I've never understood this obsession with constantly comparing the newest edition of the game to the past, and the vitriol that often comes with it. Don't get me wrong, I can see how it can be a fun exercise compare old and new, but I mean the constant ongoing obsession and rage has to be getting a bit old at this point, right? As I understand it, a new addition doesn't invalidate any old edition and you're free to keep playing the one you love, or am I missing something that says you can't? I know that new additions mean the old ones are no longer in print, but isn't that only an issue for newcomers whom, by definition wouldn't have any investment in the old editions anyway? Maybe it's the case that with each edition, most of your gaming group is moving on and leaving you behind, but doesn't that suggest that most people prefer the new edition meaning that the anomaly is you? I get why that would be disappointing and saddening, but I still don't understand the constant, ongoing anger. Isn't there some point at which you should find a way to either accept the new shape of things and keep playing with your friends or find something else you enjoy? I can't imagine that this constant frustration is actually a pleasant way to spend one's time. Does anyone genuinely feel that they can force things back to the way they were through sheer force grief and frustration?

tl;dr: This isn't about whether a new edition is better or worse - there's quite enough of that elsewhere on the forum - but rather, why do you find it so hard to let go?

side note: the tone of this question is genuine curiosity. I'm really not trying to antagonize anyone.

EDIT: Looking at the question now, I realize there's nothing specifically related to 40k here. This may be more suitable for Dakka discussions.

It's not about the game. It's about the attention they can gain for complaining about it. I strongly believe at this point it's a form of Munchhausen Syndrome.

 Crimson Devil wrote:
It's not about the game. It's about the attention they can gain for complaining about it. I strongly believe at this point it's a form of Munchhausen Syndrome.

maybe Baron Munchausen?

I'm still peeved about Squats, but I enjoy 8th as much as RT. New stuff is cool and I get feeling left out, but there are waaayyyyyy bigger things you should care about than a game. If not, maybe seek professional help?

Yeah, it's pick-me validation mostly.

That and the fact that pissing in the wind is easier than actually having something to say.

I also think it's just part of the culture of Dakka Dakka in particular.

I think for many people you guys are being rather pessimistic. I think a lot of people just want to see a game that they love the fluff for become better, maybe not all are good at it but game balance is a very fickle thing. The more ideas the better. There are some who generally hate the game but from my experience, those are few and far between.

There's a massive difference between constructive criticism and the posters the OP is referring to, who moan and whinge and complain ad nauseum but who never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, have anything substantive to offer as a solution.

They moan for the sake of moaning.

New editions basically do invalidate past editions. Everybody and their cousin swaps over to the big new thing and the old edition is basically left behind in the dust. The pool of potential games is much smaller as people who had the old books may pawn them off or just get rid of them as no longer necessary, and new players probably aren't picking up editions no longer being published. Furthermore, argumentum ad populum is a fallacy.It doesn't mean that you're the anomaly, it means you're one who doesn't succumb to peer pressure.

I also don't see how popular support is supposed to be a valid argument when it's popular support that funds the very things that people complain about endlessly. People need to vote with their wallets instead of just following along like consumerist peons. If the fanbase didn't just roll over and go with whatever GW hands it, we might have a better game.

Some people don't handle change very well. They get invested and like the edition they start in and when it changes they can't adapt. It's no longer the thing they loved.

There's also a fair number of trolls who just want to stir the pot.

I didn't understand the edition rage for games until I ran into 4E D&D. I still look upon that edition with great disdain. I've also had that same reaction away from games - a bit with new BSG, Stargate Universe, some resentment with the last Star Wars movie and of late, Star Trek Discovery (shiver).

There's an underlying fear in the change of editions that it will become something you don't want - now and forever more. As well as it often tainting fond memories of times gone past.

There are certainly trolls, but I think in a lot of cases it's people (vocally) voicing their dislike in the direction of a property and having no real avenue to swing it back in a direction they would much rather prefer.

Ill bite on this. For me its less about playing a game that I don't like but that I gave 8th a fair shake and found with repeated results that I do not find 8th edition to be fun to play. So basically I have stopped playing 8th and try to continue to play 7th. The problem is that the community moves on because that is what is current. It leaves me in a situation where I can either play a game that I don't really enjoy or try to get people to play 7th.

One of the extremely frustrating things is that I experience is reading people rave on about how 8th is the best thing ever and 7th was practically a war crime against humanity (obvious hyperbole). 7th (along with 4th through 6th) had its faults but at its core it was a game that had depth, complexity, and a good deal of tactics going on that make for a stimulating experience. That's what I loved about the game and what I want to experience but I do not get that same satisfaction from 8th edition. The majority of people in the community seem to enjoy 8th which is great for them but it leaves me in the dust holding thousands of dollars of plastic figures wondering why I can't seem to enjoy what others do (and why they don't seem to miss the parts of the game that I loved). Looking at the direction GW is taking the hobby with less customization, terrible story telling, dumbed down rules, gutting of the fluff, etc. It seems like everything is getting worse and yet a large portion of the community is singing the praises of "new GW" while I see a lot of the creativity of the hobby going out the window in favor of making the hobby more corporate/profit friendly. I still love Warhammer but I'm torn between a hobby I found solace in and a changing hobby that is moving in a direction away from what I originally fell in love with. I know people can like or dislike whatever they want but it is painful to feel like your one of the few people who can't seem to be happy about whats going on with the hobby.

As to constantly complaining, its mostly to try to engage in discussion and to give honest feedback and opinion on the matter so it isn't always an echo chamber of "8th is the best, primaris are the bee's knees, love that new GW, two thin coats baby". A lot of it too is that I feel 7th gets a horribly bad rap and is treated like the entire thing was burning poo. I honestly believe that it was a decent but at times flawed game ruined by sloppy (and probably marketing driven) balance decisions with zero effort to try and keep the train on the rails. Honestly if GW just tweeked/cleaned up the core rules a bit, redid all the codexe to gut the power creep, and attempted to keep at least the thought of balance in mind then a 7.5 would of been a huge improvement and not requiring throwing out the baby with the bath water. But again we got 8th and with that everything got gutted to bare bones level of mechanics with stratagems being the thin veneer of depth to the game. Honestly there is very little I can do to change GW or the direction that 8th is going but it would be nice to maybe change some people's perspective on 7th from the toxic landfill that was Riptide Wing, Eldar, Decurion, Free Rhino Grav spam Marine, Psychic Deathstar, Bark Bark Star, Trip Lance, etc to that of the core game of 7th that was a fun but flawed and ultimately ruined by GW's inability to care or at times even comprehend balance.

The easy answer to all of this is "just quit and find a different hobby" but honestly I still enjoy the hobby immensely when I can find opportunities to participate in what I enjoyed (7th edition and working on models for that gameplay experience). Also it is that massive investment I put into the hobby with thousands of dollars in models/paint and the hundreds of hours spent working on said models. Its hard to just shelve everything when you still have a burning passion for the hobby but that the hobby changed into something bland overnight because of 8th edition. I know for certain the amount of time spend working on 40k stuff, posting on dakka, and going to the FLGS has dramatically dropped off following the months after 8th launched. Warhammer is more than just 8th edition which is partially why I don't want to just leave it behind and I enjoy talking about the hobby but it feels like I have less to say about it except for my frustrations with the game and my longing for it to either dramatically improve (sales numbers and an echo chamber fan base won't force GW to make major changes) or revert back to previous editions which will never happen as a whole and only happen on a individual by individual basis. There is no good answer to any of this and that makes it all the more frustrating.

While I can understand Vankraken's point - I don't think he's addressing what the topic is really about. Every edition leaves honest people in the lurch, it's been that way forever. I started in 2nd...left in 3rd/4th because that game was nothing like that I enjoyed in 2nd. Came back (with an army built for 2nd edition) and tried 7th...still hated it. I play a form of 8th and enjoy it - but it's not 8th like most people play.

I understand the financial commitment to a game, and appreciate you can still play whatever edition you like. I think the thread is more about the jackholes on Dakka and other forums who are just screaming heads, desperate for attention - people who don't even play the game, and may not have in years, just generally getting their rocks off by whining and whinging and pretending to be relevant on an internet forum.

They're the same people who are those annoying folks at any work place who everyone avoids...just on the internet where people are more likely to accidentally read their ravings. We're not discussing normal people who are generally unhappy with the rules evolution of a game. That's perfectly normal and understandable. We're talking about idiots.

Thus, you won't get an honest answer, as we got above from Vankraken, from the majority of the people I'm talking about (and yes, just reading this, 99% of people on this forum could name the same half dozen or dozen people I'm thinking of - we're pretty much all in agreement on most of them). They don't have a point, they don't play the game, they're not looking for discussions...their hobby is bitching.

OP, why do you feel a need to complain about opinions that you don't like? Why don't you just move on to a forum that is more positive and stop trying to turn dakka into something that it isn't?

OP assumes all the whiney people actually play. Between BattleScribe, netlists and mathhammering you can generate plenty of nerdrage without having put a single model to table. If that’s not enough you can complain about price rises as well.

Peregrine wrote:OP, why do you feel a need to complain about opinions that you don't like? Why don't you just move on to a forum that is more positive and stop trying to turn dakka into something that it isn't?

Was I complaining? Sorry. I was really just trying to ask a few questions. Maybe my tone was a bit complainy? Also, I'm not sure there are any opinions I dislike so much as disagree with. I was just wondering about the repetition I seem to come accross.

In the past, I did try Bolter & Chainsword and Warseer, but I found Dakka was the best place for up to date news and also has by far the most depth (almost too much in fact) when it comes to rules questions. Also, I quite like a lot of the stuff on the Background forum (which often gets just as heated ).

Also, lots of great answers so far. Thanks guys!

Yeah apparently there are people who play games that don't enjoy. I've never seen one of them with my eyes but dakkadakka proves that they exist

I personally don't think 40K is a very good game. It's not a matter of editions, just that the rules aren't very well written, and the codex/unit imbalance means there's no tactical aspect unless you only take the best options.
But the setting is great, and to me GW's minis are the best out there. Since I enjoy modelling and painting a lot, I buy a lot of GW minis. And after I've spent months working on an army, I do want to put it on the table and play with it, because that's where a good part of the modelling/painting enjoyement comes from (seeing your army on the field).
That's why I enjoy the occasional game of 40K/AoS once in a while, in a friendly setting, eventhough I don't like the game that much.

I think there is and would be a number of reasons.

From my own point I would say.
-GW has done well to enforce they are the big and only game to play. We still have players, new as well who turn up expecting for 40k to be the only thing played. They buy into the game, get invested due to internet hype and then never even see what the local community is like. I want to at least understand enough for these players.



-I also think that 40k could be a good game, if GW would just put some time and thought into what the game should be like.
This includes narrative feel to the rules as well, something across the board GW fails at.
Rule of cool is an excuse for stupid than for anything that will make the game a far better experiance.

-the factions themselves are quite compelling thematically, and I would love to be invested again. But as above rule of cool often becomes an excuse to lazy writing and plot development. Leading serious 40k to often feel like a parody of itself.

One interesting thing I always find talking to local players, is that it’s almost generational. So many players left the game sitting around waiting for updates, long enough for everything to change. And when they finally get an update it’s not the game they want to play so much anymore.
It’s one thing to enjoy a bad game, but if updates don’t improve things i do wonder how that effects players.

Really, we should be glad that people who are unhappy enough to stop playing still have strong opinions and stay involved in the discussion. If everyone who isn't happy leaves then it's very easy to end up with an echo chamber, and that isn't good for anyone.

 Peregrine wrote:
Really, we should be glad that people who are unhappy enough to stop playing still have strong opinions and stay involved in the discussion. If everyone who isn't happy leaves then it's very easy to end up with an echo chamber, and that isn't good for anyone.

Agreed, echo chambers are bad. There should never be one way to play something, one outlook on what is right, one way to be happy.

However, I do think there's a difference between getting the opinions from people who still play but don't enjoy it as much (but for them to stay playing, there must be some kind of thing they do enjoy, be that lore, be that nostalgia, or simple time/money investment), and the opinions of people who self-admit "yeah, I'm done with GW, I'm not coming back/I've not played warhammer for years" and their only inputs are how bad it is in their opinion.

Of course, when I mean "play the game", I think listhammer and theoryhammer are perfectly valid ways to "play" the game, even if no models are involved. Of course, if all they do is complain about how terrible the game is, I'd always question simply why they stick around. And yes, I mean that in the same way the OP does, not antagonistic, but simply curiously asking as to a person's motives/feelings.

But yes, for the people who actually do play the game and dislike it, I think the typical response is a mix of nostalgia, hope for the future, and time/money investment, and having people within the current player base of the game making constructive criticism if they find something to critique is just as important as saying what we like about the game and making positive remarks on them.

@OP Misery likes company?

Not many games are ideal for everyone in a gaming group. Sometimes you have to go with the groups’ choice, even when you have issues with parts or all of the game played. It’s a maturity thing- you learn to give a little because the others in the group may have similar problems while playing a game more your taste.

“The rewards of Tolerance are Treachery and Betrayal”

Why do or did I play games I don't like?

First of all because it is the game played and the possibilities are either play a game with your friends you don't like or don't play at all
Some groups play more than one game, but if you have bad luck than all of them are not to your liking

in the past I traded a bad Warhammer Edition with 40k and vica versa or played the Skirmisher of the month and there was also Warmachine but nowadays things are different


Second reason is that I have a huge collection
For Warhammer not that big of a problem as I cannot use them in AoS anyway (up to a point) so I don't see myself forced into the game by having an army ready to go

For 40k, I have my Deamons, Thousand Sons and Wolves, several thousand points and plans for never finished projects and it took me a lot of time to actually shelf them as I really want them to be on the table (this is also a reason why I tried to be part of the Community to improve/change the game) and still from time to time I get the feeling that I should give the game another chance just because to get a reason to finish those themed armies (and go through a month of misery unti I shelf the stuff again)

A big part of it comes down to investment, both in terms of time and money. People will have large collections, often with sentimental or emotional value as well as physical value and don't want to see that investment go to waste, so they play what they feel is a mediocre (or even bad) game in order to get the most from that investment. There's also the social aspect of the hobby that can keep people engaged. Maybe you don't like the game so much any more, but you have a great group of friends that all play so you stick at it for that reason?

I think if you look at some of the problems around the AoS launch you see some of the elements that keep people playing some games even if they don't like those games as much as they used to. When AoS launched it was theoretically compatible with all your old WH models. In reality, the rules for those models were pretty clearly not prioritised by GW and everything pointed to all those old models becoming obsolete sooner rather than later, right down to the change in basing. That removed a lot of the factors I mentioned earlier to do with investment into the game - the models were not really useable and the background had changed massively so a lot of the physical and emotional investment players had in the game just didn't apply to AoS. I think that was a big factor in many people leaving. Compare that with 40k where even when you have a huge change in the game as happened with 8th, your models are still pretty much completely useable and the background and setting is moretty much exactly the same, so the inertia of previous investment keeps people playing.

1. From my own perspective I believe a lot of people who dislikes a new edition may feel stuck in as I would call it "hobby limbo". If you had the vision of an army on the field as a motivating factor to paint, convert and do all the hobby stuff with and you enjoyed the end result (ie gaming with the army you created). I can be disheartening if the end phase of your hobby efforts now suddenly feels pointless. The fact that "old editions still exists" is a moot point if there is no one to play against. The lesser of two evils could be then to play even if you dislike the current edition. And venting about it online is maybe a coping mechanism for some. Not a sign that they are anomalies or need professional help (really?)

2. I don't post much but read this site frequently, and the amount of hyperbole concerning the amount of negativity isn't as overwhelming as it was during the AoS release, but it is still prevalent.* Does it in any way harm you or your happiness that others are not happy about some changes or genuinely dislike decisions made by GW? I usually read that it is tiresome to read negative opinions, and have to wonder why that is? For me its not more or less tiresome to read a negative than a positive opinion. In the news and rumour section I have many times seen a post going "wow this is awesome, great release" or similar with no more content and not being questioned followed by "I think it is gak" and that latter post immediately getting questioned. This, if anything, is something I am curious about.

3. What really is annoying and tiresome in my opinion is two things. Firstly, the misrepresentation of an imagined antagonists opinion or stance on a matter in order to make easy points. And secondly, the snark. But hey, its the internet one could assume that I would be inured by now.

*During the cataclysmic days of the AoS realease I actually saw someone actually claiming that. AoS fans were "persecuted by the haters"

I'm sure there are people who complain about 40k's rules but never roll dice in anger. Not sure why, but whatever they enjoy, I suppose.

However, I think there's also people who want to play a game, and 40k is all they can get. That's a sad position to be in, but for some people, a bad game is better than no game. Ideally, I'd say try to talk someone else into trying a game you do like. I mean, if you've been playing against these people for a while now, then surely they're friends by now?

If it's not just you in your group that complains about the rules, then have you tried getting together to discuss the problems and come up with a solution (house rules, a different game, whatever)?

 Ginjitzu wrote:


tl;dr: This isn't about whether a new edition is better or worse - there's quite enough of that elsewhere on the forum - but rather, why do you find it so hard to let go?

Because you can only play with yourself only so many times. When something changes and you don't like it but almost everyone else does, how do you find an opponent? If you can't engage in the play side of the hobby that you've spent hundreds of hours and thousands of £/$ on you're faced with few options. Dislike it and try to engage with it or drop it.

 Ginjitzu wrote:
Maybe it's the case that with each edition, most of your gaming group is moving on and leaving you behind, but doesn't that suggest that most people prefer the new edition meaning that the anomaly is you? I get why that would be disappointing and saddening, but I still don't understand the constant, ongoing anger. Isn't there some point at which you should find a way to either accept the new shape of things and keep playing with your friends or find something else you enjoy? I can't imagine that this constant frustration is actually a pleasant way to spend one's time. Does anyone genuinely feel that they can force things back to the way they were through sheer force grief and frustration?

tl;dr: This isn't about whether a new edition is better or worse - there's quite enough of that elsewhere on the forum - but rather, why do you find it so hard to let go?

side note: the tone of this question is genuine curiosity. I'm really not trying to antagonize anyone.

EDIT: Looking at the question now, I realize there's nothing specifically related to 40k here. This may be more suitable for Dakka discussions.

no one plays old editions here. Even WFB which was fairly popular, had to get a fan version of the game, because no one would play the no longer pre AoS edition.
the anwser to someone asking to play an old version of the game would always be a no. First of all, there is little chance the opponent has the rules or an optimised list for that edition. If your army is good and his army is worse, he won't want to play. You more or less would have to find someone who has an old army, and both his and your armies being fun to play in that edition. It seems to me, I maybe wrong though, that it would be hard to pull off.

First I mostly asked question about how to fix my army. Then I wonder why GW isn't fixing my army, specially as my knowladge about old editions is what I hear from my dad or the stories at the store. After the last CA I think I first was very angry, because GW pumped me up that a huge fix is coming that will GK and then failed to deliver. Now I don't know what to do. Can't sell the models, the army doesn't seem to ever be fixed. Most of my friends moved either to other games or have fun with armies they have, and I don't have many friends to begin with, so it is not like I can talk someone about the state of my army.

the last thing is that I still probably hope that GW will do some sort of GK only FAQ or WD rules change that won't make me feel as if I wasted all the money.

Ginjitzu wrote:
EDIT: Looking at the question now, I realize there's nothing specifically related to 40k here. This may be more suitable for Dakka discussions.

Done.

Karol wrote:no one plays old editions here. Even WFB which was fairly popular, had to get a fan version of the game, because no one would play the no longer pre AoS edition.
the anwser to someone asking to play an old version of the game would always be a no. First of all, there is little chance the opponent has the rules or an optimised list for that edition. If your army is good and his army is worse, he won't want to play. You more or less would have to find someone who has an old army, and both his and your armies being fun to play in that edition. It seems to me, I maybe wrong though, that it would be hard to pull off.

First I mostly asked question about how to fix my army. Then I wonder why GW isn't fixing my army, specially as my knowladge about old editions is what I hear from my dad or the stories at the store. After the last CA I think I first was very angry, because GW pumped me up that a huge fix is coming that will GK and then failed to deliver. Now I don't know what to do. Can't sell the models, the army doesn't seem to ever be fixed. Most of my friends moved either to other games or have fun with armies they have, and I don't have many friends to begin with, so it is not like I can talk someone about the state of my army.

the last thing is that I still probably hope that GW will do some sort of GK only FAQ or WD rules change that won't make me feel as if I wasted all the money.

A little while back I decided to get back into B5 ACTA and could not find a single player locally who had even heard of it. Instead I poped onto a tabletop emulator and manged to find games on there instead. I am still collecting and painting the models (managed to drag my brother into the game as well) and am writing up our online games in battle reports here.

There is also the monetary investment that you have to look at.

If a game attracts someone who then goes out and spends $500-$1000 on models, spends weeks assembling them and months painting them, and then an edition change drops and either makes their army irrelevant (squatting it) or changes how the game plays completely and turns it into a game that would never have interested the person in the first place, they will rightfully have an intense negative experience.

As others have said, the initial bitterness after edition changes in "the wrong direction" comes from huge financial, emotional and time investment to this game and is fully understandable - I have personally been in those shoes after 3rd ed castrated everything I loved about 2nd ed. What is not healthy or understandable at all is clinging to that feeling for the following decade and hiding ones personal inability to deal with it behind a facade of "fighting for better game for everyone or preventing echo chamber of affirmative circle jerk".

I think what the true answer to the OP question really boils down to is quite a simple truth about one huge asymmetry of this hobby that some people have a very hard time accepting: while this hobby may be hugely important to you and your personal happiness and feeling of accomplishment, you as an individual are totally irrelevant to this hobby health and shape as a whole. Moreover, "Ad populi" is the only true and objective measure there exist about this game - if more people play, enjoy and spend money on new edition, then new edition is objectively better commercial endavour than earlier one and there is no reason to change it how you like it if you think it is a dumpster fire. Only if opposite is true your "constructive criticism" may trully be constructive and only if it actually is a fully fledged and incorporable idea that people do accept as a good solution to a widely acknowledged problem. To give a bit of weight to this in context of dakka: Proposed Rules subforum was a much more important and trully constructive place during 7th, because a huge lot of people were actually playing by houserules or fandexes, so it was a platform of exchanging ideas people actually utilized in their games. It is no longer true in 8th (at least not to any similar degree), where a vast majority of people play by the book or by ITC. And empty complaining about anything or GW inability to deliver what you see fit is never constructive in the first place.

And to be clear - I don't like 8th, I don't play 8th, I don't preach 8th but at the same time I don't bitch at 8th or anyone who enjoys it, because I perfectly know, that only my personal tiny world revolves around me, not the entire worldwide hobby.

And a fair number of us don't play a game we don't like.

I did not like Warhammer 7th or 8 - switched to Kings of War.

Others in my group have switched to 9th Age.

And we can play the same armies we already have in both those games. Rank and file fantasy wargaming. (Half our group plays both - using nearly identical armies.)

I did not like Warhammer 40K 7th - and sold off my Dark Angels, because I could not use the miniatures for something I like better. (I had already skipped playing two entire editions - it took me a while to admit that I was done with the game.) Also - I am a bigger fan of rank and file fantasy wargaming than I am of science-fantasy skirmishes. It was easier to find players for 40K than for fantasy - but I did not enjoy it as much, and enjoyed it less with subsequent editions. (3rd edition 40K was my sweet spot.)

I know a lot of people that are really, really enjoying 8th edition 40K - but I am not going down that rabbit hole again. 8th may have fixed a lot of the problems that I had with the more recent 40K editions - but I am twice burned, and forever shy.

We do keep fluttering close to the new Necromunda, and it is likely that, at some point, we will take the plunge. Because we don't dislike those rules, and it may be a reasonable expense, given the scale. Plus - I have the old Necromunda rules, and, push come to shove, we can repurpose any new gangs for the old rules.

But the main reason that people play games that they do not like is because that is the game that is being played - for a lot of people, a game they don't like is better than no games at all.

I'm lucky - I can find players for the games that I do like - but not everybody has that luxury, for them it is 40K or nothing.

The Auld Grump

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

But the main reason that people play games that they do not like is because that is the game that is being played - for a lot of people, a game they don't like is better than no games at all.

Unfortunately, this self-perpetuating cycle has been the case for a very long time now... people won't try new games, because nobody around them plays them... and nobody plays them because nobody is willing to try them. So they just stick with the game that everybody else is playing, because that's the best option available.

 Luciferian wrote:
I also think it's just part of the culture of Dakka Dakka in particular.

Seconded.

 insaniak wrote:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

But the main reason that people play games that they do not like is because that is the game that is being played - for a lot of people, a game they don't like is better than no games at all.

Unfortunately, this self-perpetuating cycle has been the case for a very long time now... people won't try new games, because nobody around them plays them... and nobody plays them because nobody is willing to try them. So they just stick with the game that everybody else is playing, because that's the best option available.

I've been dramatically happier since I switched to more of a "play everything" mindset. A big part of making that work though is breaking some of my "catch 'em all" habits and trying not to over invest in things. Focus on a single faction and add to it as change demands.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
In many ways, game systems are like... well, game consoles. They require a large initial investment but each game after costs less so we have a tendency to develop a loyalty to something we already invested in and for a lot of people, a need to validate their choice as the correct one. Now, obviously for table top games this kind of doubles down because you largely can't play a system without other people making the same choice (though the rise of online gaming has replicated this problem digitally).

Realistically though, I think we all have a bad habit of over investing in our choices when we start wanting something new. I vividly remember a string of mediocre games I played through on the SNES before I realized I just needed to bite the bullet and buy a Genesis and Sonic 3. I feel a similar decision when I consider the number of times I've spent a couple hundred dollars on "variety" for a game I'd played to death rather than try out a new system. I'd much rather get started in something new these days and add to games as they excite me rather than feeling like I need to be on the absolute cutting edge of one game; particularly when a faction I don't play is on top.

Because I'm British dammit and complaining about things is what we do, its what we are good at, world leaders at, hell our national exports include whining, whinging and complaining, and standing in lines but we don't talk about that.

I see little point playing previous versions, they are essentially dead, trying to adapt a current version may at least see you get a game occasionally.

I play games more as a social thing, well being British an anti social thing, the actual game matters much less than the peron or persons you are playing against and the quality of the tea consumed while gaming.

For me, I no longer play. I decided to take a break from 40k a couple months before the announcement of 8th. I followed all of the previews of the "Warhammer you wanted! TM" When the indices leaked, I didn't like what I saw and after watching games online was sure it was not a game I would enjoy playing. It has become incredibly dumbed down, many of the recent minis aren't too great IMO with their new style that lacks substance and they are as overpriced as ever, and getting more so with every release. I don't think I've really ever been satisfied with 40k's rules, but I was new and/or playing infrequently so it wasn't yet to the level of frustration that 7th caused. 7th had good ideas, but the execution was poor and the balance abysmal.

I eventually made my account here after lurking for some time to discuss the game and the many issues I had with it, to put out some good ideas for a Warhammer that I would find fun, and that I think would be the game's best self. One that is balanced, flavorful, and tactically deep. I do believe it is possible for 40k, AOS, and LOTR to be mentally engaging and tactical, while retaining all the flavor and lore we love and being accessible all at the same time. 8th by contrast is stupid-simple, with a lot of hand-holding and the same few "special" rules repeated over and over again, all focused on rolling dice not making choices during gameplay, and it baffles me that so many folks complain about the same aspects of the game and GW's business practices while running off to their LGS with fistfuls of cash every Saturday to purchase the new releases, not understanding (or ignoring) the fact that their spending encourages GW (or any company) to continue to make games they do not have fun playing. GW excels at falling short of their own potential.

I still have my minis, but the odds of playing with them again look pretty bad right now. I've since gone back to playing Magic: The Gathering and am looking to find space to get into a groove and paint my Malifaux crew, and Medge minis.

Hating the last edition is like hating Ultramarines. It's to be part of the cool group.

Unfortunately because I dont have the finances to chase the dragon on yet another 40k edition, I don't get to play as the latest and greatest is all that is cared about in my area.

40k 8th edition, and lately, Kill Team. That's it. Not AoS or Skirmish, or Gaslands, or Necromunda, or Bolt Action/ Konflict 47....nothing but 40k, forever. And Magic.

I hate Ultramarines and I'm not even slightly cool.

I play bad games or read bad things because its a lesson, its a great way to learn from something is how not to do something.

 insaniak wrote:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

But the main reason that people play games that they do not like is because that is the game that is being played - for a lot of people, a game they don't like is better than no games at all.

Unfortunately, this self-perpetuating cycle has been the case for a very long time now... people won't try new games, because nobody around them plays them... and nobody plays them because nobody is willing to try them. So they just stick with the game that everybody else is playing, because that's the best option available.

People aren't willing to put the work in. It's that simple. No one is trapped in a game, edition, or style (ITC) unless they want to be.

The only reasons I can see for playing a game I dont like is if a friend wants to play it, or worse, I am playtesting for a friend.

Wow, hilarious. Justifying obnoxious negativity and a superiority complex by claiming it prevents an echo chamber.

I very much appreciate this thread, and I’m glad that there’s a discussion going on. Since WFB got axed, I’ve had the same thought: SURELY there must be a better way to spend one’s time than complain on the internet.

With a little thought and introspection, I’d be a hypocrite if I said I didn’t complain from time to time as well. Venting is therapeutic, and that in and of itself can be useful - to a point - but I swear to gods, some people have elevated it to an art form.

Someone once brought up to me that maybe I’m underestimating how miserable some people’s lives are. I’m not intentionally being patronizing. I said surely with all the suffering and hardships in life, there would be better options out there than raging about toy soldiers. I still believe this to be true, but different people cope in different ways, whether or not they’re “healthy” or whatever you want to say.

For me, it’s not about drinking the Kool Aid. Voicing displeasure or disagreement is part of social discourse. Everyone’s voice deserves a place, so long as they’re not ruining the environment for everyone else. We’d love for people to shut the hell up sometimes, and we can make them: thankfully we have the ignore feature. We also have the ability to hit the back button in our browser, or avoid opening the myriad of “how I’d make the game better” (but really make it way worse) threads.

I’d like just once for someone who is both constantly crapping on GW convinced of their own game designing expertise to go out and make something that can rival the success of 40k. It’s not very likely, as it took GW decades to get to this point. That’s a lot of effort, trial, and error. Much easier to run one’s mouth.

Have an exalt, sir!

 Crimson Devil wrote:
People aren't willing to put the work in. It's that simple. No one is trapped in a game, edition, or style (ITC) unless they want to be.

Sure. But what it really comes down to is which one leads to a better hobby experience: sticking with a game that you're not happy with because it's what everyone else around you plays, or having to put in the work to try to establish a different game.


It's one thing when you're playing with a group of friends, and even some gaming clubs will have at least some players willing to try something new... But if you're reliant on pickup games or organised events for your gaming fix, the latter just isn't happening.

To put it simply, I don't.

Once a system gets stale to me I shelve it for the time being.
Always able to come back to it that way.

From there, I simply jump to a new one.
Titanicus was the saving grace from 30k for me.
Always been a fan of epic and titanicus, so it lets me expand my epic at the same time as getting a newer game too.

There's a handful of people who tend to have a very negative air a bout them and will focus on negative connections and conversations far more so than positive ones. It's not that they aren't gaming or that they hate the game, its that they've a very critical mindset and approach to the world and how they choose to interact online with. They can often be totally opposite in the real word - the internet world just brings out a different side of them.

Others lack the writing skills to express themselves in a critical way without sounding negative; or they believe that harsh brutal language is "honest" and that a positive angle is "sugar coating"


I'd also say Dakka has a bit of a negative culture aspect and this is promoted by a very small number of posters who are active. Of them I'd say there's perhaps one or two who appear to only ever post negative connections at all and whom might well be alts of other users or trolling the site (or jsut really miserable/critical/angry people).




Ergo its NOT the majority; but it IS the majority when a critical thread comes along and they will post repeatedly through the whole conversation. This creates an atmosphere that often promotes similar styles of reply and you fast end up with a fight or an argument where neither side is really talking about the topic; its simply a platform for either an ego fight or a fight between people with differing outlooks on life who can't accept the other viewpoint for what it is.


It's a shame because these situations are RARE, but they dominate active discussions long enough that it creates the atmosphere. In general effective reporting and moderation combined with a genuine effort to promote and discuss positive angle topics can be a big change around.

 Crimson Devil wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

But the main reason that people play games that they do not like is because that is the game that is being played - for a lot of people, a game they don't like is better than no games at all.

Unfortunately, this self-perpetuating cycle has been the case for a very long time now... people won't try new games, because nobody around them plays them... and nobody plays them because nobody is willing to try them. So they just stick with the game that everybody else is playing, because that's the best option available.

People aren't willing to put the work in. It's that simple. No one is trapped in a game, edition, or style (ITC) unless they want to be.

Yep. If I just turn up at my local club I can 100% get a game of 8th 40k and about 90% AoS. If I actually talk to the other players (or use social media) I can arrange a game using a previous version, or Titanicus, or DZC/DFC, or Battletech...

Generally I don't

I gave up 40k mid-7th as it just got silly, even the most enthusiastic GW acolytes would be hard pressed to defend Ynnari 1.0 or Skyhammer

I gave up X-Wing around the Force Awakens releases, the game just got too bloated rules wise and a lot of the ships were gak scraped from the dirt under the barrels bottom

I do vaguely keep up to date on both but have minimal inclination to play either, I've got a woefully out of date Eldar force in case someone at our club is short an opponent

beast_gts wrote:

 Crimson Devil wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

But the main reason that people play games that they do not like is because that is the game that is being played - for a lot of people, a game they don't like is better than no games at all.

Unfortunately, this self-perpetuating cycle has been the case for a very long time now... people won't try new games, because nobody around them plays them... and nobody plays them because nobody is willing to try them. So they just stick with the game that everybody else is playing, because that's the best option available.

People aren't willing to put the work in. It's that simple. No one is trapped in a game, edition, or style (ITC) unless they want to be.

Yep. If I just turn up at my local club I can 100% get a game of 8th 40k and about 90% AoS. If I actually talk to the other players (or use social media) I can arrange a game using a previous version, or Titanicus, or DZC/DFC, or Battletech...

Perhaps in your experience, but I think that's highly subjective. In my experience, asking if anyone plays a previous version of the game, or DZC/DFC, or Frostgrave, or Battletech, or Infinity, or various historical games get silence as nobody does, nobody wants to, and nobody wants to put into another game because they already are invested in 40k and sometimes AOS. Once in a blue moon you might find someone who wants to explore different systems and genres but in my area, if it's not Warhammer and maybe occasionally Warmahordes (which has mostly died out) there's barely anyone who plays the games or who cares about anything that isn't Warhammer. Mostly I think this is due to "game store mentality" which is vastly prevalent in the USA; if the local game stores don't carry product for a game, people don't want to bother with it since they can't just go down and pick something up, and I suspect many of them somehow feel it's "wrong" to order all your stuff online for a game that isn't "supported" in your area and then go to a game store that doesn't support it to use their tables.

It's different all over, but my experience seems to be what a lot of the US is. Games need traction here and, more importantly, they need support from a game store or they'll never get off the ground becaue people don't want to put in the effort into buying into something that they may find just sits on their shelf unused.

 Crimson Devil wrote:

People aren't willing to put the work in. It's that simple. No one is trapped in a game, edition, or style (ITC) unless they want to be.

No, its not that simple.

Game systems cost money and learning rulesets takes time. There is a risk to reward ratio that many people consciously or subconsciously calculate to determine if their financial, time and effort contribution in a new games system will result in enough reward (games played) to even bother trying.

Once you get bitten by unplayed ruleset after unplayed ruleset that risk to reward bar just gets higher and higher.

Wayniac wrote:

beast_gts wrote:

 Crimson Devil wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

But the main reason that people play games that they do not like is because that is the game that is being played - for a lot of people, a game they don't like is better than no games at all.

Unfortunately, this self-perpetuating cycle has been the case for a very long time now... people won't try new games, because nobody around them plays them... and nobody plays them because nobody is willing to try them. So they just stick with the game that everybody else is playing, because that's the best option available.

People aren't willing to put the work in. It's that simple. No one is trapped in a game, edition, or style (ITC) unless they want to be.

Yep. If I just turn up at my local club I can 100% get a game of 8th 40k and about 90% AoS. If I actually talk to the other players (or use social media) I can arrange a game using a previous version, or Titanicus, or DZC/DFC, or Battletech...

Perhaps in your experience, but I think that's highly subjective. In my experience, asking if anyone plays a previous version of the game, or DZC/DFC, or Frostgrave, or Battletech, or Infinity, or various historical games get silence as nobody does, nobody wants to, and nobody wants to put into another game because they already are invested in 40k and sometimes AOS. Once in a blue moon you might find someone who wants to explore different systems and genres but in my area, if it's not Warhammer and maybe occasionally Warmahordes (which has mostly died out) there's barely anyone who plays the games or who cares about anything that isn't Warhammer. Mostly I think this is due to "game store mentality" which is vastly prevalent in the USA; if the local game stores don't carry product for a game, people don't want to bother with it since they can't just go down and pick something up, and I suspect many of them somehow feel it's "wrong" to order all your stuff online for a game that isn't "supported" in your area and then go to a game store that doesn't support it to use their tables.

It's different all over, but my experience seems to be what a lot of the US is. Games need traction here and, more importantly, they need support from a game store or they'll never get off the ground becaue people don't want to put in the effort into buying into something that they may find just sits on their shelf unused.

So much this. To paraphrase the owner of my local FLGS- "Gamers are the flakiest bunch of people I've ever met."

This is where games like DZC and especially Frostgrave can suffer- they need dedicated commitment from the community and there will be a bit of a burst of activity and people giving empty promises they'll start then nothing. Nada. Zip. Radio silence all round. I went through this myself with WMH with the novelty concept of being able to actually play a non-GW game in a gaming store (this was the city's first FLGS, they ain't too common here in Blighty) bringing loads of people in.
Except they just walked away when they realised they actually had to buy stuff. Christmas was coming up so I suggested they ask for one of the starters for Christmas. £25-£30 is frankly nothing in this hobby and it wasn't their money. No biters.
So we had our small group of players that has now dwindled to nothing. The store appears to be going through the same crisis with 40k (I won't go down unless I've got a prearranged game, mainly as I don't live on it's doorstep anymore, but time was you could walk in and have like a 90% change of getting a PUG of 40k no problem). How long can someone be "Building their army" for? This edition has been out near 18 months or so and I know you have pre-existing minis. This is why I can count my games of 8th in single figures...

Got to agree with Mango and Wayne. Getting games aren't that easy, and time and money prevents the endless cycle of other games (let alone painting stuff for other games).


As to the thread itself, it's interesting to see who turns up for a rousing round of dumping on people who don't like the things they like. And especially with several people commenting on 'the small minority,' they obviously have specific targets in mind.

One other thing to add on why old editions or rarer systems don't get played as often is that from my experience, people in rarely make actual friends within the hobby. Instead, what can be said about most "hobby friendships" is that they are at most "hobby acquaintances", that is relationships which rarely exceed the boundaries of the hobby and "spill out" to actually knowing each other lives, needs, limitations and actually caring about mutual well being. Entry cost to something like Wolsung (a steampunk skirmish) if your friend is already playing it and has suitable terrain for it is as low as a single box of tacticals and painting 5-6 models is hardly a time consuming challenge. Necromunda is hardly more expensive to join in if your friend already has all the rulebooks to share. And yet because friendships are rare, and "mutual fun" can apparently be only be orchestrated by an external provider of tightly balanced and bulletproof system with interchangeable opponents in the eyes of the vast majority of people in this hobby, there is little to no place for "side systems" or even more elaborate narrative games within 40K.

This is really saddening to see Wayniac here struggle for years to find a single person to play something other than Matched Play 40K with - I invoke you personally, because I remember few of our narrative conversations from couple of years ago and your enthusiasm to the idea back then and a shift in tone in your most recent posts on the topic.

nou wrote:
One other thing to add on why old editions or rarer systems don't get played as often is that from my experience, people in rarely make actual friends within the hobby. Instead, what can be said about most "hobby friendships" is that they are at most "hobby acquaintances", that is relationships which rarely exceed the boundaries of the hobby and "spill out" to actually knowing each other lives, needs, limitations and actually caring about mutual well being. Entry cost to something like Wolsung (a steampunk skirmish) if your friend is already playing it and has suitable terrain for it is as low as a single box of tacticals and painting 5-6 models is hardly a time consuming challenge. Necromunda is hardly more expensive to join in if your friend already has all the rulebooks to share. And yet because friendships are rare, and "mutual fun" can apparently be only be orchestrated by an external provider of tightly balanced and bulletproof system with interchangeable opponents in the eyes of the vast majority of people in this hobby, there is little to no place for "side systems" or even more elaborate narrative games within 40K.

This is really saddening to see Wayniac here struggle for years to find a single person to play something other than Matched Play 40K with - I invoke you personally, because I remember few of our narrative conversations from couple of years ago and your enthusiasm to the idea back then and a shift in tone in your most recent posts on the topic.

Indeed. My dream has long been to have a GAMING community, not a Warhammer community. And it's never manifested since the vast majority of people don't care. I think you are rather spot on about "hobby acquaintances". Very few of the people I see frequently at the gaming stores seem to be actual friends; they'll talk at the store, maybe in the Facebook group. Maybe they are Facebook friends. But it's really more like a co-worker situation than actual friends. And, as a result, you rarely see anything that doesn't already have traction.

I've come to accept Matched Play (and really, Matched isn't bad at all), but it does make me sad sometimes to constantly see insular communities that don't have any desire to see outside their own bubble and see the wider things available. I've had too often the mention of a lesser known game is met with that "deer in the headlights" look because nobody knows what it is, can't be bothered to look at it, and just seem to be like "Eh, it's not Warhammer. Not interested." I've pretty much come to the conclusion that it'll be rare or non-existent to see real narrative 40k. I have maybe a person or two I could get interested, but I question if they would really approach it in the same way that I would. I certainly doubt I could get the community interested in it. I blame the "pick up game" mindset that became prevalent years ago and has only grown; it fosters treating everyone as random strangers who you might play against, rather than actually building a community around something other than "All of us go to the same game store to play". That doesn't make you a community.

Simple answer? I don't.


As soon as I realized 40K was heading in a direction I didn't like, I stopped playing the current editions. I have a large enough group of friends that play that I can continue to get games of older editions in, and I'm REALLY lucky that it's 3rd Edition. Same goes for WFB. I won't play AOS because I don't like it, and I will continue to play 6th as long as I have opponents.

I can concur that most people are just passive acquaintances at least where I see it.

The culture is being able to show up at a shop and just play. If you can't do that, then the incentive to play a game that you may like more but has no visibility dwindles to almost nil.

Wayne's community, as he and I have discussed, is almost a mirror of my community. And I know people all over the country from the large US cities that have said the same to me, that my community is a mirror of their community, enough where I believe that it is the norm and not the exception.

In my community it really comes down to spendiing a ton of money and only wanting to do that if I can guarantee I can get games.

That means... 40k. And sometimes AOS. The others get played in spurts but not enough or regularly to encourage others to want to buy in and participate.

And more specifically the 40k or sometimes AOS will usually also have to be following tournament standard. Makes narrative a lot more difficult to run in public. In private, you'll have more luck, but in private people are often loathe to forge the relationships required to invite people iinto their homes to play and at the store it can be a struggle or challenge to get narrative events going publicly.

Events drive sales. At least in my experience. One offs do not. People want to see a bunch of people playing regularly before they invest hundreds of dollars and their time in learning a new ruleset.

Which again takes us back to... 40k. Despite iits rules failings. 40k is universal.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Hating the last edition is like hating Ultramarines. It's to be part of the cool group.

Generalizations are worthless. I hate Ultramarines because of their face time as THE non-deviant chapter. My hatred started with the 2nd Ed. Codex which was called Codex: Ultramarines. Crimson Fists player? Nah, you play Ultramarines. People would tell you as much. Doesn't matter how prominent the CF were in the previous edition, or that they were a founding Chapter before the Heresy rewrite. One of the things I loved about 3rd was not only recognizing that vanilla Marines are more than just Ultramarines, but that they actually put the Fists on the cover AND displayed several chapters prominently in the book.

Now, care to have another attempt at trying to cheapen, invalidate, or pervert my opinion?

I find one of the biggest issues with pick up games to be larger scale games like 40k, Sigmar and Warmachine. It takes some real effort to bring those games to the shop and you can't really bring more than one of them along. I have much better luck with other games. I have a bag half the size of the one I use for those other games that currently contains Guild Ball, Infinity, Malifaux and Batman. It's very easy for me to show up and ask "what do you want to play?" rather than need to set up a dedicated game. The effort required to transport larger games really seems to demand more scheduling or single game dedication that creates a lot of these problems.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Overread wrote:
There's a handful of people who tend to have a very negative air a bout them and will focus on negative connections and conversations far more so than positive ones. It's not that they aren't gaming or that they hate the game, its that they've a very critical mindset and approach to the world and how they choose to interact online with. They can often be totally opposite in the real word - the internet world just brings out a different side of them.

Others lack the writing skills to express themselves in a critical way without sounding negative; or they believe that harsh brutal language is "honest" and that a positive angle is "sugar coating"


I'd also say Dakka has a bit of a negative culture aspect and this is promoted by a very small number of posters who are active. Of them I'd say there's perhaps one or two who appear to only ever post negative connections at all and whom might well be alts of other users or trolling the site (or jsut really miserable/critical/angry people).




Ergo its NOT the majority; but it IS the majority when a critical thread comes along and they will post repeatedly through the whole conversation. This creates an atmosphere that often promotes similar styles of reply and you fast end up with a fight or an argument where neither side is really talking about the topic; its simply a platform for either an ego fight or a fight between people with differing outlooks on life who can't accept the other viewpoint for what it is.


It's a shame because these situations are RARE, but they dominate active discussions long enough that it creates the atmosphere. In general effective reporting and moderation combined with a genuine effort to promote and discuss positive angle topics can be a big change around.

The internet has an ongoing issue separating criticism and overall quality. It's becoming extremely problematic in film where "tropes and sins" are becoming something of a numerical indicator of quality (or lack there of) out of the context of a film's ability to pull you in and entertain. Gaming discussions often suffer the same problem. There are lots of valid reasons to be super critical of GW and 40k but the internet doesn't let us voice those complaints and be done with them. They become permanent and fester until the digital record of the game becomes an amalgamation of "criticism".

What the internet largely lacks is the ability to let things go. You see it all the time in YouTube battle reports, where a rules mistakes gets called out and rather than learn and move on, the mistake hangs over that video forever. Sometimes it hangs over the players forever. The worst part is, in that game, between those two players, there was probably a lot of fun had. In any other scenario if it was called out they would probably be grateful to have learned something, but the mistake probably didn't change the enjoyment of the 2 hours they spent together. It's not that calling out the mistake is the problem, its that the internet doesn't let it heal in a positive way.

Some of it is just the age old problem of extreme behavior getting rewarded with attention, but overall we just need a way to communicate in a way that properly expresses the reality that this complaint I have about something I spend dozens of hours a week on can't be so bad if I'm still spending dozens of hours a week on it.

Well I think part of it is that Warhammer and, to a lesser extent, Warmahordes, has had years of traction. Warhammer has been a staple in game stores across the country for about 20 years (When I started in 1996 the game store was well stocked with Warhammer Fantasy and 40k product), even if the store stopped stocking it during the Kirby era, they had plenty of time for people to have gotten into it. I know my FLGS went fully back into stocking 40k after 8th edition because it became popular again; previously they stocked bits and pieces because they had stocked it back in the 5th edition era.

Warmahordes generally got traction during the period when GW declined as the hot new kid on the block, with a lot of stores who felt "betrayed" by GW jumping on that bandwagon. You don't get that sort of traction with something like Frostgrave or historical gaming; there isn't the market for it. A store is unlikely to stock, for instance, Bolt Action unless there's a large enough community to warrant it, but often the community won't get involved unless the store stocks the product, so you have this ouroboros type of situation. As far as I can tell it seems to be the desire to have one place to buy and play. So you have communities that revolve entirely around game stores, like gangs around turf (which is another strangely apt comparison as the "communities" around different game stores seem to have or even encourage store rivalries rather than foster a large and diverse gaming community in the town)

I know that personally there are perhaps a dozen or so games I want to try, and even more I'd be willing to give a shot to see if it appealed to me. But if none of those games are played, and asking on a Facebook group "Hey would anyone be interested in trying out Frostgrave?" would result in silence, flat "no" or immediate comparison/disparaging the product compared to GW (I have seen this. Mentioned a different game and immediately there was "These models are gak compared to GW" as a comparison) means there aren't many willing to try unless you're lucky enough to have a close-knit gaming club (which are rather rare in the US) rather than the typical "group of people who go to the same store".

I certainly understand. I've got the "gaming community" dream myself and I've had a little luck, but I'm not sure it'll stick by any means. I think the core of any gaming community is just 2 people showing up consistently to play. Some of my personally progress has been a willingness to try anything as much as I try to introduce things. Over time I've found whenever someone in the 40k crowd is curious about a new game, they come to me and ask if I'll try because they know I'm open to new games. I got into a state where I'd play Infinity with this guy and Malifaux with that guy and so on and that's started to grow into a little more cross pollination and a larger group of general game gamers. I'm not sure if I'll ever build anything resembling a large meta, but I can play different things with friends and that's kind of the whole point.

like gangs around turf (which is another strangely apt comparison as the "communities" around different game stores seem to have or even encourage store rivalries rather than foster a large and diverse gaming community in the town)

Its like you liive here in my city too lol. That is exactly what happens here and has for over twenty years.

auticus wrote:

like gangs around turf (which is another strangely apt comparison as the "communities" around different game stores seem to have or even encourage store rivalries rather than foster a large and diverse gaming community in the town)

Its like you liive here in my city too lol. That is exactly what happens here and has for over twenty years.

Same here in Tampa. I've seen several game stores that have fierce rivalries (usually over something stupid as saying another store is "stealing their customers" by having their own events) when it boggles my mind, they should be having a community in the city rather than rival gangs (game stores) all trying to prove dominance.

It revolves around wanting to be daddy. Each store has its own way of running events.

The Wild West lives on in the modern gaming store inter-store rivalry?!

More like heavy clique culture. Gang is another appropriate term, simply because the game store is the "turf" and you stick to your own "turf" and way of doing things.

The other gangs playing on their own "turf" are rivals that are doing things wrong and are a detriment to gaming as a whole, while one's own tribe and gang are doing it purely and are leading the local community in the right direction.

Its pretty absurd. I got caught up in this for several years as well. And I admit I was pretty absurd.

That's precisely why I use "gang" ("Tribe" might also be appropriate and have less violent connotations). That's exactly what I've seen, although it's generally not that others are "doing things wrong" but that they are basically infringing into your territory.

I once saw a game store that became actively hostile just because someone mentioned that another store was having a tournament in 2 weeks if anyone was interested. The response shifted immediately to "It's really rude to suggest people go to a different store" even though it was for an event, not "This store sucks go to X instead".

@ Wayniac and Auticus: it looks like you could try to introduce LARP version of Necromunda in your towns

Jokes aside, it is quite different here in Poland, as we don't solely rely on gaming stores, but instead we have three kinds of "dens" that somewhat complement eachother: multigame stores with tables available (those usually hold gaming nights for various popular miniature games, card games and board games), gaming clubs in community centers and publicly available hobby clubs (subscription based hobby workshops, providing anyone with all the tools and paints necessary, airbrush stations included). In result you see a lot of cross pollination and decidedly more focus on the hobby aspects and the possibility of introducing board game geeks into miniature systems.

However, one interesting observation from various conventions and "store photo streams": there was not a single convention I can recall with a quality 40K or AOS table, but plenty of great historical tables, with WWII, medieval, ancient or "time universal" themes. I have played on fully painted MicroArtStudio Wolsung tables, I have observed a game of Battletech on a beautiful, custom built wooden gaming table with 3D hexagonal landscape, but all games of 40K or AOS I saw in public had a rudimentary setup of cloth or mat plus few, mostly unpainted ruins and a hill or two. I have never saw a fully 3D modular tiled 40K table "in person" until I made one myself. And it was the same story during my times of 2nd and 3rd - in my experience GW players here in Poland have always neglected terrain and the whole "visual spectacle" aspect of the game and instead focused solely on perfecting their armies and very little else. I've actually raised my little narrative 40K group based on board game players with RPG inclinations, who wanted something with more "real feel" to it than printed tokens and an occasional soft plastic miniature in Zombiecide, not on people already invested in 40K...

 LunarSol wrote:
I certainly understand. I've got the "gaming community" dream myself and I've had a little luck, but I'm not sure it'll stick by any means. I think the core of any gaming community is just 2 people showing up consistently to play. Some of my personally progress has been a willingness to try anything as much as I try to introduce things. Over time I've found whenever someone in the 40k crowd is curious about a new game, they come to me and ask if I'll try because they know I'm open to new games. I got into a state where I'd play Infinity with this guy and Malifaux with that guy and so on and that's started to grow into a little more cross pollination and a larger group of general game gamers. I'm not sure if I'll ever build anything resembling a large meta, but I can play different things with friends and that's kind of the whole point.

That's how you do it.

My community started back in '94 with me and another guy playing Space Hulk in the back of Comics Utah. We invited anyone that wanted to play to join and slowly built a community over time playing GW games. Dozens of people have come and gone over the years, but the community has survived moving stores (x3) and absorbing smaller groups as we go. All you really need to develop a community is patience, stability, and being open to new people. I have plenty of gaming buddies, acquaintances, and real friends in my group.

But I see from some of the responses in this thread, people seem to treat their hobby like a Glory Hole and only get that level of joy out of it. If you want a community you have to invest in it.

I've played 6th and 7th eds... and I DON'T want to go back.

My only pet peeve is that HH remained in 7th.

 Ginjitzu wrote:

tl;dr: This isn't about whether a new edition is better or worse - there's quite enough of that elsewhere on the forum - but rather, why do you find it so hard to let go?

I had a much harder time letting go of 40k than any other game, because of the investment in time involved. I cannot stand the new version.

My wife went back to college about the time I started playing 40k, and the nights she had class, I painted. And when she did homework, I painted. I had, before selling some of them, over 100,000 points worth of painted models, done to a competition-winning level standard. That's a level of dedication that you don't get with monopoly... Thousands of hours of work - it's really hard to walk away from that.

And, you asked, why not play the older version - but the answer is, you need other people who want to play the older versions in order to do that, and the new models don't have rules in the older versions...
The group I played with, we used to get together every Friday night. But the new rules turned them off, one by one. Someone who spent $1000 for an army, who took a hundred hours to paint it, only to find it left entirely without rules in an edition change - that's a rough sell, why should they risk that again?

What's worse is the money spent - which I'm sure I could recoup by selling all my armies, but knowing how long it took to assemble and paint them. If I were to sell them off, I'd pretty much seal the door on ever playing again, I no longer have the time to invest in projects like that.

Even a game like M:tG, which is expensive to play competitively, you can sell your cards, and if you decide to play again, just buy more cards. There's not this huge time commitment as well.

 Redbeard wrote:

 Ginjitzu wrote:

tl;dr: This isn't about whether a new edition is better or worse - there's quite enough of that elsewhere on the forum - but rather, why do you find it so hard to let go?

I had a much harder time letting go of 40k than any other game, because of the investment in time involved. I cannot stand the new version.

My wife went back to college about the time I started playing 40k, and the nights she had class, I painted. And when she did homework, I painted. I had, before selling some of them, over 100,000 points worth of painted models, done to a competition-winning level standard. That's a level of dedication that you don't get with monopoly... Thousands of hours of work - it's really hard to walk away from that.

And, you asked, why not play the older version - but the answer is, you need other people who want to play the older versions in order to do that, and the new models don't have rules in the older versions...
The group I played with, we used to get together every Friday night. But the new rules turned them off, one by one. Someone who spent $1000 for an army, who took a hundred hours to paint it, only to find it left entirely without rules in an edition change - that's a rough sell, why should they risk that again?

What's worse is the money spent - which I'm sure I could recoup by selling all my armies, but knowing how long it took to assemble and paint them. If I were to sell them off, I'd pretty much seal the door on ever playing again, I no longer have the time to invest in projects like that.

Even a game like M:tG, which is expensive to play competitively, you can sell your cards, and if you decide to play again, just buy more cards. There's not this huge time commitment as well.

Since there were few of you who felt the same way about 8th and all of you walked away from 40K, why not play previous edition with those people? Rules for new models are very easy to translate into previous systems, there is a tonne of comparable material to establish statlines and costs... I still play 7th(ish)ed with the same people I played with before 8th dropped. Ultimately you only really need one opponent to stay in the game, especially if you have 100.000 pts of models, you will never be bored by repetitive nature of your games against one person with those numbers.

Voss wrote:
Got to agree with Mango and Wayne. Getting games aren't that easy, and time and money prevents the endless cycle of other games (let alone painting stuff for other games).


As to the thread itself, it's interesting to see who turns up for a rousing round of dumping on people who don't like the things they like. And especially with several people commenting on 'the small minority,' they obviously have specific targets in mind.

Hang around here for a bit, and it becomes very obvious who keeps crashing into discussions and sucking all the air out of the room under a veneer of "just tellin' it like it is", while staying juuuuuust within the letter of the law. I think it's much more damaging to the community than a random troll who wanders in, flames out and then gets banned.

It's not usually not so much "people not liking what I like" and more "people who don't like what I like and who won't ever let it drop". Complain all you want about echo chambers, but I'd rather have unproductive positive discussion than unproductive whinging and bleating. They both make the same amount of difference (none), but the former is a lot more pleasant to read.

Eventually, it's like--okay. We get it. Really, we get it. Nobody on the forum is in any doubt about your opinion. Now that we've established beyond all possible doubt what your opinion is, maybe you could pass up just one opportunity to trumpet it from the rooftops? No? We're going to do this same dance yet again? If I had access to the accounts of certain posters, I could reproduce their responses on certain topics so well that nobody could tell them apart from the originals, because they've been repeating the same things over and over for years.

 Elemental wrote:

Voss wrote:
Got to agree with Mango and Wayne. Getting games aren't that easy, and time and money prevents the endless cycle of other games (let alone painting stuff for other games).


As to the thread itself, it's interesting to see who turns up for a rousing round of dumping on people who don't like the things they like. And especially with several people commenting on 'the small minority,' they obviously have specific targets in mind.

Hang around here for a bit, and it becomes very obvious who keeps crashing into discussions and sucking all the air out of the room under a veneer of "just tellin' it like it is", while staying juuuuuust within the letter of the law. I think it's much more damaging to the community than a random troll who wanders in, flames out and then gets banned.

It's not usually not so much "people not liking what I like" and more "people who don't like what I like and who won't ever let it drop". Complain all you want about echo chambers, but I'd rather have unproductive positive discussion than unproductive whinging and bleating. They both make the same amount of difference (none), but the former is a lot more pleasant to read.

Eventually, it's like--okay. We get it. Really, we get it. Nobody on the forum is in any doubt about your opinion. Now that we've established beyond all possible doubt what your opinion is, maybe you could pass up just one opportunity to trumpet it from the rooftops? No? We're going to do this same dance yet again? If I had access to the accounts of certain posters, I could reproduce their responses on certain topics so well that nobody could tell them apart from the originals, because they've been repeating the same things over and over for years.

Maybe that indicates a real problem, instead of the usual people saying "Everything is great and fine, anyone who doesn't think so is a hater". Just saying since I think I might be one of those people you're referring to....

nou wrote:

Since there were few of you who felt the same way about 8th and all of you walked away from 40K, why not play previous edition with those people?

Because not everyone left at the same time, and many sold their models when they were done. It comes down to a critical mass issue. When you have, say, eight regular players, you can assume four will be available at any given time, scheduling and such. When two sell their models, three want to play 8th, and three don't want to play 8th, you lost your critical mass to keep a regular game night going.

For whatever it’s worth, I see far fewer people with stereotypical fanboy responses than the opposite. At the same time, it seems like most people can acknowledge things are flawed or that they don’t like something without being consistently miserable. It’s a semi-consistent few that just have that personality, I suppose, and they perhaps stand out more. Like, I’ll see their name and immediately assume the tone of their forthcoming post. I’m not always right, in fairness. I assume everyone is a human being on the other side of the screen after all.

 Redbeard wrote:

nou wrote:

Since there were few of you who felt the same way about 8th and all of you walked away from 40K, why not play previous edition with those people?

Because not everyone left at the same time, and many sold their models when they were done. It comes down to a critical mass issue. When you have, say, eight regular players, you can assume four will be available at any given time, scheduling and such. When two sell their models, three want to play 8th, and three don't want to play 8th, you lost your critical mass to keep a regular game night going.

I know this is a "spilled milk" situation now, but I honestly don't see a reason why, if only you were openly communicating your preferences to stay behind with 7th, to not organize with those two or three that wanted the same thing. It is not that they vanished overnight without a trace... But I suppose this just another example of this whole "the way things are in America" situation discussed above.

 Wolf_in_Human_Shape wrote:
For whatever it’s worth, I see far fewer people...

A lot of people see what they want to see.

Wayniac wrote:

 Elemental wrote:

Voss wrote:
Got to agree with Mango and Wayne. Getting games aren't that easy, and time and money prevents the endless cycle of other games (let alone painting stuff for other games).


As to the thread itself, it's interesting to see who turns up for a rousing round of dumping on people who don't like the things they like. And especially with several people commenting on 'the small minority,' they obviously have specific targets in mind.

Hang around here for a bit, and it becomes very obvious who keeps crashing into discussions and sucking all the air out of the room under a veneer of "just tellin' it like it is", while staying juuuuuust within the letter of the law. I think it's much more damaging to the community than a random troll who wanders in, flames out and then gets banned.

It's not usually not so much "people not liking what I like" and more "people who don't like what I like and who won't ever let it drop". Complain all you want about echo chambers, but I'd rather have unproductive positive discussion than unproductive whinging and bleating. They both make the same amount of difference (none), but the former is a lot more pleasant to read.

Eventually, it's like--okay. We get it. Really, we get it. Nobody on the forum is in any doubt about your opinion. Now that we've established beyond all possible doubt what your opinion is, maybe you could pass up just one opportunity to trumpet it from the rooftops? No? We're going to do this same dance yet again? If I had access to the accounts of certain posters, I could reproduce their responses on certain topics so well that nobody could tell them apart from the originals, because they've been repeating the same things over and over for years.

Maybe that indicates a real problem, instead of the usual people saying "Everything is great and fine, anyone who doesn't think so is a hater". Just saying since I think I might be one of those people you're referring to....

Yup, go on. Name names. I'm a big boy- I'll bet someone is referring to me.

Wayniac wrote:

Maybe that indicates a real problem, instead of the usual people saying "Everything is great and fine, anyone who doesn't think so is a hater". Just saying since I think I might be one of those people you're referring to....

I'm not commenting on how legitimate the points are, just the way they're pursued. Negativity is often pursued with a fervour that makes me think that complaining is the end, rather than any sort of means.

 Elemental wrote:

I'm not commenting on how legitimate the points are, just the way they're pursued. Negativity is often pursued with a fervour that makes me think that complaining is the end, rather than any sort of means.

The thing is, when someone complains about something, the reaction to that complaint has a fairly big impact. If I (a generic 'I', not me specifically) say 'This thing: I hates it because 'blah!'' and you respond with 'No, that thing is fine' then I'm going to continue to point out just why that thing is bad, because you clearly don't get it.

One of the biggest life lessons I've learnt from having children is that what people complaining about something are generally looking for is acknowledgement. Pointing out reasons that you think their complaint is invalid is just pouring petrol on the fire, because it makes them feel like they're not being heard, or you're not understanding the problem.

 Grimtuff wrote:

Yup, go on. Name names. I'm a big boy- I'll bet someone is referring to me.

Heh, I remember back in the day when someone would have been referring to me in threads like this. Sic transit gloria mundi, and all that. :-P

Warhammer 40k is 75% whining about the game, and 25% fluctuating between hobbying and playing.

Of that percent that's whining, it's a combination of whining about things they don't even play, have no interest in using, and then sometimes whining that their army is underperforming. Double the whining about underperforming when it is absolutely not doing that.

I don't play games I don't enjoy.

I don't play with people that make a game suck.

I don't play in establishments where the game environment is toxic or otherwise irritating.

If you want more serious percentages, I'd say about 75% of enjoying a game is the people you game with. Find people like yourself and make your own group, and recruit people like you and make it clear what you're looking for.

 Elemental wrote:
It's not usually not so much "people not liking what I like" and more "people who don't like what I like and who won't ever let it drop". Complain all you want about echo chambers, but I'd rather have unproductive positive discussion than unproductive whinging and bleating. They both make the same amount of difference (none), but the former is a lot more pleasant to read.

I see, so the people having the discussion that you prefer have no obligation to "let it drop" even once they've made their point, but the people saying things you don't like need to say it once and then stop challenging the people who share your opinion? Definitely a reasonable and unbiased position...

It's also the most negative possible reading of what he actually said, which was essentially just that positive discussion is more pleasant to read.

Unfortunately, he couched that opinion in negative language, which just perpetuates the cycle.

OP, there's also a thing with geeks. And actually, beyond geeks.

People like to complain about new things. Being bitter and complaining sometimes gives people the impression that they seem smarter, more clever about something that the 'stupid masses' haven't figured out yet.

The old joke for 40k is that there are dudes lurking around that "haven't played since 3rd" complaining about the game now. But either that's true and they're a sad person desperate for validation, or it's a lie and they're still a sad person desperate for validation.

Yes, 40k has its flaws. Kill Team is lacking in some ways. There are tons of things about the game that can improve, and it is far from perfect. But if the game were -ever- perfect, everyone would have played it and they wouldn't have changed a thing.

The best thing you can do about 'validation complainers' is ignore them. Giving them attention is giving them a stage and a spotlight to do their little performance where they pretend to be a higher-tier player than us lowly plebeians that monkey about with this 8th Edition garbage.

Meanwhile, we're having fun with a game, and they're standing in a corner with their pouty lips and folded arms, buttmad because people are enjoying a thing they don't like. And not paying attention to them.

Enjoy your games and turn your back to anyone who's trying to piss on that.

EDIT: As a good practice, when I complain about things- I try not to say "this sucks" and leave it at that. I try to say, "I think this could be improved if we instead did X, Y, and Z." The difference between a whinge and constructive critique is adding one idea to a complaint.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Hating the last edition is like hating Ultramarines. It's to be part of the cool group

I Hate for Hate's sake...

 Agamemnon2 wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:

Yup, go on. Name names. I'm a big boy- I'll bet someone is referring to me.

Heh, I remember back in the day when someone would have been referring to me in threads like this. Sic transit gloria mundi, and all that. :-P

I've been a called a "hater" so many time over the years it's not funny. Unless you think GW farts rainbows and gaks gold you're a "hater" in some parts. Some people just cannot take criticism or the idea that something is not "perfect".

Just yesterday at my FLGS I had to indirectly defend Achilles (AKA Ash from Guerilla Miniature Games) on here as I referenced a ruling he and Owen agreed between themselves in a AoS batrep (We were looking through the new Goblin book) I was watching and this set off another person to go into a rant about how certain people want to ruin "their" game by bending the rules. I asked them if they knew who Ash was and his channel and how he is the last person in the world to be described that way or as a TFG and how two opponents coming to a mutual ruling that they might not use in future games is not "bending the rules", but this set off all of their "GW is being besmirched!" alarms and they went full white knight.

 Ginjitzu wrote:
As I understand it, a new addition doesn't invalidate any old edition and you're free to keep playing the one you love, or am I missing something that says you can't? I know that new additions mean the old ones are no longer in print, but isn't that only an issue for newcomers whom, by definition wouldn't have any investment in the old editions anyway?

There is your issue right here.

You're 110% right that newer editions do not validate older ones However You would be lucky to get a game on the fly. It takes a very close friend or group that you have known throughout the editions to play that specific game and there are dozens of variables on why that game won't take place, distance? old friends selling off their collections, etc. Then all you're really left with is sunk cost fallacy as you have to play the edition you don't like in order to get any use out of your minis, unless you can beat your cycle.

I myself, just don't really play 40k just because my NL have been dumped on a considerable amount of faeces on them, both lore and game play wise by GW. I enjoy my Orks but it's still not enough for me to really invest or even play with as I enjoy other games more. I guess I'm lucky I found a gaming group that play exclusively Indie games with GW Specialist/ME:SBG.

I guess it depends.

For some, it’s a more significant investment of time and money. Me? I’m ok with both. No kids, good job, more than enough income to roll with the changes, whatever they may be. So having an army no longer be fieldable as it was is at best a minor irritation.

But for others in a different position? That’s not so acceptable. And fair enough. Yes, some people do go overboard (on BoLS, there was a poster who, mysteriously, only ever played the exact army that just got ‘nerfed’ - despite in other threads constantly banging on and on and on and on about how long it is since they last played, and how long it’s been since they last bought something from GW.

There’s also the culture of the game. I was put off Warmachine back in the early days because of my first experiences. Basically, the guys I was playing against were power gaming WAAC, who, for me, were just no fun to play against. So I sold my bits and bobs and ever went back. Is that a fair reflection of the game? Especially after 16 years? Almost certainly not. It’s only a reflection of bad luck on my behalf. Yet that experience has left an sour taste I’ve not been able to shake,

Look at some of the complaints about 40k, and you’ll soon see many are in fact about their local community. Sad gits only out to ROFLstomp newcomers. People demanding that everyone only ever play to their preference, whatever that might be. Like my experience with Warmachine, that is by no means representative of the game, nor the wider community. Just toxic pockets of it.

For instance, I’m making an effort to get active in the hobby again, after several fallow years. If the opponents I line up all only ever play Smash Captain, Knights and Loyal 32 Soup, that’s going to sap my resolve faster than if I get a wider variety of play styles and army lists. In that regard, I’m lucky that my town has a thriving club, most members of which I know from my days as a GW till monkey. So it’ll be less of a drag in terms of ‘man, I need to be able to match That One List’. And I dare venture said variety will make me a more competent player, and thus opponent. So when it comes time for my first Tournament, I’ll at least be a memorable opponent they’d be happy to play again.

And yes, I will be wanting to try some games against That One List. Because there’s no point in trying to avoid it at all costs. And who knows, perhaps my haphazard ‘Wing it, and hope for the best’ approach might see me come out on top. If not, I hope to at least get to the stage where I can give them a bloody nose!

People who complain all the time about the current edition, other peoples' armies and preferences, their own....

...and they're very often people who 'don't play the game any more'...

...I might be jumping to conclusions here, but I'm thinking that if all you do is piss and moan about the game and other players, you might be sort of... shunned and unable to play the game, not necessarily a 'quitter'.

I think people try to be constructive about the problems in a game. For example, regular marines are underwhelming now, and there are a bunch of threads about fixing them. And it's easy to believe GW made them this way on purpose, because they're trying to sell Primaris, so it's easy to be angry about it. Of course, none of these "constructive" comments are going to help in the end. GW is going to continue doing its thing. People are mostly going to stick with the official rules.

It's hard to decide where the line is, between a game I like with flaws or a game I actually don't like. I still like the models. I like the concept of WYSIWYG - seeing equipment on a model and having it mean something. I like rolling buckets of dice. I like IGOUGO. I like having lots of stuff on the table. I like playing a big game that lasts a few hours instead a few rounds of a smaller game.

I don't like rules that aren't represented on the table, such as the various detachment bonuses. I prefer simulation-style rules over gamey limits on things - if a Knight can adjust its shields a certain way to make them better, every knight should do that every turn regardless of how many guardsmen you brought along.

Do I have to think a game is perfect to be allowed to play it? Do I have to shut up about the negative part? I don't think I have enough posts to be the person anyone is complaining about, but I hope my answer helps with the OP's question. I can dislike half the rules and half the models and still like a game.

What if you're over sensitivity of people's criticism is the issue? And not that they "moan" about it.

A recurring theme is that any and all negative comments about something on this site tend to be viewed as hostility. . In general even constructive criticism will ensure that person is harassed. More so if it challenges the approved narrative.

8th edition for a lot of people represents a dumbing down of the rules and massive changes. Shutting down that conversation because of peoples inability to handle constructive criticism,or vice versa is a common theme here on dakka.

Perhaps the issue is not them but human collectivism. Here's a great example of what I'm talking about.

Start a topic on 4th edition. See how positively people react to it. Than start a topic on 7th edition, see how negatively they react.

Compare both editions to 8th. I assure that there will be less hostility / negative criticism on the 4th post, and boat loads of moaning, complaining, etc on 7th post.

In the end we're just nerds that like to argue about plastic minis.

It all just seems hypocritical to me, and this coming from someone like most people, is guilty of being hypocritical.

It seems like a pretty weak sand castle to stand on. Given the place the post is (not 100% sure if that metaphor was used correctly).

It's also funny to see the negativity to 7th when similar all tho not the same issues pop up in 8th. Similar as in complaints about board game. People rag about older editions and moan about it, but than complain about people moaning over 8th.

It's almost like everyone is just being openly vocal about their preferences. Similar to music. I don't like Hip Hop. People will insult me for not liking hip hop, going as far to call me something derogatory. But than I will pop on some reggae or blues such as BB King when I'm home.

None of this behavior seems healthy to me to be so critical of criticism. "Don't worry so much you'l never make it of life alive" some random line from a movie.

In-fact after reading through the posts. I see a very troubling trend from the majority infantilism. A desperate need to police conversation that isn't approved so everything stays positive consistently, ensuring that no wrong think penetrates the community. Tho not indicative of all the posts on this thread, it does seem to be a fear of words. What's the worst that could possibly happen? Heated debate? Disagreement? Someone disrupting an echo chamber? This isn't even just a trend here. It's in almost every forum. No one wants to experience that which they don't agree with. I'm not sure if it's obsessive need to follow the group, or the rules. But it's a disturbing trend on social media as a whole.

Being comfortable with something that you don't agree with is actually a very critical life skill. But policing conversation to the point of never having to encounter what you disagree with is bordering on psychosis.

This trend did not used to exist about 6 to 10 years ago. People used to have back bone. Maybe it's the Irish in me. But I do remember people used to be less afraid of being independent. Now being independent is seen as a mortal sin.

Stabbing your neighbor in the back because they don't follow the collective seems Stalinist to me. This trend on line, honestly scares the living crap out of me. And should scare the living crap out of anyone that's studied history. This trend is a very dark road to go down, and it leads to some pretty messed up places, with a staggering body count attached to them.

it's usually due the erroneous conflating of "I don't like game X" with "and everyone that plays it is a dunderhead"

I'm not particularly keen on 8th, but people are having fun playing it and its hard to do fun wrong and its not stopping me playing my games so Que Será

I will sometimes complain about aspects of 40k despite not having played since 5th edtion. However, when I do complain it's never about the rules - to be honest I never played the game that much even when I did play, and I never took it very seriously. It was just a fun thing to play with friends, and it was less about X rule is bad and Y army is underpowered, and more about how "these rules are way too dense" as a whole. At the time it felt like playing an Excel Spreadsheet with most basic actions requiring you consult a table on one page and then plug in values to another table on some other page. This was something my group largely shared. If we had gotten more into it I assume we would have memorized some rules and values and it would have been less tedious, but on the whole it just felt like a slow-moving game wth needlessly complex rules that was still pretty fun, largely because the in-game universe was so engrossing.

Most of my beefs, when I have them, are with some specific aspect of any given model, and I do still assemble and paint the minis - because I do indeed still find the universe deeping interesting.

Other things I will be annoyed by is the model release schedule, or the bias I perceive towards model development for specific armies to the detriment of the ones I buy, build, and paint.

But I have no comment on the state of the game, which is a total unknown to me. I heard it had gotten better and I think I even bought the 8th edition rulebook, it's around here somewhere.

I've heard Kill Team is easy to play and fast moving, so that is another thing I think I might try picking up.

Eh, no reason to gripe about an edition you don't like. Sure, you log your opinion on here once or twice, but anything past that is not doing anything except fracturing the community more than it already is. Not only that, but there may be that handful of people who want to try that older version of the game that you prefer, but they see you being a gak heel on here and they wouldn't give you the time of day. Worse yet, they could look at your attitude as indicative of ALL people who play that edition.

 Just Tony wrote:
Eh, no reason to gripe about an edition you don't like. Sure, you log your opinion on here once or twice, but anything past that is not doing anything except fracturing the community more than it already is. Not only that, but there may be that handful of people who want to try that older version of the game that you prefer, but they see you being a gak heel on here and they wouldn't give you the time of day. Worse yet, they could look at your attitude as indicative of ALL people who play that edition.

see above. Case in point. Needless policing of disagreement. An individual is not responsible for issues other people have with their own emotional reaction to words. Especially with something as asinine as miniature games. This isn't even a major political or racial, or idealogical topic it's just plastic toys.

This is as I said a disturbing trend.

I don't even know where to begin with how Orwellian this sounds, or this thread as a whole.

If your little diatribe was about what I posted, then you need to reread it.

When are gamers finally going to seize the means of production of their plastic toys? I'm sick of being lorded over by these capitalists game designers forcing me to play whatever games are the most profitable.

 Yodhrin wrote:

 Wolf_in_Human_Shape wrote:
For whatever it’s worth, I see far fewer people...

A lot of people see what they want to see.

I'd feel comfortable saying virtually every person, really. Negativity also tends to stand out, especially when it's repetitive and from the same person/people.

Also, agreed, the escalation to Orwellian dystopia is hilarious. Please continue.

Oh wow... that escalated quickly

The Allfather wrote:
Anyways you can't form a decent argument so just drop it. BUD.

Look out everybody, we got a badass over here! He's watched all the George Carlin videos on the YouTube! I'm sure Bill Hicks is coming right up, as soon as he finds another synonym for "bud" and researches some more Stalinist history to make snide and reductive allusions.

 Agamemnon2 wrote:

The Allfather wrote:
Anyways you can't form a decent argument so just drop it. BUD.

Look out everybody, we got a badass over here! He's watched all the George Carlin videos on the YouTube! I'm sure Bill Hicks is coming right up, as soon as he finds another synonym for "bud" and researches some more Stalinist history to make snide and reductive allusions.

Hicks is awesome man what are you smoking? And my argument is hardly crude. I'm just tired of seeing simpering ass wagons demanding people fall in line on every social media platform, less the herd be spooked.

I don't smoke. I've seen what it does to you.

After review this thread is now locked permanently.