R31 Solace Bridge

R31 Starting Player Notes in Solace Bridge:

1. Early tutorial text did not play. At least I didnt see it. Maybe I zoned out. In any regard, I skipped helping the kid in the burning house, then realized I might not have seen the text leading me to do it. Then I realized I didn't get the text telling me to loot the corpse for the key either. Again, maybe I was distracted and missed it. But that made me think -- Should the new player have to click a mouse a hit space bar or something before tutorial text advances so they do not miss it like I did?

2. Not wanting a bow this go, I noticed that Edvard heads out to attack zombies before a new player not familiar with the inventory and paperdoll system would have enough time to figure out how to get another weapon off the rack and figure out how to equip it. Edvard was down the bridge before I got a weapon. Perhaps he should pause a little longer and tell the Avatar about how to get a different weapon and equip it?

3. Similarly, when on the bridge, Edvard heads off to attack more zombies before I can loot the corpses of those fallen. Perhaps that creates a feeling a newcomer that they have to choose to follow Edvard or loot? Maybe that is good? Consider if Edvard should pause a little to allow the Avatar to inspect the area they are newly entered into before heading off to kill more. I like the greater urgency of the scene, but playing it again I am not sure why Edvard is in such a hurry.

4. The elf cannot answer the questions "Where am I?" or "Where are you from?" (though he says Vertas in another part of the dialog).

5. The black frothing water by the elf - it looks ominous but does nothing. It would be cool to have that at least give some ominous warning text telling the Avatar being cautious about what they step in.

6. Crashed to desktop exiting scene. When I restarted the game, I was at the beginning of the Solace Bridge experience again, not where I crashed out, which was confusing. Did I complete the quest or no? I picked up miss Gray and had to open the gate again. But...

7. Edvard recognized me on restart, so that is good. However, he doesn't fight for me the second time. As a newbie, if a CTD caused me to restart, I have to fight on my own the second time. That ok' but is it intended?

8. Got to fight and loot everyone twice! More starting gold. Is this exploitable?

9. One zombie does not fight. I noticed him watching Edvard not attacking on the first run. On the second run he animates to loot a corpse (or eat it?) but just stands there when attacked.

10. Crashed to desktop a second time mid scene. This time I came back where I started, with Ms. Gray still following me.

11. At the end of the scene, I decided to exit to the log in screen just to test where I would end up if I logged back into the scene. The game crashed to desktop a third time on existing the scene. Logging back in Charlotte remained in the party.

12. Finally in Soltown, Abigail does not acknowledge that I saved her kid. The starting quest would not complete.

13. If the quest does not complete, should I be able to take the boat from Soltown back to Solace Bridge to try the starting quest again? The boat is inactive. Charlotte cannot be summoned either.

 

Also: Not wearing a cloak in starting scenes. Crashing in starting cloth armor without any moving cloaks, dresses, skirts, kilts, etc.

 

The player is given conflicting instructions, we have "You are now escorting Edvard the Wanderer. Do not let him get too far away or he will return to where he was." but then we are also told to stop and loot the corpses. Maybe Edvard could turn around and come back to us to tell us to loot the corpses himself.

I also had a weird experience with the chat. This is what showed up for me when I was in game:

This is what appears in the chat log on disk:

I'm not sure where that other text disappeared to, perhaps some bug if a bunch of chat messages appear at the same time only the first one gets displayed?

Charlotte seems to run off, I have no idea why. I went to talk to Edvard after crossing the bridge, after talking to him I turned around to talk to Charlotte to see if she wanted to come with me and she was gone. I scrolled back up the chat log and found this:

So it seems the fire scared her, but she was right behind me when I looted the corpses just before talking to Edvard. Also, when I first picked Charlotte up I got this message:

This is nowhere to be seen in my inventory.

 

We're trying to make it unobtrusive for people who otherwise wouldn't pay attention. Forcing people to click to continue would work directly against that.

If you entered Solace Bridge after completing another tutorial, you will not see any prompting help text. It's only if it's your first tutorial.

The tutorial content assumes you are using a bow. Other tutoril scenes will explain how to use other weapons. Using other weapons in Solace Bridge is a feature/courtesy for advanced users that won't have explanatory tutorial content.

He's in a hurry because there are undead trying to eat his face. (It actually takes him quite a while to kill things.)

Fixed in future patch.

We don't have any way to recognize crashing, really (if we did we'd you know, not crash). There are some checks to make sure the scene can actually finish. You should be able to get Edvard to run across the bridge by talking to him again, for example.

No more so than restarting any other scene repeatedly.

It sounds like you did not actually complete the quest (especially if you exited to world map from Solace Bridge) in which case Charlotte is assumed to have died in the fire.

Nope. Actions have consequences. You let the kid die. Sorry.

Note that exiting to the world map without finishing the tutorial will, I believe, leave the tutorial in a not-completed state, which means you will be able to re-enter Solace Bridge and restart the tutorial minus the help text. (In fact you'll need to do exactly that to progress with the rest of the Path of Love quests.) The boat from Soltown will not act as a shortcut, however.

 

Actions have consequences?
I had the girl following me and I clicked on the boat like I was instructed to and poof she's gone, "Assumed to have died in the fire" after you agreed to save her fought your way through all of the enemies and then simply clicked on the boat when instructed to. This isn't en example of actions having consequences, it's an example of terrible gameplay.

Wait a minute, that's an actual developer saying that!? wow.

 

My question about the quest not completing was in the scenario where I believed it should have completed, but for some reason at Abigail it didn't. If there is no way back to Solace Bridge to figure out why the quest that should have completed did not, the starting quest line can feel unfulfilled without knowing why.

 

This is my experience as well. The quest is accepted to save the girl but does not complete with Abigail. There is no way back to Solace Bridge, from a new player perspective, to see if if something was missed to get the quest to complete.

 

We've made it clearer next patch that when Charlotte disappears after your talking to Edvard it is because you have successfully finished that sequence. She is a temporary companion who does not follow you across scenes (among other reasons, having 300 Charlottes in Soltown would impact believability just a touch), so she does not follow you to Soltown.

 

I'm sorry if you think that's too glib or joking but it's very intentional. You are told when meeting her the first time that agreeing whether or not to have her accompany you will have consequences in the future.

If you cannot complete the quest because of, as Lord Beaumaris wrote, frequent crashing, that's obviously not intentional. But not being to go back and "fix it" is very intentional. It is meant to reinforce from as early as possible that not everything can be meta-gamed and "fixed".

In this case the only long-term consequences are the reactions of one particular NPC - if Charlotte died within view of you, her mother knows and blames you. If Charlotte was left behind but not killed, she dies after you leave, and her mother does not know if she is alive or not. And if she is saved, her mother thanks you.

That's it, really. But it also is not something you can rewind to go fix, and that's intentional. There are other very important parts of the story where the consequences are considerably more severe.

 

Even just updating the journal at that point would be helpful.

 

That's not really true though, there's always a meta-game. We all always have the option of deleting the character and starting over, especially at this early stage, it makes meta-gaming more annoying rather than impossible.

 

We do when she is saved. I'll add one when she is left behind as well.

For R32 I'll see if there's some way of having a pop-up hint warn you if Charlotte is out of range for talking to Edvard across the bridge as well (the cut-off point for that sequence). We have to do some range checking to prevent players from parking Charlotte in a corner of the keep and then completing the quest that way.

 

So, just to be clear here: in the Friday build, if Charlotte disappears after talking to Edvard but the journal text is not updated, that means she has not been saved?

 

At first i thought that Charlotte disappearing after talking to Edvard was unintended or even a bug. It just doesn't make sense (where and how would she run alone?). Why not park her at a side of Edvard so you can say good bye and assure that she feels safe with him before leaving (maybe i don't trust Edvard enough at that point). Edvard can inform you that the boat is too small for two people and he need the letter to be delivered fast.

 

Correct

 

I enabled close-up convos to work around the bug I had, and could get along the quest very nicely now! Well done! One problem, as I followed the advice above, and in the game, I had saved her I thought, as she was following me the whole time from the house to the bridge, then I talked to Edvard, and she disappeared.. I checked my journal, nothing.. I talked to Edvard again, to see if he had anything more to say, he did not.. Then I took the boat, and talked to the girl's mother, and she does not seem to have her kid back, and it appears I left her there to die?

Maybe I misunderstood something.. what did I do wrong? Shall I try again and delete my character or is there a bug?

edit: perhaps she was not in range or just on the bridge enough that it bothered the quest thingy... i dunno?

 

Same experience I had. Actions have consequences, sir.

 

Yes, but I was almost positive I had rescued her, but obviously I did not.. I was wondering what the trigger was, to ensure her safety? I did as Lum said, she disappeared after Edvard, but no good...

 

So there may be a bug here related to performance. As I mentioned above I found on my laptop that comments which happened at the same same time appeared in my chat log file but not in the game, that was on my relatively low powered laptop. When I tried to replicate on my much more powerful desktop PC I saw all chat messages and the quest worked perfectly, journal updated and everything. I will have to do some further testing.

 

I had many of these same issues. Also I crash when trying to take the boat to Soul Town Crash note 2.16-07-05-105030. I have started over six times and also reloaded the entire game once.
I am also having mouse issues. I loose the ability to see or use my mouse pointer unless I use a hot key such as "I" to turn inventory on then my mouse pointer reappears.
This is disappointing as I actually have some time to play a release this week but I think I am done with this one. Frustrating.
This is the first release where I have had problems like this. I would rather have a release delayed than be this glitchy.