SureAI

Caution....multiple spoilers in this post.

I need the Forum's help please. I am stuck in Part 2 of the Soulforge. I am not able to load any saved games once I open the Door to Part 2 (where the 6 Lich Warriors are). I accessed the door to Part 2 by jumping down off the balcony, not by opening the stone door (controlled by remote switch). Perhaps that is the cause of my corrupted saves. Can someone please tell me where the switch for the door is? Maybe then I can save games and proceed. As is, I have to make it past the warriors, and complete the jumping sequences w/o dying. I don't even know if I can save and load at any point after that.

Thanks for any help.

Its been some time since I played it, and its hard to tell what you might have missed. I suggest you go to the wiki http://nehrim.wikia.com and search Soulforge (all one word) and Jail of Souls, and you should find some maps that might help you.

Thanks for your reply.

I have gone to the Wiki. There are some maps with "switches" marked, but they are not labeled as to which doors they open. I have printed the maps to use while I play, and I think I have tried every switch.

Just a little bummed that I have gone all the way thru the game (which I really like), but can't complete it due to the fact my saves are now corrupted.

But, I'll keep trying................

Hi Hot Hand Harry, did you get my private message? I’d like to help you, but I can’t open the save that you have posted in the bug tracker. Can you please upload an earlier save (maybe one just before you jump down off the balcony)?

Also, visit the site

http://nehrim.wikia.com/wiki/In_the_Jail_of_Souls

There’s a new quick walkthrough and a few screenshots that might be helpful. Try to follow the walkthrough step by step. If anything goes wrong, please let me know where exactly it happened and after which step the saves start to become corrupt.

At the risk of appearing stupid, I don't know how to send you a reply to your pm. I typed it, but it is stuck in my Outbox. (I am not very familiar with Message Board or Forum protocol.) How do I send it?

Thanks. Really, thanks for your help.

Don't worry, this question gets asked a lot. I'm quoting from phpBB (the bulletin board software that is used for the SureAI forums):
I've read your message, now it should be in your "Sent messages" folder.

I'd suggest you post a reply to your own bug tracker entry (#2089). There you can upload the save before you jump your player character jumps down the balcony. I'm going to proceed from there and try to save/load.

I have posted a reply with a new saved game to my original Bug Tracker.

I have also sent you 2 PM's, but neither shows up in Outbox or Sent folders. Don't know whats going on there.

Many thanks.

Hi Hot Hand Harry,

I've experienced the same problems after loading your save #3359: all the saves after I entered part 2 of the Soulforge were corrupt. When I tried to load them, the computer froze and I had to do a reset.

The good news: There is a solution. I've uploaded a working save in a reply to bug tracker entry #2089. I believe it should work on your computer as well. Please let me know.

The, well, other news: I don't know how long it will take before your saves might become corrupt again. Your save is huge. 340 hours in the game! You have discovered probably all of Nehrim, done most of the quests and acquired a lot of items. To me it looks as if your saves suffer from a bug in the Oblivion engine that is related to saves with a lot of entries. There are a lot of problems with so-called "bloated" saves and a bug called the "Abomb". I am not sure what exactly happened here, but there is a symptom that hints to this kind of bugs: the animations of spells, sliding doors, rising stairs etc. are extremely slow and stuttering.

If you have these slow animations on your computer as well (and I guess it will make it impossible to survive the "Flower" when the stone blocks are moving so unpredictably), you'll have to change a line in oblivion.ini. Make sure you always use the Nehrim launcher. Go to "Settings/Extra". If your ini is still in the standard directory, change its location to "Nehrim directory". Now press the button "Open ini file". The Nehrim directory will be opened, and you'll have to open the oblivion.ini file in there (before that, you can make a copy of the file if you want). Look for the line "fAnimationMult=1.0000". Change it to "fAnimationMult=2.0000". Close and save the ini file. Press "Accept" in the Nehrim launcher (top right, above the button "Reset changes (create-new-INI)".

Now start Nehrim with the launcher. If the menu looks smaller than usual and your saves folder seems to be empty when you want to load a game, quit the game and the launcher. This sometimes happens after changing the ini. Start the launcher again, press "Accept" in "Settings/Extra" again (without opening the ini file this time!) and start the game. Now it should be working. The animations should be smooth again. If you jump down the balcony and press the button in that room after loading your save #3359, you might notice that the stairs now move up nicely instead of stuttering their way up.

So that was the solution for the animation bug. Now how to avoid the corrupt saves? I mainly used the "Perform memory purge now" button. To be on the safe side, I thinned out your character's inventory a bit. Maybe the combination of heavy scripting, animations and a full inventory in the Soulforge is responsible for the bug. So I dropped the extra pieces of the Soulkeeper armor and a lot of food and minor ingredients (I didn't drop any precious ingredients!) I also disabled them via console to make them vanish completely. If you want, you can try to proceed from your save #3359 with your full inventory. I just did that as a precaution.

What you need to do now is to do a memory purge every time before you want to save. Open your inventory, open the EP/LP diary and choose "Settings". "Automatic memory purge" is ON, but that's not enough. You need to press "Perform memory purge now" immediately every time before you save (regular saves, no quicksaves!). Only save when a fight is over. Make sure all animations are completed (explosions, falling enemies, sliding doors etc. - the "Flower" animations are an exception, you can't wait for them to end of course!) and wait until the battle music has changed back to normal music. Purge the memory, close your inventory and save before even moving your character the slightest bit! That's how I created the save that you can download from the bug tracker. That way you can also create saves in the Flower - on the two unmoving balconies, one at the start and one in the middle of the jumping sequence - to make it easier to get through to the balcony with the button. I hope you'll be able to finish the game now!

Thanks so much for your help. I went out of town shortly after posting the new save in the Bug Tracker, and just returned today. I am very pleased by your thoughtfulness and by your thorough response and excited to try your solution. I have never played with the ini files before...hope I don't screw something up.

You are right. I have done most quests, and discovered a lot of the land. Since I have saved many times, I frequently delete all but the last few saves from the Saves folder (never having more than 100 or so in there). I also do the memory purge whenever leveling, but will do it much more often now of course.

My style of play is slow and plodding; gather almost all (except clutter), save, fight, save, see a stranger in the distance, save, talk to them, save, etc. I had a lot of CTD's in Morrowind and a few in Oblivion, so I just got used to saving a lot.

Except for in the Dark Forest, I have had no game play issues (animation). Spells, rising/falling objects, sound effects, etc; everything seems to work fine.

Again, thanks for your help. I really appreciate your time and effort on my behalf.

If you don't experience any animation lags, you probably don't need to bother about the ini file and the fAnimationMult setting. I've tested your save with several hardware configurations and the lags only occurred on some systems. BTW what is your system RAM and your video RAM?

Does the memory purge before each save solve your problem? Have you been able to get out of the Soulforge? I hope I was able to help - you're very welcome.