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I wish Space Marines were represented more like they were in Rogue Trader than as these demi-gods we have today. They just exceed the realm of reality by too much (I realize that 8ft tall, genetically-modified soldiers are obviously fictional, but I still don't think it makes sense for 4-5 of them to decimate an entire planet).

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

Those are fighting words to me. I'm just asking to not be auto-tabled against Space Elves.

Fluff should be separate from rules. Save the fluff for the novels

 Chute82 wrote:
Fluff should be separate from rules. Save the fluff for the novels

They should go hand in hand, but that would take effort on the game designer's part.

 MWHistorian wrote:

 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.

The whines have always been there. This is just another excuse to do so. It just takes a very quick look at first page of almost any 40k forum to find "I wish Marines were more like movie marines".

 Melissia wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:

 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.

The whines have always been there. This is just another excuse to do so. It just takes a very quick look at first page of almost any 40k forum to find "I wish Marines were more like movie marines".

Makes sense...if you ignore what's actually being said.

I want GW to NOT fail like they did with eldar.

 MWHistorian wrote:

 Chute82 wrote:
Fluff should be separate from rules. Save the fluff for the novels

They should go hand in hand, but that would take effort on the game designer's part.

I don't know this new eldar codex seems to run with their fluff more then game balance

GodDamUser wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:

 Chute82 wrote:
Fluff should be separate from rules. Save the fluff for the novels

They should go hand in hand, but that would take effort on the game designer's part.

I don't know this new eldar codex seems to run with their fluff more then game balance

The idea that fluffy rules and balanced rules are mutually exclusive is a uniquely 'GW' concept that I am sure confuses anyone outside looking in who themselves didn't start with GW games. Seriously, there is nothing preventing fluffy rules being balanced other than GW's incompetence.

This thread seems a bit douchey to me. We're talking about a (worldwide) company that employs a whole lot of people to make and sell their products. Yes they have their issues to address, but do we want them to go under? No. Cause it'd make a lot of peoples' lives miserable. Not just the execs/shareholders at the top.

Some of you I think don't appreciate how upsetting putting a company into liquidation is.

 angelofvengeance wrote:
This thread seems a bit douchey to me. We're talking about a (worldwide) company that employs a whole lot of people to make and sell their products. Yes they have their issues to address, but do we want them to go under? No. Cause it'd make a lot of peoples' lives miserable. Not just the execs/shareholders at the top.

Some of you I think don't appreciate how upsetting putting a company into liquidation is.

It would certainly be the wakeup call that GW has been doing virtually everything wrong and with complete arrogance and ignorance. Sometimes the only way to right the ship is to mutiny and throw the captain overboard.

 angelofvengeance wrote:
This thread seems a bit douchey to me. We're talking about a (worldwide) company that employs a whole lot of people to make and sell their products. Yes they have their issues to address, but do we want them to go under? No. Cause it'd make a lot of peoples' lives miserable. Not just the execs/shareholders at the top.

Some of you I think don't appreciate how upsetting putting a company into liquidation is.

But not nearly as douchey as the new Eldar codex.

I'd rather have community armybooks. The base rules are fine enough. Just fix the armies, let GW make the models, which are still great, and that's it.

I know it's impossible with how people are of course. The books would have to be written from ground up and would have to be so different that people wouldn't go "You nerfed my Wraithknight I'm playing GW rules thank you very much".

 jonolikespie wrote:

GodDamUser wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:

 Chute82 wrote:
Fluff should be separate from rules. Save the fluff for the novels

They should go hand in hand, but that would take effort on the game designer's part.

I don't know this new eldar codex seems to run with their fluff more then game balance

The idea that fluffy rules and balanced rules are mutually exclusive is a uniquely 'GW' concept that I am sure confuses anyone outside looking in who themselves didn't start with GW games. Seriously, there is nothing preventing fluffy rules being balanced other than GW's incompetence.

Also, they don't do it because the fluff is often so puerile that it wouldn't make for much of a game. Something that GW, and many fans apparently, have never gotten is that you can have "grim dark sc-fi" without rubbish writing that involves a handful of super soldiers taking down entire planetary defense forces. A fluffy marine list would look like a single marine at 2000 pts; if you just go by fluff.

 angelofvengeance wrote:
This thread seems a bit douchey to me. We're talking about a (worldwide) company that employs a whole lot of people to make and sell their products. Yes they have their issues to address, but do we want them to go under? No. Cause it'd make a lot of peoples' lives miserable. Not just the execs/shareholders at the top.

Some of you I think don't appreciate how upsetting putting a company into liquidation is.

A worldwide company that has actively tried to shut down the competition (other companies) via lawsuits, getting to the point of having its employees spit blatant lies under oath in order to do so.

They deserve any gak they may get.

 agnosto wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:

GodDamUser wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:

 Chute82 wrote:
Fluff should be separate from rules. Save the fluff for the novels

They should go hand in hand, but that would take effort on the game designer's part.

I don't know this new eldar codex seems to run with their fluff more then game balance

The idea that fluffy rules and balanced rules are mutually exclusive is a uniquely 'GW' concept that I am sure confuses anyone outside looking in who themselves didn't start with GW games. Seriously, there is nothing preventing fluffy rules being balanced other than GW's incompetence.

Also, they don't do it because the fluff is often so puerile that it wouldn't make for much of a game. Something that GW, and many fans apparently, have never gotten is that you can have "grim dark sc-fi" without rubbish writing that involves a handful of super soldiers taking down entire planetary defense forces. A fluffy marine list would look like a single marine at 2000 pts; if you just go by fluff.

But we can't have that. Otherwise mediocre BL writers would have to actualy think about the battles they send their heros in instead of letting them rush headlong into battle against everything from Gretchin to Eldar Warhosts.

 agnosto wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:

GodDamUser wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:

 Chute82 wrote:
Fluff should be separate from rules. Save the fluff for the novels

They should go hand in hand, but that would take effort on the game designer's part.

I don't know this new eldar codex seems to run with their fluff more then game balance

The idea that fluffy rules and balanced rules are mutually exclusive is a uniquely 'GW' concept that I am sure confuses anyone outside looking in who themselves didn't start with GW games. Seriously, there is nothing preventing fluffy rules being balanced other than GW's incompetence.

Also, they don't do it because the fluff is often so puerile that it wouldn't make for much of a game. Something that GW, and many fans apparently, have never gotten is that you can have "grim dark sc-fi" without rubbish writing that involves a handful of super soldiers taking down entire planetary defense forces. A fluffy marine list would look like a single marine at 2000 pts; if you just go by fluff.

. If a space marine is 5x better then a ork then the point value should represent this, But it does not. They just lower the pts every new codex just to sell more crap to people. The game is a total mess and needs a complete reboot.

KingDeath wrote:

But we can't have that. Otherwise mediocre BL writers would have to actualy think about the battles they send their heros in instead of letting them rush headlong into battle against everything from Gretchin to Eldar Warhosts.

Yeah, there's a reason (actually many) that I don't read BL trash but I guess there is a market for it; heck, I enjoyed the A-Team when I was a kid.

 Korinov wrote:

 angelofvengeance wrote:
This thread seems a bit douchey to me. We're talking about a (worldwide) company that employs a whole lot of people to make and sell their products. Yes they have their issues to address, but do we want them to go under? No. Cause it'd make a lot of peoples' lives miserable. Not just the execs/shareholders at the top.

Some of you I think don't appreciate how upsetting putting a company into liquidation is.

A worldwide company that has actively tried to shut down the competition (other companies) via lawsuits, getting to the point of having its employees spit blatant lies under oath in order to do so.

They deserve any gak they may get.

Angel, I think the other you are forgetting is the massive purge GW's upper management has already done to the company. They have cut vast swathes of jobs, liquidated all HQs and warehouses except for the one in London, moved paper good production to China, removed almost everything besides uppers and the peons in the one-man stores, who are generally replaced at exceedingly high rates (as well as blamed for the company woes, according to the most recent report). They have already made a lot of people's lives miserable, there aren't really that many left to suffer compared to ten years ago. And I think Tom Kirby will be just fine with his golden parachute.

http://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/snapshot/snapshot.asp?ticker=GAW:LN
Market Cap on the company is 165M
Stock price now= $7.89 USD per share
They have 32.1M shares.
I don't really understand high finance, this is more of a thought experiment. Forgive my math below.
So you'd need roughly $240,750,000.00 USD to buy all the shares. Spit balling here, if you wanted to buy the company outright they'd, want lets say, double market cap, $320M USD. So you'd need lets say $600M USD to buy the company outright and buy back all the shares. Then you can claim sole ownership, dissolve the board and answer to only yourself. Start saving/win a powerball lotto! Or form an ownership group of like minded gamers and start raising money.
Personally
I totally want them to fail and be bought out by a Consortium of companies that include a toy/model manufacturer, a video game developer and a german-style board games maker. Examples include:
Bandai or Hasbro
Sega/Relic
German-style games developer or a company headed by one of the people listed below who are all master games designers and winners of game design awards:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German-style_board_game

Make two ranges of models - ones you build and paint and ones that are prebuilt and painted(both of which are acceptable for gaming). This would keep the hobbyists and attract new players.

Hire some big name sci-fi writers to retconn and fix the lore(so its well written, coherent and follows one universal narrative/timeline) and progress the storyline.

Remove all IP licensing from crap games designers and get people into the universe by making quality games on par-with top games coming out today.
Ditch MMOs. Move to Moba style games for casual players(mobile devices and pc friendly, revive dawn of war series(pc and consoles), Card based game(mobile), Squad based-FPS like Gears of War or Call of duty and a character based adventure game like a drakes fortune or resident evil, focused around an epic character as he/she moves across a planet. Draigos adventures!

The Games designer re-works the tabletop game to make it extremely balanced. - I'm partial to the German-style game design applied to 40k because in the long run it will grow the game and take out the hardcore elements much to the neckbeards and hardcore tourney players disgust. Obviously the main hangup with german-style games is that they are no combat focused so that would have to change. However the design theory and play elements are what you want.
Below are snipits from the Wikipedia entry on German-style game design if you are not familiar:

Easy and short
German-style games are usually multiplayer and can be learned easily and played in a relatively short time, perhaps multiple times in a single session. A certain amount of socializing might typically be expected during game play,
Simple rules
German-style games are generally simpler than the wargames that flourished in the 1970s and 1980s from publishers such as SPI and Avalon Hill, but nonetheless often have a considerable depth of play, especially in some "gamers' games" such as Tigris and Euphrates and Caylus.
Games made for everyone
While many titles (especially the strategically heavier ones) are enthusiastically played by gamers as a hobby, German-style games are, for the most part, well suited to social play. In keeping with this social function, various characteristics of the games tend to support that aspect well, and these have become quite common across the genre.

No player elimination - This is a big one.
Another prominent characteristic of these games is the lack of player elimination. Eliminating players before the end of the game is seen as contrary to the social aspect of such games. Most of these games are designed to keep all players in the game as long as possible, so it is rare to be certain of victory or defeat until relatively late in the game. Some of the mechanics, like hidden scoring or scoring at the end of the game, are also designed around this avoidance of player elimination.
Balancing mechanisms are often integrated into the rules, giving slight advantages to lagging players and slight hindrances to the leaders. This helps to keep the game competitive to the very end.

Lastly, Game mechanics - These games contain elements we are used to.
A wide variety of often innovative mechanisms or mechanics are used, and familiar mechanics like rolling dice and moving, capture, or trick taking are avoided. If a game has a board, the board is usually irregular rather than uniform or symmetric (like Risk rather than chess or Scrabble); the board is often random (like Settlers of Catan) or has random elements (like Tikal). Some boards are merely mnemonic or organizational and contribute only to ease of play, like a cribbage board; examples of this include Puerto Rico and Princes of Florence. Random elements are often present, but do not usually dominate the game. While rules are light to moderate, they allow depth of play, usually requiring thought, planning, and a shift of tactics through the game and often with a chess- or backgammon-like opening game, middle game, and end game.

Naaris wrote:
The Games designer re-works the tabletop game to make it extremely balanced. - I'm partial to the German-style game design applied to 40k because in the long run it will grow the game and take out the hardcore elements much to the neckbeards and hardcore tourney players disgust.

The price, complexity, and time investment of 40k do more to kill the game's mass appeal than any kind of codex imbalance. It's funny because a lot of the more dramatic complainers in this thread don't seem to grok that.

Good post mate. Knowing a bit about game design in general (not just pertaining to 40k) is worthwhile in these discussions.

Yoyoyo wrote:

Naaris wrote:
The Games designer re-works the tabletop game to make it extremely balanced. - I'm partial to the German-style game design applied to 40k because in the long run it will grow the game and take out the hardcore elements much to the neckbeards and hardcore tourney players disgust.

The price, complexity, and time investment of 40k do more to kill the game's mass appeal than any kind of codex imbalance. It's funny because a lot of the more dramatic complainers in this thread don't seem to grok that.

That's because most of the "dramatic complainers" in the thread are players or ex players, and consequently prove that neither price, complexity or time commitments were sufficient to discourage their participation, but the rules imbalance is.

The marine players want the marines to be as powerful as they are in the fluff. This is understandable.
the thing is, if that were true, a squad of 10 tacticals could take out a 2,000 point army of pretty much anything without batting an eye and likely without losing a single "man". The marine players want that power but to keep the full size armies and points values they currently have. To have their cake and eat it too so to speak. However, thats a topic for a different thread.

far too many have on rose tinted glasses thinking that GW failing automatically means that the IP will be picked up by some guru who will "magically" make everything better. Even if that were to be the case, not every player would be happy. You would just be trading which players are unhappy for others and vice versa.
But the fact is, the chances of the IP being "picked up" are practically non-existant. And the chances of it being picked up by someone who would care enough about the game to keep it going and not put it down the tubes are about 100% times less likely yet. If we care about the game, fluff "universe" of 40k, the best thing we could hope for is to have a radical change in management and the heads of the different "teams".

I want GW the IP holder and it's stories and character to live-on.
The management at the helm to be gone, the faster the better.

All it takes is any of the top 3 management to actually care about the product as entertainment and it could be far more than it is now.

If one must "throw the baby out with the bathwater" and shut down GW to get rid of their management and there is no other means: then the answer is yes.

I could go into long-winded reasoning... but no, get rid of that management, now.

I want them to change. I don't actually think that failure would be good because, to be blunt, the current investment community prioritizes payout to stockholders over stable company growth, to the point where foundational/flagship products tend to be gutted when something is acquired. And because Warhammer and especially 40K has had some 'modern' successes-- Dawn of War, for example-- that were divorced from the tabletop, we could very easily see the 'traditional' IP neglected or even dropped to whatever minimum is necessary to keep the rights in order to exploit the gak out of peripheral IP like DoW. And that doesn't just mean 'good' games; imagine Dawn of War not in the hands of Your Favorite Studio but in the hands of the studio with the biggest advertisement presence and lowest bid. Imagine Gaunt's Ghosts or Ciaphas Cain hitting the silver screen... in Uwe Boll's hands. Trust me, folks, things can get worse. They can always get worse.

New models and rules aren't a bad thing; in fact, they're necessary to keep the environment dynamic. Ditto new editions. But the way that they're handled by GW is the problem, and it comes back down to the attitude of "we don't do market research." I'm sure someone over there thinks that makes them edgy and indy, but what it actually means is "We don't want to hear from you peons, unless it's the sound of your money." New models, rules, and new editions would help if they were competitive with the rest of the market-- or better yet, underpricing and upping quality. Given how cheap industrial 3D printers are-- and how cheap _personal_ 3D printers are getting, if GW doesn't expand the marketplace soon, there's going to be a critical drop.

Put it another way-- if I have to spend $350 to get into the hobby, and maybe twice that at the 1500-2000 level, and it costs what, about $200 to get a 3D printer capable of making small to medium units or better yet, pseudosprues, I'm going to be taking a long, hard look at raw materials and maintenance costs. And as that number drops, it becomes easier and easier for people who _can't_ usually make large outlays at once to cut in. Then there's the rules thing; to KEEP loyalty and interest in new models, rather than resentment of their interest, the rules need to support a changing meta without becoming the only thing worth buying. That takes real, extensive, out-of-house playtesting, even if it means mailing your playtesters appropriately sized and approximately shaped cardboard boxes with the names of the units on the side so they can test them in play. Without data, you WILL end up polarizing.

To be plainly blunt, having a-- what, $350 or more price tag for a beginning army at even the 1K level unless you scrounge here and e-bay, is immensely stupid. While luxury goods have stayed slightly ahead of inflation, hobby games can't afford to follow luxury goods. Especially not the wargame/roleplaying game contingent. Our market is shrinking, rather than growing. If we're going to expand the market, we need to look at the people we want to get into the game.

By 'want', by the by, I don't mean "the sort of people you want to play with in an ideal situation." I mean we want teenagers, not just boys but girls, and on the latter, we don't want nerf's purple and pink sparkle guns. We want obsessives; and if it means occasionally having to teach and make compromises, we need to do that. Because that means that when they grow up-- or in some cases, as they are now, there are some mature teenagers out there just like there are some tweebish adults-- we don't have to drive 30 miles to get a game; it means strategies and lists get stress tested, and most importantly, a broad fanbase helps insure against economic downturn.

The only way to do it is to make sure that getting in at the 500 point level doesn't cost more than $100 for a _midrange to competive_ if cookie-cutter army. The best way I can think of it is this: make a triple tier. First Tier is "original mage knights" quality. Precolored, cruddy (but not TOO cruddy) molds, and cheap as feth. Small mini range; basically enough for people to start a new army and play with it, but not enough that they aren't willing to go to Tier 2: current quality using modern methods to increase the cheapness. NEITHER of these tiers should cost anything like our current range. And then a "Collector's Tier" including industrial/commercial-quality 3D printing of custom models. If I didn't have to sacrifice hundreds to get an army, period, I wouldn't mind occasionally having to sink $50 into a single model if it meant it was goddamn gorgeous.

GW needs to change so that people don't say "I want some scifi wargaming... but that game over there costs half of what this one does, so..." and walking away from fluff they enjoy to a game they can perform. And given the technical breakthroughs recently, there's no excuse for the current prices and durability issues.

I don't think we need to simplify the rules too much at this point; most of them are "do what they say." But flavorful or not, things like "And They Shall Know No Fear" need to be replaced with "Stubborn 2" or something. And the points budget needs to be balanced. Again, see playtesting.

Do I think the current group is likely to do that? Nope. Looks like more of the same, even with the new CEO. But they're still human beings and that means they have the ability and the responsibility to learn. I suppose I'd like them to ALMOST fail and then actually learn something. The problem is, I don't know GW's investors. If they're standard investors, a near fail won't be a lesson, it'll be an excuse to tear apart the company anyway.

 Azreal13 wrote:
That's because most of the "dramatic complainers" in the thread are players or ex players, and consequently prove that neither price, complexity or time commitments were sufficient to discourage their participation, but the rules imbalance is.

"Mass appeal" dude. I see a lot of people playing cards in hostels whole traveling. Some backgammon too. Or there's probably social games nights at the bar in your own city.

You won't ever see 40k around these situations because there's too much drag involved to get started. So in terms of reach, less barriers to entry = more players. It's not rocket science. Otherwise you're pitching to a very limited market

 Blacksails wrote:

 KaptinBadrukk wrote:
No. GW is awesome.

How's the kool-aid?

Tasting great. It's watermelon-flavored.

Yoyoyo wrote:
So in terms of reach, less barriers to entry = more players. It's not rocket science. Otherwise you're pitching to a very limited market

Which is only part of the equation. You won't retain customers, regardless of the barrier to entry, if the rules are garbage. Barriers to entry are just that; only relevant for getting new blood in. Keeping them will depend on other factors like rules, fluff, and models. That's not even considering that if the rules are poor and the balance is off that some players may be turned away if the faction they want to play is terribly underpowered. If I started 40k now and tried to sort out the mess and balance issues as a newcomer, I'd be very put off.

But you know this isn't rocket science, eh?

Yoyoyo wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
That's because most of the "dramatic complainers" in the thread are players or ex players, and consequently prove that neither price, complexity or time commitments were sufficient to discourage their participation, but the rules imbalance is.

"Mass appeal" dude. I see a lot of people playing cards in hostels whole traveling. Some backgammon too. Or there's probably social games nights at the bar in your own city.

You won't ever see 40k around these situations because there's too much drag involved to get started. So in terms of reach, less barriers to entry = more players. It's not rocket science. Otherwise you're pitching to a very limited market

But that's an apples and oranges situation, you will never see someone playing a full blooded war game with a couple of forces, terrain, dice templates etc while travelling out of a rucksack. I could apply your same argument to video gaming, with the exception of a few handheld devices (a good comparison to CCGs or Backgammon) the up front investment and demands on space etc could be considered a drag to get started, doesn't seem to be holding that sector back any. Actually, pretty much any hobby which requires any sort of equipment and skill to perform would substitute almost as well.

You're right in the sense that less barriers to entry is a good thing, but there are certain presuppositions attached to any tabletop wargame that will remain inherent unless you change the nature of the beast beyond all recognition. What 40K does is take those existing and inherent barriers to entry and jack them up to 11.

I love 40k so I don't want GW to fail, just change.
what I do want to see 'die' is the constant bitching from people. the models are personal taste. if you don't like them dont use them. as for the rules, im not totally down with the rules side, but if you don't quite like the a certain rule alter it to suit you. we're all free thinking adults, so childish "its not exactly how I want it, so I hate it" is stupid

not trying to start a flame war, just expressing my opinion