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Flashman wrote:Something of a GW apologist, so I'm not out of love with them just yet, but...

I'd echo JohnHwangDD's requests for better proof reading in Codexes and price fixing for a couple of years at least.

I'd also like them to get back to promoting the modelling side of the hobby i.e. rather than just making plastic kits, shows methods for making your own game boards and terrain such as houses, bunkers and rivers. Guessing however this would not go down too well with the beancounters...

At this point they claim to support the "hobby," but they only really support the "made by GW, purchased from GW at a GW store" aspect of the hobby, which is only a small portion of the hobby as a whole.

There is quite a lot GW could do to make them more loved, for example (in a random order):

-Not increasing the prices every couple of months.
-Actually giving attention to Game Balance (both between armies as between units within armies).
-Dividing their attention equally amongst all armies. All Space Marine chapters counting as a single army. My Eldar don't get extra attention for every Craftworld either!
-Releasing miniatures for every unit in the Game.
-Releasing FAQ's more often. While they are at it, actually answer the players questions in these FAQ's, instead of blatantly ignoring the most important concerns and answering questions to which the answer was already perfectly obvious.
-Updating every Codex / Armybook before releasing a new Rulesbook. The most ideal situation would be GW releasing all Codici / Armybooks at the same time as a new Rulesbook, and releasing waves of models in between the Rulesbook versions. This way they can playtest everything for a long time (namely the time between two Rulesbook versions) and playtest every new edition of armies against eachother, making Balancing the Game easier.

I realise this will never happen though, as GW is just a company trying to make as much profit as possible, and don't actually care about their customers at all as long as their profits don't go down.

Real rules.

"What would make people love GW again?"

If they fething re-did the armys that needed doing

For me it's the pricing. I'd be more inclined to start collecting a new army if it wasn't an investment of thousands of dollars.
If they're going to cling to their ridiculous prices, they need to give equal attention to all armies. According this poll, over 25% of us don't play SMs: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/264799.page And I bet many who do play SMs play multiple chapters, so the actual # of SM players is fewer than it seems.

That poll doesn't count players who have their own chapters.

You can play 40K with non-GW figures.

I am building an entire Guard army from non-GW sources.

Nothing. I like them the way they are for the most part.

I'd like to see more stuff in plastic though. They have the technology and I'm sure they are slowly working on it but that is really my only complaint.

Pricing isn't too horrid IMO. I've been in hobbies a lot more expensive than 40k.

Ah. I assumed their own chapter would fit under "Other".
In any case, ignoring loyal fans just because they don't play the most popular army is one major source of GW hatred.

Fateweaver wrote:Nothing. I like them the way they are for the most part.

I'd like to see more stuff in plastic though. They have the technology and I'm sure they are slowly working on it but that is really my only complaint.

Pricing isn't too horrid IMO. I've been in hobbies a lot more expensive than 40k.

It's not so much that the prices are "horrid" in comparison with some other hobbies,it's the production cost vs retail cost that seem to be out of wack.

It's no different than any other company. I'm sure that a can of Mt. Dew does not cost Pepsi 35 cents per can.

Fateweaver wrote:It's no different than any other company. I'm sure that a can of Mt. Dew does not cost Pepsi 35 cents per can.

No,of course it doesn't,however in most cases a can of Mt. Dew won't go from 35 cents a can to 45 cents a can to 55 cents a can in a brief period of time,this can not be said for GW kits.

For me its simple really:
1: Give EQUAL love to ALL the armies.
2: Stop makeing armies unplayable. (I have 3 that are no longer legal outside "fun" play LATD, IG AC, Pure Harlies)

prices arent going to change their making a profit (in a global recession!)
what I think would solve this is having local tournaments like a bi-weekly sunday tournament ofr everyone to play in by making the Vegas tourny this seems impossible because they'll just point at the list

jp400 wrote:For me its simple really:
1: Give EQUAL love to ALL the armies.
2: Stop makeing armies unplayable. (I have 3 that are no longer legal outside "fun" play LATD, IG AC, Pure Harlies)

Well, the first thing is simply not going to happen. Outside of a few die hards, I think most people would like to see more attention paid to the big armies than to the boutique armies. Allowing marquee armies like Orks and Wolves to languish for years with a lousy book (Orks) or become woefully out of date (Wolves) shouldn't happen, but no amount of promotion is going to cause DE, Tau, Nids, or IG to sell as well as Chaos, Eldar, Orks, or Marines.

As for unplayable armies, this is something that I agree with, but I always like to point out that calling armies illegal is often a bit of an overstatement. To use your examples, they're not all the same.

LATD were hosed, pure and simple. While a sublist (using not one but two other codices to be formed), LATD had a strong style that wasn't derivative of any other army and allowed for some amazing options. It is now the least playable of any sublist... unless you use look beyond Chaos and IG. Depending on what you have built, most LATD armies can become quite nice Ork armies with only a little effort. Mutants = boys, big muties = nobs, IG = lootas, etc.

AC were never universally legal. Lots of tournies allowed them, but a lot didn't. I think the switch toe 5th edition scoring had a strong impact on their decision not to include an AC option, as AC would either have no scoring units or would be the first 5th Ed. list with a scoring vehicle option. Still, the current IG book is very tank heavy, with a stronger emphasis on Chimeras than Lemans, but a CCS with chimera and four veteran squads in Chimera is only 755pts, leaving almost 1100pts to buy tanks. Is that that same list? No, but it's pretty close.

Harlies haven't been codex legal since 2nd edition, the Journal list was notoriously unbalanced and was never allowed anywhere I played. Even so, the new Eldar book allows for some decent all harlie options. Three harlie squads, autarchs as great harlies, farseers as shadowseers, jet bikes as jet bikes, and the wraithlord allows for a very fluffy list.

The real problem, if it is one, isn't that GW makes sublists and the like unplayable in codex changes. It's that GW seeks to make nearly all players rebuild their lists dramatically with each update. If you played Space marines in fourth, and had a list build around las/plas squads, dual AC termie squads and termie command squads, and tornados, the only legal units in 5th would be the tornados, which are now among the weaker options in the game (can only shoot one weapon after moving 12", no skimmers move fast, loss of rending, and increased cost). The termie squads and tac squads are all illegal as built.

Polonius wrote:The real problem, if it is one, isn't that GW makes sublists and the like unplayable in codex changes. It's that GW seeks to make nearly all players rebuild their lists dramatically with each update. If you played Space marines in fourth, and had a list build around las/plas squads, dual AC termie squads and termie command squads, and tornados, the only legal units in 5th would be the tornados, which are now among the weaker options in the game (can only shoot one weapon after moving 12", no skimmers move fast, loss of rending, and increased cost). The termie squads and tac squads are all illegal as built.

I think this is one of my biggest problems with GW. I only have a limited time to spend on Warhammer, and most of it is spent changing and updating my army to fit with the latest codex. And by the time I have done that, one of my other armies has a new codex and their entire list needs redoing, etc...

Archonate wrote:Ah. I assumed their own chapter would fit under "Other".
In any case, ignoring loyal fans just because they don't play the most popular army is one major source of GW hatred.

Since the poll is about "major chapters" owned, the "other" category covers chapters like the Space Sharks -- officially named chapters.

You're right though, there are too many SM armies in the game.

Kilkrazy wrote:That poll doesn't count players who have their own chapters.

You can play 40K with non-GW figures.

I am building an entire Guard army from non-GW sources.

Me too, Prince August, i wanted something with masks and at less than .50 cents € per... well a little conversion work and whamo

Nothing will ever make the people who "hate" GW, love it again. I will just find something else to bitch about. Those people are like sharks, if the they stop bitching they die, just like if a shark stops swiming he will die.

Cheers

JD21290 wrote:
Failing that, bring back skullz!

I have a crap tonne of skullz that i was always saving up for a huge loot grab.. so naive! Should have taken the middle present.. the space marine bike or something.

When did they phase them out anyway?

Atm the relationship between GW and their vets is very similar to abusive husband to their wives , which wives are afraid to leave because then no one supports their children.

kinghammer wrote:Nothing will ever make the people who "hate" GW, love it again. I will just find something else to bitch about. Those people are like sharks, if the they stop bitching they die, just like if a shark stops swiming he will die.

Cheers

If your argument is correct if you stop listening to your customers then your business will die that's the way business works

Personally I find the problem a lot more fundamental than those listed above

It's Quite simple it's all in the name games workshop and that's what we want Games

It's not really for us to tell them what we want it's up to them to find out what we would like and that's the biggest problem they have no drive to try and hear to the masses.

And the list is too long and endless and if anything, I am reluctant to point out every single thing that they could do better because the list is so big and people in a better position than me by now, should have a fair idea in regards to what a GW customer wants.

It's not rocket science.

kinghammer wrote:Nothing will ever make the people who "hate" GW, love it again. I will just find something else to bitch about. Those people are like sharks, if the they stop bitching they die, just like if a shark stops swiming he will die.

Cheers

You keep appearing with these trite little driveby flamebaiting soundbites. It's getting like some recurring cameo in a sitcom. Could you work on establishing a catchphrase though?

'Them crazy GW hatin kids is what's killin the economy I tells ya!'

or

'Don't talk gak about JJ! wakka wakka wakka!!'

Incidentally, if according to you, people who might criticise GW will 'die if they stop bitching', what does it take for you to shuffle off this mortal coil and more to the point, how do I facilitate that?

Polonius wrote:no amount of promotion is going to cause DE, Tau, Nids, or IG to sell as well as Chaos, Eldar, Orks, or Marines

I have to disagree. Statements like this frustrate me because it would have to be tried in order to be proven, and like you said, that's just never going to happen. I believe that an army's sales are fairly well proportionate to how much that army is promoted. Though we'll never know whether that's true or not.

A lot of the logical ideas here are pretty agreeable.

The biggest problem I have is hypocrisy. All of their IP is heavily based on another persons ideas. Space marines and Nids are stolen from Starship Troopers and Aliens. Elves Dwarfs and Orcs are from tolkien books. Necrons are nods to The Terminator and many others.

Its a bit much to see a company blatantly use ideas like that then have a problem with some folks getting together on the internet to talk about buying their products.

Id like to see them ease up on the lawyering and put more effort into making their game better rules wise and with either higher quality in the models or lower prices.

Stop opening up stores in houston and open more hobby stores in the south east.

I think there is a GW store in Atlanta Georgia. I dont recall there being one in Louisiana, Mississippi or Florida.

The nearest GW store is 6 hours or more for me its in houston.

I live in New Orlean

Archonate wrote:

Polonius wrote:no amount of promotion is going to cause DE, Tau, Nids, or IG to sell as well as Chaos, Eldar, Orks, or Marines

I have to disagree. Statements like this frustrate me because it would have to be tried in order to be proven, and like you said, that's just never going to happen. I believe that an army's sales are fairly well proportionate to how much that army is promoted. Though we'll never know whether that's true or not.

Army sales are roughly proportioned to how much each army is promoted, but I highly doubt it's the promotion that causes that ratio. I think that peoples inherent likes and dislikes, combined with the relative qualities of any given army (miniatures, fluff, rules) are a far bigger chunk of the popularitity puzzle than simple amount of promotion.

Now, if you count the breadth and depth of models, especially in plastic, any army gets as being a factor in that armies success... sure, that's part of it. It's easier to collect Marines than Sisters. Otoh, Tau have a complete range that's nearly all plastic, as do Orks. Orks get a ton of love, and aren't any where near as popular as Marines.

Anyways, your statement seems to imply that GW can "make" stuff popular. A simple glance at Lord of Rings shows that to simply not be true.

GW needs to go back to making games with character. I remember when I first started reading through the Codex Imperialis and becomming totally immersed in the 40k universe. The current product just aren't up to par. When I took a break from wargaming my last codex was Codex: Chaos Space Marines, the first one out of 3rd edition. There was god specific wargear for character AND vehicles and the rules actually rewarded you for taking an army consistent with fluff (i.e. legion units were troop choices if your HQ had the right mark). When I got back into things this year I found everything watered down. The only god specific wargear were the daemon sword and psychic powers and the "fluff" had become a history-book like review of the story with few of the sidebars that gave everything character. Chaos is just one example, but everywhere I look I see the story and atmosphere of the game being watered down in the name of simplefying rules. I admit that the current rules are much better than they used to be, but if all I wanted were simple rules I'd be playing DBA. People play GW games because of the background, GW needs to remember who they are and refocus the game books on the fluff, don't just farm it out to Black Library.

Models are a lot better than they used to be and the game has always been expensive (Again if you want cheap and simple you should be playing DBA or the like). My only beef is what I wrote in the paragraph above (and the recent RIAAesque attacks on the fans.

Sadly, nothing.

1) Prices.

They will never, ever, lower prices. Maybe they may freeze their prices...yeah, right. We were told that plastics would be cheaper, and in some cases, we did get more bang for our buck...at least temporarily. But their stealth price hikes and their recent claim that they would bring plastic prices inline with their metals reveal that all they plan to do is to keep increase their prices. And with their rationale that plastic prices will go up with oil, and metal prices will go up with tin, and plastic prices will go up with metals, we see a very simple positive feedback cycle where the prices will keep going up indefinitely just using these excuses.

2) Game Balance.

They do not want to achieve this. Ever. This is why they playtest for crap. If they did achieve this, then there would be no incentive for them to publish new editions of their games or sell new army books. Their business model involves selling miniatures by constantly manipulating the rules. This doesn't really affect new customers, but instead preys on their veteran customers who are forced to keep making new purchases in order to keep their armies both legal and competitive. Other games depend on set retirement to force players to keep buying new products...GW doesn't necessarily do this (not officially), but they capitalize on the veteran customers desire to maintain their investment in their armies, in money, time, and energy.

3) Better Communication.

All this would do is to force them to be more publicly accountable for the crap that they do that we don't like. They tried this in the past, and realized that they really had no answer to a lot of our legitimate complaints that wouldn't piss us off. So they found it easier to close their forums, and fire or move the public relationship people who used to directly communicate with the fans. It's not that they can't communicate...it's just that they can't truthfully deal with the fanbase without further destroying the relationship.

I'd like to see...

1. A price freeze for the next few years. I remember back in the good old days, you could get 6 metal guys in a blister for $10.38 CAD. Yes it was a long time ago, but $10.38 didn't break the bank of the average 16 year old back then. I think 5 metal guys for $25 is reasonable, but like $50+ in the case of Great Swords or Chosen...seriously (And that is here in Nippon, so the prices might be cheaper elsewhere)? All it makes me want to do is buy the regular Chaos Warriors or Empire state troops and convert them.

2. An actual "Sale" once and a while where you save more than the price of a cup of coffee when dropping $400. There used to be sales. Buy 2 get the third for free or 25% off coupons in the back of a WD. A few summers back a retailer in Calgary was getting out of GW and put all their stuff on sale at 30% off and then 65% off. It was all gone in like 2 weeks. If GW has a lot of back stock, they should let it go cheap.

3. Return White Dwarf back to the glory of the Fat Bloke years. It was great then and the quality was good.

4. Stop fething the rules every 2 years. A new edition comes out, everyone buys it, plays it, gets the hang of it then they introduce some uber army or unit that is just so r-tarded in alters the dynamic of the game too much. Then after saying everything is fine for the next 4 years, JJ comes out in his editorial and talks about how they had to fix the rules that they broke. This is more of a WFB point for me as I don't play 40K anymore.

5. Sell sprues in the store or break the boxes. A few retailers do this and it is great when you only need like 2 guys or some stuff for conversions.

6. Chaos should come in one giant book.

7) The quality of the games is now the kwality of the games. It seems like they've been mailing it in when making resources. Maybe they are trying to target a younger audience, but the watering down of a lot of the fluff is pretty lame.

8) Books that don't fall apart the second you open them.

Polonius wrote:no amount of promotion is going to cause DE, Tau, Nids, or IG to sell as well as Chaos, Eldar, Orks, or Marines.

Guard, then Bugs, have the potential to sell in Ork / Eldar / Chaos numbers. Nothing, of course, will touch the various combined flavors of Loyalist Marines.
____

FreekyE wrote:The biggest problem I have is hypocrisy. All of their IP is heavily based on another persons ideas.

If that *really* were the case, considering how heavily monetized GW's IP is, someone else would have taken GW to court over it by now.

The fact is that there are a lot of generic ideas that GW has made into their specific IP, and GW properly defends their IP. You can't fault them for that. Indeed, from a pure IP standpoint (cf Bilski or Disney), GW is insufficiently aggressive in their approach.