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

[HeroMarine]

What the fuck? No third person? Why even make this game?

 

[ZeniBot]

Take game that is known for being a Role Playing Game.
Don't show any Role Playing Mechanics beyond a Bethesda esque dialogue tree.

Yeah this games not for me. Also disappointed that the abilities in Dialogue aren't colour coded like the originals. Oh the bar is coloured.. Fucking stupid, just colour the fucking font!

 

[Wunderbar]

 

[Alexios]

It seems like half the complaints about this game are about problems that already existed in Bloodlines.

 

[ZeniBot]

Probably because Bloodlines was rushed. Most people expect them not to pull the same shit this time but looking at the release schedule it looks like a repeat of last time. Paradox are retarded.

 

[Orma]

 

[randir14]

Take game that is known for being a Role Playing Game.
Don't show any Role Playing Mechanics beyond a Bethesda esque dialogue tree.

Yeah this games not for me. Also disappointed that the abilities in Dialogue aren't colour coded like the originals. Oh the bar is coloured.. Fucking stupid, just colour the fucking font!

God...I bet it won't even have 5 minute load screens. Fucking dropped.

 

[Mr. Hiver]

I dont see anything especially bad about facial animations or VO. Some voices could have been chosen better and a face or two could have been more expressive but it isnt as if there is anything specifically bad about any.
Besides, bloodlines looked completely horrible, the body movements and models were abysmal and facial animations were expressive but overblown. Not surprisingly considering the events, but it did not look good at all.

This game looks and sounds like you would expect a middle AA tier project to look and sound.
How good it will be depends only on missions, quests and the gameplay.

 

[ZeniBot]

If there's no revolving door that is physics based and causes me to soft lock the game I'm not buying it! lol

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

Take game that is known for being a Role Playing Game.
Don't show any Role Playing Mechanics beyond a Bethesda esque dialogue tree.

Yeah this games not for me. Also disappointed that the abilities in Dialogue aren't colour coded like the originals. Oh the bar is coloured.. Fucking stupid, just colour the fucking font!

Dude, a Bethesda game with two alternative skill checks in a single node? Bethesda would be: you’re coming with me, you’re coming with me charismatically (he comes with you and gives you a reward for being so nice), you can go, or die mutant scum.

No role playing mechanics... you mean other than what sure look like negotiation and intimidation checks? I was very pleased when I saw that, but at the end of the day these trailers are designed to appeal to people who DIDN’T play the original, because they believe (accurately IMO) that most fans of the original Bloodlines will buy this no matter what.

Incidentally, I guess they’re replacing persuasion with negotiation?

 

[Wunderbar]

Take game that is known for being a Role Playing Game.
Don't show any Role Playing Mechanics beyond a Bethesda esque dialogue tree.
Yeah this games not for me. Also disappointed that the abilities in Dialogue aren't colour coded like the originals. Oh the bar is coloured.. Fucking stupid, just colour the fucking font!

Dude, a Bethesda game with two alternative skill checks in a single node?

 

[Sarkile]

Has anyone pointed out that this releases at the same time as Cyberpunk? If they're wise they'll delay the game by like 5 months, otherwise their best case scenario is another cult hit.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

Wunderbar 76 doesn’t even have that yet, it’s being added as DLC nearly a year after launch because the game flopped so hard that they’re willing to do anything to turn it around, even if it means adding mild role playing elements. But this kind of makes my point about Bethesda dialogue. Sure, there’s an extra perception option, but you can’t even say no to this questgiver! Your choices are:

1. Give me more information (perception)
2. I’ll do it for more money (charisma)
3. I’ll do it
4. I’ll do it if you pay me, but for less money than I’d get with a couple points of charisma

That’s actually worse than what I outlined above.

Has anyone pointed out that this releases at the same time as Cyberpunk? If they're wise they'll delay the game by like 5 months, otherwise their best case scenario is another cult hit.

It comes out in the first quarter, so between January and March. If they get it out on the early side of that window, they’ll have a few months before Cyberpunk eats everything else alive.

 

[Alexios]

The clear solution is to get a celebrity to be one of the in-game characters.

 

[HeroMarine]

Take game that is known for being a Role Playing Game.
Don't show any Role Playing Mechanics beyond a Bethesda esque dialogue tree.

Yeah this games not for me. Also disappointed that the abilities in Dialogue aren't colour coded like the originals. Oh the bar is coloured.. Fucking stupid, just colour the fucking font!

God...I bet it won't even have 5 minute load screens. Fucking dropped.

Screens loaded in 3 seconds on my Pentium IV HT. Sorry you had a shitty computer.

 

[The Last Blackguard]

It seems like half the complaints about this game are about problems that already existed in Bloodlines.

Congratulations. You're starting to figure out how the codex do.

Anyway. Feeling some trepidation from the new trailer. With the way the dialogue was written in the first game, characters didn't exactly feel grounded, but their word choice and way of speaking clearly supported their characterization. Some of the dialogue in the trailer feels like it was written to convey info pieces X Y and Z, and they just relied on the actors to sell the characterization.

Another thing. About the powers, It's too early to call if this is their focus, or they're just picking ones that are easy to show off in a trailer, but they feel more like the sort of powers you'd get in, say a customization oriented action, game, like Dishonored.

I'm reminded uncomfortably of the skills or upgrades in the Deus Ex games (all of them) that are just sort of contrived planted to justify that choice that's only useful in those specific instances.

 

[Mr. Hiver]

It comes out in the first quarter, so between January and March. If they get it out on the early side of that window, they’ll have a few months before Cyberpunk eats everything else alive.

Any delays and they will be spaghetified.

 

[Saerain]

The clear solution is to get a celebrity to be one of the in-game characters.

Done, Jesse Eisenberg at 0:52.

 

[Sarkile]

It comes out in the first quarter, so between January and March. If they get it out on the early side of that window, they’ll have a few months before Cyberpunk eats everything else alive.

Any delays and they will be spaghetified.

I was basing my statement on the date of April 2020 listed in Steam. GoG lists it as 31 March, which I would consider a hell of a lot closer to Cyberpunk's release than a generic Q1 release.

 

[Fairfax]

The trailer made me realize how fucking great Source engine is for facial animation. Holy shit. How come not a single one could get above that level?

It's weird how they still can't get npcs to have believable facial expressions like VTMB did 15 years ago, the few npcs I saw in this game looked so wooden and generic they gave me Bethesda vibes.

Valve created the best facial animation tool ever because facial animations were really important for the kinds of cinematic shooters they wanted to make. Everyone else just uses FaceFX middleware, which gets the job done, but a ton of not-worth-it-usually additional effort has to be made to get them on par (e.g. the difference between Deus Ex Human Revolution's usual dialogues and the extra special dialogue battles).

It's not that they're less important to other devs. What really set Faceposer and Valve's animations apart was how they used the Facial Action Coding System (also used by Pixar and other major animation studios). Paul Ekman explains the system here:


Valve standardized animations to be used across FACS-compliant models, while unique animations and expressions were developed for specific scenes. The process itself is very common, but it seems no other developer has used FACS. I don't believe it's because it's less important to them, usually there's either no incentive or a lack of resources. AAA projects resort to motion capture and then adjust the animations accordingly, which can lead to even better results:


Mid-sized independent studios are almost extinct, and smaller ones can't afford any of that. It'd be great for everyone if Valve released Source 2 with Hammer 2, Faceposer 2, and so on, but RIP Valve.

 

[Wunderbar]

The clear solution is to get a celebrity to be one of the in-game characters.

Done, Jesse Eisenberg at 0:52.
View attachment 10915

more llike Baldursgate Kingdomcome.

 

[Mr. Hiver]

It comes out in the first quarter, so between January and March. If they get it out on the early side of that window, they’ll have a few months before Cyberpunk eats everything else alive.

Any delays and they will be spaghetified.

I was basing my statement on the date of April 2020 listed in Steam. GoG lists it as 31 March, which I would consider a hell of a lot closer to Cyberpunk's release than a generic Q1 release.

Yeah but any delays, which tend to happen, will push them even closer and nobody knows what exact schwarzfield radius Cyberpunk is going to assume once it goes off.

It may even gobble things backwards in time.

 

[SpaceWizardz]

GoG lists it as 31 March, which I would consider a hell of a lot closer to Cyberpunk's release than a generic Q1 release.

They're doing it on purpose.
A buggy launch right next to one of the biggest titles of that year is just another one of those expectations Mitsoda was talking about.

 

[HansDampf]

There is going to be a mod for this.

 

[Wesp5]

The trailer made me realize how fucking great Source engine is for facial animation. Holy shit. How come not a single one could get above that level?

Valve created the best facial animation tool ever because facial animations were really important for the kinds of cinematic shooters they wanted to make. Everyone else just uses FaceFX middleware, which gets the job done, but a ton of not-worth-it-usually additional effort has to be made to get them on par (e.g. the difference between Deus Ex Human Revolution's usual dialogues and the extra special dialogue battles).

I believe Troika actually improved the already good system that Valve had for HL2, because as the latter would mainly be used in scripted scenes, Troika made theirs available using simple commands during dialogues or scripted scenes or cutscenes to reflect these dispositions and more: Neutral [1] Anger [1,2,3] Joy [1,2,3] Sad [1,2,3] Fear [1,2] Disgust [1] Apathy [1] Flirtatious [1] Confused [1] The command inside a dialogue file would look like this: npc.SetDisposition("Flirt",1)