinkering around with all of this. [img]smile.gif[/img]

I did get to check out one thing on my lunch break: after you brought to my attention the chances of having lost points through battle, it got my mind to wondering if perhaps it had snuck past me, so I logged on my old computer and checked the same save game that I transferred to the new computer in the move (haven't played it any on the new computer, so both the old and new computers are saved at exact local/time), and indeed my reputation is 19 on the old box, and 12 on the new box. I'm totally clueless.

And I was not aware of Shadowkeeper, or any of those other programs. Sad that I waited all this time to actually get on the internet and start looking around for forums and such.

Cheered that fate intertwined my path with this enchanted place.

[Charean]

Howdy Cecil!! Welcome to IW!!

Definately save your old override files (if possible) and see if that also helps. Morgeruat mentioned that.

I did about the same thing you are. I went from a PC to a Mac... so I was able to scoot over my files as well (also the plethora of portraits and sound files that I had gathered.)

Everything should be there. You may also want to ask Black Isle about that loss of rep. It was probably a bug of some sort... let us know how you make out with all of this!

[Cecil]

Just wanted to post a follow up to all of this. [img]smile.gif[/img]

1) The reputation point thing I never pursued. In a way it worked out better, as Jaheira is awfully whiney about the "balance" when your reputation gets to high.

2) The most important thing to me, the romance, was still there!! My AERIEROMANCE thingy read as a #2 on Shadowkeeper, and indeed, since I posted about this we've had some interaction that stayed true to the path our romance was heading down.

3) Shadowkeeper is awfully nifty. I made one saved game and imported neat stuff and just tinkered around a bit for fun. I did go back and delete the file after I was done fooling around - as I'd like my first time beating the game to be totally dupe free/cheat free. I like having the feeling of knowing that -I- beat the game, by my own devices, if you know what I mean. Just don't want to cheapen the experience.

...but now for the next times I play through (I want to try it with lots of assortments of different characters, as well as playing through evil at least once), I believe I'll definatly take a few cut corners with that proggy. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Very nice indeed, thanks everyone for all the tips/advice!