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

[Kem0sabe]

RPGs are absolutely not superior "realism simulators". "Realism" in gun handling and stat-based combat are two very distinct (though related) issues. Many games have realistic gun handling (wandering reticles, bullet spread, reduced accuracy while moving etc.) but do not use RPG stats. Also, many games have RPG stats but don't use any stuff like this, just modifiers to damage or "forced" misses. My favorite example of a game that knows what it's trying to do and pulls it off brilliantly is the first Silent Hill, where the protagonist was "just some guy" so his aim was always crap and combat was deliberately clunky to reflect it.

In my opinion, the ideal action-RPG should use all the same systems advanced shooters do, and have those systems governed by character stats, in a perfect marriage of strong gameplay and character building relevance. I absolutely want my crosshair wandering all over the screen if my character's skill level sucks. Guys like Kem0sabe who expect character stats to be irrelevant in the gameplay can and should max their character skill levels. If you want to play a character who can shoot straight, build a character who can shoot straight. Not rocket science.

In this specific case, however, I don't need Bloodlines 2 to strive for this particular ideal; it should invest its development hours in what's important. I feel like they've made a strong declaration about this in their "you throw away guns" move; again, no matter what your stats, the player character is not going to be a United States Marine. Which is fine; nobody with an ounce of sense came to this thread expecting the world's best-designed first-person shooter.

My issue is not with stats governing game systems, it's how developers used that as an excuse for poor game design. Do you want a ranged combat system that is stat dependent but with the trade-off that it plays like shit?

I'm still to play an rpg shooter with stat dependent aiming that feels fun to play... they always feel like you are wrestling against the game systems during fights. My advice to devs is that if you can't master it, then ditch it, because people are paying good money to suffer through your shit design skills.

 

[Zombra]

Do you want a ranged combat system that is stat dependent but with the trade-off that it plays like shit?

To be blunt, yes. No one is excited about weak gameplay, but if I have to choose between a sweet action game and an RPG where character build matters, I'll take the RPG every time.

My advice to devs is that if you can't master it, then ditch it, because people are paying good money to suffer through your shit design skills.

All or nothing, eh? That's valid. I don't mind mediocre gunplay, but personally I'd be fine with it if the player character in Bloodlines 2 couldn't use guns at all.

 

[Infinitron]

Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines's Weird Dancing Is Back For The Sequel

There’s a lot to love in Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines 2, but the team brought something special back for the fans: dancing.

One of the first locations you become really aware of in Bloodlines 2, which is coming to Xbox One, Playstation 4, and PC in 2020, is the local club, Atrium. It has a lot in common with a goth club I used to visit in Chicago, which was called Neo and apparently used to be a regular hangout for the Wachowskis while they were working on The Matrix. Even though Neo has closed (RIP), I can see the same bones of it in Atrium, with its purple lighting and intense dancing.

In the demo that I saw last week at E3, there was plenty of blood sucking, demonic powers, and vampire faction in-fights. Personally though, I find that you can really judge a piece of vampire fiction based on what the clubs look like. Buffy The Vampire Slayer had The Bronze, which was both a hangout for the gang and a vampire feeding ground, and is considered a classic piece of vampire fiction. The Twilight series didn’t have any clubs at all, and is routinely mocked for being corny and bad. If Bloodlines 2didn’t have a club, I was pretty sure I could write it off, but the game’s developers clearly think clubs are as central to the vampire mythos as I do.

“Clubs are like supermarkets for vampires,” Cara Ellison said. (She’s a writer on the game, as well as a former Kotaku contributor and a friend of mine that I hadn’t realized would be in town for the Bloodlines 2 demo.) “You go there to look at the selection.”

There’s one other special thing about this club that fans of the first Bloodlines game may recognize. The wild, arm-flinging dancing from the first game has returned, with the developers carefully studying the original dance from the 2004 game.

“Night clubs are kind of core to the experience of being a vampire,” said Rachel Leiker, the lead user interface and experience designer on Bloodlines 2. “One of the things that people enjoyed from the first game is dancing, so of course we were going to have it in our game as well.”

“We actually took that directly from the first game and one of our animators studied it very intensely,” she said. “He actually did the motion capture for it in our game. He’s very dedicated. They did motion capture for a bunch of dances, and it was like a big party in the mocap room.”

From what I’ve seen of Bloodlines 2, it expertly captures the seedy feel of vampire movies like Queen of the Damned and or The Hunger, complete with plenty of leather pants and club dancing. You’ll get to do some murders too, using your vampire powers to traverse Seattle and feed from mortals. But for the Bloodlines diehards out there, rest assured that you’ll be able to hit the club both to dance and to grab a quick bite.

 

[fantadomat]

. Do you want a ranged combat system that is stat dependent but with the trade-off that it plays like shit?

Have you even played the first game?!

 

[Rinslin Merwind]

In this specific case, however, I don't need Bloodlines 2 to strive for this particular ideal; it should invest its development hours in what's important. I feel like they've made a strong declaration about this in their "you throw away guns" move; again, no matter what your stats, the player character is not going to be a United States Marine. Which is fine; nobody with an ounce of sense came to this thread expecting the world's best-designed first-person shooter.

You do not to be a fucking US marine to not to do retarded shit such as throwing your gun away after killing shit load people with it. And you don't need to be a US marine to be decent gun user. Guns isn't rocket science, with enough dedication and training ( aka in-game it will be just leveling your skills) and viola - you are decent gunman.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

Throwing your gun away is dope, it's an action movie thing. You can always procure another one, what vampire worth its salt is going to fuck with bullets and ammunition? Just grab a gun and squeeze until empty, throw away and pick up some other weapon. The Chad way.

 

[HansDampf]

Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines's Weird Dancing Is Back For The Sequel

...

But... the music!

 

[Vibalist]

Holy fuck, who engineered this track? It sounds completely unprocessed.

FFS the snare drum is like 5db louder than everything else.

And the singer is terrible.

And there's no width to it at all. This sounds like a Cubase project I made two weeks after getting into music production.

 

[fantadomat]

But... the music!

Is Gloriously Fabulous Ultra Mega New Age Heavy Pop Soft Art Rock Modern Faggot Garbage!

 

[S.torch]

Why the same director of Bloodlines 1 could not get some awesome music like chiasm? 100 pages ago someone put it, and it was the thing that convinced me to play Bloodlines

 

[fantadomat]

Or something like this.

 

[ga♥]

Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines's Weird Dancing Is Back For The Sequel

Woah! The music track is very decline.

 

[Zombra]

You do not to be a fucking US marine to not to do retarded shit such as throwing your gun away after killing shit load people with it. And you don't need to be a US marine to be decent gun user. Guns isn't rocket science, with enough dedication and training ( aka in-game it will be just leveling your skills) and viola - you are decent gunman.

You do need to be stupid as hell (or compensating for something) if you can kill people by pointing your finger at them yet you're obsessed with making sure you don't lose your precious gun.

 

[Ibn Sina]

Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines's Weird Dancing Is Back For The Sequel

...

But... the music!

This is not even Night Club Music...Maybe a lounge or a semi bar with a dance floor, but a full fledged night club (Ex BCM. Pasha, Space etc) will never play this obscure shit, unless its an indie club that caters to very specific tastes. Proof that the devs have not a single clue what they are doing.

 

[Infinitron]

At this stage in development it's quite likely to be placeholder I think.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

You do not to be a fucking US marine to not to do retarded shit such as throwing your gun away after killing shit load people with it. And you don't need to be a US marine to be decent gun user. Guns isn't rocket science, with enough dedication and training ( aka in-game it will be just leveling your skills) and viola - you are decent gunman.

You do need to be stupid as hell (or compensating for something) if you can kill people by pointing your finger at them yet you're obsessed with making sure you don't lose your precious gun.

Or when your fist can cause far greater devastation than any amount of small arms, or when you're likely to fight things that don't really worry about being shot because bullets don't really hurt them.

 

[Bad Sector]

At this stage in development it's quite likely to be placeholder I think.

I really hope so because the music in that video sucks.

 

[Nines_Anarch]

In case they don't change it... Hopefully there will be a day one mod to fix the music.

Make it happen xD

 

[Ninjerk]

Very low energy music

 

[luj1]

Bloodlines did "stat based combat" wrong. Deus Ex did it right by making your weapon skill affect how long it took for the crosshairs to tighten,...

But isn't that how it was in Bloodlines too...

 

[luj1]

The only thing they semi-nailed is the atmosphere I guess, but that is mainly a function of technology so not a huge accomplishment.

 

[Reinhardt]

Throwing away your gun after killing bunch of people is totally cool. It's not like you have to keep some stupid masquerade or anything.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Throwing away your gun after killing bunch of people is totally cool. It's not like you have to keep some stupid masquerade or anything.

It's Seattle in 2019. Things that break the masquerade include owning a firearm, being heterosexual, not being a druggie, and not looking like an AIDS patient.

 

[Nathir]

At this stage in development it's quite likely to be placeholder I think.

Yeah, everything is a pre-alpha placeholder these days...

What you see is what you'll get on release.

 

[Infinitron]

I realize it's the cool thing to be cynical about these things, but games that aren't even coming out in the same year as when you first see their gameplay footage really are likely to change.