Adding more lore to Combat Cards is a topic which regularly comes up, either from player feedback or one of the playtesters looking at the game. So I thought it might be interesting to look at how, where and why we might add more of it – but before that, let’s clarify what we mean by ‘lore’.
Context
Lore is the background text found in each codex, campaign book, White Dwarf and Black Library novel. It’s what makes a Space Marine a Space Marine, not just a ‘generic future warrior in armour’.
The lore is critical to the Warhammer 40,000 hobby, as without it there’s no Emperor or Chaos gods or Hive Mind, which is why we never refer to it as ‘fluff’ (the somewhat disparaging term used by some to play down how important the lore is. Just goes to show that no matter how hardcore a fan you are of something, you can always completely miss the point).
Combat Cards automatically inherits all that lore, which it’s exciting to unlock a Marneus Calgar card – beyond any tactical benefit it might give you. But we get to decide how much of the lore to put front and centre of our game, or whether to focus on being a ‘card game’ over being a ‘40K card game’.
Words
I’ll run down the various areas we’re considering adding more lore to below, but it’s interesting that almost all of them involve adding more text to the game. This is unusual, because with most games (and particularly mobile games) you’re always trying to reduce the amount of text for players to read.
It my be that our text focus is partly down to necessity (there aren’t many other ways to quickly explain what the Greater Good is), but may also just be that reading is an intrinsic part of the hobby (in the same way as painting, playing or shouting at your dice for rolling all ones). Thinking about it, it could also because I’m the lead of this game, and I like words – hence writing all the blog posts – so am probably biased!
Whatever the reason, Combat Cards is already quite a wordy game, and will become a lot more so if we implement the following:
More
- Campaigns – Currently, each Campaign provides a couple of lines of text, giving a quick overview of the 40K battle you’re taking part in. We could easily expand on this, but does anyone care about it, or are you all just there for the sweet Campaign rewards?
- Back of cards – I’ve talked about this feature before, but it’s definitely still high on our priority list. Each card back will provide lore which I’m hoping will be of interest to new and veteran 40K fans, and it’ll be interesting to see the stats for how many people check it out.
- Warlords – We’re adding more detail to the introduction which appears when you first meet a new Warlord, covering their pro’s and con’s in battle. Should we keep the lore text each Warlord already shows (making for quite a lot of info each time) or get rid of it?
- Loading tips – we could add short lines which appear while the game’s loading something (though we’re focusing on getting the loading times down, first!). Should these cover 40K lore, or gameplay tips?
- Single player – This is a little further out, but as someone who likes big words (and cannot lie) it’s a feature I’m looking forward to. However, the time we invest in an adventure you battle your way through means we won’t be working on another feature, so we’re looking for a way to put out the beginning as quickly as possible, so we can see if you guys enjoy it.
- Card collection – We could add lore text for each faction and allegiance to this screen, but it will add more content to what’s already quite a ‘noisy’ screen. Any opinions on whether we should focus on streamlining or double down on detail (particularly for players who may not know much about the various factions)?
Conclusion
As you can see from all the questions, this is one of those topics where I’d love to hear the community’s perspective. As a lifelong 40K fan, there’s a strong degree here of making Combat Cards a game which appeals to me, but obviously I’d rather make the game that YOU all want.
So please get in touch through the comments, our Facebook page or [email protected] and let us know if you’d like more or less lore in the game, or have any suggestions for what you’d like it to cover – characters or factions or planets, for example. The game will evolve over time, so your opinion matters.
Thanks,
Stu
I’ve always been a fan of the guts of lore from reading Rogue Trader back to front multiple times when I first got it, to hammering every White Dwarf magazine (pre 100) so the more the better. This hopefully will double to help those not from a WH40K background to fall into its charm like most of us did. On the point of background for campaigns, I feel that the more the better as they sort of seem a bit aimless when days into one and the pattern of win a few lose one gets tedious. Other than that, I feel that the direction you guys are taking is spot on.
Oh and Marneus Calgar……meh, Commander Dante FTW!
Thanks for the feedback. Interesting point about adding more lore to Campaigns – should we provide a lot more upfront, or add lore each day the Campaign is running?
More lore! More lore! More lore!
I think a progressive drive feed of lore on campaign days would be great; it would make it ‘feel’ as if things are changing day to day based on what everyone else is doing in the game.
But, also a fan of more lore with cards. Absolutely love the writing.
Thanks for the comments. The idea of adding more lore to the Campaigns day by day does sound cool. I’m not sure we’d be able to have it reflect player actions though, simply because writing the text, getting it approved by Games Workshop and then localised into all our other languages every single day sounds like quite a task! However, unfolding ‘news updates’ on the Campaign does sound doable.
I’d be interested in as much as possible and I feel that as long as it is presented in a way that doesn’t force the new player to read it as a priority, yet is clearly visible as an option to peruse, then it can only help those players into the hobby in general and to feel more confident about the game. I’ve noticed how popular certain lore channels are becoming on YouTube so it’s definitely a trend that can be used in the game. Let’s be honest, it’s the deep and richly intriguing lore that hooked the majority of fans in, whether the miniatures originally grabbed interest or not.
Yeah, it’s a good point that any extra text we add needs to avoid making screens too busy and cluttered. Maybe we’ll try hiding the extra lore as a default, with a ‘more’ button players can tap. If nothing else, it’ll be interesting to see how many players actually tap it (and more than once).
Absolutely, that’s the sort of mechanic I had in mind with possibly an intermittent glimmer or shine to it to grab the eye. On a side note, as the news feed is on the fritz, I can only guess the new cards but I’m pretty sure I see a Zoat outline. Would that be correct?
Text during load screens is a good idea, but not if it means longer load times, my phone already goes screen saver during loads or after battles, even during battles sometimes 1 round of combat can take longer than 20 seconds….. more background to the cards would be nice, but what would be even niver is a patch to fix bugs, youve already gone back to adding cards after the holidays, but the news feed menu is broken still…. seems like you guys are just ignoring the interface problems…
I just got the “Baby got Back” reference. Nice one Stu Mix-a-lot!
I was wondering if anyone would spot that. Congratulations – you’ve been promoted to official Watcher in the Dark for your spotting skills.
And the Zoat?
While we do like to include classic miniatures, a Zoat would be a pretty left-field choice! We’re about to post this week’s new releases on the Facebook page now, but I think the new miniature you’re referring to is a Tyrant Guard.
Understandable, but it technically is a Tyranid. It was the actual first tyranid miniature too if I’m not mistaken. But left field for sure as the amount of people that even know what one is would be quite small. I actually educated a group on the Space Hulk Death Wing forums not too long ago about them and got a laugh from the ooohs and aahhhhs they were making about the Rogue Trader rules and lore that I was screenshotting. Ah I’m old.????
Personally, I’m just waiting until we get a Squat on a Hoverboard into the game. Also, I prefer the term ‘Veteran’ over old!