Hordes of the Underdark

[Dark Jezter]

Is SoU necessary to use HoU? The OC soured me on NWN (I've played a number of user mods since that were good, but overall I've preferred party-based games like ToEE -- I only play in single-player mode). HoU looks interesting, and I'm tempted to pick it up, but probably won't if I have to purchase both expansions to make it work.

If you have HotU but don't have SoU, then you won't have access to the SoU prestige classes (Assassin, Arcane Archer, Blackguard, Harper Scout, and Shadowdancer). You also won't be able to use modules that feature the tilesets or monsters found in SoU.

I would recommend playing SoU, though. The storyline in SoU is more enjoyable than the OC, and HotU is a continuation of the storyline in SoU.

 

[LightPhoenix]

Alright, I'm on Chapter Three, and I can't go any farther, and I need some help. Spoilers-ahoy!

Spoiler

I'm trying to get the fourth-fold answer for the Sensei. Now, I killed Arden Swift, because Valen didn't trust him and he was irking me. I can get the fourth-fold answer from the tome, but I can't read it while the Sensei is paying attention. So I killed her. Well, for one thing I can't open the door - when I open the lock, it still gives me the message I have to wait for her to be distracted. Great, she's dead, apparently that's not distracted enough. I also can't take the amulet off of her body.

So my only option is to distract her somehow. And I have no clue how.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, because due to the "bug" mentioned above, I literally can not continue with Chapter Three, and I'd prefer not to have to do the chapter over, even though I only did the two other quests,

Spoiler

Redeeming Aribeth (that was the huge part of Chapter Three? Come on, you don't need to play NWN for that! ) and fixing the grinder for Gru'ul

.

 

[Dark Jezter]

Alright, I'm on Chapter Three, and I can't go any farther, and I need some help. Spoilers-ahoy!

Spoiler

I'm trying to get the fourth-fold answer for the Sensei. Now, I killed Arden Swift, because Valen didn't trust him and he was irking me. I can get the fourth-fold answer from the tome, but I can't read it while the Sensei is paying attention. So I killed her. Well, for one thing I can't open the door - when I open the lock, it still gives me the message I have to wait for her to be distracted. Great, she's dead, apparently that's not distracted enough. I also can't take the amulet off of her body.

So my only option is to distract her somehow. And I have no clue how.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, because due to the "bug" mentioned above, I literally can not continue with Chapter Three, and I'd prefer not to have to do the chapter over, even though I only did the two other quests,

Spoiler

Redeeming Aribeth (that was the huge part of Chapter Three? Come on, you don't need to play NWN for that! ) and fixing the grinder for Gru'ul

.

As far as I know, you're screwed.

Spoiler

I believe that the Sensei still needs to be alive when you meet with the sleeping man.

So, it looks like you'll have to start chapter 3 over again.

 

[LightPhoenix]

As far as I know, you're screwed.

Spoiler

I believe that the Sensei still needs to be alive when you meet with the sleeping man.

So, it looks like you'll have to start chapter 3 over again.

Well, I have a save before I killed her! For one it wouldn't be in character, and for two I was more taking my frustrations out on her.

I've checked the Bioware boards, and apparently she goes to meditate at some point so you can read the book (or pick the door). I was hoping someone here might know, because those boards bother me, and because they're gonna be down tomorrow, so not much time for an answer.

 

[LightPhoenix]

Alright, now I'm just starting to get ticked off.

I had a save after I had bought a bunch of equipment (hint, save as much stuff from Chapter 2 as you can, and sell it in Chapter 3). Only needed to do one quest and the mysteries. Took all of five minutes.

And about half an hour later, I hit another scripting bug.

For those interested, it's when

Spoiler

you're in the fringe of the Blood War, and you beat down all those pathetically easy devil soldiers.

Well, the guy I'm supposed to kill doesn't spawn. So I try again, after taking a break. Hey, he still doesn't spawn. Turns out the error has to do with quick-saves, which I've been doing every area specifically because of the bugs. Great, I have to go all the way back from the last autosave, three areas ago.

Now, I can forgive scripting errors that don't affect the progress of the game much (although the one in Chapter 2

Spoiler

where you can't finish all the optional missions before the battle starts

is pretty bad). But this is rediculous. Did Bioware test this at all? I mean, these are serious issues that should have come up during internal testing. And bollocks on anyone that calls the Chapter 2 bug a "feature" - it's far from the only one in the chapter.

This is just completely infuriating. At the rate I've been playing, I should probably have been near the end of the game right about now. Instead I've spent today getting screwed over by scripting bugs. Not a fun experience, let me tell you.

Patch 1.60 is supposed to come out the week of the 15th, possibly as early as Monday. I can't wait.

 

[Dark Jezter]

Ouch, LightPhoenix. I guess I should count myself fortunate that I didn't hit any of these bugs.

In fact, I'm currently playing through HotU for a third time as a gnomish wizard.

 

[LightPhoenix]

Ouch, LightPhoenix. I guess I should count myself fortunate that I didn't hit any of these bugs.

In fact, I'm not playing through HotU for a third time as a gnomish wizard.

Yeah, so as not to bias anyone against buying the game, I've run into an extrordinary amount of bugs. Most people I've read about only run into one or two, but I think I've managed to run into pretty much every major one.

For the record, I managed a few workarounds for Chapter 2. Read if you want, but this contains spoilers.

Spoiler

So normally you end up only being able to do four quests before the Valsharess attacks. I suspect the problem is a bug with the Illithid quest, which has quite a few bugs in it. After you complete this quest, the Valsharess attacks.

Both workarounds require the Relic of the Reaper, as well as Rogue Stones. The game isn't too difficult, and there are plenty - you should have around 10 or so in Chapter 2.

One - if you can't enter the Elder Brain's room without being teleported to the "mind realm", and you've already beaten all the monsters. This happens when you betray the Elder Brain. Create a Binding with the RotR and then get teleported. Use the RotR to leave, and go back to your Binding. That will have triggered the... er, trigger, which only activates once and then is destroyed. You should be able to enter the room easily.

Two - you can't get back into the Drow city after the Valsharess attacks. Again, I think this is caused by completing the Illithid quest. Again, create a Binding in the city before you leave. DO NOT place it in the Temple of Lloth, because the Seer will corner you and automatically start the battle. Use the Relic whenever you need to get back into town.

Three - you can't talk to the girl you rescue from the Slave Pens. Caused by the above. Also note I've had my henchmen wig out and kill her as soon as I save her. Valen has issues, apparently. She's in the Seer's room, so as soon as you get there, pause the game, find the girl, click on her to initiate dialogue, unpause. Hopefully you can reach her in time to complete the quest, earning you 500 experience. You won't get to read the dialogue.

The ones in Chapter 3 are a little trickier. I've had to re-load both times (and still haven't tried the second one for the third time). I'll be able to provide workarounds for both instances once I beat the game and unlock the third chapter for editting, unless someone wants to give me the codeword.

 

[LightPhoenix]

Alright, it appears that my most recent save, the auto save, and the quick save all will not spawn the creature.

My last save is right where I started before the first bug.

I'm not playing through the entire chapter again.

So, if someone who has beaten the game (I'm look at you Jezter ) could look in their nwnplayer.ini file and tell me the codeword for XP2, I'd be much obliged. I'm just giong to spawn the guy in manually in-game and hope that fixes things. Otherwise, I'm just going to manually set the variables necessary.

This is so completely frustrating, and it's completely turned me off the game now. I think I'm gonna have to go back and finish Mario & Luigi or FFTA.

[EDIT] Nevermind, I got it off of GameFAQs.

 

[LightPhoenix]

Just because I feel like updating on my progress.

It turns out the baddie is already on the map, so a quick dm_jumptopoint later, I kicked it hard in the groin and moved on with the game.

Spoiler

Valen is a bastard. I had to use his True Name to force him to fight for me. Well, or a Dominate Monster, but I only have one scroll.

Now, to top off my entire experience with the game - I ran into a bug fighting Big Bad. I mean, really, this is just indicative of my experience with the game - shoddy scripting just ruining the experience for me. After whaling on BB for about twenty minutes and doing, oh, around 3000 damage, nothing happens, and BB's at Near Death for about 15 or so minutes of that.

Apparently, there's problems with BB not being able to get off a critical cutscene, thus furthering the battle. Apparently my henchmen and I are just too quick, because I interrupt the start of the cutscene. I now have to do some complicated routine which involves luring BB away from henchies just so I can control the rate of damage done so I can actually finish the bloody battle.

Great.

You know, when I first started playing this game, I was really excited - I had maybe three builds I wanted to try in addition to my guy from SoU. Now I'm finding it really hard to even sit down and play the game at all. I don't know, maybe it's because my system is closer to Minimum Requirements than Recommended. Except other people have been having these problems too, and they're definitely scripting problems. I'm just extremely discouraged.

 

[annadobritt]

What are all these bugs people say they run into? I received the game this past Monday, resisted the temptation to start playing for a whole hour, then proceded to play until 6am.

Finally got a chance to play again yesterday and took six tries to kill the final nasty (with great help from Deekin ).

The only bug I came across was a drow chest. When I started removing items from it, the game crashed. That's the only problem I had with the game.

Only complaint is after you kill the final nasty. The ending is a bit lame to me.