War Hammer RPG - what happened?

[octavius]

I did some excavations in my parents' basement a few weeks ago, and uncovered lots of old Amiga games and a huge pile of computer magazines from late '80s and early '90s.
In the October 1988 issue of Commodore User there is a s small notice that says that Mediagenic (now known as Activision) "have just signed up the word's foremost manufacturer of hobby games, Games Workshop, under a three-year licensing deal. The first product of this deal will be a conversion of the Workshop's most successful product to date, War Hammer."

Obviosuly the game(s) never materialized, so what happened?
I've tried googling, but not found anything.

 

[Excidium]

No clue, all I know is that a Warhammer RPG would be awesome.

 

[rpgcodexusername]

are you sure it wasnt the strategy games?
shadow of the horned rat

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

1988

 

[octavius]

are you sure it wasnt the strategy games?
shadow of the horned rat

That was eight years later and was made by Mindscape.

 

[villain of the story]

Take a look at Hero Quest from 1991:

The famous fantasy-themed board game was converted into an isometric-viewed role playing game in which the evil Wizard Morcar must be defeated.

Part of the Following Groups

Hero Quest series
Warhammer universe

Released
1991

Developed & Published by
Gremlin Graphics Software Ltd.

My wild guess would be Activision tried to make low-cost shitty action game using the name. Workshop objected. Deal fell through. Workshop found new partner. Activision prevented them using the name for computer game probably because they licensed it for themselves when they first signed a deal. Workshop used Hero Quest instead.

Has anyone played Hero Quest?

 

[kofeur]

Has anyone played Hero Quest?

Yeah I did at the time, on the amiga.
Don't remember much about the game apart from the fact that it was a very simple game with no challenge

 

[catfood]

Problem, CRPGfags?

 

[Darth Roxor]

Problem, CRPGfags?

Fixed

 

[octavius]

My wild guess would be Activision tried to make low-cost shitty action game using the name. Workshop objected. Deal fell through. Workshop found new partner. Activision prevented them using the name for computer game probably because they licensed it for themselves when they first signed a deal. Workshop used Hero Quest instead.

Looking at all the other low-cost shitty action games they made at that time, that sounds reasonable.

 

[Excidium]

Problem, CRPGfags?

Fixed

Corrupted.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

My wild guess would be Activision tried to make low-cost shitty action game using the name. Workshop objected. Deal fell through. Workshop found new partner. Activision prevented them using the name for computer game probably because they licensed it for themselves when they first signed a deal. Workshop used Hero Quest instead.

Has anyone played Hero Quest?

The boardgame Hero Quest is pretty much the best thing Games Workshop ever made.


PS: The Warhammer RPG system is a load of shit.

 

[Excidium]

Is it the same as the 40k system? I don't find it so bad.

But I like storyteller and people say it's shit too, so I dunno. *shrug*

 

[Destroid]

Problem, CRPGfags?

It's sad really that GW decided to make two MMOs and an action game recently, considering how successful Dark Heresy has been you would think they might fund a Dark Heresy cRPG.

The Dark Heresy system seems really heavyweight to me, which might be annoying if playing it in person.

 

[Excidium]

The DH system is actually p. easy to learn, but the book could do a better job of introducing the rules. It lacks a quickstart chapter, for instance.

 

[Storyfag]

Problem, CRPGfags?

Fixed

 

[sgc_meltdown]

still waiting for my turn based 40k/whf pc game

games workshop are always great at handling their IPs so it'll be any day now, right after the 40k mmo becomes a smash hit

 

[mondblut]

HeroQuest was among my first RPG-like games, back on ZX.

 

[Ebonsword]

Problem, CRPGfags?

Fixed

Wow!

Why is the art on that 10 million times better than anything else I've ever seen come out of Games Workshop?

 

[Morkar Left]

Has anyone played Hero Quest?

Yeah I did at the time, on the amiga.
Don't remember much about the game apart from the fact that it was a very simple game with no challenge

It was a faithful 1:1 conversation from the simple boardgame. As far as I remember, it was exactly like the boardgame and therefore better because nobody had to take the boring part of the "dungeonmaster" (better if you didn't used houserules for the boardgame of course)

 

[lightbane]

Problem, CRPGfags?

Fixed

Corrupted.

Augmented

 

[drunkpriest]

still waiting for my turn based 40k/whf pc game

Chaos Gate is turn based pc 40k game. It was okay as far as i remember in 98.

 

[Elwro]

Problem, CRPGfags?

Fixed

Wow!

Why is the art on that 10 million times better than anything else I've ever seen come out of Games Workshop?

As much as I'd love this to be a Polish work, isn't it the GW art for "Death on the Reik"?

 

[Johannes]

Rites of War is another 40k turnbased game, tried the demo a bit at some point. From what little I remember the ruleset was pretty complex, dunno how good it is though.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Rites of War was the beginning of the decline of Wh40k games - they moved far into the abstractfag direction which paved the way for Firewarrior and DoW.