White Wolf: What's the Deal!?

[Barastrondo]

White Wolf's books are good. Their authors are often top-notch and can not just come up with some interesting rules, but, more importantly, tell a gripping story that makes you want to play their game and be a part of them. But their website has always been kinda hit or miss. I'd get disconnected two or three times a year, and then my username/password wouldn't work anymore, and I'd have to come up with another one. *Active* threads would just vanish, never to be seen again, even ones started by game developers asking for eratta/input. And the moderator would occasionally flip out, name-calling people in a fairly histrionic tone and deleting all posts by anyone that he'd deemed to be 'dishonorable.' (The crime that got all of my posts deleted one year was telling someone on the forums I *wouldn't* scan / upload some information from one of their books for him. Apparently, even saying that you *won't* rip off one of their books counts as ripping off one of their books!)

Ugh. Yeah, we have had some kind of dark spots.

The authors *do* post quite a lot to the forums (or, at least, they *did*, back when I was in regular discussions with the Trinity, Adventure! and Scarred Lands folk). Since they didn't have colored names or any sort of indicator that the person was a Dev, or a DevTracker sort of thread (not that their forum software would have been able to link to posts anyway, I imagine), it would be easy for someone who doesn't know them all by name to realize that people with names like BlackHatMatt, Barastrando, Mouseferatu, Kali or El Bastardo were actually writers or even fulltime employees and not just fellow posters. Even some of the writers might have had the problem I had with constantly losing the username/login, as several of the above-named changed their usernames two or more times, possibly adding to the confusion...

I post by "Eskemp" at our own forums and at RPG.net. Here I go by Barastrondo largely because at the time I signed up, I was one of the folks following the news of 3.0 and gathering info for the Sword & Sorcery initiative. When I registered for these boards, I figured better to use a name from Scarred Lands (obscure though it may be), as that would be more relevant source material here.

Nowadays I feel like I could get away with my name and get recognized a bit for stuff other than Scarred Lands, but hey... I have the nostalgic fondness for it. I enjoyed my time there.

 

[Crothian]

Changeling: The Lost seems to have been quite a surprise success for the nWoD. They extended the line over the originally planned releases. The four Gold and two Silver ENnies for the game line seem to also hint into that direction. I quite like the game myself.

I also heard unofficially that Changeling was outselling Hunter at the con and they were having to ship more copies of the book in.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Gods, I hope that the new Changeling's system is better than C:tD's. I suppose it must be, for the sales to be as good as they apparently are. Don't get me wrong - some of the other aspects of Changeling: the Dreaming were quite nice. But wow, did the system suck.

That goes for Hunter, too. I might have to check them out. . . hm.

 

[Voadam]

First I've heard of these mythical beasts

I actually think it's overpaid writers. You give the writers huge advances and minimal royalties, they publish the book, then have no reason to promote it. The publisher prints it and the loyal fanbase buys it up, reads it, puts it down, and gets ready for the next product. Which would be fine if they were publishing novels.

-IV

Overpaid RPG writers. With huge advances.

 

[teitan]

I don't recall Hunter being very popular. A cult hit like Wraith or Changeling but not popular. Demon was popular, we sold a LOT of that book but Hunter had barely a handful of books and they just sat on our shelves. Maybe it was just a local thing.

 

[Jadeite]

I don't recall Hunter being very popular. A cult hit like Wraith or Changeling but not popular. Demon was popular, we sold a LOT of that book but Hunter had barely a handful of books and they just sat on our shelves. Maybe it was just a local thing.

There were about 25 HtR books. Demon, on the other hand, had about 10 books and was a limited book about the same way Promethean and Changeling are now. I never got that far into Hunter myself (I was always more of a changeling, mage, dark ages person), the game had its followers. It also wasn't put to sleep the way changeling and wraith were (one might argue that hunter replaced wraith).

For a good survey of the number of releases each world of darkness line got I recommend the master WoD Booklist White Wolf released when they ended the old world of darkness line.
http://download.white-wolf.com/download/download.php?file_id=378

 

[eyebeams]

Yes, but you're assuming I mean specifically Hunter or Vampire or the other WoD companion games. I mean World of Darkness. Just the core game, even. I was using Hunter as an example of their poor marketing skills (ie: someone here wasn't even sure if it had hit the shelf, I assume after they'd already gone the main site to check, where the date wasn't posted).

Hunter has over 25 preview articles, a forum and a direct link to the order form on the front page. Compare with D&D, whose release schedule is three clicks deep from the home page and whose books cannot apparently, be ordered from the site. (Kind of puts your "I can't tell when it's coming out!" complaint in perspective -- well that, and you apparently *do* know all about it, so apparently for all its flaws, the company has communicated what it needed to to you -- that's a good thing.) One is not better than the other, but each has its own strategy.

 

[eyebeams]

On the other hand, the writers also give as good as they get, and a critical poster can quickly get gang-banged by multiple writers jumping to each others defense, making it a very wild west kinda place to shoot your mouth off.

I don't know about the others, but my wife wouldn't approve of that sort of thing.

 

[Imaro]

I wouldn't say Hunter the Vigil is doing bad... it's number 10 at Amazon in Role Playing & Fantasy and is selling more than the 4e MM and DMG over there. Also the only rpg items selling in greater numbers are those by WotC. I pre-ordered it, just because White Wolf did such a bang up job on CtL, and I love the show Supernatural on the WB... still gotta get caught up with Equinox Road though.

 

[SSquirrel]

I don't play games based on their art, but I really enjoyed the old Changling game the few times I got to play it. The new one seems darker and more depressing...which probably appeals to WW's base, but not to me.

Did I mention it also won Product of the Year as well? So apparently it has managed to be both a good looking and good game

Or as my wife (the resident Changeling freak) just added, "If the original Changeling wasn't depressing, you weren't playing it right". Her opinion obviously, not throwing wrongbadfun on people