Just back from Atlanta by Night. Had a great time there- it was half talking to fans about White Wolf projects and the Onyx Path and half talking to old friends in and out of CCP. Here are the results of Justin’s live outlining session for V20’s Anarchs Unbound: http://whitewolfblogs.com/v20/2012/10/01/open-development-anarchs-unbound-live-outlining-session-results/ It was a fun session with a lot, a lot, of audience involvement, which was really the whole idea. This is the first step- a mind map- of the topics to be considered in the book and next Justin will create a more standard outline based on the mind map. Go ahead and comment and add to the mix there on the blogs- it’s still a work in progress.
So, obviously, Eddy and I talked a lot about AbN at lunch today, and the various business deals that were discussed there. We talked a fair bit about other conventions too, as I’d like Onyx Path to have more of a presence at cons this coming year. Unfortunately, Eddy was still recovering from his ear issues and so was very selective about what parties and such he attended as he can only do so much before vertigo sets in- me and Justin were less circumspect, as I think we started off dizzy and just kept going. And we talked about the W20 Kickstarter, which leads to this:
– So the big news is that the W20 Deluxe edition Kickstarter goes live at 9am Eastern US time tomorrow, Tuesday the 2nd. I was asked to announce a day in advance so that those reward tiers that have a limited number of slots aren’t filled up before folks are aware that the KS has started. But this brings up a good point that I will digress to now:
What is Kickstarter and Why is W20 Being Featured There?
Basically, Kickstarter is a process where people can pledge money to help achieve a particular project goal. In our case, we need funds to enable the expensive cover treatments and other deluxe elements like gilded page edges and silk ribbon bookmarks that go into making the 20th Anniversary books so cool. In order to make the process more fun, there is a ladder of reward tiers based on the amount you’re willing to pledge to help us reach this goal. At first the rewards are mostly PDFs and such, but then we get into rewards which provide you with the actual book, and even higher reward tiers will enable you to get your character’s name in the Example of Play, or get original art work from Ron Spencer, or interview or play W20 with Ethan Skemp.
Now the thing is, this is a way for you to enable us to make the book in a deluxe format, and there are reward tiers where you’ll get the book, so a lot of our community sees the Kickstarter as a pre-order system like how V20 was ordered on the WW/CCP web store, or like ordering from Amazon. But it really isn’t. Those are one-and-done situations, where you place the order and the book gets shipped eventually to your door- KS can give you the chance to do so much more. There’s the KS community, with comment forums and the ability to directly send ideas and questions right to me built into the KS site. There’s the idea that you can get rewards that place you in a level of involvement with our creative process that was never possible before- particularly when tied into our Open Dev Process on the WW blogs. And there’s the sheer fact that we’re only going to make the Deluxe W20 Edition if you, the community, tell us by your pledging to do so.
But I can certainly understand folks not wanted to get into all that extra stuff- after all, we’re gamers and we love our books- and these deluxe books aren’t cheap. Just please bear in mind that we, the creators, do see this as a process and it isn’t the cut and dried way of making and distributing books that we used for 20 years- that system is simply gone. There is no more WW/CCP web store, and Amazon isn’t getting this book. Only you guys are- if you back it. And bear in mind that the PDF and PoD versions will eventually be on DTRPG even if we don’t do the W20 Deluxe. So why am I carping on this not being a Pre-Order (and why is Kickstarter itself carping on not being a store)? Because having the idea that all this is is a Pre-Order can set up preconceived notions as to what to expect based on past experiences. This Kickstarter thing is a brand new animal for us and that can create a really big gap between the experience you expect in order to get the W20 Deluxe book into your hands and the experience we are working with in working with our backers on this process of creating this W20 Deluxe Edition. For example, there isn’t really a price for a Deluxe Edition. There’s the reward tier that first contains the actual Deluxe Edition that very much seems like the “price”, but is in fact for us the lowest reward tier level we can include the actual book in and still be sure we’re covering costs. That might be a finer distinction than some might want to consider, but it’s an important one as it ties into our whole reason for going to the community for funding. If people want these editions, and so back these editions, we will make these editions if they cover costs. In the end, I carp on this because I don’t want anyone in our community upset by this- we started creating the 20th Anniversary Editions because of wanting to give back to our fans and I don’t want to have this process ruin the good feelings that make all this work worthwhile.
Finally, there was a lot of interest in Mage the Ascension’s 20th Anniversary Edition at AbN this weekend. Let me tell you what we told folks there and have been saying for a year now- we’ll make the call on M20 once we see how W20 is received. In other words, because MtA and WtA always had about equal fan interest (based on sales) our thinking is that whatever interest there is in W20 will be about the same for M20. So, if the W20 Deluxe Kickstarter does well, then M20 will be approved- no doubt about it. Some fans have said that then they’ll buy W20 just to get M20 made, and I’m really not suggesting that that strategy is the way to go. I don’t want anybody thinking we’re holding their chances for an M20 hostage by holding a gun to the werewolf’s head. What I am saying is that having actual numbers goes a long way in determining whether we can devote the time and energy to getting M20 up and running and these are the numbers that can best inform us.
– V20 Deluxe Children of the Revolution KS is looking good. I got the proofs for the deluxe edition the day I left for AbN, of course, and I’m looking at them now. They’ll get sent back to the printer ASAP. Waiting for the PoD version hard copy proof- figure sometime in the next couple of days- as soon a approvals are done we’ll set the PDF and PoD to go live. V20 Red List was something Matt McElroy and I talked about a fair bit at AbN, and he’s feeling really good about how the various parts are coming together. Gathering the email discussions with artists for the Making of the Art of CotR PDF still. Going to post photos of the proofs in the Update to backers this week.
– Hunters Hunted 2 for V20 is mid-way through final development as Justin pulls it together. I think. He mumbled a lot this weekend.
– Mummy the Cursed might be. Craig is getting back to me on whether any layout files were damaged after his place was broken into this weekend. More when I have it. Going to look at the Deluxe Mummy Kickstarter after we get the W20 KS rolling along.
– Need approvals on Silent Knife and Left Handed Path from CCP.
– Layout for the NWO Convention Book starts this week.
– Matt McFarland is real close to delivering his God Machine Fiction Anthology text. Is that name too dull or too long? “Cogs of the God Machine”? “Gears of the God Machine”?
– Eddy is a jerk and a loser and stinks and is a stinker because he might be late on his Noir-flavored Strix story for the Strix Fiction Anthology.
– Exalted 3– remember last weeks update?…same thing. Some stretches of time are like that.
Reason to Drink: Don’t need a drink, need to work and get caught up. Going to talk to each Dev this week. Will drink after the week is out (plus have enough alcohol stored in my hump from this weekend).
Can’t wait for W20 to go LIVE!!!!!
I may also smell a bit.
All sounds most awesome.
As for putting a gun to a werewolf’s head about Mage….well that would be dangerous even with Silver bullets surely?
I’m not a huge fan of the implied threat. buy this, or you don’t get this other thing. It’s pretty frustrating. to be fair, I AM a huge of both, but to me, Mage is in the lead. and it seems..unfortunate to hold me accountable to buying one to get the other approved. This is kinda bad form, and now kinda makes me not want to purchase W20 out of spite.
That’s why I brought it up- it’s not an implied threat if we can talk about it outright. I’ve said since W20 was announced and the first Mage fan posted about M20 2.3 nanoseconds later that M20 would be OK’d after W20’s success level was determined. That’s a business viewpoint that is necessary to have and I have been honest and straight with you that it’s what we’re doing here. I’m saying right there- right above this post in the blog- that you shouldn’t feel like you personally have to get one in order to have a chance at the other. So I tell you for a year why we need to see W20’s success level, and I tell you that even with that you shouldn’t feel obligated- and you’re pissed off? Help me understand this.
I didn’t have a single problem with what you said. From a business perspective, it’s totally understandable. But I guess some people still believe money grows on trees and OPP is doing all this for free. Some people are going to be unhappy, regardless. Bring on W20!
Please don’t assume any sort of privilege or whiny fan-boying where there is none. I had a disagreement with a business decision I didn’t understand, It was addressed, I reread the material and learned more. by assuming “OMGanotherannoyingfan-person” you disregard opinions that you might not share, but perhaps other potential fans/purchasers DO share. Don’t knee cap my effort to understand just because you happen to either understand slightly better than I do. Intellectual elitism is a hobby of the insecure.
I’m trying to collect my thoughts in a way that makes sense, please pardon if this comes off in any way hostile, I’m NOT being hostile toward anyone, and respect everything you guys do.
1. I understand the business reasons, I think. I’m not a business major, but I understand demand and how to generate demand.
2. I see this as potentially generating false demand. If I’m really wanting m20 (I am) then I almost HAVE to buy into W20, because we have no idea of how successful one has to be to fully trigger the “M20 is a go!” button. I know I “shouldn’t” feel obligated, but telling me I “shouldn’t” feel obligated doesn’t remove the feeling. I do feel obligated because I want M20 that badly (for good or for Ill)
3. All that being said, I didn’t see that you said this for a year, but If it was already posted and out there, then I accept that it just is what it is and spend my money accordingly. I’m not being douche bag superfan here, but I’m trying to understand these 2 products have been yoked together. The more I’m reading, the more I’m understanding. I don’t particularly have to like it, but it is the way it is.
Shan:
In response to 2:
It works like this: Historically, Werewolf: The Apocalypse and Mage: The Ascension have been roughly equal sellers. If Werewolf sells, Mage sells. That’s part of what we’re operating on, here. If we see Werewolf sells X copies, then it’s a safe bet that Mage will sell about X copies. If W20’s Kickstarter is doing gangbusters, then even before any W20 books get printed (or before any standard editions are up for sale) we have a pretty good idea of how well Mage is likely to do. We made the decision on W20 a month before V20 had been delivered to anyone, because we had all the preorder data to look at.
That’s it. That’s all we’re looking at. If W20 sells well, M20 will likely sell well. So sales of W20 will inform whether or not we do M20.
Do not feel that you have to buy W20 in order to get M20, any more than you had to buy any regular run Werewolf books to get a Mage book.
If you really don’t want W20, don’t get it. “Just in case” purchasing could even be harmful in the long run. If W20 sells X+Y books (where Y are the books bought by Mage fans who don’t care much about Werewolf), and Mage only sells X books, then Mage sales could look disappointing in comparison.
Buy the books you want to buy. Don’t feel we’re strongarming you into anything different. We’re not. We’re doing the anniversary editions primarily for fans, and the deluxe editions particularly so. If you’re not a fan, don’t feel you have to get it. We ultimately want you to be happy with your purchase.
I get what you’re saying. Thanks man
Shanwolf, the order of releases is being based on the 20th anniversary of the release of the games, after all. If they released Mage first, then it’d be the 19th anniversary and would make no sense. And lets face it, if all or most of us Werewolf fans hadn’t purchased V20, we wouldn’t be talking about a W20 kickstarter right now. I think its safe to say, also (and Rich correct me if I’m wrong) that probably *most* classic world of darkness fans are fans of the entire line, even though *most* probably have a favorite. As you stated, yours is Mage but you dig Werewolf as well. Most of the folks still involved in creating these products now (Rich excepted) are part time employees with full-time jobs elsewhere. This a labor of love for them. I think they all deserve a pat on the back continuing to make the games we love in such a crappy economy because they love them just as much as we do. I know I sound like a whiny fanboy right now but its the truth lol.
I’ll second Matt there. Changeling: The Dreaming is far and away my favorite World of Darkness game line, but I do love most of the other classic World of Darkness games lines as well. I’m pretty confident there will be an M20 with as popular as Werewolf and Mage are. I’m not as confident we’ll ever see a C20 since it has two things working against it. First, it was never as popular as the big three. Second, it will depend on sales of a hypothetical Wraith20. Wraith was even less popular than Changeling back in the day, and was the first cWoD game line to be canceled due to lack of sales.
Of all of them, Werewolf is probably my least favorite, but I’m still excited for the Kickstarter and will be supporting it. I’d *love* to have a limited edition tome for all five of the original World of Darkness core books.
I also bet you guys are looking at the sale of the convention books when trying to assess interest in M20. I’m more of a Mage fan than a werewolf fan, though I’m in the middle of a great Werewolf game at the moment, and I’ll probably invest in the technocracy convention books and not W20. I definitely hope that you guys are able to get enough interest to justify M20.
Sorry to hear about Craig’s (S Grant?) place getting broken into, that really sucks.
I won’t say that W20 is putting a gun to M20’s head.
I will say that knowing the possibility of Mage (the first White Wolf RPG I ever bought) getting a 20th anniversary edition hinging in part on the sales of Werewolf (the first RPG I ever ran a chronicle for) does encourage me to buy one for the other. But I got V20, too, and that–while it has its fond memories–doesn’t hold anywhere near as dear a place in my heart as either.
I just hope that the tier that gets you a W20 book isnt priced much above the pre-order of V20.
Rafael- Of course, I don’t know how you define “much above”, but bear in mind that this is going to be a longer book than V20 and we were calling in favors at the time to get it priced for printing that page count, and that shipping is built into the reward tier cost (as opposed to V20’s price).
Shouldn’t the title be “Werewolves and Their Wolves.”?
Pun. Where Wolf and There Wolf.
🙂 I thought you wanted to talk like that.
Dunno if I can afford this right now. Want to wait to see the Mummy Kickstart.
Duh, totally missed that.
It’s a reference to Young Frankenstein: http://youtu.be/gQQtgx4iG8E
Super excited for the cursed Mummy KS to go live. Will the curse of the mummy be one of the reward tiers??
Well, this might help shed some light on the prospective demand for Mage 20 as well:
http://www.change.org/petitions/white-wolfccp-we-fans-want-a-mage-the-ascension-20th-anniversary-edition
I respectfully disagree! Demand needs to be measured in terms of money. Unlike kickstarter, petitions don’t measure the amount of money people would spend on M20 if it were published. Anyone can sign a petition. Not everyone will pledge money.
“God Machine Fiction Anthology. Is that name too dull or too long?”
I think it works. The God Machine is so distinctive a concept in WoD that I don’t think you need to come up with some clever title to catch people’s attention. ‘God Machine’ does it all by itself.
Strix Chronicle Fiction Anthology is a title I would recommend you don’t use though. That would be too dull.
I was going to ask whether Mummy has a chance at coming out this month, but I won’t now.
Will there be a Option for PayPal for W20? I dont have a credit card (would have to ask a friend to pay for me).
Kickstarter does not accept PayPal, IIRC.
Good luck with the fundraising. I hope Mage makes it out of the gate.
@Mr I
I dont mean directly build into kickstarter. Other Kickstarter Projects accepted Paypal after some time as well. They simply let ppl pledge in Paypal for the same tiers that exist in Kickstarter.
Loved WtF and wanted to see why everyone seems to love cWoD even more. Just pledged, and very excited to do so, except to see that the cost to entry for being used as a model was $300, whereas the similar reward in v20 Companion was $200. Understandable, bigger undertaking for a core book and all, but still. Maybe for a w20 expansion!
I am thrilled to see how well W20 is doing day one. I did not get my hands on V20; but sometime I intend to pick up a printed copy through DTRPG.
To the Mage fans, calm. W20 is going to hit its mark. As I type this it is:
$77,796 pledged of $85,000 goal
I am confident you will see M20. It could be far worse. Think of the Changeling fans out there, or the people like me, who collected pretty much the entire line of Wraith. I dearly want a Wr20. So so very bad. I also know I have a fairly small chance of getting that wish. So for now I will support these kickstarters for the deluxe base books because I loved Werewolf, Mage, Changeling, Wraith. I even had an interest in Demon. I even enjoyed some Vampire (just was never exactly my thing…too much rage/pathos in my heart 😉 ).
So, how long before we can hope to hear something about the 2013 Grand Masquerade?