"With battles cut out, there isn't really anything to fill the gameplay void."
Funny, I wasn't aware that Planescape: Tormentneeded random encounters. Apparently I went blissfully unaware of how much I was missing out on, how bored I was.
Sarcasm aside, Torment had what too many RPGs lack: story and choice. It had like a billion times more in the way of story as most RPGs out there (which, when you get down to it, are more tactical excerizes than RPGs). It let you play any type of character you wanted, from a paragon of virtue to a downright bastard. You weren't shoehorned into being the good guy.
Wow, an MMORPG coming out, a pen-and-paper RPG from the good people at White Wolf, and now a board game. Blizzard's really putting their brand in as many pots as they can. Wonder if it'll pay off?
None of the points mentioned here are original to WoD and can be found else where. The only that that White Wolf has done is gathered all of them in one place.
Not to sound pithy, but did you even read my post?
That is exactly the point. It doesn't matter if every single element can be found elsewhere. Having all of them together makes the World of Darkness what it is. It's okay to make a vampire movie. It's okay to make a werewolf movie.
What WW is illustrating is that there are too many similarities between Underworld and their own work for it to be anything other than an intentional rip-off. 10 points, I could see. 20 points, maybe. 60 points is stretching it pretty far.
Yes, White Wolf has put them all in one place. That's what makes their property theirs. The collection of elements makes it unique. Underworld has the same collection of elements, and that's what makes it allegedly an infrigement.
Here's the PDF. I urge people to read it befor emaking snap judgments. WW doesn't claim they invented vampires, for example.
As it was explained to me by someone who knows, it's not the individual similarities, it's the total. If there are 10 similarities, it doesn't matter that 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, and 9 can all be found elsewhere, it's the fact that they're all found together which contributes (in this case) to the unique product identity which is the World of Darkness. So vampires have super-strength in both the WoD and Underworld: who cares? What matters is that, in addition to all the other similarites, makes it much much more likely that Underworld is ripping off WW. And if they don't mention everything in the brief, they pretty much can't even talk about it later.
So White Wolf is suing because there are a total of 61 points they've identified. That's a lot, no matter how you look at it.
For the hell of it, here they are:
1. In the World of Darkness, vampires have the ability to disappear from view. In
Underworld, vampires repeatedly vanish from view.
2. In the World of Darkness, some vampires are capable of amazing speed. In Underworld, some vampires move with amazing speed.
3. In the World of Darkness, vampires "have the strength of ten men." In Underworld, vampries "have the strength of ten men."
4. In the World of Darkness, vampires are divided by age distinctions, and older vampires are more powerful and able to rule over younger vampires. In Underworld, vampires are divided by age distinctions, and older vampires are more powerful and are able to rule over younger vampires.
5. In the World of Darkness, the more ancient and powerful vampires are referred to as Elders. In Underworld, the more ancient and powerful vampires are referred to as Elders.
6. In the World of Darkness, vampires, especially Elders, are able to go into a state where they do not rise as normal, but stay alive i nan extended sleep or hibernation. In Underworld, The Elders are in a hibernation state where they do not rise as normal, but stay alive in an extended sleep.
7. In the World of Darkness, vampires in extended sleep lose blood and become more withered and mummified, and return to normal as they feed. In Underworld, Victor (a vampire Elder) awakens from an extended sleep appearing withered and mummified, and returns to normal the more he feeds on blood.
8. In the World of Darkness, a vampire in hibernation remains that way until a vampire provides them with blood. In Underworld, Selene (the main character) rouses Viktor from hibernation using her own blood, just as another Elder (Amelia) was supposed to do.
9. In the World of Darkness, even when in hibernation or when recently roused, elder vampires command a great deal of power and control. In Underworld, Victor, the Elder vampire, "radiates absolute power and control" even when recently roused.
10. In the World of Darkness, vampires are described as "alien." In Underworld, vampires are described as "alien."
11. In the World of Darkness, some vampire groups ("Sabbat") refer to themselves as Covens, and divide into Old World and New World Covens. In Underworld, the vampries divide into Old World and New World Covens.
12. In the World of Darkness, many North African or Middle Eastern vampires belong to a clan of assassins and warriors (called "Assamites"). In the Underworld movie trailer, Kahn, the leader of the Death Dealers, a group of assassins and warriors, appears to be of Northern African or Middle Eastern descent.
13. In the World of Darkness, vampires sometimes call each other "Vee," short for vampire. In Underworld, there is a vampire character named Vee.
14. In the World of Darkness, vampires are organized into Bloodlines. In Underw
Bloodlines will, Enter-the-Matrix-like, feature the Time of Judgment (i.e. Gehenna) prominently as part of its story. And there are some revelations about Gehenna which will only be revealed to those who play Bloodlines.
Bloodlines' storyline concerns the Time of Judgment. They already had this planned. There are some Gehenna-based revelations made in Bloodlines, actually, that you can't find out about any other way.
I'm online fairly often these days. Just watch for me, I'll be around.
I'll go down to Dragon*Con much sooner if someone pays my fare, and that of my girlfriend.;) Other than that, GenCon's our priority. We were going to go this year, but Jenn couldn't get the day off. There's always next year.
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines (the new PC game) will have a storyline which ties in directly to the Time of Judgment.
Actually, you only need to mention WotC and the Player's Handbook in one of the licenses - specifically, the "d20" license, where you specifically put the d20 logo on the product.
If you just use the OGL, you don't need to mention WotC at all, can include stuff the d20 license doesn't let you, but you can't use the d20 logo (or, I believe, refer to it as a d20 product). Most OGL products I've seen call themselves "compatible with 3rd Edition Roleplaying."
Each of the Judgment books contains a variety of of options for the End. IT can be as bad as you want it. Or not at all.
The White Wolf Game Gestapo are not going to barge down your door if you fail to play up the Apocalypse. If you want to keep playing the games as they're currently published, go for it.
I just want to point out to/.ers that if White Wolf's server's down, I provide all the pertinent info at WolfSpoor, my WW-themed slashdot equivalent.
Anyhoo, yes, the World of Darkness game lines are indeed ending. For sure. Overwith.
But they're bringing in a "new World of Darkness" in August 2004. Maybe it'll be like Marvel's Ulitmates: a reimagining of the same concepts. Maybe there'll be compeltely different critters. Maybe it's something no one else has thought of. Who knows?
White Wolf has more than enough to keep them busy in the guise of Exalted, Dark Ages, and their massive Sword & Sorcery line (incl. Scarred Lands, Necromancer Games, Malhavoc Press, Ravenloft, Gamma World, Everquest RPG, Warcraft RPG, et al). Plus they're going to be doing something with Adventure again, I hear.
But the World of Darkness is indeed their biggest moneymaker overall. It's a ballsy move to actually usher in the End Times, but they're not stupid. It'll be back in some way.
There's a cartoon I saw once, ages ago... there was this highly advanced civilisation, who were just about to celebrate the 10,000th year of their founding. As part of the celebration, scientists would complete the most accurate telescope that would be able to see farther and more clearly than any other. The picture would be broadcast to the masses.
So the telescope was finished. They flicked the switch, zoomed out on the picture (which was a reverse angle, cause it was a cartoon)...
And saw someone's head.
The someone was asleep.
After some quick discussion, the inhabitants realized they were simply the product of someone's dream.
So they quickly poured their resources into trying to find a way to keep the person asleep indefinitely. And just as they were about to succeed.... they all started turning into flamingoes, and flew off into the void.
The SCI Engine was the Sierra Creative Interpreter, used for most games by Sierra from King's Quest 4 onward.
The first versions were still a parser interface, but they soon moved to the point-and-click system. It had a vanishing "toolbar" at the top, from which one could typically select walk, get/use, talk, inventory, options, and help. There were some variations (Space Quest 1 VGA and Space Quest 4 had "smell" and "taste," Quest for Glory had a submenu for run/sneak, sleeping, and viewing your character sheet).
I'd kill for a Planescape MMORPG. A good one. Not like EverQuest. More like SW: Galaxies. Less "kill it and take its stuff" and more "roleplay and create a viable economy."
I mean, even if they just did Sigil, in all its torus-shaped glory, I'd be happy.
OTOH, I'd love a World of Darkness MMORPG, on the condition that PCs of different types were limited to reasonable numbers. I don't want to see 2000 vampires in Nowheresville, Iowa. I want reasonable numbers based on the pen-and-paper RPG. Of course, there can and should be multiple servers so if the quota in one is full, people can go to the next.
It would include all of White Wolf's current World of Darkness games: Vampire: The Masquerade, Werewolf: The Apocalypse, Mage: The Ascension, Hunter: The Reckoning, Demon: The Fallen, and the upcoming Orpheus.
Never going to see it happen, but hey: I can dream. (:
Why does Microsoft feel the need to code-name everything before its official release? I mean, we know the OS will be called Windows 2003 or Windows QF or something. Why does it matter to them that we don't know exactly what it'll be called?
Ditto with their GDI and such. I just don't get why they have to play sekrit agent.
While I'm all for backwards compatibility, you can only keep it up for so long. Backwards compatibility is probably one reason the current API is so freakin' huge.
I can't run my old Sierra games, either, but thanks to efforts like DosBox and FreeSCI, that doesn't matter.
'Sides, I'm sure someone'll come up with a Win95 emulator somewhere along the line.
I just want to point out for those of you it may have missed...
Canadian government not falling in line with the American government is one thing.
Canadians not liking the American government is another thing.
Americans not liking the Canadian govenment is yet another thing.
None of the above say that Canadians hate the US. The vast majority of us don't (although, granted, many of us may think of US citizens as a whole as "arrogant").
So please stop with the "Blame Canada" rhetoric. It's been said a billion times, and was only funny about the first four.
Neutrinos, I believe, count as WIMPs (Weakly Interacting Massive Particles), the current prime candidate for just what makes up dark matter.
The other theory is that of MACHOs (Massive Compact Halo Objects) - large chunks of presumably baryonic material in a large halo orbiting the Milky Way.
I had no idea GW was in such a bad place. But then, IMHO, they'd probably sell more stuff if the mini prices weren't based almost entirely off of "look at what this guy can do."
The Planescape mini boxes were full of gods, and I don't remember them costing me several thousand dollars.;)
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I'm still going back and playing my old games on occasion. Space Quest, King's Quest, Ultrabots, Quest for Glory...
Hell, AGD Interactive (formerly Tierra) is redoing some of Sierra's older EGA games into scintillating 256-colour graphical wonders.
Cell-shaded 3d graphics? Pretty to look at, but I don't need 'em. (:
MorpheusLite available in 3... 2... 1...
Roughly half a million downloads for King's Quest 1 VGA and King's Quest 2+ VGA can't be wrong.
Above games were created by AGDInteractive, formerly Tierra Entertainment.
They're currently working on a VGA version of Quest for Glory 2.
"With battles cut out, there isn't really anything to fill the gameplay void."
Funny, I wasn't aware that Planescape: Torment needed random encounters. Apparently I went blissfully unaware of how much I was missing out on, how bored I was.
Sarcasm aside, Torment had what too many RPGs lack: story and choice. It had like a billion times more in the way of story as most RPGs out there (which, when you get down to it, are more tactical excerizes than RPGs). It let you play any type of character you wanted, from a paragon of virtue to a downright bastard. You weren't shoehorned into being the good guy.
Wow, an MMORPG coming out, a pen-and-paper RPG from the good people at White Wolf, and now a board game. Blizzard's really putting their brand in as many pots as they can. Wonder if it'll pay off?
None of the points mentioned here are original to WoD and can be found else where. The only that that White Wolf has done is gathered all of them in one place.
Not to sound pithy, but did you even read my post?
That is exactly the point. It doesn't matter if every single element can be found elsewhere. Having all of them together makes the World of Darkness what it is. It's okay to make a vampire movie. It's okay to make a werewolf movie.
What WW is illustrating is that there are too many similarities between Underworld and their own work for it to be anything other than an intentional rip-off. 10 points, I could see. 20 points, maybe. 60 points is stretching it pretty far.
Yes, White Wolf has put them all in one place. That's what makes their property theirs. The collection of elements makes it unique. Underworld has the same collection of elements, and that's what makes it allegedly an infrigement.
As it was explained to me by someone who knows, it's not the individual similarities, it's the total. If there are 10 similarities, it doesn't matter that 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, and 9 can all be found elsewhere, it's the fact that they're all found together which contributes (in this case) to the unique product identity which is the World of Darkness. So vampires have super-strength in both the WoD and Underworld: who cares? What matters is that, in addition to all the other similarites, makes it much much more likely that Underworld is ripping off WW. And if they don't mention everything in the brief, they pretty much can't even talk about it later.
So White Wolf is suing because there are a total of 61 points they've identified. That's a lot, no matter how you look at it.
For the hell of it, here they are:
Bloodlines will, Enter-the-Matrix-like, feature the Time of Judgment (i.e. Gehenna) prominently as part of its story. And there are some revelations about Gehenna which will only be revealed to those who play Bloodlines.
Yeah, I loved Torment. It translated the pen-and-paper D&D setting excellently. Far better than I expected. Hell, Torment made Best RPG of 1999. (:
Of course, there probably wouldn't be a sequel, but I'd kill for another game using the Planescape setting. I am a huge fan of Planescape.
Looks like I'll just have to pick up Neverwinter Nights instead, and then load up the City of Doors mod.
For those who didn't...
Bloodlines' storyline concerns the Time of Judgment. They already had this planned. There are some Gehenna-based revelations made in Bloodlines, actually, that you can't find out about any other way.
Sam, ya bastid!
;) Other than that, GenCon's our priority. We were going to go this year, but Jenn couldn't get the day off. There's always next year.
I'm online fairly often these days. Just watch for me, I'll be around.
I'll go down to Dragon*Con much sooner if someone pays my fare, and that of my girlfriend.
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines (the new PC game) will have a storyline which ties in directly to the Time of Judgment.
Actually, you only need to mention WotC and the Player's Handbook in one of the licenses - specifically, the "d20" license, where you specifically put the d20 logo on the product.
If you just use the OGL, you don't need to mention WotC at all, can include stuff the d20 license doesn't let you, but you can't use the d20 logo (or, I believe, refer to it as a d20 product). Most OGL products I've seen call themselves "compatible with 3rd Edition Roleplaying."
Did you even read the press release above?
Each of the Judgment books contains a variety of of options for the End. IT can be as bad as you want it. Or not at all.
The White Wolf Game Gestapo are not going to barge down your door if you fail to play up the Apocalypse. If you want to keep playing the games as they're currently published, go for it.
I don't know; I think, overall, the quality of products has vastly improved over the last few years.
I just want to point out to /.ers that if White Wolf's server's down, I provide all the pertinent info at WolfSpoor, my WW-themed slashdot equivalent.
Anyhoo, yes, the World of Darkness game lines are indeed ending. For sure. Overwith.
But they're bringing in a "new World of Darkness" in August 2004. Maybe it'll be like Marvel's Ulitmates: a reimagining of the same concepts. Maybe there'll be compeltely different critters. Maybe it's something no one else has thought of. Who knows?
White Wolf has more than enough to keep them busy in the guise of Exalted, Dark Ages, and their massive Sword & Sorcery line (incl. Scarred Lands, Necromancer Games, Malhavoc Press, Ravenloft, Gamma World, Everquest RPG, Warcraft RPG, et al). Plus they're going to be doing something with Adventure again, I hear.
But the World of Darkness is indeed their biggest moneymaker overall. It's a ballsy move to actually usher in the End Times, but they're not stupid. It'll be back in some way.
There's a cartoon I saw once, ages ago... there was this highly advanced civilisation, who were just about to celebrate the 10,000th year of their founding. As part of the celebration, scientists would complete the most accurate telescope that would be able to see farther and more clearly than any other. The picture would be broadcast to the masses.
So the telescope was finished. They flicked the switch, zoomed out on the picture (which was a reverse angle, cause it was a cartoon)...
And saw someone's head.
The someone was asleep.
After some quick discussion, the inhabitants realized they were simply the product of someone's dream.
So they quickly poured their resources into trying to find a way to keep the person asleep indefinitely. And just as they were about to succeed.... they all started turning into flamingoes, and flew off into the void.
Rocket Launcher Warthogs, eh? Is that like Warthogs with rocket launchers, or rocket launchers that launch Warthogs?
Damn, would I buy that game.
The SCI Engine was the Sierra Creative Interpreter, used for most games by Sierra from King's Quest 4 onward.
The first versions were still a parser interface, but they soon moved to the point-and-click system. It had a vanishing "toolbar" at the top, from which one could typically select walk, get/use, talk, inventory, options, and help. There were some variations (Space Quest 1 VGA and Space Quest 4 had "smell" and "taste," Quest for Glory had a submenu for run/sneak, sleeping, and viewing your character sheet).
They largely did away with it in the mind-90s.
I'd kill for a Planescape MMORPG. A good one. Not like EverQuest. More like SW: Galaxies. Less "kill it and take its stuff" and more "roleplay and create a viable economy."
I mean, even if they just did Sigil, in all its torus-shaped glory, I'd be happy.
OTOH, I'd love a World of Darkness MMORPG, on the condition that PCs of different types were limited to reasonable numbers. I don't want to see 2000 vampires in Nowheresville, Iowa. I want reasonable numbers based on the pen-and-paper RPG. Of course, there can and should be multiple servers so if the quota in one is full, people can go to the next.
It would include all of White Wolf's current World of Darkness games: Vampire: The Masquerade, Werewolf: The Apocalypse, Mage: The Ascension, Hunter: The Reckoning, Demon: The Fallen, and the upcoming Orpheus.
Never going to see it happen, but hey: I can dream. (:
Somewhat offtopic, but...
Why does Microsoft feel the need to code-name everything before its official release? I mean, we know the OS will be called Windows 2003 or Windows QF or something. Why does it matter to them that we don't know exactly what it'll be called?
Ditto with their GDI and such. I just don't get why they have to play sekrit agent.
While I'm all for backwards compatibility, you can only keep it up for so long. Backwards compatibility is probably one reason the current API is so freakin' huge.
I can't run my old Sierra games, either, but thanks to efforts like DosBox and FreeSCI, that doesn't matter.
'Sides, I'm sure someone'll come up with a Win95 emulator somewhere along the line.
I just want to point out for those of you it may have missed...
Canadian government not falling in line with the American government is one thing.
Canadians not liking the American government is another thing.
Americans not liking the Canadian govenment is yet another thing.
None of the above say that Canadians hate the US. The vast majority of us don't (although, granted, many of us may think of US citizens as a whole as "arrogant").
So please stop with the "Blame Canada" rhetoric. It's been said a billion times, and was only funny about the first four.
Also, I wonder what nerd came up with "wimps" and "machos" as acronyms. They're probably overjoyed to find out that the wimps are the winners. ;)
Neutrinos, I believe, count as WIMPs (Weakly Interacting Massive Particles), the current prime candidate for just what makes up dark matter.
The other theory is that of MACHOs (Massive Compact Halo Objects) - large chunks of presumably baryonic material in a large halo orbiting the Milky Way.
The two theories are not exclusive, mind.
I think I know to whom you're referring.
;)
I had no idea GW was in such a bad place. But then, IMHO, they'd probably sell more stuff if the mini prices weren't based almost entirely off of "look at what this guy can do."
The Planescape mini boxes were full of gods, and I don't remember them costing me several thousand dollars.