ARoP Tests and Results
(repost from another forum)
The only issues I saw were:
1. When approaching the Council lair entrance after Karane sends you there, if you fly over the entrance, it triggers the quest where it describes the entrance and the player's canned "reaction" to it ("breathtaking" or somesuch). Not really much of an issue, but when the player sees the text and hasn't really even gotten near the entrance it is like "huh?". I know quest triggers tend not to take height into account, so maybe the trigger can be placed further into the lair. After all, it is breathtaking only after you actually get around in front of the gate and see the Council.
2. The quest advance bug. My specific example I experienced is when I first went into the Council room, my first impulse was to talk to V'Tieru. however, after I greeted him, I think I had only clicked his first link before I thought "Hmmm, I'd like to see what the others have to say before I continue". So I cancelled V'Tieru's dialog, and went to talk to the rest of the Council. They didn't say anything special, so I went ahead and talked to V'Tieru again to continue. However, he only said to me: "...and what message did Vladtmordt have for you, Maltavorn?", and that is all he would say to me. Nothing was in my quest log, and I didn't have the rest of the instructions nor the next stage of the quest from V'Tieru since I cancelled the dialog.
3. When you go down through the spiral object at the entrance, looking down from high angles causes the object itself to disappear, and due to DPVS culling, most of the rest of the world disappears as well. You have to realize what is happening and lower your viewing angle and everything returns to normal, but until then, it is quite disorienting. I doubt the issue can be resolved without debugging the engine or getting rid of the object at the entrance and using a less convoluted object in its place. However, I would be loathe to monkey with that thing, given its history in delaying the ARoP as it is.
4. Floating Island and ATI video card issue. Yes, that old friend is back. I was using Catalyst 5.1 Drivers, and I ported to the Floating Island. Screen blacked out several times and then dumped to windows with the same old VPU Recovery error that continues to plague ATI Radeon users. I logged on with another computer with an nVidia card and completed the step of the quest with Vladtmordt and ported back to Tazoon to see Jynasix. However, my other system was really hosed up; my Graphics Prefs def file somehow got scrambled and I had to manually edit it to restore semi-normal operation. Another Dragon player who didn't have another system went ahead and upgraded her drivers to the latest Catalyst drivers (5.3), which seemed to correct that issue for now, but it seems to have a propensity for cropping back up. For the record, I put the blame squarely on ATI for this problem, as there is no excuse for the VPU to "lock up", no matter what set of instructions it is given by the driver. I figure there is some really wonky geometry at the Floating Island which is causing the drivers to feed the VPU some garbage that causes it to lock up, but that is not the fault of the game. Anyway, it is a small comfort to players to have to go through the pain and suffering of their computer crashing, and the game freaking out, forcing driver upgrades (which is not a guarantee to work at this point) just to get through a step in the quest. Thus, I would suggest moving Vladtmordt off of the Floating Island. I remember that was one of the more important considerations you all were thinking about, and I think it is a great idea to avoid running quests through there until the issue gets resolved permanently.
5. There are a couple places where the player is told "I will need some time to do this for you.. I will contact you when I am ready", such as when Jynasix makes the cask, for example. However, he almost immediately lets you know that it is ready and you can get it in well under a minute. Seems like in other quests besides the ARoP, when the NPCs tell the player that it will take some time and they will let the player know when something is ready, there is a fairly long timer (from 5 mins to several hours) involved. I'd suggest making the NPCs dialog consistent with the wait.
That's basically what I have so far. Mostly minor issues, except for the ATI/Floating Island issue, which I would classify as major or even a showstopper. The story is pretty good, but the riddles are a little weak. Problem is there are too few possibilities as answers, and the riddles, vague as they are, still are easy enough to discern between the possibilities. Not sure that there is anything that can be done about it. However, I did notice one discrepancy in the Helian riddle about Lorgus. We're trying to get the "Flame" element, and the riddle talks about "Flame", not mentioning "Fire" (well, "Hellfire", but the rest of the riddle is about "flame"), yet we have to kill Lorgus, the named "Fire" beetle, as opposed to Flamentus, the named "Flame" beetle. Not really much of an issue, since they both spawn and run around in the same area on Fire Island, but I figured I would point out that little inconsistency.
I'd also like to know if it is possible to have the ARoP quests deleted so I can try some other "weirdness" that people might not think of.
Originally Posted by Bori Grimbattle
