[Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines] Sequel incoming! (Q1 2020)

SoundsPlush

fadingathedges wrote: »

That's not what I pictured.

Iwakura set his glass down on the coffee table. He stared at the phone as it continued to ring in the dim room. It had been ringing for forty minutes. The ice clinked as it melted, resettling. He picked up the phone and lifted it to his ear, saying nothing.

"There's a branch of the Salubri that exist purely to destroy Tremere."

He listened to the dial tone for a long time. It was midnight.

Hah!

dj.subversive

Yeah, the "branch of Salubri" is called "antitribu," if I'm remembering correctly. They only joined the Sabbat so they could wreak furious vengeance upon the Tremere (and the Camarilla for harboring those diablerist bastards). Kind of like the Harbingers of Skulls are Cappadocians who came back from the shadowlands full of hate for the Giovanni for eating Cappadocius back in the day.

Also, Saulot (the Salubri antediluvian) is still "awake" inside Tremere (who diablerized him). The last thing I remember reading was that Tremere had gotten a third eye because of it.

Man, oWoD was just full of fucked-up brothers.

cj iwakura

Tremere as a clan are pretty much screwed, yeah.

WhiteZinfandel

And nobody's even mentioned the Tzimisce angle yet! The Tremere were made with Tzimisce blood, meaning that when Tzimisce (the antediluvian) rises, he can eat every last one of them inside out from afar.

Neaden

cj iwakura wrote: »

Everyone in the WOD are pretty much screwed, yeah.

Fixed.

cj iwakura

Well, those on Golconda might be okay.

dj.subversive

so, the remaining seven Salubri and like three other vampires, then?

edit: to clarify: There are only seven Salubri left and they keep it that way. When they embrace a childe, they teach the childe everything they can, then the childe diablerizes the sire.

Xagarath

The only thing likely to survive the end of old WoD was Grandmaw, and she was from Orpheus, which no-one bought anyway

Kay

I like to think that Jack would survive.

He wouldn't, but I still like to think that he would.

TychoCelchuuu

I wanted to pop in and note that I love all the thread titles, past and present.

cj iwakura

Kay wrote: »

I like to think that Jack would survive.

He wouldn't, but I still like to think that he would.

Beckett did.


Well, he earth melded. Close enough.

fadingathedges

Was there a written end for owod? All the antediluvians come back and... everyone dies?

cj iwakura

A few. There's the Gehenna sourcebook for playing out Gehenna, which is pretty much all-out ridiculous lunacy(i.e. gigantic Tzimisce fleshbeast appears and eats all of NYC), and the novel version; 'The Final Nights', which is far more reasonable.


Not all the Antediluvians return, but enough of them do to cause global madness.

If I remember right, Tzimisce and Lasombra are the biggest antagonists.

The Nosferatu knew it was coming, because the Nictuku and Nosferatu have been picking away at them for decades.

OptimusZed

There was a big, system-wide ending to the oWoD that wrapped up before they started with the nWoD.

Gehenna, Thin Bloods, Antideluvians, sea-evaporating sun bombs, the whole deal.

It's one of the only RPG metaplots that I actually found interesting enough to run with at the table.

fadingathedges

Is nwod an entirely new mythology/alternate universe then, or a follow up?

cj iwakura

Totally new mythology. There's similar bloodlines(i.e. Malkovians), but there's no connections beyond that at all. The Caine mythos and backstory in general has been wiped out.

OptimusZed

fadingathedges wrote: »

Is nwod an entirely new mythology/alternate universe then, or a follow up?

It's a reboot, with quite a bit of streamlining.

A lot of the same stuff is there, but it's been condensed or pared back to be more manageable. Bloodlines got merged, powers got combined or cut, etc.

The oWoD got pretty sprawling at the end, especially Vampire and Werewolf. nWoD was an attempt to recapture the essence of that without getting bogged down in detail. How successful it was depends on the observer.

Basil

*sniffs*

It's just not the same. Which was perhaps the point.

But still.

Change. Yuck.

cj iwakura

Most V:TMers I know love Requiem's mechanics, but are too attached to Masquerade's mythos to move on.

If you get an ST who can create a good setting, Requiem can be great. Big if, though.

OptimusZed

Well, when you're up against literally thousands of pages of backstory/mythos, it's really hard to catch up in a couple of books. I haven't picked up anything past the core book for nWoD Vampire, but my library for the oWoD version was literally that; a library. Multiple bookshelves worth of material.

cj iwakura

NWoD isn't exactly thin. :P There's at least ten Mage books.


Also, they're all hardcover, so they're a LOT more expensive.

OptimusZed

Ha.

I've been out of the loop for nWoD. I just haven't had a group to play it with, and I don't have the time I used to to pour over sourcebooks for lore.

I didn't know how prolific they'd gotten.

Sir Carcass

cj iwakura wrote: »

Most V:TMers I know love Requiem's mechanics, but are too attached to Masquerade's mythos to move on.

If you get an ST who can create a good setting, Requiem can be great. Big if, though.

Yeah, I'm kind of the same way. Well, I haven't looked at the mechanics because the setting change pisses me off so much, but I do really hate the oWoD mechanics. It also didn't help that my ST did not know how to control combat flow. He was the typical ST, really only cared about the story he had crafted.

fadingathedges

I've only played owod Mage, but I was aware of all the white wolf stuff back in the day.

Related trivia:
My Jyhad deck was undefeated!

Who remembers Kindred: the Embraced?

Jintor

I really loved the endbooks for oWoD

There's something so satisfying about the entire world just ending. I really liked two scenarios in particular: the ridiculous every antedeluvian wakes up and wrecks the world scenario, and the weird Salubri is a hero/villain with awesome publicity version

cj iwakura

fadingathedges wrote: »

I've only played owod Mage, but I was aware of all the white wolf stuff back in the day.

Related trivia:
My Jyhad deck was undefeated!

Who remembers Kindred: the Embraced?

Remember? I own it. :P


The show is mostly b-movie soap opera drama, but it has its charms.

(Also, Doakes.)


For the unfamiliar, it was a low budget TNT-esque show based on V:TM.

Focused just on Camarilla politics. There was a Ventrue, Nosferatu, Toreador, and Brujah(the main antagonist, anarchistic).

I don't recall the Sabbat having a big role, or there being Tremere or Malkavians.

Caveman Paws

cj iwakura wrote: »

fadingathedges wrote: »

I've only played owod Mage, but I was aware of all the white wolf stuff back in the day.

Related trivia:
My Jyhad deck was undefeated!

Who remembers Kindred: the Embraced?

Remember? I own it. :P


The show is mostly b-movie soap opera drama, but it has its charms.

(Also, Doakes.)


For the unfamiliar, it was a low budget TNT-esque show based on V:TM.

Focused just on Camarilla politics. There was a Ventrue, Nosferatu, Toreador, and Brujah(the main antagonist, anarchistic).

I don't recall the Sabbat having a big role, or there being Tremere or Malkavians.

I think there was an Assamite in one of the last episodes. I don't own the series, but I remember being a 13yr old combat twink who was excited for assamite action.

dj.subversive

was it actually an Assamite, or just a vampire-assassin who worked for blood?

My problem with that show (other than the name Aaron Spelling) was the lack of Malkavians, and to a lesser extent, Tremere, Sabbat, independent clans (a Ravnos or Setite rolling through town just being themselves would have made a good "villain of the week"), or really anything non-Julian-Luna-oriented.

Damn. For having been so long since I've seen it, I remember way too much about that show.

Tube

As much as I love general WoD discussion, we should keep this at least tangentially related to Bloodlines and not get too distracted by things like terrible tv shows.

dj.subversive

okay, so I have win7 (64-bit) and the Steam version of Bloodlines. I got past the "can't find Steam" errors by installing the unofficial patch, but now I don't see the intro movies. I have the sound, but no visuals, and after a minute, it puts me at the main menu. Has anyone else had this issue? Not that I need to watch the opening movies or anything, but I'm just hoping that it isn't something that will rear its head later on and fuck with my game.

And something I've always liked in this game (besides F-A-T Larry and his Truck o' Mack) is the radio station - Deb of Night is great, especially when the Tzimisce dude calls in to rant about the end times. I've found myself just hanging out in places just to listen to the radio. There's so many great little touches to this game. I wish I wasn't working so I could actually play it instead of rambling about it on a forum.

fadingathedges

I have that exact same situation with the 64bits and steams and patches and no intro vidjas. The game has played fine so far, though.

Tube

I wish there was a way to listen to the radio on the move. Having to just stand there for ten minutes listening to it is unfortunate.

TychoCelchuuu

Lewie P's Stepdad wrote: »

I wish there was a way to listen to the radio on the move. Having to just stand there for ten minutes listening to it is unfortunate.

I also wanted to be able to drag my television with me. In the end I resorted to running Olympic marathons around and around in the kitchen, or pouncing over and over at one of the kitchen cabinets as if I were hunting it.

gtrmp

dj.subversive wrote: »

so, the remaining seven Salubri and like three other vampires, then?

edit: to clarify: There are only seven Salubri left and they keep it that way. When they embrace a childe, they teach the childe everything they can, then the childe diablerizes the sire.

The thing with seven Salubri diablerizing their sires was retconned away in later books, probably because the developers realized that it was pretty stupid for a bloodline that was supposedly seeking Golconda to be wholly based around the one act that all but guaranteed that you'd never actually get there.

dj.subversive

gtrmp wrote: »

dj.subversive wrote: »

so, the remaining seven Salubri and like three other vampires, then?

edit: to clarify: There are only seven Salubri left and they keep it that way. When they embrace a childe, they teach the childe everything they can, then the childe diablerizes the sire.

The thing with seven Salubri diablerizing their sires was retconned away in later books, probably because the developers realized that it was pretty stupid for a bloodline that was supposedly seeking Golconda to be wholly based around the one act that all but guaranteed that you'd never actually get there.

oh, good. that was always a sticking point with me.

A question, because I never really watched the television unless I was playing a Malk (after I randomly turned it on one night and had a conversation with the guy)... does any other clan get the "police suspect that you did it" or whatever he says during one of his reports? I'm suspecting not, but it's such a subtle little thing that I wouldn't be surprised if it was there all the time.

TychoCelchuuu

dj.subversive wrote: »

gtrmp wrote: »

dj.subversive wrote: »

so, the remaining seven Salubri and like three other vampires, then?

edit: to clarify: There are only seven Salubri left and they keep it that way. When they embrace a childe, they teach the childe everything they can, then the childe diablerizes the sire.

The thing with seven Salubri diablerizing their sires was retconned away in later books, probably because the developers realized that it was pretty stupid for a bloodline that was supposedly seeking Golconda to be wholly based around the one act that all but guaranteed that you'd never actually get there.

oh, good. that was always a sticking point with me.

A question, because I never really watched the television unless I was playing a Malk (after I randomly turned it on one night and had a conversation with the guy)... does any other clan get the "police suspect that you did it" or whatever he says during one of his reports? I'm suspecting not, but it's such a subtle little thing that I wouldn't be surprised if it was there all the time.

Nope, that is unique to the Malkavians. You're right about it being super subtle, and it's one of the many things that makes this game great.

Ultimanecat

After much howling and gnashing of teeth I've got this game running again on my computer.

Any quick insight on how to get the widescreen / resolution patch that comes included with the unofficial patch working? I run it, set it for 16:10 (ratio of my monitor) and then click Patch It, yet nothing happens in game.

I guess it wouldn't be the end of the world to play it in 4:3, but I've already come so far!

Toxic Pickle

Is there something special you have to do?

I uhh... just bought this game yesterday on a whim. Never played it beforeohgodwhathaveIdone.

Anyways, installed the unofficial patch, and in the resolutions I was just able to choose 1600x1200 or something like that. Would prefer 1920x1200 but whatever. So as far as I know the resolutions should just be there.

Regarding the game, I kinda feel like I'm doing it wrong all the time. On the other hand, I'm a Brujah so when I wander into some guys' beach house and slaughter them all with a baseball bat, it kinda feels right at the same time.

Maybe I'll be something with more subtlety for my 2nd playthrough.

WotanAnubis

Well, you're gonna need fighting skills anyway if you hope to finish this game, so don't feel afraid to invest.

But... try not to follow the main quest too rigidly. There's a lot of side stuff there that you'll wanna play as well. Explore a bit, you know.

dj.subversive

The only way to play Bloodlines "wrong" is not to play it. Brujah are combat monsters, but they also get Presence, so you do have non-face-punching options if you ever want them. The best advice I can give is that old RPG gem: "talk to everyone and explore everywhere."

Oh, and vampires lie. All of them. All the time.