VtM-Bloodlines - Unofficial v4.0 Patch

[Dhruin]

Wesp's Unofficial Patch for Vampire: Bloodlines has hit v4.0 (http://www.iphpbb.com/board/ftopic-17048899nx82467-306.html), with the details at the Patches Scrolls:
Another unofficial patch to Bloodlines is now out, updating the game to version 4.0. As usual having official version 1.2 patch installed is mandatory.

v4.0 17.08.2007
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* Created Appearance powerup and made Isaac give it instead of Charm.
* Made Strauss reward you with the Fae Charm instead of usual money.
* Recovered chewing gum to sell to Copper and stashed it on the pier.
* Restored rat crowd to warrens and ancient text to Leopold Society.
* Placed library keycard at Ramen and fixed some minor text problems.
* Moved dogs into junkyard and Skelter to Nines' side at one ending.
* Swapped cop Anacondas with Ithacas and made Pisha leave eventually.
* Restored Romero to be back after his quest and fixed zombie scene.
* Fixed cut off conversations and restored a hidden one to warehouse.
* Restored hidden models to Dane, to Blood Hunt and on junkyard map.
* Made armor absorb half the aggravated damage and raised Blood Heal.
* Removed cop cars from the Santa Monica pier after the police left.
* Added Fu Syndicate emergency doorcode and restored tire iron skill.
* Recovered three unseen newspapers and repaired a newspaper mix up.
* Restored two item models and renamed "Replica Katana" "Shin Gunto".
* Made Mercurio's email arrive later and fixed several email issues.
* Repaired warrens electrical terminal computer and fixed many props.
* Added some missing inspection nodes and made diner cook move more.
* Restored warrens door difficulty and fixed switches at observatory.
* Fixed Tong sounds at Zhao's and Hannah, Milligan and Pisha issues.
* Repaired Trip and Vandal not choosable at endgame in special cases.
* Re-changed Eliza and Thistle effects as they didn't work randomly.
* Added missing doors to Venture Tower rooftop and Blood Hunt levels.
* Fixed several name issues and explained others using loading tips.
* Changed Giovanni vampire guard stats and restored Dane crane icons.
* Turned your Santa Monica haven into Elysium area when Jack visits.
* Improved Barabus' hack position and made PCs accessable afterwards.
* Corrected Chunk's brother's subtitles and changed Chunk dance fix.
* Reformatted Sin Bin inventory pages and fixed more minor PC issues.
* Removed humanity for killing Milligan directly and fixed card bug.
* Placed Russians more inconspicuous and removed the two added locks.
* Put Heather's name in the morgue file in case you left her to die.
Or just download it here (http://dlh.net/cgi-bin/dlp.cgi?lang=eng&sys=pc&file=vtmbup40.zip&ref=ps).
More information. (http://www.rpgwatch.com/show/newsbit?newsbit=6039)

[Acleacius]

Good work, Wesp. :)

[Gallifrey]

Is there ever going to be an end to these unofficial patches? I've been planning on reinstalling Bloodlines at some point, but I'm not going to until this patching business is finished.
Certainly there must be a point where it's all done, and isn't just tweaking and altering for the sake of tweaking and altering.

[zakhal]

Is there ever going to be an end to these unofficial patches? I've been planning on reinstalling Bloodlines at some point, but I'm not going to until this patching business is finished.

Yeah I was about to ask the same. I just bought the game yesterday and they are still patching it. What are they patching? I imagine its just lil tweaking. The game must have been patched to playable limit (and past that) long time ago. It wouldnt make any sense othervice.

[Fenris]

I guess that wesp is still diggin out hidden Stuff and trys to balance it... you should safely be able to apply the "Basic"-Files and play...

[Gallifrey]

It was quite playable after the first official patch, and I'm sure it's even moreso now. But I'm not going to play it again only to have another patch come out with more tweaks, fixes and so on. Seems kind of pointless.

[Acleacius]

Well this one would be a good one, you shoudl download this and read the readme, it's a complete list of all the changes over the last almost 3 years now, 12.04.

This, for the most part is an on going project, so don't let it keep you from playing because there might be another patch, the game is too good. :)

[Guhndahb]

I personally hope Wesp keeps at it until he is satisfied. I too am waiting until that day to play it, but fortunately I've already played it through vanilla when it first came out so the wait benefits me. I'll forget more and more of it as time passes. :D

And just in case Wesp is watching, I know version numbers are usually pretty arbitrary, but congrats on the big 4.0 nevertheless. Thanks for your continued hard work!

[Dark Savant]

I prefer the other unofficial patch from Acrimonious
http://www.tessmage.com/main.htm
Great debate on their forum and topic about upcoming 4.05 release http://www.tessmage.com/forum/index.php/topic,601.0.html

[VPeric]

Question: why do the two (ideologically completely different patches) have similar - almost the same - versioning schemes? Is the point to confuse users, or what?

Thanks for the link, though. I prefer patching to modding - at least for the moment.

[Dhruin]

Except that "patch" has its own modding as well. Not as much, I accept, but it's simply dishonest for Tessera to criticise Wesp's approach and then do the same thing.

[Acleacius]

Not only that they took and used Wesp's work, acting/insuating/releasing it was their own and used the same numbering to confuse people and get attention to themselves.

The Unofficial Patch has been around since the first week, the game was released on Diliapidation the original Official site before GameSpy bought them out.

[Guhndahb]

Except that "patch" has its own modding as well. Not as much, I accept, but it's simply dishonest for Tessera to criticise Wesp's approach and then do the same thing.Indeed. And the term "true patch" is still being used which really chafes my butt. Even if I preferred the less modded option (which I personally don't, but I respect the choice of the people that do) calling it a "true patch" will continue to prevent me from respecting the project. That, as well as some of the things I've seen said about Wesp work, show a level of disrespect that I cannot accept towards someone who has put in so much effort. (I'm a freeware author so I have a bit of a chip on my shoulder about such things.)

I suggest they call it something less inflammatory like a "Mod-Lite Patch" and that everyone avoids the rancor and histrionics in both directions. As long as anyone who has done work on the patches is properly credited, I see no reason that the two options cannot coexist peacefully for the betterment of the community.

[Dark Savant]

Who cares about name of the patch.:) and they are making these new versions from the plain vanilla copy of the game.

What I really like is the community on their site and the debate about upcoming releases.

[Avantenor]

Why from vanilla? Is the official patch also modding and not according to the way it was meant by Troika? ;)

SCNR

[Dhruin]

He means they made the patch from scratch (+ the official v1.2), instead of starting with Wesp's work, building on that - but complaining about what he had done (as with their original releases).

[Avantenor]

Ok, then it was a misunderstanding. For me vanilla means release version 1.0 without any (official) patch.

[txa1265]

It was quite playable after the first official patch, and I'm sure it's even moreso now. But I'm not going to play it again only to have another patch come out with more tweaks, fixes and so on. Seems kind of pointless.

I've never done any of the unofficial patches ... I am quite happy with the (albeit quirky at times) gameplay of the original.

[Guhndahb]

I've never done any of the unofficial patches ... I am quite happy with the (albeit quirky at times) gameplay of the original.I was too. I don't think people should be afraid to play it with just the official patch. I did and I loved it, although I'm generally very tolerant of problems in games I'm enjoying. Perhaps that's why I'm looking forward to a more modded experience the second time around, just to freshen things up.

[VPeric]

Alright then... so what should I get if I want to have the maximum amount of fixes with the minimum amount of modding? I've heard a particular (older) version of the "unofficial" patch is good for that... what would you guys suggest?

[Black Hood]

Well, my girlfriend recently played through the game without even the original official patch, and while she had to use the console once to get through a door, she didn't have too many other problems (that I know of). After she was done I installed the official patch and the "true" patch, mainly because it does claim to just fix bugs and only "restore" content that was meant to be there (I'm still a little unclear on how they know that). I haven't yet played the game through even once myself, so I was hoping for a less-buggy playthrough, and then maybe later I'll install the giant Wesp patch and try that out. I think they are both good things, it's too bad people on the internet who obviously all like the same thing like to spend their time beating each other up over trivialities.

[Fenris]

Alright then... so what should I get if I want to have the maximum amount of fixes with the minimum amount of modding? I've heard a particular (older) version of the "unofficial" patch is good for that... what would you guys suggest?

Wesp's Patch contais a "Basic"-Folder - If you use the files of this folder, you should only get bug-fixes... I can't say anything about the "true" Patch since I haven't tried it.

[VPeric]

Thanks! Will try it out.