World of Darkness Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 from Hardsuit Labs

[Lacrymas]

WTF??? They turned Age of Wonders into a console sci-fi game???

We've been talking about this for a while.

 

[Cael]

Unpopolar as it may be. Since I read the V5 core manual, I really didn't find it full of SJW as people tend to think here.

There is that "Disclaimer at the beginning", Rudi the queer-black-antifa-vamp, Carna (that noone mentioned) who is a feminist fighting the patriartical Camarilla. And nothing else.

It's like 2 pages of content, if you dismissis the disclaimer...and they are like at the end, as an Appendix in a thing called "loresheet". It's basically some char stuff for people to build campaigns on.

Sounds like they just gave SJW some material to LARP, but the core lore is still intact (mostly).

The disclaimer at the beginning makes it absolutely clear that they don't want you to play the game if you don't share their politics. Everything else is pretty much irrelevant, even though it does support the anti-sjw argument. Why, then, would you try to force yourself on them? Flip them the bird and walk away. Just boycott the sjw shits. Stop giving your openly declared enemies money. Stop financing totalitarianism and your own slavery.

 

[Cael]

WTF??? They turned Age of Wonders into a console sci-fi game???

We've been talking about this for a while.

For that, they can die a horrible death by paintball. Those %$*(@&%$*@ motherfuckers!

 

[Trans-Financial-Man]

Unpopolar as it may be. Since I read the V5 core manual, I really didn't find it full of SJW as people tend to think here.

There is that "Disclaimer at the beginning", Rudi the queer-black-antifa-vamp, Carna (that noone mentioned) who is a feminist fighting the patriartical Camarilla. And nothing else.

It's like 2 pages of content, if you dismissis the disclaimer...and they are like at the end, as an Appendix in a thing called "loresheet". It's basically some char stuff for people to build campaigns on.

Sounds like they just gave SJW some material to LARP, but the core lore is still intact (mostly).

If I put "No niggers, no dogs, no Irish," in front of my shop and said people started turning up in droves that defeats the purpose of such a sign. If a game explicitly says, "you are not welcome" because of arbitrary details of politics and skin colour especially after years of being edgy but inclusive. Then people are at the very least entitled to scratch their heads.

 

[ga♥]

Unpopolar as it may be. Since I read the V5 core manual, I really didn't find it full of SJW as people tend to think here.

There is that "Disclaimer at the beginning", Rudi the queer-black-antifa-vamp, Carna (that noone mentioned) who is a feminist fighting the patriartical Camarilla. And nothing else.

It's like 2 pages of content, if you dismissis the disclaimer...and they are like at the end, as an Appendix in a thing called "loresheet". It's basically some char stuff for people to build campaigns on.

Sounds like they just gave SJW some material to LARP, but the core lore is still intact (mostly).

If I put "No niggers, no dogs, no Irish," in front of my shop and said people started turning up in droves that defeats the purpose of such a sign. If a game explicitly says, "you are not welcome" because of arbitrary details of politics and skin colour especially after years of being edgy but inclusive. Then people are at the very least entitled to scratch their heads.

I wonder if they added that specific disclaimer after the Cechen LBGT thing. It makes no sense whatoever. Since when Vamps are a staple of "neo-nazis"?
Anyway I don't think your example is very good. That disclaimer is directed to neo-nazis and fascists. I don't consider myself one. Maybe you do?

And as I said, the core manual (the anarch one seems more "hopeless", but I didn't read it), is pretty free of bullshit.

 

[Cael]

Unpopolar as it may be. Since I read the V5 core manual, I really didn't find it full of SJW as people tend to think here.

There is that "Disclaimer at the beginning", Rudi the queer-black-antifa-vamp, Carna (that noone mentioned) who is a feminist fighting the patriartical Camarilla. And nothing else.

It's like 2 pages of content, if you dismissis the disclaimer...and they are like at the end, as an Appendix in a thing called "loresheet". It's basically some char stuff for people to build campaigns on.

Sounds like they just gave SJW some material to LARP, but the core lore is still intact (mostly).

If I put "No niggers, no dogs, no Irish," in front of my shop and said people started turning up in droves that defeats the purpose of such a sign. If a game explicitly says, "you are not welcome" because of arbitrary details of politics and skin colour especially after years of being edgy but inclusive. Then people are at the very least entitled to scratch their heads.

I wonder if they added that specific disclaimer after the Cechen LBGT thing. It makes no sense whatoever. Since when Vamps are a staple of "neo-nazis"?
Anyway I don't think your example is very good. That disclaimer is directed to neo-nazis and fascists. I don't consider myself one. Maybe you do?

And as I said, the core manual (the anarch one seems more "hopeless", but I didn't read it), is pretty free of bullshit.

Ah, the standard sjw question: "Have you stopped beating your wife?"

I am compelled to remind people of a poem:

"First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me"
- Martin Niemöller

 

[ga♥]

You miss the point Cael. His point was "they have a sign against Black People, Irish and dogs and then they have the same people showing up in front of their shop".

 

[Cael]

You miss the point Cael. His point was "they have a sign against Black People, Irish and dogs and then they have the same people showing up in front of their shop".

You are using sophistry to try to confuse the issue. They want to dictate who can play their games. That is discrimination, and that is the core issue here.

If I put up a sign that says "No gays allowed", what the hell do you think would happen to my shop? Why is it OK for one side to discriminate but not another? Because they are your side?

I repeat: Boycott the fucks. Go woke, go broke. Fuck 'em over hard with a cricket bat!

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

I really don't want to get drawn into a discussion about sex and/or vampires, chiefly because these topics are ought to devolve into inanity. But inherently there is nothing wrong with mixing the two up.

There is everything wrong with mixing the two of them.

One may think that vampires are sexual creatures because they are seductive, but vampires are fundamentally asexual and their whole existence revolves around drawing blood from their victims.

They have next to nothing in common with human beings and their concerns. Human beings are prey, food. If human beings concerns are irrelevant to vampires, some noisy minorities among them are even more insignificant.

Let the pronouns and agendas to those silly LGBT humans. Vampires have more urgent concerns.

 

[Cael]

I really don't want to get drawn into a discussion about sex and/or vampires, chiefly because these topics are ought to devolve into inanity. But inherently there is nothing wrong with mixing the two up.

There is everything wrong with mixing the two of them.

One may think that vampires are sexual creatures because they are seductive, but vampires are fundamentally asexual and their whole existence revolves around drawing blood from their victims.

They have next to nothing in common with human beings and their concerns. Human beings are prey, food. If human beings concerns are irrelevant to vampires, some noise minorities among them are even more insignificant.

Let the pronouns and agendas to those silly LGBT humans. Vampires have more urgent concerns.

Forever Knight begs to differ :D I always did prefer that interpretation of the myth.

 

[Roguey]

The whole idea that vampires are asexual beings is pretty retarded. Most of the vampires are portrayed to be about the same after getting turned as they were prior. Their personalities don't change. The clans are what they are because they tend to turn those they feel are most likely to fit into the clan. It is a case of selective breeding, if you will. The Toreador are even portrayed to be practically lovelorn stalkers. In Bloodlines, the Torrie leader turned a guy he had a crush on.

That asexual thing sounds like white wolf trying to handwave away a gnarly question that would have kicked their sjw "streetcred" in the nads.

Vampires being asexual but not aromantic makes sense to me. It takes so much extra effort to have sex, and feeding feels significantly better anyway, so why would anyone who isn't a crazy Malkavian want to put so much effort into having sex when it's so much easier and feels so much better to feed?

Additionally, there's a line from the movie A Scanner Darkly that's also applicable here.

Barris : Bob's girl?
Freck : Yeah.
Barris : Yeah, "his girl," although I know for a fact he never gets in her pants.
Freck : Really?
Barris : Yeah.
Freck : But he... talks like he does.
Barris : Oh, yeah. That's Bob Arctor. He talks like he does many things. It's not the same, my friend, it's not the same thing. Donna has an aversion to bodily contact. I mean, junkies lose their interest in sex, you realize, due to organs swelling up from vasoconstriction. And I have observed in her an inordinate failure of sexual arousal not just toward Bob Arctor, but to... other males as well.

Vampires are blood junkies.

Except that female faggot wasn't a vampire yet and any seduction on our part was due to agenda we've had, there was no romance there, the only thing we cared was the objective, once we've reached it we moved on.

The "female faggot" was my character and you're making an awful lot of assumptions about her character. Additionally, VV will fall in love with anyone who does what she says to her specifications, and being a polyamorous biromantic asexual certainly makes sense for the kind of character she is.

Not exactly the impression I got from the announcement. He barely said two words and the SJWs did half the talking.

Paradox are liberals, VTM is now an SJW-friendly setting - there seems to be a very strong pull toward the Left that they are going to face.

Just who was it that decided to go with an SJW journo as one of the lead writers? Just who was it that wanted to hire the fohawk dyke that came on afterwards?

Every time, it's always the same: SJWs are fanatics. All they care about is their doctrine and they force it in wherever they can, regardless of how it ruins their material.

Brian is a Seattle-dwelling liberal, but he tends to keep to himself and remains stoic. His last game, Dead State, had a would-be rapist as a party member. While it's possible and perhaps even likely that he's become even more extreme since the early 10s, there's no proof that he's become a full-fledged agenda pusher (and the Bloodlines 2 twitter account has affirmed as much, talking about how you will have opportunities to be monstrous).

 

[Cael]

Brian is a Seattle-dwelling liberal, but he tends to keep to himself and remains stoic. His last game, Dead State, had a would-be rapist as a party member. While it's possible and perhaps even likely that he's become even more extreme since the early 10s, there's no proof that he's become a full-fledged agenda pusher (and the Bloodlines 2 twitter account has affirmed as much, talking about how you will have opportunities to be monstrous).

Opportunities to be monstrous is hardly an antidote to agenda pushing. The most nasty and monstrous totalitarians we have today are sjws.

 

[Love]

https://www.dualshockers.com/vampire-masquerade-bloodlines-2-preview-gdc/

I'm forever the optimist and just like with Underworld Ascendant back in the day, I am simply assuming the guys have listened to Warren Spector's thoughts on the usage of skills in immersive sims. But gun handling was an important aspect in the predecessor and it certainly helps to diversify your character with it. I imagine they will have to compensate this with the vampire skills then as the interview indicates.

Using eroticism to lure victims =/= sex drive. No vampire in classical literature pre-Anne Rice has had sex with their victims or anyone. Sure, the scene where Dracula forces Mina to drink his blood is rape-y, but it's not actual rape. Many characters in Dracula point out that the rejuvenated Dracula and his progeny are strangely erotic and sexually attractive, but Van Helsing explains numerous times that they are such for the purpose of preying, not that they have a sex drive.

Confronted with vampires we are still dealing with good looking immortal beings that won't have children and can only enter your home when you invite them in. These parallels to human romancing are one of the interesting aspects of the horror of vampires. Not to mention women go crazy for vampires.

 

[J1M]

so is bloodlines 2 oh-wawd or nu-wawd of darkness

Now, sit down and try to sort this out with me. I've only recently managed to wrap my head around this, myself. I'm sure you know some of this, so I'm sorry if I sound patronizing, but there's likely people that know nothing at all.

• First there was World of Darkness. This is used in the VtM:B, which is based on Vampire: The Masquerade, Revised Edition (IIRC).
• Then, White Wolf made a new World of Darkness, which they simply called World of Darkness, and it was very different from the established setting. This was usually referenced as "nWoD".
• At this point, what used to be called World of Darkness started to be referenced as "old World of Darkness", or "oWoD", and later "Classic World of Darkness". Vampire: The Masquerade is canned, and Vampire: The Requiem is born. There's a number of sister games that suffer the same fate/are rebranded.
  
• nWoD never achieved the popularity of oWoD, for a number of reasons that are irrelevant.
• Cue White Wolf being acquired by Paradox. At this point in our story, or a little bit later, they want to create what they call "One World of Darkness". After a while, they rebrand nWoD into "Chronicles of Darkness", also referenced as "CofD". The "One World of Darkness" that they create instead is considered a continuation of oWoD, which is rebranded as simply "World of Darkness" again.
• They proceed to publish what is called V5, which is the fifth "Edition" of Vampire: The Masquerade. This is the fucking abortion Bloodlines 2 will be based on. It is technically oWod/WoD, but it is also worse in almost every way, with a massive dose of SJWism, gatekeeping, and complete faggotry just to add to the controversy.

This entire franchise is a fucking mess, and it doesn't help that some of the better/older versions are massively outdated by now. For example, Mage: The Ascension, the only (Old)/World of Darkness version of Mage AFAIK, was published in fucking 1993 and corresponds with Vampire: The Masquerade 2nd Ed. (V2), which was in itself published in fucking 1992. While there's a newer version (Mage: The Awakening, from 2005), it belongs to nWoD/CofD, just like the newer versions of Werewolf and such.

And just to add to the confusion, they couldn't even stick to a proper version format, so the versions of Vampire: The Masquerade goes like this: 1st Edition (V1, 1991) 2nd Edition (V2, 1992), Revised Edition (V3, 1998). Then we have Vampire: The Requiem (2004) in a completely different universe (nWoD). Then we get a new version of Vampire: The Masquerade, also considered a bit of an abortion, called The 20th Anniversary Edition (2011), referenced as V20. And now where here, with Paradox's Vampire: The Masquerade (2018), which is referenced as.. V5.

I suggest calling it gWoD, for the gay World of Darkness.

Codex echo chamber alert

How far up your own ass do you have to be to think that this has been anything other than a shit-show? Yeah, all the SJWs are ranting about it, but they rant about anything like the soapbox faggots they are, but it never translates into anything, because what they're looking for is a political platform and signal boosting, they rarely give a shit about the actual hobbies involved, nor does it translate to good games or sales. Shit could be the worst trash in the world and they'd still laud it as long as it promotes cocksucking.

This is an indirect indication that WoD works best if set in the 1990s. Once you hit a world where everyone has a camcorder in their pocket the Masquerade needs to be abandoned. It would either be constantly violated and a sizable portion of the internet would know vampires are real, or some very hard to believe magic needs to be introduced that makes it nigh-impossible to violate it unintentionally. In the 90s you also have the looming year 2000 aspect, and it wasn't really possible for characters to have the entirety of their social interaction virtually.

It's not unlike how the majority of successful fantasy settings are pre-industrial revolution.

 

[ga♥]

There is also the aspect that younger vamps also tries to cling to their humanity, by doing "human stuff, like eating, drinking, and having sex".

The V5 states that if your humanity is high enough (more humanity than what you tipically start with, so need some efforts to increase it), you can even enjoy sex.

You still need an ability called "Blush of life" though.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

The whole idea that vampires are asexual beings is pretty retarded. Most of the vampires are portrayed to be about the same after getting turned as they were prior. Their personalities don't change.

It’s a profound biological change. Basic human needs such as food, water, sex, defecation, and urination are entirely replaced by blood as the main imperative. If you main biological imperative doesn’t affect your behaviour, I don’t know what does.

His last game, Dead State, had a would-be rapist as a party member.

Which is portrayed in a negative light and used as a moral lesson. There are plenty of similar examples, e.g., the quest where you need to help in an abortion. You can’t actually condemn the pregnant behaviour or do anything about it. You either help her or you don’t. If you don’t, nothing happens because the developers don’t acknowledge your choice. If you do, stuff happens and you are rewarded for your “good deed”.

there's no proof that he's become a full-fledged agenda pusher.

Please, remind me again why were you cheering for a Dead State flop on release?

 

[J1M]

the “U7”. The unsanctioned vampires that were created at the beginning of the game.

So there are 7 of them, eh?

I'm starting to get the picture
1. initial chargen happens - mainly cosmetic
2. Mass embrace occurs, 7 new vampires are born, 1 of each playable clan
3. Tutorial happens without any clan specific disciplines - probably handwave away as "we don't know your clan/they haven't awakened yet"
4. You 'Pick' which clan you get to be the lucky fledgling of and finalise chargen.
5. Your primary quest is hunting down the other 6 vampires of the other playable clans.

I expect the player will hunt all 7. And winning favor to join a clan (more options added with DLC) will be another primary objective.

 

[jewboy]

Well it does make sense that vampires who may be undead and very old may not be sexual creatures. So no tasteful rape then...but they could still feel some attraction to beauty, to beautiful things. A girl with a beautiful face or a beautiful body (Jeanette) could still have value to a vampdude even if he has no interest in inserting some part of his body into her body. Even a brain-in-a-jar could still appreciate beauty.

Not sure why taking pleasure in feeding should be a thing though. I sort of prefer the idea that it is slightly distasteful--blood doesn't taste good--but it is the price of immortality and power. What's kind of funny is that in the real world old people can benefit from getting blood from the young. Anyway I'm not sure that feeding should be sexual except insofar as it could be a way of getting close to beautiful women. Sucking on someone's neck is pretty intimate even if you are killing them. That's why if I were a vampire I would not want to suck on some dude's hairy neck. Eww. Male vampires only targeting pretty and young girls could certainly be a thing even if they are asexual.

 

[J1M]

But it's no different to Bloodlines 1.

yeah, I think that's what they're saying and the journo took it as "no gun skill".

Remember, journalists are people who couldn't get real jobs and copy/paste press releases. They are not authority figures, especially for the things they report on.

 

[Love]

It’s a profound biological change. Basic human needs such as food, water, sex, defecation, and urination are entirely replaced by blood as the main imperative. If you main biological imperative doesn’t affect your behaviour, I don’t know what does.

If you're going to employ the biological explanation, you're gonna lose the mystic. So perhaps a maybe for vampires taking a dump.

 

[Cael]

The whole idea that vampires are asexual beings is pretty retarded. Most of the vampires are portrayed to be about the same after getting turned as they were prior. Their personalities don't change.

It’s a profound biological change. Basic human needs such as food, water, sex, defecation, and urination are entirely replaced by blood as the main imperative. If you main biological imperative doesn’t affect your behaviour, I don’t know what does.

Just because you don't need it doesn't mean you can't enjoy it. In fact, I would say that in today's age, sex is more a pleasure than a biological imperative. Just take a look at the LGTBIWTFLOL! and the soiboi brigades.

 

[Hirato]

the “U7”. The unsanctioned vampires that were created at the beginning of the game.

So there are 7 of them, eh?

I'm starting to get the picture
1. initial chargen happens - mainly cosmetic
2. Mass embrace occurs, 7 new vampires are born, 1 of each playable clan
3. Tutorial happens without any clan specific disciplines - probably handwave away as "we don't know your clan/they haven't awakened yet"
4. You 'Pick' which clan you get to be the lucky fledgling of and finalise chargen.
5. Your primary quest is hunting down the other 6 vampires of the other playable clans.

I expect the player will hunt all 7. And winning favor to join a clan (more options added with DLC) will be another primary objective.

It's kind of implied the player is 1 of those 7

 

[J1M]

I really don't want to get drawn into a discussion about sex and/or vampires, chiefly because these topics are ought to devolve into inanity. But inherently there is nothing wrong with mixing the two up.

There is everything wrong with mixing the two of them.

One may think that vampires are sexual creatures because they are seductive, but vampires are fundamentally asexual and their whole existence revolves around drawing blood from their victims.

They have next to nothing in common with human beings and their concerns. Human beings are prey, food. If human beings concerns are irrelevant to vampires, some noise minorities among them are even more insignificant.

Let the pronouns and agendas to those silly LGBT humans. Vampires have more urgent concerns.

Vampires view humans as food animals.
Muslims have sex with food animals.
Therefore, muslim vampires would have sex with humans.
QED

 

[Roguey]

Please, remind me again why were you cheering for a Dead State flop on release?

I really don't recall much about how I felt about Dead State five years ago. A vague sense that it was going to be incredibly repetitive and then I turned out right?

 

[Ismaul]

It's a good question tbh. There were no World of Darkness video games made during the CCP period. Is it because nobody asked? It's worth looking into.

I expect it's because CCP didn't want competition with its inhouse WoD MMO. They thought they would take the whole market, and move the Bloodlines crowd online.

I always thought it was the most popular PnP after D&D (I am talking about VtM). Or at least it is (was?) pretty popular here.

VtM/WoD was for a long time if not the #2 PnP RPG at least in the Top 5, until about 10 years ago. But that was before CCP took control and put everything into the MMO; before the D&D market split with 4E and Pathfinder emerged as 2nd. And now Pathfinder is not even in the Top 5 (which is most likely due to its 2nd edition being in development). Still, D&D is most of the market, the difference in market share between D&D and whoever's 2nd is huge.

If you want to know more, ICv2 has been doing quarterly Top 5s for a long time. Vampire is now back to #5. There's a retrospective at ENWorld outlining the Top 5 RPGs during 2008-2013, showing how Vampire fell from #3 around the beggining of 2009, how Pathfinder entered the market at #2 in the middle of 2009, and how Warhammer/WH40K games were consistently in #3 for 2-3 years, later replaced by Star Wars (the new movies' influence I bet). Pathfinder and Star Wars eventually took over D&D when 4E was done and 5th edition was announced.