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

[TT1]

There we go

 

[Lambach]

3/4 main writers have pronouns in their bios, this Jordan guy being the sole exception.

Boy, I really wonder what the overall tone and themes of the game were going to be prior to them getting the axe. I guess it's a mystery we will never unravel.

 

[TT1]

We believe in low turnover, and take steps to guard against the “staff-up and lay-off” cycle that is so common in this industry. When we hire, we hire for the long term.

 

[Bara]

I bet one of them gets a job with Larian for bg3.

 

[TT1]

I bet one of them gets a job with Larian for bg3.

I don't think so. Larian is mainly based in Europe and Quebec, Hardsuit is based in Seattle.

 

[Bara]

I bet one of them gets a job with Larian for bg3.

I don't think so. Larian is mainly based in Europe and Quebec, Hardsuit is based in Seattle.

Remote employment is my speculation

 

[Jenkem]

Huh? Maybe they didn't appear as publisher themselves, but we got Vampire: The Masquerade – Coteries of New York, Vampire: The Masquerade – Shadows of New York, Vampire: The Masquerade – Night Road and Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood.

you forgot Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Heart of the Forest, mate!

 

[Heroic Liberator]

Huh? Maybe they didn't appear as publisher themselves, but we got Vampire: The Masquerade – Coteries of New York, Vampire: The Masquerade – Shadows of New York, Vampire: The Masquerade – Night Road and Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood.

you forgot Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Heart of the Forest, mate!

From the top rated Steam review:

While the story is coherently written, it reads like a short young adult novel directed at rebellious preteen girls. There is no character creation or choice whatsoever, so you're saddled with the unlikeable Maia—a selfish, rude American girl with an anger problem. As for the other characters/allies, they aren't much more interesting. I consider myself very liberal and open-minded and these poorly-written, hollow characters made me eyeroll and facepalm quite a few times. There's the literal man-hating lesbian from an all-female feminist werewolf tribe, a cowardly male from a pacifist tribe, and a cross-dressing straight man who is only characterized by the LGBTQA+ pins and patches on his jacket and the fact that he looks like "a heroin-addicted rockman". This is nothing like the Werewolf: The Apocalypse RPG I played a decade ago.

 

[TT1]

I bet one of them gets a job with Larian for bg3.

I don't think so. Larian is mainly based in Europe and Quebec, Hardsuit is based in Seattle.

Remote employment is my speculation

Not sure about Quebec, but for Europe? Forget about it.

 

[Jenkem]

From the top rated Steam review: While the story is coherently written, it reads like a short young adult novel directed at rebellious preteen girls.

Have you ever met Werewolf fans?

 

[Heroic Liberator]

From the top rated Steam review: While the story is coherently written, it reads like a short young adult novel directed at rebellious preteen girls.

Have you ever met Werewolf fans?

I know Lacrymas if that counts.

 

[DeepOcean]

Yes, they indeed released nothing from that IP.

Why did they purchase it? It's starting to look like they just want to safeguard it from nasty right-wing developers who might make something fun out of it.

I dont even need for them to be right wing, having a functional brain is enough but woketards on the HR department will sniff out for other woketards. Look to this dude here and watch his stuff, I have no idea if he is conservative but he doesnt look like an idiot:
https://www.youtube.com/c/SethSkorkowskyAuthor/videos
How a guy that is a professional GM, with fucking 10 books written and even better, he knows how to write and design RPG quests doesnt get nowhere close to the HR department of something like Paradox but those random karens that never made anything of worthy are hired all the time? Because other random karens hire them.Yes sure, he doesnt have experience on cRPGs, but you can teach an intelligent man how a video game works but science didnt discover IQ improvement techniques yet, only such revolutionaire discoveries would help the karens situation.

 

[deuxhero]

Hey guize, remember when they thought this was good enough to show to the public?



Seems even more hilarious now in hindsight.

Aside from Seattle apparently banning white streetlights, it doesn't actually look that bad till the combat starts. It's jank even by the standards of Bloodlines, and it's clear from the perfect left/right movement in places it was played with a controller. Still, it's in a solid enough state that I can see some Paradox exec convinced they salvage an engine and mechanics and they just need to burn down Hardsuit labs to make something approaching a releasable story (remember, reusing a new game with existing engine+mechanics for new levels and story is easily doable in a year by a competent studio) instead of just needing to can the whole thing.

 

[Roguey]

Simpyer


Tough luck Josh, they only have eyes for one man.

 

[Dycedarg]

Looking at those twitter profiles, you understand how the game went to shit. Woke stuff aside, they are some of the most vapid retards I've ever had the displeasure to read about.

 

[sser]

Yes, they indeed released nothing from that IP.

Why did they purchase it? It's starting to look like they just want to safeguard it from nasty right-wing developers who might make something fun out of it.

I dont even need for them to be right wing, having a functional brain is enough but woketards on the HR department will sniff out for other woketards. Look to this dude here and watch his stuff, I have no idea if he is conservative but he doesnt look like an idiot:
https://www.youtube.com/c/SethSkorkowskyAuthor/videos
How a guy that is a professional GM, with fucking 10 books written and even better, he knows how to write and design RPG quests doesnt get nowhere close to the HR department of something like Paradox but those random karens that never made anything of worthy are hired all the time? Because other random karens hire them.Yes sure, he doesnt have experience on cRPGs, but you can teach an intelligent man how a video game works but science didnt discover IQ improvement techniques yet, only such revolutionaire discoveries would help the karens situation.

Did he try and get on with a company or something? I think a guy like that could get hired if he threw his hat in the ring somewhere.

 

[Lambach]

Aside from Seattle apparently banning white streetlights, it doesn't actually look that bad till the combat starts.

The facial animations, voice-acting and dialogue are significantly, objectively worse than a game from 2004, dude. It is that bad.

I also took personal offense to the kind of music being played at that club, since it seems wholly unfitting to the spirit of the original, but that's the only bit of criticism where I admit I'm probably too nitpicky. Everything else is a straight-up disaster. It looks like a really, really shitty Nexus mod for Deus Ex: Human Revolution with a botched VtM paintjob on top of it.

 

[Justicar]

 

[deuxhero]

Aside from Seattle apparently banning white streetlights, it doesn't actually look that bad till the combat starts.

The facial animations, voice-acting and dialogue are significantly, objectively worse than a game from 2004, dude. It is that bad.

I also took personal offense to the kind of music being played at that club, since it seems wholly unfitting to the spirit of the original, but that's the only bit of criticism where I admit I'm probably too nitpicky. Everything else is a straight-up disaster. It looks like a really, really shitty Nexus mod for Deus Ex: Human Revolution with a botched VtM paintjob on top of it.

I meant the actual "gameplay" didn't look that bad. The dialog and everything related to it need to be cut.

 

[Spacer's Nugget]

Good riddance.

Edit: Don't mind her invisible office chair.

 

[Lambach]

I meant the actual "gameplay" didn't look that bad. The dialog and everything related to it need to be cut.

I don't get it, you said the combat was jank even by the standards of the original Bloodlines, so which part of the gameplay didn't look "that bad"? The traversal through the streets or something?

And it's precisely "the dialog and everything related to it" that elevated the original Bloodlines from a janky mess to a cult classic, so if the sequel botches that, what the fuck is the purpose of the sequel to begin with?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Those twitter profiles

 

[CyberModuled]

I'm getting Outer Worlds flashbacks with just vaguely skimming the profiles. American video game development (on a large scale at least) is utterly fucked.

 

[deuxhero]

I meant the actual "gameplay" didn't look that bad. The dialog and everything related to it need to be cut.

I don't get it, you said the combat was jank even by the standards of the original Bloodlines, so which part of the gameplay didn't look "that bad"? The traversal through the streets or something?

And it's precisely "the dialog and everything related to it" that elevated the original Bloodlines from a janky mess to a cult classic, so if the sequel botches that, what the fuck is the purpose of the sequel to begin with?

Again, I'm talking from the point of view of an executive looking at this and deciding to can it. I merely said the actual walking around and environment looked like they could be salvaged if you give a completely different team a year and a half to redo everything else, which is actually more than I expected from this trainwreck.

 

[Nano]

Nicole's favorite games:



I get the sense she doesn't play a lot of games.