I started the House of Horrors quest and went into the Abandoned House with the guy, but when we got in he just stood their and nothing happened. I walked down to the basemant and the final door said it needed a key. After a substantial amount of time searching the house for a key I gave up and left. When I came back in the house, everything started shaking but the guy just kept standing still and he wouldn't talk to me. At this point my friend told me he did this quest and I was supposed to kill the guy, so i did. After that the voice talked to me and then gave me the next part of the mission and I thought it had been fixed, but then when I went to leave the house the front door required a key. I watched videos and my friend do it and I know I'm not supposed to need a key for that door.

Thankfully I had a save to revert to right before I killed the guy so I just left the quest unfinished, but now no matter where I go, there's a visual glow effect on all the lights and shadows just like there was inside the house. This glow is so strong it's really hard to play the game now, I can't see anything in the shadows and lights are blindingly bright.

Help please!

Same exact thing happened to me. Its a real bummer! I have no prior saves before accepting the quest and I am stuck in the house same as you. I've also looked at videos and walk throughs and could not find help. Hopefully someone here can? Otherwise, I guess we have to wait for Bethesda to send out another patch fixing it. :/ I just wanna play that character again! He was the one I got the farthest on. And now I'm stuck.

If you're experiencing this issue and playing on PC, please shoot me a PM.

Thanks

Sadly, its for the Xbox.

You're supposed to try and activate the doors. You go downstairs at the start, try and open the locked door. Then you go back upstairs and try to activate the door, even though it's locked, then a voice in your head will tell you to kill the other man. If you just wait a bit he will attack you, then you go downstairs, through the door, and continue downstairs until you get to the shrine. There's a hole in the wall in the basemant you follow down.

Normally yes that's how it would go, but the only reason you go downstairs in the first place (aside from your own decision-making) is because the man you came in with is supposed to have heard a noise and run down there and you follow him.
The problem is the player walks in the house and the man says a bit of dialogue and then just stands there. If he doesn't move or doesn't run downstairs then at that point you know the quest is glitched and reloading a previous save is so far the only way to fix it.

It happened to me as well. Luckily I had a save to revert to and when I tried it again it worked.

For Bethesda's reference, this is what happened to me:

I follow the man inside the house. He walks to the center of the room and crosses his arms, saying his first bit of dialogue. At that point nothing else happens. I go and explore the house. Everything works as normal. I go downstairs and attempt to open the basemant door which triggers the house to begin shaking for the first time, complete with the possessed pots and pans and junk flying around madly. Eventually this ceases and I continue looking around for a key. Eventually I give up and attempt to leave. The front door is now locked and I cannot get out. The house begins to shake again and junk begins to fly around however this time, it does not stop. Eventually I save the game and decide to kill the man I came in with since I assume (since he's just been standing there the whole time) that he's in on whatever is going on. I kill him and I hear Molag Bal talk to me as he would've had he commanded me to make the kill (such as he should have had the glitch not occurred). The basemant door is now unlocked and I proceed down to the shrine. From here on out the sequence plays out as normal. Molag entraps me and explains to me what has been going on and what I need to do.

I go back upstairs but the door is still locked and I am trapped forever. lol
I revert to the save the game made for me when I initially entered Marcarth and I follow the man inside the house once again. This time, the quest plays out correctly and he runs downstairs to investigate, instructing me to try the basemant door and so on. As far as I can tell, there were no other changes made by me in order to fix the glitch aside from reloading a save so I'm guessing it's a technical bug I can't influence.

Hope this helps

This was on the Xbox btw

Bah. Sadly, I was a fool and didn't have any saves before I entered the house with him. Bleh. I guess its back to patch-waiting.

Thanks for the reply, though.

I'm having this problem on Xbox 360 too. It has since made the color scheme extremely straining on the eyes as described by a few other people in this thread. The only way to stop it is to complete the quest, but when I reach the altar and through the quest-initiating dialogue, the front door becomes locked. So for now I'm trying to cope with playing this game currently but the color-scheme is killing my eyes.

I am having the exact same problem since encountering this quest, and I have been discussing it in this other Skyrim thread as well http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1296170-hdmi-brightnesscolor-space-issue/page__st__20__gopid__19700721#entry19700721

I also reverted to a previous save, but the color/contrast issues persist.

Just last night I was drudging through the game, with the unfavorable screen appearance, and the banging, boards creaking, vibration, shaky camera started all of the sudden just like I was back in the abandoned house. It does not matter where I travel to, that effect follows the character everywhere. Something else I have going on is, when I am in 3rd person view the camera sits on the characters right shoulder. I can just about see from the top of his helmet down to above the waist, where as previously the 3rd person gave a very wide, full character, view that was centered.

Just for giggles, I started a new character and that game does not have any of the color/brightness issues but I just don't know if I want to spend the time going through everything I've already done in my level 20 game. I've uncovered most of the map locations, and done a ton of work on weapons and armor, if this can't be fixed I may have to give up on the game entirely.

I think I am going to go back and try to complete the House of Horrors quest to see if that fixes the problem, but I was running into the "locked door" glitch as well. In my humble opinion this was a terrible quest to begin with, absolutely no value for the way I play the game given that there is no positive/good option.

I'm playing on a 360, and have cleared the cache.

I'm on xbox and having problems with this quest too. The loser just stands there. I can kill him and move on, but the door remains forever locked.

the voice tells you to come to the basemant and collect your reward for killing him. you should just go to the basemant. all the way down, into the hole in the basemant, to the shrine, try to take the mace... do the dialog, and then you can get out of the house. At that point you can choose to complete the quest or leave it in your quest log forever.

You can not get out of the house until you go to the basemant, try to take the mace, and go through the conversation.


simple step by step:

Enter house with guy.

Kill guy when you get in side. or follow him around and kill him when he attacks you.

Go to basemant.

Try to take mace.

Do the conversation.

go back up stairs to the front door.

Exit house.

How the quest is supposed to work is known. The glitch is, we do everything you described in your post but the exit door requires a key to be unlocked thereby trapping you in the house indefinitely. You can finish the requirements in the house and the screen will return to normal, but there is no escaping the house. I am also one whose character saves had been corrupted by this glitch. I reverted to a previous save and still had the contrast issues, and the odd noises that are experienced while in the house will pop up regardless of where I had my character in the world map.

I finally gave up on that character, contrast problems and all, and started a new one with no issues thus far. I plan on avoiding this quest altogether on this run through.