#7017 [CORE] - Genie does not appear in Irenicus' dungeon (Multiplayer Game)

Davy_Jones

Hello everybody!

When playing first time multiplayer I came to the flask in Irenicus' dungeon. Normally the genie should appear and, after giving him his original flask, you should get the Chaos Sword +2.

BUT: no genie!!! I could her the spawning sound but nothing appears! And yes: I looked everywhere if the genie perhaps sapwned somewhre else which wasn't the case.

Oh, and aunt Edith says: it appeared in single player...

Illydth

As the issue is in the consolidated bug list, but does not have a thread attached, we'll keep this one open and use this as the discussion thread for this bug.

tagging to 7017.

mctanaka

I have the exact same problem. If you need, I can send the savegame.

mctanaka

@Gate70: What is "table /flask"?
Aside from that, the game consistently fails to produce the genie.

Troodon80

@Gate70, I can tell you without even trying them. The genie is not referenced in the SAV file, either in AR0602 or in AR0601. Since the script uses Enable(), it requires that the actor exists in a given location.

What I can tell by looking at the script is that Malaaq starts off in AR0602, for some unknown reason (the genie doesn't take any imported items, and the Sword of Chaos is always granted upon releasing him), then moves to AR0601 and deactivates. When the trigger is activated, the visual effects play on a non-existent character (which is why you cannot see them), then the sound plays, then Malaaq activates. However, since the genie is not located in either area he doesn't activate. I cannot see where the problem is, but if I were to guess it would either be the MoveToArea() or Disable(). The problem here is that wherever the problem occurs, it does so off-screen. That means getting a repro case is next to impossible.

Eket

Does this happen in single player too?

Troodon80

@Eket, according to the first post, it does. What is not clear, however, is whether or not it happened due to copying a multiplayer game to the single player save game folder rather than actually starting a fresh single player game.

To this date, I have not been able to replicate it myself in either single player or multiplayer. Which is a tad infuriating and perplexing. There doesn't seem to be any one guaranteed method of making this occur.

Taho

Still no solution to that problem?

Troodon80

@Taho, unfortunately nothing permanent. You (or whoever is the host) can use the CLUAConsole to spawn the genie. That is currently the only way.

C:CreateCreature("IDJINNI")

It appears to be quite difficult to replicate. If anyone is going to know the ins-and-outs of the issue, it's probably @Avenger_teambg‌. It sounds like a problem with MoveBetweenAreas(), other NPCs are also moving to random areas but it is seemingly random. I could take a guess at it being a pointer or some other variable in-code, but I honestly don't know. There doesn't seem to be any way to predict where the NPC will end up in the case where it places them randomly, nor can I figure out when it will happen (I haven't been able to replicate it).

Avenger_teambg

@troodon80 npcs that are moving between areas are continuously rolled over to the next area (with the player moving around) until they reach their destination. At this point, they are moved to the destination position and made visible. This is why fleeing innocents have been seen in weird places (their special invisibility went away for some reason). And apparently the opposite can also happen. I don't know what exactly happened to the genie, either it didn't follow the player to the new area, or it remained invisible. This can be figured out by looking at a saved game.

Troodon80

@Avenger_teambg,

I looked at one saved game and couldn't find the genie at all (appears to be multiplayer most of the time). In another more recent game (single player), the genie was in the Underdark; so it was continuously following the player around. Going by what you said, I went back to check the latter using MoveToArea("AR0602"), then opened the door and went to the Plane of Air. Sure enough, the player had never been there and so the genie just followed the party from area to area. Learn something new every day. The 'Moving Between Areas' creature flag also makes sense now. Thanks for the clarification. :-)

I started to wonder if the problem was related to Keeper, but it doesn't touch the SAV file (yet).

Gate70

That's a really helpful explanation, thank you.