They better bring back Rik Schaffer, too:He himself said that soundtrack was basically a product of the particular circumstances he was under at the time, and couldn't replicate something similar today.
https://youtu.be/JSqVbywt9kw?list=PLBD52E8E1408D64B5
:rejoice
Wonder if it'll use the old Vamprie:tM canon or new one. (IIRC things got rewritten in the new rulebook...)feel like it's probably going to be the old one because bloodlines contiuation
Still havent played the first :doge
They better bring back Rik Schaffer, too:https://twitter.com/outstarwalker/status/1109127882423492608
https://youtu.be/JSqVbywt9kw?list=PLBD52E8E1408D64B5
:rejoice
Happy to eat crow on it. Nice.They better bring back Rik Schaffer, too:https://twitter.com/outstarwalker/status/1109127882423492608
https://youtu.be/JSqVbywt9kw?list=PLBD52E8E1408D64B5
:rejoice
I've never beaten VtM:B without using godmode during the motel battle. That segment was an absolute clusterfuck. :lol I don't know if the fan patches ever fixed it, since it's basically "working as intended" but having maxed out stealth and still being spotted immediately by 500 vamps feels bad man. I've tried to play it legit several times, and the best strats always seemed to be try to kite a few back to the first area, kill them, go get a few more, repeat forever, get bored, turn on cheats. The boss fights are pretty janky too with a stealth build, but I think you can cheese your way through all them.
It's been several years since my last playthrough, I gotta give it another go before VtM:B 2.
-Brian Mitsoda is lead writer (just like the original) alongside Chris Avellone and Cara Ellison
-Rik Schaffer is composing again
-Set in Seattle
-Seamless hub world
-Multiple hubs
-Direct sequel to 2004's Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines
-Takes place 15 years after Bloodlines
-Game starts off with a Mass Embrace at Pioneer Square where player is among the new vampires born from the event, you're captured and brought upon a court of prominent vampires like the first game to recount the events of the mass embrace before being sentenced to death, court is firebombed and you escape, thrust into Seattle to find out who's responsible
-Player is a thin-blood at first, later on you can choose a clan.
-No quest markers
-First-person with contextual third-person actions just like Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Mankind Divided.
-Fan-favourite characters from Bloodlines returning
-You can use telekinesis, turn into mist to go through vents and glide
-You can scale buildings, there's an emphasis on verticality
-Level design is very reminiscent of the original Deus Ex in the sense that you're offered many different pathways to approach a particular scenario
-The protagonist is not voiced
-Way more dialogue than Bloodlines
-Huge emphasis on character creation. You can choose your background, gender pronoun, employment history, body type and fashion
-Loads of secrets and hidden pathways to find
-Seattle as a hub world is described as "very active", crowds gather outside clubs and muggers prey on victims in side allies, all seamlessly done.
-Main side-questline involves hunting down and finding all the other thin-blood created from the Mass Embrace, each will have their own story about entering into their new life e.g you might find a married thin-blood struggling to deal with their newfound powers
-Blood resonance from the 5th edition will appear in this game. Using your enhanced vampire senses, you can see when NPCs are experiencing an intense emotion like fear, desire, pain, joy and anger. Humans give off a bright aura. Drinking a person with a strong resonance will give you an immediate bonus to things like melee power or seduction. If you drink a particular resonance constantly, you will acquire a taste for it and this will give you permanent buffs called "merits".
-If you continuously suck on people's blood in full view of the public, they'll be more wary of going to those areas and you'll see less citizens wandering the streets
-Emphasis on fluid combat, using vampiric speed to slide in and out of melee range and slash people and execute them with melee weapons. You can get special cinematic finishers in combat when you execute people a la Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Counters are in. Guns exist and are treated as temporary opportunities, you pick em up, use it, then discard it and move on.
-It is not confirmed whether or not you can carry weapons like in the original, pre-order skins for weapons point to being able to do so.
-NPCs can react to you depending on what background you chose for your character in character creation
-Game has modding support, available Day 1
Watch me end up enjoying this more than Cyberpunk :lol
Also what characters do you guys think are returning?
Paradox and Hardsuit Labs aren’t quite ready to show us any of Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 in motion yet, but they’ve got plenty to say. During a developer stream today, they explained the opening part of the game in more detail including the kind of choices you get to make during character creation and what being a ‘Thinblood’ vampire entails. Players start at the very bottom of the vampiric food chain, considered monstrous by humans but too human to invite to the cool parties by the vampiric gentry. There’s even a new teaser trailer giving us a peek at how that works below.
While in the original Bloodlines, you were asked to pick which of the vampire clan you wished to be ‘born’ into, Thinbloods aren’t even recorded on the undead family tree. You can (just about) eat human food, sunlight isn’t immediately lethal, and you look a little healthier than the average walking corpse. That’s not to say you’re without cool vampiric perks. You’re faster, stronger (harder and better, too), and have access to a set of very classically vampiric ‘weird’ powers. More powerful than Thinbloods in the current tabletop rules, but the devs say that this is their personal, more exciting house-ruled version.
You’ll have access to three shallow pools of powers, each with two active abilities and three passive upgrades available. Mentalism, as shown above, is telekinesis. At low levels, you can grab small objects and pull guns out of hands. At higher levels you can pick up and throw people out windows. Nebulation is mist-form powers, and can be used to squeeze into tiny gaps, move stealthily or choke (living) people out with vampire fog. Lastly, Chiropteran powers are batty, including classic b-movie vampire gliding leaps, and later the power to summon swarms of winged mice for offence or defence.
During the stream, they also mentioned that you’ll get to pick a character background. This was a feature originally planned for Bloodlines 1, but not implemented until the unofficial patches. Now it’s an important part of the game, and you’ll get different dialogue options depending on who you were in life. A career criminal will have different contacts and options compared to a cop, for instance. They also mentioned offhand that Toreador vampires (the most glamorous and human-passing of the bunch) are confirmed as being active in the game, although they weren’t explicit on whether they’re a playable clan.
On the subject of Clans, you’ll eventually be able to join one, although the developers aren’t ready to say exactly how this will happen, or which ones are available to join. There will be five to pick from at launch, though. Clan vampires are suspicious of these Thinblood types, considering them part glorified cosplayers, part sign of the end times. Not immediately bursting into flames when touched by a sunbeam is practically blasphemy to a creature that’s been living hundreds of years in the shadows. It’s basically Vampire Boomers vs Millennials, and you’ll get to shake up the whole power structure.
Update: To clarify, more clans will be released after launch as free updates.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3sOTLWUKGs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3sOTLWUKGs
Does this person know how to play first person games unlike the IGN one?
"Hands-off demo" so I assume it's a dev playing.RPS' Brendan Caldwell is playing. The combat looked awful in every publication's video. I agree with Matt (video person) completely.
Combat still looks janky though.
The first thought I had: Source's facial animations hold up so well, despite the lower fidelity.
rufus her name is cara ellison / @caraellison
I think people are wary about her because she was the person responsible for hotline miami 2 rape scene overreaction when she wrote for Rockpapershotgun (which led to the game being banned in australia)
Also she wrote for dishonored 2 which I guess some people feel went woke (i never played it so I couldnt tell you)
She also pushed to put pronouns in this game and wants to "subvert male power fantasies" of the first game
She also pushed to put pronouns in this game and wants to "subvert male power fantasies" of the first game
I know who she is. She never bothered me when she wrote for RPS.
I've found the clarification? Sounds reasonable to me. :idont (How far do I have to scroll... This is why I ask for links.)
https://twitter.com/caraellison/status/1140127441937031168
Doesn't strike me as anything to be worried about. The humanity system in VtmB isn't exactly deep (and only Gangrel ? benefit from eroding it). Following up on this would be easy, but if they cut that, then so what... :doge
Strike 1 was talking about how problematic the treatment of mental illness in VTM:B 1 was, meanwhile the deluxe preorder bonus is a Stop sign because of how iconic that was.Eh, marketing shmarketing. They will push any button they can.
So while I'd like to think that this is just getting ahead of potential controversy in advance, I have a nagging doubt in my mind that she maybe doesn't get it, and that choosing malkavian won't be playing as an amusing idiot savant, but a lecture on how tough people in the real world with mental illness have things.People like the gibbering madman type, I get it, but the first game also featured two other very interesting takes on them (Grout being my favourite). So long as they still have eerie precognition of things, I'll be happy.
Strike 2 is talking about a near identical humanity system from a different game with a real lack of understanding as to why it was there both in that game, and the game this game is based on.I have yet to find Ellison referencing Cyberpunk 2077 directly, but from what I've seen she appears to object to the humanity loss specifically in the cyberpunk setting (why would a bodymod you chose erode it, unless you believe in some woo notion of what a human is. Makes sense in Shadowrun though.)
So while I'd like to think that this is just easy potshots at a competitor to get people thinking 'oh, I shouldn't buy that scifi fpsrpg, I should buy that vampire one', I have another nagging doubt in my mind that she maybe doesn't get it, and the understated horror of the source material is that you're now a total fucking monster trying to cling onto things that help you pretend you're not.
Either way, I don't see why the bolded couldn't be a theme this time, based on what she's said. Besides, it wasn't explored at all in the previous game.
I don't mean to be glib, but that's video games, no? Choice-heavy RPGs, anyway. The cruelty which incurs humanity losses in the game is not much different to what a psychopath in Fallout might do, the skin is just different. (And you're not directly responsible for any deaths in Skyline Apartments, actually. Not unless you send the producer to Pisha or kill him yourself.)
The only real confrontation with the change you've gone through is your Ghoul and a random woman in LA, who recognizes you from your former life. She acts completely normal, but you're forced to keep the Masquerade up somehow. Both are side content and missable, I believe. The ghoul definitely, the woman I'm not sure.
The rest is stealth or agressive, paragon or renegade type stuff.
I don't really have anything to add other than Dishonored 2 was very good and I don't remember there being anything overly woke in it.
I mean, like I say, YMMV, but Bloodlines doesn't really give throw you much of a bone in terms of 'Paragon' choices, and ultimately the 'good' options you have open are 'unwitting pawn' rather than any kind of heroism.Yes. My point is, the same is true for games with an organized crime theme or a post-apocalyptic setting. Loss of humanity is implicit, but unless you're confronted with it it's not a strong theme, because in video games, combat/violence is an important pillar. (Which is why the "Nathan Drake's a mass murderer" and "Gordon Freeman is a mute psychopath" takes are mostly only good for jokes.)
I don't really have anything to add other than Dishonored 2 was very good and I don't remember there being anything overly woke in it.
Now I'm kinda bummed. GreatSageEqualOfHeaven, this is your fault.
I still haven't received an adequate answer as to how the original Bloodlines is a male power fantasy?
I still haven't received an adequate answer as to how the original Bloodlines is a male power fantasy?
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2019/03/15/vampire-the-masquerade-bloodlines-accidentally-gave-me-a-power-fantasy/
I mean what is there to show really? The original didn't really have the most exciting gameplay either. It was just a rich role playing experience and that comes 100% down to player choice and agency. It's the same thing with Cyberpunk and I've heard similar remarks about it.CP2077 has insane production values on its side, on top of Witcher 3 being relatively recent.
I mean what is there to show really? The original didn't really have the most exciting gameplay either. It was just a rich role playing experience and that comes 100% down to player choice and agency. It's the same thing with Cyberpunk and I've heard similar remarks about it.CP2077 has insane production values on its side, on top of Witcher 3 being relatively recent.
The original Bloodlines also was very impressive (bugs aside) when it came out, being the first game running on Source; aside from that i agree the writing and general vibes are gonna be the meat and potatoes.
Problem with that is what i said: Vampires were cool 15 years ago, when Matrix was cool, i dunno how that would work now, without doing it ironically (which would be shit).
Writing shown so far was pretty straight forward videogame writing, so that's also hard to judge.
I don't think i mentioned gameplay once, so i don't disagree.I mean what is there to show really? The original didn't really have the most exciting gameplay either. It was just a rich role playing experience and that comes 100% down to player choice and agency. It's the same thing with Cyberpunk and I've heard similar remarks about it.CP2077 has insane production values on its side, on top of Witcher 3 being relatively recent.
The original Bloodlines also was very impressive (bugs aside) when it came out, being the first game running on Source; aside from that i agree the writing and general vibes are gonna be the meat and potatoes.
Problem with that is what i said: Vampires were cool 15 years ago, when Matrix was cool, i dunno how that would work now, without doing it ironically (which would be shit).
Writing shown so far was pretty straight forward videogame writing, so that's also hard to judge.
No toku is right.
Bloodlines isn’t a gameplay wrpg. It’s a story wrpg. The gameplay, combat;etc were middling in Bloodlines. It’s all about choice and fucking around a sandbox made of those story/quest decisions.
Now wait a minute, we're talking modern vampires.
Of course old-timey vampires never go out of style. :doge
Count Olak > Spike & Angel.
Until recently, I was the Narrative Lead on a videogame called Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines 2 for Hardsuit Labs, Inc being published by Paradox Interactive (which owns 30% of Hardsuit Labs). After almost five years involvement with the studio, I was suddenly terminated on 7/16/20.
That this came as a shock to me is underselling it. I’ve worked on Bloodlines 2 for almost five years. The story and main cast was initially conceived in my living room. I helped develop the pitch for Hardsuit Labs and helped pitch the project to Paradox in Las Vegas. I’ve been in charge of the narrative since the beginning, working long days and sometimes weekends to deliver a successor to Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines, and I’ve never been led to believe that I hadn’t succeeded. Very obviously, I have also been involved in the PR and marketing side of things, even though it was one of the most difficult parts for me. I’m a pretty private person – press and crowds tend to heavily trigger my social anxiety (which, if you’ve ever wondered about the gloves, they are “armor” that make me feel less exposed in situations that trigger my anxiety).
Bloodlines and the fandom of the game mean the world to me. So I lent my legacy with the franchise, my name, and my participation in marketing efforts for the game, even when it was intensely difficult and took a mental and physical toll. This is all because I wanted to do what was best for the game and the team.
The pride in the work, the fan expectations, and the support from co-workers who started out as fans kept me going through this long five years. And I’m incredibly disappointed and frustrated to say that this is where it ends for me on the project.
I was not part of the conversations that led to the decision to delay production, and to my knowledge, there were no delays caused by the Bloodlines 2 narrative development. I am confident and proud of the work that I and my team put forward. When that work will be seen and what form it will take is unknown to me.
It was a pleasure to work on this game and with many people at Hardsuit Labs and Paradox and I’m sorry I won’t be able to see it to the end. I spent years on some of the best characters and dialogue that I ever wrote. It’s meant a lot to hear from the Bloodlines community and I do hope that what’s finally delivered is as satisfying as I intended it to be. Thanks to all of you who supported me throughout the project.
It's crazy that we're getting this and Cyberpunk within about a month of each other.
It's crazy that we're getting this and Cyberpunk within about a month of each other.
A little too crazy. :killme
Could it be that they fired them as they did the majority of their part, and they figured they could cut corners that way, given the delay?They either mindlessly chopped the heads to speed things along (seems dumb) or whatever Mitsoda an Cluney were trying to do was judged unproductive.
Anyway, i had very little faith in this project, but this isn't the best news. :-\
NO!!
I was looking forward to this :stop
In all the footage this game already looked a bit dated. Another delay won't do it any favors.It's kinda like Yakuza, it's selling to a niche, not the same people who'll go out and buy god of War, Last of Us or Call of Duty.
Sounds like one of those projects that has been cooking for too long.
If you expect it to succeed, sure. I don't think this move shows a lot of confidence in that.
Give it to CDPR.