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Post by harrism on Aug 26, 2018 9:14:22 GMT
So I picked up the old collosals book for £1 recently and yesterday I sat down and read all the fluff in it. And you know what, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I've also got the apocalypse book I picked up at the same time and I'm now looking forward to reading that.
I also realised yesterday that I've not seen a single bit of fluff type material get released with miniatures since Mark 3. I know books (I read and enjoyed the pom one) have been released but I don't have time to read all the books for all the factions. What was wrong with having books that covered events and told the story for all the factions like the old update books? I know they're doing it in the new no quarter magazines (and I'm reading them) but from what I can gather they're just rehashing the old content and that's years behind the current date.
I want to know who Cyrenia is, how did the juniors all go full Warcaster, all these new Cid stuff, how does that fit into the fluff? All the new versions of casters (feora3, caine3, skarre3 etc) how/why/when? Who are CG (at least grymkin got a book)? There's loads of stuff that needs explaining!
I know fluff isn't for everyone but I know I'm not alone and it feels like something that's being missed at the moment. Maybe all the writers want their names on books but for me wargames have always been about short stories giving insights into the characters and bringing them to life.
I'd just like 1/2 catch up books to get the fluff to to date. They can still do books to go into much more depth with stories but at least give us an overall view of where the world is and why it matters. Two years with no fluff is to long!
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Post by Azahul on Aug 26, 2018 10:31:53 GMT
Fun fact, Cyrenia actually shows up in No Quarter Prime # 5 during the fluff recap bit. Pretty interesting way of doing an origin story.
But yeah, it's a drag. I play pigs, and the last mention they got in the fluff was Lord Carver staring down a newly ascended Barnabus in the final stages of the enormous battle at the Trollblood Kriel. That story just... cut off, with no resolution. We don't know what happened to the warring Gator and Farrow armies, whether Carver escaped from Barnabus unscathed, whether Carver was actually able to best Barnabus and send him packing, whether the two were interrupted by Trolls, or what have you. Mighty frustrating.
Heck, Sturm and Drang have never featured in a piece of fluff to my knowledge, which is a shame for such interesting characters.
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Post by supersoldier86 on Aug 27, 2018 8:12:26 GMT
Half the reason I originally started warmachine (back in mk1,when it was just warmachine),was the fluff,I also liked the layout that the books used to cone in,especially superiority.
Not a massive fan of the new books to be honest
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Post by harrism on Aug 27, 2018 12:32:12 GMT
The Grymkin one was ok, the others were really meh...
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Post by redcathal on Aug 27, 2018 16:02:56 GMT
I am also in this category of player that liked the fluff however I've never read any/nor am i likely to read the novels. I liked that it was in the books and read it there but ultimately CID has replaced the books in a large sense so the fluff is just gone
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Post by hocestbellum on Aug 27, 2018 16:53:18 GMT
Some of the novels are pretty good; I really enjoyed the Butcher one.
I miss the fluff, too. I particularly miss the book releases like Apocalypse and Wrath, where everyone was getting releases, so everyone got some story time. It really gave a sense of a coherent world with a progressing story.
As opposed to 'Suddenly, Infernals!'
A separate thing is how they never release the previous fluff as an almanac, or anything like that. I would pay good money for it. I don't know all the backstories, and I have no realistic way of finding out. For example, did you know Heirarch Severius is canonically dead? I had no idea.
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Post by gargs454 on Aug 27, 2018 17:16:29 GMT
For example, did you know Heirarch Severius is canonically dead? I had no idea. No! He's not dead! He's simply part of a Vessel of Judgement that will rise as Sevvy 3! [damn Skorne] On a serious note, with Mk 3 PP made the decision to sever the fluff from the game books. Those books now deal, more or less, strictly with crunch. What we are really seeing though, and have seen, is PP doing away with the rule books completely since everything is on Warroom and CID makes for "frequent" errata, etc. As a practical matter, printing books is at best, a dicey and expensive proposition, and with the idea of a more regular update cycle coupled with CID, etc., it also made it so that not a lot of people were likely to drop decent money for a rule book that would likely "soon" be completely obsolete. It would come to be that the only reason for grabbing the books would be for the fluff inside them. That means that in order for the average consumer to consider the book "worth it" the amount of fluff would have to get a lot greater than it was previously (i.e. mostly fluff with only a bit of crunch -- opposite of the old in other words). So they made the decision to simply sever it completely and push it all to Skull Island. The problem is that, presumably, the Skull Island books are also not selling well -- we haven't had a release in a while and there doesn't appear to be anything on the horizon. Ultimately, the publishing industry right now really, really sucks between a slow migration of the business model (moving away from print and toward electronic), an over abundance of authors, and paucity of quality talent evaluators, costs of marketing/publication, etc. Add to the fact that Warmahordes fluff has a very narrow market (i.e. a portion of the WMH playerbase, though not all of it) and you have a really tough market to crack. In short: My guess is that its just not been a profitable endeavor for them, even though there are players who would love to read the fluff. Market history is probably showing that not enough players are interested in reading the fluff for them to be able to make a profit off of it.
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eathotlead
Junior Strategist
PP forumite since 2004
Posts: 259
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Post by eathotlead on Aug 27, 2018 23:10:39 GMT
I agree with much of what's been said: I miss the fluff. The very early days of a business driven largely by artists and authors was great. I do, however, also understand the (inevitable?) business model away from slow- turnover printed books of crunch + fluff, toward frequent e-changes (CID). The latter has been valuable in its own way. :/
Ironically, Privateer *Press is the company's name... Press (noun): PUBLISHER "a business that prints and produces books or other printed material" - Cambridge University Press
On their YouTube channel, Seacat did say he wasn't at liberty to say what's coming down the pike as far as fluff but it felt like there was something in the works. I hope it's substantial.
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skormedlover87
Junior Strategist
Desperately searching for days off to game...
Posts: 517
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Post by skormedlover87 on Aug 27, 2018 23:58:29 GMT
Maybe they're gearing up for a big set of book/fluff compendium releases. Or maybe the reason he's not at liberty to discuss it is because they've made the decision to drop the fluff as an active, factual part of the game experience. Really, they've released what, 6 books since MK3 dropped, and 4 of those came more or less right away. BoK, Caine, dragony thingus and crappy invasion of Lael. Then Godless and 2nd crappy invasion of Lael petered out later.
They seem to be losing steam in this regard and it's simultaneously been seen that Seacat is chin deep in rules design nowadays.
I feel like if they do more fluff, it'll come from something like a new IKRPG or something. Otherwise too many of their books are bad and inconsistent.
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Post by Charistoph on Aug 28, 2018 14:50:59 GMT
Seriously, it can be a challenge to get one's hands on the Mk 1 fluff, either the books or the No Quarters. Mk 2 fluff is starting to get that way, depending on your local book reseller.
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Post by gargs454 on Aug 28, 2018 15:10:57 GMT
Seriously, it can be a challenge to get one's hands on the Mk 1 fluff, either the books or the No Quarters. Mk 2 fluff is starting to get that way, depending on your local book reseller. Yeah older stuff will be even harder, especially since a lot of it may have come out prior to e-books/kindle/etc. Reprinting just isn't going to be a feasible option for them economically. Hopefully they can eventually get a lot of it loaded up into a digital release but even that might have contract issues with the authors if the contracts didn't specify digital releases. I'm honestly not sure exactly how that works with rights, royalties, etc. I imagine a lot of it may be dependent on the wording of the contract, but even if the contract potentially leaves the door open to a digital release, if it doesn't specify the amount of royalties for digital releases they could run the risk of angering their authors -- even if they are legally ok. If they want to keep the authors happy but the contract is vague regarding digital releases, then it means negotiating new contracts, etc. I do have a friend who is a fairly successful author so I can ask her about it as I know she has wrestled with publishers in the past.
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Grimolf
Junior Strategist
Posts: 246
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Post by Grimolf on Aug 28, 2018 16:18:08 GMT
I’m also concerned about the disappearance of new fluff. No Quarter Prime has done a good job of re-telling the back-story (stuff from the Mk1 books). They shifted the new fluff to Skull Island, but then seem to have dropped that. The last books in the two series they were running (Godless and Acts of War) came out prior to L&L 2017! It’s been over a year since we’ve had any new fluff. I’m guessing Skull Island has been closed and they don’t plan to continue it (possibly because of the costs of publishing, as gargs454 and others have noted). Where does that leave us for new fluff? Perhaps, new fluff could be shifted to NQP also. They are currently telling the back story there, so why not also have a section to tell the current events. Since we’re not getting army books any longer, we don’t get any information about the new casters, or how old casters have progressed. This could be the place to do it. Plus, the Skull Island book series weren’t enough to give story for all of the factions anyway. Speaking for myself, I’d prefer to see a new regular section in NQP devoted to new fluff (even if that meant cutting a current section).
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skormedlover87
Junior Strategist
Desperately searching for days off to game...
Posts: 517
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Post by skormedlover87 on Aug 28, 2018 16:27:33 GMT
Maybe it's part of their imitate old GW policy. The storyline won't ever actually advance, so they've decided no new fluff is needed!
P.S. I know GW kept getting new "old" fluff even when the actual story was frozen for more than a decade. I just think PP probably decided to drop fluff because theirs hasn't overall been good enough to attract non-players. And to make the cost worthwhile it needs to be.
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Post by Charistoph on Aug 28, 2018 16:49:45 GMT
Seriously, it can be a challenge to get one's hands on the Mk 1 fluff, either the books or the No Quarters. Mk 2 fluff is starting to get that way, depending on your local book reseller. Yeah older stuff will be even harder, especially since a lot of it may have come out prior to e-books/kindle/etc. Reprinting just isn't going to be a feasible option for them economically. Hopefully they can eventually get a lot of it loaded up into a digital release but even that might have contract issues with the authors if the contracts didn't specify digital releases. I'm honestly not sure exactly how that works with rights, royalties, etc. I imagine a lot of it may be dependent on the wording of the contract, but even if the contract potentially leaves the door open to a digital release, if it doesn't specify the amount of royalties for digital releases they could run the risk of angering their authors -- even if they are legally ok. If they want to keep the authors happy but the contract is vague regarding digital releases, then it means negotiating new contracts, etc. I do have a friend who is a fairly successful author so I can ask her about it as I know she has wrestled with publishers in the past. Too much is dependent on the specific contracts. They could even be worded differently for every author, and that's assuming that the authors in question were contracted for the work instead of already being employees of the company. And then there's the simple concept of are you working with a David Weber/Margaret Weiss versus Jane Doe who has only before written fan fic for her D&D games.
Still, all and all, I do hope, as has been said, compendiums start rolling out to help those who have missed things, either due to discovering the game late or lacking the funds at the time to acquire said documents. They would sell, and actually help bring in new players.
Maybe it's part of their imitate old GW policy. The storyline won't ever actually advance, so they've decided no new fluff is needed! P.S. I know GW kept getting new "old" fluff even when the actual story was frozen for more than a decade. I just think PP probably decided to drop fluff because theirs hasn't overall been good enough to attract non-players. And to make the cost worthwhile it needs to be. Heh, the truly ironic part of that is GW has actually had their first significant story line advances in almost their entire history of running the Warhammer games. Oh, they've had minor ones here and there, and even retconned a couple as well, but nothing moved things forward as much as the destruction of the old world or the massive expansion of the Eye of Terror.
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Post by HubertJFarnsworth on Aug 28, 2018 16:59:17 GMT
I’m also concerned about the disappearance of new fluff. No Quarter Prime has done a good job of re-telling the back-story (stuff from the Mk1 books). They shifted the new fluff to Skull Island, but then seem to have dropped that. The last books in the two series they were running (Godless and Acts of War) came out prior to L&L 2017! It’s been over a year since we’ve had any new fluff. I’m guessing Skull Island has been closed and they don’t plan to continue it (possibly because of the costs of publishing, as gargs454 and others have noted). Where does that leave us for new fluff? Perhaps, new fluff could be shifted to NQP also. They are currently telling the back story there, so why not also have a section to tell the current events. Since we’re not getting army books any longer, we don’t get any information about the new casters, or how old casters have progressed. This could be the place to do it. Plus, the Skull Island book series weren’t enough to give story for all of the factions anyway. Speaking for myself, I’d prefer to see a new regular section in NQP devoted to new fluff (even if that meant cutting a current section). Just as a note, NQP has included a lot of fluff info on each new theme force and the equivalent of the old fluff profiles for most (all?) characters in the release. Seems to do a good job of replacing the theme force books they originally talked about.
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