VtM: Bloodlines - Project Vaulderie Canceled

Myrthos

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The creators of Project Vaulderie, a remake of Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines in the Unity engine with multiplayer support, have received a cease and decist letter from CCP Games and have now canceled the project.

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.
Thanks M00nlight!

More information.
 
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I have not heard of this project until now but now I wish I didn't at all because this news is so sad. I would love if I was able to play this awesome game again in a newer engine :(
Bloodlines even today is still one of top 5 rpgs ever.
 
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Seems like very shorted-sighted and outdated thinking to me. "How to prevent the community reviving your IP, for free, in one easy step."
 
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they are probably working on it themselves.
anyway. Multiplayer label is disgusting
its like "we are selling drugs, you can get your friends hooked as well.. and we hope you take our drugs FOREVER"
 
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Yeah.. keep sitting on the IP. :|
Yeah, they've got a pile of them at Activision in a big freezer marked "for when Call of Duty finally dies."
 
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It's hard to believe people support ccp by playing their game. :puke:

Here is a link to Planet Vampire thread Cease and Desist post #11. It provides Facebook and Twitter links, if you have accounts and want to voice your opinion.

Also a thread with a copy of a legal letter sent to ccp idiots, My letter to Legal and CCP games with some helpful links as well.
 
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And with this all, they still let Underworld movies rip off World of Darkness...
 
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did they ask permission to use the copyrighted assets?

no

tough titties; should have asked the owners first
 
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That's interesting. I suppose CCP might be part of some complex copyright licensing agreements that impose a duty to "defend" the IP.
 
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Seems like very shorted-sighted and outdated thinking to me. "How to prevent the community reviving your IP, for free, in one easy step."

My understanding is that a company has to work to protect the property they are legally entitled to, so a cease and desist order is a logical step. There's nothing outdated about it; legal components like IP, patents, copyrights, and trademarks are still essential components of the economic system, and it's up to the owner how they are used.
 
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I'm sorry but they knew it didn't belong to them before they began. CCP paid a pretty penny to acquire the IP and is in every right to retain full ownership of it and to protect it against unauthorized use.

Nothing stopped them from creating their own urban vampire universe.
 
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My understanding is that a company has to work to protect the property they are legally entitled to, so a cease and desist order is a logical step. There's nothing outdated about it; legal components like IP, patents, copyrights, and trademarks are still essential components of the economic system, and it's up to the owner how they are used.
Of course this is legally correct, I don't think anyone has a doubt on that.

But that does not change the fact that it is simply dumb (as already said, shooting down free advertising rarely makes for an intelligent move) and IMO (and most others as well, I would say) ethically wrong as nobody working on the project was earning money or hurting CCP in any other way.

See, that is the problem with lawyers and officials. They see the law, but nothing else. And mind you, "looking the other way" would also have been a valid and legal possibility for CCP. They chose to go the d*ck move way.

I would understand if the project was so bad, CCP would think that it would indeed actively hurt the franchise. Like some hentai mod or whatever (let's pretend there are not already dozens of those for the game). But I do not see that.
 
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Couldn't the publisher also simply (yeah, I know, nothing is ever simple…) have hired them and later sold the thing as "VtM: Bloodlines EE" for profit?
 
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Maybe they should have checked first if were allowed to make a game based on someone else's IP, assets etc. Seems kind of juvenile not to investigate such things first.
 
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I'm sorry but they knew it didn't belong to them before they began. CCP paid a pretty penny to acquire the IP and is in every right to retain full ownership of it and to protect it against unauthorized use.

Nothing stopped them from creating their own urban vampire universe.
I would like that a lot :)
But fan projects rarely produce anything. Xcom never had a finished product and I am still waiting for multiple fan made sequels for Birth of the Federation.
 
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