ULTIMA8: crash after intro when u8save.000 is missing

[Knuffibaer]

If the game is installed fresh and has never been started before there is no "savegame" folder in the main directory. Also the file u8save.000 is not created in this folder.
When you start the game with ScummVM the intro is displayed and afterwards it crashes.
The ScummVM Status Windows Shows: "WARNING: Unable to load savegame/u8save.000".

A temporary solution is to start the game in a different emulator first to let it create the files or to copy the files from a different source.

[mduggan]

Thanks for the report. Yes, this file contains some important game startup details which could probably be reproduced, but for now it's required.

[sev-]

@mduggan where this file could be taken from?

[mduggan]

The file is included in the gog release, so most people will have it. Anyone else installing off CD or floppies would need to start the game once in DosBOX and it will get created. I'll update the wiki to note that it's required.

[wjp]

Which installer is this?

As far as I can tell, the floppy, original cd, ultima collection cd, and gog versions all have this file (and directory) immediately after installation, without running anything. Haven't tried all international releases though, and I could be missing some.

[somaen]

Would be good to resolve this for the 2.9.0 release.

[Filippos Karapetis <bluegr@…>]

In d0195f47:

ULTIMA8: Error out if required game resources aren't found on startup

This stops the game from running if a required game data file is
missing, such as U8SAVE.000. Fixes bug 12790

[mduggan]

In 843f4944:

ULTIMA8: Report mising U8SAVE.000 file on startup

The game can't really start without this data, no need to continue.

This fixes #12790.