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Hello, I've been thinking about making a 100% speedrun of this game that i love. I've always liked watching speedruns but i have never really found a game that i was interested to speedrun myself but right now I'm thinking about making one of this game. I have never made a real speedrun of a game before so this would be my first.

I think I'm going to use the standard official 1.2 patch without any modification since i assume that using one of the unofficial fan patches wouldn't be allowed.

I'm still at the early planning stage of this run and the first thing i need to determine is what criteria there should be for making a '100% completion' of the game. As i mentioned before I'm new to making speedruns. I assume that most quests should be completed (some quests are mutually exclusive e.g "And Her Name Was Venus" vs "Venucide" and there is one Nosferatu exclusive quest "Missing Data"), getting heather as a ghoul, completing the tutorial and not skipping it, getting the posters of the girls, getting the new Haven, doing the small "Library Card Quest" (which isn't really a quest). Should the ending be chosen because of its speed or because of my preference? Or should it be chosen because it completes the 'most' of the game, e.g kill both Ming-Xiao and LaCroix? I've read that some games judge 100% criteria because of the inventory/start screen, should the items in this game count towards that? E.g collect all the relics, armor and so on (you cannot have all the weapons and smaller items on you at all time because you can only have a max amount of items on you at a time).

After that i guess i should choose which clan to play as. This can change a whole lot of the run and I've been thinking about playing either as Brujah because of Celerity and Potence (I have discovered a neat little trick in which you can gain a large amount of speed due to having celerity on then turning it off and then bunny jumping, it also makes most enemies so much easier to avoid and survive against when time slows down although the slowdown can get annoying at level 5 when you're hitting people or when you're trying to fall down) or Malkavian because of Obfuscate and Dementation (obfuscate would make much of the game a breeze if i have it high enough) or as Tremer because of Thaumaturgy and Dominate.

Then after the clan has been chosen the route needs to be made, optimized to remove redundancy, maximizing the amount of money/skill points you can get fast and spend them as optimally as possible for speed and so on.

As i said before this run is in its early planning phase and I have only started with a basic route, taking notes of how high your skill needs to be to lockpick certain doors/to persuade people and so on. I will try to make as much of this run public and open for others to see and judge so i can get input on it and my progress of trying to make the run as fast as possible. I'm not an expert on this game, despite having played it through a whole lot, so if you spot something that i might have missed or forgotten do tell me. If you spot mistakes or improvements that i can easily do tell me. If you disagree or want me to change anything with the run or route tell me.
Thread title:  
Edit history:
honorableJay: 2011-07-11 12:38:55 am
The Dork Knight himself.
For this game, 100% would probably be all quests completed as fast as possible. You'd have to ask the admins what they would define as all quests since a few have multiple paths that open up other quests (like the Venus quest, just don't quote me since it's been a while).

I'd suggest using Tremere like the current run. Using Celerity to boost speed sounds good on paper, but executing it wouldn't really get you much more than doing manual bunny hopping (which can get some serious speed if done right). Plus, bloodstrike is probably the best skill in the game for taking down bosses (combined with a good weapon of course). Obfuscate is nice to completely bypass enemies but with planning most can be avoided anyway. Another good reason for using Tremere is the Museum: using Trance to get the keycard from the guard is the fastest way to do that section unless you want to kill him (and piss off LaCroix). In testing I could never get him to drop the keycard unless he was killed or Trance'd.
I'm looking forward to this Smiley

My memory is a bit hazy about the game so I don't know if I can really help much. But yeah Tremere is most likely the best choice like honorableJay said.
procrastenating
Good luck with that graveyard quest (the one where you have to make sure zombies don't escape from the graveyard, but there are two gates through which they go and they are soooo far apart from eachother)! I remember trying it 15+ times when I first encountered it (my skills were probably too bad to complete it), and still not even reaching the last minute...

Looking forward to this! Will love to help you, but it has been a while since I played it (like most of us I guess), so yeah :-)
Quote from honorableJay:
For this game, 100% would probably be all quests completed as fast as possible. You'd have to ask the admins what they would define as all quests since a few have multiple paths that open up other quests (like the Venus quest, just don't quote me since it's been a while).


I made a list of all the quests that actually appear in your quest log and can be 'completed'.

--Santa Monica--

--Main Quests--
WHEREFORE ART THOU, MERCURIO?
SURF'S UP
EXPLOSIVE BEGINNING
THE GHOST HAUNTS AT MIDNIGHT
SLASHTERPIECE
BAD BLOOD
SIBLING RIVALRY
EXPLOSIVE BEGINNING
OUT FOR BLOOD

--Side Quests--
THE PAIN OF BEING MERCURIO
THINNED BLOOD
REPLANTING A LILY
BLOODY MESS
A BOUNTY FOR THE HUNTER
JUMPIN' THE BAIL
THE HUNTED HUNTER
CARNIVAL OF DEATH
THE REGENT'S RIDDLE
SPIRITUAL RELEASE

--Downtown--

--Main Quests--
JYHAD FOR BEGINNERS [Tutorial]
ELIZABETHAN RENDEZVOUS
CALLING DR. GROUT
PATRON OF THE ANCIENT ARTS
THE EPIC OF THE ANKARAN SARCOPHAGUS
SOCIETY FOR THE PRESERVATION OF PROFESSORS
HELL AT THE HALLOWBROOK HOTEL
THE ENEMY OF MY ENEMY

--Side Quests--

THE REGENT'S RIDDLE (PART 2)
A PLAGUE FOR THE ANGELS
FUN WITH PESTILENCE
MORE FUN WITH PESTILENCE
MUDD HUNT (PART 1)
TRAFFIK
A CONFESSION
AND HER NAME WAS VENUS or VENUCIDE (*)
NECROMANTIC
OCCULTISH PERSONALITY
ATTENTION WHORE

--HOLLYWOOD--

--Main Quests--
DEAD EX
SNUFF IS ENOUGH
GOING THE WAY OF KINGS

--Side Quests--
GARGOYLE REMOVAL SERVICE
A DISH BEST SERVED COLD
HOT STRIPPER ASSASSIN ACTION!
B-RATED WRITER
HUNTERS HUNTING
PIMPIN' FOR ROMERO or YOU ONLY DIE ONCE A NIGHT (*)
COVER GIRL (**)
MODEL CITIZEN
MISSING DATA (***)
A TANGLED WEB


--CHINATOWN--

--Main Quests--
I SPY BARABUS
KIKINAPPED
ORIGINAL GANGSTER
DRAGON'S TAIL
COME INTO MY PARLOUR
ITALIAN DINNER

--Side Quests--
GONE FISHIN'
EYE GOUGE HELL
BAD LUCK FARMER
THE HITMAN IMPASSE

--End Game--

MING MUST DIE!
ROYAL FLUSH

* You can only choose to complete one of these quests
** In order to get this quest you need to piss of Imalia
*** This quest is apparently exclusive to the Nosferatu Clan


If the criteria for 100% would only be having (most) of these quests completed this means that:

1) Complete the tutorial
2) Skip the ghoul part with heather
3) Skip the posters
4) Skip the small library card
5) Kill both LaCroix and Ming Xiao

Quote:
I'd suggest using Tremere like the current run. Using Celerity to boost speed sounds good on paper, but executing it wouldn't really get you much more than doing manual bunny hopping (which can get some serious speed if done right). Plus, bloodstrike is probably the best skill in the game for taking down bosses (combined with a good weapon of course). Obfuscate is nice to completely bypass enemies but with planning most can be avoided anyway. Another good reason for using Tremere is the Museum: using Trance to get the keycard from the guard is the fastest way to do that section unless you want to kill him (and piss off LaCroix). In testing I could never get him to drop the keycard unless he was killed or Trance'd.


I haven't discovered why the damage of bloodstrike sometimes varies hugely. On some enemies it just does something like 9 damage per hit but on others (e.g Gimble) it does something like 30 damage, totally destroying them in seconds. Do you have any clue? And yeah, i agree now that using Tremere would probably be much faster because of trance which works great in some quests so you can avoid certain conversations and enemies.

Quote from jera:
Good luck with that graveyard quest (the one where you have to make sure zombies don't escape from the graveyard, but there are two gates through which they go and they are soooo far apart from eachother)! I remember trying it 15+ times when I first encountered it (my skills were probably too bad to complete it), and still not even reaching the last minute...


There are in fact two quests that you can get from Romero at the Hollywood graveyard. One in which you keep the zombies from escaping the graveyard and one where you either sleep with Romero (if you are a woman) or go get a prostitute for him. AFAIK you cannot do both of these quests, and since either sleeping with him (if you have enough seduction) or getting a prostitute for him is much faster I think I'll do that.

Quote:
Looking forward to this! Will love to help you, but it has been a while since I played it (like most of us I guess), so yeah :-)


Just showing support for the run would be enough. Smiley
You've got my support too!
Loved that game ...
Quote from honorableJay:
For this game, 100% would probably be all quests completed as fast as possible. You'd have to ask the admins what they would define as all quests since a few have multiple paths that open up other quests (like the Venus quest, just don't quote me since it's been a while).

I'd suggest using Tremere like the current run. Using Celerity to boost speed sounds good on paper, but executing it wouldn't really get you much more than doing manual bunny hopping (which can get some serious speed if done right). Plus, bloodstrike is probably the best skill in the game for taking down bosses (combined with a good weapon of course). Obfuscate is nice to completely bypass enemies but with planning most can be avoided anyway. Another good reason for using Tremere is the Museum: using Trance to get the keycard from the guard is the fastest way to do that section unless you want to kill him (and piss off LaCroix). In testing I could never get him to drop the keycard unless he was killed or Trance'd.


Well i just played through the museum portion of the game as a gangrel and what caused him to drop the key card was the first dot of animalism the crows. that also made him drop the card so its anything that distracts him. but tremere is probably the best option.

either way goodluck
Edit history:
kn1ves: 2011-07-11 09:43:27 pm
kn1ves: 2011-07-11 08:48:56 pm
rabble
nice to see some1 else take up this game. the best options are definitly tremere or brujah. brujah might still be viable for a 100% run because celerity makes getting past people so easy (sewers, fu syndicate) and by the end getting gun skills to 10 makes bosses just as easy as blood strike. before i did my run as tremere with the big skip i had tried the full main quest with brujah. looking back at it, its pretty sad...but if you want to see it i can upload it somewhere to see if there are any ideas i tried that you want to use.
rabble
just finished watching what i did after getting to chinatown which gets skipped during a normal run and its actually not as bad as i remember. brujah might really be the way to go based on it as well. really helps against fu syndicate, society of leopold, sabbat hotel, and whatever endgame you do.
Edit history:
jera: 2011-07-12 07:52:50 am
procrastenating
kn1ves, If you can, do you mind uploading your Brujah run? I would love to watch it :-)
I think i over estimated the time that could be saved by using celerity. I managed to get through the warrens (the sewers with the monsters) without dying by only bunny jumping and running as tremere, although it would be faster using celerity. The thing is that how easy and fast it is to bunny jump in this game is tied very much to your FPS. Doing it consistently and fast enough at around 30FPS is IMO more or less impossible. However at 60FPS it's very easy to do consistently and fast and it's very easy to jump faster than merely running up along walls. It becomes even easier at 120FPS (i have a monitor with a refresh rate of 120hz) but recording at that would probably be infeasible. I don't have any issue with recording at 60FPS right now so i think I'll stick with that.

But celerity would probably save amazing time at the Society of Leopold and the Sabbat hideout. I also know that you can kill the last boss (the flying bat) very fast with celerity. Another part where celerity would save amazing time is the Traffik quest, the one that Fat Larry gives you where you have to get a briefcase from the underground parking-house. This is the only quest that i have a problem with. With celerity 2 or 3 you can pretty much just run past everything but as tremere you have to take it really slow and conservative so you don't get destroyed. The first and third floor is filled with these thugs armed with baseball bats and pea shooters and they are no problem but the 2 and 4 floor is filled with these Chinamen armed with knives and submachine-guns and they tear me up really fast if it try to just run past them as tremere. I could just push the quest back a little bit and come back when i have better armor and weapons.

Some other things i discovered when i was playing yesterday:

Six points in persuasion when you get to Hollywood and beyond seems optimal for speed and i don't think it would be worth to spend more in it than that.

You can skip talking to tin can bill (the dying hobo in the bad blood quests) and just get down to the sewers, you lose 1 xp though. Brother kanker who is down there is just invisible and you can attack him to make him visible and skip the conversation with him, easy to do with bloodstrike. Shooting the girl on the bottom floor later in the crackhouse skips the conversation with her and i can just suck her blood.  Getting the bishop or the last boss in that quest in a corner and killing him is possible and it speeds up killing part immensely when he isn't moving all over the place.

When i came to Chinatown i had enough xp to fully max ranged, which is probably the good place to do it thanks to finally getting a worthwhile gun (killamatic aka the UZI). I was a little conservative with using the xp but it thought it was worth saving some up to that point and it easily paid off. The Fu Syndicate part was a breeze and super easy as was killing the wereshark.

In the Tangled Web quest (the stealth quest where you set up a network) i easy and you can apparently skip the part with the webcam in the downtown part without any consequence. Having a stealth of 6 or 7 seems to be optimal and getting that is easy with bloodbuff, although i keep getting dangerously low on humanity making frenzying pretty easy. Having a high amount of blood is required.

Persuading the desk lady in the hospital in santa monica that you're a computer technician gets you a key that is super useful and the guard up stairs with the blood unlocks the door to the computer for you making the whole part of the hospital easy and fast.

I've been taking notes and writing down stuff and will probably make a page on the knowledge base about this game later at some point.
rabble
jera, here's a torrent for parts after i got to chinatown. the current run is a lot better before that part.

Arcade22, there are probably lots of little things to find still since nobody really planned out the side quests. Noclip is your friend for finding stuff.
Edit history:
kn1ves: 2011-07-19 07:14:36 pm
rabble
had to add different tracker. if you downloaded from the post above delete that and get this one.

edit: done seeding. if you missed it, tough luck =P
procrastenating
Thanks!! Problem is, I cannot download it before friday evening, so I hope I don't bother you too long :-)
Oh, Arcade22, have you seen my testrun that improved the run from kn1ves with about 4 minutes? Maybe it's useful.

http://forum.speeddemosarchive.com/post/vampire_bloodlines_tremere_run_on_sda126.html
Edit history:
Arcade22: 2011-07-13 01:06:13 pm
Quote from TheVoid:
Oh, Arcade22, have you seen my testrun that improved the run from kn1ves with about 4 minutes? Maybe it's useful.


No i had not. Thanks for bringing it to my attention! I noticed plenty of things that would save time, but i have some questions.

Both you and kn1ves were using unarmed for most of the fighting (which there very little of). Is this just as good as using melee weapons, or is it just a compromise since you don't want to go to the store and waste time buying stuff? I've more or less always used melee until i can get some better ranged weapons. Since I'm aiming for 100% there will be more fighting and I'm uncertain which one is better...

Another thing I've noted is that when you're crawling and moving through cramped spaces you don't attack with melee weapons. I have always used melee weapons (knife, tire iron or katana) to attack and therefore move faster when you're crouching through vents and stuff like that. I haven't timed it if it's really faster than just moving normally but it seems to be faster to me...

Edit: Oh yeah, i also think i overestimated how hard the Traffik quest was. By using trance and purge more it became much easier. I also saw that by using trance and then feeding you can pretty much feed all the time. I've been playing pretty safe before and i now see that playing more risky but faster will probably pay off more in the end.
rabble
Quote from Arcade22:
Both you and kn1ves were using unarmed for most of the fighting (which there very little of). Is this just as good as using melee weapons, or is it just a compromise since you don't want to go to the store and waste time buying stuff? I've more or less always used melee until i can get some better ranged weapons. Since I'm aiming for 100% there will be more fighting and I'm uncertain which one is better...

for the shorter run, fists vs say a knife or a bat is negligable because there arent any stat points used for them and the base damage is the same i think. for a longer run I would say putting points into ranged is still probably better than melee or unarmed because damage per second is probably higher....but i could be wrong.

Quote from Arcade22:
Another thing I've noted is that when you're crawling and moving through cramped spaces you don't attack with melee weapons. I have always used melee weapons (knife, tire iron or katana) to attack and therefore move faster when you're crouching through vents and stuff like that. I haven't timed it if it's really faster than just moving normally but it seems to be faster to me...

dont know that i ever tried that. jumping can make you go a bit faster in those cases, but i cant remember anybody ever mentioning what you do.

Quote from Arcade22:
Edit: Oh yeah, i also think i overestimated how hard the Traffik quest was. By using trance and purge more it became much easier. I also saw that by using trance and then feeding you can pretty much feed all the time. I've been playing pretty safe before and i now see that playing more risky but faster will probably pay off more in the end.

dont go feed crazy. each one takes 7-8 seconds so you want to use as few of them as possible.
The Dork Knight himself.
I tried testing melee through vents a while ago, but I couldn't get any concrete evidence on which method is faster. The only time I've found jumping to be faster is in vents that are on an upward slope. From what I could tell doing a standard wall-run while in the vent was way faster than normal crawling and maybe a tad faster than using melee attacks (although the difference in speed between doing standard punches vs the lunge attack, back + attack, was hard to see).
The Dork Knight himself.
Now this is an interesting vid, wish I had this guy's timing.
Edit history:
Arcade22: 2011-07-20 06:31:16 am
I'm currently working on a route through the game and I've just finished most of santa monica (there's still backtracking later on). I haven't really got a hang on how to do the exploding box trick in the warehouse, going to have to try that some more...

Quote from honorableJay:
Now this is an interesting vid, wish I had this guy's timing.


I did some videos to show off how i bunnyjump. Both are pretty sloppy and I'm uncomfortable with using third person when bunny jumpng but it gives you an idea of what you can do.



The second video here shows the celerity boost trick or whatever you want to call it. Essentially how it works is that when the game slows down when you use celerity in order to make the player 'move at the same speed as before' the game increases your speed (depending on high your celerity is). When celerity stops working, either by turning it off manually or because the time runs out, the game smoothly gives the player backs his 'normal' speed but when you're in the air the player still moves at the same really high speed as before allowing you to get ridiculous high speed when bunnyjumping.

The Dork Knight himself.
Celerity boosting is nice when you need lots of speed immediately and don't have enough room to build up speed, but the blood cost might be too high to abuse it to the fullest. If you have patience, I'd suggest getting the timing down for manually doing the jumps rather than rolling the mousewheel since you'll stay in the air longer and build up more speed. I'd only suggest using the wheel in areas with low ceilings (like the parking garage in santa monica).
Some would Bloodlines a flawed masterpiece, but that really does it a disservice, because its greatest achievement can not be overshadowed by bugs. You wouldn’t fault Venus for not having arms.