World of Darkness Online - Confirmed

I think it would be a small piece like CoV, but hopefully more mature and more real-feeling.  I could see a sort of MMO version of Resident Evil, with a touch of the Sims for good measure.  You create a World of Darkness character and immerse yourself in the world, which is as varied in stories and niches as the tabletop.  The element of horror would be a refreshing change for an MMO.  Plus, the three main races would each have their own playstyle.  Vampire would be heavily social, with lots of black market activity and illegal dealings.  Werewolf would be the combat heavy game, with the virtually endless supply of Spirits a lot easier to go hack-n-slash than the humans (Who are protected by police, as well as their supernatural allies).  Mage would be about game design and programming, with Magic being almost like a built in Game-Genie/Debug mode for the MMO.

Antagonists in the WoD should be scary.  Combat starting should give you a jump, or perhaps the slow build of tension and the inevitable release.  Storylines should be mature, not arbitrary.  And a lot of this could be player driven, if players have more control over their environment.  If some positions of power were held by players, they could deal with giving noobs quests and rewards and the like.

septembervirgin:

MisterShifter:

You'll "level" up like every other MMO.. maybe you'll train specific skills like SWG did originally or like EVE does.. but it won't be like playing a Table Top game on a computer..

Dream a little dream?  MisterShifter, it's not going to work by levels nor by training specific skills.  I can tell you right now..

SNIP

Stop right there.. unless you are on the Dev team.. you can NOT tell me anything.. you can make a haphazard guess based on what you WANT..

Fact.. characters in MMO's "Level" through combat and quests..
Fact.. the VAST.. VAST.. majority of WoW players are "Casual Gamers".. grinding hasn't hurt their numbers..
Fact.. the more complex you make the advancement system.. the less likely you are to succeed..

You need a good dose of reality.. WW and CCP are not making a MMO to cater to the couple hundred thousand White Wolf(and don't kid yourself into thinking they print of sell millions of copies of anything).. They are making an MMO to appeal to the much larger NON-WoD audience in the hopes of drawing them INTO the WoD.. so the more "insider" stuff you tack on, the less likely you are to attact non-WoD players.. so making a "hefty rulebook".. aka.. reprinting half the WoD books.. is counter-productive..

In MMO design, it's better to err on the side of simplicty then complexity.. you also do not want to build in artifical stop gaps into your gameplay.. namely by making "questing" dependant on Player involvement..

The more you want it to simply be a Table Top game on a computer, the more you're going to be disappointed..

Talking about what you'd LIKE is fine.. but don't get your hopes up..

I'd like to see the game follow the EVE mold, have one big server.. have it be a giant city and have each "super" have it's own territory.. and then through quests and consensual(optional) PVP allow the territory each group controls to expand, but never farther then the edge of the original starting area..

MisterShifter:

Fact.. characters in MMO's "Level" through combat and quests..

Not a fact. EVE doesn't have levels, and the closest to it - training skills - isn't governed by combat and quests. Combat and quests yield resources and money. You can destroy all the ships in the game's universe and this feat won't give you a single point in any attribute or skill whatsoever.

MisterShifter:

Fact.. the VAST.. VAST.. majority of WoW players are "Casual Gamers".. grinding hasn't hurt their numbers..

Irrelevant fact, since WoW isn't the only model available - that's our point, by the way.

MisterShifter:

Fact.. the more complex you make the advancement system.. the less likely you are to succeed..

Wrong. EVE has the second highest player base out there, IIRC.

Sorry, but trying to ignore the real facts to suit your own cynicism about MMOs doesn't make for a better argument than saying other people are judging possibilities according to what they like. You're doing the exact same thing, just focusing on the things you don't like. It doesn't cut it.

As much as people would hate to admit it, WoW has gotten pretty dry.  Even their "unique" elements have gotten prety old.  If there is anything that could be guessed about the WoDO, it will NOT be WoW with vampires.  They know better than to try to compete with WoW.  They know the best way to suceed is to learn from WoW, and EVE, and outdo them both.

Sure, it won't be a tabletop on computer.. but it'll be way closer to a Tabletop than WoW is, and possibly even closer to the tabletop version than it is to WoW.  While the console games like the old Hunter fit okay with grinding and monster-bashing, I don't think that would succeed, especially in competition with more colorful monster bashing games.

I been playing WoW for a while and I can honestly say WoW gets boring if you are playing by yourself.  I should know I did that a lot.  However if you got people it starts to pick up and things get good.

Though to be honest I still don't like this WoDMMO idea.  What happens IF it fails?  Not saying it will, or it should fail.  I am just asking what will happen if it fails.  I just think they should had made a game similar to Bloodlines, or neverwinter nights with a tool set to make your own games.

MisterShifter:

You need a good dose of reality.. WW and CCP are not making a MMO to cater to the couple hundred thousand White Wolf(and don't kid yourself into thinking they print of sell millions of copies of anything).. They are making an MMO to appeal to the much larger NON-WoD audience in the hopes of drawing them INTO the WoD..

That is not near correct, no business ever has a success and creates a following to than turn around and make something that would not appeal to that audience. Right now as they create there mmo they must understand that the figures of sales they project can mainly only be assumed by the audience they already have, not a guessed at audience that they can create after the project is done. So there number one priority does need to be to make it closer to TT WOD so they know they have created something that has proven that it can sell already. After that they can project that since WOD is a success because of its themes and setting that other people would like it also, mainly people that would rather play video games than any TT RPG. Than they could project  an amount of players that would play an mmo that is more targeted for a mature audience unlike most mmorpgs out there.

It's just foolish to think that a company would not use anything that they already have that works (other than the name) to risk making a game based on others success, such as wow, especially when that company has a strangle hold on regular mmorpgs, so the only rational choice is to go with what you know works and don't be a direct competitor of the powerhouse. Anything else and they would have had to get some stupid investors to go with that idea.

MisterShifter:

Stop right there.. unless you are on the Dev team.. you can NOT tell me anything.. you can make a haphazard guess based on what you WANT..

An idiot trying to start an argument on a bulletin board so he can extend conversation.  What is that called?

MisterShifter:

septembervirgin:

MisterShifter:

You'll "level" up like every other MMO.. maybe you'll train specific skills like SWG did originally or like EVE does.. but it won't be like playing a Table Top game on a computer..

Dream a little dream?  MisterShifter, it's not going to work by levels nor by training specific skills.  I can tell you right now..

SNIP

Stop right there.. unless you are on the Dev team.. you can NOT tell me anything.. you can make a haphazard guess based on what you WANT..

Fact.. characters in MMO's "Level" through combat and quests..
Fact.. the VAST.. VAST.. majority of WoW players are "Casual Gamers".. grinding hasn't hurt their numbers..
Fact.. the more complex you make the advancement system.. the less likely you are to succeed..

You need a good dose of reality.. WW and CCP are not making a MMO to cater to the couple hundred thousand White Wolf(and don't kid yourself into thinking they print of sell millions of copies of anything).. They are making an MMO to appeal to the much larger NON-WoD audience in the hopes of drawing them INTO the WoD.. so the more "insider" stuff you tack on, the less likely you are to attact non-WoD players.. so making a "hefty rulebook".. aka.. reprinting half the WoD books.. is counter-productive..

In MMO design, it's better to err on the side of simplicty then complexity.. you also do not want to build in artifical stop gaps into your gameplay.. namely by making "questing" dependant on Player involvement..

The more you want it to simply be a Table Top game on a computer, the more you're going to be disappointed..

Talking about what you'd LIKE is fine.. but don't get your hopes up..

I'd like to see the game follow the EVE mold, have one big server.. have it be a giant city and have each "super" have it's own territory.. and then through quests and consensual(optional) PVP allow the territory each group controls to expand, but never farther then the edge of the original starting area..

As stated this thing about all MMOs having levels is false for CCP's flag ship game system, Eve Online.  Training is time based.

As to the size of customer base CCP wants or desires, they have stated in the past that they DIDN'T want a million subscribers like WOW has for their EVE property, and they were fine with a couple hundred thousand players.  Thye might feel the same way about their WoD offering.  Whether that has changed for their new development (Dust 514) or the future project (WoD Online) I am not sure.  I am pretty sure you are not qualified to make judgements on their marketing and sales strategies however, unless you work for the company in question.  There are some 'facts' being thrown out here about some things allot of us know nothing about, which of course means they are not facts.  They are speculative comments.

i kinda agree with the things that septembervirgin said, or actually i would also like to see them implemented in the game in such a way and i hope that mistershifter won't turn out to be right in the end, but that's purely my hopes and opinion. i have tried warhammer online and i found out that i don't like this style of play. so a socially deep and not combat-oriented mmorpg appeals much more to me.

and also, there's this thing that i can't figure out, although i admit i haven't read all the info out there about thins project, so the question might be stoopid. just curious what you people think.
what about day and night change? vampires are the only race that's totally dependent on the day/night cycle, so how do you think this is going to be handled? with a perpetual night, like in bloodlines [and idea, which i don't like, although i know it's impossible to have a real cycle - like, you log in to play a little and it turns out it's going to be daytime for 4 more real hours, so your vampire character is unplayable], or what?

thecapopriest:

It's just foolish to think that a company would not use anything that they already have that works (other than the name) to risk making a game based on others success, such as wow, especially when that company has a strangle hold on regular mmorpgs, so the only rational choice is to go with what you know works and don't be a direct competitor of the powerhouse. Anything else and they would have had to get some stupid investors to go with that idea.

I would offer that the latest Shadowrun computer game contradicts your opinion.

brokentool:

what about day and night change? vampires are the only race that's totally dependent on the day/night cycle, so how do you think this is going to be handled? with a perpetual night, like in bloodlines [and idea, which i don't like, although i know it's impossible to have a real cycle - like, you log in to play a little and it turns out it's going to be daytime for 4 more real hours, so your vampire character is unplayable], or what?

Day/Night could change every six hours.  I would hope you'd be able to make at least two or three characters.. so, many vampires would be unplayable a lot of the time.  However, this will keep them from overplaying, from overfeeding, and from overspoiling.  Switch to a different character (Or perhaps take control of one of your retainers and do dirty deeds in the mortal world).  I think it's far too important to the vampiric (And crossover) theme to have both day and night.  Sure, they could time the cycles so that peak play-time is usually Night, but there should still be enough sun to make vampires, darklings, and werewolves cautious.

Honestly.. I hope it isn't just a grind fest of "go kill x number of y".. but I'm not naive enough to beleive that it won't have some element of this..

And using EVE as a basis is false logic.. just because EVE is like that doesn't mean a WoD MMO will be like that, or even be able to work. EVE mostly plays itself for what felt to me to be the majority of the paly experience I had. While that works great for a game that is 60% economics.. it won't work for a game as hopefully interactive as a WoD MMO would be.

Leveling skills while off-line won't work.. I'd like to see a system more like SWG had originally.. you earn XP then spend it towards specific skill trees..

Also. .they will not have an enforcable day/night cycle. There's no way they'd make Vampires that unplayable. What happens if you live in a time zone that the only time you can log on it's day in game.

And it doesn't matter what you think.. a WoD MMO will not be succesful if it is set up to cater to people who read/play their RPG books. Not everyone who buys WW books will play the MMO.. you need to attact non-WoD fans into the player base, and to do that you need to make things simple enough so people not intimately familiar with the game settings can play.

Azenogoth:

I would offer that the latest Shadowrun computer game contradicts your opinion.

There's actually people out there playing it still? I got it, it sucked and none of my friends were even remotely interested and some of them love shadowrun the rpg. So yeah unless I'm mistaken that game never became a success which would mean that it was a horrible idea, I never said that wod mmo would automatically be good but if they don't want a flop they have to look at were they can succeed not were others succeeded and try to be a carbon copy with different looks and name.

But yes I would actually be interested as to know how that shadowrun game is still doing since I left NY I haven't even met anyone in CA that has tryed it...

Azenogoth:

I would offer that the latest Shadowrun computer game contradicts your opinion.

If you're referring to the Microsoft attempt at Shadowrun that does not resemble Shadowrun in the least, you use the wrong example.  Microsoft Shadowrun does not take great risks: it is like any FPS except inferior in many ways, has the barest amount of Shadowrun tropes (and mistakes a few of these tropes), and gives the stupidest rendition of the game possible.  I know you're trying to eschew reason for the sake of a discussion, but to be honest the sort of discussion that you're inspiring might not be the best way to accomplish your objective.

We all know that MMO such as WoW achieve only because the industry seems to be keeping to intentional stupidity.  Notably, this sort of thing goes on for awhile but is usually broken by aggressive independent companies.  We sometimes see smartly made television and movies that advance the industry to an extent and encourage the public to want better entertainment media.

It would be foolish to think a company would not want to do better than the competition.  WoW is not a very good game and nor are most MMO very good games -- they're easy to beat and they know they're easy to beat -- they are paper mache mosquitos.  I think White Wolf and CCP can make a very good game and help inspire the computer game industry.

Since when has White Wolf been an imitator?  You're not going to turn them into bland and vapid reiterators by your arguments.  As to investors: they have investors.  I myself am tempted to invest.

That website everyone is mentioning (ccpgames.com/products/worldofdarkness) is half-a-year old.

We've known this game was being developed for a while. We know that it uses the same engine as Walking in Stations and DUST 514. We know the reason they are all being developed together is because they use the same engine.

In other news, the EVE community has been showering DUST 514 with an overwhelmingly negative response. Pansies. If they don't like it they should go back to WOW.