Something drew me to the vampire exhibits at the ATI and Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines booths. The characters on the screens seem almost preternaturally good. This is Activision's second attempt at expanding White Wolf's popular pen and paper franchise set in the dark punk gothic world of vampires, werewolves and mummies. The first game, Vampire the Masquerade: Redemtion, promised a lot, but seemed to fall short of an electronic replacement for the pen and paper system. Redemption attempted to provide a single player game focused on characters from one clan with other clans as peripheral NPC's. The multiplayer capability allowed players to play other clans, but fell short of its promise of seamless multiplayer interaction. Perhaps the biggest hurdle to overcome came from adapting a game system that unlike other pen and paper RPGs consisted of a philosophy centered on interaction, role playing and politics, over combat and game mechanics. Activision however seems to be rectifying that problem.

Enter Troika and Valve

Troika Games created the well know Arcanum RPG and derives talent from Interplay's Fallout and Fallout 2. Most striking about the games were their complex character development and almost literary character story development and interaction. Depending on what skills you chose to develop, different areas of the game would become accessible or inaccessible and different dialog options would show depending on what path you took. The replay value of the games typically extended beyond those of other RPG's. For a game system like Vampire, Troika makes perfect sense. Combined with the Half Life 2 engine's strong AI and character based technology, Bloodlines finally possesses a good chance of delivering a RPG that fans will find closely resembles the world of darkness contained in the volumes distributed by White Wolf.

I caught up with Andrew Meggs, lead programmer for Bloodlines, at the ATI booth. Andrew showed off some of the power of the HL2 engine as well as a few modifications made specifically by Troika for Bloodlines. The character graphics are perhaps DOOM2.85 level. Not quite the amazing smoothness of the models depicted in ID's DOOM3 trailer and screenshots, but portraying perhaps some of the graphic elements that have game industry watchers wiping the drool from their collective mouths. What struck me most about the Vampire models where the faces. Valve's engine produces almost near cinema level animation from the raising of eyebrows to the syncing of lips when the characters speak. The expressions almost perfectly portray the emotions of the characters. Unlike current animations in other titles, which look good but move like animatronics in a theme park, the expressions in Bloodlines are smooth and fluid. The attention to detail is amazing like the reflectivity in the eyes. While the expressions are all part of the HL2 engine, Andrew proudly announced that vampire will add its own expression, teeth. "There's happy, sad, angry, but only we have teeth" chuckled Andrew. The teeth will be retractable and an element to game play. As a matter of fact, the playable demo showed this expression off very nicely when one of the NPC's gave us instructions for one of the demo's quests. As we saw in the eyes, HL2 also provides strong routines for reflection. While the hot tub scene seemed a bit off in its implementation (a bit too symmetric and reflective), the amazement came from the water flowing from a sewer pipe. It looked, well, like water. HL2 also is primarily a system designed for daytime. The Troika team adapted the engine for the nocturnal escapades of the game. They added some particle elements to the game to allow night clouds and starry skies, as well as very nice cinder effect to fire. Also, the game possesses a number of shadowing tricks such as the ability to self shadow and cast multiple shadows of various intensities depending on the number of light sources. Bloodlines also holds an arsenal of impressive kinematics at its disposal. Self body physics exist such as hair that reacts very appropriately to the character movements (as our ample bodied scantily clad demonstration model jumped up and down, certain elements such as the pigtails, ahem … among other things, moved nicely in response much to our delight) and skin that reacts to the recoil of a firearm. Character stats also shape the physics of the engine. Stronger characters can throw objects further depending on their strength and the weight of the object. AI also knows how to use the physics as one NPC picked up a dead body and other objects in its vicinity to use as weapons against the player. However, Valve still is modifying its engine to provide even better physics and keeps in close contact with Andrew to make sure that is providing the best kinematics possible. Not a bad idea since Troika kept this project secret for 18 months while valve developed HL2.

Keeping True to the World of Darkness

Fans of the game will be pleased to know that the Troika team pledged an oath to try to keep the game as close to the pen and paper version as possible. From the start fans will notice that character generation and advancement use the character sheets from the published game remaining accurate right down to the graphics and bubbles of the original character sheets. Unlike Redemption, Bloodlines doesn't alter the character stats. Humanity and Blood Points are still items that will have to be watched and developed. Disciples are limited to three per clan and out of clan disciplines are unattainable. All disciplines have levels one thru five. Troika tweaked a few of the disciplines and not all of them are final. Obfuscate level three (mask of many faces) does not exist and the Tremere thaumaturgy exists as a single discipline. While I overheard one of the programmers mention the use of spells, Thaumaturgy seems at this stage to only be used to draw blood from a distance. However, Troika executed some of the disciplines with amazing flair. For example, the demo showed the use of Dementiation on a guard who would not let us pass. The poor guard ended up running away and crying in a corner. Presence changes the responses (as well as the response font which changed from the Malkavian specific font to a more romantic looking script). One demonstration of animalism called a swarm of rats to chase patrons from a restaurant. Auspex (The view changed and auras became apparent), Protean (Claws), and Obfuscate (Turn invisible) all showed that Troika takes there task very seriously. The staff also reported that more will come such as the ability of those with protean to turn into a wolf. Animalism will also be able to charm animals and use them to solve problems. The visual cleanliness also is a factor. In Redemption, the Nosferatu would blink in and out whereas in Bloodlines, they fade very nicely. Also depending on your level in Obfuscate, you either have to remain in the shadows or can walk in the light.

A unique character perspective

As mentioned before, the game focuses on the character experience. Troika made sure that the responses of NPCs would differ depending on class, clan, and appearance. To give the game even more dynamics, the team provides five skins for each model and there are fourteen models in all: two for each of the seven playable camarilla clans - one male, one female. Depending on the skin you are wearing, the NPCs will respond differently. The skins are appropriate to the clan. The skins also have their own cloth physics; an element, which I believe, was added by Troika to enhance the character expression. I asked Andrew which characters took the most programming. So far the Malkavian have the most code due to the skewed responses and different world perspective. However, Andrew personally prefers the Gangrel. " I really like their look and the claws are lot of fun," he chortled while showing the character sheet of a longhaired youth crouching in a red sports jersey. As for some of the other non camarilla clans, the playable demo features the Tzimisci. The Ravnos will most likely not make an appearance since they don't fit into the storyline. However, the Giovanni and the Lasombra are hinted to be included in the game in addition to Sabbat and Anarch versions of the clans. Also, characters from other White Wolf games such as the werewolves are also rumored to make an appearance.

A Contiguous Environment

Unlike Redemption, which took place in multiple setting across multiple timelines, Bloodlines takes place in a slick very goth version of Los Angeles. Most of the environment will be traversable freely with a few areas that are quest specific. Characters will have to use the environment to feed. For example, since the Ventrue flaw makes them very picky eaters, they can only feed from certain places. A lot of the map consists of outdoor areas. This adds to some very nice lighting elements as well as some interesting backgrounds. Again, characters will have to use the environment, such as shadows not covered by streetlights.

Not a done deal

Troika hopes to go alpha with the game this winter with a release date of next spring. However as most gamers know, these dates always slip. Not hitting next years summer release schedule could prove problematic since Arcanum suffered from delays due to Sierra Games insistence in postponing the titles spring release till autumn to allow the interaction to be translated to all languages. Troika's games are almost never short and their replay value means that the summer months are the only time when the prime 12-25 year old demographic has to immerse themselves in such a rich RPG. In this case, Troika could also be facing an ageing technology as ID gets closer to finalizing DOOM3. While Activision distributes both DOOM3 and Bloodlines and the games exist in different genres, part of the attractiveness of Bloodlines remains its visual appeal. Right now Bloodlines possesses a lot of wow factor. If ID's engine overshadows the technology it could reduce sales. Another hurtle will be the choice to make the game multiplayer which Troika plans to do. Balancing will be an issue. Redemption suffered from serious multiplayer issues and the White Wolf system doesn't easily balance in a combat setting (the gangrel and the brujah have a distinct advantage). Also, Troika has never to my knowledge produced a multiplayer RPG. The complexities of doing so in Troika style could be as Herculean a task as creating the initial game. Also, most successful multiplayer games distribute a modification toolkit. With the high level character interactions required by Vampire, it is unlikely that many in the general community will be able to produce the quality necessary to adequately mod a social game system like Vampire. As for straight combat, the powers don't add to the combat as easily as say Jedi Knight II. And without the powers, the game becomes just another FPS based off of the HL2 engine. Perhaps a multiplayer version would be best left to an expansion or sequel.

Overall Bloodlines stands as a remarkable achievement and will prove even more remarkable if all involved can pull off what the demo hints, and the demo unlike our favorite scantily clad character model out for a night repast, doesn't suck.

About the author: "Devin Cambridge has worked in the graphics and network industry for over 10 years a large portion of which was spent at Silicon Graphics/ Cray Research providing Systems Engineering for the Entertainment and Communications industries. He currently owns his own Engineering Project Management Company providing engineering and market analysis in Southern California."