Hi,

there is one aspect of the game that has annoyed me since the first time I played a whole session: Heather. So you get this ghoul hanging out in your haven, but all she is good for is being another Blood doll, and giving you a limited amount of cash. There's no real roleplaying opportunity in this, so I usually send her away as soon as possible. The only time I kept her around until the end of the game was when I heard about the possibility of saving her from the Sabbat and I wanted to try that.

Any ideas how to make her more interesting?

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I think she can be annoying and could be more useful. I had a few ideas, neither of them great, but I don't think they are bad either.

First of all, since in another thread we were discussing the books-issue, I think Heather could be another teacher, since she is human she could give the pc some "advice" (a point) on social skills. She seems like a sweet girl and vamps can always use pointers on how to act more 'human'
My other idea came to me as I've been very frustrated in the fact that once you empty out your fridge and your 'box' (sorry, I'm tired and English isn't just working for me now), that's it on your supplies. I think she could every now and then go fetch a few bloodpacks and ammo clips for the pc.

What do you think? I don't know if either of these is possible or useful for that matter, I'm just so freaking hooked on the game that I keep thinking of ways to make it more interesting (especially since it is getting a bit dull after a few runs).

Yeah Heather is a convoluted subject. She does offer some nice eye candy to hang around your Haven, and won't bother you with multiple personalities like Jeanette, but she's not near as interesting. I think she switches from bewilderment at your being a vampire to starry eyed adoration rather quickly. Keeping a ghoul should be a horrifying experience for the player, a study in how drug addiction can destroy lives. The Blood is one of the most addictive substances in the World of Darkness, and I think it might be fun if the player got the sense that Heather was being dragged into the ghoul/master relationship like a helpless, tethered calf.

It might be fun to have her alternate between blood influenced adoration and a whole other range of emotions, from anxiety (although Heather already does have her share of that) to self loathing, to even hating you in the moments when she's herself. If you keep her long enough, the player does sort of get the impression that she's destroying her life in order to be your ghoul...but it never felt pronounced enough for me.

It's something to think about. In any case, I agree that she should have more utility. Yeah she's a nice decoration around your Haven, but at the end of the night only marginally better than one of those posters Gary sends you. You could maybe tell Heather to go buy stuff for you, or even lure people back to your Haven (for you low humanity vampires out there). Of course, any significant improvement of Heather would require entirely new lines of spoken dialogue I'm sure aren't anywhere in the vanilla game files, and creating them would be a nigh impossible task considering the new content would have to match with her original lines.

Thanks for your input, tinga and Dante.

First (without regard for the technical possibilities) a few comments on your suggestions.

Making her some kind of "teacher" for your social skills is a really good idea. But I think, that would only work if you treat her well. If you keep on telling her how useless she is, you wouldn't get any good advice on behaviour out of her.

Asking her to refill your ammo isn't a bad idea either. For new bloodpacks, I'm not sure. It would make the bloodbank unnecessary and the player wouldn't have the dilemma, what to do after releasing Lilly from Vandals claws.
Personally I dont see the need for eiter of these options. I always end up with a lot of money i can't spend on anything useful, and i dont even use up all the bloodpacks i can find in the game.

Getting her to lure in your dinner is a nice one, if your humanity is really deep down the drain

Last but not least, the roleplaying aspect of the addict would really increase the gameplaying value of Heather. But as you mentioned yourself, Dante, this would require compltely new dialogue.

And now I have to come back to the technical issues. New lines for the pc or throwing about existing ones of the npcs is quite simple, but creating new dialogue lines for a npc requires voice actors who sound at least similar to the original ones or you'd have to rerecord everyting for that character. So doing something like that would require someone a lot more professional than I could ever become.

The other things mentioned are probably possible without making up new dialogue lines for Heather, so I'll keep them in my mind. But as I stated above, I don't think I will make her get new bloodpacks.

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Good point, Childe of Malkav, the bloodpacks do become quite useless. I think I normally use 1-2 bloodpacks in the whole game. And she wouldn't teach the pc if she was treated badly, but that hadn't crossed my mind since I always treat her well She is a nice wallflower (one you can pump for ambrosia), but she really needs more to do. I don't think replacing her voice would be that difficult (if the voicefiles can be replaced the same way as the skins), you'd just need a girl with some acting skills and some kick-ass recording equipment. And if you don't have access to such, I just might. But that's beside the point. I don't know how adding new dialogue would work, since adding anything new to the game seems like a pain.

Heather does fetch the pc that one snack, but it would be cool if she could be told to do it again. Especially if your humanity is low or if you're playing a Nossie. Getting blood as a Nos is a bitch, but that's just my opinion.

Yeah, rather than scold Heather for bringing the guy in, you could tell her to do it on a regular basis or something. All that murdering would put your humanity in the toilet, but some players really don't care about that...I played a Gangrel who killed indiscriminately, and it was fun, although sort of one dimensional.

You know, I just had a thought. Like, you can tell Heather to change her clothes, right? What if you could also tell her to try and decorate the Haven in a certain style? That might be kind of cool. Purely an aesthetic improvement, of course, but being able to select how your Haven is decorated might go a long way towards making it feel like your own. I always got the impression like; "Well, this is what they're giving me, so...okay. I guess."

Of course redecorating a whole Haven would be a lot of work skin-wise, and I can't fathom the technical issues, but it's an idea. You could have one where she transforms your place into a sumptuous budoir, or a dark, brooding Gothic retreat. And you'd probably have to do new skins for all the Havens, Nosferatu/Tremere included.

Redecorate the haven is a very good idea.
What about some "mini games".. I don't know, I'd like to play pong with her :-)

There is a way not to lose any humanity when she brings you people. You do not kill the guy (but still drink from him), then you ask her to clean up, and that's all ^^

[quote="Childe of Malkav"]

Dante Revere wrote:

Claudia wrote: There is a way not to lose any humanity when she brings you people. You do not kill the guy (but still drink from him), then you ask her to clean up, and that's all ^^ Does that work? Do you get the dialogue option for cleaning up if you don't have killed him?

Yes the dialog appears. You tell him to calm down, he doesn't. Playing Malky you can dementate him into go say to the cops he has a gun (= humanity loss), that you could use a drink or you'll drain him. Those last two makes him afraind, and your only dialog options makes you feed from him. Just hit F before he's dead, and go back to Heather.
No humanity loss.

The flipper is not usable (I tried on the pier as well as in the Last Round :-()

But Oh, maybe, one day, Heather could...
http://lancea.deviantart.com/art/Vampire-See-No-Evil-Page-06-73000377

But that may be a little too much to ask

Yes, and on the anwerphone we have: "This is the transsylvanian blood donation service. This line isn't occupied during the daylight hours. But if you leave your name and blood groop, we'll visit you after dusk... beep"

Or maybe she could go through your Email and give her "opinion" about the quest given to you (or even find out before hand about some information for you...)

i had a question but did not want to open a new topic for it and this seemed like the right place.
and the question is a confirmation, i remember it mentioned somewhere else but couldn't find it.

i have heard that there will be a mod in which you will be able to save Heather, to rescue her from the Sabbat at Hallowbrook Hotel.
but apparently it wasn't CE 1.3, i have been playing it, just completed the Hallowbrook Hotel and i am pretty sure that Heather was killed in a cut scene in which i couldn't interfer, i only regained control of the game after she was dead.
so, the question is, is there indeed a Mod in which you can rescue Heather? and if so, which?

and in this thread you mention redecoration and that reminded me of an issue that has nagged me to no end.
in the first "level" of the game, when you only have access to the Santa Monica hub, Mercurio is understandably bloody and so is the corridor leading to his home splattered with blood.
but in the "second level", when you gain access to the Downtown hub, Mercurio is no longer bloody, but his corridor is still splattered in blood.
couldn't anybody, say, a janitorial team, a crime scene clean up team, Mercurio himslef... what am i saying... just making it real... shouldn't the game designers had changed that? that after gaining access to Downtown when next you enter Mercurio's apartment that the apartment has been cleaned up?
all those blood spatters... annoy me.

For saving Heather from the Sabbat, this is an option of Wesps plus patch that is also included in CE at least starting from version 1.2. When she tells you, she's been followed or something like that (For Malks it's something about eyes you should make vanish), you have to tell her to stay home (in the golden cage). Then the cutscene where she is killed at Hallowbrook doesn't turn up, and Heather stays alive in your Haven. This dialogue is rather early in the game. I think before you go to the museum, or after you come back from there. There is however a price to pay for saving Heather: In the plus patch you have to buy the body armor from Mercurio. In CE you can't get it at all.
If you miss the dialogue about her being followed, or forget to tell her to stay at home, you can only save her by sending her away.

For the blood, I think even Wesp hasn't found a way to remove the stains. And if he hasn't found anything himself, and nobody told him, there is nothing you can do. I wouldn't even know where to look, because it's not a dynamic prop, but on the static maps.

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