Revisiting VtM: Bloodlines

[makiavelli747]

Malkavians in Bloodlines are retarded as fuck. There is no Malkavian in WoD that could talk like that... like some poetic wannabe... every single line...
Especially their appearance... fucking clowns instead of melancholic psychos?
Devs are fucking morons, and those who liked that clan are morons too.

 

[Jaesun]

 

[makiavelli747]

Fuck your bird I mean it. Being a crazy psycho has nothing to do with clowns and all that "nonsense". The way Troika played Malkavians is most retarded way one can imagine. Even besides lore, Malkavians in Bloodlines looks like a joke... a fucking joke! How come stupid shit like that can be somebody's favorite?

 

[Sizzle]

Fuck your bird I mean it. Being a crazy psycho has nothing to do with clowns and all that "nonsense". The way Troika played Malkavians is most retarded way one can imagine. Even besides lore, Malkavians in Bloodlines looks like a joke... a fucking joke! How come stupid shit like that can be somebody's favorite?

Because it was a unique experience done with style, great writing and hilarious reactions from all the other "normal" NPCs.

 

[makiavelli747]

Because it was a unique experience

This sounds like a sucker falling in love with his first pussy...

 

[Coma White]

This game is fucking incredible. It's embarrassing how many times I've played it. The most atmospheric and in many ways the FUNNIEST CRPG experience I've ever had. This thread needs to stay up here.

 

[Prime Junta]

This game is fucking incredible. It's embarrassing how many times I've played it. The most atmospheric and in many ways the FUNNIEST CRPG experience I've ever had. This thread needs to stay up here.

Or let it drift off the page, and have someone else start another one next year. It's a true classic, someone will always be reinstalling it.

 

[baturinsky]

Malkavians in Bloodlines are retarded as fuck. There is no Malkavian in WoD that could talk like that... like some poetic wannabe... every single line...
Especially their appearance... fucking clowns instead of melancholic psychos?
Devs are fucking morons, and those who liked that clan are morons too.

Aren't each Malk unlike the other? Afaik only protagonist and beach Malk talk in riddles. Sisters and Primogen Malk talk normally.

 

[Lambach]

Primogen Malk talk normally.

That's a bit debatable.

 

[Coma White]

That's a bit debatable.

A great example of the phenomenal character writing in this game. Grout is one of the most memorable characters in the game -- and he's not even IN the game outside these recordings. And the madhouse in which you find them.

 

[Mozg]

I started a new game in this with Wesp's patch.

First thing I noticed: Why did Wesp add a couple of pointless sentences back to Jack's dialog in the tutorial that were obviously meant for an earlier revision where Jack would first talk to you inside the building. Are you stupid, can I expect this kind of rote reanimation of "cut content" to happen a lot in the "basic patch"?

Second thing is that there's jarringly little characterizing choice about anything in the tutorial despite it being your first impression of vampire lyfe. They could have easily done the whole thing without giving you any dialog pseudo-choices. I think Jack being an almost unprecedentedly good voiced/faced NPC at the time wow'd me past this before.

 

[Coma White]

jarringly little characterizing choice

tutorial

Keep playing.

 

[Mozg]

I have played game a couple time, that's a "stuff I noticed in this 10-years-since-last playthrough playthrough" observation

It's seriously bumming me out that I remember fucking everything in Santa Monica despite going so long without a playthrough, it's generally a brand new game to me when it's been this long.

 

[Coma White]

Santa Monica

Unf. One of the best tracks on one of the best soundtracks ever.

 

[pippin]

hollywood song > any other song

 

[Jazz_]

Vesuvius is my favorite. But I generally like all of them except the downtown theme, that one sucks. The unused alt. downtown theme is one of the best tracks, too bad that was cut, dunno if Wesp5 plus patch puts it somewhere else in the game. Weird that Schaffer hasn't composed much since Bloodlines, the man was talented.

 

[Coma White]

Vesuvius is my favorite. But I generally like all of them except the downtown theme, that one sucks. The unused alt. downtown theme is one of the best tracks, too bad that was cut, dunno if Wesp5 plus patch puts it somewhere else in the game. Weird that Schaffer hasn't composed much since Bloodlines, the man was talented.

I think I read an interview with him at some point (I cannot find it right now) where he more or less says he lost interest in video game composition because it had become too formulaic and standardized to hold his interest.

 

[superstepa]

hollywood song > any other song

Agreed, but the unused holywood theme is pretty close.

 

[Turrul]

Vesuvius is my favorite. But I generally like all of them except the downtown theme, that one sucks. The unused alt. downtown theme is one of the best tracks, too bad that was cut, dunno if Wesp5 plus patch puts it somewhere else in the game. Weird that Schaffer hasn't composed much since Bloodlines, the man was talented.

I think I read an interview with him at some point (I cannot find it right now) where he more or less says he lost interest in video game composition because it had become too formulaic and standardized to hold his interest.

Like almost anything else in the industry.

 

[Prime Junta]

It's probably been mentioned around here somewhere, but... the VtM sourcebooks are on Humble Bundle on a "pay what you like" model, although if "what you like" is less than $15 you won't get the full set. Still a pretty good deal IMO. Linky: https://www.humblebundle.com/books/vampire-masquerade-rpg-bundle

 

[Lacrymas]

They are pretty good quality judging from the PDF previews. I might buy them. I doubt I can find them in a physical format anywhere around here (I haven't until now, sooooo)

 

[Coma White]

They are pretty good quality judging from the PDF previews.

Would a confirmation on this. Any bros?

 

[Jazz_]

Would a confirmation on this. Any bros?

I bought the Bundle and the quality is great. You can download both the e-pub and the pdf of the books. At that price is a no brainer, really.

 

[Prime Junta]

They are pretty good quality judging from the PDF previews.

Would a confirmation on this. Any bros?

Quality varies a bit. Most of the PDF's are superb quality -- artwork is high-resolution and text is in embedded fonts rather than scans. However the Corebook and the Guide to the Camarilla are rougher, they're scans and all the pages are JPEGs; they probably didn't have the original files for it anymore or something.

Same story with the epubs. Most are very polished, but the Corebook and the Guide to the Camarilla have been OCR'ed and not proofread very carefully so there are some OCR-ey errors (elder often becomes cider, that sort of thing). The Book of Nod epub has very screwy formatting with the text squished up in extremely short and badly broken lines at one edge of the screen. I presume this is because the PDF has the text laid out in ribbons next to the art, which was somehow retained in the epub conversion and not corrected.

(It shouldn't be hard to fix by hacking at the epub. I probably can't be arsed to do it though as I already finished reading it.)

Overall, the quality varies between impeccable (all except Corebook and Guide to the Camarilla) and tolerable (those two).

 

[Mexi]

I started a new game in this with Wesp's patch.

First thing I noticed: Why did Wesp add a couple of pointless sentences back to Jack's dialog in the tutorial that were obviously meant for an earlier revision where Jack would first talk to you inside the building. Are you stupid, can I expect this kind of rote reanimation of "cut content" to happen a lot in the "basic patch"?

Second thing is that there's jarringly little characterizing choice about anything in the tutorial despite it being your first impression of vampire lyfe. They could have easily done the whole thing without giving you any dialog pseudo-choices. I think Jack being an almost unprecedentedly good voiced/faced NPC at the time wow'd me past this before.

Trash that patch and use the TruPatch. Wesp supposedly adds shit to the game even though it's a basic patch. I haven't played in a long time, but I remember a while back the TruPatch's website had some of the shit that Wesp changed up that was rather fucking bizarre. Like Wesp made the ghost dude in that Hotel show up more times than he's supposed to.

Everything has likely changed a lot, but I still would recommend the TruPatch for anyone.