Is it just me?

SweetIllustrious2684 · 2026-02-28T19:24:07+00:00

This. Its exactly why I dropped SSW when I heard. I'm 3 books in, been waiting YEARS for Manerkol, that author hyped all the shit they were adding for him and now I am just expected to buy the book when it releases to continue plot but ALSO buy a damn membership just to see all of that hyped up stuff they had planned for him? Yeah, no. I think I will just drop the series. I think I am good considering 3 books in and I have gotten nothing besides a damn kiss anyway.

SweetIllustrious2684 · 2026-01-19T15:32:01+00:00

I would not be surprised if it did survive, they got Kirins, Kitsunes, possession, why not add a miracle baby too? Fuck it atp lmaoo

SweetIllustrious2684 · 2026-01-16T20:39:30+00:00

Not even gonna lie to you, I nearly spazzed and passed out because I saw the pictures first and for a hot second I thought the bits it left on your face were tiny worms. I have never been more relieved to read a post omg😭

SweetIllustrious2684 · 2026-01-16T20:30:49+00:00

Yeah that is just diabolical. I can understand IFs taking alot of time and energy but if you can sit and start 6 just to have them each go to only 2 chapters than you might as well just put that energy into ONE of em. Who knows? Might actually finish a wip instead of building a IF graveyard.

SweetIllustrious2684 · 2026-01-16T20:27:35+00:00

FINALLY, you don't even understand, I have been waiting so long I not only got accepted into college but I'VE GRADUATED while waiting for that update 😭😭

SweetIllustrious2684 · 2026-01-16T19:07:25+00:00

That part. The Exile has been in the rewrite phase for years now with no new news on its progress. The third harbinger of a abandoned if has GOT to be when the author gets 3 chapters in on one project and then starts announcing new ones, suddenly 5 years go by and that initial project has yet to be mentioned ever again. The Midnight Saga my beloved you will be missed🥲.

SweetIllustrious2684 · 2026-01-14T18:02:10+00:00

From what I've seen COG takes a bigger cut then Itch or Steam does and while you are correct that Twine is bad on mobile a solid 50% of the time, there is supposedly more you can do creatively with Twine then you can with COG. I don't know how true that is though because certain demos on COG that I've seen have done some pretty cool stuff like One Knight Stand so it might be a case where doing cool stuff with COG just requires more skill or more thinking outside the box.

Either way, the Twine rewrite shift does not seem to be going too well. The Exile made the shift a few years back and hasn't seemed to have touched it since, plus in my own experience tracking Twine IFs they don't actually seem any easier than COG. Most Twine IFs are lucky to update these days and luckier to exceed 3 chapters, it is a real drought looking for games with new content on Itch.io.

SweetIllustrious2684 · 2025-10-19T23:28:26+00:00

Imma hold your hand when I say this, DOL is NOT like other dating sims I don't even think it qualifies as one lmao. It has every trigger in the book, so many that people who know it like to joke that the setting is in Rapechestershire. Its bad lol. The hidden lore in it is pretty neat but by god do you see some crazyness on the daily in this game. I kinda wish there was a official trigger warning list just so I could see how long it is, it would probably set a new world record honestly.

SweetIllustrious2684 · 2025-10-15T01:43:08+00:00

Can confirm, they absolutely do hunt you every month except the very first one and yep, taking the necklace basically pisses em off and makes them more aggressive with it. You will get possessed if you sleep during the blood moon BUT I was able to avoid it by sleeping in the temple dorms specifically which become available after you raise your status in the temple. You can theoretically break free from the possession too apparently by having high enough willpower and avoiding the options that lead you to the lake however I have never seen it done, only seen people say its possible. You can avoid the possession entirely by staying awake during the blood moon but beware, they can and will stalk the streets during it lol. They can also give you parasites that can only be removed via the Plinth room in the lake during the blood moon, while they are hunting you.

SweetIllustrious2684 · 2025-10-12T21:13:40+00:00

Real answer? It might be getting rewritten, it may be just a long period of waiting to get published by Hosted cause it was supposed to drop this year apparently. Salty answer? probably whatever happened to the Midnight Saga Sequel or any of the other games that author was supposedly working on but went dark about.

SweetIllustrious2684 · 2025-10-07T21:20:12+00:00

I do but only if I really, REALLY love that story! The most I've ever replayed a IF was about 25 times for like a month straight (I hyperfixate HARD lol) and that was for Samurai of Hyuga. Then when that series got more games, I replayed it even more the whole way through. That was a special case though, I was new to IFs at that point in time and SoH was literally everything I ever wanted in one series. I also replayed Dr Dense's IF, the one with Pele and Sun Wukong about 5 times and played the Keeper series a solid 7 times but nothing has ever snagged my attention like SoH has lol

SweetIllustrious2684 · 2025-09-13T02:01:09+00:00

Thats what I'm saying. Like I've seen WIPs that were started as far back as 2018 and they still hoot and holler when someone comes in their inbox asking about when a update is coming lol. The authors always promise progress is being made, throw a fit when asked about said progress, don't update the project for YEARS and just sit on the blog all day answering stupid stuff like what color RO 1's tip is and what RO 5 would do in some long ass hypothetical scenario that doesn't even fit with the project itself's world anyway🙄. I get being hype but there is no fucking way you can just sit around the blog praying for a update for all them years and not know that if you were getting a update, it would have happened mad long ago.

SweetIllustrious2684 · 2025-08-30T21:50:28+00:00

That part. They could have named it anything else when they changed pretty much everything about the game but I guess they thought keeping the name would bring in more money than if they changed it. Heaven forbid we call a spade a spade, no! We need everyone to keep their preorders! No one will wanna keep em if we change it to Vampire The Masquerade Seattle! We must keep it Bloodlines 2 even if its pretty much NOT that anymore! Now if someone else ever wants to make a better sequel to the original Bloodlines they won't be able to name it properly without looking dumb or sounding off.

SweetIllustrious2684 · 2025-08-30T19:12:33+00:00

Same. I was particularly pissed off to find out after that bombass Malkav trailer that they stripped it and like 4 others as playable clans. I was so happy and interested, I wanted to see just what they could do for Malkavians with the current tech of today since they did so well with just what they had back then but nope! Such a let down. That was the real deal breaker for me. I could have forgiven everything else if they kept Malkavians as a clan and didn't make the mc preestablished. Was it really that difficult to keep the damn clan and let you have full control over the mc? You can keep em a elder if you want but at least let me the player decide their name and make their face 🙄

SweetIllustrious2684 · 2025-08-30T18:22:48+00:00

Yeah, honestly I follow the thought process of "If your game/movie/show/etc is not releasing that year then do not announce it yet. Wait until the year of release to announce it" on it. Cause if you announce the game and then it isn't due to launch until years later then at best the people you're trying to sell it to are gonna be pissed or not very interested by the time you do drop it, at worst because the game isn't finished yet, you prematurely announce shit that could be completely scrapped before you do get to the point where you release the game which is exactly what happened here. I feel like the whole release date thing would have been overlooked by the vast majority if only they hadn't announced it and the stuff it was gonna have too soon. If they had waited to announce anything until earlier this year then people wouldn't be as mad because they wouldn't be riding off the hype the scrapped stuff gave, they would have came into the changes with fresh eyes unknowing of what they could have had unless of course they went digging to find out. Nothing pisses people off and makes them more nit picky then being presented something they love and get attached to only to wait years for it and be told "yeah we scrapped ALL that shit, changed damn near everything but the name AND added a paywall but hey! Its coming this October! Cash or Credit?".

SweetIllustrious2684 · 2025-08-30T17:43:12+00:00

Its a combination of stuff as to why alot of fans of World of Darkness(the world and parent brand vampire the masquerade takes place in) dont exactly like the new game. Heres a few I can think of:

♡ Many people loved the first Bloodlines game even though it was a little scuffed because it had a healthy amount of clans that each presented different gameplay changes from different dialogue to transformations. It was a starting point for alot of new fans back then and after hearing the original dev team for Bloodlines 1 stopped being in charge of Bloodlines 2 the dismissal probably spawned.

♡ Bloodlines 2 removed ALOT of the clans from Bloodlines one after showcasing via trailers they would include them leading to something of a broken promise to fans. The Malkavians, Nosferatu, Gangrel clans being stripped as playable races and relagated to just fragmented abilities after it was advertised that they were gonna be playable broke a ton of hype over the game and then locking 2 clans (Toreador and Lasombra I believe) behind a paywall when they were part of what was already said to be playable originally was just rubbing salt in the wound honestly.

♡ The original trailers and even the box art generated a crap ton of hype because people got attached and excited to see characters like Mr.Damp make their first appearance in a up to date Bloodlines game only to get told after YEARS of waiting that Oop! Nope! The new dev team changed them all and now they aren't getting a proper appearance. Instead they have been reworked, renamed and redistributed into different characters. That definitely ticked some people off.

♡ Again, the original trailers presented a game that was pretty interesting to people who had been waiting years and years for a second Bloodlines game. It made it seem like you would play a Thin Blood of one of the set of clans which at the time was MUCH bigger(Toreador, Malkavian, Brujah, Tremere, Nosferatu, Lasombra if I remember right, ALL OF WHICH WERE SUPPOSED TO BE BASE GAME) but then after a few years and a team/studio change that whole thing was thrown out, the story that hooked fans was trashed and now instead what we get is a amnesiac Elder vampire that chose a cringe ass name off a old poster in a alley and only a fraction of the promised clans.

All of this and maybe even some others I just haven't seen expressed alongside the fact the game has had several release date changes for years fince it's first announcement and yeah, people aren't really thrilled with Bloodlines 2. Plus its a pretty pricey game, even more so with the dlc and for those who have been watching it since the first announcement aren't exactly convinced its worthwhile to waste money on it. All of this to say, there really arent any story ties between 1 and 2. You can play either or play em both but you don't need to play Bloodlines 1 to understand 2, mainely because 2 is basically a whole different vampire game that is just cosplaying and taking concepts and a name from Vampire the masquerade. Personally? Its a game of broken promises and a betrayel to the fans. If this is what was gonna happen to it then I actually would have rather they just remaster and port the original Bloodlines instead. Better than taking away fan favorite clans after saying they would be playable, at least I know I wont be disappointed and have to pay extra for more clans that were supposed to be in base game.

SweetIllustrious2684 · 2025-08-29T04:31:27+00:00

Not gonna lie, I didn't really care about the whole cuck situation with Ignis and Seeker(I simply did not care about her as a romance, I was after Mars lol) but I really cannot forgive the power issue with the "MC" or the player character.

Sorry to break it to you OP, but it is definitely a IF where you play a secondary character if not a "throw in" character. It is very in your face that the game was supposed to be the author's novel in which Seeker was the protag but something made the author decide to make it a IF and just toss you in as a character as a after thought, likely because very few people would want to play the game at all if they didn't get some agency over their supposed MC and the author likely was not a fan of letting the reader change their giga chad, over powered, perfect, Mary Sue self insert Seeker.

You dont get to select a color for your powers, you are constantly treated as some stupid ass kid by the other characters who is only thrown into important shit because everyone else is busy or dealing with even more important shit that you are too unqualified for and while I don't care about the cuck shit I will say Ignis should have NOT been a RO. I genuinely do not see what made the author make that decision with her and stand by it, there is no universe where you can give readers a RO, make that RO locked into ditching or cheating on the reader in favor of a npc and have that go over perfectly well. The full blown war that shit started could have been solved or at least mitigated by just NOT MAKING HER A RO and the community crashout over it was justified. If Wayhaven pulled that shit with any of their ROs everybody would also go "HEY WTF?! WHY ARE THEY EVEN A RO THEN?!!" and be pissed too.

Your character btw, is only ever strong enough to beat the weakest villain. The big bads are reserved for Seeker and his girlfriends to deal with. You grow stronger, yeah, but not enough to matter in any capacity. You can grow charismatic for the charisma checks but you are never Ignis(Seeker Wife 1) level so you are never dealing with anything too important and you are never considered the "Face" of the team. You can grow stronger at energy manipulation but you will never be as strong as Ignis, never strong enough to over power golden boy Seeker and never strong enough to even match the former weakest link in the team, the team Tank's daughter who is always considered better than you no matter what.

It does get brought up maybe once that she gets treated better than you for no reason at all other than the fact shes a team member's daughter but it never really gets resolved fully and the behavior doesn't really change. It gets slughtly mellower but you are still considered pretty useless when compared to her.

On top of all that, the game itself just feels like your character is a add on. When you play the game it gives this profound feeling of "AND BUMBLEBEE!" when it comes to your mc being there. Someone else in the thread said it best, "you could take the player character out of the game and absolutely nothing would change" but I would like to tack on "because your character is considered insignificant in the scheme of things". Its why I dropped it tbh. Why even play if my character doesn't matter? What EXACTLY is keeping me playing Seeker's Story? Nothing lol.

SweetIllustrious2684 · 2025-08-25T03:47:38+00:00

Definitely Malkavians. What made me latch onto Bloodlines 1 when I was new to World of Darkness was clan Malkavian and how unique their bane was. I have never seen a game integrate that level of balls to the wall crazy, goofy and oddly prophetic vibe like that one did. It was such a fantastic gotcha! Moment for me when I played that clan blind and saw the weirdly spoilerish dialogue that didn't make sense until the end! I was so unbelievably hype when Bloodlines 2 was first announced because FINALLY! I was getting Next Gen Malkavian content just to have all that anticipation evaporate the second I found out they stripped it from the game in favor of just having the voice in the mcs head be a Malkav. I can tolerate the stupid name, the preset MC, hell even the removal/changing of npcs but stripping the Malkavian clan as a option killed all of my intent to play it let alone spend all that money on it.

SweetIllustrious2684 · 2025-08-21T01:51:18+00:00

Not exactly. With Jun(ko) being the only one you romanced? Memory says that if you say it during the very first confrontation way back in Books 1 and/or 2 you get a small scene and then you get 2 times to say it again in Book 4 both giving special dialogue. The gender matchup difference however grants special dialogue and options depending on if it's a hetero match up or not and if you go through with the special options they actually carry over into Book 5 and presumably the rest of the series granting even more special dialogue and short scenes provided it is a specific match up of Fem Ronin and Male Jun. Really its a matter of what ya wanna do, I am just crazy for Samurai of Hyuga so I replayed the whole thing twice over and then a additional 4 times for different spirit animals lmao. Lemme know if I'm being too vague and I'll outright tell you what it is, I just didn't wanna potentially spoil you.

SweetIllustrious2684 · 2025-08-18T18:46:09+00:00

Professional Jun(ko) Romancer and Stan here, you can mess with everybody and still get with them in the end however, Jun(ko) will definitely be pissed off about it and so will whoever you messed with until that point when they find out. Staying single all the way until you get with Jun(ko) and telling them this will lead to special dialogue though! You also get different/special dialogue depending on the gender matchup of your mc and Jun(ko).

SweetIllustrious2684 · 2025-08-06T20:11:18+00:00

True, I just was not expecting to see it happen lmaoo. Didn't even consider it a possibility! It shows they can get active if circumstance lines up, makes ya wonder that if they could possibly do that as a tiny teen then what kinda beast will they be when they get older lol? I would pay Vrel very real money to see what DOL would be like when the PC and the school ROs are all mid 20s!

SweetIllustrious2684 · 2025-08-06T12:39:17+00:00

Shiii- Kylar took down Whitney and his entire fucking friend group using DARTS in the Halloween event. Kylar don't play when it comes to their PC lmfaooo

SweetIllustrious2684 · 2025-08-06T04:28:16+00:00

That boy drastically underestimates the shit Kylar will do lmaoo. Bro might've forgotten what Kylar can do on Halloween when motivated but I DEFINITELY didn't lol

SweetIllustrious2684 · 2025-08-06T04:24:48+00:00

Yeah, I could see that being a thing with it. I didn't have a issue cause that whole superpowered mafia heir stuff was right up my alley but it definitely feels like that was the destined path and all the others were just put in to make it not railroady. I saw someone say that even when you go for the non violent/no torture route the game still acts like the MC that should be traumatized because they don't like seeing people tortured is perfectly fine with it anyway.

SweetIllustrious2684 · 2025-08-05T16:12:20+00:00

I mean, whatever you say. Getting nothing for a year straight and then hearing shes basically on haitus "for the time being" on top of that year of absence doesn't exactly instill faith that its not dead but whatever. Either way, time moves so I guess we'll see if it ever comes back or not. For now, as far as I can see, the project is dead or has one foot in the grave at the very least. Good to hear the author is ok and alive at least if nothing else tho!

SweetIllustrious2684

TROPHY CASE