Revisiting VtM: Bloodlines

[Vincente]

The main problem I see is that the community is so small, like while I get tenthousands of downloads for each new patch release, these mods only get hundreds which lowers motivation to create something completely new..

Downloaded the Prelude mods, will check them out soon.

 

[ind33d]

The main problem I see is that the community is so small, like while I get tenthousands of downloads for each new patch release, these mods only get hundreds which lowers motivation to create something completely new..

Downloaded the Prelude mods, will check them out soon.

I'm surprised there aren't total conversions for Morrowind to make it a VTM game. The mechanics are pretty much identical

 

[Wesp5]

I'm surprised there aren't total conversions for Morrowind to make it a VTM game. The mechanics are pretty much identical

Isn't there even already a vampire storyline in Skyrim?

 

[Storyfag]

Looks like we are getting bloodlines remaster before 2 boys.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEMXMYdPATI

Looks bad. Blurry textures or different models altogether, everything is way to clean, characters poorly resemble the originals...

Also, facial expressions went to shit.

 

[GhostCow]

Remove the blur and bring back the fangs and I think it would look great. There's also a positive comment on the video from someone who made the original models for the game, which is pretty cool.

 

[Delterius]

I guess the blur is because those aren't actual models, it's just an AI reshuffling of a video capture innit?

I kinda disliked Mercurio. He looks like a badass, whereas the original model gives me more of an underling vibe.

 

[Fargus]

Looks like we are getting bloodlines remaster before 2 boys.

Video unavailable

Mirror for the vid?

 

[ColaWerewolf]

*Ahem*

Mitsoda shills will never admit this, but the Bloodlines concept story was more cohesive before Mitsoda joined the team. Cain, Boyarski, and Anderson did enough research to nail a competent VtM plot that only got worse during production after Mitsoda joined.

Plot submitted as a pitch for the Bloodlines game

Every game of chess begins with one move.

Your story begins on a rain-soaked evening, in a pay-by-the-hour motel just off the Sunset Strip. You are the bastard property of an anarch Lick, sired against the Traditions of the Kindred. Your fate was sealed before the man's[?] teeth ever punctured your neck. An outcast to both kine and Kindred, you wander the streets until you are hunted down and brought before the newly appointed Camarilla prince. The prince, holding only the most tenuous of authority in an anarch city like Los Angeles, is forced to hand down harsh judgment. Your sire is killed immediately. You are given a difficult ordeal to prove your worth.

In chess, small moves start the game, but they are always the most important.

From there, it's a stark, sinister ride through the shadowed warrens of Los Angeles, from the smoky, neon-cast rooms of the underground club scene to hidden vampire fortresses in the Hollywood hills. Along the way, a mystery begins to take shape involving the most powerful of Cainite society and other supernatural creatures. You don't know who to trust. Perhaps it is all an elaborate hoax created by the Malkavians, or a trap set by the Society of Leopold? And it seems that someone, or something, is helping you. Pushing you in certain directions. Or perhaps it is everything else that is being pushed around you.

Chess masters can see many moves in advance. Some can play the whole game before it even begins.

Welcome to the world of Vampire: Bloodlines

A Camarilla prince has moved into LA, looking for a way to establish his authority. Having secretly negotiated an agreement, the Kuei-Jin have begun to perpetuate the myth that Jeremy MacNeil was not actually killed in the battle of Signal Hill and that he has returned to Los Angeles. At the same time, the Kuei-Jin have begun to commit vampiric crimes in the city, and are making it look as if MacNeil is doing them. All of this is to undermine the anarch's belief in their fallen leader, and to have them turn to the prince for their new leadership. The Kuei-Jin, unbeknownst to the prince, hope to use this situation to establish their own power in L.A., wiping out both the anarchs and the Camarilla.

The PC, newly and illicitly Embraced, is shown mercy by the prince and is allowed to prove himself through an ordeal. After completing this, he begins to work for Anastasz di Zagreb, a Tremere justicar, sent by the Camarilla to investigate a report of diablerie. Strangely, the Ankaran Sarcophagus, a newly discovered ancient relic from Turkey, has "disappeared into thin air," stolen from the Museum of Natural History. The prince, worried about violations of the Masquerade (as well as the possible importance of the sarcophagus to the thieves, who he assumes are Kindred) has the PC begin to investigate the matter.

The story begins to unfold. Half of the time the PC is working for the justicar (who knows nothing of the prince's machinations, but is beginning to suspect) gathering the 'evidence' against MacNeil, and the other half of the time he is looking into the Ankaran Sarcophagus. It is while the PC is investigating the sarcophagus that he eventually finds the clues that lead him to discover the connection between the prince and the Kuei-Jin, and allow for the final conflict, and resolution of the story.

The assumption, presented in more detail in the following section, is that a very powerful vampire introduced the Ankaran Sarcophagus to the situation in LA. Seeing the possible implications of a power shift to the Kuei-Jin, he masterminds a plot to expose the connection between the prince and the Kuei-Jin, and neutralize them both.

Notice how better structured it is. The Prince has a genuine motivation for destroying the PC's sire and making a show of it. The Kuei-Jin and LaCroix alliance is fleshed out from the very beginning. Instead of the alliance amounting to Ming impersonating Nines once, that the PC is the only witness of, to somehow support that Nines would be responsible for Grout's death in the latter's manor which is infested with vampire-purging zealots... Instead of that bullshit, you have the Kuei-Jin and LaCroix alliance take center stage in the plot from the start, with the Ankaran Sarcophagus being a monkey-wrench thrown at this alliance. It wasn't just because a cab driver who we're supposed to believe is 100000 years old Caine did it for the lolz.
Indeed, the best parts of the plot were already laid out before Mitsoda joined, but of course once he did join "much of the preliminary design was abandoned or redeveloped."

On my next butthurt-inducing comment, I present to you clear cut proof that what Mitsoda says vs. what Mitsoda does stands in stark conflict with eachother. On villains, he laments that he's

"really tired of bad guys who are evil just because." with one of his most iconic villains, LaCroix, being designed as "someone that the player would love to hate but… a plausible villain."

Plausible if you're 12. LaCroix is the epitome definition of "evil just because", and same is Andrei the woefully generic Tzimisce. LaCroix showed signs of being nuanced at the beginning, because the original pitch made him that way. His alliance with the Kuei-Jin was arguably a good idea but very controversial from a Camarilla point of view, he wasn't some Antediluvian-obsessed retard chasing after his munchies. In retrospect, we can also see how the generic Sabbat-BAD addition served only to dilute the story further.

"B-but the characters!" You might say. It's a fair point, but I'd argue we don't even really know just what exactly Mitsoda wrote for each character. For Tourette, at least, it's safe to say that he didn't have as much involvement as he'd like people to believe he did, because on Malkavians he had this to say.

I’m pretty tired of mental illness being used as a crutch in writing - the twist or punchline being the character is crazy.

Which if anything sounds like he's trying to throw a jab directly at Tourette and the Daughter of Janus reveal scene. I would love it if other developers, voice actors, and writers would come out and say which ideas were theirs in relation to the characters.

Bonus: Mitsoda's self-insert, Romero, is hilariously the most cringeworthy character in the game with arguably the worst dialogue, and yet we're supposed to believe this is the same guy who wrote Smiling Jack's dialogue?
Naaaaah.

Thank you for reading, I await your inflamed responses.

 

[Cricket McBangle]

*Ahem*

Mitsoda shills will never admit this, but the Bloodlines concept story was more cohesive before Mitsoda joined the team. Cain, Boyarski, and Anderson did enough research to nail a competent VtM plot that only got worse during production after Mitsoda joined.

Plot submitted as a pitch for the Bloodlines game

Bonus: Mitsoda's self-insert, Romero, is hilariously the most cringeworthy character in the game with arguably the worst dialogue, and yet we're supposed to believe this is the same guy who wrote Smiling Jack's dialogue?
Naaaaah.

Mitsoda did not write Smiling Jack

He also didn't write the Gimble's Prosthethics stuff either. I know it's a side quest but still, I remember that one being pretty gnarly. It seems like his biggest contributions were Ocean House Hotel, Jeannette Voermann, the Deb Of Night (some of the commercials were not him) and possibly that Stop Sign gag.

Also Tim Cain just started doing YouTube and has answered a few Bloodlines questions and mostly credits Leonard Boyarsky and Jason Anderson being their project as Tim said he joined in the last year of the game's production because his whole thing was Temple of Elemental Evil. He didn't even bring up Brian Mitsoda but as a programmer joining on in the last year, I'm not sure if he would have had much interaction with him anyway.

 

[Twiglard]

NVIDIA RTX-Remix 0.1 Released For Adding Path Tracing To Classic Games​

Written by Michael Larabel in NVIDIA on 12 April 2023 at 10:30 AM EDT. 32 Comments

In addition to releasing the GeForce RTX 4070 graphics card today (unfortunately, no launch day Linux review, still waiting on hardware...), NVIDIA has released as open-source the RTX Remix software for helping to add path tracing support to classic games.

RTX-Remix is a NVIDIA GameWorks initiative as a runtime to help provide path-tracing to classic games for better enjoying on NVIDIA's latest GeForce RTX graphics cards. initially this consists of DXVK-Remix and Bridge-Remix.

https://www.phoronix.com/news/NVIDIA-RTX-Remix-0.1

NVIDIA RTX Remix 0.2 Released + Remix Runtime Bridge Open-Sourced​

Written by Michael Larabel in NVIDIA on 12 May 2023 at 06:19 AM EDT. 8 Comments

Last month NVIDIA published RTX-Remix v0.1 for bringing path tracing to classic games. Out today is RTX-Remix v0.2 with more improvements to this tech plus they have now open-sourced the RTX Runtime Bridge as well.

RTX Remix v0.2 aims to fix many compatibility issues with different games that were uncovered following the widespread testing of the inaugural release. In addition to many game compatibility fixes, DXVK-Remix saw a number of improvements to fix different game issues and other general improvements. RTX Remix 0.2 also moves debug symbols to their own packaging and has a number of documentation improvements for this software project to bring path tracing to older PC games.

https://www.phoronix.com/news/NVIDIA-RTX-Remix-0.2

Somebody should try it with Bloodlines.

 

[Roguey]

"B-but the characters!" You might say. It's a fair point, but I'd argue we don't even really know just what exactly Mitsoda wrote for each character. For Tourette, at least, it's safe to say that he didn't have as much involvement as he'd like people to believe he did, because on Malkavians he had this to say.

I’m pretty tired of mental illness being used as a crutch in writing - the twist or punchline being the character is crazy.

Which if anything sounds like he's trying to throw a jab directly at Tourette and the Daughter of Janus reveal scene.

Eh, people change. But regarding that https://web.archive.org/web/2006061...netvampire/topic.asp?fid=9642&tid=1773542&p=4

I’ve talked about Jeanette and Therese with a lot of people, but never publicly, so here goes. First of all, Jeanette and Therese’s origin is loosely inspired by an ex-girlfriend, and true to the source, there is only one physical being. While the inspiration didn’t suffer from the same affliction, Therese has Multiple Personality Disorder (currently called Dissociative Identity Disorder, I believe), and I studied cases to make sure she was portrayed somewhat accurately. Several people have figured this out from the dialogue, but what it boils down to is, Therese was isolated and sexually abused from a very young age. To deal with this trauma and her seclusion, she developed a “sister”. Later, she would use the Jeanette personality to behave in a manner not fitting the obedient daughter side that was Therese. After the murder of her father, she was institutionalized. Therese was already suffering from the disorder when she was embraced, but with the Malk blood, the Jeanette personality is so fully developed and so intertwined with Therese’s psyche that neither can be considered the dominant personality, and the Jeanette side is no less real than Therese, and neither realizes that the other exists within the same body.
There is a lot of debate in the psychological world about the reality of this disorder and its portrayal in popular culture, but in a world full of vampires, it’s not open for debate.

I would love it if other developers, voice actors, and writers would come out and say which ideas were theirs in relation to the characters.

Brian's been open about what exactly he wrote.

As I’ve said, Beckett and Smiling Jack were White Wolf characters. As for developing the others, that was up to the writer/designers. I wrote over seventy of them, including LaCroix, Gary, Jeanette and Therese, Nines, Damsel, Beckett, VV, Caine, Heather, Isaac, Chunk, Pisha, Mercurio, Larry, Samantha, Ji Wen Ja, Yukie, the blood dolls, the radio script, the news, and a lot of ambient stuff – I think that covers the stuff I had the most fun with.
TJ Perillo wrote Jack, Ming, Skelter and a few other NPCs. Chad Moore wrote Strauss and wrote/edited some of the NPCs.

 

[Wesp5]

NVIDIA RTX Remix 0.2 Released + Remix Runtime Bridge Open-Sourced​

Written by Michael Larabel in NVIDIA on 12 May 2023 at 06:19 AM EDT. 8 Comments

Last month NVIDIA published RTX-Remix v0.1 for bringing path tracing to classic games. Out today is RTX-Remix v0.2 with more improvements to this tech plus they have now open-sourced the RTX Runtime Bridge as well.

RTX Remix v0.2 aims to fix many compatibility issues with different games that were uncovered following the widespread testing of the inaugural release. In addition to many game compatibility fixes, DXVK-Remix saw a number of improvements to fix different game issues and other general improvements. RTX Remix 0.2 also moves debug symbols to their own packaging and has a number of documentation improvements for this software project to bring path tracing to older PC games.

https://www.phoronix.com/news/NVIDIA-RTX-Remix-0.2

Somebody should try it with Bloodlines.

Somebody is already working on it. They contacted me on ModDB, but sadly I know nothing of render targets and similar stuff to be of much help. Right now there seem to be issues with the UI messing up the rest of the game. So if anybody knows more about how rendering in Source and especially Bloodlines work, please contact me and then I can connect you with the guy working on this!

 

[Wesp5]

Plot submitted as a pitch for the Bloodlines game

Every game of chess begins with one move.

Your story begins on a rain-soaked evening, in a pay-by-the-hour motel just off the Sunset Strip. You are the bastard property of an anarch Lick, sired against the Traditions of the Kindred. Your fate was sealed before the man's[?] teeth ever punctured your neck. An outcast to both kine and Kindred, you wander the streets until you are hunted down and brought before the newly appointed Camarilla prince. The prince, holding only the most tenuous of authority in an anarch city like Los Angeles, is forced to hand down harsh judgment. Your sire is killed immediately. You are given a difficult ordeal to prove your worth.

In chess, small moves start the game, but they are always the most important.

From there, it's a stark, sinister ride through the shadowed warrens of Los Angeles, from the smoky, neon-cast rooms of the underground club scene to hidden vampire fortresses in the Hollywood hills. Along the way, a mystery begins to take shape involving the most powerful of Cainite society and other supernatural creatures. You don't know who to trust. Perhaps it is all an elaborate hoax created by the Malkavians, or a trap set by the Society of Leopold? And it seems that someone, or something, is helping you. Pushing you in certain directions. Or perhaps it is everything else that is being pushed around you.

Chess masters can see many moves in advance. Some can play the whole game before it even begins.

Welcome to the world of Vampire: Bloodlines

A Camarilla prince has moved into LA, looking for a way to establish his authority. Having secretly negotiated an agreement, the Kuei-Jin have begun to perpetuate the myth that Jeremy MacNeil was not actually killed in the battle of Signal Hill and that he has returned to Los Angeles. At the same time, the Kuei-Jin have begun to commit vampiric crimes in the city, and are making it look as if MacNeil is doing them. All of this is to undermine the anarch's belief in their fallen leader, and to have them turn to the prince for their new leadership. The Kuei-Jin, unbeknownst to the prince, hope to use this situation to establish their own power in L.A., wiping out both the anarchs and the Camarilla.

The PC, newly and illicitly Embraced, is shown mercy by the prince and is allowed to prove himself through an ordeal. After completing this, he begins to work for Anastasz di Zagreb, a Tremere justicar, sent by the Camarilla to investigate a report of diablerie. Strangely, the Ankaran Sarcophagus, a newly discovered ancient relic from Turkey, has "disappeared into thin air," stolen from the Museum of Natural History. The prince, worried about violations of the Masquerade (as well as the possible importance of the sarcophagus to the thieves, who he assumes are Kindred) has the PC begin to investigate the matter.

The story begins to unfold. Half of the time the PC is working for the justicar (who knows nothing of the prince's machinations, but is beginning to suspect) gathering the 'evidence' against MacNeil, and the other half of the time he is looking into the Ankaran Sarcophagus. It is while the PC is investigating the sarcophagus that he eventually finds the clues that lead him to discover the connection between the prince and the Kuei-Jin, and allow for the final conflict, and resolution of the story.

The assumption, presented in more detail in the following section, is that a very powerful vampire introduced the Ankaran Sarcophagus to the situation in LA. Seeing the possible implications of a power shift to the Kuei-Jin, he masterminds a plot to expose the connection between the prince and the Kuei-Jin, and neutralize them both.

Notice how better structured it is.

I don't see many differences except for the whole MacNeil plot which would mean nothing to anybody not versed in the WoD background and I wonder if Mitsoda would have been important enough to have that cut completely. Especially as he was involved late in the development as well as Cain. I rather imagine some Activision producer removed this because it needs too much PnP knowledge to make any sense which would narrow down the suitable audience for the game!

 

[Delterius]

I think the proposed MacNeil plot has one issue: in that story the Kuei-Jin are uniting the kindred of Los Angeles. Which is the last thing they want to see happening.

In the actual game the Kuei-Jin were supposed to be outnumbered but better drilled and more disciplined. They hurt the Anarchs badly and forced them into the Camarilla's umbrella, albeit temporarily. That's how LaCroix moved into LA in the first place. The game as a whole has this contest between Ming and LaCroix where they pretend to work with each other while trying to get the other to undermine their respective power bases.

Ming wins the political game when she fools the Prince into thinking Nines killed Grout (or, rather, fooling him into thinking that she did him a service by giving him a pretext for a bloodhunt), and then she fooled everybody else (including Jack) into thinking that the werewolf attack was from LaCroix. This is in between the lines and not altogether clear. But LaCroix couldn't have known that Nines was hiding in Griffith Park. If he did the blood hunt would have gone thereabouts already. Ming's network of spies most certainly did, and she attracted the weres right at the perfect time. It is also unlikely that LaCroix would sacrifice you just to flush Nines out, and that his overtures to Nines were genuine. He was always afraid of the Kuei-Jin first and foremost and you'd become too valuable and powerful a pawn, a prospective new sheriff even. The only evidence we have that LaCroix caused the werewolf attack are Jack's suspicions, but that's both circumstancial and biased. He's just another Anarch who's been fooled by the Kuei-Jin's great plan.

Ming wanted a Kindred civil war, not a Kindred entente. And she engineered one. The Kuei-Jin might have taken over Los Angeles if you weren't the spanner in the works.

 

[ColaWerewolf]

I don't see many differences except for the whole MacNeil plot

I respect the time you've invested into fixing bugs, but come on man. The pacing and structure are completely different. Search your heart you know it to be true.

Activision producer removed this because it needs too much PnP knowledge to make any sense

It's easy to blame the publishers because it's in style and you're not alienating anyone, but is it true? Everything you need to know about MacNeil is already presented in VtMB in <10 lines of dialogue, how come the big, bad producers didn't have them trash those lines about MacNeil in the game, I wonder?
Besides, and courtesy of Rougey,

So, when Jeanette was written in her final form, some higher ups didn’t think she was “sexy enough” and wanted her to be more like E3 Jeanette. To avoid rewriting Jeanette and destroying her character and the whole Jeanette/Therese scene I had spent a lot of time setting up, I created a new character, Velvet Velour.

Those publishers couldn't have been all bad.

I think the proposed MacNeil plot has one issue: in that story the Kuei-Jin are uniting the kindred of Los Angeles. Which is the last thing they want to see happening.

By allying with LaCroix they have a sure-fire self-destruct button against the Kindred as a whole. All they need to do is push the anarchs toward the Ivory Tower while securing domain and valuable intel from the Prince in the process, then when all the Kindred joined together under one ruler and you've shored up your own defenses in the domain you bartered away from the Prince, reveal indisputable proof that their Prince was working with you all along and watch the entire sect blow up in civil war.

 

[Tyranicon]

 

[Zombra]

hay gbuaies i ofund the scedftert thread acobu t bloodliens 1 that s was hic=1&o=date]cen uncder manyh layers ov scecrecy >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Plot submitted as a pitch for the Bloodlines game

Every game of chess begins with one move.

Your story begins on a rain-soaked evening, in a pay-by-the-hour motel just off the Sunset Strip. You are the bastard property of an anarch Lick, sired against the Traditions of the Kindred. Your fate was sealed before the man's[?] teeth ever punctured your neck. An outcast to both kine and Kindred, you wander the streets until you are hunted down and brought before the newly appointed Camarilla prince. The prince, holding only the most tenuous of authority in an anarch city like Los Angeles, is forced to hand down harsh judgment. Your sire is killed immediately. You are given a difficult ordeal to prove your worth.

In chess, small moves start the game, but they are always the most important.

From there, it's a stark, sinister ride through the shadowed warrens of Los Angeles, from the smoky, neon-cast rooms of the underground club scene to hidden vampire fortresses in the Hollywood hills. Along the way, a mystery begins to take shape involving the most powerful of Cainite society and other supernatural creatures. You don't know who to trust. Perhaps it is all an elaborate hoax created by the Malkavians, or a trap set by the Society of Leopold? And it seems that someone, or something, is helping you. Pushing you in certain directions. Or perhaps it is everything else that is being pushed around you.

Chess masters can see many moves in advance. Some can play the whole game before it even begins.

Welcome to the world of Vampire: Bloodlines

A Camarilla prince has moved into LA, looking for a way to establish his authority. Having secretly negotiated an agreement, the Kuei-Jin have begun to perpetuate the myth that Jeremy MacNeil was not actually killed in the battle of Signal Hill and that he has returned to Los Angeles. At the same time, the Kuei-Jin have begun to commit vampiric crimes in the city, and are making it look as if MacNeil is doing them. All of this is to undermine the anarch's belief in their fallen leader, and to have them turn to the prince for their new leadership. The Kuei-Jin, unbeknownst to the prince, hope to use this situation to establish their own power in L.A., wiping out both the anarchs and the Camarilla.

The PC, newly and illicitly Embraced, is shown mercy by the prince and is allowed to prove himself through an ordeal. After completing this, he begins to work for Anastasz di Zagreb, a Tremere justicar, sent by the Camarilla to investigate a report of diablerie. Strangely, the Ankaran Sarcophagus, a newly discovered ancient relic from Turkey, has "disappeared into thin air," stolen from the Museum of Natural History. The prince, worried about violations of the Masquerade (as well as the possible importance of the sarcophagus to the thieves, who he assumes are Kindred) has the PC begin to investigate the matter.

The story begins to unfold. Half of the time the PC is working for the justicar (who knows nothing of the prince's machinations, but is beginning to suspect) gathering the 'evidence' against MacNeil, and the other half of the time he is looking into the Ankaran Sarcophagus. It is while the PC is investigating the sarcophagus that he eventually finds the clues that lead him to discover the connection between the prince and the Kuei-Jin, and allow for the final conflict, and resolution of the story.

The assumption, presented in more detail in the following section, is that a very powerful vampire introduced the Ankaran Sarcophagus to the situation in LA. Seeing the possible implications of a power shift to the Kuei-Jin, he masterminds a plot to expose the connection between the prince and the Kuei-Jin, and neutralize them both.

Notice how better structured it is.

I don't see many differences except for the whole MacNeil plot which would mean nothing to anybody not versed in the WoD background and I wonder if Mitsoda would have been important enough to have that cut completely. Especially as he was involved late in the development as well as Cain. I rather imagine some Activision producer removed this because it needs too much PnP knowledge to make any sense which would narrow down the suitable audience for the game!

How exactly does a subplot like “the Global Vampiric Council has sent one of their Chief Justices to observe events going on among the vampire bosses competing to become the Regional Director of the Los Angeles metropolitan area” narrow down the audience? Sounds pretty simple to me.

 

[Wesp5]

How exactly does a subplot like “the Global Vampiric Council has sent one of their Chief Justices to observe events going on among the vampire bosses competing to become the Regional Director of the Los Angeles metropolitan area” narrow down the audience? Sounds pretty simple to me.

LOL! In fact I knew nothing about VtM when I played the game, I only played it because it used the Source engine and I bet many people coming from FPS did. BTW, the Justicar model was still hidden in the game files and I restored it to the Camarilla ending, because it makes sense that Strauss called for official backup for dethroning a Camarilla prince...

 

[RaggleFraggle]

How exactly does a subplot like “the Global Vampiric Council has sent one of their Chief Justices to observe events going on among the vampire bosses competing to become the Regional Director of the Los Angeles metropolitan area” narrow down the audience? Sounds pretty simple to me.

LOL! In fact I knew nothing about VtM when I played the game, I only played it because it used the Source engine and I bet many people coming from FPS did. BTW, the Justicar model was still hidden in the game files and I restored it to the Camarilla ending, because it makes sense that Strauss called for official backup for dethroning a Camarilla prince...

That doesn’t answer my question

 

[Harthwain]

How exactly does a subplot like “the Global Vampiric Council has sent one of their Chief Justices to observe events going on among the vampire bosses competing to become the Regional Director of the Los Angeles metropolitan area” narrow down the audience? Sounds pretty simple to me.

It would require an explanation as to who Jeremy MacNeil is and why it's important. But I do agree that to a complete stranger to the setting (who knows only that it's about secret vampires) it's not exactly a limiting factor. If anything I would question why anybody should buy the whole "Jeremy MacNeil is still alive" story and not simply chalk it down to "somebody is making a mess here and we have to find out who it is".

 

[RaggleFraggle]

I was making a point that it’s easy to introduce concepts if they aren’t obscured behind layers of nonsensical jargon and irrelevant trivia.

 

[NecroLord]

Wesp5 I gots a question for ya. Why did you change (in the Unofficial Patch Plus) the appearance of the Gangrel Protean War Form? It was supposed to look more bat-like and not like some generic shitty werewolf.

 

[Vincente]

BTW, the Justicar model was still hidden in the game files

Is there a picture of this? I don't remember who was present in the room for the Strauss ending at all.

 

[NecroLord]

*Ahem*

Mitsoda shills will never admit this, but the Bloodlines concept story was more cohesive before Mitsoda joined the team. Cain, Boyarski, and Anderson did enough research to nail a competent VtM plot that only got worse during production after Mitsoda joined.

Plot submitted as a pitch for the Bloodlines game

Every game of chess begins with one move.

Your story begins on a rain-soaked evening, in a pay-by-the-hour motel just off the Sunset Strip. You are the bastard property of an anarch Lick, sired against the Traditions of the Kindred. Your fate was sealed before the man's[?] teeth ever punctured your neck. An outcast to both kine and Kindred, you wander the streets until you are hunted down and brought before the newly appointed Camarilla prince. The prince, holding only the most tenuous of authority in an anarch city like Los Angeles, is forced to hand down harsh judgment. Your sire is killed immediately. You are given a difficult ordeal to prove your worth.

In chess, small moves start the game, but they are always the most important.

From there, it's a stark, sinister ride through the shadowed warrens of Los Angeles, from the smoky, neon-cast rooms of the underground club scene to hidden vampire fortresses in the Hollywood hills. Along the way, a mystery begins to take shape involving the most powerful of Cainite society and other supernatural creatures. You don't know who to trust. Perhaps it is all an elaborate hoax created by the Malkavians, or a trap set by the Society of Leopold? And it seems that someone, or something, is helping you. Pushing you in certain directions. Or perhaps it is everything else that is being pushed around you.

Chess masters can see many moves in advance. Some can play the whole game before it even begins.

Welcome to the world of Vampire: Bloodlines

A Camarilla prince has moved into LA, looking for a way to establish his authority. Having secretly negotiated an agreement, the Kuei-Jin have begun to perpetuate the myth that Jeremy MacNeil was not actually killed in the battle of Signal Hill and that he has returned to Los Angeles. At the same time, the Kuei-Jin have begun to commit vampiric crimes in the city, and are making it look as if MacNeil is doing them. All of this is to undermine the anarch's belief in their fallen leader, and to have them turn to the prince for their new leadership. The Kuei-Jin, unbeknownst to the prince, hope to use this situation to establish their own power in L.A., wiping out both the anarchs and the Camarilla.

The PC, newly and illicitly Embraced, is shown mercy by the prince and is allowed to prove himself through an ordeal. After completing this, he begins to work for Anastasz di Zagreb, a Tremere justicar, sent by the Camarilla to investigate a report of diablerie. Strangely, the Ankaran Sarcophagus, a newly discovered ancient relic from Turkey, has "disappeared into thin air," stolen from the Museum of Natural History. The prince, worried about violations of the Masquerade (as well as the possible importance of the sarcophagus to the thieves, who he assumes are Kindred) has the PC begin to investigate the matter.

The story begins to unfold. Half of the time the PC is working for the justicar (who knows nothing of the prince's machinations, but is beginning to suspect) gathering the 'evidence' against MacNeil, and the other half of the time he is looking into the Ankaran Sarcophagus. It is while the PC is investigating the sarcophagus that he eventually finds the clues that lead him to discover the connection between the prince and the Kuei-Jin, and allow for the final conflict, and resolution of the story.

The assumption, presented in more detail in the following section, is that a very powerful vampire introduced the Ankaran Sarcophagus to the situation in LA. Seeing the possible implications of a power shift to the Kuei-Jin, he masterminds a plot to expose the connection between the prince and the Kuei-Jin, and neutralize them both.

Notice how better structured it is. The Prince has a genuine motivation for destroying the PC's sire and making a show of it. The Kuei-Jin and LaCroix alliance is fleshed out from the very beginning. Instead of the alliance amounting to Ming impersonating Nines once, that the PC is the only witness of, to somehow support that Nines would be responsible for Grout's death in the latter's manor which is infested with vampire-purging zealots... Instead of that bullshit, you have the Kuei-Jin and LaCroix alliance take center stage in the plot from the start, with the Ankaran Sarcophagus being a monkey-wrench thrown at this alliance. It wasn't just because a cab driver who we're supposed to believe is 100000 years old Caine did it for the lolz.
Indeed, the best parts of the plot were already laid out before Mitsoda joined, but of course once he did join "much of the preliminary design was abandoned or redeveloped."

On my next butthurt-inducing comment, I present to you clear cut proof that what Mitsoda says vs. what Mitsoda does stands in stark conflict with eachother. On villains, he laments that he's

"really tired of bad guys who are evil just because." with one of his most iconic villains, LaCroix, being designed as "someone that the player would love to hate but… a plausible villain."

Plausible if you're 12. LaCroix is the epitome definition of "evil just because", and same is Andrei the woefully generic Tzimisce. LaCroix showed signs of being nuanced at the beginning, because the original pitch made him that way. His alliance with the Kuei-Jin was arguably a good idea but very controversial from a Camarilla point of view, he wasn't some Antediluvian-obsessed retard chasing after his munchies. In retrospect, we can also see how the generic Sabbat-BAD addition served only to dilute the story further.

"B-but the characters!" You might say. It's a fair point, but I'd argue we don't even really know just what exactly Mitsoda wrote for each character. For Tourette, at least, it's safe to say that he didn't have as much involvement as he'd like people to believe he did, because on Malkavians he had this to say.

I’m pretty tired of mental illness being used as a crutch in writing - the twist or punchline being the character is crazy.

Which if anything sounds like he's trying to throw a jab directly at Tourette and the Daughter of Janus reveal scene. I would love it if other developers, voice actors, and writers would come out and say which ideas were theirs in relation to the characters.

Bonus: Mitsoda's self-insert, Romero, is hilariously the most cringeworthy character in the game with arguably the worst dialogue, and yet we're supposed to believe this is the same guy who wrote Smiling Jack's dialogue?
Naaaaah.

Thank you for reading, I await your inflamed responses.

Andrei was pretty good, yo, watchu talking about?
Voiced by badass Steve Blum, he is a Sabbat Archbishop. The Sabbat do not fuck around, they are cruel and bloody monsters. Andrei perfectly exemplifies the alien Tzimisce mindset.