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candy.man wrote:Although I have too admit the grass is pretty green on the PP side of the fence so I'm glad I GW made me leave GW!

Same boat here, except that Warmahordes holds no real interest for me (I do like the Skorne and Cryx aesthetic though). Instead we all gravitated towards FFG and the 40K RPG's. It's still 40K - so we're getting our fix there - but isn't subject to the whims of the GW design team. We get to be more creative, more free-form, and build models to make fancy characters rather than block-squads for a net-deck army list.

It's worked out pretty well so far - we're having our third game in as many weeks tomorrow - and it's worked out even better for me given I'm now writing for FFG! Can't complain there!

H.B.M.C. wrote:

candy.man wrote:Although I have too admit the grass is pretty green on the PP side of the fence so I'm glad I GW made me leave GW!

Same boat here, except that Warmahordes holds no real interest for me (I do like the Skorne and Cryx aesthetic though).

Have you tried a game yet?

Not calling you out or anything, just we had someone in our group who kept saying something similar until she tried it. Now she's buying a Menoth army for our Journeyman League. Sometimes that demo is what pushes you over the edge, y'know?

Don't get me wrong - I make no judgement on the game's quality or anything like that. In order to be interested in something I have to like the lore, the aesthetic, the potential story-lines and so on. This isn't to say that those things within Warmachine/Hordes aren't good, just that they don't appeal to me personally.

By the same token, as I've said in the past, 40K is terrible game with a shoddy slap-dash ruleset that could do with a few good proof-reads, but that doesn't mean I dislike 40K. As I said, I think the Skorne and Cryx stuff looks amazing (I even own a few Cryx and one Skorne model), but it just doesn't interest me, much like AT-43 didn't interest me even though I loved the look of the Therians.

H.B.M.C are you a writer, artist, game designer? Since you mentioned something about that aspect in your previous post.

Can it truly be that GW just gets a bad rap no matter what?

Depends
There are some I guess that may slag off the useless duffers no matter what they do
Some give credit where credit is due.
Some support GW no matter what.

My guess is that it is a bell curve.

H.B.M.C. wrote:Don't get me wrong - I make no judgement on the game's quality or anything like that. In order to be interested in something I have to like the lore, the aesthetic, the potential story-lines and so on. This isn't to say that those things within Warmachine/Hordes aren't good, just that they don't appeal to me personally.

Hey, that's totally cool. Glad to see that some people can not want to play a game without bashing it on this site.

There's very little I can go into due to NDA's and whatnot, but I started out play-testing for them, that moved to proof-reading books (one of which has just come out, The Achilus Assault), and now I've started writing for them as a free-lance writer. Again, can't talk about what I'm working on, but I did write a (tiny) bit of Church of the Damned, which came out a month or so back.

That's all I can say at this point really.

Edit: HBMC clarified himself and Ninja'd me at the same time.

Class act, that one.

H.B.M.C. wrote:To summarise the thread:

People who dislike GW, their policies and, in fact, anything they do can be instantly dismissed as a smaller fringe minority group whose opinions don't matter, whose grievances are invalid and who's criticisms lack merit. Back to the pile!!!



I've got a better strategy. It's called "credit where credit's due". People may want to dismiss me as a mindless hater who thinks everything GW does is an affront to human decency (that's crap, only most of what they do fits that bill ), but that's simply not true. I will always give credit where credit's due, and whenever GW makes something that is really cool or starts to do something new that could be considered quite revolutionary from a model design perspective, I will celebrate it.

But don't expect me to sit back and take all the endless bs (bad rules, price rises, mother-fething embargoes) in silence.

+1
I have played GW games and 40K since the early ninties. I have spent thousands of doallars on GW product.

I love much that they do and have created, and stll collect orks and play 40K semi-regularly.

However I also am able to acknowledge the many stupid, irritating, confusing and unpleasant things that GW does or has done, and I call bs when I see it.

What I find funny is that if you have ANY issues at all with GW that somehow you are "fringe" and a "hater" and someone who "complains just to complain".

I can like GW without being an apologist/fanboi just like I can complain without being a "hater/fringer". It isn't as black and white as some apologists/fanbois want to make it out to be, no matter how hard they don the "intenert cool guy" stance...

+1 on the above.

I wrote a pretty lengthy response in a previous, almost identical discussion a few weeks ago. I think with perhaps almost no exceptions, almost everyone here would have started with a positive or at least willing attitude towards GW. We have collected the miniatures over the years, and enjoyed gaming with them. However, one thing or another has come along, I would call it an 'assault' actually in terms of the number of customer-related blunders the company made a few months ago. I'm not going to go into them at all again here, but for me living in a country with no official GW presence, the change of RoW policy (embargo, or whatever, call it what you will) has made it effectively impossible for me to buy GW products at a sane price. That's it, in a nutshell. Aside from all the other policy changes which were steering me away from them, GW has made that decision for me.

The residual ill-will that still falls against GW is a result of changes in the company over the past few years. I'm not going to sit here, stick my fingers in my ears and sing 'lalalalla' and pretend everything is fine and dandy. I was, and still am, a fan of the company and when they continue on a path that is placing their future in jeopardy it's hardly surprising that both myself and others can get irate about it. It's not mindless 'hating', and GW didn't steal my girlfriend, it is simply cause and effect.

+1 as well.

I don't really feel the "hate" is hate, but disenchantment with GW.

It's like watching an older brother as you grow up: when you're young, he can do no wrong, but as you get older and gain more understanding of the world, you actually watch how he treats people/girlfriends, see the things he does in a new light and suddenly realize he's not the person you thought he was as a kid.

GW moreso than any other hobby I have been involved in, has earned much of its scorn.

Other than a brief return in 2005, I was last into this hobby back in 2001. This is what greeted me upon my return:

Increased prices for fewer guys in a box. Now, GW has always been kind of expensive, but lately they have really started to cross into dangerous territory. Dangerous in the sense that people aren't going to bother getting new armies because they are too cost prohibitive. I know I decided to say forget it to my plans for a CSM force, and will just fill out what I've got already. You can only chrun so many boxed sets out onto kids before you really need to look at customer retention.

Metal gone, and a dubious quality resin in its place. Yes, mistakes happen. But they should have happened last year, when GW was supposed to be testing this stuff. It isn't like resin miniatures are made out of some magical secret formula, or have never been done before. How is it I have a bunch of Forge World stuff that is cast perfectly fine, with no warps, bubbles, cracks or bends that were made nearly a decade ago? This level of quality would be unacceptable from a minor market player like Mantic, let alone the self proclaimed King of the Hobby. The Finecast launch, from what I can tell, is a disaster that should have cost several people their jobs.

White Dwarf. Good Lord, I could not believe what it has become. $9 for an advertisement. Nine. Dollars. The only semi useful thing in that magazine was the sisters codex, and there was only half of it (and I don't even play sisters anyways). And then, to find out that anyone who is actually subscribing to it gets it after it comes out in the store? Surely you jest.

An insane war against their retailers. Freeloaders? Are you bloody kidding me? If it wasn't for independent retailers and mail order, Warhammer would barely even exist in the USA. I don't even know where to begin with this, it is so backwards and self defeating. If GW goes under, future MBA students will study their downfall and point to this as the reason.

Media blackout on new and upcoming releases. Because the surest way to generate buzz and interest in your products is to keep them classified top secret.

Poor quality. My IoB set was mispacked with two identical sprues and another one that was broken. GW customer service was rather unpleasant to deal with, and I've been waiting over a week for them to get shipped to me. Their official response? It will show up eventually, call back in two weeks. Oh. Nice.

Slashing expenses to the bone while jacking prices so you can claim the same level of sales and pay a dividend when the CEO is a major shareholder? I read about companies that did this sort of nonsense in MBA school. They don't exist anymore.


So there you have it. This is the impression of GW that I have after about 6 weeks back in the folds of the Warhammer hobby. I'm going to keep playing because I really do like the lore, but I don't have blinders on. I would also like to end on a positive note, nothing that I have mentioned is irreversible and unfix-able. If GW is willing to do some deep self examination and make changes, they have the potential to soar higher than ever. But things will have to change for that to happen.

pretre wrote:@OP: You're not alone, but this won't end well.

agreed, Even now, the forces of hatred have been alerted to a discussion where they haven't pissed all over GW. Soon the dark hordes will mass and we'll hear the same old stories once again.

mikhaila wrote:

pretre wrote:@OP: You're not alone, but this won't end well.

agreed, Even now, the forces of hatred have been alerted to a discussion where they haven't pissed all over GW. Soon the dark hordes will mass and we'll hear the same old stories once again.

But have no fear the fanboi champions will soon arrive riding on the backs of finecast steeds to defend GW's honor...

mikhaila wrote:

pretre wrote:@OP: You're not alone, but this won't end well.

agreed, Even now, the forces of hatred have been alerted to a discussion where they haven't pissed all over GW. Soon the dark hordes will mass and we'll hear the same old stories once again.

CT GAMER wrote:

But have no fear the fanboi champions will soon arrive riding on the backs of finecast steeds to defend GW's honor...

Can we not pre-flame the trolls? Thanks.

Platuan4th wrote:+1 as well.

I don't really feel the "hate" is hate, but disenchantment with GW.

It's like watching an older brother as you grow up: when you're young, he can do no wrong, but as you get older and gain more understanding of the world, you actually watch how he treats people/girlfriends, see the things he does in a new light and suddenly realize he's not the person you thought he was as a kid.

I like your wording. Disenchantment or perhaps disenfranchisement, I like that much better than haters. I will certainly be more careful about wording that in the future to maintain the accuracy of my statements.

CT GAMER wrote:

mikhaila wrote:

pretre wrote:@OP: You're not alone, but this won't end well.

agreed, Even now, the forces of hatred have been alerted to a discussion where they haven't pissed all over GW. Soon the dark hordes will mass and we'll hear the same old stories once again.

But have no fear the fanboi champions will soon arrive riding on the backs of finecast steeds to defend GW's honor...

Sigh, once again my intention was not a flame war, I hope you're wrong but am prepared to be proven otherwise. You made a good argument earlier about how you can maintain your appeal in the game without being a fanboi, letting people know you aren't happy with something GW has done certainly doesn't make you automatically a hater. The haters are truly only the people who will get on BoLS or here and rip GW in every GW related post simply because, I would not put you or HBMC or really any others in the thread so far into that category. I appreciate those people who will bother to explain their dislike of certain aspects of GW, and their games rather than just spew forth vitriol and hate with no thought to anything positive. If you truly find nothing positive then ok but to appear in every thread possible to flame the same thing over and over is a bit over the top. I appreciate everyone's candor and polite discussion thus far and thanks to those of you who have commented on the article itself.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

malfred wrote:

mikhaila wrote:

pretre wrote:@OP: You're not alone, but this won't end well.

agreed, Even now, the forces of hatred have been alerted to a discussion where they haven't pissed all over GW. Soon the dark hordes will mass and we'll hear the same old stories once again.

CT GAMER wrote:

But have no fear the fanboi champions will soon arrive riding on the backs of finecast steeds to defend GW's honor...

Can we not pre-flame the trolls? Thanks.

How would one go about doing that? And does this mean such an action would be sanctioned by the Mods?

Eh, certain threads attract certain people who like to call each
other out. Both parties then inhabit the behaviors that they're
getting flamed for, and then both parties hit yellow triangles like
it's the end of the world.

I only hit yellow triangles on one special member's posts.

malfred wrote:Eh, certain threads attract certain people who like to call each
other out. Both parties then inhabit the behaviors that they're
getting flamed for, and then both parties hit yellow triangles like
it's the end of the world.

Oh man, that gets a sig for sure.

I only post yellow triangles on special members.

But that is another story.

Major problem is that GW systematically eliminates all feedback and control loops like playtesting, proof reading, early WIP pics, forums, critical people and independent minds within the organisation etc. And it shows.

Personally, I mostly like the designers work (except e.g. Mat Ward's fluff writing) but find the higher management decisions worse than if done randomly, severely hurting sales of the company.

girgam wrote:i don't know about people in other areas but i have found primarily GW's bad rap is more internet based than anything, i've heard the occasional complaint about them being to expensive but thats about as far as it goes.

I agree.

If you read White Dwarf, it is fairly supportive of GW's efforts most of the time.

CT GAMER wrote:

But have no fear the fanboi champions will soon arrive riding on the backs of finecast steeds to defend GW's honor...

Can we not pre-flame the trolls? Thanks.

Phobos wrote:GW moreso than any other hobby I have been involved in, has earned much of its scorn.

Other than a brief return in 2005, I was last into this hobby back in 2001. This is what greeted me upon my return:

Increased prices for fewer guys in a box. Now, GW has always been kind of expensive, but lately they have really started to cross into dangerous territory. Dangerous in the sense that people aren't going to bother getting new armies because they are too cost prohibitive. I know I decided to say forget it to my plans for a CSM force, and will just fill out what I've got already. You can only chrun so many boxed sets out onto kids before you really need to look at customer retention.

Metal gone, and a dubious quality resin in its place. Yes, mistakes happen. But they should have happened last year, when GW was supposed to be testing this stuff. It isn't like resin miniatures are made out of some magical secret formula, or have never been done before. How is it I have a bunch of Forge World stuff that is cast perfectly fine, with no warps, bubbles, cracks or bends that were made nearly a decade ago? This level of quality would be unacceptable from a minor market player like Mantic, let alone the self proclaimed King of the Hobby. The Finecast launch, from what I can tell, is a disaster that should have cost several people their jobs.

White Dwarf. Good Lord, I could not believe what it has become. $9 for an advertisement. Nine. Dollars. The only semi useful thing in that magazine was the sisters codex, and there was only half of it (and I don't even play sisters anyways). And then, to find out that anyone who is actually subscribing to it gets it after it comes out in the store? Surely you jest.

An insane war against their retailers. Freeloaders? Are you bloody kidding me? If it wasn't for independent retailers and mail order, Warhammer would barely even exist in the USA. I don't even know where to begin with this, it is so backwards and self defeating. If GW goes under, future MBA students will study their downfall and point to this as the reason.

Media blackout on new and upcoming releases. Because the surest way to generate buzz and interest in your products is to keep them classified top secret.

Poor quality. My IoB set was mispacked with two identical sprues and another one that was broken. GW customer service was rather unpleasant to deal with, and I've been waiting over a week for them to get shipped to me. Their official response? It will show up eventually, call back in two weeks. Oh. Nice.

Slashing expenses to the bone while jacking prices so you can claim the same level of sales and pay a dividend when the CEO is a major shareholder? I read about companies that did this sort of nonsense in MBA school. They don't exist anymore.


So there you have it. This is the impression of GW that I have after about 6 weeks back in the folds of the Warhammer hobby. I'm going to keep playing because I really do like the lore, but I don't have blinders on. I would also like to end on a positive note, nothing that I have mentioned is irreversible and unfix-able. If GW is willing to do some deep self examination and make changes, they have the potential to soar higher than ever. But things will have to change for that to happen.

I guarantee you that GW does all these things because they want: and I quote:

OverwatchCNC wrote:
You site good references there. I don't expect everyone to be in love with GW. I was only making the observation that it seems, despite their attempts to please us, some people are never pleased..

Really either the OP is totally unaware of what GW does or just doesnt want to look at it with critical eyes.

I dont hate GW but I dont love it either... its my hobby and its their business so my money talks first.

GW can't do anything right can they?

They could if they tried.

The only thing that is keeping them in business is the quality of their artists, both the sculptors and writers (appart from Mat Ward that is), appart from that, their last good decision they made from a gaming stand point was the launch of BFG.

I see plenty of positive statements regarding GW on the internet.
It is not really an problem. The negatives just get foregrounded in the minds of some supporters so they notice it and subsequently become more sensitive to further negative posts.

Being the internet, any dissent from one's own viewpoint is labelled as whining or hate. Which sparks off the counter attacks.

The pro GW lobby confuse dissatisfaction with GW managerial policies as an irrational dislike or hatred of the game.
It is not the same thing. As has been said, the game/models/fluff is seen positively just not the way the business is carried out.
People are entitled to a different point of view.
They are entitled to express that view.
No organisation gets everything right and by implication, GW don't get everything wrong.

So in answer to the thread's rhetorical question:
Yes, actually they can so don't worry about it.

They do lots of things right, notably in terms of sculpting, but for me GW is currently failing in three key areas...

a) Pricing their products based on "willingness to pay"
b) Abandoning the hobby side of the game (e.g. making scenery out of foam core, balsa wood etc) in favour of plastic, plastic and more plastic (this one of the reasons WD is so boring to read now)
c) Increasing lack of two way communication with players. They have basically limited themselves to monthly announcements along the lines of "Here is a cool new product. Please buy it."

I was going to add consistency of writing (or lack there of), particularly the inability to stick to one format for more than two codexes / army books, but they might be improving here. O&G, TK & OK all adopted the same approach and the books were well put together with new units and new background material.

Flashman wrote:They do lots of things right, notably in terms of sculpting, but for me GW is currently failing in three key areas...

a) Pricing their products based on "willingness to pay"
b) Abandoning the hobby side of the game (e.g. making scenery out of foam core, balsa wood etc) in favour of plastic, plastic and more plastic (this one of the reasons WD is so boring to read now)
c) Increasing lack of two way communication with players. They have basically limited themselves to monthly announcements along the lines of "Here is a cool new product. Please buy it."

I was going to add consistency of writing (or lack there of), particularly the inability to stick to one format for more than two codexes / army books, but they might be improving here. O&G, TK & OK all adopted the same approach and the books were well put together with new units and new background material.

I agree with all of that except "b" which I still partially agree with. I never found the foam core scenery that WD did all that interesting, the best scenery that is scratch built I found here on Dakka and other places. I also really like GW's plastic terrain and have always found WD to be pretty blah, even before it become one large ad.

H.B.M.C. wrote:By the same token, as I've said in the past, 40K is terrible game with a shoddy slap-dash ruleset that could do with a few good proof-reads, but that doesn't mean I dislike 40K.

I think this is a point that largely gets overlooked in the 'GW Haterz' threads. GW's diversification from their core 'game' (into pen&paper, PC/Console, and Black Library) allows people to enjoy the 40k mythos without the plastic men. And these other outlets also seem hugely successful.

I personally dislike the 40k tabletop game. It's streamlined to the point of simplistic, the lack of unit synergies makes gameplay devolve into a 'you do this , so I do this, so you do THIS' that is resolved with whoever rolls the biggest bucket of dice first, and the miniatures are becoming more expensive in a game system that rewards spamming 'good units' resulting in mono-look army lists.

This does not mean I've stopped enjoying, and giving money to, GW, however. I've logged 30 hours already on Space Marine, I'm finishing up Nagash Immortal, and I'll continue to buy just about every Black Library release.

None of this is going to get me anywhere near the tabletop with them again, however. The beauty is that I don't have to.

Don't wish to discuss the new game nautical game being announced tomorrow. Not sure what it is as it is a secret to be revealed tomorrow. all very hush hush and huggermugger.
There is already a thread for that so I assume the video I have just seen is mentioned there.

What I would like to say is that the video is very poorly conceived.
It looks cheap and shoddy and it would have been better simply to issue a written statement.

The problem is when it comes to communications GW seem absolutely clueless.
One of those things they cannot get right.

The game might be brilliant for all I know, but cruddy videos are still a fair target for criticism.