No boat in Formello Avernum 2 CS, is it a bug ?

[Yip]

Happy new year everybody 🎉🥰🍾

 

I play Avernum 2 CS through Steam on a Mac. No mods, no cheats, the game works fine.

 

My characters are level 12 or 13. I have seen the event with the Vahnatai in Formello. But there is NO boat on the dock under the city.

 

I tried everything but even if i dance on my head there is NO BOAT ! What is wrong with me ? Is it possible to do something wrong during the event ? Or is it a bug ??

 

I tried to play it again with another party but still NO BOAT !!! I'm so frustrated !! 👹

 

If somebody can help me, i'll worship him/her for the rest of my life... 😃

[Ess-Eschas]

Happy New Year!
 

Sorry to hear about the problem you’re experiencing. Are you the same person who posted a similar query on the Steam boards recently?
 

I have a couple of ideas for how to get that boat back for you. However, in order to know which suggestion would be best to try first, it would be helpful to know a little more about the problem. Would you mind running a few quick checks for me? No worries if you’d rather not – if you’d prefer, I can just give you some suggestions right away!

However, if you are able to check some things, here’s what would be useful to know:
 

1. Is there anything strange going on with your junk bag? If you look through it, is it full of lots of strange daggers?
 

2. Try leaving the docks, entering three other different towns (say Formello, Fort Draco and Fort Ganrick), and then returning to the docks. Is the boat still missing?
 

3. Do any strange messages come up in your log when you enter the docks?
 

4. If possible, could you take a screenshot of the docks area and link to it here? This is just to check how the town is loading. I’m interested in the area of the town around the boat. Here’s a screenshot of the rough area it would be useful to see (borrowed from an online gameplay video):
 

 

Sorry for asking lots of questions! The idea is to try and learn about the problem, both so that’s it’s easier to fix for you, but also for anyone else who comes across it!
 

As I say, if that’s too much, do just say so. With luck, I should be able to help you progress even so!

[Yip]

Thank you very much Ess-Eschas for your answer ! Yes i posted on Steam recently.

 

Don't be sorry for the questions, you help me, it's really a pleasure.

 

1. Nothing strange with the junk bag, i fill it and empty it without a bug.

 

2. I tried many times to enter the three towns without any change. In fact i followed a path for three or four days, clockwise, Formello, Blasted ruins, Fort Ganrick and Fort Draco, etc. I can't remember how many times, trying to increase my levels, reputations and abilities to solve my problem.

 

3. Absolutely no strange message entering the dock. I tried to click on the boat's place with the same answer : Move : That space is currently blocked.

 

For the screenshot how can i do here, only with an url ? I have no server or image service to do that.

 

 

[Yip]

Ok i try this :

 

http://

Edited January 1, 2022 by Yip

[Ess-Eschas]

Thanks for the answers! They were very useful, and they’ve helped to rule out a few possible issues.
 

The cause of your problem is still a little mysterious, but hopefully that will become apparent as we try to clear it up. At the moment, my best guess is that it’s a curious holdover from the code for the demo version; this boat is the point at which the (non-Steam) demo stops, so it’s possible something in your saved game is accidentally triggering that old section of the code.
 

So let’s try fixing your problem! Here’s the first thing to try. I'm not sure it will work, but it’s worth a shot!
 

First, create a copy of your saved game. This is to make sure you can restore your progress should anything go wrong. You can do this by just saving in a new slot! I suggest working from this copy for now, since that way you can just overwrite it if it’s no longer needed.
 

Leave the ruined docks, and return to Formello itself. Stay in the town, though, since this method won’t work if you’re outdoors. Press ‘shift’ and hold the ‘d’ key. A little text-input box should appear. In this box, type the following exactly as shown:
 

resetboats
 

A little message should appear in your log. Return to the docks. Has the boat appeared? If not, some more drastic action might be needed!

Edited January 1, 2022 by Ess-Eschas
Fixing some awkward grammar.

[Yip]

Hem !

 

I tried this yesterday or before, searching on the web i found some cheats and i made an attempt but it didn't work. By the way, my boat bought previously disappeared and i spent 300 coins for nothing after that. Still have no boat in Ganrick but this is not important for the moment.

 

Many thanks for the answer. 🙏

[Yip]

I tried again in the town of Formello and i'm still the same... 😃

 

 

Edit : I'm french, as my grammar probably shows... 😐

Edited January 1, 2022 by Yip

[Ess-Eschas]

Good on you for trying that trick already! I had a feeling it wouldn’t help, but it was worth checking out!
 

I’m afraid this means that the problem might be a little tricky to solve. I’ll put my thinking cap on, though, and see if I can come up with something! The difficult part about this is that the code relating to that particular boat – and most of the code relating to boats in general – is hidden away deep within the game’s innards. However, it might be possible to come up with a workaround. I’ll see what I can do!
 

In the meantime, would you be willing to share your saved game? It would make coming up with a fix that little bit easier! Since you’re running on a Mac, I should be able to look at it directly myself. I might even be able to shove your party past the block manually, and then send you back a saved game where you can continue normally.
 

If you don’t know where your saved games are stored, below is the appropriate section from Spiderweb’s support pages. I hope this applies for Steam games too – although any forums users who know differently, do say!
 

“If you did not buy Avernum 2 from the Mac App Store, your games are stored in the Application Support folder, which can be difficult to find. To open it, press Command-Shift-G to Go To Folder, enter "~/Library/Application Support/Spiderweb Software", and press return. Your saved games are in the folder "Avernum 2 Saved Games." Open that folder and your saved games will be inside, in folders named 'Save0', 'Save1', etc.”
 

All I would need is the folder relating to your current party. If you're not familiar with a good temporary upload site, I suggest WeTransfer!
 

By the way, don’t worry about the language. You’re making yourself understood very well. Je vous comprends bien!

[TriRodent]

I hate to ask the dumb question, but you 'are' running the registered version & not the demo version of the game aren't you?

 

(there should be a message somewhere on the main title screen saying what version you're playing)

[TriRodent]

15 hours ago, Yip said:

 

I tried to play it again with another party but still NO BOAT !!!

 

Did you just start with a new party or did you uninstall & then reinstall the game and 'then' start a new party? (which now that I read things a little closer, it's a registered copy if you got it on Steam)  Because if you just started a new party on the same install, it isn't too surprising that the bug may have recreated itself. 

 

If E-E's suggestions don't work, I'd try uninstalling the current program, downloading a new/clean copy from Steam, reinstall, & try it again (thankfully you are relatively near the start of the game so you won't lose too much time if you can't restore a saved game or doing so corrupts things again).

[Yip]

Thank you TriRodent for your answer and suggests. I'll try this if we can't find a workaround.

[Yip]

9 hours ago, Ess-Eschas said:

All I would need is the folder relating to your current party. If you're not familiar with a good temporary upload site, I suggest WeTransfer!
 

By the way, don’t worry about the language. You’re making yourself understood very well. Je vous comprends bien!

 

😀

 

I found the folder, where can i send it ? Here on this topic ?

[Ess-Eschas]

One simple way to share the saved game would be to use an online uploading service, and post the link in this thread. Here’s a link to a service which seems to work fairly well:
 

https://wetransfer.com/
 

Unless you really want to, just ignore the opening registration prompts. Click ‘I just want to send files’. You’ll then be taken to a screen which allows you to make an upload. To make sure you’re dealing with the right kind of transfer, click on the little circle with three dots in it, and make sure that you’re on the ‘Get transfer link’ setting.
 

Once you’ve uploaded the folder, WeTransfer should give you a link. Then just post the link in this topic!
 

Of course, feel free to use another system if you’d prefer!

[Yip]

Thank you Ess-Eschas, i'm familiar with computers but not with these sharing services online.

 

https://we.tl/t-3soyvkk733

Edited January 2, 2022 by Yip
Orthograph corrector :roll eyes:

[osnola]

53 minutes ago, Yip said:

Thank you Ess-Eschas, i'm familiar with computers but not with these sharing services online.

 

https://we.tl/t-3soyvkk733

Hello,

I downloaded your game to my Mac, then went back into Formello and called resetboats, the boats seem to have reappeared ; so I got on a boat and saved in Save2:

https://www.grosfichiers.com/uzkVrFnafgv

[Ess-Eschas]

Nice work, osnola! That’s something I was going to try myself, but you saved me a little time by preempting me!

 

Take a look at osnola’s save file, Yip, and see if that fixes your problem. If it does, then great! Although I would suggest that you keep an eye out for strange behaviour from boats in the future, just to be safe.

 

If this doesn’t solve your problem, though, let us know what happens. If you’re triggering the demo code somehow, it’s possible you’ll experience some further issues (which should be quite obvious). However, we already know more about your problem: that your version of the game behaves differently from osnola’s. That might give some indication of what to try next, should things still be acting strangely for you!

[Yip]

Thanks a lot !

 

The workaround is just fine ! Of course if i experience some further issues i'll let you know.

 

Thank you Ess-Eschas, TriRodent and osnola !

 

Osnola il me semble que tu es en France, à l'INRIA ? Si tu es à Sophia Antipolis je ne suis pas très loin puisque j'habite Fréjus. Merci encore. 🙏👍

[osnola]

7 minutes ago, Yip said:

Osnola il me semble que tu es en France, à l'INRIA ? Si tu es à Sophia Antipolis je ne suis pas très loin puisque j'habite Fréjus. Merci encore. 🙏👍

Je suis bien en France, mais beaucoup plus au nord....

[Megan]

I'm having the same problem. Mac, Steam, no mods. (Yes, cheating with Shift + D). Reset boats didn't work, there's nothing wrong with my junk bag, entering other towns didn't do anything, everything else looks perfectly normal, no odd messages. I even tried uninstalling and reinstalling the game. The weird thing is, I already played through the game a couple years ago, so this is new. And on a possibly related note(? happened around the same time?), my window's gotten very strange all of a sudden. I play in full screen, and the bottom is getting cut off now. And when I try to switch to playing in a window, it always gives me the same size no matter what I set it to. It's making it kind of unplayable.

[Ess-Eschas]

Hello Megan,

 

Sorry to hear that you’ve been having problems!

 

The odd issue with the game getting cut-off when playing in full-screen has come up on here a few times before. It seems to be quite a rare problem, and unfortunately that makes it a little tricky to diagnose. I don’t believe the cause of the problem has been tracked down yet and, because of this, I’m afraid there isn’t a convenient fix available at the moment. I’m really sorry about that!

 

So far, the problem seems to be associated with Mac players specifically, and potentially with particular versions of Mac OS running on particular hardware. If you’ve updated your operating system since the last time you played the game – quite likely in the current computing climate! – or if you’re playing on a new computer, then that might be the cause. Just for the sake of gathering information, if you wouldn't mind, could you let me know what model of computer you’re running this on right now, and what version of Mac OS?

 

For now – and I’m sorry that this is far from ideal! – I can only really suggest playing with whatever mode feels most comfortable to you. If the window-size the game is selecting for you is too small, there is one thing that might make your life a little easier, however. Macs have a built-in Zoom function for magnifying the screen, although it’s a little hidden away these days. It’s by no means perfect, but it might help magnify a small game window so that it takes up more of your screen.

 

You can turn on the Zoom function in the System Preferences. Select ‘Keyboard’, and then ‘Accessibility’ from the lefthand menu. You should hopefully then see a ‘Zoom’ option on the righthand panel. If you turn this on, your Mac should display some shortcuts for you which will allow you to Zoom in on a portion of your screen. It might be something to try!

 

I may be able to help you out with your boat problem, though! If you can give me a copy of one of your saved games, I might be able to use osnola’s trick and restore your boats on my end. To do this, first locate your saved games folder. It’s possible this is in a different place for Steam games, but here’s what Spiderweb’s support pages say:

 

“If you did not buy Avernum 2 from the Mac App Store, your games are stored in the Application Support folder, which can be difficult to find. To open it, press Command-Shift-G to Go To Folder, enter "~/Library/Application Support/Spiderweb Software", and press return. Your saved games are in the folder "Avernum 2 Saved Games." Open that folder and your saved games will be inside, in folders named 'Save0', 'Save1', etc.”

 

Just pick the folder that relates to the party you want me to fix! To be on the safe side, it might be a good idea to save the party somewhere that isn’t the Ruined Town. Formello itself would be just fine. Then upload the folder to an online file sharing service – I suggest WeTransfer! – and I’ll take a look at it. I can’t promise that I’ll be able to fix things, but I’ll try!

 

In any case, sorry not to be of more help!

[Megan]

Unfortunately, the screen is just a little too large, which means my dock is cutting off the bottom. I haven't changed my laptop or OS since starting this playthrough, so I'm not sure what changed, but it's a MacBook Pro 2021 with the M1 Pro chip, and it's running Monterey 12.6. Any other information I can provide, I'd be glad to.

 

I guess I'll just mess around with my dock until someone finds a solution! (Rare, weird problems are just the best, aren't they? I know they're my favorite as a developer.)

 

https://we.tl/t-eUVvvgKcwA

[Ess-Eschas]

Alright, here’s a modified version of your save file!

https://we.tl/t-zNt0dgIIIi

I invoked resetboats and, at least on my end, the boat is now where it should be. Hopefully it will now load correctly on your copy of the game too!

If it’s still not loading for you, let me know. There’s a small chance your game may still eat the boat when you enter the Ruined Town from Formello – if that’s the case, I’ll save the game in a slightly different location, which should help.

If you’ve managed to get your boat back, this *should* be the only gameplay problem you experience with the bug. I’m guessing slightly here, but I think the problem is due to legacy code for the demo partly triggering by mistake. Since this code only really affects this particular boat, you should have plain sailing from this point onwards. No-one else has reported any additional problems, at least so far. However, if you come across any further issues, do let us know! It’s always useful to hear about such things, and we should be able to help!

Incidentally, it’s always nice to see a party headed by a slith!

Regarding the screen-size problem, you are indeed sitting on the combination of hardware/OS that seems to be affected. Thanks for providing that information! What’s useful to know here is that the problem is only recent for you – this at least implies that it’s not something particularly fundamental to the hardware/OS combination. I’ll add that data to the pool, and I’ll update this thread if we eventually come up with a solution!

In the meantime, I hope you come up with a good solution with dock manipulation! I have to do that on a few applications myself, so I know it can be a bit of a pain sometimes.

By the way, just for my peace of mind, could I ask if you have any of the very recent Spiderweb Steam releases? That is, Geneforge Mutagen, or Queen’s Wish 2? No worries at all if not! But if you do happen to have one of them, would you mind taking a quick look and seeing if the screen-size behaves oddly there too? It would be useful to know if this problem still persists in the current releases – if so, it might be possible to deal with it when Spiderweb develops its next game!

[Megan]

Looks like the most recent thing I have is Queen's Wish 1. Is that recent enough? Also, I know it's older, but I did just play through Avernum 1, and no screen issues there.

 

Just tried the save you gave me, and thar be boat! Thank you so much.

[Slawbug]

39 minutes ago, Ess-Eschas said:

I’m guessing slightly here, but I think the problem is due to legacy code for the demo partly triggering by mistake.

 

Ooh, that makes a lot of sense.  That's gotta be it.

[Ess-Eschas]

13 hours ago, Megan said:

Just tried the save you gave me, and thar be boat! Thank you so much.

 

Excellent. I’m glad I could help!

 

13 hours ago, Megan said:

Looks like the most recent thing I have is Queen's Wish 1. Is that recent enough? Also, I know it's older, but I did just play through Avernum 1, and no screen issues there.

 

Yes, Queen’s Wish 1 is recent enough to provide useful information!

 

Queen’s Wish 1 is basically the first instalment in the really modern iteration of Spiderweb’s game engine. As such, it’s a pretty good litmus test for the behaviour of the recent releases. It may not reflect the recent games exactly: the later games have been built on more recent compilers, and I know that the code for the screen-size was adjusted a little for Geneforge Mutagen. However, Queen’s Wish 1 is still close enough to the later games that I’d worry if the screen-size problem was present in it. If it is, I’ll flag it up, just to be on the safe side!

 

Otherwise, enjoy your time with the vahnatai, and liberating those crystal souls! Avernum 2 is a really great game, and I’m tempted to have another run through it myself some time. Say hi to the folks in Gnass for me!

[Yip]

On 1/12/2023 at 3:45 AM, Megan said:

... it's a MacBook Pro 2021 with the M1 Pro chip, and it's running Monterey 12.6...

 

I use the same configuration (Monterey 12.5)...

[Megan]

Popping Queen's Wish open didn't show any issues, but I only ran it for a few minutes, and Avernum 2 took a while for the issues to pop up. If I find any relevant behavior as I play this or other games, I'll probably post it in a new thread.

 

And of course I'll be popping into Gnass! I'll make sure to tell everyone hi. 

 

Edit: Just noticed, when I first start up Avernum in full screen, the title/menu and loading screen both look exactly as they should. It's not until the game fully loads that the bottom cuts off.

 

Edit 2: And after I switched away from the game to write that edit, when I went back it was back to normal...? Hopefully it's either fixed, or this will work again in the future!

Edited January 13, 2023 by Megan

[Ess-Eschas]

1 hour ago, Megan said:

Popping Queen's Wish open didn't show any issues, but I only ran it for a few minutes, and Avernum 2 took a while for the issues to pop up. If I find any relevant behavior as I play this or other games, I'll probably post it in a new thread.

 

Many thanks for this! It’s still useful information to know that Queen’s Wish 1 doesn’t break immediately for you, while Avernum 2 is giving you problems at the same time. That might mean the later game is fine, or there could be some sort of time-sensitive behaviour to this problem, as you suggested. In either case, that’s some helpful information to add to the pool!

 

And great catch spotting that switching in/out of the application can reset the screen! That sounds like something that *just might* be a general fix – and if so, that’s great! However, even if it only works occasionally, or even rarely, it’s still useful to know about. I’ll be sure to recommend this approach to anyone who might experience this problem in the future!

[Slawbug]

@Ess-Eschas please check your messages.

[Ess-Eschas]

8 hours ago, handle with air said:

please check your messages.

 

Hello Slarty!

 

Sorry, I hadn’t spotted that you’d sent me a message related to this thread. I’ll check it out, and get back to you when I have a moment!

[EnderB]

Everyone's info here helped a ton. I had this issue just today with my M1 Macbook Pro. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling, still no boat. I was also missing 2 of the boats from the docks back in Fort Draco. 

 

To fix this, I just had to load up the save game on a different computer (a M2 Macbook Air). I wondered if it was intel vs M1/M2 chip issue, but since going to another CPU of the same type and the problem was fix, it must be something else. Either way, loading the save game on another computer 100% fixed the problem (also used resetboats cheat on the new computer. That did NOT work on the original computer).

[andrewhl]

Hi. I'm having the same problem as others mentioned. The boat is nowhere to be seen. I'm using an M2 Max Macbook Pro. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

[Ess-Eschas]

13 hours ago, andrewhl said:

Hi. I'm having the same problem as others mentioned. The boat is nowhere to be seen. I'm using an M2 Max Macbook Pro. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

 

Hello andrewhl,

 

I’m sorry to hear you’re having problems with this mysterious disappearing boat! Thankfully, I think I might be able to help you progress. We’ve come up with a solution on here which has worked a few times previously, and should hopefully also work in your case.

 

To do this though, I will need to manually process one of your save files. If you’re happy for me to do this, the first thing you need to do is to locate your saved games folder. If you’re using Steam, this could potentially be in a different place, but here’s the advice from Spiderweb’s support pages:

 

“If you did not buy Avernum 2 from the Mac App Store, your games are stored in the Application Support folder, which can be difficult to find. To open it, press Command-Shift-G to Go To Folder, enter "~/Library/Application Support/Spiderweb Software", and press return. Your saved games are in the folder "Avernum 2 Saved Games." Open that folder and your saved games will be inside, in folders named 'Save0', 'Save1', etc.”

 

Just pick the folder corresponding to the saved game you want me to fix. To be on the safe side, it’s probably best if your party is saved somewhere outside of the Ruined Town. This is to make sure the scripts load correctly when I try to fix your save. Saving your party in Formello itself should be just fine.

 

Once you’ve tracked down your save file, upload the folder to an online file-sharing service – I use WeTransfer! – and I’ll see if I can get your boat back for you. I can’t promise that I can fix your boat, but I’ll do my best!

[andrewhl]

Thank you for your response! I've done as you requested. Here is the link to the folder: https://we.tl/t-q2wTzXZjcF. Fingers crossed! 😄

[Ess-Eschas]

8 hours ago, andrewhl said:

Fingers crossed! 😄

 

Good news! I’ve worked with your save file, and got your boat back for you! It shows up on my end just fine now. It’s possible there might still be problems on your end when you load up the game, but I’ve done my best to make sure the adjusted file avoids any potential triggers. So I think you should be fine!

 

You can download your adjusted file from here:

 

https://we.tl/t-t94vsRTniS

 

You’ll find yourself back in the Ruined Town, and with any luck right next to your boat. If there are any problems, do let me know! If the boat still doesn’t show up for you, I can try a variation on this idea that should encourage the game to keep the boat a little more strongly.

 

But if it does all work, enjoy Chapter 2! It’s one of the best portions of all the Avernum games, I think. Say hi to Iglit for me!

[andrewhl]

Thank you so much! Works perfectly. Onwards!

[oktayk]

Hi @Ess-Eschas

Having the exact same problem with the boat.

I have the game via Steam.

 

Here's my link to my save: https://we.tl/t-ffrZS9qQWh

 

Could you kindly help.

I'm stuck and would love to keep playing.

Edited April 18 by oktayk
Mention format

[Ess-Eschas]

Hello oktayk,

 

Of course. I’m happy to help! Here’s a link to your processed save file:

 

https://we.tl/t-DNvgqGbwFj

 

This should give you access to the boat! Do let me know if you have any problems. Otherwise, I hope you enjoy your upcoming boat ride. You’re about to experience what I think is one of the best sequences in all of the Avernum games!

[oktayk]

10 hours ago, Ess-Eschas said:

Hello oktayk,

 

Of course. I’m happy to help! Here’s a link to your processed save file:

 

https://we.tl/t-DNvgqGbwFj

 

This should give you access to the boat! Do let me know if you have any problems. Otherwise, I hope you enjoy your upcoming boat ride. You’re about to experience what I think is one of the best sequences in all of the Avernum games!

 

Thank you. Your save did work and I was able to progress.

🙏🤍🌼

[TriRodent]

Rereading through this years later and it seems like many of all your issues would go away if you just switched away from Apple products...

 

😛

[Randomizer]

1 hour ago, TriRodent said:

Rereading through this years later and it seems like many of all your issues would go away if you just switched away from Apple products...

 

😛

Jeff makes his games first for Apple computers and then makes the Windows version. However he no longer waits months before releasing the Windows ones from captivity.