[T:DS] Lockpicking Bug

[Derpster]

In Deadly Shadows, some doors and locks are entirely unpickable. Garrett only stands there immobile (or fidgets slightly), but otherwise does not lockpick. The effect wears off after 4-5 seconds and he returns to normal, but otherwise freezes again when trying to pick the lock. Some locks work, but others do not. In some rare cases, the lockpicking UI actually responds after multiple tries, and I am able to pick the lock, but that moment only happened once in the Rutherford estate mission.

This is a serious bug for me since I cannot complete the mission where I am to steal the Chalice from the Hammerite cathedral; I am unable to pick either of the two front entrance doors.

I have reason to believe that my disc is the problem (it has lots of scratches on it due to many years of use), and re-installing/starting a new game has not solved the problem.

[theBlackman]

If you are referring to St. Edgars, you don't need to pick the locks to the front doors. You can simple enter the window to the left of your starting point, or steal the key from the guard who is wandering around in front.

Once you are inside the cathedral, you can go nearly any place without ever picking a lock.


How do you pick your locks.

You can use the keyboard arrows, and enter to speed a pick session.

Some of the locks need you to pick them at 45, 135, 225, and 315 degrees on the lock. They are not all 0,60,180,270 degrees on the lock.

Regular defragging can possibly help, as well as keeping your RAM usage to a minimum. THIEF (all versions) use a lot of Video ram and if you have shared RAM with the Vcard this can also cause momentary hangups. Thief is notorious for slow FPS and stuttering motion sometimes. This is mostly associated with not enough Vcard RAM or RAM in general.

[Derpster]

Ah, I see, thanks for the windows tip.

However, the lockpicking problem does not originate with my system itself. I have reason to believe that since my disc is scratched, it could possibly damaged the game itself while installing. The symptom of that being that while lockpicking, Garrett does not move, the game says he is holding "Nothing" in his hands, and the bottom-right lockpick circle does not appear, which is the primary annoyance.

It is because of this that I am unable to access certain loot in the beginning missions, when they are locked behind doors or chests, or a possible secondary access route is useless since the lockpicking for the door does not work.

[theBlackman]

You might look for another copy of the game. There is now a COMPLETE COLLECTION on DVD that has GOLD, TMA, TDS and is up to date and runs on XP and VISTA. Avoid the THIEF COLLECTION. It has TDP, TMA, and TDS but not GOLD.

The window is to your left on the building. There is a balcony and a pipe you need to mantle to.

Good luck with the chalice and with finding a better disc.

Have you tried DISC DOCTOR or one of the other "repair" CD systems? Many scratches can be polished out by one of these methods.

[Derpster]

I tried it again, borrowing my friend's v1.0 DS disc and patching it to 1.1 after installing. The problem still persists, even with a working copy, it seems.

I'm still trying to figure out what's causing the problem. Perhaps it's something with my mouse or keyboard? (Both are USB-based). Re-mapping the interact key from the mouse's right-click to a E-button on the keyboard didn't seem to resolve the problem, so I'm not entirely sure it's those components, either.

However, I did manage to get into St. Edgar's since the guard outside was carrying a key on his body.

The problems are heavily related to the following links:
http://forums.eidosgames.com/showthread.php?t=53072
http://forums.eidosgames.com/showthread.php?t=87362
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/thief3/show_msgs.php?topic_id=m-1-44432563&pid=528587

Note: All the fixes stated in the links do not work for me.

EDIT: This version has an apparent knack for crashing while saving. Happens often, but not enough to make it unplayable. The saves seem to have started working again for the time being.

UPDATE: Finished the Chalice mission, and am now on the Pagan one to obtain the Jacknall's Paw. Everything proceeded fine, until another incident appeared which had the same effect of the lockpicking: Garrett cannot climb ladders. Attempting to do so will have him stuck in a standing or running animation, whilst being frozen with the "Nothing" equipped text (the same effect of trying to lockpick). My guess is that some animations are missing? Either way, now I'm pretty much at a standstill in the game since the ladder is needed to access the next area.

And since I never put up my system specs, I suppose now's a good time:

Windows XP SP3
Core 2 Duo e7200
NVidia 8600 GTS
2 GB RAM

Also, I'm not sure if this really helps much, but I was just curious... since I looked inside the Data folder within System, and got this:

http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/8598/corruptr.jpg

And in response to this:

The game acts like some button is always pressed!

THIS IS COMMON WITH USB DEVICES, GAMEPADS, JOYSTICKS

Go into Device Manager and look under Human Interface Devices for two or more entries named USB Interface Device. What you want to do is double-click on each USB Interface Device entry; then look on the Properties tab and make sure that it says USB Gaming Keyboard next to Location.

After you’ve located the right entries, right-click on them (and only them) and select Disable from the pop-out menu, answering Yes to any prompts. One of the entries will not have Disable as an option when you right-click on it — that’s the one that obviously should be left as-is.

There's only 2 entries: one for my mouse, and one for my keyboard. So I'm having one of my most unusual technical dilemmas to date, and it isn't even being caused by one of my more strenuous games. Fun!
http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/1213/usbvf.jpg