Development Info Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 Dev Diary #14: What are we up to? Part 2

[PunchYouInTheFace]

Looks okay I guess.

 

[set]

This dev post was so bad it resurrected me to post here after a few years.
As someone who does some (dumb) personal Unreal Engine projects on the side...the in-game still renders are really easy to stage. Like, you can watch a few YT tutorials (or even just ask ChatGPT a few unreal questions) and you can make reasonably "pretty" stuff. Heck, *way* prettier than what they showcase on their blog. My point being, a dev post like this really on the hard-factual content shown alone doesn't inspire much confidence this isn't just vaporware. Given that paradox has been *liquidating* studios this year and choosing to not even air their crappy products for some modicum of moola suggests this game might actually be in development, but I just don't know.

If you're going to do dev updates via text and not video, you're already setting yourself up for failure. Who's this even for, anyway? M&B Bannerlord did have a lot of text bloggy stuff, but they also had some video or super high res screenshots to go with the dev diaries. This is not that by a long shot.
It's no longer a fair comparison, since GGG is a 200+ person company at this point, but even back in the day, indie studios like Grinding Gear Games did a better job showcasing actual gameplay and design philosophy. The post here is completely bankrupt of any of that.

Finally, it's really easy to sell people on the virtues of VtMB's gameplay. BG3 sold 22 million copies for similar reasons. This blog post reads as again, the devs just being completely clueless.
If we do actually see this game come to light, it will be "Mostly Negative" on steam, likely for the studio to close and steam to issue 100% refunds.

Given how many people played Disco Elysium, honestly, just scrap the shitty pew pew/QTE shit and just make a dialog+walking sim with vampire socialating/diablerizing. Probably a lot less budget and effort is needed and you can probably sell enough copies.

 

[Isaiah Quinn]

It's so over

Bloodlines also had fast-paced action areas.

Kind of hard to cite Bloodlines' own "fast-paced action areas" as a defense for Bloodlines 2 when those areas are almost always the asterisk on people recommending it to others, and the first thing everyone complains about when they discuss the game.

 

[Roguey]

Kind of hard to cite Bloodlines' own "fast-paced action areas" as a defense for Bloodlines 2 when those areas are almost always the asterisk on people recommending it to others, and the first thing everyone complains about when they discuss the game.

Well the idea is to improve upon them. There are numerous VtM IFs and VNs with no combat systems.

 

[Gargaune]

The teaser videos have all been boring and self-serious. BL1 did have self-serious characters, but it also had plenty of playful characters who made funny quips or bounced off self-serious characters.

I'd have thought that by 2024 A.D. we'd have all had enough of "playful characters" and "funny quips"...

 

[Tyranicon]

The teaser videos have all been boring and self-serious. BL1 did have self-serious characters, but it also had plenty of playful characters who made funny quips or bounced off self-serious characters.

I'd have thought that by 2024 A.D. we'd have all had enough of "playful characters" and "funny quips"...

Zoomers have been conditioned to love them. It's mandatory.

 

[set]

Kind of hard to cite Bloodlines' own "fast-paced action areas" as a defense for Bloodlines 2 when those areas are almost always the asterisk on people recommending it to others, and the first thing everyone complains about when they discuss the game.

Well the idea is to improve upon them. There are numerous VtM IFs and VNs with no combat systems.

I played Vampire pen and paper games (I forget which editions) for a grand total of maybe 10 hours in my life and my experience was that combat was also bad in those games too. Maybe I was just shit at building my character, but it kind of felt like vampires suck at actually being violent until they're actually a few centuries old. It doesn't help the clan disciplines are all over the place in terms of combat application. The game system seems like an antithesis to D&D which is all about the murderhobo and maybe if there are ever any white wolf crpgs in the future after this mess, maybe they should just stick to turn-based combat instead.

 

[Katerina]

Most of my pen and paper campaigns were focusing on role play, with little combat in between. I guess it depends on the storyteller, but role play is something usually expected from all the fans of the pnp, I personally know.

As digital interpretations go, I enjoyed both Redemption & Bloodlines story and combat. Swansong was fun for me despite the lack of combat, and Vampyr despite I found its combat clunky, it had an interesting story.

This one seems so far like battle royal, with linear story and a handful of skills disguised as progression. I don't have high hopes to be honest.