WoD News interviews Eddy Webb

There hasn't been a lot of news to report (and there still isn't), but I haven't forgotten about this blog yet.

Over the weekend the website World of Darkness News posted an interview with White Wolf World of Darkness MMORPG designer Eddy Webb. Though the interview contains pretty much no details on the MMO. Here's an excerpt talking about the Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines computer game:

Q: Did you feel they captured the essence of the clans and their disciplines in Bloodlines? Why or why not?

EW> More or less. I feel that certain clans got a little more focus than others, but really it’s hard to spread engaging content and design across seven different archetypes. Some of the fan mods, like the Clan Quest mod, do a great job in addressing stuff like that, though. However, like I said before, changing a property between mediums means that some things are just going to be lost. Mind’s Eye Theatre disciplines, for example, aren’t quite the same beast as their tabletop analogs, and powers that are great in tabletop just don’t work well in LARP (or vice versa). I think the same is true for video games, and Bloodlines did a pretty good job in making the core of the disciplines feel accurate, even if individual powers weren’t the same.

Q: Do you feel another Bloodlines type CRPG will ever be produced or started within the next several years?

EW> Honestly, single-player computer RPGs just aren’t as common as they were a few years ago – many companies are converting their IPs into other genres or moving into the MMO space. It’s possible we might explore that space, sure, but certainly not in the next several years. We have this other Vampire computer game to make first. ;)

For something else not directly World of Darkness Online there's the EVE Online character creator. The Incursion expansion for EVE pretty much just went live, and now players can make new portraits with the new character creator. Right now that's just portraits (the "walking in stations" bit presumably comes with Incarna in the summer), but it does have the full character customization. And from the looks of it it's not only the most detailed, but also one of the most attractive character creator. Ten Ton Hammer has an article explaining more. Here's an excerpt:

What It Is And Is Not

Right now, the feature consists solely in designed a new character, customizing his or her body, face, and clothing, then taking a single picture to use as an in-game and forum avatar. Eventually, we will be able to walk around with ours character, conducting business or socializing inside of customizable portions of stations. It seems likely that at least some aspect of this will be introduced by this summer. It is taking some time, sure, but it is a major undertaking.

As I've said before, this is mostly interesting sicne it's likely to be similar, if not the same (barring UI and specific choices) as the World of Darkness Online character creator due to CCP's technology framework approach.

Can't wait to see more.

More, which I'll post here when I come across it (though that could be quite a while from now).


[link] to interview with Eddy Webb at World of Darkness News.
[link] to EVE character creator article at Ten Ton Hammer.

GDCO 2010: CCP 'talks' World of Darkness

Over at Gamebreaker.tv they have a video interview with CCP's Nathan Richardsson about EVE Online, Dust 514 and World of Darkness.

See the video after the break.

New Character Customization coming to EVE

In their next expansion, EVE Online: Incursion, CCP are changing the seven year old character customization for EVE. Though all other graphics have had a graphics overhaul since launch, the character customization has remained lacking. But that's going to change now. Here's an excerpt from CCP's blog post:

With our upcoming expansion, EVE Online: Incursion, we will be rolling out entirely new avatars for all of our characters and NPCs in EVE Online. The character art is one of the few remaining pieces from the game that has remained as it was when it launched back in 2003. We've updated the ship graphics, the celestials, gates and stations, and now it's time we modernize and update the characters. We've created unique models for each bloodline,race and gender, 24 in total, along with new hairstyles and clothes. We even have shoes and underwear that you can play around with, even if they won't show on your portrait. That doesn't matter, though, because you will know what color underwear your character is wearing, and that is important.

The portrait generated will still be a torso portrait, that will work exactly the same way it does in game today. It will show in chat, in your character sheet, on EVE Gate and on the forums. There will be more options with posing, lighting and placing the camera though. So even if your character is full body, you will need to wait until the first release of Incarna to enjoy their, ehm, full bodies.

As the blog post suggests this update is a precursor to Incarna (the "Walking in stations" expansion slated for summer 2011). And due to the Carbon Technology being used in both Incarna is in turn a precursor to World of Darkness. So it is not unreasonable to think that Incursion will offer a first look at what kind of visual character customization World of Darkness might offer. As the blog states it should be available on EVE's test server shortly.

Whether this is a glimpse at World of Darkness' future character customization or not, the screenshots of Incursion's new character models look really good (here's another one).

See after the break for a couple of updates with character creation videos in EVE from the test server.

Welcome to Drop of Vitae

Welcome to Drop of Vitae, my new blog devoted to the World of Darkness MMO just recently (officially) announced by CCP and White Wolf.

Read more about the blog, about the choice in title and about the writer after the break.

World of Darkness Announced

The following post is a copy of the original post on my other (Star Wars: The Old Republic) blog. The date of this post will/has been modified to reflect that of the original post.

The big news this weekend, MMO-wise, was World of Darkness. Ever since CCP (developers of EVE Online) and White Wolf (creators of the various World of Darkness tabletop roleplaying games and such) merged it was pretty much known that CCP was working on a World of Darkness MMO. And that was pretty much all everyone knew. But this weekend during The Grand Masquerade, which is as I understand White Wolf's official conference, CCP officially announced their next MMO: World of Darkness (though some sources report it as "World of Darkness Online").

Read more details after the break (as well as an off-screen video).