Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines v1.6 Update Patch

[RainOfTerror]

Since Troika is no longer amongst the living this patch is not official, so use at your own discretion. This update brings Activision's Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines retail game to v1.6 (requires v1.2 patch installed) and addresses a number of known issues, gameplay tweaks, bug fixes and so forth.

Grab the Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines v1.6 patch (http://www.worthplaying.com/article.php?sid=27233) (11mb) over at WorthPlaying.

Mirrors:
Fileplanet (http://www.fileplanet.com/155670/150000/fileinfo/Vampire:-The-Masquerade---Bloodlines-unofficial-patch-1.6)
3D Gamers (http://www.3dgamers.com/games/vampirebloodlines/downloads/)

[Bushido]

Patching from beyond the grave, must make them an Undead Company.

[Taco]

People can whine all they want about their buggy games. I'm sad to see them go.

Looks like Bethesda is going strong though, thankfully. That's all that is left for GOOD roleplaying games for the PC.

[EvilBob46]

There's still Gothic 3 and Bioware (assuming they don't go completely Xbox).

[Taco]

True with Gothic, for whatever reason I haven't checked those games out even though I keep telling myself to.

Bioware, in my opinion, hasn't made a good RPG since BG2. They are all on a rail and bland these days.

[Borys]

RIP Troika

Arcanum was... just gross I'm a real RPG veteran (15+ years of experience) and I couldn't stand 5 minutes playing that game.

ToEE on the other hand... man, what a brilliant turn-based combat RPG. Best implementation of D&D rules ever, best dungeons, non-combat skills & options and dialogue trees since Baldur's Gate 2 (miles ahead of NWN), superb animation and spell graphics simply put best BG clone ever.

RIP Troika, you finally did it with ToEE but stupid masses of PC gamers buy only FPSes these days.

RIP Troika :(

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

Bioware.

I haven't played JE only KOTOR(s) and while KOTOR is a great game and a great RPG it just isn't up to the massive BG2 + Throne of Bhaal standards. That game was huge, long, hard, memorable (who can forget Shadow Dragon (!), Yaga Shura (!!) and Demigorgon (!!!) battles?) and rewarding. Perfect blend of action and talking, sword & sorcery.

NWN and KOTOR simply aren't.
Name one memorable battle from KOTOR, one moment when your heart started racing... nope, you can't. Oh yeah - Malak fight, well I remember it alright, had to kill him 8 times because I didn't have a single offensive Dark Power to destroy those regeneration pods. Can you say unbalanced?
To be frank KOTOR wowed me only with its graphics (AA'd of course), nothing more.

I hope they redeem themselves with Dragon Age.

[Xaerin]

Woo, I'm bout half way through this atm so hopefulyl I can still take advantage of the fixes.

[StGeorge]

I thoroughly enjoyed Bloodlines. Say what you will about Troika, but they made good games. With a little more money, and maybe a litlte more financial success, the Q&A problem would have resolved itself. As far as RPG companies go, we still have Bioware. I thought Jade Empire was excellent, if a bit watered down. And Dragon Age has all the makings of being the next BG2. We also have Obsidian, KOTOR2 was great because of Chris Avallone. Fallout 3 is coming. Elder Scrolls 4 is coming! RPG's are not dead.

[Taco]

I hope Dragon Age is good. I'm not holding my breath though. Bioware's move to 3d, in my opinion, has been poor. I really disliked NWN and if Dragon Age is anything like it I'll pass.

[FunkyPoopMonkey]

So with these patches, is the game finally reletively stable? Or at least more stable then KOTOR2 for PC? Maybe its time to try it again. I haven't tried it since launch, but it was practically unplayable back then.

[ChaosDent]

It has been quite playable since the official 1.2 patch, these patches can't tweak the game engine, but they do attempt to balance the and resolve any broken quests or dialogues. It is these last bugs that every RPG of this scope, including Morrowind, both Fallouts, and Troika's other games fall prey to most often. It takes a very dedicated publisher to put a game through enough Q/A to squash them all. Knights of the Old Republic was especially bad in this regard, and it could not be patched!

I'm in the middle of a Vampire binge right now, so this patch is very welcome.

[amusedtoe]

Troika should have just joined forces with id. Troika was one of the best at creating original games that were creative and told a great story, but they had a bunch of spastic 12 year olds who were just learning to code. id on the other hand still thinks it's 1982 and games don't need story but they create really impressive $50 tech demos. Troika on the creative side, id on the technical and we likely would have seen games so amazing our brains would have turning to liquid and dripped out our ears.

[FunkyPoopMonkey]

It has been quite playable since the official 1.2 patch, these patches can't tweak the game engine, but they do attempt to balance the and resolve any broken quests or dialogues. It is these last bugs that every RPG of this scope, including Morrowind, both Fallouts, and Troika's other games fall prey to most often. It takes a very dedicated publisher to put a game through enough Q/A to squash them all. Knights of the Old Republic was especially bad in this regard, and it could not be patched!

I'm in the middle of a Vampire binge right now, so this patch is very welcome.
KOTOR1 on PC was fine and dandy. Very few bugs. I beat it 3 times just fine. I only experienced the dantoine slow down bug, but then I placed the older ati driver dll file in the game's folder, and the bug was cured.

KOTOR2 however is pretty much unplayable in it's current state, and may never get another patch. Pity.

Morrowind is also unplayable for me because it crashes every 15 minutes or so. And this is with both expansions installed and the absolute final patch.

[Taco]

You use a cracked executable to get rid of the safedisc shit in Morrowind? I remember that copy protection crap being a cause of many slowdowns and crashes.

[eatme]

Dragon Age looks a lot better than NWN. Looked (a long time ago, so it could be way different by now) like it was a return to a more Baldur's Gate style of play. Here's hoping. :)

Glad to see this unofficial patching. Bloodlines was really ambitious, and didn't quite get finished; this gets it at least a bit closer. That was Troika's fatal flaw, or one of them-- inability to schedule in time for polish. Unpolished games don't sell, unless they're sequels or licenses.

[FunkyPoopMonkey]

You use a cracked executable to get rid of the safedisc shit in Morrowind? I remember that copy protection crap being a cause of many slowdowns and crashes.
Nope. I used an iso of the playdisc, loaded up on a virtual drive. I know that many modern PC games dont cooperate well with cracks anymore. Times have changed.

[Taco]

May want to try a cracked exe. The cd-protection in the exe causes major problems. I know a lot of these issues have probably been fixed through patches, but I remember early on most of the issues were resolved using the cracked exe. So it may be worth a shot.

[FunkyPoopMonkey]

May want to try a cracked exe. The cd-protection in the exe causes major problems. I know a lot of these issues have probably been fixed through patches, but I remember early on most of the issues were resolved using the cracked exe. So it may be worth a shot.

Dude, make up your mind. And besides, it frustrated me so much that I deleted my save game even. So I have no intension of starting over. Also that is the only game I know of that runs no better on a Radeon 9800 Pro, then it does on a Voodoo3. I'm serious. My mom's 333mhz runs it the same that my Athlon XP 3000+ does; Horribly.

[ElectricMonk]

i may have to fire this game up again

[Savok]

I think I'm going to have to buy ToEE now, the company is dead yet they're still supporting Bloodlines, that's class. The insulting part is most living companies don't even bother, only the good die young.

[PIPBoy3000]

Like many games, Bloodlines started really strong and petered out towards the end. There were some great moments, such as the haunted hotel, and I loved the overall style, which is unique. Mostly I supported Troika for doing things no one else would do. Turn based combat? Steampunk? Unfortunately their choices never sold well.

You might look into Neverwinter Nights 2 at Obsidian. Some of the Troika people moved over there and I'm hearing good things about the game. Sadly the Atari office that was going to handle the PR moved and they haven't been able to release any juicy screenshots yet. Hopefully that'll get dealt with soon.

[amusedtoe]

Glad to see this unofficial patching. Bloodlines was really ambitious, and didn't quite get finished; this gets it at least a bit closer. That was Troika's fatal flaw, or one of them-- inability to schedule in time for polish. Unpolished games don't sell, unless they're sequels or licenses.

The worst part, and what really ticks me off about the state Bloodlines was released in, is that the game sat "finished" in gold state for almost two months before it shipped waiting for HL2. If the publisher hadn't been so eager to rush it off into the Christmas season and waited to the spring they would have hopefully taken care of at least most of the problems and it wouldn't have gotten as badly overlooked.

[DevDict]

Borys' post

Funny: I am an RPG player and I rate Arcanum as my second most favourite game of all times, the first being Dungeon Keeper 2. Arcanum was buggy. It was unbalanced. It had graphics no better than Fallout's but I've been playing and replaying Arcanum ever since it came out.
ToEE, on the other hand... I do not like turn-based RPGs: I play games for story, immersion and characters. I do not see myself staring for hours at the same screen pretending to play Chess. Wizardry 8, for instance, was A-mazing but the turn based combat turned me off: never finished it.
But yes, RIP Troika.

I played BG 1, BG 2, ToB, NWN, KotOR and Jade Empire from Bioware (as well as MDK2 but that's unrelated). I didn't like NWN at all but the Baldur's Gate series was unique: nobody repeated the real-time/turn-based tactical RPG fun it delivered. Personally I cannot compare BG and KotOR as those games have different goals. KotOR, as you might agree, is all story. Remove the story and all you'll get is combat choreography which you eventually start to ignore. BG, on the other hand, is an adventure. It is not hack and slash, but the combat is the biggest chunk of the game: every second you prepare for an upcoming conflict: Memorize spells, place potions in quick slots, calculate THAC0, change party formation and equip the best gear possible.
Jade Empire, which I prefer to KotOR, believe it or not, is nevertheless closer to Bioware's Star Wars game than to their Faerun world. Jade Empire has a pretty simple combat system but has a strong storyline and the most memorable bunch of characters I can recall. BG 2 had Minsc. KotOR had HK-47. In JE every character but Dawn Star[Think of Imoen] and Sagacious Zu [think of a reverse Yoshimo {seems bad but turns out good}] is unique.

By the way: Oh yeah - Malak fight, well I remember it alright, had to kill him 8 times because I didn't have a single offensive Dark Power to destroy those regeneration pods. Can you say unbalanced?
"Destroy Droid" works fine on those pods.

I do hope that Dragon Age will be as long as Baldur's Gate: why the sudden trend in 30-hour RPGs?

I would've enjoyed Bloodlines but with my GeForce 5200, the game runs at roughly 15 FPS at lowest settings. I guess the code Troika used was indeed unoptimized as I can run HL2 with no slow-downs at medium settings and a higher resolution. Nonetheless, Bloodlines had tremendous potential. The malkav part of the game alone was a winner. "Hello, Daughter of Janus" I still remember that line because I still can't believe I missed the hint... From all the RPG companies I ever loved, only Bioware remains :( .

[Savok]

You might look into Neverwinter Nights 2 at Obsidian. Some of the Troika people moved over there and I'm hearing good things about the game. Sadly the Atari office that was going to handle the PR moved and they haven't been able to release any juicy screenshots yet. Hopefully that'll get dealt with soon.
Are you saying that something NWN (other Shadows of Undrentide) may actually be interesting? Good lord that'd be a miracle

[amusedtoe]

I would've enjoyed Bloodlines but with my GeForce 5200, the game runs at roughly 15 FPS at lowest settings. I guess the code Troika used was indeed unoptimized as I can run HL2 with no slow-downs at medium settings and a higher resolution. Nonetheless, Bloodlines had tremendous potential. The malkav part of the game alone was a winner. "Hello, Daughter of Janus" I still remember that line because I still can't believe I missed the hint... From all the RPG companies I ever loved, only Bioware remains :( .

Oh yea, in case nobody noticed the graphics options were one of the things that were largely broken aside from selecting your resolution. The detail settings did nothing and AA was locked on.

[Mister Pie]

Like many games, Bloodlines started really strong and petered out towards the end. There were some great moments, such as the haunted hotel, and I loved the overall style, which is unique. Mostly I supported Troika for doing things no one else would do. Turn based combat? Steampunk? Unfortunately their choices never sold well.

You might look into Neverwinter Nights 2 at Obsidian. Some of the Troika people moved over there and I'm hearing good things about the game. Sadly the Atari office that was going to handle the PR moved and they haven't been able to release any juicy screenshots yet. Hopefully that'll get dealt with soon.

I felt the same. Too many of the game's final missions involved killing hordes upon hordes of enemies and not enough actual role playing.

I personally really enjoyed Arcanum, though I guess others felt different. *shrug*

[Taco]

Dude, make up your mind.

I think you misread my initial post, I was getting at the same thing in both.

[StGeorge]

Savok, this patch came from the fans, not from Troika. Troika is gone, dead, kaput.

[Savok]

I was under the impression that it's not from Trokia officially because there is no Trokia officially, but it's done by ex-Trokia folk with no official support hence it appearing on reputable file/patch sites as unofficial but still there for the masses.

[Jadbalja]

Loved Bloodlines and Arcanum. Anyone got a link to the readme from the patch? I'd like to look at what was fixed and decide whether it's worth downloading.

[Jadbalja]

OK. I'm a dumbass. Guess I should have just followed the WorthPlaying link in the first place, since it lists exactly what's in the patch. D'oh!

[Orphiuchus]

Trokia made amazing games, black isle made amazing games, ion storm made some amazing games.

It seems like once a company makes a game I really like they instantly go out of buisness. Give me another BG, fallout, anachronox, or arcanum before another kotor or NWN any day.

[FunkyPoopMonkey]

Well, I still have seriously glitchy and skippy menus, NPC's who screw up all the time, and two crashes within 30 minutes. Unplayable basically. After 6 patches, it still feels as bad as when it launched.

[Savok]

Funky that means you don't have enough memory. Seriously, if I'd run Bloodlines after anything else that left an imprint in memory, it'd screw up. Try playing off a fresh boot, if that doesn't work, upgrade or give up.

[Oblivion]

Toee had one of the best turn based combat mode, I was so happy to utilize the full potential of fireballs+sorcerer combo :) other than that, not a distinguished game.