It's kind of crazy to me that Harley Quinn in every appearance since Arkham Asylum is a huge Jeanette Voerman ripoff, yet due to VTMB being relatively obscure almost nobody ever talks about this. We literally have the concept art with a picture of Jeanette saying, "Go with this look."
In theory, anyway, your Sire was convinced by Smiling Jack to embrace someone(you) at random, to set things in motion. Jack is known for sowing complete chaos, and using "unauthorized Embracing" as a tool to achieve it. To a point, Jack engineered everything. Your Embrace, all the way up to what happens to LaCroix, and even Nines appears to be unaware that he was at the center of it the whole time. Which, if you consider that he even kept the Nosferatu from figuring out it was him, is VERY impressive.
@@Geekezf this is confirmed in game by Jack in one of the endings. He says something along the lines of, "it played out exactly how you said it would."
"This _is_ the Source engine." followed immediately by a zombie flying into the roof at mach 3 and smashing into chunky jam after being shot with a .38 was just perfect.
For some reason I have a soft spot for this naive goth urban fantasy aesthetics. In the mid-2000s everybody was making fun of teenage girls writing cringey Twilight fanfics or mall ninjas cosplaying Blade, and I never knew how desperately I would miss those times. Now I want to rewatch Underworld again, while listening to some darkwave band and sipping alcohol energy drink. Great review as always, it definitely was worth waiting!
I usually can go on tirades about how great the 90s were, and how it was the height of Western civilization, but a little secret is that I like the 00s only slightly less. It was a really fun time with so many awesome things coming out, from cartoons to technology to games, and the internet was really blossoming. Everything had a ton of potential, and being a kid, I wasn't all that impacted by 9/11 or a war in some far-away country I didn't care about. I'll take living through the aftermath of the Twin Towers over the bullshit we've got today. At least back then we could set aside our differences and just be Americans.
@@MnemonicHack Well, being from ex-Yugoslavia, aka " far-away country you didn't care about", that had civil wars and NATO bombings, I kinda think the opposite of you. No offense.
Velvet is not exactly bugged, she does that because you made a hell of a mess, and killed Chastity with the utmost of aggressiveness. If you first lure away every one, including the strippers, then kill her quietly, then Velvet won't say that.
- You need to lure one of the strippers to a room - You need to hack the windows machines to make the customers leave And then you can fight Chastity 1V1 with no problem. It also avoids you losing a Masquerade point. If I remember correctly, she's resistant to stealth and Dominate skills will require 2 casts to work on her.
I think Velvet is supposed to have a different reaction if you haven't killed bystanders, but they saw your fight with chastity. From what I remember she complains you made a lot of noise.
@@CallofBear Correct, you have to do it quietly. And quietly here means that you can't use any Masquerade-breaking powers - which includes Tremere blood magic.
@@Destroyer2150 hacking the computer only gets rid of one of the voyeurs because the machine that operates one of the windows is broken. I thought for the longest time this was a game glitch, but if you break into the coin machine (and score a nice pile of cash doing so), he can't get anymore quarters so he leaves.
I really like VtM's take on true faith because it doesn't even need to be religious, just a completely unshakable belief in anything at all. The classic example is of a vampire being warded off by a yuppie brandishing his credit card due to having true faith in the power of money.
whats extra fascinating is that understanding how true faith works would probably mean you can never access it. why would you have unshakable belief in something if you knew it didnt matger what that something is? ignorance is the most powerful weapon against vampires.
Fun fact btw: Andrei and Pischa's voice actors are married now. That would be a real power couple of amoral weirdos. They're also Major Kusunagi and Spike Spiegel for anyone wondering why they recognize them so easily.
While the game has quite a few plot holes... the thing about "I wish we didn't tell LaCroix things" and such, like with Nines being near mansion with the murdered Malkavian - do note that LaCroix is a Ventrue. And he quite abundantly uses Domination, both when issuing orders and when getting reports. That's also the explanation as to why you're so single-mindedly running around the town doing his bidding. You're weaker. Barely a fledgling. He is dominating you to keep you in check. Well, realistically cause game limitations, but good to have lore explanation. Moreover, in that specific point of history - LaCroix is actually fully aware of WHO killed the Malkavian leader, since it was all part of his plot. It was all a setup to get you to testify that Nines can be a traitor, hence his insistence to know "was there anyone else?" and use of Dominate to ensure you say it. The priest's arrival is a genuine unplanned surprise to him, which stumbles him for the moment. Also his use of Dominate to control your actions plays into the plot twist in the ending, where you finally grow strong enough (through your actions) to shake off his vampiric powers and act on your own. There are a lot of plot holes, as I said. But also a lot of nuance in the writing, Troika clearly studied their subject and were fans of the universe.
Unironically a better plot twist than "Would you kindly". Although the neonate you interpret seems to be an anomaly due to how rapidly he goes from fledgling to being able to go head to head with elders. I mean, it's obviously a liberty Troika took for gameplay reasons, but I bet someone formulated some more lore-friendly theories around it.
@@LuckeeStrikee It's definitely a bit shakey how quickly you grow so strong. With that said, many individuals, like Jack, hint that his age and relatively low generation are the only impressive things about him. He is otherwise an upstart. A pushover. An individual who is far from being great politician, skimming by on his lucky encounter with his "Sheriff". Surrounded by arguably his betters, be it beliefs or keen mind, on all sides. Besides, writing-wise it's just a really great moment at the end where you see him go from ordering "give me the key" and still being deluded in his belief of victory to basically begging and falling apart, as his last little leg gets swept and you're well beyond his control now. If you picked up on hints about Dominate abuse anyway.
@@Legiro Also doesn't help that when he possessed a Suicide Bomber, that thanks to how the power works(ed, now its Aupex in V5, which.... ok), LaCroix took that full damage himself. Which, Fortitude 5 or not, thats gonna hurt like a bitch. Also explans why his dominate doesn't work as well on the Fledgling, not just that the 8th Generation Fledgling grew that powerful in a few weeks, but LaCroix was also injured and out of Blood to push for anything higher than Mesmerize. And while not canon, LaCroix does use Submerged Directive on the Player for the Sabbat route for the Clan Quest mod (which I highly recommend, basically the closest thing to an expansion pack, adding companions, the essential Unofficial Update, Diablery, and the Sabbat route, at the cost of Bloodbuff no longer being able to help out with lockpicking)
While on the run from the FBI, Mitnick intercepted their radio traffic and, realizing they knew where he was and before fleeing his hideout, left a box of donuts and a note in the fridge of the place he was staying. Nothing terrible, something like "For the hard working officers of the FBI" or something to that effect. He's boring now.
In his defense, I'm pretty sure they left his ass in solitary for a couple years straight after they busted him. I think most people would come out a bit traumatized and boring.
@@johnnydjiurkopff he was in solitary for 8 months and served 5 years. Solitary is literally torture, as recognized by the Mormons(I believe, might be a different religious sect) who came up with it based on the idea that “if you left someone alone with the Lord’s word all day, they might get better”. However because Americans are the most propagandized population on Earth, it is still practiced. He’s boring because he became what he sought to fuck around with.
Fun fact in the wider Masquerade lore a banker defeated a high level vampire due to his faith in "credit" He brandished a credit card at him like a cross and it worked.
As a newcomer back in the day my first clan was Malkavian and it was honestly the best. The mental clicks I made on the lore during a second playthrough actually made the spoilers make sense because the first time around, you don't understand the spoilers. I legit thought my dude was *only* spouting nonsense and he was but when that nonsense starting making sense I started second guessing myself.
Still though, it requires a second playthough. Playing the game once and only once as a Malkavian is kinda wasting them. And I'd say the coolness of their dialog and quirks is more effective and impactful the other way around. Because you're not going to remember everything, and a lot of the insight will be missed. You _can_ play Malk first, I just really don't think one should. If you know what's going on their dialog becomes "holy crap that's so cool" if you don't it becomes "holy crap that's so random" I do agree with Warlock that expecting multiple playthoughs outta people/games these days isn't realistic. Thing's are different now. That said I can't agree with playing Malk first, there isn't really any good/right way though and one should do what they feel is best for them. And I suppose watching this video prepares one as if they had already done a playthrough.
I played Malkavian on my third round and at some point Jack bluntly tells you "If you understood half the shit you were babbling about, I'd have to kill you."
>the Nosferatu have to avoid being seen and navigate the quest hubs via the sewers I mean, the game TELLS you that but in reality, because the detection radius for non-hostile NPCs is so small you basically have to be halfway up their asshole for them to notice your presence. As long as you aren't the kind of player that likes to physically brush up against every NPC they meet, you'll never lose masquerade points.
@@w415800 The real issue people noted with nosferatu, in general, is that they're treated as if humans will think of them as monsters, rather than as people with extreme disfigurement from birth defects or injury
Man, the transitions between face frames are a bit harsh, but the emotions still come through so hard. 1) Valve's tech was good. 2) Someone worked hard on facial scripting of all the dialogues. This still beats like 90% of games today, especially if they're not fully face-mocapped.
Hell it's better then some mo-capped animations today Then again when they're so desperate they hit the character model with a bat in the face a few times it's unsurprising
Honestly I prefer this rather than someone just standing there like a stiff board, it feels a lot more immersive to see someone actually emote as they speak, old tech aside.
Late comment, but it also fits in with the theory that the reason your character, a new vampire, can go head to head with older Vampires is because a Antediluvian is giving them power. It's just happens to be the big man himself
A few bits of neat (or obscure) trivia. You're probably familiar with most of this, but if anyone's wondering. Kuei-Jin don't always rot in sunlight. They have two separate energy pools represented by a Yin and Yang on their character sheet. They only rot if their dark energy exceeds their light energy. Generally speaking, a Kuei-Jin wants to keep both pools in rough balance with each other, but this is nearly impossible from a practical standpoint. The more out of balance they are, the faster they'll rot. There's some other really interesting quirks with them. They're technically possessing spirits, in most cases the body they inhabit will have been their original form, however that isn't always the case, and it's entirely possible to play a Kuei-Jin in tabletop that is possessing a completely unfamiliar body. Bach is (marginally) supernatural, as he has points (probably 4 or 5 dots) in True Faith, which was something called a Numina. Numina were a kind of hedge magic open to (otherwise) non-supernatural characters. There was an entire mini-line of books grouped together as "Hunters Hunted," and later, "Year of the Hunter," which explored normal characters who hunted supernatural creatures. There was a lot of really neat stuff in the tabletop games regarding normal humans who started hunting monsters (not to be confused with the supernaturally imbued humans that started hunting monsters through the power of schizophrenia.) Interestingly, the original Hunters Hunted supplement included a vampire clan, The Children of Osiris, who could gain sunlight immunity through their clan discipline (granted, it took nine dots to access. And, yes, this IS on the same five dot system bloodlines uses. Characters with stats above five dots are exceptionally rare and, often, horrifically powerful.) Later editions would (basically) roll these guys over into Mummies. The hengeyokai is a wereshark. These are the same kind of supernatural creatures as the Werewolves (the collective term for these is the "Changing Breeds.) While Werewolves are a "common" variety of supernatural creature, Weresharks are exceptionally rare, with most of the sub-species wiped out during American Nuclear tests in the 50s and 60s. There's less than 100 surviving Weresharks who aren't affiliated with the eastern, Beast Courts. The term Hengeyokai is just a generic term for any shapeshifter affiliated with the Beast Courts. This was probably a rhetorical question, but, no, The Masquerade only applies to Vampires. Most of the World of Darkness's critters have reasons to keep quiet and out of sight. In the case of Werewolves (and to varying degrees the other Changing Breeds), their supernatural concealment is that they were so horrifying that normal humans would absolutely lose their shit, and suppress any memories of encountering one in full hybrid form. Other supernatural creatures are completely unaffected. Also, I'm really glad to see you're safe.
True faith is incredibly rare in the world of darkness setting, and also incredibly dangerous to beings like Vampires. To put in reference how powerful True Faith is (and five points no less), when you're talk at the beginning of a game that crucifixes won't kill you, Bach can show you a crucifix and cause you intense physical pain and a strong desire to either run as fast as you can away from him or the urge to self terminate. He doesn't need to be incredibly strong to kill vampires, because all he would need to do is recite something generic like "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." and most vampires would be unable to fight back.
It's worth mentioning that while each supernatural has their own version of the Masquerade and have no interest in keeping the secret of other supernaturals, they also don't try and reveal their existence for fear that the teeming masses might wonder 'if werewolves are real, then what else is out there?' So you are right that vampires have no need to cover up masquerade breaches of other types of supernatural creatures, they probably will do it if it looks too obviously supernatural.
The most insidious thing about the Heather plotline is the way the game has presented ghouls up to that point. You can learn about the existence of ghouls either from Knox or Mercurio, both of whom seem to be handling their condition pretty well (probably because they were high-functioning addicts already). It's not until you get to the downtown hub that you have a chance to meet characters like Patty who are not as fortunate. I suppose Vandal is a good example of a ghoul gone wrong in Santa Monica, but it's hard to tell if his insanity is a side effect of the Malk blood or if he was just born that way.
there is a quote from Vandal where he mentions that he liked watching rats get caught in mousetraps and watching them die, so I'd say it's at least partially just him having mental issues to begin with. though it wouldn't be too unusual to think that the clan of the vampire can affect the ghoul, as iirc if you're malkavian when Heather captures a guy for you she refers to him as a fish and doesn't really seem to understand that she kidnapped someone. my memory of it is a bit fuzzy though, I could be wrong
Vandal was already a psychopath before the Queen Bitch introduced him to more madness. There's a file in Arthur Kilpatrick's Krime'puter that mentions how Vandals lawyer gets him off the hook for stalking a woman in the dead of night, carrying a knife and a stun gun. Here's the actual lines from that file; "Vandal Cleaver - Bond written 01/01/02 - Two Counts Concealment of a deadly weapon, Threats. Case# 341800. Bond Amount: $20,000. Type of Bond: Cash - paid in full. Notes: Picked up after local woman reported being stalked by subject. Found with a knife and a stun gun. Good lawyer got this guy's sentence talked down from intent to do bodily harm to restraining order in a matter of hours."
SPOILERS 25:40 You did not see THAT dog on the pier in Santa Monica. According to game files, that "dog" specifically was the Gangrel culprit of the pier murder (and all the others in that sidequest chain) checking on his handywork 58:20 Velvet/Chastity is not bugged. Since you aggroed Chastity during her show, there's a non zero chance she hurt some of her fellow dancers. Even if YOU did not hurt anyone else, if there's bloodshed during the mission it's considered failed. The proper way to complete it is to hack the ATM in the basement, so that the customer leaves the area and all the other dancers go to the backroom, leaving Chastity alone on the stage. Once she's alone you can kill her with ease without any side casualties.
Really? I thought it was Beckett keeping an eye on me since he confronts me shortly after blowing up the warehouse. Also during the first dialogue with him you mention if he's following you. Thanks for the correction.
@@Warlockracy I think it's Beckett, turning into a wolf is a very advanced form of the Protean discipline, and the murderer is recently embraced as well as a Caitiff, highly unlikely he's that powerful.
"Newcomers should play Malkavians EXCLUSIVELY" Unironically *YES* Look. I get that some people will say "Oh spoilers" and to that I say you can spoil yourself on any character just fine by talking to Rosa, Becket, Pisha, Jack, or half a dozen other people who give you sound advice. In fact, it's genuinely not ALWAYS a good idea to just randomly pick the schitzo options in your dialog, as that's a very fast way to make no friends and plenty of enemies. Malks off the bat are the most interesting blind playthough. There is no way to tell if the whispers in your ear is just pointless chatter, or foreshadowing, or UNRELIABLE foreshadowing, bad advice, good advice, or just silly jokes. You have zero idea if the dialog option you pick that is clearly a silly malkavianism will lead to a good outcome. Just because all the vampires know your crazy and you can't help BUT to be crazy, doesnt mean theyre all going to be ok with you being crazy. On top of that, Malkavians have a pretty ok set up for the game. Dementia is a very versatile tool, enabling fun combos with ranged, melee, and/or stealth builds, the lattermost of which the malks excell at given auspex and obfuscate are also in their wheelhouse. Malkavians are best for a first playthrough because theyre FUN. They are IMMEDIATELY fun. The only clan more beginner friendly is probably Torries, who get Celerity, Presence and Auspex so they can do a LOT of fun things, and due to humanity coming back at double the rate it normally does they help newbies stay in the safe-zone.
Funny thing about the idea of needing the Masquerade or not. I mostly think of Mage, because Mage: The Awakenng is the same setting and all that as Vampire: The Masquerade and they cross over. In Mage it's quite literally set up where the collective beliefs of humanity determine reality. Something called "Pattern" which the Technocracy set up in ancient times to actually give permanence to the world instead of whatever local sorcerer god-king decided was reality on a whim. In that sense the Masquerade remains important. Because the fact that most humans in setting don't believe in vampires, magic, ghosts, etc, etc, etc, is what kind of keeps them from being everywhere and overpopulating the world and what not. Because these things are believed "Not to exist". So if they believed and accepted that Vampires existed, and magic existed, and so forth as the Masquerade tries to hide? Then you end up in a world where things like Physical Laws once again become "Whatever some local asshat with power thinks it is". It'd be a nightmare realm beyond imagining most likely. But that's not really relayed in the Vampire only lore.
God, this game and dark messiah of might & magic are these bizarre, ugly, spectacular unicorns. The sheer attention to detail and effort put into telling a massive story with this technology are probably the most impressive achievements I've ever seen in this industry.
Your point about whether or not the masquerade is even necessary is the ultimate plot of a major character from "The Night Road". I'm sure if you had a "keeping up with the toreador" type reality TV show ppl would end up just fine with the existence of vampires lol
Also note, Jeanette is such an iconic character that she was in fact the inspiration for the modern Harley Quinn design. Not to mention voiced by Grey Delisle (Azula) :]
The quality of the voice acting and face animations is one of my favorite aspects of this game. You might think both are excessive at first, but it gives each character such powerful feelings and truly cements the memories you have of them. On the few times that Lacroix loses his composure, he is a wonderful illustration of this.
@@knightofsolice1304 That's also something I've been looking at for a long time. Been wanting to read the rulebooks even if I'll probably never play a game.
55:26 Ash Rivers and the "Asp Hole" are references to the late actor River Phoenix (perhaps best known for playing a teenage Indiana Jones in the opening scenes of "The Last Crusade"), and the "Viper Room" (a Hollywood night club owned by Johnny Depp, where Phoenix lethally overdosed on a speedball). It's made even more explicit by Malkavian dialogue in which your characher refers to him as a "dead phoenix".
@@BeepSmile I would be extremely perplexed if someone managed to attack you without seeing you first Or, perhaps more aptly, concerned as to htf you managed to piss off some blind guy to such a degree
@@d1g1beastpr1me7 Hello. While I am very gratified for your interest and concern, I have been informed by my legal team to cease any and all discussion of this topic outside of spaces protected by lawyer-client confidentiality. Thank you and have a wonderful day.
The Weapon guy in Chinatown is almost certainly a reference to that one Californian Senator who got popped for smuggling weapons for Norinco, the Nationalized Chinese armory. They were attempting to sell tanks and RPGs to American gangsters, even after they were banned from distribution in the States for trying to do that several years beforehand. They made some cool decent weapons.
As a long term fan of the WoD I'd say, anecdotally, it's best described by just asking a 14 year-old wearing black lipstick what they think of society and then assuming everything they say is completely correct.
And as the saying goes: "Whenever someone mentions or talks about VTMB, someone will reinstall it." You just made me reinstall it yet again. Love your channel and thank you for reviewing one of my favourite rpgs. Glad to see you are still doing alright despite these troubling times and thank you again for the great content! Looking forward to seeing what this controversial game is. I always find the whole Heather situation creepy too but the fact you get the best armor in the game out of her makes me grudgingly keep her around
The fact that you called out beckett for being the obnoxious cringe lord self insert he is instead of mistakenly thinking he’s cool or in any way witty alone is worth watching this whole video!! Even back in 2004 when I first played this game as a teenager I thought of him as an unmitigated douchebag. I can not tell you how much joy it brings my heart to hear after almost 20 years later that there are people out there that not only realize this but will put it into their review of the game!! Amazing work my man!
beckett: “oh I would but it appears I forgot my fine tooth comb.” Me, talking to my computer screen: “No, but you certainly brought your shit excuse for a personality.”
I CANNOT recommend Clan Quest enough, it lore-accurately expands on Sabbath and makes more out of them then just 'OH WE BAD GUYS' (Though they are still amoral in human terms.) But makes it so one can actually see SOME sort of sense in what they do, and the Priest character is one of my favorite video games characters ever, if I could pay you to make a video, I'd honestly pay to watch you review Clan Quest.
I've subbed to a few creators on the strength of their Bloodlines or Morrowind retrospectives. I could have sworn you've covered this already so I'm extremely happy to see this. Perfect viewing for when my curry arrives. Thanks!
@@ToTheNines87368 in addition to those top tier channels, I may have also put Indigo Gaming, The Salt Factory, Strat-Edgy, LGR, and NeverKnowsBest's channels into that mix of guys who cover the classics. If you have the stomach for a 7hour Morrowind retrospective, PatricianTV has you covered. All worth checking out IMO.
@@ToTheNines87368 sseth has a wildly different presentation rooted in adhd and utter degeneracy (as it should) i doubt anyone with 2 brain cells would mix these channels up.
Two things from what I remember when I read about the VTM lore. (40 mins in when I'm writing this comment) 1. Other supernatural creatures in the World of Darkness do enforce their own masquerades through their own ways. 2. The reason why the masquerade exists is to hide themselves from hunters (there are huge ass vampire hunting organizations, hell I think V5 that came out in 2017 deals with spy agencies like the CIA finding out about the vampires) and potentially the Antediluvians.
As an extra thing for 2, basically everyone keeps up a masquerade not only because of Hunters and their own individual primordial monsters, but also because normal humans outnumber the populations of all supernatural communities combined by several orders of magnitude and some supernatural beings, such as Mages, rely on the masquerade to exist properly, tend to think in terms of "if the word gets out for any one of us, it gets out for all of us," and also tend to be strong enough that getting on their bad sides is about as wise as driving a car filled with atmospheric pollutants into an armed thermonuclear bomb without wearing a seatbelt. As for how seriously they take the consequences of breaking the masquerade, that tends to vary not just edition to edition, but book to book, too. Tonal consistency was not White Wolf's forte.
@@Hamun002 That bad huh? I mean, in watching LA By Night someone comments that they've seen or heard of humans doing stuff with magic that makes them look like amateurs.
@@JnEricsonx baby Mages, by existing with their equivalent of Humanity low, could accidentally break the laws of physics if they didn’t understand how to handle the issue.
To this day VTMB stands as my favorite World of darkness content. Even though the game is far from perfect. Combat is rough and the game starts coming apart towards the end. But that feeling of being a single player in a big, chaotic world the game accomplishes is great. As well as many characters like Beckett, Jeanette, Nines and more all being well developed. Honestly, it is so cool seeing how a community of people saw potential in this game and worked to make it the best it could be.
I started playing it again and was honestly kinda disappointed after the Hollywood sewers, chinatown was fine, but for some reason felt pretty empty besides the main quest compared to the rest of the game.
I liked the Warrens. Mainly because it was such a difficulty spike. Had to scavenge rats and figure out the preggo-fleshbeasts' patterns out to survive. As for the kuei-jin, I LOVE the malk responses where you straight up spook her the fuck out with what you know.
1:07:37 - To answer your question, Gargoyles have an ability called Visceratika, something only they can do, allowing them a modicum of talent with changing their stone coloration and adapting their physiology to be tougher. It wouldn't surprise me if it was a storyteller contrivance at the same time, but I could see a Gargoyle adapting some stone-like adornments (in this case, Chinese armor) to hide itself in plain sight in city communities. And it could be implied that Strauss made it to spy on Abrams, or even assassinate him if he became more of a problem since it's clearly a combat-built Gargoyle.
Or he'll send it over to the Giovanni just in case they get a bit too bold either way it'll be a big masqurade violation seeing a Gargoyle already pissed off by their master allowed to let loose in public.
There's also that pretty interesting serial killer sub quest that starts at the very beginning of the game but if I remember right you have to get pretty far before you can actually track the killer back down to Santa Monica.
Totally agree that Malkavian should be the first playthrough for everyone. Having vague references to things to come isn't very useful or interesting if you already know everything that's going to happen.
I'm sure you've seen this many times, but your video quality as well as presentation are something to behold. The quality far exceeds what's expected of a single person, yet, you deliver on time, everytime. I've gone through a lot, and I've watched a multitude of your videos multiple times. I'm just a drop in the bucket, but, for me? These videos send me to sleep, they ease long drives to work, they help after a rough day. I'm glad to say i subbed to you a while ago, but, considering everything, i don't see why you wouldn't be a major, mainstream player. Given your quality of videos, as well as quality of voiceover and ability to engage the viewers, i don't see why you won't be a mainstream player given enough time. Regardless, to me? An amazing, easy way to ease my long drives to work, to wade me to sleep. I'm glad your channel exists, and i hope you see this and that it encourages you to charge harder into this endeavor. A lot of us, regardless of what's going on don't know what to do, but, enjoy our time. And your what makes that time a fun thing to do. Have fun, friend. Glad to see you flourish
awesome "review" as always. I was gonna give you a score of 11/10, but you skipped the crazy doctor quest to obtain the sickest weapon of all. The Severed Arm (it's also a good snack for Pisha). Only 10/10 for you. Joke apart, thanks for entertaining us regardless of what's happening. We are all boomers, we are friends. From eu, with love
I did the quest, but decided not to include it cause it ruined the pacing of the segment. In the UP you can get a severed arm weapon by dismembering a body (almost any body) with a spell afaik.
@@Warlockracy it was just an "silly" excuse to praise your production (when I was young it was too fun for me holding TAB with a severed arm equipped and just saying hello). I love your channel, I really do .Every single video is really well made. A perfect mix between a documentary, a review and your personal take. PS. If I had one wish, I would love to know what you think about the game Inquisitor, one of my all-time favourites
4:18 THANK YOU! The advice that you shouldn't pick Malkavian for your first playthrough has always struck me as absurd. I played one for my first playthrough because they seemed cool. And it was a blast! Yes, if you already know what the plot is, you can figure out what their special dialogue is referring to and realize how much they're able to see. But, crucially, _without_ already knowing the plot it just comes across as random mad jabbering. You won't have the game spoiled if you pick Malkavian. Instead you'll have a fantastic time with imo the best writing in the game and scenes that no other clans get access to.
@@planescaped Except you can then play the game _a second time_ as them, and have the same interesting great dialogue but this time understanding what the character is talking about. Whereas the first time, you won't really have any idea. You only get 1 first playthrough, so it should probably by the one that is most interesting. And that's Malkavian. Because you can still play the game again after and get the "Ooooh, _that's_ what they're talking about" moments. You don't lose anything by playing them first, you only "lose" something if you _never_ play as them after your first playthrough.
Around the 1 hour mark you mention that tremere got his powers by deablarising saulot, which is only half correct. The original blood that clan tremere used was a mix of tzimisce and gangrel blood. Which is the actual reason the tzimisce hate the tremere, other than them being a pillar of the cammarilla
In a recent playthrough with Wesp5's patch, I discovered that when you go to the diner to find Jeanette, you can talk down the thugs in the diner from attacking you if you speak to them before going to the ringing phone in the corner! I love this game so much!
I really, really love how you used the lore info dump dialogue for footnotes. Every time a new concept comes up - boom, let's have game's own VA explain it. An excellent editing choice.
Neat bit of trivia, on the Tremere. They actually originated from another pen and paper role-playing game, Ars Magica, about wizards in medieval Europe. I also thought the loud music fit the mood of the game, since... Well, the goth clubs and dive bars it takes place in are like that.
Absolutely knocked it out of the fucking park with this one. It's a shame that Bloodlines 2 will most likely never happen, and if it does it won't be anywhere near the quality of 1. Went ahead and subscribed on Patreon. Stay safe, dude.
This game still has the most entertaining dialogue I've ever experienced. This and Fallout New Vegas are my all-time favorite RPGs (plus Planescape Torment).
I've been thinking about getting myself Vampire the Masquerade recently and of course I remembered reading about your preparations for the events currently unfolding in the Ukraine. Glad you're doing well and also keeping up the content. You're a great content creator and I'm glad I've stumbled upon you through your Morrowind videos.
Can confirm my first playthrough of Bloodlines was as a Malkavian and it was fuckin awesome. I really felt like I was playing as a crazy person with weirdly incredibly insight into the world.
Utica m37 shotgun is actually a really good early game weapon with lethality of 20(higher only flamethrower with 110) and a knock back effect. The only trick - this gun needs to be used up close and personal to truly shine.
Ураааа! Upd. 4 percent? That can't be right, there should be a lot more of us. Maybe you've seen some vpn-based statistics? Russian sseth can't be such unheard in Russia
@@michimatsch5862 Because of the economic sanctions on Russia making life harder for him and others in the country, especially if you rely on international platforms for your income I think, and also because he opposes the war and went to protests, I don't know if he's currently still protesting but it's pretty risky
I always loved the writing in this game. I'll never forget the big guy, "I know I got a weight problem. I just don't give a fuck!" Christ, I nearly fell out of my chair when he said that. So damn funny.
My favorite game of all time I will point out Generation is about the potential for a vampire power, a lower generation don't make them automatically more powerful. Jack might be higher gen than Therese and Jeanette, he's also much older, and probably more experienced for example., same can be said of LaCroix
@@MultiKbarry some not all. Bigger blood pool, immunity to higher gen dominate. But beyond that, they are not any more powerful than someone of same experience level.
Talking about how vampire could be alternative humans, I personally think that it is a general setting problem, which they tried to resolve in 5th edition with Second Inquisituon thing, but they still fucked up all the other things, so let's pretend it don't exist. Well, the quintessential part of the vampire society - the masquerade can't be in-game demolished because of two reasons - it's good for the elders, who can punish younger, more ambitious vampire's using the masquerade traditions, and the elders, who may still remember the first inquisition days(The reason why Cammarilla established masquerade), and overcautioness about all, rules the vampire society. From players perspective there are three reasons for masquerade. First of all, it's DM instrument to control player's characters. It's also a very easy to create a plot for your campaign using violation of a masquerade as a basis. And for the last one - first redactions came out in late 90-s/early 2000-s, all this conspiracy theories, private undergrouns communities and other wierd shit was popular back then, as I think. But if you think of it now - all Vampire part of the setting from realistic perspective is total bullshit. Like, literally everything is in the internet or in governmental data centers now, is there any possibility that bloodsucking monsters with wierd magic shenanigans and literally eternal lifes could even live in the society, not even control some parts of it, but live? Fucking doubt that, that's for sure. Werewolfs btw more realistic than vampires, their Lithuania can be violated more than vampire's masquerade, and they usually play in countryside or wilderness. I mean regular campaigns, not about eco-terrorists and nuclear destructions under the name of Gaya.
Aren't most werewolf campaigns about eco-terrorism or vaguely posadist nuclear annihilation in the name of gaya? Is that just a habit among my friends?
@@johnnydjiurkopff i didn't play much werewolfs, but most of my games were about some investigations, Lithuania violations, contacting with spirits and other umbra stuff. I think in 5 campaigns we blew up only one factory full of banes. Nuclear stuff was mentioned ones, i think we stole some documents about wyrm spawns from a nuclear facility's director office, but that's all. I don't say that all of werewolf campaigns are like this, I'm just using my personal experience with that games, sorry for confusion.
Wesp deserves his own video, that man might well BE a vampire. He has been on top of this game for virtually me entire adult life. Seriously, it's quite insane.
It's amazing how well updated the UP is along with Wesp5's involvement in the community. I asked on reddit to find out a new song with the patch and got a reply from them within hours
Just about time! You know, few months when I first discovered you, I was shocked to not seeing Vampire Masquerade The Bloodline in your review list! No shit, i've been expecting a review on this, but not today. This will be a fine week as I dissect this video and rewatching again and again
I like Chunk. I know the devs wrote him to be some idiot, but I like Chunk. He's that poor schmoe working security for an enterprise he doesn't have the foggiest clue about. Hell, even when you think he's creeping on somebody, turns out he's just trying to keep an eye out on his Bavarian cream in the break room. Think we can all empathize with that.
Other supernatural entities are in fact, a consideration for vampires and the masquerade. Funnily enough Vampires are nowhere near the biggest dogs in the "keep supernatural shit under wraps". That would be the mages...
@@fuzzytransmissionman and that's without touching the stuff about God being a supercomputer and angels hyper programs designed to fuck your shit for messing with the demiurges status quo
I think the fan patch makes the zombie quest easier. I remember back in the day it being super hard, but replaying the game last year or so I also did it on my first try. Also I know you couldn’t have covered the whole game but you missed some meme moments especially in Santa Monica, like Mr Gimble the prosthetist and the thin blood that was being kept on the basement of the hospital.
You can move faster by alternating A and D rapidly while holding W. Changing directions in this way seems to give you a slight speed boost, so the faster you can alternate the faster you can run. Helped immensely while running through the sewer mission.
The reviewing combined with the story telling and impeccable editing makes me absolutely baffled that this guy doesn’t have more subs or views. Really tightly made video and well thought out and one of the only long form videos that has me actually watching the entire thing and not just putting it on to listen to in the background
You never miss, Warlockracy. I'm so happy to see the effort you put in your videos meet such a growth in public reaction. Thank you for covering so deeply these old games and mods from my forgotten childhood. It sparks much joy.
As someone who played the game only after already being well-versed in VtM lore and WoD lore in general, I've always wondered what it is like to play it without any prior knowledge.
I did. I think I dropped the game after getting to the Nosferatu sewers, but I was really fascinated by the lore, especially by vampires being different compared to their classical depiction, with all the clans, rules and powers. So I came back after awhile, and on the second try I grew to really like the game. And to me it just got better over time, as I've read up on the World of Darkness and tried different clans, and also got older and was able to appreciate the characters and the writing. Also funny to me that I found the game completely by accident, can't even remember where, but I'm glad I did.
@@TheEvilShepard I played it with very minor spoilers. I saw two episodes of a channel I had watched for a long time that played in the setting and I was like: That sounded coop, let's go. Don't think I'll be playing the tabletop game any time soon though, currently already playing a vampire game with them.
@@michimatsch5862 I keep thinking about trying to play the tabletop, but I don't think I'm very likely to find people that are interested and that I can get along with, haha That said, it didn't prevent me from stealing parts of the vampire lore for DnD games that I ran :)
@@TheEvilShepard From my experience, if you had some players for long enough you can get them on anything. Just the question whether everyone will like it. I mean, we are currently playing Brinkwood, a game about drinking the rich, literally. Like they are vampires. The pitch is buckwild and the lore still manages to be dark but why would any of my players jump on that? "Guys, imagine capitalism but the capitalists are also vampires and it's the industrial revolution." I am pretty much convinced I could get my players to try anything. Before that we only played DnD adjacent stuff so this was a real shift. If you got some long-time players...just go for it.
I like how you seemed to focus on the charm and charisma of the game. Especially with that stuff at the end. I really can't think of any other game with such character like this one.
It feels like this channel exists just to review most of my favorite RPGs. I love this game, even though I only played it once, over a decade ago at this point (probably in 2008 or 2009). I've always felt like I should go back to it and do a Malkavian or Nosferatu playthrough, but so much of the talk about this game is about the Malkavian playthrough, it feels like I've had 90% of it spoiled already. I played it as a Brujah and took the early guns being bad as a sign to fight in melee, which honestly, it works out pretty well until you fight the sheriff, and then it just falls apart. But part of why that works feels like cheesing some broken mechanics anyway: I'd just drain people in combat if I couldn't stealth kill them. It takes a long time for enemies to be dangerous enough to outdamage all of the regeneration you get for feeding on someone. I've heard the Gangrel playthrough can also be interesting, because at certain points you can meet skill checks and get free upgrades from Beckett. Dude is definitely a cringy self-insert character, though.
20:00 Yes, the masquerade does care about other breaches, for wraiths (ghosts) however they'll just get Giovani contractors if it's a serious issue. They don't really need to cover up for werewolfs since they have a fear like effect that makes you black out the memories and believe it to be a PTSD black out. They don't need to worry about mages since paradox already does their job for them. On a side note the Nos thing got toned down in later editions, most nos by 20th could go out in the public (unless they took a flaw, which most do), still ugly but more like Reddit Moderator ugly or burn victim, some just look and smell bad. (appearance 0 still) Side note: All of the named table top lore characters are peoples OC marry sues for the most part, including a fat chick that cross-dresses so that they can be peak human sexy to both genders. (I'm not making that one up, fat and bald male, or just fat women) 29:00 yeah it's a thing, it's needed to reach Golconda the vampire state of being forgiven, which gives some really cool powers, too bad it takes forever to even attempt it and is likely to fail. They become immune to Frenzy, Rotsrach, and never kill people by feeding. Oh and need less blood, and can day walk, etc. (insanely hard to achieve, and insanely broken in table top) 46:00 How does it work, well a lot of the same, trauma effects everyone, you can get the effects of drugs by drinking blood from someone who has it in their system. But for ADHD or the like, you'd just be screwed. Ironically Malks can use their bloodline power of Dementation. In the rare case that a Malk recovers from their derangement they will gain a new one shortly. What wasn't shown in the video game is that Dementation is actually a hivemind used to share info, the Nos have a not dissimilar type of social networking, but they use rats and cockroaches and don't have a mental link. 48:00 It's about as strong as a meth addiction, I think they try to fluff it up harder in the text, but so long as you go cold turkey and weren't suffering from cancer or are over 100 years old. (Being a ghoul haults your aging), or were born a ghoul (ghoul bloodlines exist). You can be cure from it, also they don't need to feed as often as you might think. That said they will ask you for another hit any chance they get. 1:00:00 Small correction, they were made by Tremere, was a medieval war crime of sorts and was banned after words, is a creation using 3 different vampires and a fake womb. Very creepy. 1:13:00 Bang on the money, on a side note true faith doesn't have to be in religion, in theory if your a die hard capitalist or communist the dollar sign or hammer and sickle can work as well. 1:20:00 Eh, while True Faith will work, it's depending on if your going with Revised (which this game uses) or 20th's lore, the case that Christianity is cannon. Before Demon and Mummy became decanonized Demon: The Fallen made Christianity cannon. However those game lines aren't cannon, so parts of the bible likely did happen, and reality is fake and Weaver, Wyrm and the Tree are cannon. (Some hardcore VTM fan back before V5 would yell at me for saying this, mainly because they didn't read Mage and Werewolf) 1:29:00 A fun note on the cab driver, he was meant to be Cain, but White Wolf said no basically. Since I don't know where else to put this, while Cain can win during the End Times scenario in the Table Top games, he has no ending written in the book. End times having been practically retconned in 20th, and I just want to pretend V5 doesn't exist alight. (Buckets book made me stop playing WoD, and V5 made me swear off the setting, was made enough that community for the Table Tops for WoD were the worst) 1:31:00 Ironically the game actually downplays the power of werewolfs in WoD, since while most people have about 7 health boxes vampires included, a werewolfs claws on the low end deal 15 agg on average or so, and are inhumanly fast, and can tear open holes into the umbra. (The space between realms basically, to put in in simple terms) Oh and they regen health like wolverine on crack, are resistant to nearly everything other then Silver. (even fire if they make friends with fire spirits)
LMAO v5 was also so bad that I basically stopped caring about WoD too. but then I got into Mage and the nephandi and all that and I fell in love all over again, god I wish bloodlines 2 is everything I want it to be to get people back into WoD but its probably gonna suck.
Nice nod to Mage. It was kind of my favorite of the lines actually. In part because I enjoyed the gamesmanship involved with Pattern and Paradox, and trying to BS reasons why you could do blatant magic without it being blatant magic, as well as the themes of individualism vs the needs of the whole and such. But I also like that it just set up everything as... mass delusion enforced by SCIENCE! of course! It was cheesy, sure, but it was the sort of cheese I preferred over canon Christianity and such. Funny enough I never really remembered what Werewolf was actually supposed to be about conflict wise. Because every time I had a werewolf game people just played it up to be over the top slaughter fests of stuff. Like "I threw a school bus at people" and "I used a harley davison as a melee weapon to clear out an entire Vampire Elysium" and things like that. Heck one of my first Werewolf games (still new to WoD) I ended up stumbling across somehting I logically guessed but didn't know with our mission to fight Vampires in summoning up a bunch of fire for their critical existence failure. Something that got me a stern talking to because I ruined people's fun by one shotting the encounter with my Elemental Creation Gift thing. So I was definitely aware that they massively toned down the Werewolf in that game.
@@ericowens5499 Mage has the issue of being the most community, even worse then the werewolf community. Like way before tumbler became I thing I remember getting banned from their Facebook group for micro aggressions. Doesn't help that the last good edition of mage was 2e. (rev is a mess, and M20 contradicts it's self even, plus goat boy is too much of a degenerate) That said the lore and game was good for 2e and some of revised content, and Chronicals of Darkness Mage 2e I hear is good as well.
Can't believe that i never knew about your wonderful channel! Real hidden gem. Thanks for a great work! Game of my childhood, that was virtually unplayable on vast majority of pc's at it's time. I personally beat it for a first time just last year, without endless loading screens and bugs) Real masterpiece. Thanks to all people involved in picking this game to such a great shape. Thanks again for amazing material! Really glad that my country still have good entertainers, even in such bad times.
You CAN in fact get extra money (and perhaps XP) killing the thieves at the beach in Santa Monica. But their/Mercurio's cash is hidden in a vent in the laundry room. It's the little touches that make this game.
For a VTM video game set post-Week of Nightmares, this has a lot of ambitious content. Ghosts, Zombies, Most of the major Vampire clans, Kuei-Jin, Hunters, possibly Mages (more on that later), Werewolves...just mix in some Fallen or Fairies and we'd have every major food groups represented. Most WoD games (as in, real ones played tableside) never mix this much content from the greater setting in, because the power levels between them (and fuck-off amount of lore) make that difficult. As for Grünfeld Bach...I don't think he was just a regular mortal. A true, normal, human mortal can use true faith to ward off and hurt a variety of Supernaturals in the settings (Vampires, Fallen) but not the outright miracles Bach performed. Which leads me to believe he must be either an Imbued/Hunter, tho I don't know which type of Imbued had these powers again (I remember one of their type having defensive barrier kind of powers), or well, a Mage. There exist a few faithful magic traditions, and believing your magic to be a work of god, empowered by faith, is an easy way for mages to both make their magic work and circumvent Paradox...mostly.
Your editing and storytelling skills are unreal, i enjoyed every second of this, and i play VTMB at least once a year and know the game, but this was still interesting! Extremely well done!
You do a good job at explaining the story and the intricacies of vampire politics with VTM:B. It wasn't necessary for you to do so, but I really like how you went above and beyond and delved into the tabletop material to use as supplementary reference, not only for visual representation with the artwork, but also in adding more detail to what the game inherently provides (notably the story of how Tremere became a vampire and the sections on the Kuei-Jin).
Glad to see you still putting out videos, but Jesus please take care of yourself and be safe out there. Shit is too wild recently. Also great vid, your style is fantastic and your humor knocks shit outta the park.
Hey Warlock, big fan. Usually for content the length of a Hollywood movie I'd fall asleep on the couch part way through, but for your reviews and this one in particular I was switched on from the first moment. Your editing is just a chef's kiss, it's so engaging and easy to follow along. I hope you keep up the good work!
Fun fact: dancing at the bars for long enough gives you 1 humanity point
Yeah.At exactly 10 minutes (yes I counted😅)
Say what? I had no idea :O
And I love that Smaller God song. It screams to be put into a vampire movie. I think it was in the Buffy TV show, so, close enough.
@@ecvjtv2778 Yes. It only works once per club though so use wisely.
I've heard this a lot but whenever I try it myself it doesn't work. Is it maybe a thing for the unofficial patch plus? Cuz I only use the basic patch.
"The sewers are clogged with my creations!"
Andrei, I don't need to know about your bathroom adventures.
That comment made me laugh harder than it probably should have 🤣
It's kind of crazy to me that Harley Quinn in every appearance since Arkham Asylum is a huge Jeanette Voerman ripoff, yet due to VTMB being relatively obscure almost nobody ever talks about this. We literally have the concept art with a picture of Jeanette saying, "Go with this look."
"Why did they decide to vampirize us? Are we that good in the sack?" Well, I've counted 13 condom wrappers in that room, so... probably
It's not what you think. The PC just has a lot of PSI and needs the layers
In theory, anyway, your Sire was convinced by Smiling Jack to embrace someone(you) at random, to set things in motion. Jack is known for sowing complete chaos, and using "unauthorized Embracing" as a tool to achieve it. To a point, Jack engineered everything. Your Embrace, all the way up to what happens to LaCroix, and even Nines appears to be unaware that he was at the center of it the whole time. Which, if you consider that he even kept the Nosferatu from figuring out it was him, is VERY impressive.
@@Aeis_Kalt My guess is that Cain (the taxi driver) helped a lot Jack in that quest.
@@Geekezf this is confirmed in game by Jack in one of the endings. He says something along the lines of, "it played out exactly how you said it would."
@@casteanpreswyn7528 Thank you!
"This _is_ the Source engine." followed immediately by a zombie flying into the roof at mach 3 and smashing into chunky jam after being shot with a .38 was just perfect.
35:50 for peak giblets
For some reason I have a soft spot for this naive goth urban fantasy aesthetics. In the mid-2000s everybody was making fun of teenage girls writing cringey Twilight fanfics or mall ninjas cosplaying Blade, and I never knew how desperately I would miss those times. Now I want to rewatch Underworld again, while listening to some darkwave band and sipping alcohol energy drink.
Great review as always, it definitely was worth waiting!
Man those alcoholic energy drinks were so bad. My sister would get a 3 pack and trash the house. Lol.
@@DissentingDogLevi is she single (for the day)?
I usually can go on tirades about how great the 90s were, and how it was the height of Western civilization, but a little secret is that I like the 00s only slightly less. It was a really fun time with so many awesome things coming out, from cartoons to technology to games, and the internet was really blossoming. Everything had a ton of potential, and being a kid, I wasn't all that impacted by 9/11 or a war in some far-away country I didn't care about.
I'll take living through the aftermath of the Twin Towers over the bullshit we've got today. At least back then we could set aside our differences and just be Americans.
@@MnemonicHack Well, being from ex-Yugoslavia, aka " far-away country you didn't care about", that had civil wars and NATO bombings, I kinda think the opposite of you. No offense.
@@BlackMoonHowls What?
"Must be nice to have RPGs set in places you can actually visit."
Oh man, do I know that feel.
KCD owned
@@Warlockracy Shit, I forgot. :D Guess I don't know that feel.
@@JanPospisilArt also Deus Ex Mank...
Yeah KCD only pretty much.
Velvet is not exactly bugged, she does that because you made a hell of a mess, and killed Chastity with the utmost of aggressiveness. If you first lure away every one, including the strippers, then kill her quietly, then Velvet won't say that.
- You need to lure one of the strippers to a room
- You need to hack the windows machines to make the customers leave
And then you can fight Chastity 1V1 with no problem. It also avoids you losing a Masquerade point.
If I remember correctly, she's resistant to stealth and Dominate skills will require 2 casts to work on her.
I think Velvet is supposed to have a different reaction if you haven't killed bystanders, but they saw your fight with chastity. From what I remember she complains you made a lot of noise.
@@CallofBear Correct, you have to do it quietly. And quietly here means that you can't use any Masquerade-breaking powers - which includes Tremere blood magic.
@@Destroyer2150 hacking the computer only gets rid of one of the voyeurs because the machine that operates one of the windows is broken. I thought for the longest time this was a game glitch, but if you break into the coin machine (and score a nice pile of cash doing so), he can't get anymore quarters so he leaves.
@@ALetourneau Break into the ATM so he can't withdraw additional money.
I really like VtM's take on true faith because it doesn't even need to be religious, just a completely unshakable belief in anything at all. The classic example is of a vampire being warded off by a yuppie brandishing his credit card due to having true faith in the power of money.
I’mma steal that
....thats just begging for a 'jesus christ: capitalist vampire hunter' mod
whats extra fascinating is that understanding how true faith works would probably mean you can never access it. why would you have unshakable belief in something if you knew it didnt matger what that something is?
ignorance is the most powerful weapon against vampires.
@@Prince_Of_Fish Ignorance is a powerful weapon, but having forewarning enough to carry an illegal incendiary shotgun comes a close second ;)
but God is real in oWoD
Fun fact btw: Andrei and Pischa's voice actors are married now. That would be a real power couple of amoral weirdos.
They're also Major Kusunagi and Spike Spiegel for anyone wondering why they recognize them so easily.
Met em both. :) And the Voermann sisters, and Fat Larry's VA.
While the game has quite a few plot holes... the thing about "I wish we didn't tell LaCroix things" and such, like with Nines being near mansion with the murdered Malkavian - do note that LaCroix is a Ventrue. And he quite abundantly uses Domination, both when issuing orders and when getting reports. That's also the explanation as to why you're so single-mindedly running around the town doing his bidding. You're weaker. Barely a fledgling. He is dominating you to keep you in check. Well, realistically cause game limitations, but good to have lore explanation. Moreover, in that specific point of history - LaCroix is actually fully aware of WHO killed the Malkavian leader, since it was all part of his plot. It was all a setup to get you to testify that Nines can be a traitor, hence his insistence to know "was there anyone else?" and use of Dominate to ensure you say it. The priest's arrival is a genuine unplanned surprise to him, which stumbles him for the moment. Also his use of Dominate to control your actions plays into the plot twist in the ending, where you finally grow strong enough (through your actions) to shake off his vampiric powers and act on your own.
There are a lot of plot holes, as I said. But also a lot of nuance in the writing, Troika clearly studied their subject and were fans of the universe.
Unironically a better plot twist than "Would you kindly". Although the neonate you interpret seems to be an anomaly due to how rapidly he goes from fledgling to being able to go head to head with elders. I mean, it's obviously a liberty Troika took for gameplay reasons, but I bet someone formulated some more lore-friendly theories around it.
@@LuckeeStrikee It's definitely a bit shakey how quickly you grow so strong. With that said, many individuals, like Jack, hint that his age and relatively low generation are the only impressive things about him. He is otherwise an upstart. A pushover. An individual who is far from being great politician, skimming by on his lucky encounter with his "Sheriff". Surrounded by arguably his betters, be it beliefs or keen mind, on all sides.
Besides, writing-wise it's just a really great moment at the end where you see him go from ordering "give me the key" and still being deluded in his belief of victory to basically begging and falling apart, as his last little leg gets swept and you're well beyond his control now. If you picked up on hints about Dominate abuse anyway.
@@Legiro Also doesn't help that when he possessed a Suicide Bomber, that thanks to how the power works(ed, now its Aupex in V5, which.... ok), LaCroix took that full damage himself.
Which, Fortitude 5 or not, thats gonna hurt like a bitch. Also explans why his dominate doesn't work as well on the Fledgling, not just that the 8th Generation Fledgling grew that powerful in a few weeks, but LaCroix was also injured and out of Blood to push for anything higher than Mesmerize.
And while not canon, LaCroix does use Submerged Directive on the Player for the Sabbat route for the Clan Quest mod (which I highly recommend, basically the closest thing to an expansion pack, adding companions, the essential Unofficial Update, Diablery, and the Sabbat route, at the cost of Bloodbuff no longer being able to help out with lockpicking)
@@artexgrey6266 I know, I said it was only now Aupex in V5 for some reason. I'm aware its a Domination 5 power in V20
Plot hole this and that
To hell with plot themes are my new friend
33:55
Worlockracy confirmed as having Brujah blood
Probably usually replays VtmB as Tremere or Ventrue just to get back at his dad
While on the run from the FBI, Mitnick intercepted their radio traffic and, realizing they knew where he was and before fleeing his hideout, left a box of donuts and a note in the fridge of the place he was staying. Nothing terrible, something like "For the hard working officers of the FBI" or something to that effect. He's boring now.
In his defense, I'm pretty sure they left his ass in solitary for a couple years straight after they busted him. I think most people would come out a bit traumatized and boring.
@@johnnydjiurkopff he was in solitary for 8 months and served 5 years. Solitary is literally torture, as recognized by the Mormons(I believe, might be a different religious sect) who came up with it based on the idea that “if you left someone alone with the Lord’s word all day, they might get better”. However because Americans are the most propagandized population on Earth, it is still practiced.
He’s boring because he became what he sought to fuck around with.
@@Hamun002 fair enough. Btw idk what you said tripped the algorithm but they hid your reply. Thank god for notifications.
Donusts with a sticky note that just said FBI Donuts 🍩 .
Fun fact in the wider Masquerade lore a banker defeated a high level vampire due to his faith in "credit"
He brandished a credit card at him like a cross and it worked.
As a newcomer back in the day my first clan was Malkavian and it was honestly the best. The mental clicks I made on the lore during a second playthrough actually made the spoilers make sense because the first time around, you don't understand the spoilers.
I legit thought my dude was *only* spouting nonsense and he was but when that nonsense starting making sense I started second guessing myself.
Still though, it requires a second playthough.
Playing the game once and only once as a Malkavian is kinda wasting them. And I'd say the coolness of their dialog and quirks is more effective and impactful the other way around. Because you're not going to remember everything, and a lot of the insight will be missed.
You _can_ play Malk first, I just really don't think one should. If you know what's going on their dialog becomes "holy crap that's so cool" if you don't it becomes "holy crap that's so random"
I do agree with Warlock that expecting multiple playthoughs outta people/games these days isn't realistic. Thing's are different now. That said I can't agree with playing Malk first, there isn't really any good/right way though and one should do what they feel is best for them. And I suppose watching this video prepares one as if they had already done a playthrough.
I played Malkavian on my third round and at some point Jack bluntly tells you "If you understood half the shit you were babbling about, I'd have to kill you."
>the Nosferatu have to avoid being seen and navigate the quest hubs via the sewers
I mean, the game TELLS you that but in reality, because the detection radius for non-hostile NPCs is so small you basically have to be halfway up their asshole for them to notice your presence. As long as you aren't the kind of player that likes to physically brush up against every NPC they meet, you'll never lose masquerade points.
Yeah, that's a common misconception I constantly see. And not only that, but if you can talk to an NPC, they will never trigger a violation
@@cdru515 I think there's like, 2 NPC conversations in the entirety of the game you get locked out of as Nosferatu.
One thing I never understood is why not wear hooded over-coat and mask, that look shouldn't be too out of place during nighttime LA.
@@w415800 The real issue people noted with nosferatu, in general, is that they're treated as if humans will think of them as monsters, rather than as people with extreme disfigurement from birth defects or injury
@@cdru515 Although most NPCs will react to you like you're just incredibly ugly.
Man, the transitions between face frames are a bit harsh, but the emotions still come through so hard.
1) Valve's tech was good. 2) Someone worked hard on facial scripting of all the dialogues.
This still beats like 90% of games today, especially if they're not fully face-mocapped.
Hell it's better then some mo-capped animations today
Then again when they're so desperate they hit the character model with a bat in the face a few times it's unsurprising
Honestly I prefer this rather than someone just standing there like a stiff board, it feels a lot more immersive to see someone actually emote as they speak, old tech aside.
Even New Vegas beats any other game on writing alone, then.
Frankly the only thing I feel was a fuckup was the lack of thrown distractions, they half assed the stealth system sooo bad😂
The dialogue options for a malkavian playthrough strongly suggest the cab driver is in fact Cain himself, it’s very fascinating
Late comment, but it also fits in with the theory that the reason your character, a new vampire, can go head to head with older Vampires is because a Antediluvian is giving them power. It's just happens to be the big man himself
The more likely scenario is the cab driver being a methuselah Malkavian.
@@MultiKbarrythe file names reveal it's Cain
@@jiaan100 Nothing stops that from being the Malks name. Caine isn’t a name that others can’t take up.
@@MultiKbarry ok
A few bits of neat (or obscure) trivia. You're probably familiar with most of this, but if anyone's wondering.
Kuei-Jin don't always rot in sunlight. They have two separate energy pools represented by a Yin and Yang on their character sheet. They only rot if their dark energy exceeds their light energy. Generally speaking, a Kuei-Jin wants to keep both pools in rough balance with each other, but this is nearly impossible from a practical standpoint. The more out of balance they are, the faster they'll rot. There's some other really interesting quirks with them. They're technically possessing spirits, in most cases the body they inhabit will have been their original form, however that isn't always the case, and it's entirely possible to play a Kuei-Jin in tabletop that is possessing a completely unfamiliar body.
Bach is (marginally) supernatural, as he has points (probably 4 or 5 dots) in True Faith, which was something called a Numina. Numina were a kind of hedge magic open to (otherwise) non-supernatural characters. There was an entire mini-line of books grouped together as "Hunters Hunted," and later, "Year of the Hunter," which explored normal characters who hunted supernatural creatures. There was a lot of really neat stuff in the tabletop games regarding normal humans who started hunting monsters (not to be confused with the supernaturally imbued humans that started hunting monsters through the power of schizophrenia.)
Interestingly, the original Hunters Hunted supplement included a vampire clan, The Children of Osiris, who could gain sunlight immunity through their clan discipline (granted, it took nine dots to access. And, yes, this IS on the same five dot system bloodlines uses. Characters with stats above five dots are exceptionally rare and, often, horrifically powerful.) Later editions would (basically) roll these guys over into Mummies.
The hengeyokai is a wereshark. These are the same kind of supernatural creatures as the Werewolves (the collective term for these is the "Changing Breeds.) While Werewolves are a "common" variety of supernatural creature, Weresharks are exceptionally rare, with most of the sub-species wiped out during American Nuclear tests in the 50s and 60s. There's less than 100 surviving Weresharks who aren't affiliated with the eastern, Beast Courts. The term Hengeyokai is just a generic term for any shapeshifter affiliated with the Beast Courts.
This was probably a rhetorical question, but, no, The Masquerade only applies to Vampires. Most of the World of Darkness's critters have reasons to keep quiet and out of sight. In the case of Werewolves (and to varying degrees the other Changing Breeds), their supernatural concealment is that they were so horrifying that normal humans would absolutely lose their shit, and suppress any memories of encountering one in full hybrid form. Other supernatural creatures are completely unaffected.
Also, I'm really glad to see you're safe.
fascinating info dump
True faith is incredibly rare in the world of darkness setting, and also incredibly dangerous to beings like Vampires. To put in reference how powerful True Faith is (and five points no less), when you're talk at the beginning of a game that crucifixes won't kill you, Bach can show you a crucifix and cause you intense physical pain and a strong desire to either run as fast as you can away from him or the urge to self terminate. He doesn't need to be incredibly strong to kill vampires, because all he would need to do is recite something generic like "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." and most vampires would be unable to fight back.
YEAS, yes, and yes. Thank you!
DM is that you?
It's worth mentioning that while each supernatural has their own version of the Masquerade and have no interest in keeping the secret of other supernaturals, they also don't try and reveal their existence for fear that the teeming masses might wonder 'if werewolves are real, then what else is out there?' So you are right that vampires have no need to cover up masquerade breaches of other types of supernatural creatures, they probably will do it if it looks too obviously supernatural.
The most insidious thing about the Heather plotline is the way the game has presented ghouls up to that point. You can learn about the existence of ghouls either from Knox or Mercurio, both of whom seem to be handling their condition pretty well (probably because they were high-functioning addicts already). It's not until you get to the downtown hub that you have a chance to meet characters like Patty who are not as fortunate.
I suppose Vandal is a good example of a ghoul gone wrong in Santa Monica, but it's hard to tell if his insanity is a side effect of the Malk blood or if he was just born that way.
there is a quote from Vandal where he mentions that he liked watching rats get caught in mousetraps and watching them die, so I'd say it's at least partially just him having mental issues to begin with. though it wouldn't be too unusual to think that the clan of the vampire can affect the ghoul, as iirc if you're malkavian when Heather captures a guy for you she refers to him as a fish and doesn't really seem to understand that she kidnapped someone. my memory of it is a bit fuzzy though, I could be wrong
@@flossimoth no no, you're 100% right. Malkavian Heather is an extremely delusional person. Any other Heather is "normal".
Vandal was already a psychopath before the Queen Bitch introduced him to more madness. There's a file in Arthur Kilpatrick's Krime'puter that mentions how Vandals lawyer gets him off the hook for stalking a woman in the dead of night, carrying a knife and a stun gun. Here's the actual lines from that file;
"Vandal Cleaver - Bond written 01/01/02 - Two Counts Concealment of a deadly weapon, Threats. Case# 341800. Bond Amount: $20,000. Type of Bond: Cash - paid in full. Notes: Picked up after local woman reported being stalked by subject. Found with a knife and a stun gun. Good lawyer got this guy's sentence talked down from intent to do bodily harm to restraining order in a matter of hours."
SPOILERS
25:40 You did not see THAT dog on the pier in Santa Monica. According to game files, that "dog" specifically was the Gangrel culprit of the pier murder (and all the others in that sidequest chain) checking on his handywork
58:20 Velvet/Chastity is not bugged. Since you aggroed Chastity during her show, there's a non zero chance she hurt some of her fellow dancers. Even if YOU did not hurt anyone else, if there's bloodshed during the mission it's considered failed. The proper way to complete it is to hack the ATM in the basement, so that the customer leaves the area and all the other dancers go to the backroom, leaving Chastity alone on the stage. Once she's alone you can kill her with ease without any side casualties.
Really? I thought it was Beckett keeping an eye on me since he confronts me shortly after blowing up the warehouse. Also during the first dialogue with him you mention if he's following you. Thanks for the correction.
Same. But the gangrel murderer thing makes sense.
@@Warlockracy I think it's Beckett, turning into a wolf is a very advanced form of the Protean discipline, and the murderer is recently embraced as well as a Caitiff, highly unlikely he's that powerful.
The safest and quickest way to kill Chastity is by force feeding.
Are you sure? You can say to becket he's been following you and there's no other opportunity for it to happen.
"Newcomers should play Malkavians EXCLUSIVELY"
Unironically *YES*
Look. I get that some people will say "Oh spoilers" and to that I say you can spoil yourself on any character just fine by talking to Rosa, Becket, Pisha, Jack, or half a dozen other people who give you sound advice. In fact, it's genuinely not ALWAYS a good idea to just randomly pick the schitzo options in your dialog, as that's a very fast way to make no friends and plenty of enemies.
Malks off the bat are the most interesting blind playthough. There is no way to tell if the whispers in your ear is just pointless chatter, or foreshadowing, or UNRELIABLE foreshadowing, bad advice, good advice, or just silly jokes. You have zero idea if the dialog option you pick that is clearly a silly malkavianism will lead to a good outcome. Just because all the vampires know your crazy and you can't help BUT to be crazy, doesnt mean theyre all going to be ok with you being crazy.
On top of that, Malkavians have a pretty ok set up for the game. Dementia is a very versatile tool, enabling fun combos with ranged, melee, and/or stealth builds, the lattermost of which the malks excell at given auspex and obfuscate are also in their wheelhouse.
Malkavians are best for a first playthrough because theyre FUN. They are IMMEDIATELY fun. The only clan more beginner friendly is probably Torries, who get Celerity, Presence and Auspex so they can do a LOT of fun things, and due to humanity coming back at double the rate it normally does they help newbies stay in the safe-zone.
W + correct + based
I agree since that was my first playthrough. After the Malk going Tremere or Venture is solid
Funny thing about the idea of needing the Masquerade or not. I mostly think of Mage, because Mage: The Awakenng is the same setting and all that as Vampire: The Masquerade and they cross over.
In Mage it's quite literally set up where the collective beliefs of humanity determine reality. Something called "Pattern" which the Technocracy set up in ancient times to actually give permanence to the world instead of whatever local sorcerer god-king decided was reality on a whim.
In that sense the Masquerade remains important. Because the fact that most humans in setting don't believe in vampires, magic, ghosts, etc, etc, etc, is what kind of keeps them from being everywhere and overpopulating the world and what not. Because these things are believed "Not to exist".
So if they believed and accepted that Vampires existed, and magic existed, and so forth as the Masquerade tries to hide? Then you end up in a world where things like Physical Laws once again become "Whatever some local asshat with power thinks it is". It'd be a nightmare realm beyond imagining most likely.
But that's not really relayed in the Vampire only lore.
so it's anti-ork psyker shit, is what i'm hearing
God, this game and dark messiah of might & magic are these bizarre, ugly, spectacular unicorns. The sheer attention to detail and effort put into telling a massive story with this technology are probably the most impressive achievements I've ever seen in this industry.
The German word for being embarrassed for another person is: "Fremdschämen"
Greetings from Germany
🍻
"Substitute shame." Thank you Dutch for being a Rosetta stone between English and German.
That is how I felt hearing that psuedo Russian gibberish from the voice actor
Your point about whether or not the masquerade is even necessary is the ultimate plot of a major character from "The Night Road". I'm sure if you had a "keeping up with the toreador" type reality TV show ppl would end up just fine with the existence of vampires lol
Also note, Jeanette is such an iconic character that she was in fact the inspiration for the modern Harley Quinn design.
Not to mention voiced by Grey Delisle (Azula) :]
No, she wasn't.
@@dokdirge No, she's definitely voiced by Grey Delisle.
@@fatmetalheadnerd4376 Not what I was disagreeing with.
The quality of the voice acting and face animations is one of my favorite aspects of this game. You might think both are excessive at first, but it gives each character such powerful feelings and truly cements the memories you have of them. On the few times that Lacroix loses his composure, he is a wonderful illustration of this.
>Starts getting back into VTMB and looking at mods
>Less than a week later, Warlockracy releases a video on VTMB
>Tightens Tinfoil hat
any time you mention it- someone reinstalls it, as is the tradition
Clan Quest Mod
@@Michael-bn1oi Yep, that was one of them.
Same, except I've been getting hard back into the tabletop the last few months.
@@knightofsolice1304 That's also something I've been looking at for a long time. Been wanting to read the rulebooks even if I'll probably never play a game.
55:26 Ash Rivers and the "Asp Hole" are references to the late actor River Phoenix (perhaps best known for playing a teenage Indiana Jones in the opening scenes of "The Last Crusade"), and the "Viper Room" (a Hollywood night club owned by Johnny Depp, where Phoenix lethally overdosed on a speedball).
It's made even more explicit by Malkavian dialogue in which your characher refers to him as a "dead phoenix".
"the anarchs released a powerful deconstruction of the camarilla power vertical, and then proceeded to do nothing at all," lol
I feel seen. Or attacked. Or seen then attacked.
@@BeepSmile I would be extremely perplexed if someone managed to attack you without seeing you first
Or, perhaps more aptly, concerned as to htf you managed to piss off some blind guy to such a degree
@@d1g1beastpr1me7 Hello.
While I am very gratified for your interest and concern, I have been informed by my legal team to cease any and all discussion of this topic outside of spaces protected by lawyer-client confidentiality.
Thank you and have a wonderful day.
@@BeepSmile Oof
Good luck with that case m8, sounds like a struggle
Your welcome, and have a wonderful everything
The Weapon guy in Chinatown is almost certainly a reference to that one Californian Senator who got popped for smuggling weapons for Norinco, the Nationalized Chinese armory. They were attempting to sell tanks and RPGs to American gangsters, even after they were banned from distribution in the States for trying to do that several years beforehand. They made some cool decent weapons.
As a long term fan of the WoD I'd say, anecdotally, it's best described by just asking a 14 year-old wearing black lipstick what they think of society and then assuming everything they say is completely correct.
Tesdudinate In Pfp!
'society'
And as the saying goes: "Whenever someone mentions or talks about VTMB, someone will reinstall it." You just made me reinstall it yet again. Love your channel and thank you for reviewing one of my favourite rpgs. Glad to see you are still doing alright despite these troubling times and thank you again for the great content! Looking forward to seeing what this controversial game is. I always find the whole Heather situation creepy too but the fact you get the best armor in the game out of her makes me grudgingly keep her around
uuuuuuuuuuuh
Gotta remember, we're even creepier
Reinstall it? I never uninstalled
The fact that you called out beckett for being the obnoxious cringe lord self insert he is instead of mistakenly thinking he’s cool or in any way witty alone is worth watching this whole video!!
Even back in 2004 when I first played this game as a teenager I thought of him as an unmitigated douchebag.
I can not tell you how much joy it brings my heart to hear after almost 20 years later that there are people out there that not only realize this but will put it into their review of the game!!
Amazing work my man!
beckett: “oh I would but it appears I forgot my fine tooth comb.”
Me, talking to my computer screen: “No, but you certainly brought your shit excuse for a personality.”
I CANNOT recommend Clan Quest enough, it lore-accurately expands on Sabbath and makes more out of them then just 'OH WE BAD GUYS' (Though they are still amoral in human terms.) But makes it so one can actually see SOME sort of sense in what they do, and the Priest character is one of my favorite video games characters ever, if I could pay you to make a video, I'd honestly pay to watch you review Clan Quest.
I've subbed to a few creators on the strength of their Bloodlines or Morrowind retrospectives. I could have sworn you've covered this already so I'm extremely happy to see this. Perfect viewing for when my curry arrives. Thanks!
probably got it mixed up with Mandalore's video.
@@KL-tn1xc or Sseth
Right?
@@ToTheNines87368 in addition to those top tier channels, I may have also put Indigo Gaming, The Salt Factory, Strat-Edgy, LGR, and NeverKnowsBest's channels into that mix of guys who cover the classics. If you have the stomach for a 7hour Morrowind retrospective, PatricianTV has you covered. All worth checking out IMO.
@@ToTheNines87368 sseth has a wildly different presentation rooted in adhd and utter degeneracy (as it should) i doubt anyone with 2 brain cells would mix these channels up.
Two things from what I remember when I read about the VTM lore. (40 mins in when I'm writing this comment)
1. Other supernatural creatures in the World of Darkness do enforce their own masquerades through their own ways.
2. The reason why the masquerade exists is to hide themselves from hunters (there are huge ass vampire hunting organizations, hell I think V5 that came out in 2017 deals with spy agencies like the CIA finding out about the vampires) and potentially the Antediluvians.
As an extra thing for 2, basically everyone keeps up a masquerade not only because of Hunters and their own individual primordial monsters, but also because normal humans outnumber the populations of all supernatural communities combined by several orders of magnitude and some supernatural beings, such as Mages, rely on the masquerade to exist properly, tend to think in terms of "if the word gets out for any one of us, it gets out for all of us," and also tend to be strong enough that getting on their bad sides is about as wise as driving a car filled with atmospheric pollutants into an armed thermonuclear bomb without wearing a seatbelt.
As for how seriously they take the consequences of breaking the masquerade, that tends to vary not just edition to edition, but book to book, too. Tonal consistency was not White Wolf's forte.
@@waylandvolundr3913 Your metaphor as description of the consequences of fucking with a Mage really downplays how bad it is to fuck with a Mage.
@@Hamun002 That bad huh? I mean, in watching LA By Night someone comments that they've seen or heard of humans doing stuff with magic that makes them look like amateurs.
@@JnEricsonx mages are ludicrously fabulously powerful. Like an average Mage fucks up all but the best of anything else.
@@JnEricsonx baby Mages, by existing with their equivalent of Humanity low, could accidentally break the laws of physics if they didn’t understand how to handle the issue.
To this day VTMB stands as my favorite World of darkness content.
Even though the game is far from perfect. Combat is rough and the game starts coming apart towards the end.
But that feeling of being a single player in a big, chaotic world the game accomplishes is great. As well as many characters like Beckett, Jeanette, Nines and more all being well developed.
Honestly, it is so cool seeing how a community of people saw potential in this game and worked to make it the best it could be.
I started playing it again and was honestly kinda disappointed after the Hollywood sewers, chinatown was fine, but for some reason felt pretty empty besides the main quest compared to the rest of the game.
I liked the Warrens. Mainly because it was such a difficulty spike. Had to scavenge rats and figure out the preggo-fleshbeasts' patterns out to survive. As for the kuei-jin, I LOVE the malk responses where you straight up spook her the fuck out with what you know.
1:07:37 - To answer your question, Gargoyles have an ability called Visceratika, something only they can do, allowing them a modicum of talent with changing their stone coloration and adapting their physiology to be tougher. It wouldn't surprise me if it was a storyteller contrivance at the same time, but I could see a Gargoyle adapting some stone-like adornments (in this case, Chinese armor) to hide itself in plain sight in city communities. And it could be implied that Strauss made it to spy on Abrams, or even assassinate him if he became more of a problem since it's clearly a combat-built Gargoyle.
Or he'll send it over to the Giovanni just in case they get a bit too bold either way it'll be a big masqurade violation seeing a Gargoyle already pissed off by their master allowed to let loose in public.
@@ExeErdna Sending a Gargoyle after a Dominate clan is a bad idea.
Great to see you persevere, despite world events. I'll be watching this as soon as I can make time.
He is Russian
turn off the TV. handle your own. mind your own. protect your own. problems solved.
@@TannyWanny Mentality like this is exactly why the problem exists.
There's also that pretty interesting serial killer sub quest that starts at the very beginning of the game but if I remember right you have to get pretty far before you can actually track the killer back down to Santa Monica.
It takes you up until Hollywood iirc for anyone wondering
Totally agree that Malkavian should be the first playthrough for everyone. Having vague references to things to come isn't very useful or interesting if you already know everything that's going to happen.
I picked it first run and no idea what my character was talking about half the time untill I played again as a diffrent clan
It isn't really supposed to be helpful.
Do whatever you want, but it takes from the experience.
I'm sure you've seen this many times, but your video quality as well as presentation are something to behold.
The quality far exceeds what's expected of a single person, yet, you deliver on time, everytime.
I've gone through a lot, and I've watched a multitude of your videos multiple times. I'm just a drop in the bucket, but, for me? These videos send me to sleep, they ease long drives to work, they help after a rough day. I'm glad to say i subbed to you a while ago, but, considering everything, i don't see why you wouldn't be a major, mainstream player.
Given your quality of videos, as well as quality of voiceover and ability to engage the viewers, i don't see why you won't be a mainstream player given enough time.
Regardless, to me? An amazing, easy way to ease my long drives to work, to wade me to sleep. I'm glad your channel exists, and i hope you see this and that it encourages you to charge harder into this endeavor.
A lot of us, regardless of what's going on don't know what to do, but, enjoy our time. And your what makes that time a fun thing to do.
Have fun, friend. Glad to see you flourish
I wanted to echo this meaningfully, and I feel a like is not enough.
awesome "review" as always. I was gonna give you a score of 11/10, but you skipped the crazy doctor quest to obtain the sickest weapon of all. The Severed Arm (it's also a good snack for Pisha). Only 10/10 for you. Joke apart, thanks for entertaining us regardless of what's happening. We are all boomers, we are friends. From eu, with love
I did the quest, but decided not to include it cause it ruined the pacing of the segment. In the UP you can get a severed arm weapon by dismembering a body (almost any body) with a spell afaik.
@@Warlockracy it was just an "silly" excuse to praise your production (when I was young it was too fun for me holding TAB with a severed arm equipped and just saying hello). I love your channel, I really do .Every single video is really well made. A perfect mix between a documentary, a review and your personal take. PS. If I had one wish, I would love to know what you think about the game Inquisitor, one of my all-time favourites
4:18 THANK YOU! The advice that you shouldn't pick Malkavian for your first playthrough has always struck me as absurd. I played one for my first playthrough because they seemed cool. And it was a blast! Yes, if you already know what the plot is, you can figure out what their special dialogue is referring to and realize how much they're able to see. But, crucially, _without_ already knowing the plot it just comes across as random mad jabbering. You won't have the game spoiled if you pick Malkavian. Instead you'll have a fantastic time with imo the best writing in the game and scenes that no other clans get access to.
Except the writing isn't mad jibbering, it's actually really insightful and interesting and the effect is lost if one plays them first.
@@planescaped Except you can then play the game _a second time_ as them, and have the same interesting great dialogue but this time understanding what the character is talking about. Whereas the first time, you won't really have any idea. You only get 1 first playthrough, so it should probably by the one that is most interesting. And that's Malkavian. Because you can still play the game again after and get the "Ooooh, _that's_ what they're talking about" moments. You don't lose anything by playing them first, you only "lose" something if you _never_ play as them after your first playthrough.
Around the 1 hour mark you mention that tremere got his powers by deablarising saulot, which is only half correct. The original blood that clan tremere used was a mix of tzimisce and gangrel blood. Which is the actual reason the tzimisce hate the tremere, other than them being a pillar of the cammarilla
In a recent playthrough with Wesp5's patch, I discovered that when you go to the diner to find Jeanette, you can talk down the thugs in the diner from attacking you if you speak to them before going to the ringing phone in the corner! I love this game so much!
I really, really love how you used the lore info dump dialogue for footnotes. Every time a new concept comes up - boom, let's have game's own VA explain it. An excellent editing choice.
Neat bit of trivia, on the Tremere. They actually originated from another pen and paper role-playing game, Ars Magica, about wizards in medieval Europe.
I also thought the loud music fit the mood of the game, since... Well, the goth clubs and dive bars it takes place in are like that.
Absolutely knocked it out of the fucking park with this one. It's a shame that Bloodlines 2 will most likely never happen, and if it does it won't be anywhere near the quality of 1.
Went ahead and subscribed on Patreon. Stay safe, dude.
well atleast swansong is coming v_v
if that gets cancelled too i cry
@@artexgrey6266 really? i'm enjoying it so far. bugs up the butt tho
58:59 Honestly, it's harder to find a role where Fred Tatsciore *does* sound like himself - the man's the walking definition of range
This game still has the most entertaining dialogue I've ever experienced. This and Fallout New Vegas are my all-time favorite RPGs (plus Planescape Torment).
try disco elysium
@@Bleilock1 Finished it a dozen times, just forgot to mention it here. Absolute masterpiece.
@@Heyoka86 so glad to hear
I had the same pleasure :D
I've been thinking about getting myself Vampire the Masquerade recently and of course I remembered reading about your preparations for the events currently unfolding in the Ukraine. Glad you're doing well and also keeping up the content. You're a great content creator and I'm glad I've stumbled upon you through your Morrowind videos.
"the" Ukraine
@@BudMasta off the world with you, ZZnut
@@nerevarinenwah3690 Ukraine is a country, not a region, numbnuts.
Yes, 'The Borderlands'@@BudMasta
26:55 I have a headcanon that this sabbat goon was malkavian antitribu, hence why he knows that he is in the videogame.
"Young people just want to change their gender and have gay sex all the time" 😂 that got me. Awesome work in this video. A lot of informative humor
Can confirm my first playthrough of Bloodlines was as a Malkavian and it was fuckin awesome. I really felt like I was playing as a crazy person with weirdly incredibly insight into the world.
Utica m37 shotgun is actually a really good early game weapon with lethality of 20(higher only flamethrower with 110) and a knock back effect. The only trick - this gun needs to be used up close and personal to truly shine.
Ураааа!
Upd.
4 percent? That can't be right, there should be a lot more of us. Maybe you've seen some vpn-based statistics? Russian sseth can't be such unheard in Russia
Big hype for this, man. TWO hours? Cool as hell.
Hope you and your family are staying safe, and thanks for the continued content!
Russians are safe, no bombing and raping, no torturing and executions any civilian, just peaceful, casual life, not giving a heck. Ukrainians are not.
Why wouldn't they.
The war is quite some distance away and the Russians are pulling back if that's what you mean.
@@michimatsch5862 ACSHUALLY 🤓
@@michimatsch5862 Because of the economic sanctions on Russia making life harder for him and others in the country, especially if you rely on international platforms for your income I think, and also because he opposes the war and went to protests, I don't know if he's currently still protesting but it's pretty risky
@@michimatsch5862 well, author is an activist
I always loved the writing in this game. I'll never forget the big guy, "I know I got a weight problem. I just don't give a fuck!" Christ, I nearly fell out of my chair when he said that. So damn funny.
My favorite game of all time
I will point out Generation is about the potential for a vampire power, a lower generation don't make them automatically more powerful. Jack might be higher gen than Therese and Jeanette, he's also much older, and probably more experienced for example., same can be said of LaCroix
A lower gen is innately more powerful in some regards. Blood usage and Dominate immunity being the notable factors.
@@MultiKbarry some not all. Bigger blood pool, immunity to higher gen dominate. But beyond that, they are not any more powerful than someone of same experience level.
@@oliviawilliams6204 You forgot about the blood per turn and the ability to blood buff at higher levels while lasting a decent time.
@@MultiKbarry true.
What a way to spend Sunday evening
Favorite video of yours that I watch every so often. Don't know why, but very relaxing.
Agreed! I always end up coming back to it.
Talking about how vampire could be alternative humans, I personally think that it is a general setting problem, which they tried to resolve in 5th edition with Second Inquisituon thing, but they still fucked up all the other things, so let's pretend it don't exist. Well, the quintessential part of the vampire society - the masquerade can't be in-game demolished because of two reasons - it's good for the elders, who can punish younger, more ambitious vampire's using the masquerade traditions, and the elders, who may still remember the first inquisition days(The reason why Cammarilla established masquerade), and overcautioness about all, rules the vampire society. From players perspective there are three reasons for masquerade. First of all, it's DM instrument to control player's characters. It's also a very easy to create a plot for your campaign using violation of a masquerade as a basis. And for the last one - first redactions came out in late 90-s/early 2000-s, all this conspiracy theories, private undergrouns communities and other wierd shit was popular back then, as I think.
But if you think of it now - all Vampire part of the setting from realistic perspective is total bullshit. Like, literally everything is in the internet or in governmental data centers now, is there any possibility that bloodsucking monsters with wierd magic shenanigans and literally eternal lifes could even live in the society, not even control some parts of it, but live? Fucking doubt that, that's for sure.
Werewolfs btw more realistic than vampires, their Lithuania can be violated more than vampire's masquerade, and they usually play in countryside or wilderness. I mean regular campaigns, not about eco-terrorists and nuclear destructions under the name of Gaya.
Aren't most werewolf campaigns about eco-terrorism or vaguely posadist nuclear annihilation in the name of gaya? Is that just a habit among my friends?
@@johnnydjiurkopff i didn't play much werewolfs, but most of my games were about some investigations, Lithuania violations, contacting with spirits and other umbra stuff. I think in 5 campaigns we blew up only one factory full of banes. Nuclear stuff was mentioned ones, i think we stole some documents about wyrm spawns from a nuclear facility's director office, but that's all. I don't say that all of werewolf campaigns are like this, I'm just using my personal experience with that games, sorry for confusion.
Wesp deserves his own video, that man might well BE a vampire. He has been on top of this game for virtually me entire adult life. Seriously, it's quite insane.
It's amazing how well updated the UP is along with Wesp5's involvement in the community. I asked on reddit to find out a new song with the patch and got a reply from them within hours
Just about time! You know, few months when I first discovered you, I was shocked to not seeing Vampire Masquerade The Bloodline in your review list! No shit, i've been expecting a review on this, but not today.
This will be a fine week as I dissect this video and rewatching again and again
I like Chunk. I know the devs wrote him to be some idiot, but I like Chunk. He's that poor schmoe working security for an enterprise he doesn't have the foggiest clue about. Hell, even when you think he's creeping on somebody, turns out he's just trying to keep an eye out on his Bavarian cream in the break room. Think we can all empathize with that.
Other supernatural entities are in fact, a consideration for vampires and the masquerade. Funnily enough Vampires are nowhere near the biggest dogs in the "keep supernatural shit under wraps". That would be the mages...
"Remember: if you let people SEE you doing blatantly magical shit, reality will come and knock your fucking teeth out."
@@fuzzytransmissionman and that's without touching the stuff about God being a supercomputer and angels hyper programs designed to fuck your shit for messing with the demiurges status quo
Depends on what gen the vampire is. Antes and methuselahs sit at the top of the food chain.
I think the fan patch makes the zombie quest easier. I remember back in the day it being super hard, but replaying the game last year or so I also did it on my first try.
Also I know you couldn’t have covered the whole game but you missed some meme moments especially in Santa Monica, like Mr Gimble the prosthetist and the thin blood that was being kept on the basement of the hospital.
You can move faster by alternating A and D rapidly while holding W. Changing directions in this way seems to give you a slight speed boost, so the faster you can alternate the faster you can run. Helped immensely while running through the sewer mission.
This is a source game. You can bhop strafe jump your way to mach 10.
Late to the party, but this video was so well edited and concise with the information - great job!
The reviewing combined with the story telling and impeccable editing makes me absolutely baffled that this guy doesn’t have more subs or views. Really tightly made video and well thought out and one of the only long form videos that has me actually watching the entire thing and not just putting it on to listen to in the background
this man will probably play pathologic eventually and have a video on it considering where this channel looks to be heading
God please
was literally thinking about this as I'm scrolling through the comments
You never miss, Warlockracy. I'm so happy to see the effort you put in your videos meet such a growth in public reaction. Thank you for covering so deeply these old games and mods from my forgotten childhood. It sparks much joy.
As someone who played the game only after already being well-versed in VtM lore and WoD lore in general, I've always wondered what it is like to play it without any prior knowledge.
I did. I think I dropped the game after getting to the Nosferatu sewers, but I was really fascinated by the lore, especially by vampires being different compared to their classical depiction, with all the clans, rules and powers. So I came back after awhile, and on the second try I grew to really like the game. And to me it just got better over time, as I've read up on the World of Darkness and tried different clans, and also got older and was able to appreciate the characters and the writing.
Also funny to me that I found the game completely by accident, can't even remember where, but I'm glad I did.
@@TheEvilShepard I played it with very minor spoilers.
I saw two episodes of a channel I had watched for a long time that played in the setting and I was like:
That sounded coop, let's go.
Don't think I'll be playing the tabletop game any time soon though, currently already playing a vampire game with them.
@@michimatsch5862 I keep thinking about trying to play the tabletop, but I don't think I'm very likely to find people that are interested and that I can get along with, haha
That said, it didn't prevent me from stealing parts of the vampire lore for DnD games that I ran :)
@@TheEvilShepard From my experience, if you had some players for long enough you can get them on anything.
Just the question whether everyone will like it.
I mean, we are currently playing Brinkwood, a game about drinking the rich, literally.
Like they are vampires. The pitch is buckwild and the lore still manages to be dark but why would any of my players jump on that?
"Guys, imagine capitalism but the capitalists are also vampires and it's the industrial revolution."
I am pretty much convinced I could get my players to try anything.
Before that we only played DnD adjacent stuff so this was a real shift. If you got some long-time players...just go for it.
@@michimatsch5862 Quite inspiring and sounds like fun as well. I'll give it some thought, thanks :)
I like how you seemed to focus on the charm and charisma of the game. Especially with that stuff at the end. I really can't think of any other game with such character like this one.
It feels like this channel exists just to review most of my favorite RPGs. I love this game, even though I only played it once, over a decade ago at this point (probably in 2008 or 2009). I've always felt like I should go back to it and do a Malkavian or Nosferatu playthrough, but so much of the talk about this game is about the Malkavian playthrough, it feels like I've had 90% of it spoiled already. I played it as a Brujah and took the early guns being bad as a sign to fight in melee, which honestly, it works out pretty well until you fight the sheriff, and then it just falls apart. But part of why that works feels like cheesing some broken mechanics anyway: I'd just drain people in combat if I couldn't stealth kill them. It takes a long time for enemies to be dangerous enough to outdamage all of the regeneration you get for feeding on someone.
I've heard the Gangrel playthrough can also be interesting, because at certain points you can meet skill checks and get free upgrades from Beckett. Dude is definitely a cringy self-insert character, though.
Yes! Now the only troika game left is temple of elemental evil. Hope the stalker video rewrite wont take too long
Love the editing and the way you left clues to figure out some stuff on our own! Now i want to play this game again
Amazing game to review! Imagine a world in which Troika didn’t go under.
Время лечит.
Спасибо за контент.
Привет из Одессы.
I'm glad you're doing okay. Sending you lots of love from Kentucky. Please stay safe
20:00 Yes, the masquerade does care about other breaches, for wraiths (ghosts) however they'll just get Giovani contractors if it's a serious issue. They don't really need to cover up for werewolfs since they have a fear like effect that makes you black out the memories and believe it to be a PTSD black out. They don't need to worry about mages since paradox already does their job for them.
On a side note the Nos thing got toned down in later editions, most nos by 20th could go out in the public (unless they took a flaw, which most do), still ugly but more like Reddit Moderator ugly or burn victim, some just look and smell bad. (appearance 0 still)
Side note: All of the named table top lore characters are peoples OC marry sues for the most part, including a fat chick that cross-dresses so that they can be peak human sexy to both genders. (I'm not making that one up, fat and bald male, or just fat women)
29:00 yeah it's a thing, it's needed to reach Golconda the vampire state of being forgiven, which gives some really cool powers, too bad it takes forever to even attempt it and is likely to fail. They become immune to Frenzy, Rotsrach, and never kill people by feeding. Oh and need less blood, and can day walk, etc. (insanely hard to achieve, and insanely broken in table top)
46:00 How does it work, well a lot of the same, trauma effects everyone, you can get the effects of drugs by drinking blood from someone who has it in their system. But for ADHD or the like, you'd just be screwed. Ironically Malks can use their bloodline power of Dementation. In the rare case that a Malk recovers from their derangement they will gain a new one shortly. What wasn't shown in the video game is that Dementation is actually a hivemind used to share info, the Nos have a not dissimilar type of social networking, but they use rats and cockroaches and don't have a mental link.
48:00 It's about as strong as a meth addiction, I think they try to fluff it up harder in the text, but so long as you go cold turkey and weren't suffering from cancer or are over 100 years old. (Being a ghoul haults your aging), or were born a ghoul (ghoul bloodlines exist). You can be cure from it, also they don't need to feed as often as you might think. That said they will ask you for another hit any chance they get.
1:00:00 Small correction, they were made by Tremere, was a medieval war crime of sorts and was banned after words, is a creation using 3 different vampires and a fake womb. Very creepy.
1:13:00 Bang on the money, on a side note true faith doesn't have to be in religion, in theory if your a die hard capitalist or communist the dollar sign or hammer and sickle can work as well.
1:20:00 Eh, while True Faith will work, it's depending on if your going with Revised (which this game uses) or 20th's lore, the case that Christianity is cannon. Before Demon and Mummy became decanonized Demon: The Fallen made Christianity cannon. However those game lines aren't cannon, so parts of the bible likely did happen, and reality is fake and Weaver, Wyrm and the Tree are cannon. (Some hardcore VTM fan back before V5 would yell at me for saying this, mainly because they didn't read Mage and Werewolf)
1:29:00 A fun note on the cab driver, he was meant to be Cain, but White Wolf said no basically. Since I don't know where else to put this, while Cain can win during the End Times scenario in the Table Top games, he has no ending written in the book. End times having been practically retconned in 20th, and I just want to pretend V5 doesn't exist alight. (Buckets book made me stop playing WoD, and V5 made me swear off the setting, was made enough that community for the Table Tops for WoD were the worst)
1:31:00 Ironically the game actually downplays the power of werewolfs in WoD, since while most people have about 7 health boxes vampires included, a werewolfs claws on the low end deal 15 agg on average or so, and are inhumanly fast, and can tear open holes into the umbra. (The space between realms basically, to put in in simple terms) Oh and they regen health like wolverine on crack, are resistant to nearly everything other then Silver. (even fire if they make friends with fire spirits)
>Reddit Moderator ugly
nice one
LMAO v5 was also so bad that I basically stopped caring about WoD too. but then I got into Mage and the nephandi and all that and I fell in love all over again, god I wish bloodlines 2 is everything I want it to be to get people back into WoD but its probably gonna suck.
Nice nod to Mage. It was kind of my favorite of the lines actually. In part because I enjoyed the gamesmanship involved with Pattern and Paradox, and trying to BS reasons why you could do blatant magic without it being blatant magic, as well as the themes of individualism vs the needs of the whole and such. But I also like that it just set up everything as... mass delusion enforced by SCIENCE! of course! It was cheesy, sure, but it was the sort of cheese I preferred over canon Christianity and such.
Funny enough I never really remembered what Werewolf was actually supposed to be about conflict wise. Because every time I had a werewolf game people just played it up to be over the top slaughter fests of stuff. Like "I threw a school bus at people" and "I used a harley davison as a melee weapon to clear out an entire Vampire Elysium" and things like that. Heck one of my first Werewolf games (still new to WoD) I ended up stumbling across somehting I logically guessed but didn't know with our mission to fight Vampires in summoning up a bunch of fire for their critical existence failure. Something that got me a stern talking to because I ruined people's fun by one shotting the encounter with my Elemental Creation Gift thing.
So I was definitely aware that they massively toned down the Werewolf in that game.
@@ericowens5499 Mage has the issue of being the most community, even worse then the werewolf community. Like way before tumbler became I thing I remember getting banned from their Facebook group for micro aggressions. Doesn't help that the last good edition of mage was 2e. (rev is a mess, and M20 contradicts it's self even, plus goat boy is too much of a degenerate)
That said the lore and game was good for 2e and some of revised content, and Chronicals of Darkness Mage 2e I hear is good as well.
@Socucius Ergalla Used too, community got worse and worse over time, and so did the books.
Can't believe that i never knew about your wonderful channel! Real hidden gem.
Thanks for a great work! Game of my childhood, that was virtually unplayable on vast majority of pc's at it's time. I personally beat it for a first time just last year, without endless loading screens and bugs) Real masterpiece. Thanks to all people involved in picking this game to such a great shape.
Thanks again for amazing material! Really glad that my country still have good entertainers, even in such bad times.
You CAN in fact get extra money (and perhaps XP) killing the thieves at the beach in Santa Monica. But their/Mercurio's cash is hidden in a vent in the laundry room. It's the little touches that make this game.
no exp, but you can steal their car radio and sell it
@@Warlockracy If you find the cash stockpile you can elect to give it back to Mercurio but if memory serves that's a Humanity bump not xp.
"Therise and Jeannette are like the two Catherines from the puzzle game" 10/10 foreshadowing line.
For a VTM video game set post-Week of Nightmares, this has a lot of ambitious content. Ghosts, Zombies, Most of the major Vampire clans, Kuei-Jin, Hunters, possibly Mages (more on that later), Werewolves...just mix in some Fallen or Fairies and we'd have every major food groups represented. Most WoD games (as in, real ones played tableside) never mix this much content from the greater setting in, because the power levels between them (and fuck-off amount of lore) make that difficult.
As for Grünfeld Bach...I don't think he was just a regular mortal. A true, normal, human mortal can use true faith to ward off and hurt a variety of Supernaturals in the settings (Vampires, Fallen) but not the outright miracles Bach performed. Which leads me to believe he must be either an Imbued/Hunter, tho I don't know which type of Imbued had these powers again (I remember one of their type having defensive barrier kind of powers), or well, a Mage. There exist a few faithful magic traditions, and believing your magic to be a work of god, empowered by faith, is an easy way for mages to both make their magic work and circumvent Paradox...mostly.
55:25 This song is Cain by band Tiamat. Swamped is song played in ens credits.
Your editing and storytelling skills are unreal, i enjoyed every second of this, and i play VTMB at least once a year and know the game, but this was still interesting! Extremely well done!
"He already has five plans to kill us."
"American privilege" to have places you can actually visit.
Meanwhile you have the entire Chernobyl Sarcophagus just waiting for you to explore.
You do a good job at explaining the story and the intricacies of vampire politics with VTM:B. It wasn't necessary for you to do so, but I really like how you went above and beyond and delved into the tabletop material to use as supplementary reference, not only for visual representation with the artwork, but also in adding more detail to what the game inherently provides (notably the story of how Tremere became a vampire and the sections on the Kuei-Jin).
Glad to see you still putting out videos, but Jesus please take care of yourself and be safe out there. Shit is too wild recently.
Also great vid, your style is fantastic and your humor knocks shit outta the park.
It's here! Hang in there and keep strong. Glad to see your content again tho will always understand delays or no vids, please take care yourself!
It makes me happy to see this community is still so alive
I love the chapter intros so much, such a creative idea to overlay the headline with some topical voicelines!
Hey Warlock, big fan.
Usually for content the length of a Hollywood movie I'd fall asleep on the couch part way through, but for your reviews and this one in particular I was switched on from the first moment.
Your editing is just a chef's kiss, it's so engaging and easy to follow along. I hope you keep up the good work!