Quote from: RPGPunditdo you have any proof of this particular claim?

RPGPundit

The only way I can assume this would be true is if they intended to either continue to sell rpg books to offset startup costs (1st print run didn't meet full expenses) or if they intended to sell each book at a loss in order to sell models.

But I'd be curious to find the source on that info, too.

There are times when I wonder if cancelling it on the day it came out and leaving out all the good stuff was just a marketing ploy. They can make sure everyone grabs it now instead of later. Then in a year they can go:

"well it sold well and some fans did all the work for free and we used recycled art (Dark Heresy is 99% recycled art) so it didn't cost a lot, so here's the Space Marines book but don't expect Rogue Trader this time next year because this is all we're doing except these three books for Space Marines that we just happen to have ready to go!"

One problem I've heard from a few people in the industry is that gamers tend to wait to buy things they think they can pick up later. That's one of the reasons for the move to limited run releases.

Quote from: David JohansenAt one time I firmly believed that absolutely anyone could learn to spray, pick out a couple details and dip.  Which is how prepaints are generally done.

Having tried to teach my son, I have to say it just isn't true.

I can confirm this. My lack of skill, patience and focus know no limit.

Thus the dread of getting sucked into minis gaming.

For to lack talent is not to lack discrimination, my friends. I suck, but my minis shouldn't. --> $5 paintjob per 28mm figure. 1 platoon = 30 figures. Ka-ching!

Also, terrain. Someone's offering an awesome Stalingrad factory on ebay right now. Burn-out buildings, boiler room, the works. $950. "Or best offer" (yeah right).

They had 3 copies of Dark Heresy at the local Chapters (like Barnes & Nobles).   Lots of pages, full colour (in the same way the WotC D&D books are), and $63 ?!  :eek:

Quote from: RPGPunditdo you have any proof of this particular claim?

RPGPundit

Black Industries was axed before Dark Heresy was even released, before any profits were reported.

Yes, it's true.

In the GW Group financial interim report for the first part of 2008 (detailed report for stockholders only) is all about the Cost Reduction Program.  Tom Kirby states that this program (which includes closing stores, changes to manufacturing and changing the infrastructure of the company) will create a 69.9% gross margin that is sustainable.

Stockholders know that most of the money made by GW are (in order from most to least profit) - (Games Workshop Stores first, then independent stockists) Miniatures, Paints / Hobby Supplies, Game Manuals for Core Systems (WH40k, WHFB and LotR) followed by Specialist acts such as Fanatic and Black Industries.  Black Library consists of Black Industries and Black Flame (at least one of which is unnescessary) and these do not do nearly as much as any of these other pieces of the GW family and as such the overhead needed to run them is driving profits (and thus stock) down.

Black Industries wasn't making as much as it was costing, at least under the old infrastructure.  This is subject to change with the new corporate programs that are launching and as I said before, I wouldn't completely despair never seeing the Rogue Trader or Deathwatch published under the main GW imprint that is called Black Library.

Also take a look at the Nasdaq (GAW).  Last November was a peak, when GW group was pushing Apocalypse and the huge Battle Formations.  Lots of growth there.  February?  Dark Heresy?  Profits are WAAAY DOWN, even though it's an increase from January (Codex Orks, just a few people updating their Codeci) With no big expansion to the core games to move the models, that's when GW suffers, not when they axe a tiny imprint tasked with making a product that isn't considered to really even be worth the while.  Black Industries was a small piece of the GW family and they weren't pulling their weight.

I would add that this time it wasn't another publishing company making the RPG (Hogshead), but an in house design group that GW owns.

Any further information I'm sure you can glean from the internets on your own.

@ John - GW will never make Prepaints as it would kill the entire mission statement.  I find all your proposals completely intolerable and at odds with the hobby.  Prepaints are invariably made of a type of plastic that is inferior to GW products.  I have an idea for you, though - go play a prepaint game from another company like the one you linked.  You won't be missed.

@ David - 99% recycled art?  I wouldn't say it was that much, as I happen to know where every single piece in the book came from.  More like 50% at the very most, but if you're a GW fan you're accustomed to this and even appreciate it when you see a familiar picture in a new book.  They only print art that is no longer in books that are in print in new books.  The fact that the art is used again is also further evidence that GW owns Dark Heresy completely and I wouldn't be surprised if Fanatic started covering the GW rpgs.

There was a lot from Blanche's =][=nquisitor sketch book.  Also =][=nquisitor itself, heck, there's one or two severed heads laying on the ground I swear came from Mordheim.  I'm not putting down recycled art.  Some pieces should be re-used lots.  The old one of the Emperor and Horus for instance.  I'd have dropped two pages of Dark Heresy text for that picture, no problem.

Actually, recycled studio art is one reason I really wonder what the book cost to produce.  Art is a big expense in rpg production.

As for the price?  It's a good twenty or thirty less than the 40k or fantasy hardback for the minis games.  Maybe the low price point in the rpg field is why the axed BI.

Actually, as I think about it, if I was doing a marines game it would be about the Marines Errant, little seen since the Rogue Trader days but still occasionally mentioned.  I'd re-think them a bit as a place where marines who manage to not fit into a traditional chapter get sent to serve.  Sort of like the Last Chancers but with a strong element of small parties of disfunctional marines from different chapters forced to work together against impossible odds.  "Brothers, this industrial world has developed heretical tech and must be pacified.  Sadly we can only spare you six.  We're sending you to one of the last loyal governers to help him hold out against the invading forces!  Go with the Emperor!"

Before I begin talking, I feel compelled to mention that I'm a total Warhammer "n00b".  I know only a little bit about the various Warhammer games. Anyway, I bought Dark Heresy a few days ago, and returned it to the store today. The game isn't for me. The tone of Dark Heresy feels even more hopeless than Call of Cthulhu, if that's even possible.

It's odd. I own WFRP 2e, and LOVE that game, while Dark Heresy feels like a more hopeless, highly-straightjacketed version of WFRP 2e, except "in spaaaace". :haw:

I knew going in that the premise of the game was that characters would presumably be members of an Inquisitor's retinue. But the book beats you over the fucking head about how much you're the Emperor's bitch, and if you're not, then you're a servant of "CHAOS"!!!! ZoMg, OH NOES!!11 :rolleyes:

I hated it. The first thing I wanted to do was hunt down the Emperor and fire a plasma gun up his ass. Then I'd go daemon hunting. Then.....um....kill EVERYBODY, as EVERYBODY in the fucking game is either a psychopath or a scumbag (or both), and it felt like there was no room whatsoever for basic human empathy and compassion.

At least WFRP 2e gave you some room to breathe. Not everyone in that game is assumed to be the Emperor's bitch, and the game had some light doses of black humor to offset the grittiness.

Dark Heresy takes itself Too Fucking Seriously.

I also didn't like the layout and organization. It wasn't nearly as intuitive as WFRP 2e.

The flavor text and art was interesting, but the art conveyed a tone of the setting being grotesque, dismal, and hopeless. Too hopeless for me, it seems. I'm okay with a world full of monsters and madness (like Conan's Hyboria), but Dark heresy overdoes it. Reading the book actually depressed me. I actually like a little hope in my games, ya know? In DH, there is none.

I don't know what the rest of the Warhammer 40k Universe is like, but if it's as grim and confining as this (a million worlds, yet only one god? no thanks), then I think I'll pass. At least I had multiple gods to choose from in WFRP 2e. Being straightjacketed is not my idea of fun.

I guess that makes me a heretic.

There is no hope.  Khorne has basically won.  War without end.  Without the Dark Eldar I don't think Slannesh would be around anymore.  I don't think anyone else is allowed to enjoy sex in 40k.  It's required, it's your duty to reproduce, but some how I get the feeling that most human males ship out to fight the aliens the day after they bed their first breeding female.

Tzneech conspires and Nurgle pollutes but really the whole world is a hopeless universe of war without end.

Dark Heresy cost $49.99, same as the main rulebooks for Warhammer 40,000 and Warhammer Fantasy Battle.  I'm really not into the Lord of the Rings game, as even amongst GW fans it has sort of a 'newb' quality so I'm not sure how much that one is, but I'll guess that it's $49.99.  WFRP was also $49.99.  MSRP.

Same as every other GW hardcover for the last several years.

Doh!  Canadian dollar's par now, but GW never lowered their prices.  Dark Heresy ships through rpg channels and so the price is a good $25 cheaper here.

Hadn't even thought of that.

Quote from: Blackhand@ Spike - Here's my defense - It's equal to the game it's based on.  You know that Dark Heresy derived from Warhammer 40,000 right?  If you actually played Dark Heresy there are a ton of modifiers to attack, so many that it's a little easy to hit people...+10? What about the +30 that is easy to get at least once every combat.  MY FUCKING POSITION?!  Why don't you get someone to run the game who actually can.  

Oh, and I can tell you're a munchkin player.  Why don't you just have your players add +10 to all starting characteristics?  The progression from Warhammer 40,000 is maybe +1 or +2, which translates to +10 or +20 in Dark Heresy.  This is the same system that Warhammer Fantasy Battle / Roleplay uses and this is what we (I refer to we who know what the fuck we're talking about) expected.  Room to advance.

Reading your posts is a bit like watching a blind deaf fat kid in the throws of a PCP induced rage. Sure, it looks impressive, maybe even scary, but really, there isn't anything to worry about as its just blind flailing.

You utterly failed to grasp the point of my question. Fair enough, I expected it, just like I expect that the needless insult I started with will shut down the guttering spark you call critical facilities and you'll post stupidly emotional arguements and call everyone else noobs and GW haters and whatever else you can think of to make yourself sound more like an expert.  

Here is one hint: I GM, jackass.  I've never heard anyone complain that their GM was a munchkin. Its not the wiff factor of the dice numbers being low either, jackass.  Its that the character creation is utterly at odds with what every other part of the setting tells us the Inquision does when recruit shopping.  They don't pick up raw recruits from the Guard or PDF forces, they don't recruit gutter punks with knives (barring some extraordinary power), they don't bring on board chumps. If an Inquisitor wants Stormtroopers, he fucking gets Stormtroopers. He doesn't waste time hoping his untrained recruit survives long enough to BE a fucking stormtrooper. He doesn't hope his street punk with a knife survives long enough to be a potential Temple Assasin... he gets a god damn temple assassin.

Hell, the setting doesn't even work that way either.  CHILDREN are turned into commisars or Sororitas, or Assassins.  They don't work their way up some chain of expirence from adult with no SKILLS (not, for the third time 'attributes') or Talents. Unless you want to start play in the lord of the flies testing on board the Black ships and other recruiting grounds, it can be assumed that even those children who are the future character worthy recruits are already two and three thousand XP characters.

THAT is were the breakdown is. Not the fucking attribute numbers you are so hung up on. Its that new characters, even with four hundred XP are so pitifully underskilled that they are not suitable to survive in the 40k setting, much less be 'characters' compared to just about every other example in the source material.

Sort of like if someone released a Star Wars game where you couldn't have a Jedi or every own a starship. Sure, you might get a guy with 'the force' who could knock over a salt shaker with his mind and a guy who can FLY a starship.... for someone else.

People would probably not like that. Its not very 'Star Wars' that way.

Ditto 40k.

Hell, I haven't even addressed the problems with the Psyker powers, the Mechanicus abilities or the fact that there are no rules for tapping larger organizations, depite the fact that you can play a 'Guard Commander', a Hierophant of the Ecclesiarchy or a Gang Boss...

Never mind the traditional servants of the Inquisition...




Never thought I find someone who makes Erik Boille actually sound reasonable...

I'm glad you don't like me or Dark Heresy.

We knew that yesterday though.

Quote from: BlackhandI'm glad you don't like me ...(snip for relevance).

We knew that yesterday though.

Well, we established pretty quickly that you don't like anyone here at all, so the feeling is mutual.

Actually there are a few people here that I like and I'm pretty sure they like me.

Quit putting words in my mouth, and quit assuming you know what you're talking about.

Quote from: BlackhandActually there are a few people here that I like and I'm pretty sure they like me.

Quit putting words in my mouth, and quit assuming you know what you're talking about.

I'm sorry, did I fail to recognize your unmatched mastery of all things 40K sufficently?

I better avoid offending you, you MUST be in great shape given how much exercise you get leaping to conclusions and brow beating everyone around you...

Let me see if I can put this into perspective, bucky. Given your self description here, I have  more expirence with and knowledge of 40k than you do. I've been playing longer than you, read more books than you.  I'm just better than you as a human being, but thats hardly relevant now.

I am mildly irritated by Dark Heresy's default assumption of starting level of competence.  I think the game book is beautiful, but the game engine is a weak, even half assed, port of the Fantasy ruleset... I could do better in far less time than they took but I don't get paid to do so.

On the other hand, I find your condecending attitude and general buttfuckery to be a far worse sin, and if it weren't so amusing to watch your blind flailings and general attempts to shout everyone down to prove your nonexistant superiority, I'd probably just avoid you like I would a rotting carcass in the street.  

Luckily for you, I am bored and more than willing to egg you on just to watch you continue to windmill endlessly.  Congratulations, I just validated your existance for the day.  What, oh what, shall you do tomorrow?