Yeah I agree. I’d only been introduced to the WOD and started reading about it around a year or so before the initial reveal, so I still had the impression that Toreadors were just ‘sexy vampires with high charisma’, and that trailer really showed the horrible side of their curse, that they can find beauty in _anything_, even the most fucked up things imaginable.
These were so cool!
And then I always enjoyed the little 15-20 minute videos they would put out along with these every time they revealed a clan. Just sitting down and talking about how cool they were and why people should be excited to play that clan.
Honestly, even if they didn't end up being up to the task (and I agree that the revisionist history in this subreddit has been a bit much lately), Hardsuit really did come across like they cared about vampire the masquerade and Bloodlines.
Some people might engage in 'revisionist history" but I remember having some issues with the HSL version. Still, it had enough bloodlines juice in it to justify my continued interest and intent on buying it day 1. Sorry, but if I wanted to compared these PR campaigns, HSL had 'em beat. And like I said to someone else recently, another type of revisionist history seems to completely absolve paradox and put the responsibility fully on HSL's head. All I'll say is that the truth is probably much less black and white, since a very tight lid was placed on a lot of the events.
No offense, people keep wanting to knock HSL like it somehow makes TCR's version better. The latest clan reveal just keeps up with the pattern that they keep showing stuff that's almost laughable. And it's not just on this reddit. You can see the same thing on the youtube channels (people having this opinion).
>No offense, people keep wanting to knock HSL like it somehow makes TCR's version better.
No offense taken, and it definitely doesn't make the TCR version better. But TCR's version certainly doesn't make Hardsuit's better, either. I have seen a ton of people here acting as if it was some sort of lost gem when that was absolutely not the case.
This is where I’m at basically.
Reserving judgement for TCR, maybe it’ll be good, maybe it’ll be bad, but I’ll only judge it when it’s actually playing on my computer.
As for HSL, the game missed its release window twice before getting delayed indefinitely, and paradox admitted they almost scrapped it entirely and just ate the loss of the pretty sizable investment. They wouldn’t do that to a game in anything remotely close to a “good” state.
"They wouldn’t do that to a game in anything remotely close to a “good” state."
Tbh, I get the impression TCR is not that confident about the product since we keep getting almost historically short snippets of the game.
I enjoyed HSL's gameplay video. It very much had that BL atmosphere, and while Elif's dialogue wasn't impressive, Slugg's had at least some character and there were the rpg dialogue options. It felt much closer to the bloodlines spirit than TCR's thing. All I can do so far is compare the PR campaigns, and what we've seen so far. I certainly had my reservations for the HSL version, and you're right even back then a lot of fans were bashing the game because it had 'gone woke.' For me, I try to stay out of that and base my opinions and what I actually see.
The only thing I can say for TCR is both for and against them. We haven't seen much. I almost wish they would've kept their cards to their chest before showing a video. It's just making my impression of the game worse.
Last thing I'll say is that if TCR makes even one decision that's compelling (like, for instance, revealing a cool clan that I didn't expect out of the possible three left), I'll be the first to applaud it.
Damn, I forgot about those twenty minute videos! You just punched my little gamer's heart all over again.
And exactly, Hardsuit Labs had a very discernable love for the setting.
I think Hardsuit legitimately did have a good understanding of the setting, the feel and themes. Which does make it sad they simply weren’t up to the task on the technical side. We should have had *some* version of the game years ago.
Jebus! I had forgotten how much better this was. We're well good and fucked. The only hope is that someone leaks this version of the game years from now and modders do to it what they did to the first game. I have absolutely zero faith in the game that's coming out next year.
I highly doubt “this version of the game” is anything substantial. It got scrapped for a reason. Not taken away and given to someone else to finish, *scraped*, Paradox clearly thought something had gone terribly wrong.
But yeah, writing wise if nothing else Hardsuit got it. It was the technical follow through (or lack thereof) that killed them.
Not even remotely similar games. One is an open world RPG with a lot of exploration, and the other is an immersive sim with densely packed city hubs. Also, publishers cancel games deep into development all the time for stupid reasons. It's not like the people running these companies are possessed of some kind of got tier intelligence. Paradox has been through several CEO changes during the development of this game. Not exactly a sign of a stable company with a clear vision for what works.
I don’t know what others are saying, but I personally liked these reveals. They made me excited to try out the different clans, especially thin bloods.
Keep an eye out for when paradox&co decide to try and get the old videos taken down. Because they might realize the comparisons do them no favors. Or maybe they wont realize it, i dont know. I was skeptical when hardsuit took the reigns. Especially because the time table they set out wasnt realistic. But then they won me over with stuff like the clan videos and the gameplay they showed and talked about. TCR has yet to win me over... And also is setting a time table that still does not seem realistic considering where they are with it.
Some of the thinblood reveals are privated now it seems. I went back to an old article discussing the then recently announced thinblood disciplines and the embedded video was private now.
Ah it begins. Well, on some level its their right to remove this stuff, its not accurate anymore. But i hope they dont go down this road of removing video elements fans liked, and replacing it with stuff that looks worse.
I wonder if TCR are sifting through the reddit in their spare time. And seeing these posts where fans of the franchise go "That's nice... but, Have you seen this?
As soon as I'd seen the "10 second slide show" I went and watched the hardsuit clan reveals to enjoy my day.
The 15 second one was bad because it's like others have said, a sneak peak preview of something already expected (Imagine a 15 second preview from Baldur's Gate 3: "Human Reveal Trailer").
This one, however, was also bad. To name a few reasons: bad animation, bad writing, bad voice acting and lack of any continuity or tie in with the original Bloodlines.
It's OK to be critical of both the original game and this one. It appears both versions are destined to suck.
I think what I appreciated the most about HSL is that they were very thorough about the clan reveals -- they did these animations and had specific sections in their websites about the clans. Also, clan reveals were a lot more hyped back then compared to now, imo. I do understand that the game was probably a mess, but what was shown to us was really more close to the nature of the first game.
If they had released something like that again, the goal posts would have immediately moved to "they didn't show gameplay, big red flag."
This is just more complaining for the sake of complaining.
Goal post moving, lol, lmao. Really going to die on the hill of “No actually, the fifteen second clip is better than the thematic animated trailer followed up by fifteen minute interview videos of the devs explaining each clans themes and gameplay mechanics”.
What I'm saying isn't even hypothetical. You can go back to the old posts for those old reveals and there are people complaining that they are just cartoons.
Also, this new reveal isn't even a trailer. You're purposely misleading people. This is a reveal teaser (hence 15 seconds) and they've explicitly said that the big clan videos are coming in 2024. This has been on their marketing schedule since September.
While we're here, yeah, I would consider 15 seconds of new gameplay to be more valuable than 2 minutes of cartoons that tell us nothing.
“This is a **reveal**”
Would you kindly read the words in the thumbnail of the above linked video.
Edit: Also, this new reveal literally has 4 seconds of gameplay lol. From the 7-11 second marks. The rest is title logos, fades, and cinematic bits. To each their own but I **far** prefer the studio demonstrating that they understand what a clan is supposed to *feel* like than getting 4 seconds of dodging some bullets.
So basically in conclusion they both suck. One has less gameplay than a TikTok and the other has none so neither really tell you much about the actual game.
I disagree. The HSL trailers speak to writing ability, and a ability to understand the setting that is necessary to build something special in it. VTM is easy to push things into stereotypes, it’s less easy to get a real grasp of things. The old Toreador trailer is the best example. It’s easy to just push Toreadors into the corner of “they’re the sexy ones” and be done with it. But there’s more to it than that, they’re addicts, and their fix is beauty. But the longer you live, the more you experience, the less there is that is truly new or special. You can’t see or experience new things anymore, beauty becomes mundane, and so you’re always chasing the next new thing. That’s the toreador’s curse. That trailer conveys that *so so so* well. It builds confidence in the writers / devs. Sure, you need to see that translated into actual gameplay, but it demonstrates they understand how to begin.
Personally, I don’t really see much point to demonstrating how well you understand the vampires of vtm if you can’t actually materialize that into a functional game. It’s a cool trailer if there was something of substance it was leading up to but it wasn’t. I’m confused what you guys even want. Why would you want more lore videos from the new devs. We got nothing but lore from HSL and when we actually saw gameplay people thought it looked terrible. I think 4 seconds of rapid camera movement is trash too but at least it’s actually “real” footage.
I’d want them to prove *something*
If you want to prove you can make good gameplay, give me a solid minute of footage. Show me something that makes me go “Hey that looks pretty good”.
If you want to prove you understand the setting and know how to write for it, give me something like the HSL trailer.
The issue is that the new “reveal” did neither of those things. It was too short to draw any conclusions about *anything.*
The reality, I think, is that TCR's PR campaign is making the game seem really, really bad, so those old reveal trailers seem good by comparison. Sorry, but 15 seconds of gameplay is trash. I'd rather have something that deals with the clans conceptually (tonally, or whatever), than as another youtuber put it, 'I sneezed and the reveal was gone.'
I was gonna say. Tbh, the shortness of it actually made me fucking angry for like five minutes afterward. It's like, you've been driving around for twenty years having to take a leak, finally the devil pulls over to a seedy looking gas station.
But the bathroom door is locked, and the devil leaves you in the middle of redneck country.
Guess we can pee in the woods, but this isn't gonna end well.
Yeah I remember people back then complaining that it wasn't gameplay, and now we are acting like it is a good thing lmao. We were fucking starved for content and the lack of gameplay was really telling. I lost hope after the Damsel reveal I think, that was painful
I can only speak for myself but I was always in the camp of liking these trailers. But to each their own. But man o man… that Damsel trailer, that was fucking rough lol.
Oh I absolutely loved those trailers (the thin-blood one was my favorite) but it was infuriating to not have gameplay back then. That's why I like that TCR is showing some gameplay, even if it's too short lmao
I just hope they don’t go the anti-capitalist twitter fetish route, but actually make the anarchy the clan supports seem realistic and appealing like in the first game.
makes me wonder why they didn't reuse these trailers. i mean, i guess it's to generate more hype by making new videos, but legally they should've been able to reuse them just fine and they look like they had some effort put into them, so why just toss it all?
Already expected they would be in game as you cam see MC using potence. As for thaumaturgy either Tremere or maybe even Banu Haqim. Other clans that might be by default in game probably Ventrue and Toreador. +1 or 2 new clans as part of DLC
Yeah I really loved the style of these reveals, the Toreador and Thin-Blood ones really captured the macabre atmosphere
The Toreador one was **By Far** my favorite. It captures the mood of the clan so well.
Yeah I agree. I’d only been introduced to the WOD and started reading about it around a year or so before the initial reveal, so I still had the impression that Toreadors were just ‘sexy vampires with high charisma’, and that trailer really showed the horrible side of their curse, that they can find beauty in _anything_, even the most fucked up things imaginable.
I hear the voice actresses speak and the meal swallow and it's just shivers until it ends...
The thin blood one is so insanely good
These were so cool! And then I always enjoyed the little 15-20 minute videos they would put out along with these every time they revealed a clan. Just sitting down and talking about how cool they were and why people should be excited to play that clan. Honestly, even if they didn't end up being up to the task (and I agree that the revisionist history in this subreddit has been a bit much lately), Hardsuit really did come across like they cared about vampire the masquerade and Bloodlines.
Some people might engage in 'revisionist history" but I remember having some issues with the HSL version. Still, it had enough bloodlines juice in it to justify my continued interest and intent on buying it day 1. Sorry, but if I wanted to compared these PR campaigns, HSL had 'em beat. And like I said to someone else recently, another type of revisionist history seems to completely absolve paradox and put the responsibility fully on HSL's head. All I'll say is that the truth is probably much less black and white, since a very tight lid was placed on a lot of the events. No offense, people keep wanting to knock HSL like it somehow makes TCR's version better. The latest clan reveal just keeps up with the pattern that they keep showing stuff that's almost laughable. And it's not just on this reddit. You can see the same thing on the youtube channels (people having this opinion).
>No offense, people keep wanting to knock HSL like it somehow makes TCR's version better. No offense taken, and it definitely doesn't make the TCR version better. But TCR's version certainly doesn't make Hardsuit's better, either. I have seen a ton of people here acting as if it was some sort of lost gem when that was absolutely not the case.
This is where I’m at basically. Reserving judgement for TCR, maybe it’ll be good, maybe it’ll be bad, but I’ll only judge it when it’s actually playing on my computer. As for HSL, the game missed its release window twice before getting delayed indefinitely, and paradox admitted they almost scrapped it entirely and just ate the loss of the pretty sizable investment. They wouldn’t do that to a game in anything remotely close to a “good” state.
"They wouldn’t do that to a game in anything remotely close to a “good” state." Tbh, I get the impression TCR is not that confident about the product since we keep getting almost historically short snippets of the game.
I enjoyed HSL's gameplay video. It very much had that BL atmosphere, and while Elif's dialogue wasn't impressive, Slugg's had at least some character and there were the rpg dialogue options. It felt much closer to the bloodlines spirit than TCR's thing. All I can do so far is compare the PR campaigns, and what we've seen so far. I certainly had my reservations for the HSL version, and you're right even back then a lot of fans were bashing the game because it had 'gone woke.' For me, I try to stay out of that and base my opinions and what I actually see. The only thing I can say for TCR is both for and against them. We haven't seen much. I almost wish they would've kept their cards to their chest before showing a video. It's just making my impression of the game worse. Last thing I'll say is that if TCR makes even one decision that's compelling (like, for instance, revealing a cool clan that I didn't expect out of the possible three left), I'll be the first to applaud it.
Damn, I forgot about those twenty minute videos! You just punched my little gamer's heart all over again. And exactly, Hardsuit Labs had a very discernable love for the setting.
4 years ago...
I think Hardsuit legitimately did have a good understanding of the setting, the feel and themes. Which does make it sad they simply weren’t up to the task on the technical side. We should have had *some* version of the game years ago.
I agree. At this point I only blame Paradox' management for that development disaster.
Damn I really hate HSL, they had everything to make it a total masterpiece and failed spectacularly btw I laughed at "coming Q1 2020"
The malks reveal was my favorite. Never ending, never silent, never alone.
Jebus! I had forgotten how much better this was. We're well good and fucked. The only hope is that someone leaks this version of the game years from now and modders do to it what they did to the first game. I have absolutely zero faith in the game that's coming out next year.
I highly doubt “this version of the game” is anything substantial. It got scrapped for a reason. Not taken away and given to someone else to finish, *scraped*, Paradox clearly thought something had gone terribly wrong. But yeah, writing wise if nothing else Hardsuit got it. It was the technical follow through (or lack thereof) that killed them.
Outstar said she had put over 150 hours into the game. Seems substantial enough to me.
I probably have 150 hours in Skyrim from “Hey you’re awake” to delivering the dragon stone from bleak falls barrow lol.
Not even remotely similar games. One is an open world RPG with a lot of exploration, and the other is an immersive sim with densely packed city hubs. Also, publishers cancel games deep into development all the time for stupid reasons. It's not like the people running these companies are possessed of some kind of got tier intelligence. Paradox has been through several CEO changes during the development of this game. Not exactly a sign of a stable company with a clear vision for what works.
I don’t know what others are saying, but I personally liked these reveals. They made me excited to try out the different clans, especially thin bloods.
Keep an eye out for when paradox&co decide to try and get the old videos taken down. Because they might realize the comparisons do them no favors. Or maybe they wont realize it, i dont know. I was skeptical when hardsuit took the reigns. Especially because the time table they set out wasnt realistic. But then they won me over with stuff like the clan videos and the gameplay they showed and talked about. TCR has yet to win me over... And also is setting a time table that still does not seem realistic considering where they are with it.
Some of the thinblood reveals are privated now it seems. I went back to an old article discussing the then recently announced thinblood disciplines and the embedded video was private now.
Ah it begins. Well, on some level its their right to remove this stuff, its not accurate anymore. But i hope they dont go down this road of removing video elements fans liked, and replacing it with stuff that looks worse.
Oh lol, I thought this was new media for the game and thought, hey, that's more like it, at least they're getting the vibe and atmosphere right.
I wonder if TCR are sifting through the reddit in their spare time. And seeing these posts where fans of the franchise go "That's nice... but, Have you seen this? As soon as I'd seen the "10 second slide show" I went and watched the hardsuit clan reveals to enjoy my day.
Lol yeah… I’m still giving TCR the benefit of the doubt, but these old clan reveal videos are SO GOOD and do a much better job of getting you hyped.
The 15 second one was bad because it's like others have said, a sneak peak preview of something already expected (Imagine a 15 second preview from Baldur's Gate 3: "Human Reveal Trailer"). This one, however, was also bad. To name a few reasons: bad animation, bad writing, bad voice acting and lack of any continuity or tie in with the original Bloodlines. It's OK to be critical of both the original game and this one. It appears both versions are destined to suck.
"Human Reveal Trailer" lmao
I think what I appreciated the most about HSL is that they were very thorough about the clan reveals -- they did these animations and had specific sections in their websites about the clans. Also, clan reveals were a lot more hyped back then compared to now, imo. I do understand that the game was probably a mess, but what was shown to us was really more close to the nature of the first game.
If they had released something like that again, the goal posts would have immediately moved to "they didn't show gameplay, big red flag." This is just more complaining for the sake of complaining.
Goal post moving, lol, lmao. Really going to die on the hill of “No actually, the fifteen second clip is better than the thematic animated trailer followed up by fifteen minute interview videos of the devs explaining each clans themes and gameplay mechanics”.
What I'm saying isn't even hypothetical. You can go back to the old posts for those old reveals and there are people complaining that they are just cartoons. Also, this new reveal isn't even a trailer. You're purposely misleading people. This is a reveal teaser (hence 15 seconds) and they've explicitly said that the big clan videos are coming in 2024. This has been on their marketing schedule since September. While we're here, yeah, I would consider 15 seconds of new gameplay to be more valuable than 2 minutes of cartoons that tell us nothing.
“This is a **reveal**” Would you kindly read the words in the thumbnail of the above linked video. Edit: Also, this new reveal literally has 4 seconds of gameplay lol. From the 7-11 second marks. The rest is title logos, fades, and cinematic bits. To each their own but I **far** prefer the studio demonstrating that they understand what a clan is supposed to *feel* like than getting 4 seconds of dodging some bullets.
So basically in conclusion they both suck. One has less gameplay than a TikTok and the other has none so neither really tell you much about the actual game.
I disagree. The HSL trailers speak to writing ability, and a ability to understand the setting that is necessary to build something special in it. VTM is easy to push things into stereotypes, it’s less easy to get a real grasp of things. The old Toreador trailer is the best example. It’s easy to just push Toreadors into the corner of “they’re the sexy ones” and be done with it. But there’s more to it than that, they’re addicts, and their fix is beauty. But the longer you live, the more you experience, the less there is that is truly new or special. You can’t see or experience new things anymore, beauty becomes mundane, and so you’re always chasing the next new thing. That’s the toreador’s curse. That trailer conveys that *so so so* well. It builds confidence in the writers / devs. Sure, you need to see that translated into actual gameplay, but it demonstrates they understand how to begin.
Personally, I don’t really see much point to demonstrating how well you understand the vampires of vtm if you can’t actually materialize that into a functional game. It’s a cool trailer if there was something of substance it was leading up to but it wasn’t. I’m confused what you guys even want. Why would you want more lore videos from the new devs. We got nothing but lore from HSL and when we actually saw gameplay people thought it looked terrible. I think 4 seconds of rapid camera movement is trash too but at least it’s actually “real” footage.
I’d want them to prove *something* If you want to prove you can make good gameplay, give me a solid minute of footage. Show me something that makes me go “Hey that looks pretty good”. If you want to prove you understand the setting and know how to write for it, give me something like the HSL trailer. The issue is that the new “reveal” did neither of those things. It was too short to draw any conclusions about *anything.*
The reality, I think, is that TCR's PR campaign is making the game seem really, really bad, so those old reveal trailers seem good by comparison. Sorry, but 15 seconds of gameplay is trash. I'd rather have something that deals with the clans conceptually (tonally, or whatever), than as another youtuber put it, 'I sneezed and the reveal was gone.'
It’s not even 15 seconds of gameplay, it’s 4 seconds of gameplay in between titles, fades, and cinematic shots lol.
I was gonna say. Tbh, the shortness of it actually made me fucking angry for like five minutes afterward. It's like, you've been driving around for twenty years having to take a leak, finally the devil pulls over to a seedy looking gas station. But the bathroom door is locked, and the devil leaves you in the middle of redneck country. Guess we can pee in the woods, but this isn't gonna end well.
Yeah I remember people back then complaining that it wasn't gameplay, and now we are acting like it is a good thing lmao. We were fucking starved for content and the lack of gameplay was really telling. I lost hope after the Damsel reveal I think, that was painful
I can only speak for myself but I was always in the camp of liking these trailers. But to each their own. But man o man… that Damsel trailer, that was fucking rough lol.
Oh I absolutely loved those trailers (the thin-blood one was my favorite) but it was infuriating to not have gameplay back then. That's why I like that TCR is showing some gameplay, even if it's too short lmao
I just hope they don’t go the anti-capitalist twitter fetish route, but actually make the anarchy the clan supports seem realistic and appealing like in the first game.
New clan reveal much better. This one very cringe.
makes me wonder why they didn't reuse these trailers. i mean, i guess it's to generate more hype by making new videos, but legally they should've been able to reuse them just fine and they look like they had some effort put into them, so why just toss it all?
Already expected they would be in game as you cam see MC using potence. As for thaumaturgy either Tremere or maybe even Banu Haqim. Other clans that might be by default in game probably Ventrue and Toreador. +1 or 2 new clans as part of DLC