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World

of Darkness was officially announced years ago, but

ever since, little has been revealed about the game or the progress of

its

development. EVE Vegas may be all about EVE, but that didn’t

stop me from

cornering David Reid, CCP's Chief Marketing Officer, in the press room and drilling him with questions about

what we

can expect from World of Darkness. Fortunately, he was a good sport and

only

flinched slightly when I dragged out a blindingly bright spotlight and

metal

chair for him to sit in. At the time, I didn’t realize David

had been in the

Army, so that explains how he held up to my interrogation so well.

Gamers

that haven’t been following the project closely

will be happy to know that it’s been confirmed that World of

Darkness will

initially be set in the Vampire: The Masquerade timeline. Fans of the

World of

Darkness universe will have to wait and see if other White Wolf

projects such

as Mage, Exalted, Werewolf, etc. make their way into the game later.

David

didn’t rule anything out, but thoughts like this are so far

off in the future

that aside from some possible thought put to potential future technical

capabilities,

those other settings are not a focus.

Since

it’s been so long since we’ve heard any real news

about the game, I had to ask what’s up with the project and

why has the team

remained so silent. David was quick to let the development team off the

hook

for their silence and took all the blame himself. As David explains,

there is a

fine line to walk in the art of creating excitement about a

game’s launch so

for the most part, fans are going to have to wait a while longer before

he’ll

let the World of Darkness development team off the proverbial leash.

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The

moment you reveal a significant amount of information

about a game, it automatically creates an unspoken promise to continue

revealing information. If this reveal is too early, it’s next

to impossible to

keep everyone interested for an extended period of time.

We’ve all been there

and seen development teams start the hype train over a year before the

release

of their game. That kind of intense excitement and anticipation can

only be

upheld for so long before potential players begin to lose interest.

With

that out of the way, I immediately began asking

about what type of game we can expect World of Darkness to be. At this,

David

quickly lit up (and not just because of the aforementioned spotlight)

and

explained that “it is absolutely [leaning towards] the

sandbox side.” At the

same time, a lot of the PvE in the game is going to be much different

than what

players of standard MMO games are used to. He goes on to explain,

“World

of Darkness is a scary place.”

“There

are things out there you just

shouldn’t be messing with no matter how bad ass you think you

are.” This

leads him to talk about how some of the PvE content in World of

Darkness may

revolve around avoidance, rather than straight combat. You may need to

get an

item from a scary mob that you quickly realize isn’t going to

be taken down by

you, “no matter how many of your friends you bring

along”. You’re going to need

to explore different avenues of attacking the situation rather than

strictly

combat. Expect to see a number of things done differently in World of

Darkness

when compared to other MMOs.

This

sets up a number of new gameplay elements players can

expect to see. As a fan of the pen and paper version of Vampire: The

Masquerade, I can see why this fits into the spirit of the game

perfectly. The

campaigns I used to play in involved very little

combat, but there was tons of intrigue, politics, betrayal, and more.

Bringing

this to an MMO would certainly set World of Darkness apart from its

competitors.

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Before

I let David out from under the Spotlight of Truth,

I asked him about player created content. It may be all the rage right

now in

multiple games, but both Vampire: The Masquerade PC games (Redemption

and

Bloodlines) had a massive following of fans that used the storyteller

mode for

years. To me, World of Darkness is the first game that some form of

player

created content is mandatory, not an option. David couldn’t

go into details,

but he did give us a couple tidbits. Number one, there will not be a

toolset

like that provided in Bloodlines, or BioWare’s Neverwinter

Nights. The

player-created missions in City of Heroes is also

something it’s not going to be.

Second, “There are

things we are doing that

will reward players for creating content as it is consumed by other

players.” “It’s

something that we think can happen not

just in the game itself, but [also] on the web, on mobile devices, and

things like

that. How you as a participant in the World of Darkness universe are

creating

things that other people are consuming. Whether it’s items in

the game, whether

it’s stories that they’re reading, tips, and things

like that.”

As

they say, talk is cheap, but there is one

massive reason I’m willing to give CCP the benefit of the

doubt, not the least

of which is this – EVE Online is the only MMORPG (ever) to

have 10 years of

consecutive player growth. Companies out there are more than welcome to

argue

with me, but trust me… if they had steady growth in their

game’s population

year after year for a decade, they’d be as public with their

subscription

numbers as CCP is in regards to EVE Online. That tells me that the

company

knows how to create a complex and genuinely engaging game that

won’t appeal to

everyone, but will appeal to some. And those it does spark a fire in

will be

there for the long haul, not gone in a month to see what shiny new game has

shipped that they’ll also quit in a month. That is exactly

the types of game

players need. Personally, I can’t wait.



