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teknoskan wrote:
Monopoly is a game that is always getting revised, renewed and still brings in the big bucks for Hasbro. The rules have never changed. Do we really need to continue this conversation?

Actually they tend to add rules to the "Extra" portion, which tends to let you add new rules to the game.

Not to mention the rules have been revised slightly over the years, not to mention sometimes new rules are added to a sidebar that one can add in as options to the game itself. Monopoly did have FAQ's for it on the site but they tend to update the rules so it's clarified in the next reprinted edition.

Certainly know the Monopoly Deal Card Game they tried to make required a FAQ...

I think they just need to try and get the digital app out ASAP. When I played Warmahordes, War Room was probably the best thing you could buy because you could purchase all the updates and cards for everything, now and future, for the life of an edition for like $90 ($60 in Mk2 IIRC). Any updates got pushed to it, any new model released was included. It was an amazing resource, and it did mean that you only had to buy the books if you wanted the fluff, which is what the books should be for Warhammer anyways.

The issue will be, GW probably won't do that. You see junk like Azyr for AOS where you have to buy books inside the app, and need to "unlock" things for microtransactions, but at least you can get the unit stats for free even if you don't pay for the army builder.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Still waiting on this mythical product that has never needed an update or change to it in the later years.

We aren't talking about updates in later years here, we're talking about updates within days or weeks of releasing new books. And these are updates to fix things that the community spotted (and exploited) the moment the books were out, not subtle and unforeseeable problems that weren't discovered until years later. It's simply inexcusable that GW missed this stuff.


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 vipoid wrote:
GW could win by having their rules be free online and updating/errata-ing them as and when necessary.

Or this. It would still be inexcusable that they missed things like this, but at least we wouldn't have paid for the books.

Gdubs can only win for some peaple if they can use their entire army that they would get free models for each time the army gets updated sadly enough this is reality not fiction so gdubs is a company with employees. As I could understand by reecious and (forgot the midgets name) they have been playtesting over atleast 6 months so the time for playtesting has to be atleast 8 months+ (unless they realy are slowed). So either they didnt take to mutch advice from the "playtesters" or the "playtesters" didnt give good enough feedback. As for the spacewolves i gues its more of te latter then the former

Helpful tips:

1. Ignore anyone who says anything in print is perfect upon first printing. They haven't done any serious editing or writing. Even if they say they have, they are lying, or at best haven't done anything on the scale of complexity as a rule book.
2. Ignore anyone who says the fault is on either GW or us--it's on human nature, which is impossible to change
3. Move on

While that is true, it doesn't actually address... Anything. The model they have chosen is repeated updates (two already) and fast obsolescence, and that just doesn't work with print volumes.

Parts of this were just a mess, and going by purestrain genestealers, it's going to continue to be a mess. Ambush is apparently worth 6, -2 or 3 points, and that isn't even vaguely sane.

Especially given that xenos 2 will probably stick around the longest, while imperium 1 will quickly be unnecessary except for weird speciality stuff that isn't sold globally.

I was under the impression the ebooks and such were updated? Is this not true?

pismakron wrote:
No. GW should continue doing what they do: Publish rules, and then fix them as their shortcomings are discovered. GW is doing a great job at the moment.

publish rules in form of 20-50 $ books, then invalidating them after a few months. What was the life span of 6th again

The rulebooks are great. Best thing in a long while. If a rule is unclear they erata it so it is clear. If a unit is far to good, they nerf it so exploiting the game is not so easy.

 Peregrine wrote:

pismakron wrote:
A good rulebook is worn, full of notes and glued in errata.

No, a good rulebook is one that has been thoroughly playtested before release and doesn't require errata.

When you're done living in a fantasy land, feel free to come back to reality and join the rest of us.

Because you all are gullible enough to pay for their god awful books. GW knows they can make a profit off you loyal customers.

And there's the problem. Not only are people willing to buy the defective product, they jump to GW's defense and insist that getting a finished product is "fantasy land". Stop making excuses for GW's failures.

People actually use the FAQ's? As in, they think GW can fix the rules better than they can for their home games?

Ok, so I'm being slightly sarcastic. As a long time roleplayer, the idea of using FAQs instead of my own judgement is new to me, and I tend to play without them - since I don't do tournaments, house rules are generally good enough to fix any problems we detect, and we tend to like our solutions better than GW's often nonsensical arbitration.

As for the printing of rulebooks, I wish GW would do data cards so you could play without having to purchase a codex, if that was the route you want to go.

From a business perspective no, why would they? GW isn't hurt on any level by selling you a book which is invalidated a week later. They made their and they've made their money.

The people who should give up on printed rulebooks are the customers. You're enabling their business practices.

 Peregrine wrote:
And there's the problem. Not only are people willing to buy the defective product, they jump to GW's defense and insist that getting a finished product is "fantasy land". Stop making excuses for GW's failures.

you of course can name a SINGLE PRODUCT that doesn't have a FAQ/Errata? go on, I'll even expand it into gaming in general and take an RPG. find me one that didn't require Errata

I'm surprised at how many people think that writing a rules system to cover every possible eventuality and interaction between several hundred different units is so simple.

GW probably has easily 500+ models that need rules written for them. They aren't an all knowing entity who can interpret every possible interaction and interpretation its player base might make.

Have we forgotten the fact that these are really obvious problems we're talking about? This isn't some obscure interaction between things that hardly anyone uses, GW is FAQing and making balance changes to stuff that the community found within hours of the books being released. I don't think it's asking too much to expect that if something like flyer spam is so overpowered that the community immediately finds and exploits it then maybe GW, with their supposed months of playtesting, should have caught it.

 Peregrine wrote:
Have we forgotten the fact that these are really obvious problems we're talking about? This isn't some obscure interaction between things that hardly anyone uses, GW is FAQing and making balance changes to stuff that the community found within hours of the books being released. I don't think it's asking too much to expect that if something like flyer spam is so overpowered that the community immediately finds and exploits it then maybe GW, with their supposed months of playtesting, should have caught it.

Do you think GW sat down every day chose a different unit and said:
"Today we're going to test lists comprised of nothing but ripper swarms."

Internal playtesting basically never tests spam lists. Even Privateer Press, whose entire reputation is built on tight rules and competitive play never did it until they actually hired a high level competitive player onto their design team. They also had a FAQ for their new edition early into it's life incidentally.

Sim-Life wrote:
Internal playtesting basically never tests spam lists.

Then GW's playtesters and rule authors are spectacularly incompetent. No, you obviously don't need to playtest spam lists that are clearly not effective, but it's not like flyer spam too much effort to find.

How long did it take before Flyer's became found to be a problem? Most of the early issue was with Conscripts until a Flyer Spam list was at a tournament.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
How long did it take before Flyer's became found to be a problem? Most of the early issue was with Conscripts until a Flyer Spam list was at a tournament.

8th is still early. I mean, we've had the rules for a month. Anything that has been so overpowered that it needs a balance fix this early in the game's life is an inexcusable miss by GW.

I often compare gs to wizards of the coast. In 1997 they both had a good market pressence in roughly the same demongraphic. Wizards made sure they had the best damn game possible, with a strong local pressence by supporting stores. GW Started making a badly balanced games. Later on not commenting on ambigius rules.

With the recent change to gw they are much closer to wizards mtg.

Magic has a 240 pages of rules, not counting the oracle database of updated wording on all 12 000+ cards, and documents conserning tournament organisation and judging. Games workshop little 12 page faq is not a big pill to swallow if it leatds to a better game.

The lack of basic editing and simple simple mistakes is pretty atrocious. Charging money for that is rediculous. If they were freee, the indices and core rules, and they let us work everything out, and implement it in the finished product then this would be excusable. It would be like a beta version. Instead it was a rip off.

Sim-Life wrote:
I'm surprised at how many people think that writing a rules system to cover every possible eventuality and interaction between several hundred different units is so simple.

GW probably has easily 500+ models that need rules written for them. They aren't an all knowing entity who can interpret every possible interaction and interpretation its player base might make.

If only there was some way to standardize how assorted units were distinct from one another without having to reinvent the wheel each and every time. You know, they could call them Universal Special Rules or something like that...

...who am I kidding, it will never catch on.

 MagicJuggler wrote:

Sim-Life wrote:
I'm surprised at how many people think that writing a rules system to cover every possible eventuality and interaction between several hundred different units is so simple.

GW probably has easily 500+ models that need rules written for them. They aren't an all knowing entity who can interpret every possible interaction and interpretation its player base might make.

If only there was some way to standardize how assorted units were distinct from one another without having to reinvent the wheel each and every time. You know, they could call them Universal Special Rules or something like that...

...who am I kidding, it will never catch on.

Whoever pitches that idea to Jervis will be "bespoken" to.

You people should really look up the definition of "obsolete". I think the term "outdated" may be more appropriate, but even that isn't really what's happening. "Updated" would be the word you're looking for. Or at least that would be the word you were looking for if you weren't so focused on grinding that axe.

I knew it was another BCB thread just from the title.

And I'm perfectly fine with GW's existing model provided the level of quality remains consistent with what we've seen in Age of Sigmar. The Index books were quick (and cheap) collections of unit data assembled across the entire model range in one go, problems were a given, and if I recall correctly the hope was that they'd correct them promptly with FAQs and errata, which is what they're doing.

That brings the Index books in line with the Grand Alliance books in AoS. If, in turn, the new codex books are on the same level of the AoS Battletomes (I use Battletome: Sylvaneth as my gold standard) in terms of lore and art, I don't have a problem with that.

That said, the first Battletomes in AoS weren't that great.

[MOD EDIT - RULE #1 - Alpharius]

I think the OP and some others are onto what could be a very good model. Given that this is a digital age, GW should just release the rules and all of the indexes or codexes digitally first with a version control. As faq's, errata, whatever comes out, they roll the revision and everyone can update their digital copies to the latest version. Then, when an edition has been out long enough to be thoroughly playtested, then they should release the physical books once no more changes are needed (or only minimal changes remain) for anyone who wants a hard copy. Basically, beta test as completely as possible, then go to print well after the bugs get worked out.
Personally, I can't justify shelling out as much cash as GW charges for books if I have to scratch out and rewrite half the text.

"Give up" no. Evolve with the times and use technology for what it's good for. Digital books only makes so much sense, especially if the don't charge for the rules and update them. In a living rule system this just makes sense, and I imagine very little of their profit even comes from the codecies.