Development Info Bloodlines Update #17

[Sol Invictus]

In the future, the RPG Codex will likely find itself praising Bioware for their games and how open-ended they're becoming (compare NWN to KOTOR) and cursing every time Troika makes another mention about how it's limiting the player's freedom (just as it is doing now) in whatever game they are making, because hell, the Tyranny of Choice makes for bad gameplay and poorly developed storylines, right Spector?

 

[Whipporowill]

On a related note, Valve sent the first HL2 RC client to Vivendi yesterday as per this newspiece.

 

[Stark]

on the mission to redeem yourself (kinda like lowering your criminal wanted level in GTA by collecting "stars"):

it works in GTA because you can drive around and collect "stars" to lower your criminal rating, and you can potentially do this as many times as you want (the star regenerates after some time).

I'm interested to see how they implement it in Bloodlines. The missions/quests to redeem yourself (lower the points collected). will there be alot of those? or those missions get recycled after a few times? or you exhausted all the oppurtunities and you're forever stuck? (hunters will continually hunt you)

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Why not include an option for vampires to trick or elude the hunters until they can somehow compensate for the Masquerade violations? If it's possible at all, that is. Game Over seems like a ham fisted approach to the problem.

 

[Crazy Tuvok]

I like the idea of compensation or quests to make amends. But only to a point. If you are a vamp that keeps breaking the masquerade, then at some point The Powers That Be should decide you are more trouble than you are worth, and no amount of retribution will be compensate. You have become just too untrustworthy and unpredictable. 5 times seems reasonable to me and I prefer Game Over to pointless battles with hunters or uber-vamps that either cannot be killed or if there is some cheese tactic, fighting them over and over and over and over again.

I didn't have a problem with the mechanic of The Flaming Fist nor the Cowled Wizards - except that they posed no real threat and slaughtering them by the dozens did little to increase your peril.

Depending on how it works, the masquerade/no-masquerade zones is either just a horrible idea or perfectly fine. If I am in some vamp enclave and it is tagged no masquerade well then that is just dandy and as it should be. Similiarliy if I am walking down Hollywood Blvd. on a Saturday night and it is tagged Masquerade zone that too is fine and sensible.

The tricky bit is as pointed out above, the in-between scenarios - a situation in which I leave no witnesses or only a single witness or somesuch.