Age of Sigmar New Products July 18 2015

[Mr Mystery]

I've thought about this, too. If balance is so easy that any two reasonable people can come together and create it, why haven't GW's full-time gaming professionals been able to develop pristine examples perfect balance since the start of the company?

Because of bad loser syndrome.

First up, caveat. This is not universal by any means.

But for GW, they can only do so much play testing. If you want to get something on the shelves and into out pasty, sweaty mitts, you have a finite amount of time do it in.

Then you have a peculiar take on confirmation bias. Those who get to play test GW's games are, like it or not, of a broadly similar mindset, as in the game is meant to be challenging yet fun.

So you've done it your end, and you have a consensus that Product A is 'about right'.

Release day comes around.

Suddenly.......thousands upon thousands of Nerds get to have their say.

Player A has played Product A for yonks. They have an extensive collection. They take on Player B, who,has played for a similar amount of yonks.

Player A finds the new stuff to their tactical liking, and simply flattens Player B. Player A has the collection, and new rules, and are thusly able to blindside Player B.

Player B suddenly declares 'OMG BORKED'.

Player B heads to the Internet a declares 'OMG BORKED, and finds similar Player B's also declaring 'OMG, BORKED'

Player B's opinion becomes received opinion. Those with no experience of the army Player A fielded, let alone knowledge of the tactics simply reads that Player A's army is well borked, innit bruv.

And from there, the opinion propagates.

Now, remove points?

I can no longer say 'you're such a beardy player' as there are no restrictions to be Mathhammered. I can't say your were cheesey, and vice versa.

Instead, a simple 'your a total ****ing dribble tramp penis, and I never want to play you again, you sad, pathetic arsehole' will suffice.

The curtain is drawn. There's nowhere to hide.

[daboarder]

Honestly why are you part of this community given your obvious dislike of the community itself. I mean the idea that you use nerd as an insult? The hell man you may have not noticed but you're a "nerd" too.

Edit furthermore the community is made up of all sorts of people from investment bankers to lawyers to scientists. These people are likely pretty intelligent and able to critically evaluate a set of relatively limited variables. The idea that they arent is patently ridiculous. The community is not a thousand monkeys at a thousand typewriters its a collection of rather intelligent people all working towards solving a "problem" this is why community consensus is usually pretty spot on. The strongest argument becomes the consensus because it has a shed load of experimental evidence and critical evaluation to back it up

[40kGamer]

But for GW, they can only do so much play testing. If you want to get something on the shelves and into out pasty, sweaty mitts, you have a finite amount of time do it in.

I still maintain any game can be statistically balanced with a complex algorithm which could be confirmed or disproved with limited playtesting.

Then you have a peculiar take on confirmation bias. Those who get to play test GW's games are, like it or not, of a broadly similar mindset, as in the game is meant to be challenging yet fun.

Challenging in the way that the entire design philosophy shifts before we ever see an entire cycle of rules for all the armies?

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Honestly why are you part of this community given your obvious dislike of the community itself. I mean the idea that you use nerd as an insult? The hell man you may have not noticed but you're a "nerd" too.

Edit furthermore the community is made up of all sorts of people from investment bankers to lawyers to scientists. These people are likely pretty intelligent and able to critically evaluate a set of relatively limited variables. The idea that they arent is patently ridiculous. The community is not a thousand monkeys at a thousand typewriters its a collection of rather intelligent people all working towards solving a "problem" this is why community consensus is usually pretty spot on. The strongest argument becomes the consensus because it has a shed load of experimental evidence and critical evaluation to back it up

Don't forget charter accountants, Doctors and CFOs... 'nerds' tend to do quite well in life.

[Rev. Tiberius Jackhammer]

It's raining.
I open my umbrella.
There is a hole in my umbrella.
I discard the umbrella in a dumpster.
Now there isn't a hole in my umbrella.

[Wildeybeast]

Because of bad loser syndrome.

First up, caveat. This is not universal by any means.

But for GW, they can only do so much play testing. If you want to get something on the shelves and into out pasty, sweaty mitts, you have a finite amount of time do it in.

Then you have a peculiar take on confirmation bias. Those who get to play test GW's games are, like it or not, of a broadly similar mindset, as in the game is meant to be challenging yet fun.

So you've done it your end, and you have a consensus that Product A is 'about right'.

Release day comes around.

Suddenly.......thousands upon thousands of Nerds get to have their say.

Player A has played Product A for yonks. They have an extensive collection. They take on Player B, who,has played for a similar amount of yonks.

Player A finds the new stuff to their tactical liking, and simply flattens Player B. Player A has the collection, and new rules, and are thusly able to blindside Player B.

Player B suddenly declares 'OMG BORKED'.

Player B heads to the Internet a declares 'OMG BORKED, and finds similar Player B's also declaring 'OMG, BORKED'

Player B's opinion becomes received opinion. Those with no experience of the army Player A fielded, let alone knowledge of the tactics simply reads that Player A's army is well borked, innit bruv.

And from there, the opinion propagates.

Now, remove points?

I can no longer say 'you're such a beardy player' as there are no restrictions to be Mathhammered. I can't say your were cheesey, and vice versa.

Instead, a simple 'your a total ****ing dribble tramp penis, and I never want to play you again, you sad, pathetic arsehole' will suffice.

The curtain is drawn. There's nowhere to hide.

Mystery, I don't know whether you read my post, because it feels like you are being completely dismissive of the point I am making and furthermore that you are suggesting that I am player B, which I find rather offensive. It's not a question of not being able to adapt, it's about providing a level playing field, which even you would have to admit is a fine art in AoS.

As for play testing, we now know that this was at least in the planning stages when the Sigmar's Blood campaign came out, which was at least a couple of years ago, so there has been plenty of time. The lack of a balancing system is a very deliberate design choice, designed so kids can rock up and chuck down whatever cool units they have just bought. In that regard it's great, but if you want a rigorous but balanced tactical game, it's less so.

[Cutter]

Back to the topic of the thread.

The Realmgates and Archway are nice enough lumps of plastic, a bit 2 dimensional, hinting at buildings but not being buildings, which in turn just makes me nostalgic for the old plastic buildings that went away. It also strikes me that they are doors that don't go anyway, which seems to be an appropriate metaphor for AoS itself.

The Lord-Castellant certainly fills his (not important for this game) base and the model is a lot busier than the rank and file* Sigmarine. Something more to get involved in for the painters. Still not keen on the Sigmarese on the streamers, or the streamers themselves for that matter. They're like purity seals but turned up to 11. Also not stoked about his collection tin, but I can see him standing on the corner of one of those vast avenues of Skytown, rattling away with it. Those golden palaces aren't cheap ya know...

And then there's Brian. He's a nice idea but front half looks like he's walking while that back half looks static. I been around dogs a good deal of my life and I've never seen one stand like that. But then I've never seen one with a eagle's head either.

Overall I'd give this weeks releases 2 Hammers of Sigmar.


And now the first in our regular series, How Long Is It Going To Take For The Warhammer Age of Sigmar Book - Limited Edition To Sell Out (or quietly go away). One week in and it's still available, and they haven't even got to the 'we only have x hundred left' stage. For a global release this is pretty whacky.

Tune in next week to see if it's still available.




*Do you remember ranks and files? They were great. Kings of War still uses those. Ace.

[Erik Setzer]

well we will need to see more of what happens first. we only have one Age of Sigmar faction so far, and they are large models, so we cannot really speculate about model price going forward. the book and accessories are all optional, so don't really point toward any scheme by GW. all we can do is wait and see what the next few armies come out with.

One would imagine that basic humans aren't $10 each, but since they increased their size to be taller than Space Marines, they'll probably aim for something more than normal.

The book and accessories being optional *do* point toward a "scheme" by GW (not the best word but I suppose it works) to overprice the accessories for the game as if they were premium products. Net result seems to be that they'll have plenty of leftovers.

Sure, we can remain optimistic. But when you come out with a game and the first faction and items you're pushing aren't entirely priced friendly for the wider audience you're trying to attract, that's a sign of management bungling. The core game isn't horrible priced (though $125 is starting to be too much for starter sets, which is why others keep them at $100 or less, even if you have to include a bit less in them), but outside of that it's not really welcoming to getting new people in. 40K players are already "programmed" (again not an ideal word, but it gets the point across) to give GW their money for products and are used to the prices, but you can't just try to build AoS on the backs of whatever 40K players might jump ship.

Really, I'm just more annoyed with their management and marketing team. And before someone says "Well, they've been in the business for years, so clearly they know what to do," I'll remind those folks that these people running the management and marketing at GW found a way to take a 30-year-old game that was major in helping GW rise to power and forming the modern miniature gaming hobby, and ran it hard into the ground, while also killing off every game outside of the core two (plus the Hobbit/LotR franchise, which somehow never managed to do well for them, despite it being freaking Tolkien and those movies being super-popular). So, yeah, I think we can criticize the leadership now.

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But for GW, they can only do so much play testing. If you want to get something on the shelves and into out pasty, sweaty mitts, you have a finite amount of time do it in.

Well, their own pasty, sweaty mitts don't do much before they put it in your pasty, sweaty mitts. Play-testing would reveal a lot of issues with recent codices, formations, and Age of Sigmar itself. Especially if they did any external playtesting. Instead, they try to live in a shell and only do stuff internally.

And if the rushed schedule means even less playtesting than what they were down to, I'm even more unhappy with it, because it means quantity is getting more important than quality.

If other companies, especially smaller companies, can reach out to gamers and get feedback and do more playtesting and all, then there's no excuse for Games Workshop.

It's also sad that you continue to try to defend bad decisions by the company by attacking the gamers. If you worked for GW and spoke for them in an official capacity, you'd be destroying sales right now. I also feel like, for all that you talk up your own local community, it says how bad they must be that you have these wild assumptions about everyone else.

[Cap'nSmurfs]

So, like, let's be real for a second: how many of these threads, now, have gone exactly the same way, with exactly the same argument? Even respecting all your positions and all your reasons for holding them, aren't you all bored of the same back and forth, back and forth over and over again? Isn't this the forum for rumours?

[Kirsten]

It's raining.
I open my umbrella.
There is a hole in my umbrella.
I discard the umbrella in a dumpster.
Now there isn't a hole in my umbrella.

lol