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TIGSource ForumsHiddenThe DromeValley of the DeadGame ClubTIGS Game Club: Vampire the Masquerade -- Bloodlines
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Author Topic: TIGS Game Club: Vampire the Masquerade -- Bloodlines  (Read 20042 times)
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« Reply #20 on: April 03, 2012, 09:35:52 AM »

ya. one of the very few crpgs without any grinding whatsoever. you cant even grind for items afaik.

man ive been playing for about 2 hours now and am already totally absorbed in this game. working my way through santa monica and taking my sweet time doing all the sidequests. i just finished the e & lily quest line and am probably going to stuff gimble full of bullets next. he deserves it, the sick fuck. the main quest im supposed to be doing is the ocean house hotel one, the only part of the game that is actually scary and not just "macabre."

ive noticed the "plus" patch makes combat kinda easy too, but because im playing a toreador with mostly dialog skills i don't mind. i have a high seduction skill and always choose the homoerotic dialog options when they come up.
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« Reply #21 on: April 03, 2012, 11:10:54 AM »

the plus patch makes guns way better and unarmed way crappier. woo!
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« Reply #22 on: April 03, 2012, 12:12:12 PM »

it was the other way round in the original. guns were practically unusable.  Shrug
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« Reply #23 on: April 03, 2012, 02:30:42 PM »

it was the other way round in the original. guns were practically unusable.  Shrug

They sucked even compared to bare fists at the start (mainly because Blood Buff doesn't affect ranged), but became pretty good in the second half of the game. The infamous sewers dungeon is ridiculously easy with a good gun.

I played through the tutorial today, but was too tired to continue. Took me a while to get used to the controls and get back into PC gaming mindset -- with patches, adjusting settings, and having to check key bindings. Also, for some reason the interface sometimes doesn't respond to my clicks.

I also reminded myself how badly balanced this game is, with some skills and attributes completely useless, some having two important purposes at once, and some simply raised for free through books and quests. The design is not perfect for sure.

Hope to find more time to actually get into it tomorrow.
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« Reply #24 on: April 03, 2012, 04:37:38 PM »

It's also strange in that even if you plan to diversify skills, you should put all your start points into just one, since it's more efficient that way -- they count as whole points, instead of as EXP cost
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« Reply #25 on: April 04, 2012, 07:07:39 AM »

Okay, so I just beat the Ocean House quest (surprised that even when thousands of old school cliches were almost literally thrown, it still manged to be somewhat scary), sided with Therese (mostly because Jeanette is freaking uninteresting despite the pseudo freudian excuse), killed Stan Gimble (anyway to "solve" this quest without killing him? I want to consider alternative solutions for other characters), and rescued Lily.

I like how my character looks like goth Terezi.

I still find egregious all those stupid boob physics, specially with that girl on the beach that has visions.

Fun fact, there are some display glitches that made the whole quest i mentoned first creepier.

My tactic for any strong foe is still making them puke blood and stab the fuck out of them. I have to rely on the rich guy near my department to replenish blood. Oh and those cops within the Blood Bank because they still want to shoot me.
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« Reply #26 on: April 04, 2012, 09:15:33 AM »

(anyway to "solve" this quest without killing him?)

Nope. Too crazy.

I still find egregious all those stupid boob physics, specially with that girl on the beach that has visions.

Yeah, they're oddly inconsistent. Mostly you won't see them after a while. It's mainly just when the cutscene causes the character to jump into position and they catch up late.

My tactic for any strong foe is still making them puke blood and stab the fuck out of them. I have to rely on the rich guy near my department to replenish blood. Oh and those cops within the Blood Bank because they still want to shoot me.

Talked to the girls in Asylum yet? I'm pretty sure gender is irrelevant for that... can't remember.
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« Reply #27 on: April 04, 2012, 10:00:08 AM »

Okay, so I just beat the Ocean House quest (surprised that even when thousands of old school cliches were almost literally thrown, it still manged to be somewhat scary), sided with Therese (mostly because Jeanette is freaking uninteresting despite the pseudo freudian excuse), killed Stan Gimble (anyway to "solve" this quest without killing him? I want to consider alternative solutions for other characters), and rescued Lily.
Yeah, it's all really corny (including the backstory you uncover) but it's effective for some reason. Not gonna lie, I put the quest off until today afternoon because I didn't want to do it at night.

I sided with Jeanette because she's hotter  Embarrassed

I wrapped up all the sidequests for the time being and am going to do the warehouse (which I remember being extremely boring) next.

One flaw I'm seeing with this game as I'm replaying it is that the separate areas where you mainly fight, sneak etc. aren't as interesting to play as the "hub" levels. It'd have been better if they'd just taken those out and expanded the hubs, or kept them and integrated them with the hubs more, kinda like how Deus Ex did it.
« Last Edit: April 04, 2012, 10:15:42 AM by C.A. Sinclair » Logged
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« Reply #28 on: April 04, 2012, 12:06:00 PM »

Insalling the game now, I've never played this game or even really played a crpg before so I'm looking forward to it.  The art is great!
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« Reply #29 on: April 04, 2012, 01:06:58 PM »

Funny, I already happen to be playing through this game. I've only finished the first chapter so far, and I doubt I'll get much further given my current schedule. I'll be following this thread anyways.

I'm playing a Ventrue, mostly focused on dialogue. Dominate is a very cool ability, since I can usually get what I want without resorting to violence. I'm relying on melee combat and Fortitude/Presence/Blood Buff for the few situations where fighting is unavoidable.
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« Reply #30 on: April 04, 2012, 01:12:47 PM »

I'm brawling my way through as a Gangrel. The plus patch destroys unarmed, so I just went with the regular 7.9, and it's actually made it nice and challenging. Enemies block and deflect and battles take some thought.

(Aside, wesp is out of his mind making the plus patch unarmed what it was. What he basically did was make disciplines free and last forever, but make unarmed combat nigh-on-impossible even with them on. I can see the idea, but it was horribly executed.)

Burning through the quests though. I know the first two hubs way too well.

Just tore through Boris, Kanker and Jezebel downtown. The last one (can't remember his name) is annoying as hell to fight as hand to hand. No plan yet.
Have had to come up with some creative blood sources though, which has made the game more interesting. Not relying on seduction this run. Bluffing and fighting nonstop. Been more gripping than previous runs.
Not looking forward to the Elizabeth Dane; It's kind of slow.

Also, this game needs more Beckett.

EDIT: Also, a warning (not a spoiler!) - if you feed on Venus, she'll never recover from the stupor and you'll never be able to resolve anything involving her. Guess they missed that one.
« Last Edit: April 04, 2012, 01:22:53 PM by Hangedman » Logged

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« Reply #31 on: April 04, 2012, 03:16:43 PM »

Talked to the girls in Asylum yet? I'm pretty sure gender is irrelevant for that... can't remember.

Huh??

Yeah, it's all really corny (including the backstory you uncover) but it's effective for some reason. Not gonna lie, I put the quest off until today afternoon because I didn't want to do it at night.

Haha, i did it at night, but made certain I was playing with a third person view.

That said, the second half of that quest seemed out of silent hill, and while I love silent hill, i think it wasnt implemented as well.
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« Reply #32 on: April 05, 2012, 01:01:32 AM »

Just played through the first mission as a male Toreador. My unarmed fighting ability is like a 5 so I punched everyone at the beachhouse to death. Bro Fist Left Corny Laugh

Pretty fun so far. I'm impressed with the faces/facial animation.
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« Reply #33 on: April 05, 2012, 01:12:46 AM »

yeah, the quality of the facial animation is pretty surprising. the biker dude's beard weirds me out, though. it's like he hairsprays half of it till it can no longer move, while the inner beard is allowed to roam free and do as it pleases.
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« Reply #34 on: April 05, 2012, 02:05:13 AM »

yeah the facial animation still looks great. i played some deus ex human revolution the other day and wondered why everyone in that gam looks like a fucking mannequin when bloodlines' level of expressiveness was possible in 2004 (with an unfinished engine no less).

it also helps that the dialog is generally really well written and acted (by vidgam standards).

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« Reply #35 on: April 05, 2012, 03:26:37 AM »

Troika was a great game company in general; they made Temple of Elemental Evil, too, which I enjoyed.


Most of VTMB's issues can be blamed on two companies: Activision and Valve. You see, Activision forced them to actually move up the finish date an entire year, from 2005 to 2004, meaning that the last part of the game had to be rushed together and many bugs and features were left unaddressed. This was basically to get the game out the door and stop Activision's involvement with the game -- they provided zero post-release support, and basically cut budgets constantly. Valve, however, refused to let them publish the game at this earlier date, because it would then predate HL2, which used the source engine and was supposed to debut it upon release. So the game developers were forced to rush a game for no reason and then not release it.

The 1.2 patch was made on their own time after they'd all basically been fired, and Troika dissolved not long after.


When you get to the last third of the game (and also just dealing with some unbalanced talents and disciplines) you can really see how the game was supposed to have an entire year more of development and polish. Had it done so, it probably would have sold much better, instead of coming out broken and buggy at the same time as HL2, one of the most anticipated games of the last decade.
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« Reply #36 on: April 05, 2012, 12:18:00 PM »

Yeah, the development sounds awful:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire:_The_Masquerade_%E2%80%93_Bloodlines#Development_and_sales

yeah the facial animation still looks great. i played some deus ex human revolution the other day and wondered why everyone in that gam looks like a fucking mannequin when bloodlines' level of expressiveness was possible in 2004 (with an unfinished engine no less).

it also helps that the dialog is generally really well written and acted (by vidgam standards).

I think people generally speak highly of Deus Ex: HR because they want so badly for there to be a good sequel to the original DX. I was disappointed by my first five hours with the game, and I'm not sure I'll be able to muster the willpower to get back into it. Especially since I know I'll be funneled into boss fights that were designed by another company. The whole game feels contrived, though.

Vampire's doing a good job so far, though. The opening cutscene is well-made, and I like how they drop you into the middle of the city afterwards and let you explore some.

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« Reply #37 on: April 05, 2012, 12:29:20 PM »

I think HR is OK as a whole (it has none of the character of the original but at least it gets the core concepts mostly right) but I was talking specifically about the facial animation which is stiff as hell. I was wondering why so few newer gams do facial animation as well as an unfinished game released in 2004 and using HR as an example.
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« Reply #38 on: April 05, 2012, 12:48:39 PM »

Part of it is how exaggerated the models are in Vampire. It almost crosses into the realm of cartoon at points:



Gives the animators much more freedom to exaggerate, which our eyes respond positively to. All the characters in DX:HR have these tight, plasticky faces, so I'm not surprised the resulting animations are stiff.

It's like comparing the original Total Recall with the remake:



 Tongue
« Last Edit: April 05, 2012, 01:01:36 PM by Derek » Logged
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« Reply #39 on: April 05, 2012, 01:30:36 PM »

arnold has the best face <3 (representin 4 austria yo)

yeah bloodlines is totally cartoony and it works great

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