SCI: Quest for Glory 3 game script bugs

[m-kiewitz]

I found an unofficial fan patch mentioned in the QfG3 forum on GOG.

I'm sure we haven't patched all of these bugs out.
Mentioning them here, so that they don't get lost and can be fixed by us via script patch, which will also apply to translated versions of QfG3.

I may even contact the one that made these patches and ask him for details, so that we can fix the bugs more easily.

​https://www.gog.com/forum/quest_for_glory_series/qfg3_unofficial_patch_12a/page1
​http://archive.is/nFWxK

also
​https://github.com/AshLancer/QFG3-Fan-Patch/blob/master/Complete%20List%20of%20Changes.md
​http://archive.is/7qzeD

*Fixes the infamous crash at the twisted tree challenge during the initiation contest.

• Fixes the crash when the Guardian of the World Tree gets angry at you and restores the correct death message.
• Fixes the dead end encounter where the Awful Waffle Walker never spawns in the Jungle while you're starving.
• Fixes the music disappearing when releasing Johari from her cage, and the annoying music loop glitch after the spear throwing contest.
• Fixes the annoying pathing glitch at the top of the World Tree.
• Fixes multiple problems during the shaman duel, crossing over the chieftan's hut, and in the endgame scripts for each class.
• Fixes spellcasting issues for every single room in the game.
• Fixes several other crashes and lockups caused by faulty scripting, dead ends, faulty triggers, dialogue trees, sprites, text messages, and animation and sound errors.
• Restores a cut event where you can meet and console Uhura at the Simbani Village after the peace conference.
• Restores a cut event where you can sleep at the Monkey Village.
• Restores several unused animations, sprites, and icons, including Soulforge and the Guild Card for Thieves.

Also a new rare bug was mentioned:
Small update, guys.

To any of you suffering from that very rare, decades-old bug where Salim would forget that you gave him the ingredients for making the dispel potion: this is now solved!

Apparently the programmer used a faulty variable system that was prone to being altered by other scripts in the game. I replaced it with a set of reliable global flags that were already reserved for this event, but not being used.

[sluicebox]

It's such an impressive patch set. I wrote the developer a while back and didn't hear anything, but maybe the email address wasn't right, I probably just pulled it from the git commits.

I used one of the patches as a reference to help figure out #11216. #11411 was just reported, and first thing I did was check the readme to see if it was mentioned. Yup, and it even says it's due to an NRS bug. That sure saves some time!

I'd really like to know if the day/night ScummVM bug referenced in the readme is still a problem so that we can take care of it and make that caveat unnecessary: ​https://github.com/AshLancer/QFG3-Fan-Patch/blob/master/Readme%201.3A.md

[tomasz89]

Agree; the only dilemma is the game-changing aspects of the patch set. Allowing training on climbing and lock picking kind of makes sense ie I can see that as a "bug"; changing the way the game plays out though might upset the purists..

As I see it (based on activity with these issues) ScummVM developers appear to be strategically targeting patches in areas that are game-breaking rather than addressing aspects of game play that might serve improvement.

[m-kiewitz]

We can do optional patches that can be enabled by the user manually like these.
But yeah, I would not want to change how the games played in that regard as a default.

It would be interesting what the Coles think about changes like that.

[Terelyn]

Replying to sluicebox:

It's such an impressive patch set. I wrote the developer a while back and didn't hear anything, but maybe the email address wasn't right, I probably just pulled it from the git commits.

I used one of the patches as a reference to help figure out #11216. #11411 was just reported, and first thing I did was check the readme to see if it was mentioned. Yup, and it even says it's due to an NRS bug. That sure saves some time!

The creator released a similar patch for QfG4, if you are interested.
​https://github.com/AshLancer/QFG4-Enhanced

[sluicebox]

yup; we're buds now =)