demonic
Junior Strategist
Posts: 649 
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Post by demonic on Jun 5, 2018 2:02:12 GMT
I'm not sure how it's been across the world, but I know across the US the Warmachine/Hordes communities are dying off, or simply getting smaller. Where there was a resurgence with MK3, it is now falling off, especially with 40k coming out with a more solid system. Of course, across the year you'll always see dips and dives, but it's been hard to even get new players now that funsies lists are getting smashed by spam and theme lists. Now that CIDs are churning out more powerful swings, it almost forces people to buy new tools for their faction to be valid and killing a new player's pocket book. You'll find more and more deals on people selling out of warmachine now than almost ever, and it's got me a little shaken about the continuity of the US player market.
I'd rather avoid pointing fingers at anyone, ANYONE, though factual observations are more than welcome. Is it themes? recent changes? economic fluctuations? or even just the market of table top players finally falling off? What do you think would increase the player base? What would bring in new players? How can we get our warmachines running again?
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Post by Big Fat Troll on Jun 5, 2018 2:12:22 GMT
Someone starts this thread every month.
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bward
Junior Strategist
Posts: 184
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Post by bward on Jun 5, 2018 2:30:40 GMT
This is just really not true at all and baseless threads like this don’t help.
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Post by darkshroud on Jun 5, 2018 2:32:12 GMT
Someone starts this thread every month. Which means its a continuing trend. Down I can honestly tell you ive never seen someone say, hey guys, new lgs here. Just all started wm! Flip side, i just started playing again after 9 months bc life. (Shrug) |
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Post by darkshroud on Jun 5, 2018 2:32:51 GMT
This is just really not true at all and baseless threads like this don’t help. You're just as baseless as OP... |
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bward
Junior Strategist
Posts: 184
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Post by bward on Jun 5, 2018 2:35:24 GMT
This is just really not true at all and baseless threads like this don’t help. You're just as baseless as OP... So you admit OP is baseless? |
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shoe
Junior Strategist
Posts: 706
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Post by shoe on Jun 5, 2018 2:41:36 GMT
there is clear evidence the game is in decline in many places. phoenix is hanging by a thread where it was once one of the strongest metas in the country. the game needs new blood
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demonic
Junior Strategist
Posts: 649
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Post by demonic on Jun 5, 2018 4:16:34 GMT
evidence is easy x.O; when the normal turn out for a tournament for the past 3 years was near 70 and suddenly drops to the 30s, that's a pretty damn drastic change. Some of the biggest steam rollers in florida are only bringing in 4-6 simultaneous games that used to bring in 12 (seriously, we were putting tables together after running out of room on the stand up 4x8s)
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Post by sand20go on Jun 5, 2018 4:57:49 GMT
Hard to tell. I could make an argument either way based on external company behavior.
I DO think that PP needs to figure out SOME way to recreate the same amount of organizing passion that PG program had. It simply is a huge lift for a game store owner to dedicate 8-10 hours for running a SR when you also need to man the cash register and we have all this damm judging crap that goes on. Not sure what it would be - but that is why I am not a lawyer.
Dumb question (since it was their program and the litigation that led to this sorry state - what is WOTC doing in respect to Friday night magic/tournaments? Are they incenting retailers? Or find some other way to proceed?
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unded
Junior Strategist
Posts: 760
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Post by unded on Jun 5, 2018 6:01:05 GMT
It seems to be a consistent observation (which is not a good thing) that the game is shedding players. It's cropped up enough that it seems pointless rehashing the potential reasons in yet another thread.
What can be done? Just push the game is my best advice. It's a game we love, so let the passion show. Paint your toys for a more enticing experience that draws new players in (I cannot stress this enough - painted minis grab attention so much more than unpainted, and enhance the game for everyone involved). Play the game, play often and with gusto. Nothing kills a meta like people who don't play and instead grouse about why they don't play.
Ultimately I do think lion's share of the work lies in PP's hands (especially since they canned the PG program), and addressing the unjustifiable price discrepancy between them and their competitors is an important first step. ThemeMachine plays into this as well, as it really hits vets in the wallet when they want to expand. This last was driven home to me quite hard when a mate of mine was explaining why he's not pumping any more cash into WM now, despite owning a pretty significant Khador force. If he wants to add to his X-Wing armada, he spends R300 for a new blister. If he wants to add to his KoW army he spends R400-R600 for a new unit (depending on what producer he buys from). To expand his Khador force he has to flesh out a full theme, and suddenly he's looking to be in the hole for +- R3000 for Legion of Steel, or R4000+ for the MoW theme. Small, incremental additions are just not viable if you want to paint your new purchase and play it in the world of ThemeMachine. I know PP have gone all-in on themes, but at some point I think they do need an honest evaluation of whether the benefits have been worth the cost (clearly I think the costs outweigh the benefits, but I'm sure they can get a more complete view of the costs / benefits than I can)
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Cyel
Junior Strategist
Posts: 685
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Post by Cyel on Jun 5, 2018 7:35:16 GMT
Yes, it is dying here in Poland. I live in a 2 million capital city. We struggle to attract 8 players to a local tournament. When I was starting, my first event - a small tournie for newcomers, which was just a side event of a much bigger master tournament - had more than 20 players.
The game has too many barriers of entry/maintenance. Absurdly expensive, unnecessarily complicated.
It competes with newer games which don't have those barriers and are easily comparable in terms of enjoyment and/or depth and/or visual appeal.
For me, for instance, modern board games have so many examples of absolutely stunning desing. PP should learn from them how to achieve immense depth of strategies with simple, approachable rulesets.
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Post by Gamingdevil on Jun 5, 2018 7:49:04 GMT
The game has too many barriers of entry/maintenance. Absurdly expensive, unnecessarily complicated. I wouldn't agree that the game is unnecessarily complicated. Everything is quite logical, but you do need to know the rules. The core game is quite easy to explain and grasp in my opinion, especially if you have a wargaming background. There are a lot of nuances indeed, but those are well explained in the rules. The game is definitely on the decline though, in Europe (at least on my side of it) this is partly because of supply issues. Another, probably big, part of it is definitely cost of entry, visibility/marketing and theme machine (which ties in with cost) In September the WTC is coming to your country, so we'll see what happens there. The solo masters are definitely the smallest they've ever been, but that's partly to make room for Guild Ball. |
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Post by slaughtersun on Jun 5, 2018 8:06:59 GMT
For me the problem isn't the ruleset. That is about as solid as any game can be.
An issue with themes is that it seems to bottleneck creativity and i'm not sure that's all on PP.
Another issue is the price point but that is another topic altogether...but just as a link to what i said above, where before you bought 1/2 units/solos/heavys... on themes you are almost forced to buy "x" of each just to play the theme.
In mk2 you could use all of the units and all of the jacks and still feel you were playing the same points limit (not talking about quality of lists with the available models) where now if you want to play on the same points value you are forced into themes.
Not sure if this makes any sense as i am ill at the moment XD
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faelin
Junior Strategist
Posts: 121
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Post by faelin on Jun 5, 2018 8:13:48 GMT
I've seen the same. It's much easier to lose a player then it is to gain one. As a result, numbers start to drop further and further.
One thing that no one has mentioned are the model release schedules. It's really been bothering me recently and I bet it's uncouniously bothering others. Under the new system, each faction gets it's turn for a big pile of releases. While we might get more stuff then before in one of those releases, there's also more time between your releases. You'll potentially go two years with nothing new, nothing exciting. It gets boring and resentful. It also makes you feel like you are fighting an uphill battle.
The dry spells between releases, paired with the fact that we're two years into Mark 3 and they're still trying to fix all the issues, is definitely making me less active.
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Post by 36cygnar24guy36 on Jun 5, 2018 8:25:15 GMT
I've seen the same. It's much easier to lose a player then it is to gain one. As a result, numbers start to drop further and further. One thing that no one has mentioned are the model release schedules. It's really been bothering me recently and I bet it's uncouniously bothering others. Under the new system, each faction gets it's turn for a big pile of releases. While we might get more stuff then before in one of those releases, there's also more time between your releases. You'll potentially go two years with nothing new, nothing exciting. It gets boring and resentful. It also makes you feel like you are fighting an uphill battle. The dry spells between releases, paired with the fact that we're two years into Mark 3 and they're still trying to fix all the issues, is definitely making me less active. Yeah, one of the things that appealed to me about Warmachine was new books had releases for each faction, now they have gone back to a pseudo-codex style of releases (one of the reasons I left 40k), I guess the 12 factions of Christmas tries to alleviate that a bit, but one model in 12 months is still pretty lame. |
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