I thought the devs were based in Seattle. They should know better.
Nah that was the original dev studio who were in Seattle and chose to set it there.
New studio is based in the UK and shifted the setting to "random freak blizzard Seattle", which always felt like a way to at least kind of get off with the vibe not making sense while still being able to reuse assets.
It was always supposed to be set in a blizzard in Seattle (which we did indeed used to actually get).
The snowstorm was always to make the city smaller. Because while Seattle is not like... large. A framing device so that the player doesn't wonder why they cannot go somewhere/there aren't loads of people out at night is good.
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BlackDragon480Bluster KerfuffleMaster of Windy ImportRegistered Userregular
I've been enjoying the recently released Cabernet, named after the red wine.
It's only a narrative game but it has some light rpg elements, skills, level ups, different outfits, choice and consequence, different ways to conduct oneself and approach things, relationships to develop for better or worse, even some time management. The voice acting, art and "vamp vibe" are pretty great.
Replayed through Vampyr on a harder difficulty somewhat recently to incentivize more feeding. Thought I was doing pretty good!
Got a worse ending! Thematic but also kinda a bummer?
Oh well, youtube for the best endings. (Looking at you Metro series)
IIRC to get the absolute best ending in Vampyre you have to never feed, ever, not even the tutorial prompt.
Yeah which is thematic but then you eliminate the most interesting mechanic in the game.
It's kind of like the low chaos Dishonored run where 99% of your interactions with enemies is sneak, knockout, hide body, while ignoring all the goodies on offer.
I thought the devs were based in Seattle. They should know better.
Nah that was the original dev studio who were in Seattle and chose to set it there.
New studio is based in the UK and shifted the setting to "random freak blizzard Seattle", which always felt like a way to at least kind of get off with the vibe not making sense while still being able to reuse assets.
It was always supposed to be set in a blizzard in Seattle (which we did indeed used to actually get).
The snowstorm was always to make the city smaller. Because while Seattle is not like... large. A framing device so that the player doesn't wonder why they cannot go somewhere/there aren't loads of people out at night is good.
Nah, you're misremembering. The switch to snowstorm/blizzard was something that came with the re-reveal of the game, after HardSuit labs was taken off the project. I think you're thinking of the fact that the original game was set around Christmas (seen in the trailers), but it wasn't going to be set during a blizzard. All of the imagery of the HSL version of the game was fog and rain:
Here's a slideshow showing several more outdoor screenshots, with not a flake of snow in sight.
I know my comments were pretty cynical -- I can't pretend I'm not cynical about the new version of the game! -- but they were in reaction to an actual series of events that happened. Paradox/Chinese room may have had other reasons to switch to a freak blizzard aside from my reasoning, but it definitely is something that happened after HSL was booted off. If you search around, there are no references to blizzards/snow prior to the re-reveal either (aside from a couple of random articles referencing the studio "Blizzard"), and even more directly: I was here in the thread reacting to the re-reveal when it happened, and the switch to snowstorm had me nervous because it coincided with switch from "development team that lives in Seattle" to "development team that's in the UK". The game's original relationship to LA was huge, and it's not a coincidence that they chose LA with Troika being in Irvine.
I understand that Seattle gets blizzards! Just one of those "Huh, if you're really trying to nail the vibe of Seattle like the first did with LA, does that actually make sense to set it during [pretty rare weather event the city isn't particularly used to dealing with]? It's a pretty different vibe!" The area I live in is warm but occasionally freezes over, and if I were trying to capture the vibe of my home I wouldn't choose the "once every 2-3 year hard freeze" I guess. Not that it can't work! It's just something that added to my skepticism.
Fiatil on
+2
Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
Seattle getting a hard freeze is more like every 10-20 years. A couple years ago there were a few frozen days, then a couple years before that was a full-on snowed-in frozen blizzard where the whole city was shut down and it had been a lotta years since that happened last.
So yeah, it can happen, but it's rare and the norm is generally grey rainy winter.
But something like a hard freeze can also add to the idea that maybe something big and bad and mystical is going on.
+1
surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
i mean bloodlines 1 was nothing like santa monica or whatever and if i was playing a vampire game in london it would be extremely off so im fine with it
ur in fantasy seattle its like ordinary seattle but it makes less sense and everybody is gother
i mean bloodlines 1 was nothing like santa monica or whatever and if i was playing a vampire game in london it would be extremely off so im fine with it
ur in fantasy seattle its like ordinary seattle but it makes less sense and everybody is gother
Bloodlines 1 was designed, in part, to capture the spirit of gothy clubs and goth culture in LA circa 2000. That's captured quite well. Of course it's nothing bordering on a full recreation of LA. It was released in 2004 on not quite a lavish budget, but is heavily praised for capturing that atmosphere and I've seen many let's plays where people walk into one of the clubs and go "Oh my God my nostalgia! This is perfect", understanding of course the limitations of a videogame. There have been more retrospectives and articles written on that "vibe" of Bloodlines than I can count. That vibe is the reason there was a sequel announced to a commercially failed cult classic 15 years later.
I don't see any attempt at creating any sort or vibe like that.
That may be fine! This is a different game, and it may be a fantastic game.
My last post was just correcting a misconception. The blizzard thing was added after Hardsuit labs. Whether that matters to you is up to you, and I know a lot of people care less than me because they're not as attached to the first game as me (which is totally fair).
Fiatil on
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surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
oh i dont mean the vibes are off in bl1 or that its bad, i just mean physically the layout or w/e, equivalent to space needle location in seattle or whatever
this wasnt a response to your last post, more the bit about seattle further up
oh i dont mean the vibes are off in bl1 or that its bad, i just mean physically the layout or w/e, equivalent to space needle location in seattle or whatever
this wasnt a response to your last post, more the bit about seattle further up
My bad! I appreciate the clarification.
Yeah I was never expecting a full recreation of Seattle in BL2 either, any more than we got a full recreation of LA in BL1. That's impractical and going full on open world is going to stretch their budget way too thin, as Bloodlines 2 was never going to suddenly be a AAA $300M budget game.
Hell our shared experiences in Avowed show how strongly you can capture a vibe that way in 2025! The whole "4 hubs, semi-open, strong vibe" setup definitely tickled some Bloodlines 1 things in my brain, and I think that game shows how valuable a smaller scope like that can be for mid-sized games like Bloodlines 2.
Fiatil on
+1
surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
yeah im hoping they sacrifice scale for density/detail which they, as a team, have definitely shown they are capable of doing
i mean bloodlines 1 was nothing like santa monica or whatever and if i was playing a vampire game in london it would be extremely off so im fine with it
ur in fantasy seattle its like ordinary seattle but it makes less sense and everybody is gother
Fallout New Vegas perfectly encapsulates the Mojave though.
Yes, Cazadors, Deathclaws and Super Mutants included.
my complaints about the layout are less "oh no, things aren't where they're supposed to be" even though it probably comes off a bit as that. But that the vibe of the areas is changed significantly as a result. Like... Pioneer square is living spaces, clubs, art galleries, and semi-wholesale businesses. It used to be skid-row (THE skid row from which all skid rows were named). The artic club is close by as is the south end of the financial district so crushing them there and using that as a "changing vibe at the edge" is fine. As would have been using the water front to do that. But the conservatory is not in that type of area. And there is no centralized police station (and not really any police presence, there are admin offices and the prison/courts but not like a "police station"). And a pawn shop and auto repair are just... out of the question.
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surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
edited March 1
the vampires just have a naturally-occurring occult seediness field, thats my theory
It's not a great sign when he says that since the last update they have still been fudging with the narrative,
That could explain part of the delay. Usually voice acting and cinematics need to be finished well before other game elements are due to things like voice actor scheduling. I've seen a few releases where it felt like narrative elements were changed late and some cinematics felt like they had already been locked in and made some characters feel disjointed. If they are still tweaking things, I hope the months-long delay also involves revising some of that stuff so it all feels consistent.
Yeah but the narrative isn't, like, the game, right?
Wait I am hearing that it is.....
...eh, maybe? like having 100% of (non-voice) assets is pretty critical to that. but you change / update / improve / change a narrative around with existing assets.
Like, think about the Ocean House Hotel from VTMB. So much of what made that "level" amazing was atmosphere. Sure, the hotel itself has a good floor plan, but it's all the stuff "in" the hotel that made it great - environmental effects, sound, storytelling via notes, and of course that jump scare.
So saying "Since our last update, we have added ... more narrative depth..." isn't, like, particularly alarming to me. More narrative depth is good, and there's a lot of way to add depth that isn't "we threw out a ton of existing systems and jammed shoddy ones in their place" or whatever.
+1
surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
Posts
Got a worse ending! Thematic but also kinda a bummer?
Oh well, youtube for the best endings. (Looking at you Metro series)
It was always supposed to be set in a blizzard in Seattle (which we did indeed used to actually get).
The snowstorm was always to make the city smaller. Because while Seattle is not like... large. A framing device so that the player doesn't wonder why they cannot go somewhere/there aren't loads of people out at night is good.
IIRC to get the absolute best ending in Vampyre you have to never feed, ever, not even the tutorial prompt.
~ Buckaroo Banzai
It's only a narrative game but it has some light rpg elements, skills, level ups, different outfits, choice and consequence, different ways to conduct oneself and approach things, relationships to develop for better or worse, even some time management. The voice acting, art and "vamp vibe" are pretty great.
Here's a taste. There's a demo too.
Yeah which is thematic but then you eliminate the most interesting mechanic in the game.
It's kind of like the low chaos Dishonored run where 99% of your interactions with enemies is sneak, knockout, hide body, while ignoring all the goodies on offer.
Nah, you're misremembering. The switch to snowstorm/blizzard was something that came with the re-reveal of the game, after HardSuit labs was taken off the project. I think you're thinking of the fact that the original game was set around Christmas (seen in the trailers), but it wasn't going to be set during a blizzard. All of the imagery of the HSL version of the game was fog and rain:
Here's a slideshow showing several more outdoor screenshots, with not a flake of snow in sight.
I know my comments were pretty cynical -- I can't pretend I'm not cynical about the new version of the game! -- but they were in reaction to an actual series of events that happened. Paradox/Chinese room may have had other reasons to switch to a freak blizzard aside from my reasoning, but it definitely is something that happened after HSL was booted off. If you search around, there are no references to blizzards/snow prior to the re-reveal either (aside from a couple of random articles referencing the studio "Blizzard"), and even more directly: I was here in the thread reacting to the re-reveal when it happened, and the switch to snowstorm had me nervous because it coincided with switch from "development team that lives in Seattle" to "development team that's in the UK". The game's original relationship to LA was huge, and it's not a coincidence that they chose LA with Troika being in Irvine.
I understand that Seattle gets blizzards! Just one of those "Huh, if you're really trying to nail the vibe of Seattle like the first did with LA, does that actually make sense to set it during [pretty rare weather event the city isn't particularly used to dealing with]? It's a pretty different vibe!" The area I live in is warm but occasionally freezes over, and if I were trying to capture the vibe of my home I wouldn't choose the "once every 2-3 year hard freeze" I guess. Not that it can't work! It's just something that added to my skepticism.
So yeah, it can happen, but it's rare and the norm is generally grey rainy winter.
But something like a hard freeze can also add to the idea that maybe something big and bad and mystical is going on.
ur in fantasy seattle its like ordinary seattle but it makes less sense and everybody is gother
Bloodlines 1 was designed, in part, to capture the spirit of gothy clubs and goth culture in LA circa 2000. That's captured quite well. Of course it's nothing bordering on a full recreation of LA. It was released in 2004 on not quite a lavish budget, but is heavily praised for capturing that atmosphere and I've seen many let's plays where people walk into one of the clubs and go "Oh my God my nostalgia! This is perfect", understanding of course the limitations of a videogame. There have been more retrospectives and articles written on that "vibe" of Bloodlines than I can count. That vibe is the reason there was a sequel announced to a commercially failed cult classic 15 years later.
I don't see any attempt at creating any sort or vibe like that.
That may be fine! This is a different game, and it may be a fantastic game.
My last post was just correcting a misconception. The blizzard thing was added after Hardsuit labs. Whether that matters to you is up to you, and I know a lot of people care less than me because they're not as attached to the first game as me (which is totally fair).
this wasnt a response to your last post, more the bit about seattle further up
My bad! I appreciate the clarification.
Yeah I was never expecting a full recreation of Seattle in BL2 either, any more than we got a full recreation of LA in BL1. That's impractical and going full on open world is going to stretch their budget way too thin, as Bloodlines 2 was never going to suddenly be a AAA $300M budget game.
Hell our shared experiences in Avowed show how strongly you can capture a vibe that way in 2025! The whole "4 hubs, semi-open, strong vibe" setup definitely tickled some Bloodlines 1 things in my brain, and I think that game shows how valuable a smaller scope like that can be for mid-sized games like Bloodlines 2.
Fallout New Vegas perfectly encapsulates the Mojave though.
Yes, Cazadors, Deathclaws and Super Mutants included.
Just like in Undertale.
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edit: was confused because of lack of naming what game amidst lots of cross talk, but this appears to be related to Vampyr.
he has another one with lady gaga and the posters...
Coming October of this year, says the game is done, just being polished.
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/vampire-the-masquerade-bloodlines-2-first-hands-on-a-gory-undead-power-fantasy-that-im-desperate-to-play-again/
And the hands-on preview sounds like it could be good, just definitely not very sprawling or, well, open(which is about what I expected).
*pushes Burnage out of the way*
HYYYYPPPEEEE TTRAAAAAAAIIIIIINNNNN
Wait I am hearing that it is.....
That could explain part of the delay. Usually voice acting and cinematics need to be finished well before other game elements are due to things like voice actor scheduling. I've seen a few releases where it felt like narrative elements were changed late and some cinematics felt like they had already been locked in and made some characters feel disjointed. If they are still tweaking things, I hope the months-long delay also involves revising some of that stuff so it all feels consistent.
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3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
...eh, maybe? like having 100% of (non-voice) assets is pretty critical to that. but you change / update / improve / change a narrative around with existing assets.
Like, think about the Ocean House Hotel from VTMB. So much of what made that "level" amazing was atmosphere. Sure, the hotel itself has a good floor plan, but it's all the stuff "in" the hotel that made it great - environmental effects, sound, storytelling via notes, and of course that jump scare.
So saying "Since our last update, we have added ... more narrative depth..." isn't, like, particularly alarming to me. More narrative depth is good, and there's a lot of way to add depth that isn't "we threw out a ton of existing systems and jammed shoddy ones in their place" or whatever.
its ok im releasing the game on that date, watch this
Mom said I could be anything I wanted so I became a huge bitch.
Look, I'm complicated.