14 DAY TRIAL // Video game developer CCP, best known for working on EVE Online, says that the MMO based on the World of Darkness setting can already be played internally at the company and that fans might get a first look at it later during April, at the EVE Online Fanfest.
Hilmar Veigar Petursson, the chief executive officer of the company, tells Eurogamer that “It's going on very nicely. We're playing it internally at CCP. It's actually a problem that some of our employees are losing themselves already in the World of Darkness as we go through the playtests.”
He adds, “And we'll be showing a tiny piece of that also at Fanfest. So that is all I have to say about that at this time.”
World of Darkness is based on the universe seen in Vampire: The Masquerade and will allow players to create characters based on supernatural beings ranging from vampires to werewolves.
They will then interact in a complex game world built around various city hubs, with gamers competing for positions inside organizations, trying to push their own agenda and that of their faction.
CCP had previously mentioned London, Paris and New York as locations, and one of the most interesting features of the game will be Princes, who can be elected by the player communities in each location based on their own political system.
A Prince will be a powerful figure in World of Darkness because he will have the ability to permaban other players.
It seems that CCP is eager to infuse the coming MMO with the same cutthroat spirit that powers its current big experience, EVE Online.
The company has gone through restructuring during 2012 and rumors suggested that World of Darkness had been affected.
It will be interesting to see how a vampire-based MMO manages to capture the imagination of current hardcore players of the genre.