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CCP and White Wolf Games To Merge
Evod writes "Crowd Control Productions, maker of the MMORPG EVE Online, announced today at their annual fanfest in Reykjavik, Iceland that a merger between White Wolf Publishing and themselves is a done deal. From the White Wolf Press Release: 'The merged company will enable CCP to integrate White Wolf's leading expertise in offline gaming development to enhance and create physical products for its MMOG, EVE Online. Products to be introduced in 2007 will include strategy guides, enhanced collectible card games, role-playing systems, and novels all based on EVE Online. White Wolf will leverage CCP's industry-leading technologies to bring its offline role-playing titles online. Conceptualization and early development has begun to bring White Wolf's World of Darkness, one of the world's strongest gaming properties, into the online world.' Each company will keep its own name and Hilmar Petursson, Chief Executive Officer of CCP, will step up as CEO of the merged companies." If you're a MMOG fan, or a table-top RPG fan, this is some interesting stuff right here.
We'll get an EVE tabletop RPG, and CCG. They'll be supported for a couple of years, and then abandoned due to poor sales.
In a few months, we'll get an announcement *with screenshots* about a "World of Darkness" online MMORPG game. They'll never specify a release date, and over the next couple of years, we'll hear less and less about it, until it is finally quietly cancelled. At that point, the companies will split up again.
Honestly, I don't expect either company to be around much longer no matter WHAT happens. EVE Online is getting long-in-the-tooth, and really doesn't have mass-market appeal. And White Wolf is just screwed in general, because pen-and-paper RPGs that aren't Dungeons & Dragons are almost completely dead.
OK, I'll admit ... I had NO CLUE what this article was talking about until I visited the websites. The limit of my recent gaming is Minesweeper and a little Dance Dance Revolution in the arcades (my wife loves it), and the last MMORPG I played was Ultima Online years ago.
So when I looked at some of the screenshots of EVE Online, I was blown away. Are these in-game shots? If so, wow wow wow.
Hopefully this merger helps them create better Online RPGs with those type of graphics, rather than detract from each of their focus's since White Wolf appears to be less focused on video games.
Crack - Free with every butt and set of boobs
_Reykjavik_
Well, this type of stuff happens, i have a feeling that abandonware is a term we will be use soon enough
I like both WW and CCP. WW basically brought avantgarde RPG Gaming into US american mainstream and finally established a standing alternative to the ancient (A)D&D crap (I don't like (A)D&D ;-) ), and CCP has a neat MMORPG title on their hands.
I do believe a well-minted 'Exalted Online' could be a competitor to WoW. I don't know if CCP can pull it off though. Spaceships and Planets are easy compared to a MMORPG like WoW. I'd be happier if WW had teamed up with Arenanet and their GuildWars line. A GuildWars MMORPG based on Exalted would totally kick ass and would be fitting aswell.
Then again they could combine the Trinity/Aeon Universe with Eve - which would rock just as much I suppose. Nice prospects indeed.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
How appropriate, given that both companies' titles major claim to fame is in-game drama resulting from racketeering, fraud, and other forms of large-scale social engineering.
White Wolf's World of Darkness must be one of the largest, most diverse, and just plain compelling role playing universes around. Other video games based on White Wolf products just haven't lived up to the universe they were trying to portray (not to say I haven't enjoyed them). If CCP manages to do this right, they might be the first company to convince me it is worth paying a monthly fee to play a game. Luckily for my wallet, I doubt they'll manage it...
Insert self-referential sig here.
I'm a player of Eve online, and a player of a particular WoD Game, Wraith. I find both to be absolutely amazing in terms of storylines. Instead of looking at the possible negatives, I think I'll look at the absolutely awesome possibilities. White Wolf has a fairly popular card game, and Eve is just starting one (as in, already has.) It certainly lends itself to Roleplay. And for a game with a single server CCP does a marvelous job supporting its admittedly small Roleplay community. They have a game its hard /not/ to Roleplay in. When you say 'Lets go hunt pirates, or find rats in low sec space- its all in game. It makes it easier for Roleplayers like myself to deal with non-rpers. No. From this I can only hope for the best. CCP seems to know what they're doing, making a more thinking man's MMO. And WW made a more thinking man's roleplaying game. Best of luck, peoples.
Reychavik? Is that where all the chavs come from?
"I seem to have mastered a certain amount of control over physical reality."
I don't see WW benefitting from this deal. WW games, the whole WoD is run on the most potent game engine ever: the human mind. In attempting to translate the game into a PC form, they would rape the number one rule: the ST makes the rules, as to fit the RP group. Which is why I believe only CCP will benefit from having a universe of lore added to some video game, instead of filling it with shallow textual depictions of events or items that give no sense of immersion at all after the first graphical "wow".
-A Metamorphosist.
Now we can enjoy the benefits of a merger of two sources of cliche'd derivative crap.
Never give in--never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to conviction
When you see the title of this post and think "CCP--Central Committee of the Communist Party?" Then you see that there are two Cs and you feel a little sheepish...
Despite showing continual subscriber growth since its inception. CCP is suddenly going to collapse because, what, Oveur's apartment is filled with so much money that he can't breath? (I could see maybe being strangled by the pink wig, but that's a different problem entirely.)
Yes, EVE lacks mass market appeal. However, EVE is the only game of its kind. It doesn't need mass market appeal. It's been successful, it is successful, it will continue to be successful. Despite what the morons of Slashdot will tell you, there's more to 'success' than 'marketshare'.
EVE has already 'outlived' most other MMOGs. Outlive, I must quantify by stating, continued to grow where other MMOGs have seen their subscriber bases dwindle to a mere fraction of their height. EQ, DAoC, et cetera. Most other MMOGs have suffered from this - something new and shiny comes along, and suddenly everyone's leaving. EVE, however, has maintained steady growth. Why? Because there's little that can be new and shiny to EVE's subscriber base. World of Warcraft? Mention it on the EVE forums sometime, see what kind of reaction you get - the subscribers of EVE aren't the mass market.
People seem to equate this with failure, for some reason. It's an asinine assumption to make. How much filet mignon is sold in the US each day? How many double cheeseburgers from McDonald's are sold in the US each day? Clearly, prime cuts of beef are a failure; anyone who doesn't sell preprocessed crap is an idiot, right?
Well, what's the argument, really? Steady growth in subscriptions rules out failure due to cash flow. The only thing you have going for you as an argument is 'LOL NEW AND SHINY!'
To put it in terms Slashdotters can understand: Look at this guy. He's doing the MMOG equivalent of saying everyone's going to abandon Unix because it's old, and Vista is coming out. With Aero! Ooh! Shiny!
CCCP = Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Union/
Vampire: The Waiting
I hear the final differences were settled with rock-paper-scissors.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
The EVE CCG is already out and developing quite a fanbase. I must say, it is a fun game.
I would absolutely love a world of darkness mmo... oh the sexyness
and for shin megami tensei online imagine to come here to the us
Hmmm I play and have played PnP RPG on a regular basis for 15 years in a group that has 10 members and a waiting list. We play World of Darkness, and a Fantasy game using the Gurps 3rd and some 4th ed rules. I've also played almost every mmorpg in creation, from the world of Norrath (EQ's mother) to DAoC,CoH/CoV,FFO,NWN, EQ2 and WoW, they are fun but they are NOT to be confused with RPing. True RPing is most akin to acting without a script and requires the kind of interaction not yet possible via the net even with voip software. The GM has to be able to respond to a total 180 degree plot twist on the fly and software does not yet exist that can support that kind of flexibility...SIGH someday in my lifetime I hope ;D-
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
I know where Reykjavik is and I'm not from Iceland but where is this mythical Reychavik?
I find this merger kind of odd. The CCP angle for selling EvE as a board game makes good sense. White Wolf does indeed seem to have a theme going for it that fits in with EvE's lore (which sadly for me means it just sucks).
What I don't get though is the reverse. CCP has experience with building an MMO true but in terms of building good game clients CCP has only ever touched the space genre. I'll fully agree CCP has great artistic vision going on but rendering space takes a few less polygons than rendering some grass.
I personally doubt they have the technical know-how to create the software that would be required for one of White Wolf's games without a significant learning period. It's too much of an apples and oranges thing.
Just given the secret nature of the World of Darkness, could an MMO survive?
It might interest some of you that CCP actually started out publishing the Icelandic board game "Hættuspilið" (en: Risky game) witch was notorious for getting its players so involved it would cause hefty arguments and even breakups or end friendships.
Sindri Traustason.
Zonk, it's so sad you're illiterate, but maybe you could USE SPELLCHECK. Please.
Now Justin Achilli can destroy another world that people love! Good idea!
In other news, all ship-to-ship combat in Eve will now be resolved by a round of "Rock-Paper-Scissors". Players who posess a cloaking device can signify this by crossing their arms across their chest.
I was at the EVE fanfest in "Reychavik" when the announcement was made and a silence came over the crowd when we saw the CCP logo next to WW's logo on the big screen. Much of the backstory and ongoing events in EVE are created by the fanbase (in game roleplayers and volunteer event managers) so the fact that WW will now be in charge of EVE's story makes some players sceptical. But the fact that we will see more EVE novellas and stuff is a big plus (I'm already saving up for a miniature Tempest). When asked how soon we would see a World of Darkness game, Hilmar Péturson said at the fanfest that EVE was in pre-production for about 3 years and he expected the same thing about WoD (although EVE had some financial problems). He also said that CCP and WW had been working together for over a year already and had kept this a tight secret, claiming later on EVETV (http://www.eve-online.com/evetv/), a little drunk, that it must be some kind of world record to keep this relationship a secret for a year with over 500 employees. Although I doubt that Guinness will show that fact any interest it is true that no EVE player (nor some of the staff) had any idea about this merge.
I'm not really an EVE Online player, so maybe the point is moot, but I did play the WW series back when I was younger. Technically, I still play Vampire: The Masquerade, although we haven't had a session in something like three years. I am concerned that the Vampire franchise specially was originally somewhat cool (even if the complex mechanics somewhat clobbered that idea), but after the sourcebooks and expansions of the Second Edition, I was thoroughly disgusted with them (I still remember playing "The Chaos Factor" adventure, and it was a nadir in all my years of roleplaying; I can't believe they published that). I'm hoping they will have learned this time around, but I doubt it.
This has disaster written all over it.
I'm not worried about a P&P game based on EVE Online, as WW has already done P&P based on Everquest, and though no one plays it, I think they made money on it.
And looking at the new WoD lineup, it does look like they designed the games to be more MMORPG-friendly, with emphasis on every supernatural creature being based on five "races" and five "groups" each one having a "power" stat, each one having a limited choice of roughly the same number of powers (Mage, in particular, was severely "nerfed" in the name of play balance.)
But what I'm worried about is that White Wolf has had an absolutely horrible experience in massively-multiplayer gaming. They operated an online chat called "New Bremen" and it was resoundly hated - so much so that people compared other White Wolf mushes (and WW gamers were generally seen as having really bad games to begin with) unfavorably. This was mostly due to the horrible, horrible nature of the administration which functioned on a suck-up/catch-22 model. Those who sucked-up in the "in-crowd" were promoted, everyone else could have their characters deleted for any number of un-written, illogical and arbitrary "catch-22s."
This was including particularly hellish and outright abusive treatment from the moderators there which was encouraged by their administration, a White Wolf employee.
Keep in mind that White Wolf is also DRM-heavy and treats their fanbase like crap by asserting phony IP rights.
Now you can LARP without leaving your house!
Was I the only one to think that the title claimed that the Chinese Communist Party was to merge with a games company?
White Wolf has had a pretty bad reputation for engaging in projects that either never see completion (several stillborn video game projects and a few physical marketing plans) or simply torpedoing a project all-to-hell so that it's complete fubar by the time it does see market, pocketing the cash and leaving the developer to twist in the wind (I'm sure some of you can think of a few). Such a track record doesn't bode well for a company with a demonstrated track record of failure, especially with digital media products.
Based on this, and this is only my opinion, I don't have much faith in WW's ability to carry out projects in an efficient and cost effective manner. More than likely they may sqeeze a few bucks from an RPG ruleset for EVE before they pocket the cash and bail, but I don't think they have the wherewithal to actually take effective advantage of a partnership with a (video/computer) game production house.
"09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0"
Great... within three days everyone will have mastered the "Cutting", "Shitty Poetry", and "My Chemical Romance" skills.
Hello, I have been playing EVE for 20 month nows, after played Daoc for 3 years and 2 days of Wow. You're totally right in your answer. EVE is a long term game and I hope they get the same line for this game. Ho, and Unix is shiny too ... look at the new CDE :p