🚀 go-pugleaf

tbo...@mindspring.com (Trina Borras) wrote:

>Nicholas, I wish I'd done this before I wrote that last long message,
>what a waste of your time, sorry,  i.e., go and read that w.t. at the
>GD myself, for I just did so, and it appears that, yes, you *must*
>have the staff!.  For I found another at "the spoiler centre" which
>echoes the directions in the one at the GD, here's what it (at the
>s.c.) had to say (I copied that little section for you):

>    ****

>"Problem:
>I'm a Magic User. How do I make sense of the Essence Cave?

>"Hint:
>It's  just you  and Ad  Avis, and  he thinks  he can  block all of
>your spells. Summon Erana's  Staff and use it  to cast protective
>spells.  Tell the Ultimate Joke. While Ad Avis is helpless, hit him
>with a Force Bolt. It won't hurt him, but it will knock him back. The
>Dark  One does the rest. Click the Staff on the large glowing crystal
>to release Erana's spirit."

>    ****

>Now this one's a bit different from that at the GD.  This one makes it
>sound like once you've first (before telling the joke) cast the summon
>staff spell, you'll continue thereafter to have the staff in your
>possession (probably presuming knowledge?).  But the one at GD
>specifies:

>1 - cast summon staff
>2 - tell joke
>3 - cast forcebolt at AA
>4 - cast summon staff again (!!!)
>5 - touch crystal w/staff

This (above) is actually the exact procedure for the endgame (for
wizards), except that step #5 seems to be automatic -- the player's
last action in the game is the casting of the Summon Staff spell.

>Do you suppose ... oh horror! ... that you have come upon one of the
>infamous QFG4 bugs?  Did you use the patch (the famous one without
>which most can't get anywhere, without which all collapses when you
>get to Tanya and the castle, and installation of which at such late
>date entails one starting all over from the begjnning) when you began?
>Or do you have an "all patched up already" version of the game?  Even
>though I used the patch (but, drat, not at the beginning), I still
>found the game to be full of bugs, although they were the sort one
>could avoid after first encounter by staying away from the area or
>touching the thing that invariably brought the game to a halt.  OTOH,
>when I found those, I'd get one of those ghastly error messages and
>get thrown out of the game.  I never was told I was "too busy" to do
>something,  But not all bugs manifest themselves the same way I
>suppose.

I'm playing the CD version of the game, which, to my knowledge, has
included all the patches Sierra has released for the game.

>I'm sure you must have, but, I'll ask anyway, did you deal w/AA
>*precisely* as these w.t.s advise (which I don't understand, not being
>a magic user), in terms of which spell(s) to use?  If so, gulp, do you
>think you need to visit Sierra's -- as well as others' to cover all
>bases because you never know -- web site(s) and see if there are any
>"fixes" for this section available?  (I just can't *believe* there'd
>be a need for one at this late date, it would be really *criminal*,
>especially if fixing/patching set you back in the game.) 

Actually, I did visit Sierra's web site. I had even gone there earlier
for help with the Mad Monk's tomb problem. In the support section,
they have an entire document dedicated to each version (CD and
diskette) of the game (the document had the fix for the Mad Monk's
tomb problem, but not for this one). They also have a technical
support message board, which seems to work quite well.

>And, I'm sure you have done this too, but, anyway, did you save your
>game and then replay it several times just to make absolutely sure
>that unspeakable message you got wasn't just a one-time anomaly?

<nod> It happens every time I try it without using the workaround I
posted earlier (changing the speed and detail settings). I had tried
it from Windows (95), from DOS, and from DOS with mo'slo, but nothing
worked. (Oddly enough, the Mad Monk's tomb problem and the wizard end
game problem seem to be related, but mo'slo worked (for me) to solve
the former but not the latter.)


--
"I am firm. You are obstinate. He is a pig-headed fool."
     -Katharine Whitehorn