**EDIT** the visual glitch can be fixed by using sleeping tree sap to cancel out the effect, however the quest is still unwinnable because of the original glitch






I joined this forum as a last ditch effort to salvage my game before I consider returning it to the distributor.

Its very apparent that I'm not the only one suffering from this glitch, but heres an explanation to what I'm dealing with for anyone who may not know:
I unintentionally began this quest after accepting to help that priest and enter the house. Also like several other players, the priest just stays in the same spot instead of moving forward. after proceeding in alone, the poltergeist symptoms started up, and since I couldn't figure out what do do, and the marker wasn't working, I decided to leave the house (to see if the quest continues outside). This was a horrible mistake.

The entire city had gone into this blooming effect, and continued to shake violently. At the time, I had belived this to confirm my theory that the quest continued outside, so I entered a few places trying to figure out what to do. Now, I'm mentioning this part specifically, because its what caused all of my autosaves to get eaten up, and furthermore, I used up my only mainsave to right before I killed the priest, which I did, because at the time, I didn't know if thats what I was supposed to do.

Anyways, I kill the priest, and the quest proceeds, until after I finish dealing with the altar, where the door to the outside is locked permanently. So right now, my options are either, use an autosave to leave the house, however the blooming effect won't go away, and makes it virtually impossible to see (if theres a way to cancel out this effect, I'll be happy to do it and leave this quest unfinished). Or is there any kind of action I can do to cause the door to be unlocked again? Keep in mind, at this point I have already dealt with the altar and know that I'm supposed to free some other priest, which was supposed to unlock the door, but since the door didn't get locked to begin with, dealing with the altar locks the door instead.

This issue has me at wit's end, any solution would be fine with me, as none will mean this game will be no longer playable, and I have no intent of starting this game over from scratch.

Sorry if I'm sounding rude, but a bug as crippling as this one is a bit distressing to me. I deeply appreciate any and all help.

My, that is one mess you got in.
I wish I had any help for you, I do. But perhaps this little reply to how awful your situation is, will at least bump it up and someone else who might have the information you need might see it.

Best of luck with the issue.
I would say though; Don't sell the game just because of this bug. Hell, try and create a new game with a new character. It would svck to start all over again, but I think it would be worth it. Aside from it's glitches and bugs (of which I have seen little of, as of yet), it' a great game.

I've almost put a week's worth of gameplay in this file. To say the very least, I don't think I could redo every last quest, or find every last map point that I uncovered, and remain sane throughout the process. Also, if I ragequit the game, I might be able to use the return value to get that new halo game, they're pretty good a making a game without bugs like these...

Not to be a d*ck, but this is still a Bethesda RPG. I have over 200 saves and always let the NPCs enter houses/caves first. Oblivion, Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas, surely people know by now to be careful. Another friend of mine managed to get everyone in Whiterun to want him dead by accident. The solution? Wait in a diffent province for a day (or a week, I can't remember) for them to reset. He says it was a glitch, but I keep telling people to make some friggin' saves. You need to be cycling at least 20 saves and saving at least every 30 minutes. That's pretty much Bethezsda RPGs 101, especially on the increasingly antiquated 360, with it's tiny cache and barely competent hardware.

While I understand where you are coming from, this whole disgruntled customer who is gonna return the game thing really bugs me. Its common knowledge that having ONE file is an indescribably unwise thing to do. If during the course of the game, acknowledging its length, you didnt figure out it was probably safer to make multiple files, Im sorry, but that is your responsibility, not the game's. Sure, we are talking about a bug, butthere are one million ways to get stuck in games like this, and just using the very same file always is not recommended.

You make it sound like I may as well be nothing short of a [censored]. The point of keeping multiple saves makes sense, but I have no interest in replaying earlier files, for the sake of fixing bugs, or to "go back in time." In normal circumstances, autosaves are usually enough to fix a bug. Hell, I was able to get through all of New Vegas that way, using the same process as this. On top of this, I've always used this gamestyle for Fallout 3, and Oblivion as well.

In my opinion, if theres a bug as gamebreaking like this, there should at the very least be a way to fix it beyond depending on saving constantly, due to the fear of bugs.

Anyways, I'm not knocking Bathesda, I know games of this magnitude are bound to have glitches but theres also always been a way to fix these bugs. I'm not interested in hearing about what I should have done, every gamer has their own process.

Well, after a lot of thinking (and roughly 5 or 6 shots of rum), I've decided not to take this game back. Not sure what my true reasoning is, though. It could be because theres still a lot of places I didn't get to see, maybe its because I'm too drunk to drive over to Gamestop to return it. I'll admittedly be more cautious from now on, however I'll still look for a remedy for this glitch.

If anyone can help me out in fixing this bug, I shall name my firstborn son after you, and he will honor your name for as long as he lives (or until he has it changed to rectify the mistakes of a drunken father)

I just found a fix to the blooming effect glitch!

After deciding to fight fire with fire, I decided to use the sleeping tree sap to create another distorted vision effect. This canceled out the blooming effect caused by the glitch. Once the sleeping tree sap wore off, the visuals were back to normal!

I definately won't be able to do the quest now, but I never liked Bolag-Mal to begin with. Also, I'm not really a fan of maces, so I'm fine with not gaining that weapon either.

Glad you got your issue worked out, and posted a solution to help others. Have fun exploring the world. =)

I have this problem myself. Where do you get that sap you mentioned? I'd love to be able to play my thief again!

Feel free to PM me with that; I'm not sure what the rules here are regarding spoilers.