Fixed Artois Voysey Quest - Dialog Issues

[Kevin the Seasick]

Hello,

I've encountered some odd dialog behavior with the Artois Voysey Quest. Everything ran smoothly, I got the treasure, and now I'm just trying to finish the quest with the Port Royale church donation. However, neither Father Bernard nor Father Gareth will speak with me at all. No dialog box. Pressing space bar does nothing. Trying to talk to them through the command menu does nothing. They just stand there.

I've had no problems with them before. I completed the Help the Church quest and just recently received the letter from Father Bernard to take to San Juan as part of the Strange Things quest. I've tried reloading from a point before retrieving the treasure and going to Port Royale first instead, but I get the same result: they won't talk to me.

Also, Artois Voysey had no dialog issues before obtaining the treasure. Now when I try to talk to him, I just get an empty dialog box with no words whatsoever. All I can do is press space bar to get out of it.

The other officers in my party have no dialog issues, and I am able to talk to other townsfolk.

I'm not sure if this is a bug unique to me, but if there's a fix, I'd sure love the help as I'd like to complete this quest in the "good" manner. Just fyi, the quest does indeed close the "bad" way if I wait 30 days, so at least that part works, but that's not going to do it for me. Anyway, here are the logs and savegame, though no error log generated though I do have logging enabled.

Thanks!

 

[Kevin the Seasick]

Ah. I forgot an important detail. I'm currently playing Build 14 Beta 3.1 6 December 2013. Story line is Tales of a Sea Hawk. I won't be upgrading to 3.2 until I've finished my current game, if possible.

 

[Nightmare]

what version are you on

EDIT NEVER MIND

 

[Grey Roger]

Then I should be able to help you as I'm currently playing 3.1. However, I don't understand the problem. I never heard of any donation - for me, the Artois Voysey quest finished when I visited the shipwreck behind the Bonaire waterfall and collected the treasure.

If you've received the letter to take to Padre Domingues then Father Gareth should have talked to you and told you about men in red cassocks. After that, his dialog file contains nothing for him to say until rather later in the "Strange Things" quest, so I wouldn't expect him to say anything more. It may be that Father Bernard will also not say anything more to you until you have delivered the letter.

There used to be a problem with Artois Voysey in that, if you talked to him after you'd completed his quest, he'd say something which could restart the quest. Have a look at this:
http://www.piratesahoy.net/threads/artois-voysey.21968/

I'll take a look at your saved game, though it may be a while before I can report back on what I find with it...

 

[Kevin the Seasick]

I actually came across that thread in my search for an answer, but I don't seem to be having that problem. Note that I tried speaking with Father Bernard before I "spoke" with Artois.

As for the donation part, Artois tells you, in addition to the location of the secret treasure, that he promised to donate 4000 to the church in Port Royale, and he asks you to do so to which you can respond. Then, you're supposed to get the treasure from Bonaire and then sail to Port Royale to make the donation within 1 month. If you choose to donate, the quest closes and you are assured a place in Heaven (no, not really). If you choose not to, or don't do so within a month, the quest closes and you lose reputation. In the coding, these are respectively listed as the "good" and "bad" ways to close the quest. You may not recall the donation, but if you check the completed quest in your game, the last line will likely say something like "I'm not giving my money away to the church." I could see this being easy to miss. I mean... who cares about rep points and a measly donation? Well, this guy here who likes to complete quests as the nicest and thus worst pirate ever.

Also, you mentioned that Father Bernard might say something after delivering the letter. I had that same thought, but when I get back, he and Gareth are still mute statues. I prefer talking statues. Do you know if Bernard and/or Gareth are involved in any other quests or the main quest besides those I've already mentioned? If I needn't talk to them again, I suppose I can deal with what I deem a slightly failed quest. The odd thing though is that they should at least have the standard father dialogs available such as the other fathers, i.e. asking how your soul is and nudging you for a donation. The quest dialog had always been in addition to that until now.

Anyway, I appreciate a look when you or anyone else can. Thanks!

 

[Grey Roger]

Looking through the walkthrough, I think I see what I've done "wrong". When you rescue Artois Voysey outside Sao Jorge, you can either let him keep his secret or demand he tells you what he knows. You presumably did the former, which leads to him being shot, you pay for him to be healed, then he asks you to make the donation. Whereas I demand to know about the treasure, unwittingly saving him from being shot, and incidentally also saving me his doctor's fee as well as not leading to him mentioning a donation.

I'm surprised Father Bernard doesn't give the usual choices if you talk to him while the quest to deliver the letter is still open. He certainly ought to have something to say later in the "Strange Happenings" quest, but first you need to deliver the letter to Padre Domingues, who may have another job or two for you... As I said, Father Gareth's dialog file contains nothing except specific quest-related messages, and you're not due to get the next one of those for some time. He won't give the normal priestly topics of conversation.

And now I begin to wonder whether the whole path of letting Artois Voysey keep his secret, get shot, and ask you to donate to the church, may have triggered a bug in Father Bernard's dialog. Because I've never gone that way and have never had a problem with Father Bernard. The real proof will be what happens after you've delivered the letter and done all that Padre Domingues asks.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Wow! I never knew of that alternate storyline with Artois getting shot either.

All I can add at this point is that if several quests are going on at the same time it is common for the dialogs to get confused so that the dialogs for one quest ends up in another one.

 

[Grey Roger]

I wouldn't go so far as to say it's common. The "Virgilia Mendes" side quest is certainly very vulnerable, with Mendes liable to fail to turn up if you progress another quest at the same time. Other than that, I've had the main quest, "Strange Happenings", "Hard Labours of an Assassin" and several lesser side quests all active at once without any trouble. (Then again, I never told Voysey to keep his secret because I thought he would keep his secret and I'd never get my fingers on the treasure!)

 

[Hylie Pistof]

I often have crossover between the main quest and "strange happenings". When that happens I advance one for a while to separate them.

Yes Vigila Mendez is touchy and fails for me as often as it succeeds whether I do anything else or not.

EDIT: This got me to do Vigila Mendes just now and so far I have failed to get him to Martinique 2 times. I have no other quests going on either.

 

[Kevin the Seasick]

The real proof will be what happens after you've delivered the letter and done all that Padre Domingues asks.

This fills me with a sense of dread. I can see myself going through a bunch of quests and getting back to Father Bernard just to encounter his vow of silence once more. Since I run multiple quests at the same time like you guys - and I'll be mindful of that Vigila Mendez quest - it'll likely be awhile before I do the padre's quests since I juggle my quests according to location, which could thus be something that sets me back quite a bit by the time I get back to Father Bernard. Orrr, I could just use some common sense and run through the padre's quests exclusively as a test run to see what happens with Bernard and Gareth then. I'll get back to you!

This is all my fault, really. "I have a secret that could lead to a lot of booty." "No, don't tell me! I want you to get shot so I can sit at your bedside for two weeks instead!" (Seriously, the doc has you sit with him for two weeks like a coddling mother.)

 

[Kevin the Seasick]

I completed the missions at San Juan and went back to Port Royale, and both fathers spoke to me as they should've. Afterwards, standard father dialog options were open once more. I'm stoked about that since it's quite a fun quest, and I can now move on.

However, it still stands that there is a bug - or whatever is proper to call it - with the Artois Voysey quest (see OP). It seems the only way to complete it "bug-free" is by forcing him to tell you the secret and thus avoiding the donation matter. This limits the quest to only one option which, obviously, was not how it was intended. The quest moved from active to completed after the 30-day window, so at least it doesn't stay with me, and it is a truly minor matter that I end up not being able to fulfill my promise to Artois (as it likes to rub in my face in the quest script!). I just want to state these things, though, since to me it's still a bug. Also, Artois still doesn't have anything in his dialog window when I talk to him. Again, I could care less about that since we've nothing to talk about anyway, but I'm just reporting it.

That said, I'm happy to continue on with this game that still manages to surprise me and will likely cause me to drop out of grad school! Thanks guys! You've helped me with a couple other problems I had in the past as well! And you've been spared many a post from me since I can usually find an answer in threads that include Hylie, Grey, Nightmare, Davy, and Pieter. Love the support here!

 

[Grey Roger]

I've done a bit of experimenting with an old savegame from just before I went to Port Royale to complete the "Help the Church" quest and get the letter for San Juan. After I get the letter, I can't talk to Father Bernard either. I tried delivering the letter and then, ignoring what Padre Domingues said, returned to Port Royale, where Father Bernard still wouldn't talk. That savegame is from a campaign which has since advanced a lot, including completion of "Strange Happenings". So I conclude:

1: Father Bernard going silent after you take the letter isn't a bug, it's normal. (Possibly to fix some other bug?)
2: He won't speak again until after you've done the jobs for Padre Domingues.
3: If you've chosen to respect Artois Voysey's secret then you must donate to the church before you take the letter. It should be possible to speak to Father Bernard, say "I need to talk to you", make the donation, then talk to him again and report completion of "Help the Church".

If you also have a savegame from before you were given the letter, try loading that and see if you can make the donation first. (Having made a lot of progress since then, you may not want to rewind your game back that far, but it's still worth trying as an experiment before you resume the game from your latest saved point.)

After completing the "Artois Voysey" quest, Voysey may go silent as part of a fix for another bug. It used to be that if you talked to him, he'd re-open the quest.

There are a couple of other pitfalls with "Strange Happenings". Once Padre Domingues has been kidnapped, you won't progress beyond a certain point in the main quest because you need to talk to him, which won't happen if he's in the Animists' dungeon. You have to complete the whole "Strange Happenings" quest before you can advance the main quest beyond this point. Worse is if you do them the other way round because there's a point in the main quest where you kill the Bridgetown prison commander, which means he won't be available if you still need to talk to him as part of "Strange Happenings".

@Hylie Pistof: strange that Virgilia Mendes is giving you trouble even if you have nothing else going on. Since realising that going to Nevis to "Help the Lady" or going to Barbados to get the Montanez reliably fouls up his quest, I just go to St. Pierre, return to San Juan, do nothing to any other quest, and he's always shown up. Mind you, I've only done it twice under Build 14 - once when I was playing "Tales of a Sea Hawk" under Beta 3, and more recently during my re-run of the same story under Beta 3.1.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

If I do VM very early in the game he usually works fine, but this time I have completed the main quest and most of the side quests plus I have three ships. The next time I try him I will berth 2 ships and see if that works.

 

[Kevin the Seasick]

So I conclude:

1: Father Bernard going silent after you take the letter isn't a bug, it's normal. (Possibly to fix some other bug?)
2: He won't speak again until after you've done the jobs for Padre Domingues.
3: If you've chosen to respect Artois Voysey's secret then you must donate to the church before you take the letter. It should be possible to speak to Father Bernard, say "I need to talk to you", make the donation, then talk to him again and report completion of "Help the Church".

Sounds logical to me. Nicely concluded. However, it'd be cool if a nice short statement of this could be included in the wiki walk-through, if possible, which generally does a fantastic job of warning you about such things. This could mitigate any frustration for future players by either guiding them through the "proper" order before the fact or by helping them to understand what they did "wrong" after the fact and be able to trace back a bit to run the steps in the "right" order, if need be. Or they can just search for the problem and now have this thread to refer to.

If you also have a savegame from before you were given the letter, try loading that and see if you can make the donation first. (Having made a lot of progress since then, you may not want to rewind your game back that far, but it's still worth trying as an experiment before you resume the game from your latest saved point.)

I may have such a savegame available if I haven't overwritten it already (gotta save a LOT in this game!). I've moved on considerably, but, as you say, it could be worth experimentation.

There are a couple of other pitfalls with "Strange Happenings". Once Padre Domingues has been kidnapped, you won't progress beyond a certain point in the main quest because you need to talk to him, which won't happen if he's in the Animists' dungeon. You have to complete the whole "Strange Happenings" quest before you can advance the main quest beyond this point. Worse is if you do them the other way round because there's a point in the main quest where you kill the Bridgetown prison commander, which means he won't be available if you still need to talk to him as part of "Strange Happenings".

This is VERY good to know! I tend to complete side quests rather piecemeal as I proceed along certain routes and island hop. Seems I should perhaps go ahead and just see "Strange Happenings" through to its entirety since I just recently started focusing quite heavily on the main quest. As it stands now, Padre Domingues is still kidnapped, so off I go to rescue him!

@Hylie Pistof: strange that Virgilia Mendes is giving you trouble even if you have nothing else going on. Since realising that going to Nevis to "Help the Lady" or going to Barbados to get the Montanez reliably fouls up his quest, I just go to St. Pierre, return to San Juan, do nothing to any other quest, and he's always shown up. Mind you, I've only done it twice under Build 14 - once when I was playing "Tales of a Sea Hawk" under Beta 3, and more recently during my re-run of the same story under Beta 3.1.

I was just on my way to San Juan for the first time to begin the myriad of quests therein. So, this is extremely helpful to know! Good on ye, mates!

 

[Kevin the Seasick]

Luck would have it that I had a savegame right at the entrance of Nevis before saving Artois Voysey, and right before I delivered the forged documents to Father Bernard to complete the Help the Church quest. So, of course, I held off on completing Help the Church.

I went through the Artois Voysey quest and went the same route as before, resulting in the need to donate to the Port Royale church. Sure enough, as you surmised, I was able to donate. I was right at the end of the Help the Church quest, so I was worried he'd only ask about that. But I had both options, and I was able to complete both the Artois Voysey and Help the Church quests, as well as start the next part of Strange Happenings.

It's good to know there's a workaround. I'd just like to reiterate that a brief warning should be added to both quests about the order of completion. This may not help most of us who don't use a walk-through as we're going along, but for those of us who refer to it when stuck, such warnings prevent quick reference and an easy fix. This was especially the case for me on Saint Pierre, where I screwed up but was able to refer to the guide and saw big bolded warnings that saved me some serious time! This is simply a suggestion, of course. We'll all make due either way.

Anyway, whomever changes the labels to these "bug" threads, you can chalk this up as "fixed!" Thanks, Grey Roger!

 

[Grey Roger]

This is VERY good to know! I tend to complete side quests rather piecemeal as I proceed along certain routes and island hop. Seems I should perhaps go ahead and just see "Strange Happenings" through to its entirety since I just recently started focusing quite heavily on the main quest. As it stands now, Padre Domingues is still kidnapped, so off I go to rescue him!

It occurs to me that this is a useful safety mechanism. Once Padre Domingues has been kidnapped, you can continue with the main quest as well as the "Strange Happenings" quest, but you can't get to the point in the main quest where you need to kill the Bridgetown prison commander. That comes after you need to talk to Padre Domingues, which won't happen until you've rescued him. And that means the Bridgetown prison commander will definitely be there when you need to talk to him during "Strange Happenings". Only if you've gone too far ahead with the main quest before the kidnap is it possible to kill him before you need to talk to him.

The walkthroughs would probably get very complicated and hard to read if they included warnings about every possible way in which events in one quest could foul up another quest. Instead, they tend to focus on one specific quest at a time, and if you do likewise then you should be safe. Of course, that does drag the game out a bit and you would need to resist the temptation to follow every lead as you find it, which I can't.

Lots of savegames are definitely a good idea. I tend to save game before leaving any port, and that savegame is not overwritten until I'm about to leave the same port again. If something then goes wrong with a quest, I can usually go back one or two places and try again without losing too much progress. It just so happened that when I was ready to go to Port Royale to report completion of "Help the Church", I also had an escort mission to Santiago, which I did first, and then saved game at Santiago as usual. Since I've had no reason to go to Santiago again, that has never been overwritten, which is how I was able to do my experiments.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Don't have time to read all the above. Are there still any issues here I should be aware of?

 

[Kevin the Seasick]

No issues to concern you, Pieter. We've worked it out. Thanks for checking, though!