Ok....apparently we are going full Forsaken.

[ArcaneArts]

I think it's hard to estimate how many signatures would really make Paradox sit up and notice. One of the problems is that TT RPGs have a lot more players than customers; which is very different from the video game world. I honestly think 5K would be low balling what you could get, as I'm pretty sure the relatively consistent 2K CofD backers (unique or not) could each get 3 or more people that aren't backers to sign a petition (it's not exactly a huge ask of time and energy). I might be an outlier, but I know at least a dozen people that never back Kicksters ever, aren't even big CofD fans, but since I play CofD with them, would sign on.

I don't think 10K or even 15K would necessarily move Paradox (even though for pretty much any RPG not named D&D that would be a huge public response, ) despite that though. They know that many signatures isn't the same as that many sales, and they don't even profit of CofD currently by number of sales anyway: they get their money if a book Onyx Path makes sells zero copies or 100K copies, because licensing puts all the risk on Onyx Path. Paradox wants AtLA's Kickstarter numbers because that's multimedia franchise numbers, not spectacular by TT RPG numbers.

This, I think, hits at a problem with the core of Paradox's mentality about it all. You compare Ascension 20th and Exalted numbers, and those are the realistic spikes of interest that represent the reasonable goal for World products (optimistically, Werewolf, Wraith, and Changeling), but as soon as I looked at those, it hit me-Oh, these kids wants Avatar Legends numbers. That's not going to happen anymore.

[Newb95]

As much as that would be awesome, there's a simple issue (and really look at the lack of localization even from companies with much deeper pockets than Onyx Path):

Money.

First, you need to find a good translator that understands the specific nature of TT RPG texts. TT RPGs exist in a strange limbo between creative prose and technical writing. There are many past examples of translators not understanding how TT RPG's are written resulting in translations that don't actually communicate the original intent. You also have to consider that Every major language has regional variations. You can tell the lead creators of the WW properties were Americans, and writing the WW IP books continues to assume American English over UK, Australian, etc. dialects. But then you run into issues where you don't necessarily have a distinct obvious dialect to focus on. If you're working on Spanish, do you pick a Latin American dialect because you're more likely to find an audience in the Spanish speaking parts of the Americas (and even to keep to some of the Americas base tone of the books), or do you focus on continental Spanish to reach to Spain and linguistically associated areas because they're less likely to be as familiar with American English and thus might be a more important market to focus on.

Second, you need to pay for all of this work. Someone needs to answer the questions above, and someone need to do the translation, editing/etc. and all those people are going to want to et paid for it. Some completely made up numbers: Lets say it costs $5K dollars to get a quality translation per language, and you want to publish in ten more languages. Now you have $50K worth of extra money to make. If you net profit $10 per sale. That means you need to sell 500 more copies just to break even on that investment; when a lot of those customers probably have some English proficiency anyway.

But wait, there's also needing to completely redo layouts for each language as translations are going to cause sections to get longer or shorter, meaning you have to completely redo the artwork, tables, charts, and so on. So more costs, and more books you need to sell to recoup those costs. Then you have to find a place to sell things. You might need to find entirely different digital storefronts because people that aren't willing to just deal with the books in English might not be looking at DTRPG for their gaming books. This is even harder if a local market still focuses on book/hobby stores for sales over digital.

So, this isn't a mistake. This is just an economic reality. There's lots of stuff Onyx Path has said it wanted to do, but the finances of going from being people that worked at the oWW to being their own company just made impossible to do .

I understand the economics aspects but how are you going to know that a product is solid without taking risks? V20 stuff has been fully translated in my language and they are going to also translate C20 shortly, if they have been able to find translators for those games then I'm sure they could find someone (maybe even the same guys) and do it for 2nd edition stuff too. Also I don't know how good CoD sold but judging from the DTRPG charts it wasn't peanuts, if that was accomplished with an English only version, I would say that a similar result would be accomplished with translated versions, I for once would be ready to buy everything again (even the physical books) should they translate them.

[ArcaneArts]

I understand the economics aspects but how are you going to know that a product is solid without taking risks? V20 stuff has been fully translated in my language and they are going to also translate C20 shortly, if they have been able to find translators for those games then I'm sure they could find someone (maybe even the same guys) and do it for 2nd edition stuff too. Also I don't know how good CoD sold but judging from the DTRPG charts it wasn't peanuts, if that was accomplished with an English only version, I would say that a similar result would be accomplished with translated versions, I for once would be ready to buy everything again (even the physical books) should they translate them.

Tabletop is already a niche business that does not have a lot of money to to take risks with. Translation is a risk that could offer rewards, but there are better risks that offer better rewards, as has been proven over the decades of the medium and people having tried that out.

[Heavy Arms]

That's not going to happen anymore.

Perhaps overly optimistic of me? That isn't going to happen right now.

I do think it could happen again, but work needs to get done in areas that aren't the TTRPG creation side of the IP. If the WoD was where Cyberpunk 2020/RED are, the numbers would be way higher. Even if the video game was shit when it came out and is only OK now that a bunch of patches are in, it's out and people are playing it. They have a Netflix show. They've shown that the CP2020/R product is a viable transmeida property, which means there's a big opening for that to get leveraged into way bigger numbers for the TT RPG side of things if they continue on a positive trend.

Paradox has dropped the ball on the thing they are supposed to be bringing to this equation: making video games that increase the brand's presence way beyond it's current scale. I do think that's fixable. I think fixing it for the WoD can lead to getting Exalted and the CofD improved market positions too.

But hope and belief are justifiably fragile things.

I understand the economics aspects but how are you going to know that a product is solid without taking risks? V20 stuff has been fully translated in my language and they are going to also translate C20 shortly, if they have been able to find translators for those games then I'm sure they could find someone (maybe even the same guys) and do it for 2nd edition stuff too.

To add to what Arc said:

You take risks based on where you are, not just on what might happen. I could, realistically speaking, budget playing the lottery every week. I could take the $200ish cost, spread out over a year, on the vain hope of getting some serious prize money, and not ruin my life (probably buy less games though). Taking a $50K risk that fails would bankrupt me. I can't just risk that kind of money.on the hopes of making some on whatever I'm going to put it into.

Onyx Path is doing that math. They, with way better numbers than us, know how much the risk is, and what happens to the company if it tanks completely. They're not taking that gamble.

On top of this, esp. when comparing it to the 20th books getting translations, this is also not Onyx Path's final decision. CCP before, and Paradox now, decide which books do and don't get translations. IIRC under CCP's license Onyx Path didn't even have the rights to do non-English books anyway, and CCP got to just take all of Onyx Path's work and pass it on to translators of their choosing. 20th books are getting translations while CofD books aren't, because Paradox wants it that way. Even if Onyx Path passed on it for their own reasons, Paradox could do it anyway; and Paradox has more than enough money to take a risk (even if some people in the company might not like that the WW IPs have turned into a lot of risk with little visible rewards being a problem).

[ArcaneArts]

Perhaps overly optimistic of me? That isn't going to happen right now.

I do think it could happen again, but work needs to get done in areas that aren't the TTRPG creation side of the IP. If the WoD was where Cyberpunk 2020/RED are, the numbers would be way higher. Even if the video game was shit when it came out and is only OK now that a bunch of patches are in, it's out and people are playing it. They have a Netflix show. They've shown that the CP2020/R product is a viable transmeida property, which means there's a big opening for that to get leveraged into way bigger numbers for the TT RPG side of things if they continue on a positive trend.

Paradox has dropped the ball on the thing they are supposed to be bringing to this equation: making video games that increase the brand's presence way beyond it's current scale. I do think that's fixable. I think fixing it for the WoD can lead to getting Exalted and the CofD improved market positions too.

But hope and belief are justifiably fragile things.

Oh yeah, it could be built-but my particular address is that Paradox gambled a little too much on World of Darkness having that, or near that, sort of swing out of the gate.

But, even before the transition to Chronicles, that sort of prestige was slipping from the World brand in it's latter years. THe nostalgia boom that came with the 20th Editions helped to stir the pot, and it was keen to start building back up, which OP was starting to do within the limits of their capability-but it was something that needed to be built back up. Paradox approached their acquisition of World, by contrast, with all the confidence that this new pair of shoes was gonna turn the whole school year around. Say what you will about everything involved with the rollout of VtM 5E, it was not lacking in confidence.

Arguably, it was because of that confidence some of their more questionable decision making was done in the spirit of. Regardless of that though, it's clear the bottom of that particular boat has fallen out since.

[Saur Ops Specialist]

Perhaps overly optimistic of me? That isn't going to happen right now.

I do think it could happen again, but work needs to get done in areas that aren't the TTRPG creation side of the IP. If the WoD was where Cyberpunk 2020/RED are, the numbers would be way higher. Even if the video game was shit when it came out and is only OK now that a bunch of patches are in, it's out and people are playing it. They have a Netflix show. They've shown that the CP2020/R product is a viable transmeida property, which means there's a big opening for that to get leveraged into way bigger numbers for the TT RPG side of things if they continue on a positive trend.

Paradox has dropped the ball on the thing they are supposed to be bringing to this equation: making video games that increase the brand's presence way beyond it's current scale. I do think that's fixable. I think fixing it for the WoD can lead to getting Exalted and the CofD improved market positions too.

But hope and belief are justifiably fragile things.

Also, it's kind of a long lead-up time to get Studio Trigger to roll something out. From the point that Edgerunners was press-released, it was two years of work before it dropped on Netflix. And that's assuming that they agree to it; given the content of Edgerunners, they might be better suited to Werewolf (especially post-W5, no Crinos-born and no taboo Garou on Garou Werewolf) than Vampire. That might not sit super-well with management.

(Also the potential to fake out long-time Trigger fans by having the pack head to the Aetherial Realm... but it turns out it was just part of the end arc and there's no plotline with aliens after all! Phew...)

[Asmodai]

Perhaps overly optimistic of me? That isn't going to happen right now.

I do think it could happen again, but work needs to get done in areas that aren't the TTRPG creation side of the IP. If the WoD was where Cyberpunk 2020/RED are, the numbers would be way higher. Even if the video game was shit when it came out and is only OK now that a bunch of patches are in, it's out and people are playing it. They have a Netflix show. They've shown that the CP2020/R product is a viable transmeida property, which means there's a big opening for that to get leveraged into way bigger numbers for the TT RPG side of things if they continue on a positive trend.

Mike Pondsmith says that 2077 and everything around it has made RED and all the DTRPG stuff incredible sellers, way beyond the line's 90s heyday. To the point that they have POD books for 2020 being stocked in certain parts since people want more than they can produce right now for RED. Cyberpunk is bigger than it has been ever before thanks to the way the whole thing has taken on a proper transmedia life.

Oh yeah, it could be built-but my particular address is that Paradox gambled a little too much on World of Darkness having that, or near that, sort of swing out of the gate.

Considering Cyberpunk's rise to fame, I think that they would have had it, had they done the promotional work and the world building exposed to the masses CDPR did. Paradox is not a small indie studio, they're a huge game publisher, but they decided to make things small and quiet instead of building up hype. And while Cp2077 is a lesson of bad things happening because of overhype, it's still a massive success as a game and as a product. 20 million copies for anything WoD related would do wonders for us.


Saur Ops Specialist I'd so love to see a proper W:tA anime done by Trigger. BNA was gorgeous and made me think of WtA a number of times.

[ArcaneArts]

Considering Cyberpunk's rise to fame, I think that they would have had it, had they done the promotional work and the world building exposed to the masses CDPR did. Paradox is not a small indie studio, they're a huge game publisher, but they decided to make things small and quiet instead of building up hype. And while Cp2077 is a lesson of bad things happening because of overhype, it's still a massive success as a game and as a product. 20 million copies for anything WoD related would do wonders for us.

Yes, i mentioned the need for work to be done, and how Paradox went ahead just trusting the brand power to be enough to get them out of the gate. What happened with some of the licensed games are good examples of not committing to that work, as a direct contrasting parallel to Cyberpunk*.

*and let that be a statement, particularly given some of the bullshit that happened with production.

[Mizu]

I think VtM Bloodlines 2 was supposed to be their Cyberpunk 2077 until it plunged down into whatever development hell it currently resides in. Hard to believe that when it was announced that game was originally going to come out all the way back in Q1 of 2020. It would have come out before Cyberpunk 2077 did if things went as they initially planned.

[reaperfrost8]

I think VtM Bloodlines 2 was supposed to be their Cyberpunk 2077 until it plunged down into whatever development hell it currently resides in. Hard to believe that when it was announced that game was originally going to come out all the way back in Q1 of 2020. It would have come out before Cyberpunk 2077 did if things went as they initially planned.

I remembered way back when they announced it they were pushing for fairer prices for the Eastern Bloc something that was a pretty big deal back then as game companies to my knowledge don't really set there prices properly there.

They were clearly trying to expand VtM to a bigger audience but getting rid of the original devs for whatever reason as well as from what I could tell reconstructing the entire game from the devs plan has probably killed a lot people's desire for it

It also doesn't help that a lot people speculated that the reason why the devs left was because paradox might be shoving online features into the game, mind that thought is speculated and completely unfounded but that speculation did go around for quite a bit.

[AnubisXy]

Considering Cyberpunk's rise to fame, I think that they would have had it, had they done the promotional work and the world building exposed to the masses CDPR did. Paradox is not a small indie studio, they're a huge game publisher, but they decided to make things small and quiet instead of building up hype. And while Cp2077 is a lesson of bad things happening because of overhype, it's still a massive success as a game and as a product. 20 million copies for anything WoD related would do wonders for us.

Yeah. I remember that according to several polls, VtM Bloodlines 2 was the second most anticipated game of the year right after Cyberpunk. Cyberpunk got delayed by a full year and Bloodlines basically vanished. If they'd been able to release it, and if it had been decent, it would have been massive. And it would have set the stage for a big resurgence in the pen and paper game. But Paradox has completely dropped the ball on the franchise. It's possible that when Bloodlines 2 comes out, it will be good and they'll have some other multi-media, like a TV show or something, to pull people in. But as is it's all just looking like a massively bungled, missed opportunity. And then we have Earthblood which was just kinda bad all around.

And on the subject of an anime, yeah, I think Trigger would be a great studio to do WtA. They bring an energy and fluidity to scenes that would be really appropriate for the genre. Someone like MAPPA or UFOtable would work well for a VtM series. But even if Paradox wanted to make a World of Darkness anime, I don't think they have the money to hire any of the major anime studios.

[Asmodai]

Hm I think you may be underestimating the size of Paradox. They still have quite a bit of income and are maybe at half the yearly income of CDPR. So it's not like it's a small company without means to market or push a property. It's just that they have not leaned into it hard, I mean it's not like you even know Paradox is doing something with White Wolf Ip's unless you're really keeping in the loop - unlike CDPR who went full hog on Cyberpunk as a property.

[Heavy Arms]

I think part of the issue is that Paradox did do a big push.... a few years ago. One of the reason's I'm general confident Paradox hasn't made back any real money on the WW IPs, is all the hype they starting to build up around Bloodlines 2, and then pulled the plug on the game as it existed at the time. How much money do you think it cost to create a realistic but fake dating app that was meant to be a tool for vampires to hunt humans for blood via smartphones? Not write that into the game, but actually make a program people downloaded as part of the hype for BL 2? I sometimes feel like people forget how much nWW/Paradox sunk into marketing for BL 2 before it was actually ready; and the hype-hole they dug themselves by doing that.

We're not hearing much from Paradox about anything, because their PR people are most likely saying, "No hype until you make a mostly-stable playable beta that's better than some games have been at launch of BL 2 we can actually show people to prove the game is going to happen this time."

[TyrannicalRabbit]

I think part of the issue is that Paradox did do a big push.... a few years ago. One of the reason's I'm general confident Paradox hasn't made back any real money on the WW IPs, is all the hype they starting to build up around Bloodlines 2, and then pulled the plug on the game as it existed at the time. How much money do you think it cost to create a realistic but fake dating app that was meant to be a tool for vampires to hunt humans for blood via smartphones? Not write that into the game, but actually make a program people downloaded as part of the hype for BL 2? I sometimes feel like people forget how much nWW/Paradox sunk into marketing for BL 2 before it was actually ready; and the hype-hole they dug themselves by doing that.

We're not hearing much from Paradox about anything, because their PR people are most likely saying, "No hype until you make a mostly-stable playable beta that's better than some games have been at launch of BL 2 we can actually show people to prove the game is going to happen this time."

I was actually a moderator for their Bloodlines 2 discord until I got sick of the harassment. The amount of people that were going absolutely ballistic whilst waiting for information , anything concrete was absolutely maddening. Between that and containing the large portion of time the game discussion was about Mitsoda being let go or people arguing back and forth about the game writer accused of harassment who did work that never got used for Bloodlines 2. I'm still in a little bit of awe over the hole Paradox and Hardsuit labs dug for themselves. I honestly can't think of a time during my stay on the server where the conversation wasn't predominately infighting or damage control.

[Asmodai]

I think part of the issue is that Paradox did do a big push.... a few years ago. One of the reason's I'm general confident Paradox hasn't made back any real money on the WW IPs, is all the hype they starting to build up around Bloodlines 2, and then pulled the plug on the game as it existed at the time. How much money do you think it cost to create a realistic but fake dating app that was meant to be a tool for vampires to hunt humans for blood via smartphones? Not write that into the game, but actually make a program people downloaded as part of the hype for BL 2? I sometimes feel like people forget how much nWW/Paradox sunk into marketing for BL 2 before it was actually ready; and the hype-hole they dug themselves by doing that.

We're not hearing much from Paradox about anything, because their PR people are most likely saying, "No hype until you make a mostly-stable playable beta that's better than some games have been at launch of BL 2 we can actually show people to prove the game is going to happen this time."

I have to disagree on this. It was hype typical for a computer game, and mostly focused on the common trade space rather than building up a community or drawing people on the outside of the in group. It was mostly focused on "sequel to cult game" without actually learning into the setting and making the setting the thing you're selling. Sure there was a dating app, and it was borderline irrelevant. They started out with a strong push that very quickly started fizzing both due to the delays of B2 and V5 and they never really picked anything up from it. I mean just look at the kind of versions and packages of the game they were announcing in 2019 for the 2020 game and what we've gotten of it since.

Also, I'm quite doubtful we're going to see this Bloodlines 2. The game they were developing (and note that what was shown was very rough at the time and demo oriented) is long gone, and the effort needed to revamp the game and redesign it would be a bottomless sinkhole for any corporation. I wouldn't be surprised if the whole thing has been scrapped and set away for better days