V:TM - Bloodlines

Just started another playthrough, this time as a Tremere. Chose the Eldritch Prodigy History in order to increase my Thaumaturgy faster though my overall experience points are lowered. Mainly chose Tremere because supposedly with one of the recent Plus Patches by Wesp, Tremeres can learn Protean from Beckett provided they do provide the right dialogue options to him at the right times. So that should be interesting.

Also, I'm building my character to be mostly Thaumaturgy-based with some melee skills. That way I can pling them from afar with Blood Strike, delay them (or crowd control lots of enemies) with Blood Purge, and if they then get too close, whack them with my pointy stick. It was interesting doing one of the early combat scenarios with nothing but Blood Strike because if my enemy doesn't die, I get blood back from them so I can pretty much repeat the process ad infinitum. Doing so made me think I should've just bumped up my dodge and soak instead of worrying about melee at all. Especially once I get Blood Shield at Level 3 Thaumaturgy.

I love this game. <3

 

I keep learning new things about this game every time I play through with a different clan with different disciplines.

Not sure if this is a Plus Patch only thing, but there is a non-violent solution for the Bad Blood quest.

Spoiler

When you go in and see the 4 thugs on the left side of the diner, you can now persuade them to not attack you or you can dominate them not to attack you (not playing a Malkavian right now but Dementation might work also). And you get XP for it, you don't have to kill them for the XP. Neat!!!

 

Huh.

Weird.

Wesp changed the boss fight in the Library level.

Spoiler

Instead of fighting Andrei, the Tzimisce, again, you now fight against a Lasombra instead. Fight is a lot easier now too. Or that might be because of the Blood Shield being more effective against bullets or whatever. Dunno. Either way, it's a lot easier of a fight now. And it must be a pretty weak Lasombra, only uses Obtenebration for warping around the level. Kind of disappointing. Oh well, probably only so much Wesp can do so it's understandable I guess. :p

 

Just finished my Tremere playthrough. The Unofficial Patch added more abilities to the Sheriff that suck out your blood so playing as a Tremere in that fight puts me at a distinct disadvantage because all of my abilities come through blood use. So I was relegated to fight it like all the other times I played the game. Guns. So lame.

 

And right as I completed my Tremere playthrough, Wesp just released Unofficial Patch 8.9.

Patch Changelog:

Spoiler

Version Changelog:
------------------

v8.9 02.02.2014
----
+Recreated missing Hallowbrook atrium level, thanks to EntenSchreck.
+Moved Sabbat choice into Hallowbrook atrium and added missing XPs.
+Restored male blood doll at Red Dragon by using former Tong mugger.
+Recreated "maze" room at Grout's Mansion and restored three icons.
+Fixed some minor discipline issues and restored the basic versions.
+Restored ten decals, moved others and removed restored from basic.
+Fixed warform using occult items issue and improved Bloodheal rate.
+Added two inspections, warehouse boss talk trigger and moved Yugo.
+Increased flamethrower ammo and provided Desert Eagle ammo earlier.
+Disarmed Dominated guard bomb on taking and fixed one sound there.
+Avoided crashing when testing out too many histories, thanks to AJ.
+Added Intimidating Milligan for Nosferatu and fixed armor effects.
+Made it possible to give redundant items to LaCroix and other NPCs.
+Unleaked and improved library and atrium maps, thanks to Psycho-A.
+Restored discipline or weapon selection toggle and Flynn as vendor.
+Moved crying girl near cops at pier and changed her to unique NPC.
+Restored Ocean House boiler model and animated warehouse generator.
+Fixed details of thug, Andrei, Ox, LaCroix, VV and Lily dialogues.
+Made spooky cover sound once and plus only and added steam to Yugo.
+Removed thugs from diner after quest if you avoided fighting them.
+Fixed warrens mist issue and made fatguys use the claws more often.
+Restored or fixed fourty NPC gestures and fixed Confession blocks.
+Made Braid Talisman raise Wits and restored SM Chunk avoiding rain.
+Added Empire Hotel and ending dance spots and made Glaze one plus.
Fixed two particles, a door and added loading tips texts to Extras.
Restored three skyboxes to warehouse, Dane and Hallowbrook atrium.
Corrected Grout's mansion decals, tutorial bucket and tattoo boxes.
Fixed croucher laughs and no floats for females bug, thanks to AJ.
Updated SweetFX to 1.5 and included a preset, thanks to eeekitties.
Fixed pause messages in engine.dll, random sounds and many floats.
Added widescreen resolution support to engine.dll, thanks to Behar.
Repaired many sound files with broken looping, thanks to Psycho-A.
Improved installer by providing additional choices on installation.
Added Bloodlines SDK to Extras folder, thanks Psycho-A and Fire64.
Corrected three interesting places with wrong bum animations in SM.

I can't stay away from this game.

 

The last quarter or fifth becomes way too bashy-shooty. It's one of the game's primary flaws, I would say.

 

Patch 9.0 is up!!!

http://www.patches-scrolls.de/patch/4647/61625

Patch Changelog:

Spoiler

Version Changelog:
------------------

v9.0 22.04.2014
----
+Added Heather to sewers for Nosferatu and improved new idle sounds.
+Made stealth killing Johnny possible when using Obfuscate level 5.
+Added possibility to keep the quick Nosferatu in the warrens alive.
+Cleaned Mercurio's apartment after a time and fixed a SM map hole.
+Added seven missing infobar sounds and created seven infobar icons.
+Restored drug stealing quest of Trip for one XP and Finance bonus.
+Removed Blood Guardian waterspray and made Lily's purse unsellable.
+Fixed bug with casting Bloodbuff breaking off lockpicking attempt.
+Raised high firearms book requirement to 9 and updated travel maps.
+Made Hallowbrook atrium barrels solid and enemies navigate better.
+Restored Justicar to Camarilla ending and Jack's face for LaSombra.
+Moved fire axe to crashing elevator top and fatguy to atrium exit.
+Restored unused models to Society of Leopold, warehouse and Zhao's.
+Changed library to combat zone and fixed rotunda decal flickering.
+Repaired hearing warehouse boss conversation twice and some floats.
+Made Nadia react to zombies damaging player and removed fake door.
+Gave Occult Nut a Scholarship bonus and fixed new discipline lines.
+Fixed icons at Giovanni mansion and made Bruno react to feed-kill.
Added modified trackerscheme into Extras to change Malkavian fonts.
Repaired Carson, Knox, Damsel, Yukie, Regent and Hatter dialogues.
Fixed two inverted textures and renamed Sheriff's warform Behemoth.
Restored three King's Way headrunner for Nosferatu and Malkavians.
Lowered McFly's float rate and fixed references to missing Heather.
Added documents to Extras to reveal where restorations originated.
Attached floor number to Empire Arms suite names in hotel computer.
Fixed three wrong loop sounds and moved a Mandarin line elsewhere.
Corrected some bug fixes that were lost in 8.9, thanks vladdmaster.
Restored blast door to Giovanni crypt and fixed tutorial door bug.
Improved Nosferatu Nines intro and map details, thanks vladdmaster.
Fixed sewer sound transitions on SM, Hollywood and Chinatown hubs.
Corrected two bad Lotus Blossom icons and lowered Skyeline humming.

Apparently it's because they ran out of money, or so I heard.

 

And just when I installed the latest patch. Dammit.

 

So I applied the 9.0 patch and have been going through it as a Gangrel which I haven't played as before. The Warform is pretty useful, at least so far.

Spoiler

It's making short work of those fleshcrafted monsters in the Sewer Warrens. Like 5 hits and dead. Andrei was also pretty easy to defeat with Warform.

The only problem I've had so far is with the Gargoyle. I can't do much damage to it unless I use blunt melee weapons, but I've been focusing all my points into Unarmed and my disciplines so I can't wield a Sledgehammer effectively. So I had to solve the quest through dialogue instead of fighting it. *shrug*

I've hit a few things new that were introduced in 9.0 like the quest for Trip. Once I'm done with this, next time I load it up I have a good idea for a Ventrue that goes against type. I'd like to see how it works. :p

 

I think Wesp's patch includes a new wolf-like model for the warform. Vanilla warform looked pretty stupid...like a big bat that couldn't fly.

 

This one still looks like a malformed bat. There's bat-like wingfolds between the arm and body. I'll try to post a picture in a bit. I don't know what vanilla Warform looks like though so I can't compare.

 

That sounds like the vanilla warform. Someone modded one that looks more like a wolf (much cooler IMO).

 

This beast of a game is currently on sale until the 5th May on Steam at 75% offski, good time as any considering the recent patch release.
Also all this talk makes me want to try another Malk run, being insane (sorta) makes the late game much more bearable, well that and a high powered rifle.

 

Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines is now available DRM-free on GOG.

https://www.gog.com/news/release_vampirer_the_masquerade_bloodlines

Also, wesp released unofficial patch 9.5 last month. It adds a couple new locations that were never completed during development. To get access to one of them I have to get access to the Library quest which is nearly two-thirds through the game. I'll post screenshots when I get there.

Playing through as Brujah this time. Only clan I haven't played as after this will be Ventrue. I'll probably wait after few more patches to do that though. :p

 

Damn, he is still releasing patches? He's been at it for like 8 or 9 years... That's some dedication.

 

Might be a good time to try it out again. Haven't touched the game since 2013.

 

I have a sneak of 7 with Bloodbuff activated, why are human thugs detecting me when I'm sneaking behind them? >_<

Is it cuz I'm Brujah and they suck? >_>

 

Warehouse level. My Dex is 3, Stealth is 2, with bloodbuff my sneak is 7. Should be good enough. But they're detecting me before the stealth kill icon pops up. I've never had a problem with this before and I've beaten the game like 8 times. <_<

 

I see someone´s talking about bloodlines. Well, time to install it again.