Ethan Skemp, Werewolf: the Apocalypse alpha for White Wolf, responds to early reviews of the new Werewolf sourcebook Subsidiaries: A Guide to Pentex:

Date: Fri, 17 Dec 1999 15:55:24 -0500
From: Ethan Skemp (alphaethan@WHITE-WOLF.COM)
To: Discussion of White Wolf's World of Darkness (WEREWOLF-L@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM)
Subject: Re: Gratuitous Butt Kissing - Subsidiaries
      
    Ringmaster wrote:

    >> Well, you'd be right. The Black Dog section isn't all that useful -- I
    >> was kind of hoping to hit the HoL or Paranoia status of "worth the
    >> purchase price just for the read."
    >
    >If you had published the Black Dog part separately from the rest of it, BOTH
    >would have been "worth the puchase price just for the read".

    Glad to hear it. Justin cracks me up on a regular basis (I mean, he's
    even written spontaneous poetry about root beer), and the illustrations
    were gravy.

    >And, unlike HoL, you *could* actually use the Black Dog section.

    Hey, I've heard that people have indeed played HoL. Granted, most of the
    stories admit that they were drunk at the time.

    >> Rich Dansky knows his stuff. And he's so easy to work with. Endron and
    >> King came out great.
    >
    >The King section is very good also.  Not to detract from the writing, but
    >the artwork for that chapter is fairly amusing, too.  And the cover art...
    >Everyone who I've shown it to (yeah, ok, I've been going around showing it
    >to everyone...) laughs hysterically at the Tellus-tainted gamer on the left
    >whose head is completely enclosed in the maw of a crinos Garou.  Very
    >spiffy.

    There's so much going on in that piece. You should see it sans logo and
    full-sized; I swear, it is *such* a propaganda poster that it's unreal.
    But then again, Prescott kept on adding more and more with every
    fullpage. (The Magadon weightlifter's dumbbell marked "Many Lbs" still
    cracks me up.) We're keeping this bastard on Werewolf projects for as
    long as humanly possible.

    >> I take it the Tellus chapter came out okay in the end, then,
    >> Owen? Jess
    >> seemed to think it was okay, but I'm still nervous.
    >
    >There was one very small thing...   (Just perpetuating the paranoia.)
    >Everything turned out just peachy, though.  Very accurate.  Nothing to worry
    >about.

    Glad to hear it. I figured I could make it an amusing read; the veracity
    was what worried me.

    For what it's worth, Aileen saw just as many parallels in that section to

    White Wolf as she saw parallels in the Black Dog section (!). The
    grinding down of young designers' hopes and dreams, the occasional
    ham-handed management technique...looks like those are endemic to any
    "creative" industry.

    >The nod to Mage in the Tellus section was very tasteful, also.  >Why doesn't
    >the Technocracy take any interest in this evil computer stuff?<

    You can blame Brian for that; even knowing that I'm not a major crossover
    hound, he pestered me to at least address the issue, so I did so. Of
    course, if those rumors I'm hearing about Microsoft wanting to enter the
    console wars are true, then Subsids might already be outdated by real
    life.

    Ethan Skemp
    WWGS

Plus, the following note on goings-on at Black Dog Games Factory:

Date: Sat, 18 Dec 1999 11:56:44 -0500
From: Ethan Skemp (alphaethan@WHITE-WOLF.COM)
To: Discussion of White Wolf's World of Darkness (WEREWOLF-L@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM)
Subject: Re: Gratuitous Butt Kissing - Subsidiaries
  
    AJSolis@aol.com wrote:

    >  Oh yes, what happened to Zombie: the Putrescence?  Did my favorite black
    >dog line get cancelled?  :)

    Blame Grandmaster Sexy 2-Cool Jus-Tang A-Killa. But I gotta admit I kinda
    like Revenant: The Ravishing better, so I let it stay.

    If you like, you can blame the title change on a revised edition.

    Ethan Skemp
    WWGS

The following is a reply on what to expect in the upcoming sourcebook A World of Rage:

Date: Tue, 21 Dec 1999 17:12:23 -0500
From: Ethan Skemp (alphaethan@WHITE-WOLF.COM)
To: Discussion of White Wolf's World of Darkness (WEREWOLF-L@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM)
Subject: Re: Year of Revelations...yeah, right!
   
    Bjorn T. Boe wrote:

    [World of Rage]

    >>Hope it delivers.
    >
    >Me too, or I shalt be pissed :)

    Well, remember that we're trying to cram worldwide Werewolf into one
    book. As such, we're only going to have time to hit all the highlights;
    for example, I can't devote too much word count to any one continent. So
    although you can indeed blame me if there isn't 14,000 words devoted to
    the werewolves of Scandinavia (and there won't be), hopefully you can
    understand that it's because we're trying to cover both (or all three,
    depending on you look at them) Americas, Europe, Asia, Russia, the Middle
    East, Africa, Australia, and still have enough room left over to talk
    about a couple of them Antarctic rumors. Oh yeah, and we're talking about
    Changing Breeds other than werewolves, too; I mean, you've *got* to if
    you want to talk about, say, Africa. The idea is to give lots of general
    plot hooks and overviews; if we wanted to go into detail, this would be,
    what? Twenty-two separate Rage Across books under one cover?

    So you've been warned. We're fitting in what we can, and trying to cover
    interesting tidbits like, say, what's up with the Shadow Curtain? Or the
    War for the Amazon? Or that thylacine cloning business? Prolonged
    geography and sociology lessons, alas, aren't top of the list of
    priorities, but rest assured we're cramming in what we can.

    Ethan Skemp
    WWGS