When Gypsies attack!

AgentOrangeGuy taking a little break to clear his head from all that usecode programing:

I was playing U6 for SNES last night to play a few areas for comparison to the pc game and get a few ideas. The SNES version is known for a pretty interesting glitch… where the gypsy party goes berserk and will kill you. The first part of this glitch is that the schedules for the gypsies get mixed up after you play maybe a week or two in game. The gypsies seem to “split up” and can be encountered in different areas – Kador along the path to “the Long Haul” – Minoc side, Blaine is usually asleep in the water off the shore from Minoc (???), and Zoltan seems to be somewhere between Britain and Skara Brae. This glitch seems to affect Mandrake as well, I once found him wandering in the swamps before the Shrine of Justice. After a while(few days in game), it clears up on its own and the gypsy group “re-assembles” and goes about their normal schedules.

Encountering them during the daytime in this state of disarray, nothing happens – they function normally when conversed with. However, it seems that when you encounter these gypsies as night falls, all hell breaks loose. I noticed this glitch a long time ago when I’d wander out of Britain at sundown and along the path, out of nowhere, Zoltan would come running up to me and start attacking! Since the SNES version is very “politically correct”, you cannot kill npcs nor can you attack them. This causes a problem when Zoltan attacks, you cannot pause, you cannot run, you cannot fight back… you are completely at his mercy. Combat music goes on for a split second, Zoltan gets his hit in, the combat music ceases. Rinse and repeat. At this point you pretty much have to reset the game, or let Zoltan kill you (at 4 to 5 hits a pop, that will take a while).

So, while playing last night I was flying in the balloon towards the path between two rivers along the way to the Minoc side of “the Long Haul”. I was going to fight the group of bandits that you encounter between the rivers. I landed right before that area and it was night time, and out of nowhere, Kador comes running at me like a rabid dog. Again, nothing I could do. I reset, and did the same things to see if I could repeat the glitch – teleport from Trinsic to Shrine of Compassion, board the balloon, go to the spot. Yep, Kador still attacking. Reset, and this time, I repeated this glitch but landed on the other side of the river. I noticed I could still talk to Kador, and yes, I did pay him for his tricks, just in case he had been trained to attack cheapskates. I lobbed a powder keg that way, but alas, he was immune to it. I reset, then tried to repeat the glitch again, but going the long way by walking. Kador was gone. I believe the gypsies schedules might reset at midnight, but I’m not entirely sure.

– AgentOrangeGuy