Editorial Chris Avellone: What the Fuck Happened to Bloodlines 2?

[rusty_shackleford]

I'm honestly surprised that in the 17ish years since Bloodlines was released, there hasn't been a single new, good vampire RPG in the market. The only one that comes close is, what? Vampyr?

Shit, if it's a niche that needs filling, I might jump on it.

There's the bloodlust games which have been called decent by codexers who played them iirc.

at my PC so I can link it now
these are the ones I was referring to



they look janky but decent

 

[Grunker]

 

[Tyranicon]

I'm honestly surprised that in the 17ish years since Bloodlines was released, there hasn't been a single new, good vampire RPG in the market. The only one that comes close is, what? Vampyr?

Shit, if it's a niche that needs filling, I might jump on it.

There's the bloodlust games which have been called decent by codexers who played them iirc.

at my PC so I can link it now
these are the ones I was referring to



they look janky but decent

I kinda want to give them a try, but they look like the type of game that gives my computer a virus.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

To fill you in on what I did on the project, since most people think I was booted from it last year (?) along with everyone else. This “news” is attributed to some poorly worded public statements from the usual round of idiots that got passed through a filter held by an idiot and poured into an idiot glass and then passed out to the public and marketed as a refreshing new mineral water that will ultimately pass through your bladder and into your toilet. Thanks for that, idiots. You could have just said, “contract was over.”

Yeah, but...

They didn’t use anything I wrote during that time, which was a number of major characters and side missions, check my LinkedIn. This made me sad, but it’s not my choice.

It's pretty easy to see why someone MIGHT think you were terminated given that. I realize there is a distinction between being asked to leave and not renewing your contract, but it's effectively similar and it speaks poorly of a project when they not only elect to remove one of their most talented writers, but also to not use any of his two years of work.

As for the project itself, I had a bad feeling about it since seeing some of the initial promo stuff with Brian and whatever pink-haired SJW chick that was in charge of something or other. A shame, but it doesn't come as a huge surprise, especially after Chris' "contract ended".

 

[Tacgnol]

I'm honestly surprised that in the 17ish years since Bloodlines was released, there hasn't been a single new, good vampire RPG in the market. The only one that comes close is, what? Vampyr?

Shit, if it's a niche that needs filling, I might jump on it.

There's the bloodlust games which have been called decent by codexers who played them iirc.

at my PC so I can link it now
these are the ones I was referring to



they look janky but decent

They're made by the guy who made those Last Half of Darkness horror adventure games in the late 80s/early 90s. I was surprised the guy was still around.

 

[mondblut]

Word budget? It's RPG there shouldn't be really word budget.

That's kinda harsh. We need a few lines of introduction at very least. Even Wizardry 1 had one.

 

[TripJack]

5000 words to say he doesnt know anything, gee thx chris

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

Sneak preview of Maxie interview with Chris Avellone:

https://voca.ro/13Uc3TpRXDGw

 

[Lord of Riva]

Sneak preview of Maxie interview with Chris Avellone:

https://voca.ro/13Uc3TpRXDGw

Damn, I clicked expecting something funny, I am indeed retadred

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

I'm afraid with bloodlines gone there's just no hope, most of the modern vampire content is made for horny-but-unfuckable cougars, they don't even bite people anymore, they just stare romantically into the distance.

 

[CaffeineConquistador]

I'm afraid with bloodlines gone there's just no hope, most of the modern vampire content is made for horny-but-unfuckable cougars, they don't even bite people anymore, they just stare romantically into the distance.

Well, this boy here both grabbed and sucked. He needed a little practice staring romantically, sure, but one thing at a time. Modern vampire stories were just rape fantasy for chunkers. I guess almost-rape since I gather modern vampires junk typically don't function as when they were mortal. Modern vampires glittering harder than a K-Pop band and petting the hell out of them is good enough?

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I'm honestly surprised that in the 17ish years since Bloodlines was released, there hasn't been a single new, good vampire RPG in the market. The only one that comes close is, what? Vampyr?

Shit, if it's a niche that needs filling, I might jump on it.

There's the bloodlust games which have been called decent by codexers who played them iirc.

at my PC so I can link it now
these are the ones I was referring to



they look janky but decent

Ok... that was too fucking gay to leave up. Anyway... (if you missed it be glad... stupid bloodlust youtube search).

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I'm honestly surprised that in the 17ish years since Bloodlines was released, there hasn't been a single new, good vampire RPG in the market. The only one that comes close is, what? Vampyr?

Shit, if it's a niche that needs filling, I might jump on it.

There's the bloodlust games which have been called decent by codexers who played them iirc.

at my PC so I can link it now
these are the ones I was referring to



they look janky but decent

Ok... that was too fucking gay to leave up. Anyway... (if you missed it be glad... stupid bloodlust youtube search).

skimmed the first video, seems fairly positive

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Yeah, pity not gog. I swear I tracked down his blog site before.

ah not a blog but his older games..
http://www.lasthalfofdarkness.com/

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Yeah, pity not gog.

Gog has a minimum standard of quality, you know. They only allow games on there like this:
https://af.gog.com/game/song_of_farca?as=1649904300

 

[Jacob]

Yeah, pity not gog.

Gog has a minimum standard of quality, you know. They only allow games on there like this:
https://af.gog.com/game/song_of_farca?as=1649904300

Song of Farca takes place in the near future, where technology isn't just part of everyday life – some things are now impossible without it.

???

Are the developers out of touch with real life??

 

[0wca]

Word budget? It's RPG there shouldn't be really word budget.

Games can stay english only, and they are playable just fine. Localizations are just optional.

Not to a company trying to make as much money as it can. Also, French, German, and Spanish translations were a specific stretch goal for Eternity so they were obligated to deliver them.

But this is basically just a company greed. Supply and demand, if people wanna play game in different language than world wide language english. Fans should translate it themselves (and release pirated version with theirs own translation, proper hand made translation takes time, and the game already sold all copies in theirs country.) I actually prefer Sengoku Rance fan translation over original. It felt more juicy and the characters had personality. Official English translation is grammatically correct translation of Japanese text.

Pillars promised translation into additional 3 major languages. They should calculate costs, and they shouldn't promise if these translations were not viable. PoE had million of these "watcher" texts that were completely not part of story. Yet, somehow that was less problematic than 300 pages more words? Decent translators are not that expensive. Voice localization cost more, but... Sidequests could be unvoiced for budget reasons, and people would understand it. And, when RPG is more about text than action, like PoE, voice acting just gets into the way.

Profits? We seen in Wasteland 3 what happens when corporate greed gets into way of artistic expression.

What is so hard to understand about the fact that studios need to make sure game development resources are spent efficiently?

In addition to the very real issues that word count leads to additional work being generated for others besides the writer; such as localization, editing, scripting, and testing; the writing itself takes man-hours. The more writers write, the more time that takes. Time that could be spent elsewhere. Either on other writing tasks or other jobs the writers may be able to be tasked with. Often they do design work, scripting, or may have other responsibilities (possibly related to running the studio in general or other projects). Full time "I only write" writers are rare in game development.

Word count guidelines are one of the project management tools for project directors and producers to help make sure they are getting the best use out of their writers time. Saying that project directors and producers shouldn't set guidelines to manage man-hours and ensure developer resources are used efficiently is silly.

Plus even if you ignore development resource considerations. More words isn't always a good design choice. There is always a point where a piece of writing is using too many words to accomplish what it is trying to accomplish.

What is so hard to understand that an RPG's biggest budget allocation should be in its dialogue and story and everything else should be second? The problem isn't that studios have limited budgets, the problem is that those budgets are badly allocated to things that should matter the most in games of a certain genre. You should prioritize the things that make RPGs great and funnel the most resources in that section of development.

I'd understand word budget constraints when it comes to platformers or shooters. RPGs need the most resources allocated to their writing as it's otherwise absolute shit (see RPGs released in past two decades).

An RPG developer that lists word budgets doesn't have their priorities straight. Most RPG lovers would rather play a great RPG with crappy graphics than a railroaded 3D piece of shit.

 

[mondblut]

Most RPG lovers would rather play a great RPG with crappy graphics than a railroaded 3D piece of shit.

You don't get a great RPG if you prioritize shitty dialogues and useless story over robust character system, dungeon design, combat gameplay and worldbuilding. You know, those things that actually make a game an RPG.

 

[Elwro]

TIL there are 'fan theories' about the lass involved with this being autistic.

Strange world, that world of 'fans'...

 

[Roguey]

What is so hard to understand that an RPG's biggest budget allocation should be in its dialogue and story and everything else should be second? The problem isn't that studios have limited budgets, the problem is that those budgets are badly allocated to things that should matter the most in games of a certain genre. You should prioritize the things that make RPGs great and funnel the most resources in that section of development.

I'd understand word budget constraints when it comes to platformers or shooters. RPGs need the most resources allocated to their writing as it's otherwise absolute shit (see RPGs released in past two decades).

An RPG developer that lists word budgets doesn't have their priorities straight. Most RPG lovers would rather play a great RPG with crappy graphics than a railroaded 3D piece of shit.

A large word budget did the the opposite of a favor for Tides of Numenera. Additionally, it was a strict word budget that saved Baldur's Gate from getting Pillars of Eternity-style redundant prose descriptions.

 

[Dycedarg]

A large word budget did the the opposite of a favor for Tides of Numenera. Additionally, it was a strict word budget that saved Baldur's Gate from getting Pillars of Eternity-style redundant prose descriptions.

I never played Numenera. But from what I've heard, the developers thought they could create a worthwhile Torment successor by ramping up the word count. And yes, that's pathetic, but good editing wouldn't help much if your writers are completely retarded. On the other hand you have games written by Avellone himself, like Planescape and KOTOR 2, which were very well written despite their high word count.

As for the Pillars vs Baldur's Gate comparison, I think the biggest difference in terms of storytelling is cohesion. In BG, Bioware was able to tie the story together in a pretty neat way, while nu-Obsidian made a big mess out of Pillars. Again, better editing would have helped, but I would still take a more verbose BG over a more streamlined PoE.

 

[0wca]

What is so hard to understand that an RPG's biggest budget allocation should be in its dialogue and story and everything else should be second? The problem isn't that studios have limited budgets, the problem is that those budgets are badly allocated to things that should matter the most in games of a certain genre. You should prioritize the things that make RPGs great and funnel the most resources in that section of development.

I'd understand word budget constraints when it comes to platformers or shooters. RPGs need the most resources allocated to their writing as it's otherwise absolute shit (see RPGs released in past two decades).

An RPG developer that lists word budgets doesn't have their priorities straight. Most RPG lovers would rather play a great RPG with crappy graphics than a railroaded 3D piece of shit.

A large word budget did the the opposite of a favor for Tides of Numenera. Additionally, it was a strict word budget that saved Baldur's Gate from getting Pillars of Eternity-style redundant prose descriptions.

The problem with Numenera was sheer incompetence because the writers thought that more words = better writing, which resulted in a mess of pretentious and pointless dialogue. They had their priorities straight budget-wise, but they made two big mistakes in their development:

1. They tried to make a spiritual successor to PS:T. That was almost an exercise in futility and was incredibly hard to do because it was built by a small studio of passionate developers. They tried too hard to grab the bar and ended up falling on their asses.

2. PS:T had an insane word count, but it was fun to read so their word count wasn't a problem. It was the quality of the writing, which means that the writers were pretentious assholes or there was shitty oversight over the whole thing.

If you put more money in the writing department, it means you hire more writers. The problem with that is: how good are the writers that you hire? You can hire 10 shitty ones for the price of 2 good ones with the same cost. I guess they opted for the first option.

Most RPG lovers would rather play a great RPG with crappy graphics than a railroaded 3D piece of shit.

You don't get a great RPG if you prioritize shitty dialogues and useless story over robust character system, dungeon design, combat gameplay and worldbuilding. You know, those things that actually make a game an RPG.

I agree those things are important as well. But I think the quality of the dialogue in a game with C&C should be a priority along with the things you mentioned.

 

[RunningWolf]

If your writing is good it will be interesting to read, no matter the word count. But another thing is that good writer knows what's shit and boring so they have no problem leaving only the best parts and throwing less interesting parts away. Its not possible with games like Numenera and Pillars for a very simple reason - its all equally mediocre and boring so you have no clue what to cut and throw away. Also literally who writers tend to lean on the word count as a measurement of the work they put in and never on quality of said work. Its even worse if the mediocre writer thinks everything hes shitting is gold and starts huffing his own farts like Disco Elysium writers did. That game is so far up its own ass that even interesting parts become unbearable the further you play, especially when its all amounts to jack shit. Then you have a Bioshock Infinite effect when pseudointellectual concepts make midwits see the depth thats not there and get defensive about their favorite consoom product spitting ye olde "you don't like it because you don't understand it, you have to be very smart to understand rick and morty" drivel. At least Kingmaker devs understood that writing isn't their strongest suit and contained it focusing on character building, combat and itemization instead. Result was much better than all of the above overall.
But getting back to VtMB i have a 100% certainty the sequel would be absolute fucking shit. The first game was build around its characters and dialogues and they were the only things that supported the mess that was its shit combat. That demo they showed with a giraffe girl giving you a quest or whatever had ubisoft tier dialogue and characters. All NPC sucked and they dared to BRAG about fucking Damsel returning. The simple fact that they chose Damsel which is probably the dumbest and uncharismatic character out of the entire cast just tells you what kind of people were running the show. Thats all aside from the fact that you had a fucking vampire looting toilet paper and other trash and combat somehow managing to look even worse than it was in the first game. I wanted that game to release just so i can laugh about it being shit, but it managed to be so bad it got canned. Which is impressive in an industry where Cybercuck can release no problem. Just makes you think the level of pure garbage that game was going to be. A pity we wont know for sure.

 

[Lexx]

Can't really blame Numanuma for the high wordcount of shit, tbh. Back then we all were like "lots of words == good RPG!!11" In hindsight we were all wrong about this. At least the game taught me the valuable lesson that sometimes less words are more words.

 

[Xi]

Can't really blame Numanuma for the high wordcount of shit, tbh. Back then we all were like "lots of words == good RPG!!11" In hindsight we were all wrong about this. At least the game taught me the valuable lesson that sometimes less words are more words.

Due to how the brain works, for most people, less is easier to understand - especially if well written/communicated.