Posted: Thu Apr 14, 2005 7:20 pm
Hi, I’m new to this whole forum thing (this is my first posting ever) and I just wanted to offer my 2 cents about Bloodlines.
Many people have blamed Bloodlines commercial failure on a combination of poor marketing, poor timing, the M rating, and of coarse the bugs. However, according to my sources, the table top game has sold more than 1 million copies since 1991. Baring in mind that many people who play the game don’t own a copy, after all only one person in a group needs to have the rule book, it isn’t unreasonable to assume that there are at least 2 million fans out there. This basically means that if everyone who purchased Bloodlines thus far has been a VTM fan that only about 3.5% of the fan base was tapped, an absurdly low number.
I first found out about Bloodlines while watching x-play (could have been extended play, wow that was a long time ago) and I nearly jumped out of my seat. I was in the midst of discovering Arcanum for the first time and was storytelling a VTM conical with some of my friends, so Troika working on a Vampire RPG (with the HL2 engine no less) really got me exited about Bloodlines.
So for the next couple of years I waited, eagerly studying any information I could about the upcoming game. When it finally came out I broke the sound barrier rushing home to install it. Two days, two hours of sleep, and about a 1000 crashes later I sat back starting my long wait for the upcoming sequel I though would be released about a year later. However I had been disappointed by certain aspects of the game.
The first oversight on Troikas part was the lack of customization in character creation. In Bloodlines, players were offered 7 clans and one choice, weather to be male or female. I though maybe a mistake had been made because I had seen on a preview clip another menu, in which you could give your little undead alter ego a past which would help shape your characters development, basically the same thing you found in Arcanum. To this day I do not understand why that feature was cut from the final product. It might be superficial but the lack of customization was enough to convince one of my friends not to by it.
One aspect of the tabletop game is the amount clan loyalty you find among players. Unfortunately for Bloodlines, a poll conducted by white wolf found that three of the five most popular clans were unavailable for play namely, the Tzimisce, Lasombra, and Assamites. For those of you not familiar with the table top game, imagine an AD&D RPG in which you couldn’t be an Elf, Dwarf, or Orc.
One other major reason for the low sales in my option was the lack of any kind of multiplayer option. Vampire was a traditionally a social game, meant to be played with a small group of friends. I understand Troika’s reluctance to open up that preverbal can of worms, but even the rudimentary combat oriented Vampire vs. Hunter combat they had talked about early on would have boosted sales substantially. Even more incredible was the fact that Troika didn’t release a mod kit with the game as Valve had done with the original half-life. Had hardcore VTM players had the ability to set up there own chronicles using a mod engine, creative storytellers would have bought the game just for that function. Even the abysmal Redemption had this feature and there were a few dedicated modders that continued to produce content years after the game was first released.
These relatively minor details (or lack thereof) alienated Bloodlines from a substantial number of White Wolf fans; fans that should have been a strong commercial base for what was otherwise an excellent RPG. Sorry about both the size of this post and horrible spelling and grammer, english never was my strong suit.
Many people have blamed Bloodlines commercial failure on a combination of poor marketing, poor timing, the M rating, and of coarse the bugs. However, according to my sources, the table top game has sold more than 1 million copies since 1991. Baring in mind that many people who play the game don’t own a copy, after all only one person in a group needs to have the rule book, it isn’t unreasonable to assume that there are at least 2 million fans out there. This basically means that if everyone who purchased Bloodlines thus far has been a VTM fan that only about 3.5% of the fan base was tapped, an absurdly low number.
I first found out about Bloodlines while watching x-play (could have been extended play, wow that was a long time ago) and I nearly jumped out of my seat. I was in the midst of discovering Arcanum for the first time and was storytelling a VTM conical with some of my friends, so Troika working on a Vampire RPG (with the HL2 engine no less) really got me exited about Bloodlines.
So for the next couple of years I waited, eagerly studying any information I could about the upcoming game. When it finally came out I broke the sound barrier rushing home to install it. Two days, two hours of sleep, and about a 1000 crashes later I sat back starting my long wait for the upcoming sequel I though would be released about a year later. However I had been disappointed by certain aspects of the game.
The first oversight on Troikas part was the lack of customization in character creation. In Bloodlines, players were offered 7 clans and one choice, weather to be male or female. I though maybe a mistake had been made because I had seen on a preview clip another menu, in which you could give your little undead alter ego a past which would help shape your characters development, basically the same thing you found in Arcanum. To this day I do not understand why that feature was cut from the final product. It might be superficial but the lack of customization was enough to convince one of my friends not to by it.
One aspect of the tabletop game is the amount clan loyalty you find among players. Unfortunately for Bloodlines, a poll conducted by white wolf found that three of the five most popular clans were unavailable for play namely, the Tzimisce, Lasombra, and Assamites. For those of you not familiar with the table top game, imagine an AD&D RPG in which you couldn’t be an Elf, Dwarf, or Orc.
One other major reason for the low sales in my option was the lack of any kind of multiplayer option. Vampire was a traditionally a social game, meant to be played with a small group of friends. I understand Troika’s reluctance to open up that preverbal can of worms, but even the rudimentary combat oriented Vampire vs. Hunter combat they had talked about early on would have boosted sales substantially. Even more incredible was the fact that Troika didn’t release a mod kit with the game as Valve had done with the original half-life. Had hardcore VTM players had the ability to set up there own chronicles using a mod engine, creative storytellers would have bought the game just for that function. Even the abysmal Redemption had this feature and there were a few dedicated modders that continued to produce content years after the game was first released.
These relatively minor details (or lack thereof) alienated Bloodlines from a substantial number of White Wolf fans; fans that should have been a strong commercial base for what was otherwise an excellent RPG. Sorry about both the size of this post and horrible spelling and grammer, english never was my strong suit.
) and since then i tried nearly every single RPG games which got out.