So I'm crossing the map, my last save was about 2h ago, after passing the border I appear IN A TREE on the next map and I CAN"T QUICK TRAVEL BECAUSE THERE ARE MONSTERS NEARBY! Bye bye two hours. This situation actually repeated again on a different map and cost me another hour of gameplay. Shit happens, I had some patience reserves left so I continued on...

Around 18h into the game, underground repository. I got both chests but there were still some unexplored corridors, I thought that the only way of getting there was killing the vault master so I'm going back to him and I play dumb just to see what happens. He throws me into a cell with two observer-like monsters. So I have to kill them without my equipment? No problem, I'm a mage. I saved the game and killed them both. Alright, now to find the hidden lever/plate... NOPE! THERE'S NO WAY OF ESCAPING! If you don't immediately show the goblin your amulet, it's already game over but the game is fucking with you by not telling you that and letting you fight through already finished game. I had only one save slot because I never felt the need of creating more and now I'm stuck. NO GAME SHOULD EVER PUT YOU IN THIS KIND OF DEAD END SITUATION!!!

Uninstall.

Heh... wait until you play Wizardry 3. Now that's an *evil* game by today's standards. (I encountered the switch-maps-get-stuck-situation in Eschalon yesterday btw. A bit annoying indeed, especially since I had just cleared out Baron's Thicket).

It it really not a good idea to only use one save slot, there are ten for a reason. I save in a new slot every time I enter a new section of map or level up and quick save after every fight, every rest and pretty much every few minutes or less so I never have to repeat anything and can go back to any recent event. I have encountered the same problem with the trees and it was a bit annoying but if you had kept pressing space to skip turns the monsters would have eventually walked away allowing you to quick travel.

Also, if you are going to try to kill one of the games vital characters and not make a save before that then it really is your fault and not the games that you can no longer complete it. Rather than uninstalling the game why not learn from it and get better at it instead of blaming the game when you should be blaming yourself? This game is based on games from an age when you actually had to think about what to do and engage your brain to play rather than have your hand held from start to finish and that is why so many people love it so much.

There are still (cheaty) ways to go back, like resetting the map and such. I don't know the details but check the other threads to find out how.

This game is so easy I never had to use more than one save slot and even if it had infinite slots it's still game's fault. There was no warning that you're supposed to use more save slots due to bad programming. Also, even if I had an earlier save, the game is still wasting my time letting me fight my way out of repository while it's clearly impossible. 1. I never tried to kill him.
2. Vital character?! Don't make me laugh. He has two dialog lines and you can get both chests without even talking to him... Well, if going from point A to point B while killing everything on the way "engages your brain" then I pity you. It's a simple unpolished hack'n'slash with some fetch quests thrown around, nothing else, don't compare it to old gems.

All in all, even if I could cheat my way out of the cell, I don't think I have the patience to grind this game to the end.

I feel your pain. We've all had games where something happened and we lost hours of play, or even in your case, a whole game. When I first got my hands on TOEE, I was thrilled to learn it had an ironman mode. I was happily gaming away until the save became corrupted. As the only save, the whole game was lost. I ragequit and didn't play again for some time.

I understand your frustration, but it seems you don't know the very first rule of gaming. You need to save often, in different slots. This is absolutely crucial, as you've learned to your pain. Save before big moments in a game. Save before talking to important NPCs. Save before handing over an important item. Save before entering a dungeon for the first time. Save, save, save. Save files can be corrupted, you can forget to do something important, games can crash, events can have permanent consequences closing off other parts of the game... there are a ton of reasons. Look at how easily your problems could have been solved if you did this.

I completely understand if out of frustration and unhappiness you quit the game and move on to something else. That's perfectly fine. But if you ever do decide to play Eschalon again, and even if you don't, learn the lesson from this. Save often, save in different slots.

PS while there are no levers in the room, it is possible to escape if you have a portal spell memorized. That spell can not only get you out of there, it can make fast travel much easier later in the game.

Lastly, all hope is not lost. There is a character editor you can use to replace the stuff you lost and get you out of the prison. Read my thread on Xolotl's editor. With the editor you can get back what you lost and continue the game.

Learn the lesson from this experience and take it to heart. Save often, save in different slots. Good luck.

Be glad the editor can let you keep playing.

I'm not glad because I don't want to keep playing this, I already moved on.

*facepalm*

Oh, the game fooled you? Wow. Games almost never do that!

This is precisely why you need more than one save slot. Instead of doing the obvious commonsense thing, you decided to experiment. And then you got mad when the experiment didn't go the way you hoped.

Nah, son. You never know what kind of curveball any RPG might throw you. The next "simple" RPG you play is going to bite you in the ass unless you lose the arrogance.



Yours Truly,

I've Also Been Playing RPGs Since The C64 Era