[Archive] Gav Thorpe Departure: impact on CD?

wallacer:

There is currently a thread here on the departure of Gav Thorpe:

http://www.chaos-dwarfs.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=4

Rather than derail that thread with speculation about the impact it will have, I thought I would start a new one so we can discuss the long term effect this will have on CD.

Assuming that it is true that he has left (and it seems to be) then will this prevent CD from being redone?

If CD are to be included in the new HoC book (which is a big if) then it may not matter, but if they aren’t then it looks bad.

Gav wrote about CD in his fiction writing for BL and seemed to be one of the forces (perhaps the only force) keeping CD alive at GW.

Now that he is gone are we indeed doomed?

Willmark:

To be honest I never believed that GW was going to do Chaos Dwarfs with Gav at the helm. Now that he is gone, we have less of chance then never. The only hopes are Jervis or Robin Dews if they are even there anymore. I wouldn’t count on Alessio with his “man crush” on Skaven…

Our last chance would be Phil Kelly. I’d trust him to do a good job. This is of course all predicated on GW not further mucking up the waters more then they currently have.

I hope for a future with Chaos Dwarfs but it looks like the driving force behind them just left…

Ishkur Cinderhat:

Well I don’t want to overestimate the impact of a single person in the studio on the long-term projects of Games Workshop. The plans what will be done in the next 12-24 months probably don’t depend on a single individual in the team. However, since Gav wrote about the chaos dwarfs in one of his novels, he certainly had a few ideas that would have been very valuable in the development process of our army book.

For me, Gav leaving GW does not necessarily mean the end for the chaos dwarfs - just as much as him staying in the company was no guarantee for them ever being realised. But it seems that GW has quite a few difficulties with the business at the moment, and without Gav to advocate our cause it seems at least a bit less probable now that this troubled army book will ever be made.

Kera foehunter:

well gav was more of a dwarf man.  he was not much into chaos dwarfs, even in the older wd he would lose to the chaos dwarfs army ( badly.) i think if he gone we will get a army. Its all about money now!!!

Willmark:

Ishkur, I agree with some or your points. I think its more about losing out best ally within the dev team.

cornixt:

Well, Gav was holding us back for a while saying that CDs didn’t fit right, then he completely switched into definitely wanting to do CDs but only if done right (which was also holding us back in a way), and then of course doing Ogres instead which used up our slot and a load of interesting ideas that would have worked equally well for us.

I have no idea what the current people in GW, there could easily be several fans and it might have no effect at all.

Xander:

It seems this is just a rumour at present. Do we know if this has been confirmed?

It would be sad to see him go. His work in Grudge Bearer has been inspiring.

Ghrask Dragh:

Well first of all Gav is a member of Warseer and we WILL take action against those breaching forum rules by making personal attacks.

People do move on, no matter how much GW or members of this forum would like them to stay.

Second yes Gav is leaving GW, he's put in a hell of a contribution both to Games Workshop and Warseer and I'm going to miss him.

I'm pretty sure Alessio is not leaving however.

Brimstone(Warseer)
He seems to know him, Gav sometimes posts on Warseer though and theres nothing from him yet, saying he has or hasn't left!

clam:

What is Rick Priestley doing at GW at the moment? He and Jervis were behind the Blood Angle WD update last year!

- And as he made most of the background material i WD Presents: Chaos Dwarfs - he should be able to do the job - all we need is love - oh! sorry :slight_smile: - all we need is some updated rules. So please give us the .pdf update!

Grimstonefire:

After Pete Haines (gone) and Gav (gone), my next best hopes were either Andy Hoare or Matt Ward, but I can’t remember why I thought of Andy, but Matt is a one for the evil races.

Although GW shouldn’t (and doesn’t) rely on one person, they do tend to have a project leader per book. The design team have probably worked out who this will be per race (Alessio having first choice at Skaven for instance ;)), and I would have put down Gav for CD.

If Gav has left he would have to surrender any material he had worked on for CD. It would be the property of GW if he worked on it there, if he did it at home I would hope he would give it to them because he couldn’t use it anyway (intellectual property rights).

Who knows, maybe whoever reads Gav’s stuff might get exited about it.

cornixt:

Ignoring the rules, Gav’s books gave the armies a good background and lots of character so it would have been good if it was done by him. Who are the best writers of the most recent books?

This_Is_My_Boomstick!!:

most of the background from the new vc book comes from william king

torn:

i just think its a shame a lot of the old faces are dissapearing. whether it will have an impact on what races get updated i highly doubt, as they usually plan something like 3 years ahead. it might mean what happens to those races differ though . . .

GRNDL:

Its the nature of the creative industry that people leave. I work in a similar creative industry and there is always turnaround, especially where there are financial difficulties that brings people’s performance under scrutiny.

There may be two sides of the reasons behind this:

The longshot:

GW re-evaluates how its products are doing and attempts to correct them. People used to doing XXXX are now asked to do YYYY. Person doesn’t like the sound of that and decides to move away.

The creative angle:

Creative people get bored very easily and unless there are “Golden Handcuffs” - ie: benefits/perks that the employee likes enough to overlook a boring job - he/she is likely to look elsewhere just to get the pizazz back in. In my industry, this doesn’t happen very often and such a person will be gone very quickly, cashing in the status of a previous job to climb into another, better position at another company - or, start up their own company. With GW the way it is - cutting corners and re-organizing how it does its business (Bitz, plastic kits, etc) - I would imagine that the Golden Handcuffs aren’t ever considered because its hard to see the payoff in creativity.

In my industry, its very rare to see someone in the same job for more than 1-2 years, even at exec levels. There are odd companies who keep employees for far longer. I used to think that GW was one of those companies - the Pillars of the company: Rick Priestly, John Blanche, the Morrisons, Jes Goodwin, have been around for aeyonks. Some of them have had strong ties, others, like Mr. Priestly have moved into… er… seemingly distant roles.

Maybe it was just Gav’s time to move on and do something different. Maybe he was forced to by the “current regime” or because of the way the business has changed.

AGPO:

The obvious reason to work there is that you not only get paid to do your hobby, you get to decide what direction it goes in and muck aout with your mates. My guess is either a) the suits are squeezing the fun out of working at GW and Gav wants to leave so it doesn’t/beacuse it has already wrecked his hobby for him or b)HIs circumstances have changed and he needs a job which pays more

Willmark:

Either way the next year is going to be interesting. As I have said before I highly doubt GW is going to come out and say we have been “Squated”.

AGPO:

They don’t need to. The last offical rules for CDs came in 2001. That means theres a generation of players who’ve never thought of Chaos Dwarfs except as an obscure reference

Willmark:

As obscure as Boar Centaurs??? :wink:

Grimstonefire:

I sent Gav a pm, wishing him well etc and asking him about CD ;)  (I thought what the heck, he’s leaving/ gone anyway).

"Thanks for your support and appreciation, it really is nice to hear! There are still plenty of advocates for the Chaos Dwarfs in the Design Studio and hopefully one day they’ll get their day in the sun!

As for BL projects, I am going to be concentrating on freelancing for the time being and have lined up some ideas for future projects with them. None are Dwarf-0relates as yet, but as the Time of Legends series gets underway I’d be very surprised if the War of Vengeance doesn’t come up at some point and I’ll certainly put my oar in for that! Also, I’ve really enjoyed working on Grudgelore with Nick Kyme and so maybe there’ll be a volume II at some point in the future."

So same as usual then.  Nothing positive or negative.

wallacer:

At least he went to the trouble of replying.

That’s more than most people at GW would bother to do.

It would be interesting to know who the CD advocates at the studio are.