Vampire: Bloodlines 2
DrHappyAngry
Member Posts: 1,577
in Off-Topic
So Paradox is doing it.
https://youtu.be/SYvWfDxhm_s
A bit weird for me since I live where it's set. I liked that tidal wave coming at that stupid ferris wheel they built on the waterfront, though
I know a lot of people here are fans, I've played the original probably about once a year since it was released. I even used to play the table top game and participated in a LARP back in the '90s.
Release date is supposed to be Q1 of 2020.
https://youtu.be/SYvWfDxhm_sA bit weird for me since I live where it's set. I liked that tidal wave coming at that stupid ferris wheel they built on the waterfront, though
I know a lot of people here are fans, I've played the original probably about once a year since it was released. I even used to play the table top game and participated in a LARP back in the '90s.
Release date is supposed to be Q1 of 2020.
11
Comments
Man they have to bring back Jack and a few others...
Nothing against console, they are just not the best for RPG's, too little keys. While on PC you can easily switch between dozens of weapons and disciplines, on consoles you can't. You can't make an in depth "character sheet" that works with a controller.At least i never saw it made. I hope be at least able to aim my disciplines/shots like on original game. Console games tends doesn't have aiming, like Vampyr. You can't aim, only "lock on". And even shooter games on consoles has too much focus on CQB with aim assist. I an not defending #PCMR, only saying that controllers and consoles are better for other things, not in depth RPG. Witcher 1 is not complex, but was the reason that the therm PCMR exists, for the journalist is complex At least is Paradox. An company with a lot of good games. Not bugthesda, bugsoft, ea, M$, activision, etc
I an expecting an good game but not an game good as the first one. I really wanna be wrong. Really wanna an game that i can aim and with in depth character sheet. Maybe even advanced disciplines to the player. I don't know. Or be able to play as a Giovanni(i know, there are mods on the first game that allow it) and see Tremere with more things to do with thaumaturgy.
On a related note...
Unsactioned Blood Pack:
Just... why!?
https://www.pcgamer.com/vampire-the-masquerade-bloodlines-2-preview/
There's no way that the game will be exactly like bloodlines. The original didn't exactly have the best portrayal of sex workers and mental illness, and would probably have gotten a lot of flak for that today. Plus, let's face it, the combat was pretty janky, even for it's time.
On the upside, it sounds like the reactivity, choice and branching paths are in. The game's supposed to be faction based. A part of me wants to get my hopes up that it's kind of like New Vegas in the World of Darkness.
@SorcererV1ct0r I don't necessarily see it coming to consoles and being compatible as bad. I do absolutely hate the lock and target combat systems, too, though. Overall mechanically I think the recent fallout games work really well, and the combat in fallout 4 was a lot of fun. It's just the writing out of Bethesda is not up to the standards of Obsidian/Black Isle.
So at first I was kind of put off by it being set in Seattle. I play games to explore places I don't live. But after thinking about it, it could be fun to wreck the city.
When the hell is the Werewolf game coming out? It was supposed to happen last year. It makes me think Q1 of 2020 is not going to happen for Vampire.
Honestly, if VtMB was launched today, will be the most controversial game of the year. Not only by the sexworkers but by a lot of other things. How Russian mafia is portrait, how asian vampires are portrait, how they dealt with religion, the fact that you can sleep with a woman with a strong mental illness and even dominate and "enslave" an woman. See what she said at 14:50 on the review video posted to see examples.
The unique thing that i don't like about VtMB is the concept of "generation", so if a 4th vampire sires you, you will be stronger than vampires that lived for centuries and if they aren't of certain generation, they will never be able to use an advanced discipline. The concept of Caine is too cristian IMO for an creature for slavic folklore. But this two things are just my preferences, i an not saying that are flaws or that one of the best games of my life is a bad game.
About consoles not being bad, i don't know any franchise that comes to console and din't dumbed down. In fact, the same happens to RTS. Quoting an Xcom fan "I was really excited about this game, then I heard it was being developed for consoles... and I tried to remain optimistic. Unfortunately, now they've pretty much confirmed that this game has been dumbed down, streamlined(...)" source : https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/655782-xcom-enemy-unknown/62953152
As for Bethesda did right the combat part, i disagree. In fact, shooting was amazing in fallout new vegas compared to flalout 4. Weapons on fallout 4 looks like toys. On FNV, looks and fells like improvised homemade or "rust weapons". Not mentioning, the amount of different types of ammo. Hardcore mode means that ammo weights, so you can't carry and endless supply of .50 BMG high explosive ammo, the armor works by an "flat amount", so an 9mm is very innefective against an Robo-scorpion but an .308 AP round can deal a lot of damage. On Fallout 4, looks like armor works by a percentage. So if you armor absorbs 40% of the damage, will absorbs 40% of an .22 LR or a .308 AP. It leads to SMG's outDPSing rifles against heavily armored enemies, on FNV SMG's outdps (un) armored enemies, but are not effective against someone with power armor. And on fallout 3, there aren't even aiming. Not mention, the ridiculous streamlined character creation and progression. And the writing too. The fact that you can use explosive skill/knowledge to solve problems in the world on FNV instead of only being useful on combat was amazing.
About explore places that you can't live, you can travel. You don't need to spend a lot going to an expensive place like Switzerland(don't get me wrong, is a amazing country i just think that is too expensive), there are a lot of interesting places to visit on Eastern Europe or in "Southern Cone" that will not be very expensive. Mainly considering how devalued the currency is in this places. I usually play video games for escapism. Like to feel myself in a completely different reality. This is why immersion is very important for me.
YES!!!! YES!!!
WHAT A GREAT TIME FOR BEING ALIVE!!!!!!!!!
This was my exact reaction this morning when I woke up to the news.
I'd been following the rumors for quite a while, but I was afraid it'd went up being some lame mobile game or something... I'm glad my fears didn't come true.
I'M LITERALLY PLANNING MY VACATIONS SO IT MATCHES WITH THIS GAME'S RELEASE.
I actually liked the concept of generations. It meant if someone were sired by a really powerful vampire they could inherit some of it. I definitely thought 15 generations was way too few to cover all of history.
We'll have to disagree about fallout. While I like all the weapons and ammo options new vegas presented, the movement and gun play just didn't feel as good as 4. A lot of the weapons in 4 had a more slapped together feel, with pipe revolvers and the like. Too bad the pipe based weapons get obsolete fast. And ya, 3 was really bad on the gun play. Like I also said, the writing in new vegas is way better than anything bethesda could do, so we at least agree on that.
Also about exploring places I can't live, it's also for the different worlds, but I do enjoy getting to go to places in games I'm not familiar with. Sometimes seeing something set where you live, just makes you scream "that's not the way it is!" Take the most recent Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, set in Seattle. I kept having nagging thoughts, like there's no way Elijah Wood's broke ass character should be able to afford that apartment. I guess that's always a problem, people have pointed out the apartments in Friends were impossibly big for the jobs the characters had.
Oh, also the table top game I tried to run recently, I threw out all the Caine stuff. It was set in 401BC, so I just decided that was all myth that came later with the spread of Christianity. There were characters in Bloodlines, like Becket and Grout, who didn't believe in any of the mythology.
Tried that move, once. Then vacation came and the devs had moved the release date of my hyped title some ten months back. Yaaaaay... *sigh*
I agree that your "sirer" should be very important defining your as a vampire, but still think that generation is a bad mechanic to "simulate" it. For example, if a 8th generation vampire lives since the ancient rome and spends millenniums trying to improve his "dominance" discipline, he according to the rules can't use domination in a fledgling of 7th generation. The unique way to him to be able to dominate the fledgling is if via diablerie to lower his generation.
You can see an "better" example by the tremere lore. Tremere was magicians that becomes vampire
To be fair, there are the concept of golconda, but is very rare. There are only 5 canon vampires that archived it. if you got sired by a higher generation vampire, is the unique way to learn advanced disciplines ( https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Golconda_(VTM) )
I also always got the impression that the charname in the original bloodlines was supposed to be relatively low generation, that being the reason why they're able to become so powerful in such a short amount of time. There were some references to powerful blood being wasted on you and whatnot.
The main problem IMO is that generations is used as an "roof", not as a "floor", you can't never get closer to the "source". And the problem is that sire new vampires has no "cons". If you are a 6th gen vampire, you can sire 10000 7th generation vampire. None of then can do anything against you as longs you have dominate.
Not mentioning, why the older vampires stopped siring? You don't see the child being weaker than the father every time and unable to surpass his father on the nature. Blood potency was an better system. But i still think That the best system is a system that uses generation as a "floor". For example, this user
Yes, but if the player commits diablere, he will suddenly becomes stronger than vampires that are far more experienced.
I believe that is 8th generation considering his bloodpool. But maybe lower since (spoiler => vtmb1 bellow)
A lot of the reason older vampires would stop siring is they were in torpor, sleeping. As some got older, they just saw no point in siring, since it just creates more competitors. Some very old vampires would occasionally sire new ones, too, but it wasn't very common.
A sire also didn't have complete control over their childer, that required a blood bond that required them drinking their blood on three consecutive nights, and only lasted a year if they didn't drink their blood again. There was some predisposition after drinking their blood only once or twice though, and they'd like them more each time.
In the game books, diablerie only reduced the diabolists generation by one, so long as they were of lower generation than the diabolist. It was always just one generation, no matter how many generations separated them. They didn't get any powers from the host permanently, either. Some optional books did temporarily give powers from the host for a limited amount of time, though.
Also in some of the later books, it's revealed the Tremere was completely taken over by Salubri mentally. So much for being able to diablerize your way down to 3rd generation.
Not mentioning, in modern times, technology some times is better than raw supernatural power. Pick an 14.5x114mm anti materiel rifle. Use incendiary ammo. Even low generation vampires will have an problem against it and you can use very far away. The idea that generation limits the power creep is not 100% true.
Tremere is the most fun clan to be played IMO. I hoppe that they add rituals to vtmb 2
In Camarilla there is always a higher power. That is the whole point of the organization: someone who you don't know is always pulling the strings behind the curtains. And when you look behind the curtain you find a whole new stage with another layer of curtains.
You're thinking as a neophyte and forgetting one important aspect: the vampirism is a curse. The more a vampire lives, the more he realizes that. As the Beast crawls withing, the living world gets less and less interesting until the vampire realizes that is better to sleep than to interact.
As for the technology, let's say what each clan elder would be able to do. I'll stick with the classical 13:
1) Assamite: It vanishes (and you forgot you ever saw it!), it gets close to you in the blink of an eye (and you can't see it yet) it touches you, you're dead. You can't even scream for help.
2) Brujah: It looks at you and you crap your pants. Or you just can't do anything but look at it. Or is helplessly enslaved. Then it gets close to you and pretends it's One Punch Man.
3) Followers of Set: It can disappear as Assamite or do what Brujah did by looking at you, but instead of punching you it makes a bunch of snakes appear inside of your body and eat you alive.
4) Gangrel: It let's you shoot until you run out of ammo. After that, it becomes a beast and split you in two parts. Then a bunch of animals will come to feast upon your corpse.
5) Giovanni: It makes you its slave by looking at you. Then it is One Punch Man time. And after that the real beating begins, as your spirit will be used as a toy and your body will hold the elder's coat until it rots in place.
6) Lasombra: BOOM, you're in the dark. You can't see it, but it can see you. Oh, and this shadow is now draining you alive. It remains watching Netflix while a shadow clone of him beats the crap out of you.
7) Malkavian: Out of nowhere you have the urge to point your high-tech gun to your mouth and shoot. Oh, and you can't see it anymore. And you don't even remember you saw it. And its voice is speaking inside your head until you silent it the hard way.
8) Nosferatu: You were never able to find it, but it found you and One Punch Maned you while you were sleeping. And also shared to your family every single porn you ever clicked upon.
9) Ravnos: Weapon? What weapon? Oh, you mean the bouquet? Those are for it? How kindly. Just mind the tyrannosaurus rex who is trying to eat you alive.
10) Toreador: You're its slave for the rest of the eternity. You don't even want to shoot it anymore. All it did was look in your direction and smile. Go fetch a drink.
11) Tremere: Burn it? Who is burning now? Oh, and by the way, now you're in a deep slumber AND on fire. And you're having a nightmare where it burns you alive.
12) Tzimisce: After battling waves and waves of the creepiest minion you'll ever find, you reach it. IF you have any ammo left, better spend it know, because the biggest and creepiest thing you ever saw is running towards you - he already knew you were coming, seems like. After beating the crap out of you, your body will be used as a lamp.
13) Ventrue: Like Toreador, but it allows you to waste your ammo first.
As @Raduziel pointed out, the Camarilla still has people above Lacroix. Also a Prince rules because he has the backing of the Primogen in the city, they can vote him out in a lot of places, or revolt if voting isn't an option. And any vampire with high levels of auspex would know an attack is coming.
Sure a clan could decide to not allow it's younger members to sire, but this is one of the things that led to the anarch revolt during the middle ages, in game canon. Afterwards, they'd let some of the relatively younger and responsible kindred sire. Also, all it takes is one to get away and start siring more vampires, and the clan keeps going into higher generations.
Did anybody else read the source book, Dirty Secrets of the Black Hand? One of the interesting things revealed in it, is that Vicissitued (The Tzimisce discipline) isn't really a discipline, but an interdimensional disease, where parasites called soul eaters slowly take over their host. The Old Clan Tzimisce doesn't even have it, and has dominate in place of Vicissitude.
You are right. Vampirism is a curse, not something good. I mean, be able to dominate people and get almost everything that you wanna can be fun, but after decades or even centuries, it will become annoying.
As for elders, you are assuming an frontal CQB assault. And that is not how you deal with something much stronger and experienced. You need to wait until they are trying to sleep. Then at a very high range, use an PTRD-1941 while they are sleeping. An 14.5x114mm round can punch 45mm of steel and leaves the barrel at almost 1100 m/s. You can fire on then at more than a kilometer.
Particularly one thing that i din't liked much on VtM is that the firearms really lack firepower to deal with for example gargoyles, werewolfs and vampires capable of using advanced disciplines. You just have one full power rifle cartridge weapon to use. No anti materiel rifles, no incendiary ammo, no under-barrel grenade launcher, etc
But technology forced vampires to change and abandom certain things like gigantic ghouls that was effective against other vampires, so i assume that technology is more useful than this monsters. . ". In the age of organized vampire hunters, satellite imagery, and portable anti-tank weaponry, war ghouls create more problems than they solve. Since vampires seldom completely abandon any practice once they take it up," https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Vozhd
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/vampire-the-masquerade-bloodlines-2-will-support-real-time-ray-tracing-dlss-and-mods/
One thing to remember is even if you attack a vampire during the day, they'll be in their haven on their turf. An elder's going to have ghouls around to protect them during the day, some of which could be more powerful than younger vampires. Also, if you fire off an anti-material rifle, law enforcement is going to zero in on your location pretty fast in any populated area. You also won't be able to get a shot through the building to them, since you can't even use a heat signature to find them inside to shoot through the walls. Plus if it's another weaker vampire doing the attack, they can't be in the sun either.
In the game, dragon's breath rounds helped make fire arms more viable against supernaturals. Plus with werewolves, there was always the good old fashioned silver bullet.
The Vozhd and other Tzimisce creations had to be kept out of site in more modern times, but were still used. They were all over the sewers in bloodlines. You just didn't have them roaming the countryside, like in the old country. They were also big with the Sabbat, who outright wanted to break the masquerade to mess with the Camarilla.
As for law enforcement, if you are a vampire and can use domination, not only on the police, but you can make neighbors start to play loud music to "hide" the shoot sound. It will not be a problem.
Mentioning anti materiel rifles, i was trying to say that against an much more powerful enemy, you should't attack without an good plan and modern technology can help a lot. Getting information about the target, luring him into a trap, stabling escape routes, and even reducing the firepower "gap", establishing an "b plan", etc is far more easy with technology than without it. Doesn't necessarily means that is a easy task. I mean, big firearms with incendiary rounds can reduce the power gap but not eliminate the gap and will not affect the life experience gap, the influence gap, etc.
Anyway, good to know that modds will be available. Any game with mod becomes much better.
Going up against an elder, you're likely to wind up with somebody that has a plan x, y and z. Not saying it's impossible, just very difficult. You're also not likely to cover up the sound of an anti-material rifle with just home speakers, if it's a major city they might also have gun shot detectors placed around. Also, who's to say the local law enforcement's not in the pocket of the elder or their allies. The ghouls recruited might also be tech savvy, as well. The ideal situation would be to attack a powerful vampire that's in torpor.
Smart vampires also know to vary up their routine, too, to throw off hunters. In the elder's book, there was even a flaw for being stuck in a routine.
The Sabbat had a technique to just mass embrace a bunch of people, and use them as shock troops for a raid. None of the newbies was expected to survive, but if they did, they were strong enough to take their place in the Sabbat.
Not home speakers, but you can find an "nightclub speaker" or something very loud to try disguise the sound. But i agree, if the elder has an routine, the job becomes more easy or "less impossible".The idea of mass siring and swarming is very interesting. Probably one of the best strategies that someone can use.
Anyway, this is something that i particularly like about WoD. You never engage in a combat against an stronger foe without careful planning. I honestly think that in D&D ancient dragons are too weak for a legendary creature that lived for millenniums. IMO an ancient silver dragon should know all frost based spells, be able to cast many spells per turn, summon elementals, have a lot of servants and even a cult, and every cold based spell being maximized and empowered. Should't be something trivial even for a epic level party. Sure, one is more an epic journey and another is a world fulfilled with dread, politics and mysteries
Also, social skills helps a lot on VtM(tabletop and crpg). In fact, i think that social skills are more important than combat skills not only for non combat stuff like stealth, talking, getting free blood at nightclubs by seducing people, but even for combat. If you have high haggle for example, you can get better weaponry and ammo easier. And the best weapon of the game, flamethrower has very expensive ammo.