Paradox Interactive (the Crusader Kings people, not the Conan/Mutant Chronicles ones) buy the White Wolf properties [Merged x10]

[Thorbes]

Doesn't seem bad at all.

[Heavy Arms]

One of them is a "trailer" for the One World of Darkness. Which is actually in the longer video as well.

The longer video (~45 minutes) is the new White Wolf management team of Tobias and Martin explaining what the new White Wolf is, and what their goals are.

A lot of the presentation is vague because as they admit, they're still in the process of figuring things out. They have big ideas, and the support from Paradox to work on them, but there's still lots to do in terms of establishing the exact relationships with different partners, how many people they're going to hire full time vs. license/freelance and so on.

The big take away things are:

1) Their focus is leveraging the WOD via the cWOD. The CofD and Exalted seem like they're going to continue to be left in the hands of Onyx Path without much oversight, while the WOD is going to get actively curated by WW as it is worked out across multiple forms of media. They made it clear that they want the WOD products to fit together so they expect the developers they hire for table-top, LARP, CCGs, and so on to be more collaborative (or at least accepting of them stepping in and transporting ideas around).

2) They want to drop the "different universes" model of the original WOD books. While they intend for all the game-lines to remain supported as separate entities, they want to make it a single WOD that they all share so crossover material and play can run more smoothly. That's a big part of the "One World of Darkness" marketing, is to have all the WOD games feel like they belong together in one universe.

3) They want to add a more global perspective to the books, both in-game by having greater focus on a wider range of areas getting detailed in the books as well as having their WOD tackle the far more interconnected world of 2015, and externally by using the current global crises and to keep the feel of the games "epic" and continue to focus the games on personal drama contrasted against a much larger world. This also meant to be another aspect of the "One World of Darkness," bit by having it be more encompassing of one full globe's worth of people.

4) When they talked about events, they seemed to be talking much more about actual fan-events rather than in-universe events (though they seem to want those to happen as well). They talked far more about things like supporting V:tES championships, having official LARP events, and so on.

5) They want to engage the fan-base more directly as a cooperative partner in creative efforts. They talked about wanting to give official support in some fashion to more of the fan-made material out there. Martin expressed that a lot of his work leading up to this point in his career was, essentially, turning his WOD fan-fic into non-WOD works, but now he gets to make his stuff as official WOD material. So there's clearly an aspect to engaging with the community to try to tap into the community for ways to showcase the WOD. There was also some mild talk of things like trying to support the modding community that's been working on the Bloodlines video game.

6) They're very serious about approaching the WOD in a transmedia fashion. While they need to get the existing formats integrated into their plans, and resurrect the video game side of things, they clearly want to push beyond that. Apparently to give themselves a nice high bar to reach, they're trying to push the WOD into a strong enough market position to have a show on Netflix in the early 2020s, or maybe a movie. While not the comparison they used, they really want to have this be like the revival of the Doctor Who franchise in scope. They want to take a beloved niche classic, and push it back into the cultural spotlight so the WOD is the horror franchise people think of for horror gaming.

[Erinys]

There are two videos linked from the new Monday Meeting blog, in which Paradox announces something about some plans for White Wolf. I can't watch them.

Has anyone seen them? Would somebody please post a summary of what the Paradox people announced about what will happen to the Classic WoD?

[Murder-of-Crows]

I am disappointed that Paradox seems to be more interested in WoD for their in-house stuff though. The other properties have a lot of potential that I'd like to see tapped one day.

Well, I wouldn't be too disappointed. Apparently the interest of White Wolf goes along with moving development of the next edition of the game in-house. I am wondering if Eddy Web will still be the lead developer of the next edition of VtM, since I really enjoy what he did with V20 so far.

White Wolf has said several times by now that they are also interested in making stuff based on Exalted. So I think this will be coming in a couple of years.

I can understand their (predictable) focus on the World of Darkness though. It's the most recognizable brand, has already a following beyond the P&P community in form of LARP and video game fans, has already proven that it can serve as base for novels (okay, Exalted and CofD have as well). Also I think that the WoD lends itself a lot better to metaplot than the deliberately metaplot-agnostic CofD games. If they aim their games at mature gamers, this also means they aim there games at gamers that already could have heard about the World of Darkness back in the 1990ies (maybe it's my perspective, but it seems to heavily imply people older than 25 or even 30). Therefore, again WoD is the logical choice.

Shifting the in-game focus gradually from the US to Europe, the Middle East and Russia makes the game feel more European. Over here support for the WoD has always been a lot stronger than for CofD.

[Ostarion]

I think I found a video for the information that was announced.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GPHHly8cfw

So you can hear what they say directly, well as much as possible.

[dxanders]

I'm only invested in Chronicles of Darkness and Exalted, so I'm pretty happy with how things turned out tabletop-side. I am disappointed that Paradox seems to be more interested in WoD for their in-house stuff though. The other properties have a lot of potential that I'd like to see tapped one day.

Same. CWoD would be a great framework for more emergent gameplay styles and Exalted... Man, they could do do much with that setting, in so many genres.

Still, it's probably best that they're starting off with a more narrow focus.

[Tiresias]

I'm only invested in Chronicles of Darkness and Exalted, so I'm pretty happy with how things turned out tabletop-side. I am disappointed that Paradox seems to be more interested in WoD for their in-house stuff though. The other properties have a lot of potential that I'd like to see tapped one day.

[dxanders]

The 20th editions are (from what I gather) more or less metaplot neutral and sort of collections of previous rules with some changes here and there. 4th Edition will be a proper new edition, continuing the metaplot from where it left off and bringing it into the 21st century, both in terms of plot and mechanics.

I'm hoping they implement some of the changes OP brought to the Storyteller system. It's really head and shoulders above the old system, especially with the tweaks made for 2e.

[Charlaquin]

I haven't been keeping good track of the WoD projects. What is the difference between the 20th anniversary editions and cWoD 4th edition?

The 20th editions are (from what I gather) more or less metaplot neutral and sort of collections of previous rules with some changes here and there. 4th Edition will be a proper new edition, continuing the metaplot from where it left off and bringing it into the 21st century, both in terms of plot and mechanics.

[Ephsy]

I'm iffy on the name but the principle of it makes me very happy. I'm glad that Onyx Path will be able to continue making great games unmolested by White Wolf.

Oh I bet there's been some fingering. In fact, I consider the name change to be it.

[Resplendent Fire]

I'm fine with the new name. Whatever works.

That is, I am very glad that Onyx Path gets to keep doing stuff with the previously named nWoD under any name.

[mcallima]

Good news for the CofD fans, and I'm really happy that the 20th Anniversary editions will continue at OP, but I wish the 4th editions stayed here too.

[wonderandawe]

I haven't been keeping good track of the WoD projects. What is the difference between the 20th anniversary editions and cWoD 4th edition?

[Leetsepeak]

I'm iffy on the name but the principle of it makes me very happy. I'm glad that Onyx Path will be able to continue making great games unmolested by White Wolf.

[xiongrey]

Maybe I just need to sleep on it but I'm not a big fan of the new name. I kind of halfway understand why it was done but something about it doesn't sit well with me.

I guess I should be thankful that content is still being made for it but as of yet I don't know how easy it will be for me to want to start saying CofD rather than nWoD.

I guess it's a minor change but change is scary and my knee jerk reaction is reject it (good thing I don't act on knee jerk reactions )

I guess I'll get used to it as soon as this grouchy grumbler goes to sleep and stops caring about the name