Reply With QuoteI've had that cutscene hang randomly, when I used HK47 for the job. This game hangs a LOT. I enjoy it tremendously, but it is by far the buggiest console game I have ever played.
Er, this is going to be somewhat difficult to decribe without spoilers. But I will try.
At one point in the game, you will only be able to control a single character. If you choose Mission, make sure to *uncloak* her before performing the (fairly obvious) action that will end the solo section.
This affects something that happens like an hour or two or three later, and you won't be able to proceed. There is one solution, but unfortunately it isn't an option for my character (you need to have a very high awareness skill to progress beyond the bug, from what I've read).
I found this out the hard way. Unfortunately, it sort of put an end to my game.
The spoiler-ish version:
At one point, the whole crew will be captured. If you use Mission, and then leave her cloaked when she releases them from prison, Mission will still be cloaked when the party finally reassembles, and so the cutscene hangs when it's her turn to speak. Unless your character has a high awareness, and is thus able to spot her, it will just hang forever.
Warn your parents, warn your kids.
I've had that cutscene hang randomly, when I used HK47 for the job. This game hangs a LOT. I enjoy it tremendously, but it is by far the buggiest console game I have ever played.
Were you able to proceed? Because, from what I'm seeing on the BioWare forums, the situation I described above is a complete showstopper.
Dude, console games are never buggy because the developers are coding for just one platform so they can catch all the bugs. It is the many hardware configurations of PC gaming that screw it up for computer users.
The problems seem to happen mostly on first generation Xboxes. We are trying to track these problems down. It's weird, you think that because it's a fixed platform the bugs should show up on all Xboxes. Believe me, if there were any show stoppers when we did the testing they we wouldn't have let it go. Neither would MS. Check out our forums to see if there are any work arounds.
There sure are a lot of them, Dave. In two games, I've run into no less than five or six different lockups and black screens.Originally Posted by DaveC
DaveC, you would think that was the case. But it's not a hardware problem. It results from a character still being "invisible" during a cutscene, and if you don't have the skills to spot her, the game won't continue.
From the official rep on the BioWare forums:
It was not known to us before late monday afternoon when it was discovered to be a side effect of having a character cloaked when using the computer terminal to free your party.
We have been working on the issue since then to see what options you have. If you do not have a savegame to go back to, try increasing the awareness skill of your main character. If you can get it high enough, there is a chance you will "see" the cloaked person, and the cutscene will continue. Simply let the game sit at the "lockup point" after getting your skill as high as possible.
Another mildly spoilered warning, from fairly early on in the game:
If you take a Scoundrel solo through the Vulkar base, and stealth past the gun turrets, they will mow you down like crazy when you come back up the elevator. So disable them before you go down, 'cause there's no way to do anything to 'em after you're downstairs.
Oh -- problem happens 'cause the game de-stealths you when you come back up the elevator. Or, maybe the turrets have 10X the awareness when you come back up, dunno. In any event, my scoundrel is stuck.
Not really a bug, I guess, but rather a design hole that killed my game, since I can't leave the base. (Unless there's something I overlooked, but I don't think so).
So, I've started a battle-brute of a soldier on her way to the darkside instead, since my light-side sneaky guy is trapped.
That's odd. I own a first generation XBox and I haven't had any freezes, lockups or black screens from KOTOR.There sure are a lot of them, Dave. In two games, I've run into no less than five or six different lockups and black screens.
I have, however, heard of these problems cropping up more with owners who have modded their XBoxes... Wouldn't that be a bit funny?
Well, as I have an unmodded xbox, I don't find it particularly amusing.That's odd. I own a first generation XBox and I haven't had any freezes, lockups or black screens from KOTOR.There sure are a lot of them, Dave. In two games, I've run into no less than five or six different lockups and black screens.
I have, however, heard of these problems cropping up more with owners who have modded their XBoxes... Wouldn't that be a bit funny?
They just had an editorial at Gamespy about bugs showing up more in console games.
I'm not saying that KOTOR is anywhere near as bad, but I have seen Xbox gamers with huge problems on Morrowind and Pirates of the Carribean. You know, Bethesda.
Doesn't this suck. I thought the whole point of the console development was that there was just one set of hardware/software to support, one target to deploy on.
But with both the PS2 and the Xbox (I don't know about the GC), their are different generations of software, if not hardware.
Doesn't that kill the whole theory? Sure, you are still only support say 5 different generations of similar hardware, but it's no longer just one target.
Not having done console development, I can't say for sure, but I would ASSUME that would exponentially change the depth factor of testing and maybe development. No?
That's the problem, these issues didn't show up until the game got out into the wild. Believe me, I saw how hard our QA team worked and watched the bug list dwindle daily. Greg and Ray have a very firm policy about maintaining quality in our games.That's odd. I own a first generation XBox and I haven't had any freezes, lockups or black screens from KOTOR.There sure are a lot of them, Dave. In two games, I've run into no less than five or six different lockups and black screens.
I have, however, heard of these problems cropping up more with owners who have modded their XBoxes... Wouldn't that be a bit funny?
When I work for Bioware, as soon as I move Canada AND get hired on, I'll make sure you guys have higher quality products. If that's at all possible. :P
So how do you patch a console game? What if there is no workaround? Is Lucasarts going to have to send out replacement CDs with patched code?
Since it's an Xbox game, and designed to download content via live, I'd think patching would be possible.
Ok, so will they send me Xbox Live, a router, and anything else I need to connect so I can patch my $50 game? I'm speaking hypothetically, of course.
Awesome. Patches for console games. Feel the innovation.
Yes. They will also send you strippers who shoot candy from their nipples and an endless fountain of beer.Ok, so will they send me Xbox Live, a router, and anything else I need to connect so I can patch my $50 game? I'm speaking hypothetically, of course.
The thing is, these bugs don't happen with everyone and that's why they are hard to catch. Metroid Prime had the same random lock up problems when it came out and it was also a AAA title.Ok, so will they send me Xbox Live, a router, and anything else I need to connect so I can patch my $50 game? I'm speaking hypothetically, of course.
P.S. - Not an excuse, just pointing out that try as hard as we might sometimes bugs get through that we just didn't see.
Just FYI, first gen modded Xbox here and no lockups to report. I have hit one quest glitch and had one corrupted save. The save corrupt happened after doing the turret sim from hk-47 and saving right after.
-- Xaroc
#1: There is no such thing as "the wild" with a console title. IT'S A CONSOLE! That team should be able to reproduce almost every sequence of events functionally, because they don't have to spend hundreds of hours dealing with different configs!
#2: Why doesn't Nintendo have problems with "The Wild"?!
#3: Paging Brian Reynolds! Hey Brian, here's another guy trying the whole "hey the QA was great on this game" line! You can come back now! Met_K is gone and DaveC will back you up!
Hey Dave...I hope you're not too mad at me. But seriously...come on.
I'm sure they made a good faith effort to test the game. It's just that the nature of games like KOTOR and Morrowind is that there are so many gameplay permutations that it's hard to test every one of them. Still, this is a rather nasty bug that slipped by. I wonder if some late code change broke something that they didn't test in the last round of QA?#1: There is no such thing as "the wild" with a console title. IT'S A CONSOLE! That team should be able to reproduce almost every sequence of events functionally, because they don't have to spend hundreds of hours dealing with different configs!
#2: Why doesn't Nintendo have problems with "The Wild"?!
#3: Paging Brian Reynolds! Hey Brian, here's another guy trying the whole "hey the QA was great on this game" line! You can come back now! Met_K is gone and DaveC will back you up!
Hey Dave...I hope you're not too mad at me. But seriously...come on.
Well, I don't think even Nintendo is immune... as he said, Metroid Prime had a freezeup bug that affected a few people, though it was rather rare and not a game stopper.
But I will say that Morrowind and Pirates of the Carribean were in terrible shape for console games.
And I don't think all console games are patchable... if it's in an .EXE that stays on the DVD...
I'm not sure saying Morrowind was in "terrible shape" is fair. I only had one real problem when I played Morrowind, and I played it for at least 80 hours. When I would walk around in the areas N of Ebonhart, the game would hang sometimes. It was a fairly repeatable problem that was easily worked around by transport methods. Definitely not something that made the game unplayable.
The Metroid Prime lockup never forced anyone to start their game over.
:?: :?: :?: :!:
--Dave
As in, you could restart the console, pick up from your last save and keep going.
Unplayable means you can't play anymore. Unless it destroys your DVD you can still start the game back up and pick up at your last save and go around the area or try again. Unplayable would be you get a bug that stops you from moving the plot forward or it hangs all the time no matter where you go.:?: :?: :?: :!:
--Dave
-- Xaroc
Haha.
This particular bug...I am really surprised that it slipped by because Mission is the natural choice for a lot of people going into it. And, initially, you wouldnt think to uncloak. So how a tester never stumbled upon it, I have no idea.
There is another bug I have run into that I am surprised wasnt caught. And, depending on your point of view, it could be an exploit resulting in a bug, but still, surprising that it wasnt caught.
The game is designed to make sure all your NPCs are at least at 80% of your XP total at all times. Guys on the ship, guys with your party, it doesnt matter. When you get NPCs for the first time, the amount of xp they get is 80% of your total. When you kill something and see '100 XP', your party members and the guys on your ship just got 80 XP.
Anyway, the deal is, you dont have to level (except for level 2, you have to level at least once to get past a certain door on the Ender Spire) when you get enough XP to get the level-up feedback. You just keep playing. Your character will keep earning XP as normal, and so will the players in your party. Why do this? So you can become a Jedi at a lower level and earn more Force Powers and Force Points. When you finally choose a Jedi class, you gain 2-3, or however many levels you have earned, in that new Jedi class much like your NPCs gain a bunch of levels when you get them in your party for the first time. I admit I am a min/max type of CRPG player, but there are a lot of us and I am surprised none of the beta testers were min/max players. Is it an exploit? I dont think so, but you could surely argue that point of view.
The problem is, the game stops tracking your XP for the purposes of adjusting your NPCs XP who are not in your immediate party when you hit enough XP to get your next un-leveled-up level. For example, lets say that its 3k for level 2 and 6k for level 3, which it is. You have 2999, kill something and get 3K. You CAN level up now, but you dont have to. So you keep playing. All your NPCs, wherever they may be, will still be getting 80% of the XP you earn. Guys in your hideout, or on your ship, or wherever. Now, when you hit 6K, this stops and only the party members in your immediate party will stay at the 80% ratio. The guys not in your party stop earning XP.
Now, when you finally do level up, people out of your party start earning XP again, but they dont progress at the 80% pace anymore because the XP value you see on your character sheet, for some bizarre reason, is not the value the game uses to determine how much XP your NPCs should have. There is an XP black hole from when it stopped giving non-party NPCs XP at 6K to when you finally level. So lets say that you kept on killing and finally got to 20K and leveled up. The game uses 6K XP as your starting point when it resumes boosting non-party NPC XP, and not 20K.
That probably reads as more complicated than it is, and it probably sounds like its a rare occurence. And maybe it is, this type of player is definitely in the minority, and then its got to be even rarer that people notice their NPCs not getting XP all of a sudden, or being way behind in levels where they used to be just 1 level behind.
Anyway, long post, but I think both bugs ought to have been caught.
olaf
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