I honestly don't see what the point of that was. It's basically reiterating previous information from interviews and it doesn't tell us anything particularly new.
I am encouraged by the idea there are multiple routes or choices you can make and that there will be potentially severe consequences for breaching the masquerade.
Well, it does confirm there'll be an ability tree, and you can go places in Seattle, I guess.
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
I honestly don't see what the point of that was. It's basically reiterating previous information from interviews and it doesn't tell us anything particularly new.
I am encouraged by the idea there are multiple routes or choices you can make and that there will be potentially severe consequences for breaching the masquerade.
Well, it does confirm there'll be an ability tree, and you can go places in Seattle, I guess.
We saw the ability tree - in that it existed - in the gameplay trailer when they went into the main menu.
Since it's becoming increasingly apparent that the closest I will get to something resembling "Bloodlines 2 joy" is "feasting on the nostalgia of watching people play Bloodlines 1 for the first time" (hey it fits the setting at least), I've been watching some Bloodlines 1 runs on youtube lately.
I don't personally know the first, but do know the second person from a discord channel. I hope it's apparent from past posts that I am doing this to shill Bloodlines, not the streamers themselves (though they are both lovely and very welcoming people).
First up, Emalynde. This one is very wholesome and fun. Before Bloodlines, she had played a lot of Vampire the Requiem tabletop, but had no experience with VTM. This run lead to her tabletop group incorporating a lot of VTM stuff into their run, and a general passion for the setting. The playthrough also does a great job of pointing out the writing parts that haven't aged well, while also acknowledging that it's a product of its time thing and the developers/writers probably aren't all mean:
Next up, Skipford. He's played quite a bit of VTM tabletop, which means it's okay that he broke the first rule of "Malkavian for second run!" by making a Malkavian his first run. It leads to all sorts of fun and terrible outcomes, such as being an accidental low humanity run and making Jack hate him. Extra bonus points because he has actually met Chiasm, the artist behind everyone's favorite Santa Monica gothy nightclub theme. Worth it for his reaction to walking in The Asylum the first time alone (it's at 1:44:45 in the first video):
cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
I actually kind of dig the last update, it also shows a better look at how disciplines might work, and they understand the Brujah.
I'm still cautiously pessimistic, but it might not be a total train wreck at least.
It basically looks like AAA RPG 101, but still.
Image: Ability tree for Brujah. All clan abilities and the clan perk are unlocked. An ability from Banu Haqim has been equipped. Each clan has hundreds of different ability combinations.
That I'm curious about. Will you have to meet a BH to get one of their abilities? A partial blood bond? Or am I giving them too much credit to think they'll be that lore-accurate?
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
I'll admit the whole skill tree thing is silly to me. The OG got a lot of praise for trying to mimic the tabletop character sheet as best they could within a CRPG, and it was intuitive and cool and easy to understand even as a 14 year old Fiatil who had 0 experience with the tabletop.
But ultimately all I care about is the writing, world, and strength of characters. All of the above is a footnote, really all of the combat is for the most part a footnote as long as it's not horrendously bad.
Show me some wordssssss. So odd to focus so much on combat and skill trees and so little on the world and writing, and none of what I've seen with the latter so far have been very impressive. The levels are pretty, but again it's all surface level stuff that won't make or break the game.
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
I'll admit the whole skill tree thing is silly to me. The OG got a lot of praise for trying to mimic the tabletop character sheet as best they could within a CRPG, and it was intuitive and cool and easy to understand even as a 14 year old Fiatil who had 0 experience with the tabletop.
But ultimately all I care about is the writing, world, and strength of characters. All of the above is a footnote, really all of the combat is for the most part a footnote as long as it's not horrendously bad.
Show me some wordssssss. So odd to focus so much on combat and skill trees and so little on the world and writing, and none of what I've seen with the latter so far have been very impressive. The levels are pretty, but again it's all surface level stuff that won't make or break the game.
I don't expect the writing to be very good, with any luck it'll be passible. The fact that they're playing everything so close to their chest doesn't fill me with optimism, whereas the original announcement was full of good stuff about the writing.
I'll admit the whole skill tree thing is silly to me. The OG got a lot of praise for trying to mimic the tabletop character sheet as best they could within a CRPG, and it was intuitive and cool and easy to understand even as a 14 year old Fiatil who had 0 experience with the tabletop.
But ultimately all I care about is the writing, world, and strength of characters. All of the above is a footnote, really all of the combat is for the most part a footnote as long as it's not horrendously bad.
Show me some wordssssss. So odd to focus so much on combat and skill trees and so little on the world and writing, and none of what I've seen with the latter so far have been very impressive. The levels are pretty, but again it's all surface level stuff that won't make or break the game.
I don't expect the writing to be very good, with any luck it'll be passible. The fact that they're playing everything so close to their chest doesn't fill me with optimism, whereas the original announcement was full of good stuff about the writing.
Yep. I know that I'm just pining over the ghost of a game that never really existed, but god damn look at this thing:
All of the trailers released, there were people critiquing character models and animations and combat and stuff; valid concerns! But I just didn't fucking care when you're putting out trailers like that that show how much you are fucking nailing the style and tone that I want from this game. Morbid, stylish, horrifying, grotesque, but also kind of fun and lighthearted too!
Have a friend I've been watching some shows with, we finished up a series, needed something new, aaaand her interests seemed like a good match, so this happened:
Steam link, lapboard, and cat were all up to the task. I'd say it went pretty well, as this is the message I received later in the night:
One of us, one of us.
(the boxes in the corner are because my cat loves sleeping in them and I'm too weak willed to take them from her)
Have a friend I've been watching some shows with, we finished up a series, needed something new, aaaand her interests seemed like a good match, so this happened:
This makes sense. A cat would like a game about stealthy hunting.
Steam Badger A greasemonkey script for better gifting and peering
Note: If you buy the game on Steam (where the launch-day DLC, which unlocks the Black Furies and Hart Wardens as playable tribes, is free during launch week), you can also unlock for free the ability to play it on the website and on Android (which is my preferred way to play). You need to make an account on the Choice of Games website, go to the profile page, and "Restore purchases from Steam". The process is janky: I get a 404 the first time I do it, and when I repeat the process, I get a message that 0 new games were activated and 4 games were activated previously (that means Night Road and DLC and Hungry Names and DLC, for me), but the profile page only shows Night Road, not Hungry Names. But it does actually work, despite the jank; I installed the Android version of the game, and it recognized that I bought the game, and unlocked the content. Now that I think about it, though, it's possible that the Google account that you use to install the Android game needs to be the same as the one connected to the Gmail address you use to create the Choice of Games account. If it doesn't work, you can email the Choice of Games support and I'm sure they can sort it out.
Posts
what
the
FUK... i thought there was a benevolent god... but i was wrong...
Well, it does confirm there'll be an ability tree, and you can go places in Seattle, I guess.
We saw the ability tree - in that it existed - in the gameplay trailer when they went into the main menu.
https://www.paradoxinteractive.com/games/vampire-the-masquerade-bloodlines-2/news/what-is-a-brujah
"Cherish Goldshaw"?
I don't personally know the first, but do know the second person from a discord channel. I hope it's apparent from past posts that I am doing this to shill Bloodlines, not the streamers themselves (though they are both lovely and very welcoming people).
First up, Emalynde. This one is very wholesome and fun. Before Bloodlines, she had played a lot of Vampire the Requiem tabletop, but had no experience with VTM. This run lead to her tabletop group incorporating a lot of VTM stuff into their run, and a general passion for the setting. The playthrough also does a great job of pointing out the writing parts that haven't aged well, while also acknowledging that it's a product of its time thing and the developers/writers probably aren't all mean:
Next up, Skipford. He's played quite a bit of VTM tabletop, which means it's okay that he broke the first rule of "Malkavian for second run!" by making a Malkavian his first run. It leads to all sorts of fun and terrible outcomes, such as being an accidental low humanity run and making Jack hate him. Extra bonus points because he has actually met Chiasm, the artist behind everyone's favorite Santa Monica gothy nightclub theme. Worth it for his reaction to walking in The Asylum the first time alone (it's at 1:44:45 in the first video):
I'm still cautiously pessimistic, but it might not be a total train wreck at least.
It basically looks like AAA RPG 101, but still.
That I'm curious about. Will you have to meet a BH to get one of their abilities? A partial blood bond? Or am I giving them too much credit to think they'll be that lore-accurate?
Sounds like they got them right, at least.
Get yer blood nerd on
Yea thats what I'll go with.
Also now we know how the abilities from other clans work!
Pretty interesting.
Tremere having access to Banu disciplines makes zero sense, but sure, okay...
But ultimately all I care about is the writing, world, and strength of characters. All of the above is a footnote, really all of the combat is for the most part a footnote as long as it's not horrendously bad.
Show me some wordssssss. So odd to focus so much on combat and skill trees and so little on the world and writing, and none of what I've seen with the latter so far have been very impressive. The levels are pretty, but again it's all surface level stuff that won't make or break the game.
I don't expect the writing to be very good, with any luck it'll be passible. The fact that they're playing everything so close to their chest doesn't fill me with optimism, whereas the original announcement was full of good stuff about the writing.
Yep. I know that I'm just pining over the ghost of a game that never really existed, but god damn look at this thing:
All of the trailers released, there were people critiquing character models and animations and combat and stuff; valid concerns! But I just didn't fucking care when you're putting out trailers like that that show how much you are fucking nailing the style and tone that I want from this game. Morbid, stylish, horrifying, grotesque, but also kind of fun and lighthearted too!
Steam link, lapboard, and cat were all up to the task. I'd say it went pretty well, as this is the message I received later in the night:
One of us, one of us.
(the boxes in the corner are because my cat loves sleeping in them and I'm too weak willed to take them from her)
You don't just throw away a good carboard box that a cat likes. That's not weakness, it's survival.
This makes sense. A cat would like a game about stealthy hunting.
Steam Badger A greasemonkey script for better gifting and peering
According to the Steam store page, it's got 1.6 million words. That sure sounds like a lot of words.
Note: If you buy the game on Steam (where the launch-day DLC, which unlocks the Black Furies and Hart Wardens as playable tribes, is free during launch week), you can also unlock for free the ability to play it on the website and on Android (which is my preferred way to play). You need to make an account on the Choice of Games website, go to the profile page, and "Restore purchases from Steam". The process is janky: I get a 404 the first time I do it, and when I repeat the process, I get a message that 0 new games were activated and 4 games were activated previously (that means Night Road and DLC and Hungry Names and DLC, for me), but the profile page only shows Night Road, not Hungry Names. But it does actually work, despite the jank; I installed the Android version of the game, and it recognized that I bought the game, and unlocked the content. Now that I think about it, though, it's possible that the Google account that you use to install the Android game needs to be the same as the one connected to the Gmail address you use to create the Choice of Games account. If it doesn't work, you can email the Choice of Games support and I'm sure they can sort it out.