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 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

auticus wrote:
WHFB didn't fail because no one was playing it.

WHFB failed because no one was buying new GW models for it and they werne't making any money off of it.

We had a VERY active WHFB community with leagues that had 30-50 people in it every season, and yet for the past decade very very few people in that very active community bought ANYTHING new from GW.

They bought their armies on Ebay or second hand locally or subbed in proxies from cheaper companies.

AOS is successful because it introduced new factions with new minis. So, it really was a shame then that WHFB never introduced Araby or Cathay or any of the other factions they teased in the fluff. I sure hope all the fans who shouted down adding new factions in favor of "getting the current ones right" feel like Lenny with a squished rabbit between their hands now. Thanks, WHFB players for killing the Old World.

How can you blame WHFB players when GW proudly hadn't done market research long before AoS was a thing? End Times showed that WHFB players were willing to invest in new stuff if they actually produced it. The problem was they followed the formula of only releasing new models when a new codex came out, and then acted shocked when End Times models and books sold out because, gasp, it's almost like you need to produce stuff for people to buy to get you money. By then it was too late of course, but they obviously learnt their lesson with End Times, it's just that it came at the cost of the Old World.

AoS is successful because you don't need to spend £120 on your Core - minimum - before you can even think about other units.

Core tax killed WHFB more than anything. There was plenty of new blood willing to dip into it - 40k was always more popular, but it's not like they had to run much of a marketing campaign for WHFB - but being told you need to buy four boxes of 20-ish similar ranked models was not a recipe for success when you can buy a few squads in 40k, a HQ and you're golden. 500pt 40k is also pretty workable for newbies, whilst WHFB just didn't work at anything below 1000pts.

tneva82 wrote:
It's posts like this that makes me very depressed about current generation

Why? I'm several generations removed from the current one, though I do share your concern. Their toys suck, their tv sucks, and they just watch donkey-caves on YouTube all day.

But still, you must understand that there is a difference in how you sell a story to a new reader and how you sell a miniature? Branding is important. There's a reason why the most successful miniature games are the ones with unique, thematic miniatures with a lot of characters and not the ones with the most interesting back story.

For instance, Wrath of Kings has a great backstory. The miniatures are thematically related to its factions, but the factions are thematically dissonant to each other. The characters have no character and it's very difficult to communicate to a new player why the werewolves are fighting jellyfish men and Chinese dragons.

Warmachine... used to have a lot of character. I think they really lost their way, visually. Grimkin and Convergence feel like they are from a different game, while the other factions have unique identities (some of the Hordes factions are weaker in this regard), the models within the factions no longer seem to have any individuality. Back when I was looking at returning to the game, I'd constantly find myself looking at a model and not being able to tell it from a different one. Is this an officer? An attachment? A solo? A named character? Heck, is it a warcaster? Back in mk2, in my opinion, even when models shared the same kit, their different variations had a lot of individual character.

WHFB 8th appeared to have been created with pretty much a single aim, to make sure that those who already played it needed to buy a stack more models - think of how the unit sizes ballooned.

It as a side effect made getting started with it essentially impossible.

AoS launching alongside WHFB, in the same general setting, as a skirmish game in the same background would have worked nicely for me, would also have been a lot harder to be critical of.

the nuke & pave approach to the background was just to find a lazy way to shoehorn the sigmarines in

That doesn't work from a copyright/design perspective though - one of the reasons that WHFB didn't sell some ranges well was that they were so generic that you could get armies from other companies for a fraction of the price (like using Perry's figures for Empire/Bretonnia @ £18 for 40).

WHFB had to go away entirely so that AoS could come along with it's Urruks and Fyrekins and no actual human faction.

Herzlos wrote:
That doesn't work from a copyright/design perspective though - one of the reasons that WHFB didn't sell some ranges well was that they were so generic that you could get armies from other companies for a fraction of the price (like using Perry's figures for Empire/Bretonnia @ £18 for 40).

WHFB had to go away entirely so that AoS could come along with it's Urruks and Fyrekins and no actual human faction.

problem is, take away the humans and you take away the connection to us, they are nice models, GW could quite easily have basically admitted to themselves some of the more historical stuff was going to be from the Perry's etc, and ramped up the fantasy bits of such armies, the heros etc.

Or of course they could have used the scale of production they have to undercut the likes of Vitrix (thats a different debate though).

but the background needs a basic human connection, if only to provide the scale for the fantasy

Successful games fail because they do not find new ways to engage their current players. They also do not seek to expand their player base. They definitely don't do market research. They also fail to strengthen their fluff in a meaningful way. This creates what feels like a disconnect with their fans. Newer products will often not be as creative as the original products. The setting has to stand out from everyone else in the marketplace.

It wasn't just humans. It was the whole generic line. Why would you spend GW prices when you could just get vastly cheaper historicals or vastly cheaper competitors like mantic.

Its been postulated that a main reason for boosting LOTR figure costs back in the day was because when they were cheap, people were using them to fill their WHFB armies out.

I would bet the farm all of this comes down to coming up with a model line that you can't replicate through cheap historicals, cheap generic tropes like elves and dwarves, and have a certain look that is IP protected.

Sunny Side Up wrote:
The point is, WFB was dead and not making money (and there's a different discussion on why, certainly a lot of it was self-inflicted by GW).

AoS was an admittedly extreme and for many old time fans painful measure to turn the death spiral around, but it succeeded at that.

Except it didn't. WHFB is still dead. AoS is a completely different game.

So they didn't 'turn the death spiral around'... they canned a game that was no longer profitable, and replaced it with a completely different game that just happened (for a while at least) to use the same miniatures.

auticus wrote:
I would bet the farm all of this comes down to coming up with a model line that you can't replicate through cheap historicals, cheap generic tropes like elves and dwarves, and have a certain look that is IP protected.

You make it sound like it was purely defensive, when it is a good idea to go this direction for a number of reasons. I really think the more flamboyant setting is a perfect match for GW's model designers, as they've created some really awesome armies from scratch (Kharadron, Idoneth), while simultaneously taking generic one off units from WHFB and really expanding them into unique and awesome armies (Sylvaneth, Daughters of Khaine).

I'm sure part of it was creating a less derivative setting, but I think it may have also involved the model designers pleading, "please don't make us design anymore models that pack together like sardines! They have to hold their swords straight up, touching their nipples! Nipples don't belong in swordplay!".


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 insaniak wrote:
So they didn't 'turn the death spiral around'... they canned a game that was no longer profitable, and replaced it with a completely different game that just happened (for a while at least) to use the same miniatures.

You can say that (and I did) about any edition change. 8th edition is a completely different game than 7th edition that just happens to use the same miniatures (by the way, all your marines are being replaced)

While thats all true I firmy believe that in the era that AOS was birthed amidst all of the litigation and the chapter house nonsense that indeed it was a defensive move that has turned profitable to them.

 Sqorgar wrote:
You can say that (and I did) about any edition change. 8th edition is a completely different game than 7th edition that just happens to use the same miniatures (by the way, all your marines are being replaced)

Not really. The core of the game in 8th edition 40K is still the same as it has been since 2nd edition. That's not the case with AoS.

And, of course, there's the fact that 8th edition 40K was actually marketed as a new edition of 40K. That also wasn't the case with AoS... it wasn't marketed as a 9th edition of WHFB, it was marketed as an off-shoot. It's a new game under the 'Warhammer' label.

 insaniak wrote:
Not really. The core of the game in 8th edition 40K is still the same as it has been since 2nd edition.

That's kind of like saying Othello is a new edition of Go.

 Sqorgar wrote:

 insaniak wrote:
Not really. The core of the game in 8th edition 40K is still the same as it has been since 2nd edition.

That's kind of like saying Othello is a new edition of Go.

Hardly. There's clearly a difference between an edition change and a whole new game. One of them is how useful your current set of models will be in the new game. Sure, you could use your old WHFB models in AoS, but the bases would be "wrong" and army construction would be very different and due to the complete change in rules you might find things work very differently, requiring you to update your collection. An edition change generally shifts balance and power level around a bit, but in a much less impactful way.

leopard wrote:

Herzlos wrote:
That doesn't work from a copyright/design perspective though - one of the reasons that WHFB didn't sell some ranges well was that they were so generic that you could get armies from other companies for a fraction of the price (like using Perry's figures for Empire/Bretonnia @ £18 for 40).

WHFB had to go away entirely so that AoS could come along with it's Urruks and Fyrekins and no actual human faction.

problem is, take away the humans and you take away the connection to us, they are nice models, GW could quite easily have basically admitted to themselves some of the more historical stuff was going to be from the Perry's etc, and ramped up the fantasy bits of such armies, the heros etc.

Or of course they could have used the scale of production they have to undercut the likes of Vitrix (thats a different debate though).

but the background needs a basic human connection, if only to provide the scale for the fantasy

I agree entirely; you need the familiarity to bring people in - Warhammer had all the tropes any 14 year old boy would already be familiar with (Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, Goblins, Barbarians etc) so you can get in running without doing any real research. That just doesn't happen with, for instance, AoS, where there are no humans and nothing has a name they are familiar with (sure the tropes are sort of still there but you need a translation table to figure out wtf anything is).

Going by the relative sizes, GW could have easily either just dropped their human range for the Perrys, or potentially just bought the Perrys out. But I don't think they'd ever do something like that and risk making their customers aware that there's ample gardens outside the wall.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sqorgar wrote:
You make it sound like it was purely defensive, when it is a good idea to go this direction for a number of reasons. I really think the more flamboyant setting is a perfect match for GW's model designers,

But they controlled the entire WHFB world and could have made it as flamboyant as they wanted. You don't need to burn down the world to bring in some new units or a new age.

as they've created some really awesome armies from scratch (Kharadron, Idoneth), while simultaneously taking generic one off units from WHFB and really expanding them into unique and awesome armies (Sylvaneth, Daughters of Khaine).

None of which directly mean anything to someone who isn't familiar with the world, or couldn't have existed in the old world. I've been paying some attention so I'm fairly sure the Kharadron are Dwarves/Dawi, I've no idea who Daughters of Khaine are, and I'm pretty sure that Idoneth and Sylvaneth are elves. Though I have to admit that Sylvaneth makes me think of these adorable guys rather than Elven warriors.

You just know that the intro for any of those armies in a GW store start with the GW staffer saying "So you've got the Kharadron, these are like Dwarves, right, but..." and then likely have the intro customer refer to them as dwarves for the rest of the conversation.

Subscibed -there's some great insights here.

What others have said about balance between growing the game and avoiding bloat is paramount. It's a fine line to walk. And arguably adhering to it does limit the lifespan of a game: One can introduce new units and new factions, new game modes, more balanced rules, plus expanding the rules to allow for the increased diversity, but there will come a point where all the exciting options for this are exhausted -new units that are only marginally different to the existing ones, re-hashes of existing abilities that add little scope. Eventually the bulk of your players will get bored.

The alternative is keeping those new releases attractive, by provide some form of in game advantage / power creep, which is a much more sustainable approach, but will drive away players that value the game for its balance and/or resent the devaluation of their existing collection. I personally find this kind of marketing very off-putting...yet I'm not sure there is an alternative approach to sustaining a game in the long term.

The direction Magic went to a variety of formats was a neat idea.

Herzlos wrote:
Though I have to admit that Sylvaneth makes me think of these adorable guys rather than Elven warriors.

Man, that's looks great! Good miniatures, good terrain, unique setting, not unreasonable prices... I'd totally like to play that. I don't see a rulebook listed anywhere on their website - are the rules included in the starter set?

 Grimtuff wrote:
So all the people that left in droves to start the Ninth Age, stick with 8th or play KoW never happened?

Right.

What droves.... those were like maybe 4% of the old WHFB fan base, there are way more people who bought KoW cheap filler to play 8th than the reverse, and all these are completely dwarfed by the AoS playerbase, which is more than 50% new players.

What part of this doesn't scream: absolute success, please copy paste.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

auticus wrote:
And the stories of no one buying new gw models for whfb but buying plenty of second hand was a common story regionally as well, so I know it wasn't just my area that was big into that to make it an isolated pocket incidence.

Not just second hand, I think a lot of people turned to cheap knock-offs, like King of War which really just sold WHFB-compatible miniatures under the pretense of a 3-page ruleset game - at first at least.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
So, it really was a shame then that WHFB never introduced Araby or Cathay or any of the other factions they teased in the fluff.

Yeah no... IP like that, which isn't even IP and doesn't even fit in a Fantasy setting, is better left outside the game.

Araby or Cathay ? Why not Germani ?

It's like those horrible horsemen from the Astra Militarum... dude we're in the future, we don't need no horses thx. you're breaking the setting.


I think those are typically horrible mistakes they made in the early days of fluff writing, when they had no content and little imagination but still needed to try and describe a vast universe.

This makes for pretty interesting reading for someone who left playing fantasy probably somewhere around its peak. I was shocked when I came back to find the whole game replaced by AOS.

auticus wrote:

Most players don't care about balance, and it is almost never the reason a successful game declines.

I think one of the biggest mass exoduses from whfb 7th edition came precisely from the horrible imbalance. At least that was the case in my region.

Though in general I agree. Dumpster fires of balance are largely ignored by a good number of players. So long as everyone around them is still playing the game.

Yup, And I think the vast majority of the WHFB versions were utterly and completely imbalanced, this did not prevent the game from being insanely successful.

I think people who care about balance are a very tiny minority.
Competitive gamers relish the opportunity to break the balance.
Fluff gamers don't really care.

And then there's those who keep on whining about balance being dumpster-fire grade.

Well... yea. dumpster-fire is definitely a certified term to qualify a very specific level of balance, so they must be right.

It's certainly seeming like AoS has, after some initial teething problems, been a great success. But the success is a commercial success of a new game, not a successful save of a dying one.

It's unfortunately impossible to say if they could have seen a similar level of success if they had put the same amount of effort into reinvigorating WHFB instead of replacing it, since they didn't do that...

 Sqorgar wrote:

auticus wrote:
I would bet the farm all of this comes down to coming up with a model line that you can't replicate through cheap historicals, cheap generic tropes like elves and dwarves, and have a certain look that is IP protected.

You make it sound like it was purely defensive, when it is a good idea to go this direction for a number of reasons

Honestly, to me, as an entrepreneur, I feel that defense would be more than enough.

It's really horrible when you do all the work to get people in the hobby, motivated, interested, and then they buy from some competitor who doesn't do gak to get people in but simply sells cheap knock-offs of your products.
Too many people made too much money off of GW's effort to bring WHFB to the masses, and they still do.
So many games played by ex-WHFB players who might've never gotten started on miniatures without GW. And GW paid to get them in the door, and so many other companies made the money off of their investment.

And by nature, as any unreasonable parasite, those companies were actually killing GW.
GW has found a way to not fall into that trap anymore and it's going to enable them to flourish and this in turn will be a boon for those who like their products.
I'm 10x more likely to get plastic aspect warriors in the next 3 years now that GW has gotten its gak together, and GW is 10x less likely to go bankrupt too. To me that's a win.
To those companies who lived off of their investment ... tough luck.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 insaniak wrote:
It's certainly seeming like AoS has, after some initial teething problems, been a great success. But the success is a commercial success of a new game, not a successful save of a dying one.

It's unfortunately impossible to say if they could have seen a similar level of success if they had put the same amount of effort into reinvigorating WHFB instead of replacing it, since they didn't do that...

I honestly think that many times, it's way too much effort to steer that supertanker off the collision course.
I think they might've tried with the end times and that the measurable results were so far off the goal that they hit the red button.

morgoth wrote:


Yeah no... IP like that, which isn't even IP and doesn't even fit in a Fantasy setting, is better left outside the game.

Araby or Cathay ? Why not Germani ?.

You mean the (Holy Roman) Empire? or Bretonnia, Estalia or Tilea? Praag is a particularly obvious one too. Every location in the setting is a thinly-veiled take on somewhere in the real world (and what does it say about the writer's opinion of North America, I wonder, that it became Naggaroth? Has anyone tried to map Malekith's revolt onto the American Revolution or Civil War?). Araby already had an army list and miniatures range, albeit for Warmaster, and there were enough background hints about Ind, Nippon and Cathay to be tantalising - they could have added them as new factions easily enough. Maybe they'll be added to in WFRP 4th edition.

Part of the reason for the new game was to make it easier to add the big, wacky plastic centrepiece models that no-one else really did and to let them break away from the last of the tolkienesque/traditional elements if they wanted to. There's no "elves" now, with all the cultural associations that brings - there's forest spirits, soul-stealing sea-dwellers and blood-soaked snake-women instead.

I wonder how much of the End Times was Rick Priestley's idea? He was showing off the early draft of the Tamurkhan: The Throne of Chaos book at Games Day 2010, and it was pitched as the first in a series of four books in which Rick would tear down everything he'd built up over the last 20 years, in a "what if" way; Nurgle from the east, Tzeentch from the south, Khorne from the west and Slaanesh from the north, IIRC. The Tamurkhan book annihilated the Empire - killing off first the Emperor then all the Elector Counts, leaving the Halfling lord of the Moot to be crowned as the last Emperor. The series never progressed beyond book 1, and Rick left Games Workshop not long after, but I wonder if Jervis, Phil and the other writers looked at his notes, remembered his conversations and thought "hey, guys, there might be something we can use here ..."

 Easy E wrote:
The only reason WHFB died was because of IP reasons.

Nope. . .it was me. . .

I killed WHFB.

http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?377872-Bringing-Warhammer-Fantasy-Back

 Coldhatred wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
The only reason WHFB died was because of IP reasons.

Nope. . .it was me. . .

I killed WHFB.

http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?377872-Bringing-Warhammer-Fantasy-Back

You maniac!

https://youtu.be/Gb4eZ7Z5yk8?t=20

Props for calling it in the way that it went down!

nareik wrote:

 Coldhatred wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
The only reason WHFB died was because of IP reasons.

Nope. . .it was me. . .

I killed WHFB.

http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?377872-Bringing-Warhammer-Fantasy-Back

You maniac!

https://youtu.be/Gb4eZ7Z5yk8?t=20

Props for calling it in the way that it went down!

Granted, I'm not really happy with the way it ended up going down, so I feel much regret in regards to my prophetic powers.

morgoth wrote:

I honestly think that many times, it's way too much effort to steer that supertanker off the collision course.
I think they might've tried with the end times and that the measurable results were so far off the goal that they hit the red button.

The way End Times was plotted out, I think it was a planned ending from the start. The frustrating part is that given how much rekindled interest the End Times generated in WHFB, it would have been the perfect opportunity to release a 'fixed', 9th Ed WHFB set during the End Times, and AoS as an off-shoot skirmish game. That would have let them 'tweak' WHFB to add their extra layers of trademarkable IP to it and kept the game alive for those of us who actually prefer the blocks-of-troops, high fantasy style of that game, while also having AoS for the really bonkers model ideas and the new setting for those bored with WHFB.

 Coldhatred wrote:

nareik wrote:

 Coldhatred wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
The only reason WHFB died was because of IP reasons.

Nope. . .it was me. . .

I killed WHFB.

http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?377872-Bringing-Warhammer-Fantasy-Back

You maniac!

https://youtu.be/Gb4eZ7Z5yk8?t=20

Props for calling it in the way that it went down!

Granted, I'm not really happy with the way it ended up going down, so I feel much regret in regards to my prophetic powers.

One day, a small part of your soul will be used in forging that of Konrad Curze!

 insaniak wrote:

morgoth wrote:

I honestly think that many times, it's way too much effort to steer that supertanker off the collision course.
I think they might've tried with the end times and that the measurable results were so far off the goal that they hit the red button.

The way End Times was plotted out, I think it was a planned ending from the start. The frustrating part is that given how much rekindled interest the End Times generated in WHFB, it would have been the perfect opportunity to release a 'fixed', 9th Ed WHFB set during the End Times, and AoS as an off-shoot skirmish game. That would have let them 'tweak' WHFB to add their extra layers of trademarkable IP to it and kept the game alive for those of us who actually prefer the blocks-of-troops, high fantasy style of that game, while also having AoS for the really bonkers model ideas and the new setting for those bored with WHFB.

Yeah it was planned allright. AOS designwork started around 2012...That's weeeee bit earlier than End Times so the End Times were hardly deciding to start up AOS. Indeed lead times make it impossible as the time between ET and AOS was too short for new edition to be done. Even with rules that took like ~day to come up with.

And off the goal...End times actually boosted up sales quite a bit. Which is not surprising seeing it's the new releases that drive up sales. No releases, no sales. Releases, sales.

WHFB ultimately outgrew it's niche.

As a game sticks around longer and longer, people's collections grow. And it's natural for those players to want to at least have the choice to put everything on the board - either regularly, or occasionally.

Throughout it's iterations, WHFB tried to cater to this, but never quite broke out of it's mold.

Me, I really enjoyed 8th Ed. Monstrous Infantry came into their own. Basic infantry had more of a say beyond being simple tarpits.

The one thing they didn't fix in my opinion was Cavalry. With Steadfast (I think that's what it was called), they just had a hell of a time making an impact - and I'd always found previously they struggled to win combats anyway, just thanks to 3 rank, outnumber and Banner, when the most you could get into BTB was maybe 7 against regular infantry.

Now it wasn't inevitable, but it is how it all played out in the end. And raising the scale ceiling is something most games will do at some point.

I'd point to War of the Ring as being a decent way to tackle that. Same models, familiar enough combat system, and sat alongside it's skirmish parent game.

X-Wing? Well, I'm sure they could do a squadron based game at some point. After all, when you promote it as only needing a handful of ships, but most collections rapidly develop into a few dozen, that's a fair investment inherently gathering dust because the game just doesn't work beyond a certain level (flying into each other is a real hazard!) But I feel that should take the War of the Ring route, and be in addition to the parent game, rather than a replacement.

And we're seeing GW at least trying such things these days, just in reverse. Kill Team, Boxed Games, AoS Skirmish/Path to Glory are all examples of a smaller scaled experience sitting alongside far larger parent games. And all use interchangeable models, so you don't end up having to double buy just to play the scaled down versions.

The Quest games are particularly interesting examples. I just wish they'd release a bestiary/selection of bestiaries and a dungeon design kit. That'd be really, really cool!

Here, FFG decided to change the scale somewhat for Legions, so existing collections from Imperial Assault can't really be used. That's a bit of an error in my book, as you've already caused a double-buy-in price bafflement on a normally price sensitive audience - when there really wasn't much need to (unless its tied to the License. Which it might very well be, for all we know).




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Games also decline because customer's tastes change.

For a long time, WHFB was the Fantasy Battle game. The one by which all others were judged. Yet 'rank and flank' seems to have fallen out of favour. Regular complaints is having to buy and paint models that don't do anything in the game. Never bothered me personally, but it's absolutely a valid point to raise. So when skirmish scaled games came out, where every model very much counts? That was attractive. Cheaper to get into, no sense of wasted investment.

40k is much the same. It's not just a benchmark game, but a high benchmark. You need to do most things as well as 40k does, and at least some things better, or you're never going to tempt enough people to make your new game sustainable.

Consider Armada. I've not got into that, despite being initially keen. Why? The cost. Man, that game isn't cheap. And I was utterly underwhelmed at the demo set I saw at an expo in terms of the quality of the models (however, that may have just been a duff batch).