Paradox Interactive Acquires White Wolf Publishing from CCP Games

[JimThePocket]

I am ancient enough to remember when nWoD first appeared on the horizon, and was prophesied to be the doom of all things.

This kinda reminds me of that.

 

[Kareruren]

I really disagree there, redemption and NWN are basically the only video games I view as true RPGs due to having actual GM/ST controls and facilitating that sort of play. I and many others had a lot of fun actually role playing in that game. That kind of game is incredibly rare, and getting a new one like it would be really REALLY nice.

As for NWN...i will agree with you until the sun turns the earth into cinder, its such a great game. Its one of the few games that are over a decade old i refuse to uninstall and will play through it for about a week once a year.

 

[Kareruren]

I am ancient enough to remember when nWoD first appeared on the horizon, and was prophesied to be the doom of all things.

This kinda reminds me of that.

To be fair it did ruin a really great vampire chat i played on for years, *coughs* it doomed my ability to retain being antisocial and living out of my computer. >.>

 

[Ardent]

It's not guaranteed nWoD will be the WoD cut when they create their one WoD. But it does seem most likely considering they've stated their intent to continue their relationship with BNS.

 

[Blazekingz]

Vampire masquerade bloodlines sequel would be amazing.

 

[Alerias]

I loved Bloodlines and followed the ill-fated MMORPG project development with interest from the very day in November 06 when on the heels of the merger they said 'There will be a WOD MMORPG' on White Wolf's forums.

Amazing indeed if it turns out Paradox ends up making true on that open-ended promise. Just do it right.

I'd also be interested in another SP game like Bloodlines of course. Why not both?

 

[Juhn]

It's a question of totally different games. nWoD Mage is absolutely, totally different from cWoD Mage, as are Demon and Changeling (at the least). There simply isn't any way to "bring them together" without totally rewriting the core themes and concepts in those games (i.e. without changing them into totally different games). Guess how much fans would like that? Yeah. To add to the mix, there are lots of people who like, say, both variants (Mage, for example), for very different reasons. Because, again, they are completely different games, on fundamental levels.

Mage: the Ascension has moldable reality, based on consensus, with the Technocracy (another group of Mages) as default antagonists. Mage: the Awakening has static reality, with it being a Gnostic prison, ruled over by the Exarchs, godlike jailers, and their minions. Ascension has sphere-based, semi-freeform magic. Awakening has (mostly) Hermetic magic. Other than the word "Mage", there is precious little common ground.

Demon: the Fallen has Judeo-Christian fallen angels. Demon: the Descent has weird, techno-magic constructs of a vast, uncaring God-Machine, with reality as a form of Matrix. Again, not much common ground.

Changeling: the Dreaming has its root in fairy tales and stories, and in keeping (mostly bright and happy) fantasy alive. Changeling: the Lost is a grim tale about survivors of abuse at the hands of supernatural beings, with lots of heavy real-world "abuse survivor" themes. Again, no common ground.

Vampire and Werewolf are most similar. There, some sort of merge is at least vaguely possible. The others? Forget about it.

This. The primary result of trying to merge the nWoD and cWoD into one World of Darkness, for me, would be going from having two different games about being modern mages (for example) that cover different niches that I both enjoy, to having one game that I might enjoy. The Classic World of Darkness and the New World of Darkness are not in competition with each other, and this is important. The two are distinct enough that it's entirely possible to enjoy and support both without it being redundant or needing to pick one over the other. The second editions of the nWoD gamelines especially are concerned with giving their games a distinct identity from their oWoD counterparts rather than trying to win over oWoD players (like how. say, 1e Requiem was very much concerned with making sure you could still play a Gangrel or a Toreador or a Ventrue or a Malkavian in this new game, while 2e Vampire emphasizes its mechanical and thematic differences from Masquerade and is concerned with being its own thing), because both nWoD and cWoD are in print and getting new books. The first edition of nWoD was a replacement for oWoD, yes, but that was over a decade ago, and we're in a very different place now. Both cWoD and nWoD are getting new editions and new books that people are very excited about, with no need to "convert" to one or the other, and lots of us enjoy both.

Losing either nWoD or cWoD would be a loss for the World(s) of Darkness and for White Wolf as a whole.

 

[Erithal]

As a backer of Exalted 3rd edition kickstarter, who pre-ordered Exalted 1st & 2nd editions and has a 4 foot tall pile of White Wolf and Sword & Sorcery books, I am cautiously optimistic about Paradox buying White Wolf.

At this point, I do not have faith in Onyx Path. I hope that being forced to renegotiate their licensing arrangements with White Wolf's new owners, Paradox Interactive, will light a bit of a fire under them.

I have been waiting for Exalted 3rd edition for two years, and hope that the backer pdf isn't all I get for my money.

 

[Juhn]

There's been a pretty massive difference between how OPP has handled Ex3 and how they've handled the cWoD and nWoD, though. Hopefully they can bring up their Exalted releases to meet the standards they've been setting by, say, their nWoD 2e releases, which have been excellent thus far.

I will say that after the debacle that was the Ex3 kickstarter, they did make sure never to repeat those mistakes.

 

[Scaenicus]

Just got the news via Onyx Path it feels like great news to me:
My favorite computer game developer and my favorite tabletop rpg developer might be working together soon.
Also the world of darkness deserves another good PC game since Redemption?

 

[Scaenicus]

Can we have a CK2:The Blessed Isle expansion PLEASE?!?

The Realm Universalis
First Expansion Pack: Hundred Kingdoms
Second Expansion Pack: Manacle and Coin (That was the title of the first edition's Guild book)

 

[Lubricus]

It would be very interesting to see a vampire politics type game made by Paradox... Bloodlines 2 would probably be a more popular choice, but who knows?

 

[Palp]

When it comes to multiplayer I would much, much more like to see a hosted small group game with ST functions, with the game systems in it for use and lots of spawnable assets to make chronicles with then any form of MMO. Basically an advanced virtual tabletop like Redemption was, and I see many ways to enhance the concept over how it was back then.

 

[Carmilla]

It would be very interesting to see a vampire politics type game made by Paradox... Bloodlines 2 would probably be a more popular choice, but who knows?

Why not both?

 

[Lubricus]

Indeed, I want both! But what comes first?

 

[theliel]

There's been a pretty massive difference between how OPP has handled Ex3 and how they've handled the cWoD and nWoD, though. Hopefully they can bring up their Exalted releases to meet the standards they've been setting by, say, their nWoD 2e releases, which have been excellent thus far.

I will say that after the debacle that was the Ex3 kickstarter, they did make sure never to repeat those mistakes.

The Exalted development team are...strong personalities with specific beliefs. Those beliefs most likely caused Exalted 3 to go the way of Mummy: the Curse, which is to say, "Pretty nifty idea, botched execution" because of the desire to maintain 'the big reveal'. The obsession with 'secrecy' and the subsequent leaks only caused further delays and desegregation in quality. Questionable design decisions in charm/skill design (Performance - the skill covers every aspect of performing including oratory and dancing, the charms cover 'specific' types of performance. There are three charms for 9-again that are identical except one is dancing, the other is singing, and the last is playing an instrument. There's no oratory version though and that eats an entire page. Craft - the skill- you have to specify a craft, and the entire charm tree is devoted to making sure you never have to buy a different version of craft), presentation (Charm presentation is haphazard with rules intermixed with fluff text), 'natural language' (multiple synonyms are used with different connotations and there's no telling which is the correct interpetation: Example "penalties are ignored" "penalties are cancelled" "penalties are removed" - which is it, because they all have a duration. Some of those penalties accrue and cancelling them (so that they reset to 0) is different than ignoring them (meaning they are 0 for now, but not when the charm wears off) and a host of other editing oddities.

The other (and remember kids, they are not just functionally independent but also entirely different groups of people) development teams have not nearly FUBAR'd the processes to the point of it being SNAFU. I may not like Beast but at least I know that a goodly number of eyes went over things and there aren't any obvious issues (such as entire power/charm trees that reference mechanics cut drafts ago) lingering about. Masquerade 4th has the dev talking about various things and where they should go - if they continue with that open development I'll know if the game is going to be for me before I spend money and wait a few years for a product.

I've learned my lesson from both Mage and Exalted. I won't even begin to back an OP kickstarter w/out the devs committing to open development and a draft document available to review.

 

[Erithal]

There's been a pretty massive difference between how OPP has handled Ex3 and how they've handled the cWoD and nWoD, though. Hopefully they can bring up their Exalted releases to meet the standards they've been setting by, say, their nWoD 2e releases, which have been excellent thus far.

I will say that after the debacle that was the Ex3 kickstarter, they did make sure never to repeat those mistakes.

I wouldn't know. My only experience with OPP is the Ex3 kickstarter. That spent my goodwill.

The other (and remember kids, they are not just functionally independent but also entirely different groups of people) development teams have not nearly FUBAR'd the processes to the point of it being SNAFU. I may not like Beast but at least I know that a goodly number of eyes went over things and there aren't any obvious issues (such as entire power/charm trees that reference mechanics cut drafts ago) lingering about. Masquerade 4th has the dev talking about various things and where they should go - if they continue with that open development I'll know if the game is going to be for me before I spend money and wait a few years for a product.

I've learned my lesson from both Mage and Exalted. I won't even begin to back an OP kickstarter w/out the devs committing to open development and a draft document available to review.

Once burned, twice shy here, too. The reminder that OPP is more than just the Exalted 3 team is something I needed to hear, so thanks.

 

[Juhn]

I can certainly agree about open development being a wonderful thing. I'd only heard vague things about Exalted's closed development causing problems (aside from the general "two years of delay plus not hearing anything from the devs out of a desire to 'maintain the surprise' was causing the fanbase to go stir-crazy practically to the point of eating itself" part), but I will say that the open development on the WoD side of things has been great. As a short example: I was a huge fan of Mage: the Awakening 1e, and after the God-Machine Chronicle update came out I disliked almost all of the mechanical changes to "core" 2e (the new XP system refocusing things toward having to beancount your XP during a session by making sure you're resolving enough Conditions and Aspirations during play to maintain a reasonable advancement rate rather than the simple two-minute post-session "did you roleplay well, hey Bill, name one thing your character learned, did your Flaw come into play, did anyone do anything exceptionally cool, okay done everyone gets four XP" of 1e, the massive increase to Defense meaning combat kind of turns into a whiff-fest rather than making slow-but-steady progress to ending a fight round by round as in 1e, and the Impressions part of the Doors/Social Maneuvering system meaning it's only useful for massively long-term background projects unless you're working toward resolving something with someone who already thinks you're a great guy anyway, for just three examples). However, Dave Brookshaw's open development teasers throughout the creation of Awakening 2e have me incredibly excited for the new edition. I've got a game that I already thought was great updating to a new core system that I like significantly less, but all the things Awakening 2e are adding onto the GMC base system (the new Reach/Paradox system, Yantras, the revised and expanded Nimbus, the tighter and more clearly-defined Creative Thaumaturgy rules, Extended Castings with dozens of successes being gone, the new Mage Sight, the new Attainments, the clarifying of the whole Atlantis issue, and more things besides) are such clear improvements that I haven't been this hyped for a game to come out in... probably ever, really, and I'm perfectly ready and willing to switch over entirely despite the GMC system's foibles. GMC has two or three subsystems I dislike, but MtAw 2e has made several changes I love, and thanks to the open development process I know this ahead of time and don't have to even think twice about whether it's going to be worth buying the new edition. Hell, at this point I'm ready to buy it day-one, and I'm eagerly awaiting the supplement products that have been announced.

I also feel like a more open development for Beast could have seen people catching the issues that ended up causing a rewrite midway through the Kickstarter campaign (although it did eventually get caught regardless, and kudos to Matt for listening to the feedback as much as he did and putting in the frankly insane amount of work to do a full rewrite during the kickstarter). Here's hoping Dave Brookshaw decides to do open development again with Deviant like he did with Mage.

 

[Strill]

the massive increase to Defense meaning combat kind of turns into a whiff-fest rather than making slow-but-steady progress to ending a fight round by round as in 1e

You must be playing a different game than me, because World of Darkness is typically instant-death in combat. Heck, it's still instant-death in 2e due to the huge increase in damage.

 

[Odd_Canuck]

I can certainly agree about open development being a wonderful thing. I'd only heard vague things about Exalted's closed development causing problems (aside from the general "two years of delay plus not hearing anything from the devs out of a desire to 'maintain the surprise' was causing the fanbase to go stir-crazy practically to the point of eating itself" part), but I will say that the open development on the WoD side of things has been great.

It was less "maintain the surprise" and more abandoning a wasted effort IMO.

Early in the Ex3 development the devs were releasing small spoiler/teasers every month or two, because they wanted to keep the major overhaul to the mechanics and setting an unknown (rather than dribble it out and have to change it as they went). That largely stopped happening after the fan base adopted the habit of attacking every one of the spoilers. Releasing an example charm with the note that it's for a system different from Ex2, resulted in several days of "Cool!" "looks interesting!" "Can't wait" comments followed by WEEKS of tearing it apart, claiming it utterly ruins/destroys the game, and frequently insulting the writers repeatedly. And this wasn't restricted to mechanical elements, people started ranting about the style of a dress a farm hand was wearing and how it wasn't compatible with the setting. This "we have to let the devs know they're wrong!" viewpoint reached the extent of delivering death threats and letter writing campaigns to get them fired.

Frankly I'm surprised we even got ex3 given the extent that some portions of the fan base went to.