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

[Aeschylus]

According to my shady gaming-industry contacts, someone working at Paradox recently reported this game as being 'Barely a 7/10', which I'll file under the least surprising revelations of the year.

 

[Child of Malkav]

So, all in all, this truly is Vtmb. They got even the development hell right.

 

[Roguey]

According to my shady gaming-industry contacts, someone working at Paradox recently reported this game as being 'Barely a 7/10', which I'll file under the least surprising revelations of the year.

Seems much too generous unless we're talking a 7-10 scale.

 

[Aeschylus]

According to my shady gaming-industry contacts, someone working at Paradox recently reported this game as being 'Barely a 7/10', which I'll file under the least surprising revelations of the year.

Seems much too generous unless we're talking a 7-10 scale.

I think we're talking video-game-reviewer scale, so maybe 6-10.

 

[udm]

You could ask, but you'd get one of their absolutely professional Community Ambassador replies:

"Disclosing when we're going to disclose information isn't something that I'd do as then it's just disclosing dates all the way down, heh. Aside from that, there's no new information I can give you. Like legit, there's nothing I can tell you right now or we'd be telling you it, heh."

Can't imagine why this drama masquerading as gamedev is a complete PR dumpster fire when the people responsible for getting information for the community is trying a bad poker bluff in text.

Maybe that's the real masquerade here.

So, all in all, this truly is Vtmb. They got even the development hell right.

You wish! At least the previous team had a number of competent people who were good at their jobs. Here, these sorry excuses for human beings are probably still figuring out many genders should be in the game.

 

[Caim]

According to my shady gaming-industry contacts, someone working at Paradox recently reported this game as being 'Barely a 7/10', which I'll file under the least surprising revelations of the year.

Is this person a man or a woman? That can really change the meaning.

 

[Jenkem]

The game is still coming along nicely, expect a trailer at The Game Awards with Geoff Keighley!

 

[d1r]

The game is still coming along nicely, expect a trailer at The Game Awards with Geoff Keighley!

Was that a threat?

 

[Caim]

The game is still coming along nicely, expect a trailer at The Game Awards with Geoff Keighley!

Was that a threat?

Given that Geoff is the dorito pope, I think that it's evangelism.

 

[Wesp5]

So, all in all, this truly is Vtmb. They got even the development hell right.

Reading about the bugs in Cyberpunk 2077, I think we have another development successor right there too !

 

[Infinitron]

Development hell lulz aside, it's actually good news if this game is delayed to late 2021. That's a massive delay and it means Paradox are committed to the game, not just trying to polish and throw it out the window.

And as I've said that makes sense, because Paradox own the World of Darkness IP and they should have a strong interest in not fucking up their first in-house WoD game.

 

[Nano]

Development hell lulz aside, it's actually good news if this game is delayed to late 2021. That's a massive delay and it means Paradox are committed to the game, not just trying to polish and throw it out the window.

A delay gives them more time to remove Mitsoda's work, you know.

 

[Archibald]

Development hell lulz aside, it's actually good news if this game is delayed to late 2021. That's a massive delay and it means Paradox are committed to the game, not just trying to polish and throw it out the window.

And as I've said that makes sense, because Paradox own the World of Darkness IP and they should have a strong interest in not fucking up their first in-house WoD game.

Then there is a question of throwing good money after bad. Maybe they should just take an L and rethink their plans, because I see no reason to believe that another year of development would fundamentally change anything.

 

[Eli_Havelock]

Development hell lulz aside, it's actually good news if this game is delayed to late 2021. That's a massive delay and it means Paradox are committed to the game, not just trying to polish and throw it out the window.

And as I've said that makes sense, because Paradox own the World of Darkness IP and they should have a strong interest in not fucking up their first in-house WoD game.

Sure, just like Duke Nukem Forever and Daikatana, and a bit of Bloodlines' own history, the only difference is that those had experienced professionals working on them.

A developer can try to polish a turd all they want, but if they don't have the ability then they've basically become the high-budget version of the ubiquitous Kickstarter newbie developers crowdsourcing their education of game design. That is what we're looking at with Hardsuit and we're going to have to lie to ourselves to pretend it's going to get any better: BL2/HDX are already known as a trainwreck and HSL/PDX have been shooting blind since day one.

The hiring pool is going to be slim pickings if they expect their hires to be pure enough but also talented enough to fit the big boy boots and do the job. Since the inclusivity inquisition is thriving in their offices they're going to have to scrape harder than ATLAS (the game, not the company) "Senior" Game Designer Erik Waananen doing the same for Bloodlines 2. From an intern on GW2: Heart of Thorns to Senior Game Designer, quite the promotion!

 

[Roguey]

Yeah, "If we'll just keep spending money on it, it'll turn out fine!" isn't going to work. They don't know what they're doing and the people willing to sign up for their low-pay-and-high-turnover company won't know either. Scrap Bloodlines, give Harebrained Schemes a V:TM project.

 

[Ismaul]

it means Paradox are committed to the game

Oh yeah for sure. They're so committed they even fired the devs that cared most about the project, including their core creative team.

Nahhh, you're deluded. The only thing they're committed to is trying to recuperate as much of their investment as possible. They think that the cost of a few extra months of dev time will pay itself back in sales because it'll make it a shippable game instead of an unsellable mess. The fact that they're hiring a lead gameplay designer at this stage of development tells you how much of a mess the whole thing is right now.

 

[Semiurge]

According to my shady gaming-industry contacts, someone working at Paradox recently reported this game as being 'Barely a 7/10', which I'll file under the least surprising revelations of the year.

Is this person a man or a woman? That can really change the meaning.

Did you just assume that the gender of his shady deepthroat will conform to binary?

 

[Justicar]

The game is still coming along nicely, expect a trailer at The Game Awards with Geoff Keighley!

 

[Wunderbar]

Development hell lulz aside, it's actually good news if this game is delayed to late 2021. That's a massive delay and it means Paradox are committed to the game, not just trying to polish and throw it out the window.

And as I've said that makes sense, because Paradox own the World of Darkness IP and they should have a strong interest in not fucking up their first in-house WoD game.

how much do paradox pay to you?

 

[jac8awol]

Guys, trust me on this. The Snyder cut of VTMB2 is really gonna turn things around in 2021. It's like a whole other game, like for realz.

 

[Semiurge]

It might be even worse! Somebody on Planet Vampire discovered that HSL is looking for a new Audio Director. A job presumely filled until now by Rik Schaffer and his wife from Bloodlines 1 fame. Are they gone now too?

https://careers.hardsuitlabs.com/jobs/989831-audio-director

Oh well, an interactive novel needs no music.

 

[Ismaul]

Guys, trust me on this. The Snyder cut of VTMB2 is really gonna turn things around in 2021. It's like a whole other game, like for realz.

Hey man, cool it with the snyde remarks.

 

[Hellraiser]

Scrap Bloodlines, give Harebrained Schemes a V:TM project.

After Battletech I wouldn't trust HBS with any known IP. Also this doesn't get rid of the elephant in the room, Paradox's suits.

 

[Roguey]

After Battletech I wouldn't trust HBS with any known IP.

For what it's worth, Kiva's gone.

Also this doesn't get rid of the elephant in the room, Paradox's suits.

Eh, they seem to be hands-off when it comes to design, this is a mess of Hardsuit's making. It's not like Paradox botched Tyranny, Feargus did that on his own.

 

[Hellraiser]

Eh, they seem to be hands-off when it comes to design, this is a mess of Hardsuit's making. It's not like Paradox botched Tyranny, Feargus did that on his own.

The glassdoor reviews posted ITT mentioned Paradox somehow interfering for the worst. Paradox is funding the projects so they have influence over general goals, timelines or staff decisions. It is reasonable to assume they at least rubber-stamped high-profile firings and thus are partially responsible for the mess, if they were not the ones who took the initiative and forced Hardsuit to fire people in the first place.

I don't trust Paradox ever since they got involved with Battletech and for some reason there was paid DLC not even 6 months after the game was out, with no prior mention and no discount or anything for kickstarter backers. This is one of the other reasons why my opinion of HBS and Battletech is not good, besides that game having design issues which I mentioned in the battletech thread somewhere on the last few pages.