Your thoughts on how the B&C supports older editions of games

[Brother Tyler]

Games Workshop has an interesting model with their games, publishing new editions every few years. As a result, much of the content here becomes obsolete when a new edition of a game is published. When I say "content" I am mostly focused on discussions about gameplay (rules discussions, tactica, army lists, and battle reports) and files related to gameplay (e.g., these alternative rules for the Black Templars were created for the 8th edition of the Warhammer 40,000 game). Many hobbyists are focused solely on the current edition of a game, though there are some hobbyists that enjoy playing older editions of games. Ideally, we want to be able to support players in both camps.

 

Our status quo does that, so this isn't necessarily a "problem" that needs to be fixed. What I'm trying to figure out at this point is if there might be an alternative that supports the community without creating an onerous work effort, either for the members or for the staff.

 

The Oldhammer 40k club sparked an idea. For those that aren't aware of the club, it is a B&C club that provides support to players who enjoy older editions of the game. We are currently on the 10th edition of that game, so discussion about previous editions and files to support those editions can take place in that club while members who enjoy the current edition of the game can continue to use the site's main forums. Clubs tend to be underutilized, with the system not providing the maximum visibility. We've mitigated that somewhat through the use of the sidebar blocks and the addition of a link to that club in the resource topic for the Warhammer 40,000 game. With the recent reorganization of the site's forums, it occurred to me that other games [that have dedicated forums] might similarly be supported with clubs.

 

For example, the Kill Team game is on the 2024 edition, but the game has had various iterations over the years, including its original incarnation as a subset of the Warhammer 40,000 4th edition rules and several similar follow-ups, with distinct editions being published in 2018 and 2021. There may be hobbyists who enjoy one (or more) of those older versions of the game.

 

Under this concept, any of the games for which the B&C has a dedicated forum and for which there are multiple distinct editions might have a club here. Meanwhile, there would also be a club for each such game to support older editions. The main Forums and Downloads features would have content for the current edition of the game while content for older editions would be moved into the corresponding club. The clubs would then be linked in the main forum's resource topic, giving members interested in playing an older edition of the game an easy path to the club (rather than having to search for it).

 

The method of facilitating this would be the use of edition-based tags for games, and we are working on standardizing those. These tags should be included on any relevant content and when there is an edition change, content with the older edition's tag would be moved into the corresponding club.

 

We wouldn't necessarily need such clubs for every game for which there are multiple editions. Similarly, I don't know how much of a need there might be for this solution for some of the more niche games. There might be room for clubs for some of these, however. For example, the Aeronautica Imperialis game had two editions, though it is no longer supported and has been rolled into the other epic-scale games set in the Horus Heresy (though the 1st and 2nd editions were set in the "modern" era). The 1st edition was distinct from the 2nd edition, so some might believe that such a club is warranted. I'm not sure how much content appeared for any of the editions of the game here at the B&C, however. A club to support the game might be helpful for members of the community, though.

 

I can definitely see this having potential for the Kill Team, Necromunda, and Warhammer: Horus Heresy games. I can also see it supporting the Legiones Imperialis (Epic) and Adeptus Titanicus games. Whether or not it would support games such as Aeronautica Imperialis, Space Hulk, etc. is up for debate. It's really a matter of how rules change across editions - the more substantial the differences are, the more likely it is that a club might be helpful, especially if there is a substantial amount of content for the older edition(s) of the game here.

 

The work I see for these hypothetical clubs involves:

• Determining if a club would be helpful for any game.
• Ensuring that the proper tags are assigned (should be done by the member submitting the content, but the staff might perform a role in disciplining the process).
• Moving content into the clubs when there is an edition change. This falls to the staff, but can be very easy when the right tags are used.

To be clear, I'm not saying that we should do this. It's just something that occurred to me as I considered ways to support the community. Ultimately, it comes down to whether or not the benefits to members would be worth the effort required (on the part of both the members and the staff).

 

I'm interested in your thoughts on the subject.

[bloodhound23]

I’m actually interested in Shadow War Armageddon because of its small model size and relatively sleek rule set. 
 

Would love to see this for all old editions of games. 

[Brother Tyler]

13 minutes ago, bloodhound23 said:

I’m actually interested in Shadow War Armageddon because of its small model size and relatively sleek rule set. 
 

Would love to see this for all old editions of games. 

 

To preface, this response is not saying "no" to the implied suggestion.

 

Under our current structure, Shadow War: Armageddon is supported in the + OTHER GAMES + forum. You can see the resource topic for that game here. You can also see a number of files that hobbyists have created for the game in our Downloads feature (I think that most/all of these are also listed/linked in the resource topic). That game, like Battlefleet Gothic and some others, only had a single edition. SWA was surprisingly short-lived, being published in 2017 (viewed as a WH40Kified version of Mordheim and the 1st/2nd editions of Necromunda), and being "replaced" shortly thereafter by the 2018 edition of Kill Team (the first "proper" edition of that game where it wasn't an add-on to the main Warhammer 40,000 game).

 

We could make clubs for games like Shadow War: Armageddon, Battlefleet Gothic, and others, but there is a much lower need for such clubs when these games had only a single edition and content for them works under the site's current structure. There's no "edition confusion" that arises in the various features. I'm not in any way opposed to such clubs, mind you, if the community thinks they would be better than the current setup.

[Pacific81]

Great to see the B&C is looking at this sort of thing. My first question would be, how do you actually access the clubs? 

 

Numbers wise some of the Oldhammer groups on FB have absolutely exploded numbers-wise in the past few years. A 2nd edition 40k group I frequent has doubled in size to more than 10k members, for example. So it would be good to have some sort of representation here on the forum.

 

Would some sort of Oldhammer section near each game system work for example? I quite like that the 'Epic scale' section is labelled as such, rather than just Legions Imperialis, as a good number of us that post there play different versions. Anecdotally, we have larger local groups playing Armageddon than we do Legions, so it seems to make sense to cover as broad a spread as possible.

Edited Tuesday at 05:01 PM by Pacific81

[Brother Tyler]

A tutorial about the Clubs feature is planned, but here's a quick rundown to answer your questions.

 

The two easiest ways to access the Clubs feature are via the button at the top of the site and the link in the ++ SITE FEATURES ++ category (on the main Forums page).

 

An indirect path into the feature is via the sidebar blocks. Recent Club Activity is one of the blocks that appears on both the main Forums page and in the various (sub)forums. Both versions show the 5 clubs in which there has been recent activity and you can click on any of them to take you directly to the club, then back out into the main Clubs feature page.

 

A follow-on method for accessing the Clubs feature, usable after you have joined any clubs, is via your profile page. Simply click on the Clubs tab to see all of the clubs you have joined. You can then click on any of them to go directly into those clubs (backing out if you want to see the main Clubs feature page).

 

And a great way to receive notifications about activity in any clubs is to follow the clubs in which you are interested and have your notification settings set up to provide you with notifications whenever there are updates in such clubs. This is actually a good idea for any content (e.g., blogs, discussions, forums, etc.) to which you want to pay attention and receive notifications when there are updates.

 

What I envision (and this may change based on feedback and discussion) is that we would create a club for each eligible game ("eligible" here meaning games with multiple editions and whatever other criteria we decide upon). Each club would support all of the previous editions of the game. Clubs can include discussion forums, gallery albums, articles, blogs, download files, and calendar events, giving members a lot of control and flexibility. A link to each such club would then be included in the forum for [the current edition of] the game. We could provide one or two links - either a direct link that appears in the forum (such as the links to blogs and galleries that you see in many of the forums, especially those dedicated to specific factions) or a link in the resource topic that appears in the forum, or both. For example, if you look at the + IMPERIAL KNIGHTS + forum, you'll see links to Albums and Blogs. Those links will take you to all of the albums in the Imperial Knights category of the Gallery and the Imperial Knights category of the Blogs. In addition, there is the Imperial Knights Resources topic in which you can find links to a variety of Imperial Knights content both at the B&C and externally. We could use either/both of those methods. So a club dedicated to previous editions of the Kill Team game would be linked in the + KILL TEAM + forum whereas a club dedicated to previous editions of the Necromunda game would be linked in the + NECROMUNDA + forum. Using your example of Epic, the club for the previous editions of the Epic game would be linked in the + EPIC SCALE HORUS HERESY GAMES + forum. That forum currently covers three different games: Warhammer: The Horus Heresy - Legions Imperialis (the previous editions being Space Marine, then Warhammer Epic 40,000, then Epic Armageddon), Aeronautica Imperialis (the previous edition having the same name), and Adeptus Titanicus: The Horus Heresy (the previous editions being Adeptus Titanicus, then Epic: Titan Legions, then Adeptus Titanicus II), so there would be a club for each of those systems and each of those clubs would be linked in that forum (and there would likely be some cross-linking between the three clubs). Anyone who enjoys a previous edition of a game could then join the corresponding club and/or follow that club.

 

As for names, I lean towards some sort of standardization to help with association. We currently have the Oldhammer 40k club, which supports previous editions of the Warhammer 40,000 game. We might use that as a template, creating clubs such as Oldhammer Kill Team, Oldhammer Epic, etc. That just hypothetical at this point (assuming we even do this) and whatever we end up doing would depend largely upon the desires of the community.

 

And dovetailing off your comments, you might consider providing links to the various Discord servers and Facebook groups that support [previous editions of] Warhammer 40,000 setting games. We could then add those links to the resource topics to help other members of the community to find them.

[LameBeard]

I like the idea of more explicit use of tags relating to the edition - and I don’t think this needs to have clubs set up automatically.

 

As 11th edition approaches surely it will be good to see the tag on tactics and rules threads as these leak - and one day in the far future, when we are on 15th edition, those tags would then act as a guide through the archive. Similarly, if I were playing 9th when you’re all playing 10th, I could post a battle report with a tag, just so frater can realise some rules might be different. Not sure 9th was the high point for enough people to create a club.

 

obviously it’s too much work to do retrospectively. The standardisation of tags for other games or rulesets would also be a benefit.

 

i might need a reminder on tags …

[Brother Tyler]

Yes, tags are the default alternative (or augmentation) to the clubs idea. The key shortcoming with tags, and I really hope to improve this, is that we as a community do not use tags effectively. Individuals might use tags well, but the majority of us do not. This is compounded by multiple tags being used for the same thing, or a tag having multiple possible interpretations.

 

More importantly, when we upgrade to Invision 5.0, the tags system will change. Up until this point, members have been able to enter tags as free text. We have settings options to force choosing of tags from predefined lists, but we've never enabled that. The flexibility of free text has driven one aspect of poor tag usage. With Inv 5.0, we will no longer be able to enter free text tags. This isn't a setting choice that we get to make - it will be limited in the software. Instead, we will have to develop predefined tag lists and members will only be able to use the tags from those lists. It will be very important to develop a sound structure for building that tag list and then having as comprehensive a tag list as possible (without having unnecessary tags). There will also be a mechanism for updating the list as needed.

 

As far as games go, the structure I'm looking at is based on our current recommendations. As a rule, tags will be spelled out completely, with acronyms and abbreviations by exception and limited to only those that are necessary and efficient. The tags for any game, then, will include a general tag for the game (e.g., Necromunda game) as well as tags for each edition (e.g., Necromunda 2023). So far, the only game for which I see an acronym being used is the Warhammer 40,000 game, which will use the WH40K game tag as well as tags for editions, this game being the only one where we'll use numbers vice years (e.g., WH40K 1st edition). As a rule, even though some of the games include "Warhammer" or "Warhammer 40,000" in the game's official title (e.g., Warhammer 40,000: Kill Team), we'll ignore the "Warhammer" or "Warhammer 40,000" portion except for the actual Warhammer 40,000 game (e.g., Kill Team game).

 

You'll note the inclusion of "game" in the tag. This is important in making the tag specific to the game rather than to some other aspect of the lore. For example, if we just used "Necromunda" as a tag it wouldn't be clear if the content is about the game or the world. Similarly, a tag that simply says "Space Hulk" might refer to the game or to space hulks in general. And while we might not have tags for things like planets or space hulks, we don't want people appending tags to content unless those tags are specifically about that content.

 

In addition, we will have tags to support certain types of discussion such as army list, tactica, rule question, and battle report (and any others we determine to be useful). Members who are searching for content, then, can use the search engine and list multiple tags to find the content that has all of the chosen tags. So someone looking for any battle reports for the 8th edition of the Warhammer 40,000 game would enter the tags WH40K 8th edition and battle report. We won't have compound tags (e.g., WH40K 8th edition battle report) as that would create an overly lengthy list.

 

I expect that we'll publish a guide to the tags, both advice on how to use them as well as an index of all of the tags to aid in decision-making.

 

I don't want to go off on a tangent about tags, however. I've been quietly building a structure for tags in preparation for the Inv 5.0 upgrade and that will go through a staff review process and then a community review process before we implement it. Suffice to say that whether or not we decide to use the clubs concept to support previous editions of games, it will be important that (a) we develop an effective system of tags to help in finding content, and (b) those tags are actually used.

[LameBeard]

Not that I want to give them jobs, but is it easy for a friendly passing mod to add tags if they see obvious ones missing?

[Brother Tyler]

49 minutes ago, LameBeard said:

Not that I want to give them jobs, but is it easy for a friendly passing mod to add tags if they see obvious ones missing?

 

Yes, staff members (mods, admins, and chief librarians) can edit content tags.

[ThePenitentOne]

I like the idea of "Edition Clubs" - and this whole thread is a reminder to me that I need to start tagging my posts. 

 

I also really like the organization of the forum- I think it's easier to find other game forums and some of the cool creative work that folks have done. I'm finally hobbying enough that I need to get more familiar with all the tools at B&C.