Preview FileFront previews Bloodlines

[Spazmo]

Tags: Troika Games; Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines

No doubt one of several last-minute bits of content on Bloodlines to be seen around the net, <a href=http://www.filefront.com>FileFront</a> have taken <a href=http://articles.filefront.com/208>their turn at previewing the game</a>.<blockquote>What the game lacks in rpg combat traits it makes up for in its storyline.
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The sociopolitical workings of Vampire are very complex, and your place in the world is something interesting. Orienting yourself in the new world is a fairly straightforward process, and the level of complexity grows as you find out about the different clans and groups.
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The game had an awesome back story to one of the quests that you are assigned, bringing gamers to an old, spooky hotel. It created quite a wonderfully rich story environment to be dealing with narrative on so man levels.
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Bottom Line: The storyline is just as deep and complex as other rpgs out there right now, if not moreso.</blockquote>I sure hope it is, because Troika needs to show they can muster a solid narrative after ToEE.
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Spotted at: <A HREF="http://www.bluesnews.com">Blue's News</A>

 

[Whipporowill]

Heh, they're calling it a "comparative preview", but what the hell are they comparing it to? Itself?!

The rpg aspect of the game is not as pronounced as it might be. While you have the various abilities such as lockpicking and computer hacking, the game is weighted more toward the action element.

-snip-

Content aside, the action plays an interesting role in the game. It is not too much in the foreground, but maybe a little too much in the background, although it does get real up close and personal at times.

Like, hey - let's get a schizophrenic guy who can't make up his mind do a preview and call it comparative! Great idea guys.

 

[Volourn]

Yup. Story, and role-playing will make or break this game for me as the combat is... BLANK.

 

[The Exar]

the game is weighted more toward the action element.

Hm. He finaly said it. By watching the latest gameplay trailers I got the feeling that the game is truly a shooter. But imagine the press headlines: "Vampire:Bloodlines by Troika Games - the best shooter powered with the Source engine ever!" Just dreams..
To be serious, I realy hope this game will interest the common "shooter gamer" and earn Troika some money. And more important - earn more Troika and RPG fans :wink:

 

[Whipporowill]

They don't usually show dialogue movies for a game do they?

 

[The Exar]

Yeah, right. Though the trailer with the conversation with Fat Larry and the other with the golem is evidence of the opposite.

 

[Sol Invictus]

They're probably the only characters with dialogue (as opposed to monologue) in the game.

 

[Whipporowill]

Hah. C'mon Rex... jumping to conclusions again? You can't seriously believe that one can you? I've seen excerpts from branching dialogue for 6-7 people, which don't seem to be any of the most important in the game, although admittedly not the most generic ones either. Next week we'll know.

 

[Brizock]

They're probably the only characters with dialogue (as opposed to monologue) in the game.

Actually, we've got 130+ characters with branching dialog, totalling out to over 5000 lines. Each line has been recorded by a voice actor and is lip-synced for in-game playback. Bloodlines is probably going to have the richest, deepest dialog system of any Action / RPG hybrid for quite some time, and honestly trumps a lot of past "traditional" RPGs as well. If a person is interested in games for story, (pc and npc) character development, and reactive dialog, I think they'll be very, very happy with what we've put together. Most of it is skippable for players who just want to get in and punch or shoot things, but I think they'll be missing out if they prefer to do that.

 

[suibhne]

I think it's funny that a Troikan (apparently) decided to lobby us to play the game, as if most of us aren't already eager to pick it up. :D

I'm more enthusiastic about Bloodlines than I would have been in a previous year - a year with, say, other RPGs being released - but I think I'd still have been interested enough to buy it without waiting for a passel of good reviews. Maybe I'm just turning into a Troika fanboi.

 

[Whipporowill]

Heh, well. It's still nice to see them post - maybe we should complain more?

I heard there was over 10 k lines - and close to 20 hours of spoken dialogue. But I also heard Halo had like 15 k... eh?

 

[HanoverF]

Location: Pre-Apocolypse Orange County

How can you tell?

 

[Volourn]

. "Bloodlines is probably going to have the richest, deepest dialog system of any Action / RPG hybrid for quite some time, and honestly trumps a lot of past "traditional" RPGs as well."

If you wre a BIO employee; you'd be accused of arrogance! :D

Seriously, hoepfully the game's story, role-playing and characters are as good as Arcanum and not a repeat of TOEE as the combat looks like it's not for me to put it politely.

Jamuary will be a good month then if that is so.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Volly, you point out a huge double standard we have here at the Codex. It's just that I'm interested in keeping this double standard, since I'm a Troika fanboi.

 

[Whipporowill]

Since we don't consider screenies newsworthy enough, I'll just pop these brand new ones in this thread.

http://www.gengamers.com/html/vampire_the_masquerade_bloodli.html

I especially liked this one. Burn baby burn, disco inferno!

http://www.gengamers.com/html/vampirebloodlines-34.html

 

[Brizock]

I think it's funny that a Troikan (apparently) decided to lobby us to play the game, as if most of us aren't already eager to pick it up. :D

I'm not really one of those people who tries to sell somebody something they don't want. I just want people to buy it / not buy it based on what actually made it into the box, rather than information based on rumors and inference. I think the final round of previews were fairly accurate, but if people here have a lot of questions on things, feel free to start a thread in one of the main forums and I'll answer what I can, and be straight with you on things that I can't.

:wink:

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Go, Brizock, go! Two posts in a day from a Troika man! We are truly the blessed.

 

[POOPERSCOOPER]

We'll be the fucking judge on Bloodlines, Brizork. You just sit the fuck down and hope it doesnt suck faggot.

 

[Sarkile]

. "Bloodlines is probably going to have the richest, deepest dialog system of any Action / RPG hybrid for quite some time, and honestly trumps a lot of past "traditional" RPGs as well."

If you wre a BIO employee; you'd be accused of arrogance! :D

Pretty much true, but with the other Action RPGs out there I don't think it's much of a boast to say your dialogue system is the best.

 

[Seven]

They're probably the only characters with dialogue (as opposed to monologue) in the game.

Looks like you gots told.

On a side note, you've actually been very critical of this title to point where you actually make stuff up, so I'm happy that the record's been set stright.

We'll be the fucking judge on Bloodlines, Brizork. You just sit the fuck down and hope it doesnt suck faggot.

Why must you harass all of the devs that stop by here?

PS, are you gonna take that Brizock? :wink:

 

[Brizock]

We'll be the fucking judge on Bloodlines, Brizork. You just sit the fuck down and hope it doesnt suck faggot.

Woo hoo! On the first day that I post to an online message board, I get retardo-flamed! I feel as if I have now truely arrived. Thank you, "POOPERSCOOPER"!

Now, let's work on that spelling and punctuation!

Cheers!

 

[Brizock]

Pretty much true, but with the other Action RPGs out there I don't think it's much of a boast to say your dialogue system is the best.

Yeah, as I was typing that out, I realized it was sort of like claiming to be the world's tallest midget. :wink: Still, while we don't have the volume of dialog of a game like Torment, I think we've got enough to keep most RPG enthusiasts happy. NPCs will deliver different lines based on your gender, clan, visual appearance, and previous actions in the game, and your responses will vary based on those factors plus your ability to haggle, inimidate, seduce... you can even leverage some disciplines in dialog. We had a lot of fun thinking of options players would want to when talking to NPCs, and put in as many things as we could with the time we had. Hopefully players enjoy it as much as we did. I'm sure that people that frequent these forums are familiar with these concepts, but it would be really great if we were able to introduce the experience of reactive dialog to people who have only played action games up to this point. Honestly, if somebody picked up Bloodlines after playing HL2, and then decided that they wanted to track down a copy of BG2 or Arcanum, I think that would be great. I know it's too much to ask for, but a lot of us here would be thrilled if Bloodlines turned into a "gateway drug" to RPGs for people who are normally just interested in action games. But mostly, we just want the people that plunk down their green for the game to have a good time. I think that most people will, and hopeful the others will offer constructive criticism.

That's probably enough rambling for one evening.... back to work!

 

[POOPERSCOOPER]

dont fuck with me dude, COPEASCH?

 

[merry andrew]

I was talking about playing this game, earlier today.

 

[space captain]

dont fuck with me dude, COPEASCH?

hahahah... its spelled "CAPICE" you fucking moron

but what can you expect from someone with a screen name like pooperscooper