World of Darkness Previews and First In-Game Footage

CCP hosted another EVE Online Fanfest in Reykjavík, Iceland this weekend, and while there was plenty of EVE discussion to be had, the most notable presentation was one of World of Darkness. That presentation and the chatting that chief marketing officer David Reid did with the press on the show floor has led to a few brief previews, as well as some leaked footage of the very first in-game footage shown during the presentatation. Courtesy of CVG:

And then we’ll stop by Games Radar…

World of Darkness, based on the White Wolf tabletop RPG, focuses primarily on one major element of the supernatural: vampires. Mages, werewolves, and other elements of the universe will eventually be added, but at launch, players will be creating a blood-sucker and joining different clans vying for control over cities and territories. While the idea of “different dudes fighting over stuff” is a bullet-point most developers tack onto the box for their MMO, CCP plans to make the battle a very real one, just as it is in EVE Online. Factions will literally be able to take over different parts of the world, gaining control over mortals and, more importantly, their blood, which acts as the game’s main resource.

Going further, there are even plans to allow the community to elect others into actual, important roles, naming a actual players “Prince of the City,” which is apparently much more than a title. Different cities, named after real-world locations (New York and London were both name-dropped), can have their own elected leaders. Seeing as the game will employ EVE Online’s single-server system, being elected to the leader of a city is fairly important, and besides being a great accolade to put on a resume, the Prince of a City has the power to permanently kill players. Yes, that’s right: World of Darkness is going to have permadeath in one form or another, though it won’t be as widespread as it is in the tabletop game. Hardcore.

…Massively…

CCP wants to draw in the largely female World of Darkness fanbase. The game will have a focus on fashion, and CCP will control the theme of that fashion rather than letting players design their own clothes. The game will be based in the Vampire: The Masquerade universe, with an initial focus on vampires before the introduction of the other factions. Vampires will use human blood as a currency; it will be the resource they’ll compete over, making human cities the central locations they will inhabit. When mages and other character types are released, they will compete for different resources.

The game will have a single-shard world, with sandbox territorial warfare for control of cities mirroring EVE Online’s nullsec warfare. Developers investigated using real cities for the game but found that “real cities were generally boring.” Presenters told fans that the team will “be using stylised versions, but they will be named after real cities.” Each city will be lorded over by a player prince, who will under rare circumstances be potentially subjected to permadeath. The world’s original vampire clans will be available on release, and CCP confirmed that it won’t be using vampire generations as a form of leveling system but instead will be doing something different with it.

…and Eurogamer:

he future of World of Darkness was cast into doubt as a result of the re-organisation that took place following CCP’s troublesome launch of 2011’s Incarna expansion. Until now, Eve Online and upcoming PS3-exclusive shooter Dust 514 had been publicly declared as the priority for the developer.

“We are still in pre-production,” Reid explained.

“We have to wait for the keynote tonight to articulate when we think we’ll be out of pre-production. There’s a tremendous amount of work going on there. It is 60 people in Atlanta, all the disciplines you’d expect to see represented there.”