Topic: "The Dragon Returns" - Castlevania Lords of Shadow Sequel (HERE BE SPOILER INFO)

[Flame]

It's funny how that idea came from nosferatu, which is older than Lugosi Dracula, (which is the iconic and classical Dracula look,) and yet they often mix the idea of Dracula with the idea of burning in sunlight, and it's something which really caught on with vampire lore.
Much like the idea of Vampires that turn you just by simply biting you. (I'm thinking that probably came from Werewolves)

[DragonSlayr81]

AFAIK, according to the old legends, vampires weren't that vulnerable to the sunlight.

They really WEREN'T vulnerable at all. They could walk among the daylight. Some legends even say, during the day, they would even blend INTO society and be indestinguishable from normal people(they could be your friend, or co-worker, go to work, go to school, and act as a functioning member of society). It was just in the night, their powers and cravings would be at their peak.

I personally, do like the modern depctions only because the night is a powerful thing in horror. Night just looks better whenever you think of vampires. Gothic night, huge full moon in the sky, it just fits. Not just with vampires, werewolves, zombies, demons, even slasher killers. Jason Voorhees is much more scarier when he's chopping people up during the night than in broad daylight. Camp Crystal Lake is much more creepier a place at night. It's kinda a natural thing, because the night, itself, is it's own obstacle. We are creatures of the daylight, functioning mainly during the day. Duriing the night, mostly, we are tired, disoriented, obscured by darkness(we lack natural night vision). For monsters and horror lore, to me, it just fits it like a glove.

But yeah, Dracula can walk during the day. He did in Stoker's novel.

[Kale]

I thought the whole burning thing came from the buffy tv series.. Which was really just a way to decrease the budget instead of keep a bunch of dead corpses laying about the show, like how the movie did it.

As for the biting... I don't think there are many stories taht use it. Most use the bite and feeding of blood, I think.

[Zetheraxza]

I don't think Vampires really don't go by the Daytime/Night-time hours. I believe it's more of daylight and shadow concept. If they are exposed to light, powers are weakened whereas in darker areas, their abilities "Shine" brighter . If you just think it like that, you don't have to bring science into it then by explaining UV rays. Vampires have always been metaphysical creatures with mastery of Dark-Arts. They truly are the creatures of the night and they have no place in the light of day whereas humans are not made for night-time, unless you're a Belmont. Happy Hunting then!

[uzo]

The moon reflects 0.0002% of sunlight, and UV rays specifically half as well. This means 0.0001% of UV rays from the sun are reaching anything on the planet under moonlight.

I guess vampires are 0.0001% weaker during moonlight?

I wonder though, about the moon light giving power to vampires thing. If I recall correctly, in Circle of the Moon, and likely others, its alluded to that the moonlight can be an enhancer or power bringer for Dracula. If UV's were responsible for weakening vampires, that wouldn't be true, to a very very small degree. It would effectively be a neutral effect.

So the main question I have is; The notion that moonlight empowers or enhances vampire abilities, is that something that was added in recent times, or was that part of the original lore?

Oh science. How we love thee.

[Sumac]

I like the idea of the powerfull vampires being invunerable to the sun (like Dracula, Orlox or Carmilla) and the usual vampires being strictly nocturnal creatures.

[DragonSlayr81]

The moon reflects 0.0002% of sunlight, and UV rays specifically half as well. This means 0.0001% of UV rays from the sun are reaching anything on the planet under moonlight.

I guess vampires are 0.0001% weaker during moonlight?

I wonder though, about the moon light giving power to vampires thing. If I recall correctly, in Circle of the Moon, and likely others, its alluded to that the moonlight can be an enhancer or power bringer for Dracula. If UV's were responsible for weakening vampires, that wouldn't be true, to a very very small degree. It would effectively be a neutral effect.

So the main question I have is; The notion that moonlight empowers or enhances vampire abilities, is that something that was added in recent times, or was that part of the original lore?

Oh science. How we love thee.

I never cared for the UV explaination in modern vampire lore. Traditional vampires seemed more magical than science based. It wasn't a "vampire virus" they possessed more than vampiric/demonic influence(increased bloodlust and a inhibited dark persona). They still had supernatural abilities that laid outside of the boundries of science(especially traditional vampire lore, in which shapeshifting was still prevalent).

And I'm not sure about modern vampire lore, but maybe moonlight is considered the "sun" of the night creatures. The sun gives us vitamins, helps plants grow. It's vital to mainly all things within the daytime hours. While not every night has a full moon, perhaps to the creatures of the night, it hads a bit of bonus attributes to their strength. Just thinking more mystically, not scientifically. The sun is almost a central deity/god in lots of cultural lore. People believe it's beneficial properties and importance to life before modern science proved it. Warmth of the sun and of the day, is almost the direct opposite of the shine of the moon, which is cold, lifeless, dead. Pale moonlight, cold, I would think is perfect of a light for creatures like vampires. 

[Zetheraxza]

While I do believe that Science can explain certain aspects of the vampire lore, the mysticism and culture of bloodsuckers vary from region to region. In terms of the the Iconic Vampires like Dracula, Nosferatu and other variant of pop-cultural variants of Vampires, most of them burn by daylight. Now a high tier vampire such as Dracula, can survive in daylight, his powers don't however. But at night time they do. Now I just don't understand why full moon grants Dracula bonus content or full abilities when the moon at that time is the most brightest. To me that doesn't really make sense to me. A Vampire influenced by full moon isn't so convincing as Vampire influenced by the complete darkness is. If we took Dracula to a foreign planet with a powerful light source and had a moon twice as large as our moon. How would we measure our Vampire's power?

[Inccubus]

I think everyone is assuming a linear progression of effect, but that isn't always the case with everything. For example, we put fluoride in our toothpaste and drinking water to help prevent cavities, right? Fluoride, however, has actually been shown to CAUSE tooth decay in too large a dose, plus it is poisonous to humans if ingested in large quantities. So it stands to reason that it is possible that a low dose of reflected sunlight could have slight to radically different effects on creatures that are sensitive to it. Just sayin'.

[Chernabogue]

Each time I see this one bumped, I'm hoping for some news, or a trailer or some pics. But instead it's just discussion about vampires, toothpaste and UV.

[Kingshango]

Well if you want some type of news, I do have this regarding their new engine from a gaming radio show in Spain.

Mercury Steam have actually optimized their engine for the Cell CPU multiprocessing capabilities this time around, LoS budget wasn't nothing out of the ordinary and they preferred more and better artists than multicore-experienced software engineers (rewriting the code wasn't an option) so using the CPU for rendering tasks didn't make the deadlines and they opted for a traditional and cheaper (that budget...) engineering approach which ended hurting the overall performance of the game in both the PS3 and X360 versions of the game. LoS 2 will perform at a locked 30 frames per second with larger areas and better image quality.

Oh and from the same source, a PC version of the first game will be a bonus in the collectors edition of the PC version of Lords of Shadow 2 . Although that is classified as a rumor, but that would be sweet.

[crisis]

Cell CPU multiprocessing capabilities

lol

[Maedhros]

lol

What's the problem with the phrase?

Also, it has to be 60FPS on PC...

[DragonSlayr81]

Each time I see this one bumped, I'm hoping for some news, or a trailer or some pics. But instead it's just discussion about vampires, toothpaste and UV.

I think this is a nice way to end the talk about vampire attributes/weaknesses, a little bookend so we can move on with a chuckle.

You Know What's Bullsh!t? - Vampires!

[Nagumo]

...

So let's move on to listening ways people can turn into vampires!

• Being bitten.
• Drinking a vampire's blood.
• If you're born with teeth you turn into a vampire after you die. (seriously)
• Ditto if you're born on Christmas.
• If you're born with a caul. Plus you're also a psychic. So the end result is a psychic vampire.
• If you commit suicide.
• Being buried while facing downwards.