Whaddaya reckon?

Doesn't sound like too bad of a thing - might bring more awareness of the hobby.

A WoD MMORPG? That's more goth-ness than MySpace and livejournal combined!

If World of Warcraft D20 is any indication: More really badly written RPGs.  

so now it'll be possible to mine the asteroid-hearts of goths all over the universe for precious Angst-onium, and take it back to the Hot Topic Space Station and sell it!

CCP is buying White Wolf and not the other way, am I reading that right?

Quote from: JongWKCCP is buying White Wolf and not the other way, am I reading that right?

Looks that way. At least the management will be done by CCP. Which might not be that bad, as even IT management seems to be better than their RPG counterparts.

I think the publishing and CCG business of White Wolf is a major factor in the acquisition, erm, merging. MMORPGs can publish lots of support material and branch out in the physical market...

Hmm, what is the share of freelancers for WW design? Some good game designers might be worth buying, too, but if you could just hire them for projects...

But that's just the superficial justification for the mortal world. The dark truth lies elswhere: With their combined internet power, the new company can finally force ICANN to release a new top-level domain: .hagen !!

Quote from: kregmosierso now it'll be possible to mine the asteroid-hearts of goths all over the universe for precious Angst-onium, and take it back to the Hot Topic Space Station and sell it!

HA HA HA HA!

Wait, what's a CCP?

Quote from: Dr Rotwang!Wait, what's a CCP?

That's a from the cold war. When the soviet union argued amonst themselves, they dropped the first C, drank some vodka and broke some noses.

"In MY country, nose breaks you!"

This CCP (no relation to the Chinese Communist Party that I know of) hails from Iceland. So the merger won't affect the average tan of employees.

It's a very interesting development. Normally, you'd see a licensing deal to do the sort of stuff that the two companies are talking about, like an RPG adaptation of an MMO, and vice versa.

I think the WW people see online gaming as the future, and they want to get in on that future now. Look at how aggressively they've moved into PDF publishing. It looks like CCP wants to expand EVE into other media. The WOD is also a good match for the style of MMO that CCP produces.

This could be something as simple as two companies look at each other, both thinking "You do a good job doing what I want to do," and then merging.

Would a MMORPG without levelling work? A straight adaption of the "storyteller" system to computers doesn't seem granular enough for the typical gaming action you see there.

Hmm, say you create one immortal character and by choosing different servers, you'd be able to play him in different time periods. That would have some weird influences on the experience system, but even that could be tackled. Fighting in the crusades to "unlock" some special ability for your modern, Blade-ish vampire...

But I think any synergy effects of the merger will be far in the future. If I'm not mistaken, a computer company currently owns the intellectual property for Conan, and I haven't seen much cross-pollination in that area. The Mongoose RPG and the Age of Conan MMORPG don't seem to have any overlap.

I think the area most ripe for cross-pollination would be in management.  This gives both companies a reason to shitcan all the dead weight in their respective offices.

This is, of course, dependent on both companies running like big-boy businesses and not fatbeard socialist collectives.

QuoteWould a MMORPG without levelling work?

EVE Online IS an RPG without levelling.