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

[Harthwain]

A game in the WoD setting that isn't heavily story and/or character driven feels like wasted potential, tbh. This sounds more-or-less like some generic detective game with a WoD skin.

This kind of gameplay suits vampire hunters perfectly. And I disagree it'd be a wasted potential. Nosferatu: Wraith of Malachi had amazing atmosphere despite being just a fairly straightforward action game, thanks to its gothic theme. There is also Fury of Dracula (a board game) - which is the game of deduction - and it's pretty cool as well. That said, you can still have heavy story/character elements, because the investigation would entail interacting with various people and require a variety of skills (deduction-wise, social-related and combat-oriented), something that can be used to shape what kind of hunter you want to be.

 

[Zombra]

Fury of Dracula is so goddamn good.

 

[Wesp5]

he makes himself invulnerable, his true faith is much higher than that

Where does Bach do that? In my opinion all he does is blind you with Holy Light to change his position.

 

[Wesp5]

How about the actual vampire hunting?

We made a short mod for Bloodlines in which you start off as a Hunter from the Society of Leopold: https://www.moddb.com/mods/vtmb-prelude/downloads/bloodlines-prelude-i-17

 

[rusty_shackleford]

he makes himself invulnerable, his true faith is much higher than that

Where does Bach do that? In my opinion all he does is blind you with Holy Light to change his position.

It's in the walkthrough that comes with your patch.

Now move through the double doors and you'll find Bach waiting for you. He'll
shoot you from afar with a sniper rifle and will drop grenades down the stairs.
He also has two special abilities, he can cast a spell making him invulnerable
for a short period of time and if you get close to him he can temporary blind
you. Whatever kind of weapons you choose though, it's not gonna be that hard
to kill him at this point. [+: Bach will drop a katana or SWAT RIFLE on death.]

 

[Lambach]

This kind of gameplay suits vampire hunters perfectly.

Yeah, that's true, which is why I'm not in favor of a Hunter game. Basically, you'd be playing a detective that only occasionally brushes against the supernatural, and I emphasize occasionally, because if you do it more often, you'll probably get gutted or drained or burned to a crisp or all of the above. And you'd have to do it during daytime. DAYTIME. In my WoD! Fucking Redemption PTSD flashbacks all over again.

Why daytime? Because if you go snooping after some Vampire while he's up and about, you're probably screwed.

And I disagree it'd be a wasted potential. Nosferatu: Wraith of Malachi had amazing atmosphere despite being just a fairly straightforward action game, thanks to its gothic theme.

Well yeah, but creating an amazing gothic atmosphere doesn't require a WoD license. If you have the damn thing, use it to implement WoD lore into your game and preferably build your story around it. Otherwise, what's the license for anyway? Just so you can slap a VtM logo on a re-skinned Fortnite?

Hunter is a pretty content-poor game in terms of books released for it compared to the Big 3 of WoD or even compared to other less popular games in the setting. There really isn't all that much that you can do with it, other than play detective, but again, I think that's a waste of the WoD license.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

he makes himself invulnerable, his true faith is much higher than that

Where does Bach do that? In my opinion all he does is blind you with Holy Light to change his position.

It's in the walkthrough that comes with your patch.

Now move through the double doors and you'll find Bach waiting for you. He'll
shoot you from afar with a sniper rifle and will drop grenades down the stairs.
He also has two special abilities, he can cast a spell making him invulnerable
for a short period of time and if you get close to him he can temporary blind
you. Whatever kind of weapons you choose though, it's not gonna be that hard
to kill him at this point. [+: Bach will drop a katana or SWAT RIFLE on death.]

appears to be referred to as "Shield of Faith" in the game files, btw.

 

[True Ukrainian]

Not sure which version of the patch you're using, but when I played shield of faith just seriously upped Bach's damage resistance. You could chip away at his health with a gun even when he invokes it.

 

[Storyfag]

but I know who it is

WELL WHO IS IT THEN?!

Someone tag this faggot and tell him to un-ignore me so he can answer the question. He can go back to his Safe Space after that.

EDIT: Storyfag I don't wanna bother you, but you're probably my bestest pal on this website (you're thrilled and honored, I know), so do a brother a favor, please.

rusty_shackleford please anwser Lambach's question. Since I quoted it, you don't even have to un-ignore him

 

[Storyfag]

You are overthinking it. Not every vampire hunter has to be Van Helsing and not every vampire has to be Dracula. The basic premise is interesting enough to draw attention and you can use it in many ways, depending on what you want to do with it. Personally I'd go for more gothic style and go back in time instead of using the modern setting, because I find it less fitting the whole "You're a vampire hunter and the night is dark and full or terrors" theme.

I just don't see a particularly interesting plot that you can do with Hunters. Unlike Vampires, they have a fixed, set goal and that's that, not a whole lot you can do with it. You'd either end up hunting some Coterie to prevent them from doing Some Evil Shit(TM) or you'd be out for revenge because some Big Bad Vampire(TM) killed your [insert personal relationship here] etc. Pretty banal.

There are various factions within the Hunter society, but from what I can remember, they're not constantly at each other's throats, scheming and plotting against each other like Vampires do. They also don't have mountains of metaplot that you can rely on to build a story. Feels pretty limited.

Redemption had a wonderful twist with Father Leopold tho. There is room for interesting concepts.

 

[Harthwain]

Yeah, that's true, which is why I'm not in favor of a Hunter game. Basically, you'd be playing a detective that only occasionally brushes against the supernatural, and I emphasize occasionally, because if you do it more often, you'll probably get gutted or drained or burned to a crisp or all of the above. And you'd have to do it during daytime. DAYTIME. In my WoD! Fucking Redemption PTSD flashbacks all over again.

Why daytime? Because if you go snooping after some Vampire while he's up and about, you're probably screwed.

Why not both? It's possible for servants of the vampire to attack you during the day and if you implement day/night cycle you will have to contend with the possibility of having to decide between resting and risking continuing the investigation during the night, while it's arguably more dangerous to do so, because he clock is ticking. Keep in mind the vampire doesn't have to attack you during the night every night - the vampire has little to benefit from fighting head with every vampire hunter that's after him.

Well yeah, but creating an amazing gothic atmosphere doesn't require a WoD license. If you have the damn thing, use it to implement WoD lore into your game and preferably build your story around it. Otherwise, what's the license for anyway? Just so you can slap a VtM logo on a re-skinned Fortnite?

I mean, I just gave the idea for a "vampire hunter game". Besides that I think the gothic atmosphere suits it more, but that's just me. What license (if any) you want it to give is optional at this stage. The idea is mallable enough to fit anything.

Hunter is a pretty content-poor game in terms of books released for it compared to the Big 3 of WoD or even compared to other less popular games in the setting. There really isn't all that much that you can do with it, other than play detective, but again, I think that's a waste of the WoD license.

Considering we don't have that many vampire hunter video games, I think it wouldn't be a bad thing to release something like this. Sure, playing as vampires is more suited for WoD, but that's precisely because the whole lore is mostly about them and you play from the perspective of the insider who's infiltrating the human society, rather than someone who's essentially a pest-eradicator.

 

[Storyfag]

To make it clear, I'm not too hot about a Hunter game either, but this:

And you'd have to do it during daytime. DAYTIME. In my WoD! Fucking Redemption PTSD flashbacks all over again.

can also be worked around. Just have thick rainclouds overhead for proper ambience during daytime.

Also, some of the vampire's servants would be ghouls, so the supernatural element would bleed into the daytime hours too.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

what's wrong about daytime?
if you're a hunter why would you want to fight your prey when it's to their advantage? You'd avoid fights at night as much as possible.

 

[Storyfag]

what's wrong about daytime?

As I said, ambience.

 

[Reinhardt]

I just don't see a particularly interesting plot that you can do with Hunters. Unlike Vampires, they have a fixed, set goal and that's that, not a whole lot you can do with it. You'd either end up hunting some Coterie to prevent them from doing Some Evil Shit(TM) or you'd be out for revenge because some Big Bad Vampire(TM) killed your [insert personal relationship here] etc. Pretty banal.

How about the actual vampire hunting? You're in a city and you need to figure out where the vampire is before time runs out. Some people in the city can be his allies, so you need to be wary of whom you trust. You can also throw in the requirement of finding out how to kill a vampire (in the vein of Veil of Darkness). The vampire's location, his allies and the method with which he can be killed can be randomized per playthrough. And that isn't even touching the combat system itself.

I remember really liking "The Light at the End" back in the days. It's about bunch of random people hunting insane vampire murderer in subway.
Don't know if it still holds, don't want to reread books from my youth.

 

[Wesp5]

Not sure which version of the patch you're using, but when I played shield of faith just seriously upped Bach's damage resistance. You could chip away at his health with a gun even when he invokes it.

Yep, Shield of Faith or Faith Shield is just similar to Fortitude. It does not make him invulnerable! The walkthrough was not done by me and is exaggerating, I think I'll correct that bit...

 

[Gargaune]

But man, this must be one of the biggest landmines a publisher has ever stepped onto. The WoD IP itself is doing fine in the gaming world. Not great, but fine. Their CYOA games have completely monopolized the CYOA fandom after the success that was Parliament of Knives, Swansong is looking solid so far, the visual novels by Draw Distance are... there. There's no solid main-course RPG like Redemption yet, but there's been plenty of little appetizers that were well-received. If a competent single player non-text-based RPG were released right now, it would've been the perfect coup de grace. But trusting Mitsoda and some fledgling dev studio to deliver on that was beyond naive. The biggest red flag should've been the promise of a sequel to Bloodlines instead of just making a new title a la Swansong. That "Bloodlines 2" tag attracts way too much unwanted attention, especially since a game with themes and humor like what we see in Bloodlines can't be released in today's climate without being chewed out by the press. It was doomed to fail from the start and what's worse is that Bloodlines fans will never let them live it down.

Vampire, as a property, isn't that recognisable in the mass market gaming space today, and the parent World of Darkness IP is nowhere near the likes of D&D or Star Wars. Even successful CYOAs don't necessarily have the circulation to attract the interest of the general public to a new AAA Action-Adventure RPG, in fact it could even backfire with the perception of a "small new license" trying to make it big. This isn't the same situation as Larian's, who could (and should) have rolled a new property on the back of D&D's household clout, I doubt Paradox could've afforded to pass on free marketing from Bloodlines' lingering cult following.

But yeah, those reasons likely apply, especially if it's The Chinese Room like the discord rumor claims (don't want people thinking this is a walking sim which many people absolutely will if it's not accompanied by a trailer showcasing combat).

Haven't played anything by The Chinese Room, but the name Dan Pinchbeck rang a bell from a paper called Counting Barrels in Quake 4 he wrote way back. I remember finding it an interesting read then particularly for how it presented the concept of object "affordance", which is a worthwhile perspective in discussing Immersive Sim design. Now, that's not to say that a TCR-developed Bloodlines 2 won't suck, just that at least at some point in the past, their founder seems to have fostered some loftier aspirations than mere walking simulators.

On the flipside, any Good Writing™ aficionados in this thread would do well to note that the word "edge" in Brightonese actually translates to "cringe" in regular English. You've been warned.

Unless Paradox were paying Hardsuit Labs wages that are significantly under the legal minimum, the only way Bloodlines 2 actually makes them some money is if it at least slightly breaks into the mainstream, defies all expectations and sells 'bout a million copies (or more, of course).

Instinctively, going off the look of the marketing they were doing before pulling the plug on Hardsuit, I'd suspect Bloodlines 2 selling only a million copies would've been a financial flop. Between regional pricing, distributor fees and taxes, they wouldn't have even broken even on development and publicity, let alone made money. Now that they've booted Hardsuit and roped in a new developer, it's pretty much guaranteed that Paradox are treating Bloodlines 2 as a longterm loss leader.

 

[Gargaune]

what's wrong about daytime?

All this time I thought you were a Larian employee, when it turns out you actually work for CDPR.

 

[Alphons]

I've no idea how you could make a pure Hunter game work as a cRPG. Detective or tactical game, yeah. But not a cRPG.

What could be done is start as an ordinary human that accidentally peaks behind the curtain. Whether by investigating something or witnessing a Masquerade breach. You could have different backgrounds that would give you extra dialogue options or skills- gang member would have different options than a hacker or a cop.

At first your goal would be to survive and figure out how deep in shit you currently are. Later you could be recruited by hunters or show your worth to vampires and become a ghoul. Or just try to escape the city with your life.

 

[just]

you're a troubled hunter investigating murders you know were commited by vampires but everyone laughs at you
endless walls of texts, some skill checks here and there that affect nothing but more text being shown, homosexual sidekick, absolutely no combat
codex goty right here

 

[vortex]

I need for VTMB2 to have improved and ferocius combat.

 

[J1M]

You are overthinking it. Not every vampire hunter has to be Van Helsing and not every vampire has to be Dracula. The basic premise is interesting enough to draw attention and you can use it in many ways, depending on what you want to do with it. Personally I'd go for more gothic style and go back in time instead of using the modern setting, because I find it less fitting the whole "You're a vampire hunter and the night is dark and full or terrors" theme.

I just don't see a particularly interesting plot that you can do with Hunters. Unlike Vampires, they have a fixed, set goal and that's that, not a whole lot you can do with it. You'd either end up hunting some Coterie to prevent them from doing Some Evil Shit(TM) or you'd be out for revenge because some Big Bad Vampire(TM) killed your [insert personal relationship here] etc. Pretty banal.

There are various factions within the Hunter society, but from what I can remember, they're not constantly at each other's throats, scheming and plotting against each other like Vampires do. They also don't have mountains of metaplot that you can rely on to build a story. Feels pretty limited.

Hunters are a way to introduce various other WoD properties and fit the mould of an action game better than Vampire.

A "deal with the devil" setup is always possible for more plot complexity along the lines of Constantine.

 

[Tyranicon]

make a hunter game that is a boomer shooter in the vein of BLOOD

Bruh, they already raped the WoD license they bought more than enough. Just... let it be, let it go into Torpor until some other publisher buys it. It's actually painful seeing Fortnite re-skinned and published as a VtM game.

God, that look awful. Also most silent game ever?

Wait, this has 22K reviews on steam? How?!

I was going to say its dead on arrival but I suppose yet another early access battle royale is exactly what people want. I should just make a battle royale survival crafting game for the money at this point.

 

[Wesp5]

Wait, this has 22K reviews on steam? How?!

Because it was free to play and a lot of people took a look, myself included. After a short time numbers were already quite low though, so they halted everything to improve it. My guess is that the theme just didn't work with Battle Royal like everybody predicted...

 

[ColaWerewolf]

Basically, you'd be playing a detective that only occasionally brushes against the supernatural, and I emphasize occasionally, because if you do it more often, you'll probably get gutted or drained or burned to a crisp or all of the above.

I've no idea how you could make a pure Hunter game work as a cRPG.

In nuLore there are government-backed secret agencies that deal with hunting vampires. These agencies are compartmentalized and decentralized, so you can have anything from a small Mulder and Scully team to a whole platoon of trained secret service agents. The real interesting part is that you can have super soldiers who ingest blood from captured vampires, switching between these vampire "juicebags" so as not to get blood bonded. Or they drain a vampire dry before dusting it. They have agelessness, super powers, yet no weakness to sunlight or fire. All buried behind swathes of bureaucratic conspiracies. You can have a full Deus Ex game set in VtM now.

It's a bit melancholic that VtM's initial appeal was that "YOU are the monster", and yet now we've reached the stage where humans prey on the blood of vampires, while vampires are reduced to duskborn junkies LARPing as alchemists while snorting their own blood mixed with drugs and bugs in their mom's basement.