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

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Love Is Blue said:
the copium in the fucking comments :story:
how can you think the guys that made a machine for pigs can make a good game?
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Comments I read are either roasting this thing or declaring it to be mid at best.
Martys_not_smarty said:
Also the games supposed to take place in Seattle yeah? and it's being made buy a bunch of eurotrash inbreds nigga have any you motherfuckers actually gone to America? I know the original idea was so they could shoehorn in shit from the first game but I feel it could have been better set somewhere in Europe plenty of big cities there for them to stylize incorrectly.
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Vienna or Berlin?
Imagine the scenery. Deploying the map autists and you could just wander around for hours in-game taking in the city.
Seattle by Night is Jason Carl's game and goddammit Bloodlines 2 is going to be set in Seattle one way or another.
blablabla said:
the trend of some asshole talking into your brain needs to fucking die

edit: this shit has a set mc called fucking phyre?

this shit is doa and i hope it tanks the entire studio
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Imagine the lolz if Tencent managed to buy D&D and WoD.

Kindred of the East are back, BABY!
 
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TheAmbiguousLurker said:
Also, I need the lore nerds' help here: Why does Willem trapping us in an illusion cause us to also see his memories? Like, he's having a full conversation over the phone, so I assume he's not doing it intentionally.
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I am going to be way more charitable with this horseshit than it deserves:

The only remotely plausible explanation is that the Nosferatu keeps using some form of Dominate or Dementation (Which got folded into Dominate in the 5th edition, which is supposed to be the basis for this game) and it only lasts a very short amount of time (Basically the equivalent of getting a single success on a dice roll in the tabletop game), so you get entranced, regain consciousness, get entranced again and so forth, and the "memories" would basically be the Nosferatu talking to someone else while you're still there.

That being said, it's bullshit because of a couple reasons:
1) There no Dominate (Or any other discipline for that matter) that has that effect.
2) Dominate requires both physical touch and eye contact, and it's almost impossible to do it in a combat/agressive situation (Especially against a fucking Elder who would be more than aware about not locking eyes with any vampire suspected of being able to Dominate), and it also requires very specific verbal commands (Either because you're ordering them to do something or because you're altering their memory in some capacity), neither are shown here.
3) A lower generation vampire can no-sell domination attempts performed by vampires of a higher generation, so unless the whatever mark is also raising her effective generation, it shouldn't work like that.
 
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Apologies for being a doubleposting faggot, but I can't seem to edit the last post. While checking the 5th edition manuals, I run into this beauty, and since I've seen it, you get to see it too. 5th edition manual, page 285, Thin Blood Sorcery:

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YNBAW
 
blablabla said:
the trend of some asshole talking into your brain needs to fucking die
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they had the perfect excuse to not do this shit when they changed the developer and scrapped the entire thing because they could've learned from games like Forspoken and Atomic Heart that truly nobody likes these eternally monologuing quipfaggot characters but instead they lean into this cancer.
 
Pentex said:
Comments I read are either roasting this thing or declaring it to be mid at best.
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They might have been jannying them up at one point before finally realizing it was futile.
Need for Sped said:
Apologies for being a doubleposting faggot, but I can't seem to edit the last post. While checking the 5th edition manuals, I run into this beauty, and since I've seen it, you get to see it too. 5th edition manual, page 285, Thin Blood Sorcery:

View attachment 5683345

YNBAW
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Jesus Fucking Christ.
 
Watching that sequence with Willhem it just looks like they replaced what should have been a Malkavian with a Nosferatu. When I saw the mannequins I was thinking that it was a reference to Grout's Mansion, the difference being that the fledgling never sees them move and Phyre is in a dream state when they move.

That name I just don't know why they stuck with Phyre, for a fledgling that worked at a Hot Topic its fine for an elder it is not.
 
Ventrue said:
Watching that sequence with Willhem it just looks like they replaced what should have been a Malkavian with a Nosferatu. When I saw the mannequins I was thinking that it was a reference to Grout's Mansion, the difference being that the fledgling never sees them move and Phyre is in a dream state when they move.

That name I just don't know why they stuck with Phyre, for a fledgling that worked at a Hot Topic its fine for an elder it is not.
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An ugly, bitchy elder who has been in torpor for a while, too. That has to be one of the most unlikeable main characters I have ever seen.
 
TheAmbiguousLurker said:
Also, why does an elder who was put to sleep at least a century or two ago recognise a song from the 1930's?
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Probably because the developers just assumed all classical music is centuries old or something.
Miller said:
A walking sim with detective vision and Johnny Silverhand guiding the player to make sure they push the stick forward to the next cutscene. JFC...
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The annoying Johnny Silvervamp nonsense aside, Auspex is a thing. The detective vision is probably the least terrible thing they've done.
 
The Chinese Room posted a Dev Diary. The only new information is that are Dyke by Night becomes a Sheriff at some point in the story.

Setting.
The Seattle you experience in Bloodlines 2 is a kind of "best-of" Seattle where we've taken key landmarks and brought them in closer together. For example, Pioneer Square is a key location, and it speaks to us of the old city and its founders (some of which were vampires that you will meet), but we also have volunteer park, which in reality is on the outskirts of the city but we loved the idea of doing a creepy mission there that reveals something sinister beneath this iconic conservatory. A key location the player often returns to, is Weaver Tower, a Seattle corporate HQ that is actually the front for the Camarilla, inspired by the downtown skyscrapers in Seattle and giving the city's Prince a skyline view over their domain.
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Story.
For Bloodlines 2 we have flipped this on its head. You play Phyre, an Elder vampire (~400 years old) in a city where Camarilla has been dominant for decades, and any hint of Anarch sympathy is squashed. Phyre's number 1 loyalty is to herself, but she is wise enough to respect the power of the Camarilla and, more importantly, the Masquerade. Within the story Phyre earns a seat at the top-table of the Camarilla as the court's Sheriff, giving her the court's protection but also a powerful authority within Seattle's vampire society. This is an RPG, of course, so you can roleplay Sheriff in multiple ways, maybe you are a loyal Sheriff of the Camarilla, or an Anarch sympathiser working from within to undermine the court, or maybe you're a self-centred Elder vampire playing the different factions off each other to your advantage.
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RPG elements.
Phyre's motivation in the story is driven (at least initially) by regaining her power - she has awoken after 100 years in torpor (vampire hibernation) 6000 miles from home with markings all over her body which are limiting her powers. This sets up the narrative context of the ability tree (which we will show in due course) which instead of being about adding new powers to Phyre, like levelling up in the pen-and-paper RPG, you are unlocking her existing powers. Over her 300 years roaming the old world, Phyre had gained many powers, not only those from the disciplines of her clan.
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How fucking original. I can already see how that skill tree will be utter shit and have nothing to do with its TTRPG counterpart's mechanics and be more like something out of Fallout 4. I am still absolutely snookered by the fact the MC is called Phyre.
 
The name really is hard to get over, this name is for a female not a male. What man other than a Malkavian would call himself Phyre? an Elder no less, and now he is a Sheriff? Perhaps their original plan was to character lock Phyre as a female only protagonist.

The Chinese Room did not put any thought into this and if they can't figure out a neutral name that can be used for both sexes, then what confidence would anybody have about everything else in this game.

There is an article where The Chinese Room talk about some of the changes they have made from the Hardsuit Labs build. The last line gives me the impression they made radical changes from the original build to the gameplay and RPG system.
After its development shifted over to The Chinese Room, we know that Bloodlines 2 has changed up its gameplay mechanics and RPG systems, though not exactly how. When our own fang-fan Ted Litchfield spoke to to Paradox Interactive VP of World of Darkness Sean Greaney and the creative director of Bloodlines 2 in Alex Skidmore, we learned from Greaney that they "have been able to reuse a significant amount of art and level design" with Skidmore clarifying that The Chinese Room is using "a new code base with different gameplay mechanics and RPG systems."
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Ventrue said:
The name really is hard to get over, this name is for a female not a male. What man other than a Malkavian would call himself Phyre? an Elder no less, and now he is a Sheriff? Perhaps their original plan was to character lock Phyre as a female only protagonist.
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That is also far too modern a name for a Vampire older than 30 years.

And it's also referencing, you know, fire. That thing Vampires are atavistically afraid of. So yeah, this is fucking stupid. Instead of just making the character a nobody that grows into the story like the Fledgling of the original Bloodlines, they had to go with the Cyberpunk 2077 voice-in-your-head bullshit.

ETA: hell, if they wanted the protagonist to be a Sheriff, they should have started the protagonist as the sheriff. Get them cursed to have their powers locked away, but keep the challenges of being a Sheriff so you struggle early in the game and then get upgrading your disciplines as you go.
 
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Ventrue said:
The Chinese Room did not put any thought into this and if they can't figure out a neutral name that can be used for both sexes, then what confidence would anybody have about everything else in this game.
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Why not just call them 'The Sheriff' if that's gonna be the protag's main role?

Also, how the fuck is a vampire keeping all their clout and reputation after a century long nap if they've also lost all the power to back it up? Kindred society is fucking cut throat, they're not respecting an elder that got merc'd so hard they lost all their power. "Did you hear what I did back in Cairo, Willem?" "Yeah, bet you wish you could still do that."
 
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