World of Darkness details emerge from the Grand Masquerade

This weekend just gone, New Orleans played host for The Grand Masquerade, put on by White Wolf. Lucky for us, more than a few juicy tidbits of vampire lore were left over after the ball, all ready to be analysed and inspected.

Massively has gotten out the white gloves, the over-sized magnifying glass and the funny tweed hat, all set to dig through the details that have appeared after the event.

As they rush to remind us, the game is still in pre-production, but all signs on this Magic 8 Ball are suggesting that this could well be the best vampire MMO to date. Admittedly, it's not a terribly crowded genre, but CCP and White Wolf are definitely working on something special.

Starting out as a mortal human, it's your choice to become a kindred (vampire), or remain mortal for your character's life - and remember, permadeath is a very real risk in World of Darkness.

"The entire game will take place at night and on one server," says Massively, warning gamers that this is not one for the faint-hearted. "Nudity, gore, and insanity effects are all par for the course."

The game is packed with dynamic events, intertwined plots and metaplots, and it's been created to emulate live-action role-playing, rather than the other way around. Other tasty snippets can be found at the regularly-updated World of Darkness News, and in a couple of threads on the game's official forums.

We've still seen no steady release date for World of Darkness - "2012 at the earliest," says publisher CCP - but if you're into blood-sucking freaks, this could be one worth waiting for.