World of Darkness Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 from Hardsuit Labs

[Deleted Member 16721]

Sounds like it would make a great club song in Bloodlines 2.

 

[d1r]

What makes me excited is how passionate and professional Hardsuit Labs is. They all seem very talented and are good devs, and they're all passionate about the project. That usually leads to great results, especially when the publisher is also very passionate. Passion projects turn into cult classics.

The trailer looked generic as fuck though. Could have been a "Vampyr" trailer as well, if I didnt know that a Bloodlines 2 was in the works.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

The trailer looked generic as fuck though. Could have been a "Vampyr" trailer as well, if I didnt know that a Bloodlines 2 was in the works.

The trailer was just okay, wasn't amazing but wasn't terrible either. I wouldn't worry about a trailer when Brian said the game feels just like Bloodlines when you play it.

 

[conan_edw]

Honestly I was going to say it's not like the first game trailer was good anyway but after rewatching it, it at least had some indications of what to expect.

 

[Space Satan]

this game will be Numenera once again....

 

[Perkel]

What makes me excited is how passionate and professional Hardsuit Labs is. They all seem very talented and are good devs, and they're all passionate about the project. That usually leads to great results, especially when the publisher is also very passionate. Passion projects turn into cult classics.

We'll see.
Underworld Ascendant also was "passion project" and we saw how it ended up.

That being said Dead State was good game so there is still hope.

 

[Sailor Woedica]

Aaaa this game sounds like it's made for me!!!

So excited and so grateful to all of you for convincing me to play Bloodlines 1!!! Now I can legit act like that girl that totally played the original game before it was a big deal even if it was only a couple days before the announcement lol

 

[Konjad]

It seems too good to be true. Something somewhere must go completely wrong and botch the whole thing.

 

[Delterius]

It seems too good to be true. Something somewhere must go completely wrong and botch the whole thing.

Outer Worlds

 

[Doma]

I'm just hyped that they are making the game.

The teaser was not that good. If it did not have the name at the end, it could have been "Dishonored: Vampire Edition"

We need gameplay that shows the RPG parts.

Cool that they got the old gang back together as much as they could with the writer and composer. Guys at Obsidian being out of reach of course.

I like this and I think it will be fun to play.

 

[Zombra]

She was a typical UK "games journalist" running in the RPS/EuroGamer/Guardian circles afaik starting off by writing an RPS column called S.EXE, and doing what "game journalists" generally do:
Which in her case was e-begging on Patreon and shilling (or "pimping shit for free", as she calls it) for every friend and acquintance she ever made

Typical sleazy game journalist, got it.
Note my short answer there is not a dismissal ... seems like there was a lot of this.

while pushing progressive politics

I saw one mention of "I'd like more women to be in games, particularly women of color". Is this the sounding horn of white genocide? No, I get it, if pushing for non-white-male representation is a bad thing, I get why she is "problematic". Clearly she supports progressive politics (as does Mitsoda, quietly) and that will reflect in the writing.

I think her biggest achievement as a "games journalist" is still though how she started a moral panic and small-scale inquisition against the developers of Hotline Miami 2, which ended up cutting a scene from their game while desperately trying to defend themselves against the accusations, and due to that subsequently managing to get it banned in Australia as I previously said.

Well - as the article you linked says, she posted an article about how she felt. What the devs did from there was their own decision. She hardly led any kind of crusade to ruin them, and I don't see her discomfort with rape scenes as boding at all ill for Bloodlines 2. Personally I found the sexuality in Bloodlines welcoming and positive. Even Romero and the porn shop guy were sleazy but not rapey. From the penis article I don't get the impression that Ellison's sleaze-averse. In terms of sexual tone she's already a much better candidate than anyone else I could name offhand, even Mitsoda himself after he got married and dialed it back.

After that she somehow managed to get into the games industry in a writing capacity as a Narrative consultant through writing a book called "A Year On The Couch With Game Developers", leveraging her English major. Where she also continues pushing progressive values, while being proud of "taking men's jobs from them" and singing the gospel of Anita Sarkeesian, for instance with Dishonored 2: http://archive.is/dBkH8

I'd hardly call "I don’t always see eye to eye with her" "singing the gospel".
That tweet was sexist as hell though.

In any case, expect extremely friendly "coverage" of this project as we've seen so far, since these people definitely know how to support a comrade and return a favor.

Shrug, I don't expect super harsh criticism of high-profile projects anyway. But I'll bear it in mind.

Thanks for the informative links, be sure to tag or quote me next time if you want to be sure I see them.

 

[Van-d-all]

this game will be Numenera once again....

This describes my feelings perfectly. It's not that they won't try, it's that their perception and thus recreation of VtmB will be massively different.

 

[Paul_cz]

Wow, Rik Schaffer composing for this again means that I really am all in, moment they announce Collector's it will be mine.
So far everything sounds great. Trailer was nice too. I want to meet that cleaved lady in game.

 

[jungl]

nice too see it got announced. lets be real if they put in a tiny amount of effort they can make a better game then the original bloodlines. I can see the original bloodlines being on the xbox or ps3. Everything after downtown was a rushed mess in bloodlines. Remember the side missions where you sneak around tiny buildings and apartments to hack computers. Also the hub design was very basic and barebones in content it offered. Shoddy and archaic game design.

 

[index.php]

http://deepfreeze.it/journo.php?j=cara_ellison

 

[Zombra]

I don't know, I don't like the whole "you are what you eat" thing at all. I want to choose whoever I feel like (and not gimp myself in the process), not specific targets depending on the abilities I want.

Sounds cool to me, it's nice for story type decisions to have an actual gameplay impact. If you want to be awesome at shooting you eat snipers, if you want to be good at talking over people you eat Republicans. To me that's fun. Besides, it's just going to be bonuses, not entire abilities. If your experience is ruined because you're such a min/maxer that you demand the +5% in dentistry but refuse to eat any dentists, it's you that's doing it wrong, not the game.

 

[Prime Junta]

This describes my feelings perfectly. It's that's not that they won't try, it's that their perception and thus recreation of VtmB will be massively different.

Not only that, but they'll be scared witless of upsetting anyone -- especially fans of the original -- that they won't dare to make it their own. Best case is a competently-executed pastiche. And that's a real stretch.

 

[J_C]

This describes my feelings perfectly. It's that's not that they won't try, it's that their perception and thus recreation of VtmB will be massively different.

Not only that, but they'll be scared witless of upsetting anyone -- especially fans of the original -- that they won't dare to make it their own. Best case is a competently-executed pastiche. And that's a real stretch.

I don't think that will be a problem. It is usually the Nostalgia riden Kickstarters which suffer from these. When they ask money for a spiritual successor of a classic game, and they don't dare to make it their own.

 

[Vincente]

I need my rave too. Pretty please, Hardsuit.

 

[Space Nugget]

Thanks RPG Watch for bringing this to my attention, a forum that gives a shit about games.

Oh hell yeah!

Also:

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

It seems like it will be hub-based too. They mentioned having some iconic landmarks but also iconic neighborhoods to explore. It will likely be very much like the first game but with more - they mentioned the script is massive and it has more characters and dialogue than Bloodlines by far.

 

[Delterius]

It seems like it will be hub-based too. They mentioned having some iconic landmarks but also iconic neighborhoods to explore. It will likely be very much like the first game but with more - they mentioned the script is massive and it has more characters and dialogue than Bloodlines by far.

Hub based with free exploration of hubs from the start, according to one preview.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

Hub based with free exploration of hubs from the start, according to one preview.

Even better, if we can bounce between hubs and do different quests that span multiple hubs like the original, but the difference is we're free to explore them from the start. That's great design and a step up from Bloodlines IMO, where hubs were locked until certain story quests.

 

[Trans-Financial-Man]

Spoiler

Many things may be got wrong in this sequel, but jesus christ they're nailing the visual tone.

I never heard of Cara Ellison before yesterday ...

she complained about dick mods in skyrim

Did you read the same article I did? A woman talking about how she likes cocks is a bad thing to you people?

She talks about dicks like a 13 year old female NEET who has just discovered they exist. For all her talk of Sexual things in gaming, she never actually knew that much about sex.

 

[Alexios]

Spoiler

Many things may be got wrong in this sequel, but jesus christ they're nailing the visual tone.

I never heard of Cara Ellison before yesterday ...

she complained about dick mods in skyrim

Did you read the same article I did? A woman talking about how she likes cocks is a bad thing to you people?

She talks about dicks like a 13 year old female NEET who has just discovered they exist. For all her talk of Sexual things in gaming, she never actually knew that much about sex.

She certainly looks like a virgin.