Good news regarding WoD Online!

[Valamyr]

Maybe that's the problem with CCP, they have no clue about PvE, the most popular form of game play. So they are just automatically alienating the majority of gamers.

'Maybe' he says. 

But thats only half the sob story. They're trying too hard to make their game a super-niche sandbox, yes, but more importantly, they're not trying hard enough to get an actual game out the doors in a reasonable amount of years. All they've got is a great IP.

[Rick Gentle]

All they've got is a great IP.

Which is nothing to sneeze at. So many settings and IPs are turning to trash lately. As long as they continue to support White Wolf - I mean, Onyx Path -in producing more tabletop books, they can keep the name afloat. And perhaps more to the point, keep the fans afloat. The danger for them is that 1) we will probably still like tabletop better, and 2) this will lead to us expecting even more from the WODMMO.

So the sooner they get the WODMMO out, the better for everybody.

[Valamyr]

As long as they continue to support White Wolf - I mean, Onyx Path -in producing more tabletop books, they can keep the name afloat.

Yeah, well. As much as I love WOD, I don't think the name is afloat anymore. WOD never achieved critical mass but 12-15 years ago, alot of people knew what it was. Requiem never had the mass appeal VtM used to have, its been a slow decline. Since the merger/buyout of WW, its become a niche PnP product. The very name 'Onyx Path' is only known to die hard fans. There's no mainstream appeal or knowledge. In market terms, the brand name has already lost alot of value.

BUT the IP is still frigging great on its own merits and could be resurrected if the stars were aligned. Which requires an insanely attractive MMO with mass appeal. Which, well, we aint getting anytime soon from the looks of it. I've made my peace with it awhile back, though I'm still hoping to be eventually pleasantly surprised. The notion that the WoDMMO could be a huge hit and draw new people towards the franchise and ressurect the PnP side, though, I don't think is possible with the design they seem to be aiming for. And, since 08 I've continuously had doubts in their technical ability to produce a decent homegrown 1st/3rd person engine, and these doubts still remain.

Its going to take alot more than new books to change my mind.

[Rick Gentle]

I'll take what I can get. As far as gaming goes, names like Black Isle and Bullfrog (maybe even Sierra and, gods bless them, Apogee) are known only to the older diehard fans; but those companies made some of the greatest games I've ever played. I'm okay with niche as long as that niche keeps making stuff I like. And stuff I can actually get access to.

Interestingly, EA has revived Dungeon Keeper as a tablet application. (Go search for it. Go search for it now!) It's only superficially like the old Dungeon Keeper games, but if this new incarnation takes off, maybe they'll find it worthwhile to revive the idea of DK3. There has been a huge craze lately of reviving older franchises and even older styles of gaming. (And honestly, the 8-bit craze is starting to get annoying. There's retro, and then there's just laziness and being cheap.) A quarter of the games coming out "new" on Steam are one of these kinds - republications of old games, or games done in what the developers claim is a "retro" style. So if we can get a new game with modern graphics, but old gameplay in an old IP... I don't see how it could fail in today's market.
Sure, we're comparatively a niche community... But I remember when the original WarCraft players were "niche". (In fairness, though, that far back most of gaming was still "niche" and minority.) CCP and White Wolf have got to give themselves the chance to become more than niche.

The thing I'm worried about are the revivals of older franchises in new and weird incarnations. I am still not sure how I like what I've seen of Thief 4. The only two connecting points I've seen (not having played the game itself yet) between Thief 4 and previous games are: Garrett has a mechanical eye, and he's taken that little pickpocket girl as his apprentice. (And according to the trailers, she doesn't get that long a run as Garrett's sidekick.)
This is why sticking as true as possible to the old IPs and gameplay are important; not only do you not gain a whole new crowd of players, you've alienated the ones who were expecting more of the same quality.

[phonixor]

Don't support ea with dungeon keeper for mobile... unless you like to pay to be able to mine your dungeon in less then 24 hours per block. ..

[Alexander Drayson]

Just go to GOG.com and get DK1&2 on the cheap from there; plenty of fan patches and addons to make it a little more up to date, and no EA microtransaction bullcrap :)

[N30V3N0M]

The only problem I see is what if the player just wants to focus on the PvE aspect of the game and doesn't want to even bother with PvP.  I don't know how a game that has survival as is primary focus will work, since DayZ and Rust are mainly PvP type games.  I think they should also look at games like SWTOR, whose story telling is top notch compared to MMOs I've played (this is my opinion).  And as I mention before, they can even look at Vampires The Masquerade: Bloodlines.  Yes, the game is not an MMO but I think it's a good action RPG game.

[Rick Gentle]

Oh, I'm not PAYING for anything in Tablet Dungeon Keeper. But it's taking me forever to summon my third Imp. In DK2, you could summon 50 imps inside of 5 minutes. Ahh, the bad old days.

They had better be looking at VTM - Redemption and VTM - Bloodlines, not only for the storytelling, but also for the atmosphere and some gameplay. I really liked how they introduced hacking in Bloodlines, even if it was just a 3-second visual gimmick. Putting in randomized numbers and letters is significantly more immersive than just watching a progress bar fill up.
I'd also like them to take a long, serious look at maps like the Ocean House Hotel, the Abandoned Hospital, Grout's Mansion, Bishop Vick's Crackhouse-Temple, Andrei's lair in the Hallowbrook Hotel, and the [Hollywood] Sewers. Imagine how much scarier those places would be if they were actually dark.

From Redemption, they could take a lot of inspiration for PvE/themepark play, if they decide they want to add that back in. Imagine putting in a questline when they introduce the Sabbat, where the culmination of the questline is facing off against a vozhd, with some of the same tricks those monsters had in Redemption, like picking characters up and biting off their heads. And they weren't even actual storyline bosses. There were a lot of unique enemies in that game, and each dungeon had its own flavor. The Nosferatu tunnels were not a reskinned Bonn Silver Mines were not the Giovanni Warehouse were not the Cathedral of Flesh.

[Leorgrium]

CCP Games redesigned their homepage a bit to include Valkyrie in the main marquee bar that displays their products...Well, in the process of doing that they also updated the World of Darkness MMORPG banner image to a new (never before seen) WoD concept art image. 

[Leorgrium]

WoDGame.Ru is a nice russian fansite community for World of Darkness...
A russian user found out an ex CCP technical artist porfolio where you can see any screenshot and video of the tool development kit used for World of Darkness.

http://www.cskyking.com/





Source: http://wodgame.ru/2014/03/26/novye-utechki-obnaruzheny-v-portfolio-razrabotchika/

[Rick Gentle]

Look's pretty good... though that's gotta be only one borough of one city. On the scale of an MMO, even a smaller MMO, that's not enough room for serious Vampire: The Masquerade-ing around. Though you can compact a LOT into a space like that, it's usually easier to make 99% of those buildings empty/unaccessible just to save on space, loading times, and processing power.

Though thinking about adding sewer lines under all that, and having the sewers be accessible makes me salivate.

[dbs]

http://www.decaturish.com/2014/03/game-decatur-companys-world/

Pretty much fluff, but I don't think anyone expects anything more these days - much less this close to Fanfest. 

[Leorgrium]

A guy just posted  the following post on Vampire the Masquerade facebook group page:

"The guy I talked to about the Vampire MMO was Eddy Web. My converstaion went like this:

Me: Is this happening anymore or is the game dead? It seems like vaporvare with all the CCP layoffs and refocus on Eve and Dust.
Eddy: No, we are still hard at work on the World of Darkness MMO. Thanks for your interest!

Me: Thank god. Its Cam Clans only and Cam sect right? I like Anarchs myself...and I'd love to see Gargoyles as a playable bloodline but I'd understand if that doen't quite work given they don't look very human, can fly and their discipline of Viseratkia might be too hard to make work. But glad to hear its still going along. How can I find out more about the progress of the WoD MMO?

Eddy: We will be making announcements when we are ready. Thank you!

So yeah, pretty much same WW line. "You'll hear about it when it's ready."

Source: http://www.facebook.com/groups/2208364950/permalink/10152714953829951/

[dbs]

http://imgur.com/a/geZcL

[Leorgrium]

http://imgur.com/a/geZcL

O_o