Topic: Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines

[Ratty]

Anyone else here experienced this gem? It's easily the best cRPG I've ever played, it was also the last game by Troika, the studio founded by the guys behind the original Fallout.
Troika fully utilized the rich lore and history built up in the pen & paper RPG over more than a decade, then combined it with some of the best writing and voice acting I've ever heard in a game. This helped bring a fascinating sense of complexity and naturalness to a gameworld where you may be a Vampire, but you always know there is someone plotting in the shadows to bring you to final death. Having many similarities to Deus Ex in it's mechanics, Bloodlines abounds with customization options and replay value. With classes that play extremely differently, notably the hideous Nosferatu which is entirely stealth-based and the incurably insane Malkavian where *all* your given dialog options are different. Not to mention the multiple factions you can choose to join in the war for the night, which changes the way you interact with all of the important NPCs and of course changes the ending.

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines ; Smiling Jack
John Dimaggio, perhaps best know as Bender on Futurama, voices a pivotal character in the game, seen here offering to help the newly converted vampire in the tutorial.

VtMB - Necromantic Part 2; Meeting Pisha
Video of another favorite character of mine, although the video maker forgot to turn off an option in the sound menu which makes dialog double I don't think it harm's Pisha's speech much. Also the video maker is running either the game or their recording software very poorly when they get outside XD. And I don't know why they don't just take the shortcut back upstairs.

The game sadly does have major problems however, both due to rushing by Activision and White Wolf Publishing, who were ending their "World of Darkness" line of roleplaying games at the time. The first problem is a balancing issue- you can get about 2 3rds of the way through the game just on charm/seduce/intimidate leveling, but you must have fairly high levels in either close or long-range combat to finish it.

The other major problem is that the game, built on an unfinished version of the source engine, was riddled with lots of bugs, including game breaking ones, when it shipped in 2004.
But fear not! Two separate fans have made incredibly extensive patches for the game. The more widely used seems to be the "unofficial patch" by Wesp5 which makes a lot of unnecessary changes/mods like reinserting deleted-for-a-reason dialog and alternate models for objects/changing the location or availability of items, but which many people seem to like. (Could never get it to work on my x64 system) The other available option is the  "TRUE Patch Gold" (+Hotfix) which is made by an egotistical and homophobic (odd because this game includes lesbianism) douchebag but works fine and doesn't really have modding. Both of these can be used with the separate res-patcher so the game looks it's best on your modern screen.

If the above problems don't 100% turn you off I absolutely recommend Bloodlines, fully patched up it is a true masterpiece. It's available on steam and D2D for $20.

PS- was considering naming this topic "the other Bloodlines" but thought that might get a little confusing

[Aridale]

yeah Ive played it! the haunted house creeped me out lol

[Ratty]

yeah Ive played it! the haunted house creeped me out lol

Did you give the Locket to Jeannette afterwords? Yeah that level is crazy atmospheric and scary, as I recall it won the level design of the year award on Gamespot. The first time I went through I didn't get the key to the front door in the trailer outside first so had to do it again lol. Thankfully I used multiple saves and that's the only such dick-move in the entire game XD.

[Kale]

Beaten it and loved it.

Protean All the WAY! Not really, but it was cool.

[Ratty]

Beaten it and loved it.

Protean All the WAY! Not really, but it was cool.

Yeah I was a Gangrel on my first playthrough as well. Perfect for first timers as it's a close-range combat class that's fairly hard to break unless you pour all your points into research or hacking or something stupid like that. Being able to transform is pretty sweet, shame you still don't stand a chance against a werewolf though lol.

You might enjoy this interview with one of the lead writers on Rock Paper Shotgun if you've not read it already http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2009/04/06/interview-without-a-vampire-bloodlines-b-mitsoda/ I really dig his philosophy on mission design. Too many RPGs (even Bioware ones) have that feeling that a lot of the characters you talk to are just "automated quest kiosks" as he puts it, without lives or personalities of their own. And I feel they really fixed that in Bloodlines.

I bought it a few months ago and completely forgot about it after putting it in a drawer. I didn't know it was an RPG and it's what put me off playing it. I might install it just to see the what it looks like and have a go...maybe

Give it a spin, you won't be sorry. It's an RPG yes but there's no grinding or random/respawning enemies and the mission hubs are fairly contained. The game oozes gothic-punk atmosphere and forboding and as I've previously said has some of the best writing and acting you'll find in a game.
Just make sure to use either the true patch gold or the unofficial patch.
True Patch Gold and Hotfix:
http://www.tessmage.com/forum/index.php?topic=56857.0 (NSFW, one guy has a nude gif in his signature)
Unofficial Patch by Wesp5:
http://www.patches-scrolls.de/vampire_bloodlines.php (Note: As I understand with this patch you can also cheat. So if you get stuck you can just give yourself EXP in whatever skill you need to finish. But you shouldn't have to if you level to your class strengths/make sure to have high fortitude/HP and good levels in combat. At the end of my first playthrough I still had like 3 or 4 exp points I could spend left over.)