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

[Nano]

The Bloodlines 2 model has a substantially broader face, wider nose bridge, stronger jawline, and sunken eyes. While Damsel in the original was relatively low resolution, she was at least feminine. Even disregarding looks, Damsel has no appeal at all. Just a typical commie idiot. Half-cocked ideas and ruled by emotions and false piety. The concept of anarchs in vampire society is a dumb as a faction gets anyway. Childish egalitarians in a system where (super)natural inequality could not be more obvious. I'd bet a bottle of patchouli she's just pissed that she wasn't sired by a ventrue.

Fact: female anarchs want to be dominated by muscular chud cammies.

Nope. Damsel actually has a crush on Nines.

 

[Harthwain]

Granted, it is confusing and completely silly and it is good intuition to consider a baron to hold lesser territory than a prince. Not in VtM tho.

Well, my education concerning PnP version of VtM ended on 1st Edition manual.

Lacroix is just exhibiting the typical flaws of a Ventrue which are being overemphasized in this case due to the PC being a Mary Sue

The way I see it, he was made into an idiot just to make him a very clear villain, even in contrast with Ming Xiao.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

Lacroix is just exhibiting the typical flaws of a Ventrue which are being overemphasized in this case due to the PC being a Mary Sue

The way I see it, he was made into an idiot just to make him a very clear villain, even in contrast with Ming Xiao.

That's a valid way of looking at it too, but I'd sooner blame it on poor narrative design.

And since I've committed the heresy of calling out the game in the story department, it goes without saying that what truly makes this rough gem of a game shine is not the story, but the atmosphere.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Except he is the prince with who-knows-how-long record (at least judging by Bloodlines. I don't think you are even given his biography in game)

You can ask him about himself. He was an officer in Napoleon's armies, so pretty young as Princes go, but not outside the norm for the New World. It is hinted that LA is his first Principality, so his experience is years at worst.

They sure did have an interesting accent in 19th century France.

Because learning new accents over a 100 years spent in America is impossibiru.

Why would he learn to speak with an English accent in America?
He doesn't even pronounce "a bientôt" correctly, the dude is a fake.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

He doesn't even pronounce "a bientôt" correctly, the dude is a fake.

Cheap VA.

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

He doesn't even pronounce "a bientôt" correctly, the dude is a fake.

Cheap VA.

This. Japanese hunter VA was also pretty terrible.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

He doesn't even pronounce "a bientôt" correctly, the dude is a fake.

Cheap VA.

Andy Milder's character spoke French in Luck of the Draw(2000)

 

[typical user]

Still wondering why Paradox is keeping it silent about what studio they chose to replace Hardsuit.

Said it was because the contracts aren't actually signed.

It's within the realm of possibility that the deal falls through and they just silently let it remain canceled (like Obsidian's Wheel of Time game that people kept bringing up for years even though it never existed beyond an announcement).

As I understood, the deal is done. The spaghetti code has been gifted to the new team. We may get more information on March 13, when the Paradox Insider event happens.

If the new team has any sense, they'll spend 5 minutes trying to decipher the inevitable mess of spaghetti code and then scrap the whole thing to start over.

I just hope they will take the script, animations, assets, all preproduction and try to program this from scratch. Wish the community manager told us why the change, what they didn't like or why the progress was slow.

Or otherwise don't speak at all.

 

[Tacgnol]

I just hope they will take the script, animations, assets, all preproduction and try to program this from scratch. Wish the community manager told us why the change, what they didn't like or why the progress was slow.

Or otherwise don't speak at all.

I would assume they'll be using the existing narrative, and presumably some of the other assets created. Though who knows, maybe this is a complete reset.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

He doesn't even pronounce "a bientôt" correctly, the dude is a fake.

Cheap VA.

Andy Milder's character spoke French in Luck of the Draw(2000)

LaCroix's accent and poor French were intentional. The VA would have been aware of how to properly speak French.

 

[Roguey]

Yeah, Womb is full of talented VAs. That guy is from Nebraska, the English accent was something he was told to affect.

Yukie, on the other hand, was not Womb. A particular tell is the poor quality recording of her lines. She's also not listed in imdb's credits (cause none of them voiced her )

 

[Ol' Willy]

It's funny, because one of the advantages video games have over film and TV is that they don't have to worry about actors getting old. An advantage that they evidently chose not to make use of here.

Proceed to Diablo 2 remaster thread, please

 

[whydoibother]

Lacroix is just exhibiting the typical flaws of a Ventrue which are being overemphasized in this case due to the PC being a Mary Sue

The way I see it, he was made into an idiot just to make him a very clear villain, even in contrast with Ming Xiao.

All the characters are turned up to 11, the subtlety of the writing is GTA5 tier. Did you not get this from the asian gun dealer, or the tower security guy, or the ching chong empress, or the fortune cookie seller guy? I get your ideology might cloud your brain from seeing it in the commie kiddie or the CEO of vampirism, but there are so many other OBVIOUS examples of it. All the characters are caricatures, on purpose. Its meant to be "cultural criticism" and "political satire", just like Rockstar Games claim about GTA.

 

[Harthwain]

All the characters are turned up to 11, the subtlety of the writing is GTA5 tier. Did you not get this from the asian gun dealer, or the tower security guy, or the ching chong empress, or the fortune cookie seller guy? I get your ideology might cloud your brain from seeing it in the commie kiddie or the CEO of vampirism, but there are so many other OBVIOUS examples of it. All the characters are caricatures, on purpose. Its meant to be "cultural criticism" and "political satire", just like Rockstar Games claim about GTA.

I don't mind exaggeration. But we aren't talking about that. We're talking about outright stupidity shown by a notable vampire character, not some side-quest NPC (and there are cases, where such exaggeration I not only don't mind, but quite like. Such as Mr. Ox).

 

[Ol' Willy]

Brujah is the clan you play as a teenager. Then you grow up and choose Ventrue.

Malkavian for life! (or unlife)

 

[Avarize]

Malkavian is also the teenager choice. Lolrandom humour is firmly in the realm of adolescence. Of course if you mean the tabletop then you have the chance to roleplay as something a little more refined.

 

[Ol' Willy]

Lolrandom humour is firmly in the realm of adolescence.

Malkavians in Bloodlines are way more than "lolrandom". Malkavians have, probably, the best insight in the situation among all clans

 

[Heroic Liberator]

The benefits do not outweigh the negatives though. I doubt that you'd unironically want to be a Malkavian if you were thrust into the setting and had to pick a clan to be embraced by.

 

[Ol' Willy]

The benefits do not outweigh the negatives though. I doubt that you'd unironically want to be a Malkavian if you were thrust into the setting and had to pick a clan to be embraced by.

There's a method to the madness

 

[True Ukrainian]

But what if the aim of the method is madness itself?

 

[Delterius]

I don't mind exaggeration. But we aren't talking about that. We're talking about outright stupidity shown by a notable vampire character, not some side-quest NPC (and there are cases, where such exaggeration I not only don't mind, but quite like. Such as Mr. Ox).

LaCroix's problem isn't so much that he's an idiot, rather that he's in over his head with what should have been an easy job. He's a mediocre guy sent to a frontier region no camarilla elder truly cares about. And he's pitted against Ming Xiao, who out-schemes him at every turn and Jack, who ruined everything with the sarcophagous.

 

[Wesp5]

LaCroix's problem isn't so much that he's an idiot, rather that he's in over his head in what should have been an easy job. He's a mediocre guy sent to a frontier region no camarilla elder truly cares about. And he's pitted against Ming Xiao, who out-schemes him at every turn and Jack, who ruined everything with the sarcophagous.

Exactly, although it wouldn't have been an easy job in the first place. As far as I know the Camarilla could only install a prince into LA because the war between Anarchs and Kuei-Yin had weakened both factions. So they basically picked somebody who could be sacrificed and sent him into a warzone! No wonder Lacroix went for the hope the sarcophagus gave him to rise above all of this.

 

[Delterius]

LaCroix's problem isn't so much that he's an idiot, rather that he's in over his head in what should have been an easy job. He's a mediocre guy sent to a frontier region no camarilla elder truly cares about. And he's pitted against Ming Xiao, who out-schemes him at every turn and Jack, who ruined everything with the sarcophagous.

Exactly, although it wouldn't have been an easy job in the first place. As far as I know the Camarilla could only install a prince into LA because the war between Anarchs and Kuei-Yin had weakened both factions. So they basically picked somebody who could be sacrificed and sent him into a warzone! No wonder Lacroix went for the hope the sarcophagus gave him to rise above all of this.

There's another issue. The Camarilla is very much an European - North Atlantic clique. They fight the Sabbat over the New World, sure, but Mexico, Eastern Canada and much of South America outright belongs to the sect. The western United States was always left for Camarilla rejects and runaways, people who qualify as Elders mostly because there's no competition. Grout became Malkavian elder as soon as he was discovered. When the Free State was formed it was because they took over from mediocre people like LaCroix. The former Prince of Los Angeles was even younger than LaCroix and, unlike LaCroix, kind of a shithead. LaCroix was weak and insecure but at least he tried (though he failed) to play politics. Prince Dominguez was strong but outright refused to do politics.

As far as the truly ancient vampires are concerned the free state Anarchs just needed time to mature and come into the fold and there's no real need to send someone actually useful to the boonies. I'm sure they were reluctant to even bother sending LaCroix until it was the Kuei-jin who were about to take over.

 

[Joggerino]

How can you go from selling preorders to this clusterfuck of a situation?

 

[DeepOcean]

Because all of this was a disguised social experiment to test the IQ and pain tolerance of whom preordered Bloodlines 2.