Eye of the Beholder II question

[demoniac]

I'm asking this question for someone else. His question is:

On the last-but-one level of the South Talon Tower, you find a dying Cleric and
he's carrying a Stone Holy Symbol, the sort that unlocks a portal. There are a
Stone Dagger and a Stone Gem earlier in the game that work on three portals
(Dungeon Level 4, Temple Level 2, Darkmoon Tower Level 5 (Frost Giants)). On the
next level up is Dran himself. And you can't return to the previous level
either. There doesn't seem to be any portals around. What is the point of the
Stone Holy Symbol? Is it possible to hack a save game to give a character the
Stone Holy Symbol earlier in the game to see what it does? Or alter the position
of the party to a lower level after having found the Stone Holy Symbol?

I haven't played this game yet, even tho I have completed the first one. Thus, I didn't want to search the forums too much in case there are other spoilers. Thanks for any help.

[demoniac]

Is it possible to hack a save game to give a character the
Stone Holy Symbol earlier in the game to see what it does? Or alter the position
of the party to a lower level after having found the Stone Holy Symbol?

Looking at this issue more closely, I'll say "yes" to these 2 questions.

[Asterix]

hmm, quite some time since I last played it... but if I remember correctly the Stone Holy Symbol was used for teleporting in EOB 1 and if you transferred a party from there you could even have it from the beginning.

But I think it was useless anyway, there was only one usable Stone Symbol in EOB 2 (as far as i remember)

[Marcuz]

there were 3 portals that i remember, one in the catacombs, one in the first level up the stairs in the temple, and one in one of the towers. i don't remember if there was one last portal soon before the end-fight; i did hack the game to try the thing, but i don't remember what happens, probably nothing though. however, without hacking, the holy symbol, there in the last-1 level, is meant to be useless, like an eye candy.
it may be that it's a leftover from cut out designs. in the first eye of the beholder, in the first level, there is an unreachable and unfinished room with a portal, that doesn't leeds anywhere.

[demoniac]

Here are some more experimental results with the Stone Holy Symbol for EOBII.

I found out that the Stone Holy Symbol item appears as
different things on different maps: on the first level of the temple near
the doors, it appeared as an Arrow. On higher levels it appeared as a Glass
Firesphere. Interestingly, I did play through to the penultimate level with
one savegame, and the Firesphere did turn into the Holy Symbol on the
last-but-one level. I went back to another save and tried to get the item to work with a
portal, but nothing happened. I guess they must have removed the code--or
not written it in the first place.

[Marcuz]

i assume you mean that the hex code for it was used to make it appear on floor, am i right? i'm not sure how to however, i used hex codes directly on inventory, making the objects appear on the characters.
faulty objects anyway had bad effects on the game behaviour: they could crash the game, freeze the mouse or once picked up get undroppabe; they could become invisible on the inventory or, if swapped with another object, delete it or change it.
what's relevant to what you quote however is that if you dropped them on the floor, in additions to these and other illnesses, they could change type, becoming for instance the ones you refer. the same could happen when two sane objects sharing the same hex code were dropped together on the same floor.
about the stone symbol it's just faulty code or items not coded.
also if you import a EoB 1 savegame, all the stone activators are removed.

[keropi]

When I had my 386sx, and played EOBII to the end (it run like hell on my 386 with 2MB smartdive cache) I manually hacked a save game, using a HEX editor, the 1st character's inventory, and made a list with ALL the items of the game, would that be of interest?
the item is generated by two bytes, from 00 to FF , all combinations result to an item...

[Marcuz]

Originally Posted by keropi

When I had my 386sx, and played EOBII to the end (it run like hell on my 386 with 2MB smartdive cache) I manually hacked a save game, using a HEX editor, the 1st character's inventory, and made a list with ALL the items of the game, would that be of interest?
the item is generated by two bytes, from 00 to FF , all combinations result to an item...

i did that too: i believe that not all the items in amiga and pc version are alike. also the order of the hex couples are inverted: 1234 on amiga is 3421 on pc if i remember right.

[demoniac]

Originally Posted by marco pedrana

i assume you mean that the hex code for it was used to make it appear on floor, am i right?

No, that quoted text is from someone else who had me modify his savegame hex code to have the Holy Stone Symbol in his inventory. When he had the same item code, the item in his inventory changed between the levels.

Sure, the item list might of interest not just to me, but to others as well.

As for the little endian architecture, $1234 (big endian) would be $3412.

[Marcuz]

[QUOTE=demoniac]No, that quoted text is from someone else who had me modify his savegame hex code to have the Holy Stone Symbol in his inventory. When he had the same item code, the item in his inventory changed between the levels.

that clearify, thanks. i'll look for the codes, gamefaqs should have them, i have them on paper somewhere but it will be easier to find them there. gimme 5 minutes

[Marcuz]

pc versions (i'll look for the amiga ones later):

[demoniac]

Marco,

Thanks for combing thru gamefaqs. At a quick glance, it doesn't seem to correspond to the Amiga version. Here are my notes:

If you have a hexeditor, save file offset $F7 is Char 1 Slot 1. So open the save file
you want to modify that slot (it'll be $00 when empty), and then change it
to $DA. When you load the save game, it should have the Stone Holy Symbol.

[Marcuz]

i'll dig my notes... but i don't want to play it now i just tought you guys wanted them info
edit: also i fear i have put the Eye 1 codes while we ae talking about Eye 2

[demoniac]

Originally Posted by marco pedrana

i'll dig my notes... but i don't want to play it now i just tought you guys wanted them info
edit: also i fear i have put the Eye 1 codes while we ae talking about Eye 2

The PC EOBI codes also has EOBII codes on the bottom. Yeah, I know what you mean about replaying it. I still need to replay the first one.

[Dizzy]

I used the little program you could run to modify savegames (on the amiga) I think it also could change inventory, but not sure. I guess they made one for both EOB. Dont rember what it was called, and where I have it...