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There's a WHAT in the chicken journal bug

Hi! I did the quest before I talked to Jeb so the quest is entered into the journal under DONE QUESTS. Thereafter I talked to Jeb as I was looking for the three kids and the quest is then entered into the journal under QUESTS. So, now the same quest is in both parts... Bug methinks! /J

Comments

  • MrSextonMrSexton Member Posts: 396
    As I've played the game before I just killed all the chickens and got the stone => quest done. Then I talked to Jeb and the the quest is entered into the journal again... /J
  • IllydthIllydth Member, Developer Posts: 1,641
    @MrSexton: (I'm not familiar with the specific quest as it's been 10+ years since I've done a playthrough of BG2, so excuse the stupid questions. Please try to read between the lines on the questions I ask and answer what I meant. :) )

    So the real question: You've killed chickens and gotten stones. Have you COMPLETED the quest? i.e. Have you completed the final state for the quest?

    Even if you do a quest out of order the COMPLETION STEP should wipe out all journal entries and move them / migrate them to the "Completed" section of the journal. The only possibility for this NOT happening is when you can actually COMPLETE a quest without a completion trigger.

    Example (BUG):

    A Quest requires me to retrieve an item and then talk to a second person to deliver the item.

    Proper Steps:

    1) Talk to the Quest Giver
    2) Retrieve The Item
    3) Give the Item to the Final Quest NPC.

    Obviously you COULD (assuming you know what you're doing) complete 2 before completing 1 or never complete 1 at all.

    In the simple example above if any ACTIVE journal entries exist after step 3 is completed, this is a bug. Step 3 should move the ENTIRE thread, no matter it's state, to the completed section of the journal...and since there's a completion step, there is the possibility of doing so...you CAN'T complete the quest without performing 3 and it MUST be performed last.

    Example 2 (BUG but a different kind):

    A quest requires me to retrieve an item.

    Proper Steps:

    1) Talk to the Quest Giver
    2) Retrieve the Item

    Obviously, again, in this situation you COULD complete 2 before completing 1. HOWEVER in this case, we have a situation where picking up the item could generate a log in the completed journal and then talking to 1 puts an item in the active journal.

    In this case I would expect the quest giver to check a global variable to verify whether or not the item has been retrieved already BEFORE giving the quest start journal entry. If THAT is not possible, however, then we have a situation where we have a bug but one that may be too hard to fix.

    As I am NOT an expert on this or any of the quests or scripting in the game, @Gate70, I would recommend opening a D level bug on the issue with the Journal and see if it can be fixed. We've opened a boatload of these sorts of issues during testing, so you also might want to check whether or not an issue for this already exists.
  • MrSextonMrSexton Member Posts: 396
    @Illydth
    Yes, the quest is really simple. The "proper way" is to
    1) Talk to Jeb
    2) Kill the chickens and take the stone - End of quest

    I just did number 2 so the quest jumped straight to DONE QUEST. However, when I spoke to Jeb at a later point (i.e. number 1), the quest turns up under QUESTS as well. So now this quest is both open AND done...
  • IllydthIllydth Member, Developer Posts: 1,641
    In which case I would expect the quest giver to recognize that either you posses the stone or recognize a global variable that identifies you had gotten the stone already. That said, assuming that's not possible, this one may not be fixable. *shrug* We'll bug it and see what happens anyway. :)

    Thanks again for the report!
  • zunamizunami Member Posts: 42
    I can think of several examples of quests like this in both bg ee 1 and 2. Didn't think about reporting them as bugs. I'll get a list later.
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