How do I take the paladin route? x_x

[Guest Sherry]

Okay, so Valen and Brus already told me to go meet with their respective masters and I already turned down Bodhi. I got the cutscene in the government district, but how long do I have to wait for the actual quest? Or is there someone I need to talk to that I didn't see?

[berelinde]

A messenger will show up 10 minutes after you see the cutscene in the Government District. He'll tell you that Sir Aster wants to see you and that she can be found on the second floor of the Five Flagons.

[Guest Sherry]

That's 10 minutes excluding time spent in dungeons right? xD Cause I'm just dungeon hopping all over the place.

[berelinde]

When you get out of the dungeon, he'll probably show up. He's not going to track you through the sewers.

[Guest Sherry]

I just exited the dungeon but he's not there. Ah well. I can just CLUA him in right? It won't mess anything up? xP

[berelinde]

It's possible that he spawned while you were about to enter a dungeon or something and you just missed him. The conditions for him to spawn are that you have to be outdoors in a city. So if you're at the D'Arnise Keep, he won't spawn, or if you're in the Umar Hills, he won't spawn, or anywhere else that isn't Trademeet or Athkatla.

 

If he did spawn and he's somewhere in the game world, it's possible that he'll walk up to you and you'll get a "NPC has nothing to say to you" message, but that's the worst of it.

 

What you need to do:

 

Open the console and enter this:

 

CLUAConsole:GetGlobal("B!Alternatives","GLOBAL")

 

If the value is 3, the messenger has spawned somewhere, but that's no big deal because you're going to spawn him again. If the value is 2, the messenger has not spawned yet.

 

If the value is *not* 3, open the console again and type this in

 

CLUAConsole"SetGlobal("B!GavAlternatives","GLOBAL",3)

 

And then open it a third time and type in

 

CLUAConsole:CreateCreature("b!altmsg")

[Guest Sherry]

It WAS set to 3. Summoned Alten and everything's running smoothly now. Thanks!

[berelinde]

Yeah, he probably spawned while you were busily running off somewhere and you just missed him. It's rare, but it happens.

[BelgarathMTH]

Yeah, he probably spawned while you were busily running off somewhere and you just missed him. It's rare, but it happens.

 

This problem just happened to me in my current BG2 runthrough. How do I open the console?

 

I know the messenger spawned because I can see the "=3" in Shadowkeeper. He never came and spoke to us, though; I guess we were moving too fast and the Promenade was too crowded.

 

I tried returning to the Promenade, but no dice.

 

EDIT: Okay, I found out how to hack the .ini file and open the console, but no matter what I did trying to follow the instructions in this thread, I just kept getting errors, so that whole thing didn't help me.

 

However, I tried going into Shadowkeeper and resetting the B!Alternatives to =2, then when I restarted my game, voila, the messenger spawned.

 

So, if anyone else has this trouble, Shadowkeeper is a very easy way to fix the problem.

[berelinde]

I hope that you've either got Windows XP or that you have installed your game in some directory other than Program Files. If you've got Vista or Windows 7 and chose the default intallation option, Program Files, you may be out of luck.

 

If you do have XP or a non-Program Files installation, you should open up your game directory and look for the file baldur.ini. You can open it with any text editor, like Notepad. Your first line will be [Program Options]. Make it look like this.

 

[Program Options]

Debug Mode=1

Cheats=1

(leave the rest as it is)

 

Save it.

 

Now fire up your game, pause the game, and hold down the CTRL key and hit the SPACE BAR. You should see a little window open up at the bottom of the screen. That's where you type in

 

CLUAConsole:CreateCreature("b!altmsg")

 

Hit enter twice. You should see someone appear right next to you. Stand still and he will talk to you.

 

The problem is that you are capable of moving at a much faster speed than he is. If you're running away from him at the time, you're going to miss him.

 

When you go to see Aster, make sure that you've got 15K gold on you. There's something that I need to fix if the player has <15K and returns later, but time is scarce right now.

 

(As a note to myself, I'm going to be updating this soon to get rid of issues that arise if the player goes to see Aster with less than 15K gold. When I do so, use StartDialogue("b!altmsg",Player1) rather than SDNS(). That way, conversation can happen from the other side of the area, so no more losing the messenger. Unless the messenger spawns at the instant the player is changing areas. How often can that happen?)