Goblin Squad Member
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CCP Games halts development of World of Darkness MMO
CCP Games today announced that they have cancelled the World of Darkness massively multiplayer online (MMO) game project in development in their Atlanta, GA studio.
As a result of the change, 56 employees of the Atlanta studio have lost their jobs. Some team members have been offered roles on other projects inside the company, and CCP has provided severance packages and job placement assistance for those affected.
The remaining team in Atlanta will focus on games in the EVE Universe, which will mark the first time since 2006 that the entirety of CCP will be working on a single universe.
CCP CEO Hilmar Veigar Pétursson:
The decision to end the World of Darkness MMO project is one of the hardest I’ve ever had to make. I have always loved and valued the idea of a sandbox experience set in that universe, and over the years I’ve watched the team passionately strive to make that possible.
I would like to give special thanks to everyone who worked so hard to make the World of Darkness MMO a reality, especially the team members affected by this decision. Their considerable contribution to CCP will not be forgotten, and we wish them well.
To our current and former employees and fans of World of Darkness, I am truly sorry that we could not deliver the experience that we aspired to make. We dreamed of a game that would transport you completely into the sweeping fantasy of World of Darkness, but had to admit that our efforts were falling regretfully short. One day I hope we will make it up to you.
Although this was a tough decision that affects our friends and family, uniting the company behind the EVE Universe will put us in a stronger position moving forward, and we are more committed than ever to solidify EVE as the biggest gaming universe in the world.
Just goes to show: Started in 2006; experience and cutting edge developer yet still failed to get the game past development. Realize CCP was probably juggling too many balls and not a big publisher to bankroll them all.
Well done Goblinworks on getting this far in such a short space of time in such a challenging genre. Seems a shame to see all the work on WoD go to waste.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I have been anticipating World of Darkness, Pathfinder Online, Star Citizen.
It is a great disappointment to lose World of Darkness, However it inevitably means, that is less money I send to CCP and more money I send to GW.
I like the direction PFO is going, and I like the transparency and vocal participation GW has with the community. It is a stark contrast to WoD.
I know PFO doesn't have an amazing AAA Budget; but the choices and directions GW are choosing I feel are wise choices. Building PFO as a MVP as GW has stated in the past will allow them to get the most out of their budget, building a solid foundation to work from.
Then we the community can play and support GW to continue to grow build and develop the game into the future.
Another Contrast to WoD who had a great deal of ambition, and a great budget. But without support from the main office was left to wither and die until being discarded and cancelled.
Good work so far GW, we the community stand behind you, We not only want this sandbox, we NEED this sandbox.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I have been anticipating World of Darkness, Pathfinder Online, Star Citizen.
It is a great disappointment to lose World of Darkness, However it inevitably means, that is less money I send to CCP and more money I send to GW.
I like the direction PFO is going, and I like the transparency and vocal participation GW has with the community. It is a stark contrast to WoD.
I know PFO doesn't have an amazing AAA Budget; but the choices and directions GW are choosing I feel are wise choices. Building PFO as a MVP as GW has stated in the past will allow them to get the most out of their budget, building a solid foundation to work from.
Then we the community can play and support GW to continue to grow build and develop the game into the future.
Another Contrast to WoD who had a great deal of ambition, and a great budget. But without support from the main office was left to wither and die until being discarded and cancelled.
Good work so far GW, we the community stand behind you, We not only want this sandbox, we NEED this sandbox.
Well said. With WoD biting the dust (514?) PFO pretty much becomes my "only hope".
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Goblin Squad Member
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In nomina patris
et fili
et spiritus sancti
or maybe it would be more appropriate to say
Friends, MMO Players, Countrymen, Lend me your eyes,
I come to bury World of Darkness not to praise it
The evil that games do lives after them,
the good is oft interred with their bones.
So let it be with World of Darkness!
Or maybe
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
And in the end it was the MMO of times.
Or maybe
Two roads diverged in the forest and I-
I took the one less EVE'd upon And that
That has made all the difference.
On a slightly more serious note... Sucks man... I was looking forward to trying to create a human and running around like my head was chopped off.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm not sure I would have even tried to play WOD. Not really into the Vampire vs. Werewolf thing, even though I do love the Underworld movies.
The thing is, MMOs really don't let you play the truly sinister or evil bad guy. I had the same problem with City of Villains and later with SWTOR. In most MMOs, where players can play the "bad guys", it is usually against other bad guys (NPC or PC).
Unfortunately, in order to make a truly great MMO where the players are bad guys, the game would have to be rated 'X" for my taste.
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Goblin Squad Member
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WOD would have been a polar opposite of PFO as far as tolerated player behavior goes. Debauchery would have been expected from those playing as the Sabbat. Back-stabbing would have run rampant in the courts of the Camrillia. The Independents would have picked their shots and done their best to throw wrenches in the gears where ever it suited them.
It really is too bad. This is one game that would have made excellent use of players' bad behavior. I guess Gehenna really has come.
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Goblin Squad Member
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WOD would have been a polar opposite of PFO as far as tolerated player behavior goes. Debauchery would have been expected from those playing as the Sabbat. Back-stabbing would have run rampant in the courts of the Camrillia. The Independents would have picked their shots and done their best to throw wrenches in the gears where ever it suited them.
It really is too bad. This is one game that would have made excellent use of players' bad behavior. I guess Gehenna really has come.
I still have hopes for PFO, that it will do "bad guy" or evil right. Necromancy if done well could be that venue.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I still have hopes for PFO, that it will do "bad guy" or evil right. Necromancy if done well could be that venue.WOD would have been a polar opposite of PFO as far as tolerated player behavior goes. Debauchery would have been expected from those playing as the Sabbat. Back-stabbing would have run rampant in the courts of the Camrillia. The Independents would have picked their shots and done their best to throw wrenches in the gears where ever it suited them.
It really is too bad. This is one game that would have made excellent use of players' bad behavior. I guess Gehenna really has come.
I'm also really hoping that religion takes off in PFO, and some enterprising cleric of Asmodeus marshals a large chunk of the playerbase behind them (along with the Hellknights) and does the whole evil thing well.
Coupled with the 'neutral' though brutal machination of settlement v settlement conflict, PFO has a lot of exciting option open to it that other games imho lack.
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Goblin Squad Member
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On a slightly more serious note... Sucks man... I was looking forward to trying to create a human and running around like my head was chopped off.
This game had HUGE potential. After 3-5 years of Vampires and humans they could have made the Werewolf expansion, then Mages and Changelings. The ceiling on this baby was very high.
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Goblin Squad Member
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This is a bit sad, yet I cannot say that I did not expect it. They have worked on it so long now, yet there has been so little news about it. To me, World of Darkness Online looked like it were dying from the moment it was announced.
It is too bad it didn't work out for them, but that only means I can lend my full focus to Pathfinder :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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The bad guy role is different for the two games IMO.
Necromancy doesn't compare to Gothic Horror Vampires. Necromancy comes very close, but we already know the game is going to be PG 13/Teen.
I'm not saying one is better than the other, they each have their merits and flaws. One is semi "evil-lite" and the other would likely be watered down by immaturity to the point of indifference when it came to the really shocking acts. *shrugs*
The concept of perma-death was one that was at least intriguing.
The toxic behavior that PFO is trying to steer players away from for the sake of the game is the perfect skill set for ruling the underworld of WOD. EVE IMO doesn't openly embrace it, they just don't regulate it.
WOD would have embraced it because a Coterie of the worst kind of players descending into a territory to take it over by any and all means necessary feeds right into their horror genre.
It would have set the tone perfectly for what Avari said with the expansions.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Honestly im surprised they didnt make this announcement years ago.
You cannot tell me that this project couldnt have reached a playable state with 56 employees working full time for 8 years. They constantly took people from the WoD team to have them work on different projects (Dust).
Honestly i think this was one of those things where the owner of CCP went "im a WoD fan, i want to make a WoD game. if my people have time then ill let them work on it when they can".
it was very clear that WoD was never even close to a priority and thats why it is vaoprware.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think that CCP just found they had too many of their eggs in too many different baskets. Bottom line, EVE is their franchise and its spin offs better do well enough to not hurt their primary game.
Dust has not been a stellar (no pun intended) success, mostly due to it being ported for consoles and not for both consoles and PCs. Hopefully they will port it to PC soon, and build upon integrating the two games a lot more.
Now they have Valkyrie (which looks awesome) in the works, but they may make the same mistake??
If they can pull it off and have EvE Online, Dust (FPS Ground Combat) and Valkyrie (Flight Sim Shooter) fully integrated... Oh My!!
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CEO, Goblinworks
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There were a lot more than 58 people working on World of Darkness. There have been about 65ish people working on World of Darkness since the last round of layoffs, which took them down from about 80, and that was a decline from the previous round of layoffs when they had more than 100. Some of the World of Darkness team has been retained, but they're no longer working on World of Darkness. They're going to work on something else, new, once CCP figures out what they want that to be.
World of Darkness failed because CCP did not have the discipline to sacrifice all its other good ideas for the sake of concentrating on the best good idea. Like most failures of its type, it happened because the leadership of the company just couldn't say "no". Saying no is hard. Saying no means you have amped up risk. Saying no means that people you like may leave, or feel bad and stay (which is sometimes worse). It means you pay opportunity costs if you should have backed A instead of B. It means you are smaller, less complicated. It means you have to fundamentally confront the idea that you are not strong enough, smart enough, committed enough to do everything - that some things are beyond your grasp. It failed because not enough people in senior leadership woke up every morning and knew that making it succeed was the most important part of their jobs, period. Full stop.
CCP is now the EVE company, at least for the immediate future. Unless you'd been there when that was considered a total failure condition, it's hard to express how painful that position must feel to the insiders.
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Goblin Squad Member
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CCP is now the EVE company, at least for the immediate future. Unless you'd been there when that was considered a total failure condition, it's hard to express how painful that position must feel to the insiders.
Which puts it back to where it was before it acquired White Wolf, yes?
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CEO, Goblinworks
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Before it acquired White Wolf, it was an MMO company that was planning its second big project. That project turned out to be World of Darkness. Now it is not an MMO company planning its second big project - it's a company that spent tens of millions of dollars on a failed MMO venture and is going to be limited to one MMO for the indeterminate future.
To put that difference in context, the company was worth about $200 million when it had one game and was going to make a second, because that implied it could make a third, and keep on growing forever. If it had made World of Darkness, and if that game had succeeded, CCP would have been worth at least a billion dollars.
Since the strike price of the options it grants to employees are public information, and those prices have not changed since 2007, and those prices are legally required to track Management's best estimate of company value, CCP is still worth $200 million.
Not shipping World of Darkness is an $800 million mistake.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It failed because not enough people in senior leadership woke up every morning and knew that making it succeed was the most important part of their jobs, period. Full stop.
For some reason, this gave me a little positive "twitch" in the part of my consciousness that evaluates Your and GW's commitment to PfO. :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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CCP is now the EVE company, at least for the immediate future. Unless you'd been there when that was considered a total failure condition, it's hard to express how painful that position must feel to the insiders.
What kind of company is Goblinworks? Specifically, is it a Pathfinder Online company?
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Goblin Squad Member
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CCP is now the EVE company, at least for the immediate future. Unless you'd been there when that was considered a total failure condition, it's hard to express how painful that position must feel to the insiders.What kind of company is Goblinworks? Specifically, is it a Pathfinder Online company?
I certainly hope so, for quite some time (years) at least.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I suppose it's obvious that Goblinworks is the Pathfinder Online company right now. I also suppose it's not really the right time for Goblinworks to be looking beyond the task at hand. That said, I think I'd be happy if Goblinworks were committed to using Pathfinder Online as the medium on which they base their further development of Ryan's vision for that hundred-year industry.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I suppose it's obvious that Goblinworks is the Pathfinder Online company right now. I also suppose it's not really the right time for Goblinworks to be looking beyond the task at hand. That said, I think I'd be happy if Goblinworks were committed to using Pathfinder Online as the medium on which they base their further development of Ryan's vision for that hundred-year industry.
He's developing an industry like Colt, Ford or Sears! Seriously, I'm hoping GW can get PFO through th next 3 years and we can all worry about the other 97 after that.
As for future development, I think GW will likely take its PFO brand and cross it back over to Paizo products, most notably novels and TT gaming materials.
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Goblin Squad Member
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As for future development, I think GW will likely take its PFO brand and cross it back over to Paizo products, most notably novels and TT gaming materials.
If it ever happens and I think it is a big IF, I would love to see PFO PC characters make their way into the TT material's gaming lore. Only those that truly stand out though.
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CEO, Goblinworks
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For now we're certainly the Pathfinder Online company. If that is all we ever are, and we're very good at it, and all the staff is amply rewarded for their work, and all the players are deeply satisfied, I will be content. The opportunity to be something more has to wait until we're at least that.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Spaceships. Red dots are (usually) enemy spaceships. The big spaceships that look like spaceships ... are actually HUGE kilometer-long titan-class ships.
It's most probably from this (recent and big) space battle:
EVE Online Battle of B-R5RB
Fights like this draw in the media ... but what's not really talked about is the fact that this kind of battle (a) is an outlier, (b) is stressing the EVE Online technology and infrastructure to its limits and (c) playing in it is quite boring, as you 1. press F1 to fire weapons at your primary designated target (and/or have assigned your drones, your "pet" robot ships, to one other player so you don't have to actually play the game to play the game) and 2. "enjoy" the effect called TiDi, or Time Dilation, which means that everything you do in game takes 10 times as long (which is a trick CCP uses to keep the servers running under load).
Good story, bad moment-to-moment gameplay (in my opinion).
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Goblin Squad Member
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Which is why the article can hype a 22-hour long fight. :P Are the large visible spheres in Bludd's pic and your articles' pics the area of such TiDi measures (bigger, higher res pic which shows the spheres I'm talking about more clearly)?
I really like these looks into EVE Online, even though everything I've heard about player interactions and the gameplay itself makes it seem like I wouldn't enjoy the game. It's still quite fascinating when viewed from afar.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Those spheres are likely warp disruption bubbles. They are used to prevent other ships from escaping into warp speed when engaged in battle.
An EVE vet can confirm this, but I'm pretty sure that is what they are.
Daz
'Light' Interdiction Spheres
The original mobile interdiction class vessel. A small Interdiction Sphere Launcher can be equipped only to interdictor class destroyers. These interdiction sphere launchers deploy Warp Disrupt Probes to hold down targets. Fast, mobile, but fragile, an interdictor bubble is often used to hold down capital ships and super capital ships in large scale engagements, as the ship itself does not have to commit to the bubbling of the targeted ships. The effect of the launched interdictor probes is the same as the other two forms of interdiction: ships cannot warp or jump out from within their area of effect.
Here is the likely answer.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Somewhat unrelated but on the theme of vampires and werewolves: The Strange Economy of Werewolves and Vampires in Elder Scrolls Online
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Goblin Squad Member
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Somewhat unrelated but on the theme of vampires and werewolves: The Strange Economy of Werewolves and Vampires in Elder Scrolls Online
Unintended consequences that lead to emergent game play or economic opportunities. It goes to show you, no matter what the Devs come up with, players ( who out number them tens of thousands to one) will always come up with a way to work around it, through it, over it, under it, in spite of it.... and make it their own.
I predict soon the server population will be so flooded with both Vampires and Werewolves, World of Darkness might have been an unnecessary project because ESO is the new WOD!
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Goblin Squad Member
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I predict soon the server population will be so flooded with both Vampires and Werewolves, World of Darkness might have been an unnecessary project because ESO is the new WOD!
*Laughs*.
I can easily imagine the prestige of the few players who have this cool option and ability to play the game in an interesting and different manner that brings immersion for others too. Of course it's all supply-demand dependent, but the emergent gameplay is telling too (DawnGuard lol) that then adds another layer of enjoyment to the game.
I suppose this emergence is good for exploration and discovery of a sort that was asked about at the mmorpg.com future of... panel albeit by indirectly changing the game world or what the player might expect to meet in any given corner?