Created 1 years 8 days ago
by
Fetch
Greetings,
I'm Fetch an avid fan of gaming living and working in New Hampshire while I take classes in Creative writing at a local college.
I've been gaming for 17 years and have played a little of everything (both off and online) from D&D and Everquest to the World of Darkness and Eve Online. My favorite game right now is White Wolf's Changeling: The Lost and its one of the few games I have every book for. I look forward to writing for you all and I hope to hear your comments on my work so that I can continue to grow, and improve. Both as a gamer and a writer.
Merit: 3 Flaw: 9
- Currently 0.00/5 Stars.
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concerns
gaming
WoD
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World of Darkness Blog
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I have had a few concerns about World of Darkness online for sometime now as I mentioned on the forums recently so I thought I'd put them all in one place so I can see if any of you share my concerns.
Concern #1: Making the World of Darkness Boring
Seems impossible right? How could such a game with a deep history and loyal fans be boring? Well lets look at CCP 's big game EVE Online. Known as “Spreadsheets in Space” in many circles. This game somehow manages to make space boring. Yes it's player driven. Yes you can build up huge corporations only to have them tumble down like a house of cards. The question is though why would you? I've tried playing EVE a couple of times and each time ended due to boredom. The game just didn't do it for me. I've honestly derived more entertainment from EVEs cinematic trailers than the game itself, which is really kind of sad.
Concern #2: Blood-Based Economy?
I'm still scratching my head on this one and I'm curious how this will actually work in the MMO. Part of it just seems wrong to me. I'm very curious why CCP decided not to create a money-based economy. Part of the perk of being an Elder vampire is being able to amass a large amount of wealth. Will they instead be hording blood? Can you actually horde blood? How will you buy decorations for your haven? Do all stores in the WoD take blood instead of cash now?
Concern #3: Free to Play?
There has been a lot of talk about online games switching to a Free to play model, and a lot of MMOs have found success doing so. Maybe I'm too old school but I have concerns about this. Why you ask? Wouldn't that be a good thing? Well yes and no. It will get more people to try it, which is good. I'm more concerned about balance issues. Will the Ventrue prince maintain his position by the palyer being able to afford more “powerups” for his character? While ironically fitting for a Ventrue this is an idea that worries me. Does anyone with more experience with FTP MMOs have any thoughts on this?
Concern #4: How will WoD be marketed?
This one seems obvious, the fans of Vampire: Masquerade of course. How then will they appeal to the millions of people who are completely unfamiliar with the World of Darkness? Will they market it for the twilight crowd? How will they make WoD stand out to fans of World of Warcraft? If WoD online is going to be a big sandbox, then how will they teach that to the players. How will they get players to want get involved with the politics? How many players will create a character go “now what?” and walk away. Emergent roleplaying is a great concept but only if you can get them to stick around long enough to get hooked.
13 Comments
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0 Merits
Xaglacion
1 years 4 days ago
What I think they mean by "blood-based economy" is CCP is going to make it work like a gang-based system. For example the prince of a city controls the city right? So his blood income isn't actually blood, but the amount of people(and their blood quality) in his territory, think of it as people = sheeps. Prince = Sheep-herde and stuff. Dunno if it makes any sense for you guys, but that's how I think it could be.
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0 Merits
NemaN
1 years 7 days ago
#1.- Sandbox games are amusing but could be limited to those ones who get immersed in the game in some way. In WoD, PvE would be used to bring new players to the sandbox, if the MMO world set for WoD is interesting to explore it why not try to be completely part of it? Somebody could think. CCP talked about cooldown based on a plot and having stories but major plots will be drove by the players. #2.- Blood is NOT the only resource, Chris said that. So, it's more probable that cash will be used to buy items, etc. Blood could be used to deal with political aspects. #3.- Free to Play could have any result, but if a game has a lot of fun, its result could be positive I used to play a F2P RTS sandbox game and obviously, I met different type of players, but many of them were very active and they get involved in that amusing game. #4.- I'm not interested in responding this one, because CCP have explained about that very well and you should already know that or didn't you watch the videos or read the news? And they have a phrase on his web "Vampires will always be trendy", any clever company wouldn't care about fad concepts, if you see the new vampire games online which are recently being produced or released, they're using the WoD concept to promote their products, it's funny but a browser based game (Dark Legends) plagiarized the 2010 Animatic Trailer to promote their game and just read the title from this MMO "Unveiled: The Supernatural" = (mirror) "Masquerade: The Vampire" haha. I never played WoW but I heard it's no longer funny to play for some people. I spent 4 years playing a sandbox game, I just played for 1 week a MMO like WoW.
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0 Merits
Fetch
1 years 6 days ago
The only sandbox game I have any experience with is EVE so I must admit my knowledge is limited to that, with Eve however, I can say that the PvE does very little to "bring you into the sandbox" The missions in EVE are generally little more that "Go here, shoot this, repeat" The F2P aspects will likely be much more than just decorations and costumes. For example in DUST514 one of the items you can buy via micro-transaction will allow you to increase your skill training speed. Now how will someone with extra disposable income not gain an advantage from this, if the same ideas are transferred to WoD? I'm curious how a "plot driven cool down" will work in a sandbox which by definition is not based on any game driven story. I have in fact, watched the videos. I don't expect to actually see any marketing directly aimed at Twilight fans. However, with book releases such as "Strange Dead Love" it would be naive to think they will not create content specifically geared towards the concepts of Vampiric romance. (ie fans of twilight, the stereotypical female vampire fan) I'm more concern at how this will be presented and not that this content will exist. I went and checked out those two trailers for the games you mentioned. Both seem to be pulling from WoD as well as other popular themes with Vampires. For the Dark Legends trailer plagiarized is a bit harsh, as the trailer copies the use of moving paintings to drive the trailer and not much else. Unveiled: The Supernatural seems a bit closer to WoD in terms of content. Its worth noting that games like these have existed in some form or another long before WoD was announced.
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1 Merits
Seven
1 years 7 days ago
I have concerns over any MMO, and of course over things in WoD. Personally, I never found EVE to be boring so I am not overly concerned about that. I enjoyed EVE. I'll admit, the traveling could be boring if you were going really long distances. But it could also be delightfully nerve-wracking in no-sec. I'd say, of your concerns the blood-based economy is the only one i'm really concerned about. I'd love more details on what this means and how they intend to do it. I actually rather hope that 'blood based economy' is reflected in territory control somehow. For instance, you don't hoard actual blood - but rather, the 'bodies/herd/etc.' of humans that you have as your feeding territory; perhaps supplemented by rare blood samples of some sort. How this translates into purchasing power i'm unsure. Free to play: something to be a bit wary of - but not something i'm concerned about as it can be done correctly. I also have no problem with micro-transactions and think this might be a game that has a lot of potential in that area, given the focus on social aspects, havens, clothing, etc.
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1 Merits
1 years 7 days ago
Don't get me wrong - EVE is great for EVE. It makes a hell of a lot of sense to have a bunch of mercenary businessmen controlling massive amounts of intergalactic finance.It's just that when you take that scale down to one planet, add in vampires, and give them awesome powers instead of awesome spaceships, it changes the thrust of the game a little bit. The message of both Vampire franchises is not "wealth is power", it's "everybody is a monster at heart". Certain metaphorical vampire flicks aside, I think of monsters more along the lines of gore, violence, and suspense than pocketbooks.
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5 Merits
HfxTenor
1 years 8 days ago
My hope/belief in regards to the "economy of blood" is simply their way of stressing the importance of managing your backgrounds, domain and resources. I seriously doubt that money will not exist in the game. More likely that, between Kindred, blood may become currency in a figurative manner of speaking. "I'll trade you my investment bankers for that ancient sword." or "I'll give you access to the blood bank that I own in return for you doing me a favour of my choosing at some point in the near future, or voting for me for Primogen, etc." As for marketing, I think they're on the right track with their method of stressing how different this MMO will be from any "tried and true MMO standards" like the holy trinity, or grinding mobs for xp month after month. If the droves currently leaving SWtOR are any proof - MMO players are tired of these mechanics and playstyles and are starving for something new. I think the real trick will be winning over the media - Gamespot, IGN, G4TV, TenTonHammer, etc. etc. Make a game that game journalists and their respective websites rave about and players will notice and come to see what's up, whether they're White Wolf fans or not.
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1 Merits
1 years 8 days ago
I'm glad I'm not the only one who has some concerns about how the World of Darkness MMORPG is going to turn out for us players. Part of the reason I'm worried about story in the WODMMO is because of what you mention about EVE Online and the economy of blood: I want this to be a game of action and story, not of numbers and finance. Vampires may play the game, but wealth is hardly the goal in and of itself. And when they put in sects like the Sabbat and franchises like Werewolf, it becomes even more out of place. At least marketing is one thing that I don't think we have to worry about - from the sounds of it, neither White Wolf nor CCP nor the current audience are thinking the WODMMO is going to become the next WoW in terms of numbers. (Which I think is a good thing.) If word of mouth, the Twilight crowd, and a moderate amount of advertising through venues like the EVE FanFest don't cut it, then it's simple enough to release that cinematic trailer as a TV commercial and get more people interested that way. All in all, though, I'd prefer quality over quantity.
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