Isaac is BUGging me and (possibly) VV

theBlackDragon · Post by **theBlackDragon** » Tue Dec 19, 2006 7:06 am

I noticed I forgot to do the Gargoyle quest so I headed over to Isaac in Hollywood, but upon entering his house my inventory and melee weapons get reset to some earlier state (guns and clothing remain untouched, wtf?) When I subsequently try to leave the game crashes.

Since I meddled with the console a bit to get some stuff back that I thought I had lost in the Warrens (using noclip) I loaded a couple of old savegames but the problem seems to persist. I think I ran into this problem before as I can nowhere seem to find the manuscript I need to complete the quest with VV, I searched all over the game (that's why I noclipped my way into the warrens, thought I dropped it down there as my inventory ended up being full, turned out to not be the case)

Is this because I'm trying to do all this after completing most of Chinatown? I'm playing Tremere so I _really_ want this quest

Anybody know a fix? I installed the latest official patch some days ago too (didn't start a new game for it and I don't want to either)

PS: if anybody knows the itemcode for the manuscript needed to complete VV's quest, please do post it, there was a command to list the itemcodes of all the stuff in your inventory somewhere, unfortunately I don't have a savegame with it anymore...

[Warning: rant below!]
Seriously, this could have been such a nice game, but I've never come accross a game with so many bugs and performance problems, even Knights of the Old Republic 2 (KotOR2) had less bugs (and loaded a whole lot faster so a crash wasn't such a big deal). I think I've spent more time staring at loadscreens (or getting and emptying a pot of coffee all during one load, and yes, that's cynism) and searching the web for fixes for bugs instead of playing. Somebody ought to feed the moneyhuggers that decided to release the game in this state to Pisha. *sigh* I just had to get that off my chest.
[End Of Rand]

Anaximander · Post by **Anaximander** » Wed Dec 20, 2006 12:58 am

[quote="theBlackDragon]Anybody know a fix? I installed the latest official patch some days ago too (didn't start a new game for it and I don't want to either)[/quote]

This is most likely your problem. When you install the unofficial patches"]must[/b] start a new game. The unofficial patches overwrite existing game data. Scripts, dialogues, items, maps, creature models, everything. Data corruption in previous saved games is an unfortunate side effect, and it manifests itself a myriad of bizarre and uncorrectable bugs. The only way around it is start a new game.

Oh, and the manuscript VV wants is written by David Hatter, the night manager at the Lukee Star hotel. Start your search with him.

theBlackDragon · Post by **theBlackDragon** » Wed Dec 20, 2006 2:31 am

Anaximander wrote:This is most likely your problem. When you install the unofficial patches, you must start a new game. The unofficial patches overwrite existing game data. Scripts, dialogues, items, maps, creature models, everything. Data corruption in previous saved games is an unfortunate side effect, and it manifests itself a myriad of bizarre and uncorrectable bugs. The only way around it is start a new game.

I installed the latest official patch (1.2) because I wanted to finish the game with the original settings before going with the unofficial modifications and because of the technical reasons you mentioned above: quests have been changed which just has to restult in problems in an already running game.

Anaximander wrote:Oh, and the manuscript VV wants is written by David Hatter, the night manager at the Lukee Star hotel. Start your search with him.

I know, I actually got it from him, but I suspect the inventory/melee problem I have with Isaac made it disappear (as I can't find it around anywhere anymore). Talking to him again doesn't give me the option to get it from him either and I can't loot it from him when I kill him either (yes, getting desperate)... The full rundown was something like this: I got the manuscript, did a lot of other quests (oa the Warrens), then went back to Santa Monica, killed the guy VV wants killed, returned to Hollywood for Mitnick's quest, my quest log says I should go and tell VV that the guy's dead but I only get "About Hatter..." and then only an option to break off the dialogue...

Anyway, I hava now started a new game but now I'm running into other bugs (the elevator no longer wants to open after 'unsplitting' Therese and Jeanette and I can no longer talk to her either after noclipping my way into the elevator (which works normally after this), so I'd still like to continue with my old save if possible...

Jhereg · Post by **Jhereg** » Wed Dec 20, 2006 4:58 am

theBlackDragon wrote:Anyway, I hava now started a new game but now I'm running into other bugs (the elevator no longer wants to open after 'unsplitting' Therese and Jeanette and I can no longer talk to her either after noclipping my way into the elevator (which works normally after this), so I'd still like to continue with my old save if possible...

You might be able to get the codes to get the manuscript back, and even use the console to recover everything that has gone missing. I don't think it's going to help. Ultimately, I think you're going to see bugs cropping up all over the place that have no solution but the console, and you're going to wind up spending more time in the console cheat-coding yourself past weird bugs than playing the game.

Were I you, I'd go with a full re-installl, patch to 1.2 and start a new game. It only takes me about three nights to finish a game, so it won't set you back all that much, and ultimately, I think you will find it more satisfying personally.

I get the frustration. Trust me - you would be a lot happier without it, even if you lose a couple of days of play time.

I think you've encountered the law of diminishing returns. With the amount of time you've spent trying to fix the difficulties you already have, you probably could have re-installed, patched, started a new game, and played through to completion. Sometimes, it's just easier (and faster) to wipe the slate clean and start from scratch.

theBlackDragon · Post by **theBlackDragon** » Wed Dec 20, 2006 4:54 pm

Jhereg wrote:You might be able to get the codes to get the manuscript back, and even use the console to recover everything that has gone missing. I don't think it's going to help. Ultimately, I think you're going to see bugs cropping up all over the place that have no solution but the console, and you're going to wind up spending more time in the console cheat-coding yourself past weird bugs than playing the game.

Were I you, I'd go with a full re-installl, patch to 1.2 and start a new game. It only takes me about three nights to finish a game, so it won't set you back all that much, and ultimately, I think you will find it more satisfying personally.

I get the frustration. Trust me - you would be a lot happier without it, even if you lose a couple of days of play time.

I think you've encountered the law of diminishing returns. With the amount of time you've spent trying to fix the difficulties you already have, you probably could have re-installed, patched, started a new game, and played through to completion. Sometimes, it's just easier (and faster) to wipe the slate clean and start from scratch.

You are right I'm afraid, so I restarted (as a Tremere again). At first I just renamed my SAVE folder and created a new (empty) one with that name. When I restarted I got weird bugs popping up all the time (like the elevator thing). Now I just deleted that folder and let the game re-create it and I haven't seen any bugs yet... I don't know if that is just luck or not creating an empty SAVE folder actually helps, but I thought it was worth mentioning all the same.

The good about the restart is that now I figured out how to properly time for the tomes I have a much better character than before. I do hope I get to the end witout running into weird stuff this time though...

Thanks for all the insight guys

PS: Just as a sidenote on the manuscript: I couldn't get it back with the console as it doesn't show up in the completion list, hence my asking for the name, but since I follewed your adive and restarted it doesn't really matter anymore

Anaximander · Post by **Anaximander** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 1:27 am

[quote="theBlackDragon]PS: Just as a sidenote on the manuscript: I couldn't get it back with the console as it doesn't show up in the completion list"]

Even though it doesn't matter, I'll post this anyway for future reference. The item code you're looking for is item_g_hatters_screenplay.

Look in the ~Vampire\vdata\items directory. There you'll find .txt files containing data on every item that exists in the game. File names correspond to item names. Some items don't have obvious names, though. The Blood Chalice, for example, is item_p_occult_regen.

Actually, now that I think about it, you might not see all the game's items listed there, unless you've extracted the .vpk files. The unofficial patches contain a lot of the extracted data, but I'm not sure they include it all.