Now that I have your attention, okay, no, Warhammer doesn’t suck because of you. 😉
I just thought I’d share some observations that maybe people would have some intelligent insights on, because I’m kind of struggling with how awful they seem at first glance.
For example, I got involved in the Coreheim team early on (a fan-generated version of Mordheim). The extreme pushback that we got from players was astounding. We have even gotten hatemail attacking us personally, and people reporting us to GW, and long rants telling us to get lost.
In the same vein, we launched a project yesterday that we had been working on for some time (WyrdWars). We haven’t gotten hatemail yet, but ostensibly people (including Warseers) have made a point of reporting us to GW.
Here’s what I can’t understand: We are some Warhammer FB fans who are using our time and our own money to make a game for whomever wants to play it. We have not made it commercial in any way (which is GW’s no. 1 criteria for what they will allow). We have not asked people to do anything, or bullied them. On the contrary, we have provided a free set of rules (and inspirational art) that people can use if they want to and ignore if they want to. Yet somehow we are the subject of hate, bashing, and self-styled enforcers that suddenly feel it is their duty to report us to GW (even though GW knows about Coreheim and think it’s fine).
What is really astounding to me is that if you read the Warseer boards, people do nothing but complain about GW and how bad they are. Yet when someone then tries to do something about the situation by making a set of fan rules, people suddenly love GW and hate the other party. I want to emphasize that I am not just talking about myself here. I have seen lots of fan-generated projects getting bashed and reported here on Warseer for no good reason at all. It’s like people love to hang back and whine, but then turn around and get vindictive and spiteful if somebody actually tries to do something about the situation.
Here’s how I see it: If you’re a Warhammer player and someone makes a rules mod, you’re just better off all around. The sum-total of what you can use your miniatures for has expanded. Even if you don’t like the specific rules mod, competent fandexes will be in your interest over the long run, as GW (by their own admission in WD) traverse through the various rules posted online and snatch the good ideas for future versions of Warhammer (I am not an expert on WHFB, but apparently, GW snatched a rule or two from Coreheim over the years). All in all, then, you may shrug your shoulders at fandexes, but you have no reason to hate them or suddenly turn around and become GW’s own STASI informant after you’ve been whining about how bad GW are in thread after thread.
Another observation on the matter is this: People keep whining about how bad GW’s rules are, but when someone makes something alternative, they suddenly seem to think that the GW rules can’t be improved at all and that they’re the output of a process of math geniuses with lab coats and pocket calculators, and that the GW rules have no ambiguities or imbalances.
With fandexes, I can understand that some people don’t want to play them, but all to often, people bash and hate on fandexes, their sole criticism being that they’re not made by GW. Okay, I can understand that you don’t want to play those rules, but why on earth are you bashing the module then, when by your own admission, you would never give the rules a chance? If you want to bash the contents, you should at least be criticizing the actual contents rather than the circumstances surrounding the contents.
All in all, then, while I recognize that there are fair-minded and constructive people out there, it’s pretty disturbing to be a fandex writer. Ungrateful is one thing, but the people who whine about GW and then suddenly turn around to side with them when someone tries to do something about the very complaints that they are having are a pretty disturbing sight. It would be easy to think that they are the reason that Warhammer sucks.
TL;DR:
* People whine about GW, but then suddenly become GW’s BFF when someone makes a rules module.
* People take it upon themselves to be GW’s willing STASI informant, reporting this or that fandex to GW, which seems pretty authoritarian and misplaced. (Note: Commercial infringements, I can understand. Non-commercial, not so much.)
* The vast majority of fandexes are made by people who use their own time and money to bring you a module which you can use for free if you want to. How is that a threat, or in any way a cost, to you?
* Maybe people should be a little less gleeful and restrain themselves from taking obvious pleasure in bashing fandex writers for not being official when they are not contributing anything themselves. Note that nobody is saying that you should like this or that particular fandex. Just try to pull your own weight by not bashing people who are actually trying to contribute.
***
Perhaps Jurassic 5 have said it best:
yo, either you a part of the problem
or part of the solution
what’s your contribution to life
so many people complain, always talk about change yo
but what’s your contribution to life