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Davor wrote:

TheWanderer wrote:
I am a bit disappointted that I renewed my Visions sub just days before this announcement and they didnt say a word as they took my money knowing that they were planning to change what i was subbing to...

Ah so GW hasn't changed much then did they? Just like how they kept selling 6th edition knowing 7th was coming out one week later. Well here is hoping you get a good deal out of it. I would call Customer Support and see what they can do for you. They are really good about this. The one thing I hope that GW doesn't change is their customer support. They are one of the best.

I agree that GW customer support is very good and I am sure it will get sorted, peraps my high expectation of them is why I was disappointted in the first place.

As to you comparison with selling 6th edition on the run up to 7th doesnt really work for me. One is a functional game that still exists unchanged after 7th is released. The other is a subscription running into the future for a yet to be provided item, which now wont be the item i paid for... I am not feeling too hard done by it and I guess I get the point your trying to make.

I guess its more like I paid for 6th and when i opened the box it had 7th edition in there, 7th is cool and all but its not what I paid for and while I am hopefully that the new WD to will be great and worth the money its a yet to be demostrated product that I am now getting rather than the thing I paid for.

i hope you get my point?

 jah-joshua wrote:
i don't know what you guys are on about with it only being a catalogue...

I am surprised you would say that Jah-Joshua. After all I believe you are the one who always says it's opinions and there is no right or wrong answer.

We all have differing opinions. It all depends on what people want out of the magazine. For most they are not getting enough value for what they want. For you, you are getting great value for others not. So when people are not getting value out of it, it's just a catalogue to them.

So many people love Justin Bieber. So many people love 50 Shades of Grey. For a lot of people it is also trash. So it depends on what the person wants. Nobody is right or wrong. It's all opinion.

Davor wrote:
So it depends on what the person wants. Nobody is right or wrong. It's all opinion.

The only "right or wrong" is in the eyes of the consumer: if many people give it a pass, GW has even less money to rub together and less eyes with wallets to convince to buy their product.
I had a WD subscription for decades, I hope they get some REAL content in there because I can say the past year I had not been convinced to buy a single weekly WD at the FLGS.
Maybe I am more jaded than most.
I probably fall under the category of remembering "the good old days" where comparing the content now, it looks like trash.

@Davor: why would you be surprised that i pointed out that there is content such as scenarios, rules, and hobbyist created conversions and paint jobs???
that has nothing to do with right and wrong...
it is a simple fact...

you are free to dislike the mags, of course, but saying it is just a catalogue is doing a huge disservice to the hard work done by the hobbyists who's minis are showcased in Army of the Month, Reader's Parade Ground, Golden Demon, The Fang, Armies on Parade, and Blanchitsu...

i never said anyone is wrong to think that there is not enough value in the mags, but i whole heartedly disagree with the statement that they are "just a catalogue"...

cheers
jah

Yes, those are lovely pictures - how do I replicate them?

That's the difference between present-day WD and WD-of-yore - showcasing fan armies is great, but those articles used to be 1/2-2/3 pictures, and the rest actual article, ie the fan in question explaining their thought process or exactly how they did a certain conversion.

It's the same issue as with the painting tutorials - they still technically have them, but that's not the same thing as them being good.

Looking at pretty pictures devoid of context is what coolminiornot is for, if I'm going to fork over actual money for an actual magazine, I want more than just pretty pictures, I want discussion of the pretty pictures, analysis of the pretty pictures, detailed explanations of how to replicate what I see in the pretty pictures. Blanchitsu is better than nothing, but you can still learn more by spending five minutes on the Ammobunker's INQ28 forum than you could by reading every single Blanchitsu featuring the products of that forum's membership.

WD used to provide something you couldn't get anywhere else, but now we have the internet so "pretty pictures to look at" and even "basic painting & conversion guides" are dime-a-dozen. GW's response was to even further simplify any hobby content that remained, when they should have been doing the opposite - give us meat, GW have some incredibly talented painters on staff, let them loose, let them create the kind of content that you can only find online by forking over for DVDs and then serialise it. Sure, whack in a quick "paint by numbers" tutorial using the official colours for people who're new or just want a nice quick tabletop-quality job so they can get to gaming, but then show us the same thing painted to GD-standard and tell us how to replicate some of the techniques or styles on that version.

I think the "Visions" part of WD became dead to me when it became known / obvious many pictures were photo-shopped.
It is inspiring to see well done painting, hopeless and pointless to see digital touch-up.

 Yodhrin wrote:
Yes, those are lovely pictures - how do I replicate them?

That's the difference between present-day WD and WD-of-yore - showcasing fan armies is great, but those articles used to be 1/2-2/3 pictures, and the rest actual article, ie the fan in question explaining their thought process or exactly how they did a certain conversion.

In defense of this...

First, and most obviously, there are a bazillion free, high production value videos on WarhammerTV to get you to an intermediate level of painting.

But, if you want to paint models that look like 95% of the studio models, buy the painting guide to that faction. They have TONS of them, and they are pretty detailed with excellent photography. If you want to know how they paint the top-notch titans and vehicles, and the scratchbuilt/converted dioramas, buy the Forge World Masterclass books. They are also excellent and provide great detail and awesomely useful photography.

I think it's more useful to have all the Ultramarine or Blood Angels or Dark Eldar or Tyranid painting instructions in one book, than scattered across 10 years of White Dwarf, because all you need to do to get it is to buy a single book, instead of scour boxes of old magazines in a hobby shop that you didn't buy, because you weren't interested in them, then. Plus, then, they are much more consistent. And if that's what you want, it's also a lot cheaper to just buy the Citadel general painting guide + the specific army guide.

Keep in mind that much of the spectacle displayed in GW magazines (Visions, WD) is in sheer volume of models and the environment. The vast majority of models are really well painted without being "awesome" -- but they look awesome when you zoom out and display a table full of them engaged in battle.

When it comes to the REALLY nice stuff, like 'Eavy Metal models, Golden Daemon, etc. -- sure, there are some Masterclass-style resources, but frankly, this type of painting is something you need to develop on your own, with practice and a ton of time. Often, years. It's not somethign that is well-encapsulated in a magazine. For example, there's a nice video where Duncan explains how to do a power sword with lightning effects (last year's advent), and it looks really great. But to take it a step above that, and get the kind of weapon that was in the Weapon of the Week (the pink and white blade) in the last White Dwarf means that you'll be spending endless hours on a sword, with a lot of practice, looking at other models, photography of real metallic items, and that kind of thing.

Note that I'm not directly addressing the value proposition of White Dwarf or Visions; only that I think that GW has superior alternatives to a monthly/weekly magazine in terms of how-to's. Really, what's in the magazine (like Paint Splatter) is just a teaser, though sometimes there is genuinely useful and exclusive information in them, or in Sprues & Glue.

 Talys wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:
Yes, those are lovely pictures - how do I replicate them?

That's the difference between present-day WD and WD-of-yore - showcasing fan armies is great, but those articles used to be 1/2-2/3 pictures, and the rest actual article, ie the fan in question explaining their thought process or exactly how they did a certain conversion.

In defense of this...

First, and most obviously, there are a bazillion free, high production value videos on WarhammerTV to get you to an intermediate level of painting.

But, if you want to paint models that look like 95% of the studio models, buy the painting guide to that faction. They have TONS of them, and they are pretty detailed with excellent photography. If you want to know how they paint the top-notch titans and vehicles, and the scratchbuilt/converted dioramas, buy the Forge World Masterclass books. They are also excellent and provide great detail and awesomely useful photography.

I think it's more useful to have all the Ultramarine or Blood Angels or Dark Eldar or Tyranid painting instructions in one book, than scattered across 10 years of White Dwarf, because all you need to do to get it is to buy a single book, instead of scour boxes of old magazines in a hobby shop that you didn't buy, because you weren't interested in them, then. Plus, then, they are much more consistent. And if that's what you want, it's also a lot cheaper to just buy the Citadel general painting guide + the specific army guide.

Keep in mind that much of the spectacle displayed in GW magazines (Visions, WD) is in sheer volume of models and the environment. The vast majority of models are really well painted without being "awesome" -- but they look awesome when you zoom out and display a table full of them engaged in battle.

When it comes to the REALLY nice stuff, like 'Eavy Metal models, Golden Daemon, etc. -- sure, there are some Masterclass-style resources, but frankly, this type of painting is something you need to develop on your own, with practice and a ton of time. Often, years. It's not somethign that is well-encapsulated in a magazine. For example, there's a nice video where Duncan explains how to do a power sword with lightning effects (last year's advent), and it looks really great. But to take it a step above that, and get the kind of weapon that was in the Weapon of the Week (the pink and white blade) in the last White Dwarf means that you'll be spending endless hours on a sword, with a lot of practice, looking at other models, photography of real metallic items, and that kind of thing.

Note that I'm not directly addressing the value proposition of White Dwarf or Visions; only that I think that GW has superior alternatives to a monthly/weekly magazine in terms of how-to's. Really, what's in the magazine (like Paint Splatter) is just a teaser, though sometimes there is genuinely useful and exclusive information in them, or in Sprues & Glue.

Of course there are going to be better ways, I'm advocating for WD to be good enough to buy, not the best there ever was. For advanced painting tutorials, for detailed guides on how to replicate staff and fan conversions, for "Tale of..." escalation-style series that have people putting in genuine effort to craft workable armies within the limits of the series, and for proper battle reports with diagrams and blow-by-blow explanations of tactics; sure, there are better places to get all of those, but a once-monthly curated magazine filled with such things is something I would pay a fiver for. Paint Splatter, a batch of pretty pictures, naked advertising, and an occasional Dataslate, however, is not.

EDIT: And they can still collect all of a faction's content in one book using an annual format, or offer it as microtransactions with a bundle deal.

Talizvar wrote:

Davor wrote:
So it depends on what the person wants. Nobody is right or wrong. It's all opinion.

The only "right or wrong" is in the eyes of the consumer: if many people give it a pass, GW has even less money to rub together and less eyes with wallets to convince to buy their product.
I had a WD subscription for decades, I hope they get some REAL content in there because I can say the past year I had not been convinced to buy a single weekly WD at the FLGS.
Maybe I am more jaded than most.
I probably fall under the category of remembering "the good old days" where comparing the content now, it looks like trash.

I agree with you. Who would have thought at least for me the good old days was the early 2000s

jah-joshua wrote:@Davor: why would you be surprised that i pointed out that there is content such as scenarios, rules, and hobbyist created conversions and paint jobs???
that has nothing to do with right and wrong...
it is a simple fact...

I don't like to make excuses my friend but I have been in pain as of late. Maybe I took what you wrote as disagreeing with someone who thought that mag was trash and you were trying to say it wasn't. My apologies.

@Yodhrin: again, i am not talking value judgement...
i am only saying that there are plenty of features that are much more than "naked advertising" ...
you really do a disservice to the work of hobbyists that get showcased with statements like that...
i am not trying to defend the "usefulness" of any of the content, as that is a value judgement...
i am simply saying that stating the mags are "just a catalogue" is false...
everyone i know who has had there minis featured have been stoked, and i think that is awesome...
having your work showcased in an industry mag is a big accomplishment for a lot of hobbyists, and dismissing it as simply "pretty pictures to look at" is really disrespectful to our fellows...

i get that it is not worth it to you, but that doesn't change the fact that the weekly/monthly features showing off the work of hobbyists are there...
people complaining that the mags don't show anything other than minis to buy is patently false, and shows that the biggest complaints are from people who don't buy the mags, and thus don't know what they are talking about...
i was simply providing a list of features that are actual content...
whether you value that content or not is a whole different matter...

cheers
jah

I don't think photos of really nicely finished minis and advertising are mutually exclusive things, anyhow. I actually think they're pretty synergistic/complementary. I mean, when I see a really nicely done model or diorama, I'm often inspired to buy and model one of my own; often, models I've passed on at launch, I've gone back and bought, when I've seen another hobbyist's interpretation of it.

To me, 40% of the reason I buy WD/Visions is to see photos of (and other information on) new releases and 40% of the reason I buy them is to see other hobbyists and studio painters' interpretations of the models. I really like the super-close zoom-in photos of detailed parts they do in White Dwarf on new releases. 20% is for other reasons, like game rules, fiction (short stories), or hobby how-tos. In the case of the latter, a lot of it does get repetitive or is better described in other media, in my opinion.

In a different era, battle reports were cool, but less so now, because there are an endless stream of battle reports that are free, if I want them. I mean, more than I have time to watch or listen to, and from a very broad variety in terms of faction, style of gameplay, etc. There are also things I think would be cool, like photos of events at WHW, for example, but I almost imagine that they'd be better on social media (for free) than in a magazine I pay for, unless there were some interesting editorial content.

I think going to monthly will help make some people happy, because the larger magazine can basically have something for everyone, whereas the weekly magazine is less likely to have something for everyone in every issue.

Also, to Jah's point: it's definitely super-cool to see your work or work of people you know featured in a magazine.

 jah-joshua wrote:
@Yodhrin: again, i am not talking value judgement...
i am only saying that there are plenty of features that are much more than "naked advertising" ...
you really do a disservice to the work of hobbyists that get showcased with statements like that...

Oh come off it, you know fine well I wasn't referring to hobby showcases with that comment, that's why there's a comma between "pretty pictures" and "naked advertising". If you're going to disagree with someone at least do them the courtesy of disagreeing with what they actually said, rather than whatever you imagine they've said.

i am not trying to defend the "usefulness" of any of the content, as that is a value judgement...

Of course it is, but since pretty much the only things we can form arguments around on this subject are either sales(which evidently have led GW to change approach, again) and personal opinions about the content, our only choices are to do that or to agree to disagree and stop discussing the subject, which is a bit pointless on a discussion forum.

i am simply saying that stating the mags are "just a catalogue" is false...

That's nice - who's said it was again? Because IIRC it wasn't me.

everyone i know who has had there minis featured have been stoked, and i think that is awesome...
having your work showcased in an industry mag is a big accomplishment for a lot of hobbyists, and dismissing it as simply "pretty pictures to look at" is really disrespectful to our fellows...

Horse manure. Stinking, reeking, ten-day-old horse manure. Implying my judgement of the value of a magazine is a judgement of the value of the work done by fellow hobbyists is just fething low, get a grip man.

i get that it is not worth it to you, but that doesn't change the fact that the weekly/monthly features showing off the work of hobbyists are there...
people complaining that the mags don't show anything other than minis to buy is patently false, and shows that the biggest complaints are from people who don't buy the mags, and thus don't know what they are talking about...
i was simply providing a list of features that are actual content...
whether you value that content or not is a whole different matter...

cheers
jah

Yeah, again, you seem to be arguing against an imaginary version of me that only exists in your head. How on earth do you read me wishing for more showcases of fan content in more detail as me not valuing fan content? My point was not that pretty pictures are bad, it's that I can get pretty pictures for free online and much more besides, so if GW want me to pay them money for pretty pictures I also want to read about the pretty pictures, how their contents came to be, what inspirations were used, how did they convert that interesting centerpiece etc.

You can pretend that's me gaking on fan content because it fits your preconceived argument if you like, but it's transparent and insulting.

@Yodhrin: whoa, man...
i wasn't attacking you, i was pointing out that we are talking about two different things, and looking at it from two different perspectives...
you responded to me, so i replied...
i wasn't having a go at some "imaginary version" of you, i was sharing my perspective...

thanks for getting so aggressive, though...
jeez...
i don't imply anything in my posts, i just state my perspective...
i have no wish to get into an internet knife fight with you...

this whole run started because i was pointing out the fact that there is actual content, nothing more...
my original response about being "just a catalogue" was to Davor and tvena82...
you decided to make it a discussion about the value of that content, when i was simply pointing out that it is there...

cheers
jah

Maybe both of you should take a moment?

To be honest even if a magazine is just pretty pictures, there is a difference between getting them online and in person. The monetary barrier on an item isnt indicative of the items complete value. If I need a physical copy of art/pictures for any reason, having the white dwarf available is objectively cheaper with a higher quality for most people. Food for thought.

 jah-joshua wrote:
@Yodhrin: whoa, man...
i wasn't attacking you, i was pointing out that we are talking about two different things, and looking at it from two different perspectives...
you responded to me, so i replied...
i wasn't having a go at some "imaginary version" of you, i was sharing my perspective...

thanks for getting so aggressive, though...
jeez...
i don't imply anything in my posts, i just state my perspective...
i have no wish to get into an internet knife fight with you...

this whole run started because i was pointing out the fact that there is actual content, nothing more...
my original response about being "just a catalogue" was to Davor and tvena82...
you decided to make it a discussion about the value of that content, when i was simply pointing out that it is there...

cheers
jah

BS man, you made categorical statements about my intent, they're quoted right there, and they are not "like, just your opinion, man". Seeing as how you evidently managed to type out and post them without actually reading them, however, I'll quote them again:

you really do a disservice to the work of hobbyists that get showcased with statements like that...

having your work showcased in an industry mag is a big accomplishment for a lot of hobbyists, and dismissing it as simply "pretty pictures to look at" is really disrespectful to our fellows...

And if you're arguing against points raised by other people, address your arguments to those people ideally using the forum's quote feature to prevent any confusion.

I miss when they used to interview tournament winners and/or have tournament winners vs. GW staffers. It gave a great insight into how it's done at the top tables. I also really liked the fan made armies - not always the best painting, but hours and hours of love and attention into every conversion.

Finally, batreps with two competitive forces trying to win rather than forge the narrative. Overall, not too much to ask.

@Yodhrin: again, i wasn't making a statement about your intent personally...
i was just expressing what your post made me think, in general, about people not even acknowledging how cool it is that a lot of hobbyists get to see their work showcased in a nice glossy magazine...
i am sorry that my post read as an attack on you...
that was not my intention...

cheers
jah

@Jah: Interaction with a supplier or industry is quite gratifying if they recognize their customers somehow.
It is an easy form of paying back to those who make their product look good: win-win.
Possibly GW may recognize that (again) and it may work well for them.
One can only hope.

It was easy for GW to have access to GT winners and Golden Demon winners when they ran tournaments. I doubt White Dwarf has the budget to fly reporters around to gather that kind of interviews and take army photoshoots now.

 adamsouza wrote:
It was easy for GW to have access to GT winners and Golden Demon winners when they ran tournaments. I doubt White Dwarf has the budget to fly reporters around to gather that kind of interviews and take army photoshoots now.

They do Golden Daemon at their Warhammer Fest shows, and they've been posting the images on https://golden-demon.com/

I want equality. Equal spread between 40k, hobbit, and AoS. It worked fine in the early 2000's. For the battle of five armies and desolation of smaug the hobbit didn't even get the front cover.

 Da krimson barun wrote:
I want equality. Equal spread between 40k, hobbit, and AoS. It worked fine in the early 2000's. For the battle of five armies and desolation of smaug the hobbit didn't even get the front cover.

Didn't Smaug get a cover when he came out?

 casvalremdeikun wrote:

 Da krimson barun wrote:
I want equality. Equal spread between 40k, hobbit, and AoS. It worked fine in the early 2000's. For the battle of five armies and desolation of smaug the hobbit didn't even get the front cover.

Didn't Smaug get a cover when he came out?

Yes he did.

That was smaug though. Not the main release.

 Da krimson barun wrote:
That was smaug though. Not the main release.

Why wouldn't Smaug be a 'main release'?

Well, according to the letter I received, my Visions subscription (which was for White Dwarf originally) is becoming a White Dwarf sub from September.
Good job GW.

Here's the annoying part....
They're increasing my subs to £15 per quarter.

Yet if I subscribe on the webpage, it would only be £12.50 before 14th August. I guess the extra £2.50 per quarter (or £10 per year) is the bonus GW charge for being a loyal customer.

Time for yet another moan to GW.

 Gimgamgoo wrote:
Well, according to the letter I received, my Visions subscription (which was for White Dwarf originally) is becoming a White Dwarf sub from September.
Good job GW.

Here's the annoying part....
They're increasing my subs to £15 per quarter.

Yet if I subscribe on the webpage, it would only be £12.50 before 14th August. I guess the extra £2.50 per quarter (or £10 per year) is the bonus GW charge for being a loyal customer.

Time for yet another moan to GW.

I got that letter, but it also mentioned you get three free issues, so you effectively get the first year for £45 instead of £60/£50, so we're ok for a year at least.

 Yodhrin wrote:
And if you're arguing against points raised by other people, address your arguments to those people ideally using the forum's quote feature to prevent any confusion.

Guy doesn't even know how to use the shift key. I think expecting him to structure his posts using the quote function might be a bridge too far.

Regarding the painting guides, for a while GW was doing *really good* masterclass painting tutorials for LotR. They walked you through very carefully what needed to be done to achieve a high standard.

In addition to the "just paint it one colour, wash another, highlight another, done!" they actually showed good close ups and more detailed instructions. They weren't Golden Daemon winning results, but they were good enough to answer the important questions "Why don't my models look as good as the ones in the official pictures?" and also "how can I make my models look that good?"

They were really good tutorials and bridged the gap between the basic guides which will give you decent looking models but fall short of what you might have imagined in your head and actually reproducing work that might not be flawless, but is more artistic, more considered, requires more patience, etc.

I would love to see GW return to doing similar masterclass. I haven't got the latest FW masterclass book, but I found the older ones a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand they were awesome and showed awesome models, but occasionally they didn't explain the methodology with enough clarity and you could see from the images more things happened between steps than was actually described in the text.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:
And if you're arguing against points raised by other people, address your arguments to those people ideally using the forum's quote feature to prevent any confusion.

Guy doesn't even know how to use the shift key. I think expecting him to structure his posts using the quote function might be a bridge too far.

There should be a rule about using "@HBMC" instead of the quote feature. The quote feature is there for a reason, so people know what and who you are referring to with your own comments without having to flick back and find or guess at what points you are addressing. If you instead want to have a personal 1 on 1 convo then take it to PM's.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:
And if you're arguing against points raised by other people, address your arguments to those people ideally using the forum's quote feature to prevent any confusion.

Guy doesn't even know how to use the shift key. I think expecting him to structure his posts using the quote function might be a bridge too far.

as you can see, Mr. H.B.M.C., i can use the shift key, and the quote button just fine...
i am impressed that you managed to break Rule #1 and Rule #2 with a single line post, though...
well done

@Skink: sorry mate, i haven't got the multi-quote figured out on the iPad yet...
i do agree with you about the Masterclass articles, though...
it would be great to see them return to WD...
the 40K ones, like the converted AoBR Bad Moons Warboss, Kor'sarro Khan, Space Puppy with twin Lightning Claws, the Space Hulk breakdown from 2009, and the NMM Sanguinor were great reads...

the problem is, those were articles put together by 'Eavy Metal painters...
Paint Splatter is clearly put together by the WD Staffers...
i'm not sure that the execs want to have an 'EM painter take the time away from the churn and burn painting schedule to put together such indepth articles anymore...
it would be awesome to see 'Eavy Metal Masterclass return!!!

cheers
jah