[...]

Regarding RT - you are right that the origin path was a great thing, which I wish they would return in a similar way into DH2 with 1 or 2 additional steps in the character creation.

What I liked less about RT was the class ar archetypes, which did not meet so much my personal taste. But thats simply a matter of taste.

I like careers, I like class restrictions and requirements in my games, I like being given definition and borders, and I like my character concept being mechanically represented, where there's a correlation between fluff and function. But the whole Rank and Skill/Talent limitations in Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader is sometimes annoying as hell, and never made any sense. Black Crusade onward, I can only say "good riddance".

Maybe FFG can add a small version of the origin path with "your way into the inquisition" and "your ordo of service" with a handfull options for each and a small bonus for each...one still may dream

But with a much lower relative "power level", of course.

What I ceretainly dislike is, that I now can throw away my old DH1 books, which were quite pricey

Well, parts of the books. The rules sections - things like Adept Sororitas careers and such were always going to be incompatible with a second edition even if they made it much closer to DH1 (which would come at a high cost to how much it could be improved, imo, but anyway). But all the fluff and the adventures are still usable. I'm a bit of a fluff-fiend so possibly I'm skewed on this but as the characteristics are on the same scale I think it's fairly easy to eyeball an NPC in a DH1 adventure and come up with the DH2 equivalent pretty much on the fly. I've already converted a few beasties from the supplements (I posted my Bloodletter elsewhere) and it's a fairly quick job. Basically, I think huge parts of the DH1 range are actually still very useful.

Plus, it's not like Only War, Black Crusade, Deathwatch and Rogue Trader don't still exist.

I mean sure, they may well be updated down the line, but for now, most DH material is still fairly compatible with those lines, especially Rogue Trader.

I was going to reply to the huge blob up there, but I don't have the patience to mess with the quote tags.

To sum it up, though, it seems that for the most part, you (Fgdsfg) are saying that most of what I listed could just as well have been done in an "Only War upgrade" of the DH rules. Is that fair to say? If you'd like me to comment on anything in particular, I'd be happy to.

I think we don't see eye-to-eye here. What, exactly, is it that you think breaks compatibility? I agree that DH2 is more revolution than evolution, and that it's slightly less compatible than previous evolutions - but not by a large margin.

I don't think it's difficult to convert (most) material from the older books. I don't see that there's more work involved in converting from OW to DH2 than there was from DW to BC.

Either way, I think it's an odd assumption to expect the games to be compatible. A new edition means throwing out the old to make way for the new. Making the new edition specifically to be compatible with the old would have hamstringed the design.

You speak of unnecessary changes, but I don't see them. Either that, or we don't share a viewpoint on what is "necessary".

If you can specify what it is that breaks compatibility, I'd be happy to have the friendly discussion that you seek.

You have a bigger incompatibility through the level on which the characteristics are settled.

A value of 50 is not the same in DH1 and DH2.

RT is here on a very similar level like DH1 and also OW and DW play rather in this league.

I think it is this difference in % level, which got a chage upwards, which does create more incompatibility than APs, wound tables or other changes.

But this shift is in my oppinion a good thing.

But what compatibility does that really break? Most content people will be porting over will be gear, psychic powers, etc. Things that refer more to modifying the characteristics with bonuses, rather than ******* with the raw characteristics themselves. All I can see it creating problems with is NPCs (but they've largely been covered by others) and prerequisites.

I am rather on the side that things are quite well portable. Just saying you need to focus on certain things to change, that are quite different.

NPC stats are one of these things.

I was going to reply to the huge blob up there, but I don't have the patience to mess with the quote tags.

To sum it up, though, it seems that for the most part, you (Fgdsfg) are saying that most of what I listed could just as well have been done in an "Only War upgrade" of the DH rules. Is that fair to say? If you'd like me to comment on anything in particular, I'd be happy to.

I think we don't see eye-to-eye here. What, exactly, is it that you think breaks compatibility? I agree that DH2 is more revolution than evolution, and that it's slightly less compatible than previous evolutions - but not by a large margin.

I don't think it's difficult to convert (most) material from the older books. I don't see that there's more work involved in converting from OW to DH2 than there was from DW to BC.

Either way, I think it's an odd assumption to expect the games to be compatible. A new edition means throwing out the old to make way for the new. Making the new edition specifically to be compatible with the old would have hamstringed the design.

You speak of unnecessary changes, but I don't see them. Either that, or we don't share a viewpoint on what is "necessary".

If you can specify what it is that breaks compatibility, I'd be happy to have the friendly discussion that you seek.

I would direct you to this thread, where others, Morangias in particular, says it way better than I could, and anything I could possibly say would likely be a rip-off detracting from the point.

But to backtrack, yes, most of the things you brought up did not necessitate a System-change, and were in fact addressed by latter iterations of the original system, or perfectly addressable in further evolutions.

When it comes to conversions between the original system and DH2, it is nearly impossible to talk of conversion. It's straight-up homebrewing based on the general idea presented in previous systems, completely eyeballing it based on fluff interpretation. It's like saying that you're converting it from Black Library or Lexicanum to DH2, because only the fluff is relevant, since the underlying mechanics and assumptions are completely different in DH2.

Plus, it's not like Only War, Black Crusade, Deathwatch and Rogue Trader don't still exist.

I mean sure, they may well be updated down the line, but for now, most DH material is still fairly compatible with those lines, especially Rogue Trader.

That doesn't change anything, tying back to a point I made earlier:

[...]

While the oft-mentioned cop-out "You don't need to switch" has a modicum of truth to it, it flagrantly disregards the issue for all those fans of the original system, which is that this is not what they wanted, it was never what they asked for, and that support for their system of choice will cease completely. What they, we, want is obviously that the old system continues, with new supplements and gets much-needed updates.

[...]

It doesn't matter if other settings in the previous line will still get limited continued support (at least until they force the change upon them, too), because it does nothing to change, solve or alleviate the issue.

I was going to reply to the huge blob up there, but I don't have the patience to mess with the quote tags.

To sum it up, though, it seems that for the most part, you (Fgdsfg) are saying that most of what I listed could just as well have been done in an "Only War upgrade" of the DH rules. Is that fair to say? If you'd like me to comment on anything in particular, I'd be happy to.

I think we don't see eye-to-eye here. What, exactly, is it that you think breaks compatibility? I agree that DH2 is more revolution than evolution, and that it's slightly less compatible than previous evolutions - but not by a large margin.

I don't think it's difficult to convert (most) material from the older books. I don't see that there's more work involved in converting from OW to DH2 than there was from DW to BC.

Either way, I think it's an odd assumption to expect the games to be compatible. A new edition means throwing out the old to make way for the new. Making the new edition specifically to be compatible with the old would have hamstringed the design.

You speak of unnecessary changes, but I don't see them. Either that, or we don't share a viewpoint on what is "necessary".

If you can specify what it is that breaks compatibility, I'd be happy to have the friendly discussion that you seek.

I would direct you to this thread, where others, Morangias in particular, says it way better than I could, and anything I could possibly say would likely be a rip-off detracting from the point.

But to backtrack, yes, most of the things you brought up did not necessitate a System-change, and were in fact addressed by latter iterations of the original system, or perfectly addressable in further evolutions.

When it comes to conversions between the original system and DH2, it is nearly impossible to talk of conversion. It's straight-up homebrewing based on the general idea presented in previous systems, completely eyeballing it based on fluff interpretation. It's like saying that you're converting it from Black Library or Lexicanum to DH2, because only the fluff is relevant, since the underlying mechanics and assumptions are completely different in DH2.

I think you're the one being disingenuous now, with that last sentence. There's some changed mechanics, but you can still work off of the numbers from the previous systems, with only minor tweaks. There's some eyeballing to be made, but not based on fluff - you can easily make tweaks by balancing it against NPCs/weapons/whatever given in the DH2 core book.

This is a weird bit of cross-thread, cross-person discussion, but let's give it a go:

Its a small step, but maybe it could help to limit the number of not characteristic advances, but of max. Characteristic values, like you can go max. +30 above your starting value.

In this way you could still make additional advances up to ranks in sum, to balance out characteristic losses.

And it would help to keep humans in ranges that make sense.

I don't understand why people are arguing with someone about game mechanics he has admitted to not having tested in actual play and whose biggest issue is that the new game is incompatible with material published a decade ago.

We argue with him because what he says has substance.

Does it? He sounds just like old 3.5 D&D fans who never got over 4E being released and completely revamping how D&D worked. The same thing is happening here. DH1 is at the end of it's life after a vast number of supplements and FFG, as a business, wants to move on to a new game.

He's not offering constructive criticism; he's complaing that FFG is publishing something different from what he already owns. FFG has shown DH2 will be a different system and complaining about it isn't going to change anything.

You can either play test DH2 and offer comment on what worked and what didn't, or you can write it off and play DH1 with your immense library of DH1 books. If your group doesn't want to play test it, that's fine, but don't crap up the feedback forums with 'debacle's and dunny generaling.

I find it puzzling that some posters are appearanly awful elements making terrible posts - just because they decide to take part in the DH2 beta and criticize parts of the system that they don't like and think could be improved.

It's one thing to comment on aspects of the rules that don't work in play as desired. It's entirely another thing to deride the entire endeavor without ever having actually played through the new rules. The people calling DH2 a debacle and crying that it invalidates their old DH1 books are grognards and not really worth listening to. Compare what fgsdfg and Simsum's (pg 3) posts. Neither have played the game but one provides cogent, concrete criticism and one complains about change for the sake of change.

I have a biased oppinion on that.

On the onemhand I really like the new rule direction and I am a big supporter of it. Without a doubt, my heart beats for DH2 instead of DH1.

On the other hand, I can very well understand that people in general

a.) Hesitate to accept new stuff when they liked and got used to the old stuff

Thats just natural and not always is the new stuff better for the own taste

b.) People (incl. me) hate it, when their collection becomes obsolete.

Its really not cool to make a new edition which is not compatible and not giving any support for converting some of the old stuff.

I very well know, that this is almost always the case when editions in rpgs change, but that does not mean that I like this practise.

And there were very well cases for games, when certain conversion existed, even if this were table games like descent.

It would be even ok to pay for it, if they published 1 book with rules only for the old stuff, lets call it the Calixis Companion.

It could include the old weapons with new stats, important NPCs, new roles and backgrounds to make it possible to play some of the more specialized alternate ranks, add the missing home world and equipment.

I know this probably wont ever happen - just saying this would be my dream of a really customer-oriented way into DH2 like I have almost never really seen in reality with any rpg.

But that way you could use the old books for fluff and the calixis Companion for rule transition, if you want to play in Calixis or just. use some of the old stuff in Askellon.

Your example of 3.5 to 4e doesnt really work since paizo and pathfinder were there to take up the lions share of the 3.5 community who did not care for 4.0 and have been wildly successful. However Warhammer does not have an Open content clause and as such we are stuck with what fantasy flight games puts out as the official source without having to resort to homebrewing in systems such as GURPS. To me at least with the eventual discontinued support It seems like a odd move to divide the player base like this and i wouldnt be surprised that if 2nd edition does poorly if we see a 3rd edition before the decade is out.

Books don't become obsolete. DH1 will still work as well as it does today ten years from now. The 'discontinued support' argument makes no sense to me - when was the last time the errata was updated? When was the last supplement published (12+ months ago), and what is there left uncovered by the rules? FFG can go the way of TSR and publish shlock ad nauseum and make no money on it, or they can start something new. (and with the advent of PDFs, I don't foresee "no longer in print" being a problem if you want to get your hands on them)

The 3.5 comparison does work because I'm not talking about the companies involved, I'm talking about the feelings of the players. The posts of people crying that their books are no good anymore are indistinguishable from decade old posts about D&D.

One important thing to keep in mind is that, for a company, getting new players interested is more important than keeping long-time fans happy. GW operates on this principle and rakes in a fortune. A new edition with better, more accessible rules will do more to bring new people in than a book that tries to collate 6 different games into one master indecipherable system.

At least for me, the books would become obsolete.

We used completely own houserules for playing DH1, as we didnt like the official rules after playing them for about a year. Since that, we rarely took any look imto the books. Same will happen as soon as dH2 is there.

The point I was more trying to make cps was that with the switch there was still an option for 3.5 fans in the form of paizo and pathfinder, Warhammer does not offer that luxury. For all of us who happen to like 1st edition and just wished to see it cleaned up a bit more and all brought into line we are crap out of luck. As for leaving long time fans in the dust it does hurt the companies image as well as lessen the value of the customer to just a wallet to siphon cash out of instead of a valued member of the community whom the company every now and then will cater to along with thier new clientel

Not to forget that quite active players like the guys here are good multipliers.

I think there are about 10 players that started to play Dark Heresy just because I introduced them to it.

I guess this is true with many of you who are active here...

At least for me, the books would become obsolete.

We used completely own houserules for playing DH1, as we didnt like the official rules after playing them for about a year. Since that, we rarely took any look imto the books. Same will happen as soon as dH2 is there.

Didnt you just say earlier that you hate when your book collection becomes obsolete? What you seem to be saying here, though, is that you and your players go out of your way to stop using the books and just do house rules. So, what is the problem here?

The point I was more trying to make cps was that with the switch there was still an option for 3.5 fans in the form of paizo and pathfinder, Warhammer does not offer that luxury. For all of us who happen to like 1st edition and just wished to see it cleaned up a bit more and all brought into line we are crap out of luck. As for leaving long time fans in the dust it does hurt the companies image as well as lessen the value of the customer to just a wallet to siphon cash out of instead of a valued member of the community whom the company every now and then will cater to along with thier new clientel

I'm sure fantasy flight is very happy that they don't have an open gaming license that allows other companies to essentially steal and profit off of their licensed and created property.

This is where this argument falls apart to me. Players get mad about their old books becoming obsolete. They also get mad that thy are no longer being sold new books with the old rules. So, why does it matter if your books become obsolete if you want to buy more stuff anyway? Here's the thing, FFG is a business, and RPGs are a business. Core books always sell better than rules supplements always sell better than fluff supplements. So there is reason one to put out a new core book. The old DH rules are a decade of game design old, and although lots of people won't admit it, rpg design has advanced pretty significantly in the last several years. Reason two to add new rules. FFG has also put out a truckload of books for DH by this point, as well as the other systems. The old 40k setting is pretty much dry in terms of content that can actually be sold. What about fluff content? That doesn't sell. What about rules content? The more of that you put out, the worse and less balanced the rules are gonna get. Reason three to do a new system.

So here's where we're at:

DH needs a new edition because that sells well.

DH needs a new edition because its rules are messy/bad and out of date

DH needs a new edition with different rules because the current rules are bloated with supplements

DH needs to sell in order for them to make ANYthing.

Nothing is stopping anyone from using their old rules.

FFG has no need to put up a more simple to convert system for an old broken set of rules because its first a hassle and second means they can't put out new versions of older books.

A lot of the reason for changes is a business decision. Part of the decision is just being practical. Part of it is an honest belief and invention to just write better rules. Gaunt zero is right that some people hate change, and that's their opinion. The book was ALLOWED to be changed because its a good business decision. The actual changes were made with the intention of fixing up the system. Even then it's obvious that the designers have some sacred cows that they're not allowed or willing to do away with, even if they are outdated game design.

TL;DR FFG is a business and its not worth feeling betrayed by a business doing what they have to in order to make money.

I guess this is true with many of you who are active here...

Well... It's not something you play by yourself. Still, all the people I play with were gamers already. Some were not familiar with 40K and some were not familiar with RPGs, but we were & are all very much part of the hobby and have been for many years.

As for the Warhammers vs. D20, the big issue isn't the system, it's the settings. And that is never going to be open.

Even so, that lines get discontinued and books go out of print doesn't mean the system, the lines or anything else have died.

A decent stack of the WFRP2e books are available for download & POD, and fans are continuing to release very high quality fan supplements.

There's no reason to think the 40K lines won't stay available for POD and in electronic format for as long as there's an internet. And there's nothing stopping productive fans from expanding on the lines. I'm sure a lot of us here have rather enormous piles of content we could contribute.

I hate to burst your bubble, MrHeresy, but we are already only wallets to extract loose bills from in the eyes of literally every company everywhere. Any goodwill or sense of community is a marketing strategy aimed at fostering brand loyalty or increasing public opinion in a drive to increase revenue. This is how capitalism works.

Leaving long time fans in the dust actually doesn't hurt them in the long run. Looking at GW, every revision of the 40k rules has had crowds of greybeards lamenting the changing of 'their' rules, all the while GW is raking in money hand over fist from teenagers wondering what this brand new game is and wanting to try it out. An even better example would be MTG, one of Hasbro's main sources of income. Every revision of the rules and just about everything they do is aimed at bringing in new blood and they're making a fortune doing it. They couldn't care less if they lose long time players because the majority of the money is in new players.

And if any FFG community people take issue with this, I don't mean this personally. I'm sure there are a lot of you who love fostering a sense of community and don't doubt your personal motivations for being here.

If anyone associated with FFG takes offence to that, you've just done them a very, very big favour CPS. Reality check: companies aren't just not loyal to their customers, they're not loyal to anything what so ever, and never can be. If you're working for a company and under the impression it has any kind of loyalty towards you, you are setting yourself up for a very nasty fall.

I really don't see the problem here. DH 2.0 is not so drastically different that a GM couldn't wing it when running 1E campaigns with new fluff content. It's not even that much work to be honest.

D&D 3.5 fans went ballistic because 4.0 adventures were impossible to convert to 3.5. A DM might as well have rewritten the entire adventure to make it compatible.

DH 2.0 is close enough while still making much needed changes and adding new mechanics.

By the way, this conversation has gotten wayyyyy off topic. The original posting commented on the developers actually reading the forums and taking into consideration our ideas. Currently this topic offers no compelling ideas whatsoever.