VtM-Bloodlines - Revival Project

[Dhruin]

Acleacius sends word of the Bloodlines Revival Project (http://wiki.thedaedalus.net/mediawiki/index.php/Bloodlines_Revival), a work-in-progress, which aims to convert Bloodlines over to the latest Source engine code:
The Bloodlines Revival Project is a community effort to update the original Vampire Bloodlines (http://wiki.thedaedalus.net/mediawiki/index.php/Vampire_Bloodlines) game, bringing it to the current Source (http://wiki.thedaedalus.net/mediawiki/index.php/Source) engine. To achieve this, a dedicated team of hobbyists are working on converting the original content into the new engine. This has the following benefits:


Fixing all of the bugs still found in the original games (the original developers were only able to release one patch - it's up to us!)



Among these bugs were slowdowns, bad framerates, quest issues, graphical problems/glitches, and a serious control issue present for most people that locks up all controls for several moments periodically.



To bring the fans of the game an SDK to work with



This allows fans to make their own Bloodlines content - maps, textures, quests, npcs - anything and everything


We are releasing this as public domain. All source code for any tools our team creates is freely available (http://www.thedaedalus.net/%7Edaedalus/tools/) and we will never charge anything for what we release.
You can read the forums here (http://forums.thedaedalus.net/index.php) and check out a teaser trailer at Youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYuDYgRf5fo).
More information. (http://www.rpgwatch.com/show/newsbit?newsbit=14758)

[stealth]

I certainly applaud the effort. I don’t know how far they are yet but these projects seem to take a long time to finish, if ever. I’m looking forward to Black Mesa, which is a similar project aiming to bring the original Half-Life to the Source engine. Perhaps the VTMB conversion is a bit easier as it is already based on the Source engine.
I never finished VTMB even though I made a decent effort last year. This project would definitely motivate me to try again. Best of luck.

[screeg]

Here's what I don't get: cult games like Arcanum, VtM, Fallout, PST and XCom have been kept alive for years (soon to be decades) after release by rabid fans. Some are developed for hundreds and thousands of hours in an endless quest to bring the game to what they imagine the developers' original intent to be. Yet no one is interested in creating new games with similar mechanics and settings.

[guenthar]

I think the main thing this will bring is easier modding capability. Pretty much all issues in the game have already been corrected by Wesp's patch except a few minor ones that would be fixed by this. There are mods available but there are only a few so making it easier to mod the game should help increase that a good deal.

PS. I hope that if this gets released then Camarilla Edition, Clan Quest Mod, ect. get ported over to this.

[GhanBuriGhan]

Here's what I don't get: cult games like Arcanum, VtM, Fallout, PST and XCom have been kept alive for years (soon to be decades) after release by rabid fans. Some are developed for hundreds and thousands of hours in an endless quest to bring the game to what they imagine the developers' original intent to be. Yet no one is interested in creating new games with similar mechanics and settings.

I guess the task just seems way more daunting. Keeping alive and modding can be done piecemeal, a little decoding here, a tool there, a bit of scripting here, there is always an already playable game there. Developing an actual new game (and gathering a team) is, as you know better than most, hard, and for probably years you have just your ideas and no actual game in front of you.

But on the other hand - who says nobody does it? I know a couple of lunatics over at a site called irontowerstudio….

[ortucis]

Fixing all of the bugs still found in the original games

Haaaahahahahaha..

...

Oh wait, I think they are serious with that line. I guess I'll have to wait for the release in like.. 4 years before I can point and laugh at their buggy mess. :(

[wolfing]

I wish they used their talent in making a new game. Not only have many of us already played this game, but it's not unusual for teams like this to spend thousands of man/hours and when the project is nearly done, they receive a 'cease and desist' letter from some lawyer. Better to use all that effort in creating a similar (gameplay) game with a different (original IP) story.

[bemushroomed]

A bit late, the engine will look extremely outdated when they're done (let's say it'll take them 3-4 years, at least). But i doubt it'll ever see the light of day, just like i doubt KOTOR restoration project or Black Mesa will ever come out, i could probably name another 20 or so such projects that just died..