7 vampire clans...Tough choice

All with different skills, looks ET... This is a lot of variety. If Troika does things right (and I'm betting they will) it will really be seven totally different ways to progress through the game. Is that good enough for even a steep 40$? Sure.

Compare this to the other vamp game and you get a BIG DIFFERENCE right there smacking your face. I'm not entirely sure how much freedom there is going to be but, there are clans more and less brutal. This is sort of like starting alignment. A style but with a little more spice.
What I want to know about more are the dialogue trees. From what I know so far is that it's pretty standard as far as Troika games go. Which means a couple of light years more advanced than most other CRPGs.

Freedom? Heck, take out your gun and kill anyone you want. Seems to me like you can play some kind of psycho killing machine. Or a seductive diplomat.

What it seems to me is that this is like any other Troika project. Excellent character development, great detail in the setting and hopefully a decent storyline.

But because of the multiplayer, and the action based gameplay, this game has a chance to attract the non CRPG masses. This of course has it's positive and unfortunately some negative vibes to it.
The game could sell very well, meaning, more money for Troika.
The game will attract a high number of l33t speaking kiddies who don't appreciate any depth.

But then again is that all that bad? Hell, bring them on! We can educate them here!

 

I've never played VTM, but I have played the Pen & Paper version of WereWolf, and it's pretty darn cool. With Werewolf, you pick a "clan" and you also pick and aspect of the moon, and these are the things that are kind of like your alignment. I don't remember them all off the top of my head, cause I haven't played in a year or two, but basically, like, if you're born under one moon sign you're a good negotiator, and you get plusses to start to your speaking skills and stuff like that. Then, you also pick your "clan". In Werewolf, you can have been either originally human or originally a wolf, which is kind of a neat twist. So, like, I played a wolf character, and while I didn't so much play dumb, I played dumb for anything slightly technological. I might have seen it and therefore know what it does, but then I couldn't just say, Hey, I saw a helicopter, I had to describe it, not knowing what the word would be. As for the clans, you could be a human who worked with technology, a dog who had lived in the city, a dog who lived in the country (This is what I was, and my GM gave me bonuses for talking to native american characters and neat stuff like that).

Also, they use all 10 sided dice. When you improve in an ability, you get to add dice, and then, you have more dice to roll every time you use that ability. The more successes you have, the better the roll. It's a neat system once you get used to it, and actually probably easier than D&D if it weren't for the transition.

So I guess what I'm saying is if it's anything like Werewolf, I'm sure there will be plenty of choices for the character-creation buffs out there.

 

Well the beauty of ALL White Wolf game systems is just that: they use the same system. All the game settings can be crossed over with relative ease. The only real differences are the character 'classes' and their abilities. Some differing Merits and Flaws too. I've dabbled with Werewolf as well, and I like that a little better than VtM, personally. White Wolf has always concentrated on storytelling rather than combat. That has it's good and bad points, but the combat system doesn't suffer too terribly much. 'Cept fot the problems inherent in most RPGs: the writers often don't know a damn thing about weapons.

My personal favorite Vampire Clan is Gangrel, followed close second by Malkavian. The last vampire I played was a deranged Vietnam veteran who'd been embraced while on ToD in 'Nam. The Primogen of the Malkavian clan saw him having a flashback, and assumed he was 'one of them'. He was adopted into Clan Malkavian, and later became Malkavain Whip/Enforcer.( For those of you unfamiliar with the terms, the Primogen is the leader and representative of its respective clan, and the Whip is the second in command. An Enforcer, is one who enforces the Masquerade. Any Vampire revealing its true self to the general populace is due for a visit from the enforcer) What's ironic about this particular character, is that he was adopted into the Malkavian clan, so was constantly underestimated. People were expecting him to do things with the respective Malkavain disciplines, but he had a whole different set of disciplines. He was in fact a City Gangrel, who didn't know his sire, and hence was a Caitiff(Clanless Vampire)
One of his greatest moments, was when he was out Enforcing, and he ran across a Toreador(The artsy, beautiful Vampires) who insisted on breaking the Masquerade frequently. This appearance 5 (unspeakably beautiful) Torrie wound up fighting with my vamp. She was doing all the things one would do to avoid the mental disciplines typical of Malkavians. Trouble is, my vampire didn't have any of those disciplines. So when they fought, she was avoiding eye contact and the like, and my vamp suddenly lept upon her with his Celerity(preternatural speed), and grew Wolf Claws(Protean, vampiric shape-shifting: Wolf, Bat, Vaprous form, that sort of thing) Then he dragged those claws across her beautiful face, taking her from apperance 5, to appearance 1. This is a stunning blow to a appearance-conscious, vain, vampire. And under the WW system, Wolf Claws do what's called Aggravated DAmage. The kind of damage that can kill vampires (ie stakes, fire, sunlight, holy water, all do Aggravated Damage (abbreviation Agg damage)) Any scars caused by agg damage do not heal quickly. They may take centuries to heal, if they heal at all.

That was the most fun I had with that particular character. Of course there's a long bit of history involving that character. He wound up becoming a very influential and powerful vampire. He wound up to be the one controlling that city from the shadows. He put 2 princes in power, and took both of them out when they went against his plans. He's also the only known vampire(in that setting) who managed to kill a werewolf. And managed to have a 'spy' among the ranks of the werewolves. (Again for those unfamiliar: In WW systems, werewolves are a helluva a lot more powerful than vampires. It's rare that one vamp can stand against a shifter and survive. 'Wolves and vamps are 'natural enemies' in the World of Darkness. They fight often, usually whenever they see each other, and vamps usually lose.) The Werewolves in that city were planning to start a cleansing war, to wipe out all the vamps. My character knew about it, and used it to his advantage. That's also the way he removed one of the princes from power. Gave the werewolves directions to his sacntuary.

Oh my! That was a long ramble...My apoligies for ranting so long...

 

Man, that sounds pretty damn fucking cool TairNean. If they can get all those sorts of politics into Bloodlines, I think I'll die from lack of food and water.

I can't really say what my favourite clan is, being that I haven't played the game in any form, but I like the sound of the insanity of the Malkavians. Being an Enforcer also sounds like a shitload of fun - a license to 'pay a visit' to any vampire who steps out of line and inspire fear would be great.

 

Combat gets tiring, I have Infiltration for that, I always played Malkavian vampires; a good head fuck is good for its weight in gold. I’ll always like the mind bending aspect of V:TM even though I haven’t played for a couple of years it’s still captures the imagination.

 

That was my favorite character. Sadly, I doubt Bloodlines will have anything like that in it; at least not to that extent. I think it's one of those things that doesn't translate to code well, and requires a more human touch. One of the things that seperates tabletop from computer. But you never know..if anyone can do it, Troika can.

Phisch-Combat always clutters tabletop gaming...and there is one of the areas that the computer beats out TT. White Wolf's combat system is one of the more streamlined systems I've played with.

 

White Wolf did the best job I've ever seen of getting the combat over efficiently and appropriately. No wierd conclusions or ultra-heroics just a comfortable simplified system designed to make combat less disruptive in the game.

I always appreciated that, there's only so many dice an accomplished geek such as myself need roll in one night.

 

I remember that I got bad vibes from Lion Heart’s promo. On this game I am getting vibes too good to be true. I just hope is has nothing to do with Morrowind, since I hated its guts.

 

Remember when selecting a clan that people are selected to join by a Vampire a person, who in turn is part of a clan.

So you have to remember that a sire has to have a motivating reason to select you for an embrace and he must have permission to select you for the embrace from an elder (unless your sire is an elder which is ridiculously unlikely).

Of course you may be a random caitiff or an ex-sabot defector (though you would be stuck with the anitrubi {poor spelling} clans).

though of course the developers will probably not go for such detail but as a roleplayer these small details are important.

incidently has anyone tried Exalted it looks really good and nocturnis.net is giving it rave reviews

 

Keep the Faith

I just spent an hour with the Producer last week and the game looks awsome. As a long time Vampire player myself I was very impressed with the detail and truness to the property that Troika is putting into this. It look amazing. White Wolf fans wont be disapointed. :thumbup:

 

I already know witch clan I shall choose...Toreador they are obsessed by art & music etc in other word all that is beatuiful...Much like myself...

 

it all sounds like a vampire version of ellder scrolls III morrowind...

which would be the fucking aweseomest thing that ever happened... as long as its not as BUGGY as the first vampire game...

 

I love VTM. I have played my Malk, who goes by the psuedonym Manik (gimme a break I was young when I started), for almost 6 yrs now. I can't wait 'till Bloodlines comes out; infact I was hoping that they started pre-orders already so I've already tried for it. Sadly no though. It's only about six months away so I don't see why I couldn't

Anyways, I'm looking forward to both this game and the entire Gehenna line for VTM as well as the respective end of the world supplements for the rest of the WW products. WoD ends in May so not much time left for Manik and the rest of my coterie.

My main hope for this game is that it will focus on Gehenna since it is coming right in the middle of all the WW end of the world supplements. Unlike Redemption, which should have been released to coincide with the release of Dark Ages.

 

Bloodlines will be set all in modern day and tied in to the Time of Judgement White Wolf metaplot.

 

What Clans?

Call me a N00b but I have no idea what Vampire clans there is. Can you fill a guy in? :-?

 

Brujah are your violent, punkish sort of vamps.
Toreador are into art, music, beauty, elegance--all the finer things in life, and preserving them.
Malkavian are totally insane, which is a bigger benefit than you might think.
Gangrel are animalisticand close to the earth.
Nosferatu are very smart and hideously ugly, making it very easy for them to break the Masquerade.
Tremere are witches that stole that created themselves as a new clan back in the Dark Ages.
Ventrue are the nobility of the vampires. they believe themselves better than all other clans, and strive to rule the Camarilla.


those are the seven basic clans, which will probably be the ones included in the game. for more clans and more indepth descriptions, go here


personally, my favorite character was a Giovanni Enforcer... ah, the memories...

 

What do you think is the best video card on the market for games like VTM? What are you using?

 

Thanks for clearing that up for me. But after reading on the happenings of the Vampires on that site, my head is spliting from that overload of information! :broken: I'm going to go nurse a migraine now.

 

Apparently, some guys have done some benchmarks pertaining to VTM:B. I'm not sure where I saw it, but it is clear ATI's X800 PE is the king, even over the awesome nvidia 6800.

Edit: Regardless, it seems that this game was tailored with ATI in mind.

 

I dont know how much of topic i am as i dont have time to read all of the text below. But my question is if anyone could tell me how to get the rumoured clanmod for my bloodlines without having to go via one of those &%/( sites that will only give you a download if you pay them a &%&load of money?

Any tips?