Preview More Bloodlines videos at Games Domain

[Saint_Proverbius]

Tags: Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines

The <A href="http://gamesdomain.yahoo.com/feature/30610">two final videos</a> showing off the gameplay of <A href="http://www.vampirebloodlines.com/">Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines</A> are up at <A href="http://gamesdomain.yahoo.com">Games Domain</a>. The <A href="http://gamesdomain.yahoo.com/predownload?g=30654">fourth video</a> shows off a little melee combat while the <A href="http://gamesdomain.yahoo.com/predownload?g=30655">fifth video</a> shows off a combat solution and the physics engine as well as a diplomatic solution to the same problem.
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I have to say, these videos would have been a lot more interesting if they weren't done in <i>god mode</i>. It would have been nice to see how much damage we can expect from being on a balcony that a gargoyle is tearing apart.
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[Azael]

True, although I imagine that the result wouldn't have been pretty. Maybe they wanted to hide the fact that your very likely to be bumfucked if you go up agains the gargoyle at early levels?

 

[StraitLacedDeviant]

Rightly so as well, you would need to be fairly high level to go up against a giant hulking stone gorrilla.

 

[Spazmo]

Given that they've got access to the magical debug mode, couldn't they just have made an appropriately beefy character to take on the gargoyle and make the video more interesting? That would have been better than god mode.

 

[Whipporowill]

I'm guessing lazy presenter (Thain Lyman) playing the demo.

 

[Transcendent One]

Question: if the Brujah put on celerity (which as I understand it makes you dodge bullets, don't know much about vtm so I may be wrong) why did those enemy vampires keep shooting at him?

 

[Whipporowill]

Because they used celerity as well - they didn't slow down completely, just evened out things a bit. Celerity is speed, not auto-dodge or something.

 

[Transcendent One]

That explains it.

 

[plin]

I have a few questions as well, if anyone can answer them.

What is your health? The blood pool that is used for spells and such?

And do you think it would be a good idea in the game to use up blood to go into a frenzy in a hostile-only spot?

And what happens after the PC loses enough blood to go in a frenzy? Can the PC vamp die while in a frenzy?
And do we know anything about dying in the game yet?

thanks

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Judging from the videos, the blood pool is like mana. You have to suck down a person or two every so often to keep using your vampire powers. I'm not sure what happens when blood runs low, though.

 

[Whipporowill]

When blood runs low in pnp you risk going into a feeding frenzy - they did that pretty well in Redemption, starting to feed off your coeterie or closest enemy. Makes sense it should be included, but I wouldn't know this of course...

I don't think you actually can DIE from blood loss as a vampire, you just can't use your disciplines, heal your wounds and have an extremly hard time controlling yourself.

 

[Voss]

At various points in the video it seemed like the blood pool was slowly going down on its own.
There was a warning during the combat video (when he was blasting the flesh-crafted monsters) about the blood being low- there is probably a frenzy related issue (but it could just be generic warning 'warrior needs food badly'-style), but no idea how its done.

The health bar is probably the blue thing on the left side of the screen- it never twitched because of the 'god mode' thing.

 

[plin]

I see, thanks.

 

[POOPERSCOOPER]

The character probably would of died if he got hit with any of that stuff, i'm hoping the colision detection is good. I was wondering, when the character was stuck between the fallen balchony and the wall if that was causing health damage.

 

[Stark]

At various points in the video it seemed like the blood pool was slowly going down on its own

that, or the blood bar was "pulsing", not going down. there's no reason for it to continually go down on its own unless the Troika guys want us to finish the game asap.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

The character probably would of died if he got hit with any of that stuff, i'm hoping the colision detection is good. I was wondering, when the character was stuck between the fallen balchony and the wall if that was causing health damage.

I think that would just cause normal damage, not aggrevated damage. So, basically, the player wouldn't die from getting slightly squished by a falling pillar.

 

[Voss]

At various points in the video it seemed like the blood pool was slowly going down on its own

that, or the blood bar was "pulsing", not going down. there's no reason for it to continually go down on its own unless the Troika guys want us to finish the game asap.

It looked visible lower to me. Maybe he was maintaining a low level discipline and that was draining blood, but simply didn't mention it.

 

[Petey_the_Skid]

Blood usage and frenzy are going to be really dependent on how badly troika had to fuck up the rules to make this game work. In PnP, blood is used to power some(but not all, and I if i recall my rules right, not even the majority) of the vampire disciplines. However, it is also used to heal damage, boost physical attributes and some is used to wake up each night. From what I gather of Bloodlines, blood is going to be necessary to power every single discipline; which,pardon the pun, sucks!

I believe someone mentioned that they have removed willpower and virtues from the game? This means that the way frenzy is determined will be completely different from how frenzy checks work in PnP, so I'm not sure how to speculate there.

How frenzy would effect somebody would probabaly be similar however, a feeding frenzy would have you maniacally running around feeding until you were sated, an anger frenzy would have you simply beserking on opponents, feeding only if you needed more blood to continue berserking(for using celerity for example), a fear frenzy(aka Rotshreck) will have you running away from the danger in the most efficacious manner possible. Most likely the game will include only the feeding frenzy, the others would be hard to implement in a Crpg, and probably rather detrimental in an RT FPS environment, as they effectively limit the control you have over your character to: hit this, or run that way, respectively.

 

[Seven]

" Berserking" and running a way aren't hard to implement at all. Also (some one correct me if I'm mistaken), but aren't these behaviors already implemented for NPCs?

 

[Petey_the_Skid]

Not hard to implemnet technically perhaps, but when in frenzy, a player has no control over his charcater, it's acting on instincts alone(fight or flight respones and such what). If a player in PnP is unable to role play a frenzy correctly, the ST has full rights to take over the character for the frenzy's duration.

A Frenzy means you attack until everything around you is dead pretty much, you can't even really choose who or what, simply attacking the nearest person(not even necesarrily an enemy) until they're all dead or you are. In rotshreck you flee in utter unthinking fear as fast and as far as you can. At points during these frenzies you are allowed to try and regain control of the character. This would be pretty shitty to have implemented in a computer game, as it essentially makes you're character an NPC for the frenzy's duration, but can lead to some tense, exciting moments in PnP(simple ex. while making a night time visit to check on his former mortal family, a vampire is incensed to frenzy by a cunning rival, who then quickly escapes, leaving a couple of cannon fodder thugs behind to buy him time. Is dealing with the minions enough to sate the vampire's bloodlust, or does he then turn on the family he loves, not realizing what he's done till after the rage leaves him?)

 

[plin]

This would be pretty shitty to have implemented in a computer game, as it essentially makes you're character an NPC for the frenzy's duration

Well, a frenzy is your punishment in the game for doing something wrong isn't it (as in, low blood, and whatever else you do to get a frenzy)? I don't see how it's shitty. You fuck up, you go into a frenzy. I don't see how else they would handle a frenzy if it wasn't like your character is an NPC for the frenzy's duration. But it's not like an NPC, just out of your control till you come back.

 

[Seven]

Not hard to implemnet technically perhaps, but when in frenzy, a player has no control over his charcater, it's acting on instincts alone(fight or flight respones and such what). If a player in PnP is unable to role play a frenzy correctly, the ST has full rights to take over the character for the frenzy's duration.

A Frenzy means you attack until everything around you is dead pretty much, you can't even really choose who or what, simply attacking the nearest person(not even necesarrily an enemy) until they're all dead or you are. In rotshreck you flee in utter unthinking fear as fast and as far as you can. At points during these frenzies you are allowed to try and regain control of the character. This would be pretty shitty to have implemented in a computer game, as it essentially makes you're character an NPC for the frenzy's duration, but can lead to some tense, exciting moments in PnP(simple ex. while making a night time visit to check on his former mortal family, a vampire is incensed to frenzy by a cunning rival, who then quickly escapes, leaving a couple of cannon fodder thugs behind to buy him time. Is dealing with the minions enough to sate the vampire's bloodlust, or does he then turn on the family he loves, not realizing what he's done till after the rage leaves him?)

All that you just described is easily implemented, and the best/worst example would be the IE games. Berserking chracacters killed everything in sight, panicked characters ran like crazy, etc... So where's the problem?

 

[Major_Blackhart]

I think it would ad some depth to the game if the character went into a Berserker frenzy or something.

 

[MrBrown]

If Frenzy works like described, it basically can have two different outcomes:

A) You kill important NPCs (whether plot critical or not).
B) You kill lots of pointless NPCs around you.

Case A sucks because it often simply means the player is just going to reload. Lose the only guy near you selling weapons? Reload. And CRPGs very rarely have semi-important NPCs; they're either very important or totally useless to the player.

Case B can be boring if not taken further. Again, most players are likely to reload a game rather than watch their character go on a pointless rampage for a few minutes.

I think the way to go would be Case B with more subtle outcomes. For instance, killing lots of innocents will make it more liker to get the vampire hunters mentioned in the video on your tail. Other than something like this, I don't really see a point using frenzy. I hope Troika is doing something like this.

 

[Petey_the_Skid]

*shrugs*Okey dokey...maybe my basic assumption that most people like to actually control their character in a computer game is wrong. As for the IE games, the only one I've played is Torment, which didn't have a lot of the panicking or berseking stuff going on, however, remeber that Vampire is a single player game, which means that you would basically just sit there and watch you're character do stuff till the frenzy wore off, with no other chacraters to fiddle with.

Frenzies can be bad, even in PnP games, because it means that not only is you're character in danger of killing others(important npc's, fellow player characters, the policeman who interrupted you're feeding etc.), it's rather easy to end up dead, as you're fellow simply doesn't have the presence of mind to flee, or generally even heal himself, while in that state. I believe Troika has also removed the will power and virtue traits? If so, that means the small means of controlling frenzy is gone, as you cannot spend willpower points to prevent yourself from taking certain actions(i.e. killing your children), and without the different virtues, there is nothing to base a come out of frenzy check on unless they create a whole new system.