White Wolf: What's the Deal!?

[Jadeite]

Vampire, Mage and Werewolf are the big ones, with Mortal being the base for them all. The main Powerhouse is Vampire, hell it has two computer games already; Vampire: The Masquerade: Redemption and Vampire: The Masquerade: Reqiuemn and later on the WoD MMO.

Actually, the second VtM game was Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines. Requiem is the nWoD vampire game. And Hunter the Reckoning had three computer games, Hunter the Reckoning, Hunter the Reckoning Wayward and Hunter the Reckoning Redeemer (which is totally superior to Hunter the Reckoning, never played Wayward).
At the moment, the most succesful White Wolf game is propbably Changeling the Lost. It's well deserved, by the way.
One of the best way to get World of Darkness information is lurking in the White Wolf Forums. There are lots of their authors and developers teasing and answering questions.

 

[Vocenoctum]

It isn't really though. Hunter was one of the lesser lines in oWoD, hell it only came into being later on in the timeline of WoD. Now in nWoD, Hunter is simply a one-year limited line, like quite literally after one year all its books will be out.

Internet reception of Hunter: the Reckoning was mixed, but I have no idea how well it sold.

Vampire, Mage and Werewolf are the big ones, with Mortal being the base for them all. The main Powerhouse is Vampire, hell it has two computer games already; Vampire: The Masquerade: Redemption and Vampire: The Masquerade: Reqiuemn and later on the WoD MMO.

Towards the end of oWoD, you could see that WW had way overproduced some things. First they had their 6.66 sale, which lasted a lot longer than initially seemingly intended. (And, which gave me reason to never, ever order from them direct again.)

Then, when the old game was going away, they had "buy X number books, get blah for FREE". A lot of the free books were limited edition stuff that they really couldn't have intended to have! (to have enough to run the sale with them, and the books had been printed years earlier...)

Anyway, I had bought a lot of oWoD, and took the oppurtunity of the changeover to break ties and stop buying their stuff. In my interactions with their staff, some were good folks, some clever, but most? Be glad they don't interact with you, you'd probably never want to buy from them again.

Heck, the one I recall off hand that posts here (not full staff, IIRC, but with writing credits) is a perfect example of the long running tendency for WW "customer service".

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Actually, the second VtM game was Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines. Requiem is the nWoD vampire game. And Hunter the Reckoning had three computer games, Hunter the Reckoning, Hunter the Reckoning Wayward and Hunter the Reckoning Redeemer (which is totally superior to Hunter the Reckoning, never played Wayward).
At the moment, the most succesful White Wolf game is propbably Changeling the Lost. It's well deserved, by the way.
One of the best way to get World of Darkness information is lurking in the White Wolf Forums. There are lots of their authors and developers teasing and answering questions.

Woops, good catch >< I wonder why I put Requiem.

 

[WayneLigon]

Part of the problem with the Camarila part of the site is the bad blood between WW and the original organization in 2002. From RPG.net's history of WW:

First was a dispute with White Wolf's fanclub, the Camarilla. Starting in 1998 the Camarilla had become increasingly aggressive about acting as an independent business. They trademarked their name in 1998 for use as a fan club--despite the fact that the term was already trademarked by White Wolf--and in later contract negotiations asked for increasing concessions from White Wolf. In 2003 White Wolf attempted to take over the Camarilla, and the board members of the Camarilla filed a lawsuit against White Wolf in a Utah court. White Wolf counter-sued and won. The Camarilla filed for bankruptcy on February 15, 2003. White Wolf was thus able to take over the club.

So I'm thinking it's not a big surprise that that area of the website has little traffic and that the major part of that fanbase has (as I understand it; I might be wrong on this point) moved on to their own 'house rules' versions of the Mind's Eye products.

 

[That One Guy]

I think that WoD is... like others have said, less accessible. The fan base is more of a rabid underground and the books are quite fun to read. (I have Requiem and Lost... and have never run or played either. Ran and played quite a bit Reckoning and Masquerade back in the day. Hell, even a modern times dark ages game... hehe... mostly Gehenna-politics and less about other things 'cause I mean, c'mon)... back on topic... I went to a nearby B&N on the rlease date and saw no sign of WoD. Saw quite a few D&D books. Point being, they support their product and interact with their fans in a different way than WoTC.

Yeah, I'm not a fan of their site.

 

[wingsandsword]

As for people buying, reading and putting down the books. I think partially it is because well White-Wolf books in general are more fun to read so there is a higher percentage of people who buy the books just to read. Also, it is in my experience more common for games like WoD to be played in tight-knit groups while D&D is more easily accessible by new groups.

White Wolf to me is a lot like GURPS, I buy the books, but not to play the game.

With GURPS it is to use them as general sourcebooks on a genre/subject. With White Wolf it's for the rich setting information which I use as fodder for other games.

The oWoD Werewolf book Subsidiaries: A Guide to Pentex was a great example of this, very entertaining (sometimes very humorous) writing and was a great guidebook to running/using huge evil Megacorps in a modern day game. Would I ever run a Werewolf game where the PC's are trashing Pentex facilities? Not likely, would I use ideas that came from the book for an evil megacorp in a d20 Modern or Star Wars campaign (even recycle some of the supernatural elements, instead of wyrm-tainted business, what if an ambitious Sith Lord used a large company as his main arm of power?)?

 

[Staffan]

I also can't help wondering how Exalted is doing nowadays. The core book for 2nd ed was a big step up from 1st ed, but the follow-up seems rather sluggish. I think they might have shot themselves in the foot with the 2nd ed combat system, which seems more fighting-game than action-movie to me.

 

[eyebeams]

Part of the problem with the Camarila part of the site is the bad blood between WW and the original organization in 2002. From RPG.net's history of WW:

First was a dispute with White Wolf's fanclub, the Camarilla. Starting in 1998 the Camarilla had become increasingly aggressive about acting as an independent business. They trademarked their name in 1998 for use as a fan club--despite the fact that the term was already trademarked by White Wolf--and in later contract negotiations asked for increasing concessions from White Wolf. In 2003 White Wolf attempted to take over the Camarilla, and the board members of the Camarilla filed a lawsuit against White Wolf in a Utah court. White Wolf counter-sued and won. The Camarilla filed for bankruptcy on February 15, 2003. White Wolf was thus able to take over the club.

So I'm thinking it's not a big surprise that that area of the website has little traffic and that the major part of that fanbase has (as I understand it; I might be wrong on this point) moved on to their own 'house rules' versions of the Mind's Eye products.

It's rather simpler than that. Cam communications generally take place over email, as they have since the club's inception.

LARP is less popular than it was, but this is true for independent games as well.

 

[eyebeams]

When I look at the White Wolf site, I'm amazed. Absolutely shocked! The website is clunky. I'm never sure whether I'm on the main page, or the online store. Or what game I'm looking at! The only thing that changes when you select a different game is some text in the toolbars, the color scheme and some of the news stories. It's poorly orginized, and that's just the main page.

True dat.

The writers are nowhere to be seen.

I post there quite often, actually. Lots of us do. Are you sure you took a good look?

And the community? I know there's the Camarilla, but it's poorly orginized, membership is down, activity is low, and the forums are dead. For one of the greatest LARP-book publishers in history, they can't even afford to release new supplements for Mind's Eye Theater in PDF because they can't sell enough product to pay the writer!!

For one thing, White Wolf paying a writer means that the writer makes more than lunch money. It also means that production gets paid too. These are not insignificant costs. That said, WW could probably afford to release more MET, if they didn't expect every line to support itself through its own profits.

I've already addressed how the Cam works, communications-wise. Otherwise, the forums have a fair bit of activity, though the observation that chatter tends to be spread out among multiple sites is correct. Shadownessence is the go-to fan run site, in my opinion.

Note also that WW runs several web-based chat venues on its server. There's a whole lot of live conversation going on.

Nevertheless, I do think the site is a tad clunky. I personally think it's a mistake to base an entire site on dynamic content just because bugs are endemic and load times are poor.

The biggest shock to me was Hunter: the Vigil. Hunter is such an enormous power-house franchise for them. Video-games, a LARP book in their older edition... Hunter: the Reckoning was popular. Now, with the opportunity to make what could be the second-biggest game release of 2008 (4E being the obvious first), they could strike while the iron is hot! The opportunity to maybe bring some new players who feel unwilling to take on 4E D&D into World of Darkness. And when did Hunter release? This past week. But you'd never know from their site, because they havn't even announced the release in a news feed yet!

Uh, that's not really true. The RSS feed has a ton of previews and multiple announcements of the impending release.

I don't understand what's going on here. World of Darkness is an incredible game. The books obviously sell well due to many years of a loyal fanbase, but where's the game!? I'm part of the gaming community in New York City, where I see all sorts of games being played. I see World of Darkness books fly off the shelves constantly at the gaming hub I frequent, but I never see a group playing the game or any orginized gaming going on for WoD at all. And I blame this on poor community-building skills.

Gaming groups are not "the gaming community." The gaming community is a mix of meetups, stores, clubs and messageboards. Gaming groups are private. I'm involved in several gaming groups, but few of their members are part of the "gaming community."

Nothing. Nothing being played, nothing being done. No orginized play, no play at all. It's sad, cause I've played the game and loved it. But now I know why I never started a campaign. The WoD community is almost as lonely and dark as the world it takes place in.

The Camarilla is actually pretty big. There are multiple webchat games -- in fact, WW pioneered this form in many ways. Aside from the chats they host, there are usually a bunch of fan-run chat games going on at any given time. WW doesn't to RPGA organized play, though.

I've been talking to my gaming store (a big-deal game shop in NYC) about getting some hunter games going in the store. They've handed me the Hunter: the Vigil sample adventure and quick-start booklets, so I'll see if I can get an event going. But not with any help from White Wolf. Don't see how that could happen.

Have you considered emailing the company?

 

[eyebeams]

Heck, the one I recall off hand that posts here (not full staff, IIRC, but with writing credits) is a perfect example of the long running tendency for WW "customer service".

You are not my customer. I'm a guy on the Internet and so are you. White Wolf is my customer. You are White Wolf's customer.

But let me digress.

In addition to the work I do for online and offline gaming I also work in marketing. If WW were like certain other game companies, its employees would be doing the following:

1) Talking based on positioning statements fed to them by PR/communications.

2) Speaking under an agreement which not only restricts projects they can talk about, but the opinions they're allowed to express.

Having talked to people who work for these companies, and having drafted this very material for clients outside the games industry, I'll tell you straight that a lot of the stuff you read as gospel truth and a genuine conversation with game company staff, *isn't.*

I dislike some aspects of WW's site and can tell you that Some of these guys *can't* say anything comparable about their company's work to you without permission.

I've had my differences with WW from time to time (I hated Pimp, for example), but they've always been excellent at allowing unfiltered communications from all contributors. This means that you won't hear the same, finely crafted, agreeable talking points from everyone associated with the company. In fact, somebody might be so rude as to *disagree* with you. If you value straight talk, this is the sort of "service" you should value.