Nostalgia / ZWoD 2.0

[Zurechial]

Something was bothering me. None of the games I had installed were satisfying me today for some reason.
I had some urge deep down to play something specific, but what could it be? Something was gnawing at me, an urge not unlike something obsessive-compulsive.

I went through games from Baldur's Gate to Carmageddon to Mechwarrior 4 to Battlefield 2142 to Knights of the Old Republic to X3 Reunion and many more, but none were 'hitting the spot' - none of them were 'that' game that I had a craving for.

Then it hit me - Redemption. I needed to play Redemption.

I cracked open the jewel case and placed the shiny, pristine VtMR Disc 1 into my dvd-drive.
I ran setup.exe, I got an error, I ran it again in Compatibility mode, I got no error.
The familiar music began to play as I clicked my way through the EULA and the size-options - A wave of nostalgia hit me like a punch to the stomach.
The installer reached 51%, it asked for the second disc, I put it in. The nostalgia had grown to a point where I had butterflies in my stomach and bottles of vitae, rusty broadswords and torch_u's clouded my vision.
The installation continued its painfully slow routine. It hit 100%. It finished the installation.
I patched Vampire.exe to 1.1.
I ran Vampire.exe
It asked me for my cd-key - I entered it.
I sat back, wondering what took me so long to come back to this game, and now here I am.

-

Over-dramatised? Just a little bit. But the nostalgia really did hit me that hard.
Why does an admittedly mediocre-but-memorable Diablo-clone elicit such a strong response from me?
Is it because I spent the most part of 4 years of my life playing it, modding it, learning its idiosyncracies and getting to know its guts?
Is it because I learned to code in java on this game?
Is it because I learned how to create 3d models on this game?
Is it because this game warranted my first ever 'major' mod project?
Is it because this game truly introduced me to the joys of game-modification, a hobby that has provided me with hours  upon hours of satisfaction since the first time I opened the .NOT editor?

I don't know.
Probably a mix of all of the above - But damn.. 2 years after I last played it and the memories really come flooding back.

I look through my work for the PseudoWoD mod, seeing the amateurish mistakes, the telltale signs of a newbie coder, the unfinished models, the created-by-accident textures.... and I want to finish it.
I want to finish PsuedoWoD and bring it up to a playable 2.0 release version.

How many people still play this game online? 200 in total, 20 at any given time?
That doesn't seem to matter right now - This mod demands to be finished and I think I'm going to do it..
When I question myself about this idea, I see my own madness. I don't have time for this, I'm in Uni now, I'm doing piano grade exams, I'm playing with my band - But somehow I know I'll make time for it.



I'm fairly certain there's at least 1 other person on this forum who can empathise with this experience, if not more.
Strange, isn't it?



(I obviously haven't discarded my bad habit of writing exceedingly long-winded, boring forum-posts in all my time away)

[Javokis]

Hehe.

Welcome back... again.

[EtaYorius]

AWSOME, good to have back one of the best modellers for redemption... so you plan on just playing or modding?

I cant leave too... im forced to stay... i need to release also my bloodlines pack too.. and my doom3 pack--- ill post pics.. but dont know how to...

[EtaYorius]

OH damn... im so glad Zur is back... to be honest i learned to model because of his models... i was really hoping to see that wod mod you created... then i got you on msn and you said it was going down... you even said you where working on new animations... God has listenes to my prayers! i thought that when rain leave no one will mod... as long as the game keeps being modded few people will still be arround, if you need help in your mod let me know.

[Zurechial]

Let's not go crazy, Lobo 
I'm not one of the best Redemption modellers by a long shot.

Site for the mod is now up:
ZWoD v2.0

[EtaYorius]

AWSOME!

[Old Fecker]

Just got around to reading this post.

I always think of Redemption as probably one of the best experiences of my gaming life so far. Probably never to be repeated ever again as i really cant be arsed to mod anything anymore!   

The community was brilliant, a good portion of the mods were brilliant, the time i spent modding was....scary. I always think back to that transparent weapons pack i made and the satisfaction i got when i saw it on the top 25 downloads of that website, what was it called? Mapdepo or something??? Cant remember. I joined this clan quite early on, HK if i remember correctly and had a really enjoyable time playing this game. Thing is though, i got bored of the multiplayer quite quickly. I remember me and the lads (two of which i still keep in contact with - both of which me, Rainmoon, Dave (one of the guys, went by the name Ariculum in Vamp, then changed to Lord Essex for ages) and Tony (the other guy, went by the name Azrael/Dark Angel if i remember right, West later on) have had many an hour spent chatting on MSN!)...where the fuck was i??? I remember us lot getting bored of standing in that mansion hall with the annoying music either talking, beating the hell out of each other or trying out my new weapon pack with the entire contents of it spread out across the floor.

Me and a few others went back to the game momentarily a few years ago now. I got this immense swelling of pride when Christof walked into the mansion hall we were in sporting a see-thru green shield from my weapon pack, around a 1 and a half years after id first released it!! The bastard wouldnt believe that it was me who'd made it though!!

After reading this thread i rummaged around my shelves and found some old CD-Rs that id burned all my vampire stuff onto and found a few mods that id never released (only a few people had copies of them as i never finished them). I must've spent bloody AGES on these coz they were playable character packs for DA and MD. Complete re-skins, new models, conversions of existing models (playable Golems etc.). The best thing that i made though was the Dragon Tooth's Sword from Deus Ex. It had the gold hand grip and a transparent blue, flickering blade. I remember using the same blade and made a lightning sword of sorts where the entire sword used to flicker, stay on and disappear at random. I think i assigned one of the lightning effects from the game to the model using a hex editor - looked bloody cool, too bad no fucker ever saw it!!

Aah, nostalgia is great. Thing is though that i dont want to go back to the game coz i dont want to ruin my memories of it. Very few games hold their appeal. And lets be honest, Vamp wasnt the best thing out there was it!?

The last thing i did with regards to Vampire was convert some models to Unreal Tournament 2004 a while back I converted Pink, the London police man, Christof and a few others. Then i made Tinky Winky from the teletubbies for a mate!

Modding takes too much time id rather PLAY games nowadays!!



Sen

[Novitate Asher]

You should upload  yer mods to vpaine Sen,

itd be fun to run around vamp with some oldbie packs.

[Javokis]

Sen,

Does this mean you still have my Sengoku's Weapon Shop map hiding around somewhere?

If so, I'll put it into the MoTA pack along with your weapons.

[Bloodywolf]

you still have programs to do that rain?

[Javokis]

That's a dumb question. 

[Javokis]

I installed the game once again and again I'm still impressed. I never thought Redemption would support 'widescreen', but it does.

A lot of new games don't even allow for widescreen, but this one works. I was pleasantly surprised. Redemption is still ahead of its time.

Its graphics still look good to me.

[Novitate Asher]

Mmmhmm, the graphics are good. I remember having to upgrade my graphics card when I first got vampire.

They could stand a bit of updating though. im goin to have to learn to make textures and update one of the smaller maps.

[Phantom of the Vamp]

Does anyone have ZWod 2.0 stashed away somewhere?  I'd like to try it.

[Javokis]

Last I checked, it was never launched.