Vampyr - vampire action-RPG from Life Is Strange devs

[Goral]

I'm with Lhynn, Jrpgfan and thesheeep on this one, so far I see nothing of interest here. The possibility to not kill anyone isn't great in itself just like playing as a dumb character in Fallout/Arcanum. It was an interesting bonus in those games but in the long run it got boring and it could ruin the experience if it was a first run. It will be a different story if they will manage to create the right atmosphere (the kind that makes you shit your pants) and make as memorable locations as VTMB Ocean House for example but so far it looks like you will be mowing through everyone without any problems and have no cause for concern. If it was open world you could run into enemies that would give you trouble but in a hack and slash game like this you will go from Act 1 to Act 4, face Diablo and become the most powerful being in the world. Been there, done that.

Also: "At the end of the game, you have the possibility to kill everyone"
Another game from zero to hero (i.e. demi-god) confirmed.

And i also agree that doing good should pose hurdles to jump and not throw "moar exp, moar gold, everybody loves you and sucks your cock" at the player.

That's how it's done in Age of Decadence.

 

[Zombra]

I just cannot imagine people willingly passing the chance to grow their character stronger just in order to "be good". And I'm not even a min-maxer.

Well - all due respect - you lack imagination then.

I tell you again, there are players out there who prefer not to murder when given the choice. Yes, even when xp are involved.

Then again, we don't really know enough to argue this, do we?
If the game is piss easy, being strong is not a requirement - which makes the whole discussion somewhat pointless.
Maybe they are blowing up this whole morale thing far too much, too. So maybe it only makes a minimal difference in the end.

True, good balance is what will make or break this decision. Make the game too hard unless you kill everyone - players will be "forced" to kill everyone. Make it too easy if you don't kill anyone - players will be gentle to get the "good" ending. It's up to the devs to make a "pacifist" run nearly impossible, to drive even the nicest player to feel compelled to kill, while still making the game beatable without a mole popping approach.

In any case, though, if you offer a player the possibility to be weaker on purpose (outside of maybe sandbox/procedural/roguelike games where it is part of the fun), there should be some gain.
"Just" for the challenge and maybe a different ending slide for a game that seems mostly story driven? Hm... hardly seems worth it.

Yeah. You are missing the point. Equal xp for good and evil is fine for a game like say Baldur's Gate, which isn't really about moral choices at all, it's about leveling up to kill the boss. But this is a game made for people who want to be good but are driven to evil. It's apparently a game that is OK with making a statement that good is good and evil is bad. If that doesn't make sense or appeal to you, fine, but trust me, there is an audience for it.

-----

Sidebar. Remember the first BioShock? Let's leave aside questions about whether it was a good or bad game. Remember the hype around the Little Sisters? This was going to be a game in which good and evil mattered - you'd be able to save the girls or exploit them for material gain. When I played it, I didn't know what to expect. I still remember the scene where I caught the first Sister. Tenenbaum in one ear telling me not to hurt her; Atlas in the other insisting that I needed to "harvest" her to grow strong and survive. I'll admit it, I agonized for real. Ultimately, I did the right thing and let the kid go. And the game ... gave me nothing but a "Thank you." No cookie, no ammo, no xp. That was it. I did the right thing and got nothing in return.

To me, that was a banner moment in gaming. I felt great. This is how moral choice should be handled in games. Do the right thing because it's right, not because it's profitable.

Later in the game, of course, after saving more Sisters, they appeared again with a giant pink gift-wrap full to bursting with xp - more than I would have received for killing them. I never felt so betrayed by a game. All in a moment, the joy of my righteousness crumbled to ashes. My sacrifice was less than meaningless - not only had I sacrificed nothing, I had gained, and substantially. Selflessness and selfishness had become one and the same! Now the only choices were smart and dumb. The only reason to hurt the Sisters at that point would have been sheer spite.

It looks like Vampyr will take a shot at tackling real choice again, where being good is a hard road. Here's hoping they don't fuck it up.

 

[orcinator]

It looks like Vampyr will take a shot at tackling real choice again. Here's hoping they don't fuck it up.

Developer: Dontnod Entertainment

 

[Lhynn]

Fuck real choice if its artificial as fuck.

 

[Excidium II]

artificial real fake C&C.

 

[BobtheTree]

"Crime doesn't pay, but you can choose to be a criminal anyway" is a dumb "choice" like you said.
"Crime pays, will you be good despite that?" is much more interesting.

I don't know, really.
I just cannot imagine people willingly passing the chance to grow their character stronger just in order to "be good". And I'm not even a min-maxer.

So you can't imagine someone role-playing in a role-playing game?

 

[thesheeep]

Not if the cost is too high, no. Or perceived as too high.
But as Zombra said, that is pretty much up to the devs.

 

[Venser]

 

[Jrpgfan]

The game is looking good and atmosphere apparently is gonna be done right, but I can't shake off the generic hack n' slash feeling I got from that combat video. It doesn't really fit the tone the devs are trying to set with the game. Why not for example make the PC jump higher than a normal human instead of putting that teleportation crap with over the top effects?

 

[Bubbles]

I like the part where the good doctor has a heartful discussion about the nature of guilt in the park, then turns around and starts rummaging through the trash cans for rusty screws.

 

[Morgoth]

Why not for example make the PC jump higher than a normal human instead of putting that teleportation crap with over the top effects?

Perhaps the PC isn't supposed to give off a powerful Wolverine vibe, or perhaps the teleportation effect is easier to implement from an art/animation point of view. Whatever, this is Dontnod so don't expect them to excel in gameplay.

 

[Zombra]

Wait, someone thinks that Tomb Raider style backflipping would be more in theme than turning into mist? The combat doesn't look great, but the lack of Mario moves seems like a weird thing to complain about.

Now the trash digging, that is worth our disapproval. Not far enough removed from breaking open a barrel to find a chicken leg.

 

[ArchAngel]

We are talking about near start of 20th century, trash diving was basically done by everyone but the highest class.

 

[Zombra]

We are talking about near start of 20th century, trash diving was basically done by everyone but the highest class.

So was pooping. That doesn't make it good atmospheric gameplay.

 

[Jrpgfan]

Wait, someone thinks that Tomb Raider style backflipping would be more in theme than turning into mist? The combat doesn't look great, but the lack of Mario moves seems like a weird thing to complain about.

Now the trash digging, that is worth our disapproval. Not far enough removed from breaking open a barrel to find a chicken leg.

Not backfliping. Just jump a little bit higher than the average human(when needed). It makes much more sense than turning into mist or whatever the fuck that is. Of course that's not the only problem with the combat, it's just one example.

As bad as VtMB combat is, it's a much better fit for this kind of game than that hack and slash crap they showed.

 

[Prime Junta]

That looks pretty good actually. Combat looks almost as screwed-up as in VtM:B though but eh.

 

[Serious_Business]

Cool hitler haircut & beard

Fucking kids these days eh

 

[toro]

That looks pretty good actually. Combat looks almost as screwed-up as in VtM:B though but eh.

More like Dishonored. There was no Blink in VtM:B.

 

[curry]

Looks like a button smasher with a few pieces of dialogue

 

[Lhynn]

More like Dishonored. There was no Blink in VtM:B.

Its not the only thing its borrowing from dishonored. Locking the fun of the game behind a barrier of morality and alignment is fucking retarded.

 

[Azrael the cat]

Accompanying text:

May 24, 2016

Vampyr images depict the protagonist's duality: can you be both a savior and a monster?

Vampyr, the new action-RPG from acclaimed game-development studio DontNod, releases new images today depicting the duality of the central character. Set in London, 1918, Vampyr promises to offer a unique and deeply immersive experience, and a strong and engaging narrative steeped in vampire mythology.

In Vampyr, players take control of Dr. Jonathan Reid, a newly formed vampire who is torn between the Hippocratic Oath he swore as a doctor, and the bloodthirsty need to kill due to the monster within. While London suffers from the Spanish Flu pandemic, your first reflex as a doctor would be to help and heal people... but it will be impossible for you to ignore your inner, violent, nature of Vampyr - first and foremost, you are a lethal predator.

As a Vampyr, you have to accept your need to sacrifice people to survive. Feeding on people will be the basis of your character progression, as it will allow you to learn supernatural Vampyr powers and talents that will be useful in persuasion, locomotion, survivability, and combat. So the dilemma that's offered to you isn't "should I kill people?" but more "who will I kill"? And this decision won't be without consequences. Killing one person will create a rippling effect on London's ecosystem and you will have to live with both the repercussions and their death on your conscience. Decide to feed on a renowned doctor from the city hospital, and progressively see the health condition of the patients drop.

Every life saved and every life taken by Reid will have deadly ramifications to London and the people around it. When Vampyr releases in 2017, players will be asked: how far are you ready to go?

Sounds like lots of railroaded choices. I am pretty sure in 1918 London you could kill 1000 random commoners through the city and make no dent on it functioning. Unless your vampire powers depend on who you feed from.
I can bet the streets will be eerily empty of commoners :D

Well the text isnt about random commoners but people in important positions. Im sure draining a generic streetwhore or generic hobo will have less consequences.


Also, let me remind that Jack the Ripper only had a confirmed kill count of 5 and he operated much earlier when police forces were strictly divided in districts and didnt really give a fuck about murder cases of prostitutes. Yet the case spawned worldwide attention and some claim its media attention inspired early development criminology (which was born around the same time). So killing thousands of victims leaving bitemarks (with the dracula mythology already being present in modern pop culture) would have led to pretty much attention back then.


@Discussion: Pacifist runs have always been a challenge to rpgs, we should be happy that theyre implented.
And i also agree that doing good should pose hurdles to jump and not throw "moar exp, moar gold, everybody loves you and sucks your cock" at the player.

Ripping open people is much more noticeable than people dying from lack of blood. Also why cannot you drain them part way like in Bloodlines?

Well either way, they had coroners and death certificates by that stage, which is why Jack the Ripper got noticed - police might not notice that prostitutes go missing

Spoiler

(though I think you're over-estimating that point - each pair of police would have a local nightly patrol route where they'd get to know all the people conducting business in the evening on their route, plus there's a certain frenemy relationship even now between the police and the 'harmless criminals'', the ones they round up for minor stuff every Monday to show that they're doing their job, no struggle bringing them in because it's just a weekly routine for both sides, they end up chatting to them while they're in the holding cells, and end up getting to know them

, but it's the coroner's office that notices when a whole chain of corpses with similar violent deaths and backgrounds start coming in.

Similarly, they're going to notice when they get a chain of bodies on the slab bizarrely drained of all their blood. The coroner is going to be weirded out when the first bloodless body shows up on his slab. By the third, he'll have triggered a serial killer investigation.

It's one major difference between game stealth-murdering and real life (with all my experience in that area, of course). In games, it's always about not letting random people see you, regardless of whether they could give a useful description of you. In reality, it's corpse disposal that's the main problem, and it's almost always how 'civillian' killers (i.e. not part of organised crime, and hence without access to sophisticated corpse disposal resources) get caught. It's really damn hard to prevent a body from showing up, even weighted bags into the river have a nasty habit of rising and washing up on the shore. Any attempt to prevent corpse discovery/identification will itself reveal that there's a deliberate murder - bodies don't just disappear, and unless you're part of organised crime, you probably aren't going to manage to remove their teeth, dispose of the flesh/hair in acid, etc without leaving a massive trail.

 

[Prime Junta]

Any attempt to prevent corpse discovery/identification will itself reveal that there's a deliberate murder - bodies don't just disappear, and unless you're part of organised crime, you probably aren't going to manage to remove their teeth, dispose of the flesh/hair in acid, etc without leaving a massive trail.

Murderers living in areas with volcanic springs have all the luck though. Dump the body in a boiling-hot spring of sulfuric acid-saturated water, and even the teeth will be gone in a matter of hours. Bit risky though so you don't fall in yourself...

 

[toro]

Codex advice are the opposite of what they should be: lethal weapons

 

[vortex]

https://www.destructoid.com/dontnod...6.phtml?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

At a cursory glance, Vampyr, developer Dontnod Entertainment's third game, could not be any more different from Life is Strange. One's an action role-playing game set in early 1900s London; the other is an exploration- and narrative-based drama. After getting a 15-minute look at Vampyr, there's a lot more similarity between the two than anyone would guess.

It's not the surface details that give away the connection between Vampyr and Life is Strange, though. Instead, it's the underlying theme. Like Life is Strange, Vampyr constantly gives the player new ethical quandaries and asks them to decide between options that don't necessarily have an obviously-right answer.

Murder seems to be the central conceit for all of Vampyr's moral choices. As its namesake suggests, Vampyr is about a vampire. That's the protagonist, Dr. Jonathan Reid, a medical professional who also has a thirst for blood. He's caught between helping patients and killing them to sustain his own life.
Vampyr has a couple of systems in place to make the vampire parts more manageable. There's an Arkham-like detective-vision that offers insight as to how healthy each person is. There's also branching dialogue a la Mass Effect that helps reveal information about potential victims. The idea seems to be that scoundrels and lowlifes are better dead rather than upstanding citizens.

While we're making comparisons to other games, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the Bloodborne connections. London at night (which is the only time we saw during the demo) evokes a lot of the same gothic overtones as From Software's 2015 masterpiece. Also, the combat seemed somewhat reliant on the melee-to-gun combination that made Bloodborne a quicker affair.

 

[Bubbles]

branching dialogue a la Mass Effect