I hate that i may have been right

[Ray Rivers]

frank discussion

I am painfully aware of your views and the cascade of criticism as I am sure most other folks who like AoS are as well to the point of.... ad nauseum.

[daboarder]

So just like the people being belligerent about those not absolutely falling all over themselves to love AOS?

Good to know everyones on the same page then.

Munningwing, well written article mate, much easier to read than the general rambling equivalents posted by other users.

[Lexington]

Of course it seems underdeveloped.

Eh, development is overrated. There's no critical mass of background material that a setting has to hit in order to achieve quality - the best ones are good right out of the gate. Infinity came out fully baked and interesting. VOR, too. The original Warmachine: Prime is still one of the most engrossing examples of the genre. Hell, 40K itself grabs you by the short hairs just from that intro text, leading you into the setting via the laughter of the thirsting gods.

AoS' problem isn't a lack of material, it's a lack of conviction. It's a universe conceived by committee, setting a net just wide enough to ensnare nobody in particular. You've got all these fumbling attempts at grandeur, using the old formula of syllabic mush strung together with prepositions, but it rings hollow because whatever poor drone oversaw all this only seems to have a dullard's understanding of how that magic worked for them in the past. To sum it up: No one gives a damn about the quiescent perils of the Ctan unless there's an Imperium guarding the Gates of Varl. Mystery needs a perspective to be investigated from, and GW's creative musculature is just too atrophied to do that kind of worldcrafting anymore. The only thing they excel at is making sure that every proper noun in the setting is copyrightable beyond a shadow of a doubt, and that you can buy them all at your local GW store. Which, strangely enough, no one seems to be doing. I'm sure there's a lot of time and sweat being spent at GW these days on pinpointing exactly why customers just don't seem to understand AoS' sublime brilliance as a sales tool. I wish them luck in their search for the obvious.

It's greatest obstacle in the short term is allowing all the Oldhammer diehards to just fade away and make room for new folks who can enjoy the AoS world without having folks constantly *****in and complaining.

Nah. The greatest obstacle AoS has is the fact that, beyond threads like this, no one seems to care about it. All the indicators show it's shaping up to be one of the biggest duds in GW's history. Blame it on those mean ol' Warhammer fans if you want, but if it was a thing worth the attention, you'd think those throngs of potential fans would be drowning out the dissatisfied old guard. That said old guard seem to be the only ones talking about AoS is one hell of a dire portent for he game's future.

[daboarder]

remember though lex. Apparently people arent talking about AOS because

1) they are playing it. Yup thats right, 24/7 they are doing nothing but playing AOS, doont even have time to post ideas and discuss the game they are so involved in on the bus too and from work just constantly all the time every single spare moment playing the game

or

2) there's very little to discuss if you aren't talking about balance. Yup no point posting about exciting background, presenting hobby ideas, campaign ideas, discussing different ways to play the game, designing missions looking for new players, posting battle reports asking for advice on how to use units in particular situations. Because AOS is pointless apparently all these potential topics of conversation are also pointless

[Lexington]

Them and those legions of satisfied Dreadfleet players, it seems.

[Andrew Thomas]

Of course, with my luck, AoS will be like DnD 4e, in that getting a decent game will be hard, and when it finally gets replaced, I'll be too interested in other things to actually want to play.

[Morgrim]

Them and those legions of satisfied Dreadfleet players, it seems.

I must be one of the few people that really enjoyed Dreadfleet and still lament that I lacked the funds to actually purchase it when it was available. >.>

[Muninwing]

Wow. You're coming at this from SUCH a different perspective to the gang in and around Sydney, the ones who spend time in the three GWs I frequent anyway.
They like Stormcast, because (when you read the novels) they're human and relatable. No spoilers, but my favourite is the one who just wants his immortality over with so he can join his wife in the afterlife.

i am. honestly, it died hard in the three local stores near my house. it was too different to be billed as a replacement, and as such older players tried it and allowed it to die... just as any shrewd business mind would have predicted. and without old players, new blood isn't having the opportunity to join in.

i do like that they are expanding somewhat on stormcast. and that sigmar might be a bit of a jerk. but we should give credit where credit is due -- if some people commenting here are willing to write off WHF as "copying" other works (moorcock, tolkien, howard, etc), then using an example copied right from a russel crowe movie isn't a great stance. at least he didn't sing. accusations of "this was just ripped off from..." in fantasy themes is tired and old. and while early WHF was definitely a cimmerian/melnibonean mashup... that was because they were forging a low fantasy world that felt like other low fantasy worlds. it became something more. and reading back then from now means you have to translate back through all the feedback that the 80s throws into something, which is always tricky.

while i will probably never play the game -- i do not like skirmish-level games, despite trying them time and time again, and this has the least pleasing elements of both skirmish and force games -- i am glad that some people are enjoying it. if GW were to put out as colossal failure as some imply this to have been, i would be nervous about that other lemons would tank every part of my hobby and i'd have to just walk away now...

[Ray Rivers]

The greatest obstacle AoS has is the fact that, beyond threads like this, no one seems to care about it. All the indicators show it's shaping up to be one of the biggest duds in GW's history. Blame it on those mean ol' Warhammer fans if you want, but if it was a thing worth the attention, you'd think those throngs of potential fans would be drowning out the dissatisfied old guard. That said old guard seem to be the only ones talking about AoS is one hell of a dire portent for he game's future.

I don't blame anything on the "old guard." The "old guard" gave up on Warhammer long ago. People have moved on, and it appears that migration is towards skirmish games and not big battle games. Personally, I think, in general, folks don't have the time in today's modern era to paint up literally hundreds of miniatures just to play a game, especially the younger folks. So overall I think that the majority of folks who used to play Warhammer are long gone.

What we are left with are a cadre of folks who are filled with venom and hate directed not just towards AoS, but GW in specific.

(Put that line by itself so that it is easy for ya'll to quote. )

And you see this everywhere on the net. As an example, the folks at Beasts of War were going to do a series of articles on AoS. They were bombarded with hateful comments and nothing ever came of the project.

The intent is clear and you see it on pretty much on every miniatures forum you can name: To bludgeon people with hateful comments not just to smear AoS, but to force them to not even post. Just look at the stuff on this thread. Folks venting their hatred towards GW. AoS is just a convenient excuse.

So yea, you don't see hordes of folks posting about AoS because people aren't willing to "battle" with all those dreadful folks who think they can run the only worldwide miniatures company on earth.

Now, from the perspective of a business owner, I can only say that I have had plenty of folks who think they can run my business better than me. Normally, 1) these folks are not even customers and 2) when they are people who have businesses, their business is poorly run. I make my own decisions thank you, and if you think you can do better, then start your own.

The one thing we can all be sure about is that internet community is very good at hating. The fact that people succumb so easily isn't because they have changed their minds, it is because what happens on the internet, really doesn't reflect reality. You can rant all you want and it will not stop me from buying and playing AoS miniatures, terrain, books and games. What it does do, however, is leave forums a swamp of hate filled cra p which folks just abandon. So in the end, the haters are giving each other high fives while the rest of the folks (might I guess... adults) just leave the room, never to come back.

Does all this hating effect the game? Of course. But it won't bankrupt GW as so many folks long to see. Like Rogue Trader (and the internet) before it, AoS will succeed or fail based on what happens in the real world and not here or on any other forum.

[Erik Setzer]

I must be one of the few people that really enjoyed Dreadfleet and still lament that I lacked the funds to actually purchase it when it was available. >.>

My only problem with Dreadfleet, though kind of a big one, is that I used to play Man'O'War and thought they'd actually be doing a new version of that game. It was ridiculously fun, and I'm sad that they never seem to remember it. Some of the Dreadfleet models were just old MOW models, too (perhaps all of them?). On its own merits, it's not bad. It would have worked as a good launching point to bring back MOW.

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2) there's very little to discuss if you aren't talking about balance. Yup no point posting about exciting background, presenting hobby ideas, campaign ideas, discussing different ways to play the game, designing missions looking for new players, posting battle reports asking for advice on how to use units in particular situations. Because AOS is pointless apparently all these potential topics of conversation are also pointless

Actually, this is where AoS frustrates me most... There's potential there, but it's just left on the floor, malnourished. I bought a Dwarf Slayer just to convert a "Fyreslayer" (that spelling makes me cringe), because the idea of a Dwarf with literally flaming hair is awesome, even if that's not quite what they are. There are tiny throwaway bits of the fluff that are interesting. But then they drown that out with a rather dull and boring overarching story, and we still don't know why we're supposed to care about these scraps of living flesh who've managed to survive a few hundred years of Chaos rule. There's no resistance movement, nothing to suggest anyone is trying to fight back, no hint of what the nations were that got destroyed before we could even be introduced to them. It's just so... empty. There's potential, but rather than do anything with it, they want to push their new models' factions as being the most important and, in doing so, make everyone else so devoid of importance that the game might as well be just two factions, one of which is kind of dull. People can find drama in that faction, but at the end of the day, they're Space Marines with less personality.

There's also contradictions and the fluff just feels so sloppy in places that thinking of it makes my head hurt.

It could be good... but they're just too lazy to care.

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The intent is clear and you see it on pretty much on every miniatures forum you can name: To bludgeon people with hateful comments not just to smear AoS, but to force them to not even post. Just look at the stuff on this thread. Folks venting their hatred towards GW. AoS is just a convenient excuse.

Bollocks.

If AoS had more support for it than against it, the people wanting stuff for AoS could drown out the others. Or are you saying the people who like AoS are easily cowed into being quiet, and will give up their own happiness because someone on the Internet has a different opinion? Wow. If a game's base is made up of people like that, it's going to fail.

The reality is people dislike AoS, and because of that, they dislike GW, because GW made the choice to kill off a 30-year-old game just because they wouldn't admit their business plan was broken. It's not the other way around, with people disliking AoS just because they dislike GW.

Your post just sounds... offensive and ridiculous, to say it as kindly as anyone can say it. You're blaming other people for the game's lack of success, when a good enough game could get around critics. You're trying to find excuses, and those excuses are ludicrous.

And a lot of people don't want to see GW go bankrupt. They want it to go back to the customer-friendly gaming company it was when it was growing. They can just remain silent and GW *will* keep losing money. In that sense, you want GW to go bankrupt more than any person who dislikes AoS.