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I just finished reading/listening to Pandorax. And Abbadon keeps talking about the soon to launch 13th Crusade. Next up in releases was the Damnos Campaign, which was a a part of the Third Phase Tau expansion. I am all for more fluff, but it would be nice to see things move a little forward instead of backwards or at least avoid crazy retcon timeline re-orderings.

The clock moved backwards in 4th and locked in at the start of the 13th.

They won't move things forward because they're afraid of the outcome. I remember when the 13th Crusade was the worldwide campaign and they basically came out and said it would shape the future of the world; I guess at some point they realized that meant if Chaos won (which I think it did) then there'd be no Imperium, and their cash cow (i.e. Space Marines) would lose their appeal. So ever since then time has been frozen at the outset of the 13th Black Crusade, and everything they've done has been to expand the fluff for the past or go in directions that they previously stated they'd never do (e.g. Horus Heresy)

Personally I think they really need a shake-up. Advance the story, do some radical things (e.g. break up the Imperium to finally give a fluff reason for Marine vs. Marine or Marine vs. Guard/Other Imperial) for the sake of the game. But this is GW, they don't take risks.

I really would like them to advance the story. After 25 years of same old same old, it seems 40K and GW have grown stale.

I guess that is the real difference between a miniature company and a game company. Look at Battletech. They are a rules company and have advanced the story ten fold. Crappy minis but good flowing living story line. While GW seems to be Awesome minis, but crappy stale story line. (not counting Black Library books, or FW, but just GW rule book and codex.)

It is basically the same thing I bought 25 years ago in Rouge Trader. I quit, didn't play 2nd, bought the 3rd edition box set, quit, bought the 4th edition box set, made some minis, bought the 5th edition box set, played a bit, didn't like the rules, quit, and bought the 6th edition box set.

The story never changes. The minis do. Now for me, since I actually stuck around (hobby wise not game wise) what is it really in there for me to buy the next edition and want to play since the story never changes. I might as well just use what I have.

I don't like to be kept in the past but want to get excited for a future that is not expected. All I can expect is there is a corpse on a golden throne and the Imperium is on the bring of destruction, BUT NOTHING EVER CHANGES.

I want to see change in the future, not recton from the past.

Chaos won the event but instead of altering the fluff instead they said the battle for cadia is still going on and chaos is contained or some such bollocks.

WayneTheGame wrote:
They won't move things forward because they're afraid of the outcome. .

No they're not.

They won't move things forward because there is no good reason to do so. The 'current' time in the game is just a setting. It's supposed to leave you asking what happens next - that's what your games are for.

So instead of moving the clock forwards, they can just continue to flesh out the 10000 years between the Heresy and the 'current' time.

 insaniak wrote:

WayneTheGame wrote:
They won't move things forward because they're afraid of the outcome. .

No they're not.

They won't move things forward because there is no good reason to do so. The 'current' time in the game is just a setting. It's supposed to leave you asking what happens next - that's what your games are for.

So instead of moving the clock forwards, they can just continue to flesh out the 10000 years between the Heresy and the 'current' time.

That's merely your opinion and people who enjoy metaplots in their settings would beg to disagree.

Somehow Warmachine manages to maintain a developing world, as did World of Darkness, as did Shadowrun, and D&D, and countless other RPG's and wargames. A stagnant world is dull and introduction of any new ideas demands heavy retcons (vide Centurions, Storm Ravens and so on). I'd rather they were part of a developing timeline than heavy-handedly shoved into the setting to justify their existence.

As it stands, 40K is like a TV show that promises a resolution but keeps postponing it time and again, until people lose interest and the ratings dwindle, forcing the producers to come up with a hasty wrap-up.

One more thing - it also renders buying new publications pointless for me, because they're all made up of copy-pasted material, rehashes of previously written events, and narrative battle reports with no lasting impact on anybody and anything in the setting. There are only so many times I can stomach reading about the Tyranid invasion of Ultramar or the Third War for Armageddon, slightly dumbed down with every retelling, to boot.

I just noticed that -DE-. Every retelling is dumbed down.

Just look at the 4th edition Dark Angel codex. So much history, so much story taken away. Now look at the 6th DA codex. Yes more is added in, but a lot of it, is just 1, 2 or 3 sentences of events. Can't really get excited for them.

To me, try to flesh out 10 000 years is just boring. It's the same story over and over again. This Governor did that. That Governor did this. You can only tell the same story over again so many times. Also once you like a story, it gets recton then.

I think that is why I don't like the new Tyranid codex as much. When I was reading the story, I am saying to myself, that is not how it happened the first time.

So maybe we should have Star Wars not go over Return of the Jedi. All stories should be the same time line or before but not after? I am sure that would make Star Wars very boring.

One thing about Star Wars is it has a great rich history of stories before, during and AFTER. What do we have for 40K? Before and current. Nothing to look forward too.

I am not right or wrong, you are not right or wrong. All we have is opinion.

 -DE- wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

WayneTheGame wrote:
They won't move things forward because they're afraid of the outcome. .

No they're not.

They won't move things forward because there is no good reason to do so. The 'current' time in the game is just a setting. It's supposed to leave you asking what happens next - that's what your games are for.

So instead of moving the clock forwards, they can just continue to flesh out the 10000 years between the Heresy and the 'current' time.

That's merely your opinion and people who enjoy metaplots in their settings would beg to disagree.

It seems to be GW's opinion too.

 -DE- wrote:
Somehow Warmachine manages to maintain a developing world, as did World of Darkness, as did Shadowrun, and D&D, and countless other RPG's and wargames. A stagnant world is dull and introduction of any new ideas demands heavy retcons (vide Centurions, Storm Ravens and so on). I'd rather they were part of a developing timeline than heavy-handedly shoved into the setting to justify their existence.

I may be wrong but Warmachine doesn't have the setting's main atagonistic force starting a setting spanning Crusade aimed at the heart of one of it's factions where if either side loses it takes the teeth out of that faction (in this case the CSM/Daemons and the Imperium). Plus we've got Hive Fleets closing in on Terra and the Golden Throne coming apart. If the setting moves forward without some retcons or some seriously deus-ex-machina we're looking at the main faction of the game (you know, humanity, the one that represents "us" and attracts most of the players to the game?) being screwed so bad that it has no chance of recovery. And while the setting is dark, I don't think players want to be on the side of a faction that is basically losing that badly (even Eldar, who are a slowly dying off race aren't THAT bad off as if Humanity loses Terra it loses it's ability to navigate from system to system and the whole Imperium falls apart overnight).

As it stands, 40K is like a TV show that promises a resolution but keeps postponing it time and again, until people lose interest and the ratings dwindle, forcing the producers to come up with a hasty wrap-up.

One more thing - it also renders buying new publications pointless for me, because they're all made up of copy-pasted material, rehashes of previously written events, and narrative battle reports with no lasting impact on anybody and anything in the setting. There are only so many times I can stomach reading about the Tyranid invasion of Ultramar or the Third War for Armageddon, slightly dumbed down with every retelling, to boot.

I really don't see much of a reason to move it forward too much. As mentioned, it's a setting. Warhammer 40k, not Warhammer 50k. There are tens of thousands of years to this setting, and existing fluff hasn't even scratched the surface of potential lore, so I'm content with the setting being frozen right before the 13th crusade forever.

That said, I am definitely interested in seeing who will "win". They could easily release a BL novel giving the final conclusion to the setting without having to alter the game.

I think it would be fitting to have the story "end" in the 41st millennium since like I said, it's Warhammer 40k for a reason. The Imperium is at the breaking point, and adding another few thousand years would cheapen it into some kind of long running soap opera in space that never ends.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
It seems to be GW's opinion too.

No [MOD EDIT - Don't try to workaround the built in filter please - Alpharius]

 ClockworkZion wrote:
I may be wrong but Warmachine doesn't have the setting's main atagonistic force starting a setting spanning Crusade aimed at the heart of one of it's factions where if either side loses it takes the teeth out of that faction (in this case the CSM/Daemons and the Imperium). Plus we've got Hive Fleets closing in on Terra and the Golden Throne coming apart. If the setting moves forward without some retcons or some seriously deus-ex-machina we're looking at the main faction of the game (you know, humanity, the one that represents "us" and attracts most of the players to the game?) being screwed so bad that it has no chance of recovery. And while the setting is dark, I don't think players want to be on the side of a faction that is basically losing that badly (even Eldar, who are a slowly dying off race aren't THAT bad off as if Humanity loses Terra it loses it's ability to navigate from system to system and the whole Imperium falls apart overnight).

You're right in that you're wrong. Warmachine has exactly that in the form of dragons and the Skorne. Star Wars had exactly that - Rebellion loses, the universe is doomed to slavery. Forgotten Realms had world-shattering events that got resolved and the life went on, in an altered setting.

Any writer worth their salt should be able to come up with a fulfilling resolution for the 13th Crusade or the Tyranid menace. Besides, in the days of yore, we had another harbinger of the apocalypse called the Necrons. Where are they now? Exactly...

-DE-, you lost right when you said "any writer worth their salt". When's the last time the community liked anything GW put out as fluff in the codexes or the core rulebook? That's pretty much all you need to know why we shouldn't have them muck about and try to keep the status quo without making it look cheap or screw the Imperium right out of the setting.

40k is a setting, not a story. Settings are not supposed to change.
Like 40k, Warmachine's setting also does not move forward. Sure, stuff changes, but it never actually challenges the status quo. It does not move forward; it moves in circles.
That is why GW rolled back their whole campaign stuff, as its outcome in both 40k and Fantasy actually moved the setting forward in a way that would have severely diminished one of the settings major factions. GW tried to write its way out of it, but the result was rather silly and therefore they decided to roll events back to before the campaign as that would be beneficient for the setting as a whole. GW can and does add new fluff, but never in a way that challenges the status quo. This is the case for most, if not all, wargame settings.
Grandfather Nurgle is pleased.

Where is the campaigns for the 1st crusade? 2nd? 3rd? 4th? 5th? etc etc etc.

Where all all these awesome scenarios to play for the last 25 years? GW hasn't followed up on the "rich history" of what we could have got. So I am use to the staleness and want it more now.

I am not getting the 10th crusade. I am not getting my sons Necrons scenarios.

All I have is bones sitting on a golden throne (crapper? ) with the same story. Please show me for the last 25 years where are all these great scenarios to play? Where are the campaigns? I only see GW do a few, not enough for the 25 years they were in business for.

Again, when GW does add more history, it changes or reactions what they previously did. I guess if you like JJ Abrahms Star Trek you are fine with GW recton then. I for one hate recton when I am invested in it's history and then it's changed.

How would you like if GW said the person on the Throne is not actually the Emperor but his brother? Same time farme, same history, but just changed a small fact.

So I would like advancement. Not rectonned history.

Eternal War Missions are at least providing story based missions between paticular factions, so it's not like they aren't giving you anything, they're just not giving you what you seem to want apparently. Though FW is doing the Heresy so we're getting that at least (finally).

And JJ's Trek wasn't a "small retcon", that was a flatout reboot done through a large retcon. Most of GW's back history is adding in the newer stuff so it has an established place in the fluff (Hive Tyrant who fought Calgar on Macragge being the Swarmlord now for instance), but most of it doesn't drastically alter or shift the stories, the outcomes are the same in the end.

What is Eternal War Missions? This is where I guess GW failed to keep me informed what is what. This is where I could be wrong because I just didn't know.

Davor wrote:
What is Eternal War Missions? This is where I guess GW failed to keep me informed what is what. This is where I could be wrong because I just didn't know.

GW's been putting them in codex supplements. They're games set up between specific armies, sometimes with specific limitations, to allow players to recreate a narrative that occured.

Thanks ClockworkZion. I didn't know that. Zion for short? I guess GW is changing now.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Settings are not supposed to change.

That's not true.

Furthermore, the idea that "If the Imperium loses Cadia, Abaddon wins" is crap. Even if Abaddon took Cadia, a single planet, it'll take him hundreds if not a thousand or two years to fight all the way to Terra, during which time there are plenty of opportunities for the Imperium or other forces in the galaxy to rally and push him back into the Eye.

The *only* endgame scenario for the Imperium is Terra itself. Every other planet in the Galaxy is ultimately expendable.

Davor wrote:Thanks ClockworkZion. I didn't know that. Zion for short? I guess GW is changing now.

People just don't like counting the missions stuff in with rules for some reason so it doesn't get mentioned as much when people bring up the "two pages of rules" that are in the supplements.

And Zion for short is good.

BlaxicanX wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Settings are not supposed to change.

That's not true.

Furthermore, the idea that "If the Imperium loses Cadia, Abaddon wins" is crap. Even if Abaddon took Cadia, a single planet, it'll take him hundreds if not a thousand or two years to fight all the way to Terra, during which time there are plenty of opportunities for the Imperium or other forces in the galaxy to rally and push him back into the Eye.

The *only* endgame scenario for the Imperium is Terra itself. Every other planet in the Galaxy is ultimately expendable.

The issue with the setting is we have a lot of stuff aimed at Terra right now, so even if Abbadon is stuck there there is the Hive Fleet that's entering the galaxy awfully close to Terra (relatively speaking) and some others in route that should be entering damn close to Terra and wouldn't be stoppable in the next few thousand years of setting, Abbadon stuck on the slow crawl through the Imperium or not.

 BlaxicanX wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Settings are not supposed to change.

That's not true.

Furthermore, the idea that "If the Imperium loses Cadia, Abaddon wins" is crap. Even if Abaddon took Cadia, a single planet, it'll take him hundreds if not a thousand or two years to fight all the way to Terra, during which time there are plenty of opportunities for the Imperium or other forces in the galaxy to rally and push him back into the Eye.

The *only* endgame scenario for the Imperium is Terra itself. Every other planet in the Galaxy is ultimately expendable.

But Cadia can never be lost, because Cadia is a very major faction in itself. Just look at all those IG units on the tabletop, they are almost all Cadian.
Cadia is the most heavily defended planet of the Imperium and guards the Eye of Terror. Aside from diminishing a very important faction on the tabletop, if Cadia is lost, nothing will prevent Abaddon from bringing Chaos' full might through the Eye. And if the most heavily defended planet in the Imperium will not be able to stop Abbadon, what will be? The fall of Cadia would mean that the way to Terra would be right open for Chaos; most Imperial forces will already have been destroyed on Cadia, and it is only a short distance to Terra; there would be little time for the Imperium to reinforce.

I think they COULD advance the plot past the 13th Crusade without just wiping out one or two factions, but it'd need to be a catalyst. As I said before, have the Imperium start to crumble. The Golden Throne fails. Insurrections spring up on various planets (allowing for non-Imperium aligned Guard). The Ultramarines break away into the "Dominion of Ultramar" and basically have the Neo-Imperium (and hey it's an analogy to the Roman and Byzantine Empire!). The Space Wolves become independent - various other chapters become independent, some become mercenary type companies, some stay with the Imperium. The Tau roughly stay where they are, same with Eldar and Tyranids and Necrons since all of them are slowly encroaching. Chaos might encroach to have some worlds in realspace as footholds.

That gives you a much more varied narrative than the current style. You could have Ultramarines vs. Space Wolves without it being some contrived "training simulation" or "Who's the heretic this time" mission (even though in that particular scenario you already know - it's the furry guys ). You could have Dark Angels vs. IG without having "Traitor Guard" and IG players, or Sisters vs. Space Marines representing some kind of crusade to bring them back into the Imperium or Marines attacking an independent world. Nothing really changes, just things are shook up. You have a weakened Imperium that can't bring their full armies to bear anymore on any dissenters, and that allows for splinter factions that may or may not be allied, and allows for a lot of border conflicts with just about anybody for legit reasons instead of suspending the fluff to fight a battle if you have two players fighting on the Imperium side.

The issue with Cadia is you have the Ulthwe Craftworld, like 6 full Marine Chapters who are permanently stationed in the system and Cadia which has billions of Guardsmen.

To break Cadia pretty much sets the tone for the Imperium to assume the position bent over a table.

Davor wrote:
I really would like them to advance the story. After 25 years of same old same old, it seems 40K and GW have grown stale.

I guess that is the real difference between a miniature company and a game company. Look at Battletech. They are a rules company and have advanced the story ten fold. Crappy minis but good flowing living story line. While GW seems to be Awesome minis, but crappy stale story line. (not counting Black Library books, or FW, but just GW rule book and codex.)

It is basically the same thing I bought 25 years ago in Rouge Trader. I quit, didn't play 2nd, bought the 3rd edition box set, quit, bought the 4th edition box set, made some minis, bought the 5th edition box set, played a bit, didn't like the rules, quit, and bought the 6th edition box set.

The story never changes. The minis do. Now for me, since I actually stuck around (hobby wise not game wise) what is it really in there for me to buy the next edition and want to play since the story never changes. I might as well just use what I have.

I don't like to be kept in the past but want to get excited for a future that is not expected. All I can expect is there is a corpse on a golden throne and the Imperium is on the bring of destruction, BUT NOTHING EVER CHANGES.

I want to see change in the future, not recton from the past.

BT advanced the story because it kept getting bought by a new company, and they went through a period when they just kept leaping forward because each time the company changed hands, they lost the old minis, and needed to sell new books to generate revenue. The new owners have done a good job of going back and redoing the old books and rereleasing them. BT is a sad story of a great game screwed over by business. 40K is lucky because it's had one company all these years, the BT saga has been one of woe and a game that is all but dead.

WayneTheGame wrote:
They won't move things forward because they're afraid of the outcome. I remember when the 13th Crusade was the worldwide campaign and they basically came out and said it would shape the future of the world; I guess at some point they realized that meant if Chaos won (which I think it did) then there'd be no Imperium, and their cash cow (i.e. Space Marines) would lose their appeal. So ever since then time has been frozen at the outset of the 13th Black Crusade, and everything they've done has been to expand the fluff for the past or go in directions that they previously stated they'd never do (e.g. Horus Heresy)

Personally I think they really need a shake-up. Advance the story, do some radical things (e.g. break up the Imperium to finally give a fluff reason for Marine vs. Marine or Marine vs. Guard/Other Imperial) for the sake of the game. But this is GW, they don't take risks.

It is not that they are "afraid of the outcome". The point if you will, behind the 40k storyline is that these are the last days of Mankind and it is on the precipice of extinction. How they go down is really what the game is all about...

Beyond this period is really not much of a story for the human race. It is the end of times. Now some of you might like a game that is focused on the rise of the Tau empire or the galaxy being devoured by Tyranids or the resurgence of the Necron race. But these are, for the most part, un-relatable as a main protagonist in a gaming universe.

Especially when Marines are still the top seller.

GW is confused and doesn't really understand their own universe, they sort of just randomly make up names and events as they go along. They're just trying to shove as much stuff out there to make a good financial report for the investors to disguise their current state. I assure you, there's no calculated fluff-based policy. That would assume they have any clue about what "fluff" is. They look at fluff and see only a collection of terms that are trademarked or not trademarked and need to be changed so they can be trademarked.

hey! this topic again!

GW is not moving forward with the story. TSR made that mistake and it was tedious for gamers.

 cvtuttle wrote:

The point if you will, behind the 40k storyline is that these are the last days of Mankind and it is on the precipice of extinction. How they go down is really what the game is all about...

Beyond this period is really not much of a story for the human race. It is the end of times. Now some of you might like a game that is focused on the rise of the Tau empire or the galaxy being devoured by Tyranids or the resurgence of the Necron race. But these are, for the most part, un-relatable as a main protagonist in a gaming universe.

Especially when Marines are still the top seller.

viewfinder wrote:
hey! this topic again!

GW is not moving forward with the story. TSR made that mistake and it was tedious for gamers.

Except they've continued moving forward the story since 1st edition, and 4th editions fluff was pretty good, they just needed a more solid monster set (The monster creation rules were the best this edition)

Davor wrote:
I just noticed that -DE-. Every retelling is dumbed down.

Just look at the 4th edition Dark Angel codex. So much history, so much story taken away. Now look at the 6th DA codex. Yes more is added in, but a lot of it, is just 1, 2 or 3 sentences of events. Can't really get excited for them.

To me, try to flesh out 10 000 years is just boring. It's the same story over and over again. This Governor did that. That Governor did this. You can only tell the same story over again so many times. Also once you like a story, it gets recton then.

I think that is why I don't like the new Tyranid codex as much. When I was reading the story, I am saying to myself, that is not how it happened the first time.

So maybe we should have Star Wars not go over Return of the Jedi. All stories should be the same time line or before but not after? I am sure that would make Star Wars very boring.

One thing about Star Wars is it has a great rich history of stories before, during and AFTER. What do we have for 40K? Before and current. Nothing to look forward too.

I am not right or wrong, you are not right or wrong. All we have is opinion.

Star Wars is a story not a setting though so it's not applicable. I made the same point in the 40k movie thread. The Star Wars "setting" evolved after movie's story had been told and it all has to fit around the established timeline. 40k is primarily a setting with stories set within it. Star Wars was like 5 or 6 years of events and so of course there are tons of things that could have come before or after. 40k has 10,000 years of history to explore, and 1000 years of them are all considered "now."

This is why I (and I'm sure a lot of others) didn't particularly love LOTR the game, because once I had replayed the Battle of Helms Deep a dozen times, it got boring. Sure I could make up other stories but they felt unimportant, or boring because we already know that SPOILER: Sauron loses. In the Movies Aragon and Gandalf are the hero's so who cares about my Rohirim Captain? In 40k however, my battles are the future. Sure Abaddon is the big cheese now, but who's to say that my Chaos Lord won't rise above the ranks and become Warmaster? Who's to say that your Space Marine Chapter doesn't wipe out the Chaos Fleet and bring a degree of peace to the Imperium? In 40k we can replay historical battles or make up our own, but they are all equally important in our own fluff and our own backgrounds for our armies.

There is a reason they won't progress past the 13th Crusade, because it's results would be boring. At the moment we are in the end times, the darkest days. If the Imperium wins then the 13th was just another failure, the moustache twirling villains would have got away with it if it wasn't for those pesky Space Marines. If Chaos wins then over 50% of the armies in the game are suddenly on the verge of being wiped out and there has to be a vast over haul of the universe to reflect that. At the moment, anything is possible, and isn't that a good thing?

Movie sequels and additional TV sequels are so often guilty of this, advancing the storyline but often becoming tired and boring. Take Buffy the Vampire Slayer as an example; In Season one it was like ok the apocalypse is coming, we have to fight the big bad or the whole world could be lost. The Master is killed and the end of the world averted, but then 7 seasons later when we're on like the 9th apocalypse, it starts to get stale. Now in a tv show, movie or novel, we have to end the seasons/story arcs or whatever. The viewers need satisfaction, and then we move on to another show/movie/book. But in 40k, we don't want to finish 40k and move on to something else (GW certianly doesn't want that) What we have is GW saying, here is a world, make your own stories inside it, but hey as a bonus to flesh it out we have a bunch of writers creating their own stories in the setting and you can read them too, add them to your own or ignore them entirely, it's up to you. You can't get involved in Star Wars and ignore the movies, they are too central to the plot, so any of your stories have to bend to the rules of the already completed story arc.

Advancing the story won't ever happen because it doesn't need to.