The 40k rules puzzle me

[Captain Idaho]

It's a concept I agree with but GW is going down the route of not supplying anything a 3rd party can make money off. It's strategy doomed to fail since there's always something a 3rd Party can workaround, but GW is looking at "official" rather than anything. Lots of people only buy the official stuff so short term they double down on it.

[ZeroWolf]

16 minutes ago, Bouargh said:

 

I would not say that bringing back fantasy battle 9 years or so after axing it down is preservation of player base. Player base for rank and file is away already. I would rather consider it as a cheap and lazy way to reinstall a game at zero dev cost or almost. Cathay will be the new stuff for AoS... Every thing else is recooked old stuff. It benefits of nostalgy effect too.

 

But in general it might be my only point of small disagreement with all that has been said.

Cathay was actually designed as part of Total War: Warhammer 3 (GW tre, which takes place in the old world setting (itself said that the games popularity was part of the reason old world was resurrected). A full Kislev range was designed at the same time but..err...now isn't the best time for that release.

[Bouargh]

2 hours ago, Deschenus Maximus said:

 

Bit of a tangent but here's another thing I don't understand: even if GW is not going to support out of print games like Mordheim and BFG, why not continue to make the rules for those games available to digitally purchase? The development costs have already been paid, and people are still playing them, even if the community for them isn't big enough to warrant a full tilt effort/full plastic release spread. You could even dabble in STL-making/selling!l.

lI imagine it as a side effect of the meme: we_are_a_ miniature_ company_not_ a_ game_ company. Even if I see GW today much more as a multi supports editing company. But I am off topic.

[Deus_Ex_Machina]

40K will never receive great rules in the future because it doesn´t need to for becoming a sales hit. I will be using a wrestling analogy here to explain it in more detail:

 

Hulk Hogan was the face of wrestling in the 80s and drew crowds to the arenas like none other. Hulk Hogan´s stats are like this:

 

1. Looks/Physique: 10/10.

2. Promo/Mic: 10/10.

3. Wrestling Skill: 3/10.

 

So how can a lacklustre wrestling performance sell tickets to wrestling events again and again? Because it´s not about the match itself but about the persons involved in the feud. If fans care enough about those wrestlers then they will queue up to watch your future matches. This means the soap opera part is more important than the stuff which happens in the ring.

 

 

And now back to 40K and it´s stats:

 

1. Presentation/Art: 8/10.

2. Lore: 8/10.

3. Gaming Rules: 3/10.

 

People become interested into the game when they see those large art pieces printed on the model boxes. This is especially true for starter boxes which have larger surfaces for art. Next stage is to learn of who these hulking freaks in power armour are and why they need to purge everybody who does not love Emp. The reader is faced with a very rich setting that has been expanded over decades. By that point a beginner is so hyped that he wants to unleash hell on the tabletop itself and explore all the interesting habitats he read about in lore sections or novels. When he has painfully glued together his Smurfs he can now experience a shallow game which centers around standing on circles while making use of L-shaped ruins for cover. This gameplay never happens in novels but he doesn´t care as much because he fell in love with the setting itself and what happens on the tabletop becomes a secondary issue.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

37 minutes ago, Deus_Ex_Machina said:

40K will never receive great rules in the future because it doesn´t need to for becoming a sales hit. I will be using a wrestling analogy here to explain it in more detail:

 

Hulk Hogan was the face of wrestling in the 80s and drew crowds to the arenas like none other. Hulk Hogan´s stats are like this:

 

1. Looks/Physique: 10/10.

2. Promo/Mic: 10/10.

3. Wrestling Skill: 3/10.

 

So how can a lacklustre wrestling performance sell tickets to wrestling events again and again? Because it´s not about the match itself but about the persons involved in the feud. If fans care enough about those wrestlers then they will queue up to watch your future matches. This means the soap opera part is more important than the stuff which happens in the ring.

 

 

And now back to 40K and it´s stats:

 

1. Presentation/Art: 8/10.

2. Lore: 8/10.

3. Gaming Rules: 3/10.

 

People become interested into the game when they see those large art pieces printed on the model boxes. This is especially true for starter boxes which have larger surfaces for art. Next stage is to learn of who these hulking freaks in power armour are and why they need to purge everybody who does not love Emp. The reader is faced with a very rich setting that has been expanded over decades. By that point a beginner is so hyped that he wants to unleash hell on the tabletop itself and explore all the interesting habitats he read about in lore sections or novels. When he has painfully glued together his Smurfs he can now experience a shallow game which centers around standing on circles while making use of L-shaped ruins for cover. This gameplay never happens in novels but he doesn´t care as much because he fell in love with the setting itself and what happens on the tabletop becomes a secondary issue.

My love for the setting is why I came back despite the cost.

i couldn’t find any other games with nearly as good of settings and lore, or aesthetics.

[MARK0SIAN]

4 hours ago, Deschenus Maximus said:

 

Bit of a tangent but here's another thing I don't understand: even if GW is not going to support out of print games like Mordheim and BFG, why not continue to make the rules for those games available to digitally purchase? The development costs have already been paid, and people are still playing them, even if the community for them isn't big enough to warrant a full tilt effort/full plastic release spread. You could even dabble in STL-making/selling!

I could see them possibly making old rulesets available free via the vault or something similar at some stage but they won’t continue to sell them. If they continue to sell them then there will be pressure from customers to support them with models and updates/FAQs etc which they don’t want to do. 
 

They’ve tried to give the impression of a company that responds to its players to some degree, a lot more than they used to anyway. To just keep taking money for games they don’t support or balance anymore would fly in the face of that somewhat and probably wouldn’t be worth the hassle for the amount of people who would actually buy those rules. 
 

As for STL marketing they probably won’t do it as they pride themselves on offering high quality models. A downloadable STL may well be printed by someone who knows what they’re doing on a high quality printer and the result would look good. But it could just as easily be printed on a dirt cheap printer and all of sudden the internet is flooded with pictures of official GW models covered in layer lines or otherwise badly printed and it tarnishes the brand because people will think it’s a poor quality offering from GW rather than a poor quality print. 

[Antarius]

They made the Mordheim, Necromunda et.al. rules available for free for years. I sort of wonder why they don’t still do that, but eh.

 I’ll admit that it’s sort of puzzling to me why they don’t do “made to order” runs of the minis once i a while, as it seems like it’d basically be a license to print money, but who knows?

 

As for Warhammer 40.000, I am definitely in the camp that *want* it to resemble earlier editions to some degree (I think alternating activation would drive me off, actually), but at the same time, I don’t mind some changes as long as they preserve the core “feel” of Warhammer 40.000.