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I said yes, and was going to broaden it to "gamers are whiny." Yu-Gi-Oh! players bitch about ban lists, Magic players bitch about combos, wargamers bitch about imaginary background as related to imaginary plastic soldiers, video gamers bitch about anything that isn't Halo. It's just how it goes down.

I am most definitely NOT whiny, thank you very much, and I resent your implication that I am.

Srsly. A topic like this just can't be answered with a yes or no. Also, the targeted demographic is skewed, giving you a biased result.

On another note though. I photograph as a hobby, and also played airsoft and World of Warcraft. And I can tell you, the whining is no different on the wargaming forums compared to any other forum that concerns my other hobbies.

Photographers complain about everything. Nothing is really good. If the sensors are excellent, the lenses scalpel-blade-sharp and the company gives their stuff away for free. Then you'll see complaints about them not giving out the free stuff quick enough.
"Waaaaaaaaa, Nicanon took 30 minutes to deliver my D3X with 24-70 lens!"

WoW players complain about classes not being balanced, Blizzard not doing stuff and god knows what. A majority of topics on the WoW-forums is about something being "wrong".
"Waaaa, shaman is underpowered! Rogue killed me just by looking at me!" (true story though, buff shammys!)

Airsofters – I really don't need to go on… it's the same just in a different setting.

It's human nature to complain. Just like when you meet friends with partners. I seldom hear "Oh my partner is SUCH A GREAT PERSON!". Mostly it's complaints about ridiculous stuff like toilet seats or hairs in the shower. It doesn't mean that they're not happy about their relationship though. And noone wants to hear about how f*cking great another persons relationship is. At least I don't. I want to stab a fork in my ears after hearing more than two sentences about how cute someones partner is.

It's much funnier talking about how bad he/she smells in the mornings.

Embrace the whine!

In the ways of the internet there are only extremes: yes or no. There are no greys.

BrookM wrote:In the ways of the internet there are only extremes: yes or no. There are no greys.

Except the ones that the conspiracy nuts are always whining about on their forums.

Dronze wrote:

BrookM wrote:In the ways of the internet there are only extremes: yes or no. There are no greys.

Except the ones that the conspiracy nuts are always whining about on their forums.

True, they are shocks in the system. They need to be hunted down for the sake of our sacred binary system.

Wow people voted no??

I have to ration my time on online wargaming sites or my blood pressure goes up from all the people whining and complaining. If you don't think wargamers are a bunch of babies then you dont go anywhere else online but wargaming sites.

And have no life outside of wargaming.

Heh I love the way you guys are even trying to generalise people with imaginations.

To the original poster simple question......why???

I dont get why people who Wargame and Game on PC,X Box whatever have to have such negative press just because we dont "Tool it up" like regular jocks who get regular jobs and drink themselves into a stupor in this thankless fething world.

Would have thought more people would have flocked to wargaming the only "Sensible" thing ive done in my ENTIRE life is marry the woman I love and get a hobby I love i.e Warhammer and Sci-Fi memrobilla I only work because I have to to survive if I had to live in the 41st millenium or focus on and enjoy a job where its "yes sir no sir three Gakking bags full sir" then gimme Warhammer anyday the real world sucks.

Oh and to the Original poster did I mention I Roleplay and Larp theres one in your eye stick it!. Honestly people like you make me sick to my stomach you whinge and cry about wargaming and how we are all "Sad" and have no "life" but why oh why in gods fething name do you surf on here heh?? why?? why not go on ESPN international or i dunno NBA cause thats where all the "Real Worlders hang out"

breathe ........ Im done nerd rage is over!

So that's a yes.

If that was a fakepost I commend you on your trolling, it will surely sucker the lowest denominator on this forum. Don't worry about me spilling the beans and ruining the bait, from past experience gamers don't read well.

Whining is a defense mechanism for the players who refuse to learn from their mistakes and get better.. instead of just saying the more skilled opponent is cheesy

NO!NO!NO!

I'm not a whiner, but I am a douchebag.

I say no. We are dedicated to a VERY niche hobby that doesn't have squillions of new release product or even tons of truly affordable options. We bitch because we enjoy the game, but not the speed and cost that we get product we want.

Everybody bitches, but I wouldn't say we are any worse than anyone else and their hobbies.

No, you fail at that, too.
Douchebags have a purpose.

I do have a purpose.

I'm here to make things awkward. If I wasn't here, Dakka would be a ruthless dictatorship and nobody would be able to vent their anger.

Everytime you feel angry just look at the dark eldar model range and you realize that things could be A LOT worse.. Imagine looking like those guys

avantgarde wrote:So that's a yes.

If that was a fakepost I commend you on your trolling, it will surely sucker the lowest denominator on this forum. Don't worry about me spilling the beans and ruining the bait, from past experience gamers don't read well.

Dont read well Im not the one coming on here and tearing up the atmosphere I read your post well you clearly started by saying gamers are whingers hmmmm funny the amount of gamers I know dont whinge the amount of non gamers I know do.

constantly......oh wait your whinging what a surprise.

Kirasu wrote:Everytime you feel angry just look at the dark eldar model range and you realize that things could be A LOT worse.. Imagine looking like those guys

Oh that Dark Eldar line gets me all riled up........not

If you want more proof about how wargamers are whiny, read like 75% of the posts in the discussion forum.

You'll see what I mean!

54% of us have no sense of humor

and the other 46% percent of peoples sense of humour is slowed.

Avrik_Shasla wrote:54% of us have no sense of humor

And a lot of us are pretentious

In my opinion, there is a difference between constructive criticism, and whining.

Sadly, many complaints on the Interwebs and real life do just fall into whining. Stuff like 'Unit X should have Stat Y higher because then I could win more. Oh, and drop it's points, make the models cheaper, and whilst you're at it, you can bring me the Moon on a Stick'. Now why is this not constructive? Because all too rarely does the complainer deign to include a reasoning for their criticism. And it's not just Wargamers really. The vast majority of internet based complaints and those in real life are just empty minded noise.

An example of constructive criticism. I would like to see basic Orcs in Fantasy have a lower BS, and a better WS. Why? This suits the fluff and thus the theme of the army better. They lead a life of violence and duffing stuff up, yet struggle to punch their way out of a wet paper bag at times. Now whether or not this is a valid bit of criticism is largely irrelevant. I have posted a thought/suggestion/demand, and given some reasons as to why I feel it would be a positive change.

Other things I consider to be fairly whiney would include people complaining about a given unit, without looking at it's role in the larger army as a whole. Without this context, I feel it's a pretty pointless endeavour to compare it to units from outside the army. For example, the cost of the Big'uns upgrade on Orcs. It's pricey. Very pricey. But you do get quite an improved unit in the context of the army. From a Savage Orc point of view, that increase in WS and S is worth every single point I pay, even on the Boarboyz. It's horrific what they do to the enemy!

Prices is another one. If you don't like the price of the hobby, either find a suitable method of discount, or play a different system. And yet, some complaints I consider to be valid, again mainly due to context. Like the Greatswords. Nice models like, but so much more expensive than any other plastic boxed set. Normally, there is a £3 'premium' on the price of Heavy Infantry boxed sets in plastic. Savage Orcs and Miners spring to mind. But a £13 premium? Pull the other one, it's got bells on.

So yeah, if the complainer has given reasons, I file it under constructive criticism, if not, it's mindless whining.

Way I see it, it may seem like there a lot of whiny people. But that's just because they're the ones who make the most noise, so it seems like there's more of them than there are. The ones who don't whine don't bother posting crappy comments, and thus, you don't even realise they exist.

BOSS_PIMPALOTZ wrote:

avantgarde wrote:So that's a yes.

If that was a fakepost I commend you on your trolling, it will surely sucker the lowest denominator on this forum. Don't worry about me spilling the beans and ruining the bait, from past experience gamers don't read well.

Dont read well Im not the one coming on here and tearing up the atmosphere I read your post well you clearly started by saying gamers are whingers hmmmm funny the amount of gamers I know dont whinge the amount of non gamers I know do.

constantly......oh wait your whinging what a surprise.

Well, you've supported that "reading well" point quite expertly, Pimpalot, simply by not actually bothering to read your own posts before hitting "Submit"...

And I hear that Firefox has a nice little spellchecker built right in to it, too.

The point here is that, even though the ignorant whiners tend to be the very loud minority that gives the rest of the hobby a bad name, let's face it, taking one's sampling from most places on the internet is going to lead to a very skewed set of data points on the topic. That being said, here's my 2 cents on the matter:

In any continuously updated game, you're going to have people complaining about sporadic updates, as well as a bit of a knee-jerk reaction from players having to readjust to the gross shift in the metagame, as they've already invested a lot of time, and possibly frustration, into figuring out how to playing the game on multiple levels with the previous iteration, and now that knowledge is all but moderately useless, or has a large handful of unknown variables that make both the game and the metagame more unpredictable.

Case in point: I used to play a LOT of Magic: the Gathering back in the day, and eventually I just sort of fell out of playing for a while. When I came back to it, everything I knew in the Limited (type 2) constructed format had cycled out, and the new cards, for what I was used to, were downright OBSCENE for their cost, in my opinion. The game had changed fundamentally at the level I was playing at, and my first reaction was essentially "Holy gak, batman!". The cards were, in my mind, wholly overpowered, but I recognized that the environment had changed since I was last playing regularly. I've gotten back into M:tG over the past few months, and have adapted to the new environment, but there's still that degree of shock that tends to hit when you've gotten used to things being a certain way, and suddenly you have to shift gears to account for variables that weren't even there when you started, or haven't been there for as long as you care to recall.

As far as being "whiny" goes, we aren't talking about a CCG that gets regular updates 4 or more times a year, and it's not like we even have a game that's formatted to, in tournament conditions, cycle through it's updates with any real alacrity. People waited HOW long for the Ork Codex? People put a lot of time, money and energy into this hobby, and yes, GW can be an obscenely cruel mistress when it comes down to actually giving love to anything that's not Space Marines, but the cold facto of the matter is that, as consumers, we can either hope our voices are heard, or, eventually, we can make sure our voices are heard by just closing our wallets and taking our passions elsewhere.

Obviously things haven't gotten that bad yet. If we're complaining and still buying, it's usually because that minority has gotten rather vocal. Let's look at the Imperial (OMG knee-jerk so broken!) Guard Codex, simply because it's all shiny and new. All those people who were complaining about it in the lead-up were worried that it was going to shift the paradigm of the game severely, and in some small way, it may have, but let's face the facts: The vehicle damage rules in Fifth Edition were already designed to make mechanized ANYTHING the way to go. Fifth edition changed the flow of the game in a lot of ways, and the new codexes (except CSM, and even that took the impending update into account to some degree) reflect that change... the problem is, the older codexes just kind of go blindsided by the shiny new updates and the glory days of formerly tier 1 armies are fading, for the moment.

I think that a lot of the whining stems from the (don't kill me!) low-level tourney scene, more than anything else, to be honest. Those players that hone their skills and/or use other people's lists that they found on the Interwebs find it massively difficult to change their style of play in order to keep up with the times, as they tend to go so long without a major shift in the game at either the metagame level or the actual game level that they become complacent. Having to learn something new when the old ways stop working isn't easy, as we all form habits in our game that are tough to break.

All that being said, I think that if you're playing something in this genre because you're good at it, as opposed to because you enjoy it, you're playing the wrong game. Go take up M:tG, the payouts at higher levels of competition are actually in large sums of cash, and it is inherently a more mechanical game.

I think the cycle is true for every game

1.Doom (X needs a boost, Y needs to be nerfed where X is what the author plays, and Y is the most recent sound whupping delivered)
2.Anticipation (New toys announced
3.Rage (End of World, Price increase)
4.Speculation (Fleet, rending, furious charge, 11 point space wolves and 'Developer X is a fish' go here)

And we're all part of an audience completely incapable of being satisfied.

Thing is if people didnt whine..

Gamer 1:Warhamz 40k is alrite eh?

Gamer 2:Yeah.

Gamer 1: ...

... They'd have nothing to say. I voted yes. I remember the first wargaming forum I went on I was shocked by all the whinging. Now it warms my heart.

In any continuously updated game, you're going to have people complaining about sporadic updates, as well as a bit of a knee-jerk reaction from players having to readjust to the gross shift in the metagame, as they've already invested a lot of time, and possibly frustration, into figuring out how to playing the game on multiple levels with the previous iteration, and now that knowledge is all but moderately useless, or has a large handful of unknown variables that make both the game and the metagame more unpredictable.

This is an interesting point, because a lot of wargamers try to play historical tactics which work. Then there is less need to memorise rules because if the rules are well written they will tend to reward play using realistic tactics.

40K doesn't work like that. it works because of a number of biased rules which reward special tactics -- these are fairly easily changed by the designers thus upsetting the game balance. Even a single codex can contain special rules which change the way the game is played.

A complaining gamer is a happy gamer.

Kilkrazy wrote:

In any continuously updated game, you're going to have people complaining about sporadic updates, as well as a bit of a knee-jerk reaction from players having to readjust to the gross shift in the metagame, as they've already invested a lot of time, and possibly frustration, into figuring out how to playing the game on multiple levels with the previous iteration, and now that knowledge is all but moderately useless, or has a large handful of unknown variables that make both the game and the metagame more unpredictable.

This is an interesting point, because a lot of wargamers try to play historical tactics which work. Then there is less need to memorise rules because if the rules are well written they will tend to reward play using realistic tactics.

40K doesn't work like that. it works because of a number of biased rules which reward special tactics -- these are fairly easily changed by the designers thus upsetting the game balance. Even a single codex can contain special rules which change the way the game is played.

That doesn't really make the shift a bad thing. In real life, is it not considered a good thing to be quick on your toes and capable of thinking through a dynamic issue? My interest in historical miniatures games is miniscule, at best. Mainly because I read/watch about this kinda stuff pretty frequently, and to see it boiled down to a simple abstraction just kind of takes away from the enjoyment aspect of it for me.

It's the same reason I don't like the sims, actually... I play as a means of escape, not as a way to remind me of the world around, past or present.

I like to see new life breathed into a game at regular intervals, part of the reason I like Trivial Pursuit, they update it, and not ONCE have I ever heard someone say "Oh, well, I'm only going to play Genus II, 1989 edition, since the questions aren't as broken."

If modern games don't shift every once in a while, people get bored with them. Sure, they're a good diversion, but let's face it, if there were no chance of GW ever doing an update for any of their games again, and they just kept pumping out the same kits continuously, how many people would actually keep buying their stuff? Eventually, nobody. The game would slide into obscurity.

Change isn't a bad thing, and I'd like to see a fresh codex for everyone when a new edition drops (or shortly thereafter), if only to keep the game from falling into the powergamer rut that takes the content of the codexes and shoves them into the "useful" and "why are these in here" columns.

Besides, a new codex can be a welcomed change of pace for some players, as it can mean new challenges in future games.

Cheese Elemental wrote:I do have a purpose.

I'm here to make things awkward. If I wasn't here, Dakka would be a ruthless dictatorship and nobody would be able to vent their anger.

If you werent here you would just be trolling some other board. What did you do on your vacation find another forum or just sit and twiddle your thumbs in front of your black monitor?

Seriously find something constructive to do before its 5 years from now and you rgret wasting your childhood on things that dont matter at all.