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Preview Bloodlines preview/interview at GameZone

Saint_Proverbius

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Tags: Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines

<a href="http://www.gamezone.com/">GameZone</a> offers up a <A href="http://www.gamezone.com/news/11_03_04_02_56PM.htm">preview type interview thing</a> talking about <A href="http://www.vampire-bloodlines.com">Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines</a>. Here's a bit on <i>Shooter vs. RPG</i>:
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<blockquote>“Going back and forth between the role-playing aspects and the action aspects – it took us a long time to get what we felt was the feel we were going for,” he said. “We really wanted to have the feel that you had a lot of choices, and the different clans you could play and the different choices would make a difference in you game experience. But at the same time, when we first started it, everything was taken as directly as possible from the White Wolf Vampire: The Masquerade rules. And we found a lot of that, like the randomness of dice rolls in combat, because it looked like a first-person shooter and it felt more like an action game, what we were going for when some of that stuff game into play … you know you are standing in front of a guy and you get a bad dice roll and you are shooting at him with a shotgun from two feet away, it just didn’t feel right. It felt like it was broken; it felt like it was stilted. So we started paring some of that stuff down with White Wolf’s approval.</blockquote>
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In a case like that, rather than going the easy, lame-o route and chuck the dice stuff, couldn't you just have the bad guy duck or dodge? Or have the gun misfire? Or perhaps not even fire at all because the shell was a dud?
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Then again, saying that <A href="http://www.white-wolf.com/">White Wolf</a> was consulted and approved something is fairly meaningless considering every other video game that's used one of their licenses really haven't done much in the way of sticking to their material beyond the names and some background story stuff.
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Spotted at: <A HREF="http://www.homelanfed.com">HomeLAN Fed</A>
 
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dojoteef

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I totally agree with you Saint. I only wish that Troika would be willing to have a moderated IRC chat like they did when ToEE came out so we could ask questions like that.

The game begins with the player’s character initiated into the ranks of the undead unwillingly.

That's the same beginning that Nihilistic did with their version of the game, I don't know how well that bodes for this one trying to actually be an RPG. Oh and I don't think the reviewer ever played Redemption because of this quote:

Troika took over the Vampire: The Masquerade title from Nihilistic Software, which had set the Redemption title in medieval Europe. The leap forward into the present day was a big one...

Only half of the game was in medieval times, while the other half was in modern times. The reviewer makes it sound just one-sided.

And it sounds like the story is going to be pretty much completely linear, but with different solutions to the situations (sounds like Deus Ex to me). They said the replayability will come from the fact that people will want to play as the different clans (which I know I'm going to do, starting with the Malkavians). I just hope it turns out well, since I've already pre-ordered it.
 

Mendoza

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dojoteef said:
And it sounds like the story is going to be pretty much completely linear, but with different solutions to the situations (sounds like Deus Ex to me). They said the replayability will come from the fact that people will want to play as the different clans (which I know I'm going to do, starting with the Malkavians). I just hope it turns out well, since I've already pre-ordered it.

Well I don't think it'll be completely linear, since there's multiple endings. Whether this means that the plot will branch through out the game, or splt near the end like KotOR remains to be seen though.
 

mathboy

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Saint_Proverbius said:
In a case like that, rather than going the easy, lame-o route and chuck the dice stuff, couldn't you just have the bad guy duck or dodge? Or have the gun misfire? Or perhaps not even fire at all because the shell was a dud?

While I don't like them changeing the rules, that was kinda obvious that they would change, I think they said it in an interview earlier.

They just have to change some things when they chose to go FPS, when you have your gun jamming in the middle of a fight you sure get pissed, but you got all the time you want to react and change weapons. In a FPS the only thing that'll happen is haveing the FPS-kiddies whine, and probably some RPGers to, I don't think anyone would be happy that they followed the rules when they got a couple of seconds to find the right key to change weapons, in the middle of a fight 30 minutes after their last save.
 

Saint_Proverbius

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Well, yeah, we all knew they'd change. They'd have to change to go to a real time format, that's a given. I'm poking fun at the bit about them saying White Wolf approved it, when White Wolf seems to approve anything. They gave the thumbs up to those games Interplay and Vivendi made with Hunter, for example.
 

mathboy

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They did it to get all the goth-guys accept it. The RPGers kinda accepted it already and the FPS-kiddies liked it, the goths were the only ones left.
 
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dojoteef

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mathboy said:
They just have to change some things when they chose to go FPS, when you have your gun jamming in the middle of a fight you sure get pissed, but you got all the time you want to react and change weapons.

Though Saint made a very good point. Is it that difficult, that in combat if you miss a roll you have a dodge animation for the person you are trying to hit. Vampires do after all have superhuman speed. Heck if you didn't even want to do that, you could just make a 'miss' and no one would be the wiser. They could just think that it the guy had extra hps or something. They could have spent time trying to figure out ways of incorporating these sorts of things, but they didn't, and that's why it feels like a cop out. Or at least they never said they tried out different methods. They just said a "bad dice roll in combat just didn't feel right."

In a FPS the only thing that'll happen is haveing the FPS-kiddies whine, and probably some RPGers to, I don't think anyone would be happy that they followed the rules when they got a couple of seconds to find the right key to change weapons, in the middle of a fight 30 minutes after their last save.

First of all, the game is supposed to be an RPG, it ISN'T supposed to be a FPS. They are supposed to be improving on what Redemption did (which was pretty much an FPS). Let the fucking FPS-kiddies whine. As for saving? It's your own damned fault if you don't save. Shit happens and sometimes you just fuck up (press the wrong button and get yourself killed), or power goes out, or whatever, not saving often enough isn't something that should be factored into the equation for using dice rolls in combat.
 

Otaku_Hanzo

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Funny thing is, Redemption had potential. I just wish they could have implemented the different endings in a better fashion where you could start affecting shit very early on in the game. Also, would have been nice had they taken another few months to polish things up.

As for White Wolf, they pretty much went with the Hunter series because it appealed to the wider audience rather than focusing it on a tried and true V:TM product that would not appeal to everyone.
 

Whipporowill

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Bloodlines is part of official WW canon and features some of the offical WoD characters, which Redemption didn't - so I'd say WW has been a bit more involved in this one. But it's possible that WW's been basically saying yes to everything that sounds kewl, rather than what makes sense.

As for the linearity. It's been pretty obvious the main story arc would be pretty linear - I don't know if it's engine limitations (harder for an open world) or poor writing. I have no reason to suspect the second one, this far.

Am I the only one to think it's funny the same guy does two Bloodlines previews for the same site within a week, b t w?
 

Volourn

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"Funny thing is, Redemption had potential."

No. No, it did not. I don't know if I'll like BL or not. I'm kinda iffy on it. However, it'll eaisly be better than redemption without even tring. Redemption was a horrible, horrible game with pretty much no positives.
 

dunduks

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Otaku_Hanzo said:
Funny thing is, Redemption had potential. I just wish they could have implemented the different endings in a better fashion where you could start affecting shit very early on in the game.
Actually in Redemption you had to start "working" early in the game to get the good ending (you need very high humanity to get the good ending and humanity was not easy to raise) on the other hand evil ending was easy to get since you lose humanity quickly.
 

space captain

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wasnt the main story arc of fallout and fallout 2 pretty linear as well??? i mean, there was the main story arc, and then a whole shitload of optional side quests around the main arc...

personally ive never seen a TRULY non-linear RPG EVER... for some reason it just hasnt been done - such a game would almost be more like a RPG/Simulation or something

i doubt that Bloodlines will be anything but completely ass kicking, to be honest... but Im not expecting a miracle either - those kinds of things dont happen

thats not to say i wouldnt love a RPG/life-simulation type game... where everything is emergent rather than scripted... that would be fuckin awesome, but i doubt any publisher would be interested in it, or rather any developer would be able to make a good case for it - those kinds of revolutionary games are becoming fewer and fewer as the greed factor sets in, because all first steps in a brand new genre are usually clumsy
 

Otaku_Hanzo

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dunduks said:
Actually in Redemption you had to start "working" early in the game to get the good ending (you need very high humanity to get the good ending and humanity was not easy to raise) on the other hand evil ending was easy to get since you lose humanity quickly.

And that's what I was referring to. Yes you had to work at the good ending early in the game, but that was it. Maybe it they had put in a third or even a fourth ending and then made you have to work at getting those somehow, it would have enhanced the replay value. Well, that and fix some of the bugs. :P

As is, all you had to do was work towards the good ending, save close to the end of the game, get the good ending and then reload and lose humanity to get the bad ending. Kind of like KOTOR. :P
 

Volourn

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"Thanks for your opinion, Vol. I don't agree."

You are welcomed Ota Han.
 

Diogo Ribeiro

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Redemption had three endings, IIRC. There's the one where Chirstoff diablerizes the endgame thingamajing and then kills (or just turns?) Anezka, there's the one where he decides to be the thingamajing's slave, and the one where he kills them thingamajing and turns Anezka to save her from dying.
 

Sol Invictus

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There is a reason why quick save and quick load keys are placed far apart these days, at F5 and F8. So people don't accidentally press the wrong button.
 

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