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

[RagingNomad]

In the trailer, the first set of arms at the very start seem to belong to a man, while later on they seem to be strictly feminine. So I assume you can pick the sex of the playable character.

No, they same

 

[normie]

Can you imagine if they also made the player character arms black? We would have ten more pages of shitpost.

If I remember correctly you could choose gender and skin color in Bloodlines, only the latter was connected to certain clans because the character creator was very limited.

Hey, I'm sure people here didn't mind male Brujah being black, given the clan's history of sudden, violent outbursts.

black? that nigga was gray, ashy as fuck

 

[user]

In the trailer, the first set of arms at the very start seem to belong to a man, while later on they seem to be strictly feminine. So I assume you can pick the sex of the playable character.

Maybe you will be able to change it along the way.

 

[ArchAngel]

Can you imagine if they also made the player character arms black? We would have ten more pages of shitpost.

Shitposting is often more fun than modern SJW games.

 

[Harthwain]

Really, I don't believe I am looking B1 through rosy glasses or something here, but I think it was decently non-linear given the era it came out. And that small amount of free-roaming it had, where you could talk to irrelevant npcs, coerce/mug/drink some of them, provoke hunters, rob apartments, discover some quests without these strictly being in your way, find random lore, return to some places just because you got better with a skill to crack something, or meet again npcs and getting slightly different dialogue or progress to their story etc, is pretty important to me.

I guess you have a different understanding of what non-linear means than I do. Because "that small amount of free-roaming" has nothing to do with linearity. You can have a linear game that operates as a sandbox where side activities don't impact the world. In Bloodlines the story is on rails as far as the taxi, which is pretty much the endgame. And the side activities don't impact the main story whatsoever, which further shows how segregated the content of the game is.

Yes, most of the C&C was clan choice and powers. But how much room for exploration, optional areas and quests would you think those linear missions will have for decent C&C to take place?

I would use Deus Ex (2000) as the perfect example of how non-linearity and C&C should work. Not in terms of powers, but in terms of how the story can diverge depending on what you do. In Deus Ex exploration can lead to something that has a significant impact later on, because everything is connected together, whereas in game like Bloodlines it literally doesn't matter, because it is not considered part of the story. The moments where something interconnects are minor and very few and far between for the kind of game it pretends to be.

 

[Vincente]

Can you imagine if they also made the player character arms black? We would have ten more pages of shitpost.

Shitposting is often more fun than modern SJW games.

''I bet this game will have TRANNIES!'', 10 billion funny ratings.

 

[Delterius]

Now, I don't know where the choice to use source and not just make a vampire game like Arcanum came from

I think BL1's artstyle is so well realized, there must have been a vision behind going first person / 3D. They must have chosen Source with a purpose in mind. Then again Valve's games are very very linear, so I suppose they ran into unforeseen consequences when using their tech.

 

[Spacer's Nugget]

Troika wanted to make a Deus Ex/Ultima Underworld-inspired sequel to Arcanum, and Bloodlines came after that project couldn't move forward, if I'm not mistaken.

 

[Delterius]

Troika wanted to make a Deus Ex/Ultima Underworld-inspired sequel to Arcanum, and Bloodlines came after that project couldn't move forward, if I'm not mistaken.

Fwiw I just remembered that though Troika's heart was in the heart place they were always biting more than they could chew. Even if Troika wanted to make Bloodlines into a less linear experience, I doubt they could have. BL1 was linear enough and it was a technical disaster. I doubt that the bugs and everything else is due to Source engine maybe not handling larger maps well. So, in a way, what Troika may or may not have wanted to do is immaterial. It's already great that BL1 wasn't as unfinished as, say, Arcanum.

 

[Spacer's Nugget]

The Source Engine was still very much a work-in-progress while they were developing the game, to the point updates broke builds, and Troika had to make their own code for lots of stuff. If only Activision let them cook a while longer.

 

[Wesp5]

Why are you always talking about "her" moment? It means nothing to our character. Obviously its about woman with - "My blood is singing"

The official site says "A three-front siege on Seattle, a power vacuum in the vampire court and an awakened elder at odds with the voice in her head." Unless there is another elder I would assume the voice in her head refers to the awakened elder which is supposed to be the player according to other interviews. But then I am no native English speaker, so maybe "her" refers to Lou Grand (Is she Malkavian? I would guess not.) or whoever is fighting the player, I find it can be easily misunderstood though...

 

[Wesp5]

BL1 was linear enough and it was a technical disaster.

I believe Bloodlines found exactly the right balance between linear gameplay, which is important to get good stories, and a bit of open world, by using the hub design.

 

[Tao]

Why are you always talking about "her" moment? It means nothing to our character. Obviously its about woman with - "My blood is singing"

The official site says "A three-front siege on Seattle, a power vacuum in the vampire court and an awakened elder at odds with the voice in her head." Unless there is another elder I would assume the voice in her head refers to the awakened elder which is supposed to be the player according to other interviews. But then I am no native English speaker, so maybe "her" refers to Lou Grand (Is she Malkavian? I would guess not.) or whoever is fighting the player, I find it can be easily misunderstood though...

I wouldn't read too much on that. Even d&d use "her" now as default in their classes descriptions. It's the new woke retarded fad.

 

[La vie sexuelle]

I don't know, aside from the SJW themes that are as sure in modern gaming as my morning erections, the modern Vampire feels edgeless. This setting has always been stupid and really only Trokia got something out of it, but even the first edition had a "heterosexual entertainment" factor:

The new game looks very bland, probably like everything now. It's probably a deeper problem. Modern Westerners have no balls, no passion, no energy, no life...like vampires.

 

[Delterius]

Why are you always talking about "her" moment? It means nothing to our character. Obviously its about woman with - "My blood is singing"

The official site says "A three-front siege on Seattle, a power vacuum in the vampire court and an awakened elder at odds with the voice in her head." Unless there is another elder I would assume the voice in her head refers to the awakened elder which is supposed to be the player according to other interviews. But then I am no native English speaker, so maybe "her" refers to Lou Grand (Is she Malkavian? I would guess not.) or whoever is fighting the player, I find it can be easily misunderstood though...

I'd say the voice doesn't have to be a Malkavian plotpoint. It could be the Beast talking. Which is one interesting thing about vampires that BL1 chose not to portray.

I do think (hope) we are jumping the gun on wether the protagonist is gender locked or predefined. Then again if you could make your own character then it would be weird to use 'her' or 'his' instead of 'their'.

 

[The President]

The usage of her instead of something gender neutral is a modern ploy to pretend that they’re pro women. Of course “women” itself is now a loaded term to these retards.

 

[leino]

Why are you always talking about "her" moment? It means nothing to our character. Obviously its about woman with - "My blood is singing"

The official site says "A three-front siege on Seattle, a power vacuum in the vampire court and an awakened elder at odds with the voice in her head." Unless there is another elder I would assume the voice in her head refers to the awakened elder which is supposed to be the player according to other interviews. But then I am no native English speaker, so maybe "her" refers to Lou Grand (Is she Malkavian? I would guess not.) or whoever is fighting the player, I find it can be easily misunderstood though...

Isn't it pretty common to use either pronoun or for the author to default to his or her own? IIRC they're both used freely in tabletop WoD material for indeterminate characters.
I think people are overreading that line, "her" probably refers to the protag but a choice of clan is already confirmed so not getting to choose his/her sex would be weird.

 

[S.H.O.D.A.N.]

This setting has always been stupid

The only version of Vampire I still enjoy is the Dark Ages one. Feels like the setting just comes together better in that time period.

 

[La vie sexuelle]

This setting has always been stupid

The only version of Vampire I still enjoy is the Dark Ages one. Feels like the setting just comes together better in that time period.

I've never read those manuals, so I can't comment on that, but also I've never heard of anything particularly embarrassing about them or their playerbases.

 

[Delterius]

This setting has always been stupid

The only version of Vampire I still enjoy is the Dark Ages one. Feels like the setting just comes together better in that time period.

I've never read those manuals, so I can't comment on that, but also I've never heard of anything particularly embarrassing about them or their playerbases.

thats clearly a point against those settings ngl

 

[La vie sexuelle]

This setting has always been stupid

The only version of Vampire I still enjoy is the Dark Ages one. Feels like the setting just comes together better in that time period.

I've never read those manuals, so I can't comment on that, but also I've never heard of anything particularly embarrassing about them or their playerbases.

thats clearly a point against those settings ngl

Why? Not being cringe is a bad trait?

 

[Delterius]

This setting has always been stupid

The only version of Vampire I still enjoy is the Dark Ages one. Feels like the setting just comes together better in that time period.

I've never read those manuals, so I can't comment on that, but also I've never heard of anything particularly embarrassing about them or their playerbases.

thats clearly a point against those settings ngl

Why? Not being cringe is a bad trait?

look. its vampires and werewolves. the amount of effort to make it 100% not embarrassing has got to be cringe

 

[La vie sexuelle]

This setting has always been stupid

The only version of Vampire I still enjoy is the Dark Ages one. Feels like the setting just comes together better in that time period.

I've never read those manuals, so I can't comment on that, but also I've never heard of anything particularly embarrassing about them or their playerbases.

thats clearly a point against those settings ngl

Why? Not being cringe is a bad trait?

look. its vampires and werewolves. the amount of effort to make it 100% not embarrassing has got to be cringe

Maybe. But I'm only judging the vibe around Dark Ages. Maybe it's a matter of low popularity of this sub-setting.

 

[Wesp5]

The usage of her instead of something gender neutral is a modern ploy to pretend that they’re pro women.

Very weird and confusing to non English speaking people. I always thought that "they" is the correct term.

 

[ga♥]

The usage of her instead of something gender neutral is a modern ploy to pretend that they’re pro women.

Very weird and confusing to non English speaking people. I always thought that "they" is the correct term.

Hey, are you involved as you were with Hardsuit labs? Any contact with the Chinese Room?