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Plumbumbarum wrote: Care to elaborate? Not meant to be amusing tbh (the rest) but not sure what you mean, post, signature?

I did not find your sarcastic post amusing, but I did enjoy your sig.

Sephyr wrote:The fact that they didn't even try to toss Nids a bone regarding the Allies rule tells me they don't really care.

Conversely.
"The fact that Tyranids are allowed allies at all shows how little they care about the fluff".

Which allies allowed is fluff based decision, not a balance based one. It makes sense Nid don't get allies.

From a game balance point of view, they should have gotten something to compensate for this.

Some thing like extra force organization slots could have easliy been included in the Nid FAQ to try and compensate for the lack of allies.

Scissorheart wrote:Next I spoke to Phil Kelly (the dude) who again is a really sound guy (and by the way - he isn't leaving GW).
(...)
He also shared his personal opinion on 5th edition and said (with the greatest of respect) that Alessio Cavorte seemed to want to make the game more competitive and simplified. He thought that this made the game a little to flat and generic in its function (which I personally agreed with). His words were that it ‘lost its craziness’. 6th has therefore moved to address this and give more feel and character to the units and the game as a whole. It does seem to be a consensus amongst GW staff that 2nd was a great edition in many ways (although obviously broken in others).

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/462603.page

Ailaros wrote:Every time someone compares GW to other game companies, though, I've got to chuckle.

If GW were really so terrible and everybody else were really so awesome, why hasn't 40k been taken over by other games? To me, this is disproof of said hypothesis.

Yes, people now talk about infinity and malifaux, but a few years ago, everybody was talking about confrontation and AT49 and heroclix, and who plays those anymore? Not as many people as play 40k, not by a long shot.

40k, despite its imperfect rules set, is still the best game with the most players and the best minis. That's why people play it. That's why you're on a 40k forum for goodness sake. Whining about it is just that - whining.

That's quite a fallacy. It's like saying McDonalds is _obviously_ a finer meal than your local fine fancy burger establishment, because look how many people eat there every day and come back for more!

There are many reasons for a inferior (or "more flawed" to be accurate) model to persist in the face of alternatives: Marketing, consumer conservatism (also known as sunk cost falalcy: "I already have $3000 worth of this, not switching now!"), local factors (your friends play this, so you are going to play what they play), or just joining the bigger team (It's bigger!).

Any game being the "best game" is entirely subjective. Having the most players is not. Having the best minis is again a matter of opinion.

I am in a 40K forum because it's the best place to have 40k-centered discussions. I'm also on other forums and whe the issue comes up, I argue along roughly the same lines.

As for whining, it's not only a very handy thing to accuse others of instead of actually engaging what they wrote, but the latest medical data says it increases good cholesterol and improves muscle tone!

Sephyr wrote:

There are many reasons for a inferior (or "more flawed" to be accurate) model to persist in the face of alternatives: Marketing, consumer conservatism (also known as sunk cost falalcy: "I already have $3000 worth of this, not switching now!"), local factors (your friends play this, so you are going to play what they play), or just joining the bigger team (It's bigger!).

So, the free market doesn't exist, people never change their minds?
40k has been around in its modern format for decades, I can remember 2nd edition as a kid. If it sucked, people would have moved by now.
Tabletop games are incredibly hard to write rules for. With so many armies, so many units and combinations of special rules and equipment...something's going to go wrong.

Testify wrote:
You could say the same thing about pretty much every RTS game ever made. Look at the release version of warcraft 3, or dawn of war. The only ones that ARE balanced are boring, for good reason. You can mathematically balance a system easily, but it'd be boring as hell and lack any fun whatsoever. If you want to balance something AND make it fun to play, you have to playtest it thousands, tens of thousands of times, which is impractical. They also playtest in a "casual" environment, rather than playing with dicks who're trying to win by whatever means possible. It's not GW's fault if you choose to play with such people.

These are both poor arguments.

First, it is hard to mathematically balance everything, but you don't need to mathematically balance everything, just a reasonable amount. And, by doing so, you also cut down on the playtest requirements. Neither option alone is a good one, but together, they actually complement each other fairly well.

No one is expecting 100% accuracy or perfection. But missing the blatantly obvious things seems that they're not trying.

As for the 'choose to play with such people' argument: Well, first of all, there's nothing inherently wrong with playing a game to win a game. We're not talking about cheaters, we're talking about people who read a few rules interactions and formed a combo. But, secondly, we don't always choose who we get to play with. If you're playing at a game store, you're matched with whoever shows up to play. If you're at a torunament, you play against whoever you're paired with. If rules allow asshattery, then it is the rules that are at fault.

Yodhrin wrote:
Except that it does. If you emphasise competitive play in the rules, then you will get more competitive players. If you emphasise narrative play, you will get more narrative players.

Do you have any data to back up this assertion? No. You're got one example. WotC has done an excellent job in making a game that allows for competitive play, and yet appeals to the casual gamer. There are more casual MtG players than competitive ones, and their rules are designed to support competitive play. There are plenty of games that are written tightly enough for competitive play, and yet have thousands of casual fans. Settlers of Catan, Scrabble, even Boggle....

..., just as it is correct to say that making 40K more competitive would sacrifice the options which make it such a useful narrative gaming ruleset in order to provide the tighter, more focused rules that competitive gamers want for tournaments.

Hardly. A good start would be getting rid of unbalanced random effects. Different psychic powers have different effects and strengths than others. Yet they're determined randomly in 6th. Why don't you randomly roll for your squad upgrade weapons too? Some powers are just better. If I get a better power and you get a worse power, we're no longer playing on an even playing field. If I have to pay 10 more points than you to have that better power, well, now there's actually a tradeoff. But it's hard to assign point values and easy to write a random table. So GW took the easy way out, resulting in games that will be won because one player rolled an awesome power and another didn't. And this is what they're pushing as "fun".

Yodhrin wrote:
"I don't like what they do, so that means they're incompetent."

Really mature

Redbeard wrote:

Testify wrote:
You could say the same thing about pretty much every RTS game ever made. Look at the release version of warcraft 3, or dawn of war. The only ones that ARE balanced are boring, for good reason. You can mathematically balance a system easily, but it'd be boring as hell and lack any fun whatsoever. If you want to balance something AND make it fun to play, you have to playtest it thousands, tens of thousands of times, which is impractical. They also playtest in a "casual" environment, rather than playing with dicks who're trying to win by whatever means possible. It's not GW's fault if you choose to play with such people.

These are both poor arguments.

First, it is hard to mathematically balance everything, but you don't need to mathematically balance everything, just a reasonable amount. And, by doing so, you also cut down on the playtest requirements. Neither option alone is a good one, but together, they actually complement each other fairly well.

Only possible if you drastically reduce the number of variables in the game. So tell me, what special rules would you get rid of? What aspects of the game would you remove?

Redbeard wrote:
No one is expecting 100% accuracy or perfection. But missing the blatantly obvious things seems that they're not trying.

It's not blatently obvious at all. Blatently obvious would be an error in the BS table. What "blatently obvious" things are you talking about, that YOU immediately spotted but that evaded professional games developers during a 2 year long development process?

Redbeard wrote:
As for the 'choose to play with such people' argument: Well, first of all, there's nothing inherently wrong with playing a game to win a game. We're not talking about cheaters, we're talking about people who read a few rules interactions and formed a combo. But, secondly, we don't always choose who we get to play with. If you're playing at a game store, you're matched with whoever shows up to play. If you're at a torunament, you play against whoever you're paired with. If rules allow asshattery, then it is the rules that are at fault.

No because you're choosing to play the game in a way that isn't intended to be played. A random guy at the game store is one thing, tournaments are another.

Sephyr wrote: That's quite a fallacy. It's like saying McDonalds is _obviously_ a finer meal than your local fine fancy burger establishment, because look how many people eat there every day and come back for more!

Maybe the claim is that the product isn't necessarily better, but the business making decisions of the company have been better than previous/current miniature/games companies.

Because it's true, other companies have arisen to steal GWs thunder, but many have failed miserably. Only PP and maybe Battlefront have weathered on over the years. At my FLGS there was a surge in interest in WM/H but now the play group has stabilized with no real signs of growth. The shop owners have started to grumble about things like slow selling Battle Engines and Colossals. Yes 40k remains a stable source of income for them.

Ailaros wrote:If GW were really so terrible and everybody else were really so awesome, why hasn't 40k been taken over by other games? To me, this is disproof of said hypothesis.

You are aware that GW's sales volumes have been shrinking for the last five years or so, yes? It's all in their shareholders' reports.

Ailaros wrote:Yes, people now talk about infinity and malifaux, but a few years ago, everybody was talking about confrontation and AT49 and heroclix, and who plays those anymore? Not as many people as play 40k, not by a long shot.

Malifaux and Warmachine have both been around since 2003, Infinity since 2006, and all three continue to grow in popularity; indeed according to IGN, Warmachine recently overtook Warhammer Fantasy in popularity.

Ailaros wrote:40k, despite its imperfect rules set, is still the best game with the most players and the best minis. That's why people play it.

It embarrasses me even to have to explain why 'most popular' doesn't equate to 'best'... and seriously, if you think that grotesquely-proportioned, skull-encrusted models riddled with air bubbles are somehow the peak of miniature-making, then I presume you've never looked at (much less painted) anything by Studio McVey or CMON.

Ailaros wrote:hat's why you're on a 40k forum for goodness sake. Whining about it is just that - whining.

It is of course a condition of playing 40k that we must all suspend our critical faculties, and that any and all disappointment with the game is just 'whining'. It would be easy for me to label you an uncritical fanboy, but rather than throwing around ad hominem insults, why don't you try to engage constructively with some of the criticisms made in this thread?

Testify wrote:
if you drastically reduce the number of variables in the game. So tell me, what special rules would you get rid of? What aspects of the game would you remove?
...
It's not blatently obvious at all. Blatently obvious would be an error in the BS table. What "blatently obvious" things are you talking about, that YOU immediately spotted but that evaded professional games developers during a 2 year long development process?

It's not all about removing. But, one good example here, would be that you set up terrain and objectives prior to picking table sides.

The way things are written now, there is no incentive to create a balanced table or a balanced mission. Terrain density allows for quite a few tricks during terrain placement, and whenever there are an odd number of objectives, one player can distribute them to create an obvious example. If you pciked table sides after setup, there would be an incentive to make the terrain more reasonable for both players and you'd want to place the objectives so that you'd have an even chance of getting to them regardless of what side you're on.

Redbeard wrote:
No because you're choosing to play the game in a way that isn't intended to be played. A random guy at the game store is one thing, tournaments are another.

Right, because GW doesn't sanction tournaments.

I think it's clear gw doesn't care about competative play. The new rules are a good indication of this, but the better evidence is what GW says.

GW has always said they are a model company not a game company. Translation we make toys not a board game. Whe. You make toys your goal is to sell more toys and creat an environment where the buyers think there toys are cool and plays with them. Thus the rules are just a way to help people play with their toys. The brb basically acknowledges this when it tells you go a head and make up your own rules if you want. What is their concern? Have fun playing with your toy (so you will buy more of them).

If they thought of themselves as a game company the rules would reflect that mind set. They would be extensively tested to achieve balance and tactical depth. Why do people play monopoly after 80 years because the rules are simple/well balanced and every game is different based on the person you play.

Sephyr wrote:That's quite a fallacy. It's like saying McDonalds is _obviously_ a finer meal

I said "better", not "finer".

I've gotten a decent amount of happiness from McDonalds in the few handfuls of times I've eaten there over the past years. I've gotten no happiness whatsoever from Les Halles. The latter has critically acclaimed food, while McDonalds doesn't. The fact is, though, that I've actually been able to eat at McDonalds, and I haven't at Les Halles. Therefore, in real terms, McDonalds has done better for me than any fancy french restaurant.

Which is something that people very, very easily overlook. Aesthetics is fine, and one can make a variety of judgements along these lines. In the real world, though, you've got to look at actions, not words. In action, people buy 40k minis and play 40k. It is therefore, empirically, better.

Redbeard wrote:Miniature wargaming has a similar lock-in effect. 40k, despite its imperfect rules set, is still the game with the most players.

So? The means by which people get the most enjoyment, over all, doesn't change the fact that the most people get the most enjoyment from it.

Redbeard wrote:But, having the largest market share gives them a solid foothold, regardless of whether the rules are good or bad. Just like Facebook.

But come on. Alta Vista used to be the biggest search engine, and google slaughtered it in a matter of a year or two. Apple used to have 100% of the market share of PCs, and in less than a decade they nearly went bankrupt. I can think of countless examples of old companies being beaten out by new, better ones.

If something is really better, it will outcompete something that's worse, even if it has a larger market share.

English Assassin wrote:
Malifaux and Warmachine have both been around since 2003, Infinity since 2006, and all three continue to grow in popularity; indeed according to IGN, Warmachine recently overtook Warhammer Fantasy in popularity.

All the companies you mentioned are privately owned and it is difficult to ascertain how well they are actually doing. Can you link the article from IGN that says WM is doing better than WHFB? I'd like to see how they determined which game is doing better.

Zoned wrote:

English Assassin wrote:
Malifaux and Warmachine have both been around since 2003, Infinity since 2006, and all three continue to grow in popularity; indeed according to IGN, Warmachine recently overtook Warhammer Fantasy in popularity.

All the companies you mentioned are privately owned and it is difficult to ascertain how well they are actually doing. Can you link the article from IGN that says WM is doing better than WHFB? I'd like to see how they determined which game is doing better.

Frankly I find that claim laughable. There are dozens of GWs in the UK, everyone has heard of them. They are firmly entrenched in the nerd mindset. I hadn't heard of warmachines 'til I joined dakka, and, quite frankly, it looks like gak

Ailaros wrote:
But come on. Alta Vista used to be the biggest search engine, and google slaughtered it in a matter of a year or two. Apple used to have 100% of the market share of PCs, and in less than a decade they nearly went bankrupt. I can think of countless examples of old companies being beaten out by new, better ones.

If something is really better, it will outcompete something that's worse, even if it has a larger market share.

It's not about market share, it's about the barrier to change. Alta Vista vs Google? Okay, what lock-in effect did Alta Vista have? What does Google have? NONE. People might need to change the url they type for a search. But, with social things, like games, market share is a barrier to change.

Game companies have a lock-in. You've already paid for and painted a bunch of figures. To switch games, you need to re-buy everything. And, you have to convince your friends to do the same. Games are social, you're not operating in a vacuum. Your choice isn't something you make alone, there's a dependency on other people. Hence, why my example was Facebook, and why Goggle has been having massive issues displacing them, despite two or three attempts, with better software.

Testify wrote:

Zoned wrote:

English Assassin wrote:
Malifaux and Warmachine have both been around since 2003, Infinity since 2006, and all three continue to grow in popularity; indeed according to IGN, Warmachine recently overtook Warhammer Fantasy in popularity.

All the companies you mentioned are privately owned and it is difficult to ascertain how well they are actually doing. Can you link the article from IGN that says WM is doing better than WHFB? I'd like to see how they determined which game is doing better.

Frankly I find that claim laughable. There are dozens of GWs in the UK, everyone has heard of them. They are firmly entrenched in the nerd mindset. I hadn't heard of warmachines 'til I joined dakka, and, quite frankly, it looks like gak

And GW's presence in other countries is just as ubiquitous is it? Erm, no.

Redbeard wrote:
The way things are written now, there is no incentive to create a balanced table or a balanced mission. Terrain density allows for quite a few tricks during terrain placement, and whenever there are an odd number of objectives, one player can distribute them to create an obvious example. If you pciked table sides after setup, there would be an incentive to make the terrain more reasonable for both players and you'd want to place the objectives so that you'd have an even chance of getting to them regardless of what side you're on.

If you want to create a balanced table, make one. And if you want to do "tricks" with the terrain placement, then you're a WAAC.
Honestly, do you complain to blizzard about WOW being broken because it doesn't force other players to be nice to you?



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Grimtuff wrote:
And GW's presence in other countries is just as ubiquitous is it? Erm, no.

Oh no, I deeply care about the tabletop toy market in Equatorial Guinea, it keeps me awake at night.

Testify wrote:

Grimtuff wrote:
And GW's presence in other countries is just as ubiquitous is it? Erm, no.

Oh no, I deeply care about the tabletop toy market in Equatorial Guinea, it keeps me awake at night.

Obvious strawman is obvious.

Try again and not be a dick about it. Look at the North American distribution of GW. Hell, even in continental Europe. GW may be the one and only over here in Blighty, but overseas their presence is next to nothing.

adamsouza wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote: Care to elaborate? Not meant to be amusing tbh (the rest) but not sure what you mean, post, signature?

I did not find your sarcastic post amusing, but I did enjoy your sig.

I ussualy don't post in such manner directed at others (except GW, JP Morgan, McDonalds, Haliburton etc) and don't like others doing so, was heavily drunk after a bad day as my friend is close to death in the hospital and there was a lot crucial decision making. So more of giving vent than trying to be witty I guess, sorry for the tone.

Testify wrote:If you want to balance something AND make it fun to play, you have to playtest it thousands, tens of thousands of times, which is impractical

Kind of their job... this is the most expensive game I've ever spent my money on, I can't get my head around such arguments made for GW.

Yodhrin wrote:

Vaktathi wrote:A quick note, having a tight, well written ruleset that works for a competitive scene doesn't take away from "fun/casual/fluff/scenario" games or gamers...

Except that it does. If you emphasise competitive play in the rules, then you will get more competitive players. If you emphasise narrative play, you will get more narrative players.

Except it doesn't. There's imense fluff already and competitive games are narrative as well. Tabled in second turn? "The only thing staying between the unstopable Hive Fleet Papadopoulos led by the standard Hive Tyrant nr 2165 and the 500 bilion population planet was Marneus Augustus Calgar with his men. For the first time in his life, for a tiniest observable part of second a shade of doubt shone in the eye of the God of War, just after seeing the deadly genestealers approaching the mighty Terminators he ordered to stay as close as possible to the hill in between them and enemy " I'm not good at English enough but you can write a book before getting to assault phase of the first turn, in the end it's just a story of a decesive win. Up to this point it wouldn't contain a snake eating a space marrine in the forest but does a good war story really need that?

And yes for people who want a narrative overload there are rpgs. This is a wargame, is advertised as such maybe they should split it to two games or maybe they should make a section of core rules and add another narrative one building up on that core. The core should be a proper balanced wargame ruleset suited for competitive play, other than that what's the point of FoC, points, and stretched to extreme, rulebook. I can make up rules for narrative game in 30 minutes just as for a quick rpg session if the outcome of the battle is less important than a story told.

Yodhrin wrote:... just as it is correct to say that making 40K more competitive would sacrifice the options which make it such a useful narrative gaming ruleset in order to provide the tighter, more focused rules that competitive gamers want for tournaments.

Could you give an example of potential options to sacrifice? Because I think making the game competitive does not require removing options, just more options mean more work to balance them. Maybe we think about other things though.

Yodhrin wrote:And good for them, they've been trying to pretend that they are all things to all gamers for several editions now, and the result were rules that didn't work particularly well for either crowd.

I think this is exactly what 6th edition is because if this is all about forging a narrative, why the ridiculous Look Out Sir explanation? That is only instigating laughs at my table so maybe GW meant a good comedy... It is not what I want as a wargame, it is not what I want as adventure/ wargame hybrid, it's just not a good ruleset. It's not bad to the point of leaving the game but mediocore and somehow dissapointing imo, especialy seeing the art design and thinking what if they cared that much for the rules.

Grimtuff wrote:

Testify wrote:

Grimtuff wrote:
And GW's presence in other countries is just as ubiquitous is it? Erm, no.

Oh no, I deeply care about the tabletop toy market in Equatorial Guinea, it keeps me awake at night.

Obvious strawman is obvious.

Try again and not be a dick about it. Look at the North American distribution of GW. Hell, even in continental Europe. GW may be the one and only over here in Blighty, but overseas their presence is next to nothing.

Is that why the warmachine section on dakka is so much bigger than the 40k section? GW are the most popular tabletop model game by far, I've no idea why people insist on denying it.

See, it's a disagreement of the term "better" here. You could choose to make the distinction based on aesthetics (which, as a some-time game designer, I could certainly enter a discussion, myself), but I don't think that any particular person's aesthetics are the way to determine quality here.

To me, the best game is the one that gives the most enjoyment to the most people. In this case, regardless of barriers to entry or stickiness or whatever, 40k wins. More people get more enjoyment than from anything else.

And that's something I think game critics miss when they really, really shouldn't. However much a game is superior by aesthetics, if it doesn't give more enjoyment, it doesn't matter if it was "better designed" or not. What's important is how many people have fun playing it.

For example Civilization 5 is a "better" game for a lot of reasons (better balanced combat system, better integrated economic model, etc.), but it's just not as fun as Civilization 3, where I got to spam the hell out of samurai and blow up the world. Regardless of principles of game design, whatever is fun, in the world of games, is better. Perhaps game designers should have less pretense with regard to their art...

This has all borne out in the market, of course. Lots of games have popped up, and lots of people have given them a decent try. In the end, they're back to playing 40k.

That's what matters.

Plumbumbarum wrote:
Kind of their job... this is the most expensive game I've ever spent my money on, I can't get my head around such arguments made for GW.

If your standards mean that any imperfection whatsoever in unacceptable, then fine. GW can't delay the release of a ruleset for years on end in order to find relatively small glitches. All productions have to balance between glitch-finding and release schedules.

Testify wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:
Kind of their job... this is the most expensive game I've ever spent my money on, I can't get my head around such arguments made for GW.

If your standards mean that any imperfection whatsoever in unacceptable, then fine. GW can't delay the release of a ruleset for years on end in order to find relatively small glitches. All productions have to balance between glitch-finding and release schedules.

Any imperfection... did you read the rulebook by any chance? Some blogs put elaborate articles to make the rules clear, I play tones of various boargames and the rules in 40K are poorly written, in my opinion mediocore, prone to abuse, ridiculous in explanations etc. Perfection is not possible and unnecessary here it's not work safety rules or sth, I want proper, balanced, tactical wargame with clear rules that are not exactly realistic maybe but at least making sense. 5th edition wound alocation example comes to mind, with one hormangaunt visible and after him being shot the others coming near him checking if he's fine and dying one after another.

As for 40K being on top, it has best fluff and incredibly visualised, the pinnacle of ripping off and merging all the great themes around and making them better.

Testify wrote:
If you want to create a balanced table, make one. And if you want to do "tricks" with the terrain placement, then you're a WAAC.

I disagree. The rules encourage you to layout the terrain in a manner most advantageous to you. From page 120:

If you're the using alternating terrain method you shouldn't worry about setting up the scenery on the board in such a way that it suits your army. All the greatest generals carefully select the locations where they fight so that it favours their own army and hinders their opponent's. So, if you were the commander of a Tyranid assault swarm, you should think of placing plenty of scenery in your half of the table to block the opponent's lines of sight and provide cover, while the commander of an Imperial Guard tank force might decide to set up very sparse terrain, to maximize their fields of fire.

You're actually encouraged to make the terrain as advantageous as possible. I guess following the designers intent is now considered WAAC?

Honestly, do you complain to blizzard about WOW being broken because it doesn't force other players to be nice to you?

I don't play Blizzard games. But, even if I did, it's a different beast entirely. Playing a one vs one (or two v two) game, the goal is to win. How do you win at WOW? Winning is not an objective in a MMORPG. (In fact, the objective, from Blizzard's POV is to get you addicted so you keep shelling out cash month after month, but that's another issue).


You have a real problem making an objective assessment of the game. You keep relying on slurs and insults (WAAC) to make this personal. But I guess that's because the objective facts are that the game design is lacking, and the only way to justify it is to shift the blame to the players who don't play how you think they should.

Yodhrin wrote:

Vaktathi wrote:A quick note, having a tight, well written ruleset that works for a competitive scene doesn't take away from "fun/casual/fluff/scenario" games or gamers...

Except that it does. If you emphasise competitive play in the rules, then you will get more competitive players.

Not necessarily true at all. I can think of plenty of games where this isn't the case. Heavy Gear, Firestorm Armada, Flames of War, etc. I've pointed out why a balanced ruleset helps everyone. There are ways to have wackiness and scenario driven gameplay and even mis-matched forces balance out, Heavy Gear does it quite nicely. For instance, you may be playing a game on planet empty-sand-dunes, or in a town at night in the middle of a corrosive sandstorm, with one side playing a special ops force with elite troops and heavy firepower that has to quickly annihilate everything, the other a rear echelon 2nd line reserve element that merely has to live long enough to get out a message and get a scan of a couple of the enemy machines.

If you emphasise narrative play, you will get more narrative players. Look at Warmachine;

Warmachine is a game where it is entirely geared toward the same kind of mindset as the competitive Magic CCG crowd, games can have competitive rulesets and not be geared toward that market. Just because Warmachine is like that doesn't mean all games written with balance in mind are like that. Warmachine is a single game out of dozens in the tabletop world.

And good for them, they've been trying to pretend that they are all things to all gamers for several editions now, and the result were rules that didn't work particularly well for either crowd.

And yet other games seem to be capable of it.

"I don't like what they do, so that means they're incompetent."

Really mature

To be fair, they have a point. Allessio didn't get his job because he had any game design or experience or a knack for it, got hired because he could translate text and because he placed well at several tournaments and got to know some people at GW. Gav Thorpe didn't have any game design experience either when he started but wrote fluff. One will notice that at many other game companies, the employees and designers typically have experience elsewhere in some sort of capacity before joining, at GW this is very much the opposite case. Then we end up with armies that consistently have units nobody takes and others that people routinely take, and are noticed immediately by 90% of the playerbase as soon as they open the book, we have rules ambiguities that go on for entire editions or more and often never get addressed or only get addressed in the most evasive manner while irrelevant questions get a full paragraph of FAQ text, etc.

Ailaros wrote:Every time someone compares GW to other game companies, though, I've got to chuckle.

If GW were really so terrible and everybody else were really so awesome, why hasn't 40k been taken over by other games? To me, this is disproof of said hypothesis.

Yes, people now talk about infinity and malifaux, but a few years ago, everybody was talking about confrontation and AT49 and heroclix, and who plays those anymore? Not as many people as play 40k, not by a long shot.

40k, despite its imperfect rules set, is still the best game with the most players and the best minis. That's why people play it. That's why you're on a 40k forum for goodness sake. Whining about it is just that - whining.

40k has several advantages that are longstanding and unique. First, they're a UK company that escaped the annihilation of the US tabletop market in the late 80's/early 90's when Hasbro bought up half the companies in the market and subsequently nearly killed off the hobby. This allowed them to rise to the top where they were merely one amongst many before. This has given them a market position and visibility that others simply cannot match or ever hope to overcome any time soon.

Their IP is the second thing. They really do have a very cool IP in the 40k universe, they've pretty much included all the cool aspects from every other IP and dialed it up to 11. 40k's IP is GW's most valuable asset and they know this. And to be fair, it's pretty much 40k that keeps GW afloat, Warmachine already outsells Warhammer Fantasy and the Tolkien games combined.

GW also didn't really cost any more than most others until recently, so that wasn't an issue, but that's rapidly changing as GW increases their prices at double to triple the rate of inflation and army sizes creep ever upwards.

As for other games, I never once witnessed a game of AT-43 and only one of Heroclix, never saw much discussion aside from "That looks cool!". We have running Infinity and Malifaux leagues now at my FLGS and far more interest than anyone ever showed in either of those two other games. From a personal perspective, a couple years ago 40k and Fantasy were the only games in town with the rare Warmachine event. Now we've got half a dozen other games in routine play with 40k simply being the largest amongst many and Fantasy being no larger than anything else as opposed to being the only games around.


And just because GW the biggest doesn't mean they are the best, correlation and causation and all that.

Vaktathi wrote:First, they're a UK company that escaped the annihilation of the US tabletop market in the late 80's/early 90's when Hasbro bought up half the companies in the market and subsequently nearly killed off the hobby.

Actually, this is an important point. For those saying that GW is winning only because it's big, look at what happened to battletech. Battletech was THE game to play, with GW-esque amounts of merchandize in local stores, with local gaming nights. It also had tons of fluff, an expanding rules system and player base, and a large, expanding line of miniatures.

By all rights, if bigger systems naturally guaranteed that they would continue by sheer means of their size, then the utter implosion, neigh-disappearance, and ultimate sale to Hasbro wouldn't make any sense at all.

Put short, if a large game system put out by a large game company can be beaten if it isn't doing a good enough job. GW isn't still the biggest purely because they're the biggest.

So red beard, you seem to have all the answers...GW being so inept.

I want specific examples of how you would fix the game, including army balance. I want you to mention exact things here, no nebulous cop-outs and dissembling. Tell me the blatantly obvious things they're missing.

I want you to explain how the game should function without random elements, up to and including:

-terrain placement (random, can't be planned for until you come to the table)
-opponent's army and unit selection (random, can't be planned for until you come to the table)
-Also, how should we play without dice, being a random element intrinsic to the game and what not.

And please stay away from opinions dressed up as fact, stating things are objective does not make them so, and if you want to pull out the 15yrs experience stuff we're gonna' need a resume or something.

But what's the point? There's no way to compare any given opinions to any objective standard.

How do we know that the opinions of any game designer, you me or redbeard are actually good or not?

Internet consensus.

If there is whining, you probably did ok.

If there is no whining, you did awsome. Or there was a zombie appocalypse and nobody can get to their PC.

If there is tons and tons and tons of whining, its probably Warseer.