Vampire: The Masquerade/World of Darkness Interview

There’s a new article-style interview with White Wolf’s Shane DeFreest and Russell Bailey over on MTV Geek!, with the discussion primarily focusing on the tabletop RPG’s roots, the 25th Anniversary Edition book, the upcoming Grand Masquerade event, and the World of Darkness MMORPG.

There are enough stories to create an endless MMO game experience, as well. A team of 120 are working on the World of Darkness MMO game. Last year, CCP Games used its Grand Masquerade to reveal the first tease for the game. This year, DeFreest said that fans should expecte the next layer of the veil of intrigue and mystery surrounding the MMO to be pulled back just a bit further in regards to the game.

The World of Darkness MMO will focus on player politics and social interaction amongst the thousands of online players. The game is set in a world run by immortal vampires who live amongst humans, controlling everything, even if mortals aren’t aware of their secret wars and their boundless appetites.

(The MMO will get players even closer to that shared experience of the pen-and-paper game,) said Thomas. (But as beautiful as the 3D rendered spaces are and as amazing as the music is, you still don’t have that same freedom to interject yourself into the game world as you do sitting around the table. The gap is closing, but there will always be something special about the table top experience.)

Bailey believes fans will continue to play the pen-and-paper game even after the MMO is released.

(We’re not always competing with video games,) explained Bailey. (Pen-and-paper is a face-to-face hobby that occupies a different niche in a person’s life than digital gaming. As we’ve seen digital gaming take off, a lot of things have been beneficial to tabletop gaming. We’ve seen an era of electronic docs, mechanical concepts have gone back and forth between digital and tabletop games. I don’t see it as direct competition, although tabletop is smaller than it used to be and gaming is larger than used to be.)