Part 60: IV - Endless Nights

Y'know, I've been kind of annoyed today, and I don't really know why. Let's fix that. Let's get something to get annoyed at where I know exactly why I'm annoyed.



When last we left our intrepid heroine, she just got finished dealing with all the crap in Santa Monica and was getting ready to deal with the crap in downtown. To begin with, we drop off a lot of our crap at Trip's - including that stupid talisman thing, which got me a cool 106 bucks - and bought some ammo, which is much more useful.



We also drop by our haven to check if there's anything new. There is - for some fucking reason, this cupboard (or is it the stove?) has the Inspection "there's something here" sparkle, but I can't actually find anything where we can interact. I have no idea what's going on here. Some might say that's not really a change from the general situation, and I wouldn't really have an answer to that.



Furthermore, we drop off most of our other junk in the fridge, since that seems as good a place as any.



Now, off to downtown we go!



Of course, being somebody new in downtown LA, we are still given the standard LA welcome of "bat with nails to the head".



In general, the new models at least give a decent variety, but I swear, I keep seeing fucking Sabbat Jack #1 and Sabbat Jack #2 (Now With Hat) all over the place.



Anyway, Nines tells us his story, and we're off to down- wait, what's that to the right?



Surprise! Miniboss! Yes, for absolutely no fucking reason, the guy Nines shot survived and now wants to kick our ass! And Nines? He couldn't give less of a shit. He's more than happy to watch you get murdered by this guy.



Of course, you can always maneuver yourself in such a way that leads to the boss attacking Nines, after which he'll actually get off his ass and do something. This isn't what people mean when they say "give the player options to resolve problems that don't revolve around fighting", by the way. This shit don't count.



Anyway, after Nines dispatches the Pander, we do get to go to downtown proper. I half expected I would have had to fight Sabbat Jack #1 and Sabbat Jack #2 too. I guess they're too busy murdering prostitutes or something.



Our first destination is LaCroix's place. Nothing much changed here. We get our quest to visit the Elizabeth Dane and leave.



Next, I wanted to head to Club Confession to do some stuff, and instead ran into Fat Larry over here. Why was he moved? I have no idea.



His selection blows, too. Since we've been dilligently collecting weapons from our many, many fallen foes, there's nothing new for us here bar the new armor set, which we obviously pick up ASAP.



Snazzy. Still not something that fits with the football pads, though.



Our next stop is the hospital - nothing changed here, at least not from what I could tell. Some item placements might be different, but nothing major. It's pretty handy when you can just go "yeah, this is all the same, moving on". So, moving on...



There's two feelings that constantly come up when playing this mod. Scratch that, there's three, first of which being "What were they fucking smoking when they came up with this shit?", which comes up all the damn time. The other two are "Wait, this wasn't here before, was it?" - this comes up with things like the big tanker trucks, things that kind of fit in, but are really big and you can't really remember having seen them before - and "OK, this definitely wasn't here before" - this comes up with things like the TV in the Ocean Hotel and this new sports car that's just asking for somebody to vomit blood over. Or maybe that's just me still stuck in the Ventrue mindset.



Anyway, we drop into the Last Round to pick up a quest...



...another quest...



...and a dot in Brawl, then leave. Next stop, the Tremere chantry - we need to get some info on gargoyles, and I think I know where we can get a book on tha-



...huh.



Son of a bitch, they actually locked it. I really hope I don't have to jump through a billion hoops or something to get that code.



We have a quick chat with Max to ensure we get our reward when we clear the plaguebearer quest. Now, to start searching for clues...



...hm, what's this?



...are you fucking kidding me?

This was when I knew I had to LP this thing. I thought I had reached peak stupid right here, but if I was going to be proven wrong, I was going to show it to everybody here, because if something that stupid comes along, it would be mindblowing.

So, let's start off bitching about this. First, the easy target - internal consistency. When you have a keypad and want to give the player a hint on what it is, you should make sure it's a clue that would make sense. Either make it blatant because it's supposed to help somebody remember and if he were capable of figuring a complicated clue out he probably would have remembered the password itself (see also: the notes in the hospital), or make it cryptic because somebody laid it out for you to find and that somebody wants you to prove your worth by figuring out a complicated clue.

Now, it seems to be true that somebody laid this out for us to find... it's just that it was the modders. Max has no reason to lay this out here, especially given how secretive the Tremere are - if he wants somebody to know the password, he'd tell them.

Here's a better idea, free of charge: You see those PC models you've strewn about the areas? Use them! Make that male Tremere PC an interactible character that you can ask about the locked door, then have him give you a fetch quest or something, and in exchange he gives you the password! I guess that would require effort, though.

Furthermore, this math puzzle is insane. Like, what the fuck. I don't know how things are over in America or wherever the fuck these modders are from, but over here in Germany, we barely did any matrix calculations all the way until university. Being a CompSci student, I had to deal with a lot of mathematics, and at that point we learned some things that I could have used to solve this. I suppose I would have tried a Gaussian elimination here, and if that didn't work, I'd have had to go back to the script for the lecture to find alternate methods.

There's a thread about this puzzle at the forums for this mod, and somebody suggested using Cramer's Rule for this - something I've never even heard of, and I'm pretty sure I've heard more about mathematics than at least 80% of the population by virtue of being an university student in a relatively mathematics-heavy field - calculating determinants several times to find your solution. Thankfully, most of the people in the thread rightfully shit all over this puzzle, and then one of the developers came out with this gem.


There are several things wrong with this. Number one - you marked it as a side quest in the quest log. If you really wanted it to be for only the dedicated, make it an unmarked quest. Number two - the gargoyle quest so far is the biggest change I've seen in this mod. Not a smart idea to hide what so far is one of the biggest changes as "a side quest for those that really want to get it". Finally, there is a locked statue in the main room that contains the things you would otherwise need to solve the math puzzle for, and it's only an 8 (minus 3 thanks to overpowered Blood Buff) in Lockpicking away! You are made of stupid!

God damn, this annoys the everliving fuck out of me. It's not just badly designed, it's badly designed on several levels! It's a fucking master class!



Anyway, the solution is 1125. Thankfully, somebody posted that in the Games thread or I'd have gone insane. And what's our reward?



First of all, we get the book Thaumaturgical Creatures - the thing we find here in vanilla as well. However, we don't know that yet, as we need a Research of 7 to figure that out. Blah. And then we get to push a book in one of the shelves that acts as a switch. That unlocks the haven that normally only the Tremere get, and there we find the medallion that reduces damage from gargoyles, which is another thing we need. Of course, we could just get it from Max later when we tell him about the gargoyle Abrams wants us to deal with. I actually only noticed this later, though, so for now we're moving on to Club Confession.



...there should be boxes here. Last time I played this, there were boxes here, I smashed them, and there was a hint regarding the gargoyle quest inside. Does that not appear if we've already found the book or something? What a strange concept. We also grab Venus's quest...



...and deal with the Patty problem in a very nice way. Yeah, just head to the bottom of the abandoned hospital, he's totally there, no human-eating Nagaraja down there or anything at all! And now, off to deal with that debt problem.



Huh, what's going on here?



Stop! Stop, please!
Keep quiet, bitch!



Help! Help, anyone, please!



Punch.



God, you run your mouth a lot.
I got a way to keep her from talking...
She can keep screaming, though... I like it when they scream.
Nyeahaha... me too.





...fuck it, I'm not touching that. There are so many things I could be questioning right now, but I feel like when I ran into the bisexual skeleton S/M sex party in Unterwegs in Düsterburg - if I keep questioning this, I'm going to end up somewhere I'd much rather not be. Though one thing I will point out - these two are indeed vampires. Probably the exact same guys we ran into earlier. Their dicks don't work any more, and neither does their sex drive. I can only assume that they're just really, really into feeding or murder. But then again, if it were feeding, those last lines wouldn't make sense, since the victim is put into a trance-like state during the feeding... no, stop, I said I wasn't going to question this, just move on.

Well, it's that, or the writers are imbeciles. I know which one my money is on. Reminder - these people are also working on what was Project Vaulderie and what is now an unnamed vampire game that just happens to take a bunch of cues from WoD.



Anyway, Sabbat Jack #1 and Sabbat Jack #2 get a healthy dose of Vitamin Shotgun and are swiftly dealt with.



Our reward is a free feeding session. Fucking whoopee.



I need to cheer myself up, let's tell some big Russian guy that the money is up his mother's ass and get him really mad. That's always fun.



I'm starting to get the feeling that if this mod is just going to keep throwing me from combat to combat, I might as well oblige and start seeking it out. I've never really done a "fuck you, fight me" playthrough where all problems are just solved by busting a cap in somebody's ass before, so it's probably a welcome change. Plus, it gives me many opportunities to just hit things.



On the way back, we run into a gang shootout, which is always welcome, since it gives us some more ammo. That, and it's always a nice diversion to see something happening on the streets, given how many times we have to walk up and down on them. We get the second part of the quest, but before we go there...



...we have some business to take care of in the Skyeline lofts.



Finding the dead Paul and getting the message from Hannah...



Finding the next part of the Southland Slasher questline...



Sending the film guy to his death...



And getting the clue about Jezebel Locke. Now that we've got two combat events lined up at the Empire hotel, let's head over there and deal with them.



Y'know, it'd be nice if this mod threw me a bone for once and made this fight not a pain in the ass. It would be. Of course, this mod has no interest in being nice.



Things don't exactly go well. Her sword hurts like a motherfucker, and she has this strange attack that throws you away from her that she loves to keep using that's just a massive pain in the ass. So you create some distance and she just takes pot shots at you and chipping your health away.



The solution, as it always seems to be for the Giovanni, is necromancy. You can't take hits for shit, but that doesn't matter if the enemy is attacking something else.



Eventually, and I do mean eventually, she goes down for the last time.



And she leaves about three times her body weight in blood and assorted guts on the wall. We grab the loot and get the fuck out.



The same dance repeats itself with Boris. Summon zombies, give the guy something else to shoot at, then kill him yourself.



We pick up some cash, vendor trash and this nice gun, then leave.



On the way back, I check back in with the Tremere since I couldn't find anything at Club Confession even though I thought I should have, and find this book that doubles as a switch.





This opens up the Tremere haven, like I said, and that nets us some very nice loot.







And finally, we take care of some loose ends, where nothing notable happens. Then I ran out of hard drive space to record footage with, so I guess we'll end things here. This is what happens when most of the time is spent wandering around from place to place trying to figure these new quests out. Next time, we'll try to deal with Brother Kanker (which comes with its own share of bugs) and I officially start playing without knowing what lies ahead. Things could get very interesting from here. Or very boring. I'm torn on which to hope for, to be quite honest. See you then!