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Made in us
Nimble Skeleton Charioteer





OK, so there is a 3rd edition now? Free rules online is a change for sure.

But reading online I'm sort of piecing together a story about forum wars, theme lists making people mad (why), people saying it is dying, general internet salt, and other stuff but I'm not getting the whole story. I feel like I'm reading a book with huge chapters missing.

Can someone please tell me what happened between when it was booming in 2nd edition and now?
   
Made in us
Boom! Leman Russ Commander






 Phobos wrote:
OK, so there is a 3rd edition now? Free rules online is a change for sure.

But reading online I'm sort of piecing together a story about forum wars, theme lists making people mad (why), people saying it is dying, general internet salt, and other stuff but I'm not getting the whole story. I feel like I'm reading a book with huge chapters missing.

Can someone please tell me what happened between when it was booming in 2nd edition and now?


I went to a flea market for gamers this weekend and guys were desperately trying to sell their warmahordes stuff for upto 50-75% off. You couldn't seem to give away the models.

One guy bought out a story that was discontinuing the line, he thought he could make some bucks, but apparently not.

Apparently lack of event support is the problem. They got rid of their event staff.


.Only a fool believes there is such a thing as price gouging. Things have value determined by the creator or merchant. If you don't agree with that value, you are free not to purchase. 
   
Made in ca
Enigmatic Chaos Sorcerer





British Columbia

They made a lot of kirbyesque desicions right when GW started getting thier gak together.

I gave an $800 nib cryx army to a charity auction partially because selling/trading it wasn't worth the effort.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
A young business man named Tom Kirby, who was a pupil of mine until he turned greedy, helped the capitalists hunt down and destroy the wargamers. He betrayed and murdered Games Workshop.


 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut




Warnahordes once had the Internet hype of being balanced and the best competitor miniature game. Cheap buy in and no massive expensive models.


Then miniature bloat caught up and huge models, overpowered lists, and nerds cane and people got salty. It once was the anti wh40k and not it’s the same thing just with less quality scrulpts.
   
Made in us
[DCM]
Dankhold Troggoth






Shadeglass Maze

I think the main "event" you may be missing is:

- Towards the end of 2nd edition certain lists were getting very broken, and some players (and even prominent podcasts) questioned balance and even switched entirely to other systems such as Guild Ball or Malifaux

- PP put out 3rd edition with little build-up or testing to address this, while claiming to have been working on it for 3 years. But glaring problems like the basic throw rules not working, or an entire faction being unplayable (Skorne) led to people doubting this.

- PP near simultaneously removed their Press Ganger program for organized play (citing legal issues with Magic judges) and removed their faction forums from their website. Effectively, the two most common ways to organize / talk about their games disappeared together.

I think PP could have overcome any one of the above, but taken together it very effectively killed the game in many local areas, mine included, while reducing its structure for bringing in new players. So, almost like GW's last Kirby-decision in killing WHFB, but without the huge investment and effort GW was prepared to put into rebuilding its player base.

As others have said, this happened while GW has really turned around and been doing basically what their fans are asking for. PP has been doing the opposite, and there are just too many good options to play instead...
   
Made in us
Devious Space Marine dedicated to Tzeentch




Theme lists are annoying in the same way formations in 40K are annoying. Now, if you like one model, you know you're missing out if you don't also put all of its theme buddies into the same list. It emphasizes skewed lists and taking multiple copies of the same thing, when that's already the default way to build powerful lists anyway.

If a model is really useful in a powerful theme, you know they're not going to care about how it's balanced when it's used outside of that theme.

When they release new models, they can use themes to force you to buy a whole set of new models instead of adding the one you really like to the army you have.
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut





The Golden Throne

Just another one of my predictions come true. GW outlast and crushes all. Folks don't like it, but its just true.

I'm not a white knight just a soothsayer. i.e.40k command points, wounds for vehicles, the change of BS/WS attributes(stolen from FoW, but predicted change for GW).

I've been through so many game systems since 1995. GW is still king. Its just true. Sorry haters.


   
Made in us
Nihilistic Necron Lord






Increased competition and the pace/sales of the game started to slow, and they seemed rush out the third edition but REALLY bungled the release and very nearly killed the game. They’ve been recovering though and a few years later the game isn’t in a bad place. Locally we don’t have the numbers of its heyday, but it’s still the strong second after Games Workshop.

 
   
Made in us
Member of a Lodge? I Can't Say





Philadelphia PA

I think another stumble for them was switching materials around the time GW was stepping up with some really sharp plastic designs.

It seriously became a drag for me to even think of adding to my Warmahordes collection when I was facing the prospect of cleaning restic infantry. The prices were high for the quality as well.

It's a pity too, because while they're not GW quality the few hard plastic warjacks Privateer put out are nice. I just wish they'd followed through.

I prefer to buy from miniature manufacturers that *don't* support the overthrow of democracy. 
   
Made in de
Battlefield Tourist






Nuremberg

Like the OP, I was away from the game for a while. When I moved country, all my models got broken in transit and I was too depressed to fix them for a couple of years. This spring I finally bit the bullet and fixed my Trolls and Legion, and assembled all my Blindwater dudes.

Then I noticed that all the WM and Hordes stuff in my local game store was half price. I picked up a few bits and pieces for my Blindwater and a few minis I liked for Dungeons and Dragons half price, and asked the guy in the shop what was going on. He said the entire community had bailed on the game with the release of MK3.

Couldn't really find out what had happened, but it really does show that PP had a much less resilient playerbase than GW. GW have put out turds 2 editions running in the past and still had a big playerbase, I think because in the end their miniatures were always consistently good. PP just did not have the same level of consistency in their miniatures range at all.

   
Made in gb
Decrepit Dakkanaut




UK

I'm not sure that PPs player base was less resilient,

It's just they were a lot smaller than GW (even though they were No2 for a long time in terms of sales) so when a significant number of people did drop (as did a significant number of GW players during the Kirby era) it was a lot more noticeable especially when you look at whether it makes financial sense for game stores to stock them

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/07/24 10:33:22


 
   
Made in jp
Locked in the Tower of Amareo





And size gives inertia. Gw stays up a lot because it has large playerbase so finding opponents is easy. If your player base is small even smaller relative drop can make finding opponents harder which makes self feeding spiral...

2024 painted/bought: 109/109 
   
Made in ca
Decrepit Dakkanaut





GW is also a public company with vertical integration. It gives them some insulation against smaller independent stores not carrying them.
   
Made in us
Enigmatic Chaos Sorcerer




Tampa, FL

They did a lot of bad decisions, and while the game is still well balanced IMHO, it's very confusing with a lot of things going on. The main reason I stopped playing is that there were so many things you had to keep track of during a game, it started to make my head hurt, especially since forgetting any one of them could mean you lost.

Here, most of the Warmahordes players went to a different store that has a lot more competitive play, so the store that used to be "the" hub has barely any interest now and is mostly a 40k shop again.

It's still going strong, just dipped in popularity because I think a lot of people played it as an alternative to 40k when 40k was a dumpster fire; now that 40k has improved in many ways, there was no reason to continue. Along with PP killing their forums for the same reason GW did, getting rid of their volunteer program, and moving away from many of the things that attracted their fanbase in the first place.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/07/24 15:20:35


- Wayne
Formerly WayneTheGame 
   
Made in us
Inspiring SDF-1 Bridge Officer





Mississippi

Did PP retain the discount max they tried to enforce around the time of 3E? I know that caused some friction as well, with Miniature Market temporarily dropping selling PP until they got a better deal.

It never ends well 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut





WMH, both the game and the community, was outright hostile to new players to the point where a new player that stuck around for more than a month or two was as common as a unicorn.

The old players got upset that Mk3 wasn't Mk2, and during its initial growing pains, they all left for 40k (in my group, most of the WMH players were lapsed, bitter 40k players, so when 40k was good again and WMH less so, they switched). They also don't like theme lists and think the CID program, while necessary, makes it difficult to keep up with the everchanging meta.

PP has been basically a huge dick to everybody, killing their press ganger group and neutering their official forums, not to mention threatening online retailers.

The model quality is terrible and the prices are high. The restic models are some of the worst (and most expensive) miniatures in the industry. Their plastic models are decent, but there's what, like 7 of them? Everything else is resin + metal. I'd say that if you compared the number of players who play the game but don't paint the miniatures versus the players who paint them but don't play, it'd be about 100:0.

Warmachine, as the community plays it, just isn't a very good miniatures game for all but a very small, select type of wargamer - and they left for greener pastures.
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut




Maryland

 Sqorgar wrote:

Warmachine, as the community plays it, just isn't a very good miniatures game for all but a very small, select type of wargamer - and they left for greener pastures.


I recently moved away from my old gaming area, but I'm still in touch with some of the players in the area. Apparently the decade-old WM/H group has finally given up the ghost, and they've moved en masse to Guild Ball.

   
Made in us
Nihilistic Necron Lord






Guild Balls been on a diminishing cycle as well at the moment it seems. Lots less interest there as well.

 
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut




Phobos wrote:OK, so there is a 3rd edition now? Free rules online is a change for sure.

But reading online I'm sort of piecing together a story about forum wars, theme lists making people mad (why), people saying it is dying, general internet salt, and other stuff but I'm not getting the whole story. I feel like I'm reading a book with huge chapters missing.

Can someone please tell me what happened between when it was booming in 2nd edition and now?


You are generally correct in what you heard. WMH did really well for the first couple of years of Mk2, but by the time late-Mk2 was rolling round, the game was getting extremely large and bloated and there were a lot of balance issues, busted lists and the game, essentially was ‘solved’ and to a large extent, stagnant. You can be cheeky and say that this wasn’t entirely due to PP, the player base itself (or maybe the large influx of players used to a specific way of playing) stopped being creative, and advice to new players became less about being creative and innovative in ‘how’ they played and more about ‘take this list and let it play for you’.

When I got into the game in Mk2, the game was big, but manageable. You could learn it. Now its huge. And not in a good way. It used to be daunting for a new player, whilst still being a challenge that was appealing. Now it’s almost inaccessible to fresh players because of the bloat of fifteen years of expansions and the burden of knowledge required to play (ie needing to keep track of everything going on, and to be competitive, you need to know all the synnergies in all the factions…). So you will see fewer and fewer people buying in, and really just the ultra-hardcore continuing on. Basically, fewer and fewer playing. And the ultra-hardcore can also be unwelcoming for some, and right at the time when the game needs to be opened up. Combined with a less-active playerbase (no pressgangers) and you have a toxic mix.

PP did a lot of things at once – they ditched the forums (I have no issues with this – they were a toxic mess that did nothing but enshrine group-think and added nothing productive or creative to the hobby), ditched the pressgangers – and this was huge – this tore the ground out from under the playerbase and a lot of gaming groups in a lot of ways, unless said groups were any bit able to self-organise (which as gamers go, is not likely for the most part!). The result, sadly was overnight nearly, the playerbase didn’t so much dwindle as evaporate. A further issue was their implementation of Mk3, which was ‘OK’ but had huge flaws – for example Skorne had to be completely re-re-designed after the start as they’d gotten so many things spectacularly wrong. Beyond that, while Mk3 fixed some issues, PP just baked in new ones, and it felt a lot of Mk3 was a ‘change’, rather than an ‘improvement’ with tough and reposition being handed out as band-aids for everything. I think it was fair to say at the start of Mk2, PP were amongst the movers and shakers in the industry. They did so many things right. Now? They’re essentially doing the same things GW did and got criticised for, so it’s no surprise that the exact same dynamics are happening to PP and the fans are losing interest.

Regarding theme lists, the issue with them is if you want to stand toe to toe, you need a theme list. The game is now balanced around theme lists (Mk3 theme lists are more like Mk2 Mercenary contracts). The ideas is generally sound but there are consequences for the game at large. Generic lists are dead. Theme lists essentially play with a 20% points advantage over non-themed lists and have other baked in advantages. My issues with themes is they force you into very specific builds first and foremost, but really, it feels like a ‘GW codex’ approach. PP used to release new stuff for all the factions once or twice a year. No more. Whatever new theme they’re working on (currently Khador MoW) and up-and-coming is Circle (Tharn) gets all the releases. The ‘themes’ are the new ‘factions’ and are released in the way that GW release faction-specific ‘codices’ and if the ‘themes’ are the new ‘factions’, then it’s fair to say that the old ‘factions’ are now a ‘product catalogue’ that feed into the ‘themes’.

Beyond this, PP have gone and done a Kirby with shifty rules, some dodgy models and some truly shocking pricing – look at the cost of the chosen of everblight for an example. Here in the UK, its £90 retail for 5 ‘cavalry’ models. Even GW are not evil enough to try for that! Also, while some of the recent sculpts are outstanding, some of them are really terrible. It’s a real ‘hit or miss’ affair, and PP, whilst often ranging from decent to pretty good, have never been outstanding in model quality.

On top of this, GW have been doing good things lately. Yes, their prices are a wee bit too high, and the game is unbalanced (point me to one that is n’tthough…) but they’ve done a lot in the last year or two to win back a lot of disgruntled fans, and their profit margins are showing this. Heck, everyone I know has a 40K project on the go again. The other games like WMH and Infinity are getting less table time as a result.

Basically, for PP, it’s a perfect storm of a lot of issues. Some of their own making, some as the consequences of their history/wave nature of their game, and some things out of their control. They still have loyal fans and groups, but it’s like the old days of Mk1 and they’re a lot less visible again. They lost a lot of players in the transition to Mk3. Regarding the second hand market, its usually a good indicator for the health of a game – if lots of people are buying/selling, it means there is interest. If they’re not, it points to a problem. I do know that there is still a market for 2nd hand PP stuff, but its limited and it’s generally hard to move stuff. A few years ago, when me and the wife moved house, I sold off a lot of my excess warmachine stuff. Mainly Khador and Circle. They literally ran out the door. Recently, I decided to slim down on my Wargame stuff to fund new projects (GW Dark Angels and Death Guard, amusingly!) and as part of that, I decided I’d sell on the WMH stuff I wasn’t going to use – my non-tharn circle and my retribution (I’m keeping my tharn and khador!). So I sold my Circle stuff, and a mate is buying my Retribution, but I had this stuff on sale for literally ages before anyone showed any interest. Compared to a few years ago, it was an eye-opener. I don’t think it bodes well for the future. PP need to do a lot of things, like gut the game of its bloat.



Sqorgar wrote:WMH, both the game and the community, was outright hostile to new players to the point where a new player that stuck around for more than a month or two was as common as a unicorn.


That's very close to trolling. WMH is a hard, unforgiving game. When the game was smaller, this represented a manageable, but appealing challenge. You earned your wins.

But to say the community is 'outright hostile' to new players? No sir. As a (lapsed) member of that community, and on behalf of my friends that still play, I find this comment appallingly rude and condescending. Some of the nicest people I've gotten to know through gaming play or played warmachine. Now fine, there are trolls that play WMH and go about noobstalking. I know some. Thing is, those same trolls play other Wargames and stalk noobs there too. It's not a WMH thing. It's a gakky gamer thing. Equating that to WMH is inaccurate, misleading, and just really rubbish behaviour on your part. Please don't. Please, don't tar a whole community as TFGs.

greatest band in the universe: machine supremacy

"Punch your fist in the air and hold your Gameboy aloft like the warrior you are" 
   
Made in gb
Moustache-twirling Princeps




United Kingdom

Deadnight wrote:
Sqorgar wrote:WMH, both the game and the community, was outright hostile to new players to the point where a new player that stuck around for more than a month or two was as common as a unicorn.


That's very close to trolling. WMH is a hard, unforgiving game. When the game was smaller, this represented a manageable, but appealing challenge. You earned your wins.

But to say the community is 'outright hostile' to new players? No sir. As a (lapsed) member of that community, and on behalf of my friends that still play, I find this comment appallingly rude and condescending. Some of the nicest people I've gotten to know through gaming play or played warmachine. Now fine, there are trolls that play WMH and go about noobstalking. I know some. Thing is, those same trolls play other Wargames and stalk noobs there too. It's not a WMH thing. It's a gakky gamer thing. Equating that to WMH is inaccurate, misleading, and just really rubbish behaviour on your part. Please don't. Please, don't tar a whole community as TFGs.


I bought the Khador Battlegroup box after playing a demo game at a con. Built & painted it, then got turned down for a game by a dozen different players across three clubs because I was a noob. Just because Sqorgar and my experiences are different to yours doesn't mean we're trolling.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/07/24 20:09:43


 
   
Made in hr
Dakka Veteran





Croatia

My personal experience is that a lot of players stopped playing and I stopped playing as well because of that. And it wasn't just that the game suddenly became less balanced. My brother, for instance, played an infantry heavy skare list. With the new edition the way the warcaster played became fundamentaly different. He could no longer make a playable list with his current colection because all of his warcasters were changed and no longer matched his army.

   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut





Deadnight wrote:
Sqorgar wrote:WMH, both the game and the community, was outright hostile to new players to the point where a new player that stuck around for more than a month or two was as common as a unicorn.


That's very close to trolling. WMH is a hard, unforgiving game. When the game was smaller, this represented a manageable, but appealing challenge. You earned your wins.

But to say the community is 'outright hostile' to new players? No sir. As a (lapsed) member of that community, and on behalf of my friends that still play, I find this comment appallingly rude and condescending. Some of the nicest people I've gotten to know through gaming play or played warmachine. Now fine, there are trolls that play WMH and go about noobstalking. I know some. Thing is, those same trolls play other Wargames and stalk noobs there too. It's not a WMH thing. It's a gakky gamer thing. Equating that to WMH is inaccurate, misleading, and just really rubbish behaviour on your part. Please don't. Please, don't tar a whole community as TFGs.
I assure you, I am not trolling, regardless of how offended it may make you. I was going to link you to a particular thread on Lormahordes, but it appears to be down at the moment. There was a thread which was literally about what to do in order to draw new players to WMH, and the general sentiment was, "feth 'em".

Sure, there were one or two posters who were saying, "Without new players, our game will eventually die", but generally speaking, the response was, "why should I change how I play just to let some newbies win? I had to learn the hard way, so should they. After they lose their 30th tournment-style match in a row, they'll have gained valuable experience needed to play the game at a somewhat competent level." They literally shouted down someone suggesting that they play smaller point games and play inefficient lists to give new players a chance to actually play the game instead of being curb stomped in the second round.

The WMH community is absolutely the most anti-newbie community I have ever seen in my life, across all games, genres, and hobbies. I don't even blame the game itself, though it does have a learning curve. I think WMH can be played narratively or casually, but the community doesn't allow it. They don't make the game look good, they don't make it fun to play, they don't make it fun to belong, they don't make it easy to follow, and they don't allow for any variation in how others are allowed to enjoy it.

That's why WMH is dying but GW survived much worse sins. GW was always bringing in new players and making them feel special and like they belonged, while WMH players were telling them that "you'll lose the first 20 games you play (and won't have fun for most of them), but eventually, I'll bother playing you once you 'git gud' with your two tournament armies"

beast_gts wrote:
I bought the Khador Battlegroup box after playing a demo game at a con. Built & painted it, then got turned down for a game by a dozen different players across three clubs because I was a noob. Just because Deadnight and my experiences are different to yours doesn't mean we're trolling.
And I'll bet you money that the vast majority of them didn't have a single painted model.
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut






Los Angeles

 Sqorgar wrote:


Sure, there were one or two posters who were saying, "Without new players, our game will eventually die", but generally speaking, the response was, "why should I change how I play just to let some newbies win? I had to learn the hard way, so should they. After they lose their 30th tournment-style match in a row, they'll have gained valuable experience needed to play the game at a somewhat competent level." They literally shouted down someone suggesting that they play smaller point games and play inefficient lists to give new players a chance to actually play the game instead of being curb stomped in the second round.


Oh god, I remember those types of arguments on the PP forums. I played a lot of MK1 and the consensus seemed to be "take your licks and get beaten until you get good" which fell in line with the Page 5 chest pumping machismo of the time.

   
Made in de
Battlefield Tourist






Nuremberg

Refusing to play battlebox games is really poor form. I always found them really fun, and teaching new players is rewarding. Unfortunately some groups get into a fixed mindset around a certain style of play and never want to do anything else.

   
Made in us
[DCM]
Dankhold Troggoth






Shadeglass Maze

Sqorgar, when I read your first post I had a few thoughts, and with this follow-up wanted to share:

- The "Lormahordes" site is going to have mostly old vets, similar to going to an "Oldhammer" site, so that's not indicative of all players / groups, or even most.

- The only reason I personally came to play warmahordes was my awesome "Casualmachine" local group, and a really cool press ganger who ran it.

So, both of those things combined, I think you should post your personal experience as just that, rather than the state of the game / community. I've seen you post similarly about WHFB - for any of these games, if you talk to a crusty old gamer, you'll get told to "Get off my lawn!" . But it's certainly not indicative of the entire group.

As I posted before, PP's huge mistake was killing their press ganger program / forums / etc at the same time as they put out the new edition (with all its initial flaws). So they removed their mechanisms for recruiting new players, just as they lost a lot of existing ones... not a model that works well for any company (even GW, who put a Ton of recruiting work into resurrecting their fantasy line after Kirby's mistakes).
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut




beast_gts wrote:
I bought the Khador Battlegroup box after playing a demo game at a con. Built & painted it, then got turned down for a game by a dozen different players across three clubs because I was a noob. Just because Sqorgar and my experiences are different to yours doesn't mean we're trolling.


Yet There is a difference between saying you have had a bad experience, or gone to a bad club, and referring to the 'community' as 'outright hostile' .Saying the former isn't trolling. I've been there myself. I've also experienced it and spoken about it too. saying The latter is perilously close to it, as it tars me and my WMH playing friends as 'outright hostile' by default. There are a hell of a lot of people that play WMH and The vast majority of them are pretty decent folks.

And why I find that so damned offensive is I'm the guy who has gone to cons, or clubs, and without even being a pressganger, played dozen demo games with folks that were interested or even mildly interested, just to show the game off. And these were not the 'assassinated th noob turn 2 with something out of the blue lol' games either. these were games where we talk it out, walk it through, point out fun shenanigans that can be done, have 'take-it-backs', and do as much as I can to allow folks to explore the game. And for what it's worth, here where I can play/live, while I can think of 1 TFG who represents everything that is wrong with the hobby as a whole, I can think of a dozen guys that represent everything thstthst is right.


Sqorgar wrote:
I assure you, I am not trolling, regardless of how offended it may make you. I was going to link you to a particular thread on Lormahordes, but it appears to be down at the moment. There was a thread which was literally about what to do in order to draw new players to WMH, and the general sentiment was, "feth 'em".
Sure, there were one or two posters who were saying, "Without new players, our game will eventually die", but generally speaking, the response was, "why should I change how I play just to let some newbies win? I had to learn the hard way, so should they. After they lose their 30th tournment-style match in a row, they'll have gained valuable experience needed to play the game at a somewhat competent level." They literally shouted down someone suggesting that they play smaller point games and play inefficient lists to give new players a chance to actually play the game instead of being curb stomped in the second round.


Then if you are not trolling, you'll happily walk back your comment about 'the community' being outright hostile, and clarify it as a bunch of donkey-caves you may have had personal contact with and the fact that really, a lot of it boils down to it being a game you personally dislike.

Pointing to a thread of a forum means very little - a post by a handful of people on the internet is not representative of the community. the internet is not representative of wargaming for the most part. Most WMH people I knowledge (actually, most wargamers in general that I know, not just WMH players) don't actually post online, either on lormahordes (never even heard of it), fb, or the pp boards (when they were alive).

But you know what? I will accept your point about that forum. I have no doubt that there's a thread that is derogatory towards new players. What I doubt Is that it is emblematic of 'the community'. It seems it's just your bias playing up. Because while I don't doubt what you say was said, I can also say I've seen dozens of similar threads here on dakka, on warseer, heck, on portent or earlier boards about loads of different games (40k, warhammer fantasy, Aos ), saying similar things about new players. Which leads me to believe it's not a WMH thing, but simply a jerk gamer thing. I am also pretty positive if I looked, I could find positive posts/threads (from back when it was more popular, haha) from people getting into the game, and their awesome pressgangers/welcoming communities or else positive threads regarding building a community, or getting others into the gsme.

Maybe you've met some jerks. Fair enough. I have too. The difference is I don't tar the rest of the community by association.

Sqorgar wrote:
The WMH community is absolutely the most anti-newbie community I have ever seen in my life, across all games, genres, and hobbies. I don't even blame the game itself, though it does have a learning curve. I think WMH can be played narratively or casually, but the community doesn't allow it. They don't make the game look good, they don't make it fun to play, they don't make it fun to belong, they don't make it easy to follow, and they don't allow for any variation in how others are allowed to enjoy it.


There you go again. 'The community' isn't a hive mind.

I've played narrative WMH. And I've played plenty 'casualmachine'. In fact, most of my games these last few years have been 'casualmachine' rather than 'tourney prep'.

Sqorgar wrote:
That's why WMH is dying but GW survived much worse sins. GW was always bringing in new players and making them feel special and like they belonged, while WMH players were telling them that "you'll lose the first 20 games you play (and won't have fun for most of them), but eventually, I'll bother playing you once you 'git gud' with your two tournament armies"


Warmachine may or may not be dying. I genuinely hope it's not. I don't doubt it has declined, But we shall see. And hope. I don't want it to go it would be a genuine shame I feel it did. That said, There's a lot of reasons for it's decline. Playing 'hard', playing 'fair', 'earning' your wins based on earned skill and harder earned experience, losing your first dozen games getting to that point was always a draw for a lot of people. I maintain That even though you dislike that kind of game, that's not the reason WMH is in decline. The bloat of the current game (it's about two or two and a half times the size it was for the mk2 launch, when you factor in the new factions and various expansions), and the burden of knowledge required to play to a decent level is a far larger aspect of the decline as it's those things that are truly unfriendly towards prospects, rather than 'play hard'. Some people enjoy playing halo on legendary. Or playing Starcraft against Koreans. A hard game is not necessarily a bad thing. dont mistake what you don't like or a universal truth.

Sqorgar wrote:
And I'll bet you money that the vast majority of them didn't have a single painted model.


I have seen a lot more unpainted gw armies than WMH armies.

Speaking of my own warmachine stuff.

Khador - 211 models painted. 100% painted.
Retribution - 100 off models painted. 100% painted.
Circle (including what I'd recently sold) - 89 models painted. 100% painted.

And it's painted to a pretty decent standard too. For what it's worth, quite a number of my friends are excellent painters too, and I can think of a few WMH armies I've seen that are to die for.

This message was edited 8 times. Last update was at 2018/07/24 21:36:56


greatest band in the universe: machine supremacy

"Punch your fist in the air and hold your Gameboy aloft like the warrior you are" 
   
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A perfect storm is really the only way to describe it. There's really no one answer, as it all comes down to a chorus of things all hitting at once. At the heart of it though, is definitely a lack of new blood coming into the game. As much as there's a sense of old players rage quitting, the truth of it is many of them had just moved to a place in life where the hardcore tournament treadmill they were running wasn't lining up with work and family and any significant change was the push they needed to move on. The lack of new players to replace them is really what turned this into a sustainability issue for the game.

I do think one aspect that is often overlooked is competition from videogames like Hearthstone, League of Legends and Overwatch. These games attract very similar kinds of players. The avatar driven character selection is very similar to the appeal of Warcasters and the rather straightforward sense of competitive gameplay translates rather directly. These games feed that "play like you've got a pair" attitude with more immediate access and rewards, and I get the feeling the e-sports craze soaked up a ton of would be Warmachine players.

That said, for me, I'm mostly just disappointed in the community. PP is far from blameless, but when I play the game, it really feels like the best its ever been both mechanically and from the sense that armies feel cool and less gamey. The hyper focus on a flavor of the month tournament meta just turned the game into a treadmill that was easy to fall off and impossible to jump on. The podcast crowd really cultivated a culture of absolutes in list design, and the number of times players would come to me feeling completely defeated by things that weren't even played or owned locally got pretty depressing. The speed at which the community took every opportunity to tear itself apart was certainly the most disappointing part of it all.
   
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Rust belt

I had a bad experience once playing my first 40k game , did I label every player of 40k as a jerk? Nope... was my opponents army painted? No, and I didn’t go around saying all 40k players don’t paint their armies.
Labeling a whole group of people just because you had a bad experience with one or two people don’t make that entire group bad people. This way of thinking causes many of the problems we see in society
   
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United States

 RiTides wrote:
I think the main "event" you may be missing is:

- Towards the end of 2nd edition certain lists were getting very broken, and some players (and even prominent podcasts) questioned balance and even switched entirely to other systems such as Guild Ball or Malifaux

- PP put out 3rd edition with little build-up or testing to address this, while claiming to have been working on it for 3 years. But glaring problems like the basic throw rules not working, or an entire faction being unplayable (Skorne) led to people doubting this.

- PP near simultaneously removed their Press Ganger program for organized play (citing legal issues with Magic judges) and removed their faction forums from their website. Effectively, the two most common ways to organize / talk about their games disappeared together.

I think PP could have overcome any one of the above, but taken together it very effectively killed the game in many local areas, mine included, while reducing its structure for bringing in new players. So, almost like GW's last Kirby-decision in killing WHFB, but without the huge investment and effort GW was prepared to put into rebuilding its player base.

As others have said, this happened while GW has really turned around and been doing basically what their fans are asking for. PP has been doing the opposite, and there are just too many good options to play instead...


I'm curious about the Magic part, but first, you do mean MTG by WoTC right? If so, did this have something to do with all the issues relating to allegations of pedophilia and other sex crimes in their judge program, or was this something else entirely?
   
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Los Angeles

 Togusa wrote:
 RiTides wrote:
I think the main "event" you may be missing is:

- Towards the end of 2nd edition certain lists were getting very broken, and some players (and even prominent podcasts) questioned balance and even switched entirely to other systems such as Guild Ball or Malifaux

- PP put out 3rd edition with little build-up or testing to address this, while claiming to have been working on it for 3 years. But glaring problems like the basic throw rules not working, or an entire faction being unplayable (Skorne) led to people doubting this.

- PP near simultaneously removed their Press Ganger program for organized play (citing legal issues with Magic judges) and removed their faction forums from their website. Effectively, the two most common ways to organize / talk about their games disappeared together.

I think PP could have overcome any one of the above, but taken together it very effectively killed the game in many local areas, mine included, while reducing its structure for bringing in new players. So, almost like GW's last Kirby-decision in killing WHFB, but without the huge investment and effort GW was prepared to put into rebuilding its player base.

As others have said, this happened while GW has really turned around and been doing basically what their fans are asking for. PP has been doing the opposite, and there are just too many good options to play instead...


I'm curious about the Magic part, but first, you do mean MTG by WoTC right? If so, did this have something to do with all the issues relating to allegations of pedophilia and other sex crimes in their judge program, or was this something else entirely?


This thread will help: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/720317.page

Basically WoTC judges were suing claiming that they were performing in the role of employees and should receive the benefits of employees. PP presumably didn't like where that case was going and axed the PG program.
   
 
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