True Patch Gold Edition -- OFFICIAL THREAD

[Zenoseiya]

Originally, that was supposed to be a scene where the girl is performing oral sex upon the guy... until the player shows up and looks at them.

Isn't there something like that in Chinatown? The pig-tailed hooker giving a security guard a blowjob in an alley? I'm pretty sure I saw that on youtube (the video was later deleted).

[Tessera]

The difference in the Chinatown scene is that it does not have the "OnLook" trigger flag attached to the oral sex sequence. Therefore, it simply fires once after the map loads and then ends after a pre-set time limit. Which in turn means that if you wish to see it, then you need to run like hell over to that spot... right after the very first time that you enter the Chinatown map.

This differs greatly from the way that a similar scene plays out in the Downtown hub. In the Downtown oral sex scene, it is likewise set to fire once and then never happen again. So just like in Chinatown, it will only occur during the very first time that you enter the hub map. But the major difference in the Downtown version is that it has the "OnLook" flag attached to it. What this does is to keep that scene going until the player actually gets to that area and looks at the hooker and her "john."


So it ends up being like this...

Downtown oral sex scene: will start playing during the very first time that the player enters the Downtown hub map. And it will keep playing until we walk over to that area and actually look at the two NPC's involved. Once we actually look at them (when your targeting crosshair contacts a hidden trigger right next to them), they will stop what they are doing after a couple of seconds and then walk away... never to return.

Chinatown oral sex scene: will start playing during the very first time that the player enters the Chinatown hub map. It will play for a pre-set length of time, whether the player is looking at them or not. And after that timer has expired, the scene will break up and never happen again. Unlike the Downtown version, there is no guarantee that the player will ever see the Chinatown sex scene. Most VTMB players have -never-seen it.

This might explain why the Downtown scene was censored, but the Chinatown scene was not. The baboons from ActiVision probably never saw the Chinatown scene... hence they made no demands to censor it. This is just speculation on my part... but it makes sense, given ActiVision's track record. "A mature rating doesn't mean sex, dammit..!!! It means extra blood and gore for kids..!!!"

 

Anyway... when I get to the Chinatown map, I will take a look at that scene. But I won't change it in the True Patch, because I would be arbitrarily adding stuff that Troika didn't want. It's clear that they wanted the Downtown oral sex scene to function, because they wrote a crapload of code into the map for it. But there is no such code written into the Chinatown map. We could argue that it is because Chinatown was rushed... and I would probably agree with you. But we really can't know for sure... so I'll save something like that for a very large VTMB mod that I'm currently working on.

[Tessera]

I've just spent some time adjusting various nodes and locations on the Hollywood hub map. These adjustments will be included in the next hotfix.

And I gotta tell ya's... you haven't lived until you've spent 40 minutes watching a crosswalk, to make sure that the NPC's are no longer colliding with one another in the middle of the street. And it's also fun to spend 20 more minutes adjusting the pathing nodes, so that the cops won't get hung up on fire hydrants, or smash headlong into hookers, or get tangled up with pedestrians and become hopelessly stuck there... and... and...

Anyway, I'm running an extended test now, to make sure that my repairs do not make any significant changes to the way that the Hollywood map appears to the player. I did have to move one of the "hooker spots" a couple of feet to one side, but it isn't noticeable (she kept colliding with other people when she tried to leave her spot and use the nearby crosswalk). She's still standing in pretty much the same place, just shifted over slightly from where she was. I moved her in order to change her pathing angle and also to make it take a half-second longer for her to reach the intersection. It seems to have solved the problem... but hey, you know how Bloodlines is. I'm sure she'll find somebody else to crash into in some other location.  

A couple of "idle spots" for the citizens were also shifted backwards slightly, to keep them from getting entangled with the cops. Those cops follow a set course all around the entire hub. Their pathing can be adjusted, but in this case it made more sense to also move the pedestrians out of their way. The spot in question is directly across the street from Vesuvius... a known trouble spot on the Hollywood hub map that version 5.04AT failed to address. Hopefully these adjustments to the cop patrol nodes, as well as adjustments to the citizen "idle spots" in that location will help to prevent any further entanglements.

Next up: the Chinatown hub map.

[Tessera]

No obvious problems in the Chinatown hub map that we haven't already fixed.

So it looks like the next hotfix will consist of some additional tweaks to the SM hub map, the Downtown hub map and the Hollywood hub map, the reformatting of a couple of broken LIP (facial animation) files for the Imalia and Flynn characters, a minor dialogue file repair for Flynn, and the restoration of a disabled (censored) oral sex scene outside of the Confession club in Downtown.

I'm going to do a few more quick checks on a couple of other items, but it looks like hotfix #2 will be released in the next day or two.

[upi00r]

I have some other questions:

1. There are files in patch archive:

\Bin:
engine.dll
shaderapidx9.dll
vampire_python21.dll

\Vampire\cl_dlls:
client.dll
gameui.dll

a) I can use these files without any other from the patch GE, right?
b) They are updated/newer/better version than the same files in wesp5's patch?
c) vampire_python21.dll is the same file like the original one so why it's in the archive?

About maps (don't know if u fixed this): I remember the guard in the (Santa Monica) clinic (on the floor where u can find werewolf blood) once stucked in the door and I couldn't enter without killing him.

[Tessera]

I have some other questions:

1. There are files in patch archive:

\Bin:
engine.dll
shaderapidx9.dll

Those two files were modified by myself, in order to force the game to be more compatible with modern-day hardware. Most significantly, those modified engine and DirectX files will allow Bloodlines to be able to recognize computers which have greater than 2GB of system RAM installed, as well as newer video cards which handle sprite textures differently than the way older (pre-2005) video cards did.

The sprite repair is not perfect, however... due to a lack of backward compatibility in modern hardware. Hence the sprites may flicker a bit around glowing objects such as street lights and other such point sources. Nothing can be done about it at the present time, as it is an entirely hardware-based problem. Newer video cards simply do not handle older DirectX 8 games properly anymore.

vampire_python21.dll
client.dll
gameui.dll

Those files originally came from the official version 1.2 patch, which has been integrated into the Gold Edition. Hence their presence within the patch folders. The True Patch Gold Edition is a stand-alone patch... meaning that it can be applied to ANY "plain vanilla" version of Bloodlines. And one of the ways we accomplished that miraculous feat was to integrate the official 1.2 patch from ActiVision directly into the core of the True Patch Gold Edition.  

b) They are updated/newer/better version than the same files in wesp5's patch?

I have no idea. I don't pay any attention to Wesp's kiddie garbage. He likes to destroy Bloodlines. I prefer to fix it.  

About maps (don't know if u fixed this): I remember the guard in the (Santa Monica) clinic (on the floor where u can find werewolf blood) once stucked in the door and I couldn't enter without killing him.

The Santa Monica clinic map is functioning normally. I am not aware of any problems with that map after installing the True Patch Gold Edition. Sometimes the engine simply glitches out and objects get stuck on the maps. This is usually due to a general problem with the AI and it has nothing to do with the individual maps themselves. A reload of a saved game is sometimes the only way to get it "un-stuck."

If we get persistent reports of this glitch happening in one area in particular, then I may need to move the character, change the local pathing nodes or perhaps rearrange the furniture... depending upon what is causing the glitch. I recently performed a similar repair in the Hollywood hub map, for example (I re-routed a cop and moved a couple of NPC's, to keep them from colliding with each other all the time and getting tangled together). But thus far, I have not received any other reports regarding the upstairs guard in the SM clinic. If we -do- get any more reports about him in the future, then I will take another look at it.

[upi00r]

vampire_python21.dll
client.dll
gameui.dll

Those files originally came from the official version 1.2 patch, which has been integrated into the Gold Edition. Hence their presence within the patch folders. The True Patch Gold Edition is a stand-alone patch... meaning that it can be applied to ANY "plain vanilla" version of Bloodlines. And one of the ways we accomplished that miraculous feat was to integrate the official 1.2 patch from ActiVision directly into the core of the True Patch Gold Edition.  

But these files have been modified also in comparision with orginal 1.2 patch files, right?

[Tessera]

I've made some significant adjustments to the Asylum club map today. They will be incorporated into Hotfix #2 when it is released.

There have always been a few problems during the initial sequences with Jeanette, which get triggered the very first time that the player enters the Asylum club. I have spent a couple of hours debugging those problems and hopefully, I have managed to get rid of them all. Or at least -- after forcibly loading a dozen test runs, I have not seen any more errors after debugging the Asylum map.

Specifically, the following issues have (hopefully) been remedied:

(1) Jeanette's initial starting location, as well as the location of her "flirt partner," have both been moved to a new spot which is about ten paces away from where they originally were. The reason for this change is because very often, the player would enter the club and Jeanette would try to run right through the intervening wall to talk to us. And since that event is scripted, the easiest way to keep Jeanette from crashing into the wall was to simply change her trajectory. I have posted a screenshot below, which shows the changes that will be made regarding this issue.

(2) The first blood doll that we meet... the redheaded one standing at the end of the bar... was causing a "pinch" in the flow of traffic in that area. Particularly when NPC's were trying to path up and down the nearby stairs. And when Knox gets added to that spot later on in the game, the pinch problem becomes even more pronounced. So what I have done is to allow that blood doll to roam. Instead of standing in that spot like a statue and getting in everyone else's way, she has been permitted to mingle with all of the other NPC's. She can now dance, engage in conversations, walk around the club and pretty much do her own thing. So be advised that after installing the next hotfix, you may need to go looking for her if you require any of her... umm... juice. Otherwise, she will function normally.

(3) To prevent Jeanette from colliding with other NPC's as she makes her way to the elevator, two things have been adjusted. First, I have DISABLED all of the NPC conversation spots, until AFTER Jeanette reaches the elevator. Once she gets there, all of those "convo spots" will be enabled simultaneously (after a short delay that I've also added), allowing the NPC's to use them in their normal fashion. The other NPC spots... like the dance floor and a few other places... will not be affected and will function the same as they always have. This adjustment was necessary, in order to prevent the occasional situation where Jeanette tries to go to the elevator after talking to us, but bangs headlong into a couple of NPC's who are simultaneously trying to reach the conversation spots near the elevator. The unfortunate result was that Jeanette would be stopped dead in her tracks until the other NPC's moved out of the way. Which in turn meant that control would not be given back to the player, because the scripted sequence will not return that control until after Jeanette has taken the elevator. Hopefully, these new triggers will prevent that sort of thing from happening in the future.

(4) As an unexpected side benefit of the above adjustments, Jeanette will now take a lightly longer walk to the elevator... which gives us an extra second or two to admire her lovely strides. So all of you horny guys out there can send your thank you cards to tessera@tessmage.com


Below is a screenshot, which shows how Jeanette and her partner were moved and the change this has made to her initial trajectory towards the player:



The stuff in RED shows the old placement and pathing. The stuff in GREEN shows the new placement and pathing.

But these files have been modified also in comparision with orginal 1.2 patch files, right?

Nay... I have already explained why those three files are there. It is so that those users who may require the official 1.2 patch will not need to install it separately. It has been integrated into the TPG patch.

[Tessera]

The main sections of tessmage web site have been
taken offline, due to financial difficulties.


Therefore, the only reliable places where you can currently
download the True Patch Gold Edition are as follows:


http://www.filefront.com/17202358/Tr...old_FINAL.rar/

http://www.sailmaker.co.uk/vtmb/


I apologize for any inconvenience, but the economy sucks these days and it eventually caught up with me.
For the foreseeable future, this is the best that I can do for everyone.  

[Cylnar]

I'm reposting here a request for bug help from a TPG user on the Steam forums who I'm trying to help. I don't want to PM him or post that this site is back up yet until things get more finalized. I'll just tell him I forwarded his issue to the TPG author and got some feedback.

Got the game two days ago and i'm loving it. I think it's a brilliant RPG but there are a few bugs(Of which I was aware of on purchase).

I've installed the True Patch: Gold Edition for my first playthrough and, so far, up untill Hollywood, everything has been fine without any bugs i've noticed.

However, as soon as I got to Hollywood and talked to VV half of my side-quests disappeared from my quest log(Don't know if this was triggered by talking to VV but it definately happened sometime after accepting her quest). These include some really good, long standing, quests such as the serial killer quest that starts in Santa Monica and some newer quests i've just picked up such as helping VV out. When I talk to characters I had quests with(The ones which disappeared) they continue to talk as normal.

Also, there's a quest in Downtown where you have to convince a TV show host, Milligan, to go down to the basement in an abandoned building where he, presumably, gets eaten by a deranged vampire. The quest is called "Necromantic". Thing is, when you go to his appartment, find him in his closet and convince him either to run, hide or that his camera crew were messing around, he appears at the door of his apartment where the camera pans down looking at him. He just stands there doing nothing. When this happens the game continues but you can't do anything. The camera's locked on him and he just stands there. I'm guessing he's supposed to run out the door and you're given control of your character but this doesn't happen.

Anyway, if anyone experienced these issues and knows a possible work around i'd appreciate any possible fix you could throw my way.

Cheers!

As to your quests disappearing...I'm not sure what could have caused that. I've never seen it. Did you follow all the directions EXACTLY when you installed the TPG? Including start a new character, make sure everything is in the correct folders, don't try to install any incompatible gameplay mods, etc.? You say the characters you had quests with "continue to talk as normal". Does that mean they still think you have the quests? If so it may merely be a journal bug and the quests may still be completable.

As to the Milligan issue...that's a known rare bug the TPG can't fix. I do believe it appears in all patched and unpatched versions of the game and is due to the incomplete alpha Source engine Troika had to use. It may appear with one game/character but start another and no problems. You can kill Milligan yourself and the quest will complete normally, if you don't mind the humanity hit.

If you do mind it, keep in mind that you can gain a point of humanity by dancing for five minutes in any dance spot; this only works the first time you dance there but you can do it in each place you can dance. So just walk into a club, activate the dance spot and go make a sandwich or something. Five minutes later you will gain a Humanity point.

Thanks for the replies.

Frosty [a couple of Wespians posted here but kept it civil, but since they don't use the TPG they couldn't really help], some of the quests have completely vanished from my journal. It's not a matter of not having the right tab open but I appreciate the input.

Cylnar, I installed it correctly and started a new character. The one quest I do remember that's not in my quest log is the very first VV quest where I have to find an ex employee. I've no idea where to go or who exactly to talk to so i've yet to investigate if I can actually continue the quest as normal.

Go to the Sin Bin (the porno store) and see if you can ask about a stripper with a heart tattooed on her back. If so, you should be able to continue the quest. Just make sure no innocent bystanders are hurt (which will make VV mad) or see anything (which will violate the Masquerade).

I went to the Sin Bin and talked to Flynn. Unfortunately no dialogue option about a tattooed stripper appeared. I guess the quests just bugged...

I did manage to kill the serial killer. The gate in Santa Monica was unlocked, I walked in and there he was. What a lack luster though, I was expecting it to be a big twist, where the serial killer was someone you knew. :<

[Tessera]

I have no idea what he's talking about in relation to "disappearing quests." We didn't change a single thing about V.V. in the Gold Edition, because there was nothing wrong with her. She functions exactly the same as she did in version 5.04AT. Nobody reported any such glitch during the two-week beta tests for the TPG patch, either. And I have never seen it myself. That's a fact.

If he is using the Steam version of the game, then he should be made aware that many other Steam users have reported problems with gamesaves and other things disappearing during gameplay. I have a feeling that it is somehow related to the Steam service itself and that it has nothing to do with the game, or how it was patched. Bloodlines is not compatible with Steam... that's just the way it is. And furthermore, Valve has done NOTHING to update the game in order to make it be more compatible with their Steam service. So my best advice would be to follow my suggestion about ripping the entire game right out of its Steam folders and then moving it over to a new location on your hard drive. And then, just make a desktop shortcut to the vampire.exe file and launch the game directly from there. No more Steam... and no more headaches.


Regarding the Milligan bug: it is indeed a well-known bug which happens occasionally. I am still trying to think of a way to fix it. It may be caused by pathing nodes in the floor of the apartment which cause Milligan to sometimes run at a bit of a tangent as he heads for the door... at which point he smacks into the furniture and gets stuck. And because its a scripted sequence, the engine won't return control to the player until after he leaves the apartment. But of course, he can't leave now... because the stupid fucker is stuck against the door jamb.

I'm going to try to move the AI nodes embedded into the floor of the apartment. That's the only thing that I can think of which -might- alter his trajectory enough to prevent him from colliding with the furniture. I do know that Acrimonious tried to address this problem back in version 5.04AT, but with only limited success. Perhaps I will have more luck, as I have recently been getting far deeper into the nuts and bolts of the Source maps than Acrimonious ever did.

Another possibility is physically moving Milligan himself. He is set to transport to a certain location downstairs after we talk to him in the closet. I may be able to relocate his downstairs spawn point, so that his angle in relation to the apartment door is free of any intervening obstructions.

If I manage to find a permanent solution to this bug, then I will post it as a hotfix. I'll try my best... and that's all I can say for now.

TO CYLNAR: if you still have that old gamesave from right before the Milligan bug happens, then please e-mail it to me or post it here as an attachment. It will save me a lot of time.

[Cylnar]

Thanks. I posted part of the reply in the forum, and some more info Valve might not like (and thus censor) in a PM to the individual.

[Tessera]

Fuck Valve. If they care so much about Bloodlines, then they should damned well patch the game themselves and save people like me and Wesp a lot of headaches. But if they're gonna leave it to people like me to deal with, then I'm gonna patch it in any damned way that I see fit... and that includes liberating the Steam version from any dependency upon Valve's wonky Steam service. If Valve won't fix things on their end, then I'll just have to find an alternate way of fixing it on my end. I really don't care who owns the fucking IP or whose toes get stepped on. I just want the game to WORK PROPERLY. That's it... that's all I care about. And if they don't like it, then they can call my lawyer. Or blow me. Either works.

[Alkanoonion]

Hi Tess
a truepatch user is haveing some problems

Game crashes at character creation questions

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hey all, I've tried everything with this game and at one point, for a short time, I got it working by turning off in game community but now it's crashing at the character creation screen again and in game community is still off.

At this stage I've downloaded a fresh copy and installed true patch. I also have hardware acceleration turned off in dxdiag because I have an old sound card.

I'm not sure what I did different to my system that caused this game to stop functioning again unless I just got lucky the two times that it did function properly.

I do know it followed a pattern. I download demo for Silverfall and blue screened, tried to get A Farewell to Dragons to run and it blue screened, then Bloodlines started blue screening again.

All of my other forty + PC games work.

Any suggestions?

I posted what I think will help but you might have a better idea on an easy fix.
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1520611

[Cylnar]

Sounds like Steam is assfucking him. He needs to disable it.

[Tessera]

In his post, he states that his problems began when he installed a demo for some other game which has nothing whatsoever to do with Bloodlines, or the True Patch.

I offer support for the True Patch Gold Edition. I do not offer support for whatever fuck ups happen due to Valve, Steam, or anything else of that nature. Nor do I offer any support for ANY True Patch users unless they post their inquiries HERE, within the official thread on the official True Patch web site. Therefore, he will unfortunately have to complain to Valve and see if they can help him fix whatever it was that got borked on his machine.

Short rant follows...

The bottom line is that Valve sucks, Steam sucks... and that is why I have absolutely nothing to do with them at this point. So my best advice to those of you who obtained Bloodlines via the Steam service is to install the True Patch Gold, and then RIP the entire game right out of its default folders and move it to a new location on your hard drive. Then, create a desktop shortcut to the debugged and FIXED executable (vampire.exe) that is installed by the True Patch and after doing so, you can kiss Steam good bye. After patching and moving the entire game, just launch Bloodlines directly -- and bypass Steam altogether. It's your game... you own it, and you can do whatever you damned well please with it. And you'll have a lot less headaches that way.

Make no mistake, people. I support Bloodlines. So does Wesp... in his own misguided fashion. Neither of us get paid any money for the excellent support that we've given to Bloodlines for all of these years. But Valve and their shitty little Steam service have NEVER supported this game -- they just leech money from Bloodlines, without paying a single penny to the original developers (Troika). Get the picture, folks..?

So as I've been saying all along: your best option in this case is to obtain a copy of Bloodlines from ANY other source than Steam. Get a copy from your friends, perhaps. Or perhaps obtain it via a torrent somewhere. It's entirely up to you, so far as how you go about getting a copy of this wonderful game -- but Steam doesn't deserve a penny of your money, so far as Bloodlines is concerned.

Anyway, I don't offer any support for Steam, nor for any of the things that Steam fucks up on your computer. Your best option is to stay the hell away from Steam altogether.

[Diablostorm]

Hello. So I'm wondering...having updated from 1.2 to this, why is it impossible to feed on people now? I try to feed and get "Feed attempt failed" and my target just looks around saying "Who's there?" Umm, what's this about? By the way, I never had this problem before and my brawling is maxed out...

Edit: I can feed on blood dolls and bums but not on regular citizens...was this intentional?

[Tessera]

Hello. So I'm wondering...having updated from 1.2 to this, why is it impossible to feed on people now?

I have no idea. No one else has ever reported having any problems during feeding.
I just performed a quick test myself, on several different world maps. No trouble
feeding whatsoever. I think this particular problem is on your end.

So I'll just have to ask the standard question that I ask whenever someone has
reported a problem that nobody else has ever reported before:

Did you follow all of the installation instructions properly..? You need to start with
a completely fresh and un-patched installation of Bloodlines, before applying the
True Patch Gold Edition. There are no exceptions to this rule.

That's the most important question. If you are unsure, then you need to completely
delete Bloodlines from your computer, including any and all prior game saves.

Then re-install the game from scratch. Do not apply any patches or mods yet.

And then, install the True Patch Gold Edition. Be sure to follow all of the instructions.

After you have patched the game properly with the TPG patch, you may then install any
optional add-on mods, if so desired. Be sure that they are 100% True Patch compatible.
Contact the authors of those mods, if you are unsure about their compatibility.

Keep in mind that the official 1.2 patch is already incorporated into the Gold Edition,
thus it is unnecessary to apply any patches of any kind prior to installing ours.
The Gold Edition takes care of everything in one total package.

So to sum up my initial response: delete the entire game from your hard drive,
then re-install it, and then install the True Patch. You will then need to start the
game from the beginning, with a brand-new character. This is vital and it applies
to ANY patches for Bloodlines. You can not use a pre-existing game save after
you have patched the game, due to the peculiar way that the Source engine
stores map data within its game save files. You must create a new character.

Try all of the above, and then let me know if you have any further issues.