WoD MMO News

direwolf wrote:

I play "the big" MMO, World of Warcraft. I dabbled in Star Wars: the Old Republic when it came out. I've checked out some other MMOs, and nothing has really grabbed me away from WoW.

Basically, time invested in an MMO means the acquisition of "stuff." Be it power, characters, gear or fun toys used in-game.

CCP is going to have to decide who the audience is for a World of Darkness MMO. Appealing to the established MMO crowd means being innovative enough to draw people away from games such as WoW, Star Wars, and especially Secret World (which is closer in genre.)

Likely they will head in the direction of a "sandbox" type game like EVE, which will likely attract players who like the Vampire LARP, or played on the White-Wolf online roleplaying chat.

Either way, expect a free-to-play with microtransactions type system. Unless the game is REALLY good, it's difficult to retain subscribers. If the game is good enough, I would subscribe. After Star Wars: the Old Republic failed to retain me as a subscriber, they changed to free-to-play, but was so terribly implemented that I have no desire to invest time or money into that game.

Honestly, the WoD MMO being pushed back could turn out to be a good thing: the MMO market has changed drastically since the project was first started. It will be good as long as CCP learns from observing it's rivals.

You cant compare both games. WoW is for a broader audience, gamers and kids alike. EVE online was made for mature players, who like to scheme, betray, work, gain trust, etc.

Even in PvP servers of WoW have SEVERAL rules to prevent player abusing. In eve, there are almost no rules. Almost everything is done and built by players. The entire economy of the game is managed by banks owned by players, corporations that seize regions and solve conflicts between players, and etc. CCP does not intervene in the game.

So, in WoW, what you can do? "questing for "xp/gold", earning hard achievements, arena with other players, farming xp/gold, or doing instances for hard items".

Do you want to know what is possible to do in EVE?

tacticalentertainment.tv/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/eve-wtd.jpg

Thats what they are trying to do with World of Darkness MMORPG, and thats why its taking so long. EVE has +300.000 players that wont abandon the game easily, while many of my friends who liked WOW dont play it anymore (they all got bored and moved to other genres).

What I want to say is: The games are totally different and should not be compared. EVE is growing larger since it was created. Obviously it is not a 20 million player subscriptions, but are enough to buy white wolf and invest heavily in another game, while Blizzard failed with diablo 3, and is losing grasp of WoW, with less players every month. Expect a REALLY different game, something innovating, not another "wow" ripoff.

Blizzard is not losing grasp with WoW. The reason subscription based games don't do as well, is because many MMOs try to compete with WoW and fail.

And I was not comparing WoW to EVE, I was contrasting the two. I know they are different and that's the point.

Personally, I don't find games like EVE fun. I am hoping a vampire MMO will be fun... and not like WoW in many ways.

But the reason WoW has retention is that you get to accumulate fun stuff in WoW, without the risk of losing it. I've had this argument many times with a coworker of mine.

Basically, when you die/lose in an MMO you lose time. In WoW, you have to ghost run back to your corpse, and pay in-game currency to repair your armor. Before WoW, in Everquest and Ultima Online, you would risk losing experience (character advancement) and the items your avatar was carrying.

It all represents TIME spent playing the game. You spend time acquiring an item or gaining experience, and you lose it on "death" you are losing TIME.

I didn't play Ultima Online for too long. I would get a few things, and go off to have fun and die, and lose the items. After a few times recouping my gear and getting nowhere, I quit. I felt like my father when he couldn't get past the first goomba in Super Mario Bros.

I'm not the target audience for EVE. I am interested in a vampire MMO, but it might be that I won't fit the target audience for it. If it's anything like Vampire LARP, or the old WW RP chat, you will have players gathering power, finding the least risky ways to accumulate power. And then squishing noobs like bugs, and avoiding a fair fight for risk of losing that power.

It's a video game. I'm not a fan of risk vs. reward found in EVE. My experience with video games is that losing and trying again is part of the learning process. The punishment for losing is that you have to try again. I have a problem if losing sets you back further than the point at which you attempted the risk.

But that's my experience, and my preference. There is a reason why Blizzard gets my money, and CCP, EA, or Funcom does not. Honestly, I hope the vampire MMO is good enough to draw me in and not turn me away.

direwolf wrote:

Blizzard is not losing grasp with WoW. The reason subscription based games don't do as well, is because many MMOs try to compete with WoW and fail.

And I was not comparing WoW to EVE, I was contrasting the two. I know they are different and that's the point.

Of course not. Its hard to express myself since im not an native english speaker. In fact, the way you wrote seemed to me you believe WOD MMORPG would be like WOW. And Im pretty sure it will not.

And yes, blizzard its losing grasp of WoW. It had 20 million subscribers, now it has almost less than 10. Just google it and you cant deny...too many sources. Check:

www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=wow+losing+subscribers

direwolf wrote:

Personally, I don't find games like EVE fun. I am hoping a vampire MMO will be fun... and not like WoW in many ways.

But the reason WoW has retention is that you get to accumulate fun stuff in WoW, without the risk of losing it. I've had this argument many times with a coworker of mine.

Basically, when you die/lose in an MMO you lose time. In WoW, you have to ghost run back to your corpse, and pay in-game currency to repair your armor. Before WoW, in Everquest and Ultima Online, you would risk losing experience (character advancement) and the items your avatar was carrying.

It all represents TIME spent playing the game. You spend time acquiring an item or gaining experience, and you lose it on "death" you are losing TIME.

I didn't play Ultima Online for too long. I would get a few things, and go off to have fun and die, and lose the items. After a few times recouping my gear and getting nowhere, I quit. I felt like my father when he couldn't get past the first goomba in Super Mario Bros.

I'm not the target audience for EVE. I am interested in a vampire MMO, but it might be that I won't fit the target audience for it. If it's anything like Vampire LARP, or the old WW RP chat, you will have players gathering power, finding the least risky ways to accumulate power. And then squishing noobs like bugs, and avoiding a fair fight for risk of losing that power.

It's a video game. I'm not a fan of risk vs. reward found in EVE. My experience with video games is that losing and trying again is part of the learning process. The punishment for losing is that you have to try again. I have a problem if losing sets you back further than the point at which you attempted the risk.

But that's my experience, and my preference. There is a reason why Blizzard gets my money, and CCP, EA, or Funcom does not. Honestly, I hope the vampire MMO is good enough to draw me in and not turn me away.

Yes, these is really two different gamestyles. I hope for a sandbox heavy roleplayed social game. I dont want to kill thugs to gain "levels" or do quests like "bring me 10 shirts of gang thugs". About growing in power and losing everything on dying? There are insurance companies in EVE. They cover almost everything a player can have, unless you are scammed or something like that.

WoW never had 20 Million subscribers. The highest they were closer to 12 Million. Check here.

True, subscriptions are in a decline. Most of the news in Charles' link are from late 2012. I did some googling and reading, and from what I understand is that a lot of the subs lost are in the East (such as China, Korea etc.)

It's too early to tell if WoW if "failing."

But that is only relevant to the success of a vampire MMO if CCP aims at the same audience that plays WoW.

I agree with you Charles, that "Kill X things" and "Bring me X shrubberies" does not fit the genre of Vampire.

However, I do feel that a Vampire MMO would benefit from a linear gaming experience. That is the game would be more balanced (or easier to keep balanced) if there is a level based system. A linear story keeps some players involved, and you can always have open options for those who like the sandbox.

I see alot of wiggle room for ccp if they ever get the ball rolling. I mean, if they let it go like eve, the camarilla and sabbat will fracture off, andcertain demographics may flock to it.

Now, realistically speaking, many vtes players who would be into the mmo may or may not have more in common with larpers or cam club fans than with wow players trying a new game. We are a diverse lot...

Anyway, until ccp churns out more, all we can really do is specualte. And honestly, i think its safe to say that the WW oWoD is the second most profitable rog line ever, and given the sucess of everquest, and after that the virtually same fantasy genre setting of WoW, a vampire the masquerade mmorpg is a sound idea, and its easy to see why they invested in the property. But all we can judge now is it may or may not be good, etc.

Im positive the eve and wow demographics both have players who would be into the game regardless.

Charles_Bronson wrote:

Thats what they are trying to do with World of Darkness MMORPG, and thats why its taking so long. EVE has +300.000 players that wont abandon the game easily, while many of my friends who liked WOW dont play it anymore (they all got bored and moved to other genres).

Well, there is much more than 300.000 player that won't abandon the game, and they are a lot of people that have abandoned EVE because it's boring as hell (the nickname "Excel Online" is often used by ex-players to explain why). Enjoyability have never been very high in CCP goal, which explain why they never tried to forbid anything unfair to players.

Now, let's be clear : if there is the same spirit on the WoD MMO, I won't play it, because I won't enjoy being randomly killed by a pvp ambush at any moment. It's already what I dislike in some LARP WoD where I have seen Brujah randomly smashing my head because I had title and disagreed with them.

Charles_Bronson wrote:

What I want to say is: The games are totally different and should not be compared. EVE is growing larger since it was created.

Well, EVE have nearly died with a botched expansion. Having hardcore fans don't make CCP the perfect game maker. In my opinion, I would be less worried with Blizzard doing a WoD game, since the quality of their game is much more consistent. Of course, it's entirely an opinion since some people will say that Blizzard consistently fail since Diablo II.

Charles_Bronson wrote:

Expect a REALLY different game, something innovating, not another "wow" ripoff.

We can safely say that everybody interested in the project hope that. Will they deliver it, and will it be something pleasant ? Hard to say with the very few information.