Muster for war !!

[Lex]

and fill out the inquiry !

[Stomm]

So what are the development mechanisms? I for one have no interest in trying to develop a V2 ruleset via a committee of those that happen to have the spare time to do so. Ultimately someone needs to stick their neck out and take the flak that comes with being the lead designer, a committee merely ensures that nothing worthwhile will get decided upon and even when it is, no-one will be to blame for bad rules changes as the whole point of collective decision making is that everyone can blame everyone else for any bad decisions...


Yes I know, I sound like a grumpy so-and-so, and yes Warmaster does indeed desperately need a 2nd edition. Personally I think a 2nd edition that you cannot buy in physical form is almost as bad as no second edition at all, and one that isn't even published on the GW website does little more than help to further fragment the Warmaster community as you will still get some playing the V1 rules in the paper book, and those that use the unofficial version two community rules.




Anyway, enough nay-saying. If you could answer my questions that would be useful. I'm not sure if I can really spare the time to get involved at this stage, most of the free time that I have is taken up with the garden, or if I can then getting the games club up and running, etc...

[fracas]

while i agree that a lead game developer is needed, a committee can be useful to propose and evaluate rules update.

and for me even a v1.5 combined ruleset in pdf would be better than what we have scattered currently

[Lex]

I will act as Lead Developer, which I have done for Rick before when working on the V2 .2 book as well. There are already several groups that are part of the playtest team, and helped with the Trial Army lists. Those groups will get assigned rules-changes to test and report back on. Some issues will be put up for "global" playtest feedback at certain stages, with the emphasis on PLAYTEST feedback, as it is all to easy to comment on rules without actualy trying them in several battles with different army-composition, terrain layour etc.

The current questionair is set-up to get additional feedback from the community at large, in addition to material already reported on earlier by the various parts of the playtest team.

And yes, this will be a community effort, it is unlikely that GW will pick up on this and publish it, but we can. If Net-Epic could manage, then so can we ! As things stand now, if we manage a concerted effort, then we can put it out towards Rick, which would make it as official as it can get in MY book !

[azrael71]

If Net-Epic could manage, then so can we !

Bloodbowl was successfully supported and developed for many years by the community to the point it is the game it is today (although GW put a spanner in the works recently).

So it sounds like a plan Stan.

[azrael71]

while i agree that a lead game developer is needed, a committee can be useful to propose and evaluate rules update.

and for me even a v1.5 combined ruleset in pdf would be better than what we have scattered currently

Checkout over on the yahoo site, there is a combined pdf for eval purposes.

[vincent]

FYI the french community have published a fantasy extension to Warmaster Ancients. It basically adds to the official Ancients rules all that is missing to play Fantasy armies with unmodified army selectors (for now): magic, monsters, flyiers, artifactes, machines, etc.

This is called Warmaster Medieval Fantasy (WMMF). It is the result of a year and a half of design and testing with lot of different playing style and armies. It has been a success in that in France alot of Warmaster player switched to Ancients because they felt the rules are far better. Most of those players are now back playing Fantasy. Almost all french active player are now using WMMF instead of the official rules.

I am the de-facto coordinator of the WMMF initiative and would be more than happy to share with you anything that could help.
I strongly believe that the community should take ownership of the game and pushed a lot to make this happend in France.
It would be great if that happened world-wise

[Stomm]

Glad you're at the helm Lex, gives me someone to moan to and about

We all know that Warmaster needs a 2nd edition, I am really, really unsure whether doing so without getting it in print is a good or a bad thing. For one thing many of the things in WMA would improve Warmaster, but not by any means all. For starters, skirmishers in their WMA form should not be included, as they can slow the game down a fair bit...

[azrael71]

@Vincent - do you have a link?

[vincent]

Sure I do:
http://www.brimarx.com/pub/WMMF_Regles_v1-1-0.pdf

But that is written in French
I can do a rough translation to give you the core of WMMF in english if you believe that would serve the community.

I do agree not all WMA must be used.
When we created WMMF we decided to keep it 100% compatible with existing armies. And that means ignore all ancient-specific rules like skirmishing.

[Nat]

Lex, thanks for all your work on keeping the warmaster rules rolling, and thanks for opening the submission form for our thoughts on V2 warmaster. I have filled the form in with the 2 points I feel could do with a look at.

I do wonder however if you could elaborate on the reasoning behind not including any of the WM:Ancients changes, I realise that they are not currently freely available to download from GW, is the IP/copyright issue the only one behind this? or are there other reasons? As I and others I know really consider WM:A to be V2 of the core rules and they addressed some (but not all) of the flaws of the WM core system. It seems a shame to have to re-solve problems in a different way when they have already been solved in a derivative ruleset.

[Lex]

the main issue is IP.
additionaly Rick has always indicated that the mechanics for WM-fantasy have a different "purpose" then those he used for WM-historical. In a sense BoFA is closer to a v1.x of Warmaster. Any V2 (in my honnest opinion, and having been part of development for BoFA and V2.2 Armies) should remain true to the "fast and furious" mechanisms where possible.

Lets do the inventory of issues, and then I will see how and what we adress, I will also try and hook up with Vincent to see what they ended up with and try and ensure that a final product would be acceptable for all. As David says, the last thing we would want is the community to splinter

[Stomm]

As an aside, when it comes to IP copyright issues. You can copywrite specific words, but you cannot copyright a mechanic. IoW, you can write and publish a game that is identical in every way to WMA, just so long as you describe the rules in a different way, even using different terms to describe the same thing in a different way. For example you could describe stands as bases, or elements, components or whatever. Not that I am suggested that you do of course...

[vincent]

I've filled the enquiry. I've restricted myself to core rules issues. I have a lot more to say regarding armies balance and so on, but IMHO that is minor in comparison. I believe step 1 is fixing the rules. And step 2 fixing the lists (incl. magic, monsters).

[vincent]

Regarding IP, several games uses the WM engine and even the same terms without any problem. IP is an issue only when using copyrighted material or doing obvious copy-paste. It could be an issue as well if GW had a pattented WM rules engine.

Anyway, the risk is a lot mitigated when doing non-profit usage and crediting when credits are due.

As far as I know Epic and BloodBowl community never had any issure regarding IPs.