FW/GW creative process

[Marshal Rohr]

This is from LG on the First Expedition site. Its taken out of the original context, so before replying go read

 

http://z13.invisionfree.com/The_First_Expedition/index.php?showtopic=1846

 

this thread, or you will end up not understanding the criticism Laurie is responding to.

 

 

Torture, brutality, really grim atrocities - we simply CAN'T show that in the fiction. This isn't the 'Hostel' movies. We have kids reading this stuff. Part of the skill on the authors' checklist is to hint at (but never openly depict) grim-grimness... that way, each reader fills in the blanks for themselves. Go and look through pretty much every BL story in the last 10 years, and you'll find that it's remarkably tasteful without ever feeling like a PG-13 TV edit of 'Predator' on a Sunday evening.

PLEASE, let's have no more of the "FORGE WORLD IS SO MUCH BETTER AT HORUS HERESY THAN GW" nonsense. It's all from the same meetings, planned by the same editor/s, written by many of the same writers and designed by the same production teams. Almost all of the format/content for the booklet came from "Forge World staff" (apart from the mechanics of the game itself - they were designed by someone who has - SHOCK HORROR - actual real-world experience in board game design, outside of GW). This isn't different factions all having a go, it's one company producing a coherent line of varied products, all with slightly different aims.[/background][/b][/size][/font]

I'm not sure how many more times I need to say that, before people start remembering it... http://i2.ifrm.com/html/emoticons/rolleyes.gif ENJOY IT ALL. Don't be a GW hipster. And I would urge you to play the BaC game. I found it considerably quicker and more exciting than regular HH/40k, with loads of replay value.

 

GW's principal customer demographic is 12-18 year olds. Whether or not you think decency/tastefulness is relevant, there are territories in the world where products could not be legally sold in GW/Warhammer stores if they contained the sort of gratuitous action-porn you seem to be advocating. Remember that GW does actually KNOW what it's doing, whether or not you can see it from the other side of the curtain...

 

You can't put adult-aimed fiction on sale alongside entry-level boxed sets like 'Shield of Baal' and have it all available in the same stores, to the same audience. That's not how this works.

 

If the fiction isn't hitting the mark for you, there are other less developed IPs out there for you to explore.

Hmmm... well, I don't think you can tell me what the aim of the HH series should be, based on which bits you like or don't. Also, these books had a very specific aim, and that is to provide accessible HH stories for people who are new to the series, as well as seasoned veterans like yourself. I really think you need to stop thinking in such absolute terms about all this. This was written by the usual authors, edited by the usual editors, and the brief was simply to expand and explore the background presented in the game. Nothing more.

I think this settle once and for all the question of the design studio and FW working together on the Heresy. Lets see how long before the 40K fluff tone seeps into the Heresy.

[Vazzy]

 If the fiction isn't hitting the mark for you, there are other less developed IPs out there for you to explore.

 

 

Wew. Really appreciate the tone with that statement. 

 

"Oh, you don't like it? :cuss off and find something else you like and have devoted years of time into."

 

Maybe I'm misinterpreting that, but sure doesn't seem that way. 

[Brother Heinrich]

And I would urge you to play the BaC game. I found it considerably quicker and more exciting than regular HH/40k, with loads of replay value.

This quote from that thread literally made me have corporate stooge-induced nausea. How's about :cussing no miss Goulding, I know what I do and do not enjoy. If i'm gonna play a :cussing board game I'll just go pull out Settlers of Catan or Risk.

If the fiction isn't hitting the mark for you, there are other less developed IPs out there for you to explore.

Wew. Really appreciate the tone with that statement.

"Oh, you don't like it? off and find something else you like and have devoted years of time into."

Maybe I'm misinterpreting that, but sure doesn't seem that way.

Right? Seriously I read her responses and was just like, "This! This is why we can't have :cussing nice things!"

[ephrael]

If you think Goulding is obnoxious in that topic you should check out his Twitter account. He's so obnoxious I stopped following him and I actively avoid reading his posts on The First Expedition.

[DuskRaider]

I'm confused... which are are you saying and which part are you quoting? Are you telling me that I should enjoy GW's garbage fluff?

[Brother Heinrich]

If you think Goulding is obnoxious in that topic you should check out his Twitter account. He's so obnoxious I stopped following him and I actively avoid reading his posts on The First Expedition.

Is it a he or a she, I always assumed Laurie Goulding was female. Not that it makes a difference though, garbage is still garbage. Also I love the whole "Torture, Brutality, really grim atrocities... we simply CAN'T show that in the fiction." Ummmm... u :cussing wot mate?

 

Let me snag a little gem from Chapter V of AD-B's "Void Stalker":

 

:  A skinless, bleeding body hung over each shoulder, raining dark fluid onto the dark armour-plating. Three more cadavers trailed along behind in the dust, hooked to the walking warrior by bronze chains pushed into their spines. Each of them had been skinned in the same crude rush, the skin peeled and torn from their body in indelicate rips. Dusty soil coated them now like false skin, painting the exposed musculature dark with ash.

 

 

You sure about that PG-13 rating there Goulding? 40k has always been about brutality, both written and visual. This is why I so frequently take issue with people saying this game is child friendly. lol get the :cuss out, this is about as child friendly as Game of Thrones, The Sopranos, or Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Hell the entire Night Lords legion makes the Devil's Rejects look like some neighborhood hooligans.

 

Her arguments are just another symptom of those who tow the asinine agenda of gratuitous violence somehow being acceptable and excusable, but things like a single exposed nipple are the highest of heresies. 

 

AND HERE I WAS TRYING TO HAVE A NICE EVENING.

[zedmeister]

Not sure of the point of that rant? Or is it the revelation that "company staff have meetings to discuss new products" shocker?

 

Though, it has to be said that I've lost interest in the Black Library Heresy series a while back and it's only Forgeworld's resin and books that keep me playing. Same company? Yep. Though, for me, Tony Cottrell's department seems to have a canny knack at keeping me coming back as a customer...

[Marshal Rohr]

Laurie is a guy, dudes.

I'm confused... which are are you saying and which part are you quoting? Are you telling me that I should enjoy GW's garbage fluff?

Only the last sentence is me. The quote tags aren't working.

[Brother Heinrich]

Laurie is a guy, dudes.

Thanks for clarifying. Still tool is a tool.

[DuskRaider]

Laurie is a guy, dudes.

I'm confused... which are are you saying and which part are you quoting? Are you telling me that I should enjoy GW's garbage fluff?

Only the last sentence is me. The quote tags aren't working.

 

Ahh, alright. Because that whole thing came off wicked condescending. If someone answered me like that, I would probably write them off completely. What a jackass...

[Marshal Rohr]

It's important to remember he peruses the forums daily, including warseer. He's not going to be gentle when talking to internet critics. Just warseer alone would be enough to make him cynical, but he comes here and H30k iirc as well. In the same way ADB went from posting frequently and answering questions to not saying anything for weeks at a time, the internet chewed up his optimism and compassion for the fan base and spat it back out.

 

The internet really isn't for authors and creative types. Anonymity is just makes people's worst side come out.

[Atia]

Well, goood ol' Laurie should re-read Fulgrim, because that novel wasn't FSK12 (pegi 12? not sure what's the right term), and it was awesome ...

[Brother Handro]

Whilst I agree with the general tone of what Laurie's saying, I have never been able to shake off the feeling that everything he says online comes through the corporate GW filter, totally subconsciously. (At least, I hope so). Everything he posts is defensive and supportive of his employers, whereas that obviously wasn't the case back in the good old days when it was thegreatcrusade.co.uk and we had nothing but time, greenstuff and Red Scorpions upgrades.

 

I find it grimly fascinating psychologically, and believe that we'd all be the same were we to cross the fence and take the GW shilling, no matter how much we think we'd be different. It's human nature to be defensive and proud of what you do and to justify it when criticised.

 

It's part of the reason I left that forum and came here. (That and the idea at the time that the Alpha Legion were only created in the last ~30 years of the crusade, technically invalidating anyone who's Alphas weren't in MkIV. Retcon, retcon, retcon...)

 

I don't have a problem getting or accepting the concept that 30k and its associated works are done as a team effort, until such time as they do something fluff or crunch-wise that seems silly.

[Marshal Loss]

Not a fan of LG at all. At the weekender this year part of the evenings entertainment involved him running a competition where groups got more points if they followed his twitter account... Wouldn't want this thread deteriorating into an anti-LG thread though, he deserves his credit in constructing the heresy as we know it.

 

Anyway, as usual I'm going to do what I've always done - vote with my wallet. I think GW did an amazing job on BAC, and I bought a couple of sets as a result (albeit not from GW itself). If GW continue to produce great 30k stuff, I will continue to buy it happily without caring who made it.

 

So far, the campaign books FW has released after far superior to anything mainstream GW has produced. That's what matters to me. FW's games design is clearly far superior to GW's, and I've seen Andy Hoare posting on Facebook about how FW has a different design philosophy to mainstream GW - or rather, more accurately, that the 'old' design philosophy lives on with FW.

 

EDIT: the novels are hit and miss anyway, I care more about the campaign books at this point

[Hesh Kadesh]

http://askspike.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/toe-the-line.jpg

http://riskmanagement4volunteers.pbworks.com/f/Fire+2.jpg

 

Corporate IP's bleeding. Games Workshop stock seems to have been a bit all over the place - that wouldn't surprise me if it wasn't been propped up somewhere along the line by getting more capital pumped in to support a new product when the sales staff have been down - the noticeable spike following the Age of Sigmar quickly tailed off dropped again, and only comparatively slowly rose. Compare to more consistent quality shares, and there's some major fire fighting going on with GW.

 

Not that I follow that forum, but it seems to have come at a time when GW are closing ranks, that Goulding is out there spilling if not the discussions, the existence, and presence of closed door meetings. That's either wrist slapping time from corporate or a tactical decision to address it. I think the former, because having quickly read through his twitter he comes across as a bit of an arrogant, bandwagoneering potato. Pot Kettle Black, I know, so it must take one to know one.

 

I will always miss that line of Betrayer, to the extent that I bought the actual hardcopy, and put in "salt the :cussing earth". The product itself is hosted in a section of high fantasy/sci fi comics etc within bookstores like Waterstones in the UK, associated with Marvel comics, and more mature novels of the like of Philip K Dick, Trudi Canavan, GRRM, with others like Sergei Lukyanenko, Steven King and Clive Barker are within looking distance, while the childrens and young teens section is intentionally and knowingly hidden behind the central row of shelves of food and travel books. The crowd itself is clearly marketed at a particular audience outside of GW's "allseeing" potato crystal ball, it's just a shame that the setting is now sacrificing is evocative nature and maturity in an exchange for some pseudo/quasi kudos in that books referencing the murder of hundreds of millions of individuals, racism, apartheid, segregation, slavery, torture, abuse, sadism, perversion, worship of idolatry in murder cults, genetic tampering, morally questionable activities of a quasi-nazi tyranny to name but a few of its adult themes in exchange for the lack of detail.

 

They are hardly Michael Morpurgo, Pullman, "The Hungry Caterpillar" or "The Tiger who came to tea".

 

"Less developed" he calls it?

 

Intentionally devoid of colour is nearer the mark, where long standing friendships and a corporate bull:cuss are allowed to get in the way of quality control of a setting which is larger than the individuals. It is like the owner of a football club believing that they are truly in charge of the team, and explains the difference between the charicatature of a film that was the Hobbit, and that piece of cinematic landmark that was the Lord of the Rings. Where the Balrog fought Gandalf and "Fly, you fools" will stick with me in the same manner as the walker assault on Hoth, I will similarly never forget the feeling of reading "I was there the day Horus slew the Emperor", on May 1 2006. It would have been April 26th, but I was in hospital with a broken leg and my parents never brought it to me to read until I was discharged on the Monday after release. Meanwhile, I can vaguely remember some Dinosaurs getting shot, some wierd space angel emperor thing, Horus able to jump and fly through the air in Terminator Armour onto the roof of a Fire Raptor and plot hole fridge logic galore and something else I think in the most recent books.

 

You're an editor, Laurie. Start editing properly. Start slapping people (figuratively) until they stop churning out empty reams of drivel under the auspice of a Horus Heresy Title. Stop telling me to enjoy something simply because it has a label on it. You are basically the iPhone user right now.

[Joe]

You might as well stick a brand on the front page as this point; "Laurie Goulding unwelcome, unless confirming new nude daemonettes."

 

In all seriousness, there are times when the writing turns PG-15 (-13 at a push), however you can usually infer enough from the description of x and y to build a pretty (violent?) picture.

 

That said, you see far worse on the internet; and few children go without easy access to a net connection here.

[Brother Handro]

I think the crux of the problem GW has is that they have a universe that is grim-dark and way above PG13 rating that is wildly appealing to and popular with the adult and young adult sector, yet are desperately reliant on sales to 12-18 year olds.

 

How do you square the two away?

[Joe]

I thought that's what the Tau were for? 

 

Mm. It's messy. I can't think of any other examples which are even remotely close. Mostly scale being an issue here.

[Praetor of Calth]

And just when we thought GW were learning how to behave in the modern age... Although I'd like to think the arrogance of one employee doesn't reflect the company as a whole.

 

Never been a Laurie fan in general to be honest, based on his forum posts anyhow. Then again the internet tends to bring out the worst in people.

 

Interestingly enough, his attitude, represents the attitude of those that brought us "Age of Sigmar " , and we all know how that's turned out....

[KBA]

That guy's attitude is worrying. While the Heresy thus far has been a real treat, no matter what the future brings for better or worse, the best fluff will always be fan fiction and the best models will always be conversions. They create the pen, we play. I fear nothing.

[Marshal Rohr]

I've always found him to be very helpful and polite. That's why I thought it was 'harsh' the way he responded but it has context in the OT. I didn't know so many people disliked him. Again, like ADB, he's harsh because we made him like that. He wasn't always like that, as someone else pointed out. We are just such a bunch of malevolent jackals it poisons the GW posters against us.

[SkimaskMohawk]

I found the "no explicit  gore and no torture" stuff weird as there's been a number of books with that stuff in them; Heinrich  already pointed out the Night Lords trilogy, but does anyone remember Anthony Reynold's Word Bearer series? There's a full on Dark Eldar torture scene in book 2 as well as almost all the carnage being described in detail.

 

The tone and shilling difference between Laurie Golding and A.D-B is incredible 

[Marshal Rohr]

I found the "no explicit gore and no torture" stuff weird as there's been a number of books with that stuff in them; Heinrich already pointed out the Night Lords trilogy, but does anyone remember Anthony Reynold's Word Bearer series? There's a full on Dark Eldar torture scene in book 2 as well as almost all the carnage being described in detail.

 

The tone and shilling difference between Laurie Golding and A.D-B is incredible

ADB doesn't shill, but he's definitely not find of forums :P

[Brother Handro]

I've always found him to be very helpful and polite. That's why I thought it was 'harsh' the way he responded but it has context in the OT. I didn't know so many people disliked him. Again, like ADB, he's harsh because we made him like that. He wasn't always like that, as someone else pointed out. We are just such a bunch of malevolent jackals it poisons the GW posters against us.

 

 

Indeed. He was once one of us, and now he's one of them, and that colours everything he says and our interpretation of it, usually for the worse.

[Marshal Rohr]

I've always been grateful for his explanations of the heresy. I can understand why he defends his employer, and I also understand why he can be so consascending towards us. We are, by definition, backseat drivers. Everything we want and say is meaningless and I'm sure it gets tiring when we nag constantly about things he understands but can't explain. Like if I came to someone else job and complained it wasn't my vision of graphic design.