Vampire The Masquerade MMO Details Emerge
World of Darkness News just released a lot of information about the upcoming Vampire the Masquerade MMO that they learned from CCP Games’s panel at The Grand Masquerade. The keypoints are that CCP, the company behind Eve Online, is trying to emulate the feel of a giant LARP. With the right social skills and networking any player could become Prince of all the Vampires in one of the multiple cities included in the game. While there will be some sort of CCP devised metaplot running in the background, most of the story will come from what players do. Also, there will be permanent character death, so you’ll have to be careful not to step on the wrong toes.
At the risk of sounding like a total dork, reading this brings up fond memories of playing in a few World of Darkness LARPs back in the day. In one, my character secretly defected to the Sabbat while continuing to infiltrate the Camarilla. I was such a smooth talker that my character was able to convince the Prince to put him in charge of the investigation into a series of heinous crimes that had in fact been committed by my character and his Sabbat brothers. Soon, innocents were being framed. In the end it basically went from being a Camarilla game to a Sabbat game. Good times.
Anyway, read on for more info. I’ve added some slight edits for grammar and to spell out a few abbreviations that would only make sense to people who are familiar with Vampire: the Masquerade or its sister games.
The producers stated their philosophy in making this MMO was "human interaction". They feel that is limited in the current crop of MMO's and their biggest weakness.
They are trying to emulate the feel of LARPing more than EVE or any other game system with this MMO
There will be a general CCP run metaplot that develops over time but the main metaplots will be left for the players to drive forward.
Next year is when more specific info and details will come out
Incarna is actually considered a prototype, the rendering engine that will ship with the MMO will be much more advanced.
Everyone starts as a mortal, becoming kindred in optional and cannot be forced on you. You can play the entire game as a mortal only.
There will be final death for both mortals and kindred.
PvP will be more limited in some ways, yet more open in others than any other current MMO.
There will be cities (plural) and communication between them (the various kindred and clans) will be encouraged/possible.
Caitiff will NOT be in on release. They discussed it internally and couldn't find a way to make them work in a way they liked.
Casual players will find the game accessible but hard core players will have a much deeper experience and more rewards/benefits.
Considering some kind of web site access interface for the MMO
NO day/night cycle, only night.
Humanity is a stat in game and one use is to address griefers. The more you cause issues for other players, break the masquerade, etc the more you can lose humanity and once it gets too low other players (and NPCs?) can attack you (implied even if you flag yourself non-pvp).
Griefers will suffer both in game and if serious enough out of game penalties (ie account banning)
Helps to make friends and not enemies in game as you cannot get to the top of the food chain without networking and having friends to assist you.
Players will have havens.
Players can climb the ladder and get to Prince levels of power and run a city
Can get to Prince level power without killing a single thing, all done via networking, politics and friendships
ONLY kindred on release of game, no werewolves, mages, etc. However those other supernaturals may be used in a NPC fashion or/and their lore appear in game.
MMO character sheet very similar to the V:tM PnP character sheet.
Character names over the avatars head by default turned off, but can turn them on.
Game world/environment will change over time; real in game consequences for player actions.
Diablerie and related game mechanics from the PnP game is "under heavy discussion" no decision as of now.
Dynamic NPC missions/World events
One world server, no shards/instancing.
Torpor in game but not used as in PnP game, used as a mechanic to explain why a kindred did not die/final death
They are aware the WoD is an adult setting and the devs are going to not shy away from gore, blood and nudity. However such will have a reason and not adult content for the sake of adult content.
http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/62...Details-Emerge
