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

S.torch

Arbiter
Joined
Jan 4, 2019
Messages
937
The game looks fun, but the melee combat in first person looks terrible
I think it looks fine - the problem is the asshole is playing it on a controller. Proper M+K will be much better.

The problem is that combat in first person feels like a caveman smashing something with the same movements again and again, just like skyrim. theres a reason why melee combat is mostly played in third person even in the first bloodlines.
 

Infinitron

I post news
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Messages
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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2019/06/12/bloodlines-2s-vampires-are-goofy-dancers-preview/

Bloodlines 2’s vampires are scrappy fighters and goofy dancers

90


Press X to dance. It’s not the first demonstration of demonic prowess I expected to see during my brief hands-off playthrough of Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines 2. But it is one of the very first things developers Hardsuit Labs show off. Our character has just been sauntering through the streets of Seattle. Sewer grates pump steam into the air, the lights of the city glare on the wet roads. The womp-womp of a nearby nightclub lures our boy in, and he proceeds to the dance floor, where a crimson prompt appears on-screen. This is it, he must be thinking. I am an avatar of darkness, I am a child of the night, the elegance of blood magic flows through me. Press X to dance.

The vampire starts dancing, and he is bad.

It’s like your mate Chad at the techno night. But that’s probably okay. In this world (of darkness) the vital rule of vampire society is not to let humanity know you exist. So our protagonist is doing a good job. Nobody who dances this goofily could possibly be a demon of the night. But later, I’ll see a more violent side to him. As the demo goes on I’ll see bashed heads, flippy kicks, baseball battery and the gory ensplattening of an entire human body.

It’s basically a 20-minute playthrough of the short gameplay trailer you might have seen this week. I’m getting to see the in-betweeny bits, but I’m still not actually allowed to play myself. Nikhat Ali, a producer at Paradox is playing on my behalf, while Rachel Leiker, head UI wrangler, explains things as we go along. Cara Ellison, writer (and one-time journaliser for RPS) is also in the room, chipping in with vampy factoids. I’m basically only allowed to watch, and shout out suggestions during critical moments of choice, like a terrible backseat bloodsucker.



I was allowed to choose between three “Thinblood disciplines” though (basically beginner superpowers). The choices were: bats, telekinesis, or, um, “mist”. Yes, we were offered the power of furry bloodsucking rats, powerful psychic box-flinging, or the ability to harness a form of mildly inconvenient weather. Obviously, I chose the mist. Later, I would see how this was useful. It lets the character turn into a cloud of grey vapour and get into buildings by floating through vents or air conditioning units. But it also seemed to give him the power to choke enemies from a distance with a forceful puff of smog.

I won’t go through the whole demo but basically the mission for our dance-happy vamptagonist was to find a fellow bloodlover called Slugg, who is almost certainly a scumbag with a name like that. He has some information we need on a data drive of some sort. But to find him we’ve got to go see a Nosferatu vampire. A sewer-dwelling information broker.

When you create your character, we’re told, there are a bunch of vampire types you can choose from. Paradox have been drip-feeding how each of these monsterpeeps works over the past few weeks. Their special powers, their whole schtick. For example, there are the scheming, politically minded aristocrat dirtbags called the Ventrue, who can hypnotise and command others to do their will. Then there are the Brujah, who are lumbering strongvamps that hang out at a kind of Fight Club for people with pointy teeth, and whose combat skills include smashing the ground to cause a shockwave.




The Nosferatu (who have not been announced as a vamp-type you can choose to play as), on the other hand, are the unlucky vampires whose faces become disfigured in the process of vampification. They are, says Leiker, a “walking Masquerade violation”. So they have to lurk in sewers and dark places, but somehow still manage to get dirt on everyone, becoming the literal underground informants of Seattle.

“You’ll be interested to know there are a lot of academics and journalists in the Nosferatu,” says Ellison, her voice hanging on the word “journalists” pointedly. “Just so you know.”

But the Nosferatu we meet seems friendly enough. He’s a smiling geezer called Samuel who wears a suit jacket over a t-shirt, casually dressed for life in the grime of the undercity. But also because it was the 1980s when he was “embraced” (vamplingo for “turned into a vampire”), and his fashion sense got stuck at that exact decade, says Ellison. Never mind, he tells us where to find Slugg and off we go on a hunt that sees us using vampire vision and eventually getting into a few fights.

The big brawl of the demo saw our toothy hero punching thugs in the head, picking up a baseball bat and swinging wildly. He also nabbed an assault rifle at one point, and fired off a few shots before throwing the gun away like an empty coke can. He did legsweeps, misty blasts, and a few sultry neck nibbles. Later we also saw him summon a magical blood hex on the pavement below a poor bystander, who promptly exploded in a shower of gore – just one of the powers of a blood mage vampire class.

As action-packed as it was, there was sometimes something a little floaty about the melee combat, at least from a viewer’s perspective. This has often been a curse for studios, because first-person face-smashing is difficult to get right. It reminded me of the panicked streetfights you sometimes get into in the Dishonored games, but I’ll have to reserve judgement, since it was hard to get a sense of our vamp’s misty magic powers or skull-crunching hammerfists without actually laying hands on the controls myself.

“One thing that we’re very focused on with the combat… is really conveying to the player that they are a vampire,” says Leiker, “and being a vampire is very different from playing a human. You’re stronger, you’re faster, you perceive more, but you also, you know, have needs that have to be met.

“We’re very interested in letting the player play as their version of a vampire.”



This is the immersive sim coming out to play. Fighting your way through things is one option, sneaking through the shadows is another. Outside of open combat, you can stand in a “blindspot” and press a button to attract people with your vampiric charm, then slurp up their neckjuice. And if players “just want to talk their way out of something,” says Leiker, “they absolutely can do that as well.”

But not for the whole game. A recent Cyberpunk interview promised that you could play it all without killing anyone (a claim obviously yet to be tested). So I asked if it was possible to play through Bloodlines 2 without violence at all. Could you talk your way out of trouble throughout the whole thing, like some kind of magic improviser of the night? Well, no. Not really. But the important thing is that you can often try, says Ellison.

“You’ll get in some scrapes,” she says. “But you can essentially try to talk your way out of everything. We try to use as many options to just talk as possible. Like, that’s the point of the game, we want the narrative to be very very strong.”

“But it is not possible to not have your hands dirty in this game,” adds Ali. “Obviously, whichever vampire you choose to be, you’ll have those possibilities [to talk] but there will be moments when you have to make the tough decision and start to fight people.”

There was a lot more detail in the demo, which ended with us tracking down our boy Slugg and finding out he’s not such a bad dude after all. Just somewhat bitter, and a little cryptic. I’d tell you all about it, but it’s E3 and I have nine billion other games to write about, so I’ll have to leave it there. If you’re all good vampgirls and vampboys maybe uncle Matthew in the video department will show off some more of the dialogue choices and neck-munching.



One last tidbit before I go though. I asked if there would be any returning characters from the original Bloodlines and received a rock hard “not telling”.

“We can’t say for certain at the moment,” said Ellison, “however we are not saying no, and that is all you are getting, Brendan.”

The Nosferatu in me smells a “yes”.

Disclosure: Cara Ellison is friends with several of us at RPS, but she laughed at my idea to put a vampire Uber driver in the game, so I’m not one of those friends anymore.
 

AwesomeButton

Proud owner of BG 3: Day of Swen's Tentacle
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PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath
Lol, I wish we could import these as Codex avatars. The game is looking pretty positive, although I haven't watched the latest videos.

BTW, I also never played the original, my PC was too weak to handle Source at the time. And I have the game on GoG.

I have the original on STEAM, Should I play it or hold off on something else?

You guys have to be fucking kidding me. Stop embarassing yourselves and go play it. Finished Bloodlines should be a prerequisite to posting on codex.
I know,I promise I will play it. Although I'm way past my vampire period.
 

ZagorTeNej

Arcane
Joined
Dec 10, 2012
Messages
1,980
Still don't really like how guns are just weapons you use and then throw away instead of a full-fleged weapon progression path. Original Bloodlines combat system certainly had it's issues but I thought that the trade-off between melee and ranged weapons was reasonably well done.
Melee weapons were cheaper and better in the 1st half whereas guns were a continuous money sink but very powerful a bit later in the game and especially against bosses.The way it's presented, combat system mostly reminds me of Condemned, beating up hobos with lead pipes.

Love the visuals though and the much needed verticality in terms of level/aread design that the original mostly lacked. The city seems much larger and realistic in terms of layout compared to the first one's hubs. They seem to have struck a nice balance between resembling the original visually while still being distinct enough on its own.

Not sure about voice acting but this is pre-alpha build so I assume most of them could be just placeholders. Brian is great as always though.
 

jf8350143

Liturgist
Joined
Apr 14, 2018
Messages
1,277
Also the game play feels like someone was playing with one hand only. The camera moves really slow for no reason.
 

Cassar

Savant
Joined
Apr 7, 2015
Messages
186
Also the game play feels like someone was playing with one hand only. The camera moves really slow for no reason.


The game is throughly and completely designed in every of its aspects for controllers. The fact that he was playing so bad and he actually progressed - playing with mouse and keyboard and being skilled will just fuck the game up. Its not designed for that. Looks amazingly bad from that footage.
 
Joined
Jan 17, 2015
Messages
781
Do vampires still get periods?

Here have some fucking knowledge (although this a Requiem merit)

Undead Menses ••
Effect: Throughout history, various cultures attributed mystical significance to the menstrual cycle. Many of these myths carried stigmas against menses, due to the unhealthy fears of men in power.

With this Merit, your character still produces menstrual blood. Once per night, she can produce a viscous, dark blood. If she uses this blood in casting a Crúac ritual, she benefits from the 8-again quality. If she touches it to a person before affecting them with a Discipline, they suffer her Blood Potency as a penalty to their Resistance.
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,228
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Sorry but the people who are saying this game looks "horrible" are full of shit.

Don't lie, you were expecting far worse. You'd never even heard of Hardsuit Labs until a few months ago. You were expecting a game that would be easy to point and laugh at, with janky animations and weird art direction like The Outer Worlds.

But none of that actually happened, so instead we're getting a bunch of weaksauce crap like "B...b...but the voice acting isn't good enough! Muh facial expressions!"

The fact is the game currently looks quite competent and given today's standards a Deus Ex: Human Revolution-style good-for-what-it-is revival of the series isn't even close to a bad outcome.

This has been your daily shilling!
 

vonAchdorf

Arcane
Joined
Sep 20, 2014
Messages
13,465
Sorry but the people who are saying this game looks "horrible" are full of shit.

Don't lie, you were expecting far worse. You'd never even heard of Hardsuit Labs until a few months ago. You were expecting a game that would be easy to point and laugh at, with janky animations and weird art direction like The Outer Worlds.

But none of that actually happened, so instead we're getting a bunch of weaksauce crap like "B...b...but the voice acting isn't good enough! Muh facial expressions!"

The fact is the game currently looks quite competent and given today's standards a Deus Ex: Human Revolution-style good-for-what-it-is revival of the series isn't even close to a bad outcome.

This has been your daily shilling!

I think it looks good, maybe even too "smooth" (generic good and not very distinct).

But I like The Outer Worlds' look too :D
 
Last edited:

Merlkir

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Oct 12, 2008
Messages
1,216
Sorry but the people who are saying this game looks "horrible" are full of shit.

Don't lie, you were expecting far worse. You'd never even heard of Hardsuit Labs until a few months ago. You were expecting a game that would be easy to point and laugh at, with janky animations and weird art direction like The Outer Worlds.

But none of that actually happened, so instead we're getting a bunch of weaksauce crap like "B...b...but the voice acting isn't good enough! Muh facial expressions!"

The fact is the game currently looks quite competent and given today's standards a Deus Ex: Human Revolution-style good-for-what-it-is revival of the series isn't even close to a bad outcome.

This has been your daily shilling!

No?
I hoped the game would look great. It doesn't.
It's bland and undercooked, this shouldn't have been shown imo.
The only interesting aspect is the verticality, otherwise it's just an attempt to imitate Bloodlines played way too safe.
I was even expecting them to drop the edginess and the over-the-top character design, but I was hoping they'd replace it with something new.
They..didn't? The vampires just look like mildly eccentric people, the voice acting is mostly boring and sounds like a placeholder. The animations, which everyone knows and says need to be great, are not great. They're kind of ok mostly, bad in a few places.
The writing is functional, hooray, but as many pointed out it's boring as shit compared to Bloodlines.
I wanted to say it looks like a fan game, but it doesn't - fans who actually made a Bloodlines fangame focused on the weirdly stylized design and animations etc.

It looks meh. Which as a successor to Bloodlines is possibly worse than looking outright horrible.
This game needed to be "juicy" in some way, either replicating the same juice Bloodlines had for pure nostalgia, or figuring out some new kind of "juice".
So far they haven't shown that.
 

Child of Malkav

Erudite
Joined
Feb 11, 2018
Messages
2,452
Location
Romania
Are people genuinely excited for this garbage? Hit detection does not exist, AI is braindead, the only good thing about this is how most places look nice.
Why don't you hate Vtmb 1 for these exact reasons? What , did that game have fantastic combat or something? And "garbage"? Passing verdict on this game based on 1 aspect of it and also the shittiest of them all, the combat?

Now to those in this thread. Just came here to read up on some news after a few days and I see people bitching about facial expressions, voice acting and combat, a few pages at least. What about skills, dialogue and dialogue options, reactivity, arsenal, immersive sim elements, stealth, level design hell anything else. This is supposed to be an RPG. I'm shocked you didn't complain about graphics.
 

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