Sand Reef Quest Chest Bug

[UnholyWon]

In the sand reef quest, after defeating all the sand spiders and the sand spider queen I looted the chests.

The chests to the left against the shipwreck were stuck open, and when I looked in them, they were both empty.

The two chests to the right in the water were closed, and hand two items and some gold.

DangerousDan told me that this was likely a bug, and that I should leave a report on this.

Thanks.

-UnholyWon

P.S.

I have screen shots if needed.

[Germain]

I too had this happen in the past, and reported it to a DM (Johannes I believe, but I may be mistaken).  That DM told me it was a BioWare based bug.

[JackOfSwords]

The problem is usually the result of someone not "closing" the container after using it (for example, moving away while the inventory screen still has the container open.)  I -always- click on "Close" when I'm done with a container so that this won't happen.

That said, it will continue to be a problem, as many players are unaware that this happens, and others just don't care.  ("I got my loot, that's good enough for me.")

One thing the DM's can do to at least make it possible for one more person to get loot from the chest after it gets stuck open, is to make the chest breakable.  This was true in the "Narrow Tunnels" quest and "Rat Barricade" quest of old EfU, where people left open containers all the time.  Even though they would appear empty when you looked in them, once you smashed the bugged container to pieces it would drop loot.  Of course, there's no more container for the next person, so it really only helps the first person to discover that the container is buggy.  (Which is still one more person than if you couldn't break the container.)

(And remember!  Never drive with open containers!)

[adharmas]

Off-topic, but I used to play the NWN OC and leave containers open so I'd remember which ones I'd checked. And then there was a patch and the containers would always close again.

[Listen in Silence]

This is no bug limited to the sand reef, nor is it one that happens -every- time someone walks away from chests instead of clicking 'close'.

It has happened in all of the quests I have found so far.

[LackofCertainty]

A solution that my old server made was that when an area respawned, it'd destroy and respawn all of the chests.


It'd probably take a bit of work, but it could be done here too.  Set it so when someone accepts the quest it destroys and respawns all the containers in the quest area maybe?  The one thing is that implementing all of that might be more trouble than it's worth.

[JackOfSwords]

This is no bug limited to the sand reef, nor is it one that happens -every- time someone walks away from chests instead of clicking 'close'.

That is absolutely true.  Very sorry if my post suggested otherwise.  I shouldn't have used "walking away" as the example, since that is probably the least frequent cause.  (Though it does occur in that manner on occassion.)

It seems to happen MOST frequently when containers are close together, and a person clicks to open a new container without clicking "close" on an already-open container.  The chests on the reef quest are close together, as were the containers in the old "Narrow Tunnels" quest, and the "Rat Barricade" quest.

Again, a good habit is to click "close" on a container after viewing it's contents.  It will greatly reduce this bug from happening.

[Mechsword]

Nothing more then a stupid bio-ware bug due to their incompetence and general lack of care.  Then again, I haven't really heard much complaint about this, since this only seems to apply to trigger based loot respawn.

Basically, nothing can be done.