Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines: 2 - I want to believe, but...

[El Chacal De La Trompeta]

there is no way in hell the writing on this turd isnt dogshit. the question is how broken it will be at launch

 

[Leaf Wage Slave Jr]

there is no way in hell the writing on this turd isnt dogshit. the question is how broken it will be at launch

Honestly, if the games bad enough, I might pirate it. It’s been a minute since I’ve played something comically bad, and at this point I legit wouldn’t be surprised if Paradox pulls an “EA on Veilguard” and doesn’t pay for Denuvo.

Everyone involved knows this game is going to flop, everyone watching it expects it to flop - I don’t think they’d be interested in throwing much more money on this dumpster fire. Hell, it’d probably be a better use of the money yo throw it on an ACTUAL dumpster fire at this point…

 

[El Chacal De La Trompeta]

im too old to hate play shit, just ignore it and laugh about it here with the boyz

 

[Leaf Wage Slave Jr]

It wouldn’t even be a Hate Play, I like Bad Games. Sometimes they loop around to being halfway approaching decent just from making me laugh at how shit they are.

I’m still not giving them money for this regardless.

 

[mindlessobserver]

You can't hold a turd in forever. Eventually you just got to shit it out.

 

[Snekposter]

You can't hold a turd in forever. Eventually you just got to shit it out.

Hopefully by October everyone will have recovered from how hard we've been laughing at AC Shadows.

 

[Anon88]

I’m thinking come October I’m going to replay the first game instead. Still never done a Nosferatu run yet and that’s looking a lot more fun then VTMB2 is.

 

[Michael Wade]

I'm probably the only guy who's going to go in with any hope of it being good if I decide to buy on release.

 

[Frightened Rabbit]

There's even shit missing from that. Parts of the VTM core book released before WW was shut down were written like a fucking tumblr kink post.

I've been thinking about getting more into the WoD and VTM shit for a while, when did they start poisoning the well? I assume it was after Paradox bought them, but I don't have enough trust in the TTRPG "community" to not infiltrate White Wolf before.
Also what would you recommend the best way into the series?

 

[Martys_not_smarty]

I've been thinking about getting more into the WoD and VTM shit for a while, when did they start poisoning the well? I assume it was after Paradox bought them, but I don't have enough trust in the TTRPG "community" to not infiltrate White Wolf before.
Also what would you recommend the best way into the series?

Someone will probably better explain than I but it was right around post 20th anniversary dropped and something put into canon about how vampires were behind killing faggots in chechnya or some shit and WW's eurocuck overlords noped the fuck out of letting them have any more fun. As for best way to get in stick with the aforementioned V20.

 

[p1138]

I've been thinking about getting more into the WoD and VTM shit for a while, when did they start poisoning the well? I assume it was after Paradox bought them, but I don't have enough trust in the TTRPG "community" to not infiltrate White Wolf before.
Also what would you recommend the best way into the series?

Some point in the 90s? It's always been infested with theater kids, LGHDTVQPIA++, etc. people more so than most other games. The only way to avoid it is don't bother with the LARP, curate a table of players like you'd do for anything else, and hope that the video games aren't loaded up with wokeslop.

 

[regalterry]

Also what would you recommend the best way into the series?

Bloodlines 1 basically, though it's like going to make everything else related to the IP pale in comparison. The game is built around both the player and player character getting introduced to vampires and their culture one step at a time.

Redemption is another passable, if janky, take on the IP, though it's completely overshadowed by Bloodlines 1.

I wouldn't recommend trying to start a tabletop campaign with strangers, since WoD attracts the freaks much more than other settings.

My recommendation is to play Bloodlines and Redemption and then forget the World of Darkness exists.

 

[DeadwastePrime]

I wouldn't recommend trying to start a tabletop campaign with strangers, since WoD attracts the freaks much more than other settings.

i know right? isnt that great?

 

[Ventrue]

PC Gamer has a new issue of their magazine out now with Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 on the cover and an article on their website. The latest news is Fabien, the voice in Phyre's head is a Malkavian, who was a Private Investigator before his embrace.

"It's part of how he is dealing with the Malkavian curse," game director Alex Skidmore told me in an interview earlier this year. "He's constructed this story he tells himself." He uses his detective persona to maintain a grip on reality, which also makes him better able to serve as your guide through the modern world. But that doesn't mean you should rely on him too much.

"There are points in the story where there are things that Fabien will tell you that are clearly not true," said Skidmore. "But he believes them. And that's really interesting because then you start to question, because he's also your guide, what can I trust?"

They made Fabien's Malkavian curse subtle where he isn't speaking in riddles because they didn't want to frustrate the player and portray mental illness as comic relief. I understand for the sake of clarity they made Fabien more coherent so everybody can follow his instructions (hand holding) than again why bother if they are going to remove the main reason why clan Malkavian is such a fan favorite.

"What I find particularly interesting is that [Malkavians] are seeing the world through a different filter, through their own," narrative director Ian Thomas told me, "and there is this notion of sages or prophets and seeing visions, and in some cases, believing those visions. And there's also the Cassandra thing of 'I believe this is true, and nobody else believes me'. What was less interesting about the more schizophrenic or scattered [approach] is it's very difficult to have a through line of a viewpoint."

Ian Thomas saying what he likes about the Malkavian clan is they see into the future but he doesn't like them being crazy. This is an example of somebody not understand the lore just as worse than a Malkavian trying to understand the Madness Network.

The Chinese Room's approach also feels more sympathetic. When the original Bloodlines came out more than 20 years ago, we hadn't fully reckoned with how media like videogames was stigmatising mental illness. I don't think developer Troika was poking fun at schizophrenia, but I think it's perfectly valid to be uncomfortable when a character presenting the symptoms of real mental illness is portrayed as wacky and weird⁠—their armour design is certainly an acquired taste.

The journalist that wrote this article applauded the studio for not making fun of schizophrenia and depicting the Malkavians as they were in Bloodlines 1. He even went so far as to say that the way the Malkavians dress is inherent to how their mental illness is presented. In Bloodlines 1 the Malkavian clan are depicted as ravers, that is how they dressed in clubs. The female has a dialogue option where she says that she was a stripper before she became a vampire.

Spoiler: His example of a Malkavian dressed insane and mine of a raver

Joshua Mathews, the community manager of Bloodlines 2 no longer works at The Chinese Room. In the video there really isn't anything of substance except for the fact that he said half of the studio didn't know what VTM was. Josh and the devs played 5 or 6 sessions of the table top game to get acquainted with Vampire. He mentioned in the PC Gamer magazine cover that the former Prince of Seattle Lou Graham (My PFP) holds The Cross of Saint James, also known as the Santiago cross which serves as a reference to the rumors of a hunter in Seattle. I think it might be Santiago Molinero who is a member of the Soldiers of the Adversary.

Even though that is not an example of any dialogue in the game, for a 400 year old elder named Phyre to say "why the heck am I hearing another vampire in my head?" is the kind of writing I would expect from writers these days.

 

[Frightened Rabbit]

It is very rude for The Chinese Room to bring a corpse to gamescom 2025 and start sodomizing it right on camera!

The TLDR is, it looks even worse than what I could expect, not just that, but it's so bad that not even the gaming journos can hide their own disappointment, which is funny to me.

What I expected from people that sell you clans as a preorder bonus, in a game that isn't even a RPG.

 

[Gravityqueen4life]

Yeah i like playing as a dyke and having a soy redditor constantly talking inside my head.

That's what every vampire game asks for.

 

[Martys_not_smarty]

How fitting to prop up this wreck with the corpse of the first game.

 

[Asian tech support]

Yeah i like playing as a dyke and having a soy redditor constantly talking inside my head.

>shut up
>SHUT UP

 

[El Chacal De La Trompeta]

all i can muster to say is blugh. why even bother to make this shit

 

[Zirnwyb]

I forgot this shit was even supposed to come out until a friend mentioned it to me. Watching that trailer for it just has me here super fucking glad I don't care about this game anymore. I'll stick to playing the first, and only, game because it's still great 21 years later.