2009-02-13

New MMO Musings

Been awhile, eh?

So the other day I was reading how one of the major players in WoW, Game Director Jeff Kaplan, is moving off of WoW and onto an "unannounced MMO." Speculations abound, but I thought I'd throw an idea out I've had for some time about an MMO I'd really, really like to see.

Vampire: The Masquerade.

In 2004 developer Troika put together the excellent CRPG Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, a followup effort to Activision's 2000 Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption. While VtMB had many flaws and bugs at release, it was the first game along with Half-Life 2 to use Valve's Source engine, which allows the game to be played from either the first-person or third-person shooter perspective. Reviews were mixed, including "grand RPG but a flawed gem of a game" and "the best buggy game ever". It had tremendous promise, and remains playable still with after-market official and fan-based patches. Roaming Santa Monica, Hollywood, Chinatown and LA as a vampire, exploring the shady underground and vampire politics - I absolutely loved this game and replayed it for hours upon hours. Now, take this - and make it on a Massively Multiplayer scale, worldwide. Would that not rock?

VtM still has a following as a pen-and-paper RPG, with tremendous online resources including detailed rules, fansites, and lore.

I'd like to say you heard it here first - but perhaps my musings have only picked up on that which has been desired by many others... Seems White Wolf, the owner of VtM trademark and subsequent followups World of Darkness and Vampire: The Requiem, is working on an MMO called World of Darkness Online - I need to read further, but this sounds like my dream come true... of course, rough estimate release date is 2011, so I'll have plenty of time to enjoy WoW until then...