Game News Bloodlines Official Patch 1.2

[Sol Invictus]

Tags: Troika Games; Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines

The first official patch for Bloodlines has finally been released. But was it worth the wait? It's available right now at <a href=http://www.3dgamers.com/news/more/1096480551/>3DGamers</a>. Here's the list of changes:
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<blockquote>NOTICE: This game contains technology intended to prevent copying that may conflict with some disc and virtual drives.
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FIXES IN THE PATCH
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- Fixed C++ Runtime error on launch of the game due to older versions of Python interpreter.
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- Fixed Invalid dialog responses due to older versions of Python interpreter.
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- Fixed problem where keys and keycards may disappear from player's inventory.
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- Fixed problem where binding either Enter or Right Mouse Button to the Use key would cause the inventory window to immediately close after opening. These bindings are now no longer permitted.
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- Added "Inventory Full - Items Dropped" message when player receives items beyond the inventory limit and added inspection particles to the dropped items. This addresses the issue with cameras being lost in the "Model Citizen quest.
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- Fixed problem where a player would have both the vampire and warform models stuck together when both Fortitude and Protean (level 5) are activated.
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- Fixed crash to desktop when the player returns to the boat after rescuing Johansen from the Society of Leopold.
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- Fixed problem where the newspaper would report success in the "Model Citizen" quest even though the player had failed it.
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- Fixed problem where the player can log on to the Theater computer before receiving the "Tangled Web" quest from Mitnick.
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- Fixed problem with haven mailboxes not receiving award for completing the food critic quest. quest.
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- Modified E dialog so that it is easier to receive the "Thinned Blood" quest.
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- Modified Regent dialog so that he now recognizes completion of the Gargoyle quest.
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- Modified Isaac dialog so that he now recognizes completion of the King's Way and Gargoyle quests.
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IMPORTANT NOTES
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If you find that you are not accumulating experience points as you complete quests, this is because you have Auto-Level turned on and the game is automatically spending your experience points to improve your abilities and attributes. To disable Auto-Level, access the Character Sheet and click on the Auto-Level toggle button.
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Once you acquire a new haven, your Santa Monica haven computer and mailbox will no longer function. Use the computer and mailbox of your new haven instead.
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When you are playing a Nosferatu, your grotesque appearance prevents you from using the taxi that appears after you blow up the Sabbat warehouse. Nosferatu characters must travel between game hubs using the hub map found in the sewers. </blockquote>
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There is no mention of any fixes pertaining to the intro bugs, the sound stutter, the dysfunctional Environmental Audio option, the performance issues, the load times (on some computers), combat lag, the major memory leaks or the respawning monsters.
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But thanks for trying anyway, Troika.
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Hats off to <b>butsomuch</b> for the notice.

 

[PennyAnte]

Pfffft. What's anyone's guess about the likelihood of Crudlines fan fixes for some of these outstanding issues?

 

[POOPERSCOOPER]

its more of like fix all the critical bugs as soon as possible patch, but a month late.

I TAKE IT ALL BACK

 

[jiujitsu]

TAKER BACKER!

Yea, well at least they fixed *some* stuff. Hopefully they are working on those other problems too, and just wanted to get some stuff fixed with this patch. Instead of releasing one that fixes it ALL in a month or so.

 

[Sol Invictus]

I doubt it. This is what the readme file says:

IMPROVING GAME PERFORMANCE

Most performance problems reported to Activision Customer Support are due to computer systems not meeting the minimum system requirements or not having the latest video and sound card drivers installed.

If these are not the causes of any performance problems you are experiencing, we recommend that you try some or all of the following suggestions.

• Set your desktop to a resolution of 800x600, 32-bit True Color and play the game at that resolution.
• Shut down all background applications.
• Disable any anti-virus software you are running.

• Set the game’s Game Options to their minimum settings. In particular, disable Environmental Effects.

• This game requires a 1400MB swap file. If you are using Windows XP, 98, or ME, make sure that you have “Let Windows Manage My Virtual Memory” enabled, and if you are using Windows 2000, make sure that you have manually set your max swap file size to 1400MB. In addition, make that you actually have enough free space on your hard drive to facilitate the swap file (1400MB).

What a load of crap. I can run Far Cry, UT 2004 and Half Life 2 at maximum detail settings, 1280x960 resolution with Environmental Audio enabled. On top of that, I never turn off my Anti-Virus or my Firewall (except to play Bloodlines) and don't have any of the performance hogging issues that I do with this game. It's funny that Activision/Troika tries to blame the end-user for poor performance.

By the way, it's been almost 2 months. The game was supposedly finished eons ago but they were just waiting for release. I wonder what they did with all that spare time prior to the game's release. This patch should have been out less than a week after the game's release.

 

[Dhruin]

It's been 5 weeks, Exitium, so it's closer to 1 month than two, if you'd rather use months than just be accurate. And you know as well as I do that Leon and Activision have continuously refuted "been finished for xx months and just sitting on the shelf", so why trot that rubbish out?

 

[Vival]

Hmmm. Is it even worth it to install the official patch if you already have the fan made one? If I remember correctly its fix list was actually longer...

 

[Sol Invictus]

It's been 5 weeks, Exitium, so it's closer to 1 month than two, if you'd rather use months than just be accurate. And you know as well as I do that Leon and Activision have continuously refuted "been finished for xx months and just sitting on the shelf", so why trot that rubbish out?

When did they refute it?

 

[Mendoza]

Frankly I wasn't expecting them to improve the games performance, just remove non performance related bugs (which doesn't make me happy with the performance). And it is just under 5 weeks here from when the game was released so, while it's hardly a great response time, it's certainly a lot less than 2 months.

 

[DemonKing]

Well I encountered 2 noticeable bugs in my first time through...

1. The Leopold crash...which was a bummer of a bug!

2. The first cop on the boat kept spamming his dialog at me repeatedly. This was more annoying than game-ending like #1 above.

At least they fixed the really bad issue (#1) that I'm sure is encouraging a lot of people to give up on the game.

Sure the patch is a little late, but it was delivered in far more timely a manner than Atari's first patch for TOEE last year. Would have been nice if someone had told us it was coming, though.

 

[Dhruin]

It's been 5 weeks, Exitium, so it's closer to 1 month than two, if you'd rather use months than just be accurate. And you know as well as I do that Leon and Activision have continuously refuted "been finished for xx months and just sitting on the shelf", so why trot that rubbish out?

When did they refute it?

There's a dozen references but here's one from Leon @ IGN:

First off, I don't understand the myth that the game was finished months ago and we had to wait until HL2 was released to release it. We were using the HL2 source - if Valve hadn't finished an FPS with the engine (and they started with the engine before we did, obviously), how would it be possible for us to finish a complex RPG with the same engine in less time than it took them?

http://vnboards.ign.com/message.asp?top ... t=79076724

 

[Mendoza]

First off, I don't understand the myth that the game was finished months ago and we had to wait until HL2 was released to release it. We were using the HL2 source - if Valve hadn't finished an FPS with the engine (and they started with the engine before we did, obviously), how would it be possible for us to finish a complex RPG with the same engine in less time than it took them?

Taking time to polish and QA the game, and not rushing the ending? Actually, I take that back, Half Life 2 felt like it had a rushed ending too.

 

[Surlent]

At last Troika patches ! Oh yea !
This gives hope for future patches and the wildly rumored xpansion.

But now I have to reverse all my modding and do it again after patch install, glad I didn't do anything major.
Though I wish they would have put on an option to skip the cutscenes with a press of a button. Next patch, please ? :arrow:

 

[Mr. Teatime]

Does anyone know how the game is selling?

Also, why 1.2? What happened to 1.1...

 

[Surlent]

Maybe Activision didn't want to release it.
It might as well be this is the last patch they are going to release.

 

[Mendoza]

Has anyone had any success with the patch? I only ask because I found this thread complaining about the patch causing the game (and all other games the guy had) to crash. It could just be a one off, but I need some reassurance before I go ahead and install it.

 

[Lomer]

Does anyone know how the game is selling?

The sales are not fantastic, I guess. Otherwise they would have already announced an expansion or even a sequel. Note that Troika stopped updating the Bloodlines news section of their site (even though some more good rewies showed up and some awards have been given in the meantime), which is hardly a good sign.

Now, I don't want to sound like some selfish son of a bitch, but this patch has solved all my major technical problems with the game and I don't desperately need another one :D . Sorry for all of you guys with your CTDs and ultra long load times :wink: .

 

[Volourn]

"Most performance problems reported to Activision Customer Support are due to computer systems not meeting the minimum system requirements or not having the latest video and sound card drivers installed."

Proof please. My computer specs DESTROYS the recommendations. What a bunch of maroons.

As for the actual patch; not bad; it's too bad it didn't fix the worst "bug".

 

[Surlent]

Leon said in one of the reviews (can't point finger to which) that Activision doesn't release sales figures, so Troika doesn't at least officially know how well BL is doing saleswise.

Troika folks don't update their site too often and I doubt they are going to put every possible review on their front page.

 

[Lomer]

Troika folks don't update their site too often and I doubt they are going to put every possible review on their front page.

Yeah, but they used to announce the awards for their previous games rather quickly.

 

[Briosafreak]

Again that last part of this newsbit is quite unfair, as i`ve said in other topics now:

Like i`ve said before that`s Source related stuff that Valve still hasn`t fixed properly, the Steamforum is now full of locked topics about that, but there are new topics beeing spawn at almost every minute. And you can find the miriad of solutions the fans are trying over there or in every 3d gaming forum, things are in such a way that fans took their computers to Valve headquarters to see if they finally can fix things.

The weird part is that it afects computers in a random way, in two machines thta are pratically the same one can have the stutter and memory errors and the other can be just fine.

Troika fixed what they could fix for now, now they just have to wait for Valve to fix the weird stuttering and memory error problems that seem to show up randomly.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Exitium has sand in his vagina.

 

[mr. lamat]

i'd like to remind everyone that i get loadtimes of 5-8 seconds and haven't had a framerate problem to date.

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

i'd like to remind everyone that i get loadtimes of 5-8 seconds and haven't had a framerate problem to date.

That's because you're a Troika fanboy.

 

[mr. lamat]

naw, it's the two gigs of dual channel ocz ram. i can play dow in a window and render crap in studiomax at the same time if i want. it's ever so lovely!