Source Engine Vampire Title Explored

Thanks to Eurogamer.net for their preview of Vampire:The Masquerade - Bloodlines, with new info and screenshots on the FPS/RPG hybrid from Troika, the creators of Fallout and Arcanum, and the first announced title apart from Half-Life 2 to use Valve's Source Engine. According to a Troika representative, "Bloodlines is the first game to combine the classic RPG feel with a first person shooter engine", and Eurogamer also single out the return of the classic RPG 'conversation tree' as providing fresh gameplay ideas: "For example, your character may have excellent seduction skills, or be part of a specific clan that allows you to ask questions or offer responses otherwise unavailable to you, and these 'special' branches of the conversation will be shown in a different font to indicate this."

Comments

First RPG to use an FPS engine?

[skyknytnowhere]

Haven't they heard of Deus Ex? System Shock 2? Please.

RPGs and FPSs have been mixed many times, the first person RPG having been ignored lately. But games like Ultima Underworld, the Bard's Tale series, and numerous others that focus on exploring from a first person perspective.

skye

Realism is overrated

[Amit J. Patel]

I'm playing a game. I don't want it to be realistic. I don't want to deal with eating, bathroom breaks, or "that time of the month". I don't want to wait 8 hours while my characters sleep. I want to be able to pause the game. I don't want to deal with colds and flus and lyme disease. I don't want to deal with dying without being able to reload. I don't want to play the boring parts of the story.

As far as special colors and fonts go, my random guess would be that for replayability, you want to help the player the second time through (as you're playing a different clan/race/class) by emphasizing the text that may change. You normally skip the long text the second time you play the game, so you need something to draw your eye to the things you need to pay attention to.

Realism is overrated in games. The point of the game is to escape real life, not to emulate it.

- Amit

Re:Realism is overrated

[Elwood P Dowd]

I don't want to deal with colds and flus and lyme disease.

But for some reason you do want to deal with Lycanthropy? What, do you expect the game designers to anticipate your every whim? Jesus.

The original Vampire: The Masquerade PC game

[mmdurrant]

I played the first Vampire game and really enjoyed it. It was based on Quake3 technology somehow or at least it used Q3Radiant as the level editor.
The coolest thing was that all the game logic was implemented in Java, making mods for it pretty darn easy. My friends and I had a good time creating quests and attributes/disciplines. I hope the new one is just as extensible.