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

normie

️‍
Patron
Zionist Agent
Joined
Mar 9, 2019
Messages
3,727
Insert Title Here
so I guess we won't be hearing his voice in the game either? :smug:
 

Takamori

Learned
Joined
Apr 17, 2020
Messages
875
There goes any chance that I could give a optimistic take on this game release. So many red flags scattered around I rather not deal with this shit at all.
 

Tyranicon

A Memory of Eternity
Developer
Joined
Oct 7, 2019
Messages
5,875
Firing Mitsoda now would be like firing Avellone from the official PST sequel. Or firing Kojima from MGS5.

Both of these men have WAY more social recognition than fucking Mitsoda, and even with them I doubt it matters much. Maybe if you made a niche targeted Planescape 2 Kickstarter Avellone would be important, but not with a bigger mainstream game like this one wants to be. Did MGS5 fail? Wikipedia says best sales in the franchise and extremely high critical reviews, so I'm guessing it didn't. You guys seriously have to recognize what a small niche we're in even knowing these names let alone caring about them. Saying "you do not fire Mitsoda!" is a big wet fart outside of sites like this one.

You're not wrong, but VTMB was already a niche cult hit, and for many people, Brian Mitsoda was the only reason for optimism in what seemed like a janky, poorly-produced sequel. Not to mention that without him, there likely wouldn't be a sequel in the first place.

This project is now DOA.
 

prengle

Savant
Joined
Oct 31, 2016
Messages
355
1sai1h.png
 

prengle

Savant
Joined
Oct 31, 2016
Messages
355
What else exactly has Cara Ellison worked on? All I see is that she was a journo at RPS and an "external narrative consultant" for Dishonored 2(which usually just means she was some sort of proofreader/editor).
the wrinkly balls and two inch long chodes of dozens of Game Industry Influencers™
 

DalekFlay

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Oct 5, 2010
Messages
14,118
Location
New Vegas
You're not wrong, but VTMB was already a niche cult hit, and for many people, Brian Mitsoda was the only reason for optimism in what seemed like a janky, poorly-produced sequel. Not to mention that without him, there likely wouldn't be a sequel in the first place.

Odds are overwhelmingly on the side of it never being the sequel that niche cult audience wanted anyway, whether he was fired or not.
 

whydoibother

Arcane
Patron
Joined
May 2, 2018
Messages
15,481
Location
bulgaristan
Codex Year of the Donut
My excitement for the game just went from 5/10 to 3/10. Hopefully he was done curating concept art, setting the tone, and writing the main plot and bigger side quests by now. A lead writer's job is usually over before anyone else's, and even though I would've liked him to stay on board until release, and even post release to patch it up and expand, I hope it will be his game we get to play.
Did they release the reason for the dismissal yet?
 

mk0

Learned
Joined
Jun 28, 2020
Messages
113
Until recently, I was the Narrative Lead on a videogame called Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines 2 for Hardsuit Labs, Inc being published by Paradox Interactive (which owns 30% of Hardsuit Labs). After almost five years involvement with the studio, I was suddenly terminated on 7/16/20.

That this came as a shock to me is underselling it. I’ve worked on Bloodlines 2 for almost five years. The story and main cast was initially conceived in my living room. I helped develop the pitch for Hardsuit Labs and helped pitch the project to Paradox in Las Vegas. I’ve been in charge of the narrative since the beginning, working long days and sometimes weekends to deliver a successor to Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines, and I’ve never been led to believe that I hadn’t succeeded. Very obviously, I have also been involved in the PR and marketing side of things, even though it was one of the most difficult parts for me. I’m a pretty private person – press and crowds tend to heavily trigger my social anxiety (which, if you’ve ever wondered about the gloves, they are “armor” that make me feel less exposed in situations that trigger my anxiety).

Bloodlines and the fandom of the game mean the world to me. So I lent my legacy with the franchise, my name, and my participation in marketing efforts for the game, even when it was intensely difficult and took a mental and physical toll. This is all because I wanted to do what was best for the game and the team.

The pride in the work, the fan expectations, and the support from co-workers who started out as fans kept me going through this long five years. And I’m incredibly disappointed and frustrated to say that this is where it ends for me on the project.

I was not part of the conversations that led to the decision to delay production, and to my knowledge, there were no delays caused by the Bloodlines 2 narrative development. I am confident and proud of the work that I and my team put forward. When that work will be seen and what form it will take is unknown to me.

It was a pleasure to work on this game and with many people at Hardsuit Labs and Paradox and I’m sorry I won’t be able to see it to the end. I spent years on some of the best characters and dialogue that I ever wrote. It’s meant a lot to hear from the Bloodlines community and I do hope that what’s finally delivered is as satisfying as I intended it to be. Thanks to all of you who supported me throughout the project.
I hope he learned his lesson, a man should never get so personally invested in something where he's just another replaceable cog in the machine.
 

whydoibother

Arcane
Patron
Joined
May 2, 2018
Messages
15,481
Location
bulgaristan
Codex Year of the Donut
All these tards saying, “THIS is the final straw!” as if it wasn’t apparent the game was going to suck cock since its reveal.
Maybe if you are OD'd on redpills, and think that every time a stupid liberal voices their opinion the world moves one step towards apocalypse. This game's development, marketing, setup, etc, was nothing unlike most other of its weight class. We were just predisposed to dislike it, because of the memory from the first Bloodlines video game, and how the team looked then, and its perceived martyrdom (not that I didn't hate them for releasing a buggy shit game back then).
This isn't the last straw for me, I'm still pirating the game as soon as I can to play it, and unless it is utter inane shit I'll push myself to see it to the end. I hope its like having fun, and not like doing homework, but I'm invested enough to play anyways.
 

fantadomat

Arcane
Edgy Vatnik Wumao
Joined
Jun 2, 2017
Messages
37,087
Location
Bulgaria
Until recently, I was the Narrative Lead on a videogame called Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines 2 for Hardsuit Labs, Inc being published by Paradox Interactive (which owns 30% of Hardsuit Labs). After almost five years involvement with the studio, I was suddenly terminated on 7/16/20.

That this came as a shock to me is underselling it. I’ve worked on Bloodlines 2 for almost five years. The story and main cast was initially conceived in my living room. I helped develop the pitch for Hardsuit Labs and helped pitch the project to Paradox in Las Vegas. I’ve been in charge of the narrative since the beginning, working long days and sometimes weekends to deliver a successor to Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines, and I’ve never been led to believe that I hadn’t succeeded. Very obviously, I have also been involved in the PR and marketing side of things, even though it was one of the most difficult parts for me. I’m a pretty private person – press and crowds tend to heavily trigger my social anxiety (which, if you’ve ever wondered about the gloves, they are “armor” that make me feel less exposed in situations that trigger my anxiety).

Bloodlines and the fandom of the game mean the world to me. So I lent my legacy with the franchise, my name, and my participation in marketing efforts for the game, even when it was intensely difficult and took a mental and physical toll. This is all because I wanted to do what was best for the game and the team.

The pride in the work, the fan expectations, and the support from co-workers who started out as fans kept me going through this long five years. And I’m incredibly disappointed and frustrated to say that this is where it ends for me on the project.

I was not part of the conversations that led to the decision to delay production, and to my knowledge, there were no delays caused by the Bloodlines 2 narrative development. I am confident and proud of the work that I and my team put forward. When that work will be seen and what form it will take is unknown to me.

It was a pleasure to work on this game and with many people at Hardsuit Labs and Paradox and I’m sorry I won’t be able to see it to the end. I spent years on some of the best characters and dialogue that I ever wrote. It’s meant a lot to hear from the Bloodlines community and I do hope that what’s finally delivered is as satisfying as I intended it to be. Thanks to all of you who supported me throughout the project.
I hope he learned his lesson, a man should never get so personally invested in something where he's just another replaceable cog in the machine.
That sounds kind off sad,do hope that he got sacked because of his sjw views and speared us the pain of watching it. It will be shit if he was the reasonable one and got sacked for that.
 

Raskens

Learned
Patron
Joined
May 7, 2020
Messages
113
IME Swedes are much less idpol than Kwanzanians (although moreso than Danes or Finns, don't know about Norwegians). Also Paradox's strategy games are mega popular among shitlords. I think it's unlikely he got axed for being problematic. More likely just vanilla office politics.

Yes, I'm swedish and I agree with this. From what I can observe most idpol people are inspired by american feminists.
 

whydoibother

Arcane
Patron
Joined
May 2, 2018
Messages
15,481
Location
bulgaristan
Codex Year of the Donut
I must have missed something,did the glove boy got kicked out? I thought that only his mate got sacked or something.

Those organizational changes have now been unveiled in a short statement available on the official Bloodlines 2 website: Both Lead Writer Brian Mitsoda and Creative Director Ka’ai Cluney are no longer working part of the team at Hardsuit Labs. The statement further says that this was "a joint decision made by the leadership of Hardsuit Labs and Paradox Interactive".

And a month ago they removed Chris Avellone's writing from the game. Maybe its related, his buddies standing up for him or something?
 

LilWololoMane

Novice
Joined
Nov 9, 2019
Messages
9
The Bloodlines 2 Discord server was popping off. There were a shitload of corporate dick suckers who believe complaining about the direction the writing took and the firing of Mitsoda is all just an "alt-right dogwhistle" as you'd expect. I guess this is the game's audience now, virtue signalers. There was some god-tier shitposting though.
 

Chippy

Arcane
Patron
Joined
May 5, 2018
Messages
6,037
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
So I take it Brian Mitsoda has left the writing team? I haven't really been following this. Is the work that he has done going to remain?. Will he be credited for what he has done?.

It seems to be a strategy these days of people on the political left to stand on the creative shoulders of other artists.
 

Zyondyne

Learned
Joined
Aug 11, 2019
Messages
101
All the Paradox dude would say about it is that it was about creative stuff and not about money and that the decision to fire Brian was made between the studio and Paradox. Outstar was also talking about it:

Imagine firing the guys responsible for pitching the game idea in the first place for CREATIVE DIFFERENCES. Just say you wanna turn it into a generic multiplayer FPS, Hardsuit Labs. This is after all you've ever done before.
 

DeepOcean

Arcane
Joined
Nov 8, 2012
Messages
7,394
When I heard the announcement: This looks like shiet.

When I heard Brian was involved: This might be good, Brian knows how to write characters that arent sitcom character shooting inane "funny" one liners each 30 seconds. Lets be fabulous optimistic here.

When I heard about his firing: Yep, this will be definitely shiet.

If he was fired for not agreeing with the changes, pretty sure alot of his work was thrown in the garbage but hey... to all people that are still going to buy this, there are good news, you will be able to eventually buy Brian's deleted work on 2021, 2022,2023, 2024, 2025 ... on 12 small payments to Paradox.
 

Chippy

Arcane
Patron
Joined
May 5, 2018
Messages
6,037
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
So I take it Brian Mitsoda has left the writing team? I haven't really been following this. Is the work that he has done going to remain?. Will he be credited for what he has done?.
He got fired.

Fuck. I'm off to research it a bit and find out what's going on. Not for me to get involved, but maybe the thread title should be changed for people like me who only read the thread once in a blue moon, and might have purchased the game...

Actually, I doubt I would have. But still.
 

Shinros

Learned
Joined
May 27, 2020
Messages
172
The game could still be good, but I doubt it considering the names behind it now. This is why you don't pre-order.
 

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