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I wish they would become at least semi-transparent with their releases.

I'd just want to know which army was next, or even the plans for the quarter, half year or hell even a year! Maybe even small teasers from the art department/studio.

Obviously that won't happen as you'd get pre-emptive strikes by 3rd party companies. Not that GW shouldn't be able to fend them off. Healthy competition and all that.

Right now they're trying to see how keeping everyone in the dark works. They mentioned it was the plan at the last GD, and that it was subject to change if it didn't work. The reasoning is that people see new toys on the shelf and the average consumer goes OH MAH GAHD I GOTTA HAVE THAT and they buy things on impulse, rather than holding off and saving for what they really want.

I think it also costs them sales too, I'm such an example. I found a great deal for an old Eldar Megaforce on Ebay ($160) and began playing Eldar. However a week later, the Dark Eldar Megaforce came out on GW's website and I probably would have gone for that instead. Thus GW lost out. I'm not alone in this kind of phenomenon. People save up, buy things, then a week later something they had no idea about comes out.

Really they should put in their new Blog thing what new projects they're working on. Doesn't even have to include details.

Medium of Death wrote:

I'd just want to know which army was next

Same here. If that's all they did, then I'd be quite happy. Even just cover art for the codex would be awesome. But, good luck with that.

Harriticus wrote:
Really they should put in their new Blog thing what new projects they're working on. Doesn't even have to include details.

Back in late 4th ed they used to post teasers and such on their website. I remember seeing greens of Dark Reapers, sketches, and pictures of the then-new Eldar range in a sneak peek part of the site. It was cool, and I miss it.

Medium of Death wrote:
I'd just want to know which army was next

Exactly this. I want to know what's next, know that my BT are coming, but if I have to be surprised about what's in it, that's okay-they don't have to give us details about what's in the book if they really feel they need to keep that hidden. But at least tell us the next book. We can speculate, draw up thoughts online and get super excited without ever needing leaked information. If we know our book isn't coming for a while, we can start other projects: "Aww, Necrons are coming next. Not [my army]. Well, let's see what kinds of things were in the old Necron book and see what people think of it. *thumbs through old book, looks at discussions on 'Crons* Wow, these guys are awesome-maybe I'll pick up the next book while I wait for [my army] to come out." Success for GW's wallet, customers know what's coming...everyone wins.

I sort of figured this out the first time I read one of his rumours. When ADB called his bluff, I completely disregarded what he posted. I simply don't know why so many people kept believing him even after ADB called him out.

bhsman wrote:Between being wrong about Sisters, inferring Blood of Kittens to be untrustworthy, the Hrud codex rumors were all pretty damning, but politely being eviscerated by ADB was the final nail in the coffin.

....really, guys? A Hrud codex? That should have sent red flags all over the place.

Yea he was way off on the sisters, but the "Hrud" rumors might of been GW using the Hrud name to test things like Entropic strike or other concepts that didn't make it or will appear in future codices.

Hrud rumors originated from comments posted on BLOS by some nameless Dakka members.

Ghost really stuck to the Hrud rumors. In the Fantasy Contingents thread people started openly questioning the more stupid parts of it & he still made a cryptic remark about how Hrud weren't fake.

bhsman wrote:

aka_mythos wrote:I'm not saying anyone should have made up rumors. Its a criticism of GW, that one guy trying to decieve us all was more entertaining than a $200M company in this very narrow way.

Someone intentionally deceiving you is more entertaining than anything GW does? Seriously?

That would imply I believed him. The momemnt I stopped believing him was when certain ideas I had openly discussed very thoroughly on forums not too long before he posted appeared in his rumors. I originally said "he gave us something to talk about" and that's more than GW's done.

We are hobbyists and by extension fans, but fans need something to be excited about or they wither and become bored. GW's a gardener in the desert depriving us of water and food, with the expectation that we will still bear fruit. We are but weeds getting pissed on by a passing coyote, sustained for another day but none too happier.

People pay magicians to decieve them because that can be entertaining. People read gossip magazines that are wrong most of the time, thats enteraining. Like I said I'm not happy he lied, but I can still be entertained. GW on the hand, I yawn at them.

I'm with BrotherSRM and AlexHolker.

I don't get excited by surprises. I get excited by the anticipation that the surprise is coming.

I really want to bring my Sisters out of retirement, but the lack of info on when models will be updated has killed my enthusiasm. Well, that and because I got into the army for the inquisition freakshow and zealots, with righteous sisters... The contrast enthralls me. Anyway....

So, while I appreciate SoD's perspective, it should be clearly stated that (s)he by no means speaks for everyone.

I started lizardmen and bought dark elves based on excitement generated by rumors. More recently, I started Orcs and Vamps defensively, buying before price increases (orc boys, and vamp count battalion). Would never have bought any of this stuff had rumors not existed....

Hey so can someone post a link to ADB's discussion of ghost21? Thx

Edit- due to phone stupidity

pretre wrote:No way, ghost21 is unreliable!

Now you have a lot of thread editing to do, Kroothawk.

Because it always such a wonderful feeling to shot the messenger!

OT: I've never put to much value on the rumours floating around here because romours are, you guessed it, just rumours and not hard facts.

Harriticus wrote:I think it also costs them sales too, I'm such an example. I found a great deal for an old Eldar Megaforce on Ebay ($160) and began playing Eldar. However a week later, the Dark Eldar Megaforce came out on GW's website and I probably would have gone for that instead. Thus GW lost out. I'm not alone in this kind of phenomenon. People save up, buy things, then a week later something they had no idea about comes out.

Really they should put in their new Blog thing what new projects they're working on. Doesn't even have to include details.

The problem with this is how much earlier and surely the same would happen either way.

For example imagine you bought that mega force, then a week later you get the teaser image/message saying this new dark eldar stuff is coming. Either then you would still be in the same predicament both can and do happen. So telling people early doesn't solve this just people seem less vocal about it.

The difference from GW perspective is that if they do the "this is coming"/teaser thing too early things cool and the impulse buys are lost because people know it's coming but they can't pre-order/buy it because it isn't on the site.

IMO things should get released/people informed when they are done, it is a bit like throwing things over the wall but beats IMO very early teasers.

There is always something coming and people know that. It is very rare for GW to manage to get out the door more than 2 armies in fantasy and 2 in 40k, sometimes only one. So with that you can make up your minds over who to believe as not all rumors can be correct.

Oh well. Gave us something to chew on, so I don't blame him, necessarily. Also, this puts that little tiff between him and ADB into perspective. ADB was completely right!

After all his Necron rumors turned out to be total bunk, I stopped believing anything he wrote.

Noooo damn and blast :(

Remember this one?

ghost21 wrote:
It matches what I've heard.

I think a new mercenary race is obligatory. Demiurg /wishlist.

No need to wishlist there.

Well, at least I can go ahead with buying ForgeFathers now if all of that stuff about Demiurg was the product of a scurrilous mind.

This post by SoD on Warseer seems pertinent and quite well written

Does it have to be one extreme or the other? As other posters have said above me, half of the fun is being able to anticipate something fun is coming. GW's current strategy is creating absolutely zero anticipation and hype about their products, to the point where even store owners have posted on here saying they are having difficulty building up to a release in a store.

It's stuff that even a first year marketing student would absolutely rip to pieces in terms of established method of selling a new release. I'm not saying GW should show all of the body and give themselves up easily, but a flash of thigh and a wink would get most of us salivating.

Tresson wrote:

pretre wrote:No way, ghost21 is unreliable!

Now you have a lot of thread editing to do, Kroothawk.

Because it always such a wonderful feeling to shot the messenger!

Geeze, Debbie Downer, try reading the rest of the thread where Kroot and I talked about how we were joking.

Kroothawk wrote:
Hastings, a trusted rumour monger for years, announced quitting the rumour business because 80% of current rumours are deliberately made up. This started a heated Warseer discussion on credibility of rumours, in which ghost21 posted this

ghost21 wrote:I made It up,I wont be posting any more

So if you see an old rumour thread with rumours by him, don't give it any value. This includes a lot of Tau, Black Templar, Sororitas, Eldar, Hrud, Fantasy Contingent Supplement among others. While his first correct rumours about Dreadfleet gave him some credibility, he was wrong on a real Sororitas Codex with plastic releases and most other things that were released until now. That's why I was reluctant lately to post his rumours when not backed up by real rumour mongers like Harry, Hastings, BramGaunt and Frgt/10. But keep in mind that some things may turn out true even if made up, because ghost21 read rumour threads and used part of it when making up things.

I didn't interpret it as "I lied" but more as "That's it!, I give up. I'm outta here!" since he seemed to be at the center of the rumor debates.

Even Harry and ghost discussed that people participate in different part of the development cycle and see the products at different stages. Ghost may be relaying 100% excatly what he saw but we may not see them for some time.. or at all.

Here is a good quote from Inquisitor Engel

Inquisitor Engel wrote:
As someone who actually participated in the writing of the current Tau Empire Codex (Seriously, my full name is under special thanks, just ask) and did playtesting after, I can say that calling someone "wrong" because a Codex doesn't hit their projected dates is just stupid. I watched the Codex I was working on get pushed aside by Tyranids and get delayed just to model work. When I was in the studio, I saw concept work and an initial build of the plastic Gargant, which didn't arrive for another half decade! I also saw Dark Eldar concepts and we know how that turned out!

The point is that rumours and rumours. Things change, have huge upheavals and move around due to factors that no single rumour-monger could ascertain. Things get dropped from Codexes due to a lack of model support, things get added for future expansions of the range, it happens all the time. Background gets rewritten mid-way through development and so on.

Don't count your chickens before the hatch, but don't kill the hen when all you can do is make an omelette.

Brother SRM wrote:The reasoning is that people see new toys on the shelf and the average consumer goes OH MAH GAHD I GOTTA HAVE THAT and they buy things on impulse, rather than holding off and saving for what they really want.

Which is fine, when you are selling a product at impulse prices.

Although, by 'fine' I obviously mean 'a slightly less ridiculous business plan'... If showing people what's coming up just means that they'll be over it by the time it is released and wait for the next release instead, why do movie studios show previews months in advance? Using GW's logic, by the time the movie is released, nobody would be excited about it any more, and would just wait for the next movie.

Far better if the studios just don't tell us what they are working on, no? We can just find out what movies have been released this week when we get to the cinema.

I find it shocking that the nazi mods at warseer didnt try and cover it all up and kill it to perserve there image. We all know they have done far far worse to maintain there version of order.

LOL nevermind, they got too it.

Ozeo wrote:I find it shocking that the nazi mods at warseer didnt try and cover it all up and kill it to perserve there image. We all know they have done far far worse to maintain there version of order.

LOL nevermind, they got too it.

This response is hilarious in soooo many ways.

So, which Dakka guy made up a new account to post that anonymously?

Hokiecow wrote:
I didn't interpret it as "I lied" but more as "That's it!, I give up. I'm outta here!" since he seemed to be at the center of the rumor debates.

He literally said he made it all up. There's no ambiguity there.

insaniak wrote:
Which is fine, when you are selling a product at impulse prices.

Although, by 'fine' I obviously mean 'a slightly less ridiculous business plan'... If showing people what's coming up just means that they'll be over it by the time it is released and wait for the next release instead, why do movie studios show previews months in advance? Using GW's logic, by the time the movie is released, nobody would be excited about it any more, and would just wait for the next movie.

Far better if the studios just don't tell us what they are working on, no? We can just find out what movies have been released this week when we get to the cinema.

I'm not saying I agree with it, but it's got to sort of be working for them. I hope it changes before too long though, as I don't think it's good for the hobby.

Kroothawk wrote:

pretre wrote:No way, ghost21 is unreliable!
Now you have a lot of thread editing to do, Kroothawk.

Actually no, because I always state the sources I quote.

And when MajorTom11 urged me two months ago to compile ghost21's numerous Tau rumours, this is what I replied (25th November):

Hi Major,
I might do it by just tsarting a new thread and you then closing this one.
To be frank, I am uncomfortable with posting the flood of ghost21 rumours. He was dead on with Dreadfleet and that was his entry in the rumour business. He then flooded Warseer with rumours about everything, some far in the future (including the Hrud Codex he believes in but seems to just be a joke test Codex for internal training purposes), the rest proven false like his detailed description of the August Sororitas release (slight chance that the miniatures are ready and he saw then, but big chance that it was either made up or fed falsly).

On Tau, some things are nobrainers and easy to invent, other things sound fishy like "similar to the Battletech mech with the ancient weapon name"

That's why I didn't start a Chaos Codex and Black Templar thread: Too far in the future, only source ghost21. I posted stickmonkey also speculative and far future rumours, but somehow I have a bad feeling with this one and would prefer to have ghost21 proven more reliable.

Anyway, I will start a new Tau thread with a certain disclaimer on salt usage. Hope that helps.
Cheers, Kroothawk.

Which I took at the time to be very indicative that Kroot does a heck of a lot more than just copy and paste! Said it before and will say it again, we should all be very grateful for all the time Kroot puts in on our behalf

To the topic... well I can't say I'm all that surprised... we all know there are false rumors out there.

The thing is though, I would rather have some rumors, even false ones (within reason obviously) to start discussions and keep it interesting... The whole reason I even started going to mini forums at all was that there used to be a regular and exciting flow of sneak peaks, discussion and the like. Half the fun was anticipating what the rest of the line would look like, the rules or whatnot.

I'll use a movie trailer as an example here... Remember what anticipating what Matrix 2 and 3 would be like? How exciting it was to see the preview the first time, excitement for something new combined with notalgia for the older material? My friends and I were pumped for that flick, and we enjoyed the months leading up to it, discussing it and anticipating based off what we had seen in the trailer. The movie showed up, and it wasn't as great as the first one... which left us feeling a bit let down obviously. But you know what? We still had a great time being excited and interacting with each other based on a trailer for months. Same deal with Phantom Menace. Sure after seeing it it felt like I just got 2 hr long backrub from Grandma... but again, months and months of excitement and enjoyment! That is worth something to me. I would venture to guess it has value for most of us. Anticipation based on trailers is an integral part of every single other entertainment experience I have, it would be a shame to lose it altogether from GW, even if that means we have to deal with false info... That's my take anyways...

Forgive my pedanticness, but there is a noticeable difference between:

"I made It up"

and

"I made it ALL up"

Which one is this???

Why does this seem like a replay of the last, most recent, episode of Sherlock. Those who've watched this series on TV in the last few weeks will understand the reference (if you're painted as the villian enough it's easier to say it was all lies than hang around to explain).

Grimstonefire wrote:Forgive my pedanticness,

Hilarious. I think you mean 'pedantry'.

He made it all up. That's what we know.

That was a good word to misspell though, wasn't it. lol.

Where did he say he made it ALL up though? I'm clearly missing a quote somewhere.

Grimstonefire wrote:That was a good word to misspell though, wasn't it. lol.

Where did he say he made it ALL up though? I'm clearly missing a quote somewhere.

You didn't misspell it; you created a whole new word.

I made It up,I wont be posting any more

He did not use the word all. I believe that it is implied.

Ozeo wrote:I find it shocking that the nazi mods at warseer didnt try and cover it all up and kill it to perserve there image.

I find it shocking that someone would equate the volunteers who oversee a forum for discussing a game of toy soldiers with an insane and genocidal dictatorial regime. Perspective is a wonderful thing. I would recommend that people try to gain some of it.