It’s been awhile, folks! Not for you, but the gap between this episode and the last was pretty long – around a month, maybe more.
Here is a link to the conversation Exetera and I were talking about. The game is full of easter eggs for Malkavian players; almost every single dialogue option, while functionally the same, is displayed differently, and many cause NPCs to react differently as well. It’s quite fun to play a madman who (occasionally) knows there is a player driving them.
If you try to suck a zombie’s blood, you temporarily become a Ventrue. The Ventrue clan weakness is that they can feed from only one narrow category of people (only women, only people with blond hair, etc.) The way this game translates that is that Ventrue cannot feed off rats at all (they simply will not pick one up if you try), and if they feed off bums (and prostitutes), there is a chance they will immediately regurgitate the blood, leading to no benefit at all. When anyone feeds off a zombie, they do the same thing – immediately regurgitate the blood, leading to no benefit.
This makes several of the “dungeon” sections of the game, particularly the Hollywood sewers which we’ll talk more about when it arrives, especially difficult for Ventrue, as they cannot avail themselves of easily accessible rats to replenish their blood and health. The game makes up for this by having LaCroix favour Ventrue slightly; in each haven, instead of regular blood packs in the fridge, Ventrue are provided with the next tier up, “Blue Blood” packs, which are about twice as good.
A small balance, but a balance nevertheless.
I’ve always wanted to ask this, since I sense that this is a touchy subject for you, but don’t know when would be the appropriate time to approach this, so I’ll just ask this now. When you guys met Pisha, the Nagaraja, under the building, you said that her clan’s creation was the start of the “they kept adding new bloodlines into the game…and the whole thing just collapse on itself. And that’s why they had to end it”. So, just to get your opinion only, what was the final straw before the writers realize that they had written themselves into a corner and had to end the old WoD?
Good question. My answer got long, so look for it as the commentary on the next episode post coming on Friday.
I’ll be looking forward to it.
Man, it is easy to forget how good the environmental music is in this game. Heard some in the background during that last bit of chatting.