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

whydoibother

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So then gentlemen, place your bets.
Nos or Malk for the final spot?
Malkavian, obviously. The background art is clearly a mental asylum corridor, with the cell doors on all sides, and the wiring to open and close them remotely. Does Seattle have a history with that kind of stuff, perhaps during the eugenics era? The brick construction reminds me of something I've seen in a book.
 

Herumor

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Someone who managed to watch the video before it got pulled had this to say:

>It's not that we have rule of what clans can get in, but we don't go with some wild clans like Lasombra or Assamite.
>Brujah are in because melee autism.
>Tremere are in because we need something unique unlike the shit we have. So this is closest to "unique" you'll get.
>Toreador are in because this game is gonna be completely about said Toreadors because Seattle is their city and you're filthy nigger if you pick anything else.
>Ventrue are in because muh Camarilla lore.

This is from 4chan's /v/, so take it with a grain of salt. That said, I'm really disappointed that it's very likely that they won't be putting Lasombra in the game. I have no idea what "wild clan" even implies.
 

whydoibother

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I'm really disappointed that it's very likely that they won't be putting Lasombra in the game. I have no idea what "wild clan" even implies.

Ventrue will be in, because of social commentary about modern day USA, corporations, the rich, etc, and because they are a beloved clan from VTMB. Lasombra conflict with them as the "ruling class" clan, and they are more of a European history thing, what with the serfdom, royalty, etc commentaries made. In an American game, set in the USA, which will make most of its sales in the USA, obviously you pick Ventrue over Lasombra, and obviously you'd rather add more thematically and game mechanics wise unique clans like Malkavian or Nosferatu before a second "boss clan".

Before making comments, I know. I'm just saying, this is how decisions are made.
 

Prime Junta

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The background art is clearly a mental asylum corridor, with the cell doors on all sides, and the wiring to open and close them remotely. Does Seattle have a history with that kind of stuff, perhaps during the eugenics era? The brick construction reminds me of something I've seen

25091.jpg
 

Prime Junta

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My money is on Malkavian. It's kind of a signature thing for VtM:B1. Less fan outcry for leaving out Nos than them and this is allllll about fan service.
 

Infinitron

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Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is. Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
It's the same corridor from the announcement trailer that gets flooded with blood. The hallucination of a madman?
 

Dodo1610

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https://www.polygon.com/2019/5/22/18634675/vampire-the-masquerade-bloodlines-2-trailer-ventrue

The Ventrue clan returns for Vampire: The Masquerade — Bloodlines 2
The clan of kings is back for the sequel to the cult-classic RPG

Vampire: The Masquerade — Bloodlines 2 will include members of the Ventrue clan as playable characters. The announcement comes today via Paradox, which confirms the return of the “the clan of kings” with a new trailer.

Bloodlines 2 is the sequel to the 2004 cult classic from Troika Games. Set for a 2020 release, it’s in development by Hardsuit Labs, which includes that game’s original lead writer. Below, you’ll also find a detailed, 40-minute discussion of the Ventrue clan’s history and in-game powers led by senior product manager Florian Schwarzer.

Over the last few weeks, publisher Paradox Interactive unveiled three other playable vampire clans, including the Brujah, Tremere, and Toreador. The goal is to set the groundwork for four distinct styles of play, and the Ventrue have their own story to tell. Known throughout the Vampire mythos as kings and kingmakers, the Ventrue clan has a unique slate of powers as well as a distinct curse.

As Schwarzer explains, players who select the Ventrue clan will have the power to magically dominate enemies. The domination skill includes the power to mesmerize, which will allow players to place other characters in a trance. Later, the command power will allow them to direct that mesmerized character’s actions.

In battle, Ventrue will rely on their fortitude to absorb enemy attacks. Played well, Schwarzer says, a good Ventrue will be able to outlast any of the other enemies in the game. The combat will play out in improvisational skirmishes, and it will be up to the player to use the environment to their advantage. Weapons will include found items as melee weapons as well as guns.

The Vampire franchise is best known, of course, for its narrative depth. Polygon will have an interview with the team at Hardsuit Labs later today.
 
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Infinitron

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Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is. Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Polygon also published this yesterday: https://www.polygon.com/2019/5/21/1...querade-bloodlines-2-sequel-paradox-interview

After bungled Vampire: The Masquerade tabletop launch, Paradox focusing on Bloodlines 2
But that doesn’t mean crushing creative freedom

Vampire: The Masquerade is a tabletop role-playing franchise that dates back to the 1990s. The core experience was always the work of White Wolf Publishing, but that team was gutted late last year following the repeated inclusion of inflammatory and insensitive content in the game’s fifth edition. Owner Paradox Interactive says it has learned its lesson, and production of the next game in the franchise will be handled differently.

Paradox purchased White Wolf from CCP Games in 2015. Not long after, White Wolf announced that it would develop a fifth edition of its classic pen-and-paper RPG. But that effort was plagued with bizarre controversies. An early playtest packet included references to pedophelia and neo-Nazi ideology, prompting an apology. The retail version dealt with issues of sexual violence, but clear guidelines on safely running games were only added after the fact.

The final straw came when print expansions used ongoing human rights violations in Chechnya as fodder for the game’s in-fiction narrative. That’s when Paradox vice president Shams Jorjani stepped in, parting ways with White Wolf’s leadership and bringing the entire organization in-house.

Why did the project to make the tabletop game go so far off the rails? It wasn’t simply that Paradox didn’t have enough control over White Wolf, Jorjani said. It barely had any control.

“Paradox had no oversight into the day-to-day operations of how White Wolf was run,” Jorjani tells Polygon. “We set them up to be independent operators.”

That structure made sense in 2015. Jorjani explains that White Wolf needed the freedom to negotiate with multiple outside partners on projects to create multiple games across several franchises. One of those negotiations was for Cyanide’s Werewolf: The Apocalypse, while another was for a follow-up to the 2004 cult classic Vampire: The Masquerade — Bloodlines. To have firm barriers between White Wolf and Paradox itself made good business sense.

Until White Wolf’s work became an embarrassment.

After reorganizing the White Wolf team, Paradox edited and re-published its work. Then it handed the publication of the Vampire tabletop franchise itself over to the team at Modiphius Entertainment, who is now the official licensee.

“In some cases it was stupid,” Jorjani said, referring to how White Wolf was originally structured. “I was negotiating the Bloodlines license agreement with the CEO of White Wolf. We’re colleagues. We had been working together for many years. We had the same legal folks. We had the same contract. But we were still negotiating as if we were separate companies.”

To a very real extent, Jorjani says that Paradox itself was oblivious to the content that White Wolf was putting into its pen-and-paper game until it was simply too late.

“[Polygon] probably got access to fifth edition a long time before our product team saw it,” Jorjani said. “They were kept very, very separate in that way. Should we have adjusted that? Probably. Maybe. But we didn’t have any access to — we barely knew that a book was being produced in-house, to be honest.”

The obvious course of action for Paradox to take would be to clamp down on future games. That includes the content going into Vampire: The Masquerade — Bloodlines 2, now in development by Seattle-based Hardsuit Labs. But Jorjani says that sort of heavy-handed meddling simply isn’t in the Paradox playbook. That’s not to say that Paradox isn’t paying more attention, but they’re trying not to overreact.

“We are never going to come in and say, ‘Hey, you have to take out this character and put in this other character.’” Jorjani says. “It’s just contrary to how we think and operate.”

Jorjani said that oversight on Bloodlines 2 is taking the form of the team at Paradox being a good “sparring partner.” Paradox is involved on a regular basis with an eye to keeping the project on track. But it’s also there to make sure the game will ultimately uphold its own values.

“That’s why I think that we’re happy to be working with Hardsuit Labs,” Jorjani says, a team which includes Bloodlines’ original writer, Brian Mitsoda. “They also are sensitive to the topics and have the experience of working with bigger IPs and brands and understand the challenges that come with that.

“We also have other checks and balances internally at Paradox,” Jorjani continues. “We are reviewing processes, conducting playtests, doing focus tests, these kind of things. I’m not gonna say that we have all the time in the world. It’s not like Blizzard’s ‘it’s done when it’s done,’ but we have a bit more breathing room maybe than White Wolf had when they were rushing together making a tabletop game.”

Vampire: The Masquerade — Bloodlines 2 is expected in the first quarter of 2020.
 

whydoibother

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Nano

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Grab the Codex by the pussy Strap Yourselves In Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is.
The same kind of an idiot that gets an office with a full glass window for a wall in a high building, to make sure the sun is always shining on their undead corpse.
Obviously she works at night and sleeps during the day, dummy.
 

Wesp5

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Okay, so I managed to see the whole Ventrue interview video on Planet Vampire before it was deleted and this is what I remember:

- Florian said that they chose the classic Bloodlines 1 clans so there is a better chance to make Bloodlines 3 latter with the more rare clans and bloodlines.
- Florian then talked a lot about the Ventrue clan itself which isn't really important for the game. The curse will again be some kind of feeding disadvantage.
- The first discipline is Domination, which is different from Presence as it will only affect one victim but with specific commands.
- The second discipline is Fortitude, with no more details mentioned, but it seems so be similar to how it was in Bloodlines 1.
- There will be Bloodheal, and it's always available like I added it with the Unofficial Patch and it will cost Blood to use it.
- There will be no Bloodbuff, but basically the V5 analogue Bloodrouse will always be active, like when you scale walls or rush around.
- Melee weapons will only break if you put all your vampiric strength into attacks.
- Firearms do not break, but the player will throw them away if they run out of ammo.
- It was said again that the game will come out on all major stores with no exclusive deals.
- The characters shown on the clan pages are not player characters but NPCs who we will meet.
- There will be multiple text only translations.
- Face customisation will be not by slider but by options.
- Music will be done by Rik Schaffer again, which we already knew.
- Lastly Florian said that some questions are not answered because of spoilers and because they are assholes :)!

Next week for the final clan reveal someone else will be there in his place and we are free to speculate about who that will be...
 

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