Please help

[Joey]

I downloaded the game, and updated to 1.45. I noticed I couldnt save after entering the game but thought that was because it was unregistered. I registered and was still unable to save so I figured it was a currupted download. I unistalled and redownloaded and patched to 1.45 and I am still unable to save. I created a savegame file on the off chance that might work, but still when I go to load a game nothing is there. The only thing in the prelude folder is a file called tempsave. But that does not show on my load screen. Autosaves do not load either.

Please help, I have created a party like 10 times now and not being able to save really is a game stoper. Any and all help to get me playing will be appreciated very much. Thank you

Joey

Pent4 1.8
winxp home
Geforce 3 ti
(anything else?)

 

[Rosh]

Unable to save how? Does it come up with an error, crash, say you can't save, doesn't create a save file? What?

It's possible to save in the demo version of the game, so I'm thinking there might be something else you're running into.

 

[Joey]

IWhen I hit escape I can go to save, and actually save, but when i go to load it is always empty. In the feedback window it will also say "autosaving" but when I go to load game there is nothing at all.

 

[Rosh]

Okay, that gives a bit more information about the problem and has narrows down the suspects a lot. While I don't have any possible solutions or what might be the problem at this time, that might be enough for the developers to look into and give you help with.

 

[Joey]

I hope so, for now I will uninstall and try without 1.45. Thanks for taking the time to help, it is appreciated. At least character creation is fun, and I've had time to look through the boards and get some tips on how to make a better party. Thanks again

 

[Joey]

Well version 1.41 will save. Its only version 1.45 that wont.

 

[ikarius]

I'm seeing this problem as well. I downloaded the game, installed it on my D: drive, installed the 1.45 patch, registered and paid for it. The game does not save for me- no error message, no crash, it simply does not save. I don't see a save directory, however. Is this perhaps the problem? Also, briefly when I was starting up, it displayed a version #- version 1.41. It was definitely not version 1.45, even though I ran the patcher. Maybe we have to install an earlier patch before the most current one? I think I'm going to try uninstalling and give that a shot.

System info:
OS: Windows 2000, SP3
Intel Pentium 4
ASUS P4PE motherboard
512 meg ram

Anything else that might be useful debugging this? Are there any log files?

--Ikarius

 

[thathmew]

blarg, I'll look into this asap.

Are Autosaving and Quicksaving (press 'Q') not working either?

-mat

 

[ikarius]

Correct,
Autosave and Quicksave do not work either. All works fine if I simply install the "full version" 1.41. Once I install the 1.45 patch, saving of all varieties no longer works.

I've also seen the game crash to desktop, and lock my system cold. I'm beginning to be rather unhappy with the game- this is all in less than 2 hours of testing it. Everything else I've run has demonstrated my system to be extremely stable, so I'm well convinced that this is not my hardware.

When I mentioned that after the patch, I still saw version 1.41, I figured out where that was again. When I start a "New" game from the main menu, when the characters are first being ushered in to talk to the guy who gives you your mission, the first line in the scroll box reports the version #. After the patch, that version # does not change. Is it possible the patch is failing? It gives a message that it successfully installed, but I also tried re-patching an installed game, it actually gave one error about being unable to remove "stoneobject.zip" (which is interesting, because the file does not exist), and then reported that the patch installed successfully. As a result, I'm fairly skeptical of the accuracy of the "patch successfully installed" message.


--Ikarius

 

[thathmew]

I think I know what's happening, I'll be fixing it as soon as I get a chance later today and posting a new patch.
Blarg.
Thanks for taking a look and posting,
-mat

 

[ikarius]

Sounds good, and thank you for the fast response. Would you mind telling me if you think that my patch is succeeding or not? Also, any likelyhood that the crashes will decrease once I get the new patch applied?

--Ikarius

 

[thathmew]

The patch is succeeding.
It's unlikely the crashes will decrease by much after the patch. Some probably, but not by much.

Have you looked at some of the other threads on crashing and disabling background programs? Prelude doesn't like anything else running (unfortunately). I'm working on that, something to do with the way I'm handling memory and multi-threading.

-mat

 

[ikarius]

Yep,
I have looked at some of the other threads, and on this machine, I've got as little as possible running in the background- the sound is built into the motherboard, and I've got nothing more than the sound drivers for it loaded, and I'm turning off virus protection while running this game. It's also a fairly fresh install of windows 2000, so not much garbage has gotten loaded on the system. I'll see if there's anything else I can pare back a bit further, but I doubt it.

--Ikarius

 

[Joey]

Yes, thanks for the quick response. I skipped school and a midterm to play today so I should probably be cursing you instead of thanking you. This game reminds me of Darklands and Realms of Arkania mixed with Ultima 7.

 

[thathmew]

ah, windows 2000, that explains a bit, it's the least supported OS we've gotten to work on (as noted on the downloads page) I don't have a win 2k machine myself, so it makes debugging and testing a little tough.

 

[ikarius]

Blah. From what I've experienced, Windows 2000 is far and away the most stable OS to have come out of redmond. It's been consistantly much better than any of the other flavors of windows that I've worked on, and working in computers, I've tried them all. I've loaded it on all my machines, including my 5-year old celeron 300A machine, and it's nice and very very rarely crashes for me. I highly recommend it to anyone who has to work with windows :wink:

--Ikarius

 

[thathmew]

saves fixed with a new (1.46) patch.
blarg.
-mat