Fluff Problems

[Envyus]

37 minutes ago, Menkeroth said:

They tried but "faithful fans" acted like always did - with buying third-party miniatures instead of GW's and crying "we've seen that before, where is new?", "it's bad, give us back old stuff" and playing not the game and WH but ugly ETC house rules. GW had no choice because of this and lots of mistakes from the start. So it's everybody's fault at the same time. All this "I would have done differently" and all is false when you are a CEO of a very large company.

 

Now you are just making stuff up. People still do the same thing. Mismanagement at the higher levels of GW caused the problems there.  Age of Sigmar and 40k only really picked up again once there was a big change in leadership and attitude towards customers.

[Menkeroth]

Earlier it was at a much greater scale, and this is what was mostly in WHFB, 40k fared better in this regard, for the most part, although it suffered from the same problem of unchanging fluff quite frequently - Eye of Terror campaign was retconned, Medusa V - retconned, and always the same ending - big threat on the horizon and all that, but no more than that. But it did have progress like with the Babad War or Sabbath crusade, or Siege of Vraks, so I guess amount of efforts is crucial.

[Killax]

2 hours ago, HorticulusTGA said:

I agree to the other things you've said, but narrative is in fact the central point of miniature designing ; you can not have "design" without a story, a visual universe, i.e. a setting in which to set your models.

When what makes you great is your Intellectual Property, that is.

GW's IP, i.e. GW's force as a creative company, is a mix of narratives and aesthetics / designs (or if you prefer ; an interdependent, reciprocaly caused creative process). And indeed, rules come only after.

You most certainly can have design without a story, visual universe or setting. Which is why so many WFB models also can be translated to AoS. You can see this as a story recton or two seperate stories and it doesn't really matter because Games Workshop is not in the business of selling books as their core product.

In addition, or unfortunatly for GW just their narrative IP also only works for narrative driven products, such as magazines and books. This is also another reason as to why especially in Age of Sigmar many narrative developments 'come out of nowhere' because there is a legal team at GW who has the history with their narrative being turned into a product and that product is still legal to sell by third party compagnies. As you cannot IP the suggestion or idea of design without the explicit images. 

GW is a creative compagny but they are in the business of selling models first and all other related stuff to those models second. Many seem to confuse that we have Games Workshop selling miniatures as their core product and Black Liberary selling books/narrative as their core product. Currently still 80% of the models AoS has has no narrative. The models came first and the narrative will follow into it.

Just to give an example of Khorne alone:
- the whole Daemon Khorne range excisted before Age of Sigmar
- the whole Slaves to Darkness range minus the Darkoath models excisted before Age of Sigmar
- the whole Bloodbound range was designed with Age of Sigmar in mind at some point durring the WFB/AoS change

The prime reason why people are sometimes shocked that their WFB Lizardmen are AoS Serphon "Space" Daemons now is because they identified the same model with other narrative first. So yes, in many of AoS' designs the models are there allready and the narrative often needs to cater to it to make it different.

1 hour ago, Envyus said:

Mismanagement at the higher levels of GW caused the problems there. 

The choice to make WFB more historical Fantasy influenced since 2000's really wasn't mismanagement. It was a management choice. Perhaps they could have done more marketing research but at the same time Games Workshop couldn't predict the cascade of Epic Fantasy styled games due to the succes of World of Warcraft Online in that same decade.

Many factors have lead to WFB selling less and the age of digital gaming has had a MASSIVE impact on any board, card and miniature related compagny. That subject in itself could write you a book. 

Where GW used to be a market leader in miniatures games (and still is) the ease of computer gaming has lead to Blizzard's WoW idea actually surpasing in popularity as WFB. What is funny there is that WoW was based on WFB to begin with. So if we go even deeper you could say "mismanagement" started at GW when they declined to accpet the WFB pc game that later became WoW.

[The Doctor Of War]

4 hours ago, Envyus said:

I vastly prefer the Old Warhammer world still.  It just does not make sense to throw out a well developed setting that people like. 

The Mortal Realms as a setting have grown on me, but they are still inferior to the old world.

My biggest problem is that they are simply too big for the tech level. The shortstory Pantheon showed off perfectly how they are simply too big. It takes an incredibly powerful Mage, who Sigmar, Teclis and Nagash acknowledge as being among the greatest Wizards ever, Six whole years to make the trip to the nearest notable Dwarf settlement. Then another four to get to his next destination. 

It should be noted said story was set in the Age of Myth, so the difficulty in traveling along with the methods used may no longer be the case. The Duardin settlement was also not the nearest one, it was a specific location of a Duardin temple. The time taken is also a key part of the narrative in Pantheon, since the ending doesn't really work if it only took a week to get where you needed to go, and so could be seen as a more extreme example.

1 hour ago, Killax said:

Where GW used to be a market leader in miniatures games (and still is) the ease of computer gaming has lead to Blizzard's WoW idea actually surpasing in popularity as WFB. What is funny there is that WoW was based on WFB to begin with. So if we go even deeper you could say "mismanagement" started at GW when they declined to accpet the WFB pc game that later became WoW.

Given what Blizzard wanted to do with the setting in their game, i would argue that it wasn't mismanagement to turn them down.

[Killax]

47 minutes ago, The Doctor Of War said:

Given what Blizzard wanted to do with the setting in their game, i would argue that it wasn't mismanagement to turn them down.

Yeah that would be my point also. A mangament choice is just that. Sometimes it means the compagny turned down some massive potential growth but as before GW seems to be very comfortable as the market leader of making miniatures for 'wargames' which is a really cool business to be in anyway. 

The thing is really that big changes don't always need big introductions to follow up with. So with that topic at hand, I don't think GW have us too little lore back in 2016. They just gave enough for the lines that where fleshed out and there.

[erasercrumbs]

My biggest gripe about the fluff is how the human afterlife works in the setting. I've seen some hand-waving and unsatisfying theories on the subject, but I still have no idea how Nagash and Sigmar's faithful conflict on a practical and theological level. Recent fluff suggests that Aelven souls return to their Gods upon death, which begs the question as to why the Aelven gods care about their charges more than Sigmar does.

 

I have no problem with any of the new models or factions, though. 

[Menkeroth]

It's simple - all souls after death must come to Shyish and one of its netherworlds, and ultimately - to Nagash. But Chaos worshippers deny him his due, and so does Sigmar with his Reforging, and Alarielle too because branch witches gather heart seeds of their kin and so sort of preserve them, although I am not sure if it really prevents sylvaneth souls to go to Nagash. And so on.

[shinros]

13 minutes ago, Menkeroth said:

It's simple - all souls after death must come to Shyish and one of its netherworlds, and ultimately - to Nagash. But Chaos worshippers deny him his due, and so does Sigmar with his Reforging, and Alarielle too because branch witches gather heart seeds of their kin and so sort of preserve them, although I am not sure if it really prevents sylvaneth souls to go to Nagash. And so on.

Yup there is a whole section in the LON tome describing this issue. 

[Turgol]

In MP book it is even more detailed. Very well presented. In summary:

-All mortal souls of a given society go to an underworld in Shyish.

-The specific form of the underworld is shaped by the believe system of its society of which he is a part. So, for instance, if he was a Christian faithful and believed to be worth of heaven, the soul of that given person would go to paradise as long as his society believes in that.

-The underworlds are actually located in the physical realm, in Shyish, formed by death magic. They form in the parts of Shyish with the greatest concentration of magic (so in the edges). In the center, there is not that much death magic, so you have living people and civilizations.

-This is NOT Nagash’s work, but simply of death magic. What happens with underworlds controlled by Nagash is not wholly clear, but I guess he syphons their power for his own means. 

[The Doctor Of War]

4 minutes ago, Turgol said:

-This is NOT Nagash’s work, but simply of death magic. What happens with underworlds controlled by Nagash is not wholly clear, but I guess he syphons their power for his own means. 

Nagash is described as consuming the other gods of the various afterlifes, as and when they are created, and leeching power from the various underworlds he controls. Presumably that results in them resembling the artwork we've seen of Nagash's realm, all traces of individuality subsumed into the Nehekharian-esque form Nagash favours.

[Soulsmith]

I wouldn't be surprised if we see something from the DoK where Nagash is not getting his due. I recall in the warhammer community article they mention blood sacrifice is actually how Morathi creates more Daughters, so that has to be using up the soul stuff, or taking aelven souls?

[erasercrumbs]

So are the Sigmarite dead thralls of Nagash? Could he order them against Sigmar if it came to it? 

[The Doctor Of War]

10 minutes ago, erasercrumbs said:

So are the Sigmarite dead thralls of Nagash? Could he order them against Sigmar if it came to it? 

Yes and yes. Some might escape that fate for a while, if their particular underworld forms a great distance from Nagash's current seat of power.

[Envyus]

2 hours ago, The Doctor Of War said:

It should be noted said story was set in the Age of Myth, so the difficulty in traveling along with the methods used may no longer be the case. The Duardin settlement was also not the nearest one, it was a specific location of a Duardin temple. The time taken is also a key part of the narrative in Pantheon, since the ending doesn't really work if it only took a week to get where you needed to go, and so could be seen as a more extreme example.

 

Given what Blizzard wanted to do with the setting in their game, i would argue that it wasn't mismanagement to turn them down.

The Age of Myth was when everything was at it's best. 

[Envyus]

4 hours ago, Killax said:

The choice to make WFB more historical Fantasy influenced since 2000's really wasn't mismanagement. It was a management choice. Perhaps they could have done more marketing research but at the same time Games Workshop couldn't predict the cascade of Epic Fantasy styled games due to the succes of World of Warcraft Online in that same decade.

Many factors have lead to WFB selling less and the age of digital gaming has had a MASSIVE impact on any board, card and miniature related compagny. That subject in itself could write you a book. 

Where GW used to be a market leader in miniatures games (and still is) the ease of computer gaming has lead to Blizzard's WoW idea actually surpasing in popularity as WFB. What is funny there is that WoW was based on WFB to begin with. So if we go even deeper you could say "mismanagement" started at GW when they declined to accpet the WFB pc game that later became WoW.

That was not what I was saying. 

The mismanagement came form poor rules, lack of market research, ignorance of the gaming industry.  And ignoring what their fans wanted and feedback from them.

It eventually led to poor decision in my opinion to destroy their oldest setting and relaunch it with a new setting, new models and  a rule set with the bare minimum to actually make it a game.  (combiend with other rules that many fans considered borderline insulting.) This alienated many fans. And high price of entry still made it hard for new people to enter the hobby. 

New Leadership and practices eventually became common at GW which resulted in some of the balance issues and a chunk of the issues with the age of Sigmar game being fixed. Combined with actually communicating with their customers and fans. Along with playtesting their products. Which led to a great launch for a new edition of 40k. 

Sadly this came after destroying fantasy rather then before. New GW seems to have a fairly decent head on their shoulders. (Other then the fact they still want to jack prices up on things.) Fantasy's setting is very notable right now. With Vermintide and Total War Warhammer selling millions of copies. And many fans have expressed interest in the return of the old world setting in some fashion. 

So I hope they eventually see that many people want it back. Then we just have to pity the poor people that liked the Tomb Kings in the recent game who are not aware the model line was discontinued if they get interested in the hobby. It's probably why in Total Warhammer II they stopped promoting the model line. People were very confused. And it would have been even worse with  TW Warhammer II as the leading factions were broken up. 

[Turgol]

Envyus:  I think that the story you are telling is right in many parts, but missing part of the picture: there was a problem with the business model of old WHFB and old 40k. Basically, USA pre great crash of 28: it was built as to force people to amass great armies, investing lots of time, for just one army, and then lived from iterations bringing some new models or updating the same 30 years old units. The setting was stagnant not because it was narratively impossible to move it forward, but rather because its lack of change was part of a business model.

There is some genius in AoS as an alternative, post great crash model: it is built around luring fans to constantly buy smaller armies and upgrades. Its setting is designed with that philosophy: turn everything upside down so that we can develop new factions with ease for decades and actually never really stop, because the setting can always change.

As a fan choice, I like it better this way. As a company choice, it obviously works way better (for our times) than the old model. So I think at this point there is little doubt that the change was needed, even if transition was handled as bad as possible.

Old WHFB fans such as me could still complain that the change of business model was possible without destroying the old world, but just moving the timeframe forward with massive changes. That was my opinnion. I have changed my mind because I think the new setting provides a very entertaining ride. Sure, I think there are many parts with very bad taste (Morathi’s history with Nagash for instance being the latest example, in the Realmgate wars there were many absurd fights). But there are some classics already, like the aelven souls business, the mortal realms escathology with its underworlds, the skyports and the taking of the Firegate in the Allgates. So I guess the parts with bad taste can be simply omitted and I do think they have become less frequent.

[shinros]

30 minutes ago, Turgol said:

Envyus:  I think that the story you are telling is right in many parts, but missing part of the picture: there was a problem with the business model of old WHFB and old 40k. Basically, USA pre great crash of 28: it was built as to force people to amass great armies, investing lots of time, for just one army, and then lived from iterations bringing some new models or updating the same 30 years old units. The setting was stagnant not because it was narratively impossible to move it forward, but rather because its lack of change was part of a business model.

There is some genius in AoS as an alternative, post great crash model: it is built around luring fans to constantly buy smaller armies and upgrades. Its setting is designed with that philosophy: turn everything upside down so that we can develop new factions with ease for decades and actually never really stop, because the setting can always change.

As a fan choice, I like it better this way. As a company choice, it obviously works way better (for our times) than the old model. So I think at this point there is little doubt that the change was needed, even if transition was handled as bad as possible.

Old WHFB fans such as me could still complain that the change of business model was possible without destroying the old world, but just moving the timeframe forward with massive changes. That was my opinnion. I have changed my mind because I think the new setting provides a very entertaining ride. Sure, I think there are many parts with very bad taste (Morathi’s history with Nagash for instance being the latest example, in the Realmgate wars there were many absurd fights). But there are some classics already, like the aelven souls business, the mortal realms escathology with its underworlds, the skyports and the taking of the Firegate in the Allgates. So I guess the parts with bad taste can be simply omitted and I do think they have become less frequent.

But....but... morathi trying to seduce nagash is bloody hilarious and she is still salty about it! Ha! Oh gosh I can't wait to read that part.  

[Turgol]

Alright, maybe we have gotten too serious in our days and the Morathi and Nagash business should be read as old self-ironic humour from GW! In the internet era, however, there are just too many rush opinions going around and old classic humour tends to be flamed! 

[Aegisgrimm]

I'm mostly partial to setting my stuff in Ghyran as I feel it's the realm that can most easily be realized on the tabletop (and in my head) in ways that are familiar, just with some more high-fantasyl items like floating islands.  Almost like an even more fantastical Great Forest of the Empire.

[Envyus]

I also don't think Age of Sigmar and it's setting need to be thrown out. It has it's fans and I can respect that. And now that its here it might as well stay.

But I feel they should bring Fantasy as a setting back and make a similar rule set with compatible models for that setting and Age of Sigmar. 

So it could serve as an alternate game choice with it's own setting. Just say it follows an Alt timeline were the End times were foiled before they got off. Say they went off the Storm of Chaos timeline instead. 

I feel we could have three systems with Age of Sigmar and Fantasy's model lines being compatible with each other. 

[AthlorianStoners]

21 minutes ago, Envyus said:

I also don't think Age of Sigmar and it's setting need to be thrown out. It has it's fans and I can respect that. And now that its here it might as well stay.

But I feel they should bring Fantasy as a setting back and make a similar rule set with compatible models for that setting and Age of Sigmar. 

So it could serve as an alternate game choice with it's own setting. Just say it follows an Alt timeline were the End times were foiled before they got off. Say they went off the Storm of Chaos timeline instead. 

I feel we could have three systems with Age of Sigmar and Fantasy's model lines being compatible with each other. 

I don’t know that the demand for WFB to come back is that high, not too support two whole games. 

[shinros]

33 minutes ago, Envyus said:

I also don't think Age of Sigmar and it's setting need to be thrown out. It has it's fans and I can respect that. And now that its here it might as well stay.

But I feel they should bring Fantasy as a setting back and make a similar rule set with compatible models for that setting and Age of Sigmar. 

So it could serve as an alternate game choice with it's own setting. Just say it follows an Alt timeline were the End times were foiled before they got off. Say they went off the Storm of Chaos timeline instead. 

I feel we could have three systems with Age of Sigmar and Fantasy's model lines being compatible with each other. 

If that is ever going to happen it's going to be through forge world and that's it IMO. 

[chord]

If people want to still play WHFB they still can.  The rules didn't stop working and their are still models that can be used or proxied in.

[Richelieu]

4 hours ago, Envyus said:

(Other then the fact they still want to jack prices up on things.)

This is not a bad business decision.  If you can do it without driving customers away, which appears to be the case, it is much easier to grow revenue by raising prices than by expanding production capacity to increase sales volumes.  

[TheOtherJosh]

17 minutes ago, AthlorianStoners said:

I don’t know that the demand for WFB to come back is that high, not too support two whole games. 

So, at the local GW store if you want to pull out your final Edition WHFB (or any other edition) and play a game they have the rules in the “rules collection reference” behind the counter.

For “product support and new models ....” not likely at all from FW. As FW has enough issues keeping product in stock for the current supported lines. (Specialist Games, 40K, 30K, AoS, Blood Bowl)

WHFB and “The old world” basically had issues in that it wasn’t really any different than any other “Old World based fantasy setting” it was what one would refer to as “Low Fantasy” with an injection of “Magical Reality” (It basically was based on a medieval Europe with the addition of magical elements, And all the challenges associated with a world of limited size and small scope.)

AoS is entirely High Fantasy. A universe with its own rules and physics. It isn’t limited by realistic sizes... and has a completely non-earth based set of physical rules.

It isn’t just “traditional fantasy elements melded into a fictional version of Europe and the Middle East”.

For GW, this is entirely a world and universe that is uniquely theirs. And ... as a side benefit they can do stuff that doesn’t fit into the old world.

Reading the old world stories ... I could see them happening in nearly any fantasy world.

AoS ... now thats a universe in and of itself. And has given GW a world unique to themselves to create new stuff ...

Sometimes you need to break a world or two to create something different.