I mean, i am not going to take sides on this particular post, but it is clear that the majority of Dakka dakka has a negative opinion on GW, so my question is, is there a forum where it is the opposite?.

No. All like this.

Try Bell of Lost Souls, I think they ban people who aren't gibbering fanbois/fangirls(yeah right)

I don't think the majority of users are anti GW at all.
Dakka is a pretty good site.

It's a bit of an echo chamber effect.

I'd wager that most folks here are, at the very least, neutral to GW. The problem is that the loudest and most vocal people tend to color the atmosphere, and those vocal people are more vehemently anti-GW.

evilsponge wrote:
Try Bell of Lost Souls, I think they ban people who aren't gibbering fanbois/fangirls(yeah right)

Bols does not count, is not a forum, there is no exchange of ideas, only a handful of people pushing their ideas. Not very representative of their viewer base.

The internet is mainly hate and rage to be honest.. just look at the comments section on news sites, the comments section on Youtube videos, anything even remotely controversial, its a bizarre system whereby everyone feels protceted and their inner arsehole explodes into life. If the fictional safety afforded by cars and vans increases the likelihood of a road rage incident, then the internet is road rage that has just robbed a chemists and is ripped to the tits on special brew and wobbly eggs.

Short answer, there is a right way, and a wrong way to use the internet.

The right way, is to take everything with a pinch of salt, constantly remind yourself that its an illusionary veneer that covers the real world, and try and enjoy yourself by chucking at the occasional piece of real wit or humor you stumble across. The wrong way, is to constantly whine about other users, play favorites and moderate like an enraged milk monitor in an elementary school, and engage in any two way conversations with strangers, when you genuinely don't like hearing an opinion that is different from your own.

Dakka is actually a decent website when you come right down to it, because only about 25% of the users and two of the mods fall into the above category.

I'd suggest you start friending people that you do like listening to, and build your own dakka community around them, rather than try and seek another avenue. I figured I would try warseer after one of needless ban too many, but it seemed plenty of work after I had already befriended people here, 430 posts in you are probably in the same boat.

Short answer, its a decent site, and like life, its what you make of it. Friend people you like, chat with them, engage with them, look at their galleries, add some stuff, socialise and enjoy.

Ignore those that you find contemptible/pathetic/beneath addressing.

Sort of like going to Vegas, it's pretty awesome if you remain blissfully ignorant, but if you look too hard, it can get depressing!

xxvaderxx wrote:
I mean, i am not going to take sides on this particular post, but it is clear that the majority of Dakka dakka has a negative opinion on GW, so my question is, is there a forum where it is the opposite?.

With over 75,000 registered members, the "anti-GW" crowd is a very vocal minority consisting of maybe 250 to 1000 posters in total (no proof, just basing it on who I see post in anti-GW threads). That's a very small number of people that are against GW, it's just they and the pro-GW posters will get into heated tiffs... If someone pro or anti GW comes into a thread and starts lighting the place up with their "knowledge," just tell them that you play what you enjoy.

 mattyrm wrote:
The internet is mainly hate and rage to be honest.. just look at the comments section on news sites, the comments section on Youtube videos, anything even remotely controversial, its a bizarre system whereby everyone feels protceted and their inner arsehole explodes into life. If the fictional safety afforded by cars and vans increases the behaviour of road rage, then the internet is road rage that has just robbed a chemists and is ripped to the tits on special brew and wobbly eggs.

Short answer, there is a right way, and a wrong way to use the internet.

The right way, is to take everything with a pinch of salt, constantly remind yourself that its an illusionary veneer that covers the real world, and try and enjoy yourself by chucking at the occasional piece of real wit or humor you stumble across.

The wrong way, is to constantly cry, play favorites and moderate like an enraged milk monitor in an elementary school, and engage in a conversation with a stranger when you genuinely wont like hearing an opinion that is different from your own.

Dakka is actually a decent website when you come right down to it, because only about half of the users and two or three or the mods fall into the above category.

I'd suggest you start friending people that you do like listening to, and build your own dakka community around them, rather than try and seek another avenue. I figured I would try warseer after one of needless ban too many, but it seemed plenty of work after I had already befriended people here, 430 posts in you are probably in the same boat.

Short answer, its a decent site, and like life, its what you make of it. Friend people you like, chat with them, engage with them, look at their galleries, add some stuff, socialise and enjoy.

Ignore those that you find contemptible/pathetic/beneath addressing.

Sort of like going to Vegas, it's pretty awesome if you remain blissfully ignorant, but if you look too hard, it can get depressing!

In any given contest, like what you describe, there has to at least 2 sides to it. While granted there are a few and far between die hard GW supporters here (not stating i agree or dissagree with them), the discussion is on a general basis pretty one sided and to be frank, while there are some loudmouth GW trollers, most complains i read here are properly expressed (warranted or not, that is a mattter of opinion).

Im what ever on GW, since the price hike though ive been forced to build the core of any army by buying them second hand. From there ill splurg and buy something new once in a great while. Other then that im what ever, ive looked towards cheaper more balanced games.

Most posters/readers here are probably just wargamers, instead of anti-GW or pro-GW per se.

The vocal minority is just that, a minority. Filter them out or don't take them too seriously.

I find DakkaDakka a fairly positive site, compared to some cesspool discussion forums for other hobbies.

GW website. They're huge fans.

 Shandara wrote:
Most posters/readers here are probably just wargamers, instead of anti-GW or pro-GW per se.

The vocal minority is just that, a minority. Filter them out or don't take them too seriously.

I find DakkaDakka a fairly positive site, compared to some cesspool discussion forums for other hobbies.

Yeah pretty much what I said, just more sensible and concise.

I've always been a rambler...

I like GW and I do believe a large amount of Dakka do, however I express this via posting up painting and modelling threads/showcases, army lists, tactics etc to enjoy my hobby. The majority of GW fans likely do the same, however if people actively dislike the company a thread usually follows in what I would assume is the hope that things can some how change (find a problem, highlight a problem, brainstorm how said problem could be fixed). In such a way it might appear there are more GW haters if you only look in context of amazingly pro or anti GW posts.

That and I tend to refrain from posting in any overly vitriolic anti-GW threads for fear of being accused of white knighting, its easier just to click a different thread.

I thought the Bolter and Chainsword crowd were Pro GW or is that just Pro Space Marine?

 mattyrm wrote:

 Shandara wrote:
Most posters/readers here are probably just wargamers, instead of anti-GW or pro-GW per se.

The vocal minority is just that, a minority. Filter them out or don't take them too seriously.

I find DakkaDakka a fairly positive site, compared to some cesspool discussion forums for other hobbies.

Yeah pretty much what I said, just more sensible and concise.

And less sniping at the Mods.

 BlapBlapBlap wrote:
GW website. They're huge fans.

This is great news!

 notprop wrote:
I thought the Bolter and Chainsword crowd were Pro GW or is that just Pro Space Marine?

Pro power armor for certain, pro gw no idea, not been there for a while.

 curran12 wrote:
It's a bit of an echo chamber effect.

I'd wager that most folks here are, at the very least, neutral to GW. The problem is that the loudest and most vocal people tend to color the atmosphere, and those vocal people are more vehemently anti-GW.

The other problem its that some posters take criticism of GW as automatically making the poster 'anti GW'.

And some, for some inexplicable reason, can not separate the game from the company... Liking 40k or WHFB, and being interested in discussing them, are not directly related... And neither is automatically directly related to a like or dislike of GW.

 insaniak wrote:
The other problem its that some posters take criticism of GW as automatically making the poster 'anti GW'.

And some, for some inexplicable reason, can not separate the game from the company... Liking 40k or WHFB, and being interested in discussing them, are not directly related... And neither is automatically directly related to a like or dislike of GW.

Ugh, this kind of thing drives me up the wall with a variety of communities.

There are so very many places where trying to give feedback or constructive criticism is labeled as being a 'hater', as though someone who enjoys a company or product must lavish praise and adoration upon them with every breath.

 Forar wrote:
Ugh, this kind of thing drives me up the wall with a variety of communities.

Why are you hating on communities?

Yesthetruthhurts....















Joking.

 insaniak wrote:

And some, for some inexplicable reason, can not separate the game from the company... Liking 40k or WHFB, and being interested in discussing them, are not directly related... And neither is automatically directly related to a like or dislike of GW.

Well said!

I am, for the most part, highly positive about GW's products, design team and creative output.

I am, for the most part, skeptical and potentially hostile to GW's pricing, relationship to it's fanbase, place in the wider gaming community and corporate/legal behaviors.

I do not believe myself a 'hater', yet have been referred to as such whenever I have voiced concern or criticism by certain posters. As a consumer of their products for 28 years, a continuing customer and a grown up with the capacity to form a rational opinion, I feel I and others can speak on an open and independent forum when I am not satisfied or have concerns and wish to discuss these with my peers, yet some posters will consistently flame people for voicing concern or criticism as though such were forbidden or somehow personally offensive to them. Therein we experience this odd little conflict here and elsewhere.

Is there, a site with a majority of a positive view of it's own community?

I mean, i am not going to take sides on this particular post, but it is clear that the majority of Dakka dakka has a negative opinion on Dakka dakka, so my question is, is there a forum where it is the opposite?.

I've said before, those who are very vocally anti-GW are probably those that want the best for them, and the vitriol is a product of their frustration that they don't believe those things that need to be done to make that happen are being done.

I am firmly GW neutral. If they do something I approve of/agree with, I will praise it. If they do the opposite so will I. I tend to buy non GW stuff, but if I need or want something they make, I'll get it.

Now, I would suspect anyone reading my post history would assume I'm an "anti" but in light of what I've said here, that makes its own statement.

The fact that there are so many more apparently strongly anti GW posters than pro, again, I think, makes its own statement. Sure, there's an element of squeaky wheel syndrome, but if the majority felt differently, you'd get people leaping to the defence a lot more often than happens.

Those that hate on GW irrationally and with no hope of having their attitude altered I feel are rare animals, and if the forum seems overly negative towards GW, it is probably just a symptom of a general ill feeling towards them.

You can, of course, frequent the GW focused sub-fora, which are entirely less negative places.

 azreal13 wrote:
The fact that there are so many more apparently strongly anti GW posters than pro, again, I think, makes its own statement. Sure, there's an element of squeaky wheel syndrome, but if the majority felt differently, you'd get people leaping to the defence a lot more often than happens.

Except the internet (and humanity) tends to focus on the negative far more than the positive. No matter how popular the product, you don't see the majority jumping to its defense very often.

 pretre wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:
The fact that there are so many more apparently strongly anti GW posters than pro, again, I think, makes its own statement. Sure, there's an element of squeaky wheel syndrome, but if the majority felt differently, you'd get people leaping to the defence a lot more often than happens.

Except the internet (and humanity) tends to focus on the negative far more than the positive. No matter how popular the product, you don't see the majority jumping to its defense very often.

Granted, but people really care about their toy soldiers. You can drop in on any thread of more than a couple of pages and invariably there'll be anything from snarky exchanges scaling up to mod intervening, borderline actionable exchanges.

If people can care that much, and are seeing the thing they 'love' being attacked, I would expect to see more defensive comments than I generally seem to see.

Most of the people who like GW tend to be gaming, and painting.

After a while you recgonise the negative voices tend to be the same ones.there aren't that many, and they keep repeating the same arguments. They do also seem to be very self-aggrandising and take any correction of basic facts as an insult.

It is certainly true that other sites have a much more positive vibe. Even, especially, one-ring, and if any one GW game suffers from high prices, it's LOTR! But they seem to enjoy playing and painting, not griping and fantasising that they know better how to run a multinational business.

xxvaderxx wrote:
I mean, i am not going to take sides on this particular post, but it is clear that the majority of Dakka dakka has a negative opinion on GW, so my question is, is there a forum where it is the opposite?.

flamesofwar.com
alternatively bolter and chainsword

GW has sued all fansites out of existence, so this is what is left

Seriously, most people here on Dakka have spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on GW products, that's why they are interested in GW topics. Doesn't mean that you have to like all their models or all their business decisions. There is more than just GW haters and GW fanboys.

Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:


After a while you recgonise the negative voices tend to be the same ones.there aren't that many, and they keep repeating the same arguments. They do also seem to be very self-aggrandising and take any correction of basic facts as an insult.

You could make the exact same argument for the "white knights" though.

It is always the same old names, trotting the same old tired arguments, inserting the same back handed compliments and snarky retorts while hand waving and saying "don't buy it then" or "yeah, well you aren't boss of GW and couldn't do better"

There have been atrocities on both sides, but you notice those committed by the opposing side much more vividly.

Infinity forums, datasphere, Mantic forums, Flames of War.. pretty positive places..

I do find it a bit sad that someone can write something like this..

MeanGreenStompa wrote:
I do not believe myself a 'hater', yet have been referred to as such whenever I have voiced concern or criticism by certain posters. As a consumer of their products for 28 years, a continuing customer and a grown up with the capacity to form a rational opinion, I feel I and others can speak on an open and independent forum when I am not satisfied or have concerns and wish to discuss these with my peers, yet some posters will consistently flame people for voicing concern or criticism as though such were forbidden or somehow personally offensive to them. Therein we experience this odd little conflict here and elsewhere.

Can get this kind of response..

Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:
After a while you recgonise the negative voices tend to be the same ones.there aren't that many, and they keep repeating the same arguments. They do also seem to be very self-aggrandising and take any correction of basic facts as an insult.

Big GW fan here. Love to hate it(expense). Been playing GW since the mid 90s, no reason to quit. As far as a GW friendly zone on the internet? Ahhh... your not gonna find one.

Maybe you could try their own foru... oh, no.

Hmm.

Oh, I know, perhaps you could use their Faceb.. ah, no.

Perhaps you could start one?!

 azreal13 wrote:
Maybe you could try their own foru... oh, no.

Hmm.

Oh, I know, perhaps you could use their Faceb.. ah, no.

Perhaps you could start one?!

They do have this facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/GWFulchester

Although it may not be representative of the whole company.

Dakka doesn't enforce any opinions though, this is just a community gathered from the Internet, and many others are similar in tone. GW simply do a lot of unpopular stuff. I think to find a site that is 'majority positive', as compared to Dakka, would require some artificial interference. Dakka is positive about GW products, there's huge excitement for each new release. Yes there's criticism about things like the Space Maribe Centurions but that's because they look gak. If you're going to ask that people are specifically positive then it will be a very artificial environment in which to discuss things.

You won't find a forum with a pro-GW majority until GW either brings back their own forums (lol) or stops doing things that make people criticize them. Any place that has open and honest discussion instead of moderators enforcing a strict pro-GW-only policy will inevitably have an anti-GW majority.

xxvaderxx wrote:
I mean, i am not going to take sides on this particular post, but it is clear that the majority of Dakka dakka has a negative opinion on GW, so my question is, is there a forum where it is the opposite?.

What have they done lately that has been or can currently be called positive?

 Grot 6 wrote:

xxvaderxx wrote:
I mean, i am not going to take sides on this particular post, but it is clear that the majority of Dakka dakka has a negative opinion on GW, so my question is, is there a forum where it is the opposite?.

What have they done lately that has been or can currently be called positive?

Here's an excellent case in point.

All the rules forums and painting and modeling forums suggest that there's a lot of "pro" here, and in every TTG forum.
So does all the excited talk in the C:SM thread in N&R. It's not all positive on the surface but it's generally impassioned and engaged.

It's not that many of us hate GW. We wan to love GW, as most of us had GW as an entry to war gaming. However, recent actions that GW has engaged in have left us upset, as we feel they are trying to push us vets away.

We also dislike the "white knight" posters who claim nothing GW does is ever bad, argue against things that were never even said, and generally make a nuisance of themselves.

 BlapBlapBlap wrote:
GW website. They're huge fans.

Until they shut down their own forum for negativity...

I find that the largest criticism of any company happens in the Dakka Discussions forum and the News & Rumours forum. Outside of those two forums, there is so much positive stuff here on Dakka Dakka. Spend some time in the painting section, for example.

I'm one of GW' customers. I used to spend a lot of money with them every month. Now I have spent less than $100 over the last year with them. And that was from eBay sellers breaking up battle force boxes.

I'm waiting for products to be released that appeal to me. Sadly there has been little. It's not hate to express dissatisfaction with GW's products and practices.

 frozenwastes wrote:
I find that the largest criticism of any company happens in the Dakka Discussions forum and the News & Rumours forum. Outside of those two forums, there is so much positive stuff here on Dakka Dakka. Spend some time in the painting section, for example.

I'm one of GW' customers. I used to spend a lot of money with them every month. Now I have spent less than $100 over the last year with them. And that was from eBay sellers breaking up battle force boxes.

I'm waiting for products to be released that appeal to me. Sadly there has been little. It's not hate to express dissatisfaction with GW's products and practices.

Bingo.

And with embargos and the online retailers debacle, its really hard to defend GWs intentions with growing the hobby.

 Grot 6 wrote:
What have they done lately that has been or can currently be called positive?

They cancelled free gaming in GW stores. This is great news!

 Grot 6 wrote:

xxvaderxx wrote:
I mean, i am not going to take sides on this particular post, but it is clear that the majority of Dakka dakka has a negative opinion on GW, so my question is, is there a forum where it is the opposite?.

What have they done lately that has been or can currently be called positive?

You are one of the small minority of people that part of the blokes problem, why are you even bothering to post in here?

As far as your "question" goes, why not just look at all the models and books they are constantly releasing? The fact is, most people educated in the facts (myself included) have some degree of contempt for GWs silly corporate decisions, high prices, and lawsuits, but that isn't part of the hobby, thats corporate business. Why does that have to play a part in your decision making? Are you one of these weird commune living fethers who sports a beard, lives in a wigwam, and only buys fair trade and mercilessly studies the background of every company you occasionally buy from?

If you look past your fixation with the behind the scenes, every release that they have made can be called positive, because it has saw some excellent models enter the hobby, starting with DE and moving all the way to the present, Eldar, DA, Chaos, Tau, if you remove your strange distaste for everything two tiers above the hobby from the equation, they constantly do the same positive things any gaming company does, making and sculpting models and books.

The vast majority of people that play 40k (myself included) liked plenty of their lizardmen models even if they don't play them, and are looking forward to the new Space Marine codex.

If you have a bizarre loathing for a PLC that you don't own stock in, and a team of developers and painters and sculptors that you have never met, and don't know, because you have to toss them all under the umbrella of "evil" then I suggest you stop buying pretty much anything and everything. Apple, Starbucks, McDonalds, what is left to buy from if you apply such a ridiculously high bar?


What I recommend you do however, is get over yourself, and buy things you like for the sheer joy of wanting them, and having enough cash in your arse pocket. Regardless of the fact that you heard a rumor that the company is question has a sweat shop in Peru, buys beef from governments hostile to US interests, or tries to avoid paying their taxes.

For a shorter response, read something by MGS, who rightly pointed out that having distaste for everything suit, doesn't mean you have to deprive yourself of something you enjoy.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
I

We also dislike the "white knight" posters who claim nothing GW does is ever bad, argue against things that were never even said, and generally make a nuisance of themselves.

Are there any people who actually claim that nothing GW does is ever bad?

The 'white knights' as some people tend to call them, often tend to point out that GW are a Plc, a commercial company who make decisions for commercial reasons, not all of which we like, and that it doesn't help to react emotionally. Yet simple arguments such as those seem to stimulate real anger and hate, charges of hypocrisy, or claims that they're "white knights who claim nothing GW is ever bad."

This often reminds me of a glass half full, glass half empty argument. I would argue the glass is half full - I can understand people arguing it's half empty, but there are a fair few people who argue, "the glass is totally empty, man, I read it in a post on the internet, so stop being a white knight!"

In fairness to dakkadakka, when I've been buying cameras I've noticed there are camera forums where photographers think they know better how to run a company than Canon or Leica, and get all irate. There are probably a thousand similar examples.

 Kroothawk wrote:

 Grot 6 wrote:
What have they done lately that has been or can currently be called positive?

They cancelled free gaming in GW stores. This is great news!

And - in all affection, kroothawk, because I love your modelling and your news updates - the "Haters" tend to keep repeating the same information that's simply wrong. We've been in around 10 stores in the last six months, every last one allows gaming, Curtis has spent days in shops like Truro or Bluewater, entertianment for free, and in threads on this subject, I've only seen the name of Derby, where gaming no longer takes place. You must surely know this, yet you repeat the same misleading, outdated "facts".

And the fact that "haters" think the ancient meme about "this is great news" is still a withering put down... well, as we said, some of those arguments are tired.




.

Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:

Are there any people who actually claim that nothing GW does is ever bad?

Maybe not everything, but there certainly are ones that claim that prices have gone down (because you no longer need to buy your plasma gun, heavy bolter and sergeant as separate metal blisters, they seem to ignore all the direct product to identical product comparisons that have gone up over 100%).



@ mattyrm: Yes, pretty much every company is going to be doing things people don't like, but there is a difference between making your products in a sweatshop in china and hiding that fact while your marketing department go on about how you donated $5 to charity and insulting your customers on facebook.

 mattyrm wrote:

If you look past your fixation with the behind the scenes, every release that they have made can be called positive, because it has saw some excellent models enter the hobby

On the other side of the coin those same releases can also be called a negative. Most obviously due to steadily increasing prices. On the rules front there have been some significant problems with the main rules over recent years. 40K's flyer fixation for instance can't be seen in a positive light, just like 5th ed's transport fixation. Additionally GW have never been able to produce a properly balanced ruleset, seemingly on purpose. They can't even manage to get the internal balance right.

GW does still produce some quality products, notably miniatures, but they fall short of the quality line too often and they have too many systemic problems for me to sing their praises anymore.

This forum is pro GW, it is after all set up specifically to cater for Wargamers with a focus on GW games. Virtually every Dakkanaut will play with GW toy soldiersto some degree. I bought my first GW model when I was 8, I am now 34 and I have spent literally thousands of pounds over the years on GW toys, surely I am entitled to voice my disquiet over the direction of GW's products and its questionable practices on a forum all but dedicated to GW without being mindlessly labelled a 'hater'?

 Grot 6 wrote:

xxvaderxx wrote:
I mean, i am not going to take sides on this particular post, but it is clear that the majority of Dakka dakka has a negative opinion on GW, so my question is, is there a forum where it is the opposite?.

What have they done lately that has been or can currently be called positive?

Its a matter of perspective.

Releasing new 40k rules books + supplements every month = ridiculously expensive if you buy them all.
Finally having a plan to get all the armies in 40k up to date *in the same edition* = priceless.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:
I've only seen the name of Derby, where gaming no longer takes place.

I'd like to add Milton Keynes to that. We asked if we could have a game there and were told a flat no. I think their table is for demo games only.

PredaKhaine wrote:


I'd like to add Milton Keynes to that. We asked if we could have a game there and were told a flat no. I think their table is for demo games only.

Thanks for the extra info. It is of course stupid and annoying that a few stores don't allow gaming. But the facts suggest the majority do - even though it's frequently claimed here that gaming is "banned".

It's also worth pointing out that the much-discussed "ban", actually referred to a change of policy from open games, where you turn up with a mate (still allowed in many/most places), to organised leagues, theme games etc. So Kings Lynn, one of the first stores to attract publicity, still has regular gaming - and even Milton Keynes and Derby have, surprise surprise, gaming events.

I mention this not to assert that GW are wonderful - merely that some of the assertions repeated on here are internet gossip that doesn't hold up.

.

I'm in complete agreement.
Every GW I've physically been to has had gaming

What most people I know seem to be complaining about is that the stores went to 1 man stores which led to gaming cutbacks - For example, this closed our local GW's gaming room and all the after 6pm gaming.
I've not been in to game since as I work. Unless I go on the weekend - when all GW's are perceived to be 'full of kids'. Which is apparently a fate worse than death to some 40kers.
I've been gaming in GW on saturdays every now and then and tbh - its been fine

 mattyrm wrote:

 Grot 6 wrote:

xxvaderxx wrote:
I mean, i am not going to take sides on this particular post, but it is clear that the majority of Dakka dakka has a negative opinion on GW, so my question is, is there a forum where it is the opposite?.

What have they done lately that has been or can currently be called positive?

You are one of the small minority of people that part of the blokes problem, why are you even bothering to post in here?

As far as your "question" goes, why not just look at all the models and books they are constantly releasing? The fact is, most people educated in the facts (myself included) have some degree of contempt for GWs silly corporate decisions, high prices, and lawsuits, but that isn't part of the hobby, thats corporate business. Why does that have to play a part in your decision making? Are you one of these weird commune living fethers who sports a beard, lives in a wigwam, and only buys fair trade and mercilessly studies the background of every company you occasionally buy from?

If you look past your fixation with the behind the scenes, every release that they have made can be called positive, because it has saw some excellent models enter the hobby, starting with DE and moving all the way to the present, Eldar, DA, Chaos, Tau, if you remove your strange distaste for everything two tiers above the hobby from the equation, they constantly do the same positive things any gaming company does, making and sculpting models and books.

The vast majority of people that play 40k (myself included) liked plenty of their lizardmen models even if they don't play them, and are looking forward to the new Space Marine codex.

If you have a bizarre loathing for a PLC that you don't own stock in, and a team of developers and painters and sculptors that you have never met, and don't know, because you have to toss them all under the umbrella of "evil" then I suggest you stop buying pretty much anything and everything. Apple, Starbucks, McDonalds, what is left to buy from if you apply such a ridiculously high bar?


What I recommend you do however, is get over yourself, and buy things you like for the sheer joy of wanting them, and having enough cash in your arse pocket. Regardless of the fact that you heard a rumor that the company is question has a sweat shop in Peru, buys beef from governments hostile to US interests, or tries to avoid paying their taxes.

For a shorter response, read something by MGS, who rightly pointed out that having distaste for everything suit, doesn't mean you have to deprive yourself of something you enjoy.

Wow. Want to post a few paragraphs about Union conspiracies, vegetarians, and demand the person you're quoting get a haircut as well?

It can be difficult to post a statement about GW news that doesn't sound like a complaint.

How I see it is a few things in this: There are few groups instead of the two suggested.

First one, is as the OP stated kind of, it the ones that are overtly negative about Games Workshop. This is the minority of sorts, part in due to GW still kind of having a monopoly on the Miniature Wargaming market, although not being 'The Hobby' solely by itself.

Then, There is the GW whiteknights, which I see as a minority as well, even more so than the group above. Reason being to me is that GW seemed to upset a lot of people over the years, but there are some still around that wholeheartedly cannot leave they know, love and still play to this very day, and outright bash anyone who plays any other game (Not trying to piss off anyone, but that can go for any fanboy, be it PP or Corvus Belli).

Then there are some who are Neutral towards GW, who only just see it as a business that is trying to make itself money, like any other business out there (which is part of the main concept of Capitalism, the next main part being how the consumer values what he/she potentially wants to buy, and if he is willing to buy said product from business. This is more or less as Two sentence explanation, so not the best. Now back on topic....). This seems to be the majority of Dakka Dakka, who can range from people buying and playing GW games, people who do not, or they can both play those games. This might be a broad explanation of it, so take what I have said with a bit of a grain of salt.

Although I tend to have a nihilistic view towards GW, maybe Miniature Wargaming in general I think. I buy and play what interest me, and if I do not view that company intriguing me, I do not buy, pure and simple, so I do not buy GW. Then again, once you view it as yourself playing with your toy soldiers playing against others with their toy soldiers, I guess that is the viewpoint that comes out. Not trying to piss anyone off, I thought I throw my two-cents in.

 mattyrm wrote:
As far as your "question" goes, why not just look at all the models and books they are constantly releasing?

I do, and they've been consistently disappointing. Let's go back and look at those new releases:

C:SM: already looks disappointing. The big new kit looks stupid, the restrictions on mixing chapters/characters ruins existing armies, and there isn't really anything to get excited about.

Apocalypse: complete disappointment. The rules were garbage, the new models were garbage, and we introduced the unbelievable stupidity of limited-edition templates that you need to play the game.

Eldar: complete disappointment. The new big kit is underwhelming and the badly needed update to replace the finecast infantry kits didn't happen. And of course the supplement was a joke.

Tau: average. Rules were improved overall (though still had their stupid parts, like nerfing the tanks), but that wasn't too hard given how old the codex was. Models were mixed, the new plastic pathfinders are great, but the flyers look like a last-second mess thrown together so the designers could get to work on the next project.

DA: complete disappointment. Models range from mediocre (all the over-decorated infantry) to utterly stupid (the flyers and new land speeder), rules weren't all that impressive.


So yeah, I don't really see GW's latest releases as anything to praise, especially considering how prices keep going up and up.

The fact is, most people educated in the facts (myself included) have some degree of contempt for GWs silly corporate decisions, high prices, and lawsuits, but that isn't part of the hobby, thats corporate business. Why does that have to play a part in your decision making? Are you one of these weird commune living fethers who sports a beard, lives in a wigwam, and only buys fair trade and mercilessly studies the background of every company you occasionally buy from?

The difference is that, unlike most companies we buy from, we actually have a stake in GW's continued success. If the grocery store I go to goes out of business I don't care, the biggest potential impact on me would be having to drive a few minutes extra to go somewhere else until a new chain takes over the building. If they raise their prices enough to notice I'll just go somewhere cheaper. If GW runs 40k into the ground, like they seem determined to do, I can't replace it.

To answer the OP's question I have found this place much better once I started ignoring individuals that I perceived as "bitchers for the sake of bitching"

So there are a bunch of people who complain, and have legitimate complaints. Then there are those who will do nothing but complain about the same old thing over and over and over again.

"Wahh prices have gone up" If it is not worth the money don't buy it. If it is worth the money buy it. If it is not worth the money and you are still buying it you are an idiot(and worth goes beyond just monetary value) Capitalism 101

Edit: Now if this was something that was essential to your ability to live(or relatively essential), then I would expect complaining while still buying at inflated prices. For example things like Gas, or Internet. Technically most people could get by without them but I know I need them both for my job. So even though it gets expensive I still pay it. Then there are the essentials such as food and water(and until I learn to become a outdoor survivalist, electricity) that also fall into this bubble where you kind of have to pay the price and so can grumble about it. But for luxuries where you have a plethora of options on what you want to buy........YEEEAAAA.

"Wahhh I don't like the way X looks" If it is not worth the money don't buy it, we are in a game that encourages conversion and personalization

"Wahhh when there are rules changes my stuff is not as good as it was before" No gak......

Edit: "Waaahhh The company I don't buy from anymore is doing something I don't like" Well no gak, why would they care what you like? You are no longer a customer/said you are not going to buy anything anymore, thus as far as they are concerned your opinion does not matter.

Edit: "Waaaahhh they new models look like they are designed for kids" .....Have you looked at the setting we are playing in......Look at a second edition book and come talk to me about silly again, they had guys rocking out on guitars

I could go on. When it happens, or heck even a few weeks afterwards it is perfectly reasonable to complain about it then. But after that it gets pretty annoying hearing the same arguments over and over again. Now if it is in a thread dedicated to that? Sure, but when it spills over into everything else is where the problem starts, good or bad.

"What do you think of my Assault Marine?"
"Yea its a pity GW made them such crap, you will never get to use it"
"......But how does it look..."
"You really should have used Vallejo paints GW are too expensive for what you get"
".....But how does it look...."
"You should drop your entire army and get this one because your unit has a 10% less efficiency rate than this one"
".....But I like this army and the way it looks"
"FLUFF BUNNY"

and this is before the GW positive people show up... not an actual conversation that has occurred, but you get the jist.

Edit: For me personally does GW do somethings that I dont like. Sure, but I love the game that they produce so I let it slide. Now if that is not the case for you? No problem, then again I am also working on focusing on the positive side of things, and for me there is plenty of that

PredaKhaine wrote:

Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:
I've only seen the name of Derby, where gaming no longer takes place.

I'd like to add Milton Keynes to that. We asked if we could have a game there and were told a flat no. I think their table is for demo games only.

Barnstaple haven't banned open gaming as such, but you do need to book a table, and open gaming on a Thursday afternoon/evening has been stopped, which I know has effectively taken away some people's chance to game.

Don't play there, but some of my gaming buddies do.

The negative feelings that a portion of the community have were not created in a void, it is merely a reflection back from the former fans who have been negatively treated by a company they have invested countless dollars and hours into.

 Peregrine wrote:


C:SM: already looks disappointing. The big new kit looks stupid, the restrictions on mixing chapters/characters ruins existing armies, and there isn't really anything to get excited about.

In your minority, obviously predetermined opinion, you forget Ive been reading your posts for 2 years, how can you expect me to take you seriously?

For every person like you, there seems to be plenty more saying "I want to buy X" and "I am looking forward to playing (insert chapter) again.

The point is, something like "do the models look good?" is a silly question, because it is subjective. I personally think the Centurions look fething stupid, but there is no right answer, I can't make an "I am right, you are wrong" argument with someone who disagrees about such a thing, its not like arguing about the capital of Poland or the square root of a number.

But the whole point of my post, which you and several (famous for endlessly slating anything and everything GW past the point of logic) others have failed to grasp, is that "they have contributed nothing positive" is flat out ridiculous thing to say, and anybody who is either remotely impartial, or has half a brain, knows it.

If the aim of a wargaming company is to contribute to wargaming, then GW have absolutely and positively done so in the past 12 months. Even if you personally "think" every single model they released in the last year totally sucked (you are entitled to your ridiculous opinion obviously) and all of their books were "stupid" they have released numerous books, models, and games systems in the past year, ergo, they have contributed positively to the market in some way, even if all they achieved was getting a few hundred people to start playing other games systems out of interest, and we both know they didn't, they sell literally millions of dollars worth of product.

I shouldn't even need to explain this gak, I know it, and you know it, but you are fixing for an argument because you don't see sense on the issue.

And I sit squarely with MGS on the issue, I actively dislike GW corporate, I have tried and succeeded to mitigate my spending in the last 2 years as a result, to the point that I bought a Mantic army, and only dropped maybe $100 on GW the last year (one half of DV.) I find their advertising policy ridiculous, their legal trifles laughable, and their CEO obviously has the charisma of a rattlesnake, and YET, I feel the urge to defend them,! Despite my lengthy list of misgivings, because the stupid gak that grown men on this website say, makes me utterly embarrassed to be involved in the wargaming community.

I could understand if the most vitriolic haters were teenagers, but some of you fethers are in your thirties man...

If you actually read most of the GW-hate posts, you'll find that quite often they have no real reasons: "omgzors a helldrake killed 2 tactical squads in 1 turn!!! This game is so broken" -> (keeps playing/buying 40k)

What those threads always turn into is: Why should I play GW when there are better systems out there? Then it takes about 20 posts before we yet again come to the conclusions that GW doesn't design games for competitive play. You stick around for the fluff, models, casual play, and large community/player base.

Then people complain about price.... to which we tell these complainers - you have options: quit, use 3rd party models, or buy from FLGS with discounts.

It may look like there is a lot of hate for GW online, but it is really just these issues being brought up repeatedly. It is always like this online for anything though - when people are mad they feel as though they need to be heard. Happy people are too busy gaming, painting, and building to be bothered logging in and making "I love GW" posts.

xxvaderxx wrote:
I mean, i am not going to take sides on this particular post, but it is clear that the majority of Dakka dakka has a negative opinion on GW, so my question is, is there a forum where it is the opposite?.

The only site i know of is www.games-workshop.com

I do not hate GW. Do I think their prices are high? Yes, of course. But I have become very resourceful in getting great deals, on here, eBay, and locally. You personally can't change the high prices, so why focus so much on it? What I can control is where I buy and how much I am willing to spend.

It depends where on Dakka you are reading. In the tactics, list, painting, and usually 40k forums people don't really bash GW. These forums tend to have pretty positive discussions.

The GW negativity is mostly located in Dakka discussions and News & Rumors. This is because this is where discussion of GW's policies and decisions comes up. GW makes a lot of controversial decisions that are often frustrating to their fans. Almost everyone, even the biggest of fans, disagrees with at least something GW does. In forums where these topics are discussed you will almost always have people complaining about it.


Either stick to the specific forums like painting and modeling or try other forums. Pretty much anywhere you go you will find GW negativity if there is any forum or place to talk about their business practices. It's just the way it is.

OP: is there a site with a positive view?

That would be requesting a non-critical view of their product.

If you ONLY look at the fluff I think most would be very happy.

If you review a shareholder site they would be quite happy.

Anyone as a new customer may be fine, the rest of us remembering the "good old days" have that contrast so may be more critical.

I really look at Dakka with the view of we know what they COULD do to make the hobby better as fans/customers but it is a bit at odds with a corporation viewpoint of make money and not give freebies away.

So really, to what purpose if you find a more positive site? We are drawn to the darker backdrop of the GW IP so we are a more "grim/dark" kind of people.

Feel free to find the land of unicorns and rainbows, it has it's place (just nowhere near me...)

 gossipmeng wrote:
Happy people are too busy gaming, painting, and building to be bothered logging in and making "I love GW" posts.

While I agree with most of what you've said, I just wanted to highlight this part.

I'm sure you're right in the majority of cases, but, personally speaking, I've been using Dakka for a few years now, to the extent that while I wouldn't count anyone here as a friend in the truest sense (although there's one or two characters I'd like to meet and change that) the community as a whole has become a part of the fabric of my day to day life.

Consequently, if I have a positive wargaming experience I'm as likely to share it as a negative one, just like I share stuff with my friends and family (only, you know, more wargamery) I wouldn't necessarily start a new thread, but it would definitely come out in my posts somewhere.

For instance, I saw Dark Hammer Miniatures Blood Tyrant finished in their thread in N+R last night. That was a squee moment right there, now I'm sharing it!

 gossipmeng wrote:
It may look like there is a lot of hate for GW online, but it is really just these issues being brought up repeatedly. It is always like this online for anything though - when people are mad they feel as though they need to be heard. Happy people are too busy gaming, painting, and building to be bothered logging in and making "I love GW" posts.

If you look at other company's forums pages, or forums focused on them, you'll find that that's not the case. Infinity forums have a fair amount of gushing and use of nice-natured emoticons..

There is a causal relationship between the actions a company takes and the reception those actions generate, obviously, but where we differ is how much each of these things affect us personally. I was overseas, living in a country with no games stores, when GW brought in its ban on international sales of its products. Of course that gave me reason to complain.. but, someone sat at home in the UK could just shrug and say 'so what?' while they rip the wrapping off their latest GW purchase, and their opinion is just as valid (although you could argue perhaps a little selfish). Lot's of other business decisions made by GW could be viewed in the same way, and perhaps the key is that companies with a better perception generally will have made less of these 'moves'.

Think of the griping as the same as giving your friend a slap on the back and say "Hey, you were more fun than this, what is wrong? Can I help?"

GW does not want our help so we just sit here confused and hope it all works out.

 mattyrm wrote:
If the aim of a wargaming company is to contribute to wargaming, then GW have absolutely and positively done so in the past 12 months.

The apparent rapid reduction of 40K players in many areas since the arrival of 6th edition would seem to suggest otherwise. Releasing bunches of stuff is not a positive contribution to wargaming if the end result of you releasing that stuff is people abandoning your brand in droves.

Some of those players will turn to other games (I've just rediscovered the joy of Warmachine, and am rather happy about it), which is certainly good for the companies that produce those games, and the people who play them... others will simply turn to other hobbies, because right now there are no other games that fill the exact same niche as 40K does. And that's not so good.

A positive contribution to wargaming is one that gets people excited about wargaming. Not one that makes people stop and wonder just what the hell they've been doing throwing money at this company for all these years, and deciding it's time to go fishing instead.

 Talizvar wrote:
Think of the griping as the same as giving your friend a slap on the back and say "Hey, you were more fun than this, what is wrong? Can I help?"

GW does not want our help so we just sit here confused and hope it all works out.

Or... the relationship is old, you're bored with your girlfriend, and tell her: "It's not me.. it's you!"

The majority is usually silent on most issues. Take the number of members look at the number who post negatively and do the math.

Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:

 Talizvar wrote:
Think of the griping as the same as giving your friend a slap on the back and say "Hey, you were more fun than this, what is wrong? Can I help?"

GW does not want our help so we just sit here confused and hope it all works out.

Or... the relationship is old, you're bored with your girlfriend, and tell her: "It's not me.. it's you!"

I'll get splinters in my bum here and say that the truth is probably somewhere in-between both of these perspectives..

Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:
Or... the relationship is old, you're bored with your girlfriend, and tell her: "It's not me.. it's you!"

Scary:
Taking my disposable income.
Going out on disappointing dates.
Demanding more of my money.
Mercurial in nature: can never tell where her next interest will be.
Hoping that changing her clothes (packaging) interest would be sparked again.
Her parents trump my needs (shareholders).
Decreased the number of "services" I used to get.
Keeps adding expensive surface "upgrades" to herself to keep my interest and money.
Falls into old habits and feels no need to talk things out.

Darn it, you have reduced this relationship to "Gold Digger".

I think Dakka is far from "anti GW".

The site wouldn't likely exist if GW and it's games didn't.

The problem with ALL forums, is that complaints ring louder than compliments. And it only takes a vocal minority to make those complaints loud.

A common phrase in any industry that deals with the public:

A satisfied customer will tell a single person about their positive experience at a business.
A dissatisfied customer will tell at least 5 people about their negative experience at a business.

It's in our nature to spread the word about a bad experience, possibly as a subconscious effort to warn people away from the same experience.

I love GW's products(at least most of them), and while their rules are far from perfect, they work well enough to have a fun time. My only real problems with them stem almost entirely with their management style and decisions.

And generally that is all you'll ever hear me complain about in regards to GW.

TMP is very positive of GW [sarcasm]

 curran12 wrote:
It's a bit of an echo chamber effect.

I'd wager that most folks here are, at the very least, neutral to GW. The problem is that the loudest and most vocal people tend to color the atmosphere, and those vocal people are more vehemently anti-GW.

The same is true for Matt Smith/Steven Moffat/Doctor Who season 6 haters. Man, those guys get so mad over a kids' TV show that it's kinda scary.

Back OT, I don't hate GW, I hate the corporate wankery and greed that's keeping GW from fulfilling it's potential and fully serving the customers. I want them to do well and to keep making excellent games and models for years and years to come, so I get pretty annoyed when they shoot themselves in the foot for the umpteenth time.

~Tim?

 mattyrm wrote:

 Grot 6 wrote:

xxvaderxx wrote:
I mean, i am not going to take sides on this particular post, but it is clear that the majority of Dakka dakka has a negative opinion on GW, so my question is, is there a forum where it is the opposite?.

What have they done lately that has been or can currently be called positive?

You are one of the small minority of people that part of the blokes problem, why are you even bothering to post in here?

As far as your "question" goes, why not just look at all the models and books they are constantly releasing? The fact is, most people educated in the facts (myself included) have some degree of contempt for GWs silly corporate decisions, high prices, and lawsuits, but that isn't part of the hobby, thats corporate business. Why does that have to play a part in your decision making? Are you one of these weird commune living fethers who sports a beard, lives in a wigwam, and only buys fair trade and mercilessly studies the background of every company you occasionally buy from?

If you look past your fixation with the behind the scenes, every release that they have made can be called positive, because it has saw some excellent models enter the hobby, starting with DE and moving all the way to the present, Eldar, DA, Chaos, Tau, if you remove your strange distaste for everything two tiers above the hobby from the equation, they constantly do the same positive things any gaming company does, making and sculpting models and books.

The vast majority of people that play 40k (myself included) liked plenty of their lizardmen models even if they don't play them, and are looking forward to the new Space Marine codex.

If you have a bizarre loathing for a PLC that you don't own stock in, and a team of developers and painters and sculptors that you have never met, and don't know, because you have to toss them all under the umbrella of "evil" then I suggest you stop buying pretty much anything and everything. Apple, Starbucks, McDonalds, what is left to buy from if you apply such a ridiculously high bar?


What I recommend you do however, is get over yourself, and buy things you like for the sheer joy of wanting them, and having enough cash in your arse pocket. Regardless of the fact that you heard a rumor that the company is question has a sweat shop in Peru, buys beef from governments hostile to US interests, or tries to avoid paying their taxes.

For a shorter response, read something by MGS, who rightly pointed out that having distaste for everything suit, doesn't mean you have to deprive yourself of something you enjoy.

You mad, Bro?

I'm still waiting on that positive, chuckie. I need your veiled insults like another hole in my head.

 Grot 6 wrote:


You mad, Bro?

I'm still waiting on that positive, chuckie. I need your veiled insults like another hole in my head.

I gave you plenty of positives, read the post again. Everyone without an agenda can see what is right there in front of their face.

And I'm not mad at all, because I have huge distaste for a great many things GW do, I'm not a shareholder, I hate thier litigious attitude, I find their idea of advertising baffling, some of their models are awful, and from what little I know of him, I'm about as fond of Mr Kirby as I would be of finding a rattlesnake in my boot.

I'm just embarrassed for you thats all. I find your posts cringeworthy to the point that I actually cower a little when I read them. Its like watching the male Shakira perform on TV, or seeing a hairy, male, 30 year old television presenter on the Disney channel sing songs in a high pitched voice and dance for children.

I've never been able to watch cringeworthy comedy.. and In that vein I think you should start acting your age, and say something like "Yes matty, you are quite correct, GW might be awful on a corporate level, but that doesn't mean I have to take it personally to the point of being utterly illogical, and I can happily concede that a few of their models look quite good"

 Some_Call_Me_Tim? wrote:
The same is true for Matt Smith/Steven Moffat/Doctor Who season 6 haters. Man, those guys get so mad over a kids' TV show that it's kinda scary.

You've misunderstood Doctor Who if you think it's intended to be a kid's show...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 mattyrm wrote:
I've never been able to watch cringeworthy comedy.. and In that vein I think you should start acting your age, and say something like "Yes matty, you are quite correct, GW might be awful on a corporate level, but that doesn't mean I have to take it personally to the point of being utterly illogical, and I can happily concede that a few of their models look quite good"

Thus perfectly illustrating a large part of the problem suffered on pretty much any forum - The 'If you don't think the way I do, you're being illogical/childish/just a hater' effect in action. Never was there a more misbegoten phrase than 'act your age'. What does that even mean?

We're all here because we enjoy playing with toy soldiers.




If more people could just accept that sometimes other people have a different opinion, or a different outlook on life, we'd all be one step closer to just getting along...

Of course!

 insaniak wrote:
We're all here because we enjoy playing with toy soldiers. If more people could just accept that sometimes other people have a different opinion, or a different outlook on life, we'd all be one step closer to just getting along...

Oh come on, I would happily hold my hands up if there was even a remote chance of their being some failure to communicate on my part, or even some sort of "different outlook" but we are dealing with a black and white here. In fact, you said it very well yourself.

 insaniak wrote:

And some, for some inexplicable reason, can not separate the game from the company... Liking 40k or WHFB, and being interested in discussing them, are not directly related... And neither is automatically directly related to a like or dislike of GW.

Well said indeed, I agree entirely with you and MGS, on all counts by the way. This quote right here however...

 Grot 6 wrote:
What have they done lately that has been or can currently be called positive?

Is, entirely absurd, and it needs to be pointed out when grown men behave in a truly ridiculous matter. If he was talking about the capital of France he would be insisting it was Reykjavik, If we were discussing 9/11, it would have been Freemason affiliated Muslim Ninjas planting bombs under cover of darkness. If we were talking about the banks, it would be snake people and martians.

There is nothing even remotely sensible about what was said, you, and MGS, and I have all pointed out that you can have distaste for a company but concede that you like a model, or enjoy a book. But to sit there and say that the worlds biggest wargaming company has done nothing positive at all for the hobby, when they are constantly releasing product that is popular, and even if you hate half of their range, sometimes pleasing to look upon, is flat out, wacky.

I don't see why its insulting at all to say "mate, step back and think about what you are saying" is it? Or for the sake of "getting along" do we have to tolerate madness? Honestly, that seems to be the case in this day and age, and its truly ridiculous.

It seems we are only allowed to respond to ridiculous gak nowadays if it is in response to white supremacy and anti-semitism.

 mattyrm wrote:

 Grot 6 wrote:


You mad, Bro?

I'm still waiting on that positive, chuckie. I need your veiled insults like another hole in my head.

I gave you plenty of positives, read the post again. Everyone without an agenda can see what is right there in front of their face.

And I'm not mad at all, because I have huge distaste for a great many things GW do, I'm not a shareholder, I hate thier litigious attitude, I find their idea of advertising baffling, some of their models are awful, and from what little I know of him, I'm about as fond of Mr Kirby as I would be of finding a rattlesnake in my boot.

I'm just embarrassed for you thats all. I find your posts cringeworthy to the point that I actually cower a little when I read them. Its like watching the male Shakira perform on TV, or seeing a hairy, male, 30 year old television presenter on the Disney channel sing songs in a high pitched voice and dance for children.

I've never been able to watch cringeworthy comedy.. and In that vein I think you should start acting your age, and say something like "Yes matty, you are quite correct, GW might be awful on a corporate level, but that doesn't mean I have to take it personally to the point of being utterly illogical, and I can happily concede that a few of their models look quite good"

Whatever.

I posted a pretty legitimate question, you came back and continue to do so with condescending gak.

Those "New" models? they're gak. The new range of Finecast? yeah, You think they have improved? Feth no-that stuff is still as craptastic as ever?

As long as your entertained though, keep on keeping on. Great insults, by the way, all because I ask "What have they done that is positive lately?"

Thanks.

And for what its worth, I like the chaos cultists. I picked up two squads of them, and the crazy Nurgle champion from fantasy and modeled him up for 40K. I stepped back after almost getting killed for some dumb gak and reevaluated some of the things in my life. You want to be a flaming D Bag, go right ahead, I won't stop you. I ended up saying gak it, and went in because they were the closest shop near the school and I said feth it, and gathered up the courage to step back into a GW shop or two over a trip I had and was pleasantly surprised. I went in expecting to get into it with a knock down drag out with the blueshirts, and instead had a pretty good experience with the first of the stores enough that it softenedmy opinion of the stores themselves. Not to be a regular customer, but enough to know that the stuff is still as expensive as hell and in small doses it is palatable. Two different stores in two different locations. The owners were cool.

I actually gave them a nice write up and went back into the second one a couple more times. Not just because of GW themselves, but because the two completely different shop owners were cool. They didn't just have to rely on the blind antics like your showing here, they were good people and liked models and gaming.

 Grot 6 wrote:


And for what its worth, I like the chaos cultists. I picked up two squads of them, and the crazy Nurgle champion from fantasy and modeled him up for 40K

There you go. So they contributed "something" positive right?

Anyway, yeah I seem to have wound you up, so I will happily apologise if you have been having a rough time, I genuinely don't mean to sound like a grade A douche, I was simply saying, it was a silly thing to say.

I do have a somewhat brusque manner, I always have done, but don't take it personally or think i'm a proper penis, because I'm not, and as I said, I agree with you on a great many points, I just think you should criticisze when its valid, and praise when its due. Fairs fair right?

Anyways, sorry if your pissed mate, Its not my intention to give a bloek gak if hes having a rough time.

 mattyrm wrote:
Is, entirely absurd, and it needs to be pointed out when grown men behave in a truly ridiculous matter.

Does it? I don't recall seeing that instruction in the 'How to act like a grown-up' manual.

I don't see why its insulting at all to say "mate, step back and think about what you are saying" is it?

No, that wouldn't be insulting.

Telling someone to 'act their age', however, is an entirely different kettle of squig.

 mattyrm wrote:

 Grot 6 wrote:


And for what its worth, I like the chaos cultists. I picked up two squads of them, and the crazy Nurgle champion from fantasy and modeled him up for 40K

There you go. So they contributed "something" positive right?

Anyway, yeah I seem to have wound you up, so I will happily apologise if you have been having a rough time, I genuinely don't mean to sound like a grade A douche, I was simply saying, it was a silly thing to say.

I do have a somewhat brusque manner, I always have done, but don't take it personally or think i'm a proper penis, because I'm not, and as I said, I agree with you on a great many points, I just think you should criticisze when its valid, and praise when its due. Fairs fair right?

Anyways, sorry if your pissed mate, Its not my intention to give a bloek gak if hes having a rough time.

You don't get to make that call mate!

The better questions is:
"Is there a site where grown-ups are actually allowed to type curse-words?"

Oh, never mind, found it:
http://frothersunite.com/

 Doomsdave wrote:
The better questions is:
"Is there a site where grown-ups are actually allowed to type curse-words?"

Oh, never mind, found it:
http://frothersunite.com/

I may have found a new place to hang out!

 pities2004 wrote:

xxvaderxx wrote:
I mean, i am not going to take sides on this particular post, but it is clear that the majority of Dakka dakka has a negative opinion on GW, so my question is, is there a forum where it is the opposite?.

The only site i know of is www.games-workshop.com

There are apparently facebook pages for individual stores as well that are likely pruned clean of anything but positive views as well as a few GW specific blogs (mainly run by people whose work is published in White Dwarf) that are entirely positive.. and finally there's always the lonely gamer option of replying to their email newsletters...

 Pacific wrote:

 gossipmeng wrote:
It may look like there is a lot of hate for GW online, but it is really just these issues being brought up repeatedly. It is always like this online for anything though - when people are mad they feel as though they need to be heard. Happy people are too busy gaming, painting, and building to be bothered logging in and making "I love GW" posts.

If you look at other company's forums pages, or forums focused on them, you'll find that that's not the case. Infinity forums have a fair amount of gushing and use of nice-natured emoticons..

In many ways, a "feature" of official forums is that as well as a degree of casual fans, they also attract the biggest fans, superfans and sycophants. They also attract a huge proportion of trolls. This either results in something like the old GW boards or the Blizzard forums, or a heavily-moderated or heavy-handed moderation where not only troll posts, but those with more than a smidgeon of negativity or criticism are deleted - like the McVey forums.

Which is why I prefer to post somewhere like here. Fewer extremists from both camps while still allowing a good degree of discourse, discussion, and yes, healthy argument.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Boss GreenNutz wrote:
The majority is usually silent on most issues. Take the number of members look at the number who post negatively and do the math.

A ton of the "members" of any forum aren't actually active at any given time. There's plenty of forums I'm a "member" of but haven't visited in months or years, and may have never posted more than a couple of posts on.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Aerethan wrote:

A satisfied customer will tell a single person about their positive experience at a business.
A dissatisfied customer will tell at least 5 people about their negative experience at a business.
It's in our nature to spread the word about a bad experience, possibly as a subconscious effort to warn people away from the same experience.

I've certainly done that - and not as a subconscious thing. I'm pretty explicit when I do that. I'm not talking about doing it with GW product, either.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grot 6 wrote:

I posted a pretty legitimate question, you came back and continue to do so with condescending gak.

Those "New" models? they're gak. The new range of Finecast? yeah, You think they have improved? Feth no-that stuff is still as craptastic as ever?

As long as your entertained though, keep on keeping on. Great insults, by the way, all because I ask "What have they done that is positive lately?"

Which "new models" are gak? All of them? Because there's been quite a few of them, in, say, the last year. If you're writing them all off as "gak" then I'd suggest that the problem is with your own ability to be objective. I'm no fan of GW corportate or they way they behave/treat their customers, and I don't love every new release model, but to write them all off as "gak" is nothing but silly.

On the 'new models are gak' front I'd like to just add something.

Yes the aesthetics of a model is entirely opinions and no one can outright say they are good or bad from that point of view. Having said that I think that objectively the models have gotten worse with the move to CAD designs rather than hand sculpting and the loss of some of GWs more talented sculptors.

Yes the Dark Vengance cultists are well detailed and (imo) aesthetically pleasing models but they also have some technical problems (the champion's epaulettes and the fact that half of the cultist are just mirror images with different details layered over the top). They aren't alone in that either, plenty of new models seem to be poorer quality from a technical point of view and just come off looking rushed.

Then there are the big kits with huge gaps along the joints because the kit hasn't been built to fit together properly (High Elf Phoenix's wings are big offenders there).

 Azazelx wrote:

 Pacific wrote:

 gossipmeng wrote:
It may look like there is a lot of hate for GW online, but it is really just these issues being brought up repeatedly. It is always like this online for anything though - when people are mad they feel as though they need to be heard. Happy people are too busy gaming, painting, and building to be bothered logging in and making "I love GW" posts.

If you look at other company's forums pages, or forums focused on them, you'll find that that's not the case. Infinity forums have a fair amount of gushing and use of nice-natured emoticons..

In many ways, a "feature" of official forums is that as well as a degree of casual fans, they also attract the biggest fans, superfans and sycophants. They also attract a huge proportion of trolls. This either results in something like the old GW boards or the Blizzard forums, or a heavily-moderated or heavy-handed moderation where not only troll posts, but those with more than a smidgeon of negativity or criticism are deleted - like the McVey forums.

Or GWs facebook before they took it down after suing a no name author for using "space marine".

The GW store pages are just as bad, they delete everything with the slightest bit of negativity or even hinting at a release.

http://www.theindependentcharacters.com

We tend to take a very positive view of 40k and GW. Our community is obviously not as large as Dakka - but we have an active and fun forum.

Definitely BoLS, in terms of the comments section anyway.

 insaniak wrote:
Not one that makes people stop and wonder just what the hell they've been doing throwing money at this company for all these years, and deciding it's time to go fishing instead.

On the whole, I have found fishing to be a substantially better time, and much less expensive.

Every good comment about a GW product usually end with "But...".
"It is a great book, but a shame about the price".
Or, "I love the pose and loadout of the Captain model, but it's Finecast".

So, a lot of positive posts get seen as negative.

 Ouze wrote:

 insaniak wrote:
Not one that makes people stop and wonder just what the hell they've been doing throwing money at this company for all these years, and deciding it's time to go fishing instead.

On the whole, I have found fishing to be a substantially better time, and much less expensive.

anytime where it is socially acceptable to crack a beer and sit around, I'm all for! too bad I can't stand the actual fishing aspect

 Aerethan wrote:
I think Dakka is far from "anti GW".

The site wouldn't likely exist if GW and it's games didn't.

The problem with ALL forums, is that complaints ring louder than compliments. And it only takes a vocal minority to make those complaints loud.

While true, it is also well known that for every customer that bangs the door as he leaves there are at least 2 more that left with out saying anything, and sadly (because i like the game) Fantasy´s and 40K´2 sales volumes decrease over the years (well before 8th and 6th respectively) back that up.

 Skinnereal wrote:
Every good comment about a GW product usually end with "But...".
"It is a great book, but a shame about the price".
Or, "I love the pose and loadout of the Captain model, but it's Finecast".

So, a lot of positive posts get seen as negative.

A critique of the product even in those terms in not negative par say.

The negativity as suggested by the OP's more pervasive and generalised than that. A discussion about a product doesn't necessitate additional Off Topic points about store or company policies but often will.

I'm guessing if the OP could find such a site he might expect to not have to see such Off Topic issues cloud/bore otherwise relevant discourse.

Following the "models have been gak lately":

It is art, so it can be hit or miss = not for everyone.

The comment on the cultists of being mirrors with different layering touched on something for me.

Many hand crafted models would sometimes borrow bits and pieces of other models but since it takes some time manually doing this, considerable thought is applied and it looks great.

With CAD it is easy to mirror, attach objects and array details. It would take a fraction of the time and a fraction of the thought. I wonder if it is an artist or a tech at the helm of the model design.

Could it be that the prior character we liked is getting engineered out? Have John Blanche review and suggest touch-ups before release to mold making?

To get with the topic: again, we are looking at how to make things better not just spout off, I DO think it rather positive. To be dissatisfied with a model is the main drive for conversions so I would hate to be happy with everything!

I'll agree that some of the CAD-designed models are poor, and that it often stand out on monsters and organic, furred creatures. But then again, Trish Morrison has always had mixed results when sculpting monsters in the traditional manner.

See, I'd also say that anyone who thought the multi-part marines released with 40k 3rd edition were good, then they have no business calling the more recent (and about-to-release) sets "gak".

 Azazelx wrote:

See, I'd also say that anyone who thought the multi-part marines released with 40k 3rd edition were good, then they have no business calling the more recent (and about-to-release) sets "gak".

The fact that a set was good 15 years ago doesn't automatically make that same set re-released with extra skulls added on good by today's standards.

The industry has moved in leaps and bounds in the last decade. The common aesthetic has moved toward more life-like scaling and away from the 'heroic' proportions used by companies in the 90s... But GW is a little stuck, because their ranges include a mix of decades-old stuff, old stuff with new details added, and new stuff that has to still fit with the old stuff. New models are hampered by that 20 year old aesthetic, while the rest of the industry is leaving them behind, in model design, game design and material development.

GW are the market leaders still, but only because of inertia. The days of their miniatures being the best on the market are well behind us.

 insaniak wrote:
The industry has moved in leaps and bounds in the last decade. The common aesthetic has moved toward more life-like scaling and away from the 'heroic' proportions used by companies in the 90s... But GW is a little stuck, because their ranges include a mix of decades-old stuff, old stuff with new details added, and new stuff that has to still fit with the old stuff. New models are hampered by that 20 year old aesthetic, while the rest of the industry is leaving them behind, in model design, game design and material development.

Which is specially galling since with the capitalization they have which their competitors by and large lack, they could easily and (comparatively) swiftly announce a transition to such and effect it, and they have apparently chosen to coast instead, by and large.

Neckbeard rage can fill a sub-forum before positivity has even registered an account. Plenty of people in the real world like Games Workshop, no need to get down over it.

xruslanx wrote:
Neckbeard rage can fill a sub-forum before positivity has even registered an account.

I had to exalt this.

xruslanx wrote:
Neckbeard rage can fill a sub-forum before positivity has even registered an account. Plenty of people in the real world like Games Workshop, no need to get down over it.

Neckbeard rage?

I'm sorry, I'm going to have to wipe the blood from my nose again. Reducing all criticisim to simple rage or hate is a silly immature way to show that you haven't really got a counter argument to the criticisims aimed at GW. As does the neckbeard part.

 Imposter101 wrote:

xruslanx wrote:
Neckbeard rage can fill a sub-forum before positivity has even registered an account. Plenty of people in the real world like Games Workshop, no need to get down over it.

Neckbeard rage?

I'm sorry, I'm going to have to wipe the blood from my nose again. Reducing all criticisim to simple rage or hate is a silly immature way to show that you haven't really got a counter argument to the criticisims aimed at GW. As does the neckbeard part.

How people can be so angry over plastic toy soldiers costing £5 more than they think they should, I do not know. There's a difference between a criticism being legitimate, and being important. Your criticisms may all be "legitimate" but realistically, the internal mechanisms of a company you buy for are not *important*.

xruslanx wrote:

 Imposter101 wrote:

xruslanx wrote:
Neckbeard rage can fill a sub-forum before positivity has even registered an account. Plenty of people in the real world like Games Workshop, no need to get down over it.

Neckbeard rage?

I'm sorry, I'm going to have to wipe the blood from my nose again. Reducing all criticisim to simple rage or hate is a silly immature way to show that you haven't really got a counter argument to the criticisims aimed at GW. As does the neckbeard part.

How people can be so angry over plastic toy soldiers costing £5 more than they think they should, I do not know.

Doubt it's really 'anger'. Presumably because they make comparisons with other models, of a similar quality and use.

There's a difference between a criticism being legitimate, and being important. Your criticisms may all be "legitimate" but realistically, the internal mechanisms of a company you buy for are not *important*.

People are allowed to express their opinions, whether they have an effect or they do not, but simply reducing it down to 'anger and hate', isn't really a way to counter it when it's simply not true with a majority of cases.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

xruslanx wrote:

 Imposter101 wrote:

xruslanx wrote:
Neckbeard rage can fill a sub-forum before positivity has even registered an account. Plenty of people in the real world like Games Workshop, no need to get down over it.

Neckbeard rage?

I'm sorry, I'm going to have to wipe the blood from my nose again. Reducing all criticisim to simple rage or hate is a silly immature way to show that you haven't really got a counter argument to the criticisims aimed at GW. As does the neckbeard part.

How people can be so angry over plastic toy soldiers costing £5 more than they think they should, I do not know.

Doubt it's really 'anger'. Presumably because they make comparisons with other models, of a similar quality and use.

There's a difference between a criticism being legitimate, and being important. Your criticisms may all be "legitimate" but realistically, the internal mechanisms of a company you buy for are not *important*.

People are allowed to express their opinions, whether they have an effect or they do not, but simply reducing it down to 'anger and hate', isn't really a way to counter it when it's simply not true with a majority of cases.

The fact that expressing an opinion in an overly pompous and neckbeardy way doesn't strike you as odd? I could write an essay on the syntax of anti-GW rage posts, all across the internet. They broadly share the same sentence structure and casual, slightly formal tone.

I'm only observing patterns, don't get bombastic with righteous fury just because you don't like them.

 Ouze wrote:

 insaniak wrote:
Not one that makes people stop and wonder just what the hell they've been doing throwing money at this company for all these years, and deciding it's time to go fishing instead.

On the whole, I have found fishing to be a substantially better time, and much less expensive.

If you prefer fishing that's fine. But cheaper? REALLY??? Much like any hobby fishing can get very expensive very quickly.

xruslanx wrote:
The fact that expressing an opinion in an overly pompous and neckbeardy way doesn't strike you as odd? I could write an essay on the syntax of anti-GW rage posts, all across the internet. They broadly share the same sentence structure and casual, slightly formal tone.

I'm only observing patterns, don't get bombastic with righteous fury just because you don't like them.

You seem to simply group all the patterns into one single group, them simply reduce the argument to hating GW for no exact reason. I also liked the Righteous Fury bit, it proves my point once again.

 Imposter101 wrote:

xruslanx wrote:
The fact that expressing an opinion in an overly pompous and neckbeardy way doesn't strike you as odd? I could write an essay on the syntax of anti-GW rage posts, all across the internet. They broadly share the same sentence structure and casual, slightly formal tone.

I'm only observing patterns, don't get bombastic with righteous fury just because you don't like them.

You seem to simply group all the patterns into one single group, them simply reduce the argument to hating GW for no exact reason. I also liked the Righteous Fury bit, it proves my point once again.

With so many people taking such a strong dislike to GW, it is only logical to group them all together. This is easy to prove with two simply questions:

a. Why do people dislike Subway?

b.Why do people dislike Tesco?

Question a clearly involves a much smaller group of people than question b, and therefore will have a greater diversity of opinions behind it. Wheras b) can be answered simply (i.e. they're a corporate behemouth that's destroying the high street/everything), a) will be more diverse in answers (don't like the bread, don't like the cheese, don't like the smell, think it's too expensive, don't like the customer service etc). Similarly, the reason there is so much butt-hurt at GW is simple - people don't like the prices. That's all there is to it really.

If you detatch the neckbeard rage and look at GW as an actual customer, there's no real reason to get angry over them. If you talk to actual people, there is no great groundswell of rage, and if you go to a GW they sell rather nice models, not steaming piles of gak.

 Ugavine wrote:

 Ouze wrote:

 insaniak wrote:
Not one that makes people stop and wonder just what the hell they've been doing throwing money at this company for all these years, and deciding it's time to go fishing instead.

On the whole, I have found fishing to be a substantially better time, and much less expensive.

If you prefer fishing that's fine. But cheaper? REALLY??? Much like any hobby fishing can get very expensive very quickly.

It can, or you can just get a cane pole, some yarn, and a needle. Pair of pliers to bend the needle and voila! Just go digging for worms by the bank, and your set.

On topic, I find most of dakkadakka to be fairly positive outside of the news and rumors, and the discussions forums. You just have to get away from the highly critical crowd.

The internet is a place to complain. If there was a forum for people who had won the megamillions jackpot, all they would do is complain about the money.

No one would every say, "I am so thankful for the lottery".

Oh no! People all criticizing the same things! It's almost like a problem exists.

And GW has made sure no fansites exist. Shut down their own forums and sued many others.

There are complaints about what GW does where people who have ZERO experience in running a bussiness can plainly see where GW is alienating customers simply because of the example virtually every other company we know sets. The 'one-click no discount at all and some are even more expensive then the seperate parts making up the bundle' deals are confusing and insulting because real world experience teaches us that this is not the definition of a bundle deal.

There are more examples there of what are essentially underhanded bussiness practices. A company like GW SHOULD be living off a positive image with their customers, but they have been without competition for a long time and they are seemingly growing complacent in keeping their customer base in favor of making quick sales to a crowd that will evaporate as quickly as it materialized.

I do love GW, but I also see there are plenty of problems with their bussiness model that are essentially making GW into an Ourobouros that is eating into its own market share to stay in the black for the short term. People don't need to hate GW to see these problems, its quite the opposite. Most are genuinely concerned taht one day Gw will eat itself al the way from its tail up to its own head and go under.

The thing is, there are plenty of store managers and people that work for GW that are still working their asses off for our hobby. Someone asked before for examples of what GW did right. I'll point at the little things that snuck in under the radar. The snap fit core troop expansion kits that go for what, 10 bucks and let you fill out troop slots quickly are a great thing we have now. all the hard cover books in full colour may cost a premium. But I bought my second Imperial guard codex last week because i wore it to the bone lugging it around in my case that I am pretty sure will not happen to the hard cover book.

The tiny little gamers edition hard cover rule book was made entirely because GW actually listened to what we as gamers want. 6th edition, sure crons are stupidly good die to the flyer rules, but all in all its my opinion that we never had this much intercodex balance in the game before. There are a few units people will bring up till the end of times as examples of how broken the new rules are (Wave serpents, Helldrakes....) but these are all tremendous outliers. Tell me when have we ever seen so many diverse lists of what is deemed tournament level competitive in a single edition before?

In all honesty the last half year i have seen GW make a lot of strides forward over what i consider the deepest they sunk in the end of 5th edition. Not all the changes they have made so far are unilaterally bad. There is a bit of hope to be found to.

NickOnwezen wrote:
The tiny little gamers edition hard cover rule book was made entirely because GW actually listened to what we as gamers want.

I disagree. This is an example of GW's failure to understand their market. We wanted the option to buy the starter set rulebook separately, not an expensive and bulky hardcover book. But instead of providing the product people want to buy GW produced a new book that is worse than the cheaper (at ebay prices) starter rulebook for the sole purpose of being able to sell it at a higher price.

 BlapBlapBlap wrote:
GW website. They're huge fans.

^this.

also, GW used to have forums... used to.

xruslanx wrote:
If you detatch the neckbeard rage and look at GW as an actual customer, there's no real reason to get angry over them.

And if people were actually getting angry, that might be a valid point.

The thing is, the vast majority of criticism isn't born from anger. There's this weird idea online that people who are complaining about something must be all worked up about it, when in reality all they are doing is stating an opinion.

I'm not angry about the current direction of 40K. Just disappointed with various aspects of the game currently, and rather puzzled by the direction that GW corporate have decided to go..

If you talk to actual people, there is no great groundswell of rage, and if you go to a GW they sell rather nice models, not steaming piles of gak.

The people on forums are actual people. But you are correct - there is no groundswell of rage. That's something that you have invented.

What there is is a growing dissatisfaction with GW's business practices and with the standard of their releases.And that's not just online. Tournaments in many areas are seeing much reduced attendance, and more and more gaming clubs are talking about players switching to non-GW systems.

NickOnwezen wrote:
There are complaints about what GW does where people who have ZERO experience in running a bussiness can plainly see where GW is alienating customers simply because of the example virtually every other company we know sets. The 'one-click no discount at all and some are even more expensive then the seperate parts making up the bundle' deals are confusing and insulting because real world experience teaches us that this is not the definition of a bundle deal.

There are more examples there of what are essentially underhanded bussiness practices. A company like GW SHOULD be living off a positive image with their customers, but they have been without competition for a long time and they are seemingly growing complacent in keeping their customer base in favor of making quick sales to a crowd that will evaporate as quickly as it materialized.

But i think statements like this are part of the issue the OP described: going from a reasonable view, that GW like to make money, and are perhaps too short-term in their thinking, to saying they're underhand, some kind of corporate Beelzebub.

There a consensus among some people here that they know how the company should be run. That's a reasonable, subjective view (there are, in corporate history, a couple of occasions where fans have taken over a business and it's prospered, eg Lomo, altho you would certainly be scared by their price increases). But it's not the only view.Yet many people here are convinced it's the only reality, that GW is failing, they read laudatory stories in the press and convince themselves they're negative, then if anyone disagrees they get all upset, call them white knights and fanboys. They simply don't understand that this is not the only view that rational, well-meaning people can have.

So to return to the original topic a little, here's the thing:

You want a more positive forum? The answer is simple: Be Positive.

You won't create a more positive forum by telling those with negative opinions that they should just shut up and go find another hobby, or by belittling their opinion and passing it off as 'neckbeard rage' or 'internet hysteria'. That just gets people's backs up and gets them even more firmly entrenched in their positions.

A forum's tone is set by the people in it, and by the posts they make. A forum doesn't just make itself. It is born from the efforts and opinions of those who choose to be a part of the community.

So if you want a place to discuss your hobby in a positive atmosphere, you need to create that positive atmosphere. Post batreps, post pictures of your models, talk about scenario ideas, point out those things that make you happy to participate in the hobby.

And accept that not everyone will share your opinion. Fighting negativity with negativity, regardless of what physics may tell you, doesn't create a positive environment. It creates an environment where everyone is bickering with everyone else for having the temerity to hold a differing opinion.

Be a positive influence, participate in positive threads, and remind everyone about the positive in their hobby. You can't make the negative go away... but you can drown it out.

 insaniak wrote:

xruslanx wrote:
If you detatch the neckbeard rage and look at GW as an actual customer, there's no real reason to get angry over them.

And if people were actually getting angry, that might be a valid

I don't think this is accurate.

One needn't look far for people who seem to be beside themselves with beard-rage.

This is a hobby.
If it makes me angry I will drop it like a hot rock.
I have thousands invested in this IP.
I have some worry my supply might go out of buisness or produce less product I would want.
I give customer feedback hoping a correction is in the works.
I continue and find I get distracted by other product more than theirs.
No anger, just find it strange that I can get a fully decked out Xwing game with both factions for the price of a small 40k force and have more fun, less rules confusion, no proxies a "superior" product.

yeah that x-wing game looks cool, waiting for it to get more minis

 Monster Rain wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

xruslanx wrote:
If you detatch the neckbeard rage and look at GW as an actual customer, there's no real reason to get angry over them.

And if people were actually getting angry, that might be a valid

I don't think this is accurate.

One needn't look far for people who seem to be beside themselves with beard-rage.

Indeed. There are a few haters on this website that are fully foaming with bearded fury. It's painfully obvious that they take the whole thing far too seriously.

 mattyrm wrote:

 Monster Rain wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

xruslanx wrote:
If you detatch the neckbeard rage and look at GW as an actual customer, there's no real reason to get angry over them.

And if people were actually getting angry, that might be a valid

I don't think this is accurate.

One needn't look far for people who seem to be beside themselves with beard-rage.

Indeed. There are a few haters on this website that are fully foaming with bearded fury. It's painfully obvious that they take the whole thing far too seriously.

Key word being few though.

My barometer is if I agree with some people on some subjects, then can disagree with them in other threads, I'm probably somewhere near the middle.

People occasionally seem to perceive me as being more annoyed/angry/upset than I am though. The truth is I seldom have any emotional involvement in what I'm writing in my posts, but perhaps seem to have emotive language choices.

Unless someone is apparently being wilfully ignorant though, then I do get irritated, but the that happens IRL too!

 azreal13 wrote:

 mattyrm wrote:

 Monster Rain wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

xruslanx wrote:
If you detatch the neckbeard rage and look at GW as an actual customer, there's no real reason to get angry over them.

And if people were actually getting angry, that might be a valid

I don't think this is accurate.

One needn't look far for people who seem to be beside themselves with beard-rage.

Indeed. There are a few haters on this website that are fully foaming with bearded fury. It's painfully obvious that they take the whole thing far too seriously.

Key word being few though.

My barometer is if I agree with some people on some subjects, then can disagree with them in other threads, I'm probably somewhere near the middle.

People occasionally seem to perceive me as being more annoyed/angry/upset than I am though. The truth is I seldom have any emotional involvement in what I'm writing in my posts, but perhaps seem to have emotive language choices.

Unless someone is apparently being wilfully ignorant though, then I do get irritated, but the that happens IRL too!

Oh yeah I agree with you. I reckon I can count on two hands the people I would say have let their hobby affect their sanity. You are a pretty vocal GW critic, but I certainly wouldn't put your posts up there with the wacky ones, feth, I agree with 50% of what you say, and thats my point! Some of the fethers rage at me for saying measured things in GWs defence, and call me a "white knight" despite the fact I spend just as much time slagging them off as praising them.

In fact, probably more. I like.. lets see.. about half of their models, about half of their fluff, and thats it.

I hate, all of their corporate gak, their advertising lunacy, their needless, unfair, incessant law-suits, their fething up of all the specialist games, their whole last edition of fantasy, their mental prices, and the worthless rag that we know as white dwarf, which is so bad I would feel ripped off if I shoplifted a copy.

And yet, say "Oh I like plenty of their models" and some of the freaks on here jump on me like they just caught me tugging Jervis off in their spare room.

Basically mate, a good way to tell if someone needs to start playing connect 4 instead, is if they are always arguing with me, because I am mega squared away and sensible.

Riight.

Thing is, you call me a vocal GW critic, but if I am, I am reluctantly.

I get no joy from putting the boot in, I'm not waiting to jump on the slightest foot wrong.

Its more like the sense of frustration/disappointment you'd feel if you popped out of your office for 10 minutes, only to return to find the promising young work experience lad had set fire to the photocopier and molested the secretary. By accident.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Or possibly the other way round

Azreal I'm pretty sure he just said you aren't one of the lunatic fringe that he's referring to and that he agrees with a lot of your criticisms.

Didn't he just say he was going to set fire to a photo-copier and molest someone?

 Monster Rain wrote:
Azreal I'm pretty sure he just said you aren't one of the lunatic fringe that he's referring to and that he agrees with a lot of your criticisms.

You're correct.

I then replied that if I am critical I am critical reluctantly, not out of a desire to be critical

I then tried to explain in a humorous manner the feeling of frustration I get when GW do something I percieve as daft or counter productive.

Honestly, I'm wasted on you lot.

I thought your post was pretty funny, and I got what you meant about being a reluctant critic.

I understood mate.. but leave the fething funnies to me Az eh?

 Monster Rain wrote:
I don't think this is accurate.

One needn't look far for people who seem to be beside themselves with beard-rage.

'Seem to be' would seem to be the key here.

It's very easy to read the written word and imbue it with more emotion than is actually there. I see very, very little on this site, at least outside of YMDC or OT, that look like people being genuinely angry.

What I do see a lot of is people seeing a post that disagrees with their point of view and just writing it off as mindless 'hating'. Apparently on the internet, it's next to impossible to disagree with someone without being angry about it.


Spend more time responding to the actual words on the page and less time trying to ascribe motives to them, and suddenly the internet becomes a much less confrontational place.

There are posts in this very thread that really couldn't be interpreted any other way than angry.

But you already knew that. Nice straw man though!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 mattyrm wrote:
I understood mate.. but leave the fething funnies to me Az eh?

There may have been some sort of UK conversational subtext that I didn't pick up on.

 Peregrine wrote:

NickOnwezen wrote:
The tiny little gamers edition hard cover rule book was made entirely because GW actually listened to what we as gamers want.

I disagree. This is an example of GW's failure to understand their market. We wanted the option to buy the starter set rulebook separately, not an expensive and bulky hardcover book. But instead of providing the product people want to buy GW produced a new book that is worse than the cheaper (at ebay prices) starter rulebook for the sole purpose of being able to sell it at a higher price.

May I humbly disagree with your disagreeance! In my personal opinion the small hardback book is not much larger then the booklet that comes with dark vengeqance nor much thicker then a codex. They succesfully took the hardback tome that might aswell have the symbol of khorne on its cover to accurately represent its true function, namely crushing the skulls of your opponents when a rules disp[ute comes up. And made a portable, stylish and space saving version of the book with a superior print quality and the resilience of a hardback book. The price tag, like that of the codexes is indeed a bit high for my tastes, but in an edition where they are moving away from softcover books to all hardback codexes this honestly should have been what they included into the dark vengeance set to begin with. I personally stll prefer the larger price tag on codici and this new small hardback rulebook over softcover books that just dont survive the rigors of frequent gaming very well. But I must admit this is me speaking from a standpoint that i feel that a hardcover full colour codex is 3 times the value of the old codici for 1.5* times the price

*(its 26 euros for old soft cover codexes and 39 for the new hard backs so thats 2x13 vs 3x13 and I am not sure how the price ratio's in other currencies are.)

 insaniak wrote:


Spend more time responding to the actual words on the page and less time trying to ascribe motives to them, and suddenly the internet becomes a much less confrontational place.

That is as much of a generalisation as all the ones addressing "haters".

Check out the GW in financial trouble thread for an example. People posting fantasy figures, then shouting " "pull your head out of the dirt," or" you're not paying attention" - when you correct their dodgy figures.

I think it was azreal who posted that, positive views, or rather, quoting correct statistics, about GW are a "minority viewpoint" that challenge the groupthink - which seems to mean that it's OK to insult anyone who suggest the sky ain't falling.

NickOnwezen wrote:
...And made a portable, stylish and space saving version of the book with a superior print quality and the resilience of a hardback book.

Sorry, what are you basing the 'superior print quality' on?

The resilience of a hard cover is only a good thing if you actually want a hard cover. Personally, for toting around to games, I would prefer the lighter softcover any day. And would certainly prefer the price tag...

That's the big issue with the hardcovers, I think. GW missed a trick by going to hardcover exclusively for 6th edition. The benefits and extra prettiness of the hardcover are outweighed by the price tag and the lesser portability for many gamers ... releasing a cheaper softcover alongside the hardcover would have kept those players happier.


In just over 15 years of playing 40K, and the purchase of every book released from 2nd ed to the end of 5th, the 5th ed marine codex and the notoriously bad 3rd ed rulebook are the only softcovers that I have had issues with for durability... And that's due to the pages falling out, rather than the durability of the cover. Being in a hard cover isn't going to change the quality of GW's binding glue.

 insaniak wrote:

 Monster Rain wrote:
I don't think this is accurate.

One needn't look far for people who seem to be beside themselves with beard-rage.

'Seem to be' would seem to be the key here.

It's very easy to read the written word and imbue it with more emotion than is actually there. I see very, very little on this site, at least outside of YMDC or OT, that look like people being genuinely angry.

What I do see a lot of is people seeing a post that disagrees with their point of view and just writing it off as mindless 'hating'. Apparently on the internet, it's next to impossible to disagree with someone without being angry about it.


Spend more time responding to the actual words on the page and less time trying to ascribe motives to them, and suddenly the internet becomes a much less confrontational place.

The problem is that most posts that "bash" GW are, while emotive and apparently structured as sensible, reasoned arguments, actually rather void. Yes the person who wrote them has clearly read the Guardian extensively...that doesn't mean that what they're saying isn't absolute rubbish. The fact is that most of the arguments that come out are simply nonsense, mainly:

*Decline in quality of recent releases. Completely subjective and honestly, complete bs. GW consistantly release amazing models (I specifically exclude the assault centurians from this), yet people see a flying baby and cry "bad sculpt". Just look at the recent sternguard/vanguard release, or anything in the lizardmen release - pure gold.

*Tinfoil conspiracy theories, usually involving GW releasing things in a certain way, crashing their own website, releasing things in a certain order. GW make money by making models and books for £x, then selling them for £x + margin. In fifth edition, the most over-powered army by far was grey knights. Now guess what the cheapest army was by a *very* large margin? Yep, Draigo + paladins. Outside of one or two units (*cough* vendetta *cough*) that are clearly undercosted to sell expensive models, the devs do not release codexes with model sales in mind.

*complaining about amateurish quality of GW's ruleset, often exagerated to claims like "GW cannot write the rules for wargames", or "this simply was not playtested". Yes their rules are not perfect, but they are clearly playable. I think it reeks of jealousy that a game they hate is still by far the most popular in the world.

*Impending doom of GW. People have been saying that GW is doomed for years, but recently they've been phrasing it in such a way that even if GW post growth/profit, it still fits into their narrative of GW declining.

*Price whinging. If you don't like it, don't buy it. There, that was hard.

Occasionally people do say valid or insightful things about GW. Some things that spring to mind are power creep, certain armies being abandoned (SOB, thinking of you). But these are the minority of a minority. The "arguments" I outlined above are presant across the entire internet, and were present back when GW had their own (crappy) forums.

Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:

 insaniak wrote:


Spend more time responding to the actual words on the page and less time trying to ascribe motives to them, and suddenly the internet becomes a much less confrontational place.

That is as much of a generalisation as all the ones addressing "haters".

Check out the GW in financial trouble thread for an example. People posting fantasy figures, then shouting " "pull your head out of the dirt," or" you're not paying attention" - when you correct their dodgy figures.

I think it was azreal who posted that, positive views, or rather, quoting correct statistics, about GW are a "minority viewpoint" that challenge the groupthink - which seems to mean that it's OK to insult anyone who suggest the sky ain't falling.

It might have been me, yes, there is an awful lot of "received wisdom" that floats around, and while often it is grounded in some form of truth, it doesn't behoove anyone to go around spouting it without a little fact checking now and again, now matter what side of the great divide one finds oneself on. Sometimes that received wisdom can differ quite substantially from the facts... Some people don't always get on well with that. I don't mind being wrong, as long as someone can show me why, and just doesn't effectively shout you're wrong in my face.

One thing that thread you've linked, from three months ago has reminded that you are guilty of perhaps being a tad over sensitive sometimes, which is often a criticism that could be levelled at the "pros" shall we say, as much as the shouting down of contrary viewpoints could be of "cons"

xruslanx wrote:
*Decline in quality of recent releases. Completely subjective and honestly, complete bs. GW consistantly release amazing models (I specifically exclude the assault centurians from this), yet people see a flying baby and cry "bad sculpt". Just look at the recent sternguard/vanguard release, or anything in the lizardmen release - pure gold.

So you admit that it is subjective, and then go on to claim that anyone who doesn't like GW's latest releases is wrong?

That's an interesting way to go at it.


GW's 6th edition releases have by and large left me cold. There has been some good stuff in there... but an awful lot of dogs. If you like them, that's great for you. Others don't. They're not saying that just to start an argument... Sometimes, some people just won't like the same things you like.

Outside of one or two units (*cough* vendetta *cough*) that are clearly undercosted to sell expensive models, the devs do not release codexes with model sales in mind.

Tell that to anyone looking for a Sisters of Battle codex...

*complaining about amateurish quality of GW's ruleset, often exagerated to claims like "GW cannot write the rules for wargames", or "this simply was not playtested". Yes their rules are not perfect, but they are clearly playable. I think it reeks of jealousy that a game they hate is still by far the most popular in the world.

Sure, they're 'playable'... if you're happy to fill in the gaps yourself.

The thing is, GW constantly blow their own trumpet as the market leader in this field. As such, is it really unreasonable to expect a ruleset that is actually finished before it is released?

6th edition saw some fairly significant rules changes 3 and a half minutes after release, including some that just break the game (Battlements work how exactly?). There are issues that were corrected in errata last edition that have become broken again in this one (Shrike, anyone?) and great gaping holes that they just haven't bothered to address.

By contrast, I have just been getting back into Warmachine, which is written with rules much more like a TCG. Keywords matter, and rules disputes are far fewer as a result. Star Wars Miniatures, which I played to death while it was alive, was written with a similar ethos. These games were written to be fun, but also with the idea that a ruleset should be tight to prevent misunderstandings and misinterpretations.

GW have had 6 editions now to perfect the 40K ruleset... and every edition just comes with its own batch of new problems caused by fuzzy writing or oversights that should have been caught in playtesting.

The claims about a lack of playtesting aren't just made up out of whole cloth. They're based on actual comments from the studio over the years, along with the canning of external playtesting that, while often ignored by the studio, did at least make some difference, once upon a time.

*Impending doom of GW. People have been saying that GW is doomed for years, but recently they've been phrasing it in such a way that even if GW post growth/profit, it still fits into their narrative of GW declining.

Growth has to be sustainable. And to many, the fact that growth that is accompanies by a drop in unit sales is not sustainable. Yes, GW might be making more profit... but if that profit is coming from an increasingly small customer base, it's les sustainable.

I'm not one to predict GW's demise... but I can accept the idea that posting a profit doesn't automatically mean that a company is healthy.

*Price whinging. If you don't like it, don't buy it. There, that was hard.

And for many, it is indeed that easy. but on a forum dedicated to discussing the game, it's not exactly surprising that some people might want to mention being disappointed about something they like becoming too expensive for them to continue buying.

The "arguments" I outlined above are presant across the entire internet, and were present back when GW had their own (crappy) forums.

As someone else said, the fact that so many people keep making the same complaints should really say something in itself...

You won't stop them by claiming that they are trivial or incorrect. If you really want to make a difference, as I said earlier in the thread - Make a difference.

 insaniak wrote:

NickOnwezen wrote:
...And made a portable, stylish and space saving version of the book with a superior print quality and the resilience of a hardback book.

Sorry, what are you basing the 'superior print quality' on?

The resilience of a hard cover is only a good thing if you actually want a hard cover. Personally, for toting around to games, I would prefer the lighter softcover any day. And would certainly prefer the price tag...

That's the big issue with the hardcovers, I think. GW missed a trick by going to hardcover exclusively for 6th edition. The benefits and extra prettiness of the hardcover are outweighed by the price tag and the lesser portability for many gamers ... releasing a cheaper softcover alongside the hardcover would have kept those players happier.


In just over 15 years of playing 40K, and the purchase of every book released from 2nd ed to the end of 5th, the 5th ed marine codex and the notoriously bad 3rd ed rulebook are the only softcovers that I have had issues with for durability... And that's due to the pages falling out, rather than the durability of the cover. Being in a hard cover isn't going to change the quality of GW's binding glue.

The small rulebook has more vibrant colours because of them using a better quality of paper then the small book that comes with Dark Vengeance. I consider this to be the print quality. And While i do digress that the hard backs do nothing to improve the quality of the binding glue. all of the hardback are bound. Asin actually bound with thread. Which does improve pages not falling out. And the hard backs do prevent pages and the cover itself from folding over so easily while its on the table top. I do not deny that all my issues with having had to replace 3 codici over the last 2 editions are likely caused by me not handling the codici as carefully as the next person might who did not have issues with the sofcovers. But hence why i said that in my opinion the hardbacks are a great Improvement. While I cannot speak on the part of you or anyone else WANTING the increase in quality of the harbacks at the indeed increased costs or even needing it. I would hardly say that they aren't of better quality from an objective standpoint.

Personally I am in the camp of I know that there are problems but I am not in a position to do anything about them so complaining on an internet forum is going to do nothing but reduce my enjoyment of the hobby and potentially reduce someone elses.

For that reason I try to do my best and paint things in a positive light. No matter how upset about something I am, I am not so selfish as to try and ruin someone elses fun.

And if you say something like "Well that is the internet" You are right but it doesnt mean that I have to actively contribute to it.

NickOnwezen wrote:
.... all of the hardback are bound. Asin actually bound with thread. Which does improve pages not falling out.

Fair enough. I hadn't noticed that.

And the hard backs do prevent pages and the cover itself from folding over so easily while its on the table top.

Can't say I've ever had that problem, to be honest.

 insaniak wrote:

NickOnwezen wrote:
.... all of the hardback are bound. Asin actually bound with thread. Which does improve pages not falling out.

Fair enough. I hadn't noticed that.

I actually had to check the codici/army books i have on hand to be sure myself XD (Eldar, Tau, Vampire Counts, Dark Angels)

And the hard backs do prevent pages and the cover itself from folding over so easily while its on the table top

Can't say I've ever had that problem, to be honest..

well, I do game quite regularly both in the GW store and at my club and there is really not a lot of room on the tables, so my books are either on the gaming table and then need to be moved when i want to postion models where my books/dice were or on chairs that occasionally get knocked over by customers who aren't quite as carefull as they should be in a store full of small easily breakable minatures (My store tends to have a lot of people walking in thinking GW sells computer games and then hurrying out after taking a quick look or playing a demo game, or just younger gamers who are quite excitable) so my books take a bit of a beating. As such the hardback have generally been a very good experience for me.

In addition the pages of the small rulebook are printed on the same paper that they use for the codexes which are slightly more matt then the ones in the DV book and a bit sturdier which i personally greatly prefer. But again thats entirely personal preference. Its size also is very good. While its about one and a half times, at most twice as thick (including the cover) and about half an inch bigger then the dark vengeance booklet its really an elegant gamers edition that fits twenty times more readily into my gaming case then the big whopping book. And the 3 page marker strings are universally on the special rules, the psychic powers and the vehicle refrence section for ease of looking things up. And its still a good option for people who have no need for any of the dark vengeance models even at the price tag its at. Starting with Tau or Eldar with a battlebox and the mini rule book still is more convenient then buying the DV booklet off ebay in my opinion.

 insaniak wrote:

xruslanx wrote:
*Decline in quality of recent releases. Completely subjective and honestly, complete bs. GW consistantly release amazing models (I specifically exclude the assault centurians from this), yet people see a flying baby and cry "bad sculpt". Just look at the recent sternguard/vanguard release, or anything in the lizardmen release - pure gold.

So you admit that it is subjective, and then go on to claim that anyone who doesn't like GW's latest releases is wrong?

That's an interesting way to go at it.


GW's 6th edition releases have by and large left me cold. There has been some good stuff in there... but an awful lot of dogs. If you like them, that's great for you. Others don't. They're not saying that just to start an argument... Sometimes, some people just won't like the same things you like.

Right, but you'd agree that claiming that the new sculps are simply worse than the old ones, is untrue? What exactly do you mean that the new releases have left you cold? I don't actually understand that...as far as I can see, the quality of releases is better than it's ever been. Why do you think the opposite? Why do you think it's worse?

Sure, they're 'playable'... if you're happy to fill in the gaps yourself.

Only if you insist on reading everything as though it were a logical binary operation. I had no idea there were so many flaws in the 40k ruleset until I stepped into YMDC. I find it hard to believe that people could take such an attitude without a fair amount of beardyness...my friends and I just get on with the game. It turns out that we can't even play it

The thing is, GW constantly blow their own trumpet as the market leader in this field. As such, is it really unreasonable to expect a ruleset that is actually finished before it is released?

This is a facetious point. Claiming that 40k is not finished is both untrue and inflammatory. It is exageration like this that leads to people dismissing critism against GW as butthurt/beardrage. I was playing 6th edition 40k with my friends for weeks just fine, I won't allow someone on the internet to tell me that the rules we used didn't work.

6th edition saw some fairly significant rules changes 3 and a half minutes after release, including some that just break the game (Battlements work how exactly?). There are issues that were corrected in errata last edition that have become broken again in this one (Shrike, anyone?) and great gaping holes that they just haven't bothered to address.

You say fairly significant...no one plays with fortifications. Even the game testers. Yes it sucks if you want to play with one but then, they seem broken anyway so it doesn't concern me, or 99.9% of people who play. The fact that someone, somewhere on the internet has found this, and this information has been publicly posted, does not make it relevant or important.

I don't know who Shrike is, but I bet you I could play him in a game with some friends and we'd have no problems at all.

By contrast, I have just been getting back into Warmachine, which is written with rules much more like a TCG. Keywords matter, and rules disputes are far fewer as a result. Star Wars Miniatures, which I played to death while it was alive, was written with a similar ethos. These games were written to be fun, but also with the idea that a ruleset should be tight to prevent misunderstandings and misinterpretations.

Since I have no experience with those rulesets, it's pointless you bringing them up. Unless we operate under the philosophy of "whoever has the most experience in wargames automatically wins any and all arguments", I have nothing to add here.

GW have had 6 editions now to perfect the 40K ruleset... and every edition just comes with its own batch of new problems caused by fuzzy writing or oversights that should have been caught in playtesting.

Yet more beardy rhetoric - arbitrarily knocking 40k for not being perfect. Nothing is perfect, that's life. 6th edition 40k is eminantly playable, the only people who don't think so seem to have very...strong opinions on the matter. As I say, I play it with my friends just fine. I know other people who play 40k with friends just fine. Only on the internet is 40k unnacceptably bad, 2/10 would not bang.

The claims about a lack of playtesting aren't just made up out of whole cloth. They're based on actual comments from the studio over the years, along with the canning of external playtesting that, while often ignored by the studio, did at least make some difference, once upon a time.

Is that why 2nd and 3rd edition 40k were so well balanced? Give me a break.

Growth has to be sustainable. And to many, the fact that growth that is accompanies by a drop in unit sales is not sustainable. Yes, GW might be making more profit... but if that profit is coming from an increasingly small customer base, it's les sustainable.

I'm not one to predict GW's demise... but I can accept the idea that posting a profit doesn't automatically mean that a company is healthy.

Armchair CEO training. We actually have no idea how popular (or not) 40k is, people are simply twisting the financial report to suit their own doomsaying.

And for many, it is indeed that easy. but on a forum dedicated to discussing the game, it's not exactly surprising that some people might want to mention being disappointed about something they like becoming too expensive for them to continue buying.

I regard about 75% of 40k as being too expensive for me, yet I manage to hold my tongue because I have no particular desire to spontaneously ejaculate this fact to strangers. Saying that something is too expensive for you adds nothing whatsoever to any discussion, ever.

As someone else said, the fact that so many people keep making the same complaints should really say something in itself...

Nerdrage. Nerdrage never changes.

xruslanx wrote:
Right, but you'd agree that claiming that the new sculps are simply worse than the old ones, is untrue? What exactly do you mean that the new releases have left you cold? I don't actually understand that...as far as I can see, the quality of releases is better than it's ever been. Why do you think the opposite? Why do you think it's worse?

Taking 15 year old models and adding extra detail to them doesn't automatically make them better. It makes them the same models with extra detail added to them. That's only a good thing if you like that extra detail.

There have been a number of recent releases that I would call a step backwards in model design... The Centurians, the Storm Talon, the Dark Angels Fantasticar, the Khorne thing for Apocalypse... 40K has always been a little silly and over-the-top, but these models just go a little too far into the ridiculous side for me.

And there's the problem that I mentioned earlier (although it may have been in a different thread) - GW are stuck with a nearly 20-year-old aesthetic, while most of the rest of the industry has moved on. So yes, GW are producing some models that are better than what they replace in terms of detail... but still in the same, tired, 'gigantic heads, hands, feet and weapons' style that was all the rage in the '90s, and just looks dated and cartoony now.

Only if you insist on reading everything as though it were a logical binary operation. I had no idea there were so many flaws in the 40k ruleset until I stepped into YMDC. I find it hard to believe that people could take such an attitude without a fair amount of beardyness...my friends and I just get on with the game. It turns out that we can't even play it

No, what it means is that you and your friends are filling in the gaps with house rules, or not noticing those gaps. That's fine when you're playing predominantly with friends... but annoying when you're playing a pick-up game, and discover that they have a completely different interpretation to a key rule than what you have always used. It can make a big difference in the middle of a game.

A loose ruleset is fine in groups that don't mind filling in the gaps, not so good for competitive or pick-up play. A tight ruleset is good for everybody.

This is a facetious point. Claiming that 40k is not finished is both untrue and inflammatory. It is exageration like this that leads to people dismissing critism against GW as butthurt/beardrage. I was playing 6th edition 40k with my friends for weeks just fine, I won't allow someone on the internet to tell me that the rules we used didn't work.

A finished rulebook wouldn't have had Look out Sir completely changed 3 and a half minutes after release. And would have had complete rules detailing how Fortifications work. And would have addressed ICs joining units pre-game.

Again, yes, the book is usable in friendly play. But it was rushed out without enough time taken for proofing and editing.

You say fairly significant...no one plays with fortifications.

And in many cases, that's solely because they don't have functional rules. I've spoken to a lot of people who want to play with fortifications, but don't because they're too much of a headache as is.

Aside from the ADL, which for some players is seen as more or less compulsory in competitive play if you're still stuck with a 4th or 5th ed Codex...

I don't know who Shrike is, but I bet you I could play him in a game with some friends and we'd have no problems at all.

Shrike is a Space Marine Captain, who grants Infiltrate to a unit he deploys with. The problem being that he can't deploy with a unit that doesn't already have Infiltrate.

They fixed this in 5th edition Errata, by changing the IC rules to allow them to be joined to a unit pre-game. Then they left that out of the 6th ed rules, which reverts Shrike back to not being able to deploy with a non-infiltrating unit.

Yes, most players ignore the gap in the rules here... but that's not the point. From the self-proclaimed market leader of miniature wargaming, this is a basic oversight that should have been caught prior to publishing the book. Instead, it was missed. 4 times, now, since it's been a problem for various characters since 3rd edition..

Since I have no experience with those rulesets, it's pointless you bringing them up. Unless we operate under the philosophy of "whoever has the most experience in wargames automatically wins any and all arguments", I have nothing to add here.

If you think this is an argument, you have misunderstood. I am presenting an opinion, not trying to 'win' the discussion.

Yet more beardy rhetoric - arbitrarily knocking 40k for not being perfect. Nothing is perfect, that's life. 6th edition 40k is eminantly playable, the only people who don't think so seem to have very...strong opinions on the matter. As I say, I play it with my friends just fine. I know other people who play 40k with friends just fine. Only on the internet is 40k unnacceptably bad, 2/10 would not bang.

Again, falling tournament attendance and gaming clubs switching to other systems disagree with you.

You're absolutely correct that no system is perfect. But people are starting to find other systems that are better. And for the supposed best on the market, that is a problem.

Is that why 2nd and 3rd edition 40k were so well balanced? Give me a break.

I didn't claim that playtesting fixed everything. I said it made a difference.

Every edition has had its fair share of problems. Which, again, comes back to the fact that GW have had 6 editions now to get it right, and 6th edition is instead for many players a big step backwards.

Armchair CEO training. We actually have no idea how popular (or not) 40k is, people are simply twisting the financial report to suit their own doomsaying.

We do have an idea of how many boxes GW sells, though... because that information is published in GW's financial reports. Increased sales value and decreased quantity of sales has been a recurring theme in GW's financials for some time now.

I regard about 75% of 40k as being too expensive for me, yet I manage to hold my tongue because I have no particular desire to spontaneously ejaculate this fact to strangers. Saying that something is too expensive for you adds nothing whatsoever to any discussion, ever.

Pointing out that you're enjoying the sunny weather doesn't exactly bring about world peace, either... but in a discussion of the weather, I might still point that out. Presenting your opinion on the topic at hand is how discussion works.

Nerdrage. Nerdrage never changes.

And so we come back once more to just dismissing dissenting opinions as trivial raging. What was that about things that don't add anything to a discussion?

I'm sure if they deserved it, you'd find it.

You know, three posts up I was still arguing with insaniak, but I cannot deny that he brings up very valid counterpoints about the rules. Despite all the praise i just sang about the small rulebook, for something that was released a year after date it would have been nice if they ACTUALLY added the eratta into the new book... which they totally neglected to do. GW is still under the impression that if they build it, we will come. And while i have seen a lot of things improve over the last year or so since 6th edition hit, most of that praise goes to the new codexes offering a variety of competitive play styles instead of one end all be all list per codex and then one codex to rule them all. Which still sort of happens with codex creep. The fact is that the 6th edition core is a gigantic mess of conflicting and vague rules that have done little to adress the balance and above all clarity issues that 40k has ALWAYS struggled with.

NickOnwezen wrote:
The small rulebook has more vibrant colours because of them using a better quality of paper then the small book that comes with Dark Vengeance.

Honestly, who cares? If I'm buying a rules-only book I care about exactly two things:

1) A legible and correct copy of the rules.

2) Lightweight and portable format.

Anything else is paying extra for something I don't care about. Pretty paper is irrelevant, if I want a pretty book I'll buy the full $75 rulebook with all of the fluff/pictures/etc.

xruslanx wrote:
What exactly do you mean that the new releases have left you cold?

It means just what it says. Most of the new releases either look completely stupid (DA flyers, centurions, the entire Apocalypse release) or look like someone took a normal model, covered it in glue, and rolled it around in a box of purity seals (all the marine infantry). At best they're the kind of average model that I'd buy if I need it for my army, but otherwise feel apathetic towards. Compare this to, say, my DKoK where I have an endless list of ideas I want to do with them.

Only if you insist on reading everything as though it were a logical binary operation. I had no idea there were so many flaws in the 40k ruleset until I stepped into YMDC. I find it hard to believe that people could take such an attitude without a fair amount of beardyness...my friends and I just get on with the game. It turns out that we can't even play it

Sorry, but this is just ridiculous. Before 40k I played MTG, where all the rules are perfectly clear and there is no question that can not be answered by simply reading the appropriate section of the rulebook. And yet it still has a thriving casual community and "too serious" rules never got in the way of playing. So yes, I expect that when I pay a lot of money for a set of rules they will be professional work, not a bunch of clumsy nonsense thrown together with a "4+ it if you find one of the problems we didn't bother to fix".

This is a facetious point. Claiming that 40k is not finished is both untrue and inflammatory. It is exageration like this that leads to people dismissing critism against GW as butthurt/beardrage. I was playing 6th edition 40k with my friends for weeks just fine, I won't allow someone on the internet to tell me that the rules we used didn't work.

No, it's entirely true. 40k is blatantly unfinished. Balance is nonexistent, rules are inconsistent and full of loopholes. It only looks finished to you because you've lowered your expectations to the point that an unfinished product will satisfy them.

You say fairly significant...no one plays with fortifications.

Lol, seriously? People play with fortifications all the time. And it's just insane that you'd say it's ok for their rules to be broken because nobody likes playing with broken rules so they don't buy a fortification.

Since I have no experience with those rulesets, it's pointless you bringing them up. Unless we operate under the philosophy of "whoever has the most experience in wargames automatically wins any and all arguments", I have nothing to add here.

You can't just dismiss other games like that. Whether you've played them or not MTG/Warmachine/etc have much more professional rules, and it has nothing to do with "I've played more games than you".

Armchair CEO training. We actually have no idea how popular (or not) 40k is, people are simply twisting the financial report to suit their own doomsaying.

Nonsense. We have numbers from GW's own report, and they clearly show growth barely above inflation even though they're increasing prices. And that means declining sales volume. And since other games are experiencing growth in sales volume that also means GW's market share is declining. Whether you like it or not this trend is supported by both sales numbers reported by non-GW stores and anecdotal evidence about what is popular.

The little rulebook is actually a higher quality? But I don't think I've ever heard of people having issue with the starter set ones. Additionally since they already printed them the cost of producing more to sell individually would have been a very minor cost to them for a decent amount of sales they'd see coming in.

Sure I like the portability of the small book, but in general its also more affordable as a quick launch into the game. As it is I have never seen a book like this for such a high price and I have bought hardback novels for $50 at times... I suppose that's not to say they couldn't get away with this book, but it is fairly overpriced for what it is and I still think it'd make a better limited edition with them moving onto the DV books going on sale.

Most of the hate I see is from the white knights who almost always end up name calling while also throwing around the usual comments of "well don't play then" "vocal minority" "people have been saying gw would die for years and there still here" so on and so forth.

Regardless of how valid or well structured the concerns raised are you will immediately get one of the usual suspects charging in, ironically enough there are a number of good examples of this in this very thread.

Basicly while i agree there are some overly negative posts the fact is that any remotely critical post, will receive a response from one of the usual suspects telling them they are wrong in a condescending and confrontational manner.

Could we not go into this 'usual suspects' thing. Its quite as condescending and confrontational to call out that people are wrong in this way as it is to just call out their names and say. THESE. THESE PEOPLES. Its like were having stealth flame wars because when we actually point the finger its bad. Having a discussion where the majority of your point is attacking other peoples character instead of the points they make helps no one right?

xruslanx wrote:

The problem is that most posts that "bash" GW are, while emotive and apparently structured as sensible, reasoned arguments, actually rather void.

Perhaps based on the presumptions you make going into evaluating them, but I think you just described your posts more than those of anyone else.

*Decline in quality of recent releases. Completely subjective and honestly, complete bs.

Right here is a good example. Just think for a second about how something can be completely subjective and complete bs at the same time. If it is completely subjective then it, by definition, cannot be complete bs, just something you see differently. It can't possibly be completely bs or completely true if it is completely subjective. That makes no sense.

*Tinfoil conspiracy theories, ... GW make money by making models and books for £x, then selling them for £x + margin.

And here. This is what every business on the planet does. They produce it for one price and sell it for a higher price with the difference being profit. But point out that production cost + margin = price and that counts as "tinfoil conspiracy theories"? This is literally how 100% of all profitable companies selling goods or services operate. They make something or offer a service that costs them £x and then charge £x + margin. It is mathematically impossible for a company not to do this and still be profitable.

*complaining about amateurish quality of GW's ruleset, often exagerated to claims like "GW cannot write the rules for wargames", or "this simply was not playtested". Yes their rules are not perfect, but they are clearly playable. I think it reeks of jealousy that a game they hate is still by far the most popular in the world.

And now you write off differing opinions as being based out of jealousy? Also, you didn't even address what criteria could be used in evaluating a rules set. People who find some problems with 40k due so because they have specific criteria that the rules fail to meet while other rules sets do. What do you have? Just mindless dismissal of any opinion you don't like.

*Impending doom of GW. People have been saying that GW is doomed for years, but recently they've been phrasing it in such a way that even if GW post growth/profit, it still fits into their narrative of GW declining.

No. Just no. In the last thread about their financial statements there was literally one person that predicted doom for GW. And that was talking about potential doom at some far away, undefined point. Even past prognosticators of doom admitted that GW isn't going anywhere any time soon.

*Price whinging. If you don't like it, don't buy it. There, that was hard.

You've already written off any conversation about value for money as "whining" in advance. Strikes me as intellectually dishonest.

The only vacuous arguments going on are yours, I'm afraid. You're intentionally misrepresenting what people are saying, ascribing motivations like jealousy with no evidence and preemptively dismissing everything people might raise as being invalid.

How does one argue they care less than they used to about GW models?

It is like breaking faith and being a hater.

It is difficult to explain in a logical fashion.

SM release and I want a codex... I like how the anti air rhino looks, everything else is ok ... Sorta. If I was to update my army with new stuff it is still around $300.

No.

Getting a codex and maybe a fancy rhino and that be it for now.
Least I have spent on a SM release even with the price increases.

*Impending doom of GW. People have been saying that GW is doomed for years, but recently they've been phrasing it in such a way that even if GW post growth/profit, it still fits into their narrative of GW declining.

You realize that it's possible to be doomed while still making a profit, right? Let's look at an extreme example. Say I run a business, and at the beginning of the year I fire all of my manufacturing employees and sell all of the machines. But since I have stock left in the warehouse I can continue to sell my product for a while longer, and I'll even get amazing profit margins because I'm no longer paying all of those people I fired. At the end of the year my company reports a profit, possibly even "growth" in profit from the previous year. But my company is obviously doomed once my remaining inventory runs out.

Now, obviously GW isn't doing anything that extreme but they are still sacrificing the future to make the next financial report look better. They're relying on unsustainable price increases and cost cutting to improve profits while losing sales volume and market share. Meanwhile they're doing little or nothing to generate new sales and relying on their inherited position as the industry leader to keep people buying. Thanks to that position they will likely continue to make a profit in the near future, but the long-term future for GW does not look good.

NickOnwezen wrote:
Could we not go into this 'usual suspects' thing. Its quite as condescending and confrontational to call out that people are wrong in this way as it is to just call out their names and say. THESE. THESE PEOPLES. Its like were having stealth flame wars because when we actually point the finger its bad. Having a discussion where the majority of your point is attacking other peoples character instead of the points they make helps no one right?

This. Labelling people as 'white knights' or 'fanboys' is no more useful than labelling then as 'haters'.

I'll always have a soft spot for GW for releasing the Mordheim rules for free.

SeanDrake wrote:
Most of the hate I see is from the white knights who almost always end up name calling while also throwing around the usual comments of "well don't play then" "vocal minority" "people have been saying gw would die for years and there still here" so on and so forth.

Regardless of how valid or well structured the concerns raised are you will immediately get one of the usual suspects charging in, ironically enough there are a number of good examples of this in this very thread.

Basicly while i agree there are some overly negative posts the fact is that any remotely critical post, will receive a response from one of the usual suspects telling them they are wrong in a condescending and confrontational manner.

Yup ain't that the truth. Some of them are so close of me to place an ignore on them. But I would lose the humor I get seeing these apoligists go into action.

Its the internet, so there's always going to be argument for the sake of argument. Also keep in mind that hypocrisy is the name of the game on the interwebz. How many times have we seen posts from "haters" complaining about how expensive the hobby is, but their sig contains 5 or 6 different armies at 3000+ points each?

Or the flip side, a "white knight" poster in one thread turning into a "hater" when an army they don't play (or often play against) gets a new release or favorable FAQ before their personal favorite?


Just try to take it all in stride, and filter out what subjects you want to read (if you are wanting a more pro-GW slant, don't open a thread labeled "MY HAT FOR GW KNOW NO LIMIT")

Is it just me, or had the last couple of pages just been the same arguments back and forth, back and forth? White knights, haters, criticism, fan-boi, neckbeards... Don't like it don't buy it, prices too high, I hate the aesthetic, I live the aesthetic, evil corporations- it would be nice to see some new suggestions for a positive forum, or more explanations for why certain forums are more positive than others- such as the painting sub-forum, or 40k background.

 Sinful Hero wrote:
Is it just me, or had the last couple of pages just been the same arguments back and forth, back and forth? White knights, haters, criticism, fan-boi, neckbeards... Don't like it don't buy it, prices too high, I hate the aesthetic, I live the aesthetic, evil corporations- it would be nice to see some new suggestions for a positive forum, or more explanations for why certain forums are more positive than others- such as the painting sub-forum, or 40k background.

Forums for painting and 40K background are more favorable because they are usually populated primarily by hobbyists who don't care about prices, competitive rule-sets, or GW's marketing strategy. They just want nice minis, cool stories, and a fun game.

I dislike Subway because I once bought a sandwich there.

VorpalBunny74 wrote:I'll always have a soft spot for GW for releasing the Mordheim rules for free.

Where on GW's site can I find these?

Sinful Hero wrote:it would be nice to see some new suggestions for a positive forum, or more explanations for why certain forums are more positive than others- such as the painting sub-forum, or 40k background.

In the Dakka Discussions and News & Rumors it is on topic to express your evaluation of a given news release or facet of the hobby. Just look where this thread is. It's in the Dakka Discussions section. You can think of this forum as the holding tank for the negative threads if you don't like them, or as the appropriate on topic location for them if you do want to participate in them. And in News & Rumours, it's appropriate to comment on what you think about the new release, whether if you love it or find it disappointing.

I hope it stays this way. I don't want to see someone start a thread in the Showcase forum where they post pictures of their finished models and see comments about anything other than the hobby side of things, for example. I like that it's on topic here in Dakka Discussions and off topic elsewhere on the forums.

So my suggestions for a positive forum? Stop trying to control what other people discuss. Stay on topic. Don't click on threads you aren't interested in or can't understand why other people are interested in them.

If you meant "positive" to mean never expressing any disappointment or criticism about anything, then I have no suggestions for that because I don't want to control what other people choose to talk about here on Dakka Dakka.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I dislike Subway because I once bought a sandwich there.

I happen to like subway a great deal.

I declare you anathema.

 Sinful Hero wrote:
it would be nice to see some new suggestions for a positive forum, or more explanations for why certain forums are more positive than others- such as the painting sub-forum, or 40k background.

 insaniak wrote:
So to return to the original topic a little, here's the thing:

You want a more positive forum? The answer is simple: Be Positive.

You won't create a more positive forum by telling those with negative opinions that they should just shut up and go find another hobby, or by belittling their opinion and passing it off as 'neckbeard rage' or 'internet hysteria'. That just gets people's backs up and gets them even more firmly entrenched in their positions.

A forum's tone is set by the people in it, and by the posts they make. A forum doesn't just make itself. It is born from the efforts and opinions of those who choose to be a part of the community.

So if you want a place to discuss your hobby in a positive atmosphere, you need to create that positive atmosphere. Post batreps, post pictures of your models, talk about scenario ideas, point out those things that make you happy to participate in the hobby.

And accept that not everyone will share your opinion. Fighting negativity with negativity, regardless of what physics may tell you, doesn't create a positive environment. It creates an environment where everyone is bickering with everyone else for having the temerity to hold a differing opinion.

Be a positive influence, participate in positive threads, and remind everyone about the positive in their hobby. You can't make the negative go away... but you can drown it out.

I'm not replying to four different posters. I give up, the lucid logic of your arguments have left me stumped for words. Guess I'll go paint some of those crappy models.

xruslanx wrote:
I'm not replying to four different posters. I give up, the lucid logic of your arguments have left me stumped for words. Guess I'll go paint some of those crappy models.

This pretty much translates as;

"I'm not replying to four different posters. My point has been countered several times and I no longer wish to continue in a debate. I will make a spiteful jab at the arguments made with a post concerning the quality of models."

 Imposter101 wrote:

xruslanx wrote:
I'm not replying to four different posters. I give up, the lucid logic of your arguments have left me stumped for words. Guess I'll go paint some of those crappy models.

This pretty much translates as;

"I'm not replying to four different posters. My point has been countered several times and I no longer wish to continue in a debate. I will make a spiteful jab at the arguments made with a post concerning the quality of models."

Lol. Yeah, that's how I'd read it!

xruslanx wrote:
I'm not replying to four different posters. I give up, the lucid logic of your arguments have left me stumped for words. Guess I'll go paint some of those crappy models.

Pretty much everything you posted was a misrepresentation of the positions of others and people called you on it. If you don't want that to happen, don't intentionally misrepresent the positions of others.

 Imposter101 wrote:

xruslanx wrote:
I'm not replying to four different posters. I give up, the lucid logic of your arguments have left me stumped for words. Guess I'll go paint some of those crappy models.

This pretty much translates as;

"I'm not replying to four different posters. My point has been countered several times and I no longer wish to continue in a debate. I will make a spiteful jab at the arguments made with a post concerning the quality of models."

As much as you'd like to think so, no.

Not really.

 frozenwastes wrote:

xruslanx wrote:
I'm not replying to four different posters. I give up, the lucid logic of your arguments have left me stumped for words. Guess I'll go paint some of those crappy models.

Pretty much everything you posted was a misrepresentation of the positions of others and people called you on it. If you don't want that to happen, don't intentionally misrepresent the positions of others.

I've been on enough internet forums to know that the beardiest member always has the last word. If you can't see the irony in enthusiastically and relentlessly attacking someone who suggests that people are being over-emotional and taking things too seriously, then it sucks to be you. And I just know you'll reply to this too...

It's interesting how it's always the other guy who is being unreasonable by trying to get the last word.

Meanwhile, this thread has more than run is course, so I think we're done here.