It removes a layer of narrative distance and really adds to the sense of role play. Like consider how you would try to track down a someone in a fantasy world versus Bloodlines. In the former, you have to learn the lore, figure out where an archive or library or record keeper or whatever is, track down details on some group or guild, etc
Bloodlines? I'd probably check the apartments nearby, looking for last names. Check the area map and go to the places where people hang out and ask around. Browse a computer (ie checking the actor database for find out what happened to GInger Swan). There's a relatable logic to that due to the familiar modern technology and resources.
This is a thing that I really like which is fantasy worlds where the fantasy doesn't come from a whole new universe itself (like Lord of The Rings, Star Wars, The Elders Scrolls, etc.), but one that takes place in a modified version of our real world, with direct real life politics involved in it, it just makes exploration and decision making much more interesting to me, the escapism aspect of it is much stronger, and the way that they have been talking about Bloodlines 2 just makes me happier when it comes to that. It's also really interesting how much less needs to be explained to the player when you can rely on common knowledge to guide them.
Yup. Partner played a fair bit of Santa Monica and the Ocean House Hotel in the past (not that that hurt my enjoyment of those areas at all lol), everything past that is basically brand new to me.
Everyone says "Dont play Malkavian on a first playthrough!" but the whole thing with Malkavians is they dont really understand whats going on either. Getting wierd little insights you dont understand because you dont understand whats going to happen yet in the plot is part of the fun!
I've definitely enjoyed the ambiguous prophecies and oddball lines a lot. I've anticipated a few lines in advance, and the language is often just shit I say.
the ocean house thing kinda fell apart for me when I spent 15 minutes wandering around the same rooms over and over till I eventually found a set of keys I didn't have
totally killed the atmosphere
and not just in an annoyance kinda way either,because of how heavily scripted it is it meant that literally nothing was happening as I backtracked over and over looking for the way forward
also it felt really anticlimactic at the end with the pendant just appearing in front of you like that
Are you playing with the "plus" patch? Cause that might be one of the "controversial" additions.
Before replaying it with the plus patch, I played for a bit upto the 3rd hub without it. and yeah the patch definitely gives more exp points. In fact, one of the earliest quests in the patch, Saving Heather, wasn't really a quest in vanilla and definitely didn't give you a exp point. That said, having beaten the main story with the patch and a majority of side quests, I think the balance is still fine and you won't max out all of your stats by the game's end.
Never played this before and I have no knowledge of the tabletop game on which it's based, but it always looked interesting to me. Picked it up on GOG.
So I started playing as a Nosferatu and I'm almost done with Santa Monica, so far I have seen no reason to use the sewers, I can easily get anywhere on the streets just by avoiding people on the way, besides, plenty of locations in this early area don't have specific sewer entrances so you need to walk in there through the street entrance anyway. :P
Also random street NPCs seeing you and going "Oh my god! VAMPIRE", making you violate the masquerade, and quest NPCs just going "Wow, you're weird looking" is pretty jarring, I wish more quest NPCs interactions where like the one with the old lady at the dinner where she just screams and has an heart attack.
The plus patch adds plenty of stuff and it's all pretty great. Graphics mod wise I have yet to find anything that is a must have, most stuff that I have found doesn't actually properly improve graphics as much as it just throws a filter over the game.
I finished Venus' quest. When should I check on her for my free money? I could use it to buy ammo as I plan on being gun focused later on.
Another question, I read on the wiki that Nines Rodriguez would give me a free Melee stat after the Elizabeth Dane quest but there's no dialog option when I talk to him after finishing the Dane quest. Is that exclusive to Plus? I currently have 3 Melee, andI know he gave me a free Brawl stat when I talked to him for the first time in the bar.
I finished Venus' quest. When should I check on her for my free money? I could use it to buy ammo as I plan on being gun focused later on.
Another question, I read on the wiki that Nines Rodriguez would give me a free Melee stat after the Elizabeth Dane quest but there's no dialog option when I talk to him after finishing the Dane quest. Is that exclusive to Plus? I currently have 3 Melee, andI know he gave me a free Brawl stat when I talked to him for the first time in the bar.
I have been playing this since this last weekend, and I got hooked more than I was expecting ha ha. I tend to not really get into CRPG, but this game, I am all in, despite also being frustrated with it's bugs and jank time and time again. It is definitely very rough around the edges to the point that it does drag the game down a little, but man is there so much great stuff here.
This game really sells this world of supernatural so damn well, with very intriguing characters and world building, along with top notch atmosphere to being out the dark parts of LA. I love stuff like the ocean hotel and Grout's mansion which are downright creepy, and in the latter's case, very bizarre heh.
I decided to go with Tremere, and I am enjoying what I have unlocked in their Disciplines. Thaumaturgy seems to be exclusive to them, and I like stealing a bit of blood and causing enemies to throw up. XD Been focusing on guns too, which is not quite as enjoyable, but I been getting better guns in recent play, so maybe it be more of a blast soon. I found out a way to get some good money from going through the story.
The church nightclub where you can be a silent partner to it, so that's nice.
Got through the Warrens! It's true that it's a drag lol. Too empty, could use more vampires and NPCs, combat was overlong and too samey, and I got stuck in a few places trying to figure out how to proceed (the way forward was never as clever as its contemporary Half-Life 2 conditioned me to expect lol (seriously, that zappy water room with the palettes and barrels sent me down a really long series of faulty premises)). Have faith that the Seattle underground will be everything the Warrens aren't.
Got through the Warrens! It's true that it's a drag lol. Too empty, could use more vampires and NPCs, combat was overlong and too samey, and I got stuck in a few places trying to figure out how to proceed (the way forward was never as clever as its contemporary Half-Life 2 conditioned me to expect lol (seriously, that zappy water room with the palettes and barrels sent me down a really long series of faulty premises)). Have faith that the Seattle underground will be everything the Warrens aren't.
Just finished this up tonight. I was prepared for the end game gauntlet and I still used pretty much all my bloodpacks. At least I wasnt stonewalled at any point.
Pretty much everything came back to me the moment I was brought to each location. I couldn't recall any of it going in but I'm glad to have cleared the cobwebs.
I was frustrated by some of the unevenness more than I expected. Getting stuck on geometry, awkward jumping, my clothes bugging out every other room, etc. It'll be nice to revisit WoD in just a year.
Truly... I'll be doubly-sure to install the plus patch after my inaugural run (was leaning that direction anyway with wanting to see some cut content). I certainly found no shortcuts through the Warrens tonight on the base, just a lot of looping around a directed path to find keycards and the like.
It's annoying how modern games that feature computers rarely feature mouse and/or keyboard interfaces for said computers. Writing a username and password like a normal person into a command prompt or searching through directories using commands is such an elegant thing that is almost extinct in the AAA space because game designers feel compelled to design their games with a dual analogue controller in mind. Even Deus Ex fell prey to this almost immediately after the original game.
Yeah, the Plus patch's Warrens shortcut is going to be a major reason for me to not touch the regular version anymore, that area sucks.
I actually went with a vanilla UP playthrough for my Bloodlines 2 inspired replay, and yeah, I rather regret that now. I guess I'm going to cheat my way through it. Maybe we should be recommending Plus to newbies after all! But hey, I've never really found any of the additions controversial, the restored quests feel quite natural and I appreciate the reimplemented cut music. Anyone have something about Plus that they particularly dislike?
After each major questline, IIRC. But you won't miss out on dollars, it will stack and waits for you and Venus will even notice that, "Been a long time," or something along the line.
Yeah, the Plus patch's Warrens shortcut is going to be a major reason for me to not touch the regular version anymore, that area sucks.
I actually went with a vanilla UP playthrough for my Bloodlines 2 inspired replay, and yeah, I rather regret that now. I guess I'm going to cheat my way through it. Maybe we should be recommending Plus to newbies after all! But hey, I've never really found any of the additions controversial, the restored quests feel quite natural and I appreciate the reimplemented cut music. Anyone have something about Plus that they particularly dislike?
The plus patch making the voices in the Malks head louder and/or more common has really hurt my enjoyment of that clan. I don't know what version he added that in but it was not there when i last played the game. It's been a few years for full disclosure. On that note I am also pretty sure he added in more people on the streets, not sure if this is plus exclusive, which makes playing a Nos more of a pain than I remember as well.
Also why he thought it was a good idea to put a turnstile in whatever the club downtown is is beyond me. Some of his dialog changes seem unnecessary as well.
Those are just what have noticed in my current playthough. Overall the plus patch is a net positive but some of those changes are still "wtf was he thinking".
The plus patch making the voices in the Malks head louder and/or more common has really hurt my enjoyment of that clan. I don't know what version he added that in but it was not there when i last played the game, it's been a few years.
Also why he thought it was a good idea to put a turnstile in whatever the club downtown is is beyond me. Some of his dialog changes seem unnecessary as well.
Those are just what have noticed in my current playthough. Over all the plus patch is a net postivie but some of those changes are still "wtf was he thinking".
The plus patch making the voices in the Malks head louder and/or more common has really hurt my enjoyment of that clan. I don't know what version he added that in but it was not there when i last played the game. It's been a few years for full disclosure. On that note I am also pretty sure he added in more people on the streets, not sure if this is plus exclusive, which makes playing a Nos more of a pain than I remember as well.
Also why he thought it was a good idea to put a turnstile in whatever the club downtown is is beyond me. Some of his dialog changes seem unnecessary as well.
Those are just what have noticed in my current playthough. Overall the plus patch is a net positive but some of those changes are still "wtf was he thinking".
Ehh, the turnstile is dumb but you only have to deal with it once since you can just ask Venus to remove it. About the Malks, I can't understand a single word from what the voices said last time I played as them so I would probably like for them to be louder. Making Nosferatu actually have to worry walking the streets is a good thing in my book, besides if the patch is actually adding more people to the streets then the original had completely barren streets.
This game is so sensitive to modding. I moved one file and the game crashed so I put it back now game still crashes. I was trying to swap the default malk clothing
Edit fixed it. I guess I just needed to make sure the exe had admin rights
Ehh, the turnstile is dumb but you only have to deal with it once since you can just ask Venus to remove it. About the Malks, I can't understand a single word from what the voices said last time I played as them so I would probably like for them to be louder. Making Nosferatu actually have to worry walking the streets is a good thing in my book, besides if the patch is actually adding more people to the streets then the original had completely barren streets.
Except that he also has them congregate in places that make it a bitch to cast obfuscate. Like say outside the Asylum where you can't cast it before you leave and cant sometimes cast it right outside because there are people standing around the door. It's not a huge problem since I know the score and he seems to have made it take a while before people will freak out and give you a masquerade violation or maybe it always took a bit and I just never noticed. Either way i found it annoying.
As for the voices yeah it sounds good in theory in practice its random voices saying random things at what seems like every minute or two. Don't know if it is done by triggers and I just keep going over them or if it is truly just done at random. Might be accurate to lore but I find it annoying and doubly so when it says its nonsense over someone during a conversation. Making it hard to hear either.
I unlocked Suicide as a Ventrue and oh my God does it make stealth a blast. I just kill a person, put their buddy into a trance, and then just drain them.
I've found thank Mind Wipe doesn't really do much either. Which is a shame, but it is what it is.
Except that he also has them congregate in places that make it a bitch to cast obfuscate. Like say outside the Asylum where you can't cast it before you leave and cant sometimes cast it right outside because there are people standing around the door. It's not a huge problem since I know the score and he seems to have made it take a while before people will freak out and give you a masquerade violation or maybe it always took a bit and I just never noticed.
Casting obfuscate on the streets? Never did that, you can walk past people no problem in the game, you just shouldn't bump into them, and I'm pretty sure I played with and without the Plus patch and either way you can just walk fairly regularly through the streets, never got a masquerade violation while playing normally.
As for the voices yeah it sounds good in theory in practice its random voices saying random things at what seems like every minute or two. Don't know if it is done by triggers and I just keep going over them or if it is truly just done at random. Might be accurate to lore but I find it annoying and doubly so when it says its nonsense over someone during a conversation. Making it hard to hear either.
Casting obfuscate on the streets? Never did that, you can walk past people no problem in the game, you just shouldn't bump into them, and I'm pretty sure I played with and without the Plus patch and either way you can just walk fairly regularly through the streets, never got a masquerade violation while playing normally.
Learn something new everyday it seems. i always assumed as soon as they saw you it was a violation. Had I known it was so generous I would have saved a lot of blood points over the years.
One thing I learned is that if you are in stealth, you can try feeding forever until succeeding as long nobody besides the victim sees you. Normally, failing a feeding attempt triggers a criminal violation.
Wow, someone had linked this series of videos somewhere from the official channel of the World of Darkness and they're just fantastic, fucking loved hearing this dude talk about Vampire: The Masquerade lore, these videos are from the new edition and the "You Are What You Eat" and "The Clans" episodes go into detail about thin-bloods, there were a lot of stuff they talked about in interviews of Bloodlines 2 that you can learn about in these, sincerely the whole series is worth watching to get a sense of how the universe is at this point in time.
It's so fucking satisfying to hear this dude talk, he does an amazing job.
Alright I finally started the game. I'm terrible at RPGs because I've never played table top so stat sheets and all that shit is usually over my head and I end up creating shitty characters that die a lot. Probably the only RPG I've seen all the way through is Oblivion and I'd consider that post-depth RPG just from my basic understanding.
Will maybe keep this updated if I enjoy the game. I'm super fucking bored this weekend so I'll give it at least four hours tonight. The eye movements are so jarring lol.
Alright I finally started the game. I'm terrible at RPGs because I've never played table top so stat sheets and all that shit is usually over my head and I end up creating shitty characters that die a lot. Probably the only RPG I've seen all the way through is Oblivion and I'd consider that post-depth RPG just from my basic understanding.
Will maybe keep this updated if I enjoy the game. I'm super fucking bored this weekend so I'll give it at least four hours tonight. The eye movements are so jarring lol.
Don't worry about your build too much as you get plenty of XP doing quests and this isn't a build heavy game. Lockpicking and Computer seem to be important if you want to do anything but remember Blood Buff and Auspex help each skill respectively.
Don't forget to up your combat skills as the game will get combat heavy near the end. Can be easy to get some points on those as you need less XP for stats that are lower and they still up a skill by a point.
Yeah, invest in social stuff, one combat skill and hacking. Blood Buff grants 5 to all physical stats so putting points there is moot (even more if you get the double duration for Blood Buff artifact after a certain Downtown quest). But as said, also don't worry too much, you are going to get a bunch of points
I finished Venus' quest. When should I check on her for my free money? I could use it to buy ammo as I plan on being gun focused later on.
Another question, I read on the wiki that Nines Rodriguez would give me a free Melee stat after the Elizabeth Dane quest but there's no dialog option when I talk to him after finishing the Dane quest. Is that exclusive to Plus? I currently have 3 Melee, andI know he gave me a free Brawl stat when I talked to him for the first time in the bar.
Late reply but: the free Melee is only if you have less than 3 =P
Most "training" works like that (I didn't get Research from Beckett in the Museum because of that).
Evidently the game gets really buggy for me if I play too long. Had pieces of the environment multiplied all over the place randomly in Hollywood. Even had a giant piece of wall floating in the sky. Partner and I had a good laugh at that.
I'm at the sabbat hotel downtown
Kinda wish I could do more with and for the Anarchs... They're cool.
Evidently the game gets really buggy for me if I play too long. Had pieces of the environment multiplied all over the place randomly in Hollywood. Even had a giant piece of wall floating in the sky. Partner and I had a good laugh at that.
I'm at the sabbat hotel downtown
Kinda wish I could do more with and for the Anarchs... They're cool.
Oh yeah, that's a known glitch. It is indeed tied to long play sessions.
Kind of funny, though I was worried it had broken the game the first time I came across it. Luckily it has always fixed itself after exiting the program so it's not that bad.
Blood Theft can get kind of ridiculous lol. Pretty sure I am very close to the end now.
Currently left off in the quest to kill Ming Xiao. I basically sided with the Anarch at this point. This game definitely got very combat focused, and wasn't really a fan of the Sabbat hotel quest (though Andrei had a better fight here). Cool to know that Griffon Park is Werewolf country. XD
It's annoying how modern games that feature computers rarely feature mouse and/or keyboard interfaces for said computers. Writing a username and password like a normal person into a command prompt or searching through directories using commands is such an elegant thing that is almost extinct in the AAA space because game designers feel compelled to design their games with a dual analogue controller in mind. Even Deus Ex fell prey to this almost immediately after the original game.
Yeah was just talking about this with a friend and how we both love it. It's also part of that famous immersion for me. It made us bit worried now that the second game is also coming to consoles. Nothing wrong with that in itself of course, but would love to have this feature in the sequel too.
I got my first serious glitch, I was dealing with someone in a hotel for Venis and died with my shotgun out. Now every time I reload any save I spawn with my shotgun out giving me a criminal Violation. Are they serious or can I ignore them?
