Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Paradox has bought White Wolf, plans on giving "some fresh blood" to the WoD/Vampire IPs

LESS T_T

Arcane
Joined
Oct 5, 2012
Messages
13,582
Codex 2014
White Wolf registered trademarks "Imperator" and "Planetfall" early this year. They are for video games, books, and board games.

Planetfall: https://euipo.europa.eu/eSearch/#details/trademarks/017877981

Imperator: https://euipo.europa.eu/eSearch/#details/trademarks/017801572

Probably subtitles for upcoming things?

I can find there's an AR LARP called Planetfall developed by a partner of White Wolf, but that's nothing to do with WoD. (Or maybe WW acquired the partner?)

(Also probably nothing to do with the 1983 text adventure.)
 

Havoc

Cheerful Magician
Patron
Joined
Nov 1, 2009
Messages
5,520
Location
Poland
Grab the Codex by the pussy Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Wasteland 2 Codex USB, 2014 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath
White Wolf registered trademarks "Imperator" and "Planetfall" early this year. They are for video games, books, and board games.

Planetfall: https://euipo.europa.eu/eSearch/#details/trademarks/017877981

Imperator: https://euipo.europa.eu/eSearch/#details/trademarks/017801572

Probably subtitles for upcoming things?

I can find there's an AR LARP called Planetfall developed by a partner of White Wolf, but that's nothing to do with WoD. (Or maybe WW acquired the partner?)

(Also probably nothing to do with the 1983 text adventure.)
Imperator might be a vampire game set in Ancient Rome.
 

Lacrymas

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
17,948
Pathfinder: Wrath
Imperator might be a vampire game set in Ancient Rome.

While the idea is mind-blowingly awesome, the execution will probably be terrible, just like I suspect the Werewolf game is going to be. We'll see, though, but I expect it to be some kind of open world pseudo-AAA garbage that is never interesting or well-made.
 

Big Wrangle

Guest
Speaking of Werewolf, still not sure how to feel about that. I mean, Cyanide has kinda stepped up its game recently, but I'm not sure if they an tackle such a project. I think how much faith I'll have in them would depend on the quality of the upcoming Call of Cthulhu game and how it adapts the mechanics from the tabletop. If they knock it out the park with that one, then perhaps, but time will tell.
 

fantadomat

Arcane
Edgy Vatnik Wumao
Joined
Jun 2, 2017
Messages
37,083
Location
Bulgaria
Imperator might be a vampire game set in Ancient Rome.

While the idea is mind-blowingly awesome, the execution will probably be terrible, just like I suspect the Werewolf game is going to be. We'll see, though, but I expect it to be some kind of open world pseudo-AAA garbage that is never interesting or well-made.
Sjws already killed Caesar once last year. Curious what minority will we able to play now,if nothing else cuckdox love their kebabs. As you said,great idea,the execution will be terrible.
 

LESS T_T

Arcane
Joined
Oct 5, 2012
Messages
13,582
Codex 2014
Yet another 'nothing to show right now' interview: https://www.pcgamesn.com/vampire-the-masquerade-bloodlines-2

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 is "an obvious choice" for Paradox

The future of the Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 franchise will rely on the implementation of a “seven-to-ten year cycle,” according to Paradox Interactive’s CEO. In an interview with PCGamesN at PDXCon this weekend, Fred Wester said the company were considering ongoing possibilities for the franchise.

Wester says “we are experimenting with a couple of the White Wolf brands right now,” but are aware that a new franchise can’t be immediately started from scratch ("if you’re going to build a big franchise you need to think in a seven-to-ten year cycle”) and that if the Vampire IP was to receive that kind of attention, “we need to know what the next ten years are going to look like.”

A new Vampire game does seem to be something relatively high on Paradox’s list - Wester acknowledges that a second Vampire game “is an obvious choice” - but it’s not something they can begin yet - “it needs to feel right, it needs to be the right team [...] for the game.”

Wester also suggests it’s unlikely that a new Vampire game would be Bloodlines 2, but that it could be “something Vampire RPG.” However, he also states that “the first game [in the new franchise] is probably going to be the worst game from us that they ever see in this franchise, because the [second] one will improve on the first one.” If any of that sounds familiar, it’s because this isn’t the first time Paradox have discussed the possibility of a new Vampire game - at last year’s PDXCon, they said they said they’ll make a Bloodlines sequel “when the time is right.” That’s definitely good news, even if there’s nothing to say when that time could possibly be just yet.
 

HansDampf

Arcane
Joined
Dec 15, 2015
Messages
1,471
“it needs to feel right, it needs to be the right team [...] for the game.”

Haven't we heard this exact line before, like a year ago?
 
Unwanted

Bladeract

It's Neckbeard Shitlord. Again.
Dumbfuck
Joined
May 19, 2018
Messages
239
Location
-66.273, 100.984
The biggest shock to me is paradox can afford to buy an IP in the first place. They have been nothing but decline for almost a decade. I guess those DLC scams pay off.
 

Valtiel

Scholar
Joined
Jun 27, 2017
Messages
116
Right now there's Bloodlines on top twitch games with 6k viewers, THE TIME IS NIGH
 

Xeon

Augur
Joined
Apr 9, 2013
Messages
1,858
Dan is playing it to prepare himself for Vampyr, the others are probably the same.
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,228
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
https://www.pcgamesn.com/vampire-the-masquerade-bloodlines/vampire-the-masquerade-bloodlines-2

Will we ever get a Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2?

vampire%20the%20masquerade%20bloodlines%202.jpg


There are very few names in PC gaming with pedigree like Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines. This RPG and dark soap opera about a fledgling bloodsucker in LA was so freeform and ambitious that it finished off its creator, Troika Games. But its reputation has given it a long unlife, both as a touchpoint for great game writing and player choice, and as a focal point for modding - continuous community bug fixing makes Bloodlines more playable today than ever.

When Paradox bought White Wolf and Vampire’s World of Darkness universe in 2015, the opportunity seemed obvious. The purchase freed up the licence for new developers just as the publisher pursued a new interest in RPGs with Obsidian. And yet: still no Bloodlines 2.

If you ask Paradox what kind of games it makes and publishes, you will get three answers: strategy, management, and RPGs. And at PDXCON this year, the first two parts of that triumvirate were well-represented by Imperator: Rome, Age of Wonders: Planetfall, and a new expansion for Cities: Skylines. But something was missing. Conspicuously so.

“We’ve been dabbling around with RPGs, with Pillars of Eternity and a couple of other things,” Paradox CEO Fred Wester tells us. “Obviously the White Wolf catalogue opens up a lot of new doors for us. We are experimenting with a couple of the White Wolf brands right now, but we also know that we can’t create a Skyrim day-one.”

vampire%20the%20masquerade%20bloodlines%202%20paradox.jpg


What becomes clear while talking to Wester is that Paradox no longer does anything without a long-term plan. Setting that first foot into the World of Darkness is taking time because the company wants to know where it’ll plant the next foot, and the one after that, so that it can see exactly where it’ll be standing several years into the future. Preferably with a well-established series of Vampire RPGs in its hands.

“We’ve owned White Wolf for two and a half years now and people are like, ‘Where is my Bloodlines 2?’,” Wester laughs. “It’s an obvious choice, but it needs to feel right. It needs to be the right team and visionary for the game. Once that’s set in place, nothing keeps us away from, maybe not Bloodlines 2, but something Vampire RPG.”

When the publisher cancelled its only internally developed RPG to date, Runemaster, it acknowledged that the move from grand strategy to a new genre had been a struggle. Instead, it’s been approaching outside developers it thinks would be a good fit for the universe.

“We’re looking at different studios to help us out on the RPG side, we’re not hiring any people here locally,” Wester says. “We hope to do something, it’s just that RPG to us is not anything that comes naturally.”

vampire%20the%20masquerade%20bloodlines%202%20white%20wolf.jpg


Finding the right studio for a Bloodlines follow-up isn’t easy - and whichever studio is given the offer, accepting the challenge is intimidating.

“Bloodlines has a lot of fans still, 14 years after release,” Wester says. “It was a great game in many ways. It was really buggy on release but it still carries a weight in the industry. It has to be the right people.”

That’s one part of the story. But there’s a quirk to Paradox’s purchase of World of Darkness, too, which allows White Wolf an unusual degree of autonomy - and might have important implications for a Bloodlines sequel.

"We made a separate sister company to Paradox,” White Wolf CEO Tobias Sjögren tells us, “because we want to do the games that are right for the IP, and not just the games that a particular publisher could publish. Our independence from Paradox means we do deals with whichever company is the right one.”

This arrangement isn’t just hypothetical. Early last year, Focus Home announced an adaptation of White Wolf’s Werewolf: The Apocalypse, a game which Paradox has no involvement in. White Wolf learned an important lesson during its time under the ownership of CCP, who developed the ill-fated World of Darkness MMO: it’s better not to try and represent the entire World of Darkness universe in one vast game, but to channel its disparate parts into the right projects.

vampire%20the%20masquerade%20bloodlines%20sequel.jpg


In the years since it joined Paradox, White Wolf has been touring shows like D.I.C.E. Summit and E3, attempting to match properties like Vampire with the right developers.

“We like games that are driven by story, games that have a more adult market, because World of Darkness is for grown-ups,” White Wolf lead storyteller Martin Ericsson says. “It’s not Twilight - this is for Twilight graduates, the people who have fallen in love with the idea of vampires. Studios with a bit more focus on that would be obvious.”

As for a Bloodlines 2, White Wolf is open to reviving the series.

“From our standpoint at a licence owner, it was be stupid not to use such a name because the brand recognition is so strong,” Sjögren says.

“If people can pull it off,” Ericsson adds.

“It needs to live up to the name,” Sjögren agrees. “We’re not in the business of licensing to fill a quarterly goal of minimum guarantees.”

vampire%20the%20masquerade%20bloodlines%202%20development.jpg


Any Bloodlines sequel White Wolf greenlights will have to fit the style of the new fifth edition of World of Darkness, take place in a modern setting, and handle the overall design differently to its predecessor.

“First of all, when it shipped, it was a mess,” Sjögren says. “So releasing a quality product to begin with, that means it takes some time to develop. You just have to let the publisher and the developer take the time they need to get the product out. And the other thing, a big lesson learned is supporting the community with modding tools.”

“We don’t always have a German dentist who can save the day,” Ericsson interjects. He’s referring to Werner Spahl, or Wesp5, actually an analytical chemist at the University of Munich at the time of Bloodlines’s release, who has lovingly restored and improved the game in a modding capacity over the years since. In many ways, Spahl and his shrinelike treatment of Bloodlines are symbolic of the reverence in which the game is held. It bodes well for any future the series might have that White Wolf seem to share his sentiment.

“Bloodlines is worshipped for its story and its dialogue, and those are things we value very highly,” Ericsson says. “Maybe it wasn’t the best shooter in the universe, but the dialogue is amazing, and it captures an irreverent, dark, critical view of the underbelly of society. And that aspect is surely exactly where we want to go.”
 

Zer0wing

Cipher
Joined
Mar 22, 2017
Messages
2,607
Paradox is seeking for a team with a suitable vision. For 2.5 years of actually owning VtM rights, yes. Which means, Obsidian is not the one. Can't blame Paradox or White Wolf after the schlock that Tyranny ended up being.
Seems like no one wants a second T:ToN.
 

LESS T_T

Arcane
Joined
Oct 5, 2012
Messages
13,582
Codex 2014
Also that Paradox may not develop an RPG (WoD or not, I guess) in-house after the failure of Runemaster.
 

Rahdulan

Omnibus
Patron
Joined
Oct 26, 2012
Messages
5,105
I'm surprised studios are not lining up to take a crack at World of Darkness in some capacity. Or whatever pitches Paradox received turned out to be dogshit they couldn't approve of. Even if our boy Kotick stands in the way of a direct and numbered Bloodlines sequel the franchise at large has insane potential. And yet, just when I think Paradox would not follow Games Workshop's example of licensing their property to the lowest bidder I also remember this exists:

 

Zer0wing

Cipher
Joined
Mar 22, 2017
Messages
2,607
Oh yeah, that also happened. What are these high standards Paradox were blabbering about recently?:M
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom