World of Darkness

Okay. We *just* got out of the "What would you like to see in the MMO"
session at the Grand Masquerade. Here're a few things they "leaked" to
us (And I do understand if other are typing as I do and get this posted
before me. Good on you, guys. )

*First
and fore-most, this game is in pre-production, so they wanted everyone
to know that whatever they said could be changed by the time the game
comes out.

Big topics:

* Mortals: Everyone starts off as
mortal. Your character might (or, perhaps likely) will have a chance to
be Embraced into a given Clan, but you can chose not to be. However, if
you die as a mortal, it's for keeps. Speaking of...
* Perma-death.
It's real for Kindred as well as mortals. Seems there'll be a "torpor"
system in which you're just out for a bit, but Kindred cahracters can
also meet Final Death.
* Torpor, they said, isn't going to have
you in down-time for long bouts of time (won't work like the "Sleep of
Ages" thing in the table-top game), but rather gives the in-game reason
why your character didn't "die" when you lost all your health.
*
Server: World-wide server, or at least continuity. Speaking of which,
each "city" in which play happens will be a bit different, though they
said it'll be based on character actions.
* PvP: Yes, a lot of the
interations will be "PvP," but they're really working on building the
interactions systems into a model under which players have reasons to
form alliances and work together as well as against one another. When
someone from the audience said they hate playing with a$$holes, the dev
guy said "You need to have a$$holes to make political games work. That's
politics." (Or something like that). The over-all impression they gave
was that they're trying to work on creating a PvP environment that
doesn't feel like the petty PvP we're used-to in other games.
*

More peripheral issues:
*Character sheets that look a lot like our paper sheets.
*
Web-based interface: you will likely be able to go to a web-site and do
things therewith that make things happen with your character,
apparently without logging entirely into the game. They stressed that
they want to allow for casual gaming as well as more thorough immersion
(Which makes a lot of marketing sense)
* Player heirarchies: Yup,
player-Princes. As well as Player Primogen, et c. Earning one of these
roles will involve a lot of politicing, gaining the support of other
powerful players, who likely have to have the support of other players,
et c. The Prince will e the Heather with the red scrunchy, in other
words.
*
If there's a guy who's acting way out of character, there'll be ways to
deal with him socially, to "correct" the behavior, but doing so is
intended to be sufficiently costly to you that you might not then
(hopefully) over-use it. (ahem. Kind of like what I'd posted up-top. heh
heh heh.
* Dementation will likely have effects that mess with
players' perceptions of the game (possibly similar to Sanity's requiem,
for instance).
* Dominate/Presence were briefly mentioned as being a
way to wear down others' will to resist doing something you want them to
do.
* No Caitiff at this time. Sorry for the Caitiff fans.
* More akin to LARP than table-top, in general.

*Also,
they'd mentioned that they really want to do more with encouraging
players to tell the story, that players tend to consume hard-coded
content a whole lot faster than WW can write it. That makes sense.

up. Another thing about death and PvP by the way...

* Humanity:
attacking other players will drop your Humanity. They said something, as
well, about how having your Humanity drop below a certain point lets
other players attack you (possibly without penalty? possibly costing
them less to do so?Likely connected with the above thing about being
able to get other players to attack someone, this might also imply that
it'll cost less to make that happen, but that's pure conjecture. )

* No alternate Paths of Enlightment. Yet.

* Web-Access: they mentioned having a website through which one can do things with one's character (Did I mention that?)

*
There's a localization engine they're testing for EVE, called
Cereberus, I think. It's supposed to translate between five different
languages.


******* OH yeah... How could I forget?

Permanent Night.

"Daytime"
is pretty much just when the servers are down. They said they played
with the idea of playing Ghouls during the day, but that they're pretty
set on it being night all the time.

* Nudity: Yes, your character
can get disrobed. However, you can't do so in public places. They said
that if your want to get naked, you can do so in your Haven. Speaking of
which:

* Havens.
They also said that if you get tired of griefers griefing you, you can
ditch them and go back to your Haven, implying that it's possibly at
least somewhat sacrosanct.

* Yeah, there's talk of "World Events"
(one of the players asked about, say, a bunch of Lupines mucking about
in your city's woods, and if players ignore them they'd get stronger,
until being Dealt With. The dev onstage said they had something
comparable in mind.

* However, they're pretty much against having
the kind of metaplot you'd get from most MMO's, where huge things
happen that players have to go handle en mass. They said that those tend
to disempower players, and move the story away from what the players
were creating with their own choices. A major theme that came out of the
conversation was that the focus was going to be about having a lot more
focus on player interactions, and a lot less on pre-generated
"content." Something about having a metaplot that unfolded differently
from the way it has in the past.

* On the subject of Metaplot and
such, they also mentioned that they really don't like the idea of
instances, that they tend to take players away from the "real" game,
where the other players are.

* Also on the subject of player
choices and influencing the game world, it sounds like the cities
themselves might look *fairly* similar, but that the players would be
working on who controls various things within them. One thing they
mentioned was "A Church won't ever change into a gas station," so those
looking to radically transform a neighborhood probably aren't going to
get to do that, so much as (and here's my interpretation of what they
said) gaining "control" of it, and maybe building up or tearing down
certain aspects.

* Technology: They mentioned having two
settings, "High" and "Low," to allow players to access and experience
the game either at the current cutting edge of technology, or a notaby
lower level (that they hven't sorted out just yet). There was joke about
how the dev would like the game to be playable on a laptop. Not sure
how much of that was a joke, once again.

One last point I wanted
to put forward, just because, if I might. I jumped toward the front of
the line and asked the second question of the afternoon, requesting on
behalf of the online community, that they give us more transparency. Not
asking them to tell us everything, nor asking that they spoil every
secret before release date, but ya' know, giving us a bit more helps us
see it being something other than vaporware. Sounds like the
Pre-Production cycle is certainly trucking along nicely. We'll just have
to continue rooting about for scraps.

Off to the Succubus Club, and the epic awesomeness that that entails. Devon Birkeneau, signing off from the Big Easy.

* Wants social interactions to “have some meaning” (perhaps implied mechanical consequences to social interactions?)
- Yes, that will be a part of it.

* Microtransactions – wants transparency, wants more info
- Blame Chris McDonough; will release more info next year.
- Chris says, “Pay attention to EVE Incarna.”

* Play as mortal from “scratch” vs playing “sleeper”; toggle sort of like pvp for being embrace-able
- Everyone starts as mortal, but can never be embraced against your will.
- Vampires can die permanently under some circumstances. (See item toward the bottom.)

* Gaining titles within own real life city, interact with higher-ups from other cities and travel to other cities
- That’s exactly how it works.

* Have tiered dev system for brand new vs old players?
- Game is as deep as you want it to be.
- External access to game through web. (Editor’s note: no specifics
were given, but I highly doubt you’ll be able to actually play the game
from the web.)
- You can gain Influence without ever fighting someone.

* Plan for caitiff? “Deck of many things”
- Caitiff not part of original release, unlikely at this point.

* Day/night cycle?
- When server goes down that’s when day breaks (in other words, it’s always night)
- Looked at options like playing own ghoul, but this game is about
playing a vampire, so you should be able to play a vampire at any time.

* Dementation suggestion – screen goes crazy/dark, friend looks like monster
- There is some stuff like that in the game.
- Powers will work the same on humans, NPCs, and PCs.

* Majesty – combat (you can’t attack me) and out of combat (you have selection of options to say)
- Something like that but [social] PvP is more about breaking down your opponent’s will.

* Filter control to keep scrotemaster griefers out
- Attacking other players lowers humanity, when goes low enough you are open for others to attack you.
- As far as trolling, you can ignore someone.
- “You will have ways of dealing with it through actual gameplay. You
will have to behave in this world. But we also need enemies, assholes,
someone to hate. But there is a ratio there.”
- The game will have havens.

* Role-play is secondary in other mmos
- Lot of game design around this, like political system. See EVE;
wanted role-play to emerge naturally. “When your character’s goals align
with your goals as a player, then roleplaying is natural.”

* Concerns: pvp, some people want to roleplay without getting fucked with.
Guy jumping around in thong. Masquerade enforcement. Malks need extra
tlc because of their uniqueness. Age of Conan adult scale-back, don’t
want that to happen here last-minute.
- Have staff lawyer looking
into legal implications of adult stuff in all countries. Some countries
will just shut you off if you break policies/laws on adult content.
- It’s about doing it tastefully, not gratuitously.
- Gotta be careful about giving players ability to be nude. Might be a
more adult game without that. Possibly nudity in own haven but not
public.
- More similar to LARP than EVE.
- PVP is very
different than in other games. Both more free and more restrictive. Want
the world to feel real; it’s a dangerous place. Have to make friends.
If you go out of line we want the community to be able to punish you.

* Will Sabbat vs Camarilla PvP be player driven?
- More structured than EVE but not as structured as the Masquerade.
- Power structures are player run, like Princes and Primogen.

* Alternative paths? Like paths of enlightenment?
- Right now no, but every intent of releasing that in expansions.

*V20 Europe wants game that is adult, with story, unique character that
is not a clone (can tell on sight), and will run on lots of hardware.
* Planning on promoting in Europe, like at GamesCon next year?
- Story is tangential to the game. There won’t be a story that drives the game
- Unique characters are extremely important in this game design.
- Reynir: “Does not run on iPad yet.” Mindful of required specs
though, like laptop. Will have multiple visual settings/levels, but want
it to look good no matter what setting. “It’s going to run on a
laptop.”

* Clarification: Story meaning background.
- Editor’s note: There was no official answer — it was sort of lost in the
shuffle — but I will go ahead and say yes to this.

* Actions should have consequences, including true death
- True/permanent death can occur.
- Chris: “Should players be able to duel each other with an option for permadeath?” Loud applause.

* Planning on incorporating other genres?
- Stick to vampire initially.

* CoH veteran rewards style of opening up other WoD races?
- Just focusing on vampires now, don’t want to even talk about other character types at this point.

* Overhead names in UI? Way to keep notes if not?
- There will be an option to have names overhead, but it we be off by default (presumably to make the game more immersive).

* Standard char sheet?
- Yes, and it looks very similar to the pen and paper RPG.

* Metaplot not solely driven by PCs
- Yes metaplot, but hard to do that without disempowering players.
- Again more similar to LARP.
- Metaplot through expansions.

* Permanent consequences like blow up a building and it stays that way
- Big in MMO world now. Phased instancing etc. It’s not about the
graphics though. It’s about what happens in the world. See EVE as
example.
- Things open up and close down.
- Reynir doesn’t like phased instancing. “We don’t want the game to lie to you.”

* Will there be a generation system, and cap? Will there be diablerie?
- This is under heavy discussion now.

*Dynamically generated content? A la Guild Wars, e.g. garou attacking a
part of the city, if you don’t defend it then they now have control over
it.
- Yes. And there will be world events.

* Single server?
- Multiple cities that you can travel between, but all one world. So, sort of a single shard.

* How to determine how one player has praxis of something? Mechanical locking?
- Yes there is a mechanism, but requires lots of human interaction.

* Different sized cities? Population controlled?
- Populations can vary, but all cities will be large.
- There will be differences between each city. Player controlled/originated differences. (Hint, hint.)

* Does your game have NPCs?
- Yes.

* Justin Achilli asks: If you’re not lying to players, then why have fake people (i.e. NPCs)?
- Essence of response: STFU, Justin

* Translation? E.g. Latin American?
- Yes, via a newly developed “Cerberus” system.

* Will there be a system for torpor, like cool-down period?
- Not in traditional sense. [Torpor] is an excuse for why your PC doesn’t die.