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

[Justicar]

More .

Anybody know Avellone's rate? Probably way more than I can afford, but curious.

It's a mystery, but no doubt very high when he's not scaling it down for indies.

His work getting thrown out is all on Mitsoda, which he alluded to more or less

To be clear, me and Brian Mitsoda don’t get along. This is because he is way too tall, and I hate his fingerless gloves. He probably hates me because I am short and I do not wear gloves that aren’t made from human skin. Despite our height differences and choice of gloves, however, I have a lot of respect for him.

Guess it may forever be a mystery if Brian was throwing out Chris's submissions because it didn't fit his vision or if it was some petty revenge over Alpha Protocol. He certainly wasn't throwing out the work submitted by his Hardsuit harem.

Spoiler

 

[Roguey]

Roguey, you are the only one reading that sentence by MCA as literal and jumping to the conclusion that Brian was throwing MCA work out. It is just a way to show your respect to someone in a humorous way, unless you really think MCA does not like Brian for being too tall.

Brian was the narrative lead. Chris was submitting his work to him, ergo, he was the one making the choice not to use any of it.

And 5'7/170 cm and 6'4/193 cm guys can definitely not like each other based on height alone.

 

[Demo.Graph]

Vampires are cursed people that can't be put to rest and have to suffer for eternity.
So far this game fits.

 

[ga♥]

Roguey, you are the only one reading that sentence by MCA as literal and jumping to the conclusion that Brian was throwing MCA work out. It is just a way to show your respect to someone in a humorous way, unless you really think MCA does not like Brian for being too tall.

Brian was the narrative lead. Chris was submitting his work to him, ergo, he was the one making the choice not to use any of it.

And 5'7/170 cm and 6'4/193 cm guys can definitely not like each other based on height alone.

You don't know the timeline of MCA work being thrown out. Could have been after MCA #metoo happened, so would not have been on Mitsoda.
We still do not know what contribution of MCA is within Wrath of the righteous because of it.

 

[Roguey]

You don't know the timeline of MCA work being thrown out. Could have been after MCA #metoo happened, so would not have been on Mitsoda.
We still do not know what contribution of MCA is within Wrath of the righteous because of it.

"They didn’t use anything I wrote during that time" = not a single thing he wrote was ever rubberstamped for approval.

 

[Infinitron]

Of course that's a pretty typical occurrence with Avellone's work, not just in this game.

 

[ga♥]

You don't know the timeline of MCA work being thrown out. Could have been after MCA #metoo happened, so would not have been on Mitsoda.
We still do not know what contribution of MCA is within Wrath of the righteous because of it.

"They didn’t use anything I wrote during that time" = not a single thing he wrote was ever rubberstamped for approval.

Just speculation which may be true or not but still, based on nothing. The gal, that I forgot the name, came out saying the same thing after he was "fired" because of the #MeToo.

 

[PlacidDragon]

I think Paradox is trying to spend the less possible after, what I think, may have been a really huge amount with hardsuit labs (that was also bought by them).
Everything is going in the direction of a disaster, more disastery than already it was.

Paradox bought a 33 percent share in HL for 2 million dollars, as well as an unknown amount for them to actually develop it. They were developing it for over 4 years, and the salary expenses of a 30+ people studio ramps up quickly. I dont know how many employees Hardsuit had, but if you say 30 people for 4 years at an average of 50k $ a year (thats probably lowballing it with the amount of senior producers and whatnot that they had), thats 6 million dollars. Now, Hardsuit probably got some residuals from earlier games, but that would be peanuts in this context.. and i think they got a Covid relief check of a million dollars or something.. still, Paradox probably had to foot the bill for the rest.

 

[JamesDixon]

Personally, I hope Pdox collapses from this blunder as they keep ruining the games they've produced.

 

[Roguey]

Just speculation which may be true or not but still, based on nothing. The gal, that I forgot the name, came out saying the same thing after he was "fired" because of the #MeToo.

Reread the original paragraphs, man.

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.”

To explain my contract: I worked on Bloodlines 2 for almost 2 and a half years, from 2016 to mid-2018, then my contract came to an end. 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. The whole experience was like the last five minutes of Barton Fink (not the beach scene, the scene before it, know-it-all), but stretched out over 2 and a half years. Even if I had known all that work was useless, I’d have written anyway, even though its part of your life you don’t get back, so you can’t really dwell on it too much. I’ve been on projects where a LOT more got thrown away… as Bloodlines 2 proved for almost everyone on it in the end, apparently.

He stopped working on it in 2018. They stopped paying him because they weren't using anything he was writing and likely realized "Why are we paying this schmuck so much money to submit work that keeps getting rejected?" In the chain of command, Mitsoda was the guy in charge of whether or not Avellone's writing was worthy of being included in ~his masterpiece~.

 

[ga♥]

I did reread and I still can't find anything as you imply. No "it was not approved" and neither "Brian did throw out my job". All we know is that after MCA was accused of sexual misconduct, Hardsuit labs went to the press saying nothing of MCA work is in the game, which was something other studioes said as well at the same time.

Which btw, could even be a lie, and some of his work would have been in there, but being a pariah they came out with this.

 

[karoliner]

Brian was the narrative lead. Chris was submitting his work to him, ergo, he was the one making the choice not to use any of it.

And 5'7/170 cm and 6'4/193 cm guys can definitely not like each other based on height alone.

Thanks for using metric like a civilized person.

 

[Harthwain]

A studio like The Chinese Room working on an RPG like Bloodlines reminds me of a director like Lynch doing a Dune movie. It might end up great but for all the wrong reasons. Really excited at the possibilities.

I would be more hopeful if it weren't for the whole Bloodlines baggage, because it carries certain expectations with it, meaning the team isn't exactly free to go however they want at it.

 

[Tyranicon]

A studio like The Chinese Room working on an RPG like Bloodlines reminds me of a director like Lynch doing a Dune movie. It might end up great but for all the wrong reasons. Really excited at the possibilities.

I would be more hopeful if it weren't for the whole Bloodlines baggage, because it carries certain expectations with it, meaning the team isn't exactly free to go however they want at it.

It's anybody's guess how a studio like The Chinese Room will approach a game in a completely different genre from the one they're used to. Also, how big is The Chinese Room in terms of manpower? IIRC, they're pretty small.

A first-person RPG the scope of VtMB requires a certain number of warm bodies since it is extremely work intensive. Especially if they're going to throw out all the content already finished by HL, and under two years?

That's not going to happen.

 

[Harthwain]

It's anybody's guess how a studio like The Chinese Room will approach a game in a completely different genre from the one they're used to. Also, how big is The Chinese Room in terms of manpower? IIRC, they're pretty small.

A first-person RPG the scope of VtMB requires a certain number of warm bodies since it is extremely work intensive. Especially if they're going to throw out all the content already finished by HL, and under two years?

That's not going to happen.

Yeah. This is exactly why I am not very optimistic. Still, I am curious what will come out of it in the end.

 

[Hellion]

Their team size has increased after they were acquired by Sumo Digital back in 2019.

The Chinese Room has grown 10x since Sumo acquisition (2019 article)

And their lead devs have stated that they want to make bigger games outside the "art house niche".

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/artic...s-ambition-to-move-out-of-the-art-house-niche (2020)

The Chinese Room is not shying away from its ambitions. In an interview with EGM, Pinchbeck said he wanted to build "the Naughty Dog of the UK." The team is currently working on its next project, which is "oriented towards console and PC," Daly says. While the pair can't discuss the specifics at this stage, what's for sure is that they don't want to be known for walking simulators anymore.

"I think what we can say is that, from the word go, we wanted the studio to be obsessively driven by story, investing a lot in character, investing in production values -- audio, music, writing, voice acting," Pinchbeck says. "Doing what we've historically built our reputation on: being really good at creating worlds that really speak to people.

"And what we're doing is evolving the studio, to move out of that 'art house niche' I suppose. Looking at more traditional genres, more traditional markets, but keeping that fingerprint of what makes us us. About the aspirations of becoming the 'Naughty Dog of the UK,' I think if you're going to do this then you should be ambitious. Creatively I don't really see any point of doing it unless you're really shooting for the moon. Hopefully I want one day us to be looked at by people saying: they made the best games of the decade. You want to be seen in that position. Your job is to really dream big and then work on how you can turn that into a reality."

So the ambition is there, at least.

 

[Ismaul]

I come bearing tiny gifts of Bloodlines 2 drama from stuff made available by one drunk person at a media event in Brighton, UK. This was back in August. I don't really have anything better than this as a "source" so if you want to tell me to fuck myself, I completely understand, but I see we're having fun with the CDPR 4Chan post so why not this as well.

1. The Chinese Room is in fact the new studio for Bloodlines 2. This wasn't The Chinese Room's choice. This was Sumo, their parent company's choice. Some in the studio aren't happy with this due to being treated like a boutique studio who can turn around some disaster into an RPG but they're trying hence why they're going on a hiring spree for a new branch they've opened up.

2. Hardsuit Labs sent Bloodlines 2 in a over a thousand zipped files that were randomly numbered. Some say it was because Hardsuit Labs were disorganized. Others say they did it as a "fuck you." Either way, the final verdict on Hardsuit's game from Paradox was "not fun." Others say it was a "total disaster."

3. The Chinese Room are going to try to re-use whatever assets they can. The writing, the missions, the characters are all being done from scratch. I don't know if they're going to keep some of the characters that have been shown off to the public but basically, it's safe to expect a different story set in Seattle.

4. Like any project hand-over, most of it had to be thrown out. The lighting from Hardsuit's version was, "completely fucking broken."

5. Hardsuit did """"""""finish"""""""" the game. It was technically playable from beginning to end and content complete.

6. The Chinese Room has got like ~2ish years to get this game out the door. Mostly junior staff are working on it.

Would be nice if it leaked if truly playable.

Man oh man, would Wesp5 have a hobby until his death.

 

[Roguey]

I did reread and I still can't find anything as you imply. No "it was not approved" and neither "Brian did throw out my job". All we know is that after MCA was accused of sexual misconduct, Hardsuit labs went to the press saying nothing of MCA work is in the game, which was something other studioes said as well at the same time.

I don't know how you can't understand that he's saying that they never used any of his work to start with. They didn't need to throw out anything because they weren't using any of it in the first place.

Thanks for using metric like a civilized person.

Codex is majority Euro so I try to be considerate.

It's anybody's guess how a studio like The Chinese Room will approach a game in a completely different genre from the one they're used to. Also, how big is The Chinese Room in terms of manpower? IIRC, they're pretty small.

A first-person RPG the scope of VtMB requires a certain number of warm bodies since it is extremely work intensive. Especially if they're going to throw out all the content already finished by HL, and under two years?

That's not going to happen.

What genre is that, the company literally had two employees when they were bought. As I mentioned pages back, they hired that narrative QA guy from Bioware earlier this year, so it seems likely they've been trying to hire as many people with RPG experience as they can.

 

[Skinwalker]

I sincerely hope this dumpsterfire hot potato gets cancelled and never sees the light of day. VtM: Bloodlines doesn't have a sequel. VtM: Bloodlines doesn't need a sequel.

 

[deuxhero]

I come bearing tiny gifts of Bloodlines 2 drama from stuff made available by one drunk person at a media event in Brighton, UK. This was back in August. I don't really have anything better than this as a "source" so if you want to tell me to fuck myself, I completely understand, but I see we're having fun with the CDPR 4Chan post so why not this as well.

1. The Chinese Room is in fact the new studio for Bloodlines 2. This wasn't The Chinese Room's choice. This was Sumo, their parent company's choice. Some in the studio aren't happy with this due to being treated like a boutique studio who can turn around some disaster into an RPG but they're trying hence why they're going on a hiring spree for a new branch they've opened up.

2. Hardsuit Labs sent Bloodlines 2 in a over a thousand zipped files that were randomly numbered. Some say it was because Hardsuit Labs were disorganized. Others say they did it as a "fuck you." Either way, the final verdict on Hardsuit's game from Paradox was "not fun." Others say it was a "total disaster."

3. The Chinese Room are going to try to re-use whatever assets they can. The writing, the missions, the characters are all being done from scratch. I don't know if they're going to keep some of the characters that have been shown off to the public but basically, it's safe to expect a different story set in Seattle.

4. Like any project hand-over, most of it had to be thrown out. The lighting from Hardsuit's version was, "completely fucking broken."

5. Hardsuit did """"""""finish"""""""" the game. It was technically playable from beginning to end and content complete.

6. The Chinese Room has got like ~2ish years to get this game out the door. Mostly junior staff are working on it.

This sounds just stupid enough to be true, and is the kinda things we'd actually learn about from a reputable source when the project is finally released/canned for good. On 3, I did think most of the visual assets and basic movement (etc.) looked OK till combat (which 100% needs a total overhaul), so a lot of the graphics could reasonably be kept.

 

[ga♥]

I don't know how you can't understand that he's saying that they never used any of his work to start with. They didn't need to throw out anything because they weren't using any of it in the first place.

The reason why they did not use any of his work. You say it was Brian decision based on a friendly joke of MCA about Brian gloves.
There is nothing to understand here, just the usual antiMCA squad (you and Infinitron) going on with their agenda.

 

[T.Ashpool]

if it's really the chinese room making this i'm gonna die from laughter. like they couldn't even get a third rate eurojank studio to make it. they think a studio that only made terrible walking sims is the right fit for bloodlines 2 lmao. that's crazy. i'd honestly rather have hairbrained schemes make a vampire game in their bad shadowrun returns engine than this.

 

[EvilWolf]

For example, I think CDPR is an excellent development studio and I am confident they could deliver but I am imagine they busy with fixing Cyb 2077

Your post made me laugh because I realized the unintentional contradiction in my post but what I meant is CDPR are the creators of the Witcher series and GOG

And in life to be fair to any reasonable judgement of a company or institution we need to look at the track record when we decide if something is good or bad or can it deliver. So yes Cyb 2077 is definitely not CDPR greatest achievement but they are fixing it and addressing the various issues. So if Cyb was the only game CDPR had released then I would question their ability to deliver any game
But its not so I look at their successes and their problematic projects and they have done more good than bad ?
But yes my point wasnt framed correctly

You can fix bugs, performance and gameplay. You can't fix linear gameplay and boring writing.

Also, just because they can, doesn't mean they will.

What linear gameplay? You realize there are three seperate threads you can pursue, with several missions per thread, and you only even have to complete two (or one?) to finish the game, right? Yea there are two or three missions with sections in them that would qualify as "corridor shooter" but 90% of it is realistically open areas with multiple ways to deal with threats depending on how you spec'd your character, even the "corridor shooter" sections can be stealth'd. Did we even play the same game?

First of all, C&C stands for choice and consequence not merely choice. Second, an open world game does not constitute an RPG, it's just means you can go wherever you want.

I assume the lifepaths are the three "threads" you mentioned. They pretty much just change your starting location and the first few hours of gameplay then it connects to the same linear progression with very little difference between each path from that point on.

Bugs and retarded law enforcement response aside, there isn't much of an RPG there to begin with. You probably think that what constitutes one is gaining levels and having some sort of ability tree and that retarded standard was set by F4. The dialogue choices are there but they barely differ in response or outcome, they're just there to give you the illusion of choice.

So yeah, if CDPR is in charge of making the next Bloodlines, the sequel to one of the most replayable RPGs of all time, then yeah, I'm not keeping my hopes up, especially when the writer of the original quit and the game is based on the setting-weak 5e.

There are plenty of consequences for the choices you make in Cyberpunk. No, I'm not referring to lifepaths as the "three threads" I mention. I'm referring to the fact that the story splits into three main threads after the initial main job and that you can pursue whichever thread you want to reach the end, or all of them to get the bigger picture. Finally, what game are you comparing Cyberpunk to when you say that "dialogue choices are there but they barely differ in response or outcome"?

 

[0wca]

For example, I think CDPR is an excellent development studio and I am confident they could deliver but I am imagine they busy with fixing Cyb 2077

Your post made me laugh because I realized the unintentional contradiction in my post but what I meant is CDPR are the creators of the Witcher series and GOG

And in life to be fair to any reasonable judgement of a company or institution we need to look at the track record when we decide if something is good or bad or can it deliver. So yes Cyb 2077 is definitely not CDPR greatest achievement but they are fixing it and addressing the various issues. So if Cyb was the only game CDPR had released then I would question their ability to deliver any game
But its not so I look at their successes and their problematic projects and they have done more good than bad ?
But yes my point wasnt framed correctly

You can fix bugs, performance and gameplay. You can't fix linear gameplay and boring writing.

Also, just because they can, doesn't mean they will.

What linear gameplay? You realize there are three seperate threads you can pursue, with several missions per thread, and you only even have to complete two (or one?) to finish the game, right? Yea there are two or three missions with sections in them that would qualify as "corridor shooter" but 90% of it is realistically open areas with multiple ways to deal with threats depending on how you spec'd your character, even the "corridor shooter" sections can be stealth'd. Did we even play the same game?

First of all, C&C stands for choice and consequence not merely choice. Second, an open world game does not constitute an RPG, it's just means you can go wherever you want.

I assume the lifepaths are the three "threads" you mentioned. They pretty much just change your starting location and the first few hours of gameplay then it connects to the same linear progression with very little difference between each path from that point on.

Bugs and retarded law enforcement response aside, there isn't much of an RPG there to begin with. You probably think that what constitutes one is gaining levels and having some sort of ability tree and that retarded standard was set by F4. The dialogue choices are there but they barely differ in response or outcome, they're just there to give you the illusion of choice.

So yeah, if CDPR is in charge of making the next Bloodlines, the sequel to one of the most replayable RPGs of all time, then yeah, I'm not keeping my hopes up, especially when the writer of the original quit and the game is based on the setting-weak 5e.

There are plenty of consequences for the choices you make in Cyberpunk. No, I'm not referring to lifepaths as the "three threads" I mention. I'm referring to the fact that the story splits into three main threads after the initial main job and that you can pursue whichever thread you want to reach the end, or all of them to get the bigger picture. Finally, what game are you comparing Cyberpunk to when you say that "dialogue choices are there but they barely differ in response or outcome"?

I'm comparing it to an actual RPG. And having three main story splits is what I consider minimum effort for any self-respecting RPG. The fact that you can complete all three in one playthrough also throws C&C out the window.



But hey, if you think that this is a good RPG, by all means, play it. I'm just saying that this standard will be the final nail in the coffin for a sequel to VtMB (as if the current version before the key developer left wasn't raising red flags already).

 

[0wca]

I come bearing tiny gifts of Bloodlines 2 drama from stuff made available by one drunk person at a media event in Brighton, UK. This was back in August. I don't really have anything better than this as a "source" so if you want to tell me to fuck myself, I completely understand, but I see we're having fun with the CDPR 4Chan post so why not this as well.

1. The Chinese Room is in fact the new studio for Bloodlines 2. This wasn't The Chinese Room's choice. This was Sumo, their parent company's choice. Some in the studio aren't happy with this due to being treated like a boutique studio who can turn around some disaster into an RPG but they're trying hence why they're going on a hiring spree for a new branch they've opened up.

2. Hardsuit Labs sent Bloodlines 2 in a over a thousand zipped files that were randomly numbered. Some say it was because Hardsuit Labs were disorganized. Others say they did it as a "fuck you." Either way, the final verdict on Hardsuit's game from Paradox was "not fun." Others say it was a "total disaster."

3. The Chinese Room are going to try to re-use whatever assets they can. The writing, the missions, the characters are all being done from scratch. I don't know if they're going to keep some of the characters that have been shown off to the public but basically, it's safe to expect a different story set in Seattle.

4. Like any project hand-over, most of it had to be thrown out. The lighting from Hardsuit's version was, "completely fucking broken."

5. Hardsuit did """"""""finish"""""""" the game. It was technically playable from beginning to end and content complete.

6. The Chinese Room has got like ~2ish years to get this game out the door. Mostly junior staff are working on it.

Assuming that this info is real, that's fucking hilarious. My hopes for this game have gone so far into the shitter that there's less than no chance of this turning into any decent RPG.

I looked at the company's portfolio and they had some exploration games done as well as Amensia: A Machine for Pigs. Based on that, they might actually get the atmosphere down but that's about it. If they rehired Mitsoda and unwoked the storyline and characters there might be a slimmer of hope for the title, otherwise it's gonna sail further down shit creek.