Yeah, there was a PLE for 4.0 and 4.5, and this version has been available for a few months via the Instant Maya book. Granted, this is the first time you can download PLE 5.0, hence the press release, but yeah, overall it's old news (not to mention a slightly misleading title, since it isn't actually Maya but Maya PLE, which (AFAIK - I've only used the full version) uses a different file format).
Dunno about Aberrant helping keep them afloat - I can't remember the last time an Aberrant book was published, and there certainly isn't anything on the horizon for the line. Of course, they did just let slip that there will be a second Adventure! book, so I suppose you could just sub in Adventure! for Aberrant in the above sentence...
But yeah, your point was spot-on, White Wolf has plenty of other money-makers. From what I hear, Exalted is selling just as many copies at my local game store as Vampire or Werewolf, and with how quickly Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed (they publish all of Malhavoc Press' books, so they'd get a portion of that, at least) sold out at GenCon, it sounds like they'll be sitting pretty solid for a while.
And I must say that a no Paradox/Masquerade/Veil World of Darkness would be quite cool...
You've got some good points, though I can't really relate to the discipline point since I don't play Vampire (being a Werewolf junky myself). I have to agree with you on point about powerful characters falling too easily to bad rolls. I still think that, although both have issues, White Wolf is a simpler system. d20 is very structured, and I find myself looking up what combinations I'm supposed to roll or what modifiers/saving throws/etc/etc/etc more often than I do with White Wolf's games, since so few of the Storyteller rolls require anything specific at all (Disciplines, Gifts, etc. seem to be about the only things that do). Plus, talking about Disciplines, I saw a lot more spells and feats being looked up in books during D&D games than I ever have in a White Wolf game...
Storyteller just has a lot fewer rules than d20. Both systems have quirks, both good and bad, but when it comes down to simplicity (which was what the original comment was about), I think that Storyteller wins hands-down.
d20 is as simple as it can be? I suppose that depends on your definition of "it", but I personally hate d20 for its complexity. Granted, I'm not familiar with GURPS or earlier editions of D&D, but I know that the Storyteller system (White Wolf) is much simpler and easier to run/play when compared to d20. Just comparing the rules section of d20 D&D (which is basically the DMG and a good chunk of the PG, iirc) to any of the storyteller books (which is about a sixth of the core book, or 40-50 pages) will show you that d20 is a pretty complex beast. Heck, just looking at the fact that you need three 300 page books to run the game should say something about complexity - practically every other game I've ever seen can be run with a single 200-300 page book...
I'm not trying to turn this into a d20 vs. White Wolf battle, but just saying that there are much more simple systems out there, and that (IMHO) d20 is far from "as simple as it gets".
Actually, Weis and Hickman, the authors that originally created Dragonlance, still hold the rights to it. Hasbro/WotC actually are licensing it from them. Needless to say, Weis & Hickman are just a slight bit more approachable about projects like this...
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Yeah, there was a PLE for 4.0 and 4.5, and this version has been available for a few months via the Instant Maya book. Granted, this is the first time you can download PLE 5.0, hence the press release, but yeah, overall it's old news (not to mention a slightly misleading title, since it isn't actually Maya but Maya PLE, which (AFAIK - I've only used the full version) uses a different file format).
Dunno about Aberrant helping keep them afloat - I can't remember the last time an Aberrant book was published, and there certainly isn't anything on the horizon for the line. Of course, they did just let slip that there will be a second Adventure! book, so I suppose you could just sub in Adventure! for Aberrant in the above sentence...
But yeah, your point was spot-on, White Wolf has plenty of other money-makers. From what I hear, Exalted is selling just as many copies at my local game store as Vampire or Werewolf, and with how quickly Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed (they publish all of Malhavoc Press' books, so they'd get a portion of that, at least) sold out at GenCon, it sounds like they'll be sitting pretty solid for a while.
And I must say that a no Paradox/Masquerade/Veil World of Darkness would be quite cool...
You've got some good points, though I can't really relate to the discipline point since I don't play Vampire (being a Werewolf junky myself). I have to agree with you on point about powerful characters falling too easily to bad rolls. I still think that, although both have issues, White Wolf is a simpler system. d20 is very structured, and I find myself looking up what combinations I'm supposed to roll or what modifiers/saving throws/etc/etc/etc more often than I do with White Wolf's games, since so few of the Storyteller rolls require anything specific at all (Disciplines, Gifts, etc. seem to be about the only things that do). Plus, talking about Disciplines, I saw a lot more spells and feats being looked up in books during D&D games than I ever have in a White Wolf game...
Storyteller just has a lot fewer rules than d20. Both systems have quirks, both good and bad, but when it comes down to simplicity (which was what the original comment was about), I think that Storyteller wins hands-down.
d20 is as simple as it can be? I suppose that depends on your definition of "it", but I personally hate d20 for its complexity. Granted, I'm not familiar with GURPS or earlier editions of D&D, but I know that the Storyteller system (White Wolf) is much simpler and easier to run/play when compared to d20. Just comparing the rules section of d20 D&D (which is basically the DMG and a good chunk of the PG, iirc) to any of the storyteller books (which is about a sixth of the core book, or 40-50 pages) will show you that d20 is a pretty complex beast. Heck, just looking at the fact that you need three 300 page books to run the game should say something about complexity - practically every other game I've ever seen can be run with a single 200-300 page book...
I'm not trying to turn this into a d20 vs. White Wolf battle, but just saying that there are much more simple systems out there, and that (IMHO) d20 is far from "as simple as it gets".
Actually, Weis and Hickman, the authors that originally created Dragonlance, still hold the rights to it. Hasbro/WotC actually are licensing it from them. Needless to say, Weis & Hickman are just a slight bit more approachable about projects like this...