Warhammer - The Old World

[Marcvs]

7 minutes ago, Beliman said:

Wow, didn't remember that, thanks for the answer. Knowing this part, I would say that at least Cathay was part of the project's long term pipeline but at some point, it that was pushed back. Sad outcome

Yes, this is also my conclusion.

To clarify: I agree with all the takes that stress how everybody should keep their expectations low. On the other hand, I think that a company should be criticised for this kind of communication -plans can change, especially on such a long-term project, but it was their choice to communicate so early and in this way, so the lack of clarification before the release of the product makes the whole thing feel a lot like a bait and switch.

[Beliman]

15 minutes ago, Marcvs said:

On the other hand, I think that a company should be criticised for this kind of communication -plans can change, especially on such a long-term project, but it was their choice to communicate so early and in this way, so the lack of clarification before the release of the product makes the whole thing feel a lot like a bait and switch.

Yeah, that's the whole lecture that GW needs to do. That's why roadmaps are good only when they are short term, because most of the products are in production or nearly finished, and the roadmap will not be altered to much if anything happens.

But if the roadmap is 4 or 5 years away, there are a lot of variables that can't be handled by the company: a (wordwide) pandemic, new Brexit laws or just a Boss swap (to say a few ones).

Edited February 23 by Beliman

[Ejecutor]

6 hours ago, Chikout said:

Probably the best white dwarf gift ever. I absolutely love that mini, and the lore that came with him. 

The Kislev and Cathay situation is very disappointing. I'd love to know what happened. The rules seem to be pretty good, and the books they've put out are solid to the extent that I hope AoS follows the same format, but everything else has been quite badly handled. 

 

It always reminded me of Link. I have no idea if it was an easter egg or just a coincidence.

[Ejecutor]

1 hour ago, Beliman said:

It's disappointing for Kislev and Cathay fans, but for whatever reason, I totally expected this outcome. Yes, both armies were presented in TOW articles, but just as lore blurb (hey look, ice witches weapons are made of ice, and they have bears) or some form to build hype for Total Warhammer 3, or just to show the collaboration going on between both companies.

Btw, that doesn't mean that Kislev & Cathay will never be released, it means that GW has already some projects to work for TOW, and both armies are not part of this projects.

The problem, imo, is that they werent presented in TOW articles. They were TOW articles:

The Old World: Ice Guard of Kislev - Warhammer Community (warhammer-community.com)

This deffo confirms to me the change in the direction half way through the project. If you knew from the beginning that you are not launching them, you post it as a TOW article, like the latest one with the new content, not as a TOW article.

[Beliman]

7 minutes ago, Ejecutor said:

The problem, imo, is that they werent presented in TOW articles. They were TOW articles:

The Old World: Ice Guard of Kislev - Warhammer Community (warhammer-community.com)

This deffo confirms to me the change in the direction half way through the project. If you knew from the beginning that you are not launching them, you post it as a TOW article, like the latest one with the new content, not as a TOW article.

Yeah, I understand that. But that doesn't have a lot of value, the company can talk about fishmen or Hobgoblin kanate (even with pics or background), that wouldn't mean that fishmen will be one of the armies for the tabletop. They could even cross-promote another product with TOW (TWW3) and that would be fine.

The main problem is when the company tells you "Fishmen will also be coming to the tabletop in the upcoming warhammer: The Old World" and a few years later "there aren't any plans to bring Fishmen to the tabletop". That's not interpretable, it is what it is.

[Ejecutor]

4 minutes ago, Beliman said:

Yeah, I understand that. But that doesn't have a lot of value, the company can talk about fishmen or Hobgoblin kanate (even with pics or background), that wouldn't mean that fishmen will be one of the armies for the tabletop. They could even cross-promote another product with TOW (TWW3) and that would be fine.

The main problem is when the company tells you "Fishmen will also be coming to the tabletop in the upcoming warhammer: The Old World" and a few years later "there aren't any plans to bring Fishmen to the tabletop". That's not interpretable, it is what it is.

Yeah. I was not aware of the sentence Marcus pointed out. That's even worse... and it is just another grain into the pile of stuff that makes you think there's a monkey ruling GW, like the current rumour about GW cutting preorders from third party stores.

[GhostShark]

1 hour ago, Marcvs said:

Yes, this is also my conclusion.

To clarify: I agree with all the takes that stress how everybody should keep their expectations low. On the other hand, I think that a company should be criticised for this kind of communication -plans can change, especially on such a long-term project, but it was their choice to communicate so early and in this way, so the lack of clarification before the release of the product makes the whole thing feel a lot like a bait and switch.

They did clarify before the release of the product. We knew what factions were coming to The Old World months before it was released.

Similarly, "not for the foreseeable future" only means that they won't confirm that these armies are coming until they officially announce them. GW doesn't discuss what armies they're releasing in the future.

Its clear that at some point there were plans to include these two armies. Those plans obviously changed. We found that out when GW announced which armies would be included in The Old World. They've been very clear.

[JackStreicher]

8 hours ago, 01rtb01 said:

I used to run my infantry 6 wide and units of 18. Not sure whether that still works now or not?

Actually 6-8 wide seems to the new go-to.

[JerekKruger]

1 hour ago, Ejecutor said:

The problem, imo, is that they werent presented in TOW articles. They were TOW articles:

The Old World: Ice Guard of Kislev - Warhammer Community (warhammer-community.com)

This deffo confirms to me the change in the direction half way through the project. If you knew from the beginning that you are not launching them, you post it as a TOW article, like the latest one with the new content, not as a TOW article.

Agreed. To me it seemed obvious at the time so the Kislev stuff was assisting on WarCom that the intention was for Kislev to be released fairly early in TOW's life. I would be amazed if the 3d models for at least some of a potential Kislev range haven't already been done.

Something changed. My guess is GW got cold feet and decided to scale back TOW fur gear that it wouldn't be as popular as they'd originally hoped*. My how is sales have been good enough that they're recognising it has legs, and we'll see things like Kislev and Cathay in due course.

In any case my strategy doesn't change: I enjoy TOW and buy products to support it, going that doing so will increase the odds of longer term support. I would love a TOW 2.0 (like Heresy) with more supported factions, new minis for existing factions etc., but that will only happen if the game sells well.

*Might not help that TWW3 has not been as popular as TWW2 was, and with that enthusiasm online started to dry up 

[JerekKruger]

8 hours ago, 01rtb01 said:

I used to run my infantry 6 wide and units of 18. Not sure whether that still works now or not?

I've been thinking 6x3 or 6x4 (for rank bonus redundancy) too. 

[JackStreicher]

Having another game this evening:

 

2K Dark Elves VS 2K Tomb Kings VS 0.5K Dwarves

We‘ll have a new player piloting some of my dwarves this game to het go know the mechanics and as a fun little „NPC“ encounter

Edited February 23 by JackStreicher

[Marcvs]

24 minutes ago, GhostShark said:

Similarly, "not for the foreseeable future" only means that they won't confirm that these armies are coming until they officially announce them. GW doesn't discuss what armies they're releasing in the future.

Seems that they violated such a rule by saying that Cathay was coming to The Old World then. And, exactly because of this deliberate choice of secrecy/obfuscation I feel people would have been justified in thinking: well, they are saying that these 9 factions are coming to the Old World initially, but they also stated explicitly that Cathay is coming, so it's just that they will announce it later (as you say, when they officially announce them). Now, they are (again) discussing unreleased armies, stating that they are not coming "for the foreseeable future".

To me, an honest interpretation of what "not for the foreseeable future" means is just that we have no idea. It could mean that they will be announced in a couple of months, or that they will never come.

[Gaz Taylor]

30 minutes ago, GhostShark said:

Similarly, "not for the foreseeable future" only means that they won't confirm that these armies are coming until they officially announce them. GW doesn't discuss what armies they're releasing in the future.

This is the best way to look at it. I've worked in IT for over 25 years, so change in scope for a project is not a surprise!

32 minutes ago, GhostShark said:

Its clear that at some point there were plans to include these two armies. Those plans obviously changed. We found that out when GW announced which armies would be included in The Old World. They've been very clear.

Yup they have been clear and I think people have been hoping for things. I think the issues they have are around production and with a Amazon TV show on the horizon which could make 40K sales go insane, I can kind of see why they went with the old sculpts rather than developing something new. 

[JerekKruger]

17 minutes ago, Marcvs said:

To me, an honest interpretation of what "not for the foreseeable future" means is just that we have no idea. It could mean that they will be announced in a couple of months, or that they will never come.

Agreed, although I doubt it'll be sooner than a year since I suspect they're short term release schedule is pretty much set in stone.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

29 minutes ago, Marcvs said:

Seems that they violated such a rule by saying that Cathay was coming to The Old World then. And, exactly because of this deliberate choice of secrecy/obfuscation I feel people would have been justified in thinking: well, they are saying that these 9 factions are coming to the Old World initially, but they also stated explicitly that Cathay is coming, so it's just that they will announce it later (as you say, when they officially announce them). Now, they are (again) discussing unreleased armies, stating that they are not coming "for the foreseeable future".

To me, an honest interpretation of what "not for the foreseeable future" means is just that we have no idea. It could mean that they will be announced in a couple of months, or that they will never come.

I can't substantiate this with any inside knowledge of GW, but generally I read phrases such as "currently no plans" and "no plans for the foreseeable future" as "these are not currently part of our project planning".

If GW works like most big companies, they will have 3-5 year plans for projects they are working on which need to be greenlit and budgeted for. If GW now puts out a statement that there are "no plans" for legacy factions, Kislev or Cathay, that probably just means that these factions are not part of their current project planning and won't be until the next round of budget negotiations at least. It is very likely that including Kislev and Cathay were tentative goals of the TOW project at an earlier stage, and that the project was scaled back at some point, potentially after it became clear that they could not meet all their planned mile stones midway through, or when a project extension had to be negotiated after the first 1-2 years of exploratory work.

It's GW's own fault that people are disappointed now, though. They did not have to announce that they are working on the TOW project as early as they did.

Edited February 23 by Neil Arthur Hotep

[Public Universal Duardin]

It's a real shame that they confirmed Kislev years ago only to now reveal that they aren't coming - whether it's about scaling back production mid-development (and considering that Brets and TK are still missing models, something weird is definitely going on behind the scenes) or if the increasing rumours of internal rivalry between different teams are true, it's still disappointing.

Feels like GW was taken by surprise by interest in TOW and are now caught with their proverbial pants down.

[KingKull]

I didn't see any talk about this. Sounds interesting (and tragical at the same time).

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/WarhammerFantasy/s/1Pe4YbADfl

[Ejecutor]

2 minutes ago, KingKull said:

I didn't see any talk about this. Sounds interesting (and tragical at the same time).

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/WarhammerFantasy/s/1Pe4YbADfl

Nothing new in the GW multiverse. This is just kind of a confirmation of previous rumours, isn't it?

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

10 minutes ago, Ejecutor said:

Nothing new in the GW multiverse. This is just kind of a confirmation of previous rumours, isn't it?

Loremaster of Sotek has at least some credence from me, but I will wait for an actual video that actually explains how he supposedly know this inside info before I give these new "revelations" a lot of weight. That video might be interesting, though, if he can substantiate these claims. I would love to hear a bit more about the GW internal circumstances that led to the change in scope/vision the TOW project pretty clearly went through at some point.

The reddit post itself, however, reads a bit too much like "GW hates WHFB and tried to kill it again when TOW looked like it might become a success", which is conspiracy garbage that strongly plays into the biases of r/warhammerfantasy.

[Jamopower]

I have felt that The Old World and Horus Heresy are catering for a bit different target audience than 40k and AoS. HH and ToW are more akin to "wargames" (i.e. related to historical wargames, and try to have some sort of resemblance on actual battlefield) while 40k and AoS are more of "strategy battle games" which are closer to playing Starcraft on tabletop. So in very straightened curves version ToW and HH are for older (and higher income, but smaller) audience than 40k and AoS.

[Beliman]

25 minutes ago, Jamopower said:

ToW and HH are for older (and higher income, but smaller) audience

Old people prefer Historical wargames?

[Sception]

I mean, there's also the same production issues that have plagued all the other GW games.  When big new products for your flagship games are getting pushed back 6 to 12 months because you just can't get enough stock together to release them, and essential existing products for those games are unavailable for literally years at a time because you just can't spare the capacity to make more, it kind of makes sense to scale down production plans for side games.

There was that rumor that their new factory in the uk couldn't be run at capacity, or even at all, due to the local electricity infrastructure not being able to meet the increased draw, and the nearby hospital getting priority.  I'd be more inclined to blame that than any conspiracy of gw hobbling old world on purpose out of spite against their own employees & customers.

[Asbestress]

Cathay and Kislev were the two things I was actually kinda excited about (and dwarves), so hearing that they may have gotten cancelled mainly because of inter-studio pettiness would leave a really bitter taste in my mouth.

Still hoping that it's "just" due to how messed up their production is, and at least they have the designs already concepted out, so hopefully we'll see some more stuff for TWW.

Probably gonna do a pretend Cathay Celestial Dragon Guard mini-force from MESBG Rhun minis if they don't pull the plug on the game yet, and Cities are still my "all-time favourite in any setting" human faction, so I'll still have my fix at least.
 

Spoiler

 

Edited February 23 by Asbestress

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

14 minutes ago, Sception said:

I mean, there's also the same production issues that have plagued all the other GW games.  When big new products for your flagship games are getting pushed back 6 to 12 months because you just can't get enough stock together to release them, and essential existing products for those games are unavailable for literally years at a time because you just can't spare the capacity to make more, it kind of makes sense to scale down production plans for side games.

There was that rumor that their new factory in the uk couldn't be run at capacity, or even at all, due to the local electricity infrastructure not being able to meet the increased draw, and the nearby hospital getting priority.  I'd be more inclined to blame that than any conspiracy of gw hobbling old world on purpose out of spite against their own employees & customers.

Generally good to remember that events are never caused just by a single thing. There are so many factors that likely played into the development of TOW during the last 5 years that picking out one thing and saying "this is why TOW is how it is today" is 100% going to be overly reductive.

[Bosskelot]

It's a combination of their production capacity not really having grown to meet their new consumer base, and then them still being bad at accurately gauging demand and knowing how much of a product to actually make. That's always been a weakness of theirs but in days when they were generally selling much less to a much smaller audience they could generally bumble their way through it.

When you have multiple examples of supposed "Limited" stock items languishing on shelves and not moving while entire markets have been unable to.buy basic units like Land Raiders and Fire Prisms for a year then that's not just about production capacity; that's about bad market research and bad prioritisation.