World map and dungeons resetting...

[Hunter]

I've now played a couple dozen different characters and eventually, sooner or later, the world map resets for every single one of them. For about half of them, the final level of the underwater dungeon eventually resets (where the storage area is.) With the world map reset, I lose any of the mobile dungeons I happened to enter (lost ruins, etc) prior to that, and the gate to Angolwen (if I happened to open it before the reset.) With the dungeon reset (not just that level, but other dungeon resets are only irritating, not game-breaking), I have to fight the boss again. It opens up again after I win, but lose the spirit that resides there as well as any items I happen to have stored there.

I've searched through the first few pages of the bugs forum but don't see anything obvious. Is this some special problem I have, because I can't imagine so many people have gotten very far if this sort of thing happens to everyone? It really is a huge, game-breaking bug because it inevitably cuts off entire sections of the game at -- as far as I can tell -- unpredictable intervals after character creation.

[darkgod]

Does your game happen to crash before this happens ?

[Hunter]

Actually, my game has been pretty crash-free. It has frozen maybe a half-dozen times in all the time I've played. The only real crashes I get are the occasional start-up menu screen crashes, which require me to Ctrl-Alt-Del the shut the program down (if I try to close the window or report the bug, it gives me an endless series of pop-ups (within the screen, not separate from the program.) I can't really see any significant correlation. Though, if it helps, since I play at work a lot, I do tend to save and quit a lot in mid-dungeon or in my "home." It might -- and I'd have to pay closer attention -- be more frequent when I'm starting up a saved game then in the middle of a game session.

[shooth]

My last three attempts at games with b34 have all resulted in this, making them impossible to complete. Is it possibly something to do with cheat mode saving - I know that at least two of the three characters were on machines with cheat enabled. The thing I noticed was that this often happened when I was getting back into a game where I had saved in a dungeon. Since I play at work sometimes (dont tell my boss) I often kill the thread for a quick exit. (Side note - a quick exit panic button that takes goes ALL the way out would be a nice feature.)

I also had a strange experience where I had cleared out a dungeon down to the boss, but left the boss alive and went to town to sell stuff. When I re-entered the dungeon, all the levels had reset... I fought down to the bottom of the dungeon again... and there was no boss.

I can only assume that he was sitting happily in his own version of the level.

I dont know if any of this is helpful, but there you go.

[darkgod]

Ah yes cheat mode changes how saving is done, dont do cheat

[Frumple]

Just throwing this out there, but Hunter, do you play in tiles mode?

I keep wondering about this, because I've never encountered the problem personally (and play strictly in ASCII), and near as I can remember everyone that's reported the problem plays tiles.

Since there's at least one vault that interacts badly with tiles and they (tiles) cause undiggable squares to show up in Daikara (doesn't happen in ASCII!), I can't help but think something about tiles mode is the root cause for, or at least contributing to, whatever's causing this disappearing dungeons issue.

[Hunter]

I do play in tiles. I used to be strictly ASCII because the tiles used to be too...vague and hard to work out. But I was pleasantly surprised to see how nice the current set of tiles were and, frankly, they've ruined me for ASCII a little bit. Other than the occasional confusion over whether I can move diagonally at certain points, they're really nice to play in.

Cheat mode isn't my problem. I don't even know how to enable cheat mode unless the classic Cntrl-W or Control-A still work (I checked, they don't), so it's definitely not installed.

Edit: Okay, I'll start compiling a list, assuming you want these updates. (If not, I'll stop.) I just had the world map reset with a level 10 Thalore Archer. I had saved and quit last night on the bottom level of The Heart of Gloom, after exploring just a bit and successfully escorting a repentant thief, but before running into the Withered Thing. I beat the Withered Thing, then recalled to the surface. I'd previously cleared the Trollmire and, of course, Norgos' Lair, and had done the arena-type quest in Derth. I'd explored some of the world, but the only thing of note I did was accepting a couple alchemist quests (though I haven't encountered the one in the wilderness.) And, yeah, playing in tiles. Hope some of that is helpful.

[shooth]

I don't play tiles.