World of Darkness Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 - VTMB sequel from The Chinese Room - coming Fall 2024

[Zombra]

If you think you have a winner at hand you put some marketing money behind it. If you don't believe in your own product you suddenly release it with almost zero amount of hype. That's a good heuristic, though obviously not flawless

Sure, that's one perspective - but we've all heard of games that come out of nowhere, announced relatively close to their release dates. And I feel like this is kind of a special case due to the huge hype and fantastical crash of the first go-round. Then there are also devs that just don't like to do a lot of marketing. They are out there.

Not a guarantee it's going to be good of course, but I don't really see quiet devs as a red flag.

Also, 2½ for a proper cRPG is rather short.

Bloodlines 1 - three years
Baldur's Gate 2 - less than two years
Fallout 2 - nine months

 

[Harthwain]

Bloodlines 1 - three years
Baldur's Gate 2 - less than two years
Fallout 2 - nine months

Bloodlines was an unfinished mess though. Baldur's Gate 2 was done on the basis of Baldur's Gate 1 meaning they didn't have to work from the scratch. Same goes for Fallout 2. The latter two games were also not made in 3D, which probably makes it easier to work on than something done in state-of-the-art 3D.

 

[Roguey]

Baldur's Gate 2 - less than two years
Fallout 2 - nine months

Sequels aren't a good example to cite. Better off listing the Kickstarter games: Wasteland 2 and Pillars of Eternity were both made in 29 months though they had the benefit of being made by experienced RPG developers (well more Pillars than Wasteland).

Oh when I listed titles earlier I forgot to mention Deus Ex which was made in 2 years and 10 months. Shipped as a far more polished game than Bloodlines because Spector's crew weren't delusional about scope.

 

[Tyranicon]

I just assumed the October 27 date was a placeholder of some kind, like what you would see on Steam.

That's very short turnaround on marketing if they do release as stated.

This doesn't look good.

 

[Herumor]

Who's really interested in Bloodlines 2 now?

At this point, it's morbid curiosity.

 

[sosmoflux]

You guys discussing gamedev timelines, 2 years this, 3 years that
Those are from eras long gone
Eras of passion, hard work, and where game development wasn't merely a career filled to the brim with overpaid work-life-balance millennials and do-nothing boomers
These days, 3 years would be barely enough time to ship a demo or some broken early access shit
You can expect most games of AA-AAA scale to take at least 5-7 years to be fully finished

 

[Storyfag]

Who's really interested in Bloodlines 2 now?

At this point, it's morbid curiosity.

Ah, a Giovanni Hecata appreciator, I see?

 

[Herumor]

Who's really interested in Bloodlines 2 now?

At this point, it's morbid curiosity.

Ah, a Giovanni Hecata appreciator, I see?

Get that V5 shit out of here.

 

[Storyfag]

Who's really interested in Bloodlines 2 now?

At this point, it's morbid curiosity.

Ah, a Giovanni Hecata appreciator, I see?

Get that V5 shit out of here.

Some V5 concepts aren't bad. The only stupid thing about the Hecata is including the Nagaraja among their ranks, but that is easily explained by having the Indian Euthanatos using Cappadocian vitae for their transformation, much like the Tremere used Tzimisce vitae.

 

[whydoibother]

Are Paradox seriously releasing this within months of Baldur's Gate 3 and Starfield, both hundreds hours long RPGs with modding support?

 

[scytheavatar]

Ha, here's a Paradox glass door review from August 2nd.

Great if you're working on one of their main strategy titles

Pros

Overall solid benefits, competitive salary.

Cons

Under the new (original) CEO, there's a big push to focus on their core products. Any project that doesn't fall under that umbrella will receive very little in the way of publishing support so your product will hit the market with a thud

That's a way of putting it. Guess someone might have been pretty disappointed with what's happening with BL2.

On an additional note, people in the Steam forums are claiming a mod deleted the first thread about the release date. Pointless endeavor, that.

What's the point of releasing a half assed BL 2 anyway? 2 1/2 yr of development is still not a small investment and the costs will not be small. VTM is no megapopular IP and it's not like a half assed VTM game is guaranteed to print money.

 

[whydoibother]

What's the point of releasing a half assed BL 2 anyway?

Paradox already sold the game, so now they have to deliver on the sales, else they can get sued for fraud.

 

[Roguey]

What's the point of releasing a half assed BL 2 anyway? 2 1/2 yr of development is still not a small investment and the costs will not be small. VTM is no megapopular IP and it's not like a half assed VTM game is guaranteed to print money.

Thanks to the Hardsuit debacle, they're likely going to lose money on this no matter what. I'm sure it's terribly difficult estimating just how much additional money they can sink into this to recover the greatest amount as opposed to digging the hole even deeper. Allegedly Sumo pitched this to Paradox saying "we can do this for cheap" so now they have to deliver on that.

Paradox already sold the game, so now they have to deliver on the sales, else they can get sued for fraud.

They're offering refunds to everyone who preordered. Wester said they were fully prepared to cancel it and wash their hands of the entire affair back in late 2020/early 2021, until they got a pitch that convinced them they could soften the blow rather than accept a total $25+ million loss.

 

[JBro]

Did we ever learn why Brian Mitsoda got sacked? I lost complete hope for the game when that happened.

 

[whydoibother]

Did we ever learn why Brian Mitsoda got sacked? I lost complete hope for the game when that happened.

He was asked, and he said "i dont know".

 

[Gargaune]

Are Paradox seriously releasing this within months of Baldur's Gate 3 and Starfield, both hundreds hours long RPGs with modding support?

And the Cyberpunk expansion, which might be the closest, structurally, to whatever this thing's meant to be. It's a busy season. Modding or no, a month or two's clearance should be enough for most gamers to be ready to move on, it'd be more a question of whether their marketing can make enough of a splash between all the Starfield and Cyberpunk announcements. But such a "quick" turnaround would probably mean a lot of the nixed project's assets were reused, which I thought wasn't the plan.

 

[sosmoflux]

Really hope I don't die before the lore behind the Brian/Cara thing comes out
I NEED to know what happened

 

[Moink]

It's not an RPG but Paradox's biggest game this year, Cities Skylines 2, comes out a few days before the alleged date.

 

[whydoibother]

Really hope I don't die before the lore behind the Brian/Cara thing comes out
I NEED to know what happened

Wesp5 drop the scoop

 

[JBro]

Maybe they'll fix up the original Bloodlines and try to sell it as a remaster.

Paradox already tried to do that with the modder behind Project Vaulderie, but at the time Activision wasn't interested and they own Bloodlines even if Paradox owns the overall IP...

Maybe they'll try again when Microsoft owns Activision.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

And the Cyberpunk expansion, which might be the closest, structurally, to whatever this thing's meant to be. It's a busy season. Modding or no, a month or two's clearance should be enough for most gamers to be ready to move on, it'd be more a question of whether their marketing can make enough of a splash between all the Starfield and Cyberpunk announcements. But such a "quick" turnaround would probably mean a lot of the nixed project's assets were reused, which I thought wasn't the plan.

Then again ANY worry about the marketing promotion and the proximity with other releases (as long as it isn't a direct overlap) will be absolutely secondary to the main issue, which will be if the game will look even remotely decent.

 

[Gargaune]

Then again ANY worry about the marketing promotion and the proximity with other releases (as long as it isn't a direct overlap) will be absolutely secondary to the main issue, which will be if the game will look even remotely decent.

The most fun will be if it looks remotely decent... and then it isn't.

 

[Wesp5]

Really hope I don't die before the lore behind the Brian/Cara thing comes out
I NEED to know what happened

Wesp5 drop the scoop

Sadly, I don't know. The closest info I got was from a producer who said something along the lines like "The game HSL pitched to us and which we were producing was not what Paradox wanted several years later".

 

[whydoibother]

Really hope I don't die before the lore behind the Brian/Cara thing comes out
I NEED to know what happened

Wesp5 drop the scoop

Sadly, I don't know. The closest info I got was from a producer who said something along the lines like "The game HSL pitched to us and which we were producing was not what Paradox wanted several years later".

I could figure that much myself, given that they initially pitched it as "first person melee combat like in Marvel movies" or whatever it was, and Marvel kinda went out of fashion 5 minutes later.

 

[Roguey]

I could figure that much myself, given that they initially pitched it as "first person melee combat like in Marvel movies" or whatever it was, and Marvel kinda went out of fashion 5 minutes later.

The pitch was "RPG that feels and plays like a sequel to Bloodlines" and Ebba decided she wanted something that followed more modern design trends.