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Fascinating exchange. And interesting to hear an ex-employees descriptions of the inner workings of the place.

Nomeny wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
It's a matter of public record, there'll be a link buried here on Dakka somewhere, but for the Head Of IP his grasp of IP Law was.. tenuous?

Plus he characterised the GW Hobby as "buying things from GW" which has now ascended into legend somewhat!

He's not wrong. I love buying things from GW. There's something oddly enjoyable about the cycle of rumours, to previews, to getting something in your hands. I'm everyone is familiar with the notion of having a big stash of unassembled, unpainted models in their queue where their enthusiasm for buying a product didn't quite translate into painting and using it.

Hahaha... This is actually very true. There isn't even another vendor that has managed to fascinate me with the cycle of rumor/preview/release/purchase of more stuff than I can possibly consume in a lifetime.

Also, jah made a good point: clipping bits off spruces and IMAGINING what I could do with it if I had the time is a whole hobby in itself LOL.

I own 2 Fortress of Redemption, 3 Aquilla Shrines, and god knows how many city building kits (like basilica, sanctum, malefactorum) because I imagine that one day, I'm going to build them into a massive, glorious fortress. Yeah, probably won't happen, but planning it out even in my mind and imagining it is pretty fun

 JamesY wrote:
Azreal the tone of many of your posts on this thread have been patronizing, condescending, and at times just plain rude. If your 'joke' was missed, that is probably the reason why.

QFT.

TBH, this thread is pretty awful, and it's not hard to point at who's making it so...

I can honestly say they are the best company I ever worked for, and before becoming a teacher, the only job I'd had where I genuinely enjoyed going to work everyday.

 JamesY wrote:
But back on topic, yes I'm still buying. When Nagash came back and undead was undead again (I didn't like the split), I bought this to rebuild my favourite army (I'm 6'2", btw).

Speaking of Nagash, I've been eyeing him and the Empire "War Altar" It's odd, I absolutely love painting minis. I loved playing 40k (can't say the same for WHFB, but I didn't get a large enough sample size to know for sure whether I liked fantasy or not), I however, came to a point where I could no longer justify the expenditure on the rule books to continue playing under current rulesets.

As such, I still buy models, but as I don't have an army to collect or an "end state" (such as an army) I am "free" to buy whatever catches my eye. This also allows me to view miniatures in any game setting I can conceive. Many of my recent purchases have been with DnD in mind. have a box of VC Skeletons and a Lich King model for baddies.

I also picked up a box of Empire Greatswords for my next character as well. Then, just a week ago, picked up Karl Franz on Deathclaw, because it looked cool.


So, I guess you could say I still buy models, but that comes and goes. Before this recent "splurge" of models, I hadn't bought a GW mini in well over 2 years.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 JamesY wrote:
But back on topic, yes I'm still buying. When Nagash came back and undead was undead again (I didn't like the split), I bought this to rebuild my favourite army (I'm 6'2", btw).

Speaking of Nagash, I've been eyeing him and the Empire "War Altar" It's odd, I absolutely love painting minis. I loved playing 40k (can't say the same for WHFB, but I didn't get a large enough sample size to know for sure whether I liked fantasy or not), I however, came to a point where I could no longer justify the expenditure on the rule books to continue playing under current rulesets.

As such, I still buy models, but as I don't have an army to collect or an "end state" (such as an army) I am "free" to buy whatever catches my eye. This also allows me to view miniatures in any game setting I can conceive. Many of my recent purchases have been with DnD in mind. have a box of VC Skeletons and a Lich King model for baddies.

I also picked up a box of Empire Greatswords for my next character as well. Then, just a week ago, picked up Karl Franz on Deathclaw, because it looked cool.


So, I guess you could say I still buy models, but that comes and goes. Before this recent "splurge" of models, I hadn't bought a GW mini in well over 2 years.

You'll probably find the recent decision to include rules in the box will suit you then in the next edition, it looks like it is going to suit/accommodate that style of army composition.

I'm the same, I use my gw minis for other games, and I'll probably use my old grenadier barbarian mob in 9th ed as they are based on 2p pieces.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 JamesY wrote:
Azreal the tone of many of your posts on this thread have been patronizing, condescending, and at times just plain rude. If your 'joke' was missed, that is probably the reason why.

QFT.

TBH, this thread is pretty awful, and it's not hard to point at who's making it so...

Bored again are we John?

I'm pretty sure piling on a user to say how awful their posts are must at least be flirting with Rule 1.

Either way, I won't be reviewing my posts objectively, I write what I write, feel free to disagree with my points, if you feel I've breached forum rules feel free to report it.

End of discussion.

Well there is nothing like passive aggression to achieve self validation is there?

Let's be frank here, this thread exists mainly to call people that still buy GW naive, while those that don't malcontents.

Any productive discussion is a side effect, not the goal.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JamesY wrote:
Well there is nothing like passive aggression to achieve self validation is there?

that wasn't passive aggressive.

Azreal13 wrote:It almost might have been, hold on to your hats here folks, a bit of a joke?

What is?

The thing I thought you were responding to? The Yoda thing?

Considering how I was explaining how what you said WASN'T a problem...
Even then, regardless of the original intent of your post.the point remains: Demanding someone be offended or upset by what you're offended or upset by is bad, but saying that they need to understand WHY they might feel that way is reasonable, more an issue of empathy and the proper knowledge to progress the discussion.

I've totally lost your thread, the thing I posted the Yoda joke about wasn't in response to anything you said?

Independent retailers get these things at much lower cost. Then they sell them at discounts online or via mail order.

GW, knowing this, simply scales up the price accordingly.

Even if no one ever bought an item through their site again, they are still going to do just fine.

If you scale back all of their prices by the average online retailer's discount (~20-35% depending how brave they are), you'll notice they feel a bit more realistic.

 Azreal13 wrote:
...but hey, I'm used to it, they only tend to get misinterpreted that way by people who disagree with me.

That's kind of the point, though. If you're actually interested in discussion, making an effort to post in a way that isn't going to be misinterpreted is far more likely to facilitate that. Lacking visual clues and tone, humour is very easily misconstrued unless it is really obvious.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
GW tried "community", and it was a gakshow. Remember the GW forums?

That wasn't GW trying 'community'. They had practically no involvement in their own forums, aside from the devs wandering into the Games Development section every couple of weeks to cherry-pick a few threads to respond to and just ignore everything else.

The lack of actual involvement with the community they were supposedly fostering, coupled with insufficient moderation, just resulted in more and more people getting disillusioned with the whole place and getting progressively more strident with their complaints about that.

The GW forums were ultimately just one of the earlier examples of GW not understanding this whole 'internet' thing.

GW tried tournaments, and it was another gakshow, because the FAQs never did what people wanted.

The main thing that people wanted from FAQs was for them to be complete, and promptly issued.

But you're right, far easier to just stop running tournaments...

 JamesY wrote:
I can honestly say they are the best company I ever worked for, and before becoming a teacher, the only job I'd had where I genuinely enjoyed going to work everyday.

Thanks for sharing that, and your other posts regarding your experiences at GW Interesting to hear.

 JamesY wrote:
I can honestly say they are the best company I ever worked for, and before becoming a teacher, the only job I'd had where I genuinely enjoyed going to work everyday.

I'm sorry if I missed it, but could I ask what you did for them? I'm curious, its not often we get ex-GW employees posting here.

Not sure why...

Azreal13 wrote:I've totally lost your thread, the thing I posted the Yoda joke about wasn't in response to anything you said?

Then the joke clarification didn't have anything to do with what I said either.

 insaniak wrote:


The lack of actual involvement with the community they were supposedly fostering, coupled with insufficient moderation, just resulted in more and more people getting disillusioned with the whole place and getting progressively more strident with their complaints about that.

The GW forums were ultimately just one of the earlier examples of GW not understanding this whole 'internet' thing.

Wasn't it the White Dwarf Giant Issue that final finished the place off as people went ballistic at GW for an appallingly bad issue?

CrashGordon94 wrote:

Azreal13 wrote:I've totally lost your thread, the thing I posted the
Yoda joke about wasn't in response to anything you said?

Then the joke clarification didn't have anything to do with what I said either.

Ok, I think a lack of quote and a reference to 'he' may have set us at cross purposes.

I was only on the retail side, but as I'm in Nottingham, I helped out quite regularly at HQ, refereeing at events, helping at fw open days etc so got to know a lot of people. As I am a very experienced retail manager, it was quite interesting see how they did things, it was a little like stepping back in time.

I'll share some things from my time that won't get me in trouble;
Aly Morrison is the nicest guy there. John Blanche got a bit annoyed at me when I didn't recognize him and tried to sell him a ticket to warhammer fest. Next time you buy a plastic kit, count the number of round protrusions on the frame, times by £1000. That's about the cost of tooling that mold. The landraider mold cost nearly £250,000 to tool.

 JamesY wrote:
I'll share some things from my time that won't get me in trouble;
Aly Morrison is the nicest guy there. John Blanche got a bit annoyed at me when I didn't recognize him and tried to sell him a ticket to warhammer fest. Next time you buy a plastic kit, count the number of round protrusions on the frame, times by £1000. That's about the cost of tooling that mold. The landraider mold cost nearly £250,000 to tool.

Holy smokes. That's insane! I had no idea a Land Raider mold cost that much O.O

No wonder they keep making stuff to fit the Rhino chassis hahahaha! I suppose, this is also why so few other companies make plastic scifi vehicle kits. Now, if only they would let people who can't physically go to the UK buy a command tank set, they'd recover some of those tooling costs

Yeah they are expensive to make at that level of detail. Perhaps I should pick up a couple of command tanks and eBay them overseas. I'm sure someone is doing it...

 JamesY wrote:
I was only on the retail side, but as I'm in Nottingham, I helped out quite regularly at HQ, refereeing at events, helping at fw open days etc so got to know a lot of people. As I am a very experienced retail manager, it was quite interesting see how they did things, it was a little like stepping back in time.

I'll share some things from my time that won't get me in trouble;
Aly Morrison is the nicest guy there. John Blanche got a bit annoyed at me when I didn't recognize him and tried to sell him a ticket to warhammer fest. Next time you buy a plastic kit, count the number of round protrusions on the frame, times by £1000. That's about the cost of tooling that mold. The landraider mold cost nearly £250,000 to tool.

Ah.. I was told Ronnie Renton was the most liked man in GW towers?

I happened to have a NOS Land Raider literally at my feet, so I though it'd be fun to check.

There's 85?

Plus it is almost 17 years old, so I guess the price has fallen by now?


EDIT
Asking for clarification, not making accusations.

Alan Merrett strikes me as the very definition of the Peter Principle at work.

Pacific wrote:

 JamesY wrote:
I was only on the retail side, but as I'm in Nottingham, I helped out quite regularly at HQ, refereeing at events, helping at fw open days etc so got to know a lot of people. As I am a very experienced retail manager, it was quite interesting see how they did things, it was a little like stepping back in time.

I'll share some things from my time that won't get me in trouble;
Aly Morrison is the nicest guy there. John Blanche got a bit annoyed at me when I didn't recognize him and tried to sell him a ticket to warhammer fest. Next time you buy a plastic kit, count the number of round protrusions on the frame, times by £1000. That's about the cost of tooling that mold. The landraider mold cost nearly £250,000 to tool.

Ah.. I was told Ronnie Renton was the most liked man in GW towers?

Never met the man, I was only meaning in my opinion on the people I met/chatted/had a beer with.

filbert wrote:Alan Merrett strikes me as the very definition of the Peter Principle at work.

I would say that was probably very apt.

 JamesY wrote:
Yeah they are expensive to make at that level of detail. Perhaps I should pick up a couple of command tanks and eBay them overseas. I'm sure someone is doing it...

I'm sure more than a couple of people have done that. I remember seeing a set on eBay for some jaw-dropping amount and thinking, "craziness!!"

 Talys wrote:

 JamesY wrote:
I'll share some things from my time that won't get me in trouble;
Aly Morrison is the nicest guy there. John Blanche got a bit annoyed at me when I didn't recognize him and tried to sell him a ticket to warhammer fest. Next time you buy a plastic kit, count the number of round protrusions on the frame, times by £1000. That's about the cost of tooling that mold. The landraider mold cost nearly £250,000 to tool.

Holy smokes. That's insane! I had no idea a Land Raider mold cost that much O.O

No wonder they keep making stuff to fit the Rhino chassis hahahaha! I suppose, this is also why so few other companies make plastic scifi vehicle kits. Now, if only they would let people who can't physically go to the UK buy a command tank set, they'd recover some of those tooling costs

It doesn't cost that much, not even close.

DreamForge Games raised $200k USD on KS. Assuming all of it went into the Leviathan, $50k would have been shipping & production, leaving $150k for tooling. The sheer amount of plastic in that kit suggests that a Land Raider would cost less than $50k USD to tool today.



It's an exceptionally good kit with excellent detail and precision, standing head and shoulders over the current $160 USD Imperial Knight.

I don't think that asking people to understand why some might have problems with GW or its games is unreasonable.