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

[Lord Andre]

If I were to guess, ventru, toreador, tremere and brujah are 100% in because you don't really need extra level design to incorporate them. They're just humans with superpowers.

That leaves malkavians, gangrel and nosferatu. Nosfearatu would be the most expensive design wise to add so I'd say they're 100% out.

Between malkavians and gangrel I don't know. I'd say gangrels are easy to incorporate on the cheap by throwing some red eyes in there and a wolf/beast model or two and you're done. Malkavians require extra text and extra voice acting witch could get expensive, yet they're iconic to the first game and not including them might cause a goy backlash at launch.

 

[fantadomat]

There is only one possible pair of cargo shorts and no big letters in that picture.

You are a programmer are you not? You know what I am talking about.

Programmers are extremely literal-minded you know.

The only way they could get some salty peach.

 

[Saerain]

At the site's launch, I initially assumed those images were Brujah, Nosferatu, Thin-blood, Toreador, Tremere, and Ventrue, respectively.

Brujah a brutal mess at a bar.

Nosferatu an empty corridor in an abandoned building.

Thin-blood with the clock on 5:10 and dusklight from the window.

Toreador living for luxury.

Tremere subtlety at its best.

Ventrue capitalism.

 

[Zombra]

At least let me dress in an oversized puffer jacket and slay a sporty lewk underneath!!!!!!
One thing I loved about Bloodlines was how stylish things were, like everything came from a UNIF lewkbook! (Hopefully I'm wrong and they'll be totally stunning outfits in the final game!!!)

As a gamer who appreciates the value of playing Barbies in any RPG, I remain highly attuned to mention of fashion options. No word yet what the clothes will look like but it has been said several times that character customization will have many options. I'm sure there will be plenty of goofy "edge" outfits to choose from (if only as a sop to Malkavian history). Of course what the NPCs will dress like is anyone's guess; most of the NPCs weren't very wacky in the original Bloodlines, were they? Only Jeanette comes to mind as being silly-looking.

 

[Zombra]

At the site's launch, I initially assumed those images were Brujah, Nosferatu, Thin-blood, Toreador, Tremere, and Ventrue, respectively.

Oh, those images rep the six clans for launch?

How can they not do Malkavian to begin with? Once again I'm very pessimistic about this whole "adding clans later" thing; each clan should have unique content baked in to start with, particularly Malks as they famously had so much stuff just for them in the first game. This DLC stuff reeks of having a couple unique combat powers and nothing else since the game itself will already be set in stone.

 

[GloomFrost]

At the site's launch, I initially assumed those images were Brujah, Nosferatu, Thin-blood, Toreador, Tremere, and Ventrue, respectively.

Oh, those images rep the six clans for launch?

How can they not do Malkavian to begin with? Once again I'm very pessimistic about this whole "adding clans later" thing; each clan should have unique content baked in to start with, particularly Malks as they famously had so much stuff just for them in the first game. This DLC stuff reeks of having a couple unique combat powers and nothing else since the game itself will already be set in stone.

Would they even be able to pull off Malkavians without Troika amazing writing?? As far as i know Mitozda is not involved in VTMB 2.

 

[whydoibother]

So are there going to be some narrative/gameplay unique clans like Malkavian and Nosferatu used to be?
Glancing at the new edition rules it seems the clans all play the same, more or less, with the differences being akin to bonus stats here and there, and who gets a fireball as opposed to a frostbolt.

 

[Prime Junta]

So are there going to be some narrative/gameplay unique clans like Malkavian and Nosferatu used to be?
Glancing at the new edition rules it seems the clans all play the same, more or less, with the differences being akin to bonus stats here and there, and who gets a fireball as opposed to a frostbolt.

The disciplines seem rather well differentiated at least.

 

[whydoibother]

Would they even be able to pull off Malkavians without Troika amazing writing?? As far as i know Mitozda is not involved in VTMB 2.

Brian Mitsoda will lead narrative design on Bloodlines 2, as stated on the announcement day.
And I think you are overestimating how hard it is to write fourth wall breaks and witty insanity to dialogue options. I am sure they can handle it, if they prioritize it. I just haven't heard them saying they'll prioritize it. I don't want all classes to get "Yes" and Malkavian to get a pink font "JYaaaasss" that does the same. I want narrative differences, more than before. Its a sequel, its supposed to built up from the past.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

At the site's launch, I initially assumed those images were Brujah, Nosferatu, Thin-blood, Toreador, Tremere, and Ventrue, respectively.

Oh, those images rep the six clans for launch?

How can they not do Malkavian to begin with? Once again I'm very pessimistic about this whole "adding clans later" thing; each clan should have unique content baked in to start with, particularly Malks as they famously had so much stuff just for them in the first game. This DLC stuff reeks of having a couple unique combat powers and nothing else since the game itself will already be set in stone.

Disagree. Paradox is all about publishing DLC that’s so expansive it fundamentally changes the nature of their games. And this game has a classic Paradox DLC schedule.

If they’re going to make you wait to play two of the original core clans, Malkavians and Nosferatu—the ones that IIRC Bloodlines explicitly warned you not to go with on your first playthrough—seem like the obvious choices. I desperately want them in the base game, but making people wait will likely result in a better experience for many players. Plus, Brian will have more time to get all the extra content right.

At the very least, Malkavian dialogue should be written after the rest of the game is finished because they have oracular abilities and you don’t want to have to keep fiddling with their lines as you revise the story.

 

[HansDampf]

It's funny though. Most people who have chosen Malkavian for their first playthrough report to have had a great experience. At least, that's what I've read around the internets.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Can be seen as either way. It's either a gross oversight, or poor form

Gross oversight in a game rushed out the door? Nay, say it is not so!

considering that Gary was embraced in 1957 (which btw is IMO doing it right).

Iii don't know. Age and cainite society ranks are messed up in the PnP, but 50 years of unlife to become the Primogen of your clan? Even for a city as young as LA, this is stretching it. Ideally, the city's Elders should be connected to the gold rush of the 1850s, excepting obviously imported cases such as LaCroix and Strauss.

Personally, I believe the meat of the setting is in close proximity of a city's Primogen council and the Prince, so players should by default have the option of being their trusted retainers, ie: experienced Ancillae or perhaps even Elders. How those ranks should translate to years of unlife is a secondary consideration.

Well the main thing is really that logically the entire thing assumes that the vampires end up spending decades with their thumb up their ass instead of doing anything or learning anything, but even besides that to me the problem is really that I feel there's a total disregard for how passage of time affects a person. Now, even though VtM vampires don't physically degrade in the ways humans do, my take or rather how I run Vampire is that I feel there is a limited shelf life for a vampire because of how disconnected they will become from the world (both by their own increasing isolation from it and the practical problems with pulling Uncle Brunos with senators or some such), which is probably around 50-100 years, after which you quickly go Full Dracula and become the vampire equivalent of a crazy hermit. The slipping happens faster the smaller your "surface contact" with the world would be (ie, Isaac would be able to adjust for a longer time than most because of the industry he is in contact with, while Nosferatu would arguably be so the longest because all they do is watch and learn everything around them even if from secrecy). To me, 50 years is more than enough to become Primogen of the Clan, because if business is cutthroat then the rate of turnover is high and the political landscape is fast. Also ties in with the aforementioned thing about losing track, since just as Gary has to recruit underlings to keep up with information technology, same thing happens all around and with generational repetition. A Ventrue will need to recruit new ghouls and eventually a new front man childe to take over the network business and political connections and investments, and they will probably have to go through multiple attempts to find this replacement, and then that Ventrue will do the same, and the whole process begins again (provided there's no split or catastrophe to cause a break; but eventually a succesful break would see the process described start anew).

I'd actually picture that over 90% of vampire population would be under 10 years since the Embrace, and most suffer Final Death soon. Bloodlines gets it right: Nobody wants to be the Prince, because that's a gilded cage and a bullseye on you, just sucker in someone who is ambitious and short-sighted enough to take all the risks of the job. Though the game also kinda screws this up with LaCroix being notably old despite how much everyone harps on him being young (and honestly, to me he ACTS way too young for someone who is supposedly from early 19th century; same thing with Beckett I'd picture him as being at earliest from the 50's).

But this is just me and my take on the Golden Rule of White Wolf books. I gleefully stole the Humanity revisions from Requiem 2e and I am exceedingly happy of the implementation of Blood Potency in V5 (it actually gave me a ton of new ideas, usually I indeed have been that "you might as well have the players be older Generation by assumption, you're just asking them to gimp themselves if you want to do some street level stuff"), since I'm never bothered about changing anything if I feel it serves the purpose of the game I'm running or playing, since canon is a meaningless term and rules are a set of tools. Never been too much of a fan of politics-centred games there myself tho, I'm more on the end of mystery and action sort of gothic horror since I feel Storyteller allows for fast improvisation and it thus benefits such stuff (also the metaplot is sort of that vein when taken as a whole, and I rather like the Vampire metaplot despite all the "and then the players watch NPCs do stuff" bullshit White Wolf has pulled). The politics and skulduggery is in service of the mystery, rather than the goal itself. That's how I like it anyway.

 

[ArchAngel]

At the site's launch, I initially assumed those images were Brujah, Nosferatu, Thin-blood, Toreador, Tremere, and Ventrue, respectively.

Oh, those images rep the six clans for launch?

How can they not do Malkavian to begin with? Once again I'm very pessimistic about this whole "adding clans later" thing; each clan should have unique content baked in to start with, particularly Malks as they famously had so much stuff just for them in the first game. This DLC stuff reeks of having a couple unique combat powers and nothing else since the game itself will already be set in stone.

Disagree. Paradox is all about publishing DLC that’s so expansive it fundamentally changes the nature of their games. And this game has a classic Paradox DLC schedule.

If they’re going to make you wait to play two of the original core clans, Malkavians and Nosferatu—the ones that IIRC Bloodlines explicitly warned you not to go with on your first playthrough—seem like the obvious choices. I desperately want them in the base game, but making people wait will likely result in a better experience for many players. Plus, Brian will have more time to get all the extra content right.

At the very least, Malkavian dialogue should be written after the rest of the game is finished because they have oracular abilities and you don’t want to have to keep fiddling with their lines as you revise the story.

They said they would make clan DLCs free. So who knows if they will be as big as you think.

 

[ZeniBot]

That pre-alpha footage in the thumbnail looked shit. I've got a bad feeling about this.

 

[Syme]

It's funny though. Most people who have chosen Malkavian for their first playthrough report to have had a great experience. At least, that's what I've read around the internets.

Can confirm, I've recently played it properly for the first time (never left Santa Monica back in the day). I played for a couple of hours as a Tremere and then switched to Malkavian. The font took some getting used to, but it ended up being sooo much more entertaining, there's simply no comparison. Playing an idiotic but super dramatic (in my mind) vampire goth grrrl while everyone around you is serious or edgy as fuck was probably one of the best rpg experiences I've ever had . The game went from a good 7.5/10 to a hilarious 10/10 - until the fucking sewers that is, but Captain Noclip came to the rescue after about 10 minutes down there.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

With Plus patch you can bypass most of the sewers.

 

[Lord Andre]

The sewer meme is exagerrated. You'd have to be MCA playing Arcanum bad to struggle with it.

 

[Child of Malkav]

It's funny though. Most people who have chosen Malkavian for their first playthrough report to have had a great experience. At least, that's what I've read around the internets.

Can confirm, I've recently played it properly for the first time (never left Santa Monica back in the day). I played for a couple of hours as a Tremere and then switched to Malkavian. The font took some getting used to, but it ended up being sooo much more entertaining, there's simply no comparison. Playing an idiotic but super dramatic (in my mind) vampire goth grrrl while everyone around you is serious or edgy as fuck was probably one of the best rpg experiences I've ever had . The game went from a good 7.5/10 to a hilarious 10/10 - until the fucking sewers that is, but Captain Noclip came to the rescue after about 10 minutes down there.

Noclip is good for travel as well, especially in Downtown and Hollywood.
Edit: you move alot faster, from point a to point b, especially when you need to backtrack.

 

[Modron]

The sewer meme is exagerrated. You'd have to be MCA playing Arcanum bad to struggle with it.

The Warrens go like this: oh a second part I wonder if this is the last area, oh a third part I wonder if this the last area, and oh a fourth part I hope this is the last area. Sure the sewers weren't horribly long but yeah they would have been better served by having one less section same for the Chinese vampire compound.

 

[Prime Junta]

The sewer meme is exagerrated. You'd have to be MCA playing Arcanum bad to struggle with it.

The difficulty isn’t the problem. It’s that it’s a long repetitive slog.

 

[Life of the Party]

Vaarna_Aarne

How do you feel about a) Wraith: The Oblivion and b) the whole God-Machine thing?

Also, you mentioned you like Promethean: The Created. How come?

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

I don't really have any real experience with Wraith, so I can't say much.

As for Promethean I really like Mary Shelley's book and I really like multiple aspects and concepts (such as the way it handles an inherent motivation and goal) of Promethean in general. But it does have the problem that it really needs you to roll up your sleeves and get to work if you want to really make it work conceptually as a party-based game instead of a solo campaign.

 

[Data4]

All this theorycrafting and hype for a game that's going to be so woke it's going to suck itself up its own asshole. This is a world where a gay muslim SJW now exists in the lore. That alone should have been a full stop on anything even remotely resembling the idea that a good game can come out of it. All the other signs, i.e. the dev team, should only serve as a confirmation.

 

[Life of the Party]

I don't really have any real experience with Wraith, so I can't say much.

As for Promethean I really like Mary Shelley's book and I really like multiple aspects and concepts (such as the way it handles an inherent motivation and goal) of Promethean in general. But it does have the problem that it really needs you to roll up your sleeves and get to work if you want to really make it work conceptually as a party-based game instead of a solo campaign.

Do you think one could make a good Torment successor with it?

I've been wondering if any of these WoD settings could work as the new Planescape. Wraith, Promethean, Geist, Orpheus.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Eh, I dunno. "The new Planescape" is kind of a vague desired end result I feel. In general I feel it's better not to have that sort of goal or attitude, any work of fiction is best served if it stands on its own legs and is what it is, not what something else was.