Why do you think Warhammer Fantasy failed?

[Nork]

Good afternoon,

Why do you think Warhammer Fantasy failed as a world? I mean, it's got a lot of interesting things, nice characters, original features, but, in the end, it failed to create a living world like Warcraft. From my point of view, I've always seen Warhammer Fantasy as a static universe, where nobody dies, and which story has been almost the same since its creation, without any sign of progression.

What are your point of view?

[pawsz]

Good afternoon,

Why do you think Warhammer Fantasy failed as a world? I mean, it's got a lot of interesting things, nice characters, original features, but, in the end, it failed to create a living world like Warcraft. From my point of view, I've always seen Warhammer Fantasy as a static universe, where nobody dies, and which story has been almost the same since its creation, without any sign of progression.

What are your point of view?

Didnt the endtimes literally kill everyone a few years ago?
Also, making a good games requires a company to be invested in it. GW wants to make a quick buck so they shell out the franchise for some random games.

[Dundebuns]

Good afternoon,

Why do you think Warhammer Fantasy failed as a world? I mean, it's got a lot of interesting things, nice characters, original features, but, in the end, it failed to create a living world like Warcraft. From my point of view, I've always seen Warhammer Fantasy as a static universe, where nobody dies, and which story has been almost the same since its creation, without any sign of progression.

What are your point of view?

They have progressed the story A LOT. Chaos won, and destroyed the warhammer world plunging it into some multiverse weirdness where the survivng races had to scrounge to live, although some races managed to thrive and prosper (looking at you Skaven yes-yes). I think the current story is several millenia after Chaos won and various Gods and mortals made Gods are now fighting back in earnest to try and win the soul wars and put down the pantheon of the current five Chaos Gods.

I'm not that knowledgable about the Age of Sigmar since I prefer 40k (which in itself has had some serious story progression recently) but Games Workshop are not keeping their worlds static, and they have definitely not failed.

[Mysterymask]

umm not sure if failed is the right word...
I mean as videogames sure it didn't do AS WELL..but the pen/paper/figurine community I feel is still going pretty strong

[Kumorii]

https://www.warhammer-community.com/...new-warhammer/

They are planning a comeback, so we see what happens Soon(tm)

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umm not sure if failed is the right word...
I mean as videogames sure it didn't do AS WELL..but the pen/paper/figurine community I feel is still going pretty strong

Vermintide did very well and so did Total War Warhammer series with 3 coming soon, excited af... but yeah beyond that the games hasn't been stellar.

[Zeta333]

https://www.warhammer-community.com/...new-warhammer/

They are planning a comeback, so we see what happens Soon(tm)

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Vermintide did very well and so did Total War Warhammer series with 3 coming soon, excited af... but yeah beyond that the games hasn't been stellar.

To bad they cant make a 40k game that isnt trash or by a hasbeen studio or no name studio.

[Kumorii]

To bad they cant make a 40k game that isnt trash or by a hasbeen studio or no name studio.

Fatshark who did Vermintide are doing 40k version of the game. People are optimistic about it.


I do wish for a Total War 40k though.

[Nork]

Guys, the End Times happened 5 years ago after almost 30 years without any progression. Besides, the End Times wasn't a progression itself, it was the excuse to literally FINISH Warhammer Fantasy as we knew it. Age of Sigmar, which is what Dundebuns is talking about, is not Warhammer Fantasy at all, it's not even the same world.

[Teaon]

We might see a retcon to that, since they are investing so much with CA in total war, they are building up the lackluster factions like Vampire Coast and Cathay soon.

So, in the end, Cathay could actually play big in stopping the end times.

[Dundebuns]

To bad they cant make a 40k game that isnt trash or by a hasbeen studio or no name studio.

Guys, the End Times happened 5 years ago after almost 30 years without any progression. Besides, the End Times wasn't a progression itself, it was the excuse to literally FINISH Warhammer Fantasy as we knew it. Age of Sigmar, which is what Dundebuns is talking about, is not Warhammer Fantasy at all, it's not even the same world.

Just because you don't like the direction they took doesn't mean it isn't progression of their existing franchise. As stated above they're planning to redo the old world regiment type game in the next few years (hopefully in a smaller scale so we can have larger armies) and I expect that will remain in a relatively static universe.

[segara82]

Warhammer Age of Reckoning:
While Warhammer has quite a bit of lore and history, unlike WoW it had not 3 successful and widely loved games to build on. Factor in that Warhammer is rather dark in order to make it appeal to enough players you would have to lighten it up that much that the original WHF fans would complain.

I enjoyed the game itself, but it was not quite as polished and accessible as WoW. Lack of support from EA and thereof lack of content in the medium to long run resulted in faster dwindling player numbers. Realm vs Realms and pvp alone are/were not popular enough.

Dawn of War:
Loved the first 2, very meh'd by the third one.

Total War:
A long awaited dream of many fans. And quite good too. But 3 fullpriced games and so much DLC to buy is a personal turn-off.

Space Marine:
Now that game is fun. Was never good in the MP but the SP was highly entertaining and sticking to the lore.

As for why Warhammer Fantasy got replaced by AoS? IMO the designers ran out of ideas of how to progress the story. Like Blizzard can never have a clear winner in the red vs blue conflict so can the Old World never be free of Chaos or Chaos win and trample the Empire.
There can never be big time-skips either that would advance the technology further before you end up with WWI like weapons and trench warfare. Steam punk and magic is hard enough to incorporate with medieval/rennaissance warfare and fantasy monsters. Everybody would have to rebuy his army with every new edition/time skip. The gamers would riot and/or quit.

Rule-wise WHF was more complex, you had to manage your formations better with all the rules concerning deployment, charging, line-bonuses, musicians, (magic) banners, then there were the save-modifiers, ... 40k in the third edition became much easier to simply play.

[caractacus]

I'm not quite sure exactly what you are asking? Do you mean why did Warhammer Age of Reckoning fail?

If you do mean that I can only offer my own personal account as a big warhammer fan (models and tabletop game, not so much lore) but I never played the online game, why? Well there was a couple of reasons; First was that I never got invited to the beta, that might sound a bit petty but as I said I am big fan and when I heard people getting in who didn't know anything about Warhammer I took that a bit personally. Second was that I've always been a bit unsure of licensed games, they tend to fail as some of the funding is used up in obtaining the license and also there can be quite a bit of complacency as developer think that the name will sell the game rather than it actually being any good. So when the reviews came out and they weren't all that great I decided to give it a miss.

[Nork]

They have progressed the story A LOT. Chaos won, and destroyed the warhammer world plunging it into some multiverse weirdness where the survivng races had to scrounge to live, although some races managed to thrive and prosper (looking at you Skaven yes-yes). I think the current story is several millenia after Chaos won and various Gods and mortals made Gods are now fighting back in earnest to try and win the soul wars and put down the pantheon of the current five Chaos Gods.

I'm not that knowledgable about the Age of Sigmar since I prefer 40k (which in itself has had some serious story progression recently) but Games Workshop are not keeping their worlds static, and they have definitely not failed.

They literally destroyed the Warhammer Fantasy world. It's like Blizzard destroying Azeroth and saying that wouldn't be a failure.

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I'm not quite sure exactly what you are asking? Do you mean why did Warhammer Age of Reckoning fail?

If you do mean that I can only offer my own personal account as a big warhammer fan (models and tabletop game, not so much lore) but I never played the online game, why? Well there was a couple of reasons; First was that I never got invited to the beta, that might sound a bit petty but as I said I am big fan and when I heard people getting in who didn't know anything about Warhammer I took that a bit personally. Second was that I've always been a bit unsure of licensed games, they tend to fail as some of the funding is used up in obtaining the license and also there can be quite a bit of complacency as developer think that the name will sell the game rather than it actually being any good. So when the reviews came out and they weren't all that great I decided to give it a miss.

I'm talking lore-wise rather than videogames-wise.

[Mysterymask]

They literally destroyed the Warhammer Fantasy world. It's like Blizzard destroying Azeroth and saying that wouldn't be a failure.

I'm talking lore-wise rather than videogames-wise.

Ahh yes the "I hate it so its a failure" argument. I almost forgot I was in MMO Champion for a sec.

[Nork]

Just because you don't like the direction they took doesn't mean it isn't progression of their existing franchise. As stated above they're planning to redo the old world regiment type game in the next few years (hopefully in a smaller scale so we can have larger armies) and I expect that will remain in a relatively static universe.

I'm talking about its lore, not about videogames.

[caractacus]

They literally destroyed the Warhammer Fantasy world. It's like Blizzard destroying Azeroth and saying that wouldn't be a failure.

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I'm talking lore-wise rather than videogames-wise.

I didn't really follow the lore too much but was personally quite happy playing the tabletop warhammer fantasy up until 8th edition. It was pretty clear though that warhammer fantasy was struggling and the main reason I would put that down to was that it was being heavily over shadowed by 40k. I used to visit several gaming clubs and spend a lot of time in the general community and everything was about 90% 40k and 10% fantasy. Even the Lotr licence couldn't make a dent in the 40k behemoth. So I don't think that fantasy failed so much as 40k succeeded. I can see why they did age of sigmar it was a gamble with nothing to lose, it hasn't really paid off lore wise but I'm sure they don't mind as they are still shifting the models.

[Nerovar]

Good afternoon,

Why do you think Warhammer Fantasy failed as a world? I mean, it's got a lot of interesting things, nice characters, original features, but, in the end, it failed to create a living world like Warcraft. From my point of view, I've always seen Warhammer Fantasy as a static universe, where nobody dies, and which story has been almost the same since its creation, without any sign of progression.

What are your point of view?

Well, that was kind of the point of Warhammer Fantasy (and to an extent Wh40k). These universes existed as more or less static settings that functioned as a giant canvas for hundreds of smaller stories. The setting didn't change for the most part because it didn't need to change. The setting was what people liked about it.

Both Warhammer Fantasy and 40k are large enough to accommodate pretty much any story someone could make up for that world and there are more than 150 novels taking place in the Warhammer Fantasy universe alone.

I don't really think Warhammer Fantasy failed as a world. It primarily failed as a vehicle to sell miniatures which is why Games Workshop decided to blow it up and replace it with a new generic fantasy setting. Games taking place in the Warhammer Fantasy setting like Vermintide or Total War Warhammer are still immensely popular though.

[Rasula Elfbiter]

One of the reasons FB was failing commercially due to being heavily based on generic historical and fantasy designs.
People used to buy cheaper miniatures from other companies to use in Warhammer armies.
There were Empire and Bretonnia armies completely made from 28mm real world German or French soldiers of 15-16th century.
Some companies, like Mantic, actively copied GW's fantasy races and released orcs, elves and zombies at much lower price (am not talking piracy here, which wasn't affecting FB as it affects Forge World and new 40k releases, but designing seemingly original models heavily based on GW's ideas)
Also, GW, could not copyright generic names of races.

Thus they decided to reboot it with a more unique design and IP they could actually claim as their property.

[ParanoiD84]

It's quite easy it didn't sell nearly as much as 40k

Age of sigmar acually brings in tons and tons of money for GW though so much that they will now bring back fantasy again.

Age of sigmar is also pretty damn good atm and they keep fleshing it out with alot of novels and lore.

And the models looks absolutely amazing.

The old world returning will be amazing with tons of new models and tons of new novels and lore so damn happy they desided to bring it back probably also alot to do with the sucess of total war and Vermintide.

[Belize]

I'm talking about its lore, not about videogames.

They're rebooting it with The Old World due to popular demand.

Truth of the matter is that WHF's reboot into AOS didn't have anything to do with the Fluff, but with the designers writing themselves into a rules corner. The game had gotten incredibly bloated, and the current writing team simply didn't have the skill to fix the game.

The AOS reboot also had the benefit of being able to start from scratch and sell you all new models.

Same with The Old World where we know they're working on models for Kislev.

The fluff is secondary to model sale for GeeDubs.