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

[Ismaul]

Hello Mitsoda

One does not break the Masquerade so easily.

please write us a good transgender gay romance.

I hear the studio isn't taking suggestions at this time, but rest assured they've made sure members of your community are well represented in the game. Enjoy

 

[hello friend]

tbh he looks like a bloodlines character. his wife too

 

[Ninjerk]

Maybe he has arthritis

 

[Storyfag]

What are the gloves for? Is he cold?

Because he is a fucking retard. He thinks its fashion! Anyone from Zara would laugh their asses off at his looks.

Why in the Nine Hells would you ever think Zara of all places has anything to do with fashion? It's like saying McDonald's is the go-to place for gourment meals.

 

[Lacrymas]

He means that even Zara people would make fun of him. But I'd say even alternative people would make fun of him because Zara is too mainstream for what he's going for.

 

[Ibn Sina]

What are the gloves for? Is he cold?

Because he is a fucking retard. He thinks its fashion! Anyone from Zara would laugh their asses off at his looks.

Why in the Nine Hells would you ever think Zara of all places has anything to do with fashion? It's like saying McDonald's is the go-to place for gourment meals.

Because expecting him to go to an actual luxury brand store is expecting too much.

 

[Tommy Wiseau]

How Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 Updates Its Treatment Of Sex Workers

TheGamer managed to sit down with Cara Ellison, Narrative Designer on Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2, at PDXCON 2019 to talk about the game. When we asked how the portrayal of sex workers might have evolved since the first game, she was happy to discuss.

Before we got into that, though, we needed to discuss one new aspect of the game, Resonance.

Nearly every human in the game can be fed on by the vampire main character, but they don't just provide nourishment in the form of blood. Human NPCs also have Resonances, representing dominating emotions or states of mind, which can be picked up on by heightened vampiric senses.

Explains Ellison, "So we have Delirium if you take a drug, or Desire - people standing outside a club might have Desire. You've got Rage, for obvious reasons. We've got Pain, for example."

The Resonance of a human the player feeds on will have a mechanical effect, but it also makes for a useful way to convey emotion at a distance.

"We didn't want to get rid of the sex workers, because we thought that would be disrespectful. What we do this time around is we let you see the state... people are in. One of the most interesting decisions we made is to have Johns have a 'Desirous' Resonance… and the sex workers are just bored, you know?"

In the original game, sex workers were basically blood bags you could pay for. The main character could hire one (for an unrealistically low charge), take them into a darkened alleyway, and suck their blood to replenish themselves. The game actually made it clear that the blood of these people is of a lower quality, and even so far beneath some upper-class vampires that they'd vomit after drinking it.

One questline in particular involved a cult of vampires that were deliberately spreading a deadly sexually transmitted illness by hiring sex workers to infect them, and by extension, all of their clients. Though it gave an insightful and positive depiction of a sex worker's personal and dating life that is rare to find in media, it also showed a sex worker dying because of her work. In light of the real dangers of STIs and the vulnerability of sex workers, this questline was in poor taste.

It seems there's nowhere to go but up with Bloodlines 2's sex workers, however, and this time around, at least some of them will play a much more important and respectfully depicted role in the story.

"I also have fully developed characters who are sex workers and actually a main character. Basically, I think the answer is to just have the player be able to actually actually talk to the character... about whatever it is they're concerned with, and make them a part of the narrative instead of just exclude them.

So the way that we are approaching it is hopefully more thoughtful and less like they’re a resource. Because they're just like anyone else: they are, you know, a person on the street and they are usually just as susceptible to all the labor issues as anyone else, susceptible to the cold, susceptible to health care issues, just like any other human.

We just have to treat them respectfully."

https://www.thegamer.com/vampire-masquerade-bloodlines-2-sex-workers-change/

fuq dis, dat quest was awesome

 

[fantadomat]

Hello Mitsoda

One does not break the Masquerade so easily.

please write us a good transgender gay romance.

I hear the studio isn't taking suggestions at this time, but rest assured they've made sure members of your community are well represented in the game. Enjoy

Press X for doubt. Only disco communism managed to represent me well!

 

[Latro]

Maybe he has arthritis

Roguey had mentioned that it's due to a social anxiety if I'm not mistaken.

 

[Roguey]

Roguey had mentioned that it's due to a social anxiety if I'm not mistaken.

Someone may have said that, but it wasn't me. I wouldn't know.

 

[Ismaul]

Press X for doubt.

I pressed X but it was for disagree. Where's this special X you speak of?

 

[Feargus Jewhart]

So the way that we are approaching it is hopefully more thoughtful and less like they’re a resource. Because they're just like anyone else: they are, you know, a person on the street and they are usually just as susceptible to all the labor issues as anyone else, susceptible to the cold, susceptible to health care issues, just like any other human

Are they saying sex workers on the street aren't commonly exploited and that they're not extremely vulnerable to risks that only apply to them? I sure as hell have never feared getting raped or killed by a client at the office. I do get cold in the office, much like sex workers on the street so I'll give them that one as facing a same labor issue.

...it also showed a sex worker dying because of her work. In light of the real dangers of STIs and the vulnerability of sex workers, this questline was in poor taste.

I don't see how portraying sex workers that work the street as vulnerable women who are physically and mentally drained to the point where it affects their constitution is bad. They face incredible amounts of violence and health risks. The FBI has a whole fucking initiative about that stuff, because of what a huge issue it is. (One of the more known being Highway Serial Killings Initiative)

One of the most interesting decisions we made is to have Johns have a 'Desirous' Resonance… and the sex workers are just bored, you know?"

Street walkers are the lowest in the caste of sex workers, like sure maybe escorts or strippers at better joints can be bored and earn money on the side. I have never heard about anyone being a street walking prostitute due to being bored.

Did our #1 Hot Topic Guest List Writer Mitsoda confuse street walkers and camgirls? Maybe he should give Randy a call about it, I'm sure Randy could explain him all about camgirls and street walkers.

 

[Wesp5]

Street walkers are the lowest in the caste of sex workers, like sure maybe escorts or strippers at better joints can be bored and earn money on the side. I have never heard about anyone being a street walking prostitute due to being bored.

I think they mean the sex worker is bored during the act because it does not mean anything to her. Like Jeanette in the original Bloodlines if you sleep with her: just after finishing she says that she is bored !

 

[True Ukrainian]

The writing seems to be getting from bad to worse.

 

[AdamReith]

The boring resonance is intensifying.

 

[Hot Coldman]

The potential for a huge blunder is so high. If it happens, there will be a surge of fresh installs of VTM:B1 on its
platforms.. ,-p

 

[Sentinel]

Even after all the polish, it's going to look like junk after Cyberpunk, just as AP looked like junk after ME2 and no amount of additional polish was going to make up for that.

CP2077 isn't looking very impressive.

 

[Roguey]

I think they mean the sex worker is bored during the act because it does not mean anything to her. Like Jeanette in the original Bloodlines if you sleep with her: just after finishing she says that she is bored !

My interpretation is that it was just her ADD acting up.

 

[udm]

Yeah, never could see the point of this kind of reasoning from ideologues who also happen to be game writers. Only write sunshine and rainbows about any class they feel is marginalized/oppressed.

Hannah (the prostitute from the pestilence questline) dying was IMO one of the most emotionally impacting character deaths in a game (which is how you know it's good characterization). It was harsh and sad but that was par for the course given type of quest it was, part of Bloodlines charm was not shying away from depicting some of the worst of society's underbelly (sprinkled with fantasy elements of the settings obviously).

Generally speaking, Bloodlines has some of the most stellar writing and characterization for female NPCs you're ever gonna see in the gaming industry. i sincerely doubt the sequel is gonna measure up in that regard, instead we'll get boring woke cliches, meh.

Unfortunately, this. If this Ellison creature fails to see the pestilence quest for what it is, she has no business in writing... pretty much anything.

I knew she'd fuck up anything she touched. Practically called it.

 

[Nano]

CP2077 isn't looking very impressive.

They really should've developed the game for next-gen. The preview videos we've seen make it obvious how much the XOne/PS4 tech is holding it back.

 

[Zombra]

I knew she'd fuck up anything she touched. Practically called it.

Honestly, I'm impressed that they're keeping hookers in the game at all. I'm okay with giving them more depth (ahem) than we saw in the original ... though I wonder from that description whether there will be any sense of fun left or if it'll turn into nothing but a huge downer. Time will tell.

 

[Jedi Exile]

Just thought it would be the perfect day to release a game like this. Not this year sadly, but next year on Halloween it will sell well.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.pcgamer.com/vampire-the...tor-talks-high-expectations-demos-and-delays/

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 narrative director talks high expectations, demos and delays
'We knew expectations were going to be super high, so we have to hit that bar.'

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 received a very enthusiastic reception when it was announced earlier this year, but that enthusiasm was also accompanied by 15 years of expectations and rose-tinted memories. It's one of the reasons Paradox Interactive and Hardsuit Labs decided to delay the launch. The team wants to match those memories, says narrative director Brian Mitsoda, rather than the reality.

"From the beginning, I knew people's expectations were going to be high," Mitsoda tells me. As one of the original designers of Bloodlines, he knows what state the game was in at launch, but a lot of players have brushed those memories aside in favour of all the things it did very well.

"Everything was amazing and perfect, and characters looked so lifelike," he says. "It's happens with anything where people have this game they've played years and years and years ago, and it's so perfect in their minds. We knew expectations were going to be super high, so we have to hit that bar. Even if it's not truly the case—if you go back to the old game there are lots of flaws, and there's a lot of stuff that would not fly today."

The extra development time gives Hardsuit Labs the chance to polish up the animations and quests, hopefully getting it up to a quality that's higher than its buggy, rough progenitor. Initially, the plan was to release Bloodlines 2 in early 2020, but as the game started to come together, it became clear that hitting that deadline would require some compromises in quality.

"Generally when you're working on a game, and all those pieces start to come together, it's then when you realise that there might be aspects that you want to spend more time on, or that you could complete the game but it might be at the expense of some polish, or you might have to make some deep cuts. With the kind of reaction we got to the announcement of it, we wanted to spend more time polishing the game and really just delivering the best experience that we can."

The demos we've seen so far have been a good showcase of Bloodlines 2's writing and introduced us to some colourful characters in Seattle's undead underground, but there's still something a bit awkward about the animation, especially in combat, where you flail at enemies while they just stand there and take a beating. Most of these fights pit a supernatural killing machine against puny humans, so they're not meant to be challenging, but they could probably try a bit harder to survive.

"Everything goes in stages, and especially with combat animation it's a process," Mitsoda explains. "We control a large percentage of the animations for dialogue through a disposition system where we assign an emotion to that character, and then we use stock animation and footage that makes them seem like they're sad, for example. When you're dealing with a character face to face and you're staring at them for long periods of time, you start to run into things where you immediately notice when something's off with the characters, especially in this game, where they look more realistic than they did in the previous one."

The team also hasn't decided how much it will let you see your character. It's first-person only, but you can see your vampire boogieing away in the nightclub, feeding on humans and making supernatural leaps—stuff that's "too cool not to show," says Mitsoda. But some of that might be scaled by, or the duration of the scenes shortened. They really need to look good enough so that you don't mind seeing them over and over again. Hardsuit Labs picked first-person because it thinks it lends the game a more immersive quality, which is the same conclusion fellow RPG developer CD Projekt Red came to in Cyberpunk 2077—it will be almost exclusively first-person aside from when you're driving.

While more Bloodlines 2 demos before launch aren't out of the question, Mitsoda says they're a lot of work to put together. Hardsuit Labs was going to be showing off a new hands-on demo at PDXCon, Paradox's annual convention, last month, but that was cancelled. The original GDC demo was shown off instead.

"We've made two demos and we've spent quite a lot of time on them. If we had made a playable demo specifically for for PDXCon, then we would have been taken down for maybe months to make a demo, to polish up a specific level, specific animations and all that. Getting something to final quality means doing the work to get something to final quality, and that's why final quality is typically something that comes at the end. You've got everything all together and you've had time. To take the team down to do another demo this year would have to delayed it a little more. Rather than do a demo again, we wanted to spend our time making the game."

It's hard to get a feel for a choice-laden RPG like Bloodlines 2 when a developer playing, but I suspect most prospective players would rather Hardsuit Labs had all the time they needed to get it up to snuff. Bloodlines developer Troika was under a lot of pressure from publisher Activision to release before it was ready, which resulted in a brilliant but ultimately unfinished game at launch. It had been delayed too, but the lack of resources or even key things like a producer for its first year meant it never really had enough time. Hopefully its successor will have a different fate.

Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines 2 is due out next year.

 

[The Last Blackguard]

The mention of animations is a little...odd, considering how jank Bloodlines 1's animations were.

On the other hand, Not many games have people animate in both face and body during dialogue.

 

[Nano]

The mention of animations is a little...odd, considering how jank Bloodlines 1's animations were.

Yeah, a game that has some of the most expressive facial animations ever is jank.

Your standards seem to be on a whole other level.