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

[0wca]

Okay Roguey, but tell me - if these predictions turn out to be true, would you write something like "Your judgment after two minutes of gameplay was correct"?

It's an absurd concern. They're calling this Bloodlines 2, not Redemption 2. That was the one with the linear story and pre-set protagonist. Bloodlines 2 will obviously feel and play similar to Bloodlines.

I see Roguey is still optimistic about this game.

 

[Atlantico]

Okay Roguey, but tell me - if these predictions turn out to be true, would you write something like "Your judgment after two minutes of gameplay was correct"?

It's an absurd concern. They're calling this Bloodlines 2, not Redemption 2. That was the one with the linear story and pre-set protagonist. Bloodlines 2 will obviously feel and play similar to Bloodlines.

I see Roguey is still optimistic about this game.

I certainly am not optimistic about this game. While I thought Bloodlines was an atmospheric and often awesome CRPG, it was also a groundbreaking CRPG in the same way that Deus Ex was back in 2000. It seemed to pave the way forward for CRPGs on the PC.

Problem is, that did not happen. So what are we asking for or expecting; a Bloodlines 2 that is similar to a cutting edge game of 2004? .. because the cutting edge of 2004 isn't really relevant today. So then are we asking for a groundbreaking CRPG from TCR? lmao — not likely to happen.

So what is left then?

I see no reason to be optimistic about this game.

 

[Roguey]

There are tons of examples when numbered sequels totally don't feel and play similar to their predecessors, especially so when done by different companies and after a significant time gap.
Anyone here can come up with a bunch of examples themselves.
And while it's too early to give a final diagnosis, considering the game is not even out yet and there is barely any info, the concerns are valid and justified.

Bloodlines was already an action RPG.

 

[Irxy]

There are tons of examples when numbered sequels totally don't feel and play similar to their predecessors, especially so when done by different companies and after a significant time gap.
Anyone here can come up with a bunch of examples themselves.
And while it's too early to give a final diagnosis, considering the game is not even out yet and there is barely any info, the concerns are valid and justified.

Bloodlines was already an action RPG.

It was, but it wasn't defined by it as it was so much more.
It didn't become a cult classic for the wonky mid to late game action segments.
Isn't its combat universally considered shit?

 

[Häyhä]

Combat in Bloodlines is serviceable at best, melee is better than shooting, but not by much. Using Celerity to hack everyone to pieces with a fire axe has it's fun moments, but in general combat isn't great.

 

[Roguey]

It was, but it wasn't defined by it as it was so much more.
It didn't become a cult classic for the wonky mid to late game action segments.
Isn't its combat universally considered shit?

http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/vampire-the-masquerade-bloodlines/558109p1.html

"We had two parallel tracks going on while we put Bloodlines together," Troika's Leonard Boyarsky said as he ran his Ventrue vampire through a conversation with the sexy leader of the Kuei-Jin. The Kuei-jin are Asian vampires -- mostly from China -- who labor under a completely different curse than their Western counterparts. Apparenlty during testing, there were certain employees who really focused on the RPG aspects of the game, the conversations and the storyline. "On the other hand, we had some of our younger testers who kept coming up to us and saying that what the game needed was much more combat." Boyarsky said. It seems that having people push and pull from both sides of the divide actually contributed to making a better combined game than it might have been otherwise.

 

[Delterius]

Combat in Bloodlines is serviceable at best, melee is better than shooting, but not by much. Using Celerity to hack everyone to pieces with a fire axe has it's fun moments, but in general combat isn't great.

this is super silly but my favorite celerity moment is actually doing a stealth mission. had abysmal sneak and no dominate as toreador. wanted to jump onto a ladder in the warehouse. this npc would not stop guarding the ladder. celerity let me jump far enough to bypass them, saving the sneak mission of its worst challenge.

It was, but it wasn't defined by it as it was so much more.
It didn't become a cult classic for the wonky mid to late game action segments.
Isn't its combat universally considered shit?

http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/vampire-the-masquerade-bloodlines/558109p1.html

"We had two parallel tracks going on while we put Bloodlines together," Troika's Leonard Boyarsky said as he ran his Ventrue vampire through a conversation with the sexy leader of the Kuei-Jin. The Kuei-jin are Asian vampires -- mostly from China -- who labor under a completely different curse than their Western counterparts. Apparenlty during testing, there were certain employees who really focused on the RPG aspects of the game, the conversations and the storyline. "On the other hand, we had some of our younger testers who kept coming up to us and saying that what the game needed was much more combat." Boyarsky said. It seems that having people push and pull from both sides of the divide actually contributed to making a better combined game than it might have been otherwise.

once again we have confirmation. it takes a village to raise an rpg

i also disagree with the notion that bloodlines wasn't an action rpg. the combat wasn't good. but i'm pretty sure that drinking people dry in combat, exploding them into blood, stealth sections, and so much more. people who play bloodlines 1 don't say wow i wish this was a novel instead. they wish it was made with better tech.

 

[Roguey]

i also disagree with the notion that bloodlines wasn't an action rpg. the combat wasn't good. but i'm pretty sure that drinking people dry in combat, exploding them into blood, stealth sections, and so much more. people who play bloodlines 1 don't say wow i wish this was a novel instead. they wish it was made with better tech.

Yeah, I've seen multiple people in multiple places hype up Night Road as the best VtM since Bloodlines. But who's actually playing?

11.0 k .. 30.4 k on reviews
~63.7 k by PlayTracker
~16.6 k by VG Insights
~55.0 k by SteamSpy

Like I said, I have extreme doubts that Paradox would take their biggest VtM property and make it more like one of the other less-successful properties (whether Night Road or Redemption).

 

[Delterius]

Yeah, I've seen multiple people in multiple places hype up Night Road as the best VtM since Bloodlines. But who's actually playing?

I don't know much about Night Road. There's probably a lot that can be said about marketing appeal and genres. And how even a bad combat system still refers towards a much more convetional form of RPG entertainment. However, I believe there's also a bit of a misconception about what it means to play a 'social RPG'.

The way I see it, a tabletop game like Vampire might not have a single fight in the campaign. But it's not devoid of encounters. Storytelling is not a bunch of talky scenes with some skill checks, like in a CRPG. Each social situation is like a combat encounter. You're trying to ask the right questions, make the right choices, come out on top, not let out too much information, and so on. That's where the entertainment value lies.

If I wanted to make a Vampire game where fights don't even happen and it's all about politicking I'd be at a loss on how to make it entertaining. I'd probably end up doing the meme cliché of creating a game of 'social combat' with a card and deck building system. Something corny where instead of skill checks, you gotta beat the 'prosecutor attorney fight' as you argue that you shouldn't be executed for your illegal embrace. And to put emphasis on corny, here's an illustration:



Absent the combat entertainment portion you have point and click games, CYOAs and more niche stuff. Bloodlines was never niche. It was built to be a mainstream game and it became a cult classic as people enjoyed what was good in it. People didn't play it just for the well realized parts. They also talked about the zombie cemetery mission, or making people sleep as they stealth in the museum. They dreamed of a well realized, fully implemented Bloodlines.

 

[Wesp5]

Combat in Bloodlines is serviceable at best, melee is better than shooting, but not by much.

I disagree, especially about the shooting. I came from HL2 to Bloodlines and had no problem finishing the game as a Toreador gunslinger and wasn't disappointed either. You just need to get your firearms stat up fast!

 

[Wesp5]

If I wanted to make a Vampire game where fights don't even happen and it's all about politicking I'd be at a loss on how to make it entertaining.

Swansong tried to do this with actual showing dice rolls during conversations which killed immersion for me big time! If I wanted dice rolls I would play a PnP game and not a computer game .

 

[Roguey]

I disagree, especially about the shooting. I came from HL2 to Bloodlines and had no problem finishing the game as a Toreador gunslinger and wasn't disappointed either. You just need to get your firearms stat up fast!

The stats don't matter, the guns in Santa Monica and Downtown are purposely bad. They're perfectly fine starting in Hollywood. Trying to kill Xiao without a flamethrower and guns/spells is for masochists.

 

[La vie sexuelle]

Okay Roguey, but tell me - if these predictions turn out to be true, would you write something like "Your judgment after two minutes of gameplay was correct"?

It's an absurd concern. They're calling this Bloodlines 2, not Redemption 2. That was the one with the linear story and pre-set protagonist. Bloodlines 2 will obviously feel and play similar to Bloodlines.

I see Roguey is still optimistic about this game.

I certainly am not optimistic about this game. While I thought Bloodlines was an atmospheric and often awesome CRPG, it was also a groundbreaking CRPG in the same way that Deus Ex was back in 2000. It seemed to pave the way forward for CRPGs on the PC.

Problem is, that did not happen. So what are we asking for or expecting; a Bloodlines 2 that is similar to a cutting edge game of 2004? .. because the cutting edge of 2004 isn't really relevant today. So then are we asking for a groundbreaking CRPG from TCR? lmao — not likely to happen.

So what is left then?

I see no reason to be optimistic about this game.

Sometimes certain things are important to us and dear to our hearts, and then we deceive ourselves. I'm have that with women, Rougey from Bloodlines 2, apparently.

 

[Delterius]

If I wanted to make a Vampire game where fights don't even happen and it's all about politicking I'd be at a loss on how to make it entertaining.

Swansong tried to do this with actual showing dice rolls during conversations which killed immersion for me big time! If I wanted dice rolls I would play a PnP game and not a computer game .

That's not necessarily a bad thing. I'd argue that the dice rolls are even a point of attraction in BG3. But if the game tries to present the story as a seamless soap opera, then it might be an aesthetic mistake.

 

[Roguey]

Sometimes certain things are important to us and dear to our hearts, and then we deceive ourselves. I'm have that with women, Rougey from Bloodlines 2, apparently.

I don't expect this to be any good. I don't expect it to be particularly bad either.

 

[La vie sexuelle]

Sometimes certain things are important to us and dear to our hearts, and then we deceive ourselves. I'm have that with women, Rougey from Bloodlines 2, apparently.

I don't expect this to be any good. I don't expect it to be particularly bad either.

This is still a very optimistic assumption, considering what the Chinese Room is working on and what it is famous for.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

I disagree, especially about the shooting. I came from HL2 to Bloodlines and had no problem finishing the game as a Toreador gunslinger and wasn't disappointed either. You just need to get your firearms stat up fast!

The stats don't matter, the guns in Santa Monica and Downtown are purposely bad. They're perfectly fine starting in Hollywood. Trying to kill Xiao without a flamethrower and guns/spells is for masochists.

I used guns twice in my Ventrue run. Killing the zombies in Hollywood with the shotgun, and then the bizarre giant bat final boss. The zombies were because my build focused on dialogue and access skills (perhaps too much), and I wasn't killing them quite quickly enough. At the boss my character was an unholy demigod, but for want of reach. The designers knew this and drip fed redshirts with rifles every so often to give you a means an ammo.

 

[Roguey]

Sometimes certain things are important to us and dear to our hearts, and then we deceive ourselves. I'm have that with women, Rougey from Bloodlines 2, apparently.

I don't expect this to be any good. I don't expect it to be particularly bad either.

This is still a very optimistic assumption, considering what the Chinese Room is working on and what it is famous for.

As noted earlier in the thread, this is a Ship of Theseus Chinese Room

 

[Delterius]

considering what the Chinese Room is working on and what it is famous for.

As noted earlier in the thread, this is a Ship of Theseus Chinese Room

come on la'vi you were there for the other 17 times we talked about this

 

[Atlantico]

considering what the Chinese Room is working on and what it is famous for.

As noted earlier in the thread, this is a Ship of Theseus Chinese Room

come on la'vi you were there for the other 17 times we talked about this

It still is rather meaningless. Any random group of modern developers is a sad sight indeed. No matter what they're called.

 

[La vie sexuelle]

considering what the Chinese Room is working on and what it is famous for.

As noted earlier in the thread, this is a Ship of Theseus Chinese Room

come on la'vi you were there for the other 17 times we talked about this

17?

 

[Vincente]

 

[The President]

I mean it is ultimately a tabletop game like DnD, dice rolls are a part of it. Perhaps Swansong just didn’t do it well.

 

[Wesp5]

I mean it is ultimately a tabletop game like DnD, dice rolls are a part of it. Perhaps Swansong just didn’t do it well.

Roguey just recently cited an interview with Leonard here in which he explained why dice rolls make little sense in a computer game (http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/vampire-the-masquerade-bloodlines/558109p1.html):

Boyarsky made it clear that the fighting/combo and stealth systems weren't as elaborate as fighting or stealth games that were dedicated to that sort of gameplay, but neither did he run away from the fact that this type of combat implementation is worlds away from the traditional turn-based dice rolling combat of both the paper and pencil games and even Troika's earlier RPGs. "Putting in a traditional combat system in a first-person game like this simply places an unnecessary layer between the player and the game world. It just felt wrong."

 

[Justinian]

Combat in Bloodlines is serviceable at best, melee is better than shooting, but not by much. Using Celerity to hack everyone to pieces with a fire axe has it's fun moments, but in general combat isn't great.

Melee is below average from beginning to end, shooting sucks early game but is actually pretty good later on when you get access to guns that aren't complete trash.