I should point out that "better" is wesp5's personal opinion of his own patch, and has been a matter of much internet debate over the years, especially when it comes to the game being on the "pure" side, as each player seems to have a different interpretation of what makes the game "pure". I don't want to rekindle old arguments over this, I just want to point out that one person's opinion is not fact, and that the best thing to do would be to try each for yourself. The second-best thing would be to research each patch and some of the discussion around it and then form your own opinion, instead of just taking the word of one individual who, as the author of one competing patch, has good reason to be biased towards one option over the other.

As far as I know it's a fact that only with the Unofficial Patch the game will run on modern PCs in the first place, so you need that as a base in any case. But go ahead and install the "True Patch" on top if you like, it's your choice...

No, that's not a fact. With a clean install (from the original discs) with no Unofficial patch, but instead using the True Patch and the Anti DRM fix (see post here), the game runs just fine on modern systems.

This is something that has been pointed out and discussed many times, and in threads you have been active in (such as the one I linked above), so I find your claim that this is a fact "as far as you know" to be a bit disingenuous. You've had others point it out and explain it before; if you choose not to acknowledge it, then any ignorance on your part is willful.

This Anti-DRM fix of yours is basically what is included with the Unofficial Patch, fact is that the "True Patch" does not run without additional tweaking. I didn't know whether the fix had been included in the meantime...

hmm....wtf gog.......including unofficial patches in a download is bad form. For the sake of convenience I was consdering buying from here - I have a hard copy, have never played it but after reading the back and forth between wesp and blackbird I'm starting to wonder if it (my boxed version) will even work on a 64bit OS without a no-cd.....erm.....'anti drm'.

All that aside, I'm cursious. Before all this reading I was intendinng on running a clean install of my boxed version patched up to 1.2, then installing the Clan Quest mod with possibly the Camarillia Edition (i like the idea of having a slowly draining bloodpool) and Arsenal Mods selected during the install. However, I'm now contemplating just running the game with wesp's basic patch, for a more vanilla experience.

My questions are -

1. I can't seem to find incremental updates from one version to another for wesp's patch, can you install a newer version over the top (i.e. 9.7 over 9.6) without breaking your save, or do you need to do a clean install and start a new game?

2. Given the gog version already includes what i apparently might want (even though it's still bad form imo to include ANYthing other than official patches) am i then tied to 9.6 if i don't use gog galaxy for patch maintenance?

WILL gog galaxy even update your game to 9.7 when it's no longer beta IF there aren't incremental updates for wesp's patch anyway?

3. I'm assuming the steam (who i'd rather not deal with - see user name) version doesn't include anything 'unofficial', but possibly does include drm. Can anyone please cofirm?


Cheers and thanks for you help in advance,


reamed

Complains about the gog-version comes with an unofficial patch. Proceeds to talk about modding the crap out of the game. Strange.

I think you will need to start a new game if you want what's in the new patch. Wesp can confirm or repudiate that.

And I believe you can access the vanilla VtM (with the last original patch) if you go into the games main folder. Or so I've been told at least. Never tried myself since I recall playing the mess that was VtM back in the days.

I do believe VtM originally came out on gog-com with wesp unofficial patch 9.5, and gog later on updated the game with 9.6 when that was done. So one can presume that they will do the same when 9.7 is done.

Don't know if steam version is vanilla or carries the unofficial patch. Good question though.

Oh I'm all for modding, my issue with gog just 'forcing it on us' is that it hinders choice. I bought the game yesterday for my son before the sale ended unaware that wesp's patch is included in the download. What if my kid wants the true patch? What if he doesn't want to patch it at all? What next, Stalker with Complete because the vanilla is buggy?

Anyway thanks for the reply, bummer about the needing to start a new game but it's not a big deal. Cheers.

Has anyone been able to get the final version of the Camarilla Edition to work? I'm using the current GoG version which included UP 9.6 on Windows 7 x64. Once I ran it as administrator CE starts up fine but immediately crashes when I attempt to start a new game.

The problem for GOG was that the original game probably wouldn't run on modern computers, because of the outdated DRM and the memory issue. As they make the promise that each of their releases should work they went for my patch! If you want an alternative patch or mod, you can still just install it on top...

Fair enough. It's just that I've read of people having problems installing other mods with the gog version, and perhaps it would have been more pertinent for gog to have included your patch separately. Anyway wesp, my questioning their decision wasn't a slight at you and I appreciate your reply, thank you.

I haven't looked at the GOG version yet, but the custom files of the Unofficial Patch are installed seperately into a subfolder, so it shouldn't matter at all to other mods. Only global fixes, like the memory, DRM and widescreen stuff are installed into the main game directory. I think GOG even added a "legacy" shortcut or something to start the game without the rest of the patch.

I've found that using the GOG version (I have the original CD's as well, but bought the GOG version to spare them) I constantly run into npc pedestrians and cops getting entangled in each other, resulting in them standing in the same spot trying to move. Especially just outside Tripp's shop. And npc's tend to really cluster together, making it pretty difficult to feed, without waiting 5+ minutes before they decide to move.

I've also noticed, that trying to use your new patch (9,7beta4 or something) result in, with the GOG version, a message during the start of the game (in the cutscene where you are being embraced) that a message pops up on screen saying something like "A.I. Disabled" and "Building new graph" just before cutting to the Santa Monica safe Haven for the first time or something to that end. It flashes across the screen rather quickly.

Finally, and don't know if it is related or something. The moment I arrive in Downtown and henceforth, I will draw my melee weapon whenever using the cab. Resulting in sometimes hitting npc's and cops when driving back to Santa Monica. Haven't found a solution for that one yet.

Is there a way, to remove the patch supplied with the GOG version, and then patch it with another stable version? I have a couple of yours saved on an external HD I usually would use.

That must be random AI behaviour, which I never touched in any of my patches. That is a known but uncritial report that shows that some AI files are not uptodate on your setup. The correct one should have been included in beta 4, Both sp_theatre.bsp in maps and sp_theatre.ain in maps/graphs should be from 26.02.2017, 19:49. After rebuilding the ain file will be newer now of course... Hm, I heard something like this before. Have you bound Attack to your Enter key? This could be connected. I doubt that any of the older patches is more stable, but from version 9.3 on you can just remove the Unofficial_Patch subfolder and install the older patch folder version in its place!

This is a bit more complicated, like all the hubs are covered with info_nodes which tell the NPCs where they can go, and interesting_points, which tell them where to do certain animations. The latter will only allow one NPC to enter, but when two NPCs use the same info_node at the same time I guess they can get stuck...