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Post by coolguyclay on Jun 25, 2019 12:51:07 GMT
The thing I admire Mark for is his willingness to host a bunch of games at his house. To me, that is by far the biggest boost over other areas: an individual that loves his community so much he is willing to open his home to them. This is what stood out to me in the podcast as well (I listened to about half). Hosted in a house, 4+ tables. People come over even if host is not playing! Some will be strangers just looking for a game, and others will enjoy hanging out together. That is incredible community building, and much more personal than a store/business building. Not every community will have hosts like that, and maybe you struck gold in a way that is hard to replicate, but kudos on your successes : ) Thanks for sharing the podcast.
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gordo
Junior Strategist
My star is green?
Posts: 548
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Post by gordo on Jun 25, 2019 13:50:43 GMT
The thing I admire Mark for is his willingness to host a bunch of games at his house. To me, that is by far the biggest boost over other areas: an individual that loves his community so much he is willing to open his home to them. This is what stood out to me in the podcast as well (I listened to about half). Hosted in a house, 4+ tables. People come over even if host is not playing! Some will be strangers just looking for a game, and others will enjoy hanging out together. That is incredible community building, and much more personal than a store/business building. Not every community will have hosts like that, and maybe you struck gold in a way that is hard to replicate, but kudos on your successes : ) Thanks for sharing the podcast. Yeah, the availability after normal store hours makes a huge difference for a lot of players.
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Post by Charistoph on Jun 25, 2019 19:09:52 GMT
Heh, "normal store hours" for the two biggest LGS in my metropolis end at 10pm except for Friday & Saturday at Midnight, and 6pm on Sunday. And most will allow games to finish up. Still that doesn't change the fact that the Extremerollers dominate the scene.
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gordo
Junior Strategist
My star is green?
Posts: 548
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Post by gordo on Jun 25, 2019 21:33:15 GMT
Heh, "normal store hours" for the two biggest LGS in my metropolis end at 10pm except for Friday & Saturday at Midnight, and 6pm on Sunday. And most will allow games to finish up. Still that doesn't change the fact that the Extremerollers dominate the scene. What is it about the "Extremerollers" that bothers you?
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Post by Charistoph on Jun 25, 2019 21:53:00 GMT
Heh, "normal store hours" for the two biggest LGS in my metropolis end at 10pm except for Friday & Saturday at Midnight, and 6pm on Sunday. And most will allow games to finish up. Still that doesn't change the fact that the Extremerollers dominate the scene. What is it about the "Extremerollers" that bothers you? They don't play anything but 75 pt Steamroller scenarios. This makes it hard for new players to get caught up or for more casual players to get in optional games. They tend to be the biggest block to growing a meta.
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gordo
Junior Strategist
My star is green?
Posts: 548
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Post by gordo on Jun 26, 2019 2:41:01 GMT
What is it about the "Extremerollers" that bothers you? They don't play anything but 75 pt Steamroller scenarios. This makes it hard for new players to get caught up or for more casual players to get in optional games. They tend to be the biggest block to growing a meta. Weirdly those "Steamroller" traits have been integral in growing our meta. I think some of it is in how they are approached, as well as what the players in your area are craving. I think some of what happened is that all the players who wanted something more "casual" turned to other games. Age of Sigmar and Guildball would have made pretty significant dents into our player base if we tried to compete with them on their same strengths. We didn't try and make our games "easy" or "narrative". There were already better games for people seeking that kind of gameplay. So we doubled down on what WMHD did really well: top end competitive play. At least, I think that's where I think WMHD works... Guildball almost had me except sports and boring. But the actual gameplay and rules I think are pretty strong. Or were, last I played. WMHD pulled me in when Warhammer Fantasy imploded and nothing else stepped in to fill the void. I still think it fills that particular niche like nothing else. But at the same time, we never want to do that at the expense of alienating other people. Pretty much most games that we play that aren't actual scrum games are played with a clock... Until the time runs out, and then we keep playing until the game ends otherwise. We try and create an environment where everyone is struggling and encouraged to improve their play. This pursuit is part of the fun. Mentoring is pretty important to the group. I think it's a byproduct of the scrum format, and I think the relaxed time format makes it possible. Speaking from personal experience, I used to DESPISE playing on the clock. It was the opposite of fun to me... But after enough play, I won't pay without it. Keeps me honest, teaches me to think on our feet, etc... But it took a lot of help and mentoring from others to get me to this point. What I once looked at as a "barrier to entry" is now I think one of the strongest parts of our play.
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Post by Charistoph on Jun 26, 2019 3:52:07 GMT
They don't play anything but 75 pt Steamroller scenarios. This makes it hard for new players to get caught up or for more casual players to get in optional games. They tend to be the biggest block to growing a meta. Weirdly those "Steamroller" traits have been integral in growing our meta. I think some of it is in how they are approached, as well as what the players in your area are craving. I think some of what happened is that all the players who wanted something more "casual" turned to other games. Age of Sigmar and Guildball would have made pretty significant dents into our player base if we tried to compete with them on their same strengths. We didn't try and make our games "easy" or "narrative". There were already better games for people seeking that kind of gameplay. So we doubled down on what WMHD did really well: top end competitive play. At least, I think that's where I think WMHD works... Guildball almost had me except sports and boring. But the actual gameplay and rules I think are pretty strong. Or were, last I played. WMHD pulled me in when Warhammer Fantasy imploded and nothing else stepped in to fill the void. I still think it fills that particular niche like nothing else. But at the same time, we never want to do that at the expense of alienating other people. Pretty much most games that we play that aren't actual scrum games are played with a clock... Until the time runs out, and then we keep playing until the game ends otherwise. We try and create an environment where everyone is struggling and encouraged to improve their play. This pursuit is part of the fun. Mentoring is pretty important to the group. I think it's a byproduct of the scrum format, and I think the relaxed time format makes it possible. Speaking from personal experience, I used to DESPISE playing on the clock. It was the opposite of fun to me... But after enough play, I won't pay without it. Keeps me honest, teaches me to think on our feet, etc... But it took a lot of help and mentoring from others to get me to this point. What I once looked at as a "barrier to entry" is now I think one of the strongest parts of our play. Do not confuse the traits of the scenarios with the traits of the players. When the meta is dominated by the "tournament-only" crowd, it can be hard for any meta to develop. I have even seen it on the 40K side of things, not just WMH. 40K just had a more diverse player-base, locally, that the "tournament-only" crowd couldn't take complete control of it. Sadly, that couldn't be said of our WMH side.
And when AoS trotted out its General's Handbook, it brought enough people's attention away, that, as you pointed out, the more casual players turned to it to get away from those who were locked in that struggle. Or many went to the more hobby-less X-Wing for a lighter ruleset. When 40K trotted out 8th Edition, so many still had their 40K armies, that they dropped them.
The last couple of days where people were selling off models, I saw maybe one person selling off WMH on each. It was all Warhammer and board games from there. Even Infinity and HeroClix had better showings. It's interesting that the amount of people wanting to sell their models usually indicates the strength of the game system in our neighborhoods. My own LGS has reduced to about 6 feet of WMH and will only buy the latest, aside from a direct order.
Don't get me wrong, so long as we're talking Steamroller, these are great and friendly guys, but even getting many of them (or maybe it was just the certain parties I managed to talk to) to look outside the Steamroller set to do a Battlebox or low point game gets treated with disdain and scorn, and they push everyone to try and Steamroller as soon as possible, even if they aren't ready for it.
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Ganso
Junior Strategist
Posts: 932
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Post by Ganso on Jun 26, 2019 16:41:09 GMT
Steamroller guys were working hard building a Steamroller Community.
What was the non-Steamroller crowd doing?
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shmeep
Junior Strategist
Posts: 742
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Post by shmeep on Jun 28, 2019 12:32:02 GMT
Steamroller guys were working hard building a Steamroller Community. What was the non-Steamroller crowd doing? I swear I've seen this exact exchange a couple of weeks ago. Didn't you, charistoph and marxlives already discuss this in depth in another thread?
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Ganso
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Post by Ganso on Jun 28, 2019 18:27:47 GMT
Sadly yes, but it keeps popping up.
The message of taking ownership of your own hobby and build the community you want to engage with seems to not be getting across.
It's always "some other person needs to step up to give me the experience I require".
Be it more narrative, casual, painting, whatever.
I understand not having the time to do the heavy lifting, because I have been in the situation before and it is frustrating. I just don't think laying blame on others is constructive.
"They are in the wrong because I want X, and they can only provide Y" just doesn't compute with me.
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Post by Charistoph on Jun 28, 2019 19:49:03 GMT
"They are in the wrong because I want X, and they can only provide Y" just doesn't compute with me. It's more, "They are in the wrong because I want X, and they refuse to provide X." They CAN provide X, they just deliberately choose not to. Since they choose not to, I can place the blame on them since it takes (at least) two to play a game, and the other party will only play one way only.
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shmeep
Junior Strategist
Posts: 742
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Post by shmeep on Jun 28, 2019 20:03:20 GMT
"They are in the wrong because I want X, and they can only provide Y" just doesn't compute with me. It's more, "They are in the wrong because I want X, and they refuse to provide X." They CAN provide X, they just deliberately choose not to. Since they choose not to, I can place the blame on them since it takes (at least) two to play a game, and the other party will only play one way only. Why not introduce new players, then? The only community where I live doesn't accept new players, so I'm going to have to establish one from scratch. Tougher here, too, there's no wargame support in stores.
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gordo
Junior Strategist
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Posts: 548
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Post by gordo on Jun 28, 2019 20:13:27 GMT
It's more, "They are in the wrong because I want X, and they refuse to provide X." They CAN provide X, they just deliberately choose not to. Since they choose not to, I can place the blame on them since it takes (at least) two to play a game, and the other party will only play one way only. Why not introduce new players, then? The only community where I live doesn't accept new players, so I'm going to have to establish one from scratch. Tougher here, too, there's no wargame support in stores. Doesn't accept new players? Like, are they simply not taking the time to ease newer players in? Or do they literally not actually allow new players in, turning them away at the door, etc?
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Post by Charistoph on Jun 28, 2019 20:22:38 GMT
It's more, "They are in the wrong because I want X, and they refuse to provide X." They CAN provide X, they just deliberately choose not to. Since they choose not to, I can place the blame on them since it takes (at least) two to play a game, and the other party will only play one way only. Why not introduce new players, then? The only community where I live doesn't accept new players, so I'm going to have to establish one from scratch. Tougher here, too, there's no wargame support in stores. Hard to introduce new players when one's evening time is extremely limited. You may have missed Ganso's line about "not having the time to do the heavy lifting". I am lucky to get a night out once a quarter year. That makes it hard to meet people to introduce them to, now doesn't it?
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shmeep
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Post by shmeep on Jun 28, 2019 20:29:46 GMT
Why not introduce new players, then? The only community where I live doesn't accept new players, so I'm going to have to establish one from scratch. Tougher here, too, there's no wargame support in stores. Hard to introduce new players when one's evening time is extremely limited. You may have missed Ganso's line about "not having the time to do the heavy lifting". I am lucky to get a night out once a quarter year. That makes it hard to meet people to introduce them to, now doesn't it? Missed that. Dunno what to say, minis are a pretty high commitment game, so casual play will always be trickier than, say, card games.
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