Some Friendly Advice To Bloodlines Modders

[Tessera]

Advice To Bloodlines Modders
...from Tessera, modder and True Patch author


The purpose of this article is to give some helpful and practical advice to all of you who may be interested in producing mods for VTM: Bloodlines. At first, this post may come across as just another attack upon Wesp and his well-intentioned, but poorly conceived line of "unofficial patches." If you are a current or aspiring Bloodlines modder, then please trust me for five minutes and continue reading this post... because that is quite honestly NOT what I am trying to accomplish here. Hopefully you will see the common sense in what I am going to talk about next.

First of all, we all need to understand that there is a very definite difference between a "patch" and a "mod." I realize that this distinction is lost upon some people... including Werner Spahl (Wesp5), who does not seem to understand that a PATCH should contain as little an amount of arbitrary content as possible. The reasoning behind this is quite simple: if you keep adding arbitrary changes with each successive edition of your supposed "patch," then you will ultimately make it impossible to establish a solid, working baseline from which modders can then build upon.

In my opinion, this is indeed the major reason for why there is such a limited number of actual mods available for Bloodlines. Over the years, Wesp's "unofficial patches" have introduced such a large number of completely arbitrary and subjective changes to Bloodlines, that it has become extremely difficult for any would-be Bloodlines modders to know where to start, so far as the actual construction of their mods are concerned. For example, you may begin working on a cool new mod that adds some interesting new quests to Bloodlines. And when you begin working on your mod, you start off with a copy of Bloodlines which has been patched with one of Wesp's inappropriately named "unofficial patches." So far, so good.

But then... three weeks later... Wesp decides to release yet another new version of his work. And in that new version, he may very well have changed many of the things that the initial stages of your mod were reliant upon. Which in turn means that anybody who installs your mod after applying the latest version of Wesp's "unofficial patch" will not be able to get your mod to function as intended... because thanks to Wesp and his lack of foresight, the baseline from which you initially started your mod is no longer valid.

In short: the "unofficial patches" which are constantly being released and re-released by Werner Spahl are directly interfering with the production of high-quality Bloodlines mods, due to the fact that Wesp is constantly imposing arbitrary and unnecessary changes into his work. This makes the establishment of a universal baseline for modders IMPOSSIBLE. This issue applies to ALL versions of Wesp's "unofficial patches," by the way... including his so-called "basic patch." Every single version of Wesp's work is guilty of this same transgression.


Now let's contrast all of that nonsense with the True Patch series...

We recently released a new version of the True VTMB Patch, called The True Patch Gold Edition. Unlike any of the stuff being released every second Tuesday by Wesp, the True Patch has been constructed in such a way as to provide ALL Bloodlines players with a solid and reliable BASELINE for their game. More than 90 percent of the True Patch consists of legitimate bug fixes. There is almost no arbitrary content within the True Patch whatsoever. This is due to my personal and ongoing philosophy about the very real differences between a patch and a mod. Patches should fix things which were legitimately broken or dysfunctional... AND THAT'S IT. And a patch should remain as consistent as possible, from one release to the next. And lastly, there should be as few releases of a given patch as possible... so that the firm baseline established by one version continues to remain consistent and reliable.

So let's think about all of that stuff for a moment.

I happen to be a modder. And I have produced quite a few mods for various games -- Bloodlines included. I am very familiar with the sorts of hassles that modders go through, when we are trying to create something fun and interesting for a particular game. And above all, I know that there needs to be a CONSISTENT and RELIABLE baseline established for any game that we are interested in producing mods for. Otherwise, it is extremely difficult to distribute our mods and actually get people to enjoy them. If all of the end users are playing with numerous different baselines, then it becomes almost impossible in most cases to produce a mod which will work for EVERYBODY who installs it.

These are very important considerations... not only for modders, but also for every single Bloodlines player who may be interested in installing a third-party mod some day. Unless all of us start out on the same page, with a consistent and relatively unchanging baseline for Bloodlines, then the creation and enjoyment of many types of Bloodlines mods ends up screeching to a halt.

This is what makes the True Patch a much more attractive baseline for both modders and players alike. By carefully avoiding the introduction of arbitrary content, as well as limiting the number of new releases, the True Patch represents a solid foundation upon which to build.

Let me state that I do not have a problem with any of the arbitrary content that Wesp has injected into his "unofficial patches." People can produce any mods that they wish for Bloodlines. Who cares..? I mean, hey... knock yerself out, Wesp. If you want everybody to drop ammo and give out free money and occult items, then more power to ya. But it is quite a different matter when you keep releasing and then re-releasing a completely new set of altered and arbitrary content changes every few weeks... all the while disguising what is essentially a bloated partial conversion mod as a "patch." Such tactics are not only deliberately misleading on Wesp's part, but they also directly interfere with the process of developing and releasing reliable third-party mods for Bloodlines.

In stark contrast, there has been only -one- major new release of the True VTMB Patch during the past THREE YEARS. And almost every single sub-section of the Gold Edition is internally consistent with the previous version of the True Patch... version 5.04AT, which was released back in September of 2007.

It doesn't get any more reliable than that, folks.


So to wrap up this post, let me offer this advice to all Bloodlines players... and to modders in particular: we all need to get on the same page, by establishing a solid, basic and reliable baseline structure for Bloodlines. That baseline should feature as little arbitrary content as possible -- because the introduction of arbitrary content is what MODDERS should be doing. First you need to build your house on a solid foundation... and THEN you can start making changes to the decor. With that philosophy in mind, the True Patch Gold Edition fits the bill beautifully, by offering the VTMB community a reliable set of non-arbitrary baseline materials, from which they can then proceed to develop their own mods. It is in fact the most reliable and sensible baseline patch which is currently available on the entire worldwide web. If you are a modder, then you can rest assured that the True Patch will not step on your toes... so to speak. Not now -- not ever.

We would all like to see a greater number of high-quality mods for Bloodlines. But until the community can appreciate this glaring need for a universal baseline, then such mods will continue to be as scarce as hen's teeth. All told, there are perhaps a half-dozen high-quality gameplay mods available for Bloodlines. Just imagine how many more VTMB mods there might be, if all of us were starting out on exactly the same footing. But my efforts over the years to impress this sensible philosophy upon Werner Spahl (Wesp) and his acolytes has largely fallen upon deaf ears... hence the ongoing feud between his camp and mine, as well as the existence of the True Patch. We created the True Patch as a direct response to Wesp's refusal to agree with the common sense proposals that we tried to impress upon him, way back in late 2006. And it is his ongoing refusal to wake up and smell the coffee which has continued to interfere with the production of high-quality mods for Bloodlines. When nobody knows which way to go, or from where they should begin, the process of mod development ultimately becomes too frustrating to bother with.

I will finish by saying a few words aimed at my detractors:

Nothing within this post applies to me personally, so do not mistake my motives here. I am not whining, because I have absolutely nothing to whine about. I have always used the True Patch and I will happily continue to do so. And since nearly all of the mods that *I* have created for Bloodlines are stand-alone texture mods, it really doesn't matter to ME which baseline patch people are using. Nor do I care whether or not someone else's mods are compatible with the True Patch. That's their choice, not mine... so if they wish to release a mod which has limited functionality and which may be rendered obsolete in three weeks by Wesp's next "unofficial patch," then so be it. No, I am not saying any of these things on my own behalf, as I am completely immune from this situation. I am saying these things unselfishly and on behalf of the entire Bloodlines community. And most especially, for everyone who is interested in seeing a greater number of high-quality VTMB mods in the future.

Thank you for taking the time to read this article. Happy vamping, everybody.  

[ShadowTek]

Thanks for the permission to build mods based on your patch.. I agree 100% of course.. If I ever figure out what Im doing (and I am) my mod will require the true patch.. Thanks for the TRUE fix and patch for the game..

[Tessera]

You are very welcome. 

[Schu]

Thanks for the permission to build mods based on your patch.. I agree 100% of course.. If I ever figure out what Im doing (and I am) my mod will require the true patch.. Thanks for the TRUE fix and patch for the game..

Oh I'm with you dude. If it wasn't for the True Patch, Tessera and Acrimonious, I don't think my mod ever would have been finished.

[kurtis64]

Unfortunately, for this to happen, first would be need to disclose the existence of the True Gold Patch to more people, something I am sure that the immature and pre-teen Planet-Vampire's community isn't willing to allow.

[Tessera]

Copied over from the members-only section of this board...

Correct. Consider (a certain VTMB mod) "quick and dirty."

Yeah well, you know what..? There are too many people producing quick-and-dirty mods out there.

I'd like to see a few... oh, I dunno... high-quality VTMB mods for change. But every time I poke around
on modding sites other than tessmage.com, all I ever seem to find are really bad re-skins, really bad
gameplay mods, really bad partial conversions... just a glut of really amateurish garbage out there.

And I really shouldn't call it a "glut," because the fact of the matter is that there are hardly any mods of
any kind available for Bloodlines. Maybe two dozen, at most. That's a guess, but it sounds about right.

I still blame Wesp for this problem. For the users of his "patch," Wesp keeps changing the baseline of
the game every two weeks. Which makes it almost impossible for any serious modders to even get
started on an ambitious mod for Bloodlines. No sooner do you start compiling your mod, when Wesp
releases yet another version of his horrible "patch" and then everyone is forced back to square one.
Over in Wesp's camp, it's a losing battle for modders. That's just a fact... and it's a sad fact.

[kurtis64]

Thinking on it, the real culprit in this situation isn't Wesp, but Planet-Vampire. Wesp is just a pawn to leans to the wishes of the mass of kids of this digusting web. Any other community would have stopped the feet and had said, "Man, this isn't a mod, stop changing the game", but not the douches of Planet-Vampire. Furthermore, I know by experience that most of the UP changes and restores are by request.  Daily requests. And so this situation.
And are those idiots who supported Wesp of fanatical way and initiated his particular witch hunt against the TGP. Wesp, seeing that everyone laugh all his jokes and licked his ass, felt safe and protected and started their propaganda campaign across all major anglo-saxon communities.
And here we are. All thanks to a bunch of kids that were playing to a game for adults.

[Tessera]

Thinking on it, the real culprit in this situation isn't Wesp, but Planet-Vampire. Wesp is just a pawn to leans to the wishes of the mass of kids of this digusting web.

That would make perfect sense... if Wesp had no will of his own.

But he does. He's a big boy and he can make his own decisions.
Wesp is not a little baby, who doesn't know how to say "no."

And Wesp's decision has been to undermine the modding community.

There is no question that the PlanetVampire (and Steam) communities
are dominated by childish nitwits. I think we're all in agreement about that.
But Wesp still has the capacity to STOP acceding to all of their ridiculous
requests and STOP releasing a never-ending string of very bad work.

Wesp is the person who ultimately decides these matters. It is therefore Wesp
who is ultimately at fault. That is my point.

Incidentally, I have received hundreds of weird requests from True Patch users
over the years. You wouldn't believe some of the things that I have been asked
to incorporate into the True Patch. But in almost every case, my firm answer has
been "No... I am not going to do that. This is a patch -- not a mod."

As a matter of fact, I can recall a few incidents when I told no less than Acrimonious
himself that we would not be incorporating some of his ideas into the True Patch.
And it was for the same reason: this is a patch that we're making -- not a mod.
Arbitrary changes to the game do not belong in a patch. I have always adhered
very firmly to that principle... and I always will, no matter what.

Isn't Wesp capable of being just as strong as I am..? Can't he just say "no..?"

[Ratcatcher]

Isn't Wesp capable of being just as strong as I am..? Can't he just say "no..?"

From the evidence seen over the last few years, apparently not.

[Tessera]

Isn't Wesp capable of being just as strong as I am..? Can't he just say "no..?"

From the evidence seen over the last few years, apparently not.

Well yeah... up until now, Wesp's behavior has been indicative of someone who is a flawed and insecure people-pleaser. His intense desire to be popular and admired has overcome his common sense.

If Wesp has any desire to become a serious developer some day... and I don't know whether or not he actually wants such a thing... but if he is even toying with that idea within his tiny Nazi brain, then he needs to fully grasp a fundamental principle here. He needs to understand that there will be many times when you will be forced to tell other people "No... I am not going to do that, because it would compromise the integrity of my project."

I have had to say such things to other people many times over the years and in my opinion, that is the primary reason for why my own work is considered to be high-quality by the end users of my work. It's not simply because I am more gifted than other modders... it is more due to the fact that I stick to my own ideas and refuse to allow myself to be distracted by the well-intentioned suggestions of others. When I desire input from other people, I formally ask for it. You folks have seen me do that sort of thing numerous times around here. But the rest of the time, I just stick to my guns and work carefully to ensure that my work remains consistent.

Wesp needs to learn how to "just say no" to the PV pee-wees, who dance in a circle around him and keep tossing out hundreds of very BAD IDEAS. Until Wesp learns what the term "personal integrity" means, his so-called "unofficial patch" will always be injurious to the VTMB modding community. Just as it has always been, for the past six years (and counting).

So as I have been asserting throughout this thread: from a modder's standpoint, the consistency of the True Patch Gold Edition is a far better choice to use as the baseline for your mods. The TPG provides a far more stable foundation upon which modders can build their projects... confident in the knowledge that any future releases of the TPG will NOT force them to re-work their entire mod(s).

[kurtis64]

Thinking on it, the real culprit in this situation isn't Wesp, but Planet-Vampire. Wesp is just a pawn to leans to the wishes of the mass of kids of this digusting web.

Isn't Wesp capable of being just as strong as I am..? Can't he just say "no..?"

Maybe he is afraid. Afraid that if he refuses to endless requests to which it is subjected, will lose the support of the community and its patch no longer considered "cool".

Consequently, he is now trapped in a hellish loop of endless requests that he can't get out, nor think in test that what he does.

I'm not trying to defend Wesp, I'm trying to understand the reasons that led him to prostitute the game in this way.

[Tessera]

I'm not trying to defend Wesp, I'm trying to understand the reasons that led him to prostitute the game in this way.

people pleaser
(noun) (slang)

A person who spends a lot of energy in order to please (or appease) others.


That definition describes Wesp perfectly. Just examine his behavior throughout this entire "patch war."
His comments, his actions, his anger when confronted by accusations of impropriety... it doesn't require
a psychology major to figure Wesp out. He's like an open book... as V.V. would say.

Perhaps he felt unappreciated as a child. Maybe he didn't receive enough affection from his mommy
and daddy. We could speculate for hours and hours... but for whatever reasons, Wesp is a mess.

[kurtis64]

I'm not trying to defend Wesp, I'm trying to understand the reasons that led him to prostitute the game in this way.

people pleaser
(noun) (slang)

A person who spends a lot of energy in order to please (or appease) others.


That definition describes Wesp perfectly. Just examine his behavior throughout this entire "patch war."
His comments, his actions, his anger when confronted by accusations of impropriety... it doesn't require
a psychology major to figure Wesp out. He's like an open book... as V.V. would say.

Perhaps he felt unappreciated as a child. Maybe he didn't receive enough affection from his mommy
and daddy. We could speculate for hours and hours... but for whatever reasons, Wesp is a mess.

I would call him kids pleaser

[Tessera]

Same thing. But yeah... point taken. Wesp has mainly been catering to people who are
very young and very unsophisticated. And it shows, in Wesp's work. Pure kiddie krap.

I prefer to play the mature game that Troika created. That's why the True Patch exists.
And the TPG isn't simply "the patch for purists," as many people have called it. It is also
the patch for ADULTS, who refuse to play Wesp's dumbed-down version of Bloodlines.

[Tessera]

Copied over from the members-only section of this board...

I recently installed the True patch recently and have been having fun with it, fixes problems with the game and makes it much more playable. I am also on the lookout for any other mods/fixes that are a must have for VTMB, to enhance the experience and improve replayability. So I'm looking for anything that enhances model detail, reskins maps to be more hi-res or detailed, adds new or better looking armour etc. I've been trying to look for some myself but most are not to my taste, ruin the game or its "That" mod.  Anyone know of any good mods/fixes to have?

Well, so far as fixes are concerned, the TPG takes care of that. There are no significant bugs that have not been fixed by the TPG. A few minor ones still... maybe... but nothing important. In fact, the TPG fixes more legitimate bugs iun Bloodlines than any other patch on the web. That's not hype... that's a fact.

So far as mods are concerned, the sad fact is that there are almost no decent mods available for Bloodlines. My own mods have been good, but they're of an adult nature and not to everyone's taste. As for the VTMB mods produced by other modders, to this day I have not seen a single one that was worth a damn. In fact, most of them are garbage and they do more to undermine the game than to augment it.

We can blame Wesp for this situation. Way back in 2006, if Wesp has been more reasonable and behaved less like a Nazi, then there wouldn't have been any need for me to go off on my own and produce an alternative patch for Bloodlines (the True Patch). Unfortunately, the introduction of the True Patch caused a split within the larger VTMB community, with about a third of VTMB players moving over to the True Patch camp and the rest remaining with Wesp's camp.

This division within the community has made it nearly impossible for any truly decent VTMB mods to be produced, due to the fact that there are now two completely different and incompatible versions of the game. The True Patch version is not compatible with Wesp's garbage, and vice versa. This has had the effect of stifling most modders... because which version of VTMB do you make your mods for..? If you select one version as your base, then you're alienating everyone who plays the other version of the game. So in most cases, the best modders have simply not even bothered. Which has left us with nothing except a few inferior mods, produced by people who frankly don't have very much talent.

As for the modders in Wesp's camp, they've been stifled by yet another factor. Wesp tends to add quite a bit of arbitrary and unnecessary changes into each version of his "patch." And to make matters worse, he releases a new version of his patch every second Tuesday... or at least, it seems that way. He has released dozens and dozens of different versions of his "UP." And each time that Wesp vomits forth yet another iteration of his "patch," it changes the baseline so much that anyone trying to build a mod on top of Wesp's version of the game may be forced to start over again. In the end, it simply makes no sense to create an ambitious mod built on top of Wesp's crap, because three weeks later, everyone will be installing yet another new release from Wesp and guess what..? Now your mod is incompatible with the new release. So again... most of the better modders out there don't even bother getting started on an ambitious VTMB mod. Wesp will just undermine their efforts before they can even get their work out the door, so to speak.

This is why I have always said that the TPG is a far better baseline for modders to start with. We don't release a new version of our patch every three weeks, the way Wesp does. Why..? Because there's no need for any new releases, that's why. Just how many bugs do you people think existed in this game..? Enough to warrant 100 different versions of the same patch..? Don't be ridiculous. The TPG managed to fix ALL of the most significant bugs in VTMB quite some time ago... it fixes more bugs than any version of Wesp's work... hence there has been no need for any further releases. And this is exactly why the TPG is a superior choice, so far as a baseline for modders. They can be confident in knowing that their work will not be undermined by the TPG, because the TPG is extremely stable... and it will not be getting revised dozens and dozens of times.

Hopefully, the modding community will get their act together and realize the truth in my words. Until then, I'm afraid that we won't be seeing any high-quality mods for VTMB in the future.

My own VTMB Mega-Mod was probably the best constructed VTMB mod on the web... but because of theft and callous disrespect, it has been permanently withdrawn from the public. Leaving us with... basically... nothing but crap mods built around Wesp's horrible "patch."

[dexter19]

if i do a mod based on the TPG where can i post it in this forum?

[Cylnar]

if i do a mod based on the TPG where can i post it in this forum?

Create a new topic in the Gameplay Mods forum.

[dexter19]

Thanks a lot! Do you have any parcitular request about a bloodline mod ? i know its almost a perfect game but do you think that something is missing?