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

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Well, People Can Fly and Ice-Pick Lodge are both working on projects right now, so I don't know how many devs are still out there who could possibly do a VTMB sequel right now.

Honestly, if they wanted to do a VTM game on the cheap, they should have made it something closer to Tyranny- people will forgive a LOT of shit if you get the writing right (hell, look at the original) and if you're not willing to shell out for full AAA production, being more conservative would probably have been the smarter choice.
 
Honest Coyote said:
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.
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You sold me with the undead pirate of the Caribbean. Bonus points if they're so out of date with matters they think they're trying to stop a British invasion of Spanish Florida, much to the embarrassment of every other vampire. Not that I can blame him. "Yeah, in the five hundred years you were in torpor those tiny little colonies England set up managed to successfully rebel with the help of the French and then a mere 100 years later toppled an already-dying Spanish empire, and now they pretty much rule the whole world after making England itself submit 50 years after that" is one of the most ridiculous things someone from that time period could possibly hear.
 
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Adamska said:
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.
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They made a few carbon copies of popular titles and ported a few games, and (again) had no experience with RPGs. Nothing that inspires confidence for a Triple-A RPG that's meant to spearhead their World of Darkness game catalogue. The acquisition happened 2018, the game wasn't announced until 2019.

It's possible it's just PR speak but unless you actually have proof then I see no reason to believe why Paradox wasn't involved with it. Mitsoda also wasn't a Hardsuit Lab employee, as far as I know, so I'm not sure if they even could fire him without Paradox's support. Then there's Alexandre Mandryka, the ex-Ubisoft hatchet-man that was brought in to over see the project after all the staff changes, and I doubt that was Hardsuit Labs' decision.
 
Tor Lugosi said:
They made a few carbon copies of popular titles and ported a few games, and (again) had no experience with RPGs. Nothing that inspires confidence for a Triple-A RPG that's meant to spearhead their World of Darkness game catalogue. The acquisition happened 2018, the game wasn't announced until 2019.

It's possible it's just PR speak but unless you actually have proof then I see no reason to believe why Paradox wasn't involved with it. Mitsoda also wasn't a Hardsuit Lab employee, as far as I know, so I'm not sure if they even could fire him without Paradox's support. Then there's Alexandre Mandryka, the ex-Ubisoft hatchet-man that was brought in to over see the project after all the staff changes, and I doubt that was Hardsuit Labs' decision.
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And yet those seem to have been actions AFTER they seriously began cocking up their schedule. And it's on them for selling the RPG up like that; the original Bloodlines wasn't exactly Triple-A. I'm not seeing how you using events after Hardsuit seriously began fucking up changes much.

Hell, it makes sense to seriously start interfering after the delays, because oh wow look at them fuck up. We need to step in.

Because you're honestly arguing from a different time that I'm focusing on. It'd be like me shitting on how VtM sucks because I'm using v5 and not say v20 or the pre-Gehenna shit, which is what is being talked about.
 
Adamska said:
And yet those seem to have been actions AFTER they seriously began cocking up their schedule. And it's on them for selling the RPG up like that; the original Bloodlines wasn't exactly Triple-A. I'm not seeing how you using events after Hardsuit seriously began fucking up changes much.

Hell, it makes sense to seriously start interfering after the delays, because oh wow look at them fuck up. We need to step in.

Because you're honestly arguing from a different time that I'm focusing on. It'd be like me shitting on how VtM sucks because I'm using v5 and not say v20 or the pre-Gehenna shit, which is what is being talked about.
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I think they fucked up from the start by hiring them. Then continued to fuck up by either not managing them or mis-managing them. HSL had never worked on anything like this before -- the idea that they would be fine on their own is completely foolhardy.

Ultimately we'll never really know what went on behind the scenes unless someone leaks e-mails or does a tell-all interview or something similar. But from everything we know so far I firmly lean towards a 60/40 fuck up ratio here with HSL taking the lion share's of the blame.
 
Let's wait for the inevitable leaks before we speculate too hard. There's plenty of blame to go around, the ratio is only important depending on how big a Paradox fanboy/hater you are.
 
Adamska said:
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.
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it's not make, they are parts of the zombie studio that migrated, probably was the retarded parts because the other went to continue developing dying light 2 i think since they made dying light 1 and both blacklights (tango down and retribution).

let's wait and see if paradox is still with the blizzard mentality of outsourcing their games to some bumfuck indie studio.
 
Snekposter said:
You sold me with the undead pirate of the Caribbean. Bonus points if they're so out of date with matters they think they're trying to stop a British invasion of Spanish Florida, much to the embarrassment of every other vampire. Not that I can blame him. "Yeah, in the five hundred years you were in torpor those tiny little colonies England set up managed to successfully rebel with the help of the French and then a mere 100 years later toppled an already-dying Spanish empire, and now they pretty much rule the whole world after making England itself submit 50 years after that" is one of the most ridiculous things someone from that time period could possibly hear.
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That's how you should have Damsel in the game, she somehow winds up assigned to introduce him to the modern world and has to deal his views.

Damsel: "...So after that, they once again genocided all the men and raped all the women, before forcefully converting them to christianity and destroying their holy sites for churches. The next 100 years was spent creating a caste system based on color and praising themselves for being violent imperialists and crushing any native movement."

LaShade: "Sounds fantastic, sweetie. But why are you upset?"
Femshocked1200.jpg

859af748d1eed0d67d5801a6df188a89.jpg
 
Krokodil Overdose said:
people will forgive a LOT of shit if you get the writing right (hell, look at the original)
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I think people forget how absolutely garbage the combat in the first game is, I knew it was bad but when I replayed I thought it was REALLY bad.

They nailed everything else so it's forgivable but man is the original a pain to play at times despite being a classic.

People like to complain about something like Fallout 4's combat and while it's simplistic, simple is better than janky as fuck.
 
@Honest Coyote Sounds great up until the bit about the Thirty Years' War. "So uh... Protestant Sweden ended up breaking Catholicism in two with a bunch of cannons and muskets, eventually forcing the states that adhered to it to sign the Treaty of Westphalia allowing open yet restricted Protestant worship, and also ensuring it never spread beyond its existing borders." If Kindred could suffer heart attacks, that would cause one for sure.
 
knightlautrec said:
I also called it. This podunk literally who studio has had zero AAA or RPG experience and the presumption to take a ton of pre-orders in advance of a YEAR for an untested dev team is just bonkers.

This game will be a mess.
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Hah. I said this almost a year and a bit ago. My friends were so salty when I told them this was gonna be a shitshow and are now reeeeing about its delay and issues.

It feels good to be right. Fuck this pozzed V5 bullshit. Shove your boring and bland system and stupid fucking logic up your ass.
 
Secret Asshole said:
This is amazing. I can only imagine how much of a fucking shit show that the game was.
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I'd not be shocked if the office was mostly abandoned, with delusional managers harranguing the last workers, all close to snapping and killing everyone, that they need to spend the next 22 hours coding a realistic strap-on add on to add to a disguise check as your assigned gender.

Probably with like sleeping bags on the floor and shit too. All while several computers are frying due to the shittastic code that the few workers left can't fix due to said retard managers.
 
Ginger Piglet said:
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.
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Problem is, the developers who decide to use voice acting are those who have attention-spans the length of a field-mouse. Voiced dialogues are short by necessity.
 
Phony Negro said:
You might as well just shut up about the game for the time being.

People need to stop announcing games years before they're released like this. Months, preferably.
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It's one thing to announce a game in development. It's another thing to announce it with preorders open and saying it's out in a years time.
 
ddlloo said:
It's one thing to announce a game in development. It's another thing to announce it with preorders open and saying it's out in a years time.
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Yes but why sell them a finished product when it's done when you can sell them dreams and ideas for far more? Star Citizen is still going.
 
Not a shocker, The only released gameplay footage looks like complete ass. Clunkier than african tractor, and the locales were all gray and soulless.
I'm honestly a bit grateful, because present day World of Darkness lore is cringe. Gay muslim vampires and the rulebooks telling you to be considerate and not try to roleplay a nazi vampire
 
Übertroon said:
Not a shocker, The only released gameplay footage looks like complete ass. Clunkier than african tractor, and the locales were all gray and soulless.
I'm honestly a bit grateful, because present day World of Darkness lore is cringe. Gay muslim vampires and the rulebooks telling you to be considerate and not try to roleplay a nazi vampire
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Also the constant "hurr durr Cammies are all undead Trump and le brave Anarch resistance" undertone.

Part of the reason old VTM spawned so many tie in novels and books and things was because it was all morally grey and fuzzy and had good characters. But the V5 setting seems to insist on stomping all over that and then beat you over the head with sensitivity training.

If I ever wrote a VTM story or ST'd a VTM game, I'd set it in the 1980s. Why? Because I love 1980s horror. Or, I might run Revised but in current year without Gehenna ever happening. I can't understand why they didn't just do that. Vampires live for centuries and their plots take centuries to unfold. They are a deeply conservative breed so unlife wouldn't have changed much apart from the need to be ever more mindful of not breaching the masquerade in a world of mass surveillance and smartphones and selfies.
 
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