Vampire: Bloodlines Weekly Update #3

Activision’s Shane DeFreest stopped by IGN’s “Bloodlines Inn” forum to post his third weekly update for Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines. A snippet, as usual:

Q: How varied will quest solving be? From previous Troika games, specially Arcanum, we’ve been given both the traditional statistical approach of roleplaying for dialogue choices and outcomes, as well as a more interactive environmental approach (using the interactive environment to one’s advantage). Will this kind of gameplay be featured in Bloodlines? Will if feature an emergent gameplay approach such as titles like Deus Ex and Invisible War, as in, laying out mission objectives, and letting theplayer find what is best for him to play; or will there be a tighter array of possibilities?

A: Even though we’ve switched to a 3d, first person view, we still feelthis is a true Troika style RPG. That means we give the player a wide variety of ways to solve quests, from thieving to talking to outright fighting. There’s definitely a “find your character’s best approach”feel to Bloodlines, and it varies from quest to quest – some quests have much tighter parameters, and some are completely wide open. This also can depend on your character’s clan, stat choices, etc. For instance, a fighting machine Brujah may not see/be able to accomplish all the different ways to solve a quest because of his lack of stealth or talking ability, but a Brujah with his points more evenly distributed may have more options open to him.