Downloaded the Prelude mods, will check them out soon.
-
Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.
"This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.
ind33d
Learned
- Joined
- Jun 23, 2020
- Messages
- 1,806
I'm surprised there aren't total conversions for Morrowind to make it a VTM game. The mechanics are pretty much identical
Wesp5
Arcane
- Joined
- Apr 18, 2007
- Messages
- 1,947
Isn't there even already a vampire storyline in Skyrim?
Also, facial expressions went to shit.
Delterius
Arcane
I guess the blur is because those aren't actual models, it's just an AI reshuffling of a video capture innit?
I kinda disliked Mercurio. He looks like a badass, whereas the original model gives me more of an underling vibe.
I kinda disliked Mercurio. He looks like a badass, whereas the original model gives me more of an underling vibe.
ColaWerewolf
Educated
- Joined
- Feb 6, 2021
- Messages
- 150
*Ahem*
Mitsoda shills will never admit this, but the Bloodlines concept story was more cohesive before Mitsoda joined the team. Cain, Boyarski, and Anderson did enough research to nail a competent VtM plot that only got worse during production after Mitsoda joined.
Notice how better structured it is. The Prince has a genuine motivation for destroying the PC's sire and making a show of it. The Kuei-Jin and LaCroix alliance is fleshed out from the very beginning. Instead of the alliance amounting to Ming impersonating Nines once, that the PC is the only witness of, to somehow support that Nines would be responsible for Grout's death in the latter's manor which is infested with vampire-purging zealots... Instead of that bullshit, you have the Kuei-Jin and LaCroix alliance take center stage in the plot from the start, with the Ankaran Sarcophagus being a monkey-wrench thrown at this alliance. It wasn't just because a cab driver who we're supposed to believe is 100000 years old Caine did it for the lolz.
Indeed, the best parts of the plot were already laid out before Mitsoda joined, but of course once he did join "much of the preliminary design was abandoned or redeveloped."
On my next butthurt-inducing comment, I present to you clear cut proof that what Mitsoda says vs. what Mitsoda does stands in stark conflict with eachother. On villains, he laments that he's
"B-but the characters!" You might say. It's a fair point, but I'd argue we don't even really know just what exactly Mitsoda wrote for each character. For Tourette, at least, it's safe to say that he didn't have as much involvement as he'd like people to believe he did, because on Malkavians he had this to say.
Bonus: Mitsoda's self-insert, Romero, is hilariously the most cringeworthy character in the game with arguably the worst dialogue, and yet we're supposed to believe this is the same guy who wrote Smiling Jack's dialogue?
Naaaaah.
Thank you for reading, I await your inflamed responses.
Mitsoda shills will never admit this, but the Bloodlines concept story was more cohesive before Mitsoda joined the team. Cain, Boyarski, and Anderson did enough research to nail a competent VtM plot that only got worse during production after Mitsoda joined.
Every game of chess begins with one move.
Your story begins on a rain-soaked evening, in a pay-by-the-hour motel just off the Sunset Strip. You are the bastard property of an anarch Lick, sired against the Traditions of the Kindred. Your fate was sealed before the man's[?] teeth ever punctured your neck. An outcast to both kine and Kindred, you wander the streets until you are hunted down and brought before the newly appointed Camarilla prince. The prince, holding only the most tenuous of authority in an anarch city like Los Angeles, is forced to hand down harsh judgment. Your sire is killed immediately. You are given a difficult ordeal to prove your worth.
In chess, small moves start the game, but they are always the most important.
From there, it's a stark, sinister ride through the shadowed warrens of Los Angeles, from the smoky, neon-cast rooms of the underground club scene to hidden vampire fortresses in the Hollywood hills. Along the way, a mystery begins to take shape involving the most powerful of Cainite society and other supernatural creatures. You don't know who to trust. Perhaps it is all an elaborate hoax created by the Malkavians, or a trap set by the Society of Leopold? And it seems that someone, or something, is helping you. Pushing you in certain directions. Or perhaps it is everything else that is being pushed around you.
Chess masters can see many moves in advance. Some can play the whole game before it even begins.
Welcome to the world of Vampire: Bloodlines
A Camarilla prince has moved into LA, looking for a way to establish his authority. Having secretly negotiated an agreement, the Kuei-Jin have begun to perpetuate the myth that Jeremy MacNeil was not actually killed in the battle of Signal Hill and that he has returned to Los Angeles. At the same time, the Kuei-Jin have begun to commit vampiric crimes in the city, and are making it look as if MacNeil is doing them. All of this is to undermine the anarch's belief in their fallen leader, and to have them turn to the prince for their new leadership. The Kuei-Jin, unbeknownst to the prince, hope to use this situation to establish their own power in L.A., wiping out both the anarchs and the Camarilla.
The PC, newly and illicitly Embraced, is shown mercy by the prince and is allowed to prove himself through an ordeal. After completing this, he begins to work for Anastasz di Zagreb, a Tremere justicar, sent by the Camarilla to investigate a report of diablerie. Strangely, the Ankaran Sarcophagus, a newly discovered ancient relic from Turkey, has "disappeared into thin air," stolen from the Museum of Natural History. The prince, worried about violations of the Masquerade (as well as the possible importance of the sarcophagus to the thieves, who he assumes are Kindred) has the PC begin to investigate the matter.
The story begins to unfold. Half of the time the PC is working for the justicar (who knows nothing of the prince's machinations, but is beginning to suspect) gathering the 'evidence' against MacNeil, and the other half of the time he is looking into the Ankaran Sarcophagus. It is while the PC is investigating the sarcophagus that he eventually finds the clues that lead him to discover the connection between the prince and the Kuei-Jin, and allow for the final conflict, and resolution of the story.
The assumption, presented in more detail in the following section, is that a very powerful vampire introduced the Ankaran Sarcophagus to the situation in LA. Seeing the possible implications of a power shift to the Kuei-Jin, he masterminds a plot to expose the connection between the prince and the Kuei-Jin, and neutralize them both.
Your story begins on a rain-soaked evening, in a pay-by-the-hour motel just off the Sunset Strip. You are the bastard property of an anarch Lick, sired against the Traditions of the Kindred. Your fate was sealed before the man's[?] teeth ever punctured your neck. An outcast to both kine and Kindred, you wander the streets until you are hunted down and brought before the newly appointed Camarilla prince. The prince, holding only the most tenuous of authority in an anarch city like Los Angeles, is forced to hand down harsh judgment. Your sire is killed immediately. You are given a difficult ordeal to prove your worth.
In chess, small moves start the game, but they are always the most important.
From there, it's a stark, sinister ride through the shadowed warrens of Los Angeles, from the smoky, neon-cast rooms of the underground club scene to hidden vampire fortresses in the Hollywood hills. Along the way, a mystery begins to take shape involving the most powerful of Cainite society and other supernatural creatures. You don't know who to trust. Perhaps it is all an elaborate hoax created by the Malkavians, or a trap set by the Society of Leopold? And it seems that someone, or something, is helping you. Pushing you in certain directions. Or perhaps it is everything else that is being pushed around you.
Chess masters can see many moves in advance. Some can play the whole game before it even begins.
Welcome to the world of Vampire: Bloodlines
A Camarilla prince has moved into LA, looking for a way to establish his authority. Having secretly negotiated an agreement, the Kuei-Jin have begun to perpetuate the myth that Jeremy MacNeil was not actually killed in the battle of Signal Hill and that he has returned to Los Angeles. At the same time, the Kuei-Jin have begun to commit vampiric crimes in the city, and are making it look as if MacNeil is doing them. All of this is to undermine the anarch's belief in their fallen leader, and to have them turn to the prince for their new leadership. The Kuei-Jin, unbeknownst to the prince, hope to use this situation to establish their own power in L.A., wiping out both the anarchs and the Camarilla.
The PC, newly and illicitly Embraced, is shown mercy by the prince and is allowed to prove himself through an ordeal. After completing this, he begins to work for Anastasz di Zagreb, a Tremere justicar, sent by the Camarilla to investigate a report of diablerie. Strangely, the Ankaran Sarcophagus, a newly discovered ancient relic from Turkey, has "disappeared into thin air," stolen from the Museum of Natural History. The prince, worried about violations of the Masquerade (as well as the possible importance of the sarcophagus to the thieves, who he assumes are Kindred) has the PC begin to investigate the matter.
The story begins to unfold. Half of the time the PC is working for the justicar (who knows nothing of the prince's machinations, but is beginning to suspect) gathering the 'evidence' against MacNeil, and the other half of the time he is looking into the Ankaran Sarcophagus. It is while the PC is investigating the sarcophagus that he eventually finds the clues that lead him to discover the connection between the prince and the Kuei-Jin, and allow for the final conflict, and resolution of the story.
The assumption, presented in more detail in the following section, is that a very powerful vampire introduced the Ankaran Sarcophagus to the situation in LA. Seeing the possible implications of a power shift to the Kuei-Jin, he masterminds a plot to expose the connection between the prince and the Kuei-Jin, and neutralize them both.
Indeed, the best parts of the plot were already laid out before Mitsoda joined, but of course once he did join "much of the preliminary design was abandoned or redeveloped."
On my next butthurt-inducing comment, I present to you clear cut proof that what Mitsoda says vs. what Mitsoda does stands in stark conflict with eachother. On villains, he laments that he's
Plausible if you're 12. LaCroix is the epitome definition of "evil just because", and same is Andrei the woefully generic Tzimisce. LaCroix showed signs of being nuanced at the beginning, because the original pitch made him that way. His alliance with the Kuei-Jin was arguably a good idea but very controversial from a Camarilla point of view, he wasn't some Antediluvian-obsessed retard chasing after his munchies. In retrospect, we can also see how the generic Sabbat-BAD addition served only to dilute the story further.wiki said:
"B-but the characters!" You might say. It's a fair point, but I'd argue we don't even really know just what exactly Mitsoda wrote for each character. For Tourette, at least, it's safe to say that he didn't have as much involvement as he'd like people to believe he did, because on Malkavians he had this to say.
Which if anything sounds like he's trying to throw a jab directly at Tourette and the Daughter of Janus reveal scene. I would love it if other developers, voice actors, and writers would come out and say which ideas were theirs in relation to the characters.
Bonus: Mitsoda's self-insert, Romero, is hilariously the most cringeworthy character in the game with arguably the worst dialogue, and yet we're supposed to believe this is the same guy who wrote Smiling Jack's dialogue?
Naaaaah.
Thank you for reading, I await your inflamed responses.
Cricket McBangle
Learned
- Joined
- Dec 28, 2021
- Messages
- 220
Mitsoda did not write Smiling Jack
He also didn't write the Gimble's Prosthethics stuff either. I know it's a side quest but still, I remember that one being pretty gnarly. It seems like his biggest contributions were Ocean House Hotel, Jeannette Voermann, the Deb Of Night (some of the commercials were not him) and possibly that Stop Sign gag.
Also Tim Cain just started doing YouTube and has answered a few Bloodlines questions and mostly credits Leonard Boyarsky and Jason Anderson being their project as Tim said he joined in the last year of the game's production because his whole thing was Temple of Elemental Evil. He didn't even bring up Brian Mitsoda but as a programmer joining on in the last year, I'm not sure if he would have had much interaction with him anyway.
Last edited:
- Joined
- May 29, 2010
- Messages
- 36,709
Eh, people change. But regarding that https://web.archive.org/web/2006061...netvampire/topic.asp?fid=9642&tid=1773542&p=4
Brian's been open about what exactly he wrote.
Wesp5
Arcane
- Joined
- Apr 18, 2007
- Messages
- 1,947
Somebody is already working on it. They contacted me on ModDB, but sadly I know nothing of render targets and similar stuff to be of much help. Right now there seem to be issues with the UI messing up the rest of the game. So if anybody knows more about how rendering in Source and especially Bloodlines work, please contact me and then I can connect you with the guy working on this!
Wesp5
Arcane
- Joined
- Apr 18, 2007
- Messages
- 1,947
I don't see many differences except for the whole MacNeil plot which would mean nothing to anybody not versed in the WoD background and I wonder if Mitsoda would have been important enough to have that cut completely. Especially as he was involved late in the development as well as Cain. I rather imagine some Activision producer removed this because it needs too much PnP knowledge to make any sense which would narrow down the suitable audience for the game!
Delterius
Arcane
I think the proposed MacNeil plot has one issue: in that story the Kuei-Jin are uniting the kindred of Los Angeles. Which is the last thing they want to see happening.
In the actual game the Kuei-Jin were supposed to be outnumbered but better drilled and more disciplined. They hurt the Anarchs badly and forced them into the Camarilla's umbrella, albeit temporarily. That's how LaCroix moved into LA in the first place. The game as a whole has this contest between Ming and LaCroix where they pretend to work with each other while trying to get the other to undermine their respective power bases.
Ming wins the political game when she fools the Prince into thinking Nines killed Grout (or, rather, fooling him into thinking that she did him a service by giving him a pretext for a bloodhunt), and then she fooled everybody else (including Jack) into thinking that the werewolf attack was from LaCroix. This is in between the lines and not altogether clear. But LaCroix couldn't have known that Nines was hiding in Griffith Park. If he did the blood hunt would have gone thereabouts already. Ming's network of spies most certainly did, and she attracted the weres right at the perfect time. It is also unlikely that LaCroix would sacrifice you just to flush Nines out, and that his overtures to Nines were genuine. He was always afraid of the Kuei-Jin first and foremost and you'd become too valuable and powerful a pawn, a prospective new sheriff even. The only evidence we have that LaCroix caused the werewolf attack are Jack's suspicions, but that's both circumstancial and biased. He's just another Anarch who's been fooled by the Kuei-Jin's great plan.
Ming wanted a Kindred civil war, not a Kindred entente. And she engineered one. The Kuei-Jin might have taken over Los Angeles if you weren't the spanner in the works.
In the actual game the Kuei-Jin were supposed to be outnumbered but better drilled and more disciplined. They hurt the Anarchs badly and forced them into the Camarilla's umbrella, albeit temporarily. That's how LaCroix moved into LA in the first place. The game as a whole has this contest between Ming and LaCroix where they pretend to work with each other while trying to get the other to undermine their respective power bases.
Ming wins the political game when she fools the Prince into thinking Nines killed Grout (or, rather, fooling him into thinking that she did him a service by giving him a pretext for a bloodhunt), and then she fooled everybody else (including Jack) into thinking that the werewolf attack was from LaCroix. This is in between the lines and not altogether clear. But LaCroix couldn't have known that Nines was hiding in Griffith Park. If he did the blood hunt would have gone thereabouts already. Ming's network of spies most certainly did, and she attracted the weres right at the perfect time. It is also unlikely that LaCroix would sacrifice you just to flush Nines out, and that his overtures to Nines were genuine. He was always afraid of the Kuei-Jin first and foremost and you'd become too valuable and powerful a pawn, a prospective new sheriff even. The only evidence we have that LaCroix caused the werewolf attack are Jack's suspicions, but that's both circumstancial and biased. He's just another Anarch who's been fooled by the Kuei-Jin's great plan.
Ming wanted a Kindred civil war, not a Kindred entente. And she engineered one. The Kuei-Jin might have taken over Los Angeles if you weren't the spanner in the works.
Last edited:
ColaWerewolf
Educated
- Joined
- Feb 6, 2021
- Messages
- 150
I respect the time you've invested into fixing bugs, but come on man. The pacing and structure are completely different. Search your heart you know it to be true.Wesp5 said:
It's easy to blame the publishers because it's in style and you're not alienating anyone, but is it true? Everything you need to know about MacNeil is already presented in VtMB in <10 lines of dialogue, how come the big, bad producers didn't have them trash those lines about MacNeil in the game, I wonder?Wesp5 said:
Besides, and courtesy of Rougey,
Those publishers couldn't have been all bad.Mitsoda said:
By allying with LaCroix they have a sure-fire self-destruct button against the Kindred as a whole. All they need to do is push the anarchs toward the Ivory Tower while securing domain and valuable intel from the Prince in the process, then when all the Kindred joined together under one ruler and you've shored up your own defenses in the domain you bartered away from the Prince, reveal indisputable proof that their Prince was working with you all along and watch the entire sect blow up in civil war.Delterius said:
hay gbuaies i ofund the scedftert thread acobu t bloodliens 1 that s was hic=1&o=date]cen uncder manyh layers ov scecrecy >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
RaggleFraggle
Ask me about VTM
- Joined
- Mar 23, 2022
- Messages
- 1,440
How exactly does a subplot like “the Global Vampiric Council has sent one of their Chief Justices to observe events going on among the vampire bosses competing to become the Regional Director of the Los Angeles metropolitan area” narrow down the audience? Sounds pretty simple to me.
Wesp5
Arcane
- Joined
- Apr 18, 2007
- Messages
- 1,947
LOL! In fact I knew nothing about VtM when I played the game, I only played it because it used the Source engine and I bet many people coming from FPS did. BTW, the Justicar model was still hidden in the game files and I restored it to the Camarilla ending, because it makes sense that Strauss called for official backup for dethroning a Camarilla prince...
RaggleFraggle
Ask me about VTM
- Joined
- Mar 23, 2022
- Messages
- 1,440
That doesn’t answer my question
Harthwain
Magister
- Joined
- Dec 13, 2019
- Messages
- 5,417
It would require an explanation as to who Jeremy MacNeil is and why it's important. But I do agree that to a complete stranger to the setting (who knows only that it's about secret vampires) it's not exactly a limiting factor. If anything I would question why anybody should buy the whole "Jeremy MacNeil is still alive" story and not simply chalk it down to "somebody is making a mess here and we have to find out who it is".
RaggleFraggle
Ask me about VTM
- Joined
- Mar 23, 2022
- Messages
- 1,440
I was making a point that it’s easy to introduce concepts if they aren’t obscured behind layers of nonsensical jargon and irrelevant trivia.
Is there a picture of this? I don't remember who was present in the room for the Strauss ending at all.
NecroLord
Dumbfuck!
- Joined
- Sep 6, 2022
- Messages
- 14,832
Andrei was pretty good, yo, watchu talking about?
Voiced by badass Steve Blum, he is a Sabbat Archbishop. The Sabbat do not fuck around, they are cruel and bloody monsters. Andrei perfectly exemplifies the alien Tzimisce mindset.
As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.