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 dadamowsky wrote:

Aash wrote:
Never mind 21st century solutions, let’s try and implement some 20th century ones at least!!

Any other publisher will make edits to correct errors when they reprint a publication, GW should do this for all the rules sources. There is no reason I can see that if I were to buy the BRB today it is the same edition as was released in 2017, they should be reprinted with the amendments from CA and errata/faq amendments. CA should be available separately for an annual update for those who already own the BRB, but someone coming into the hobby new shouldn’t be getting a 4 year out of date rule book and feel the need to buy CA for the latest rules and download a bunch of pdfs to get started.

You severely underestimate the roar that would be heard over "why do I have to buy the same book again", and the massive sell drop following it. And rightfully so, the current system of FAQs and Erratas is just a better way to update a book-based game, from a pure consumer viability point of view. It's just not better overall.

Just as music, movies, software, or video games are widely becoming a product-as-service, this is a future for wargaming as well - at least in the part of the game itself. There's no longer a point why would you buy a book that is outdated several weeks after release, you have to carry for several pages of rules and is generally troublesome - just take a look at the scale of the content piracy that is happening on the rules alone. GaS low-fee-high-consumer-count model would not only patch that for GW's incentive to do so but supported by a corresponding interactive and interlinked app it would also contribute to the massive improvements for users. The obscurity of rules hidden beneath dozens of publications is basically gone when you can quickly check the proper FAQ or designers' commentary linked to the rule. Classic win-win other sectors of entertainment proved to work wonders.

They should of course go very much digital. They have done that to some extent with AoS and the game is better for it. I can look up any stat on the AoS app and the AoS app contains the rule booklet. Only thing it is missing is faction traits and sub-faction traits, along with spells and artifacts. Otherwise a fantastic approach from GW. The Warscroll Builder they provide is also brilliant.

40K is incredibly more complex than AoS regarding list building. Battlescribe crashes or slows down a lot sometimes (at least it used to).
I doubt that GW will provide a 40K "warscroll builder" anytime soon, as it would require some people dedicated on working on only that. They are fine with Battlescribe existing and providing that service, to the point that even the official GW tournaments I've attended did require the lists to be submitted to be done in Battlescribe.
That said, digital rules is the way to go. Codices that get automatically updated FAQs, erratas, points and hyperlinks between different rules and pages should be the standard in 2020.

 Aenar wrote:
40K is incredibly more complex than AoS regarding list building. Battlescribe crashes or slows down a lot sometimes (at least it used to).
I doubt that GW will provide a 40K "warscroll builder" anytime soon, as it would require some people dedicated on working on only that. They are fine with Battlescribe existing and providing that service, to the point that even the official GW tournaments I've attended did require the lists to be submitted to be done in Battlescribe.
That said, digital rules is the way to go. Codices that get automatically updated FAQs, erratas, points and hyperlinks between different rules and pages should be the standard in 2020.

I could see GW buying BattleScribe and removing the non GW stuff from it and monetising it. Who knows? It could happen.

Aash wrote:

I’m not 100% convinced that it wouldn’t be profitable though. I’ve no stats to support this, but it’s not inconceivable that there are potential customers dissuaded from buying into the hobby when they learn the starter book (BRB) is not valid and they need to also buy CA and download a bunch of FAQs. I think there is value in lowering the barriers to entry, and this would be one way of doing it.

That being said, I doubt it’ll ever happen.

I obviously don't know GW financial flows and calculations. But from my humble experience as an artist in touch with game dev and physical publishing worlds, I can say this: physical products are a pain in the ass to plan, sell and be reliably profitable. I imagine having additional factors of the shifting content (living ruleset in our case) is only worsening the things. In this model we should be releasing new BRBs and codices with every CA at least - that would drag not only PR trouble of the "why do I have to buy the same book each year", but all the products that are tied (starter sets, collector editions, whatnot) are also demanding to be reissued. With the outdated unsold books and boxes having to be trashed and recycled. It is a logistical and financial hell to plan I imagine, and hence why I don't expect it.

 Aenar wrote:
40K is incredibly more complex than AoS regarding list building. Battlescribe crashes or slows down a lot sometimes (at least it used to).
I doubt that GW will provide a 40K "warscroll builder" anytime soon, as it would require some people dedicated on working on only that. They are fine with Battlescribe existing and providing that service, to the point that even the official GW tournaments I've attended did require the lists to be submitted to be done in Battlescribe.
That said, digital rules is the way to go. Codices that get automatically updated FAQs, erratas, points and hyperlinks between different rules and pages should be the standard in 2020.

If Battlescribe can maintain the whole database, so can a native and dedicated GW app. What we are really missing in BS to complete the rules content-wise are stratagems and... I guess that's all? Everything else is covered by a freemium app created for several game systems, including a simple dice tool. Creating such a product to be professional and at the level we expect from the GW would of course take some investment, but honestly... what doesn't?

I think anything they will announce will be for things far, far, down the line.

It's nice they show us our new toys (Mechanicum, Fabius etc.), but how are they - smartly - going to release it?

Even if they put some weeks between physical releases it's gonna take quite some time till things are back to normal.

And 9th? 99% isn't playing right now, we haven't had time to use all PA stuff, 9th would be overkill in my book.

So announcing either models or a new edition will get them into release 'problems'. And even if they solve those things in a positive way, most of us aren't even playing right now.

Don't get me wrong, I'll be watching the big announcement for sure, hoping for cool new stuff, but I don't see us getting/using any of it anytime soon. :(

MorglumNecksnapper wrote:

I think anything they will announce will be for things far, far, down the line.

It's nice they show us our new toys (Mechanicum, Fabius etc.), but how are they - smartly - going to release it?

Even if they put some weeks between physical releases it's gonna take quite some time till things are back to normal.

And 9th? 99% isn't playing right now, we haven't had time to use all PA stuff, 9th would be overkill in my book.

So announcing either models or a new edition will get them into release 'problems'. And even if they solve those things in a positive way, most of us aren't even playing right now.

Don't get me wrong, I'll be watching the big announcement for sure, hoping for cool new stuff, but I don't see us getting/using any of it anytime soon. :(

But that's OK, better to have something to look forwards to and keep the community engaged rather than radio silence for 4-5 months.

We might get a new edition on Saturday. We will probably get a big new necron leader maybe some necron model updates. I think the BIG BIG announcement will be that Squats will be brought back.

Here's a deductive perspective: we've seen shipping manifests for large numbers of books, more than the PA releases. I think that's 9th edition.

While GW could hold back on releasing 9th edition until PA is done... if PA and the current Codexes are compatible with 9th edition, why would they? The company needs to make up for a couple months of lost sales, they also need to confirm the financial impact shutdowns have had on their customer base. It would make more sense to speed up the PA release schedule and get on with things.

I'm guessing GW is about to catch up with where they should have been on their release schedule. We're going to see Necrons, Fabius, and a lot of models for specialty games. We're going to get some insights on when the remaining PA books are coming out and the release of 9th edition.

Good thing my 6th edition chaos space marine codex wasn’t invalidated between 6th and 7th... you may be able to use your book but I would rather have to buy another codex and a supplement than go through another 7th edition where my codex is a glorified reprint of my 6th edition codex... I like the part where list building became fun right before they blew it all up XD I doubt its a new edition. If it is it will be written by the same dudes that wrote 8th. And it will have the same faq/errata nightmare we have now. And the same rapidly accelerating power creep (poor nids...) Unless they have been writing a new edition this whole edition, the flaws in telling a squad of interns with limited experience in these matters to choke another edition at the drop of a hat like they did 8th along with all these supplements is going to give you the same half cooked results riddled with logical infallacies and stupid combinations that were not intended that an 8 year old can figure out and exploit (I’m looking at the moron that wrote the latest space marine update). GW was fairly certain that this edition was THE edition to end all 40k editions. I doubt a few years have taught them otherwise AND gave them sufficient development time and resources to adequately develop a new edition. I would love to see a new edition though. There are some things the game seems to be lacking. If the big announcement was a patch/overhaul of 8th ala an 8.5 edition, I can believe that.

I haven't even played 8th ed yet!

 Brunius wrote:
I haven't even played 8th ed yet!

Its been 3yrs lol

I kinda think the sweet spot for the 8th edition as a whole (if not for certain individual armies) was right about late summer last year. I suspect that if we do get a new edition soon, unless they do another full reboot and redesign the armies as part of the bargain, we're probably going to largely have the same issues we have now. We may get tweaks to certain mechanics like CP regen and some detachment/allies shenanigans, and I'd love to see some more developed terrain rules, but ultimately the game is still going to have extreme problems with scale at both ends and insanely overdeveloped levels of firepower and layered special rules and patched together armies requiring multiple sources for some time.

For comedy sake, I am going to predict this weekend the announcement will be the CEO removes this face, to show it was a mask and really it was Kirby all along !!! Then they will announce loving new price adjustments across the whole of all their systems followed by a one month period where we can buy it all before the rise as a special pandemic sale.

The full complete phase out of the old marines, all in one fell swoop and the admission Xeno is all just side enemies for the Imperials to kill and they will all be phased into one super large codex called " Enemies of the Imperium " To make room for ever more and amazing Primaris Marine models.

Don’t tempt Fate :-j

Maybe they'll announce a digital paid-service giving access to constantly up-to-date rules

Profitable + practical

There seems to be a lot of buzz around a 9th edition announcement alongside a new starter box featuring Marines and Necrons.

The new edition won't be a complete re-write of rules but instead tidy up the game, amend some things and expand on others.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 EnTyme wrote:
I'm going to say the same thing I did in the N&R thread: whether or not 8th edition rulebooks are invalidated, announcing a new edition while you're still trying release supplements for the current edition would be bad marketing. Some people declare codices obsolete as soon as the FAQ is released.

Not if those supplaments remain fully compatible.

If this new edition is an expansion/consolidation of current core rules then it won't be a problem.

 Orange Knight wrote:
There seems to be a lot of buzz around a 9th edition announcement alongside a new starter box featuring Marines and Necrons.

The new edition won't be a complete re-write of rules but instead tidy up the game, amend some things and expand on others.

There’s not so much buzz as echoes increasing in magnitide. No decent evidence backing it up, just speculation growing in volume and being passed off as rumour.

Siegfriedfr wrote:
Maybe they'll announce a digital paid-service giving access to constantly up-to-date rules

Profitable + practical

Everything that has been said in this thread, no matter how unlikely it sounds, is more likely to happen than this.

macluvin wrote:
Good thing my 6th edition chaos space marine codex wasn’t invalidated between 6th and 7th... you may be able to use your book but I would rather have to buy another codex and a supplement than go through another 7th edition where my codex is a glorified reprint of my 6th edition codex... I like the part where list building became fun right before they blew it all up XD I doubt its a new edition. If it is it will be written by the same dudes that wrote 8th. And it will have the same faq/errata nightmare we have now. And the same rapidly accelerating power creep (poor nids...) Unless they have been writing a new edition this whole edition, the flaws in telling a squad of interns with limited experience in these matters to choke another edition at the drop of a hat like they did 8th along with all these supplements is going to give you the same half cooked results riddled with logical infallacies and stupid combinations that were not intended that an 8 year old can figure out and exploit (I’m looking at the moron that wrote the latest space marine update). GW was fairly certain that this edition was THE edition to end all 40k editions. I doubt a few years have taught them otherwise AND gave them sufficient development time and resources to adequately develop a new edition. I would love to see a new edition though. There are some things the game seems to be lacking. If the big announcement was a patch/overhaul of 8th ala an 8.5 edition, I can believe that.

Most of what I'm getting from this post is that you don't actually know what an intern is.

If they announce 9th edition, everyone will stop buying stuff until the new edition drops, like they have done after every other edition announcement so far.

That's something really stupid to do when you got multiple books and model in your pipeline, especially during a pandemic where getting cash in to keep your company running is the top priority for everyone.

I am genuinely looking forward to the release (FINALLY!!!!) of Codex: Primaris Lieutenants. Ive waited so long for this. This is quite literally the only thing that could justify this much hype for an announcement.

 Jidmah wrote:
If they announce 9th edition, everyone will stop buying stuff until the new edition drops, like they have done after every other edition announcement so far.

That's something really stupid to do when you got multiple books and model in your pipeline, especially during a pandemic where getting cash in to keep your company running is the top priority for everyone.

But I will still be buying engine war for my daemons and pariah for my sisters, because I will still need those to play those armies fully in 9th assuming it's not a complete clean slate again.

I fairly sure that quite some people wouldn't until they know whether the corresponding army is worth fielding anymore in 9th.

 Jidmah wrote:
I fairly sure that quite some people wouldn't until they know whether the corresponding army is worth fielding anymore in 9th.

I wouldn't bin my entire collection based on how good/bad it might be with a minor edition revision, but then I'm not a competitive meta chaser. But I'd say those people are the minority.

I'm curious as to why so many people think 9th means codexes will be invalidated? Is it just new players who think every edition is a major shift like 7th to 8th was?

We don't actually know how much an edition might shake up the game. Basically anything in the BRB could undergo massive changes, including how stratagems, psychic powers and army building works - the very content you can expect from PA.
A book of stratagems is a lot less interesting if you can use only one or two per turn.

If 9th would be announced, I'd sure wait for 9th before buying War of the Spider for my DG.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sim-Life wrote:
I'm curious as to why so many people think 9th means codexes will be invalidated? Is it just new players who think every edition is a major shift like 7th to 8th was?

An army/codex can easily be turned to gak by an edition change without being technical incompatible.
As an ork player, I m speaking from experience.

I expect it to be the same as the 6th to 7th jump. An update, not a re-write.

I imagine a lot of players might be new to the hobby, their only experience of edition changes being 7th to 8th. Prior to that you could use a 3rd edition codex to play a game in 7th edition so the changes were incremental,

I'd still rather have access to more stratagems, warlord traits etc than less. Doesn't matter how many you can use, having more options is better.

Again, them radically changing what CP's do (as an example) doesn't change the models on my shelf and if the newest rules are valid, why wouldn't you want them?

You obviously haven't had the pleasure of getting an army update that basically read "HAHAHAHAH THANKS FOR THE MONEY SUCKER, GO BUY MORE MODELS! - Kirby" like the ork supplement in 7th did.

There are rules not worth spending money on. If PA should directly be followed by 9th, why wouldn't you wait until you knew?

Those are exceptions and not the rule. The 7th to 8th jump was the first time all datasheets and core rules were re-written in 15 years?