Former CCP dev claims WoD might have been cancelled (NOW Confirmed)

[Cahalith]

"Fresh" out of Reddit, guys!

Former CCP staff here (edit: Someone rightfully pointed out some proof would help, so see this comment[1] here). I'm seeing a lot of unconfirmed talk on Facebook from current and former members of CCP about the closure of the majority of the ATL office. It appears that WoD may have been shuttered.

What details I've picked up from informal conversations:

• ATL EVE Online GMs will remain.
• A handful of other administrative staff will remain: likely to be HR, Office Managers, Legal, and so on.
• The rest of the staff, which constitutes the overwhelming majority of people in CCP working on WoD, is seemingly on the verge of being let go.

To be explicitly clear: None of this is confirmed and its all second-hand knowledge at best, but I'm seeing former CCP members link to their new company's recruitment pages and reach out to current staff to help them with job relocation already, and lots of vague worries expressed by current staff.

If this is true, it's incredibly sad news for a lot of very hardworking people. The majority of people working on WoD are a standup bunch and it's terribly sad to imagine that their years of work may not result in a title. This can be even worse for those for whom this was their first major job in the industry, as they've now spent years working on a title, but its failure to release would mean they cannot easily include it as part of their resume when moving forward to new opportunities (this is where the reach out elsewhere helps, and its a testament to the people who in the past worked at CCP that they're doing what they can to help now - it really is a family-like community in times like these).

And of course, it's sad news for the many fans of the IP who hoped to play their beloved game in a brand new medium. A bad day all around, if this turns out to be really happening.

As for EVE Online, it will of course likely remain mostly unaffected if not entirely. It is obviously CCPs chief source of income and therefore at no great risk. If anything, this might help shore up support for it as CCP narrows its focus back towards fewer titles (EVE, DUST and development of Valkyrie, alongside whatever resources they may be continuing to put into mobile development). CCP has certainly spread itself dangerously thin and I've said as much in the past[2] the last time WoD-related layoffs happened.

There should be more official news after the weekend. Given that the rumor mill is in full action right now, at the very least if this is not happening, you can hopefully expect CCP to quell them officially by then, or alternatively confirm them.

My hunch, however, based on years working for them, is that this is real and was something of an inevitability. I could write a whole lot about problems within CCP and why I saw this coming, but given that people may possibly soon be losing their jobs and not sure how to feed their kids/pay mortgages/etc it doesn't seem appropriate. I will say only that the thought of WoD staff being let go makes me pretty damn angry, and would certainly vindicate many of the negative opinions I still have (and other former staff share) of CCP's upper management.

CCP Falcon immediately dropped by to make an "official comment":

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

Oh, boy. It's yet to be seen whether this comment holds any water or not, but so far it seems there is something going on in Atlanta right now and we could be having an official statement by CCP next week. Honestly? Even if it ends up being nothing, this is going to crush whatever morale is left among the WoD community. We still don't know whether there'll be a WoD panel at Fanfest or not and all this silence is now deafening after that second round of layoffs.

I guess we should wait and see what happens.

[Signothorn]

I often see similar claims all over Facebook, all unnamed sources, or people speaking with anonymity. As pessimistic as I have been towards CCPGames' engagement with the community on the subject, I don't see any of these rumors as credible until CCPGames says it. They also just recently added WoDMMO artwork to their own site, so it's more the reason to discount the rumor. From time to time we also get trickles of info of it's continued existence, like this recent article:

http://www.decaturish.com/2014/03/game-decatur-companys-world/

[Nigama]

Yeah.  What Signo said.

My eyes right now are on Eve's Fanfest coming up.  For better or worse, we'll probably get some basic pieces of info there, at least enough to reassure everyone they're still working on it.  I think if they have no panel for WoD that'd be a bad sign, but still not definitive.  Last year Chris actively didn't want to do a panel but was pushed to by CCP.  Chris has also said that Eve Fanfest is just that... a fanfest for *EVE* not the WoD.

Part of me still hopes for Fall.  Given that Eve Fanfest is in Spring, and the two major updates for Eve are in Summer and Winter, Fall is really the only time for the WoD to shine and make its own announcements.  You saw that reflected in the dates that were chosen for the Grand Masquerade, the event in Atlanta the following year (the name escapes me) and the Grey Ghost Masquerade in LA in 2013.  All happened in the Fall and all offered us tidbits about the WoD MMO.  I expect something similar to that to continue....


The sad part is that every year that rolls around, I keep pushing the possible date off by two years from where we currently are.  I wish CCP would shit or get off the pot, to quote Clerks.  Make the game or give it to someone who will, stop putzing around and wasting an excellent IP.  The work that I see fans do, that I'd like to stress that they don't get paid to do, far outpaces anything I've seen the corporate giant of CCP put out concerning the WoD.  It's a fucking sad state of affairs, my friends.


Nigama
I think Hope may have been the worst thing released by Pandora.

[Radical21]

Yeah.  What Signo said.

My eyes right now are on Eve's Fanfest coming up.  For better or worse, we'll probably get some basic pieces of info there, at least enough to reassure everyone they're still working on it.  I think if they have no panel for WoD that'd be a bad sign, but still not definitive.  Last year Chris actively didn't want to do a panel but was pushed to by CCP.  Chris has also said that Eve Fanfest is just that... a fanfest for *EVE* not the WoD.

Which is why I always thought we should build a new inspired mythos and a multiplayer mod for one of the sandbox game engines but sadly even that goal seems too ambitious with no return(even a text-based Nethack looking game)

A long while has passed since I've dealt with anything WOD, I don't even play it online at any capacity, its kind of sad in some ways.

Yeah I know we will always have VTMB but WOD is more interesting as grounds for social exploration in my eyes.

[Claudia Vonigner]

Truth.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-04-14-ccp-cancels-vampire-mmo-world-of-darkness

[Seifer]

A truly sad, sad day...

[Cahalith]

Came here as soon as I heard the news. Oh, man.

Look.

Like many of you I've been following this game's development since the very beginning. There were years when the first thing I did every single morning was to google around new articles about WoD. I've been discussing for years with some of you fine gentlemen/ladies almost everything that's to be discussed about the WoD MMO, to the point that, years ago, we reached a place where there just was nothing else to discuss. Back in the day I'd watch with true glee how sometimes some of the things I posted around here found their way into major game news sites (remember that 2010 release date? Oh, man, how naïve all of us were then!), some CCP dev even mentioned my (and Valamyr's!) coverage of the WoD panel at Fanfest two years ago. Also, remember that time when Chris showed up and discussed stuff with us? This community was the first community worldwide to create a place for us WoD MMO enthusiasts to discuss about permanight and whether the MMO was going to be oWoD or nWoD.

What I'm trying to say is this: I don't regret this for a minute. This was a fun journey, guys, count me in for the next adventure!

[Cahalith]

Apparently some WoD MMO screenshots might be surfacing! Check them out!

EDIT: More pics!

Nevermind, dbs has already posted the links over here!

I should read the forum more often... sigh...

[ush]

Can't say I'm suprised at this, its been on the cards for a while

One thing it does show is that CCP are one trick wonders, they havent the chops to repeat the sucess of eve

oh and that chris mcd is a bit of a bullshit merchant 

[Cahalith]

Jon Selin posted this on Twitter, I think it sums it all perfectly:



To those 56 devs who were laid off today, and to those others who'd been laid off back in 2011 or during last Christmas: I might never get to see what you worked on so hard for so many years but thank you for all your hard work, guys. It was an awesome dream and you did what you could to make it a reality, I can't ask for more. Wish you guys the best because you deserve nothing less.

oh and that chris mcd is a bit of a bullshit merchant 

Nah, even though he must surely have known that this was coming, he couldn't say it out loud without some previous announcement by CCP. Instead he went out of his way to curb the expectatives for a WoD panel this Fanfest. An almost classy move compared to what CCP Falcon did in that Reddit thread (outright deny the rumour a few days before the announcement).

[Nigama]

The question now is.... does CCP sit on the IP or sell it back to Onyx Path Publishing or some other group that might actually *do* something with it.

Let's be honest.  Chris was a bullshit merchant, and the WoD was vaporware.  White Wolf tried to save itself by selling itself to CCP, and that failed horribly.  As OPP has shown, they had NO NEED to do that.  All they did in the end was kill their company and fire off all the original members of the White Wolf team.  In short, White Wolf has failed... both themselves and us, the fans. 

The *only* hope now is that CCP sells the IP to someone who will do something with it.  Whether that's a new single player game like Bloodlines or a company that would continue to work on an MMO.  However, I think it's just as likely CCP sits on the IP so that no one else can make money off of it.  I strongly dislike Hilmar (and Eve), after today.

I'll try to deal with my anger in a constructive way, but it would be an understatement to say that I'm very disappointed.

Nigama

[Ashtone]

Well what a terrible shame...

This was one of the games I'd been looking forward to for a long, long time. Although over the past couple of years I kind of suspected this would happen, I'd clung to a tiny scrap of hope that the game would pull through. Ah well :(.

you have to wonder what kind of financial state ccp are in for this to have happened. they must of spent a fair bit of money developing the game to the state shown in those pictures. With dust 514 being something of a failure and eve valkryie, a dogfighting simulator, looks like its going to come out just in time to get demolished by star citizen. Looks a bit bleak for ccp at the moment.

[Signothorn]

I'm wanting to think about what's next for the WoD IP, but I'm thinking more about the White Wolf employees who lost their jobs over the last couple of years. It was really more than just a job to them, they loved working there and were really passionate about it. It likely felt like the death of a thousand paper cuts for those tho weren't laid off in 2011, trying to save the sinking ship.

[dbs]

Here we are gents. I haven't been on PV as an active poster very long, but I've been following this game out the gate like most of you and the disappointment is pretty real. That being said, it's sort of a relief. It's officially over and we can just call it a day now.

I have to say though, some of the community responses are rather disgusting. I'm less concerned about the future of WoD as an mmo and more concerned about the people that lost their jobs or White Wolf as a whole. CCP pretty much ran a truck straight through WW as a company (although, they are partially to blame I guess) and it remains to be seen what happens now. I could honestly give less of a fuck about WoDMMO right now - If this opens the door to a new, fleshed out SP game I'll actually even be happy.

As for CCP, they handled the whole thing poorly - Falcon's approach in the Reddit thread was actually disgusting. I'm not even mad at them either though. Between EVE suffering from the same problems (a garbled mess of legacy and spaghetti code), DUST being a colossal failure and Valkyrie being a niche space shooter, derived from an even more niche space MMO requiring the use of a niche peripheral I'm sure they have their plates full. I wonder how long the joyous cries of some of the more degenerate EVE players will last when they realize axing WoDMMO doesn't address any of the above.

My thoughts go out to everyone that lost their job today. Here's hoping WoD eventually gets the singleplayer game it deserves.

Expect more images of the final alpha build to go up soon. I'm however respecting that people want to internalize and get over the whole ordeal first, but I will be badgering a certain someone and should hopefully at least share some more images of what could've been very soon.

[Claudia Vonigner]

"We basically just feel that we overreached with WoD in its initial concept and were trying to achieve too much in the first iteration of the project. We've worked hard and adjusted the plan a number of times along the way but felt the project just wan't true to the original concept that was laid out.

The decision was made to cancel the project because we don't feel we met our target of creating a fully immersive experience set in the WoD universe, and felt it was in our best interests to put an end to the project rather than retro-fitting it and re-hashing it further."

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=337022&find=unread

Interesting stuff.