Understanding the Old World setting - when did it go south for you?

[Ozreth]

It is my understanding that the WH Old World of the 1980s had a shift in lore that was a major change and turn-off to some, something I have seen mentioned in passing on this forum. In relation to both the wargame and the RPG, when and what was this shift?

[Rick]

Even the Old World of the 1980's wasn't without its problems - despite setting off from the same place, both WFB and WFRP ended up in different places. The original novels explored the Old World and enhanced the lore of the setting, which was echoed in the WFRP game. Then when the WFB army books came out GW sidelined that entire lore completely, pushing it far back into the past and going off in a completely different direction. That there have been several other changes in direction since then doesn't surprise me as GW brings in different people with totally different ideas. There has been very little in the way of a guiding overall strategy - just different people pulling in different directions at different times - it has been (and probably still is) a complete mess.

[Belligerentparrot]

You might be interested in an article that is up on the GW site at the moment explaining how they've approached Cathay from the Old World. They went back and read everything that mentioned Cathay as far back as 2nd ed., to make sure that the current stuff is grounded in what came before. I think they do that quite often - there is some stuff in the current version of Necromunda for example that has its origins in the late 80s Confrontation game GW never finished.

As for when the Old World went south, I know some older heads who didn't like the Realm of Chaos stuff coming in, felt it dominated the setting too much. For me, the fluff never went south, I lost interest in WHFB when the rules went south - the edition with the High Elves and Gobbos in the box.

[Hobgoblin]

Yeah, the Old World has essentially two forms: the gritty, dark, lived-in world of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and Mordheim; and the zany, technicolour world of Warhammer Fantasy Battle.

These two Old Worlds have never really matched up.

The latter was best (I reckon) when it was largely undeveloped and open-ended: in the first, second and third editions. It didn't take itself too seriously, and there wasn't much 'lore', but it was a generic fantasy world with room for everything and startling flashes of originality (Lustria, for example).

[HerbertTarkel]

I liked WHFB from 5th (Lizardmen and weirdly opposed Bretonnians), up until they blew it up with Age of Sigmar and tried to “40k” the setting.

Sure, some editions were better than others, probably 7th was my peak rules after the chopped up version that 6th was, but Sigmar just… is bland.

I have tried to look at the “new Old World” and generally I like it, but GW being GW, they have “FOMO” releases with things like the classic Orc Shaman on Wyvern, which just kills the fun. Make it available or don’t. Don’t force me to jump if I want it. Because I won’t jump, and I’ll not bother. I have some of the books for the new OW, and gave up.

[syrinx0]

Third edition was our highest participation, 4th was tolerated, 5th killed it.  I think it was more of getting tired of the constant changes that impacted individual armies more than anything. I would agree the Chaos updates were a bit over the top and unbalanced. AOS... even I hated that fluff change. 
I was always up for gaming 3 or 4th edition but in spite of our not being tournament driven we couldn't keep interest up in our group.   

[HerbertTarkel]

Third edition was our highest participation, 4th was tolerated, 5th killed it.  I think it was more of getting tired of the constant changes that impacted individual armies more than anything. I would agree the Chaos updates were a bit over the top and unbalanced. AOS... even I hated that fluff change. 
I was always up for gaming 3 or 4th edition but in spite of our not being tournament driven we couldn't keep interest up in our group.

You didn’t like 5th?!? That was by far the silliest, most wonky, edition, ever! Bretonnian wedge charge was invincible, Dogs of War?!? OMG, so much fun to add mercenary giants to an army of Tzeentch daemons (with no reason how they got there  ) but man they could crush anything. Also MAGIC DECK OF CARDS!

All bases were required to be Goblin Green. Sawdust tint for flock. Smelly Primer applied by hand on all metal models.

Those were the days!

[syrinx0]

Being the only Bretonnian player in our goup - I liked the wedge changes. Dogs of War were truly magnificent units in my opinion - I had quite a few. But it died with 5th edition in our group.

My Skaven hordes were quite non conformist and had beastial brown bases.

[HerbertTarkel]

Being the only Bretonnian player in our goup - I liked the wedge changes. Dogs of War were truly magnificent units in my opinion - I had quite a few. But it died with 5th edition in our group.

My Skaven hordes were quite non conformist and had beastial brown bases.

We had no Skaven in our local; O&G, Dwarfs, Lizardmen, Chaos (many…), Dogs of War, Brets, Empire. Weird that no Skaven, eh?

[syrinx0]

We had no Skaven in our local; O&G, Dwarfs, Lizardmen, Chaos (many…), Dogs of War, Brets, Empire. Weird that no Skaven, eh?

My skaven tended to kill themselves as often as others when their spells or war-machines failed. Funny no one else ever played them...

[HerbertTarkel]

My skaven tended to kill themselves as often as others when their spells or war-machines failed. Funny no one else ever played them...

  that sounds very much like my 2nd ed 40k Orks - the Shokk Attack gun killed ZERO enemies in 2 years but did kill a crap-ton of my own models. Still didn’t stop me from hoping … TWO YEARS 

[Elbows]

I got into 40K in the early 90's...and while I always admired Warhammer Fantasy around the time, I didn't collect it outside of Warhammer Quest.  No kid could afford a regiment of 30 figures in metal (which would have been 10 blisters!), or a big fancy regiment box, etc.  I had played Battle Masters a few years earlier, but that was the extent of my fantasy gaming.

I later started reading all the back issues of White Dwarf, and really the mid-90's was the sweet spot for my interest.  As with all things, it became weirder and weirder...bigger and bigger, and eventually the minis became a bit too much for most of the armies.  I lost interest in reading the battle reports in the early 2000's or so.

So, while now I game "in" the Warhammer Fantasy world, my interest in the kits, games, and appearance really is mid-90's.

There aren't words to describe how much I loathe AoS in almost every regard, but I was fortunate that it didn't impact me when it came around.

[HerbertTarkel]

AoS was TRULY LOATHSOME to anyone who had, say … 8 or 9 4000pts of various late Warhammer edition armies. Like me … it took me about 18 months of eBay to clear out my armies. I’m a former Golden Demon winner. My stuff was painted to a pretty high standard. Sigmar sucked all the life out of gaming from me. But I did make a crap-ton of money from the resultant sales of people who did ? ninth ? “Fan Edition” and kept going? I travelled the world. Literally.

[robh]

For me the end point was when "Chaos Undivided" became a thing.
 
Doing away with the original Conanesque "Barbarians" style of Chaos and introducing the Realms of Chaos was a massive change in the game world (it also resulted in production of 2 of the best Warhammer products ever).

Each God having unique forces and strengths and weaknesses created some wonderful armies. So the subsequent decision to ignore all that and just pick the best units from any list as an "undivided" force was a stupid decision.

[v_lazy_dragon]

Although I got into WHFB in 5th; it was really Mordheim/6th Ed that I got properly involved. To my eyes at the time 6th ed felt a bit grittier than 5th ed - particularly for the Empire and Skaven who were my principle interests. Both armies (as presented in WD, etc) were more uniform and less 'explosion in a paint factory'. Reading a lot of the Black Library novels at the time didn't really throw up any consistencies to my teenage eyes.

Looking back, through my Empire-centric eyes, for me it tottered over a line into 'Overly grimdark' when the most recent plastics being released.... in 8th (?) edition. Although I must admit, by then I had drifted away from GW games to other things