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Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut





crimsyn wrote:
Sqorgar is right...
Can we just take a moment and recognize the wisdom of this fine poster?
   
Made in us
Douglas Bader






nou wrote:
If I'm not mistaken, the only person who stated that things are "obvious" or "trivial" in pejorative way was Peregrine and I doubt anyone in this thread treat his posts as serious discussion attempt.


I love you too. <3

PS: nobody is taking your posts seriously, and nobody cares about bridge.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Sqorgar wrote:
Again, we return to Warmachine, a game which had a community that was almost exclusively competitive players (and overwhelmingly hostile towards casual and non-competitive players, to the point where the non-competitive players ALL went and played other games or otherwise stayed the hell away from Warmachine's public facing community). Why were the competitive players so hostile to casual players when the casual players had no voice and no power? It's like beating up a handicapped kid. And where is Warmachine now? Those competitive players really turned out in force to defend the game in its darkest hour, didn't they


So competitive players get all of the blame for killing WM/H, but none of the credit for the good times when it was a thriving game making lots of money? You can't have it both ways.

This isn't about being nice. When competitive players get their way 100% of the time, games die. This is about what's best for the long term health and survival of the game, and really, no matter how you slice that cake, the answer is always going to come up with "competitive players are bad". Bad for the game, bad for the community, and if they are bad for the game and the community, then that means they are bad for the industry.


I see we're back to "STOP HAVING FUN THE WRONG WAY".

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2019/08/06 21:00:44


There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices. 
   
Made in ch
The Dread Evil Lord Varlak





I see we're back to "STOP HAVING FUN THE WRONG WAY".


Yes, because it is extremely easy to other the other hobby group as beeing too cheesy, WAAC, caac etc.

Which is a replacement for a propper dialogue that should be had about the state of the community and ruleset.

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/766717.page
A Mostly Renegades and Heretics blog.
GW:"Space marines got too many options to balance, therefore we decided to legends HH units."
Players: "why?!? Now we finally got decent plastic kits and you cut them?"
Chaos marines players: "Since when are Daemonengines 30k models and why do i have NO droppods now?"
GW" MONEY.... erm i meant TOO MANY OPTIONS (to resell your army to you again by disalowing former units)! Do you want specific tyranid fighiting Primaris? Even a new sabotage lieutnant!"
Chaos players: Guess i stop playing or go to HH.  
   
Made in us
Elite Tyranid Warrior






 Peregrine wrote:

So competitive players get all of the blame for killing WM/H, but none of the credit for the good times when it was a thriving game making lots of money? You can't have it both ways.


I think you can in this case, wm exploded from the mass migration of players from mostly gw and is now slowly dying because it can't bring in a steady supply of new people to replace the drop off.
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut




 Irkjoe wrote:
 Peregrine wrote:

So competitive players get all of the blame for killing WM/H, but none of the credit for the good times when it was a thriving game making lots of money? You can't have it both ways.


I think you can in this case, wm exploded from the mass migration of players from mostly gw and is now slowly dying because it can't bring in a steady supply of new people to replace the drop off.


I loved warmachine/hordes. To be fair, while you are not wrong in pointing to its decline being linked to the fact that it can't bring in a lot of new players, I would argue wmh's problems are deeper than 'hur dur competitives'. With respect to sqorgar, 'dem competitives' is his snarky answer to everything and while it might, in part, represent some part of the answer for some people, it's by no means the big picture. There were some nasties playing warmachine, just as there are playing plenty other games. There were also some great and inspiring groups/people that folks like sqorgar constantly overlook, because it doesn't suit his narrative to consider them.

I don't want to derail, but Id argue in part, its success stemmed from a brilliant era in early mk2 where they were the movers and shakers in the industry, while gw players were enduring the 'summer of discontent'. Likewise, towards the end of mk2, there was a general malaise and fatigue because the game had by that point more or less been solved in a lot of ways. some important reasons for the decline of WMH include some seriously bone headed decisions from pp, including some seriously nasty anti retailer moves, hugely- the ending of their pressgangers program, arguably the nuking of their central forums (though I think their value was overstated) the bungled launch of mk3, and the massive faction and content bloat that had been added to the game, along with a lot of new releases that are 'meh'. that made the hurdles to get into the game (the 'burden of knowledge' so much higher to the point that it was just not worth it. This was in addition to other companies, like for example, gw upping their game hugely and simply being more attractive. I think it's a shame. I loved WMH. But pp did enough boneheaded moves that I really can't be bothered supporting them right now. Plus seeing kickstarters for 'the art of warmachine' and them emptying their warehouses has me wary of buying in again.

greatest band in the universe: machine supremacy

"Punch your fist in the air and hold your Gameboy aloft like the warrior you are" 
   
Made in us
Douglas Bader






 Irkjoe wrote:
 Peregrine wrote:

So competitive players get all of the blame for killing WM/H, but none of the credit for the good times when it was a thriving game making lots of money? You can't have it both ways.


I think you can in this case, wm exploded from the mass migration of players from mostly gw and is now slowly dying because it can't bring in a steady supply of new people to replace the drop off.


But that mass migration was going to a competitive game that was openly marketed as a competitive game. It's not like WM/H started off as a non-competitive game, attracted a bunch of ex-GW players, and then lost them by becoming too competitive. It was a competitive game from day one and it was extremely successful as one.

There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices. 
   
Made in us
Elite Tyranid Warrior






Then I blame the wm players for not buying anything, which hurts pp and the local store.
   
Made in us
Terrifying Doombull




 Irkjoe wrote:
 Peregrine wrote:

So competitive players get all of the blame for killing WM/H, but none of the credit for the good times when it was a thriving game making lots of money? You can't have it both ways.


I think you can in this case, wm exploded from the mass migration of players from mostly gw and is now slowly dying because it can't bring in a steady supply of new people to replace the drop off.

I'm not clear on how that's the fault of the players. Any kind of players (and yes there were 'casual' and 'mainstream' WM players as well).

Failure to retain players is almost always the company's fault. For either not maintaining them, not recruiting more or faltering with competition happy to take up the slack. The latter was what built PP (when they took advantage of GW faltering), and the exit happened when GW largely shaped up (or gave the appearance of it). Or rather, PP stumbled badly, repeatedly in short order, with some of their bonehead moves right out of GW's classic bonehead playbook (killing the volunteer recruitment program, killing the forums, a bungled edition), while GW was successfully managing to reverse course on many of their contemporary issues.

'Competitive players' don't come into this picture at all.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/08/06 22:52:04


Efficiency is the highest virtue. 
   
Made in ca
Fresh-Faced New User




I know for me, WMH wasn’t introduced as the hardcore competitive game for hardcore players. I fell in love with just having fun pushing models across the table with friends, with the badassery of characters like Sorscha, and engaging in the hobby aspect; one I went too deep down the competitive rabbit hole, I went on a path to burnout.

Some of PP’s decisions over the past few years have been questionable, however some of those were forced. Their forums were a massive salt line that needed to be killed because it was driving new players away. The press gang program had gotten unwieldy, and was potentially exposing them to legal liabilities. Mk.III has a bad launch but is a superior product to Mk.II, if only because big machines of war are no longer hot garbage in a game called Warmachine. Mystery box sales don’t inspire confidence, until you realize that they had to empty their warehouse because they were forced to move their operations to make room for a transit system.

Sadly, I think a game that has a singular focus on competitive play is like a fortress built on sand. Without casual players and hobbyists around to attract new players and bring them in (because some competitive players can’t “turn it off” and play in such a way that they lure newbies in and make them feel welcome), growth is limited. Then, when competitive players either burn out or find that their army isn’t the strongest thing in the meta anymore (which happened to a lot of Cryx players in the change to Mk.III), they leave the game. Where, if there was a casual scene, they could drop back into that for a while when they are feeling burnout and numb back on that competitive treadmill when the competitive bug bites again.

This is the issue. Competitive play is okay in a certain dosage, but if it becomes all-consuming, it gets to be a problem. I suppose it is theoretically possible for casual play to become all consuming, but that isn’t the situation in any community I am aware of, and it would be by definition less of a problem. A bunch of competitive players giving a new player the cold shoulder because they want to do tournament practice is by definition much more of a problem than a bunch of casual players getting too excited about starting the new player off in a slow-grow league and showering her with hobby tips and talking about how cool the dudes in her army are in the lore.

None of this is to suggest competitive players are bad people. There are some tryhards, but I actually find the best competitive players to also be decent to play against because you get a lot better at the game being humble in victory, gracious in defeat, and examining your own decisions than you do trying to get free wins by being a jerk and crying cheese whenever you lose instead of examining what you could have done differently. But, if competitive play takes over and squeezes everything else out, that becomes a problem for the growth of the game.

Warmachine’s main issue, IMHO, goes back to decisions they made in 2003 about how they positioned their product that may have been necessary at the time to distinguish themselves from GW, but which hampered the long term growth and mass appeal of the game. Some of those they backtracked on, like the bits about being full metal models not wussy plastic toys, or the edgelordy, sexist rankings on Page 5. But some of it they are stuck with because of the player base — similar how certain car brands have trouble shaking their image as a car for boring old people when most people who drive them have AARP cards. For example, suggesting a tournament with a painting requirement or some sort of bonus for bringing a fully painted army like +1 to the starting roll is going to get you run out of town on a rail.

Anyways, that’s just my 2 cents as someone who still plays Warmachine in spite of having been told on multiple occasions to go play 40K or AoS instead (sometimes in less diplomatic terms).
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut





 Peregrine wrote:

But that mass migration was going to a competitive game that was openly marketed as a competitive game. It's not like WM/H started off as a non-competitive game, attracted a bunch of ex-GW players, and then lost them by becoming too competitive. It was a competitive game from day one and it was extremely successful as one.
I was there from day one, actually. I had a demo of the game at a convention before it was even available from the PP team, and even went ahead and preordered some starter boxes to be delivered when they became available. I've got some day one metal WMH miniatures to prove it too. And it wasn't marketed as a competitive game. Not by the guy who gave us the demo, and not really by PP in general. If it were, I absolutely would've moved on.

It was, however, marketed as an anti-GW game. The play like you got a pair, with "heavy metal" models (a response to GW moving to finecast and inferior plastic models), and the generalized "Sissies. Little girls. Nancy boys... go home." of Page 5 was pushing an aggressive mindset that was intended to separate Warmachine from 40k, which at the time, was feeling a bit too corporate.

If you read the various page 5s, you'll see that it generally doesn't say much about being competitive. It's not about sport, skill, victory, or anything like that which you would associate with a game that was pushing a fair, balanced game. It's just about being a big donkey-cave and not being a little girly man of indecision. I mean, when the game launched, it was extremely unbalanced, and only had a few models per faction. But page 5 was there from the start.

That imbalance led to the creation of Warmachine 1.5 rulebook. I had dropped out of the game by then because of having kids, and didn't come back until the tail end of Mk2. I can't tell you when the game exactly switch to being seen as a competitive only game, but it didn't start there. I'd say that there's probably a direct relationship between WMH becoming competitive and the release of 40k 6th or 7th edition. As well all know, the WMH audience likes to abandon ship during edition changes...

I've seen arguments that the general hostility in the WMH community can be traced back to the original page 5, but when the game first launch, I think most people took it in stride and saw it as a silly little thing. But when the game became overly competitive, they started using page 5 as their justification for their behavior. When people complained about toxic behavior, they be told to play like they got a pair. I don't think page 5 set up WMH to fail, but I think it became an important obstacle to its continued success later on. There's a reason why page 5 doesn't exist anymore.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Irkjoe wrote:
Then I blame the wm players for not buying anything, which hurts pp and the local store.
This was also probably a big contributor to their problems. Through War Room, they could get cards for every single model in the game, so it really encouraged proxying models instead of buying them (many WMH players not really even treating WMH as a miniature game). The rules weren't free (I think it was something like $60 for them all?), but it did devalue the models in the eyes of people who would've been just as happy to play with tokens. All they had to do to change this was use true line of sight so that LOS couldn't be doing without physical models on the table.

(I don't think free rules will generally ruin a game. Age of Sigmar has free rules and it seems to be doing fine. But I think that, for it to work, the game has to rely on physical models on the table. As of Mk2, you could replace every model in the game with a circle cut out of cardboard and it would still be 100% playable).

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/08/07 00:28:44


 
   
Made in us
Regular Dakkanaut





Jacksonville, FL.

This is the issue. Competitive play is okay in a certain dosage, but if it becomes all-consuming, it gets to be a problem. I suppose it is theoretically possible for casual play to become all consuming, but that isn’t the situation in any community I am aware of, and it would be by definition less of a problem. A bunch of competitive players giving a new player the cold shoulder because they want to do tournament practice is by definition much more of a problem than a bunch of casual players getting too excited about starting the new player off in a slow-grow league and showering her with hobby tips and talking about how cool the dudes in her army are in the lore.


crimsyn hit the nail on the head with this statement perfectly. It doesn't matter if its 40K or Warmahordes. Competitive players are not bad people, but they do have their share of bad eggs as does any social group. Its when these bad eggs drive everyone else out at the expense of growing the community does it become a problem. If the community doesn't address these bad eggs, then that is the fault of the community and it should suffer for it accordingly.

Shiny! 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut





 Seawolf wrote:
Competitive players are not bad people...

They are not. I feel like I've got a bad rap for hating on competitive players, but the fact is, I don't hate competitive players as individuals. I'm more than happy to play with them. My stance has always been that, as a group, they are really bad for the health of the game. Competitive play is not bad for a single game; it is bad for a game system.

I think it might be because a single person trying to minmax the game can break it, but a hundred persons trying to minmax the game can destroy it. It moves the meat of the game from the center to the extreme edge. No longer are you playing the game as it was designed or intended to be played, but you are playing inside the cracks left behind by exploiting a game system never designed to support it. The end result is that everyone has to move out to this fringe, to a game which is just not appropriate for the vast number of potential players, creating a game that is only enjoyed by a very, very few. If you are part of the few that thrive there, then it feels great, even when you look around and there's barely anybody else around.

The health of a game can be measured in this simple, handy, dandy formula:

Health = ( (new players in - old players out) * time + base number of customers ) * number of products sold per customer

Basically, competitive gaming communities are notoriously unwelcoming to new players (less new players coming it) while also having a high burn out rate and abandonment rate during times of great upheaval (more old players going out). They also are so laser focused on competitive elements that they become non-customers for a large part of the game's range. If a model is considered overcosted, the number of competitive players who will buy it is pretty much zero. That's completely aside from the rather wide range of products that GW makes that have no or little competitive value. Campaign expansions, fluff books, model bundles with too many heroes, starter packs, terrain, etc. A smaller player base can sustain a game if they buy more products, but that's not competitive players.

Another problem is that the number of products sold to a customer is front loaded. They will buy much more in the first few years than the last few years. So if your player base is made up of mostly old players, they will buy less just as a matter of course. One of the reasons why games end up creating new editions is to reset this number and spur new purchases. Problem is, doing a new edition is more likely to make old customers leave. If your player base has basically no chance of attracting new customers, an edition change could very quickly drain a game of its health.

Basically, a competitive player base will have a negative player delta causing the overall player base to shrink while also shrinking the number of products sold per customer.
   
Made in ch
The Dread Evil Lord Varlak





 Sqorgar wrote:
 Seawolf wrote:
Competitive players are not bad people...

They are not. I feel like I've got a bad rap for hating on competitive players, but the fact is, I don't hate competitive players as individuals. I'm more than happy to play with them. My stance has always been that, as a group, they are really bad for the health of the game. Competitive play is not bad for a single game; it is bad for a game system.

I think it might be because a single person trying to minmax the game can break it, but a hundred persons trying to minmax the game can destroy it. It moves the meat of the game from the center to the extreme edge. No longer are you playing the game as it was designed or intended to be played, but you are playing inside the cracks left behind by exploiting a game system never designed to support it. The end result is that everyone has to move out to this fringe, to a game which is just not appropriate for the vast number of potential players, creating a game that is only enjoyed by a very, very few. If you are part of the few that thrive there, then it feels great, even when you look around and there's barely anybody else around.

The health of a game can be measured in this simple, handy, dandy formula:

Health = ( (new players in - old players out) * time + base number of customers ) * number of products sold per customer

Basically, competitive gaming communities are notoriously unwelcoming to new players (less new players coming it) while also having a high burn out rate and abandonment rate during times of great upheaval (more old players going out). They also are so laser focused on competitive elements that they become non-customers for a large part of the game's range. If a model is considered overcosted, the number of competitive players who will buy it is pretty much zero. That's completely aside from the rather wide range of products that GW makes that have no or little competitive value. Campaign expansions, fluff books, model bundles with too many heroes, starter packs, terrain, etc. A smaller player base can sustain a game if they buy more products, but that's not competitive players.

Another problem is that the number of products sold to a customer is front loaded. They will buy much more in the first few years than the last few years. So if your player base is made up of mostly old players, they will buy less just as a matter of course. One of the reasons why games end up creating new editions is to reset this number and spur new purchases. Problem is, doing a new edition is more likely to make old customers leave. If your player base has basically no chance of attracting new customers, an edition change could very quickly drain a game of its health.

Basically, a competitive player base will have a negative player delta causing the overall player base to shrink while also shrinking the number of products sold per customer.


Ohh common, are you seriously going this route?
Have you any actual statistics to show for that formula to be touting?
No?
Good, because then it is wrong.

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/766717.page
A Mostly Renegades and Heretics blog.
GW:"Space marines got too many options to balance, therefore we decided to legends HH units."
Players: "why?!? Now we finally got decent plastic kits and you cut them?"
Chaos marines players: "Since when are Daemonengines 30k models and why do i have NO droppods now?"
GW" MONEY.... erm i meant TOO MANY OPTIONS (to resell your army to you again by disalowing former units)! Do you want specific tyranid fighiting Primaris? Even a new sabotage lieutnant!"
Chaos players: Guess i stop playing or go to HH.  
   
Made in us
Clousseau




It moves the meat of the game from the center to the extreme edge. No longer are you playing the game as it was designed or intended to be played, but you are playing inside the cracks left behind by exploiting a game system never designed to support it. The end result is that everyone has to move out to this fringe


This I agree with and is why I try to counterbalance tournament play with narrative events. It has been an uphill endeavor for years though.

creating a game that is only enjoyed by a very, very few. If you are part of the few that thrive there, then it feels great, even when you look around and there's barely anybody else around.


This part could be true. But in the case of 40k, I would say its definitely not. In fact I'd go so far as to say AOS and 40k attracts people that enjoy playing the extreme end of the game, backed by the fact that there is a never ending supply of 40k players and GW is making a boatload of money from designing a game that caters to the extreme gameplay.


   
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Enigmatic Chaos Sorcerer




Tampa, FL

I think that's a good distinction to make. The issue isn't competitive players with a broad stroke. A lot of competitive players (the majority I'd wager) are probably pretty nice and willing to help others improve because they want a healthy community to play and improve themselves.

The issue that often colors the talk about "competitive vs. casual" (even though I think casual is a horrible word for this. "Non-competitive" would be better) is the type that either is a total jackass (the "git gud scrub" type) who enjoys stomping people or just being an unfun person to play against, and the type who roll into a community and "take over", turning a healthy mixed community into a community where only competitive tournament-Esque games take place publicly and everyone else is driven underground. Those are the type of competitive players that give everyone a bad name, and often the ones you find the complaints about just it's hard to convey that correctly online.

As was stated before, the issue is the sort of competitive player who only has one mode: "ultra competitive" and cannot deviate (and as also stated this seems to be largely a US thing as I've talked online to people in say the UK or AU or even parts of Europe who are equally at home playing a cutthroat list versus throwing down a couple of units and a tank in Open Play or using Power Level as part of a narrative campaign), sees no reason to deviate, and tries to impose their attitude on everyone else which can seriously hurt a community. The sort of person auticus is normally talking about in his group, that has no issue going to an event touted as a narrative/fun/non-competitive/what have you with an LVO netlist and trashing everyone, or throwing a fit like a child if the event has restrictions to limit those sort of builds (instead of just not playing in it). The kind of person who only sees 1/3 of the game as being relevant and can't see why anyone would ever bother with the other 2/3 of the game, and never plays anything except competitive games.

That's the sort of person who often can ruin a community and is often the subject of the "competitive players suck" type of attitude you find. As is often the case those types ar ethe loudest and most hostile, so they unfairly color the view of the entire group.

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2019/08/07 12:05:04


- Wayne
Formerly WayneTheGame 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut





Not Online!!! wrote:

Ohh common, are you seriously going this route?
Have you any actual statistics to show for that formula to be touting?
No?
Good, because then it is wrong.
Are you suggesting that a healthy game can have more players leaving than coming in and have a small, hardcore audience that doesn't actually buy anything? Was Warhammer Fantasy Battles a healthy game?
   
Made in ch
The Dread Evil Lord Varlak





 Sqorgar wrote:
Not Online!!! wrote:

Ohh common, are you seriously going this route?
Have you any actual statistics to show for that formula to be touting?
No?
Good, because then it is wrong.
Are you suggesting that a healthy game can have more players leaving than coming in and have a small, hardcore audience that doesn't actually buy anything? Was Warhammer Fantasy Battles a healthy game?


Whfb was not healthy, but survivorship Bias is real.
How many "healthy" games died aswell?

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/766717.page
A Mostly Renegades and Heretics blog.
GW:"Space marines got too many options to balance, therefore we decided to legends HH units."
Players: "why?!? Now we finally got decent plastic kits and you cut them?"
Chaos marines players: "Since when are Daemonengines 30k models and why do i have NO droppods now?"
GW" MONEY.... erm i meant TOO MANY OPTIONS (to resell your army to you again by disalowing former units)! Do you want specific tyranid fighiting Primaris? Even a new sabotage lieutnant!"
Chaos players: Guess i stop playing or go to HH.  
   
Made in us
Douglas Bader






 Sqorgar wrote:
Not Online!!! wrote:

Ohh common, are you seriously going this route?
Have you any actual statistics to show for that formula to be touting?
No?
Good, because then it is wrong.
Are you suggesting that a healthy game can have more players leaving than coming in and have a small, hardcore audience that doesn't actually buy anything? Was Warhammer Fantasy Battles a healthy game?


Of course not. But you haven't proved your assertions that competitive players drive a net loss of customers (WM/H grew as a competitive-focused game) or that competitive players dont buy anything (chasing the meta means buying new stuff, where casual players are likely to shrug and say "what I have is good enough").

There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices. 
   
Made in ca
Decrepit Dakkanaut





I'd say people interested in organising events, running demo games, and generally supporting the community is more important to the 'health' of a particular game.
   
Made in us
Clousseau




WHFB was not healthy because it was neglected by GW and had few releases and few new models. The same as any game really that exists to this day where its company does very little with it.

   
Made in ca
Decrepit Dakkanaut





WHFB fanatics aside, I'm reasonably sure the reason why it was neglected is that people didn't want to play it,and that it wasn't particularly appealing. I still regret buying an Orc & Goblin army for it around the end of 5th edition, even though I was able to sell it a little after the start of 6th.
   
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Stealthy Warhound Titan Princeps






The sci-fi aesthetic of 40k is just better than WHFB ever was. 100% subjective of course, but it can't be that unpopular of an opinion.
   
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Fixture of Dakka





Warmachines current problems have a lot to do with loss of exposure at the local level. There's a few reasons for this, but mostly it simply comes down to the fact that, yes, the FLGS is important to the health of the industry. MK2 was huge, but it also occurred during the height of steep online discounts that are really good for the consumer, but devalue the product in the eyes of customers and make it pretty impossible to sell locally for a profit. A lot of shops stopped shelving product and moved to direct order only and during that time, Sigmar and 40k both massively rebounded and filled the shelf space. The biggest problem I've had with demos is simply that I no longer have people coming in with the Battlebox they just purchased or saw and wanted to try out before they purchased it. Even people that come to demo nights aren't as easy to sell when they can't impulse buy a starter on the spot.

That, more than anything has been PPs challenge in my mind. They let online retail define their product line for all of MK2 creating too many SKUs and particularly too many large models for the game to work at local shops and that way more than anything regarding how competitive the game is has killed the influx of new players. They need to refocus and repackage the game in a way to get it on store shelves again, because right now its just a game that's a labyrinth to buy into, and there are just too many other options that make for easy sells (Batboxes, "Operation" Starters, Start Collecting, Crew boxes, etc). They defined the current model with their Battleboxes once upon a time; its just that those boxes have completely failed to keep up with the game they supported.
   
Made in gb
Regular Dakkanaut






 Sqorgar wrote:
They are not. I feel like I've got a bad rap for hating on competitive players, but the fact is, I don't hate competitive players as individuals. I'm more than happy to play with them. My stance has always been that, as a group, they are really bad for the health of the game. Competitive play is not bad for a single game; it is bad for a game system.


Been a long time since School, but it somewhat reminds me of Rational Choice Theory.

Its a pretty basic modelling method for social/economic behaviour (sorta links into game theory). Individuals make decisions based upon their own best interests but, in doing so, can have opposite outcomes. A classic would be we all want clean air, so it is in my (and everyone else's) best interest for people to drive clean cars (or not drive at all). However my own contribution to air pollution is, in the scale of things, meaningless. I can drive a monster gas guzzler and, providing nobody else does, the air is clean. Likewise if I don't drive and everyone else does I'm late everywhere and still breathe in dirty air.

So I drive a gas guzzler. And so does everyone because they follow the same logic. Therefore, even though our priority is clean air, everyone ends up breathing in smog unless their purchase is not based upon their immediate best interest.

Assuming your hypothesis is correct this might fit a similar category. Individually all players want fun games. Winning is more fun that losing (especially if you are competitive). However playing to win may result in, ultimately, fewer games as more 'casuals' stop playing. Therefore the competitive player wins less (because less games take place), so 'fun' is reduced. So it is not in the long term interests for a competitive player to WAAC, but it is in their short term interest for each individual game.

Just spit-balling, and its all totally unverifiable, but kinda interesting to a stats nerd like me.
   
Made in us
Clousseau




Nurglitch wrote:
WHFB fanatics aside, I'm reasonably sure the reason why it was neglected is that people didn't want to play it,and that it wasn't particularly appealing. I still regret buying an Orc & Goblin army for it around the end of 5th edition, even though I was able to sell it a little after the start of 6th.


There is no global data, only anecdotal. But anecdotally our WHFB community remained fairly large (25-30 players at every campaign day or tournament locally) and every whfb event at the GT level was also full.

Our AOS community is about 50% of what our WHFB community was at its death, and AOS has been out for a number of years now and regional GTs were still hopping in the whfb days.

So I don't believe it was neglected because people did not want to play it. I believe it was neglected because people didn't need to buy GW models to play it. Generic fantasy or historical models worked just fine, and while it remained in that realm, they were never going to make a lot of money off of it if a cheaper and plentiful option existed.
   
Made in us
Fixture of Dakka





Fantasy definitely lacked identity, in part because parts of it were very derivative, but also in no small part because it had been derived from so heavily that a lot of its once iconic features had become generic. You really notice the distinction from a videogame perspective; where official WHF games didn't get much attention simply because they appeared very generic compared to all the games that borrowed liberally from the setting while adding their own distinct flair.
   
Made in us
Stealthy Warhound Titan Princeps






 Denny wrote:
 Sqorgar wrote:
They are not. I feel like I've got a bad rap for hating on competitive players, but the fact is, I don't hate competitive players as individuals. I'm more than happy to play with them. My stance has always been that, as a group, they are really bad for the health of the game. Competitive play is not bad for a single game; it is bad for a game system.


Been a long time since School, but it somewhat reminds me of Rational Choice Theory.

Its a pretty basic modelling method for social/economic behaviour (sorta links into game theory). Individuals make decisions based upon their own best interests but, in doing so, can have opposite outcomes. A classic would be we all want clean air, so it is in my (and everyone else's) best interest for people to drive clean cars (or not drive at all). However my own contribution to air pollution is, in the scale of things, meaningless. I can drive a monster gas guzzler and, providing nobody else does, the air is clean. Likewise if I don't drive and everyone else does I'm late everywhere and still breathe in dirty air.

So I drive a gas guzzler. And so does everyone because they follow the same logic. Therefore, even though our priority is clean air, everyone ends up breathing in smog unless their purchase is not based upon their immediate best interest.

Assuming your hypothesis is correct this might fit a similar category. Individually all players want fun games. Winning is more fun that losing (especially if you are competitive). However playing to win may result in, ultimately, fewer games as more 'casuals' stop playing. Therefore the competitive player wins less (because less games take place), so 'fun' is reduced. So it is not in the long term interests for a competitive player to WAAC, but it is in their short term interest for each individual game.

Just spit-balling, and its all totally unverifiable, but kinda interesting to a stats nerd like me.


The alternative to this is people like me, who basically only play 40k at tournaments. I can count the number of games I've played outside a tournament setting this year on one hand, and I've played ~60 games at tournaments.

I don't think I'm alone in this, it's just quicker and easier to drive to a tournament on a weekend, play a guaranteed 3 games (or 5-6 if it's a GT), than to drive to the LGS and hope to meet up with someone who wants to play, then to negotiate how to play, and then have a game. So, I offer an alternative fate... as competitive becomes popular, tournaments become more widespread, competitive players further segregate themselves from casual players, so the casuals can just do their own thing without worrying about competitive players pissing in their cornflakes.
   
Made in ch
The Dread Evil Lord Varlak





 Horst wrote:
 Denny wrote:
 Sqorgar wrote:
They are not. I feel like I've got a bad rap for hating on competitive players, but the fact is, I don't hate competitive players as individuals. I'm more than happy to play with them. My stance has always been that, as a group, they are really bad for the health of the game. Competitive play is not bad for a single game; it is bad for a game system.


Been a long time since School, but it somewhat reminds me of Rational Choice Theory.

Its a pretty basic modelling method for social/economic behaviour (sorta links into game theory). Individuals make decisions based upon their own best interests but, in doing so, can have opposite outcomes. A classic would be we all want clean air, so it is in my (and everyone else's) best interest for people to drive clean cars (or not drive at all). However my own contribution to air pollution is, in the scale of things, meaningless. I can drive a monster gas guzzler and, providing nobody else does, the air is clean. Likewise if I don't drive and everyone else does I'm late everywhere and still breathe in dirty air.

So I drive a gas guzzler. And so does everyone because they follow the same logic. Therefore, even though our priority is clean air, everyone ends up breathing in smog unless their purchase is not based upon their immediate best interest.

Assuming your hypothesis is correct this might fit a similar category. Individually all players want fun games. Winning is more fun that losing (especially if you are competitive). However playing to win may result in, ultimately, fewer games as more 'casuals' stop playing. Therefore the competitive player wins less (because less games take place), so 'fun' is reduced. So it is not in the long term interests for a competitive player to WAAC, but it is in their short term interest for each individual game.

Just spit-balling, and its all totally unverifiable, but kinda interesting to a stats nerd like me.


The alternative to this is people like me, who basically only play 40k at tournaments. I can count the number of games I've played outside a tournament setting this year on one hand, and I've played ~60 games at tournaments.

I don't think I'm alone in this, it's just quicker and easier to drive to a tournament on a weekend, play a guaranteed 3 games (or 5-6 if it's a GT), than to drive to the LGS and hope to meet up with someone who wants to play, then to negotiate how to play, and then have a game. So, I offer an alternative fate... as competitive becomes popular, tournaments become more widespread, competitive players further segregate themselves from casual players, so the casuals can just do their own thing without worrying about competitive players pissing in their cornflakes.


Which however leads to , thanks to GW, terrible rules system which will be forced upon the casual side over long or short, which might or might not has anything to do with 40k, which also influences balancing overall.
So you were saying?

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/766717.page
A Mostly Renegades and Heretics blog.
GW:"Space marines got too many options to balance, therefore we decided to legends HH units."
Players: "why?!? Now we finally got decent plastic kits and you cut them?"
Chaos marines players: "Since when are Daemonengines 30k models and why do i have NO droppods now?"
GW" MONEY.... erm i meant TOO MANY OPTIONS (to resell your army to you again by disalowing former units)! Do you want specific tyranid fighiting Primaris? Even a new sabotage lieutnant!"
Chaos players: Guess i stop playing or go to HH.  
   
Made in us
Stealthy Warhound Titan Princeps






I've never really been clear on that argument. Competitive players want balanced rules. Why is that a bad thing? Can you give any examples where a more balanced competitive rules set is bad for casual players?
   
Made in ca
Decrepit Dakkanaut





I've been thinking of late about organising round-robins as well as tournaments. Similar matching of winners-vs-winners so players feel like they're getting a good 50/50 chance, but there's something to be said for organised play beyond the golden laurels of command. Being able to schedule child-care ahead of time, for example.
   
 
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