Revision as of 18:13, 4 June 2013

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Overview

Released on November 16, 2004 by the ill-fated Troika Games, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines is an RPG based on White Wolf's World of Darkness universe (which is in turn based on a million nerdy goth fantasies.) Like Activision's Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption, Bloodlines is set in White Wolf, Inc.'s Vampire: The Masquerade universe, but it is not a sequel to the earlier game. The game allows the player to choose one of several different vampire clans and progress through the game according to the different strengths and weaknesses of the player's character, as in its paper and pencil role-playing origins. Bloodlines is notable for being the first game along with Half-Life 2 to use Valve's Source engine, which allows the game to be played from either the first-person or third-person shooter perspective. You play a recently turned vampire who, through no fault of your own, becomes embroiled in a bloody power struggle over an ancient sarcophagus.

1. Compatibility Fixes
2. Clan Comparison
3. Basic Tricks
4. Advanced Tricks
5. Run Categories & Routes

Engine Notes

Since VTMB uses an early early beta version of Valve's Source engine, it's definitely buggy. The good thing is that many of the same physics bugs/tricks you'd expect from a Half-Life game are present (minus accelerated-back-hopping). Many of these tricks are inherited from the original Quake (the engine which was the basis for Half-Life). All velocity numbers are shown as Units-Per-Second (a unit being the measured distance of 1 in the game engine). As with Half-Life, higher framerates can heavily affect certain tricks.

Compatibility Issues

During development of VTMB, 64bit Operating Systems weren't the norm, and most users still barely had 1Gb of RAM (let alone more than 2Gb). Due to this oversight, there are 2 main issues that most users have when it comes to playing the game: the dreaded "less than 15Mb of memory" and "blurred textures" bugs.

The bulk of the information for these fixes comes from this link: https://iain.cx/articles/bloodlines/index.html?intro

Less Than 15Mb

Since the Source engine version used for VTMB is very early, and operates entirely within the confines of a 32bit program, running it on a 64bit OS can cause some major issues. The biggest is the memory check done by VTMB upon initially loading the program. When vampire.exe checks to see how much memory your system has, it expects a 32bit INT number as a result. However since a 64bit number is returned, the extra bits are seen as a negative flag, which then tells the program that you have a negative amount of RAM (which is definitely under 15Mb).

1. Compatibility modes - The easiest way to combat the issue is to run vampire.exe in a compatibility mode set to Windows XP or earlier. This will return a proper 32bit number to the memory check and allow the program to launch without issue. If you are running any version of Windows XP and need compatibility information, go here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/301911 For Vista and Win7, it works the same way. Right click on the exe, choose the Properties option, then find the Compatibility tab. However, in Vista, the compatibility tab isn't always there. To enable/disable the tab, go here: http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/182398-compatibility-properties-tab-restore-remove.html
2. HEX edit engine.dll - If using a compatibility mode either isn't an option or doesn't work, you can always just fix the base problem itself. Follow the link above (at the start of this section) and use the instructions to HEX edit engine.dll to ignore any results obtained from the memory check and simply load the game.

Blurry Textures

Even using a 32bit OS will run into this problem. After the game figures out that you have enough physical memory to load properly, it then has to see how much memory you have to load models/textures/maps/objects/etc. This is done in a brute force fashion: all of your memory is filled with dummy textures, and then once done the game takes the total result from that and figures out how much memory it has to use. If you have anything over 2Gb, a negative number is returned. As a base concept with the Source engine, it is designed to work with different hardware setups automatically and adjust settings to meet whatever it is running on. In this case, most game textures are blurred to an extremely low level-of-detail to work with a low memory system (even though you may physically have plenty of memory to spare). There are a few ways to combat this problem:

1. Limit available OS memory - This requires you to boot up your OS and tell it that it can only use 2Gb of your total system RAM. This doesn't just limit 1 program though, it limits the entire system. **Confirmed in Windows 7 Premium** Click on the Windows Start button, and in the Run/Search bar type in "msconfig" and press enter. Once the System Configuration dialog box loads up, click on the "Boot" tab and choose "Advanced options." In the next window you'll see an option on the right that is labeled "Maximum memory." Click on the checkbox to enable that feature, then in the textbox below enter a value of 2048. Save the changes, then reboot. Now you'll get to play VTMB without the blurry textures, but your ENTIRE system will be limited to only 2Gb of RAM usage.

1. Modify shaderapidx9.dll - Rather than limiting the entire system to use only 2Gb of RAM, it's much easier to limit the program itself to simply think you only have 2Gb of RAM. Follow the directions in this link https://iain.cx/articles/bloodlines/index.html?part6 and the blurry textures will completely go away.

1. Import unofficial patch files - This hasn't been confirmed yet, but apparently if you import the engine.dll and shaderapidx9.dll files from the unofficial patches, the 2Gb limit and blurry textures are removed. ****If this fix does work, either edit this page or message honorableJay on the SDA forums to confirm****

Community Patches

After Troika released the last official patch, v1.2, the company went belly-up. That didn't stop the community from continuing the quest the crush bugs and adding features. The current Unofficial Community patches can be found here: http://www.patches-scrolls.de/vampire_bloodlines.php Much love goes to Wesp5 and everyone else who work constantly to make sure this game remains playable and enjoyable. Aside from resolving the memory allocation issues, these patches also restore content that was left unused in the game AND change the gameplay just enough to keep things fresh.

For speedrunning purposes, the community patches aren't the best place to start with for a few reasons:

1. Development holes have been sealed up
2. Quest bugs have been addressed

The main quests that are affected by these fixes are the sewers skip and the Chinatown temple early-opening-door skip. These two reasons alone are reason enough not to use the community patches for speedrunning, but for casual play they can greatly enhance the game.

Player Velocity

Unlike most games, the key you're using to move can greatly affect how fast you move. Another interesting aspect, is that male characters do NOT move the same speed as female characters. F=forward, B=backward, L=left, R=Right, J=jump.

• Male

F=188, B=205, L=207, R=207.99, FR=201.53, FL=203.69, BL=179.01, BR=203.65

• Female

F=193, B=126, L=156, R=156.01, FR=218.50, FL=209.35, BL=109.81, BR=125.16

• Male Crouched

F=65, B=62, L=69, R=68, FR=64.07, FL=65.22, BL=70.72, BR=64.07

• Female Crouched

F=67, B=64, L=71, R=70, FR=65.46, FL=63.81, BL=72.86, BR=70

• Jump (male/female standing/crouched)

J=175.40 (subject to acceleration ramp)

Basic Tricks

Air Control

While in the air, you have a lot more control over your character's velocity direction than most games. The easiest is by using the strafe (sidestep) keys, while other (flashier) methods combine other movement keys. The basic idea is that your movement keys always point to the center of a circle, and your mouse is used to turn in the direction of that circle. Just remember that this only works while your character is off of the ground.

• Strafe only - When holding only a strafe key, turn the mouse in the same direction. If you're holding left strafe, turn the mouse left. Same goes for turning right. If done correctly, you can steer your character in the air while moving forward.
• Other key combos (forward/backward+strafe, only forward/backward, etc) - This is where things can get tricky. Remember that whatever combination of keys you're holding HAVE to point towards the center of your circle and your mouse movements will steer your character around that circle. Your screen may be looking at something completely different, but as long as you turn at the correct angle you will steer yourself in that circular motion.

A side effect of being able to turn in the air is acceleration. The simple act of turning can increase your forward velocity, but once your feet hit the ground friction takes over and slows you down to normal running speeds. The longer your character is airborne, the more potential you have to speed up. Slower speeds allow for sharper turning to accelerate, but faster speeds require slower turning. Turning too sharp will slow you down, as will not turning in a smooth motion.

Wallstrafing

By walking forward and holding strafe to push along a wall you can be accelerated. But like normal walking speeds, male and female characters will have different speeds. Turning towards the wall will increase your velocity but the angle can't be higher than roughly 15 degrees. At the perfect mouse angle, males can achieve up to 300 both on the left and right sides. Females can average 310 on the left and 320 on the right.

This trick can also be used in the circular sewer tunnels that lead to/from the exit ladders. Males can achieve a max speed of about 95 (average about 88), while females can easily get 95. An alternate method to get a hair more speed is to just use one of the strafe keys alone and looking away from the wall at about a 50 degree angle. Males can achieve 100 while females can achieve 105.

Zig-Zagging

This is achieved by walking forward and rapidly tapping the left and right strafe keys in succession. Males can achieve an average range of 230-250 while females can achieve an average range of 250-260.

Vent Boosting

While crawling through a vent angled upwards, press and hold jump while at full forward speed to get a burst of speed. This appears to be a side effect of the way jumping is handled. In most games, the jump action gives your character an immediate push upwards, and bumping into a ceiling brings your speed to 0. In VTMB, the jump command gives your character a constant upwards push for a given amount of time (about 500ms) so long as the key is pressed. Once the jump timer runs out, gravity takes over. In a vent, holding jump has the same effect as wallstrafing, except the wall happens to be the ceiling and the boost is a lot stronger. This effect is calculated per frame until the jump timer runs out, so the boost is stronger at higher framerates. At 60fps, your speed has the potential to average around 230, but at 300fps (fps_max 300 in console, the default for the game) the boost can get as high as 850.

Fast Ladder Climbing

The normal way to climb a ladder is to look straight up and hold forward, which results in a speed of 101. If you lower your viewing angle to about 45 degrees, your speed will increase to 141. If you use forward and a strafe key AND aim at a 45 degree angle (on the up/down axis) your speed will be further increased to 157. This applies to both male and female characters. The only problem to avoid is walking off of the ladder itself, which is easily corrected by aiming to about 15 degrees to the opposite side of your chosen strafe key (look left if holding strafe right, etc).

Quick Dialog

To skip dialog, simply press a number key or jump. If jump is held as soon as dialog begins it will instantly skip the first conversation piece and go onto the next set or your first dialog choice. Note that only the very first line of dialog can be entirely skipped, as every other line following can only be skipped after a certain amount of time. Spamming an input key is a fast method to speed through conversations, but using the key you need for your dialog choice is the fastest method.

Hitbox Shifting

When playing the game in first person, your point-of-view doesn't always represent exactly where your character's model/hitbox are. If you're in the air and try to duck, you see your pov moved lower to the ground, indicating that your feet have been pulled up and appearing as if your hitbox has been shrunk. This is not really true. On the ground your model/hitbox are smaller, but in the air the engine shifts your model/hitbox up higher to simulate the effects of pulling your feet up into a ducked position. This can allow you to activate level triggers that are located through floors and other objects.

Known locations for use:

1. Santa Monica pier - Used to activate the level change trigger from under the last set of stairs when going to get the Astrolite.
2. Asylum - Walk to the upper level next to the elevator shaft and stand to the right side of the left-most window, then do the shift into the ceiling. This can activate the angry Therese dialog after you either accept or refuse to slash the paintings.

Skipping Fade-in

Whenever the game finishes loading a level, the loading meter will flash, then the screen will crossfade from the load screen to your own point of view. During this fade-in you're free to move around and interact with objects, but you can't see what's going on. To skip this effect, open any in-game menu once the load bar flashes, then close the menu. The easiest is the player's inventory. Wait for the load bar to flash, double-tap the inventory key, and the entire fade-in is skipped.

Advanced Tricks

Bunny Hopping

By combining the speed gains from air control acceleration and repeatedly jumping, it's possible to move at speeds averaging between 350 and 400. Jumping just as you land serves two purposes:

• Friction - This is used by the engine to keep your character from moving faster than his/her max speed, but can only occur while standing on a solid object.
• Speed Boost - By jumping as soon as you land, the game gives your character a small surge of speed forward.

To simplify, jumping as soon as you land avoids the slowdown from friction and also gives your character a small surge of forward velocity. This also presents a bit of a catch-22, since you gain speed from staying in the air longer BUT get multiple speed boosts from jumping more often. To get the best results, it's best to use a full jump for the first jump (or two), then keep the hopping pattern with smaller jumps after that. Binding jump to both the spacebar and the mousewheel will allow you to easily perform both style of jumps.

Normal bunny hopping runs will consist of your player moving in a constant S-pattern, with smooth transitions between turning left and right. This doesn't always have to happen, as switching between left and right is only limited based on how fast you can change strafes and move the mouse. The best acceleration comes from sharp turning at the start and then long sweeping turns as speed builds up. Being able to balance moving in a controlled S-pattern and still moving in as straight a line as possible will take practice, since moving faster means nothing if you're not moving towards your goal.

Another factor to take into consideration is your framerate. Unlike the original Quake, all jumping has to be timed manually. There is no way (without scripting) to automate jumping, nor can you prime a jump (Quake allowed players to hold jump before touching the ground) to get perfect timing. Higher framerates not only allow for faster acceleration in the air (due to speed being calculated on a per-frame basis) but also makes timing the jump upon landing much easier (less control lag, larger window for success). Using the mousewheel to jump and rolling it just before landing can increase the success of proper timing, but even at framerates as low as 60 it's easy to mess up.

Bunny hopping can also be performed while ducking. The only difference is you must turn slower (resulting in a wider circular arc) or all speed will be lost in an instant.

Circle Jump

By adding in forward to standard air control concepts while on the ground, you're able to get a burst of acceleration before attempting either a distance jump or a bunny hopping run.

1. Start walking forward
2. Hold a strafe key
3. Turn the mouse in the same direction as your strafe key
4. Jump

While it may sound difficult, performing a circle jump is a lot easier after a little practice. To start off, your target destination should be at a 90 degree angle to your crosshair (to your direct left or right). After pressing and holding forward, press/hold the strafe key that will move you towards your destination, then rapidly turn in the same direction. Timing the jump is probably the hardest step, but nearly every time you'll be about 20-30 degrees BEFORE aiming directly at your target.

• Single landing point - If you're doing a circle jump to extend your jump to a certain spot, continue to hold the forward/strafe keys and turn in a slower, more controlled motion after jumping. This will give a smooth acceleration and minimize your chances of skewing too far to the side.
• Starting a Bunny Hopping Run - The key here is to let go of the forward key just after jumping. This will allow you to keep looking forward while building up speed. Letting go of forward isn't entirely necessary, but keeping circular motion will require you to maneuver your aim much more chaotic. Remember that your movement keys always have to point towards the center of your circle, so if you hold forward AND use a strafe key, you will have to look at a 45 degree angle INTO the circle before acceleration can begin, then turn in a controlled manner. Switching directions while still holding forward will then require you to flick the mouse quickly to a 45 degree angle in the other direction. The chaotic nature of flicking the mouse back and forth while holding forward for bunny hopping runs makes getting enough speed and keeping it a huge hassle.

Players adept at performing circle jumps will find that the trick can be performed without having to be at a full 90 degree angle to start. Once you can perform a circle jump, it is possible to walk straight at something, then flick the mouse either left or right about 45 degrees, then quickly flick in the opposite direction and do a circle jump that gets almost the same speed results as doing it from a standstill at 90 degrees.

Ramp Sliding

Find any object that has a flat, angled surface, then collide with it while traveling in speeds above 450 (estimated, actual speed is unknown). If done correctly, friction won't start to slow you down for about 2-3 seconds. Some of your speed may be lost initially upon landing, but the rest will be saved until friction starts to take effect. During the actual slide, your movement physics behave as if you're in the air, allowing you do to some minor steering. However if you turn too far the sliding effect will be broken. On ramps that are small, or where you manage to land near the top, your speed will allow you to be launched off of the ramp itself.

This effect can be done going either up or down a ramp.

• Going up a ramp requires you to hit the ramp while either still rising from a jump or going straight. If you begin to fall from a jump and hit a ramp it's not guaranteed to stop the slide, but the chances of success decrease the faster you fall.
• Going down a ramp requires you to be falling and still moving forward at about 450. However, like moving up a ramp, coming down too fast can stop the slide from taking place.

Celerity Boosting

Activating Celerity will temporarily increase your character's base speed by a certain factor depending on the current level of the discipline.

• Level 1 - 1.19x
• Level 2 - 1.37x
• Level 3 - 1.62x
• Level 4 - 1.96x
• Level 5 - 2.5x

Start by using Celerity, then jump and deactivate all disciplines to temporarily keep the speed factor without the game slowdown. By itself there isn't too much this can be used for, but combined with other tricks this can have interesting results. Which leads to the next section...

Combining Tricks

By combining tricks or stringing them together, the effects can be stacked (although not linearly). A few examples are:

1. Circle jump or wallstrafing into a bunny hopping run to start off with higher speed.
2. Wallstrafing into an air controlled left/right turn and landing in another wallstrafe to get past two walls at a 90 degree angle without losing speed.
3. Circle jump into a hitbox shift (duck) to land on an object or touch a level trigger normally out of reach.
4. Bunny hopping into a ramp slide to preserve speed.
5. Celerity boost into a circle jump into a bunny hopping run to start off with extreme speeds.
6. Celerity boost into a circle jump into a ramp slide to launch yourself higher than a normal jump or to cross a large gap.

There are tons of ways to combine different tricks and each combination will have it's own use. Understanding each trick will make combinations easier to come up with.

Sequence Breaks

Why can't I skip you, Mercurio?

The very first mission you're given is to find Mercurio, who you see stumbling into his apartment in the beginning of the game. The normal way to complete this mission is to visit him once to find out about the Astrolite and where to find it, then visit him again once you've obtained it. It is possible to get to the drug dealer's house without talking to Mercurio first.

1. Go to the beach
2. Stand against the rocky cliff to the right. Make sure you're at the highest point in the sand.
3. Do a circle jump to the left, duck as quickly as possible. If done correctly you'll land on the light just above the locked gate.
4. Drop down past the gate and continue on to get the Astrolite
5. Return to Mercurio to finish 2 quests at once

You'll still have to listen to both sets of dialog (the initial meeting and returning with the Astrolite) which will waste some time. The good thing is you won't lose out on the experience for not going to him first, you only have to see him once (instead of twice the normal way), AND you skip the forced dialog scene with the Malkavian at the beach (since the trigger for that dialog doesn't become active until you've talked to Mercurio).

Skipping the Sewers

After fighting Andrei for the first time, you're introduced to the most annoying section of the game: navigating the abandoned sewers. As soon as you get to the sewers, you'll come across 2 doors, one locked and one unlocked. The unlocked door will take you to the Hollywood sewer section, allowing you to restock on supplies before venturing further in the quest. One of the doors in the Hollywood sewers is locked and normally can't be opened until much later in the quest. By standing to the left side and pressing the use key on the right spot, you can open the door. Doing so tricks the game into thinking you've progressed further than you're supposed to and immediately jumps to a cutscene where you're dropped out of a sewer pipe in the second to last section of the sewers before finally finding the Nosteratu.

Chinatown shortened

Once you finally get to Chinatown, the first stop is Ming Xiao's temple. Once inside the courtyard, find the rocks to the right of the temple steps. Jump on that, then onto the tree to the right, and finally onto the roof of the building next to the rocks. This will allow you to get over the wall and proceed inside the temple to complete the game. The difficulty is that the game still thinks you're in an Elysium: you cannot attack, use weapons, or use disciplines while everyone else can attack you at free will. If you can survive and make it to the inner temple entrances the game will proceed as normal.

Once you make it to Ming Xiao's chamber the dialog will not match the scene. Since you never played through the normal missions, Ming Xiao will have the same dialog sequence as if you were meeting her in the Downtown streets. Once you finish speaking with her, the fight will commence as normal. After killing her and grabbing the key for the sarcophagus, the next scene will be your initial cab sequence where you're supposed to choose which side you will fight for. If you choose anything BUT siding with Lacroix, you will be sent back to Chinatown to fight Ming Xiao again. Siding with Lacroix will immediately start the game's ending cutscene.

Bad Temple Door

After getting into the Chinatown temple, navigate to the center door. You should be overlooking the center of the temple which has a strange fountain along with a door that needs to be unlocked by pushing a block of wood. Normally you'd have to go around that room to find a door on the lower level that is unlocked. However, like the door in the Hollywood sewers, if you stand at the correct angle to the left of the doorknob, the door can be opened (even though it's shown to be locked). This will skip half of the level and give quick access to the last temple sequence.