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

[Delterius]

This is one of the few downsides of Bloodlines existing. You're not allowed to recycle any ideas it used without being accused of retreading nostalgia or being derivative. Now no urban fantasy game can have a level where you visit a pastiche of the Shining, sexy twin sisters, etc.

Why make yet another homage to The Shining when you can do something different? It's a game about vampires. It doesn't need a level where you visit a haunted building and read a bunch of lore about what happened there.

an rpg without a diary level thats probably racism against fallout innit

 

[RaggleFraggle]

This is one of the few downsides of Bloodlines existing. You're not allowed to recycle any ideas it used without being accused of retreading nostalgia or being derivative. Now no urban fantasy game can have a level where you visit a pastiche of the Shining, sexy twin sisters, etc.

Why make yet another homage to The Shining when you can do something different? It's a game about vampires. It doesn't need a level where you visit a haunted building and read a bunch of lore about what happened there.

I mean in general. Paradox doing it comes across as nostalgia baiting, sure. But there’s tons of aspects to The Shining and other classic haunted house movies you could reference. The references in BL1 were few and surface level. If it wasn’t literally called “Overlook” then you couldn’t be entirely sure it was referencing The Shining and not one of the many other haunted hotel movies or novels.

 

[Cricket McBangle]

This is one of the few downsides of Bloodlines existing. You're not allowed to recycle any ideas it used without being accused of retreading nostalgia or being derivative. Now no urban fantasy game can have a level where you visit a pastiche of the Shining, sexy twin sisters, etc.

Why make yet another homage to The Shining when you can do something different? It's a game about vampires. It doesn't need a level where you visit a haunted building and read a bunch of lore about what happened there.

I mean in general. Paradox doing it comes across as nostalgia baiting, sure. But there’s tons of aspects to The Shining and other classic haunted house movies you could reference. The references in BL1 were few and surface level. If it wasn’t literally called “Overlook” then you couldn’t be entirely sure it was referencing The Shining and not one of the many other haunted hotel movies or novels.

It wasn't called Overlook, it was called the Ocean House. If anything, there are more direct references to The Amityville Horror than there are to The Shining.

And after all this time of you bitching about how things aren't original anymore, how creatives are constrained by pre-established IPs, how sheeple only go to pay for more of the same, how basically everything that isn't Bloodlines 1 is not Bloodlines 1, how everything that is made is not for you, you now have an issue that Brian Mitsoda and Troika did not dig deep enough into the rich storytelling potential that is beating the player over the head with references to The Shining and The Amityville Horror even though that's what they already did in Bloodlines 1.

And Paradox isn't the only one at fault for making Ocean House Again for Bloodlines 2. Who was in charge of writing Bloodlines 2 and then who gave it to another studio to work on it?

 

[RaggleFraggle]

It wasn't called Overlook, it was called the Ocean House. If anything, there are more direct references to The Amityville Horror than there are to The Shining.

My mistake then.

 

[Harthwain]

I'm sorry to let you know about this but Troika was a corporation. So was Activision and Valve, and every other place where Troika's developers worked in. Both before and since. So unless you want to estabilish art guilds or youth camps Soviet style, the same environment that produced Bloodlines 1 will have produce Bloodlines 2.

I'd argue there is a difference between a relatively small developer and a giant such as Activision-Blizzard. Interestingly enough smaller studios tend to be more creative than bigger ones. You can see it in Troika's history, too. Why? I guess the main reason is because until you have an established "flagship brand", your best bet to get noticed and establish said "flagship brand" is by being creative. After that creativity gets lost. Partially because big ones need big money, so they tend to go for "safe choices". Paradox Interactive is a very good example of this.

But, yeah, this reinforces the importance of brands, contrary to what RaggleFraggle is trying to preach. People like familiarity. This is one of the reasons why DnD-like fantasy settings are so popular, and not just in games.

 

[Jason Liang]

You can't tell a story about vampires who became vampires as a result of drinking from the unholy grail

wtf you've never heard of the Kiasyd?

or became vampires as a result of being possessed by a demon,

wtf you've never heard of the Baali? Or Akuma/ Green Sun Princes if you connect back to Exalted?

or are infected with alien nanomachines

pretty much Tzimisce

or become stronger through sheer age without needing to cannibalize other vampires,

all vampires become stronger with age, without diablerie. Hello, rpg?! CP, learn and improve Disciplines/ Attribues/ Skills?!

or reproduce sexually like those vampires in Blade or First Kill, or the plots of the Vampire Hunter D novels,

Literally the meta plot of Gehenna, pls read Beckett's Journal

 

[Lambach]

or became vampires as a result of being possessed by a demon,

wtf you've never heard of the Baali? Or Akuma/ Green Sun Princes if you connect back to Exalted?

Baali didn't become Vampires through Demon possession, tho.

They're an offshoot Demon-worshipping Bloodline of unknown Clan(s), but they trace their lineage back to one of the OG 13, just like everyone else other than the Tremere.

 

[quixotic]

I can’t help but wonder if they’ll have ANYTHING to show come September.

 

[Cricket McBangle]

I can’t help but wonder if they’ll have ANYTHING to show come September.

They'll announce the cancelation.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

I mean I'm still patching the old game

One must imagine Sisyphus Wesp5 happy.

 

[Jason Liang]

Baali didn't become Vampires through Demon possession, tho.

They're an offshoot Demon-worshipping Bloodline of unknown Clan(s), but they trace their lineage back to one of the OG 13, just like everyone else other than the Tremere.

https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Baali#Version_Differences

The backstory also implies that the entirety of the Baali bloodline descends from 13 separate methuselahs, each of whom sold their souls to the demon Ba'al.

The Dark Ages Companion presents a history for the Baali in which Shaitan was the most beautiful member of the Fourth Generation, but was not Embraced as a Baali; instead, he became the first Baali when he made a pact with Ba'al out of jealousy towards the Toreador Antediluvian.

 

[Lambach]

Baali didn't become Vampires through Demon possession, tho.

They're an offshoot Demon-worshipping Bloodline of unknown Clan(s), but they trace their lineage back to one of the OG 13, just like everyone else other than the Tremere.

https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Baali#Version_Differences

The backstory also implies that the entirety of the Baali bloodline descends from 13 separate methuselahs, each of whom sold their souls to the demon Ba'al.

The Dark Ages Companion presents a history for the Baali in which Shaitan was the most beautiful member of the Fourth Generation, but was not Embraced as a Baali; instead, he became the first Baali when he made a pact with Ba'al out of jealousy towards the Toreador Antediluvian.

You'll note they were already Vampires in every version of the story prior to hooking up with Demons. Not Baali Vampires, but Vampires still.

 

[Jason Liang]

Baali didn't become Vampires through Demon possession, tho.

They're an offshoot Demon-worshipping Bloodline of unknown Clan(s), but they trace their lineage back to one of the OG 13, just like everyone else other than the Tremere.

https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Baali#Version_Differences

The backstory also implies that the entirety of the Baali bloodline descends from 13 separate methuselahs, each of whom sold their souls to the demon Ba'al.

The Dark Ages Companion presents a history for the Baali in which Shaitan was the most beautiful member of the Fourth Generation, but was not Embraced as a Baali; instead, he became the first Baali when he made a pact with Ba'al out of jealousy towards the Toreador Antediluvian.

You'll note they were already Vampires in every version of the story prior to hooking up with Demons. Not Baali Vampires, but Vampires still.

The origins of the Baali are so murky that if you wanted something more in line with Queen of the Damned, no one would bat an eye.

 

[Tyranicon]

I can’t help but wonder if they’ll have ANYTHING to show come September.

Best case scenario: They have a real trailer showing off a short vertical slice of the game, not just a cutscene, and a solid release date.

Realistic scenario: They have a trailer that's basically just cutscenes, with no showcase of gameplay, and a very vague release window.

Pessimistic scenario: More environment shots, maybe some menus of the RPG elements, maybe some character models, and a lot of PR talk.

Absurd scenario: They just drop the game in September with no marketing. Just bam! Here it is.

 

[Cricket McBangle]

I can’t help but wonder if they’ll have ANYTHING to show come September.

Best case scenario: They have a real trailer showing off a short vertical slice of the game, not just a cutscene, and a solid release date.

Realistic scenario: They have a trailer that's basically just cutscenes, with no showcase of gameplay, and a very vague release window.

Pessimistic scenario: More environment shots, maybe some menus of the RPG elements, maybe some character models, and a lot of PR talk.

Absurd scenario: They just drop the game in September with no marketing. Just bam! Here it is.

Paradox did say that their marketing-to-release windows were going to be shorter so they must be confident that half of the game can ship for a late 2023 or early 2024 window and the rest of the game can probably be completed and sold as DLC throughout the year all the way to 2025, maybe even 2026.

 

[Tyranicon]

Paradox did say that their marketing-to-release windows were going to be shorter so they must be confident that half of the game can ship for a late 2023 or early 2024 window and the rest of the game can probably be completed and sold as DLC throughout the year all the way to 2025, maybe even 2026.

If Paradox tries this, they'll find out first hand that what you can do with a GaaS game is drastically different than what you can do with a niche, cult RPG.

 

[Cricket McBangle]

Ex-Bloodlines 2 dev says the game looks very different from when he worked on it from his days working with Hardsuit.

 

[Lambach]

"Refunding pre-orders"

Holy fuck, Jenkem , are you OK? How you holding up? We're here if you need to talk, anytime.

 

[quixotic]

If they’re refunding preorders now, the game’s probably still a long ways off.

 

[Harthwain]

If they’re refunding preorders now, the game’s probably still a long ways off.

There is another option: the game is so different from what it was when people pre-ordered that Paradox decided it's better to offer a refund to anyone who wants it.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Long rant again

But, yeah, this reinforces the importance of brands, contrary to what @RaggleFraggle is trying to preach. People like familiarity. This is one of the reasons why DnD-like fantasy settings are so popular, and not just in games.

This is a false equivalence. People like fantasy tropes popularized by D&D, but you’d be hard pressed to find many people who can name a specific fantasy setting other than Middle Earth or Westeros. Also, most fantasy fans would never say “there’s no fantasy story you can’t tell in this one setting I like” because the fun of fantasy comes from imagining all these different worlds.

D&D isn’t glued to a specific setting like WoD. It’s not limiting all creative horizons to a single campaign setting and its specific idiosyncrasies. The majority of fantasy fans would agree that’s a silly thing to do. Even so, I’ve still gotten sick of all these oversaturated fantasy tropes that lazily copy Arda or Faerun. The sheer repetition makes the genre boring and not fun anymore. I’m burned out. Jaded.

Back in the day I and many others tried to do exactly the creative stuff you guys suggest using WoD. B.J. Zanzibar’s archive is full of people adapting various works of fiction to the game rules. White Wolf got into it by making Chronicles. The lorefags hated this and killed it all.

WoD isn’t the urban fantasy equivalent of D&D. It’s the urban fantasy equivalent of a single D&D campaign setting. All attempts to make more campaign settings were killed by lorefags who hate creativity and fun. These toxic asshats killed my interest in this IP years before most people in this thread even knew this IP existed.

I don’t believe that this obsession with brand recognition is good for art. People might prefer familiarity, but people have tons of stupid psychological biases. I think beliefs like “you can tell any story in this specific IP that I like” is hugely limiting your creative horizons. I used to think that way before I grew out of it and broadened my creative horizons by reading more books and watching more movies. Like D&D. I think I’ve been personally enriched by growing beyond that phase where I invest my entire identity in a single IP. Especially when every single IP inevitably gets run into the ground, loses what attracted you in the first place, and then insults you for not continuing to buy product like a good little mindless consumer.

This is probably the most important bit, though: Paradox can’t be creative as you just said. They’re never going to use any of the ideas suggested. They’re never gonna produce good games period. Corpos drive franchises into the ground, as we’ve seen at length. So saying “WoD could totally tell great stories with good writers, so put aside your hate for it stemming from being cyberbullied by lorefags for years” is academic because it’s never gonna happen.

I guess people just aren’t very creative in general. It’s easy to say “Bloodlines is the textbook WoD game” years after it came out, but how many people would think of that premise before it did? I don’t think it’s a textbook example. It doesn’t even have a party like Redemption did. I think people say that because they’re uncreative and can’t imagine anything else. Like how fantasy is stuck in Tolkien’s shadow despite the plethora of works that predate him or weren’t influenced by him.

wtf you've never heard of the

I already know about all of that. I was in the tabletop fandom for a decade and read hundreds of the books. I’m probably the most well versed in the lore out of anybody in this thread and can spout trivia meaning nothing to you, like “process-based determinism versus results-based determinism”. I was a huge lorefag myself.

And you know what? My fondest memory of this IP is interacting with the waifus in Bloodlines. All my positive memories of this IP come from playing that game, because it’s a fun game.

No amount of lorefaggery substitutes for actual gameplay and storytelling. That’s not how humans engage with games or stories. Despite what lorefags might think, no IP has gotten famous based solely on a list of factoids. IPs get famous because they’re spun off famous books or movies with cocktails of compelling characters, situations and themes. Nobody would give a fuck about Arda or Westeros if we weren’t already invested in Frodo Baggins and Ned Stark. Few here would give a fuck about WoD if we didn’t already fall in love with Jeanette, Damsel and Heather.

It would be nice if Paradox could release a fun game, but we all know they won’t. Aside from a mix of nostalgia for Jeanette, trainwreck fascination and probably masochism, I have no fucking clue why I’m still in this thread.

 

[Jenkem]

"Refunding pre-orders"

Holy fuck, Jenkem , are you OK? How you holding up? We're here if you need to talk, anytime.

If they’re refunding preorders now, the game’s probably still a long ways off.

 

[Wesp5]

That's kind of what DuskGolem said. Basically it came down to what Hardsuit was building and what they had planned for the future was something Paradox ended up not wanting and Hardsuit couldn't really make the pivot.

I don't know who DuskGolem is, but that's more or less what the German producer told me too. In the middle of development Paradox suddenly wanted a different game from what HSL had pitched and what it was building! I believe he knew this wasn't going to work out, so he left on his own. I can imagine Mitsoda protesting against the change of direction which is why he and the others were fired soon afterwards. The questions are what this change was about and if the new studio follows it through? I guess we will see once the game is out, and I think the designer leaked his work so it will eventually be clear to everybody comparing the videos from the HSL version with the final one. Also why call it Bloodlines 2 if you were not going to use some nostalgic elements?

 

[Storyfag]

they trace their lineage back to one of the OG 13, just like everyone else other than the Tremere.

That the tr*mere refuse to trace their lineage to the Eldest does not change the fact that it leads right to it.

 

[Harthwain]

This is a false equivalence. People like fantasy tropes popularized by D&D, but you’d be hard pressed to find many people who can name a specific fantasy setting other than Middle Earth or Westeros.

Again, people like familiarity. You say "DnD" and they will have an idea what to expect. You say "Vampire the Masquerade" and people will know it's about vampires. Brands work like waypoints. It's even better when people like the brands.

D&D isn’t glued to a specific setting like WoD.

So? Since Paradox already has the rights to it, it's no surprise they are going to use them. You will get fans of the tabletop, but you will also attract fans of vampires in general. At least they will check it out if they aren't already aware what it is.

I don’t believe that this obsession with brand recognition is good for art.

Obviously it's not for art. It's just good business.

People might prefer familiarity, but people have tons of stupid psychological biases.

No surprise here. Homo sapiens is mostly homo.

I think beliefs like “you can tell any story in this specific IP that I like” is hugely limiting your creative horizons.

I think it is possible to a degree (vampires in general are more pliable material than you'd think), but you have be mindful of keeping within specific boundaries (the setting, the lore, etc.) and think about how to fit what you want to tell within the IP without breaking it. That said, it's a different kind of creativity from making something entirely different where you are basically free to create whatever you want.

So saying “WoD could totally tell great stories with good writers, so put aside your hate for it stemming from being cyberbullied by lorefags for years” is academic because it’s never gonna happen.

I mean, us being on this forum is in and out of itself academic.

It’s easy to say “Bloodlines is the textbook WoD game” years after it came out, but how many people would think of that premise before it did? I don’t think it’s a textbook example. It doesn’t even have a party like Redemption did. I think people say that because they’re uncreative and can’t imagine anything else. Like how fantasy is stuck in Tolkien’s shadow despite the plethora of works that predate him or weren’t influenced by him.

It less about creativity as more about how human brain works. The reason old people don't like changes is because it is harder for them to learn, compared to young people. It also takes you out of your comfort zone, which compunds the problem when it comes to thinking of something new, introducing it and making it stick. The established brands make it even harder to carve out your own niche. Especially when you have only one shot and it's your "to be or not to be".