On World of Darkness’ Cancellation

We’ve rounded up a couple of opinion pieces on World of Darkness’ cancellation, and while I’m not sure if Jay Barnson would agree with my definition for his blog post, I doubt Ben Kuchera would complain, considering that’s how Polygon itself officially categorizes his article.

A quote from Barnson’s post first:

But at least in the earlier editions, the game was really rules-light and background-heavy (often, sadly, with highly conflicting background information that didn’t always work together but hey, it was thick on atmosphere!). There was a lot of talking and role-playing, and a lot of just making-it-up as you go and rolling with it if it felt right. These are things that don’t lend themselves well to mechanical moderation. The two Vampire CRPGs that made it to the PC reflected this. Both had heavy atmospheres and storylines, but the rules systems were constrained to the point of only barely resembling the source material. They were made (video-gamey.)

Another issue worthy of an essay in the Storyteller’s Supplement in the first edition of the dice-and-paper game was that while the rules were technically compatible within the different types of characters in setting, they were nowhere close to (balanced.) In part, this was a result of the games being designed as completely stand-alone systems sharing core rules and a setting, but without any intention of really integrating them together. I suspect this was deliberate the original design team tried to make the best game about werewolves as they could, not the best game about werewolves that worked well characters from other games. The essay noted that a high-level mage could literally turn an elder vampire into lawn furniture. You could say that this made the mage overpowered but if an elder vampire caught a mage by surprise, said mage wouldn’t last ten seconds. The best the mage could hope for is to use his powers to escape to a place where he could then have time and safety to plan his new lawn-furniture construction enterprise.

In some online, human-moderated text-based worlds that used the rule system, the end result was pretty predictable. while characters across all game systems crossed paths, interacted socially, and occasionally worked together on plots, the vampire players really did vampire-y things together, the mages did mage-y things together, and so forth. Characters from other domains were more of a guest appearance.

How would this all work in a major, mass-market MMO? I was honestly keenly interested. It looks like the final answer was. (it didn’t.) As they said in the press release, (We dreamed of a game that would transport you completely into the sweeping fantasy of World of Darkness, but had to admit that our efforts were falling regretfully short.)

And one from Kuchera’s:

EVE Online can be a cold, slightly abstract game. You’re flying ships in the vastness of space, moving into and out of different areas controlled by player-run corporations. The criticism that the meta-game of economy manipulation and risk assessment can feel like a spreadsheet in space is funny and hyperbolic, but it’s also not always far off the mark.

Imagine the same freedom and scope given to human characters sending raiding parties into a city controlled by another group of vampires, where the fighting is hand to hand and power to power instead of the impersonal tactics of naval-style warfare. The table-top vampire role-playing games set in the World of Darkness focused on intrigue and power players in a way that was unique in tabletop role-playing at the time. It’s the perfect setting for CCP to work their magic in a game that would draw a very different audience than EVE Online.

It wouldn’t have been a game that delivered a story like so many other MMOs, it would be a sandbox for the players to create their own stories, and that was an amazing sales pitch for those of us who grew up playing White Wolf role-playing games in garages and basements redolent with the smell of cheap pot and cold pizza.

There had been other games set in this world before if you have never played Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines with the fan-made patches you have a new homework assignment but taking those core ideas and putting them in a living world controlled in large part by other players? It would feel like a table top campaign that never had to end.

This cancellation left a hole in the industry. No other game offers a similar experience, there are no companies that will directly benefit from its absence. No other games in this universe have been announced. This isn’t Star Wars, where the next game is always right around the corner. This loss feels real.