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Anyone? Shame they took it down...Might have actually served as a good place for feedback.

Would anyone want/expect another GW board?

GW didnt like hearing "UPDATE YOUR FAQs" and "GAV THORPE SUCKS" all the time.

If they reopened it, it would the same thing all over again, just sub out Gav for Ward

Matt Varnish wrote:GW didnt like hearing "UPDATE YOUR FAQs" and "GAV THORPE SUCKS" all the time.

If they reopened it, it would the same thing all over again, just sub out Gav for Ward

Well, at the moment it appears that GW doesn't really listen to its customers.

They didn't really listen when they had forums, either.

I think the only real evidence that they even bothered to read them from time to time is the fact that they discontinued them. Like previous posters in the thread have intimated, GW has not really shown any interest in hearing criticism...or doing anything to address said criticism, either.

Technically, the old GW forums were pretty hideous. I would not be surprised if (like the rumor I heard about their Interactive Army List program) the one guy who knew how to fix them left and no one felt like learning how.

They also had some admin weirdness. I remember Admins would actually post 'Moderator On Duty' posts... Do you really want to let people know that moderators might not be on duty?

Content was not great,. There wasn't much "Update Army X!" or "We need a FAQ!" talk as some would expect. I think it skewed a bit younger and less mature than Dakka. A lot of content there that would get laughed at over here, like an Aquaman Space Marine Chapter. I sued to amuse myself (I had more free time back then...) by trying to rehabilitate the worst ideas.. Taking the Aquaman Chapter and making them a Chapter with a strong aquatic 'theme' but not breaking with the 40k feel as much.

I think GW officially said they felt Other Web Forums (presumably including Dakka) did a better job than their own. Which made the occasional round of lawsuits against forums all the more entertaining.

There's only one thing I remember: DISTROY ALL EVIL!!!

lord_blackfang wrote:There's only one thing I remember: DISTROY ALL EVIL!!!

Care to elaborate?

They were called the "Eye of Terror" by the posters in the other boards I frequented at the time. They were... not great.

I think GW shutting them down made all the sense in the world.

Haha they really don't like feedback. I remember when Dreadfleet was released and they made their post on their facebook page. I posted something along the lines of: "While interesting, I won't be purchasing this. I really hope this(dreadfleet) doesn't spread GW too thin, I mean there are already codex's in dire need of an update for 40k alone, not sure about fantasy."

I got something like 80~ likes until my post was removed lol

And on the seventh day, GW stepped away, and it was hideous.

Hi all,
I can remenber when GW was a games company!
And when well thought out and expressed ideas made it into the pages of white dwarf....(And nice letter from the developers were sent out.)


However , Mr kirby belives GW should be 'in the buisness of selling toy soldiers to children.'
So why should GW communicate with a 'bunch of whiney kids that will get thier parents to buy what ever GW produce...'

Anyone serious about gameplay and game balance would have given up on GW by now surley ?
(The financial reports show a drop in sales volumes of about 40% in the last 5 years.)

If GW had a discussion board it would be full of 'AWSOM IDEAZ WHOT ARE THE ROXXORZ' from over enusiastic 10 to 14 year olds.(Spiderman Marines, Plasma Marines etc... )
And 'reasons why company X is beter than GW' from disgruntled vets.(Mantic undead army £99, same minis and books from GW about £300 etc)

And actual ideas that are benficial to any GW game would be lost in the mass of righteous indignation -entusiastic crap.
Pretty much like it was when it was shut down.

Something that awful isn't worth maintaining. They could have made it better but they were just awful. They shut the White Dwarf section before the rest, because they couldn't take the endless criticism. Oddly, the editor actually came on and asked for suggestions and a lot of decent stuff was written in response. So when people were told it was taken on board and to wait for changes, given the 3 month production they have, there was hope. 6 months later there was no change and people were even more frustrated. So they purged that section.

They also had a 'no squats' rule which was probably the funniest of all.

Basically the forum was swamped with immaturity and had an appalling interface. It wasn't even nice to look at or use. All GW wanted was positive feedback. It would be amazing to see their forums had they been around for the Australian/Japan embargo and the finecast fiasco.

I believe it was rule 26 that expressly forbid the mention of Squats?

The boards were entertaining for nothing else other than the (usually 1 or 2 a week) posts of 'what happened to the squats?' before they were closed down.

Yes, it was technically poor, and populated by the kind of teenagers who probably spent the rest of time stood around the Crossroads on WoW, but at least it was an effort to connect to the customer base.

But without the GW boards how would the Pan Fo have been reviled?

Polonius wrote:They were called the "Eye of Terror" by the posters in the other boards I frequented at the time. They were... not great.

I think GW shutting them down made all the sense in the world.

It doesn't make good sense for any company that is not doing technical support to offer a general purpose forum. Having a Facebook page gives you all the benefits of having the appearance of communication and feedback, but the much better control over your message, pre-planning and messaging, as well as completely offloading your infrastructure and IT costs to a third party for free.

This also makes sense for politicians who tend to be less popular when they can actually be interacted with live, such as Sarah Palin.

Ouze wrote:

Polonius wrote:They were called the "Eye of Terror" by the posters in the other boards I frequented at the time. They were... not great.

I think GW shutting them down made all the sense in the world.

It doesn't make good sense for any company that is not doing technical support to offer a general purpose forum. Having a Facebook page gives you all the benefits of having the appearance of communication and feedback, but the much better control over your message, pre-planning and messaging, as well as completely offloading your infrastructure and IT costs to a third party for free.

This also makes sense for politicians who tend to be less popular when they can actually be interacted with live, such as Sarah Palin.

Only if the company in question is staffed by major douchebags, like all politicians tend to be...

PP, BF, Wyrd, CB, Spartan, AA and practically every other "major" miniature gaming company has their own forums and is reaping the rewards in terms of PR and CR.

Saying that having a Facebook page is comparable to having your own forums is laughable at best. Facebook is a fad and it will be replaced by something else in 3 or 4 years at most.

PhantomViper wrote:[Saying that having a Facebook page is comparable to having your own forums is laughable at best. Facebook is a fad and it will be replaced by something else in 3 or 4 years at most.

No, I took great pains to explain why having a Facebook page is superior to your own forums, from the point of view of the average companies. And, although I agree it will eventually be replaced by something like it, just like Myspace before it, and Friendster before that, these one-way communication channels that allow limited public participation (yet offer the facade of openness) are here to stay.

Ouze wrote:
No, I took great pains to explain why having a Facebook page is superior to your own forums, from the point of view of the average companies.

Except that it is not superior in any way (except cost savings). What you gain in savings in IT expenses (that should be pretty laughable for any decent sized company), you loose in real comunication and interaction with your customer base and the general public. See my previous examples of miniature gaming companies that have real forums and use them with great effect.

Only companies with a really low internet savvy or, for example, crappy business practices that will anger their customer base, would find Facebook an alternative to a real forum...

snake wrote:

lord_blackfang wrote:There's only one thing I remember: DISTROY ALL EVIL!!!

Care to elaborate?

I vaguely remember the GW forums were frequented by a troll who used to pop up randomly and post something like this. This might be what Blackfang is referring to.

The forums were ok, but somewhat hampered by all the restrictions on topics. If they were still going, I imagine we'd be banned from talking about new releases until they appeared in advance order. Occasionally, a games designer such as JJ would pop up to add his two cents, but this was extremely rare.

Still, if they hadn't disappeared, I wouldn't have come to Dakka which was a mjaor step up

wuestenfux wrote:
Well, at the moment it appears that GW doesn't really listen to its customers.

At the moment? Are you new? GW stopped listening to its customers ages ago when it went public....maybe even before.

PhantomViper wrote:Except that it is not superior in any way (except cost savings). What you gain in savings in IT expenses (that should be pretty laughable for any decent sized company), you loose in real comunication and interaction with your customer base and the general public. See my previous examples of miniature gaming companies that have real forums and use them with great effect.

Only companies with a really low internet savvy or, for example, crappy business practices that will anger their customer base, would find Facebook an alternative to a real forum...

First, lets be less specific with it being Facebook, explicitly. I picked that because it's the case in gee-dubs example, but what I really mean in this case is a single-direction communication channel (like Twitter) that can be used to shill your product. Most average companies do not want or need unrestricted communication or interaction with their customer base, much less the general public, unless it's credit card numbers for products ordered. I saw your examples of companies, but you haven't shown any tangible added value to those companies from having forums. At best, they are an expense that does not drive revenue, at worst they are a cesspool of off-topic noise and complaints on their dime.

What specifically does GWS get from hosting forums that they can't get via Twitterspacebook? They would require actual staff, who are trained and empowered to answer questions, solve problems, and provide help. Does this seem like something GWS wants to do, as part of their business model of hooking 12 year old boys, getting them to dump $500, and then moving on?

Balance wrote:Technically, the old GW forums were pretty hideous. I would not be surprised if (like the rumor I heard about their Interactive Army List program) the one guy who knew how to fix them left and no one felt like learning how.

I think GW officially said they felt Other Web Forums (presumably including Dakka) did a better job than their own. Which made the occasional round of lawsuits against forums all the more entertaining.

I bought that piece of crap
I even attempted to return it to their store a month after I did and they refused to take it back because it was opened. I pointed out the thing had tons of errors, the army I played at the time Eldar didn't have half the unit entries needed, and units had the incorrect cost! They said i'd have to wait for the patch. I did, which resulted in more issues, came back and was told "your outside of the return window." I get pretty good use out of it now. I use it to mix paint on.

Regarding IAL, once I figured out the option of dumping to excel, I fixed all their mistakes myself, and I had a decent little army list making template that I paid 45 bucks for lol.

Least I got some use out of it. I should use it as a palette like you did, instead I gave it to some kid at the store. He loved me for it, so him and his little brother could make lists, and his dad was super thankful too. I guess, for kids, it had value.

The BF forums (Since I only play FOW now) while more mature than most gaming forums, still have their fair share of problems, so I frequent them less and less, and go for my local board and the excellent WWPD forums.

I hope for my 3 armies-sitting-in-their-cases' sake that 6th ed 40k is decent otherwise I'm selling them all and sticking with historicals.

There is one official message board out there which is absolutely awesome, and has the friendliest bunch of members you are ever likely to meet, anywhere. I'm not going to say which one though, in case some of the people from here go there and ruin it.

Kid_Kyoto wrote:But without the GW boards how would the Pan Fo have been reviled?

I have that codex on my hard drive somewhere.

I also think that smaller companies get more value out of dedicated forums than large, established ones will.

Providing a dedicated space to discuss, say, Malifaux makes sense, because it prevents discussion of Wyrd products from either being fragmented on a dozen competing indie boards and/or being a sub forum on a larger board.

Smaller companies can also more usually get direct access to designers and the higher ups to actually have meaningful dialoge.

None of that is true for GW: Dakka alone can have literally thousands of people online at once, and there is a well established network of forums, blogs, and podcasts that serve the needs of GW gamers. You're looking at time and expense (not in hosting, but in moderation as well) that can be avoided quite nicely by switching to Facebook/Twitter and relying on third party discussion boards.

Are there any large consumer products manufacturers that run dedicated forums? I actually don't know.

Ouze wrote:
First, lets be less specific with it being Facebook, explicitly. I picked that because it's the case in gee-dubs example, but what I really mean in this case is a single-direction communication channel (like Twitter) that can be used to shill your product. Most average companies do not want or need unrestricted communication or interaction with their customer base, much less the general public, unless it's credit card numbers for products ordered. I saw your examples of companies, but you haven't shown any tangible added value to those companies from having forums. At best, they are an expense that does not drive revenue, at worst they are a cesspool of off-topic noise and complaints on their dime.

You are kidding right? Privateer Press for example used forum users for playtesting to a HUGE extent when they were planning and releasing MK 2, their entire tournament rules and scenarios are based on something that a forum user developed. Battlefront managed to catch a rather serious glitch with their V2 rules in time of correcting it and including it in the Hardback version of the rules thanks to their forum users, they earlier this year based a rather large errata to a very tournament disrupting army list on input from their forums and managed to "salvage" the EW competitive side thanks to it. Spartan decided to make a whole new faction for Distopyan Wars partly based on the general acclaim that they got for what was supposed to be a single miniature release in their forums, not to mention that after the somewhat general uproar on said forums they turned that miniature from "convention only" to a limited online sale that personally allowed me to get two of them.

I'm not even mentioning oficial rules clarifications, event and product anouncements (from both the forum users and the company itself), player finders, tournament and battle reports and all the other things that all the companies I mentioned do on their forums that would be practically impossible in a one way comunication channel.

You are seriously underestimating the ways in wich a real two way comunication with your customer base can help a miniature gaming company. Other types of companies I agree with you that don't really need a forum and would be better served with Tweeter or Facebook or whatever, but for miniature gaming companies they are an added value that can't be discounted that easilly.

puma713 wrote:

Kid_Kyoto wrote:But without the GW boards how would the Pan Fo have been reviled?

I have that codex on my hard drive somewhere.

Dude would you mind posting it or sending me a copy

kidkyoto(at)hotmail(dot)com

I think everyone needs to revile the Pan Fo.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Hey found the zip file!

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/206376.page#223205

GW had a discussion board which is now shut down?!

There is a God!

I remember ye olde GW forums and their awful forum setup now only found on the likes of craigslist and defunct BBS's.

It wasn't a great board, and wasn't hugely productive, but it was a wasted opportunity nonetheless.