Your opinion on Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines

[~*´¨¯¨`*·~-.¸-AIN'T]

What the fuck Wyrmie.

It's Wyrmlord dear.

Apparently you haven't made your Wyrmloard.txt yet...

I really don't get your double standards, Jaesun.

Normally, you are part of the Champions of Krynn, Buck Rogers, or Might and Magic crowd. You are normally suspicious of building RPGs only on purely superficial peripheral elements, such as talking, romances, story, et cetera, et cetera. And then you have showed your suspicions towards what you yourself call Another Crappy Shooter #375869 being passed off as a RPG.

But all these things are acceptable when they come from the Obsidian/Troika crowd. How? Why?

Oblivion's combat system and Bloodline's combat system are equally clunky. Why should Bloodlines get a free pass?

Knights of the Old Republic 2 had the exact same annoying interface and annoying combat system as Knights of the Old Republic. But you consider the former to be a defining watershed in gaming, while the latter to be an awful forgettable game.

I really just don't get your pro-Obsidian/Troika double standards. Apparently, it is totally okay when they make a BioWare/Bethesda style game. Feel free to correct me if I am wrong. But I really really really want to know - WHY?

I don't want to speak for Jaesun, but I think you're missing a really big issue here. The problem with building RPGs on what you call "superficial peripheral elements" isn't actually a problem for most people on the 'Dex. The problem comes about when a developer like Bioware bases the entire game around those elements, and more importantly, fails spectacularly. The difference between DA:O/ME/etc. and Bloodlines/PS:T/etc. is that the story, plot, dialogue, character, etc. in the former are godawful, while in the latter they're quite interesting. Yeah, I know "storyfag" and all that, but your comparison of KOTOR 1 with KOTOR 2 shows just how much you don't get it. Combat is important, but you can have a good game without having good combat if the other elements are done well. In Bloodlines they are. In Biowhore/Beth games they aren't.

Also another thing you're missing is that Jaesun rails against shitty action games with little to no RPG elements. Say what you want about Bloodlines, but the RPG elements are there, and they play a big role in the gameplay. Character customization and development is an important part of Bloodlines, hell just being a different clan opens up completely new abilities. And while a lot of the abilities turn out to not be very good, there's still enough to make choosing your stat and skill points wisely an important part of the game. Troika never made a Bioware/Bethesda style game (in the modern sense, i.e. not counting BG or Morrowind/Daggerfall), and your comparison to the two basically means that you're a complete and utter combatfag, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it would be nice for you to just admit it and get out of discussions with people who actually care about story and RPG elements.

 

[Wyrmlord]

One game is a free roam exploration based FPS, the other one is a game with a tight narration. Are you seriously throwing both in the same bin and compare the quality on this point?

All those games involve hubs in which you can do a few sidequests, before the next hub is opened up by the next main quest. So it's not that much different. Of course, the way of telling the story is different. One does it through people who talk to you. Other does it through clues, PDAs,.etc you find yourself.

But let's look back 4 years before Bloodlines and see the game to which it is most often compared. Deus Ex. That game has aged much better than Bloodlines, because even replaying it today, I discover new things I never saw before. I also find new emergent solutions I conceive myself. But in Bloodlines, there is one way in which you can apply skill and there is one result that it has. Using strength and running augmentations in Deus Ex, one could set boxes one top of another, and jump from very high places in the map in ways not intended by developers. That kind of emergent solution does not come into play Bloodlines often. So you have very replayability here, other than change in dialogue options thanks to changing your clan.

Of course, when I played my Tremere in Bloodlines, I used Bloodburst on a Chinese guy, hoping he'd blow away people nearby as well. That was one emergent solution I hoped to see put to use. But no, the other Chinese guys never walked near me to attack me, so my bait didn't work.

PS: Bloodlines relied a lot on scripted, triggered fights, which I don't think work very well in any game ever. It was my complaint about HR as well.

 

[Surf Solar]

In-game talking works best when you type answers yourself

Which basically means that the player talks with the npc, instead of the playercharacter in relation to the skills/stats/other variables in the game? Derp.

 

[Wyrmlord]

I don't want to speak for Jaesun, but I think you're missing a really big issue here. The problem with building RPGs on what you call "superficial peripheral elements" isn't actually a problem for most people on the 'Dex. The problem comes about when a developer like Bioware bases the entire game around those elements, and more importantly, fails spectacularly. The difference between DA:O/ME/etc. and Bloodlines/PS:T/etc. is that the story, plot, dialogue, character, etc. in the former are godawful, while in the latter they're quite interesting. Yeah, I know "storyfag" and all that, but your comparison of KOTOR 1 with KOTOR 2 shows just how much you don't get it. Combat is important, but you can have a good game without having good combat if the other elements are done well. In Bloodlines they are. In Biowhore/Beth games they aren't.

Also another thing you're missing is that Jaesun rails against shitty action games with little to no RPG elements. Say what you want about Bloodlines, but the RPG elements are there, and they play a big role in the gameplay. Character customization and development is an important part of Bloodlines, hell just being a different clan opens up completely new abilities. And while a lot of the abilities turn out to not be very good, there's still enough to make choosing your stat and skill points wisely an important part of the game. Troika never made a Bioware/Bethesda style game (in the modern sense, i.e. not counting BG or Morrowind/Daggerfall), and your comparison to the two basically means that you're a complete and utter combatfag, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it would be nice for you to just admit it and get out of discussions with people who actually care about story and RPG elements.

Except KotOR 2 relies entirely on funnel points. It's a narrative told in a manner where you enter a planet, do the quests there, and then find the planet blocked afterwards entirely with all the quests there cancelled. This sort of thing never happened in Fallout. Fallout's style of telling the narrative was far less linear, in which people could pick up pieces of the story in their own entirely unique and different order. KotOR 2 forced the story in a very linear progression that fails by the standards of even a 1996 game. So even if I pretend to be a storytard, I don't see the merit here. Even Bethesda's Daggerfall executed story far better and in a far more original manner than KotOR 2. Despite being made 8 years before.

Again, some people deliberately lower their standards when it is Obsidian involved. Fine, but why? I am dead curious.

 

[Wyrmlord]

In-game talking works best when you type answers yourself

Which basically means that the player talks with the npc, instead of the playercharacter in relation to the skills/stats/other variables in the game? Derp.

Why, it's challenging.

Taking notes of the Lizardmen's language from here and there, constructing your own mini dictionary from it, and then writing questions in their language is pretty far from derp.

It also works nicely with the Tell Me About feature in Fallout, where you try to find answers yourself instead of being limited by the dialogue system. And the quests that are solved by typing answers in the Might and Magic games have a particularly strong level of involvement themselves, right?

 

[Excidium]

It's a decent, easily replayable game. I mean, it has many issues, what with the clunky combat and banal shit boring plot, but it's the only VTM game that isn't total garbage, so I'll take what I get.

 

[DwarvenFood]

What is the connection between Lacuna Coil (I was a fan before playing the game) and Bloodlines ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xf8pcDLORY

I also like the music that plays in the Asylum, though it probably makes some codexers' toes curl. If anyone wants a quick laugh, take a nosferatu there and do the dancing animation

Ah, Swamped. Their older work is better though.

 

[Surf Solar]

In-game talking works best when you type answers yourself

Which basically means that the player talks with the npc, instead of the playercharacter in relation to the skills/stats/other variables in the game? Derp.

Why, it's challenging.

Taking notes of the Lizardmen's language from here and there, constructing your own mini dictionary from it, and then writing questions in their language is pretty far from derp.

It also works nicely with the Tell Me About feature in Fallout, where you try to find answers yourself instead of being limited by the dialogue system. And the quests that are solved by typing answers in the Might and Magic games have a particularly strong level of involvement themselves, right?

Sorry, but what? Last time I checked RPGs were about character skills, not player skills. Let's take away all combat related skills too, shit on AC, shit on THAC0, who needs this when the player can rather twitch his way through the game?!

FYI , the "tell me about" feauture in FO1 was very undeveloped and basicalyl served only as flavour. No quest really relied on the player using it as it would go against the other dialogue mechanics and no one really used it, hence why it was taken out in FO2.

 

[CappenVarra]

Just a quick observation: stealth in Bloodlines sucked horribly. However, Obfuscate was one of the best parts of the game.

And I don't mean "it allowed you to skip boring combat blah blah" - I mean I developed an obsessive compulsion to spend as much time Obfuscated as possible, listening to those Malkavian (Madness Network?) whispers, starting each combat Obfuscated, planning enemy execution order so I could kill them off one by one without being noticed by the others, scouting ahead and then returning to clean the levels when I knew the layout etc.

In other words, while many elements of general Bloodlines gameplay were clunky, just the "Obfuscate mini-game" could be a whole game I would buy and play the fuck out of.

It kinda sucked that all supernatural enemies could automatically see through it (instead of depending on Auspex ranks), but I understand how it was a gameplay / balance trade-off, and compensated by also working on surveillance cameras (which is not the case in PnP).

A downside of this is addiction withdrawal - whenever I start a character without Obfuscate, I remember the Glory of the Green Veil and just can't bother to play without it...

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

I missed out Bloodlines because I have read a review in a gaming magazine that criticized it for being too linear, a shitty FPS and not a true cRPG.

 

[Multidirectional]

Yeah yeah it's flawed as hell and combat kinda sucks (especially melee) yet it still is somehow one of the awesomest games I've ever played. Too late too play it now? Horseshit. I still have tons of fun replaying it for nth time, and I don't need any mods except unofficial patch too. It might be solely for atmosphere/storyfag reasons but try naming one game that did dialogues and characters better. And fully fucking voiced too. Hell even facial expressions in it are still unmatched by most modern games. "Too late" my ass.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Last time I checked RPGs were about

 

[Wyrmlord]

Shoot me, Ed.

 

[Azrael the cat]

One of my favourites out of the FP hybrid genre. Not up there with Deus Ex in terms of regular replays (I still do at least one run of Deus Ex per year - for me, it's the equivalent of what most of you folks see in Fallout 1), but I still replay it a lot. Wesp's patches usually make good excuses for me to replay them, even if they are just that - excuses, that is.

I can understand all the criticisms people make of it, and I can also understand why most folk seem to consider it a 2-playthrough game (one normal, one malk), but I seem to get a lot of value out of different builds, from stealth to hulk/melee to guns (never straight combat though). I think it's because it's one of the few games that does a strong job of allowing you to play 'the manipulative bastard' build (ala PS:T and MotB), not as much as some, given that you can't manipulate minions into fighting for you, but still an excellent use of charisma/speech/information-skills. Yeah, I'm a story-fag, but I actually see that as more of a mechanic than a story-thing. You can do it regardless of whether you want to be 'good' or 'evil', and regardless of which faction you choose, so it's more of a gameplay option than a story option.

Also, the part that really kills the game for some - i.e. the long sewers corridor-shooting detour - is less annoying on later replays, as I know where to go and can breeze through it really quickly. I think it also helps a lot having a good guns build by that stage of the game, as well as knowing how to conserve ammo well and knowing where the quick exits to the surface are, so you can restock on ammo without too much backtracking. Firearms builds, for me, make the game a lot more balanced - they start to really become more powerful than melee around the same time that the game starts throwing long combat sections at you, allowing you to clear otherwise tedious sections (the sewers, end-game - if all the combat sections were as well-designed as your attack on Bach's vampire-hunter base, the game would have been much stronger) quite quickly. And they just seem to be a lot more fun than melee, especially in combination with the disciplines. E.g. the speed discipline with a melee build just means running fast up to a guy/thing and hacking at it, whereas there's actually some fun to be had in the sewers using the speed to run fast behind the big fat abominations and empty an uzi clip into them. Similarly, at the Tong's nightclub (before your encounter with the wannabe vampire hunter / scientist) I always found the 'aggro everyone and fight your way out' option to be rather dull, as though the game wanted me to use stealth and was punishing me for not doing so. With a guns build, using the speed and aura disciplines while tearing through the place with automatic weapons, and feeding on anyone unfortunate enough to get close, it just felt utterly badass

 

[attackfighter]

Santa Monica was the best part of the game.

- best atmosphere
- Therese/Jeanette storyline was truly awesome and memorable
- nearly all of the skills had their uses
- bloodbank + the guy who sells you blood were both cool
- music was great (both the Asylum music and the street music)

Oh and also Bloodlines had better melee combat than Skyrim.

 

[Multidirectional]

Firearms builds, for me, make the game a lot more balanced - they start to really become more powerful than melee around the same time that the game starts throwing long combat sections at you, allowing you to clear otherwise tedious sections (the sewers, end-game - if all the combat sections were as well-designed as your attack on Bach's vampire-hunter base, the game would have been much stronger) quite quickly.

The only section in which firearms suck is first chapter, which has little combat and can be done with melee weapons without investing a single point in melee skill (Blood Buff is all you'll ever need). In second city you start getting sufficiently powerful firearms and there's no reason to look back. I only done melee build once and found it way less fun than shooting stuff, so that sealed the deal for me.

 

[~*´¨¯¨`*·~-.¸-AIN'T]

Except KotOR 2 relies entirely on funnel points. It's a narrative told in a manner where you enter a planet, do the quests there, and then find the planet blocked afterwards entirely with all the quests there cancelled. This sort of thing never happened in Fallout. Fallout's style of telling the narrative was far less linear, in which people could pick up pieces of the story in their own entirely unique and different order. KotOR 2 forced the story in a very linear progression that fails by the standards of even a 1996 game. So even if I pretend to be a storytard, I don't see the merit here. Even Bethesda's Daggerfall executed story far better and in a far more original manner than KotOR 2. Despite being made 8 years before.

Again, some people deliberately lower their standards when it is Obsidian involved. Fine, but why? I am dead curious.

Sorry I thought this thread was about Bloodlines, not KOTOR2? Because if its about the former, then your reply is a ridiculous focus on a very minor part of my overall point while ignoring the much more important parts of the argument.

 

[Menckenstein]

It's the least shitty of the WoD games I guess. There's some good bits in there but it took forever for it not to be a broken piece of shit, no thanks to Troika.

 

[Monocause]

Funny thing is that I stopped replaying the game during my goth years, mainly because the crappier people at goth parties kept masturbating about it. Even worse, the DJs used to play Chiasm occasionally, only so that I had to witness the morons trying to do a VTMB dance impersonation.

One of the better games I ever played though. Excellent atmosphere, gameplay mechanics feeling excellent at times, sometimes merely passable but never getting past the frustration threshold that makes me quit certain games. Level design hits a steep decline at some point but well, whenever I enter one of the stupid levels like Sewers and Hallowbrook or the levels that are just no longer fun enough at replays like Grout's Mansion or Ocean House I just noclip&god them to cut the tedium and fast forward to the good parts.

 

[Oriebam]

It's a decent, easily replayable game.

We're gonna need a few more years of plus patches for actual replayability

 

[SCO]

It kinda sucked that all supernatural enemies could automatically see through it (instead of depending on Auspex ranks)

They don't. I think they need to have auspex activated.

The blood hunt guys appear to have it on 24-7 i think. But the boozos at the Ventrue tower i'm quite sure i backstabed one by one.

A downside of this is addiction withdrawal - whenever I start a character without Obfuscate, I remember the Glory of the Green Veil and just can't bother to play without it...

You can cheat disciplines in to any clan. However, the dialogs use of disciplines check for clan. Not a problem for obsfuscate and celerity though. And remember, the game has no grinding (except the "happens-before" game with the books, so it's hard to fill more than one additional discipline; i don't say "impossible", but you'll be negleting important things for a ability limited by blood)

It's the least shitty of the WoD games I guess. There's some good bits in there but it took forever for it not to be a broken piece of shit, no thanks to Troika.

Remember, the last patch that fixed the crash on the hunter's cave was unpaid by the publisher.

 

[Stinger]

I played it after it was patched heavily by fans. I'd say it was a pretty good game based on that. Combat and stealth were definitely clunky but your character build made a fair bit of difference in how you approached each quest and I really liked how many dialogue options you got for all sorts of reasons in your build.

EDIT: Wait a sec, what's this doing in GG?

 

[garren]

Great atmosphere, characters and music. Kinda linear though, and combat is derp. Dialogue is fine.

Still, all in all, probably one of my top 5 games.

 

[Demnogonis Saastuttaja]

+ Good atmosphere.

- Awful combat.

- Awful stealth.

+ Some really cool characters.

+ Good dialogue and writing.

'xactly.

- Awful work with the lore.

How so? I thought it fits pretty well. Now I haven't read many Masquerade sourcebooks but it doesn't seem to me like VTMB does worse than takes a few unnecessary liberties.

- Worst hunters EVER.

Dunno. I sort of like Bach, he's such a stupid asshole, just fitting to my view of hunters.

- Awful adaptation of Vampiric Disciplines.

Yeah. Why not twist even the social and mental disciplines in to combat ones, it's sure not like we have enough of those anyway.

+ Good club music.

Sure beats the crap I hear here.

- No facegen, and most clans are UGLY. Really UGLY.

- Awful clothes.

True, but mostly you don't even see your character. But this game has a cheat that sets global breast sizes, the default is 0 and you can set it to 9. What other game has that?

+ Nice use of Jerk Prince's disciplines to push the story along.

- Why does it stop working at the end?

You got willpower 10 with magic experience. Dunno, to me it always seemed like Dominate shouldn't work if your generation actually is as low as it's hinted at.

- Giovanni Mannor.

- The Sewers.

- the quei-jin temple, -the ventrue building... Jesus, don't you want to kill some HP bloat humans, sure is funny how many bullets they can take. Protip : you can just pretty much run around the sewers without engaging any of the monsters there, since you don't get anything for killing them.

- No homonculi for Tremere
- Really half assed reaction to your Clan choice, when there's one at all.

Adding to that how Disciplines work, you can't have an animal ghoul. Or any useful ghouls at all come to think of it.

- Epic final boss.

Two of them. Jesus what bullshit.

- Worst thaumaturgy EVER.

At least it's powerful, not something like "Here's your level 4 discipline, summon some amount of fog in between two to twenty hours. Well it'd been great if they had made a Dark Ages game, but just imagine how they would portray Mortis. "Make a corpse move one limb, it can't be an attack".

Anyway, an unfinished RPG with terrible gameplay, still draws you in with the setting and good atmosphere. I wish it was rather a Dark Ages vampire game with more freedom and less railroad story, and above all, good gameplay, but it's still better to have it than not.

 

[laclongquan]

What do you mean awful stealth? You could try sneak, you could try obfuscate. When your skill is insufficient for ghosting straight, you use obstacles to break their line of sight.