Multiplayer Daten und Fakten zum WoD MMO

CCP employees 'losing themselves' in World of Darkness playtests

by Jef Reahard on Feb 28th 2013 1:00PM
Horror, Events, real-world, MMO industry, New titles, News items, World of Darkness, Sandbox
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CCP's MMOification of the beloved World of Darkness IP is still a thing, apparently. CEO Hilmar Petursson tells Eurogamer that a "tiny" glimpse of the horror-themed sandbox will show its pasty white face at this April's EVE Online Fanfest.

"We're playing it internally at CCP. It's actually a problem that some of our employees are losing themselves already in the World of Darkness as we go through the playtests," Petursson said. "And we'll be showing a tiny piece of that also at Fanfest. So that is all I have to say about that at this time."

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World of Darkness development shown at EVE Fanfest 2013

by Brendan Drain on Apr 26th 2013 9:00AM
Fantasy, Events (Real-World), MMO Industry, New Titles, Previews, News Items, Opinion, Events (Massively's Coverage), World of Darkness, Dev Diaries, Sandbox, Crafting
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When the World of Darkness MMO was first announced in November 2006, it was just an idea and we knew that it wouldn't be released any time soon. The chance to play a sandbox game set in the Vampire: The Masquerade universe nevertheless made fans of the series go nuts, but now over six years later we haven't seen much progress on the game. At EVE Fanfest 2013 today, CCP laid the current state of development bare for all to see and showed some plans for the coming year. There are now 70 people on the WoD team, and they've spent the past week working on everything from art tools and server infrastructure to vampire powers and social options.

"You're a powerful, immortal lord of the night. You don't want to stitch a shirt."

Development plans for 2013 include working on out-of-game web-based social tools, clothing systems, and PvE game environments. There are also plans to work on item creation, but direct crafting is probably not on the cards. As the presenter put it, "You're a powerful, immortal lord of the night. You don't want to stitch a shirt." Though the game is still in the pre-production stage, CCP was keen to show off the tools it's made to speed up the development process. "Some of these videos are a bit dry and technical," joked the presenter, but it came across as more real and honest than another trailer or musings on theoretical gameplay.

CCP showed some interesting tools that it will use to rapidly develop procedural content like buildings and cityscapes. It's not the gameplay fans were eager to see, but it was an honest look at the state of the game and it shows that development really is still ongoing. We saw a building going through the entire development system from basic block shapes to the graphically impressive final results, with plenty of eye candy to go around. As an indie game developer who specialises in shader programming, I can say that the video they showed of shader tech was genuinely impressive. Whenever World of Darkness finally does release, it's going to look amazing.

Developers also showed video footage of their own internal visual targets running in the WoD engine but were adamant that we not film it since it's not actual gameplay footage and may give a false impression of how far along development is. The animations were clearly unfinished and much of the graphical detail was added in post-processing, but the video clearly showed the direction the game is heading and it looks like it'll be worth the wait.

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Eve Fanfest 2013: World of Darkness video shows hunting, parties and parkour – “you can’t make your vampire sparkle”




11 Comments Tom Senior at 05:18pm April 27 2013


CCP’s vampire MMO World of Darkness has been hiding from the light for the last twelve months, but behind the scenes a gear has shifted. The 70 strong team that formerly split its time between World of Darkness, Eve and Dust are now pursuing World of Darkness full-time.

It’s nowhere near finished, however. Today’s World of Darkness presentation at the Eve Fanfest in Reykjavik focused closely on the level design tools and shaders that CCP are using to build their next big sandbox MMO, but they did show a video. Built from World of Darkness assets, the “target footage” was designed by CCP artists to illustrate what life as an urban vampire will hopefully look and feel like in the finished game. Filming was strictly prohibited, the session wasn’t part of the Fanfest livestream and CCP aren’t likely to show it publicly any time soon, so instead I will use words to try and paint pictures in your head. I will also use actual pictures drawn with my hands. Here’s what happened.

The video opens in a dim alleyway in the middle of a dark, wet city. The player character is an impossibly slender female. The dark, skintight trousers and splayed, spiked cuffs of her short, dark jacket are ostentatious enough to immediately mark her as a vampire, even before she approaches a man loitering in the alleyway and – after a seductive exchange – bites his throat out.


These drawings in no way reflect the styles and fashions of World of Darkness. Obviously.

As she snacks bloodily on her victim (an NPC, McDonough confirmed later), a dozen vampires bound past the window lights of a distant rooftop, the player character tracks them for a moment as they vault over rooftops and vanish into the darkness, and then darts sideways and mounts a 12 foot brick wall with the speed and ferocity of a turbo-charged Ezio.

She quickly scales another rooftop and suddenly finds herself in an open bar. Dozens of other players mill about, chatting and drinking, dressed in sumptuous outfits. This is a representation of what CCP call the “paper doll” aspect of World of Darkness. They want fashion to be an important part of vampire society, one that could provide plenty of incentive for trade. Earlier in the presentation, McDonough suggested that vampire players will be able to hire or “manipulate” others into creating items for them.

Beyond the warm glow of the party, the troupe of vampires sail back into view. They’re just silhouettes on the skyline, but their movements are quick and feral. The player character walks slowly through the party, keeping an eye on the hunting pack from afar. There’s a strong gothic urban wilderness vibe to this bit. When I mention this to McDonough later he says that the scenes showing vampires leaping across rooftops from afar are inspired by scenes from CCP’s internal quarterly playtests. He says that staying constantly alert to the environment outside safe zones is wise. 3360 kills were recorded during CCP’s January test.


Anyone caught filming was threatened with Final Death, so we’re stuck with these.

The player reaches the rail at the edge of the party, hopes over and then leaps the street beyond in one go. She clambers up onto the roof, cloaks and then makes her way through a mass of hissing air conditioning units. Emerging, crouched into an open stretch of rooftop she sees another vampire standing on the edge of the drop. The vampire spots her translucent form and adopts a fighting stance. As he spreads his arms a strange golden dust distortion appears around him. Before he has a chance to cast whatever spell he’s weaving the player dashes forward twelve feet and punches him off the roof. She leaps after him and lands perfectly near his body (there’s an obligatory CRASH of thunder here). Then she steps forward, opens his throat with a back-handed swipe and then drinks the blood from the wound. CCP aren’t shying away from the violence of the vampire underworld. As she drinks, three other vampires drop down from the rooftops. She stands up to face her aggressors and the video ends.

The footage was rendered in the World of Darkness engine. McDonough admits that the working client doesn’t run at the video’s framerates, and postprocessing has been used to add additional lighting effects that they’re planning to implement as they unlock DirectX11 features further into development. I wasn’t taken with the spindly early character models, but the city – dark, brooding, soaking wet – was detailed and evocative. The window shaders CCP are building show interiors that shift depending on your perspective, giving depth to the multi-storey facades. Fans whirr in their sockets, steam rises from the drains. Everything glistens. I want to put on a trench coat, tip my hat against the rain and explore.

That wouldn’t be smart. Players in World of Darkness start out mortal, but will be quickly tuned. Or so CCP expect. There will be players who try to last as long as they can in human form. Initially, it won’t be a fully fleshed out way to exist. “We’re not putting a huge amount of functionality into the mortal game,” McDonough says. The other races that fill the World of Darkness universe like werewolves and mages won’t be in at launch either, but CCP “consider this to be future expansions.”


No I don’t know why his arms are like that.

You can be permanently killed in World of Darkness, but it will be a difficult process. Being slain in combat won’t do it, for example. McDonough said that a handful of players were perma-killed during the January CCP playtest, but wouldn’t be drawn on exactly how. In the World of Darkness pen and paper RPG (the game is very much based on the pre-2004 classic World of Darkness setting) “final death” occurs when you run out of blood points. Interestingly, in the RPG, executions can be ordered by the Prince (a lordly mega vampire who rules the city). CCP have already confirmed that there will be player-elected Princes in the MMO. Will they have the power to single out enemies for complete destruction?

It’s impossible to say at this stage because CCP are reluctant to give any specifics on systems they’re in the middle of designing. They do mention that World of Darkness will run on one “shard” that will likely be supported by multiple server clusters to handle the added load of all that free-running. There will be multiple cities to travel between. Your character’s movement is tied to the WASD keys. CCP also mentioned that they’re planning to reflect the Masquerade – the pact that requires vampires to hide their existence from humans, though how is a mystery. In the video vampires were jumping freely around the city, visible to anyone who happens to look up.


Sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry.

The World of Darkness team are also wrestling with a desire to maintain the grim, gothic tone of the classic World of Darkness settings. “We’ve banned the names Edward and Bella and you can’t make your vampire sparkle,” McDonough joked, crushing the dreams of a million Twilight fans. I’m curious to see how CCP will stop players from voting in a brutal vampire Prince called Joe McLovelyface55. They’ve already made important tweaks to preserve the seriousness of the setting. “In the first internal playtest you could loot clothes. everyone was always naked, all the time. it was fun and beautiful.”

World of Darkness isn’t coming out this year. It’s not coming out next year. It may take longer than that. CCP have held back from showing too much in case people start expecting with years of development left to run. The cat is out of the bag, however. The cat has crossed the sea. The cat has an apartment in New York and is trying to make it as an artist. I can’t wait to see more in the years to come.

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