Troika’s Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines had a lot in common with Obsidian’s Alpha Protocol: both were just stupidly well-written, both did a great job with settings and characters, both offered a slew of unforgettable moments. And both were so broken upon release that they were nearly unplayable by many. Vampire, like Alpha Protocol, was the latest in a long line of well-written technical disasters from Troika, and it was Vampire that finally ruined the company. But people loved it, and played it, and still do.
And fans (plus some ex-Troikaites) have been patching the game ever since. This is a title that came out five years ago – I hear it’s almost polished now! Get the patch here.
Email the author of this post at steerpike@tap-repeatedly.com.
I remember Gregg playing this, and it looked absolutely awesome. It just lacked polish. I think he finished it. It’s a shame there was never a fully fleshed squeal, although the fans seem to be doing the original justice.
It’s like the STALKER fan patches 🙂
@Lewis: ‘fully fleshed squeal’?
On that link you’ll see that there are two patches, one by Voerman ‘Tessera’ and the other by Wesp5. For years both have been the subject of an ongoing patch war because while Tessera’s efforts only sought to fix any bugs, Wesp5’s sought to restore any content that never made the final cut and tweak/rebalance various game elements, as well as fix any bugs. Tessera went bananas at Wesp5 for calling it a ‘patch’ and from what I recall spent an awful lot of time in various channels persuading people that it was a mod and not a true patch like his own. Incidentally Tessera’s patch became known as the VTMB ‘True Patch’. There was a lot of bitching and some very heated arguments, I mean this shit went on for years judging by some of the threads I remember reading and at some point even the Wikipedia entry on the patches started becoming a battleground. There’s apparently some graffiti somewhere in Tessera’s patch (I think behind the toilet in the flat at the beginning) having a dig at Wesp5.
After a lot of research I deemed Tessera a tosser and went with Wesp5’s patch. It worked perfectly, it’s just a shame the last half/third of the game careered into tedious, repetitive and ultimately clunky combat. That was a real disappointment because the first half/two thirds were really great. I wish a lot of the earlier characters had made an appearance later on in the game as well but they just sort of flat-lined after their story arcs ended.
Yeah, I remember toying with the idea of playing the game again some months ago and googling for the “true patch”. My God, the Internet looked like a battlefield after a particularly nasty war.
The game is, of course brilliant even though in its original state the bugs at times make it near unplayable. Also, yeah, the final third… if you fancied you can talk your way through it… tough luck… Still, very much worth a shot for anyone who hasn’t played it.