Trying to join the merchant's guild, I talked to malcom who told me to kill maria, (weird, it did not add a quest) I went to talk to her and she told me to clear her name by exposing Malcolm's wrongdoings. It still didn't add a quest.


I saw old forum posts with google but nothing quite like this, and the post to retrieve lost quest items for the book which should be in Malcolm's house is too old for the files to still be hosted. (I can enter his house, but the book is not in his room, I suppose I need to have the quest, but nothing seems to start it)

I guess there can be issues with playing 15 years old games...

Have you tried the Game Banshee walkthrough. It's what I used when I last played it....ten years ago. :P

http://www.gamebanshee.com/divinedivinity/walkthrough.php

http://www.gamebanshee.com/divinedivinity/locations/poorquarter.php

yes; I use that guide too when I have a problem finding something, unfortunately in this case knowing where the book should be doesn't help since it's not there.
I suppose the problem is that I only talked to Maria after going to Verdistis once (and I don't have a save from before that).

Shit, sorry I can't help more. This is one of my favorite games of all time. I hope you don'y abandon it because of this.

well, I wasn't planning on abandonning it but the consequences are worse than I thought.
If I want to meet the assassins guild, I need to get into the merchants guild, and I can't do that.

I tried paying the 10k coins, doesn't work. I tried killing Maria, the secretary told me I was accepted into the guild, and that I had a key to the archives but I still can't open it, seems everything about that dirty secretary is buggy for whatever reason.

I don't know, seems like some pretty important side quests.
I still have the dwarf&elf council members to find, I'm not even sure they won't be buggy as well.

From what I can gather looking about on a search, if you accept Malcom's requets to kill Maria, she clams up and the book doesn't appear. As far as the assassins guild, I THINK there's a back way in (I don't think you can join it anyway). I know you can get there from the sewers - just not sure if doors are locked, etc since I always saved Maria. I've gone to Verdistas prior to talking to Maria - I don't think that's the issue. Also, while it may not work, if Malcom is gone, he may be in the guild area (ie, on the list or not, the quest was triggered). Try clicking on the closet in his room to see if it will open.

I did have a save in Verdistis from before talking to Malcom and tried teleporting back and talking to maria first, the dialogue went fine (ie she said clean my name I said yes) but still no quest appeared. (and thus, no book).
I really don't get it.

The head of the merchant guilde was pleased about the rivertown thing, but all I could get was 1000 coins, no membership.
I did find the sewer entrance but it's locked.

Yeah, we crossed posts - I edited all that out after thinking more about it. There are some bugs in this game with quests. I doubt trying the closet thing will work after what I just read, but it couldn't hurt. It's intersting that I never got the task from the head merchant about Rivertown until after I was a Merchants' Guild Member - there's a bit afterwards where you can ask him if I can do anything else for the guild and he gives you the quest. All you get is the reward either way - I suppose you never got the duplicate quest from him.

I'm hoping Raze has time to answer - he's a former player of the game who was hired by Larian and he knows this game inside out. He often answers here. Actually, have you tried asking this on the Larian forum site?

I think they have a French speaking section too although I don't know if Raze (from Canada) answers there.

I did find a lot of forum replies by Raze while looking for a solution.
One I had found was by changing the savegame and adding the book in the inventory manually, but the files were gone since the post was quite old.
And it doesn't guarantee anything since it seems the core of the problem is quest/journal related.
So no I didn't try the larian forums, felt like it might have been deserted and creating an account would be superfluous if I could ask here, also since my game is the GOG version it might be more relevant.

EDIT; wait reading your edit about the closet thing, something feels weird. I never sawn Malcolm in his house, he's always in the guild area. (on all the saves I tried= before ever speaking to maria or not)
There's always a mediocre piece of equipement in his closet but that's it.

I asked on the Larian site if there is an updated link available. We'll see.

Even if I don't find a solution, thanks for trying to help you two ^^

I didn't test this but this is the reply from the Larian site by Raze:

Oh, drat! Apparently I can't paste! (well, he didn't say that. :) )

larian.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=40737&an=

I think I got that right.

He provided two other links: Merchant Guild's financial records: https://www.dropbox.com/s/mli1vxofptehcc9/financialrecors.zip?dl=1

This is a picture of where it should be - you don't need this, I think but ---
on top of a cabinet in the bedroom:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/hbgchehrt72cpo4/MalcolmsHouse.jpg?dl=0

The first (larian) site is an old forum post (03) but I'm sure the link has been updated - it's the way of things there.

EDIT: thinking about it, the first link may be instructions and the second (zipped stuff) may be the actual book you need in total.

Thank you very much, although bad news, it only partly worked.
I could show the book to Trevor, who said thanks for exposing malcolm, and got me into the merchants guild, and said "heres your archive key" but again, I still can't open them.
Seems like the dialogues don't trigger what they're supposed to for some reason.
I already did but I'll try the "verify/repair" option of GOG again... because I'm scared that even if I do this process again to get the archive key, the next dialogues won't trigger the quests as well.

Sorry to here that. I doubt I can do anything more - I'm just not up on the technical end. The only similar problem I had was with Treavor (?) - the richest man in Verdistas (banker) and a later task. I had to redo triggerring the conversations several times to get it to work. Really, I think the only person who can help is Raze from Larian and, as a developer, he can only reply on forums as time allows.

starting the quest at Malcolmis definitly not a factor, I did it that way and it works just fine.
you seem the have a faulty copy, as at both places the quest-log should recognise gaining/failing quests, and that is necessary for the document to show up.