Two new interviews with Leonard Boyarsky.

First one is available over at <a href="http://rpgvault.ign.com/articles/536/536868p1.html?fromint=1">RPB Vault</a>. It is completely devoted to combat in Vampire which makes for quite an interesting read. Here's a bit:

<blockquote>Jonric: What is the balance among the players' skill in making decisions, their reflexes, and character ability? And what are the factors that contribute most to determining the ultimate resolution of a battle?

Leonard Boyarsky: Your skills as a player definitely have an effect on the combat, from your judgment about how to plan your attacks, or who to attack, or whether to spend your money on armor or higher firepower, or whether to spend your points on defense or offense or persuasion, Ranged Combat vs. Melee, or concentrating on your Disciplines instead of weapons, etc. Another factor that we've tried to minimize is the player's ability with the mouse and keyboard, often called the twitch factor. If you're great at playing first-person shooters and action-oriented games, you will have an advantage, but we've balanced it enough that even those players will have to put points into their Ranged Combat, as the guns can be unwieldy at lower skill levels. There's no avoiding the spending of points to improve your traits just because you play a lot of shooters. Likewise, the more points you put into Ranged Combat, the easier better guns are to use, and your damage increases, so you have to hit your opponents less. There's also quite a few area of effect disciplines that require virtually no aiming.

All of these factors contribute to the ultimate outcome of any battle, and it will be up to the players to debate whether better armor is more valuable than a specific discipline or weapon, or whether a direct assault on a particular enemy is better than a stick and move approach.</blockquote>


The other interview is over at <a href="http://www.troikachronicles.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=10"> Troika Chronicles</a> and it touches various game aspects like skills, rules and more, even a few words about game authors. Here's a bit:

<blockquote>Troika Chronicles: In Morrowind, the player was able to ignore the main storyline for a while to do side quests, explore the landscape, etc. How is Bloodlines’ main storyline enforced on the player? Are there plenty of sub-quests, perhaps even clan specific quests, available? Can the character freely roam the gameworld or are we confined to a certain area like in Deus Ex?

Leonard Boyarsky: Players are definitely able to focus either on the main story or the side quests at their discretion. There are plenty of side quests to do in each area of the game, and my choice in any given area is to either do every side quest I can find or concentrate solely on the main quest, or both. To get the next area opened up, I need to do the main story quests, but I can always return to previous areas to do any additional quests I may have missed. Also, as you get later in the game there are several quests that span different areas. There aren’t any clan specific quests, but some clans may have an easier time getting certain quests, or they may get different rewards, etc. The main difference is in how your character is built to handle the quests, depending on the skills and Disciplines he has put his points into. </blockquote>


Source: <a href="www.rpgcodex.com">RPG Codex</a>