Hi all! I recently returned to GSIV after a long absence. I seem to be running into some problems, and hope you can help, though I think others have some of the same problems as I do from what I have read on these forums. Well here goes:

1) Lich doesn't appear to want to work with Windows 10 (it is a new computer, so I wasn't offered a choice as to the OS). Has anyone found a work around, or know if one is being worked on yet? Finding Stormfront travel scripts seems much harder than in the past.

2) My main character is too encumbered to hunt. I am disabled, and thus money is tight, so paying the astronomical prices for Simu Coins in order to get more locker space isn't really an option. I have two accounts (at the moment, it will soon be down to one), but if I try and log into both at the same time, Stormfront crashes, so I can't use a "mule" ATM it seems - any suggestions?

3) Having a Premium acct (I came back because of the two months free offer) doesn't seem worth the price ATM due to #2. Why if I am paying a subscription that is generally twice that of graphical games that still use a subscription should I have to pay around $200 for enough locker space? I can't afford the Platinum version of the game, so the best I can do is Premium. I had hoped Simu would have added to the service/subscription given they still charge as much as they did in the long ago. Has Simu said anything about improving the Premium subscription? Maybe 120 locker slots, for example, or a discount on Simu coins? For people who work, I understand this isn't as big a deal, but as a one income family (well just my wife and myself, but we live in the NYC area), a $30/month subscription fee plus the option (though things like alchemy and all that is needed for it in terms of items makes needing the added locker space almost mandatory) of buying Simu coins to add things like larger locker space is a financial burden. Should I just go F2P and give up any hope of actually enjoying having come back to a game I have played, off and on, since Gemstone II was offered on the GEnie service (Yes I am that old - I followed them to AOL, then to the web). Naturally, if I can't get the amount of full enjoyment, why even play anymore anyway? I guess I am asking how do others, also on a limited budget, like students and single salary households, manage to work things out economically (any suggestions that are helpful are welcome.

Thanks for reading my questions/rant. Sorry if I seem a bit upset, but I have always loved Gemstone, and find my way back every so many years. I had to leave the last time because my wife became quite ill and was hospitalized twice, and we're finally digging out from all those medical bills. Add in my disability and its medical bills, and you can understand my issues with the costs needed to make this game all it can be, given I already will be paying the monthly subscription price. None-the-less, I do want to stay playing for a long time. I miss the game, and the friendships I had made while playing it (Damn I wish Thalior and Bleeds were still around - I loved those guys' RP abilities).

Player of Faenrinor, Gloreindl, Katsuro and many others.

What it was could not be seen: it was like a great shadow, in the middle of which was a dark form, of man-shape maybe, yet greater; and a power and terror seemed to be in it and go before it... Its streaming mane kindled and blazed behind it.

>1) Lich doesn't appear to want to work with Windows 10 (it is a new computer, so I wasn't offered a choice as to the OS). Has anyone found a work around, or know if one is being worked on yet? Finding Stormfront travel scripts seems much harder than in the past.

It works with Windows 10. If you give more details on your problem, someone can likely help (I can, maybe, since I just recently installed on Win10)

>2) My main character is too encumbered to hunt. I am disabled, and thus money is tight, so paying the astronomical prices for Simu Coins in order to get more locker space isn't really an option. I have two accounts (at the moment, it will soon be down to one), but if I try and log into both at the same time, Stormfront crashes, so I can't use a "mule" ATM it seems - any suggestions?

Have you tried logging in one with Stormfront and one with the web browser? That's the first thing I would do, assuming you've filled ALL your lockers. You could also join a house (CHE) and get more locker space; 110 instead of the standard 80 premium subscribers get.

Premium doesn't get a discount on Simucoins, but they do get a bonus (starting at a 10% increase) of how many coins you actually get.

1. you didn't name your specific error message with Lich, but Lich support can be found here: http://forum.gsplayers.com/forumdisplay.php?104-The-Lich-Project

2. Premium subs get a locker in every major town, and each character on a Premium account gets all of the lockers. Use the LOCKER MANIFEST command to see your locker contents and all the individual towns that have a locker. If you join a CHE (also known as Great Houses), each locker gets more space. You must be level 5 to join most houses, and other requirements vary. You can roll up F2P characters to hold up to 100 items each or safely aid in trading items between accounts. You may not want to use your extended locker space at this point though if you think you'll downgrade to a standard accounts. That comes with 1 locker, although you can pay to expand it to lockers in every town (with fewer slots than Premium).

3. You may have not seen much Premium benefit until the end of the month because of EG. It was not a normal month so I can definitely see how Premium might not seem to be worth it if you're back for such a short time. Every other month it is much more active in Premium-only events, and there are at least two Premium-only festivals a year. See https://gswiki.play.net/Premium_subscription for the list of benefits. Many people enjoy the game just fine with a basic account. You will not be able to take your current characters F2P, F2P characters/accounts must start from scratch and only remain free to access if they have not been upgraded to a paying account (basic or premium).

As far as making it work on a budget, I recommend looking at things with comparative costs to give up (those cases of beer, bottles of wine, cigarettes, magazines you might never read, wait for the paperback book instead of reading new releases, stop going out to the movies and stay in and play GS). As Premium you should not need to buy any extras like locker space. I obviously have no idea about your lifestyle except for that you are in some way disabled, and I am sorry that life has dealt you and your wife that hand. I don't think GS is cheap by any means, but a lot of people spend a considerable amount of time playing, so if you love it and find yourself playing for many hours a week, it can be rather low cost for the number of hours it is available as entertainment. It's all a matter of perspective.


I hope this helps and that you stick around. The game has much more depth than back in the 90s.

>I downloaded Ruby 2.3.1 (the 32 bit version per the instructions at the Lich Project) and installed it. I next installed Lich 4.6.37. I unzipped it all, and installed it. I try and run Lich, but it wants to install another database (it has sql in the name so I presume it to be a database) but when I clock to install it, I get an error message that gem.bat could not be found in the path where I installed Ruby. So what did I do wrong?

This is the problem I had. This post on the Player's Corner might help: http://forum.gsplayers.com/showthread.php?101410-Possible-GTK2-Issue&p=1845093#post1845093

Ruby 2.3.1 probably won't work the way you want it to. I have to look at the latest release of Lich, but I know prior to Lich .34, Ruby 2.3.1 wouldn't allow a number of functions. And I'll bet installing / running other programs is one.

You might consider installing Ruby 2.2.5 (stay with 32 bit!), and running Lich through that - just to see if you overcome the SQLITE install challenge. You should.

Then, I'm pretty sure you'll hit the GTK2 issue - and you now have the handy link for that little devil.

Welcome back! Hope to see you in the lands. :)

Doug

I downloaded Ruby 2.3.1 (the 32 bit version per the instructions at the Lich Project) and installed it

Download the 32bit Ruby 2.0 installer from rubyinstaller.org (that's the one that looks like Ruby 2.0.#-p### and does NOT say x64).

Don't download Ruby 2.1 or 2.2 or a 64 bit version of Ruby. The gems that Lich needs have not yet been precompiled for these versions. (If you know how to compile them and are willing to go through the trouble, these versions will probably work.)

The lich directions were written before Ruby 2.3 was released. You want Ruby 2.0.

Ruby 2.0 did the trick. no sqlite issue, no gtk2 issue. Thank you PFLATS!

J

What it was could not be seen: it was like a great shadow, in the middle of which was a dark form, of man-shape maybe, yet greater; and a power and terror seemed to be in it and go before it... Its streaming mane kindled and blazed behind it. In its right