Growing weary of the 8th edition lore

[Robbienw]

This hobby is a large investment of time, money and effort.

 

If people dislike the direction so much, why do they suffer through it?

 

You can still like something and be into it whilst disliking new changes to it though.

 

For example I dislike the new Primaris models and complain about them, but I'm still really enjoying other new models that have come out recently. I've spent more this year on GW stuff than probably in the last 3 years put together.

 

So I can still like something whilst disliking an aspect of it.

 

It's human nature to complain strongly about such things and it may make it seem like people hate everything about the hobby, but they probably don't, they just have a bee in their bonnet about something in particular.

[E_50_Panzer]

You have to leave it to BL to fill out the Primaris stuff. Expecting greatness from the Studio is...something about hope, and a first step.

 

Once ADB drops some goodness on us, all will be well.

Most stuff coming from GW in regards to new lore is usually a piece of piss, so I'm just waiting for Black Library to clean this up. I actually liked The Emperors Legion, and that is set during the Fall of Cadia.

[Corswain]

This hobby is a large investment of time, money and effort.

If people dislike the direction so much, why do they suffer through it? It's like those mmo addicts who hate everything about the game they play yet remain online just to fill their gaming group with negative feelings.

For me the problem also ties back into the models. I really don’t like the Primaris models. If I did, the fluff would be easier to ignore. If the fluff wa good, models I don’t like would be easier to ignore. When I don’t like either, it’s time to ignore that part and focus on other parts of the universe. But that’s not easy when the parts you don’t like account for the majority of the IP.

And I suffer through it because I love the hobby, and I love the universe and I’m hoping that this is just a rough patch that GW will iron out. It’s not like bad fluff is new to 40K.

 

So, focus on the good parts, and there are good parts. I love the Deathguard stuff so that’s where my focus is. And 30K to the 41st Millenium. And I’ll wait and see what GW does.

 

You also make a good point about negativity and its impact on others so I’m gonna try to keep things constructive from now on. I’ve had a good grumble since the launch of 8th, now it’s time to just focus on the things that do make me happy in the hobby.

 

And the thread looks like it’ll get melta’d soon anyway. :)

[toaae]

90% of the current hobby, I am all-aboard for. The current models and kits. The paints. The fricking paint accessories. The massive universe prior to Mat Ward. The current rules. I love it all so much. Oh, and my current gaming group.

My dislike for the recent fluff won't sink that. I love this hobby. But when a thread comes around, asking what this thread is asking, I'm going to air out my thoughts.

 

 

What we know, categorically, is that everything GW is doing right now is bringing in more sales and fresh players so it's clearly the correct course of action.

 

This is arrogant in the extreme. The fluff has little to nothing to do with this. The community outreach, the business philosophy change, the new rules are what are expanding the game, not the poor fluff. 

 

[Wargamer]

Do some people need to be reminded about how pay to win microtransactions in Battlefront 2 played out? That was empirically the right thing to do from a purely financial perspective... until you piss off your customers so much they abandon you.

This is the lesson GW took about two Editions to learn.

[Doghouse]

This hobby is a large investment of time, money and effort.

 

If people dislike the direction so much, why do they suffer through it? It's like those mmo addicts who hate everything about the game they play yet remain online just to fill their gaming group with negative feelings.

 

I think the first part of your reply answers your question there mate, people get passionate simply because they have invested so much in the hobby.

 

I think for a lot of people it's like having a successful and popular franchise soft rebooted and then being told you have to like the new ones because change is good. Now people could argue the old version is still there but when the story is being told is purely from the point of view of the new stuff and it changes lots of things you loved, contradicts things you knew with next to no explanation or leaves gaping plot holes it can ruin it for them.

 

We're all fans at the end of the day but this edition's lore has been a bit divisive. Trick is that we don't all bite each other's heads off and try to remember we all are on the same team.

[Scribe]

If I may, I would ask folks to step back and look at things from a bit of a distance.

 

Reading The Emperors Legion, unless the the book takes a MASSIVE nose dive...it's my 40K.

 

Reading The Black Legion...it's my 40k.

 

Reading 8th Edition Rules, various codex books....it's all still good.

 

Yeah some of the Cawl/Rob focus is tedious, but is that anyway worse than the drivel that was some of the GK fluff, or Wards Spiritual Liege?

 

Nah.

 

Run out your normal marines, they live until they are killed.

 

Explore what Primaris actually mean to you, and the setting, and ignore that they are an obvious corporate replacement of the most profitable line GW has.

 

In the end, I think the setting and it's core truth has changed far less than some people on the noble hope side would care to admit.. but that too, is irrelevant.

 

Loose Canon.

 

Just read French, Wraight, and ADB, and trust.

[Xwingt65]

Let's not get this wrong Guilliman and his Primaris are nothing but a Deus ex machina. I don't blame the writers as I can almost guarantee this is coming from GW. I am no writer, but even I remember in high school being taught you can't use the same Deus ex machina for multiple events, which is what is going on. It is bad story telling.

That said they could have used any number of deus ex machina events to save these chapters. Tau being in BA land could have made a Tyranids killing virus. Mephiston could have found a way to break the hive mind synapses. DA could have simply not been written into that corner.

I could see Mephiston evolving into some kind of black vampire/demon hybrid thing in the process. Would make a cool model.

[Red_Shift]

Personally I'd have preferred the primaris to have been a fessed up true scale reboot and justify the new armour etc as the work of cawl but leave out the extra organs.

 

I'm excited by the return of the primarchs though (Dorn lives!) and frankly I like New toys, I don't want endless predator variants so the new stuff is cool, more or less. Intercessors very much so, aggressors and the jump pack guys are fails for me. That super heavy grav tank though, wow.

 

I love 40k fluff but it has always been used as a way to sell the models and it was inevitably going to evolve. There's not many of us pining for orks with cockey accents and comedy paint styles!

[Ogun]

This topic reminds me of one of my favourite bits in The Devastation of Baal, when Haley has Dante and Seth have pretty much a version of this very argument. 

''There are few of my warriors left, few true Flesh Tearers. Once we are dead, the Flesh Tearers will be no more, no matter that these abominations carry our name. It is a betrayal, not a boon. Guilliman will want us gone quickly, and his own warriors in our stead'. 

 

We are in an odd position at present. For the first time for as long as I can remember, we the fan base are off the map. We can stab guesses, but we genuinely don't know where things are going in the narrative, and that is unsettling. GW's narrative boldness over the past year has taken most of us aback. If you had told me this time last year that we would have a Guilliman model I would have laughed it off. 

It might be best then if we reign back on predictions of the future, particularly of the marine line (especially since this has been fought out before). There are an awful lot of assumptions being made as to GW's motivations behind the Primaris and the future. Perhaps they will retire the standard marines, perhaps not, I have no idea. Facts are that standard marines are their largest and most successful range of minatures, and the Primaris units have been designed as an addition to them rather a direct replication. That is all we actually really know. 

[Master Commander Ajax]

 

 

We can stab guesses, but we genuinely don't know where things are going in the narrative, and that is unsettling.

 

What I find really unsettling is the apparent lack of planning that GW themselves have put into the new setting. 

[Red_Shift]

Well said Ogun. Although IIRC Harry said we would only see primaris releases from here on out although they wouldn't replace regular marines for some time. Love that Flesh Tearers quote.

[Scribe]

 

 

 

We can stab guesses, but we genuinely don't know where things are going in the narrative, and that is unsettling.

 

What I find really unsettling is the apparent lack of planning that GW themselves have put into the new setting. 

 

 

In what way?

 

I mean what is the arguable facts which bring you to this conclusion? 

 

Unlike a few others, I'm no shill, I've posted many things that GW would not like to think are views held by the community, but 'no planning' isnt one of them.

[Stofficus]

Several people have referenced BL authors developing the more recent setting properly, but I would caution that they still have to follow a certain level of direction from GW. 

 

Abnett's "Warmaster," for instance refers to the "Astra Militarum" far more than it uses the Imperial Guard, and there are no stormtroopers, but Tempestus Scions. Names are a simple thing to enforce, but it remains all the more clear; when GW indicates the setting needs to adjust to fit their narrative, adjust it will. 

[Scribe]

Uh...I dont think anyone is going to question things when Licensed Fiction has references to Copy Right material. Thats kinda how this all works. :p

[rendingon1+]

I find it amusing that people still go with "Ward is evil blah blah". True, some of his fluff ideas were atrocious but this entire meming about spiritual lieges, Draigo, BA/Necrons alliance (which in time perspective made sense because of Necrons fluff revamp) was born in 4chan gutter and carried on by the rest. I BET that most people who now   on Matt Ward didn't spot this "fluff abominations" by themselves but just jumped on 4chan bandwagon. Say what you like but his fluff was mostly solid (Necrons, BA) and except for his UM drivel he did quite a lot good things. For example, no one blames Phill Kelly who's   writer, who made a SW codex that ruined the image of the wolves etc. Why? Because all cool kids take their opinions from 1d4chan and Kelly is not molested by it. Besides do you really think that Ward just wrote what he did and it went to the printers without any form of proofreading or approval from GW? Sure as hel it didn't. He gave GW what GW wanted and making him a scapegoat of all background failures of old is silly and childlish. I'm not praising Ward as misunderstood genius but I don't thin he deserves it.

 

As for new fluff: It's just extrememly unenjoable. I see they try to hard to make thing epic, original and are misrerably failing. My opinion.

[bluntblade]

I think an issue with characters soloing big beasts is that Epic Duel of Destiny often gets confused with Boss Fight. Not that the latter can't be entertaining- the Keeper of Secrets in Path of Heaven is it done very well - but it doesn't have the same level of drama and thus it makes less sense for characters to behave as they sometimes do in those circumstances.

[Master Commander Ajax]

 

 

 

 

We can stab guesses, but we genuinely don't know where things are going in the narrative, and that is unsettling.

 

What I find really unsettling is the apparent lack of planning that GW themselves have put into the new setting. 

 

 

In what way?

 

I mean what is the arguable facts which bring you to this conclusion? 

 

Unlike a few others, I'm no shill, I've posted many things that GW would not like to think are views held by the community, but 'no planning' isnt one of them.

 

 

-The lack of any explanation as to why mortal characters are alive and well despite the setting moving forward one hundred years. 

 

-The lack of any clarity as to whether or not 'normal' Space Marine's can be 'upgraded' to Primaris Marines.

 

- The lack of a good explanation as to how Warp travel in is possible in the Dark Imperium without the light of the Astronomican.

 

These are the three that jump into my mind straight away but there are more. 

[Master Commander Ajax]

 

I find it amusing that people still go with "Ward is evil blah blah". True, some of his fluff ideas were atrocious but this entire meming about spiritual lieges, Draigo, BA/Necrons alliance (which in time perspective made sense because of Necrons fluff revamp) was born in 4chan gutter and carried on by the rest. I BET that most people who now   on Matt Ward didn't spot this "fluff abominations" by themselves but just jumped on 4chan bandwagon. Say what you like but his fluff was mostly solid (Necrons, BA) and except for his UM drivel he did quite a lot good things. For example, no one blames Phill Kelly who's   writer, who made a SW codex that ruined the image of the wolves etc. Why? Because all cool kids take their opinions from 1d4chan and Kelly is not molested by it. Besides do you really think that Ward just wrote what he did and it went to the printers without any form of proofreading or approval from GW? Sure as hel it didn't. He gave GW what GW wanted and making him a scapegoat of all background failures of old is silly and childlish. I'm not praising Ward as misunderstood genius but I don't thin he deserves it.

 

As for new fluff: It's just extrememly unenjoable. I see they try to hard to make thing epic, original and are misrerably failing. My opinion.

 

I agree, the Matt Ward hate was way over the top (and was rather ugly to witness).

[Mileposter]

 

 

 

We can stab guesses, but we genuinely don't know where things are going in the narrative, and that is unsettling.

 

What I find really unsettling is the apparent lack of planning that GW themselves have put into the new setting.

 

 

In what way?

 

I mean what is the arguable facts which bring you to this conclusion? 

 

Unlike a few others, I'm no shill, I've posted many things that GW would not like to think are views held by the community, but 'no planning' isnt one of them.

 

 

-The lack of any explanation as to why mortal characters are alive and well despite the setting moving forward one hundred years. 

 

-The lack of any clarity as to whether or not 'normal' Space Marine's can be 'upgraded' to Primaris Marines.

 

- The lack of a good explanation as to how Warp travel in is possible in the Dark Imperium without the light of the Astronomican.

 

These are the three that jump into my mind straight away but there are more.

 

This presents only evidence of a lack of communication, not a lack of planning.

[Scribe]

And points to some pretty large gaps that the setting fills for us.

 

Mortals still around? Warp Time, or Rejuvenated.

 

Normal Marine upgrade? Hardly a pressing issue in universe.

 

Travel without the Astronomicon? Harder, but doable both pre Emperor, and by other races and factions non imperial.

 

Like come on these are softballs.

[Master Commander Ajax]

 

 

 

 

We can stab guesses, but we genuinely don't know where things are going in the narrative, and that is unsettling.

 

What I find really unsettling is the apparent lack of planning that GW themselves have put into the new setting.

 

 

In what way?

 

I mean what is the arguable facts which bring you to this conclusion? 

 

Unlike a few others, I'm no shill, I've posted many things that GW would not like to think are views held by the community, but 'no planning' isnt one of them.

 

 

-The lack of any explanation as to why mortal characters are alive and well despite the setting moving forward one hundred years. 

 

-The lack of any clarity as to whether or not 'normal' Space Marine's can be 'upgraded' to Primaris Marines.

 

- The lack of a good explanation as to how Warp travel in is possible in the Dark Imperium without the light of the Astronomican.

 

These are the three that jump into my mind straight away but there are more.

 

This presents only evidence of a lack of communication, not a lack of planning.

 

 

Which implies that GW doesn't have answers to these questions yet?

[Lord_Caerolion]

 

 

 

 

 

We can stab guesses, but we genuinely don't know where things are going in the narrative, and that is unsettling.

 

What I find really unsettling is the apparent lack of planning that GW themselves have put into the new setting. 

 

 

In what way?

 

I mean what is the arguable facts which bring you to this conclusion? 

 

Unlike a few others, I'm no shill, I've posted many things that GW would not like to think are views held by the community, but 'no planning' isnt one of them.

 

 

-The lack of any explanation as to why mortal characters are alive and well despite the setting moving forward one hundred years. 

 

-The lack of any clarity as to whether or not 'normal' Space Marine's can be 'upgraded' to Primaris Marines.

 

- The lack of a good explanation as to how Warp travel in is possible in the Dark Imperium without the light of the Astronomican.

 

These are the three that jump into my mind straight away but there are more. 

 

 

- Juvenat treatments have existed for a long time in 40k, many high-ranking Imperial officials can be 200/300 years old.

 

- So, because they haven't addressed a rumour, they're at fault? Nothing has ever officially hinted that Space Marines can be 'upgraded'. This is a new creation process, so unless the Marine is implanted with the new ones at the beginning, he's a standard Marine. Until stated otherwise, we assume that it works that way. Anything else is conjecture.

 

- The warp travel happens the exact same way warp travel occurred before the Astronomicon was created? You do realise it's not a requirement, right? Humanity managed to use warp travel to conquer the galaxy in the Dark Age of Technology, all without the Astronomicon. It just means they can't make jumps quite as long.

 

These aren't exactly setting-breaking issues, and they've pretty much all got actual answers,

[m0nolith]

I wasn't playing the game in 5th or 6th edition, where some of the really big and cool things that people talk fondly about occurred. I can't speak to it, so I won't try. I do know several people who enjoyed those things. But that was years ago. A different time. A different king. It's very possible those who went through those releases may have to come to grips with a concept that eludes many of the older Star Wars fans: You aren't the target audience anymore. What worked then may not work now. Be kind to your new generation of players. The people in the hobby and the attitudes they exhibit - such as how they treat their fellow hobbyists in threads like these - would be what drives me away from the hobby before any change in lore. "Lore first" means nothing in a game that take more than one person to play when the treatment by those who disagree is... Well.40k is the people you play it with, not the models on the table.

40k isn’t just the people you play with. For some it is, but for some it’s the rules, or the models or the lore.

For some it’s the complex combination of all of those things. The audience isn’t a singular monolithic sort of entity. Different people like different things.

 

It’s also an unfair comparison to Star Wars.

I don’t want to get into the massive differences in where the staple of one IP are movies and he other are miniature models, but Star Wars from the getgo was created to appeal to a younger audience.

 

40k on the other hand, at least in its past, with its dystopian elements had a older target audience, even when they had the absurd parts of Rogue Trader. It want until Tom Kirby that they doubled down on the younger audience.

How did that work out for him?

 

Although I fully agree with you when it comes to how we should treat new players.

[Wargamer]

I find it amusing that people still go with "Ward is evil blah blah". True, some of his fluff ideas were atrocious but this entire meming about spiritual lieges, Draigo, BA/Necrons alliance (which in time perspective made sense because of Necrons fluff revamp) was born in 4chan gutter and carried on by the rest. I BET that most people who now   on Matt Ward didn't spot this "fluff abominations" by themselves but just jumped on 4chan bandwagon. Say what you like but his fluff was mostly solid (Necrons, BA) and except for his UM drivel he did quite a lot good things. For example, no one blames Phill Kelly who's   writer, who made a SW codex that ruined the image of the wolves etc. Why? Because all cool kids take their opinions from 1d4chan and Kelly is not molested by it. Besides do you really think that Ward just wrote what he did and it went to the printers without any form of proofreading or approval from GW? Sure as hel it didn't. He gave GW what GW wanted and making him a scapegoat of all background failures of old is silly and childlish. I'm not praising Ward as misunderstood genius but I don't thin he deserves it.

 

As for new fluff: It's just extrememly unenjoable. I see they try to hard to make thing epic, original and are misrerably failing. My opinion.

Again, this is best explained with gaming.

 

Star Wars Battlefront II is so awful that governments are seeking to enact laws to make its monetisation system illegal. So this must be a uniquely terrible game, right?

 

Nope! Everything this game does has been done before, and worse, by other games.

 

So why is BF II so uniquely hated to the point where governments are passing laws to destroy their business model? Because it's the straw the broke the camel's back - the confluence of pressures building for years.

 

Matt Ward may not be the worst writer, but he was the wrong writer - wrong place, wrong time, wrong choices.