Triggering Elder Joachim's arrival? [SPOILERS]

Good day to you!

Might as well start with my question, as I tend to ramble quite a bit when asking and detailing them.
How does one go about in triggering Elder Joachim's arrival if good-aligned?

I'm replaying Arcanum after about a year's break - I try playing it through once or twice every year - and am currently trying the game out as a diplomat/gunslinger type of bloke (techie, naturally). Persuasion Expert, high IN and CH. My alignment is good and I've just visited T'sen-Ang for a cup of tea with friendly elves speaking to M'in Gorad. My friend Virgil left my party as usual, and I went to Caladon immediately to find him again, before doing any other quest. Killed the bandit fellows and revived Virgil, then had the conversation with him. For some reason, Elder Joachim did not appear! The door opened automatically, but no one appeared.

I have the UAP, High-Res and Virgil Debug menu modifications installed, but I believe I have used at least the first two in previous playthroughs and still met Joachim. Is there another quest I've forgotten about that triggers his appearing in The Sobbing Onion, or does it depend upon one's actions in T'sen-Ang? I killed most dark elves there (not including M'in Gorad, to whom I spoke using persuasive powers, suggesting I was an agent of the Molochean Hand) with the Half-Ogres, and upon exiting the city, was met with a combat scene at the site where Virgil usually leaves one's party. I do believe not triggering the combat has an effect on Virgil, as he tends to sometimes glitch and not leave if it is triggered, but I am not quite sure.

Have I missed something else? I picked up Joachim's note in Shrouded Hills, his telegram in Tarant, and his book in Stillwater, and I've read all objects, letting Virgil automatically interrupt me with dialogue. I did not speak to anyone about the Panarii religion in Tarant, nor did I in Caladon until I was met with looking for Nasrudin's remains in the Panarii First Temple, which I might have done in previous playthroughs where I did meet him.
I am now at a much later stage in the playthrough, namely the task of going to Thanatos, so I won't bother reloading an older save for the sake of meeting Joachim in this playthrough, but for future ones, I want to know what needs to be done for him to appear in The Sobbing Onion for good-aligned characters.

Finally, to run this down into potential issues:
- I have the (latest) UAP and Virgil debug menu
- I might have missed an object of Joachim's along the way
- I haven't spoken to the Panarii in Tarant about Nasrudin/Arronax
- I have missed a triggering quest after T'sen-Ang

- Or maybe I'm just stupid...

 

It sounds like you did everything correctly from what I can tell, the only thing you haven't mentioned is Virgil visiting his brother's grave in Caladon before you get to T'sen-Ang - not sure how much that would have to do with it seeing as he still leaves your party but it may be a factor.

Personally I've also never had the debug menu installed while trying to do a serious playthrough, while I find it unlikely Drog wouldn't have made compatible with Virgil's side story I guess it's not impossible.

The only thing else that is even related to Jochiam is talking to Gideon Laier about the book, but again that seems unrelated to Virgil. That's about all that springs to mind.

 

I guess it would be the debug menu, then. However, I recall having another playthrough with the UAP, but without the debug thingy. My character build then was quite similar: good-aligned, techie, diplomat.
Joachim didn't appear then, either, and I'm certain I did everything correctly that time around, too. Now that I think about it, I am not sure if I've ever met Joachim with the UAP installed, but it seems unlikely that the patch would create such a bug when it fixes most game issues otherwise.

Has anyone else had a non-Joachim experience with the UAP installed? Perhaps the error is in another file that I haven't noticed. I'll try a fresh reinstall with the UAP after this playthrough, to reassure myself of the issue being someplace else.

 

I've always had the UAP installed when I've played and never had any issues with Joachim popping up, but I guess a fresh install can never hurt.

 

I might have thrown in a few modifications along the way, removed them manually, and forgotten something in the process. You're right about that, Jojobobo. Thank you for your responses!

 

I always play with the UAP, and I still have about a fifty percent success rate at getting Joachim to appear as scripted. I've never been able to figure out why.

He really doesn't have any lasting effect on your game anyway, so I wouldn't sweat it.

 

I'm fairly certain that the high-res patch is causing the issues. Certain things - such as spawning characters, restocking inventory and so fourth - can only happen off-screen, or they're at least very prone to misfire on-screen. If you're running the game with a very high resolution, it's possible that Joachim's spawning location is on-screen during your dialogue with Virgil, thereby prohibiting his appearance.

Try uninstalling the high-res patch or at least scaling it down a couple of notches.

 

I have had Elder Joachim appear properly with the high-resolution patch before. I don't believe that the high-resolution patch changes the distance at which scripts are triggered. I believe it just increases the distance that you can view, hence why you can't attack some things you can see with ranged weapons or spells until you move closer sometimes.

 

No there definitely is some problems with it, such as in Half-Ogre Island the ship captain might not be there as a draw distance kind of bug (from what I remember). I'd say Ruda has hit it on the head, I never use the High Res patch as I don't really mind the standard resolution tbh, but when I have it can produce these kind of issues.

 

Actually, now that you mention it, I have had the Half-Ogre Island bug before. I thought I just didn't do a quest to trigger the ship captain's presence properly, but I didn't think that the high-resolution patch might have been the problem.

 

I think it's caused when an area where a person should spawn is visible due to higher resolution. With Half-Ogre island you can see more of the boat early due to the greater resolution which causes this issue, and likewise with Joachim if his spawning spot is visible by the resolution he won't appear. Potentially for Joachim, just being as far away from the doors of the basement room as possible when you resurrect might work with high res installed.

 

Maybe it could be fixed by setting a smaller resolution than the monitor's native resolution. I doubt 1024x768, for example, would cause too many issues.

 

Yeah, I think ones like 1024x768 are fine.