Bloodlines 2...again...

[Silver Sorrow]

I'm not sure how to feel about this....and although trepidation and a kind of roiling uncertainty in the gut formed my first impression, I thought it had more to do with sketchy lunchmeat than any psychological implications. I don't want to pursue that possibility any further, and I'm sure you would have preferred I had not mentioned it at all. Understandable, but hey...grow up, already.

Anyway, GOG is saying that Bloodlines 2 will be playable on October 21st...of this year, no less.

That means, of course, that it's the end of the world.

Now, I no longer have any great hopes that this will be a great game. But I'm willing to give it a try. And why not? I have a bunch of VtM visual novellas that I've never finished, why not add to the pile? I'm not a digital hoarder, no! I'm a completionist!

I admit, this isn't going where I thought it would.

Never mind all that.

If you preorder, you get this:

Pre-order Bloodlines 2 and get an exclusive in-game jukebox with iconic tracks by original Bloodlines composer Rik Schaffer.

As if some of us hadn't extracted them from the game over 20 years ago.

So. Here's the gist:

You are the Nomad — an elder vampire awakening from a century-long slumber, new to the modern nights. Trapped in your Blood is a stranger's voice. This mysterious entity, a vampire detective known as Fabien, will be your guide to 21st-century Seattle. In sections of the game, you will explore the city through his eyes as you revisit a cold case from a hundred years ago that threatens undead and mortal society.

Editorial comment: it sounds kind of awful.

Hunt your way through a modern-night Seattle on the brink of an open supernatural war in Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2, where visceral vampire action meets a neo-noir murder mystery. Navigate the vampire Court of Seattle and its dark underbelly in this action RPG, realized by the BAFTA award-winning studio The Chinese Room.

Et cetera, cetera.

"Neo-noir" must mean that, instead of a smoky jazz sax, we'll be treated to electronica crap. How much you want to bet we'll end up in a club stuffed with drunk idiots while the soundtrack goes BUCHA-BUCHA-BUCHA until you have no choice but to take your own life?

Again, never mind.

Now on to the really cool part: how much you'll pay for the game. You might be thinking hey, I'd pay five bucks for that! And you would. But you gotta multiply that by another number. And what is that number, exactly? Let's find out.

The Standard Edition, which is the basic game, is $59.99. Okay...uh...that's a bit steep, but I've done worse. (Starfield, for example.)

But hey! For just a few dollars more -- ten bucks, to be exact -- you can get the Deluxe Edition. That includes the base game plus:

Santa Monica Memories

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 - Santa Monica Memories lets you relive the nostalgia of the original Bloodlines. To decorate your haven, this cosmetic pack features iconic items, including a Stop Sign, Ankaran Sarcophagus, and Voerman Portrait. Additionally, with Santa Monica Memories, your haven will be adorned with a clan neon sign each time you complete the game as a new clan.

Doesn't that just make all your potentially tingly bits light up like a sparkler on the 4th of July? Well, hold on to your tenuous grip on reality, because this next bit of info's gonna blast your head right off your shoulders.

For a mere pittance -- $89.99 -- you too can be one of the gullible rubes elite connassue connoish canoe-faced kettle-headed pretentious twats individuals who will be paying too much for very little in return! I mean...uh...

...no, that's exactly what I meant. Regardless, for $90 you get the base game, the Santa Monica jerkoff shit, and this:

Shadows & Silk

Unleash new depths of darkness and artistry in Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 - Shadows & Silk. Embrace the shadows as a Lasombra, commanding the very essence of darkness to bend to your will. Or, revel in beauty and passion as a Toreador, channeling your artistic spirit to captivate and influence those around you. This Shadows & Silk unlocks two distinct and powerful vampire clans, each with unique abilities and playstyles, as well as a total of eight new outfits, offering a new way to experience Bloodlines 2.

I don't like the implications here. Just which clans are playable in the base game, exactly? Which are not? There isn't any information. Just hype.

So go ahead and despair amongst yourselves. I, meanwhile, am in the process of downloading a widescreen upscaling of the Jade Empire cutscenes. Should be a fun time in the asylum tonight...

I'd gripe and fret some more, but the sun's come up. Time to retire for the day.

[Starfox]

As if some of us hadn't extracted them from the game over 20 years ago.

I didn't! 

Seriously though, if that's their only incentive, for pre-order, it's not much.

You are the Nomad — an elder vampire awakening from a century-long slumber, new to the modern nights. Trapped in your Blood is a stranger's voice. This mysterious entity, a vampire detective known as Fabien,

The "Nomad". So, you allegedly spent a century in a sarcophagus and they call you the "Nomad". Well, that totally makes sense. Especially if your sarcophagus was dragged around an awful lot during this time. Well I assume it was a sarcophagus, it might have just been a sleeping car in a train on perpetual movement (you know, to avoid sun).

You know when I first heard of playing as an Elder (it seems like centuries ago now) I was genuinely enthused. Now though, I must say I'm not entirely sold on the concept of an elder vampire awakening with a voice of a vampire detective in his head... We don't even know if this elder vampire is a Malk, which would be the only valid reason for him to have a little voice in his head.

I love playing as a Malk so that would be a plus. On the other hand my Malk characters generally like their little inside voices (there are many) to be more than just a "mysterious" vampire detective entity stuck in their head for who knows what reasons...

Not only that but elders are supposed to terrify other vampires, not to play Sherlock Holmes with them. You know, when you appear and present yourself as a vampire a millenium old (younger than that, why would you even qualify as an elder?) they're supposed to go "Aaaah! Gehenna is upon us! They're going to destroy us all!" And why not? The older you are the purest is your bloodline. Your powers are multiplied by ten. You are a pure vampiric nightmare come true for everyone, vampires and humans alike.

So you really do want to tell me that this "elder" will just awaken and play Hercules Poirot? If that's the case then yeah, that's a twist, I really didn't see that one coming.

Hunt your way through a modern-night Seattle on the brink of an open supernatural war in Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2, where visceral vampire action meets a neo-noir murder mystery.

Oh, so there will be some hunting done? And an "open" supernatural war... within a city full of humans I imagine. that's not gonna break the masquerade at all!

in this action RPG, realized by the BAFTA award-winning studio The Chinese Room.

See that's a big red warning light right there. When a company starts to resort to "award winning" just to persuade people that the game will automatically be good, it's time to get worried because you know they don't have much of anything else to put in the balance. Where are the trailers, the gameplay videos... 2 months from release you'd expect to see them rolling around everywhere.

Doesn't that just make all your potentially tingly bits light up like a sparkler on the 4th of July?

Even though the prospect of having my tingly bits lit up would be interesting to help me navigate in the dark, I must say... no it really doesn't -- my tingly bits have more refined tastes that I absolutely won't expose here.

I don't like the implications here.

Oh, me neither. I just had a flash of dozens of vampire bloodlines only playable as MTX. Isn't that lovely? That would bring the game to about $2,000 when all is said and done.

And now, here's an idea for a better title: "Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines 2 hundreds times more expensive than necessary". Would you like 5 liters of my blood with that (which means for those not versed in metric, about the totality of my blood)?

Time to retire for the day.

Me too. I've read enough of that as it is... Thanks for the entertainment.

[Doc_Brown]

Apparently there are four playable clans--Brujah (melee), Tremere (ranged), Banu Haqim (stealth), and Ventrue (mind control)--as well as flashbacks where you play as the (thinblood) Malkavian in your head.  The two DLC clans are Lasombra and Toreador.  The former I can sort of get, but the Tories are one of the more normal clans.  I saw one comment that said it was like playing a D&D game and having dwarves locked behind a paywall.

[Silver Sorrow]

Dwarves behind a paywall. That sums it up, really.

Ah...good. Thanks for digging up the specifics. The playable clans were not mentioned in the official hype, which means they definitely had something to hide. I guess they thought they'd make too much money if they adhered to the original style (a bunch of playable clans, player customization, etc.), so they decided to break it.

Not being able to play all the way through as a Malkavian is, for now, a deal-breaker.

Also, from what I gather the player character is so androgynous that it really doesn't matter if you choose male or female.

From a logical angle, I'm really not sure what the general idea is by pulling such nonsense. But as we've seen in the last couple of years, game companies don't care what the fans want (unless they're of the Nose Ring variety, and those retarded clowns aren't fans at all) and are willing to sacrifice not only goodwill but *profit* in search of...something. Who knows what, exactly? But the overarching mandate, it seems, is to burn everything to the ground no matter who might be affected by it, customers or employees.

So I guess I'm not really enthused about the whole thing, to put it mildly.

[Starfox]

Not being able to play as a Malk would be a deal breaker for me too. And considering how loved the Malkavians are by the fans I don't even understand that decision. They kept the Brujah and Ventrue instead, two of the most boring clans.

game companies don't care what the fans want [...] are willing to sacrifice not only goodwill but *profit* in search of...something

That's puzzling, true. American companies like EA, you'd think they'd want to maximize profits but instead they constantly enrage the fans and kill their margins with stupid decisions. They thought everybody was going to applaud The Veilguard just because there was Dragon Age somewhere on the box. Going right for the most minuscule margin of customers doesn't make profits. I don't know what kind of business courses the suits at EA took, but they'd better go back to school.

But then I don't have any hope for The Witcher 4 either. Too many red flags in there. And, unlike some people, I'm not talking about Ciri has a playable character, I'm totally fine with that, I'm talking about the rest. Switching from the CDPR in-house engine for the crap that is Unreal engine these days? It's already a gigantic red flag that guarantees that the level of game customization will be far inferior to The Witcher 3 and that the crashes will be more numerous.

I heard some people accusing unbridled capitalism to be the main culprit for the disastrous state of the AAA gaming industry and they're right. Typical example would be CDPR. From The Witcher 1 to the Witcher 3 they were mostly running on their own funds and the results where good culminating to excellence with The Witcher 3. That's when "investors" started to get interested. And they were willing to put a lot of money in CDPR because they thought that success was a guarantee of profits... not when you do it wrong. They didn't understand what developing a game involves, they started to have unreasonable financial expectations and demands and we all know what resulted: Cyberpunk 2077. A game that after 5 years CDPR is still struggling to salvage. Cyberpunk would have needed a good two more years of development before being released but no, capitalism couldn't wait.

But hey, I'm sure the Witcher 4 will please "some" people, possibly the same that kept praising the Netflix adaptation (after it got really bad).