OK, some answers for you:

First, GOG rarely lets people know about game release dates before they announce them (go ahead, ponder that one for a moment), and they haven't announced that V:TM:B is coming to GOG.

Thus, second, if you want to get the game, it comes down to how much you like D2D and how much you like Steam. If you love Steam, get it there. Same for D2D.

Third, the game's actually a little long in the tooth, so that laptop has more than enough power to run it. Now, as far as compatibility goes, there may be some hiccups there, but *generally* games sold on Steam work pretty well on Win7, even if they're old games. I don't have enough experience - personal or anecdotal - to feel like I know if D2D is good on that front or not.

As an aside, GOG is a great place for the kind of gamer you're suggesting you are - more or less casual and not interested in making it work, but rather having it work without much effort on your part. So buy some (more?) GOG games while you're at it, and when they finally do get V:TM:B (and it's very high on the list of wanted games) you can even get it again for six bucks ;)

VTMB is still selling for around $20, so until that price drops into GOG's limited price range, we won't see it here. When (or if) that happens, as OneFiercePuppy mentioned, GOG won't say anything until they are actually ready to release it.

Steam or D2D: 6 of one, half dozen of the other, it's the same game regardless of where you get it.

As for running the game on that machine, you will need the unofficial patch for it found here: http://www.patches-scrolls.de/vampire_bloodlines.php Without that, you will have problem running the game on a 64-bit system.

I got it from D2D because it's easier to patch that way. And you will need to install the unofficial patch. I literally could not start it until I did.

And don't worry about your machine. My laptop is terrible and it ran just fine.

I disagree with the specs issue. When VtmB was first released, I bought it for a then high spec'ed machine. It was a dog, not the in game play, just because you spent most of your time looking at a loading screen as you moved between areas. It became a hassle, and even playing it now I find it tedious, and that's on a Q6600. I would advise a strong processor for playing it.

Answering your questions out of order, I would also advise neither D2D or Steam. VtmB is one that you really want to own the box copy of. Its always going to have an uncertain future because of the collapse of Troika (I know the publishers have the rights, but then how does the patch fit in? It's just not safe), get a copy off an online seller, and treasure it.

It's not the processor that causes the slow load times in the game, it's the RAM. When I first got the game years ago, I only had 512MB of RAM in my machine and the load times were long enough that I could go make a sandwich, eat it, have a butt, get a soda, check the news, then finally come back to the game and play again (I might be exaggerating slightly). When I upgraded to a GB of RAM, I no longer had time to check the news, grab a soda or have that butt, but I still had time for a sandwich. Now that my machine has 3GB, I don't have time for anything and I have to pause the game to go get my snack. This is all without ever changing out the processor (3Ghz P4).

Nice catch then. I guess it must have been hitting virtual memory that caused it. I just assumed processor.

Thanks.

Lot of superfluous threads on Bloodlines being started lately. I sort of wish they'd all compress and merge.

But actually this does give me the chance to query about the digital copy of Bloodlines being sold out there. I own an original 3-disc version of the game, now out-of-print. I use the Bloodlines so-called "True Gold Patch" developed by some third parties, which among the myriad of bug-fixes and restorations of cut content also includes a no-cd version of the game launcher. Very important to me since I don't want any additional wear and tear on the original discs.

My question is whether this would also work with the versions of Bloodlines being sold at Steam, GameStop, and D2D. Those are all the online outlets selling a digital distribution version, to my knowledge. Does anyone know what sort of DRM scheme each of these places use?

experimented with steam with some of the free for plays and demos and the interface is just very annoying on it to me. and fustrated how old demos didn't work and stuff. I don'tknow if I will have the patience to get vampire bloodlines working. Maybe if it is on GOG for ten bucks a while from now.

Do your remember what was your GPU (model/memory) back then (512MB RAM time)?

Buy it from either D2D or Steam, download a crack, crack it, and then archive the whole thing. You won't have to use Steam / D2D ever again.

GeForce 4 or 5 I think (it's been a while). I currently have a GeForce 7 in my old games machine and I can still replicate the game's awful performance and loading issues by simply reducing the RAM.

Thanks.

Direct2Drive. Because right now [url=http://www.direct2drive.com/803/product/Buy-Vampire:-The-Masquerade---Bloodlines-Download]it's on sale for $13.39[/url]. I just recently bought my own copy on D2D even though I own a physical, out-of-print 3-disc copy, so I won't need to bother with physical discs anymore for installation. And it's a kind price.

I can vouch for this. After buying my Direct2Drive copy of Vampire the DRM was a trivial matter to bypass. The entire game is a single-file windows installer. It'll install in full on your machine. Then download the True VTMB Gold Patch from this website. The creator is a bit of a blowhard but he's down fine work in bugfixes and restoring cut content, much as the guys over at New Mutants Allowed have done so with their Fallout Restoration patches. Included in the hefty patch's files (over 300 megs worth) is a cracked executable to launch the game. No need to connect to the intrawebs authorize the game you bought with D2D servers, so you can archive the game with confidence.

As for running it, I recently installed Vampire: Bloodlines with the D2D version I bought, patched it with the Gold Patch, and it ran like a charm. I'm using Windows 7, 32-bit version on a three-year-old Toshiba laptop with an integrated GMA graphics card. So you should be good to go.

I bought it from direct2drive and it works fine with the patch
Unless you want to pay extra, I completely disagree about buying a boxed copy