World of Darkness (MMORPG)

Title:	World of Darkness
Developer:
Publisher:	CCP Games, White Wolf
Designers:
Platform:	PC
Released:	TBA
Genre:	MMORPG
Version:

World of Darkness, or World of Darkness Online, is a Massively-Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game (MMORPG, or simply MMO) under development by CCP Games. It was an open secret almost since the time of the CCP/White Wolf merger in late 2006 — the CCP website even lists it as one of their products — but was not officially announced until the Grand Masquerade fan event at New Orleans, on Saturday September 25, 2010.

Following the series of layoffs at CCP in October 2011 (see Black Wednesday), the release of the game has been significantly delayed. CCP has shifted its focus to reinvigorating flagging subscriptions to their existing MMO, EVE Online, and on preparing the release of their new MMO, the first-person shooter DUST 514, which is expected to enter the market in Spring 2012. Although World of Darkness remains in development at CCP, its exact status remains uncertain, and will likely be dependent on the financial performance of both EVE and DUST.

Setting

Contrary to fan expectations, the game will be "based on" Vampire: The Masquerade (unpublished from 2004 to 2011) rather than the more contemporary setting, Vampire: The Requiem.

Ari Marmell, one of V:TR's authors, but not affiliated with the MMO, said about this:

As CA said, the very design mandates that went into Requiem—make it much more personal, cut down on the history/canon/metaplot, present most of the non-core details as options rather than hard-and-fast facts—are precisely what make it less appropriate to the MMO format than Masquerade. V:tM and V:tR are different games, and V:tM is simply better suited for this.

Bill Bridges, a designer at CCP, states:

Yes, it's "based" on Vampire: the Masquerade, but that doesn't mean we can't and won't draw from everything we've ever worked on over the years if it works for us.

As a result, while VTM provides the blueprints, the final result may be a mixture of elements from VTM and VTR. If so, this will be the fourth distinct World of Darkness setting published by White Wolf (alongside the Classic World of Darkness, "New" World of Darkness, and Monte Cook's World of Darkness).

Known Facts

• "It will be a player-driven game with lots of social and political elements."

• The themes that the game explores will be: Mystery, Romance, Power, Danger."

• It will be an adult game which aims to invoke emotion in you."

• "Vampires will be the only supernatural player characters, but stuff from the other games will be present in some form. Also, there will be the option to play a human, though no specifics on that were given." Other supernaturals will likely be presented as NPCs until post-release development allows them to be played as PCs.

• "Character customizability and aesthetics will be big in this game. [CCP has] even hired a fashion consultant."

• "They want to make the game as accessible as possible, and this is one of their criteria for success. So they want it to be fun for both hardcore and casual gamers."

• "They also want to cater to an array of players by having three ways you can play the game: sandbox (open-ended like EVE), theme park (traditional MMOs like WoW), and coffee shop (social). These playstyles will be interconnected, with each one feeding to and from one of the others."

• "The game will not be combat-intensive, unless you choose to play it that way." Political maneuverings will get a PC further ahead than being the toughest character in town.

• "Factions and territories will be a big part of the game."

• "The game will have gay clubs." GLBT awareness was mentioned at the Grand Masquerade.

• "The game will be fully PvP, but that's not to say that you can be attacked anywhere. If you don't want to get attacked, you might want to hang around Elysium a lot." PCs will likely face consequences for PvP actions, vis-a-vis the Masquerade.

• "Some Disciplines will not be included because they're impossible to have in an MMO, like Temporis."

• "There will be no day/night cycle, only night."

• "Players will start as human."

(Mostly compiled from Mike Todd's blog)

On his blog, Justin Achilli compiled a summary of features that were requested by attendees at the 2010 Grand Masquerade announcement [1]. Many sources erroneously reported that these were features that the developers were working to implement in the game, not features that were requested by fans.

Media

Video:EVE Fanfest 2013 World of Darkness

Eve Fanfest 2013

Video:World of Darkness - 2010 Animatic Trailer

Official game trailer

Video:CCP cloth and hair simulation

Cloth and hair simulation