TRUE VTMB PATCH ver. 5.04AT -- RELEASED

[Tessera]

HOTFIX #4  --  RELEASED

There is a new version of patch 5.04AT available from our Downloads page.
This new version includes a brand new hotfix (hotfix #4)...

NATURE OF HOTFIX #4: repaired an error checking problem in Ventrue Tower which could potentially cause a "logic loop" to occur. This error is very unusual and does not normally occur, but it was technically possible for the players to do things in such a way as to get "stuck" in a circular dialogue, as they interacted with Prince LaCroix and Beckett. This error occurs after you have retrieved the Ankaran Sarcophagus.

To obtain this hotfix, you must download a fresh copy of the True Patch from our Downloads page and then re-install it.

Since hotfix #4 includes some significant changes to the game's Python scripts, it is possible that installing it could interfere with any games-in-progress. If you are currently playing the game and if you are fairly far along, then you may wish to hold off on installing this hotfix until after you have finished playing your current game.

Many thanks to sailmaker, for reporting this rare but significant bug to us. It has now been repaired by Acrimonious.

DIRECT DOWNLOAD LINK:  True VTMB Patch 5.04AT -- Hotfix #4


- Tessera -
February 10, 2008
www.tessmage.com

[psionprime]

Hello ! First, thanks for the patch work. I bought the game last week and have started playing it. I found this patch after searching when I had a problem right off the bat with Jack's first dialog and my reply text had "no valid response". The True Patch cleared that right up. I've mod'd a few games here and there and code for a living. I'm not entirely ignorant of the patch process. Please don't take it personal that I use the word "glitches", I have no idea who did what where I'm happy you worked on a patch and it is as bug free as we can get the game to date.

I have run across a couple of glitches.

1) Playing a female Malkavian I can't finish the Santa Monica Thinned Blood quest as the character gets stuck while moving out of the room to confront the angry blood dealer. (path node ?)
2) Still the female Malkavian; can't seem to finish up the Hollywood Stripper Assassin Action. The quest log updates with message VV should be told the hunter is dead but I get no dialog from VV (who is upstairs in her club) beyond the Doll, dolly etc.

My wife started playing a male Toreador and has been playing well up to today. She is in the middle collecting the first tape for Isaac. She has found the guy behind the Fast Bucks but at the end of the dialog gets stuck in Frenzy (assuming this is the term used whenever the game takes over the character). Not knowing the whole game yet (and I don't really want to know just yet) but having played past that point I think she is at a show stopper if you need to follow that path to the underground Nosferatu...

If there is a list of dev mode commands or maybe you guys have some suggestions to force flag quest mile markers ? I have no issue researching if you can point me in the right direction please.


Have a good one.

[Tessera]

I have run across a couple of glitches.

1) Playing a female Malkavian I can't finish the Santa Monica Thinned Blood quest as the character gets stuck while moving out of the room to confront the angry blood dealer. (path node ?)

I play female Malks exclusively (you can see my "Lilith" character all over this website). There is nothing wrong with it.

HOWEVER -- if this is your first run through with the True Patch, then you need to search through this thread for info about the node graph updates that automatically happen right after the True Patch is installed. This is an automated function of the Source engine and it only happens once for each new map, right after the True Patch has been installed. After all maps have been automatically updated, it will never happen again. Search for the info and then pay special attention to the procedure for working around those automatic Source engine updates. Sometimes, the procedure can cause temporary glitches.

The same advice applies to your other problem. Again, there is nothing wrong with it, but you may have either (1) failed to meet the requirements for the quest or (2) you may once again have a glitched game, due to not having followed the first-time procedures for playing VTMB with the True Patch.

My advice is to start the game over again, being careful to follow the update procedures whenever you enter any new maps for the very first time. Once all of the updates have eventually completed themselves, your future games will be free of any further problems. Those updates only happen ONCE for each map that was repaired by the True Patch. After that, it's all finished and it will not happen again on your subsequent gameplays.

[psionprime]

I probably missed the club load. Sucks to think I'm following procedure and still get burned. I'm going to try something I should have before starting after I applied the patch and read the note about save before entering new area. I'll see about getting a list of maps and force load them once before I take a character through for real.

Thanks for the reply.

(edit: PS - this is working well; start the game with command line option " -console 1" for dev mode; once in the game proper with a new character use "~" ("`" worked for me) to pull up the dev console window; type "map xxxxxxx" then enter and the map will load (replace xxxxxxx with the map name) On my screen a simple helper sub menu appears as you type matching content. My menu is a bit clipped thus not showing the underscores and part of the lower case letters. You can find map names in the game directory \Vampire\maps folder. I printed a list to check off by using a dos box command prompt and "dir /b > maplist.txt" then printing that file. The map name you enter is without the .bsp extension. Going down my alpha sorted dir list when I came to ch_hub_1 it had the node updating message and AI disabled message while a hub I've already been to did not so this method is probably working to pre-play update the nodes. I may look into a method to just do this as a one-shot script in-game to be done before the tutorial after I finish the game )

[Acrimonious]

I may look into a method to just do this as a one-shot script in-game to be done before the tutorial after I finish the game

If there is a console command to update map nodes, then you could do it as follows:

Create a new config file.  Let's call it map_updater.cfg.  Put your update command in the file.  Save the file.  Load the game.  Open the console and enter exec map_updater.cfg

I don't know of any console command that can be used to update map nodes without actually loading the map.  You could use the map command to move yourself from map to map.  Put a series of those commands into a config file like this:

map sm_hub1;
map la_hub1;
map hw_hub1;
map ch_hub1;

And then exec it from the console.  The problem with that approach is that each command would change maps.  When you change maps, the game obviously has to load the map.  At that point, your script is interrupted and will probably not continue after the first map change.

Could give it a shot, though.

[virtualalias]

Hello, everyone. I am new to the site, but I would like to take just a moment to thank everyone who put in the hours on this VTMB patch. I played version 1.2 prior to installing your patch, (Male, Toreador), and I am noticing a great deal of improvements on this go-round. (Male, Ventrue).

I just have 2 brief questions, and I did try to dig through the posts to find the answer, but I couldn't seem to locate whether or not anyone else was having these issues.

1. When I speak to the old chinese man in the Red Dragon, I'm able to convince him to put his quarrel with his ex-partner aside and try to reason with him.

When I go to speak to his partner, I am only able to execute the dialogue as if I had agreed to kill him. This is too bad, but I'm not all -that- much of a pacifist, so I saved and killed him. When I did, my "crosshairs" was set skewed from my actual view and remained that way, making it nearly impossible to navigate anywhere unless I am in 1st person mode.

The second time, I let the fortune teller live...I went to kill his friend in the bathroom. Guy's got to pay the bills, right? Well, the same problem occurred, skewing my view with what my mouse and keyboard should have been doing.

I realize this is quite late in the game, and perhaps was fixed without my knowing, so I suppose I am asking mostly out of curiosity. (That, and I still want my money! Kidding.)

2. Fat Larry has never sent me looking for his briefcase. I finished all of the Confession quests and am part-owner of the club, and yet Larry refuses to do anything but show me his wares.

That's all I've found so far. Again, brilliant work.

Thanks,
Jay/VirtualAlias

[virtualalias]

Well, this is embarrassing... Both issues with but number (1) above were resolved by closing the program completely, re-opening and re-loading my save. I just wanted to let you know, so no one would go cross-eyed at my bug if they'd never seen it. Disaster averted!

[Tessera]

Well, this is embarrassing...

Please refer to the following article. It is very helpful for dealing with situations such as this one:

http://www.tessmage.com/forum/index.php/topic,53139.msg25768.html#msg25768

LOL... 

[xanders]

Thanks for the patch! It was bugged, but now bug free!

[Nightchill]

As soon as I finish 'The Witcher' I will be installing VTMB, so I am glad that I found this patch.

[Miss S]

Can't wait to install the patch. I'm still unzipping the files... I just need the password for the "groutbody.vmt" and a few other .vmt files. Not sure where to find it... I tried a search for "password" and the file name, but I haven't found it yet. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks all the hard work on the patch!

[Tessera]

Eh..?

What "password..?"

Is this a Vista kind of thing..?

None of the files in our patch are restricted in any ways whatsoever... or they shouldn't be.

Did you download the latest version from this website..? From our Downloads page (True VTMB Patch 5.04AT Hotfix #4)..?

Also, are you applying our patch to a clean install of Bloodlines..? If not, then you need to completely re-install the game if you were using some other patch or mod prior to ours (such as those abominations created by Wesp).


PS -- you are very welcome, by the way. I hope you enjoy using the True Patch and we'll do what we can to help you get it up and running properly. 

[Acrimonious]

The file groutbody.vmt is a texture related file.  There's no password required to open it, and as far as I know that particular file isn't even included in the patch, so. . . What exactly is happening?

[Tessera]

We included a fix for Grout's wife, remember..? I fixed that clipping issue. We did that all the way back in 4.04AT.

[dragon]

downloading patch now, i have played bloodlines since it came out.  can't wait to see what this does for me.  In case you didn't know myy name on this forum use to be dragon6261 actually had a website with some mods for this game, then i wound up in the hospital for awhile due to back injury, came back to this forum and i had been deleted and found out it had actually been shut down for awhile, so just wanted to say hello again.

[Acrimonious]

We included a fix for Grout's wife, remember..? I fixed that clipping issue. We did that all the way back in 4.04AT.

Yeah, I remember that fix.  For some reason I was thinking that groutbody.vmt was for the skeletal corpse we see in Grout's bed.  So nevermind, I guess.  Groutbody.vmt is indeed part of the patch.

[zerza]

Overall a very good patch, Im quite happy.   A few things I noticed however, not sure if anyone else has same problem.

In third person view my cursor now is just to the left of my character,, making it very hard to run in 3rd person in a straight line, and fight.

Ive had a few problems getting action icons to work correctly now, the door in tutorial jack tells you to go into when sabat attack, I had to reload to get icon to show.  Had probs with room 210 in Ocean house, Cant think of other, but I noticed if I put cursor to left a bit, it can work, (or if i reload)

So I think both symptoms are one problem, somehow my cursor is hanging to the left,,  odd, I usually hang to the right   

Great patch,  I'll just run in first person for now, patch is definately worth it  good job.

(imho, reading dispute between patches, I think both have a place.  I like the realism of this patch, my lil brothers would like the buffed  gameplay of other patch.  So to each their own I guess.   Both patches do serve a totally different function, and  appeal to opposite types of gamers.

[zerza]

Never mind bug fixed.   I applied patch and started playing right away..  After restarting game next day its solved,, so maybe game needs started and restarted after patch to update settings?  Dunno, restarting game worked tho

great patch once again.