Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Via Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/GWWarhammerWorld/photos/a.218213154864839/2145635302122605/



They've had a problem with a large number of people not honouring reservations, so they're going with the knee-jerk reaction of removing the option to book entirely (and the responses in the Facebook comments confirm that this applies for any of their tables, standard or feature).

This is bad news for anyone who wants to use WHW as a central location for online groups, and will potentially cripple older games that still only have a limited following. Even if the removal of booking means that it's more likely that tables are free, one of my groups of friends includes people as far apart as Southampton and Inverness, and we can't have a dozen people travelling from all over the country on a basis of tables maybe being free. (And even the span between Southampton and Inverness is kind of tame compared to the groups where people come over from outside the UK).

If you ever travel any appreciable distance to WHW as a venue, or otherwise benefit from their booking system, shoot over to their Facebook page and let them know.

If there are a large enough number of people booking tables who are not honouring them then it sounds like a sensible approach.


The only way I can see it working fairly would be if there was a booking fee that was refundable upon appearance. Even a small fee will get many to honour turning up if they would otherwise lost the money.

A bit like how many people won't use plastic bags at the supermarket because its 5p a bag - a tiny cost but it was enough to change the national attitude toward plastic bags at the supermarket.


Thing is such things can cost money to put into practice and to run (if GW has to pay staff to at least process refunds or install a refund issuing machine on site). And I think GW wants to avoid paid for gaming tables (they'd rather you bought models than spent money to use them). And it feels more complicated to run it that you only get part of your fee back.


They could be crafty though - £5 to book a table which is refundable in the form of a £5 GW gift voucher that you get when you attend to game. That cuts out complicated fiddling with issuing refunds/repayments and encourages people who do turn up to spend money on GW products; but it does mean that they have put a charge in place to play that many might not be happy with.

Only bummer is if you’re planning an Apocalypse Pilgrimage, because there’s only two to so tables designed for it.

Other than that, should be fine,

You can hardly blame them if people are irresponsible like that. A better approach would be to still take reservations, only half the max capacity, but if your more then 10 minutes late you lose the reservation and offer it to any walk ins in need of the table.

That said, if they have such demand as to make things stressful and hard to juggle, just taking walk ins is much easier from their side. Again, I can hardly blame them since they tried the other approach and people were not responsible.

It sucks that a few bad apples make it worse for the folks that took it seriously, but that's just life. You give everyone the benefit of the doubt for as long as you can then eventually you sometimes need to take the no nonsense path.

Having visited many, many times....even if you rock up and can’t get a table, there’s still plenty enough to enjoy to prevent a wasted journey

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Having visited many, many times....even if you rock up and can’t get a table, there’s still plenty enough to enjoy to prevent a wasted journey

Having also visited many times, I can tell you that it's definitely not enough when you've seen all of it before, you've had people book days off work to fly down from Inverness a day early because they want to play a game that only a few people in the country still stick with, and when you've spent three months on crafting a new narrative, scenarios and models for your meet.

"Wasted journey" here means hundreds of man-hours of travel and work down the drain, so no, there's definitely not enough there to prevent it being a wasted journey.

I sort of suspect that it's local folk who book and then bail on it. Warhammer World is five minutes away from me; I can book a table and decide otherwise with no consequence at all. It's a shame that people from further afield are being affected by this. Why not request a small booking fee of £5 and then refund on entry?

It's just over a couple hours away for me, it's far enough that I wouldn't risk it just on the off chance a table will be free. Besides it also means that I'll probably never get to play on a feature table, unless I get there for it opening and look like an ass trying to beat people to it.

 Eiríkr wrote:
I sort of suspect that it's local folk who book and then bail on it. Warhammer World is five minutes away from me; I can book a table and decide otherwise with no consequence at all.

Aye though its not just that; its also because you can casually write it off that if something else comes up you're under no pressure to either inform them of a change of plans or to prioritise the wargaming higher. Adding a tiny fee can do amazing things at making people at least contact to cancel or to not change their plans.

Frankly it would be better if they just flat out started charging a fiver to use the tables than this nonsense. Like MarcoSkoll says, who the hell is going to organise a big trip to the other end of the country(or even a city or two over) on the basis you might get a table? Nevermind if people had their hearts set on using a specific table.

Any decision a company makes that punishes all customers for the actions of a few(see: DRM) is inherently a bad one IMO.

You beat me to it!

They could have also gone to a 'refundable when you show up' reservation thing too, if that's not illegal in the UK, of course.

Yeah. When people feel it on their pocket, even something as small as 1-5€, they really feel obligated and respect that kind of stuff.

Refundable fee would be better. Can understand this though. I've been a fair few times and the amount of booked tables that never have anyone turn up is quite large. We even switched over to use a "booked" table mid way through the day that we tried to book and the original bookees never did turn up.

Zed any rough numbers to share? Eg the total number of tables and the rough number left abandoned?

 Overread wrote:
Zed any rough numbers to share? Eg the total number of tables and the rough number left abandoned?

Bear in mind this is my shakey memory but last time I was in was about a month ago, mid week for a few games of Neceomunda. Got in there around 11. Three tables had players on and there were six of those plastic booking stands. Ourselves and one other claimed, the rest were never claimed even though the place got busier as the day went on. We shifted one sign next to us and proceeded to use the table. I remember similar from previously and probably very roughly estimate about 1/4 to 1/3 of booked tables were ever claimed.

I think the solution here is a bit simple. I don't know how many tables WHW has total, but could they not set aside 4-6 or whatever which are the "reserved" tables for people who are interested in reserving a table. If the reservation is not met, the table is opened up, while keeping the majority of tables "free" without reservations, or something to that effect?

I'm also 100% fine with a reservation fee on these specific tables. Even if you have to set aside a specific "events manager" who monitors this stuff, it seems very doable. i have a hard time believing somebody won't work with you if you ring them up and say "hey, we're driving down from Scotland with a group...can we arrange something?".

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Having visited many, many times....even if you rock up and can’t get a table, there’s still plenty enough to enjoy to prevent a wasted journey

Not really bugmans isn't worth staying in for long periods of time, I did the showcase for my mates bday so that's not worth paying to see again, so yeah no table means wasted journey.

Honestly, they should charge a non refundable deposit for a reservation. Otherwise, it's sign up for a time slot at the door with no deposit fee and get what you can get.

That way, if the person decides to bail, with/without notice, WHW still get something for their time.

hobojebus wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Having visited many, many times....even if you rock up and can’t get a table, there’s still plenty enough to enjoy to prevent a wasted journey

Not really bugmans isn't worth staying in for long periods of time, I did the showcase for my mates bday so that's not worth paying to see again, so yeah no table means wasted journey.

You can’t possibly have tried their menu :p

Worth the trip on its own!

It’s only 45 minutes for me, but I normally meet up with friends coming from further away, normally to play a specific style of games (e.g. apocalypse). We’re booked in to play Kill Team on one of the Necromunda feature tables in a few weeks. If we turned up and only had one of the normal 6x4 billiard boards that would really mess up our day. I think a more rigorous “if you’re not there within 30 minutes of your planned start time you lose the table” would solve this problem without inconveniencing those with specific plans or long journeys.

I'll admit I have mixed feelings about this.

I try to get to Warhammer World once a year if I can.

I have a very busy job that doesn't allow much hobby time and getting time off at the same time as my gaming mates always proves tricky, so traditionally we make a point of all of us booking the same week off in October.

So that's 20% of my annual leave, hotel, train costs, spending money at GW/FW and spending money for the evenings.

A weekend at GW pretty much costs the same as a week abroad, lol.

The last time I went we had tried to book 2 tables but were told only 1 was available. This wasn't a huge deal as quite often 2 of us play a game whilst the other couple of mates get the beers or wander around the museum.

When we got there (after a 2.5 hour journey) we found we had a very basic table which was fine but nothing I couldn't have played on at home or at my local club.

Loads of other tables were booked with the plastic stands on, including the one next to ours.

We were also pretty bunched up as since the refurbishment there isn't as much room as there was before and we struggled to get our cases etc under the table and didn't want to leave it on or near the one next to us in case the people that had reserved it arrived.

We spent the whole day playing on the table we were allocated and I would say more than half of the reserved tables were never used. This was frustrating as we would have had way more room and the other tables were nicer than the one we got.

So I totally understand where GW are coming from however I am now reconsidering my trip this October.

I don't want to book time off (which is hard to come by) and spend a couple of hundred quid and 2-3 hours on travel etc to get there and have no where to play.

I'm also concerned that they say they are putting more tables in. Not sure where unless they are knocking a wall out - it was already pretty cramped as it is.

I think a deposit scheme would have been the most sensible thing to do.

Even if it was £5 deposit which was taken off admission charge to the museum or something similar.

As others have said, they ought to just charge a refundable deposit or at least a Bugman's voucher.

 Jadenim wrote:
I think a more rigorous “if you’re not there within 30 minutes of your planned start time you lose the table” would solve this problem without inconveniencing those with specific plans or long journeys.

I might extend that to an hour (at least in the morning*), as it's not going to be that hard to be half an hour late if there's an accident or two on the M1 or if a train is late and you miss a connection, but honestly, being more rigorous than they currently are wouldn't be hard.

* Anyone showing up in the afternoon is less likely to be making a long journey day trip out of it, so is less likely to be as late, and this also leaves more gaming time for anyone who might want the table.

On one occasion we were up there with six of us, and the two (standard) tables next to us were marked with the same name and a 10 o'clock start, but were still entirely empty right up when it came to lunch time. Not one person had turned up to lay claim to those two tables in two and a half hours, but it was still like pulling teeth to get them to agree to let us use one of those tables, talking about checking for phone numbers to see if they could work out if they were just late.
This being in spite of the fact that there were at least a couple of other unclaimed reserved tables that could have been used in the unlikely event that these people did turn up three or four hours late, and if *those* people then turned up late, then well, at that point "I'm sorry, but we heard nothing from you, so we gave your tables away" would have been an entirely valid answer.

As it is, they're claiming that cancelling bookings if you're too late as a system is too harsh on people who are late, but I can't see that it's harsher than not being able to book at all.

Another variant on booking fee ideas: you charge a fee and then give them a store credit coupon equal to the same value when they show up. That way, you don't have to deal with refunds.

It's a stupid decision. I'm 40 mins away, but I now have to hope one of the cool tables is free, otherwise I'm travelling even a short distance to play at a club table I have here.

The shop is awful, as the staff are high pressure sales all the time, the bar is average with pretty hit and miss food. And with the FW postage changes its another reason not to bother.

They should just have the features tables and as reservation and leave the rest open. Much less to worry about. Feel free to charge 5£ for it. Problem solved.

Not that I'm ever going to get there, but this sounds like another swing and miss for GW. I agree with others that the most sensible solution seems to be a refundable reservation and not allow maybe 1/3 of the total tables to be reserved at any one time.

Not sure how long to hold the reservation before it's lost, but an hour surely would be more than enough.

gungo wrote:
They should just have the features tables and as reservation and leave the rest open.

Although the feature tables are certainly the jewel and thus what a lot of people are focusing on, even just being able to reliably turn up to a few basic tables is very important for any older or niche games.

In my specific case, there are scarce few people these days that still play Inquisitor (and before anyone goes "Hey, wait", WHW mostly uses Cities of Death terrain, which was deliberately designed to work for both 28mm and 54mm), and as much as some people are taking the "why travel to only get a normal table - I could have that at my local club" line - well, many of uscan't have that at our local clubs.
Although even my personal terrain collection provides terrain that's arguably better than WHW for our games* , I have no players, and for that a reliable central location is vital.

* My stuff is built with a lot of multi-level walkways, scatter terrain and centrepieces, which are all great for skirmish-style games, but in fairly short in supply with the standard WHW terrain.
(However, fortunately, it's not an either-or. I designed much of it to pack neatly into suitcases - and it's scratch-built, so it's not at all in violation of WHW's "no third party" policy. I can and have taken large parts of my terrain collection to WHW meets).

So this summer I played an INQ28 game at WHW. We used a very specific table, and all of us had spent 6 months creating warbands to fit that table and the background we had created for it. I flew down from Sweden to participate.

I think we can all see the problem here...

I think this is all a little premature considering not all of the facts are available regarding how booking swill change.

But personally i think the bookings for standard tables should be scrapped, there's like 40/50 in there so i cant imagine a time where one wouldn't be available (unless special event/edition release etc).

The feature boards should have a booking system and a charge.

If thats the way you go; the amount of standard tables freed by unused bookings lets you reduce the number of the standard tables and increase the feature tables.