Chris-McDonough
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World of Darkness 'years away' from launch
If you are hanging your hopes and dreams on World of Darkness coming along to rescue you from the humdrum of life and your precious mortality, well... be prepared to settle in for a good long wait. Executive Producer Chris McDonough said in an interview that the title is still in pre-production and that players shouldn't expect to see it for a few years yet. However, CCP did show a few technical videos to the press to assure folks that the game is still alive. McDonough did have good news to share, however. World of Darkness has a 70-person crew that is currently building the framework for the title, and according to the producer, they are "making phenomenal progress." The team plans to host the entire game on a single server where active combat and politicking between vampires will be the crux of the content. "We're making sure this is a next-generation MMO. It's very focused on movement and motion and capturing what it's like to be a vampire," he said. "People ask about our high level designs for World of Darkness, and we've called this a vampire simulator. What's it like to be a vampire. Not a superhero, but a super-powered individual. The way the characters move around the city feels very vampiric."
World of Darkness information revealed in open letter to fans
Outside of confirmation that CCP Games is still working on World of Darkness, news on the game has been hard to come by. Some of the reasons behind that were revealed by senior producer Chris McDonough in a recent letter to members of the Mind's Eye Society, a fan group devoted to the tabletop and LARP games in the same IP. While the focus in the letter was not on the MMO, McDonough did still discuss the state of CCP as a company and what it means for the game. In short, after a difficult financial year, CCP is devoting the lion's share of its resources to ensuring that DUST 514 is a successful game on launch. That doesn't mean that World of Darkness is being shelved -- McDonough stresses that development is still ongoing -- but it does mean that the company's first priority is elsewhere. How long that will be the case remains to be seen, but if you're hoping for more substantial news on the game this year, the odds are low.
Chris McDonough talks about the development of the World of Darkness
With layoffs having hit CCP, there's been a lot of apprehension about whether or not World of Darkness would continue in development or suffer a quiet death. But a recent interview with Senior Producer Chris McDonough makes it clear that the title is still very much in development and very much following in the footsteps of its older brother, EVE Online. Both games will share the single-shard setup, and McDonough states that several technologies developed for World of Darkness have been incorporated into EVE Online (something many players suspected about player avatars from the beginning). McDonough also talks in depth about turning the game into an MMO, claiming that a pen-and-paper game naturally translates into an MMO better than other properties because of the lack of iconic characters who players wish to play. The challenge, of course, is bringing over some of the feel of a tabletop setting into an online environment, with McDonough explaining that several of the computer games such as Vampire: The Masquerade -- Bloodlines have been used as a point of common reference. Click past the break to see the full interview.
World of Darkness' Chris McDonough calms fan concerns
A number of World of Darkness fans were concerned after a recent CCP CEO interview in which it was said that the World of Darkness MMO was going to be scaled back. The game's Senior Producer, Chris McDonough, stopped by the World of Darkness News forums to respond to the concerns. In essence, he states that CCP was "staffed up as if [they] would be able to be production-ready at this point and [they] simply are not." However, players shouldn't be too concerned, because the only content that is being scaled back in World of Darkness is "redundant content that's expensive to make." For McDonough's full response, head on over to World of Darkness News.
Video interview with Chris McDonough reveals more details on World of Darkness
There are a lot of gamers pretty interested in World of Darkness, and it's not hard to see why. The game is based in lore that's still hugely influential in the arena of tabletop gaming, and it's hard to imagine a developer better suited to labyrinthine political dramas than CCP. Machinima.com had a chance to chat with Chris McDonough during the recent Grand Masquerade, where McDonough revealed a few more tidbits about what the game would incorporate and how it would cater to existing fans of the property. As McDonough puts it, the overall goal is to bring some of the feel of the game's many LARP activities into the MMO space, with the focus on player and character interplay in a sandbox environment. The full interview also discusses the spread of the overall property, why the team decided to focus on vampires initially, and more about what players can expect from the game world. View the full interview after the break. [Thanks to Pilgrim for the tip!]
