Paradox Interactive Acquires White Wolf Publishing from CCP Games

[Juhn]

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.

I probably should have specified "80% whiffing, 20% instant death", yeah.

 

[greenbaret]

Excellent news, I can not wait to play Werewolf the Apocalypse pc game!! i hope single player, as shadowrun returns

 

[Mordresh]

I'm so excited about this, I made a forum account just to comment. Please do something great with this IP. Vampire the masquerade: Bloodlines is my favourite game of all time and I was devestated when the mmo got cancelled.

Single player, multiplayer, mmo; do literally anything with this IP and I'll start throwing cash at my screen.

 

[ChaosArmoury]

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.

Beast is actually a very good example of how Open Development can work. Matt McFarland did significant rewrites, but I don't think he added anything that people actually asked for, or at least nothing major. The rewrites responded to the major complaints which identified legitimate and critical problems with Beast - for example, that it lacked a central driving narrative - but they were in line with his personal vision of Beast as a game.

This wouldn't have worked for Exalted because people consistently demand things that fit their games, but that don't necessarily fit with other people's games or with Exalted's own narrative. This wouldn't necessarily be a problem - Ex3 is very much designed to be modified and adapted to people's individual tastes - except people refuse to acknowledge any explanation as to why these ideas don't work. Off the top of my head?

The devs announced that "magitech" as a term would be removed from the game and that First Age Artifacts would be reduced in number to make them lost vestiges of a by-gone era. People immediately complained about magitech being removed from the game entirely, which is not something that the devs have ever said. People kept complaining about this even after there was art featuring warstriders - basically Guymelefs, which are the most iconic examples of magitech in Exalted - as well as a book which explicitly dedicated a section to warstriders.

People demanded the return of the Creation-Ruling Mandate rules - rules for organizational management which are kinda-sorta similar to how Crusader Kings II works if you squint a bit - and then complained that Ex3 had no leadership rules, despite the fact that Holden repeatedly tried to explain that there were rules for leadership, but that Ex3 as a whole was moving away from a macroscale approach and that the leadership rules were instead designed for the sort of interpersonal political conflict you'd see in The Tudors, A Song of Ice and Fire, The West Wing, etc.

People complained about the changes to Infernal charms no matter how many times the devs explained that Infernal charms only worked in the first place because they deliberately exploited the broken core mechanics of second edition, and that their charm paradigm wouldn't really work if the basic rules were designed properly.

People complained about the combat paradigm not being lethal enough, despite the fact that the devs explained that combat was designed for Star Wars-style fight scenes where Luke and Darth Vader spend most of the fight swinging at each other to gain the advantage and create an opportunity for a killing blow.

People complained about Quick NPCs not being detailed enough even though they're explicitly meant for one-off or minor characters who don't need to be fully statted.

People complained about Lunar Exalted being barbarians even though the devs explained that they were just using the barbarian aesthetic.

People complained about the west being too isolated even after the devs explained that the west's isolation had significant economic and political implications.

People complained about the map being bigger even though devs explained that they wanted to make more room for people to drop new locations and to make things like sail more accessible.

People complained about the Yozis getting pushed to the background even though the devs explained that their prominence in second edition had overshadowed demons and other personal aspects of Creation as a setting.

People complained about Dragon-Blooded being weaker than Solars no matter how many times the devs explained that the power disparity between the different Exalted was being reduced.

Other people complained about Solars being too weak compared to how they were in second edition even though the auto-win powers they had were one of the major problems with that edition.

Basically, Ex3 was designed to reset Exalted back to its factory default and build on that foundation, and a lot of people wanted to bring back the very same problems that caused second edition to fail.

This sort of thing is exactly why I'm withholding my excitement about the White Wolf/Paradox deal until I know more about how Paradox wants to deal with the IP. I am very interested in Paradox's vision of White Wolf games from all of the game lines, even if they diverge from the tabletop games. If Paradox makes a Vampire the Requiem game that doesn't involve Humanity or touchstones, which I absolutely love, I'll be happy to enjoy the game on its own merits so long as it's good. If they want to make an Exalted game set in the Primordial War - which should never, ever be featured in the tabletop books - I'll enjoy that too. Hell, I might enjoy it even more because it's something that shouldn't be part of the tabletop game.

I'm also interested in Dave Brookshaw's vision of Mage the Awakening. Actually, Dave's vision of Awakening is what finally convinced me to become invested in White Wolf. I'd gotten curious about it because of Vampire the Masquerade: Redemption, but I didn't really get what White Wolf was about until I read The Broken Diamond. Onyx Path - and now Paradox - have me as a customer because of him. I would be incredibly disappointed if Paradox leveraged its position to demand changes to Mage that might not even fit with the game's themes and narrative just because someone somewhere thinks they have a brilliant idea. I think I have brilliant ideas all the time and my supervisor has gotten pretty good at pointing how many of those ideas are absolutely terrible.

On the other hand, I would absolutely love it if Paradox was interested in learning more about how tabletop game development works and expressed their opinion about what ideas should be developed further; that's the sort of thing I find extremely helpful in my research. For example, during the Demon kickstarter, the draft had a sidebar about how the God-Machine hunts down the children of Demons for reasons unknown. The sidebar was scheduled to get cut because it was too grim, but people were absolutely fascinated by the idea of demonic children and Onyx Path decided to add Heirs to Hell as a stretch goal to the kickstarter. The writers came up with an idea, the readers thought it was really interesting, and the idea went back to the writers so that it could be developed further. That's the kind of relationship I'd like to see between Paradox and Onyx Path.

 

[Scaenicus]

Gals and Guys we have our forum to discuss Exalted and other developments and Kickstarters.
You know the one over there: forum.theonyxpath.com
Let's not deter the fans of Paradox games from joining our community by invading their forum with our most controversial topics.

To the fans of Paradox games:
We are all very emotional when it comes to changes to our favourite settings and mechanics.
Just that you understand: While I personally like them, the before-mentioned changes in the line "Exalted" are very extensive and the book became available to Kickstarter backers only recently. So it will take some time before we all know how the new mechanics work and how the gameplay changes for the better or the worse.

Edit: The forum keeps changing the http of the link to https, so I changed it to a short link now.
If the link breaks again and you are interested in the tabletop-community just google for "The Onyx Path Forum". You will be welcomed!

 

[C.N.]

So, I have been wondering: Everyone talks about oWoD, nWoD and Exalted - is there anything else left in the White Wolf portfolio?

 

[Claire Redfield]

As a regular freelancer for Onyx Path, all I can say is that I am quite positive about the future and look forward to seeing what happens with these game lines we all love.

 

[Strill]

So, I have been wondering: Everyone talks about oWoD, nWoD and Exalted - is there anything else left in the White Wolf portfolio?

I think the other ones were purchased by Onyx Path.

 

[Lubricus]

Yep, Scion and Trinity are now owned by Onyx Path, so the two Worlds of Darkness and Exalted are the IPs bought by Paradox.

 

[WyrdHamster]

Richard Thomas, de facto boss of Onyx Path team, has posted this tweet:

Richard Thomas ‏@rich_thomas_ww 1h1 hour ago
From my chat w/Tobias @PdxInteractive @wwpublishing They are completely for @TheOnyxPath fulfilling all of our current Kickstarters. Thanks!

Onyx Path Publishing Retweeted
Richard Thomas ‏@rich_thomas_ww 4h4 hours ago
Fantastic chat with Tobias from @PdxInteractive @wwpublishing about future plans! Going to be very exciting times @TheOnyxPath!

So it sounds all good, at least for now.

 

[Palp]

Yep, Scion and Trinity are now owned by Onyx Path, so the two Worlds of Darkness and Exalted are the IPs bought by Paradox.

Are there not other IPs though? such as Big Eyes, Small Mouth. various swords and sorcery stuff and perhaps Pendragon. I know WW have been invovled in a lot more stuff then just WOD back in the day. Ravenloft, Street Fighter

 

[WyrdHamster]

Are there not other IPs though? such as Big Eyes, Small Mouth. various swords and sorcery stuff and perhaps Pendragon. I know WW have been invovled in a lot more stuff then just WOD back in the day. Ravenloft, Street Fighter

Those are one of mine favorites old settings for lesser games - I was loving White Wolf stuff even when I did not know it was White Wolf.

 

[witchveil]

Only just seen this but this makes me beyond excited! CCP wasted opportunities with White Wolf IP and I'm sure Paradox will do things much better :-D

 

[Lubricus]

Are there not other IPs though? such as Big Eyes, Small Mouth. various swords and sorcery stuff and perhaps Pendragon. I know WW have been invovled in a lot more stuff then just WOD back in the day. Ravenloft, Street Fighter

I'm pretty sure those IPs were temporary licences, never owned by White Wolf.

 

[Palp]

I'm pretty sure those IPs were temporary licences, never owned by White Wolf.

For most probably yes, but WW have a lot of sub imprints with various projects:

http://whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/Arthaus_Publishing,_Inc
http://whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/Sword_&_Sorcery
http://whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/Black_Dog

So there may be something more.

 

[Lubricus]

Let's see... Sword & Sorcery was OGL-stuff for D&D 3.5, I think, while all Black Dog publications were for cWoD, and sort of belong to the same IP. Arthaus was the subsidiary that made Trinity and Exalted stuff (plus Changeling: the Dreaming, apparently), which has already been mentioned. The other stuff released by Arthaus were other companies' IPs used under licence. So I don't think there is much, if anything, to take from it. I may be mistaken, though.

 

[Carmilla]

Ravenloft is part of D&D IIRC.

 

[Odd_Canuck]

For some reason I have it in my head that they own the rights to Silver Age Sentinels as well, but that might be completely incorrect.

As far as properties people will immediately recognize and be interested in buying, I think the Vampire/Werewolf duo is best (I mean the name summarizes exactly what the product IS), and Exalted and the other WoD game lines make for possible secondary options. The other properties that might be there are minor enough that they don't offer any real advantage in brand recognition, so they're really only a handy jumping point if they want to enter a market from scratch... like if someone wanted to create a better, newer more shiny spiritual successor to the Evil Genius game under the themes of Superheroes/villains using the Silver Age Sentinels backdrop (Hint. Hint Hint Hint).

 

[Ardent]

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.

This honestly sounds like a series of fabrications.

Because we know that criticism, let alone anything you characterize above, is not allowed on the Onyx Path forums. I'm aware the official line is "non-constructive criticism," but you have to accept that "I don't like this" is a valid criticism coming from a paying customer. I'm also aware the official line is not where the enforcement line lies.

I'm not surprised that people got to the point of writing letters asking for the devs to be fired. They've proven themselves to be absolutely awful at public relations on dozens of occasions.

I'm not surprised that we got Ex3. The egos involved would suffer nothing less. I'm also not surprised that what we got was a complete mess. The egos involved would suffer nothing less.

 

[greenbaret]

I bought some books in pdf Onyx Path, always very welcome, except that criticize nWOD, this is grounds for banishment there hehehe, I was banned a 2 or 3 times hehehhe
I found Werewolf: the Apocalypse average 20 th, some drawings were amazing, as Get Fenris, Shadow Lordds, Silver Flangs, and others, but no was great Silence Striders..... drawings book of White howlers was good, but i prefer more savage hehehe.
Werewolf the Apocalypse was good book although I think that a table rpg gets better in the 90s or a wild West.! I dont like book of the Wyrm 20 th, i Prefer the second edition!
Vampire the Mascarade 20 th i dont buy yet.
sorry my bad english hehehe