The Hardsuit Labs version of VTMB2 was fucking embarrassing, and I don't know why it's so hard for some people to admit that Brian Mitsoda made a complete dumpster fire on a level rarely seen in the modern AAA games industry, and that throwing out Hardsuit's game and replacing it with The Chinese Room's version was, even in the worst case outcome where it turns out mid, the better option. Because at least it would be mid. Mitsoda's game wasn't even in the same solar system as mid. It was utterly awful, and people were, and still are, in denial.

IT'S MORBIN' TIME!

>>714641235 (OP)
hardsuit fired mitsoda
hardsuit is shit
it just so happens the chinese room is also shit
the game is doomed

lol how long has this game been in development for?

combat would have been shit but we would have had a decent story

>>714641235 (OP)
Shouldn't have abandoned Bl:R.

>>714641235 (OP)
>sweeps your leg
>to jump over you and do nothing
how do you respond without sounding mad?

>>714641543
>thin blood story
haha no

>>714641235 (OP)
How is replacing a shovelware dev with a walking sim dev an improvement?

>>714641235 (OP)
>even in the worst case outcome where it turns out mid

Worst case outcome is it turns out shit, which is on the table since this developer has little experience with any gameplay systems.

>>714641235 (OP)
only 18 years and 7 more studios until we can play it, sisters of the night!

>>714641235 (OP)
how much money has paradox wasted on this game now?
What shocks me is how TCR was handed a complete game supposedly and was only going to do janitor work but then change everything and still make it have a development time that rivals the average game again.

>>714641543
>but we would have had a decent story
What makes anyone think that, though? The writing and voice acting in the trailers and gameplay clips was really bad. It feels so clunky and amateurish. There's a huge step up in writing quality and voice acting between the Hardsuit version and the Chinese Room version.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFLXoGzXxJc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4ZRkrmtu2U
Look, I get that we've seen situations like Justice League where a pigheaded studio took a film with a pretty darn good story and atmosphere and stuff and shat it all up in reshoots. But I don't see how this was that situation. We've got leaked materials as well, including the hospital, and that stuff looks so bad. There has never been anything about Hardsuit's game that ever looked good or promising or anything. It looked like complete ass made by a team who had no fucking idea what they were doing.

>>714642205
>What shocks me is how TCR was handed a complete game supposedly and was only going to do janitor work but then change everything and still make it have a development time that rivals the average game again.
TCR refused to "finish someone else's game". Paradox, who had reviewed Hardsuit's game and found it "boring", "a fucking disaster" and "not fun", agreed to let them scrap everything and start over. That was surprising because think back to classic examples like Konami. Konami told Climax UK that they HAD to use cutscenes made by the LA branch for SH Origins because they'd spent money on those and weren't going to allow them to be thrown out. So SH Origins is this new story (written in a week) laid over existing story assets. They didn't have the freedom to completely rebuild the story. They had to write a new story over the old one, over the old skeleton.

>>714641927
The problem is that TCR's version looks very good mechanically (or at least a monumental leap over the original game and the cancelled version of 2), and people who have played the game have singled out the gameplay for praise.
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/vampire-the-masquerade-bloodlines-2-first-hands-on-a-gory-undead-power-fantasy-that-im-desperate-to-play-again/

i think the chinese room team is going to do a good job, just a feeling. nothing will ever live up to bloodlines, it's imperfectly perfect

>>714642235
I recall when I first watched the leaked hospital video. Poor mans ocean house hotel. Looked so boring, gave me Redfall feelings.

>>714642661
My feeling is that it'll be a good game, but it'll suffer a bit for feeling like a safer, more corporate take. Most of the signs are positive, but RPGs live and die on their writing at scale. They have to have good writing across the game, and that's hard.

>>714643227
This.

>>714641235 (OP)
Where is Rik Schaffers music though? I want his music, not the other composers.

>>714642235
I didn't realize there was a leak. Was it just videos or is there a playable build floating around out there?

>>714642661
>>714643227
Haha yeah, no. You can take your shit game and shove it up your shill ass.

>>714641235 (OP)
The video feed at the main website have some clips with sound too
https://player.vimeo.com/video/1051170094

>>714642602
It does look more polished now, I’ll give you that. The animations don’t feel like they were mocapped by someone wearing rollerblades anymore, and basic combat actually has some weight behind it. But let’s not forget this is all highly curated vertical slice footage. "Hands-on" can still mean 10 minutes demoing two hallways and a cutscene. Until we see more than one flavor of vamp abilities and actual questlines that aren't just press-X-to-vampire, I'm keeping the champagne on ice.

>>714642235
man how demoralizing does it have to be to spend a couple years of your life and then play an early alpha and it feels like complete shit

>>714644445
Videos from one of the devs on their artstation.

>>714642661
>nothing will ever live up to bloodlines, it's imperfectly perfect
All paradox would have to do is convince obsidian and inxile to work on a vtm game together if they actually wanted a vtmb2

>>714644039
Some of his music is being used, but the game has two lead composers who have taken the score in a completely different direction.
https://www.paradoxinteractive.com/games/vampire-the-masquerade-bloodlines-2/news/dev-diary-music-of-seattle

>>714644901
>"Hands-on" can still mean 10 minutes demoing two hallways and a cutscene.
They were allowed multiple playthroughs of the opening hours with different clans.

>>714642235
The takeaway is making games is super hard, and a lot of studios are mismanaged. This is one of the reasons why publishers often intervene with a 6 month delay overseen by someone the publisher appoints to get shit done.

>>714641543
>vtmb
>decent in current year
Pick one. The game itself has been absolute dogshit for 20 years, there's a reason they didn't put anything out after Gehenna. All the talent left to do their own shit and they got replaced with bums, which let Parajew buy out the place and staff it with trannies.

I think the Chinese Room might be a good fit for the story. But they've never made a game with gameplay. So I'm highly skeptical. And I don't trust the opinions of (likely paid) journos at all.

>>714642602
Same author, but the PC Gamer magazine issue had extra details not in the online articles.

>>714646486
I will never forgive them for making amnesia a walking sim

>>714647573
what Frictional did with the game after that was arguably worse
Bunker was good though

>>714642661
>>714644671
>>714645863
i changed my mind after watching the later trailer. this is action game slop. there's no chance of this being goood

>xp gained per kill
it's fucking SLOP

THESE FUCKING PEOPLE DON'T GET IT

>>714641235 (OP)
>complete dumpster fire on a level rarely seen in the modern AAA games industry
Modern AAA industry is nothing but dumpster fires

>>714642235
The early alpha about the mental institute hospital was awesome.

Zoomtards are going to buy whatever the streamer tells the to buy, slapping AAA dogshit gameplay for them was uncessary

>>714642602
>Paid shills think it looks good

>>714649140
Human Revolution gives XP for kills. What's the problem, again?

>>714649670
>The early alpha about the mental institute hospital was awesome.
It was fucking terrible, though. I don't get VTMB1 fans seeing the most undercooked memberberries dogshit and saying it looked amazing. The writing sucked, the acting sucked, the acting sucked. What were people latching onto?

>>714649794
human revolution is slop too. the issue should be obvious and if it's not i don't feel like explaining it anymore. the AI god will either set us free from SLOP or kill us all. either outcome is preferable to this current eternal slop hell world

>>714649892
Human Revolution is the most popular Deus Ex for a reason.

>>714649794
>>714649961
Faggot

>>714649961
which reason is that?

>>714649851
It looked like the original which is what people wanted, not whatever the new one is shaping up to be.

>>714650221
It learned a lot of lessons from Deus Ex PS2 and Invisible War about how to streamline and rework Deus Ex away from being a clunkier System Shock 2 while keeping the core elements that made the game fun.

>>714650351
That such a game "looked like the original" is not exactly flattering.

>>714650457
It is, cult hit for a reason.

>>714650351
Name a single aspect of the cancelled version that looked better than the new version.

>>714641235 (OP)
Paradox should have cut their losses after Hardsuit, it's that simple. They should also just sell White Wolf, every modern game has absolutely sucked, nothing but lame VtM VNs and abysmal Werewolf games.

>>714650493
It implies the the original is utter shit and fans are completely addled by nostalgia and can't see blindingly obvious problems like shit writing, shit acting, shit combat, a complete lack of atmosphere on account of the aforementioned things. Let's be clear. Literally nothing about Hardsuit's game looked good. Nothing. Not the combat, not the dialogue, not the quests, it was all complete ass and it got its creators fired when the studio realized they've been flushing their money down the toilet.

>>714650390
>how to streamline and rework Deus Ex away from being a clunkier
why did it need to be streamlined and reworked, how exactly was deus ex clunky, what does that even mean? deus ex is renowned for its gameplay which human revolution failed to replicate. human revolution was an on rails experience that old where to crawl, where to stack boxes, what walls to knock down. it rewarded you exp for playing a certain way instead of playing the mission how you want and getting exp for completion. this matters a lot because it doesn't compel players to play a certain way

>>714650504
The fact that it looke like VTMPB2 instead of normalfaggot AAA slop?

>>714650608
>It implies the the original is utter shit and fans are completely addled by nostalgia and can't see blindingly obvious problems like shit writing, shit acting, shit combat, a complete lack of atmosphere on account of the aforementioned things. Let's be clear. Literally nothing about Hardsuit's game looked good. Nothing. Not the combat, not the dialogue, not the quests, it was all complete ass and it got its creators fired when the studio realized they've been flushing their money down the toilet.

No one likes a dev that attacks it's userbase, you are just being aggressive over an inferior game.
Keep using the word nostalgia, maybe it will help you sell some copies, it sure helped with that dogshit battle royale they made.

>>714650608
Even the dancing in the club in Hardsuit's version looked fucking terrible. I can't believe how many Bloodlines 1 fans were lapping that garbage up.

>>714650608
>>714650770
Samefaggot

>>714643227
The safer, corporate bullshit is what everybody is sick to death of. It literally can't be a good game if it's drab slop.

>>714650691
>why did it need to be streamlined and reworked, how exactly was deus ex clunky, what does that even mean?
You know how the PS2 version of Deus Ex improves over the PC original? Like that.
>deus ex is renowned for its gameplay which human revolution failed to replicate
Deus Ex's gameplay isn't very good. It has bad stealth, bad shooting, bad melee, and really it's a game that's more than a sum of its parts because the individual parts aren't very good.

>>714641235 (OP)
What was wrong with it?

>>714650695
>The fact that it looke like VTMPB2
Could you clarify? What about Hardsuit's game looks more "VTMB2"-like than TCR's take? Is is the terrible combat? The generic quest design? The ridiculous disciplines where you turn into a fart and fly through a vent?

>>714650695
>Keep using the word nostalgia
How would you describe people praising the terrible hospital sequence in Hardsuit's game for no other reason than it gave them Bloodlines memberberries? I remember people defending the absolutely abysmal combat and animation of VTMB2 1.0 because "Oh, Bloodlines was never about the gameplay." Yea, it's about the complete dead and lifeless hub with poorly animated automatons sliding around like they're on iceskates.

>>714641473
just over 6 years

>>714651667
>You know how the PS2 version of Deus Ex improves over the PC original? Like that.
no, you stupid fucking faggot, i don't know and i highly suspect you're full of shit. nothing going from pc to console is improved

>Deus Ex's gameplay isn't very good. It has bad stealth
nobody thinks this, you can avoid encounters numerous ways which means it's good stealth. being forced to fight a fucking boss in a god damn arena is bad stealth as well as details i can't remember that made it easier

>bad shooting
it's point and click, retard. same as any other game. human revolution was nothing more than your standard cover shooter slop

>bad melee
who the fuck cares, press Q TO AWESOME isn't good melee either, what the fuck?

you have no fucking clue what you're talking about. you sound like a gay nerd that got a game design degree honestly

>>714651816
you're such a fucking faggot, bro. be honest, are you a gay nerd with a game design degree? there's a reason you've never created shit in your life that wasn't derivative slop if anything

>BUT MY GAME DESIGN CLASS SAID GAYMERS NEED THOSE EXPERIENCE GAIN TICKS TO GET THE ENDORPHINS BECAUSE THIS KEEPS THEM ENGAGED
>INSTEAD OF MAKING A GOOD GAME WE HAVE TO RELY ON PSYCHOLOGICAL TRICKS TO KEEP THE PROLES INTERESTED
fuck you and die, faggot!

>>714651631
It's sorta a product of the brand as a whole. Like how BG3 is very safe and corporate because of the company that owns it.

meanwhile at the chink room

No no you don't get it adapting old roleplaying mechanics from books is ....... LE BAD and nostalgic. that's why we are chasing the fortnite dragon from 10 years ago... hey vampires are totally cool right fellow children?

>>714641610

>>714641235 (OP)
The beauty of something never existing is you can pretend it would have been fantastic for contrarian points and you can't ever be proven wrong.

>>714641473
The Hardsuit version was cancelled in 2020. The TCR version began development in 2021.

>>714641235 (OP)
Looks like the original's combat and I don't have a problem with that

>We're talking to a generation that thinks Deus Ex is clunky and Human Revolution is peak 360 groid slop

>>714641691
Thin bloods are so damn boring, they should just stay as another "ok the end is coming" sign as opposed to being so important

>>714652402
Animation seems super stiff, but I'm struggling to see anything wrong with it beyond that.

Funny how everyone's calling it "TCR" now...

>>714652661
>Looks like the original's combat
I don't remember one of the core combat moves in the original being an idiotic flip that would leave you facing the wrong direction because the animation bugged out.

>>714652719
The Chinese Room is way too long. Hardsuit and TCR rolls off the tongue.

>>714652695
Originally they wanted to get rid of all the old clans and have them replaced by thinbloods. They eventually relented, but that is why v5 has a weird identity crisis.

>>714652945
>Just ignore all the class identity we've spent years building for in an RPG bro just do whatever
What
No way they actually thought of that, it's not even like clan things are reeeeally set in stone apart from the weaknesses

>>714652157
>no, you stupid fucking faggot, i don't know
Thought as much.
>nobody thinks this
It asks the question, "Imagine if Thief were designed by retards."
>who the fuck cares, press Q TO AWESOME isn't good melee either, what the fuck?
Yea, but the PS2 version is better than the PC version in that regarded in part because the animation isn't shit anymore and they rebalanced melee weapons.

>>714652468
>No no you don't get it adapting old roleplaying mechanics from books is ....... LE BAD
What do you mean? All the VTM games adapt roleplaying mechanics from books. Muh blood resonance, all that stuff.

>>714652584
While that's true, there is so much (completely terrible) footage of Hardsuit's game on the internet.

>>714653143
why are you still talking?

>>714653260
Why are you still coping?

No, when I fired a fart from my fist at that guy, and when I turned into a fart and travelled through a tiny vent into the next room, that was peak gameplay, Mitsoda is a visionary, please understand.

>>714641235 (OP)
Ugly female characters with short hair

>>714653025
They wanted to refocus the game on "humanity" and also make it easier for new player to understand.

>>714654887
>Ugly female characters with short hair
Who are you referring to, specifically?

>>714654887

>>714652386
The fuck are you talking about, you could do very cruel things in BG3. I'm convinced you've never played it. Contrast with failguard and the meanest you can be is somewhere between unpleasant and catty.

>>714641235 (OP)
The Hardsuit team seemed like a bunch of formerly cool millennials who became old and woke and couldn’t make the game because they were too busy cancelling each other

>>714656436
>The fuck are you talking about, you could do very cruel things in BG3.
Yea, and you can do all sorts of evil things in VTM Swansong. But the game has a very safe tone. Expect VTMB2 to be the same.

>>714641235 (OP)
Is this a parody of modern video games?

>>714655147
Yeah but isn't that the exact opposite of the reason why people are into this shit

>>714656436
I'm not sure why anyone was expecting Bloodliness 2 to be anything like Dragon Age Veilguard.

>>714656720
Actually, it's a bit of a contentious point because some people hate the idea of playing as an elder because they feel that VTM is at its core about the street level experience of a fledgling.

>>714642602
>TCR's version looks very good mechanically
It's still shit, you pathetic faggot.

>>714656781
You don't have to be an elder to be part of the vamp society and have some clan personality

>>714641235 (OP)
This is the same bullshit "switching to third-person" that Deus Ex HR did. I hated it there as well.

>>714649961
Fuck it, there is only one Deus Ex. It's perfectly self-contained and doesn't NEED sequels or prequels.

>>714641235 (OP)
This is the kind of trainwreck you can't look away from.

>>714651678
TCR game can't establish itself as the better version and the marketing team got their knickers in a twist now.

>>714656818
Explain why you think it's shit. With the Hardsuit version we can point to the fact that in the official gameplay demo, the protagonist unloads a full magazine into a girl's face and none of the bullets hit her because the gunplay is completely broken. What makes you say that the rebooted version is shit?

>>714641235 (OP)
>team that only knows how to develop walking sims has to create an action RPG
This is going to be Bioware's Anthem all over again, isn't it? That footage looks like the game BARELY holds itself together with all the jank you'd expect from some no name Slav studio.

Dear Esther was kino and I’m tired of pretending it wasn’t

>>714657208
Jamie, pull up the video of the feeding animation.

>>714651678
Bland writing.
Poor voice acting.
Broken combat.
Broken physics.
Dead open world.

>>714657220
>That footage looks like the game BARELY holds itself together with all the jank you'd expect from some no name Slav studio.
Are you sure you're not confusing the two versions of Bloodlines?

>>714657262
What's wrong with the feeding animation?
>>714652402

>>714658140
A stupid question deserves an equally stupid answer.

>>714658287
No, I mean what is worse about the feeding animation than the original Bloodlines where the mouth was nowhere near the neck? You should explain your complaints.

>>714658046
It looks bad in BOTH cases.

OP has spent years shilling this on /v/ now and is probably a Chink Room employee himself, considering he was hyping up their version of Bloodlines 2 even before they officially took over the game from HL.
His favorite thing to do is talk about how awful the original Bloodlines was and how 2 will be the GOOD version of Bloodlines. Anyone with eyes can see Chink Room are in over their heads, though.

>>714658446
I'm nta but I agree with him. The animation is clunky, civvi's are running blindly with no thought process like it's GTA:SA. The victim simply stands there, the only thing missing is the arms out for the classic T-pose. If that's what they choose to show then it doesn't bode well for what they don't choose to show.

>westcoast lingo dialog
>Girlboss mc with an androgenous face
>Gameplay reminiscence of the original pathologic
>You just know the rest of the story is going to be complete nonsense going by the trailer
What does it even have going for it?

>>714649794
Discourages stealth, I guess I rarely think about it, but one thing I like about the original Deus Ex is that you don't gain anything out of violence, whether it's lethal or non-lethal.
Your job is to just do your objective and you don't have to worry about missing out on XP by not taking everyone in the level out.

>>714657173
That's literally me after one drink in the club.

The issue is Paradox keeps getting the worst fucking studios suitable for the job for whatever retarded reason
>hey we're making a sequel to a really indepth CRPG with open ended gameplay and shit, who should we get?
>how about the studio that made a f2p CoD multiplayer game and nothing else
>what the fuck? This is shit! How could we have seen this coming!? We gotta find someone more suitable!
>how about that studio that's just made a handful of mediocre walking sims and 2D platformers?
>brilliant! What could possibly go

>>714658664
>The victim simply stands there
Because they're entranced. They definitely should wobble on their feet or something, though. Ultimately, the game was pushed back for "polish" for a reason.

>>714658869
Actually, Human Revolution gives you XP for stealth as well. It kinda ends up gamifying XP gain in a way some people find troublesome to the underlying design. It creates the situation where every room has a vent, a keyboard, or some way to shoot your way in.

>>714659942
Hardsuit approached Paradox, not the other way around. Apparently after Hardsuit were booted, Sumo Digital approached Paradox, and Sumo Digital handed the project off to The Chinese Room, whom they own.

>>714641235 (OP)
>The Hardsuit Labs version of VTMB2 was fucking embarrassing
True, which is surprising considering how fucking much I loved Blacklight Retribution.
Then again they apparently turned the game into shit over time, so maybe the game being good was just an happy accident and not the result of talent.

>>714657173
I wonder if TCR removed the dancing mechanic because it collides with their narrative vision....
My guess is yes.

>>714641235 (OP)
kino. and this is supposed to be bad because (you) at the chink room cant come up with anything that is worthy successor of bloodlines

>>714658461
I'm not seeing any obvious jank in the new version, at least during combat. The animations are jerky, but that's supposedly intentional so eh...
>As a viewer, it's easy to brush it all off as jerky and messy. When you're in control, though, it all comes together. That messiness becomes gleeful controlled chaos as you juggle bodies, rip out throats and use your vampiric powers to make mortals and vamps alike explode in a shower of blood. And that jerkiness reveals itself to be the snappy, rhythmic flow of battle, letting you effortlessly bounce between victims, chaining powers and kills for maximum carnage.
>After a couple of hours, I realised what it reminded me of: watching a turn-based game being fast-forwarded. This is even more evident if you choose to use your supernatural speed to slow down time and make tactical choices. To be clear, this is a 100% real-time game, but the rhythm definitely has turn-based vibes, as you slide from target to target, following the plan of attack that you settled on when you were spying on your prey from the rooftops. I'm also pleased to say that Paradox deputy CEO Mattias Lilja's claim that "people who have seen it talk about Dishonored" is not an idle boast. It really does feel like Dishonored.
>The stealth, the supernatural mobility, the wild flexibility of your powers—Arkane would absolutely approve. On their own, each power is impressive and usually comes with extra situational utility. I was playing as a Tremere in my first run—in classic RPG parlance, think mage. These undead alchemists stole the gift/curse of vampirism through diabolical alchemy and in Bloodlines 2 are highly mobile, ranged attackers.

>>714661120
Hard to say. They have apparently gone out of their way to note have callbacks to Bloodlines 1.

>>714663117
as a sign of dedication they decided not to make a good game

>>714663161
No, it's just a case of thinking that recycling VTMB is cheap and lazy.