Tuesday, November 10, 2009

[White Wolf] Woah...The Camarilla Returning to Non-Direct White Wolf Control Status?

From White Wolf's The Future of White Wolf announcement/ICC summary:

For the Camarilla specifically:
No more pyramid. We’ve drifted a bit away from you all and have come to realize what a really horrible mistake it was to let that happen. We want to reintroduce ourselves as people, individuals even, who care about what you decide to do with our games, because we truly do. There has just been too much bureaucracy and it needs to end. We’ll keep liaisons on staff here, but this is less about us selling you books and more about you enjoying them.

But how? We’re giving the reigns back to you. You will remain the official World of Darkness fan club, but we’re not going to tell you which of our games to LARP or how to do it. Some of you will undoubtedly return to the Old World of Darkness. That is awesome.

What’s next? A lot of introspection and elbow grease. We urge you to take the coming months to really audit the entire Camarilla structure. How much of the original roots will you salvage? How will you balance the dynamic between old, new and future members? Do there need to be structural changes, rules changes or even cultural changes to reflect the new Camarilla going forward? What is the Cam to you and how would you have it run ideally? This is the perfect opportunity to reforge the Camarilla.

Why change? We want this to be just plain fun again, like the ICC itself. No barriers in the way of your expression in the World of Darkness. Tools to help you organize yourselves, find eachother, and regain that sense of creeping, suspenseful dread together. Bear with us and help guide us, as this is going to be an open dialogue.

It sounds like they're going to allow the Camarilla to go back to what it was before their rather forceful takeover years ago. I'm currently fighting with YouTube to watch the full closing ceremony address from ICC, but it's not really letting me watch it for long before it goes into an endless buffer loop. (Currently, it won't play at all for longer than a minute and a half on any of the clips...)

While I largely got out of the Camarilla after returning to Salt Lake from San Diego, the fiascoes I heard about during the crossing into being controlled directly by White Wolf completely turned me away from renewing my membership/rejoining the Camarilla. I'd kept an active membership while in San Diego, but let it lapse as I returned to Salt Lake since I wasn't too thrilled with the whole "end of the World of Darkness" turn that things had started taking. Don't get me wrong, the Final Nights brought the coolest thing to happen to the World of Darkness since Mage was released (Demon: the Fallen), however, I think it all ended up getting a bit too rushed, and too much change occurred in too short of a time for it to be enjoyable.

I don't much like any of the new World of Darkness settings, though a lot of their new system are good; I really only like the Changeling revamp so far, though the new Geist series is kinda appealing since I really enjoyed the Risen suppliment. While I'd play a Changeling game, I haven't really had any real desire to do the rest. If even if only part of it returns to the Old WoD setting, I'd consider going back.

Curse YouTube. I can't get any more information from ICC because of it's failing. =(

[World of Darkness MMO] ZOMG, It's a Sekrit!

So like, I stumbled upon documentation that proves White Wolf and Crowd Control Productions are working on a World of Darkness MMO, and quite possibly have been since even before their merger in January. However, beyond the original merger documentation and a small statement on CCP's website, I've found jack squat more about the game aside from the fact they're still hiring people for it.

As far as the merger document is concerned, a WoD MMO title was part of the commodities that were acquired in the merger. You can search for MMO or World of Darkness to find the scant details that are listed there.

World of Darkness Developed in Georgia
CCP North America is located just outside of Atlanta in Stone Mountain, Georgia. White Wolf Publishing, which merged with CCP in November 2006, has been headquartered in the Atlanta area since 1991 and has been a leader in the gaming industry ever since. Its flagship property, the World of Darkness, has a rich history of over 18 years of creative development and is now the basis of one of CCP's major virtual world projects. Currently in preproduction, The World of Darkness is the undying heart of the development efforts in CCP's North American office.

Atlanta and the Georgia Department of Economic Development have helped provide CCP with an invaluable strategic foothold in North America. Our Atlanta office serves as an integral component of CCP's international business, allowing for extreme flexibility in adjusting business practices and structures to quickly react to industry trends in order to stay at the forefront of technology and innovation. The Atlanta office houses leadership and support for every aspect of each of CCP's major initiatives, from finance to art direction and from marketing to game design.

The support networks for innovation in Georgia are both substantial and progressive, making Atlanta the perfect home for a virtual world project based on leading technology and unique game design. In March 2009, CCP was named one of the top 10 technology companies in the state by the Technology Association of Georgia. In addition to the fertile business environment, Georgia is filled with many qualified tech professionals, some of whom have joined CCP's growing team. The professional pool remains strong in the area year after year thanks to an abundance of quality local universities who draw top students from around the world. Atlanta has also proven to be a desirable place to relocate for many of new hires filling the over 100 open positions in CCP's global company due to its relatively low cost of living, pleasant weather and metropolitan charm. Those interested in joining CCP's efforts in Atlanta should visit the CCP job website.
That is the statement that is located on the sparse World of Darkness page on CCP's website. I couldn't find anything about it on the White Wolf site. I can't find anything solid on any spoiler sites, however there's chatter about it amid the insiders of the industry since Ryan Dancey became CMO of CCP and physically moved to join them.

Beyond that...it's the best kept secret of the MMO industry at the moment, and perhaps in the longest time.

My friends and I have already discussed it. If they do it right, all other MMOs will fall to the wayside for us. White Wolf is what we played when we were teenagers, it's what we were doing to bond beyond the scene of the dance club we all went to. It was more enjoyable than D&D, it was less of a headache than Palladium, it was our favourite RPG. We've since all moved into the MMO world, and the combination of the two is like a dream for us.

The suspense, it's killing us. XD