What I was referring to, reestablishing communication with the player base is an option. It isn't something that will turn the company around from a financial perspective.
"Damn, our sales are way down, if only there was some way to ask customers why they've stopped buying our products, or foster some kind of relationship with them to increase their loyalty. Like...some kind of.. public forum, where they could give us feedback? Maybe our products are too cheap and our rules are too clear? We'll just have to assume thats what it is until some kind of mass communication is invented, increase prices and make more vauge, badly worded rules, that'll sort it out!"
It's hilarious that people think GW isn't aware of the feelings of their player base, it truly is.
What about their behaviour makes you think they are?
[quote=Throt 601367 6955815 fad29d8ef35eadfd8636ca1094c624c9.jpg
You missed the context of the Mercedes comparison. It was strictly based on people being able to afford it.
GW delivers on everything required. Everything else is subjective. That is the point I am trying to get across.
That is the problem: you miss the point. You assume that a lot of people complain about the prices because they cannot afford them. That is a wrong assumption based on nothing to back it up. Just take me as an example. My wife and I both score very high on the income scale. We bought a PS3 just so we could play Dark Souls II. You assume that because someone can afford a product he has to be ok with tge price. That's a very naive and wrong assumption. GW rules are poor quality rules that often lack cohesion and don't see any playtesting. Poor quality does not justify a premium price. That is because we don't pay for the ruloes: the cost-quality ratio is way off.
How about we discuss a single appalling rule that is ruining the game? If it plays fine for me and not for you then it is not broken it is subjective.
That is my point. I have a classic rational consumist point of view: high price means high quality. If this is not the case, it feels wrong. You are an apologist: "Yeah there are problems but I can fix them so it's still awesome! ". That's fine if you are happy with it as it is your opinion and youbare entitlef to it. You finding a solution for a problem, however, does not make the problem disappear. It is still there. Your view is the subjective view, with you finding ways around a problem. The objective view is that there are problems. Latest example: CCB. Still no FAQ.
Sry for typos on phone and football match about to start.
What I was referring to, reestablishing communication with the player base is an option. It isn't something that will turn the company around from a financial perspective.
"Damn, our sales are way down, if only there was some way to ask customers why they've stopped buying our products, or foster some kind of relationship with them to increase their loyalty. Like...some kind of.. public forum, where they could give us feedback? Maybe our products are too cheap and our rules are too clear? We'll just have to assume thats what it is until some kind of mass communication is invented, increase prices and make more vauge, badly worded rules, that'll sort it out!"
It's hilarious that people think GW isn't aware of the feelings of their player base, it truly is.
What about their behaviour makes you think they are?
They're a business, they are in it to make money. As long as people continue to spend money, they have no reason to make any significant changes, EA for example, has open communication with the players, listens to the anger, and continues on with their business model. You know what players do, they keep buying. Frustration and venting isn't enough to make a multi-million dollar company give two-gaks to be honest, not as long as people keep buying. Recent shareholders losing money and stock going down, may, may change things, but they didn't lose enough to do more than cause them to blink, take a second to think and then continue on.
GW is fully aware about how people feel about their ruleset and business practices. They just think they know better.
That and they don't care.
To quote one of the hobby shop owners I where I play, "Like them or not, GW makes the best crack out there."
And its true. You see it everywhere in sales. People will pay outrageous prices to ensure top quality because it is what they want. Businesses won't make changes until profits plummet. GW profits haven't begun to plummet.
azreal13 wrote: Then I think you've misunderstood my signature, and you've definitely misunderstood my intent behind the pic if you think I'm accusing you of complaining about anything
I'm also interested how you feel comfortable commenting on my actions in 5k+ posts over 3 years when you've been here barely a week.
It's almost like you've been here before....
Recent post history is more than enough tbh.
I may have misunderstood your pic, and if so then I apologize for that.
Your signature, I like it because it's true. Except you've shown to be more argumentative to those who disagree with you in your post history, especially in YMDC
Exactly.
What my quote is saying is that we grow by interacting with people who hold different opinions to us, as they will cause us to look at what we think and examine it, and sometimes rethink it, while only hanging around with those who think the same as us may be comforting, doesn't really help us develop. You appear to have missed that, or at least inserted your own extra requirement of agreeing with those who we disagree with or something?
Interesting that you cite my "recent post history" and my participation in YMDC, a section I don't often bother with, with the exception of a brief foray a week or two ago.
Well Zodiark, I mean, Lobomalo, I guess you really can judge me by a limited amount of knowledge across an anonymous Internet discussion forum.
You got me, I'll stop posting in light of your amazing super powers.
azreal13 wrote: Then I think you've misunderstood my signature, and you've definitely misunderstood my intent behind the pic if you think I'm accusing you of complaining about anything
I'm also interested how you feel comfortable commenting on my actions in 5k+ posts over 3 years when you've been here barely a week.
It's almost like you've been here before....
Recent post history is more than enough tbh.
I may have misunderstood your pic, and if so then I apologize for that.
Your signature, I like it because it's true. Except you've shown to be more argumentative to those who disagree with you in your post history, especially in YMDC
Exactly.
What my quote is saying is that we grow by interacting with people who hold different opinions to us, as they will cause us to look at what we think and examine it, and sometimes rethink it, while only hanging around with those who think the same as us may be comforting, doesn't really help us develop. You appear to have missed that, or at least inserted your own extra requirement of agreeing with those who we disagree with or something?
Interesting that you cite my "recent post history" and my participation in YMDC, a section I don't often bother with, with the exception of a brief foray a week or two ago.
Well Zodiark, I mean, Lobomalo, I guess you really can judge me by a limited amount of knowledge across an anonymous Internet discussion forum.
You got me, I'll stop posting in light of your amazing super powers.
Or not.
Interesting, Zodiark? No sorry, my first time here was a little over a week ago after a friend showed me a place to get good Tyranid lists for my army.
Me, I read through YMDC for rule issues and I come across topics and opinions people have, it doesn't take much work at all really.
Anyway, back on point, you have this sense of superiority about yourself that you understand more and are aware of more and this simply is not the case sir.
1) GW's rules *are* bad. This is an objective fact. It may or may not impact *your* gameplay, but the rules are pretty crap by any stretch of game design. The proliferation of random charts that serve no purpose other than to add a random element, the unclear and often ambiguous rules, the complete lack of caring any lick towards a balanced force, these all mean that in the context of game design 40k would rank pretty low. However, keep in mind that this does *NOT* mean the game can't be fun.
Once the game plays everything after is subjective. None of this is as cut and dry as many would like it to be. So you don't like random, that is not a design flaw, it is a design decision. The rules are clear, and sometimes problems arise due to unforeseen equations. Lack of caring is a biased assumption. And I do say it is fun.
It can be loosely compared to sports. People have a favorite. Football vs. soccer. Street basketballl vs courts. Football has it's rules if another team brings in all it's line backers the size of sumo wrestlers is that a flaw in the game design or the choice the team made?
2) Telling people who are negative/criticize the company to "just stop playing" is not only useless, it's also rude and insulting. Many of us who complain used to play, likely longer than the people who think everything is sunshine and roses, and maybe, just maybe, wish that GW would finally clean out their ears and come down from their ivory tower to see what is wrong with the game, and address it. Dismissing all complaints as "Don't like it? Don't play it!" is bullgak. The fact GW has stuck its head in the sand like an ostrich and ignores all communication and feedback just infuriates peole more, because it is an outright ridiculous way to act for a modern business.
It can be. The problem is that often those criticizing will join a conversation and start with the negativity. The rudeness was in their hand first.
How do you address the many who are like minded like myself that have been playing over 20 years and don't see them on an ivory tower and think things are fine?
The problem I have with the majority of negative people is the basis of complaints and where they express them. The vast majority aren't complaining about anything more than opinion and bashing GW because of things someone else did. Opinions are many sided.
Start a thread on GW bashing and do it all day. Don't come in my thread about how I love the new sculpt for scions and start bitching that GW charges too much and broke the rules and made you have to buy 15 boxes to play them.
Don't go into a sports bar during the NFL super bowl and start telling everyone how soccer and the world cup is better.
3) The old "They've been in business 30 years, they must be doing something right!" argument is a fallacy. While not on GW's scale I've worked for companies that were in business for 10 or more years, and they still collapsed quickly and spectacularly when all their bad business decisions caught up with them. GW had almost no competition for years, while now there are a ton of competition and the internet allows for more startups to chip at the market via things like Kickstarter. GW's business model is not in any way, shape or form sustainable.
Correlation is not always causation.
GW business decisions and financial decisions are not directly related to game design. And people are confusing the 2.
4) A big part of the problem with 40k's rules is that the rules are still designed for a skirmish game, despite everything being pushed larger. The ruled have not had a significant change since 2nd to 3rd edition in I believe 1998 (I forget the specific date), and even then 3rd edition was still largely a smaller-level game. Armies went up, this is true, but it was still like a platoon-level game. All the little nuances in the rules have zero place in a large-scale game and bog things down to an enormous scale. There's a reason why virtually every other large-scale game does not use model removal or umpteen special rules for each army: Speed and ease of learning the game. 40k takes the opposite approach, trying to cram as much gak as possible in the game so games are an all-day affair; the conspiracy theorist in me wants to say this is deliberate to push the "investment" that 40k players have in the game, similar to how casinos don't have clocks so you aren't aware of the time you spend in them, which equates to spending more money.
And I respect your opinion and it is just that. People have different expectations of a game and neither is right or wrong.
You like a more simplified large scale game. So other systems may be better suited to your style.
Many love the complexity and feel that each guy counts and feel the pains as the soldier they believe they needed is removed a sa casualty.
40k is more successful than all these other systems.
Throt wrote: You may not agree with the content but they have not declined in quality. Hard covers, full color, large amounts of artwork, heavy weight pages
None of the things you just listed have any impact on the quality of the written rules. Which is the part that is actually relevant to the game.
Throt wrote: So you don't like random, that is not a design flaw, it is a design decision.
It's a decision, in the same sense that a restaurant serving rotten food with shards of broken glass in it has made a "cooking decision". Unless you're a white knight for GW it should be pretty obvious that substituting random tables for player decisions is bad game design.
The rules are clear, and sometimes problems arise due to unforeseen equations.
This is a joke, right? The rules aren't even close to clear, and you even admit it when you talk about "unforeseen equations". A good rule system does not have any unforeseen problems, and rarely, if ever, has any rule questions that require more than a brief glance at the rulebook to answer. A bad game like 40k, on the other hand, has its equivalent of YMDC.
Football has it's rules if another team brings in all it's line backers the size of sumo wrestlers is that a flaw in the game design or the choice the team made?
Except that's not what we're talking about here. 40k has flaws when you play normal games, not just stupid games with lists that are deliberately designed to lose.
The problem is that often those criticizing will join a conversation and start with the negativity.
You know why? Because there are things to criticize. Please stop complaining about how negative everyone is and deal with the substance of the criticism.
Many love the complexity and feel that each guy counts and feel the pains as the soldier they believe they needed is removed a sa casualty.
Too bad 40k doesn't offer that feeling. Maybe those people should look for a new game where individual models are treated as more than just extra wound counters for the sergeant and melta gun?
40k is more successful than all these other systems.
Mostly because of inertia, and the market dominance GW built in the years when they had little or no competition. Don't make the mistake of assuming that GW taking time to lose their market share means that their products are good.
Games Workshop should only listen to the fans so far.
They will never please everyone one nor should they try. Most fans are illiterate in terms of the business side or biased in terms of the gaming side towards what they think the game should be.
Games workshop does a great job and have single handedly kept the table top business where it is for the last two decades.
PhillyT wrote: Games Workshop should only listen to the fans so far.
They will never please everyone one nor should they try. Most fans are illiterate in terms of the business side or biased in terms of the gaming side towards what they think the game should be.
Games workshop does a great job and have single handedly kept the table top business where it is for the last two decades.
The above is what that post read like.
GW, you can take the gun away from his head now.
Or has the keep now been emptied so much I'm going to need sunglasses to read the thread in the future?
PhillyT wrote: Games Workshop should only listen to the fans so far.
They will never please everyone one nor should they try. Most fans are illiterate in terms of the business side or biased in terms of the gaming side towards what they think the game should be.
Games workshop does a great job and have single handedly kept the table top business where it is for the last two decades.
Not sure if serious, trolling, or drunk on the kool-aid
PhillyT wrote: Awe, so much angst. With fans like some on here, why would or should they listen?
I don't think you know what angst is.
And they should listen because we're the fans who drop several digits of cash on their product.
I activley try not to think how much money I've spent on GW products because its easily in the quad numbers. Whatever that number is, it won"t be increasing until they get their game sorted.
PhillyT wrote: Awe, so much angst. With customers like some on here, they should listen!
FTFY
GW isn't a charity, it's a business, if they have unhappy customers to the point that they're not making 100% of the money they could be or aren't striving to make 100% at least, they're doing it wrong.
There are a combination of issues they are facing. Within their model there probably isn't much they can do. Any real response to cost pressures would likely result in the abandonment of the 40k setting or style.
There are plenty of things I dislike about how GW does business, but their success cannot be ignored. They have some issues right now that cannot be "solved" due to how their game is structured and the fact that they are a publicly traded company as well as the only behemoth in the industry.
Part of the fan base. Few businesses should listen to the internet complainer crowd. Similar to athletes and celebrities, never go online and listen to Forum Guy when you are a public figure or company.
Now GW does seem to make some strange choices at times, but I am pretty sure they are much better at this thing than any of us.
Unfair how? Different people want different things.
The trick for any company is simply to find the path that more people approve of.
Also, a trick that many companies seem to manage is to communicate the intent of their decisions and the direction they strive to move towards, and consistently make those types of choices.
For instance, rapid codex updates aren't a bad decision, except when combined with a shift to more expensive, hardback codices, expensive hardback codex supplements, and subcodices. If you want us to buy codexes as often, or more often, then make them less expensive, or no more expensive. If you want to sell expensive books with premium production values, then don't update them very rapidly.
For another example, GW produces two supplements (first, Battle Missions, then Escalation) to allow you to take Super-heavy and Gargantuan units in non-Apocalypse games, and presents this as a 'special option'. They then roll the Lords of War into Standard Missions. Rather than being honest and saying, "We intend for these units to be considered 'standard' 40K, they produce a ruleset where they are a special set of missions (which many people might like and expect), and then take that feedback and insert them in a different manner. We are instructed that these large, set-piece models are so powerful and important that they only show up in special scenarios, or that normal scenarios must have new rules to allow them to function, then find them showing up in the standard rule set. Which is it?
For a third example, GW produces the Imperial Knight, which uses a really large base, and also has STR D ranged weapons. This seems to tell people that they intend for these types of units and weapons to show up in the game. They then produce the Gorkanaut, which uses the same base, and looks pretty darn massive, but doesn't have a STR D Melee weapon. It costs around the same as the Knight, but they advise you to keep it away from the Knight, as the Knight will paste it quickly. Why produce a massive walker with deadly melee weapons, then immediately produce another walker, from a race known for their deadly melee prowess, and make it markedly weaker in melee? What is your intent with the new direction of models?
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PhillyT wrote: Part of the fan base. Few businesses should listen to the internet complainer crowd. Similar to athletes and celebrities, never go online and listen to Forum Guy when you are a public figure or company.
Now GW does seem to make some strange choices at times, but I am pretty sure they are much better at this thing than any of us.
Well, given their diminishing share of the market, they might be better at this than us, but they don't appear to better at this than some people. Some of those people just also happen to be ex-GW, as well. Hmmm...
PhillyT wrote: Part of the fan base. Few businesses should listen to the internet complainer crowd. Similar to athletes and celebrities, never go online and listen to Forum Guy when you are a public figure or company.
Now GW does seem to make some strange choices at times, but I am pretty sure they are much better at this thing than any of us.
Most of us seem to understand the general needs of the fanbase more so than GW does.
Well, given their diminishing share of the market, they might be better at this than us, but they don't appear to better at this than some people. Some of those people just also happen to be ex-GW, as well. Hmmm...
Every industry with a single monolithic company and hundreds of minor ones ends up in a similar situation.
No other company matches the scope or size of the GW line and game. They have no competitors within their specific set.
What I was referring to, reestablishing communication with the player base is an option. It isn't something that will turn the company around from a financial perspective.
"Damn, our sales are way down, if only there was some way to ask customers why they've stopped buying our products, or foster some kind of relationship with them to increase their loyalty. Like...some kind of.. public forum, where they could give us feedback? Maybe our products are too cheap and our rules are too clear? We'll just have to assume thats what it is until some kind of mass communication is invented, increase prices and make more vauge, badly worded rules, that'll sort it out!"
It's hilarious that people think GW isn't aware of the feelings of their player base, it truly is.
What about their behaviour makes you think they are?
As long as people continue to spend money, they have no reason to make any significant changes
This is why you dont buy LE codex's, LE rule books, or any other explicit money scams GW runs.
Well, given their diminishing share of the market, they might be better at this than us, but they don't appear to better at this than some people. Some of those people just also happen to be ex-GW, as well. Hmmm...
Every industry with a single monolithic company and hundreds of minor ones ends up in a similar situation.
No other company matches the scope or size of the GW line and game. They have no competitors within their specific set.
Now I know you can't be serious, or you're a GW employee towing the party line. Their "specific set" is miniature wargames, specifically 28mm miniature wargames. Their scope amounts to "Doesn't matter so long as you buy things" which is more or less the lack of scope rather than a defined scope, and their games actually have no scope since it's supposed to allow for various points values from a couple of units to massive armies (and fails at it, but that's another issue). What makes you think they don't have competitors? There are other 28mm games out there, some of which are also for large scale battles (Kings of War springs to mind), actually larger than GW since the rules are streamlined so you can play a larger game without it taking the better part of a day.
By your logic, Microsoft has no competitors either.
PhillyT wrote: What parts of the rule set do you feel are broken?
I'd say melee in general, the WS rule is horrific, generally the only good melee units are those that are gamebreaking deathstars while generalized melee can't do much, being unable to assault from unmoving transports has broken many units considering many still rely on those sorts of transports.
Well, given their diminishing share of the market, they might be better at this than us, but they don't appear to better at this than some people. Some of those people just also happen to be ex-GW, as well. Hmmm...
Every industry with a single monolithic company and hundreds of minor ones ends up in a similar situation.
No other company matches the scope or size of the GW line and game. They have no competitors within their specific set.
Now I know you can't be serious, or you're a GW employee towing the party line. Their "specific set" is miniature wargames, specifically 28mm miniature wargames. Their scope amounts to "Doesn't matter so long as you buy things" which is more or less the lack of scope rather than a defined scope, and their games actually have no scope since it's supposed to allow for various points values from a couple of units to massive armies (and fails at it, but that's another issue). What makes you think they don't have competitors? There are other 28mm games out there, some of which are also for large scale battles (Kings of War springs to mind), actually larger than GW since the rules are streamlined so you can play a larger game without it taking the better part of a day.
By your logic, Microsoft has no competitors either.
100 - 200 models per side, small and large vehicles with terrain and at least seven distinct and varied armies in the 28mm scale?
Who else? Everything else is smaller scale or niche pseudo skirmish.
They are issues I take with the rules and consider part of a broken ruleset. If you where meaning specifically units that where underpowered/overpowered then do we REALLY need to go into that?
Thousand Sons and rough riders are never worth taking. Wave serpents and riptides are always worth taking. Daemon factories should never have been allowed to exist, and worse it was found by fans before the rules had even officially hit shelves, there is no way you can't see that as poor or broken rules.
PhillyT wrote: Part of the fan base. Few businesses should listen to the internet complainer crowd. Similar to athletes and celebrities, never go online and listen to Forum Guy when you are a public figure or company.
Now GW does seem to make some strange choices at times, but I am pretty sure they are much better at this thing than any of us.
I fail to see the disadvantage for GW in listening to us about improving/tightening the ruleset. I'm not asking for a price decrease, because I don't believe in miracles. It could very well improve things for everybody, and bring back disgruntled customers. And seriously it won't bother you anyway since you're going to buy it regardless of the quality of the rules. If anything your opinion actually means less than ours because you and your ilk are guaranteed money.
Are independent character Psykers attached to a unit, still considered a "Psyker unit" when attached to another unit for the purposes of generating warp charge?
How many powers can a Psyker cast per psychic phase?
That's just off the top of my head, I don't hang out in YMDC much.
PhillyT wrote: Part of the fan base. Few businesses should listen to the internet complainer crowd. Similar to athletes and celebrities, never go online and listen to Forum Guy when you are a public figure or company.
Now GW does seem to make some strange choices at times, but I am pretty sure they are much better at this thing than any of us.
I fail to see the disadvantage for GW in listening to us about improving/tightening the ruleset. I'm not asking for a price decrease, because I don't believe in miracles. It could very well improve things for everybody, and bring back disgruntled customers. And seriously it won't bother you anyway since you're going to buy it regardless of the quality of the rules. If anything your opinion actually means less than ours because you and your ilk are guaranteed money.
But who are they listening to and about what? With the number of conflicting opinions where are you expecting them to go?
Are independent character Psykers attached to a unit, still considered a "Psyker unit" when attached to another unit for the purposes of generating warp charge?
How many powers can a Psyker cast per psychic phase?
That's just off the top of my head, I don't hang out in YMDC much.
Are independent character Psykers attached to a unit, still considered a "Psyker unit" when attached to another unit for the purposes of generating warp charge?
How many powers can a Psyker cast per psychic phase?
That's just off the top of my head, I don't hang out in YMDC much.
Don't have the codex. Couldn't tell you.
Only the first thing is to do with LotD (ie that they automatically lose). The rest of those rules issues are core rules problems.
Are independent character Psykers attached to a unit, still considered a "Psyker unit" when attached to another unit for the purposes of generating warp charge?
How many powers can a Psyker cast per psychic phase?
That's just off the top of my head, I don't hang out in YMDC much.
Don't have the codex. Couldn't tell you.
Oh, right, you're ignorant of it, so it doesn't exist?
Well let me explain,
All LotD units must be deployed in reserve.
They have no special permission, except one special mission in the book, to deploy before turn 2.
The rules state that if you have no models on the board at the end of a turn, you lose.
Ergo, any army comprising solely of units from the LotD codex loses at the end of the first turn, every game.
This is still an outstanding issue, which needs to either be fixed, or for GW to explicitly state that the book is intended to be used as an ally only force, which essentially invalidates it's merit in being titled "Codex"
Are independent character Psykers attached to a unit, still considered a "Psyker unit" when attached to another unit for the purposes of generating warp charge?
How many powers can a Psyker cast per psychic phase?
That's just off the top of my head, I don't hang out in YMDC much.
Don't have the codex. Couldn't tell you.
Only the first thing is to do with LotD (ie that they automatically lose). The rest of those rules issues are core rules problems.
Correct.
The LOTD is an issue in it's entirety, the rest are unrelated core issues.
PhillyT wrote: Part of the fan base. Few businesses should listen to the internet complainer crowd. Similar to athletes and celebrities, never go online and listen to Forum Guy when you are a public figure or company.
Now GW does seem to make some strange choices at times, but I am pretty sure they are much better at this thing than any of us.
I fail to see the disadvantage for GW in listening to us about improving/tightening the ruleset. I'm not asking for a price decrease, because I don't believe in miracles. It could very well improve things for everybody, and bring back disgruntled customers. And seriously it won't bother you anyway since you're going to buy it regardless of the quality of the rules. If anything your opinion actually means less than ours because you and your ilk are guaranteed money.
But who are they listening to and about what? With the number of conflicting opinions where are you expecting them to go?
Engage with their fan base again. They could start with the Tournament Organizers and Top Players. Most would be able to point out all the weak points and anti-fluffy rules conflicts.
It's hard for GW to get a "win" from me (and by win I mean a model purchase, which I haven't done since 2004, and instead use Ebay) as their prices are too outrageous to warrant a purchase, but they do get me to buy the majority of their paint/basing supplies. Now, I know people are also pretty unhappy about paint pot sizes, the changing of the paint names, the amount given today vs ten years ago, and the price, but I honestly am quite happy with the range and availability. I spent 20$ today at my FLGS and got four pots of paint, which is reasonable in my eyes, and each will likely last me +50 models. The flock is also not horribly priced (13$) and the amount given is enough for several armies. All in all, not much for me to complain about...those model prices, on the other hand...
PhillyT wrote: Part of the fan base. Few businesses should listen to the internet complainer crowd. Similar to athletes and celebrities, never go online and listen to Forum Guy when you are a public figure or company.
That was arguably true 10 years ago. These days, as more and more people have ready access to the web, the 'internet crowd' covers a much wider cross-section of a company's potential audience.
PhillyT wrote: Part of the fan base. Few businesses should listen to the internet complainer crowd. Similar to athletes and celebrities, never go online and listen to Forum Guy when you are a public figure or company.
That was arguably true 10 years ago. These days, as more and more people have ready access to the web, the 'internet crowd' covers a much wider cross-section of a company's potential audience.
I don't know about this one to be honest. I know that in a lot of competitive video gaming, teams will do a full on social media black out so that the players don't have to see the negativity about their players, but that is more with teams than companies so the example doesn't perfectly work.
PhillyT wrote: Part of the fan base. Few businesses should listen to the internet complainer crowd. Similar to athletes and celebrities, never go online and listen to Forum Guy when you are a public figure or company.
That was arguably true 10 years ago. These days, as more and more people have ready access to the web, the 'internet crowd' covers a much wider cross-section of a company's potential audience.
Hah you must never read politics on Facebook. Today is 100 times worse than 10 years ago.
PhillyT wrote: A rule ... that cannot be applied because of its mechanic.
The entire psychic phase currently doesn't function.
Last edition, it was fortifications, most notably the Skyshield, anything with battlements, and the Aegis Defense Line, and the Look Out Sir! rule which was errataed to work completely differently 3 minutes after release..
In 5th edition it was characters joining units pre-game and LOS outside the shooting phase... two issues that carried over into 6th edition despite being clarified at the very end of 5th.
In 4th edition, they 'forgot' to include the rules for vehicle access and fire points, and the badly written LOS rules coupled with a complete failure to ever clarify them meant that for the entire life of that edition there were arguments over just how LOS worked.
Those are just the big ones. It seems like every edition they manage to jam something in there that they wrote out on a napkin in a hurry and never bothered to actually proof-read.
Gunzhard wrote: The psychic phase currently doesn't function?
I'm scratching my head on that one...
azrael13 already mentioned the 2 big issues.
There is currently no way to determine how many powers a psyker can cast in a turn, or what happens when you have more than one non-brotherhood psyker in a single unit or a psyker in a unit of non-psykers.
Again, I disagree with this one. There is currently no way to determine it on this forum in particular. I haven't run into any issues with this in any other forum or in any game I have played.
Gunzhard wrote: The psychic phase currently doesn't function?
I'm scratching my head on that one...
azrael13 already mentioned the 2 big issues.
There is currently no way to determine how many powers a psyker can cast in a turn, or what happens when you have more than one non-brotherhood psyker in a single unit or a psyker in a unit of non-psykers.
Am I missing something obvious you are about to explain to me?
You can attempt to cast as many powers as you have dice/warp-charge for... some might not be successful and some may be denied.
More than one psyker in a single unit is absolutely no different than more than one psyker in separate units (what am I missing?). It just adds to your pool of dice. The last one doesn't make any sense either ...the rest of the unit (non-psykers) doesn't make any difference.
Gunzhard wrote: The psychic phase currently doesn't function?
I'm scratching my head on that one...
azrael13 already mentioned the 2 big issues.
There is currently no way to determine how many powers a psyker can cast in a turn, or what happens when you have more than one non-brotherhood psyker in a single unit or a psyker in a unit of non-psykers.
Am I missing something obvious you are about to explain to me?
You can attempt to cast as many powers as you have dice/warp-charge for... some might not be successful and some may be denied.
More than one psyker in a single unit is absolutely no different than more than one psyker in separate units (what am I missing?). It just adds to your pool of dice. The last one doesn't make any sense either ...the rest of the unit (non-psykers) doesn't make any difference.
IIRC there is a heated locked thread over in YMDC, ran into it while looking up information on ML. From what I recall, it was an agreement to disagree as people couldn't come to terms on anything and started debating the meaning of words in the sentence, whether a Psyker stopped being a Psyker and lost its ML if it joined a group of non-Psykers, and the usual personal attacks between forum posters.
Gunzhard wrote: You can attempt to cast as many powers as you have dice/warp-charge for... some might not be successful and some may be denied.
That's one current interpretation, yes. However, many players are taking the line about the number of powers you can cast depending on your mastery level to mean that your mastery level is the number of powers you can cast. There have been fairly extensive threads on this. And no, Lobomalo, this isn't an issue that is exclusive to Dakka. You'll find the same rules discussions going on in pretty much every forum.
More than one psyker in a single unit is absolutely no different than more than one psyker in separate units (what am I missing?). It just adds to your pool of dice. The last one doesn't make any sense either ...the rest of the unit (non-psykers) doesn't make any difference.
The issue is that your Warp Charge pool and casting is worked out by psyker unit, not by individual psyker. Again, there has been extensive discussion of this one with no clear resolution.
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Lobomalo wrote: ...whether a Psyker stopped being a Psyker and lost its ML if it joined a group of non-Psykers,
You misunderstood the argument if you think that's what was being said.
Gunzhard wrote: You can attempt to cast as many powers as you have dice/warp-charge for... some might not be successful and some may be denied.
That's one current interpretation, yes. However, many players are taking the line about the number of powers you can cast depending on your mastery level to mean that your mastery level is the number of powers you can cast. There have been fairly extensive threads on this. And no, Lobomalo, this isn't an issue that is exclusive to Dakka. You'll find the same rules discussions going on in pretty much every forum.
Well I don't want to beat a dead horse, but I really can't understand this one. Your mastery level says how many powers you HAVE not how many you can cast. That said, a single psyker cannot cast the same power twice, so the number of powers he has (which is dependent on his mastery level) - is also the number of powers he can cast per turn.
More than one psyker in a single unit is absolutely no different than more than one psyker in separate units (what am I missing?). It just adds to your pool of dice. The last one doesn't make any sense either ...the rest of the unit (non-psykers) doesn't make any difference.
The issue is that your Warp Charge pool and casting is worked out by psyker unit, not by individual psyker. Again, there has been extensive discussion of this one with no clear resolution.
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Lobomalo wrote: ...whether a Psyker stopped being a Psyker and lost its ML if it joined a group of non-Psykers,
You misunderstood the argument if you think that's what was being said.
But a psyker by himself is still a psyker unit. The example on page 24, 3rd paragraph - would read exactly the same if all of Andy's psyker units are joined into a single unit (which might actually be the case). This alternative interpretation seems a little obtuse.
I'd say just link the thread(s) where this is being discussed and let those dogs go there.
The real issue behind that, save the poor writing on GW's part initially, is not having a singular point of discussion which could be readily addressed by a 40k rules author. If that existed, then the amount of rules disputes on the table and on the internet would greatly diminish.
Gunzhard wrote: Well I don't want to beat a dead horse, but I really can't understand this one. Your master level says how many powers you HAVE not how many you can cast. That said, a single psyker cannot cast the same power twice, so the number of powers he has (which is dependent on his mastery level) - is also the number of powers he can cast per turn.
It really couldn't be more clear...
I would recommend checking out the threads discussing it, then, because it's not as clear as you seem to think.
But a psyker by himself is still a psyker unit.
A psyker unit is a unit with the psyker rule. An IC psyker joined to a non-psyker unit is the only model in the unit with the rule. Is that sufficient for the unit to count as a psyker unit? We don't have any way to tell. Likewise, an IC Psyker joined to a psyker unit - they count as a single unit. So when it comes time to count mastery levels, or cast powers, they would be counted as a single psyker unit.
Again, I would recommend checking out the discussion threads for more detail on this, because this thread isn't really the place to have those arguments again.
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TheKbob wrote: The real issue behind that, save the poor writing on GW's part initially, is not having a singular point of discussion which could be readily addressed by a 40k rules author. If that existed, then the amount of rules disputes on the table and on the internet would greatly diminish.
One thing I loved about the WotC Star Wars Miniatures game was WotC's habit of recruiting rules experts to help out on their forums. People were vetted for their knowledge of the rules, and specific people authorised to give more-or-less official answers to rules questions on the forums. Any recurring questions, or anything too thorny for the volunteer guru to answer himself were passed on to the design team to be included in the next round of FAQs.
GW had the opportunity to do something similar back when they had their own forums. Instead, they had a Games Development forum where the designers would pop in every couple of weeks to answer a couple of random questions and then vanish into the mist again.
And then they closed the forums down when people started getting progressively more strident in the belief that they weren't being listened to...
And then they closed the forums down when people started getting progressively more strident in the belief that they weren't being listened to...
And from the miasma, the fan forums crawled forth.... I think a lot of perceived negativity, including my own at times, would be completely gone if they at least put effort forth on par with their competitors before trying to charge what they do. And that's why GW "can't win" right now. Less for more.
PhillyT wrote: They will never please everyone one nor should they try. Most fans are illiterate in terms of the business side or biased in terms of the gaming side towards what they think the game should be.
This is another one of those glaring over simplifications.
Listening to your community does not mean you have to implement every single change suggested by the community. Listening to the community doesn't mean you try and make everyone 100% happy and take on board all the ignorant comments alongside the valid ones. A few random points:
1. Things like balance issues can be massively improved if you start listening to the community to see what units and options might be broken and have a closer look at them.
2. Rules that are massively unclear can be tightened up and clarified.
3. The overall direction of the rules may be harder to deal with as opinions will vary more widely. But even there listening to the community opens you up to ideas and potential flaws that can push your rules set to something a larger set of people are happy with. It will help you move to a rules set that creates less division in the community.
I feel like you are hitting on point 3 with your "you can't please everyone" mindset, but GW can't even get past points 1 and 2 to reach point 3.
Back when GW had forums, they would have gone a long way to employ someone to accumulate common questions, present them to the dev team and spend a day from time to time just sorting them out and offering feedback instead of just going "wow, too many people are unhappy, we best close all communications so we can't hear anything negative, because negative comments are terrible in how they help you grow and improve, we don't want to do anything crazy like that!".
Gunzhard wrote: Well I don't want to beat a dead horse, but I really can't understand this one. Your master level says how many powers you HAVE not how many you can cast. That said, a single psyker cannot cast the same power twice, so the number of powers he has (which is dependent on his mastery level) - is also the number of powers he can cast per turn.
It really couldn't be more clear...
I would recommend checking out the threads discussing it, then, because it's not as clear as you seem to think.
But a psyker by himself is still a psyker unit.
A psyker unit is a unit with the psyker rule. An IC psyker joined to a non-psyker unit is the only model in the unit with the rule. Is that sufficient for the unit to count as a psyker unit? We don't have any way to tell. Likewise, an IC Psyker joined to a psyker unit - they count as a single unit. So when it comes time to count mastery levels, or cast powers, they would be counted as a single psyker unit.
Again, I would recommend checking out the discussion threads for more detail on this, because this thread isn't really the place to have those arguments again.
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TheKbob wrote: The real issue behind that, save the poor writing on GW's part initially, is not having a singular point of discussion which could be readily addressed by a 40k rules author. If that existed, then the amount of rules disputes on the table and on the internet would greatly diminish.
One thing I loved about the WotC Star Wars Miniatures game was WotC's habit of recruiting rules experts to help out on their forums. People were vetted for their knowledge of the rules, and specific people authorised to give more-or-less official answers to rules questions on the forums. Any recurring questions, or anything too thorny for the volunteer guru to answer himself were passed on to the design team to be included in the next round of FAQs.
GW had the opportunity to do something similar back when they had their own forums. Instead, they had a Games Development forum where the designers would pop in every couple of weeks to answer a couple of random questions and then vanish into the mist again.
And then they closed the forums down when people started getting progressively more strident in the belief that they weren't being listened to...
Hah so ignore what to me is the obvious and certainly the most reasonable interpretation, that also works just fine; and instead bang my head against the wall... for what?
The "psychic phase doesn't function", I guess if you don't want it to.
The old GW forums closed because they were filled to the brim with (mostly ridiculous) negativity; they had become a running joke by then. Insaniak I see now why you use your mod power to police people pointing out negativity - but not the actual negativity which literally exists here in HEAPS.
PhillyT wrote: They will never please everyone one nor should they try. Most fans are illiterate in terms of the business side or biased in terms of the gaming side towards what they think the game should be.
This is another one of those glaring over simplifications.
Listening to your community does not mean you have to implement every single change suggested by the community. Listening to the community doesn't mean you try and make everyone 100% happy and take on board all the ignorant comments alongside the valid ones. A few random points:
1. Things like balance issues can be massively improved if you start listening to the community to see what units and options might be broken and have a closer look at them.
2. Rules that are massively unclear can be tightened up and clarified.
3. The overall direction of the rules may be harder to deal with as opinions will vary more widely. But even there listening to the community opens you up to ideas and potential flaws that can push your rules set to something a larger set of people are happy with. It will help you move to a rules set that creates less division in the community.
I feel like you are hitting on point 3 with your "you can't please everyone" mindset, but GW can't even get past points 1 and 2 to reach point 3.
Looking at other competitive games, though not wargaming games, the mindsets still apply. People howled for balanced in SCII, WoW PvP, MtG, Dota 2, LoL on a weekly basis. Players see something that is considered "op" and the community comes together to howl about what is "op". companies then put in patches with nerfs to whatever was perceived to be "op". A few days later, people notice that by "balancing" one thing, they broke another and made something else "op". It got so bad in some games that they flat out stopped listening to the player bases complaints about certain things being "op". Case in point, LoL, probably the most played E-sports game right now, Riot consistently nerfs things they believe to be OP because they have data to support their conclusions, the players though feel otherwise, hence the running joke, X Champion is op, better nerf Irelia.
SCII had and has horrible issues with balance and with all the nerfs/buffs to everything, entire units have been made absolete and never see competitive play anymore.
WoW, for years Rogues were considered op, but in reality it was players not knowing how to deal with vanish and backstab, they nerfed this, Rogues completely fell off the competitive scene.
When you listen to the opinions of the players when it comes to balance issues, what you really see are people who think something is overpowered because they haven't found a way to deal with it or because they want things to be more "balanced" a term that nobody has ever been able to really define or apply to a competitive game.
These are video game examples I realize, but the issues of balance is the same in all
Hah so ignore what to me is the obvious and certainly the most reasonable interpretation, that also works just fine; and instead bang my head against the wall... for what?
Quoted, emphasis my own.
You see, in better written games, there is little to no "to me" interpretations like there is in Warhammer 40k. And if there is, it's usually addressable in some official means or fashion. So again, if you want to disagree with the general discussion, go to YMDC and enlighten the folks with your winning logic.
The old GW forums closed because they were filled to the brim with (mostly ridiculous) negativity; they had become a running joke by then. Insaniak I see now why you use your mod power to police people pointing out negativity - but not the actual negativity which literally exists here in HEAPS.
This made me laugh. Forums across the internet have closed down because of so much negativity, it's become a more common thing actually. I can see why GW closed their forums, unhappy people just venting their frustrations all day, I'd close the forums too honestly.
People expect too much from a company who cares more for their bottom line than a percentage of unhappy players.
I'm using logic and reason to provide facts and thought processes to define my stance on a subject and have even gone as far to provide how GW could "win". So, how am I being reductive in any stance of someone else or their argument unlike yourself?
Hah so ignore what to me is the obvious and certainly the most reasonable interpretation, that also works just fine; and instead bang my head against the wall... for what?
Quoted, emphasis my own.
You see, in better written games, there is little to no "to me" interpretations like there is in Warhammer 40k. And if there is, it's usually addressable in some official means or fashion. So again, if you want to disagree with the general discussion, go to YMDC and enlighten the folks with your winning logic.
I only say, 'to me' because it's clear there are lots of entirely unreasonable people making entirely unreasonable trouble about nothing for no good reason. Fortunately they are just mystery strangers on the internet 'to me' and I don't have to play games with them.
Something I thought of in regards to the OP's thread title:
"Sometimes, I feel GW can't win."
I thought about this for a bit and came to a conclusion:
Why should they "win"?
And winning implies that someone else doesn't win, and who would that be in this context? Us?
At the end of the day, GW is a business and needs to make money, and to do that they have to create a product that we want to buy and is worth buying. By implying that GW should some how "win", isn't that a bit like saying they should get a free pass sometimes no matter what they do?
If they're writing bad rules (which they do) and further increasing the barrier to entry (which they have) and are litigious bullies (which they are), then at what point does "winning" become something that any of us should either allow or even celebrate?
I operate under a credit where credit's due policy, which mostly applies to their miniatures (because their rules sure don't deserve credit - FW aside, that is - their rules are often silly, but at least they seem to give a damn about internal consistency). At what point would I give GW a "win" when they continue to release extremely bad products? I'll sure as hell give 'em credit for a great new set of miniatures (I love pretty much the entire new Ork release - the Flash Gitz are amazing!), but making good models in no way entitles them to a free pass on all the other bull gak they pull.
Hah so ignore what to me is the obvious and certainly the most reasonable interpretation, that also works just fine; and instead bang my head against the wall... for what?
Quoted, emphasis my own.
You see, in better written games, there is little to no "to me" interpretations like there is in Warhammer 40k. And if there is, it's usually addressable in some official means or fashion. So again, if you want to disagree with the general discussion, go to YMDC and enlighten the folks with your winning logic.
You have failed to realize that 40k has allowed "to me" situations to exist, its right there when you start reading the rule book. Players can freely interpret and change things to fit how they play the game and GW is okay with this.
Why exactly is this a problem? If you and an opponent agree to change things, what's the big deal? If you and an opponent decide to read what is literally written and don't try and interpret anything, what is wrong with this?
The answers to all those questions is nothing, there is nothing wrong with it. It's one of the more encouraging rule sets I have seen in some games. Other games I will admit have things set in stone and that is fine for them, but the amount of lore and history the entire universe this game has, leaves no room for a rigid ruleset.
I only say, 'to me' because it's clear there are lots of entirely unreasonable people making entirely unreasonable trouble about nothing for no good reason. Fortunately they are just mystery strangers on the internet 'to me' and I don't have to play games with them.
Are they unreasonable for any other reason than they disagree with you and have an equally valid and lexical interpretation of the rules? Or do you have solid logic and/or evidence on how the rules are to be specifically interpreted?
I'm going to go off a hunch here and say it's the former. If it's the latter, than I'm both wrong and we get to finally lay to rest those matters in question; therefore a win-win. So please, your move. See you in YMDC.
Gunzhard wrote: I only say, 'to me' because it's clear there are lots of entirely unreasonable people making entirely unreasonable trouble about nothing for no good reason. Fortunately they are just mystery strangers on the internet 'to me' and I don't have to play games with them.
Does an insane person always know he's insane?
To put it another way, you're calling them unreasonable people. From their perspective you could be the unreasonable one.
Or to simply restate what TheKBob said: If the rules weren't junk we almost wouldn't have this problem. A clear, concise and consistent set of rules would minimise this issue significantly.
You have failed to realize that 40k has allowed "to me" situations to exist, its right there when you start reading the rule book. Players can freely interpret and change things to fit how they play the game and GW is okay with this.
Why exactly is this a problem? If you and an opponent agree to change things, what's the big deal? If you and an opponent decide to read what is literally written and don't try and interpret anything, what is wrong with this?
The answers to all those questions is nothing, there is nothing wrong with it. It's one of the more encouraging rule sets I have seen in some games. Other games I will admit have things set in stone and that is fine for them, but the amount of lore and history the entire universe this game has, leaves no room for a rigid ruleset.
So I'm going to bring Fateweaver and we will now roll off for every rule in the game (using Fateweavers reroll in my favor) until they are so slanted in my favor that I win.
It's in the rules, so I'm playing by them.
(Taking your logic to it's illogical conclusion, by the way. Before you think I'm serious and reply)
I'm using logic and reason to provide facts and thought processes to define my stance on a subject and have even gone as far to provide how GW could "win". So, how am I being reductive in any stance of someone else or their argument unlike yourself?
I never read your comments in this thread. So....?
How about this thing called human subjectivity? You presume everyone can be pleased.
Or to simply restate what TheKBob said: If the rules weren't junk we almost wouldn't have this problem. A clear, concise and consistent set of rules would minimise this issue significantly.
Or a singular resource that was actively cultivated by the company to address the concerns quickly and efficiently.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Something I thought of in regards to the OP's thread title:
"Sometimes, I feel GW can't win."
I thought about this for a bit and came to a conclusion:
Why should they "win"?
And winning implies that someone else doesn't win, and who would that be in this context? Us?
At the end of the day, GW is a business and needs to make money, and to do that they have to create a product that we want to buy and is worth buying. By implying that GW should some how "win", isn't that a bit like saying they should get a free pass sometimes no matter what they do?
If they're writing bad rules (which they do) and further increasing the barrier to entry (which they have) and are litigious bullies (which they are), then at what point does "winning" become something that any of us should either allow or even celebrate?
I operate under a credit where credit's due policy, which mostly applies to their miniatures (because their rules sure don't deserve credit - FW aside, that is - their rules are often silly, but at least they seem to give a damn about internal consistency). At what point would I give GW a "win" when they continue to release extremely bad products? I'll sure as hell give 'em credit for a great new set of miniatures (I love pretty much the entire new Ork release - the Flash Gitz are amazing!), but making good models in no way entitles them to a free pass on all the other bull gak they pull.
I like your analysis. But I have my own answer to the op.
GW cannot win because the players want too much. They want them to accommodate to their every issue, solve problems for them, make the game cheap and affordable for everyone. These aren't impossibilities, they're simply not an issue for them from a business perspective.
Hobbies are expensive, especially ones where you build and assemble things yourself. Hell I had model planes as a kid that cost more than a Titan from FW, Dad had a cow when I bought it, but sold it when I graduated HS and made double his money so he was happy in the end.
If players want GW to care, they need to give them a real reason to. Sadly, the only way to do it is profits, but not enough players have stopped buying to do anything more than a temporary glance or shudder. We'll see in the next year or two how the stocks hold up and can make an accurate judgment from there, but as long as players keep buying and playing. there is no reason for them to fix anything.
PhillyT wrote: They will never please everyone one nor should they try. Most fans are illiterate in terms of the business side or biased in terms of the gaming side towards what they think the game should be.
This is another one of those glaring over simplifications.
Listening to your community does not mean you have to implement every single change suggested by the community. Listening to the community doesn't mean you try and make everyone 100% happy and take on board all the ignorant comments alongside the valid ones. A few random points:
1. Things like balance issues can be massively improved if you start listening to the community to see what units and options might be broken and have a closer look at them.
2. Rules that are massively unclear can be tightened up and clarified.
3. The overall direction of the rules may be harder to deal with as opinions will vary more widely. But even there listening to the community opens you up to ideas and potential flaws that can push your rules set to something a larger set of people are happy with. It will help you move to a rules set that creates less division in the community.
I feel like you are hitting on point 3 with your "you can't please everyone" mindset, but GW can't even get past points 1 and 2 to reach point 3.
Looking at other competitive games, though not wargaming games, the mindsets still apply. People howled for balanced in SCII, WoW PvP, MtG, Dota 2, LoL on a weekly basis. Players see something that is considered "op" and the community comes together to howl about what is "op". companies then put in patches with nerfs to whatever was perceived to be "op". A few days later, people notice that by "balancing" one thing, they broke another and made something else "op". It got so bad in some games that they flat out stopped listening to the player bases complaints about certain things being "op". Case in point, LoL, probably the most played E-sports game right now, Riot consistently nerfs things they believe to be OP because they have data to support their conclusions, the players though feel otherwise, hence the running joke, X Champion is op, better nerf Irelia.
SCII had and has horrible issues with balance and with all the nerfs/buffs to everything, entire units have been made absolete and never see competitive play anymore.
WoW, for years Rogues were considered op, but in reality it was players not knowing how to deal with vanish and backstab, they nerfed this, Rogues completely fell off the competitive scene.
When you listen to the opinions of the players when it comes to balance issues, what you really see are people who think something is overpowered because they haven't found a way to deal with it or because they want things to be more "balanced" a term that nobody has ever been able to really define or apply to a competitive game.
These are video game examples I realize, but the issues of balance is the same in all
As I said, you don't have to implement all the changes the community suggests for balance fixes. Simply using it as a magnifying glass to inspect why people might be complaining.
Of course you're never going to achieve perfect balance and people are always going to complain that it is unbalanced, but GW is so far from a balanced game it's laughable. Many things are blatantly obvious, even within a given codex you can often see without even playing a game "wait, what's the point of X unit when Y unit exists and is obviously better".
When we reach the point of only small nuances of imbalance I might start agreeing with you that the community is just whinging... but we're not even close.
I also notice you ignored my 2nd point, the concept of rule clarity, something which really has no excuse for not listening to the community and coming out with fixes. It's not 40k I know, but still GW, the Lizardmen Army Book has been out for ages (about a year now I think?) and still has issues that are being debated and we still don't have a FAQ/errata for it.
How about this thing called human subjectivity? You presume everyone can be pleased.
You presume that they couldn't be doing better and the displeased are a minority. I have facts to back up my stance, where are yours? Or are we doing the illogical dance of the person who says "we can never know anything, so therefore you're wrong?"
I only say, 'to me' because it's clear there are lots of entirely unreasonable people making entirely unreasonable trouble about nothing for no good reason. Fortunately they are just mystery strangers on the internet 'to me' and I don't have to play games with them.
Are they unreasonable for any other reason than they disagree with you and have an equally valid and lexical interpretation of the rules? Or do you have solid logic and/or evidence on how the rules are to be specifically interpreted?
I'm going to go off a hunch here and say it's the former. If it's the latter, than I'm both wrong and we get to finally lay to rest those matters in question; therefore a win-win. So please, your move. See you in YMDC.
"If it's the latter, *then* I'm both wrong" ...while trying to sound intellectually superior you've made some pretty funny flubs.
They are unreasonable because you have to go out of your way to allow those interpretations. The obvious interpretation, and not just obvious to me, already works. At least in the case of the "psychic phase doesn't function". Admittedly in every 40K rulebook there have been issues of questionable interpretation; but amongst people that can actually communicate like human beings are capable of on occasion - it all works out fine.
Players want at least what other, smaller companies, with less fiscal resources than Games Workshop, provide for free or at a much reduced price. That would be great start and no one would be opposed to that. So your argument doesn't have merit.
I only say, 'to me' because it's clear there are lots of entirely unreasonable people making entirely unreasonable trouble about nothing for no good reason. Fortunately they are just mystery strangers on the internet 'to me' and I don't have to play games with them.
Are they unreasonable for any other reason than they disagree with you and have an equally valid and lexical interpretation of the rules? Or do you have solid logic and/or evidence on how the rules are to be specifically interpreted?
I'm going to go off a hunch here and say it's the former. If it's the latter, than I'm both wrong and we get to finally lay to rest those matters in question; therefore a win-win. So please, your move. See you in YMDC.
"If it's the latter, *then* I'm both wrong" ...while trying to sound intellectually superior you've made some pretty funny flubs.
They are unreasonable because you have to go out of your way to allow those interpretations. The obvious interpretation, and not just obvious to me, already works. At least in the case of the "psychic phase doesn't function". Admittedly in every 40K rulebook there have been issues of questionable interpretation; but amongst people that can actually communicate like human beings are capable of on occasion - it all works out fine.
Take a ten minute tour of YMDC and you see people arguing over the definition of words and how they are used in the rulebooks, all while trying to find a conclusion that makes sense to them.
"If it's the latter, *then* I'm both wrong" ...while trying to sound intellectually superior you've made some pretty funny flubs.
They are unreasonable because you have to go out of your way to allow those interpretations. The obvious interpretation, and not just obvious to me, already works. At least in the case of the "psychic phase doesn't function". Admittedly in every 40K rulebook there have been issues of questionable interpretation; but amongst people that can actually communicate like human beings are capable of on occasion - it all works out fine.
The role of "Grammar Nazi" is cute, but borderline Ad Hominem attack. It doesn't make my point any less valid given the fact I am not a literary powerhouse. So stick to the topic.
And no, they don't. Again, go to YMDC and drop your logic bombs; your literary prowess you want to so endow us with. If they are so obvious, connect the dots. Again, either give proof, or you're simply puffing up and saying "I'm right because I am right." Which is not an actual argument.
Players want at least what other, smaller companies, with less fiscal resources than Games Workshop, provide for free or at a much reduced price. That would be great start and no one would be opposed to that. So your argument doesn't have merit.
See, if people didn't keep buying, and playing, and buying, and playing. You would have an actual argument. But players do, so you don't.
Smaller companies need to do these things because otherwise, they are merely copies of GW and nothing more. If your argument had merit, more would be leaving in droves to play other things rather than 40k, but this simply isn't true.
Players want at least what other, smaller companies, with less fiscal resources than Games Workshop, provide for free or at a much reduced price. That would be great start and no one would be opposed to that. So your argument doesn't have merit.
See, if people didn't keep buying, and playing, and buying, and playing. You would have an actual argument. But players do, so you don't.
Smaller companies need to do these things because otherwise, they are merely copies of GW and nothing more. If your argument had merit, more would be leaving in droves to play other things rather than 40k, but this simply isn't true.
The January financial report says otherwise. We can discuss this further come July for the end of year report, which is already considered a poor to grim outcome from those educated in the world of economic and business matters.
The other half of your argument implies strongly that GW can be lazy just because they've been a large incumbent. And I think you're missing the forest for the trees. Folks are leaving in droves or greatly curtailing their purchases. Again, please review the financials for one piece of evidence.
Gunzhard wrote: Hah so ignore what to me is the obvious and certainly the most reasonable interpretation, that also works just fine; and instead bang my head against the wall... for what?
Rules discussions on forums fill two main functions. The first is to answer simple questions where someone has either misunderstood or been unable to find a clear rule. The second is to serve as a place for people to hash out unclear rules so that people can be aware of the different ways that people are reading those rules.
Some of the time, those latter discussions are covering situations that simply never arise at the table. For others, different groups wind up playing the game completely different ways, so unless you're only ever playing with the same group of opponents, it can be handy to know that those other interpretations are out there to avoid nasty surprises.
The old GW forums closed because they were filled to the brim with (mostly ridiculous) negativity; they had become a running joke by then.
Indeed. But the reason that happened was that GW themselves practically ignored them.
By contrast, the 'official' forums for pretty much every other game I have ever bothered hanging out on have generally been fairly positive places, because staff or appointed forum representatives have spent considerable time on them interacting with their players and as a result making them feel like their opinions matter.
GW never bothered doing that, and the Eye of Terror was the direct result.
Insaniak I see now why you use your mod power to police people pointing out negativity - but not the actual negativity which literally exists here in HEAPS.
We don't 'police' negativity so long as it stays within the confines of the forum's rules because we accept that different people hold different opinions and they are welcome to voice them. We're not going to sanction someone for holding a negative opinion of something any more than we're going to do so because someone likes something. That would more or less negate the entire point of having a discussion forum in the first place.
The other thing to keep in mind is that there are a lot of criticisms of GW, but they don't all fall into a single category. The people who have a problem with the price and the people who have a problem with the rules mightn't be the same people. So telling someone who doesn't like the rules and the price to "stop playing if its too expensive" may be a (bad) solution to one of their problems, but it doesn't solve their other problem. Too often people spout the "If you don't like it, stop playing" which completely and massively manages to miss the points being made entirely. So going back to GW getting a "win", they don't get a free pass on problem X because someone wants to dismiss criticisms of problem Y.
Lobomalo wrote: Take a ten minute tour of YMDC and you see people arguing over the definition of words and how they are used in the rulebooks, all while trying to find a conclusion that makes sense to them.
A lot of which wouldn't be an issue if there was a greater emphasis at GW in writing a decent set of rules rather than attempting to shirk responsibility either by "Rolling for it" (which is akin to sweeping a problem under the rug) or crapping on about how you should "Forge a narrative" (which is akin to sticking your fingers in your ears and going "la la la I can't hear you!"). The problems with GW's rules aren't vast, they're just deep. Fixing the core mechanics of the game would naturally create a better rules base from which to build the rest upon.
As to what you're saying about players wanting too much, I don't think they do want too much. If you lump all the problems together it seems like a massive Chaos Spawn - too much going on, no way to really deal with any one issue, and lots of conflicting opinions - but if you separate them out the solutions are easier to see.
"If it's the latter, *then* I'm both wrong" ...while trying to sound intellectually superior you've made some pretty funny flubs.
They are unreasonable because you have to go out of your way to allow those interpretations. The obvious interpretation, and not just obvious to me, already works. At least in the case of the "psychic phase doesn't function". Admittedly in every 40K rulebook there have been issues of questionable interpretation; but amongst people that can actually communicate like human beings are capable of on occasion - it all works out fine.
The role of "Grammar Nazi" is cute, but borderline Ad Hominem attack. It doesn't make my point any less valid given the fact I am not a literary powerhouse. So stick to the topic.
And no, they don't. Again, go to YMDC and drop your logic bombs; your literary prowess you want to so endow us with. If they are so obvious, connect the dots. Again, either give proof, or you're simply puffing up and saying "I'm right because I am right." Which is not an actual argument.
Something to think about.
Multiple people can read the same thing and come up with entirely different meanings from what they read. It's why Poetry is so well loved and hated across the field of English.
People comprehend things at different rates. Some people can read a rule and find an easy answer and never need any clarification. Whereas other players can read the same rule and be confused because of a wording issue or because something to them appears to be vague.
A lot of the issues I have seen in YMDC have fallen into this category. Some person reads a rule, it looks vague to them so they seek clarification. Then a debate happens. Others join in and for some the answer is obvious, for others it isn't. 6, 7, 8 pages later, no answer is found, the thread gets locked.
Is the issue then bad clarification of the rules or faulty understanding by the players who see vague when things are clear?
I favor the ladder in most cases. Some things I have come across are quite vague. Psyker/ML is quite clear and to me, needs no further clarification, but for others this isn't the case. But is that a fault of GW?
Do they really need to write out every single instance of every possible issue that could ever possibly occur? Or can they rely on the comprehension skills of a game played primarily by adults who have, at minimum graduated high school?
It's a waste of time and effort to write out every instance of an issue because for all anyone knows, it could only come up once or twice for a few players in some back water hobby shop, does this warrant a FAQ just to clear it up, the answer is no by the way, the easiest solution is for those players to solve it themselves, something GW has given permission for players to do.
"If it's the latter, *then* I'm both wrong" ...while trying to sound intellectually superior you've made some pretty funny flubs.
They are unreasonable because you have to go out of your way to allow those interpretations. The obvious interpretation, and not just obvious to me, already works. At least in the case of the "psychic phase doesn't function". Admittedly in every 40K rulebook there have been issues of questionable interpretation; but amongst people that can actually communicate like human beings are capable of on occasion - it all works out fine.
The role of "Grammar Nazi" is cute, but borderline Ad Hominem attack. It doesn't make my point any less valid given the fact I am not a literary powerhouse. So stick to the topic.
And no, they don't. Again, go to YMDC and drop your logic bombs; your literary prowess you want to so endow us with. If they are so obvious, connect the dots. Again, either give proof, or you're simply puffing up and saying "I'm right because I am right." Which is not an actual argument.
Give proof of what? You have the same book I have presumably. Tell me honestly, without hearing this forced interpretation of the physic phase, was it not clear to you how many powers you can cast per turn?
And of the both of us, you've certainly been more on the 'attack' there bud. I've made just as many grammar/spelling mistakes, but not so comically while 'puffing up' my superiority over GW's "Writing abilities".
We don't 'police' negativity so long as it stays within the confines of the forum's rules because we accept that different people hold different opinions and they are welcome to voice them. We're not going to sanction someone for holding a negative opinion of something any more than we're going to do so because someone likes something. That would more or less negate the entire point of having a discussion forum in the first place.
This is an untruth. You have on two different occasions censored me for negativity when all I did was cite observations that others in the same thread had made.
By contrast, the 'official' forums for pretty much every other game I have ever bothered hanging out on have generally been fairly positive places, because staff or appointed forum representatives have spent considerable time on them interacting with their players and as a result making them feel like their opinions matter.
You can search the privateer press forums to find anyone from their artists to rules writers to the CEO of the company posting in them. Imagine if Jervis actually got onto a forum and said even "Sup?" But they brought that on themselves.
If you think Dakka is negative now, imagine if the folks like Insaniak weren't around to get rid of the real garbage at times (I'm throwing myself under that bus too... we all have bad days )? Thankless job, indeed. (Thanks, Mods).
We don't 'police' negativity so long as it stays within the confines of the forum's rules because we accept that different people hold different opinions and they are welcome to voice them. We're not going to sanction someone for holding a negative opinion of something any more than we're going to do so because someone likes something. That would more or less negate the entire point of having a discussion forum in the first place.
This is an untruth. You have on two different occasions censored me for negativity when all I did was cite observations that others in the same thread had made.
He policed me for saying this forum was full of negativity haha...
Sigvatr wrote: [quote=Throt 601367 6955815 fad29d8ef35eadfd8636ca1094c624c9.jpg
You missed the context of the Mercedes comparison. It was strictly based on people being able to afford it.
GW delivers on everything required. Everything else is subjective. That is the point I am trying to get across.
That is the problem: you miss the point. You assume that a lot of people complain about the prices because they cannot afford them. That is a wrong assumption based on nothing to back it up. Just take me as an example. My wife and I both score very high on the income scale. We bought a PS3 just so we could play Dark Souls II. You assume that because someone can afford a product he has to be ok with tge price. That's a very naive and wrong assumption. GW rules are poor quality rules that often lack cohesion and don't see any playtesting. Poor quality does not justify a premium price. That is because we don't pay for the ruloes: the cost-quality ratio is way off.
It's not really an issue but you are making an assumption out of context. But we can move on.
What evidence do you have that there is no playtesting?
Which is a better quality game, soccer or American football?
How about we discuss a single appalling rule that is ruining the game? If it plays fine for me and not for you then it is not broken it is subjective.
That is my point. I have a classic rational consumist point of view: high price means high quality. If this is not the case, it feels wrong. You are an apologist: "Yeah there are problems but I can fix them so it's still awesome! ". That's fine if you are happy with it as it is your opinion and youbare entitlef to it. You finding a solution for a problem, however, does not make the problem disappear. It is still there. Your view is the subjective view, with you finding ways around a problem. The objective view is that there are problems. Latest example: CCB. Still no FAQ.
Sry for typos on phone and football match about to start.
What is one specific problem? What is the problem that you have with CCB?
You are assuming there is a problem for everyone because you have a problem. I am not finding a way around a problem, I am playing a game that I bought.
The January financial report says otherwise. We can discuss this further come July for the end of year report, which is already considered a poor to grim outcome from those educated in the world of economic and business matters.
The other half of your argument implies strongly that GW can be lazy just because they've been a large incumbent. And I think you're missing the forest for the trees. Folks are leaving in droves or greatly curtailing their purchases. Again, please review the financials for one piece of evidence.
You have a financial quote for January, after news and rumors of 7th dropped. People always come and go when new editions drop in every game. To get a real representation of their finances, you would need for 7th to actually be around long enough, to sink into and be accepted by the player base. Until then, you have nothing solid, only theories by "experts"
By contrast, the 'official' forums for pretty much every other game I have ever bothered hanging out on have generally been fairly positive places, because staff or appointed forum representatives have spent considerable time on them interacting with their players and as a result making them feel like their opinions matter.
You can search the privateer press forums to find anyone from their artists to rules writers to the CEO of the company posting in them. Imagine if Jervis actually got onto a forum and said even "Sup?" But they brought that on themselves.
If you think Dakka is negative now, imagine if the folks like Insaniak weren't around to get rid of the real garbage at times (I'm throwing myself under that bus too... we all have bad days )? Thankless job, indeed. (Thanks, Mods).
That's a fairly obvious butt-kissing, coming from the guy making comments like, "I'd say just link the thread(s) where this is being discussed and let those dogs go there." Tell me Dakka is a place of reasonable people(?)
By contrast, the 'official' forums for pretty much every other game I have ever bothered hanging out on have generally been fairly positive places, because staff or appointed forum representatives have spent considerable time on them interacting with their players and as a result making them feel like their opinions matter.
You can search the privateer press forums to find anyone from their artists to rules writers to the CEO of the company posting in them. Imagine if Jervis actually got onto a forum and said even "Sup?" But they brought that on themselves.
If you think Dakka is negative now, imagine if the folks like Insaniak weren't around to get rid of the real garbage at times (I'm throwing myself under that bus too... we all have bad days )? Thankless job, indeed. (Thanks, Mods).
That's a fairly obvious butt-kissing, coming from the guy making comments like, "I'd say just link the thread(s) where this is being discussed and let those dogs go there." Tell me Dakka is a place of reasonable people(?)
You're talking to a guy who spent the better part of yesterday with others calling me rude, condescending, pretentious and a lot of other things, merely because I called them out on what amounts to whining.
I'm fairly reasonable, just don't come at me with BS, theories and opinions.
That's a fairly obvious butt-kissing, coming from the guy making comments like, "I'd say just link the thread(s) where this is being discussed and let those dogs go there." Tell me Dakka is a place of reasonable people(?)
Yes, I'm butt kissing the guy who has moderated me several times for completely fair and legit reasons because I was being a giant turd. You got me...
(or maybe I was a mod on forums in another life and know that it is a thankless job, but I digress.)
That's a fairly obvious butt-kissing, coming from the guy making comments like, "I'd say just link the thread(s) where this is being discussed and let those dogs go there." Tell me Dakka is a place of reasonable people(?)
Yes, I'm butt kissing the guy who has moderated me several times for completely fair and legit reasons because I was being a giant turd. You got me...
(or maybe I was a mod on forums in another life and know that it is a thankless job, but I digress.)
It's a pain being a mod. They should totally get paid for putting up with a lot of the crap they deal with.
Engage with their fan base again. They could start with the Tournament Organizers and Top Players. Most would be able to point out all the weak points and anti-fluffy rules conflicts.
They will be able to point out things that they don't like, not rules that do not work.
For example many tournament players hate random charts. They still work they are just unpredictable.
Just as tournament players try to minimize the randomness across their army.
Tournament players are also not the majority that they believe themselves to be. They just tend to be the most vocal
You have a financial quote for January, after news and rumors of 7th dropped. People always come and go when new editions drop in every game. To get a real representation of their finances, you would need for 7th to actually be around long enough, to sink into and be accepted by the player base. Until then, you have nothing solid, only theories by "experts"
Cool, now we just have "theories" based on "data" that we have "collected" from my different "places" and "experts" who "review" the "data" to give us "results."
This sounds like we're getting very much into Fox News style territory of arguing against sound science in other topics. If you don't want to trust the rational explanations of others educated in the matter, one of which is publicly speaking about it in a fashion that could give him major backlash to himself personally and his company, and not provide any factual rebuttal yourself, then that's on you. But "head in sand" is not a valid tactic no matter how many 4+ roll-offs you try for.
Lobomalo wrote: Do they really need to write out every single instance of every possible issue that could ever possibly occur? .
I don't see why not. Other games manage to do so.
However, not covering any possible situation is only half of the problem. The other half is the lack of clarity in the rules that are there.
Yes, different people can interpret a given piece of text different ways. But a more clearly written piece of text is less prone to misinterpretation. Rules aren't poetry... much of the variable interpretation inherent in poetry comes from the fact that the writing is used to convey ideas and imagery rather than specific concepts. Rules, by contrast, need to be clear and concise precisely to avoid as much misinterpretation as possible.
A professional games developer doesn't get a 'get out of jail free' card by including a line in the book saying 'Yeah, if we didn't make it clear enough, just work it out for yourself' any more than my mechanic gets a free pass for pointing out that I can tighten my own wheel nuts if he forgot to do it himself.
Tournament players are also not the majority that they believe themselves to be. They just tend to be the most vocal
That line, so perfect and so what is going on here. You have players who are unhappy and are thinking themselves in the majority, when in reality they are the ones talking the loudest.
This is also why the games I mentioned earlier flat out ignore the players when it comes to balance issues because only the ones unhappy, i.e., those who cannot win are the ones being the loudest.
Lobomalo wrote: This is an untruth. You have on two different occasions censored me for negativity when all I did was cite observations that others in the same thread had made.
He policed me for saying this forum was full of negativity haha...
And it's good to know you both took on board the reason that happened.
You have a financial quote for January, after news and rumors of 7th dropped. People always come and go when new editions drop in every game. To get a real representation of their finances, you would need for 7th to actually be around long enough, to sink into and be accepted by the player base. Until then, you have nothing solid, only theories by "experts"
Cool, now we just have "theories" based on "data" that we have "collected" from my different "places" and "experts" who "review" the "data" to give us "results."
This sounds like we're getting very much into Fox News style territory of arguing against sound science in other topics. If you don't want to trust the rational explanations of others educated in the matter, one of which is publicly speaking about it in a fashion that could give him major backlash to himself personally and his company, and not provide any factual rebuttal yourself, then that's on you. But "head in sand" is not a valid tactic no matter how many 4+ roll-offs you try for.
First, never said his data didn't have merit, it simply isn't enough to come up with a solid answer, only theories. Any interpretation of this data and applying it to the future is nothing more than shotty science and ignorance.
Throt wrote: [Tournament players are also not the majority that they believe themselves to be. They just tend to be the most vocal
Most tournament players don't believe themselves to be a majority. They're fully aware that most players don't play in tournaments.
The reason they complain is that for the most part, writing a game that is tournament-friendly benefits all of the players, whereas writing a game that is only fit for those players who are happy to make up rules with their opponent excludes a chunk of the player base.
Lobomalo wrote: Do they really need to write out every single instance of every possible issue that could ever possibly occur? .
I don't see why not. Other games manage to do so.
However, not covering any possible situation is only half of the problem. The other half is the lack of clarity in the rules that are there.
Yes, different people can interpret a given piece of text different ways. But a more clearly written piece of text is less prone to misinterpretation. Rules aren't poetry... much of the variable interpretation inherent in poetry comes from the fact that the writing is used to convey ideas and imagery rather than specific concepts. Rules, by contrast, need to be clear and concise precisely to avoid as much misinterpretation as possible.
A professional games developer doesn't get a 'get out of jail free' card by including a line in the book saying 'Yeah, if we didn't make it clear enough, just work it out for yourself' any more than my mechanic gets a free pass for pointing out that I can tighten my own wheel nuts if he forgot to do it himself.
Other games also have much less going on, hence easier to be clear. They aren't trying to manage 10+ armies with multiple rules on their own.
Again, clear to one person and not clear to another is not a fault of the writer. The blame falls on both the reader and the writer. If something is clear to 5 people in an argument, but unclear to 10, who is in the wrong? By your logic, the ones with the larger amount of people are correct and for those who understand, they're wrong.
So if I was to complain about a unit I purchased (Burning Chariot of Tzeentch) being objectively unusable for over a year, I'd just be a noisy forum whiner who can't win?
PhillyT wrote: Part of the fan base. Few businesses should listen to the internet complainer crowd. Similar to athletes and celebrities, never go online and listen to Forum Guy when you are a public figure or company.
That was arguably true 10 years ago. These days, as more and more people have ready access to the web, the 'internet crowd' covers a much wider cross-section of a company's potential audience.
I believe this is a common fallacy
.Though the internet has large numbers and potentially large audience it is still not necessarily representative.
Take this forum alone approximately 5000 views plus however many registered users and there are only about 15-20 people taking part.
This shows that the topic is not as hot button amongst players as some might believe.
First, never said his data didn't have merit, it simply isn't enough to come up with a solid answer, only theories. Any interpretation of this data and applying it to the future is nothing more than shotty science and ignorance.
I don't think you're using that word correctly... the very nature of science is to create an assertion based on theory and try to disprove it. We have enough data that the pull of Earth's gravity on a falling object creates an acceleration of roughly 32 ft/s^2.
Same applies with economics, thought it's a bit fuzzier because it involves human behavior. However, using the one thing you cannot measure, experience, better educated and experienced individuals can draw strong conclusions of future events. It's not as set in stone as the gravitational constant for an object near the surface of the Earth, but we have a fairly strong degree of certainty. Enough that someone is risking their credentials as such a person and potentially the value of his company to boot.
So something tells me we have enough reason to give trust to the theory at hand.
Eldarain wrote: So if I was to complain about a unit I purchased (Burning Chariot of Tzeentch) being objectively unusable for over a year, I'd just be a noisy forum whiner who can't win?
The hyperbole in this thread is astounding.
What makes the unit unusable? Is there something physically preventing you from playing it or does it not fit the top tier list you are trying to emulate?
If its the former, blame GW, if its the ladder, blame yourself and the meta. The meta changes all the time, in no game when you have as many units as this does, will you find a use for every possible unit you can bring, Some are stronger and better than others, this is how it is. Other units are useful in other situations.
Case in point, in the tactics forum right now there is a guy that flat out believes that Gene Stealers are worthless as they are not as cost effective as other units. Yet from my own experience using my Tyranid army, my Gene Stealers have more than earned their keep. So, does the problem come from issues in the meta, or from players trying to build that ideal top tier list and simply not trying other units because they "think" they are not as good/
Lobomalo wrote: Other games also have much less going on, hence easier to be clear. They aren't trying to manage 10+ armies with multiple rules on their own.
And that's a problem that GW have created all by themselves.
To keep the car analogy going, how do you think, say, Ford's customers would take it if the latest shiny model was full of flaws that Ford hand-waved away on the basis that making a car properly is too complicated?
If your games designers aren't capable of writing a comprehensive set of rules for a game with that amount of complexity, then surely the obvious answer is to write a less complex set of rules, no?
Again, clear to one person and not clear to another is not a fault of the writer. The blame falls on both the reader and the writer. .
Sure. Except in this case, one of those people is selling a product, and the other is a customer expecting to buy a functional and professional product.
The onus there is on the writer to make a 'best effort' to get it right.
Throt wrote: They will be able to point out things that they don't like, not rules that do not work.
No, they'll be able to point out plenty of rules that don't work. Go read YMDC.
And if you want to use a definition of "work" that includes some form of working well, not just "it is possible to play a game", you'll find that the game is a bloated mess that is full of clumsy exceptions to special cases, contradictory design goals, balance nightmares, etc. It's like a car that barely runs, leaks every time it rains, etc: sure it will get you from point A to point B as long as it isn't too far, but I don't think you can really say that it works very well.
For example many tournament players hate random charts. They still work they are just unpredictable.
Just as tournament players try to minimize the randomness across their army.
Tournament players are also not the majority that they believe themselves to be. They just tend to be the most vocal
It's not just tournament players that hate random charts. Things like random warlord traits are awful for narrative play. They're objectively bad design for everyone, not just a few people that want to minimize randomness that might interfere with their winning percentage.
First, never said his data didn't have merit, it simply isn't enough to come up with a solid answer, only theories. Any interpretation of this data and applying it to the future is nothing more than shotty science and ignorance.
I don't think you're using that word correctly... the very nature of science is to create an assertion based on theory and try to disprove it. We have enough data that the pull of Earth's gravity on a falling object creates an acceleration of roughly 32 ft/s^2.
Same applies with economics, thought it's a bit fuzzier because it involves human behavior. However, using the one thing you cannot measure, experience, better educated and experienced individuals can draw strong conclusions of future events. It's not as set in stone as the gravitational constant for an object near the surface of the Earth, but we have a fairly strong degree of certainty. Enough that someone is risking their credentials as such a person and potentially the value of his company to boot.
So something tells me we have enough reason to give trust to the theory at hand.
Except when you look at other companies who have had similar issues who simply bounced back without changing anything. I have mentioned these before.
It is too early to tell, you would need to find a trend to support the theory, so I will give you until the next report, if it shows a decline, you're right, but I doubt it will.
You have a financial quote for January, after news and rumors of 7th dropped. People always come and go when new editions drop in every game. To get a real representation of their finances, you would need for 7th to actually be around long enough, to sink into and be accepted by the player base. Until then, you have nothing solid, only theories by "experts"
Cool, now we just have "theories" based on "data" that we have "collected" from my different "places" and "experts" who "review" the "data" to give us "results."
This sounds like we're getting very much into Fox News style territory of arguing against sound science in other topics. If you don't want to trust the rational explanations of others educated in the matter, one of which is publicly speaking about it in a fashion that could give him major backlash to himself personally and his company, and not provide any factual rebuttal yourself, then that's on you. But "head in sand" is not a valid tactic no matter how many 4+ roll-offs you try for.
Have you ever read the comments-sections of the Fox News facebook page? ...your so-called "data" is like polling that comment section. It's not science, it's not tested or proven, it's not even entirely definable... it's just a bunch of screaming voices. For all we know half of the users on Dakka could be the same 12 year old kid, and you honestly cannot 'prove' otherwise.
Just because a unit or strategy works for you doesn't automatically make it good. It just means it works for you. You have to look at the bigger picture and if, on average, Genestealers tend to underperform then they aren't an adequate unit.
Lobomalo wrote: Other games also have much less going on, hence easier to be clear. They aren't trying to manage 10+ armies with multiple rules on their own.
MTG has way more complexity than 40k. MTG also has absolutely no rule questions that can not be answered with a brief look at the rulebook. Please stop excusing GW's lazy writers based on ignorance of what better game designers are capable of.
Except when you look at other companies who have had similar issues who simply bounced back without changing anything. I have mentioned these before.
It is too early to tell, you would need to find a trend to support the theory, so I will give you until the next report, if it shows a decline, you're right, but I doubt it will.
I have not seen you mention specifics. So please either provide me a frame of reference for this or a link to where you gave very specific circumstances, more so within the context of wargaming. I'll give you even all of game space to navigate. I'd even take a Wikipedia article so I can follow the references myself and meet you half way.
PhillyT wrote: A rule ... that cannot be applied because of its mechanic.
The entire psychic phase currently doesn't function.
Last edition, it was fortifications, most notably the Skyshield, anything with battlements, and the Aegis Defense Line, and the Look Out Sir! rule which was errataed to work completely differently 3 minutes after release..
In 5th edition it was characters joining units pre-game and LOS outside the shooting phase... two issues that carried over into 6th edition despite being clarified at the very end of 5th.
In 4th edition, they 'forgot' to include the rules for vehicle access and fire points, and the badly written LOS rules coupled with a complete failure to ever clarify them meant that for the entire life of that edition there were arguments over just how LOS worked.
Those are just the big ones. It seems like every edition they manage to jam something in there that they wrote out on a napkin in a hurry and never bothered to actually proof-read.
Many of the so called 'errors' come from players that start reading between the lines. The rules lawyers typically. (None of this is meant derogatory)
I saw an issue, I believe was from a tournament somewhere, that there were arguments about line of sight with wraithguard and other Eldar walkers because they don't have eyes. Many of these problems are just not forseen.
Do we need a rulebook written like law, and to have a law degree to play? I don't want that.
Sure. Except in this case, one of those people is selling a product, and the other is a customer expecting to buy a functional and professional product.
The onus there is on the writer to make a 'best effort' to get it right.
Which I would agree with if there was a legitimate majority who did not understand what was written. Honestly, most of the issues I have come across, just looking at Dakka alone, they are only unclear to the players on here. I bring up the same questions to those I meet pretty much everywhere I play, the answer is obvious to them as well.
So again, who is to blame? The company or the players for seeing something vague when the answer is clear?
Also, clear to some and not to others, was referred to players only, thought that was clear, but I'll state it here.
For some players rules are clear, for others they are vague.
Except when you look at other companies who have had similar issues who simply bounced back without changing anything. I have mentioned these before.
It is too early to tell, you would need to find a trend to support the theory, so I will give you until the next report, if it shows a decline, you're right, but I doubt it will.
I have not seen you mention specifics. So please either provide me a frame of reference for this or a link to where you gave very specific circumstances, more so within the context of wargaming. I'll give you even all of game space to navigate. I'd even take a Wikipedia article so I can follow the references myself and meet you half way.
I listed the games earlier in the thread, scroll back and find it for yourself.
Throt wrote: That is my point. I have a classic rational consumist point of view: high price means high quality.
Not to nitpick, but in a truly capitalist society, this is super naive.
High price means that people are willing to pay that price for the product - you could have a turd, but if people pay $15,000,000 for it, you bet your ass it'll be sold for that much.
Perhaps there ought to be a correlation between quality and price, but there are waaaayyy more things that go into pricing than mere quality, including branding, market share, target markets, et cetera.
Throt wrote: I believe this is a common fallacy
.Though the internet has large numbers and potentially large audience it is still not necessarily representative.
Take this forum alone approximately 5000 views plus however many registered users and there are only about 15-20 people taking part.
This shows that the topic is not as hot button amongst players as some might believe.
It's not just about the number of people in any given discussion. It's about the cross-section of people involved.
Where the internet was once the domain of IT folk and tech junkies, as more and more people get easy access, you get a wider cross-section of the community getting involved in online stuff.
Divining customer opinion isn't just about counting heads in one specific place. It's about counting different heads.
Eldarain wrote: So if I was to complain about a unit I purchased (Burning Chariot of Tzeentch) being objectively unusable for over a year, I'd just be a noisy forum whiner who can't win?
The hyperbole in this thread is astounding.
What makes the unit unusable? Is there something physically preventing you from playing it or does it not fit the top tier list you are trying to emulate?
It actually didn't function for over a year. The passenger is equipped with a Template weapon. If a Chariot moves it's passengers must snap fire. You can't snap fire a Template outside of "Wall of Death" The fact they couldn't be bothered to write a FaQ for that obvious mistake is shocking.
I appreciate that you are new to the game and are full of the same enthusiasm we all felt during that same time, but I'd advise you to take a step back from the "coming in swinging" approach you've adopted.
TheCustomLime wrote: Just because a unit or strategy works for you doesn't automatically make it good. It just means it works for you. You have to look at the bigger picture and if, on average, Genestealers tend to underperform then they aren't an adequate unit.
This. I've said it before, but I'll say it again. Lobomalo seems like a classic "big fish in a small pond" case. Their local group probably consists of a few people with mid-tier lists and a bit of skill, and a bunch of newbies/"casual" players/etc with truly awful lists and limited skill. The mid-tier players dominate with lists that would get dominated in a large competitive tournament, simply because there is no real competition. And as long as you never leave that group it can seem like certain strategies are overpowered based on their win rate against that weak competition.
This is of course backed up by Lobomalo's claim about MTG balance, that U/W control is unbeatable (when in fact it isn't really doing very well in major tournaments). Someone in their local store probably has a decent U/W control deck and beats all the weaker players, and Lobomalo struggles to compete with it. And they make the textbook mistake of assuming that everyone else has the same problems, ignoring the tournament results demonstrating that they don't. The only question is whether Lobomalo is sincerely wrong about this, or posted a balance complaint without realizing that other people in this thread might have some MTG experience and check their claims.
If there are any problems with the game due to the way it is written, GW are to blame.
It doesn't matter if the problem arose "because there are 10 armies". GW put the 10 armies in there and let it cause a problem.
Question.
Say there are players who understand the rules, sense no problems in them and are able to play just fine without issue. Does there still exist a problem?
If only an issue exists for some, is there a problem?
When looking at rules, something cannot both be a problem to some and not a problem to others. Somewhere alone the line, someone is misunderstanding something or blatantly misreading it.
If the rules were written as unclear as many of you have claimed, you wouldn't have people who see things clearly and don't have issues getting answers.
Eldarain wrote: So if I was to complain about a unit I purchased (Burning Chariot of Tzeentch) being objectively unusable for over a year, I'd just be a noisy forum whiner who can't win?
The hyperbole in this thread is astounding.
What makes the unit unusable? Is there something physically preventing you from playing it or does it not fit the top tier list you are trying to emulate?
It actually didn't function for over a year. The passenger is equipped with a Template weapon. If a Chariot moves it's passengers must snap fire. You can't snap fire a Template outside of "Wall of Death" The fact they couldn't be bothered to write a FaQ for that obvious mistake is shocking.
I appreciate that you are new to the game and are full of the same enthusiasm we all felt during that same time, but I'd advise you to take a step back from the "coming in swinging" approach you've adopted.
Anything else?
Me being new has no bearing on my understanding or comprehension of rules. I am able to read and understand them quite clearly thank you very much.
Throt wrote: I saw an issue, I believe was from a tournament somewhere, that there were arguments about line of sight with wraithguard and other Eldar walkers because they don't have eyes. Many of these problems are just not forseen.
Not foreseen?
The issue with LOS from models without eyes has been something that people have been complaining about for 6 editions now. GWfinally resolved it by changing the LOS rules in 7th edition.
And while it was never that huge a problem for things like Wraithguard, it was somewhat less clear last edition just how we were supposed to establish LOS with artillery.
The thing is, these are things that should be foreseen. Particularly when people have been complaining about them for multiple editions.
So, again, it ultimately comes back to engaging with the customer base, which they just don't bother to do.
And if you want to use a definition of "work" that includes some form of working well, not just "it is possible to play a game", you'll find that the game is a bloated mess that is full of clumsy exceptions to special cases, contradictory design goals, balance nightmares, etc. It's like a car that barely runs, leaks every time it rains, etc: sure it will get you from point A to point B as long as it isn't too far, but I don't think you can really say that it works very well.
You sound fairly well read into game design. Have you tried redesigning 40k? I'm sure if all that you mentioned can be achieved, it would also pull existing players to your version instead. It might be interesting as well since a tighter ruleset may bring joy to those players who have quit due to loose rules.
Throt wrote: I saw an issue, I believe was from a tournament somewhere, that there were arguments about line of sight with wraithguard and other Eldar walkers because they don't have eyes. Many of these problems are just not forseen.
Not foreseen?
The issue with LOS from models without eyes has been something that people have been complaining about for 6 editions now. GWfinally resolved it by changing the LOS rules in 7th edition.
And while it was never that huge a problem for things like Wraithguard, it was somewhat less clear last edition just how we were supposed to establish LOS with artillery.
The thing is, these are things that should be foreseen. Particularly when people have been complaining about them for multiple editions.
So, again, it ultimately comes back to engaging with the customer base, which they just don't bother to do.
OR, they can expect people to act like gentlemen and use common sense, instead of saying "YOUR GUY DOESN'T HAVE EYES HOW DOES HE SEE TO SHOOT?!?!?!??!?!!!"
Because really, you're right, we shouldn't have to do it and that is a problem.
Lobomalo wrote: It is too early to tell, you would need to find a trend to support the theory, so I will give you until the next report, if it shows a decline, you're right, but I doubt it will.
There's already a trend. Prices go up, profits don't go up faster than inflation. Conclusion: GW is selling a smaller number of boxes for a higher price per-box. GW cuts costs everywhere and brags about it in their financial reports, profits don't go up faster than inflation. Conclusion: GW's cost cutting is covering up weak sales, and eventually GW is going to run out of things to cut without sacrificing quality in obvious ways. GW sees a big drop in profits in the period that includes the christmas shopping season (in an industry that should see lots of sales at that time). Conclusion: sales were really bad, and only the christmas spike saved them from a worse disaster.
And as for the next report, it's about more than just the final profit number. Remember that this next report will include the major cash cow of a new 40k edition, which means a lot of extra sales that GW can't easily repeat for a while. To consider the report an optimistic one GW can't just avoid a decline, they need to see a meaningful increase in profit. And they need to do it through legitimate sales increases, not just cost cutting and other short-term business tricks that cover up the real numbers.
I would say that if even a sizable minority (Not an oxymoron) finds issue with the rules then their concerns should be at least addressed. That's lost customers and bad PR right there if you just tell them to go screw themselves because everyone else is having fun.
Lobomalo wrote: It is too early to tell, you would need to find a trend to support the theory, so I will give you until the next report, if it shows a decline, you're right, but I doubt it will.
There's already a trend. Prices go up, profits don't go up faster than inflation. Conclusion: GW is selling a smaller number of boxes for a higher price per-box. GW cuts costs everywhere and brags about it in their financial reports, profits don't go up faster than inflation. Conclusion: GW's cost cutting is covering up weak sales, and eventually GW is going to run out of things to cut without sacrificing quality in obvious ways. GW sees a big drop in profits in the period that includes the christmas shopping season (in an industry that should see lots of sales at that time). Conclusion: sales were really bad, and only the christmas spike saved them from a worse disaster.
And as for the next report, it's about more than just the final profit number. Remember that this next report will include the major cash cow of a new 40k edition, which means a lot of extra sales that GW can't easily repeat for a while. To consider the report an optimistic one GW can't just avoid a decline, they need to see a meaningful increase in profit. And they need to do it through legitimate sales increases, not just cost cutting and other short-term business tricks that cover up the real numbers.
I know I'm about to say a bit of an oversimplification but:
In my business class, I was told that it is the wet dream of every manufacturer and retailer to sell one product for fifteen million dollars, rather than to sell fifteen million products for one dollar.
So if you can sell fewer units, but make up for it by selling those units at an inflated price, then you're a better capitalist than someone who sells more units at a lower price and makes the same profit.
TheCustomLime wrote: Just because a unit or strategy works for you doesn't automatically make it good. It just means it works for you. You have to look at the bigger picture and if, on average, Genestealers tend to underperform then they aren't an adequate unit.
This. I've said it before, but I'll say it again. Lobomalo seems like a classic "big fish in a small pond" case. Their local group probably consists of a few people with mid-tier lists and a bit of skill, and a bunch of newbies/"casual" players/etc with truly awful lists and limited skill. The mid-tier players dominate with lists that would get dominated in a large competitive tournament, simply because there is no real competition. And as long as you never leave that group it can seem like certain strategies are overpowered based on their win rate against that weak competition.
This is of course backed up by Lobomalo's claim about MTG balance, that U/W control is unbeatable (when in fact it isn't really doing very well in major tournaments). Someone in their local store probably has a decent U/W control deck and beats all the weaker players, and Lobomalo struggles to compete with it. And they make the textbook mistake of assuming that everyone else has the same problems, ignoring the tournament results demonstrating that they don't. The only question is whether Lobomalo is sincerely wrong about this, or posted a balance complaint without realizing that other people in this thread might have some MTG experience and check their claims.
I like you, I really do. People like you give me hope for the future. - Edited by insaniak. Please see Dakka's Rule #1-
Do you play Magic right now? Have you ever actually made it to a competitive event and not a local Friday night game? I've played for almost twenty years now, U/W has always been one of the most dominant decks in the game. It falls out of favor here and there because Wizards buffs the other colors because U/W is so strong. But you would know this if you actually played competitively.
%50 of the top 8 decks from events last year are combinations of solid U/W or U/W and something else. These results have been fairly consistent since Alara launched. Before then it was about %25 U/W
milkboy wrote: You sound fairly well read into game design. Have you tried redesigning 40k? I'm sure if all that you mentioned can be achieved, it would also pull existing players to your version instead. It might be interesting as well since a tighter ruleset may bring joy to those players who have quit due to loose rules.
No, of course I haven't tried redesigning 40k. If I'm going to invest the massive amount of effort required for a complete rewrite of the game (and that's what it would take to fix it) there's no way I'm going to spend it on designing a game for someone else's IP that I can't sell.
Lobomalo wrote: If only an issue exists for some, is there a problem?
Yes, because when you say that the issue only exists for some people what you really mean is that some people ignore the issue and 4+ it/house rule it/etc.
If the rules were written as unclear as many of you have claimed, you wouldn't have people who see things clearly and don't have issues getting answers.
Sure you would. Those people who "see things clearly" are actually just playing the game as they believe it was intended to work, not according to the published rules. The fact that some players can come up with their own variant game that works kind of like the official one doesn't mean that the problems in the official rules don't exist.
Anything else?
And this is why a lot of people here don't really like your attitude: you asked for an example of a broken unit, you got an example. Did you accept the example and admit that the problem exists? Of course not, you just dismissed it and demanded another example.
Players want at least what other, smaller companies, with less fiscal resources than Games Workshop, provide for free or at a much reduced price. That would be great start and no one would be opposed to that. So your argument doesn't have merit.
It is actually more difficult for GW.
Lets say that on release 'x' GW screwed up 5 things, and made 2 things out of balance that the rules lawyers have found.
They have just printed and shipped 500,000 rulebooks across the globe.
The naysayers see the books and say GW you suck.
Many don't buy, because it is overpriced, or it sucks or whatever and they want GW to recall all these books and have lost all the investment and have to start all over.
Can you see a cycle appearing.
The expectation of the naysayer is naïve and harmful.
Companies with less resource also have less overhead to cover.
Lobomalo wrote: It is too early to tell, you would need to find a trend to support the theory, so I will give you until the next report, if it shows a decline, you're right, but I doubt it will.
There's already a trend. Prices go up, profits don't go up faster than inflation. Conclusion: GW is selling a smaller number of boxes for a higher price per-box. GW cuts costs everywhere and brags about it in their financial reports, profits don't go up faster than inflation. Conclusion: GW's cost cutting is covering up weak sales, and eventually GW is going to run out of things to cut without sacrificing quality in obvious ways. GW sees a big drop in profits in the period that includes the christmas shopping season (in an industry that should see lots of sales at that time). Conclusion: sales were really bad, and only the christmas spike saved them from a worse disaster.
And as for the next report, it's about more than just the final profit number. Remember that this next report will include the major cash cow of a new 40k edition, which means a lot of extra sales that GW can't easily repeat for a while. To consider the report an optimistic one GW can't just avoid a decline, they need to see a meaningful increase in profit. And they need to do it through legitimate sales increases, not just cost cutting and other short-term business tricks that cover up the real numbers.
I know I'm about to say a bit of an oversimplification but:
In my business class, I was told that it is the wet dream of every manufacturer and retailer to sell one product for fifteen million dollars, rather than to sell fifteen million products for one dollar.
So if you can sell fewer units, but make up for it by selling those units at an inflated price, then you're a better capitalist than someone who sells more units at a lower price and makes the same profit.
Except for some, this mentality is evil and is bad for a business to do. It's almost as if they have forgotten the point of a business and what their goals are.
Lobomalo wrote: Which I would agree with if there was a legitimate majority who did not understand what was written. Honestly, most of the issues I have come across, just looking at Dakka alone, they are only unclear to the players on here. I bring up the same questions to those I meet pretty much everywhere I play, the answer is obvious to them as well.
You seem to have this odd idea that the guys discussing rules in YMDC only exist in YMDC.
Most of the more contentious issues I've seen discussed in YMDC over the years wind up discussed on every 40K-related forum sooner or later, and every gaming group that I have been a part of in the last decade has wound up discussing those same issues sooner or later.
For many groups they won't be a problem, because the gamers in that group are all like-minded enough to naturally gravitate to the same resolutions. That doesn't mean the problems aren't there... it simply means that for those groups the resolution was seemingly obvious because nobody disagreed with the general consensus (or cared enough to argue the point).
The other reason that you don't see those arguments as much is simply down to knowledge of the rules. To put it simply, at least from my experience, most players just don't know the rules all that well. In 20 years of playing this game, I've found that in the vast majority of situations when a rules issue comes up at the table, one player will just naturally defer to the other on the assumption that they probably know the rules better, and will maybe worry about finding out if what happened was actually correct afterwards. If they remember to.
YMDC, and other similar forums around the web, tend to attract those gamers who are more into actually knowing the rules inside and out, and so they will find those little details that get overlooked by the average gamer.
Throt wrote: Many of the so called 'errors' come from players that start reading between the lines.
So we're back to blaming the victim are we?
I'm not going to claim that writing rules is easy - in my experience it can be a frustrating thing indeed - but writing clear and concise rules isn't very hard once the you've got the base down correctly. The fact that GW fails in this aspect on a consistent basis says to me that they either don't know what they're doing or that they don't care. I choose to think the better of people, so I'll go with the ignorance over apathy conclusion.
TheCustomLime wrote: I would say that if even a sizable minority (Not an oxymoron) finds issue with the rules then their concerns should be at least addressed. That's lost customers and bad PR right there if you just tell them to go screw themselves because everyone else is having fun.
I don't disagree with this - but even the staunchest GW-haters have to admit, that the "sky is falling" reaction to every change in the game has remained a constant since day 2 of WH40K... they must have to become numb to some of that.
Eldarain wrote: So if I was to complain about a unit I purchased (Burning Chariot of Tzeentch) being objectively unusable for over a year, I'd just be a noisy forum whiner who can't win?
The hyperbole in this thread is astounding.
What makes the unit unusable? Is there something physically preventing you from playing it or does it not fit the top tier list you are trying to emulate?
It actually didn't function for over a year. The passenger is equipped with a Template weapon. If a Chariot moves it's passengers must snap fire. You can't snap fire a Template outside of "Wall of Death" The fact they couldn't be bothered to write a FaQ for that obvious mistake is shocking.
I appreciate that you are new to the game and are full of the same enthusiasm we all felt during that same time, but I'd advise you to take a step back from the "coming in swinging" approach you've adopted.
Anything else?
Me being new has no bearing on my understanding or comprehension of rules. I am able to read and understand them quite clearly thank you very much.
Now, get off your high horse please.
1: Nowhere in my post did I question your ability to understand or comprehend rules.
2: Your inability to discern that does bring into question your comprehension.
TheCustomLime wrote: Just because a unit or strategy works for you doesn't automatically make it good. It just means it works for you. You have to look at the bigger picture and if, on average, Genestealers tend to underperform then they aren't an adequate unit.
This. I've said it before, but I'll say it again. Lobomalo seems like a classic "big fish in a small pond" case. Their local group probably consists of a few people with mid-tier lists and a bit of skill, and a bunch of newbies/"casual" players/etc with truly awful lists and limited skill. The mid-tier players dominate with lists that would get dominated in a large competitive tournament, simply because there is no real competition. And as long as you never leave that group it can seem like certain strategies are overpowered based on their win rate against that weak competition.
This is of course backed up by Lobomalo's claim about MTG balance, that U/W control is unbeatable (when in fact it isn't really doing very well in major tournaments). Someone in their local store probably has a decent U/W control deck and beats all the weaker players, and Lobomalo struggles to compete with it. And they make the textbook mistake of assuming that everyone else has the same problems, ignoring the tournament results demonstrating that they don't. The only question is whether Lobomalo is sincerely wrong about this, or posted a balance complaint without realizing that other people in this thread might have some MTG experience and check their claims.
I like you, I really do. People like you give me hope for the future. .
Do you play Magic right now? Have you ever actually made it to a competitive event and not a local Friday night game? I've played for almost twenty years now, U/W has always been one of the most dominant decks in the game. It falls out of favor here and there because Wizards buffs the other colors because U/W is so strong. But you would know this if you actually played competitively.
Wow, the arrogance is strong with this one. Well, just because you been to a few local or even national events doesn't make your experience representative of the overall meta. You need results from a lot of tournaments to draw any conclusion about what build is good or not. As a man who believes in science I must stress this: Anecdotes mean feth all.
I know I'm about to say a bit of an oversimplification but:
In my business class, I was told that it is the wet dream of every manufacturer and retailer to sell one product for fifteen million dollars, rather than to sell fifteen million products for one dollar.
So if you can sell fewer units, but make up for it by selling those units at an inflated price, then you're a better capitalist than someone who sells more units at a lower price and makes the same profit.
Because it's called gambling. I have not taken a business class, but I know in my own personal investments and guidance I have received on them is that diversification leads to better chances of success. As it were, Games Workshop is nearly at the point of all-in on Warhammer 40k, meaning one product line. Should it falter, the company goes too.
Throt wrote: It is actually more difficult for GW.
Lets say that on release 'x' GW screwed up 5 things, and made 2 things out of balance that the rules lawyers have found.
They have just printed and shipped 500,000 rulebooks across the globe.
The naysayers see the books and say GW you suck.
Many don't buy, because it is overpriced, or it sucks or whatever and they want GW to recall all these books and have lost all the investment and have to start all over.
Can you see a cycle appearing.
The expectation of the naysayer is naïve and harmful.
Companies with less resource also have less overhead to cover.
Firstly, let's ditch the "rules lawyers" out of the above. You're attempting (knowingly or otherwise) to dismiss a whole group of people by applying a label to them in a pejorative manner. So stop that.
Secondly, your scenario above fails in one big area: The problem could have been prevented before going to print. Having a decent method and structure for play-testing would eliminate a lot (not all; perfect balance is impossible) of these problems before the book goes to print. You are 100% correct when you say that it's a problem to fix a book once it's already on store shelves, but the fact remains that a good amount of testing before sending it to the printers would mean that so many of these bleedingly obvious problems would simply cease to exist.
TheCustomLime wrote: Just because a unit or strategy works for you doesn't automatically make it good. It just means it works for you. You have to look at the bigger picture and if, on average, Genestealers tend to underperform then they aren't an adequate unit.
This. I've said it before, but I'll say it again. Lobomalo seems like a classic "big fish in a small pond" case. Their local group probably consists of a few people with mid-tier lists and a bit of skill, and a bunch of newbies/"casual" players/etc with truly awful lists and limited skill. The mid-tier players dominate with lists that would get dominated in a large competitive tournament, simply because there is no real competition. And as long as you never leave that group it can seem like certain strategies are overpowered based on their win rate against that weak competition.
This is of course backed up by Lobomalo's claim about MTG balance, that U/W control is unbeatable (when in fact it isn't really doing very well in major tournaments). Someone in their local store probably has a decent U/W control deck and beats all the weaker players, and Lobomalo struggles to compete with it. And they make the textbook mistake of assuming that everyone else has the same problems, ignoring the tournament results demonstrating that they don't. The only question is whether Lobomalo is sincerely wrong about this, or posted a balance complaint without realizing that other people in this thread might have some MTG experience and check their claims.
I like you, I really do. People like you give me hope for the future.
Do you play Magic right now? Have you ever actually made it to a competitive event and not a local Friday night game? I've played for almost twenty years now, U/W has always been one of the most dominant decks in the game. It falls out of favor here and there because Wizards buffs the other colors because U/W is so strong. But you would know this if you actually played competitively.
Wow, the arrogance is strong with this one. Well, just because you been to a few local or even national events doesn't make your experience representative of the overall meta. You need results from a lot of tournaments to draw any conclusion about what build is good or not. As a man who believes in science I must stress this: Anecdotes mean feth all.
Not arrogance, its called being active in the competitive environment. I pay attention to what is going on in MtG, what works, what doesn't down to the tiniest rogue deck that comes out of nowhere and wins at a small state event. Honestly you couldn't find a game I paid more attention too. I am more than confident in my points and you can take however long you need to prove them wrong, don't worry, I'll wait. you'll be looking for a while.
It is actually more difficult for GW.
Lets say that on release 'x' GW screwed up 5 things, and made 2 things out of balance that the rules lawyers have found.
They have just printed and shipped 500,000 rulebooks across the globe.
The naysayers see the books and say GW you suck.
Many don't buy, because it is overpriced, or it sucks or whatever and they want GW to recall all these books and have lost all the investment and have to start all over.
Can you see a cycle appearing.
The expectation of the naysayer is naïve and harmful.
Companies with less resource also have less overhead to cover.
Produce a free digital update to the product to clarify issues which dismisses negative comments in an orderly fashion and, better yet, generates good will.
Shocking concept. That is, unless you play other games. More so, Games Workshop could have performed an open beta test on 7th edition which would further reduce errors in the new ruleset, further increasing the value of the product and it never resulting in negative commentary.
I'm aware you're a super veteran of decades, but the way other game companies run their business is flat out superior to Games Workshop. There's just no disputing this fact. Remember, we went over a full year with meaningful FAQs for much of the game from Apr 13 to the release of 7th edition. Given the amount of content Games Workshop produced in that time frame makes it seem like an eternity for many rules disputes to languish. And now we know why FAQs were not issued... rules writers were either working on codices or preparing for 7th edition.
I have multiple people tell me across different channels that Games Workshop management allows for minimal play testing because the rules writers shouldn't be paid to "play games" on company time. While I have no fact to back this up or point towards, this seems likely given the nature of these releases and their poor wording and bad rules interaction, as seen by the Exalted Flamer Chariot. You'd only need to play that model ONCE to see it did not function.
Part of the problem, I think, is the diversity in groups of people.
We all have our own experiences with our own clubs, I suppose. I will use myself as an example:
I've only played in 3 clubs and 4 FLGSs in my time playing 40k. Each one has been different in their own ways - my first FLGS/club was in Austin, Texas, and was intensely competitive (but not WAAC) and very fast-paced and fun, almost like a sporting club. My next area was Harrisburg, PA, where people play predominantly pickup games but the competition is lessened, and fluff is respected more (better for me personally). Then State College/Altoona, PA, for school, where competition is virtually non-existent and everything is fluff driven (great for me, imo).
But at none of these places have I ever had a heated rules argument, or seen the game break down, or really even seen animosity between players.
It's weird to hear that 40k is literally unplayable in some places because of all the rules holes - I begin to wonder if I have some 'more perfect' copy of the rules that functions just fine, and always has.
Unit1126PLL wrote: I know I'm about to say a bit of an oversimplification but:
In my business class, I was told that it is the wet dream of every manufacturer and retailer to sell one product for fifteen million dollars, rather than to sell fifteen million products for one dollar.
So if you can sell fewer units, but make up for it by selling those units at an inflated price, then you're a better capitalist than someone who sells more units at a lower price and makes the same profit.
Except only a stupid manufacturer would apply this principle to a social game like 40k. Games like 40k are worthless if you don't have anyone to play it with, which means that market share is absolutely essential. If you dominate the market you will get lots of sales, and plenty of new customers will default to buying your game because it's what everyone else is playing. If you don't have good market share you might sell a few things initially, but those people will eventually stop buying because they don't have anyone to play the game with, while new customers that walk into a store will never even consider your game. Obviously 40k hasn't lost enough market share to get into that second category yet, but they're heading in that direction and have already thrown away a ridiculous amount of market share and allowed their competition to start taking a share of their new customers. The only thing saving 40k from death by obscurity is the fact that they started from such a dominant position that even after suffering major losses in market share they're still the biggest for now.
Lobomalo wrote: Do you play Magic right now? Have you ever actually made it to a competitive event and not a local Friday night game? I've played for almost twenty years now, U/W has always been one of the most dominant decks in the game. It falls out of favor here and there because Wizards buffs the other colors because U/W is so strong. But you would know this if you actually played competitively.
Lol, you really don't know anything about MTG, do you. Take a look at the damn top-8 decklists from major events and notice that U/W control isn't even close to unbeatable. The most recent major standard tournament was won by a pure aggro deck, and aggro decks got the majority of the top 8. Sure, U/W control is strong at times, but so is every other major deck archetype. This special metagame where U/W control is the dominant deck and other archetypes only occasionally get an opportunity to win only exists in your own imagination.
Of course I'm sure you'll be too stubborn to admit defeat on this, even when high-level competitive results prove you indisputably wrong.
Unit1126PLL wrote: OR, they can expect people to act like gentlemen and use common sense, instead of saying "YOUR GUY DOESN'T HAVE EYES HOW DOES HE SEE TO SHOOT?!?!?!??!?!!!"
Because really, you're right, we shouldn't have to do it and that is a problem.
But seriously?
As I said, it wasn't a huge problem for most players. But it was a prime example of something that should have been fixed 20 years ago that GW just never bothered to address. And in some case, like the aforementioned artillery, or the old huge-headed Wraithlord, it did make a difference where you drew LOS from.
Unit1126PLL wrote: So if you can sell fewer units, but make up for it by selling those units at an inflated price, then you're a better capitalist than someone who sells more units at a lower price and makes the same profit.
And from a purely capitalist point of view, in just about any other market, that would be correct.
Gaming is a singular beast, though, because growth is not solely dependent on how good your product is, but also on how many people have it. Fewer people buying a game means fewer people playing that game... which leads to a recurring, ever-decreasing spiral.
Any forward-thinking games company wants their products in as many houses as possible, because that's how you get strong gaming communities established, which is what perpetuates that game.
History is littered with good games that died simply because not enough people played them.
I know I'm about to say a bit of an oversimplification but:
In my business class, I was told that it is the wet dream of every manufacturer and retailer to sell one product for fifteen million dollars, rather than to sell fifteen million products for one dollar.
So if you can sell fewer units, but make up for it by selling those units at an inflated price, then you're a better capitalist than someone who sells more units at a lower price and makes the same profit.
Because it's called gambling. I have not taken a business class, but I know in my own personal investments and guidance I have received on them is that diversification leads to better chances of success. As it were, Games Workshop is nearly at the point of all-in on Warhammer 40k, meaning one product line. Should it falter, the company goes too.
That is an over exaggeration. The game will not fall flat any time soon. For them to lose enough to go belly up it would take a minimum of 5 years easily. You would need to remove a large player base and not the small percentage that has quite already, make a real dent in the pockets of shareholders and most importantly, have a legitimate alternative for the product GW is offering.
Other games have their value, but none come close to what GW has offered or those companies would actually be able to rival GW and right now, none are even close.
TheCustomLime wrote: I would say that if even a sizable minority (Not an oxymoron) finds issue with the rules then their concerns should be at least addressed. That's lost customers and bad PR right there if you just tell them to go screw themselves because everyone else is having fun.
I don't disagree with this - but even the staunchest GW-haters have to admit, that the "sky is falling" reaction to every change in the game has remained a constant since day 2 of WH40K... they must have to become numb to some of that.
You will always have people that disagree with every decision a company make. The Blizzard forums are a testament to that. But the key to utilizing feedback is to recognize trends, investigate them and address concerns if they are common and/or valid. Even if 20% of your consumer base is making the same complaint surely that is worth looking into.
I'm aware you're a super veteran of decades, but the way other game companies run their business is flat out superior to Games Workshop. There's just no disputing this fact.
It isn't a "fact" it is an opinion. If they were so much better, they would be actual competition, they aren't.
How about this thing called human subjectivity? You presume everyone can be pleased.
You presume that they couldn't be doing better and the displeased are a minority. I have facts to back up my stance, where are yours? Or are we doing the illogical dance of the person who says "we can never know anything, so therefore you're wrong?"
You have subjective opinions. Other people have different ideas.
If they please you it may displease others.
How does your cognitive dissonance deal with that?
Throt wrote: [Tournament players are also not the majority that they believe themselves to be. They just tend to be the most vocal
Most tournament players don't believe themselves to be a majority. They're fully aware that most players don't play in tournaments.
The reason they complain is that for the most part, writing a game that is tournament-friendly benefits all of the players, whereas writing a game that is only fit for those players who are happy to make up rules with their opponent excludes a chunk of the player base.
Many are not aware. they are the self proclaimed spokespeople.
But this is not fully the case. I'm not saying they have bad intentions, but rules problems, these 'broken' parts, mostly come up in tournaments and not in other places. I have read forums about 'broken rules that in all my games, my friends games and their fiends games have never come up. 100's of games.
Yet there is this expectation for GW to catch all these things.
TheKbob wrote: Produce a free digital update to the product to clarify issues which dismisses negative comments in an orderly fashion and, better yet, generates good will.
This. FFS, it's 2014 now. If you can't figure out how to issue digital FAQs and errata for your products then you deserve to have your company die.
TheCustomLime wrote: Just because a unit or strategy works for you doesn't automatically make it good. It just means it works for you. You have to look at the bigger picture and if, on average, Genestealers tend to underperform then they aren't an adequate unit.
This. I've said it before, but I'll say it again. Lobomalo seems like a classic "big fish in a small pond" case. Their local group probably consists of a few people with mid-tier lists and a bit of skill, and a bunch of newbies/"casual" players/etc with truly awful lists and limited skill. The mid-tier players dominate with lists that would get dominated in a large competitive tournament, simply because there is no real competition. And as long as you never leave that group it can seem like certain strategies are overpowered based on their win rate against that weak competition.
This is of course backed up by Lobomalo's claim about MTG balance, that U/W control is unbeatable (when in fact it isn't really doing very well in major tournaments). Someone in their local store probably has a decent U/W control deck and beats all the weaker players, and Lobomalo struggles to compete with it. And they make the textbook mistake of assuming that everyone else has the same problems, ignoring the tournament results demonstrating that they don't. The only question is whether Lobomalo is sincerely wrong about this, or posted a balance complaint without realizing that other people in this thread might have some MTG experience and check their claims.
I like you, I really do. People like you give me hope for the future. .
Do you play Magic right now? Have you ever actually made it to a competitive event and not a local Friday night game? I've played for almost twenty years now, U/W has always been one of the most dominant decks in the game. It falls out of favor here and there because Wizards buffs the other colors because U/W is so strong. But you would know this if you actually played competitively.
Wow, the arrogance is strong with this one. Well, just because you been to a few local or even national events doesn't make your experience representative of the overall meta. You need results from a lot of tournaments to draw any conclusion about what build is good or not. As a man who believes in science I must stress this: Anecdotes mean feth all.
Not arrogance, its called being active in the competitive environment. I pay attention to what is going on in MtG, what works, what doesn't down to the tiniest rogue deck that comes out of nowhere and wins at a small state event. Honestly you couldn't find a game I paid more attention too. I am more than confident in my points and you can take however long you need to prove them wrong, don't worry, I'll wait. you'll be looking for a while.
I'll freely admit my knowledge of M:TG is limited at best and is more accurately described as near-nonexistant. I don't care for the game for several reasons so I will allow those more knowledgeable to debate it.
Throt wrote: but rules problems, these 'broken' parts, mostly come up in tournaments and not in other places.
No, they come up everywhere else as well. You just seem to think that if "casual" players agree to 4+ a rule question instead of taking it to YMDC that the problem never existed in the first place.
That is an over exaggeration. The game will not fall flat any time soon. For them to lose enough to go belly up it would take a minimum of 5 years easily [Citation Needed]. You would need to remove a large player base and not the small percentage that has quite already [Citation Needed], make a real dent in the pockets of shareholders and most importantly, have a legitimate alternative for the product GW is offering[Citation Needed].
Other games have their value, but none come close to what GW has offered[Citation Needed] or those companies would actually be able to rival GW and right now, none are even close[Citation Needed].
Please fill in the gaps and we can continue this discussion.
Lobomalo wrote: GW is a little slow on the uptake to transition to digital. Many games are in fact. Patience is something we should all try and use
Why should we have patience with such unbelievable stupidity? GW's failure to realize that it's 2014 and the internet exists should, by itself, be justification for firing every single person in GW's management.
I'll freely admit my knowledge of M:TG is limited at best and is more accurately described as near-nonexistant. I don't care for the game for several reasons so I will allow those more knowledgeable to debate it.
I was a little harsh, I apologize for that. Certain posters, while ignored sometimes have something interesting to say so I look. As expected, it contributed nothing but a personal attack with no reprisals at all which is fine, I don't expect anything more.
Magic is one of those things where balance has never really been achieved until everyone is running the same deck, then it is down to play style and random draw. It's why you never see rogue decks make it very far and why you always see multiples of the exact same deck, even down to the sideboard. Players buy what is considered the most op thing at the time and run with it, not bothering to try something else.
You have subjective opinions. Other people have different ideas.
If they please you it may displease others.
How does your cognitive dissonance deal with that?
Words. Words. Words. I can point to things not working in codices. I can point to bad economic factors. I can point to the cost of the game increasing far beyond material or inflation costs.
TheCustomLime wrote: Just because a unit or strategy works for you doesn't automatically make it good. It just means it works for you. You have to look at the bigger picture and if, on average, Genestealers tend to underperform then they aren't an adequate unit.
This. I've said it before, but I'll say it again. Lobomalo seems like a classic "big fish in a small pond" case. Their local group probably consists of a few people with mid-tier lists and a bit of skill, and a bunch of newbies/"casual" players/etc with truly awful lists and limited skill. The mid-tier players dominate with lists that would get dominated in a large competitive tournament, simply because there is no real competition. And as long as you never leave that group it can seem like certain strategies are overpowered based on their win rate against that weak competition.
Hmmmm you realize you are insulting a whole bunch of people you've never met or spoken to? No matter what you think of Lobomalo, it's a bit uncalled for.
That is an over exaggeration. The game will not fall flat any time soon. For them to lose enough to go belly up it would take a minimum of 5 years easily [Citation Needed]. You would need to remove a large player base and not the small percentage that has quite already [Citation Needed], make a real dent in the pockets of shareholders and most importantly, have a legitimate alternative for the product GW is offering[Citation Needed].
Other games have their value, but none come close to what GW has offered[Citation Needed] or those companies would actually be able to rival GW and right now, none are even close[Citation Needed].
Please fill in the gaps and we can continue this discussion.
Lobomalo wrote: GW is a little slow on the uptake to transition to digital. Many games are in fact[Citation Needed]. Patience is something we should all try and use
Throt wrote: but rules problems, these 'broken' parts, mostly come up in tournaments and not in other places.
No, they come up everywhere else as well. You just seem to think that if "casual" players agree to 4+ a rule question instead of taking it to YMDC that the problem never existed in the first place.
I think I've 4+'d something once since 2001 when I started playing.
That is an over exaggeration. The game will not fall flat any time soon. For them to lose enough to go belly up it would take a minimum of 5 years easily [Citation Needed]. You would need to remove a large player base and not the small percentage that has quite already [Citation Needed], make a real dent in the pockets of shareholders and most importantly, have a legitimate alternative for the product GW is offering[Citation Needed].
Other games have their value, but none come close to what GW has offered[Citation Needed] or those companies would actually be able to rival GW and right now, none are even close[Citation Needed].
Please fill in the gaps and we can continue this discussion.
Lobomalo wrote: Magic is one of those things where balance has never really been achieved until everyone is running the same deck, then it is down to play style and random draw. It's why you never see rogue decks make it very far and why you always see multiples of the exact same deck, even down to the sideboard. Players buy what is considered the most op thing at the time and run with it, not bothering to try something else.
...
Honestly, I'm not even sure where to start with this one. I'm kind of impressed by how much ignorance of the game you've managed to pack into those few short sentences.
You have subjective opinions. Other people have different ideas.
If they please you it may displease others.
How does your cognitive dissonance deal with that?
Words. Words. Words. I can point to things not working in codices. I can point to bad economic factors. I can point to the cost of the game increasing far beyond material or inflation costs.
What can you point towards? Anything concrete?
Can you point to anything concrete?
Codices not working is a matter of opinion, not fact.
Bad economic factors, again, you have theories but nothing solid. Your theories you have cited numerous times are based upon faulty data as new editions always scare away players hence a drop in profits.
Cost of gaming and inflation is the norm when people want your product, its how business is done, its how business works. Otherwise, nobody makes money.
Lobomalo wrote: I told you already, I won't do the work for you.
IOW: "Hey guys, everyone else is just as bad as GW, now go find some examples for me so that you can dispute them. Why should I have to do all the work of providing some proof for my claims of 'everyone else does x'?"
Lobomalo wrote: GW is a little slow on the uptake to transition to digital. Many games are in fact[Citation Needed]. Patience is something we should all try and use
Actually according to the rules of debate, I simply need to cite my sources when initially presented, not every time. I debated in High School and College sir, try again. I posted all my sources and reasons for things numerous pages ago, you want to argue them, you scroll back and look for yourself, until then, you have nothing.
You have subjective opinions. Other people have different ideas.
If they please you it may displease others.
How does your cognitive dissonance deal with that?
Words. Words. Words. I can point to things not working in codices. I can point to bad economic factors. I can point to the cost of the game increasing far beyond material or inflation costs.
What can you point towards? Anything concrete?
Most of the things "not working in codices" work just fine, people just don't like the conclusion.
Bad economic factors? What precisely do you mean by that phrase?
And I've illustrated before:
If a game company can sell 2 sets for 7.5 million dollars to the two people who will play them, then they're better capitalists than the ones that sell 15million sets for 1 dollar each.
Codices not working is a matter of opinion, not fact.
Bad economic factors, again, you have theories but nothing solid. Your theories you have cited numerous times are based upon faulty data as new editions always scare away players hence a drop in profits.
Cost of gaming and inflation is the norm when people want your product, its how business is done, its how business works. Otherwise, nobody makes money.
So, anything concrete?
Legion of the Damned automatically loses if played as a primary source.
The Exalted Flamer Chariot did not work for an entire year.
I can link you the entire 14 part series of "The Future of Games Workshop" that has all the facts that you can speak to Mr. Beeble towards. Or you can pop over to Dakka discussions where there is a 34 page topic chock full of goodness. I can provide another thread, too.
And for further evidence for the value to be decreasing, I continually and will forever point to one of many exhibits:
Spoiler:
So again, your move. Please provide proof of your opposing argument(s).
Actually according to the rules of debate, I simply need to cite my sources when initially presented, not every time. I debated in High School and College sir, try again. I posted all my sources and reasons for things numerous pages ago, you want to argue them, you scroll back and look for yourself, until then, you have nothing.
Sadly, this isn't high school debate club and we have this thing called the internet. If you had relevant proof, you could utilize the Hypertext Markup Language to quickly reference me to the source.
Or, you could be throwing a smoke bomb and debating poorly in the process.
Throt wrote: That is my point. I have a classic rational consumist point of view: high price means high quality.
Not to nitpick, but in a truly capitalist society, this is super naive.
High price means that people are willing to pay that price for the product - you could have a turd, but if people pay $15,000,000 for it, you bet your ass it'll be sold for that much.
Perhaps there ought to be a correlation between quality and price, but there are waaaayyy more things that go into pricing than mere quality, including branding, market share, target markets, et cetera.
Just to clarify...that's not my quote No hard feelings on my end
Throt wrote: But this is not fully the case. I'm not saying they have bad intentions, but rules problems, these 'broken' parts, mostly come up in tournaments and not in other places. .
I suspect that's going to come down again to individual groups of players. I've had far more rules issues come up in casual games than in tournaments. In a tournament, from my experience, players are far more likely to just get on with it for the sake of finishing the game quickly, whereas a casual game can just stall for half an hour while the players argue out the relevant rules.
Lobomalo wrote: Codices not working is a matter of opinion, not fact.
No, it's a matter of fact. Remember the chariot example you rudely dismissed?
Bad economic factors, again, you have theories but nothing solid.
Of course we only have theories, because GW doesn't publish the financial data required to have absolute proof. But so far those theories match the observed results in the data they do publish, and the alternative explanations aren't very convincing. Meanwhile all you've done is complain about how it's "just a theory" instead of addressing the substance of the argument.
Your theories you have cited numerous times are based upon faulty data as new editions always scare away players hence a drop in profits.
Err, what? That doesn't make any sense at all. New editions are an obvious cash cow since everyone has to buy new rulebooks, and former players might come back if they hear about how awesome the new rules are. If a new edition means a drop in profits as people ragequit then why the hell would GW ever publish new editions?
Cost of gaming and inflation is the norm when people want your product, its how business is done, its how business works. Otherwise, nobody makes money.
Except it isn't the norm, it's a case of focusing on short-term profits in a desperate attempt to salvage the next financial report, even at the cost of long-term growth. GW is losing sales volume and market share, and every time they increase their prices they increase the barrier to entry for new players and lose even more potential customers, potential customers that GW's "maximize new player purchases" business plan requires. This isn't running a sensible business, it's deciding that you'd rather get paid $10 now instead of $100 tomorrow.
Codices not working is a matter of opinion, not fact.
Bad economic factors, again, you have theories but nothing solid. Your theories you have cited numerous times are based upon faulty data as new editions always scare away players hence a drop in profits.
Cost of gaming and inflation is the norm when people want your product, its how business is done, its how business works. Otherwise, nobody makes money.
So, anything concrete?
Legion of the Damned automatically loses if played as a primary source.
The Exalted Flamer Chariot did not work for an entire year.
I can link you the entire 14 part series of "The Future of Games Workshop" that has all the facts that you can speak to Mr. Beeble towards. Or you can pop over to Dakka discussions where there is a 34 page topic chock full of goodness. I can provide another thread, too.
And for further evidence for the value to be decreasing, I continually and will forever point to one of many exhibits:
Spoiler:
So again, your move. Please provide proof of your opposing argument(s).
Has anything you posted had any relevance to the game in the last 3 years?
Those models IIRC correctly are out of print, unless they are hidden on some shelf somewhere in a closet as I have yet to see them in any shop I have been in.
That article is the opinion and evaluations of one individual who considers himself an expert and has extrapolated data to fit a conclusion that he was trying to prove. Should he take the time to go back and look at the same date from previous editions when things change, he would find a significant trend, but he won't because his pedestal is just high enough to convince some the sky is falling.
Value of metals < value of plastics. Metals are much more annoying to work with.
Codices issues, again, do you have anything relevant to this period of time or to issues that have not already been fixed?
Codices not working is a matter of opinion, not fact.
Bad economic factors, again, you have theories but nothing solid. Your theories you have cited numerous times are based upon faulty data as new editions always scare away players hence a drop in profits.
Cost of gaming and inflation is the norm when people want your product, its how business is done, its how business works. Otherwise, nobody makes money.
So, anything concrete?
Legion of the Damned automatically loses if played as a primary source. This doesn't mean it doesn't work. It functions just fine - any player using only LotD models automatically loses the game. That's how it functions.
The Exalted Flamer Chariot did not work for an entire year. It worked just fine - it could only fire when it was stationary, but who are you to determine whether or not that's "working"?
I can link you the entire 14 part series of "The Future of Games Workshop" that has all the facts that you can speak to Mr. Beeble towards. Or you can pop over to Dakka discussions where there is a 34 page topic chock full of goodness. I can provide another thread, too. Fair enough. More research is required on my part
And for further evidence for the value to be decreasing, I continually and will forever point to one of many exhibits:
Spoiler:
So again, your move. Please provide proof of your opposing argument(s). A company that can sell fewer units at a higher price is a better company than one which sells more units at a lower price, for the same total profit even in cases where the products in question are exactly the same
Throt wrote: But this is not fully the case. I'm not saying they have bad intentions, but rules problems, these 'broken' parts, mostly come up in tournaments and not in other places. .
I suspect that's going to come down again to individual groups of players. I've had far more rules issues come up in casual games than in tournaments. In a tournament, from my experience, players are far more likely to just get on with it for the sake of finishing the game quickly, whereas a casual game can just stall for half an hour while the players argue out the relevant rules.
Yeah tournaments in a lot of games work this way. The casual environment has way too many issues imo as all you need is one competitive player to show up and the gak hits the fan
Throt wrote: That is my point. I have a classic rational consumist point of view: high price means high quality.
Not to nitpick, but in a truly capitalist society, this is super naive.
High price means that people are willing to pay that price for the product - you could have a turd, but if people pay $15,000,000 for it, you bet your ass it'll be sold for that much.
Perhaps there ought to be a correlation between quality and price, but there are waaaayyy more things that go into pricing than mere quality, including branding, market share, target markets, et cetera.
Just to clarify...that's not my quote No hard feelings on my end
Unit1126PLL wrote: If a game company can sell 2 sets for 7.5 million dollars to the two people who will play them, then they're better capitalists than the ones that sell 15million sets for 1 dollar each.
Except they aren't, because those two players only exist in some magical fantasy world. In the real world a game that goes too far to the extreme of selling a few copies at a high price per-copy will have zero players. Meanwhile the game that sells 15 million copies at $1 each will continue to sell 15 million copies every year.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Unit1126PLL wrote: This doesn't mean it doesn't work. It functions just fine - any player using only LotD models automatically loses the game. That's how it functions.
...
This is a joke, right? Are you really getting so desperate that you're willing to claim that automatically losing the game is "working as intended"? This is like claiming a plate of moldy food with shards of broken glass in it is a restaurant "working as intended", and it's just personal preference if you don't like it.
Lobomalo wrote: Has anything you posted had any relevance to the game in the last 3 years?
Those models IIRC correctly are out of print, unless they are hidden on some shelf somewhere in a closet as I have yet to see them in any shop I have been in.
That article is the opinion and evaluations of one individual who considers himself an expert and has extrapolated data to fit a conclusion that he was trying to prove. Should he take the time to go back and look at the same date from previous editions when things change, he would find a significant trend, but he won't because his pedestal is just high enough to convince some the sky is falling.
Value of metals < value of plastics. Metals are much more annoying to work with.
Codices issues, again, do you have anything relevant to this period of time or to issues that have not already been fixed?
Those models are now in print in a box for five Dire Avengers at a higher cost than the box for 10. This was changed out when the Eldar codex was released (whatever date that was, but within 3 years, most certainly two, if not one year).
The article cites plenty of facts and uses the educated and expert opinion of an individual that is putting his credentials, that he clearly states in the first article, on the line. This is called making a statement on the record and if he is wrong, he will eat crow (and be incredibly happy because he's a massive baby for all things Games Workshop. It's hilariously awesome!)
Legion of the Damned has yet to be fixed. I refer you to YMDC for easy references of the rest. Or we can talk about Pyrovores that board wipe when they die and explode.
Throt wrote: I saw an issue, I believe was from a tournament somewhere, that there were arguments about line of sight with wraithguard and other Eldar walkers because they don't have eyes. Many of these problems are just not forseen.
Not foreseen?
The issue with LOS from models without eyes has been something that people have been complaining about for 6 editions now. GWfinally resolved it by changing the LOS rules in 7th edition.
And while it was never that huge a problem for things like Wraithguard, it was somewhat less clear last edition just how we were supposed to establish LOS with artillery.
The thing is, these are things that should be foreseen. Particularly when people have been complaining about them for multiple editions.
So, again, it ultimately comes back to engaging with the customer base, which they just don't bother to do.
And you really believe that this is necessary??
That GW need to be sure that their models have eyes or that they tell players how to address situations where a model does not??
Unit1126PLL wrote: If a game company can sell 2 sets for 7.5 million dollars to the two people who will play them, then they're better capitalists than the ones that sell 15million sets for 1 dollar each.
Except they aren't, because those two players only exist in some magical fantasy world. In the real world a game that goes too far to the extreme of selling a few copies at a high price per-copy will have zero players. Meanwhile the game that sells 15 million copies at $1 each will continue to sell 15 million copies every year.
Except business trends across the world have shown otherwise. People will flock to spend hundreds of dollars more on a product because they are convinced that it is of better quality.
I knew a guy who worked for Nordstrom. Regularly would he sell hundreds of dollars worth of shoes to women who convinced themselves that not only do they need them, but that the price for them is fine. Do a little research, the shoes sold by Nordstrom are made in sweat shops for 1/10th the sale price, end up in Payless in a year for less than $20 bucks.
As long as people are willing to pay a price for something, businesses will take advantage and milk people for their money.
At the end of the day, they are a business, they are not providing a service. They care about money, not the consumer and GW is the same. As are other miniature games, they are just so small they don't really matter in the grand scheme of things.
Throt wrote: I saw an issue, I believe was from a tournament somewhere, that there were arguments about line of sight with wraithguard and other Eldar walkers because they don't have eyes. Many of these problems are just not forseen.
Not foreseen?
The issue with LOS from models without eyes has been something that people have been complaining about for 6 editions now. GWfinally resolved it by changing the LOS rules in 7th edition.
And while it was never that huge a problem for things like Wraithguard, it was somewhat less clear last edition just how we were supposed to establish LOS with artillery.
The thing is, these are things that should be foreseen. Particularly when people have been complaining about them for multiple editions.
So, again, it ultimately comes back to engaging with the customer base, which they just don't bother to do.
And you really believe that this is necessary??
That GW need to be sure that their models have eyes or that they tell players how to address situations where a model does not??
Unit1126PLL wrote: If a game company can sell 2 sets for 7.5 million dollars to the two people who will play them, then they're better capitalists than the ones that sell 15million sets for 1 dollar each.
Except they aren't, because those two players only exist in some magical fantasy world. In the real world a game that goes too far to the extreme of selling a few copies at a high price per-copy will have zero players. Meanwhile the game that sells 15 million copies at $1 each will continue to sell 15 million copies every year.
I'm just saying, until we reach the point where the game dies, it's better business to sell fewer units at a higher price. GW may be raising prices in order to find the highest price it can get while the game still lives.
Unit1126PLL wrote: This doesn't mean it doesn't work. It functions just fine - any player using only LotD models automatically loses the game. That's how it functions.
...
This is a joke, right? Are you really getting so desperate that you're willing to claim that automatically losing the game is "working as intended"? This is like claiming a plate of moldy food with shards of broken glass in it is a restaurant "working as intended", and it's just personal preference if you don't like it.
I mean, that's true, though. It's not like the game suddenly breaks or glitches or whatever. It's the natural consequence of how the rules are written, and there are a multitude of ways around it. But people can't point to a situation that has a clear, logical pathway to a clear, incontrovertible conclusion and then go: "THE RULES THEY ARE BROKEN"
EDIT:
It's like saying "My infantry can only move 6", which means they can't capture an objective 10" away! THE RULES ARE BROKEN! ... no, the rules are still functioning, even if the outcome is undesirable.
So again, your move. Please provide proof of your opposing argument(s). A company that can sell fewer units at a higher price is a better company than one which sells more units at a lower price, for the same total profit even in cases where the products in question are exactly the same
So your counter to this argument, the other's being not even worth debating, is that Games Workshop is banking on new players to be stupid and old players not to care that a unit box went down in model count while also going up in price, thus reducing it's value dramatically?
Sorry, I am not a business type, but I would certainly call doing something like this a non-sustainable action. Or simply put, dumb.
Legion of the Damned is intended to work as a stand alone Codex. It cannot legally do so because of a certain rule therefore it is not working as intended. It's a broken Codex.
Throt wrote: And you really believe that this is necessary??
That GW need to be sure that their models have eyes or that they tell players how to address situations where a model does not??
Yes, absolutely, I think it is necessary for any given game mechanic to function for every model that this game mechanic applies to.
So again, your move. Please provide proof of your opposing argument(s). A company that can sell fewer units at a higher price is a better company than one which sells more units at a lower price, for the same total profit even in cases where the products in question are exactly the same
So your counter to this argument, the other's being not even worth debating, is that Games Workshop is banking on new players to be stupid and old players not to care that a unit box went down in model count while also going up in price, thus reducing it's value dramatically?
Sorry, I am not a business type, but I would certainly call doing something like this a non-sustainable action. Or simply put, dumb.
You may think it's dumb, and I may even agree with you, but until GW actually goes under, we won't know for sure.
So again, your move. Please provide proof of your opposing argument(s). A company that can sell fewer units at a higher price is a better company than one which sells more units at a lower price, for the same total profit even in cases where the products in question are exactly the same
So your counter to this argument, the other's being not even worth debating, is that Games Workshop is banking on new players to be stupid and old players not to care that a unit box went down in model count while also going up in price, thus reducing it's value dramatically?
Sorry, I am not a business type, but I would certainly call doing something like this a non-sustainable action. Or simply put, dumb.
No the argument is that the company knows that players will pay whatever price GW marks things at so they can continue playing. This is obviously the case as the game hasn't broken yet, people keep buying, people keep playing.
Really the answer is obvious, if you don't like the prices, don't pay them. But don't cite other games and past models as a comparison to a time when things were "better" or when the company wasn't out to make a buck.
Back then, they needed to sell more units for less, there were less people playing. Now, there are more playing, models are made better and look better and are also easier to work with, hence, the rehash of their business strategy. Make money off of those you know will buy because GW has the best crack in town.
You may think it's dumb, and I may even agree with you, but until GW actually goes under, we won't know for sure.
I will rely on the fact that they did this number prior to their Jan 14 financials, meaning that ball has already been set in motion. But agreed, time will tell. We'll have a better discussion on the full sustainability of their actions this July.
TheCustomLime wrote: Legion of the Damned is intended to work as a stand alone Codex. It cannot legally do so because of a certain rule therefore it is not working as intended. It's a broken Codex.
First of all, [CITATION NEEDED] for it being intended to work as a standalone codex (I didn't know you could discern the author's intentions). Second of all, yes, you can make a legal army for WH40k solely out of models and units from the LotD. It will lose every single game it plays, but nothing in the rules actually 'breaks'.
Throt wrote: And you really believe that this is necessary??
That GW need to be sure that their models have eyes or that they tell players how to address situations where a model does not??
Yes, absolutely, I think it is necessary for any given game mechanic to function for every model that this game mechanic applies to.
Because that's how a ruleset works.
But the ruleset works for some players, judging by the overall player base, once can easily assume it works for most players, but neither side has concrete data on this.
So narrowing the scope here, the rules work for me, they work for a couple of other posters in this same thread, so I ask you again, where is the problem? Who is to blame, the company making the rules or the players who are unable to reach the same conclusions as those who see clarity?
No the argument is that the company knows that players will pay whatever price GW marks things at so they can continue playing. This is obviously the case as the game hasn't broken yet, people keep buying, people keep playing.
Really the answer is obvious, if you don't like the prices, don't pay them. But don't cite other games and past models as a comparison to a time when things were "better" or when the company wasn't out to make a buck.
Back then, they needed to sell more units for less, there were less people playing. Now, there are more playing, models are made better and look better and are also easier to work with, hence, the rehash of their business strategy. Make money off of those you know will buy because GW has the best crack in town.
Said by the individual not too long ago looking for ways to purchase large quantities of cheap models and that used models were too "inflated" in price.
You may think it's dumb, and I may even agree with you, but until GW actually goes under, we won't know for sure.
I will rely on the fact that they did this number prior to their Jan 14 financials, meaning that ball has already been set in motion. But agreed, time will tell. We'll have a better discussion on the full sustainability of their actions this July.
For me, I stopped buying, for the record.
I've stopped buying too, actually. I have all that I need. But I think the crucial difference between us is that I am rooting for GW (in the hopes that it will eventually turn around, even if it is being a jerk about it) rather than trying to pull it down.
EDIT:
That isn't true - I've bought the 7th edition rules and the AM codex, my bad.
You may think it's dumb, and I may even agree with you, but until GW actually goes under, we won't know for sure.
I will rely on the fact that they did this number prior to their Jan 14 financials, meaning that ball has already been set in motion. But agreed, time will tell. We'll have a better discussion on the full sustainability of their actions this July.
For me, I stopped buying, for the record.
Again, to make a concrete statement, you would need to give the edition ample time to settle into the community.
Also when you consider that they are only now switching to digital, you would need to give this time to get put into proper action as well.
You are looking at one year at least just for the edition to settle in. I don't know how long for the digital stuff, depends on how much effort they put into it. So far, they aren't too bad.
TheCustomLime wrote: Legion of the Damned is intended to work as a stand alone Codex. It cannot legally do so because of a certain rule therefore it is not working as intended. It's a broken Codex.
First of all, [CITATION NEEDED] for it being intended to work as a standalone codex (I didn't know you could discern the author's intentions). Second of all, yes, you can make a legal army for WH40k solely out of models and units from the LotD. It will lose every single game it plays, but nothing in the rules actually 'breaks'.
Why do I need a citation? It doesn't state that it's an ally only Codex so therefore it is a standalone. I guess your argument makes sense if you consider unambiguous rule interactions as a functional ruleset but if you can't play a game with your models following the 40k rules to the letter then I think it's broken. And no, automatically losing does not count as playing since we are being sold a table top war game.
In fact, that's exactly why I made this thread - I feel like people "complain because they like 40k" and then do their best to destroy 40k - GW can't win, because people won't give it a chance.
They wander to other games, and they fight tooth and nail to bring more gamers into their fold, inadvertently (or perhaps deliberately :( )causing the death of the game they ostensibly like.
Throt wrote: Many of the so called 'errors' come from players that start reading between the lines.
So we're back to blaming the victim are we?
I'm not going to claim that writing rules is easy - in my experience it can be a frustrating thing indeed - but writing clear and concise rules isn't very hard once the you've got the base down correctly. The fact that GW fails in this aspect on a consistent basis says to me that they either don't know what they're doing or that they don't care. I choose to think the better of people, so I'll go with the ignorance over apathy conclusion.
No. When someone seeks a loophole and then blames someone else for the loophole they actively sought out it is disingenuous at the least.
For many the rules are clear and concise.
No the argument is that the company knows that players will pay whatever price GW marks things at so they can continue playing. This is obviously the case as the game hasn't broken yet, people keep buying, people keep playing.
Really the answer is obvious, if you don't like the prices, don't pay them. But don't cite other games and past models as a comparison to a time when things were "better" or when the company wasn't out to make a buck.
Back then, they needed to sell more units for less, there were less people playing. Now, there are more playing, models are made better and look better and are also easier to work with, hence, the rehash of their business strategy. Make money off of those you know will buy because GW has the best crack in town.
Said by the individual not too long ago looking for ways to purchase large quantities of cheap models and that used models were too "inflated" in price.
Touche, salesman.
I didn't pay them, I found them cheaper.
Used models, no matter how well painted are used and warrant nothing more than the standard used prices for hobby materials which is %50.
Your post has no merit, try again please.
I don't buy from GW unless I absolutely need too. Me, I am a smart shopper, I buy used and make due, it's both cheaper and smarter. I have said numerous times GW prices are too expensive and need to come down, I'm just not under any delusion that they will because of a minor financial hiccup
TheCustomLime wrote: Legion of the Damned is intended to work as a stand alone Codex. It cannot legally do so because of a certain rule therefore it is not working as intended. It's a broken Codex.
First of all, [CITATION NEEDED] for it being intended to work as a standalone codex (I didn't know you could discern the author's intentions). Second of all, yes, you can make a legal army for WH40k solely out of models and units from the LotD. It will lose every single game it plays, but nothing in the rules actually 'breaks'.
Why do I need a citation? It doesn't state that it's an ally only Codex so therefore it is a standalone. I guess your argument makes sense if you consider unambiguous rule interactions as a functional ruleset but if you can't play a game with your models following the 40k rules to the letter then I think it's broken. And no, automatically losing does not count as playing since we are being sold a table top war game.
I don't know of any codex at all that states it's 'ally only'. The premise that such a thing would be distinguished from a 'regular' codex by some artifice of the developers is reasonable, but not apparent.
And you can play a game with your models following the 40k rules, if you bring a single allied Inquisitor. Or work things out with your opponent. Neither of which is terribly difficult, although the first one can sour the experience for a fluff player (though not much imo).
TheCustomLime wrote: Legion of the Damned is intended to work as a stand alone Codex. It cannot legally do so because of a certain rule therefore it is not working as intended. It's a broken Codex.
First of all, [CITATION NEEDED] for it being intended to work as a standalone codex (I didn't know you could discern the author's intentions). Second of all, yes, you can make a legal army for WH40k solely out of models and units from the LotD. It will lose every single game it plays, but nothing in the rules actually 'breaks'.
While we can never know the true intent of the writers, a key testament of YMDC, up and through the release of Codex Legion of the Damned, products released as Codices gave the very, very, very strong notion that they were intended for complete and stand alone armies. Given that they deliberately named further items Codex Supplements and Dataslates (and the rest), one could still assume that when they purchase a Codex, it's intended to be used as a stand-alone army.
Now, after many crap show "Codex" releases, this can be debated, but at the time of the Legion of the Damned release, this was not as drawn into contention. Thus you could have several people purchasing the book fully intended to make a complete Legion of the Damned army (a still cool concept, I might add) and being what I would call "severely bummed out, brother."
So as it stands, there is no other Codex that has stipulations in it that would cause itself to automatically lose the game directly because of the special rules within with no means of stopping it from doing so. Thus we could argue the point or come to the very real conclusion that Legion of the Damned is busted and Games Workshop has little interest in maintaining their digital products, given the Inquisition and Sisters of Battle codices have yet to be updated for seventh edition.
Throt wrote: Many of the so called 'errors' come from players that start reading between the lines.
So we're back to blaming the victim are we?
I'm not going to claim that writing rules is easy - in my experience it can be a frustrating thing indeed - but writing clear and concise rules isn't very hard once the you've got the base down correctly. The fact that GW fails in this aspect on a consistent basis says to me that they either don't know what they're doing or that they don't care. I choose to think the better of people, so I'll go with the ignorance over apathy conclusion.
No. When someone seeks a loophole and then blames someone else for the loophole they actively sought out it is disingenuous at the least.
For many the rules are clear and concise.
For a great many, for a minority, they are unclear.
Also, people actively seek loopholes to exploit the rules in their favor, this I have seen in YMDC a few times and it's funny because they probably brow beat players in their LGS into thinking this is the right way to play it.
TheCustomLime wrote: Legion of the Damned is intended to work as a stand alone Codex. It cannot legally do so because of a certain rule therefore it is not working as intended. It's a broken Codex.
First of all, [CITATION NEEDED] for it being intended to work as a standalone codex (I didn't know you could discern the author's intentions). Second of all, yes, you can make a legal army for WH40k solely out of models and units from the LotD. It will lose every single game it plays, but nothing in the rules actually 'breaks'.
While we can never know the true intent of the writers, a key testament of YMDC, up and through the release of Codex Legion of the Damned, products released as Codices gave the very, very, very strong notion that they were intended for complete and stand alone armies. Given that they deliberately named further items Codex Supplements and Dataslates (and the rest), one could still assume that when they purchase a Codex, it's intended to be used as a stand-alone army.
Now, after many crap show "Codex" releases, this can be debated, but at the time of the Legion of the Damned release, this was not as drawn into contention. Thus you could have several people purchasing the book fully intended to make a complete Legion of the Damned army (a still cool concept, I might add) and being what I would call "severely bummed out, brother."
So as it stands, there is no other Codex that has stipulations in it that would cause itself to automatically lose the game directly because of the special rules within with no means of stopping it from doing so. Thus we could argue the point or come to the very real conclusion that Legion of the Damned is busted and Games Workshop has little interest in maintaining their digital products, given the Inquisition and Sisters of Battle codices have yet to be updated for seventh edition.
It is true that I believe the codex is an error, and that a stand-alone LotD army should be possible.
But it is not a 'malfunctioning' rulesset. The machinery / logic-gates of the rules function smoothly and to an inevitable conclusion.
You could perhaps accuse them of having malfunctioning developers, or editors.
Used models, no matter how well painted are used and warrant nothing more than the standard used prices for hobby materials which is %50.
Your post has no merit, try again please.
I don't buy from GW unless I absolutely need too. Me, I am a smart shopper, I buy used and make due, it's both cheaper and smarter. I have said numerous times GW prices are too expensive and need to come down, I'm just not under any delusion that they will because of a minor financial hiccup
So if you aren't buying the models, how again are you supporting Games Workshop (outside of forum posts)? Is this now where I say you have no right discussing the topic because you aren't actively purchasing the product? ((Tongue in Cheek))
Or you're still just proving my point further that they are pushing themselves into failure because a new player isn't even considering purchasing new models as the barrier to entry is asinine. So thanks for that.
It is true that I believe the codex is an error, and that a stand-alone LotD army should be possible.
But it is not a 'malfunctioning' rulesset. The machinery / logic-gates of the rules function smoothly and to an inevitable conclusion.
You could perhaps accuse them of having malfunctioning developers, or editors.
As a great man once said: "It don't work, so it's broke." -Anonymous
But I would say an army automatically losing is a strong identifier for a malfunctioning ruleset. And I would further point out that it not being corrected ASAP that it's a key identifier of a malfunctioning company. Time will tell, I suppose.
Throt wrote: It is actually more difficult for GW.
Lets say that on release 'x' GW screwed up 5 things, and made 2 things out of balance that the rules lawyers have found.
They have just printed and shipped 500,000 rulebooks across the globe.
The naysayers see the books and say GW you suck.
Many don't buy, because it is overpriced, or it sucks or whatever and they want GW to recall all these books and have lost all the investment and have to start all over.
Can you see a cycle appearing.
The expectation of the naysayer is naïve and harmful.
Companies with less resource also have less overhead to cover.
Firstly, let's ditch the "rules lawyers" out of the above. You're attempting (knowingly or otherwise) to dismiss a whole group of people by applying a label to them in a pejorative manner. So stop that.
Secondly, your scenario above fails in one big area: The problem could have been prevented before going to print. Having a decent method and structure for play-testing would eliminate a lot (not all; perfect balance is impossible) of these problems before the book goes to print. You are 100% correct when you say that it's a problem to fix a book once it's already on store shelves, but the fact remains that a good amount of testing before sending it to the printers would mean that so many of these bleedingly obvious problems would simply cease to exist.
My apologies if the rules lawyer offends, in a previous post I gave a disclaimer that I mean nothing derogatory with the term. But I will stop using it.
It doesn't fail. How many games does it take to run across problem 'x'? If the vast majority playing a game are like minded they may never come across problem 'x'.
I said in a prior post, I have been a part of a group that has played 100's of games and have approx. 20 players and have never run across many of the 'broken' issues. And haven't had to 'roll off' for issues either.
So the assumption that they are being careless doesn't hold water. This game is huge. To create the 'better' game would require downscaling. Something I, nor my group would care to have happen.
Used models, no matter how well painted are used and warrant nothing more than the standard used prices for hobby materials which is %50.
Your post has no merit, try again please.
I don't buy from GW unless I absolutely need too. Me, I am a smart shopper, I buy used and make due, it's both cheaper and smarter. I have said numerous times GW prices are too expensive and need to come down, I'm just not under any delusion that they will because of a minor financial hiccup
So if you aren't buying the models, how again are you supporting Games Workshop (outside of forum posts)? Is this now where I say you have no right discussing the topic because you aren't actively purchasing the product? ((Tongue in Cheek))
Or you're still just proving my point further that they are pushing themselves into failure because a new player isn't even considering purchasing new models as the barrier to entry is asinine. So thanks for that.
When did I ever say they were not pushing away new players? I have said this numerous times in fact, thanks for showing me how much you actually pay attention to the posts in the thread.
I said I only buy when I need too. I buy some things in bulk like gaunts and such, you know, the super cheap things. But vehicles, buildings, elites, HQ, GW all the way. The prices really are not that high for me really. They go up the better a unit actually is and I set goals, like that Hive Crone, so awesome for my army, yet so expensive, I will have it soon and GW will have my money.
Why, because buying solo units used is absolutely slowed. Buy used in bulk, but individual things new.
My apologies if the rules lawyer offends, in a previous post I gave a disclaimer that I mean nothing derogatory with the term. But I will stop using it.
It doesn't fail. How many games does it take to run across problem 'x'? If the vast majority playing a game are like minded they may never come across problem 'x'.
I said in a prior post, I have been a part of a group that has played 100's of games and have approx. 20 players and have never run across many of the 'broken' issues. And haven't had to 'roll off' for issues either.
So the assumption that they are being careless doesn't hold water. This game is huge. To create the 'better' game would require downscaling. Something I, nor my group would care to have happen.
Outside of turning 40k into one of the miniature versions of itself that is Warmachine and so many others, you would have to completely start from scratch ditch most of the armies and have more uniformity across codices, something that would destroy the game, but would actually make some of the posters here come back to the game.
They don't want the game to be better, they want the game to be what they think it should be.
It is true that I believe the codex is an error, and that a stand-alone LotD army should be possible.
But it is not a 'malfunctioning' rulesset. The machinery / logic-gates of the rules function smoothly and to an inevitable conclusion.
You could perhaps accuse them of having malfunctioning developers, or editors.
As a great man once said: "It don't work, so it's broke." -Anonymous
But I would say an army automatically losing is a strong identifier for a malfunctioning ruleset. And I would further point out that it not being corrected ASAP that it's a key identifier of a malfunctioning company. Time will tell, I suppose.
I would say that it can easily be fixed from within the rules - there are a multitude of changes that can be made which permit one of the logic gates leading to the inevitable loss to switch to [FALSE] or [NONSENSE] (for all you paraconsistent falsificationists out there).
As for the company, yes, I believe it's malfunctioning. It could use a new CEO and perhaps even some other new parts as well. But it isn't dead, and I'd rather try to help it get back on its feet rather than actively work for its demise.
When did I ever say they were not pushing away new players? I have said this numerous times in fact, thanks for showing me how much you actually pay attention to the posts in the thread.
I said I only buy when I need too. I buy some things in bulk like gaunts and such, you know, the super cheap things. But vehicles, buildings, elites, HQ, GW all the way. The prices really are not that high for me really. They go up the better a unit actually is and I set goals, like that Hive Crone, so awesome for my army, yet so expensive, I will have it soon and GW will have my money.
Why, because buying solo units used is absolutely slowed. Buy used in bulk, but individual things new.
Mmmhmm, so buy the higher margin items, like Games Workshop wants you too.
I present exhibit dos:
Spoiler:
Stands in the realm of a Reaver Titan from Forgeworld, all multi-colored plastic (that one is pro-painted and detailed), at the grand cost of $109. Less than the cost of a Wraightknight or Imperial Titan, FAR more plastic and sprues, for more articulation and detail. Cheaper.
So yes, please buy those $65+ big bugs. Because they totally aren't highway robbery (Oh, wait, they are. And I have at least one model producer stating that on film. And I bet many more would, too!)
As for the company, yes, I believe it's malfunctioning. It could use a new CEO and perhaps even some other new parts as well. But it isn't dead, and I'd rather try to help it get back on its feet rather than actively work for its demise.
Agree to disagree on the previous post, but putting both Kirby and Johnson out to pasture would probably make quite a few people rejoice. Doing the former would certainly make the latter happen.
And then light fire to every mentioning of the word "Forge the Narrative" while they are at it. Also, pay Dan Abnett all the monies to write more books than the other guys. Forever.
Throt wrote: And you really believe that this is necessary??
That GW need to be sure that their models have eyes or that they tell players how to address situations where a model does not??
Yes, I do expect GW to invest the tiny amount of effort required to say "draw LOS from the model's eyes (or equivalent feature, such as optical sensors)". But maybe that's just because my intro to gaming was MTG, where everything is explicitly stated like that and there is absolutely no room for ambiguity or rule debates.
Lobomalo wrote: Except business trends across the world have shown otherwise. People will flock to spend hundreds of dollars more on a product because they are convinced that it is of better quality.
Did you even bother to read the quoted statement you're "responding" to?
1) There's a difference between selling shoes at a decent markup and selling games at orders of magnitude above what is even remotely plausible for a tabletop game.
2) Shoes and games are not the same product. In fact they're exact opposites. Expensive shoes are valuable precisely because they're exclusive, they're something awesome that you have and nobody else has. But games like 40k are a social product, the value of a game is zero if you don't have anyone to play it with. And, therefore, unlike shoes you need to maintain a certain minimum market share to have a viable product, and increasing that market share is key to improving profits.
(And of course in the middle of those two options is neutral products, like a loaf of bread, where it doesn't matter at all what everyone else is buying.)
At the end of the day, they are a business, they are not providing a service. They care about money, not the consumer and GW is the same.
Yes, and the point you keep ignoring (and yes, you're ignoring it, because I've posted it in this thread plenty of times already) is that the problem I (and many other people) have with GW's prices isn't just that they're bad for our budgets, it's that they're bad for GW. Saying "it's a business, not a charity" isn't really an impressive response to criticism of a business deciding that it's better to make $10 today and then go out of business than to make $5 a year for the next decade.
Unit1126PLL wrote: I'm just saying, until we reach the point where the game dies, it's better business to sell fewer units at a higher price. GW may be raising prices in order to find the highest price it can get while the game still lives.
Except you're overlooking the part about low market share leading to inevitable death spirals. Sacrificing market share to maximize per-unit price is, at best, an incredibly risky strategy in a social game where market share is vital to continued sales and recruiting new customers.
It's like saying "My infantry can only move 6", which means they can't capture an objective 10" away! THE RULES ARE BROKEN! ... no, the rules are still functioning, even if the outcome is undesirable.
Again, is this a joke? I think you know perfectly well that there's a difference between "my units don't move as fast as I want them to move right now" and "I automatically lose the game unless I buy another $50 codex to use as allies for my current codex" or "my unit with a close-range weapon can't fire when it moves because GW didn't bother to understand how their own chariot rules work".
When did I ever say they were not pushing away new players? I have said this numerous times in fact, thanks for showing me how much you actually pay attention to the posts in the thread.
I said I only buy when I need too. I buy some things in bulk like gaunts and such, you know, the super cheap things. But vehicles, buildings, elites, HQ, GW all the way. The prices really are not that high for me really. They go up the better a unit actually is and I set goals, like that Hive Crone, so awesome for my army, yet so expensive, I will have it soon and GW will have my money.
Why, because buying solo units used is absolutely slowed. Buy used in bulk, but individual things new.
Mmmhmm, so buy the higher margin items, like Games Workshop wants you too.
I present exhibit dos:
Spoiler:
Stands in the realm of a Reaver Titan from Forgeworld, all multi-colored plastic (that one is pro-painted and detailed), at the grand cost of $109. Less than the cost of a Wraightknight or Imperial Titan, FAR more plastic and sprues, for more articulation and detail. Cheaper.
So yes, please buy those $65+ big bugs. Because they totally aren't highway robbery (Oh, wait, they are. And I have at least one model producer stating that on film. And I bet many more would, too!)
I've mentioned this before, but the company that sells fewer units at a higher price is objectively better than the company that sells more units at a lower price if the units are of comparable quality. So it may be highway robbery, but it is good Capitalism.
If you've got a problem with that, we should take it to PMs, because I have some major beefs with capitalism as well but politics/economics is generally a disagreeable and off-topic discussion.
When did I ever say they were not pushing away new players? I have said this numerous times in fact, thanks for showing me how much you actually pay attention to the posts in the thread.
I said I only buy when I need too. I buy some things in bulk like gaunts and such, you know, the super cheap things. But vehicles, buildings, elites, HQ, GW all the way. The prices really are not that high for me really. They go up the better a unit actually is and I set goals, like that Hive Crone, so awesome for my army, yet so expensive, I will have it soon and GW will have my money.
Why, because buying solo units used is absolutely slowed. Buy used in bulk, but individual things new.
Mmmhmm, so buy the higher margin items, like Games Workshop wants you too.
I present exhibit dos:
Spoiler:
Stands in the realm of a Reaver Titan from Forgeworld, all multi-colored plastic (that one is pro-painted and detailed), at the grand cost of $109. Less than the cost of a Wraightknight or Imperial Titan, FAR more plastic and sprues, for more articulation and detail. Cheaper.
So yes, please buy those $65+ big bugs. Because they totally aren't highway robbery (Oh, wait, they are. And I have at least one model producer stating that on film. And I bet many more would, too!)
You are either blatantly ignoring an obvious conclusion or you have failed to see it.
If people want to pay a high price for something, what the hell does that have to do with you or your opinions on the companies business tactics.
By the way, if that was a legit GW model, just like that and actually playable in a game and not merely a collector item, GW could throw a $800 price tag on it and I would preorder it and stand in line for a midnight launch.
Something you have continuously failed to realize in 18 pages now, if players feel that something is worth the money they are investing into a product, then it is. I don't give a crap what other second rate miniature companies say. It has no bearing on why I play or why I buy models.
$65 dollars for a model I would use minimum 3 times a week for a very long time is a very good deal to me. I see nothing wrong with that. Maybe this is an issue for you, but guess what, that's your problem.
If people want to pay out the ass for something, let them, don't sit there and preach doom and gloom, it isn't your concern or your business to question them or make an opinion about them.
I've mentioned this before, but the company that sells fewer units at a higher price is objectively better than the company that sells more units at a lower price if the units are of comparable quality. So it may be highway robbery, but it is good Capitalism.
If you've got a problem with that, we should take it to PMs, because I have some major beefs with capitalism as well but politics/economics is generally a disagreeable and off-topic discussion.
I'd argue it doesn't make good capitalism as it banks on one thing specifically: the player base being either ignorant or incompetent for that scheme to succeed.
I have no heart to discuss economics, but that would rousing at another time.
Unit1126PLL wrote: But it is not a 'malfunctioning' rulesset. The machinery / logic-gates of the rules function smoothly and to an inevitable conclusion.
This is a ridiculously low standard for a functioning game. It's like claiming that your calculator software is working fine when it claims that 1+1=3, because it's doing exactly what the code is meant to do. And obviously having a calculator that gives the correct answer instead of one that gives some other random answer is just a matter of personal preference!
Unit1126PLL wrote: I'm just saying, until we reach the point where the game dies, it's better business to sell fewer units at a higher price. GW may be raising prices in order to find the highest price it can get while the game still lives.
Except you're overlooking the part about low market share leading to inevitable death spirals. Sacrificing market share to maximize per-unit price is, at best, an incredibly risky strategy in a social game where market share is vital to continued sales and recruiting new customers.
I can see that, but I'm sure there's a balance point, where you maximize your per-unit price but your customer base is sufficient to keep the company alive.
It's like saying "My infantry can only move 6", which means they can't capture an objective 10" away! THE RULES ARE BROKEN! ... no, the rules are still functioning, even if the outcome is undesirable.
Again, is this a joke? I think you know perfectly well that there's a difference between "my units don't move as fast as I want them to move right now" and "I automatically lose the game unless I buy another $50 codex to use as allies for my current codex" or "my unit with a close-range weapon can't fire when it moves because GW didn't bother to understand how their own chariot rules work".
There is a difference there, but it's a difference of scale, not of substance. Either one will make you lose the game, and both are undesirable ramifications of RAW.
But, RAW functions quite clearly in every case. There are plenty of times when RAW breaks wide open (morale checks in transports from 5th edition comes to mind), but these flow as gently as a sleeping baby through the rules' logic gates.
Lobomalo wrote: you would have to completely start from scratch ditch most of the armies and have more uniformity across codices
You can keep repeating this as many times as you want, but it won't make it true. Uniformity and lack of options are NOT prerequisites for having a balanced game with clear rules.
You are either blatantly ignoring an obvious conclusion or you have failed to see it.
If people want to pay a high price for something, what the hell does that have to do with you or your opinions on the companies business tactics.
That if people choose to remain ignorant to the cost of producing such models or worse, become informed customer and continue to choose to throw money at said models, then there's an adage said:
"A Fool and his money are soon parted."
For the record, I am not calling anyone a fool, rather it's foolish to both know you are being ripped off and to continue to purchase something. It's hypocritical and illogical. As long as you are okay with that fact, then it's on you. Spend your money as you wish.
I've mentioned this before, but the company that sells fewer units at a higher price is objectively better than the company that sells more units at a lower price if the units are of comparable quality. So it may be highway robbery, but it is good Capitalism.
If you've got a problem with that, we should take it to PMs, because I have some major beefs with capitalism as well but politics/economics is generally a disagreeable and off-topic discussion.
I'd argue it doesn't make good capitalism as it banks on one thing specifically: the player base being either ignorant or incompetent for that scheme to succeed.
I have no heart to discuss economics, but that would rousing at another time.
Or people accepting that the product is worth it.
People know businesses are out to make money, it isn't some secret hidden agenda, yet we knowingly buy anyway, why, because we like it. Honestly, I've seen other miniatures for other games, GW literally has the best designs for miniature games though I do love the Star Wars miniatures.
If you showed me a cheaper model for 40k made by the guys who do any one of the other miniature games, I'd throw it in the trash, or make it a permanent casualty on my gaming board.
If GW artistic standards drop and the prices stay as they are, then you have a real issue, but people keep buying so you have merely frustrations and shattered dreams.
I've mentioned this before, but the company that sells fewer units at a higher price is objectively better than the company that sells more units at a lower price if the units are of comparable quality. So it may be highway robbery, but it is good Capitalism.
If you've got a problem with that, we should take it to PMs, because I have some major beefs with capitalism as well but politics/economics is generally a disagreeable and off-topic discussion.
I'd argue it doesn't make good capitalism as it banks on one thing specifically: the player base being either ignorant or incompetent for that scheme to succeed.
I have no heart to discuss economics, but that would rousing at another time.
My faith in humanity in general is low enough that I assume most humans are both ignorant and incompetent simultaneously at many things, myself included.
Peregrine wrote:
Unit1126PLL wrote: But it is not a 'malfunctioning' rulesset. The machinery / logic-gates of the rules function smoothly and to an inevitable conclusion.
This is a ridiculously low standard for a functioning game. It's like claiming that your calculator software is working fine when it claims that 1+1=3, because it's doing exactly what the code is meant to do. And obviously having a calculator that gives the correct answer instead of one that gives some other random answer is just a matter of personal preference!
Except that 1+1 = 3 is objectively wrong, and in this case, LotD auto-losing isn't objectively wrong. It's wrong from very nearly every angle I can think of save an EXTREMELY narrow interpretation of fluff, but it still can't be objectively proven to be wrong.
And yes, in a case where 'correctness' is subjective, then whether or not the item in question is correct or not is entirely personal preference!
You are either blatantly ignoring an obvious conclusion or you have failed to see it.
If people want to pay a high price for something, what the hell does that have to do with you or your opinions on the companies business tactics.
That if people choose to remain ignorant to the cost of producing such models or worse, become informed customer and continue to choose to throw money at said models, then there's an adage said:
"A Fool and his money are soon parted."
For the record, I am not calling anyone a fool, rather it's foolish to both know you are being ripped off and to continue to purchase something. It's hypocritical and illogical. As long as you are okay with that fact, then it's on you. Spend your money as you wish.
I can agree with that, but let's look at it from another angle.
Video games are grotesquely over priced, always have been frankly, especially now that you can get most if not all as downloads, yet full retail is still charged. Why do you think this is? It takes less work to make a download than it does a disc or a cartridge, costs less money to produce overall and allows for a wider variety of buyers in the online market.
The answer is easy.
You pay for the product itself, not the pieces that make the product what it is. I pay $60+ for bad ass video games because they are worth it to me. I know they're over-priced, I've always known, but I continue to do it anyway, why, because I love them, they are worth every penny I put into it.
My faith in humanity in general is low enough that I assume most humans are both ignorant and incompetent simultaneously at many things, myself included.
And we've come to full agreement. Cheers. (myself, too, for the record)
Unit1126PLL wrote: There is a difference there, but it's a difference of scale, not of substance. Either one will make you lose the game, and both are undesirable ramifications of RAW.
But, RAW functions quite clearly in every case. There are plenty of times when RAW breaks wide open (morale checks in transports from 5th edition comes to mind), but these flow as gently as a sleeping baby through the rules' logic gates
Again, "it is possible to play the game" is a ridiculously low standard for having a functioning game. If the rules technically produce an outcome, but one that is completely absurd and likely not even close to what was intended, the rules are still broken.
And, no, the two "flaws" are not even close to the same thing. LOTD is a case of an army that is sold as a separate army (and NOT an allies-only supplement thing) but can not be used as a separate army without automatically losing the game. And we even have a hint that it wasn't supposed to work that way since there is a special rule elsewhere in the book that prevents the auto-loss, if only GW had bothered to add it to the units. Not being able to move far enough to claim an objective, on the other hand, is just a case of being annoyed that you aren't winning the game. There's no reason at all to think that infantry moving 6" is a mistake or the result of unclear rules, rather than a clear and deliberate design choice that just happens to be a shorter distance than you want to have.
My faith in humanity in general is low enough that I assume most humans are both ignorant and incompetent simultaneously at many things, myself included.
And we've come to full agreement. Cheers. (myself, too, for the record)
Meh, humanity as a whole is woefully ignorant and incompetent, myself included. We tell ourselves we know more than we do, we act like we are experts at things we are not and we assume that our opinion counts as fact simply because we believe it to be so.
Personally, if there is any intelligent alien race out there that ever seeks to elevate humanity into the farthest reaches of the galaxy, they are better off taking the apes.
It is actually more difficult for GW.
Lets say that on release 'x' GW screwed up 5 things, and made 2 things out of balance that the rules lawyers have found.
They have just printed and shipped 500,000 rulebooks across the globe.
The naysayers see the books and say GW you suck.
Many don't buy, because it is overpriced, or it sucks or whatever and they want GW to recall all these books and have lost all the investment and have to start all over.
Can you see a cycle appearing.
The expectation of the naysayer is naïve and harmful.
Companies with less resource also have less overhead to cover.
Produce a free digital update to the product to clarify issues which dismisses negative comments in an orderly fashion and, better yet, generates good will.
Shocking concept. That is, unless you play other games. More so, Games Workshop could have performed an open beta test on 7th edition which would further reduce errors in the new ruleset, further increasing the value of the product and it never resulting in negative commentary.
I'm aware you're a super veteran of decades, but the way other game companies run their business is flat out superior to Games Workshop. There's just no disputing this fact. Remember, we went over a full year with meaningful FAQs for much of the game from Apr 13 to the release of 7th edition. Given the amount of content Games Workshop produced in that time frame makes it seem like an eternity for many rules disputes to languish. And now we know why FAQs were not issued... rules writers were either working on codices or preparing for 7th edition.
I have multiple people tell me across different channels that Games Workshop management allows for minimal play testing because the rules writers shouldn't be paid to "play games" on company time. While I have no fact to back this up or point towards, this seems likely given the nature of these releases and their poor wording and bad rules interaction, as seen by the Exalted Flamer Chariot. You'd only need to play that model ONCE to see it did not function.
Doesn't GW do updates to all their digital content?
Doesn't GW release FAQ's? Though maybe not as fast as people want.
And what have the naysayers done...complained that now they have to look for stuff or carry extra papers or whatever else they come up with. This is a small part (I'm guessing) about where the thread started with GW can't win. Some things they do will never be enough.
I don't mean to invalidate opinions. And there is validity.
I have worked for corporations, and are these things possible...yeah they are.
The idea that it is an absolute purposeful, lazy, uncaring bunch of schleps......nah, I'm not buying that.
I guess I'm the eternal optimist. Get past the negative enjoy what you have. Don't let yesterday take too much of today.
I can agree with that, but let's look at it from another angle.
Video games are grotesquely over priced, always have been frankly, especially now that you can get most if not all as downloads, yet full retail is still charged. Why do you think this is? It takes less work to make a download than it does a disc or a cartridge, costs less money to produce overall and allows for a wider variety of buyers in the online market.
The answer is easy.
You pay for the product itself, not the pieces that make the product what it is. I pay $60+ for bad ass video games because they are worth it to me. I know they're over-priced, I've always known, but I continue to do it anyway, why, because I love them, they are worth every penny I put into it.
So, how exactly is this a problem?
Are they? I see three, if not more, active sales going on right now on many old, new, major studio and indie studio games offering pricing from mere change to a few bucks.
Or that you cannot compare the budget of a singular model and it's production cost to that of a AAA title with budgets in the hundreds of millions anymore than you can to that of an indie game made in the backroom of a gent's house.
Video games aren't overpriced, it's that their value is different. The value of the models from Games Workshop is far less subjective as they are actively eroding it themselves (previous Dire Avenger kit and many more like it) and you have people with model manufacturing experience plainly stating that they are raking their customers over the coals. Plus, they never offer sales or discounts to patient or frugal buyers, thus missing out a complete segment of the market which then turns to third parties and used sales. Instead of reacting normally and adjusting pricing or offering discount, they try to sue third parties and stop used sales as they can. Both have failed.
So I don't see your analogy holding up within this respect.
Unit1126PLL wrote: There is a difference there, but it's a difference of scale, not of substance. Either one will make you lose the game, and both are undesirable ramifications of RAW.
But, RAW functions quite clearly in every case. There are plenty of times when RAW breaks wide open (morale checks in transports from 5th edition comes to mind), but these flow as gently as a sleeping baby through the rules' logic gates
Again, "it is possible to play the game" is a ridiculously low standard for having a functioning game. If the rules technically produce an outcome, but one that is completely absurd and likely not even close to what was intended, the rules are still broken.
And, no, the two "flaws" are not even close to the same thing. LOTD is a case of an army that is sold as a separate army (and NOT an allies-only supplement thing) but can not be used as a separate army without automatically losing the game. And we even have a hint that it wasn't supposed to work that way since there is a special rule elsewhere in the book that prevents the auto-loss, if only GW had bothered to add it to the units. Not being able to move far enough to claim an objective, on the other hand, is just a case of being annoyed that you aren't winning the game. There's no reason at all to think that infantry moving 6" is a mistake or the result of unclear rules, rather than a clear and deliberate design choice that just happens to be a shorter distance than you want to have.
Well, the rules are functioning, and not by any arbitrary "standard" but by the literal definition of the verb "to function."
I don't really know what more to say - it's a fact, in RAW, that pure LotD armies lose nearly every game they play (save the one with the special rule). But RAW is functioning perfectly and with no hiccups. Again, you may claim that the developers are malfunctioning, or that the editors are on acid 24/7, or really anything. But RAW itself is quite clear here.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Except that 1+1 = 3 is objectively wrong, and in this case, LotD auto-losing isn't objectively wrong. It's wrong from very nearly every angle I can think of save an EXTREMELY narrow interpretation of fluff, but it still can't be objectively proven to be wrong.
Only because your definition of "objectively wrong" is so narrow that it is utterly useless and adds nothing to this discussion. It's like claiming that a restaurant serving moldy food with shards of broken glass in it isn't "objectively wrong", and you can't prove anything about it. Feel free to nitpick about this stuff in an intro-level philosophy course (until the professor tells you to STFU and stop being annoying), but if you want to have a constructive discussion about game design then you need to have a definition of "broken" that actually includes a meaningful number of things.
Lobomalo wrote:GW literally has the best designs for miniature games
...
Have you seen the things GW produces? I know you're going to claim that design is a subjective thing, but really, can the company that produced the Taurox really claim to have the best designs? Taking a basic low-tier model kit and throwing a bunch of skulls on it doesn't make an excellent design.
Throt wrote: It doesn't fail. How many games does it take to run across problem 'x'? If the vast majority playing a game are like minded they may never come across problem 'x'.
How many of the current problems with 40K get pointed out within hours of a book being released?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Lobomalo wrote: So narrowing the scope here, the rules work for me, they work for a couple of other posters in this same thread, so I ask you again, where is the problem? Who is to blame, the company making the rules or the players who are unable to reach the same conclusions as those who see clarity?
If you have to create a house rule to deal with a situation, the rules didn't 'work' for you. You might not take issue with the fact that the rules are incomplete, but that doesn't make them complete.
I can agree with that, but let's look at it from another angle.
Video games are grotesquely over priced, always have been frankly, especially now that you can get most if not all as downloads, yet full retail is still charged. Why do you think this is? It takes less work to make a download than it does a disc or a cartridge, costs less money to produce overall and allows for a wider variety of buyers in the online market.
The answer is easy.
You pay for the product itself, not the pieces that make the product what it is. I pay $60+ for bad ass video games because they are worth it to me. I know they're over-priced, I've always known, but I continue to do it anyway, why, because I love them, they are worth every penny I put into it.
So, how exactly is this a problem?
Are they? I see three, if not more, active sales going on right now on many old, new, major studio and indie studio games offering pricing from mere change to a few bucks.
Or that you cannot compare the budget of a singular model and it's production cost to that of a AAA title with budgets in the hundreds of millions anymore than you can to that of an indie game made in the backroom of a gent's house.
Video games aren't overpriced, it's that their value is different. The value of the models from Games Workshop is far less subjective as they are actively eroding it themselves (previous Dire Avenger kit and many more like it) and you have people with model manufacturing experience plainly stating that they are raking their customers over the coals. Plus, they never offer sales or discounts to patient or frugal buyers, thus missing out a complete segment of the market which then turns to third parties and used sales. Instead of reacting normally and adjusting pricing or offering discount, they try to sue third parties and stop used sales as they can. Both have failed.
So I don't see your analogy holding up within this respect.
Indie games? Seriously? Most Indie games are worthless and are sold on the cheap because they are trash to much of the gaming community. Sorry but Indie games are something that have no place to even be mentioned when conversing about games.
The point though was paying for the value of the work, the experience and enjoyment you get from it. The materials used to make it don't matter for enjoyment to be had.
You have yet to have a reasonable argument as to why it is wrong for people to pay for something they find value in, even if it is over-priced, which we all can agree on. Also again, the opinions of other manufacturers have no place here. We are discussing players and their spending habits and not want to be competitors of GW who honestly wouldn't even be around if GW didn't bring war-gaming to the forefront of the gaming community.
Edited, way too harsh and forgot about a few indie games I actually like
Doesn't GW do updates to all their digital content? Doesn't GW release FAQ's? Though maybe not as fast as people want. And what have the naysayers done...complained that now they have to look for stuff or carry extra papers or whatever else they come up with. This is a small part (I'm guessing) about where the thread started with GW can't win. Some things they do will never be enough. I don't mean to invalidate opinions. And there is validity. I have worked for corporations, and are these things possible...yeah they are. The idea that it is an absolute purposeful, lazy, uncaring bunch of schleps......nah, I'm not buying that. I guess I'm the eternal optimist. Get past the negative enjoy what you have. Don't let yesterday take too much of today.
Answered in order asked:
1) Sparingly, it seems. I know my two iBooks have not been updated for seventh edition. The Legion of the Damned codex has not yet been fixed of it's glaring flaw.
2) Yes, however they went over a year without FAQs at their new fast release, causing many rules disputes to swell. They then released FAQs late of the launch of seventh and those FAQs required further clarifications. They actively copy and pasted entries across similar documents that caused issues and they dumped a large swath of material still necessary for the fifth edition codices that remain. So they have them, but they are incredibly poor.
3) It sucks carrying extra paper, but most players I've seen have phones or tablets (and even a few laptops!). You can store the .pdf on there for any issues you might need one or ask your opponent to download it if they truly believe you're cheating them.
I would love to be an optimist, too. You sound very much like the gentleman that runs masterminis (Painting Buddha), that is pretty cool and jovial. I hope I wasn't rude to you, I can be gruff at times.
Unit1126PLL wrote: First of all, [CITATION NEEDED] for it being intended to work as a standalone codex
The Black Library wrote:Codex: Legion of the Damned allows you to add Legion of the Damned squads into your Warhammer 40,000 army, or field them as a detachment in their own right.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Except that 1+1 = 3 is objectively wrong, and in this case, LotD auto-losing isn't objectively wrong. It's wrong from very nearly every angle I can think of save an EXTREMELY narrow interpretation of fluff, but it still can't be objectively proven to be wrong.
Only because your definition of "objectively wrong" is so narrow that it is utterly useless and adds nothing to this discussion. It's like claiming that a restaurant serving moldy food with shards of broken glass in it isn't "objectively wrong", and you can't prove anything about it. Feel free to nitpick about this stuff in an intro-level philosophy course (until the professor tells you to STFU and stop being annoying), but if you want to have a constructive discussion about game design then you need to have a definition of "broken" that actually includes a meaningful number of things.
Actually I nitpick about this stuff all the time in 400-level philosophy courses here at Penn State, because I'm a philosophy double-major. And I rarely get told to STFU, because such distinctions are some of the most important distinctions that human thinkers have ever drawn. And if people like moldy food with shards of broken glass in it enough to buy an $85 dollar rulebook to eat it, then no, it isn't objectively wrong.
And I don't really want to have a 'constructive discussion about game design' because I have a hunch you mean 'how to improve a game based on my standards' when you say 'constructive'.
Throt wrote: It doesn't fail. How many games does it take to run across problem 'x'? If the vast majority playing a game are like minded they may never come across problem 'x'.
How many of the current problems with 40K get pointed out within hours of a book being released?
Unit1126PLL wrote: First of all, [CITATION NEEDED] for it being intended to work as a standalone codex
The Black Library wrote:Codex: Legion of the Damned allows you to add Legion of the Damned squads into your Warhammer 40,000 army, or field them as a detachment in their own right.
"Detachment" != "Army"
You can field four Combined Arms detachments of LotD and never lose a game if you include one Allied detachment of one 35 point inquisitor.
Indie games? Seriously? Indie games are worthless and are sold on the cheap because they are trash to much of the gaming community. Sorry but Indie games are something that have no place to even be mentioned when conversing about games.
The point though was paying for the value of the work, the experience and enjoyment you get from it. The materials used to make it don't matter for enjoyment to be had.
You have yet to have a reasonable argument as to why it is wrong for people to pay for something they find value in, even if it is over-priced, which we all can agree on. Also again, the opinions of other manufacturers have no place here. We are discussing players and their spending habits and not want to be competitors of GW who honestly wouldn't even be around if GW didn't bring war-gaming to the forefront of the gaming community.
Not only is your first claim entirely subjective, it's also false. An Indie game took top accolades at E3 this year, "No Man's Sky."
So yea, our discussion is done. You're not even rational at this point.
If you have to create a house rule to deal with a situation, the rules didn't 'work' for you. You might not take issue with the fact that the rules are incomplete, but that doesn't make them complete.
This is factually untrue and as of yet, I have put into action only one house rule and that is that terrain must be equally distributed across the map so no player can have an inherent advantage. Too many times do I see Tau, IG and Eldar try and put terrain in their favor.
Everything else were ideas I discussed with others.
So again, for me, the rules are working as intended. I go to YMDC when people come to me with questions I am not 100% clear on answering, not because the rules are unclear for me but because I don't always have the rules handy and I get asked most questions when I'm not even playing.
Also, house ruling something does not mean something isn't working. Again, GW has allowed us to freely change and remove aspects that we do not like in the game. That does not mean that the rules are badly written or unclear.
For example, I find that Overwatch shots are always done as Snap Shots slowed because logically, someone charging at you should become easier to hit, not harder.
Unit1126PLL wrote: And I don't really want to have a 'constructive discussion about game design' because I have a hunch you mean 'how to improve a game based on my standards' when you say 'constructive'.
No, to improve it based on ANY standards. So far all you've said is that a game isn't broken as long as RAW produces an outcome, no matter how absurd that outcome is. And that's an utterly useless standard to judge a game by.
Indie games? Seriously? Indie games are worthless and are sold on the cheap because they are trash to much of the gaming community. Sorry but Indie games are something that have no place to even be mentioned when conversing about games.
The point though was paying for the value of the work, the experience and enjoyment you get from it. The materials used to make it don't matter for enjoyment to be had.
You have yet to have a reasonable argument as to why it is wrong for people to pay for something they find value in, even if it is over-priced, which we all can agree on. Also again, the opinions of other manufacturers have no place here. We are discussing players and their spending habits and not want to be competitors of GW who honestly wouldn't even be around if GW didn't bring war-gaming to the forefront of the gaming community.
Not only is your first claim entirely subjective, it's also false. An Indie game took top accolades at E3 this year, "No Man's Sky."
So yea, our discussion is done. You're not even rational at this point.
You mean a preview for a game, the game hasn't even launched yet.
I am Alive got the exact same response at E3 years ago, it launched, it was filth and the players hated it.
Unit1126PLL wrote: And I don't really want to have a 'constructive discussion about game design' because I have a hunch you mean 'how to improve a game based on my standards' when you say 'constructive'.
No, to improve it based on ANY standards. So far all you've said is that a game isn't broken as long as RAW produces an outcome, no matter how absurd that outcome is. And that's an utterly useless standard to judge a game by.
Well, my standard is that a game be fun, and I find 40k to be ridiculous, awesome, great, hilarious amounts of it.
So by my standard, it requires no improving.
Lobomalo wrote: This is factually untrue and as of yet, I have put into action only one house rule and that is that terrain must be equally distributed across the map so no player can have an inherent advantage. Too many times do I see Tau, IG and Eldar try and put terrain in their favor.
You realize that "setting the terrain up in your favor to gain an advantage" is an intended part of the rules, right? This isn't some obscure loophole that the Tau players are exploiting, the rules encourage you to use terrain placement as a strategy. Your house rule is a concession that you don't think the game as published by GW is good enough and needs to be fixed.
Lobomalo wrote: This is factually untrue and as of yet, I have put into action only one house rule and that is that terrain must be equally distributed across the map so no player can have an inherent advantage. Too many times do I see Tau, IG and Eldar try and put terrain in their favor..
The specific example under discussion was LOS with models with no eyes.
If the rules require LOS from the eyes, and the models have no eyes, there is literally no way to resolve the situation within the rules. You have to create a house rule to draw LOS with those models.
Indie games? Seriously? Indie games are worthless and are sold on the cheap because they are trash to much of the gaming community. Sorry but Indie games are something that have no place to even be mentioned when conversing about games.
- Edited by insaniak. Please see Dakka's Rule #1-
Super Meat Boy, The Stanley Parable, Kerbal Space Program, LIMBO, The Binding of Isaac.
Lobomalo wrote: This is factually untrue and as of yet, I have put into action only one house rule and that is that terrain must be equally distributed across the map so no player can have an inherent advantage. Too many times do I see Tau, IG and Eldar try and put terrain in their favor..
The specific example under discussion was LOS with models with no eyes.
If the rules require LOS from the eyes, and the models have no eyes, there is literally no way to resolve the situation within the rules. You have to create a house rule to draw LOS with those models.
Sorry this made me laugh, like a lot actually. You realize that this came about by pure accident and was encouraged by the very people we mentioned earlier as rule nazis, those players who look around for any exploit to seek some flaw or advantage within the game?
Lobomalo wrote: This is factually untrue and as of yet, I have put into action only one house rule and that is that terrain must be equally distributed across the map so no player can have an inherent advantage. Too many times do I see Tau, IG and Eldar try and put terrain in their favor..
The specific example under discussion was LOS with models with no eyes.
If the rules require LOS from the eyes, and the models have no eyes, there is literally no way to resolve the situation within the rules. You have to create a house rule to draw LOS with those models.
Didn't GW used to recommend actually hunching down to a "model's eye view" of the battlefield so the player could attempt to actually see if the model being fired upon could be at least partially seen by the firing model? Has that changed?
Indie games? Seriously? Indie games are worthless and are sold on the cheap because they are trash to much of the gaming community. Sorry but Indie games are something that have no place to even be mentioned when conversing about games.
Super Meat Boy, The Stanley Parable, Kerbal Space Program, LIMBO, The Binding of Isaac.
These games are definitely not trash.
No not really, I play too many games to count and Indie games really haven't been worth my time, nor have they sold very well either. But this you can easily tell by how quickly they hit the %70 off rack at game stores.
Super Meat Boy, Flopped The Stanley Parable, Flopped Kerbal Space Program, Flopped LIMBO, Flopped The Binding of Isaac. actually did fairly well, didn't notice this on first read through, my bad,
Banished was another Indie that did well at all, so maybe I should adjust and change it to most Indie games, all is a little harsh.
Lobomalo wrote: This is factually untrue and as of yet, I have put into action only one house rule and that is that terrain must be equally distributed across the map so no player can have an inherent advantage. Too many times do I see Tau, IG and Eldar try and put terrain in their favor..
The specific example under discussion was LOS with models with no eyes.
If the rules require LOS from the eyes, and the models have no eyes, there is literally no way to resolve the situation within the rules. You have to create a house rule to draw LOS with those models.
Didn't GW used to recommend actually hunching down to a "model's eye view" of the battlefield so the player could attempt to actually see if the model being fired upon could be at least partially seen by the firing model? Has that changed?
Didn't GW used to recommend actually hunching down to a "model's eye view" of the battlefield so the player could attempt to actually see if the model being fired upon could be at least partially seen by the firing model? Has that changed?
The rules for LOS have been fixed for 7E, so it's not really much of a point anymore. But it didn't functionally work without a mutually assumed house rule for several model types through multiple editions.
Indie games? Seriously? Indie games are worthless and are sold on the cheap because they are trash to much of the gaming community. Sorry but Indie games are something that have no place to even be mentioned when conversing about games.
Super Meat Boy, The Stanley Parable, Kerbal Space Program, LIMBO, The Binding of Isaac.
These games are definitely not trash.
Minecraft, Terraria, Outlast, Resogun... he's just ignorant. I've had him blocked since last night and feel great about it.
No not really, I play too many games to count and Indie games really haven't been worth my time, nor have they sold very well either. But this you can easily tell by how quickly they hit the %70 off rack at game stores.
Minecraft: 15,732,538 people have bought the game.
In the last 24 hours, 19,637 people bought the game. -https://minecraft.net/stats
Didn't GW used to recommend actually hunching down to a "model's eye view" of the battlefield so the player could attempt to actually see if the model being fired upon could be at least partially seen by the firing model? Has that changed?
The rules for LOS have been fixed for 7E, so it's not really much of a point anymore. But it didn't functionally work without a mutually assumed house rule for several model types through multiple editions.
This is an example of an objectively broken rules-set, and the fact that it wasn't fixed for so long is one of the few things I actually hold against GW.
Another example would be the 5th edition morale-checks-in-transports, when a CCS lost 2-4 veterans to overheating plasma guns and was required to take a morale check inside a transport, and then failed it. Fortunately, this, too, has been addressed.
Indie games? Seriously? Indie games are worthless and are sold on the cheap because they are trash to much of the gaming community. Sorry but Indie games are something that have no place to even be mentioned when conversing about games.
Super Meat Boy, The Stanley Parable, Kerbal Space Program, LIMBO, The Binding of Isaac.
These games are definitely not trash.
Minecraft, Terraria, Outlast, Resogun... he's just ignorant. I've had him blocked since last night and feel great about it.
Again with the insults. Only Minecraft did any good and that is mostly because its a pure sandbox game and people love sand boxes.
Another example would be the 5th edition morale-checks-in-transports, when a CCS lost 2-4 veterans to overheating plasma guns and was required to take a morale check inside a transport, and then failed it. Fortunately, this, too, has been addressed.
No not really, I play too many games to count and Indie games really haven't been worth my time, nor have they sold very well either. But this you can easily tell by how quickly they hit the %70 off rack at game stores.
Minecraft: 15,732,538 people have bought the game.
In the last 24 hours, 19,637 people bought the game. -https://minecraft.net/stats
You cited one example which I admit does well. I've already stated that me saying all Indie games were bad was too harsh, just most of them.
Another example would be the 5th edition morale-checks-in-transports, when a CCS lost 2-4 veterans to overheating plasma guns and was required to take a morale check inside a transport, and then failed it. Fortunately, this, too, has been addressed.
Oh, God... I forgot about that!
Yet wouldn't this support the idea that GW does indeed make changes when something is actually broken?
You cited one example which I admit does well. I've already stated that me saying all Indie games were bad was too harsh, just most of them.
Problem is, I can cite more. But the burden of proof is on you to justify your statements. Now you're actively back peddling to words like "some" or "most."
We could play this game further, but it's a bad one. You'd lose. So the next time you post about Games Workshop stuff, and sticking to the topic of Games Workshop stuff, please keep in mind that if you make an argument, you must back it up with facts. And using "all inclusive" terms sets you up for immediate failure.
Lobomalo wrote: Sorry this made me laugh, like a lot actually. You realize that this came about by pure accident and was encouraged by the very people we mentioned earlier as rule nazis, those players who look around for any exploit to seek some flaw or advantage within the game?
"Rule nazis" are only a problem because GW writes rules with flaws in them and doesn't care. "Rule nazis" is a meaningless concept in MTG because there are no rule issues to exploit.
Also, no, it wasn't an accident that the "no eyes = no LOS" thing happened, it was GW being lazy about writing clear rules that don't have any room for argument.
Throt wrote: but rules problems, these 'broken' parts, mostly come up in tournaments and not in other places.
No, they come up everywhere else as well. You just seem to think that if "casual" players agree to 4+ a rule question instead of taking it to YMDC that the problem never existed in the first place.
No they come up some places and not others. They are non-issues for many.
You assume that because the rule didn't work for you that everyone needed to roll a 4+ and had a problem.
For example
Like I said in a prior post..
In My OPINION..anyone who has an issue with the elder walkers not having eyes and need GW to write a rule to deal with that is an ass hat.
That is my opinion.
Nothing is broken and I don't need additional rules how to deal with line of sight. I dot need to roll a dice for it.
Do you want/need a 700 page rule book cover everything?
Half the things in YMDC are insanity. There was a Fantasy thread that went for 18 pages because of the line that says 'round fractions up' and how it is divided in 1999 point games. Does GW have to write a breakdown of every subtle nuance and possible situation that might arise.
I guess they do for some.
Another example would be the 5th edition morale-checks-in-transports, when a CCS lost 2-4 veterans to overheating plasma guns and was required to take a morale check inside a transport, and then failed it. Fortunately, this, too, has been addressed.
Oh, God... I forgot about that!
Yes, I ran into this once, and it was hilarious. My opponent and I agreed that they all just fried inside the transport, pounding helplessly against the metal troop-ramp as the boiling plasma slowly filled the chamber as it leaked from the breached weapons... [/grimdark]
You cited one example which I admit does well. I've already stated that me saying all Indie games were bad was too harsh, just most of them.
Problem is, I can cite more. But the burden of proof is on you to justify your statements. Now you're actively back peddling to words like "some" or "most."
We could play this game further, but it's a bad one. You'd lose. So the next time you post about Games Workshop stuff, and sticking to the topic of Games Workshop stuff, please keep in mind that if you make an argument, you must back it up with facts. And using "all inclusive" terms sets you up for immediate failure.
Meh, I'm prone to mistakes, yet I admit when I make them. And you'll find that not many Indie games have topped the charts recently. Look back on Ign.com for the last 3 years alone to see, hell you can even see the overall rating of every game ever launched, Indie or not. Some work, most don't, those that do, stick around. The E3 preview is nothing to go off of. E3 always shows off good things, they've done it for years, but as an avid E3 watcher and gamer, most of what they show falls flat upon game launch.
Yet wouldn't this support the idea that GW does indeed make changes when something is actually broken?
It was broken for, what, many full editions? So sure, they made changes, but not in any responsible fashion. And very frequently, when they fix one thing, they break more, again referencing multiple on-going, multi-page disputes on YMDC that continue ad naeseum simply because Games Workshop cares not to address them openly and efficiently.
My notion: it's because they can't and aren't allowed to do their jobs properly as rules writers due to management. I'd blame poor leadership prior to bad rules writers. Except Jervis. I cringe whenever I hear him actively spin his nonsense as good.
Lobomalo wrote: I've already stated that me saying all Indie games were bad was too harsh, just most of them.
And you know why this is true? Because indie game developers have the freedom to take risks and do new things instead of just publishing the annual CoD/football/etc game that is just like last year's game. A chance of failure is inherent in trying to do new things instead of just milking the cash cow with more mediocre-but-profitable games.
Yet wouldn't this support the idea that GW does indeed make changes when something is actually broken?
Yes, occasionally GW does fix things, long after the point when any competent game designer would have done something about it. This doesn't excuse GW's habit of letting obvious mistakes like that slip into published products and then failing to consistently fix them on anything remotely approaching a reasonable schedule.
Another example would be the 5th edition morale-checks-in-transports, when a CCS lost 2-4 veterans to overheating plasma guns and was required to take a morale check inside a transport, and then failed it. Fortunately, this, too, has been addressed.
Oh, God... I forgot about that!
Yes, I ran into this once, and it was hilarious. My opponent and I agreed that they all just fried inside the transport, pounding helplessly against the metal troop-ramp as the boiling plasma slowly filled the chamber as it leaked from the breached weapons... [/grimdark]
I exalted that just for sheer (physics breaking) hilarity of the image.
Lobomalo wrote: Sorry this made me laugh, like a lot actually. You realize that this came about by pure accident and was encouraged by the very people we mentioned earlier as rule nazis, those players who look around for any exploit to seek some flaw or advantage within the game?
"Rule nazis" are only a problem because GW writes rules with flaws in them and doesn't care. "Rule nazis" is a meaningless concept in MTG because there are no rule issues to exploit.
Also, no, it wasn't an accident that the "no eyes = no LOS" thing happened, it was GW being lazy about writing clear rules that don't have any room for argument.
Okay, I now know for sure that you are not a competitive MtG player at ll. Mono blue works by exploiting the rules, its the only way it truly functions in some formats. EDH also works by exploiting every loophole a player can, otherwise a deck couldn't run 9 different ways to pull of infinite turns with only two colors.
Yet wouldn't this support the idea that GW does indeed make changes when something is actually broken?
It was broken for, what, many full editions? So sure, they made changes, but not in any responsible fashion. And very frequently, when they fix one thing, they break more, again referencing multiple on-going, multi-page disputes on YMDC that continue ad naeseum simply because Games Workshop cares not to address them openly and efficiently.
My notion: it's because they can't and aren't allowed to do their jobs properly as rules writers due to management. I'd blame poor leadership prior to bad rules writers. Except Jervis. I cringe whenever I hear him actively spin his nonsense as good.
I can agree with this actually.
It is hard to account for every scenario when making rules, they should employ people to double check if things make sense. As for fixing it, I could see why it took so long, but it should have been done faster. The point is though, they fix it. When things become an issue, they fix them. It may take time, but it gets done
Lobomalo wrote: It is hard to account for every scenario when making rules, they should employ people to double check if things make sense. As for fixing it, I could see why it took so long, but it should have been done faster. The point is though, they fix it. When things become an issue, they fix them. It may take time, but it gets done
That last part is the only sticking point. Taking years to issue a simple one line blurb to address such a situation breeds a lot of negativity, as you can see. Therefore fixing it efficiently also implies within a reasonable time frame. A reasonable time frame is not when the next iteration of the game is released, much also to the chagrin of video game players of annualized franchises. No one likes buying the crap year of Madden, Assassin's Creed, etc. much like no one should enjoy buying the half baked version of 40k only to hope their concerns might be addressed in the 2-5 years before the next large investment hits.
Throt wrote: No they come up some places and not others. They are non-issues for many.
Only because most players overlook the flaws in the rules and just play it "as intended" without really thinking about the fact that they're modifying the game. But failing to recognize that a problem exists doesn't magically make it go away.
In My OPINION..anyone who has an issue with the elder walkers not having eyes and need GW to write a rule to deal with that is an ass hat.
And IMO you're TFG. Now that we're done trading insults can we move on to constructive discussion?
The simple fact is that no matter how much you insult the people who objected to the "no eyes = no LOS" issue the rule was still broken. Being willing to overlook a broken rule and modify the game to work in a more sensible way does NOT mean that the rule wasn't broken in the first place.
Do you want/need a 700 page rule book cover everything?
You don't need a 700 page rulebook. X-Wing doesn't have any of 40k's rule issues and the rules, along with the entire printed text of every single card ever published, are still probably shorter than the first chapter of the 40k rulebook. What you actually need is a company that makes rule clarity a priority and stops to think about how a rule can be interpreted instead of just coming up with an idea an publishing it immediately on the assumption that everyone will magically understand how you meant for it to work and play it that way.
Lobomalo wrote: Okay, I now know for sure that you are not a competitive MtG player at ll. Mono blue works by exploiting the rules, its the only way it truly functions in some formats.
...
Words fail me, honestly. But hey, I need a good joke, so please provide some examples of how mono blue decks exploit the rules.
EDH also works by exploiting every loophole a player can, otherwise a deck couldn't run 9 different ways to pull of infinite turns with only two colors.
You do realize that infinite combos are a deliberate part of the game, right? The fact that you don't like losing against them doesn't make them an exploit, just like having your all-melee tactical squad army get slaughtered by a tournament Tau gunline list doesn't make the Tau list an exploit.
(And no, a bunch of "casual at all costs" EDH players whining and crying about how it isn't nice to kill people with infinite combos in multiplayer doesn't make the infinite combo a rule exploit.)
The point is though, they fix it. When things become an issue, they fix them. It may take time, but it gets done
Sorry, but that's an absurdly low standard for quality. Eventually getting a fix years later for a problem that most players noticed within a few hours of getting the new rules is not even close to an adequate response to a rule issue.
Lobomalo wrote: It is hard to account for every scenario when making rules, they should employ people to double check if things make sense. As for fixing it, I could see why it took so long, but it should have been done faster. The point is though, they fix it. When things become an issue, they fix them. It may take time, but it gets done
That last part is the only sticking point. Taking years to issue a simple one line blurb to address such a situation breeds a lot of negativity, as you can see. Therefore fixing it efficiently also implies within a reasonable time frame. A reasonable time frame is not when the next iteration of the game is released, much also to the chagrin of video game players of annualized franchises. No one likes buying the crap year of Madden, Assassin's Creed, etc. much like no one should enjoy buying the half baked version of 40k only to hope their concerns might be addressed in the 2-5 years before the next large investment hits.
The first part I agree with, the 2nd, no.
Madden has continued to sell out and has remained one of EA's highest grossing games. Assassins Creed has continued to top charts since the original game launched.
I'm curious about something about you actually, feel free not to answer and try not to be offended.
But are you one of those big corporations are evil, the government is trying to manipulate us, buy organic, buy American, support local business type of people? A lot of your posts seem to suggest this and if this is the case, then there really is no debating with you at all because there is no logic behind your arguments. Again, if this is a wrong assumption, that is fine, it was just something that became apparent when you hyped up an indie game yet downplayed one of the most popular gaming series in the last decade.
I'd like to add, before hopping off here, that there's a reason why some people go to tournaments without any hope of every winning, such as the NOVA Open, Bay Area Open, Feast of Blades, Adepticon, Duelcon, Wargamescon, etc. It's that each of these has a flavor of 40k that usually is in the form of missions and FAQs that address the major concerns of the game.
So no matter if you like a TOsFAQ or game change, everyone is held to it and there's no longer any wiggle room for argument.
So, instead, you get to the matter that those guys going to the event are really there for: the beer, the pretzels, the good times.
And thus, a better written game supports all members of the community better. Thus Games Workshop could "win" if they started putting up some damned respect for their product and customers and addressed this like a real game company.
Lobomalo wrote: Okay, I now know for sure that you are not a competitive MtG player at ll. Mono blue works by exploiting the rules, its the only way it truly functions in some formats.
...
Words fail me, honestly. But hey, I need a good joke, so please provide some examples of how mono blue decks exploit the rules.
EDH also works by exploiting every loophole a player can, otherwise a deck couldn't run 9 different ways to pull of infinite turns with only two colors.
You do realize that infinite combos are a deliberate part of the game, right? The fact that you don't like losing against them doesn't make them an exploit, just like having your all-melee tactical squad army get slaughtered by a tournament Tau gunline list doesn't make the Tau list an exploit.
The point is though, they fix it. When things become an issue, they fix them. It may take time, but it gets done
Sorry, but that's an absurdly low standard for quality. Eventually getting a fix years later for a problem that most players noticed within a few hours of getting the new rules is not even close to an adequate response to a rule issue.
I'm one of those players who manipulate the rules in MtG to do whatever I want with my deck.
As for all tacticals beating gunline, I've watched it happen with Maelstrom missions. Shop and the melee player in question made sure to have a variety of terrain across the board and that the objectives he was responsible for placing were all within the middle of the map.
Tau was stomped by turn 3. But you won't believe that, hence why I really need to get my camera working so I can show battle reports
But are you one of those big corporations are evil, the government is trying to manipulate us, buy organic, buy American, support local business type of people? A lot of your posts seem to suggest this and if this is the case, then there really is no debating with you at all because there is no logic behind your arguments. Again, if this is a wrong assumption, that is fine, it was just something that became apparent when you hyped up an indie game yet downplayed one of the most popular gaming series in the last decade.
No. I quite almost always chock up what is seen as malevolence as incompetence if facts aren't presented otherwise such as our case with the G of Dubyahs.
((And EA and Activision both suck, but I love me some Mass Effect. Dance with the Devil for 'dem goods...))
TheKbob wrote: I'd like to add, before hopping off here, that there's a reason why some people go to tournaments without any hope of every winning, such as the NOVA Open, Bay Area Open, Feast of Blades, Adepticon, Duelcon, Wargamescon, etc. It's that each of these has a flavor of 40k that usually is in the form of missions and FAQs that address the major concerns of the game.
So no matter if you like a TOsFAQ or game change, everyone is held to it and there's no longer any wiggle room for argument.
So, instead, you get to the matter that those guys going to the event are really there for: the beer, the pretzels, the good times.
And thus, a better written game supports all members of the community better. Thus Games Workshop could "win" if they started putting up some damned respect for their product and customers and addressed this like a real game company.
The highlighted is the purpose of all games though. The good times, the time you spend playing with friends.
But are you one of those big corporations are evil, the government is trying to manipulate us, buy organic, buy American, support local business type of people? A lot of your posts seem to suggest this and if this is the case, then there really is no debating with you at all because there is no logic behind your arguments. Again, if this is a wrong assumption, that is fine, it was just something that became apparent when you hyped up an indie game yet downplayed one of the most popular gaming series in the last decade.
No. I quite almost always chock up what is seen as malevolence as incompetence.
((And EA and Activision both suck, but I love me some Mass Effect. Dance with the Devil for 'dem goods...))
Wait, you like ME but hate Assassins Creed? What are you, those games are both fantastic.
I get not liking EA, they're trash, but what have you got against the Creed?
Legion of the Damned automatically loses if played as a primary source.
The Exalted Flamer Chariot did not work for an entire year.
Is that an error or a design decision to not allow Legion of the Damned to be played as a primary force.? I don't know, do you and what evidence do you have?
The flamer worked. It was just crappy. You could not move and shoot it.
I can link you the entire 14 part series of "The Future of Games Workshop" that has all the facts that you can speak to Mr. Beeble towards. Or you can pop over to Dakka discussions where there is a 34 page topic chock full of goodness. I can provide another thread, too.
Market speculation until it happens. I remember he references cancelling Games Days as a sign, but if they are not turning a profit or making a noticeable difference in market than it makes financial sense to stop them. Does it suck for gamers...hell yes (well in the old school ways anyway) but for business it makes sense.
And for further evidence for the value to be decreasing, I continually and will forever point to one of many exhibits:
Spoiler:
Not a value for you. It does show a price increase and a change of packaging but it does not represent a drop in value to those that buy it.
Wait, you like ME but hate Assassins Creed? What are you, those games are both fantastic.
I get not liking EA, they're trash, but what have you got against the Creed?
I don't hate the Creed, the first one didn't hold my attention and I have the Etzio saga on my PS3 still in the wrapper (got 'em $10 each, so meh). I'll give it a-go one of these days, but my Fantasy style jam is The Witcher.
Lobomalo wrote: I'm one of those players who manipulate the rules in MtG to do whatever I want with my deck.
Do you understand the difference between manipulating the rules to create a winning strategy within the rules, and exploiting broken rules? I'm still waiting for you to provide an example of how mono blue decks exploit the rules.
As for all tacticals beating gunline, I've watched it happen with Maelstrom missions. Shop and the melee player in question made sure to have a variety of terrain across the board and that the objectives he was responsible for placing were all within the middle of the map.
You're completely missing the point. I never said that gunlines were unbeatable, I said that whining about losing to an infinite combo in MTG is like whining about how you lost a game against a gunline in 40k. Both 40k gunlines and MTG infinite combos are normal parts of the game, not rule exploits.
Wait, you like ME but hate Assassins Creed? What are you, those games are both fantastic.
I get not liking EA, they're trash, but what have you got against the Creed?
I don't hate the Creed, the first one didn't hold my attention and I have the Etzio saga on my PS3 still in the wrapper (got 'em $10 each, so meh). I'll give it a-go one of these days, but my Fantasy style jam is The Witcher.
Wow, you have very good tastes. I may not agree with a lot you have to say, but damn do you like some good games.
Ezio trilogy is fantastic, but Black Flag was the only one in the series to have me get a 100% completion rate. But that's partially cause I love pirates. Ezio story was much better
Not a value for you. It does show a price increase and a change of packaging but it does not represent a drop in value to those that buy it.
Same exact models.
Previously, $3.30 USD per model. New kit is $7.00 USD per model.
If that isn't the very definition of value change, I don't know that is...
I find Amazon to be better for buying new. Or this shop I go to, both give you up to 20% off new models, still a little pricey, bet loads better than GW
Wow, you have very good tastes. I may not agree with a lot you have to say, but damn do you like some good games.
Ezio trilogy is fantastic, but Black Flag was the only one in the series to have me get a 100% completion rate. But that's partially cause I love pirates. Ezio story was much better
I like a wide smattering of video games. I have Witcher 2 CE on my shelf and Mass Effect framed on my wall. I already pre-ordered Witcher 3 CE as the statue was made by Scibor of Scibo minis and his friend(s).
Wow, you have very good tastes. I may not agree with a lot you have to say, but damn do you like some good games.
Ezio trilogy is fantastic, but Black Flag was the only one in the series to have me get a 100% completion rate. But that's partially cause I love pirates. Ezio story was much better
I like a wide smattering of video games. I have Witcher 2 CE on my shelf and Mass Effect framed on my wall. I already pre-ordered Witcher 3 CE as the statue was made by Scibor of Scibo minis and his friend(s).
Games, bro. Games.
Man, you're actually not bad. Can tell a lot about a man by the games he plays.
I need to beat Witcher 1, only played 2, I feel bad about that sometimes.
I find Amazon to be better for buying new. Or this shop I go to, both give you up to 20% off new models, still a little pricey, bet loads better than GW
The prices per model changes, but the ratio stands as you could figure that both kits would receive a 20% discount. Thus one is unarguably a better deal over the other. Cheaper and more models. Both are the exact same models. Thus the definition of a better value completely void of subjectivity.
Have you seen the things GW produces? I know you're going to claim that design is a subjective thing, but really, can the company that produced the Taurox really claim to have the best designs? Taking a basic low-tier model kit and throwing a bunch of skulls on it doesn't make an excellent design.
You don't think it's subjective?
Some people love the Taurox. Some hate it.
Throt wrote: Is that an error or a design decision to not allow Legion of the Damned to be played as a primary force.? I don't know, do you and what evidence do you have?
The flamer worked. It was just crappy. You could not move and shoot it.
Again, "it is possible to play the game" is not a relevant standard. Both of those examples are situations where RAW functions, but the outcome is completely absurd. So either GW's rule authors are complete idiots and deliberately create rules that work in stupid ways, or the rules were intended to work differently and were broken.
I remember he references cancelling Games Days as a sign, but if they are not turning a profit or making a noticeable difference in market than it makes financial sense to stop them. Does it suck for gamers...hell yes (well in the old school ways anyway) but for business it makes sense.
Well yes, and that's exactly the point: Games Day should be a profitable event that improves GW's prestige, keeps players involved in the community, and builds excitement about new releases. All of these things should lead to improved profits, at a fairly reasonable cost. The fact that GW was unable to make a profit on them (or was short-sighted and canceled the events based on total ticket sales vs. cost instead of considering the indirect benefits) is a bad sign.
Not a value for you. It does show a price increase and a change of packaging but it does not represent a drop in value to those that buy it.
In what bizarre alternate universe is increasing the cost of a model kit, cutting the number of models in half, and putting it in a new box not a drop in value? Does a shiny new box that ends up in the trash within a few minutes of opening it magically make up the drop in value caused by paying more than twice as much per model for the exact same models?
I find Amazon to be better for buying new. Or this shop I go to, both give you up to 20% off new models, still a little pricey, bet loads better than GW
The prices per model changes, but the ratio stands as you could figure that both kits would receive a 20% discount. Thus one is unarguably a better deal over the other. Cheaper and more models. Both are the exact same models. Thus the definition of a better value completely void of subjectivity.
Yeah. Ebay has something I have found interesting, at least an alternative to bulk. They sell the parts to models and a lot of them offer discounts if you buy multiple parts, another cheap alternative. I like to spam little things and throw in a random large mofo later on so I tend to focus on bulk. Also building for Apocalypse, albeit slowly.
Throt wrote: It doesn't fail. How many games does it take to run across problem 'x'? If the vast majority playing a game are like minded they may never come across problem 'x'.
How many of the current problems with 40K get pointed out within hours of a book being released?
Some. By people hunting for problems. Things that many may never notice. And the game still works, just not how they would like.
You are either blatantly ignoring an obvious conclusion or you have failed to see it.
If people want to pay a high price for something, what the hell does that have to do with you or your opinions on the companies business tactics.
That if people choose to remain ignorant to the cost of producing such models or worse, become informed customer and continue to choose to throw money at said models, then there's an adage said:
"A Fool and his money are soon parted."
For the record, I am not calling anyone a fool, rather it's foolish to both know you are being ripped off and to continue to purchase something. It's hypocritical and illogical. As long as you are okay with that fact, then it's on you. Spend your money as you wish.
You do know Superman #1 sold for something like $300,000 dollars and cost 10cents.
Was the guy that bought it ripped off or did he find value in his purchase.
You can listen to a Metallica CD or see them in concert for $300. It's both music. Which is the better value.?
Your value is different to someone elses. You believe they are ripped off, they don't. Subjective.
Throt wrote: It doesn't fail. How many games does it take to run across problem 'x'? If the vast majority playing a game are like minded they may never come across problem 'x'.
How many of the current problems with 40K get pointed out within hours of a book being released?
Some. By people hunting for problems. Things that many may never notice. And the game still works, just not how they would like.
I didn't have to hunt to see the glaring error in the original Farsight Enclaves supplement which meant that you had to take Shadowsun and the Pope in order to play a Farsight Enclaves army.
Which, hilariously enough, filled your HQ slots so as it was originally released you could never take Farsight in a Farsight Enclaves list.
Lobomalo wrote: I've already stated that me saying all Indie games were bad was too harsh, just most of them.
And you know why this is true? Because indie game developers have the freedom to take risks and do new things instead of just publishing the annual CoD/football/etc game that is just like last year's game. A chance of failure is inherent in trying to do new things instead of just milking the cash cow with more mediocre-but-profitable games.
Yet wouldn't this support the idea that GW does indeed make changes when something is actually broken?
Yes, occasionally GW does fix things, long after the point when any competent game designer would have done something about it. This doesn't excuse GW's habit of letting obvious mistakes like that slip into published products and then failing to consistently fix them on anything remotely approaching a reasonable schedule.
This post appears to exude hate for GW. Nothing they could do would be good enough for the standard that you have set.
And that is fine, but it surprises me at the same time you continue to follow a game, from a company, that you have so much dislike for both as a system and as a business.
Throt wrote: This post appears to exude hate for GW. Nothing they could do would be good enough for the standard that you have set.
And that is fine, but it surprises me at the same time you continue to follow a game, from a company, that you have so much dislike for both as a system and as a business.
Oh good, and now we're back to "WHY R U SO NEGATIVE!?!?!?!?!?" instead of addressing the substance of my criticism.
Throt wrote: No they come up some places and not others. They are non-issues for many.
Only because most players overlook the flaws in the rules and just play it "as intended" without really thinking about the fact that they're modifying the game. But failing to recognize that a problem exists doesn't magically make it go away.
What I am trying to do is to get the point across that the problem is subjective. You want to see it as a problem and that is fine. But you are no more right than I am. Because you have this rules problem doesn't automatically create one either.
The simple fact is that no matter how much you insult the people who objected to the "no eyes = no LOS" issue the rule was still broken. Being willing to overlook a broken rule and modify the game to work in a more sensible way does NOT mean that the rule wasn't broken in the first place.
Again the no eye =no los groups had a problem, no one I know did. It did not need any discussion. There was no problem to go away. No problem to fix. Nothing to overlook. Because you had a problem doesn't mean it DID exist.
Do you want/need a 700 page rule book cover everything?
You don't need a 700 page rulebook. X-Wing doesn't have any of 40k's rule issues and the rules, along with the entire printed text of every single card ever published, are still probably shorter than the first chapter of the 40k rulebook. What you actually need is a company that makes rule clarity a priority and stops to think about how a rule can be interpreted instead of just coming up with an idea an publishing it immediately on the assumption that everyone will magically understand how you meant for it to work and play it that way.
It appears you do. Let's look at the no eyes issue. Since you seek clarification then we must have a list of all models with out eyes and what point on all the models we draw line of sight from. Dreadnoughts without eyes, converted models without eyes, monsters with eye stalks, Talos, dark elder with the smooth helmets, tyrant guard and on and on.
Then we must cover what happens when army x allies with all armies 1-14 etc etc.
Throt wrote: What I am trying to do is to get the point across that the problem is subjective. You want to see it as a problem and that is fine. But you are no more right than I am. Because you have this rules problem doesn't automatically create one either.
No, it isn't subjective at all. You just keep insisting that the fact that you didn't play by the rules as-printed means that there was no problem with the rules.
Again the no eye =no los groups had a problem, no one I know did. It did not need any discussion. There was no problem to go away. No problem to fix. Nothing to overlook. Because you had a problem doesn't mean it DID exist.
So you never shot or charged with models wearing helmets in previous editions? Or by "no problem to fix" do you mean that you refuse to admit that you fixed the problem?
It appears you do. Let's look at the no eyes issue. Since you seek clarification then we must have a list of all models with out eyes and what point on all the models we draw line of sight from. Dreadnoughts without eyes, converted models without eyes, monsters with eye stalks, Talos, dark elder with the smooth helmets, tyrant guard and on and on.
Or you just say "eyes or equivalent feature, such as optical sensors" and make it explicit that you're supposed to use some judgement and draw LOS from the best approximation when there are no obvious eyes. Or maybe you just abandon TLOS and draw LOS from base to base. Or maybe you draw it from the tip of the weapon. There are plenty of solutions that don't involve a long list of special cases.
Then we must cover what happens when army x allies with all armies 1-14 etc etc.
No, because allying has absolutely nothing to do with the LOS rules. Since it's a per-model thing it doesn't matter at all what other models you have in your army. You're turning a simple fix that GW was too lazy and/or incompetent to make into a major issue, and I can guess that the reason is so you can "prove" how unreasonable it is.
I guess you really can judge me by a limited amount of knowledge across an anonymous Internet discussion forum.
I'm using logic and reason to provide facts and thought processes to define my stance on a subject and have even gone as far to provide how 
But they brought that on themselves.
)? Thankless job, indeed. (Thanks, Mods).
Anything else?
