Updated 2 Dec 2014: CCP kills Vaulderie, Vaulderie announces new IP

[Bateluer]

http://www.projectvaulderie.com/category/news/

Fellow Kine and Kindreds,

As of now, you may be wondering why we haven’t been sharing any updates on the behalf of the project as of late. We are aware that all of you wait patiently for our news as always.

We’re very sad to report that we received a Cease & Desist e-mail from CCP Games, asking us to cease game development, remove any materials that might contain Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines, names, locations or related elements from the sites we control, and cease any further use of Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines property, and in a disappointment shared among our team we are complying with that request. All of this invalidates our effort and the meaning of the entire project: as a remake of Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines cannot be a remake without its original contents.

Over the course, you have fought with us and been patient. You have trusted us when we were silent and listened when we spoke. Many of you have done what you could to help us. And for that we would like to thank you. You’re a wonderful group of fans and have been very supportive. It goes without saying that your interest was far greater than our team would have even anticipated.
We have been deeply honored by the support we have received from you all and we believe that the best relationship we can have with you is that of honesty and transparency.

Along with your support, we’ve received a lot of sympathies from former developers on Bloodlines and former White Wolf employees along the way. Our contact told us that the copyrights were with Activision, Inc., so we pursued there instead, with a pitch being prepared for the company to discuss what we were going to do with the property. This contact we knew from CCP has since left the company.

We made it quite clear that this is a fan re-imagining of the game. We simply want to do this to keep the game, the story, and the world it lives in, alive and re-imagined for a new generation. Both the game and the idea behind the project was made sorely with out of passion.

Since support of the game dropped long ago, ever since the fall of Troika Games, Inc., and it’s almost impossible to play without patches or bug fixes, sponsored by the community, and there is so much left that could be finished that hasn’t been touched. We want to see this game thrive, in a time and industry where games with deep lore and storylines like Bloodlines simply are hard to come by. Project Vaulderie would help revive interest in a game that was forgotten with time, and I believe all parties could have benefit from its creation.

But that will not be the case anymore, and it’s clear that there won’t be any newer titles created under the Vampire the Masquerade brand, as this project was the only hope for Bloodlines to reborn from the ashes they were left to cease.

We are avidly seeking a resolute course to continue working on a future game, but we cannot at this time discuss this publicly and with that I urge you to please be patient and hopeful that we will find a way.

I hope you understand, and as always we appreciate your support (in the distant future).

Below you can find the cease and desist letter:


Dear Project Vaulderie:

We are writing to you on behalf of CCP hf. (“CCP ”), a company incorporated in Iceland and the exclusive trademark and copyrights holder for Vampire: The Masquerade (USPTO registration no. 3495901; USCO registration no. TX0005782175, et. seq., for the same line of books).

Recently, it has come to our attention through your website, http://www.projectvaulderie.com/, that you are planning a modification or “re-imagination” of the Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines game, first published a number of years ago by Activision, Inc., under license from White Wolf, Inc. (now known as CCP). While Activision retains certain rights to the game it created, CCP continues to own all other rights associated with Vampire: The Masquerade, including the copyrights and trademarks noted above.

It appears that Project Vaulderie is now engaging in the unauthorized creation, use, and sale of products bearing the name of CCP’s registered intellectual property, Vampire: The Masquerade, without any license, authorization or permission of CCP.

You do not have permission to use CCP’s trademarks, copyrights, or other intellectual property as the basis for your products and services, nor do you have permission to make or distribute any copy or derivative work, including electronic copies, of CCP’s intellectual property. As a result, we believe you are infringing CCP’s intellectual property rights.
We ask that you immediately cease and desist from the use of CCP’s name and other trademarks on http://www.projectvaulderie.com/. Specifically, please remove all references to Vampire: The Masquerade and Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines from your website, software, and related materials. In addition, remove all artwork from the original Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines game from your website and software modifications, and discontinue any future use of such artwork. If we do not receive an immediate affirmative response from you indicating that you have fully complied with these requirements, we may be forced to take further legal action against you, including but not limited to a DMCA notice to your Internet Service Provider. Thank you, in advance, for your cooperation.

Sincerely,
CCP Legal


For the Vaulderie Team
Arthur – Project Vaulderie lead

This actually happened a couple days ago. This poor game, for all its quality and creativity, just can't catch a break. First Activision screws it over, then the community keeps it alive with a just outstanding level of support over the past 10 years. Then CCP buys White Wolf, burns millions on their failed MMO property before shuttering it, threatens legal action against a fan mod that causes it to shutdown.

Bloodlines was and is an amazing game, but it is undeniably getting increasingly difficult to run under modern hardware and operating systems. Vaulderie would have changed that, bring it far more modding capabilities, multiplayer, visuals, and general support for modern hardware. It would have reinvigorated interest in the Vampire properties and worked to CCP's favor by generating interest in future White Wolf games. Instead, they chose to piss off and alienate one of the most dedicated communities in PC gaming; anyone who continues to support and patch a 10 year old game utterly abandoned by its original publishers deserves to be called dedicated.

I believe CCP's case is paper thin and exists primarily as a threat intended to protect their trademark. If it were to progress to court, Fair Use and other doctrines would shoot CCP down. But the Vaulderie devs are college students doing this in their spare time. They don't have the money to hire legal representation.

In the past, I've encouraged people to purchase Bloodlines when its on sale via Steam or GoG, but with stunts like this giving the fans and community giant middle finger, I won't be doing that any more.


Update

http://www.projectvaulderie.com/the-untold-story/

Hello fellow Kines and Kindreds,
There were a lot of good things happening for Project Vaulderie and we were very excited to find the opportunity to announce them once we had a better grip at stuff that was going on, however now with the Cease and Desist being issued, none of that will ever come to pass, and so we think it will be a miss if we didn’t at least share with you what was going to happen.

Sometimes fate has a mysterious way of making things happen, a few months ago in complete accident I bumped to Mv.c9 (The project lead for Bloodlines Antitribu Mod), we talked for a while, a few days, and believed that the best thing for the Vampire the Masquerade community would be an upscale evolution of the game. The mod was already near its finish so it would serve as a good demo to all the great things that were to come, thus not only the game would be a reimagining, but also would include a slew of new content such as 14 clans in total, a huge array of disciplines, new endings, new maps, new NPCs, all of which was already created for the mod and had to be ported over time.

This was what seemed like a match made in heaven, to create something beyond imagining. And thus the best decision for the project to continue to bring the best re-imagined version was to join our dream and forces, in order to fulfill the ultimate destiny. Both of our forces were jaded of working on an engine as rigid as Source for Bloodlines, because it would have been impossible to achieve the full potential of our dreams without moving to a more flexible engine, an opportunity, which would have been far great to been passed along.

After the cancelation notice devastated the plan that seemed at first nothing but a beautiful dream we thought to formally approach CCP, if they are not OK with an unlicensed version of the game being developed then the next logical step was to request the said license. However even though we provided proof of progress and capability to complete the project with the newly formed team, they still turned us down and were not willing to give us the chance to develop the game whether the game was going to be free to play or as a commercial title, the result was the same.

Me (atrblizzard) and Marvin (Mv.c9) are trying to figure a way out of this burnt dream, on one hand we do not want to give up on the fans that patiently followed us throughout the years, and on the other hand we simply cannot progress with different corporations attacking us from left and right. As soon as we figure something out we will let you know.

Best Regards,
Arthur & Marvin

Congrats CCP, you are now my most hated and loathed publisher. Screw you guys.


Update 2 December 2014

http://www.projectvaulderie.com/a-new-resurgence/

We are excited to be working with RavaFX Studio and grateful that the opportunity presented itself. We welcome the chance to work with people who share the passion and love for our craft, as RavaFX was initially founded by Marvin (Mv.c9), and it guarantees that our goals and understanding of what we did before doesn’t change due to marketing reasons made by outsiders unknown with what truly made Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines a great game.

We are proud to announce that we have officially started working on a new IP, something that will be truly enticing, and with our new found team and man power we can definitely create something as great. We cannot give out much details now, but to give a broad sense of our direction, it won’t concentrate just on Vampires anymore. It will be a whole lot more than just that. Similar to how World of Darkness has such a grand scale and immersive universe, our new IP will also have a similar scope. In this new game there will be Vampires, Humans, Shapeshifters such as Werewolves, Mages and some others currently under discussion.

To give an idea on how the game will be played, imagine Bloodlines mixed with Deus Ex. So it will be something of everyone’s expectation from us including, but not limited to, a versatile First Person/Third Person gameplay that will give the player several ways to solve a single problem, important and optional quests, along with multiple ending choices, reflecting on the decisions made by players.

We already had part of the game mechanics made for Project Vaulderie, some of which can be improved over and expanded upon. The end result will be something quite amazing, and we can’t wait to show you more as the project progresses.

We’d like to thank everyone who has been passionately with us since Project Vaulderie’s announcement, and personally those who are enthusiastic about our new project we’ll be working on. Stay tuned.

Best Regards,
RavaFX Staff

Promising. See what comes from it. Shame CCP is stuck with head in ass.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I had no idea CCP had purchased other properties. That's kind of disturbing.

/EVE-Online, 2005-2010. I don't remember 2006. I'm four years clean.

 

[Fallen Kell]

Well, depending on when CCP purchased the rights, we might still see this revived. CCP has been trying to find something other than EVE to make money from (just about everything else they have done/made has failed. including EVE tie ins).

Buying a game that still has a fanbase with an almost cult like following seems to be a good move.

 

[Dahak]

Buying a game that still has a fanbase with an almost cult like following seems to be a good move.

Sure but then doing this, and note I have not followed this in any manner, killing off a fan mod, does not seem like a good way to go if they ever release a new game in the series

 

[sweenish]

Sure but then doing this, and note I have not followed this in any manner, killing off a fan mod, does not seem like a good way to go if they ever release a new game in the series

Not a mod, let's get that straight.

They were re-creating the game in the Unity engine. That's not a mod, that's a copy/pasta.

 

[Fallen Kell]

Yeah, and if CCP didn't protect their property, then in some locations they would have lost the right to protect it in the future. They had to send the cease and desist to protect their ability to make future games.

 

[Dahak]

Not a mod, let's get that straight.

They were re-creating the game in the Unity engine. That's not a mod, that's a copy/pasta.

Ahh ok, that I did not know, as I said was not following it directly. I understood it as a mod to the original game.

 

[DigDog]

sorry but ithat's just idiotic. they deserve it.

now excuse me, i'm off to work on some unauthorized copy of warhammer. let's hope GW doesn't notice and asks me to stop.

 

[Jodell88]

They have to protect their copyright of the title. If they don't, then the copyright is null and void.

 

[Bateluer]

Not a mod, let's get that straight.

They were re-creating the game in the Unity engine. That's not a mod, that's a copy/pasta.

Still filed under modification, just a very extensive one since it would have required the Bloodlines game to actually work.

 

[Bateluer]

http://www.projectvaulderie.com/the-untold-story/

Hello fellow Kines and Kindreds,
There were a lot of good things happening for Project Vaulderie and we were very excited to find the opportunity to announce them once we had a better grip at stuff that was going on, however now with the Cease and Desist being issued, none of that will ever come to pass, and so we think it will be a miss if we didn’t at least share with you what was going to happen.

Sometimes fate has a mysterious way of making things happen, a few months ago in complete accident I bumped to Mv.c9 (The project lead for Bloodlines Antitribu Mod), we talked for a while, a few days, and believed that the best thing for the Vampire the Masquerade community would be an upscale evolution of the game. The mod was already near its finish so it would serve as a good demo to all the great things that were to come, thus not only the game would be a reimagining, but also would include a slew of new content such as 14 clans in total, a huge array of disciplines, new endings, new maps, new NPCs, all of which was already created for the mod and had to be ported over time.

This was what seemed like a match made in heaven, to create something beyond imagining. And thus the best decision for the project to continue to bring the best re-imagined version was to join our dream and forces, in order to fulfill the ultimate destiny. Both of our forces were jaded of working on an engine as rigid as Source for Bloodlines, because it would have been impossible to achieve the full potential of our dreams without moving to a more flexible engine, an opportunity, which would have been far great to been passed along.

After the cancelation notice devastated the plan that seemed at first nothing but a beautiful dream we thought to formally approach CCP, if they are not OK with an unlicensed version of the game being developed then the next logical step was to request the said license. However even though we provided proof of progress and capability to complete the project with the newly formed team, they still turned us down and were not willing to give us the chance to develop the game whether the game was going to be free to play or as a commercial title, the result was the same.

Me (atrblizzard) and Marvin (Mv.c9) are trying to figure a way out of this burnt dream, on one hand we do not want to give up on the fans that patiently followed us throughout the years, and on the other hand we simply cannot progress with different corporations attacking us from left and right. As soon as we figure something out we will let you know.

Best Regards,
Arthur & Marvin

Congrats CCP, you are now my most hated and loathed publisher. Screw you guys.

 

[AdamantC]

Still filed under modification, just a very extensive one since it would have required the Bloodlines game to actually work.

If it still requires the user to provide the original files to function, and PV is just giving us the engine and the conversion tools, I don't see what the problem is. There are quite a few fan made engine recreation projects out there.

 

[Bateluer]

If it still requires the original files to function I don't see what the problem is.

CCP doesn't get any fried cheese.

 

[MeldarthX]

Possibly they are working on a new Vampyre game...but; if they are; honestly best way to get good press; feedback and drum things up is either let these guys continue; or let them for a small fee license that way....they protect their copy write; drum up interest in a new Vampyre game.....

and get good press.......instead of this....

 

[Bateluer]

Bump.

 

[BFG10K]

Bloodlines was and is an amazing game, but it is undeniably getting increasingly difficult to run under modern hardware and operating systems.

While this is bad news, it doesn't appear to affect the two unofficial patches which correct the game's behaviour on modern systems.

 

[MeldarthX]

Bateluer; nice catch on the new IP; out of the ashes arose a something beautiful. Bloodlines meets Deus Ex could be very interesting....