Vox Cast: The Repository Thread

[Sete]

I don't consider calling a person bland for doing a boring interview an attack, but alright. I have been called worse on this forum.

But my apologies I meant no harm.

Edited February 6, 2019 by Sete

[Brother Tyler]

Yes, I removed a bunch of comments that were off topic. They were bashing Robin Cruddace, or commenting about his efforts on codices, or the appearance of models, instead of being on topic and discussing the video and its contents.

[Brother Casman]

Okay, this topic is intended for discussion about the contents of the various VoxCast episodes. We're not here to talk about our like or dislike for a given guest on the show.

=][=

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Episode 5 covered a brief overview of how Robin got into the hobby and eventually started work with Games Workshop's Design Studio, then there was a high-level discussion on games design in the Studio, a discussion on play-testing and how they formed two external play-testing groups, followed by a deeper dive into the design of Genestealer Cults, including a tidbit on how inspiration struck for the deployment blips.

 

So, we should be discussing these points, in the context of the episode, if we're going to discuss it at all.

 

I've watched all of the episodes so far (including the AoS ones) and I like that there are common threads throughout each. There is definitely an overarching design "philosophy" at GW, and it's clear that the team is fairly tight-knit - everyone's on board with it. But it is nice to see that individual members of the team do have the leeway to put their mark on things within that philosophy, they have some creative freedom to explore the lore. I'll admit, this can be ...troublesome... for some people, if there end up being "clashes" in how people think the game/lore should be, but the universe is big enough for all these ideas to exist somewhere. I'm curious to see if/when they have a guest on again, they'll go deeper into what work is being done; these early episodes feel a bit like primers to me.

 

Heh, ninja'd by Brother Tyler!

Edited February 6, 2019 by Brother Casman
Ninjas all around

[Kastor Krieg]

 

Why? Are you telling me you've never had an "aha!" moment where a great idea presented itself from "out of the blue"? He pointed out that they had 7 or 8 initial ideas for how Cult Ambush could be re-worked, but none of them were interesting, enjoyable or different enough. They were looking for a solution to a problem and he happened to be inspired by Space Hulk. What's the problem with that?

See,

 

> They were looking for a solution to a problem

 

this doesn't read from that. I might've not been paying attention closely enough but all I got from it was precisely that it's not the case GW have recognized "HEY! WE'VE GOT AN ISSUE HERE! Going first in our game is basically a no-brainer and a great boost, so most of the game comes down to the roll off!" and then tried to look for ways to rectify that specific issue, change deployment strategies, provide more options.

 

Instead, it was a lucky shot in the dark. Quite aptly, it was compared to Dar Eldar "combat drugs" and may prove to be just as much of a insanely thematic, but also as much of a random afterthought idea and just as broken.

[Halandaar]

 

See,

 

> They were looking for a solution to a problem

 

this doesn't read from that. I might've not been paying attention closely enough but all I got from it was precisely that it's not the case GW have recognized "HEY! WE'VE GOT AN ISSUE HERE! Going first in our game is basically a no-brainer and a great boost, so most of the game comes down to the roll off!" and then tried to look for ways to rectify that specific issue, change deployment strategies, provide more options.

 

Instead, it was a lucky shot in the dark. Quite aptly, it was compared to Dar Eldar "combat drugs" and may prove to be just as much of a insanely thematic, but also as much of a random afterthought idea and just as broken.

 

Maybe it's a matter of perspective; you're saying it's disappointing that they didn't set out to solve the problem of Turn 1 being powerful and that Cult Ambush having that effect is an accident. Well, I suppose that's true, because it's not the problem Robin said they were looking to solve.

 

But there was an issue that they identified needed resolving; even though the modern GSC was conceived as a deployment-shenanigans faction, by this stage in 8th pretty much every other faction in the game now out-deploys Genestealer Cults because they can reliably deep strike, whereas GSC were still working with a random table. They proposed many (ultimately unsuccessful) ideas to solve that issue before hitting on the blip mechanic.

 

I don't think it's unreasonable that Codex rule development should be done primarily with the faction in mind, and that a more fundamental change to Turn 1 and Alpha Strikes is the remit of chapter approved (indeed, that's why the changes to turn 1 and Deep Striking we've already seen have occurred there)

[Aarik]

. . .There is definitely an overarching design "philosophy" at GW, . . .

 

I'd love to explore this more.  What do you think the overarching design philosophy is?

 

I will say that I thought the latest episode was a bit disappointing because they didn't go as in depth as I would have liked.  Compared to the insights that we got from Jes Goodwin, this episode felt very much surface-level.  Cruddace seemed very careful to toe the party line.  When he couldn't even answer what miniatures he would like to see re-done and just defaulted to "the company is doing so great, I like exactly what it's doing," and Wade had to go back and be like "no it's okay to answer, see, I'd like to see [this random old miniature] be re-done," I facepalmed a bit.

 

I also feel that the time they seem to spend with each guest detailing how they got into Warhammer (which always seems to be "played with some models as a kid, got away from it a bit as I grew up, then got back into it") could be repurposed into something more productive.

 

But overall, I do like that GW is doing this.  I just wish they would lean into it a bit harder.

[Brother Casman]

 

. . .There is definitely an overarching design "philosophy" at GW, . . .

 

I'd love to explore this more.  What do you think the overarching design philosophy is?

 

[snip]

 

Well, I'm not wholly sure - I'm on the outside looking in, and it's entirely possible that I'm seeing patterns that aren't really there. But, the sense I get from Robin (and Jervis) is that they've been looking at making the rules less daunting/more accessible. They've pared down the core rules to a few pages, and moved most special abilities to the individual units, with a few abilities being army-level rules, letting that serve as their basis. It looks like they're aiming for a "minimalist, emergent" style, if that makes sense? At any given point, you're only looking at 2-3 pages (phase, unit, mission perhaps?), so there's less "mental load", which hopefully means you can better focus on the game as a whole. YMMV on how well individual armies (and strategems) adhere to this approach. The complexity in the game then emerges from how the units interact with each other and the mission.

 

...that's kind of vague and rambling, I suppose, but I do think there's some "plan" in place; something beyond "make the best game EVER!". (Please don't argue about this point, it's hyperbole only. You know who you are.)

 

I also agree, GW should keep doing this sort of thing, and hopefully as the guests get more comfortable with it, we'll get some deeper insights.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

I don’t think Jervis really was much involved in writing the rules. They are really good... the last edition was his baby. One thing for sure somebody really loves Xenos.

[Lexington]

I don’t think Jervis really was much involved in writing the rules. They are really good... the last edition was his baby.

Not really sure about this. 7th was an extremely minor revision to 6th, and 6th was primarily a product of Ward, IIRC...

[Brother Casman]

Let's not go too far afield with a discussion about previous editions of the game.

[Ishagu]

They don't say enough things of substance, and provide no unique opinions.

 

The problem with the podcasts is that they are too corporate and thus of little value. We may as well be reading some random blurb on warhammer community.

[Felix Antipodes]

They don't say enough things of substance, and provide no unique opinions.

The problem with the podcasts is that they are too corporate and thus of little value. We may as well be reading some random blurb on warhammer community.

While I agree with you in general, this was the first one that I felt that I got nothing of interest out of it. Robin was playing an extremely straight bat to every question, even when it wasn't required.

[m0nolith]

They don't say enough things of substance, and provide no unique opinions.

 

The problem with the podcasts is that they are too corporate and thus of little value. We may as well be reading some random blurb on warhammer community.

Holy hell, I'm actually agreeing with Ishagu on something!

What has the world come to! :D 

[Trevak Dal]

I know that a lot of people hate his decisions as a game designer (myself included), but let's stay away from attacking the man himself please? Don't want to end up with another Matt Ward situation.

Hey. Matt Ward is a hero in my eyes and didn't do anything wrong besides write some questionable fanfiction. All his books worked and bad units were few and far between.

 

Mr. Kelly's non elf efforts had some swingy elements to them, or were straight "let's copy and paste the last codex everybody roundly hated and push in the new :cuss so I can write some more elf books" (chaos). Mr. Cruddace's efforts were to nerf factions that did his favorite faction wrong.

 

The better writers were Matt Ward, The Gerbil Man (wrote the Tau 6th Ed book after chaos I had super low expectations, and was astonished how amazing it turned out) and Phil Kelly if he's writing about space elves or the Chaos Lite guys.

[Slips]

YO DAWGS I HEARD YOU LIKED SMELLY CHEESE, BAGUETTES AND THE NEW DEATH GUARD???

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcrAHyOLPyo

[Dosjetka]

Aw yis. Looking forward to watching/listening to this one! :tu:

[Gederas]

I like how at the end Maxime gives a shout-out to his blog in French :lol:

[Sete]

Not the Maxime I want.

[Panzer]

Who's this guy? Is it worth watching?

[Slips]

Who's this guy? Is it worth watching?

Hes literally the guy who designed the new DG range, amogst other things.

[Panzer]

 

Who's this guy? Is it worth watching?

Hes literally the guy who designed the new DG range, amogst other things.

 

Not really paying attention to such things to be fair. :teehee:

I gonna give it a listen at work tomorrow. It's always good to have some background nice while coding.

[Dosjetka]

I like how at the end Maxime gives a shout-out to his blog in French :lol:

Nice little shout-out to a lot of things actually, including the community in my country which is only partially French-speaking!

Anyway, any enjoyable episode. Didn't learn anything ground-breakingly new but I enjoyed having some more insight on the design and sculpting process that goes on. :tu:

[Gederas]

I like how at the end Maxime gives a shout-out to his blog in French

Nice little shout-out to a lot of things actually, including the community in my country which is only partially French-speaking!

Anyway, any enjoyable episode. Didn't learn anything ground-breakingly new but I enjoyed having some more insight on the design and sculpting process that goes on.

The thing is, I had no idea what he was saying in French at the end there EXCEPT him pimping out his own blog because I read his blog fairly often

Edited February 18, 2019 by Gederas

[Dosjetka]

In case anyone is interested in what he said in French (rough translation because it's late):

• Hello to the French, Belgian, Swiss, and other [francophone] communities;
• Hello to his hobbyist friends from different gaming circles and the Blog Des Kouzes team;
• Hello to all the members of the French Waaagh! and the Warhammer Forum (francophone hobby websites) who are "historic" and still very active today;
• Hello to all the GW and Warhammer shop staff, and independant retailers, who are also a part of this community;
• You're all rad.

[Dosjetka]

<insert Slips-style intro catchphrase >