World of Darkness Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong - narrative RPG from The Council devs - now on Steam

[Rean]

What a fucking pile of tranny-infested AIDS-ridden shit . This is somehow 50 times worse than Vampyr.
And of course the usual suspects praise it.

Vampires are meant to be cool, hence a nigger can't be a vampire.

 

[V_K]

What's wrong with those faces? They all look dead.

But they are dead. They're vampires. It's just realism.

 

[Wesp5]

This is somehow 50 times worse than Vampyr.

I never finished Vampyr and haven't played Swansong, but why is the male protagonist looking almost the same? Isn't there supposed to be decades between those games?

 

[RaggleFraggle]

This is somehow 50 times worse than Vampyr.

I never finished Vampyr and haven't played Swansong, but why is the male protagonist looking almost the same? Isn't there supposed to be a decade between those games?

Vampyr came out in 2018

 

[Wesp5]

Of course I meant decades between the time the games are supposed to play in. Do current hipsters indeed have the same haircut as men during WW1 or is Caleb from that time or is it the other way around and Vampyr got it wrong ?

 

[V_K]

Do current hipsters indeed have the same haircut as men during WW1

Just for reference: this is Stalin in 1902

In other words - yes.

 

[Wesp5]

I can't really see it in that photo, but did they have the sides cut short with a shaving machine like today too?

 

[Zombra]

I never finished Vampyr and haven't played Swansong, but why is the male protagonist looking almost the same? Isn't there supposed to be decades between those games?

I spent about 85 real life hours on various forums arguing that the hipster "shaved sides poofy on top full beard" look in Vampyr was incredibly stupid and completely anachronistic for 1918 London. There was plenty of pushback but nobody was able to come up with a photo, drawing or portrait from that time depicting anyone with that godawful cut. I ended up paying cash money for the "wear a hat" DLC so I didn't have to look at that shit. That DLC alone was worth more to me than the price of the whole game.

Galeb looks fine.

 

[V_K]

1918:

Lots of other examples of WWI undercuts here: https://forwhattheygave.com/2013/10/16/4059/

 

[Zombra]

1918:

Lots of other examples of WWI undercuts here: https://forwhattheygave.com/2013/10/16/4059/

Yes. Now find one like that with the full hipster Santa Claus. I'll wait.

 

[Rahdulan]

When you click Restart thinking it's going to restart the scene, but it restarts the entire game on that particular save slot and game doesn't have manual saves.



Thank fuck this happened ~40 minutes in.

 

[notpl]

Played the first couple hours. Really like what I see so far. A few random thoughts:

• No previews/reviews I've seen talk about the fact that the three PCs don't like each other and have different agendas, which is fantastic. It really makes me wonder how divergent the story can get. Will some characters achieve their goals but not others, depending on how I handle things? Even if not, the switching perspectives is very engaging.
• "Fail forward" is super real. There are no roadblocks to moving the story forward so far, which means it is all on me to succeed or fail, be thorough or sloppy, etc. along the way. It's great.

I haven't played this game and don't plan to, but look at these two points together and think about it very hard. The answer to your first question is "no."

 

[RaggleFraggle]

The audience review score on metacritic is currently sitting at 2.5. Oof. One of the comments says this is only worth playing if you’re a lorejunkie for the IP, because it sucks as an actual game.

I just want good game experiences. I don’t care about lore for its own sake. Lore can be nice, but it doesn’t substitute for good design everywhere else. That’s why I’m generally critical of using brand name recognition, because more often than not it’s just cashing in with no quality control.

Audiences in general connect more with characters than with lore. This is why, for example, historical dramas are way more popular than historical documentaries. Even big franchises with expansive settings still have to rely on compelling characters to make audiences invest.

Vampire: Bloodlines is remembered because of its colorful cast, not because it’s a licensed game. If Troika had been allowed to make an original setting rather than being forced to use Activision’s license at the time, then we’d probably still remember it fondly today even if the setting was dramatically different.

 

[Zombra]

I haven't played this game and don't plan to, but look at these two points together and think about it very hard. The answer to your first question is "no."

Acting smug doesn't mean your math adds up to anything. Gonna have to show your work.

 

[V_K]

Yes. Now find one like that with the full hipster Santa Claus. I'll wait.

First of all, moving the goalposts much? I never said anything about the beard, I was responsing to Wesp5's implication that undercut itself is anachronistic (which it's not).
Second of all, here's a very hipster Latvian writer Andrievs Niedra for you, but it's probably a bit earlier, circa 1900:

And before the next strawman - no, it's not an exact copy of the Vampyr MC. But it is a severe undercut with a beard.

 

[Spukrian]

Most people (in the West) have a general idea of what a vampire is and what he can and can't do: vampires drink human blood, sunlight hurts them, they cast no reflection in mirrors, dislike garlic etc. The further away you move from this general idea, the more effort you need to put into explaining the how and they why.

Did you know that most of what we associate with vampires was invented by 19th Century Gothic Horror authors? Vampires were totally different before (didn't drink blood, wasn't afraid of sunlight, etc) but the modern day image of the vampire is an invention of those authors (uhh.. Bram Stoker... uhh... Polidori... whatever...).

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Most people (in the West) have a general idea of what a vampire is and what he can and can't do: vampires drink human blood, sunlight hurts them, they cast no reflection in mirrors, dislike garlic etc. The further away you move from this general idea, the more effort you need to put into explaining the how and they why.

Did you know that most of what we associate with vampires was invented by 19th Century Gothic Horror authors? Vampires were totally different before (didn't drink blood, wasn't afraid of sunlight, etc) but the modern day image of the vampire is an invention of those authors (uhh.. Bram Stoker... uhh... Polidori... whatever...).

Yup. Folkloric vampires were a broad vague category that covered ghosts, revenants, witches, werewolves and so forth. There were multiple vampire panics throughout history where the monsters were believed to lie undecayed in their graves and project their specters to drain life from the living. Nowadays this is understood as a misunderstanding of epidemics and decomposition.

After Dracula was published, there was a notable vampire panic in the 1970s known as the “Highgate Vampire”. One of the self-styled investigators claimed the monster was a vampire lord from Eastern Europe.

Also, Paul Feval’s vampires are weird.

 

[Skdursh]

This isn't an RPG.

Also, it's SHIT.

 

[Zombra]

First of all, moving the goalposts much?

My goalposts on this have been the same for three years Tight military haircut plus big thick Grizzy Adams beard is strictly a modern hipster phenomenon and anachronistic to the early 1900s. (And no, "Here's a guy who has both hair and a beard" is not sufficient to show otherwise.)

If you were strictly talking about the haircut without regard to the face or the general hipster look, we all agree on that and it's never been in dispute.

 

[V_K]

Tight military haircut plus big thick Grizzy Adams beard is strictly a modern hipster phenomenon and anachronistic to the early 1900s. (And no, "Here's a guy who has both hair and a beard" is not sufficient to show otherwise.)

You can find photos of people wearing severe undercuts with less bushy beards. You can also find photos of people wearing bushier bears with less severe undercuts (on Nikolay II, for example). That you cannot find this precise look doesn't make it anachronistic, merely modernized - as all "historical" media do.

But if you were strictly talking about the haircut without regard to the face or the general hipster look, we all agree on that and it's never been in dispute.

I don't even have a horse in the race - I've never played Vampyr, nor going to. It just amuses me people get so worked up about a look that is far less anachronistic than, say, this:

But somehow you don't see people get up all in their feelings about Darklands charactrers looking 1980s as fuck. I wonder why...

 

[RaggleFraggle]

I thought Vampyr looked interesting but was dissuaded from playing it by youtube reviews. What especially broke my SoD was the part where monsters are constantly rampaging through the streets of London and nobody notices, nor is there any explanation why there are monsters in the first place.

In Bloodlines you sometimes had gangbangers mugging people (including the PC) on the streets. This sometimes ended with the victim suddenly performing kung fu moves on the gangbanger until he died, then running away screaming. I could mostly ignore that, and it still mostly made sense in the world of the game. But my SoD only goes so far.

 

[Nutria]

I don't really think much about the hair in Darklands since it's a maximum of about 12 pixels:

 

[Zombra]

You can find photos of people wearing severe undercuts with less bushy beards. You can also find photos of people wearing bushier bears with less severe undercuts (on Nikolay II, for example). That you cannot find this precise look doesn't make it anachronistic, merely modernized - as all "historical" media do.

It's the combination that makes me want to punch someone. Trim beard, trim hair, fine. Thick hair, thick beard, fine. Tight hair, heavy beard - goddamn awful.

I don't even have a horse in the race - I've never played Vampyr, nor going to. It just amuses me people get so worked up

In that case I hope I've provided some good entertainment

Doesn't Darklands take place in a fantasy world? Vampyr's setting is supposed to be historical - and for the most part they do a good job with the look ... but putting that fucking hipster front and center is like seeing the Hulk at a tanning salon.

 

[jackofshadows]

The audience review score on metacritic is currently sitting at 2.5. Oof. One of the comments says this is only worth playing if you’re a lorejunkie for the IP, because it sucks as an actual game.

I just want good game experiences. I don’t care about lore for its own sake. Lore can be nice, but it doesn’t substitute for good design everywhere else. That’s why I’m generally critical of using brand name recognition, because more often than not it’s just cashing in with no quality control.

If only it's been lore only. Sometimes it's shit like

this

As a game yeah it's quite shitty or you could say akin to some walking simulators. The problem is that if you don't like the characters - then there's almost nothing else for you there, yes. The dialogues aren't amusing at all by themselves. The detective part... meh. I'm still early in it to judge properly though.

And they also went bold with the 50$ price, check this out

Spoiler

 

[V_K]

Doesn't Darklands take place in a fantasy world? Vampyr's setting is supposed to be historical

It's roughly the same - historical setting with fantasy elements. Probably, Darklands even less fantasy (but more so than, say, Expeditions).

It's the combination that makes me want to punch someone.

...which is the root of the problem that has nothing to do with historical accuracy.