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

[pomenitul]

Exclusive photo of Herr Luckmann IRL, ca. 2019:

 

[DeepOcean]

Why should True Belief in the invisible hand of the market do something e.g. to a Ventrue? Nothing, he is playing the field himself.

Objection! The Ventrue don't believe in the invisible hand of the market. On the contrary, they're cold-blooded cynical capitalists. They know that the invisible hand is a convenient myth to keep the plebs from rebelling, and who's really in control.

A genuine naive true-believing libertarian who really truly believes that everyone would be happy, free, and exactly as wealthy as they deserve if only the free market was left completely alone to do its thing is not the least bit like a Ventrue.

Yeah, I would totally see a Ventrue controling a central bank to bankroll bankrupt goverments at the expense of people.

I would totally see a Ventrue being a social justice hypocrite that talks alot about inequality but only when they can steal other people to "fix" it and getting alot of money for themselves on the way.

I would totally see a Ventrue stealing from the people to keep zombie banks alive and be in favor of imigration to get plentiful of cheap labour and all chanting about diversity on the way.

I completely agree with you that a corporate democrat looks much more like a Ventrue than a libertarian.

 

[Lacrymas]

Some of these clothes are cool and I'd even wear them, but why do they look so alike? Most of them are overdesigned and blur together. The Gangrel are a catastrophe, though. Subtlety, anyone? They look more stereotypically elvish than elves.

 

[Orma]

Hello, my name is Liz Starr, I am one of the Producers at Hardsuit Labs, and I have the dream job of working on Bloodlines 2. I am very happy to bring you this dev diary about Hardsuit Labs and the story behind our fantastic team.

Hardsuit Labs began in 2015 with Andy Kipling, Russell Nelson, and a team of about 20 people. We had all worked at another studio together before. When that place went out of business, Andy and Russ – then a Production Director and Tech Director – decided to ask a few of their former teammates to help start something new. Back then, we thought that it’d take maybe five years of bringing older games to newer formats for this band of veterans to gain enough reputation to pitch a full game production.

Two years later, Ka’ai Cluney, our Creative Director, burst into Andy’s office with an idea he and his friend Brian Mitsoda had come up with. Ka’ai is one of those people who seems to have been everywhere and done everything; from design at id Software and Monolith to building roofs in Alaska. He had worked with Brian (of Troika and Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines fame) before. Together, they came up with a concept that lured Brian out of his own indie studio, into our team.

More importantly, it convinced Andy and Russ to go all in and to start pitching that full game project three years earlier than we’d have guessed.

When I discovered that what we were pitching was Bloodlines 2, I was beyond excited. Not only because Paradox has released some games that I give much of my free time to, but also because I am a huge World of Darkness fan. I wish I could tell my LARPing younger Ventrue self that she would one day be working on this game.

Turns out I wasn’t the only one: One of the wonderful things about World of Darkness and Hardsuit Labs is that we have a lot of fans in the team. There’ve been off-hours Vampire tabletop games in the conference room since before the project properly started. Those who were new to the IP were gently introduced to the fandom and have also embraced it.

Nowadays, Hardsuit Labs is a good mix of seasoned veterans and recently bloodied developers of many different backgrounds. One example of strengthening this mix is Cara Ellison, who joined us early last year. Cara's known to some for her work as a journalist (at Rock Paper Shotgun et. al), to others for her work on Dishonored 2... and to even fewer for her testing on GTA4. We value our diversity of experience and the diversity of us as individuals; we know this brings more perspective to our work and company culture, and ultimately creates better games.

For Bloodlines 2, this team is putting all its passion and motivation behind the narrative of Brian and Cara. We can’t wait for you to sink your teeth into it!

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...cXMcxWr9JJbguB8MwqnNXmynPdRHWASz5j7UKDRMyZbdE

 

[Prime Junta]

I completely agree with you that a corporate democrat looks much more like a Ventrue than a libertarian.

Yup. Those fuckers are the real-life vampires.

 

[Delterius]

True Faith is the same power (the divine spark)

[citation needed]

Hell, you won't even comment on the points I made.

 

[HansDampf]

Holy fuck guys. ten pages of this shit.

Better this than endless whine about SJWs.

Well then, if we're in that mood, let me regale you with the archetypical characterizations of the various clans presented in V5, pulled straight from the Core Rulebook!

And do the characters we've seen in the trailer look anything like these?

 

[Zombra]

Turning your baseball cap backwards is an earthshaking revolution of style?

 

[Luckmann]

Some of these clothes are cool and I'd even wear them, but why do they look so alike? Most of them are overdesigned and blur together. The Gangrel are a catastrophe, though. Subtlety, anyone? They look more stereotypically elvish than elves.

Which 3, aside from select Toreador and Ventrue, would you consider wearing, specifically?

You will be graded on your answer.

 

[Vibalist]

Holy fuck guys. ten pages of this shit.

Better this than endless whine about SJWs.

Well then, if we're in that mood, let me regale you with the archetypical characterizations of the various clans presented in V5, pulled straight from the Core Rulebook!

First up, Brujah! This is the traditional street-wear of the counter-cultural that are trying to blend in, anno 2019. From the Warriors of Troy to the Woken of Soy:

And then we have Gangrel, a collection for the discerning city-dweller that is in touch with their animal side:

Next up is Malkavians:

Followed by the nu-Sferatu, who we have discussed earlier. Nobody else can really capture that "hobo with a sewing kit" and "disheveled baglady" feel like the Sewer Rats:

Next up is Clan Tremere, also known as the soyomancers. Most famous for having invented a tofu substitute for blood in 2016, leading to the death of the patriarchy, they have managed to sink to levels of irrelevance previously thought impossible; they may be dead, but it doesn't mean their sense of fashion has to be:

Toreador. Just Toreador:

And last but not least, the princes of the Camarilla, the Blue-Bloods, the ever-traditional, ever rulers, Ventrue, ready to inspire loyalty:

The book then proceeds to throw away four fucking pages for Caitiff and Thin-Bloods as if they were real clans, rather than actually covering any of other clans, but it thankfully doesn't assault you with any more runway fashion. There is more, however. So, so, so much more. For example, this is how the writers of V5 think the archetypical "Scholar" looks:

There is so much more on how SJWs covered themselves in feces and hugged Vampire: The Masquerade.

Do not test me.

They all look like toreadors lol

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Even besides the overdressing thing (attempt to market to fashionistas?), there's just something off about how the V5 artist does faces. It looks like a strange photoshop thing, like a lot of the faces are from stock photos that are painted on top of, sometimes with something being slightly off with the angle of the face and the rest of the head. Also male Gangrels look unfinished.

EDIT: I'm not a fan of this sort of photorealist style in general, it's a very soulless aesthetic. I very much liked the comic book aesthetic of most of the old books, though this is kind of a natural progression from the photoshop blur aesthetic they shifted to after circa 2000.

 

[Vibalist]

I gathered that this has already been discussed, but what the fuck is up with the nosferatu? whose fucking idea was that?

 

[Rinslin Merwind]

Jesus fucking Christ, isn't vampires should hiding from eyes of humans behind of masquerade and not trying to attract attention of ALL people around? I don't know about clothes that people wear in Seattle, but I doubt that average person would dress like THIS. Not even because they don't want "being hipsters", but because majority of such clothes isn't practical + they look like "modern fashion" shit and this shit expensive as hell.
i think this game will be shitshow for years to come. Why the hell they look like this? Whats the fuck is wrong with person who designed them? It's seems "traditional diversity" wasn't enough for them and they decided to dress vampires like shit, just in case people with shit taste will be offended.

 

[Sacred82]

Jesus fucking Christ, isn't vampires should hiding from eyes of humans behind of masquerade and not trying to attract attention of ALL people around?

tfw u wanna be a ninja but u retarded af and actually crave attention

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Jesus fucking Christ, isn't vampires should hiding from eyes of humans behind of masquerade and not trying to attract attention of ALL people around? I don't know about clothes that people wear in Seattle, but I doubt that average person would dress like THIS. Not even because they don't want "being hipsters", but because majority of such clothes isn't practical + they look like "modern fashion" shit and this shit expensive as hell.
i think this game will be shitshow for years to come. Why the hell they look like this? Whats the fuck is wrong with person who designed them? It's seems "traditional diversity" wasn't enough for them and they decided to dress vampires like shit, just in case people with shit taste will be offended.

That art is from the fifth edition of Vampire The Masquerade, not from the game.

 

[Zombra]

They all look like toreadors lol

It's pretty weird. The first thing I thought after skimming through different clans was, "I can't tell them apart." Necktie=Ventrue, wolf head=Gangrel, magic pentagram=Tremere but other than that they all look the same, even the freakin Nosferatu. Luckily Bloodlines 2 looks nothing like this.

 

[Rinslin Merwind]

That art is from the fifth edition of Vampire The Masquerade, not from the game.

Well, if original PnP concept art is that bad - i fear to see whats will be in game.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

The Ventrue art looks awful. How hard is it to just draw a man in a business suit?

 

[thesheeep]

I guess the idea is to be able to hide on a catwalk.

The Ventrue art looks awful. How hard is it to just draw a man in a business suit?

Down with the patriarchy!

 

[Delterius]

The Ventrue art looks awful. How hard is it to just draw a man in a business suit?

the lower left guy looks pretty normal to me

the others feel more like soccer players being edgy fashionistas than ventrues

 

[pomenitul]

Well, at least none of them is ventrue in the original, French sense of the word.

Spoiler

It literally describes a potbellied woman (or a bulging object whose grammatical gender is feminine), although it can also mean 'wealthy', for obvious reasons.

 

[Delterius]

Well, at least none of them is ventrue in the original, French sense of the word.

Spoiler

It literally describes a potbellied woman (or a bulging object whose grammatical gender is feminine), although it can also mean 'wealthy', for obvious reasons.

a fatso that identifies as a woman?

 

[pomenitul]

If you're into that, sure.

 

[Zombra]

That art is from the fifth edition of Vampire The Masquerade, not from the game.

Well, if original PnP concept art is that bad - i fear to see whats will be in game.

What? That one artist clearly isn't involved in B2.

 

[Storyfag]

You know, for a community of discerning gentlemen and trannies, this thread features surprisngly many degenerates with the attention span of a goldfish, who cannot tell the difference between PnP stuff and CRPG stuff.