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

[Nano]

Only when he spanks the monkey.

You sure about that?

 

[Zombra]

well, usually when you try to sell a product you speak about its strong points and/or its most prominent characteristics. all we hear is "look at how amazing my pink hair are!" since the very first announcements, so either they place all their eggs in the incloooosive basket or most of the whole game is centered around the aforementioned basket.

Not really. Even in this very thread there are plenty of articles and previews that talk about stuff like gameplay, but a certain contingent doesn't seem to read or talk about those. All they see is the pink hair and they go "Well now I can't play this!"

Hmm, disagree with your simplistic binary view of the world. One doesn't need to be conservative to dislike people prioritising portrayal of their own view of reality over building a fun fantasy that is strictly adherent to the defined tropes and rules of the established setting.

Fair enough about my simplistic division. Many posters here do indeed have more nuanced opinions. But. We see a lot of social conservatism here that is so terrified of anything touched by liberals that they are rejecting out of hand any game brushing these themes. Sad.

As for "strict adherence to the defined tropes" ... this is meaningless. All you're saying is "I want the stuff I liked before to be repeated now." That would also be fair enough, but you should be a little more honest about it.

There should be no intersection between the world of this game and the real world. That is the definition of fantasy.

Huh? So what? Who promised you a fantasy game totally divorced from reality? Then or now?

All they had done in the past months is telling how woke they are and how wrong the first Bloodline was (and i dont even going to mention their Discord server) yet somehow we are the one with a problem.

That's absoutely not "all they had done". It's just what certain Codexers are crying about on street corners.

 

[Infinitron]

Every interview or development update with Cara Ellison - annoyingly woke.

All other interviews and appearances, not to mention the only gameplay footage we've seen so far:

 

[AdamReith]

This game is doomed. DOOMED.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

That's absoutely not "all they had done". It's just what certain Codexers are crying about on street corners.

Ok boomer.

 

[Chippy]

Bloodlines 2 gets announced.
I get about 25% hyped, 75% certain it's gonna get warped by woke Swedish people.
Ignore all news for several months because I'm trying not to be a negative jerk.
Check on its progress.
Find out it's exactly as I feared - in the sense that it's gonna be worse than I can currently imagine.
Remind myself that an era has ended and it's proabably never coming back.
Go back to playing Bloodlines 1.

Edit: And that senior narrative designer sounds like someone who formally identified as Amber Scott.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

It really looks worse every time one of them speaks. It's quite astonishing really.

 

[Roguey]

Just stick to the crit path and sigh as Mitsoda reveals himself to obviously not be the same guy he was 15 years ago.

 

[Cael]

Every interview or development update with Cara Ellison - annoyingly woke.

All other interviews and appearances, not to mention the only gameplay footage we've seen so far:

And this is how we know the game will have nothing to do with Obsidian.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

Just stick to the crit path and sigh as Mitsoda reveals himself to obviously not be the same guy he was 15 years ago.

It's a necessary cold shower for many people to witness the decrepitude of the old titans of this industry in order to become disillusioned with the prospects of a CRPG revival coming from the old guard.

New people in new studios, that's what's needed.

 

[gestalt11]

This game is going to be such utter shit and this is coming from someone who has Bloodlines 1 currently installed.

 

[fantadomat]

Just stick to the crit path and sigh as Mitsoda reveals himself to obviously not be the same guy he was 15 years ago.

Meh,all of those "titans" haven't delivered a single good game in the past decade. It just shows that there is no star developers but a good teams. All those big developer names have just show them self to be pretty bad at making games. In my life i have noticed that most creative people and those that desire fame are rarely the same people....who knows who was really behind all those successes. This post really made me remember about discussion about Arcanum's writer and if he was a real person or a pen name for the team. And after playing Outer Worlds....i really can't see boyarsky and cain delivering something like Arcanum.




Still maybe those are my dark slavic roots speaking...

 

[gestalt11]

Just stick to the crit path and sigh as Mitsoda reveals himself to obviously not be the same guy he was 15 years ago.

Meh,all of those "titans" haven't delivered a single good game in the past decade. It just shows that there is no star developers but a good teams. All those big developer names have just show them self to be pretty bad at making games. In my life i have noticed that most creative people and those that desire fame are rarely the same people....who knows who was really behind all those successes. This post really made me remember about discussion about Arcanum's writer and if he was a real person or a pen name for the team. And after playing Outer Worlds....i really can't see boyarsky and cain delivering something like Arcanum.




Still maybe those are my dark slavic roots speaking...

Meh whatever. The fact of the matter is even the best artists fail often. Half of the pathos of the codex is based around not understanding this.

However the shit you see from Ellison absolutely guarantee this game will be insufferably bad. Also the setting itself has become really insufferably stupid and considering how cringy some aspects of VTMB has always been that is pretty amazing. It simply does not matter what the other guys do, no matter how herculean their efforts nothing can drag this excrement from the depths of inadequacy.

 

[fantadomat]

Just stick to the crit path and sigh as Mitsoda reveals himself to obviously not be the same guy he was 15 years ago.

Meh,all of those "titans" haven't delivered a single good game in the past decade. It just shows that there is no star developers but a good teams. All those big developer names have just show them self to be pretty bad at making games. In my life i have noticed that most creative people and those that desire fame are rarely the same people....who knows who was really behind all those successes. This post really made me remember about discussion about Arcanum's writer and if he was a real person or a pen name for the team. And after playing Outer Worlds....i really can't see boyarsky and cain delivering something like Arcanum.




Still maybe those are my dark slavic roots speaking...

Meh whatever. The fact of the matter is even the best artists fail often. Half of the pathos of the codex is based around not understanding this.

However the shit you see from Ellison absolutely guarantee this game will be insufferably bad. Also the setting itself has become really insufferably stupid and considering how cringy some aspects of VTMB has always been that is pretty amazing. It simply does not matter what the other guys do, no matter how herculean their efforts nothing can drag this excrement from the depths of inadequacy.

Ahh there is failing and there is ending with something that have nothing to do with your earlier products. It is like painter just ending up drawing stick figures out of nowhere. You don't see such decline of skills mate.

 

[Prime Junta]

Stick a fork in it, this one’s done.

/me unwatches thread

 

[AdamReith]

Much like a vampire this sequel exists solely to cross dress while sucking our blood.

 

[Life of the Party]

It's a necessary cold shower for many people to witness the decrepitude of the old titans of this industry in order to become disillusioned with the prospects of a CRPG revival coming from the old guard.

New people in new studios, that's what's needed.

 

[Chippy]

https://www.pcgamer.com/you-can-play-bloodlines-2-like-its-untitled-vampire-game/

You can play Bloodlines 2 like it’s Untitled Vampire Game
What’s eternal life if you can’t use it to annoy people?

With the Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 release date pushed back until later in 2020, there wasn’t anything new shown off at publisher Paradox’s recent annual convention. Even so, I caught up with senior narrative designer Cara Ellison to chat about why vampires are still cool, what makes a good vampire story in 2019, and how fun it can be to embrace your undead avatar’s mischievous side.

Playing a vampire obviously brings with it elements of power fantasy. You’re undead. You’re smooth as hell (unless you’re a Nosferatu or a Brujah). You have all sorts of superpowers. Yet the World of Darkness is a horror setting, and it's always had to contend with the problem of letting people play as terrifying monsters while still needing to scare them. The original Bloodlines pulled this off with the infamous Ocean House quest, and Ellison says the writing team is trying to dial up the horror wherever they can in the sequel.

"Actually having ultimate power is not that interesting," she says. "That’s why people don’t play through Doom on God Mode. Horror keeps it interesting."

At the core of this push for fear is the idea of the Masquerade itself: an undead social contract designed to prevent the discovery of vampires by the mortal community at large. Violators tend to face harsh punishments for transgressions like attacking someone for a drink of plasma in the middle of a populated street, and the Bloodlines 2 writers plan to use paranoia about this retribution to keep the power fantasy in check.

"We try to make your vampire existence seem precarious all the time," Ellison says. "That you could do one thing and screw it all up. Accidentally kill someone, and then forces bigger than you will come for you. And that actually ties into the basis of [Bloodlines 2], which is neo-noir fiction. The neo-noir protagonist is always co-opted into an existing world that’s already hostile. I feel like Phillip Marlowe always gets beaten up in a back alley. You’re always vulnerable to something that’s more powerful or a narrative that you get swept up in. Violence that isn’t your fault. So what we tried to do with [Bloodlines 2] is make you feel like you’re always looking out for something, and there are horrors beyond your imagination."

At the same time, neo-noir protagonists often have a habit of making trouble for these larger forces around them. Ellison loves to include these types of options, and even compares their presence in Bloodlines 2 to a recent game about pesky waterfowl.

"I like the quests in which you’re making someone miserable," she says. "I’m currently playing Untitled Goose Game. We made some jokes about this, like, it would be very easy to turn our game into Goose Game in a way. With the vampire goose that’s annoying people. And that’s basically what you do as a vampire. You’re this Thin-blood who goes around irritating people and screwing up their day, making situations worse all the time."

When it comes to mischievous vampires, the first thing that comes to my mind is the demented Malkavian clan. Their portrayal has changed a lot over the years, with the first Bloodlines and some of the earliest Vampire supplements in the '90s playing up their unpredictable and abnormal behavior for humorous effect. Scenes that involved things like having conversations with inanimate objects were clearly written to amuse, rather than revealing the problems that arise from having their particular brand of vampiric powers. In writing Bloodlines 2, modernizing the Malkavians was a clear challenge, but Ellison believes the team has made positive steps by acknowledging the issues mental illness poses in a more tangible way.

"We want to get more into how having mental health issues actually are a barrier to your enjoyment of the world," she says. "They make things difficult. They provide more obstacles. And they change your perception of events and situations. I suffer from depression, and it’s actually quite hard to write about depression, because it’s a difficult thing to experience. But I think it’s important to do."

At the same time, the writers don’t want to stray from allowing humor into their portrayal of the clan. "The humor is still there in the Malkavian content," Ellison explains. "But it comes more from how weird the situation is, instead of it being a joke at the expense of the Malkavian. You’re in a weird situation and your clan weakness makes it weirder."

Ellison relates that the key to ensuring these quests can be interesting and deal with heavy subjects, but still sensitive to players’ lived realities, is often just listening.

"I have written a mission that has to do with body issues,” she recalls. “And I’m interested in them because I have issues with my own appearance. So I have a little bit of body horror sometimes, or a feeling that I don’t quite fit in my body… so I thought it would be interesting to approach that. I think I had the character say something like, ‘Oh, I’m not ugly anymore!’ And someone really considerate at the studio was implementing that [mission], and they got back to me and said, 'This line here? That’s really painful.'"

But sensitivity doesn’t have to mean avoiding these subjects altogether, Ellison says. After discussing the text further, there turned out to be a simple solution that everyone found acceptable.

"The solution was to put 'ugly' in quotation marks," she says. "And then, the meaning of it gets across better. She’s using it ironically. It’s about so-called ugliness. A societal idea of ugliness. Because today we’re aware that this is going to go out to an audience that, you know, they have a number of these issues and are maybe aware of them more, I think that’s an amazing challenge to writers to give that level of quality. So I love feedback like that, because it means I can try to serve people more effectively."

Doing extra work to serve players more effectively has also manifested in it being delayed out of its original release window. We don’t know exactly when we might get our fangs on it now, but you can read more about why this decision was made in Fraser's interview with Brian Mitsoda.

"The solution was to put 'ugly' in quotation marks," she says. "And then, the meaning of it gets across better. She’s using it ironically. It’s about so-called ugliness. A societal idea of ugliness. Because today we’re aware that this is going to go out to an audience that, you know, they have a number of these issues and are maybe aware of them more, I think that’s an amazing challenge to writers to give that level of quality. So I love feedback like that, because it means I can try to serve people more effectively."

Somone thought it was a good idea to have this person involved in a game with fleshcrafting and Tzimisce?. Words are not enough. People like her should be limited to Smurfs: The RPG or My Little Pony. And then they should monitor her work to ensure she isn't forcing her agenda on kids - or whoever else is entertained by that stuff.

The guys that did Bloodlines 1 strike me as classical liberals. The game was awesome. In all honesty, if modern "woke" liberals produced a "good" game - I'd still play it. But these modern liberuls are never gonna produce anything that appeals to centrist > right wing > Nazis like me because they always put their politics before their art. And because their politics is censorios / doesn't accept anything individual: how can it ever be anything but middle-of-the-road garbage?.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

The guys that did Bloodlines 1 strike me as classical liberals.

Why do you people say this about anyone with a potentially offensive sense of humor? Classical liberalism is just libertarianism with less marijuana. Classical liberals are committed to free markets, free trade, limited economic regulation and low taxes above all else—I really didn’t get that vibe from Bloodlines. They’re also called 19th century liberals because in the 20th and 21st centuries they are simply conservatives (sometimes people who’ve been raised in an anti-conservative environment will call themselves classical liberals to avoid cognitive dissonance).

Neither Mitsoda nor Boyarsky come off as libertarians. Bloodlines was made by Southern California Democrats with a bit of a gen X anarchist streak. The game is laced with straight political partisanship. It’s just that the game was made in 2004 so the issues that were salient then are not necessarily salient now. And stuff that was merely normal then—a little racism, a little sexism—comes off as a lot more politically charged than it was fifteen years ago.

Brian Mitsoda hired Cara Ellison, so I really doubt he considers her politics antithetical to the spirit of the franchise he created.

 

[AdamReith]

The guys that did Bloodlines 1 strike me as classical liberals.

Why do you people say this about anyone with a potentially offensive sense of humor? Classical liberalism is just libertarianism with less marijuana. Classical liberals are committed to free markets, free trade, limited economic regulation and low taxes above all else—I really didn’t get that vibe from Bloodlines. They’re also called 19th century liberals because in the 20th and 21st centuries they are simply conservatives (sometimes people who’ve been raised in an anti-conservative environment will call themselves classical liberals to avoid cognitive dissonance).

Neither Mitsoda nor Boyarsky come off as libertarians. Bloodlines was made by Southern California Democrats with a bit of a gen X anarchist streak. The game is laced with straight political partisanship. It’s just that the game was made in 2004 so the issues that were salient then are not necessarily salient now. And stuff that was merely normal then—a little racism, a little sexism—comes off as a lot more politically charged than it was fifteen years ago.

Brian Mitsoda hired Cara Ellison, so I really doubt he considers her politics antithetical to the spirit of the franchise he created.

Whatever flavor of liberalism they adhered to it definitely felt grounded in common sense. Honestly I don't care what a persons politics are if they are capable of intelligent, clever writing that is able to immerse me. That Generation X stuff for example has always really appealed to me and fits so well into an RPG despite the fact that I would find anyone holding those opinions in real life incredibly naive and unbearable company.

Cara Ellison does not seem grounded in common sense or capable of separating a fantasy world from her own issues based on this interview. That's before I apply all my personal bias against people like her of which there is a lot in fairness.

 

[Chippy]

The guys that did Bloodlines 1 strike me as classical liberals.

Why do you people say this about anyone with a potentially offensive sense of humor? Classical liberalism is just libertarianism with less marijuana. Classical liberals are committed to free markets, free trade, limited economic regulation and low taxes above all else—I really didn’t get that vibe from Bloodlines. They’re also called 19th century liberals because in the 20th and 21st centuries they are simply conservatives (sometimes people who’ve been raised in an anti-conservative environment will call themselves classical liberals to avoid cognitive dissonance).

Neither Mitsoda nor Boyarsky come off as libertarians. Bloodlines was made by Southern California Democrats with a bit of a gen X anarchist streak. The game is laced with straight political partisanship. It’s just that the game was made in 2004 so the issues that were salient then are not necessarily salient now. And stuff that was merely normal then—a little racism, a little sexism—comes off as a lot more politically charged than it was fifteen years ago.

Brian Mitsoda hired Cara Ellison, so I really doubt he considers her politics antithetical to the spirit of the franchise he created.

It's just an assumption based on the overall content of the game - you've got the radio ads at the expense of republicans, the owner of the gothic bar in downtown - bit and pieces like that. I don't think there was much fun being poked at lefties from the right, but it didn't matter becasue the game was grounded. The thing is that with "classical liberals" you could be centre-right (or even more to the right) and still sit in a bar and have a pint, a conversation, and take the piss out of each other. These are the ones that would be 40+ now.

But you've got this Carrie Ellison type of liberal that's doing an interview, and instead of talking about an IP that allows her to use any human from any time in history - her priorities are in letting everone know immidiately that "It's an amazing challenge" for writers to provide a level of quality by not offending people with her use of the/any ugly word.

Kyl Von Kull I'm not directing this specifically at your post to contradict it, just using it as a way of responding to the overall discussion on the thread - and that other poster a while back who said something about people reading too much into Carrie Ellison's interviews - and discounting the entire game.

 

[Roguey]

And stuff that was merely normal then—a little racism, a little sexism—comes off as a lot more politically charged than it was fifteen years ago.

I'm sure they've changed their minds about newspapers.

 

[Infinitron]

Nobody posted this character cosplay guide from Halloween: https://www.bloodlines2.com/en/characters-cosplay-guides

Elif Parmak, the Turkish Tremere hottie:

Spoiler

Dale Talley, the vampire who just wants to be left alone:

Spoiler

Josephine, lieutenant to the mysterious Baron:

Spoiler

"Mr. Damp", the mysterious cover art guy:

Spoiler

Lou Grand, buxom leader of the Pioneers:

Spoiler

 

[Zombra]

But you've got this Carrie Ellison type of liberal that's doing an interview, and instead of talking about an IP that allows her to use any human from any time in history - her priorities are in letting everone know immidiately that "It's an amazing challenge" for writers to provide a level of quality by not offending people with her use of the/any ugly word.

As an experiment, I googled "Cara Ellison Bloodlines 2 interview" and skimmed the first three articles that came up. Not a word about inclusiveness, inoffensiveness, or modern politics. She does say "politics are at the center of our game", referring not to modern liberal politics, but to the genre bedrock trope of vampires manipulating humans.

Seriously, we all know she talks about liberal politics sometimes, but to deny that she ever talks about anything else is really dumb. You are cherry picking.

 

[Alexios]

Josephine, lieutenant to the mysterious Baron:

Spoiler

Clarence Thomas in drag?