• Agent Karyo@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    It’s almost certainly going to be complete shit (if you are looking for a roleplaying game with strong world building and well written characters).

    A mediocre action-RPG with a VTM theme. And Paradox are going to release a whole bunch of pricey DLCs while abandoning the core game and ignoring critical bugs.

    I used to buy Paradox games 10+ years ago, by this point they are a European EA.

    • toman@lemmy.zip
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      1 day ago

      And paradox are going to release a whole bunch of pricey DLCs while abandoning the core game and ignoring critical bugs.

      I wanted to push back on that. I know they do that with their strategy games, but to do it with story-driven games too? “That’s far-fetched,” I thought. But no, you were spot on: There’s day 1DLC, two clans are behind a pay wall.

      • Agent Karyo@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        I would have held my nose with the Day1 DLC if the game was good, but nah, they transformed it into an action RPG.

        It’s really too bad that Paradox was the company that got the VTMB license.

        • dylanmorgan@slrpnk.net
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          1 day ago

          From what I can tell, Paradox bought White Wolf and is actually licensing the publication rights for the TTRPG to another company now.

          Which means I’ll probably never see a Werewolf or Changeling game.

          • Zagorath@aussie.zoneOP
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            7 hours ago

            I replied to @Agent_Karyo@lemmy.world with more information about the corporate structure, but the TL;DR for the purposes of your comment is that Paradox bought White Wolf, dissolved White Wolf shortly after V5’s release in 2018, and brought White Wolf back earlier this year and White Wolf is back in charge of both licensing and publishing. (I suspect they also have in-house development, but it’s not super clear.)

            I’m not 100% clear on what you’re getting at in your final paragraph, but Werewolf W5 came out in 2023, and there have been numerous non-vampire World of Darkness video games released during the Paradox era, including 2020’s Werewolf: The Apocalypse — Heart of the Forest.

            As for Changeling, after doing Vampire: The Masquerade, Hunter: The Reckoning, and Werewolf: The Apocalypse, the lead designer at White Wolf has said their next likely release will be a 5th edition Mage: The Ascension, but he also hinted at Changeling: The Dreaming, so it’s not unreasonably likely that that will get a 5th edition release some time in the next decade. 2018 for VtM, HtR in 2022, WtA in 2023, I’d think worst case 2027 for Mage, 2031/32 for Changeling, unless they stumble across problems that force it to be cancelled.

            • Zagorath@aussie.zoneOP
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              7 hours ago

              Yeah Paradox bought White Wolf in 2015, a couple of months after the previous publishers announced they were working on 5th edition. White Wolf brought the development of the game in house, underneath Paradox.

              Then shortly after the release of V5 in 2018 there were a few scandals within White Wolf, and Paradox dissolved the company, handing off development to Modiphius with Paradox retaining final approval rights.

              In late 2020 they partnered with Renegade to do the publishing of future V5 products. Paradox Interactive were the developers of Werewolf W5, and Renegade published it. It’s unclear to me who exactly is developing W5 and V5 supplementary material, but I think it might be a mix of Paradox, Modiphius, and maybe others.

              Then earlier this year, Paradox announced they were re-forming White Wolf to be the company in charge of licensing and publishing of World of Darkness content.

              It’s all super complicated, but the bottom line is that since before the release of 5th edition, Paradox has been the big business daddy.

                • Zagorath@aussie.zoneOP
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                  7 hours ago

                  When you lay it out like that it does sound like a mess.

                  But actually looking at what they’ve done, from the outside, it wouldn’t be obvious at all. They’ve had a steady pace of what seem to be fairly well-received books, and accompanied them with decent media such as the Jason Carl–storytold LA By Night actual play series. A lot of the old folks don’t love the changes to lore and mechanics, especially in Werewolf, but more broadly they seem to have attracted relatively positive reviews.