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

[Duraframe300]

I just remember the "We're not *punching down* anymore* comment. Shit has stuck with me over the years.

 

[Wesp5]

I just remember the "We're not *punching down* anymore* comment. Shit has stuck with me over the years.

That could all have been publicity on behalf of Paradox. The one character which I saw in the Bloodlines 2 intro had exactly the same funny Mitsoda quality we know from Bloodlines!

 

[SpaceWizardz]

I assume that was in reference to FishMalk cringe or characters with exaggerated accents like Fat Larry, can't really recall anything else that comes across as insensitive.

 

[santino27]

I assume that was in reference to FishMalk cringe or characters with exaggerated accents like Fat Larry, can't really recall anything else that comes across as insensitive.

Yes, it was in reference to the Malkavian humor in Bloodlines and also something about prostitutes if I remember from Cara's blathering.
From about 500 pages ago in this thread:

She also said that they’re trying to broaden Bloodlines 2 from the more masculine power fantasy of the original, so that it appeals to way more people this time.

Bloodlines was shit - Cara Ellison

From Kotaku: http://archive.is/brWfk

The World of Darkness can be fraught at times. The original game traded in careless depictions of sex work and some tired writing about mental illnesses like disassociative identity disorder. You could play as a member of the mentally-addled but prophecy-gifted Malkavian clan, with altered dialogue that, while humorous, danced a fine line in terms of taste. There was even some racial stereotyping for good measure. Meanwhile, White Wolf’s management of the World of Darkness setting has not been without controversy. Last November, the Paradox subsidiary drew criticism for using the real-life persecution and murder of Chechnya’s LGBTQA population as a plot-point in the setting’s vampiric politicking. Paradox fully integrated White Wolf after this incident. When asked about their approach to the setting, the team outlined how they wanted to handle the World of Darkness in 2019.

“It was very of its time,” Ellison said of the first game. “It approached certain topics differently. How we look at stuff has matured since then.”

“It’s fifteen years later and things have changed,” Mitsoda said. “We have to be very sensitive about how we handle things like mental illness and that was a concern for us and for Paradox, in how we can make a mature story but if we do anything, we do our homework and make sure that we are punching up and not punching down.”

“We talk about these issues constantly,” Ellison added. “Because we care about including people, we want them to feel powerful and sexy, and we don’t want them to feel like it’s not for them.”

I’m cautiously optimistic about Bloodlines 2. The gameplay’s emphasis on exploration and Hardsuit’s goal of building a vibrant Seattle are compelling. The team’s willingness to talk about the first game’s stumbles was good to see. And it’s exciting to have a Vampire game that appears to play well. It could be the expansive vampire RPG that players have craved for over a decade, even if they’ll have to wait until 2020 to play it. There’s challenges to the World of Darkness setting and plenty of baggage from the first game, but also a lot of potential for engrossing stories. Also, I might get to smooch a vampire. Or at least use my Seduction skill from time to time.

“We have lots of conversations about who is everyone’s ship,” Ellison said.

From RPS: https://archive.fo/sQ2rw

“I often look at like, how would someone feel sexy in this situation?” she explained, and said that there are definitely characters in there that will be shipped like mad. “Everyone in the studio is like ‘Yeah I would definitely go for that one. He’s my bae,’ kind of stuff. They’re often very unusual choices.”

She also said that they’re trying to broaden Bloodlines 2 from the more masculine power fantasy of the original, so that it appeals to way more people this time.

At least they admit why they're shilling for it that strongly:

Disclaimer: Cara Ellison wrote things for us years ago, and has been known to make Alice O’Connor, our news editor, cups of tea (they’re flatmates).

And...

How Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 Updates Its Treatment Of Sex Workers

TheGamer managed to sit down with Cara Ellison, Narrative Designer on Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2, at PDXCON 2019 to talk about the game. When we asked how the portrayal of sex workers might have evolved since the first game, she was happy to discuss.

Before we got into that, though, we needed to discuss one new aspect of the game, Resonance.

Nearly every human in the game can be fed on by the vampire main character, but they don't just provide nourishment in the form of blood. Human NPCs also have Resonances, representing dominating emotions or states of mind, which can be picked up on by heightened vampiric senses.

Explains Ellison, "So we have Delirium if you take a drug, or Desire - people standing outside a club might have Desire. You've got Rage, for obvious reasons. We've got Pain, for example."

The Resonance of a human the player feeds on will have a mechanical effect, but it also makes for a useful way to convey emotion at a distance.

"We didn't want to get rid of the sex workers, because we thought that would be disrespectful. What we do this time around is we let you see the state... people are in. One of the most interesting decisions we made is to have Johns have a 'Desirous' Resonance… and the sex workers are just bored, you know?"

In the original game, sex workers were basically blood bags you could pay for. The main character could hire one (for an unrealistically low charge), take them into a darkened alleyway, and suck their blood to replenish themselves. The game actually made it clear that the blood of these people is of a lower quality, and even so far beneath some upper-class vampires that they'd vomit after drinking it.

One questline in particular involved a cult of vampires that were deliberately spreading a deadly sexually transmitted illness by hiring sex workers to infect them, and by extension, all of their clients. Though it gave an insightful and positive depiction of a sex worker's personal and dating life that is rare to find in media, it also showed a sex worker dying because of her work. In light of the real dangers of STIs and the vulnerability of sex workers, this questline was in poor taste.

It seems there's nowhere to go but up with Bloodlines 2's sex workers, however, and this time around, at least some of them will play a much more important and respectfully depicted role in the story.

"I also have fully developed characters who are sex workers and actually a main character. Basically, I think the answer is to just have the player be able to actually actually talk to the character... about whatever it is they're concerned with, and make them a part of the narrative instead of just exclude them.

So the way that we are approaching it is hopefully more thoughtful and less like they’re a resource. Because they're just like anyone else: they are, you know, a person on the street and they are usually just as susceptible to all the labor issues as anyone else, susceptible to the cold, susceptible to health care issues, just like any other human.

We just have to treat them respectfully."

https://www.thegamer.com/vampire-masquerade-bloodlines-2-sex-workers-change/

 

[Heroic Liberator]

I assume that was in reference to FishMalk cringe or characters with exaggerated accents like Fat Larry, can't really recall anything else that comes across as insensitive.

Western devils also find Chinatown offensive nowadays.

Been reading the Kindred of the East sourcebooks lately and they're great. nWoD naturally had to scrap the Kuei Jin in their entirety in their sanitization of the setting.

 

[Storyfag]

I assume that was in reference to FishMalk cringe or characters with exaggerated accents like Fat Larry, can't really recall anything else that comes across as insensitive.

Western devils also find Chinatown offensive nowadays.

Been reading the Kindred of the East sourcebooks lately and they're great. nWoD naturally had to scrap the Kuei Jin in their entirety in their sanitization of the setting.

nWoD has nothing to do with this setting. You mean 5e.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

nWoD has nothing to do with this setting. You mean 5e.

Current VtM is basically nWoD stuff with oWoD flavor (i.e. VtM 5e is VtR lite - or 'retro' to use a soft drink analogy) as far as I'm concerned. First they discontinued oWoD, then they brought it back presumably because the various nWoD reboots weren't as well received as the original games, then they turn the latter into the oWoD equivalent of their shitty reboots in terms of questionable lore changes.

 

[Tyranicon]

She also said that they’re trying to broaden Bloodlines 2 from the more masculine power fantasy of the original, so that it appeals to way more people this time.

Video games moving beyond the masculine power fantasy was a mistake.

 

[Grauken]

She also said that they’re trying to broaden Bloodlines 2 from the more masculine power fantasy of the original, so that it appeals to way more people this time.

Video games moving beyond the masculine power fantasy was a mistake.

90% of games are still masculine power fantasies, you won't run out of things to murder in style anytime soon

 

[J1M]

A potential American writer would be just as far from the culture portrayed in Bloodlines as this Brit they went for. Honestly if they really wanted that, they would've hired someone from Central/Eastern Europe that still runs largely on this mythos, or maybe a media fetishist like Kojima.

Arone's Canadian, though given that he's "principal" as opposed to lead that likely means he's doing the bulk of the writing determined by Dan Pinchbeck's guidelines (who would be too busy writing the original IP to write this himself).

In the game industry "lead" means "senior". A team may have 4 lead designers, for example. Titles above lead are less consistent, but principal designer is a much more senior role than lead designer.

 

[J1M]

Viata https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/vampire-the-masquerade-–-bloodlines-2-vaporware-vtmb-sequel-from-paradox-interactive.126124/post-7910665

Guy insisted Hardsuit hire Ellison and then rubberstamped all her stupid ideas to the extent he was able while rejectionstamping everything Avellone submitted out of personal animosity.

Yeah, but Avellone wasn't sucking his penis in the break room...

 

[J1M]

Yes, roguey, I am serious. Industries have different conventions. It's trivial to obtain a vice president title in Finance, for example.

 

[Roguey]

In the game industry "lead" means "senior".

They have a senior narrative designer though, Sarah Longthorne.

A team may have 4 lead designers, for example.

That's for massively huge Ubi games and the like. The hierarchy I've seen for most RPGs is one lead, then one or a few seniors, then the regulars, and finally a few juniors.

Titles above lead are less consistent, but principal designer is a much more senior role than lead designer.

I wouldn't say this is the case. https://twitter.com/joegoroth/status/1380689608854228992 tries to make sense of it all while pointing out that studios will use their own definitions for things

I'm looking at a lot of applicants recently, and one area where gaming is super inconsistent is role and level names.
Two roles named the same thing can mean very different things at different places. Here's a quick and dirty guide for things to watch for with design roles

Junior or Associate.

Some companies say junior designer others say associate, but these are almost universally entry level roles. Even at top companies you shouldn't need significant experience to get your foot in the door.

Mid/______ designer roles
You'll see lots of companies just looking for "Designer" with no modifier before it.

These are generally mid level roles. 2-3 years experience is the average expectation. With a killer skillset you might be able to land a role here without industry exp

Senior Designer Roles

Here is where the industry is consistent. Almost all studios have a senior design role. In most AAA orgs this means you are an experienced designer with limited leadership responsibilities. 4+ years of experience, expect to do more making and less leading

Lead Designer

Here is where things get messy.

Depending on the size of the game this can be very different.

For a small studio, this could be the highest level design role.

In a big org, there could be 10-30 Lead designers on a game.

Universally a lead design role requires experience. At least 4+ years (like a senior).

Most of these roles are some mix of getting your hands dirty making stuff and leading teams. But you're going to need to be more comfortable leading than doing.

A lead designer is usually leading a team that has more than just designers on it. So for this level of a role you're going to need to be comfortable speaking the language of -Test/Art/Engineering/Production- and fighting for what those people need.

Bigger orgs will have design roles that go past lead designer, lets dive in.

Senior2/Staff/Principal/Master

You might see a Senior 2 Designer/Staff Designer/Principal Designer role.

These roles can have very different titles depending on the location, but generally are for Designers with 7+ years of experience and some craft excellence.

Depending on the company some Principal Design roles might require team leadership, but at most companies this is for designers that deliver a big impact to a game through the things they directly create.

His definition is in-line with my assumption, that Arone is doing the bulk of the writing but isn't the leader of the narrative team or laying down the rules of how things should be done. If TCR has any kind of narrative lead, they're not on the internet at all, so my assumption is that the creatiive director of the studio is the one who has first and final say on what the plot and characters should be.

Anyway, new TCR newsletter. Nothing but a promise that they will definitely reveal things later this year:

This year will be the biggest one for us yet, so we are quietly excited. As we continue on our journey, we are reminded of the kindness and support of our community, who have walked beside us through thick and thin. We are grateful for your unwavering spirit and your belief in our vision. Very soon now we’ll share the fruits of our recent creative process, stay tuned.

 

[NecroLord]

Letting women be part of gaming development was a mistake.
Seriously, name one other than Terri Brosius that made any major contribution to gaming?

 

[Tyranicon]

Letting women be part of gaming development was a mistake.
Seriously, name one other than Terri Brosius that made any major contribution to gaming?

There's a joke in that name somewhere.

But prestigious women devs exist. Just look at Corrinne Yu, who was a programmer on King's Quest, invented new lighting tech for Halo and is VP of Engineering for General Motors. Her entire wikipedia article is non-stop badassery.

Corrinne Yu is an American game programmer. She worked on games including King's Quest, Quake 2, and Halo 4. Her engine work included Unreal Engine 3, Microsoft's Direct 3D Advisory Board, and CUDA and GPU simulation at NVidia. She has also designed accelerator experiments for nuclear physics research.

Besides working as a game programmer, Yu programmed on the Space Shuttle program at Rockwell International California. She designed and conducted accelerator experiments at LINAC in California and the accelerator at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Her nuclear physics research won her a national award from the U.S. Department of Energy.

Aaaaaand she's attractive.

 

[NecroLord]

Letting women be part of gaming development was a mistake.
Seriously, name one other than Terri Brosius that made any major contribution to gaming?

There's a joke in that name somewhere.

But prestigious women devs exist. Just look at Corrinne Yu, who was a programmer on King's Quest, invented new lighting tech for Halo and is VP of Engineering for General Motors. Her entire wikipedia article is non-stop badassery.

Corrinne Yu is an American game programmer. She worked on games including King's Quest, Quake 2, and Halo 4. Her engine work included Unreal Engine 3, Microsoft's Direct 3D Advisory Board, and CUDA and GPU simulation at NVidia. She has also designed accelerator experiments for nuclear physics research.

Besides working as a game programmer, Yu programmed on the Space Shuttle program at Rockwell International California. She designed and conducted accelerator experiments at LINAC in California and the accelerator at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Her nuclear physics research won her a national award from the U.S. Department of Energy.

Aaaaaand she's attractive.

Nice!

 

[Häyhä]

Letting women be part of gaming development was a mistake.
Seriously, name one other than Terri Brosius that made any major contribution to gaming?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Jensen

Jane Jensen, creator of Gabriel Knight games.

But yeah, slim pickings it is.

 

[J1M]

Letting women be part of gaming development was a mistake.
Seriously, name one other than Terri Brosius that made any major contribution to gaming?

Amy Hennig. Legacy of Kain. Followed the traditional old dev death spiral and now only works on projects that get cancelled.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

nWoD has nothing to do with this setting. You mean 5e.

Current VtM is basically nWoD stuff with oWoD flavor (i.e. VtM 5e is VtR lite - or 'retro' to use a soft drink analogy) as far as I'm concerned. First they discontinued oWoD, then they brought it back presumably because the various nWoD reboots weren't as well received as the original games, then they turn the latter into the oWoD equivalent of their shitty reboots in terms of questionable lore changes.

NWOD always sold fine because WW has never had competition and ttrpg customers are mindlessly loyal to brands. It’s a dead stagnant market. Yeah, it had its peak in the 90s and has never recovered because ttrpgs as a whole have steadily declined since the 90s due to competition from video games and collectible card games. Their current sales are a pale shadow of the early/mid 90s, regardless of how many nostalgia repackages they do.

CCP and Paradox revived what is a finished IP, bought out and dissolved WW multiple times, because they wanted to cash in on the cult success of Bloodlines. The constant repackages and rehashes don’t add anything new and don’t boost sales, no matter whether they make fans happy or upset.

But these companies have consistently been unable to make WOD profitable in the video game market.

A blatant rip-off is currently #98 in rpgs on the Apple Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/nations-of-darkness/id6444227706

 

[The President]

Amy Hennig should get credit for women in gaming. Though so many of the younger narrative leads I've dealt with who adore her, they didn't seem to learn from her example.

I think there is a problem with fields like writing and the liberal arts in general. Most writers have always sucked and it's a select few we end up remembering. Those are fields to where complete idiots can get involved especially at the university level and really bring down the standards and culture. There's not a lot of objective standards there so their whole community can look at shit and think they're seeing wonders. It's personally why I prefer computer science, in this field you can either work with the operating systems, coding, or engines, or you simply can't. You can only fake it so long here before you get exposed. I.e. we can at least weed out the fucking retards unlike the humanities. Though who knows, maybe the rot will set in here as well.

 

[Delterius]

CCP and Paradox revived what is a finished IP, bought out and dissolved WW multiple times, because they wanted to cash in on the cult success of Bloodlines. The constant repackages and rehashes don’t add anything new and don’t boost sales, no matter whether they make fans happy or upset.

But these companies have consistently been unable to make WOD profitable in the video game market.

tbf neither ccp nor paradox actually released something to the videogame market. oh nevermind there was that euro vapourware werewolf game.

maybe a bloodlines 2 or the wod mmo would have been successful. but its not like either team beat the 'content pipeline' boss on their first try

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Letting women be part of gaming development was a mistake.
Seriously, name one other than Terri Brosius that made any major contribution to gaming?

Anne Westfall, programmer of Archon:

 

[RaggleFraggle]

CCP and Paradox revived what is a finished IP, bought out and dissolved WW multiple times, because they wanted to cash in on the cult success of Bloodlines. The constant repackages and rehashes don’t add anything new and don’t boost sales, no matter whether they make fans happy or upset.

But these companies have consistently been unable to make WOD profitable in the video game market.

tbf neither ccp nor paradox actually released something to the videogame market. oh nevermind there was that euro vapourware werewolf game.

maybe a bloodlines 2 or the wod mmo would have been successful. but its not like either team beat the 'content pipeline' boss on their first try

Paradox approved multiple official licensed games on Steam under the “world of darkness” franchise. They may not have been developed or published in-house, but they have the official stamp of approval. And they all suck.

The problem with these games is that they try too hard to be grimderp neo-mall goth lorefag circlejerk shit rather than 1) acknowledging how inherently ridiculous their own premise is and having fun with it, and 2) making the characters colorful and interesting.

 

[The President]

I am kind of surprised Paradox bought the IP and then didn't develop a single game in house. Though I think Hardsuit's fuckup might have been a big factor of why they didn't do more. Hardsuit did start working on this around 2015 IIRC, maybe they were hoping a big release would reignite the series. This game was supposed to be out three years ago now, even my own friend who contracted on this is out five years already.

I'm curious of what the last build looked like right before Hardsuit was fired. I do wonder if we'll end up with a RE1.5 situation with this game. I would love to see what sense I could make out of the old assets if I had time to look through them.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

I am kind of surprised Paradox bought the IP and then didn't develop a single game in house. Though I think Hardsuit's fuckup might have been a big factor of why they didn't do more. Hardsuit did start working on this around 2015 IIRC, maybe they were hoping a big release would reignite the series. This game was supposed to be out three years ago now, even my own friend who contracted on this is out five years already.

I'm curious of what the last build looked like right before Hardsuit was fired. I do wonder if we'll end up with a RE1.5 situation with this game. I would love to see what sense I could make out of the old assets if I had time to look through them.

Didn’t they buy the IP because their CEO at the time was on a spending spree? There are old articles saying they wanted to develop a multimedia franchise with a television spin-off. It’s hilarious how their plans to expand the IP into other mediums exploded so spectacularly for the third or fourth time in a row after Aaron Spelling, Activision, and CCP all tried and failed. I get the impression this IP is cursed.