Vampire: The Masquerade® - Bloodlines™ 2

[Havitner]

Why would anyone ever make or play a VtM game (tabletop or vidya) that isn't set in the '90s?

[DrSneed]

buck breaking the ****** ghouls

[DemoGraph]

As always

Yes, I just can't help but envy the masterpiece those folks had created. Alas, no American will ever be as creative as our bong overlords.

Why would anyone ever make or play a VtM game (tabletop or vidya) that isn't set in the '90s?

I, personally, liked medieval vampire settings. And would like to have cyberpunk vamps done right (it would be pretty hard to do, but I'd still like to see the result).

[MrTwinkls]

Why would anyone ever make or play a VtM game (tabletop or vidya) that isn't set in the '90s?

There is a deeper problem rooted here that isn't getting a lot of attention sadly. Most modern writers don't know how to competently incorporate modern widespread tech in their stories for them to feel organic and believable and they are too young to know all the intricacies about how people lived not so long ago to craft stories that were set in the past. So they either ignore tech and other problematic parts for them completely or severely misrepresent the setting that people initially expected. That's also why we've got ******** Californians in every modern piece of media.

[Roguey]

I visited America and absolutely nobody was talking about guns or cowboy hats or freedom of speech or big cars. And yet that's what America is known for.

America is a massive country. You'll see some that kind of chatter at gun ranges and such.

That's ok I won't hold it against you. The music compilation you posted sounds like generic garbage. Could have been recorded at any point between the 90s and now. Because it has no character. It is really bad.

Timeless is fine.
Massive Attack - Angel
This is good, but sounds very much like a late-90s track. Aside from the dated production values, it doesn't sound radically different from what I posted, but it makes you soyface for some reason.

Bloodlines 2's voice-over and music received a BAFTA nomination, but alas, lost to Dispatch. Still the thought that counts, it was in the running.

Wrong and wrong. You're mixing up Bloodlines and the setting. Not the same thing.

Vampire the Masquerade took place in modern times. Bloodlines the game took place in the year it came out, 2004.

Why would anyone ever make or play a VtM game (tabletop or vidya) that isn't set in the '90s?

Ask Troika.

[J1M]

@Atlantico doing the Lord's work in this thread.

The reason Bloodlines works set in 2004 is because that is 90s adjacent. You lose some Gehenna dread being post-Y2K, but it is largely a 90s period piece, which is what works best for that property.

[Atlantico]

America is a massive country. You'll see some that kind of chatter at gun ranges and such.

Exactly. And Seattle is a big city. You'll have someone talking about grunge there at any time in any year.

Vampire the Masquerade took place in modern times. Bloodlines the game took place in the year it came out, 2004.

Thank you for confirming that Bloodlines does not == Vampire the Masquerade setting

That's why it's called Bloodlines. It's a specific thing with it's specific esthetic. Pick one of the visual novels that were published for the setting. They are nothing like Bloodlines. And they shouldn't be. They're not Bloodlines. But an unfortunate choice was made.

To call this game Bloodlines 2.

[Roguey]

@Atlantico doing the Lord's work in this thread.

The reason Bloodlines works set in 2004 is because that is 90s adjacent. You lose some Gehenna dread being post-Y2K, but it is largely a 90s period piece, which is what works best for that property.

No one ever creates a contemporary setting with the intention that it's a period piece meant for future generations. The idea was to sell it to people who were playing games back then. In the 00s, it stopped selling, so they ended the line and replaced it with another. That one lasted about seven years before it stopped selling, so they revived the original as a 20th anniversary event, then released a new edition to replace it seven years later. Been published for eight years now.

Exactly. And Seattle is a big city. You'll have someone talking about grunge there at any time in any year.

Anyone stuck in 1994 would be irrelevant to the themes of this particular story.

Thank you for confirming that Bloodlines does not == Vampire the Masquerade setting

That's why it's called Bloodlines. It's a specific thing with it's specific esthetic. Pick one of the visual novels that were published for the setting. They are nothing like Bloodlines. And they shouldn't be. They're not Bloodlines. But an unfortunate choice was made.

To call this game Bloodlines 2.

Brian Mitsoda was responsible for the bulk of the writing in the original and his version of the sequel took place in 2020. He didn't have the attachment to 2004 that you do either.

Bowling For Soup - 1985
Your two kids in high school tell you that you're uncool because you're still preoccupied with 2000 and 5.

[Oyster Sauce]

Run down apartments, goth nightclubs, Chinese triads in Chinatown warehouses, payphones, greasy spoon diners, command prompt computing, and snuff films in adult VHS video stores are not 2004 coded. Playing Halo 2 on an Xbox is 2004 coded.

[DemoGraph]

Run down apartments, goth nightclubs, Chinese triads in Chinatown warehouses, payphones, greasy spoon diners, command prompt computing, and snuff films in adult VHS video stores are not 2004 coded.

At the time Russia seriously lagged in consumer tech. And my family was poor as **** in the 2000s. Yet, in 2002 I got my first PC, Celeron 800-something, with CD player, Windows 98 and color CRT monitor, and stopped using VHS forever.

Maybe Bloodlines happen in some rundown village in Balkans.
Or maybe it's alt-world and alt-history, and they lag in tech so hard, they haven't yet invented brain rot.

[Roguey]

Run down apartments, goth nightclubs, Chinese triads in Chinatown warehouses, payphones, greasy spoon diners, command prompt computing, and snuff films in adult VHS video stores are not 2004 coded. Playing Halo 2 on an Xbox is 2004 coded.

This is a zoomer/alpha or foreigner-take. I was 20 years old in 2004, I knew what it was like. I was doing goth nights (not that this matters because the World of Darkness is intended to be a goth-ier version of ours, this stuff will always be there) and using payphones-as-necessary as late as 2007. I had a CRT monitor I bought new in 2002 until 2008 or 9, had a CRT television until just a few years ago when it finally quit on me. The game makes a George W Bush administration joke. Jack talks about how cell phone cameras are making things more difficult (you just don't have one yourself). You put a wireless camera into an apartment for a sidequest. Things that still existed just a few years back didn't vanish overnight.

Oh yeah and I rented all three Lord of the RIngs films on VHS because my father didn't have a DVD player and wanted to see them.

[DemoGraph]

My granny still uses CRT TV and a fridge from 1960s. Brb checking whether USSR is still here.

In all seriousness, I've checked and the game entered development in 2001, and it shows. Even the burning tower is 911.

[rusty_shackleford]

goth was 90s

[Bertram_Tung]

goth was 90s

mall goths were alive and well in the early 2000s and marilyn manson was still hitting #1 on the billboard charts in 2003

[rusty_shackleford]

goth was 90s

mall goths were alive and well in the early 2000s and marilyn manson was still hitting #1 on the billboard charts in 2003

It was too mainstream and trending towards emo, peak goth was the 90s

[Bertram_Tung]

goth was 90s

mall goths were alive and well in the early 2000s and marilyn manson was still hitting #1 on the billboard charts in 2003

It was too mainstream and trending towards emo, peak goth was the 90s

yes, it was mainstream, hence the term mall goths and marilyn manson hitting #1 on the billboard charts in 2003

[rusty_shackleford]

VTM was a product of its time and attempting to move it outside that time period is lame
same reason you can't remake breakfast club and set it in 2026

[Bertram_Tung]

VTM was a product of its time and attempting to move it outside that time period is lame
same reason you can't remake breakfast club and set it in 2026

ya, as @J1M already correctly pointed out like 10 posts ago. read the **** thread rusty

as he said, the game was 90s adjacent and that's why it worked. the 90s didnt really end until 2001 and the fads from the late 90s were still around in the early 2000s

[Roguey]

goth was 90s

mall goths were alive and well in the early 2000s and marilyn manson was still hitting #1 on the billboard charts in 2003

It was too mainstream and trending towards emo, peak goth was the 90s

Peak goth was the 80s when The Cure made it big, Siouxsie and the Banshees got less punk rock and more jangly, and Andrew Eldritch rebooted Sisters of Mercy twice with First and Last and Always and Floodland. The 90s were a trashier degeneration. Hot Topic ushered in the decline when it got its start in 1989.

[rusty_shackleford]

mall goths were alive and well in the early 2000s and marilyn manson was still hitting #1 on the billboard charts in 2003

It was too mainstream and trending towards emo, peak goth was the 90s

Peak goth was the 80s when The Cure made it big, Siouxsie and the Banshees got less punk rock and more jangly, and Andrew Eldritch rebooted Sisters of Mercy twice with First and Last and Always and Floodland. The 90s were a trashier degeneration. Hot Topic ushered in the decline when it got its start in 1989.

Goth was still directly tied to music in the 80s rather than a subculture unto its own

[Roguey]

Goth was still directly tied to music in the 80s rather than a subculture unto its own

Yeah, a bunch of secondaries wearing a subculture as a costume is not a peak.

[Kalarion]

Run down apartments, goth nightclubs, Chinese triads in Chinatown warehouses, payphones, greasy spoon diners, command prompt computing, and snuff films in adult VHS video stores are not 2004 coded. Playing Halo 2 on an Xbox is 2004 coded.

This is a zoomer/alpha or foreigner-take. I was 20 years old in 2004, I knew what it was like. I was doing goth nights (not that this matters because the World of Darkness is intended to be a goth-ier version of ours, this stuff will always be there) and using payphones-as-necessary as late as 2007. I had a CRT monitor I bought new in 2002 until 2008 or 9, had a CRT television until just a few years ago when it finally quit on me. The game makes a George W Bush administration joke. Jack talks about how cell phone cameras are making things more difficult (you just don't have one yourself). You put a wireless camera into an apartment for a sidequest. Things that still existed just a few years back didn't vanish overnight.

Oh yeah and I rented all three Lord of the RIngs films on VHS because my father didn't have a DVD player and wanted to see them.

If anyone is still actually reading anything Rouge posts—beyond J1M and a couple other stalwarts who occasionally try to clean up his **** for the rest of us —this should serve as a good reminder not to.

[Roguey]

f anyone is still actually reading anything Rouge posts—beyond J1M and a couple other stalwarts who occasionally try to clean up his **** for the rest of us —this should serve as a good reminder not to.

Not an argument.