Arena crashing when asking about rumors in the wilderness.

[daedrix]

New bug found?

As per title, Arena crashes whenever you receive a rumor that would lead to a daedric artifact (have you heard that X is selling info about Y artifact at the Z inn?), if you get it from a npc out of the city walls.
It's the same as the "Who are you?" bug: the game just instantly crashes to desktop. Version is 1.07 from ArenaSetup.

I tried with every Dosbox version I could find. Be it with the official version, SVNs, and Dosbox-x. Both default settings and modified. It happens every single time.

I made the link with the "Who are you?" bug because in that bug the game checks for a list that can't find, so it crashes. So I thought that maybe this is a similar case, where the game checks for the location of the inn where the rumor is supposed to take you. But, being the npc outside of town, they can't find the list with the inn's name, and that makes the game crash.

I continued clicking on rumors for a while, and while the "regular" ones were fine, at some point, sometimes it would have been even the 1st rumor, it would always crash. So I returned to a city, and checked if I could find any rumors that would crash the game and, as I had imagined, I could get the artifact rumors just fine. No crashes.

It's important to note however that the bug, like it's presumed "Who are you?" relative, didn't occur on ver. 1.03, which I tried on an online browser. The people in wilderness would give indications as to which inn to go to begin the quest just fine.

I searched all around Google and in these forums for this bug and couldn't find anything. Could this bug have remained uncovered till now? Does this happen to you as well (CD ver 1.07)? Or do I have screwed my game somehow?

EDIT:

Ok I have determined when and how the crash happens. This is indipendently of the config used. Basically if you open the game, load a save in the wilderness, and ask for rumors until you should get one for an artifact, the game's gonna crash no matter what.

If you first load a save inside a city, or first you travel to a city and then return back to the same wilderness area where it would crash had you just opened the game and loaded a save in the wilderness, it won't crash anymore.

I've noticed the location where you're supposed to go change depending wether you load a save inside a city in the vicinity or you fast travel.
If you do the first, the the people are gonna direct you to an inn inside the biggest city in the area. If you do the second, then you'll be directed to the closest inns in the wilderness.

Remember that to replicate the crash one has to save a game in the wilderness, exit to desktop, and then load that save and ask about rumors.

EDIT2: This seems to happen in v. 1.03 as well. It gives a "Divide error C:>". Tested on a 1.03 version played on the browser.

I'm writing this down so anyone who has this bug and doesn't know if he messed up his install or something, if they stumble on this thread they may know that this bug happens to everyone (to other people on the Discord as well) and has to be considered the same way as the "Who are you?" bug in v. 1.07.

[SeaGtGruff]

I just checked this in version 1.06, and I was able to successfully get a rumor for King Orgnum's Coffer out in the wilderness without crashing the game. The NPC pointed me to the Devil's Dungeon inn, or some similar name, but I didn't go back into town to check in that inn for the quest giver.

Have you, by chance, asked a blacksmith to repair any gear that you still had equipped? I've read that doing that can corrupt the saved game files and lead to odd bugs.

Another thing that a streamer recently discovered was that using the 8192 exploit to get gear repaired instantly for free will also corrupt the game's data, causing NPCs to give you bogus or bugged directions to the next piece of the staff-- they will point you to a town instead of a province, although they'll keep referring to it as a province, and if the name of the town has a space in it then it might be displayed without the space. He was able to correct the bug by exiting and restarting the game, loading an earlier save.

[daedrix]

Thanks for the answer. Had you just visited Dragonstar, Hammerfell by any chance? I found out that the crash only happens when loading a save in the wilderness after having just started a game session. Which means, if you load a save inside a city and only then go to the wilderness, the game won't crash, because now it has a list from which to choose the inns to send you to.
It would seem though that any town you've just been to goes, for example if you loaded a save in a city in Skyrim, and then you loaded your save in the Hammerfell wilderness, it wouldn't crash, but the NPCs would direct you to an inn in that city of Skyrim!
From this same reasoning, it derives that a NPC can only direct you to an inn inside a city, never to an inn in the wilderness, for artifact quests (they can give you directions and say they work for an inn in the wilderness just fine instead). Can you test repeating the steps laid before and confirm? And the fact that artifact quests can only lead you to an inn inside a city.

Have you, by chance, asked a blacksmith to repair any gear that you still had equipped? I've read that doing that can corrupt the saved game files and lead to odd bugs.

Another thing that a streamer recently discovered was that using the 8192 exploit to get gear repaired instantly for free will also corrupt the game's data, causing NPCs to give you bogus or bugged directions to the next piece of the staff-- they will point you to a town instead of a province, although they'll keep referring to it as a province, and if the name of the town has a space in it then it might be displayed without the space. He was able to correct the bug by exiting and restarting the game, loading an earlier save.

I've read of those bugs before, so I go as far as de-equip even the gear that I'm selling, but I suppose that if it's written among the glitches it's sure to cause some severe cases of corruption.

I didn't know that the 8192 exploit could cause problems as well, and if the only way to fix them is to reload a previous save, then it means we'll have to fix gear legit! Is the 13 gold repair exploit affected as well?

BTW, how are you supposed to find the dungeon where the map for the artifact is? All I know is I'm supposed to go to the "Catacombs of Yeralas" in Hammerfell.

EDIT: lol I found it looking a bit more thoroughly into the map. There is a little cave entrance...

[SeaGtGruff]

The way I tested it was by loading an old save where I was inside a city in Hammerfell-- I don't think it was Dragonstar, but I'll check later. Then I went outside the city and walked around until I found some NPCs to talk to.

My most current save is inside a dungeon out in the wilderness, so after I clear that dungeon and exit back to the wilderness I'll try talking to some NPCs to see if it crashes the game.

As for the 8192 repair exploit bug, I don't know much about it besides what I saw happen during someone's stream. It might be that he could have asked about the location of the next staff piece before using the exploit and it wouldn't have had much impact. I don't remember if he saved, exited, restarted, and loaded, in which case the buggy data must not get saved, or if he exited without saving, restarted, and loaded an older save from before he'd used the exploit.

I'm not familiar with the 13 gold repair exploit. How does that work?

[daedrix]

The way I tested it was by loading an old save where I was inside a city in Hammerfell-- I don't think it was Dragonstar, but I'll check later. Then I went outside the city and walked around until I found some NPCs to talk to.

My most current save is inside a dungeon out in the wilderness, so after I clear that dungeon and exit back to the wilderness I'll try talking to some NPCs to see if it crashes the game.

As for the 8192 repair exploit bug, I don't know much about it besides what I saw happen during someone's stream. It might be that he could have asked about the location of the next staff piece before using the exploit and it wouldn't have had much impact. I don't remember if he saved, exited, restarted, and loaded, in which case the buggy data must not get saved, or if he exited without saving, restarted, and loaded an older save from before he'd used the exploit.

I'm not familiar with the 13 gold repair exploit. How does that work?

I deduced it was Dragonstar because "Devil's Dungeon" is an inn in that city (the inns name for the cities remain constant, so that particular inn with that name will always be in Dragonstar).

Try it and let me know

This is how the 13 gold repair exploit works:
When having an item or artifact repaired, there are three options that will greatly reduce the cost and time of the repair. When presented with the option to accept the repair cost and time the blacksmith offers, select “no”. You may then select; “Can’t you afford it?”. If you offer 1 gold, it will give you a large waiting time, however, when you later check the status of the repair, you will find that it has been reduced to a time closer to a month. If you offer 13 gold and later check the status, it will have been reduced to less than a day. If instead you chose the option; “Can’t you wait that long?”, and enter “8192” for the number of days you can wait, the cost will be greatly reduced and the item will be ready immediately when checking it’s status.

It appears that the 13 and the 8192 exploits are linked, so the game may break with both.

[SeaGtGruff]

I double-checked and it was actually the Devil's Dragon inn, not the Devil's Dungeon, in Nimbel Moor, Hammerfell.

I also loaded a saved game from inside Belkarth Guard, Hammerfell, then went outside of town and asked around until I got a rumor about the Lord's Mail, and was directed to the Gold Pit inn, which is one of the inns in Belkarth Guard.

I loaded a game from inside Black Moor, Skyrim, went outside and saved again, then loaded and asked around until I was directed to the Gold Djinn. I then dropped to DOS, restarted and loaded the save from outside of town, and asked around again. It took a while, but eventually it crashed to desktop. I couldn't tell what the rumor was, since it happened so fast.

[daedrix]

I double-checked and it was actually the Devil's Dragon inn, not the Devil's Dungeon, in Nimbel Moor, Hammerfell.

I also loaded a saved game from inside Belkarth Guard, Hammerfell, then went outside of town and asked around until I got a rumor about the Lord's Mail, and was directed to the Gold Pit inn, which is one of the inns in Belkarth Guard.

I loaded a game from inside Black Moor, Skyrim, went outside and saved again, then loaded and asked around until I was directed to the Gold Djinn. I then dropped to DOS, restarted and loaded the save from outside of town, and asked around again. It took a while, but eventually it crashed to desktop. I couldn't tell what the rumor was, since it happened so fast.

Exactly as I expected. So the game crashes for everyone at the same conditions. If you just started playing from a save in the wilderness or in a dungeon (everywhere that isn't a city), if you ask about rumors and get an artifact rumor, the game will crash, as it hasn't generated a list from which to take the inns' names yet (which it does everytime you enter a city, and saves the inns' names of the last city you've been).

Thanks for your answers, they've been very helpful in determining this bug's behaviour