Revisiting VtM: Bloodlines

[Wesp5]

It's an "only autists will notice and care about this" thing.

Well, then it fit's perfectly in here !

 

[Semiurge]

Started playing with 1.2. Strangely, I remember vanilla cutscenes being more janky. Maybe the Steam version has some differences compared to the original CD release or maybe what I remember was from the earlier iterations of the unofficial patch. Also, my PC spec at the time was hardly suitable to play this game. Would love to get my hands on the original CD to compare, but I can't even find anything legit in the usual places.

But in any case, the vanilla "buginess" is definitely exaggerated. The famous Leopold bug was fixed with the official patch 1.2.

Then just play your vanilla full of bugs and let people play their patched game with extra content (and the much needed shortcuts).

Nosferatu warrens is like a warm, gory breath of air on my undead face. A place to vent in.

 

[502]

Cheats like noclip can completely ruin immersion for some people.

Plus Patch can ruin immersion for a fuckton of people.

 

[Semiurge]

Wesp5 Have you ever considered changing the placement of saulocept for the +patch? One of the things in games that annoys me is that often you get experience boosting items or powers very late in game, often for free, and I wondered if it was possible to make unique items in Bloodlines available in more than one place, but either place being mutually exclusive so that you can't have duplicates. For example if you were to find saulocept in a very difficult to lockpick box on the Dane or in the museum, the game script would mark the item as having been found and the other saulocept in the Giovanni mansion disappears or is replaced by another item. This way players who have spent many points on security and dexterity would be rewarded earlier and others would still get the item later. Simply moving the item from the Giovanni mansion would likely be out of the question for many people and I'm not requesting that or the other, but I was curious if the more complicated method was possible.

 

[Wesp5]

Wesp5Have you ever considered changing the placement of saulocept for the +patch?

No, because while it would be possible to do like you write, it could really impact the game balance by providing a lot more experience points early on.

 

[Semiurge]

Wesp5Have you ever considered changing the placement of saulocept for the +patch?

No, because while it would be possible to do like you write, it could really impact the game balance by providing a lot more experience points early on.

Your're probably right

 

[502]

This method of forcing AA doesn't work anymore with the newest Nvidia drivers. Anyone know a workaround? Thanks in advance.

1. Open Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines driver profile via Nvidia Profile Inspector.
2. Change Antialiasing compatibility to 0x000000C0
3. Change Antialiasing - Mode to Override any application setting.
4. Change Antialiasing - Setting to 4x [4x Multisampling] or 8xQ [8x Multisampling].
5. Change Antialiasing - Transparency Supersampling to 4x Sparse Grid Supersampling or 8x Sparse Grid Supersampling. This should match your Multisampling selection.
6. Apply changes.

 

[Wesp5]

This method of forcing AA doesn't work anymore with the newest Nvidia drivers. Anyone know a workaround? Thanks in advance.

I use SweetFX for AA personally...

 

[HansDampf]

Does that even work properly? I tried SMAA via SweetFX and ReShade for a couple of games, and I could barely see an improvement over no AA.

 

[Latelistener]

SweetFX / Reshade has one of the best SMAA shaders I've seen.

Below are settings that come with Boulotaur2024 Injector for SweetFX:

Spoiler

Will look like that in SweetFX:

#define SMAA_THRESHOLD 0.05
#define SMAA_MAX_SEARCH_STEPS 32
#define SMAA_MAX_SEARCH_STEPS_DIAG 16
#define SMAA_CORNER_ROUNDING 50
#define COLOR_EDGE_DETECTION 1
#define SMAA_DIRECTX9_LINEAR_BLEND 0

Or you can import them in Reshade:

[SMAA.fx]
CornerRounding=50
DebugOutput=0
DepthEdgeDetectionThreshold=0.010000
EdgeDetectionThreshold=0.050000
EdgeDetectionType=1
MaxSearchSteps=32
MaxSearchStepsDiagonal=16
PredicationEnabled=0
PredicationScale=2.000000
PredicationStrength=0.400000
PredicationThreshold=0.010000

Anyone know a workaround?

0x000000C1

 

[Semiurge]

I use Nvidia 432.00 (Microsoft's "rebranded" driver) and forcing FXAA works without degrading texture sharpness. The blur is very game specific, Witcher 2 was impacted greatly, Bloodlines was not.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

Finished the game again, with the new patch. I feel like in the time since I last played the patch has gotten worse. The end of the Giovanni mansion was crashing the game, so I had to load a save from before entering and cheat to skip it. Which seems to be related to the new research mechanic, which feels lame. Melee seemed..worse than I remembered and most enemies ate a lot more bullets too. Most of the bosses seemed stronger than they were before. Maybe its just because I was playing a Malk this time.
Also, its really, really, really, really obvious when the restored content kicks in. In particular, I'd like to especially complain about Beckett's emails, they sound like someone completely different.

 

[502]

0x000000C1

Thanks.



I'll give SweetFX a go though.

Also, its really, really, really, really obvious when the restored content kicks in. In particular, I'd like to especially complain about Beckett's emails, they sound like someone completely different.

Play with the Basic Patch.

 

[Wesp5]

The end of the Giovanni mansion was crashing the game, so I had to load a save from before entering and cheat to skip it.

This is a typical problem if you continue an old save with a new patch, if you didn't I have no idea why this would happen.

Which seems to be related to the new research mechanic, which feels lame.

You mean about the occult items? Sadly this is the only way I could do it as we can't restore the Occult Knowledge stat.

Melee seemed..worse than I remembered and most enemies ate a lot more bullets too. Most of the bosses seemed stronger than they were before.

As far as I remember the patch never changed anything about the power or health of enemies or bosses...

In particular, I'd like to especially complain about Beckett's emails, they sound like someone completely different.

I'm open to suggestions, because obviously I'm not Brian Mitsoda and not a native English speaker to boot !

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

No, this was a fresh install, fresh save with the newest patch. I say related to the occult items because you say something about those screwing something up in the readme at one point. Dunno where it was, but that was the impression that was left.
I think a good place to start on that is how a centuries old vampire isn't going to sound like a millenial. The way exclamation marks pepper his speech don't scream old vampire to me. Given that you probably don't want him to sound like a boomer who just discovered the internet, I'd suggest looking up old letters and giving him something that broadly sounds like that.

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

I think a good place to start on that is how a centuries old vampire isn't going to sound like a millenial.

Agreed. During the Victorian era, people used to accord a lot of importance to what they considered the art of letter writing. What kind of paper, how you fold it, your calligraphy and especially the elegance of your writing style, as well as the contents. Older vampires would be set in those old ways. They wouldn't be caught final-dead writing like modern people.

This evolution in style is even easily observed when reading older stuff on the internet. The way people used to sound more intelligent and considerate on older forums back in early 00s, that just doesn't exist anymore. And that's only 20 years of difference.

 

[Multidirectional]

This method of forcing AA doesn't work anymore with the newest Nvidia drivers. Anyone know a workaround? Thanks in advance.

1. Open Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines driver profile via Nvidia Profile Inspector.
2. Change Antialiasing compatibility to 0x000000C0
3. Change Antialiasing - Mode to Override any application setting.
4. Change Antialiasing - Setting to 4x [4x Multisampling] or 8xQ [8x Multisampling].
5. Change Antialiasing - Transparency Supersampling to 4x Sparse Grid Supersampling or 8x Sparse Grid Supersampling. This should match your Multisampling selection.
6. Apply changes.

Last time I played I simply forced SGSSAA without any compatibility flags. Also you gotta make sure "Antialiasing - Behaviour Flags" is set to "none". Though honestly SGSSAA isn't even needed that much for this game, you can just use hybrid modes like 16xS (2x2 SSAA + 4x MSAA) without setting anything on "Transparency Supersampling" and it will look about just as good. Again, without using any compatiblity flags. A lot of older games don't even need them, especially ones that came before DX9. And definitely don't resort to using shitty SMAA.

 

[Semiurge]

I think a good place to start on that is how a centuries old vampire isn't going to sound like a millenial.

Agreed. During the Victorian era, people used to accord a lot of importance to what they considered the art of letter writing. What kind of paper, how you fold it, your calligraphy and especially the elegance of your writing style, as well as the contents. Older vampires would be set in those old ways. They wouldn't be caught final-dead writing like modern people.

This evolution in style is even easily observed when reading older stuff on the internet. The way people used to sound more intelligent and considerate on older forums back in early 00s, that just doesn't exist anymore. And that's only 20 years of difference.

Social media culture seepeth into spoken languages, further advancing the corruption of educational cutbacks. Languages evolve all the time but now this seems more like decay.

 

[Lemon]

I think a good place to start on that is how a centuries old vampire isn't going to sound like a millenial.

Agreed. During the Victorian era, people used to accord a lot of importance to what they considered the art of letter writing. What kind of paper, how you fold it, your calligraphy and especially the elegance of your writing style, as well as the contents. Older vampires would be set in those old ways. They wouldn't be caught final-dead writing like modern people.

This evolution in style is even easily observed when reading older stuff on the internet. The way people used to sound more intelligent and considerate on older forums back in early 00s, that just doesn't exist anymore. And that's only 20 years of difference.

Social media culture seepeth into spoken languages, further advancing the corruption of educational cutbacks. Languages evolve all the time but now this seems more like decay.

This is something Westerners have been writing about for at least a century, Oswald Spengler is perhaps the most famous example, with his series The Decline of the West (1918), but many others have written about the prole drift in our values. Everyone from Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, to Paul Fussell. Where we once valued beauty, we now wallow in ugliness.

 

[Wesp5]

I say related to the occult items because you say something about those screwing something up in the readme at one point. Dunno where it was, but that was the impression that was left.

I don't think occult items could mess up map transfers, usually only incompatible saves do that.

The way exclamation marks pepper his speech don't scream old vampire to me.

There is exactly one exclamation mark in his emails, which I will remove, and I'm pretty sure I got some English speaker going over it already. If this isn't good enough for you, please offer alternatives that would also fit the format...

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

Well, I'll give another look when I get there again on both accounts...but I make no promises. The series of events that led to that crash (and no other, I would like to point out, only at the end of the cutscene loading the sacrophagus into the truck) did not involve any old saves. From installation, what I did was:

• Start a new game as a male Malkavian.
• Quit because I didn't want to stare at the Malk's ugly model for hours.
• Get a different model off the internet, didn't know how to install it, then installed Plus patch over base game.
• Start again in plus patch, fucked up putting in model, quit, put in model properly, start again.
• Everything goes fine until said issue.
• Reload before mansion, skip mansion, everything goes fine.

Anyway, something occurred to me. Ghouls take on minor characteristics of the blood of their vampire, yes? So why don't Nosferatu ghouls look like victims of a bad plastic surgeon?

 

[Wesp5]

Well, I'll give another look when I get there again on both accounts...but I make no promises.

I have a beta tester who always plays all new patch versions through as fast as possible to make sure something like this doesn't happen, so I have no idea right now. But it is known that Bloodlines gets very glitchy if you play long sessions in one go, like more than two hours! Most famous is the bug where endless items spawn in your haven, maybe this affects the Giovanni Mansion too?

Anyway, something occurred to me. Ghouls take on minor characteristics of the blood of their vampire, yes? So why don't Nosferatu ghouls look like victims of a bad plastic surgeon?

Good question! At least Heather will become crazy if you play a Malkavian ...

 

[Semiurge]

Anyway, something occurred to me. Ghouls take on minor characteristics of the blood of their vampire, yes? So why don't Nosferatu ghouls look like victims of a bad plastic surgeon?

Maybe it's only mental characteristics with all of the clans, at first anyway, in addition to the generic high, regeneration and strenght provided by consuming their blood.

Besides, I may not be familiar enough with the lore but doesn't the Nosferatu curse only affect the body, not the mind? So when most Nosferatu ghouls and the vampires themselves are very resourceful and clever it has nothing to do with the bloodcurse, but everything to do wtih how the Nosferatu select their "candidates".

 

[Delterius]

nice

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

Huh?





Huh?


I mean if it were Malkavian I'd understand, but wtf?