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Now, a lot of this could have been avoided if GW had a players organization, where everybody has a registered number for tournament and campaign play, and a staff that works to organize play. In fact, that organization could also issue FAQs, coordinate tournaments, and even playtest and distribute new scenarios.

But that contradicts GW's philosophy that nobody buys their stuff because they want to play the game.

Polonius wrote:Now, a lot of this could have been avoided if GW had a players organization, where everybody has a registered number for tournament and campaign play, and a staff that works to organize play. In fact, that organization could also issue FAQs, coordinate tournaments, and even playtest and distribute new scenarios.

But that contradicts GW's philosophy that nobody buys their stuff because they want to play the game.

Are you kidding me?

People don't even want to register on the GW website to access their downloads section. I don't see them doing anything but whining about having to join a "players' organization".

Hah, i remember when the manchester store held a massive campaign day, they had a table shaped like a giant X setup. in the middle was a large industrial complex type building there was a road that ran from one end of one arm to another and the other arms were mixed terrain.

out of the building poured forth more Genestealers then i have ever seen in one room in my life, hybrids galore a magus a broodlord and allsorts of commandeered tanks and whatnot.
on each arm of the X there was a space marine force, Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Space Wolves and Ultramarines.

Quite possibly one of the most awesome games ever.

Kanluwen wrote:

Pacific wrote:I presume you were a force of order player Kanluwen? You have to see how that was extremely entertaining from the other side of the fence.

The point was, not everyone followed what the Triad were doing, but it was made easier by the complete ineptitude of trying to make any kind of organisation on the side of Order. So many order players kept posting wins on worlds/systems which were practically impossible to capture, no matter how many wins were spammed at that location. It didn't take a genius to work out that there was some kind of system in place to that effect, even though the Triad eventually worked out such a system exactly I think many players were already on the right track with it.

And it still was bollocks, frankly. The Triad didn't "work out a system".
They exploited the game mechanics to their own end, and told their side exactly how to use those mechanics.

Hey man no need to go on the defensive, it was years ago now, no one was killed :(

There was a 'system', some systems were vastly easier to capture than others. Essentially, some systems (such as Cadia) were impossible to capture directly.
By studying the effects of wins posted against different sectors, and the change of % ownership, they were able to work out which system would be most effective to post wins against.
Without getting into arguments of semantics, that sounds like 'working out a system' to me.
Something which the order side failed to do - the people who actually had made similar calculations themselves (I can't remember them exactly, but it wasn't something you worked out in 5 minutes over a bowl of cereal, there was some serious statistics involved) and were trying to preach reason to the direction of the attacks were drowned out by dozens of people all shouting that they knew best, and their voices were lost.
Like I said the exception to this was the Eldar, and I think they alone had significant success on the order side as they followed a more disciplined approach, and no doubt the same system as the forces of disorder.

I like the fact that someone actually worked it out, rather than just spam results against impossible targets. I can see your point about it seeming a little ridiculous, but I think if looked at from a certain perspective you can see the logic.
- The Imperium threw army after army towards an impossible victory (essentially an analogy of the 40k universe). The high lords of Terra bickering over who should go where and do what. Meanwhile, agents of chaos had infiltrated positions of power to effect those orders, or else intercepted and prevented transmissions. The enigmatic eldar were able to make gains, their farseers having ordained the future (perhaps you could argue Abaddon had used his sorcerors to similar effect?)

I think if GW had wanted to advance the storyline and destroyed Cadia, and not got cold feet once the result started to become clear, they could have done so with a sound basis in the results.

Pacific wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:

Pacific wrote:I presume you were a force of order player Kanluen? You have to see how that was extremely entertaining from the other side of the fence.

The point was, not everyone followed what the Triad were doing, but it was made easier by the complete ineptitude of trying to make any kind of organisation on the side of Order. So many order players kept posting wins on worlds/systems which were practically impossible to capture, no matter how many wins were spammed at that location. It didn't take a genius to work out that there was some kind of system in place to that effect, even though the Triad eventually worked out such a system exactly I think many players were already on the right track with it.

And it still was bollocks, frankly. The Triad didn't "work out a system".
They exploited the game mechanics to their own end, and told their side exactly how to use those mechanics.

Hey man no need to go on the defensive, it was years ago now, no one was killed :(

There was a 'system', some systems were vastly easier to capture than others. Essentially, some systems (such aCadia) were impossible to capture directly.
By studying the effects of wins posted against different sectors, and the change of % ownership, they were able to work out which system would be most effective to post wins against.
Without getting into arguments of semantics, that sounds like 'working out a system' to me.
Something which the order side failed to do - the people who actually had made similar calculations themselves (I can't remember them exactly, but it wasn't something you worked out in 5 minutes over a bowl of cereal, there was some serious statistics involved) and were trying to preach reason to the direction of the attacks were drowned out by dozens of people all shouting that they knew best, and their voices were lost.
Like I said the exception to this was the Elder, and I think they alone had significant success on the order side as they followed a more disciplined approach, and no doubt the same system as the forces of disorder.

I like the fact that someone actually worked it out, rather than just spam results against impossible targets. I can see your point about it seeming a little ridiculous, but I think if looked at from a certain perspective you can see the logic.
- The Imperium threw army after army towards an impossible victory (essentially an analogy of the 40k universe). The high lords of Terra bickering over who should go where and do what. Meanwhile, agents of chaos had infiltrated positions of power to effect those orders, or else intercepted and prevented transmissions. The enigmatic eldar were able to make gains, their farseers having ordained the future (perhaps you could argue Abaddon had used his sorcerer's to similar effect?)

I think if GW had wanted to advance the storyline and destroyed Cadia, and not got cold feet once the result started to become clear, they could have done so with a sound basis in the results.

I believe many people knew going into the campaign that GW wasn't even going to consider allowing major changes to occur in the Cadian sector and that attacks posted there would ultimately be a bit pointless.
That was the primary reason our group opted to post in Scarus and not throw in with the Forces of Disorder that were concentrating on Cadia.

Pacific wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:

Pacific wrote:I presume you were a force of order player Kanluwen? You have to see how that was extremely entertaining from the other side of the fence.

The point was, not everyone followed what the Triad were doing, but it was made easier by the complete ineptitude of trying to make any kind of organisation on the side of Order. So many order players kept posting wins on worlds/systems which were practically impossible to capture, no matter how many wins were spammed at that location. It didn't take a genius to work out that there was some kind of system in place to that effect, even though the Triad eventually worked out such a system exactly I think many players were already on the right track with it.

And it still was bollocks, frankly. The Triad didn't "work out a system".
They exploited the game mechanics to their own end, and told their side exactly how to use those mechanics.

Hey man no need to go on the defensive, it was years ago now, no one was killed :(

There was a 'system', some systems were vastly easier to capture than others. Essentially, some systems (such as Cadia) were impossible to capture directly.
By studying the effects of wins posted against different sectors, and the change of % ownership, they were able to work out which system would be most effective to post wins against.
Without getting into arguments of semantics, that sounds like 'working out a system' to me.
Something which the order side failed to do - the people who actually had made similar calculations themselves (I can't remember them exactly, but it wasn't something you worked out in 5 minutes over a bowl of cereal, there was some serious statistics involved) and were trying to preach reason to the direction of the attacks were drowned out by dozens of people all shouting that they knew best, and their voices were lost.
Like I said the exception to this was the Eldar, and I think they alone had significant success on the order side as they followed a more disciplined approach, and no doubt the same system as the forces of disorder.

And that's another problem to me, frankly.
Why the hell were people working out "serious statistics" for a bloody game?

I like the fact that someone actually worked it out, rather than just spam results against impossible targets. I can see your point about it seeming a little ridiculous, but I think if looked at from a certain perspective you can see the logic.
- The Imperium threw army after army towards an impossible victory (essentially an analogy of the 40k universe). The high lords of Terra bickering over who should go where and do what. Meanwhile, agents of chaos had infiltrated positions of power to effect those orders, or else intercepted and prevented transmissions. The enigmatic eldar were able to make gains, their farseers having ordained the future (perhaps you could argue Abaddon had used his sorcerors to similar effect?)

There's 12 High Lords of Terra, not 1500+ first off
And there's no feasible fluffy way "agents of Chaos" would have been highly placed enough to affect orders that are deemed as coming from the Emperor himself.

I think if GW had wanted to advance the storyline and destroyed Cadia, and not got cold feet once the result started to become clear, they could have done so with a sound basis in the results.

And again: Abaddon's goal was never to destroy Cadia. Doing that would have gained him nothing, and in fact would have damaged his ability to make an organized war effort against the Imperium as a whole.

You know how the sector's called "The Cadian Gate"? It doesn't specifically apply to Cadia. It was established in the Eisenhorn books previously that the whole thing that makes "The Cadian Gate" important is the artifacts on the surface of Cadia that effectively stabilizes the massive warpstorms surrounding the Eye of Terror and allows for Abaddon and the other forces of Chaos hiding within the Eye to transit to/from the Warp in large organized efforts to strike at the Imperium.

Kanluwen wrote:

Polonius wrote:Now, a lot of this could have been avoided if GW had a players organization, where everybody has a registered number for tournament and campaign play, and a staff that works to organize play. In fact, that organization could also issue FAQs, coordinate tournaments, and even playtest and distribute new scenarios.

But that contradicts GW's philosophy that nobody buys their stuff because they want to play the game.

Are you kidding me?

People don't even want to register on the GW website to access their downloads section. I don't see them doing anything but whining about having to join a "players' organization".

What Polonius has basically said is 'GW should adopt PP's structured campaign system'.

What Kanluwen basically replied is 'It'll never work'.

PP's structured campaign system does indeed work, and many are the threads organizing faction players and coordinating attacks against strategic assets/territories when the campaign is a-rolling.

Innovation requires a little optimism from the onset.

sourclams wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:

Polonius wrote:Now, a lot of this could have been avoided if GW had a players organization, where everybody has a registered number for tournament and campaign play, and a staff that works to organize play. In fact, that organization could also issue FAQs, coordinate tournaments, and even playtest and distribute new scenarios.

But that contradicts GW's philosophy that nobody buys their stuff because they want to play the game.

Are you kidding me?

People don't even want to register on the GW website to access their downloads section. I don't see them doing anything but whining about having to join a "players' organization".

What Polonius has basically said is 'GW should adopt PP's structured campaign system'.

What Kanluwen basically replied is 'It'll never work'.

PP's structured campaign system does indeed work, and many are the threads organizing faction players and coordinating attacks against strategic assets/territories when the campaign is a-rolling.

Innovation requires a little optimism from the onset.

Uh no actually, that's not what I replied.

What I "basically replied" is that, given how much crying comes from the GW playerbase to begin with--anything that they view as "mandatory" will be an exercise in futility.

I always thought the End Times and the 13th Crusade were dumb ideas for summer campaigns anyway. Both are the abyss that the game story teeters on the edge of. Any player controlled campaign is going to be a narratively unsatisfying anticlimax, because both events should have ended the status quo in the game world entirely.GW were never going to do that, and if they did, they definitely shouldn't do it through a player controlled mechanism. 3rd War for Armageddon was a good idea for a campaign, the weakpoint of it was that it didn't involve every faction equally. Likewise, Medusa had the opposite problem of seeming like a giant clusterfeth because every single race happened to meet for a fight on one planet. I still thought it was a pretty good campaign though.
The other problem with those two is, once you've done them and failed to follow through properly (which you pretty much have to do) the playerbase sort of lose faith in the idea of storyline effecting campaigns. Nothing is ever as big a deal as the Apocolypse.
The other issues (cost tp profit ratio, people whinging about books not being supported, limited dev time being devoted to getting books out rather than stuff like this) are probably the reasons why they don't do it anymore, but that end of it has always bugged me, anyhow.

Kanluwen wrote:

Polonius wrote:Now, a lot of this could have been avoided if GW had a players organization, where everybody has a registered number for tournament and campaign play, and a staff that works to organize play. In fact, that organization could also issue FAQs, coordinate tournaments, and even playtest and distribute new scenarios.

But that contradicts GW's philosophy that nobody buys their stuff because they want to play the game.

Are you kidding me?

People don't even want to register on the GW website to access their downloads section. I don't see them doing anything but whining about having to join a "players' organization".

yeah, but they'd still sign up. And given I just read two pages of whining about the lack of verification for the last campaign, at least some people will be happy. People on the internet would complain about having to go to the strip club to get a free lap dance. That doesn't limit how awesome it is for those that do.

It'll make campaigns better for those that want to be involved while those that don't won't need to register.


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Kanluwen wrote:

sourclams wrote:What Kanluwen basically replied is 'It'll never work'.

Uh no actually, that's not what I replied.

What I "basically replied" is that, given how much crying comes from the GW playerbase to begin with--anything that they view as "mandatory" will be an exercise in futility.

Some day you'll have to explain how "exercise in futility" is substantially different from "it'lll never work." Or even different enough to argue.

Regardless, neither is what you originally said, which is that people will whine about it. Success or failure wasn't part of the original quote.

I think if a company can raise prices 20% every other year and retain a player base, it can probably ask for an email, home address, and full name to fully participate in global campaigns.

I loved the old Third War for Armageddon campaign. The idea that there was this huge war going on and you were a small part of it really made the casual games quite a bit more fun.

GW should definitely go back to doing these, preferably keep them going almost constantly. They don't have to be for planets or sectors that significantly impact the fluff. They can be over previously-unheard of hunks of rock.

And, of course the results are going to be skewed by fake reports and stuff like that. But, so what? It's still a cool idea, and no different than anything else on the internet

Asuron wrote:Ahoy all
Recently I've been mulling over the experiences I had with GW when I was growing up and one of them was the instore campaigns they used to have.
Out of interest I was wondering if you could perhaps share you experiences with them and the reason as to why they stopped.

They haven't.

Our store pulls one out every now and then. It usualy coinsides with something like a boxed set launch, or a new version of the game. Ours was last with a giant Apocalypse game that was a bunch of 8X8 tables across the room. It looked similer to the guys with the pictures, but the tables were bigger, but didn't drag out across the whole room.

My experience with GW's instore games has always been positive. In one, the hunt for the Fallen, I picked up a fallen guy that they made from parts from fantasy, and chaos marine parts. In another, I saved an inquisitor, and ended up getting him in a blister pack, in still another, We all ended up getting plastic Terminators. That was at the time when they started making termies in plastic.
In the Fantasy game, I played a few week long ones with one being in Lustria, where we played for three or four weeks evolving different armies playing in the jungles, and in another game, we played on an Island with a bunch of Giants, and some kinda King Arthur theme. My last one I played was in the deserts, when they came out with the Tomb Kings as a bonified army. That was an evolution game where you bought a box a week, and evolved your army, where the winner got something, and they had a few other catagories with prizes and some other stuff. I got a scorpion model, or something from that one.

All in all, These local stores need to get themselves up and institute thier own. I miss that kinda stuff. It was fun and when they were having them really gave you something to look forward to every week.

Grot 6 wrote:

Asuron wrote:Ahoy all
Recently I've been mulling over the experiences I had with GW when I was growing up and one of them was the instore campaigns they used to have.
Out of interest I was wondering if you could perhaps share you experiences with them and the reason as to why they stopped.

They haven't.

Our store pulls one out every now and then. It usualy coinsides with something like a boxed set launch, or a new version of the game. Ours was last with a giant Apocalypse game that was a bunch of 8X8 tables across the room. It looked similer to the guys with the pictures, but the tables were bigger, but didn't drag out across the whole room.

My experience with GW's instore games has always been positive. In one, the hunt for the Fallen, I picked up a fallen guy that they made from parts from fantasy, and chaos marine parts. In another, I saved an inquisitor, and ended up getting him in a blister pack, in still another, We all ended up getting plastic Terminators. That was at the time when they started making termies in plastic.
In the Fantasy game, I played a few week long ones with one being in Lustria, where we played for three or four weeks evolving different armies playing in the jungles, and in another game, we played on an Island with a bunch of Giants, and some kinda King Arthur theme. My last one I played was in the deserts, when they came out with the Tomb Kings as a bonified army. That was an evolution game where you bought a box a week, and evolved your army, where the winner got something, and they had a few other catagories with prizes and some other stuff. I got a scorpion model, or something from that one.

All in all, These local stores need to get themselves up and institute thier own. I miss that kinda stuff. It was fun and when they were having them really gave you something to look forward to every week.

Was referring to the worldwide campaigns that the others have been alking about for three pages.
That sounds cool though and while I agree they do need to institue events like that by themselves, theres nothing quite like playing in part of a campaign that has people all over the world participating in it.
Although your local store sounds like it would be a blast to play in

more money in new release then making a campaign

I miss them. Alot. I use to be involved with at least 12 until GW CANCELED THEM. Then I got pissed and left my store due to them doing that.
I miss Medusa V and Eye of Terror Campaign.

I miss those campaigns as well. But I know that the reason why they are no longer do those campaigns is a purely financial one.

The Company is too cheap to do those kinds of campaigns again.

I don't know if it has been mentioned here or not, I did a very quick skim through and then jumped strait to a reply.

Why don't we, as in all Dakkaites, create a Campaign online.

have a group work on a setting for it and then some basic rules.

like each player can only report once a week, A battle report must be filed with the report.

this way even if they didn't actually play they are still putting effort into it.

I think it could be of great success.

Toeko wrote:I don't know if it has been mentioned here or not, I did a very quick skim through and then jumped strait to a reply.

Why don't we, as in all Dakkaites, create a Campaign online.

have a group work on a setting for it and then some basic rules.

like each player can only report once a week, A battle report must be filed with the report.

this way even if they didn't actually play they are still putting effort into it.

I think it could be of great success.

That could be a very cool project to attempt.

That'd be pretty cool, actually.

Although it would probably be best to register gaming groups prior to the campaign, and have one person in each group actually write up the battle reports and results, just to make it easier to manage.

And I'd suggest it be a summer thing. I just know more people in my Calgary (ie, Summer and holiday gaming group) group than my Lethbridge (school days group) group are actually active on Dakka.

I'm just thinking, we have all the resources we would need here.

the rule lawyers who could come up with a system that is solid.

Fluff Fanatics who would tie it all in together and actually make it good.

have it run all summer, and then at the end their are enough of us who live close enough to each other we could arrange it with random hobby shops to play some "final out" scenario.

we play miniature games, we are definitely crazy enough to pull something like this off


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Fafnir wrote:That'd be pretty cool, actually.

Although it would probably be best to register gaming groups prior to the campaign, and have one person in each group actually write up the battle reports and results, just to make it easier to manage.

And I'd suggest it be a summer thing. I just know more people in my Calgary (ie, Summer and holiday gaming group) group than my Lethbridge (school days group) group are actually active on Dakka.

I agree, the summer is always better. that would give us a few months to prepare for it.

Toeko wrote:I'm just thinking, we have all the resources we would need here.

the rule lawyers who could come up with a system that is solid.

Fluff Fanatics who would tie it all in together and actually make it good.

have it run all summer, and then at the end their are enough of us who live close enough to each other we could arrange it with random hobby shops to play some "final out" scenario.

we play miniature games, we are definitely crazy enough to pull something like this off


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Fafnir wrote:That'd be pretty cool, actually.

Although it would probably be best to register gaming groups prior to the campaign, and have one person in each group actually write up the battle reports and results, just to make it easier to manage.

And I'd suggest it be a summer thing. I just know more people in my Calgary (ie, Summer and holiday gaming group) group than my Lethbridge (school days group) group are actually active on Dakka.

I agree, the summer is always better. that would give us a few months to prepare for it.

How about multiple locations for larger games, as some of some of us travel would be an issue.

I also like the DIY feel of that sort of "Fan Made Campaign" ..shows some initiative over bemoaning what GW will and won't "Do for us."

And your definitely correct..we certainly have a great deal of the resources/talent we would need right here on Dakka.

The Nemesis Crown - did that end, because i didn't here anything about it, who got it, grimgor??

kevlar'o wrote:The Nemesis Crown - did that end, because i didn't here anything about it, who got it, grimgor??

I'm not too sure as fantasy isn't my strong suit right now. but I belive he did

FITZZ wrote: I also like the DIY feel of that sort of "Fan Made Campaign" ..shows some initiative over bemoaning what GW will and won't "Do for us."

And your definitely correct..we certainly have a great deal of the resources/talent we would need right here on Dakka.

Exactly, instead of blaming GW for not doing something lets get motivated and do it ourselves. I'd say start a committee for design and theory and then get a basic outline before we open it up to more people. that way it would be more controlled then all of dakka throwing out their .02$ but at the same time ever one would still have some say.

Happygrunt wrote:

Toeko wrote:I'm just thinking, we have all the resources we would need here.

the rule lawyers who could come up with a system that is solid.

Fluff Fanatics who would tie it all in together and actually make it good.

have it run all summer, and then at the end their are enough of us who live close enough to each other we could arrange it with random hobby shops to play some "final out" scenario.

we play miniature games, we are definitely crazy enough to pull something like this off


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Fafnir wrote:That'd be pretty cool, actually.

Although it would probably be best to register gaming groups prior to the campaign, and have one person in each group actually write up the battle reports and results, just to make it easier to manage.

And I'd suggest it be a summer thing. I just know more people in my Calgary (ie, Summer and holiday gaming group) group than my Lethbridge (school days group) group are actually active on Dakka.

I agree, the summer is always better. that would give us a few months to prepare for it.

How about multiple locations for larger games, as some of some of us travel would be an issue.

that was just a random idea. if it caught on it could be decided any way. I mean you play in your basement with 5 friends, you could run the "final out" scenario with just them.

The Utmost goal of this should be to capture the essence of the game. . .having fun with friends

Creating an initial concept for the campaign along with the various mechanics would be the first steps.

wow. . . It double posted. . . I edited the second post as to annotate that it could be deleted and then it was gone so I edited the first one. . .sigh

either way question I asked was

would we have a fantasy and 40k one?

Ideally, it would take place in a smaller, less documented system (perhaps even a DIY one). Not only would that have less problems conflicting with current canon, but it would also encourage more DIY characters and fluff.

Frankly:
Doing any kind of lengthy, story-driven campaign with tallied results, etc is going to burn out even the most dedicated fans quickly. It will burn out damned near everyone quickly working on it to catch and iron out any snafus that crop up.

The best bet for any kind of fan driven campaign isn't to do anything remotely like the GW campaigns.
The best way to do it is, quite simply, a 'campaign pack'. Design the scenarios, a flow chart showing how X win by Y faction equals Z result. Things like that.

Fafnir wrote:Ideally, it would take place in a smaller, less documented system (perhaps even a DIY one). Not only would that have less problems conflicting with current canon, but it would also encourage more DIY characters and fluff.

Agreed, a war fought in some obscure system over an objective (or several objectives) large enough to justify the interest of multiple factions/armies,but not something "HUGE" would be my line of thought as well.

Fafnir wrote:Ideally, it would take place in a smaller, less documented system (perhaps even a DIY one). Not only would that have less problems conflicting with current canon, but it would also encourage more DIY characters and fluff.

that is what I had in mind.

Kanluwen wrote:Frankly:
Doing any kind of lengthy, story-driven campaign with tallied results, etc is going to burn out even the most dedicated fans quickly. It will burn out damned near everyone quickly working on it to catch and iron out any snafus that crop up.

The best bet for any kind of fan driven campaign isn't to do anything remotely like the GW campaigns.
The best way to do it is, quite simply, a 'campaign pack'. Design the scenarios, a flow chart showing how X win by Y faction equals Z result. Things like that.

I agree with you but I feel it can be more involved. GW had a decent concept but I just feel it was done wrong


If we created our own "system" we would be able to progress a story line in thus said system and more or less have creative control of it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

FITZZ wrote:

Fafnir wrote:Ideally, it would take place in a smaller, less documented system (perhaps even a DIY one). Not only would that have less problems conflicting with current canon, but it would also encourage more DIY characters and fluff.

Agreed, a war fought in some obscure system over an objective (or several objectives) large enough to justify the interest of multiple factions/armies,but not something "HUGE" would be my line of thought as well.

quoted for truth.

this statement is my sentiment exactly.