Never had much interest in MMOs before. However, I just saw some impressive early gameplay footage from the upcoming World of Darkness MMO.

From what I gather, it is a license from CCP/White Wolf Publishing and it will incorporate features similar to the pen and paper ruleset originally licensed for Troika's Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines.

I don't know much else about this project. Not sure if there is even an official website yet.

http://youtu.be/YCpKcdB46wE?hd=1&t=1m25s

http://youtu.be/Cf_xGH0v93U?t=1m8s

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_of_Darkness#WoD_MMORPG

Oh a footage, they surely are taking their time since 2009. I was worrying if it would die with CCP laying off so many writers in WWS.

So that was gameplay footage? The PC hovers around?

Glad to see this is still alive. WoD is probably my favourite setting ever, so I really hope that they get it right. And that if they do, the game doesn't die within months due to a lack of subscribers.

I guess it was more like a showcase of the environments.

Oh hell yes. Never even played the game of that franchise, but I know all about it.

Not gameplay footage. "In-world" footage. The graphics are really good for an MMO... Can they really pull that kind of fidelity off? Windows had reflections...


I had the same thought. It seemed like they were doing nothing, and then they fired 70-something staff, and then they reshuffled everything about the WoD project... I'm just glad to see something.

I'm not a multiplayer kind of person, but I might just give this a try. When it's eventually out.


Of course you say yes. No werewolves, AFAIK, though.

Now to try to force myself to forget about it until there's more.

:sigh:

This will probably be the only MMO game I will ever play in my entire life. If and when it ever comes out.

I tried the TOR beta and it seems that there are some necessary compromises with immersion for any MMO.

For example, since there are many players, they need to have enemies respawn frequently. This looked quite silly in the TOR beta, as dead enemies did not even disappear or wait for you to leave the area. They would just lie down and stand up again in 30 seconds.

Give that there are already a few MMOs in development using the CryEngine I'd say it's entirely possible that the graphics in World of Darkness will be up to par with modern AAA games.

How does EVE handle this stuff? I have the impression they don't really have the traditional AI enemies; instead, the other players are the enemies. Do I have it right?

That would work for WoD, mostly. It would be a good idea to introduce a few other supernatural creatures that serve as story foes (does EVE have quests, even?) but other than that, the main foes should be the other vampires. That's a central element of WoD: your community is out to get you, and only constant vigilance against others' actions will ensure your survival.

That's actually exactly the same reason it might turn me off. I might simply stick with Warhammer 40K online. I love the franchise, I've been playing it over 10 years and spend thousands $$ for its books, but I just can't afford to be constantly online to defend myself or be perma killed.

Surely you can't actually die just because you're not present? You might miss out on alliances and such, but I doubt there'd be much bigger consequences. Were I to join, I wouldn't be online much either.

Oh, Princes have perma-death permission.

I'm just worried about the drama that might happen. I'd join just to have a little fun every now and then. I know a lot of other people (especially in consideration of who the developer is) will take it much more seriously.

I didn't realize there was a World of Ponies MMO

Same...I am terrified that Oof's avatar is Ro and Exo has a pony in his.

Anyone familiar with EVE care to enlighten us?

From the panel discussion and presentation I gather that the mechanics will be something of a cross between Troika's Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines and EVE Online.

I haven't played in a long time but if I remember correctly, there are AI enemies for missions that you warp into as well as other players if you're in low-security space.

Perma-death. That is cool, but it's kind of horrible. But truly hardcoe. I will definetly make a new character if my character dies perminantly, then he/she will seek revenge on the person who allowed the perma-death.

It will make for a good RP.

But wouldn't there also need to be quests with challenging combat where you die and reload frequently, just as you would in a singleplayer game like VTMB?

CCP haven't said anything yet about how combat will work. We know only that Princes are allowed to permanently kill characters. Whether this means that only they can perma-kill; or that whenever they call a Blood Hunt, the character for whom the Hunt is called will be perma-killable by anyone, is still unknown. I assume the latter, however.

Dammit. I was kind of hoping other people wanted a "World of Ponies" MMO

Some of each. It's been a long time since I played, but there are AI enemies. They're ships in space though, so they tend to explode on death; not much room for getting back up. They respawn, but very slowly. You'll generally only see pirate-type AI enemies in areas that are relatively abandoned by human players. The game world is maybe best imagined as a "network of bubbles", individual regions of space linked by warps between them, which may or may not be under the control of various player factions. So there aren't really spots like you see with most MMO's, with a sort of "field" perpetually filled with some respawning enemy type.

I'm curious about the world size. Vampires aren't exactly supposed to be outnumbering humans 10 to 1, so they'll need quite a lot of human NPC's wandering around, lest they end up with the odd situation of every single resident of an entire city secretly being a vampire, except for the one unlucky hobo they all feed off of. Assuming that the Masquerade is a thing to care about, combat would probably stay off the streets unless initiated by other players, leaving most AI enemies to be found in quest/instanced areas. Hard to say anything for sure, though, since to really pull of a WoD MMO they'll already need to be doing things differently than most MMO's.

That would be hilarious! (But not a very fun game.)

I'm guessing each city will get its own server(s). Players should be able to switch between servers, if they so wish; and may actually be forced to do so, as part of the RP. It's one of the Princes' duties to ensure that cities don't become overpopulated with vampires. What was the human:vampire ratio? 100 000:1? They could only reasonably fit 100-150 players in each city...

The more players there are, the more cities are created? What happens if they start losing subscriptions in a city? How would they handle depopulating a server/city if they have to close it?

I'm as interested in the design solutions as I am in actually playing the game.

They mentioned one form of gameplay is to start as human then get embraced by a vampire.