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

[Wesp5]

They could have removed Chinatown, sure.

I disagree. Although it wasn't as fleshed out as the other hubs, it was a nice change in style and had some funny quests, like the Hitman Impasse! But the sewers were much too long and Boyarsky said so himself in interviews: "Here's a great example: we knew we needed to change the sewers, we didn't like them, but we just didn't have the time, y'know?" and "I hope they shorten the sewers; those things go on forever, unfortunately."

All those combat crawly final areas (the vampire hunters, the hotel in particular, the temple, and the Prince's building) also could have been smaller if reworking them wasn't an option.

Indeed. Which is why the plus UP includes some shortcuts for all these areas, even the sewers. Some of them already kind of set up by Troika, but maybe only for testing purposes?

 

[Twiglard]

I disagree. Although it wasn't as fleshed out as the other hubs, it was a nice change in style and had some funny quests, like the Hitman Impasse!

They could have removed Chinatown, sure.

I'd remove Hollywood if any of them had to go. YMMV, for me it was the least interesting hub. But it's a shame, each one of them is oozing with atmosphere anyway. All that light pollution. As much style as the Only Lovers Left Alive movie.

Chinatown reminds me of that wacky Asian area in Deus Ex. The latter was not only non-gray non-concrete non-asphalt, but with actual lively colors.

Which is why the plus UP includes some shortcuts for all these areas, even the sewers.

Incline.

Is there any significant fan content, i.e. places, hubs? I've read many years ago that Troika did some work on the lighting system, making the Bloodlines content incompatible with HL2 modding tools (?).

 

[ga♥]

What exactly do you have in mind? From my lurking days, people hated late-game combat areas the most. I didn't like the trash combat even starting from Grout's mansion, either.

But I'd leave the quest hubs and side quests totally alone. Maybe make one hub less to spend more time on the other ones. Ah, the Last Round corridor...

They could have removed Chinatown, sure. All those combat crawly final areas (the vampire hunters, the hotel in particular, the temple, and the Prince's building) also could have been smaller if reworking them wasn't an option.

I think the hotel was quite horrible, with the same copy/pasted sabbath generic vamp. But Chinatown was great! I loved the atmosphere and also the dungeon there wasn't that bad.
Also I liked the Prince's building.

I'd have prefered more Chinatown tbqh.

 

[Space Nugget]

For the [citation needed] crowd:

 

[vortex]

I wish Vtmb sequel would be FPS/RPG hybid.

 

[Space Nugget]

There have been some new developments (the 2nd and 3rd Tender direct messages):

Both mention

The BART - or Bay Area Rapid Transit - is a public transportation system in and around San Francisco.

and

The BART Yellow is a line that runs from SFO to Antioch.

The KnoxJ2019 account tweeted this:



The "weekend's event" was mentioned before by Life of the Party.

 

[Wesp5]

Is there any significant fan content, i.e. places, hubs? I've read many years ago that Troika did some work on the lighting system, making the Bloodlines content incompatible with HL2 modding tools (?).

Yes and yes. Bloodlines isn't compatible with HL2 modding tools, but some years ago cool Russian modders found a leaked HL2 alpha SDK and made that work with Bloodlines! Since then several new maps have been created, the first was the LA Public Libray done by burgermeister after my design for the patch, then the Hallowbrook Atrium done by EntenSchreck in a similar manner. The Sewer Shortcut and Malkavian Maze followed which I merged from EntenSchreck prototype levels, then I build the Smoke Shop and the Coffee Shop myself. Some maps where expanded, like the Pier Ending and the Museum Entrance, and EntenSchreck and myself topped it off with the beautiful Chateau Hotel! And those are only the new maps in the UP. The last edition of the Clan Quest Mod by burgermeister features a completely new East LA hub with lots of sub maps and quests. The Bloodlines Prelude prequel currently being developed by EntenSchreck and myself will feature more new maps and the WWII mod already in alpha has four new hubs with lots of maps...

 

[Bester]

Ok, what is ARG?

 

[J_C]

Ok, what is ARG?

Augmented Reality Game

 

[Fedora Master]

Ok, what is ARG?

A shitty marketing gimmick.

 

[Space Nugget]

I went through the whole thread and couldn't find this, so...



Left: the Vampire: the Masquerade 5th edition corebook cover.

Right: a background of the Tender web app.

 

[Viata]

That is one shit cover. I still have the third edition somewhere in my parent's house, that was one lovely cover. To think Requiem was not the worst thing to happens to this series.

 

[ga♥]

White wolf manuals usually have shitty covers IMHO.

 

[Space Nugget]

That is one shit cover. I still have the third edition somewhere in my parent's house, that was one lovely cover. To think Requiem was not the worst thing to happens to this series.

This one?

 

[Viata]

That is one shit cover. I still have the third edition somewhere in my parent's house, that was one lovely cover. To think Requiem was not the worst thing to happens to this series.

This one?

Yes. It's the same for the 1st and 2nd edition, too. But they have more dark colors, perhaps it was badly printed.

 

[Cross]

I didn't know what will happen in this thread when I typed 'immersive sim' (and I did so because I was too lazy to find a better definition for the kind of games Looking Glass used to make and Arkane is still making). I love games they made, but it is a very different approach from Troika. They are not making RPGs, and what made Bloodlines a great game was role-playing, choices and consequences. You could make different characters from different classes and use lots of ways to solve quests. Just like in Fallout or Arcanum. You don't have such freedom of role-playing in Arkane games or even in Deus Ex.

Deus Ex allows for significantly more different ways to solve its 'quests' than Bloodlines.

 

[deama]

Hopefully this time it's gonna be an actual vampire game, I really didn't like spending all my time under the moon.

 

[Infinitron]

It's obvious that they're teasing a Vampire: The Masquerade game. The only question is whether it's a Bloodlines-style RPG or something else.

 

[Zer0wing]

It's obvious that they're teasing a Vampire: The Masquerade game. The only question is whether it's a Bloodlines-style RPG or something else.

If the rumors are true and the devs are some guys who are behind a closing F2P FPS (a very solid one but still) then we can only hope it's Bloodlines-style RPG and some MMO/Datesim crap with planned ten tons of DLCs is something just about the Paradox grade bullshit.

 

[Delterius]

its going to be a the sims 4 expansion

 

[Space Nugget]

I keep coming back to this:

Jr Narrative Designer – Hardsuit Labs (promoted from Intern)
July 2017 – Present
Unannounced Title

• Wrote in-game text including objective and journal text for every quest, most tutorial text, quest items
• Designed 3+ personally owned questlines and wrote dialogue for all the required voiced-over characters for the quests.
• Drafted 5+ questlines with no voice over and limited unique assets to create a quality bar for all future text-only quests.
• Fleshed out all the text-only quests (so far) into narrative gameplay nodes to give quests differences in kind.
• Flavored text for 200+ player abilities to build harmony between worldbuilding exposition and clarity of instruction.
• Integrated established IP lore into gameplay and championed narrative decisions to perpetuate a cohesive game world.

200+ player abilities

I mean, that sounds... bold.

Spoiler

Spoiler

Did she count each level of the Talents/Skills/Knowledge as an unique ability of its own?

 

[Space Nugget]

Even if she's putting Attributes, Abilities, Disciplines, etc... under the same umbrella, that's a whole lot.

 

[Delterius]

the new vampire masquerade has every single clan and all of their special disciplines as magic

its also a pretty good first person immersive sim - rpg as envisioned by the troika younglings in their wildest dreams

 

[Space Nugget]

From last year: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/artic...es-in-the-past-i-dont-want-to-do-that-anymore

In a separate conversation with the press at PDXCon, Paradox's VP of business development Shams Jorjani said that "we're making RPGs," before adding, "we bought White Wolf because we believed it had a great set of IPs that could be used for a multitude of different kinds of RPGs."

Wester confirmed as much to us, pointing to Paradox taking "a bigger stab at RPGs" as one of the growth areas for Paradox over the next few years. Whether we learn more this year or next has not been decided, he said, because the way Paradox now works means, "anything can be shutdown before it reaches alpha if it doesn't match the quality level."

"We have the White Wolf catalogue of games," he said. "There are a couple of projects that are at more than an experimental level right now. People ask us why it's taking such a long time to do anything with the White Wolf stuff. And, well, we want to do things the proper way this time.

 

[Life of the Party]

I keep coming back to this:

https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_Combination_Disciplines_(VTM)