Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines unofficial patch 1.7

[Shockeye]

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines unofficial patch 1.7
---------------------------------------------------------

This is an unofficial patch for Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines
by Troika Games. It is build upon Dan Upright's great unofficial oma
patches, whose readme is included with some minor corrections added.

To install it extract this archive into your game folder keeping the
directory structure intact and backup any files being overwritten if
you want to remove it later.

This patch attempts to fix many bugs and improve other things but no
guarantees are made, since not everything could be tested. It can be
installed easily on top of the official 1.2 patch from Troika Games.

Confirmations of fixes marked with a "*" would be nice, also reports
of any other problems, glitches and non-crashing bugs that have been
missed up until now.

Tips and Tricks:
----------------
When using the console, be sure to activate it from the menu only.
Before reinstalling the official 1.2 patch clean up the registry.
If a container auto-closes right-click the objects to choose them.
WMP sometimes changes sound files and prevents them from playing.
Some feed victims stay in trance so don't bite quest related ones.
Blood Shield stays on until exhausted or removed, this is no bug.

Not done (impossible?):
-----------------------
Sometimes Beckett stays in his animal form when first meeting him.
Game may hang on Beckett's "wait" cutscene, reload or use sewers.
Nosferatu and Tremere havens do miss the food critic quest reward.
In Mings hideout the bar may not move, just reload until it does.
You'll have to crawl and jump in the Nosferatu lair to get around.
The news report a bloodbath even if you just sneak-killed Johnny.

v1.7
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Lessened the sway of zoomed weapons and balanced with magnification.
Replaced some male hunters at the Leopold Society with female ones.
Corrected bug that made it possible to get Ox's harvest quest twice.
Restored original funny answers when not being able to read a tome.
Fixed bug of Heather not appearing at the haven for female vampires.
Restored original models for the low and high grade computer tomes.
Made Yukie give you the Ra blade instead of taking it from Chastity.
Corrected wrong name of the cafe and other locations and map names.
Provided 1 xp for keeping Zhao alive and modified quest accordingly.
Fixed feat conditions in Muddy bum dialogue and a missing variable.
Awarded 1 xp for killing Bruno Giovanni and changed log accordingly.
Corrected wrong subtitles speaker name for Vandal and other people.
Restored many mistyped intimidate options and some answers to Pisha.

v1.6
----
All dialogues were spell checked for typos and more by Paul Moloney.
Several mistyped variables found could provide additional dialogue.
Corrected still not working Hitman quest fix and other related bugs.
Fixed variables in texts of Ash, Bertram, Boris, Venus and Mitnick.
Adjusted damage values of Steyr Aug, SWAT rifle and Ithaca shotgun.
Lowered lockpicking skill needed for chemical substances door to 10.
Prevented triggering the building scene before getting Muddy quest.
Made Model Citizen quest show failure directly after leaving Tawni.
Cleared up the log texts of the Muddy quest and Pishas occult quest.
Reconstructed lip-synchro for the misplaced Isaac text moved by Dan.
Re-branded Uzi, Mac 10, Glock 17c, Ithaca and both Remingtons guns.
Fixed double option with wrong link in the dialogue file of LaCroix.
Renamed Blood Purge and spell checked every text besides subtitles.

[Sky]

Several mistyped variables found could provide additional dialogue.

It's odd that it's possible to make such a great game and fuck it up so much at the same time.

[Sky]

1.8 is out now for those still interested. There's also a working widescreen hack that works well (seperate from this patch).

[Furiously]

I can't wait for the 2.0 version to come out and go back and find a completely different game.

[Samwise]

I uninstalled VtMB yesterday after completing my 7th playthrough of it, thereby wringing every last drop of gameplay out of it.  It's the end of an era.   

It really is a crime against humanity that the game is so rough around the edges despite all the great work put into it.  If for no other reason than that it eliminated any possibility of a sequel.

[Sky]

I can't utter the question "Specifically?" without thinking of Mercurio. Bloodlines was a great, quirky, game.

[Samwise]

Meeeemorieeeesss.....

[Furiously]

1.9 is now out.

[Rodent]

2.1 Released. Pretty dedicated bunch thoose patchers.

[schild]

How are the patchers doing all of this without the code for the game?

[Sky]

I dunno, but it's some great work! I've been enjoying this game in bits. No pun intended. I think.

[Trippy]

How are the patchers doing all of this without the code for the game?

Presumably they can use the Half-Life 2 tools to get access to all the game assets. I haven't looked at the patches closely but its unlikely they are modifying the game engine itself, just the content.

[Rodent]

Looks like they're doing some tweakage here and there aswell as fixing script errors/cut content mainly. Haven't noticed that many changes since I started it up again but that might be because it was a while since my last playthrough and I can't remember all the details.

[Samwise]

Yeah, the patches have mostly been via scripting.  Says a lot for the game's scripting engine.

[Rodent]

Now Samwise you know the HL2 engine doesn't use scripts, it just has superadvanced AI.

[Furiously]

I played around with the character textures for a few weeks, it's really unfortunate they changed the model files from the HL2 defaults.

[Samwise]

Now Samwise you know the HL2 engine doesn't use scripts, it just has superadvanced AI.

God damn did that tripe piss me off.  Especially since I found bugs in the scripting when I played through HL2 and took a few routes that the level designers didn't expect.  Had enemies randomly teleporting around me trying to follow the script and so forth.

</derail>

[jpark]

One of my favorite games - great atmosphere, nice character development.

[Yegolev]

God damn did that tripe piss me off.  Especially since I found bugs in the scripting when I played through HL2 and took a few routes that the level designers didn't expect.  Had enemies randomly teleporting around me trying to follow the script and so forth.

Hey, if you have some specifics I'd love to hear them.  I'm working on a HL2 project, you see....

[Samwise]

It's been a while; the one I remember most vividly was one of those scenes where the helicopter is chasing you and you're running from it like a little bitch.  You end up taking cover in some sort of hangar building, which you then have to run through shooting Combine soldiers while the helicopter shoots you through the windows.

The thing I did that was "wrong" was jump a fence while the helicopter was chasing me (there was this yard out in front with a bunch of fences and crates and boxcars laying around).  It turns out that there was an opening in the fence that you could stroll through, but in my frenzy to escape the helicopter I didn't see it, and instead tossed some crates around to hop over this fence to the "end" of the hangar area.  I then walked through the area "backwards", completely confused by the Combine soldiers that would spawn right in front of me because I'd entered their triggering area (had I been going through the right way, I'd have hit the trigger when out of view of the spawn point).  Worse yet, I then hit what I thought was the "end" of the area and found that it led back to where I'd started, so I ended up spending an hour trying to figure out where I'd gone wrong - had I been able to freely wander around I'd have found my way out pretty quickly, but the "way out" was outside, and every time I stepped outside the helicopter would shoot me, so it took longer than it should have.

I also remember being lost for a while in one of the "ruined building" areas in City 17, toward the end, but I forget the exact details, other than that every route looked exactly the same to me but only one of them led to the next scripted sequence.

That's why I get a little peeved when I hear about HL2's non-scripted and flexible gameplay.  It was a good game and all, but it was on rails every bit as much as any other FPS.  The rails were just camouflaged is all.  And easy to fall off of.

[Sky]

Wow, that sounds like garbage!

Then again, I thought HL2 sucked.

[Samwise]

Yeah, but you hate everything.  Except your freakishly large TV.

[Sky]

I love lamp.

[Samwise]

Do you really love the lamp?  Or are you just saying it because you saw it?