Revisiting VtM: Bloodlines

[Prime Junta]

I just finished Ocean House and died in boiler room . Overall finishing it 3rd or 4th time is rather boring.

Could anyone explain to me why main hero is not angry on Lacroix or whole society for killing his/her boy/girlfried in the begining? I mean she/he is transforming us into vampire, violating the masquarade, risking a lot - and why? Only two reasons on my mind are:

1. She/He is actually part of conspiracy, and turns us into a vampire due to someone's request - and his/her death is unexpected for him.her (Lacroix killing his puppet maybe?)
2. There is some huge love affair and he/she is our lover and all that shit from Iced Earth writing - if that's so then why we don;t give a shit after he/she being killed? I mean Lacroix is saying that we should do something for him in Santa Monica, and we should obey the vampiric law and we are totally submissive.

Maybe I've missed something...

I thought it was fairly obvious it was a one-nighter, not a relationship.

Second, as I mentioned earlier, the whole story stinks.

(1) You're eight-generation (you can tell by the blood points). That means your sire is seventh-gen. That is very powerful: most seventh-generationers would've been 500-600 years old by the 2000's. This is not someone some princeling can just nab and execute; it's much more likely to be someone who's behind the curtains, pulling strings.

(2) You're fucking in the opening scene. This isn't foreplay, there are ripped-open condom packages on the floor. Vampires don't do that (except Jeanette, but she's... Jeanette).

(3) The mysterious emails reveal the whole thing as a chess game, planned from the first move.

(... and more)

It can't have happened like it appears. I think the most plausible story is that your 'sire' is a plant. Someone -- Caine/the taxi driver -- engineered it. Who your real sire is, we will never know; if the taxi driver really is Caine, it could easily have been him -- he's Caine, which means he can do pretty much anything, including skipping over seven generations when siring a childe and giving him any bloodline he chooses; he is the father of them all, after all. Or he could easily have gotten some other sevent-generation Elder to do it on his behalf. The main thing is that the plot is kicked into motion; all the players in LA think you're a helpless, late-generation neonate, when in reality your blood is as strong as any of theirs, perhaps stronger.

 

[pippin]

You can't accidentally embrace someone.

That's not what happened. The sire embraced you, but without telling it to LaCroix, which is a serious crime among Vampire Society.

 

[pippin]

(2) You're fucking in the opening scene. This isn't foreplay, there are ripped-open condom packages on the floor. Vampires don't do that (except Jeanette, but she's... Jeanette).

Vampires aren't supposed to feel human emotions, as I mentioned before. This could be interpreted as the sire working a way to manipulate you, but since vampires are dead they can't produce fluids normally, and those fluids are replaced by blood (I don't remember if this was a house rule or anything, but it makes sense in context). In the case of Jeanette, she could probably be on the hunt for blood, but I wonder how this hasn't represented a problem to Lacroix yet. Perhaps he's aware of what's going on? I dunno, but all the possible situations always end up portraying him as the biggest cuck of the Masquerade.

 

[Excidium II]

You can't accidentally embrace someone.

That's not what happened. The sire embraced you, but without telling it to LaCroix, which is a serious crime among Vampire Society.

The point is that they knew what they were doing so obviously there should be some form of caring to accept that risk. Or the famous cunspiracy story above I guess.

Vampires aren't supposed to feel human emotions, as I mentioned before.

This is somewhat wrong. They can feel like a person who lost an arm can feel their fingers. It takes some centuries to forget what it's like to be human.

 

[Delterius]

You can't accidentally embrace someone.

That's not what happened. The sire embraced you, but without telling it to LaCroix, which is a serious crime among Vampire Society.

The point is that they knew what they were doing so obviously there should be some form of caring to accept that risk. Or the famous cunspiracy story above I guess.

Vampires aren't supposed to feel human emotions, as I mentioned before.

This is somewhat wrong. They can feel like a person who lost an arm can feel their fingers. It takes some centuries to forget what it's like to be human.

Not they, only the sire. The opening cutscene makes it clear you were in the dark about it all. Your sire was just dum.

 

[Old One]

I think the biggest flaw of this game is linearity. Almost every non-hub area, even if it's a good area, is linear as hell. Ocean House Hotel? Linear. Grout's Mansion? Linear. Sewers? Linear. Tutorial? Linear. Parking Ramp? Linear.

Bloodlines would be even better than it is if it just broke up the linearity a bit. Leave Grout's Mansion as-is, sure, but it would be nice to have some Thief or Deus Ex-style here's-your-objective-now-figure-it-out-yourself missions with multiple angles and approaches.

 

[pippin]

This is somewhat wrong. They can feel like a person who lost an arm can feel their fingers. It takes some centuries to forget what it's like to be human.

I think that's the idea behind the human vs beast conflict of the Humanity points. Vampires, according to the game, are dead, but they still have memories of human emotions and feelings, and the struggle between the undead nature and the human remains in the mind of the player are supposed to fuel the conflict on both Bloodlines and the LARPing possibilities of the pnp game.

 

[Excidium II]

Nope. You should read more clan books and novels. There are vampires who embrace just for the pleasure of it.

Yes, there are. Don't need to read any splat because it says so in core. But it's uncommon due to the risk involved, and the fact it isn't much more pleasurable than simply feeding, besides the sadism of condemning someone (like jealous nosferatu do).

 

[Prime Junta]

I think the biggest flaw of this game is linearity. Almost every non-hub area, even if it's a good area, is linear as hell. Ocean House Hotel? Linear. Grout's Mansion? Linear. Sewers? Linear. Tutorial? Linear. Parking Ramp? Linear.

Bloodlines would be even better than it is if it just broke up the linearity a bit. Leave Grout's Mansion as-is, sure, but it would be nice to have some Thief or Deus Ex-style here's-your-objective-now-figure-it-out-yourself missions with multiple angles and approaches.

True, but there's a quite a lot of stuff to do in the hubs as well. I thought that, warts aside, it was a pretty nice combination of linear levels to 'solve' and non-linear hubs to explore. It gave the whole thing a rhythm without being too much in-your-face about it.

 

[Excidium II]

It didn't feel so linear the first time around.

 

[pippin]

I think the biggest flaw of this game is linearity. Almost every non-hub area, even if it's a good area, is linear as hell. Ocean House Hotel? Linear. Grout's Mansion? Linear. Sewers? Linear. Tutorial? Linear. Parking Ramp? Linear.

Bloodlines would be even better than it is if it just broke up the linearity a bit. Leave Grout's Mansion as-is, sure, but it would be nice to have some Thief or Deus Ex-style here's-your-objective-now-figure-it-out-yourself missions with multiple angles and approaches.

Given the current state of videogames, I'd rather have a linear game with good narration and good choices instead of an open world game with tons of meaningless stuff to do. Open World, in many ways, is the death of game design.

 

[Prime Junta]

I think the biggest flaw of this game is linearity. Almost every non-hub area, even if it's a good area, is linear as hell. Ocean House Hotel? Linear. Grout's Mansion? Linear. Sewers? Linear. Tutorial? Linear. Parking Ramp? Linear.

Bloodlines would be even better than it is if it just broke up the linearity a bit. Leave Grout's Mansion as-is, sure, but it would be nice to have some Thief or Deus Ex-style here's-your-objective-now-figure-it-out-yourself missions with multiple angles and approaches.

Given the current state of videogames, I'd rather have a linear game with good narration and good choices instead of an open world game with tons of meaningless stuff to do. Open World, in many ways, is the death of game design.

Only if done badly... like it usually is. Fallout 1/2/NV, Gothic 1/2, Morrowind, Arcanum prove that it doesn't have to be.

 

[Old One]

It's a testament to how good it is that you don't even realize how linear it is at first.

The linearity of the Golden Temple did bother me though, even on the first try. You can be a lockpicking specialist and you suddenly start encountering unpickable doors designed to enforce the linearity.

I don't think Open World would work in an urban setting like Bloodlines. That's why I suggested Thief and Deus Ex as models for a few missions.

 

[Excidium II]

It's a testament to how good it is that you don't even realize how linear it is at first.

There's some things that help. Like the dialogue reactivity, which is cheap but for a first playthrough gives the idea "hmm cool seems I could have done that differently".

Of course, when you replay the illusion is broken but luckily the game is good enough that is worth playing many times even if the experience doesn't change much.

 

[DeepOcean]

Wasn't Bloodlines planned to be open world something and then scaled back to hub design for the lack of funds? Is that true or I snorted too much cocaine today?

 

[Excidium II]

I don't think so. Maybe "open world" in the sense you could travel to different hubs non-linearly like in AP?

 

[Roguey]

Its scope was overextended as it was, adding more nonlinearity would have been nuts. Unless you want something that's only good for Santa Montica.

It's a testament to how good it is that you don't even realize how linear it is at first.

I did, but I have an eye for these things.

 

[BreakerOfOaths]

People tend to rate Arcanum over this masterpiece, and I'm struggling to see how that is possible. Easily the finest product Troika released in their short time as a company.

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=113

Original Codex review from back in the day, written by the legendary Spazmo himself.

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines is a different game at different times. In the beginning of the game and in fact through most of it, it's really very good. The story is interesting, the quests are well made, the NPC dialog is good and the combat is fun. But occasionally, a particularly boneheaded design decision like endlessly respawning enemies (which occurs far too often in this game) or magical unpickable superlocks and you can't help but be unhappy with the game. The real problem with Bloodlines is that the game is at its worst towards the end, which is naturally the portion of which gamers will most freshly remember after finishing it. Looking back on the last couple hours of gameplay in Bloodlines really makes me want to groan. But if you think back farther, to the well designed areas and the fun quests and the interesting NPCs that the game really does have in spades, the game starts looking good again.

All in all, Bloodlines is a very good game. The problem is that it really isn't the great game we were hoping to get. There's two ways to look at Bloodlines. Either it's a decent RPG with the odd really crappy bit or it's a quite excellent action RPG that offers freedom and interactivity never before seen in that kind of game. In any case, it is a good game that probably should be played by fans of RPGs, fans of action games and fans of Vampire: The Masquerade, but we're still waiting for the next big game, the real successor to Fallout, and Troika has yet to prove they're the people we should be looking to in order to get it.

The early Codex' Fallout centrism shows, but all in all a very fair appraisal of the game. Notice how magical unlockable doors were a pet peeve of the Codex back then, it's true though: there's very little in-game logic to which locks you can pick and which not, it's all dictated by the needs of plot/quest progression and can be jarring at times.

 

[Roguey]

Respawning enemies is an extremely autistic complaint to make, that happens maybe a single digit number of times.

I'll agree that the combat option for Romero's quest is an example of a gamey task executed horribly.

 

[Zero Credibility]

Wasn't there a (relatively) recent poll here on the 'dex that had Bloodlines as the best Troika game? Best crpg evar or whatever, I think I remember butthurt over it beating Arcanum...

 

[baturinsky]

Are there methods to raise someone's effective generation post-embrace in VtM? Other than diablerie?

 

[Old One]

Its scope was overextended as it was, adding more nonlinearity would have been nuts.

I'm speaking from idealism. Of course there was a distinct lack of time and resource to implement everything as envisioned; it shows throughout the whole game.

 

[Excidium II]

Are there methods to raise someone's effective generation post-embrace in VtM? Other than diablerie?

Thaumaturgy.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

Wasn't Bloodlines planned to be open world something and then scaled back to hub design for the lack of funds? Is that true or I snorted too much cocaine today?

Not open world exactly but more complex in terms of level/area design. Initially there was even jumping and athletics, pointing maybe to a planned more extensive use of verticality when traversing levels and hubs.

Here's a glimpse of what was cut:

https://tcrf.net/Vampire:_The_Masquerade_-_Bloodlines#Unused_Levels

A game can be linear with levels but still have them be set in fairly large urban areas with plenty of opportunity for (both horizontal and vertical) exploration, a good example is Urban Chaos.