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 Azreal13 wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
When GW fails - they will sell the company to smart people. Said smart people will make good rules. At this point the game has the potential to be fun again.

GW is a publicly owned company, they have absolutely no say in who buys them, it is just a question of funds and desire, and neither of those things is a guarantee of the right kind of smart that 40K needs.

Ok but stands to pretty good chance that the new owners will see why GW failed (not hard to see) and improve on this. I think it's highly unlikely anyone could do worse than GW at this point

 Xenomancers wrote:
When GW fails - they will sell the company to smart people. Said smart people will make good rules. At this point the game has the potential to be fun again.

the grass is always greener scenario rarely turns out that way, sadly.

Especially when finance is tricky, you're more likely to find a get-rich-quick merchant taking over, who will gouge the consumer and move production to China for a short-term profits lift.

 SHUPPET wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
When GW fails - they will sell the company to smart people. Said smart people will make good rules. At this point the game has the potential to be fun again.

GW is a publicly owned company, they have absolutely no say in who buys them, it is just a question of funds and desire, and neither of those things is a guarantee of the right kind of smart that 40K needs.

Ok but stands to pretty good chance that the new owners will see why GW failed (not hard to see) and improve on this. I think it's highly unlikely anyone could do worse than GW at this point

History shows us that this simply isn't the case. There are plenty of occasions where companies have been bought out, staggered on for an indeterminate period and then fallen flat on their faces, or equally transformed beyond all recognition in the pursuit of profit.

Fully articulated Space Marine action figures could be the future of 40K after a buyout, that could be immensely profitable for the new powers, less than popular with the existing fan base though.

 Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:

 SHUPPET wrote:
I'd even rather let a couple of posters from here write the books.

Well, why don't you guys do it, then? Seriously. Nine tenths of the complaints on here are about the rules - would be great if people used the same energy invested in that, and devoted it to setting up new rules and, perhaps, points/codex adjustments.


I don't want GW to fail; better the devil you know.

The funny thing about that is 1) it's already been done, sorry if you're unable to see the numerous fandexes and houserule threads in the proposed rules forum (sure most of it is the product of a 12 year old's fevered imagination BUT there is some good stuff in there too) and 2) there are several posters on this board who write game rules in a professional capacity.

Edit:
The simpler thing is to just move on to a game that doesn't require me to rewrite the rules because the people paid to do so at GW are incompetent and have an incomplete grasp of the English language.

None of the other games have lore that makes me give a care, however, making that not a valid choice forme.

 Azreal13 wrote:

 SHUPPET wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
When GW fails - they will sell the company to smart people. Said smart people will make good rules. At this point the game has the potential to be fun again.

GW is a publicly owned company, they have absolutely no say in who buys them, it is just a question of funds and desire, and neither of those things is a guarantee of the right kind of smart that 40K needs.

Ok but stands to pretty good chance that the new owners will see why GW failed (not hard to see) and improve on this. I think it's highly unlikely anyone could do worse than GW at this point

History shows us that this simply isn't the case. There are plenty of occasions where companies have been bought out, staggered on for an indeterminate period and then fallen flat on their faces, or equally transformed beyond all recognition in the pursuit of profit.

Fully articulated Space Marine action figures could be the future of 40K after a buyout, that could be immensely profitable for the new powers, less than popular with the existing fan base though.

Agreed. A perfect world scenario would be one in which a group of motivated venture capitalists with a passion for wargaming and WHFB/40K in particular buy the company out and then "fix" everything. Reality would be that many would still be unhappy because, well, people are unhappy animals.

 Azreal13 wrote:

 SHUPPET wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
When GW fails - they will sell the company to smart people. Said smart people will make good rules. At this point the game has the potential to be fun again.

GW is a publicly owned company, they have absolutely no say in who buys them, it is just a question of funds and desire, and neither of those things is a guarantee of the right kind of smart that 40K needs.

Ok but stands to pretty good chance that the new owners will see why GW failed (not hard to see) and improve on this. I think it's highly unlikely anyone could do worse than GW at this point

History shows us that this simply isn't the case. There are plenty of occasions where companies have been bought out, staggered on for an indeterminate period and then fallen flat on their faces, or equally transformed beyond all recognition in the pursuit of profit.

Fully articulated Space Marine action figures could be the future of 40K after a buyout, that could be immensely profitable for the new powers, less than popular with the existing fan base though.

You are probably right. I second the guy above though that new ownership would be hard pressed to under-perform current GW.

alright guys im going to go open up a new bank account and we are all going to donate money into it instead of buying new GW crap. In a few years when we have saved up enough we will wage a VIOLENT TAKE OVER OF GW! WHO IS WITH ME!


WAAAAAGGHHHHHHH!

If they get bought out, it would be good if...
If they can find fluff writers that are actually...I don't know, good and not filled with one dimensional characters and absurd ideas of scale. (1,000 marines making a difference in a battle of several millions)
If they can find rules writers that can design something more coherent than Candyland.
If they can form a company that doesn't alienate their players and business partners.

That's a tall order that I find 'not likely.'

1k marines making a difference in a battle with several millions.....how about a historical reference from a bygone time?

There was this war many years ago called the "Korean War" *GASP* yes that war. At a place called Chosin Reservoir the 18,000 marines of the 1st Marine division were cut off and surrounded by 4 chinese field armies totally around 180-200,000. In a not stop fighting withdrawal the US Marines killed or captured around 60,000 Chinese and successfully withdrew from the trap.

So that was in the 1950s and that was with a bunch of Jarheads with no better technology then the Chinese. Why do you think that genetically altered super humans wearing the best armor mankind can provide wouldn't be able to provide lightning attacks at C&C nodes throughout an enemy invading army that would cripple it?

but that is neither here nor their.

VIOLENT TAKE OVER OF GAMES WORKSHOP

WAAAAAGH!

If GW got rid of the management team and any designers that were incompetent and made serious efforts to turn 40k around and make it a good game that would be fine. I don't see that as very likely. More likely is that if things were to spiral down financially to a point where GW feels it has to respond they will likely do something but I expect it will be a botched job that doesn't begin to go far enough.

That said, if GW did suddenly collapse tomorrow I would celebrate as the company deserves to go bankrupt. And then, however slim a chance, there is a chance the IP might get bought out and 40K turned into a good game.

So yes GW having an epiphany and overhauling 40K into a good game is the ideal - but GW has shown many times that it doesn't really care about the game or customers, as long as they buy product. So if GW feels forced to change 40K it will likely be to change it in a way to get players to buy more product again rather than to improve the game.

 MWHistorian wrote:
If they get bought out, it would be good if...
If they can find fluff writers that are actually...I don't know, good and not filled with one dimensional characters and absurd ideas of scale. (1,000 marines making a difference in a battle of several millions)
If they can find rules writers that can design something more coherent than Candyland.
If they can form a company that doesn't alienate their players and business partners.

That's a tall order that I find 'not likely.'

Let me guess - you play imperial guard?

I want you to imagine something here. Imagine that we gave a Navy Seal a near indestructible suit of armor that increased his physical abilities and armed him with an automatic grenade launcher. Then we inserted him into battle at the exact time in the exact location we wanted him. How many dug in taliban do you think hed end up owning? Could they stop him at all? Probably not. Pretty sure this would make a difference no matter what kind of battle you were in.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:
If they get bought out, it would be good if...
If they can find fluff writers that are actually...I don't know, good and not filled with one dimensional characters and absurd ideas of scale. (1,000 marines making a difference in a battle of several millions)
If they can find rules writers that can design something more coherent than Candyland.
If they can form a company that doesn't alienate their players and business partners.

That's a tall order that I find 'not likely.'

Let me guess - you play imperial guard?

I want you to imagine something here. Imagine that we gave a Navy Seal a near indestructible suit of armor that increased his physical abilities and armed him with an automatic grenade launcher. Then we inserted him into battle at the exact time in the exact location we wanted him. How many dug in taliban do you think hed end up owning? Could they stop him at all? Probably not. Pretty sure this would make a difference no matter what kind of battle you were in.

Nope. I had an Imperial Fist and SOB.

 MWHistorian wrote:
If they get bought out, it would be good if...
If they can find fluff writers that are actually...I don't know, good and not filled with one dimensional characters and absurd ideas of scale. (1,000 marines making a difference in a battle of several millions)
If they can find rules writers that can design something more coherent than Candyland.
If they can form a company that doesn't alienate their players and business partners.

That's a tall order that I find 'not likely.'

Which is a shame because FFG meets many of those requirements.
1. By all accounts the RPG books are fairly well written,
2. the rules, though often very simple are tight and easily understood,
3. they seem to play nice with most others.

It would be interesting if Asmodee bought GW; I don't think they're in a position to do so after their recent acquisition of FFG but it's an interesting thought. Larry Vela had an interesting take on GW v Asmodee back in January on BoLS: http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2015/01/games-workshop-vs-asmodee-tale-2-companies.html

 Xenomancers wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:
If they get bought out, it would be good if...
If they can find fluff writers that are actually...I don't know, good and not filled with one dimensional characters and absurd ideas of scale. (1,000 marines making a difference in a battle of several millions)
If they can find rules writers that can design something more coherent than Candyland.
If they can form a company that doesn't alienate their players and business partners.

That's a tall order that I find 'not likely.'

Let me guess - you play imperial guard?

I want you to imagine something here. Imagine that we gave a Navy Seal a near indestructible suit of armor that increased his physical abilities and armed him with an automatic grenade launcher. Then we inserted him into battle at the exact time in the exact location we wanted him. How many dug in taliban do you think hed end up owning? Could they stop him at all? Probably not. Pretty sure this would make a difference no matter what kind of battle you were in.

Don't need a navy seal.. Couple 19 year old paratroopers with a case of beer and rusty gurber knife could do it

 agnosto wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:
If they get bought out, it would be good if...
If they can find fluff writers that are actually...I don't know, good and not filled with one dimensional characters and absurd ideas of scale. (1,000 marines making a difference in a battle of several millions)
If they can find rules writers that can design something more coherent than Candyland.
If they can form a company that doesn't alienate their players and business partners.

That's a tall order that I find 'not likely.'

Which is a shame because FFG meets many of those requirements.
1. By all accounts the RPG books are fairly well written,
2. the rules, though often very simple are tight and easily understood,
3. they seem to play nice with most others.

It would be interesting if Asmodee bought GW; I don't think they're in a position to do so after their recent acquisition of FFG but it's an interesting thought. Larry Vela had an interesting take on GW v Asmodee back in January on BoLS: http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2015/01/games-workshop-vs-asmodee-tale-2-companies.html

FFG made a right hash of Deathwatch, by all accounts that game has very little balance.

zerosignal wrote:

 agnosto wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:
If they get bought out, it would be good if...
If they can find fluff writers that are actually...I don't know, good and not filled with one dimensional characters and absurd ideas of scale. (1,000 marines making a difference in a battle of several millions)
If they can find rules writers that can design something more coherent than Candyland.
If they can form a company that doesn't alienate their players and business partners.

That's a tall order that I find 'not likely.'

Which is a shame because FFG meets many of those requirements.
1. By all accounts the RPG books are fairly well written,
2. the rules, though often very simple are tight and easily understood,
3. they seem to play nice with most others.

It would be interesting if Asmodee bought GW; I don't think they're in a position to do so after their recent acquisition of FFG but it's an interesting thought. Larry Vela had an interesting take on GW v Asmodee back in January on BoLS: http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2015/01/games-workshop-vs-asmodee-tale-2-companies.html

FFG made a right hash of Deathwatch, by all accounts that game has very little balance.

I have no personal experience myself with playing the game, I was primarily speaking to the "fluff"; the rules I was referring to were in their other games as I don't think RPG rules would translate well to a wargame but people who understand and are able to write good board game rules should be able to do the same for a wargame (assumption).

 MWHistorian wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:
If they get bought out, it would be good if...
If they can find fluff writers that are actually...I don't know, good and not filled with one dimensional characters and absurd ideas of scale. (1,000 marines making a difference in a battle of several millions)
If they can find rules writers that can design something more coherent than Candyland.
If they can form a company that doesn't alienate their players and business partners.

That's a tall order that I find 'not likely.'

Let me guess - you play imperial guard?

I want you to imagine something here. Imagine that we gave a Navy Seal a near indestructible suit of armor that increased his physical abilities and armed him with an automatic grenade launcher. Then we inserted him into battle at the exact time in the exact location we wanted him. How many dug in taliban do you think hed end up owning? Could they stop him at all? Probably not. Pretty sure this would make a difference no matter what kind of battle you were in.

Nope. I had an Imperial Fist and SOB.

Why play an army that you don't like the fluff?

 agnosto wrote:

zerosignal wrote:

 agnosto wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:
If they get bought out, it would be good if...
If they can find fluff writers that are actually...I don't know, good and not filled with one dimensional characters and absurd ideas of scale. (1,000 marines making a difference in a battle of several millions)
If they can find rules writers that can design something more coherent than Candyland.
If they can form a company that doesn't alienate their players and business partners.

That's a tall order that I find 'not likely.'

Which is a shame because FFG meets many of those requirements.
1. By all accounts the RPG books are fairly well written,
2. the rules, though often very simple are tight and easily understood,
3. they seem to play nice with most others.

It would be interesting if Asmodee bought GW; I don't think they're in a position to do so after their recent acquisition of FFG but it's an interesting thought. Larry Vela had an interesting take on GW v Asmodee back in January on BoLS: http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2015/01/games-workshop-vs-asmodee-tale-2-companies.html

FFG made a right hash of Deathwatch, by all accounts that game has very little balance.

I have no personal experience myself with playing the game, I was primarily speaking to the "fluff"; the rules I was referring to were in their other games as I don't think RPG rules would translate well to a wargame but people who understand and are able to write good board game rules should be able to do the same for a wargame (assumption).

While RPG rules don't translate well to a wargame, balance is something that should be universal. Deathwatch is pretty bad, some chapters are just amazing compared to others, and two of the "classes" are really bad.
Dark Heresy is really well balanced though.

Akiasura wrote:

 agnosto wrote:

zerosignal wrote:

 agnosto wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:
If they get bought out, it would be good if...
If they can find fluff writers that are actually...I don't know, good and not filled with one dimensional characters and absurd ideas of scale. (1,000 marines making a difference in a battle of several millions)
If they can find rules writers that can design something more coherent than Candyland.
If they can form a company that doesn't alienate their players and business partners.

That's a tall order that I find 'not likely.'

Which is a shame because FFG meets many of those requirements.
1. By all accounts the RPG books are fairly well written,
2. the rules, though often very simple are tight and easily understood,
3. they seem to play nice with most others.

It would be interesting if Asmodee bought GW; I don't think they're in a position to do so after their recent acquisition of FFG but it's an interesting thought. Larry Vela had an interesting take on GW v Asmodee back in January on BoLS: http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2015/01/games-workshop-vs-asmodee-tale-2-companies.html

FFG made a right hash of Deathwatch, by all accounts that game has very little balance.

I have no personal experience myself with playing the game, I was primarily speaking to the "fluff"; the rules I was referring to were in their other games as I don't think RPG rules would translate well to a wargame but people who understand and are able to write good board game rules should be able to do the same for a wargame (assumption).

While RPG rules don't translate well to a wargame, balance is something that should be universal. Deathwatch is pretty bad, some chapters are just amazing compared to others, and two of the "classes" are really bad.
Dark Heresy is really well balanced though.

How does the overall writing compare with current GW BL and staff writing? Does it seem that, balance issue aside, that the rules are understandable and clear and that the fluff is enjoyable and doesn't seem to have been written by a drunk monkey banging his/her head on the keyboard?

 Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:

 SHUPPET wrote:
I'd even rather let a couple of posters from here write the books.

Well, why don't you guys do it, then? Seriously. Nine tenths of the complaints on here are about the rules - would be great if people used the same energy invested in that, and devoted it to setting up new rules and, perhaps, points/codex adjustments.

People do and have done what you're talking about, but when there's no central source of rules the community as a whole suffers. It's hard to get the community to agree on the finer details, It's GW's job to filter the community response and suggestions into a coherent rules system, they just don't give a flying feth to actually do it.

You also have to take in to account that while I'm sure a lot of dakkanauts could write better rules than GW, it's still a full time job to do so when the game is so large. Not impossible by any means, but a full time job definitely.

Since no one is going to pay us $100k a year to write rules, it's not something that most people are going to be investing the time in (especially since we wouldn't really be able to sell the rules without risking copyright infringement lawsuits).

 agnosto wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

 agnosto wrote:

zerosignal wrote:

 agnosto wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:
If they get bought out, it would be good if...
If they can find fluff writers that are actually...I don't know, good and not filled with one dimensional characters and absurd ideas of scale. (1,000 marines making a difference in a battle of several millions)
If they can find rules writers that can design something more coherent than Candyland.
If they can form a company that doesn't alienate their players and business partners.

That's a tall order that I find 'not likely.'

Which is a shame because FFG meets many of those requirements.
1. By all accounts the RPG books are fairly well written,
2. the rules, though often very simple are tight and easily understood,
3. they seem to play nice with most others.

It would be interesting if Asmodee bought GW; I don't think they're in a position to do so after their recent acquisition of FFG but it's an interesting thought. Larry Vela had an interesting take on GW v Asmodee back in January on BoLS: http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2015/01/games-workshop-vs-asmodee-tale-2-companies.html

FFG made a right hash of Deathwatch, by all accounts that game has very little balance.

I have no personal experience myself with playing the game, I was primarily speaking to the "fluff"; the rules I was referring to were in their other games as I don't think RPG rules would translate well to a wargame but people who understand and are able to write good board game rules should be able to do the same for a wargame (assumption).

While RPG rules don't translate well to a wargame, balance is something that should be universal. Deathwatch is pretty bad, some chapters are just amazing compared to others, and two of the "classes" are really bad.
Dark Heresy is really well balanced though.

How does the overall writing compare with current GW BL and staff writing? Does it seem that, balance issue aside, that the rules are understandable and clear and that the fluff is enjoyable and doesn't seem to have been written by a drunk monkey banging his/her head on the keyboard?

Overall, it seems a lot better. I think we only had one issue with the rules not being clear (something about the squad leader and how it switches). The fluff was very very good.

Akiasura wrote:


Overall, it seems a lot better. I think we only had one issue with the rules not being clear (something about the squad leader and how it switches). The fluff was very very good.

That's encouraging but also saddening from a business perspective. You would think that GW would want to tap into established, high-quality writing when it presents itself instead of just sending out an "open casting call" for potential BL writers.

My gut tells me that if the community wanted 40K to stay pretty much the way it currently is but be better written, the best thing would be for Asmodee to buy out GW. There is zero chance of this happening for a number of reasons (I feel) but that would still be our best bet. Imagine, better written rules, fluff and BL stories.... *sigh* ah well.

 Ghazkuul wrote:
1k marines making a difference in a battle with several millions.....how about a historical reference from a bygone time?

There was this war many years ago called the "Korean War" *GASP* yes that war. At a place called Chosin Reservoir the 18,000 marines of the 1st Marine division were cut off and surrounded by 4 chinese field armies totally around 180-200,000. In a not stop fighting withdrawal the US Marines killed or captured around 60,000 Chinese and successfully withdrew from the trap.

So that was in the 1950s and that was with a bunch of Jarheads with no better technology then the Chinese. Why do you think that genetically altered super humans wearing the best armor mankind can provide wouldn't be able to provide lightning attacks at C&C nodes throughout an enemy invading army that would cripple it?

but that is neither here nor their.

VIOLENT TAKE OVER OF GAMES WORKSHOP

WAAAAAGH!

Because marines don't move any faster than guardsmen. Nor do their vehicles. And they don't really live that much longer vs Xeno firepower. Marines wouldn't be able to cripple anything.

I just want a management change, most notably Kirby out.

I want a game that is worth investing into as a player. If gw failing is what is required for that to happen, then so be it.

I would not like GW to fail. I would actually like for them to be successful.

However, I feel very strongly that their actions and methods of operation of late are not in either the consumers best interests nor their own long term interests, and we have seen such through a decade long decline in Real (inflation-adjusted) revenue.


I would like GW to change, not fail.

Martel we were talking about fluff not how much you hate your space marines.

Some Marine players aren't happy unless they win an overwhelming majority of games, otherwise it's "not fluffy".

 Melissia wrote:
Some Marine players aren't happy unless they win an overwhelming majority of games, otherwise it's "not fluffy".

Or they just want to feel like they're playing Space Marines and not overpriced cannon fodder. No one said anything about winning or losing.