Jan
19

World of Darkness: 2010?

9 Comments

Here is an interesting piece of news that I saw on Sunday:

So, according to this interesting document (Harl: If the link source ‘disappears’ you can also get it here from Wod Online News: /Portals/0/Uploads/CCP_registration_2.pdf ) I found shamelessly lurking on the Eve Online forums, it looks like we should be expecting WoDO by 2010. Of course, this document is dated July ’08, months before CCP focused on Eve Online, as stated by its CEO during last november Fanfest, so I think we should take into account a few months of delay, making the final release date around early 2011, but, hell, I can be wrong. Anyway, Word of God says WoD will be launched in 2010. I guess we should make a party or something!

Now, please, go to page 13, near the end. I know, they might be only explaining the P&P setting, but they might as well be explaing the MMO one. Vampires, werewolves and mages? And it looks like we won’t be able to play as humans. Ok, now I’m maybe reading too much into it.

Harl: On page 24 states the following “CCP is currently working on new projects, the largest of which is World of Darkness, a MMOG that is scheduled to launch 2010.”

I think it’s safe to assume that this game will be on this side of “kick ass”. It is CCP that is developing this after all and they know how to make an MMO. However, I wonder if this will start off just as Eve did, i.e. small, niche and a rabid fan base. On the other hand, it’s hard to ignore the impact that Eve has had on CCPs foot print on the MMO space. This game could be a huge hit. There are quite a few people who respect Eve Online as a game, but don’t really “get it”…so they don’t play. That type of player may roll up their sleeves and give this game quite a bit of attention when it launches.

2010? That is earlier than I expected from CCP and given that the competition will be huge by then, it will be fun to watch CCP launch another MMO in that kind of environment. We’ll have another WoW expansion, WAR will be a HUGE contender and let’s not forget about Agency, DCU and others in the pipe as well. Only question is: RMT or no RMT. ;)

Fun times ahead.

D Out.

Posted in Editorial
9 Comments Posted by Darren

9 Responses to "World of Darkness: 2010?"

  • Jason says:
    January 19, 2009 at 10:41 am

    I actually look forward to a World of Darkness game because CCP as a game developer is already profitable, and White Wolf (whom CCP purchased in order to simplify their rights on the WoD property) is profitable from a table top gaming stand point, which means that given their history and the fact that they aren’t praying for a cash cow hit to save them they’ll be more willing to design a “good” game even if it is niche rather than to try to pander to the masses in hopes of getting a windfall of money.

  • Rog says:
    January 19, 2009 at 1:19 pm

    I think it’s like that CCP’s plans have altered, in some way or another, given their current financial situation within Iceland’s ultra-tanked economy. I have no doubt they’ll survive and even thrive in the long run, but I don’t expect they’re looking at new developments the same way they did 6 months ago.

  • Ysharros says:
    January 19, 2009 at 2:16 pm

    I should probably not admit this but… I used to play Vampire (before the trading card game, before all the other crap — so probably around 1991) even if it was one of Mark Rein-dot-I’m-too-sexy-for-my-ego-Hagen’s products. Hell, the Gangrel t-shirt I bought at GenCon back then is my favourite tshirt — meaning it’s soft as clouds, picture almost washed off, and holier than Sunday (and thus can’t actually be worn unless I want it falling to pieces).

    Anyway, yeah. Looking forward to this assuming it ever makes it out the door given current conditions, but burned so many times by MMOs that, ya know, trying not to expect too much.

  • Ysharros says:
    January 19, 2009 at 2:17 pm

    Oh yeah! Doh! Belated happy happy!

    Just wait till the big four-oh. THEN you can freak out. I know whereof I speak. :D

  • Letrange says:
    January 19, 2009 at 4:12 pm

    I think it’s going to be interesting to watch. For one thing like EVE I suspect they will aim for a niche to start with. From an MMO server hardware point of view I have little worries, these guys are after all so way out beyond the bleeding edge of MMO server design it’s scary (see question about internships asked at 2008 fan fest Q&A session). Also when one compares D&D vs WoD and say something like Traveler going back a ways, WoD definitely qualifies more as niche. But having EVE as their institutional experience, they will have realistic expectations of the gamer population they will get. Also from a distribution point of view they are much less at the mercy of a big publisher than just about any other game developer out there (they survived 5 years without one). So I highly doubt we’ll see a TR sized failure out of this. It might take longer to develop but it’ll get there. I suspect that the ATARI/CCP deal is way different than the usual Publisher/Developer deal for an MMO. That means that when WoD comes along it’ll benefit from realistic expectations and some serious server side tech that isn’t mired in the existing sharded paradigm. It’ll be very interesting to see what they come up with.

  • Robert Schultz says:
    January 19, 2009 at 5:42 pm

    Just because a company has one good MMO, doesn’t mean future MMO’s they make will be a huge success.

    Many would say that in their time, Everquest, Asheron’s Call and Dark Age of Camelot were all good MMO’s.
    Everquest 2 is not even close to the success people predicted, AC2 died a big huge fiery death, and Warhammer isn’t nearly as good as people expected either.

    If CCP is smart, they will either cancel it, or just continue to work on it at their own pace, only releasing when very good.

  • Levin says:
    November 19, 2009 at 7:28 pm

    The more things change, the more they remain… insane.

  • Anora says:
    February 11, 2010 at 5:35 pm

    I beleav ccp will put it off they have delaid some of there expansions on when that would be released or if a part of a expansion was not to there liking they would omit it till it was how they want it than add it as a patch.

  • Alex Chapman says:
    March 9, 2010 at 9:03 pm

    Regularly I do not make comments on blogs, but I have to mention that this post really forced me to do so. Really admirable post

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