Unkillable Cat's Unpatriotic CCP Mockery Thread (aka WoD got cancelled)

[m_s0]

I'm just surprised that apparently there's still people who believed this thing would come out.

How about letting Obsidian make that VtM RPG now, CCP?

I wouldn't hold my breath. CRPGs are relatively expensive so I'd expect shitty mobile games or something along those lines before anything else. A proper (whatever that means these days) CRPG is probably more unlikely now than it's been for the past few years.

 

[Corporate_Jew_Master]

Every time an MMO dies at development is a cause for celebration.

Now the issue is, who does one trust enough to deliver a (at the very least) enjoyable sequel to Bloodlines?

 

[set]

A lot of people here jusst don't get it. CCP exists solely because they followed the sandbox "UO-like" MMO model. WODMMO wouldn't have been about "raid mechanics" or anything of the sort. The developers were committed to delivering an "authentic" WOD-experience. The devs were incredible fans of VTMB and went so far as to hire the same guy to do WODMMO's soundtrack; they said it was their inspiration for the gameplay as well. If you actually read any of the dev interviews, you would have known that they were at least trying to create something meaningful.

It was astonishingly clear in 2012 this game would never be released when CCP casually laid everyone off and said they were downsizing the game's production. Even after they rehired most of those people three months later -- it was clear CCP was no longer invested in the product.

The lack of any alpha screens and the lack of any concrete information after nearly a decade is sufficient evidence to say this never went into actual production. The devs claimed to have had several 100-person internal alpha play tests, but who knows that that actually means. It's pretty likely they did not even have the groundwork for massively multiplayer movement, nevermind anything more complex like combat, intrigue or stealth.

It's a shame CCP made a poor investment in DUST (which is what finally killed this game off) and it's an even greater shame that WhiteWolf's licenses may be stuck in limbo for a long time to come. This game could have been good, because the base mechanics in EVE are good.

The only good news is at least people will stop talking about this game. I tried to convince people for a long time that they were wasting their hope on this game, but at least now it can be laid to rest. Hopefully, the designers that left CCP can join other MMO teams and influence their design - 50 some people is a lot to suddenly be let loose back into the industry. I wouldn't be surprised if most were burnt out though, they have to start all over again.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

This is just another sign that CCP is struggling to survive. I know over 20 people personally that were CCP employees around 2010, from every branch of the company. Today there are 6 left. While a few of them were hit by the downsizing of 2012, it's the subsequent stream of rats fleeing the sinking ship that's had me worried. People that have worked with CCP since Eve Online was launched, and were vital lynchpins for the internal structure of CCP have now left the company, most of them now partying hard over at Riot Games (League of Legends).

And whom do they hire to replace them? Mooks from Something Awful that generally last for about a year and veteran gamers that are clueless about their jobs. Case in point, the very accurate rumours about the layoffs yesterday were posted on Reddit two days before they happened. CCP Falcon, formerly known ingame as Verone from VETO Corp, had this to say about the rumours:

This is nothing more than a rumor with no basis of fact. Hope that's enough of a confirmation for you guys.

This is the overall level of competence that can be found within the company nowadays.

In the Council of Stellar Management's latest meeting, it was revealed that they're either incapable or unwilling to move Eve Online in the direction it needs to go. Eve Online, their biggest cash cow. They're clueless about how to solve the Nullsec problems (and the answers they do have are being constantly blocked by Nullsec-friendly CCP staff, metagaming FTW), they don't know how the 10-year old legacy code that runs the game works anymore, and they don't have the manpower to code new content into the game. In short, they're dead in the water. The only thing they can do at the moment is juggle around some numbers (rebalancing ships and modules, nerfing industry, etc.) and hope it fools the subscribers into thinking that it's an expansion with "new" content. What little content is being added is a thinly-veiled attempt to milk more money out of the subscribers, like a limited form of custom ship skins and Limited Edition spaceships.

Oh, and Dust is actually turning a profit, so there's no chance of it being cancelled anytime soon. Valkyrie, the Oculus Rift exclusive dogfighting title, is more likely to be axed than Dust.

 

[set]

Hey, it's pretty competent for a known employee to play down rumors.

And where do you get the info that Dust is turning a profit? How is that even possible with its development burden and general negative consensus from critics and players alike?

 

[Unkillable Cat]

to move Eve Online in the direction it needs to go

and what is that direction?

Forward. The game has been stagnant for years. On that note, a new devblog released just hours ago introduced their overhaul of the Industry UI. It's just like I said, they're reduced to juggling numbers around and doing minor improvements to the UI.

As for the Dust being profitable... I dug around and the source stated that Dust is "cash-flow positive". That may not necessarily mean that it's turning a profit, but it also means there's little reason to axe it.

 

[Kane]

I know over 20 people personally that were CCP employees around 2010, from every branch of the company.

people leaving a company other than the company sinking, unheard of.

EVE could be a game i would be willing to pay for it they make the stupid and boring go away, enable 0.0 sec everywhere and make shooting stuff fun.

 

[set]

nulsec everywhere would be a terrible idea, it's more interesting as it currently is, since in safesec you can still be killed in pvp, it's just riskier (but potentially more rewarding) for the attacker

the only thing holding EVE back from having wow-numbers is the combat, which is charming for all of five minutes and then very dull; of course, any change to combat drastically effects pvp so it's unlikely to occur

 

[Spectacle]

WoD sounds like it would be a great setting for a mmorpg, until you remember that setting and lore in mmorpgs exist solely as drapes to put over the raid mechanics - will Frodo, Frodor, Frodike, Frodereke and their 20 brothers destroy the one ring, or will they grind Golum for legendary drops?

Also, vampires and other supernatural creatures in WoD are supposed to be extremely rare, so you wouldn't be able to portray the setting anything like in the tabletop games unless you had strict player restrictions where only a small number of players were allowed to anything other than human.

 

[Space Satan]

The FUCK is THIS?
http://vaulderie.bloodlinesresurgencemod.com/

 

[Corporate_Jew_Master]

 

[Crane]

Expected, but damn, I was kind of interested in this.

Relevant: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/florida-gop-candidate-vampire-role-player
Guy running for senator took a huge hit in popularity b/c he dresses up as a vampire from the WoD.

 

[SuicideBunny]

conservative republican vampire? how cliche.

 

[Spectacle]

Reinforcing the stereotype that conservative voters are humorless cunts.

 

[hivemind]

EVE could be a game i would be willing to pay for it they make the stupid and boring go away, enable 0.0 sec everywhere and make shooting stuff fun.

And to think that the zeitgeist of this website is rabidly opposed to the dumbing down of video games RPGs in order to appeal to retards.

 

[Kane]

EVE could be a game i would be willing to pay for it they make the stupid and boring go away, enable 0.0 sec everywhere and make shooting stuff fun.

And to think that the zeitgeist of this website is rabidly opposed to the dumbing down of video games RPGs in order to appeal to retards.

indeed. unfortunately we now have our good share of retards as well.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

This is not sad news, despite those that complain about it.
While a WOD game would have been nice, it was a fucking MMO for Christ's Sake.
Fuck em.

 

[SuicideBunny]

i'd be more thrilled about a human occupied landfill mmorpg, tbh.

 

[Night Goat]

Expected, but damn, I was kind of interested in this.

Relevant: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/florida-gop-candidate-vampire-role-player
Guy running for senator took a huge hit in popularity b/c he dresses up as a vampire from the WoD.

Fucking Ventrue.

 

[set]

The F UCK is THIS?
http://vaulderie.bloodlinesresurgencemod.com/

Vapourware. I tried to join the team about two years ago, there was like two guys max working on it. The IRC had one guy in it. I downloaded the source from the GIT and tried to assess how much work had been done - basically, Santa Monica is maybe 30% finished (at most). An overwhelming majority of work probably still has yet to be done.

There's the challenge of converting a lot of the game's custom python scripting into something modern Source can run. And a lot of those awesome animations in source need to be rigged... and then you need to basically reprogram all of the quest logic, spell logic and shit from scratch. In Source. Yeesh. Have fun. Basically, you have a prefab game - all the assets and animations and shit are more or less ready to be used, but you need to build everything else from scratch.

You'd honestly be better porting it to some other engine if you had a good way to recreate the maps and could re-use the animations. It'd be a lot smoother process probably. It's that, or source is a lot easier to use than what I've experienced.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

the only thing holding EVE back from having wow-numbers is the combat, which is charming for all of five minutes and then very dull; of course, any change to combat drastically effects pvp so it's unlikely to occur

Any combat scenario involving capital ships is dull as dishwater, that is true. But sub-capital PVP scenarios can be loads of fun as long as both sides agree on one limitation beforehand: Numbers. The problem is that this is EVE: The complete lack of trust and total faith in metagaming ruins the idea for any noble acts of restraint. Currently all major conflicts in EVE are resolved by simply throwing enough people at it until superior firepower is achieved or the other side gets bored and buggers off.

Case in point: The current live events, where some Caldari renegades are being hunted as they just stole some capital ships from the Navy, and the Navy is inviting players to help them in the hunt. The location of the ships are announced, and whomever accomplishes certain feats related to the destruction of the cap ship gets rewarded with PLEX (the in-game one-month subscription token). One of the oldest nullsec alliances in EVE, Pandemic Legion, decided to ruin the event for everyone else by bringing in 90 Navy Apocalypse ships and a wing of Logistics ships (healers) and proceeded to HEAL the target capital ship so that no one but themselves could claim all the prizes.

That's not all. CCP claims that all assets used in these events, both capitals and PLEX, are stolen from real money traders that they've busted and banned. Not 5 minutes had passed since the first event had ended when people started talking that the "assets" seized were actually from Pandemic Legion themselves (since all the big alliances partake in RMT because for some people EVE Online is their major source of income) and that CCP was looking for a legitimate way to return the assets to them, because metagame.

 

[Norfleet]

Case in point: The current live events, where some Caldari renegades are being hunted as they just stole some capital ships from the Navy, and the Navy is inviting players to help them in the hunt. The location of the ships are announced, and whomever accomplishes certain feats related to the destruction of the cap ship gets rewarded with PLEX (the in-game one-month subscription token). One of the oldest nullsec alliances in EVE, Pandemic Legion, decided to ruin the event for everyone else by bringing in 90 Navy Apocalypse ships and a wing of Logistics ships (healers) and proceeded to HEAL the target capital ship so that no one but themselves could claim all the prizes.

Makes sense to me. Why would you allow your enemies to claim your prize? In a game like this, everyone not on your side is an enemy, and these resources belong to you, so why allow your enemies to get anything when it is within your power to prevent it?

That's not all. CCP claims that all assets used in these events, both capitals and PLEX, are stolen from real money traders that they've busted and banned. Not 5 minutes had passed since the first event had ended when people started talking that the "assets" seized were actually from Pandemic Legion themselves (since all the big alliances partake in RMT because for some people EVE Online is their major source of income) and that CCP was looking for a legitimate way to return the assets to them, because metagame.

Seems to me like it's a mess they've created for themselves by trying to regulate what people can do with their own stuff, such as, say, sell it. So meh.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Makes sense to me. Why would you allow your enemies to claim your prize? In a game like this, everyone not on your side is an enemy, and these resources belong to you, so why allow your enemies to get anything when it is within your power to prevent it?

I agree with you there, were this an everyday, business-as-usual activity within the game. But this is a CCP-sponsored event, with the intent to stimulate the social aspects of the game. You would think that CCP, as a developer, would have minimal safeguards against one group just hogging the whole thing for themselves, but their incompetence shines again. Try going to a football game where the ref's out smoking and the winner is decided by which team has the most amont of hooligans in the stands.

Seems to me like it's a mess they've created for themselves by trying to regulate what people can do with their own stuff, such as, say, sell it. So meh.

The EULA clearly states that the player doesn't own ANYTHING in the game, it's all CCP's property which they permit you to use in-game as you see fit. The problem starts when people try to sell their in-game "property" for real world money, then someone else is profiting off CCP's hard work and they won't let that happen. Of course, the situation isn't as black/white as what I wrote, but you get the idea.

 

[Duraframe300]

The F UCK is THIS?
http://vaulderie.bloodlinesresurgencemod.com/

Vapourware. I tried to join the team about two years ago, there was like two guys max working on it. The IRC had one guy in it. I downloaded the source from the GIT and tried to assess how much work had been done - basically, Santa Monica is maybe 30% finished (at most). An overwhelming majority of work probably still has yet to be done.

There's the challenge of converting a lot of the game's custom python scripting into something modern Source can run. And a lot of those awesome animations in source need to be rigged... and then you need to basically reprogram all of the quest logic, spell logic and shit from scratch. In Source. Yeesh. Have fun. Basically, you have a prefab game - all the assets and animations and shit are more or less ready to be used, but you need to build everything else from scratch.

You'd honestly be better porting it to some other engine if you had a good way to recreate the maps and could re-use the animations. It'd be a lot smoother process probably. It's that, or source is a lot easier to use than what I've experienced.

They are changing to Unity according to their latest news.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

hell of a downgrade in visuals it seems.

 

[Delbaeth]

And before another WOD mobile tablet game.
Because you know, follow the market.