The Grand Masquerade News (23/10 - 26/10)

[kabatta]

So no update on the Q&A session?

[Leon]

Not as of yet from the looks of things.

[Spiritbw]

BLeh, talking on another forum we got one guy very much trying to make WoW with Fangs out of this.  He keeps trying to shoehorn the clans into specific classes.

[Ashlar]

Hi and nice to meet you all.

I didn't see it coming either, the MMO being based on Vampire, The Masquerade.

But we really don't know anything yet, and I want to bring something to your attention, which I think will confirm that the MMO being Masquerade based means little right now.

The developer Russell Bailey explained the recent news about the MMO, in a topic on the white wolf forums:
http://forums.white-wolf.com/cs/forums/p/36456/760679.aspx#760679

When White Wolf sat down to create Vampire: The Requiem, the goal was to create the best possible face-to-face roleplaying game. The lessons learned about setting, story and mechanics from thirteen years of constant experimentation, exploration, and development were brought to bear on creating The World of Darkness.


We've been developing from that vision for six years, and it kicks ass. At this point, I've given four or five years of my life to the game. Bled for it, even, though not in a very exciting way. I'm in love.


We don't see the two generations of Vampire as competing right now. Vampire: The Requiem remains a top notch tabletop roleplaying game. World of Darkness will be a top-notch virtual world. They're both based on Vampire: The Masquerade, but their needs are different.


I can't really talk about the MMO. But I can tell you that the team is led by creators of the original game, as well as those of EVE Online. If you've got a friend at Grand Masquerade, have him thank our producer, Chris McDonough, who, among many other things, invented clans. We have Chris, Rich Thomas, and other people who helped create the first World of Darkness and the current one on board. The team that's brought you Requiem -- Justin, Eddy, and myself included, are also working on World of Darkness.


White Wolf has always been about creating the best tools for you to tell your stories. And that's exactly what we're going to keep doing.

CCP will use the Masquerade system and probably will adapt it to the virtual media. The MMO being based off OWoD will have no effect on the Pen and Paper RPG.

I posted this information on shadownessence, under another username, so it's a big ctrl+c.

And sorry for the poor english, it's not my first language.

[Radical21]

Welcome to the Forum Ashlar

I think Russel's closing statement:

White Wolf has always been about creating the best tools for you to tell your stories. And that's exactly what we're going to keep doing

.
is the important one for me because even though its not really true for VTMB , it is true for VTMR and so I hope he is also thinking about what they are doing with the MMO when he is sayign that.

At this point I think no one is really concern about it affecting the PnP but some of us are still dreading the sight of this Concept turning to one of the mind numbing typical mainstream MMORPGs that litter the internet nowdays.

[Valamyr]

Welcome Ashlar!

This is a great quote you bring us, and I hadnt seen it yet. Im more optimistic than ever about WoD than ever, it seems theyre really trying to make the best game, and arent throwing all they learned from Requiem away at all.

Spiritbw, I would be the first one disapointed if they shoehorned clans into classes. Theyre not supposed to be that. Clans guide progressions and affinities, but they shouldnt be hard limits. I hope they stick to PnP concepts like being able to pick skills and attributes untypical for your clan at no extra cost. and being able to learn out-of-clan disciplines at higher cost if you can find a teacher. The smart gangrel, the physically powerful Toreador, the Ventrue with his nose in books all the time; theyre cool. When it comes to character progression in WoD, frankly for me, it boils down to "if its not broke..."

[_username]

If done properly, I think the vampire Clans will be similar to the various bloodlines in Eve.  That is...

Many Caldari Achura can be found in Lonetrek, Black Rise or The Citadel.  Most of them will be highly skilled in missiles, active shield tanking and engineering.  They can often be seen in industrial ships, freighters or battleships.

Many Minmatar Brutor can be found in Heimatar.  Most of them will be highly skilled in navigation, artillery and mechanic (how else would they so expertly use duct tape to keep their ships together?).  They can often be seen in assault frigates and battlecruisers.

However...nothing requires them to do any of these things.  Most of them are simply doing it because their starting template helped set them up with skills that matched whatever activities the player gravitated towards during character creation.  At any time, any one of them can quit their current corporation, cash in all of their loyalty points, sell all of their fancy crap, trek halfway across the galaxy and do something completely different...so long as they can get a foot in the door wherever they're headed.  Sure, they'd be starting over when it comes to building relationships, establishing credibility, etc.  But there's nothing in the game mechanics stopping them.

If WoD does it right, I think a comparable level of flexibility should be possible, albeit within the confines of the character's original, unchanging nature (that is...they're still Kindred).

[Valamyr]

I didnt play EVE much at all, its nice to see its done like this, though. Thats exactly how I see WOD Clans!

[Radical21]

  He keeps trying to shoehorn the clans into specific classes.

Too late for that, In Requiem at least Clans are already mildly regarded as classes (Starting Attribute and Discipline Bonus based on Clan). In Masquerade Clans also have unique Disciplines that may immidetly drop in the categories of Class Archetypes:
 "Thief"(Ravnos,Nosferatu),"Face"(Toreador) ,"Bruiser"(Gangrel/Brujah),"Assassin"(Assamite), "Wizard"(Tremere/Tzimisce), "Healer"(Salburi) and so on...

The good thing that makes it better than other games is that in Both Requiem and Masquerade you still have the option to ignore these archetype suggestions and take your character to a different direction without being "gimped" or whatever and your clan never dictates your progression path after creation..

There is no reason to believe that they will change that since both White-Wolf and CCP seem to have that in common.

[Signothorn]

Thanks to Burgermeister, we have some info for you from the Q&A and some stuff we didn't get a chance to talk about the other night. I won't get much into the subjective of the email I received from him, I'm sure he'll have much more perspective to share when he gets back

-A CCP source told him they are very near the end of pre-production and is beginning full-blown production. They in fact have a PLAYABLE version of the game, although it is so rudimentary that it is not worth the effort of demoing.


- due to a licensing issues between CCP and Wizards of the Coast, they are going to be discontinuing the Vampire: the Eternal struggle collective card game. They said that the fans could however, keep the game alive, by loyally continuing to play.

- Lone Wolf  Development has been outsourced work from CCP to start generating a suite of tools to make only RP and ST easier for players that choose that venue.

- They have also hired DriveThruRPG.com to provide a 'print-to-order' service for their ENTIRE backlog of White Wolf books  and resources. That means that all the Masquerade books should be easily available again. Also, to clarify, 'print-to-order' means that when you order the book, the distributor prints up a fresh copy specifically for you, and mails it to you.

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.

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

"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.

-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.

-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.

"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?") " 

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

-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.

-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.

"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."


I'll have a separate post with some pics shortly! 

[Radical21]

Thanks for the News update and props for Burgermeister

Sounds like its going in a good direction with Maximizing player interaction and prema-death .

Im also kind of curious about this Carbon Technology thing.

Lone Wolf Development already have some WoD related tools developed it seems
http://www.wolflair.com/index.php?context=hero_lab&page=world_of_darkness
Does it mean they are going to bundle it all together and give it for free?

[Seifer]

All these sound awesome but the fact that it's vampire only and there is no word of plans about adding other supernaturals kinda worries me. I have come to understand that CCP is the most capable MMO games production company even though I have never played EVE. Do you think that they will listen to the players and add more "races"? I mean I don't mind the fact that they are not going to be in from day one but the possibility of it never happening bothers me... a lot!

[Nigama]

All these sound awesome but the fact that it's vampire only and there is no word of plans about adding other supernaturals kinda worries me. I have come to understand that CCP is the most capable MMO games production company even though I have never played EVE. Do you think that they will listen to the players and add more "races"? I mean I don't mind the fact that they are not going to be in from day one but the possibility of it never happening bothers me... a lot!

I give you my personal guarantee that they will add wolfs and magi later.   

Worry not.


Nigama

[Radical21]

All these sound awesome but the fact that it's vampire only and there is no word of plans about adding other supernaturals kinda worries me. I have come to understand that CCP is the most capable MMO games production company even though I have never played EVE. Do you think that they will listen to the players and add more "races"? I mean I don't mind the fact that they are not going to be in from day one but the possibility of it never happening bothers me... a lot!

Doing all the supernaturals at startup or even only three of them would almost undoubtly mean that they would get dumbed down along with their unique gameplay.
So I think CCP are making the right move by only going with one at start. means they can really focus on it and on the extensive gameplay features it relates to.
Might be that they would add Mages,Werewolves or Changlings as playable on future patches so I wouldn't lose hope, especially in light of the fact that is called World of Darkness and not Vampire: The Masquerade.

[Signothorn]

I'm hoping Burgermeister can add some context to the tone of the developers when they said it would only be vampires. In his sentence, he said "in the initial release", that may ave been the words the CCP rep used, we'll need to see what BM has to say about it.