None of the Shadowmarks appear in my game. Help?

[ronnarr]

Update on progress below this post

 

Hey guys,

 

I decided that I'm going to hunt down Shadowmarks, as they seem to be a fun immersive tool in the game, but I realised that they're simply not there. The only one that appears for me is the button your press to get into the Thieves Guild. I've cross-referenced with various videos, screenshots and guides - not a single mark is there, not above or near to the door nor anywhere else.

 

I've tried googling this extensively but very few people seem to be having this issue. Someone mentioned their graphics were turned down low and when they hiked them up they appeared, but I always run the game on Ultra High, so that didn't fix it for me.

 

I'm not using any graphics mods except for the W.A.T.E.R. one (as it fixed the GreenWater glitch for me, where I couldn't see underwater). I've also never had any other issues with the game, or weird glitches, save for the aforementioned water glitch.

 

For context: I'm running my game on a Mac via cider wrapper. I have all the official add ons installed.

 

Seems a strange thing to be missing. Any way this could be fixed?

 

I tried installing the "Better Shadowmarks" mod on the off-chance that it might make them appear, but sadly it didn't help...

 

Any help really appreciated, I really want them Shadowmarks to work!

Edited January 20, 2014 by ronnarr

[ronnarr]

Bump since I realised I posted late forum-time.

[ronnarr]

Guys, anyone got any ideas?

[ElmoTheMuppet]

Hi I left you a private message in chatroom too but will post this here since you wanted to see whether I can see shadowmarks ingame.

http://i.imgur.com/Mncnnyh.jpg

 

The shadowmark was found in Whiterun by the Companions location.

Also let me know what graphics settings you currently have.

 

*Edit* here is another shadowmark in Whiterun by the Guard Barracks

http://i.imgur.com/vhC7rJL.jpg

Edited January 20, 2014 by ElmoTheMuppet

[ronnarr]

Hi I left you a private message in chatroom too but will post this here since you wanted to see whether I can see shadowmarks ingame.

http://i.imgur.com/Mncnnyh.jpg

 

The shadowmark was found in Whiterun by the Companions location.

Also let me know what graphics settings you currently have.

 

*Edit* here is another shadowmark in Whiterun by the Guard Barracks

http://i.imgur.com/vhC7rJL.jpg

 

Hi Elmo, thanks for getting back to me on this!

 

To update on my progress, maybe someone can crack this:

 

• even though the Skyring Preferences.app says my settings are on Ultra, it appears that my graphics setting are indeed set to "Low" by default when I run the game
• changing the Graphics Preferences within the App doesn't affect the graphics in game
• I read about copying the SkyrimPrefsLow.ini/SkyrimPrefsMedium.ini/SkyrimPrefsHigh.ini/SkyrimPrefsUltra.ini from within the Skyrim Preferences.app to the corresponding location within the Skyrim.app, however this didn't change anything either

So I got my techie flatmate on board and we made *some* progress - I installed another (vanilla) version of Skyrim, Shadowmarks are missing. Flatmate messed around with the SkyrimPrefs.ini, and got the Shadowmarks to appear! Hallelujah.

 

Current problems:

• I can't load my save files onto this version of the game, because the save files are from a 'newer version' (on my original game that lacks the Shadowmarks, I have Dawnguard, Hearthfire and Dragonborn DLCs installed)
• I tried to install the DLCs on the game with the Shadowmarks in order to see if any of them seem to be causing them to disappear, however no matter what I try, Skyrim crashes to the Desktop after the Bethesda logo appears
• I copied/pasted the contents of SkyrimPrefs.ini from the vanilla game (where the Shadowmarks show up) to my regular game's SkyrimPrefs.ini, however they still don't show up

Easiest way of fixing this seems to be fixing the vanilla game with the Shadowmarks, getting the official DLCs to work and transferring my save files, but I can't figure out how to fix the crashing issue. My .bsa and .esp files are in the correct location, and my Plugins.txt is also in the correct order. I tried installing the DLCs one by one, then all at once, but they all resulted in the crashes.

 

Any suggestions? I'll take anything...

Edited January 20, 2014 by ronnarr

[Rusey]

Try verifying integrity of game cache? Are you running a legit copy?

[ronnarr]

I don't think this will work since I'm running on a Mac, and officially Skyrim isn't available on Macs? I imagine this might create some problems because the paths and so on wouldn't match up...

 

Also, I took some screenshots - click to enlarge.

 

Whiterun, vanilla game, runs fine without DLCs but I can't get the DLCs to work:

http://s28.postimg.org/jc3dfflo9/Screen_Shot_2014_01_20_at_22_51_13.jpg

 

My regular game, with the DLCs working but no marks:

http://s12.postimg.org/ujj96givd/Screen_Shot_2014_01_20_at_22_54_38.jpg

Edited January 20, 2014 by ronnarr

[Rusey]

Can't help you with a pirated version. If you want to play a legitimate copy on a mac, apparently Bootcamp is an option: linkie

[ronnarr]

It's not pirated, it's just a cider wrapper.

[ronnarr]

Ok, so it appears that the vanilla game DOES show Shadowmarks, but when I update the game up to U13 (with and without DLCs) they disappear. At this point I've pretty much given up but posting in case someone someday will stumble upon the same problem and they might find something here helpful.