White Wolf MMoG?

[Modern Angel]

It feels incredibly dated for me. Get this: they're actually talking about setting it in the 90s, specifically. One of the WW guys on an rpg.net thread mentioned something vaguely to that effect.

So I don't know. I get why they're going with M. That was where they had their least bit of broader cultural impact. It sold several measures better than anything they have now. They have two video games. I just feel like the entire thing is insane. I'd just be repeating myself but I'm going to doomcast this one hard.

[Sir T]

My first guess was that they could be going for a Gehenna Era end of the world type scenario, and the middle east has gotten volitile since 1990 and it saves them dealing with political ramifications of stuff that's going on there (DOES THIS MMO SUPPORT THE WAAAAAR??? etc.) But I checked and Gehenna was published in 2004, so they are going for a pre-Gehenna storyline.

[Lantyssa]

There's no reason they can't throw all the hints out there for an on-coming Gehenna.  It's not like MMOs ever advance the story enough to matter.

[Fabricated]

I thought that there were like 4 or so different "Endings" for the VtM world based on what campaign/book you chose to run.

[Sir T]

Yep. I have the book. There's 4 different stories, ranging from "God kills off the Vampires quietly while your Group is tested by God for redemption. No-one in the world notices the Kindred's passing" to "Oh hai we're the Antideluvians. IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD AND WE'RE HUNGRY BABY MUNCH MUNCH MAD MAX TIME"

And in fact all 4 are interesting and well written. If I was running it I'd pick and chose between elements of all 4. The Werewolf ending book was similar.

[Fabricated]

Isn't one ending that neither Ghenna or "judgment" nor WW3 happens?

[Sir T]

Kind of. There's one that's basically a localized bitch fight between Lillith and Caine that takes place in one city (the least interesting of the lot imo), but even in that, all vampires die away or become mortal as their blood finally loses its potency.

[Modern Angel]

All of the end times books were like that. There was one book for each of the big three (Vampire, Werewolf, Mage) and then one book for all the other lines. They were harbingers of the toolkit approach nWoD would take.

[Simond]

Prediction: WoW-clone but with 1990s oWoD window dressing, with the Alliance Camarilla vs the Horde Sabbat. Brujah = warrior, Tremere = Mage, Gangrel = Druid, etc. etc. The 'social' bits will be the equivalent of idling in Dalaran in your best armour on your best mount. Sandbox? Player & guild coterie housing.

(You know that's what's going to happen, right?   )

[Rendakor]

I'd play the shit out of that, just sayin'.

[Margalis]

Why are people surprised that they're going with V:TM? That's the only WW property that has any name recognition whatsoever. Until I read this thread I didn't even know that V:TM was not current. V:TM is what put WW on the map, it's what people have heard of, there are games based off of it.

I just feel like the entire thing is insane.

What's your alternative? Base the game on new irrelevant properties that nobody has ever heard of and sell like garbage? Why not just shovel money into an incinerator instead?

I always assumed that the game would be based on V:TM because quite frankly I didn't know WW even had anything else and I'm sure I'm not alone.

Prediction: WoW-clone but with 1990s oWoD window dressing,

So basically WoW but a thousand times better?

Surprised they are going with VtM, which is outdated and has lots of baggage.

Does that matter? For the game to be a success it has to appeal to more than the 5000 vampire RPG nerds who are even aware of the baggage. Whatever lack of internal consistency or dangling plot threads or whatever that bother you can just be papered over, ignored or rewritten. I think the mistake people in this thread are making is thinking that the MMO is for people who have played all the games and read all the books. If that is the target audience then the game is absolutely certain to fail.

For an IP like Star Wars or Star Trek appealing to fans of the series is a good start and sticking closely to the series fiction is probably also a good idea. For something like Champions Online or World of Darkness the license provides very minor name recognition and some broad stroke ideas.

[Modern Angel]

What's your alternative? Base the game on new irrelevant properties that nobody has ever heard of and sell like garbage? Why not just shovel money into an incinerator instead?

Don't come out with it at all.

You're maybe misunderstanding me. I'm not saying that a different WoD MMO would sell. I'm saying there is no WoD MMO that will sell. Not in the numbers that will make up for an over six year development time. Not developed by CCP.

[Lantyssa]

It can't do worse than APB...

[Modern Angel]

Nah, no way does it do that poorly.

[UnSub]

Why are people surprised that they're going with V:TM? That's the only WW property that has any name recognition whatsoever. Until I read this thread I didn't even know that V:TM was not current. V:TM is what put WW on the map, it's what people have heard of, there are games based off of it.

If that's the case, call it VtM Online, not WoD Online.

And again, IP might get people in the door, but they stay for the gameplay. Say, "Based in WW's Vampire mythos" and leave it at that.

We're surprised in the same way that if a Doctor Who MMO came out and they announced it was set in the Fourth Doctor's period. Sure, he's popular, but things have moved on since then.

[Stormwaltz]

I still somewhat expect Vampires, Werewolves, and humans (Mages, and hunters) as race options.

[NiX]

Don't come out with it at all.

You're maybe misunderstanding me. I'm not saying that a different WoD MMO would sell. I'm saying there is no WoD MMO that will sell. Not in the numbers that will make up for an over six year development time. Not developed by CCP.

Really? You are aware of how EVE came to be, right?

[Sheepherder]

Nobody gives a fuck about nWoD, even the people who still play P&P games.  Some people still care about oWoD.  However the only factors here which will translate to big numbers are the Hunter console games, the PC games by Troika, and all the terrible vampire shit on television.

[Lantyssa]

I still somewhat expect Vampires, Werewolves, and humans (Mages, and hunters) as race options.

Mage would be very constraining.  Hunters would fit with the other two fine.

[Modern Angel]

Really? You are aware of how EVE came to be, right?

I fundamentally believe that EVE is a success despite CCP, not because of them. It's also buoyed in part by people with multiple subscriptions which (probably) isn't going to translate to WoD. Even aside from that, you're looking at a development time over six years (I'm betting you don't see it until 2013), a budget which will be in APB territory by the time it's all said and done, an IP which isn't even in the top five of TT games sold anymore, direct competition from a more traditional MMO set in the same basic type of world and a millieu which will be past saturation point when the game finally comes out.

I just do not see any way this game does anything but bomb compared to the expectations, though I feel that way about basically every upcoming MMO but GW2. Given the past three years and the corpses littering the sidewalk I think you'd have to be fucking insane to release *any* subscription based MMO unless you're one of the big boys.

[Sir T]

Really? You are aware of how EVE came to be, right?

The people that developed it went bust and CCP bought it for a song, and launched it without having to pay development costs, and the majority of design decisions they have made since then have been disastrously ill thought out. Your point?

[Endie]

Here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5Wsf31WIdY

Why was there a PS3 Move controller in the front of the video?

EDIT: Surprised they are going with VtM, which is outdated and has lots of baggage. The next question is: at what point in time? With which sourcebooks?

Outdated?  It's a made-up world.

I would imagine that some people in the capital-raising side of things looked at which version sold 5.5 million copies (oWoD) and which sold 1.5 million (nWoD).  Since nWod has been around for seven years and oWoD was published for 13, that's a significant underperformance, which I bet was heavily weighted to years one and two of nWoD with fans of the previous version buying the main rulebooks on the strength of the older, successful brand.

Edit: I imagine I'll play with goons, which almost certainly will mean malkavians on an RP server.

[Sir T]

Edit: I imagine I'll play with goons, which almost certainly will mean malkavians on an RP server.

I imagine their level of fun will depend on whether they include Dominate or Dementation as a clan discipline. 

[Endie]

Edit: I imagine I'll play with goons, which almost certainly will mean malkavians on an RP server.

I imagine their level of fun will depend on whether they include Dominate or Dementation as a clan discipline. 

We goons are ace roleplayers we will simply roleplay those disciplines and stay strictly in character :colbert:

[DayDream]

Don't know how they'd do it, but I wonder if they'll end up with a single shard world a la eve.  Considering how much they talk it up, I can't imagine they'd want to have different server shards, but being set on a planet leaves them with several more preconceived notions to deal with.

[Modern Angel]

http://planet-vampire.com/main/forum/index.php?topic=4941.msg85550#msg85550

Report from a Q&A panel. So it sounds like closed source Second Life with fangs.

[Sir T]

Ok. I'll add my rather cynical commentary here.

Direct MMO Stuff:

 - the game has been in development for approximately 3 years.
    - This has been slowed by keeping up with EVE
    - Preparing to develop 'Carbon technology' framework for what should provide state-of-the-art character customizations, unlike any seen in any game before, for the MMO.
    - They are particularly psyched about the customization framework. They claim they have in fact, hired a fashion consultant, to help make the system more realistic and stylish.
    - Another 1.5 years has been spent preparing the actual gameplay
   - They have increased their staff by 6 times the previous head count
   - They've put 629K man-hours into this MMO -- so far.

629k man hours and they are just out of "pre-production"?

Regarding Coffee House, Sandbox and Themeparks that we've discussed on the forum, Burgermeister writes; "From what they said, these three spheres should be closely tied and interconnected together, essentially running the economy of blood in the game. "

The four overall themes they intended to have in the game are:
  - Mystery
  - Romance
  - Power
  - Danger

Ok fair enough

"For concrete facts, we learned that the game will be ready, by earliest, 2012. The game will be based on Vampire: the Masquerade. Specifically, in the initial release of the game, there will only be vampires as supernatural, playable characters. There will however, be elements from Werewolf, Changling, etc., likely in the form of environmental content, and NPCs."

-One of their criterias for success is to make the game as accessible as possible. Specifically they want to get women involved in the game, as well as casual players. Also, they want to maximize the amount of human interaction that happens in the game.

Ahh the holy grail of gaming, appeal to WOMEN. Please play our game!

-They confirmed that the game will not be combat intensive (unless you choose as such). Knowing, influencing the correct people is arguable more important than being the biggest brawler.

Noble aspirations but...

-They will not be catering to immaturity in the game, however, they would like to see these types of offenses policed by players, rather than in-game mechanics.

Yeah. Thats worked SO BLOODY WELL in eve. But allows them to try and save money on GM staff...

"I personally offered up one of the board's suggestions of Permanent Death as a solution to controlling an otherwise glut of Kindred population within any one area. This was one of the suggestions that got applause from the audience. I also couldn't help but notice two of the content developers smirking -- I think permanent death is a serious possibility in the MMO. A lot of other fans made the same or similar suggestions. This remark also drew out a comment from the panel, suggesting that the game world  would consist of one server rather than multiple servers, after someone else suggested that some servers offer this permanent death option while others did not. (His response "Servers? What servers?") "  :chinscratch:

No, there WON'T be guys waiting outside the safe starting areas to murder Newbs. Not in this mature playerbase we are aiming for! Eve wasn't forced to include NPC police to pry fuckers lose from camping starting stations and stop them blowing up newbies incessantly, after all.

-They confirmed that factions and territories will almost certainly be a big part of the game.

And how to keep and take territories without having combat (with permadeath) as a big part if the game?

-They confirmed that the game will definitely contains gay clubs. This is an excellent angle to cater to the gay and lesbian audience

PLEASE PLAY OUR GAME!!!

-They again, did confirm, that starting off there would only be Vampires, but one of the other developers also confirmed that there would be playable human classes -- although nothing specific. I only can assume he means the likes of ghouls and hunters.

Probably easy enough to manage. Just vamps with no blood pool or blood fueled powers.

-The game will be fully PvP, i.e. there may be Elysium areas, but nothing like the flagging system, as seen in PvE WoW servers.

Fully PVP + permadeath = griefer heaven. I'm sure they will hate being called bad names by the playerbase police...

"That is everything that I learned from that particular panel. Afterwords, I had some time with one of the developers, and managed to ring a few more details out of him:

He is supposedly working on something called 'story arcs'. He immediately realized he had probably already said too much, so you'll have to use your imagination  to determine what that would mean in the game.

He also stated that in regards to the development cycles, some disciplines simply will not be included because they are way too complicate to implement well -- specifically, Temporis."

Well hopefully they will manage a better job than EVEs story arcs. Of course the story arcs will NOT be camped by "mature Sabbat roleplayers" reveling in the "not combat focused but fully pvp" gameplay with permadeath.

I'm sorry, this is smelling more and more like a trainwreck.

[Endie]

I think they have a tremendously challenging task ahead of them but to pull out the tired old "smelling more and more like a trainwreck" cliche after the first official release of pre-production details is lazy and dreary.

Of course, the odds are that it won't be a huge success.  That's always the case with any MMO at this stage.  I'd not bet on it any more than I'd bet on a polar bear raising all four cubs to maturity.  But there is nothing in their vague description of their planned game that rings any actual alarm bells of awfulness, and you saying "oh lordy they're trying to get non-traditional MMOers to play what a to-do *snigger*" doesn't suddenly make that a bad idea.  The fact is that vampire fiction (all that horrible Sooky Stackhouse/Anita Blake/Hope Winterborn shite) is read overwhelmingly by women.  The Twilight Saga is read, watched and adored disproportionately by women (in fact girls, mainly).  The Underworld series had a significant female fanbase.  Vampire fiction is, for terribly obvous reasons, easy to target at a female audience.  So of course they want to draw those into their vampire MMO.

Half of the rest of the stuff you made up there about camping stuff is just pure interpolation on your own part: strawmen that you then use to say "oh how awful".  Well yes, your ideas that you list are awful.  Maybe they'll come up with better.  Maybe not.  But I'm not going to come to a decision on the basis of what Sir T reckons they might do.  And some of the stuff that they would like to design for happened in early Ultima Online, so if you know your history it's not entirely laughable in the way you snidely put it (just naively optimistic, perhaps).

The alternative reply, snider but more apposite, would have been to just quote your CCP-damning response, followed by:

"

/decries CCP's ability to design game
/subscribes for six years to CCP games
/leans back

[Modern Angel]

I just prefer to leave it at it sounding like Second Life with fangs. Which it does. Which might be perfectly fine with cheap development costs.

[Lantyssa]

They should look into getting APB's character creator.  Second Unlife sounds fine with me.

I like that bit about attracting women.  And gay clubs.  Double woot!  (The secret is to not hang out at the clubs, as all the guys in digital drag will be there.)

/decries CCP's ability to design game
/subscribes for six years to CCP games
/leans back

*snerk*

[Modern Angel]

Don't need it. They're doing new proprietary clothing physics tech. There was a thirty second video lurking somewhere on youtube but its inexplicably difficult to find. It's neat. It also looks expensive and system intensive.

[Sir T]

I just prefer to leave it at it sounding like Second Life with fangs. Which it does. Which might be perfectly fine with cheap development costs.

To be fair, "Second life with fangs" sounds pretty ok actually, especially if they are going for the elusive "appeal to women" bracket. The Sims is one of the most successful game franchises ever after all.

And Endie, act mature for 2 minutes and take your stupid EVE grudges to PMs and the EVE forum where they belong. Thanks.

[Endie]

Sir T don't flatter yourself: you're a bad poster but i can't imagine why you think you are worth a grudge.  I just disagreed with you and stated why.

[Modern Angel]

There are two discussions to be had

1) Is this going to be a good game? Way too early to tell. There's this vague sense that they're developing it like it's the LARP translated directly to a persistent world which I do not think will be good if they go that way but it's way too early for sure.

2) Is this going to be successful? I won't repeat myself but this is a conversation we can start having.

[Sir T]

I think everyone can agree that initial "Box sales" will be strong based on the VTM brand and the Bloodlines game. Whether it lasts depends on a lot of things.