World of Darkness Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 - VTMB sequel from The Chinese Room - coming early 2025

[Hellraiser]

It seems everywhere I checked the reaction to the gameplay is mostly negative.

Truly a dumpsterphyre in the making.

 

[Gargaune]

Not sure about callings, but in the HSL demo you receive at the beginning a text message

We were too harsh on this, 3 years later it actually doesn't look that bad... come back Mitsoda...

Man, I do sympathise with those poor suits at Paradox, I gotta be honest.

Paradox: "Hey, check out our super cool Bloodlines sequel from HSL!"
Fans: "Niiieeewww, this is shit, it's not worthy of our precious Bloodlines!"
Paradox: shitcans HSL, deletes fucking everything, gets TCR to do it over from scratch
Paradox: "Hey, check out our new and improved Bloodlines sequel from TCR!"
Fans: "... The HSL one was better, why can't we have that?!"

If I were running Paradox at this point, I'd cancel the TCR project too and make Bloodlines 2 a mobile racing game.

 

[Delterius]

It seems everywhere I checked the reaction to the gameplay is mostly negative.

Truly a dumpsterphyre in the making.

Yes, I was thinking to myself: maybe this has some appeal somehow and I'm not enough for a normie to get it. Maybe I'm too 'held back' by expecting an RPG.

But no, I can't find positive reactions anywhere. The closest is 'oh this guy has a laundry list of uncertainty but likes the UI'.

 

[Tyranicon]

If I had to guess, this game is targeted towards people who like walking sims with light gameplay elements and detective themes.

If I was being cynical/realistic, I would say this entire project was being pushed out simply to capitalize on those Steam wishlists and console preorders.

Paradox already cut their losses a long time ago. Yeah, sure, they and TCR will take a little heat for the end result, but gamers™ will forget about this fiasco easily enough, and even if they don't the RPG audience isn't even in PDX or TCR's general market.

 

[Delterius]

Paradox already cut their losses a long time ago.

The question is: do we actually trust Paradox when they and TCR come out and say that they had their own vision for the game? Because if we do, then Paradox isn't just cutting their losses. They actually wanted this. They wanted Vampire 2077 to be made rather than an RPG like Bloodlines. They might genuinely believe that this has more market appeal than the original game ever did.

 

[Gargaune]

Vampire 2077

Hah! You wish.

 

[Hellraiser]

They wanted Vampire 2077 to be made

Vampire 2077 would have been a major improvement over this.

I mean that would mean it has an open city, guns, melee weapons, actual inventory and character creation. This is on top of kind of deus-ex lite small sidequest set pieces which IMO were way better and far closer to Bloodlines 1 than the POS with magnetic-pull ghoul punching the chinese turd showed us in the trailer.

Cyberpunk has a ton of issues in the design, but holy fuck this looks way worse.

 

[Tyranicon]

Hey, I'm making Vampire 2077!

 

[Lambach]

Hey, I'm making Vampire 2077!

Are you getting anywhere with that, or are you pulling a Cleve and you intend to jerk us around for the next 20 years or so?

 

[RagingNomad]

They wanted Vampire 2077 to be made

Vampire 2077 would have been a major improvement over this.

I mean that would mean it has an open city, guns, melee weapons, actual inventory and character creation. This is on top of kind of deus-ex lite small sidequest set pieces which IMO were way better and far closer to Bloodlines 1 than the POS with magnetic-pull ghoul punching the chinese turd showed us in the trailer.

Cyberpunk has a ton of issues in the design, but holy fuck this looks way worse.

How did you compare a AAA project to an AA project? They're literally different budgets. Cyberpunk 2077 is garbage.

 

[Lambach]

How did you compare a AAA project to an AA project? They're literally different budgets.

>you need AAA money for your game to have Character Creation

Yeah, I guess Y-hweh himself at some point declared that if your game's budget is anywhere under 10 trillion dollars, you have no choice but to make a game in which you're forced to play a 300-year-old urban hipster lesbian called P H Y R E that doesn't even have a goddamn inventory.

 

[Hellraiser]

How did you compare a AAA project to an AA project? They're literally different budgets. Cyberpunk 2077 is garbage.

1) It was a disagreement to the claim that paradox is making a cyberpunk 2077 clone. Way to miss the point.
2) So the extra A is what gets you inventory, character creation, melee weapons and guns in the game? I can agree on the open city as far as budgets go.
3) Less garbage than this, see point 2.

 

[RagingNomad]

In VtmB you couldn't actually create a character, only allocate points in the character sheet. That's all. And here you're free to take a male character. And what makes you think she's a lesbian? And do you really out of all gameplay care more about inventory? Cringe.

How did you compare a AAA project to an AA project? They're literally different budgets.

>you need AAA money for your game to have Character Creation

Yeah, I guess Y-hweh himself at some point declared that if your game's budget is anywhere under 10 trillion dollars, you have no choice but to make a game in which you're forced to play a 300-year-old urban hipster lesbian called P H Y R E that doesn't even have a goddamn inventory.

 

[Lambach]

In VtmB you couldn't actually create a character, only allocate points in the character sheet.

I could also allocate a name, instead of it having to be called fucking P H Y R E.

And what makes you think she's a lesbian?

P H Y R E

 

[user]

In VtmB you couldn't actually create a character, only allocate points in the character sheet. That's all.

Shit, all these years I thought that allocating those points was part of the character creation, mind-blown :O

 

[Harthwain]

In VtmB you couldn't actually create a character, only allocate points in the character sheet. That's all.

Um, about that...:

Spoiler

This is from Vampire: The Masquerade, the PnP version.

 

[Spukrian]

My only major peeve with DX4 is the forced third person for stealth, cover, takedowns and ladders. I just outright refused to use it in stealth and combat - crouch for cover, X-ray vision to get my bearings while sneaking, all FPP. The only TPP I want in a DX game is for dialogue.

I tried doing FPP only in HR & MD but it seemed like enemies could easily detect me if I didn't go into TPP. Very annoying.

 

[Delterius]

Vampire 2077

Hah! You wish.

Vampire 2077 would have been a major improvement over this.

Look I said that's what they wanted, I didn't say they were anywhere close.

 

[Hellraiser]

It's 2024, even fucking Colony Ship RPG allows you to customize the character's appearance during creation in addition to allocating attributes/skill points, and that game was made with ukrainian slave labor and funded by Vince through defrauding his kids' college fund or something.

 

[RagingNomad]

In VtmB you couldn't actually create a character, only allocate points in the character sheet.

I could also allocate a name, instead of it having to be called fucking P H Y R E.

And what makes you think she's a lesbian?

P H Y R E

A completely useless name that accomplishes nothing. What's it for, then? Bullshit. And what's wrong with you? How did you figure out the character's identity from the name? Take some pills.

 

[Gargaune]

I tried doing FPP only in HR & MD but it seemed like enemies could easily detect me if I didn't go into TPP. Very annoying.

Think of it as a difficulty upgrade, stealth is now tougher on your bioenergy management. Just use the X-Ray vision to plan your moves and the Cloak aug on the regular, it works.

Oh, and turn off the minimap in your UI settings, Deus Ex games shouldn't have minimaps. Well, most games shouldn't have minimaps, but especially Deus Ex.

 

[whydoibother]

And what makes you think she's a lesbian?

P H Y R E

A completely useless name that accomplishes nothing. What's it for, then? Bullshit. And what's wrong with you? How did you figure out the character's identity from the name? Take some pills.

It will all pay off when they make the joke about her being a Vam-Phyre.

 

[RagingNomad]

In VtmB you couldn't actually create a character, only allocate points in the character sheet. That's all.

Um, about that...:

Spoiler

This is from Vampire: The Masquerade, the PnP version.

So, you're telling me that Baldurs Gate 3 or Cyberpunk 2077 also have character sheets like from the tabletop RPGs of the same name, right? Right? No, then what are we talking about? The developers of VtMB put in a character sheet conventionally, otherwise they have tons of conventions, because a tabletop RPG can't be thoroughly ported. And the character sheet isn't really any different from the same progression branch. It's literally the same thing, just visualized differently.

 

[Gargaune]

"Hi, I'm Dave."
"Hi, Dave, I'm Phyre."
"Oh, oops, would you look at the time..."

 

[Hellraiser]

It will all pay off when they make the joke about her being a Vam-Phyre.