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Vampire Masquerade:Bloodlines wins RPGDot RPG of the Year


john_jaxs

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RPGDot has awarded Bloodlines with Best RPG in their Game of the Year awards for 2004 (voted by the fans).

"Bloodlines dripped with a dark, suspenseful atmosphere and featured some of the most memorable characters to appear in an RPG"

In addition to that, Bloodlines also won their categories for Best Graphics, Best Music & Sound and Biggest Surprise.

 

Although it is not as good as KOTOR (although it is still one of the best RPGs made in 2004) it features stunning characters, great visuals and a good storyline with many side quests. It features a mix rpg/fps style gameplay and has many different ways to play through the game depending on which character you pick in the beginning (7 all with both genders 14 in total and 7 different clans to pick from). Anyone who loves Vampires/Werewolf/Zombies games should love this game.

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Guest Saturnine

Personally I think Bloodlines is superior to KoTOR and TSL on every single area. It definately deserves every award it gets.

 

Rest in peace Troika, the crown jewel of RPG developers. :(

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Poor sales (due to bad/really no advertising at all, not quality of the game) was not the major problem for Troika shutting down, it was that Troika was a independent developer and had little money to begin with and had to fire it staff and could not find a publisher willing to finance the staff and their next project as well.

 

Also Vampire Masquerade Bloodlines had lots of things better then TSL like sound/music, graphics, storyline was a little better in overall, Enemies where not super hard (depending on how you developed your character) but most where no pushover like some enemies in TSL. But I would still love to see a KOTOR 3 and a sequel (hopefully) for Vampire Masquerade: Bloodlines as they seem to be the best RPGs to come out of 2004.

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Excluding some terrifying bugs, like the infamous crash exiting the Society of Leopold, and very long time on loading, Bloodlines is one of the best rpg I've played. The only thing in the whole game that I not liked was the ending.

 

 

For example, siding with LaCroix or the Kueij-Jin, in the ending you literally lose the game. I do not think that Troika didn't do a good work, I only hoped that all were positive endings, and not only the "solo" ending or the "anarchic" ending.

 

 

The game has not been localized in my country, but is excellent also without translation.

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Yeah but the Leopold bug was fixed by the official patch and also by the unofficial patch, (which I suggest anyone that buys this well deserved game uses the unofficial patch installing first and then the official patch 1.2 it should take care of almost all the bugs if not all, both can be found at planetvampire, also what computer game comes out bugs free)

 

 

Also you foregot to mention the Camarilla ending and also you can always decide not to stay around when LaCroix opens the coffin. But basically there is 3 good endings different styles to each and 2 bad endings with different styles to each, also all are better endings then TSL ending which shows your ship just flying away (also I know about the questions you can ask Kreia but I count the ending as the least scene of the game not the last time you can freely talk).

 

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I've also forgotten

the Ending with Strauss, in which you chose to be loyal to the Camarilla but not to LaCroix. I would have liked a positive end with LaCroix, but considering that has not been included, this one is probably the best one.

I knew of Dan Uprising (if I remember well) unofficial patch, he practically corrected all bugs in Bloodlines before Troika would have released the official patch (and without Dan's patch, I think I wouldn't been able to finish the game before the official one).

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Yeah Dan did a great job, but now since there is no bugs that can take away from the fun of playing this great game, it should really be looked by any Half-Life 2 fans, Vampire/Werewolf/Zombies fans, rpg fans, fps fans and I am pretty sure that most KOTOR fans will enjoy it also.

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Short Answer:

Not when it says "Stop in and chat among your fellow Knights about anything and everything!". This fits in the anything and everything pile.

 

Longer Answer:

Also without knowing what the competition and without having any competition video games would not be as good as they are to day. Also without competition how many games do you think you would get to pick from.

 

Also how many indie developers go broke before anyone even hears about their game and even plays it because a bigger franchise/developer gets together and makes a game which might not even be as good (depending on people's views) as the small time developer's game, but nobody hears about the game because everybody is running around trying to find the game that has the money behind it to cause a big scene and get the notice that it might not even deserved (not refering to KOTOR series here, I love the KOTOR series and like to see a 3). While the little game is overlooked and might never even be heard from again. This happens lots of time when Japanse game developers decide not to bring their game to U.S knowing that it would be sweep away in a mess that it does not belong in.

 

Also I just thought that posting this here would give the people here some notice that never even heard about this game to check it out, and to let people know that it may not be as stupid as they thought. As RPGDot has website devoted to games such as Arx Fatalis, Gothic, Dungeon Siege, KotOR, Morrowind, SWG, Ultima and I know that the fans that visit those websites (and its main website) would not vote for a game that sucks.

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Is it true that it runs just ass same as Half Life 2.....meaning if HL2 gave u stutter problems this game will too?

 

The game was built using the same engine as Half-Life 2, the source engine was built to be a next generation engine like the new Unreal engine, meaning that it is very resource hungry on just about any computer.

 

To answer your question:

 

Bloodlines was created using a modified (a little outdated too) version of that engine, so the engine was never tweaked as much as Half-Life 2s was, but if HL2 gave you stutter problems then you are likely to get them with Bloodlines, but if you can play HL2 on full settings (and have more then 512mb of ram) without stutter problems, then you will most likely get no stutter problems at all, for example I don't own HL2 but the only time I got stutter (it is also when I get the longest load times when entering a town that I have not been in before, after that the load times was between 15 to 20 seconds, about 5-10 seconds for the buildings) problems with Bloodlines is the first time I see an area in that part of the town, another example of that would be when I was walking to the Last Round (a bar in the game) I recieved minor stutter problems, the next time when walking to the Last Round I recieved none, I also recieved none when fighting (it didn't matter if it was the first time I saw the enemy or not) in first person view or third person view, I also got none when entering a building or talking to the other characters (it also did not matter if it was the first time I talked to them or not).

 

Here are my specs when playing the game:

 

Intel P4 2.60 GHz hyperthreading processor

 

Nvidia Geforce FX5200

 

Kingston 512mb DDR PC3200

 

Motherboard ASUS P4S800D-E Deluxe

 

80GB/60GB 7200 RPM Western Digital Hard Drive

 

CD Writer 32x/12x/40x, DVD writer 8x

 

(Yes I know my computer is outdated I plan on getting it fully updated to everything top of the line in about 6 weeks, just posted this to show you what kind of performance you would get, also above performance was when using the game on not all the way down settings, but one less then half settings, the game was still visual stunning compare to alot of other games, I also had the game patched using the unofficial patch 1.2 installed first then installed the official patch 1.2, both can be found at http://www.planetvampire.com/)

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Bloodlines is a superb game and I must grudgingly admit that it is better than TSL (on par with K1, but K1 is STAR WARS and it also blew my mind so it can't really be compared, because I'm biased... which really means that Bloodlines is better... WTF?!). 10 of 10.

 

The complaints are that it is too small. It seems huge on your first playthrough but on your 3 - 4-th it is just way too small (big as TSL, I'd say). Perfectly voice acted. Great storyline! 7 vampire clans to choose from, each with their own Disciplines (special abilities), which means 7 ways to play through the game. great ropleplaying. Your choice if you want to play a social vampire and talk your way through the game or a combat vampire and beat everyone to pulp.

 

The setting is the WORLD OF DARKNESS and the endings (6 of them in total... yes completely different endings) reflect this perfectly as you might be screwed over royally in some of them (Kuei-Jin ending, man that is SUCH a film-noir ending - awesome!) and win big, ending up the big kahuna of vampire LA in others.

 

The downs would be the rushed-game feeling of the end-game and the stutter problem.

 

I have found the perfect and easiest way to stop the stuttering. Open the console and use the command "(EDIT) flush" it resets the memory as the game's biggest prob on my comp is memory leakage. Unfortunately, this needs to be done every 30 or so minutes. Especially noticeable when changing many areas, often.

 

My specs:

 

P4 2.4 Ghz

1GB RAM

RADEON 9600 - 128 MB

5600 RPM hard drive (or is it 5200? I can't remember... one of them anyway)

 

And before the official patch the game stuttered something horribly, but with the official 1.2 patch they did something to the python-code (whatever that is and means)... meaning the stutter disappeared. The game runs smooth as silk for me, with the exception of the Hollywood hub, which still has some issues.

 

All in all Bloodlines is a perfect 10! If it would have been Star Wars it would have rocked the foundations of earth itself. Hear my words because I kid you not!

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Guest Saturnine

One thing I didn't understand, was that why Troika chose to use Vampire the Masquerade instead of WhiteWolf's newer and better setting, Vampire the Requiem. (Whether it is really better is of course matter of taste).

 

Surely the storyline would have been very different, since Camarilla, the Sabbat and the Anarchs don't exist, and myths about Caine, Gehenna and antediluvians are pretty much forgotten, but I'm sure they would have created even better story, since the new setting is less limited.

 

Oh well. Whatever their reasons were, I will forever remember Bloodlines as one of the best RPG's ever created. As I mentioned earlier, in my eyes KoTOR and TSL are nothing when compared to it. ^.^

 

But what comes to performance problems, I hardly noticed any. Bugs were more concern of mine, since the infamous Society of Leopold crash was extremely annoying. The patch has been released, but before that the only way to get around was a console command.

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Originally posted by Saturnine

One thing I didn't understand, was that why Troika chose to use Vampire the Masquerade instead of WhiteWolf's newer and better setting, Vampire the Requiem. (Whether it is really better is of course matter of taste).

 

Surely the storyline would have been very different, since Camarilla, the Sabbat and the Anarchs don't exist, and myths about Caine, Gehenna and antediluvians are pretty much forgotten, but I'm sure they would have created even better story, since the new setting is less limited.

 

Oh well. Whatever their reasons were, I will forever remember Bloodlines as one of the best RPG's ever created. As I mentioned earlier, in my eyes KoTOR and TSL are nothing when compared to it. ^.^

 

But what comes to performance problems, I hardly noticed any. Bugs were more concern of mine, since the infamous Society of Leopold crash was extremely annoying. The patch has been released, but before that the only way to get around was a console command.

 

It was to be a prequel/expansion to the Gehenna storyline, but the game could had benefitted from using the Requiem setting as the Requiem setting is more fitting for a videogame, but Masquerade can make for a more dramatic storyline, also in my eye Bloodlines will always be one of the greatest games to ever come to a PC, so please tell your friends to check it out, almost all who do are not disapointed.

 

You can check out a trailer of the game here:

 

http://www.vampirebloodlines.com/

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Oh for Pete's sake! Bloodlines development started in 2001! And at that time no one knew White Wolf would bring down Gehenna. Possibly not even White Wolf themselves! If Activision and Troika had known that White Wolf intended to kill the Masquerade world/setting then they would have stayed as far away from Bloodlines as possible! But as it happened WW announced Gehenna in late 2003 and Activision FREAKED and wanted to kill Bloodlines but it was too late, contracts had been signed and the development was too far progressed to cancel the game. So they killed the funding for Troika instead, forcing Troika to work with minimum staff and minimum wages, which in turn led to cut content and insuffcient QA.

 

Troika didn't choose a setting that is dead and unsuported (Vampire the Masquerade) over a modern, new, fresh and advertised setting (Vampire the Requiem). There is no mystery, because Requiem was barely an idea, in the back of Justin Achilli's head, at the time Troika started development of Bloodlines.

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Guest Saturnine

Okay. I didn't know that the development started that early. Bloodlines didn't really manage to catch my interest before couple of months of it's release, and I was really sceptical about it how it would work. Temple of Elemental Evil had really damaged my belief in Troika, which I'm ashamed to admit, because Arcanum was fantastic.

 

Everything makes sense now, I guess.

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Internet Movie Database which also deals in games had this stated:

 

"The official prequel to White Wolf Publishing's "Time of Judgment" expansion/storyline for its "Vampire: The Masquerade" pen and paper role-playing game."

 

Maybe they are wrong or WW turned it into the official prequel (which seems very likely that they would), but this is what was stated at there.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Spent the past few days playing.

 

It was fun, though I did run into a few frustrating-have to exit-reload- bugs; character trying to feed in a spot & end up getting stuck not able to move, enemies falling half way through maps so I can't touch them & shooting me to a final death, all after un/official patches mind you.

 

Yeah, it was........................ fun.

 

Except for all the damn exit-reloads for the most ridiculous things, like getting stuck in 1 spot for no reason..

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Bloodlines is a great game. The characters are great. I loved the endings. My favorite was the Bruhja ending. Jack is the man!!!! I could not stop laughing at that one!!!! Maybe not a "revelation", such as KotOR 1, but still, a nice touch.

 

By the way, did Jack remind anyone of Jim Varney, aka Ernest ?

 

Troika going down is a shame . I hope someone, with good game making abillity, picks up on the series. Hopefully, someone with the money to advertise.

One last note to any interested- Grey DeLisle does the voice of Handmaiden. In Bloodlines she does the voices of Jeanette, Therese, and Tourette. (from imdb.com)

 

:cool:

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Troika going down is a shame . I hope someone, with good game making abillity, picks up on the series. Hopefully, someone with the money to advertise.

One last note to any interested- Grey DeLisle does the voice of Handmaiden. In Bloodlines she does the voices of Jeanette, Therese, and Tourette. (from imdb.com)

 

I hope someone does pick it up, I know it is a possibility as Activision (the publisher) still has the rights/license to make another game, But they could always hire another developer.

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Originally posted by john_jaxs

I hope someone does pick it up, I know it is a possibility as Activision (the publisher) still has the rights/license to make another game, But they could always hire another developer.

I did not think of that. Yea, thats good to know. It will probably be some time till another one is released, but now I think it might happen, eventually. After all, there is going to be a Fallout 3, so it's not unheard of. I'm happy now. :cool:

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