Vampires Bloodline

Mitsoda became the primary writer for many of the characters and their quests, dialog, and side content in the game, such as emails, which helped retain a consistent narrative. He was given freedom with respect to the script, with no restrictions on language or content, and could rewrite characters when he thought his initial draft weak. Bloodlines ' story was accepted as canonical by White Wolf, with the game serving as a prequel to Time of Judgment and including characters from the White Wolf game, such as Jack.

You need a character to pose a problem or give out a quest or be a barrier of some kind.

Vampire: The Masquerade - Wikipedia

I don't like to make the [character] outright say "I need you to do X, then I'll give you Y" I like the characters to come off like people actually do — they don't say "hi" when strangers come knocking, they say "who the hell are you? I don't like my [characters] to be standing around as if their lives begin when the character starts talking to them and end when the player leaves. Single-purpose characters needed a distinctive personality trait to quickly establish them with the player, rather than serving as a disposable item, while major characters had to reflect the player's progression and actions through the game.

Mitsoda wrote the characters by thinking about who each character was, assigning them motivations determining why they were where they were, what they thought about the player and what they wanted from them. He wrote the Malkavian script last, with time running out on development, and the overwork and lack of sleep contributed to what Mitsoda considered an unhealthy state of mind, ideal for writing insane dialog. He wanted to highlight their madness, without making it comical.

Troika co-founder Jason Anderson's research on Vampire: The Masquerade source material and fansites found that character interaction and involvement in the vampire societies, not statistics and powers, was the game's main attraction. Troika tried to remain true to the pen-and-paper role-playing game , hoping not to alienate the game's fans, but rules designed for multiple players did not translate well to single player computer game design. The team attempted to discover which elements could work equally well in pen-and-paper and computer games. Although much of the character system and attributes translated, not all the attributes such as "knowledge of law" made sense in the computer game.

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Of 30 pen-and-paper abilities, 15 reached the final design. Another difficult area was feats. Although common feats worked well, with a random chance of success or failure, uncommon ones would appear to fail more often. To avoid this, randomization was replaced by a degree of difficulty in accomplishing the feat.

Although pen-and-paper falling damage is random, the computer game bases damage on the distance of the fall.

The team's biggest challenge was adapting disciplines. The pen-and-paper version may require a little blood that requires a long time to use, or have no blood cost and can be used at will; upgraded disciplines had additional requirements considered too confusing for a computer game.

Troika attempted to equalize the disciplines, keeping the effect intact and normalizing the cost, so a first-level power requires one blood point, a second-level two points and so on. The team's previous experience was with turn-based combat games, and it struggled to develop a real-time combat system affected by customizable attributes and abilities that provided feedback to the player on how those statistics were affecting the battle.

It initially found that by adhering too closely to the White Wolf source material rules for guns, where the effectiveness of a shot is determined in a contest between the player's skill and the opponent's defense, the firearms seemed broken; the player would not hit where they aimed. Troika found it difficult to mesh the available factors in a real-time setting. Troika used first-person perspective to immerse the player in the setting, interacting face-to-face with the characters and seeing their facial reactions to the player.

This aided the story and compensated for the technical issues of allowing multiple player characters. Choice is a significant aspect of the game, requiring a non-linear design to accommodate the customized characters. Level design began with a list of factors such as Disciplines, stealth and feats. Each area had to be viable for a shooting character sufficient ammunition , a discipline-focused character sufficient blood sources to keep the powers fueled and a melee specialist to reach enemies without being killed , with stealth options and option combinations.

Level design began with a focus on stealth, taking into consideration the positioning of guards and the character's potential stealth capability at that point in the game. Then direct, combat-heavy and dialog paths were added.

Vampire®: The Masquerade - Bloodlines™

Director Leonard Boyarsky considered the animation system important in the team's choice of the Source engine. The integrated "faceposer" tool allowed Troika to customize facial animations, expressions, gestures and lip-synching, eliminating the need to explain what a character was doing. Every non-player character required a voiceover, which helped Troika define its characters more quickly. The engine had a physics system permitting new features, such as monsters hurling corpses at the player or dying characters realistically crumbling into pieces, instead of requiring pre-built animations.

Describing the choice of developing a game based on the existing White Wolf property over creating their own, Boyarsky said that although an original property lacked the constraints of an existing one, the downside was that it had not been tested and could be rejected by its potential audience; an existing property was proven. Activision introduced the game in May , [45] but in October, Valve experienced a security breach in which hackers stole the source code for Half-Life 2. The breach required new security implementations for the engine, delaying both games; the release of Bloodlines was postponed until early With no producer oversight, Mullich found the game's design incomplete, game levels created and abandoned, and several technical issues, including problems with code for the proposed multiplayer option.

In addition to problems with the Source engine, the designers found that the game's scope exceeded their resources. Bloodlines has several styles of gameplay, requiring different interfaces, animations and artificial intelligence for stealth and melee combat, and first- or third-person capability. The game's scope suffered from content not being removed when necessary ; other components would be endlessly refined without being finalized, preventing the developers from focusing on other parts of the game system. After three years in development, the game was progressing slowly, and it was unknown when it would be finished.

Activision decided that the game was suitable for release, but was contractually bound to withhold Bloodlines until after the debut of Half-Life 2 in November Troika convinced Activision to use the delay to fund further development; the additional budget was not enough to pay all of Troika's staff, and some employees worked unpaid to complete the project.

This version underwent another three weeks of testing to become the final release code ; [29] the game was still unfinished when Activision forced its release. The game's original score was composed and produced by Rik Schaffer. Troika was unable to obtain the rights to use the song in the finished game, and tasked Schaffer with creating something similar.

Snake Eater , Halo 2 , and several other titles. Layne worked with Bloodlines artist Tim Bradstreet for a day to provide the poses chosen by Activision to represent Jeanette in the game's posters, clothing, and other items. Shortly after its debut, most of the development staff were laid off; the remaining staff tried to patch Bloodlines and develop game concepts to secure funding to keep Troika in business.

In a interview, Anderson said that although Troika Games' library had been critically well received, consistent technical issues had marred the perception of the company's games, contributing to Troika's difficulty in obtaining new projects. He said "I feel the second half of the game isn't as good as the first. I feel like we devolved into relying too much on combat at the end. He said "it might have been too early for people to appreciate it, but we'll never know. Unofficial patches have been created by the game's fans to address Bloodlines ' technical problems, and restore missing and incomplete content.

The game community tested Spahl's patches, providing reports on bugs and spelling errors. Although the game's complexity meant that repairing one aspect often broke another, as work on the patches progressed Spahl began restoring removed and incomplete content in the game files, adding quests, items, weapons, and characters, with fan help to provide voice acting, models, and reinstating whole levels.

A library area, for example, was restored after Mitsoda told Spahl only that "it was somehow connected to a main character and a Sabbat boss, and was meant to look like the real-world [Los Angeles] library. Schaffer also provided Spahl with unreleased scores from the game. This resulted in two patch versions: As of , the game has over 10 years of post-release support with the release of versions 9.

Boyarsky voiced his support for unofficial patches, saying "they've found the stuff that we hoped people would find about the game, in terms of the different paths you can take and how it played differently for every class. The Masquerade — Bloodlines received a mixed response, with reviewers praising its writing and presentation and criticizing its technical problems.

The game has been called a flawed masterpiece by critics. IGN appreciated Bloodlines ' rewarding exploration outside the main story, and the New York Times and GameSpy praised its "wonderfully imaginative" missions. Its writing was consistently praised by reviewers.

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines

The narrative was considered deep, successfully using White Wolf's Vampire: Eurogamer said that it had the best script the website had ever seen in a video game, [5] and others described it as a superbly crafted tale of conspiracies, underworld subterfuge, fun and intrigue. The mature themes succeeded without being gratuitous or exploitative, and were explored honestly and intelligently by a knowledgeable writer.

GameSpot and GameSpy called the dialog sharply written, with many memorable lines. PC Zone opined that the quantity of well-written dialog did not guarantee quality; many player choices seemed to have little effect on a conversation's outcome, and the best response was often the most obvious.

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Much of Bloodlines ' criticism focused on technical problems when it was released, undermining the game experience or making it unplayable. Others cited frequent, sometimes-lengthy load times encountered while moving between hubs and entering or exiting buildings and areas. Combat was also criticized. Reviewers called it poor, clumsy, and unsatisfactory, [1] [5] complaining that Bloodlines favors melee combat; firearms were weak, unwieldy and slow, even for characters specializing in guns.

Bloodlines is considered a cult classic. In , an article in Rock, Paper, Shotgun declared: Oh right, because it's so very hard to do In , PC Zone listed Bloodlines the seventh-best PC game which people were unlikely to have played, calling it the "best buggy game ever released". In a November interview Boyarsky said that although the team would like to pursue a Bloodlines sequel, the decision was Activision's. The Apocalypse , set in the same universe as Vampire: According to Boyarsky, the prototype was one small area built using assets taken from Bloodlines , and allowed the player to play as a Werewolf, or a human capable of turning into one.

Paradox Interactive obtained the rights to Bloodlines in , following their purchase of White Wolf. Paradox CEO Fredrik Wester confirmed that a sequel was possible, stating "when the time is right I guess a sequel will find its place in the market. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Tom Decker David Mullich. November 16, EU: The Masquerade — Bloodlines Review". Archived from the original on July 27, Retrieved July 27, The Masquerade - Bloodlines".

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Archived from the original on August 2, Retrieved August 2, The Masquerade - Bloodlines Impressions". Archived from the original on August 3, Retrieved August 3, The Masquerade - Bloodlines Combat Interview". Bloodlines — Heather and Me". The Masquerade - Bloodlines Updated Impressions". Archived from the original on September 7, Retrieved September 7, Archived from the original on July 20, Retrieved July 20, Archived from the original on October 20, The story of Vampire: Archived from the original on July 19, Retrieved July 19, Archived from the original on September 13, Retrieved September 13, The Masquerade - Bloodlines Designer Diary 1".

The Masquerade - Bloodlines Designer Diary 3". Archived from the original on August 19, Retrieved August 19, Plot is Gameplay's Bitch. Archived from the original on August 13, Retrieved August 13, The Masquerade - Bloodlines Designer Diary 2". Archived from the original on August 10, Retrieved August 10, The Masquerade - Bloodlines Interview". Archived from the original on August 14, Retrieved August 14, The Masquerade - Bloodlines Designer Diary 4". The Masquerade - Bloodlines Designer Diary 5".

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The number of dice used correspond to the player's current skill level, often based on two different skills that together represent the player's ability. For example, to land a punch, the character's dexterity and brawl skill are combined. The resulting number is the number of dice rolled to perform the task. It is up to the story teller to set how high a die roll must be to be considered a success usually 6 for standard actions. Vampires in the World of Darkness make use of several familiar tropes of vampires in myth and legend such as immortality and a powerful thirst for blood.

They are truly undead as their hearts do not beat, they do not require food or drink, they do not age, their skin is cold and pale, and the only sustenance they require is blood. Despite their undead status, vampires of this world are thinking, feeling beings capable of thought, emotion, and empathy though this capacity may diminish with age, or through a desensitization caused by immoral actions, referred to as "loss of Humanity". Though they are typically not repulsed by garlic or holy symbols, there is a system of merits and flaws that can affect characters in this way, though they are not animated by some demonic spirit according to in-game lore.

Sunlight is fearsome and deadly to vampires of this canon, and at most, they can tolerate a few seconds of exposure before perishing. A wooden stake through the heart is not deadly to these creatures but will immobilize them until it is removed. The Beast is a savage, carnal predatory drive within all vampires. The Beast seeks only to satisfy its base urge to survive. Anger, mortal threats, hunger, or blood lust are some of the things that can cause the Beast to rise.

The Beast is capable of taking over the vampire's conscious mind, forcing them into a frenzied state where they take violent, often deeply regrettable, actions that they perhaps otherwise would not. One of the major themes of Vampire is characters' battles to strike a balance between their violent, predatory nature and being morally responsible before their humanity is eroded by this powerful force within themselves.

Vampires may enter a deathlike sleep called torpor. Torpor may be caused by near-fatal injuries or may be entered voluntarily. In-game, the level of the vampire's humanity determines how long they sleep for. Fire, sunlight, decapitation, supernatural powers, or succumbing to a clan weakness can cause the vampire to reach what is referred to as Final Death - to truly die. Vampires in this state, if not well hidden, may have difficulty defending themselves and are vulnerable to destruction by vampire hunters or Diablerie by other vampires.

Characters in this world refer to the supernatural blood in their bodies that sustains them as vitae. Vampires gain vitae by drinking blood. In-game, this accumulation of vitae is called blood pool. Characters can replace lost Vitae by drinking more blood. A vampire's vitae can inspire false feelings of love and foster dependency if drunk by others. This addiction to vampiric blood is called the Blood Bond. The vampire performing the bond is called a Regnant and the one being bound is called a Thrall. In most cases, a victim must drink three times from the same vampire on three separate nights to become bonded.

Once bonded, the victim feels something akin to a very twisted sort of love for the vampire and they become the most important person in their life. They also become more susceptible to mind control by that vampire and are willing to do anything, even risk their own life, to aid their regnant.

Mortals, animals, and even other vampires and other supernatural creatures may be bound. The Sabbat practice a different form of group blood bonding by incorporating ancient Tzimisce Blood Magic called the Vaulderie that inspires loyalty and sodality among the sect. It will also instantly break conventional blood bonds if performed correctly by a trained vampire, typically a Pack Priest. They can also be negated by extended amounts of time depending on how far the Bond has gone steps one, two or three , willpower and the extended absence of the regnant in order to do so.

Vampires may create more of themselves by draining a human to the point of death and then feeding the victim some of their blood. The creator vampire is known as a sire , the newly created vampire a childe and the creation process is referred to as the embrace. Very little vitae is required to trigger the transformation but the victim must be freshly dead. It does not work on corpses that are more than a few minutes old.

A vampire's relative power is limited by something called their Generation, which is set at the time of their embrace. Generation is the vampire's distance from the race's mythical founder, Cain, who is alleged to be the first vampire. For example, a ninth generation is nine generations from Cain.

Should this ninth generation vampire embrace someone their progeny would be tenth generation regardless of how many times they do this. Attitudes towards diablerie range from criminalization to an act of liberation. Regardless, diablerie is a serious act not to be taken lightly. Motivations and mores surrounding the embrace differ from clan and sect. In some sects, such as the Camarilla, the creation of new vampires is tightly controlled. Some only embrace a certain ethnic group, such as the Romani with the Ravnos [8]: Others simply look for certain qualities such as the ability to survive, intelligence, curiosity or artistic talent.

Some create other vampires for power, others for companionship and some are created as fodder for the endless, ancient conflicts, known as the Jyhad, that are central to gameplay. Vampires in the World of Darkness believe that their race originates with the Biblical figure of Cain. Cain was said to have been cursed by God with a vampiric state for murdering his brother.

The vampires of this canon believe themselves to descend from this Biblical progenitor. It is said that Cain was able to pass on his cursed state to others, thereby, making them like himself only somewhat weaker. These first childer, known as the second generation, were said to have been made to keep him company, and they in turn made the third generation.

The third were supposedly numbered thirteen and are the semi-legendary founders of the thirteen original clans. According to in-game legend, all of these vampires lived in peace under Cain's rule in the legendary city known as Enoch, or the First City. When God caused the Great Flood , however, the city was destroyed and Cain disappeared, leaving his Childer to fend for themselves. The third generation eventually rose up and slew their sires. Cain, upon discovering this, cursed them. Cain's curse is supposedly the reason each clan now has its own weakness. Those who study the mythical vampire origins are called Noddists.

According to Noddist mythology there are claims that Cain will return at the end of time to judge his descendants: This event is known as Gehenna, the end of all vampiric races. Others claim that Gehenna is simply the wakening of the Antediluvians who have returned to feed on the blood of their descendants. Differing interpretations of the myths divide vampire society. The Sabbat, for example, take the myths quite literally and believe that it is their purpose to defend vampires from the depredations of the ancients.

The Camarilla is more dismissive, either claiming that Cain is nothing more than a myth or metaphor or outright suppressing the myths and their study. Contentions between the different societies surrounding the origins of vampires and Gehenna are important in-game motivations for the Jyhad that color the character's understanding of their world. Regardless as to whether or not the myths are true in the context of the game the myth of Cain represents important themes presented in the metaplot such as sins of the father coming back upon his children, the threat of apocalypse, questions of faith, conspiracies, and war of ages.

Golconda is a fabled state of enlightenment that offers vampires a release from their struggle with the Beast. Different editions have gone into different level of detail as to what Golconda is but all agree that it is an elusive and mysterious state and there is very little information in-game or out as to how to achieve it. The Masquerade , the Masquerade refers to an organized conspiracy primarily orchestrated by the Camarilla to convince the general public that vampires do not exist.

The Camarilla believes the Masquerade is the cornerstone survival strategy for Kindred and fear that without it the kine would rise up and exterminate all the undead. Prohibitions against exposing the existence of Kindred existed prior to the 15th century in a set of ancient laws known as the Traditions. The First Tradition reads:. Doing such shall renounce thy claims of Blood. This stricture was not consistently nor as strictly enforced until the Inquisition of the 15th century required it. During this period vampires were destroyed in large numbers by vampire hunters which largely prompted the formation of a sect known as the Camarilla whose primary purpose was to promote and enforce the Masquerade as a means of survival.

The Masquerade is largely enforced through self-policing, but it is primarily the job of the Prince in Camarilla controlled cities to enforce it. Princes may use any means at their disposal to ensure vampire society stays hidden and that those who break the Masquerade are duly punished. Punishments for breaches have a range but are usually draconian in nature due to the seriousness of the Masquerade. Final Death, often by means of a ritualized "Blood Hunt" by other vampires, is not uncommon.

When breaches do occur, the Camarilla takes great pains to repair them. This could include anything from erasing mortal's memories using supernatural powers to manipulating mortal pawns in order to keep events out of the media. The Masquerade is one of the main in-game points of contention between the two major factions of vampires in the World of Darkness. While many vampires see the pragmatism in the Masquerade some do not agree with it. For example, the Sabbat do not uphold the Tradition that justifies the enforcement of the Masquerade but behind closed doors even they take some steps to contain breaches.

Vampires in the World of Darkness have a rich, complex, and diverse secret society with a range of ideologies, goals, and backgrounds. Sects largely divide along ideological disputes surrounding the distribution of power among vampires, the role of vampires in the human world, and the ancient myths that allegedly explain the origins and purpose of vampires. An important means of social distinction among vampires in this setting is through age. Younger vampires wanting respect and power must prove themselves to their elders.

While ambition can provide a degree of upward mobility among immortals, oftentimes respect comes to those who can prove they can survive. Ages aren't titles or jobs but rather loose descriptions to describe a vampire's development and the social expectations that come with aging. Vampires organize and divide themselves politically and ideologically into sects which form governing structure for undead societies. Laws and norms concerning the place of vampires within the mortal world, feeding, the treatment of vessels, vampiric morality, secrecy, feeding grounds, Gehenna and the distribution of power form the basis of these divisions.

The two major sects are the Camarilla and the Sabbat, but there are other sects as well, such as the Inconnu or the Anarchs. A sect is something a character may choose in-game, though this decision is often chosen for them by their Sire. Defection to one side or the other is possible, but come with great risk, as much of what motivates the Jyhad are the ideological differences between the Camarilla and the Sabbat.

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The Masquerade offers the players the opportunity to play in a politically diverse world in which sects rule over all of vampire society. While many factions and sub-sects exist in the game, the main focus is the conflict between the Camarilla, the Sabbat and the Anarchs. A vampire who rejects all associations with any sect and clan is known as "Autarkis". The Laibon, called Kindred of the Ebony Kingdom by Western Kindred, are not so much a sect as a cultural group bound together loosely by a powerful spiritual bond to the land and the people of Africa.

The Kindred of the East , while sharing some superficial similarity to the western Kindred, are actually an entirely different variety of supernatural being. A clan is the character's vampire family. All characters of a single clan allegedly descended from the clan's Antediluvian founder.

It is widely accepted that there are thirteen clans with thirteen founders, though not all of them are technically Antediluvian. Some clan founders, such as Giovanni or Tremere, usurped their position via Diablerie.



Clans may have a social or political component to them, but a clan is not something a character chooses; it is something they are Embraced into. Those without a clan are known as Caitiff, and are considered outsiders. The Masquerade introduces the use of 13 clans or major bloodlines in the game. Each accepted clan can trace its origins to one of 13 elder vampires known as an Antediluvian , for they survived God 's biblical flood.

Through the back story of the game, Antediluvians started a war among themselves, called the Jyhad , and use their clansmen to fight this war for them. Each Clan and Bloodline has a unique set of powers called Disciplines, and their own set of weaknesses, also unique to that particular branch of vampire.