Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines - The Final Nights 1.4

[ArchAngel]

The drama in this thread died and so the thread died with it.

*Thinking of ways to stir up Twu-bble*

Post some gay pictures of two niggers while having some anti nazi signs in the room and that will bring out the rage in Codex.

 

[Bumvelcrow]

The drama in this thread died and so the thread died with it.

*Thinking of ways to stir up Twu-bble*

You were doing great at the beginning, but then settled down and stopped taking things personally. Go back to previous behaviour - suits you as you get advertising, suits us as we enjoy drama. If you feel grateful then donate $10 to get access to the politics and general discussion forums and then come back with new material.

 

[Parsifarka]

Wow! Just wow! That modder has overcome Codex's proverbial irony with a überirony disguised in naïveté conquering all hearts and dicks.
Link to the Hugo Boss' uniforms? My vampiress will look great in leather.

 

[Irenaeus II]

 

[Goral]

http://www.nytimes.com/1997/08/15/business/hugo-boss-acknowledges-link-to-nazi-regime.html
Hugo Boss + vampires = Nazi vampires

 

[Stainless Veteran]

The drama in this thread died and so the thread died with it.

*Thinking of ways to stir up Twu-bble*

Eh. If you added Baali to your mod, then be consistent and implement Freak Legion too. It's written in the same vein, and to implement them makes as much sense as to implement Baali and Salubri, heh.

Spoiler

• Procreation (4 pts) — The fomor can transmit a Bane through blood and semen — any encounter involving bodily fluids can spread the Bane. The Bane will then attempt to possess the recipient of the fluids. The fomor may only pass on a Bane similar to that which possessed him (a Son of Typhon may only pass on one of Typhon’s Brood; a fomori family member may only pass on the family Bane).

• Savage Genitalia (2 pts)—John Bobbit's nightmare; the fomor (regardless of gender) has genitals with some menacing feature. Male variations include excessive length (14") or hardness, thorns, sandpaper texture or curved barbs; female versions are infamous for teeth, ripping suction and internal meat grinders. This is obviously no good in combat, but devastating in bed-
Using this Power requires sexual contact; after that, the target is at the fomor's mercy. A determined fomor can even kill his victim with prolonged intercourse. By combining Savage Genitalia with Toxic Secretions. Worms, or Inner Volcano, some truly hideous torments may be devised; incorporating Extra Limbs into this Power can duplicate some of the weirder perversions of hard-core Japanese anime, like vaginal tentacles or gun-wielding phalli.

System: No roll required; sexually engaged victims receive one non-soakable Health Level of damage per tum. The “special features" arc not usually evident until it’s too late, and getting away without permanent damage is difficult — the fomor must often be knocked unconscious. and even that may not be enough. While Garou may regenerate this damage, normal people will have some... problems adjusting. Even a werewolf is liable to carry emotional scars from such injuries after the physical damage fades.

• Succubi’s Veil (6 pt*) — The ultimate Power of enticement. The fomor can enthrall targets, causing them to want nothing more than to be near him.

System: The fomor spends one Willpower point and rolls Manipulation ♦ Subterfuge (difficulty of the target’s Willpower). If the roll succeeds, the target will be enthralled, wanting nothing but to be with the fomor whenever possible. If the roll fails, the target will still find the fomor attractive, but will not be enchanted by his beauty. If the roll is a botch, the target knows that there is something decidedly wrong with the fomor, something very dangerous about associating with the creature. For every scene in which the fomor is around his targets, he can attempt his roll again; if more than 10 cumulative successes arc achieved, the target will be fanatically mes-merited by the fomor, and will desire to serve and protect the fomor at any cost.

• Toxic Secretions (2 pts per die) — This Power turns the fomor’s bodily fluids into toxic waste.
System: As promised above, the fomor’s blood, spit, sweat, ejaculate and other fluids inflict damage on anyone commit into contact with them - a Garou biting or clawing the fomor would shower herself with the secretions, as would intimate partners, tormentors or anyone else in close contact. The damage is one die per two Power points spent. This toxic damage may be soaked, but it “clings"; on the first turn, it does full damage. After that, it loses one die of potency per turn, but inflicts damage until it "wears ofГ (there are no more dice). Each turn requires a new soak roll from the victim.

Toxic Secretions arc often voluntary until something provokes an involuntary reaction—heat will make the fomor sweat, pain may make him cry, and obvious calls of nature will make him eliminate. At the higher levels of toxicity, the fomor begins to damage his environment; six points will dissolve clothing in one turn, nine will dissolve rope, 12, wood, and 15 porcelain or even concrete! Fomor with Toxic Secretions often suffer from the Taint: Disintegration, reflecting the damage the Power inflicts upon its "user."
-- Freak Legion - Player's Guide to Fomori, p. 36-37, 39-40
etc.

 

[Zer0Morph]

Post some gay pictures of two niggers while having some anti nazi signs in the room and that will bring out the rage in Codex.

Is that ALL I need to do?

You were doing great at the beginning, but then settled down and stopped taking things personally. Go back to previous behaviour - suits you as you get advertising, suits us as we enjoy drama. If you feel grateful then donate $10 to get access to the politics and general discussion forums and then come back with new material.

I see the wisdom in your words. Okay, tonight I will figure out how to take things personally again, and begin hating the Codex once more!

Wow! Just wow! That modder has overcome Codex's proverbial irony with a überirony disguised in naïveté conquering all hearts and dicks.

Worst thing I could've done for advertising though. May I could get the Black Geyser evangelist to start advertising for us!
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...-hitting-ass-and-leg-oh-god-its-heavan.98790/

Eh. If you added Baali to your mod, then be consistent and implement Freak Legion too. It's written in the same vein, and to implement them makes as much sense as to implement Baali and Salubri, heh.

I'll need to research Freak Legion, never heard of em.

 

[ArchAngel]

Is that ALL I need to do?

Either that or post something bad about Fallout 1 or Age of Decadence.

 

[Ninjerk]

POE review pls

 

[Bester]

Zer0Morph as long as you're hanging out here, I'd like to ask you a few things:

1.
How thoroughly tested will the 1.4 release be? How many people tested it, how many testers made a complete playthrough? I'm planning on having a vtmb replay with your mod and I don't want to get stuck somewhere in the middle and abandon because of something game breaking.

2.
In the 1.3 TFN discussion on moddb you said "TFN, from the beginning, has always been more focused on story line, dialogue, lore, etc..."
So I have a question about how you deal with certain new clans lore-wise. Is it at all explained how come you were embraced by a Salubri, how incredibly rare the Salubri are, and why on earth are you now running errands for the prince, being a Salubri? Or is it just "bam, you're a salubri, here are your abilities, deal with it"? Does being a salubri change the entire story somewhat or not?

3.
The new Blood Doll system seems rather weird.
Basically, with a low/mid seduction, you have to spam the blood doll till you roll a success on each line of dialogue. With a seduction of 5 (!!!), you have about 18% of overall success or something like that. So, for having a low seduction, the player is penalized into spam clicking, hearing the same dialogue lines, etc. The punishment is purely "meta", and spam clicking on the same dialogue lines for minutes sounds rather immersion breaking. If I may, I would suggest you penalize the player some other way. For example: you lower the seduction requirement and make the result of your attempt semi-permanent - it should remain the same until you leave and return to the area. No more spamming, you either succeeded or didn't.

4.
I see that you've decided to make all weapons accessible early in the game because, as you say "I hated the fact that you would have to wait until Hollywood or Chinatown to get your hands on a weapon that fit your play style". However, it concerns me that there's no more incentive to get out of your comfort zone and experiment with weapons that you don't necessarily like at first sight. So if I understand your notes correctly, in TFN I'll get the weapon that I like the most and I won't have to ever switch? Sounds more like cheating, than a feature, to me anyway.

5.
"We removed every single item and replaced them with items that ONLY appear if the player has a high enough Inspection Feat to see them."
Does this mean ALL items? Even items that can be easily spotted by any kine without any supernatural abilities, like a magazine on the table?
Frankly, "For players who enjoy exploration then this System is for you. Whenever you raise your Inspection level it will be wise to go back to previously explored areas to find the new items you missed before." sounds more tedious than fun. Exploration is about finding interesting things and not about NOT finding them.
I guess I'll have to cheat and give myself max inspection. I wonder how will it affect the game, will I be finding too many things, like too much ammo, etc?

6.
"Presence 3-5 influences NPCs during dialogue (No blood required)"
Could you elaborate on that?

Despite my caution of some of the new mechanics, I actually look forward to playing this mod. Mostly for the new content, though.

 

[Zer0Morph]

These are all great questions, I'll do my best to answer them.

1.
How thoroughly tested will the 1.4 release be?

Very! I've been Alpha testing it for several weeks now (and even found 1 bug already) and we have several TCI members beta testing as well. They are mainly focused on the new features meaning 1 player will test the Presence discipline while another will test the Inspection/Auspex system. Know that even built on UP 6.4 along with our fixes, sometimes Bloodlines glitches and it's out of TCI or the Wesp's control. At the end of the day, Bloodlines is and always will be partially broken.

In the 1.3 TFN discussion on moddb you said "TFN, from the beginning, has always been more focused on story line, dialogue, lore, etc..."

TFN 1.4 is not complete. Until we re-write all of the player dialogue for each clan, much in the same way vanilla had the Malkavians, TFN won't be the dream we had in mind from the beginning. We've re-written all 7 clans for the tutorial so far and honestly, it's the best part of the game. I haven't released it yet and I won't until all of the dialogue is done, but I think it will be well worth it. Another feature that feels needed are clan specific quests. We did this for the Baali called "A Pyramid's deception" but the other 6 clans still need it. I haven't decided the reason why the "extremely rare" Salubri sired the player but I would like to create a side quest where Strauss meets, and then hunts the Salubri character with a final showdown at some point. The community is still talking about how to handle that, but it is definitely in the works.

The new Blood Doll system seems rather weird.

You're not the first to hate the new system. I created this system back in 2010 and now looking back, I think it could be improved. Spamming anything is never a good thing and is immersion breaking so I'll take your idea into consideration. I like the idea of having to walk out of the club and back in if you want to try again. It wouldn't be that hard to code. Thanks for the input.

I see that you've decided to make all weapons accessible early in the game

Every weapon in TFN is a viable choice to take into the end game. Some weapons are very similar to another but none of them are completely the same. Bashing by nature does more flat damage than lethal or aggravated weapons do, however supernaturals get 50% dmg reduction to bashing, so while bashing is the best choice against kine, lethal and aggravated are better for kindred. In the new official game manual every weapon is explained on what they're good at and what they're not. We're hoping people will read and try out some weapons that they previously had no interest in using before. I can assure you though, we want players to build their characters the way they want including the weapon choice, and don't want to make any weapon non-viable.

Does this mean ALL items?

It means all non-main quest items, yes. Inspection used to be a worthless feat, I think we can all agree on that, this new system changes that. Having a high Inspection not only will give you new dialogue choices and chances to earn XP, but the player can even find different types of armor including body armor, occult items, and high priced sellable items using Inspection. If you gave yourself a 10, you'd definitely be over powered.

Could you elaborate on that?

Basically Presence level 3-5 gives a passive buff during dialogue. It automatically turns on in dialogue but doesn't cost blood to use, it's just a part of your character.
Level 3 - +1 Seduction and Intimidation
Level 4 - +2 Seduction and Intimidation, +1 Persuasion
Level 5 - +3 Seduction and Intimidation, +2 Persuasion

We lowered the Presence duration a little to compensate for the increased passive buff, and high level kindred are immune to these effects. Vampires like Jack, LaCroix, Beckett, Gary, etc... have mastery over their willpower and can defend against their emotions from your Presence.

(One thing we changed after we made this video was the Presence sound and sparklies don't play again high level kindred, but you will start get a message saying they resisted it)
TFN Presence Discipline (1.4) (Click on video to watch from YouTube)

 

[Ninjerk]

That's not a very good POE review. Doesn't even mention the title.

 

[bertram_tung]

all these bloodlines mods end up being shit. the game is not built for modding.

the only exceptions i've seen are some of wesp's shit and the clan quest mod to a lesser extent

Now, anuspounder, brofist me! You are such a bro.

 

[Gravedigger]

Want to discuss about the Salubri clan? http://camarillaedition.darkbb.com/t2317-about-the-salubri
The clans zer0 picked are really strange. Salubri should be killed on the spot by the Regent, but is not. Baali is hated by most, yet again the Regent does nothing. The other clans are african clans (ok, mainly african), but the game takes place in the US.

Zer0, what was that talk about Marvin from the Antitribu mod?

 

[anus_pounder]

all these bloodlines mods end up being shit. the game is not built for modding.

the only exceptions i've seen are some of wesp's shit and the clan quest mod to a lesser extent

Now, anuspounder, brofist me! You are such a bro.

 

[ArchAngel]

LOL

 

[Carceri]

all these bloodlines mods end up being shit. the game is not built for modding.

the only exceptions i've seen are some of wesp's shit and the clan quest mod to a lesser extent

Now, anuspounder, brofist me! You are such a bro.

You are not Bertram Tung!

 

[Bester]

Zer0Morph During the discussion of the Salubri quest on your forum, I see a lot of people mentioning that voice acting is problematic and trying to find ways to write an NPC that doesn't talk, like the NPC would communicate only through emails or would have his throat slashed before his embrace (presumably because no one has the mic and the right voice to do it). I would suggest Fiverr for that. A few lines (depending on the voice actor's rate, that's 100-200 words) will cost you just 5 bucks and you have a very large selection of voice actors to choose from. (even though most of them sound like fags, so it'll take some effort to find the right ones)

 

[Zer0Morph]

Zer0Morph During the discussion of the Salubri quest on your forum, I see a lot of people mentioning that voice acting is problematic and trying to find ways to write an NPC that doesn't talk, like the NPC would communicate only through emails or would have his throat slashed before his embrace (presumably because no one has the mic and the right voice to do it). I would suggest Fiverr for that. A few lines (depending on the voice actor's rate, that's 100-200 words) will cost you just 5 bucks and you have a very large selection of voice actors to choose from. (even though most of them sound like fags, so it'll take some effort to find the right ones)

Thanks for the information Bester, I had no idea sites like this existed. Clan Quest Mod got a guy to voice additional lines for Strauss and though the voice actor was really good, you could still tell it wasn't the same guy, and that bothered me. The only way I would even consider adding brand new lines to an already existing NPC would be to hire the original actor or find someone who is 95% identical to the original, otherwise I would prefer a "phone conversation" or "email/notes" approach. We'll see what we can do.

 

[bertram_tung]

You are not Bertram Tung!

Ahh shit, a Malkavian...

 

[Kefka1134]

I've been sifting CRPGs trying to understand what I liked about them in the first place. VTMB is totally that game that reminded me though of what that is, every turn of phrase is just imbued with this sense of excitement and power.

Also that Ocean hotel sequence was more intense than any horror game I've played.

Something like Wasteland 2 by contrast just felt so normal.. like normal for a CRPG, would be nice if people made a spiritual successor to this game instead of more IE stuff.

 

[Irenaeus II]

Define people

 

[Kefka1134]

Yeah that was pretty vague sorry, I guess what I mean is it feels like some of these kickstarters and so on are chasing after BG1 and stuff moreso than VTMB and like Fallout 1/2 era of Interplay/Black Isle + Troika.

I'm kind of vague because I don't really know all the names of the people or companies and what they're doing, but I'd rather someone have that kind of wild Malkavian inspiration in an FPS vampire hybrid game thingy that has (superficially) little to do with D&D or the Infinity Engine or stuff like that.

Of course, deep down the skill system vaguely reminded me of Fallout which was then based on GURPS and so tabletop gaming just like all the IE games, but it was just kind of the emotional intensity and kind of interesting characters that are like the heart of the experience, not so much the engine or the absence or presence of an overarching narrative.

Pillars for example seemed like a pretty straight BG clone, for instance, have not played it yet though to be clear.

Wasteland 2 for instance, was like the reverse, it looked like a deep open ended CRPG or something, but in practice often felt very linear and had like this epic save the world plot and stuff.

Would still rather play Wasteland 2 again than a lot of games, but overall heart and soul/artistic inspiration are much more important in determining the experience than the engine or precise rules and such.

 

[Irenaeus II]

This might be good reading material for you then: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...s-ip-including-vampire-the-masquerade.104361/

There's good discussion about the possibility of a supposed VtmB spiritual sequel in that thread.

 

[Kefka1134]

Hm, never played any Paradox games but that also potentially a good thing since I have no reason to think they couldn't make something interesting!

I'm pretty cynical about these things though

It sounds like it might be awhile before anything comes out so I won't hold my breath, but if someone/group whoever really takes the world and thrust of VTMB seriously maybe it could work out.