Vampire: Bloodlines

I like the part where they said the delay was to avoid repeating mistakes.

Yeah that sounds like the right call to me.

Fine by me. I can hopefully get a better graphics card and more storage by the time it comes out now.

Hopefully it means they can finish the game without resorting to turning the dev team into sweatshop workers.

Agreed, as ironic as using -punk policies to make a -punk game would be it would very much be outweighed by the human cost. Not to mention how inefficient crunch is as a form of development.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Oct 16th 2019 at 12:35:07 PM

I'll pretty much always be fine with a delay. Give me that good game made by healthy devs.

I was looking at preordering the Blood Moon version of Bloodlines 2 on Steam and it said it would be available December 2020. Kinda hope that's just a placeholder.

But man, I ant that Jeanette outfit.

Edited by Nikkolas on Oct 31st 2019 at 12:32:02 PM

You may or may not have heard but the devs decided to delay the game to fix existing issues. Since they have not announced a new release date that one must be a placeholder.

Frankly, they never had a set date in the first place. Just a window for Q1.

Yeah, as long as the game's good, I'm fine with waiting all the time they need. It's nice to see they really are involved into this game.

Depends on when the game was originally supposed to come out, for me.

A game set for fall that’s been pushed to next year? Damn, I was hoping to have that for the holidays.

A packed Q1 sees a few major delays that spread the release dates out? Love it.

Q1 next year is packed with games I'm interested in, as well.

Which is why I used it as an example.

This game, and The Last of Us Part II both got bumped out of Q1 recently. I’m sure there are others, but those are the two I was paying attention to.

So here is my initial Build.◊ I was a dumb Unarmed Gangrel, now I am a sly and seductive Toreador. I chose the Faelike History which makes learning Celerity easier but Strength and Stamina is harder.

I'm very worried I'm fucking everything up already because you have so many options at the start.

I'm playing Clan Quest Mod with Camarilla Lite but I turned off Bloodloss Timer because I will absolutely die with that thing on. I get lost every two seconds in these games.

I'm very intrigued by this Sabbat Ending in CQM. However my last run was very Low Humanity so I wanna try for High Humanity to be different. A High Humanity Sabbat seems...perplexing, though. But the walkthrough doesn't mention anything about Humanity requirements. I just have to do what I was hoping was a thing in the regular game, ask to join up when I met Andrei.

I've already met Heather who I totally missed in my first run. Me and my high Humanity is all like "I can save you!" I really wanna know what you say to her if low Humanity. Then again, why the hell would a low Humanity Fledgling spare some random dying human? I guess if you're calculating in a way my Gangrel wasn't.

Ya know I made a post on Reddit the other day asking about what a vampire's existence is like. Is it endless suffering? A lot of the sourcebooks say it's inherently miserable. Jack...does not seem miserable or angsty to me. In fact, it wasn't until I rad the Torador Clanbook that the existential horror of being avampire in this setting even occurred to me. From Bloodlines, the vampires seem happy enough.

Edited by Nikkolas on Nov 1st 2019 at 11:32:10 AM

I think there's the implication that inherently at some point, being an overgrown parasite on humanity along with strictness of the Masquerade (not to mention the near-medieval society structure) is going to cause some unhealthy thoughts. Or you know, make you go off the deep end. Basically, your hopes of quietly living out your unlife as normal as one could hope to is probably going to crack along with your psyche eventually. Not to mention, you know, the constant rage and bloodthirst in the back of your mind.

Also, your mind has trouble adapting past how things were when you embraced so that means like, at best, you're probably going to eventually become a lonely grump.

Edited by VutherA on Nov 1st 2019 at 3:35:20 PM

Does anyone ever turn Mercurio in to Lacroix? Is there any point to it except if you are RP'ing a loyal toady?

I guess Lacroix did just save your life...

Another reason to do it is if you're role-playing a prick who fucks over people pointlessly.

I roleplay as a motherfucker who does just that, and I still let Mercurio live.

I'm not evil, just a motherfucker, and motherfuckers have limits.

I've done a jackass playthrough, but I ended up pissing off and fighting Mercurio to the death before ever even reaching the Warehouse — so ratting on the guy was a bit of a moot point.

Fun fact is that, by pissing Arthur Kilpatrick off and then seducing him, he becomes a blood doll for you. This is pretty much useless and costs you the whole bounty hunter quest, but hey.

If you're a High Humanity vampire, vampirism is a curse because Cold Turkeys Are Everywhere. If you're Low Humanity, you're probably also fucked because you're a feral evil monster. If you're able to balance being a selfish asshole without being a monster, you can enjoy vampirism.

So Smiling Jack is about as good as you can enjoy it.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Nov 2nd 2019 at 11:23:23 AM

Or you just take a Path since those make infinitely more sense than Humanity.

Aren't most of the other Paths some weird shit, many having tenets that are directly against conventional morality? So, you know, they're some crazy stuff?

There are a bajillion Paths. Some are just you being a good Christian or Muslim, some are weird and alien and still others are just being an evil dick.

It's a huge spectrum from what I've read on the White Wolf Wiki. I still need to buy the actual books that go into all this, though.

They are part of why I love this setting, though. I've tried Warhammer, I've tried Shadowrun, and they both were kinda neat. But only World of Darkness has kept me hooked and wanting more.

Edited by Nikkolas on Nov 3rd 2019 at 7:55:25 AM

"Don't open it."

Talked to the Thin Blood Malkavian (?) with my wondrous post-game knowledge. I talked to her my first run too but didn't remember or understand any of it. I understand at least half of it this time but this particular bit of advice was pretty obvious.

I should side with Lacroix. She's jealous of our triumph and power and is telling me not to open it due to jealousy.

In any event, she's dead now. I tried fighting the Thin Blood crew back in my first run when I had just started the game and had no idea what I was doing. I thought they might be plot invincible but nope. I killed them pretty easily after getting the sword from the Kuei-jin spy. This in spite of having no Melee or Strength.

I am very underwhelmed by Ranged so far. I have Ranged of 4 and it hasn't helped much at all. Is the .38 just total shit and that's why?

But yeah, consider it a core of my PC's characterization that she hates Malkavians. Every Clan has their bigotries, My lovely Toreador despises the inane ramblings. It's all just gibberish to her and a waste of her valuable time. Malks are better off dead anyway.

You also don't take any hit to Humanity for slaughtering them all which is interesting.

Speaking of killing annoying people, I hate that you can kill Knox at the start but then he moves into the eternal safety of The Asylum. I didn't kill him, my Toreador actually finds him endearing in a stupid puppy kinda way. It's just rustrating you get that one chance to take him out and then never again. I wonder what Tung has to say if you kill Knox....

So here's a line of dialogue that is both very funny and very depressing for its sheer propheticness:

That's right, Vampire The Masquerade predicted Trump by over a decade.