VtM-Bloodlines - Unofficial Patch 6.0

And Wesp is up to v6.0 with his Vampire: Bloodlines Unofficial Patch labour of love. Apparently the new version also includes the v1.2 official patch, which is a nice move with Activision dropping the Bloodlines official page. Grab it from The Patches Scrolls.
More information.

Having never installed any of the fan patches previously, I'm assuming this patch is a "rollup" (i.e., installs all previous fan patches + 1.2 official patch). If so, then I'm definitely reinstalling tonight (so long as the S.O. allows me some gaming on V-Day), and getting some VTM play in.

Just pick up the full patch from the link not the update one and you're away.

This includes "changes" as well as "fixes" though right? Is there a patch that just fixes bugs?

Wesp's patch has included a "basic" bugs-only version for a long time. Just choose the basic install, not the full one.

Originally Posted by Dhruin
Wesp's patch has included a "basic" bugs-only version for a long time. Just choose the basic install, not the full one.

I'm debating on which option to choose. I'm going to start playing Bloodlines for the first time in the near future. Would you say his changes are "mod-like", or are they all things that the devs intended anyways but just couldn't finish?

JDR13, I'm in the same boat - curious, but never played.

Wikipedia says that the changed content "includes further gameplay alterations, including new weapons, disciplines, occult items, quest items, and action sequences, based on content left over from development hidden in the installed game files." *based on content left over from development* makes me think it's worth starting out with.

I think I'm gonna go with this patch instead. Scroll about half-way down the page.

The True VTMB Patch does nothing except fix bugs and restore the game to Troika's originally intended experience. If you are a roleplayer and/or a "purist," who prefers to play Bloodlines the way that its developers intended, and yet you still want to get rid of the nasty bugs that VTMB was released with, then this is the patch for you. To the best of our knowledge, all of the originally intended content, balance and abilities have been carefully preserved within this patch. Some missing and/or unfinished content has also been beautifully restored to Bloodlines.

Each to his own. I wouldn't touch that patch with a 50-foot barge-pole. If you want the "real" experience, it's perfectly playable with the official 1.2 patch.

This game is in my backlog as well. Has anyone tried this 6.0 patch? I figure anyone working this hard on it after all this time - its got to be pretty good?

Originally Posted by Dhruin
Each to his own. I wouldn't touch that patch with a 50-foot barge-pole. If you want the "real" experience, it's perfectly playable with the official 1.2 patch.

Definitely a hint of bias there. I'm curious as to why….

Originally Posted by JDR13
Definitely a hint of bias there. I'm curious as to why….

And what I'd like is a review of someone who has tried both patches for a whole game. I can certainly understand both positions - changes in gameplay do change the game, but in the end, if you play it for the first time, it'll probably be great either way.

To me it sounds a lot like the debate about Star Wars classic vs. remastered that popped up when ep. 1-3 were re-released.. Sure you can be pedantic about how the remastered version wasn't true to the original vision or whatever. It's still better in at least some ways, like sound and color vibrancy. And if you've never seen it before, which one would you choose?

I played Bloodlines once with 1.2 and bugs, and later with 4.x or 5.x or something and content changes, but not all the way through. If I recall correctly though the core was still there.

Originally Posted by JDR13
Definitely a hint of bias there. I'm curious as to why….

Several reasons. First, I assume you are swayed by the description of the "true patch" and how faithful it is, right? Have you actually compared the changes in the "true patch" to the basic Unofficial Patch to see which is the more faithful? I'd imagine not. And if you have, how do we honestly know Troika's true intent? The "true patch" is at least, in part, propaganda. Call it something else.

The next bit is complicated, so this is a simplified explanation. The first versions of the "true patch" (which I'm going to call Tessmage's patch, because anything other than Troika isn't true) were modifications of Wesp's (and Dan Uptight's) Unofficial Patch, without the proper credit as requested. Tessmage then set about demeaning Wesp's work and making claims about the number of original fixes they had made vs the number Wesp had made.

I'm not interested in supporting that sort of attitude or work. Tessmage has apparently created the later patches from scratch, but again, I don't care.

Originally Posted by Dhruin
Several reasons. First, I assume you are swayed by the description of the "true patch" and how faithful it is, right? Have you actually compared the changes in the "true patch" to the basic Unofficial Patch to see which is the more faithful? I'd imagine not. And if you have, how do we honestly know Troika's true intent? The "true patch" is at least, in part, propaganda. Call it something else.

That argument goes both ways. Like you said, if we don't know Troika's true intent, then how do we know which patch is better?

I couldn't care less about the politics behind them, just which one is better. Perhaps someone who has extensive experience with both patches could comment on them.

Wesp provides a basic bugs-only patch that has been maintained for a *long* time (we're posting in a news thread about yet another Wesp update, right?). *shrug*

Originally Posted by Dhruin
If you want the "real" experience, it's perfectly playable with the official 1.2 patch.

This is very true, I played it for the first time last year, and everything worked fine. There might've been a bug or two, but nothing really major. That said, I'll probably replay it again with one of the patches (probably Wesp's) - maybe as a Malkavian or something like that.

I haven't seen a good ol' Tessera vs. Wesp's patch debate in a long time and what Dhruin was talking about with Tessera stealing Wesps work is discussed here:
http://www.rpgcodex.net/phpBB/viewto…sera&start=100

All in all Tessera is one strange dude. I visited his forums for awhile(before they went down) and he had some odd notions about the Game Vixen Zone, the war and soldiers. That's all I'm going to say about that because I'm trying to block out what that guy had to say

As for the differences between the two, I like Wesp's better because of the added content and I like him more as a human being

Thanks again for your dedication Wesp!

Originally Posted by Dhruin
Each to his own. I wouldn't touch that patch with a 50-foot barge-pole. If you want the "real" experience, it's perfectly playable with the official 1.2 patch.

I have never used anything but 1.2. Don't find anything needing fixing, so why bother?

I have played at least 6 full times and other partials without a crash or game-ending bug.

i believe there is one of wesp's patches, was over a year ago i used it, that only restored the 'histories' to the game. these are great fun and i can't believe they left them out of the shipped version. even if you don't use the patch you should load them just to see the humour of troika in there character discriptions which add a nice layer of diversity in stats for all the clans.