Every couple of years, I reload VTMB when I get the itch. I was (actually, still am) a member of Planet Vampire and remember the flame wars and have no desire whatsoever to reopen old wounds. I managed to stay neutral then and will continue at that. However, while most of the changes in the basic patch are (or at least should be) not an issue, some I just can't fathom. I mean, upgraded cars, upgraded lines, exchanged hooker locations, etc have no negative affect and do improve game play. I especially liked a certain car in the Traffik garage that made me think that the two brothers and their female cousin must have had one long road trip :) . Nobody could fix the problematic door in the Ming temple so keeping it unlocked (slider to the right) was a very good thing. Early weapon drops like the crossbow? It's a lowsy weapon anyway so why argue it? I am also looking forward to playing with the plus patch after I'm done with the basic patch. However, the following I just didn't understand since they mainly took away options:

- the second Sabatt vampire is missing from the warehouse and the door is locked and cannot be picked. There were three routes that the developers (Troika) intended for escape - that cuts it down to two.

- the missing passage in the Grout mansion. There is now a chest in a locked room that had (I believe) a telephone that opened a secret passage. One can see where the entrance and exit used to be but it is now disfunctional.

- the ability to kill the werewolf is gone. It made a fun situation into a very boring one. Running around helter skelter to get to the light switch and then to the observatory and closing the door on the wolf was fun and obviously the desired way Troika designed. Now, one just sits there watching the werewolf destroy things while waiting for the tram to return then making a beeline for it.

- The Ming temple is generally very easy until Ming. The one place where there was a somewhat challenging battle was when one first enters the basement. The four guards are missing.

If anyone remembers the reasoning behind these changes, it would really ease my mind to hear them. My intent is not to argue although there may be cases of agreeing to disagree. It would be best answered by Wesp5 but, if this causes a blood pressure rise, then it'd be better left unopened.

Also... Why late and end game enemies, wield cheap katana replicas like the one the Santa Monica Kuei Jin owns and drops? You get insanely powerful anyway at that point, why make weak enemies weaker, just like that? Any justification/explanation behind this nerf, too?

I don't get what you are referring to here. It might be that I changed some cars there to show some unused skins, but what is the meaning of brothers and cousins ;)? The crossbow should not drop in the basic patch, only in the plus version and only if the Kathayan used it at the time. I'm not aware of changing anything there! The Sabbat vampires only appear when you get caught entering and if you mean the train garage, you should always be able to jump onto the trains and exit it that way. This is like it was in the original game, as the telephone was an addition of mine which I removed from the basic patch after all the discussion on Planet Vampire. Still you can just "use" these doors to open them like before! I never removed that, neither in the basic nor the plus patch. The werewolf is sometimes hard to get into the right position or he might have glitched out completely and got stuck somewhere. I never removed any guards there! But I would like to know exactly which you mean so I can go and check. What color had their clothes and what weapons were they using? This is not a nerf, in the original game these asian guys attacked with combat knifes which are even weaker and looked completely out of place! I changed them to Shin Guntos as I didn't dare to make the endgame too hard by replacing them with real katanas. Some people don't do combat builds and have huge issues with the endgame fights!

Sorry, i got so much used to your patch, that i literally forgot the details and specifics of old 1.2!

[i]This game continues to surprise. Probably for the first time ever, I avoided the conflict of best armor vs heather dying by not ghouling her. I expected her to not be there when I checked later but, what caught me off guard was the entry in the morgue detailing her death.

[/i]

EDIT: one thing I forgot but I think I know the answer: unable to get the swat rifle. Too over powered?

I never saw that so I didn't get the meaning of your comment ;). Yes, they can drop there and by that time it doesn't matter. I can't remember moving any trains, but there is some readme info about a problem with the doors. I don't know what it was, but you can always leave the garage over the top of the trains if you want. Yes, it might have been in the old basic patch before I removed it. It's now in the plus patch in the Malkavian Maze! I actually made him vulnerable to normal weapons, due to multiple requests, but he is still pretty much invincible without cheats! I think these are patrolling and will move away from there with time. That was added by me, as I love the attention to details in Bloodlines and wanted to add to it :)! The SWAT rifle never was in the original game, so it had to be removed from basic too. It's in plus!

Could have sworn it was there but, well, so many games, so many patches and versions of patches with a few mods thrown in and the ol' memory gets fuzzy.

Oh, I did, but I wasn't aware of the connection. It was just an unused texture to me ;)! It was available in the first patches because Dan Upright, who started the UP, restored it in his first version already. Which was the main reason why I figured restoring stuff is okay until the whole patch-wars broke out and I created the basic version for the purists in which I removed all these things again.

How did you manage to avoid the second Sabatt vampire? I played this level through the other day, this time going uncharacteristically un-stealthy, and on the way out I encountered first one Sabatt, then another a section or two later.

I did notice that when the first Sabatt attacks, the doors are locked, and after the attack I think one of them remained locked, forcing a specific route - but that route led pretty much straight to the second Sabatt. Once I'd killed the second one it was home free from there.

That was with the plus patch, but from memory that's the same as with the regular patch (at least the version I played back then), not including the XP/humanity scoring. Haven't gotten to this bit in the latest playthrough, but I definitely managed to crush the werewolf with both the standard patch and the plus patch, albeit many versions ago. It's definitely not easy - I think one time it took me a few attempts of running around before I timed it right - but personally I found it easier to squish him than to hide from him or keep outrunning him.

There's a spot that you can crouch at that, even though he sees you, he doesn't attack (I guess it's a he - not sure one can tell with a werewolf :) ). I didn't find it - way, way back I consulted a walkthrough and it said to do it that way. It was quite a while until I learned that the wolf COULD be crushed instead. I just imagined the spot to be a cave too small for him to enter.

That could be the reason I locked this door, because you could otherwise return to the burning warehouse later and notice that it isn's actually burning ;).

You know, that rings a bell.

You mean after the explosion? I thought that was the purpose of the Becket convo/scene - since once that's over you're transported back to the hub in SM. I don't recall being able to move after the explosion either, but due to the convo triggering I don't think I tried...

You know, I recall that years ago there was discussion about being able to go back in and I suppose get all the 38 and 12 gauge ammo that you missed but I never thought about it. How could that be possible since, as you said, directly after the explosion, Becket in wolf form appears running on top of a train, then the conversation, then the fade away back to the oil tank. Good observation. Maybe the door could be unlocked again afterall.

I think it was something about not dying in that train house when the explosion went off and then being able to go back before meeting Beckett...