World of Darkness Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 from Hardsuit Labs

[Deleted Member 16721]

You guys seem inept at using your imagination to understand what I'm suggesting.

You drive by Grout's Mansion in the hills, down to Hollywood. Boom, there's a quest in Downtown LA from LaCroix that sends you to Grout's Mansion, the entrance is now available and is a set piece. Nines is walking out and triggers a cutscene with dialogue options. First-person view as GTA V can be played in first-person (which I did for 80 or so hours.)

You can drive around all of LA, which is probably what the Troika devs would have preferred had they had the budget and resources to do it. They couldn't even add cars driving in the hubs because of lack of resources so it's understandable.

You can walk around and feed just as if it's a hub in Bloodlines, except there would be more interactive elements. Once in a blue moon you might get jumped by a gang in a dark alley, or a vampire hunter would show up at one of your safehouses to try and execute you. You could drive cars around or even Obfuscate + some vampire talent that lets you almost fly, completely obscured, maybe a Bat Mode for flying around. Everything would be the same as Bloodlines except you roam around an open city, can purchase gear to outfit your vampire, change clothes, do side missions for your clan, do side missions for other vampires and still have the main story with dialogue options playing as you visit each important NPC. Not much would be different except you're free to roam, explore and have random special events happen to you like in the GTA series. It's not hard to understand why this would be a great game, but you're all just sticking to your guns not even reading the thread or the ideas I proposed. In short, fuck you all, I'm going home.

 

[Viata]

Fuck you and all the people like you that wants all game to be same open world shit.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

Yeah, because what I just said is exactly the "same open world shit" we're all used to. Way to use your non-existent brain u fuck.

 

[hivemind]

It's Paradox guys. I expect complexity

 

[hivemind]

You can drive around all of LA, which is probably what the Troika devs would have preferred had they had the budget and resources to do it. They couldn't even add cars driving in the hubs because of lack of resources so it's understandable.

love too have narrative pacing fucked with so I can "drive around"

priorities buddy

 

[Life of the Party]

 

[Vincente]

Really a nice piece, captures the eerie and creepy feeling of WoD, on par with most of Rik's works, wouldn't be surprised if he himself made this one.

 

[Kitchen Utensil]

For some reason I'm glad Fluent is never going to make a Vampire the Masquerade game.

ftfy

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

I thought this was where smart RPG people hung out but <IMG> oh no you're all retarded </IMG>

 

[Lacrymas]

There is literally no point to an open world, especially for this type of game. What do you gain exactly? The main problem is this - you gain too little, if anything, while throwing triple the resources at the project. That, in turn, forces you to make it more and more mainstream, making it more and more boring. Recently I've realized most mainstream things aren't bad, they are just boring.

 

[hivemind]

shut the fuck up fluent

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

shut the fuck up fluent

suck my dick shitposter

 

[Delterius]

Hmmm. This sounds more of a whimsy horror theme'd than what we are used to from Bloodlines. More of a Changeling or a Mage vibe should you push it, I think.

 

[Wesp5]

Really a nice piece, captures the eerie and creepy feeling of WoD, on par with most of Rik's works, wouldn't be surprised if he himself made this one.

Wow, this sounds cool! And it would be cool if Rik was involved. I know from my email contact with him that he really loved the work he did on Bloodlines...

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

There is literally no point to an open world, especially for this type of game. What do you gain exactly? The main problem is this - you gain too little, if anything, while throwing triple the resources at the project. That, in turn, forces you to make it more and more mainstream, making it more and more boring. Recently I've realized most mainstream things aren't bad, they are just boring.

Since you have an honest inquiry I will answer. What I believe it adds is more space for interesting things to happen. You can have edgy clothing shops, where you can customize the looks of your character (GTA has several shops that vary in what types of clothing apparel they offer.) You can have random encounters happen - maybe you see somebody in the alley who looks like prey, only to turn out to be luring vampires and is a vampire hunter. Or you're walking in some seedy area and a gang jumps you and you have to fend them off without violating the Masquerade. There are plenty of opportunities for a large world to have randomized elements that can be interesting.

Next, you add space for exploration. You can find vampire caches from other clans, attack safehouses of known vampires, use your Tender app to attract ghouls as I've already explained, use that same Tender app to pinpoint the location of rival clan vampires safehouses where you can attack and either fight a vampire or have some encounter with one. Clothing shops, gun and ammunition shops - basically Santa Monica on a much larger scale. Prostitutes have room to roam, you maybe have a vehicle you have to keep tidy and not be reckless with since hijacking vehicles can put you on the wrong side of the law in a bad way (think a much stricter GTA with more consequences.) You can use vampire abilities to move throughout the city, stalking prey in the night, or possibilities to rob or find a victim to bolster your stash in some way. You can take in the thick atmosphere of an entire city at night, with moving people, cars, other vehicles, convenience stores and other points of interest. You can make daylight an element where you have to return to a safehouse to sleep during the day and come out at night, making managing time a bit of a concern. There's lots of fun things you can do in a larger space while still keeping the narrative flowing well. If you don't want to explore the city, head straight for the quests. If you want to explore, earn money, new contacts, side activities, etc., you can do that as well. Use your imagination here.

Just some ideas but you get the point. Just imagine a much larger Downtown with the areas spread out a bit but still open to set piece exploration once you enter a building. Yes this is a fantasy as it would take tons of resources to do, but that's the point - it's a fantasy and a dream game of mine. Now you can all fuck off again. But thank you for the question.

 

[agentorange]

Man you should get a job at Ubisoft.

 

[Lacrymas]

Since you have an honest inquiry I will answer. What I believe it adds is more space for interesting things to happen. You can have edgy clothing shops, where you can customize the looks of your character (GTA has several shops that vary in what types of clothing apparel they offer.) You can have random encounters happen - maybe you see somebody in the alley who looks like prey, only to turn out to be luring vampires and is a vampire hunter. Or you're walking in some seedy area and a gang jumps you and you have to fend them off without violating the Masquerade. There are plenty of opportunities for a large world to have randomized elements that can be interesting.

Next, you add space for exploration. You can find vampire caches from other clans, attack safehouses of known vampires, use your Tender app to attract ghouls as I've already explained, use that same Tender app to pinpoint the location of rival clan vampires safehouses where you can attack and either fight a vampire or have some encounter with one. Clothing shops, gun and ammunition shops - basically Santa Monica on a much larger scale. Prostitutes have room to roam, you maybe have a vehicle you have to keep tidy and not be reckless with since hijacking vehicles can put you on the wrong side of the law in a bad way (think a much stricter GTA with more consequences.) You can use vampire abilities to move throughout the city, stalking prey in the night, or possibilities to rob or find a victim to bolster your stash in some way. You can take in the thick atmosphere of an entire city at night, with moving people, cars, other vehicles, convenience stores and other points of interest. You can make daylight an element where you have to return to a safehouse to sleep during the day and come out at night, making managing time a bit of a concern. There's lots of fun things you can do in a larger space while still keeping the narrative flowing well. If you don't want to explore the city, head straight for the quests. If you want to explore, earn money, new contacts, side activities, etc., you can do that as well. Use your imagination here.

Just some ideas but you get the point. Just imagine a much larger Downtown with the areas spread out a bit but still open to set piece exploration once you enter a building. Yes this is a fantasy as it would take tons of resources to do, but that's the point - it's a fantasy and a dream game of mine. Now you can all fuck off again. But thank you for the question.

You might be surprised, but this doesn't sound interesting or fun. It sounds gimmicky and repetitive.

 

[Okagron]

I'll take an hand crafted, small world with no filler or bullshit like VTMB over an huge open world, filled with filler bullshit, like a lot of open world games seem to have these days. A lot of the content seems completely disconnected from each other and some of it seems completely pointless and superfluous.

Some devs seem to think that a world needs to be filled with content, no matter how pointless it is, instead of just using dev time to perfect what they already have.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

You might be surprised, but this doesn't sound interesting or fun. It sounds gimmicky and repetitive.

Well either I'm not putting into words my ideas well enough or you can't seem to use your imagination and grasp at what I'm getting at. I'll take the latter and tell you to fuck the fuck off.

 

[HansDampf]

Bloodlines was great and all. But what that game really needed was random trash mobs when you are jumping from one city hub to the next. And lewt.

 

[Lacrymas]

Well either I'm not putting into words my ideas well enough or you can't seem to use your imagination and grasp at what I'm getting at. I'll take the latter and tell you to fuck the fuck off.

Nobody understands my great ideas! *foot stomp* *pout*

 

[Life of the Party]

 

[Life of the Party]

Tender: Its Spreading Influence

Tender has caught on like a wildfire. Press, (here and here) social media (here), forums…. Hundreds of thousands of people are drinking the Kool-Aid, and this makes me sick.

More than 150 people answered my call for help. I am simultaneously excited and troubled that 20% of you have night vision equipment. You are much more prepared than me!

I have gathered more information about the exact details of this meeting…

Tender plans to organized a controlled test group on the 23rd. These are 4-hour sessions where they will monitor your biometric data while using Tender, and, based on the result, their algorithm will assemble you into two groups that have to tackle and escape the room.

These locations have accumulated hundreds and thousands of group escapes, so I assume they plan to see how the Tender algorithm can match people into perfect groups. Imagine the good this tech could do for the world. I guarantee you Tender has no such benevolent goals.

One of my insiders at Tender will be at this event. He has critical intel that he wants to give, and this will be the chance to make the exchange.

Next week they will start to send invitations — invitations that I plan to intercept. I need to cut it down to 10 trusted volunteers who will not fail this task. As soon as I have intercepted the invitations, I will add you to the guest list. I have added new questions to the survey to help with this process.

IF YOU ARE ABLE TO HELP and want to join the event, online or on-site in New York, please fill out this form.

My decryption of Project Chimera is slowing down. I may skip to one of the video files and see if we can get a couple of frames. 3fd521e4 is now fully decrypted. As always, I will keep you all apprised of my progress.

 

[Morgoth]

So when can we expect an official reveal? PAX East? GDC? Or does Paradox have its own event?

 

[Life of the Party]

Tender plans to organized a controlled test group on the 23rd.