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'Tis the Dakka way it seems.

Herzlos wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 RunicFIN wrote:
There's probably tons of people who buy GW miniatures and intend to play with them but instead proceed to playing once a year ( and still talk on the forums like they actively play and have any concretical, credible experience on the games at that ) That is quite common. I find it quite rare for someone to have no intention whatsoever to play and buy armies and armies of GW miniatures.

I don't really consider people who buy models with only a slight intention of playing but never actually play with them as "gamers". They are closer to collectors than players in GW's eyes.

I don't think that's a good definition of gamer Vs collector. I think a fairer one is "do the rules factor into the purchase?" i.e. would the purchase still be made if there were no rules? If yes, then collector, if no, then gamer.


I buy and fit out my units mostly for their game ability, but I haven't played a game of 40K in ~2 years, does that make me a collector now?

Well I'm not a huge fan of applying labels in the first place because the reality is usually that people lie somewhere in the middle. But if I had to, then I'd say if you haven't played a game in 2 years and are still buying models you are more on the side of collector than gamer.

I won't deny that the existence of rules is a contributor to people buying even if they don't play the game. But if you aren't really playing at all the importance of the quality of the rules does start to decrease a bit.

I'd say the existence of the rules is part of the overall immersion of the 40k universe and to get rid of them completely would obviously be silly, but shifting your focus from "gamers" to "collectors" isn't about dropping the rules, it's about doing things like removing almost all structure from assembling an army, adding flyers and superheavies that are totally out of scale and unbalance the game, but are cool collectors pieces, not putting the effort in to fix blatant flaws with the rules. The rules become an excuse to line up all your man dollies and go "pew pew pew!!!" more than to be an actual balanced game.

Please people, can we drop the GWombie already?

A White Knight... slightly insulting, but it describes behavior.

A Fanboy? There are things where I would apply the term to myself.

But, really, GWombie unnecessarily insulting.

I dislike GW, I think some of the fans are overly defensive - and sometimes seem to feel that the best defense is a good offense.

But we do not need the insults. We can dislike each other as much as we want to, but we don't need to resort to insults.

Except for that guy, over there. Yeah, the one with the face. He's a complete jerk!

The Auld Grump

 notprop wrote:
'Tis the Dakka way it seems.

Oh come now, I don't see how generalizing Dakka into one group of mud-slingers is any better than the unnecessary comments of the previous poster.

i agree

I like where 40K is at now.
It's an enjoyable game, much streamlined, and if you want to play casual, fluffy games, it's perfect. The new codexes are very good quality, the miniatures are amazing, 7th edition has come a long way towards standardising the game.

If I want to play a superbly balanced, well developed competitive game, I play Magic: the Gathering.

If I want to play a beer 'n pretzels fun space-soldiers-with-swords, visually exciting game, I play 40K. 'The Most Important Rule' gets invoked (a lot), but that's what it is. We're not playing $250,000 Pro Tours here.

If GW want to go big - then they'll follow WotC. The competitive side of MTG was used to drive the casual side, by making massive cash tournaments seem accessible to all. 'Living the dream' if you like. Being bought out by Hasbro (the biggest toy and game manufacturer in the world) whilst still managing to remain in creative control of the game was a masterstroke.

Personally, the best thing that could happen to GW for a 'spike' player like me would be a buyout by WotC/Hasbro. But CCG's and tabletop games are such a different kettle of fish, I'm unsure that would work.

The thing I can not understand is why GW plc think they need to 'warp' the rules to inspire people to buy the latest releases?

Collectors are inspired by the art and background, in the same way most people are.
(Most people buy 40k stuff because it looks and sounds cool. )

So releasing a 'source book ' with new releases, all the background and artwork, photos painting guides and conversion ideas etc.Would be a good idea to inspire collectors and new players.

The collectors are not overly bothered by the rules, neither are those who like narrative games,who just ,make stuff up and change the rules as they go along.

If the rules were a free to down load PDF that was updated every 6 months.(To allow fine tuning of PV and errata/FAQs updates.)The players would not be stuck with an out of date army for years.So all players have 'up to date armies' all the time.

The only 'legitimate' reason for publishing rules with point values and F.O.C. ls to provide enough balance for random pick up games.
New players rely on the rule and codex books to provide enough balance for enjoyable random pick up games as they start out.
Otherwise they can get negative experiences when they try to play...

If GW plc actually wanted players to 'forge the narrative' they would not bother with PV and F.O.C.
(However, the constant codex creep is a heavy handed attempt to try to manipulate sales.IMO)

So while GW plc include point values and F.O.C, players will expect them to results in enough balance for enjoyable random pick up games.
While they fail to do so, players will get negative experiences, and perpetuate negativity about the game play issues/rules

Losing focus on game play has cost GW plc well over half of its sales volume, over the last decade.

Proudly announcing your rules are so bad hardly any one plays the games, but the models are so attractive people buy them any way.
Is an attitude with a very specific view point , forged by a specific agenda of the man at the top.

It's very simple.
Write poor rules, only collectors buy.
Write good rules, you get collectors and gamers.
Profit.
(write balanced rules and you'd get even more gamers so more profit.)

 Azreal13 wrote:
Just to offer a third party perspective, the "indoctrination" jab seemed to clearly be good natured teasing. If you choose to take it as an insult, well, that's on you...

Really? It seemed to me like he hadn't read what Jah actually write and had a knee-jerk reaction which he tried to couch in humor. I still don't believe he actually understands the meat of what Jah was saying, which is mystifying.

Realists get called a lot of things.

 RunicFIN wrote:
Realists get called a lot of things.

That's funny, we seem to think that same thing (I'm a realist too ) but are on slightly opposite sides of opinion on this.

I think the real problem is you have people jumping in calling each other derogatories and then the offended party lumps everyone against them into the same characterization.

zerosignal wrote:
I like where 40K is at now.
It's an enjoyable game, much streamlined, and if you want to play casual, fluffy games, it's perfect. The new codexes are very good quality, the miniatures are amazing, 7th edition has come a long way towards standardising the game.

Hahahahahahahaha!!!

How exactly is it streamlined to have to roll on even more random tables before the game? How is it streamlined to argue over which model is .5mm closer to the shooting unit because one of the targets has a melta and the other has a bolter so you need to make sure the proper one is removed as a casualty? The new codexes have even more typos and contradictions than the previous ones have had. Take a look at the SW codex and let me know if the blast on the stormfang cannon is AP2 or AP3. It's listed as both in various parts of the codex and took months to be FAQd. This is just the first example I could think of, there's plenty more from every codex released since 7th.

Yes, having to argue whether you want lords of war, unbound, house rules in maelstrom missions and spreading the rules out into 27 different sources for one army really "standardized" the game. I guess that's why in 5th everyone was playing by the same rules but now if I go to a large FLGS and there's a 40k game going at 10 different tables, they will be playing by 10 different sets of rules. "Standard" 40k doesn't exist any more BECAUSE OF 7th. When I read the first paragraph of your post I thought it was sarcasm.

 RunicFIN wrote:
Realists get called a lot of things.

Like "haters" and "four horsemen?"

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
Just to offer a third party perspective, the "indoctrination" jab seemed to clearly be good natured teasing. If you choose to take it as an insult, well, that's on you...

Really? It seemed to me like he hadn't read what Jah actually write and had a knee-jerk reaction which he tried to couch in humor. I still don't believe he actually understands the meat of what Jah was saying, which is mystifying.

Well, we can all breathe easy, sure in the knowledge that the written word is sometimes ambiguous.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:
Please people, can we drop the GWombie already?

A White Knight... slightly insulting, but it describes behavior.

A Fanboy? There are things where I would apply the term to myself.

But, really, GWombie unnecessarily insulting.

I dislike GW, I think some of the fans are overly defensive - and sometimes seem to feel that the best defense is a good offense.

But we do not need the insults. We can dislike each other as much as we want to, but we don't need to resort to insults.

Except for that guy, over there. Yeah, the one with the face. He's a complete jerk!

The Auld Grump

When I first read the term, I accidentally misread it as GWomble.

Much more endearing..

 insaniak wrote:
Seriously, folks, can we stop with the cute nametags for people with a different opinion to your own?

Did NOBODY read the [MOD] warning?

In any event, mr priestly's comments were rather mild and yet fairly spot on - company losing customers, company losing product diversity. Tobemory would be proud.

Gwombie made me think of an old wombat cartoon character i saw as a kid, don't agree with the instant i win because i play marines, as most armies have lots of weapons that shred power armor like paper.

Then what is a correct therm a sycophant?

But on the attack on Rick Priestley, i can understand it, "if you are not part of the solution (GW) then you are a part of the problem".

zerosignal wrote:
I like where 40K is at now.
It's an enjoyable game, much streamlined, and if you want to play casual, fluffy games, it's perfect. The new codexes are very good quality, the miniatures are amazing, 7th edition has come a long way towards standardising the game.

If I want to play a superbly balanced, well developed competitive game, I play Magic: the Gathering.

If I want to play a beer 'n pretzels fun space-soldiers-with-swords, visually exciting game, I play 40K. 'The Most Important Rule' gets invoked (a lot), but that's what it is. We're not playing $250,000 Pro Tours here.

If GW want to go big - then they'll follow WotC. The competitive side of MTG was used to drive the casual side, by making massive cash tournaments seem accessible to all. 'Living the dream' if you like. Being bought out by Hasbro (the biggest toy and game manufacturer in the world) whilst still managing to remain in creative control of the game was a masterstroke.

Personally, the best thing that could happen to GW for a 'spike' player like me would be a buyout by WotC/Hasbro. But CCG's and tabletop games are such a different kettle of fish, I'm unsure that would work.

I don't know... I have a bad feeling about this. Games Workshop has done a lot of questionable things, but if the company is struggling then it's hiding it well. The only thing that I can't really ignore is my local player base not really having any painted armies. Not that I'm incredibly different at the moment, but hey, at least I have some finished units. Anyways, that's not really a corporate issue as much as a local one. It takes a special kind of crazy to decide to invest this much time and money into miniatures gaming, and especially one as demanding as Warhammer/40k. I understand that the Malifaux/WarmaHordes crowd plays for the rules and more game-like structure, but 40k is and in my opinion should remain the game that focuses more on theater, narrative, and inspiration. Dreadknights and Maulerfiends aside.

zerosignal wrote:
It's an enjoyable game, much streamlined, and if you want to play casual, fluffy games, it's perfect.

Err, lol? Did you seriously just call 40k "streamlined"? 40k is a game with massive amounts of rules bloat. You have endless pages of special rules followed by exceptions to the special rules followed by exceptions to the exceptions, random tables to roll on to see which random things you get to roll, etc. And all of this for a game with little strategic depth beyond "move units to their targets, roll dice to see how much they kill". X-Wing is a streamlined game, 40k is just a mess.

And 40k isn't a good casual/fluff game either. It's way too unbalanced, not even remotely playable "out of the box", it takes forever to learn even the basic rules, etc. It's a game where you dedicate massive amounts of time to playing and hope that the "fluffy" army you invested in doesn't get slaughtered every game by your opponent's "fluffy" army.

'The Most Important Rule' gets invoked (a lot), but that's what it is.

And this is just plain wrong. 40k doesn't need "the most important rule" because a game like 40k inherently contains rule conflicts, it's necessary because GW sucks at writing rules. A good game should be playable without any need to roll a 4+ every time there's a rule question, regardless of how much money is at stake. I don't know why people insist on trying to justify GW's incompetence and competing to see who can have the lowest standards for rule quality.

 Peregrine wrote:

zerosignal wrote:
It's an enjoyable game, much streamlined, and if you want to play casual, fluffy games, it's perfect.

Err, lol? Did you seriously just call 40k "streamlined"? 40k is a game with massive amounts of rules bloat. You have endless pages of special rules followed by exceptions to the special rules followed by exceptions to the exceptions, random tables to roll on to see which random things you get to roll, etc. And all of this for a game with little strategic depth beyond "move units to their targets, roll dice to see how much they kill". X-Wing is a streamlined game, 40k is just a mess.

And 40k isn't a good casual/fluff game either. It's way too unbalanced, not even remotely playable "out of the box", it takes forever to learn even the basic rules, etc. It's a game where you dedicate massive amounts of time to playing and hope that the "fluffy" army you invested in doesn't get slaughtered every game by your opponent's "fluffy" army.

'The Most Important Rule' gets invoked (a lot), but that's what it is.

And this is just plain wrong. 40k doesn't need "the most important rule" because a game like 40k inherently contains rule conflicts, it's necessary because GW sucks at writing rules. A good game should be playable without any need to roll a 4+ every time there's a rule question, regardless of how much money is at stake. I don't know why people insist on trying to justify GW's incompetence and competing to see who can have the lowest standards for rule quality.

+1

MB

zerosignal wrote:
I like where 40K is at now.
It's an enjoyable game, much streamlined, and if you want to play casual, fluffy games, it's perfect. The new codexes are very good quality, the miniatures are amazing, 7th edition has come a long way towards standardising the game.

If I want to play a superbly balanced, well developed competitive game, I play Magic: the Gathering.

If I want to play a beer 'n pretzels fun space-soldiers-with-swords, visually exciting game, I play 40K. 'The Most Important Rule' gets invoked (a lot), but that's what it is. We're not playing $250,000 Pro Tours here.

If GW want to go big - then they'll follow WotC. The competitive side of MTG was used to drive the casual side, by making massive cash tournaments seem accessible to all. 'Living the dream' if you like. Being bought out by Hasbro (the biggest toy and game manufacturer in the world) whilst still managing to remain in creative control of the game was a masterstroke.

Personally, the best thing that could happen to GW for a 'spike' player like me would be a buyout by WotC/Hasbro. But CCG's and tabletop games are such a different kettle of fish, I'm unsure that would work.

I agree. Some podcasters (Independent Characters among others) are calling this a new "golden age" of 40k, and I'm inclined to agree. The prices are getting silly, but that's the biggest complaint I have. We're getting updated and externally balanced (Necrons being an outlier) 7th Ed Codexes, tournament players saying this is a great edition, an iterative ruleset that improves on 6th, mini-codices with fan favorites like Harlequins returning, spot releases with free rules, an incredible amount of choice and freedom, and overall a really fun game that me and my gaming group are enjoying immensely. The rules can be convoluted and badly written, but it doesn't impact our enjoyment much, since we're a group of friendly people who all know each other. I'm just hoping that GW will drop the "impenetrable fortress" PR strategy sometime in the future. If they keep alienating the community by not interacting with them, things will go badly.

 Azreal13 wrote:


When I first read the term, I accidentally misread it as GWomble.

Much more endearing..

Spoiler:

I've always read it as GWomble, for years. You've ruined it now :(

 Peregrine wrote:


And 40k isn't a good casual/fluff game either. It's way too unbalanced, not even remotely playable "out of the box", it takes forever to learn even the basic rules, etc. It's a game where you dedicate massive amounts of time to playing and hope that the "fluffy" army you invested in doesn't get slaughtered every game by your opponent's "fluffy" army.
.

IE "If you're enjoying yourself, you're doing it wrong."

This is actually an interesting discussion, let's not let it deteriorate into the old "everything about GW is perfect" vs "Everything GW do is sh*t" borefest.

 Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:


And 40k isn't a good casual/fluff game either. It's way too unbalanced, not even remotely playable "out of the box", it takes forever to learn even the basic rules, etc. It's a game where you dedicate massive amounts of time to playing and hope that the "fluffy" army you invested in doesn't get slaughtered every game by your opponent's "fluffy" army.
.

IE "If you're enjoying yourself, you're doing it wrong."

This is actually an interesting discussion, let's not let it deteriorate into the old "everything about GW is perfect" vs "Everything GW do is sh*t" borefest.

I read it as more "Whilst you enjoy it, the things you're mentioning as a good thing are just artifacts of a bad thing. Think how much more you'd enjoy it without all that added crap."

No-one has said anyone is playing it wrong, just that it's really not a good casual game.

 Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:
IE "If you're enjoying yourself, you're doing it wrong."

You can enjoy playing a bad game. The fact that some people have fun with casual/fluffy games of 40k doesn't mean that 40k is good for casual/fluffy games, it just means that you're having fun despite GW's rule authors publishing a terrible casual/fluff game.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:
IE "If you're enjoying yourself, you're doing it wrong."

You can enjoy playing a bad game. The fact that some people have fun with casual/fluffy games of 40k doesn't mean that 40k is good for casual/fluffy games, it just means that you're having fun despite GW's rule authors publishing a terrible casual/fluff game.

A "bad" game is subjective, and nothing you say will change that. Sorry.

 RunicFIN wrote:
A "bad" game is subjective, and nothing you say will change that. Sorry.

No, things like "having clear rules" and "making the game balanced so even people who don't netlist still have a fair chance of winning" and "not having complexity way out of proportion to depth" are objective standards. 40k isn't bad because it doesn't match my preferences, it's a bad game because is full of bad design choices that aren't good for anyone.

 RunicFIN wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:
IE "If you're enjoying yourself, you're doing it wrong."

You can enjoy playing a bad game. The fact that some people have fun with casual/fluffy games of 40k doesn't mean that 40k is good for casual/fluffy games, it just means that you're having fun despite GW's rule authors publishing a terrible casual/fluff game.

A "bad" game is subjective, and nothing you say will change that. Sorry.

A "bad" game is objective, a "fun" game is subjective. GW's games can be fun to play despite the bad rules. Monopoly can be dull to play despite the good rules.

It's possible to like a game whilst acknowledging that the rules are badly written.

And good aspects of a game can subjectively make a game ( or whatever product ) a good game for a person, even if it is lackluster in some areas.

A videogame can be considered a good game despite it lacking in some areas, be it graphics, bugs and the like. It can have good critic and/or user ratings despite being lackluster in some areas, making it a good game on average according to it's rating, or a bad one. And that's just the general consesus, not taking into account the individual subjective views ( which in turn, might change the supposed general consesus as a tiny fraction of critics/people actually rate games, pertaining to this very example in this case. ) Better just accept this fact and move on. Alternatively:

 RunicFIN wrote:
And good aspects of a game can subjectively make a game ( or whatever product ) a good game for a person, even if it is lackluster in some areas.

A videogame can be considered a good game despite it lacking in some areas, be it graphics, bugs and the like. It can have good critic and/or user ratings despite being lackluster in some areas, making it a good game on average according to it's rating, or a bad one. And that's just the general consesus, not taking into account the individual subjective views ( which in turn, might change the supposed general consesus as a tiny fraction of critics/people actually rate games, pertaining to this very example in this case. ) Better just accept this fact and move on. Alternatively:

Like those " peace walls" ever did anything , I had to travel 45 minutes once just to get to something the other side.