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Darth Bob wrote:

Lord of Kaith wrote:At the risk of de-railing this topic, no, I don't exactly believe you. It just seems a bit strange that a gang would run off because a 13-year-old hit one of them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Unless the store manager kicked them or threatened to call the police. On a side note, I don't think even a gang member would be stupid enough to deliberately cause a fight in public.

By calling him a "wangster" he was reffering to the him acting "gangsta" or being a white guy acting black (they block out w**ger for some reason), rather than the fact that he was actually in a gang. Wangster is a slang word...*facepalm*. You have no reason to be calling him out on a story that may or may not be true, because you don't know; you're not a psychic. No-one cares if you believe him, so stop acting like an immature ass, and refrain from trying to start a flame war in an otherwise mellow thread (especially when it's a thread that you made ).

Even if he is lieing, why do you care? It doen't affect you.

We might need to take it to PM after this if it's important enough to continue, since this is sorta off-topic.

Firstly, never heard of "wangster". Assumed it was a typo.

I have seen many inflammatory and uncalled-for remarks made on this site--on a site this big, of course things like this happen. Sorta surpised my post was reacted to this strongly.

I cannot fathom why you would call me an immature ass if you're attempting to stop a "flame war". And btw, what do you mean "a thread I made?". I'm not the author.

I will apologize to Grambo. I realize this is no excuse, but I have been and probably will be in an extremely foul mood for the next while. The family dog was killed yesterday.

So Grambo, I apologize for calling you a liar. If anyone else feels it's necessary to continue this, please PM me, as this is getting very off topic.

Lord of Kaith wrote:

Darth Bob wrote:

Lord of Kaith wrote:At the risk of de-railing this topic, no, I don't exactly believe you. It just seems a bit strange that a gang would run off because a 13-year-old hit one of them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Unless the store manager kicked them or threatened to call the police. On a side note, I don't think even a gang member would be stupid enough to deliberately cause a fight in public.

By calling him a "wangster" he was reffering to the him acting "gangsta" or being a white guy acting black (they block out w**ger for some reason), rather than the fact that he was actually in a gang. Wangster is a slang word...*facepalm*. You have no reason to be calling him out on a story that may or may not be true, because you don't know; you're not a psychic. No-one cares if you believe him, so stop acting like an immature ass, and refrain from trying to start a flame war in an otherwise mellow thread (especially when it's a thread that you made ).

Even if he is lieing, why do you care? It doen't affect you.

We might need to take it to PM after this if it's important enough to continue, since this is sorta off-topic.

Firstly, never heard of "wangster". Assumed it was a typo.

I have seen many inflammatory and uncalled-for remarks made on this site--on a site this big, of course things like this happen. Sorta surpised my post was reacted to this strongly.

I cannot fathom why you would call me an immature ass if you're attempting to stop a "flame war". And btw, what do you mean "a thread I made?". I'm not the author.

I will apologize to Grambo. I realize this is no excuse, but I have been and probably will be in an extremely foul mood for the next while. The family dog was killed yesterday.

So Grambo, I apologize for calling you a liar. If anyone else feels it's necessary to continue this, please PM me, as this is getting very off topic.

Urban Dictionary is your friend.

Just because other people post inflammatory remarks, doesn't make it okay for you to post one.

I called you an immature ass because that's how you were acting. Sometimes, subtlety doesn't get through to people and you have to be a bit blunt to get your point across, if it seemed inflammatory, I apologize as it was not meant to.

I misread the person quoted as the OP also made a post right after yours.

I am sorry for your loss, but honestly, taking your anger and foul mood out on forum-goers is not the best course of action.


Now back on topic .

I LOLed this thred.

I've not had as rough of experiences as any of you have.

And to the last couple of posts, LMAO!!!

Thanks for making me blow my drink all over the computer.

Lord of Kaith wrote:The family dog was killed yesterday.

Professional hit or drive by?

Ok seriously guys, can we just keep this thread on track?

I'll admit that Lord of Kaith's comment was a little rash, but it is not your responsibility nor your place to be correcting him Darth Bob. Just swooping in and offering moral and grammatical corrects without offering anything on topic to this thread is just not necessary.

There were a couple of stores that fit that criteria around here, and closed up shop. Yet our other stores, that have decent and personable staff, are thriving....

devinb1690 wrote:Ok seriously guys, can we just keep this thread on track?

I'll admit that Lord of Kaith's comment was a little rash, but it is not your responsibility nor your place to be correcting him Darth Bob. Just swooping in and offering moral and grammatical corrects without offering anything on topic to this thread is just not necessary.

You made a comment that you found his story "hard to believe" and therefore joined Lord of Kaith in the OT conversation. It may not be my responsibility, but did I not stop an inevitable flame war between the two posters? It is not your job to reprimand me for an OT comment, especially when you had a hand in the fueling and/or adding to the OT conversation.

Also, for the record, I was the first one to post a story about a ULGS in this thread, with the exception of the OP, so saying I didn't offer something on topic to this thread is bs.

I had dropped the conversation and yet you and others continue it still. It's not my fault Lord of Kaith derailed the thread, after all, I tried to ring it back in. Don't blame me for the things other people are posting.

AGAIN...dropping this conversation in favor of not further derailing it. If you have any more problems, devinb1690, please PM me.

Darth Bob wrote:It may not be my responsibility, but did I not stop an inevitable flame war between the two posters?

Whether you did or not, you have continued the derailment of the thread.

It is not your job to reprimand me for an OT comment,

Nor is it your job to reprimand others. Please leave the moderation to the moderators.


Note to all: Please get it back on track. Continuing an OT discussion just to try to get in the last word and then declare the conversation done is no less off-topic than the OT posts to which you are responding. Further OT posts will be dealt with... and any further personal attacks will result in a holiday for the poster.

What Makes a good shop go down the dark road of UFGS? How do you keep it from happening where you are?

wow. all these stories. im glad my store is not bad at all. the worst thing they did is not allow open gaming during weekday to not interfer with the weekly events.
but i never had a problem with harassing redshirts the only time i went to a gw. thay just asked if i needed something. i just said i was browsing and he left me alone till i was actually looking for something.

Lets see where to even remotely start. There's the place realtively close by that pretty much ping pong wargaming- they'd invited the locals in, start up leagues and playing and then months later turned around and turfed everyone as they didnt want gaming anymore. That happened twice over the period of a couple years. Then years later decided open gaming night for minis was wensday frm 6-9pm only and of course, let the shelves dwindled to nothing. It was especially bad when it changed owners, the old man would have and didnt treat his customers that way.

Then there was the not so close place, who also pretty much wanted wargaming, but eventually decided they didnt want us anymore. It shucked for us short term, but long term we just rent our own space now. They lost a decent percent of their business. Funny thing is they now started up again with wargaming again, leagues torunments. But I'll never attend or buy a damn thing there ever again.

A lot of the stories have little to do with the store, just some TFG.

Snikkyd wrote:A lot of the stories have little to do with the store, just some TFG.

Actually, most of TFG happen to be the store owner, and thus by extension, the store.

I think one of the main problems some stores have is that they become more of a club than a store. It seems some managers are inexperienced with running a business, and the focus becomes more gaming oriented than anything else. I don't think this is normally a problem but the situation becomes that a lot of these "stores" don't have efficient space for gaming. The result becomes a store that is easily over-crowded and thus smells, when this happens, costumer service goes out the window.

I've become quite interested in this topic, and which stores become more productive than others based on their structure, location, and staff. All in all, I find the best stores are ones with playing/gaming areas that are separate from the storefront.

Well... I've been to a few, and they've had poor service.

But the only problems I encounter usually at these shops is that they either drool at my sight, or they serve me first because I'm a female!

It's not necessarily right, but hey, I can't complain.

One store I used to go to regularly was overly pushy.

I understand good customer service when the owner asks if he can help you out, and I very politely state I'm just browsing today, and they make an offer for a new game. I appreciate the offer, say "thank you, I'm not interested at this time but maybe next time", and keep browsing. This store owner kept on the "well if you like 40k, you'll love Fantasy and the starter box is only ....." A second "thank you but I'm not interested at this time" followed by 3rd and 4th pushy attempt has now ruined my browsing.

I used to be a salesperson for a large corporation pushing approximately $50k to $70k in product per month. I know when I want help and when I don't. When I say no I really do mean no, in the politest way possible. I know there's no need to be TFG or rude about it. But when the seller then becomes overly aggressive to the point of rudeness or harassment (let me browse your product because I really do want to buy!) it's not fun anymore. Didn't we all get into minis and gaming because it's fun?

Anyway, I used to go to that store. Now I live more than 60 miles away from any LGS, even the GW, and I tend to buy more online. Get me a Friendly LGS and I'm there!

I wish there were a store like Mikhaila's locally. I would love that kind of service.

VermilionButterfly wrote:Well... I've been to a few, and they've had poor service.

But the only problems I encounter usually at these shops is that they either drool at my sight, or they serve me first because I'm a female!

It's not necessarily right, but hey, I can't complain.

I get that alot too, it's like i'm a piece of meat.

Bla_Ze wrote:

VermilionButterfly wrote:Well... I've been to a few, and they've had poor service.

But the only problems I encounter usually at these shops is that they either drool at my sight, or they serve me first because I'm a female!

It's not necessarily right, but hey, I can't complain.

I get that alot too, it's like i'm a piece of meat.

...your avatar is a naked alien woman...

Something is wrong here, but I can't put my finger on it...

This makes me really glad for my flgs

mikhaila wrote:
Fourth was two nights ago. Strange guy has come in for a couple of years. Never plays. Always brags about his unbeatable (magic deck, 40k army, etc. Insert topic of conversation, he has the best.) When challenged, "Its in my storage shed", or other excuse. Hangs around for hours, talks, leaves. Doesn't game, doesn't buy. Just talks.
Came in the other night. Tells me how he just bought 100 packs of magic, current stuff, for 25.00, off of ebay. Made some insane, unbeatable decks. But...can't tell me what was in the decks, or even what sets the packs were from. I realized I had given this guy 10 minutes of my life, so he could lie, brag, and make crap up. I told him to take it elsewhere, quit coming in and wasting my time. Never come back.

That's too bad.

ABSOLUTELY NO CRITICISM AT YOU, Mik. Just a comment in general about the guy.
Those couple years, coming in and bragging to the guy probably just "made his week" every time. Some people NEED to feel important. Doubly so if they have ... mental issues (which it almost sounds like he might).

Not to say I blame you, of course. Just to say it's too bad (for him) that it had to get to that point.

Eric

Brother SRM wrote:One store in Boston was kind of a drag for me. I'd travel the hour plus to get there, only to be ignored and not get a game in. It wasn't unfriendly so much as it was elitist, and since I wasn't drinking the Kool-Aid like everyone else I wasn't in on it.

So that's when I started my own gaming group at a different store

Mind if I ask which one?

I went into my local GW years and years ago when I was quite new to the game. It was when they were first releasing lizardmen and Bretonians so there was obviously a big publicity drive on the new stuff.

I go in and ask a red shirt

'So there are really two new armies coming out?'

He replies by shouting to the store in general, 'Hey everybody! This kid wants to know if there are new armies coming out!'

Everyone, 'Dohohohohoho!'

So I sthu, pretended to browse for a bit then left. They'd obviously got enough customers already and didn't need any new ones.

Hmm, where to begin? The LGS is the only gaming store within an hour in any direction. I started going there in highschool and as a young and unknowing lad I didn't see alot of what was really happening there. I first came there for DnD but got pulled into 40k by a friend. As the first years tolled by I began to notice more and more that the people that wound usually come to play apart from my friends were TFG's they would pull the most bs rule out of their hat so they could win. They would also only play people they knew didn't have a firm grasp on the rules. Sadly, as time went on the good and friendly players started to move off or simply stop playing. But sadly if it had only been the complete tools for remaining players it would have been tolerable.


The store owner after seeing you would come in and buy stuff stopped caring about your existance until you bought something again. Also as I started to become more world wise I saw very clearly that if you were not part of his personal 'crew' you were second class citizens in his store. He increasingly would place orders for things that his crew would be interested in instead of stocking things that would actually sell or ordering things for his own personal collection. Often letttng the 40k and other stocks dwindle for months on end. Instead of strengthing his most profitable client base of 40k players he continued to let them dwindle by lack of support, and hostile attitude. He developed an strategy for stocking the latest trend of mageknight, heroclicks, mech warrior. However as soon as they started waning in popularity for even a moment he would drop all support of them and let the player base for them wither away until the next trend. It was about at this point he started becoming a glorified child day care as the store became flooded with preteen children that more or less ran amuck as he stayed in his 'office' area. Our complaints about model molesters fell on deaf ears. However in the last two years he has decided to stand his ground with Warmachine, while being one of the first to play warmachine there, he started making it into Warmachine vs 40k. Where all people that played warmachine were not some backward simpleton where 40k players were. However this division between began to get really heated as he started verbally attacking the 40k players that still played, albiet not at his store. He would blame them for the loss of 40k in the area and not the fact that he never restocked. He even went so far as to threaten one of the older 40k players by saying he would tell others that he was a pedofile, even though that was a absurd lie. If it had just been the remaining players, and the attitude of the store owner, then it might still be visitable from time to time.



However... The final pieace of this most wonderful cake is the store itself. Now before it got seized by the state for lack of paying of taxes. It was a good place, many tables, good terrian. It had great potential. However apart from that, the hygiene of the place deteriorated rapidly. It first started with the lack of trash removal letting the garbage cans overflow onto the floor and spill out into a whole corner. There were times that the trash heap would linger for a whole week leaving a nice aroma to the place. Stains in the carpet would never be cleaned so it became a miasma of colours and smells. At one point one entire gaming table was annexed by the store owner to become his own personal work station. That would have been fine if it had not become a shrine to his ever increasing list of failed projects and aspirations. He was a true virtuoso of failure. As that table began to fill he annexed yet another. Also his two air conditioning systems were veterans of the korean conflict that suffered mortal wounds there, in the summer they did little better than spitting out moist hot air. Combine that with the garbage and you get an even better olfactory experience. As his trend became to stock the newest trends he still would have smattering of old and even out of print things, like a collection of BSG 5 ships and warzone that were in a "discount" bin that you payed retail for. Things that continued to gather dust and sit on shelves for years upon years. Also it was store policy if you did any kind of trade of a large scale, i.e. selling your 40k army the store owner was entitled to 30-50% of what you made. If you did not pay this toll, you were thrown out of the store. After being shut down and then reopened he was evicted do to unsanitary conditions, what a shocker, and is now crammed is entire old store into a new one, one fourth the size. All these things added up together to form a most unpleasureable and untolerable experience.

I must saying writing this has stirred up alot of burried venom for the place and the owner and memories of most horrible smells. I can't convey this enough, it smelled ungodly.

Thats BAD. It got closed by the state? I think you win.

Years ago when hero clix was first coming out, there was a store opened in my small town. It was a real rat hole. The owner was an older guy on a power trip. On the first trip into the store, his stock was single box of magic card boosters, half case of hero clix and two different half cases of Mage Knight . Being the only game store for hundred miles, I deiced to give the guy a break in hopes that he would make a little money and get a better stock. I bought a few boosters for clix then saw a few guys playing the game at a table in the back. I did not know the players and one of them asked if I would open my boosters to see if I had anything he could trade for.

This is when the game a just came out and was only looking for a few figures, was not trying to collect a set or anything. The guy only saw one figure that he wanted but had nothing I needed. I said, I would try to catch him some other time and keep a look out for the figures I wanted. Then he said " I will give you a buck for it" I said sure..since i did not want the fig in the first place and thought about going to buy more and try a game with them. Mind you there was the counter at the front door and four folding tables in the back of the store and the conversation happened 20 feet away, in a crowed game store. The owner yells at the top of his lungs "NO SELLING THINGS IN MY STORE!" He barged threw a bunch of gamers and kept repeating it. Making it back to our table, He said you guys need to leave..still yelling and kicked us out. I understand the guy is just trying to make a few dollars and wanted all sales go to him. But he did not have singles and if we knew it was an issue or rules posted, it would never happen.

But yelling and kicking us out of the store over a dollar is extreme. Just say hey...don't do that...and most people will
Never returned and allot of people that saw this happened never did ether...

He then moved the store to a local mall, expanding the stock and hired a guy to run the store for him. Ended up he never paid the guy much and kept saying that he would catch him up later. The clerk after threaten to quit and being owed thousands of dollars, the guy offered to turn the store over to the clerk, stock and everything.
After signing everything over to him, the new owner found out that the original owner owed the mall, distributors and many other people a ton of money. Being smarter than the first guy, he clearance out the store, cut a deal with the mall to get out of the lease and told the distributers to go after the original owner for their money. Closed the store and walked away.

Grot 6 wrote:What Makes a good shop go down the dark road of UFGS? How do you keep it from happening where you are?

Independent Game Stores have a very limited shelf life.

Patronize them while they're good, run (don't walk) for the exit once they turn the corner, because they just sounded their death knell.

Just keep an eye on them for the Going out of Business sale.

Howlingmoon wrote:

Grot 6 wrote:What Makes a good shop go down the dark road of UFGS? How do you keep it from happening where you are?

Independent Game Stores have a very limited shelf life.

Patronize them while they're good, run (don't walk) for the exit once they turn the corner, because they just sounded their death knell.

Just keep an eye on them for the Going out of Business sale.

as sound as it sounds, i think I agree with this. the only caveat is if the owner is a very good business man and keeps a tight reign on everything.

jesus, some of these guys sound scary. I can understand how owners can get annoyed by people selling stuff in their store or promoting discount stuff. But some of the stuff here scares me a bit. I have only ever thrown one person out of my store, and thats because he started screaming at me for some reason, and once he apologised, he was welcomed back

Howlingmoon wrote:Independent Game Stores have a very limited shelf life.

Whats interesting is those ulgs's that seem to hang in there, lingering, for no apparant reason, even when the owner has chased away all the customers.

I still can't explain that.

GG

generalgrog wrote:

Howlingmoon wrote:Independent Game Stores have a very limited shelf life.

Whats interesting is those ulgs's that seem to hang in there, lingering, for no apparant reason, even when the owner has chased away all the customers.

I still can't explain that.

GG

That is a very good point. Every time I drive down a particular street in my city, I always look to see if this one particular game store is still hanging around. Indeed it still is, which baffles me considering the smell of the place, and the lack of ac. Strange how these places usually suffer from the same 2 flaws. But in reality, I think some of those ulgs owners out there see their store as an extension of their hobby, and not much more.