Quote from: Warthur;862308Did you miss the "of all time" clause or something?

Obviously.

Palladium's Rifts game setting has been going strong since 1990, and has been helmed by the same man for that entire time, there's been no reboots, no timeline shifts, just products after late products.

Where as Vampire: The Masquerade (which is the longest lasting line of World of Darkness, which is not a RPG, but rather a brand several RPGs made by White Wolf, which I would like to point no longer exists outside of two people and have not made any products since their release of the 20th Anniversary stuff, which has been a few years ago, 2011 I believe.  In fact, at Gencon 2012, they said that they were pulling out of the TTRPG business all together) came out in 1991.  And the Masquerade ended in 1998-2004, with the Revised edition, and was replaced with a complete -supposed- re-imagining called The Requiem.

So if anyone has a right to claim that they are the second most popular RPG in existence, as much as I personally despise the Palladium system (It's clunky, overbearing and frankly, Megadamage is a badly thought out idea and should have been remade long ago) it's got the right to that title.

Quote from: Warthur;862254White Wolf and all the White Wolf IPs that they still own (so the World of Darkness and Exalted, basically, what with Scion and the Trinityverse being sold to Onyx Path outright) have been bought from CCP by Paradox Interactive. This is the Paradox that put out Crusader Kings, not the one who's sitting on the Conan IP. Here's the press release.

No word on what's going on with Onyx Path, but the guy Paradox has parachuted in as the new White Wolf CEO has a background in licensing which may be a sign that they intend to keep the relationship going. (Taking the tabletop RPG development in house would be a crazy risk anyway.)

Frankly, I think this is great news; I can see all sorts of ways in which Paradox could get great videogame content out of the IP. They have a good relationship to Obsidian thanks to publishing Pillars of Eternity, so they might be able to get them to work on a Bloodlines 2 or something, plus a Dark Ages Vampire expansion for Crusader Kings II would fit magnificently into that game's setup.

Paradox is actually two companies: Paradox and Paradox Interactive. Paradox is a company that owns intellectual property (such as Conan and Solomon Kane) and it owns a subsidiary called Paradox Interactive that makes video games. Paradox Interactive's annual sales are about 25M euro so it has little money to directly make Vampire related games in short term at least (as PI already has its pipeline busy).

The new IP they bought is held in separate legal entity. This means they intend to run it as a separate brand (and company). Wester (the CEO) made it clear they intend to pursuit different kinds of media. This is euphemism for pimping out IP (to stuff like video games, comics, novels, TV, live events etc).

Their bizarre ownership of Conan and Solomon Kane causes me to boycott any of their computer games (and products in general).

It's absolutely insane that a man from Texas who died in 1936 with no children has IP that belongs to a company in Sweden. It should be in the public domain, period.

Quote from: JeremyR;862379Their bizarre ownership of Conan and Solomon Kane causes me to boycott any of their computer games (and products in general).

It's absolutely insane that a man from Texas who died in 1936 with no children has IP that belongs to a company in Sweden. It should be in the public domain, period.

Actually, it IS public domain according to the Copyright Act of 1909 (which is the only version that would have fallen under, and requires a copyright mark, if I'm reading it right), Paradox simply uses it's lawyers to bully anyone into believing they own it.  And money makes it happen.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;862380Actually, it IS public domain according to the Copyright Act of 1909 (which is the only version that would have fallen under, and requires a copyright mark, if I'm reading it right), Paradox simply uses it's lawyers to bully anyone into believing they own it.  And money makes it happen.

Those assholes are the ones who bought White Wolf?

Quote from: Nikita;862377Paradox is actually two companies: Paradox and Paradox Interactive. Paradox is a company that owns intellectual property (such as Conan and Solomon Kane) and it owns a subsidiary called Paradox Interactive that makes video games. Paradox Interactive's annual sales are about 25M euro so it has little money to directly make Vampire related games in short term at least (as PI already has its pipeline busy).

Not actually the case any more - Paradox Entertainment and Paradox Interactive split up a while back. Paradox Entertainment, the Conan guys, don't own White Wolf; Paradox Interactive do.

Quote from: JeremyR;862379It's absolutely insane that a man from Texas who died in 1936 with no children has IP that belongs to a company in Sweden. It should be in the public domain, period.

There are several points about Conan and Soloman Kane

1) Conan, Hyboria, and other terms associated with Howard's stories have are trademarked and actively maintained.

2) Many of Howard's stories in their original form are in the public domain now.

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/36031

There more under PD on the austrialian Project Gutenberg site.

The biggest barriers to publishing Conan stuff are the trademarks and the fact that Conan achieved his modern popularity with a series of pastiches combining the original weird tales with material by De Camp and Carter. Those are still under copyright. The vast majority of Conan IP was created afterwards.

So while one could publish Conan stuff with the Public Domain stuff you would have to be real careful to limit yourself to the material. And because the amount of post 60s Conan IP is vast chances are the dickheads at Paradox can make a case that anything original was rip off of something already done.

Unrelated to Conan, most of what H Beam Piper wrote is under public domain.

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/8301

He is one of my favorite science fiction authors.

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;862365I didn't follow those x20 crowdfundings - are there any Kickstarters dangling around, funded but not yet fulfilled?

I think they always have something in the pipeline. I haven't checked but I get their updates, I just haven't been reading them as I'm not currently playing anything from OP right now.

The Mage and Werewolf 20 lines have a pretty full roster of product lined up.

I thought Paradox Entertainment were the guys bringing out the new version of Kult... but that's not the same group that bought White Wolf?

That is right, they aren't.

Paradox Interactive is one of the best videogame companies out there, along CD Projekt Red.

This only matters to me if they put out an RTS where you get to be a vampire Prince or Pentex executive.

jg

Quote from: estar;862413Unrelated to Conan, most of what H Beam Piper wrote is under public domain.

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/8301

He is one of my favorite science fiction authors.

Sadly, Lord Kalvan is not among the titles.