Update 3: Sergorn’s Bug List

Sergorn posted a rather extensive list of issues ranging from bugs to polish to balancing.  I am reposting his list here in order to comment on each issue with regards to the final U9 patches.

* Stackable reagents. I seem to recall we discussed it years ago and it’s not doable, but, you know… that always was a beef about it, since reagent aren’t stackable you never have them with you and that makes all the other binding circle moot.

Unfortunately, there is no interface mechanism that allows for unstacking of multiple quantity reagents.  So there is no way to undo this part.  Forgotten World will include reagent stacking thanks in part to adapting Ultima Return’s Unity inventory system.

* Create reagent spell. As I recall it’s supposed to create a different type of reagent depending on the terrain but you always get the same. It’d be a nice fix.

The nature of this particular problem is unclear.  We know that only the terrain around Lord British’s Castle functions with this spell.  It could that something is not set properly with the terrain files, but I doubt the issue is something as spell as missing flags.  More likely the problem resides either with the terrain types (where terrain textures are matches up with their types) or the code for the spell itself was broken at some point.  This bug won’t be fixed. 

* Raven’s ship at Valoria. Raven’s ship is supposed to move away from the dock at Valoria and she gets back to position once you light the fire. There is even a small cinematic when you do that, and before that some undeads on the dock you need to kill and she asks you to. 

This is definitely one of several significant bugs on our list that will be corrected even if I have to rescript the whole sequence. 

* Music triggers. Have all the music triggers been fixed? I have this reminder of some tracks unused in the game too… Also I always thought it’d be nice to have Stones played at the restored Shrines. Side note: the Stones.wav inside the music file sucked because it makes it start in the middle. Ugh.

Minoc, Valoria, and Skara Brae themes are ones with some issues.  I will fix it.  I promise you I will fit it.  It will play great.  Stopping and Starting under the right conditions.  In fact, I was considering adding the themes to each of the shrines so you can hear the theme transition during the cleansing.  No Stones (well they are all Stones), but no original Stones except at Iolo’s.

* CG Cutscenes. I know some people have issues reading them properly, always wondered if something could be done about that. Notably I once wondered if the vids could be upscaled in a res more like the res you’d play the game now, the way it changes resolution when going to the cutscenes tends to mess things up a bit.

We don’t have the tools to implement this nor is there going to be an effort to accomplish this. That said, if anyone wanted to do this, we would support it and incorporate it into the patch.

* Combat balance. I stand with my assessment that U9 has a pretty neat combat system with all its attacks and monsters being more susceptible to this or that attack, but it obviously need more balancing in term of damages, hit points and the like. The eco/monster patch does some of this but….not in a very satisfactory way I think.

Definitely agree, but I think part of the balance requires altering the list of monster resistances and vulnerabilities. So in the interests of compatibility, our patches won’t alter the NPC file.

* Shamino statue. Any possibility of having multiple statues reacts ? Always got this feeling you were supposed to get parts of the post Britain dialogue at the various statue, I seem to recall if you cheat and go straight to SB even you get ALL the dialogues…

I did too and had wanted to implement them.  Unfortunately, none of them were ever written.  There is just the one near the Shrine of Compassion and the ones in Skara Brae.

* Final 2H sword training – it can get buggy if you “take” the book underwater and then you don’t lean the skill. That would make a good fix.

Huh, never thought that one was a problem.  I’ll check into it and see want I can do to enforce it goes off correctly.

* Serpents’ Hold trigger: There is some bug of sort in Serpent’s Hold that sometimes makes the water not go away and you end up drowning. Last time I played I literally had to cheat to get the bell and whatshername was in the water. Ugh.

This is one of those really edge cases where a full editor would be valuable.  Water is the most difficult thing to alter in the game involving scripting objects and special terrain structures.  We still don’t have a real clear idea about how it is supposed to work.  Originally, I thought the area of the Hold was a block of non-water area surrounded by water and that the problem was the block not being large enough.  Nope, the whole area is water, which disappears when you pass a point.  Now that is a really insane way of doing things.  This is definitely going to be an involved alteration and probably the one thing that will delay the first patch.

* Troll bridge: Does he have to ask it EVERY time?

Of course, he is pretty stupid and forgetful. Although I might try some things here to adjust this so he at least remembers you for a time.  I do plan on having him sleep.  Although having him blocking the bridge does present something of an issue.  Would the Britain guard not go to take him out after the shrine is cleansed or would that not be very compassionate?  I guess I will just have him disappear about the cleansing or once you leave Britain for Buc’s Den.

* Monster respawn, that’s a complicated one.  In U9 much, like in all the Ultimas nearly since U6, monsters basically respawn whenever you leave the screen and come back, at the same place the same monsters. Wonder if there is a possibility to randomize things a tad more.

Hmm… Yeah if only there was a way to randomize this.  😉

This is an issue I will think about the best way of implementing.  I can easily add a low respawn percentage to keep the likelihood of a respawn from nearly all the time you leave to rarely popping up.  There are some I might remove completely as they make little since like the goblins near Paws.

* Unpassable mountains. Wonder if some slight terrain modification can be done to prevent climbing the mountain to yew before you’re supposed to. It’s all complicated of course because the game is also supposed to let you levitate over these mountains to get to Destard later on, but if you do that early, you get to Yew and… ugh.

Terrain editing is not something we are going to worry about.  Besides everybody already knows not to go to Yew early.  As for the levitation spell, nothing can be done to fix it.  I don’t know why or how it got broken.  But I’m left wondering whether one of the later patches broke the several of the games spells somehow because I find it odd that levitate and create reagents don’t work in 1.19f or possibly 1.18f but seemingly did in earlier versions.

Oh and Moonglow. Gah.

My sentiments exactly. Gah.  Even fixing Leeland was a real pain… and technically it isn’t even finished yet because I broke it trying to adjust the conceal/reveal of objects for the ransacking and clean-up.  In any case, expect the next couple of posts will be about my non-fun adventures in fixing this disaster of scripting.