Please read: A very serious bug in Gothic 3 you should be aware of..
 

Here it is:
After patching the game, when you reload the game near certain quest objectives, that particular quest objective might just vanish. Examples of things that vanish are:
- Minecrawler in the first rebel camp(part of the quest line there)
- Wild Boars behind the rebel camp(the aggressive boar quest)
- The bandit leader near the starting place
- Zuben, leader of the Hashishi(part of the main quest)
- Xardas, part of the main quest

This bug will completely ruin the main story if it happens to make the right character dissappear. In my game, with my lvl 56 fighter/mage, it made both Xardas and Zuben magically vanish forever, and so I can't complete the game.

I hope PB will fix this in the next patch, so the characters re-appear, but untill then, I figured I should warn you lads so you never actually load or re-load a game near Ishtar or Xardas' Tower. That way you should avoid the bug.

A simple way to test if the bug is present is to start a new game, run directly to the aggressive wild boars near the rebel camp, quicksave, and then quickload. If they are gone, you will probably never get the bug. If they are gone.. well.. pray that PB fixes it before it ruins your game at level 50+.

I posted this in case any of you ever experience certain people or quest objectives dissappearing. Now you know why. :)

I'll post this on RPGdot as well.

Thanks for the heads up, Maylander. I have been lucky so far and have not gotten into the right circumstances to tirigger the bug. I will be extra careful now.

Well i've been unable to complete the clearing of the rebel base cave and there's no sign of the bandit leader :(

It's really quite annoying… I think i'm gonna stop playing now and wait for the next patch in case i have to start over again.

A possible way to track down missing NPCs is to enter Marvin mode by changing the entry [Game] TestMode=false to TestMode=true in the g3e.ini. Then bring down the console in-game by pressing the '~' key and enter "goto [NPCName]" (e.g. goto Xardas).
Since NPCs fall through the world, it might teleport you into the endless void of bugginess as well, but if that happens, then just type the name of an NPC who you know is still there in the "real" world and you should be able to return.

Edit: Locations seem to work as well so -say- you're missing Xardas in your game, then you can type 'goto Xardas' and when you're successful with that command 'goto Monastery' to return to the Nordmar monastery or 'goto [CityName]' etc.

ShadowMoses - that is the bug I'm talking about then.
Moriendor - interesting, I will take some time tomorrow and run a few tests whether this bug can be avoided by using marvin. It probably won't spawn the minecrawler or wild boars, but it might just be a solution for people who lose Zuben and Xardas and can't complete the main quest.

Fortunately, I haven't been in the right area to trigger this bug either. Thanks for the information though, as it is very helpful for those who are patching. Besides the fact that I can't even find the Bandit cave, things look normal at the moment considering bugs with quests.

No sheeeeeet, man! Gosh, this is nasty. How can they release a game, any game, with such an outrageous bug?! Looks like I'm gonna wait till next March at least to get the game. It should be fairly bug-free by then.

Hell I hope it doesnt take that long :0

I doubt I'll be able to hold off with the game already installed ;)
I'm not that strong :)

Seriously now This is a very nasty one !
Shouldnt this thread be sticky ?

The bug appeared in the release patch, so the game was actually released without it. Problem is, without the patch the game is too bugged anyway, so it's kind of a lose-lose situation. Hopefully it will get fixed in the next patch. :)

See the marvin mode has already been used.

Is it still accessible from a normal game (read something about testmode), if so how?
What is the command to show the framerate. In G2 it was "frate" in the character development screen.

Hey guys why not just spawn a new NPC?
Just goto where Xardas is spose to be and type "spawn xardas" (well with the actual command) the new one will respond as if it was the orginal.
They all respond based on Game State, in their AI not on am I the orginal "One and Only", you could do this in all the other Gothic's as well.
I used to like to have all the major NPCs with on Dragon Isle but there wasn't room for BIff and Lares, so once we landed I just spawned them and got to hear the sae dialogue, they didn't know the difference. ;)

Because we have no idea how to do that in Gothic 3..

Well do you have your console activated?
Then drop it down and type;
spawn xardas

http://www.worldofgothic.de/gothic3/index.php?go=npcs

Good luick. :)

Interesting, I'll try this as soon as I can.

Spawning a new Zuben didn't work, as he didn't have the item. Instead I used the goto Zuben command, and went "under the world" to where he was located, defeated him, got the item, and went back to the surface using 'goto Diego'.

Thanks people for finding a solution to this problem, I think this will benefit many players till the bug is fixed. :)

Well sadly we can add all the Druids/Rangers near Montera. :(
I have complete all the quest except those 4, well actually 3 due to looking everywhere. I went down the south road and was atttacked by Orc Thieves got 10 points for the Rangers, while I have never seen them.
So after looking for 3 hours to find them I tied looking up info on the net and I am standing in the burnt village south of the Rebels (that wanted Trano moved fromtheir meeting place) and near a cave where Druide Porgan should be, at least I am guessing.
This cave is to the right of the burnt village as your are traveling south from Montera, though it is only one circular room, with no books, desks or chairs nothing but a few light crystals even though its very dark.

Worst of all I can't use the console becasue I can't see it due to a bug with ATI, so no, goto for me. :(

Btw if my description of where the Rangers/Druid should be are incorrect, let me know.
Since I am only guessing this is where they should be from info on the net.

Thanks.

If you have an ATI card, use the open source Omega drivers instead of the actual ATI drivers. They are much better, and should make the game run smoothly.

I am/was very found of them but the last 5 or 6 months he has been busy with RL and has been very slow to release.
Secondly he has been having problems getting some of his fixes to work with the new drivers and with ATITray Tools, iir.

I currently use ATI Cats Driver Only with ATITray Tools, though I did see his recently released 6.9s and thought about trying them with G3 possibly solving some of the problems.
Since there is alreadly a Beta of 6.10, I was holding off since my guess is the official 6.10 will release soon.

There are about 4 caves over there and only one of them is filled with the Rangers in front and the druid within. Although I must say I doubt that you could have missed them, perhaps you may find them still.

Hey maybe I did miss them, is there anyparticual landmark near the Ranger cave?
I really would like to find this since it is intended as the first encunter with this group.
I have seen the Nutty FireMage Cave, empty one room cave near the destroyed villege, which is just south of the small Rebel camp.
I better go look some more, hehe.

Thanks.

Edit I moved this question to spolier area which I really didn't notice we had here. :)