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

fantadomat

Arcane
Edgy Vatnik Wumao
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Jun 2, 2017
Messages
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Location
Bulgaria
Well paracucks pulled the plug on shit ton of games. Going back to the roots of spamming DLC and releasing empty games.

 

GhostCow

Balanced Gamer
Patron
Joined
Jan 2, 2020
Messages
3,994
I struggle to even imagine a scenario where this comes out and turns out to be something vaguely competent at this point.
I dunno, I think it has much more hope now than it did with Hardsuit. Hopefully the new devs will delete 99% of the writing and we won't get a pozfest. That's really the bare minimum it would take to make me happy at this point.
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
35,653
I think the Zeits' studio thread had some speculation its VTMB2 based on some recent hires/departures.
"'a very reputable and talented developer' who has made a number of different games before" wouldn't describe Digimancy and there's no way a team that small would get something like Bloodlines 2. That's also an argument against Harebrained who are also pretty small (not to mention that their current job openings request people experienced with Unity, no mention at all of Unreal).
 

Lambach

Arcane
Joined
Feb 11, 2016
Messages
12,730
Location
Belgrade, Removekebabland
I'm really struggling to think of a single even relatively well-known studio in Anno Domini 2021 that could pull off a decent sequel to Bloodlines. And I'm not talking about just the lack of poz, but recreating the writing and the atmosphere. A studio with George Zeits in his prime could probably pull it off, but we've all seen how mediocre and lackluster the output is coming from all the veterans in recent years.

It's a shitty decision by Paradox to give this to a "very reputable developer" instead of giving it to a crew of fresh, hungry guys. You already blew all the good will you had with everyone except Jenkem and were half a cunt's hair away from shutting the whole thing down anyway, so what's the worst that can happen?
 

fantadomat

Arcane
Edgy Vatnik Wumao
Joined
Jun 2, 2017
Messages
37,083
Location
Bulgaria
I'm really struggling to think of a single even relatively well-known studio in Anno Domini 2021 that could pull off a decent sequel to Bloodlines. And I'm not talking about just the lack of poz, but recreating the writing and the atmosphere. A studio with George Zeits in his prime could probably pull it off, but we've all seen how mediocre and lackluster the output is coming from all the veterans in recent years.

It's a shitty decision by Paradox to give this to a "very reputable developer" instead of giving it to a crew of fresh, hungry guys. You already blew all the good will you had with everyone except Jenkem and were half a cunt's hair away from shutting the whole thing down anyway, so what's the worst that can happen?
Hmmmm spiders...
 

jackofshadows

Magister
Joined
Oct 21, 2019
Messages
4,488
How close have you been to shutting down the game, or has it become too big not to continue?

"When we lifted the game from the original developer, we had a long review in case we should end the game or run it further. Then we were actually prepared to close the production completely. But we got a 'pitch' that we thought was convincing enough to run. played on and we have very good hopes that it will be a good game that meets the players' expectations ", says Fredrik Wester.
"Great" fucking call.
 

Gargaune

Magister
Joined
Mar 12, 2020
Messages
3,136
"Great" fucking call.
PR aside, it's not much of a call, Paradox wouldn't be able to hold off on making a Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines 2: Many: Colons for too long, it's the flagship property in their White Wolf acquisition. How do you explain to your shareholders why you're not leveraging your most marketable new license? Whether it'll be the same project started under Hardsuit or something the fans will even want is another matter. For those of us who aren't fans, the forecast still reads cloudy with a high chance of popcorn.
 

PlacidDragon

Educated
Joined
Dec 23, 2002
Messages
43
"Great" fucking call.
hehe, yeah... what i hear when he says "we got a pitch that we thought was convincing enough to run...", is "We can get this done pretty damn cheaply, and maybe recoup some of the cost we sunk into it" (which doesn't sound promising in regards to quality).

Also, a "reputable and talented developer" is basically a label you could put on anyone that hasn't made a big game and hasn't made a gigantic dud. It could be a semi indie studio specializing in console ports, hehe :)

ah well.. time will tell i guess.
 

PlacidDragon

Educated
Joined
Dec 23, 2002
Messages
43
"Great" fucking call.
Whether it'll be the same project started under Hardsuit or something the fans will even want is another matter. For those of us who aren't fans, the forecast still reads cloudy with a high chance of popcorn.
I cannot imagine they'll be able to use much of the original code. Hardsuit had coded in the Unreal Engine for 20 years, and they couldn't get it to work properly. If the new company stays with the Unreal engine, you could save all the art assets, etc, but if there are changes to the story, location, etc etc.. its probably easier to start from scratch with your own "code language" (then again, i am not a dev, what do i know).
 

Gargaune

Magister
Joined
Mar 12, 2020
Messages
3,136
I cannot imagine they'll be able to use much of the original code. Hardsuit had coded in the Unreal Engine for 20 years, and they couldn't get it to work properly. If the new company stays with the Unreal engine, you could save all the art assets, etc, but if there are changes to the story, location, etc etc.. its probably easier to start from scratch with your own "code language" (then again, i am not a dev, what do i know).
Couldn't say without a lot more info on what's going on over there, but I doubt Hardsuit's problems were with the engine, my impression was that they couldn't manage design for the genre. Taking over someone else's codebase is always a logistical pain in the ass, but the situation can potentially warrant it. Unless you're taking over from that one Ukrainian developer who wrote all their comments in Cyrillic, was it GSC?
 

Anthedon

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jan 1, 2015
Messages
4,497
Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
The whole dead/undead state of this game is very fitting considering the subject matter. But I worry that the end result will look more like a zombie than a vampire.
 

Duraframe300

Arcane
Joined
Dec 21, 2010
Messages
6,395
It is my honour to introduce you all to the new developer of Bloodlines.....

KO_OP

Introducing and featuring for the first time the clan of the Belunie. Fully vegan vampx* that have discovered their true selfs as werewolves, humans and broccoli. Watch as they fight back against the injustices of vampire bigots who misgender their actual characteristics as creatures of the night and have tons of sweaty, disgusting lovely sex.

Remember: Bloodsucking is just a social construct!

:brodex:
 

Wesp5

Arcane
Joined
Apr 18, 2007
Messages
1,754
Couldn't say without a lot more info on what's going on over there, but I doubt Hardsuit's problems were with the engine, my impression was that they couldn't manage design for the genre.

I agree with that, the maps that I have seen and that were shown in the demo looked good enough for an Unreal 4 engine game. I suspect some of the design decisions were not working in the end, like the emphasis on melee with weapons that would break or firearms that you would throw away if they were empty. Or the three different ways of traversal disciplines around which the map designers needed to build all maps. Which they just couldn't realistically so mid-development it was announced that all players would be able to use all three ways which of course made the thinbloods even more powerful which kind of went against the whole idea to start with a low level character. I hope they can keep Mitsoda's story and will just bring the gameplay closer to Bloodlines 1, maybe with more satisfying combat...
 

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