Bulldrek v3.0

So I'm just skimming through the awesome new White Wolf website, and I have a question; what are the major differences between Requiem and The Masquerade? I see they've killed off a bunch of clans, which is a shame, but am I right in guessing that all happened in one of the last books for which I'm sure AH wrote a really good review in this forum, but I can't find it anymore. While I can read all the information about Requiems on the website, I want to know what, if any, traces from the Masquerade to Requiem. Can anyone help me out?

From the many, many teasers let out by WW:

First off, there's no Caine in this vampire mythology, and thus no Generation per se. It's actually more balanced because of this, your relative power level of a given character is a measure of their age and the potency of their blood (maintained with the Blood Potency stat, which replaces most of the Generation benefits.) Likewise, the older and more potent your vampire, the more unstable they are: derangements galore, increased need for torpor, increased desire/need for diablerie (which has been reworked to be a /tad/ more powerful.)

The clans have been re-worked, and most re-named. Some old clans are now Bloodlines of new clans, but don't expect them to be the same.

The disciplines have been re-worked, with a number dropping out completely and the remainders re-worked both conceptually, thematically, and rules-wise. They claim to have fixed Celerity and blood magic ("Theban Sorcery") even.

Book itself looks pretty but from the, very, brief skim of Moo's copy it seems to be more a case of Vampire: The Re-Write.

I will wait to whine about all the money I've spent until Werewolf: The Anthropomporph comes out.

While I can read all the information about Requiem on the website, I want to know what, if any, traces from the Masquerade to Requiem. Can anyone help me out?

There are no connections between the two. Nothing that happened in Masquerade carries over to Requiem. While there are some obvious similiarities between the worlds and their history, technically Requiem is a whole new game in a whole new world.

Just skimming Requiem, it looks like the major changes involve less clans and the addition of "Covenantes" that cross through clan lines. It seems that in general the clans are not political powers in themselves, that being the function of Covenantes. There are five clans - Daeva (Artsy Succubi types), Gangrel (beasty types), Mekhet (Discreet and wise), Nosferatu (Strong and terrifying), and Ventrue (Aristocratic).

The basic powers seem largly the same, though some of them have been renamed. There are a few new ones that weren't in the core book for Masquerade, but I don't know as they are "new".

As someone mentioned, probably the biggest change is that the Cain Mythos have been removed. No one really has any information on where Vamps came from.

Some minor changes -

Vampires do not have reflections. If you attempt to photograph them, it comes out blured. Vampires can stop this effect with an act of will.

Vampires do not have souls, and can not feel true emotion. All emotion is caused by echos/memories from past experiences of the emotion, created by the tattered remanents of of the vamps soul. IE, if a vampire never experienced love before the embrace, they can not experience it after.

There's a bunch of other stuff. Generally it looks like the same themes are there, it's just the details that have changed.