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The 13th Black Crusade hasn't really done anything except have slightly more battles on Cadia than it otherwise would. Its ultimate resolution is a foregone conclusion, and in the end will be much sound and fury, signifying nothing all that new in the narrative. It's not like they are going to make Cadia turn into a Daemon World all of a sudden and remove Cadian troops from the IG list or anything of the sort. That Cadia is currently "contested" doesn't change a single thing in the overall setting. Heck, it's always been "contested", really, since the very purpose of the planet is to guard the Cadian Gate against Black Crusades.

Frecklesonfire wrote:The Horus heresy books are going to go all the way to 40k, after that it'll keep going.. expect another 100 novels of HH until they catch up..it will be called the HH after Horus is slain, and after ultrasmurf gets his neck slit, and the primarchs jump into the warp, angron has his huge tantrum and goes to Armageddon, that will all be part of HH

Except that the Horus Heresy ends with the Scouring, and the splitting of the legions. Everything afterwards is a different event entirely. If anything, they'd start up a new series that dealt with the Age of Apostasy or the Nova Terra Interregnum, both events I'd be happy to see more information about.

isn't it obvious?

First The One and Only ULTRA Smurf has to wake up, fulfill his duty to the Eldar, then they will provide the tech to resurrect the Emp

Some heretics claim that the Emperor is dead 10,000 years and that the Imperium worships the corpse of a false god.

To the warp with the story progressing! I just want to be rid of the same old foreboding fluff and instead have a playable campaign were the players themselves can decide the fate of the 40k universe. Who’s with me on this?

Redcruisair wrote:To the warp with the story progressing! I just want to be rid of the same old foreboding fluff and instead have a playable campaign were the players themselves can decide the fate of the 40k universe. Who’s with me on this?

...and then what? It's all just over? No thanks.

At the moment we're at the deep breath before the plunge. Anything could happen, and that potential is exciting. I don't want the fate of the galaxy to be decided. Ever.

Kaldor wrote:

Redcruisair wrote:To the warp with the story progressing! I just want to be rid of the same old foreboding fluff and instead have a playable campaign were the players themselves can decide the fate of the 40k universe. Who’s with me on this?

...and then what? It's all just over? No thanks.

At the moment we're at the deep breath before the plunge. Anything could happen, and that potential is exciting. I don't want the fate of the galaxy to be decided. Ever.

Ah but you do not see what is so beautiful about this, good sir. This way there is no definitely ending to the storyline. Only various personal accounts on how it all could play out, brought about by dices and models. Doing it this way no single fan of a race is going to feel hurt when the fluff train makes their race of choice look like total underdogs (which is precisely what GW are making the Eldar and Imperium out to be.)

“...and then what? It's all just over? No thanks.”
Who said it was over?

McNinja wrote:

Kaldor wrote:As soon as you progress the setting past this point, all that wonderful potential is gone. The tension is released, and we're left with... nothing.

Do not want.

By that logic, George Martin should never have progressed Game of Thrones past the huge war for Westeros, instead leaving it as a war-torn continent forever while extrapolating on the history and pre-history of Westeros, Esos, and perhaps Southeros.

Fairly major flaw in that comparison, I'm afraid. Comparing the setting of a game system where players are able to forge their own narrative through play, and the ongoing narrative of a series of novels - a passive medium which is entirely driven by the author - doesn't hold up at all, truth be told.

You want an apt comparison, check out how Wizards of the Coast changed the Forgotten Realms campaign setting from 3.5E to 4E.

McNinja wrote:By that logic, George Martin should never have progressed Game of Thrones past the huge war for Westeros, instead leaving it as a war-torn continent forever while extrapolating on the history and pre-history of Westeros, Esos, and perhaps Southeros.

If I wanted a battle-game set in Westeros, then yeah. I mean, I haven't read the whole series yet so I don't know how things pan out, but how can I justify leading hordes of Northmen to beat up the Lannisters if the Lannisters and the Northmen no longer exis per se?

Redcruisair wrote:Ah but you do not see what is so beautiful about this, good sir. This way there is no definitely ending to the storyline. Only various personal accounts on how it all could play out, brought about by dices and models. Doing it this way no single fan of a race is going to feel hurt when the fluff train makes their race of choice look like total underdogs (which is precisely what GW are making the Eldar and Imperium out to be.)

What do you mean? Abandon all centralised background, and let players make up their own story progression?

“...and then what? It's all just over? No thanks.”
Who said it was over?

You did. Once we move past this moment of tension and potential, it's gone. Things will have been decided, the plot moving on, factions destroyed and remade. Our opportunity to imagine it will be gone, and the opportunity for players to imagine the history and outcome of their battles is gone as well.

As long as Matt Ward has keys to GW headquarters, a plot advancement can only end in tragedy and nerdrage.

"and so Marneus Calgar was crowned the new Regent of Terra, sitting the throne until the inevitable return of the True Heir and Spiritual Liege of Mankind: Roboutte Guilliman, who is busy beating the ruinous powers at arm wrestling. For fun."
- 7th Ed. Rulebook, pg 2



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Its a bit of a gamble on GW part. As was mentioned, all the fluff is pretty precariously balanced, tipping that could, and at this point I'm convinced would, backfire.
40k has 10,000 years AT LEAST of plot the hasnt been explored, including cool poop like the Age of Apostasy and earlier Black Crusades. Let alone the Unification Wars and the Age of Darkness if you want to go back further.

Redcruisair wrote:To the warp with the story progressing! I just want to be rid of the same old foreboding fluff and instead have a playable campaign were the players themselves can decide the fate of the 40k universe. Who’s with me on this?

Can't they do so already? Various people from GW have said that the setting is what we as players make of it. That's the whole intention behind the lack of canon and why they allow the novel authors so much leeway that it frequently results in books contradicting each other.

If you want a campaign to decide what happens to the Imperium, or indeed the whole 40k universe, in the 42nd millennium, hold the games and continue developing the story for yourself. After 5 editions of the game, it seems clear that Games Workshop won't do that for you.

No, just like with all the other sources, the result of such a personal campaign won't have any meaning for the community as a whole, but that, too, would be intentional by the company. Think about it: any change from the current status quo would have at least one faction complain about it. If we were having a worldwide campaign to decide what happens, we'd probably just have a Second Great Crusade because half the participants show up with a GK or SW army. And if the studio throws bonuses at the Imperium's enemies to make the fight more interesting, any losses the IoM has to endure would only result in just as many complaints, only that people would now complain about unfair disadvantages, too.
In terms of giving every faction a somewhat equal role in the setting, the current situation is ideal.

That said, I would love to see more worldwide campaigns about individual planets or, say, an entire sector.
And these do not necessarily all have to happen in M41. There are so many other millenna between M36 and M41 left to explore and fill with content.

The story doesn't need to move forward yet. You move the story forward, you lose the potential of here and now, and there is a lot of lore to be told between the HH and the contemporary 40k universe. When I mean a - ... oh wait, Lynata beat me to this point. It's important though, there is something like seven thousand years of barely explained lore between what was and what is now. To move ahead before we understand that would be a great determent to the epicness of what would actually mean the second coming of the Emperor.

I for one don't want the setting to move forward.

I like the whole 'two minutes to midnight' feel. If we want new content, then there is 10,000 years and a whole galaxy to flesh out.

40k is not a narrative, it's not a story with a beginning, a middle and an end, it's a mish-mash collection of tales from all over the place.

Besides, change would undo the feel of stagnation that pervades the IoM.

If anything, I would like to see more about the Age of Apostasy when Goge Vandire went nuts. Ever since reading the colour text in the 2nd ed Assasins Codex, I really wanted to find out more about what happened during that time.

Never answer the question people are asking. 40k is interesting because of its mystique, advancing the overall setting/plot takes away part of that.

It would be the destruction of the setting. No matter how they moved it would never be as good as what we all envision in our heads, possibly to the point of turning away loyal fans in droves.

Lightcavalier wrote:Never answer the question people are asking. 40k is interesting because of its mystique, advancing the overall setting/plot takes away part of that.

It would be the destruction of the setting. No matter how they moved it would never be as good as what we all envision in our heads, possibly to the point of turning away loyal fans in droves.

Definitely!

Lightcavalier wrote:Never answer the question people are asking. 40k is interesting because of its mystique, advancing the overall setting/plot takes away part of that.

It would be the destruction of the setting. No matter how they moved it would never be as good as what we all envision in our heads, possibly to the point of turning away loyal fans in droves.

And the light of truth fell upon this post. Amen.

I desire no progress in the story-line, and I certainly don't want to know what happened to II and XI.

PrometheusZero wrote:If anything, I would like to see more about the Age of Apostasy when Goge Vandire went nuts. Ever since reading the colour text in the 2nd ed Assasins Codex, I really wanted to find out more about what happened during that time.

There's definitively potential in the different eras. GW could bring out small campaign codices (like the EoT or Armageddon ones) for the Horus Heresy or the Age of Apostasy or the Great Crusade. You could use the vast majority of the minis unchanged, and what has to be changed can be supported by Forgeworld.

I'd like to see a campaign along the lines of the Dragon Age II model.

For those that haven't played the game, the narrative is told by a character, who relates the story to someone else.

Except after he makes an introduction we, the player, are free to play the narrative. The choices we make in the story become the narrative the character is telling.

Similarly, GW could make a campaign set in an unknown sector. The start of the campaign reveals how the accounts of a sector-wide war have been found by Imperial archivists. These records reveal the combatants and a few of the main goals, characters and places involved. These details have been fleshed out with information from existing Imperial records.

But the rest of these newly discovered records haven't been translated yet. Enter the 40K community. We can fight battles to tell the story of this sector wide campaign, flesh out the fates of the characters mentioned, and in the end GW can compile the results and publish the fully translated and itemised 'records'.