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

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More Banu Hack'em (Assa-mite stupid, isn't it?)
2024-05-02
Clan Highlight
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Banu Haqim
The Clan of the Hunt, Assassins, Children of Haqim, Saracens, Mediators, Lawmen
Cursed with a thirst for the Blood of other vampires, the Banu Haqim stalk the night as judges and lawbringers. To this end, most Banu Haqim adhere to a strict code of conduct - derived from law, faith, or personal ethics - sating their Hunger on those that breach these convictions.


Playing a Banu Haqim in Bloodlines 2
Banu Haqim takes the role of a strategic stalker, using shadows to their advantage.

You are a predator on a hunt, and your discipline powers focus on stalking, assassination, and silently moving faster than your foes can track. These skills are great assets when stalking the city for prey.

Abilities
When you choose your clan, you will start out with a passive ability unique to each clan. You are then able to unlock abilities from the Ability Tree, starting with your chosen clan. Each ability requires spending Ability Points (AP) to unlock which are earned from completing missions, combat and exploration. At the peak of the Ability Tree, you can unlock the clan Perk, a reward to those dedicated enough to unlock all of the abilities for a clan, giving a permanent passive upgrade.

Silence of Death
Clan Passive: All your actions become entirely silent for a period after feeding.

Mute
Silence an enemy/civilian. Any sounds they produce, from screams to gunfire, are completely undetectable to others.

Split Second
Move so fast that time appears to stop around you.

Bladed Hand
Slash swiftly in front of you, beheading mortal opponents.

Unseen Aura
Become temporarily invisible to enemies and civilians. Note: You can still be heard unless combined with Silence of Death.

Prowl
Clan Perk: Can remain crouched whilst sprinting.

ABILITIES


Customizing your playstyle
There are many different ways to play your character in Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines 2. The clan Banu Haqim focus on a stalking based playstyle to take out your enemies one by one, and the clan abilities are built to empower that. As we want to make sure this is not a game where you are required to optimize your abilities to the extreme, we’ve focused on making the base playstyles easy and straightforward. But for the players who want their experience to be a bit deeper and more customizable, you will be able to do so. By visiting important vampires who are sworn to assist the Sheriff (you), you can unlock abilities from their clan by drinking a bit of their blood.

Abilities from other clans may cost more AP depending on how well they align with your clans Disciplines. The Banu Haqim Disciplines are Celerity (speed enhancing abilities), Blood Sorcery (the ability to control blood with your arcane knowledge) and Obfuscate (abilities to easily hide, move without being noticed, and cast illusions.). If a Banu Haqim wishes to unlock a Blood Sorcery ability from another clan, it would cost less AP to unlock than an ability for a Discipline Banu Haqim don’t have. Those who unlock all abilities from a clan and get the Clan Perk, are able to stack them and have the effects of them all, elevating your power.

The activated abilities and Clan Perk can be learned from the other clans, but the clan passive can not. Because of this, you combine the clan powers in hundreds of different ways, but a Banu Haqim playthrough will remain its own gameplay experience.


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Image: Ability tree for Banu Haqim with all clan abilities and the clan perk are unlocked. An ability from the Tremere tree has been equipped instead of Split Second.
More vampire mommy milkers, more warehouse, more "this is totally the successor to Bloodlines and not Dishonored 2.25"
 
I unironically think the only way to get anyone to give a shit about this game would be if it somehow causes a second Chechnya Incident. If only for everyone to laugh at how the fuck they managed that a second time.

Considering it’s not just people like us, but people all over the wider Internet shitting on this game, I’m just assuming its a tax write off at this point.
 
Leaf Wage Slave Jr said:
I unironically think the only way to get anyone to give a shit about this game would be if it somehow causes a second Chechnya Incident. If only for everyone to laugh at how the fuck they managed that a second time.

Considering it’s not just people like us, but people all over the wider Internet shitting on this game, I’m just assuming its a tax write off at this point.
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I think it might be the deal, unless they actually did make proper progress, I feel this is gonna be like that Paranoia game, that was announced, then pranced how they went to Epic, then radio silence for years until it came out without any fan fare.
 
There’s a new Dev Diary about the Ventrue, if anyone gives half a shit about it - frankly the only thing amusing about this game is how the response to it is a near universal “Please Cancel this game”.

Like, I was joking when I said it, but the only way anyone is going to give half a shit about this tax break game is if they somehow cause something similar to the Chechnya Incident. If only because that sounds like a car crash, and the question of “the fuck did they do THIS time?”
 
Insolvent. Burdened with debt, even.

They need to show variety with the protagonist, showing a different hair color isn't enough. All I see is the same lesbian with the same haircut. A lot of these outfits look awful on the female character, they need to be more feminine and no self-respecting Ventrue would wear combat boots and high waters.

I would like to see what the male character looks like but I wouldn't be surprised if they make the clothing unisex because The Chinese Room are gay and lazy.

1715804939007.png
 
Leaf Wage Slave Jr said:
There’s a new Dev Diary about the Ventrue, if anyone gives half a shit about it - frankly the only thing amusing about this game is how the response to it is a near universal “Please Cancel this game”.

Like, I was joking when I said it, but the only way anyone is going to give half a shit about this tax break game is if they somehow cause something similar to the Chechnya Incident. If only because that sounds like a car crash, and the question of “the fuck did they do THIS time?”
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From the Ventrue Dev Diary:
Karim Muammar said:
While Ventrue vampires are no strangers to hierarchies, their tradition of Embracing mortals already used to being obeyed often creates brittle power structures with too many leaders and not enough followers.
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Wrong. The ideal Ventrue is one who knows how to both lead AND follow. Ventrue clan structure is not as rigid as the Tremere (pre-V5) or as cutthroat as the Lasombra, but the Ventrue Embrace mortals who are, at least in their particular areas of expertise, highly competent and motivated. Which leads to problem #2....
Karim Muammar said:
To many Blue Bloods the throne is more important than what it represents, and more than one Ventrue Prince has met final death because they would rather lead in defeat than triumph as a lackey.
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Wrong again. For the Ventrue, power is simply a means to an end. The Swedes wank on endlessly about the Assamites being the 'judges' of Kindred, but casually forget that the Ventrue believe that Caine gave them stewardship of his progeny before he went into self-exile. Most Ventrue are not princes and never will be. However, they serve their Clan (and themselves) by bringing certain parts of a domain under their influence so that when some other Vampire fucks up (as they inevitably will), the Ventrue, as Caine's stewards and for the good of all other Kindred, can clean it up quickly and quietly. The real reason so many Ventrue appear to covet the title of Prince is because the Prince can sire progeny at will, and the Ventrue are as prolific in their reproduction as the Gangrel or Brujah, just not as careless. Going back to 1st edition, Prince Lodin of Chicago sired 12 childer. Mithras sired about 5. Hardestadt the Elder sired 7.

The Ventrue aren't your vampire Mom/Dad or your vampire wagecage boss. They are the vampire who when you mouth off to them at a salon, they ignore your childish outburst, and your haven is suddenly condemned by the city and scheduled for demolition at 10:00 the next day, or a bunch of 'urban youths' with matches and gasoline do the deed and are never arrested.

If the Ventrue didn't write the rules of the Jyhad, they at least have them memorized.
Ventrue said:
I would like to see what the male character looks like but I wouldn't be surprised if they make the clothing unisex because The Chinese Room are gay and lazy.

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I'm standing by my statement that 'male' Phyre will, at most, be a headswap and a voice change, if they even bother with that.
I honestly want them to PWN THE CHUDS and just change Phyre's pronouns, leaving the rest of the character as is.
 
Karim Muammar said:
While Ventrue vampires are no strangers to hierarchies, their tradition of Embracing mortals already used to being obeyed often creates brittle power structures with too many leaders and not enough followers.
Click to expand...
This is literally the opposite of the Ventrue. The chief difference between the Ventrue and the Lasombra is the Ventrue love order and solidarity. They always work together and promote each other, showing the world a united front, even between enemies. The Clan (which is the same thing as the Camarilla to a Ventrue) always comes first. The Lasombra are individualists.

A novice Ventrue will pay his dues and try to find a new field without any elders to conquer, America in the 1500s for example, or bitcoin.
 
Protistology said:
This is literally the opposite of the Ventrue.
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Seriously. A mindless drone would be of no interest to a Ventrue. They're not cubicle dwellers, they're high-powered execs. They choose people with drive and ambition, people who can get shit done (often by ordering other people around) because there's always shit that needs to be done in the Camarilla. The writers seem to have confused ghouls for neonates there.
 
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Pentex said:
I'm standing by my statement that 'male' Phyre will, at most, be a headswap and a voice change, if they even bother with that.
I honestly want them to PWN THE CHUDS and just change Phyre's pronouns, leaving the rest of the character as is.
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I figured that was the case since the concept art that was shown by The Chinese Room when they announced Phyre, it looks like that's all they did. Which would explain the lack of feminine clothing.

I was thinking that maybe they would have a few outfits for the male character since some of the outfits are for a female character.

1715814734967.jpeg
 
Leaf Wage Slave Jr said:
I unironically think the only way to get anyone to give a shit about this game would be if it somehow causes a second Chechnya Incident. If only for everyone to laugh at how the fuck they managed that a second time.

Considering it’s not just people like us, but people all over the wider Internet shitting on this game, I’m just assuming its a tax write off at this point.
Click to expand...
Have to put something out to account for the assets that were used. If they break even it's going to them I think
 
Ventrue said:
I figured that was the case since the concept art that was shown by The Chinese Room when they announced Phyre, it looks like that's all they did. Which would explain the lack of feminine clothing.

I was thinking that maybe they would have a few outfits for the male character since some of the outfits are for a female character.

View attachment 5992391
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Those outfits are hideous. The original game had some shock-value outfits like with the Nosferatu or the Malkavan stripper-esqu look, but most outfits were passable to blend in with the kine (which Nos/Malks had a hard time with). All these would attract unwanted attention, when a major element of vampire society is to uphold the masquerade as completely as possible.
 
Honest Coyote said:
Those outfits are hideous. The original game had some shock-value outfits like with the Nosferatu or the Malkavan stripper-esqu look, but most outfits were passable to blend in with the kine (which Nos/Malks had a hard time with). All these would attract unwanted attention, when a major element of vampire society is to uphold the masquerade as completely as possible.
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Hideous yeah, but for a game set in Seattle? The middle one is the only one that really stands out as being unacceptable.
 
Ventrue said:
Insolvent. Burdened with debt, even.

They need to show variety with the protagonist, showing a different hair color isn't enough. All I see is the same lesbian with the same haircut. A lot of these outfits look awful on the female character, they need to be more feminine and no self-respecting Ventrue would wear combat boots and high waters.

I would like to see what the male character looks like but I wouldn't be surprised if they make the clothing unisex because The Chinese Room are gay and lazy.

View attachment 5992011
Click to expand...
Looks like steve buscemi became a trans vampire
 
In hindsight, they could have just given the MC one of those classic english unisex names, like "Vivian", or "Mallory".

Meredith would be a good choice - the female voice could be American, but then the male voice could be a baritone welshman who is called "meh-REH-dith", comes from Aberystwyth, and receives no malus for drinking blood from animals
 
Totally different game but I'm actually excited for the new vampires of new york visual novel


The prior Episodes are short but decent. Part 2 in particular was surprisingly based. I bought em both for something like 5 bucks on sale.

Based on prior experience I will bet you money this is going to be better written then bloodlines 2. I wish the chink looked as good as the chick from part 2 and had better art but oh well.
 
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