nearly there (SPOILERS)

[Armen]

End game spoilers

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Crystal (solo F/M/T and long since as good as he’s going to get) finally returned to Candlekeep and came into his own. Considerably enlightened and immeasurably strengthened by all he learned there, he set his sights on Baldur’s Gate.

A brief diversion to Beregost to take stock and to stock up and I’m back. Fortunately its dark when I arrive and I sneak around avoiding the constabulary. I am finally the commando strike force I always hoped as I insinuate my way round (and sometimes through) the opposition gathering my evidence and, finally, my invitation. (I was really pleased that despite the length of time it took me to get here I’d managed to avoid any major spoilerage on the details of this section).

I should have known that something was wrong at the coronation when the assembled nobles didn’t seem to mind the small army of hobgoblins and kobolds mingling freely among the guests trying to eat cocktail sausages with halberds and popping balloons with poisoned arrows.I failed to protect the dukes a few times before I gave myself a break, had a flash of inspiration and nipped off to fetch myself some O_ Resilient Sphere scrolls. Success, and I’ve got it wired now but every time, whatever I do, Sarevok survives everyone and chases me round and round soaking up damage and never dying. Something is clearly wrong here so I offer up an uncharacteristic prayer to the great god Ironworks who spake “verily, sounds like a bug to me mate, install the patch”. Offering praise as I went I do so, reload, smite, and the big armoured guy winks out closely followed by me.

Here I am, stood at the top of the stairs, after all this time, never before have I had such clarity of purpose. I check my gear (in best Hollywood action hero style), take a deep breath, and descend). I see a sign: it says “please insert disk 4”. Strange I think, I’ve got 3 disks, I’ve got a diary, I’ve got a wand of monster summoning, I’ve even got a ring of free action in a barrel somewhere but I haven’t got a ‘Disk 4’. I can hardly believe that my god has failed me as, close to despair, I called to the mighty Bioware. I opened my eyes and there, written in letters of fire, were the words “if you have the 3 disk set do not install the patch – if you do so you will have to re-install”. What these strange words mean, I cannot say, but I enter a mysterious trance as images move before my closed eyes, questions are asked and answered, colours change, and always the shining sliver disks dance and spin as the world is re-made around me, and I am there – the way is clear.

Such divine intervention is not without its price however and I am tired (well it 2 o’clock in the morning by now goddammit ) so reluctantly I turn away from my nemesis and sleep. Soon though . . . soon . . .

[Rothrorn]

10 out of 10 for preservation and patience!!! If was me, the PC would have been flying out of the window by now!

[Armen]

Originally posted by Rothrorn: 10 out of 10 for preservation and patience!!! If was me, the PC would have been flying out of the window by now!

ah but if i could even dream of the trials that would await me - i have now negotiated the thieves maze and made if to the altar of saraveok himself - he has summoned powerful forces against me though including a mage who thwarts me time and again with his deadly 'assertion error' . . . . .

way to mess with the drama folks

[SixOfSpades]

I wish I could help, but when I had BG1, it was the 6-disc version, not Original Saga. What operating system is your computer running on?

[Pirengle]

I don't know how much help this will be, but I'll ask it anyway. What exactly did you do when you returned to the city in Chapter 7? There are four major things to do before the big showdown: save somebody, kill somebody, kill some more people, then put it all together in the fight you mentioned. Is it possible you skipped something?

Did you cast ORS too early? I tend to cast it when the bad guys are definitely going after their target(s). Either that, or try to block them off.

Try reloading from a save, maybe?

[Armen]

thanks folks - i've re-installed again (using BGs directX this time - well you never know) and re-loaded from before entering the thieves maze (i'm on Windows XP by the way)

it feels like i haven't missed anything although i might have missed some dialog through excessive sneaking - i'd killed the woman with the book, saved the poorly sick fella, killed the couple in the < ahem > hotel, attended the coronation (ORS when the thingies go red btw), maze - showdown

the only thing i hadn't done was remove the group before you go in as i sneaked past but i did so last night (using, in my annoyance, Algernon's cloak that hadn't been used in anger since the ogrillons on the road to Nashkel) but they don't seem to have anything vital

we shall see . . .

[ 05-28-2003, 03:53 AM: Message edited by: Armen ]

[Armen]

hmm, browsing around today i came across this in a ToB thread talking about the game breaking properties of dimension door

"If its a quest trigger, the player might never be given certain information, or parts of the quest might not work because part of the script has never been run. Worse, scripts could be run in the wrong order, if the player then backtracks. That could do real damage to your global variables." (andrewas)

i wondered if excessive sneaking might do the same, but no, critical dialogues tend to trigger anyway whether you're in stealth or not (somewhat cheesily), don't they?

ignore me i'm rambling now . . . [img]smile.gif[/img]

[ 05-28-2003, 09:32 AM: Message edited by: Armen ]

[Midget Gems]

Hey Armen, all this re-installing and stuff has got me confused. Where are you now? If you can reach the stairs in the Thief HQ then the problem ought to be quite easy to solve. If you can't get through the Coronation scene then that is much harder to sort out. Also I play the old six disc version so my experience may not apply to your configuration. As it happens I when through this section at the weekend so it's still fresh in my mind, so tell me are you still trying to get down the stairs?

As an aside I figure that O.R.S. is a much neglected spell. I nearly always use it defensivly, but it works offensivly too (I once cast it on Aec-Letec but thats another story). At the Coronation I sometimes cast it on Liia Jannath 'cos I find that she gets killed more often than Belt, either way it's a good statagy for this fight.

[Armen]

[img]smile.gif[/img]

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[img]smile.gif[/img] [img]smile.gif[/img] [img]smile.gif[/img]

yay! we have a winner - thanks for your thoughts

things i did differently were:
- taking the option to reinstall directX when i reinstalled BG (rather than the 'compatible' one (?) the install routine found
- took out the group before you get to the alter room

one of them (maybe) made the difference (my money's on the 1st one!)

to finish the story - i sneaked down the side of the throne room and when i spotted sarevok he spoke to me (i still think its a bit unfair that i can stay in shadows at this point) - it was a bit summons heavy after that i'll confess although i did go toe to toe with the mage at the front albeit with a bit of waiting out his spell protections

i then summoned a few dogs, stealthed, and moved them forward, angelo and tavok (sp) came out of invisibility to attack (although i'm not sure i'd have bothered if i had a fully armed super hasted fighter to deal with them) and my real bit of luck was angelo injuring sarevok and getting chooped to bits for his treachery (which was nice) and after that it was summoning blockers buffing like mad and unloading arrow after arrow until the big guy went down!