Workarounds for blocked bridge and blocked Act 2

[UncleYar]

BACK UP YOUR SAVE AND GAME FILES BEFORE TRYING ANY OF THESE INSTRUCTIONS

Despite having two legit copies on Uplay the game never properly unlocked for me, so I'll share the workarounds gathered from the web for people who may be prevented from playing this flawed gem.

https://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/708378-might-and-magic-x-legacy/68536299

Hello,
I want to share my bad experience with all those who look for the way to get pass the broken quests like when:
a) the option to travel (by a gryphon) to the Elemental Forge is unclickable or grayed out.
b) when you give the letter to the Lord Kilburn in his tower, the quest "Hunt for Montbard" does not appear, making you stuck next to a door with no key in Lost City lv1 (2 human guards dont spawn).
c) you have no idea what to do after the Elemental Forge (after killing the Earth Elemental and meeting with the Dark Elf guy), as the guard on the bridge will not move (sea routes are also blocked).

First two are caused by bad coding of the game.
To fix them go to specific game directory* and find appropriate .xml file and edit it (Notepad++ or MS:Word).
*in (...)\Might and Magic X\Legacy_Data\StreamingAssets\Dialog\

a) edit "LevDialog.xml" file and DELETE the line:
condition xsi:type="PrivilegeUnlockedCondition" privilegeID="1001" failState="DISABLED".
(additionally, sometimes you will have to get rid of the HORSE/Mule companion (fire him) to travel to the Forge by air.

b) edit "LordKilburnDialog.xml" file and DELETE the line:
"<condition failState="HIDDEN" xsi:type="QuestActiveCondition" questID="37"/>"
file.
What will this do: After that you can speak AGAIN with Lord Kilburn the quest will update properly.
2 guards will spawn in Lost City lvl 1 locked door which drops a key to open the Lost City lvl 2.

c) Go to the city and talk to the stable guy about TRAVEL. "Travel to Seahaven". End.

Hope I helped somebody.

For the bridge it annoyed me to have to go around it by stable travel every time, so I also used the Hex editing method described in this post to make it traversable: http://forums.ubi.com/showthread.php/827220-Act-2-help-Imperial-Sentinel-Seahaven?s=1ab772a0f051968a0376205024288cee&p=9928337&viewfull=1#post9928337

For the record, I had the same problem (did Lev dialogue hack/fix, then bridge remained blocked). Tried to use the savegame converter but realized that it doesn't write the save file properly (your play time is lost so I don't trust it to keep all other info). Therefore I opened the save file directly in a hex editor (I used Notepad++ with its Hex editor plugin available on Sourceforge) and did the following equivalent change:

Find the text terrain_106_67 in the save game. Change the first byte after the string TerrainType that follows closely from 04 to 01. This will allow passing through the bridge even though the guy blocking it doesn't budge.

In other words, change the sequence 74 65 72 72 61 69 6e 5f 31 30 36 5f 36 37 01 20 20 20 07 56 69 73 69 74 65 64 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 01 20 20 20 0b 54 65 72 72 61 69 6e 54 79 70 65 01 to the following: 74 65 72 72 61 69 6e 5f 31 30 36 5f 36 37 01 20 20 20 07 56 69 73 69 74 65 64 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 01 20 20 20 0b 54 65 72 72 61 69 6e 54 79 70 65 04

Make sure to keep a backup of your save file in case you mess up.

[Gold_Masque]

Nice to know there are workarounds for things like this, though it takes patience. Thank you for your post. If not for the community... only the gods know where some games would be today, since titles get abandoned in a hurry. Think of Gothic 3 with its community patches, Sacred 2 etc. Titles like this.Perhaps a community patch from someone who cares enough is what is going to salvage/save this game. I hope so.

I have just recently started playing this game - I don't have a steam copy, Uplay only. I read alot about this game before I decided to give it a shot (had the unopened boxed copy for a year). I always research controversial titles. Checking numerous forums - seeing what people are saying. Not all of it bad, not all of it good. Personally, MMX has been mostly kind to me. So far. I actually like it! Flawed gem indeed. :)

Speaking of this thing with Lev. From what I have gathered from all the posts I have read it is actually some sort of DRM? I checked it out so I tried talking to this character both in offline (greyed out) and online mode (option is there). If its DRM (not just a bug or leftover from early access) then Ubisoft is not being honest when they say all that is needed is a one-time activation and that it is fully playable in offline mode - because it is not. So if you have this game on steam - its triple DRM? For me its a matter of principle. It makes me hesitate buying another title from Ubisoft. Support tickets or not.

Lets say I decide to play offline knowing Levs dialogue will be greyed out - what will be the consequences of fixing these files, involving the bridge and griffing flight? Can I "hack" my own legitimate copy just to foil the DRM/bug for the sake of principle? I know its easier to just stay online since it works for me, atleast with Lev - but if its DRM I did not bargain for... ;) Basically I am just curious how these modifications impact on play, without the internet connection.

[UncleYar]

TBH I'm not sure what the game does in the "normal" case. In the case of the save file editing it probably does a similar thing, for the rest of the logic, your guess is as good as mine.

[Gold_Masque]

Thanks for replying. :) I will simply have to experiment with it a little.

[Rightwing Extremist]

i bypassed this by replacing ImperialSentinelBridgeDialog.xml file with a copy of ArthurDialog.xml. so when you talk to him .. he gives the cart travel guys dialog. then you can jsut pay 120gold to goto seahaven. only works one direction since the guy is not able to be talked to from the other side of bridge.

another thing you could try is mess with theworld.xml file and edit out the cart all together or add in the blocks next to the bridge and make then passable.

[Ubi-Slipstream]

Hey there!

Looks like you've stumbled across an older thread! As this one's a few years old, please feel free to create a new one to share your ideas. Thanks!

- Ubisoft Support

[UncleYar]

Well, the workaround is still valid if people are still having the same problem (which kinda surprises me after the Ubi fixes to DRM, but it was broken from release so it's plausible). Therefore there's no harm in people bumping the thread.