I haven't updated the site in ages, but here goes: the Time of Judgment came and went, the New World of Darkness was launched in August, and Bloodlines was released in November. The New WoD (commonly called NWOD or WOD2) is pretty good, but it will take years before it becomes familiar enough to compete with the old WoD.
About Bloodlines...where to begin? Ah yes...no multiplayer. And no ST mode, modding support, or SDK. We at WoDMod have little to no reason to support the game at all. But what we do support is the community. As such, we are still here to support users of Redemption and WoDMod 1.02, and White Wolf fans in general.
I went to E3 back in May, but a short-notice move and a bunch of other stuff resulted in me having a bunch of interesting news that was all reported by other people first. In light of that, I can only offer a few interesting shots that (hopefully) nobody else bothered to report. I'll spare you guys the obligatory photos of celebrities, me posing with [non White Wolf-affiliated] booth babes and that mind-numbing "GOTBOBA" license plate...on a Mercedes.
*shudder*

The man...the myth...it's Shane "Hollywood" DeFreest


The IGN/GameSpy staff hard at work inside the LACC

Justin Achilli has posted an invitation for perspective White Wolf writers to submit their ideas to further flesh out Vampire: the Requiem. For more information, and to find out how to submit your material, visit the Official Site.

As of yesterday, the Official White Wolf site is hosting a poll that asks visitors which non-mainstream (i.e. NOT Vampire, Werewolf or Mage) World of Darkness game is their favorite. After 900 votes, no single game has gotten anywhere near a majority of the votes. Be sure to vote for your favorite game (mine has always been Wraith: the Oblivion) and spend lots of money on books that will only be available second-hand after White Wolf stops selling all *old* World of Darkness books on May 1st.

The site is long overdue for an overhaul, so Jemy and I have been working on some concepts that will make the site more informative, more unique, and just plain better-looking. The forum is pretty much broken (moderators cannot even log in) so we will be replacing that too. I'm also working with GameSpy to see about hosting roleplaying groups who use WoDMod.

The latest issue of Computer Gaming World has an article both in their magazine and on their website. Predictably, the magazine article is much more interesting and includes screenshots of a boss NPC who is a massive Samurai-esque Gargoyle. The battle depicted had me wondering...will Troika develop the mysterious Gargoyle Discipline Visceratika just for this NPC to use? If so, will this open the door to even more heavy Discipline modding for the modding community? The Xbox game Hunter: the Reckoning had some impressive discipline effects that were used only by the boss NPCs whose blood granted them those powers. The Obtenebration effects were particularly well-done (though annoyingly effective at pummeling the player).

Some more good news for us modders (and the community in general): Troika will reportedly release the second patch for the Temple of Elemental Evil, which they released last October. If Activision follows Atari's lead and works with Troika to continue supporting their products and the community, then we can all expect a long and happy unlife for Bloodlines.

White Wolf has launched the official website for what has become known as The "New WoD." Upon entering the site, you can read about the art in the new books.

We all know that the new Vampire game is called Vampire: the Requiem but the very last page of the 4th Time of Judgment book tells us that the other two titles are Werewolf: the Forsaken and Mage: the Awakening. Vampire and the core rule book are to be published in August, Werewolf in November, and Mage in February 2005.

E3 hits LA next month, and GameSpy has graciously offered to send yours truly to report the goods! I feel like I've died and gone to heaven. Where else could they combine my favorite things in the world...computer games, vampires, and software development, all to the tune of a sunny spring in southern California. More news on this as it becomes available.

The May issue of PC Gamer hit news stands today, and while it contains an interesting chronology of the magazine's 10 year history, the most interesting bit is toward the very back, in a microscopic sidebar that tells us what we can look forward to in the June issue. They claim that they will be play-testing Half Life 2, and reporting the goods to us! Obviously, the information gleaned from this review could prove very important to our modding efforts based on the Source engine.

It's come to my attention that somebody out there has released a version of the WoDMod executable that does not require the Play Disc. While this kind of activity is not condoned, I have personally tested this new file and found it to be safe and stable. It's hard to say exactly where you might find it, but such things tend to get around rather quickly. Vamp Depo might have some more information about it.

Last month was supposed to be a time of intensified development, but a myriad of miscelaneous problems have reared their ugly heads to thwart most of my efforts. The morning after I got into my hotel room in Biloxi, Mississippi, I discovered that my brand new notebook's video card had died from unknown causes. I had to send it in for repair, but I did not get it back until after I had returned to my home in Omaha. The same week our secretary took another job elsewhere and another co-worker retired. Having lost half of our office, days got longer and freetime was a hot commodity often reduced to a rondezvous with the Sandman. A new secretary is supposed to start work late this month, and hopefully this will allow me more time to work on overhauling this website and cramming as much effort as we can into the long-awaited WoDMod 1.03

Tomorrow marks the first day of my vacation, which is good news for the WoDMod and its fans. For the next two weeks I will be working on the project fulltime. The last time I was able to devote this much time to the mod was in October 2001, during which time the majority of version 1.02 was finalized. Hopefully we will see marked progress in the Discipline scripts and the Character Sheets for the Vampire and Werewolf clients. At this point I'm not sure if I'll have internet access in my hotel room, but I will definitely post progress updates as we forge ahead.

Good ol' Grandpa Murphy, King of the Wod, turns 26 today, marking the fourth year of his life that he has devoted to WoDMod as Project Leader. As a cornerstone of the community he has stood by us through thick and thin to ensure online World of Darkness fans are equipped with the best tools to help them craft stories worthy of the name White Wolf. Thank you, Jemy, and we look forward to many more years of your friendship and leadership as we forge ahead in our never-ending quest to perfect the passionate, horrific art of Storytelling.

The largest WoDmod 1.03 Public Test to date will be held on Saturday, December 27th in the form of a Sabbat Game of Instinct. The exact starting time will be determined over the next couple days, but the game will be held in a passworded room on the WON Vampire server. The room's password is the five-letter word that completes the phrase "The Sword of _____", which is a common insider name for the Sabbat. Basically if you don't know the answer, you don't need to be participating in the Game of Instinct (this is to preserve the quality of roleplay once the game has begun). So far the following items will be required to participate in the game:

• WoDmod 1.02
• Yith Mega Hub
• TMP skins
• A PnP Character that has been pre-approved through me (text or image files only, please)

Big kudos to our programmer Lakrillo for his work on the wound penalties code, as well as his upcoming work on the Salubri Antitribu discipline Valeran. His talent in programming and his questionable taste in beer make him a valuable and unique member of the team and the community. He turns 23 tommorow, so everybody be sure to wish him a happy birthday, or better yet, call him in Sweden at 46 739393470!

One of the major focuses of WODMOD 1.03 is an updated dice system. Recently we have been able to include previously absent features like dice pool wound penalties. In this screenshot you can see several of the new features that will be available in the new version.

Debugging functions have been added for the development process, so you can see the character's original dice pool, then her dice pool after wound penalties are taken into account. Some of the other updates include:

• Spending temporary willpower will now give you an automatic success. This success cannot be cancelled by any 1's that were rolled
• If your roll yields one or more successes, the roll will not be considered a botch no matter how many 1's you rolled; it will simply fail instead

Author: Skyra to Hollow

The online community of White Wolf fans is veritably on fire in light of recent developments like The Time of Judgment, which will end the World of Darkness as we know it, and the grand opening of The Official Bloodlines website .

At WODMOD, we too are more than a little excited about the new CRPG in development, but the truth is we won't be clicking "Accept" on its EULA until about this time next year. In the meantime we have pulled together to finish developing the long-delayed WODMOD 1.03. At this point in time, Jemy, The Cheshire Cat and I are actively creating content for the new version, and several other skilled individuals have expressed interest in lending their talents as well.

The forums have come back to life again, and some of the current topics include the revamped Dice-Rolling Interface and a possible face-to-face meeting between a WODMOD team member and Troika Games. Be sure to check back often, as we expect screenshots and other goodies to become available soon!

Author: Skyra to Hollow

This website has been more or less dead for a long time, so it will take some time for me to explain what's going on.

After WoD Mod v1.01 was released, the majority of the old team left the building, abandoning Redemption for their own projects. I do not blame them, becouse the community was sinking like a rock. With a strong effort v1.02 was completed by those who remained. Check the in-game credits for the names that made v1.02 a reality.

However, Real Life© can happen to anyone, and with so few people, loosing one or two is all that was needed to doom the project. When the last of the active programmers was lost, we still had a few enthusiastic people (me included) that wanted to carry on. But without programmers, we just couldnt get anywhere. WoD Mod v1.03 was left in a frozen beta state, never to be fully completed. Dementation had been added, the combat system was reworked to work with real dice, all weapons where tweaked to work like they do in the official ruleset, and most of the actors where rewritten. The entire item database was updated too, making it easier to find what you needed in the ever-growing prop/item list.

But without the programmers, the mod was far too unstable to consider a public release.

I never abandoned Vampire though, just in case something happened. And I guess that "something" just did. About a month ago, "Troika Games" announced the development of a non-sequel new project based upon the PnP game Vampire: The Masquerade. Troika Games are mostly known for their retro-futuristic fantasy rpg called Arcanum, but real fans also know that they where the team behind the original Fallout , by many titled "The CRPG Of All Time".

Troika is known for their spirit of taking RolePlaying very seriously. Arcanum and Fallout where filled with open-ended options and Troika is nearly unparalleled in the number of subplots thrown into every game they make. In Troika's Games you can create the character "you want to play", and the game allows you to do it.

The new project is titled "Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines", and can easiest be summed up by the line "Deus Ex " meets "Vampire: The Masquerade". Deus Ex, as hardcore CRPG gamers are aware of, is a very open-ended First Person Shooter with a very deep political storyline. Through the game you gained experience points that could be used to advance skills such as Medicine, Technology, Firearms, and Melee weapons. In Deus Ex you nearly always had four or five options to solve a task, and the way you did it was often dependent upon your skills. This CRPG is by many considered one of the top games in existance (next to Fallout). So what we expect from Bloodlines is an open-ended FPS focused on skills and disciplines, with the opportunity to solve every problem in the way a member of your choosen clan would solve it.

The really good part is that Bloodlines is using the Half-Life 2 engine. You must have been living under a rock if you missed that Half-Life 1 was the most modifiable and popular game ever made. From what we've seen of the Half-Life 2 engine, it's truly the best engine anyone could license for Bloodlines. To really understand how powerful this engine is, you should take your time to download the 600mb preview from Fileplanet. Believe me, it will make your jaw drop, and your heartbeat reach 140. If you got the space and broadband, do not hesitate. Get it now!

What makes HL2 cool is not the graphics, but the Havoc Physics engine. This physic engine makes the game feel a lot more realistic than other games. To see wood shatter like wood should, bodies pile up like they should, metal barrels fall and react like metal barrels should and glass bending light like glass should is really an awesome experience. In the Half-Life 2 engine everything except walls are treated like individual objects that interact with eachother like individual objects should. If you throw a grenade into a living room, nothing will be left standing.

Another cool thing with HL2 are vehicles. Limo gun-fights anyone?

In the WoD Mod team we see an excellent opportunity to learn and use the Half-Life 2 engine to the fullest extent possible. We do not see an issue in missing multiplayer and storytelling support, since this game is far more modifiable than Redemption was. We are already discussing the development of our own storytelling mode, that with some work could be a lot more powerful than that of Redemption's. We also hope that Activision will provide the community with a lot more support this time around, if not from Troika, we might at least have the Half-Life community to lean on.

So adios, Redemption and WoD Mod, hail to Bloodlines and WoD Mod 2.0!!!

Author: JemyM