TRUE VTMB PATCH ver. 5.04AT -- RELEASED

[perez007usa]

I'll let you know the outcome, with the old vid card, and hopefully the new vid card.

[Rhonlith]

Is it just me or does the newly released patch with hotfix #6 actually include 2 copies of the patch?
I've got these after unzipping the download.

True_VTMB_Patch_504AT_FINAL (Contains another Vampire directory and ReadMe_NOW.txt file)
Utility
Vampire
ReadMe_NOW.txt


oh and since this is my first post, thanks for making the patches

[Tessera]

Oops... it looks like I accidentally zipped one version of the True Patch on top of the other. Hence the duplicate "Vampire" folders.
The contents of those two folders should be identical, however... so no real harm done (fortunately).

In any case, I will fix it right away and then upload a new copy of the True Patch to the server.

In the meantime, this latest hotfix is simply the contents of that "Utility" folder. So you don't need to download it again... just install the contents of the "Utility" folder (if needed).

Sorry about that, folks. That's what I get for packing this stuff up after I had been awake for 20 straight hours.  

Anyway... it will be repackaged immediately. Thanks for the heads-up.

And welcome to tessmage.com  

EDIT to add:  FIXED. The copy of the True Patch on our server has been corrected. It is now fully up-to-date.

[Dragonahcas]

Just wanna say thanks for making this. After hunting around Google etc I could only ever find the *other* patch for Bloodlines.

Will be installing this one soon as I had been recently playing with the other patch and ignorance was bliss as I was unaware the game had been heavily modified. Keep up the good work.

[Tessera]

Thank you for the kind words. 

[Dragonahcas]

No problem, can you tell me of any mods that work with this unofficial patch, most of the others I have seen only work with the other one.

Am enjoying the game so far

[Tessera]

It depends on what kind of mod it is.

Texture mods (re-skins) should work regardless of which patch you are using. That includes all of my own texture mods for Bloodlines.

Gameplay mods are different. Usually, they need to be optimized for one patch or the other.

The good news is that most of the gameplay mods that I have seen for Bloodlines are either (1) overpowered or (2) generally pointless fluff or (3) poorly conceived and constructed. So if you run across a few that don't work with the True Patch (such as Dheu's companion mod, or the pen and paper mod, etc.), then I really wouldn't worry about it too much. In my humble opinion, those mods are not very good and I wouldn't install them even if they did work with the True Patch. None of them add anything to the game that matters and in a few cases, they make Bloodlines far too easy (and therefore boring) to play. Just my 2 cents. Your own mileage may vary.

Another option would be to contact the author of the mod directly, and ask him or her if they would be kind enough to produce a version of their mod that is compatible with the True Patch.

[Dragonahcas]

Yeah I am using the textures you created - they are very good, thanks for making them! Is the Malk the only character you have modded? I have installed this unfortunately as I have read and experienced the Malk is quite difficult to play for a first playthrough, the default character models are a bit pants tbh. I had planned on playing as a seductress for roleplaying purposes but none of the females aside from your Malk are that attractive so it is kinda spoiled =[

When I got the game I had been told it had a decent modding community but there dont seem to be many actual mods available.

In Vanilla Bloodlines are there any clan exclusive quests? The only mod I am interested in is the clanquests mod that adds some clan only quests into the game. Which will give me motivation to attempt using the other classes.

Currently progressing through the game with a Female Gangrel, liking the transforming spells

[Kandid]

In my opinion, Malk is not "difficult" to play as the first clan, but it makes much more sense and it's much more fun if you play it after seeing the generic dialogues of another clan, i.e. when you talk to the thin blood girl in Santa Monica beach.

[Tessera]

Is the Malk the only character you have modded?

The female Malk is the only *playable* character that I have modded.

But I have also modded several of the NPC's... including Jeanette Voerman,
Velvet Velour, Yukie, Prince LaCroix, the Gargoyle and a few others.

As Kandid has already said, the primary reason for not playing the Malks first
is not so much a matter of difficulty as it is of entertainment value. The entire
game plays rather differently as a Malkavian, so it is really a lot more fun to
save them for your second or third run through Bloodlines.

And of course... their dialogue, especially the female Malk dialogue, is bloody hilarious.
It's even funnier if you have already played once through as another clan.

[Dragonahcas]

Yeah I noticed the dialogue was quite funny when playing the Malk. I did mean playable characters in the modding - I have the NPC packs you made (very good btw!)

When I was using the other patch I was a Treador (sp?) but am playing Gangrel now. Starting to notice the differences in playing style.

[Tessera]

--- HOTFIX #6 REVISED ---

Everyone... please download a fresh copy of the True Patch and then re-install the contents of the "Utility" folder (if needed).

I have reviewed some issues with the shaderapidx9.dll file and I have just uploaded a newly modified version of that file.

Hopefully, this will be helpful to a few people out there who are still experiencing issues with running VTMB under Windows 7.
The version of DirectX in Windows 7 x64 seems to be a bit flaky... so I'm hoping that this revision to Hotfix #6 will be helpful.

Many thanks to the players who have brought this anomaly to my attention.

And a big "Fuck you" to Microsoft, for not making Windows 7 be more backwards-compatible with older games.  

[Tessera]

Copied over from another thread, posted by a new member who is struggling with the default (unpatched) version of Bloodlines...

Meh, I decided to trudge on, so what I could feed from Misti. Then I went to do Issac's Quest, which is now uncompleteable because when it enters the cutscene behind Fast Buck, the guy won't walk so the cutscene won't end.

Like I said this has effected all my saves and re-installing hasn't worked!

Also please don't just say "Download the True Patch" while yes I know it fixes a plethora of Bugs. I really wanted to play through all the clans on 1.2 before using a patch, so if there is any advice you could give that means I don't have to install an unofficial patch I will be glad to hear it. (if nothing else installing True patch would mean I'd have to start this game again and loose all my saves and progress)

Edit: hope that all makes sense, it's nearly 11am and I haven't been to bed yet! So I apologise for my sleep deprived ramble

I'm sorry, but that is the best answer to your dilemma.

Bloodlines in its default state is filled with bugs, some of which are indeed game-breaking. You have run into a couple of those classic bugs... and there will be others.

The True Patch does not make any changes to the clans, nor does it significantly alter the default game play of Bloodlines. Please do not confuse the True VTMB Patch with any of those massive, bloated and highly questionable mods being vomited forth by Werner Spahl ("Wesp5"). His line of "unofficial patches" are guilty of making enormous and sweeping changes to the original game, almost all of which are completely arbitrary (and unnecessary) in nature. The True Patch, on the other hand, simply fixes bugs and broken content. That's it... nothing more. So if your goal is to play Bloodlines the way Troika intended for it to be played, but without running into a crapload of bugs and other such nonsense, then your path is clear: head over to our Downloads page and grab yourself a copy of the latest True VTMB Patch.

If you are using any of my texture mods for Bloodlines, then you should re-install them after you install the True Patch.

After installing the True Patch, you will need to begin the game all over again with a newly created character. You can not use previously saved games and characters after Bloodlines has been patched. You absolutely MUST begin all over again -- from scratch, as they say. This rule holds true for ANY patches made for Bloodlines, including the official patch from ActiVision. If you patch the game, then you must create a new character afterwards and start over again from the beginning. There are absolutely no exceptions to this rule, due to the way Bloodlines stores specific map data into the gamesave files. Once the game has been patched, many of those maps will no longer be valid... thus any previously saved games will malfunction.

I promise you as the co-creator of the True Patch that your game will not be altered as compared to the original, default game. All of the clans will be the same. All of the characters and quests and dialogues will be the same. All of the items and unique abilities will be the same. The only major differences will be that most of the stuff that was broken and/or buggy in the original release has been fixed by the True Patch. And you will also have the option to enable the repaired Clan Histories too, if you should so choose (they are not enabled by default in the True Patch, but many of them have been repaired). Right after you start playing with the True Patch, I am confident that you will be pleasantly surprised... right after you realize how transparent our patch is. The game should not seem noticeably different at all -- it will simply be a lot less buggy and a lot more stable overall. About 95 percent of the True Patch deals exclusively with legitimate bugs and NOTHING ELSE. The other 5 percent deals with a few cosmetic repairs, and a couple of scenes which were incomplete and omitted from the retail version (such as an extended scene at the beginning, when you first meet Heather). Lastly, I inserted a few extremely well-hidden "texture stamps" into the game, in order to verify that any end users who came to us with questions and/or complaints had actually installed the True Patch... and not someone else's garbage. Good luck finding those stamps, though... because I am a sadistic person and I hid all of them extremely well. Most players will never, ever see them.

Aside from those things that I have mentioned, we changed ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about Bloodlines. If it wasn't broken, then we didn't fix it. That is the absolute truth... and you are getting this truth from a guy who is just as much a Bloodlines purist as you are.

So give the True Patch a try. And if you don't like it afterwards, then you have my permission to yell at me and tell me what an evil person I am. You may as well... everybody else does.  

[Malatar]

hi Tessera.  The VTMB patch I use is the all-in-one version that you released about two years ago.  (Complete with all your texture mods including Wespoop...)  Is this one similar, or do I need to redownload the textures and integrate them into this file?

[Tessera]

You can simply download the latest release of the True Patch (Hotfix #6) and then re-install it right on top of itself. It shouldn't affect my texture mods... although you may need to start a new game with a new character afterwards. Be sure to save a backup copy of your VTMB\Vampire\cfg folder first, so that you can restore your personal configuration settings after you re-install the True Patch.

What I really need to do is update that mod package one of these days, so that it has the most recent version of the True Patch integrated into it. 

[Malatar]

Well, when time and inclination both visit, it will be appreciated.  I just downloaded the old one and put it on a disc with the 1.2 patch, the no-cd, shaderpix9.dll, and the widescreen patcher to make it easy to reinstall everytime I wipe my system.

Now that the last two items are built into the patch, it's that much easier...  Thanks again.

[Tessera]

I want to let everyone know that I have tentative plans to release a major upgrade to the True Patch in the near future.

More details later. It will not contain any new bug fixes, as we have already nailed down all of the most important bugs in Bloodlines. This next release will contain the final work that was produced by Acrimonious back in early 2009, when he was trying to restore some odds and ends that were showing up as random errors in the console during gameplay. None of it is ground-breaking... just some ambient sounds, a couple of instances of NPC idle behaviors, and so on. I still need to sift through Acrimonious' data and decide which things to include in the next version. I will also include a small number of model textures (mostly for static objects) that I have personally restored and/or repaired.

The bulk of the next release, however, will consist of a full set of node graph files. Anyone who has used the True VTMB Patch will no doubt have noticed that when you first enter a map (area) which was repaired by our patch, the Source engine pauses for a moment and returns a "Node graph updated" message. This has been an ongoing issue with the True Patch series, ever since we first started producing them. This next release will include an entire set of already updated node graphs, which will eliminate that issue altogether. You will no longer need to employ the "quick save -- quick reload" trick during your first run through the game.

I have been resisting the idea of releasing those node graphs for the past three years, for two main reasons. The first reason is that the added node graphs will greatly increase the size of our patch... possibly even doubling its total size. But these days, most people are using broadband internet access, so I am no longer as concerned about total file size and download times as I used to be. The other reason that I resisted including a set of node graphs was because of my concerns about any potential compatibility issues that they might introduce. That possibility still exists... but after extensive testing on six different computers, I have not experienced any problems thus far. So I am going to go ahead and include those node graphs within the next version of the True Patch.

On that note... this will be a major upgrade to the True VTMB Patch. So much so, that I feel it warrants being released as an entirely new version, with a corresponding new version number. Which in turn means that this wonderful old "ver. 5.04AT" thread will ultimately end up being closed down, and a new thread will be opened up for the next version of our patch. It's been a great three years for version 5.004AT, but I am quite sure that our next version will be an even better patch than this one has been.

You can rest assured that the next version of the True VTMB Patch will be in keeping with our purist's philosophy of "less is better." Just like version 5.04AT, the next True Patch will not make any noticeable changes to the original gameplay, nor will it "restore" a bunch of worthless garbage that Troika never intended to include in their final release of Bloodlines. Nor will it include the kitchen sink, nor will it include a filthy toilet with Wesp's name on it (LMAO). It will simply fix a bunch of legitimate bugs and increase the overall efficiency of the game engine, whilst leaving Troika's originally intended gameplay experience intact. That's a promise, because that's what any good fan-made patch should do. When it ain't broke... then don't fix it.

I will post a follow-up soon... probably in another week or so.  

[laclongquan]

Yo!

Tessera, in the process of debugging, would you please look at the GIovanni mansion map? It's pretty damn buggy from my run.

Specifically, the reset map bug. You get in via talking, seduce the girl to go down to the embalming room, then you go back up. The map is now hostile as it should be. Now you go out through the back door. The outside map is nominally hostile but the guards didnt attack you if you leave them alone. Now you go back in via the main door... Voila! The map is back to normal, with one copy of the girl standing on the enbalming room and one stand on her original spot. The items that I picked up (books in embalming room) is gone. I am not sure that wipe out the guars on the map wont cause more bugs, so I proceed to the main quest line, meaning jump through the table elevator down to zombie room below.

Second, the serial killer quest. Whenyou use persuasion of his wife and daughter wont bless him etc the log show that you gain XP, lost masquerade for letting him go... too soon as there's still dialog to go and I still can kill him. So maybe delay the XP gain and MAS loss until he disappear?

Third, the histories is buggy as all hell. For example, you choose one that change the order of abilities, spend the point, then change to another history. Points spent stay spent and you got more to spend. Whoopee! With that we could maximize our starting stats and skills pretty easily. If you choose to ignore that bug, could you add a warning in your readme of next release about that?