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

[Radioactive Man]

Outstar did a thing. (I really do like that Bloodlines 1 Santa Monica apartment background.)
Not gonna bother archiving it here, there's nothing that important in it but thought it'd be worth a share.

 

[Ginger Piglet]

They added Damsel, the most annoying and one dimensional character from the original, and tried to present it as a shocking twist by spoiling it before the game even came out because of Stronk Wahman.

Who even her fellow anarchs only kept around because they needed as many bums on seats as they could get and openly sneered at behind her back.

Thing is, when/if this ever comes around, I kinda want to play it just to laugh at the shitshow it will absolutely be. See, the problem is this. VTMB doesn't need a sequel. It was a unified, self-contained story in its own right - specifically, the story of how some man or woman comes to terms with being thrust into the hell (both literal and metaphorical) of undeath and how they address it. Once the PC of VTMB strides off down the road giving everyone the finger or settles into a place as Strauss's or Nines's right hand, that's it. We don't need to go on further in this way. If there would be a new VTM game, it would have similar mechanics and play like an immersive sim with combat / diplomacy / stealth ways of resolving quests, but have a totally different story and entirely new characters. Yes, there might be a cameo from someone from VTMB but that's it.

If you really want to play a spiritual successor to VTMB, glitchiness and roughness round the edges and all, then get Cyberpunk 2077. No, seriously. It is so reminiscent of the original VTMB in so many ways in that it is the story of a rando who has to come to terms with their undeath and who makes a living as a mercenary with superhuman abilities but the source of which threatens to destroy them, in that it is an immersive sim at heart with combat / diplomacy / stealth ways of resolving things, and whose protagonist has to make a decision near the end of who exactly they can trust in this world and who they cannot and their ending is based on that. The fact that both it and VTMB are based on older tabletop role playing games is another similarity, as is the existence of in-game news reports that change depending on how the player resolved certain main and side quests. Oh, and they were both kicked out the door before they were truly ready. Just don't get it on console, the console versions really are a shitshow (most likely because CDPR realised too late that their strategy of developing for top end PCs as the target platform and then downgrading for console like they did with W3 wouldn't work, and doesn't.)

 

[ZMOT]

They'd never do that. The original game was fully voice acted, and that good voice acting was partly what made the story work. It would look even more pathetic if they couldn't pull off something the original could. Can't really get away with selling a game like this today without voice acting I'm afraid.

most indies don't have voice action for cost reasons. the point is, either they re-record the lines with the non-shit writing (expensive) or keep them and try to work around them, which most likely will lead to a clusterfuck just in different form.

for me, what's the point in voice action of the VA is shit and/or the dialog is dogshit I already don't wanna read? sometimes it can be "so bad it's good" like dawn of war, but I don't think bloodlines would work this way, especially when wanna tell a more serious story.
without voice acting or even only minimal people might complain, but it existing wouldn't suddenly turn a 5/10 game in to a 9/10.

 

[The Demon Pimp of Razgriz]

most indies don't have voice action for cost reasons. the point is, either they re-record the lines with the non-shit writing (expensive) or keep them and try to work around them, which most likely will lead to a clusterfuck just in different form.

for me, what's the point in voice action of the VA is shit and/or the dialog is dogshit I already don't wanna read? sometimes it can be "so bad it's good" like dawn of war, but I don't think bloodlines would work this way, especially when wanna tell a more serious story.
without voice acting or even only minimal people might complain, but it existing wouldn't suddenly turn a 5/10 game in to a 9/10.

I honestly doubt there will be much change done to existing story or dialogue. What they will probably do is as some additional dialogue for new story/cutscenes, re-record the worst lines and call it a day.

 

[Dom Cruise]

their first mistake was trying to sell overproduced shit as a borderline AAA game. vtmb was never that big, cult classic sure, but never a big earner. and same as cp2077 those same people don't want 4k penis textures, but story and atmosphere.

That's what made the announcement so surprising, very rarely do cult classic games get sequels years after the fact.

Despite the troubled development the fact that they tried to make a Bloodlines 2 at all does give me hope we'll see more sequels to cult classics in the future, though hopefully things will go better of course.

if they're smart they scale back the scope hard, first of all trim down on the voice acting which is a fucking expensive chunk of the budget and locks you in way too hard, then put the money into assets and writing they can adjust till the very last day and even after. if that sells enough - and that's a big if - that people want more and it warrants making a AAA treatment or simple increase the scope, then they can easily make a bloodlines 3 and can even save on the marketing this way.

If we actually get a Bloodlines 3, what would be a good city to set it in? NYC? Chicago? New Orleans is an obvious choice but maybe TOO obvious.

Perhaps if they want to keep it east coast San Francisco could work.

Truth be told I see potential in doing LA again but making it one big interconnected map instead of broken up into chunks and of course adding areas not seen in the first game, I can see why you wouldn't do LA again for a second game, but I think it could work for a third game.

 

[Corn Flakes]

If we actually get a Bloodlines 3, what would be a good city to set it in? NYC? Chicago? New Orleans is an obvious choice but maybe TOO obvious.

Perhaps if they want to keep it east coast San Francisco could work.

Truth be told I see potential in doing LA again but making it one big interconnected map instead of broken up into chunks and of course adding areas not seen in the first game, I can see why you wouldn't do LA again for a second game, but I think it could work for a third game.

Knowing how things go in Current Year, I fully expect Minneapolis.

Personally, I'd love to see it set in something like Detroit (I know it's a Sabbat city, ignore that): a formerly prosperous city fallen to decay, with decadence living right next to squalor. I suppose New York would work fine for it as well, but it feels cliche to have a game like that set in New York.

And here's my most take ever:

I still hold out hope for the project being such an albatross for Paradox that, for the sake of keeping costs low, they decide to drop the hyper-realistic graphics as a requirement and tell the developers to stylize a bit. The tabletop RPG was stylized as fuck to begin with, no one looked like a realistic human, they could absolutely get away with a visual style somewhat similar to Brutal Legend's, and no one is going to bat an eyelash at every single building in town having at least two gargoyles perched on the roof.

 

[blablabla]

a game 20 years later looking worse than its prequel would be awful

 

[Honest Coyote]

If we actually get a Bloodlines 3, what would be a good city to set it in? NYC? Chicago? New Orleans is an obvious choice but maybe TOO obvious.

Perhaps if they want to keep it east coast San Francisco could work.

Truth be told I see potential in doing LA again but making it one big interconnected map instead of broken up into chunks and of course adding areas not seen in the first game, I can see why you wouldn't do LA again for a second game, but I think it could work for a third game.

Was thinking about this yesterday; I'd go with Miami actually. You could have it as a cold war state, between the Camarilla trying to fully destroy the Sabbat, the Sabbat trying to protect one of it's last American strongholds, and a newly revived Inquisition putting tremendous pressure on both. Draw inspiration for Movies like Scarface, having war over control of vices like drug trafficing and sex. Makes it easy to show the vampires as a bunch of amoral parasites. The sidequests and factions could easily reflect that: a tzimsce doing "plastic" surgery, settite drug runners squaring off with the giovanni for smuggling lanes, gangrels out in the swamps becoming ecoterrorists against ventrue developers, and the looming threat of an unaligned lasombra pirate who had just emerged from torpor. Give each clan or faction a relevant territory (Tremere go to university, toreador to beachfront clubs, ventrue to developers, gangrel to old florida swamp people, etc.) It'd also allow for a bunch of eye candy for the players with the beaches, and be way more isolated from social justice than you'd get in most cities.

 

[Dom Cruise]

a game 20 years later looking worse than its prequel would be awful

It’s insane that such a thing would even be possible.

it’s also insane that it won’t be too long till the mid 2000s is 20 fucking years ago, good grief.

Was thinking about this yesterday; I'd go with Miami actually. You could have it as a cold war state, between the Camarilla trying to fully destroy the Sabbat, the Sabbat trying to protect one of it's last American strongholds, and a newly revived Inquisition putting tremendous pressure on both. Draw inspiration for Movies like Scarface, having war over control of vices like drug trafficing and sex. Makes it easy to show the vampires as a bunch of amoral parasites. The sidequests and factions could easily reflect that: a tzimsce doing "plastic" surgery, settite drug runners squaring off with the giovanni for smuggling lanes, gangrels out in the swamps becoming ecoterrorists against ventrue developers, and the looming threat of an unaligned lasombra pirate who had just emerged from torpor. Give each clan or faction a relevant territory (Tremere go to university, toreador to beachfront clubs, ventrue to developers, gangrel to old florida swamp people, etc.) It'd also allow for a bunch of eye candy for the players with the beaches, and be way more isolated from social justice than you'd get in most cities.

That’s a really cool idea, vampires in the sunshine state, I can dig it.

What would the World of Darkness version of Disney World be like?

 

[Tor Lugosi]

Chief Business Development Officer of Paradox:

https://twitter.com/ShamsJorjani/status/1364119883370418176

 

[blablabla]

any important info from that paradox pr? im not going to watch a fucking 20 min video

 

[Dark Edea]

Chief Business Development Officer of Paradox:

https://twitter.com/ShamsJorjani/status/1364119883370418176

HA HA HA,

OH WOW

 

[mindlessobserver]

might be a clever scheme to get out of severance packages for those dumbfucks. depending on the legalese they weren't fired, the company simply stopped existing.
it's also not uncommon, every big publisher has shuttered it's own studios at some point if they couldn't bring in the numbers, and sometimes even before.



their first mistake was trying to sell overproduced shit as a borderline AAA game. vtmb was never that big, cult classic sure, but never a big earner. and same as cp2077 those same people don't want 4k penis textures, but story and atmosphere.

if they're smart they scale back the scope hard, first of all trim down on the voice acting which is a fucking expensive chunk of the budget and locks you in way too hard, then put the money into assets and writing they can adjust till the very last day and even after. if that sells enough - and that's a big if - that people want more and it warrants making a AAA treatment or simple increase the scope, then they can easily make a bloodlines 3 and can even save on the marketing this way.

As someone who adores Morrowind, you can tell a great story without so much voice acting. The only time there is any voice work is at the beginning and at the end when you fight Dagoth. Everything else was on text boxes. I know current gen gamers are used to being lazy and not having to read but ffs, at least go the Oblivion route and have like two voice actors for the entire game and only pay Patrick Stuart for one scene and tell most of the story with books and text boxes that you can find as a reward for looking around the environment.

But nah. Let's blow the entire budget by having Keanu Reeves be a major charachter and needing to do hours of studio time. Surely that is money better spent then paying for things like gameplay and technical fixes....I am sorry, I forgot which thread I was in for a second...

 

[Corn Flakes]

But nah. Let's blow the entire budget by having Keanu Reeves be a major charachter and needing to do hours of studio time. Surely that is money better spent then paying for things like gameplay and technical fixes....I am sorry, I forgot which thread I was in for a second...

Well, one of Keanu's early roles was Bram Stoker's Dracula. And he sucked at that one, too. He has vampire media chops, though, so... who knows, we might yet see him phoning in a role in a videogame again.

 

[EnemyStand]

Well, one of Keanu's early roles was Bram Stoker's Dracula. And he sucked at that one, too. He has vampire media chops, though, so... who knows, we might yet see him phoning in a role in a videogame again.

Keanu Reeves is at his best when he isn't talking. Other than being Ted, he has never had a speaking role where he was any good. For some reason, Ted just brought out his acting talent.

 

[Adamska]

Chief Business Development Officer of Paradox:

https://twitter.com/ShamsJorjani/status/1364119883370418176

So some context: this is about 85% not Paradox's fault. The only thing I could really blame for them is that they let this company do it's own thing for too long, and even then I understand why they did it.

Paradox, at least in earlier years, lived on gambles like this. Its first game was a port of a fairly obscure board game; Europa Universalis would then do surprisingly well. Their sequel a year later, that made it a full strategy game then did gangbusters. And they'd keep doing semi-risky moves. The original Crusader Kings coding for example was actually the brain child of a failing East Euro company from what I remember right that they bought and patched up. They also have over the years bought up companies and backed their games to mostly success.

So them doing this with the Hardsuit people kind of makes sense from their POV.

The issue is that Hardsuit did the following things: overpromised what they could make, fucked up priority scheduling, and treating their workers and staffers like shit. Standard shitty gamedev stuff. The woke factor just made these issues worse, because it doubly affected the last two items.

TBH I can easily expect Paradox to junk the code; I don't think they developed enough to make a functional alpha build.

 

[Tor Lugosi]

So some context: this is about 85% not Paradox's fault. The only thing I could really blame for them is that they let this company do it's own thing for too long, and even then I understand why they did it.

Paradox, at least in earlier years, lived on gambles like this. Its first game was a port of a fairly obscure board game; Europa Universalis would then do surprisingly well. Their sequel a year later, that made it a full strategy game then did gangbusters. And they'd keep doing semi-risky moves. The original Crusader Kings coding for example was actually the brain child of a failing East Euro company from what I remember right that they bought and patched up. They also have over the years bought up companies and backed their games to mostly success.

So them doing this with the Hardsuit people kind of makes sense from their POV.

The issue is that Hardsuit did the following things: overpromised what they could make, fucked up priority scheduling, and treating their workers and staffers like shit. Standard shitty gamedev stuff. The woke factor just made these issues worse, because it doubly affected the last two items.

TBH I can easily expect Paradox to junk the code; I don't think they developed enough to make a functional alpha build.

yeah, who could have foresaw that hiring a no name game developer with zero history in RPGs to make your triple-A RPG would have led to disaster.

also, it's not like Paradox had zero control over them -- they own 33% of the company. plus, being as small as they are I doubt HSL were in a position to say 'no' to Paradox when they suggested/demanded changes. the decision to get rid of Mitsoda, for example, was presented as a joint-decision.

i mean, i agree that it's ultimately Hardsuit Labs fault but giving Paradox only 15% of the blame for this is wildly overly generous.

 

[Ginger Piglet]

As someone who adores Morrowind, you can tell a great story without so much voice acting.

Planescape: Torment, anyone?

200,000+ words or something like that. Only some voice acting for key conversations where character development is involved. Dialogue that includes narration. Considered one of the best written games of all time. Also mostly written by... Chris Avellone, who was shoved out the door and all his work in VTMB2 erased.

 

[The handsome tard]

So to throw my two cents into the recent events into this game, I admit I dont know all the details so forgive me if I sound out of the loop.

Im rather mixed of the game basically entering Duke Nukem Forever "When its ready" mode. On one side, I will actually give them some credit for adknowledging that maybe the game was bound to be a stinker (either on a technical level or plot level or both) and decided to pull it off of the collision course instead of doing a CD Projekt Red and just saying "Naaaah it will be fine" and then focus on corporate apologies and promising that they will patch the game into proper functionality "in the coming months". That shit killed any good faith Cyberpunk had, it overshadowed any legit credits the game could have had. But from what they are saying this new dev will only "finish" the game the previous devs started, Im getting some Solo A Star Wars movie flashbacks where its pretty much 1 movie/game for the price of 2. On the other side, developtment hell is never a good sign, there are delays to make sure the game is properly ironed out and then there is delays when you cant get shit gone for various reasons.

Lets be honest, we didnt expect this game to be GOOD after a certain point but this is really make it seem to be a Duke Nukem Forever/ Cyberpunk level disaster, especially at launch.

Its a true shame that this game lacks the blood of Caine. This game is what happens when you "open it".

 

[Adamska]

yeah, who could have foresaw that hiring a no name game developer with zero history in RPGs to make your triple-A RPG would have led to disaster.

also, it's not like Paradox had zero control over them -- they own 33% of the company. plus, being as small as they are I doubt HSL were in a position to say 'no' to Paradox when they suggested/demanded changes. the decision to get rid of Mitsoda, for example, was presented as a joint-decision.

i mean, i agree that it's ultimately Hardsuit Labs fault but giving Paradox only 15% of the blame for this is wildly overly generous.

Hardsuit did make an okayish game before then, so it wasn't like you could predict that shit from happening. Also I'm pretty sure that acquisition was AFTER Hardsuit repeatedly pissed away their own money on the project due to incompetence. As mentioned Paradox has had success in the past with their picks for 3rd party games, so really their original hands off approach is understandable.

Also I'm pretty sure that's just corporatese to cover asses for the uppers.

Hell, a basic detective game using Geist would've been a far more competent move. Promise little, or else this shit is far more likely to happen.