Digger614 wrote:

Dear Community,

As you are probably aware, there has been some restructuring going on with regard to the project and with the functioning and operation of our various teams. In particular, the teams relating to Production (PRO) of our various books have been almost completely reorganized and we are in the process of reviewing members for various positions. Some reorganization to teams coming under The Hobby Hub (THH) are also in the works; THH is the next step of the project, designed to address all the needs of hobbyists beyond just providing the game itself. We provide you with this information so you can understand the structure and processes for our project going forward.

It was also deemed important for you to understand the reasons behind some of the changes that have been made in this reorganization. As was previously mentioned, at the beginning of the project, we were under a tight time frame to put out a product that was balanced and sought to make all units in every army playable. While general external balance was achieved (with data feedback we are seeing where external balance issues are pending), internal balance was not always achieved for each army nor do all the units and/or items function in a manner that is desired. Likewise, the desire to have rules for each army that are true to the feel of the army was not always achieved. To this end, we will rework all the army books in conjunction with the background material for each army book. The goal is to reach the point where the rules reflect the “flavor” and “feel” of the individual army while at the same time adjusting units that do not function as intended and improving internal and external balance. The rules writing process is now going to be “background driven.” This means that the individuals that will review, edit and generate new rules for each army book will be using the background material for that army as a main driving force for creativity. Likewise, it is believed that it is advantageous to gather information from the community relating to the various army factions to ensure we understand what the community expects and wants. The new structure is designed to allow all this to happen.

Hot Fixes

Before this upcoming fall (late August / early September), there will be some small balance adjustments to all of the army books to provide some hot fixes to issues identified by our data feedback. These changes will be very limited and are not contemplated to include major design changes, which will be addressed as described above in the new process.

Version 2.0 - Basic Rule Book (a.k.a BRB, FBRB when background is incorporated)

There is going to be a major update to the BRB and Paths of Magic Book (PMB), to be released sometime in November of this year. Along with this release, all army books will be updated, to make them compatible with the changes in the rulebook. During this update we will also correct balance issues that requires deeper changes than what the hot-fixes in September allowed for.

We will give this version of the game a few months’ of public playtesting and proof reading to make sure all rules are clear and function as intended. At some point in early spring of 2017, a finalized Version 2.0 of the rulebook will be released, and we do not anticipate that the BRB will be changed after this release for some years, until at least all army books have been revised.

Full Army Books (FAB)

So, there will be a succession of phases (each phase lasting about 4 months) in which a FAB will be generated. When a FAB is created, all the current rules will be under review and it is anticipated that many new rules will be formulated to ensure the army book rules are true to its background. The processes will be described in forthcoming announcements.

Slim Army Books (SAB)

Additionally, during that succession of phases, a number SABs (from 0 to 4) will be reviewed and edited. The changes to the SABs may include any number of changes large and/or small, and including design changes depending on the needs of the particular AB.

More information on the finalized structure, function and operation of the new project structure will be announced soon.

Thank you for your wonderful support of our project,
The Ninth Age Team

[Read More]

One year!
It has been one year since the first post on “The 9th Age”, right here:
warhammer.org.uk/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=98&t=129642

Let’s review that year.

T9A team

Back then when it started, the “team” was not more than @lagge @fjugin and some other players involved in the Swedish comp. @arthain @el rey @Sir_Joker and @tiny joined shortly after, and the project had been started, with its 6 founding members, from 5 nationalities.
As @Dan says: "So two Swedes, a Spaniard, an Austrian, a Dane, and a German all walk into a bar..."

As @tiny recalls, recruiting started around mid-September with the 0.5 release. The 5 RT members had been working day and night to get this done in time and when the documents were released, they were burned out, while now over 300 active forum members commented on their work like there is no tomorrow.
It was clear we needed help to have structured discussions with the community and within a few days we recruited the first around 20 Army Support members. (reference: - the-ninth-age.com/news/index.p…ject-staff-member-wanted/)
Shortly after, we started to recruit for the Armybook Committees (reference - the-ninth-age.com/news/index.p…anted-army-book-creation/and the result: the-ninth-age.com/news/index.p…-the-armybook-committees/).
By end of September, we had reached about 120 staff members out of the original 6 founding members and the number of required job position kept on growing. It very much felt like building a startup with all the good and bad which come with it. We barely had the time to tell people what their new position was all about. By the end of 2015, we had about 200 staff members and speed started to slow down a little, so we had a bit more time to focus on internal processes and the different roles within the project.

One year after the project started, we have currently 270 staff members from 29 nationalities on different positions within the team, plus 50 additional members who have participated as members at some stage in the past.
Their origins? 29 countries over the world: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Macedonia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Russia, Serbia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, UK, and USA.

That’s a pretty neat multinational startup!


T9A community
This team comes from the community: you!
Who are you?
You are 7,793 members.

Note that in merely 24h following The 9th Age - Full Beta release v0.9 early November, more than 500 new members joined in!


The connexions are mostly made by males: 93.16%, which leaves some 6.84% for the female population.
Mostly a boy's hobby, but not exclusively. Guys, behave!
The median age turns around 30. You youngsters!


The nationalities are very diverse!
2,835 of you have entered your location on the map.
In order to take into account those of you who did not, the data below is taken from where the web sessions come from.

You come from (in decreasing order):
Spain, USA, France, UK, Sweden, Italy, Germany, Poland, Denmark, Australia, Canada,
Russia, NL, Finland, Austria, Norway, Belgium, Switzerland, Croatia, Czech, NZ, Ukraine,
Greece, Slovenia, Chile, Serbia, Turkey, Ireland, Singapore, Bulgaria, Japan, Slovakia, HK,
Iceland, Hungary, Colombia, Portugal, Belarus, Mexico, Brazil, Israel, Malaysia, RSA, India,
Kenya, Argentina, Macedonia, China, Malta... actually pretty much every country in the world!
Here are the main nationalities who express themselves (more than 1% of the web sessions)


T9A achievements

Already very early during the project the ETC's voted with 38 participating countries for T9A as official system. This was a very clear sign of trust of the gaming communty to support the project.

The most important achieved by the project team is therefore, of course, to have delivered the rules as promissed on time.
The rules in their V1.0 spread over no less than… 733 pages!
This includes the cards, the FAQ and the two versions of UD and SE army books.
It makes a pretty decent book!
And all of this is currently being fully translated in French, German, Italian, Polish and Spanish (the previous version was all translated, the current version is imminent - you understand that having these 733 pages flawlessly translated in 6 languages requires some time).
And this does not include all the previous versions, found in 4,805 M of archives (in English, plus more in the other 5 languages).

These rulebooks have proven to be a popular download.
The v1.0 rulebook in English has been downloaded no less than 60.282 times!
The army books have been downloaded 214,338 times in total, which averages to 3.56 AB per BRB.
Magic rules, strangely, have been downloaded only 26.356 times, which means that only 44% of the BRB downloads are complemented by the magic lores, for some reason . 6,762 cards of magic have been downloaded, roughly ¼ of magic lore downloads.

Here is the… [Read More]

We would probably all love to get some insight into the workings of the 9th Age's senior management and today @oncebitten360​ provides us with just that: an interview with @Digger614​ and @Dan​, where he asks them how and why they joined our project. They also give insight into their expectations for the future and which challenges still need to be overcome. It's highly interesting, check it out:

[Read More]

In view of the release of Version 1.0 and questions that some of our members have run into in discussing T9A with potential members, we decided to provide some input on a few areas relating to sustainability of the project and questions relating to T9A being "official" or not.

How does The 9th Age (T9A) plan to be sustainable seeing as there is no “company” running the project?

This is a question that comes up quite often. Many, at least initially, have a view that a game cannot be sustainable over the long run without a company backing it up. The idea being that people will not donate their time in the long run.

From an organizational standpoint, The Ninth Age does have a functioning Operating Agreement and is set up a nonprofit association. The Operating Agreement allows T9A to function in a very real sense as a legal entity, for example, to enter into contracts for events, or advertising, or even promotional products, etc. However, T9A is and will remain a nonprofit association that uses unpaid volunteers.

From a strictly work flow perspective, yes, there is a ton of work up front to put the game together: balancing the ABs, writing the fluff, creating the illustrations, etc. However, once the game is put together, the ABs are out with stabilized rules and the B&A Team have put out the new stories and illustrations, the work load will tail off significantly. It is a lot of work, but there is a very dedicated group of individuals who are putting in the time and energy to get the job done. It's also interesting that, as the work load ramps upward and new members continue to join the project, members are being added to the staff and management positions to handle the increased work load. We have also set up the project in such a way that we rely on teams rather than on single members. So, frankly, this has just not been a problem for the project.

With respect to there being no “company” running T9A, we see this as an advantage rather than as a problem. The rules that are made are not dictated by which models the project wants to sell. T9A does not sell models. Rather, the whole focus is on achieving the best balanced game possible. Multiple model companies have already approached T9A (we have a hidden forum on the site for collaborating companies to discuss and plan their product releases) and have indicated to us that they want to support T9A. Some, in fact, are actively advertising T9A on their websites (e.g., shieldwolfminatures.com). This is great because we don't have all our eggs in one basket. Likewise, we are in the process of updating the Wiki with different manufacturers so people building new armies can just click on the unit and be navigated to a company's website where they can buy a model that is a good representation of the unit.

But T9A is not “Official”, how can a community driven project ever be viewed as an officially supported game system?

It’s difficult to determine what “official” means in this context. Is a game put out by a company more “official” than one put out by the community? Just because a company puts out a game does not mean they will actively support it continually (I think you all know where I'm going with that). Likewise, because a community puts out a game does not mean it is unsupported (T9A will continue to work on and improve the system). In any event, we can say definitively that T9A is the “Official” game system for ETC 2016. Of course, ETC is a community project too, but who cares? The real question should be: is T9A a really good game? If so, people will play it for a long time. Keep in mind, just because a company "supports" something does not mean it will last. To illustrate the changing landscape of company supported products versus community supported products, think of Wikipedia versus Encyclopedia Britannica. If you recall at first there was quite a bit of resistance to use of Wikipedia. Why? Mainly because it was not viewed as an "official" encyclopedic resource. But that opposition has faded away over time. Where are all the "official" encyclopedia companies now? They are pretty much gone while the community project remains and is thriving. This is similar to what we are seeing in the table top gaming industry. The industry is adapting to the Internet community and companies that follow the old business models are struggling. Better to let the community make the game system and for the companies make the pieces for the game.

T9A will continue to be a nonprofit organization. It will maintain its independence and high standards. While T9A will not sell or distribute models, T9A will cheer on the many companies that are stepping into areas vacated by other companies. In fact, our hope is to revitalize the table top gaming industry to create higher demand for high quality models.

How will T9A attract new players seeing as there is no marketing division like you would see in a company?

The answer lies with the community itself. The more each of us… [Read More]

Dear players,

as part of building our community on this forum we have been working over the past months to come up with a clear set of rules for our moderating team. Though you might have noticed some of these rules already in action now it is finally time to make them public so all of us can actively strive to avoid breaking them.

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Trolling is classified as a post intended to offend and/or annoy another poster. Obviously, this is a fairly wide range, so it will be the Moderator dealing with the problem who makes the decision on whether or not a post can be classified as trolling.

Flaming is classified as insults of other members of the forum. You may critique an argument, naturally (after all, debates are one of the reasons that this forum exists), but restrain yourself from attacking the person behind that argument. Debates are fine, but they should not degenerate into personal attacks.

Small Reminder (poits 0) - these are actions performed by the Moderating team to give users a friendly nudge to stay on the right side of the "law"

Mild Infractions (points 1,2,3) - points accumulated from these infractions will be maintained in the system for a year before they are removed

Openly questioning moderator's decision on the forum - 1 (if the users have a problem with the way a Mod acts they should file a report to the Global Mods/Admin. They are, however, allowed to ask for what reason they received a point)
Use of swear words - 1
On topic spam - 1
Off topic spam - 2
Trolling - 2
Use of derogatory terms without the intention to insult - 2
Flaming - 3

Official Sanctions (points 4,5,6) - points accumulated from these infractions will be maintained in the system for half a year before they are removed
Being disrespectful to another member and personal attacks - 4
Serial Trolling - 5
Serial Flaming - 6

Permanent Sanctions (points 1,2,3) - these are given in addition to any category above they fall under and are given only by the Admin and Global Mods following a discussion, the amount of points given is agreed, on case by case basis. These points permanently remain in the system.
Insulting another member

Temporary Ban - given to individuals that have accumulated 7 points (a day), 8 points (a week), 9 points (a month) or have:
Created a socket puppet account

Permanent Ban - given to individuals that have accumulated 10 points or have performed a serious infraction of the code of conduct such as:
Threatening to injure or kill another member
Advertisement Spam
Creating a sock puppet account while on temporary ban
Individuals who have intentionally worked to undermine the 9th Age project.
A ban still allow you to view content on the forum, such as the rules

The Yellow Card - whenever a user accumulates 6 points a card will show on the profile indicating that the next infraction will result in some kind of a Ban

And here it is how this looks visually for the moderating team



Link to the Pillory: the-ninth-age.com/index.php?pi…Field=time&sortOrder=DESC
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May you all have a long, civil and prosperous stay on The 9th Age forum [Read More]

We had some rumors lately ...

So here for the record:

tiny wrote:

The Ninth Age (T9A) respects the intellectual property (IP) rights of all companies. T9A has not received nor ever received any notice relating to the IP rights of any company. T9A takes any allegation of IP infringement seriously and has gone to great lengths to ensure compliance with the law. To that end, T9A decided from an very early point in development to develop an entirely new world, storyline and artwork. It is the desire of T9A to provide an engrossing fantasy table top game for the community of fantasy players free of charge. We also hope that the community will continue to support the many miniatures companies that manufacture and sell miniatures that are useable with the game we love.

[Read More]

This is a repost of a new announcement we did some time back:
the-ninth-age.com/news/index.p…-usable-with-the-9th-age/

From the inception of The 9^th Age (T9A) project, a central idea has been to create a balanced game system that players may use any or all of their existing models as good representatives of the units listed in the various Army Books. At this point, T9A is still in the early stages of balancing with the stabilization of the ruleset being the top priority. However, the question has been raised relating to characters: will T9A include special characters? Additionally, it has been asked, as T9A continues to grow, how will the project be kept new and fresh seeing as T9A is not a model company and does not have the ability to create new models?

On the first issue, as was stated above, the primary focus of T9A right now is on reaching a stable rule set that achieves a well-balanced game. At some point in the future, the team will begin the introduction of special characters and their associated rules. Again, the focus will be to allow players to use their existing character models as good representations of the new special characters that are introduced into the game.

On the second issue, in addition to the introduction of special characters as discussed above, at some point in the future, new units/characters/monsters will be contemplated to be included as updates to or new versions of the various Army Books. So how will players obtain models representative of the new units/characters/monsters seeing as T9A is a not for profit community project and not a model manufacturing company?

Already at this very early stage of game development T9A has been contacted by a number of model manufacturing companies expressing interest in manufacturing models to support T9A. To this end, for those reputable companies that contact us and are interested in supplying models, we will create a list Cooperating Companies that will be supplied early release information relating to various new units/characters/monsters to be added. This information will be supplied at very early stages of design/development so as to allow the time needed to create the sculptures, generate the molds and produce the miniatures that will represent the new units/characters/monsters.
To be clear, T9A is not a model manufacturing company and will not be affiliated with any of the Cooperating Companies. However, we will allow the various Cooperating Companies to advertise on T9A website to make it easy for players to see where they can buy models representative of the units/characters/monsters contained in the rules.

We are very happy of the broad support that the community has provided thus far for T9A project. The greater the support for T9A, the more incentive model manufacturing companies have to support the future expansion of T9A. So we thank You, the community, for making T9A as successful has it has been so far and hope to see even more success in the future.

Best Regards,
T9A Team [Read More]

The intention of this project is to be from the community for the community. As such we already decided very early that we do not want to make any profit with the project or its content. Because if we would start to make reasonable amount of profit at some point in time, we would also need to start paying "salaries". This may sound fun for some of you, but accually it also means that we would need to start judging, how much worth the contributen of single members is. How much worth is the review done by a BB-member, how much worth the intresting rule done by an ABC-member based on the idea of a community member during forum discussions, how much worth the artwork provided by one of our artist form the B&A-team? We really do not want to start with this...

As part of our operational agreement for the project we therefore have added the following:

1.9 Not for profit. The Association is a non for profit association and in no circumstances will the Association engage in commercial activity for profit. The Association may engage in commercial activity to the extent necessary to advance the goals of the Association, however, no member or other individual associated with the Association may draw a salary or any other type of compensation, nor may the Association engage in any activity that would render the Association liable to pay taxes to any government or agency.

Although we as project do not have any ambitions to make profit, we may in future allow third-parties to make profit (see license update) with our content, when we think it is in our project intrest, such as selling our books at local game stores. We do not expect those third-parties to pay anything to us in exchange, but if someone really wants to, he can donate on our website like anyone else, which makes their payments perfectly transparent.

The Donation-Tab:
the-ninth-age.com/community/index.php?donations/

So donations will stay our only way of income. Currently we are spending it exclusivly on the website and its infrastructure. In future we plan to extend this also for promotion material and/or test-prints of books. We hope you will keep on supporting us as good as you have done till now.

Thank you
The Executive Board

P.S. We are quite optimistic that, should the incoming donations for what ever reasons at some point in time out reach our project expenses, we do find a solution to also let the community participate, such as T9A sponsored tournaments or events. [Read More]

We still see a number of comments and signs that not everyone really understands how the 9th Age project works and how those different project teams work together. Today we like to share some more insides and make it a bit more explicit.

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The Executive Board (ExB)
The Executive Board is the steering Committee of the 9th Age project. Its responsible for the overall project management.

Who are the member of the ExB?
@Arthain @Giladis @Pinktaco @Digger614

How to become an ExB member?
The traditional "career path" is: RT/AvB -> ExB

What does the ExB do?

• Decides over the overall scope and deadlines for the different project development cycles.
  
• Defines the tasks and responsibilities of the different project teams.
  
• Decides on applications and promotion for the AvB, RT, RTS, BB, ABC and AS project teams.
  
• Represents the project towards third parties, such as the ETC, Shop owners, model makers, the media, etc..
  
• Decides about project spendings.
  
• Responsible for the release of official project publications.
  

What does the ExB not do?

• Does not decide over the 9th Age Rules.
  
• Does not decide over the 9th Age Background.
  

Perspective of the ExB on the T9A-Project:

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The Advisory Board (AvB)
There is literally no discussion or decisions by the Executive Board without the Advisory Board being involved.
The Advisory Board consults the Executive Board, but does not have direct voting rights in its decisions.
Besides advising the Executive Board the Advisory Board also supports the project management by taking lead on specific (project management related) tasks defined by the Executive Board.

Who are the member of the AvB?
@oncebitten360 @Strivos @Mr.Gobbo @ForsetisMuse @Arturius @Scottish Knight

How to become an AvB member?
The traditional "career path" is: AS/TS/RTS -> AvB

What does the AvB do?

• Advise the ExB on all project management related topics.
  
• Supports the project management by taking lead in specific (project management related) tasks.
  

What does the AvB not do?

• Does not decide over the overall scope and deadlines for the different project development cycles.
  
• Does not decide on applications and promotion for the AvB, RT, RTS, BB, ABC and AS project teams.
  
• Does not decide about project spendings.
  

Perspective of the AvB on the T9A-Project:



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The Background and Art Team (B&A)
Supports the 9th Age project by developing Artwork and Background texts for the 9th Age publications. The Background and Art Team works within scope and under the deadlines defined by the Executive Board.

Who is the main contact person of the B&A team?
Team Leader: @Scottish Knight
Art Director: @Thorsen

How to become an B&A member?
As skilled writer or artist you can apply here: the-ninth-age.com/index.php?user-group-apply/45/

What does the B&A do?

• Develops the 9th Age World and its Background.
  
• Has the last word on the names of units and rules in the 9th Age publications.
  
• Responsible for the Artwork of the project.
  

What does the B&A not do?

• Does not decide about the 9th Age Rules.
  
• Does not decide about layout for the 9th Age publications.
  

Perspective of the B&A on the T9A-Project:



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The Review Team (RvT)
Supports the 9th Age project by helping out with layout, grammar and spelling corrections.

Who is the main contact person of the RvT team?
Team Leader: @Shubin Michail

How to become an RvT member?
With good editorial or layout skills you can apply here: the-ninth-age.com/index.php?user-group-apply/28/

What does the RvT do?

• Responsible for proof reading of 9th Age publications.
  
• Supports the RT and ABC teams to rephrase unclear rules.
  
• Has the last word on spelling and grammar of text used in 9th Age publications.
  
• Has the last word on the layout used in 9th Age publications.
  

What does the RvT not do?

• Does not decide about the content of 9th Age Rules.
  
• Does not decide about the content of 9th Age Background.
  

Perspective of the RvT on the T9A-Project:



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The Rules-Team (RT)
The Rules-Teams is responsible for all 9th Age rules. This includes both the BRB, where the Rules-Teams is the main authority, as well as the overall balance of the army books. The Rules-Team works within scope and under the deadlines defined by the Executive Board.

Who are the members of the RT?
@fjugin @arthain @el rey @Sir_Joker @lagge @Groefte @Frederick

How to become an RT member?
The traditional "career path" is: BB -> RT

What does the RT do?

• Is responsible for all 9th Age rules.
  
• Writes the core rules found in the Rulebook and Paths of

… [Read More]