I haven’t done this in a long time, and the breakdown I did of “The Witcher” is one of the most-viewed pages on my site. So, I’ll start going through my Steam queue and catching up on these not-quite-reviews and not-quite-game-design-deconstructions.
Over the summer I played 25 hours of Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines, and then briefly toyed with some of the game mods. Here’s what I learned from it.
Choice should be balanced. One of the things I remembered about the game when I first played it was that you could resolve problems in multiple ways, similar to games like Deus Ex. Different clans have different strengths and weaknesses, and implied that stealth and seduction were just as viable routes to resolving problems as combat.
Except that’s not true. After a while, there are parts of the game that just can’t be passed without resorting to combat. I played a Toreador with emphasis on Dexterity and Appearance (to shoot well and give me better dialog and feeding options), and when possible I tried to talk or stealth my way around obstacles. Yet, time and again, I found that the parts of the game that I had to replay over and over were areas where close combat was really my only option. Since I was playing the game primarily for study, I had to turn on god mode a couple of times just to get past particularly nasty combat areas. I never felt that the game really respected my choice to play differently.
Polish is key. Let’s be honest, here – Bloodlines is a game that is buggy as hell, even after a multitude of community patches. I can overlook a certain amount of graphic bugs and clipping and other bugs that just mess up the feel of the experience, but more than once the game would just… do stuff without me. Once I was feeding in a nightclub, and after I fed my gun went off. The blood doll I was feeding from died, the crowd scattered, and I had to evade the police, which resulted in a shoot-out in an alleyway and me hiding in a corner. All because the game thought I clicked the left mouse button when I really didn’t. It’s bad enough that the choices aren’t balanced, but to have choice taken away from me entirely was even more frustrating.
Emergent gameplay can be amazing. That being said, the ten minutes I spent dealing with the consequences of the botched feeding were probably some of the most fun I had with the game. I was yelling at the computer as I raced down alleyways, and I cowered in the shadows for minutes, praying for the little icon in the upper-right corner to change and let me know that the police had stopped looking for me. None of that experience was pre-constructed, but emerged from the systems of the game bouncing off of my actions (even if I wasn’t in control of all of them).
Repetition doesn’t make something interesting. I was somewhat interesting in the first “female vampire that uses her sexuality to feed” archetype. When I tripped over the third character like that, I got bored and annoyed. Looking back on the game months after I played it, the characters I remember most fondly were the ones I dealt with very sparingly, like the ghoul at the beginning bleeding on the couch and the graveyard caretaker. The characters that I didn’t have to run into time and again remained fresh and interesting to me.
The sum can be greater than the parts. Despite all my nitpicking above, the game is a hell of a lot of fun. It’s hard to point out what makes it fun, because when you deconstruct each part of the game, there are a lot of flaws. And yet, somehow, it doesn’t matter. Obviously I’m pretty biased toward a White Wolf Vampire game property, but even if it hadn’t been based on a property I knew, I think I still would have enjoyed this game. Somehow Bloodlines transcends all of its egregious flaws and turns into something special. At some point I plan to go back and play it through again with some community mods, which is something I don’t often do with long RPGs.
Perhaps it was because I used an unofficial patch that theoretically solved all major problems, but I never had experiences like my character’s gun firing off on its own. Being a computer game, I was OK with a certain amount of battles, but quite a few were avoidable (for example, I defused the Gargoyle with my silver tongue and I just kept running away from the Werewolf until the transfer arrived. You should play VtM: Redemption, Eddy. 😉
Bloodlines was, for me, the best CRPG I ever played (I admit I haven’t played many), and I enjoyed the setting, the (relative) freedom etc.
I’d love a GTA: Vampires game, if you guys ever partnered with Rockstar to make one. 🙂
I also used Unofficial 7.0 (the latest version when I played in July).
I don’t mind a game about fighting if I’m told it’s a game about fighting. However, levels like the Arcanum house is pretty much impossible to get around without a shit-ton of fighting.
Like I said, I loved Bloodlines. It is a flawed masterpiece in many ways. But it certainly has some learning opportunities.
BTW, I forgot to mention: I also played with a Toreador. The experience made me reevaluate the Clan, in fact.
I can’t say I remember what patch I used, it was several years ago and it got all wiped out last time my computer “crashed”. I do remember at that time it was the most current of the unofficial patches.
And yes, certain scenes were definitely not designed to be passed by fast-talk. But it’s the same in Fallout I & II (didn’t play the newer ones yet). Still, in my case, call it bias or whatever, but if it’s a computer game I *know* there will be fighting (unless it’s one of the golden age Lucasarts adventure games, and even some of them had a sequence or two of fighting).
I’m not saying that computer games don’t default to fighting. I’m saying that, as designers, we shouldn’t say that you can skip fighting, and then design levels where you can’t skip fighting.
True. But I guess I never read that promise in that particular game. I did read it regarding Fallout II and it’s BS too. 🙂
I agree that not keeping your promises design-wise is as bad as not keeping them in general.
I have very fond memories of the first half of Bloodlines. In fact, I referenced this game on the last episode we recorded. Therese and Jeanette had some of the most interesting NPC interactions. The allusions to the Taxi Driver were fantastic. Grout’s Mansion is one of my favorite levels in gaming. Despite all its flaws, I thought it was a fantastic game.
I’d be real curious to see a similar analysis of Redemption. Since its such a radically different game.
I do have Redemption. I may actually play it at some point. I don’t recall having very fond memories of it, though.
And in case it doesn’t come across in the blog, I actually loved Bloodlines to pieces. If anything, I learned that while it’s good to get rid of flaws, it’s not the end of the world if you don’t.
I agree 100%, Rob. And yes, I wonder what Mr Eddy will say about the venerable (?) Redemption.
I have to be honest. I remember I enjoyed Redeption when it came out (it was Vampire… and for some reason it felt so personal, since it was based on an RPG I’d run and feel like I knew intimately*). But I do remember thinking things like “they should have made Potence and Fortitude auras in the Diablo II sense” or “it’s pointless to choose what I say if I’m going to fight the guy anyway” or “what kind of RPG gives you one single character to play, over and over again?” BTW, dialogs in Redemption weren’t entirely pointless. Depending on your answers, you’d drop or raise Humanity. Since I always play “goodie” characters, I ended both games with a maximum score in that trait. Ah, I just remembered the absurd scene where you go and visit the Cappadocian elder and murder hundreds of his childer just… because they’re there. Hah, fun times.
*) Bloodlines got the same effect though it did everything better.
Very interesting blog post. I have to generally agree with you assessment. Bloodlines while flawed is an amazing game. I also found your blog a bit telling as to your design mindset as it pertains to the WoD MMORPG. I like your way of thinking (in so far understand as I can reading a blog 😛 )and look forward to seeing your design choices. I’d love to have you over at my WoD MMO news, community site wodnews.net closer to release of the MMO to talk game design and your mindset when making some of the decisions you did if you are so inclined. 🙂
Unfortunately I can’t talk much about the MMO. While I’m working on it, don’t read too much into my posts here — it seems like I’m always juggling a few different projects, and not everything I talk about here applies to the WoD MMO.
I realize that why I said closer to release.. such as the day before it hits shelves haha. Either case when the mute ban is lifted I would love to have a Q&A with you and talk game design once you are able to do so of course. Please do keep me in mind if this is something you’d be interested in down the road 🙂 (In the mean time I would be interested to do a PnP V:tM RPG Q&A with you if you are willing some point soon. Talk about the state of RPGs, table top gaming, RPG mechanics and the like)
Ah, sorry. I missed the “closer to release” part. That’s what I get for trying to respond when I’m feeling ill. :/
I wouldn’t mind doing an RPG interview or whatever. I haven’t worked on V:tM specifically (my “World of Darkness Developer” title relates to the current WoD RPG property), but I’m happy to talk to you about things.
Eddy that’s great. I assume you can pluck my email addy out of this blog post so please do get in touch and I’ll send over some questions via email for you. Thank you for your time!