MM7 - Shoals/Lincoln hireling glitch?

[forbjok]

After wandering around in the Lincoln for a while, I suddenly discovered that my hirelings were gone. I figured maybe they had supposedly drowned or left, so to check it out I reloaded my latest save before entering Shoals, but then I discovered that they were apparently already gone at that point.

So I reloaded my latest save before that, where they were still present, and redid the same things I did before, saving again just before entering the Shoals, with hirelings still present.

Then when entering the Shoals, they apparently vanished again, so I reloaded my previous save, where I knew they had been present - only now they were gone there as well. Now things were smelling fishy, so I quit the game and restarted, reloading the save I knew I had had them on, and interestingly they were back. Then I reloaded the save just after entering the Shoals, and now they were still present there as well. Then I entered the Lincoln again, with them still present, and once inside they had vanished again. This time, even saving, quitting, then reloading didn't help.

So I figured I'd just go get new ones, and put up a beacon and townportalled out of Lincoln to go find some.
However, when I finally found one I was looking for, it wouldn't let me hire it because my "party is already full", even though both my hirelings were still gone.

Does anyone know if this is just a pure glitch, or if they are really intended to go away when entering the Shoals/Lincoln but the procedure is just buggy?
Will I just have to dismiss them before entering Shoals, then town portal out and get new ones after entering the Lincoln?

UPDATE:
I tried again, and now it seems that if I portal out of Lincoln, my hirelings return automatically.
Must've been a random glitch before that caused them not to return at all.

[Avonu]

I remember that they disappeared when you enter to Shoals but when you return to land (Castle Harmondale in my case - I always teleport there from Lincoln) they appeared again (maybe you need to leave Castle Harmondale - enter new zone - I don't remember now).

[Mn]

I has such problem, but my opinion is - hirelings could not swim in underwater area without equipment, so they must remain on the ground. And I hired others NPC after LB inside Lincoln.[/img]

[Tress]

They should return corectly once you leave shoals and ship.
Also if i remember correctly , you could even sacrifice npc while he inst there, by clicking portrait.Not 100% sure on that, was long ago when I played on dark side

[Macros the Black]

Yes, I'm sure the fact that they dissapear when entering the Shoals is intentional. The procedure does seem quite buggy for the topic starter though. I don't remember any problems of the sort - Last time I was there I think I could simply hire new ones or got them back when I left. Of course, so close to the end game it could also be I didn't bother to check.

[forbjok]

It does seem to be that the intended behavior is that they should be unavailable in Shoals/Lincoln but automatically return anytime you leave those areas.

Strangely that didn't happen for me the first time, and they remained invisible when I portalled out, and also prevented me from hiring new ones.
I'm guessing that was just a glitch though.

[Mn]

I'm yesterday completed MM7 with first level group and I'm sure that NPC were not returned after TP/LB out Lincoln. I'm not hired another NPC's and quickly obtained Oscillator by only using two scrolls of Divine Intervention and killing only one I needed "creature" there.

I had another problem (bug?) - all my armory skills were disappeared, my group couldn't equip Leather, Chain and Shield armor - I become nake! Who know anything about this?