I was interested in their games years ago, but as far as I can tell they are practically non-existent in the current rpg world. I remember the games were very mature and story driven. I remember them having a very rich and developed system that eschewed the use of minis or battle-mats.
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They're still around, just focusing on different product lines than they used to. They've got some good d20 stuff out, and they rebooted their World of Darkness in be a little more accessable to new players.
However, with the new Vampire mania hitting, though, I expect them to come back strong. Too bad they missed the boat by not releasing Zombie: The Shuffling earlier... ;)
I was interested in their games years ago, but as far as I can tell they are practically non-existent in the current rpg world. I remember the games were very mature and story driven. I remember them having a very rich and developed system that eschewed the use of minis or battle-mats.
From what I've heard, if you liked the old World of Darkness stuff, you probably won't like any of the new stuff. They have been putting out new products for about 2+ years now but so far it hasn't sold very well, at least that is what my FLGS tells me. I myself gave away my New World of Darkness books I had because I didn't like the system (no one was interested in purchasing them).
I think they signed somesort of contract with CCP, the guys who do EVE-online, a year or so back. Haven't heard what came from that.
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From what little I have heard through podcasts and such they are under major restructuring right now and they may be moving into PDF only publishing immediately. I got the impression that the company nearly collapsed but maybe someone else has some real info They merged with ccp who make eve online in 2006 and they are making an mmorpg for wod but it won't be out till maybe 2013.
They dropped the Vampire: The Eternal Struggle CCG. For that I am extremely sore.
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I tried to find something concrete, but didn't find too much. I was wrong about going digital only though. Apparently they plan to keep the Core nwod and the main book of each line in print all the time. Then the schedule looks like on average once a month one of their pdf only books gets published as a print run.
They were at gencon, but didn't have a single book for sale btw.
That's what I mean; it's weird. It's like they are a roleplaying game company that is not interested in selling rpg books. If you go to their website now there's nothing about the games, as if that is secondary, but there is no indication about what is primary.
Furthermore, I noticed on their forums that they are deleting any posts that insinuate that the company is having problems. Very Odd. It's too bad too. If I remember correctly, they had a system in the oWoD that was completely centered around roleplay.
This thread is recruting for an Aeon (Trinity) game using the old White Wolf system.
ps. Bring back Mark Rein*Hagen, he may have been a semi-pedophiliac asshat but his games were some of the best ever produced.
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Supposedly that was due to lack of coordination in getting the parent company to sign off for what was intemded to be their big gencon announcement. It wasn't cleared in time so their announcement turned into "Come to our super LARP party next month to hear our big announcement!" That event is in about a week and a half so maybe we'll hear something then. I imagine it will be related to the mmorpg.
Supposedly that was due to lack of coordination in getting the parent company to sign off for what was intemded to be their big gencon announcement. It wasn't cleared in time so their announcement turned into "Come to our super LARP party next month to hear our big announcement!" That event is in about a week and a half so maybe we'll hear something then. I imagine it will be related to the mmorpg.
I wonder if this can all be attributed to foreign-owned-company incompetence since from what I hear, they are now owned by CCP.
I wonder if this can all be attributed to foreign-owned-company incompetence since from what I hear, they are now owned by CCP.
Actually it's the north-american branch thats developing the world of darkness game... (I'm Icelandic btw;))
Just chiming in to say that I far prefer the new WOD to the old WOD. It is much stronger mechanically, and a lot better presented. The old system and setting was a bit of an incoherent grab bag of miscellanea. I love the presentation and production of the new setting, and the books are excellently edited and set.
It is much more feasible to play mortals now, supernaturals balance well, and are less munchkin. The factions are less gonzo obvious, and closer to the divides we find around us. Perhaps it is just that I am in my late thirties now, but the old setting makes me cringe a bit.
Just chiming in to say that I far prefer the new WOD to the old WOD. It is much stronger mechanically, and a lot better presented. The old system and setting was a bit of an incoherent grab bag of miscellanea. I love the presentation and production of the new setting, and the books are excellently edited and set.
It is much more feasible to play mortals now, supernaturals balance well, and are less munchkin. The factions are less gonzo obvious, and closer to the divides we find around us. Perhaps it is just that I am in my late thirties now, but the old setting makes me cringe a bit.
Hmm, Maybe I will give them another try then. What starter books would I need?
I've always wanted to run a Scion campaign. I'm not into the new Vampire stuff though. I'm more accustomed to the old Chicago Chronicles style Vampire.
Be careful there, friend. I ran a Scion campaign, and it came very close to me wanting my money back. If you want to get serious mileage out of the setting, run it using the *sigh* new Exalted rules(2nd ed exalted). Otherwise, things are going to get ugly QUICK.
This thread is recruting for an Aeon (Trinity) game using the old White Wolf system.
ps. Bring back Mark Rein*Hagen, he may have been a semi-pedophiliac asshat but his games were some of the best ever produced.
HoobajoobaWHA?!?!
What happened with him exactly?
However, with the new Vampire mania hitting, though, I expect them to come back strong. Too bad they missed the boat by not releasing Zombie: The Shuffling earlier... ;)
Zombie: The Shuffling. Priceless.
As for the new Vampire mania, how about Twilight: The Glittering
(my original thought was Twilight: The Wussening).
Sorry for the interjection.
they may be moving into PDF only publishing immediately.
They're not doing ONLY PDF, but PDF first and then gathering them up in a compendium to sell. As a publisher, this makes sense (and is similar to a model JBE is moving towards) because you pay for the book before you print it. Printing is expensive and risky. And the market is really touchy. They're playing it safe. Doing it like this, they'll be around for a while yet.
but instead it was just a fake lounge area to preview some event in New Orleans. :(
As I understand it, they figured out that they make more money from play experiences like that than they do publishing books. So they are moving forward more with stuff like this in the future.
This thread is recruting for an Aeon (Trinity) game using the old White Wolf system.
ps. Bring back Mark Rein*Hagen, he may have been a semi-pedophiliac asshat but his games were some of the best ever produced.
HoobajoobaWHA?!?!
What happened with him exactly?
This thread is recruting for an Aeon (Trinity) game using the old White Wolf system.
ps. Bring back Mark Rein*Hagen, he may have been a semi-pedophiliac asshat but his games were some of the best ever produced.
HoobajoobaWHA?!?!
What happened with him exactly?
** spoiler omitted **
All I know for fact is he's currently working for a communications company in Tbilisi, Georgia.
Yikes...That's awful on both counts.
In a freak accident of epic proportions, the White Wolf offices were buried under a mountain of d10's. NASA is sending in a team to help them cope with living under a mountain of acrylic.
WW is switching to PDF/PoD-only production. They're dying, and it makes me cry. They did revolutionize the industry with Vampire, and some of the oWoD stuff was balls-to-walls excellent and paved road to what RPGs are today.
Also, this.
Maybe I can still finish off my oWoD Werewolf the Apocalypse collection...
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WW is switching to PDF/PoD-only production. They're dying, and it makes me cry. They did revolutionize the industry with Vampire, and some of the oWoD stuff was balls-to-walls excellent and paved road to what RPGs are today.Also, this.
Maybe I can still finish off my oWoD Werewolf the Apocalypse collection...
At least you don't have my problem... I am constantly moving and everytime I move I have to bring my 700+ White Wolf books with me!
Books are Heavy!! My White Wolf books account for 1/2 my RPG collection.
WW is switching to PDF/PoD-only production. They're dying, and it makes me cry. They did revolutionize the industry with Vampire, and some of the oWoD stuff was balls-to-walls excellent and paved road to what RPGs are today.Also, this.
Maybe I can still finish off my oWoD Werewolf the Apocalypse collection...
At least you don't have my problem... I am constantly moving and everytime I move I have to bring my 700+ White Wolf books with me!
Books are Heavy!! My White Wolf books account for 1/2 my RPG collection.
Roughly the same here, although I don't think I have 700+ books.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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WW is switching to PDF/PoD-only production. They're dying, and it makes me cry. They did revolutionize the industry with Vampire, and some of the oWoD stuff was balls-to-walls excellent and paved road to what RPGs are today.Also, this.
Maybe I can still finish off my oWoD Werewolf the Apocalypse collection...
At least you don't have my problem... I am constantly moving and everytime I move I have to bring my 700+ White Wolf books with me!
Books are Heavy!! My White Wolf books account for 1/2 my RPG collection.
Likewise. I've two shelves full, including two of the 'grails' Dark Reflections and Land of 8 Million Dreams. I want a copy of Great War.
(Oh, and that doesn't count their Ravenloft stuff *hugs his tarokka deck*)
WW is switching to PDF/PoD-only production. They're dying, and it makes me cry. They did revolutionize the industry with Vampire, and some of the oWoD stuff was balls-to-walls excellent and paved road to what RPGs are today.Also, this.
Maybe I can still finish off my oWoD Werewolf the Apocalypse collection...
At least you don't have my problem... I am constantly moving and everytime I move I have to bring my 700+ White Wolf books with me!
Books are Heavy!! My White Wolf books account for 1/2 my RPG collection.
Likewise. I've two shelves full, including two of the 'grails' Dark Reflections and Land of 8 Million Dreams. I want a copy of Great War.
(Oh, and that doesn't count their Ravenloft stuff *hugs his tarokka deck*)
My tarokka deck is protected by a pair of chainguns hidden within my bookshelf that will fire upon the person holding it if they do not possess the right voice-activated key.
I own everything ever written for Hunter, and I'm damn proud of it. I hope to own everything for Werewolf. My dad got me that book when I spent a summer at his place in South Carolina as a young 'un, and I will never forget the way it changed my perspective.
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WW is switching to PDF/PoD-only production. They're dying, and it makes me cry. They did revolutionize the industry with Vampire, and some of the oWoD stuff was balls-to-walls excellent and paved road to what RPGs are today.
Yep. They've been on life support for some time. I'd say they're in a "vegetative state". They're still technically there, but I wouldn't hold your breath on any new, or exciting content. Personally I'd start composing a eulogy as it where since freelancers where generating most if not all the content when there was new content actually being produced. It's only a matter of time until someone pulls the plug.
Ironically the last "real", in my opinion of course, book they produced was Mirrors which addressed the fundamental flaws they had built into their own game. Pretty much a collection of house rules that people where already using to shoestring the nWOD already.
No a MMO even if it's not vaporware will save them. And no going to a pdf/print on demand only format will save them either. Neither addresses the core problem which is simply they alienated their fan base with the edition change. While the new WOD mechanics are an improvement and bring the game into modern game design, their fluff is garbage and the design philosophy became an antagonistic direct response to their own previous edition.
Everything you could do before or enjoyed doing before became either not an option or a bad option designed to get you to conform to how the authors believed you should be playing. In short, it wasn't fun anymore.
WW players have moved on to other games, or more to the point backwards to the old WOD of which the books are cheap and plentiful if you can find them. WW seems to have finally realized their mistake changing philosophy to "play it your way" instead of "play it our way which is the right way". I think it's a direct result of certain more rabid writers being kicked to the curb, Justin Achilli *cough cough*.
Oh and yes ironically WOTC managed to borrow WW's playbook and fracture their fanbase as well. How's that working out for them?
Only time will tell if someone can manage to pull a Paizo and fill the void that WW has left since there's a prime market share opportunity to be had there.
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It's curious how some companies/games survive edition changes with their fanbase intact (Ars Magica ? Shadowrun ? Earthdawn ? Call of Cthulhu ? heck, GURPS ?) while some score a major SNAFU (D&D, WoD).
oWoD was such a brilliant setting. It could be dark, personal horror in decaying 90s US or an all-out campfest with Evil Werewolf Abominations battling Ninja Cyborg Demon Hunters X atop the Tokyo skyline.
And both could be done with the same product line. Whyyyyyyyyyy ? /cries
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It's curious how some companies/games survive edition changes with their fanbase intact (Ars Magica ? Shadowrun ? Earthdawn ? Call of Cthulhu ? heck, GURPS ?) while some score a major SNAFU (D&D, WoD).
oWoD was such a brilliant setting. It could be dark, personal horror in decaying 90s US or an all-out campfest with Evil Werewolf Abominations battling Ninja Cyborg Demon Hunters X atop the Tokyo skyline.
And both could be done with the same product line. Whyyyyyyyyyy ? /cries
I think they did a great Job with the rules change, but made a mistake with the Setting re-boot. The main force behind the changes in the Re-boot was Justin Achilli, I thought Highly of him in some of the things he did with the for oWoD, but after talking to him a few times before the change to nWoD, I knew also that he "Hated" the overall metaplot of the oWoD *Which I loved and was the main reason I Started playing in the first place* and talked a few times about what he would have done if he made the MetaPlot. Well he had his chance and the nWoD is what came of it.
Now everytime I think of Justin Achilli I go "Grrrrr" Inside...
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I think its worth noting, in White Wolf's defense, that an overarching, aggressive metaplot leads to a smaller and smaller fan base as more and more feel like they cannot keep up. There's a thread over at ENWorld at this very moment complaining about just that very thing.
Ethan Skemp of White Wolf has this to say in that thread: "Interestingly, some people missed the metaplot when we moved to nWoD. But that's why it got done in the first place: there was this market of people interesting in reading about a living, evolving world. But it crossed lines, which caused trouble for people who didn't follow everything. Arguably even worse, metaplot eventually starts selecting out newcomers: as years and supplements pile up, it becomes increasingly difficult for newcomers to really get a hold on the setting. I know I was personally daunted when I looked at Rokugan around the time they were doing a d20 version, and the last five years had had one world-changing event after another, the result of their CCG tourney-driven metaplot."
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I think its worth noting, in White Wolf's defense, that an overarching, aggressice metaplot leads to a smaller and smaller fan base as more and more feel like they cannot keep up. There's a thread over at ENWorld at this very moment complaining about just that very thing.
And that was their Philosophy for the reason they made the change to nWoD...*Sarcasm* I see that worked well for them *Sarcasm off*
Though I think that an uninspired base Vampire setting for the nWoD was what really killed them, not getting rid of the Metaplot.
of all the new games, the only ones I think they did a great job at with the new base setting was Changeling.
It's curious how some companies/games survive edition changes with their fanbase intact (Ars Magica ? Shadowrun ? Earthdawn ? Call of Cthulhu ? heck, GURPS ?) while some score a major SNAFU (D&D, WoD).
oWoD was such a brilliant setting. It could be dark, personal horror in decaying 90s US or an all-out campfest with Evil Werewolf Abominations battling Ninja Cyborg Demon Hunters X atop the Tokyo skyline.
And both could be done with the same product line. Whyyyyyyyyyy ? /cries
I think they did a great Job with the rules change, but made a mistake with the Setting re-boot. The main force behind the changes in the Re-boot was Justin Achilli, I thought Highly of him in some of the things he did with the for oWoD, but after talking to him a few times before the change to nWoD, I knew also that he "Hated" the overall metaplot of the oWoD *Which I loved and was the main reason I Started playing in the first place* and talked a few times about what he would have done if he made the MetaPlot. Well he had his chance and the nWoD is what came of it.
Now everytime I think of Justin Achilli I go "Grrrrr" Inside...
Thanks for this, friend. I always wondered why things started to get wonky when I saw Justin Achilli's name on things. I think I started to notice stuff was up when I saw the...changes...with some of the later Werewolf Tribe/splatbooks(Good God, what they wrought upon the Glass Walkers and Get of Fenris...). I'll have to go home and double check where/when his name appeared. But seriously, thanks.
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Thanks for this, friend. I always wondered why things started to get wonky when I saw Justin Achilli's name on things. I think I started to notice stuff was up when I saw the...changes...with some of the later Werewolf Tribe/splatbooks(Good God, what they wrought upon the Glass Walkers and Get of Fenris...). I'll have to go home and double check where/when his name appeared. But seriously, thanks.
He has been working for them for a really long time, but did not have a really strong voice in the path of the game until the oWoD Vampire Revised edition came out *1999*.
I don't think an all pdf format will work for White-wolf, but I don't think we need to worry, with games like Pimp: the backhanding's wide appeal White-Wolf will be around for a long time.
I do really like both old and new versions of WoD and miss the old setting, but at least there is not Wraith: the Lameing.
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I do really like both old and new versions of WoD and miss the old setting, but at least there is not Wraith: the Lameing.
Where have you been?...
Not really the same *Not a Ghost*, but the Idea of the fighting your inner demon *specter* is still there, and alot of the same concepts are still there, they just got rid of the being a Ghost problem and not being able to interact with anything.
Even GURPS has retreated from putting out books until after they've earned out on PDF sales.
The publishing industry is changing, and changing in ways that are hard to predict.
WW is switching to PDF/PoD-only production. They're dying, and it makes me cry. They did revolutionize the industry with Vampire, and some of the oWoD stuff was balls-to-walls excellent and paved road to what RPGs are today.
WWP puts out a decently successful CCG, they're throwing a huge party in New Orleans (with apparently some kind of big announcement there also), they dominate the top ten products sold on Drivethrurpg.com. On top of that, they're owned by one of the makerss of a rather successful MMO with their own MMO on the way. I don't really see how this is dying at all. Sure it's not like WoD sells like it did in the 90's, but then again it's not the 90's anymore....
WWP puts out a decently successful CCG,You must have missed the news..
I have a complet set of the first printing of the CCG, the backs of the cards say Jihad. I take them out every once in a while and drool.
It's curious how some companies/games survive edition changes with their fanbase intact (Ars Magica ? Shadowrun ? Earthdawn ? Call of Cthulhu ? heck, GURPS ?) while some score a major SNAFU (D&D, WoD).
I like the changes they made mechanically in the new WoD, but don't like the new world. I think getting rid of the giant mega plot was a good idea, but I think it would have been better to reset back to the original setting and factions. For example, old Changeling was a whimsical game about playing a fae. New Changeling is about recovering from the trauma of abusive parents (fae). Totally different feel to it.
I recently blogged about the fate of GURPS. Short answer is they are moving more to a PDF only production and have few book releases. I don't think this is related to 4th edition as much as it is due to the overall slowing of the RPG market. The market is crowded for a generic to stand out in. GURPS was great for when you didn't have a specific game for the setting you wanted. Now that there are more and more specialized games (Dresden Files, Game of Thrones, Serenity, etc), it is really hard for them to stand out. Luckily SJ Games has Munchkin which seems to make them $3 million a year.
Call of Cthulhu has never had any real major revisions. I have 4th, 5th, and 6th editions of the rule books, but other than cleaning up typos and stuff, I can't really tell you any major mechanical difference. The rules are fairly basic and older materials can be used interchangeably with any edition.
Earthdawn 3rd edition and whatever edition Shadowrun is on is much more about bringing the games back into print. I know there have been some changes, but fans are just happy to have the games back on the shelves again after being gone for so long.
I can't speak to Ars Magica, but I've always wanted to check it out.
WWP puts out a decently successful CCG,You must have missed the news..
Heh. I did miss that actually. In my defense though... eh... I got nothing. Sorry!