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

[duskvile]

I think we have to break our personal vision and conception what Bloodlines 2 should be as much Baldur's gate 3 did break most of legacy formats.
Bloodlines 2 should be interesting game with great success if we want this franchise to continue. I do.

 

[Grunker]

You are making the case against your own joke though. Harebrained would make a terrible VTMB

Blast from your past:

By a large margin. These games have thouroughly mediocre-to-bad gameplay, what carries them is atmosphere, charm, mystery and poignancy. Kind of like an isometric Bloodlines.

The first game loses all four halfway through, while the third game buries you in text, Pillars 1-style. So the second game is easily the best.

Not sure what your point is - I seem to be one of the Codexers most critical of the Shadowrun games. I view them as entirely narrative and atmosphere driven, and even then, only the second game is worthy of anyone's times IMHO.

The 'kind of like' is meant to be just that; it's "kind of like" Bloodlines in that it is great because of its atmosphere, but unlike Bloodlines, atmosphere is basically all it has.

You are making the case against your own joke though. Harebrained would make a terrible VTMB

I acknowledge that the Shadowrun guys (or what's left of them) wouldn't be my first choice, and that the timing didn't work out. But it still would've made way more sense for them to be handed the IP rather than...

-checks notes-

Working on some indiana jones tactical game that apparently bombed.

Exactly. You're arguing that the guys who made 1 kind of cool atmospheric game with no worthwhile gameplay and a full-priced tactical game that plays like a superficial indie title would be a good fit for a Bloodlines sequel.

 

[Latelistener]

Bloodlines 2 should be interesting game with great success if we want this franchise to continue. I do.

What franchise? Just let it die already. Play games that matter and Bloodlines doesn't matter anymore.

It's a game that came when it was suppose to and was only held together by writing and we will have none of that with this new game. Some dangerhair or whoever they have as a lead writer will make sure of that.

Their only goal is to make money, but Paradox must be insane if they think they will make any. Especially considering their failures with Hardsuit.

They should've just asked Harebrained to make a new isometric game in the world of Masquerade instead of what they made. Gameplay-wise it couldn't be worse than a game from a studio that only made Little Orpheus.

 

[Jacov]

Hardsuit's pre-render and wonky gameplay trailer made an impression that people behind them were at least somewhat competent?

They weren't competent.

FIrst iteration was a crappy game trying very hard to be like a better one. Latest iteration is just a crappy game trying to be like other crappy games.

HS at least had decency to show dialogue checks.

 

[Harthwain]

Bloodlines 2 should be interesting game with great success if we want this franchise to continue. I do.

Do you want Bloodlines or just a vampire RPG?

 

[Child of Malkav]

Codex when HSL: lol retards only make shooters, game has consumable guns, you play as thinblood etc.
Codex after HSL: we didn't know how good we had it bros...

Me:

This thread is so much more fun than that whatever the game can be at this point it's not even close.

 

[Storyfag]

HS at least had decency to show dialogue checks.

And how do you know TCR doesn't?

 

[Roguey]

HS at least had decency to show dialogue checks.

And how do you know TCR doesn't?

Yeah, we saw a grand total of two dialogue menus and Bloodlines certainly didn't have a check in every or even most conversations.

Of course it's still possible they did away with them. If they know they can't do them well, does one think they should do them at all?

 

[La vie sexuelle]

Codex when HSL: lol retards only make shooters, game has consumable guns, you play as thinblood etc.
Codex after HSL: we didn't know how good we had it bros...

Me:

This thread is so much more fun than that whatever the game can be at this point it's not even close.

Agree.

Do you want Bloodlines or just a vampire RPG?

You pose an interesting problem - what exactly are we waiting for?

Personally, I long ago lost faith in the continuation of Bloodlines as Bloodlines. The only thing I'm counting on is an average, but still playable, vampire simulator with the occasional pretty female vampire.

 

[Storyfag]

If they know they can't do them well, does one think they should do them at all?

Now now, let us not scale to their level. IF they know they can't do dialogue checks well, they shouldn't be making any RPG, much less VTMB2. But that stil remains to be determined.

 

[Roguey]

Now now, let us not scale to their level. IF they know they can't do dialogue checks well, they shouldn't be making any RPG, much less VTMB2. But that stil remains to be determined.

I wouldn't hold that against them. Most* RPGs don't have super-compelling dialogue checks and this includes Bloodlines itself. A lot of people (me included) still like having them though. As long as they're not "You're a computer" stupid.


Also, for fun, here's a bunch of screenshots I had already taken of Bloodlines dialogue with checkless or limited dialogue options to remember it as it was and not the game in one's head.

Spoiler

 

[Jacov]

HS at least had decency to show dialogue checks.

And how do you know TCR doesn't?

Why didn't TCR show them in their video then? Such important part of RPG writing and they don't highlight it in their PR talk about «Narrative & RPG Stream»?

When the dev in the video is asked about how players will be able to customize their narrative experience, he doesn't outright answer that «you will have dialogue choices based on your clan and stats», instead giving some evasive non-answer. The only thing even related to character development mentioned is clans, with no additional info.

I of course, hope I'm wrong, but this is just another red flag.

 

[Jacov]

HS at least had decency to show dialogue checks.

And how do you know TCR doesn't?

Yeah, we saw a grand total of two dialogue menus and Bloodlines certainly didn't have a check in every or even most conversations.

Of course it's still possible they did away with them. If they know they can't do them well, does one think they should do them at all?

2 > 0
(Or did you mean the new Bloodlines? Nonetheless, if they have skill checks, why not show them in the video about dialogues and narrative?)

An attempt, even shitty one, is better than nothing. Apathy is death.

 

[Storyfag]

HS at least had decency to show dialogue checks.

And how do you know TCR doesn't?

Why didn't TCR show them in their video then? Such important part of RPG writing and they don't highlight it in their PR talk about «Narrative & RPG Stream»?

When the dev in the video is asked about how players will be able to customize their narrative experience, he doesn't outright answer that «you will have dialogue choices based on your clan and stats», instead giving some evasive non-answer. The only thing even related to character development mentioned is clans, with no additional info.

I of course, hope I'm wrong, but this is just another red flag.

Stop jumping to conclusions. You will have to play the game seven times to be able to truly tell if it is bad or not.

 

[Bulo]

Now now, let us not scale to their level. IF they know they can't do dialogue checks well, they shouldn't be making any RPG, much less VTMB2. But that stil remains to be determined.

I wouldn't hold that against them. Most* RPGs don't have super-compelling dialogue checks and this includes Bloodlines itself. A lot of people (me included) still like having them though. As long as they're not "You're a computer" stupid.


Also, for fun, here's a bunch of screenshots I had already taken of Bloodlines dialogue with checkless or limited dialogue options to remember it as it was and not the game in one's head.

Spoiler

 

[Jacov]

HS at least had decency to show dialogue checks.

And how do you know TCR doesn't?

Why didn't TCR show them in their video then? Such important part of RPG writing and they don't highlight it in their PR talk about «Narrative & RPG Stream»?

When the dev in the video is asked about how players will be able to customize their narrative experience, he doesn't outright answer that «you will have dialogue choices based on your clan and stats», instead giving some evasive non-answer. The only thing even related to character development mentioned is clans, with no additional info.

I of course, hope I'm wrong, but this is just another red flag.

Stop jumping to conclusions. You will have to play the game seven times to be able to truly tell if it is bad or not.

I'm only basing my assumptions on what I'm shown. As a potential customer, I want RPG devs to talk about RPG mechanics in an RPG game.

 

[Roguey]

(Or did you mean the new Bloodlines? Nonetheless, if they have skill checks, why not show them in the video about dialogues and narrative?)

Because they don't really have anything to show (they told us about the narrative reactivity to clothing but couldn't show us) and they really shouldn't have shown those two obviously unfinished scenes to begin with since it only created negative reactions.

If checks are so important to you, you can always play Swansong.

 

[The President]

You’ll get a video dev diary in two weeks and in January apparently a longer gameplay video. It’ll be hard to say what we’ll get dialogue tree wise until those two are seen.

 

[Child of Malkav]

My eyes...

If checks are so important to you, you can always play Swansong.

Spoiler that shit.

 

[Latelistener]

Now now, let us not scale to their level. IF they know they can't do dialogue checks well, they shouldn't be making any RPG, much less VTMB2. But that stil remains to be determined.

I wouldn't hold that against them. Most* RPGs don't have super-compelling dialogue checks and this includes Bloodlines itself. A lot of people (me included) still like having them though. As long as they're not "You're a computer" stupid.


Also, for fun, here's a bunch of screenshots I had already taken of Bloodlines dialogue with checkless or limited dialogue options to remember it as it was and not the game in one's head.

Spoiler

Its strength lies in seven playable clans though, with its peak as Malkavian, Nosferatu and Tremere.

Interactions with your primogen, plus your own unique powers is what makes it worthwhile.

 

[Wesp5]

(Or did you mean the new Bloodlines? Nonetheless, if they have skill checks, why not show them in the video about dialogues and narrative?)

Because they don't really have anything to show (they told us about the narrative reactivity to clothing but couldn't show us) and they really shouldn't have shown those two obviously unfinished scenes to begin with since it only created negative reactions.

If checks are so important to you, you can always play Swansong.

The problem is that TCR choose to show these scenes first which had little choices and also the whole conversation looked like Swansong except for the internal mechanims which they better hide like Bloodlines.

 

[sosmoflux]

"Whoa, did I just do that?"
" I just sucked a guy's neck with my freakin' fangs!"
"There's a werewolf behind me, isn't there"

 

[The President]

The four playable clans will almost assuredly be Ventrue, Toreador, Tremere, and Brujah.

 

[Roguey]

The four playable clans will almost assuredly be Ventrue, Toreador, Tremere, and Brujah.

They promised "surprises" so I expect at least one will be a clan that wasn't in the first one.

 

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

"Whoa, did I just do that?"
" I just sucked a guy's neck with my freakin' fangs!"
"There's a werewolf behind me, isn't there"