well, as a LM and chaos dwarves player I have to say that we could have had worse reactions: the chaos dwarves forum i used to read is practically dead. Also the italian warhammer forum i used to read (i also wrote the Lizard and CD guides there...) is totally gone, except the 40k stuff (almost dead too, anyway). It's very sad, expecially when you realize that people you used to read at least 2-3 times a week disappeared: internet isn't the real life, but sometimes you almost feel like it is and then things start falling.
I know many people, both in real life and on the internet, who just decided to stop playing: some for the amount of money and/or time this hobby requires, but not only that. Someone got sick with AoS (or even with The End Times) feeling that GW screwed the armies they built with passion, time, money and the game they used to love. Some others, in particular the ones who mainly care about playing and not so much about modellism, just think that the total war game for PC will be enough (personally I'm going to try the game and i'm sure i'll love it, but i don't wanna stop playing the "physical" warhammer).
The ones who still wanna play are, like you guys rightly told, fragmented (like this post, you know, i like pressing enter sometimes to add solemnity).
I personally am a 9th age guy, for now: when T9A will be complete 8th won't have a reason to be. I mean, T9A is a revised 8th and for now the work done is great: I don't refuse 8th games but I see them as a nostalgic leftover from the past. 8th wasn't bad, but had some problems and unless you play it with limits it will never be balanced (I've never liked the way in which 8th limits used to work). That being said tho, I'm starting to feel a bit doubtful regarding the project: the balancing phase still has to really start it seems, but there is a lot of harsh between different armies and i'm not sure that the staff will be able to make everyone happy. I mean, T9A could become the perfect edition, but many players never heard about it and many of the ones which are (or were) interested are losing interest.
KoW had its short moment of glory in which a large portion of the player pool seemed to be interested, but a great portion of the KoW guys turned back to 8th or joined T9A: it's a different game, so the ones who are actually looking for warhammer... tend to find warhammer, in the end. Not saying that it's not a good game, but it's a different one and some people don't feel comfortable with it.
AoS seems to be popular: many players joined it because their units got buffed, some others just because of the general speed of the games, some because of new models (very few, tho) and now someone for the background (i have to admit that even if i don't like AoS very much i like the seraphon background, for example). There are also the ones who just love GW, I didn't believe it possible but masochism seems to be a real thing...
Personally I think I'm going to try all the systems: T9A, KoW and AoS (8th doesn't need to be tested, but since I have some friends who wanna play 8th I'll keep playing it, probably). If i'll like them all I'll just write in all the sections, and I hope many of you will start to do the same: what made our forum quiet can actually make it even more noisy than it was before. Really, imagine if each of us wrote in at least 2 sections: it would be huge!
And regarding the talk on T9A happening mainly on their forum... It's true, but this is our homeland: we can talk freely here, because even if we often don't agree we're all friendly. Yep, we're all lizardmen here: saurus leaders hit each other with their clubs when they do not agree, but they don't kill each other. It's just a way to find an agreement, isn't it? Well, in other forums people are way more hostile!
This is, I swear, the most friendly forum I've ever read, and also the most active: it's not easy to be both the things, for a forum! And many of us think the same, i know it.
This silence isn't a good thing and i think we've lost many comrades, but I think that our forum can still give us much: in The End Times Lustria has burnt, but Kroak saved big chunks of jungle and the temple-cities. Well, we're those chunks. We just have to stay together to model a huge jungle interrupted by golden temples. We're Lustria
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