Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Speculation on city mechanics, loot and stuff?
Adalwulff
Member, Newbie CommonPosts: 1,152
Since the latest news about April fanfest, I cant stop thinking about WoD.
Is it too early for speculation? Well if you got time, give me your ideas on these subjects.
Cities-
since they are using a lot of code from EVE, and since newer players will need protection from higher level vamps, will there be "high sec" areas and "low sec" areas? Or maybe there will be no protection at all, since we will all become vamps? I am guessing that we vamps will be competting against each other.
Farming-
this kinda relates to cites, because as vampires we must feed. So I am wondering if there will be feeding grounds better than others? Maybe in the "low sec" ares of a city? Is this something a Prince can somewhat "control" like clans do in EVE?
Or do you picture something more subtle, feeding without drawing any attention. Maybe we will have to sneak around?
Loot-
I cant think of one single thing?! I know I must be losing it, because there must be a ton of loot this game could use. Any ideas????
Economy-
CCP mentioned an economy, I think. They mentioned that blood will be a kind of currency. So my question kinda goes back to farming, if blood is currency, then its almost like vampires will rule openly and humans will be just cattle.
If its a more sublte approach, then sneaking around getting blood without getting caught could make blood very difficult to get, maybe that is the plan?
Vehicles-
Probably unessesary, or is it?
Weapons-
Will they give us things like in Underworld?
anything else you guys/gals can think of?
Comments
That was my first choice too, but I guess there will only be vampires on release.
I'm more interested in how the cities will work, where the hunting grounds will be, how blood will be used as currency. If they use a high-sec low-sec system, could be very interesting and tough for new players after the game is out for awhile.
My opinion of what I think it might be and what I would like it to be...
Cities
There will be many cities. Each city will have a various number of inhabitants. Each inhabitant is a resource. So each city will have a finite number of human resources. Resources will be of varying uses ranging from pure feeding bags, muscle, political power, financial power, criminal power etc...
Each player will establish a home and will try and gain in power by aquiring more resources. This is done by using various skills to try and 'win over' people. Such as using presence to gain the trust of someone who is a politician which will give you a 'power up' type rating when looking to do political things within the city.
As you gain more influence your expand your territory control which effecively is your catchment area. As your catchment area increases in size so will your power over the cities mortal running. You might eventually get some control over the local police statiion allowing you to overlook certain crimes. You might get a lot of criminal supporters allowing you to control the cities drug channels...
Farming
Farming is related closely to how the cities work. Each person will have certain associated skills/abilities/affiliations. You can either kill them to reduce the overall available resources (so killing a lot of policemen will increase the power of crime for example) and if you happened to have a lot of power from the police you might find you now have a controling share of that resource. You could also target resources belonging to other vampires (which would probably need to be something identified by your human subjects) to reduce their control.
Loot
Well the only thing that really comes to mind is money. Money can be used to gain influence over mortals to gain control or access to them so that you can eventually control them. It will also allow you to buy buildings, land and properties.
Ecconomy
EVE Economy works because you are essentially rebuilding your character all the time. So how they will make a meaningful ecconomy I am not sure. Perhaps if they link the upkeep of the human resources, buildings etc...so that you have a contstant need to keep paying the bills (in a fun way of course) and the need to build things that get destroyed during fights.
For instance you might own a nightclub that gets burnt down. So you will need to buy resources to rebuild it. So you will need to hire people to do the work (another vamp owns a recruitment agency), buy metals and woods (yet another vamp owns a woodmill)...you get the idea I hope. Basically the economy is dealing with the economics of the city and how much of the cities business you can control.
Vehicles and weapons
I think Vehicles will be cosmetic and of course enable you to roam around. They could also server the purpose of a mobile haven of course. Weapons can work just like the tabletop but access might require certain recources in the military, criminal or law.
Overall I hope the game they make is more about personal power or small coeteries rather then huge guilds.A guild might be able to effectively run an entire city but I always see the game as a game about individual growth.
Cities
Those ideas are awsome! If this game is as political as they say, your ideas will probably be spot on!
I bet the type of businesses you own and the area they are in are worth vastly different amounts, so players will be constantly trying to take the other guys territory. Sounds freakin awsome!
Guilds bother me too, if they are allowed to get to big, then it will be over in the first year as the vets take over everything.
Farming
This is kinda the idea I had as well, and it supports how the vampires would aquire wealth and contacts thru businesses he owns.
But it still doesnt address how blood is used as currency..
Loot
Your comment made me realize I was stuck in the old MMO standard of loot. I guess the money you get from the businesses you own, will buy what you need. You could probably get military upgrades with enough cash, then theres the black market!
But this still doesnt address how blood will be used as currency...
Ecconomy
I like that idea, and it makes sense. So by owning businesses, not the city itself, is how a vampire grows in power?
Then you keep building up the businesses you own and use them to buy power and influence!
Vehicles and weapons
I was wodering about this too, if there will lots of car chases and shoot outs.
The way I was thinking was that each person is in itself a whole host of different attributes that the player who controls them benfits from. So an NPC might have a home, a business, some savings and when you fully control that NPC you gain access to their assets. Say a person have a resources value of 10 (say on a scale of 1-100) and your control of that person is 50% then you get to add 5 resources to your pool (think of how the background traits work in the table top game but expanded to tha teach background is determined by your control of the cities morals).
I also hope that the different disciplines act differently. So someone who used presence will get bonus's vs certain types of people and those with Domination vs others. So someone might be able to come along and take control of your subjects is they are more suceptable.
Yeah. That is going to be a tricky thing becaseu people expect guilds in MMO's now and there is actually nothing you can do to stop people actually joining forces in game if they want.
Has blood been mentioned as being a currency? If so then I will have to think on that. Perhaps blood is a currency that can be used in someway to buy skills? Or perhaps to buy additional status within the Carmarilla? Not sure same as you.
Yeah. Although when I think about it it seems to be almost like a micro sim city game in concept but the aim is to control the mortals and buildings/businesses to increase your power. Again, no idea about blood.
Yeah. You will have many vampires in each city so each is fighting over control of small chunks of each city. The people and the buildings/businesses you control determine your power in various fields such as controling the police or government or just your raw financial power. A fun thing might be to gain enough control to own the planning department and deny other vamps from building new stuff in their territory.
Car chases would be fun
Combat though has we wondering. Reason being I see (and always have seen) the Vampire games to be more about power, influence and control then pure combat ability. This is especially true when you think that some classes have an obvious advantage in purely phyical combat.
I cant find where I saw that, the blood being currency.
You could be right about citizens. Its hard for me to understand how all of it will work, getting the benifits from owning parts of the city and how exactly we go about "farming".
From my Pen & Paper Experience: The feeding grounds are diverse in quality. The humans who can afford healthy food / lifestyle usually have higher quality blood. The prince splits the city in sectors and puts each clan in the city in charge of the sector. These are the clans responsibility & the clan members are not allowed to hunt outside their homesector (Unless they are allowed by another clan to hunt in theirs either in whole or just selected few).
The prince grants the sectors by a mixture of sympathy & political powerplay. Usually the clan the prince belongs to owns the biggest & highest quality one. The more important to the prince the better the sector. The prince can change all agreements on a mods swing (& ends up with a stake in the heart if overdoing it & manages to piss of too many of his/hers underlings
).
Ok I found it, it was the video of the april 2012 fanfest. I had to watch the whole thing again to catch it, but he doesnt explain anything, only says its used as currency.
I only had a brief taste of the p&p game, mostly as a werewolf.
What you describe sounds awsome, and its very much how EVE works. The low-sec clans that control the area, usually give out mining rights to other smaller clans, in exchange for whatever they might want... goods, weapons, ammo ...ect
I think ccp will probably use a lot of the same code from EVE, so I can see clans controling parts of the city like the pen and paper. And there is no traditional farming in EVE either, so their probably wont be in WoD.
So if blood is currency, and clans control parts of the city. How would that work I wonder?
Hmmmm...so many different ways this could go, my curiosity is driving me nuts...lol
That sounds... pretty Vampiresque, though. I mean it's very consistent with the themes of the game (Generation, etc)
Give me liberty or give me lasers
In short, yes.
I'm as excited for this game as anyone else but the biggest news is that this game was announced in 2006 and as of April 2013 it's STILL in pre-production!
Wow! Don't expect anything remotely soon...
Hello, they said they are already testing the game internally and QA folks are "losing themselves" in WOD .
So I´d say there must be a game in a playable state - how much of it, we don´t know.
But my guess is - like all the *really* exciting MMOs coming up, this will also be a 2014 title.
I already accepted that 2013 will be a terribly lame year with new releases, so I´ll play what I have and won´t jump on any other titles until WOD.
Cheers,
Doc B
Took the words right out of my mouth!
In the april fanfest video, he does explain exactly why they were delayed. He did not anticipate the difficutly in transferring the code from EVE over to WoD. He said they had to come up with a ton of new code to properly implement their vision. He also said, they would start ramping up production when DUST was finished.
So, now that DUST is released, and as you said, they have a playable game that is already getting people hooked, I see a Q4 2014 realease.
If this wasnt CCP, I wouldnt even bother, but these guys have a good reputation.
Looks like non-consensual PvP and a security zoning system is a go: http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/04/27/eve-fanfest-world-of-darkness-target-footage-shows-hunting-parties-and-parkour/
[quote]
Beyond the warm glow of the party, the troupe of vampires sail back into view. They’re just silhouettes on the skyline, but their movements are quick and feral. The player character walks slowly through the party, keeping an eye on the hunting pack from afar. There’s a strong gothic urban wilderness vibe to this bit. When I mention this to McDonough later he says that the scenes showing vampires leaping across rooftops from afar are inspired by scenes from CCP’s internal quarterly playtests. He says that staying constantly alert to the environment outside safe zones is wise. 3360 kills were recorded during CCP’s January test.[/quote]
Give me liberty or give me lasers
If they do it right it will be a tad more political than that. A clan is (at least in the game lore) the bloodline. So you don't invite just willynilly everybody in there. So a prince is best compared with the president of a alliance of several corps & leader of his own corp. He could not go the easy way by cherry picking some of the best of the other corps to his own. While an EvE corp could consist of Minmatar; Amaar, Gallente & Caldari a Vampire clan is "just" family. You don't have Nosferatu in your Ventrue clan/bloodline. So if the Nosferatu have some really talented players that totally add to your city ruling goals & could improve your own status you have to please the clan nosferatu as a whole. But oh, damn. They are at odds with the Toreador bloodline and want to be better suited then these. But Toreador has some great players too you don't want to piss off.
So while an EvE alliance leader could work towards getting the best of the other corps just into his own with some kind of coup (without needing to worry then what happens to the leftovers from the other corps) the Prince actually has to try to solve this situation and eventually make some sacrifices for himself.
Will he favour the Toreador and get less support from the Nosferatu? Will he do the opposite? Will he play some shady powershemes that weeds out bouth clans but loose trust from everybody that suspects him having his hands into it and will it even help the personal goal?
I am realy curious on how they are going to pull this off... Are they realy going to shot for the same tone as the game or are they just using the name/lore? Are they going for a story telling game, are they going to have a meta-plot happening in the background?
It will be intersting to find out the "hows" of the mechanics.
That would definitly make alliances interesting.
I was mainly talking about the farming, and how blood is going to be used, but you bring up some very interesting points. I can see now that the controling clans in a certain area will have to be very cautious who they allow to farm in thier territory. Even more so for the prince.
Hopefully smaller clans will have the ability to take over a sector of a city, without the use of politics, and use raw force. I would hate to see one clan take over and become too powerfull, I have seen this in EVE, its a flaw if you ask me.
In the april fanfest video, he explains how they could have released the game sooner, and capitalized on the vampire craze, but they want the pc game to be true to the pen and paper game, with all the lore and stuff.
As for meta plots and stuff, I dont know of any yet.
Well, after reading up on the April 2012 showing of WoD, it seems a few questions were answered.
"There is permadeath in the game already implemented, though only in certain situations. Once again, no details, save that it takes more than just being ganked."
That's awesome!
"Like Eve, World of Darkness is due to be a single world, its scale and specific locations both still 'no comment' territory. Cities will be huge and seamless, though it'll be possible to get around faster using subways"
Ok so now we know how Vampires will be traveling during the day. I wonder if they will have cars? Some nice tinted windows, bullet proof of course!
When talking about texturing, he mentions this:
"The procedural texturing allows for things like city districts to shift look depending on ownership"
So, you guys pretty much nailed this one. Cities will be broken up into districts. I imagine these districts are designed after "real life", with a mayor and other possible titles. This would definitely makes sense in a political game.
The trick will be, that as Vampires we have to stay hidden, so its like how Maelwudd described it, we will have to do everything "through" NPC humans, each with their own attributes and skills and such.
They are taking the same approach with crafting. When they said that players actually don't do the crafting themselves, its the NPCs that do it for them. Very interesting idea, I cant wait to see how is implemented.
"Elsewhere, there will be crafting and similar elements, though your character specifically won't do them personally - "You're a powerful, immortal lord of the night - you don't want to sew a shirt!" Instead, you have a network of lesser beings to do that kind of chore for you, maintaining narrative cohesion even if the practical mechanics aren't that different to other MMOs."
I am assuming he is talking about NPCs, when he refers to "lesser beings"? Or maybe lower members of the clan?
"The world will also have NPCs, to make use of and snack from"
That was an obvious one, but I wonder what he means exactly by "make use of". I guess just giving orders, like "craft me this".
"and players should be able to stay connected with the game and their networks in at least some form via both real-world and in-game cellphones."
Not sure how I feel about this. Will we be able to call someone on their cell from inside the game? Kinda strange, I don't know.
"We've banned the names Edward and Bella."
I love CCP!
I hope they stay true to WoD. I want to make a Settite that has performed the Tremere ritual for blood magic
ok eveything else aside the banning of those two names makes me wanna play this
F2P may be the way of the future, but ya know they dont make them like they used to
Proper Grammer & spelling are extra, corrections will be LOL at.
Definitly, you got to love CCP for doing that!
Don't forget White Wolf.
All my opinions are just that..opinions. If you like my opinions..coolness.If you dont like my opinion....I really dont care.
Playing: ESO, WOT, Smite, and Marvel Heroes