Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Mymearan wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:
Let's also separate aos "the miniatures" from aos "the core rules". While it may take months to say print a book a or box, it seems like when the game is 4 pages of rules it couldn't have possibly taken too long. I can believe a lot of the logistics took a while but the core game resembles something scrawled on a napkin. Moving away from ranked combat is one thing but this whole models moving by the tail thing is a bit much.

More like 400 pages of rules if you include all the warscrolls.

Even ignoring that, the idea that smaller product=doesn't take as long or is the result of laziness or what have you is silly. Especially in the field of writing, being succinct is much more of a skill than bashing out as many words as possible. In many niches, such as usage guides or manual writing, fewer words is the entire goal and challenge of the job.

I don't see the 4 pages of core rules as not taking a long time. The easier route is piling on the pages and coming up with a million side rules. I think obviously the design goal was not to let that happen. That said, GW are not kings at wording and are in need of someone who can remove ambiguities.

On topic, I'm quite optimistic about GW, though I've never been much of a critic besides the usual price groaning over the years. I feel like they're listening to the community and are engaging us again, likely spurred by the increase in competition they're seeing.

 Lithlandis Stormcrow wrote:

 Mymearan wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:
Let's also separate aos "the miniatures" from aos "the core rules". While it may take months to say print a book a or box, it seems like when the game is 4 pages of rules it couldn't have possibly taken too long. I can believe a lot of the logistics took a while but the core game resembles something scrawled on a napkin. Moving away from ranked combat is one thing but this whole models moving by the tail thing is a bit much.

More like 400 pages of rules if you include all the warscrolls.

But are they to be included or not? One can't say "it's just 4 pages of rules - so easy to learn" for one thing and then quote over 400 pages for another.

Well in this case we were discussing how much work would be needed to write the rules, not how easy or hard the game is to learn, so they would be included.

The statlines are derived by an algorithm. You plug in the originka WHFB stats and it spits out the AoS stats.

The special rules need to be written individually. If we suppose it took an average of 10 minutes to look at the original WHFB special rule, convert it and write a version for AoS, There are say 800 special rules in the War Scrolls. That's 8,000 minutes of work, which is 133 hours, which is about four 35-hour weeks. Put four guys on it and the job can be finished in a single week.

That's an extremely presumptious post. I assume you have nothing backing up any of that and it's just wild guessing? You haven't actually counted the number of rules, compared to make sure they're all analogous to WHFB counterparts, tried writing them yourself in the amount of time allotted per rule, etc? Unless you have, I could throw 5 dice and come up with a number about as likely to be accurate. Not to mention that it assumes 100% efficiency in writing and 100% time allotted to it.

I assume that was sarcasm/trolling.

 Mymearan wrote:
That's an extremely presumptious post. I assume you have nothing backing up any of that and it's just wild guessing? You haven't actually counted the number of rules, compared to make sure they're all analogous to WHFB counterparts, tried writing them yourself in the amount of time allotted per rule, etc? Unless you have, I could throw 5 dice and come up with a number about as likely to be accurate. Not to mention that it assumes 100% efficiency in writing and 100% time allotted to it.

It's not that presumptuous, actually. Taking into consideration how simple the base rules (simple die rolls against a target number, no interaction between opposing miniatures at all) are and adding in the fact that there's really no actual need to check for internal and external balancing, it is indeed possible to establish an algorithm and just flow from there. As for the time necessary for the special rules... I can't say.

If you don't agree with my estimation, why not present your own ideas about how big the task is?

For instance, do you think there are more like 8,000 special rules, or it might take an hour to read one and re-write it?

While I applaud GW's efforts to right the ship.

For me it's too late. I think of it more like an ex wife. I'm glad she got sober and is cleaning up her life, but I've moved on.

I wish them the best but I have other games in my life now.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
If you don't agree with my estimation, why not present your own ideas about how big the task is?

For instance, do you think there are more like 8,000 special rules, or it might take an hour to read one and re-write it?

Likely. You assume a maximum efficiency process hich is idealized. GW has often proven that there is little communication between their teams and work in general is rather poorly done - just cross-reference rules in codices. They often had trouble even communicating between designers and artists. Even overseeing the rules and how they interact requires a team to have someone or rather some people overseeing the stuff and cross-communicating between the teams. I don't think that this happens at GW. From what we have seen, it looks like GW has small individual teams, maybe just individuals, working on a specific task and once everyone finished his / her work, the results get mixed together and then (maybe...) proofread. This is extremely ineffective as if there's a problem, you gotta entwine everything again to fix singular problems. This takes time. A LOT of time.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:


If they cannot get their core games and pricing in order then all the nostalgic attempts to bring people back, no matter how cool their Genestealer Hybrids are, just won't work.

It worked on me

 Sigvatr wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
If you don't agree with my estimation, why not present your own ideas about how big the task is?

For instance, do you think there are more like 8,000 special rules, or it might take an hour to read one and re-write it?

Likely. You assume a maximum efficiency process hich is idealized. GW has often proven that there is little communication between their teams and work in general is rather poorly done - just cross-reference rules in codices. They often had trouble even communicating between designers and artists. Even overseeing the rules and how they interact requires a team to have someone or rather some people overseeing the stuff and cross-communicating between the teams. I don't think that this happens at GW. From what we have seen, it looks like GW has small individual teams, maybe just individuals, working on a specific task and once everyone finished his / her work, the results get mixed together and then (maybe...) proofread. This is extremely ineffective as if there's a problem, you gotta entwine everything again to fix singular problems. This takes time. A LOT of time.

Yeah sorry KC, but you are desperately off here. And as Sigvatr mentioned, you are forgetting so many steps that you have only timed out a tiny portion of the process. This is the math you presented -

_take WHFB rules
_ plug into algorithm
_re-write special rules

1 hr per page

This is hopelessly idealized and incomplete from a project management perspective… the process would be more like this -

_weeks to months of upper management meetings determining the course to be taken
_Vying solutions presented with feasibility studies for profitability
_Choice made on direction, new round of meetings with multi departmental team leads to begin strategy and verification/QC on core strategy(this includes managing deliverable sequencing between art, fiction, rules, graphic design, product design, logistics, manufacture. All of them do things dependent on completion of other aspects by other teams, i.e, bottle neck city. (Not to mention the contractual and budget management aspects of an undertaking of this size)
_Sequential submission of initial work from department, QC checks, feasibility checks, rules checks. Layout tests, word count definition. Likely a few rounds of this to get things in a reasonable line.
_Take WHFB rules, plug into algorhythm, re-write special rules.
_submit drafts for QC
_Editor/QC returns with comments
_repeat
_editor signs off, content submitted to graphics for layout
_design DNA established for new brand
_Implement layouts
_Submit drafts for QC
_Editor/QC returns with comments
_repeat
_editor signs off, content submitted to printer
_press-proofing
_physical printing
_packing and warehousing
_shipping.


That only covers the words for the rules man. Not artwork. Not model creation. Not model painting. Not photography. Not the plastics tooling and manufacture. Not advertising. Not the significant amount of fiction. All of which require as many steps or more as the ‘simple’ rules, every one of which necessary to completing the job.

Hopefully, it doesn’t sound like a week of work with 4 dudes on it any more, even if it is just the rules?

me: the CORE RULES probably didn't take that long to write being 4 pages

rest of thread: well when you add all the other stuff you didn't talk about that was outside the incredibly specific point then it would take longer.







Why do we care how long it takes to put out a crappy core ruleset? Like somehow a bowel movement that takes longer is more meaningful or representative of hard work or contemplation lol

You: effort is measured on a per page basis only

Rest of thread: it's nowhere near that simple, and consolidating and condensing is often far tougher than expanding. plus the actual writing, even of only those 4 pages, requires significant thought and co-ordination before and after, regardless of perceived quality of result.

You: poop is not more meaningful just because you took a while to pinch it off.

Rest of Thread: SMH.

lol

I find that the Catalyst Game Labs tumblr page provides an invaluable insight into what goes into the creative process. For example, here's the process they go through for cover development of a new book. Its a bit more involved than just throwing any old picture on the cover of a book and calling it done.

But it doesn't have to be.

It can literally be "boss, the printers are on the phone, they need an image for the cover" "right, pick something appropriate from the extensive catalogue of images we have on file from decades of commissioned artwork that is the right format, size etc. and send it over."

In fact, it could be literally "send the first thing that comes to hand."

Putting effort into commissioning a new work and all the inherent back and fourth that comes with that is laudable and an indicator of high standards and an investment by the manufacturer in quality, but it isn't necessary as such.

Saying something can be simple doesn't make it so. I could walk into a bank and steal money. I could. Doesn't mean I will, doesn't mean I at any point thought it was a good idea, doesn't mean anything at all. The presence of a possibility doesn't automatically make it a viable, useable option man.

This is all getting a bit off topic, though.

Just a touch, but interesting all the same in terms of seeing the perceptions of some of the public as to what is involved. It obviously effects the perception of what track they are on, but ultimately, not the topic at hand. That being said, back OT please boys, someone can start a 'what was a realistic produciton schedule for AoS' thread

 MajorTom11 wrote:
Saying something can be simple doesn't make it so. I could walk into a bank and steal money. I could. Doesn't mean I will, doesn't mean I at any point thought it was a good idea, doesn't mean anything at all. The presence of a possibility doesn't automatically make it a viable, useable option man.

The presence of a possibility de facto makes it useable, as if it isn't useable it isn't a possibility. The viabilty will really depend on the circumstances.

That example I gave wasn't my assumptions on how things work, it was a circumstance I've found myself in, where the substance of promo material changed substantially at a very late stage and the imagery being used was no longer appropriate and needed changing on a very short deadline to make the whole run anything but a huge waste of cash.

It's the same assumption again, just because something can require, and often does require, months or years to plan out in advance, it doesn't mean that some sort of a result can't be turned around in a whole other timeframe if somebody's holding your feet to the fire, and people in general, IME, are awesome at adding extra inefficiencies into what should be a simple process. Especially middle management looking to justify continued employment, and spotting these inefficencies often arises when a fresh pair of eyes looks at the situation, otherwise it becomes "this is how we do it because this is always how we've done it."

Take the new FAQ for instance. What could be simpler than opening up your social media accounts for the players to let you know where the problems are and addressing them? Once the initial document is done, an update every few weeks, or even just a few weeks after each new release, will be all is needed to keep on top of things. Now, short term this can be nothing but a logistical nightmare, but that's their own fault for not doing it sooner. Medium and long term though, assuming they really do answer the questions everyone is asking, it can only be a good thing.

I just hope they don't revert to type under the barrage and turtle up, then I will withdraw any praise I've so far offered!

It's odd because GW has done some things lately that are absolutely awful to me: Killing the Old World, killing off armies, $170 drakes etc. But at the same time I do actually feel they are moving in the right direction with the actual discounts they've been giving, the new push to talk a bit more with fans, specialist games come back and the board games with awesome minis we've been asking for for years. Is it too late for me? I'm not sure. If they keep heading in this direction I could see myself buying a new army to paint and play once and a while. Or just BFG, I will buy that almost no matter what.

I just started playing 40k with a new group. We're all talking about how exciting it is the new direction they're taking.

So, one small group of like 6 guys in northeast Ohio likes it.

 MajorTom11 wrote:
You: effort is measured on a per page basis only

Fine tom, you got me, 4 page aos core ruleset, sever hundred page other system rulebooks. No possibility to infer time/effort at all at either sepctrum. For all we now the 4 pages that comprise aos's core rules could have been in the works since before warhammer ever existed. Various other speculative commentary and so on.


Can we just say it's a fair inference that more work goes into larger core rulesets (again, talking about the rulebook, not all the supplements) than goes into rulesets that can be printed on half an ass cheak?



As for GW's direction, cautious optimism is about the most they'll get from me. I think it will be important at some point to differentiate collectors expectations and gamers, there's a tonne of crossover but I think collectors are easier to please than gamers. collectors want value/price like the rest of us, but gamers actually have to play the games, which is a massive undertaking.

 Crablezworth wrote:

Can we just say it's a fair inference that more work goes into larger core rulesets (again, talking about the rulebook, not all the supplements) than goes into rulesets that can be printed on half an ass cheak?

I can't agree with that, and in so many cases in the writing world the opposite is true.

coldgaming wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:

Can we just say it's a fair inference that more work goes into larger core rulesets (again, talking about the rulebook, not all the supplements) than goes into rulesets that can be printed on half an ass cheak?

I can't agree with that, and in so many cases in the writing world the opposite is true.

If I hold down a random letter on the keyboard, can we at least agree it will get to page 4 long before page 200?

Guys, a mod warned this was off topic, time to drop it.

What GW needs to do:

- Reboot 40k, it's highly inaccessible for starters. Release Age of the Emperor.

- Release "Starter Sets" that offer models for beginners at actually affordable prices. X-Wing is the top tabletop game right now and the starter is priced extremely well and offers everything you need to start with plus is a great base for your future army. Furthermore, a new ship takes about .25 or .33 of your army's point cost (assuming the standard 100) and comes at ~10ish€. 10ish€ in 40k gets you nothing. A single unit costs, at least, as much as half of what your fleet can cost in X-Wing.

- Close down stores and get back to FLGS. Cutting cost needs to start somewhere and the stores are extremely expensive to maintain.

- Cater to casuals. The competitive scene has been lost permanently for GW. They burnt all bridges and focusing on casuals / beginners is the way to go right now.

 Sigvatr wrote:
What GW needs to do:

- Reboot 40k, it's highly inaccessible for starters. Release Age of the Emperor.

Disagree, 5th was oh so very close. They probably need to stream the excesses of 6th and 7th off into other supplements again, increase player agency, retain hull points, make overwatch involve some sort of sacrifce, and all round generally address the disparity between assault focused and shooting heavy lists, and that would be damn close. The balance issues are largely thanks to the massively erratic levels of the codexes.

- Release "Starter Sets" that offer models for beginners at actually affordable prices. X-Wing is the top tabletop game right now and the starter is priced extremely well and offers everything you need to start with plus is a great base for your future army. Furthermore, a new ship takes about .25 or .33 of your army's point cost (assuming the standard 100) and comes at ~10ish€. 10ish€ in 40k gets you nothing. A single unit costs, at least, as much as half of what your fleet can cost in X-Wing.

As much as I love X Wing, and as much as want 40K to be better, 40K is never really going to compete on price. It can't. This issue disappears if people are excited to play the game, which at the moment, in my experience, they aren't so much. 40K does need to drop barriers to entry, and it could really use a smaller scale game, such as Kill Team, you can use a box or two of models in, but I think the new big boxes are the solution to that, and while it wouldn't be the way I'd choose to go forward, I can understand the thinking.

- Close down stores and get back to FLGS. Cutting cost needs to start somewhere and the stores are extremely expensive to maintain.

I think this is a great idea, but near impossible to execute. GW is their stores now, they're inextricably linked. I just don't see a way they can do this and survive. The relationships with LGS have been damage in a lot of cases, they need to be repaired, and in many cases the disappearance of a local GW would quite likely need to happen first. Either a phased rollout or an overnight change would be difficult to manage and the drop in revenue could very well push them under.

- Cater to casuals. The competitive scene has been lost permanently for GW. They burnt all bridges and focusing on casuals / beginners is the way to go right now.

That's a little pessimistic. It's a big ask, sure, but I've always found that competitive gamers are the least sentimental, they tend to go where the challenge is and where the events are on offer, if 40K becomes a popular tourney event again, people will come back. If anything, it's the casual/fluff players that are the ones that would be harder to draw back, as there's more of an emotional involvement, they are more likely to feel "scorned" and make it personal than the competitives. People, in reality, are more like a mix of the two, so some would likely forgive and forget while others would stay away, but if I was offered the job of reinstating 40K as a popular competitive game, it isn't a challenge I'd feel was impossible.

 Azreal13 wrote:
As much as I love X Wing, and as much as want 40K to be better, 40K is never really going to compete on price. It can't. This issue disappears if people are excited to play the game, which at the moment, in my experience, they aren't so much. 40K does need to drop barriers to entry, and it could really use a smaller scale game, such as Kill Team, you can use a box or two of models in, but I think the new big boxes are the solution to that, and while it wouldn't be the way I'd choose to go forward, I can understand the thinking.

The second-last starter set of 40k was a good example. Fairly priced and everyone got some good models going. From this point, GW should add more pricing levels. Right now, you got starter and then boom, price explosion. Offer more price levels. Have a "starter kits" for an army with a core unit and one additional choice, bundle choices to small, affordable kits. Have a kit with a core unit,3 paints and a brush at affordable levels. Release boxes that actually scale in price. Or, even easier, offer "bundles" at stores. No repacking, but ou get an in-store markdown. Have a poster showing you possible bundles and the markdown you get if you buy X with Y or X+Y+Z, e.g. buy a unit and a character model, pay less, also buy paints and a brush, get an even higher discout.

That's a little pessimistic. It's a big ask, sure, but I've always found that competitive gamers are the least sentimental, they tend to go where the challenge is and where the events are on offer, if 40K becomes a popular tourney event again, people will come back.

Oh, they will. Yet at this point, a lot of people are furious, including former high level players. By catering to casuals first, GW can start back from the roots and then, once they picked up their pace again, start also getting back to competitive players.

It's irrelevant how long it took them to make the AoS rules if the rules are not good enough to get people to play the game. When I look at them, I think "Huh, so simple that it throws up all sorts of ambiguous weirdness, and also loaded with unit specific special rules? How did they manage to get the worst of both extremes into one rule set?!"

No balancing mechanism has been argued as a positive and I'm willing to accept that seeing it as such is up to the user, but I personally find it pretty lazy.

Other aspects of AoS seem to have had a long lead in though- just look at End Times.

GW are improving, but for me and probably many like me, it's too little, too late. I've already moved on, and mostly keep an eye on GW only because I have full armies for their games and have a lot of fondness for their settings.

I will make this brief, as I've spilled enough virtual ink over the years about GW on Warseer:

No.

In fact, I will go so far as to say it's too late for GW now to ever recover to where they were (barring hostile takeover).

When you look at the gaming industry, the key thing to look at is the network effects for the games. The more people who play a game, the more people who will play a game.

So long as GW retained the crown of the game with the most interest and largest player community, GW could continue to stumble along and would have time to sober up, get things right, and move on with their lives.

I stopped saying much about GW in 2014 because I could see that shift was coming, at least in North America (in the UK, they are in a much stronger position). Now, the dominant game in most places is X-Wing. Fantasy Flight ate their lunch, and the re-release of the Star Wars franchise to smashing success has only caused that snowball to roll downhill faster, now with sharp metal bits sticking out of it as it demolishes other things.

GW lost the momentum and is now in reverse. Forum posting (especially ex-Dakka), google searches, inquiries at gaming shops, etc. are all in decline. I don't think this is recoverable for GW anymore, short of a truly explosive hostile takeover and sudden reversal of virtually all of their business practices around recruitment / retention. My entire group of friends still plays wargames, but none of us are the bitter guy posting on forums; we just stopped, there's no interest and engagement, and nothing GW can do would bring us back as customers unless we turn on the companies we are now buying from (Wyrd and FFG).

However, that won't happen within the year, probably not even five, and that's really what is needed. My prediction is that GW shrinks to a relatively minor player in the overall gaming market and, essentially, becomes a UK-only player again with a minor presence in NA and the EU.

That won't be sustainable given that they are public and become a very enticing takeover target with where the stock would trade. But it all comes down to this: they needed to re-start growth already, and they haven't done enough while one of their competitors actually got ahead of them in a region (the first time this has ever happened, I would add).