VtM-Bloodlines - Camarilla Edition Mod

Myrthos

Myrthos

Cave Canem
Administrator
Supporter
Joined
August 30, 2006
Messages
11,223
The Camarilla Edition is a mod for Vampire the Masquerade that promises to bring the Bethesda style sandbox experience to the game.
Here is the info about the game, screens and the download link.
VTMB: Camarilla Edition is an Expansion Overhaul that completely changes the game mechanics and
how we approach the game of Bloodlines. After playing through Bloodlines over 10 times the replay
value has decreased, and we started thinking of ways to improve the game to make it much more realistic.
I have long since been a fan of Bethesda's Open Ended Sandbox games so that is the feel I wanted to
bring to Bloodlines.

One of the biggest problems with Bloodlines is that you never get the sense of BEING a Vampire. I mean
you have powers and you drink blood, but only to fuel those powers most of which are extremely short
lived. Not only that but I have never dropped below a humanity of 10 because I was never in danger of
going hungry. So what we did was completely overhaul how everything from Feeding and Regeneration,
to Bloodpool and Disciplines work, giving you a completely new experience to Bloodlines unlike anything
you've played in the past.

Below are some of the features included in VTMB: Camarilla Edition.

Complete Discipline Overhaul / Game Balance.
- One of the biggest changes in Camarilla Edition are the Disciplines. We went through and overhauled every
aspect of each Discipline paying careful attention to every minor detail. With our overall goal in mind some
of the Disciplines got a minor tweak while others were completely replaced with new ones. Some of the new
Disciplines include…
Dominate - The Forgetful Mind (Target based allowing the Vampire to vanish from sight)
Dominate - Enslave (Target based seduction, the NPC will follow you as your new BloodDoll)
Thaumaturgy - Theft of Vitae (Target based allowing the Tremere to siphon blood from a distance)

Note: Most of the old Disciplines have been overhauled to the point of feeling like brand new powers.

Regeneration
- You now regenerate very slowly over time and feeding will not speed up regeneration much at all. You
will be relying on the discipline "Blood Heal" ALOT now.

Bloodloss
- Your Vampire will lose 1 Bloodpoint every 3 minutes in any zone except the tutorial. The timer runs even
during dialogue forcing you to feed every so often. No longer will you be able to skip carefree through
the mission maps with a full vial of blood.

Note: As you lose blood, your health will be weakend.

Hunger/Frenzy
- Now going hungry has major drawbacks. When your Vampire reaches 1 point in their Bloodpool they will
automatically frenzy every 30 seconds until they find blood. Keeping your humanity high will be tough but
crucial for the Masquerade.

Histories
- Most histories were overhauled for game balance and concept reasons. The histories will weigh much
more on the characters, both positives and negatives. A few new Histories were also implemented.

Skins/Eyes
- These have been extensively reworked in several ways. First off most of the PC skins have been overhauled
or tweaked in some way. Many of the female (and even male) skins were pretty ugly so we pulled together
our resources to bring you alot of new material. Several unique NPCs have also seen a change to their
appearance, including the automobiles and construction equipment.

Also we felt it was very unrealistic that alot of humans had Vampire eyes. We went ahead and fixed that!
Every single human that had Vampire eyes we fixed so that they look human again, and every single
Vampire that had human eyes now have Vampire eyes (check out Smiling Jack). Also Clan Gangrel now
all have something in common with their new greenish/yellow glowing eyes.

Music
- New Music was carefully implemented within bars we felt were lacking. The Asylum in Santa Monica has new
music as (…)

More information.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Joined
Aug 30, 2006
Messages
11,223
That is impressive change list for a mod. There is even manual for it. I like the sound of most of the changes as they make sense and sound like the author has a good attention to detail.

Its seems like the end of year wave has begun. Too many games coming out or being updated to keep up with. I'll put this on my replay queue for my next playthrough of VtM.
 
Joined
Mar 20, 2009
Messages
33
Sounds very cool, wonder since they are adding Dominate disciplines if they were able to fix the Tremere, adding Dominate dialogs. Still haven't tried the VTMB Companion Mod, which looks very well done as well.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
2,772
I don't see how any of this relates to making the game more like a sandbox game.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
3,123
Location
Sigil
I wouldn't even want it to be more sandbox, I feel that Bloodlines is a near-perfect game just the way it is.
 
Joined
Oct 21, 2006
Messages
39,342
Location
Florida, US
So these guys believe that in WoD you should be able to tell whether someone is a vampire or not just by looking them in the eyes? What would the point of the Masquerade be, then?
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
589
I don't see how any of this relates to making the game more like a sandbox game.
Click to expand...

I agree it sounds like clever marketing to me it sounded really good, until I realised it is the same game just with different rules.... and why it should make it more fun to replay after 10 times ?!?!? ( one time was more than enough for me ) is beyond me.
 
Joined
Oct 25, 2006
Messages
6,292
The Bethesda mention was a dampener for me, but the rest sounds pretty solid.
Elwro said:
So these guys believe that in WoD you should be able to tell whether someone is a vampire or not just by looking them in the eyes? What would the point of the Masquerade be, then?
Click to expand...
Maybe only vampires can tell other vampires from humans apart? Makes sense to me.

GothicGothicness said:
and why it should make it more fun to replay after 10 times ?!?!? ( one time was more than enough for me ) is beyond me.
Click to expand...
Bloodlines is one of the few RPGish games I actually finished. It's also one of the *very* few I played more than once and had lots of fun with. Replayability of this game is very high because it plays out very differently each time. The three different paths alone make room for two replays. And if you haven't tried a Nosferatu or even more so a Malkavian (with the unofficial patch) for example, there's an almost completely new game experience right there.

Clan selection matters. Gender selection matters (although not much, it's noticeable and referenced to in some dialogues). Skill selection matters (a lot - and not only for combat). Every little thing has direct consequences on how you experience the story, much more than I remember being the case in most normal RPGs.
 
Joined
Aug 30, 2006
Messages
3,486
He's nuts, what in those changes makes it more sandbox??

Does it work with Wesp's unoffical patch? i doubt anyone is interested if it isnt.
 
Joined
Jul 15, 2009
Messages
673
Basically forcing certain Disciplines on the player does not sound very balanced to me. And a mention of Bethesdas Sandbox games as an inspiration sure as hell raises more questions about the quality of the mod than it answers. I'm sure i'll give this mod a try some time, but their PR dude(tte?) sure needs to focus.
 
Joined
Sep 30, 2008
Messages
369
Location
Estonia
"- Your Vampire will lose 1 Bloodpoint every 3 minutes in any zone except the tutorial. The timer runs even during dialogue forcing you to feed every so often. No longer will you be able to skip carefree through the mission maps with a full vial of blood."

One blood every third minute is too much. But I like this balance anyway. In the tabletop game it costs one blod to wake up, so every day you wake up one blood poorer. In Bloodlines it's never day… So there should be something taking up blood forcing you to feed. But one blood every three minutes? That's 20 blood an hour. Imagine that during "The Ghost Haunts at Midnight". IIRC that place takes half an hour, and there is nothing alive in the entire hotel. I also like that you need to use blood to heal damage. If they would only do something about blood buff. I mean, one blood to potentially get 12 extra dots? Why should I invest in physical attributes again?

By the way, while we're discussing Bloodlines: did anyone have any use for intimidation? From what I've read it never worked (apart from the first guy you run into after the tutorial).

Übereil
 
Joined
Jul 11, 2007
Messages
1,263
Location
Sweden
From what I've read it never worked
Click to expand...
It works, you just have to put more than one point for some conversations...
 
Joined
Jun 16, 2008
Messages
730
> Your Vampire will lose 1 Bloodpoint every 3 minutes in any zone except the tutorial.
> The timer runs even during dialogue forcing you to feed every so often.

I really hate this kind of timers. Or any kind of timers, for that matter. Ruins the fun, keeps you constantly thinking about doing something faster, skipping the details (especially in the dialogues). Also, doing something slowly and then loading and doing the same thing, only faster.
Actually, this was the reason I couldn't enjoy Mask of the Betrayer until I installed the no-craving (or something) patch.
 
Joined
Jun 24, 2009
Messages
6
Originally Posted by Arhu View Post
Maybe only vampires can tell other vampires from humans apart? Makes sense to me.

All right :) Somehow I didn't think about that.
Click to expand...

One appeal of WoD (pen&paper) is that you cannot tell whether you are talking to a simple human or someone with "abilities", be it mage, werewolf or vampire.
Of course there are special skills that can take care of that (like Auspex), but simple inspection shouldn't give you any help.
 
Joined
Sep 1, 2007
Messages
29
In Mask of the Betrayer you can supress your hunger (but you don't get awesome++ abilities and dialogues). It's a good balance. In Bloodlines constant hunger like this would mean basically the same lazy gameplay in the city hubs where there are blood dolls and pedestrians scattered all over the place, but potentially iffy situations during the missions (ocean house is one example, but there are others).
 
Joined
Sep 30, 2008
Messages
369
Location
Estonia
I never liked the idea of being a vampire anyway. However, Bloodlines was fun for me because I could play a Ventrue who valued humanity more heavily. Now, this mod seems to want to force the vampire abilities on you. No thanks.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
389
Location
North Carolina, USA
You could play anything you wanted to and value humanity. You never lost humanity. You never frenzied either. I played a Brujah who didn't frenzy once during the entire playthrough. Maybe my character was a true Brujah...

Übereil
 
Joined
Jul 11, 2007
Messages
1,263
Location
Sweden
I am not saying that vanilla way is a good way to handle humanity and/or hunger. However, simply tacking on blood loss will create a whole different set of problems for a game that was not designed for such a mechanic (such as greatly restricting character builds and adding the need to rush missions but not city hubs). Of course, i am speaking theoretically, there is a good chance that the mod is actually balanced well.
 
Joined
Sep 30, 2008
Messages
369
Location
Estonia
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom