Why the game crashes when talking to NPC's

[Satribe]

There are at least two things going on and if anyone has any more info, please share.

• If the dialogue is supposed to mention a local store (blacksmith), the game will crash
• V1.07 starts with a different occupation list than V1.03 through v1.06

So that's the bottom line.

• How does V1.07 have a different occupation list?
• Does the occupation list ever change? - When/How?

When starting the game, everyone you talk to will have one of 15 different occupations.

• V1.06
  • animal handler, artist, astrologist, butcher, goldsmith, idiot, joiner, mason, physician, playwright, publican, rogue, tanner, thug, toll collector
• V1.07
  • bodyguard, cook, fieldhand, guildmaster, historian, hunter, innkeeper, interpreter, mercenary, nomad poet, servant, squire, thief, weaver

In V1.07, Bodyguard and Innkeeper both have a dialogue option that calls for a store name and the game crashes if it calls for it. However the V1.06 list doesn't have any that call for that. If I change one of the dialogues in TEMPLATE.DAT to call for a store, then V1.06 crashes just as often as V1.07. (If I change that from a "call to a store" to a call for something like the Player's race, it runs just fine, but with a weird "NORD" exclamation in the middle of a sentence. or whatever your race is.)

However, if I try to fix V1.07 list by removing the calls for STORE names, it still crashes. I probably need to understand how 1.07 has a different list and/or how the random occupation function works, in order to test why 1.07 still crashes.

TEMPLATE.DAT includes 100 occupations. Now some of that belongs to static NPC's like alchemists, and jugglers, and monks...etc. They also stack as options like Monk, Druid, Priest. So I'm not sure what the actual number is supposed to be for walking NPC's. There may be a different list for those in the wilderness vs those in the city.
(EDIT: I haven't actually tested the part about some of the occupations being for static NPC's, that's more of an assumption based on some of the titles.)

I am assuming that the list changes with some trigger. Changing cities or provinces or city sizes doesn't seem to change anything. What about player level, staff collection, season? I'm hoping someone has more info on that.

P.S. My DOS 6.22 machine crashes or doesn't crash equivalent to DOSBox for the same reasons. (Although it has the curtesy of restarting itself after a crash instead of just hanging.)

Talk to NPC Crash Test:

• 1.Travel to Rihad (stay at inn if night)
  2. Create a save just outside the city gates and shutdown.
  3. Enter the city and walk around the city wall talking to every unique NPC.
  Unique meaning walking NPC's you haven't talked to before.
  4. Stop if you get to 50 NPC's.

Walking all the way around and back to the city gates will yield apx. 50 unique NPC's.

[Satribe]

I tried using the save games located in the download section (UESP) and they give me the same list of 15 occupations for NPC's.

I went out in the wilderness and tried going to random towns....same 15.

Has anyone seen the "Gardener" that has "dirty hands to prove it" or the "Falconer" who trains "the mighty birds of prey"? 100 possible occupations and we see the same 15. I'm hoping that's not true, and I just haven't seen it yet. That would be disappointing.

TEMPLATE.DAT
You can't edit it this way because each group has to be "Exactly" where it is in the file; but you can open it up in any text editor and view the various occupations. Do a FIND search for the text "#0262" without quotes. This is where they start; "scribe& servant& musician&". If you scroll down to #0263, you have the text options for a "scribe". #0264 is the options for "servant", etc. - all the way to #0362.

At #0100 you have the initial greetings of the conversations. "My name is <NAME>, the <OCCUPATION>, I <JOB COMMENT>." (Who's old enough to remember Mad Libs?)

All those <BLANKS> have a little code that tells the game how to fill it in. For "names" you will find "%n". Occupation = "%oc" and the Job Comment is "%doc". So the way that looks in the files is; "My name is %n, the %oc. I %doc.&" - with the "&" marking the end of the section.

• %n = NPC name
• %oc = NPC occupation
• %doc = NPC trade description
• %ct = city name
• %ra = player race
• %lp = local province
• %t = ruler title
• %nt = INN
  • "meaner element out of %nt" (bodyguard 271) / "fresh wild beasties to the %nt" (hunter)
• %en = STORE
  • "work for the owner of %en (bodyguard 271) ; "recommend you see my work over at %en" (armorist 289)
• %rf = Ruler first name
• %tem = temple
  • "hired by the %tem for their gardens"
• %cn = Outiside=current province ; Inside = current city
• %cn2 = nearest settlement of the same city type as current

[SeaGtGruff]

I love all this information you're providing!

[Satribe]

Many of the blank fillers (%ct, %cn) are listed in the OpenTESArena wiki on the DIALOG page and I was able to just verify them and copy them over. Unfortunately many of the ones that are specific to the "Who Are You" question are listed like; "%nt ???".

I can't find any references on their wiki that are related to this NPC question, so I'm kinda on my own. Sometimes I can find a "hint" and then figure it out from there, but no such luck yet. This may be as far as I can take it. My hope is that, if I can't go any further, maybe my practical testing will give someone else (who really knows how to dig in the game) a hint for where to start testing.

<EDIT: (forgot to add this paragraph)
The group at OpenTESArena know way more about Arena than what's on their wiki. I downloaded their work, but I hadn't tried it yet. Much of what they have right out in front isn't even widely spread and it's the only place I'm finding such detailed game-code information. It's still a work in process, so I wanted to see if they have it to where you can ask the "who are you" question. I started it up and it said my MAC is too old. I have 10.13 and it wants 10.15. So I can't tell if they've even worked much on that part yet.
/EDIT>

Everything I've read about the "talk to NPC" crash seems to say it's either an issue with DOSBox or an Arena memory problem. What I'm finding, seems to be much more mundane...and that might mean easier to patch or change (if desired).

I'm all for playing VANILLA Arena, and I know that eventually 100 occupations will become just as repetitive as 15, but if that could happen....I might have difficulty passing on that fix.

[SeaGtGruff]

I can believe that Arena has memory problems, because if I've been playing for a while the game will sometimes crash with a message about insufficient memory, even though whatever I was trying to do when the game crashed is the same thing I'd done successfully dozens of times before the crash. All I can think of is that there might be memory leaks in certain sections of the code, or maybe it has to do with using the ESC key too much. (I mention the ESC key because you had said something about it, and I do occasionally have to use ESC to cancel out of some action that I hadn't intended to take, such as clicking Save Game when I had meant to click on Load Game.)

[Satribe]

I was wondering about the ESC key also. I didn't make the connection to the other topic of using ESC during character creation though. I was thinking of how when talking to NPC's the keyboard shortcut "E" is the only one that doesn't work and you either have to click it or press the actual ESC key.

Probably doesn't mean anything, but it does seem to be a little more questionable than average.

[Satribe]

The following is from observation and may be revised later if more definitive answers become available.

(EDIT: 01FEB2021 - ver 1.06 behaves differently from 1.07. In 1.07 each time an NPC walks out of range, another one spawns in. In 1.06 if an NPC moves out of range (or you move out of range of them) they do NOT re-spawn. As long as 1 NPC is within range, no more NPC's will spawn. When the last one moves out of range or you move out of range, then 15 new ones will spawn at once. This is the same in the wilderness, but with less NPC's.)(EDIT: 03FEB2021 - this appears to be city related. Different settlements seem to behave differently.)

Using the minimap (Q+B+X), you can see that 15 NPCs are on the map at any one time. This corresponds nicely with the 15 occupations. In fact, each of the 15 will have a different 1 of each of the occupations. One will be a thief, another will be a hunter and so on. I was able to "capture" 8 NPCs at one time that were stopped close to my character. Each of them had a different job and and when I moved to talk to a 9th, he had a 9th different job. Along with this, I noticed that I have not been able to capture duplicates with the same job (two NPC's that have stopped next to me at the same time).

NPCs spawn immediately when entering a town. If you save the game and restart it, the same NPC's have the same jobs and same names. So it seems that just like with monster stats in dungeons; NPCs are assigned their name and occupation when they spawn in. However, the description they give for their occupation may change.

When an NPC moves approximately 20 blocks away from you (Or you move 20 blocks away from the NPC), the NPC will de-spawn and a new NPC will spawn in within approximately 10 of the player. This is how you can talk to a "Thug" and then just a few seconds later talk to another "Thug". The first one walked out of range and was replaced by one that spawns close to you. As long as the NPC remains within 20 blocks, it will stay on the map no matter where you go.

WILDERNESS
In the wilderness the NPCs spawn in groups of 7. This depends on the Wilderness block. Some blocks will not spawn any NPCs. (I did have one occasion where only one was spawning, but this wasn't reproducible.) The occupations are a shortened list of the city occupations.

• V1.06: Animal Handler, Astrologist, Goldsmith, Joiner, Physician, Rogue, Thug.
• V1.07: Bodyguard, Historian, Hunter, Interpreter, Mercenary, Thief, Weaver

It seems that whether a block spawns NPCs or not, isn't exactly tied to the type of wilderness block. Meaning that changing the list so that it only spawns one type of block....then every instance will spawn NPCs. In Rihad, the first block spawns NPCs while the block immediately to the left does not. If I reverse just those two blocks, it still spawns NPCs just outside the gate and doesn't in the block just to the left. This means that it isn't exactly the block type, it isn't exactly defined as a static part of the wilderness generation and it isn't exactly the list the block is chosen from. I'm not exactly sure how that is determined. Although for a single city wilderness, the same type of blocks seem to behave the same way.

(EDIT: Just a follow-up note. The wiki homepage for OpenTESArena shows their current release is 0.12.0 and introduces NPC's walking around. It also shows plans to introduce NPC interactions in ver 0.16.0 with name, directions, rumors. They may already have the details from Arena, but it's not yet implemented into their program. --And just an aside; their focus isn't to reproduce the Arena game engine. They don't necessarily need to understand how Arena actually works (or doesn't), they just need to know what is supposed to happen and where the resources are at. My point is that it's possible the reason I haven't found anything about this subject, is because it's not necessary when you can just avoid and work around it.)

[Satribe]

I hadn't actually tested that v1.06 would give all 3 job descriptions for all 15 jobs. I mostly play ver 1.07 so I had several tests and videos where testing the "talk to NPC" crash. In 1.07 I was able to verify all but 3 messages. The 1 for the butcher and 1 for the innkeeper, neither of which I had seen before, and 1 for a Poet. It's the one about writing "light verse and important sonnets". But I've seen that one several times while playing. The 1 for butcher and innkeeper are the only ones that call for a store name and it's those missing descriptions that calls for them.

Just a little historical note, because it's not in this thread and important to the reason I'm writing this: USING V1.07: I've been testing this "talk to NPC" crash by walking around the city wall of Rihad and stopping when I reach 50 NPCs or make it all the way around. One trip around is really close to 50 NPCs. Making it to 50 NPCs or all the way around during this test is very uncommon. The game can crash when talking to the first person, and almost always crashes between talking to 15-25 NPCs. I was testing for DOSBox settings or thinking it was a memory thing, so I didn't pay attention to the occupations.

SO this brings me to my point of testing to make sure all of the descriptions show up in V1.06.
On one play-through, without crashing, restarting, saving, resting, or leaving the city walls; I walked around the city 4 and 1half times and checked off that all of the descriptions show up in v1.06. That's like talking to around 225 NPC's without crashing, compared to v1.07 crashing around 20.

[Satribe]

Not really that important, but tested both 1.06 in all the months up to the next year and 1.07 in a few months spread out and the next year. The list of occupations they use didn't change.

Also you can only rest for 999 hours. But 720 is a month, so I just did it one month at a time. I feel like Rip Van Winkle.