White Wolf MMoG?

[Roac]

Ah. New story entirely, I guess they never dealt with the apocalypse and stuff.

No, they did.  They had a bunch of drummed up stuff about it, and suppliments that delt with it.  There was no official ending; instead they published a book that had a half dozen scenarios that you could pick from or mix and match. 

[Modern Angel]

Published books: a full book for Vampire, Mage and Werewolf and then one for all of their other games.

[Morat20]

Ah. New story entirely, I guess they never dealt with the apocalypse and stuff.

No, they had it. Last set of books out for Old WoD was apocalypse. Friend of mine played through it. The ante-deluvians waking up (those that were actually asleep) and all that jazz. They went out with a bang, as best I understand.

[Morfiend]

I could have sworn that we had this same thread about 9 months ago.

[Rendakor]

Ah. New story entirely, I guess they never dealt with the apocalypse and stuff.

No, they had it. Last set of books out for Old WoD was apocalypse. Friend of mine played through it. The ante-deluvians waking up (those that were actually asleep) and all that jazz. They went out with a bang, as best I understand.

True, but what didn't happen was a transition from oWoD to nWoD. They just decided "oh that other stuff didn't happen at all". Its more like an alternate universe. Which is lame, because oWoD lore was awesome. I only played a small amount of it, but I loved the novels to death.

[Alkiera]

Ah. New story entirely, I guess they never dealt with the apocalypse and stuff.

Old mage rules were like that too. I'll take a look at the new system. I always liked mage more than VtM anyway.

Wait, what? Entirely different game, too. Fuck. I LIKED the idea of the technocracy versus traditions and the fight for a global belief system and paradigm battles. It was totally and completely human and a great counterpoint to world of darkness where every mystical thing under the sun (or moon) was fighting for world domination.

Unfortunately, the whole paradigm system often meant there was no reason for mages of different groups to be hanging out together.  And even within groups, two mages' magic just didn't work together because the way they thought about magic was too different.  There was no real 'unified theory', each mage had his own personal theory that worked for him, and mostly only for him.  How mages learned from each other didn't make any sense because of that.

The new system has mages acting like mages, studying magic, not how it's weird that their drug-induced illusions seem more real than most people's, or that their wacky science theory works, but only for them.  OWoD mages had to delude themselves into thinking they weren't mages, because mages got slapped down by Reality, and no one wanted that; you wanted something like magic, but with enough layers of BS over top that Reality wouldn't notice.  Paradox and belief and conflict between mages are still around, but instead of fighting for hippy ideals like 'the hearts and minds of humanity', they are fighting for magical power and control/access to the Higher Reality; much more in-character for mages.  And the unified theory means mages can teach each other magic.  The traditions, instead of being primarily about paradigm, are about where your power comes from(one of 5 watchtowers), and what you believe should be done with that power (one of 5 opinions).  Well, for the nominal 'good guys' groups, anyway.  I dunno if they've done much with the enemy mage groups in the additional sourcebooks, haven't been paying much attention.

The whole technocracy vs. traditions thing was just another variation on the weaver vs. the wyld  vs. the wyrm battle, that they scrapped in nWoD.  There is a great battle, but it's over magical power, between the mages who believe they should ascend to the Supernal in order to rule humanity, and those who believe their power should be used to help humanity.  I think the new story lines up more with human nature; OWoD was very hippy/wiccan in nature, it didn't seem to fit with actual human nature very well.  The new mage seems to fit better.

--
Alkiera

[bhodi]

We played a bit different; often our campaigns were similar to a guerrilla campaign against the technocracy. The way we played, it was similar to being inside the matrix. There was no 'hanging out' together -- you were there for a reason, something that was critical enough that you had to come out of hiding, be visible -- or possibly they took unusual notice in the players because you were on the run with important information that had to get somewhere, ultimately getting drawn in that way.

There was no real way to win; most of the time it was merely trying to survive or slow them down. Stuff like that tends to bring the players together even from different disciplines. You were ignored until you did something to get noticed, and then gradually the pressure was applied for you to keep silent. Problems were brought to bear on you in the modern world - you were discredited, finances were frozen, you may be even arrested and roughed up a bit. Most of the time, force wasn't needed -- you were living in their world after all.

Some of the time it was trying to carve out a mid-term general strategy against them or find a counter to an important artifact or discovery, or the answer to the question of how to wake up a populace that has been duped, the question of helping one person at a time on the path of awakening, instead of getting to the end and hoping (not even knowing!) everyone would suddenly be awakened all at once like the technocracy wanted. Working for personal uplifting by education, one person at a time.

In one particular campaign, I decided to focus on keeping superstition, one of the last vestiges of anti-technology sentiment, alive. I build a little cult-like following out in a small mid-west town. I made the town my own, getting to know the folks who considered me a little odd but generally good folk. This was important for when the technocracy came knocking, they wouldn't get any help from the locals when "the feds" came investigating this or that. I did free divining for farmer's wells, encouraged folk cures, and generally did my best in that direction. Ultimately, I planted a seed in that town. As long as people believed there was still a bit of mystery in the world, something that technology couldn't touch, than I and my kind could survive.

There was another reason -- we had gotten word they had broken up other 'cults' as they called them, small schools and isolated magi that were teaching people. We weren't sure how, but it came to pass that they had developed some sort of way to turn the charismatic leader insane, dispersing the cult. I figured I could get enough attention for them to use them to use it on me, so we could get information about it.

Ultimately, of course, the technocracy came around, asking too many awkward questions about some new 'cult' in town, and soon enough I discovered they had gotten a mole inside and planted a device in the guy's bedroom that emitted some strange rays that gradually, over time, unbalanced them. They planted one on me, we traced it's construction/information, and ultimately staged a daring break-in to destroy the work and the 'scientist' that created it.

It was stuff like that I enjoyed. I don't think it was about amassing personal power, and I don't think that's more "in-character" to sit around in an isolated tower or basement or dungeon, ignoring the world for research.

[Roac]

Damnit.  I want to play Mage now.

[DeathInABottle]

oWoD is a better world, nWoD is a better gaem. The rules are tight, streamlined and with the exception of the new Changeling so bland and boring I wouldn't dream of running them. And I guarantee the game will be nWoD.

The essential problem with the MMO is going to be the same one you ran into with the various MUSHes which populated the web during WoD's heyday: a city or area doesn't have 100 vampires, 50 lycanthropes and 50 mages with a sprinkling of whatever furry/otherkin garbage people could come up with. A city filled with vampires is City of Heroes, not World of Darkness.

I was thinking the same thing.  If the proportions are what they were supposed to be in the oWoD, there's one vampire per 100,000 humans.  Unless the game's set in a city the size of Mexico, or set up like Diablo II with eight PCs to a world, it's not going to make much sense.

And what about the Masquerade?  Does that factor into the nWoD?  How the hell will players fail to violate it at every turn?  How does the game handle millions of NPCs?

[Falwell]

CCP just cracked their new dev house in Atlanta. This one will be the primary hub for the WoD MMO development.

http://evevault.ign.com/View.php?view=CommunityArticles.Detail&id=22

President Mike Tinney took us on a tour of the new building, giving an overview of existing and planned layout of each area of the new offices. The new location for CCP Worldwide will not only provide a new studio for the upcoming Word of Darkness project, but will also house White Wolf Publishing, and be the location for the NA based support team for EVE Online.

Tinney first went into an overview of how they are approaching the development of WoD. It's primarily a "scrum based design methodology" to use Tinney's words. What that basically means is that the project uses small, cross-discipline teams. Instead of standard teams of 4-6 people, the teams are composed of 2 or 3 people. Not only are the teams smaller but goals and project schedules are very short, with a two to four week dev cycle for turn-in, review, and completion. Tinney stated that this allows for both smaller deliverables and fresher projects throughout development. To accommodate the system, they structured the layout of the floor to allow teams to work closer but still have the ability to break away when necessary.

The interesting part about this is that the WoD project is being co-developed between the Iceland and Atlanta offices, with some outsourcing to the Shanghai office (artwork). The bulk of the content and design is slated for Atlanta and the bulk of the technical design is being developed in Iceland. This makes WoD one of the first multi-office projects of this nature, and the team may very well face all new hurdles (and find all news solutions, as well) throughout development. With 55 people on staff locally and over 260 people worldwide, the company has a sizable team to coordinate across its projects.

[Modern Angel]

One, what do you ex-devs think of this smaller team thing? It strikes me that when some hideous bug is found completely unrelated to what caused it (what do you mean if you turn in 12 vampire fangs it makes vendors disappear?!?) 2-3 guys working in one hour shifts or whatever isn't going to cut it.

And they're so far from being the only MMO studio with multi-continent office locations.

[UnSub]

My non-dev understanding of scrum principles is that the smaller teams, more focused development of code, regular short meetings that focus on solutions etc are meant to give teams greater control over what they do and allow such bugs to be stamped out sooner. That said, something big comes up and I'm sure that some teams would want to have a few more resources.

Razorwire covered the WoD stuff the other day, saying:

World of Darkness Online is indeed being worked on, and I got to see some early concept art and it looks great.

Yay, great - concept art. The project is really moving full steam ahead.

[Samwise]

In my experience the rate of occurrence of hideous bugs is roughly proportional to the number of people you have working on the project.

[Falwell]

And they're so far from being the only MMO studio with multi-continent office locations.

Yep, Funcom has been doing this for some time now for TSW. Oslo, Shanghai and... Frisco I believe it is?

[Endie]

Coming late to this party, the fact that it is likely to be the new setting (World of Dullness amrite) instead of the old-school WoD is odd if they want to really use the branding to drive sales: the number of people who cycled through the old setting and would be all "I get to play my old Tzimisce!" would surely far outnumber the new stuff (of which sales are far lower, and which has - by definition - existed for less time).

By the by, I hate Scrum based methodologies [long rant deleted because it's off-topic, but it boils down to a bazillion over-running "brief meetings" and a hundred more complaints].

[UnSub]

I'm 90% confident that any WoD MMO will be based on the new rule set, not the old one.

First off, you aren't ever going to be playing your "old Tzimisce" in the MMO. Some rulesets would no doubt be tinkered with for the MMO, and the game won't let you get away with stuff your GM would. D&DO was an acid test for this kind of thing - one that mostly failed, sure, but you can't just port rules on paper into a MMO and think it will work. Of course, changing too much doesn't help either... anyway...

Secondly, WW would want to push the new ruleset, not the old one they have stopped producing for.

Finally, the vast majority are coming to WoD for the vampires and werewolves, not because the Assamites and Toredor have teamed up to take out the Nosferatu Prince of the city, or whatever. Until someone else announces a MMO where you can be a werewolf / vampire PC (Secret World? One of Cryptic's unannounced projects that has relevant concept art?) WoD gets those players.

[Endie]

D&DO was one example, but a counter-example is LOTRO, many of whose players seem to have been drawn by exactly that desire to live out the version from their head.  In either case, I'm not arguing, and I'm sure you're right: they'll make the mistake of letting pride fuck with them and using the unpopular and dreary new setting, just as D&DO used Eberron when several other settings would have sold more boxes.

The Eve crossover I would like is to see in a WoD game would be Eve's large number of conquerable systems mirrored in a similarly large number of cities, to spread out the playerbase to something approaching Canon-esque Vampire levels.  Of course, I know that the resources required for representing a city are orders of magnitude more than those for an Eve system, but one day someone will make that sort of game!

Ninja Edit:  your point about people wanting to play specific races seems odd: who said anythnig about having to be non-standard/canonical?  Are you seriously telling me that you think I was saying "yay we should be able to do whatever we like"?!?  Plus, "ever" is a very long time for which to prophesy.

[UnSub]

The Eve crossover I would like is to see in a WoD game would be Eve's large number of conquerable systems mirrored in a similarly large number of cities, to spread out the playerbase to something approaching Canon-esque Vampire levels.  Of course, I know that the resources required for representing a city are orders of magnitude more than those for an Eve system, but one day someone will make that sort of game!

Eve Online experience would seem to lend CCP fantastically towards developing systems to support this kind of thing and the online drama such systems create. I hope they can pull it off.

Given it's CCP, I can also see the devs being Princes (at least) automatically, and every time they get caught cheating they can argue that they were just acting "in character".

[Yegolev]

I'd suggest getting in as early as you can and making friends with the devs.  At least get their AIM handles.

I need to get the address and drive over there one day.

[Endie]

Yeah, and get on their UTK server.  Devs need friends too, after all.  They're not robots.  And I want my second tier blood magic formulae.

[Falwell]

So I went through some of the NWoD rulebooks etc. It's definitely a more polished system than the old style. The world, on the other hand, is nowhere near as interesting as the old version.

New rulesets placed in the old world backdrop. That would be the perfect combo IMO. Problem is it will never happen since they'll want to use the MMO to push as many PnP sales as possible.

[Modern Angel]

So I went through some of the NWoD rulebooks etc. It's definitely a more polished system than the old style. The world, on the other hand, is nowhere near as interesting as the old version.

New rulesets placed in the old world backdrop. That would be the perfect combo IMO. Problem is it will never happen since they'll want to use the MMO to push as many PnP sales as possible.

The other thing is that the whole metaplot, world driving NPC style of thing was becoming tired at the end of the 90s. In the 90s EVERYONE had it. Everyone. And it was tired at the end. Since White Wolf were the arguable kings of that style they had to blow it up if they were to get away from it.

It varies from game to game. Werewolf is completely fucking awesome now. Vampire is still Vampire but it lacks a certain something the old one had; but I was never a huge fan so I may be skewed. Mage went from best to least as it has the blandest background imaginable. The new Changeling is a complete reimagining and so awesome it hurts; just completely amazing. And don't forget that the base rules accounting for plain old people in a scary world are damned good on their own merits.

[Soln]

If there's PvP, how an earth are they going to keep the game remotely friendly?  Eve is the grown up game of PvP with some very grown up and dedicated cockstabs (not everyone obviously).  Any of those happy OCD people moving to this new game would be terrorizing.  I mean, WOD is RP almost by definition.  It will be a "slaughter".

pardons if this obvious has already been raised.

[Megrim]

Actually, i would first like to imagine how they are going to do the pvp, before becoming concerned over goth kids getting steamrolled by the lolzerg.

[tazelbain]

It's like someone picked an outlandish idea to turn in to a MMOG as a design exercise.  But due to a clerical error, it was approved.  And the best part is, CCP is not going to phone in a WoW-clone like STO.  WoD Online is going be pure  .  I am not sure I will want to play it, but I am eager to see what they come up with.

[Hoax]

Say what you want about CCP but at least they have stones, which is more then you can say for ANYONE else in the industry apparently.

Although I give this a 70/30 chance of failure they will try to do justice to an interesting set of ideas instead of just cloning the same bullshit mechanics we've been offered for 10 years..

[Montague]

If there's PvP, how an earth are they going to keep the game remotely friendly?  Eve is the grown up game of PvP with some very grown up and dedicated cockstabs (not everyone obviously).  Any of those happy OCD people moving to this new game would be terrorizing.  I mean, WOD is RP almost by definition.  It will be a "slaughter".

pardons if this obvious has already been raised.

In the Vampire PnP game rules as written, the GM had an inordinate amount of power. If the players got out of line the Prince and/or Elders came down hard. You had to learn how to play the political game in order not to get cockstabbed.

What I would envision would be a certain area of the city would be the Prince's headquarters. Attack a player near there and you get cockstabbed, weapons confiscated, rez sickness (ugh) whatever. The further away from the Prince's zone of control, the more lax the enforcement against PVP until you get out into the "barrens" where it's no holds barred PVP. Best of both worlds, the emo goth RP'ers can do their brooding verbal masturbation in the Prince's parlor and the catasses can all go to the outskirts and kill each other. Win win.

Sounds kinda familiar, eh?

The EVE system seems perfectly suited for a Vampire MMO, so it wouldn't surprise me in the least to see it implemented that way.

[Falwell]

Riiissseee

Three years later it appears we'll finally get some info about this. CCP's Hilmar Petursson will be the keynote for GDC Europe in August where he'll, according to Gamasutra, be revealing their next game.

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=23985

[gryeyes]

Awesome news this and secret world are the only games i have high hopes for.

[SeaCell]

When I read the thread title my mind went straight to Moorcock's Elric and than to fond memories of Chaosium's PnP RPG version. With all the MMORPG disappointments lately, PnP is starting to look more attractive.

[Brogarn]

Liked the PnP stuff on... well... paper. Never got the chance to play any of their books. Really interested in the Werewolf and Mage stuff. Vampires can die in a raging emo filled fire, though. Be interesting to see what they've come up with.

[Mrbloodworth]

I hope they use the dot system.

[Aez]

When I read the thread title my mind went straight to Moorcock's Elric and than to fond memories of Chaosium's PnP RPG version. With all the MMORPG disappointments lately, PnP is starting to look more attractive.

That's funny, I also tough that PnP could be a solution last year.  I couldn't a find a decent online community to play those online D&D kit.  I waited for the online client of D&D 4th edition but it was a failure.

[UnSub]

An announcement of an announcement: WoD to appear at CCP con 23-26 September. Featuring a panel titled "Tell the World of Darkness Development team what you want to see in the MMO" and several LARP / MMO theory panels.

I really should announce my pronouncement denouncement of this announcement.

[Velorath]

An announcement of an announcement: WoD to appear at CCP con 23-26 September. Featuring a panel titled "Tell the World of Darkness Development team what you want to see in the MMO" and several LARP / MMO theory panels.

I really should announce my pronouncement denouncement of this announcement.

That doesn't even sound like it's appearing, it sounds like there's a panel where they're going to be talking about it in very vague terms.


Edit:  Also, the audience they'll probably have at that Con would be the last group of people I'd want offering any creative input in regards to the MMO.