For about the past 4 hours, I've been experimenting with many of my savegames that I made before and after the map reset problem occurred for me, and, although I don't know what the root cause was or a way to really fix it, I have been able to work around it somewhat. Before I get into it, note that every time I closed <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/div.gif" alt="" />, I emptied the Dynamic folder. I have no idea if that had any bearing on my results, but I figured that it wouldn't hurt to do, so that's what I did. Here are my conclusions, reached purely through trial and error:
After having applied the patch, for some unknown reason, <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/div.gif" alt="" /> apparently failed to save certain information in files when I saved my game. These save files that should have been created are the ones that store specific map information. For me, they were: extfree.x1, extfree.x2, mapv.1, mapv.2, objects.x1, objects.x2, shroud.x1, shroud.x2 world.x1, and world.x2. All of the files with a "1" in their extensions seem to relate to Verdistis, while the ones with a "2" in their extensions seem to relate to the Dark Forest (including the Dwarven Halls). These files store things like where the shroud is, what loot is on the map, what the automap looks like, and what doors are locked/unlocked, probably among other things. Whenever I loaded one of my savegames that was missing these files, I would find that everything on that particular map had been reset as though I had never even been there. I concluded that <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/div.gif" alt="" /> was creating default versions of these files because it found no existing ones in the savegame. In other words, because <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/div.gif" alt="" /> hadn't saved my progress in the Dark Forest by creating the files with "1" in their extensions or my progress in Verdistis by creating the files with "2"s in their extensions, <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/div.gif" alt="" /> assumed that I had never been to those respective locations before.
To get my former progress in the Dark Forest and Verdistis back, I copied all of the files that I listed above (the "1"s and the "2"s) from my most recent savegame
before the map reset into my most recent savegame
before going to the Council of Seven with Zandalor. I now have all of my progress that I had made in the Dark Forest and in Verdistis, but I have yet not visited the Council of Seven, so that when I do go there, it will be black as it should be. I'm sure there are files that store all of the information on the Council of Seven just as there are files that store the Dark Forest and Verdistis information, but I just don't know what they are. If these files were known, then it would be possible to copy them from a savegame after the player had visited the council, and before the game maps were reset into a game in which the player had already visited the council.
That all likely sounded pretty confusing to some/most/all people, but the point is that it's possible to manually reconstruct a savegame that has no reset maps at the cost of any progress that was made after visiting the Council of Seven. I've done it. Remember, though, that I have hardly tested my newly-built savegame yet, so my meddling could have unforeseen consequences down the road. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/think.gif" alt="" /> Any questions/comments? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/think.gif" alt="" />
