Vampire: The Masquerade® - Bloodlines™ 2

[Roguey]

https://www.pcgamer.com/vampire-the-mas ... g-systems/

The Chinese Room has kept Bloodlines 2's initial planned setting of Seattle, and while Greaney noted that they "have been able to reuse a significant amount of art and level design" from Hardsuit's project, Skidmore was quick to clarify that The Chinese Room is using "a new code base with different gameplay mechanics and RPG systems." Bloodlines 2 is also still set at yuletide, but is now in the grips of a historic snowstorm, and Bloodlines 2's new trailer and concept art remind me of the OG Max Payne's grimy, modern NYC Ragnarök.

We're also getting a completely different sort of protagonist than Hardsuit Labs had planned. Bloodlines 2 was to originally star a recently-turned "thin blood" vampire. In World of Darkness rules, older is better, and the legendary bloodlines of Antediluvian vampire patriarchs have diluted over the millennia⁠—they just don't make new-gen vamps like they used to.

"We don't want it to be just a sort of poor homage or pastiche of Bloodlines 1. We want it to be its own thing," Skidmore explained. "We're not doing what Bloodlines 1 did, which is a traditional RPG game start: the very first day you're a vampire. The actual character you are has been a vampire for quite a while. And that was to create something different from Bloodlines to give a different experience."

Bloodlines 2 will now star an "Elder" vampire awoken from an indeterminate torpor (read: long-ass vampire nap), and going off old Vampire: The Masquerade rules, you get Elder status after 300 years of undeath. Since Bloodlines 1's days, a joint Vatican-global intelligence "Second Inquisition" has hit the vampire underground hard, culling its ranks. An ancient, supremely powerful big boy vampire waking up in Seattle is a bit of an event.

Skidmore seems keen on striking a balance between having this ancient be an established character, and letting the player sketch out their vamp of choice: "You have enough that you can fill in the character a bit as you go and roleplay, but they're also an established thing that you understand as aspirational."

Mitsoda status: told

[J1M]

"Good morning master. Should I remind you how to turn your head to look around?"

"Since you've been gone, the Camarilla has been replaced by Rudy."

[wndrbr]

So they aren't just tossing the game out to die. Fall 2024 means Paradox is going to have the whole year to keep marketing it.

[GhostCow]

Since they haven't been posted yet:

[wndrbr]

Big tiddie ginger vampire lady is still in, that's good.

Overall looks surprisingly similar to Hardsuit's game. They even kept the shitty melee finishers, just made them first-person.

[Goth-Girl-Supremacy]

I need Bloodlines 2 to succeed so goth girls see a resurgence.

[Luckmann]

I need Bloodlines 2 to succeed so goth girls see a resurgence.

As someone familiar with the core material, I can tell you that gWoD is about as goth as a pride parade.

[J1M]

I need Bloodlines 2 to succeed so goth girls see a resurgence.

As someone familiar with the core material, I can tell you that gWoD is about as goth as a pride parade.

Is that what the 'g' stands for?

[Luckmann]

I need Bloodlines 2 to succeed so goth girls see a resurgence.

As someone familiar with the core material, I can tell you that gWoD is about as goth as a pride parade.

Is that what the 'g' stands for?

It is unfortuantely 'gay'.

[1998]

Damn that looks shit. Probably going to be another Earthblood quality kind of game.

[Atlantico]

Big tiddie ginger vampire lady is still in, that's good.

Overall looks surprisingly similar to Hardsuit's game. They even kept the shitty melee finishers, just made them first-person.

Odds are this is the Hardsuit game. Chinese Room hasn't had the time to write, design and implement a completely new game from scratch.

They are the damage control team, so a lot will be shared between the games. Some things will be cut, some added, but in general this is more or less the Hardsuit game made by people who (alledgedly) can execute.

It's easy to shit on this game, it has just about nothing going for it, so I'm not even going to bother shitting on it. However in the video linked here above where Chinese Room employees talk about the game, I saw only white people, one dangerhair (probably also fag) but only for a second. The women looked like women. The men looked soy, but well they always have.

Also bonus point to that woman who said "we've been known for creating Walking Simulators" lmao

At least they know what they are.

Probably going to be a mediocre and bland product with no soul. That's what I'm expecting, if it is better than that, it will exceed my expectations.

[GhostCow]

Odds are this is the Hardsuit game. Chinese Room hasn't had the time to write, design and implement a completely new game from scratch.

They've stated multiple times that they are only using some of the level design and assets from the Hardsuit version. This is new code from scratch and completely different writing.

[maidenhaver]

They've had enough time to make a non-shit game, if they aren't an overgrown, lardass studio of diversity hires and stick to a plan.

[Red7]

it would be better if it died than had woke sequel. sad.

[Red7]

They've had enough time to make a non-shit game, if they aren't an overgrown, lardass studio of diversity hires and stick to a plan.

they literally sacked previous woke af team cause it wasnt woke enough. this game gonna be so woke it will make chuck norris like futa.

[Roguey]

Odds are this is the Hardsuit game. Chinese Room hasn't had the time to write, design and implement a completely new game from scratch.

Development time in total will be more than three and a half years. That's enough time to make an AA game from scratch.

they literally sacked previous woke af team cause it wasnt woke enough. this game gonna be so woke it will make chuck norris like futa.

They were sacked because the game wasn't fun/polished/what they wanted despite being worked on for five years.

[Red7]

They were sacked because the game wasn't fun/polished/what they wanted despite being worked on for five years.

thats not why devs are getting sacked these days. the vag that made face animations for andromeda (and from what i hear in starfield|) didnt get sacked.

[Atlantico]

Odds are this is the Hardsuit game. Chinese Room hasn't had the time to write, design and implement a completely new game from scratch.

They've stated multiple times that they are only using some of the level design and assets from the Hardsuit version. This is new code from scratch and completely different writing.

When will people stop believing in marketing. They can say whatever they want. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, not in the cook proclaiming it is an original recipe — source: trust me bro

Development time in total will be more than three and a half years. That's enough time to make an AA game from scratch.

Time is not the concern, money is. Paradox has flushed quite a bit of money down the drain already. Chinese Room is there to take that jank and make a game out of it to make money.

Paradox has already wasted almost a decade on this game and has nothing to show for it. Starting development of a new game from scratch is not in the cards.

[Roguey]

thats not why devs are getting sacked these days. the vag that made face animations for andromeda (and from what i hear in starfield|) didnt get sacked.

Paradox isn't EA.

[Roguey]

Time is not the concern, money is. Paradox has flushed quite a bit of money down the drain already. Chinese Room is there to take that jank and make a game out of it to make money.

Paradox has already wasted almost a decade on this game and has nothing to show for it. Starting development of a new game from scratch is not in the cards.

I recommend reading


Starting it over from scratch was mandatory when they fired Hardsuit.

[aweigh]

I don't think the tech used for LA Noire was around yet so that was probably about their only option for good animation

No one uses LA Noire's tech even today - too costly and time consuming, looks weird, and a PITA to optimize. And the facial mocap existed for a while, Silent Hill 3 (a game from 2003) utilized it.

The main problem with facial mocap is that it's only good for linear games with a limited number of dialogues that have closeups on character faces. VTMB has a ton of dialogues, all of them zoom in on an NPC's face, and those NPCs all have wildly different facial structures. It would be unfeasible to do a performance capture for every bit of in-game dialogue on Troika's budget, so an automatized solution was needed.

Am I the only one who thinks the LA Noir faces looked great? I always see people shitting on them but they looked good-to-great to me, especially for the time.

I imagine the cost alone is enough to dissuade people from using it. Guerilla Games was talking about how every single NPC in Horizon: Forbidden West is mo-capped and how that's unprecedented for a game of that size, and their budget was between $250-300 million (that we know of, probably more. This came out during the Acti-Blizz merger trial.)

EDIT: Oh, also lmao @ TCR making this game now. This thing is so dead. They've never made a game with real gameplay before, just walking sim crap. Closest they came was Amnesia: Machine for Pigs and it's one of the worst games ever made.

[aweigh]

I need Bloodlines 2 to succeed so goth girls see a resurgence.

They're not gonna be the kind of goth girls we wanna see tho

[aweigh]

However in the video linked here above where Chinese Room employees talk about the game, I saw only white people, one dangerhair (probably also fag) but only for a second. The women looked like women. The men looked soy, but well they always have.

This is a negative, not a positive. White Western devs are the ones most obsessed with wokeness and the ones who relish pozzing a game the most.

A game made by Africans who eat desert omelets would be less woke than something made by white Western devs.

[maidenhaver]

I don't care, as long as there are no niggers.

[Atlantico]

Starting it over from scratch was mandatory when they fired Hardsuit.

Hm I read "Paradox is ok with dumping the work done and starting over" Not quite the same as starting from scratch being mandatory message from Paradox. In fact it does sound a bit off describing Paradox being "ok" with this.

After half a decade of development, it is hard to imagine the publisher being "ok" with starting another 4 year development cycle. FWIW taking rumors and educated guesses from a Tumblr account as fact may be a bit presumptuous... but then how will you ever confirm whether this Tumblerina was telling the truth? It's not like we can ever compare the two games side by side.

This is a negative, not a positive. White Western devs are the ones most obsessed with wokeness and the ones who relish pozzing a game the most.

I am inclined to agree. I have no reason to have any faith in the Chinese Room. I do tip my fedora for the name tho

[Roguey]

Hm I read "Paradox is ok with dumping the work done and starting over" Not quite the same as starting from scratch being mandatory message from Paradox. In fact it does sound a bit off describing Paradox being "ok" with this.

After half a decade of development, it is hard to imagine the publisher being "ok" with starting another 4 year development cycle.

But that's exactly what happened??? They were going to cancel Bloodlines 2 outright until Sumo Digital approached them and said they could make a quality Bloodlines 2 for cheap.

FWIW taking rumors and educated guesses from a Tumblr account as fact may be a bit presumptuous... but then how will you ever confirm whether this Tumblerina was telling the truth? It's not like we can ever compare the two games side by side.

It's a developer with vocational knowledge of how things work. They've changed the entire plot, you can see that outright from the description.

If this were the same game with now-seven-years behind it using the same systems, one would think the animations would look a lot better than they do. It's an AA single player RPG, not some AAA behemoth.

[rusty_shackleford]

prediction:
it will be shit

[Atlantico]

But that's exactly what happened??? They were going to cancel Bloodlines 2 outright until Sumo Digital approached them and said they could make a quality Bloodlines 2 for cheap.

https://www.placera.se/placera/telegram ... el-vd.html

This is the best information I can find from the Paradox CEO soon after the game had been taken out of the hands of Hardsuit Labs and:

"When we lifted the game from the original developer, we had a long walkthrough on whether to finish the game or pursue it further. At that time, we were actually prepared to shut down production altogether. But we got a pitch that we thought was convincing enough to drive the game forward and we have very good hopes that it will be a good game that meets the players' expectations", says Fredrik Wester.

I don't see anything about dumping everything and starting over completely. Nor do the previews we have of the Chinese Room version really support that idea. I'm not saying that's not what happened, I'm saying I see nothing to indicate that it happened. It's still set in Seattle, by the snow in the most recent trailer it's set around Christmas time... seems to me there are more than a few things that were not "dumped and started over"

It's a developer with vocational knowledge of how things work. They've changed the entire plot, you can see that outright from the description.

Sure and it is a decent educated guess by that developer with vocational knowledge, but unless he has intimate and inside knowledge, it's still just guesswork.

prediction:
it will be shit

Nothing I've seen to indicate otherwise.

[maidenhaver]

prediction:
it will be shit

So you'll shill it?

[Roguey]

I don't see anything about dumping everything and starting over completely. Nor do the previews we have of the Chinese Room version really support that idea. I'm not saying that's not what happened, I'm saying I see nothing to indicate that it happened. It's still set in Seattle, by the snow in the most recent trailer it's set around Christmas time... seems to me there are more than a few things that were not "dumped and started over"

In this very thread I posted "The Chinese Room has kept Bloodlines 2's initial planned setting of Seattle, and while Greaney noted that they "have been able to reuse a significant amount of art and level design" from Hardsuit's project, Skidmore was quick to clarify that The Chinese Room is using "a new code base with different gameplay mechanics and RPG systems."" And from https://screenrant.com/vampire-masquera ... interview/ there's "It's very much our vision. I've been on the project a year, but when The Chinese Room took it over in 2021, we did for our vision sort of start from scratch. So it is a new codebase, a new world, a new story, because we're a different developer, and we're building to our strengths and what we see as that fateful translation of VTM. But the things that have continued over from the Hardsuit Labs version is quite a lot of character art and environment art, especially since we chose to also base it in Seattle, because that gave us a big leg up."