Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines: 2 - I want to believe, but...

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“It was very of its time,” Ellison said of the first game. “It approached certain topics differently. How we look at stuff has matured since then.”
“It’s fifteen years later and things have changed,” Mitsoda said.
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Vampire: The Current Year. I bet the writing makes "Aug Lives Matter" look subtle in comparison.

edit- that twitter thread, holy hell
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White Wolf products are truly cursed. Did they give up on the Nu-Vampire shit circa the mid '00s that sucked shit compared to the original 90's setting? Or is the current product line some ghoulish mix of the two? I liked most of the stuff released pre-2002ish and even thought the new Beast book sort of fit in with the old stuff, but they really have no idea which customer to pander to anymore.
 
I guess this helped me discover that seeing "Punch up" is a good time to just nope away. Nothing good comes after that.

Unless we're talking about mike tyson's punch out. Little mac was so short, he had nowhere else to punch but up.
 
Haramburger said:
White Wolf products are truly cursed. Did they give up on the Nu-Vampire shit circa the mid '00s that sucked shit compared to the original 90's setting? Or is the current product line some ghoulish mix of the two? I liked most of the stuff released pre-2002ish and even thought the new Beast book sort of fit in with the old stuff, but they really have no idea which customer to pander to anymore.
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I think most people just stick with the revised books and I've seen anyone rarely touch the modern day vampire stuff. An even if they do, they might just use a few mechanics but still stick to the revised books.
 
After a long ARG about Tinder for vampires a trailer finally drops for VtMB2

YES, FINALLY!

Reads through the thread

Oh... Oh no.

I replayed the original game multiple times, as almost every single clan (Brujah and Gangrel still remain),so much so that I believe this game now holds my personal record for most replayed game. The game is a mess, requiring years of community patches to actually unlock the entire game rather than play whatever Troika had to scrounge before they went bankrupt, but it's extremely atmospheric. If you're into darker stuff, this is one of the better things out there you can play.

The RPG part is very old-timey and probably somewhat inconvenient to people who are used to a more modern streamlined method of "kill npcs/do quests -> get experience -> level up -> unlock perks/increase stats", but it's fun to mess around with. It won't allow you to do 100% charisma run, like some games might, since some parts require actually fighting no matter what, and having some actual skill points in melee/ranged might go a long way if you don't want to reload your game every few seconds you get killed by Kanker/Grunfeld/Sheriff. Sidequests are a pretty fun distraction from the main quest (one of the outcomes for a quest in the later parts of the game includes you basically extorting two elderly former assassin partners turned worst enemies out of their secret stash money for so long, they become friends again just to spite you).

Despite being rushed due to financial problems, with many unimplemented features and a somewhat niche audience, it's still one of the better RPGs from the last 2 decades. I think what we have here might be an almost complete 180 - it's now being thrown money at relentlessly, probably will have too many unnecessary features that inflate the game and do nothing gameplay-wise and will be marketed to an audience much wider than the original was, most likely with very streamlined mechanics (come on, what is a VtMB game without terrible fighting mechanics?). My only hope is that they reconsider this entire "let's put current day politics about tranies into a game that's about machinations in a secret society that's being torn from the inside and outside by crazed cults, an upcoming apocalypse, foreign undead creatures" schtick or at least remake into something that doesn't stick out completely like a sore thumb. And also hopefully they don't do the "Epic Maneuver" that's (somehow) getting increasingly popular nowadays amongst smaller developers/publishers.

Sorry if this is kind of ranty, but I wanted to get that off my chest. I was waiting for this game for many years, and now that I've seen some background to it, it really deflated my hype balloon. Won't be preordering the game, but will certainly check whatever events will happen around it, so I can make a decision whether I want to buy it or not.
 
I'm more convinced this will end up badly considering this thing is on the dev team:
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Never a good sign when a walking Tumblr stereotype is on your team.
 
Corbin Dallas Multipass said:
Hahahah, well at least most of the comments are horrified instead of "Yaaaaas slay kween"
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I just want to say that Paradox owns all WoD IPs including roleplaying books. This is from awhile back but this edition was so unpopular.

The straw that broke the camel's back was when the writers used a Chechen massacre of gays in literal concentration camps to hide the fact that there were vampires about with all the 'DRUMPF Russia' conspiracy shit.

Paradox then integrated White Wolf into its company and then proceeded to fire everyone there. Its basically just a name they use. All RPG products are now basically outsourced or from within Paradox. No White Wolf employees that wrote the above bullshit actually exist at the company anymore.
 
JuanButNotForgotten said:
"Geez, I have to hurry and buy this game, even though there hasn't been shown any actual gameplay."
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Considering how woke it is, half of those preorders will be canceled the second someone inevitably steps out of line. Like if the sound designer's nephew's cat's vet's assistant posts "maybe orange man isn't as bad as you presume him to be" somewhere, there'll be the routine surge of drama and canceled preorders, with the whole parade of apologies and firings.

Many of those preorders are just from virtue-signaling losers who know they can get their $60 back any time, anyway. So why not boost it near the top to inflate its hype?
 
MarvinTheParanoidAndroid said:
If lolcows were Vampires, what clans would they be? Would Phil be a Nos? I bet they'd all be Malkavian.
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"Chris chan would tell everybody who the Prince of c-ville was , in the first video post embrace. on the bright side whoever was stupid enough to embrace her is also greeting the sun."

-Mrs Julians thoughts on the subject.

Most of the Cows would never be accepted into any of the sects Sabbat is too lethal, Anarchs expect autonomy , the Carmilla expects restraint and all expect discretion, Malkavians may be insane but they're expected to be functional by the standards of a society of predators. Pretty much anyone featured on the farms while feature quite the thread twist once we realize they're not humans. to my mind their are roughly four Cows whom spring to mind.

Zoe Quinn-Toreador Carmarilla. Quinn is highly manipulative, and has a genuine talent with social networking. Vampires suffer for a creative sterility so her lack of actual talent would go unoticed once she browbeats her ghouls into wrapping up that shitty game she's been working on she can easily rest on her laurels and cultivate indie talent.

Bob Chipman-Brujah carmarilla. Bobs a firebrand for a corrupt status quo. He's pretty much noctural by nature, angry by disposition and amoral by temperment. He already views humans as 'sub-human' it would require very little to persuade him all the bloodbags have no part of his superior future.

Sargon of Akad-Lasombra Sabbat raging egotist pretending to be a dissident voice as opposed to an established new media figure wracking in the dough and sycophants. Sargon has a knack for luring in the weak and dumb to do as he says and give him money. He's completly duplicitous, able to deal with pressure well and something of a demagoue. He'd fit in well with the Keepers in the Sword of caine when he could get rid of the politically correct idea that anyone outside of the other lasombra are equals.

Phil vincent-Tzimisce Sabbat. The Fiends view humans by traits they can cultivate and phil has many vitrues the fiends could build on
-politically militant
- shockingly selfish
-obsessed with body modification
-no interest in appropriate social mores.
-shifting perceptions of self
With proper instruction Phil could potentially transcend to become something truly terrible.



Also Null would make a pretty good nossie considering his talent for digging dirt and devil may care attitude.
 
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Belligerent Monk said:
Welp our dear friends over at Blowtaku are already covering it so my concern now is how much some elements of the game are going to pander to the blue-haired perpetually "oppressed" demographic when compared to its predecessor.

I rather liked the gritty tone of the first one.
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Those were during the days where the internet didn't have 100% influence over all media everywhere all day every day and some things could exist on an island, free of outside influence poisoning and diluting it. Now that the internet isn't a thing for disgusting nerds and being a nerd is itself not disgusting anymore, the internet has been flooded by all the people who previously deemed themselves too good for it and now they're demanding for the complete homogenization of it. Even if your obscure browser game on your blog has no place making commentary about modern politics, you are absolutely obligated to. Either that or you're so painfully uninspired and uncreative you'd do it anyway to try and fit in.

Point being that you're never getting anything gritty or original ever again. All media must be peer approved by the internet minority committee of Twitter, Failbook, Plebbit and the court of public opinion. If you want Vampire, it must be filled with glitter, rainbows, shitty turd-swirl multi-color undercuts and generic complete with the most generic movie-mill screenplay tier plotline that adhere's strictly to the Hero's Journey because all other story structures are an object intellectual wrong.
 
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Keystone said:
I'm more convinced this will end up badly considering this thing is on the dev team:
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Never a good sign when a walking Tumblr stereotype is on your team.
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Expect special care in wanking extremely hard Toreador, Bruja and probably Grendel just to get idiots to roleplay as Twilight shippers/Antifa and Furries, i will take the game for a spin but eeeeh unless the tumblrite is on a leash i'm not expecting to much
 
Wendy_Carter said:
My only hope is that they reconsider this entire "let's put current day politics about tranies into a game that's about machinations in a secret society that's being torn from the inside and outside by crazed cults, an upcoming apocalypse, foreign undead creatures" schtick or at least remake into something that doesn't stick out completely like a sore thumb.
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The original is one of my favorites as well, so I'm hoping that the sequel's "political" stuff is well-written and thoughtful, or at least avoidable if it isn't. If they have some hamfisted/cringey stuff but it's mostly found in a couple optional sidequests, then I would be fine with it. Unfortunately, what we know so far doesn't fill me with confidence.

On the brightside, if that woman in the trailer is anything to go by, Bloodlines 2 will at least have the same huge boobs that the original game did lol
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Cubanodun said:
Expect special care in wanking extremely hard Toreador, Bruja and probably Grendel just to get idiots to roleplay as Twilight shippers/Antifa and Furries, i will take the game for a spin but eeeeh unless the tumblrite is on a leash i'm not expecting to much
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Eh, I'd say the Twilight thing is kinda dead a long time ago and nobody gives a rats ass about it anymore, so that group is out.
 
Haramburger said:
White Wolf products are truly cursed. Did they give up on the Nu-Vampire shit circa the mid '00s that sucked shit compared to the original 90's setting? Or is the current product line some ghoulish mix of the two? I liked most of the stuff released pre-2002ish and even thought the new Beast book sort of fit in with the old stuff, but they really have no idea which customer to pander to anymore.
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You're thinking of Vampire the Requiem. The issue at hand was that White Wolf wrote themselves into a corner with Vampire the Masquerade.

The entire setting is building to a big apocalyptic event. You can see it with how Thin Bloods exist and are said to usher in the apocalypse. They did eventually write in the big apocalyptic event and retired the setting so they could do another one. They also did this with all of their tabletop rpgs set in World of Darkness like Werewolf. With Vampire the Requiem it lacked a lot of the appeal of VtM and felt like they were trying to make it more akin to Game of Thrones. They also picked the worst time in history to do it since notoriously tabletop RPGs had their worst years during the mid 2000s. It was right when D&D made D&D 4th edition to "recruit WoW players". They've only recently had a second wind due to a general resurgence in "nerd culture" with stuff like Stranger Things.

The company was also sold to the same company that made Eve Online, CCP. Who sold it to Paradox a few years later. CCP bought it because they wanted to make a World of Darkness mmorpg but that project fell through.
 
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