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Hello Folks,

According to virologists Corona will remain present in our lives just like other viruses before it. This means you will need to wear a mask for every game as you can't be sure, if your opponent has been vaccinated.

Another problem would be the emergence of new mutant strains which could only be opposed with entirely new vaccines.

So what could GW do? Release more single player missions in WD for 40K? Or try to sell us their very own hazmat suits with a GW logo imprinted on it?

Another fun thing could be a merchandise item in the shape of a grenade. Written upon it will be the following:

CORONA VIRUS GRENADE.

And with that nostalgic memories from 2nd can be experienced again. Your thoughts?

The long term social impacts of Coronavirus are only really guesswork at this stage, though I think in the not too distant future gaming events (for example clubs that meet up once a week) will certainly be a thing, and as popular as ever.

It's not like there aren't many other contagious diseases that we've been living with already. Take flu as a good example, that kills tens of thousands of people every year. It doesn't stop us living our lives.

Sars-Cov-2 / COVID-19 will be endemic, but once enough people are vaccinated the concern should become minimal.

It will hopefully be no more worrisome than the possibility of catching the flu from your opponent; though I think it's pretty obvious that you should not be playing a game with anyone who is visibly ill and anyone who is ill should not be leaving their home - that's just common courtesy.

Generally higher expectations / standards of hygiene in the long term should be a strong positive for the hobby to move more mainstream

 Strg Alt wrote:
According to virologists Corona will remain present in our lives just like other viruses before it.

One supposes that we'll deal with it the same way that we deal(t) with all of the other viruses.

El Torro wrote:

It's not like there aren't many other contagious diseases that we've been living with already. Take flu as a good example, that kills tens of thousands of people every year. It doesn't stop us living our lives.

Well, unless your one of the unfortunate who end up dying from it, the flu doesn't F* you up long term like this stuff does/can.
The flu is generally an inconvenience, not OMG!

Also something that causes 10s of thousands of deaths/year is not the same as something that's caused going on a 1/4million deaths in only 1 year, in just one country....(of course that # could've been lower but for the fact that my country is full of dumbasses).

But as the vaccines continue to roll out, and/or ever more people are infected & develop imunities, things will get better.

(Hopefully the nanobits in those vaccines don't cause side effects)

Another issue with covid is lung/heart damage left. With up to third having heart that looks like been through heart attack...does flu do that?

But enough vaccination around and it should protect even those who genuinely can't get one as well as those who choose not to(and those you don't have to worry in whether to wear a mask by then anyway).

ccs wrote:
Well, unless your one of the unfortunate who end up dying from it, the flu doesn't F* you up long term like this stuff does/can.
The flu is generally an inconvenience, not OMG!

Also something that causes 10s of thousands of deaths/year is not the same as something that's caused going on a 1/4million deaths in only 1 year, in just one country....(of course that # could've been lower but for the fact that my country is full of dumbasses).

But as the vaccines continue to roll out, and/or ever more people are infected & develop imunities, things will get better.

(Hopefully the nanobits in those vaccines don't cause side effects)

tneva82 wrote:
Another issue with covid is lung/heart damage left. With up to third having heart that looks like been through heart attack...does flu do that?

But enough vaccination around and it should protect even those who genuinely can't get one as well as those who choose not to(and those you don't have to worry in whether to wear a mask by then anyway).

Points taken. I'm certainly not trying to downplay the severity of the current pandemic.

I have some comments to make on these two posts but in the interest of staying on topic and not getting this thread closed I'll leave it there. I think the OP's intention was to discuss the future of tabletop gaming in light of the pandemic so we should probably focus on that topic going forward.

I do not think that we will have to continue living as if we were in a pandemic for ever, despite the shocking amount of incompetence the German government is currently displaying.

That said, even if mutations are going to arise which invalidate all of the different vaccines, we won't be going back to step one. Especially the MRNA base vaccines can quickly adapt to almost any mutation, biontec claims in their presentations to be able to have a new vaccine ready in days and mass-produce it within weeks. In addition the logistics and experience that has been build up won't implode either.

The worst that could happen is that the virus mutates to be more deadly, causing even more deaths before the pandemic ends. Eventually everyone will be immune or dead.

I think that the tournaments may become smaller; that may also mean more frequent in order to allow a similar level of participation.

I've always played casually within a small bubble. This is facilitated by collecting many small factions rather than one large one. If you've got 3 friends or family members in your bubble, and you own Kill Teams for four factions, the future of gaming is bright.

When Kill Teams grow to Combat Patrol size, everyone can start a Crusade on your coffee table. It might eventually grow to Onslaught size over a period of years... Or not. It might grow faster for some of those in your bubble than others.

You'd almost think that GW planned to cater to home gaming this edition. For all the cynicism regarding board size recommendations, I do tend to believe GW when they cite this as their rationale for the changes; integrated support for smaller scale games and even the Crusade system were all built for in home gaming.

An interesting sidenote: at the same time GW made these changes to encourage home gaming, they also incorporated elements designed specifically for the competitive community- they incorporated elements from the tournament scene into the game with scoring and secondaries, and they're mainstreaming tournaments via metawatch.

GW isn't perfect- there are a fair number of legitimate complaints being lobbed around in other threads. But I think they really have an eye on long term growth.

I think it's likely that COVID will gradually become less virulent. That is the general pattern with viruses - it's not particularly beneficial for it to be too dangerous, the selective pressure will for it to become more mild as the more mild forms will spread more easily. Very sick people will not spread it as much.

That said, that's going to take a long time, and it's always possible you get highly contagious and virulent strains in the meantime.

But I think we will just be getting vaccinated yearly against the new strains. I think things will go back to some form of normal (though I hope lessons are learned in all sorts of ways!) and if anything I think people will be eager to do hobbies that don't involve computer screens. I know I am!

I do think that we are entering a phase where VR and AR are going to become much more prevalent. I could totally see playing Wargames via systems like Microsoft's Mesh in the years to come. I also think that the quality and availability of 3D printing will continue to have an impact (One of the big future-proofing reasons for GW going in hard on copyrighted material and unique IP) In terms of the more short-term impact.... things will come back, but not as they were... I really don't think most people have processed the fact that the world isn't "going back" to how it was. Things have fundamentally changed... forever.

Hey everyone, please try to stay on topic as to how lockdowns, social distancing, etc., basically, just the “logistical” reality we’re actually living through might affect table top gaming — but please do not continue down the line of debating epidemiology, immunology, virology, and government policy.

Thanks!

Well, over the years I thought that table-top gaming will be dead soon.
Reasons are digital games and now with Covid more and more players might quit.
But its obviously not the case.
Games gives you a kick, especially at tourneys.
Long live 40k.

I'm expecting an increase in playing once the lockdowns are over. People finally had time to paint their "piles of shame" and want to bring their new minis and armies to the field. A friend of mine made enough terrain for 4 gaming tables during the past months. He also painted a whole army for oathmark. I personally painted 140 minis last year and I expect that number to increase this year. Because of lockdowns I couldn't play with all of these yet (though admittedly due to the pretty light restrictions in germany I don't think I actually had fewer games than before, we're playing at our homes in normal times, too, never in shops/ clubs).

The question is when the lockdowns will be over. For my country they have plans that maybe they are going to finish vaccinating half the population till autum this year. Only those were the plans before one of the vaccin types went kind of a bad, and two other had problems with delivering, because the companies decided they have more important countries to deliver them to.

Historiaclly all plagues of that type lasted 2,5 year each time since we have recards. I don't expect this to be any shorter.

I just hope that after all of this there is going to be enough people crazy enough to open stores. So many of them just went under durning the pandemic, that in a lot of places there just isn't a place to play. And w40k or AoS aren't like MtG where they can just go to a KFC and stay there the whole day, as long as they keep buying food and drink every hour.

I foresee that having been denied social events and, for Warhammer, having had hobby time at home in lockdowns, we will see a likely boom in social wargaming events with perhaps a steadying or even reduction of GW's sales. Simply reflecting a limit point whereby as life gets back to normal the building hobby time goes down but the playing goes up. I'd be surprised if GW's sales rate increases continually, that is unless they've managed to find a way to net a lot of new customers as the pandemic starts to come to a close.


Now what might happen is that this boom is drawn out or very fast and that really hinges on the performance of vaccines, track and trace systems, quarantines in and out of countries/regions and in general how well this whole pans out. If it works well then we could see a very fast recovery; if there's some problems and public confidence is damaged then it might be more drawn out. Some regions might see faster return and others slower.


I don't foresee that we will maintain long term covid practice because its abnormal in the extreme and relies on things that go against behaviour that a highly social species has in general.


What we might see is increased mask wearing when people are out and have a condition (cough cold thing). We might see an increase in social and work places expecting us to remain at home if we are showing signs of sickness (especially a cough). We might see short term to medium term covid testing remain a regular part of our lives and work lives.

Major events I think will depend greatly on the local scenes and the national scene in terms of both actual infection rates and public perception. On the one hand I foresee many events returning in 2022 and perhaps even some at the end of 2021. However attendance is very hard to judge. It might be huge as everyone is celebrating the end of lockdowns and isolation; or it might be more muted as people are more cautious.



A lot of stores have gone under, I would hope that we shall see some restoration; however in the UK at least a lot of stores that are being killed off I see as an acceleration of the general death of the highstreet that's been going on for some years now. With the continual rising costs of running a highstreet store coupled with the ever cheaper prices that internet shopping offers and the fact that many highstreet stores have had to have online stores (even before the pandemic) to help make up their income - I think that its a hard time to open new stores. However that isn't really a factor of consumer demand or desire but more one of local and national rent and rates issues that has, as said, been going on for years. Covid has sped it up and many "on the edge" have fallen in. I would hope we'll see many return with new owners or as fresh restarts. I can see banks and the government wanting to encourage it and making it easier to get start up money because fuelling the economies like that is the best way to pay their way out of the debt.

I can’t imagine tournaments coming back as large events but maybe phased events with people signing up for smaller heats to allow greater distancing between tables. Maybe even keeping players further apart by introducing a rule like snooker where only one player can approach the table at a time.

 Horla wrote:
I can’t imagine tournaments coming back as large events but maybe phased events with people signing up for smaller heats to allow greater distancing between tables. Maybe even keeping players further apart by introducing a rule like snooker where only one player can approach the table at a time.

What about raves, music festivals, restaurants, conventions, night clubs, pubs, country fairs, theatres, cinemas, sporting events, lectures?
When compared to them, wargames are very low down on the list for the number of people within close proximity for prolonged periods of time.

I do get that initially there will be a recovery period which might well be slower than we'd like, but I just can't easily envision that we'll enter an age of mass social avoidance as a species.

 Overread wrote:

 Horla wrote:
I can’t imagine tournaments coming back as large events but maybe phased events with people signing up for smaller heats to allow greater distancing between tables. Maybe even keeping players further apart by introducing a rule like snooker where only one player can approach the table at a time.

What about raves, music festivals, restaurants, conventions, night clubs, pubs, country fairs, theatres, cinemas, sporting events, lectures?
When compared to them, wargames are very low down on the list for the number of people within close proximity for prolonged periods of time.

I do get that initially there will be a recovery period which might well be slower than we'd like, but I just can't easily envision that we'll enter an age of mass social avoidance as a species.

I'm getting the impression its going to be faster than I'd like. Already hearing past tense when people talk about it, and more locations ease restrictions or even end them every day.
People seem very eager to forget, so I very much doubt there will be lasting impact.

From a UK perspective, I think that once the vaccine has been fully rolled out and distributed, the momentum to return to normal will be irresistable.

People are people and will want to do everything we did before the pandemic. As soon as we think it it is safe, we will go crazy getting back to all the things we didn't do before the pandemic. That means the future of tabletop gaming will look a lot like the past. I don't see anything that happened over the past year that will transform TTG once the fear of COVID-19 is over. It might take a few years depending upon your local conditions, but I'm sure in 2025 we will be remembering how crazy it was back in 2020 while doing all the TTG things we did in 2019.

I expect to just continue playing by appointment as I have for the lase 8 years or more. I don't attend tournaments save at best 1 a year and it's what ever as far as that goes. I'm waiting to see what the numbers look like out of Texas over the next few months. Just have to continue to wait and see I guess. The truth will point to itself. Thankfully I'm in FL. so I have that nuclear fire orb over head most of the year and can invite people down to the house and host games out side. I think people should evaluate their situations and do the best they can as they see fit and mitigate their risks as best they can. I've gotten sick over they yeas from playing in game shops, some dude who just got over what ever it was that he had just rolls out to the shop instead of waiting a day or two and there it is, I'm sick because some rando had to get to the shop and not even play a game. And that was before covid. Gamers are notoriously dirty, we already know that there's a risk when in a back room full of them or at a convention. The smell gives it away.
I've played a few times at the shop over the lase few months, on Mondays when no one was around and worn a mask, aside from the discomfort it's been fine.

Voss wrote:

 Overread wrote:

 Horla wrote:
I can’t imagine tournaments coming back as large events but maybe phased events with people signing up for smaller heats to allow greater distancing between tables. Maybe even keeping players further apart by introducing a rule like snooker where only one player can approach the table at a time.

What about raves, music festivals, restaurants, conventions, night clubs, pubs, country fairs, theatres, cinemas, sporting events, lectures?
When compared to them, wargames are very low down on the list for the number of people within close proximity for prolonged periods of time.

I do get that initially there will be a recovery period which might well be slower than we'd like, but I just can't easily envision that we'll enter an age of mass social avoidance as a species.

I'm getting the impression its going to be faster than I'd like. Already hearing past tense when people talk about it, and more locations ease restrictions or even end them every day.
People seem very eager to forget, so I very much doubt there will be lasting impact.

Like I said, I'm in a country full of dumbasses.

You know at first I was kind of upset that I could no longer go to my FLGS and play but now that I have begun playing regular games in my dads basement where he has set up a table with a good deal of terrain I feel like I may never want to go back. This week I went to a local 40k night at a store that I had never been to before and I was not really impressed by what I saw, the tables felt empty the armies were all over the place in terms of comparative competitive level and not really game related but there was that one guy that just made everything more awkward with his behavior.

I just seem to enjoy it more when I invite people over to play a game where we have similar understanding of what we want out of the game with better tables because we are not relying on shared terrain.

 Overread wrote:

 Horla wrote:
I can’t imagine tournaments coming back as large events but maybe phased events with people signing up for smaller heats to allow greater distancing between tables. Maybe even keeping players further apart by introducing a rule like snooker where only one player can approach the table at a time.

What about raves, music festivals, restaurants, conventions, night clubs, pubs, country fairs, theatres, cinemas, sporting events, lectures?
When compared to them, wargames are very low down on the list for the number of people within close proximity for prolonged periods of time.

I do get that initially there will be a recovery period which might well be slower than we'd like, but I just can't easily envision that we'll enter an age of mass social avoidance as a species.

I suppose if they’re all back, wargaming will be long back but they’re not going to be back for a while whereas something low risk like a game of Warhammer can come back much sooner of precautions are in place. I can see lectures being online for probably another academic year at least and as for raves, I can’t see them being back for even longer (a bunch of densely packed drunk people in a room? No thanks)

 Horla wrote:
(a bunch of densely packed drunk people in a room? No thanks)

That's my reaction to them even without a pandemic

 Overread wrote:

 Horla wrote:
(a bunch of densely packed drunk people in a room? No thanks)

That's my reaction to them even without a pandemic

They’re very loud too!

We area has had two lockdowns, but we have had comparatively lower case counts than some other larger urban areas. We have gaming back on at the FLGS, albeit at 50% capacity compared to Feb 2020 am done only one day a week. We wear masks, all games are pre-booked for contact tracing and the terrain is put aside for a week after use. We’ve had four tourneys, with up to 20 players.

Many other cities’ FLGS are still closed for gaming. I will be surprised if we see open game nights, larger events (>50 pers) and conventions until we have herd immunity. Best guess - another year?

I'm of the opinion that the virus will have little lasting impact on the way the game is played, only mid-term effects.

After all, its not like people routinely handled each others models previously (apart form a quick "oh, I like that paintjob/conversion" check of a few models pre-battle), and things like dice and game aids are plentiful and cheap enough that it would be practical to just have two sets/bring your own, if that was really an issue. most of the time your not actually that close to the other player anyway, and if it really mattered, you could enforce a "stay away form the table when its not your action" rule or something. in the long term, I can see the threat of COVID receding to the level of catching a stomach bug or the flu from the other players bad hygiene*. Once vaccination and the other measures take full effect, the threat of COVID will drop to a manageable point where we can effectively manage it with fairly simple control measures or even just ignore it entirely (like we do with, say, the flu, or almost any other disease). Obviously, the rate of vaccine take-up will affect the rate of recovery, but thats clearly an issue beyond the scope of acceptable conversation on this board.

Where I CAN see an issue, at least in the mid-term (between now and Christmas) is in the capacity limits that a lot of shops and other indoor spaces are using as a method of ensuring sufficient social distancing. my local GW (here in the UK) had a maximum occupancy of 3 customers when it was open last autumn, and i don't think that will change for several months after it reopens in mid April, and hasnt hosted a game since the initial UK lockdown in March 2020. Realistically, its going to be some time before pick up games at the FLGS become practical, just in terms of footfall and capacity. The only games I can expect to attend in the next 9 months will be arranged games at someone else's house, once that become legal again. Given the greater control offered by that approach (in assuring no one is infected), I expect that to become the default for rest of this year, and likely into next year as well. While GW might take some losses form not hosting games as free advertising, they stand to make a bunch form people like me shelling out on terrain for the first time.


As for things like tourneys, the UK government is planning to allow football stadiums and other sporting events/concerts/other mass gatherings to have live spectators in the next few months, caseload permitting, so I cannot see any issue with tourneys beyond a few extra requirements. It would be easy enough to make it a condition of entry to take a COVID test at the start of the event, and/or show proof of vaccination. such measures would add a extra layer of administrative difficulty, but given the existence of 30 minute tests, it wouldn't be impossible to arrange.

*I'm not saying we are all a bunch of unwashed, stinking neckbeards, just naming examples of easily catchable illnesses that can be transferred by contact and/or is airborne, and was/is a very common illnesses, but didn't stop us form playing 40K back in 2019 and beyond.