9th Age The soft silence that seems to be setting in on this forum

Hi all! I feel that with the advent of AoS, there has been a lot less activity on the forum. People seem to be more split in their interest then they used to be, we used to all play 8th, and now people play 9th, 8th, AoS or even KoF. I feel that this has resulted in less communication on the airwaves, as we have all split our interests somewhat. We all love our lizards, but we have different preferences in game systems, so we have less that we want to comment on etc. How do other people think about this, and is there maybe an admin who can confirm (or disprove!) my feeling that there seems to be less traffic ever since the ruckus of the AoS release died down.

 

Well traffic usually tends to die down between major release's of books and models....

 

@airjamy I feel the exact same way. I know that personally I have been a lot less active because there are far fewer topics/threads that catch my interest (in my case 9th Age).

I feel that AoS still has a pretty significant following on this forum (though not as much as 8th edition had enjoyed previously). I think you're completely right that that interests of the forum have been fragmented. I guess this is to be expected, however unfortunate.

In terms of game systems, I would say that order of popularity on this forum would be...

1. AoS
2. 8th Edition
3. 9th Age
4. KoW

However I do feel that 8th Edition and 9th Age swap places from time to time. Kings of War discussion seems to be nearly non-existent while AoS content is still quite prevalent.

 

A lot of it could be that 9ty is discussed at 9ths own forum. I knowim doing stuff there at least :/ kinda bummed, as this is my homeland.

 

That's a good point. I'm sure that really does contribute to it.

 

well, as a LM and chaos dwarves player I have to say that we could have had worse reactions: the chaos dwarves forum i used to read is practically dead. Also the italian warhammer forum i used to read (i also wrote the Lizard and CD guides there...) is totally gone, except the 40k stuff (almost dead too, anyway). It's very sad, expecially when you realize that people you used to read at least 2-3 times a week disappeared: internet isn't the real life, but sometimes you almost feel like it is and then things start falling.

I know many people, both in real life and on the internet, who just decided to stop playing: some for the amount of money and/or time this hobby requires, but not only that. Someone got sick with AoS (or even with The End Times) feeling that GW screwed the armies they built with passion, time, money and the game they used to love. Some others, in particular the ones who mainly care about playing and not so much about modellism, just think that the total war game for PC will be enough (personally I'm going to try the game and i'm sure i'll love it, but i don't wanna stop playing the "physical" warhammer).

The ones who still wanna play are, like you guys rightly told, fragmented (like this post, you know, i like pressing enter sometimes to add solemnity).

I personally am a 9th age guy, for now: when T9A will be complete 8th won't have a reason to be. I mean, T9A is a revised 8th and for now the work done is great: I don't refuse 8th games but I see them as a nostalgic leftover from the past. 8th wasn't bad, but had some problems and unless you play it with limits it will never be balanced (I've never liked the way in which 8th limits used to work). That being said tho, I'm starting to feel a bit doubtful regarding the project: the balancing phase still has to really start it seems, but there is a lot of harsh between different armies and i'm not sure that the staff will be able to make everyone happy. I mean, T9A could become the perfect edition, but many players never heard about it and many of the ones which are (or were) interested are losing interest.

KoW had its short moment of glory in which a large portion of the player pool seemed to be interested, but a great portion of the KoW guys turned back to 8th or joined T9A: it's a different game, so the ones who are actually looking for warhammer... tend to find warhammer, in the end. Not saying that it's not a good game, but it's a different one and some people don't feel comfortable with it.

AoS seems to be popular: many players joined it because their units got buffed, some others just because of the general speed of the games, some because of new models (very few, tho) and now someone for the background (i have to admit that even if i don't like AoS very much i like the seraphon background, for example). There are also the ones who just love GW, I didn't believe it possible but masochism seems to be a real thing...

Personally I think I'm going to try all the systems: T9A, KoW and AoS (8th doesn't need to be tested, but since I have some friends who wanna play 8th I'll keep playing it, probably). If i'll like them all I'll just write in all the sections, and I hope many of you will start to do the same: what made our forum quiet can actually make it even more noisy than it was before. Really, imagine if each of us wrote in at least 2 sections: it would be huge!

And regarding the talk on T9A happening mainly on their forum... It's true, but this is our homeland: we can talk freely here, because even if we often don't agree we're all friendly. Yep, we're all lizardmen here: saurus leaders hit each other with their clubs when they do not agree, but they don't kill each other. It's just a way to find an agreement, isn't it? Well, in other forums people are way more hostile!

This is, I swear, the most friendly forum I've ever read, and also the most active: it's not easy to be both the things, for a forum! And many of us think the same, i know it.

This silence isn't a good thing and i think we've lost many comrades, but I think that our forum can still give us much: in The End Times Lustria has burnt, but Kroak saved big chunks of jungle and the temple-cities. Well, we're those chunks. We just have to stay together to model a huge jungle interrupted by golden temples. We're Lustria

 

You're right, it wouldn't take much effort to reinvigorate the flow of topics and discussion on this forum.

It truly is a great community of members and the moderators do a fantastic job at fostering a positive environment. There is also a very helpful little Panda @Scolenex that can always be counted on .

 

I have been posting less. Not sure why. Lotsa real life happenin' I guess.

 

Agreed, on many above points.
I do spend more of my time on the T9A forum right now, but I think I might spend more of it back here once the full version is released...there will be less need for investment once the development phase is over.

For now, as T9A Army Support I'm trying to start some conversations over there about our units and balance; I have neglected to start those same conversations here, as pinktaco and Mr. Phat did so well. So I think I'll try to involve L-O in the T9A conversation that's going on there, and we'll see if that brings any new energy into the forum.

...and for the record, while the Lizardly section of T9A seems like it's one of the friendliest, Lustria-Online remains even more hospitable. So I'll look forward to gathering your feedback in a highly civilized way!

 

Have to say that T9A is indeed losing my interest. So many updates and yet so far to go it seems. I read up on the changes on lustria rather than look at the actual full updates, but lately the changes I've been reading just have me bummed out. I know we want a balanced game and the overal rules were done brilliantly IMO, but I need a game to make sense. And for me personally a lot of new rules i have been reading here just don't make sense. Balance wise they might make sense but not in my mind. So I've been less active because of that mainly.

I will be playing an 8th edition campaign wich people can follow in the battlereport section. That will probably be the only thing I write on this site untill T9A is close to completed fom .

 

The painting section is definitely strong and vibrant. We've also had some amazing contests (such as yours! ) which have really brought some excitement and buzz to the forum. I'm interested in this new contest that the mods have brewing.

 

Personally I've been posting a lot more recently, though it's worth noting that I tend to be mostly exclusive to the AoS section. And while a number did leave, an almost equal number of new players seemed to have turned up for AoS (a common thing I hear from players I've never met before turning up for AoS is that they haven't played in a while since before 8th but AoS reinvigorated their interest,) but the traffic seems lower because as was said, we're fragmented. Even if we have the same traffic, the fragmentation will cut off a majority of the users from one another. I think that's what's it.

If you want more communication, I feel like encouraging cross-game discussion to get AoS players talking with 9th players, and 8th talking with KoW etc would be the way to go about that.

When will the kink-shaming end?
But yeah, personally I do support GW because I rather love it, but only kind of. I really really love my local GW, it's a great hangout for hobbyists, the staff are all brilliant people who really come off as just more hobbyists rather than staff members, and it all constantly has a very positive atmosphere. But GW as the brand itself? Yeah I don't care at all about the company as a whole, my loyalty is to the local shop itself and nothing more. I think that even people who hate the company can understand that.

Well that's very kind of you to say, pal.

 

To be honest, if AoS proves not to be profitable enough, GW would probably scrap it rather than re-launch WFB alongside of it. I think WFB is dead to GW no matter how AoS performs (at least in the foreseeable future... bloodbowl and specialist games are being relaunched, so in a decade or so who knows ).

 

Conversely, the fluff department and painting sections seem vibrant and have a lot of new blood. The future is in flux, and I think this gives a creative freedom that wasn't there before. It seems like every other week someone writes something that sheds a different light on the lizards we all love.

I personally got burned by the End of Times, in that I was trying to keep up with GW releases which were coming out faster than they could be absorbed (you can't do satire unless your audience knows what you are satirizing) I was also expecting some continuity with the "World that was well backgrounded" in AoS, but alas

Took me a while to get into it again, but now I am writing and drawing whatever I feel like from the ashes of the intellectual property GW abandoned - although with a sense of urgency because the new generation of gamers won't have a grounding in WHFB world history. I feel like I should try and reference as much of it as possible so that at least some of it lives on.

I'm scared to look where T9A fluff is going. It would be nice for me if it built on 8th, but IP reasons probably prevent that.

 

Man was born with two ears and one mouth, a reminder that he should listen twice and speak once.

I frequently drift in and out, but never mistake my lack of post for losing interest, it usually means I am busy and have a lot going on in life, which could be anything and everything, up to and including new and big projects.

 

Not to derail the thread, but is there an approximate release date for the 1.0 non beta release of 9th age?

Agreed

Sounds great. I'm always looking forward to reading more 9th Age content.

 

I know I haven't been posting as much as I used to, but I still check the forums a few times each day! For me, it has been real life: changing jobs in the past year, wife is pregnant, and we have moved back in with my parents temporarily while our house is being built...