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

[Modron]

Will you need a trigger warning in a gunshop?

It's 2019 quit being such a bigot, they don't use the phrase trigger warning anymore because guns are bad mmmkay? Content warning is the excepted vernacular.

 

[Yosharian]

Gotta get that LGBT+ representation. Gotta get those trigger warnings in. Gotta make sure the females are adequately catered to in case their feelings get hurt. Gotta completely change Malkavians because muh problematic mental health issues. Gotta make sure we avoid those racial stereotypes in case anyone gets offended. Gotta get a whole lot of gay up in this bitch.

Hopefully at some point they'll remember to make an actual videogame that fans of the original will enjoy, too

 

[HoboForEternity]

Gotta get that LGBT+ representation. Gotta get those trigger warnings in. Gotta make sure the females are adequately catered to in case their feelings get hurt. Gotta completely change Malkavians because muh problematic mental health issues. Gotta make sure we avoid those racial stereotypes in case anyone gets offended. Gotta get a whole lot of gay up in this bitch.

Hopefully at some point they'll remember to make an actual videogame that fans of the original will enjoy, too

"gotta exclude all minorities and non heteros so you don't make whiny white supremacist butthurt"

it's the same thing

 

[Lacrymas]

Lacrymas what is your opinion on the gayification of bloodlines? Do you believe that it is an impediment to creativity?

You'll have to explain the situation to me, I'm only seeing trigger warnings and I haven't been keeping up with this thread. It's probably cringe, though.

 

[Yosharian]

Gotta get that LGBT+ representation. Gotta get those trigger warnings in. Gotta make sure the females are adequately catered to in case their feelings get hurt. Gotta completely change Malkavians because muh problematic mental health issues. Gotta make sure we avoid those racial stereotypes in case anyone gets offended. Gotta get a whole lot of gay up in this bitch.

Hopefully at some point they'll remember to make an actual videogame that fans of the original will enjoy, too

"gotta exclude all minorities and non heteros so you don't make whiny white supremacist butthurt"

it's the same thing

That's a super neat straw man you set up there, great job

Literally everything I mentioned there is right there in the Cara Ellison interview, whereas everything you just said, you pulled right out of your ass

 

[gerey]

I am genuinely looking forward to this game now, not to play it, but to laugh at it and the clowns making it.

Putting trigger warnings in a mature, horror-themed game about bloodsucking monstrosities has to be a new low, even for the left.

 

[Sailor Woedica]

Cara Ellison answers questions on the official forums, some ~woker~ than others: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...v-diary-4-writing-bloodlines-2.1236078/page-2

Spoiler

Hi @Cara Ellison

I realise that creating a new vampire would be difficult to do well from a writing point of view, but is this something that you and the writing team considered or would like to explore in future titles? Alternatively can we hope to explore the morality pitfalls surrounding Ghouls in BL2 in greater detail?

Hi there, thank you for your question. We adhere strictly to core Vampire The Masquerade mechanics, where creating a progeny of vampires must be sanctioned by the upper echelons of vampire society. It is difficult to get a dispensation to do this, and if you do it without that dispensation you are hunted down and killed. On top of this, our narrative relies heavily on your creation being 'illegal', and also when you begin the game you are a Thinblood, so creation of other vampires is not only almost impossible for you personally, your character wouldn't even know how to do it. So though we wouldn't rule out that your character would eventually be able to create vampires, the current shape of our narrative and mechanics in Bloodlines 2 have not been built around those ideas.

Yes, the rest of the paragraph complemented the game, but that first part hit it dead in the centre. I enjoyed the game very much but it did seem ill-adapted to a female gamer. Is this being looked into equally, or will the dialogue be the same regardless of gender?

Hi there! Thank you for reading my work. I really appreciate it.

I am extremely aware of my responsibilities in this area, and though I joined the writing team about three years late, I have done everything I can to serve everyone who might come to the game. Primarily, we are trying to deconstruct how gender and sexuality works a little bit more in this game so that it is much more complex, however 'attraction' still works on a he/she structure currently because of the way the system has been built. So if you choose a she pronoun, for example, vampires who are usually attracted to someone who is a 'she' will have dialogue specifically written to convey that, regardless of what your body has been customized to look like. If you are a 'he', you might get completely different dialogue. Or, if the vampire you are talking to is attracted to he and she vampires, a high enough stat to flirt with them would open up positive results. So, we write dialogue for every eventuality of character, as all our NPCs make judgements on you based on the way you customize play and how you choose to speak to them. We try to write for the plurality of the modern world - if we know people who are NB, gay, straight, bi, asexual, or if we know interesting weirdos, nerds, introverts, etc we write in vampires who reflect this reality. I personally also feel this reflects the history of the people who have kept the IP alive over the years - there are a great deal of people for whom the tabletop and original game was important and they should feel like they live in a World Of Darkness that recognizes them. But honestly, this is not so vastly different from the way Brian wrote Bloodlines 1, except it has got a lot gayer because that reflects our increased awareness of LGBT players.

With regard to the Voermanns, we know they are fan favourites, but culturally we all have a better grasp of how mental health issues affect people now and we wouldn't use such a trope again. However, though Malkavians do exhibit some aspects of what look like human mental health difficulties, they are also supernatural, and the 'voices' that Malkavians hear are other Malkavians talking to them, or flashes of the future, for example. We also know that many people with mental health difficulties appreciate Malkavians and like to play as them. So what we'd like to do is put more depth to these portrayals, and instead of the player just meeting 'wacky' Malkavian NPCs, we'd like to expand what it might feel like to be limited by your perception of the world as frightening or threatening (often with good reason), or how you might interpret things differently than other people. I think this would go a long way to respecting how mental health issues reconfigure your life, often in ways that are unpleasant or provide an obstacle. But we are still writing the Malkavian layer as it always comes last in the script, so it's all just plans right now. I hope that you will be happy with the result. Brian Mitsoda and Rachel Leiker have been instrumental in supporting and designing these better ways to accommodate the player and look at making a more immersive experience and they have always listened to my design input.

You make it sound as if the player charcter won't be left behind by his sire? I'm surely misreading that as you're most likely talking about that (proposedly) friendly dude from the trailers are taking us under their wing, right?

The player character is left behind by their sire, but acquires a weirdo next door neighbor to show you the ropes.

She mentionend Spacemarines and explosions as average RPG - going into how Bloodlines is different in that their characters not being heroes and are pawns.

No, I was saying that the 'settler model', i.e. gaining territory and upgrading a base are par for the course in an RPG. But Bloodlines 2 is not really very interested in gaining physical 'territory' or 'upgrading your base', though you can gain allies and upgrade skills and abilities. Generally speaking the central conflict in Bloodlines games is a mystery about how you got the role you inhabit, whether your existence matters, and whether you will survive to find out. This is a central noir trope. It's about how much information you have.

What Cara's saying (and this, btw, is a pretty common approach in a lot of newer games) is that you AREN'T the most important person in the world, you're not the messiah, you're just some (un)lucky person who woke up as a vampire one day.

Ah! Yes! Also this. You don't really inhabit the 'most powerful person in the world' role here. You might feel capital C cool sometimes, but World Of Darkness always supplies something bigger and more scary than yourself to knock you down a peg or two.

Thanks for this interessing insight.

I also have two question.

How much are you limited in your creative freedom? Can write whatever you seems fit for Vampire the Masquerade (Bloodlines 2) or were some ideas that you couldn´t use?

And we know that some Bloodlines 1 characters will return. My question isn´t who returns but did you or Chris Avellone take over to write some
or is only Brian allowed to contuine Bloodlines 1 characters like the already shown TV Anchor (Just out of curiosity has he have a name?) and you have to wrote new ones?

Hi friend! Thank you for your questions.

Generally speaking the team lets me do whatever I like as long as it sits well within World Of Darkness rules. My natural way is to try to think of the most messed up thing that can happen in the world and then make characters experience it. Generally that's what I've designed to, but also in gave dev it's important to look at your resources - how many characters are you creating with this mission? How long will that take? Can we do voiceover for them? How long will that take? How much time will they take from the animation team? Can we create props for this mission? Does level design think it is possible to stage this mission? What environments do we have available for the mission? These are all things I have to take into account when designing a mission. And that's before even writing all the branches of the narrative. It's quite a lot more involved than most other forms of writing and requires quite a bit more development experience than I ever considered I'd gain.

Only Brian Mitsoda writes the legacy characters. He feels very strongly about character ownership because it keeps the voices consistent. So for example, if he ever wanted to write one of my characters I would be entitled to say no and Ka'ai wouldn't be able to fire me for it

Thanks for the quick response.


Its a bit sad because in Bioware particularly in Dragon Age Series have liked that switched the Authors of certain characters.

But can we hear like Brain in Bloodlines 2? Also do you work with Margaret Tang or is this more Brian thing?

By the way speaking of representation. I like that consider that much nowadays by comparison to Bloodlines 2.
But do you work on better representation for nationalities? Some like Grünfeld Bach (Grünfeld isn´t a first name in the german language)
or Ji Wen Ja (Sorry Brian) weren´t that good retrospect to put it politely.

Also i have a small request to honor the Unoffical Patch Author Dr. Werner Spahl for his continuous devotion in patching Bloodlines 1.
Can you immortalized him in Bloodlines 2 as a minor character?

I can see that you are a huge fan! That is pretty cool I love to talk to people who really know their stuff. The questions are so much more detailed!

I can see how switching writers might be interesting! But also Brian is very territorial about this sort of thing, possibly because I have threatened to make more men shirtless than he is comfortable with. I can understand his concerns.

We will talk about the specific actors in the game soon! But both Brian and I have worked with Margaret Tang again to bring you one of the best voice casts in any game, I promise. A secret for only the Paradox fans here: when we were recording the largest chunk of voiceover in the studio in LA, Margaret heard that I was a huge fan of Steve Blum and she knows him well. She got him to call me from Disneyland (he was visiting with his wife). I almost lost my entire mind when Spike Spiegel called me?! It was so cool. I love him. I am trying to find an excuse to write a character for him in our upcoming plans at HSL, but that's obviously TBC/possibly subject to Bloodlines 2 being successful. So obviously your support means a lot to me so we can hire Steve...

Re: the representation for nationalities, that is a very interesting question, as I often hear very poor Scottish accents in games myself. I often talk with Rami Ismail about this, as he deals with the international game dev community on a large scale every day for Game Dev World, and about how there is a huge lack of language and international diversity in games.

In short, yes we recognize that international rep wasn't very good in Bloodlines 1. However, this is a very complex issue in game dev still, mainly because we choose to use union voice actors, and once you do that, you very much limit your international roster. Also, generally speaking, California-centric talent is not usually very strong on accents, so if you require a good accent you often have to spend a very long time looking for someone and auditioning. We have been lucky in that we have quite a diverse cast this time around (Margaret Tang is very good at finding great actors). Sometimes it is so difficult to find a person with the appropriate accent for your character that you have to do it yourself, just like I did for Void Bastards (I wrote some Scottish pirates into that game, and ended up voicing them too!). So this time around we have been careful to write characters we know we can get authentic voices for. So don't worry. We are doing that work too.

Thank you for taking the time to reply, Cara, much appreciated.

P.S.: Although I'm pretty sure you've got your hands full with BL2, I (and plenty others, for sure, if my impression of the comments on your last one is accurate) would really enjoy reading some more articles of yours in RPS, if you're ever in the mood and availability again to share your opinion. :D

P.P.S.: I agree with Andrei's request, wesp's continuous contribution to the first game is worth a reference (like an Easter Egg, for example). :thumbs-up emoji:

I love RPS and the RPS payroll kept me alive for many years while I languished in poverty and wondered whether becoming a writer would ever pay off. However, writing on the internet brings a particular type of exposure and hostility that I don't know if I'm very well equipped to deal with any more? I have retired to a quiet life in the dark, constructing elaborate World Of Darkness shenanigans with my friends and colleagues. But I will be doing a Redux S.EXE at the upcoming PAX West, if you are interested. Just when I thought I was out, etc etc.

We love Wesp. We love Wesp unashamedly. I will convey your wishes to the team.

I unterstand this but won´t you a better choice for returning female characters?
Maybe you can give NPCs like Damsel or VV a newer female view?

Generally speaking I feel like Brian wrote those characters very well! I'm not sure I would choose to write them differently. As far as I'm aware Damsel was written specifically for Courtney Taylor, because Damsel is basically Courtney - and Brian knows her well. I write a lot of characters who are not the same gender as me too, and it isn't much of a problem.

I think it's good to keep in mind that us two have to write a huge swathe of characters who fulfil all sorts of roles that we may not have experienced first hand. Like, neither of us know any gangsters, but we sure write a lot about them. But it just requires a little research.

When you write characters that are not like you, you 1) do research on what that person would experience, read first person accounts of those issues, and make yourself aware of the stereotypes so that you can avoid them or complicate them 2) ask the people in the studio who might have a closer perspective on these characters to review if it is satisfactory (for example, if you are looking to write a Vietnamese granny, you might know someone in the studio who has one!) 3) ask your friends who have also first hand experienced these issues/cultural backgrounds for advice on more complicated topics. You may also need a step 4) which is to pay a consultant who is an expert on the issue, e.g. if you are writing Duwamish roles and you don't know a Duwamish person (we are considering a number of things in this manner for DLC). We are lucky to be surrounded by professionals that reflect the diverse population of Seattle in the studio, but I think that if you are a skilled writer, you will know enough to be able to write other people responsibly and to a standard that is not offensive. But obviously, you the players will be the ultimate judge of whether we land that or not, and I am happy to be asked to step up my game. Being a writer is constantly being at school, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

So out of interest - did Brian / the team immediately arrive at the idea of a thinblood or were idea like starting out like a human or eeven a classical vampire approach ever put forth?

We conceived of encountering the other Unsanctioned Vampires as being your guide as to what crossing over is like. They are going through vampire puberty when you encounter them. Generally speaking, Bloodlines is urban horror noir, so we try to stay fairly far away from gothic literature type or classical fantasy because other games tread that territory better. We try to give you a sense of what becoming a vampire would be like if you had to do it right now, where you live. Before being Embraced, people are completely blissfully unaware of any vampires at all, hence The Masquerade.

@Cara Ellison I am curious about a couple of things in particular. The first is, roughly, what percent of the NPC's in the game are romance-able? (If Slugg is non romance-able I might be very put out )

On a more serious note. Given how much Bloodlines 2 draws on the v5 rule book, how big a threat is The New Inquisition going to be?

'Romanceable' characters in Bloodlines games is a complicated thing because vampires think drinking blood is better than sex. They wouldn't really have a reason to bother trying to sleep with or romance someone unless they were a human being, and you had to convince the human that they should stick around. You are a Thinblood vampire in the beginning, and most of the characters you encounter are Full Blood vampires - so the power differential is off there. So the vampire population in general is not really interested in sex unless it's a special case vampire. The few humans you will encounter you will probably have a chance to sleep with, depending on your stats, as it will make them like you more.

With romance, vampires can be open to companionship, as it makes hunting easier, but again, you start out as an outcast, a weakling and an abomination, so those choices will be limited too. However, we have written some romance storylines and we obviously let you flirt your way into and out of a great many situations.

I don't think I can answer your second question!

I have one question : is triggering people one of your concerns ?

100% yes, we are absolutely concerned that some content in the game could be difficult for players living with trauma or a mental health issue. For the Malkavians we will make sure to describe to the player what they may experience when playing. But what may be difficult for us is making some of the systemic or scripted events turn on or off selectively. We are moving away from the 'fishmalk' portrayal for this iteration of Bloodlines, so we expect the Malkavians to be a much more unsettling or scary experience this time around.

Rachel and I have discussed some ways to be kinder to players who might have PTSD issues in particular, and one of the things we are considering pitching to the team is a part of the accessibility menu where we outline the thematic content of each mission so that you can prepare yourself ahead of time for a particular mission, choose not to play a side mission that might involve some issues you feel uncomfortable about, or grab a friend or partner to play through certain content with you. What we may do is give players a run down in that menu of what to expect from Malkavian playthroughs so that you can make a more informed choice about whether you feel comfortable playing that way. That way, we are not changing the experience, but we are giving you space and time to consider when you'd like to continue.

Does that sound like a good idea to you? This is all still being worked out of course, but we really care about it, and I hope that our game can be considerate in a way that works for you. I'd also love to talk to you over email about what you personally experience as difficult in games, it would be wonderful to know more about how to design a game from scratch for these issues, so we begin from the start to make the system work for you.

So fierce that Brian will still be writing Damsel in Bloodlines 2 if she shows up! And Cara is so cool, sis!

 

[biggestboss]

Sailor Woedica, I preferred your older avatar.

 

[Luckmann]

I haven't been keeping up since the announcement, but has there been any indication - any whatsoever - that this isn't going to be complete shit?

 

[Saerain]

Hey, it's not an EGS exclusive, isn't that what you wanted, you entitled manbabies?

 

[TheImplodingVoice]

Hey, it's not an EGS exclusive, isn't that what you wanted, you entitled manbabies?

That is the saving grace for it at the moment. So calm you tits faggot

I haven't been keeping up since the announcement, but has there been any indication - any whatsoever - that this isn't going to be complete shit?

My only worry at the moment is that all the gameplay I've seen so far have had way too much combat

 

[Child of Malkav]

Well that and the fact that it will support mods.
One of the first mods I'll install will be the one that removes that 3rd person switch while running up the wall and also the one that makes it so that after you run out of ammo for a gun you don't throw it away like the world's biggest retard.

 

[mondblut]

Hopefully at some point they'll remember to make an actual videogame that fans of the original will enjoy, too

Why would you want that? Let this trainwreck crash and burn most hilariously.

 

[Zombra]

Even at 30 hours, Bloodlines was too long (see: the numerous combat crawls packed at the end).

It wasn't too long; it was rushed in development. The length would have been perfectly appropriate if all content could have had the high quality of the first half.

 

[santino27]

Yes, you can say it was too long for the budget and dev time they had, but you can't use it as some sort of proof that all games should be shorter.

 

[Strange Fellow]

Almost all RPGs should be shorter.

 

[fantadomat]

Almost all RPGs should be shorter.

A good CRPG should be at least 60 hours!

 

[Strange Fellow]

Almost all RPGs should be shorter.

A good CRPG should be at least 60 hours!

A CRPG that stays good for 60 hours is a rare thing. A CRPG that wouldn't be a tighter, more cohesive experience with less filler if 20 hours of it were cut is even rarer.

 

[Roguey]

It wasn't too long; it was rushed in development. The length would have been perfectly appropriate if all content could have had the high quality of the first half.

They had over 3 years and they were in perma-crunch mode after the first few months of development.

 

[Zombra]

It wasn't too long; it was rushed in development. The length would have been perfectly appropriate if all content could have had the high quality of the first half.

They had over 3 years and they were in perma-crunch mode after the first few months of development.

Yes, and if they'd had more time they could have properly finished it. 3 years isn't some magic number at which every game achieves its best final form.

 

[Roguey]

Yes, and if they'd had more time they could have properly finished it. 3 years isn't some magic number at which every game achieves its best final form.

4-5 years of a team working full-time on a single-player game is considered too long and a result of bad project management by most of the people I've seen talk about it. And when it comes to poorly managed projects, "more time" doesn't guarantee success.

 

[Zombra]

No one said Bloodlines was brilliantly managed. I said it was rushed, and it was.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.shacknews.com/article/1...querade-bloodlines-2-interview-choices-matter

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 interview: Choices matter
We get the skinny on the upcoming vampire sequel from the folks at HardSuit labs.

The blood moon is high and Seattle's dark denizens are at war. It's time to return to one of gaming's most cherished worlds via the long-awaited sequel Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2. Developer Hardsuit Labs and publisher Paradox Interactive are hard at work on following up one of the most beloved cult classics in all of PC gaming. The team brought an all-new gameplay demo to Gamescom this year to show off what they’ve been working on since the game was announced earlier this year.

While we were at Gamescom 2019, we got the opportunity to speak with the team about the game and learn what goes into building an experience where player choice drives the outcome of the narrative.

In Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2, players will take on the role of the humans recently turned into a creature of the night during an unsanctioned Mass Embrace, thrust right into the battle between factions in Seattle. You're one of the witnesses, so you're going to be crucial to unraveling this mystery and you're going to have to choose a side along the way.

There are three editions of Bloodlines 2 available for fans to pre-order: Standard, Unsanctioned, and Blood Moon. The Unsanctioned version is the deluxe edition of Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 and includes the Unsanctioned Blood Pack, which features an art book, in-game dev commentary by Brian Mitsode, the Smiling Jack and Jeanette outfits, severed arm weapon skin, Sarcophagus Table, Damsel's Beret, Voerman Family Portrait, and Stop Sign item. The Blood Moon edition includes all of that plus the Season Pass for Bloodlines 2, called Season of the Wolf. The pass will give access to two story packs and an expansion. All editions are up now on Steam.

For more coverage of gaming and technology, check out the Shacknews and GamerhubTV YouTube channels. There you'll find exclusive interviews, demos, and event coverage. You'll also find exclusive walkthroughs, gameplay video, and more. Subscribe to both channels and stay tuned to Shacknews for gaming and tech updates.

 

[drgames]

Imagine getting PTSD disorder from playing a videogame.

 

[Duraframe300]

Almost all RPGs should be shorter.

A good CRPG should be at least 60 hours!

Translation: Bethesda is the king of rpgs. Fallout 1 was shit and doesn't isn't one of most quality rpgs ever. Should have had more fetch quests.