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For every person that is upset over the 30+ year old setting coming to an end, there is likely an equal number of people excited about a new setting. It's especially friendly to new players who can find a game with history older than they are daunting.

How many settings had D&D gone through ?

Forgottten Realms, Lankmar, Ravenloft, Dark Sun, Al Quadim, Dragon Lance, Mystara, Spelljammer, etc....

 adamsouza wrote:
For every person that is upset over the 30+ year old setting coming to an end, there is likely an equal number of people excited about a new setting. It's especially friendly to new players who can find a game with history older than they are daunting.

How many settings had D&D gone through ?

Forgottten Realms, Lankmar, Ravenloft, Dark Sun, Al Quadim, Dragon Lance, Mystara, Spelljammer, etc....

I doubt that. People who didnt like the setting are more likely to have left to find one they do like. While those who liked the setting are more likely to stay because they DO like it. Meaning its logical that destroying the setting upsets more people than it has people cheering.

 adamsouza wrote:
For every person that is upset over the 30+ year old setting coming to an end, there is likely an equal number of people excited about a new setting.

Numbers?

I dunno how many are excited vs. upset. There might be more excited, there might be fewer. But despite the mantra of the GW Hhhobby, there are factors other than background that might attract or repel gamers, and I'm not entirely sure that a lot of 'em who've been once bitten by GW are going to come flooding back, even if the new fluff tickles them.

As someone who has been playing 18+ years I was excited with the end times. I likeep that all the recent armybooks, 8th rulebook, and end times pretty much tell a story of an entire era. And now I'm excited to see what happens. The newest rumors make me hopeful that my issues with 8th are resolved. We'll see in 3 weeks...

 adamsouza wrote:
For every person that is upset over the 30+ year old setting coming to an end, there is likely an equal number of people excited about a new setting. It's especially friendly to new players who can find a game with history older than they are daunting.

How many settings had D&D gone through ?

Forgottten Realms, Lankmar, Ravenloft, Dark Sun, Al Quadim, Dragon Lance, Mystara, Spelljammer, etc....

And how many of those were successful post apocalypse? Their most popular setting outside of the core (FR) was nuked into bubble universes alongside a drastic rules change just like we're talking about with WHFB/AOS and that edition's sales were the first surpassed by another company since D&D started the RPG hobby and resulted in the shortest lived edition in recent memory (20 years). The rest were unceremoniously dropped (although frequently for good reason TBH) so they're not exactly poster children for the potential success of AOS either.

I'm more excited that WFB is going back to 5E / 6E unit sizes and army composition vs the hordes of 8E.

The setting? Eh.

And Episodes IV,V, and VI are better than I,II,III but they reinvigorated the franchise and paved the way for a movie a year for the next ten years.

No matter how much anyone loved the Warhammer Fantasy setting as it was, it wasn't selling.

Rebooting provides a fresh jumping on point.

How much of the next edition do you buy, if you already have been playing for the last decade and only the core rules changed ? The answer is not much.
Great for you, but not soo much for GW or your LGS you expect to carry it.

New sells. Kickstarter is blowling up with new miniatures games every month.

So more rumors about sigmar space marines and empire lose g black powder. =/

The game going back to smaller unit sizes is the most exciting part. The number of models your needed to buy and paint was terrible.

Herzlos wrote:
The rumours that sound most like jokes tend to be the ones that turn out to be true, though.

OgreChubbs wrote:
I actually had to google mtg thing to find out what it was lol. The closest gw store is one hour away. Closest store to buy mtg is 3 hours away so gw wins here

All the large bookstores (Waterstones etc) and all but the smallest comic stores in the UK sell MtG packs. It's easily the most accesible 'geek' game on the market, and 'geek' is currently pretty in. I wouldn't be surprised if some newsagents even have packs.

In the US you can buy Magic cards at most big retailers. Walmart and Target (a bit like Tesco, I gather) both stock them. In addition, at least in my area, about a quarter of the FLGS that exist are pretty much exclusively focused on Magic, with little or no support for miniature gaming. I don't know where OgreChubbs lives that he is 3 hours from any place that sells Magic, but it must be waaaaaaay out in the sticks.

 adamsouza wrote:
For every person that is upset over the 30+ year old setting coming to an end, there is likely an equal number of people excited about a new setting. It's especially friendly to new players who can find a game with history older than they are daunting.

How many settings had D&D gone through ?

Forgottten Realms, Lankmar, Ravenloft, Dark Sun, Al Quadim, Dragon Lance, Mystara, Spelljammer, etc....

You forgot the original -- Greyhawk!!

Gord of Greyhawk was my hero. At the time, he was my favorite thief character in literature, and remained so for quite a while.

To your other point, I don't even think it's good for players to make a game where you just iterate rules. If you were very good at that, at the end of the day, you'd have a perfect game that nobody stayed with because the same setting gets boring no matter how good it is. To keep the eyeballs on you, there has to be new stuff that people want, dribbled out at the right cadence. In this respect, 40k has been much better than Fantasy.

Heck, I can find MTG cards at the local Gas Stations. They are everywhere.

I've talked to more than one comic/gaming store owner and they've all agreed that MTG is their number one money maker.

Players are constantly impulse buying new packs, card sleeves, and card holders, between releases, while buying entire boxes of cards with each new release. Not to mention the money to be made selling singles.

To your other point, I don't even think it's good for players to make a game where you just iterate rules. If you were very good at that, at the end of the day, you'd have a perfect game that nobody stayed with because the same setting gets boring no matter how good it is. To keep the eyeballs on you, there has to be new stuff that people want, dribbled out at the right cadence. In this respect, 40k has been much better than Fantasy.

Exactly.

Also, I can't believe I forgot GreyHawk. Although I must admit, it's been damn long time since I've heard it's name mentioned.

 adamsouza wrote:

No matter how much anyone loved the Warhammer Fantasy setting as it was, it wasn't selling.

Rebooting provides a fresh jumping on point.

I agree with the above but was rather pointing out a market leading example of doing what WHFB is rumored to be doing NOT leading to increased sales. FR was bubbled (turned into "points of light") and the rules massively revamped (if the stuff posted here ends up true) and it flopped... big time. A reboot isn't a magic cureall for everything despite what Hollywood would have us believe. There are real risks involved and if GW didn't put the customer first (instead of Kirbry's retirement dividend slush fund) and the effort into making sure the changes are good for the customer (see 7th edition 40k for the opposite) then the reboot will likely be a waste of everyone's time and money.

Tesco tends to stock Pokemon TCGs in the UK.. but in the starter, three blister and blister on a card back with rare and coin variety.
The Waterstones in Ipswich has a large selection of Magic though.


Those recent gameplay rumours sound pretty good to me, would happily give that a go.. if it comes with some of the figures the other guy suggested.. then I could see me starting with a couple of boxes not the one.

No matter how much anyone loved the Warhammer Fantasy setting as it was, it wasn't selling.

Wrong.

warhammer fantasy wasnt selling as well as they wanted it to. It was still selling and was still making profit. Either way this had nothing to do with the setting, and to find a solution that setting didnt need to be destroyed. In fact id go as far as to say the reason it was still doing as well as it was, and hadnt already completely died was because of the setting and its history.

The 3 biggest reasons it wasnt selling better were the price (both of entry and in general), the effort to start an army (time and assembly/painting in general for some) and the lack of support (competitive play, timely errata/faqs, good balance etc).

Neither of these are tied to a setting, they could make a smaller scale skirmish edition in the old setting just as easy as they can in a new setting to fix the first 2 (which is one step they seem to be taking), likewise better support can be done in any setting (though i doubt this will change anyway).

 Morathi's Darkest Sin wrote:
Tesco tends to stock Pokemon TCGs in the UK.. but in the starter, three blister and blister on a card back with rare and coin variety.
The Waterstones in Ipswich has a large selection of Magic though.


Those recent gameplay rumours sound pretty good to me, would happily give that a go.. if it comes with some of the figures the other guy suggested.. then I could see me starting with a couple of boxes not the one.

The Waterstone's local to me started doing FNM, but the organiser kept picking it up and dropping it, or something similar I think, so the local players got frustrated, but it def seems there's a link.

 warboss wrote:

 adamsouza wrote:

No matter how much anyone loved the Warhammer Fantasy setting as it was, it wasn't selling.

Rebooting provides a fresh jumping on point.

I agree with the above but was rather pointing out a market leading example of doing what WHFB is rumored to be doing NOT leading to increased sales. FR was bubbled (turned into "points of light") and the rules massively revamped (if the stuff posted here ends up true) and it flopped... big time. A reboot isn't a magic cureall for everything despite what Hollywood would have us believe. There are real risks involved and if GW didn't put the customer first (instead of Kirbry's retirement dividend slush fund) and the effort into making sure the changes are good for the customer (see 7th edition 40k for the opposite) then the reboot will likely be a waste of everyone's time and money.

Are you refering to D&D 4th Edition ? It did take massive amounts of hated from the existing playerbase, and fueld Pathfiders success, but it was a good game, and new players generally enjoyed it. Most of the 3E players that hated it decided they hated it before playing it. There was serious resentment over having huge libraries of books that became perceived as obsolete.

D&D 4E's life cycle had more to do with it being owned by a toy and board game manufacturer rather than an old school gaming outfit. It's the same situation that 40K and Fantasy are in now. Corporations care about moving product. To move product it needs to be "new and improved".

 adamsouza wrote:
And Episodes IV,V, and VI are better than I,II,III but they reinvigorated the franchise and paved the way for a movie a year for the next ten years.

Yeah, no. Disney would've bought the Star Wars license without the prequel trilogy existing. They probably would've produced a better prequel trilogy, too, while they were at it.

All this talk of MtG is reminding me how much I loath that game, and the community/culture it engenders. I have seen children crying in front of a box, buying a pack at a time... for hours... because they didn't get some "chase" non-sense. Likewise you'll see people fighting angrily over trades, and all manner of non-sense.

I may dislike GW's pricing and questionable (or non-existent) game balancing, but at least their game isn't a depraved slot-machine before one even starts "playing", and a recipe for future addicts of every or any kind.

I appreciate that it, and mostly singles-sales prop up most game-shops in the US, but seeing those singles often coming from desperate teens trading in something for a few dollars of "store credit" to feed their habit, which then gets flipped to another manic gamer for 400% profit, just makes me feel all kinds of uncomfortable.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
I'm more excited that WFB is going back to 5E / 6E unit sizes and army composition vs the hordes of 8E.

My 8. edition units are smaller than my 5. and 6. edtion units were (played a lot 30-40 model units back than, now they hardly one hits 30 models with most beeing 20).
So for me, units size is getting smaller and smaller with every edition (while total army prize increased)

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 adamsouza wrote:
And Episodes IV,V, and VI are better than I,II,III but they reinvigorated the franchise and paved the way for a movie a year for the next ten years.

Yeah, no. Disney would've bought the Star Wars license without the prequel trilogy existing. They probably would've produced a better prequel trilogy, too, while they were at it.

Disney straigh up admitted that the reason they bought Star Wars was the same reason they bought Marvel, they were both currently strong with the 18-25 year old male demographic.

Without the prequils, all Star Wars was at the time was the expanded universe, which Disney immediately dumped after aquiring, and a few video games, which Disney dumped after aquiring.

Don't get me wrong, they loved the Star Wars setting, like we all do, but it was the Clone Wars Era success with modern males that made them viable.

 adamsouza wrote:

Are you refering to D&D 4th Edition ? It did take massive amounts of hated from the existing playerbase, and fueld Pathfiders success, but it was a good game, and new players generally enjoyed it. Most of the 3E players that hated it decided they hated it before playing it. There was serious resentment over having huge libraries of books that became perceived as obsolete.

The above is certainly not reflective of my experience or that frankly of the community as a whole who responded after initial enthusiasm (WOTC boasted that the 4e preorders were their best ever) negatively to it for the rest of the entirety of it's short life cycle. If it was "just" the existing old foggies like myself that supposedly hated it before playing, the preorders wouldn't have been so high and the game would have stayed at the top of the ICV2 rankings like the previous D&D edition as new players started AND STAYED. Every edition has had churn yet D&D never dropped out of the top spot for as long as folks have been counting. Most of my (then) current D&D group as well as the previous long standing multiyear one in another state had the majority of the then 3e players preorder the books.. and both groups collapsed withing months. My then current group lasted only 2-3 games of 4th before we all decided that it just wasn't worth it; at the time there was no pathfinder yet so we stopped playing RPGs and switched to board games instead for a while. My old group chugged on for a few months but then pettered out as well since out of the 6-7 remaining players only 2 actually liked the new rules. I find little objective basis in your excuses for 4e and even less subjective ones from my own experience. In the case of the latter, though, they're both anecdotal so you're welcome to agree to disagree.

 adamsouza wrote:
And Episodes IV,V, and VI are better than I,II,III but they reinvigorated the franchise and paved the way for a movie a year for the next ten years.

No matter how much anyone loved the Warhammer Fantasy setting as it was, it wasn't selling.

Rebooting provides a fresh jumping on point.

How much of the next edition do you buy, if you already have been playing for the last decade and only the core rules changed ? The answer is not much.
Great for you, but not soo much for GW or your LGS you expect to carry it.

New sells. Kickstarter is blowling up with new miniatures games every month.

And how many of those games do you expect will become 30 year franchises with an IP strong enough to flog licensed videogames? Hell, how many of them manage to stay relevant even 6-12 months after the KS is over? Newshiny sells in the moment, it doesn't create a stable foundation; you can try and set up a perpetual churn of newshiny, that's what GW have tried with 40K of late and what a few companies have been trying on KS, but in both cases fatigue is setting in. The ADHD crowd buy and then they move on, or go back to their familiar favourite(which for many was Warhammer, because of the background); MMO companies have been trying to lure the videogaming part of the ADHD crowd for years now, they get a burst of sales, then inside a couple of years all those folk have moved on or gone back to WoW, and they either sink or go F2P and eke out a living from a handful of whales.

So GW goes Newshiny on Fantasy with AoS, then in six months the sales drop off again because the actual issues have only been partially solved, what then, blow everything up again? Start a 40K-style accelerated release cycle that will burn out new folk and further piss off existing players who find their expensive rulebooks invalidated after a year or two? This approach to "rebooting" Fantasy is symptomatic of GW's issues as a company; they're happy to lurch from one barely-sustainable burst of sales to the next, burning through their rich heritage of IP in order to keep the financials just healthy enough that they can continue to justify forking out dividends, with no real regard for longevity.

I'm sure that some people stopped playing Fantasy because they got bored of the background, but I'd bet my house that such folk are a tiny minority compared to those who quit because of cost, or issues with the new edition's rules, or lack of event support, or GW's less community-friendly approach to their retail chain, or because the decline in playerbase caused by all of those other things meant WHFB was no longer guaranteed to find you a game whenever you wanted in your area.

warboss wrote:Most of my (then) current D&D group as well as the previous long standing multiyear one in another state had the majority of the then 3e players preorder the books.. and both groups collapsed withing months. My then current group lasted only 2-3 games of 4th before we all decided that it just wasn't worth it; at the time there was no pathfinder yet so we stopped playing RPGs and switched to board games instead for a while. My old group chugged on for a few months but then pettered out as well since out of the 6-7 remaining players only 2 actually liked the new rules.

But... but... surely they knew gaming groups are for drinking beer and shooting breezes, and the games and their rubbishness have nothing to do with anything...?

 Yodhrin wrote:
I'm sure that some people stopped playing Fantasy because they got bored of the background, but I'd bet my house that such folk are a tiny minority compared to those who quit because of cost, or issues with the new edition's rules, or lack of event support, or GW's less community-friendly approach to their retail chain, or because the decline in playerbase caused by all of those other things meant WHFB was no longer guaranteed to find you a game whenever you wanted in your area.

Indeed. The numbers don't lie. When I started 40K (4E). Fantasy was the top game in the local stores and on the forum. Today I never see Fantasy players anymore at the FLGS. I see INFINITY, Warmahordes and 40K mostly. X-Wing is the «shiny new game» but its already in difficulty because Armada came out - some want to play others don't. And now I see more and more 40K players giving Infinity a try because they are tired of spending a fortune (7E after 2 years didn't help) and carrying trunks full of models just for one game. Times are changing and GW has to do something about it.

 Ratius wrote:

On a personal note, the game seemed...fun. The choice between different
types of formation provided a level of tactical flexibility that didn't
exist in the old game, but required more forward thinking. Do you start in
skirmish formation for more maneuverability, risking getting charged with
no bonuses from your numbers? Or do you form up Tight and split the
difference? Or do you make like a Dwarf and form up Square and just risk
getting outflanked? Also, when the two leaders got into a challenge in the
middle it was exciting - mine was faster but not as strong, hers was slower
but more likely to do lasting damage. We stopped before one leader killed
the other though.

That sounds quite interesting to be honest.

Not so sure about the commander being the important centre of the army, are we talking about a version of herohammer - one hard ass lord surrounded by "relatively" weak units, that are just there to buff him/soak up fire?

Sounds more like a huge hit to morale that makes the troops lose their heart in the fight after seeing their lord and leader get decapitated by a daemon prince in CC. Pretty good reason to pack it in and head home from a fight, I'd say. I like that concept!

 Yodhrin wrote:

And how many of those games do you expect will become 30 year franchises with an IP strong enough to flog licensed videogames? Hell, how many of them manage to stay relevant even 6-12 months after the KS is over? Newshiny sells in the moment, it doesn't create a stable foundation; you can try and set up a perpetual churn of newshiny, that's what GW have tried with 40K of late and what a few companies have been trying on KS, but in both cases fatigue is setting in. The ADHD crowd buy and then they move on, or go back to their familiar favourite(which for many was Warhammer, because of the background); MMO companies have been trying to lure the videogaming part of the ADHD crowd for years now, they get a burst of sales, then inside a couple of years all those folk have moved on or gone back to WoW, and they either sink or go F2P and eke out a living from a handful of whales.

So GW goes Newshiny on Fantasy with AoS, then in six months the sales drop off again because the actual issues have only been partially solved, what then, blow everything up again? Start a 40K-style accelerated release cycle that will burn out new folk and further piss off existing players who find their expensive rulebooks invalidated after a year or two? This approach to "rebooting" Fantasy is symptomatic of GW's issues as a company; they're happy to lurch from one barely-sustainable burst of sales to the next, burning through their rich heritage of IP in order to keep the financials just healthy enough that they can continue to justify forking out dividends, with no real regard for longevity.

I'm sure that some people stopped playing Fantasy because they got bored of the background, but I'd bet my house that such folk are a tiny minority compared to those who quit because of cost, or issues with the new edition's rules, or lack of event support, or GW's less community-friendly approach to their retail chain, or because the decline in playerbase caused by all of those other things meant WHFB was no longer guaranteed to find you a game whenever you wanted in your area.

Everything you've said there may be fine and valid, but it's how corporations work.

What matters to them are the sales for the this, and maybe next, financial year.

Also, it has less to do with being bored with Warhammer Fantasy and to do with being new and shiny. End Times sold really well because it was something new.

My FLGS couldn't move Warhammer Fantasy stuff to save their lives, but Age of Sigmar starters will sell because the old fantasy players will buy it out of curiosity. Then we'll get some fools to play it with us, and some of them witll buy it as well. Then they'll need an army book, and more models, etc...

 adamsouza wrote:

What matters to them are the sales for the this, and maybe next, financial year.

What happens the year after that? Another edition? multitudes of 'DLC' army lists? If I really wanted to sink Warhammer I would do pretty much what GW seem to be doing at the moment.

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

 adamsouza wrote:

What matters to them are the sales for the this, and maybe next, financial year.

What happens the year after that? Another edition? multitudes of 'DLC' army lists? If I really wanted to sink Warhammer I would do pretty much what GW seem to be doing at the moment.

Army Book: Imperial Steam Tank. I can see it now! Oh, what a day... what a lovely day!

For every person that is upset over the 30+ year old setting coming to an end, there is likely an equal number of people excited about a new setting. It's especially friendly to new players who can find a game with history older than they are daunting.

How many settings had D&D gone through ?

Forgottten Realms, Lankmar, Ravenloft, Dark Sun, Al Quadim, Dragon Lance, Mystara, Spelljammer, etc....

+1

Dabbled in WHFB around 5-7th with friends armies, enjoyed it, but was bigtime into 40k so didnt want another army/.system.
This though, has me excited- aswell as my core gaming group who havent bought a WHFB model in 2 yrs.

I know, its anecdotal but, dont write off the silent WHFB "viewers".

It all depends on how good Age of Sigmar is.

I think there's a reasonable chance that Age of Sigmar will disgruntle and fracture the existing Warhammer Fantasy community, and it won't get any new people. Or maybe it'll entice some new people, but not enough, and quickly get forgotten.