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

Wesp5

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Found this at the Internet Cafe! :)

Wow, I never made that connection. But I remember that the "Nivbed" listed there was also a Troika employee...
 

Latelistener

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Chair-kicking moment is additional evidence that my ancient source who told me that Mitsoda was an egotistical primadonna who was difficult to work with was on the level.
I'm curious why do you think that source is legit and level headed that it's worth believing him. Studios are full of small conflicts. If that person contacted Mitsoda enough to form an opinion, there is enough room for a personal grudge.
 

Roguey

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Mitsoda managing the danger hair tumblerinas, maybe at least controlling the damage, and danger hair tumblerinas free to do anything they like, now the first option is gone

Mitsoda was 100% in favor of the dangerhair agenda, hence why he insisted Hardsuit hire Cara and their mutual presence on the Fermi Paradox. He's not the guy from 2004.

I'm curious why do you think that source is legit and level headed that it's worth believing him. Studios are full of small conflicts. If that person contacted Mitsoda enough to form an opinion, there is enough room for a personal grudge.

He's had unceremonious dissolutions with three companies now (Obsidian, Hardsuit, DoubleBear given the divorce with his wife), seems pretty credible to believe the guy's a jerk.
 
Joined
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Codex Year of the Donut
Egotistical primadonna? No, every artist can, should and often will be upset if his or her art is not respected, be it music, story, paintings, and etcetera. And if he is not, there is a problem here. Because it means that he doesn't stand for what he is doing.

If he was making art, he'd be making his own things instead of coming in as a hired gun for a licensed product. Turns out his idea of art was Dead State and Panic at Multiverse High, which was uh....
Dead State is criminally underrated though.
Very few RPGs are as nonlinear, and it probably holds some kind of record for the amount of interactivity between characters it has.
 

Eli_Havelock

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Mitsoda managing the danger hair tumblerinas, maybe at least controlling the damage, and danger hair tumblerinas free to do anything they like, now the first option is gone

Mitsoda was 100% in favor of the dangerhair agenda, hence why he insisted Hardsuit hire Cara and their mutual presence on the Fermi Paradox. He's not the guy from 2004.

I'm curious why do you think that source is legit and level headed that it's worth believing him. Studios are full of small conflicts. If that person contacted Mitsoda enough to form an opinion, there is enough room for a personal grudge.

He's had unceremonious dissolutions with three companies now (Obsidian, Hardsuit, DoubleBear given the divorce with his wife), seems pretty credible to believe the guy's a jerk.

+

Egotistical primadonna? No, every artist can, should and often will be upset if his or her art is not respected, be it music, story, paintings, and etcetera. And if he is not, there is a problem here. Because it means that he doesn't stand for what he is doing.

If he was making art, he'd be making his own things instead of coming in as a hired gun for a licensed product. Turns out his idea of art was Dead State and Panic at Multiverse High, which was uh....
Dead State is criminally underrated though.
Very few RPGs are as nonlinear, and it probably holds some kind of record for the amount of interactivity between characters it has.

=

The best part of Dead State was his then-wife's epic meltdown.
 

Latelistener

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I'm curious why do you think that source is legit and level headed that it's worth believing him.
The source is Rik Schaffer who is a really nice guy and liked to work with Mitsoda as can be seen in his other Reddit AMA comments.
I was talking about the Roguey's "ancient source".

He's had unceremonious dissolutions with three companies now (Obsidian, Hardsuit, DoubleBear given the divorce with his wife), seems pretty credible to believe the guy's a jerk.
At Obsidian he had a conflict with Chris Parker. After Alpha Protocol was released, some anonymous Obsidian dev also complained about Parker. Then Chris Avellone here also told us a bunch of shit about him. The guy is a decline and no wonder some people have problems with him.

Regarding Hardsuit, we don't know much unfortunately other than the project was in sort of a dev hell. And DoubleBear is a completely different story. People divorce all the time for various reasons.
 

Grunker

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Egotistical primadonna? No, every artist can, should and often will be upset if his or her art is not respected, be it music, story, paintings, and etcetera. And if he is not, there is a problem here. Because it means that he doesn't stand for what he is doing.

If he was making art, he'd be making his own things instead of coming in as a hired gun for a licensed product. Turns out his idea of art was Dead State and Panic at Multiverse High, which was uh....
Dead State is criminally underrated though.
Very few RPGs are as nonlinear, and it probably holds some kind of record for the amount of interactivity between characters it has.

too bad it was nearly unplayable
 

Eli_Havelock

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uuAsASf.png


Saw Cara tweeted this recently, thought you guys may find it interesting.

That IS interesting given the usual excuse of studio-hopping harpies - for not being held on by a studio beyond a single writing credit footnote on a job - is that writing gigs are short-term jobs by nature.
Then some of them try to say that the good positions are being kept exclusive for a conspiring elite keeping everyone else down. You can understand why companies with revolving doors of talent consider these hires to only bring the value of their victim currency and nothing else; times have changed and it's now that carny sideshow on social media in lieu of a marketing division. You just try to keep the tokens from having any serious responsibilities and influence upon anything and hope they don't cancel the real talent while they are there.
 

Zombra

An iron rock in the river of blood and evil
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I'm curious why do you think that source is legit and level headed that it's worth believing him.
The source is Rik Schaffer who is a really nice guy and liked to work with Mitsoda as can be seen in his other Reddit AMA comments.
I was talking about the Roguey's "ancient source".
Maybe they're one and the same? Schaffer has known Mitsoda since at least Bloodlines 1, no special reason to think Roguey never talked to the guy.
 

Flying Dutchman

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People divorce all the time for various reasons.

True, but not all of them have Cara Ellison's obvious adoration of Mitsoda in every PR interview to contend with.

Good thing crazy Annie doesn't get jealous of her career going nowhere while her hubbie's getting flirted on in the bright lights of a game people actually know about.

Maybe they're one and the same? Schaffer has known Mitsoda since at least Bloodlines 1, no special reason to think Roguey never talked to the guy.

Considering Mitsoda basically prints money for Rik and his wife, I seriously doubt Rik would dare to shit on Mitsoda in any place where it could be spread.
 

Latelistener

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Considering Mitsoda basically prints money for Rik and his wife, I seriously doubt Rik would dare to shit on Mitsoda in any place where it could be spread.
In the recent years they did VO for id Software (Doom, Doom: Eternal) and Zenimax Online (Elder Scrolls Online and expansions) among others. I'm sure they'll be fine even without Mitsoda.
 

Zombra

An iron rock in the river of blood and evil
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Maybe they're one and the same? Schaffer has known Mitsoda since at least Bloodlines 1, no special reason to think Roguey never talked to the guy.
Considering Mitsoda basically prints money for Rik and his wife, I seriously doubt Rik would dare to shit on Mitsoda in any place where it could be spread.
Well - first of all, it wasn't spread. We're just guessing. And Roguey is smart enough to not say anything either way about his sources. Second of all, tell me you've never talked crap about a friend to a third party even though it wasn't a great idea, and I'll give you an amazing deal on the Brooklyn Bridge. :)
 

Vormulak

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In other news, they just announced the Sabbat book for V5. Looks terrible.

Don't worry, I bet they are all incloosive too, just like Rudi is.

"We might be literal walking corpses damned for all eternity by god himself to feed on the blood of humans and revel in all the death and destruction we cause, but we'll still respect your pronouns, Caindammit!" - V5 Sabbat Regent, probably
The 'writers' for this abortion of a tabletop book said they won't allow people to actually play Sabbat, only use them as the evilest of evil antagonists. So perhaps sabbat will be bad enough not to use the preferred pronouns of the brave nonbinary black identifying gay thinbloods.
Yeah one of the main antagonists in the sabbat once called a nonbinary demi-sexual otherkin ''she'', needless to say this reignited the war between the sabbat and the anarchs in the area.
 
Vatnik Wumao
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Considering Mitsoda basically prints money for Rik and his wife, I seriously doubt Rik would dare to shit on Mitsoda in any place where it could be spread.
In the recent years they did VO for id Software (Doom, Doom: Eternal) and Zenimax Online (Elder Scrolls Online and expansions) among others. I'm sure they'll be fine even without Mitsoda.

It's still not good business to shit on your client. As far as Rik is concerned, Mitsoda was his boss, not Hardsuit.
 

Latelistener

Arcane
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Considering Mitsoda basically prints money for Rik and his wife, I seriously doubt Rik would dare to shit on Mitsoda in any place where it could be spread.
In the recent years they did VO for id Software (Doom, Doom: Eternal) and Zenimax Online (Elder Scrolls Online and expansions) among others. I'm sure they'll be fine even without Mitsoda.

It's still not good business to shit on your client. As far as Rik is concerned, Mitsoda was his boss, not Hardsuit.
I don't think it's he who sad that though. Most likely it's someone from Obsidian back from Alpha Protocol era.
 

Can't handle the bacon

Guest
It occurs to me that this project was a scam from the very beginning. You can't really make a sequel to VTM:B, it is a completely self-contained story that leaves no room for a direct continuation. Whatever this game was/is/would end up being, it's as much of a sequel to VTM:B, as VTM:B was to VTM:R. Meaning, not at all, since it's just another game set in the same universe. There is no reason to bring Bloodlines into the equation, beyond pathetic attempts at exploiting nostalgia and brand recognition.

Just make a new Vampire the Masquerade game with its own identity. You know, like Troika did right before it went bankrupt...
 

Wesp5

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This is pretty much what I wrote to their community manager at the time when I learned about the project. But they probably thought that having Mitsoda and Schaffer working on it justified the name...
 

0wca

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It occurs to me that this project was a scam from the very beginning. You can't really make a sequel to VTM:B, it is a completely self-contained story that leaves no room for a direct continuation. Whatever this game was/is/would end up being, it's as much of a sequel to VTM:B, as VTM:B was to VTM:R. Meaning, not at all, since it's just another game set in the same universe. There is no reason to bring Bloodlines into the equation, beyond pathetic attempts at exploiting nostalgia and brand recognition.

Just make a new Vampire the Masquerade game with its own identity. You know, like Troika did right before it went bankrupt...

The reason it's called Bloodlines is because that's a feature of the TTRPG it's based on. So putting a 2 at the end means a new game within that same universe.

That being said, the marketing for the game was definitely shilling for nostalgiafags.

They could have made an awesome game in this universe if fucking VtM 5e didn't come out in the meantime and fucked up the VtM universe for good. And also if Brian Mitsoda grew some balls and actually worked with some veterans from the first game.
 

Bad Sector

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if fucking VtM 5e didn't come out in the meantime and fucked up the VtM universe for good.

Wasn't VtmB already based on older lore when it came out anyway? I never read anything about VtM outside the games (VtmR and VtmB, not the newer games that i also haven't played) but i remember reading something like that. They could have just ignored 5e.

Also while the main story itself is self-contained, there are a few unfinished threads that could be used - like Maximilian Strauss' plans or whatever that is heavily hinted in the first game but never actually seem to happen. After VtmB there is a power vacuum in Camarilla's side that he would try to take advantage of, in a still unstable playfield - it isn't like Camarilla vampires would just pack and leave.

Of course that was written ~17 years ago and it is likely there are books or whatever describing what happened after the game that would make any sequel that tried to use those threads hard. But as i wrote i don't know about that, i just judge from the game itself and i do think there are things that could be expanded just based on it.
 
Vatnik Wumao
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if fucking VtM 5e didn't come out in the meantime and fucked up the VtM universe for good.

Wasn't VtmB already based on older lore when it came out anyway? I never read anything about VtM outside the games (VtmR and VtmB, not the newer games that i also haven't played) but i remember reading something like that. They could have just ignored 5e.

Also while the main story itself is self-contained, there are a few unfinished threads that could be used - like Maximilian Strauss' plans or whatever that is heavily hinted in the first game but never actually seem to happen. After VtmB there is a power vacuum in Camarilla's side that he would try to take advantage of, in a still unstable playfield - it isn't like Camarilla vampires would just pack and leave.

Of course that was written ~17 years ago and it is likely there are books or whatever describing what happened after the game that would make any sequel that tried to use those threads hard. But as i wrote i don't know about that, i just judge from the game itself and i do think there are things that could be expanded just based on it.

Bloodlines is based on the old Masquerade edition of the game, which was superseded by a new ruleset (I think its called Requiem or something similar). However the new ruleset completely sucked and White Wolf reversed many of the changes, reverting to a simplified version of the Masquerade game.
 

0wca

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Of course that was written ~17 years ago and it is likely there are books or whatever describing what happened after the game that would make any sequel that tried to use those threads hard. But as i wrote i don't know about that, i just judge from the game itself and i do think there are things that could be expanded just based on it.

Nah, I think the original plot should have been left alone as it ends on a great note and ties up most loose ends.

They should have just made a new story within a different location within the same universe and it would have been fine. They actually tried to do that though, but gloriously fucked it up due to horrible writers who were only hoping for nostalgiafags to pick up the game.


Bloodlines is based on the old Masquerade edition of the game, which was superseded by a new ruleset (I think its called Requiem or something similar). However the new ruleset completely sucked and White Wolf reversed many of the changes, reverting to a simplified version of the Masquerade game.

True, but I was mainly talking about the lore of the past editions. Most of it didn't change that much from one edition to the other in the older ones. Then 5E comes along and takes the existing lore behind the chemical shed and blows its brains out.

And yeah, they were definitely shilling for 5E to be the base lore and ruleset for this game due to its insane wokeness, oversimplified rules and the removal of any "controversial" disciplines such as Dementation.
 

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