VtMB is so wonky

[Wesp5]

But what else would a modder do? "I am god and will do whatever the fuck I want in my mod".

A lot of reasonable things have been said already, so I'll only add these reasons which actually made me change his location in the plus patch:

1) Larry is shown to be in that alley in beta movies of Bloodlines. So Troika did originally have him in the place, even the truck was left.
2) Larry still talks as if he is there: "Babygirl, I saw you coming from down the street..." and "I'm the real deal, OG, man in the alley..."

Probably Activision forced Troika to move him more out into the open, because else players like laclongquan didn't find him easily enough !

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

“Man in the alley” is the sanitized version of a line in the Superfly soundtrack, or at least that’s what I assumed. Larry definitely comes off like a Curtis Mayfield fan:

I'm your mama, I'm your daddy
I'm that nigga in the alley
I'm your doctor, when in need
Want some coke, have some weed
You know me, I'm your friend
Your main boy, thick and thin
I'm your pusherman


Speaking of the other reason Larry can’t sell hot merchandise right in the street: he’s a big black man in downtown Los Angeles. Forget selling shit, the LAPD wouldn’t even let him loiter outside a fancy building like the Ventrue tower. Plus, this game takes place nearly fifteen years ago, which was right after the LAPD got hit with the Rampart scandal: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rampart_scandal

Wesp didn’t move Larry, he hightailed it to the alley himself so that he wouldn’t have to split his earnings with the PO-lice.

 

[Turbo normie]

Remember when we could bully a japanese girl in Chinatown for her broken english ? Those good old days.
VtM:Bloodlines 4ever.

P.S: Velvet is bae.

 

[unfairlight]

I never really understood the fanboyism over this game. It's mediocre in everything. The only reason I could see for liking it is because of what a weird fucking mashup of everything it is.

 

[laclongquan]

I cant believe I have to make this argument but

This here aint no Earth~!

It has monsters lurking in the depths of society from the beginning with Cain for examples.

It may have many features like modern Earth but it's not Earth.

But then these idiots only know how to shout straw and false arguments.

 

[Cael]

Maybe we need to start a new thread to debate the relative merits of different potential positionings of Fat Larry

Or do what sane people did ages ago and tossed the bloody thing in the bin due to it being a buggy and unplayable mess. Fuck that autistic WESP shit.

 

[Wesp5]

But then these idiots only know how to shout straw and false arguments.

Writes the guy who started the whole thing with straw and false arguments. LOL...

 

[ColonelTeacup]

I never really understood the fanboyism over this game. It's mediocre in everything. The only reason I could see for liking it is because of what a weird fucking mashup of everything it is.

Finally, I understand how you earned your "retarded" title.

 

[unfairlight]

Odd place to learn that, since it happened because I decided to wrongthink against a shit nostalgiafag game.

 

[Anomander Rake]

may i ask which game?

 

[ColonelTeacup]

It's in the title.

 

[unfairlight]

may i ask which game?

Ion Maiden

 

[FreshCorpse]

 

[FreshCorpse]

Jesus what is the point of an image host if they cut you off 20 minutes after posting on a minor internet forum because "muh bandwidth". Bandwidth is the whole fucking point. Anyway, trying again, this time with imgur

 

[Kitchen Utensil]

[...] a minor internet forum [...]

 

[Delterius]

the correct term is Exclusive

 

[Trashos]

Applying gameplay/design changes in bug-fixing patches is a huge red flag, honestly. It doesn't matter if the changes make the game better or not, if it's cut content or whatever. They should be a separate mod. Just ask yourselves why the modder combined the two and didn't offer them separately.

I am speaking generally, from my experience with other games. I haven't played Bloodlines, so I don't know what the situation here is.

 

[Delterius]

so I don't know what the situation here is.

informative

 

[the_shadow]

After lurking for a while on this forum and Vampires the Masquerade Bloodlines is often mentioned as a classic so I thought I'd give it a try. Right now I'm 8 hours in and have returned to downtown.

Jesus christ the bugs. I'd heard about this beforehand and am playing the GOG version with the unofficial patches but I'm still having a really buggy experience: unable to holster my weapon until I had completed a certain quest, quicksave silently failing, etc. I even had an extremely weird one where reloading a save was not clearing some aggressive NPCs and I had to restart the game.

I have to say that the few hour was absolutely captivating. The tutorial with Jack, discovering Santa Monica...that was all really cool. But the plot has technical problems too - NPCs sometimes refer to other people I haven't met as if I know them. I wish that werewolf historian was less cringey.

Does it stay this wonky throughout? Because there is something really good here, if this game could just keep things together.

I never had any problems with bugs, but I've heard it's notorious for being a bit unpolished in regards to stability/bugfixes, so I was probably a bit lucky in that respect. The fact that you're playing a 14 year old game on recent hardware wouldn't work in your favour either.

The wonky combat is feature, no one can fix that.

I never thought the combat was wonky.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

haunted mansion is still terrifying

 

[FreshCorpse]

Applying gameplay/design changes in bug-fixing patches is a huge red flag, honestly. It doesn't matter if the changes make the game better or not, if it's cut content or whatever. They should be a separate mod. Just ask yourselves why the modder combined the two and didn't offer them separately.

I am speaking generally, from my experience with other games. I haven't played Bloodlines, so I don't know what the situation here is.

They are separate though. There's two different patches, the normal patch and the plus patch the whole point being to limit material changes to the plus patch.

I'm near the end now and I honestly don't see why anyone would think Troika's creation is too beautiful and pure to suffer an unofficial patch. This thing is wonky as shit. That goes for the combat, the dialogue and to be honest, at times the plot as well. That doesn't mean I'm not having a great time with it and I personally think it's a really great game.

I think the original Deus Ex was probably a big influence on VMTB. The combat and stealth mechanics as well as the mystery plot seem like they looked at Deus Ex and then applied more traditional CRPG elements (in particular branching and improved dialogues). Let's hope it does a better job with the ending than DX1 did!

 

[Wesp5]

Applying gameplay/design changes in bug-fixing patches is a huge red flag, honestly. It doesn't matter if the changes make the game better or not, if it's cut content or whatever. They should be a separate mod. Just ask yourselves why the modder combined the two and didn't offer them separately.

As has already been mentioned, there are no combined mods. When installing the Unofficial Patch you can choose the default basic patch who only fixes bugs or the optional plus version that tweaks some things but mostly restores lost content. Years ago there was indeed only one patch but this was because Dan Upright who started it restored the most powerful weapon already in his first release and I thought this was common for Unofficial Patches, being ignorant of the need of purists until I was confronted with those !

 

[SymbolicFrank]

Great game, if patched by Wesp. When I played it last year the only serious bug was the elevator in Skyline Apartments not working. (I probably had been playing too long at some point in downtown, so I had to restart.)

I never seem to be able to get through the sewers without getting bored and giving up, but everything before that is super.

 

[FreshCorpse]

Finished it. Loved the ending but honestly some of the last few levels are awful. The Hallowbrook Hotel is probably the worst level I have ever seen in a computer game and that's really sad because there is so much other good stuff here. It's incredible that you read so much about the sewers being a low point (including the post that just appeared above as I was writing this) but I think the low point is definitely at the end of the game. Perhaps so many people drop off at the sewers they never learn that the last 5 hours is a total slog. Troika were clearly trying to vary the mechanics of each level so that some are fight levels, some are stealth and some are dialogue based. I appreciate that but unfortunately the fight levels are just roundly bad. The combat system just isn't interesting enough to sustain tens of trash mob bullet sponges. I think few systems are.

The boss design is also...not good. Bosses in most games are interesting one-off mechanics you have to learn and beat. Boss fights here are just...even spongier enemies.

Spoiler

Ming in particular is a fucking joke at the expense of the player.

What is the point in having a boss where you just unload hundreds (thousands?) of rounds into them in a box room and trying to run away long enough to allow your health to regenerate?

I have a pet theory that most games are too long. I think VTMB should just have cut everything after you go on a rescue mission and just had one good final boss fight. That would have been 30 minutes of fulfilling gameplay and plot rather than 4-5 hours of total crap gameplay and fulfulling plot.

Anyway overall I still think this thing is great it's just that if I do another playthrough I'll noclip through the final act.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Troika were clearly trying to vary the mechanics of each level so that some are fight levels, some are stealth and some are dialogue based. I appreciate that but unfortunately the fight levels are just roundly bad. The combat system just isn't interesting enough to sustain tens of trash mob bullet sponges. I think few systems are.

It's wierd, Troika games (including Fallout) all have multiple solutions for obstacles in the Main Quest. Even basic quest such as the intro bridge scenario in Arcanum offers solutions for Stealthers, Talkers and Fighters. Then suddenly you get to an unavoidable fatass dungeon (VtmB - Sewers, Arcanum - Black Mountain Mines) that even for combat characters is a massive unstimulating grind.

if I had to guess, the game wasn't long enough after playtesting and they needed a way to pad the length