Kurgan wrote:I've responded to you Davane in a PM explaining that I think you've misunderstood me, and what I don't think you've been fair about already. So, moving on...
I've replied to your PM, so I am not going to discuss whether or not HQ is set in the Warhammer World with you anymore here, Kurgan. We can agree to disagree. Plus, I'm beginning to wonder just how many people here are thinking that we should probably just get a room already!Kurgan wrote:To everybody else,
The real Question Mark for we the fans is the new content. They've been pretty tight lipped about it, except for the sparse bits and hints here and there. The fears among several forum members is that this will make Orcs into misunderstood noble Heroes, rather than the evil dumb army they were always seen as before. Yet, even if that's the point, we still don't see the execution of it. How would it play out? HeroQuest is not know for its elongated prose... Mentor says my friends, powerful magics out there, forces of Chaos, Emperor calls for aid, blah blah blah, and the quest begins a few short sentences later. Go from point A to point B, find the treasure, kill the bad guy, rescue the prisoner, escape with your lives or all will be lost. So even if they write some truly awful new storylines, we can still easily crunch those up into something wortwhile.
I AGREE it would be sad if we had to do that and apologize to all the people who stared and pointed when they saw us get all excited about this "Hero Quest 2021!" business. The people we talked into getting the game (or gifted it to them) may scratch their heads.
There's definitely fears about the new content for HQ, but it's also fears about the amount of effort Hasbro are putting in to change HQ, why they are putting it in, and their dedication to continuing HQ as a whole. It doesn't help that we've had no real updates at all about how HQ is going, let alone what changes there will be, and when we are going to actually get the games.
For the Orcs, a change from dumb evil minion to misunderstood noble hero is quite big, and is a bit of a concern if it's just dumped in as "these are orcs now" and then left, as we play the old HQ adventures in which the last thing you could say about an Orc was that it was "misunderstood." For all this talk of an ancient, magical, Orc kingdom - we've not seen any details, and this doesn't bode well for those of us invested in HQ.
Kurgan wrote:But then it got me to thinking... okay, so when you go and buy D&D these days (and who hasn't complained about D&D and I'm not even a regular player, I can count the number of sessions I've had on the fingers of one hand, but the books are fun to read sometimes too). Well, do you use EVERYTHING in there or just pick out what you want and leave the rest? That's kind of what we're doing here.
It should be noted that this is often referred to as the Rule 0 Fallacy - that is, deciding whether something (usually a game) is or isn't broken, because you can modify the game and/or choose to pick what we want from it. This fallacy exists because, whilst Rule 0 (The GM/Players can change the rules.) is generally accepted, using it in logical arguments about the rules undermines the whole point of having that discussion in the first place.
In general, any argument which involves the possibility of subject agency to change the situation is a logical fallacy, especially as it opens up things like the self-fulfilling prophecy fallacy (i.e. proving the argument that people kill people by raising the possibility of going out and killing someone.)
Ultimately, you are correct with your advice regarding choosing what we want for our HQ games, but it is not relevant in any form of objective discussion about HQ, especially if we are looking at what is officially released for the game.
Kurgan wrote:Sure you can say HeroQuest is designed to be simpler. But we already know with a high degree of certainty even before seeing the actual product (unless they are hiding a deep dark secret), that we're getting 34 "good" (classic) quests. It's the 4-20 "new" quests we don't know about, really. We already saw the lukewarm response to the three new heroes.
This to me is like when the great awesome movie comes out on disc and we all agree its great, but we're disappointed by the bonus features, that they weren't all that. But even if you paid an extra $50 for the "Mythic" tier, you were doing that to get the Kellar's Keep and Return of the Witch Lord expansions, right? Not just to get the Orc Bard and hope that Spirit Queen's Torment doesn'
I actually paid the extra $50 for the new content, because I wanted to see what the new quests would be like. These new quests will be a testament to Hasbro's commitment for HQ going forward, and will probably make or break HQ as a commercial franchise going forward. As it stands, we are fans of HQ, but the concerns and lack of information mean that we are unable to be Brand Advocates for Hasbro. Unfortunately, as it stands, fans being Brand Advocates is pretty much what will determine the commercial future of HQ at this point.
Kurgan wrote:It's clear that many of us have our pencils at the ready, with half-formed ideas of rewrites and replacements set to go off the moment the shrink wrap comes off the box. It will be interesting to see what people come up with. It's certainly a much easier task than the fan editors trying to turn the latest Star Wars flick into less of an embarrassment!
I'm hopeful, that with the gameplay intact, the rest will be easy pickings. Yes, we'd prefer it not be cringe-inducing. Just like I'm relieved they are casting the plastic figures in shades of color rather than grey (for those who don't want to paint them), I would be relieved to hear that the new quests were done in the spirit of the established lore (whether NA, EU or some other classic release) than something shoe-horned in from D&D. But let's be real here, without explicit access to the Warhammer fantasy material, doesn't that seem like the most logical source they would pull from? People have expressed worry that "D&D writers" are just putting their favorite characters from that game into this one. If they could just make something up (a tall order I suppose) but in the "spirit" of the classic work, maybe that would be the best, but it's still a risk.
Both D&D and the Warhammer World are so broadly generic in nature, that there's plenty of inspiration to be taken from them without challenging any Product Identity. The concern that HQ is becoming more like D&D isn't so much about D&D itself, but rather the changes that are being made to D&D and the impact it has had on the game. D&D has evolved a LOT, both in terms of gameplay and settings, for good and bad. The current trend right now, however, is the new zeitgeist of forcing social diversity issues from the real world into the game, either out of fear that social diversity wasn't already in the game, or out of trying to prove how "woke" the game or setting actually is.
Kurgan wrote:At this point of uncertainty, I do feel for those who fear a loss of the Warhammer fantasy inspiration in this new version, I really do. But consider the position they are in. What do you expect them to do? If they don't have the rights to the properties of Gamesworkshop, they're going to have to change it somehow, or just leave it out entirely. Fans in North America didn't get the fancy map of the Olde World. We can still print one out. I hope for your sakes that Hasbro doesn't have a new one created that "forces" you to accept its a different world. What if it was the same map but the names were all changed? What if instead of the Empire it was the Imperial Realm or something? "The Dreaded Wastelands of the North"? I have no idea, ask a trademark lawyer. If they just leave that stuff out, that's probably the most diplomatic decision, if they can't get a last minute deal (we can dream). The fact that they've stated they're using the NA version as the base and yet they're clearly sprinkling in unique material from the EU editions, which leaves the whole thing ambiguous. If they can't even say its loosely set in the Warhammer olde world, what can they say now?
Leaving stuff out is never a problem, especially if you are using an additive design philosophy. For example, Fimir don't appear in NuHQ, but Hasbro can have Abominations included in the mythos as well as Fimir, but they just don't get mentioned any more officially.
Thing is, that Hasbro can't say that HQ is set in the Warhammer World, however loosely, but they CAN say that it isn't set in the Warhammer World. MB also had this choice, but decided not to. After all, if Warhammer fans want to think that HQ is set in the Warhammer World, then that will lead to more sales for them.
As far as I am aware, the Japanese edition was the only edition that wasn't set in the Warhammer World. Instead it was localised with a "new" setting that would appeal more to a Japanese audience. However, there's plenty of room in the Warhammer World for the setting of the Japanese Quest Book to fit without disturbing anything, as even now, there's vast swathes of the Warhammer World that has barely had more than a few generalised paragraphs detailing it. Japan equates to Nippon in the Warhammer World, in the far east, but as far as I am aware, it has never been officially detailed as anything other than a land to the far east where ninjas come from - and that's paraphrasing. There's probably lore on it SOMEWHERE, if you dig around enough, but it's not like the Nipponese Army was core to Warhammer Fantasy.
Kurgan wrote:What if it was set in the NEW WORLD... whoa, game changer (literally). Seriously guys, I hope whatever they do is as painless as possible. Remember we still have the classic game. It's too bad they couldn't have just reprinted that, like some other board game companies have done. I know, rights issues and lawyers... The wrong way to do it would be to come out and say that all previous versions of Hero Quest are non-canon. There would be no reason to do this, it would just come across as insulting to the fans they are selling this to in the first place. If they're never going to remake the various other packs, it would be foolish and counterproductive to somehow say fans couldn't use them (an unenforceable directive in a game such as this). So hopefully they'll be polite and just take our money.
The New World in Warhammer is Lustria and Naggaroth, as well as the lands in between. There's a Bretonnian colony there too, and some vampires if I recall correctly. WD included two articles about sailing to the New World in WHQ, and exploring the jungles of Lustria and the remains of the Lizardman empire. More details can be found
here.
Or did you mean HQ was set in A NEW WORLD? Like I said, as well developed as the Warhammer World is, there's always room for new places to be discovered. Domains come and go overnight in the Border Princes, and even in the Empire, where it's been charted to death, there's still new things to be found, new political regions defined, and new foes to face, whether hidden deep in the woods or under unassuming villages.
Basically, unless Hasbro out and out says HQ is set in an entirely different world to the Warhammer World, then people will continue to assume it's set in a broadly fantasy setting like the Warhammer World (if they are aware of it, of course). Hasbro has the right to say HQ isn't set in the Warhammer World, however disagreeable this may be to people who still appreciate GW's involvement in making HQ the game it is today. The problem is not that they might replace the Warhammer World, but what they are going to replace the Warhammer World with, if they even bother to replace it at all. Hasbro has the opportunity to define what the HQ brand is, and differentiate it from the Warhammer World, should they choose to do so. But the lack of communication that we've seen doesn't inspire faith that Hasbro are in any way dedicated to making HQ a success, let alone defining it as a uniquely branded setting.