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Fuzz posted:Fat Larry is an interesting story. I love that the developers made a sensible decision, then Wesp being Wesp decided to change it for the sake of "purity" and the "developer's original vision" or whatever, or to make it "more realistic". The placement at release was easy to find and convenient, and I actually thought it was funny that the guy selling illegal poo poo out of the back of his van was doing it in plain sight of a security guard. That felt like such a Fat Larry thing to do, he's just that smooth and no cop will ever catch him.
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Apr 7, 2015 04:21
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That matrix puzzle is complete bullshit, it's really unfair to give somebody a puzzle that requires a keen grasp of a language that most people haven't been taught. Not to mention as you said, makes no goddamn sense. It may as well have just written the code down in Arabic. It's a good thing I'm sitting next to a graphics calculator and know how to solve for these things on one.(It makes it really really simple.) But not everyone has such things.
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Apr 7, 2015 07:13
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 This update marks the point where I officially start flying pretty much blind as far as the original content this mod provides is concerned. Let's hope it won't bring too many problems - not that you'd notice, since I'd probably just omit the endless time I spend meandering around looking for where to go or what to do.  Anyway, we're now in the sewers before meeting and fighting Brother Kanker. I originally had some footage with the lead-in to this, but it was at the tail-end of the last batch, and I deleted that a while back, so we're just going to jump in in medias res.  Wooo, broken water effects!  Anyway, Brother Kanker. This guy is a motherfucker. A big one. In fact, before we start this...  ...yeah, that's better.  Now, back to Kanker. True to the mod's mantra, he deals a fuckton of damage and will pretty much wreck your poo poo. But that's just par for the course. No, Kanker has a few extra things that really make him a motherfucker. In vanilla, he just uses Potence and hits you a lot. In this mod, things are a bit different. He's dropped Potence, and instead picked up Animalism, seen being used here as he howls...  ...to summon a spectral wolf that can also wreck our poo poo. Also, as you can see, you can't see Kanker. That's because he also picked up Obfuscate, and he is in fact a cheating motherfucker, because he can attack without dropping Obfuscate. That's Obfuscate 7, and would put this fucker so high up the generation totem pole that it makes my head spin, but I'll just write that off as the modders wanting more difficulty without actually thinking over the implications. That's not the worst part, though. So far, we've established that he can wreck our poo poo, can summon wolves that wreck our poo poo, and can go invisible so he can sneak up on us and then wreck our poo poo. What could be worse than that? He's bugged. To be precise, if you kill Kanker while he's using a discipline, the game bugs out, the combat never ends, the flyer never drops, and the ghost wolves never stop spawning. So, when is he "using a discipline"? From when he howls to when the wolf dies, he's considered to be using Animalism. From when he goes invisible to when he becomes visible again, he's considered to be using Obfuscate. The two can overlap (and in fact do fairly often, in that he de-obfuscates and immediately fires Animalism after that), and the time frame for you to actually kill him without it bugging out is rather slim.  Essentially, you've got to bring him down to a sliver of health, bring him over to the back of the arena (where the wolves appear), kill the wolf right after he summons it, then kill him in the little time you have before he obfuscates. How the gently caress did this bug make it through testing? There's no way somebody went through this fight multiple times and somehow managed to kill him at that exact time every time. This is the real reason I turned on godmode - my main strategy for survival with bosses involves Necromancy, which right now summons zombies that can attack enemies - especially enemies that go into melee combat, like Kanker here. So with the zombies, it's practically guaranteed they'll kill him at the wrong time, and without them, I'd just get my face torn off. No thanks.  The guy eventually dies properly, we grab the flyer and get the gently caress out.  On the way back, I run into these Anarchs again, and all of a sudden, they all whip out their weapons and proceed to do nothing. I have no idea why that happened.  So, next stop, the Brotherhood and Bishop Vick. Note that we're given an option to dominate this guy into following us. This shows up on a semi-regular basis with characters that are seemingly arbitrary. I'm not sure why exactly that is, though I haven't tested the possibility of dominating this guy, possessing him and sending him to Bishop Vick. It probably won't do poo poo.  We could also dominate the scared girl into following us. I pass on the opportunity for now. Let's see what changed as far as the combat section is concerned...  OH GOD  So it turns out that the models for zombies were expanded a fair bit, but that's not the important part. The important part is that much like Kanker, these zombies are cheating motherfuckers. They randomly jump between "zombie" and "regular" states - either they shamble around and do the slow, lurching attacks, or they suddenly start running around normally and do the regular unarmed attacks, which can really gently caress with you.  Also - and I might be spitballing this a bit - it seems that there are more zombies than in vanilla.  And when some of them randomly remember how to be human and just run up to sock you in the face, things can get hectic.  And then this fucker shows up with a gun, a wonderful new addition by the modders. Because what I need when I start to get surrounded by zombies and am frantically trying to find a safe spot is some jackass shooting at me and doing pretty massive damage. This is where things officially switch from "problematic" to "oh god what the gently caress do I do".  So of course I panic, and then I die. Not exactly my finest hour.  Take two it is, then. This time around, I dominate the scared girl, mostly out of a sense of "well why the gently caress not, really" and an impending realization that the modders might just have designed things under the assumption that I'm using the companion system. I tell her to follow me, and that's all I can do for now, since she's already considered to be "in combat" for some reason and therefore can't be talked to. Oh well.  This time around, I take things slow, baiting enemies around the corner and taking them out with the pistol, which leaves less time for me to get caught reloading, and things go a lot better. Even the guy with the gun doesn't pose much of a problem now.  Meanwhile, our newest recruit in the Army of Darkness (proper name pending) is stuck on the stairs. Fuckin' ace. Then again, she could only flail at the zombies ineffectually, so maybe it's good she doesn't get herself killed, she might be useful as a blood doll later on.  The zombie cleanup proceeds well, and... wait, who's that over there?  JESUS CHRIST HE HAS A MACHINE GUN loving HIT THE DECK  So yeah, the guys with the guns only don't pose a problem if it's only pistols and you're actively concentrating on taking them out. When some guy with a machine gun just pops out and takes a shot at you, you better be ready to duck and cover or else you can say goodbye to about 50%+ of your health bar.  The second encounter didn't go much better - I tried to summon zombies to make for a good distraction, but instead, the shithead just ran back to his original spot and the zombies didn't go that far, so I had to engage normally again.  The third round didn't go better either, but at least he's dead now. Tried to summon zombies closer this time, but it didn't work out again. Seems like the best strategy with these guys, if possible, is to run up and melee the gently caress out of them, since the third strike that sends them flying interrupts firing and you can combo them that way. A straight up fight, guns vs. guns, goes very badly for the player. Oh, and to add insult to injury, the gun the guy was using was that lovely Tec-9, the submachinegun that spreads more than the loving shotgun. The accuracy the AI has with that thing is insane, and I hatch a particularly devious plan involving that later.  So, we make our way further through the crackhouse, taking out kung-fu-fighting bum zombies and other riff-raff...  ...make the acquaintance of this jackass with a shotgun that really smarts, but since I got him around a corner, the damage was limited...  ...and make it to the door to Bishop Vick. Which is locked. No, I don't know why it's locked. I also don't know where the key is. I guess it's time to go look-  GAH. Where did you come from? Well, it turns out that if your companions are separated from you to a certain degree, they're warped to your location. And since we're now out of combat (after I killed loving everything that isn't in Vick's room), we can finally take a closer look at what we can do with our first recruit.  To start off, we have the standard "follow me" and "stay here" commands, followed by the possession mechanic. Disregarding that Possession is Dominate 5, this allows us to do exactly what Possession is - completely take over the person's body as if they were the character you're playing as. Not sure how exactly that is properly applied, I'll have to experiment more.  Talking about combat is just "use ranged", "use melee" and "don't fight at all", and given that these characters are sure to be squishy, I know what I'm picking. You might have clued in to my plan by now. You can take blood from them, but it puts them into the "trance" state and leaves them there until you change maps, so it's kind of annoying. Finally, you can change your companion's facial expression. Yes. No, I don't know why this is a thing, and I'm probably not going to bother with it.  And finally (the last "more" just leads to one "never mind" option), we can send her back to our haven, give her some gear (which is going to be pretty important) and send her back to where we found her, which I think might mean that she would be locked off to us if we did that after finishing this quest, since I'm fairly certain the door past the entrance gets locked. Then again, we can just noclip. Hooray for console commands!  Thankfully for me, I didn't have to go searching for the key, as I had just enough experience to push my Lockpicking to 4, which combined with Blood Buff makes 7, exactly what the door requires. But before that...  There we go. I gave her my Tec-9, since she's computer-controlled and therefore has the super-aim the enemies have. This should come in handy fairly well. I just need to keep her safe, and the zombies should be able to do the job of being a decoy fairly well. Let's do this, time to take out the Bishop!  Oh god, what happened to you? Why do you have a top hat now? Why do you have such a weird coat? Why do you have two guys with masks flanking you? What's going on here?  The fight begins, and it's a clusterfuck. Zombies everywhere, both friendly and enemy, the masked freaks are running around, one with a shotgun taking pot shots and one with a melee weapon chopping up a zombie, our new recruit immediately goes to town with her Tec-9, Vick is hanging back with his shotgun, laying down suppressive fire, and I'm just trying to figure out what the gently caress I'm even doing here.  I decide that taking out the masked guys is probably the best course of action, since they're fairly good at taking out my minions, and I need those to draw Vick's fire, which would otherwise really gently caress my poo poo sideways.  After summoning some more zombies a bit closer to the back, where the shotgun guy and Vick hang out (and promptly catching some buckshot with my face), you can see the effectiveness of the zombies once they actually manage to get somewhere - they completely clog up an enemy and make it very easy to take him out (the zombies don't care if you smack them in the face).  Vick then gets taken out in the most anti-climatic way possible - he retreats to a corner and focuses his fire on the closest thing, a zombie, while I and our recruit hammer him from afar (with our recruit doing most of the heavy lifting, given that she can actually hit consistently from long range).  The whole thing just keeps going until he dies. Once he went back there, he never fired a shot at me at all. I think I might be starting to figure this mod out. Maybe. Can't wait for the combat segment on the Dane that completely fucks me over and proves me wrong once again. For the record, I have no idea what's going to happen on the Dane. I do love me some pseudo-vague foreshadowing, but that wasn't one of those situations.  So we head to Max's place to get our reward, and we obviously pick the item, since it's going to be better, right?  WRONG, it loving blows chunks. On paper, it might not seem too bad - double Blood Heal is great, and less Aggravated damage is always welcome, but the malus is really harsh. You lose one dot in Strength (important for Melee), Dexterity (Sneaking and Lockpicking) and Stamina (Bashing soak). Essentially, you're trading offense and utility for defense (more recovery, basically), and you're doing it in a mod where defense is already pretty much paper thin, and that extra probably won't really help that much. And even if I were wanting extra defense, Victoria's defense is either preventive (summon zombies and have companions to give enemy more targets) or offensive (feeding on enemies to recover health and blood while in battle) in nature, so a Blood Heal boost doesn't really come in handy, and Aggravated damage is probably going to be less of a problem than Bashing on a general basis because once Aggravated becomes a problem, you're probably already dead anyway.  We also go and get our "reward" from the Anarchs. Stupid Anarchs. Give me some poo poo, don't just go "yeah, that's good" like your stamp of approval means anything. Least LaCroix gives me some stuff, even a swanky apartment!  Next up, I start a bit of a recruitment drive for the Army of Darkness. Prostitutes are a readily available target, so let's just go with that.  While equipping our new recruit with a Tec-9, I also pick up the quest Larry gives us, which should be a good way to test our new strategies.  When getting the third member of our army, I get slapped in the face with the limit and have to send somebody back to the haven, and learn that the name of the scared girl is Azara. I end up sending her to the haven and sticking with the prostitutes, might keep Azara around longer. Sort of a Number One Dime thing. Maybe I can ghoul her and eventually Embrace her, who knows.  While going through the options to give her a Tec-9, I notice that this one has an outfit change command - the others didn't. I wonder what this does...  NO, DAMNIT, THAT'S NOT WHAT I MEANT. PACK YOUR TITS BACK IN, WE'RE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STREET FOR CAINE'S SAKE, HAVE SOME DECENCY.  While getting my reward from Venus, it turns out that the companions have no problems clipping into doors and making them unusable - and you need to open both doors to get through, only one doesn't do it.  Possessing the character doesn't really seem to do anything...  ...except plant Victoria in the door instead of the prostitute when I change back. Noclip to the rescue!  Next stop is the parking garage, and immediately the Superior Firepower doctrine I thought to be employing starts throwing up some problems - like the AI on the companions being really skittish about actually going into combat. Either that, or it's some weird attempt at cover taking AI, though I never saw her actually going out of cover. Also, she seems to be using a pistol despite me only giving her a Tec-9. Where'd she get that from?  Then I mess something up and they start going translucent...  ...and start making Obfuscate smoke clouds oh god what's going on here I just wanted to have a Legion of Lecherous Lovers or something to go all girl power on people   It eventually fixes itself, but sadly, prostitutes are not known for having very good armor, so they eventually get knocked out through excessive gunfire (I want to say "killed", but I thought I saw one of the two get killed earlier, and then she suddenly reappeared just fine, so I don't know what's happening here.  And then it goes just about as you'd expect when there's two guys with machine guns focus firing on you.  One reload later, I notice that I have this weird object in my weapon list, and get enough Research to learn what it is. This is the "Heart of Darkness" - commentary on colonial administrations in Africa not included - and apparently it's worthless to me, since I neither have Obtenebration nor Vicissitude. And no, I have no idea where it came from. I just discovered it in my inventory at some point, and I can't remember picking it up, so maybe it was a quest reward that got changed or something? I don't know!  Then the game crashes, and I'm pretty sure my last proper save is a while back (the autosaves accidentially got wiped when I went and experimented with something on an earlier save between recording this footage and writing this update). Bollocks. I guess this is as good a time to stop as any - I need to gently caress about with this companion system and figure out just what the hell I'm doing here and how to manipulate the AI into maybe playing friendly in areas that aren't completely wide open like where we fought Vick.
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Apr 7, 2015 20:53
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Certain comic book nerd made a vid about Bloodlines. While we're working through Antitribu, you might want to give him a look for outsider's perspective of game.
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Apr 7, 2015 21:24
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This mod. I can't even start to put my reactions into words... This loving mod.
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Apr 7, 2015 23:31
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Thesaya posted:This mod. I can't even start to put my reactions into words... This loving mod. Well, that's what I'm here for, I guess. Though clasping my hands around my head and yelling "I JUST DON'T KNOW WHY" probably isn't much of a step up. GuyUpNorth posted:Certain comic book nerd made a vid about Bloodlines. While we're working through Antitribu, you might want to give him a look for outsider's perspective of game. Could somebody give me the short on that video? I'm not touching Channel Awesome anymore (with the exception of Brad Jones - and he has his own site), but I am still kind of interested (though not enough to watch it).
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Apr 8, 2015 01:30
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TheMcD posted:Finally, you can change your companion's facial expression. Yes. No, I don't know why this is a thing, and I'm probably not going to bother with it. I assume it's just there because the modder figured out he could arbitrarily change an NPC's expression, so he put it in the mod because why not?
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Apr 8, 2015 03:31
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TheMcD posted:Could somebody give me the short on that video? I'm not touching Channel Awesome anymore (with the exception of Brad Jones - and he has his own site), but I am still kind of interested (though not enough to watch it).
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Apr 8, 2015 10:02
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TheMcD posted:Could somebody give me the short on that video? I'm not touching Channel Awesome anymore (with the exception of Brad Jones - and he has his own site), but I am still kind of interested (though not enough to watch it). I have absolutely no idea what Channel Awesome is so I just quickly skimmed through the video and it seemed like an alright examination of VTMB from a person who doesn't know anything about WoD. There was one part where he just went off about how every woman was over sexualized and how every female character had no motives other than to sleep with the protagonist (lol)
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Apr 9, 2015 06:59
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superstepa posted:I have absolutely no idea what Channel Awesome is so I just quickly skimmed through the video and it seemed like an alright examination of VTMB from a person who doesn't know anything about WoD. There was one part where he just went off about how every woman was over sexualized and how every female character had no motives other than to sleep with the protagonist (lol) Well, I mean... everyone else is out to gently caress you 
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Apr 9, 2015 12:31
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superstepa posted:I have absolutely no idea what Channel Awesome is so I just quickly skimmed through the video and it seemed like an alright examination of VTMB from a person who doesn't know anything about WoD. There was one part where he just went off about how every woman was over sexualized and how every female character had no motives other than to sleep with the protagonist (lol) Just more internet pop "feminism". The blood dolls are all female (except a male thug wesp added in Chinatown), but that's more you seducing them. Jeanette counts. VV - I mean she acted  seductive but that just comes off weird. It feels more like she's trying to maintain a polite fiction that she's not ordering you around just like everyone else. Most other females run the NPC range of sidequest or key.
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Apr 9, 2015 21:35
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Added Space posted:Just more internet pop "feminism". The blood dolls are all female (except a male thug wesp added in Chinatown), but that's more you seducing them. Jeanette counts. VV - I mean she acted Except, you know, Ming Xiao. 
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Apr 9, 2015 22:48
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Fuzz posted:Except, you know, Ming Xiao. Damsel freaking out and threatening to turn her into skank sushi is still one of my favorite lines of the game.
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Apr 9, 2015 22:57
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So you've picked up some bullet sponges? That's... a thing, I suppose.
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Apr 10, 2015 22:22
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Finally caught up on this thread, drat fun to read, I do enjoy me some WoD lore. Chiming in on the Grout thing, someone else may have had this thought, but I think his Faustian bargain was allying himself with Ming for protection. He knew LaCroix wanted him dead, but he may not have known How that was intended to happen. One would assume he'd send the Sheriff or other Kindred, and I doubt that the Network is prone to giving concrete info. Assuming LaCroix would send Kindred to do the job, he went for the Enemy of my Enemy route. Allying oneself with the Kuei-Jin is considered a betrayal of all vampire-kind, but he was terrified, desperate, hella-paranoid and wouldn't have been the first person to be suckered in by Ming's "Oh, no worries, I won't betray you, wink" Schtick. I also suspect that LaCroix is the one who orchestrated the PC being sired in the first place. He knew he was going to need a dupe eventually, so he either gives your sire permission to embrace, or Dominates them into embracing. Of course, he then denies ever giving permission. That's why you get captured before the bite marks in your neck even get a chance to close up. LaCroix tosses in another Dominate to your Sire, ordering them to remain silent, which gives them no chance to at least try to call out LaCroix on his latest treachery. And then he pretends that you're next. Predictably (to LaCroix), Nines speaks up in your defense, and you are "spared." So, you're a newly embraced vampire with literally zero idea about kindred society, hell, you're practically a Caitiff (other than your sire being killed instead of ditching you), and you're about to be murdered for a bullshit reason. Makes it really easy for Anarchs to sympathize with you, which gives LaCroix an In to playing them if the need arises and he plays his cards right with you. Honestly though, I base all of that off of the whole "Forgive me" line right before your sire gets the axe.
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Apr 19, 2015 01:24
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the_steve posted:Finally caught up on this thread, drat fun to read, I do enjoy me some WoD lore. The Faustian bagain is pretty clearly Grout agreeing to be a Primogen... he made a deal with the Devil (LaCroix) knows he will pay for it. I think you're giving LaCroix a lot more credit than he probably deserves... the whole undertone of the game is that LaCroix was greedy and shortsighted, and overplayed his hand trying to maneuver things when he was too greedy to see that he himself was getting duped... by like, everyone.
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Apr 19, 2015 02:21
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That's a likely possibility that I wouldn't entirely rule out. Like I said, I came up with the LaCroix thing based pretty much entirely on one line in the opening scenes of the game, so I'm obviously reaching pretty hard to make it work. Still would have been cool if they had given the Sire some sort of characterization or backstory beyond "Embrace and Beheaded." I thought Grout accepted the Primogen gig before his paranoia really had a chance to set in though. I mean, he may have had enough wherewithal to not entirely trust LaCroix or any of the others to begin with, but at the time, I don't think he would have seen it as dire enough a situation to refer to it as Faustian. Seemed more like at that point that he was just humoring them so that he could continue his research.
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Apr 19, 2015 07:39
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the_steve posted:That's a likely possibility that I wouldn't entirely rule out. Like I said, I came up with the LaCroix thing based pretty much entirely on one line in the opening scenes of the game, so I'm obviously reaching pretty hard to make it work. The Faustian bargain could have also been his vampirism.
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Apr 19, 2015 08:35
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Fuzz posted:The Faustian bargain could have also been his vampirism. No, it couldn't have. Go read all those transcripts again. He mentions making a Faustian bargain right after talking about dealing with Lacroix. The fact that the thread has decided to make this a thing is weird and any interpretation that he isn't specifically referring to dealing with the Camarilla is based on semantic chicanery and outright ignorance. I'm not calling you stupid, I'm just saying you are clearly taking shots in the dark based off of things you don't remember well. Go read the transcripts again.
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Apr 19, 2015 10:52
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MartianAgitator posted:No, it couldn't have. Go read all those transcripts again. He mentions making a Faustian bargain right after talking about dealing with Lacroix. The fact that the thread has decided to make this a thing is weird and any interpretation that he isn't specifically referring to dealing with the Camarilla is based on semantic chicanery and outright ignorance. I'm not calling you stupid, I'm just saying you are clearly taking shots in the dark based off of things you don't remember well. Go read the transcripts again. I specifically cited his deal with the Camarilla as the bargain not two posts up because that was always what I remembered off the top of my head. Steve bringing up alternatives simply made me suggest another possible alternative. But thanks for calling me an idiot anyway, rear end in a top hat.
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Apr 19, 2015 12:19
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Poil posted:Well the guy is wearing a fedora and a vest that makes him look even more like a twit. It took more than three minutes before he even got started with all of the babbling with random obnoxious weirdos popping in. Oh gods he even has an overly long and lovely intro that started playing. Not at the beginning of course, oh no, but several minutes in. Completely ignored all of the clans stuff, not even at least saying which clans were in the game or even a very brief summary of the clan he picked. Showing very short parts of random scenes and conversations with the douche babbling. I couldn't stand more than ten minutes of that. His awful exaggerated and lame screaming at the ghost hotel was just too much. I'm sorry but I can't describe it any better. My brain refuses to work. superstepa posted:I have absolutely no idea what Channel Awesome is so I just quickly skimmed through the video and it seemed like an alright examination of VTMB from a person who doesn't know anything about WoD. There was one part where he just went off about how every woman was over sexualized and how every female character had no motives other than to sleep with the protagonist (lol) Sounds like standard Linkara fare. Well, what did I expect? Anyway, I've been kind of waiting for some news regarding an update for the mod, since they seem to be hard at work bugfixing and I want to limit my aggravation, but apparently they have some weird loving agreement with WESP that has them releasing their update a month after WESP releases his, and there's been some radio silence from him recently, so now things are kind of in limbo. Guess I'll work on an update tomorrow. Maybe that will summon an update from them.
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Apr 20, 2015 03:09
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  So, when we last left our intrepid heroine, the game crashed and my autosaves weren't helping, so fighting Vick a second time it is. This time around, he very much gets his poo poo pushed in by three zombies that somehow managed to trap him against a wall. No idea how that came to be, those zombies are slow as poo poo.  This time around, we get the cash instead of the item because the item sucks. 250 bucks straight up suddenly sounds a lot better.  Next, I decide that we might be better off doing some main quests instead of side quests, so we head back to Santa Monica, stock up on some blood...  ...and make our way to the Elizabeth Dane.  Things on the Dane get off to a flying start as the guard that's supposed to be called away doesn't actually move. Good thing we have Command available to make sneaking easy.  Anyway, we make our way to the computer room and turn on the cameras, then switch to see the sarco-  -who the gently caress is shooting?  Who the gently caress is this? Why is he trying to kill me? No, wait, better question, WHY THE gently caress DID THEY PUT COMBAT ON THE DANE? This is a sneaking mission, you fucks!  So a massive brawl erupts in the computer room on the Dane as Victoria goes to town with a sledgehammer and somehow nobody notices this happening. Eventually, he goes down and we continue on.  We grab the ship manifest as well an- ...wait, why did I get discovered?  OH GOD DAMNIT NOT AGAIN.  So now a shootout erupts in the records room on the Dane, and the guards prove to be completely loving deaf, as nobody notices a thing. Good, at least they figured out that the only way you can do combat in a sneaking mission is if nobody notices the combat. Doesn't change that you shouldn't have loving done it in the first place, but baby steps, I guess. This guy eventually goes down after an extended session of reverse pop-up shooting gallery gameplay (where the player is the one doing the popping up and down).  On the way back, the guard finally gets off his rear end and moves to where he was supposed to go all along. Good job, buddy.  Then the game crashed again on the way to LaCroix and I had to do the segment over again. From then on, I was just constantly quicksaving. This poo poo wasn't going to happen again.  On the way to LaCroix, we pick up Heather and send her to our haven, since I thought that our next mission was going to be the museum. Still, I wouldn't have wanted her around during Grout's mansion, that was probably going to end badly.  The Primogen, now counting Alex Mercer amongst their ranks, bitch to LaCroix about Grout and we get sent to sort poo poo out as usual.  But before doing that, we take care of some loose ends by finishing Venus's quest (again) and grab some ammo from Fat Larry's.  We also drop by the haven to take twenty bucks from Heather and tell her to change her outfit - I want to see what the mod did there. That'll come later, so you've got something to "look forward" to there. Then the game crashed when leaving the apartment. loving fantastic.  Then, an interesting thing happened. I took some blood from Heather to top myself off, then remembered that I still had to tell her to change her outfit since the crash made that not happen. So I cast Command on her to get her out of the trance, she starts crying (which is just one of the things that can happen when Command gets used, since it's just a short one-word command like "cry", "sleep" or "dance"), and suddenly Azara ran over to her and asked her if she was alright! I've never seen that happen before. That's probably a vanilla thing, though. Anyway, next stop, Grout's mansion!  We run into Nines-Ming...  ...she acts unnecessarily weird...  ...and lea- ...why is there a force field?  So now there's a loving force field here. I can't get through, and we probably need to turn it off somehow.  Then I get attacked by a dog while exploring the area and sledgehammer its face in, because of course. And while I explore the area, a realization kicks in that hits me in the face harder than any other realization I've had about this mod so far. They added more platforming. Here's what I have to do (pardon the MS Paint):  We start at the circle, there's these broken stair pieces. We jump up those to the second story balcony and head along that.  At the end of the balcony (the circle), we make some dicey jumps across some very thin rails, then jump down to a nearby roof.  From that roof, there's another jump to a thin rail, then a VERY dicey jump to a nearby roof, from where we can get up to that area that looks like it might contain an entrance or something.  Here's a shot of one of those rails. For a good while, I thought you just couldn't land on them because I couldn't hit them.  And here's a better look at that last jump. It's pretty rough - it basically requires mid-air turning to somehow steer yourself onto the roof. And when we get there...  Surprise! Miniboss! So, for no reason, we now need to fight a Malkavian - another cheating motherfucker that uses Obfuscate and stays invisible while fighting. This time, he stays invisible the entire time. loving brilliant. However, this time, I have an ace up my sleeve, and it wasn't even one I put there myself, the game gave it to me. You see, for some reason, health regeneration suddenly broke for me. I don't know what happened (though the last time I loaded a save before noticing this, I was stuck in the ground for some reason and had to noclip out, so something bigger might have gone wrong), but my health regen shot way up, essentially bringing me to a near god mode state. It's still not immortality, but Victoria can suddenly shrug off pretty much any enemy in one-on-one combat unless they deal aggravated damage, and even then she's at a big advantage. gently caress it, if the mod's not going to play fair with all these amped up enemies, I'm not going to throw it away when it inadvertently gives me an advantage. The Malkavian gets sledgehammered into the ground...  ...and that removes the force field. Because Malkavians do force fields, I guess. Bloody hell.  We enter the mansion, and my ears are immediately assaulted by a familiar tone. The entire mansion uses music from Bram Stoker's Dracula... for the NES. Here, listen to it yourself. The music was run through some sort of filter to make it sound less 8-bit, but it's still undeniable that it's that soundtrack. It's a strangely fitting choice, since the music from that game was pretty haunting, but the fact that I know where it comes from kept me from fully appreciating it and instead going to "why the gently caress did they pick this when the original music was just fine".  We make our way through the mansion, sledgehammering people in the face as we go.  We solve the first puzzle by repeatedly pulling the same switch over and over again, which then opens a set of doors, an-  What the gently caress? Is this just going to be a thing? "Solve puzzle/advance quest, summon miniboss"? So now the female Malk PC is taking potshots at us.  And of course she uses Obfuscate and cheats with it, because why the gently caress not. Thanks to Victoria's newfound healing factor, the threat is easily dispatched and we move on.  I spend a lot of time getting knocked around by multiple enemies - the healing factor means we practically can't die against these enemies, but they can still make me spend a lot of time getting attacked and not a lot of time doing the attacking.  Eventually, we hit a locked door where there should be an unlocked door. What's going on here? There were no unlocking mechanisms here, unless I have to listen to the tape recorder nearby...  ...hm, nothing seems to be happening.  ...why are there guts there all of a sudden?  Oh. Can't say I'm surprised. Anyway, now we get to beat up the male Malk PC.  He can use Dominate to keep us locked in one place for a while, which isn't helping when I'm trying to shove a sledgehammer up his rear end. Or is that Dementation? gently caress, I can't tell, you could theoretically make a case for either. But this is purple and Dominate is blue, so I guess it's Dementation. Regardless, it sucks. I eventually pelt him to death with bullets instead of pelting him with the sledgehammer, and that unlocks the door because I JUST DON'T KNOW.  Strangely enough, there is no miniboss up here. I would have bet money on there being one.  We continue our trudge through the mansion, this time with less sledgehammering and more rat-tat-tat.  As we make our way to the second switch puzzle, a book is pointed out to us. And when we activate it...  ...it skips the puzzle! I guess that's alright with me.  More mansion, more shooting, nothing interesting for a while...  But when we make it to the holding cells, we find something... interesting. I end up going through all the holding cells to see if there's some loot to be found. Instead...  OH SWEET JESUS IT'S THE ALIEN.  AND IT DOES AGGRAVATED DAMAGE!  Thankfully, the alien is no match for the power of guns.  And then I run into a second one, here doing its best Archvile impression. Sadly, there was nothing interesting in the holding cells, however, there was something interesting in the secret room.  This amulet. Of course, it's still kinda poo poo, because Giovanni have enough problems getting blood out of people, and we don't need to make that any harder, so on the pile of "poo poo to sell" it goes.  Finally, we make it to Grout's inner sanctum. We play the gramophone (at least I think that's what it is)...  ...Grout's wife starts turning in her container...  ...and then teleports out and whips out a Glock.  And then she attacks us. While a mix of more Bram Stoker's Dracula NES music and the Witch music from Left 4 Dead 2 plays. ... If you'll excuse me, I think I need a bit of time for myself to ponder just what the gently caress I've gotten myself into.  So yeah, Grout's wife is a boss fight in this game. This terrifies me. If I knew this awaited me before starting this, I wouldn't have LPed this, because I would have been convinced things would get too batshit for me to properly comprehend. As it stands, I'm stuck here, and we're all on this one way trip to hell. And we're less than half-way through. ...I feel like I just succeeded a Sanity roll. Things are still OK, but a part of me is forever gone. I'll never enjoy Bloodlines the same way again, knowing that there's a mod out there where Grout's wife is a boss fight.  She's also capable of using disciplines and disintegrates like a vampire. GROUT'S WIFE WAS NOT A VAMPIRE YOU TWITS. gently caress.  Aaaaanyway, we find what could either be Grout's remains or somebody else's remains. I'm not getting into this, for all I know, that skeleton is actually animate and will attack me the moment I turn my back.  We also find this interesting item on the table nearby - this is basically the thing you use to dominate people if you can't dominate or something like that it's kind of vague. Apparently there's some sort of way you can dominate Therese using this that was detailed in a video posted in the thread but that was kind of weird. Let's just move on.  Bach makes his presence felt.  It turns out that the healing factor actually neutralizes most of the threat these burning enemies pose. Wonderful, that's another problem I thought I'd have dealt with. Man, it's nice when the game gives you a hand, even if it's a bug.  And of course, they couldn't just let us leave in peace, so before we get to jump out the window, there's one more extraordinary encounter with two vampires with guns.  And they actually deal enough damage so that I can't just run up and shove a melee weapon in their face, which is quite surprising given that fire was less of a problem.  So hiding behind a wall and taking potshots it is.  And once the first guy is down, the second guy gets his too.  And with that, we're finally done with that madhouse, except not really, because there's another cutscene!  For some reason, there's some sort of crazy vampire paramilitary group out on the lawn (is that a loving helicopter how the gently caress did they land a helicopter there and more importantly why).  The guy in black jabbers some weird evil talk (blah, blah, you are my enemy, blah, blah, feel my power) and kills one Malkavian.  He jabbers some more (blah, blah, my power grows, blah, blah, my lord rule) and kills the second Malkavian.  He jabbers some more (blah, blah, we'll be invincible), then the scene ends.  And that's Grout's mansion! Are you confused? Well, suck it up, because I am too! Let's hope this gets cleared up in the future. I think that'll be enough for this update, and I'm pretty sure I need a break. Next time, we're going to get ourselves a gargoyle!
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Apr 21, 2015 01:49
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For all I know, they stuck a loving Marauder somewhere in the end and they are the reason this is some serious bizarro Los Angeles.
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Apr 21, 2015 02:30
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I think this mod is bad. I know, it's a pretty crazy suggestion and all, but I mean it. Bad.
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Apr 21, 2015 02:40
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What on earth is going on.
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Apr 21, 2015 02:44
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Seriously, what the gently caress? I don't know what's the weird thing, the platforming, the aliens, or Grout's Wife
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Apr 21, 2015 02:50
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Robindaybird posted:Seriously, what the gently caress? I don't know what's the weird thing, the platforming, the aliens, or Grout's Wife D- All of the Above.
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Apr 21, 2015 03:32
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Umm... I guess that was the point? Malkavian so everything is weird and surreal and inexplicable? Mix up the game with unexpected elements? I mean that's clearly what they were trying for, some kind of meta-mind screw.
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Apr 21, 2015 03:39
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Added Space posted:Umm... I guess that was the point? Malkavian so everything is weird and surreal and inexplicable? Mix up the game with unexpected elements? I mean that's clearly what they were trying for, some kind of meta-mind screw. Don't even try to justify it. The mod doing this is no surprise.
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Apr 21, 2015 04:06
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TheMcD posted:So yeah, Grout's wife is a boss fight in this game. This terrifies me. If I knew this awaited me before starting this, I wouldn't have LPed this, because I would have been convinced things would get too batshit for me to properly comprehend. As it stands, I'm stuck here, and we're all on this one way trip to hell. And we're less than half-way through.  e: I really shouldn’t suggest this, especially since you’re not a Malkavian, but have you ever tried jumping on the heads of NPCs in Elysium? It is hilarious.  I did break the gently caress out of my game doing this to LaCroix late in the game, so be careful, but it is the best silly revenge against annoying NPCs making you do stupid errands who you can’t touch because of My Little Elysium: Friendship is Magic.
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Apr 21, 2015 04:35
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I like to think that the Malkavian forcefield is using Dementation to make you hallucinate that there's a big glowy forcefield in your way.
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Apr 21, 2015 05:27
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GuyUpNorth posted:For all I know, they stuck a loving Marauder somewhere in the end and they are the reason this is some serious bizarro Los Angeles. "A Marauder has taken over Los Angeles and vampires don't know what the gently caress" would explain everything we've seen in this mod to date, yes.
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Apr 21, 2015 05:35
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At first I was like "this couldn't be more retarded than Wesp +". I was wrong.
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Apr 21, 2015 13:11
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MJ12 posted:"A Marauder has taken over Los Angeles and vampires don't know what the gently caress" would explain everything we've seen in this mod to date, yes. I had forgotten a Marauder was a crazy wizard dude and was imagining the old battlemech instead, then my brain snapped into action and told me that made even less sense, even if it'd be awesome.
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Apr 21, 2015 13:38
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ZearothK posted:I had forgotten a Marauder was a crazy wizard dude and was imagining the old battlemech instead, then my brain snapped into action and told me that made even less sense, even if it'd be awesome. What if it's a crazy wizard dude piloting a large mech?
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Apr 21, 2015 13:43
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Fuzz posted:What if it's a crazy wizard dude piloting a large mech? Then you're playing Genius: The Transgression and have bigger things to worry about, like moon Nazis and people who can shut down technology down to clubs and stone axes.
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Apr 21, 2015 13:51
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Cythereal posted:Then you're playing Genius: The Transgression and have bigger things to worry about, like moon Nazis and people who can shut down technology down to clubs and stone axes. Or it's a Technocrat who's gone completely off the deep end and everyone is hosed.
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Apr 21, 2015 16:39
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Glad I read this thread before I installed this. They've been working on this stupid mod for so long and advertising it as such a grand, Very Serious Mod thing that it's now sort of cruelly satisfying to find out that it's basically tits and Xenomorphs and minibosses in places they don't belong.
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Apr 21, 2015 16:45
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That was... sublime. That was amazing. I don't even- oh man, just I laughed so hard I almost cried at the xenomorphs in jail. And when you got to Grout's wife, I thought I was gonna pass out. Holy poo poo. This mod is so very earnest, and so very misguided. Like, it has no idea what it wants to achieve, aside from "include poo poo to do" and "make it different from vanilla just because." There's no context, purpose, explanation, or consistency. Never mind that the combat in this game is rear end, we need more of it, and it needs to be harder! At any, and I do mean any, cost. ...except not even that, because that would imply deliberation and a guiding purpose, which this mod does not have. The mind boggles. See, I give WESP credit for trying. He didn't execute on his ideas very well (at all), but I could see where he was going, you know? He even tried his hand at incorporating the writing into the main game. That's what kept my suspension of disbelief from totally collapsing, even though his added content was sort of terrible. It stands out because it's bad, but not because it's fundamentally out of place. The public library quest, for example, could be made decent with better writing and a good bit of polish. By contrast, Grout's wife being a boss fight is just so glaringly, innately inappropriate that there's no saving it. You're a brave LPer, TheMcD. If your sanity holds out, please continue, because this trainwreck is absolutely delightful. Think of it like a character-building exercise. Was mich nicht umbringt, macht mich staerker and all that.
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Apr 21, 2015 20:24
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That platforming. I remember having occasional trouble getting my vampire getting where I needed to go in the game already. Balance-beam-jumping to get to a stupid miniboss is something special and makes me ever so glad I'm not playing.
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Apr 22, 2015 01:03
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