New World of Darkness Details...Kind Of

EVE developer CCP doesn't just make starships. In 2006, the studio merged with White Wolf Productions, publisher of such tabletop games as Vampire: The Masquerade, Mage: The Ascension, and World of Darkness. And some time ago, CCP announced it would be working on a World of Darkness-themed massively multiplayer online game. At White Wolf's Grand Masquerade event in New Orleans this weekend, representatives of the studio discussed a few high-level details, as mentioned by community site Wodnews.net.

Apparently, the new game will focus heavily on human interaction in an attempt to make the game seem less like a MMOG and more like live-action role playing. In the spirit of encouraging social gameplay, the game will apparently reward you for creating a network of allies--to model the politics in Vampire: The Masquerade and other WOD tabletop games. In fact, you'll apparently be able to ascend to the lofty rank of kindred prince without making a single kill. Princes will apparently run cities, and cities will be able to communicate with one another in some fashion.

All characters will start as humans but will have the choice to become "kindred" (vampires). Apparently, only these two types of characters will be available at launch. Other types of characters from the World of Darkness lore, such as mages and werewolves, will not be in at launch, but they may appear as non-player characters. As you might expect from CCP, the game is definitely planned to offer some form of player-versus-player competition, and the game is also planned to run on a single server, just like EVE.

Details are extremely scant on the game, and clearly, these are mostly high-level goals that are subject to change.