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Author Topic: T9A forum - engaging with game creators - does it work?  (Read 13017 times)

Offline Warlord

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Re: T9A forum - engaging with game creators - does it work?
« Reply #50 on: November 04, 2018, 12:52:34 PM »
That is a fair point - it is homebrew. I saw some of your posts in that thread.

I would like to see more about the fluff development, just because I really wonder how drastic any changes are going to be, or how static and close to GW things will remain.
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I hate people who don't paint their armies, hate them with all my guts. Beats me how they value other things over painting, like eating or brushing teeth.

Offline Calisson

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Re: T9A forum - engaging with game creators - does it work?
« Reply #51 on: November 11, 2018, 06:59:39 PM »
There have been some fluff releases, scattered across the fanzine "The 9th Scroll"
Races and use of magic: Scroll 5
EoS: Scroll 5
KoE: Scroll 5
DE: Scroll 6
VS: Scroll 6
Other Human Nations: Scroll 7
ID: Scroll 7
OK: Scroll 8
SE: Scroll 8
Other human nations (complete): Scroll 8
HE: Scroll 9
BH: Scroll 9

(from the news Issue 12 of the 9th Scroll is released!)

All scrolls are found at the download page.

There should be a compendium recollecting all of this, to be published hopefully somewhere early 2019.
Reoccurring intent, deadlines always pushed.

Offline Warlord

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Re: T9A forum - engaging with game creators - does it work?
« Reply #52 on: November 12, 2018, 01:52:15 AM »
I would be keen to see that.
Thanks for sharing!
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I hate people who don't paint their armies, hate them with all my guts. Beats me how they value other things over painting, like eating or brushing teeth.

Offline Warlord

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Re: T9A forum - engaging with game creators - does it work?
« Reply #53 on: January 21, 2019, 03:09:08 AM »
Been reading feedback on the Demon book. Haven’t been able to read the book myself though, it doesn’t download properly on my phone - likely my issue rather than yours. Mostly positive, most feedback nitpicky and about making it a bit more user friendly. If thats all the feedbqck, great!

I saw a few things complaining about it being more complicated, when previously approach was simplicity. I imagine the only feedback I have for that, is share the vision with your players. Simplified to get to the bare bones, and now you are building it all up with added flavour... make that front and centre rather than just as an elicited response.

Otherwise, nice work!
Quote from: Gneisenau
I hate people who don't paint their armies, hate them with all my guts. Beats me how they value other things over painting, like eating or brushing teeth.

Offline Calisson

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Re: T9A forum - engaging with game creators - does it work?
« Reply #54 on: January 21, 2019, 09:30:06 AM »
Thanks for the kind words.
We are now transforming our internal organization in order to work on several army books at a time.
Hopefully, this will allow us to create more than two army books a year.

Offline GamesPoet

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Re: T9A forum - engaging with game creators - does it work?
« Reply #55 on: January 21, 2019, 12:43:22 PM »
Seems like quite a bit of effort is going into this. :icon_cool:
"Not all who wander are lost ... " Tolkien

"... my old suggestion is forget it, take two aspirins and go paint" steveb

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Offline Konrad von Richtmark

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Re: T9A forum - engaging with game creators - does it work?
« Reply #56 on: January 21, 2019, 08:27:36 PM »
In the recent two months, two releases have been made that have greatly pleased the less competitive, more fluffy and casual segment of the player base. A scenario supplement and a battlefield terrain supplement. Both still in beta, but very playable it seems, from how they've been received.

This kind of content has been asked for for a long time. The position of the Project has been "Yes, later, but we first need a well-balanced, meticulously crafted and polished base game, which we then can build on with such content". Would you look at that, "later" has actually turned into "now", the Project is delivering on its promise that patience will be rewarded.

The Project does listen, even if its wheels do turn slowly.
The only good thing about 7th ed heads is that they look particularly inbred and superstitious which is perfect for Stirlanders

Offline Warlord

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Re: T9A forum - engaging with game creators - does it work?
« Reply #57 on: January 21, 2019, 10:50:10 PM »
Thanks for the kind words.
We are now transforming our internal organization in order to work on several army books at a time.
Hopefully, this will allow us to create more than two army books a year.

No problem. I see you are invested over there, and I dont want to be unfair in my opinion on it. I know there are vocal sceptics and zealots for both sides. Thanks for keeping on coming over here Calisson, it helps keep us in touch.
Quote from: Gneisenau
I hate people who don't paint their armies, hate them with all my guts. Beats me how they value other things over painting, like eating or brushing teeth.

Offline Gankom

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Re: T9A forum - engaging with game creators - does it work?
« Reply #58 on: January 22, 2019, 01:32:21 AM »
Thanks for keeping on coming over here Calisson, it helps keep us in touch.

I wanted to second Warlord here. I to appreciate see what the 9th crowd is up to, even if I'm not super interested enough to go to a separate forum. But seeing it here and how its going is not only enough to keep it in my mind (And led to me playing a few games), but also means I have an idea where the game is at when I pass the info on to other more interested players. I've pointed a lrge number of my friends towards it based on what I end up seeing here.

Offline Karak Norn Clansman

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Re: T9A forum - engaging with game creators - does it work?
« Reply #59 on: January 23, 2019, 09:48:48 AM »
I will say this in favour of T9A when contrasted with Games Workshop: For all its flaws, it is easier by an order of magnitude to launch ideas and get them implemented in the official setting as an outsider in T9A, than it is with GW. It's much easier to get concepts through to the team. So as a creative workshop where concepts brew, T9A have an edge in this regard.

As to army book output, it is crucially dependent on volunteer artists. These cannot be taken for granted. It's a lot of work to create artworks, and you cannot expect all of the unpaid enthusiasts to always show up for every new project. Good art is what makes or break a good army book. I hope we will see more army books released quicker moving forward, but please do not be surprised if art becomes a bottleneck.

Be grateful for what we have.  :smile2:
« Last Edit: January 23, 2019, 10:14:31 AM by Karak Norn Clansman »

Offline Warlord

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Re: T9A forum - engaging with game creators - does it work?
« Reply #60 on: January 23, 2019, 12:24:53 PM »
The art is fantastic / top quality.
No doubt.
Quote from: Gneisenau
I hate people who don't paint their armies, hate them with all my guts. Beats me how they value other things over painting, like eating or brushing teeth.

Offline Splgrk

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Re: T9A forum - engaging with game creators - does it work?
« Reply #61 on: February 05, 2019, 11:46:00 PM »
The fluff is okay, but the problem for me is that the rules are quite, quite dull. I play Skaven. Exclusively. They are the reason I play this game. And they have no fluff and something like half their content was stripped from the book. I leaf through it and it's jsut... we have some generic infantry and some shooting that apparently is quite reliable now and that's it? Why would I want to play that?

Maybe I'll give it another look when the full book come out. That seems to be the opinion among the other players in my group. Maybe they'll check back in in a year or five, when the game is finished.

Offline GamesPoet

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Re: T9A forum - engaging with game creators - does it work?
« Reply #62 on: February 06, 2019, 12:59:22 AM »
No fluff for the world of rats, bummer.

Wait, do they even exist over there? :icon_wink:
"Not all who wander are lost ... " Tolkien

"... my old suggestion is forget it, take two aspirins and go paint" steveb

"The beauty of curiosity and creativity is so much more useful than the passion of fear." me

"Until death it is all life." Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Offline Calisson

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Re: T9A forum - engaging with game creators - does it work?
« Reply #63 on: February 08, 2019, 07:53:50 PM »
In T9A, ratmen are named "Vermins".
Fluff exists although not in their army book.
In the main rulebook, you can read that Vermins gained as much importance as Roman Empire in real world... quite an achievement.

Offline Konrad von Richtmark

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Re: T9A forum - engaging with game creators - does it work?
« Reply #64 on: February 10, 2019, 03:15:30 PM »
That's indeed one of the things I definitely like about the 9th Age fluff. It has an actual believable history with different factions and races not only waxing and waning, but being transformed over time by the tides of history. In Warhammer, things stayed largely the same. The Empire was basically the same thing throughout its existence, even though it was split into a few warring pieces at times. Bretonnia was even more static. Dwarfs and High Elves saw their borders contract from their peak and ended up going from friends to enemies, but remained largely the same in terms of society.

T9A though? Not-Empire and Not-Bretonnia are recent arrivals on the world stage, back during the 8th Age the Not-Empire was subjugated by the Not-Skaven Roman Empire, which apparently devolved into something quite different on its fall. Not-Bretonnia was ruled over by a Vampire-King, and perhaps an entire vampiric nobility, which though gave it the strength to resist subjugation by the Not-Skaven Roman Empire. Orcs? They had, it appears, a civilized empire of their own way back during the 2nd Age, one which even elves and dwarfs apparently recognized as civilized and treated with on equal terms. Whereas in the present 9th Age, they are much the savage maniacal menace to civilization they are best known as.
The only good thing about 7th ed heads is that they look particularly inbred and superstitious which is perfect for Stirlanders

Offline Splgrk

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Re: T9A forum - engaging with game creators - does it work?
« Reply #65 on: February 11, 2019, 08:58:34 AM »
I mean, that's nice and everything, I'm sure you have a great world planned. But my interest starts at my own army book. And when I open the Vermin Swarm, I see nothing I want to play. I see an enormously stripped down version of the army books I love, where almost every unit has lost most of it s special rules, which is what made them fun to play in the first place. THere's only stuff taken away, nothing new added. And no fluff, beyond a few assorted names that don't fit together. (You call them Roman. Why do they have chieftains, then?) Instead of an army of mad scientists  I get... what? Please, enlighten me, I don't see what I get, except some generic infantry blocks and some generic shooty stuff.

Offline Warlord

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Re: T9A forum - engaging with game creators - does it work?
« Reply #66 on: February 12, 2019, 01:26:46 PM »
I hated the mad science part of skaven.
But I know a lot of people love it.
If I was making Skaven, personally I would remove it.

But I have plenty of ideas of what I would add.
Quote from: Gneisenau
I hate people who don't paint their armies, hate them with all my guts. Beats me how they value other things over painting, like eating or brushing teeth.

Offline brr-icy

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Re: T9A forum - engaging with game creators - does it work?
« Reply #67 on: February 12, 2019, 05:39:16 PM »
Why remove what makes them, them? Stripping down and making a race like Skaven generic fighters doesn't sit well with me. I play my Skaven army when I want to have fun with randomly exploding tech and backfiring magic, and to be at the mercy of the dice instead of pure skill and tactics. If I want a straight up, everything goes as planned army, I'll pull out my Empire or Bretonnians. Skaven are meant to be fun, random, and suicidal.

Offline Warlord

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Re: T9A forum - engaging with game creators - does it work?
« Reply #68 on: February 13, 2019, 02:34:55 AM »
Playing against skaven I never ever found them fun, random or suicidal. They were very predictable and dangerous and not much fun to play against. Even the ‘fluff’ builds I found OP.

I dont like them harnessing the mad science. I am all for the breeding and backstabbing and pestilence though.

Quote from: Gneisenau
I hate people who don't paint their armies, hate them with all my guts. Beats me how they value other things over painting, like eating or brushing teeth.

Offline Splgrk

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Re: T9A forum - engaging with game creators - does it work?
« Reply #69 on: February 13, 2019, 07:41:58 AM »
There's a difference between "taking a risk" and "randomness". You can balance the first, but not the second. And I'm sure you could write a book around risk-taking that's mostly balanced. The problem is, the Ninth Age doesn't even try to do anything interesting with their Vermin.

Offline The Black Knight

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Re: T9A forum - engaging with game creators - does it work?
« Reply #70 on: February 13, 2019, 11:56:51 AM »
I concur. That's why I can't play O&G in 9th age. They have removed almost everything I liked about them (the silly charts, animosity, squigs going wild etc.). The lack of army specific magic lores is also a downer.

On the other hand, I don't mind playing high elves or empire. These armies nevere had many wacky rules to begin with, so there wasn't much to cut in order to make them "tournament competetive" and "faster to play". Which is what I feel the 9th age is mostly concerned about. But, like I said before I am not a tourney player, so maybe it's just not for me. I am going to give 9th another chance in a couple of months, maybe after they drop a proper O&G book.

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Offline brr-icy

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Re: T9A forum - engaging with game creators - does it work?
« Reply #71 on: February 13, 2019, 01:52:07 PM »
Playing against skaven I never ever found them fun, random or suicidal. They were very predictable and dangerous and not much fun to play against. Even the ‘fluff’ builds I found OP.

I dont like them harnessing the mad science. I am all for the breeding and backstabbing and pestilence though.

I don't see them as predictable. But I haven't played the dumbed down version in 9th age ether, and the more I see, the less I want to. I have a decent army of every race in WFB minus two, I don't see Skaven any more dangerous than Dwarfs or Tomb Kings in 6th. I have a Skyre main army, and it's blowing up left and right some games, or the Warplightning Cannons shooting at Str 2, or 12 inches and hitting nothing.

I've had great luck in some games, but it's far from predictable. One bad roll on a plague, and half my army could die, and has. I don't find much in 6th OP, mainly because I hate the term. Every army has some strengths, and something to weaken them. Any skirmishing unit in a skaven army panics very easily from missile fire or magic thanks to abysmal leadership. T3 and bad armour saves makes it pretty easy to kill many every turn as well. I don't play 8th as I didn't feel I wanted to paint hundreds of each model like I did with my Vampires, so there ymmv, I just felt them decently balanced in 6th.

Offline Warlord

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Re: T9A forum - engaging with game creators - does it work?
« Reply #72 on: February 15, 2019, 10:48:52 AM »
7th was the same book as 8th. 6th ed was a more balanced book and slightly less predictability I will grant you. But as soon as the doomwheel and hellpit abomination came along i found them to be totally broken and not pleasant at all to play against.

I have never played them in 9th age. I do agree also that randomness for some armies should be higher than others, because its part of the identity. Perhaps it should be part of the ASAW.

Looking at what they did with Demons, I reckon it will return.
Quote from: Gneisenau
I hate people who don't paint their armies, hate them with all my guts. Beats me how they value other things over painting, like eating or brushing teeth.

Offline brr-icy

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Re: T9A forum - engaging with game creators - does it work?
« Reply #73 on: February 15, 2019, 03:20:43 PM »
Doomwheel was that broken? The 6th rules for it had it pretty dangerous to both armies, not sure how 7/8 used it.

The identity I always seen for the Skaven was an army of chemical addicted meth-heads (warpstone) trying to take over the world. I don't know if you've ever been in a room with one for more than a few minutes but, pestilence, mad science (electronic or otherwise), and sneakiness abound. Every clan in skaven in WFB is well represented by that subculture of people, which is where I believe the original inspiration came from for the army.

Offline Konrad von Richtmark

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Re: T9A forum - engaging with game creators - does it work?
« Reply #74 on: February 16, 2019, 07:53:36 PM »
As for current Vermin Swarm army book entry names, sheesh, it's a slim army book that was made to give people something to play, with entry names almost certainly decided on before much if any fluff existed. Furthermore, it's not meant to be a fantasy clone of ancient Rome populated by ratmen. There is Avras, a fantasy clone of ancient Rome populated by humans in the T9A timeline, one that was suddenly overrun, usurped and appropriated by ratmen. Whether the Vermin Avrasian Republic actually continued business as usual under new management or mainly just appropriated its identity, symbols and outer trappings isn't quite clear. In the present era though, it's gone way more towards the latter it seems, as their domination over Fantasy Europe has been broken. I'd say the current Vermin Swarm is about as similar to Human Avras as the Carolignian Empire was to the Roman Empire, or something like that is what I hope the background team has in mind.

If the skaven are nothing to you if they aren't mad scientists whose weapons work in wildly random ways, then I suppose T9A isn't for you. T9A cannot simultaneously be everyone's ideal of what they would want Warhammer to have been, because ideals vary between players more than most realize. T9A tries to cater to a broad audience, which comes at the cost of being less perfect for someone with very narrow, specific preferences.

I don't think there's anything bland about Vermin as they are in T9A. Strength in Numbers is still there, which creates a number of interesting dynamics. They are the only army to get massed cheap numbers with independent Ld 8. That means they get cheap numbers for swarming and grinding, *and* the staying power to stick around and do so even when not supported by characters. The downside is that that staying power is conditional on deep ranks, and that if they do flee, they aren't likely to rally anytime soon, both which rule out MSU tactics, requiring them to instead play as relatively inflexible battlelines and be vulnerable to enemy force concentration.

All which supports a playstyle of bringing a mountain of models onto the table, something that is very much consistent with Vermin fluff. A good rule design is one where fluffy armies actually work.
The only good thing about 7th ed heads is that they look particularly inbred and superstitious which is perfect for Stirlanders