Bypassing bugs in QfG3 - try Scumm VM instead of DOSBox
Posted: Fri Mar 09, 2018 8:11 pm
I have long had problems with QfG3 and, to a somewhat smaller extent, QfG4. Both have their share of bugs and in case of QfG3 even slowing the game down doesn't help at all. I've run into four unpleasant bugs:
1. I can meet Harami at the bazaar at nght - however, he doesn't approach the hero during daytime asking for help.
2. I can't tell him about Rakeesh and conversation topics with him don't change after first meeting.
3. When I ask the Laibon about bride price or when I pay it (I forgot), for no reason he gets annoyed and starts saying "So, friend of Rakeesh, what have you come here for?".
4. When I ask Uhura how to make the Leopard Lady accept the hero (she is in her hut with Simba, hence "they"), a message "They don't seem to be speaking your language" appears and I can't ask any other questions (however, I can normally say goodbye).
As said, I tried solutions listed at Sierra Help sites and at least in my case they didn't help. It seems I'm not the only player for whom they were unhelpful. Therefore I wanted to present an alternative: Scumm VM can be used instead of DOSBox to run this game and it allowed me to evade all bugs listed above.
It has its drawbacks: first, Scumm VM is a bit harder to run correctly and importing a hero doesn't work as almost-automatically as in DOSBox. The file must have the right name (in my case it was "qfg2-wizard.sav") and must be put in the right folder - I somehow couldn't find it or make it work (I'm a computer user, but I'm no specialist - in fact, I do consider myself a "technological conservative", that is, a person who prefers to stick to technologies I already know and doesn't enjoy learning new technical stuff. For example, I still use a mobile phone which was released in 2000...), so I had to change the program's save path. Second, there is quite an annoying bug in terms of graphics only: no darkness. Night-related events work just fine, but it doesn't get visually dark at night. Only twice it did: in the inn and room on the first night and then when travelling with Rakeesh to SImbani village. While I generally think that beautiful night sceneries are an EGA thing (for me, in EGA night sceneries are very interesting and sometimes better than daytime ones - examples: Spielburg castle gate or Heinrich's field - in VGA everything just becomes darker, bluer and harder to see...), the game feels strange without darkness at night (having said that, I would love to see a polar day once. I have never been further to the north than about 50 km south of the nothern polar circle. One of my hobbies is visiting and climbing ski jumping hills and I'm dreaming of climbing the hill in Tromsø at midnight in sunshine
) and it leaves the player with less possibility of keeping track of time - for example, you may run to the next overall view screen and discover it's already middle of the night because you didn't see darkness fall. But generally, Scumm VM definitely surpasses DOSBox in terms of evading bugs in this particular game.
And still I am first of all a DOSBox user - I just love D-Fend Reloaded, this program made me crazy about collecting screenshots. But Scumm VM is better for some games (Humongous Entertainment games, "Broken Sword" series...) and QfG3 also seems to fall into this category.
1. I can meet Harami at the bazaar at nght - however, he doesn't approach the hero during daytime asking for help.
2. I can't tell him about Rakeesh and conversation topics with him don't change after first meeting.
3. When I ask the Laibon about bride price or when I pay it (I forgot), for no reason he gets annoyed and starts saying "So, friend of Rakeesh, what have you come here for?".
4. When I ask Uhura how to make the Leopard Lady accept the hero (she is in her hut with Simba, hence "they"), a message "They don't seem to be speaking your language" appears and I can't ask any other questions (however, I can normally say goodbye).
As said, I tried solutions listed at Sierra Help sites and at least in my case they didn't help. It seems I'm not the only player for whom they were unhelpful. Therefore I wanted to present an alternative: Scumm VM can be used instead of DOSBox to run this game and it allowed me to evade all bugs listed above.
It has its drawbacks: first, Scumm VM is a bit harder to run correctly and importing a hero doesn't work as almost-automatically as in DOSBox. The file must have the right name (in my case it was "qfg2-wizard.sav") and must be put in the right folder - I somehow couldn't find it or make it work (I'm a computer user, but I'm no specialist - in fact, I do consider myself a "technological conservative", that is, a person who prefers to stick to technologies I already know and doesn't enjoy learning new technical stuff. For example, I still use a mobile phone which was released in 2000...), so I had to change the program's save path. Second, there is quite an annoying bug in terms of graphics only: no darkness. Night-related events work just fine, but it doesn't get visually dark at night. Only twice it did: in the inn and room on the first night and then when travelling with Rakeesh to SImbani village. While I generally think that beautiful night sceneries are an EGA thing (for me, in EGA night sceneries are very interesting and sometimes better than daytime ones - examples: Spielburg castle gate or Heinrich's field - in VGA everything just becomes darker, bluer and harder to see...), the game feels strange without darkness at night (having said that, I would love to see a polar day once. I have never been further to the north than about 50 km south of the nothern polar circle. One of my hobbies is visiting and climbing ski jumping hills and I'm dreaming of climbing the hill in Tromsø at midnight in sunshine
) and it leaves the player with less possibility of keeping track of time - for example, you may run to the next overall view screen and discover it's already middle of the night because you didn't see darkness fall. But generally, Scumm VM definitely surpasses DOSBox in terms of evading bugs in this particular game.And still I am first of all a DOSBox user - I just love D-Fend Reloaded, this program made me crazy about collecting screenshots. But Scumm VM is better for some games (Humongous Entertainment games, "Broken Sword" series...) and QfG3 also seems to fall into this category.