I'm sworn to secrecy, but I'm really excited for this to be re-revealed. The game looks and is a lot better than the initial gameplay reveal a year back, they've been working hard on the game and it really shows.
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Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 announced (2020 Q2 or later), PS4, X1, Steam/GOG/EGS, Paradox + Hardsuit Labs)
- Thread starter vestan
- Start date
Hmm, I wonder if it'll be around E3 or GamesCom?
Either way, I got BloodMoon edition pre-order sitting on my GOG shelf, so they can take all the time they need with this one.
Good to hear, the game definitely needed the extra dev time following its initial reveal, can't wait to see it again...
I wonder if it will still hit 2020. I'm excited but potentially waiting for a PS5 version.
Hype! Any chance you can hint whether or not it is slated for 2020 still? I had assumed it would get pushed to 2021.
Nah, can't. Sister is very adamant not to share anything, which is obvious but I plan to respect that and not get her in any hot water.
But in the broadest sense anyone worried about the gameplay demo we've seen so far, know the game has come a long way since that build.
This is very reassuring! I can't wait to see what the extra development time/ polish has improved, probably my most anticipated game ever!
With the release postponed, it would be nice to have the game releasing on next gen. A nice way to attract attention of a broader audience.
Part of me wondered if this game would never come out, so that's good to hear!
Honest to god the original Bloodlines is like my favorite game ever for the first two-thirds or so, so you could say i'm pretty exited.
I agree with this so much. I played VtMB back in like 2010, so the game was quite old all ready. I remember being fairly shocked at the contents of the game as I had no idea what I was getting into, just that my friend really really wanted me to play this game and I hadn't played a "make your own vampire" RPG before, so I was intrigued.
I just hope the new VtM2 build retains the ridiculous Dark Messiah of Might and Magic melee impact physics haha.
When I played it for the first time two years ago I was scandalized seeing a male and female NPC walk into an alley only for a blowjob animation to play once they were out of sight of the street.
It was juvenile, but it gave the game such a ridiculously potent atmosphere. A product of its time, but one that felt distilled. I love the atmosphere of that game due to little weird touches like that.
The chief marketing guy at Paradox retweeted the Inside Xbox announcement thing for next week. Could mean nothing of course but I wouldn't be surprised if this ends up there. Paradox and Microsoft seem like they have a good thing going right now.
Well that scene is only restored thanks to the unofficial patch
Sure, but that patch is both absolutely the way anyone should be playing the game and also still content made by troika during development, lol. The game has such a ridiculously 2003 mindset, it brings me back every time.
Looks like it's PC as the lead platform, taking full advantage of that given the ray-tracing etc. So will undoubtedly make full use of next-gen GPU features on PS5/XSX, and be more of a down-port for current gen hardware.
Current gen logos are still up in the site.
If any, I'd expect a next gen port to take advantage of raytracing just like the PC version and some extra detail, but nothing too fancy. We'll probably see a lot of intergenerational games in the next few months.
I'm still kind of baffled by how bad they dropped the ball in terms of communication and outreach, tho. Paradox did great post-announcement with the factions and clans, then some sad community seeking attempts over Reddit that went nowhere and a few blog updates with barely anything substantial. At least Outstar is putting out some work, but it's not like most folks have the time or the attention span to watch long feature videos.
I hope the re-reveal is awesome.
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Yes, in the case of the normal version of that patch.. but for the Plus version is for anyone to decide if he wants to have many unfinished things in his version of the game - I personally doesn't care for the Plus version.. and you wanted to write 2004 mindset in place of 2003, no? :)
The game was in development for a number of years, lol. But yes, anywhere between 2002-2004
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Stop a deadly plague in a medieval fantasy tale of swords and surgery! Unearth medical knowledge, prevent the town’s purge, or plot your own escape.
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That's an interesting take. I don't believe it's for me, but I would have probably loved it in my teens. Incidentally, Outstar just posted an update on the Vampire universe and she talks a fair bit about them.Choose Your Own Adventure with accompanying tracked stats. The actual mechanics vary from author to author.
Here's an example:
Mask of the Plague Doctor
Stop a deadly plague in a medieval fantasy tale of swords and surgery! Unearth medical knowledge, prevent the town’s purge, or plot your own escape.
Catching up on this, congratulations to your sister, and this is wonderful to here. Should be expected too. I figured they showed a really early build of the game that probably wasn't ready for the ludicrously high standards of public consumption.
Keen to see how it looks now.
The thing about the demo is that you could tell the Bloodlines fans from the rest of the gamers just looking at the reactions. It was funny in its own way. Most people who had already played the original game were so accustomed to the jank they were kind of ok with it, while everybody else was put off by the quality of the animations and whatnot.
All that said, looking back at the videos and the screenshots there's something that bugs me about Bloodlines 2, and it's that none of the vampires look dead. According to WoD's lore and descriptions, most of them should look pale and kind of sickly, potentially even slightly inhuman, as if they were walking corpses (which they are). Bloodlines 1 was pretty good recreating that aspect of them, but barring the Nosferatus, most vampires in Bloodlines 2 look pretty damn healthy for being undead monsters.
All that said, looking back at the videos and the screenshots there's something that bugs me about Bloodlines 2, and it's that none of the vampires look dead. According to WoD's lore and descriptions, most of them should look pale and kind of sickly, potentially even slightly inhuman, as if they were walking corpses (which they are). Bloodlines 1 was pretty good recreating that aspect of them, but barring the Nosferatus, most vampires in Bloodlines 2 look pretty damn healthy for being undead monsters.
This.
I think even if the game is janky and with no perfect animations it will do good, at least on PC.
The PC audience can look past the jank and the bad animations as long as the characters, lore and story is really good, just like the original Bloodlines. I really have no hopes for the combat but since Avellone and Mitsuda are on board it's a day one buy.
this is something that sort of comes and goes depending on the people working on the adaptation. there are a lot of technically canon things about appearances and whatnot that often get tweaked or ignored depending on who's writing/designing/GMing WoD stuff. Stuff like "vampires can't taste normal food" "vampires don't care about sex" "vampires look obviously corpselike" is often some of the first stuff to go because a lot of that stuff, let's face it, stands in the way of a lot of easy characterization and at the end of the day that's the fun of the fantasy. Hell, even the first Bloodlines took a lot of liberties with what was technically VTM canon at the time, I think with nearly all of those things I listed and more.
I do agree with you though that the art style in the first VTMB is so grimy that it went a long way to feel like it was nailing those aspects, but I think they just can't replicate that 1:1 with this game. they're going for a more realistic visual style, clearly, and the freaky puppet-like animation of the first game with the bulging eyes and huge mouths and wild gesticulation probably wouldn't look great in that style, as much as I adore how the first game looks. Realistically reproducing the descriptions in the VTM manuals would probably be....unpleasant, and not in the fun sleazy way the first game is imo.
I love the new V:TM stuff, and Coteries was great(if flawed), but I feel like the potential of WW is being ignored here.
Aside from that vaporware of a Werewolf game(come on, at least hint at the damn gameplay), what about Mage, Changeling, Promethean, Geist, etc?
Geist in particular would make a great CSI/Somnium Files-type game.
Aside from that vaporware of a Werewolf game(come on, at least hint at the damn gameplay), what about Mage, Changeling, Promethean, Geist, etc?
Geist in particular would make a great CSI/Somnium Files-type game.
There was a 2017 (?) Gameplay preview I was able to find last summer. It sounded like a typical Cyanide/Spiders game.
The project has been troubled because Cyanide was bought by a publisher, and the publishing rights to Werewolf ended up going from Focus Home to BigBen. I suspect there's some story, because a number of games were affected by this rivalry between 2 mid-tier French publishers.
Werewolf resurfaced last year and it got a trailer at PDXcon, so presumably Paradox are gonna be keeping a closer eye on that project now. BigBen's been making moves (acquiring both Cyanide and Spiders), and Werewolf might be an indication of the kind of budget they're willing to give these teams to work with.
Paradox also announced that Hare Brained Schemes (the studio behind Shadowrun Returns and BattleTech will be switching to work on 2 new in-house IPs. Given their RPG/tactics pedigree, good chances those are gonna be WoD-related.
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I've been keeping tabs on it. They still have yet to show an iota of gameplay.
And I'm excited for that, I just kind of hope it's not V:TM.
Absolutely, the demo build when it was shown off was already over a year old, so when the game is finally reshown it'll be after about an additional 2-2.5 years in development since that build.
Been wondering what was going on with this. Glad to hear we may see some good things from it soon.
I can only imagine Paradox must be prepping some kind of I Can't Believe It's Not The E3 virtual event.
Not unlike most publishers, really. They had to be working on something public.
Not unlike most publishers, really. They had to be working on something public.
My worry was certainly not for the combat animations or jank, but what was going to be done for the dialogue. We have our answer with facial mocap!
And modern nights being as perilous as they are with the Second Inquisition aiding and equipping hunters, I presume most vampires spending time around humans would be regularly using blush of life to divert suspicion. Confers naturalistic-looking skin tone, body heat, a pulse, etc, but it has to be refreshed each night.
I'm not familiar with Geist beyond the outline, but it certainly looks like it would be a fun premise for a video game.
Changeling and Mage would be really cool, but idk how you would make them mechanically... go. More reading needed.
Wraith would make for a fun "visit the same location in two worlds" sort of experience, plus possessing people and mucking about in the fleshlands. It would interface quite well with Vampire, particularly the Hecata clan of necromancers.
My ideal setup for a Mage game would be vaguely along the lines of Bloodlines, just more like Harry Potter. At the start of the game, you would pick your path and your magic specialization, then you would decide what order you're going to be with, which would set the tone for the rest of the game.
Interesting take, but I'd argue that those dark themes present in the first game are staples of the WoD universe and I'd hope the writers of Bloodlines 2 are fully aware of that. The only thing I'm certain they'll be toning down is the absurd titillation of the first game where all of the female characters had their tits shoved down the player's throat lol. It may even be argued that with toning down the edge we might see a more nuanced and mature exploration of the same themes you mentioned. Of course, this is only speculation, but there may be a lot of positives to Bloodlines 2 being a product of its own era.
Anyway, I've played Bloodlines only recently and I can't stress enough how excited I am with the prospect of a new Bloodlines game that's actually finished. Of course, I played Bloodlines with the unofficial patch and even with it, you can see the cracks in the game and the obscene lack of polish which was certainly a product of its rushed release. I was actually pleased when they announced the delay, I want them to take as much time as they need to deliver something special.
New dev diary. Mostly about folks working from home, cats and that kind of stuff, but there's something near the end:
Vamps use cameras now, apparently. It looks like an EVIL model, so it fits.
But enough about us, and what we are up to. What about the game you say! Well first off, here is someone else's WFH setup. Cannot say I know who it is though:
But seriously, stay tuned, we've got more developer diaries to look forward to, and we have some new media dropping Soon™.
Vamps use cameras now, apparently. It looks like an EVIL model, so it fits.
I'm such a sad dork.
