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 AnomanderRake wrote:

 kodos wrote:
GW does not need to make a U turn to get the 40k people back, they just need to make the promise that this time it will be good...

Which they've done over five edition changes since I've been playing, and it's never been true. It's always come up with new and exciting problems to stack on top of the old problems.

and people still fall for it because "now it will be different"
I also thought with 8th and the disaster that was 7th that GW learned something, but it looks like they learned the wrong things and now take the same road again

 stonehorse wrote:
I'd love to be wrong, as I would like 40k to be a good system, that's doesn't groan under its own weight. Aside is now, I think k GW are focusing on the tournament crowd, as that crowd is more interested in chasing a meta, so will buy the current hot thing that helps them dominate the tournament scene. GW like all companies are in it to make money, the tournaments crowd are for GW a golden goose.

by now 40k will never be a good system again as long as GW make the rules, and if they make a big change again simply depends on how well 9th will do until its end and GW deciding if they can make another edition or need something fresh and new to start over again

I disagree. GW often hits "good" but they rarely hit "great".

 kodos wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 kodos wrote:
GW does not need to make a U turn to get the 40k people back, they just need to make the promise that this time it will be good...

Which they've done over five edition changes since I've been playing, and it's never been true. It's always come up with new and exciting problems to stack on top of the old problems.

and people still fall for it because "now it will be different"
I also thought with 8th and the disaster that was 7th that GW learned something, but it looks like they learned the wrong things and now take the same road again

 stonehorse wrote:
I'd love to be wrong, as I would like 40k to be a good system, that's doesn't groan under its own weight. Aside is now, I think k GW are focusing on the tournament crowd, as that crowd is more interested in chasing a meta, so will buy the current hot thing that helps them dominate the tournament scene. GW like all companies are in it to make money, the tournaments crowd are for GW a golden goose.

by now 40k will never be a good system again as long as GW make the rules, and if they make a big change again simply depends on how well 9th will do until its end and GW deciding if they can make another edition or need something fresh and new to start over again

You keep using that word "if". There's no if, just when
GW can & will make another edition. And that really has nothing to do with the size of the changes being made. The only real question is WHEN. Is it summer of 2023? Or is it the summer of 2024?

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Toofast wrote:
That is insanely profitable. Revenue of 191.5M, profit after taxes of 76.4M? And they need to raise prices because their margins are too thin?! No, they're taking an opportunity to price gouge because they think they can get away with it due to global inflation and a war.

20M after dividends. And the price increase was scheduled long before the war in Ukraine, let's not confuse those things as being related.

And I never defended the prices, just said it looks like they aren't trying to maintain profits specifically, but rather dividends.

That's the real problem, they prioritize dividends over their product or their customers. Companies like Ferrari, Louis Vuitton, Apple, etc (who GW wants to be in the miniatures market) did not get where they are by paying big dividends at the expense of the quality of their product or the happiness of their customers. They made a quality product first, then they worried about their customers, and those 2 things made them profitable enough to look attractive to investors. If you do it the other way around, you gradually lose customers and consequently marketshare. It's honestly rare to see a company that leads their industry be so hated by their customers. I'm into a lot of other hobbies and never hear anywhere near the amount of complaints about Rolex/Omega, Snap-On, Porsche, Ferrari, Gucci, and the list goes on. Nobody in those hobbies thinks the company actively hates them or is clueless about how to make their own product. People might talk badly or make memes about certain models, but not the company as a whole. Now why is GW so unique in being the only industry leader that is actively hated by a large portion of their customerbase? Are we all crazy or does GW just see their customers as wallets with legs?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 stonehorse wrote:

 kodos wrote:

so OPR is sidegrade rather than an upgrade for me (and I fear that as soon as GW brings a new Edition and promise that this time they will really try, all the hype about OPR will be gone)

I strongly doubt GW will do a 180° turn and simplify 40K to what OPR have produced. As it is GW seem to be hell bent on making their games convoluted ad a way to add depth.

The OPR systems are, I feel very safe from losing appeal. Not just due to their rules, but also the great 3D miniatures they have as well.

They think rolling more dice, having more random tables, and having the rules for 1 army split into 7 books = "depth"



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 kodos wrote:

And it is not like the current situation is very different from 7th

They're making the exact same mistakes just a few years apart. Not a great sign for a company that's been around for 40 years. It reminds me of when I was like 3 and put my hand on the waffle iron to see if it was hot, and then a couple weeks later I did it again. Except this is a whole boardroom full of adults with degrees earning 6-7 figure compensation packages doing that.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
I disagree. GW often hits "good" but they rarely hit "great".

I disagree. GW often hits okay or fine, and rarely hits good.

 TheBestBucketHead wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
I disagree. GW often hits "good" but they rarely hit "great".

I disagree. GW often hits okay or fine, and rarely hits good.

Eh, I feel that 3rd, 5th and 8th were good. I really enjoyed playing those editions.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 TheBestBucketHead wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
I disagree. GW often hits "good" but they rarely hit "great".

I disagree. GW often hits okay or fine, and rarely hits good.

Eh, I feel that 3rd, 5th and 8th were good. I really enjoyed playing those editions.

I will say, I was mostly talking about current 40k, but I have gone back to older GW games, especially WHFB 6th. I love WHFB 6th. If we're talking about the entire GW lifetime, I'll agree they often hit good.

 TheBestBucketHead wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
I disagree. GW often hits "good" but they rarely hit "great".

I disagree. GW often hits okay or fine, and rarely hits good.

I think Necromunda and Titanicus are good rulesets. Necro campaigns should have a better catchup mechanic and less "winner takes all and becomes even more likely to keep winning" but overall still good. I think the issue with 40k is that nobody at GW has any idea what they want it to be. They want beer and pretzels garage fluffhammer, but they also want people to spend thousands traveling to tournaments that are streamed on Twitch. The two goals seem diametrically opposed to each other. The things that make for fun beer and pretzels games or fluffy armies that play vastly different are the same things unbalancing the game. Sure Tau have great shooting tech and 40k years in the future obviously they can detect and fire at living things they don't have direct line of sight to, but if you can't find a way to balance it then it's a bad/unfun game mechanic.

I would say since 2010 or so GW has been utter fail in the rules department for any of their games.

They have moments of brilliantly shining "ok" or "meh" but often it is mired in busted garbage that people pick up on within a day of a ruleset coming out that you then have to politic with your gaming group to keep out.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Eh, I feel that 3rd, 5th and 8th were good. I really enjoyed playing those editions.

8th was horrible if you played specific armies. And even the armies that were good often were forced in to running gigantic ally formations to be even considered remotely viable. No idea about the other editions, I have my doubts if it ever was different though.

Rules, balance , how fun or unfun the game is GW does not care about those. As long as the money generated, and it is more then they have to spend and save, they are good. And people really do seem to be willing to pay for rules and buy the models no matter how good or bad they are.

Karol wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Eh, I feel that 3rd, 5th and 8th were good. I really enjoyed playing those editions.

8th was horrible if you played specific armies. And even the armies that were good often were forced in to running gigantic ally formations to be even considered remotely viable. No idea about the other editions, I have my doubts if it ever was different though.

Rules, balance , how fun or unfun the game is GW does not care about those. As long as the money generated, and it is more then they have to spend and save, they are good. And people really do seem to be willing to pay for rules and buy the models no matter how good or bad they are.

The fact they never managed to balance all the armies is why I merely said "good". "Great" games have better balance, and "perfect" games make every choice feel like it's worth making and there are no bad choices and dominant strategies aren't limited to a single tool.

ccs wrote:
You keep using that word "if". There's no if, just when

my point was that if 9th is doing good enough, they make another similar one, if it does not we see another U turn in rules with 10th

 Eldarsif wrote:
I would, however, love for more people to jump onto the Star Wars Legion wagon. I want that game to succeed and not some god forsaken World War 1/2/3 wargame that this industry is often riddled with. That's what I find most tiring about the entire hobby and the reason I haven't gone much outside of GW games except with MCP and Legion.

I don't think there are any WW themed wargames in the industry that have managed to succeed, except Bolt Action and maybe Flames of War. But I would be surprised if Marvel or Legion are not already a huge success, because I personally see these two everywhere here and can make a guess they do at least fine everywhere else.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

The fact they never managed to balance all the armies is why I merely said "good". "Great" games have better balance, and "perfect" games make every choice feel like it's worth making and there are no bad choices and dominant strategies aren't limited to a single tool.

Okey, but in w40k the best edition balance wise is something like 9th with a fast revolving door on who is at the top, and armies being on a 65% or higher win rates for months. 8th was not a question of 9 out of 20 armies are doing good, 6 are doing well and the rest is kind of a meh. It was always, so you play Inari, good fun for you not so much for everyone else. Then came the castellan lists. Every imperial was running the loyal 32, and if someone didn't then they probably took the ad mecha version of it. Marines for years were, either play razorback spam with or without Gulliman, and playing most of marines made no sense at all. Playing CSM with actual csm in the list was plain stupid. Etc. Now great or good are descriptives. If you get beaten with a stick 4 times a day, getting beaten once a day is great. But it doesn't change the fact that to an outsider you get beaten every day.

GW games, and to be more specific w40k, run on inertia. there is a ton of models, ton of people, the game is generally bad for most armies, most of the time. The most crucial thing in any game or group activity is to find other people to play with. And w40k has tons of those people. Other games can be the best game in the world, but if I play an army that on avarge wins, or loses, to my only two opponents. I won't be doing the activity for long. Fun in w40k is very reglamented. And why some armies have it better, like eldar of various kinds for example. For most other armies it ain't so.
Take my GK dudes. They were good for a few months in 5th ed and then they were good for 2 months in 9th. And am ignoring internal balance, etc. Good army build is good army build. The time between 5th and 9th is what 10+ years? With most people not lasting more then an edition that is a huge gap between people that had fun, didn't have fun and had fun again. Probably the same can be said about the various marines chapters, csm etc. Armies in w40k can, and do go, through cycles of being bad that last more then edition. And that is just horrible considering the time and money investment the game requires.

I also think that is why the whole additional stuff becomes so important to some people. Painting suddenly is more important then gaming. Lore and reading too. I mean no wonder if your army is bad for 3-4 editions or worse you pick 2-3 armies and all of them end up being bad for most , or all, the time you would have to explain to yourself why your still doing it. Other games, historicals , skirmish have models and have people paint them too. But I have never seen someone playing infinity or bolt actions, say that painting their squads is the hobby. With GW games it happens all the time.

And Warlord Games are increasing their prices:

Common, everything is going to increase in price now. With the possability of WW3 on the horizon, all the big wigs are gonna hike up prices to match demand, which is being driven by fear. It's a perfect capitalist market. Gas, food, plastics, metals, even wood is sky rocketing.

A 2x4 rough cut at lowes used to be between 1-2 dollars per 8" plank. Now it's 5-7 dollars. A 50lb bag of pavers sand used to be 3-5 USD, now its around 11. Turkey meat sliced per pound used to be 2.45 usd. Now it's about 9-11. Gas used to be 3.30/gallon here where I live. Now it's 5-6/gallon. Electricity took a sharp spike to. My home's electrical bill doubled this year, because my state power company said that their market index predicts cost of generating electricity will triple in the next 5-10 years. My bill used to be 80/month, for my self and my wife. Now it's 160/month.

Are we REALLY surprised that major retailers are raising the cost of their goods?

the price would have been up WWIII, covid or not. In my country as part of the anti covid laws the goverment dropped the vat on food products to 0%. yet somehow a ham that cost 6,99 a year ago now costs 8,99(on sale that is, because normal price is 10,99).

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Common, everything is going to increase in price now. With the possability of WW3 on the horizon, all the big wigs are gonna hike up prices to match demand, which is being driven by fear. It's a perfect capitalist market. Gas, food, plastics, metals, even wood is sky rocketing.

A 2x4 rough cut at lowes used to be between 1-2 dollars per 8" plank. Now it's 5-7 dollars. A 50lb bag of pavers sand used to be 3-5 USD, now its around 11. Turkey meat sliced per pound used to be 2.45 usd. Now it's about 9-11. Gas used to be 3.30/gallon here where I live. Now it's 5-6/gallon. Electricity took a sharp spike to. My home's electrical bill doubled this year, because my state power company said that their market index predicts cost of generating electricity will triple in the next 5-10 years. My bill used to be 80/month, for my self and my wife. Now it's 160/month.

Are we REALLY surprised that major retailers are raising the cost of their goods?

I built my kids a big playset a the very start of the pandemic as parks started closing in my area (march 2020). I have the spreadsheets, I was paying $6 for 12 foot 2x6 prime #2 ground contact rated 2x6s. I spent about $2.5k in wood building it (multiplatform, 3 slides, climbing wall, multiple types of swings, its huge) fast forward to last week I went to grab some 2x6s again to build another planter bed for my garden and they are $22 each now. That playset now probably has $10k in wood alone. Meanwhile my most recent model a boomdakka snazzwagon went from $45 on release 4ish years ago ($36 street price normally) to $55 now ($44 street price after flgs discounts, $46.72 through Amazon). Compared to other areas of inflation you ar right recently its not as bad.

That said a 2x6 takes much more effort to grow the tree, mill the stock down, dry and pressure treat, then the shipping cost for size and weight is also a lot more then costs to injection mold a model kit on a per unit basis. I think GW is in an odd position though where if they actually lowered prices they would sell more models as they are relying on whales buying a lot of models vs actually seeing large player growth in the market and see overall revenue grow as players would join the community and some who quit might return. While they might get less profit per kit the total sales would likely jump so they could end up more profitable long term. Unfortunatly with markets being what they are an quarter to quarter profit being more important than long term growth i doubt we will see that happen.

 SgtBANZAI wrote:

 Eldarsif wrote:
I would, however, love for more people to jump onto the Star Wars Legion wagon. I want that game to succeed and not some god forsaken World War 1/2/3 wargame that this industry is often riddled with. That's what I find most tiring about the entire hobby and the reason I haven't gone much outside of GW games except with MCP and Legion.

I don't think there are any WW themed wargames in the industry that have managed to succeed, except Bolt Action and maybe Flames of War. But I would be surprised if Marvel or Legion are not already a huge success, because I personally see these two everywhere here and can make a guess they do at least fine everywhere else.

MCP has managed to take foothold where I live so there are exciting times to be an MCP player. Legion, however, hasn't really taken off. I do know that some of the early resin sculpts did put people off the entire game, but that has been changing as AMG has moved more and more to plastic.

I think Legion also just suffers from a very limited legacy(if we ignore the expanded universe) so there aren't as many factions and two of the factions are faceless white boys with guns. I do believe, however, that with Mandalorian, Obi Wan, and Boba Fett shows that we will see the game expand more and more as more shows and movies hit the market.