This bug is not located in my inventory mod. DS2 is programmed to ignore characters if you add or change mods in the middle of a savegame.
The problem is a product of an attempt from GPG to combat crashes in multiplayer games and savegame-hackers/cheaters.
GPG engineer “biddle”, over on Gametoast, answering a question about why savegames disappear with mods:
Guys, this isn’t a bug, this is the way the retail release was designed to work.
A CRC of the data is stored with the save file. If the CRC doesn’t match because the ‘static’ data in use when the game was saved has changed, the save file is skipped over.
It set up this way to address two main issues:
1) It eliminates (in a very explicit manner) errors that creep into the system when data referenced in a save file is mysteriously missing or ‘different’ later on. These ‘dirty saves’ were one of the reasons that mods caused unpatched releases of the game to crash.
2) It adds another hoop for cheaters to jump through if they want to join a MP game with a character they’ve buffed in a mod [although I’m not terribly optimistic that this will hold anyone back for long]
Note that this is for the retail release of the game, which we hope to keep as ‘pure’ as we can. [notwithstanding all the mods that are out there already]
I am currently preparing a ‘retail mod’ release that will have additional features specifically for the mod community.
Loading dirty save files into retail mod is something that I know people would like to see …but if we do that, dirty saves have the potential to cause unexpected crashes (possibly hours later in the game…) which could lead to everyone speculating on the root cause and blaming everyone elses mods for ruining characters that they spent weeks on …or maybe I’m just overly pessimistic.
.biddle
In response to Biddle explanation: I can honestly say that I am surprised of the poor way GPG has chosen to tackle the problem. I have the deepest respect for the people at GPG and am amazed of the work they have done with DS1 and DS2. Maybe because of that very amazement I had expected more foresight from them. As Biddle indicates using CRC codes in this way is not a big hurtle to overcome, if someone really wants to hack and cheat in a savegame. The solution GPG has chosen tastes a bit to me like a quick fix.
I still regard it as a bug (sorry Biddle), simply because people experience it as such. But until “we” get a genuine GPG style solution to this problem, it can be overcome by using the method presented by Elys on several Forums.
You can download and install this: DS2_AllSaves_v1.msi
A zipped version is also available: DS2_AllSaves_v1.zip
It should make you able to access your character when chancing mods.