Part 65: IX - Despair Syndrome

You know, there's no beating around the bush for this. I hate this mod. I hate how it decided to make the combat "challenging" by just ramping up the power of every enemy in the game without giving you the proper tools to deal with it. I hate how it decided to show how well the developers know WoD lore by just throwing in every random fucking group you could think of with no regard as to whether or not it actually makes sense. I hate how it gave the shotguns some actual oomph, but still made them largely useless in combat beyond a single enemy (which never happens unless it's a boss that's probably immune to the knockback). I hate how machine guns are the fucking bane of all undead existence when enemies wield them, but when I shoot them they're still just about as competent as they were in the regular game, that being that unless you're a shooting god, the enemies will rip you to shreds while you impotently spray and pray. I hate how they felt the need to shoehorn in a whole bunch of combat encounters where it doesn't make sense (combat encounters on the fucking Dane? Seriously?). I hate how they called this version 1.0.10, giving the impression that what you're getting is a finished product, when it's clear it's not even close to actually finished. I hate how obtuse some things can be (of course, I should have known that you have to SHOOT the urns in the Gallery Noir, not smash them with a melee weapon, that just doesn't make sense!). I hate how stupid the companions often are (which I guess isn't their fault, but it is by association, given that they still implemented the companion mod into their mod). I'm sure I hate even more things that I've just suppressed in my memory.

And now we're heading towards what is undoubtedly the worst part of the game. Pretty much everybody accepts that those fucking sewers are the low point of the game as far as enjoyment goes. There is just no fun to be derived from a long, tedious slog through a whole bunch of annoying enemies. Well, at least it's not difficult as long as you know what you're doing, just tedious. Good thing I'm playing a mod that makes pretty much everything involving combat difficult, that should take care of that last bit of hope I've got left! Of course, that's not all. When you play the vanilla game, those fucking sewers are the low point of the game as far as fun goes. However, that means things go up from there. Things are generally bad from there on because of the constant combat and because everything's generally a bit rushed thanks to deadlines hitting Troika and shit, but there's still fun to be had with the squabbling old assassins and stuff like that. But with this mod? Things could just be getting worse - I have no idea what's coming up. And that's what's truly terrifying. Things could still become worse than "Grout's wife is a boss fight".

Going into this, I thought this was going to be a mixed bag. I thought I'd say "oh, it's not THAT bad". But no, it is that bad. Not because the whole thing is just irredeemable, no, that's not the problem here. It's that the mod makes the overall experience so much worse than the regular game we all know so well that makes you ask yourself "why the fuck am I doing this again?" whenever something really stupid happens. Usually, the answer goes along the lines of "because I hate myself" or "because I just need to see how this continues". Be it masochism or some strange sense of fascination, the ones that press on don't press on because they genuinely like what is happening. Well, I shouldn't say that - the forums for this mod seem to have a lot of people that really love this mod. But I would probably go out as far as to say that the majority of the audience for this LP is more likely to side with me than with the people on the RavaFX forums, at least judging by what I've heard from you folks in the thread.

I'm not even looking for sympathy here, because the only one I have to blame for starting this is myself. Had I just shut up about this mod and finished Bloodlines Mysteries, I could have been LPing Vampires Dawn by now, a much more enjoyable experience. Instead, because I'm a hardheaded motherfucker that often sticks by his bad decisions out of principle (I haven't abandoned an LP yet, and this fucking mod isn't going to be the first one, I can tell you that much), I'm going to go through this, and I'm going to continue with those fucking sewers. There's a shortcut that avoids those sewers, but I'm not going to take it, because that would be cheapening the experience. I'm also not going to use godmode unless it's clearly necessary. I was too hasty activating it last time, I could have suffered more, and I'm pretty sure I'm not hating this mod enough yet.

...as an aside, I just went to the RavaFX forums to read some of the positive feedback just to make sure I wasn't dreaming when I saw that, and I see a thread just staring at me. It's at the top of the regular Antitribu General Discussion threads right now, and it's just titled "The Warrens. Oh God.". I think that about says it, really. I have no idea what's awaiting me, but even the people at that forum seem to know it's bad. I'd say I'm scared, but honestly, I've run out of the ability to be scared about upcoming things in this mod, it's just an atmosphere of utterly resigned despair.

Well, I guess I've rambled on enough and probably bored half of you to death (the few that even read this and didn't just skip to the first picture, anyway), but it does feel good to just kind of let it out. So without further waffling...

IIIIIIIIIT'S PUNISHMENT TIME!



When we last left off, we were just about ready to head to King's Way. Off screen, I did some preparations - bought some blood packs (bought a TON of blood packs, actually), stocked up on ammo, and brought along what I think are the two best combat people in Victoria Giovanni's Legion of Eternal Despair and Neverending Agony (that's the official name now, by the way - Victoria would be the type to pick something overly dramatic and flowery for the name of her group of followers), those being Edward VII and Ash. I tried to equip them as well as I could - though Edward VII is a beast in unarmed combat, so he doesn't get a weapon, and I can't seem to get Ash to take any other gun than the Tec-9 he already has without eventually losing it and regaining the Tec-9, but I at least gave him a machete, since the AI tends to go full braindead and start punching people when they have a perfectly serviceable gun right there. We're as ready as we're ever going to be, so let's do this.

NOTE: Everything above was written before I started the trip through King's Way and those sewers. Everything below was written after the trip. I mention this because there's going to be some sort of disconnect, and this was a deliberate choice to contrast the dread I felt coming up to this point and whatever it is I'm feeling now that I'm done.



609 King's Way. Floor it. And what's the first thing we get to see?



Those shitheads that landed a helicopter at Grout's mansion and beheaded some Malkavians. What did I call them again? Oh, right, a "crazy vampire paramilitary group". Well, turns out that was not the case!



See that mark on the helicopter, to the left? That's the Crusader's Cross, the coat of arms of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. These fuckers are hunters! They look more like random gun nuts that got themselves an old decommissioned military chopper, but no, these are apparently supposed to be proper hunters.



This guy steps forward and starts jabbering the following: "Your time on this earth is limited. Time to say your prayers. Damn you! (?) I will kill you. You, and all your vermin. It gives me great pleasure to announce: You're finished! This time, you will die!" These lines are entirely lifted from the main antagonist in the game Stronghold. Because why the fuck not.



And then the fight is on, which means I immediately duck behind the chopper, especially since the gas mask guy is another Ultra Hunter.



Thankfully, this time around, the companions do their fucking job and engage properly, allowing me to concentrate fire and take out the Ultra Hunter. Also, I finally noticed something - the Ultra Hunter is carrying a cross. When he uses what I previously called "magic" to stun the character, he's actually using True Faith. This random shithead. When the only other character in Bloodlines with True Faith is Grünfeld Bach, who is probably the most badass human in the game. Nah, I'm not buying it.



Edward VII gets taken out by the Ultra Hunter, and when he gets up again, he's just standing there - I can't interact with him or anything.



Ash, meanwhile, is practicing his aim by shooting at a wall. You know what I said about the companions doing their fucking job? I take it back. Thankfully, the hunters don't actually move and the chopper is a solid object that makes good cover, so I can just keep popping out and shooting them a bit until they get taken out.



With the hunters gone, we make our way up towards our entrance to the house. And when I say "we", I mean "you readers and me", because Ash and Edward have ditched us, electing to just stand gormlessly in the courtyard. While I didn't expect them to be able to follow, since that involves climbing, a thing apparently only the PC can do, this also means they won't teleport to keep up, and I believe only a map change or forced cutscene will move them back to Victoria.



As we make our way in, the Geodudes are still here to greet us. All in all, nothing much has changed about the main part of 609 King's Way. We find some cash on the top floor, some vendor trash on the floor below, and the blood packs are still in the fridge.



Also, I would like to note...



...that the new blood decals can be a bit overbearing at times. Anyway, let's jump to the boss.



You can already tell that some things have indeed been changed here, but the dialogue hasn't. We're still a Camarilla whelp. Oh well, alpha stage mod and all.



So, this time, we're not fighting Andrei, we're fighting... a Tremere antitribu... no.

No, this is wrong. Bloodlines plays in the Classic World of Darkness, in October of 2004, and either in 1998 or 1999, the Tremere antitribu were wiped the fuck out. Now, technically, a Tremere can still tell the Camarilla to go fuck itself and become an antitribu, but this place is supposed to be a laboratory that creates Blood Brothers, and the creation process for them is known only to a few Tremere antitribu (who are pretty much entirely dead) and Tzimisce Koldunic sorcerers. Now, I did a bit of research to be able to really determine this, but I can't really tell. I'm going to make a judgement call and say that Andrei, while being a powerful Tzimisce, is not a Koldunic sorcerer. He's an expert at both Vicissitude and Thaumaturgy, and never displays any sort of Koldunic magic. So, I'm going to say that he doesn't know how to create Blood Brothers. With that being said, that leaves the Tremere we have here. However, the ones that know how to make Blood Brothers belong to the proper Tremere antitribu (the ones that left alongside Goratrix, and the ones that were wiped out), not the half-assed Tremere antitribu this one would be.

Or, in short, I'm calling bullshit on this place being a Blood Brothers factory. Again, "here's a neat concept in WoD lore, let's throw it in!".



Anyway, the boss fight. This fight consists of a group of Blood Brothers, who are easily dispatched once they home in on our companions (who teleported here because of the pre-boss cutscene) and allow me to pound them into the dust, and the Tremere.



Not sure if the Tremere is supposed to be a tough boss - in my case, he bugged out and just stood there as I unloaded an entire magazine into him.



However, I did dick around long enough for him to show me that he can use Blood Shield...



...and Blood Strike. Still, not really a problem. Also note that our companions got stuck on the stairs. Because of course they did. Still, the guy is dispatched rather easily.



So, now it's time to head into the meat of this mess of an operation, the actual sewer section. This is not going to be fun. Are you looking forward to this? Because that makes one of us.



We run into the dead guy right at the beginning, but no clipboard this time. That's strange, I thought it'd be here...



Going further in and dispatching a Geodude, we find a zombie! That seems kind of strange, why would a zombie be here, zombies aren't difficult to kill...



...oh. They're EXPLODING zombies. Exploding fucking zombies. Is every type of enemy going to explode by the time we hit the endgame?



Oh, and also, they're suicide bomber zombies. I'm not sure how exactly they decide on it, but they seem to detonate entirely on their own at times. It's as annoying as it sounds.



Some crawling through pipes later, and we find the missing clipboard! Why is this here?



Hm, that's strange, it seems like it's exactly the same, so why was it move- wait a second...



Oh, great. So they replaced the shitty "dying message" from the original game with a different, shitty "dying message". Great how he still remembered the ellipses while presumably going insane. But what's this about explosives? "Main pipe"? What main pipe? What pipe is here that is more main than the others, they're all the fucking same size? Well, guess I'll have to explore some more to see if I can't work this out.



Well, we've gotten to the first of the locked caches of ammo, which is going to be helpfu-



GAH. Wait, is that one of those blood doll things from the Hallowbrook Hotel? Where I bitched about them having them there, but not in the sewers? The modders actually made a SMART decision for once? God damn, I don't know if I can deal with that. Is there something that's a pain in the ass nearby that I can bitch about?



Well, there's this blocked gate right behind us that wasn't blocked in vanilla, that'll do. So we now have to go and find the explosives and blow this up to progress? Because let's face it, more fetch quests is what the sewer section needed. But where the fuck is the main pipe?



I found this pipe that somehow seems new to me, is this it? How do I get up there? Guess there's nothing I can do but crawl into every single pipe and hope I find something...



Alright, I think I found something, because this pipe goes up, and I don't recall any pipes that go up from vanilla. This is in the room with the dead body that should have had the clipboard but didn't.



And at the end of the pipe that goes off to the side, we find some Astrolite. So, time to backtrack all the way to the barred gate again...



Alright, explosive armed, I'm not seeing a timer but I'm still backing off as fast as pos-



FUCK. That was literally three seconds, and the only time I wasn't going straight back was when I slightly bumped into Edward VII.



The second time around wasn't much better, but hey, not dead. And that blood doll thing is still there!



CHOMP. That fucker gets drained dry, since I need the heal-



..."humanity lost"? What the FUCK. Get the fuck outta here with that shit!



Anyway, moving on, we fight more dudes, and Ash proves himself to be a fucking genius, again ditching his weapon for his fists...



...and shooting at enemies he can't hit because shots don't go through these barred gates. Brilliant.



Nothing much else happens, and we reach the end of area 1! Trust me, it's still as tedious as ever, though less tedious and terrible than I would have expected.



See ya!



Area 2 starts about as well as you'd expect, with a suicide bomber zombie blocking the area the ladder leads to, and Geodudes on the prowl.



And then a Geodude hits while I'm trying to get up the ladder and then I die. Bah.



After that comes a bunch of shooting.



And getting damn near murdered. I can't really tell, but I feel like the Geodudes pack a bit more of a punch now. I wouldn't be surprised if they got buffed somehow.



We keep on truckin', running into a guy with a hatchet that runs at the speed of fucking sound - seriously, that guy is bolting, and of course, he explodes...



...and some schmuck with a gun taking pot shots. Otherwise, nothing much left in area 2.



Going to area 3, we quickly run into this situation - a blocked passage where there wasn't one before, and a switch we can't flip. Because reasons.



So we deal with some more exploding assholes that run up to you really fast and keep following the one path we've been given - this place is turning fairly linear, now that the branching paths have been blocked.



I get really dumb and try to take some Geodudes out with the sledgehammer, when bladed weapons are much better...



...and then a fat bastard clocks me with his ranged attack and Victoria frenzies.



It doesn't end well. Those ranged attacks have some serious god damn punch, too. Starting to think that these fat bastards might be a bigger threat than I thought they were. This fucking place is starting to annoy me, greatly. It's not hard, it's just fucking tedious as all hell. Also, I'm finding myself getting angrier the further I get through writing this update as I recall all the back-and-forth wandering and all the repeated killing of the annoying as fuck enemies I was doing.



The next time around, I don't do stupid things and kill the guy, so I quicksave. Then the game crashes while quicksaving. God FUCKING damnit.



We find some sort of switch box. It's closed, and when we use it, it opens. What does it do? Fucked if I know! We're now back to Doom-level puzzle solving - "Hey, you pushed a switch! It did a thing! Now fuck around the level for ages until you find the thing!".



Now here's a workbench. Why is it sparkling? I don't fucking know. It's important, but I don't have the slightest clue what to do with it. Well, the only other thing I could check is the switch we had in the beginning...



Yep, that looks like something's going to happen. We can indeed now flip the switch, open that gate and fight more fucking monsters.



That gate leads to the second spot where you can return topside and stock up. I do so, because while I am dumb, I'm not fucking insane, and I'm out of ammo for pretty much every weapon at this point.



One quick trip to the Red Spot later...



We return to the sewers, and find a box. A box with things.



I don't have a fucking clue what they are (Lightbulbs? Fuses?), but I can carry them, and they're marked as important. I guess I'll haul them back to the only other important place, the workbench.



Bringing it there causes this thing to explode or something, and now it's supposedly working again. I really don't know 1) what the fuck I'm doing, 2) why the fuck I'm doing it or 3) what the fuck they were thinking when they added more fetch quests to this fucking segment.



It apparently allows us to go here...



...and through some jumping brings us here. Was the other door going to be locked? I didn't even check. Well, I guess this means we fight the Tzimisce Creation miniboss next. Wonder what's going to be different here.



Also, there's another switch here that's apparently important. I have no idea what it does. I never found out either. I just flipped it and moved on.



Oh, missing textures. Yay. Nothing else is actually different, from what I can tell, so the creature doesn't actually put up much of a fight. On to area 4. Is my writing style getting choppier? Because I'm kind of just wanting to be done with this.



Area 4 starts us off with a switch box that is locked. Fucking great, can't wait for more backtracking.



Torn on whether this is worse or better than vanilla in difficulty, weighing between "more enemies, exploding zombies" and "companion support". Leaning heavily towards worse because companions are fucking useless most of the time. Retraction: I no longer wish to lead all the prostitutes of LA in an assault on Venture Towers because it would probably cause my computer to explode if two companions are giving me this much trouble.



Finding more areas that are locked off, but clearly are somewhere I'm supposed to go, guessing more backtracking is in store.



At least Victoria can just go and shoot everything. Don't know what I would have done if I had to sneak this thing. Actually, I'm suspecting it's impossible to sneak it because of the extra zombies.



Walk for about two minutes, turn on a generator. Fucking riveting. Backtrack to the switch box, still locked. Fuck.



Walk around some more, find some new areas, kill enemies, cuss out companions for getting stuck because they can't crouch. Business as usual.



Run into enemies harassing the Nosferatu, almost get killed, but somehow manage to pull through. Wasn't looking forward to reloading at all. Find keycard.



Also find an artifact - more blood from rats is going to be really useful given that this is pretty much the last area it would be useful in, and I'm almost done.



I think the generator powered this switch, so I guess I saved some backtracking. Yayifications?



Also, high-speed exploding dude with riot gear, or at least a shield and night stick. I don't even know anymore. I don't even CARE anymore.



Just before the exit, which is now blocked off, we have three switches. One's this.



One's this.



One's this. Refer to above comments regarding knowing or caring.



Key card opens switch box at beginning. BACKTRACKING! THEN FRONTTRACKING!



First switch is flicked, then second switch is flicked, which opens gate to exit. Third switch remains forever un-flicked. Again, no idea.



Big red button is pushed.



AND WE'RE FUCKING DONE.



WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

...

God damn, that sure was something, I guess? Well, I started off with a ramble, so let's end this with a bit of one as well. You know, when I started writing the update proper - that being everything after the "NOTE" part - I wondered if the ramble before was a bit harsh, what with it being a wall of text that could be slimmed down to "I hate this mod, really". I can get wordy when I'm coming off of something that really annoyed me. But no, I realize now that I've relived this crap again that it was entirely necessary to express just how much this mod is pissing me off. And it came to me in a very simple realization. Just think about this: They took the sewer section... and made it WORSE. You'd have thought that would be really hard to do, but they pulled it off. They took the sewer section, then added more enemies, more fetch quests, more backtracking, and just more annoyances in general. I really consider that to be an insult at this point.

And people like this mod! Somewhere out there are people that really like this mod, people that think it breathes new life into Bloodlines! I honestly want to know what these people see in Bloodlines that this mod improves upon. Like, the variety in new clans is interesting, but good lord, everything else that comes with this mod is just horrifying to me in how much it makes me not want to play any more. I started out with morbid curiosity, but it's morphing into complete despair. I have no idea how this mod is going to recover from that shitshow. Chances are it won't, it'll just keep fucking around and being bad and I'll keep being mad.

You know what, I think we should end this on a high note of sorts. I'm going to talk about what I love about Bloodlines. Because at its core, I'm continuing with this because I love Bloodlines. To start off, the story is incredibly engrossing, and it loves to keep you guessing. It excels at making the world of scheming bastards that is the world of Kindred come to life. Every group and pretty much everybody is out to fuck you in some fashion for their own gain. Even the ones that seem good have their problems - groups like the Anarchs (who probably couldn't run a fast food joint, let alone a city) and people like Jack (who played everybody like a fiddle except maybe the player, depending on how they act). And helping that is the atmosphere the game sets. With Gehenna on the horizon, the game paints a wonderful picture of LA as a town that's gone completely to shit, both on the basic Kine level as well as the lower Kindred level. Crime is rampant, a disease killing off homeless, a serial killer on the loose, and even little things like the doomsayer come together and create this really wonderful atmosphere that lets you get drawn into the game.

Another great thing is the amount of choice the game gives you. There's almost never just one way to tackle a problem, and you can be surprised at some of the more offbeat solutions that can occur occasionally. Be it a talky, sneaky or fighty character, they can solve most problems their way. Of course, the endgame kind of craps over that, but that came from different problems. And let's not forget the audiovisual department! The music in the game is excellent, jumping between well-picked licensed tracks and great atmospheric pieces to set the mood just right. The voice acting is top notch as well - many characters in this game are incredibly memorable, partially because of the writing, but also partially because of the voice acting. LaCroix's voice is perfect for smug bastard villain, Jack's nails the anarchic character that can be serious at times, but never really seems to be at a point, and while this one might be a bit personal, VV's voice never fails to give me a boner just listening to it. Just dripping with seduction, it's marvelous. And while the voices are important in the presentation, another important part are the facial animations, something that kind of gets overlooked at times. Being that this game runs on Source, it has the ability to make facial animations look really good, and a damn fine job of doing so they did. It's so good, I'd say it still looks impressive today.

There's so many things to love about Bloodlines, and it's a damn shame that this mod seems determined to instead hammer home on the weak points like the combat. Oh well, I'm still stuck with it until I'm done. Let's just hope Chinatown and the endgame end up not so terrible. Next time, more things happen and I probably get mad at the mod again, but there's one fun thing I know is coming, so it's not all bad! See, we can be optimistic now!

...has this mod broken me? I'm not quite sure.