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.

My prediction

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.

Re:My prediction

My prediction is nobody really cares what you predict unless they disagree and then they will only care because they think others will read the reply.

Re:My prediction

Nice meta-analysis. Slashdot needs more of this.

I need to start playing more games

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 [eve-online.com], 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.

well...

Well, this type of stuff happens, i have a feeling that abandonware is a term we will be use soon enough

Two very neat game companies.

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.

A perfect match

How appropriate, given that both companies' titles major claim to fame is in-game drama resulting from racketeering, fraud [slashdot.org], and other forms of large-scale social engineering.

I hope CCP doesn't screw this up...

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...

I for one...

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.

Reykjavik

Reychavik? Is that where all the chavs come from?

Benefits to CCP, not WW

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.

Great news!

Now we can enjoy the benefits of a merger of two sources of cliche'd derivative crap.

You know you've thought about politics too much

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...

Re:You know you've thought about politics too much

Well, CCCP never actuallly stood for "Central Comittee of the Communist Party" in any case, thats a misinterpretation. The "C" is the Cyrillic alphabet "/S/" sound and the "P" is the Cyrillic "/R/" sound, so you would pronounce this abbreviation in Russian as "Ess Ess Ess Air", and it stood for "Soyuz Sovyetski Sotsialisticheski Ryespublik" meaning "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics".

World of Darkness's next MMORPG

Vampire: The Waiting

Contract details

I hear the final differences were settled with rock-paper-scissors.

EVE CCG

The EVE CCG is already out and developing quite a fanbase. I must say, it is a fun game.

Reychavik

I know where Reykjavik is and I'm not from Iceland but where is this mythical Reychavik?

No comments on technical expertise?

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.

Could the Masquerade function as an MMO?

Some friends and I have discussed this off and on, and frankly, we're not sure it'd work. For one thing, there aren't all that many vampires in the World of Darkness, relative to the human population. Next, everybody'd want to play a vampire. Or a werewolf. But how many would honestly be content playing a normal, run of the mill human, in a world secretly run by vampires?

Just given the secret nature of the World of Darkness, could an MMO survive?

CCP started out as a board game producer

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.

It's Reykjavík, not "Reychavik", FFS

First line of TFA Reykjavik, Iceland and Atlanta, GA, USA.

Zonk, it's so sad you're illiterate, but maybe you could USE SPELLCHECK. Please.

Yay for White Wolf

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.

at the fanfest

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/ [eve-online.com]), 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.

WW, eh?

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.

If it's anything like their MUSHs...

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 [rpg.net] there which was encouraged by their administration, a White Wolf employee.

Keep in mind that White Wolf is also DRM-heavy [boingboing.net] and treats their fanbase like crap by asserting phony IP rights [boingboing.net].

They made me the Dark Prince of Muncie

Now you can LARP without leaving your house!

Chinese Communist Party (CCP)

Was I the only one to think that the title claimed that the Chinese Communist Party was to merge with a games company?

No Confidence

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.

World of Darkness MMO?

Great... within three days everyone will have mastered the "Cutting", "Shitty Poetry", and "My Chemical Romance" skills.

Re:Rey who?

I don't think this is trolling. If you think you're good enough to write an 11 line summary you should know how to spell or at least hit F7. It was the first thing I noticed when I read the article.