Research/show notes

[vga256]

#10979

A few years ago, I recorded a two-part podcast on Betrayal at Krondor. I researched it fairly extensively, mostly relying upon Neal Hallford’s recollections of the development process.

Would it help to have access to these research/show notes to cut down on podcast production time? I’m happy to provide them if they’ll help out.

(This would at least save someone else the time of listening to both parts of the podcast just to take notes!)

[Tijn]

#10980

I’m sure they’d be interesting to read for people regardless!

For the actual podcast they’ll come in handy as well. We normally put together some notes beforehand, so when putting that together we could incorporate your notes and save some time on research 🙂

[vga256]

#10981

Great. I’ve dumped the podcast notes into a text file (attached). Everything is separated into sections, point-form.

Hope that helps someone.

Attachments:

1. krondor-podcast-notes.txt

[Evil Taco]

#10991

Yeah that’s fantastic to eye through. The heads-ups about bugs alone is appreciated!

[vga256]

#11007

Just to save some time for other players, so you don’t have to scroll through the whole text file:

Chapter 8 Bug:
I hit a showstopper mid-way through the game that quite literally kicked me to DOS. I don’t remember this happening in real MS-DOS, and I am 99% sure this is a DOSBOX bug. Basically: in Chapter 8, if you get to a point where the game is crashing to the DOS prompt, google for “betrayal at krondor freeze in chapter 8”, and you’ll find a workaround so you can complete the quest. Basically, the solution is to stay in overhead view (not first person view) for a minute or two, get what you need from two chests, then leave the area. Once this is done, you’ll never encounter the bug again.

Bugs in the CD version:
One of the most powerful spells in the game, Mind Melt, can’t be gotten due to a bug in the game in the CD-ROM version of the game. This one requires some hex editing to fix. Thanks to RPG Codex user LightandTime. To fix this, google for “bak mind melt spell quest bugfix gog” and you’ll find the thread with the hex address to change. Takes 10 seconds, and you can finally fulfill the sidequest that lets you get the spell.

– There’s a hilarious but game-breaking bug if you manage to power-level Gorath by getting tons of gold and using tons of books to train his skills and strength up: a weapon like that Guarda Revanche can do negative damage (e.g. give health) to enemies by having such high damage (>255) that it rolls over the damage integer variable into negative numbers! I haven’t done this myself, but I’ve seen other people complain about it. If you’re into powerlevelling, you’ve been warned. That being said, I’ve played the game a dozen times, and there really isn’t a good reason to power level your characters. The game was balanced to be completable just by finishing the main quests, without having to do a ton of grinding to get there.

GOG CD version:
If you’ve bought the GOG version, you’re going to hear skips and blips in some of the redbook audio tracks. Yes, GOG used a CD image from a scratched CD. GOG has a habit of grabbing any bin/cue/iso they can find on the web (they never do their own rips) without checking the quality first.

– Redbook audio doesn’t loop during combat. So if your combat lasts longer than five or so minutes, be prepared for a very silent finish 🙂 So if you want your combat music to loop, switch to MIDI music.

Tips for all versions:
– Don’t leave stuff in a bag on the ground. It *will* disappear after you exit the area and return. If you really need to store something, store it in a chest. And that being said, if you store it in a chest, you still might lose it if that chest is an important “quest” chest. So my advice is: if you really need something, like something you suspect is a quest item, keep it in your backpack! This isn’t a LucasArts adventure – you really can break the game if you lose a main quest item. Thankfully, they’re usually pretty obvious things to hang on to.
– It’s a sierra/dynamix title. Save often. Like, really, really, often. Expect to have your characters incapacitated constantly, always searching for some healing herbs or vials of healing juice.