Review Bloodlines reviewed by GamersInfo?

[Saint_Proverbius]

Tags: Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines

Yeah, it's a question, because I can't honestly say there's any stance on much about <A href="http://www.vampire-bloodlines.com">Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines</a> in this <A href="http://www.gamersinfo.net/index.php?art/id:266">review</a> at <A href="http://www.gamersinfo.net/">GamersInfo</a>. It's pretty short and doesn't seem to say much. However, I did find something in the body of the thing which does say something:
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<blockquote>The game takes place in Los Angeles, where you start out as a newly embraced vampire. This is where my only major gripe comes in. The character generation is a little weak. Yes, all the major clans are here. For those of you unfamiliar with Vampire: The Masquerade, vampire clans are groups of vampire with similar characteristics to each other. For example, the Malkavians (my personal favorite) are vampires that have certain insights, whether it’s clairvoyance or psychic like abilities, while at the same time, they are all incurably insane. Now, as I was saying, this is where my gripe is. You can chose your clan, which affects your starting stats, as well as the blood disciplines you have. But aside from some basic things, that’s it. You can’t change your appearance, or alter you stats except what is done with your clan affiliation. I would have been happy if you could at least change your appearance, so you can look how you want to look. But, that is only a small problem in an otherwise very good game.</blockquote>
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Kind of a pity that the <i>Backgrounds</i> were removed from the game, since those would have addressed part of that complaint there. Of course, when was the last time someone released a CRPG where you couldn't customize your look at all?
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Thanks, <b>PennyAnte</b>!
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[PennyAnte]

Well, at least the reviewer, in his bio box, is up front about the fact that he's a high-schooler who is "not overly critical."

 

[EEVIAC]

Of course, when was the last time someone released a CRPG where you couldn't customize your look at all?

This was a bonehead mistake by Troika. Having set disciplines and point allocations makes sense (in a moron indicator way,) but I can't see any reason in not being able to choose your character model. RPG developers should take a look at the "create" options in Madden.

 

[callehe]

Actually it is possible to implement the history feature. All you have to do is tweak with the in-game console. Instructions for how to do it can be found on Gamespot´s Bloodline page:
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/vtmb/hints.html.

Haven't tried it myself so can't be sure if it works though.

 

[DarkSign]

The reason is obvious, Einstein - to cut down on animation work. The fewer character models you have, even with mere head and face changes, the number of animations increases. Every time a player equips a new weapons, puts on a new piece of clothing...you get the picture - more animation work.

I would have liked to have seen more customization as well (being a raver Malkavian with weird hair was, uh, weird), but seeing as how they didnt meet their deadlines for producing a bug-free product anyway...its just as well.

 

[Kamaz]

Well, Troika should have

• given option to visually customize your avatar [Sims2, SilentStorm both have-imo -great visual customization options];
• released game with those Histories;

And of course, some minor fixes,but those would be two very good things. I immagine it would take some work to implement that, but it would help sales, I think. Maybe the problem is with facial animations?

And about histories - that'd be great way to replay game again and again, just tweaking character with different histories.

EDIT: Arent they using skeletal animation? In that case there'd be no need for different walking/fighting/sneaking etc. animations. Its just facial animation that - imo - could raise some problems.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Ever heard of skins, DarkSign? That's the term used for model textures.

They don't require more animations. None whatsoever. It's just a case of Troika being lazy. My left armpit could come out with variations of the current skins. It's all a matter of loading the TGA file into photoshop and applying an overlay. How do you think there are 2 Heather replacement skins now? It's not hard to do.

Even a change of skin tone would have been nice.

 

[Flarnet]

The notion that character physical customization have to affect the animation pool is wrong.

I urge anyone who doubt this to check out the tennis game Top Spin for completely awesome character physical manipulation. And as far as I could tell there was no trailer parked outside my house containing the hundreds of terrabytes of animations it would have taken to have a unique set for each possible combination.

They licensed technology. The technology was in no way created to deal with character customization. Putting programmer hours into it would have nullified the gains of licensing technology. Ergo: no character customization.

 

[LlamaGod]

I find it a bit odd myself that an MMORPG can have more customizable characters and also look and run better then Bloodlines..

CLICK ME

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

MMORPGs pretty much require that. You have to be able to tell Dwarf A from Dwarf V.

 

[Spazmo]

Yeah, but most MMORPGs will have the character's name floating above his head anyways.

 

[Sol Invictus]

They made an RPG but decided not go have character customization because they didn't want to implement any additional work on Source by working in a color palette, even though it's entirely doable within the engine. Even if they didn't want to take the trouble to implement a color palette it wouldn't have been difficult (at all) to create a variety of TGA files with different colored clothing, with long/short sleeved varieties and different heads. Hell, there's even modders trying to tweak that in right now.

When all that's said, Troika is lazy.

 

[PennyAnte]

Just a point of curiosity (I'm no programmer): what does keep just about every RPG from using MMO-style character customization, like sliders for how "narrow" or "fat" a character is, shades for skin color and so forth? Is that very hard to do or something? Are companies worried about seeming too much like the competition? So many games would be better off for it. Morrowind, for example, or at least I think so.

 

[EEVIAC]

Just a point of curiosity (I'm no programmer): what does keep just about every RPG from using MMO-style character customization, like sliders for how "narrow" or "fat" a character is, shades for skin color and so forth? Is that very hard to do or something?

Temple of Elemental Evil had it to a certain degree, you could adjust the height of characters. I kind of liked playing an average guy in a party full of 6 foot amazon women.

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

I kind of liked playing an average guy in a party full of 6 foot amazon women.

Oh good. At least I'm not the only one.

 

[LlamaGod]

MMORPGs pretty much require that. You have to be able to tell Dwarf A from Dwarf V.

Well, Bloodlines is a single player RPG, which usually allow more then an MMORPG, when it comes to characters (since you only have to make it for whatever handful of classes/clans/races/whatever to pick) and also, the game that screenshot came from usually has about 90-150 of dudes with that detail and options on the screen at once, and still runs better then bloodlines, which only usuauly has 10 at most.