At work I had a few friends who were into the 40k game that enticed me with their stories of awesome tabletop battles and sweet army fluff. I heard all about space marines, orks, necrons, sisters. I heard about Horus Heresy and the way it was the start of the chaos marines rise.
I enjoyed hearing about tactical discussion of Eldar vs Tau and what the little nuances of each codex meant. I enjoyed discussing rules and what they meant and how to get into the game itself.
In short I was pumped to play.
My first army (only army) was/is orks. Dakka dakka dakka. I love the fluff, I love the hilarity and fun of the army itself. I love being able to have diverse and crazy units. I primarily love creating my own unique weapons and vehicles based upon wild concepts that involve crazy ork thinking. I played a few games with these friends and it was fun over a few beers.
So I take my army with my far, far more experienced friends down to a local game shop. While those two set up to play each other on an awesome board I was just going to watch. I was approached by a man in his mid 40s to play a game. I said sure but pre-warned him I was extremely fresh into the game.
He unpacks his army of space wolves. The army is fully painted, frankly I didn't think it was anything to write home about, and I start to unpack mine. I have painted as much as I can with the money and time I can allocate to 40k between a full time job and a heavy, heavy school schedule. He took one look at my relatively unpainted army and from there is spiraled downward.
He and another guy he apparently knew chastised me heavily for being unpainted. I mean I couldn't believe what was going on. I had no idea that it was a requirement, only an extension of the game (and admittedly painting is the primary reason I wanted to play). These two older gits were as obnoxious as I've ever met. I was told that if I intend to play this game I had better come with a painted army and that he was insulted that I came down without one. I literally couldn't believe my ears. I explained I had a lack of time and was doing what I could when i could and was told quite literally:
"You're in the wrong game then."
Needless to say I left and have never gone back.
I know of these forums from my buddies and as I'm on this site I'm seeing all these posts about painted armies and why they matter. I'll be honest, after that run in I don't know if I'll continue this beyond our little circle. That's a massive disappointment because I was looking forward to expanding my game. I just don't get it. This was supposed to be a fun way to pass time and all aspects of it are for leisure but from the looks of it it should be treated as a second job.
End rant I suppose. I guess I was curious about your takes on a new player and his inception into this game following this mentality that says "YOU MUST PLAY THIS WAY."
How does this help develop the game at all?