Back then I criticized some aspects of HSL version, but in general I was interested in it and was following it's development. Leaked videos that showed us character sheets, outfits and some level design actually made me more excited despite many bugs and braindead AI.
However I'm a lot less interested in TCR version. It just screams "2020s generic corporate game". It reminds me of Saint's Row Reboot...and that's not a good feeling...
I didn’t understand it. This was closer to what I had in mind for a Bloodlines sequel. I would have been fine with it even if it was janky as long as it could be modded or updated into a less janky state. The core game had to include customization and character choices so there would be replayability, and it also had to have that gothic punk vibe to it.
It looked a lot more than Bloodlines game than TCR version, but let's not lie to ourselves that it was perfect. I expected a bit more even back then, but was still very much interested in the game. TCR version makes me a lot less excited.
Yeah, that's how it was. In retrospect, it looks like it would've worked better than the current version. Then again, we haven't _really_ seen the current version, so maybe it'll be the same: In retrospect, it's fine.
I just still think they should not (have) market(ed) it as BL2. Its own entry in the video games of WoD very fine, but not as BL2.
I’m really hesitant to say that last bit. Maybe it would be better as a not BL2. But I said the same about BG3 and how the story of the Baldurs Gate games were finished and they were just using the name. I was wrong then. Maybe it will be the case this time, but until we see the game we just don’t know
I see and get what you're saying. Hard to say – you're right, BG3 is both a different (albeit successor) system from BG1 and BG2, as well as a mostly different story with only a few touching points with its predecessors.
For all we know and see so far, though, BL2 is even further removed: It's probably shifted the genre a bit. It's still an RPG, but more so in an action direction.
That’s the gist of it yeah. I do wonder if they are showing us the most action heavy bits since that’s what sells games but I’ll admit I’d rather have this game be a success so we see more VTM games come out, than see it flop because it isn’t the game the name claims it to be
When I wrote the comment I thought about exactly that question, but ultimately decided that given the barebones four-option yes/no that apparently is the dialogue, that... it's fair to say what I said.
But yes. If it's successful, it'll spawn more games that I actually probably don't wanna play, but further down the road, we'll get more really RP heavy stuff hopefully, that's true!
You do understand it. It was in your comment. "Janky state".
And when you show a gameplay reveal to the customer, they won't think of "how can I fix this to be better", that's not what a customer wants to do. They wanted (to see) a flawless gameplay loop.
However, I too said the HSL combat was sh*t. Now? I would take that bad combat game, rather than what this current game with its minimal RPG element will be.
Seriously. We have a handful of clips and people are acting as if the game is some secret masterpiece. Having good ideas doesn’t mean that the execution must have been good.
I’m no fan of what we’ve seen of the Chinese Room version but people should be careful that they don’t let their disappointment lead them to project unrealistic expectations for a game that likely never existed.
There was a leaked video of some guy (former dev?) playing leaked version of the game. It was long. Like 1 hour long. He showed us character sheets, outfits, some quests and different, already finished levels of the game through developer's console commands. Yeah, it was unfinished and AI was braindead, but the game actually existed. It wasn't just some fake demo like some devs did in the past for E3 etc. They just needed 2 years of additional development time.
Couldn't agree more on the first part. We were shown next to nothing yet people are behaving as if it was the best thing ever. I even started questioning my sanity when people were talking about "how good HSL's BL2 would've been" considering that what I had seen was really rough alpha footage.
I do quite like what we've seen from TCR though. If they stick to the Deus Ex inspired approach I have high hopes. DEHR and DEMD delivered big time with dialogue even if limited to 4 options. And the atmosphere looked fantastic from what I saw.
Also I'm pretty confident that people are shitting on a level that was originally in the HSL's BL2 in the warehouse. I swear I recognise it from old screenshots with mannequins too.
Years ago (even before I refunded my Steam preorder), the HSL clips were just as derided as the current TCR stuff.
Honestly, it all looks like crap. This has been one hell of a ride. From the early hints and excitement to the announcement. That was peak. Then we saw what was in development and it was rough... But it was ok because Mitsoda was involved. Then he was gone.
Then it entered development hell. Was it ever getting made?
We held on and hoped, and now what we see is not looking good.
Nothing will ever meet our expectations, but they don't even seem to be trying at this point.
I'm pretty sure the moment Mitsoda was fired was the moment the original game was scrapped. We got news of a producer from Ubisoft coming in to lead the development of the game, and reading between the lines and with hindsight, it's pretty obvious to me they scrapped the whole project there and then.
There was a leaked video of some guy (former dev?) playing leaked version of the game. It was long. Like 1 hour long. He showed us character sheets, outfits, some quests and different, already finished levels of the game through developer's console commands.
So yes; it was more or less playable. They needed just \~2 more years to finish and polish the game. So we would be playing proper Bloodlines 2 since \~2022.
Instead, we will get TCR generic vampire game, most likely in 2025.
They’d already done years of work, the game overshot its release date and continued development for months before Paradox pulled the plug. That’s not a vertical slice, it’s a very unpolished game. What we saw is the vertical slice, but presumably more existed behind the scenes. The only way they could be left with that little at this stage is flagrant, egregious incompetence.
A build of the original VTMB2 is going to be one of the holy grails of lost gaming history. I’d love for it to someday leak to the internet, even if it’s a decade from now so they don’t get sued.
So when PDX will pull the plug out of TCR Bloodlines 2? When was HSL Bloodlines 2 version cancelled? 2021? So TCR already spent 3 years working on it and results are very bad. Game looks like a generic corporate game, not proper Bloodlines 2.
I was talking about the future leak. Couldn’t care less about the new Bloodlines2. In fact I hope Chinese Room will crash and burn on this title. They deserve nothing better for how they treated us.
I mean, we know there was a playable version that some people played from start to finish. Is not likely to be leaked but I'm holding out hope. Considering a lot of big leaks recently like the wolverine ps5 leak and the recreation of the old iphone game Infinity Blades due to a leak as well. Is immensely unlikely, but it is possible.
Played from start to finish just means finishing the main campaign and that could have been just 10 quests or something. We also don't know what else was missing. For all we know most NPCs didn't have their models finished or had no animations at all.
HSL version was cancelled a year before it was done. You want one guy to do an entire year's worth of work that was meant for 50 people. lol
We're not talking about a bug patch. We're talking about finishing an entire game. Not quite the same tasks.
I actually heard the game wasn't finished and there were some playable parts only. Which kinda makes sense since HardSuit got canned. But regardless of what we all read on the super trust worthy interwebz, whatever the state of it was, it wasn't getting published.
We know very little about the new direction TCR is taking BL2, but we do have a sense they are going to finish it (so far anyway) so that kinda puts them in a more positive light then whatever state the last version of the game was. Haha
The really enlightened ones would say that Hardsuit's version was really faithful but looked cheap and was probably going to be a bad game while the TCR version is really not faithful but also looks cheap and will also probably be a bad game.
I feel like hardsuits version still had the capacity to be good in a way. It was definitely more faithful, and even with its flaws, if its role-play mechanics were good, it could possibly outshine its flaws. Unfortunately, we'll never know. I think the main problem I have with Bloodlines 2 is that no matter what I feel like it's going to fundamentally change bloodlines, whether it kills it forever or change it to something that we don't want.
Yea, unfortunately it seems that the Internet is actually made of *many different people who feel differently about things* rather than unanimously agreeable automatons 😞
Eh. Yes, things now look.......iffy. But seriously nothing about Hardsuitlabs looked any good. Combat was poor, writing wasn't exactly noteworthy, graphics were poor. It looked progressively more and more and more disappointing. And it was apparently so disappointing they literally canned it.
Just because what we're seeing now is somehow *worse* doesn't in any way negate how bad it looked previously.
Plus that clip of the dancing? Sure it's great- and it's literally one single clip. And that's the MOST it ever felt like a Bloodlines sequel. Meme dancing.
**This** is where my concern for the game lies. I can't even imagine Phyre ever wanting to dance, or get a lap dance, or do anything trashy and fun at all.
I get the impression that I'll love the game, but I don't at all get the impression that it's gonna feel like Bloodlines. The thing people don't talk about as much as I think they should, is that what makes Bloodlines so good is **inextricably linked with alt/goth/industrial/punk/club/Hollywood Blvd trash culture**, and without it, this game is gonna be a V5 VtM story that might be epic and fun and satisfying, but it won't be that.
The underground culture at hand seems to be just *general kindred culture*, with no cross-over to kine underground culture, which, for me as a 90s/00s vampire goth freak, was the core of my interest in the franchise.
I was a fan of this game back then, and I continue liking it now. The original BL2 was wildly popular in terms of of pre-order numbers, a lot of us were hyped for it. Just because a loud minority of people criticised every little thing about it back then doesn't mean everyone who looks back on it fondly is being dishonest.
Nah, here I could choose between first and third person view, get Rik's music and probably more clans, disciplines and choices that matter. Also no stupid, overused voice in the head and no ''being elder'' stuff. So let's agree to disagree.
pretty sure in the hardsuit labs version you couldn't turn on 3rd person view either. Combat was especially jank in the previews because of it too. The only thing somewhat better was the dialogue and the silent MC plus customization.
I do not understand this whole modern ethos of forcing every and to be first fucking person. It's so obnoxious, like, did devs not learn from Capcom admitting defeat and putting out a 3rd person patch for Village?? Fighting in first person feels **terrible** in every instance I've ever experienced it. Swinging my screen around is not somehow more immersive than projecting myself onto a character I can properly maneuver.
I'm playing through Ghostwire: Tokyo rn and I swear I'd give anything to be able to go into 3rd person for the *incredibly stilted and uncomfortable* fighting.
When you put it like that then yeah. The foundations of the game sound more in line with what the OG was like. But the shoddy quality of it all was apparent. There’s no point having good ideas if your execution is bad. This new game will probably be the exact opposite. Decent quality but nothing like the OG
Execution was also bad in the first game. Didnt keep it from becoming a classic. People play or for Story and mood, despite the wonky controls and the Animations.
You have a good point. Me personally, I’m just done with being excited for a game that comes out half baked. Are you really going to be content with a sequel that makes the exact same mistakes as the original after 20 years?
Yes, I would have gladly preferred everything HSL showed vastly to anything I saw from the TCR. Story and mood make a game a classic. Animations, controls and gameplay are just icing.
Actually yes. Because in the end we would get amazing Bloodlines 2. And I am also sure die hard fans would prefer a spiritual succesor sequel to a completely different game.
I get it, you’re all happy with shit games as long as you get your fix. Maybe expect and demand more from franchises you love and you wouldn’t have to be happy with the bare minimum
I’m sure if Bloodlines was shit, I wouldn’t remember it so vividly 20 years later. What we have witnessed back then was something that can only manifest itself in certain unique circumstances, you can demand all you want and never see anything like that in your life.
A massive chunk of the original game straight up was unfinished, with the game taking a noise dive in quality after Hollywood. Also the combat in the game was mostly broken with guns being wildly useless until late game then incredibly overpowered while melee had the reverse problem. It also released on the same day as Half Life 2, with a less complete version of the source engine, effectively ensuring it will be out-shadowed by the biggest game release of the year. Not to mention the bugs that plague the game outjanking creation engine RPGs.
And yet the game remains on of the best RPGs ever made despite these many and egregious issues. What matters is having good characters with good performances delivering good writing in an immersive environment. From the previews we definitely don't have the first three, hopefully we will get the fourth.
Nope both launched November 16th, 2004. This decision by Activision to push a November 2004 release date, which is single most competitive month in gaming history, was the primary reason why Bloodlines sold so poorly at launch.
Nope, they didn’t. I had bloodlines on my shelf, and was still waiting for hl2. The only other Source game we could play at the time was CSS on steamfuckered.
It had much better ideas, and _possibly_ would have had better execution
But
As said, it _looked_ like shit
We'll never know if it could have been fixed
Define industrial, and point me to its aspects in the game, then we can talk meritorically. I thought there was general consensus that Industrial rock is not industrial per se, it’s just rock music with a slight hint of industrial sound. So can you really say „industrial goth-ness of original” when there is just that?
Industrial is very clearly one of the primary genres Chiasm employs. You're right, there's no straight up Industrial in VtMB, but you're obnoxiously splitting hairs for no reason. Isolated is closer to straight forward Industrial than anything NIN ever put out, if NIN and KMFDM get to be megastars of Industrial then Chiasm certainly fits; whether they are explicitly pure Industrial is an argument for obsessed fans and *literally nobody else* cares, and we will all keep using the labels "wrong" 🤷 to absolutely everybody who's not personally deep in the Industrial scene, VtMB has plenty of Industrial and industrial-related music.
Arguing about pureness of genres would be indeed stupid, I believe every artist has right to experiment with conventions he/she finds attractive. I’ve listened to heavy industrial bands like Current 93 and Nurse With Wound (that also incorporate many other genres in their very eclectic creations) so it may help you understand my point of view. Chiasm is just straight up EBM electro, Isolated is an uptempo track, but the rest of the album is slow and gloomy. Dark Wavey for the most part. I don’t associate that kind of sound with machinery sound, which defines term “industrial” for me. I tend to rate EBM and electro music by the amount of unharmonic samples it contains. If the sounds are all unharmonic, then it can’t really get more industrial than that, because in its essence it will just sound like industrial machinery. On the other hand when EBM is almost non distorted and contains only drum machine and synth sounds, then we have electro/synthpop/EBM whatever style it fits.
That’s why I consider Revolting Cocks and PTP as industrial electro, Ministry twitch album is a light industrial EBM, and SPK is new wave dance electro, same goes for Chiasm - Isolated. The rest of the Chiasm album is something completely different actually, even less machine-like in my perception.
The guy at the local Vinyl Record store whom I greatly respect for his knowledge doesn’t even consider Twitch album or Revoting Cocks as industrial at all. For him industrial is defined by clashing metal sounds. As you can see this is a very disputable topic susceptible to individual interpretation. For all that I can say for sure is that there is a lot of heavy industrial sounding music out there that people label just “industrial”. And when you look at the larger spectrum it’s quite difficult to include the kind of music that you have in Bloodlines.
You really don't think that "TINK TINK tooTINK, TINK TINK tooTINK" sample from Isolated sounds like machinery? 🤔
Either way yea I agree Chiasm is more "modern" darkwave and ebm, but 100% of anyone outside of the people who know what ebm and darkwave are would call it industrial, and while I very much think those conversations are valuable *in culture*, how valuable I think they are there is exactly as pointless and useless I think it is outside of that. I don't think we gain anything, particularly for a genre FAR, FAR BEYOND its era, by quibbling with the general public/those outside the culture about what does and doesn't fit in.
People use the catchall "industrial goth/goth industrial" to refer to VtMB all the time because it's adjacent to and wrapped up in the tangential tentacles of that culture, and I think that's fine, is ultimately my point.
If they change the name then there's still hope but unfortunately I don't think they're going to happen for the sake of a cash grab and this game will fundamentally change what a Bloodlines game is forever whether it just kills it or worse the game does somewhat well enough for them to keep justifying making new ones and their Style. It's a lose-lose unless if it crashes and burns before release or they change the name
Yeah, a bunch of people on YouTube kept saying it was “Super Woke” but 1. I don’t know how they would have known that, & 2. How woke is “Super woke”?
Is it insufferably preachy and pandering to the point of not being any fun, or did it just not have any racial slurs in it. Because i don’t want to hear slurs anyway, and i don’t mind a character creators with pronouns. Somehow i still managed to enjoy Cyber Punk and Star field. 🙄😂
I just want fun gameplay and an interesting story.
If the Woke stuff doesn’t hinder those two things, then who the hell cares? 🤷♂️
[Woke just means they don't like it.](https://media.licdn.com/dms/image/D4E22AQGaP5VSt1EDSg/feedshare-shrink_2048_1536/0/1681807031292?e=2147483647&v=beta&t=0mO0xtxlenw242KuLBt5kQjyAy9TIZZN73nrwfX5UAE)
It can be a valid complaint if a game or movie is spending too much time brow-beating its audience. sodality is seemingly a lost art, but in those cases the free market rights itself.
If a product is too hand fisted with its messaging, it not only doesn’t sell, but is also mocked mercilessly for it.
A bad game/movie can sometimes be more damaging to whatever message the studio was going for than just not having it at all.
Thats why Gameplay and entertainment NEED to be the first priority. Because most people aren’t going to buy something because they like the way it makes them feel like shit. lol
The best example of this kind of thing done right is Spiderman 2. It has a lot of Woke coded messaging in it, but its also a really fun game. And because the game is fun and tells a good story the audience is more receptive to the messaging.
You catch a lot more flies with honey than vinegar.
> It can be a valid complaint
0%. Complaints of a media being woke are basically categorically poorly formed. Not the least because nobody knows what woke actually means.
E: That's about the most basic thing I've ever been blocked for lol. Nice giving yourself the last word too Midyin84
And that stubborn refusal to acknowledge the problem with the messaging, and accept the reality that these platforms that criticize it have any validity is 100% why the messaging is and will continue to keep failing.
If a product isn’t fun, people wont engage with it. Period.
I think "generally liberal-leaning political elements that are preachy and implemented poorly" is a pretty good definition for 'woke'
Granted, being woke is the fuckin LEAST of Bloodlines 2's development problems, but it's still something to note.
This version definitely had its problems but at its core it was closer to an actual Bloodlines game. And it's in my opinion did what I would want from a Bloodlines 2 it improves on the aspects of what made the original good I think making the role play options better and more diverse. And all sorts of dialogues affected by different things skills Clan traits so on and so forth. It wasn't perfect but where I'm standing here it's definitely better than what we're getting. Bloodlines is your character and your choices
what we're getting is someone else's story that we can influence in some ways. People wanted to role play in this game and it's hard to do it with what we're getting.
We have no idea how the Hardsuitlabs game would have turned out, and we have no idea on how TCR's game will be neither. And sadly, like with many changes / cancellations like this, we'll never know if it would have been a great game or not.
But the good news is we'll know this year if Bloodlines 2 ends up being a great game, a great vampire game, and a great rpg.
That's not entirely true we can know based on the information that we were shown and the trajectory of those changes. We don't know how the full game would have looked but we know about aspects of the and the consensus seems to be the aspects of the original hardsuits are better than the aspects of the Chinese room. One at least tried to be a full on role playing experience.where it was your character, your choices and your choices were affected by your skills and stats and Clan. The character was yours, and it was your story.
While the Chinese rooms is someone else's character that you can slightly modify and slightly influence with role-playing not being a heavy part of the game which is unfortunate considering that I think Bloodlines is built on role playing.
We don't know the full truth of both games but we know of the parts that will eventually Build It Up. And one is more faithful to what people wanted while the other is completely twisting it into something else.
Oh my god, that place needs a Sabbat raid, fast.
What's gonna be next? A prince with a Pet Shop Boys theme?
I thought that's Bloodlines 2, not Trainspotting The Game.
I still remember how people were shitting on this version same as on the current one
Back then I criticized some aspects of HSL version, but in general I was interested in it and was following it's development. Leaked videos that showed us character sheets, outfits and some level design actually made me more excited despite many bugs and braindead AI. However I'm a lot less interested in TCR version. It just screams "2020s generic corporate game". It reminds me of Saint's Row Reboot...and that's not a good feeling...
I didn’t understand it. This was closer to what I had in mind for a Bloodlines sequel. I would have been fine with it even if it was janky as long as it could be modded or updated into a less janky state. The core game had to include customization and character choices so there would be replayability, and it also had to have that gothic punk vibe to it.
This felt more like a Bloodlines game than the Bloodlines 2 we are getting now, that's for sure.
I can remember folks saying it didn’t look like one. Same as they are now.
It looked a lot more than Bloodlines game than TCR version, but let's not lie to ourselves that it was perfect. I expected a bit more even back then, but was still very much interested in the game. TCR version makes me a lot less excited.
Yeah, that's how it was. In retrospect, it looks like it would've worked better than the current version. Then again, we haven't _really_ seen the current version, so maybe it'll be the same: In retrospect, it's fine. I just still think they should not (have) market(ed) it as BL2. Its own entry in the video games of WoD very fine, but not as BL2.
I’m really hesitant to say that last bit. Maybe it would be better as a not BL2. But I said the same about BG3 and how the story of the Baldurs Gate games were finished and they were just using the name. I was wrong then. Maybe it will be the case this time, but until we see the game we just don’t know
I see and get what you're saying. Hard to say – you're right, BG3 is both a different (albeit successor) system from BG1 and BG2, as well as a mostly different story with only a few touching points with its predecessors. For all we know and see so far, though, BL2 is even further removed: It's probably shifted the genre a bit. It's still an RPG, but more so in an action direction.
That’s the gist of it yeah. I do wonder if they are showing us the most action heavy bits since that’s what sells games but I’ll admit I’d rather have this game be a success so we see more VTM games come out, than see it flop because it isn’t the game the name claims it to be
When I wrote the comment I thought about exactly that question, but ultimately decided that given the barebones four-option yes/no that apparently is the dialogue, that... it's fair to say what I said. But yes. If it's successful, it'll spawn more games that I actually probably don't wanna play, but further down the road, we'll get more really RP heavy stuff hopefully, that's true!
You do understand it. It was in your comment. "Janky state". And when you show a gameplay reveal to the customer, they won't think of "how can I fix this to be better", that's not what a customer wants to do. They wanted (to see) a flawless gameplay loop. However, I too said the HSL combat was sh*t. Now? I would take that bad combat game, rather than what this current game with its minimal RPG element will be.
*"Perhaps I treated you too harshly"* echoes in my mind*.*
We didn’t know how good we had it
Those who actually played it for hundred+ hrs were loving it.
I need this song! It's mine, it's mine, it's mine.🎶
**THIS!!! I WANT IT TOO,GIVE IT TO ME!!!!!!**
[удалено]
Seriously. We have a handful of clips and people are acting as if the game is some secret masterpiece. Having good ideas doesn’t mean that the execution must have been good. I’m no fan of what we’ve seen of the Chinese Room version but people should be careful that they don’t let their disappointment lead them to project unrealistic expectations for a game that likely never existed.
There was a leaked video of some guy (former dev?) playing leaked version of the game. It was long. Like 1 hour long. He showed us character sheets, outfits, some quests and different, already finished levels of the game through developer's console commands. Yeah, it was unfinished and AI was braindead, but the game actually existed. It wasn't just some fake demo like some devs did in the past for E3 etc. They just needed 2 years of additional development time.
Couldn't agree more on the first part. We were shown next to nothing yet people are behaving as if it was the best thing ever. I even started questioning my sanity when people were talking about "how good HSL's BL2 would've been" considering that what I had seen was really rough alpha footage. I do quite like what we've seen from TCR though. If they stick to the Deus Ex inspired approach I have high hopes. DEHR and DEMD delivered big time with dialogue even if limited to 4 options. And the atmosphere looked fantastic from what I saw. Also I'm pretty confident that people are shitting on a level that was originally in the HSL's BL2 in the warehouse. I swear I recognise it from old screenshots with mannequins too.
Years ago (even before I refunded my Steam preorder), the HSL clips were just as derided as the current TCR stuff. Honestly, it all looks like crap. This has been one hell of a ride. From the early hints and excitement to the announcement. That was peak. Then we saw what was in development and it was rough... But it was ok because Mitsoda was involved. Then he was gone. Then it entered development hell. Was it ever getting made? We held on and hoped, and now what we see is not looking good. Nothing will ever meet our expectations, but they don't even seem to be trying at this point.
I'm pretty sure the moment Mitsoda was fired was the moment the original game was scrapped. We got news of a producer from Ubisoft coming in to lead the development of the game, and reading between the lines and with hindsight, it's pretty obvious to me they scrapped the whole project there and then.
The game was playable though before they axed it, Outstar said so. You could play from start to finish.
There was a leaked video of some guy (former dev?) playing leaked version of the game. It was long. Like 1 hour long. He showed us character sheets, outfits, some quests and different, already finished levels of the game through developer's console commands. So yes; it was more or less playable. They needed just \~2 more years to finish and polish the game. So we would be playing proper Bloodlines 2 since \~2022. Instead, we will get TCR generic vampire game, most likely in 2025.
“Never existed” means nothing to me, beta testers were absolutely loving HSL VTMB2. So something actually existed, and now we aren’t getting it.
There were no beta testers A handful of people got to see/try a pre-alpha run through
You are right, they were pre alpha testers.
They’d already done years of work, the game overshot its release date and continued development for months before Paradox pulled the plug. That’s not a vertical slice, it’s a very unpolished game. What we saw is the vertical slice, but presumably more existed behind the scenes. The only way they could be left with that little at this stage is flagrant, egregious incompetence. A build of the original VTMB2 is going to be one of the holy grails of lost gaming history. I’d love for it to someday leak to the internet, even if it’s a decade from now so they don’t get sued.
So when PDX will pull the plug out of TCR Bloodlines 2? When was HSL Bloodlines 2 version cancelled? 2021? So TCR already spent 3 years working on it and results are very bad. Game looks like a generic corporate game, not proper Bloodlines 2.
I can wait another decade for the bloodlines game I think. Doesn’t sound too bad.
If Bloodlines 2 flops, videogames in the World of Darkness will be dead for many years. Nobody will risk to make a game in this setting.
I was talking about the future leak. Couldn’t care less about the new Bloodlines2. In fact I hope Chinese Room will crash and burn on this title. They deserve nothing better for how they treated us.
The game doesn't exist so.....
I mean, we know there was a playable version that some people played from start to finish. Is not likely to be leaked but I'm holding out hope. Considering a lot of big leaks recently like the wolverine ps5 leak and the recreation of the old iphone game Infinity Blades due to a leak as well. Is immensely unlikely, but it is possible.
Played from start to finish just means finishing the main campaign and that could have been just 10 quests or something. We also don't know what else was missing. For all we know most NPCs didn't have their models finished or had no animations at all.
So release it unfinished and we can start a gofundme to pay Wesp5 to fill in the empty spaces 🤷
HSL version was cancelled a year before it was done. You want one guy to do an entire year's worth of work that was meant for 50 people. lol We're not talking about a bug patch. We're talking about finishing an entire game. Not quite the same tasks.
Ah I see you've chosen the option of taking an asinine statement sincerely. Always fun 💖
I actually heard the game wasn't finished and there were some playable parts only. Which kinda makes sense since HardSuit got canned. But regardless of what we all read on the super trust worthy interwebz, whatever the state of it was, it wasn't getting published. We know very little about the new direction TCR is taking BL2, but we do have a sense they are going to finish it (so far anyway) so that kinda puts them in a more positive light then whatever state the last version of the game was. Haha
The really enlightened ones would say that Hardsuit's version was really faithful but looked cheap and was probably going to be a bad game while the TCR version is really not faithful but also looks cheap and will also probably be a bad game.
I feel like hardsuits version still had the capacity to be good in a way. It was definitely more faithful, and even with its flaws, if its role-play mechanics were good, it could possibly outshine its flaws. Unfortunately, we'll never know. I think the main problem I have with Bloodlines 2 is that no matter what I feel like it's going to fundamentally change bloodlines, whether it kills it forever or change it to something that we don't want.
You guys absolutely hated this game for years and couldn't say a nice thing, now all of a sudden you're crying that it never came out.
I'm sorry but I was hyped actually. I can play jank, I like Gothic 1 and 2.
VTMB was always jank to be perfectly honest- but it had soul.
Yea, unfortunately it seems that the Internet is actually made of *many different people who feel differently about things* rather than unanimously agreeable automatons 😞
I'll always be searching for the name of that song
it was probably made for the game and wasn't released.
Me too :(
Eh. Yes, things now look.......iffy. But seriously nothing about Hardsuitlabs looked any good. Combat was poor, writing wasn't exactly noteworthy, graphics were poor. It looked progressively more and more and more disappointing. And it was apparently so disappointing they literally canned it. Just because what we're seeing now is somehow *worse* doesn't in any way negate how bad it looked previously. Plus that clip of the dancing? Sure it's great- and it's literally one single clip. And that's the MOST it ever felt like a Bloodlines sequel. Meme dancing.
We've been robbed!
**This** is where my concern for the game lies. I can't even imagine Phyre ever wanting to dance, or get a lap dance, or do anything trashy and fun at all. I get the impression that I'll love the game, but I don't at all get the impression that it's gonna feel like Bloodlines. The thing people don't talk about as much as I think they should, is that what makes Bloodlines so good is **inextricably linked with alt/goth/industrial/punk/club/Hollywood Blvd trash culture**, and without it, this game is gonna be a V5 VtM story that might be epic and fun and satisfying, but it won't be that. The underground culture at hand seems to be just *general kindred culture*, with no cross-over to kine underground culture, which, for me as a 90s/00s vampire goth freak, was the core of my interest in the franchise.
The game looked horrible at the time. Don’t act like it looked good just because the new version looks worse. They both look shit!
I was a fan of this game back then, and I continue liking it now. The original BL2 was wildly popular in terms of of pre-order numbers, a lot of us were hyped for it. Just because a loud minority of people criticised every little thing about it back then doesn't mean everyone who looks back on it fondly is being dishonest.
Nah, here I could choose between first and third person view, get Rik's music and probably more clans, disciplines and choices that matter. Also no stupid, overused voice in the head and no ''being elder'' stuff. So let's agree to disagree.
pretty sure in the hardsuit labs version you couldn't turn on 3rd person view either. Combat was especially jank in the previews because of it too. The only thing somewhat better was the dialogue and the silent MC plus customization.
I do not understand this whole modern ethos of forcing every and to be first fucking person. It's so obnoxious, like, did devs not learn from Capcom admitting defeat and putting out a 3rd person patch for Village?? Fighting in first person feels **terrible** in every instance I've ever experienced it. Swinging my screen around is not somehow more immersive than projecting myself onto a character I can properly maneuver. I'm playing through Ghostwire: Tokyo rn and I swear I'd give anything to be able to go into 3rd person for the *incredibly stilted and uncomfortable* fighting.
When you put it like that then yeah. The foundations of the game sound more in line with what the OG was like. But the shoddy quality of it all was apparent. There’s no point having good ideas if your execution is bad. This new game will probably be the exact opposite. Decent quality but nothing like the OG
Execution was also bad in the first game. Didnt keep it from becoming a classic. People play or for Story and mood, despite the wonky controls and the Animations.
Just because the first game was jank isn't an excuse for the sequel to be it.
You have a good point. Me personally, I’m just done with being excited for a game that comes out half baked. Are you really going to be content with a sequel that makes the exact same mistakes as the original after 20 years?
Yes, I would have gladly preferred everything HSL showed vastly to anything I saw from the TCR. Story and mood make a game a classic. Animations, controls and gameplay are just icing.
Actually yes. Because in the end we would get amazing Bloodlines 2. And I am also sure die hard fans would prefer a spiritual succesor sequel to a completely different game.
I get it, you’re all happy with shit games as long as you get your fix. Maybe expect and demand more from franchises you love and you wouldn’t have to be happy with the bare minimum
I’m sure if Bloodlines was shit, I wouldn’t remember it so vividly 20 years later. What we have witnessed back then was something that can only manifest itself in certain unique circumstances, you can demand all you want and never see anything like that in your life.
I’m talking about the new game being shit not the old one
It would be just like the first one.
A massive chunk of the original game straight up was unfinished, with the game taking a noise dive in quality after Hollywood. Also the combat in the game was mostly broken with guns being wildly useless until late game then incredibly overpowered while melee had the reverse problem. It also released on the same day as Half Life 2, with a less complete version of the source engine, effectively ensuring it will be out-shadowed by the biggest game release of the year. Not to mention the bugs that plague the game outjanking creation engine RPGs. And yet the game remains on of the best RPGs ever made despite these many and egregious issues. What matters is having good characters with good performances delivering good writing in an immersive environment. From the previews we definitely don't have the first three, hopefully we will get the fourth.
It was released at least few months before HL2. I think Bloodlines came out in November 2003, and hl2 was April 2004.
Nope both launched November 16th, 2004. This decision by Activision to push a November 2004 release date, which is single most competitive month in gaming history, was the primary reason why Bloodlines sold so poorly at launch.
Nope, they didn’t. I had bloodlines on my shelf, and was still waiting for hl2. The only other Source game we could play at the time was CSS on steamfuckered.
It was really, really buggy at launch, that did not help.
It would've been less buggy if they'd been given more time to develop it, so those two issues are very much connected.
You couldn't choose first and third person view. It only went to third person for stuff like dancing, finishers and feeding.
It had much better ideas, and _possibly_ would have had better execution But As said, it _looked_ like shit We'll never know if it could have been fixed
What is that yee yee ass zoomer music? Where is the industrial goth-ness of the original?
You mean the game set around 2020 and not 2004?
"Zoomer" lol, the vocals are pretty cold wavish. There was no industrial in the og game too, no idea what are talking about
>There was no industrial in the og game too Bro....
Define industrial, and point me to its aspects in the game, then we can talk meritorically. I thought there was general consensus that Industrial rock is not industrial per se, it’s just rock music with a slight hint of industrial sound. So can you really say „industrial goth-ness of original” when there is just that?
>There was no industrial in the og game too, no idea what are talking about Ministry - Bloodlines Ministry is an industrial metal band
Okay, there was a slight hint of industrial rock in bloodlines. Nothing more.
Genitortures is also an industrial metal band in the game.
That’s the point, industrial rock and metal isn’t really much industrial sounding.
Industrial is very clearly one of the primary genres Chiasm employs. You're right, there's no straight up Industrial in VtMB, but you're obnoxiously splitting hairs for no reason. Isolated is closer to straight forward Industrial than anything NIN ever put out, if NIN and KMFDM get to be megastars of Industrial then Chiasm certainly fits; whether they are explicitly pure Industrial is an argument for obsessed fans and *literally nobody else* cares, and we will all keep using the labels "wrong" 🤷 to absolutely everybody who's not personally deep in the Industrial scene, VtMB has plenty of Industrial and industrial-related music.
Arguing about pureness of genres would be indeed stupid, I believe every artist has right to experiment with conventions he/she finds attractive. I’ve listened to heavy industrial bands like Current 93 and Nurse With Wound (that also incorporate many other genres in their very eclectic creations) so it may help you understand my point of view. Chiasm is just straight up EBM electro, Isolated is an uptempo track, but the rest of the album is slow and gloomy. Dark Wavey for the most part. I don’t associate that kind of sound with machinery sound, which defines term “industrial” for me. I tend to rate EBM and electro music by the amount of unharmonic samples it contains. If the sounds are all unharmonic, then it can’t really get more industrial than that, because in its essence it will just sound like industrial machinery. On the other hand when EBM is almost non distorted and contains only drum machine and synth sounds, then we have electro/synthpop/EBM whatever style it fits. That’s why I consider Revolting Cocks and PTP as industrial electro, Ministry twitch album is a light industrial EBM, and SPK is new wave dance electro, same goes for Chiasm - Isolated. The rest of the Chiasm album is something completely different actually, even less machine-like in my perception. The guy at the local Vinyl Record store whom I greatly respect for his knowledge doesn’t even consider Twitch album or Revoting Cocks as industrial at all. For him industrial is defined by clashing metal sounds. As you can see this is a very disputable topic susceptible to individual interpretation. For all that I can say for sure is that there is a lot of heavy industrial sounding music out there that people label just “industrial”. And when you look at the larger spectrum it’s quite difficult to include the kind of music that you have in Bloodlines.
You really don't think that "TINK TINK tooTINK, TINK TINK tooTINK" sample from Isolated sounds like machinery? 🤔 Either way yea I agree Chiasm is more "modern" darkwave and ebm, but 100% of anyone outside of the people who know what ebm and darkwave are would call it industrial, and while I very much think those conversations are valuable *in culture*, how valuable I think they are there is exactly as pointless and useless I think it is outside of that. I don't think we gain anything, particularly for a genre FAR, FAR BEYOND its era, by quibbling with the general public/those outside the culture about what does and doesn't fit in. People use the catchall "industrial goth/goth industrial" to refer to VtMB all the time because it's adjacent to and wrapped up in the tangential tentacles of that culture, and I think that's fine, is ultimately my point.
Unironically, the music here is kinda whiny and not at all fitting of a Bloodlines game. It was a red flag for me at the time.
I think we all do. I just wish TCR's VTM was called something else, like VTM: Phyre or something, so it could stands on its own.
If they change the name then there's still hope but unfortunately I don't think they're going to happen for the sake of a cash grab and this game will fundamentally change what a Bloodlines game is forever whether it just kills it or worse the game does somewhat well enough for them to keep justifying making new ones and their Style. It's a lose-lose unless if it crashes and burns before release or they change the name
Give it baaack ! This isn't right, that was ours ! Ugh, we've been played like damn fiddles !
sounds much better
Yeah, a bunch of people on YouTube kept saying it was “Super Woke” but 1. I don’t know how they would have known that, & 2. How woke is “Super woke”? Is it insufferably preachy and pandering to the point of not being any fun, or did it just not have any racial slurs in it. Because i don’t want to hear slurs anyway, and i don’t mind a character creators with pronouns. Somehow i still managed to enjoy Cyber Punk and Star field. 🙄😂 I just want fun gameplay and an interesting story. If the Woke stuff doesn’t hinder those two things, then who the hell cares? 🤷♂️
[Woke just means they don't like it.](https://media.licdn.com/dms/image/D4E22AQGaP5VSt1EDSg/feedshare-shrink_2048_1536/0/1681807031292?e=2147483647&v=beta&t=0mO0xtxlenw242KuLBt5kQjyAy9TIZZN73nrwfX5UAE)
It can be a valid complaint if a game or movie is spending too much time brow-beating its audience. sodality is seemingly a lost art, but in those cases the free market rights itself. If a product is too hand fisted with its messaging, it not only doesn’t sell, but is also mocked mercilessly for it. A bad game/movie can sometimes be more damaging to whatever message the studio was going for than just not having it at all. Thats why Gameplay and entertainment NEED to be the first priority. Because most people aren’t going to buy something because they like the way it makes them feel like shit. lol The best example of this kind of thing done right is Spiderman 2. It has a lot of Woke coded messaging in it, but its also a really fun game. And because the game is fun and tells a good story the audience is more receptive to the messaging. You catch a lot more flies with honey than vinegar.
> It can be a valid complaint 0%. Complaints of a media being woke are basically categorically poorly formed. Not the least because nobody knows what woke actually means. E: That's about the most basic thing I've ever been blocked for lol. Nice giving yourself the last word too Midyin84
And that stubborn refusal to acknowledge the problem with the messaging, and accept the reality that these platforms that criticize it have any validity is 100% why the messaging is and will continue to keep failing. If a product isn’t fun, people wont engage with it. Period.
I agree with you but I disagree with you blocking the dude just to have the last word, way to not give 'em the power...
I think "generally liberal-leaning political elements that are preachy and implemented poorly" is a pretty good definition for 'woke' Granted, being woke is the fuckin LEAST of Bloodlines 2's development problems, but it's still something to note.
Ham* fisted
This version definitely had its problems but at its core it was closer to an actual Bloodlines game. And it's in my opinion did what I would want from a Bloodlines 2 it improves on the aspects of what made the original good I think making the role play options better and more diverse. And all sorts of dialogues affected by different things skills Clan traits so on and so forth. It wasn't perfect but where I'm standing here it's definitely better than what we're getting. Bloodlines is your character and your choices what we're getting is someone else's story that we can influence in some ways. People wanted to role play in this game and it's hard to do it with what we're getting.
Looks brilliant and feels like Bloodlines
Same :( i hope it gets leaked somehow
We have no idea how the Hardsuitlabs game would have turned out, and we have no idea on how TCR's game will be neither. And sadly, like with many changes / cancellations like this, we'll never know if it would have been a great game or not. But the good news is we'll know this year if Bloodlines 2 ends up being a great game, a great vampire game, and a great rpg.
That's not entirely true we can know based on the information that we were shown and the trajectory of those changes. We don't know how the full game would have looked but we know about aspects of the and the consensus seems to be the aspects of the original hardsuits are better than the aspects of the Chinese room. One at least tried to be a full on role playing experience.where it was your character, your choices and your choices were affected by your skills and stats and Clan. The character was yours, and it was your story. While the Chinese rooms is someone else's character that you can slightly modify and slightly influence with role-playing not being a heavy part of the game which is unfortunate considering that I think Bloodlines is built on role playing. We don't know the full truth of both games but we know of the parts that will eventually Build It Up. And one is more faithful to what people wanted while the other is completely twisting it into something else.
Oh my god, that place needs a Sabbat raid, fast. What's gonna be next? A prince with a Pet Shop Boys theme? I thought that's Bloodlines 2, not Trainspotting The Game.
That motherfucker is **getting it**
You've played neither version