Unbelievable.

So, after playing with Sacred and a couple of others, DD was still calling my name out, so I started over A G A I N. That's at least the fourth time.

And A G A I N, another major problem, and I'm at level 23.

I saw something that I had never seen before in all times I had played, and that was when I went to the Rivillon marketplace, there was a Thug inside the marketplace area causing a shitstorm. The guards were chasing him and I went up to him and in two hits killed him. This happened twice, and I didn't think anything of it. I was then around level 20 IIRC.

So now I'm at level 23, and I just cleared the cave that had the letter in there implicating Tingalf in the blackmarket raquet, and I go back to report it to Marcus, and.....

no more Marcus. Anywhere. The only thing I can figure is that damn Thug killed him one of those times when he was inside the marketplace causing trouble.

Just great, now I can't report my findings to Marcus and get boatloads of experience points.

I don't know what the hell I did to piss off this game, but let me tell you, the feeling is definitetly mutual.

Note: Raze, if you read this, please don't bother with posting some sort of crack to fix this as I am not interested. The only thing I've gotta say now, is now I'm really wondering whether to spend any more of my dollars on anything associated with Larian studios, because this is truly way above and beyond any acceptable amount of startovers due to bugs.

You realize you can still beat the game without ever coming near this quest right? And if you keep multiple saves as I have suggested you don't have to start all over again.

Yes I realize the game can still be completed without that quest being completed, and yes, I've kept multiple saves this time. In fact,I've got 26 of them. I made a unique save at the beginning of each level, and then rotated among three other save slots when going from level to level.

So no, I don't have to start over again. But the frustration is still there because I never KNEW this was a problem until I went into the market district and found him missing. Thus, it turns out, upon loading my saves at the beginning of 23, 22, 21, and 20 that he is still missing. It wasn't until I loaded the level 19 save that I found one where he was still alive.

So, basically I could've been saving a new file evey 5 minutes and I STILL would've lost several hours of gameplay because it turns out the problem occurred somewhere around level 19 but I didn't know about it until level 23.

Lots of hours of gaming lost there. And this already being my fourth restart, I don't know if I want to go through those hours again.

The point is this game is too buggy. I want to post here to let others know that it is a very buggy game. It's a good game, hell it's a great game, but you'd better be willing to learn how to use hacks to fix stuff, to start over or on old saves and lose hours of gameplay, and/or playing just for the fun knowing it may be too buggy to finish without lots of frustration.

I should not have had to go through this much frustration playing a game. That's on Larian Studios, not me.

If you want to actually finish this game without dealing with quest problems here and there stop using any nonworking digital releases of DD (all digital releases of DD should be avoided). Go back to patched (1.0033A-1.0034A) retail CD release of the game and enjoy it!

I have the original version on CD. Will I be able to find the patches if I install it, and, most importantly, will it run on my Win-7, 64 bit machine??? If the answer to those two questions is yes, then by gosh that's what I'm gonna do.

It's such a GREAT game, but so damn frustrating when it screws up. And I do remember when I played it all the way to the end (but didn't finish) like 8 or 9 years ago that it was NOT this messed up.

If the CD version you have isn't already updated, you can still download the patch (the DVD release and many CD re-releases don't need to be patched).

The disk version should run in Win7, though playing in higher than supported resolutions (ie more than 1024x768) the game may crash opening the main map.

+1,000,000 to this. Especially if you already own the disk version! Enjoy all the music you haven't been hearing while you're at it. :)

Thanks Raze, I did need the patch. My CD version was 1.2 something, (I told you I bought it a LONG TIME ago), so I patched it to 1.034 using your link.

It is a bummer that I can no longer play at 1920X1080, but I'd rather have a better gaming experience with a worse resolution than a better resolution and a worse gaming experience. Sure would be nice if someone would figure out how to get BOTH, the best resolutions AND the best version of the game, including all the music this time.

Anyway, thanks again, and yes, I am now starting over for about the FIFTH time LOL. Hopefully this works out ok.
HOLY CRAP, I'm right at the beginning of the game where the dude comes upstairs and meets Joram and I'm ALREADY HEARING MUSIC I NEVER HEARD before in the GOG or Steam versions.

I believe there is a tutorial on "teleporting" NPC's in the Larian forum, it works even if they are dead. Perhaps your NPC died somehow. If you haven't used a hex-editor, it is not difficult.

OldFatGuy specifically requested that I not bother mentioning stuff like Reviving dead NPCs. So I didn't. :)

Yeah, sorry Raze, it's nothing personal, but I'm a complete idiot with all things computer. I don't want to risk something like that because if there's a way to screw something up BIG TIME, than I'll do it.

I tried once to change the fonts on a baseball game (several years ago) and ended up not only completely borking the baseball game, but I had to recover my damn computer to a previous save before it started working right.

Anytime you get into cracking stuff, I'm scared.

Man, right now I wish I had never picked up and started this game LOL. Me and this game are doomed to have a love/hate relationship I think.

I am playing the old CD version that I've had for a loooong time. And after playing all of those hours on the GoG and Steam versions I've discovered...... I miss the bigger resolutions, to the point that I'm not even sure I can play it this way. I got too used to having three plates open all the time. 1) Equipment in the upper left corner 2) mini-map in the upper right corner and 3) Statistics in the lower left corner.

I thus always had access to all of that info and there was still PLENTY of room on the screen for the action. Not so with this 1024X768 resolution. I'm having to constantly open and shut those in order to get info. If I had all three of those open at the same time, it pretty much blocks a great deal of the playing area enough to make it unplayable. And just the way the space you do see is a lot more limited makes it much less enjoyable IMO. Definitely having a hard time adjusting. I actually think the game was easier and more enjoyable with those larger resolutions.

Damn game... :>P

I'm not sure which one I'm going to stick with. I do like that added music in the original though, that's for SURE.

Just come back later, maybe they'll sync the versions at some point. I find it rather strange because I'd think the digital version would be derived of the CD version and that they would be synced. But I personally never even tried to do the quest you mentioned.

The first download version was based on the updated disk version of the game. There was a new bug introduced, though (certain NPCs could spin in place, and so not be interacted with). Unfortunately there was a screw up somewhere in fixing that issue, unnoticed at the time, and some of the source code reverted back to the original disk release (so the newly fixed True Shot and damage portion of Crossbow Expertise were broke again, etc). When Larian went back to DD to check for compatibility issues with Win 7, they discovered the download version backup had the download binary files, but the disk version source code, so they had to redo the compatibility fixes and higher resolution support for the Steam / Larian Vault release (see Hatching the Anthology). Some of the fixes in the disk version patches remain in the download version, and some do not.

Was the GOG update/patch for fixing any of this or only for screen resolution?