VtM: Bloodlines 1 Year Anniversary Q&A

[Musopticon?]

The problem with the Hotel level was that you were a freakin' undead killing machine. In comparison to Garrett's lithe physique and careful ways, my Ventrue went axemurder on everything, so poltergeists weren't scary to begin with. Eh, it still managed to make me jump a few times, once in the basement, once when the lights broke in the porch, hwne I saw that drawing; I got chills and once I jumped after I saw the shape behind the barricade of furniture in the upper levels.

 

That room with the locket was a very nice touch; Cradle could have been so much better if in the "memory phase" everything was in order and the building bustling with activity; laughter of children, human staff and seeing the patients as they were before King No One burned all down. Ion Strom could have implemented a short adventure part there, where Garrett had done reconnaissance work by talking with the patients and staff. Contrast between the memory and today's horrors would have been awesome. But, I digress; both levels are great.

Edited December 15, 2005 by Musopticon?

[Gabrielle]

This is the only game that made me jump a few times while playing it. One of those times was in the hotel. If a game can scare me briefly, it's good.

[Hell Kitty]

The problem with the Hotel level was that you were a freakin' undead killing machine.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I think it's hard to come up with the scariness in a game if you play a powerful hero. That's why the scares in Bloodlines are like those in FEAR, it's all scripted scenes that have limited interactivity.

 

Haunting Ground is a good game for scariness, there are only 3 or 4 enemies in the whole game, but when you encounter them you have to run and hide, so when you encounter them it's "Holy crap I gotta get outta here...!!!?!?" instead of "I'll just blast/stab this think until it's meaty chunks."

[Yst]

I think it's hard to come up with the scariness in a game if you play a powerful hero. That's why the scares in Bloodlines are like those in FEAR, it's all scripted scenes that have limited interactivity.

 

Very true.

 

As for the Ocean House, my example of that is the difference between playing it as a Toreador and playing it as a Nosferatu. I found it scarrier as a Toreador, for the simple reason that, as a Nosferatu, one is so utterly terrifying that the world around one can hardly be as terrifying by comparison as it is for someone who is more or less human.

[Janmanden]

If talking about scaryness, then I'm still to much of a chicken to finish Aliens vs. Predator(1) as a marine. Short bursts gets kinda long burst like when you've got the shivers... Powerful or not, the eerieness of the Haunted house...still gives me the chill on replays. "Brrrains..." just has too much of a comic context association to be scary, but it's still kinda fun.

[Child of Flame]

 

I got squashed by the elevator the first time I played. The voice was all "Be careful" and so I was all like, okay, watch out for objects. Then I hop into the Elevator well and hear the rumbling "WTF!" I look up and see it falling down towards me right as I try and jump out of the way and fell just short of the ledge.

 

Also those rivets that come flying out of the boilers when you turn the power back on hit you as hard as several .38 slugs, if you get unlucky your health will be more than halfway depleted. If you go and run on into the rest of the level like a fool rather than playing it slow and letting your health regen a little bit you can get killed pretty easily by the objects.

 

 

Edited for spoiler tag.

Edited December 16, 2005 by Child of Flame

[Gabrielle]

I got squashed by the elevator the first time I played.  The voice was all "Be careful" and so I was all like, okay, watch out for objects.  Then I hop into the Elevator well and hear the rumbling "WTF!" I look up and see it falling down towards me right as I try and jump out of the way and fell just short of the ledge. 

 

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That was cool the first time I played it. Good thing I saved right before that.

[Surreptishus]

WIth auspex you can take a good look at

the man in the boiler room

Edited December 16, 2005 by Surreptishus

[Gabrielle]

WIth auspex you can take a good look at

the man in the boiler room

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You can see him without it.

[Surreptishus]

Yeah but its a dark silhouette, with auspex you can see the face.

[CoM_Solaufein]

The first time I played, I saw him through the pipes and I thought he was going to attack me. So I just waited and waited and he didn't come. Silly ghost.

[Musopticon?]

I never saw anyone in that room.

[Surreptishus]

As soon as you go in, look to your right. Through the pipes you will see someone coming towards you.

[Musopticon?]

Oh, ok.

 

 

Is that the husband-axmurderer?

[CoM_Solaufein]

Yes

[LoneWolf16]

I never saw anyone in that room.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Me either. Weird.

 

And I was on the lookout for hostiles, too. Can't believe I'm that unobservant.

[WITHTEETH]

I heard Vampires the Masqurade: Bloodlines wasn't completely done for somereason? Why do people say that?

 

I just started it, Graphics tend to stutter even on my machiones with a 6800GT 2.4 Pentium4 and 1gig of ram. Whats up with that? Game froze on me as i was going into the pawnshop opening the chainlink fence to enter the main area.

[Spider]

There are some performance issues, but they really shouldn't be so bad with your setup. Was it a permanent freeze or just a temporary stutter? According to Activision the game requiers a page file that is 1.5 gb large so if you've got it manually set to anything smaller, that could have some effect (this is something they said when they released the first patch, I have no idea if it has any effect at all).

 

As for being unfinished, this is what I gather:

 

During the development of Bloodlines, White Wolf announced that they were bringing their World of Darkness to an end. It's been about doomsday prophecies all along and they simply felt it was time to deliver on those.

 

When Activision learned of this they were ready to scrap the game, after all why release a game that uses a dead liscence? Troika (I think) managed to convince them to not scrap the game, but instead development time got cut back (I'm not sure with how much, but I think something like 6 months). This of course means a lot of stuff had to get cut, something that is especially noticeable in the later part of the game where it becomes much more combat oriented.

 

So at least when I say it wasn't completely done, I refer to the lack of roleplaying in the end game and the lack of quality control prior to release (although I personally only suffered one major bug, the game's performance should have been better).

 

The parts of the game that are good are still fantastic though.

[Musopticon?]

Bloodlines also uses an older version of Source, which contributes to slowness and, or so I've heard, the memory leak.

[WITHTEETH]

Sigh... These games aren't what they use to be because of publishers. I hope Steam is successful enough to be able to cut them out, that is if they are any better.

 

It was a permenant freeze. I have the latest patch too. 6 months lost in development, wow! I remember this i think, its why they pushed back the date for this game so far back, they still did not push the release date back 6 more months though to make sure the quality was the same, ohwell. The game is only $30 bucks, so far im enjoying it.

[WITHTEETH]

Bloodlines also uses an older version of Source, which contributes to slowness and, or so I've heard, the memory leak.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

How come these patches from Source don't come out for Bloodlines then?

[Musopticon?]

Patches from Source? Do you mean the Steam patching? If so, the answer's obvious. If you mean updating the engine; that would require some serious re-work and I doubt Troika was capable of releasing such a large update right before they went down. If Troika had survived, however, we'd probably be playing a more complete game noq, enginewise and otherwise.

[Gabrielle]

I heard Vampires the Masqurade: Bloodlines wasn't completely done for somereason? Why do people say that?

 

I just started it, Graphics tend to stutter even on my machiones with a 6800GT 2.4 Pentium4 and 1gig of ram. Whats up with that? Game froze on me as i was going into the pawnshop opening the chainlink fence to enter the main area.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The only problems I have is it will load some of the areas slow like downtown and Santa Monica when it rains.

[Haitoku]

This game is plagued with performance issues.

(ATI x800xl, 3.0GHZ, 1.0GB)

 

Frame rates were never stable and sometimes just went down for no reason. I would be looking at a wall and getting 20FPS.

After extended periods of time, I would have to restart because of memory leak.

 

Also, this game was weird. It actually ran smoother when I set AA to 6. I tried to gain a few FPS by using TV-OUT (so I set the resolution to 1024x768), it actually ran worse...

 

Sound stuttering almost all the time. I could not get it to stop...

 

It was truly one of the most unoptimized games I've ever played.

Edited December 17, 2005 by Haitoku

[LoneWolf16]

I know, doesn't it just fill your heart with love for Activision?

Edited December 17, 2005 by LoneWolf16