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

[sosmoflux]

Tyranicon?

Can anybody give me a quote for what it would cost to make a tech demo for a Bloodlines spiritual successor using an original IP?

That's pretty on the mark for my next project, although spiritual successor may be pushing it as i'm planning an isometric, party-based vamp RPG, not a first-person/single character romp.

If you're talking AAA quality, even the tech demo will cost you way more than it has to be. If we're talking indie team using Unity or Unreal, I dunno, probably 100k will reasonably do it...and should get you something really nice.

If we're talking me, I can do a demo basically on nothing. But I'm like Jeff Vogel level of cheap frugal and I already have all the assets I need, it just needs some sweat and tears.

Are you having a laugh? 100k? For a AAA quality tech demo? That wouldn't even cover 1 guy for a year.
Mechanics... Art... Writing... VO... Audio... UI/UX... Codebase... R&D... QA... Iteration... Release...
You're looking at 3-8 million over 1-2 years, just to get started. And that's being frugal. The wide cost band there allowing for modern teams of either very high or low efficiency/talent.

If you wanted an indie-spec, something akin to the (still late and over budget) System Shock 1 Remake, you're still looking at at least 1-2m over 1-2 years.
I'm of course assuming you want something actually good. You can't just slap an FPS Controller in Unreal and some asset store art with a dialogue system and moody ambient music and call it a day lol.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

I’m not expecting better quality than Bloodlust: Shadowhunter. That’s pretty much the ceiling of quality I expect from any indie dev, and even that took several years and a supremely dedicated dev who subcontracted much of the assets. The only thing I don’t like about BLSH is that it’s a dungeoncrawler rather than a crpg.

 

[gerey]

Then Sumo Digital resurrected/restarted them by paying nearly 3 million.

But... why?

I mean, they don't have any worthwhile IPs to their name, the only thing they're "famous" for is making shitty, pretentious leftist walking simulators. Why the fuck would you invest 3 million dollars into such a company and then keep the two monkeys responsible for its failure?

Did they agree to get sodomized for those 3 millions?

 

[Roguey]

Then Sumo Digital resurrected/restarted them by paying nearly 3 million.

But... why?

I mean, they don't have any worthwhile IPs to their name, the only thing they're "famous" for is making shitty, pretentious leftist walking simulators. Why the fuck would you invest 3 million dollars into such a company and then keep the two monkeys responsible for its failure?

Did they agree to get sodomized for those 3 millions?

Dan Pinchbeck has a a phD in "Content and Gameplay in First Person Shooters" and has written and contributed to a number of papers about the subject. I guess his fellow Britbongs see those credentials and do the soyjak pointing.

 

[Tyranicon]

Are you having a laugh? 100k? For a AAA quality tech demo? That wouldn't even cover 1 guy for a year.
Mechanics... Art... Writing... VO... Audio... UI/UX... Codebase... R&D... QA... Iteration... Release...
You're looking at 3-8 million over 1-2 years, just to get started. And that's being frugal. The wide cost band there allowing for modern teams of either very high or low efficiency/talent.

If you wanted an indie-spec, something akin to the (still late and over budget) System Shock 1 Remake, you're still looking at at least 1-2m over 1-2 years.
I'm of course assuming you want something actually good. You can't just slap an FPS Controller in Unreal and some asset store art with a dialogue system and moody ambient music and call it a day lol.

The 100k figure in the quote was for an indie team, specifically on established and easy-to-use engines like Unity or Unreal

If we're talking indie team using Unity or Unreal, I dunno, probably 100k will reasonably do it

Indies range from one dude in his basement to massive teams who are basically AAA in all but name and publisher.

If an indie team needs 1-2 million and 1-2 years to build a tech demo, they are utterly incompetent and a waste of money.

So... basically par for the course.

 

[sosmoflux]

Are you having a laugh? 100k? For a AAA quality tech demo? That wouldn't even cover 1 guy for a year.
Mechanics... Art... Writing... VO... Audio... UI/UX... Codebase... R&D... QA... Iteration... Release...
You're looking at 3-8 million over 1-2 years, just to get started. And that's being frugal. The wide cost band there allowing for modern teams of either very high or low efficiency/talent.

If you wanted an indie-spec, something akin to the (still late and over budget) System Shock 1 Remake, you're still looking at at least 1-2m over 1-2 years.
I'm of course assuming you want something actually good. You can't just slap an FPS Controller in Unreal and some asset store art with a dialogue system and moody ambient music and call it a day lol.

The 100k figure in the quote was for an indie team, specifically on established and easy-to-use engines like Unity or Unreal

If we're talking indie team using Unity or Unreal, I dunno, probably 100k will reasonably do it

Indies range from one dude in his basement to massive teams who are basically AAA in all but name and publisher.

If an indie team needs 1-2 million and 1-2 years to build a tech demo, they are utterly incompetent and a waste of money.

So... basically par for the course.

Gotcha, right on my bad, I misread your message.

Still I think you'd be right if we were talking about a prototype or proof of concept. But a tech demo / vertical slice would be a near-final chunk of the intended game, art, audio, etc. It's a weird one with this particular IP because so much of the 'tech' here is esoteric. Atmosphere, voice acting, writing, pacing, vampire, maturity (immaturity). Hitting that "Oh yeah this is VTMB" checkpoint I think makes the project way harder to get off the ground. Assuming you want to get it right.

 

[Tyranicon]

Gotcha, right on my bad, I misread your message.

Still I think you'd be right if we were talking about a prototype or proof of concept. But a tech demo / vertical slice would be a near-final chunk of the intended game, art, audio, etc. It's a weird one with this particular IP because so much of the 'tech' here is esoteric. Atmosphere, voice acting, writing, pacing, vampire, maturity (immaturity). Hitting that "Oh yeah this is VTMB" checkpoint I think makes the project way harder to get off the ground. Assuming you want to get it right.

With gamedev, I'm beginning to think less is more. People who raise a lot of money to throw at projects that don't have a concrete future are usually destined to fail. Also, tech demos are far from a final version of the game. They are usually hyper-polished because their purpose is to attract attention/investment, but don't make the mistake that it's anything more than smoke and mirrors.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Hitting that "Oh yeah this is VTMB" checkpoint I think makes the project way harder to get off the ground. Assuming you want to get it right.

Has anyone ever tried? I don’t recall anything that did. The text games and visual novels I could find on Steam (most are paradox shovelware but there’s a few that aren’t) are typical pretentious emo goth shit with none of the charm of Troika’s writing.

One of the original titles (a yaoi VN because I was that desperate for content) has a love interest who talks like a southern baptist preacher (there’s no voice acting so the intended effect is lost) who inexplicably runs a sex toy shop. It felt so try hard, lol random, and out of place with the rest of the game. I don’t remember ever laughing once while playing and I gave up on trying to finish because the game was just so boring. Also, what little I remember of the plot was basically a rehash of Bloodlines… which isn’t necessarily a bad thing (you gotta introduce players somehow) but the shovelware does that too (even winning awards, which just goes to show that awards committees are full of shit) and this didn’t bring anything interesting to the table either.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

One of the original titles (a yaoi VN because I was that desperate for content) has a love interest who talks like a southern baptist preacher (there’s no voice acting so the intended effect is lost) who inexplicably runs a sex toy shop

 

[Ibn Sina]

Vampires suck.

Based. Everytime I see a vampire game fail I feel a little warm inside. FUCK vampires and FUCK VAMPIRE FAGs who are homosexuals in disguise.

 

[Cael]

Vampires suck.

Based. Everytime I see a vampire game fail I feel a little warm inside. FUCK vampires and FUCK VAMPIRE FAGs who are homosexuals in disguise.

Hahahaha! You remind me of the time my friend an I joined a tabletop VtM game. While everyone else was running around as a werewolf-turned-into-a-vampire or some shit like that, we just went, "Nope! We will stay human and be Mages, thanks." And then proceeded to out-facestomp the super-hybrids in utility and combat.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Vampires suck.

Based. Everytime I see a vampire game fail I feel a little warm inside. FUCK vampires and FUCK VAMPIRE FAGs who are homosexuals in disguise.

Hahahaha! You remind me of the time my friend an I joined a tabletop VtM game. While everyone else was running around as a werewolf-turned-into-a-vampire or some shit like that, we just went, "Nope! We will stay human and be Mages, thanks." And then proceeded to out-facestomp the super-hybrids in utility and combat.

I'm so glad that I left the tabletop community years ago. That shit was terrible for my mental health

 

[Cael]

Vampires suck.

Based. Everytime I see a vampire game fail I feel a little warm inside. FUCK vampires and FUCK VAMPIRE FAGs who are homosexuals in disguise.

Hahahaha! You remind me of the time my friend an I joined a tabletop VtM game. While everyone else was running around as a werewolf-turned-into-a-vampire or some shit like that, we just went, "Nope! We will stay human and be Mages, thanks." And then proceeded to out-facestomp the super-hybrids in utility and combat.

I'm so glad that I left the tabletop community years ago. That shit was terrible for my mental health

You just have to know the rules and basically wreck the shit out of anything the GM throws at you. With Mages, it was pretty easy, especially since you are running with a crowd that don't cause paradox with their beliefs because they know crazy shit exist.

 

[Kem0sabe]

 

[Semiurge]

Someone should tip Joan Chen that her likeness was shamefully used without permission.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Someone should tip Joan Chen that her likeness was shamefully used without permission.

So he's saying that to be a good video game, then it needs to depart from the conventions of the trpg that it adapts? Oh joy. Why even use the IP in the first place?

I can't say he's wrong. The video games have fallen into a repetitive mold of unlikeable assholes playing high school clique politics with each other, and the trpg rules (which form the basis for the video game adaptations) don't lend themselves to supporting the intended themes. Even back in Bloodlines 1, I never got the vibe they'd been going for when I played a PC with a variety of superpowers and high humanity at the same time. It felt like a mild superhero character with a vampire theme.

Problem is, I can't really think of rules that would support the intended themes without a ground-up reevaluation. Maybe, idk, a lightside/darkside mechanic? Except with humanity/vampirism but it would tie into all your skills rather than just superpowers. More humanity means you can interact better as a human being (e.g. persuasion, intimidation, seduction) and worry less about hunger, but you don't have much in the way of superpowers or vampiric social connections. More vampirism means more superpowers and more vampiric social connections (e.g. thralls, blood clubs, lairs), but you can't act human as easily (e.g. using mind control for most interaction, using spells to solve problems instead of mundane skills no matter how trivial) and your hunger is worse. So there's clear temptation to being more vampiric but it comes with appropriate drawbacks. Idk, just spitballing here. It would probably be hell to implement.

 

[Ismaul]

Too late. The mold has taken hold.

 

[Cael]

Too late. The mold has taken hold.

And the mold is black!

 

[Wunderbar]

Space Nugget have you found a new job, mate?

 

[Child of Malkav]

Another "leak": https://boards.4channel.org/v/thread/602281265

VtM:B2 Anonymous 06/13/22(Mon)18:06:57 No.602281265▶
>>602283153

I recently (about 2 months) started working at CD Projekt Red as a 3D artist. Last Friday I was approached with an NDA and my lead telling me they need help getting a project they took over off the ground. I look at the name and it’s Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines 2. Apparently they were suppose to have an announcement for the PC games showcase yesterday but they missed the deadline getting it done. The new deadline for the announcement is July 15th. On or before that date they will drop a new trailer for it that I helped create. I’ll drop more info when I find out more about it.

>>
Anonymous 06/13/22(Mon)18:10:45 No.602281634▶
>>602282290

So any chance of it being decent is gone?

>>
Anonymous 06/13/22(Mon)18:17:42 No.602282290▶

>>602281634
I wouldn’t say that. They have some very talented people on the project. As far as the political correct spectrum, the IP is owned by White Wolf still so they have a lot of control over the content.

>>
Anonymous 06/13/22(Mon)18:26:57 No.602283153▶
>>602284178

>>602281265 (OP)
>they were suppose to have an announcement for the PC games showcase yesterday but they missed the deadline getting it done
failing to meet the deadlines already? I hope this won't be another cyberpunk, I do with VtmB 2 turns out good.
Do you know anything about the game so far?

>>
Anonymous 06/13/22(Mon)18:37:32 No.602284178▶
>>602285787

>>602283153
Yeah, the work structure and culture up here is quite different than you would expect, making missing the deadline not too surprising. That’s the only info I have because that’s all I’ve heard of it. I haven’t been given any assignments or anything for the project yet.

>>
Anonymous 06/13/22(Mon)18:54:09 No.602285787▶

>>602284178
I do know that everything Hardsuit made before we took over is staying, so everything that’s been shown so far is still accurate

 

[jackofshadows]

They have to use code name for a project like this. Such a low effort.

 

[Delterius]

Another "leak": https://boards.4channel.org/v/thread/602281265

its real because they closed the thread

you heard it here first folks

 

[Zombra]

Yeah. Let me admit I broke NDA immediately after telling you almost my exact date of hire.

 

[Roguey]

Stop falling for 4chan LARPs.

 

[Delterius]

do you guys think keanu is gonna voice mitsoda's self insert the vampire known as mr. gloves