Well, Night Road updated and my game has changed considerably. I got reset to the start of the chapter, as expected, but also the start of the chapter is now wildly different from the way it was when I first played it. Differences:
I just got to St. Basil's, the second delivery job I took. As a change of plans, Lettow wanted me to first deliver a package to a plane that was gonna take off (which I failed to do, as Anarchs AND SI attacked the scene). A notable figure on the scene was a big woman with a braid. So, after that, I went on to the next chapter, which was getting to the actual St. Basil's, and I'd juuuust met Pattermuster.
Now, after the update, instead of starting with me pulling up to the hospital, the chapter instead starts with me making a stop at a store and having a run-in with that same woman with the braid. The text also mentions that I've done two jobs for Lettow, but unless they're counting the failed delivery to the plane, I've only delivered one USB so far, so one job.
My character sheet is the same as before, but the state of the game world seems pretty different. I didn't back up my game, so now I dunno if I should just press on or restart completely or... I don't even know what options I have. I guess just keep playing? This is actually incredibly despiriting, because I don't know if any of my choices "exist" anymore.
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JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
Yeah there's a problem where Night Road's updates reset saves, but this is the first I've heard about it altering choices outright. That sucks. I would say maybe just restart? You can blitz it pretty quickly if you remember what you did before.
Yup, that's exactly what I did - it was only the second of Lettow's three deliveries, and I remembered most of my decisions (especially for the big choices). It's a good thing I did, because after catching up to where I remember leaving off and playing through the end of that chapter, I confirmed my suspicion: the update didn't send me back to the start of the chapter, it sent me forward to the start of the next chapter.
I think I made some slightly different minor choices when I couldn't remember what I did initially, and in one case I kinda... used my future foreknowledge to try a tack different from what I did the first time:
the first time I had to make the impromptu delivery to the plane, I tried to use my brains to find a safe route to the plane, and failed. SI presumably got the package. This time, I gunned my car, pushed the SI cars off the road, and safely tossed the package into the plane
I actually kinda regret this, because I'm curious what would've happened following this failure.
I also feel like maybe some bugs were fixed. On my first run, when I made the delivery to
the migrant prison camp, I looked for something to steal, and opted for the high-end cars in the parking lot. The text described how I made away with cash, but I didn't notice an increase on my inventory page. This time I made the same choice, and had thousands of dollars, enough to buy the intrusion kit and a new car back in Tucson
I still haven't figured out what my character actually believes, so I feel like sometimes I'm making choices that I want to see resolve instead of what my character might believe. Gonna go into spoilers for specifics:
I think "protect the weak" is one of the things that moves him, so I freed the migrants at the camp, but I ended up letting St. Basil's keep going, under the notion that the thin-blooded and Caitiff need a home too. I can't tell if that's consistent, tbh - I'm helping the weak vampires at the expense of making life worse for humans at the hospital. With Caul, I helped her fake her death so she could go off and do her research as an independent, and I super-don't know if that lines up with whatever moral outlook my character might be developing - to some extent, I-the-player just kinda... wanted access to some more Disciplines (but also, while cloning vampires seemed bad for humans, it seemed like she was making good progress on also making animal-and-human blood mixtures that might ultimately lead to vampires being able to skip drinking human blood).
I know that there's no wrong way to eat a Reese's peanut blood-er cup, but I feel like this game is doing such a great job of creating characterization, choices, and consequences, that I'm letting it down by not playing a fully (dead)fleshed-out character.
I am genuinely perplexed at how a game that seemed to be going so well, proceeding in what was basically the ideal way a fan would want, could 180 so incredibly hard. Like... what the eff is Paradox doing over there? Or Hardsuit Labs, whoever is more directly responsible?
Jeez whoever is making choices to fire or make a hostile workplace for the people who filled your fans with confidence.... ya'll done fucked up.
My hopes are plummeting for something that previously seemed so positive.
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JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
it's so weird. I mean I'm not a games industry gossip maven but I literally can't recall ever hearing a bad word about Paradox, the main company, and yet so much with regards to the White Wolf acquisition has been a tire fire top to bottom, even after the obvious bad actors were removed. At the very least it doesn't seem like the main branch of the company knows how to stop these satellite projects from going into a tailspin.
It’s fucking bizarre alright. Like if she was just leaving because her job’s been done for awhile that might make sense. But Paradox not commenting makes that seem unlikely.
Especially since this is the second high-profile departure with the company refusing to comment. I suppose this could be straight up an after effect of whatever the hell went down with Mitsoda? But Paradox really needs to fucking like... say something.
Out of curiosity, do we know if Night Road and Coteries share any devs with Bloodlines? Or are they completely separate studios?
Pretty sure they're all entirely separate. Night Road is Choice of Games, Coteries is Draw Distance, Heart of the Forest is Different Tales, and now Bloodlines 2 is Hardsuit Labs.
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JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
Paradox seem to be taking a page from Games Workshop and just passing out the IP freely to anyone who can afford a license, on the philosophy that getting your property out there in front of eyeballs as often as possible is more effective than keeping a tight rein on things and never having a project see the light of day, since even if only a fraction of the flood of titles are good, the bad entries will quickly fade from sight and the good ones will accumulate over time.
Considering how much of a troubled development the first game had and it still become such a janky classic... I still have a weird hope for Bloodlines 2 if it ever actually comes out? Maybe that's crazy.
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
Paradox seem to be taking a page from Games Workshop and just passing out the IP freely to anyone who can afford a license, on the philosophy that getting your property out there in front of eyeballs as often as possible is more effective than keeping a tight rein on things and never having a project see the light of day, since even if only a fraction of the flood of titles are good, the bad entries will quickly fade from sight and the good ones will accumulate over time.
So how much do we need to pool together to make us a Mage game?
Paradox seem to be taking a page from Games Workshop and just passing out the IP freely to anyone who can afford a license, on the philosophy that getting your property out there in front of eyeballs as often as possible is more effective than keeping a tight rein on things and never having a project see the light of day, since even if only a fraction of the flood of titles are good, the bad entries will quickly fade from sight and the good ones will accumulate over time.
So how much do we need to pool together to make us a Mage game?
We already tried that, but the backlash erased it from existing entirely.
Paradox seem to be taking a page from Games Workshop and just passing out the IP freely to anyone who can afford a license, on the philosophy that getting your property out there in front of eyeballs as often as possible is more effective than keeping a tight rein on things and never having a project see the light of day, since even if only a fraction of the flood of titles are good, the bad entries will quickly fade from sight and the good ones will accumulate over time.
And I 100% approve of this strategy, compared to the way EA treated Star Wars.
Probably not going to happen but I'd really love to see Arkane make a Vampire game.
it's so weird. I mean I'm not a games industry gossip maven but I literally can't recall ever hearing a bad word about Paradox, the main company, and yet so much with regards to the White Wolf acquisition has been a tire fire top to bottom, even after the obvious bad actors were removed. At the very least it doesn't seem like the main branch of the company knows how to stop these satellite projects from going into a tailspin.
I guess the question is if the issue is with Paradox or with HSL. It's still really weird with no one talking..
( < . . .
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
But seriously, between the fairly devout group of Mage players here, the coders in the tech forum, and the art talent in AC, we could probably come up with a damn good Mage VN if we put our minds to it.
Welp, that is definitely unfortunate. It is feeling increasingly unlikely that Mitsoda was the one in the wrong. That makes it both of the people on the project that gave me faith in it gone with Cara out. It could be Paradox being crazy, but it could also be Hardsuit Labs. Neither Cara nor Mitsoda worked there before being brought in for the Bloodlines 2 project, so it's possible that their management are being wacky too.
I do feel like pushing back a bit on the narrative that Paradox has a completely clean slate when it comes to publishing decisions and working environment stuff. They've had allegations of poor work conditions among their QA teams in the past, and it's not impossible that this is their doing. I think it's tempting to look at them as the plucky underdog publisher from Sweden still, when they really haven't been the former in quite a long time. I'm reaaaally interested to hear what's going on over there, though I'm not optimistic we hear anything soon if at all.
On the purely Bloodlines 2 side....it certainly doesn't feel good right now. They keep saying it's 90% complete -- just a matter of polishing and tying up the loose ends -- but they're also basically on a total media blackout. That doesn't really jive to me -- you would think that would give them more than enough to drip feed the press with info and screenshots with release being theoretically not super far away. But hey, time will tell.
Paradox seem to be taking a page from Games Workshop and just passing out the IP freely to anyone who can afford a license, on the philosophy that getting your property out there in front of eyeballs as often as possible is more effective than keeping a tight rein on things and never having a project see the light of day, since even if only a fraction of the flood of titles are good, the bad entries will quickly fade from sight and the good ones will accumulate over time.
It's hard for me to fault them for the beginning of the project. Bloodlines 2 sequel with original lead dev / creative guy on board, and noted huge fan of Bloodlines Cara Ellison, is a pretty sweet pitch for a good game! People were really excited! Hardsuit Labs is much more of a "???" than that, but their development history suggests they can at least make decent games if not spectacular ones. Clearly something has gone horribly wrong in the interim though.
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
edited October 2020
Based on what the story is telling me, how Lasombra are supposed to act(Path of Night), and how I play Julia based on what I know about her, this is almost certainly not going to end well.
Was nice to see Calebros name dropped. Not surprised he stepped down, though I am curious as to the specifics.
Hardsuit Labs has now filled at least one of those vacant roles. Narrative Designer Samantha Wallschlaeger announced via Twitter yesterday that she is the new lead narrative designer for the indie developer. According to her bio and LinkedIn profile, Wallschlaeger has previously worked at BioWare and ArenaNet, with game credits that include Guild Wars 2, Mass Effect: Andromeda, and Star Wars: The Old Republic. For the most part, her duties ranged from creating characters and their story arcs to developing storylines for quests and expansion content.
Sounds more like DLC. Which tbh I thought might be one of the reasons behind everything is that Paradox wants to cut out chunks of the game for sale separately and the others didn't.
Mass Effect Andromeda Character stuff was great. It was the main plot that was ephemeral nothing.
That isn't to say this is encouraging, but depending on what this writer actually worked on, it's not necessarily a bad thing.
Also, a lot of people like certain parts of TOR
Yeah, depending on which aspect of TOR they worked this could be a good thing. The writing in that game was largely good and only a couple of the class storylines were bad.
Mass Effect Andromeda Character stuff was great. It was the main plot that was ephemeral nothing.
That isn't to say this is encouraging, but depending on what this writer actually worked on, it's not necessarily a bad thing.
Also, a lot of people like certain parts of TOR
Yeah, depending on which aspect of TOR they worked this could be a good thing. The writing in that game was largely good and only a couple of the class storylines were bad.
She was a writer on KotFE and KotET, after SWTOR went from class-based storylines to faction-based storylines... and then down to just the single storyline. So it's more "if you liked KotFE and KotET," rather than "if you liked certain parts of SWTOR."
Mass Effect Andromeda Character stuff was great. It was the main plot that was ephemeral nothing.
That isn't to say this is encouraging, but depending on what this writer actually worked on, it's not necessarily a bad thing.
Also, a lot of people like certain parts of TOR
Yeah, depending on which aspect of TOR they worked this could be a good thing. The writing in that game was largely good and only a couple of the class storylines were bad.
She was a writer on KotFE and KotET, after SWTOR went from class-based storylines to faction-based storylines... and then down to just the single storyline. So it's more "if you liked KotFE and KotET," rather than "if you liked certain parts of SWTOR."
Yeah thats good news, those two expansions were great.
Those are generally considered to be the best storylines in TOR though.
They're good storylines, I just felt like it was missing the big concept of SWTOR which was storylines tailored to your class. I liked having a "Sith Warrior" story, having a (comparatively) generic "story" was a bit of a letdown.
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Now, after the update, instead of starting with me pulling up to the hospital, the chapter instead starts with me making a stop at a store and having a run-in with that same woman with the braid. The text also mentions that I've done two jobs for Lettow, but unless they're counting the failed delivery to the plane, I've only delivered one USB so far, so one job.
My character sheet is the same as before, but the state of the game world seems pretty different. I didn't back up my game, so now I dunno if I should just press on or restart completely or... I don't even know what options I have. I guess just keep playing? This is actually incredibly despiriting, because I don't know if any of my choices "exist" anymore.
I think I made some slightly different minor choices when I couldn't remember what I did initially, and in one case I kinda... used my future foreknowledge to try a tack different from what I did the first time:
I also feel like maybe some bugs were fixed. On my first run, when I made the delivery to
I still haven't figured out what my character actually believes, so I feel like sometimes I'm making choices that I want to see resolve instead of what my character might believe. Gonna go into spoilers for specifics:
I know that there's no wrong way to eat a Reese's peanut blood-er cup, but I feel like this game is doing such a great job of creating characterization, choices, and consequences, that I'm letting it down by not playing a fully (dead)fleshed-out character.
https://www.pcgamer.com/bloodlines-2-senior-narrative-designer-cara-ellison-has-left-the-project/
"...senior narrative designer Cara Ellison has ... left the project, and is no longer with developer Hardsuit Labs."
"Paradox declined to comment on when Ellison left the project, or how it will impact the development of Bloodlines 2."
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My hopes are plummeting for something that previously seemed so positive.
Well, okay then.
Especially since this is the second high-profile departure with the company refusing to comment. I suppose this could be straight up an after effect of whatever the hell went down with Mitsoda? But Paradox really needs to fucking like... say something.
Pretty sure they're all entirely separate. Night Road is Choice of Games, Coteries is Draw Distance, Heart of the Forest is Different Tales, and now Bloodlines 2 is Hardsuit Labs.
So how much do we need to pool together to make us a Mage game?
We already tried that, but the backlash erased it from existing entirely.
And I 100% approve of this strategy, compared to the way EA treated Star Wars.
Probably not going to happen but I'd really love to see Arkane make a Vampire game.
I guess the question is if the issue is with Paradox or with HSL. It's still really weird with no one talking..
Says the Gangrel.
I do feel like pushing back a bit on the narrative that Paradox has a completely clean slate when it comes to publishing decisions and working environment stuff. They've had allegations of poor work conditions among their QA teams in the past, and it's not impossible that this is their doing. I think it's tempting to look at them as the plucky underdog publisher from Sweden still, when they really haven't been the former in quite a long time. I'm reaaaally interested to hear what's going on over there, though I'm not optimistic we hear anything soon if at all.
On the purely Bloodlines 2 side....it certainly doesn't feel good right now. They keep saying it's 90% complete -- just a matter of polishing and tying up the loose ends -- but they're also basically on a total media blackout. That doesn't really jive to me -- you would think that would give them more than enough to drip feed the press with info and screenshots with release being theoretically not super far away. But hey, time will tell.
It's hard for me to fault them for the beginning of the project. Bloodlines 2 sequel with original lead dev / creative guy on board, and noted huge fan of Bloodlines Cara Ellison, is a pretty sweet pitch for a good game! People were really excited! Hardsuit Labs is much more of a "???" than that, but their development history suggests they can at least make decent games if not spectacular ones. Clearly something has gone horribly wrong in the interim though.
Was nice to see Calebros name dropped. Not surprised he stepped down, though I am curious as to the specifics.
That's... quite a pedigree, I guess. Yup.
Old PA forum lookalike style for the new forums | My ko-fi donation thing.
That isn't to say this is encouraging, but depending on what this writer actually worked on, it's not necessarily a bad thing.
Also, a lot of people like certain parts of TOR
Yeah, depending on which aspect of TOR they worked this could be a good thing. The writing in that game was largely good and only a couple of the class storylines were bad.
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Yeah thats good news, those two expansions were great.
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