TheGamer managed to sit down with Cara Ellison, Narrative Designer on 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2, at PDXCON 2019 to talk about the game. When we asked how the portrayal of sꦰex workers m🦄ight have evolved since the first game, she was happy to discuss.
Before we got intꦬo that, though, we needed to discuss one new aspect of the game, Resonance.
Nearly every human in the game can b🐼e fed on by the vampire♑ main character, but they don't just provide bloody nourishment. Human NPCs also have Resonances, representing dominating emotions or states of mind, which can be picked up on by heightened vampiric senses.
Explains Ellison, "So we have Delirium if you take a drug, or Desire - people standing outside a club might have Desire. You've got Rage, for obvious reasons. We've got P𝕴ain, for example."
The Resonance of a human the player feeds on will have a mechanical effect, but it a🅰lso makes for a useful way to convey emotion aཧt a distance.
"We didn't want to g🃏et rid of the sex workers, because we thought that would be disrespectful. What we do this time around is we let you see the state... people are in. One of the most interesting decisions we made is to have Johns have a 'Desirous' Resonance… and the sex🀅 workers are just bored, you know?"
In the original game, sex workers were basically blood bags you could pay for. The main character could hire one, take them into a darkened alleyway, and suck their blood to replen♐ish themselves. The game actually made it clear that the blood of these people is of a lower quality, and even so far beneath some upper-class vampires that they'd vomit after drinking it.
One questline, in particular, involved a cult of vampires💃 that were deliberately spreading a deadly sexually transmitted illness by hiring sex workers to infect them, and by extension, all of their clients. Though it gave an insightful and positive depiction of a sex worker's personal and dating life that is rare to find in media, it also showed a sex worker dying because of her work. In light of the real dangers of STIs and the vulnerability𝓰 of sex workers, this questline was in poor taste.
It seems there's nowhere to go but up with Bloodlines 2's sex workers. This time arouꦰnd, at least some of them will play a much more important and respectfully depicted role in the story.
"I also have fully developed characters who 𒅌are sex workers and actually a main character. Basically, I think the answer is to just have the playe♏r be able to actually actually talk to the character... about whatever it is they're concerned with, and make them a part of the narrative instead of just exclude them.
So the way that we are approaching it is hopefully more thoughtful and less like they’re a resource. Because tꦫhey're just like anyone else: they are, you know, a person on the street and they are usually just as susceptible to all the labor issues as anyone else, susceptible to the cold, susceptible to health care issues, just like any other ⛄human.
We just have to treat them respectfully."