Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines is the second role-playing computer game based on Vampire: The Masquerade. It was developed by Troika Games using the Source engine, and is played from either the first- or third-person shooter perspective. It is noted as being the first Source game to go Gold.

In the game, the player creates their own neonate vampire, choosing from the seven Camarilla clans in a story set in and around Los Angeles. The plot is considered canon, and forms a prequel to the Time of Judgement.

Plot
The player's character has been newly Embraced by a Sire who did not seek the local Prince's permission; both Sire and childe are sentenced to be executed, but following a protest by Anarch "leader" Nines Rodriguez, Prince LaCroix spares the player's life as a calculated move to preserve a state of non-aggression between the two groups. In return, the player is expected to serve the Prince faithfully, and is set a task to prove their usefulness and loyalty. A supposed Sabbat attack interupts the introduction to Kindred lore being given to the player, and they must continue on alone.

As the game progresses, it becomes apparent that an ancient artifact known as the Ankaran Sarcophagus is at the centre of recent tensions between Camarilla, Sabbat, Anarchs and the Kuei-jin of the West Coast. The player must decide which faction - if any - they can trust, and determine the secrets of the Sarcophagus before it causes all out war amongst the Kindred.

The storyline is non-linear; though most events will be encountered regardless of the character's choices, there are numerous optional quests and four distinct endings. However, while the game does give players great freedom, the overall plotline does not change no matter what you do, and all the core missions still need to be completed. For example, if you decide to side with the anarchs, you will still need to obey Prince Lacroix, as you are told to act like you are still loyal.

Setting
Los Angeles and its surrounds are faithfully reproduced as they exist in the Gothic-Punk World of Darkness, including major elements of the metaplot like the Kuei-jin invasion and the collapse of the Anarch Free State. Characters from the pen and paper game appear, most notably Beckett, and all the vampire sects are depicted as nasty, with the player free to choose an allegiance.

The nature of the Kindred is also true to the pen and paper game, as are the problems of living in a Camarilla controlled city; the player must not only worry about losing Humanity, but also about breaking the Masquerade, at least in public areas. Wisely, the game only introduces those details which influence the game.

Most of the clans are mentioned, though the player is restricted to choosing from the seven clans of the Camarilla.

Characters

 * Sebastian LaCroix : A French Ventrue of at least 180 years of age, LaCroix is the Prince of Los Amgeles. He once served under Napoléon and runs the LaCroix Foundation.


 * The Sheriff : LaCroix's physically imposing, seven feet tall and dark skinned Sheriff is given no name, and seldom speaks. His clan is never stated, though as LaCroix recruited him out of Africa a century ago, and given the Disciplines he wields, he may be of the Nagloper Legacy of Laibon.


 * Beckett : The famed intellectual Gangrel adventurer, Beckett appears in L.A. on the genuine pretext of investigating the Ankaran Sarcophagus, hoping to examine it firsthand and debunk any "superstitious nonsense" surrounding it.


 * Mercurio : A ghoul in his late 70s (though he appears to be in his mid 30s) who works for LaCroix, based in Santa Monica. He specializes in acquiring contraband goods such as high-grade explosives or weaponry, if you do not alert Prince LaCroix to Mercurio's mix-up he will become another source for very powerful weapons such as combat shotguns, sniper rifles, and grenades.


 * Nines Rodriguez : A Brujah and default leader of L.A.'s Anarchs. He harbours great hatred for the Kuei-jin and the Camarilla.


 * Smiling Jack : A Brujah brawler, possible ex-pirate and notable Anarch from the nights of the Anarch Free State; considered a legend among young vampires and his clan.


 * Jeanette Voerman : A Malkavian who runs Santa Monica's Asylum club.


 * Therese Voerman : A Malkavian, sister of Jeanette Voerman.


 * "Gorgeous" Gary : Leader of the Nosferatu who lurk in a shared haven under the Hollywood Graveyard.


 * Brother Grunfeld Bach : Catholic warrior monk and leader of the Society of Leopold; a third generation vampire hunter who seeks revenge for the murder of his father and grandfather.

Organizations

 * The Camarilla - Returned to Los Angeles after 60 years, having been forced out by the Anarchs. Ruled by Prince Delacroix.


 * The Anarchs - Still not recovered from the invasion of the Kuei-jin in the early 2000s, the Anarch Free State lies in disarray, spilt into two major factions overseen by Baron Isaac Abrams in Hollywood, and Baron Therese Vorman in Santa Monica.


 * The Sabbat - Staging a major invasion as part of larger plan to occupy America's West Coast, connecting up with their strongholds in Mexico. The local forces are led by a Tzimisce named Andrei.


 * The Kuei-jin - The vampires of the Middle Kingdom have decided they cannot ignore the threat of the West any longer, and a few years ago ousted the Anarch Free State in a surprise attack.

Gameplay
Bloodlines is a real-time game with the choice between first and third person perspectives. The player character's ability to overcome obstacles is in many cases a mixture of player and character abilities, with character stats determining the effectiveness of actions, and player abilities determining whether or not the actions succeed. For example, the ability to move silently and avoid being detected is heavily influenced by the character's Dexterity and Stealth ratings; however, if the player does not stay in the shadows while sneaking past enemies, the character can still be detected.

The player character increases in power dramatically during the course of the game through the expenditure of earned experience points on attributes, skills and disciplines. A multitude of items, weapons, and books can be found or purchased that also make the player character more powerful.

Unlike most Computer role-playing games, the experience needed to increase stats and skills is not awarded for killing enemies. Experience points are awarded solely for completing quests, no matter how many creatures the player eliminates in the process. This encourages the player to complete quests in creative ways and significantly increases the game's replay value.

Patches and mods
While highly criticized on release for the number of bugs present in the game, it garnered enough praise from critics and fans alike to spawn a concerted community patching effort. Fan-made patches continue to be released even though Troika have disbanded; few noticeable bugs are left, and many features disabled by the developers have been finished and re-enabled.

System
Bloodlines uses a simplified version of the Storyteller System which is nonetheless very similar to the original. Characters possess all nine standard attributes, and a reduced set of twelve abilities, broken into the usual groups of Skills, Talents and Knowledges. These are rated from zero to five dots as normal, though the player starts off with far fewer dots than in the pen and paper game. Attribute and Ability scores are added together to form "feats", which represent the dice pools for various attempted actions; for example, the Melee Combat feat is derived by adding the ratings of the Strength Attribute and Melee Ability. Feats are therefore rated between 1 and 10.

Other traits (like Virtues and Willpower) are largely eliminated, though the character does have a Humanity rating. Blood and Health are measured in similar ways to the traditional Storyteller system, though player characters may have a maximum of 15 blood points rather than 10 (the player's Generation is not explicitly stated, but is assumed to be thirteenth).

Disciplines are simplified as well; characters may only access common vampire powers (like healing and physical augmentation) and their three clan Disciplines; out-of-clan Disciplines are not allowed. Most are modified to make all powers useful during play; Thaumaturgy's powers are based on the Path of Blood, for example, though they are all offensive powers rather than analytical.

Trivia

 * Valve did not want another game to display the new source engine prior to Half-Life 2, so when Bloodlines went gold on October 4, 2004, Troika worked on a patch that was integrated into the duplication master prior to shipping on November 16th. Therefore, Version 1.1 was the version that first shipped.
 * Multiplayer development was halted for some time during development, with the intention of picking it up later, which is what happened. However, the multiplayer game play never really came together and it was dropped a couple of months before shipping.
 * In the house on the beach there is a game paused on the TV that shows one of the large monsters from in the sewers later on in the game along with a vampire who is re-loading an Anaconda.
 * Troika Games' Leonard Boyarsky posted news about the game's development on several "Vampire" fan Web sites under the name "Leonx." Later, Activision's David Mullich posted news under the name "Primogen."
 * In the European version, the Sheriff in the opening execution cut-scene keeps his sword suspended above the head of the player's sire rather than bringing it down to behead him/her. This is because the camera usually doesn't cut away quick enough before the sword beheads the sire, and it was thought that an actual decapitation scene would not pass the German ratings board.
 * The game hints towards the end that Jack's friend who drives the Taxi is Caine, the father of all vampires. This is made more credible by the fact the characters speech files are kept in a directory titled "Caine" and that a Malkavian character will recognize the Taxi driver as the father of all vampires in the prelude to the final battle, leading to a fair amount of hilarity. Additionally, if the player activates the Auspex discipline, he will discover that the driver's aura is purple, indicating that he is a vampire (or, at the very least, not human). It must be noted though that some Vampire: The Masquerade supplements mention a Malkavian pretending to be Caine who travels around with Jack.
 * Sebastian LaCroix, the Camarilla Prince of Los Angeles, is named after Lucien LaCroix, the powerful vampire antagonist of the vampire detective television series Forever Knight.
 * The Malkavian character addresses both Therese and Jeanette as daughters of Janus, way before she/he knows that they have a split personality. However, this might be according to the Malkavian '6th sense'. Their lunacy allows them to know more than they can even consciously comprehend. For instance, the Malkavian character has a line "...tell this to whoever is playing me!", hinting toward the fact that he/she is unconsciously aware of his/her game character position.
 * Even though the game wasn't released in Spanish officially, a fan group, Clan Dlan, made its first release of a complete translation, including not only dialogs, but graphics as well. The translation can be found here.
 * There was supposed to be one more character creation mode in the final version of the game: the histories mode. This mode allows player to give his character a specific history rather than just set various attributes by hand. The choice of history has a large impact on the game, as it basically gives players a bonus effect in certain areas and a negative effect in others. For instance, if players choose "Eldritch Prodigy" (Tremere specific history), he gets a 40% bonus Thaumaturgy duration, but loses one XP point every time he gains three as a penalty. Histories are disabled by default in the final version due to instability issues. They can be re-enabled manually, and have also been re-enabled by the unofficial patch.
 * When playing Nosferatu, an attempt to converse with a certain Russian gangster results in him shouting 'Baba Yaga!' and going hostile. Baba Yaga is a real term in Slavic (and Russian) mythology, though it refers only to a female being. Baba Yaga is believed to be ugly, as well as any Nosferatu. In the Vampire Universe, Baba Yaga is also the name of a mighty Nosferatu in Russia that was destroyed in the 90's.

Soundtrack
A number of songs were licensed for the game. The song "Bloodlines" performed by Ministry, was created specifically for the game. The soundtrack was released through Best Buy stores for customers who pre-ordered the game. The tracks are as follows;


 * "Swamped"
 * Written by Marco Coti Zelati, Cristina Scabbia and Andrea Ferro
 * Performed by Lacuna Coil
 * Courtesy of Century Media Records
 * Plays at the end of the game


 * "Cain"
 * Written by Johan Edlund
 * Performed by Tiamat
 * Courtesy of Century Media Records


 * "Bloodlines"
 * Written by Al Jourgensen
 * Performed by Al Jourgensen / Ministry
 * Courtesy of Sanctuary Records
 * Plays in the club "Confession", Downtown L.A.


 * "Needles Eye"
 * Written by F.G. Reiche
 * Performed by Die My Darling


 * "Come Alive"
 * Written by Daniel Ash
 * Performed by Daniel Ash


 * "Pound"
 * Written by J. Blackwell, H. Cummings, S. Smith, C. McCall and M. Wolfe
 * Performed by AERIAL2012


 * "isolated"
 * Written by Emileigh Rohn
 * Performed by Chiasm
 * Licensed from COP International
 * Plays in the club The Asylum, Santa Monica


 * "Lecher Bitch"
 * Written by Jennifer Vincent, David Vincent and Vincent Saletto
 * Performed by Genitorturers
 * Plays in the anarch bar The Last Round, Downtown


 * "Smaller God"
 * Written by C. Elen, J. Thomas, and S. McManus
 * Performed by Darling Violetta
 * Sang by a human singer in the "Empire Hotel", Downtown L.A. Can also be heard on the radio in the Thin Bloods' camp on the Santa Monica Beach.

Credits

 * Jason D. Anderson - Creative Director
 * Leonard Boyarsky - Project Lead


 * Andrew Meggs - Lead Programmer
 * Brock Heinz - Lead Scripter
 * Mark Bremerkamp - Lead Animator
 * Chad Moore - Lead Character Modeller

Sound FX Design
 * Rik Schaffer - Original Score
 * Jason Freedman

Programmers - Timothy Cain, Brock Heinz, Steve Moret, Jesse Reynolds, Steve Shimizu, Dennis Taylor

Additional Programming - Aaron Brunstetter, Sean Craig, Lee Needham, Huy Nguyen, Nate Trost

Scripters - Jason D. Anderson, Marc Barber, Jocelyn Chew, TJ Perillo, Steve Rhoades

Additional Scripting - Huy Nguyen, David Webb

Animators - Daniel Alpert, Bryan Bode, Leonard Boyarsky, Nate Brown, Justin Cherry, Sean Keegan, Craig Matchett, Long Nguyen, Christine Thomas, Aaron Weldon

Additional Art - Sissie Chang, Peter Delgado, Lucas Feld, Christopher Glenn, Brian Godlewski, Thomas Judd, Jason Kane, Jason Manley, Michael McCarthy, Pete Meihuizen, Corey Pelton

Level Building - Jason D. Anderson, Chris Ashton, David Marsh, Jaime Sue, Bryan Warmack

Additional Level Building - John Attea, Hector Espinoza

Design, Dialog and Story - Brian Mitsoda, Chad Moore, TJ Perillo, Jason D. Anderson, Leonard Boyarsky

Additional Design and Dialog - Stephen Bokkes, Tiffany Chu, David Webb

Audio Scripting - Bret Johnson

 Voice 
 * Andy Milder as Prince Sebastian LaCroix
 * John Di Maggio as Smiling Jack
 * Edita Brychta as Ming-Xiao
 * Armando Valdés as Nines Rodriguez
 * Michael Gough as Beckett/Gimble
 * Jim Ward as Regent/Isaac/Bach
 * Grey DeLisle as Jeanette/Therese/Tourette
 * André Sogliuzzo as Mercurio/Caine/Bruno/Victor/Zhao
 * Dee Bradley Baker as Bertram Tung
 * Courtenay Taylor as Heather/Damsel/Rosa/Doris
 * Phil LaMarr as Skelter/Fat Larry/Dennis/Malcolm
 * Kathryn Cressida as Venus/Misti/Hostess
 * Neil Ross as Gary/Male Sire
 * Nika Futterman as V.V./Female Sire
 * J. Grant Albrecht as Johansen/Kilpatrick/Grout/Bishop Vick/Dema
 * Keone Young as Lu Fang/Mandarin/Tseng/Temple Guard
 * Greg Ellis as Knox/E./Brian/Christopher/Sabbat
 * Robin Atkin Downes as Trip/Copper/Phil/Boris/Brother Kanker
 * Erin Fitzgerald as Nadia/Mira
 * Daran Norris as Chunk/Milligan/Cal/Bum
 * Mary Elizabeth McGlynn as Pisha
 * Jay Gordon as Ash/Mitnick/Barrabus/Johnny/Bodyguard
 * Fred Tatasciore as Hatter/Gargoyle/Tommy
 * Michael Yama as Wong Ho/Chang
 * Dana Lee as Mr. Ox/Shu/Temple Guard
 * James Arnold Taylor as Vandal/Julius/Killer/Blueblood
 * Debi Mae West as Patty/Hannah/Jezebel/Bum
 * Steve Blum as Andrei/Courier/Sabbat
 * Matt Prescott Morton as Tin Can Bill/Igor/Doomsayer/Guard/Bum
 * Margaret Tang as Imalia/Kiki/Lily/Junkie