At Least My Character Didn't Burst Into Flames: Part 1

Kendra's post about her Sims experience reminded me of some problems I once had with a computer game.

Several years ago, I bought a Star Trek game (which I can't even see right now... I'm sure it's here somewhere) because it had a virtual reality "walk through" of the starship Voyager as an included "extra." I loved Voyager so I bought the game for a few dollars on Ebay. The VR wasn't really true to Voyager but it didn't cost me that much so I decided to try it out.

It took me all of about 3 minutes to start having problems with the simulation. After I "left my quarters" the game crashed a few times on my computer, but seemed to be ok when I relaunched it, so I continued to walk around the ship. There was just one problem... Every time I tried to return to my quarters I couldn't get in. Why? Because 7 of 9 was blocking my way. She was standing outside my room, facing the door and staring at it like she was waiting for it to open.

I tried tapping her (since she was at my quarters and I figured she was looking for me!) but she ignored me. I tried pushing her aside so I could go into my room, but she wouldn't budge. I decided to walk around the ship a bit more, hoping she'd be gone when I returned, but every time I came back she was still there, staring at my door, not moving, and ignoring me when I tried to talk to her.

Finally I figured out that the earlier game crashes had corrupted a file somewhere, and 7 of 9's character thought we were back at the beginning of the simulation. So she was doing what she does at the start of the game, which is to ring the doorbell to my quarters and wait for me to open the door for her... from the inside. And I would have been happy to oblige, except that I couldn't get back inside the room to do that for her because she wouldn't let me in! I tried tapping her again (so she could see I was outside the room with her!), bumping into her so she'd move... shoving her aside... shouting at her... I may have even tried to shoot her... I don't remember... but she wouldn't budge. Her character was programmed to do one thing at the start of the game: stand at that door and ring the bell until I let her in. There was no "what if the person is already outside the room due to a corrupted game file" contingency! So there I was outside my room, with a borg blocking my way, insistently ringing the bell, and I was never going to be able to get back into my quarters to open the door for her so we could continue the simulation!

I looked around the internet for a solution, found a forum full of people who played this game, and presented them with my problem. One person told me how to bring up a hack window so I could enter a code that would allow my character to walk through walls. This would enable me to get back into my room so I could then answer the door from the inside like 7 of 9 expected me to, and continue the game. -This was unreal to me! But I said "Ok thanks!" did exactly what he told me to do, and by using the cheat code I was able to walk right through the borg AND the door and back into my room! Piece of cake! Then I re-solidified myself and tried to answer the door to let 7 of 9 in -but I found that I couldn't get to it. Why? Because I couldn't get my character to move. Nothing was in my way, but I couldn't get my character to walk in any direction. All I could do was wave my arms and my head around and shoot things.

I re-contacted the guy who'd helped me with the "walk through walls" code and he told me to check to see if when I'd removed the hack and become "solid" again, I'd re-materialized myself with my feet embedded in the floor! I checked and darned if he wasn't right! So I made myself "un-solid" again, moved up a little, re-materialized a few inches above the floor this time, and everything worked fine again. (Imagine that.)

But my problems didn't end there! Check back tomorrow for my adventures in Engineering ;)