Choice of the Vampire: The Fall of Memphis -- player feedback and reviews

@Dominic the goal is/was to have every character start with the same amount of points. Feel free to go back and check my work on this.

-1 pt for how you deal with your maker.
-1 pt from the maker himself.
-1 pt from reason for turn
-6 pts from profession/ethnicity
-1 bonus skill
-1 bonus trait
-1 random bump.
-1 shapeshifting (with West) or 1 Status (not with West)
-1 refinement bump if you go to New Orleans (without going to the swamps with West), or 1 Shapeshifting if you go to St. Charles parish, or 1 trait bump if you first go with West and then go to New Orleans.
-1 Lore

I don’t consider “priest”, “pagan”, or speaking Choctaw to be a point. Each (non-Choctaw) language and literate are individually considered points.

Also speaks_latin was more useful when you went directly to Chicago after New Orleans. I’m going to go ahead and add another trait to people to priests and lawyers to reflect this deficit. By Chicago, things should have balanced out sufficiently.

@Dominic Thanks for the information, I never noticed that before. I just noticed how with some characters of different origins that Sam would teach some and not others. Even when I played the same/similar type of vampire, but with just different origins. What changes hubris levels?

Your post on the first page towards the end on character points was fascinating/in-depth btw. I felt like I was in a college math class again lol :smiley:

@jasonstevanhill Not that I have a problem with it, but Yankee, Creole, Spanish, Male Southern lawyer, and Slave paired with Van Der Ahe seem to be the best/ get the most points imo which I love because I wouldn’t see nearly as many scenes as I have without these origins and the Van Der Ahe combination. So keep those origins at the top lol.

Jason: To a certain extent, it’s a subjective matter how you assign value, of course. I’ve been neglecting perks that you might be considering. Speaking French or German, for example, might come up once or twice, but it seems unambiguously true that it’s not going to be as useful as another point of intelligence or agility. I also neglected the income boost in my analysis, since it’s subject to ebb and flow in the course of play, and status, as it has a relatively restricted impact thusfar.

If we count every language, literacy, and 5 points of income as a ‘point,’ then there’s greater consistency of value, around 5 or 6 per background. But in terms of the impact on the stats you’ve been checking, the previous analysis holds; even if we consider it a ‘point’ when a background gives you French, that doesn’t actually increase anyone’s strength or stealth or anything.

There is one thing, though - the refinement bump you mention isn’t occurring at all, at present. Not as far as I can see; I had assumed that you deliberately short-circuited around it, since you have

*if random_bump
*goto 1823_c
*else
*goto refinement

and ‘random_bump’ is set true back at the first random skill increase, the one you get for your mortal existence. If that were functional…let’s see, I suppose it would add roughly another half a point to each of the totals of attributes and skills, allowing us to expect a baseline of one three and four twos in attributes.

I do notice you have a check that sets random_bump back to false, but right now it’s positioned before the first bump actually occurs, so it doesn’t do anything. Maybe you meant to have that afterward?

@Jammy - Hubris/Discretion is basically a measure of how unobtrusive or obvious you are. Keeping quiet and avoiding attention generally increases your discretion, trumpeting how great and important you are and otherwise being obvious generally increases your hubris.

==Hubris is meant in both the accurate translation and the mis-translation of the Ancient Greek word/concept: self-deluding overconfidence (mistranslation) and propensity to violence (accurate translation).

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A comment for those who are interested:

You /can/ examine the source code (via “View Script” plus editing the URL to view individual scenes) for versions purchased from the Chrome store. Thus, these comments are based off of reviewing the free version of Vampire 1 and the Chrome version of Vampire 2.

Depending on what platform you are playing on and WHEN you played it, part 1 had (?) a VERY serious bug – the scene “vicksburg_denouement” wasn’t accessible. Without this scene, none of the Wilson scenes in part 2 make any sense, as well as the transition to Memphis is very abrupt. However, it looks like this has been fixed (for the web page version), as when I checked the source to verify that the bug was still present the last line of “vicksburg_depot” reads “*finish Next” instead of “*goto_scene memphis_arrival” as it did yesterday. If the Wilson scenes in Part 2 are confusing you, you may want to play through the web version to figure out what’s going on as I’m sure it will take awhile to update the other versions.

I have to agree with the consesus on this thread: Vampires 2 was no where NEAR as good as Vampires 1, largely because none of the obvious objectives (capturing Wilson, or winning / influencing the election) are achievable. This results in loads of frustration for the player. :frowning:

For the record:

* Neither you nor anyone else can win the either election – period. There simply is no code anywhere in the game to handle a winner. You can, in the second election, determine WHY this is true, but that’s as good as it gets. I understand why this was done (to avoid an enormous fork in Vampires 3), but… @jasonstevanhill: A much better solution is simply to have the player’s Senatorship revoked when Memphis ceases to be a city at the end.
…* Massive SPOILERS on how to identify why nobody can win in a follow up message.
…* You get an achievement (if your platform supports them – iOS does not, yet) for doing this.
…* You also get an achievement for meeting all 10 senators face-to-face, which is hard to do.

* It is not possible to capture or kill Wilson (or Hugh, if you are playing a version of Part 1 that allows you to play through the “vicksburg_denouncement” scene AND your race is african AND you elected to turn Wilson yourself) prior to the failure of the second caucus, at which point you can’t avoid succeeding.

* It is possible to have a romance in Part 2, with another woman who just HAPPENS to be named Clotho – but only IF you never met Herbert in Part 1 (you must ignore the invitation from Estafandia altogether or never have gone to New Orleans).
…* @jasonstevanhill: I don’t understand why this is the case – the whole /point/ of the Clotho romance was that she was going to come back, so… Why not here?

* It isn’t possible to save Memphis or even influence its development. All of the text that makes you think “Oh, if I had the right stat then I’d get a choice / different text here” – nope. :frowning:

* If you join the KKK during Part 1 (instructions on how to do this in the followup message), you’ll get a bonus scene in Part 2. It doesn’t go anywhere. :frowning:

* If you join the Freemason’s in Part 1 (instructions on how to do so in the followup message), you’ll get a bonus scene in Part 2. It ALSO doesn’t go anywhere. :frowning:
…* Note that you’ll get a long sequence that is related to being able to IDENTIFY someone else is a Freemason – but being a Freemason yourself isn’t a requirement to unlock this content, and it doesn’t lead to your advancement within the order, so…

* If you convince Estfanda to start teaching you the “Secrets of the Blood”, you’ll get a bonus scene in Part 2 (one of the Senator’s recognizes the secret signal during the 2nd caucus) . It ALSO doesn’t go anywhere. :frowning:

* There is no opportunity to create a great work of art in part 2.

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MASSIVE SPOILERS: To determine WHY all of the elections fail to reach a conclusion, you must (during the SECOND caucus – you can’t discover any of this at the first one) you MUST…

  1. No longer be in the running (e.g. you must give up your seat if you were standing for election). It is best if you don’t even try to run, as it gives you more time to politic during the caucus.

  2. Have eliminated one of the candidates (it must be two way race) during the /second/ caucus, which must be done BEFORE the caucus (via letter writing). Note that if you burn one of the candidates during the FIRST caucus, they come back for the second and you can’t burn them again, so be careful! Mallory is by far the easiest to eliminate with Pickering being much, much more difficult).

==To burn Mallory, you must do ONE of the following:
…* Talk to her (during the chance encounter OR during the first reception) and ask about her creator (sets “heard_of_ogier”). OR
…* Establish contact with Senator Timmers during the letter writing sequence and ask him about Mallory’s creator (also sets “heard_of_ogier”)
…* Then you must establish contact with Senator Bailey during or before the letter writing sequence and you’ll have the option to mention Mallory’s creator, which will prevent her from appearing as a candidate.

==To burn Pickering, you must set the “pickering_and_pike” flag, and to do THAT you must set the “met_albert_pike” flag. Setting the “met_albert_pike” flag is very, very hard, but there are a couple of paths to get there:
…* Part 1: There is some prep work you can do in Part 1 to make your life easier in part 2:
…* You can set “hersey_of_masons” by joining the Freemason’s in part 1.
…* Set learn_of_masons (by asking your sire about them): Meet all of the following:
…* You must choose to improve your rapport with your Quaestor.
…* Your sire must be alive (and, therefore also your Quaestor).
…* Your sire must be Sainte-Chapelle.
…* Your perception must be 1 or greater.
…* EITHER your lore must be 2 or greater OR your intelligence must be 3 or greater.
…* Your sire must not think of himself as a god, nor can he be highly faithful.
…* To actually set “hersey_of_masons”, you must ALSO
…* Wait until after the governor’s visit
…* Be male
…* Have a reasonably good relationship with your sire (> 65, which isn’t hard to achieve at all)
…* Agree to join when offered the opportunity (there are several paths, depending on race and religious background)
…* You can set “met_albert_pike” in part 1 by starting down the path to join the KKK, but veering off (this is forced if you are female, but can be done if you are male as well)
…* You must be offered the opportunity to attend a soiree (party) immediately after purchasing a new outfit / investing in Memphis city bonds. To achieve this, you must meet all of the following criteria:
…* Your race must not be African or Indian (duh!)
…* You must be Reformed (not Catholic or pagan)
…* You must speak English
…* If you are a Yankee and male, your charm must be 3 or greater
…* If you are a Yankee and female, your charm must be 2 or greater
…* Note that attending the party is automatic if you meet the criteria – otherwise, you’ll get the “Watch a KKK lynching” scene instead.
…* At the party, if male you must NOT select the option “I too follow the menfolk into the library, to hear what General Forrest has to say”. Note that this is the option that leads to actually joining the KKK – thus, “veering off” earlier. If you are female, you won’t even be offered the chance to make a mistake here.
…* During the discussion that follows with Mary Ann, you must:
…* DON’T offer to take her outside (“Why don’t we step outside? It seems like a lovely evening, and we can better speak away from prying eyes.” Clearly, she is in need of comforting, and I feel called to assist her.") – at least, not until after you’ve selected the key choice (below)
…* Have a perception of 2 or greater
…* Select the option “Who is that man with the magnificent beard?”
…* Part 2:
…* You can ALSO set “met_albert_pike” in part 2 if:
…* Your preferred prey is soldiers (the key scene occurs AFTER you get the opportunity to change your prey, so this is easy to achieve), plus ONE of the following is true:
…* The flag “hersey_of_masons” is set (this set if if you join the Freemason’s – see above) OR
…* Your religious tradition is “Reformed” (e.g. “Not Catholic”) AND your charm is 4 or greater (yes, this is achievable – you can start out with a Charm of 4, and if you have a Charm of 3 AND you are playing a version of Part 1 that allows you to go through the vicksburg_denouement scene, you may have an opportunity to get Samantha to train you to Charm of 4 during this scene) OR
…* You are an Indian
…* FINALLY, having gotten the “met_albert_pike” flag set, you can get the critical “pickering_and_pike” flag. You must meet one of two criteria to get the key scene (in addition to having “met_albert_pike” set):
…* Your preferred prey must be soldiers OR
…* Your must have the “hersey_of_masons” flag set (joined the Freemasons)
…* The key scene will occur immediately after you finish preparations for the first reception (either by organizing the party or recruiting refreshments) automatically.
…* What choices you make during the following conversation doesn’t matter – the key fact is that you need to learn that Pickering is a Freemason, which happens automatically between the first and second questions.
…* FINALLY (again!) you are in a position to burn Pickering. To do this, you must establish contact with Senator Lockridge (either during the letter writing segment or before) and you’ll be offered a choice to mention Pickering’s association with the Freemason’s. This will block his candidacy.

==Edited by @jasonstevanhilll

  1. Most have convinced enough Senators to vote for Stone’s candidate (Mallory or Lesczynski, depending on who remains) that Partridge must vote for the anti-Stone (either Lesczynski or Pickering) candidate to preserve the impasse. This sets the “partridge_betrayal” flag.

  2. Now you must set the “notice_partridge_betrayal” flag. There an explicit question to set this flag (“I ask Carothers how it is that we are at such an impasse again.”) or you can pass a perception test (need perception 3 or greater). Be very careful here – if you ask the question /before/ setting the “partridge_betrayal” flag, you won’t get the “notice_partridge_betrayal” flag set AND you won’t be able to ask the question again. You can still pass the perception test, though.

[continued in next message]

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  1. The actual choice that you are looking for is “I confront Partridge about his perfidy.” There are a couple of prerequisites to unlock this choice:
    …* notice_partridge_betrayal must be set (duh)
    …* You must be able to speak English (also duh)
    …* Your independence score must be greater than 70 (almost certain to have this)
    …* Your discretion score must be greater than 35 (also almost a gimme)
    …* To make the choice actually WORK (e.g. give you the big reveal) you must be able to corner Partridge /after/ choosing the option. To do this, you need one of the following:
    …* Status 3 or greater OR
    …* Willpower 3 or greater OR
    …* Agility 4 or greater OR
    …* Stealth 3 or greater

  2. Having met all of the above requirements all will be revealed – and one of the other senator’s will promise to “take care of the problem” for the next election. Unhappily, there IS no next election, so… :frowning:

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@ jasonstevanhill: Concur with @Dominic: Currently, you can’t get the refinement bonus if you get the random_bump, and there is no way to avoid getting the random_bump, and believe me, I tried – it would be somewhat helpful when you are trying to get the Status bumped up to 4 at the start of Part 2 (which requires Creation 3 during the meeting with the Governor), although to REALLY be helpful the first option needs to be “Learn to speak English” rather than “Learn to read and write”… :slight_smile:

Given that the game assumes that all writing is in English, it really would be more appropriate to have “Learn to speak English” as the first option. The downside, though, is that this really eliminates one of the major drawbacks of choosing certain backgrounds (especially the Spanish only background that is required to get Creation 3 at the start).

mreed, it wouldn’t particularly matter which one is listed first - it picks one of the nine randomly, and if you already have whatever it’s trying to give you, it moves on to the next.

I haven’t yet gotten around to playing the released version of the game, but I played the alpha version extensively, and I’m disappointed to read that the two issues I considered most serious back in November:

  1. The lack of a sense of accomplishment since nothing you do appears to matter or make a meaningful difference, and
  2. The insufficient stat points to meet the skill checks,

are still present. I was seriously hoping they’d been addressed.

@Dominic @mreed you are correct. I instituted the random_bump variable to prevent a bug that allowed players to view the stat screen repeatedly and thereby get the refinement bump more and more times. But you are correct, there needs to be an additional “*set random_bump false” in there. Thanks for pointing that out!

@mreed never played with source codes so, which program do you actually need (also, how do you get the URL connected to each page?)

@jasonstevanhill, thanks for your considerations on my criticisms! I’m glad to help where I can! I’ll look again the chapter and try to get some inspiration and ideas.

@dominic, about the refreshment stuff, yes, that can be, but still, everything’s so hidden and falls out of the blue, so that it seems you don’t have to control. It is not that easy, a priori, to understand if you (your character) is actually good at getting the refreshment, so accepting to help looks like a jump into the dark, while I’m sure that a real person/vampire would know more or less 1) if he’s capable and 2) in any case where to look according to his capabilities.
In the CoV 1 in many options you could see the list of possibilities (including some you couldn’t do that could have given you a hint), here it really looks you’re proceeding blind.

The source code is just plain text, so any text editor will work. I used notepad++; it’s useful for a lot of things.

Regarding the refreshments thing - I don’t personally consider it to be that big a deal (though I was admittedly a bit miffed when my combat-capable character didn’t quite meet the requirements to pull it off), but I suppose one possible solution would be to have a subchoice there to ask you how you intend to do it, with choices greyed out if you don’t meet the requirements for them. It would lend a bit of definition on the off-chance that you qualify for multiple methods, as well as allowing the player to see approximately the kind of capabilities they would need to pull it off, and offer up an ‘out’ when you realize that you aren’t really able to do it. “On second thought, I’m not sure I’m capable of gathering a full herd of mortals together.”

@Dominic following an email from a player, what I’m doing is allowing Stealth to lower the combat check.

The same individual pointed out that you should be able to use Shapeshifting >= 2 to stop Wilson/Hugh on his horse at the very end. Another noteworthy addition.

Ok, I’ve uploaded a new version of CoV to the web. Please take a look if you have a moment. In particular, if you’ll check my work on equaling-out characters (given my rating of points).

@jasonstevanhill I was just playing CoV Part 1 online and so far, I’m liking the new update. I found it slightly easier to be the favorite child of New Orleans by the 1820’s which is a blessing considering the few times we have to improve our relationships with our Maker, Jesse, and Estefania. I also thought the stats upgraded a bit more than before. I’m going to play again with different characters to see how it really works. Should I try with different makers? I usually use Van der Ahe (seeing as he seems canon).

A bug I have found earlier and was hoping would be fixed is in chapter 2 in Vicksburg. Playing as a female creole, I tried to romance Silas (I also romanced Clotho). I ask him when we first meet all the questions such as “what are you playing”, “Do you find it odd one such as I am watching you train?” (which never goes away after you choose it), and “What is your name?”, etc. He comes back and then he tells me the poem. I have high intelligence,3, and so I ask “who you believe the father of my reflections should be”, and then we have a long conversation, but there is no mention of us breaking up or anything and when I click the ‘Next’ button it’s suddenly the siege! @_@ The rest of the romance with Silas is skipped completely!

Could you take a look at this? Thanks.

@Dominic Thanks for explaining Hubris for me! You’re the best! I’ll be sure to keep an eye on it in the future and just do something a little not so nice before the confronting Sam scene.

                                               \*SPOILERS\*

@mreed Thank you so much for posting that tutorial! I was able to get the scene figuring out why the election was going nowhere with a Willpower of 3. I tried to follow your direction for getting rid of Pickering, but I never can find the option to out him to Lockridge. I only see an option to make his Freemason association known and when I do that Lockridge and Coffins go to defend him by sitting next to him.

@jammy one of my coworkers had me working on that section about a month ago, and you’re totally right: in one particular instance (black/creole/choctaw female), the game doesn’t trigger the love_hope flag. Thank you for catching that!

@jasonstevanhill No problem!

Jason:

Given your rating of points, the character backgrounds all appear to be approximately equal, now. Latin, I take it, is not being treated as a ‘point,’ as the two backgrounds that have it also have bonuses summing to 7 instead of 6. The only minor inconsistency I see is that all the backgrounds receive either a high initial wealth bonus of 40,000 or a low bonus of 2,500 - save for the priest background, which receives no wealth bonus whatsoever. Perhaps intended, but I’m leaning towards that being a mistake, as even the slave background begins with the low bonus.

I would say, though, that I still don’t entirely endorse that method of valuation, given that it puts equal weights on all (non-Latin) languages, when the practical utility is incredibly divergent. Going without English is a severe handicap in the story, while the other languages come up only for brief little bonus snippets, like giving a +5% rapport with Rios. Backgrounds like Irish and Yankee are therefore advantaged over those like German and FPoC. Not to a severe enough extent that it’s necessarily a problem, but the mechanical benefit is real.

Jammy: While overtly “not nice” things often increase hubris, it doesn’t really mean being cruel or violent. Speaking up against the KKK also increases hubris, for example, as does being truthful with Estafania when you’re asked about your goals and feeding habits.

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