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

[Cricket McBangle]

Paradox Q2 2022 Interim Report: "We learned our lesson. The problem was we announced Bloodlines 2 way too early. We won't be repeating that same mistake ever again."

Translation: "Our historically incompetent management and piss-poor communication channels didn't give us the AAA RPG we were hoping for. We sent in a hack game design consultant to see if we could score a 7 or 8 on IGN but he took the money, shrugged, and advised us to cancel it. Instead, we will Warhammer this shit out and we will also exploit the stupidity of fans who want to make their retarded games with our license which will soon be worthless as a result. Either way, some weirdo diehard World of Darkness fans will defend us as the company who tried to bring back Bloodlines despite the Swedish-British monstrosity it inevitably turns out to be."

 

[Roguey]

We sent in a hack game design consultant to see if we could score a 7 or 8 on IGN but he took the money, shrugged, and advised us to cancel it.

Not really fair to Alexandre Mandryka. The guy did save Assassin's Creed from cancellation.

 

[Herumor]

The guy did save Assassin's Creed from cancellation.

That wasn't a good thing he did.

 

[Roguey]

The guy did save Assassin's Creed from cancellation.

That wasn't a good thing he did.

From the perspective of Ubisoft, it was a great thing that he managed to lead a project out of dev hell so they could ship something that many people called a repetitive tech demo but was nevertheless successful enough to spawn near-annual sequels.

 

[Jeffo]

I´m a junkie of the first Bloodlines and I´m desperate for any chip of new info.
Yes, BL2 looked like crap but I´m too frigging mesmerised to fight my obssesion. I want more of the creepy, filthy, decadent urban fantasy of the first.
You seem to have auspex-like skills so here I am, panhandling for some data.
Help me please I´m going cold turkey, pleeeaaase

 

[Roguey]

One for the cope pile at PAX this Friday: https://west.paxsite.com/en-us/sche...Get-Cancelled-A-Lesson-on-Empathy-in-Game-Dev

Why do games get cancelled? What causes “development hell,” or a launch from being successful? Join game developers Adrienne Mata and Nicole Stanford to discuss game failures, production wins, and how building a foundation of empathy and compassion can help you find success in the games industry. Adrienne Mata is a Producer at World’s Edge, working on Age of Empires IV. She has previously worked on the Banner Saga and various mobile titles in the world of LiveOps. Nicole Stanford is a Narrative Designer at Eleventh Hour Games. Before working on an upcoming ARPG, she’s had experience working for notable roleplaying franchises over at Aspyr and Hardsuit Labs.

Adrienne Mata (She/Her) [Producer, World's Edge], Nicole Stanford (She/They) [Narrative Designer, Eleventh Hour Games]

Yeah, she/they, that tracks, but uh wait what

Eleventh Hour Games, Narrative Designer
(January 2022 – Present)

I’ve been focused on main story overhaul efforts, fleshing out plot beats and characters for the upcoming Action Role-Playing game, Last Epoch. As the game’s been in early access for a few years now, there’s an existing story that fans have grown accustomed to—I’ve led keeping its original vision in mind while also uplifting it to an AA quality. This involves leading Narrative meetings, script meetings, and assisting in Design and Level Design meetings to keep the story cohesive with the rest of the game.

For campaign overhaul, I’ve worked closely with other creative departments to hash out story details, lore, characters, and the game’s setting. To prep the story for launch in 1.0. I’m in charge of writing new dialogue and overseeing pre-production story for future content during this time—helping implement changes through our internal Unity tools and wikis.

I’ve also become a primary point of contact for our voiceover and cutscene animation partners, overseeing both efforts. I work closely with our external animation team, writing scripts and providing information needed for their crew. With voice acting, I’ve collaborated with our external partners to find actors. This involves sending out casting calls, sifting through auditions, and working with actors during recording sessions.

Aspyr Media, Game Writer
(Contracted April 2021 – November 2021)

As a contracted writer, I wrote dialogue and collaborated with designers to structure quests for the upcoming Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic Remake.

Hardsuit Labs, Narrative Designer
(August 2019 – March 2021)

I wrote for Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2, focusing on developing characters, quests, and structuring reactive dialogue in a writer’s room style. I attended voiceover sessions, providing direction for my characters. I also represented narrative in a “Player Agency” strike team, mapping out different player approaches for completing quests with other departments.

During my time at Hardsuit Labs, I also worked on pre-production for unannounced titles — helping conceptualize their IPs and develop their story bible.

Absolutely cursed CV. Her writing wasn't responsible for these projects getting yanked, but what are the odds of an unestablished writer bouncing from one highly anticipated cancelled RPG to yet another one?

 

[Ismaul]

what are the odds of an unestablished writer bouncing from one highly anticipated cancelled RPG to yet another one?

High I bet. An unestablished writer won't be hired by the big boys, so they go to smaller, less safe projects, that often end up cancelled.

It even happens to established writers, like Mitsoda, or Ziets.

 

[Iluvcheezcake]

Hey, Roguey, what if you're wrong about The Chinese Room imaking VTMB2? Are you prepared for consequences ?

If multiple sources were incorrect, I will admit to being bamboozled by them and reading something I was already biased towards in TCR's hiring practices in addition to the allegation that the official World of Darkness discord automatically word filters "Chinese Room" but no other studio (a claim I haven't verified myself because I will never make a discord account).

Why no Discord? Genuinely interested9

 

[Roguey]

Why no Discord? Genuinely interested9

I don't agree with its policies.

 

[Iluvcheezcake]

Why no Discord? Genuinely interested9

I don't agree with its policies.

What does that mean?

 

[Roguey]

What does that mean?

It's their servers and they can do what they will but I disagree with this kind of moderating of chat rooms https://discord.com/guidelines

 

[Iluvcheezcake]

What does that mean?

It's their servers and they can do what they will but I disagree with this kind of moderating of chat rooms https://discord.com/guidelines

Ah ok, thanks

 

[Jeffo]

One for the cope pile at PAX this Friday: https://west.paxsite.com/en-us/sche...Get-Cancelled-A-Lesson-on-Empathy-in-Game-Dev

Excellent! maybe we can dig something from the whole panel.
More depressing stuff for sure, yay! How everything crashed and burn! Still, maybe she/they )) slips some critical info and forces Paradox to do some reveal! But I´m daydreaming here.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

What does that mean?

It's their servers and they can do what they will but I disagree with this kind of moderating of chat rooms https://discord.com/guidelines

I can dig that. I only use discord because of a dearth of other options. All my favorite communities have moved to discord and it's now pretty much the only way to get involved with these communities.

 

[GhostCow]

What does that mean?

It's their servers and they can do what they will but I disagree with this kind of moderating of chat rooms https://discord.com/guidelines

I've been running a discord server for all the National Socialists I used to talk to on facebook for like 5 years and we break most of these rules every day. Nothing has ever come of it.

 

[Roguey]

I've been running a discord server for all the National Socialists I used to talk to on facebook for like 5 years and we break most of these rules every day. Nothing has ever come of it.

They can choose to enforce at any time.

 

[GhostCow]

I've been running a discord server for all the National Socialists I used to talk to on facebook for like 5 years and we break most of these rules every day. Nothing has ever come of it.

They can choose to enforce at any time.

In my case this is why we have a telegram backup, but no service has the custom emojis that discord does as far as I know and that's the main reason we use it.

 

[Ismaul]

no service has the custom emojis

 

[Cricket McBangle]

One for the cope pile at PAX this Friday: https://west.paxsite.com/en-us/sche...Get-Cancelled-A-Lesson-on-Empathy-in-Game-Dev

Why do games get cancelled? What causes “development hell,” or a launch from being successful? Join game developers Adrienne Mata and Nicole Stanford to discuss game failures, production wins, and how building a foundation of empathy and compassion can help you find success in the games industry. Adrienne Mata is a Producer at World’s Edge, working on Age of Empires IV. She has previously worked on the Banner Saga and various mobile titles in the world of LiveOps. Nicole Stanford is a Narrative Designer at Eleventh Hour Games. Before working on an upcoming ARPG, she’s had experience working for notable roleplaying franchises over at Aspyr and Hardsuit Labs.

Adrienne Mata (She/Her) [Producer, World's Edge], Nicole Stanford (She/They) [Narrative Designer, Eleventh Hour Games]

Yeah, she/they, that tracks, but uh wait what

Eleventh Hour Games, Narrative Designer
(January 2022 – Present)

I’ve been focused on main story overhaul efforts, fleshing out plot beats and characters for the upcoming Action Role-Playing game, Last Epoch. As the game’s been in early access for a few years now, there’s an existing story that fans have grown accustomed to—I’ve led keeping its original vision in mind while also uplifting it to an AA quality. This involves leading Narrative meetings, script meetings, and assisting in Design and Level Design meetings to keep the story cohesive with the rest of the game.

For campaign overhaul, I’ve worked closely with other creative departments to hash out story details, lore, characters, and the game’s setting. To prep the story for launch in 1.0. I’m in charge of writing new dialogue and overseeing pre-production story for future content during this time—helping implement changes through our internal Unity tools and wikis.

I’ve also become a primary point of contact for our voiceover and cutscene animation partners, overseeing both efforts. I work closely with our external animation team, writing scripts and providing information needed for their crew. With voice acting, I’ve collaborated with our external partners to find actors. This involves sending out casting calls, sifting through auditions, and working with actors during recording sessions.

Aspyr Media, Game Writer
(Contracted April 2021 – November 2021)

As a contracted writer, I wrote dialogue and collaborated with designers to structure quests for the upcoming Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic Remake.

Hardsuit Labs, Narrative Designer
(August 2019 – March 2021)

I wrote for Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2, focusing on developing characters, quests, and structuring reactive dialogue in a writer’s room style. I attended voiceover sessions, providing direction for my characters. I also represented narrative in a “Player Agency” strike team, mapping out different player approaches for completing quests with other departments.

During my time at Hardsuit Labs, I also worked on pre-production for unannounced titles — helping conceptualize their IPs and develop their story bible.

Absolutely cursed CV. Her writing wasn't responsible for these projects getting yanked, but what are the odds of an unestablished writer bouncing from one highly anticipated cancelled RPG to yet another one?

She obviously listened to Mitsoda really well.

 

[Cricket McBangle]

This might be neat if you were a fan of the licensed OST tracks for Bloodlines: Lacuna Coil redid their Comalies album which had the Swamped track as the ending credits song. Here's their reimagined version.

 

[Bad Sector]

I do not think there was ever an album that Lacuna Coil made that i disliked - i liked some more than others, but over the decades they're the only band that hasn't let me down. I was already a fan before playing VtMB, imagine my surprise when the game played Swamped during the credits roll :-P.

 

[Grunker]

This might be neat if you were a fan of the licensed OST tracks for Bloodlines: Lacuna Coil redid their Comalies album which had the Swamped track as the ending credits song. Here's their reimagined version.

has there ever been a song remade by its original band that didn't suck compared to the original

 

[PlacidDragon]

This might be neat if you were a fan of the licensed OST tracks for Bloodlines: Lacuna Coil redid their Comalies album which had the Swamped track as the ending credits song. Here's their reimagined version.

has there ever been a song remade by its original band that didn't suck compared to the original

Well, personally i quite liked their new version of "Tight Rope", very "punchy" compared to the original. This one, not so much.

 

[jungl]

They have maybe 1 or 2 decent songs other then that shit artist. Baby shark is better then that band.

 

[SmartCheetah]

So what's the current news about thing thing (Bloodlines2)? Still "developed" in silence by the unknown studio? They are still trying to save face after fiasco with other developers? Or they cancelled it completely?