I've always thought a good vampire game would have to have these elements.
1) more than one type of vampire: i loved what vampire the masquerade did with the whole clans thing that was brilliant
2) a love interest, and before you say that's gay i'd like to say how cool it would be if that love interest was a human and worked for you during the day, or protected you during daylight hours, or something... it would be nice to see a love interest pulled off in an actually engaging way... and let's face it romance and vampires kinda go hand in hand (to quote yahtzee yes my new vag is growing in nicely)
3) daylight does damage (twilighters can stfu)
4) sandbox type of game, i've played... was it bloodrayne? anyways yea it was linear and that kind of annoyed me... plus i'd love to be able to walk into a bar and get a drink
5) close relationship with your sire, and/or flashback scenes where your player controlled vampire 'remembers' something that happened to him a century ago, this would be a good way to vary gameplay (ex: find a safe hiding place while being chased by a mob with pitchforks and torches)
6) a van hellsing after your undead ass, what vampire is complete without one?
7) concealing the fact that you are a vampire, ex: no powers in front of people on the street(again a vampire the masquerade rip off, sue me that game had greatness in it) i can imagine points being deducted as the game shows a 'cellphone' pic that someone took as you were doing something cool like outrunning a car, or jumping over a building or lifting a car
8) health regeneration by drinking blood (again obvious)
9) health packs as blood packs
10) character customization, beyond that of joining a vampire clan, but also playing through a part (I would make this optional) where you're human and some decisions you make decide on how people interact with you later on. This could be done by selecting a preset bio (ex: your character was a thief, or a businessman), or it could literally be done by giving the character a preset amount of money and him deciding where to spend it (ex: inheritance from dead parents) and game content is decided based on what apartment/house you buy... what car you get... and what job/degree your character has. I would make this optional as i mentioned before because I hated the part where you were not a jedi in KOTOR 1 (the good one). You could choose to select all this based on text, but I would make it so gamers that play as a human up to their transition get rewarded with extra gear (again masquerade-esque, where you get the lockpick and other items you have to buy if you don't play the tutorial).
11) okay have to post this too, the ability in vampire masquerade to get a new apartment was pretty cool, but it really didn't affect the game. You should be able to purchase 'safe houses' or even a storage facility in a vampire game. It would also be nice to have a managed club in which you could invest money and attract victims... i mean customers. ala the castle you get in neverwinter nights... 'daily' quests could come from here from your customers, be it in taking care of a problem a girl is having with a stalker, or your bartender doesn't like certain people.
12) another thing i loved about masquerade was the bounty hunting side quest of the game. that should be incorporated as part of the game.
13) a tree of skills known as 'vampire senses' should be incorporated, i would love to be able to select a target from across the room, trigger 'hearing' and be able to listen in on his conversation, it would be a hard mechanic to program i would imagine, but you could use that for all sorts of things (see splinter cell on that one mission where you aim that laser device at the glass of the elevator to listen in on the convo)
14) again with the senses, to be able to follow someone's scent trail in game would be pretty cool, this to me would involve a character screen in which people you come into contact with are added based in 'smell', the ability to track down people based on this smell could be an integral part of locating people on bounty hunting quests (ex going to their apartment and smelling their laundry, then hunting)
15) one thing masquerade lacked was good night vision, there were ironically plenty of times in the dark that I couldn't see well and that struck me as odd, you could model this after prototype's 'infected vision'
16) ability to modify appearance... okay clothes in a game are seriously underrated in some areas, a vampire we assume is immune to cold and heat, so dressing your vampire in shorts and a t-shirt during a new york winter could draw attention to you... don't know how important this would be to a player, but yea there it is
17) on that note, thermal cameras and a gameplay mechanic of having to be freshly fed with warm blood to be able to get past one registering as human
18) 'modes' of appearance... okay in a lot of vampire stories you've got changing eye color and retractable fangs along with variation of pigment in skin color as willed by the vampire. now it can suck to switch between 'disguise' and 'combat' modes, but i still think at least bears consideration, and could be an effective way to switch from 'humans can't see me for what i am mode' and 'i'm going to kill you all mode'
19) you must be able to kill a werewolf at some point in time during the game
20) @zjpicks: suggested a nice way to use persuasion... being able to get vampires to swear fealty to you and join your clan, and be able to gain followers, also his addition of managing orphanages, or other types of businesses
list is getting long... i was hoping more of you would contribute some good ideas... my apologies to the game developer that tries to pick up all this, at this point in time including all this could make for a disjointed or buggy game. really what i'd like to see is a game with my first 12 and number 15, i'd be more than happy with that.
Or a game where you are a real vampire and smash faces of characters from twilight with a sledgehammer
