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

[Infinitron]

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/vampire-the-masquerade-bloodlines-2-brings-the-cul/1100-6465762/

According to the developers, Bloodlines 2 will shed light on the various vampire cultures and their power structures. Just like in the original game, the sequel also leans heavy on socializing. You're often pushed into high-pressure situations with humans and vampires alike, where you'll need to make a choice that could compromise relationships. Siding with one faction can put you at odds with another. However, you're totally free to break away from a side at anytime. These social situations can also highlight the mundanity of living life as a Vampire.

Is this supposed to be bad? Needs more context.

You join a faction, then kill a member of the faction --> they kick you out. You can do that at any time. Seems normal, no?

 

[Arulan]

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/vampire-the-masquerade-bloodlines-2-brings-the-cul/1100-6465762/

According to the developers, Bloodlines 2 will shed light on the various vampire cultures and their power structures. Just like in the original game, the sequel also leans heavy on socializing. You're often pushed into high-pressure situations with humans and vampires alike, where you'll need to make a choice that could compromise relationships. Siding with one faction can put you at odds with another. However, you're totally free to break away from a side at anytime. These social situations can also highlight the mundanity of living life as a Vampire.

Is this supposed to be bad? Needs more context.

You join a faction, then kill a member of the faction --> they kick you out. You can do that at any time. Seems normal, no?

No, not really. Just thought I'd share it because we were discussing whether you'd be able to tell factions to fuck off earlier. Bloodlines let you play along with various factions, and you could ultimately turn them down as well. If the situation is similar, that's probably fine.

 

[Zakhad]

What's the worst that can happen?

 

[Space Satan]

What's the worst that can happen?

Batle royale? Online? Microtransactions? you name it

 

[Black]

Oh hey.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie_Studios
"Zombie Studios shut down in January 2015 with its owners' retirement. Former staffers of the company subsequently founded a new studio, Builder Box Games (now Hardsuit Labs)"

Zombie Studios, huh?
https://www.metacritic.com/company/zombie-studios

Now that's incline!

 

[hexer]

What's the worst that can happen?

Batle royale? Online? Microtransactions? you name it

Meh, not gonna stress over it.
Even if it tanks, my backlog is so big right now I probably have something new to play for the next 5 years.

 

[Cael]

What's the worst that can happen?

Damn you Zakhad! Damn you!!!!

 

[Terpsichore]

The previous years, this one, and those to come, they're the instrument responsible for our soul's dissolution.

 

[Fedora Master]

The previous years, this one, and those to come, they're the instrument responsible for our soul's dissolution.

 

[Ismaul]

The emerging choice of the past few days

Why not NONE?

 

[True Ukrainian]

The previous years, this one, and those to come, they're the instrument responsible for our soul's dissolution.

Don't be silly. SJWs don't have souls. And we have all become SJWs a long time ago.

 

[Bladderfish]

Ahhhhh

It's always nice after treading in the mainstream pools of cronyistic jism to return to the Codex and bathe in the cynical pools of shit.

 

[Ismaul]

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/vampire-the-masquerade-bloodlines-2-brings-the-cul/1100-6465762/

According to the developers, Bloodlines 2 will shed light on the various vampire cultures and their power structures. Just like in the original game, the sequel also leans heavy on socializing. You're often pushed into high-pressure situations with humans and vampires alike, where you'll need to make a choice that could compromise relationships. Siding with one faction can put you at odds with another. However, you're totally free to break away from a side at anytime. These social situations can also highlight the mundanity of living life as a Vampire.

Is this supposed to be bad? Needs more context.

You join a faction, then kill a member of the faction --> they kick you out. You can do that at any time. Seems normal, no?

Well it depends on how it works. It could mean there are no consequences for chosing to ally with a faction, as you can revert it anytime. Ally with Camarilla for a Camarilla-exclusive advantage, break away, ally with Anarchs for another, break away, go back to Camarilla, etc.

Basically flip-flopping as a game mechanic.

A good C&C game might allow you to join a faction you've previously betrayed, but it wouldn't be "anytime". They'd need a reason to trust you again, maybe leverage to make sure you comply; you'd need leverage to show it's worth it for them to risk a new alliance with a traitor, you might need to pay reparations for the damage you did, and prove yourself worthy of their trust again. And this might work one time. But if you betray them a second time? Fuck no.

 

[Durandal]

I need to know for genderfluid roleplaying purposes; is changing your gender on the fly only possible through Tsimicze fleshshaping?

Verstuurd vanaf mijn GT-I9301I met Tapatalk

 

[Cael]

I need to know for genderfluid roleplaying purposes; is changing your gender on the fly only possible through Tsimicze fleshshaping?

Verstuurd vanaf mijn GT-I9301I met Tapatalk

Female to male, probably. Male to female? Just get the nearest Brujah or Gangrel to rip your dick off.

 

[Jvegi]

My computer won't be able to handle it.
I'd love to handle those tatas though. Even Dracula would drink wine from those.

 

[vota DC]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/va...gs-paradox-hardsuit-labs.106909/post-19102322

• Brian Mitsoda is lead writer (just like the original) alongside Avellone and Cara Ellison (who in particular wrote most of the side quests)
• Set in Seattle
• Seamless hub world
• Takes place 15 years after Bloodlines
• Game starts off with a Mass Embrace at Pioneer Square where player is among the new vampires born from the event, brought upon a court of prominent vampires like the first game to recount the events of the mass embrace before being sentenced to death, court is firebombed and you escape, thrust into Seattle to find out who's responsible
• Player is a thinblood at first, later on you can choose a clan
• No quest markers
• First-person with contextual third-person actions just like Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Mankind Divided.
• Fan-favourite characters from Bloodlines returning
• You can use telekenesis, turn into mist to go through vents and glide
• You can scale buildings, there's an emphasis on verticality
• Way more dialogue than Bloodlines
• Huge emphasis on character creation. You can choose your background, gender pronoun, employment history, body type and fashion
  

  “We’re interested in providing a very robust roleplaying experience for the player with something were they can really identify with their character by fine tuning and providing lots of options for them to do that,” says Rachel Leiker, UX/UI designer at Hardsuit Labs.

• Loads of secrets and hidden pathways to find
• Seattle as a hub world is described as "very active", crowds gather outside clubs and muggers prey on victims in side allies, all seamlessly done.
• Main side-questline involves hunting down and finding all the other thinblood created from the Mass Embrace, each will have their own story about entering into their new life e.g you might find a married thinblood struggling to deal with their newfound powers
• Blood resonance from VtM 5th edition will appear in this game. Using your enhanced vampire senses, you can see when NPCs are experiencing an intense emotion like fear, desire, pain, joy and anger. Humans give off a bright aura. Drinking a person with a strong resonance will give you an immediate bonus to things like melee power or seduction. If you drink a particular resonance constantly, you will acquire a taste for it and this will give you permanent buffs called "merits".
  

  “You might determine as a player that you want to focus on this resonance, or these two. That’s going to drive your hunting experience in the hub, and what types of people you’re looking for,” he said. “It’s important for us to make sure that the player can express themselves in a way that is consistent with who they are as a player, both in gameplay and in customisation.”

• If you continuously suck on people's blood in full view of the public, they'll be less wary of going to those areas and you'll see less citizens wandering the streets (!!)
• Game has modding support
• Emphasis on fluid combat, using vampiric speed to slide in and out of melee range and slash people and execute them with melee weapons. You can get special cinematic finishers in combat when you execute people a la Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Counters are in. Guns exist and are treated as temporary opportunities, you pick em up, use it, then discard it and move on.

No news on who's doing the soundtrack so far :[

Dunno where the no-quest-markers part is from (the stream?), but it sure proves a lot of the people here's expectations about it wrong.

You will be far weaker than Bloodlines 1: you are thinblood this time, in first game your blood is powerful, only weakness is that you are a neonate.
Also why should I hunt other thinblood?

 

[Max Heap]

I'm not worried about politics.
Politics have been a part of games all the time.

I'm worried about a shift in writing from observation to representation.

The thing about politically or ideologically charged games during the 80s/90s/early 2000s was, that most of them were observative, while today most seem to be representative.
The problem with the latter is, that you are introducing an element into your narrative, that has to be depicted in a certain way to work out. More to the point, for a large portion of the crowd that wants to be represented, only positive reinforcement is actually representation, while negative (or even realistic) depiction is repression. Observative writing on the other hand is not committed to shedding a certain light on a matter. It's just incorporating topics with all their aspects as complete as possible.

That is the big issue with representation and most of political writing these days.
You can show, but you can't tell.

Or in codex terms: You can make Ultima 4, but you can't follow it up with Ultima 5, because realistically twisting that great idea you introduced at one point is an immediate offense to those that propagate it.


But will they fuck it up in VtMB2?

Spoiler

Probably

 

[Saerain]

Also why should I hunt other thinblood?

To prove you're not quite as much an embarrassing waste of vitae as they are, I'd hope.

 

[Kem0sabe]

At least it wont be a male power fantasy this time around, that was my biggest issue with the first game...

 

[Haba]

A new Vampire game should not be made.

Why? Because Vampires are evil. Yet we live on an age where entertainment cannot deal with real evil in any shape or form. So any attempt at a modern Vampire adaptation will result in whitewashing bloodsucking monsters who view humanity as cattle into something... less problematic. And once you start on that road, you've ruined Vampire for good. It just does not work.

I can only imagine the horrors this one unleash.

 

[Prime Junta]

I'm all for broader representation in games and other media. Lantern-jawed white space marine types are boring anyway.

But I object extremely strongly to this idea that fiction should not include oppression, marginalisation, racism, or any of that shit at all, or the idea that you have to be a part of a (sub)culture to portray it. That just leads to anodyne inoffensive and utterly uninteresting pap. Fuck that. Make VtM:B2 a blood-drenched trans-feminist revenge fantasy and I might take notice. A vampire game needs teeth and blood and by the looks of it this will have neither.

 

[Latelistener]

Cara Ellison (who in particular wrote most of the side quests)
Way more dialogue than Bloodlines
gender pronoun
Fan-favourite characters from Bloodlines returning

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Mark Richard]

I'm not worried about politics.
Politics have been a part of games all the time.

I'm worried about a shift in writing from observation to representation.

The thing about politically or ideologically charged games during the 80s/90s/early 2000s was, that most of them were observative, while today most seem to be representative.
The problem with the latter is, that you are introducing an element into your narrative, that has to be depicted in a certain way to work out. More to the point, for a large portion of the crowd that wants to be represented, only positive reinforcement is actually representation, while negative (or even realistic) depiction is repression. Observative writing on the other hand is not committed to shedding a certain light on a matter. It's just incorporating topics with all their aspects as complete as possible.

That is the big issue with representation and most of political writing these days.
You can show, but you can't tell.

Or in codex terms: You can make Ultima 4, but you can't follow it up with Ultima 5, because realistically twisting that great idea you introduced at one point is an immediate offense to those that propagate it.


But will they fuck it up in VtMB2?

Spoiler

Probably

Well said. It's like putting a use-by date on the game. There's no way classic RPGs would've endured as long as they have with that style of writing - they'd have become cringy and dated.