Why, why does everyone hate jervis jhonson. There was this thread about you hacking into the gw mainframe and what you would do, and 1 quarter of the people said fire jervis jhonson. Why?



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I have also pointed aour about his name sounding like certain things, but got a warning drom someone, so if thats the reason I know it.

Not a Dark Angels player then?




Seriously though, I think his 'Jervis Knows Best' column in White Dwarf does him no favours, although to be fair thats really meant for the kiddies who they write WD for.

Other than that, Yeah, Dark Angels. Thats where my money lies.

What did he do to dark angels?

I believe the term is Jervisfied

Moving topic to Dakka Discussions.

I think eh developed a reputation as an advocate for simplifying things, and not in a good way.

Balance wrote:I think he developed a reputation as an advocate for simplifying things, and not in a good way.

Which really isn't true, because he's not in a position to lay down any real 'law' in the design studio.

Alessio Cavatore and Gav Thorpe(the other two 'senior' design staff at the time) were both all for the simplification that we saw in Dark Angels and Chaos. Yet, Cavatore is hailed as some kind of design hero.

It's a shame really as I still rate 2nd Edition Blood Bowl as one of the best things GW have ever done, and it was a major reason I got into the hobby.

It really a list of things Malice, he's become a 'public' voice for the company and why its the Awesome! so he was always going to pick up stick.

Add to that an uninspired Codex Dark Angels, although in all fairness to him it was a direction they where trying at the time, CSM got caught by the same bat. Sadly.

He's just slowly become 'the figure we love to hate' in GW for many folks.

As others have said; apparently he was the head-honcho behind the mass-simplificiation of the Dark Angels and Chaos Space Marines Codex.

His article in White Dwarf is also found to be dull at the best of times.
He seems to disagree with most competitive play.

I'm sure there's more too. Personally, I'm most certainly not a fan of the guy, but I don't hate him...

Well, look at that name- Alessio Cavatore. It rolls off the tongue like hope falling off of a rainbow. Jervis Johnson sounds like a door to door salesman at best.

He shot JR damn his cursed soul!

Yet if you look at some of the stuff Jervis has been involved in over the years there are some absolute classics!
roolz wise jervis is ok i don't see a monster problem with his stuff, i do see a general problem with the direction alot of the roolz went with GW and i generally see a problem anywhere Gav Thorpe's mutant tentacles for fingers are allowed to leave their foul bile, the man needs shooting, i mean seriously....just....Seriously!

Agree'd on the white dwarf article stuff, but i generally put that down to the fact that since gw became a business and not a hobby they stopped the design staff eating the wild mushrooms that grow locally hence the lack of crazy idea's coming out of GW nowdays.

Just wait till HBMC comes on. He will give you a full rundown.

Mostly its the direction of oversimplification of the two codexes Dark Angels and CSM. It was a design philosophy they want to try out but it didnt work out so well.

I hate Gav and Alessio even more than Jervis.

I met Jervis, I liked the guy! He signed my 40k book with a smile!

I think the hobby has a lot to thank him for! He's been at it a long while!

Surely some of it is just because there are few or no big name designers left in the "studio" to be hated.

I don't follow all these guys but isn't Jervis pretty much the only one left?

Kanluwen wrote: Yet, Cavatore is hailed as some kind of design hero.

Not by me. I am glad he isn't in 40k anymore. His abomination army books and codices baffle me. Also, his decisions in older FAQs, such as the Empire for Fantasy, really show me he doesn't care.

@Kilkrazy
There's Jervis, Andy Hoare, Phil Kelly, Graham Davey, Jeremy Vetock, and Gav Thorpe still around for the games development 'studio'.

The problem is that of those, only Jervis, Andy Hoare, and Phil Kelly really talk publicly about when/why they design something.
And that some--like Graham Davey or Jeremy Vetock--were just never really "known" by the public.

Jervis is a nice enough guy in person. He's been around forever, and he's seen as the official spokesman for the company. Coupled with a lot of unpopular changes in the way GW does things, this has resulted in JJ being perceived as an apologist at best, and at worst, a time-serving shill, willing to prostitute himself and mouth any ridiculous company line while grimly trying to hang on until retirement.

Kanluwen wrote:

Balance wrote:I think he developed a reputation as an advocate for simplifying things, and not in a good way.

Which really isn't true, because he's not in a position to lay down any real 'law' in the design studio.

Alessio Cavatore and Gav Thorpe(the other two 'senior' design staff at the time) were both all for the simplification that we saw in Dark Angels and Chaos. Yet, Cavatore is hailed as some kind of design hero.

Yeah, Alessio even stated in a recent interview that he wanted to go even further with some of the simplifications to those books, and somehow he never gets the blame.

Because, clearly, he's at the center of some anti-GW conspiracy and was removed from the company for that reason.

Or something equally stupid.

I think hate is a strong word. "Tired of" would be more appropriate in my eyes. I've heard he's a nice enough guy when you meet him in person, but his droning on about nothing in Standard Bearer doesn't exactly sell his personality.

He did ruin Dark Angels and that's the angriest I've ever been with GW (well, the anger kicked in 10 months later when Codex Space Marines came out).

He's the only person at GW who ever did public playtesting (Epic Armageddon!) so he must be some kind of monster.

Kanluwen wrote:

Balance wrote:I think he developed a reputation as an advocate for simplifying things, and not in a good way.

Which really isn't true, because he's not in a position to lay down any real 'law' in the design studio.

Alessio Cavatore and Gav Thorpe(the other two 'senior' design staff at the time) were both all for the simplification that we saw in Dark Angels and Chaos. Yet, Cavatore is hailed as some kind of design hero.

I agree, he just took the hit. Life isn't fair, sadly.

I think the 'simplification wave' may honestly be an attempt to clean house within constraints. Some of the GW studio people may honestly agree with the overall sentiment on Dakka and elsewhere that GW's rules writing is poor. However, they need to stay within constraints set by their bosses (I.E. they presumably couldn't have made the newest edition a 'clean break' and obsoleted all stat lines.) and can't make things too strange. Simple army lsits are easier to get balance, although they are a bit bland.

I like Jervis, but then, I like a "cleaner" game system.

When GW introduce a new concept for how to write a codex, and decide it has been a failure, what is the process they use for designing the new style book, and judging it to be a failure? I assume they start off thinking they have got a really good idea this time.

Perhaps I am a bit naive, but if you have a good method for identifying failures of design, wouldn't it be better project planning to put that in as early as possible in the design process, rather than after publication?

i dont hate jervis,i like to chill and read the standard bearer each month and i find his style of its more than just winning refreshing.i also like his philosophical musings but i understand he has become one of the only faces of gw and cant please everyone.

Two thoughts:
1. It's hard to balance the JJ who designed BB and Black Powder with the JJ who did DA and writes standard bearer.

2. JJ is no Andy Chambers. If you started in the GW when Chambers (or Rick Priestly) was the design head then JJ seems relatively bland. JJ also took over when the rules started to be streamlined. Take them together & it's easy to assume JJ is behind the bland-ification of GW.

Because Gav Thorpe is gone and we have to hate somebody.

Uh, Gav Thorpe isn't gone.

Yes, he is.

"In March 2008 I departed GW to concentrate on my freeelance writing. So far, so good."

http://mechanicalhamster.wordpress.com/about/

theHandofGork wrote:Yes, he is.

"In March 2008 I departed GW to concentrate on my freeelance writing. So far, so good."

http://mechanicalhamster.wordpress.com/about/

He's still permanently employed by the Black Library.

Which is a branch of GW.

So no. He's not.

He's gone from the design studio, but not the company as a whole.

I don't hate Jervis, hate is a strong word.

I do not like many of the things he's said in his standard bearer commentary and he tends to write in a dismissive manner about things he doesn't care for in the customer base, such as tournament gaming, the internet, cohesive rulesets etc etc and this has come across as arrogant and patronising.

He's a fellow nerd and gamer, that alone sets him up as having some redeeming qualities and common ground. In the same manner as fallings out I've had here on the forum with people, I think sitting down with a pint and having a chat would lead to a liking of the guy.

I've always reserved my own ire with the company for it's sales tactics, relationship with it's customer base and corporate morality.

AND



KTHXBYE

Since I don't read WD regularly, I wouldn't know who Jervis was if there wasn't so much nerdrage about him.

It still doesn't make me care about him at all, one way or the other. I wish him all the best.

I don't play GW games, he seems like a nice bloke.

JohnHwangDD wrote:I like Jervis, but then, I like a "cleaner" game system.

In general, I think that complexity, like cholesterol, comes in 'good' and 'bad' flavors. In general, core mechanics should be clean and 'bolt-on' systems need to work with these mechanics, not completely override them.

For example, a 'Sniper' rule that enahnces the base rules is OK, especially if it's clean. If it requires new stats or unusual math of old stats, that might be a problem.

This is all subjective, of course.

Kanluwen wrote:

theHandofGork wrote:Yes, he is.

"In March 2008 I departed GW to concentrate on my freeelance writing. So far, so good."

http://mechanicalhamster.wordpress.com/about/

He's still permanently employed by the Black Library.

Which is a branch of GW.

So no. He's not.

He's gone from the design studio, but not the company as a whole.

Ugh, here we go:

Gav states he is a freelancer (http://mechanicalhamster.wordpress.com/about/)
Black Library says he is a freelancer (http://www.blacklibrary.com/Authors/Gav-Thorpe.html)

Definition of Freelancer
1. A person who sells services to employers without a long-term commitment to any of them
2. A medieval mercenary


As I see it either you're wrong or Gav is a medieval mercenary.

theHandofGork wrote:As I see it either you're wrong or Gav is a medieval mercenary.

... or perhaps BOTH!

So, because Gav Thorpe may or may not have left, Jervis is hated?

Is this the message I should be getting from the thread?

Jervis was hated before Gav left, to be honest.

The problem is just that people want someone to focus their ire on.

Jervis could be throwing $100 bills into a crowd of GW fans, and people would complain that they're too bland.

Kanluwen wrote:As I see it, either way I'm right.

This kind of thing makes it hard to defend you, my friend.

Manchu wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:As I see it, either way I'm right.

This kind of thing makes it hard to defend you, my friend.

It would make him very easy to defend, if he actually was right. But I'm really trying not to be baited by trolling this year- it's a resolution doomed to failure.

What did he do to the DA Codex? Well, the DA codex is essentially a test-run for the 5th Edition Codex: Space Marines. All of the special rules like Combat Squads and free grendades were tested in DA, and costs were increased as a result. Plus, the codex was pretty bland and uninspiring. This might have been ok, but then they released C:SM, which had all of the fancy new rules and abilities but with none of the downsides AND with newer, better 5th edition rules. It was just last month that GW finally released an update to bring the old Space Marine books back up to near-par. To be fair, I don't know for sure if this was JJ's fault. It's just one of the things that he takes flak for. I had no experience with his Standard Bearer articles, but I've heard more than a few negative comments regarding them.

So I can still hate Gav Thorpe? Sweet! He's so much more hatable than Jervis!

Time for some ugly Gav Thorpe rumours:

Gav Thorpe likes his steaks well done.

Gav Thorpe always installs his toilet paper underhand.

Gav Thorpe has a subscription to the Daily Telegraph.

Triggerbaby wrote:So I can still hate Gav Thorpe? Sweet! He's so much more hatable than Jervis!

Time for some ugly Gav Thorpe rumours:

Gav Thorpe likes his steaks well done.

Gav Thorpe always installs his toilet paper underhand.

Gav Thorpe has a subscription to the Daily Telegraph.

Assuming you're following Kanluwen's train of 'reasoning' yes.


... Wait?! The Daily Telegraph?! That's not on. I'm going to burn my copy of Path of the Warrior now.

Alphapod wrote:What did he do to the DA Codex? Well, the DA codex is essentially a test-run for the 5th Edition Codex: Space Marines. All of the special rules like Combat Squads and free grendades were tested in DA, and costs were increased as a result. Plus, the codex was pretty bland and uninspiring. This might have been ok, but then they released C:SM, which had all of the fancy new rules and abilities but with none of the downsides AND with newer, better 5th edition rules. It was just last month that GW finally released an update to bring the old Space Marine books back up to near-par. To be fair, I don't know for sure if this was JJ's fault. It's just one of the things that he takes flak for. I had no experience with his Standard Bearer articles, but I've heard more than a few negative comments regarding them.

So where's the blame for Andy Hoare? His name's on the DA Codex too. Gav worked on it, Alessio worked on it.

No one person is responsible for a codex. It's sheer ridiculousness to pin the blame on one person.

At lest its not the Mirror, the Daily Mail or Sport.
I've never really liked JJ ever since I first saw him leering at me in a WD (1995 I think).
It was just some thing that makes me want to smash...do nasty things that would earn me 5 to 10 years in prison if you know what I meen
I blame him for the loss of Rick Priestley and Andy Chambers (he may not have had any involvement in it but I still blame him ).

Triggerbaby wrote:So I can still hate Gav Thorpe? Sweet! He's so much more hatable than Jervis!

Time for some ugly Gav Thorpe rumours:

Gav Thorpe likes his steaks well done.

Gav Thorpe always installs his toilet paper underhand.

Gav Thorpe has a subscription to the Daily Telegraph.

Do yourself a favor and don't punch my clock, 'cause I'm a Pantera's box you do not wanna open.

George Spiggott wrote:

Triggerbaby wrote:So I can still hate Gav Thorpe? Sweet! He's so much more hatable than Jervis!

Time for some ugly Gav Thorpe rumours:

Gav Thorpe likes his steaks well done.

Gav Thorpe always installs his toilet paper underhand.

Gav Thorpe has a subscription to the Daily Telegraph.

Do yourself a favor and don't punch my clock, 'cause I'm a Pantera's box you do not wanna open.

....
I was watching that movie today while painting.

It's a glorious example of Greg Kinnear's aptitude for douchebaggery!

I met him (Jervis) at a Toronto GT in...1999 I guess it would have been.
He was friendly enough, but was clearly a very lucky nerd. I was chatting with another attendee about warhammer historicals and how he was thinking of giving it a try using (I may be misremembering the specific details) Brettonians as stand ins for 100 year war French cavalry until he decided if he liked the game. Jervis said that was unacceptable. We said, well, we know they don't _really_ look like historical medieval cavalry but they'll do as stand ins, he refused to accept that. This went back and forth for a little bit getting increasingly awkward until the subject was changed. It was never an argument per se, just weird.
He also kept mentioning how long he'd been gaming for.

I met JJ at Games Day Last year, was an okay bloke, said hi to me and my mate (who was dressed as a "true Scale" heretic, complete with Sack mask) He seemed nice.

On the simplification of the C:CSM well I read it, then sent a massive and aggressive letter to Gav and Alessio complaining about it all. I got a really snidy reply from Gav saying destroying the fluff was all good (Sorcerer with Mark of Slaanesh in a unit of Berserker...), So I can understand the Gav Hatred.

JJ on the other hand makes me giggle with the way he writes in Standard Bearer. It could be a lot worse, not all of us are competitive gamers after all.

Whoa for a minute there I thought I wandered into YMDC by mistake.

On topic, rage needs a target to rage on, and as the most visible GW face nowadays JJ picks up the tab by default.

Also, rage begets more rage, I had no opinion on the guy before I came to Dakka, but after hearing 'Jervified' over and over again I was subliminally influenced to dislike the man.

Lastly, with a name like Jervis really what can you expect. If you had to pick on someone, would you choose A.) Gav B.) Alessio or C.) Jervis? Its puerile and politically incorrect, but names do matter, some attract more negative attention than others, which is why I'm gonna give my kids totally cool / awesome names so they're the most popular kids on the playground.

I want to clear things up for a number of people here, and especially the younger forumites who don't have the benefit of having seen some of the history of JJ, and are just basing their assumptions on a few confused posts on this thread:

First of all - Alessio Calvatore has already claimed responsibility for the last CSM codex, so the finger pointing can stop for that one.

- He is not generally 'hated', and the only people who do so are angry little internet warriors who need something worthwhile to happen in their lives. His 'standard bearer' article is probably the only reason many people still buy WD as sometimes it's the only bit of actual writing that isn't sales-pap in the entire magazine. I would hazard a guess that he probably isn't even being paid to do it, if the rest of the magazine is anything to go by, and he probably only does it out of his regard for the hobby and those of us who have been part of it for any significant time and recognise the heritage of that magazine. Many of the criticisms regarding what he has to say (regarding lack of heed of the tournament scene etc.), well.. of course he is going to cater for the populist demand of readers. People reacting to leaf-blower lists written by a handful of writers on BoLS need to reconise that theirs is not a significant part of the demographic.
- He was instrumental in the development of GW from it's early days and the transformation of the company from a couple of guys putting together rules when they got home from work, to it becoming a massive company (I could say institution) which is a part of millions of peoples lives. For that, I feel he should be deserved some respect.
He helped design so many of the classics: Necromunda, Mordheim, Blood Bowl, even Space Hulk. You also have to think he is one of the only people keeping those games 'alive' in the specialist games section of the website.
- He was Andy Chamber's whipping boy in WD battle reports for many years, and many of us I think will think fondly of him for that reason

In the new hyper-effecient world of Games Workshop, where every new major release is measured against it's benefits to the share holders and even game system rules are being perverted to that effect, he is one of the last relics of what many will say was the golden age of the company. I really hope he keeps a hand in things - kind of like a Games Workshop 'House of Lords' where some of the more extreme and undesirable changes that are being pushed through can be mitigated by someone who I think is a genuine hobbyist, and represents us in that regard.

Pacific wrote:I want to clear things up for a number of people here, and especially the younger forumites who don't have the benefit of having seen some of the history of JJ, and are just basing their assumptions on a few confused posts on this thread:

First of all - Alessio Calvatore has already claimed responsibility for the last CSM codex, so the finger pointing can stop for that one.

Could you link? Gav took responsibility for it and very publicly defended it on his blog, including against posts and criticisms by Dakka members.

http://mechanicalhamster.wordpress.com/2009/09/10/differences-of-opinion/

Pacific wrote:- He is not generally 'hated', and the only people who do so are angry little internet warriors who need something worthwhile to happen in their lives. His 'standard bearer' article is probably the only reason many people still buy WD as sometimes it's the only bit of actual writing that isn't sales-pap in the entire magazine. I would hazard a guess that he probably isn't even being paid to do it, if the rest of the magazine is anything to go by, and he probably only does it out of his regard for the hobby and those of us who have been part of it for any significant time and recognise the heritage of that magazine. Many of the criticisms regarding what he has to say (regarding lack of heed of the tournament scene etc.), well.. of course he is going to cater for the populist demand of readers. People reacting to leaf-blower lists written by a handful of writers on BoLS need to reconise that theirs is not a significant part of the demographic.
- He was instrumental in the development of GW from it's early days and the transformation of the company from a couple of guys putting together rules when they got home from work, to it becoming a massive company (I could say institution) which is a part of millions of peoples lives. For that, I feel he should be deserved some respect.

Standard Bearer has drawn both compliments and criticisms. His tone has seemed unnecessarily dismissive and unfriendly to some segments of the game's audience, which seems inappropriate for a standard bearer, around whom theoretically the whole passel of us should be able to rally. Perhaps that's me being too idealistic, but IMO he has often seemed out of touch with a fair percentage of gamers, and not open to some other priorities in playing.

He has been legimately criticized for absolutely terrible design in several codices; including the original 3rd ed Chaos Space Marines and Dark Angels books, and the current Dark Angels book. Players of both of those armies in those time periods had legitimate bones to pick with him.

Pacific wrote:-He helped design so many of the classics: Necromunda, Mordheim, Blood Bowl, even Space Hulk. You also have to think he is one of the only people keeping those games 'alive' in the specialist games section of the website.
- He was Andy Chamber's whipping boy in WD battle reports for many years, and many of us I think will think fondly of him for that reason

Completely agreed in this area. He came off very sympathetic in the old WD battle reports, and his involvement in many of the specialist games is his real solid redeeming feature. His work with the fan community on Blood Bowl in particular, letting them gradually take over the Living Rulebook and virtually perfect what was already one of GW's best games, is his crowning achievement as far as I'm concerned. And what keeps me from thinking of him as a jerk or a bad person, as I would be tempted to if I only played 40k.

I think the reason he is so hated is because he is a very public figure in the GW circles, and for this he is ragged on alt. But i do agree he does come out with some shockers!

Mannahnin wrote:

Pacific wrote:I want to clear things up for a number of people here, and especially the younger forumites who don't have the benefit of having seen some of the history of JJ, and are just basing their assumptions on a few confused posts on this thread:

First of all - Alessio Calvatore has already claimed responsibility for the last CSM codex, so the finger pointing can stop for that one.

Could you link? Gav took responsibility for it and very publicly defended it on his blog, including against posts and criticisms by Dakka members.

http://mechanicalhamster.wordpress.com/2009/09/10/differences-of-opinion/

It was in a interview Alessio gave recently on BOLS, talking about his new game and things like that
He then did a response to some of the comments made in another article explaining that he pushed for the streamlined approach and that Gav took the flak for it, when it was actually his idea

I think that the internet drama queens and those seeking attention are the Jervis haters.

I've met him in person several times. He came across as an EXTREMELY nice guy - with incredible passion for the game. Where he gets a lot of grief from is that he is totally into the fluff, panorama of the game, story, and total immersion into the 40K universe. He wants the games to be like being part of a movie. He seems to like the tournaments - but for him it's more about getting a bunch of gaming guys together and talking about the 40K world and universe. These are solely my opinions.

He doesn't strike me as being a competitive gamer or into making a set of rules that are competition solid. That goes against the above. Which brings him a lot of flack. I think that the market has room for both - and think GW's missing the mark a little there.

The old WD battle reports between JJ and AC are classics - some of the best reads of battle reports you'll ever find (especially the Orks/Space Marine one for second edition) - part of what built the tapestry of the 40K universe and in many cases the start of what has become a hugely successful series of novels ala Black Library.

I'm sure he's pretty much a corporate guy. Honestly, what's wrong with that - GW's paid him to design and play games for close to 30 years. I'd be singing their praises pretty loudly if they did that for me as well. Nothing wrong with corporate loyalty - his choice. You just have to filter a lot of what he says with that in mind. Besides, who's going to pay you for saying bad things about them???

Give the dude a break - without him the gaming geek world we love so well wouldn't be what it is today. We wouldn't have Blood Bowl. He was a big part of Necromunda, Gothic, etc. Man's done a lot for our hobby.....

And btw - I play Dark Angels - and still think this way (although before the FAQ they had been gathering dust for some time).

Jervis was a leading writer on Bloodbowl and Epic Armageddon. Bloodbowl is absolutely GW's best game, by a long way, and Epic Armageddon isn't far behind. They are fairly simple systems, though, and I think it's in designs like that where Jervis' heart lies. The problem comes when you get a guy like that, who wants a clean system where rules interactions produce a range of tactical considerations, and you have them redesign 40k.

Because a significant portion of 40K players really, really like the idea of picking and choosing all kinds of options for their character models and troops, and consider those choices a really important part of design. I don't agree with those people, but it's their hobby too and I understand them being annoyed at the game being changed on them.

Thing is, GW then changed direction, a whole lot. In part because of the hate, but mostly I suspect it was because 'an interesting tactical system with armies with a collection of interesting units that interact in interesting ways to produce an interesting range of tactical considerations' doesn't sell models as fast as 'totally sweet new dreadnaught with mega-powerful new close combat abilities'. So now we're in a bit of a mess, with a couple of codices designed under the old, simple design goals, a couple designed under a halfway point (and I think C:SM and Orks are among the best codices GW has ever released) and everything since released with as many new rules and new models as possible.

It isn't as big a mess as the game was in for, well, the whole of third edition, but it's certainly a mess. It's wrong to point the finger entirely at Jervis, because all I can see him doing was bringing a design philosophy across to 40K that served him well in the other games he released.

But hey, the haters have to blame someone.

Kanluwen wrote:So where's the blame for Andy Hoare? His name's on the DA Codex too. Gav worked on it, Alessio worked on it.

No one person is responsible for a codex. It's sheer ridiculousness to pin the blame on one person.

I've always found that a really funny idea, that seems to be repeated constantly with no-one questioning it. As if one guy could sit down and write a whole codex, without any overview to make sure it fitted in with other armies.

AS A NOTE, MOST OF "THE GREAT GAV THORPE EMPLOYMENT STATUS DEBATE" HAS BEEN DELETED FROM THE THREAD AS OFF TOPIC AND POINTLESS.

ANY FURTHER POSTS ON THAT SUBJECT IN THIS THREAD WILL RESULT IN SUSPENSION FOR THE OFFENDER/S.

Mannahnin wrote:Standard Bearer has drawn both compliments and criticisms. His tone has seemed unnecessarily dismissive and unfriendly to some segments of the game's audience, which seems inappropriate for a standard bearer, around whom theoretically the whole passel of us should be able to rally. Perhaps that's me being too idealistic, but IMO he has often seemed out of touch with a fair percentage of gamers, and not open to some other priorities in playing.

He has been legimately criticized for absolutely terrible design in several codices; including the original 3rd ed Chaos Space Marines and Dark Angels books, and the current Dark Angels book. Players of both of those armies in those time periods had legitimate bones to pick with him.

On the contrary, Jervis seems to go out of his way to be friendly and accomodating - far more than those particular segments are toward those who don't play the game with the same competitive spirit that they hold dear. The fact that competitive play is not an important or significant part of GW's market, and GW no longer strongly promotes it, that's really not his fault any more than it's GM's fault for promoting their fuel-efficient Volt & Cruze over their track-storming ZR1. Jervis speaks to the vast majority of players, for whom competitive play simply doesn't exist, and like any good spokesperson, validates their choices to play as they do. For a competitive player, expecting Jervis to stroke their ego makes no sense - they should be getting their validation by clubbing baby seals and winning their events.

He has been unfairly criticized for changing the design direction of a few Codices, by players who cannot confuse mere change with "terrible design". Having a legitimate grievance due to change is not necessarily due to bad design - the player is partially responsible as well. In particular, no Dark Angel army following the Fluff TO&E was invalidated. Quite frankly, from a design POV, both the DA and CSM books are better-designed than before, even if they were possibly less powerful or abusable at the time they were released. In hindsight and in modern context, neither book is especially problematic.

sebster wrote:Jervis was a leading writer on Bloodbowl and Epic Armageddon. Bloodbowl is absolutely GW's best game, by a long way, and Epic Armageddon isn't far behind. They are fairly simple systems, though, and I think it's in designs like that where Jervis' heart lies. The problem comes when you get a guy like that, who wants a clean system where rules interactions produce a range of tactical considerations, and you have them redesign 40k.

Because a significant portion of 40K players really, really like the idea of picking and choosing all kinds of options for their character models and troops, and consider those choices a really important part of design. I don't agree with those people, but it's their hobby too and I understand them being annoyed at the game being changed on them.

Thing is, GW then changed direction, a whole lot. In part because of the hate, but mostly I suspect it was because 'an interesting tactical system with armies with a collection of interesting units that interact in interesting ways to produce an interesting range of tactical considerations' doesn't sell models as fast as 'totally sweet new dreadnaught with mega-powerful new close combat abilities'. So now we're in a bit of a mess, with a couple of codices designed under the old, simple design goals, a couple designed under a halfway point (and I think C:SM and Orks are among the best codices GW has ever released) and everything since released with as many new rules and new models as possible.

It isn't as big a mess as the game was in for, well, the whole of third edition, but it's certainly a mess. It's wrong to point the finger entirely at Jervis, because all I can see him doing was bringing a design philosophy across to 40K that served him well in the other games he released.

But hey, the haters have to blame someone.

Orks really is a pinnacle of design, frankly.

But the issue with some of the more recent codices is simply that they gave new authors too much freedom and it bit them in the rear end.

Kanluwen wrote:So where's the blame for Andy Hoare? His name's on the DA Codex too. Gav worked on it, Alessio worked on it.

No one person is responsible for a codex. It's sheer ridiculousness to pin the blame on one person.

I've always found that a really funny idea, that seems to be repeated constantly with no-one questioning it. As if one guy could sit down and write a whole codex, without any overview to make sure it fitted in with other armies.

Yeah, but I guess it really does just boil down to "the haters have to blame someone".

Which is kinda pathetic, and probably is why GW finds the "Let's not interact with the general public" stance to be their best option in most cases when it comes to codex design.
When the gamers can't even agree amongst themselves, there's no way in hell that GW is going to get any kind of useful feedback.

Kanluwen wrote:Orks really is a pinnacle of design, frankly.

Definitely.

But the issue with some of the more recent codices is simply that they gave new authors too much freedom and it bit them in the rear end.

I'm not sure it was that much of an accident. There'd be an oversight committee that knew each new unit and rule that was being introduced.

I suspect there really was a change in codex design, towards having new toys in each codex to spur on new sales.

Yeah, but I guess it really does just boil down to "the haters have to blame someone".

Which is kinda pathetic, and probably is why GW finds the "Let's not interact with the general public" stance to be their best option in most cases when it comes to codex design.
When the gamers can't even agree amongst themselves, there's no way in hell that GW is going to get any kind of useful feedback.

Yeah, there's far too many geeks out there with loud voices and very strongly held opinion for GW to ever get much value out of open forums. Not only would it be of limited value, I suspect it could actually give an incorrect impression of what the total market wants - the worries you see constantly on the internet, for clarification of rules minutiae and the like are just not issues I see in the real among the people I play against.

sebster wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:Orks really is a pinnacle of design, frankly.

Definitely.

But the issue with some of the more recent codices is simply that they gave new authors too much freedom and it bit them in the rear end.

I'm not sure it was that much of an accident. There'd be an oversight committee that knew each new unit and rule that was being introduced.

I suspect there really was a change in codex design, towards having new toys in each codex to spur on new sales.

Yeah, but I guess it really does just boil down to "the haters have to blame someone".

Which is kinda pathetic, and probably is why GW finds the "Let's not interact with the general public" stance to be their best option in most cases when it comes to codex design.
When the gamers can't even agree amongst themselves, there's no way in hell that GW is going to get any kind of useful feedback.

Yeah, there's far too many geeks out there with loud voices and very strongly held opinion for GW to ever get much value out of open forums. Not only would it be of limited value, I suspect it could actually give an incorrect impression of what the total market wants - the worries you see constantly on the internet, for clarification of rules minutiae and the like are just not issues I see in the real among the people I play against.

Plus: do we really want to let the tournament gamers get their voices heard?

I say no, we do not!

Me personally?

I was OK with him till I actually met him and talked to him at a Games Day. This was right after Codex: Dark Angels came out, and I was talking with him about the decision to restrict certain options (Terminators unable to use Drop Pods, Librarians unable to use various special weapons such as power fists).

My argument was that GW should, ideally, want me to buy more models, so unless gameplay was really hindered by an option, then allowing it would make good business sense. For example, if I could buy Drop Pods for my Terminators, then GW could sell more Drop Pods. Clearly Deep Striking was not overpowered for Terminators (as most of them get it anyway), so why remove the option? It doesn't affect the game substantially, it makes sense within the game world (Terminators can fit in there), and it is an opportunity to sell more product. Same with special weapons. If someone wanted to convert a Librarian to use a power fist, what should GW care? Work out an appropriate points cost and allow it. Let someone buy a few more models to convert.

Jervis responded that certain options were "iconic", and so GW wanted to promote those images. Terminators typically deploy by Teleportation (when they don't get there on foot or land raider), so that was the option presented. The "iconic" weapon of the Chaplain was the Crozius, and the "iconic" weapon of the Librarian was the force weapon, so the rules needed to preserve that distinction.

I immediately pointed out the splendid Chaplain with Power Fist and Crozius model, produced by GW's own team. I pointed out that (excluding Forge World), GW had never produced a Drop Pod model, so it seemed unfair to assume that Drop Podding Terminators weren't "iconic", since they had no option to be represented as such previously. No real reply.

I got the distinct feeling then, reinforced by reading his Standard Bearer articles, that Jervis believes that the way he plays the game and views the game is the "right way", and other people who disagree are simply misguided. Not evil, or stupid, or bad, but simply confused, perhaps in a slightly adorable way like a small puppy. He seems like a very nice person, and I suspect I would enjoy a game of 40k with him a great deal. On the other hand, I suspect then (and now), he is patronizingly shaking his head at all of the misguided souls who simply "don't get" the game the way he does.

Also, if you are going to turn your design philosophy on its head, and do away with tons of little modeling/wargear options, and do away with every option which is not reflected on the model, then stick with your design philosophy throughout the entire edition, OR USE THE INTERNET TO OFFER UPDATES. If the design decision was right in Dark Angels, then apply it to every single book. If it was wrong, then fix the error. It's not like you don't have a web site.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

sebster wrote:
Yeah, there's far too many geeks out there with loud voices and very strongly held opinion for GW to ever get much value out of open forums. Not only would it be of limited value, I suspect it could actually give an incorrect impression of what the total market wants - the worries you see constantly on the internet, for clarification of rules minutiae and the like are just not issues I see in the real among the people I play against.

While I agree totally that "loud opinions" do not equal "widely held opinions" (oh, god, do I agree), have you really heard anyone complain about the rules being "too clear and well written"?

While only a small group of players really agitate for clear and unambiguous rules, that's a change that could benefit all of their players. There's a difference between catering to a small fraction of the audience, and using your customer feedback to improve your product for everybody. Even people who don't complain might still appreciate an improved product.

I prefer the term 'Jerfisted', but that is just me. Also, can you really trust a guy whose initials look like two coat hooks?

Anyway, I WOULD pay good money for the audio version of any army book or codex he cared to narrate. So soothing...

Da Butcha wrote:While I agree totally that "loud opinions" do not equal "widely held opinions" (oh, god, do I agree), have you really heard anyone complain about the rules being "too clear and well written"?

While only a small group of players really agitate for clear and unambiguous rules, that's a change that could benefit all of their players. There's a difference between catering to a small fraction of the audience, and using your customer feedback to improve your product for everybody. Even people who don't complain might still appreciate an improved product.

Oh certainly, I think there's plenty of unclear and confusing elements to the various 40K rulesets. My point was more on the minutiae of rules debates that go on, where people take sentences as literally as possible with no regard for the intent of the sentence, then crack out the dictionaries and have at it. It seems to me RAW is almost entirely an internet thing, I've never seen folk argue anything like that in real life.

Looking at the internet and you'd think what's needed is highly specific, codeified language with absolutely clear meaning, that can be as dense and multi-layered as needs be, provided the final meaning requires no common sense interpretation. But in real life I see folk looking for simplicity, single sentences that clearly instruct them what to do next, they're much happier trying to reach a common sense interpretation than wade through a paragraph of text.

Balance wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:I like Jervis, but then, I like a "cleaner" game system.

In general, I think that complexity, like cholesterol, comes in 'good' and 'bad' flavors. In general, core mechanics should be clean and 'bolt-on' systems need to work with these mechanics, not completely override them.

For example, a 'Sniper' rule that enahnces the base rules is OK, especially if it's clean. If it requires new stats or unusual math of old stats, that might be a problem.

This is all subjective, of course.

40K is the opposite, of course.

The core rules are messy and unnecessarily complicated. The bolt-on systems have multiple overlaps and exceptions, making everything harder to understand.

It isn't subjective, actually. There is plenty of research into pedagogy, human interface design and so on, that shows that these factors can be studied objectively.

Kilkrazy wrote:40K is the opposite, of course.

The core rules are messy and unnecessarily complicated. The bolt-on systems have multiple overlaps and exceptions, making everything harder to understand.

It isn't subjective, actually. There is plenty of research into pedagogy, human interface design and so on, that shows that these factors can be studied objectively.

Oh, absolutely, the system is objective bloated with unnecessary rules complexity but lacks much in the way of a sophisticated tactical game. Thing to remember is the 40K is a system written in bits and pieces, with several efforts to tinker and only one (largely failed) effort at a complete revision. I mean, if you were to write a game about sci-fi company sized engagements (more or less), would you really give every trooper seven stats, three of which only ever see use in hand to hand? Would anyone honestly write a system where you move all your guys 6" in the movement phase, then wait until the shooting phase before rolling a die and moving them all again?

It wouldn't be hard to write a better sci-fi game than 40K, lots of people have. What's hard is overcoming the legacy in 40K to do it.

Pacific wrote:I want to clear things up for a number of people here, and especially the younger forumites who don't have the benefit of having seen some of the history of JJ, and are just basing their assumptions on a few confused posts on this thread:

First of all - Alessio Calvatore has already claimed responsibility for the last CSM codex, so the finger pointing can stop for that one.

- He is not generally 'hated', and the only people who do so are angry little internet warriors who need something worthwhile to happen in their lives. His 'standard bearer' article is probably the only reason many people still buy WD as sometimes it's the only bit of actual writing that isn't sales-pap in the entire magazine. I would hazard a guess that he probably isn't even being paid to do it, if the rest of the magazine is anything to go by, and he probably only does it out of his regard for the hobby and those of us who have been part of it for any significant time and recognise the heritage of that magazine. Many of the criticisms regarding what he has to say (regarding lack of heed of the tournament scene etc.), well.. of course he is going to cater for the populist demand of readers. People reacting to leaf-blower lists written by a handful of writers on BoLS need to reconise that theirs is not a significant part of the demographic.
- He was instrumental in the development of GW from it's early days and the transformation of the company from a couple of guys putting together rules when they got home from work, to it becoming a massive company (I could say institution) which is a part of millions of peoples lives. For that, I feel he should be deserved some respect.
He helped design so many of the classics: Necromunda, Mordheim, Blood Bowl, even Space Hulk. You also have to think he is one of the only people keeping those games 'alive' in the specialist games section of the website.
- He was Andy Chamber's whipping boy in WD battle reports for many years, and many of us I think will think fondly of him for that reason

In the new hyper-effecient world of Games Workshop, where every new major release is measured against it's benefits to the share holders and even game system rules are being perverted to that effect, he is one of the last relics of what many will say was the golden age of the company. I really hope he keeps a hand in things - kind of like a Games Workshop 'House of Lords' where some of the more extreme and undesirable changes that are being pushed through can be mitigated by someone who I think is a genuine hobbyist, and represents us in that regard.

Are you Jervis Johnson

or are you just hoping he will email you brownie points for trying to lecture people that don't like him

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:Standard Bearer has drawn both compliments and criticisms. His tone has seemed unnecessarily dismissive and unfriendly to some segments of the game's audience, which seems inappropriate for a standard bearer, around whom theoretically the whole passel of us should be able to rally. Perhaps that's me being too idealistic, but IMO he has often seemed out of touch with a fair percentage of gamers, and not open to some other priorities in playing.

He has been legimately criticized for absolutely terrible design in several codices; including the original 3rd ed Chaos Space Marines and Dark Angels books, and the current Dark Angels book. Players of both of those armies in those time periods had legitimate bones to pick with him.

On the contrary, Jervis seems to go out of his way to be friendly and accomodating - far more than those particular segments are toward those who don't play the game with the same competitive spirit that they hold dear.

I disagree. He's certainly not as friendly and accomodating toward other styles of play as I am. Jervis doesn't get a pass on his attitude (attested to first hand in this thread by Da Butcha and plastictrees) because some people are jerks on the internet. He the Standard Bearer; he's the guy representing the company, and he is appropriately held to a higher standard.

JohnHwangDD wrote:He has been unfairly criticized for changing the design direction of a few Codices, by players who cannot confuse mere change with "terrible design".

He has been legitimately and fairly criticized (as well as unfairly bashed and labasted) for repeated failures on the codex front. The DA book would not be "terrible" if the other books released since it followed the same philosophy. It would merely be bland. However they do not. GW evidently decided that philosophy was not the right one, and what we can see of sales and army usage seem to support that. Both fluffy players and competitive players want options. They want new models, and to use as much of their existing collection as they can. As Da Butcha said, if GW makes a great Chaplain model with a Powerfist and Crozius, it simply doesn't make sense for GW to remove that armament selection as a codex-legal choice. It annoys the casual gamers even more than the competitive gamers.

Given JJ's other achievements, Blood Bowl in particular, I forgave him the poor work on the first 3rd ed Chaos codex; heck, it too was one of the early books of a generation, and while it was almost the only book that had to be revised during 3rd edition, it was obviously a trial run. I forgave him the first 3rd ed Dark Angels book too; again, it was poor work, and GW released a better version before we even got to 4th edition. I certainly don't actually "hate" him for screwing it up yet again with the current DA book. I'm just disappointed, and increasingly convinced that he should never be given lead design responsibility for an army.

Mannahnin wrote: I'm just disappointed, and increasingly convinced that he should never be given lead design responsibility for an army.

May all of your Codices be written by Thorpe and/or Cruddace henceforth.

Say what you will about his GW work, but he and Rick did crank out the most excellent Black Powder rules. Though I get the feeling Rick did most of the work and Jervis was just being tall.

Kanluwen wrote:
@Kilkrazy
There's Jervis, Andy Hoare, Phil Kelly, Graham Davey, Jeremy Vetock, and Gav Thorpe still around for the games development 'studio'.

..errrmm.. just for the record.

Andy Hoare no longer works for GW, he's freelance and ahs been for quite sometime now. He left in the summer of 2009

Graham Davey no longer works for GW, he left in 2010 and has done a variety of freelance projects since.

Gav Thorpe left GW ages ago, and whilst he does indeed write for BL -- note he is not "employed fulltime" by them at all, but works on a book to book/series to series contract. This is why he has a book out/others coming with other publishers and has been working on miniature rules for another company -- avast ye lubbers and so on. But we'll leave his situation alone as covered.

Jeremy Vetock does indeed work for GW still, although he has relocated back to the USA, for the sake of his family and is no longer a day to day member of the design studio.

Messrs. Johnson and Kelly are indeed still there however.

MikeMcSomething wrote:

Pacific wrote:I want to clear things up for a number of people here, and especially the younger forumites who don't have the benefit of having seen some of the history of JJ, and are just basing their assumptions on a few confused posts on this thread:


blah blah (see above)

.

Are you Jervis Johnson

or are you just hoping he will email you brownie points for trying to lecture people that don't like him

Haha, no I'm not (are you Mike McVey, famous miniature sculptor and painter? )

I just thought that I should give some counter-discussion, because a lot of people's perceptions of him are based by comments from a very vocal minority in terms of the games buying public. Without wanting to sound like a brown-nose, I think GW (and by extension us) have benefited more from him working at the company, than if he had not ever done so, and I was listing some of those positives that people might not be aware of beyond the odd patronising (to them) standard bearer article, or cry of "codex x sucks" on whichever message board. Surely that's the most important conclusion to reach in the end?

I got the distinct feeling then, reinforced by reading his Standard Bearer articles, that Jervis believes that the way he plays the game and views the game is the "right way", and other people who disagree are simply misguided. Not evil, or stupid, or bad, but simply confused, perhaps in a slightly adorable way like a small puppy. He seems like a very nice person, and I suspect I would enjoy a game of 40k with him a great deal. On the other hand, I suspect then (and now), he is patronizingly shaking his head at all of the misguided souls who simply "don't get" the game the way he does.

That's not the impression I get, and I don't agree with what he says (even though I can always follow his logic), but then I supposed that it's subjective to anyone reading it.

I too am rather appreciative of the feller.

Bloodbowl 1st edition was my intoduction to gaming and still has pride of place mid-centre of my bookshelf and Epic will be my favourite system of all time (nothing else capture the grand nature of the setting).

True there will be some things that chop and change of 25+ years and so some will not agree, but to hate someone that has consistantly been a driving light in a hobby that we all enjoy seems a little purile [says the man with the earlier JR comment ].

Standard Bearer has always been a decent enough read the few times I have read WD recently. Even if you don't agree I can't see how you can blot his copy book for a monthly column.

I view JJ as something of a relic of the past; he's served his purpose and now the game has moved beyond what he can competently add to.

To me it's clear that he plays 40k in a beer-and-pretzels manner, and things like tight and clear rules and solid inter/intrafaction balance is not only unnecessary, but somehow interferes with 'playing for fun'.

JJ seems to epitomize this contradiction between sloppy rules sets and magically knowing the intent behind the rules. Dicing off is not a viable solution for any type of gamer when problematic distinctions can meaningfully affect how entire armies work indefinitely.

What's wrong with playing 40k beer-and-pretzels? Is that not fun?

I play 40k as beer-and-pretzels, and have a great time of it.

Apparently John, everything is wrong with playing 40k as beer-and-pretzels. It needs to be played as competitive--OR NOT PLAYED AT ALL!

JohnHwangDD wrote:What's wrong with playing 40k beer-and-pretzels? Is that not fun?

I play 40k as beer-and-pretzels, and have a great time of it.

There's no problem with that.

There's also no problem in designing a game that can also be taken seriously without all the ambiguity in the rules.

40k is good at beer and pretzels.

It fails at the latter.

Jervis wrote the rules for the 2 best games GW has:

Bloodbowl and Epic 40k

Like I said before, I blame Gav and Alessio way more for what they did to the CSM than what Jervis did.

Personally I don't think 40K really qualifies as a B&P game because it is too complicated.

It doesn't mean you can't play it just for fun of course.

OTOH having a tight ruleset doesn't mean you can't play a game just for fun.

GW is to blame, for having promoted so many competitive events over the years. Their latest effort is Ard Boyz, which has stimulated the growth of the points level from the fine 1750 to the too big (but sells more models) 2500 and set the imprimatur of official status on unpainted armies (which sell more quickly).

JohnHwangDD wrote:What's wrong with playing 40k beer-and-pretzels? Is that not fun?

I play 40k as beer-and-pretzels, and have a great time of it.

Because you can't d6 forever on whether Deffrollas work or not. Thankfully GW's gotten its collective head out with the new FAQs so now we know how Jervis-it's-meant-to-be-played-Johnson intends the game to be played, but players--competitive, casual, whatever--need to know how the game actually works in order to play the game. Otherwise you just have an assortment of house club rules (INAT FAQ?) that you have to memorize for wherever you play at.

JohnHwangDD wrote:What's wrong with playing 40k beer-and-pretzels? Is that not fun?

I play 40k as beer-and-pretzels, and have a great time of it.

Kanluwen wrote:Apparently John, everything is wrong with playing 40k as beer-and-pretzels. It needs to be played as competitive--OR NOT PLAYED AT ALL!

I'm not sure if these comments are poor attempts at humor, intentionally obtuse, intentionally inflammatory, or some combination.

A little of humor+obtusitude.

sourclams wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:What's wrong with playing 40k beer-and-pretzels? Is that not fun?

I play 40k as beer-and-pretzels, and have a great time of it.

Because you can't d6 forever on whether Deffrollas work or not.

Thankfully GW's gotten its collective head out with the new FAQs so now we know how Jervis-it's-meant-to-be-played-Johnson intends the game to be played, but players--competitive, casual, whatever--need to know how the game actually works in order to play the game.

Otherwise you just have an assortment of house club rules (INAT FAQ?) that you have to memorize for wherever you play at.

Actually, you can, once you recognize that it's such a tiny and insignificant part of playing a game with friends for fun. That said, our Ork player is sufficiently hapless, and we're sufficiently good sports, that we probably wouldn't care one way or another. Even if it cost one of us the game.

You seem to think that players need to be told how to interpret things, and cannot figure something out for themselves. We have in our group a number of smart guys, and long time gamers, too, so this simply isn't a problem for us. I'll gladly accept one of our other player's interpretations and go forward from there. And even if we *gasp* get it "wrong", who cares? It's simply an asterisk in the writeup, to be remembered the next time we play.

In any given "house", you d6 it exactly once, and are done with it. You don't need something like the INAT abomination, which exist simply to keep one group of tools from out-tooling the other group of tools. The INAT FAQ is by WAAC players, for WAAC players, mostly to cover arcana tied to deliberate attempts at rule-twisting upon which insistence would likely get one booted from any reasonable club. Never needed it, don't expect to need it, don't care. The number of actual issues is so small as to not matter.


@Polonius: I fail to see how I was being inflammatory in my initial post (unlike my follow-up above). I play 40k B&P, and it's fun that way.

When you yourself can see that it is inflammatory, it's probably against our rules to post. ~Manchu

I like Jervis Johnson. He views these games pretty much the way I do. I like his WD articles, too.

But I never understood why people who want a strategy game with clear and concise rules and balanced armies play WH40k, because that is what chess is for. If you play 40K, crying for perfect balance and perfectly clear rules is a load of gak. It is a strategy game based on roleplaying. You cannot on one hand allow for anything thinkable to be playable and on the other hand expect perfectly simple rules.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

sourclams wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:What's wrong with playing 40k beer-and-pretzels? Is that not fun?

I play 40k as beer-and-pretzels, and have a great time of it.

Because you can't d6 forever on whether Deffrollas work or not.

Thankfully GW's gotten its collective head out with the new FAQs so now we know how Jervis-it's-meant-to-be-played-Johnson intends the game to be played, but players--competitive, casual, whatever--need to know how the game actually works in order to play the game.

Actually, you can, once you recognize that it's such a tiny and insignificant part of playing a game with friends for fun. That said, our Ork player is sufficiently hapless, and we're sufficiently good sports, that we probably wouldn't care one way or another. Even if it cost one of us the game.

You seem to think that players need to be told how to interpret things, and cannot figure something out for themselves. We have in our group a number of smart guys, and long time gamers, too, so this simply isn't a problem for us. I'll gladly accept one of our other player's interpretations and go forward from there. And even if we *gasp* get it "wrong", who cares? It's simply an asterisk in the writeup, to be remembered the next time we play.

You miss the point, John. Yes, in your own house with a limited group of gamers, you can settle a standard ruling. However casual players like playing outside their own house sometimes too, and clear, consistent rules are helpful and better for them too.

This is the point about clear rules: They're necessary for competition, and also HELPFUL for casual games. Jervis' conceit that writing clearer rules would somehow be prioritizing the small subset of competitive gamers over the casual guys is an entirely false pretense, an abdication of responsibility to the casual gamers, and shirking his obligation to do a good job as a writer and designer.

Several of the casual gamers I used to play 40k with have moved over to Warmachine and Hordes, despite those games being ostensibly written for a more competitive mindset. The thing that really appeals to those casual gamers is that the rules are rarely unclear, and they are almost never stuck trying to figure something out or have an excessively-complex rule used to their disadvantage and explained to them by a more-competitive player. Pretty much every time they have a question, they can just look in the main rulebook or the glossary and find the answer. 40k's been getting better, no doubt. I love 5th edition. But there are still rules that are excessively complex and counterintuitive (like multiple assaults, and wound distribution in complex units) and GW leaves obvious questions unanswered.

JohnHwangDD wrote:[ You don't need something like the INAT abomination, which exist simply to keep one group of tools from out-tooling the other group of tools. The INAT FAQ is by WAAC players, for WAAC players, mostly to cover arcana tied to deliberate attempts at rule-twisting upon which insistence would likely get one booted from any reasonable club. Never needed it, don't expect to need it, don't care.

This is possibly the second-most offensive thing I've ever seen you post. Are you trying to troll Yakface now? Or just every competitive gamer who uses the FAQ? Or every competitive gamer anywhere? Or every gamer who occasionally plays a game with a stranger?

Go read the introduction and afterword from the INAT FAQ. Then go feel ashamed of yourself.

JohnHwangDD wrote:@Polonius: I fail to see how I was being inflammatory in my initial post (unlike my follow-up above). I play 40k B&P, and it's fun that way.

Then you're either failing at humor or being intentionally obtuse.

Nobody has ever said that playing 40k for fun in your basement with three other dudes isn't fun. But that's not how a lot of us play.

It's a lot of fun to be friends with a woman, and go to movies and talk all the time. Nothing wrong with it.

But for many guys, it's also fun to have hot, dirty, nasty sex with her as well.

Until it's explained how better rules hurt anybody's fun, it seems like a net positive for the hobby to have them.

John thinks that "Tournament Gamer" and "WAAC" players are one and the same. It's not so much offensive Sourclams as it is 'the usual' when it comes to Jonny-boy's antics. The fact that he seems to think that "Just play beer and pretzels 40K" is a valid excuse for not having a tight ruleset pretty much pegs why his opinion is laughable in any sort of rules discussion.

Skylifter wrote:I like Jervis Johnson. He views these games pretty much the way I do. I like his WD articles, too.

But I never understood why people who want a strategy game with clear and concise rules and balanced armies play WH40k, because that is what chess is for. If you play 40K, crying for perfect balance and perfectly clear rules is a load of gak. It is a strategy game based on roleplaying. You cannot on one hand allow for anything thinkable to be playable and on the other hand expect perfectly simple rules.

This opinion may have been supportable in 2nd edition, when armies and units were incredibly customizable. 40k is just another points based wargame at this point, and asking for it to at least recognize that people play a certain way would be nice.

The bigger failing than having a tigh ruleset is how often the fluff and the rules are at odds with eachother. The two should be congruent.

And it's deeply ironic that the few times where the rules and fluff have matched (Codex: Armageddon Templars, Iron Warriors from 3.5), everyone went crazy with cries of 'cheese'.

theHandofGork wrote:Two thoughts:
1. It's hard to balance the JJ who designed BB and Black Powder with the JJ who did DA and writes standard bearer.

2. JJ is no Andy Chambers. If you started in the GW when Chambers (or Rick Priestly) was the design head then JJ seems relatively bland. JJ also took over when the rules started to be streamlined. Take them together & it's easy to assume JJ is behind the bland-ification of GW.

This.

It began when there was a reshuffling of personnel back in the middle of the 90's, then when He pulled out the story about the DA revamp with using his kid as the yardstick, and then after that fell through, everyone else but him left and he was left holding the bag with a bunch of bean counters making decisions, while fans and everyone else had him as the "Face of GW" to point the finger at. I included.

It's that little thing about some yeg out of left field poping out of nowhere and telling you how you've been playing your game for the last five or so years poping up and telling you you are all wrong and not doing it the right way, nevermind that he had one story for the first half of that decade, and then pops up with his standard bearer BS the next.

When I see him, I see him changing the game completely out of how it was into some sort of anachronism of how it really should have evolved into. Theres one thing about changing a game to improve it, its quite another to change it for the sake of sales and beancounting.
JJ took it upon himself to be that spokeman. He gets what he gets from his own undoing.

No sympathy for him or his upstarts like Alessio, or Gav the newb. WHY? Because what is seriously lacking in GW's design department is a full set of Huevos.

They do things that THEY think works, not what is benificial to improve the game.

Polonius wrote:Until it's explained how better rules hurt anybody's fun, it seems like a net positive for the hobby to have them.

The issue comes from maintaining an ease of reading while still removing all scope for interpretation.

A good example I read the other day in YMDC was for the Shokk Attack gun, where the rule states "Any model hit by the gun this turn is removed from play. Vehicles hit take an automatic penetrating hit."

This is written in plain English, and is fairly easy to understand with a common sense interpretation. But by RAW it means the vehicles, being models, should be removed from play and also take a penetrating hit. It's a crazy interpretation, and the kind of thing that'd breach most clubs 'don't be a dick' rule, but amongst the RAW WAAC crowd it has some kind of legitimacy.

Now, the rule in this instance could have been kept absolutely clear and immune to crazy RAW interpretations, and still been easy to read just by adjusting it to read "Any model hit by the gun this turn is removed from play, except for vehicles which take an automatic penetrating hit." Given how easily that could have been made unambiguous without adding complexity, I hope it's obvious I'm not claiming the 40K rules couldn't improve both their clarity and the ease of reading.

But I would point out there's a point where you do have to trade one for the other. Removing all possible interpretation would require writing in a dense language much like a legal document, and that really isn't to many people's tastes. Writing in a simpler style would work, but it'd leave greater room for interpretation.

GW doesn't do either, but any effort to improve the text would mean at some point you'd have to start allowing some ambiguity for the sake of simplicity, or vice versa.

Mannahnin wrote:

Several of the casual gamers I used to play 40k with have moved over to Warmachine and Hordes, despite those games being ostensibly written for a more competitive mindset. The thing that really appeals to those casual gamers is that the rules are rarely unclear, and they are almost never stuck trying to figure something out or have an excessively-complex rule used to their disadvantage and explained to them by a more-competitive player. Pretty much every time they have a question, they can just look in the main rulebook or the glossary and find the answer. 40k's been getting better, no doubt. I love 5th edition. But there are still rules that are excessively complex and counterintuitive (like multiple assaults, and wound distribution in complex units) and GW leaves obvious questions unanswered.

Mannahin describes me perfectly (though I have never played him in 40k).

I sometimes forget that this is a side benefit to me never having played in a
competitive warhammer 40k environment yet playing warmachine now. Yes, I
love that the rules are mostly clear. I love that when I run events, the most
lawyering I usually have to do is ask, "What does the rule say?" Saying the rule
out loud usually gets them to notice the word they missed reading it to themselves
in the midst of playing the game.

I suppose the problem is that anyone who posts on these forums is by definition getting more mileage out of the game, and so is more likely to find problems with it. Yes there are some issues with the rules being inbalanced or in some cases incomplete, but I think for the vast majority of gamers (most of whom don't spend a lot of time on the internet) then 40k functions fine as something that you can just pick up and play and not worry too much about beyond that (and beyond the beer and prezels I suppose).

I will introduce an analogy: If you just drive your little hatchback to go shopping once a week, or into town, or for the odd holiday, you might find that it works perfectly. But, start taking it on 4 hour commutes every day, or to a track day to thrash it around, and then you might find that bits of it start to fall off! So maybe if you are in a latter camp it might be an idea to either upgrade to a more appropriate car for that kind of use, or else make your own modifications so that it's more suitable! But, perhaps it is a tad unfair to expect the manufacturer to cater for that kind of use when its only used for such by a minority.

(I realise that's pretty terrible, feel free to pick it to pieces! ^^ )

I think it's just he has tried to make the game more simple but then in doing so has left out everything that makes the game interesting. Thats why i love Phil kelly and Brian nelson.


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do you think he know that he is hated so much??

If you read the above thread, there are a lot more posts supporting him than 'hating' him, and this is at the sharp end of GW fans..

sebster wrote:

Polonius wrote:Until it's explained how better rules hurt anybody's fun, it seems like a net positive for the hobby to have them.

The issue comes from maintaining an ease of reading while still removing all scope for interpretation.
...snip...

But I would point out there's a point where you do have to trade one for the other. Removing all possible interpretation would require writing in a dense language much like a legal document, and that really isn't to many people's tastes. Writing in a simpler style would work, but it'd leave greater room for interpretation.

GW doesn't do either, but any effort to improve the text would mean at some point you'd have to start allowing some ambiguity for the sake of simplicity, or vice versa.

Well, most legal documents spend a lot of their time defining things, which in the exmaple you cited is the problem. How is it possible that the term "model" can be used to mean "non-vehicle model"? Most of the ambiguity is built around ill defined or poorly chosen words, not simplicity.

Polonius wrote:Well, most legal documents spend a lot of their time defining things, which in the exmaple you cited is the problem. How is it possible that the term "model" can be used to mean "non-vehicle model"? Most of the ambiguity is built around ill defined or poorly chosen words, not simplicity.

Note that I said that in the example in question, and in lots of GW's other rules writing, that the rule in question could be more clearly written without becoming any more complex. But your example of a list of formal definitions is exactly where you start seeing the trade off between clarity and simplicity. A whole lot of folk really don't want to spend their time flicking back to the definitions to piece together exactly what a rule means. They want a plain reading where much of the meaning can be interpreted from the context and from common sense.

Do you see where I'm coming from when I say there can be a trade-off between clarity and simplicity (though GW could improve both substantially).

I play Chaos Night lords. They cost lots of money. They had one page of rules. As JJ put it, they were to complicated for a 10 year old. Over half my models simply couldn't be used. (there was a sizable gap between CSM and Daemons). Saying I could kinda make a dark apostle and kinda make a warsmith is like saying you can kinda make a chaplain out of a librarian. It's easy to sit back and call nerd rage when you didn't blow hundreds on legion specific dreads rhino doors and Emperor's children vehicle sonic weapons, or Alpha legion cultists. It's a failure to gw, on his and his lot to have that many models on the rack without rules. The worst part is they failed to Nerf the power of Chaos. (Lash Plague Oblit is just as powerful as daemon bomb or iron warriors). And turns out 10 year olds don't want to play a simple codex, they want one that wins. Nobody asks "What's the most simple codex out?" That's why space wolves and IG leaf blower do, and sell so well. 3.5 Chaos was the second most used army in it's day. So the sales went way down as well, thats even worse when all the Iron warrior stuff went on ebay. 4 heavy support and one was an IG tank. When asked about my one page of nightlords, the reply is "Turny players tend to complain about the new chaos codex. I don't hate the man. he failed in 3rd and forth edition. Just think of Tau with no kroot or vispids. or Necrons with no monoliths.

PS His crew went on to take the Necromancer Lord out of my undead army, just to kick my while I was down. What's so complicated about a Necromancer leading undead?

sebster wrote:

Polonius wrote:Well, most legal documents spend a lot of their time defining things, which in the exmaple you cited is the problem. How is it possible that the term "model" can be used to mean "non-vehicle model"? Most of the ambiguity is built around ill defined or poorly chosen words, not simplicity.

Note that I said that in the example in question, and in lots of GW's other rules writing, that the rule in question could be more clearly written without becoming any more complex. But your example of a list of formal definitions is exactly where you start seeing the trade off between clarity and simplicity. A whole lot of folk really don't want to spend their time flicking back to the definitions to piece together exactly what a rule means. They want a plain reading where much of the meaning can be interpreted from the context and from common sense.

Do you see where I'm coming from when I say there can be a trade-off between clarity and simplicity (though GW could improve both substantially).

I understand the point, but in the case of wargaming rules at the complexity level of 40k or Warmachine, ONE competent editor adding a two-page glossary and enforcing consistent use of important words like "model" and "unit" would make a world of difference, vastly improving the clarity and consistency of GW's rules without adding ANY complexity. We all knew it was true and many of us discussed it. Then Privateer went and proved it.

sexiest_hero wrote:Saying I could kinda make a dark apostle and kinda make a warsmith is like saying you can kinda make a chaplain out of a librarian.

LOL! +1. QFT. This.

... and all those other cliché internet thingies you put after you agree with someone. Had I room in my sig...

sexiest_hero wrote:It's easy to sit back and call nerd rage when you didn't blow hundreds on legion specific dreads rhino doors and Emperor's children vehicle sonic weapons, or Alpha legion cultists.

Right there with ya buddy. I had Word Bearers (fully blended multi-God Daemon army with Marine support), World Eaters, Death Guard (most of it Forge World kits), Iron Warriors, Alpha Legion and Lost & The Damned. Jervis hits the scene, kicks every Dark Angel player in the nuts and then proceeds to unleash Gav and Alessio so that they might castrate the Chaos players. To say that I was unhappy would be an very large understatement. It's even more galling when you see more recent books like Dark Eldar, and Ward Angels and how they have options up the wazoo - so many in fact that people don't even use half of 'em (and that's mostly because they're weapon options, and you can only take so many weapons on a single model)

What's worse is that some of his reasons for simplifying things were logical, yet (as is almost always the case with GW) the execution was fething horrendous. He made the case that new players wouldn't know what a Meltagun is by sight, or a Flamer, or a Power Fist, or whatever, so each Codex would get a 'Wargear' section that has pictures and the rules. Unfortunately they failed at this from the word go, as half the entries in every damned Wargear section have you fliping back through the book to find the rules. The Guard Codex is the worst offender here - look at its vehicle upgrade section, almost every single entry is a "Please see Page XX" entry rather than rules. Why did they even bother printing that if all it does is tell you to look somewhere else? So instead of confusing new players by expecting them to know what a Multi-Melta or a Plasma Gun look like, we're not confusing them by forcing them to go on a treasure hunt through their 'simple' book to find the fething rules.

His influence since the Dark Angel Codex, even if some recent Codices have been better and even good, has been detrimental to 40K as a whole.


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Mannahnin wrote:I understand the point, but in the case of wargaming rules at the complexity level of 40k or Warmachine, ONE competent editor adding a two-page glossary and enforcing consistent use of important words like "model" and "unit" would make a world of difference

It's what we did with our own homebrew 40K rules. One of our group is a lawyer, and he went and added in a section for Defined Terms, and then strictly enforced them through all the books we wrote.

As one of his fans, I certainly dont see anything bad about Jervis. Dark angels need un update anyway.

Mannahnin wrote:I understand the point, but in the case of wargaming rules at the complexity level of 40k or Warmachine, ONE competent editor adding a two-page glossary and enforcing consistent use of important words like "model" and "unit" would make a world of difference, vastly improving the clarity and consistency of GW's rules without adding ANY complexity. We all knew it was true and many of us discussed it. Then Privateer went and proved it.

That's an entirely fair argument, I'm not trying to make the argument that GW can't improve both. I was just responding to the statement 'Until it's explained how better rules hurt anybody's fun, it seems like a net positive for the hobby to have them' by pointing out that 'better rules' can be subjective, and can involve choosing between two different design goals.

Care to elaborate?

He's pointing out that "better" is inherently subjective. Some people prefer Star Fleet Battles to 40k: Star Fleet Battles is "better" for them, even though it's vastly more complicated.

That said, as PP has manifestly demonstrated (though they're not perfect either), you can have a quickly-playing fun tabletop game like WM or 40k with the level of complexity we're all accustomed to without having to sacrifice clarity for the sake of simplicity. It just requires better writing and more consistent use terminology. GW IS gradually getting better in that department; 5th ed is certainly clearer than 4th, which was clearer than 3rd. But they're still substantially behind where they would be if they had a single competent editor overseeing the line. Heck, I could do it, and I haven't done any technical editing in more than ten years.

I would say that fun is subjective, but quality in rules has various objective points, such as simplicity and clarity in which they are written.

Clarity of written language can be measured using a standardised system developed by the US government. There is a version of the tool built into MS Word.

Sadly you need the text as a digital file, so you have to type in screeds of it from the rulebook, which I am not prepared to do for 40K.

sebster wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:I understand the point, but in the case of wargaming rules at the complexity level of 40k or Warmachine, ONE competent editor adding a two-page glossary and enforcing consistent use of important words like "model" and "unit" would make a world of difference, vastly improving the clarity and consistency of GW's rules without adding ANY complexity. We all knew it was true and many of us discussed it. Then Privateer went and proved it.

That's an entirely fair argument, I'm not trying to make the argument that GW can't improve both. I was just responding to the statement 'Until it's explained how better rules hurt anybody's fun, it seems like a net positive for the hobby to have them' by pointing out that 'better rules' can be subjective, and can involve choosing between two different design goals.

Ok, well, (ironically given my complaint) what I should have said was "Until it's explained how GW putting more time and effort into eliminating poorly worded rules hurts anybody's fun..."

I mean, I get your point on the difference between simplicity and clarity. I also know that the biggest questions arise because of simply sloppy writing, not any effort to be simple.

HI all.
I suppose I get frustrated with Jervis , (I do not hate him.)
Because he should know better!

We have examples of his best work in BB and EA.

Yet there are SO MANY silly mistakes in 40k rules and codexes, and he pretends everyone that complains has not got enough intellegence or creativity to understand what was intended!

I can remember under AC, regular apologies for mistakes and erratas appeared in WD.And I for one apreciated the honesty of that.

But under the new GW corperate directive , 'no admission of error policy' eg 'everything GW do is perfect and saying anything else will devalue our product.'

JJ has taken it upon himself to preach this to the masses, and made himself a bit unpopular in doing so...

TTFN

Okay, TTFN?

As to the beer and pretzel thing:

Time spent arguing over rules subtracts from the beer time.

Balance wrote:As to the beer and pretzel thing:

Time spent arguing over rules subtracts from the beer time.

+1. That's what the anti-competitive-tight-rules-crowd never really seems to "get" on the forums; tight rules benefits the casual player at least as much, if not more than, the competitive.

Exactly. Jervis acts as if making the rules clear would necessarily mean making them into an old Avalon Hill wargame with carefully-numbered subsections like 1.2.5 and 5.2.1(a), and formal, dense text. Many of those old games were quite intimidating and certainly unappealing to a casual gamer. But that's a false dichotomy. You can maintain a casual, open and readable tone while also using your words carefully and consistently.

Where has he actually said that he wants rules to be unclear and not precise? I mean I can imagine he did, I just do not think it likely.

I wouldn't mind rules that are clearer, and just hiring a few guys to check that now and then could certainly make a difference.

But to me that just is not as important as other factors - for example cool ideas for campaigns and things like that. So if GW have money to hire one more guy for the rules, I'd be all for hiring one who develops cool campaigns over one who goes over the rules to make them more precise.

GW clearly value tight rules as much as new campaign ideas; they do neither.

H.B.M.C. wrote:Care to elaborate?

Simply that what makes a ruleset better can depend on what you want out of the game. That at some point a decision might have to be made between clarity and simplicity, or as another example between rules balance and flexibility.

Jervis' argument is that GW tends towards simplicity, and also towards flexibility, because GW build its rules with the focus on with the tournament mindset.

I agree with Jervis in general that you have to pick some things over others, and GW should focus on simple, direct language in their rules, and on flexibility, over unambiguous rules or perfect factional balance, but I would point out (and agree with the general sentiment in this thread) that with the current state of 40K they could significantly improve each of those elements without affecting any other.

I like jervis. But he kinda needs to think of better things to do. And write a better Dark Angel Codex.

The biggest reason I don't care for Jervis is because of his various belittling of people who play different than he thinks the game should be played.

I think again thats something which is really subjective. I have never ever got that impression from his articles, and in any case he is writing what he considers to be the way to do things. Do you read a newspaper article, or editorial, and then question the right to it's existence because it doesn't match with your own opinions? If you don't agree with what he says, then you always have the ability to flick over to the next page (although, I'll admit in WD that doesn't give you a lot of options! )

I like jervis. But he kinda needs to think of better things to do

I would be interested to know if the Specialist Games range would even exist without his efforts. Those games are now GW's embarrassing uncle and I'm sure some of the bean counters would like them to be removed entirely, they are far too entertaining and far too cheap to be allowed to exist alongside the core ranges.

This discussion seems to be going backwards and forwards, so I will just leave my final comment with this: Blood Bowl. That would mitigate JJ accidentally blowing up Warhammer World in my book.

Pacific wrote:I think again thats something which is really subjective. I have never ever got that impression from his articles, and in any case he is writing what he considers to be the way to do things. Do you read a newspaper article, or editorial, and then question the right to it's existence because it doesn't match with your own opinions?

Not at all. But if it seems foolish or based on false pretenses, then that will shape my opinion of the writer.

Pacific wrote:I think again thats something which is really subjective. I have never ever got that impression from his articles, and in any case he is writing what he considers to be the way to do things. Do you read a newspaper article, or editorial, and then question the right to it's existence because it doesn't match with your own opinions?

Actually, it's not really subjective from what I've read that he considers 'tournament gamers' to be worthy of contempt and derision.

Also, nice strawman. I never questioned his right to write anything. However, if I read a newspaper editorial that is increadibly one sided and bashes the other side, I have an understandble reason to dislike the author and find the attitude that he brings to a conversation harmful. Especially if that writer is touted (Perhaps implying it himself) to be the authority on the subject.

skyth said:

The biggest reason I don't care for Jervis is because of his various belittling of people who play different than he thinks the game should be played.

I think the man did a great deal of damage to the game in general as others have pointed out. As a game designer? He had his moments but he had his failures. And many believe they were great failures. But I believe he is one of Kirby's friends, so he'll be around for awhile.

Recently, I played Warmachines. It is a damn good game. It is a example on how good complex game mechanics, very good edit and review, of a product line that can go far in this hobby. The Game makes you think. To me, 40K is now a simplified power game with cookie cutter army lists.
But I still love to paint GW's models, and will continue to do so until I completely get out of the game all together.

Whether it is believed or real, Jervis is the scape goat for Game Workshop's game mechanics, codex nerfing, unbalanced army woes.

Do I dislike the guy? No, but I don't consider him a game designer anymore.

To place hate on a person that you consider his net worth as a meat shield for a corporation that had so much potential, is simply wasting emotion on someone that you don't need to do.

sebster wrote:Simply that what makes a ruleset better can depend on what you want out of the game.

Uhh... you ninja'd my reply. I was actually talking to the guy above you. Sorry about that.

sebster wrote:... because GW build its rules with the focus on with the tournament mindset.

No they don't...

I suspect that was a typo. Seb's had a few of those recently.

H.B.M.C. wrote:

sebster wrote:Simply that what makes a ruleset better can depend on what you want out of the game.

Uhh... you ninja'd my reply. I was actually talking to the guy above you. Sorry about that.

Fair enough.

No they don't...

Whoops. Typo.


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Mannahnin wrote:I suspect that was a typo. Seb's had a few of those recently.

Yeah I have, think I probably haven't been paying as much attention.

LMAO.

Jervis is hated for more reasons than I can state here on a thread, that is not tagged "NSFW'.

"Tournement Ruleset" - LMAO - the last GW Tourney in Brisbane, was 4 years ago.

Same as thier estimated Business Growth Model.(Pardoxial terms)

I think it's a bit unfair to blame Jervis for GW's faltering business model. He doesn't hold that much power.

He's in the anti-competitive camp. That's enough to make me dislike him, but he's simultaneously the figurehead of the company. That's enough to cause some fairly serious discomfort.

I'm one of those people who likes to play competitive 40k with functional rules while drunk and sometimes eating pretzels. Does he not understand this? Surely it's not entirely his fault, but he's obviously part of the problem I have with GW at the moment.

You mean their inability to see that either/or needn't be either/or. And you can, in fact, have a game that caters to both tournament and casual play?

Of course you can have a game that caters to both competition and casual play. That is, however, not the game GW sells.

Is Jervis really so hated? He was an important figure in GW when I got into the miniatures gaming hobby, but how much time has he spent writing impotent White Dwarf articles and being kept away from the important decicions? Throne of Skulls is not as much something to hate him for as to cement the image that competitive tournament play isn't something GW wants to support (although it is, of course, a hack job).

I always more had the impression that Jervis was pitied rather than reviled.

@H.B.M.C, pretty much exactly what I want them to do. Make functional, fun and cheesy armies. That's what 40k should be all about.

EDIT: The best example I can think of for this is the card game Magic: the Gathering. That has one of the best design philosophies in the business. It doesn't translate very well to 40k, because you aren't buying random assortments of cardboard crack. But, their concept of 'most cards are useful, and there are a lot of things that work well together, and you can still have fun, and you can still build a stupid deck based around certain mechanics/playstyles and do fairly well' is what makes it such a good game.

While I do have some serious issues with Jervis' stance on what direction 40K should take, I'd say I don't blame him for blandifying Codex: CSM as much as I do Gav Thorpe. After all, he -is- the one that not only misinterpreted H.B.M.C.'s Ice-cream analogy, but also said "The best Ice Cream shop has all the flavours under one roof." (Or something to that effect)

That works for Ice Cream. It does -not- work for Chaos Space Marines. The black spikey bad-guy marines can not be mixed together with the blue spikey bad-guy marines and the red-and-silver spikey bad guy marines and crammed together under one set of rules under the illusion that being all spikey bad-guy marines makes them identical. not spikey good-guy marines get a codex for each chapter, so the least they could do is release codi for each Chaos God's loyal CSM chapters. And that is why I hate Gav Thorpe. It's also why I made this picture hot on the heels of the Codex: CSM release:

metallifan wrote:While I do have some serious issues with Jervis' stance on what direction 40K should take, I'd say I don't blame him for blandifying Codex: CSM as much as I do Gav Thorpe. After all, he -is- the one that not only misinterpreted H.B.M.C.'s Ice-cream analogy, but also said "The best Ice Cream shop has all the flavours under one roof." (Or something to that effect)

That works for Ice Cream. It does -not- work for Chaos Space Marines. The black spikey bad-guy marines can not be mixed together with the blue spikey bad-guy marines and the red-and-silver spikey bad guy marines and crammed together under one set of rules under the illusion that being all spikey bad-guy marines makes them identical. not spikey good-guy marines get a codex for each chapter, so the least they could do is release codi for each Chaos God's loyal CSM chapters. And that is why I hate Gav Thorpe. It's also why I made this picture hot on the heels of the Codex: CSM release:

+1 for that post and 100% agree. Gav and Alessio I am glad they left GW after what they did to the chaos codex.

It's been posted several times already in this thread: Alessio Cavaltore already admitted culpability for the previous Chaos Marine codex, in an interview posted online.

Why can't JJ be seen in terms of positives and negatives? Surely that is the only fair way, you can't expect every designer to be a god-like figure so when they fart, $1000 dollar perfume comes out of their ass.

Plus points:
Aided in development of several early core game systems, from GW's past as a tiny niche company all the way through to its modern status.
Was an amusing part of old WD magazine and it's 'golden era', and battle reports when they were generally such and not a faked marketing exercise.
Helped develop some of GW's most loved specialist games (although they were sold in store at the time) such as Necromunda, Mordheim, Dark Future, Epic, Space Hulk and perhaps most notably Blood Bowl, which many consider to be GW's crowning moment.
Helped keep specialist games alive, despite there no doubt being pressure from within the company to bury them.
Bothered to write a letter as to why the squats were exterminated and written out of the game (no one else did, aside from a frankly insulting letter in WD, and if it hadn't been for him we would still be wondering)
His current article is the only thing even loosely considered 'journalism' in the current WD that isn't in-your-face advertising of the latest release.
Makes an effort to attend various shows and conventions, and even goes overseas to do so.
Sounds slightly like Mr. Bean.

Negative points:
Has helped design a couple of duff codecies.
His articles are considered offensive/derogatory to those who play competitively.
Sounds slightly like Mr. Bean.

I think the important thing for me is the older specialist games which were such a big part of our lives for some of us growing up, and for which we always think of him fondly about despite the other things he might be blamed for recently.

I don't know much about this whole subject, but it seems to me that jj may not carry that much blame for the current chaos codex and almost all the blame for the da codex.

I find it dubious that someone that is into fluff as much as jj appears to be would make a chaos codex like the one that was published.

It does make sense that the da codex was all fubar'ed due to the 'simplification' of the codex and the removal of options.

Just my 2 cents...

Anyone else here really hate blood bowl? It's some of the most arbitrary crap I've ever played, and I've been at Roulette tables.

The 4th ed (current) Chaos codex wasn't his direct responsibility. And at least it's viable in a competitive environment, unlike the DA codex was until the recent FAQ update.

Jervis was responsible for the most recent DA codex, not responsible for the (viable) one before that (late 3rd ed), and responsible for the totally crap one they originally got in 3rd. He was also responsible for the so-bland-it-makes-the-current-one-look-amazing original 3rd ed Chaos codex.

It is kind of funny that the two codices he designed in 3rd ed were the only ones so poor that they had be re-done before we even got to 4th ed.

I do still love Blood Bowl, though.