They probably don't wanna launch near Cyberunk 2077.,
Probably part of the decision. They had previously delayed the game to fix up the combat, but add on the pandemic making a lot of things harder, they probably need more time than what they had originally allotted.
Yeah. Honestly - this feels like a game that I want them to take their time with. The alpha footage looked pretty janky (most alpha footage does). So spending a few more months cleaning it up seems like a good call to me, regardless of CP2077's release date.
I strongly suspect it's retaliation for the delay. That's a really crappy thing to do this late in the development, since they should be at the tweaking and bug fixing stage of things and the narrative complete awhile ago.
I strongly suspect it's retaliation for the delay. That's a really crappy thing to do this late in the development, since they should be at the tweaking and bug fixing stage of things and the narrative complete awhile ago.
I saw this too. I have a good deal of faith in Paradox, so I'm reserving judgement on why the firing happened.
It sounds like there's no reason why Mitsoda would be responsible for any delay. In either case, this game keeps giving me a sinking feeling that it wont be very good. I hope I'm wrong, but it seems like all the news about it is always somewhere between bad and weird.
Terminating both the lead writer and the creative director, two crucial people... at the same time? Now that's more than unwise, not mentioned suspicious from the publisher and paradox. Looks like I will have to holding off getting this game for the time being. At least until the story has been sufficiently scrutinized by the community.
Rumor on the Onyx Path forums is that they got fired because of the delays. Paradox wants the game out now. Take it with a grain of salt, but it was dropped by a mod there who says they know people who work there. If that's the case, I don't think we can expect much in the way of rewrites, but cut content or features. I wasn't at all bothered by the delays, but now it sounds like they want to rush things, which really worries me.
they already removed all of chris's work due to what happend. whats gonna stop them from just changing all of brian's?
They're not going to do heavy rewrites if they want the game out now. They're more likely to cut content and features. I'm more worried it'll end up like the first game, where they clearly ran out of money around China Town and everything after that was just killing hordes of mooks. I strongly suspect most of the end game content's made, though, and it's the combat tweaks and improvements that are more likely to suffer. Avellone's work was supposed to be extremely minimal, anyways.
they already removed all of chris's work due to what happend. whats gonna stop them from just changing all of brian's?
They're not going to do heavy rewrites if they want the game out now. They're more likely to cut content and features. I'm more worried it'll end up like the first game, where they clearly ran out of money around China Town and everything after that was just killing hordes of mooks. I strongly suspect most of the end game content's made, though, and it's the combat tweaks and improvements that are more likely to suffer. Avellone's work was supposed to be extremely minimal, anyways.
I think this is probably right. If we assume the firing is related to game delays, it doesnt make sense for the them to continue to take actions that delay the game, such as a rewrite.
The interesting thing (to me) is - they had to know fans wouldnt be happy to see Mitsoda fired for almost any reason. It almost would have been smarter to just put him on ice and take him away from day to day duties with the game. Which means to me that either Paradox made a dumb (dumb) mistake, or there's more to the story than we're being told.
I doubt she'll have any real impact on the base game, but could see DLC being impacted. I'm not particularly impressed by the fact she wrote for Mass Effect: Andromeda, though.
I wouldn't be surprised if there will be another narrative lead writer after her as well. Ah well, my hype for this game has died down completely after their first round of fireing crucial personnel roullete.
This is a different position than the one Cara Ellison held, so it's only the second narrative lead, this is replacing Brian Mitsoda's position since it's been vacant since August.
I think the game should be decent still, since this far into development they can't really be reworking the story much.
All in all I'm very disappointed with how Paradox has handled the property, though. V5 pretty much sucks, they've only released like one book in the last year and don't even have another planned till next year. It cut way too many options (Harbingers of Skulls, Nagaraja, Giovanni, Samedi and remaining Cappadocians are lumped together into one clan and they still haven't even done anything with the Tzimisce. Necromancy and Obtenebration are lumped together and you can only pick one power from each level. Both Thaumaturgy and Necromancy have no paths at all.), dumped all the traits above 5, made all the powers weaker, made the physical disciplines needlessly complex, dumped in the most annoying aspects of Requiem like Touchstones (as written they absolutely do not work for canon characters or certain factions), dumped the Sabbat with barely an explanation and forced metaplot changes that completely change the theme of the game. It's no longer a game about resisting the tendrils of ancient masters controlling the world, now it's about getting smacked around by mortals and the government. Clearly I'm still running the 20th Anniversary rules for the games story tell.
That said, because their damage to Bloodlines 2 should be limited and they can't undo that much of Mitsoda's work and still ship next year, I'm still excited for it.
it really does not help that nighthawks might be a better vtmb game then vtmb 2.
I doubt that, the format of the game just does not appeal to me at all, it being just a visual novel with skill checks. Plus it's not Vampire The Masquerade, it's more like True Blood where they've been outed, another take on Vampires I found really annoying.
Honestly thought given all the issues surrounding Bloodlines 2, I am quite happy to just go with Nighthawks, I think it will end up a far better product, and the writers on it are proven talent.
If you like that sort of thing, than ya, but it won't be anything like Bloodlines and people expecting a bloodlines type game will be very disappointed.
A few weeks ago I gave Shadows of New York a shot, even though I hate visual novels because they lack real choice and have very little interaction, but the game said choices matter. It started interestingly enough, but just reconfirmed my perception of visual novels lacking real choice by the end. The low level of interactivity in these sorts of games means you really need to give people real choices and the choices need to come at the right points. Shadows of New York's ending felt like it was completely ram rodded down my throat, the whole time I'm yelling "Just speak the hell up and out everyone!" I wouldn't have cared if that decision got me killed, but it should have been mine to make. I wish I had those 5 hours of my life back. It was just a garbage way to handle the end and take away any player agency. It would have made a better graphic novel or even regular novel, but don't try to call it a game where choices matter.
Dammit, Paradox is just handing the IP over to anyone to make any sort of garbage games they want now. Apparently there's going to be some dumbass battle royale game now, too.
I'm still optimistic about bloodlines, since it has people who actually gave a shit about the setting, but am really starting to think Paradox is actually a worse owner than CCP was.
Not bloodlines related so much, but finally some good news that indicates they might be righting the ship https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-C1bj0rZPM&feature=youtu.be
They're switching publishers to Renegade Studios and dumping Modiphius and giving away the Vampire: The Masquerade Companion book with Salubri, Tzimisce and Ravnos in it, with corrections to the base book.
A few weeks ago I gave Shadows of New York a shot, even though I hate visual novels because they lack real choice and have very little interaction, but the game said choices matter. It started interestingly enough, but just reconfirmed my perception of visual novels lacking real choice by the end. The low level of interactivity in these sorts of games means you really need to give people real choices and the choices need to come at the right points. Shadows of New York's ending felt like it was completely ram rodded down my throat, the whole time I'm yelling "Just speak the hell up and out everyone!" I wouldn't have cared if that decision got me killed, but it should have been mine to make. I wish I had those 5 hours of my life back. It was just a garbage way to handle the end and take away any player agency. It would have made a better graphic novel or even regular novel, but don't try to call it a game where choices matter.
Your traits, based on choices you make throughout the game, determine which ending you get. If you make the "bad" choices then you get the "bad" ending (which you got). If you choose differently at those points, you might get the "good" ending.
A few weeks ago I gave Shadows of New York a shot, even though I hate visual novels because they lack real choice and have very little interaction, but the game said choices matter. It started interestingly enough, but just reconfirmed my perception of visual novels lacking real choice by the end. The low level of interactivity in these sorts of games means you really need to give people real choices and the choices need to come at the right points. Shadows of New York's ending felt like it was completely ram rodded down my throat, the whole time I'm yelling "Just speak the hell up and out everyone!" I wouldn't have cared if that decision got me killed, but it should have been mine to make. I wish I had those 5 hours of my life back. It was just a garbage way to handle the end and take away any player agency. It would have made a better graphic novel or even regular novel, but don't try to call it a game where choices matter.
Your traits, based on choices you make throughout the game, determine which ending you get. If you make the "bad" choices then you get the "bad" ending (which you got). If you choose differently at those points, you might get the "good" ending.
Ya, but you should have been able to call out everyone as your own decision, even if it resulted in you getting killed, it should have been your decision to make. I could accept getting killed for that, but to not even have the option to speak up was garbage.
It is your decision, based on the five previous decisions each of which gave you a trait. If the traits add up one way, you don't call everyone out. If they add up the other, you do.
Meant to add that I don't think you're wrong for disliking the way it was implemented, I just wanted to point out you gradually choose through the game how the ending will be.
Meant to add that I don't think you're wrong for disliking the way it was implemented, I just wanted to point out you gradually choose through the game how the ending will be.
I definitely didn't feel like it was weighted, I played goody two shoes except when I kicked that Nosferatu's ass who the game made pretty clear was going to off you.
Now I'm getting worried they're going to stamp on Mitsoda's work with this long of a delay. What dumbass decision it was to fire a bunch of people, which has just resulted in more delays.
Meant to add that I don't think you're wrong for disliking the way it was implemented, I just wanted to point out you gradually choose through the game how the ending will be.
I definitely didn't feel like it was weighted, I played goody two shoes except when I kicked that Nosferatu's ass who the game made pretty clear was going to off you.
Now I'm getting worried they're going to stamp on Mitsoda's work with this long of a delay. What dumbass decision it was to fire a bunch of people, which has just resulted in more delays.
Yeah - I'll admit every delay at this point seems to point towards more of a possibility that Mitsoda's contributions will be replaced/overwritten.
That said, Paradox does have a bit of a history in major game delays being a good thing. Hearts of Iron IV was delayed a full year or something because they found the game just wasnt fun enough in internal testing. What we eventually got was a pretty good game.
(OI course worth pointing out that the HOI4 dev team was an internal core studio for Paradox and the Bloodlines 2 studio was an acquisition).
Meant to add that I don't think you're wrong for disliking the way it was implemented, I just wanted to point out you gradually choose through the game how the ending will be.
I definitely didn't feel like it was weighted, I played goody two shoes except when I kicked that Nosferatu's ass who the game made pretty clear was going to off you.
Now I'm getting worried they're going to stamp on Mitsoda's work with this long of a delay. What dumbass decision it was to fire a bunch of people, which has just resulted in more delays.
I'm not sure why you say it doesn't feel like it was weighted.
If 3+ of your five choices are "nice" then you get the bad ending. If 3+ of your five choices are ruthless, you get the good ending. If you choose power and ruthlessness, you get the ending you wanted.
Comments
Yeah. Honestly - this feels like a game that I want them to take their time with. The alpha footage looked pretty janky (most alpha footage does). So spending a few more months cleaning it up seems like a good call to me, regardless of CP2077's release date.
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2020/08/19/brian-mitsoda-has-been-fired-as-narrative-lead-on-bloodlines-2/
I strongly suspect it's retaliation for the delay. That's a really crappy thing to do this late in the development, since they should be at the tweaking and bug fixing stage of things and the narrative complete awhile ago.
I saw this too. I have a good deal of faith in Paradox, so I'm reserving judgement on why the firing happened.
It sounds like there's no reason why Mitsoda would be responsible for any delay. In either case, this game keeps giving me a sinking feeling that it wont be very good. I hope I'm wrong, but it seems like all the news about it is always somewhere between bad and weird.
especially if it turns out the delay is for them to rewrite all 5 years of brian's work.
Yup, I have completely lost hope at this point that this project will come to a happily ending.
They're not going to do heavy rewrites if they want the game out now. They're more likely to cut content and features. I'm more worried it'll end up like the first game, where they clearly ran out of money around China Town and everything after that was just killing hordes of mooks. I strongly suspect most of the end game content's made, though, and it's the combat tweaks and improvements that are more likely to suffer. Avellone's work was supposed to be extremely minimal, anyways.
I think this is probably right. If we assume the firing is related to game delays, it doesnt make sense for the them to continue to take actions that delay the game, such as a rewrite.
The interesting thing (to me) is - they had to know fans wouldnt be happy to see Mitsoda fired for almost any reason. It almost would have been smarter to just put him on ice and take him away from day to day duties with the game. Which means to me that either Paradox made a dumb (dumb) mistake, or there's more to the story than we're being told.
https://www.pcgamer.com/bloodlines-2-senior-narrative-designer-cara-ellison-has-left-the-project/?region-switch=1603208720
Isn't she who had the genius idea of including trigger warning?
https://www.dualshockers.com/vampire-the-masquerade-bloodlines-2-finds-its-new-lead-narrative-designer-after-months/
I doubt she'll have any real impact on the base game, but could see DLC being impacted. I'm not particularly impressed by the fact she wrote for Mass Effect: Andromeda, though.
I think the game should be decent still, since this far into development they can't really be reworking the story much.
All in all I'm very disappointed with how Paradox has handled the property, though. V5 pretty much sucks, they've only released like one book in the last year and don't even have another planned till next year. It cut way too many options (Harbingers of Skulls, Nagaraja, Giovanni, Samedi and remaining Cappadocians are lumped together into one clan and they still haven't even done anything with the Tzimisce. Necromancy and Obtenebration are lumped together and you can only pick one power from each level. Both Thaumaturgy and Necromancy have no paths at all.), dumped all the traits above 5, made all the powers weaker, made the physical disciplines needlessly complex, dumped in the most annoying aspects of Requiem like Touchstones (as written they absolutely do not work for canon characters or certain factions), dumped the Sabbat with barely an explanation and forced metaplot changes that completely change the theme of the game. It's no longer a game about resisting the tendrils of ancient masters controlling the world, now it's about getting smacked around by mortals and the government. Clearly I'm still running the 20th Anniversary rules for the games story tell.
That said, because their damage to Bloodlines 2 should be limited and they can't undo that much of Mitsoda's work and still ship next year, I'm still excited for it.
I doubt that, the format of the game just does not appeal to me at all, it being just a visual novel with skill checks. Plus it's not Vampire The Masquerade, it's more like True Blood where they've been outed, another take on Vampires I found really annoying.
A few weeks ago I gave Shadows of New York a shot, even though I hate visual novels because they lack real choice and have very little interaction, but the game said choices matter. It started interestingly enough, but just reconfirmed my perception of visual novels lacking real choice by the end. The low level of interactivity in these sorts of games means you really need to give people real choices and the choices need to come at the right points. Shadows of New York's ending felt like it was completely ram rodded down my throat, the whole time I'm yelling "Just speak the hell up and out everyone!" I wouldn't have cared if that decision got me killed, but it should have been mine to make. I wish I had those 5 hours of my life back. It was just a garbage way to handle the end and take away any player agency. It would have made a better graphic novel or even regular novel, but don't try to call it a game where choices matter.
Dammit, Paradox is just handing the IP over to anyone to make any sort of garbage games they want now. Apparently there's going to be some dumbass battle royale game now, too.
I'm still optimistic about bloodlines, since it has people who actually gave a shit about the setting, but am really starting to think Paradox is actually a worse owner than CCP was.
They're switching publishers to Renegade Studios and dumping Modiphius and giving away the Vampire: The Masquerade Companion book with Salubri, Tzimisce and Ravnos in it, with corrections to the base book.
Your traits, based on choices you make throughout the game, determine which ending you get. If you make the "bad" choices then you get the "bad" ending (which you got). If you choose differently at those points, you might get the "good" ending.
Ya, but you should have been able to call out everyone as your own decision, even if it resulted in you getting killed, it should have been your decision to make. I could accept getting killed for that, but to not even have the option to speak up was garbage.
I definitely didn't feel like it was weighted, I played goody two shoes except when I kicked that Nosferatu's ass who the game made pretty clear was going to off you.
Looks like the game's delayed till 2H 2021, now
https://happygamer.com/paradox-interactive-delays-the-official-release-of-vampire-the-masquerades-bloodlines-2-until-the-second-half-of-2021-96629/
Now I'm getting worried they're going to stamp on Mitsoda's work with this long of a delay. What dumbass decision it was to fire a bunch of people, which has just resulted in more delays.
Yeah - I'll admit every delay at this point seems to point towards more of a possibility that Mitsoda's contributions will be replaced/overwritten.
That said, Paradox does have a bit of a history in major game delays being a good thing. Hearts of Iron IV was delayed a full year or something because they found the game just wasnt fun enough in internal testing. What we eventually got was a pretty good game.
(OI course worth pointing out that the HOI4 dev team was an internal core studio for Paradox and the Bloodlines 2 studio was an acquisition).
I'm not sure why you say it doesn't feel like it was weighted.
If 3+ of your five choices are "nice" then you get the bad ending. If 3+ of your five choices are ruthless, you get the good ending. If you choose power and ruthlessness, you get the ending you wanted.