I assume people know that already. Not sure it's very relevant to the discussion, either. The WoD MMO will be based on the P&P product, not the video game. But yes, there were two video games that spun off from the P&P.

Nah, the pen and paper rpg is way more relevant. It kind of... you know. Created Masquerade - Bloodlines. Which then goes on to make this. It all started with the table top rpg. If that didn't happen then none of it would have. Granted pen and paper rpg's aren't exactly a gigantic market.

I didn't mean it in the sense that Bloodlines is somehow more relevant to the MMO than WoD. The fact that Bloodlines was created from the P&P *is* basically exactly what I said. However, there are likely many gamers who are more familiar with Bloodlines than the P&P, and when talking about whether the MMO will capture the feel or spirit of World of Darkness, are making the direct comparison to Bloodlines. I'm sure CCP is also well aware that many inevitable comparisons are going to be made between the games, and are probably going to be interested in pleasing the fans of Bloodlines in addition to players of the P&P. So, in regards to WoD being an "existing product" for the sake of comparison and speculation toward the MMO, Bloodlines is pretty relevant.

I don't know. I was under the impression that most of the people who like it are those who forgave it its bugginess because they knew its roots in P&P and what it was trying to be. I'm sure there are some people who've never heard of the P&P, and who managed to forgive the bugginess, who did enjoy the game. But it's probably a safer bet to focus more on the P&P players than the gamers. That's what I would do, anyway.

In one of the presentation videos, the devs mentioned VTMB as their frame of reference.

That sounds really vague. We'll have to wait to see what they mean by that.

You would be surprised what roleplayers can do when they team up.

Quite well EVE is still growing in players, it has been for the last 9 years. In fact griefing is a great way to thin out the inmature simple minded crowd.

Clearly.

IIRC, it was in response to a question about whether they would be using the Requiem ruleset.

Masquerade Bloodlines was incredibly faithful though, so it's almost a picture perfect representation of the actual system itself. Now they're saying the rules are similar to Bloodlines. I take it to mean they're keeping the system mostly intact. Which means this game won't favor the mechanically inclined as much as one might think. Political powers will be more powerful than any individual can hope to be. I remember them stating they wanted this to be a thing for how it operates as well.

What I'm more interested in is how they're going to translate the persuasion stats over. I wonder if our persuasion skills might be able to influence fellow players. Not in a direct way, but an indirect way perhaps. But who knows with CCP.

Yeah, there are a number of things like that I'm curious about, especially since I haven't played the P&P. Are vampires in WoD supposed to be able to automatically sense each other? They all pretty clearly introduced themselves in Bloodlines, so it wasn't obvious either way. In the assumption that politics and more specifically, spying, are important, could someone try to blend in with the crowds of NPC humans? I'm also curious about sunlight. It would be very difficult to implement in a way that's not either pointless or an obnoxious pain, but at the same time, skipping the danger of sunrise and making it nighttime 24/7 would seem like a wasted opportunity.

If the game looks like one I want to play (once concrete stuff starts coming out), I really hope the Nosferatu are well implemented. I don't need combat OR chatty politics with other players. It would suit my playstyle just fine to hide in the shadows, eavesdropping, planting bugs, and stealing files, so that I can sell the information to others.

In the pnp social skills are so critical it isn't funny. It's up to the game master and players if they want their characters to be susceptible to their own social maneuverings and skill tests. hardcoe roleplaying essentially. I don't think Vampires auto sense each other and there are ways to blend into mortals. Though there may be specialized vampires who have learned how to sense vampires. I'm not entirely sure. My experience with the system is limited. I never had time to truly play and master the game. I do know there were skills for blending in though. Both socially and physically. As for sunlight I don't think it will come up. In the books Vampires get lethargic and slow in the day time even when indoors and away form the sun. It's very difficult to wake up in the day and do things as a Vampire. It's doable, but difficult. So I would think certain instanced missions perhaps. Not a full world instance where everyone is though.

All of the clans will be there since it's the Masquerade setting. My favorites in no particular order are Malkavian (crazy ones), Gangrel, and Tremere (Blood Mage Vampires).

Personally what I would want is the addition to play as the other creatures of the night. Or at the very least have the option to play as a Hunter. I played a very awesome game of Hunter before, it was truly legendary. Guy eventually did die, but not before I took down a hell of a lot of supernatural freaks with nothing more than a small 32. Revolver, a car, and surprise. Also killed a mage in one shot as well. He was supposed to be the villain for the campaign, but that kind of ended with the shot to his head before our game master could reveal him. If you know anything about WoD it's that mages are near omnipotent at points. They can reverse time and fate itself. I just happened to get lucky as all hell and detect him on my personal evil radar.

The impression I got from the long video is that the game will be all about vampires at first, but additional creatures could quite possibly be added in later expansions.

I've heard them mention thinking about it before as well. Though no guarantees we'll get to play them all. I can't fathom how you would balance mages out. Literally the only guarantee to stopping them is surprise. If they get to plan out anything it will be all over.

Werewolves would need their own maps and only go into cities for PvP (moderate difficulty implementing right), Changelings can go either or (minor difficulty implementing), Hunters (Very easy implementation, Mage (incredibly difficult), Wraith (unsure, never played), Kindred of the East (no idea), Mummy (no idea), and finally Demon (no idea, probably hard).

I would very much like them to take Promethean from new world of darkness and blend it into the setting since it's such an amazing game. The fan made evil genius also needs some recognition, but I doubt it. Though they said this is base don the old setting so I doubt we'll see those two even though I think they blow most of their other choice monsters out of the water.

I will stay true, and go Ventrue.

Oh also to highlight how in depth role playing in world of darkness pen and paper can get. I had my hunter writing a guide and classification system on all the monsters he fought and how to defeat them. It was enough to get him noticed and attempted assassination. They even ruined my work once and had to begin over. The next time I was going to take precautions so that it wouldn't happen again. Then I died shortly thereafter fighting a truly legendary and frightening abomination of some sort.

It takes one griefer to ruin experience of many roleplayers, it takes so many to ruin a griefer. You spent 2 hours writing up story background of your character, then someone called for bloodhunt for griefers. Instead of roleplaying for the next 4 hours, you spend that same amount of time helping the bloodhunt, with "noobz", "lmao" and "pwn" flying all over the place, 5 or 6 hunters might have met perma death because that griefer has friends too.

See what happens here? Those griefers took up 20 sec to get through character creation process, and they could get back up again in a few more days. You are spending your time in pvping, not storytelling and roleplaying. Where is the golden rule? There is no rule and story always prevails. Player interaction is not on character interactions, but instead on player nerdiness in powergaming. Powergaming has and always been the true bane of WWS's products.

In table top game, you gain xp from roleplaying and doing incredible things. In an MMO, you gain xp from killing things and completing quests. So far the only game that encourages roleplaying most is SW:TOR. I don't believe CCP is going that direction so I'm foreseeing more of power discussion instead of story delivery in future forums. If you classify in depth roleplaying as simple minded crowd, you know nothing Jon.

Can you translate this for someone who's never played MMOs before?

Are you talking about people who join a faction and attack members of their own team?

I don't know, I had never heard of the P&P before playing Bloodlines, yet it is one of my favourite games of all time. Then I played Redemption later, and that became one of my favourite games of all time as well. I still haven't played the P&P.

Actually Bloodline gained a lot new audience because of the Half Life 2 engine.

It's not so much not hearing of it, but the fact that the pnp has made this gigantic legacy. Whether or not you've heard of it prior to playing the video games irrelevant. At the end of the day it's very faithful to the tabletop, and spawned the soon to be MMO if things are to be believed. Actually this game is so famous in pnp circles a 20th anniversary edition of Vampire the Masquerade is now available for the year. None of their other older games are to be graced with this honor. It's like trying to diminish the relevance of swords in a historical context because all you see now days is people using guns.

I'm here to answer your questions, good sir!


Vampires are all supposed to be able to sense each other, yes. I imagine this will manifest itself as little dots on the screen, or something.


Yes. You can spend a portion of your blood to make yourself more human-like (and therefore much more difficult to detect) for a while.


There's so much to do in a normal P&P Vampire game that I don't know how they can fit it all in... and I will be disappointed if they can't.

If they go the way of EVE on this, and focus on making the system as much like the video games as possible, it will be a huge opportunity missed. There are so many non-combat abilities that are normally such a big part of the P&P experience, for instance, that it just won't be the same game if they don't exist within it.

Yeah you're right of course, but I wasn't talking about that. What I was replying to was Oof's statement that most people who really loved Bloodlines only did so because they were already fans of the P&P, since the game was too buggy for anyone else to enjoy. What I said was that, in my personal case at least, this wasn't so. But maybe I misunderstood Oof.

Ah, my mistake then.

I did say obviously some people came to enjoy the world through the video games. But just go look at the Obsidian thread to see how most people feel about video game worlds that are plagued with bugs. No matter how good the world and lore is, it tends to get drowned out by the bugs. Which is why I'm guessing they'd do well to try to focus a bit more on the P&P side of things. Because that will have the bigger/more loyal base. (Besides, if they did, and they implemented more of the mechanics and lore into a game world, it could only benefit the people who came to the franchise from video games.) But again, that's just what I'd do, and I'm not a video game developer for a reason.