Why all the secrecy?

[Grimwaldo]

As I see other table top gaming companies open up beta rules testing to there respective comminutes I think why does not GW do this? (Privateer Press and Spartan Games have both done this)
In my opinion it would help with the perspective that GW does not care about its community. When people feel involved they tend to be a lot more fanatic about it and will buy more product.
I do not for the life of me understand "leaks" Why should I care that there are new models if I don't know what the rules are for them or how they fit into a new army?
I have had people argue with me that if we were to open up rules for public discussion that people would only want to see benefits that would be good for their own army.
I disagree people that really love the hobby would discuss argue and some to an agreement that would work best for everyone.
I have seen this work. So here I go off into some other territory. I play WM and one of the units ,Zelots, were totally off the rails powerful in the first edition. When PP rebooted the game Zelots were turned down from 11 however were still a good pick for an army.
GW has real problems with this kind of balance or downscaling really over the top units.
Take Khorn beserkers. Really good they were must have for any chaos army to take in earlier codexies, to now I may take them because I want a theme army, however they just stopped being competative. (I am sure that all of you have examples of this.)
This really honks people off. People invest in their army time and money only to have the next edition of main rules or codex make many of their core units/expensive models, not fun to play anymore in the main game. ( I am not going to open up a playable vs unplayable debate)
Giving people input in to the game makes them feel invested and can also midigate power creep and/or nerfing units to being not being fielded at all.
So I ask again why keep things so close to the chest and keeping the community at arms length?
Is there some side to of the business practice that I cannot see?
Why in this day and age of open communication do we still see tidbits thown to us.
Is this to generate buzz?
I really don't care about what the leaks say. really only pay attention once the rules are out so I can see the entire game/army in its entirety and see how it all works together.
I can see generating buzz, however would not giving the rules early in front of the actual book do better for model sales?
How about preorders?
Is this something that cannot be done because models have to be made and shipped and would cost to much for the company?
Can anyone give good insight?

[DarkLink]

Several reasons.

First, GW doesn't care about its rules. The codices are, to them, nothing more than an excuse to sell expensive books, and they operate under the assumption that people will play any army if it has rules, regardless of the quality of the rules. To them, the only thing that matters is that rules exist, not that they're balanced or even fun. They're pretty blatant about this, with numerous quotes from their design staff stating things like "it's not intended to be balanced", or "just make up your own houserules".

Secondly, they supposedly have a big special agreement with New Line Cinema regarding the LotR and Hobbit stuff. Stemming from this is the requirement that they provide operational secrecy. Ostensibly, if they leak too much 40k info, NLC will yank the LotR/Hobbit stuff because they will lose faith in GW's ability to keep stuff secret. (BTW, anyone know if their LotR/Hobbit lines are even profitable? Because I've literally never seen anyone play it, or even talk about playing it, except for in a highly sarcastic manner. I've heard it's a decent system, but no one actually plays it and all the store owners I know say it doesn't ever sell, ever.)

GW also completely neglects any form of marketing or community building. They pay massive amounts of overhead to run a bunch of GW-only stores, and they release White Dwarf (or Visions, or whatever they call it now), and they think that's adequate. Five or ten years ago, they were probably correct. Now, though, there are a bunch of up and coming competitors that are more than willing to steal GW's community away from them.



So, when it comes down to it, GW simply is too focused on the model side of things, with the inherent assumption that if they build it, people will come. That is becoming less and less true as more and more competitors start gaining market-share. Combine that with several questionable business practices, like shooting themselves in the foot with IP infringement cases, or paying massive amounts of overhead to maintain GW-only stores while shutting out independent retailers, and it's no wonder their revenues have dropped lately. They're still plenty profitable, but they're not thinking about this like a business, and they're certainly not earning their profits in an efficient manner. They're still behaving like a little garage-based company with a No Americans Allowed sign hanging outside their front door.

There's a lot of little nuances to all of these things, and some other issues, but this is GW's overall mindset.

[Wolfshade]

Perhaps because GW and the others have a different philosophy.

Historically, GW would use external testers, however, this lead to leakage. Which they do not like. Because of the very large numbers involved at GW HQ (I mean significantly larger than their competition, they do not need to rely on external people as they have educated dedicated gamers by the bucket load. These members then have a vested interest to maintain GW's secrecy. Your own example shows a crowd sourced rule set is not free from issues. Indeed, the affect of local meta can be quite significant. The downside to internal testing is that the more you see someone's rules you see the design philosophy behind them and start to play the armies as they were "intended" rather than all of the possibilities. Jervis has even admitted as much, hence when he plays blood bowl, he tries to play a long ball game as that was intended, rather than the short ball that is much more effective.

In terms of leakage, GW style themselves as a model company first and foremost, because of this game philosophy they sell miniatures which are then facilitated by rules. Polls and threads in this forum have shown that there are a number of gamers who buy models just because they look cool, regardless of how they might play or fit in the rules.

Part of the reason why GW do not leak their stuff officially (like they used to *allegedly*) is a consequence of the change of polices to keep things tight. This seems to be for two reasons, firstly, GW's licence with New Line cinema seemed to suggest a no-preview, secondly, because GW is so large, if a small operation sees a leaked version of something, they can rush to market their own version (as small companies are more agile) which requires less design effort, using the GW design as inspiration (and getting all their hours of R&D for free in effect)) and then prevent GW from releasing their won. Now I will say with this regard GW do not help themselves releasing rules but no model, creates a vacuum that is exploited by others and this would prevent GW releasing a product with the name as there is already one on the market.
It would seem that this second point GW are wiseing up to and are looking at a weekly release window through their stores and weekly magazine.

GW never did proper marketing, they used their in house magazine and exploited the communities desire to see what was new and so there used to be big leaks in advance which would create a ground swell of buzz around the release.

I think GW are trying to do something new with the weekly/monthly magazines to see how the community response. They also have the understanding of how people respond to FW's freely available rules, though FW sales are dissimilar to GW's core range as they are mostly models sales regardless. Their market is also slightly different.

I would say GW seems a little slow, but it does care for its community, though rather than shifting to a digitial method they instead have their communities focused in store and through events, like the national schools league, though I understand that this "outreach" is not extended in all territories.

[DarkLink]

Perhaps because GW and the others have a different philosophy.

I can tell you which philosophy makes more business sense. I've spent the last few weeks discussing some of this stuff with a couple of guys, one of whom has ran business ventures that made GW's total expenditures, let alone revenue stream, look like a drop in the bucket. It's not so much that the stuff they do doesn't make sense, but more that there are some massive, vast, huge things they could do to cut costs and improve product quality relatively easily in ways that would make their customers jump for joy.



I would say GW seems a little slow, but it does care for its community, though rather than shifting to a digitial method they instead have their communities focused in store and through events, like the national schools league, though I understand that this "outreach" is not extended in all territories.

Words are wind. They can say they care about their customers all they want. Until they actually do something to reach out and grow the community, though, they don't actually care.

[Wolfshade]

Words are wind. They can say they care about their customers all they want. Until they actually do something to reach out and grow the community, though, they don't actually care.

I would say that they do do this. Or at least in my region. There is the support for the national school league, then there is the bricks and mortar stores. Those stores acts as hubs for commmunity. It is these stores which are supporting local players with their free painting stations, gaming boards, advice etc and introducing new players to the hobby. There is no other wargames company that I know of that does that. Certainly, there is a FLGS, but there are at least 5 GW stores closer than that and that is the work of the store owner and it is his best interest to get more gamers as it is his sales and his revenue that is positively affected. So that is the store owner not those companies.

[DarkLink]

Haven't seen them do anything other than those rumored GW stores (that I've never actually been to or seen), personally. And those bring up their own issues, insomuch as they make terrible business sense. WTF would they spend massive, massive amounts of money on the overhead required to have a bunch of little stores open, when there are countless independent retailers that could do all of that work for them. It would free up so much money they could spend on other things it's not even funny. Every single store owner I know is downright astounded that GW thinks its worth running their own stores. But that's a bigger issue.

[Wolfshade]

I think this is a problem with GW and maybe why it needs to think more regionally. In my location, second largest city in the UK we have no FLGS. There are no independents, or if they are they don't exist in city centres/out of town shopping centres (malls). So for GW they then had to run their own stores to recruit players themselves. Recruiting to a hobby is fraught with issues is fouy consider the 6 month drop out rate that has been reported in some hobbies can be as high as 90%.

The nearest non-GW GW stockist to me belongs to a chain of hobby supplies and has no table, no footfall, is outside of the shopping areas so you go their because you are looking for what they sell specifically. There is also the only Slavic butcher I have come across two doors down, but that is another story.

Whereas from what I understand in the states there is a thriving indie scene, so certainly if they are already going what GW does, why not give them the risk and maybe slightly better Ts & Cs in terms of compensation for that. I think given the much lower (generally speaking) population densities means that you cannot hope to have the same sort of GW coverage in states as in the UK. I think in some places it would work, but generally not so. Plus it seems that the UK customer and the US customer are different beasts so it makes sense that you should have a specific different targeted approach for these regions.

[phreakachu]

Personally, i think that the 'secrecy' bit is just a bid for pr.

i mean, really... how many times a day do you plug into BOLS to see if something new has popped up, some infinitesimally small scrap of pic about the new toy coming to shelves so you can salivate at the mouth in regards? personally i hit the web about 5 time a day, AVERAGE.
Who needs all the big to-do with pr and advertising when We The Fans do it for them? When a scrap falls from the G-Dub table, we're on it like a pack of starving dogs... case in point all the noise, just today, about the Knight release: it went from rumors to confirmed rumors to pics in the span of *10 HOURS*...
I'm not a marketing expert, but im gonna guess that you cant buy that kind of buzz.

Slightly related because it was mentioned earlier: i know one dude who pretty much cleaned out my FLGS' LOTR stock... based on the question 'would you play the game' answered 'i dunno, maybe' in that tone we reserve for the folks who get on our nerves. i imagine the models sit mostly unopened in a pile of emptied cheetoes bags and discarded whack-rags in some parent's basement somewhere in Des Moines and its surrounding communities.

[Wildeybeast]

Exactly this. Virtually every leak that comes out of GW does so with full approval of GW. When they were announcing releases six months in advance, where was they hype, the excitement? Far better to whip the internet into a frenzy of anticipation with rumours and half-truths.

It's also to do with people's spending habits. If I play Ogres and it's announced in January that they will be coming in May, chances are I'm going to save up so I can splurge then, as well as not adding to my Ogre army because I don't know how effective all the units will be in the new book. All of which means GW gets nothing from me in the intervening six months. Whereas if I have no idea when or even if Ogres will get updated, I'm far more likely to continue buying stuff for them, or even succumb to a shiny new army, as I'm addicted to plastic crack. It's why they have shifted to weekly releases, rather than everything in a monthly dump.

[DarkLink]

The problem with those spending habit assumptions is that people do that anyways. I can't tell you how many people I know who were 'waiting for X codex to get a release', or waiting until after the new release to see if GW dropped the ball with the new codex.

[Wolfshade]

If you could do that, you could choose your own salary.

I think most people have an idea that, we are now in a new ruleset therefore my army will be updated, sometime, so with that in the back of the mind people may very well be saving all or part of their hobby budget. I suppose the question is how do those who have had their dex updated spend?

[Wildeybeast]

The problem with those spending habit assumptions is that people do that anyways. I can't tell you how many people I know who were 'waiting for X codex to get a release', or waiting until after the new release to see if GW dropped the ball with the new codex.

Well yeah, plenty of people still do that. My point is, if they know when said release is coming, they will definitely save their money, but if there are no details, they are more likely to succumb to temptation.

[Anggul]

Well yeah, plenty of people still do that. My point is, if they know when said release is coming, they will definitely save their money, but if there are no details, they are more likely to succumb to temptation.

Which is extremely underhanded.

I feel so sorry for anyone who actually spent money on the so-called 'Codex: Inquisition' expecting a new, decent representation of the Inquistion, which turned out to be copy pasted from the GK codex with Warlord Traits and three Relics chucked in. They purposely avoid spelling out what the digital editions actually contain.

[ElectricPaladin]

I actually don't think that this is true. I'm sorry, but the fact is that there isn't a lot of shenanigans that you can do to get someone to spend more than they are actually going to spend. Not more than they think they are going to spend, but more than they are actually going to spend. No amount of secrecy is going to make me have more disposable income. If I spend January's budget on stuff for one army, and then get surprised in late January by the release of new stuff, I'll just wait until February. It's not like it's going anywhere.

Well, actually it is, because GW's supply lines are all ****ed up, but the fact is that between eBay and just waiting for a little while, I'll eventually get what I want.

Perhaps you're right and that's GW's logic, but it's pretty poor logic in my mind. People are going to spend the money they have, not the money you wish they had.

[xNickBaranx]

I'm not going to read through everyone's responses because I know most of them will be just a bunch of lashing out without any understanding of the past that lead us to where we are now.

I worked for GW in the era from 1998-2001. Back in those days we had the GW Intranet. It was an internal web source for all manner of GW documents so that the many far flung regions could access important company information. I never once used it for anything other than following the latest play test manuscripts for all of the different armies that GW made.

We would all download these documents excitedly, accidentally leak info to our customers because we were frothing fanatics, and generally muck everything up for GW.

Muck it up how?

For example: The 3rd Edition play test version of Sisters of Battle had Frateris Militia Squads of up to 50. If I remember correctly they could be equipped with 2 weapons. With Faith Points or whatever system it had, they were, on paper, FANTASTIC! So what happens?

People get wind of this, they start assembling squads of 50, and then there's a design change and GW decides for whatever reason the squads of up to 50 Frateris Militia are a bad idea, so they scrap it.

The GW Fan-base is soooooo rabid that when the Codex appears in WD or wherever and it doesn't have that - the community feels absolutely screwed. They've got their models converted, they've been working on them for the last 6 months to a year. And then the Codex drops and they aren't there.

That is why GW stopped putting play test codexes on the company intranet, and that's why GW doesn't do open play testing. The Fan-Base is too fanatical. Once they hint that something is going to exist, and then it doesn't, the fan base is ready with the torches and pitchforks.

Small companies can get away with so much more than GW can. Between the scale, the prior investment, the up to 30 years of patronage on the customer end and development on the company end - it is the Titanic moving through a gaming sea while most other companies are speed boats - small and adaptable. People will see. Some of these other companies will change as they grow and their fan base takes on a life of its own.

[wbravenboer]

Had a nice chat with my local GW store manager yesterday, they had a meeting last week to meet the new boss, and a tour of the factory. He told me that there used to be intern network, but leaking got to obvious, people got fired and so on. The deal with New Line Cinema is already mentioned, and a lot of people don't realise the impact this had on te company. Any, really any leaking would jeopardize the business and got them fined, so a lot of tightening is due to that contract. One of the anecdoted I heard from him, that they had a beautiful Smaug model made, and NLC was not satisfied with it, they had to DESTROY the mould; costs; 300.000 pounds. So I think they are not too unhappy if the contract ends. Another interesting bit was that the dwarfs were already finished in 2012, playtesting was done after the models were already in the vaults. They can change only so much during testing, and people will ALWAYS find stuff 'broken', balance is impossible, not without drastically change the nature of the races and game-rules. Want balance? Play historical, all the same stats en powers.
Another good point was the small companies being faster with bringing out their models, certainly true, a lot of companies already produce 'copies' of GW models, and also the IP is immensely important, that is why Space Marines will go Adaptes Astartes for instance.
But from what I heard, it is going to be a good year for GW, lots of new stuff, new ideas, new people, so far I like it.
A last little thing from my store manager; he curiously went another way in the factory, and ran into a few pallets filled with Imperial Knights. ;)

[Lord-Boofhead]

Which is extremely underhanded.

I feel so sorry for anyone who actually spent money on the so-called 'Codex: Inquisition' expecting a new, decent representation of the Inquistion, which turned out to be copy pasted from the GK codex with Warlord Traits and three Relics chucked in. They purposely avoid spelling out what the digital editions actually contain.

I spent money on it and was happy with what I got. a way to field Inquisitors with out stupid arse Grey Knights.

I'm sorry you were disappointed it didn't come with free daemonette lapdances.

[Lord-Boofhead]

I know it's a crazy idea but maybe professional designers know more about the art of Games design than basement dwelling kneckbeards?

[RatboyScree]

In my opinion GW need to get back to their roots and maybe they might with the new weekly magazine, I remember when new units such as warpspiders where produced and rules put into white dwarf way before they even looked at putting together a codex.

Prices are the next thing that needs to be looked at,with prices as they are it is hard for new people especially in the current economic climate to play as they cannot afford the models, and when a new edition can completely remove the playability of a unit/warmachine then people are gonna be turned off from playing when the next edition comes out and makes everyones old codex suddenly feel like it has a countdown over it's usability.

As someone else has said before holes in the model range can also be annoying with my Daughter hoping in vain that the Heirotitan model will eventually be created having been dashed when i got the same response from both forge world and games workshop that they had no intention to fill that gap any time in the near future ( nor the Farseer/warlock on jetbike that i've been waiting for since rogue trader days)

I'd also like to see true line of sight removed as it stifles imagination when attempting to make scenic bases and can create that which i hate the army made for tournaments ... I kid you not i saw one player who used nothing but the crouching eldar ranger to limit his opponents ability to shoot back

I'd also like to see people fielding armies that look like the fluff would have you believe the army looks like. Maybe the next rules change for 40k could make selecting an army look more like 2nd edition epic where you selected a company which entitled you to up to 3 support units and 1 special OK I'm not suggesting we need 9 tactical squads and a command squad all in rhino's to be allowed to play maybe cut it down to 2 units of collumn A allows you to take 1 of collumn B and for every 4 collumn A you can take 1 Collumn C and no special characters outside a reasonable sized game

[DarkLink]

I wouldn't say that GW's game designers are profession, outside that they do technically get paid to do it. But, seriously, their rules are full of loopholes and typos, and when we the players ask questions they either ignore it, respond with a nonsensical FAQ that is only obliquely related, or tell us "don't worry about it, this is a beer and pretzels game".

[prismaform]

Then how, precisely, do you define "professional" ?

[Peasant]

I believe there are so many things so much more complex than the bits that seem to drive the internet community mad. There are so many demands that are completely contradictory of one or another. Some observations...
People want balance but they want different units. There are 11 different races ( not including all the flavors of Space Marines) Each army having no less than 20 different units throughout the book. 220 different units, stat lines, points costs, weapons, gear selections etc. Each one with a different rule combination. We are talking easily over 1000 different combinations that will also act differently based on terrain, other rules, turn, actions of the opponent etc. There will be flaws. It's bound to happen because to cover every situation would be near impossible or take ages.

Are you willing to give up this variety? I'd say if you are, play a different game system. I don't want to play historical or chess all the time.
I'll take the errors and deal with them. I also refuse to play with 'that guy'. The one that uses all crouching models, the one that says you can use 2 Coteaz because he is in 2 books etc. I don't care to play with rules lawyers, so maybe that's why it bothers me less.

People complain about the price, so they buy off ebay.
So let's say GW cuts their price so that 'ridiculous' price of a land raider is back to days of old at $50. I'll bet that those same people will buy for 20% less off of ebay, because someone will still sell it.
How do you combat the foreign knock offs, ebay and e-sellers? Don't you think the people demanding a lower price point or stealing IP have some part to blame? It's capitalism at it's finest.

GW needs to rewrite the rules, they do, people complain that they rewrote the rules.
Truth of the matter..people want the rules they want. Some people get them, others don't

Sadly I am surprised by the sheer number of people with such angst towards GW yet continue to play, buy, and complain about a hobby that is completely optional. Theyy even frequent web sites for the hobby they dislike so much. And I understand that some people just want change GW but many voices are just filled with hate, steeped in ignorance on what truly goes on behind the scenes. Don't get me wrong, I am aware that there are some money hungry people running GW. They are a corporation. It goes with the territory. EVERY company is out to make a profit. Even all those smaller 'better' miniature companies, as so many people put it.
Things are much more complex than just change 'x'.
When a company starts a product, it takes time and money. Imagine a new sculpt for modell 'x'. Once the process starts there is very little turning back without substantial loss.

I think the worst part about many GW discussion is 90% of the complaint is price point. This sort of discussion has zero benefit to change and typically has little understanding of costs or business method.
I believe if someone is going to criticize make it thoughtful and constructive
One idea I have always though that would be beneficial is to blend the old school and the new. I have been doing this hobby for over 25 years. In the old days White Dwarf would show you how to build something cool. Show us step by step how to build an Imperial shrine using 3 or 4 plastic kits and some hobby supplies this helps GW sell kits and appeases the hobbiest.
GW does need to start addressing things and one of the most important things is their PR. More outright honesty and some insight into what they do is a start. it's not all secret, and many don't understand. This could work wonders.
Meh, I'm just a regular guy. Feel free to respond if you'd like. But keep 'fanboy' comments to yourself. Because obviously I am a Fanboy, I've been doing this for too many years to think GW is just 'ok'.
DO they need to fix some things..yes, yes they do. So does everyone else.
Anyway, I am getting all over with this rant so I should stop now..

[DarkLink]

Balance is tough, and perfect balance is effectively impossible. But GW does an embarrassingly bad job at balancing their game. They can do better, and it would not be particularly difficult to improve.


Then how, precisely, do you define "professional" ?

Professional carries the implication of competence. While amateur and professional technically only refer to someone who is or isn't paid to do a given thing, it's mainly used to refer that someone's level of competence in that area. Despite that GW's developers are paid to write rules, however, they are not particularly competent at it. Compare it to many other game's rulesets out there right now and it's pretty quickly apparent how amateurish GW's rules generally are.

[Orkimedes1000]

I believe there are so many things so much more complex than the bits that seem to drive the internet community mad. There are so many demands that are completely contradictory of one or another. Some observations...
People want balance but they want different units. There are 11 different races ( not including all the flavors of Space Marines) Each army having no less than 20 different units throughout the book. 220 different units, stat lines, points costs, weapons, gear selections etc. Each one with a different rule combination. We are talking easily over 1000 different combinations that will also act differently based on terrain, other rules, turn, actions of the opponent etc. There will be flaws. It's bound to happen because to cover every situation would be near impossible or take ages.

Are you willing to give up this variety? I'd say if you are, play a different game system. I don't want to play historical or chess all the time.
I'll take the errors and deal with them. I also refuse to play with 'that guy'. The one that uses all crouching models, the one that says you can use 2 Coteaz because he is in 2 books etc. I don't care to play with rules lawyers, so maybe that's why it bothers me less.

People complain about the price, so they buy off ebay.
So let's say GW cuts their price so that 'ridiculous' price of a land raider is back to days of old at $50. I'll bet that those same people will buy for 20% less off of ebay, because someone will still sell it.
How do you combat the foreign knock offs, ebay and e-sellers? Don't you think the people demanding a lower price point or stealing IP have some part to blame? It's capitalism at it's finest.

GW needs to rewrite the rules, they do, people complain that they rewrote the rules.
Truth of the matter..people want the rules they want. Some people get them, others don't

Sadly I am surprised by the sheer number of people with such angst towards GW yet continue to play, buy, and complain about a hobby that is completely optional. Theyy even frequent web sites for the hobby they dislike so much. And I understand that some people just want change GW but many voices are just filled with hate, steeped in ignorance on what truly goes on behind the scenes. Don't get me wrong, I am aware that there are some money hungry people running GW. They are a corporation. It goes with the territory. EVERY company is out to make a profit. Even all those smaller 'better' miniature companies, as so many people put it.
Things are much more complex than just change 'x'.
When a company starts a product, it takes time and money. Imagine a new sculpt for modell 'x'. Once the process starts there is very little turning back without substantial loss.

I think the worst part about many GW discussion is 90% of the complaint is price point. This sort of discussion has zero benefit to change and typically has little understanding of costs or business method.
I believe if someone is going to criticize make it thoughtful and constructive
One idea I have always though that would be beneficial is to blend the old school and the new. I have been doing this hobby for over 25 years. In the old days White Dwarf would show you how to build something cool. Show us step by step how to build an Imperial shrine using 3 or 4 plastic kits and some hobby supplies this helps GW sell kits and appeases the hobbiest.
GW does need to start addressing things and one of the most important things is their PR. More outright honesty and some insight into what they do is a start. it's not all secret, and many don't understand. This could work wonders.
Meh, I'm just a regular guy. Feel free to respond if you'd like. But keep 'fanboy' comments to yourself. Because obviously I am a Fanboy, I've been doing this for too many years to think GW is just 'ok'.
DO they need to fix some things..yes, yes they do. So does everyone else.
Anyway, I am getting all over with this rant so I should stop now..

short and simple:

1. you say you won't play against certain player types when it is fairly detailed description yet yourself are a "certain...that guy"

2. price: this in the most part is a non issue, many think entry level/price to get started is too high.

3. streamline the different rules alongside their many equivalents [it was like this once, or my memory is fuzzy, been playing since 2nd edition myself] this will reduce confusion in players new or old while remaining exotic enough to feed the internal converter in us all [both rules interpretation or directly via miniatures/house rules-converting/kitbashing]

4. relevance: keep things on topic and relevant.

5. Continuity: as you have mentioned some people have been playing 25 years or longer [myself 18-20 years with hobby] why can't us old longbeards grumble? don't we have a right to do so after show such loyalty [no i don't require a debate over the in/outs of business etc, because it will solve what differently to that of majority of threads pertaining to this topic, not just on this but many a forum] some understand it would seem according to the rant more then GW would or so it would seem.

6. price #2: ebay and the like will continue to happen regardless of price. if someone isn't happy then a price change is NOT going to do much, except affect the bottom line.

7. end user friendly's: i understand you [like myself and many a veteran] want [being the keyword, like all those new guys wanting something] to return to some preconceived notion of a golden time where X, was so much better than X is now. and whatever it is example building a ruin as you mentioned, then it would be X better, yet choose to ignore others concerns about X and X....still following?.

8. i'll stop here before you think this personal or snarky as it's not intentional on either account.

[Orkimedes1000]

please read my reply bullet point number 4: 4. relevance: keep things on topic and relevant. we already know your concerns yet they offer nothing we otherwise didn't know. we can and will continue to believe something because to be quite frank that is all we have to go on, and this is a community forum, it is what happens.

[Eric French]

Balance is tough, and perfect balance is effectively impossible. But GW does an embarrassingly bad job at balancing their game. They can do better, and it would not be particularly difficult to improve.



Professional carries the implication of competence. While amateur and professional technically only refer to someone who is or isn't paid to do a given thing, it's mainly used to refer that someone's level of competence in that area. Despite that GW's developers are paid to write rules, however, they are not particularly competent at it. Compare it to many other game's rulesets out there right now and it's pretty quickly apparent how amateurish GW's rules generally are.

Compare GW's model quality and new release schedule and variety of options/books/dataslates/supplements/novels/gamer club support and overall market share and then ask yourself does the word incompetent fit ANYWHERE into this companies repertoire? It's foolish, hateful, ignorant and resentful to think that incompetence gets a company and their game to the apex of the genre. The sheer amount of output that GW generates compared to a couple of typos here and there is staggeringly minimal by any stretch. Only competitive players complain and only on the internet and only a select few have the audacity to put some goofy homage in their forum signature to a game that they do nothing but bash. It's remarkably childish and unreasonable and super trolltastic...

[DarkLink]

Especially this dark link Yahoo that assumes he knows anything about GW's intent. Talking out of your arse about their retail stores makes you so obviously a disgruntled fool. It's sickening that you think you can say how GW think or why they do what they do. What an idiot.

First, flagged. Go read the forum rules. And, really? Chill out. This is a game of war barbies. It's not that serious.

Second, I don't think you quite grasp what and "opinion" is. In fact, from what you're saying I'm saying, you really don't know what my opinion actually is.

Third, most of my statements come from speaking with one of the guys (who posts on here occasionally) in my gaming group who has run business ventures that make GW's collective corporation look like a mom and pop store, as well as several people I know who run independent game stores that are directly involved with GW. And, incidentally, if you bother to read into GW's official financial statements, they actually do tell you, in great detail, what they are planning and why they are planning it. They are a publicly traded company, and while they can keep specific products secret, they must tell their shareholders 'this is what we've done, this is how much money we made doing it, and this is what we plan to do in the future'. You can get a lot of information from those documents. So, no, we are not completely uninformed.

Fourth, while GW is the biggest game in town, in the last few years some serious competition has shown up. Up until now, GW has been the only real game in town. They could do whatever they wanted, and if you wanted reasonable odds of finding an opponent, you had to play a GW game. Now, though, a lot of competitors have taken not insignificant market share away from GW, and they've done it with business practices that are more productive and efficient. GW is still doing well, but there are things they can do better, and they need to start adapting or they'll eventually be left behind in an evolving market.

[DarkLink]

Compare GW's model quality and new release schedule and variety of options/books/dataslates/supplements/novels/gamer club support and overall market share and then ask yourself does the word incompetent fit ANYWHERE into this companies repertoire?

You are putting words in my mouth. I have only ever said that their rules themselves were not particularly good. I never said their physical products, the models, the books themselves, etc, were of a low quality.




It's foolish, hateful, ignorant and resentful to think that incompetence gets a company and their game to the apex of the genre. The sheer amount of output that GW generates compared to a couple of typos here and there is staggeringly minimal by any stretch.

You've got a really tall horse there, dude. What have you been feeding it?

Anyways, I was never talking about typos. They don't make that many mistakes, though for their price point any typo is kind of a big deal. Again, I think you completely missed all of the points I was trying to make. Their rules don't have issues due to typos. Except for all of their e-books, which are all mediocre copy-pastes at best. But their actual physical books are pretty high quality.



Only competitive players complain and only on the internet and only a select few have the audacity to put some goofy homage in their forum signature to a game that they do nothing but bash. It's remarkably childish and unreasonable and super trolltastic...

You think I dislike the game? Kind of funny, since I just went to the LVO, I'm starting a new army, and I'm finally getting around to painting my Sisters of Battle after years of sitting around.

The game rules could be written more simply and clearly. The rules could be better balanced. That's not really an opinion so much as a acknowledgement of a fact. Compare to games like Warmahordes (which is an example I keep bringing up), and you'll find there are fewer rules arguments and ambiguities, better balance between factions, and the design staff actually releases FAQs and erratas when the community does stumble on an issue.

Rules issues need to be kept in perspective, otherwise it's all just internet flaming. So how about, as an example, this: http://www.3plusplus.net/2013/02/whats-wrong-with-the-relic/

The Relic is only one of literally dozens of examples I could pull up about something riddled with ambiguous or counter-intuitive rules. But when's the last time GW's FAQ'd something? They were doing pretty well for about a month when 6th ed came out, and after that? Complete silence. And when they do bother to respond to questions, half the time it's just "we don't know, just dice off". That is not professional game design there.

[Eric French]

First, flagged. Go read the forum rules. And, really? Chill out. This is a game of war barbies. It's not that serious.

Second, I don't think you quite grasp what and "opinion" is. In fact, from what you're saying I'm saying, you really don't know what my opinion actually is.

Third, most of my statements come from speaking with one of the guys (who posts on here occasionally) in my gaming group who has run business ventures that make GW's collective corporation look like a mom and pop store, as well as several people I know who run independent game stores that are directly involved with GW. And, incidentally, if you bother to read into GW's official financial statements, they actually do tell you, in great detail, what they are planning and why they are planning it. They are a publicly traded company, and while they can keep specific products secret, they must tell their shareholders 'this is what we've done, this is how much money we made doing it, and this is what we plan to do in the future'. You can get a lot of information from those documents. So, no, we are not completely uninformed.

Fourth, while GW is the biggest game in town, in the last few years some serious competition has shown up. Up until now, GW has been the only real game in town. They could do whatever they wanted, and if you wanted reasonable odds of finding an opponent, you had to play a GW game. Now, though, a lot of competitors have taken not insignificant market share away from GW, and they've done it with business practices that are more productive and efficient. GW is still doing well, but there are things they can do better, and they need to start adapting or they'll eventually be left behind in an evolving market.

No one cares about the guy in your gaming group. It's completely inconsequential what he thinks no matter what size of multinational conglomerate he spearheads. You asserted earlier that you know GW's mindset. So in fact yes I do know what your opinion is. You are of the opinion that you know GW's mindset. Now how presumptuous and ridiculous is that? You claim that GW completely ignores any form of marketing or community building?! Then why do they supply; free of charge, so much awesome terrain to game clubs around the world? Does that not kill those two birds with one stone as opposed to your completely uninformed and utterly false assertion to the contrary? The people who claim to run companies bigger than GW are just as ignorant as you on these matters so stop listening to those who claim things and get some facts in your head.

[Eric French]

You are putting words in my mouth. I have only ever said that their rules themselves were not particularly good. I never said their physical products, the models, the books themselves, etc, were of a low quality.




You've got a really tall horse there, dude. What have you been feeding it?

Anyways, I was never talking about typos. They don't make that many mistakes, though for their price point any typo is kind of a big deal. Again, I think you completely missed all of the points I was trying to make. Their rules don't have issues due to typos. Except for all of their e-books, which are all mediocre copy-pastes at best. But their actual physical books are pretty high quality.



You think I dislike the game? Kind of funny, since I just went to the LVO, I'm starting a new army, and I'm finally getting around to painting my Sisters of Battle after years of sitting around.

The game rules could be written more simply and clearly. The rules could be better balanced. That's not really an opinion so much as a acknowledgement of a fact. Compare to games like Warmahordes (which is an example I keep bringing up), and you'll find there are fewer rules arguments and ambiguities, better balance between factions, and the design staff actually releases FAQs and erratas when the community does stumble on an issue.

Rules issues need to be kept in perspective, otherwise it's all just internet flaming. So how about, as an example, this: http://www.3plusplus.net/2013/02/whats-wrong-with-the-relic/

The Relic is only one of literally dozens of examples I could pull up about something riddled with ambiguous or counter-intuitive rules. But when's the last time GW's FAQ'd something? They were doing pretty well for about a month when 6th ed came out, and after that? Complete silence. And when they do bother to respond to questions, half the time it's just "we don't know, just dice off". That is not professional game design there.
The relic is a mission hatred by tournament players. The ONLY group of players that GW rightfully gives two sh*ts about because it's a casual hobby with absolutely no earthly reason to be played competitively. The relic keeps players honest in their approach to list building. Their is absolutely no confusion whatsoever in the relic wording or faq. Warmahordes is a simple little boutique game that is no where near as rich and engaging and lavishly appointed in nuance and detail. Like checkers and chess. Guess which game I would consider to be chess and which game I would consider to be checkers out of 40K and Warmahordes. Go ahead guess. Then ask me which one can be learned in 10 minutes with very few rules to learn and aspects to memorize. Tell me GW hasn't completely upped their game in the last 18 months and I'd only now teaching their stride concerning pure player engagement with their product. Nothing you say from here on out nor nothing you have already said has any merit or holds any weight as to what GW thinks, does or wants.

[DarkLink]

No one cares about the guy in your gaming group. It's completely inconsequential what he thinks no matter what size of multinational conglomerate he spearheads. You asserted earlier that you know GW's mindset.

Do you mean when I said that GW doesn't care about its rules?

Really, whether or not they "care" is a red herring at best. They're a corporation. They don't "care" about anything. Their business plan, however, is pretty obvious. They put out rules to sell models. Not particularly complicated. It's also pretty obvious that the rules are little more than a means to sell models. GW doesn't put anything more than the minimum effort into its rules. As I said, it's that the rules exist, not that they are of a high quality.

So, if that's what you mean about knowing GW's mindset, sure, why not. Don't know why you're so uptight about that.



So in fact yes I do know what your opinion is. You are of the opinion that you know GW's mindset. Now how presumptuous and ridiculous is that?

Actually, my opinion is that GW is fairly well run. It produces quality models and pretty books. Its rules need some (read: a lot) of work, but the game is fun and reasonably functional if you don't try and think about it too hard. There are some things it can do to improve, but from some of the other comments there it sounds like they're taking what works in the UK and Europe and just copying it over here in the USA where it doesn't quite translate, so most of the room for improvement is here in the USA.

So, GW's not perfect, but they don't deserve a lot of the stuff the internet says about them.


You claim that GW completely ignores any form of marketing or community building?! Then why do they supply; free of charge, so much awesome terrain to game clubs around the world?

They don't. They might give some out to their own stores, and maybe even to some UK stores, but they don't give anything to gaming clubs out here, and I'm pretty sure they don't provide any for anyone in the US. I could be partially wrong about that. But I doubt it.

So how about all those tournaments they hold, or all that prize support they ship out to stores, or that stuff? Oh, wait, they don't do that in the US. I don't know how they do it in the UK, but over here, the extent of GW's reach is pretty much models in the shelves.



Does that not kill those two birds with one stone as opposed to your completely uninformed and utterly false assertion to the contrary? The people who claim to run companies bigger than GW are just as ignorant as you on these matters so stop listening to those who claim things and get some facts in your head.

Hmmm.... as eloquent as your argument is, I think I'm going to stick with people who actually know stuff about business over some random internet GW apologist with inflammatory rhetoric. And if you want, I can PM you a copy of GW's latest financial reports and chairman's statements. Read those and get your own interpretation.

Tom Kirby makes some pretty funny statements in his preambles, btw. He specifically calls out Finecast as being the best minis on the market, despite the widespread internet hate. I personally have never had a problem with any of the finecast stuff I own, but a lot of people have, and I probably would have mentioned some of GW's other products. He also talks **** about Pokemon, which is kind of funny when that franchise probably makes more money in year than GW will in its entire existence. He is right, though, Pokemon isn't a threat to GW, mainly because they're in different markets, not because "no one remembers [pokemon]".

Incidentally, my sister is going to college in Colorado. You sound like you need some help de-stressing, maybe pent up anger issues or something. Pot is legal there, maybe I can get some shipped to you or something.

[Orkimedes1000]

The relic is a mission hatred by tournament players. The ONLY group of players that GW rightfully gives two sh*ts about because it's a casual hobby with absolutely no earthly reason to be played competitively. The relic keeps players honest in their approach to list building. Their is absolutely no confusion whatsoever in the relic wording or faq. Warmahordes is a simple little boutique game that is no where near as rich and engaging and lavishly appointed in nuance and detail. Like checkers and chess. Guess which game I would consider to be chess and which game I would consider to be checkers out of 40K and Warmahordes. Go ahead guess. Then ask me which one can be learned in 10 minutes with very few rules to learn and aspects to memorize. Tell me GW hasn't completely upped their game in the last 18 months and I'd only now teaching their stride concerning pure player engagement with their product. Nothing you say from here on out nor nothing you have already said has any merit or holds any weight as to what GW thinks, does or wants.


is there any merit to this and i quote the above "Nothing you say from here on out nor nothing you have already said has any merit or holds any weight as to what GW thinks, does or wants" i wonder where the constructive merit of this is... we get it you have good reasonable things to add to this but then add indirect or direct personal attacks on people and quite frankly it's not required.

[ElectricPaladin]

Warmahordes is a simple little boutique game that is no where near as rich and engaging and lavishly appointed in nuance and detail. Like checkers and chess...

Uh... dude. Nobody is going to tell you that you haven't got a right to like what you like and not like what you don't like, but Privateer Press and WarmaHordes is increasingly huge. Love it or hate it, you can't dismiss it anymore, and as a result, you can't really dismiss the effectiveness of their policies and business model. Love it or hate it, WarmaHordes is a solid game, and Privateer Press is now a player in the global wargames market. Are they as bighuge as GW? Of course not... but that doesn't mean that they are tiny and inconsequential. And, Privateer's market share is still growing, while GW's is shrinking...

[Eric French]

Do you mean when I said that GW doesn't care about its rules?

Really, whether or not they "care" is a red herring at best. They're a corporation. They don't "care" about anything. Their business plan, however, is pretty obvious. They put out rules to sell models. Not particularly complicated. It's also pretty obvious that the rules are little more than a means to sell models. GW doesn't put anything more than the minimum effort into its rules. As I said, it's that the rules exist, not that they are of a high quality.

So, if that's what you mean about knowing GW's mindset, sure, why not. Don't know why you're so uptight about that.



Actually, my opinion is that GW is fairly well run. It produces quality models and pretty books. Its rules need some (read: a lot) of work, but the game is fun and reasonably functional if you don't try and think about it too hard. There are some things it can do to improve, but from some of the other comments there it sounds like they're taking what works in the UK and Europe and just copying it over here in the USA where it doesn't quite translate, so most of the room for improvement is here in the USA.

So, GW's not perfect, but they don't deserve a lot of the stuff the internet says about them.



They don't. They might give some out to their own stores, and maybe even to some UK stores, but they don't give anything to gaming clubs out here, and I'm pretty sure they don't provide any for anyone in the US. I could be partially wrong about that. But I doubt it.

So how about all those tournaments they hold, or all that prize support they ship out to stores, or that stuff? Oh, wait, they don't do that in the US. I don't know how they do it in the UK, but over here, the extent of GW's reach is pretty much models in the shelves.



Hmmm.... as eloquent as your argument is, I think I'm going to stick with people who actually know stuff about business over some random internet GW apologist with inflammatory rhetoric. And if you want, I can PM you a copy of GW's latest financial reports and chairman's statements. Read those and get your own interpretation.

Tom Kirby makes some pretty funny statements in his preambles, btw. He specifically calls out Finecast as being the best minis on the market, despite the widespread internet hate. I personally have never had a problem with any of the finecast stuff I own, but a lot of people have, and I probably would have mentioned some of GW's other products. He also talks **** about Pokemon, which is kind of funny when that franchise probably makes more money in year than GW will in its entire existence. He is right, though, Pokemon isn't a threat to GW, mainly because they're in different markets, not because "no one remembers [pokemon]".

Incidentally, my sister is going to college in Colorado. You sound like you need some help de-stressing, maybe pent up anger issues or something. Pot is legal there, maybe I can get some shipped to you or something.

Ask your local game store about GW's terrain program for gaming clubs. I know personally that they "give" up to $4000 credit to stores in product credit for organized play groups to use for prize support and terrain for the tables. Check it out it's absolutely real. Gateway gamers just put on an event and I saw with my own eyes/ assembled with my own hands the piles of imperial sector buildings and moonscapes and trees etc. Depending of course what tier your lgs is depends on the dollar amount.
"They don't deserve a lot of the stuff the internet says about them" this includes your statements about incompetence I assume? And yes your observations are correct. I suffer harshly with severe polyneuropathy and spent the day on my friends concrete basement floor playing killteam and yes I'm in extreme distress. Sorry I come across like such an arrogant douche I really am venting on a forum and probably breaking every social rule on it. Rest assured if the amount of oxy I need to endure doesn't fully help me that no weed in the world is going to do anything more than lock me onto my couch even deeper than is already sufficient. I do think you are silly and you are talking out of both sides of your mouth tonight. I don't however hate and despise. I'm a pretty chill guy and I'm sure you are too. Agree to disagree about GW because I think they have their act completely together and they provide my community here in the St Louis MO area with ample enjoyment and variety. I sincerely apologize for being so obtuse about my opinion. Why I feel like I need to defend this company must have something to do with the amount of dollars I've spent with them multiplied by the amount of sheer enjoyment I get from every aspect of the hobby. I just bought the imperial sector realm of battle from Forgeworld and I cannot wait to have my own table so my friends can come over here for a change because my mancave has CARPETED FLOORS!

[DarkLink]

The relic is a mission hatred by tournament players.

I like it. Draigo and 10 Paladins, Scout with the Grand Strategy, practically an auto-win. And tournaments include it because it does equalize out some armies. You have to be mobile to get the Relic, so static gunlines struggle.

That doesn't mean the Relic isn't terribly written. When I play a game, it's nice for the rules to actually be coherent. My comments about GW writing amateur rules? It's because they write stuff like the Relic, which is full of loopholes and ambiguities, that I say they need to up their game. The idea is good. The execution is poor.





Like checkers and chess. Guess which game I would consider to be chess and which game I would consider to be checkers out of 40K and Warmahordes. Go ahead guess. Then ask me which one can be learned in 10 minutes with very few rules to learn and aspects to memorize. Tell me GW hasn't completely upped their game in the last 18 months and I'd only now teaching their stride concerning pure player engagement with their product. Nothing you say from here on out nor nothing you have already said has any merit or holds any weight as to what GW thinks, does or wants.

40k is checkers, Warmahordes is chess. If you've ever played both games side by side for more than about five minutes, the differences are kind of scary. Warmahordes rules are much simpler, yet have far more tactical depth. They're also written clearly and concisely. Warmahordes is the gold standard for professional rules writing, as far as I'm concerned. That said, I personally prefer the scale and general play style of 40k. And, yes, Warhammer has better minis than most of Warmahorde's lines.

[phreakachu]

Warmahoardes....
its kind of like if GW decided that every army had Space Marines, only slightly differently flavored Space Marines, all described as Space Marines and was required to take X space marines in order to play. I want to like Warmahoardes, but i want to play and field Trenchers, or Pirates..

Not My Factions Version of Gandalf and His/Her X number of BigMagicSteampunkRobotsand/orMonsters.

Beyond that, for every model that makes me salivate at the pure awesomenessocity of the sculpt, theres at least a dozen more that make my eyes vomit. PP's 'Not Elves" faction sports a wave after wave of BigMagicSteampunkRobots that happen to look like BigMagicSteampunkSextoys.

Dont get me started on the ref*ckingdiculous shoulder pads.

but more tellingly, it seems to me that Warmahoardes boils down to whomever can get their Gandalf's 'Doomsday-Button' power off first. admittedly, i havent played more than a dozen begrudging games of Warmahoardes, but i have yet to see any tactical depth. It seems like its a game of whos Gandalf has the bigger tackle in their trousers and a race to see who whips it out first.

[Wolfshade]

I've heard that before, also known as who can kill the caster first. But ho hum.

I think that there is a lovely nugget that may have been lost with some diversion above and that is that we leap on any bit of information and run with it, so if we are shared leaks of an alpha test/rules then people start to adpat to that but become thoroughly dissapointed when it doesn't come to fruition.

In terms of being underhanded that GW aren't releasing their release schedule. If it is underhanded, then most companies are. We all know (or hope we know) that with each new edition of the rule book all existing codecii will be re-newed. But we don't know when. Similiarly, consider Generic Football game 2013, we know that it will be reskined (possibly) updated sometime this year for Generic Football game 2014. Now, up until the point of release it is still selling the previous version.

I am really excited for Fallout 4, but that doesn't mean I won't be buying any other games before that comes out.

But back to Wargames. It would be interesting to see in X years how PP behave compared with GW. As has been said above, GW is like a tanker going through the wargaming sea and it is slow to respond and difficult to turn, (indeed for every action that GW does to make people happy you see others being unhappy, for instance on this very forum there were frequent cries that Doom was OOP, then in the new dex there is outcries that it has been dropped). The others are like speed boats, smaller more nibble. I am hoping that with the weekly WDs GW can get a more agile response.

With large known leaked info it enables these smaller companies to jump and fill the hole GW annouce so it is all for the best for GW to have shorter notice periods and if it means we get things as awesome looking as the new titans I can't wait.

[Eric French]

Warmahoardes....
its kind of like if GW decided that every army had Space Marines, only slightly differently flavored Space Marines, all described as Space Marines and was required to take X space marines in order to play. I want to like Warmahoardes, but i want to play and field Trenchers, or Pirates..

Not My Factions Version of Gandalf and His/Her X number of BigMagicSteampunkRobotsand/orMonsters.

Beyond that, for every model that makes me salivate at the pure awesomenessocity of the sculpt, theres at least a dozen more that make my eyes vomit. PP's 'Not Elves" faction sports a wave after wave of BigMagicSteampunkRobots that happen to look like BigMagicSteampunkSextoys.

Dont get me started on the ref*ckingdiculous shoulder pads.

but more tellingly, it seems to me that Warmahoardes boils down to whomever can get their Gandalf's 'Doomsday-Button' power off first. admittedly, i havent played more than a dozen begrudging games of Warmahoardes, but i have yet to see any tactical depth. It seems like its a game of whos Gandalf has the bigger tackle in their trousers and a race to see who whips it out first.
Eloquent indeed :P . It simply comes down to personal taste and geographic area. There has been more 40% off stickers on entire lines of miniatures in my area in recent months. It's a shame to some and a mystery to others. But it's business as usual for the shops who try a new game system, invest in it their time and money and see it fizzle out with little to no following at all. I hear Malifeaux and warmachines are doing well but the bin full of deeply discounted miniatures tells a different story in this area. 40k, Warhammer fantasy and reaper bones go gangbusters (M:TG and comic books notwithstanding) but there just isn't any room for much else. Oh sure there is the odd grizzled necky who boycotts GW and tries to teach infinity or X Wing now and again and hey, more power to 'em.

[Eric French]

I've heard that before, also known as who can kill the caster first. But ho hum.

I think that there is a lovely nugget that may have been lost with some diversion above and that is that we leap on any bit of information and run with it, so if we are shared leaks of an alpha test/rules then people start to adpat to that but become thoroughly dissapointed when it doesn't come to fruition.

In terms of being underhanded that GW aren't releasing their release schedule. If it is underhanded, then most companies are. We all know (or hope we know) that with each new edition of the rule book all existing codecii will be re-newed. But we don't know when. Similiarly, consider Generic Football game 2013, we know that it will be reskined (possibly) updated sometime this year for Generic Football game 2014. Now, up until the point of release it is still selling the previous version.

I am really excited for Fallout 4, but that doesn't mean I won't be buying any other games before that comes out.

But back to Wargames. It would be interesting to see in X years how PP behave compared with GW. As has been said above, GW is like a tanker going through the wargaming sea and it is slow to respond and difficult to turn, (indeed for every action that GW does to make people happy you see others being unhappy, for instance on this very forum there were frequent cries that Doom was OOP, then in the new dex there is outcries that it has been dropped). The others are like speed boats, smaller more nibble. I am hoping that with the weekly WDs GW can get a more agile response.

With large known leaked info it enables these smaller companies to jump and fill the hole GW annouce so it is all for the best for GW to have shorter notice periods and if it means we get things as awesome looking as the new titans I can't wait.

My wife and I watched a movie called devil wears prada. I concede it was exclusively for my wife's enjoyment but I saw in it a tidbit of food for thought. A lady said something about something in the movie to another person and someone overheard what she said or whatever the setup was....this other lady goes on a mini diatribe about this particular shirt which the original lady was wearing. She said that she was only wearing it because several years ago a designer had put that particular color in their spring offering on a runway in France. Then from France it swept Europe and hit the east coast shortly after. Then when the movie stars started wearing it EVERYONE wanted that color so it went from Paris to K Mart and will end up being packed into boxes and sent to third world countries for disaster relief. My point is (finally, I know) that the internet; specifically the rumor sites are the runway in Paris. The first glimpse of what was already thoroughly fleshed out or at least heavily endeavored. The internet community are the "stars" who adopt early and those that simply walk in one day and see it in print or get the email that their favorite army is only one week away from being updated? Those are the 90% that's left the Kmart shoppers and the ones who ultimately vote with their wallets that GW are the best, the most reliable, the biggest and the most diverse, successful business for this hobby period. And the third world? EBay.

[DarkLink]

Actually, there are certain chinese websites that probably qualify as third world...



but more tellingly, it seems to me that Warmahoardes boils down to whomever can get their Gandalf's 'Doomsday-Button' power off first. admittedly, i havent played more than a dozen begrudging games of Warmahoardes, but i have yet to see any tactical depth. It seems like its a game of whos Gandalf has the bigger tackle in their trousers and a race to see who whips it out first.


I've heard that before, also known as who can kill the caster first. But ho hum.


There's more of a learning curve to warmachine. While it has very simple rules, stuff tends to be very lethal and not overly survivable, so until you start to learn the dirty tricks you can pull, it mostly comes down to throwing your army at your opponent. So in that regard, it is more like a quickdraw contest than a prolonged gunfight. However, a lot of the tactical depth of the game comes both from when you learn to thwart your opponent's Feat, and the fact that even if you're losing, if your opponent makes a mistake you can always pull off an assassination. It's the sort of thing where misplacing a single model by half an inch can lose you the game, and so until you've played enough to learn the importance of precise placement and range estimation and knowing what your and your opponent's models are capable of, you tend to lose a lot.

I do prefer 40k overall, but what I love about warmahordes compared to 40k is that I've yet to play a warmahordes game where, after losing, I didn't realize later 'wait, if I had done X, I could have won'. Compared to 40k, and most wins and losses tend to come down to how well I rolled, at least to a much greater degree than in warmahordes. I haven't played too much warmahordes, though, I've stuck with 40k.



Incidentally, this is what GW has to say about its IP defense in its annual report:


Breach of intellectual property (IP) and counterfeit products. The risk is that we lose control of our IP and thus other people can take ourmarket. There are two ways we mitigate this risk: product quality and IP protection. Product quality is the best defence. Our miniatures are
of extraordinary detail and have very high costs associated with their production. We do the tooling and manufacturing here in Nottingham
to ensure that quality. As it happens, even if we wanted to tool or manufacture elsewhere, we have never found anyone who can deliver
the quality we need at the price we pay. In order to be able to duplicate that quality requires a level of capital investment that no one has,
as yet, even tried to emulate. This also deals with the risk of counterfeit products. The few that are made are of poor quality and do not
appeal to our customers.
Should that change, or we meet intransigent small infringers, we have copyright, trademark and passing off law to protect our imagery and
we have never been shy of using legal redress if needed. Our legal department deals with dozens of cases each year with satisfactory
results.
The scale upon which we do business is the biggest defence against this threat. The cases we deal with (and there are dozens each year)
are nearly all single individuals or small businesses who ‘cease and desist’ as soon as they get the letter. Those who don’t should be
stopped more because we need to ensure everyone knows we are serious about defending our IP rather than because of the immediate
threat of damage to our profits.

[Wolfshade]

Sounds a bit fiesty.

[DarkLink]

We do not set sales targets. We do want real sales growth (defined as an increase after our price rises, if any), the more the better, but we do not predict it. We follow the plan: more stores run by the right people and great products in them should yield sales growth. Our staff are rewarded if they achieve real growth.In our own stores, after sales, we look at the average transaction value and the transaction count in each store. We use them to see where the problem lies if sales are not growing. We do not publish them and we do not use them in our forward planning.
In sales to independent retailers we check to see how many live accounts we have each month: did they order? This is a health check to make sure the guys are doing their jobs properly. We do not publish this number and we do not use it in our forward planning.
We look at many other things as well: how many staff per store we have (UK: 1.9, Continental Europe: 1.6, North America: 1.7, Australia: 1.5, Asia: 1.0), how many stores we have (UK: 137, Continental Europe: 135, North America: 99, Australia: 37, Asia: 4), how many we think we could open (close) next year (UK: 4 (1), Continental Europe: 10 (4), North America: 38 (28), Australia: 4 (4)). None of these is a KEY performance indicator. They are simply part of the huge complex of information we use all the time to keep tabs on what is going on and none of them is used to anticipate future performance.
So how do we plan our future? We run a tight ship, and do our damnedest to get more sales. Everything else is just whistling Dixie.

Here's another exerpt about their internal performance indicators. I bolded a particularly interesting part. They're planning on opening 38 stores in America, and closing 28. That's a huge amount of money, opening and closing stores all over the place. In other parts of the document, they bring up a lot of stuff about trial and error, including a direct reference to Thomas Eidson (it purportedly took him 10,000 tries to make a lightbulb, and when asked about the previous 9,999 times, he said 'they weren't failures, I just know 9,999 way it doesn't work'). That sounds like they're opening stores, then closing them if they perform poorly and reopening elsewhere, in the hopes of stumbling across the profitable areas.


Edit: oh, and about Warmachine models... definitely a case study in how you can grow a game via solid rules rather than quality models ;).

[Wolfshade]

You have to consider how many attempts that GW needs before they figure out the winning formula. In my city, they went from a shop that was large enough to have 2 full sized tables, a painting station down to a single table store and now back up to two tables and a paint station, about 100yds from the original one.

[DarkLink]

If they need to do that in the UK, then that's fine. You mentioned that GW stores were about the only hobby stores around, right? But the US is where they're opening and closing like crazy. We have tons of independent retailers, far more than there are GW stores, and considering that there are fewer US stores than UK stores (despite the fact that the UK is roughly half the size of California, and a fifth the population of the US as a whole), it seems like a much better strategy to rely on said independent retailers over here.

[Wolfshade]

For GW the UK strategy makes sense owing to population density (262 / km^2 compared with just 32/km^2) so you can do that hub process as each store will have a much higher community (on average). But as we've been over before the UK version (and Europe) probably won't work in the US density size and shopping habbits and what not.

[Peasant]

short and simple:

1. you say you won't play against certain player types when it is fairly detailed description yet yourself are a "certain...that guy"

There is a 'that guy' for everyone. I explained the types of people I don't care to play against.


2. price: this in the most part is a non issue, many think entry level/price to get started is too high.

Some say it is. It's no worse than startup for any other hobby and upkeep can be less. Simple solution. Play less points to start although the community seems to struggle with this.


3. streamline the different rules alongside their many equivalents [it was like this once, or my memory is fuzzy, been playing since 2nd edition myself] this will reduce confusion in players new or old while remaining exotic enough to feed the internal converter in us all [both rules interpretation or directly via miniatures/house rules-converting/kitbashing]

4. relevance: keep things on topic and relevant.
Not sure I understand what you are saying..


5. Continuity: as you have mentioned some people have been playing 25 years or longer [myself 18-20 years with hobby] why can't us old longbeards grumble? don't we have a right to do so after show such loyalty [no i don't require a debate over the in/outs of business etc, because it will solve what differently to that of majority of threads pertaining to this topic, not just on this but many a forum] some understand it would seem according to the rant more then GW would or so it would seem.

Never said you can't grumble. It's just a peculiar mindset that I struggle to understand. It's kind of like going into a sports bar during Monday night football (American) and complaining constantly about how bad the rules are and how the game plays and how Soccer (European Football) is a better game. Is it just a thing? Is it just something that people enjoy doing?
Continuity is difficult to maintain. Too much and the game, universe etc. become stale.



7. end user friendly's: i understand you [like myself and many a veteran] want [being the keyword, like all those new guys wanting something] to return to some preconceived notion of a golden time where X, was so much better than X is now. and whatever it is example building a ruin as you mentioned, then it would be X better, yet choose to ignore others concerns about X and X....still following?.

8. i'll stop here before you think this personal or snarky as it's not intentional on either account.

I would like to see some changes and I think there are some ways that both GW and the community could benefit from but I'm actually quite content with the game as it is. It is a fun game and plays very well. My group does not run into the 'problems' that the internet rants about. On the rare occasion that something creates confusion we roll a dice. And if we still remember the problem at the end we discuss it.
Now I'm not sure that, again, I fully understand what you mean. If you are saying that I am choosing to ignore others concerns you are incorrect. Let me try and be short, a skill that I am rater lacking in..
Pick a complaint that you hear and what it is that is being said..
1. If a person complains that game system 'x' is better...I am not game system 'x' so why would I copy that system? Not to mention legal problems. Plus if someone already likes game system 'x' better, why would they suddenly move to my system especially if I make it the same.
2. The typical price complaint is it's too expensive. Maybe it is for some. What does that complaint truly accomplish? This is a niche hobby and price point will only do so much.

Really it's about direction. It's a minor fantasy of mine, rather than complaining that all these things suck and the GW hates us. Change the direction of the conversations. People want to be heard. Stop complaining and offer changes, ideas and solutions. The 'relic' example from this thread alone...just complaints about how it plays. If you want some one to listen don't spend time listing everything wrong, state ways to fix it. Because if all you do is complain people stop listening, and that could be where GW is at..
If your roof is leaking do you ***** about the shoddy job and cheap materials or do you find a way to fix it?

[Denzark]

Again, interesting stuff and an opportuntiy for Darklink to bang on about rules improvements in a third thread in 2 weeks! The question has been answered. The secrecy is because:

1. the New Line Confidentiality Clauses.

2. To avoid the play testing (as it is) leaking and getting people doing one thing which doesn't survive contact with the final cut.

3. Because they think it creats an Apple Style 'Product Buzz' and stops people hoarding their hobby budget.

4. To stop CHS and other leeches from jumping in first with things that GW, a ponderously larger company, will take time to get spun up.

Simples eh?

Does it work? I think a weekly WD is a sea-change in attitude to try and reposition but if nobody things this is a significant change, then the fact there isn't a significant change would hint that GW are satisifed with how secrecy fits into their businsess plan - as evinced by the fact that, if they weren't, they'd change it.

[Wolfshade]

I certainly am pleased by the recent smörgåsbord of new releases, I had feared it would be models week1 digital gumpf weeks 2-4.

[BeardMonk]

Warmahoardes....
its kind of like if GW decided that every army had Space Marines, only slightly differently flavored Space Marines, all described as Space Marines and was required to take X space marines in order to play. I want to like Warmahoardes, but i want to play and field Trenchers, or Pirates..

Not My Factions Version of Gandalf and His/Her X number of BigMagicSteampunkRobotsand/orMonsters.

Iv been playing wamahordes for about 6 months now as a counterpoint to WHF. I love the game but I have often said that there are only about 3 or 4 factions that I would actually play (including the 1 that I do) out of the whole system. There are differences between the factions in terms of intended game play style. The only thing that confuses me is the sort of orthodoxy that seems to exist that results in most people taking exactly the same and casting scorn on people who take anything “different”. Thankfully that mindset doesn’t exist at our gaming club and people field all sorts of odd combinations.


but more tellingly, it seems to me that Warmahoardes boils down to whomever can get their Gandalf's 'Doomsday-Button' power off first. admittedly, i haven’t played more than a dozen begrudging games of Warmahoardes, but i have yet to see any tactical depth. It seems like its a game of whos Gandalf has the bigger tackle in their trousers and a race to see who whips it out first.

When we started playing we did just throw our models at each other on the board. But once we got over that and stated playing (and being totally routed by) skilled players we had to get a grip quickly and learn to be just as tactical as when we play other wargames. Wamahordes is a totally different games style and pace of game to WHF/40K. Your meant to “get your tackle out”, smash quick and “play like you have a pair”. It’s not meant to be a squad level, long haul battle. But because it can be so quick, people make the mistake of thinking it’s a slapdash system. It’s not. It’s just different.

That said, the system does have its flaws, some of the models need refeshing (which is happening) and the range expanding as does the fluff and overall differences between the factions. Also the community needs to break the ridiculous “you must take X or you’re a idiot” mentality because I think 1) its provably untrue and 2) its holding game development back. Also iv never seen anybody at a wamahordes tournament who appears to be “having fun”. Which is why our club is quite selective as to the events we attend.

I admit to being something of a wamahordes apologist but I enjoy the game as much as I enjoy WHF. But I admit that it is not everybody’s cup of tea. If you don’t like it your don’t like it. In the same way im just not a fan of 40K.

[ElectricPaladin]

Iv been playing wamahordes for about 6 months now as a counterpoint to WHF. I love the game but I have often said that there are only about 3 or 4 factions that I would actually play (including the 1 that I do) out of the whole system. There are differences between the factions in terms of intended game play style. The only thing that confuses me is the sort of orthodoxy that seems to exist that results in most people taking exactly the same and casting scorn on people who take anything “different”. Thankfully that mindset doesn’t exist at our gaming club and people field all sorts of odd combinations.

It's because of the same combo-focused rules set that keeps the game from being my favorite. Every piece is so much more powerful than written when combined with other pieces that play to its strength, that most lists are - rather than attempts at tactical flexibility - straightforward combo machines. It's all about "this buffs this, and this buffs that, and together they kill your caster" or "with this turn-long spell and this upkeep spell and this ability, this unit is basically unkillable short of you rolling twelve 6s in a row, so I can park it in a zone and win." Whoever gets their killer combo off first is the winner.

It's one of the main failings of the game, I think, that the designers talk as though they wanted to design a fun, aggressive "play big or go home" kind of game, but instead what they made is an incredibly finicky game in which the better combo is practically guaranteed to win.

Assuming that nobody makes a drastic mistake, the better player doesn't win because outplayed the lesser player; he wins because he was able to innovate a unique list that does something cool that the lesser player wasn't expecting.

[DarkLink]

Kind of. A big part of the game is learning how to survive and counter your opponent's combo. It's one of the reasons it has a steep learning curve. Once you've played the game enough and know both you and your opponent's army inside and out, it's a brilliant competitive game. But if you're fairly new, and you come up against something you don't recognize, then, yes, all you can do is hope to kill your opponent's combo before he powers up. Notably, though, you take two lists to tournaments and pick between them each round, so it's much easier to avoid running into a hard counter.

But anyone who thinks there aren't significant differences between warmahordes factions hasn't played the game very much.

[Denzark]

Listening to a debate on the various merits of 40K versus Kill the Warcaster from the perspective of a Warmahordes player is like listening to a junky trying to convince his mates that his new hit is the thing. 'Yeah your GW Crystal Meth is pretty cool but it is nothing compared to my awesome mind-numbing Privateer Press Heroin. And Privateer look after their customers by noshing them off with every 3 wraps purchased'.

[ElectricPaladin]

Listening to a debate on the various merits of 40K versus Kill the Warcaster from the perspective of a Warmahordes player is like listening to a junky trying to convince his mates that his new hit is the thing. 'Yeah your GW Crystal Meth is pretty cool but it is nothing compared to my awesome mind-numbing Privateer Press Heroin. And Privateer look after their customers by noshing them off with every 3 wraps purchased'.

I think that there's a certain merit to discussing the strengths and foibles of different games, because it would expand our knowledge about what makes games good... but it's true that at a certain point, the conversation comes down to taste and the discourse falls apart.

[BeardMonk]

It's because of the same combo-focused rules set that keeps the game from being my favorite. Every piece is so much more powerful than written when combined with other pieces that play to its strength, that most lists are - rather than attempts at tactical flexibility - straightforward combo machines. It's all about "this buffs this, and this buffs that, and together they kill your caster" or "with this turn-long spell and this upkeep spell and this ability, this unit is basically unkillable short of you rolling twelve 6s in a row, so I can park it in a zone and win." Whoever gets their killer combo off first is the winner.

On reflection i think its this mechanic that drives the "you must take X/Y/Z" mentality among a lot of players.

Those of us who take what the mainstay of the community would think of as "odd" lists that are build for bit more grind and less of an alphastrike end up winning more games because we can survive and respond to an opponents power moves if we play it right. As DarkLink said, part of the game is learning how to surviving, reduce or negate opponents feats and powerful combos.

Also, many of these combos require a beast or warmachine to be in full working order by the time it gets into play. One mistake that many people make when they start the hobby is assuming that their army will consist of loads of these uber powerful machines and beasts. When in fact if you wish to survive games, your army will consists mostly of troops with the odd machine or beasts in support. I see the Warmachines and Warbeasts in the same way as i would see a Dreadnaught in 40K or a Giant in WHF. They are strong units and able to dish out damage in the right situation but are unlikely win you the battle by themselves. I think that when Privateer release a 3rd edition we may see a re-balancing of points costs between troops and machine/beasts to address this . But that’s just a personal view