Path of the Vampire forum

Chapter 6 has begun. This is a bit of a bonus chapter for those who have been waiting so long for the follow up chapter surrounding the sirens. While we work on that, we figured we'd give you something fun to get you playing (/ roleplaying!).


Setting
After a well known progressive vigilante group leaked government emails, one email in particular stood out. "Project Revital." A name they are giving to worldwide efforts to find a so-called "cure" for vampirism.

If accounts are to be believed, this research has already entered final testing phases, and is rumoured to actually work. What's more, the cure is being developed right outside of the city of Harper Rock, in a military facility called CFB Longslade located to the east of the city, along the river.

For full details of the chapter, head over to the in-game chapter page


Choices
Forcing the chapter slider down to "against" will enable the attacking forces to make their way down to the bottom floor of the facility, where they can destroy or steal the research. Forcing the slider up to "for" will instead mean that the facility is successfully locked down and the research is safely extracted. See this page for full details on how you can influence the chapter.

However, you have more than a simple black and white choice to make this chapter. How does your character respond to the possibility of this cure?

Do they decide they want to learn more about the intentions of the scientists and governments backing this project? Hacking into the right systems may allow you to discover the truth of the cure, and what the governments of the world plan to do with it. The email fragments they discover, however, cannot be 100% proven to others you share them with as authentic (only the hacker will know for sure), so be careful who you trust when sharing the pieces of the puzzle around in an effort to discover the truths behind this chapter.

Does your character decide they want to eradicate this "cure" entirely? Perhaps they see it as a threat. After all, they might feel they simply can't be sure that this won't fall into the wrong hands, or even if it's already in the wrong hands. Maybe the idea that vampirism is some kind of sickness offends them. Perhaps their aim is to ensure vampire-kind stays strong and unified? Or maybe they think this is all a trap. Assaulting the facility and attempting to fight your way to the very bottom, to the laboratories, will give you the chance to utterly destroy the research.

Do they decide, instead, to steal the cure? Only one individual--the one slaying the final scientist--will get the final choice between destroying the research, or keeping it for themselves for some other purpose. Maybe they wish to use it as a weapon to hurt vampires, somehow? Perhaps they want to study it? Maybe they want to sell it to the highest bidder, who will then have the choice for themselves? Maybe they want to turn it over to some organisation? Or maybe they want to perfect it and give the cure to their allies?

It may be hard to discern a character's true intentions, even though they might seem to be fighting alongside you in an effort to break into the facility. At the last minute they could rush in and take the research for themselves, instead of destroying it.

Another option for your character is to actually join the militia and help protect the facility. They will be given access to the private elevators so that they can freely move inside of the facility (except for past the blast doors, where the laboratory is), and strike at their enemies as they struggle to fight their way to the research location. Perhaps your character's motivations for doing so is born out of a desire for the research to stay in the hands of the human governments? Perhaps they believe in giving vampires the right to choose for themselves? Maybe they wish to preserve good relations between vampire and human kind? Or maybe your character purely wishes to spite their enemies, and sees this as a perfect chance to do so?


Important Details

• The facility is located at 46, 13, wilderness, to the east of Harper Rock, by the river.
• Reminder! Roleplay will count, big time! During this chapter, posting any roleplay post with the words "[FOR THE CURE]" or "[AGAINST THE CURE]" (square brackets included) in the actual text of the RP will affect the chapter slider appropriately. You'll move the slider 0.2% for every 500 words you submit on any board which rewards RPP. Remember, don't put this on the subject line, put it in the text, as each post counts rather than each thread.
• Each kill on any floor of the facility will net you 10% more EXP than it usually would!
• Each of the enemies have equal counterparts in terms of strength and rewards and even battle tactics, to make it fair for both sides. Agents are equivalent to Vampires, Commandos are equivalent to Masterless Vampires, Paladin Soldiers are equivalent to the Disciple of Crow apostles, and Supersoldiers are equivalent to the Lionelli Overlords.
• Security will only start dropping keycards when the chapter slider reaches -10% * the number of the next floor in question. So for example, to get to basement 1 you'll need to get the chapter slider down to -10%, and to get to basement 9 you'll need to get the chapter slider down to -90%.
• If you wish to join the militia protecting the base, you can do so by going to one of the private elevators on any floor.
• Attacking a government agent, a supersoldier, a paladin soldier, or a commando will cause your security clearance to become 'revoked', and you will no longer be able to join the militia again. This will also happen if you attack any player character who is also on the militia team.
• You can see a full list of militia security personnel on the 'security terminal' on basement 9. You are advised to check this often, and only attack player characters who you know for sure are not members of the militia.
• Teleporting, banishing, trapping, claim aboding, and all other sneaky tactics will work on all floors of the military facility. Communication and teamwork is encouraged.
• Offline AI will be tested in this chapter! Remember, if you are being attacked by people skirmishing you and then running to another floor again, offline AI will allow you to defend yourself--or your allies--while offline.

Ending the Chapter
The chapter will end in the event of one of the following:

• If the date reaches November the 17th (two months from now), the cure will be extracted by the government.
• If the slider reaches -100% and the security personnel on the 9th floor are killed, the blast doors to the labs will be exposed. Once the final scientists in the labs is killed, the chapter is over, and the research is either stolen or destroyed (the killer of the final scientist will receive the item).
• If the slider reaches +100%, the facility will be fully locked down and the research will be transferred to another unknown facility.

Huge thanks to Azraeth for writing the email fragments for this chapter!

One more thing I forgot to mention that I probably should say, which will only affect people joining in on day 1: we're starting out tentatively as far as how easy it is to affect the chapter slider goes. This might be easier in a couple of days, or it might be harder. It depends if it moves too quickly in either direction. We want the chapter to last a little while, but not make it too hard for either side, so we'll change the difficulty as needed when we have a better idea of how it will flow. However, we won't weight it any further towards either side, we'll just make it so that the chapter either progresses faster, or more slowly, once we have an idea of how fast it's moving.

Now that we've had a chance to see how fast the chapter slider progresses, the result has been that it appears to change very little. Both sides seem fairly evenly matched right now.

To make things more interesting, I've doubled the rate at which the slider will rise or fall per NPC kill, in either direction. This may increase further one final time within the next day or two, but won't be slowed down again.

The effect of roleplay posts will remain at 0.2% per 500 words for now.

Due to a bug overnight, regular NPC vampires were going missing from the Longslade complex. This has meant that newer characters have been unable to influence the chapter for a while. As such, we're bumping the chapter slider 5% in the "for" direction, to make up for this bug.

Roleplay post impact on the chapter has been quadrupled. You'll now shift the slider 0.8% per 500 words, in which ever direction you wish. This was done to allow roleplayers a chance to impact the chapter before it's too late, as the sliders are moving faster than anyone expected.

There will be no further tweaks to the speed at which the sliders move.

On another note: assuming the "against" side wins, whomever ends up with the cure research in their possession at the end (by killing the final scientist) should speak to me about what they wish to do with it from a roleplay perspective. Or you can sell the inventory item via auction, and the new owner of it can decide. Or you can simply delete it from the game entirely, which will be seen as the research being utterly destroyed.