*snorts* Well, by now all they'd have to do is wait.
PC Gaming Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines 2
- Thread starter Husky_Khan
- Start date
Alright, I found the trailer to this V:tM battle royale game. It looks not half-bad, and the guy at the end makes me suspect there will be two parts to that game.
Namely, first you play the classical part of BR. If you win, you have to escape the vampire hunters who are now swarming the area because hey, breaking the masquerade like that actually causes people to notice.
Namely, first you play the classical part of BR. If you win, you have to escape the vampire hunters who are now swarming the area because hey, breaking the masquerade like that actually causes people to notice.
I do love how one of the stock characters for the new VTM is literally some sort of gay social justice advocate vampire dude, and then they have this trailer with the main focus being on a lady running around wearing 2/3 of her shirt, a lacy bra, and thigh high hooker boots. That's a really weird kind of mixed image to be putting out.
Different developing studios mostly.
Game will probably not be as good as the original but I'll try it.
As for politics, see Damsel saying communism will work for vampires, Nines citing the Depression and Skelter Vietnam for why they are Anarchs and LaCroix being a former aristocrat in an imperialistic army. Pretty clear implications for all of this. No escaping politics, which is good. It would ruin the entire franchise for me if it was just "another vampire game." I like it because it has something to say.
As for politics, see Damsel saying communism will work for vampires, Nines citing the Depression and Skelter Vietnam for why they are Anarchs and LaCroix being a former aristocrat in an imperialistic army. Pretty clear implications for all of this. No escaping politics, which is good. It would ruin the entire franchise for me if it was just "another vampire game." I like it because it has something to say.
The original was good in it's writing, but I think folks may well remember it through very rose colored glasses. The gameplay was borderling even for the time and the game was INSANELY buggy, even WITH massive community patches to fix the game. I've still never completed a playthrough of it due to those game breaking bugs popping up every time I try and play it. And graphically, let's be honest, it wasn't very good even at the time. Don't get me wrong, it's a fun diversion from the other RPGs of the era, but in actual executed quality, it was pretty bad.
That said, a lot is going to depend on how the politics are played. Communism doesn't work for humans, explicitly BECAUSE of human flaws and the economic realities of scarcity. Those problems don't go away because they're supernatural bloodsuckers, and in many ways Vampires are meant to be representative of humans who are ruled even more by their base instincts... add on the supernatural aspects of things like how older vampires are just more powerful than younger ones, and it's kinda ridiculous to make the claim that Communism would work for Vampires.
My point is not to say Damsel was right, it was just to say it was an opinion in the game because the game is intensely political in a very real way.
Skelter brings up how it absolutely sucks to be a Kindred because, in addition to the general problems of being undead, you also, as you noted, are weaker than elders. The elder vampires who just can't comprehend how the world has changed, who are manipulating the young and ruining their (un)lives for petty, selfish reasons.
It's not even subtext, it's just plain text. The World of Darkness has always worn its politics on its sleeve.
The Anarchs aren't the good guys, of course. There are no good guys in WoD, any more then there are heroes in 40K. But that doesn't prevent you from having substantive political commentary.
As for Bloodlines overall quality, I don't think anybody thinks it had good combat and it literally just falls off a cliff after the werewolf encounter. But what it does right, especially Santa Monica and Downtown, is some of the best RPG writing and experience you will ever see. Even Hollywood and Chinatown have some really good parts if you leave do your best to forget alla bout the Nosferatu Warrens. But running into Andrei and his flesh monsters is one of the best parts of the game, IMO. Like that's when the Sabbat become a real threat and make you go holy shit.
And I really like the Kuei-jin, racist or not. I wish we could get a Kindred of the East 20th Anniversary Edition.... But I don't think we'll ever see them again, especially not in Bloodlines 2. The current VTM seems to also ignore the Sabbat which sucks. Bloodlines 2 will just be Cammies vs. Anies from what I know. That's also really disappointing.
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Navarro
Well-known member
Every oWoD game has a major theme of being shitted on by Elders/masters/tribal leaders/lords, who your characters will only get to touch if they're lucky and have a generous DM. And the splats that are "in charge" of the major political factions (Ventrue, Silver Fangs, OoH, NWO, Sidhe) are all really assholish.
Ruh-Roh...
www.eurogamer.net
Seems like a big deal if you replace the game developer, Hardsuit, this late in development.
Chris Avellone waa already booted from the project back in June of 2020 for like spurious reasons regarding sexual misconduct and all of his contributions removed from the game apparently, then in August the lead narrative designer and a creative director were also booted from the project abruptly. Then that October another senior narrative designer left.
And now the developer, Hardsuit, is no longer developing the game at all. So it is unlikely to get a release anytime in the near future and certainly not in 2021.
Paradox pulls Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 from dev, cans pre-orders
Paradox has pulled development of Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 from Hardsuit Labs, delayed the game indefinit…
www.eurogamer.net
Seems like a big deal if you replace the game developer, Hardsuit, this late in development.
Chris Avellone waa already booted from the project back in June of 2020 for like spurious reasons regarding sexual misconduct and all of his contributions removed from the game apparently, then in August the lead narrative designer and a creative director were also booted from the project abruptly. Then that October another senior narrative designer left.
And now the developer, Hardsuit, is no longer developing the game at all. So it is unlikely to get a release anytime in the near future and certainly not in 2021.
ParadiseLost
Well-known member
Saddest news I've heard all day. It was my most anticipated game of 2021. This, Hogwarts Legacy...
I'm holding out for Ghostwire Tokyo, Halo Infinite.
Maybe even a surprise December 2021 Starfield release.
At least I have more time to finish the original Bloodlines.
I'm holding out for Ghostwire Tokyo, Halo Infinite.
Maybe even a surprise December 2021 Starfield release.
At least I have more time to finish the original Bloodlines.
Fuck these incompetent idiots.
ParadiseLost
Well-known member
It's less incompetence and more that Paradox has no experience doing something like this.
Their highest budget title ever is probably Crusader Kings 3, and making something like Bloodlines 2 a critical and commercial success probably requires five times the budget of Crusader Kings 3.
Bloodlines 2 was always going to have a messy development.
To put things in perspective: the Witcher 3 to Cyberpunk 2077 was a huge jump in scale for CDPR, and look how difficult they found it. Paradox is attempting a much longer jump.
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ParadiseLost
Well-known member
Woke narrative and setting? What?
Aaron Fox
Well-known member
Given that the publisher -from what I understand- is a subsidiary of Perfect World Entertainment (known to be one of the top ten assholes in the F2P market) and just how shit the videogame industry is (as in 'it's rhyming with the Studio System Era of Hollywood' bad)...
ParadiseLost
Well-known member
Again: what?
The Publisher is Paradox, which isn't even a subsidiary of another company, let alone a Chinese one.
Aaron Fox
Well-known member
The funny thing about that, this is from what I've learned from Blacklight Retribution devs. One of the companies that are working on the game is a subsidiary of PWE. They hired Hardsuit Labs (owners of Blacklight) to work on the game but -from what we've been told- one of the stipulations of that contract is 'shut down everything related to Blacklight Retribution'...
ParadiseLost
Well-known member
Who, exactly?
Not true. The only companies who had anything to do with VtM:B2 are Paradox (the rights owners) and Hardsuit Labs, neither of which is a subsidiary of PWE.
Also likely nonsense, Blacklight Retribution was shut down years ago because it had too small of a playerbase to be worth continuing to operate. Which isn't unusually for a 7 year old online game.
Carrot of Truth
War is Peace
This is absolutely depressing. Whoever is behind this new VTM deserves to be fired and then taken out back and given a summary kick to the jaw.
King Arts
Well-known member
Wow they actually made it worse. Now everything in a vacum I would not mind a character talking. But the character talks too much in this game, and to be honest, a silent protagonist I think is a better choice that way you can self insert better when you select dialog options. Like the original.