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

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Speaking of mailboxes, I hope our PC in BL2 gets a smartphone or a small bag so they can carry that laptop with them. It's honestly probably the biggest chore in BL1 to go check the computer for additional quests (definitely heightened too after how convenient Kiryu's smartphone is), especially since it's literally the only thing you end up doing in the haven maps after the first comb-through for phat lewt.
You mean you didn't go back to listen to every new Deb show? What the hell is wrong with you
 

Vaarna_Aarne

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MCA Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2
I'm thinking more in terms of purely practical things related to quests and such.

Speaking of the sidecorn tho, getting some sort of implication that there's new Deb of Night or TV news to be enjoyed would be nice too (well, assuming both are in).
 
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Vaarna_Aarne

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I was talking more in regards to if it was exactly like BL1, since if you don't check the exact trigger you just have to guess when they might have new News or Deb.
 

Zombra

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Speaking of the sidecorn tho, getting some sort of implication that there's new Deb of Night or TV news to be enjoyed would be nice too (well, assuming both are in).
There are definitely news audible in the apartment in the gameplay footage.
Now Deb of Night, that would immediately add a whole point to the game's score. Provided they don't fuck up the writing
Yeah, Mitsoda does some news channel voiceover stuff, which is cool as far as it goes. Sadly it appears that Deb's voice actress was not tapped to reprise her role even though she's available. DECLINE
 

Wesp5

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Yeah, Mitsoda does some news channel voiceover stuff, which is cool as far as it goes.

Indeed. And you probably have a smartphone because the demo starts with you getting a message from someone called Penny...
 

Roguey

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I was talking more in regards to if it was exactly like BL1, since if you don't check the exact trigger you just have to guess when they might have new News or Deb.

Ah right, misread your post. I agree, it felt pretty random at times, you do a quest and it's the next night all of a sudden. Would indeed be nice to have a clearer indication

? Just check whenever you've unlocked a new area.
 
The Real Fanboy
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https://kotaku.com/wit-and-charm-are-powerful-weapons-in-vampire-the-masq-1835701842

E3 2019
Wit And Charm Are Powerful Weapons In Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines 2
Gita Jackson

While I was playing Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines 2’s demo at E3 last week, I was feeling pretty smug about bluffing my way through a problem. Then, the developer holding the controller hit the wrong button, and a fight broke out regardless.

Bloodlines 2 looks like it has a wonderful breadth of experiences to offer the player, and it has a lot of vampire murder power options on top of that. The game isn’t just about picking what kind of powers you want to use, although that is a cool part of it; I picked the power set that allowed my vamp to turn into mist. Bloodlines 2 is also about deciding the kind of vampire you want to be, personality-wise. Are you a brute, using your powers to get your way, or are you more seductive? Is your word your bond, or are you willing to screw people over to get what you want? In the mission that the Hardsuit Labs developers showed me at E3, I could run the gamut from being like NoHo Hank in the HBO dramedy Barry—in other words, a total softie—to becoming the ultimate dirtbag.


In the E3 demo mission, one of the factions of vampires in the game needed me to get some data from another vampire called Slugg who was in hiding. The faction gave me ten thousand dollars to exchange for it, though it was also really clear that I could just murder him if bribery didn’t work. Slugg is a Nosferatu, which is a vampire who has been scarred by their transformation into a creature of the night, and he was also on everyone’s shitlist for generally being a shady guy. When I met up with Samuel, the contact who could find Slugg and an amusing character who had been turned during the ’80s tech boom, Samuel asked me to let Slugg live and come into the Nosferatu fold for protection. Samuel even said that I could still take the data and deliver it to the faction leader, as long as I didn’t kill Slugg.


I chose to side with Samuel, because, why not? I was still figuring out what kind of vampire I was.

It turned out, up until my vamp accidentally ended up in a shoot-out, I was a vampire who was very respectful of the masquerade, but generally disdainful of hierarchies. Using my misty powers, I was able to traverse buildings and choke out unsuspecting humans. This allowed me to keep to the masquerade, which is the lingo this game uses to refer to the secrecy vampires have about their existence and powers.

There are clearly delineated areas in the game where the masquerade is in play, meaning that vampire authorities will get pretty upset if you flaunt your powers there. Other areas are blindspots, which are areas where you won’t break the masquerade by using your powers. These are nice spots to grab a snack or try out Thaumaturgy, which is blood magic that makes people vomit blood ’til they pass out. You can also explode them. It’s very fun.

All that sneaking around brought me to Slugg, who ran into the sewers as soon as I spotted him in an underpass. I followed him, getting into a few scrapes with humans I very easily overpowered along the way. My vamp tracked him to what was very clearly a drug dealer’s house. There was a line of people outside who all had strong traces of delirium in their blood, which I could see, thanks to the emotional resonance system.

“We actually have a few ways to incentivize feeding, besides just the blood,” Rachel Leiker, the lead UI/UX designer on Bloodlines 2 said. “You of course have blood, which fuels your vampire powers, but we also have a secondary resource called resonance, that’s sort of the emotional flavor of the blood.”


“The difference resonance types are delirium, desire, fear, pain and rage,” she continued. The more you feed on people with a certain type of resonance, the more of that emotion your vamp will feel, which in turn benefits certain actions you can take. Leiker was vague about these details, saying she couldn’t share too much just yet. “It incentivizes frequent feeding, so even if you have full blood, you can still hunt for a resonance type. It also makes it a little bit more meaningful and strategic as to how you’re feeding.”

If you want to be a friendlier vampire, you can also feed on animals like rats, which Leiker called a “little Capri Sun of blood.”

It was at this dealer’s house that my vamp accidentally stole a whole lot of drugs. Clearly, that upset the dealer and his cohorts, and the guns came out, and we had to kill them all. That wasn’t my intention. I had already more or less established myself as more of a talker than a fighter, and I was proud of having navigated this conversation with an angry drug dealer without it rising to violence. I had even been able to convince him I was there to see his boss with an offer on pharmaceuticals. They were going to let me through.

Alas, it was not to be, but it was cool to learn that there was basically no way to render the mission unwinnable. Combat is usually an option, but it’s sometimes at odds with the goals of vampire-kind. If you do opt for combat, you can use human weapons, but they’re not necessarily something you can rely on. The most effective combat choices are going to involve using your vampiric powers, but that has the potential of breaking the masquerade. The other vampires in Seattle might not take too kindly to that, as it puts the entire vampire community at risk.

“Their main aim is to drink blood and continue to drink blood for the rest of eternity,” said Cara Ellison. She’s a writer on the game, as well as a former Kotaku contributor and a friend of mine. “They really want that low risk, high reward, traverse the city and continue to drink blood until the end of their life. So, a lot of the time, the options are there to strong-arm your way through conversations. It really tries to give you the most amount of options possible.”


I saw that when we finally caught up with Slugg. He was on the defensive, which was understandable, as we had been chasing him. At first, he was reluctant to join up with the Nosferatu, but we eventually persuaded him to go. It was at this point that I realized that we had forgotten to get the data from him and would be going back to the faction leader empty-handed, most likely locking my character out of friendly interactions with that faction. Still, we had done a favor for the Nosferatu, and that might come in handy for my vamp later.

“There are multiple ways to finish the quest as well,” Leiker said. “You can go directly into combat. You can negotiate, you can give him the money and he exchanges the data. You can also threaten him, and he exchanges the data. You can keep the money. There’s also another option where you can be like, ‘Oh, they gave me five thousand to give to you,’ and you can pocket the other five thousand.”

Roleplaying the way I had done ended up putting my vamp into a very specific social situation that would affect the choices they could make later in the game. The Nosferatu would appreciate the favor I had done them, but that other faction would now dislike me. The way that Bloodlines 2 asks the player to roleplay makes them really examine the social cost of sticking to their guns when it comes to their personal ethics. I personally didn’t want to murder poor old Slugg, and I didn’t even really care about the data that faction wanted. But pursuing the mission the way that I thought was best had social ramifications for my character.

“We’re just really excited to see how people play,” Leiker said. “There’s so much the player can do, so many options for the player to customize their specific character for their specific playthrough.”

I don’t know what the end result will be of my throwing Slugg a bone, but when Bloodlines 2 comes out in 2020, I’ll get to really figure out what kind of vampire I’ll be, when push comes to shove.

Totally awesome!
 

Reinhardt

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What songs would you guys propose?


During your live,have you even stepped in to a club??? You do know that it is place for fast and lively music,so young people could dance their alcohol away and buy even more alcohol,right? Nobody is going to a club to listen to some melodramatic nigger garbage that teen girls listen while dreaming about sparkly vampires ripping apart their assholes.

Actually when i was young we had lots of slow music for girls to dance while boys fight outside or for boys and girls grab each other. Ain't clicking dat video anyway.
 

Wesp5

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Yeah, Mitsoda does some news channel voiceover stuff, which is cool as far as it goes.

Indeed. And you probably have a smartphone because the demo starts with you getting a message from someone called Penny...
Smartphone can be tracked, and tracked vampire is dead vampire.

Well, what else would this be? The computer sending you an update the moment you step out of your sleeping room? Google/Siri/Cortana/Alexa calling? Which of course would even more be a problem.
 
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Reinhardt

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Yeah, Mitsoda does some news channel voiceover stuff, which is cool as far as it goes.

Indeed. And you probably have a smartphone because the demo starts with you getting a message from someone called Penny...
Smartphone can be tracked, and tracked vampire is dead vampire.

Well, what else would this be? The computer sending you an update the moment you step out of your sleeping room? Googlle/Siri/Cortana/Alexa calling? Which of course would even more be a problem.
john-wick-chapter-2-the-bowery-king.jpeg
 

Sykar

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Speaking of mailboxes, I hope our PC in BL2 gets a smartphone or a small bag so they can carry that laptop with them. It's honestly probably the biggest chore in BL1 to go check the computer for additional quests (definitely heightened too after how convenient Kiryu's smartphone is), especially since it's literally the only thing you end up doing in the haven maps after the first comb-through for phat lewt.
You mean you didn't go back to listen to every new Deb show? What the hell is wrong with you

That and watching news about me blowing shit up.
 

Bad Sector

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Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Smartphone can be tracked, and tracked vampire is dead vampire.

Wouldn't that only be a problem if whoever can track you knows the phone they track belong to a vampire? Perhaps they use temporary/burner phones?
 

Raghar

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Yeah, Mitsoda does some news channel voiceover stuff, which is cool as far as it goes.

Indeed. And you probably have a smartphone because the demo starts with you getting a message from someone called Penny...
Smartphone can be tracked, and tracked vampire is dead vampire.

Well, what else would this be? The computer sending you an update the moment you step out of your sleeping room? Google/Siri/Cortana/Alexa calling? Which of course would even more be a problem.
What do you mean update the moment you step out of your... living room? Just because vampires takes day in topor to avoid using 3 blood points per 2 days, doesn't mean they are sleeping.

Now, if you meant a normal person who has a brain and could be main character of Vampire Bloodlines sequel, they typically don't have suicidal habit of using automatic notifications. Imagine situation when police would be visiting and then hear, you are supposed to rob bank in 3 days...

A PC that's connected in secure way to allow you to look at new mail, chat on internet, uses hardware that's invisible to OS for deep data introspection allows mostly secure way to keep data out of sight. When it's connected to Claymore mine and heat sensor, it allow nearly perfectly secure way. Smart phone can't do that.

Additional problem is a smart phone radiates its own ID to interact with cell phone network. As long as someone overheads its ID, he can easily track the phone even without access to network. An agency, or people who knows operator employees personally can locate the person without bothering to shadow them with receiver.
 

Zombra

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Make the Codex Great Again! RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Serpent in the Staglands Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
I don't think superleet secure smartphone data haxoring is going to be a major theme of the game, any more than hard core firearms modeling will be. Maybe there'll be a Nosferatu hacker dude like in the first Bloodlines, only this time he'll say "I have this awesome system where vampire phones can't be tracked" and we'll all go cool, fine, next mission please.
 

Raghar

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only this time he'll say "I have this awesome system where vampire phones can't be tracked" and we'll all go cool, fine, next mission please.
Typically when someone tells you this, he's lying. You'd get police visit, and while police would find number of person you talked with, they'd find his phone in trash container, thrown away 2 months ago.

Then some policemen is assigned to guard the container for 4 months and uses dogs milk to refresh himself in his lonely long uninteresting duty. Which is actually dangerous because honest policemen like I mentioned can find something, and person needs to account for it. If he thinks nobody would bother, he's in serious trouble. Luckily majority of current policemen are millennials and they don't bother.

BTW vampires have animalism, pigeon saying message from your master is completely fine. Funnily it took me 15 minutes to write decent story that had pidgeon saying "This pigeon would destroy itself in 30 seconds." Then pigeon in his real voice saying "You gotta be kidding."

Also:
The pigeon sat on your shoulder moved head to side and whispered in soft silent voice "she's after me", You seen only one his eye from your position, but from the look of his eye it was obvious the pigeon would rather tear off your artery than leave your shoulder without fight.
 
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Goral

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This is not even Night Club Music...Maybe a lounge or a semi bar with a dance floor, but a full fledged night club (Ex BCM. Pasha, Space etc) will never play this obscure shit, unless its an indie club that caters to very specific tastes. Proof that the devs have not a single clue what they are doing.

Fixed by young Polish user dracul:

 

Cael

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Yeah, Mitsoda does some news channel voiceover stuff, which is cool as far as it goes.

Indeed. And you probably have a smartphone because the demo starts with you getting a message from someone called Penny...
Smartphone can be tracked, and tracked vampire is dead vampire.

Well, what else would this be? The computer sending you an update the moment you step out of your sleeping room? Googlle/Siri/Cortana/Alexa calling? Which of course would even more be a problem.
john-wick-chapter-2-the-bowery-king.jpeg
What the hell happened to Lawrence Fishbourne???
 

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