Dungeon Siege II v2.2 Patch Released

Microsoft and Gas Powered Games have released a v2.2 patch for Dungeon Siege II, which addresses gameplay issues, network troubles, and a whole lot more. The entire readme file to follow:

This Readme file contains information on the Dungeon Siege II Patch, Versions 2.0 to 2.2, fixes, as well as troubleshooting information about Dungeon Siege II. You can find more information about Dungeon Siege II on the official web site at http://www.dungeonsiege.com.

Dungeon Siege II Patch 2.2 requires 2.5 Gigabytes of free hard drive space to install properly.

Contents

A. Gameplay
B. Network
C. Saving and Loading
D. Mod Support
E. Performance
F. Other
G. FAQs

A. Gameplay

– Fixed a primary blocking issue where the Azunite Scholar at the Dryad Exile Colony did not recognize task completion. Broken save games are now autocorrected at the encounter location; however, for each saved game in which you encountered this issue, you must speak to the scholar to activate the autocorrection.

– Fixed primary blocking issues where quest-giving party characters break quests when escaping from (Thanks for hiring me) conversation replies. Broken save games are now autocorrected upon reload of the game (i.e., Taar at the Great Hall, Vix at the forest cabin, and Finala at the Aman’lu bridge).

– Fixed a secondary blocking issue where Finala’s personal quest did not trigger the elevator after extended usage.

– Fixed an issue with characters not being sent to the Inn when their farewell conversation was skipped.

– Fixed a primary blocking issue where attempting activation of the Elen’Lu Prism by rapidly clicking while possessing multiple crystals did not work properly.

– Fixed a primary blocking issue where saving the game during Vai’Kesh Prophet movies didn’t work properly.

– Fixed a primary blocking issue concerning the disappearance of the Snowbrook Commander. Broken save games are now autocorrected upon reload of the game.

– Fixed a primary blocking issue with second Snowbrook dragon fight triggering. Broken save games are now autocorrected at the encounter location.

– Fixed a primary blocking issue with Agallan Trial elevators. Broken save games are now autocorrected at the encounter location.

– Fixed a primary blocking issue with save/load during the Valdis movie. Broken save games are now autocorrected at the encounter location.

B. Network

– Created a segmented file save system for GameSpy file size compatibility.

– Adjusted GameSpy vaulting protocols to compensate for party save files during loss of a connection.

– Corrected client query of games at a public IP regardless of the host reporting.

– Removed dpnsvr from the network configuration to fix multiplayer black screen freeze.

– Corrected the centering of icons and information in the Multiplayer screen.

C. Saving and Loading

– Increased Savegame backup redundancy to 5 instances.

– Adjusted extension naming from .ds2bak1 through .ds2bak5.

D. Mod Support

– Corrected CRC checking routines for mods.

– Adjusted mod header routine during loads.

– Fixed logging of content mismatches during game load.

– Added safety for UIPartyManager check for Null pointer.

– Fixed fc_actor code to properly identify file loading.

E. Performance

– Changed the ATI vendor setting of swapeffect_discard to false to support future card anti-aliasing routines.

– Corrected performance degradation when using TrueType fonts on item labels.

F. Other

– Fully activated GameSpy auto-patch technology for future releases.

– Added version reporting with user registration.

– Corrected offline user registration retries, and added email collection point to single-player mode.

G. FAQs

Q: Does the version 2.2 patch incorporate the version 2.1 patch?
A: Yes, it does. The Retail-version disk installs version 2.0 of the game. The version 2.2 patch will update either a version 2.0 or 2.1 game to version 2.2.

Q: If I drop items, will they still be there later?
A: No. Dropped items will disappear if you leave the area. You have three choices:

The big chest that sits next to the teleporters in each town is a safe place to store things.

You can take items to store vendors and sell them to free up space and get some cash.

You can use the Transmute spell on items on the ground to convert them immediately to cash. To do so, cast the Transmute spell, and then left-click an item on the ground. All items in the vicinity (except potions and scrolls) will be converted, so be sure to pick up anything you want first.

Q: Does money take up inventory slots or impact how much you can carry or your fighting ability?
A: No. Unlike some other role-playing games, money has no physical weight in Dungeon Siege II.

Q: I’ve lost Drevin’s medal. Can I get it back?
A: Don’t worry, you can’t really lose it. It isn’t in your inventory it’s in your Journal and won’t be removed. It does get removed while you are in prison, but it is eventually returned. Once returned, you’ll never lose it. Note: Don’t confuse Drevin’s medal with the Hero’s medallion they’re two different things.

Q: I’ve lost the Family Heirloom that I recovered. Is it gone forever?
A: No, you should be able to go back to where you found it and find it again.

Q: Is the only way to get back to the safety of a town to find a teleporter?
A: There is another way. One of the first things you get from the Jail Warden (after the tutorial) is the Teleport spell. You can cast this almost anywhere except in a town itself. This generates a temporary portal: Click the icon above it to teleport to the closest town. The portal will stay open until you return via the portal; you can use the town teleport to go elsewhere or even walk all the way back to the portal and it will still be there. It’s also an ideal escape route if things get nasty.
Note: The teleport will not continue to exist if you exit the game back to the Main Menu. Only discovered teleports are recorded.

Q: What happened to all the Act 1 teleport locations? I’m in Act 2, and they’re all gone!
A: Hopefully not! Each town teleporter retains all the locations you’ve (unlocked) plus the locations of any town you’ve been to. So, for example, the Act 1 town’s teleporter should still have all the Act 1 locations and the location of the Act 2 town, the Act 2 town’s teleporter should still have all the Act 2 locations plus the location of the Act 1 town, and so on. One benefit of this system is to avoid having a massive list of teleport locations to scroll through (especially because Dungeon Siege II has three acts).

Q: Can I reposition the characters in my party?
A: Absolutely. Hold down the left mouse button on a character thumbnail picture, and the picture eventually turns green. You can now, with the left mouse button still held down, slide the character up or down.

Q: When unconscious, why do the party characters not revive as soon as their icons are no longer red?
A: If that were to happen, one hit would knock them unconscious again. Instead, the game waits until their health is about 40% regenerated before allowing them to awaken. The effects of drinking a healing potion prior to being knocked unconscious can speed up this healing rate.

Q: Can’t I select the active attack (for weapons or spells) like I could in the original Dungeon Siege?
A: That same control scheme isn’t available in Dungeon Siege II. You can emulate that part of the original Dungeon Siege controls, however, via hotkeys. Currently, F7 through F12 are assigned to the Recall Party Equip settings, while CTRL+F7 through CTRL+F12 are assigned to the Save Party Equip settings.

If you configure the party’s active attacks, then press one of the Save Party Equip hotkeys to recall that setting whenever you want with the Recall equivalent. Think of it as a snapshot of the party’s settings: If you recorded with CTRL+F7, then pressing F7 will recall those settings for the party. Note that this recording/recalling will affect all party members, not just the selected party member.

Q: Isn’t there a key to both buy an item in a store and put it in my inventory?
A: Yes, there is. Just as in the original Dungeon Siege, when you’re at a store left-clicking while holding down CTRL you will both buy the item clicked and put it into the character’s inventory.

Q: Can I move my saved games to another computer?
A: Yes. Browse to My ComputerMy GamesDungeon Siege 2SavesSinglePlayer and find the folder with your character’s name. Copy that folder to the same location on the other computer (if the location doesn’t exist, start the game and make a temporary character to create the location).

Q: How do I pick up a cage fragment?
A: If you can’t click one to pick it up, try using the Z key to pick it up. The Z key tells the party to pick up all items on the ground.

Q: Are the shrines broken? They only let me chant once.
A: The incantation shrines are designed so that they have to be recharged after being used. This is a rather slow recharge, so you may not be able to use them for awhile.

Q: Why do my pet’s damage points go down as it matures?
A: Normally, the attack damage goes up for each maturity level; however, if your pet gets an area attack, the damage points per attacker go down but the total can still end up being greater if the number of attackers in the area is greater than 1.

Q: Why can’t I just hold a mouse button down and have my party move to the cursor?
A: Mouse button? No, but there is a way using a key. Go to the Options screen, click on the Input tab and then the Hotkeys button. Scroll down and you’ll find a Move command. Assign it to a key. Now, when you hold the key down, the party will move to wherever the cursor is moved to.

Q: Is there any way of telling the NPCs in my party not to follow me.
A: Only with a hotkey, not with the mouse. You need to activate the Wait command. Go to the Options screen, click the Input tab and then the Hotkeys button, and then scroll down until you find Party Orders Wait. Assign it to a key. Now, when that key is pressed, the unselected party members will stay where they are, while the selected character can roam around.

Q: Is there any way to have all the party members attack the same enemy I’m attacking?
A: Yes. In Mirror mode (hotkey F), the group walks in a tighter formation and all members attack the same enemy the one you click. In Rampage mode (hotkey G), the party is more freeform, walking more spaced out and attacking the targets each NPC feels is best to confront; these attacks will start as soon as targets are in range.

Q: Is there a way of controlling each party member individually?
A: In a way. Unlike in Mirror mode (hotkey F), in Rampage mode (hotkey G) the party is more freeform and walking more spaced out, so NPCs can be more individually controlled without the entire party moving with the selected character. Each character can also target different enemies (Mirror mode has everyone targeting the same enemy). The Regroup command (hotkey R) is useful to get the party back to the same area, too.

Q: What if I don’t want the NPCs to attack unless I’m attacked?
A: For that, there’s Defend mode. Go to the Options screen, click the Input tab and then the Hotkeys button, and then scroll down until you find a Party Orders: Defend field. Assign it to a key. Now, when that key is pressed, the unselected party members will let the selected character travel a bit ahead at first and will only attack enemies that first attack any member of the party.

Q: What video resolutions are supported by the game?
A: Resolution can be changed going to the Options screen, clicking the Video tab, and then selecting one of the following resolutions:

800×600
1024×768
1280×1024

Although not officially supported, you can also force the screen to other resolutions. This can be done by adding the width= and height= to the command line for the Dungeon Siege II shortcut Target field. For example:

(C:\Program FilesDungeonSeige 2DungeonSiege2.exe) width=1290 height=1024

Q: When playing multiplayer, why do we always start in prison? We saved our characters.
A: All players can save their character’s status, but that doesn’t save the status of the world during the current session. The host has the ability, in the ESC menu, to also save the world session (and also to spawn that information to all the clients, too), so he or she can be the host next time, if need be.

Q: What multiplayer modes are in Dungeon Siege II?
A: Only cooperative play. There is no PvP mode.

Q: Why can’t I override the in-game movies?
A: Timing. It’s to ensure everyone continues on at the same time.

Q: How come I can’t see the multiplayer game my friend is hosting?
A: One of two reasons is the most likely explanation. Your friend may have a different version of the game. For example, if you have version 2.0, you cannot see games run by people with version 2.1. Secondly, try clicking the Search button to refresh the Game List. Note: LAN games may take up to 75 seconds to appear in the Game List.

Q: I’d like to change the name of my character. Can I?
A: Dungeon Siege II does not ship with any way to change a character’s name once you create it. There may be mods available that allow it.

Q: How can I take screenshots of the game?
A: If you press the PrtScn key on your keyboard, a screenshot will be saved in the My DocumentsMy GamesDungeon Siege 2Screenshots folder. If you press CTRL+PrtScn, the screenshot will not have the interface on it.

Q: Is there any way of opening all the party’s inventory at the same time? I hate searching through all of them.
A: Yes, press the V key.

Q: Can I remove blood and gore from the game?
A: The game does not ship with any way of removing blood. It is possible to minimize the amount of (chunks) also known as gibs or body parts by using a cheat. To use the cheat, press the ENTER key while in the game and type +extracreamy and then press ENTER again (maybe twice, or until the window closes). This should greatly reduce the (chunky-ness) of the destroyed enemies.

Q: I have a dead party member, but the necromancers next to the teleports won’t resurrect him, claiming there’s no corpse. Why not?
A: The necromancers are for when the entire party is dead. All you need to resurrect a dead party member is a Resurrection scroll. These can be purchased from the magic vendors with the red health vial icon over their head. The scrolls are very inexpensive but are one-use scrolls. Also, anyone in the party can cast them, even melee characters. To use the scroll, put it in the active spells section of your scroll book, activate it, and then click the corpse. The dead character should be revived, with a good percentage of health and all of his items intact.

Q: How can I tell what version of Dungeon Siege II I have?
A: When you start the game and get to the Main Menu, the version number is shown in the lower-left corner.

Q: What does the version 2.1 patch for Dungeon Siege II do?
A: Its only value is to help prevent certain savegame corruptions when playing in Gamespy.

Q: Does the version 2.2 patch incorporate the version 2.1 patch?
A: Yes, it does. The Retail-version disk installs version 2.0 of the game. The version 2.2 patch will update either a version 2.0 or 2.1 game to version 2.2.

Q: How come I can get multiple versions of unique or rare items?
A: Unique/Rare does not mean one of a kind, at least not in Dungeon Siege II.

Q: What happened to the item labels? There used to be text on items that are on the ground but now they’re gone.
A: These can be turned off, which is what probably happened. You can turn them on or off two ways. Press the L key, or click the small square paper icon in the lower-left of the screen, just to the left of the Powers buttons.

Q: Is there any way to have the NPC names show up by the characters in single-player mode, like they do in multiplayer?
A: Yes, press the Y key

Q: I wish the health/mana bars could appear in the world view, by the party characters themselves. Is this possible?
A: Yes, press the U key.

Q: The back of the manual refers to keys to change the game’s speed, but they don’t seem to work. What’s wrong?
A: Unfortunately, between the time the manual went to print and the game being accepted as final, problems were discovered with changing the game’s speed. To prevent player problems with these issues, the keys were disabled.

Q: How do I drop gold?
A: Open up any character’s inventory and click on the chest in the upper part of the screen.

Q: Can I turn off buff spells that are active?
A: Yes, on a character-by-character basis. Open the character’s inventory, and then click on the VIEW button. You’ll now see an image of the character (with all their equipped items on the left side of this window are icons for each of their buffs. Right-click on the buff you want to remove.

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