Interviews
Troika’s Leonard Boyarsky guides a trip through Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines
“We wanted to make a game that reflected the feel of the contemporary World of Darkness”
In a back alley behind a seedy nightclub off Hollywood’s Sunset Strip, you received the embrace of a stranger, and your life has changed – but not in the way one might think.
You have been ushered into the world of darkness and now serve the vampire prince of Los Angeles. Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines is the latest Troika/Activision title, which updates the cyber fable of White Wolf’s pen-and-pencil role-playing game. The last title took place in the medieval age, but Bloodlines updates the tale to the modern world.
The PC title, slated for release in October, is powered by the Valve engine and allows players to weave through the underbelly of Los Angeles, and should they use their minds and not slip into the madness of being exposed by their bloodlust, there is a chance that they could rise up to rule the city.
Leonard Boyarsky, Joint CEO/Producer/Art Director, Troika Games, took time to talk to GameZone.com about the title.
Question: Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines is a title that has thrived in the darkness of other times. What prompted upgrading the tale to the present day and why did you choose Los Angeles as the setting?
Leonard: Actually, the Vampire: The Masquerade system is geared toward the modern world, unless you’re talking about the Dark Ages sourcebook. We wanted to make a game that reflected the feel of the contemporary World of Darkness, with all its political intrigue and challenges of Vampire society in today’s world. Also, we felt that there was no need to make this a Dark Age game, since there are so many fantasy RPGs in similar settings and this one seemed to lend itself well to different setting anyway. We chose LA as the setting because it’s the “anarch free state” which fit into the story we wanted to tell nicely.
Q: In speaking of Los Angeles, there are some famous sites, which are not truly the ones in the area but rather look-alikes simply because of licensing issues. Were you surprised by some of the restrictions you had in creating this game in a real-world setting as opposed to a truly fantasy setting?
Leonard: I was shocked at what we couldn’t use that I thought should have been public property, and therefore not a problem. Boy, am I naïve. The “Hollywood” sign…forget it. I think the most surprising thing was the fact that we couldn’t even use the Santa Monica pier sign; we had to make up our own.
Q: Vampire has a very strong following, stemming back to the pen-and-paper days. How much fan input goes into creating a title like this? Do you feel that there is a set of criteria that must be met, or is the basic design of the game left in the hands of designers (and yes, I understand that many of those involved with the game are fans of this legend/mythos).
Leonard: We like to hear what the fans want, but on a game like Vampire where we’re trying to break new ground it’s difficult, because the vision we have of what we’re doing may be different from the fans’ vision. From necessity, the basic design of any game must be left in the hands of the designers because a game needs a unified vision. Most everyone working at Troika has their own ideas about how things should work, and a good designer will listen to as many different ideas as possible before making a decision but in the end you can’t design by committee, whether it be a committee of fans or coworkers.
Having said all this, in making Vampire we looked at all the things that were fan favorites in the system, and tried to capture the essence of what the fans enjoyed about these things.
Q: Can you tell a little about the storyline? How many vampire classes are in this game and how linear is the storyline? What aspirations can the game player entertain? How hard will a player have to work to walk that fine line between losing what is left of his or her humanity and succumbing to the darkness threatening to overwhelm them?
Leonard: There are seven different clans from which to choose to play. The main story line is fairly linear, as any good story must have a beginning, middle, and end. Several quests within the main story arc can be handled in different ways resulting in different outcomes for those parts of the game, but the main story is structured in a way that gives the player the feeling they’re involved in something much bigger. The choices you make as a player will reverberate throughout the game, and eventually determine how the game plays out in the end.
The story itself is about how you’re under the tight control of the new Prince of LA while he’s trying to consolidate his power over the city. Will you bow to his demands willingly? Will you sell him out to the anarchs? Will you decide all this political stuff is nonsense and go your own way? Just a few of the decisions you’ll need to make over the course of the game.
How hard it is to walk the line between attempting to hold onto their humanity and succumbing to the beast is up to the player to decide.
Q: You have employed a highly touted engine to power this game. What did it allow you to do that adds to the feel of the game?
Leonard: Besides just the overall beauty of the rendering capabilities of the engine and the powerful physics engine, the feature we are most fond of is the facial animation system. The power and immediacy of this game owes a lot to the emotional impact of interacting with the NPCs in a realistic way.
Q: Tell us a little about the sound design of this title. What steps did you take in terms of voice acting to further the mood of the game? What kind of musical score does the game employ and who is responsible for it?
Leonard: We have a very talented studio called Womb Music handling our sound for the game (and they’ve also scored it as well), and we also have someone in-house dedicated to making sure the sound is integrated into the game in the way we’ve envisioned it. We cover a lot of different ground musically in the game, to give the areas different moods, from the clubs of Hollywood to the temple in Chinatown.
Womb also was responsible for getting us great voice talent to work with, which is extremely fortunate, because a game of this type can really fall apart if the voice acting falls flat.
Q: This title is a major stride forward in the chronology of the game. Should there be another version, would it continue in this time frame, move backwards or forward?
Leonard: At this point, I really have no idea. That decision will be made when the time comes, I suppose.
Q: What do you consider to be the key elements of this game that will impress gamers the most?
Leonard: I think the character interaction is the coolest element of our game, but the Disciplines and their effects are a close second, if not tied for first.
To learn more about Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, check out http://www.vampirebloodlines.com/.
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