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 Valkyrie wrote:
I haven't seen anyone comment on it but why do they need to print in three languages? Surely they have the capacity to produce one batch per language in English, French and German, instead of throwing them all together? Yes, I know this would be assuming that GW has some degree of common sense but this is just...weird. I can't remember every buying a magazine from a company as big as GW who can't even print in languages relevant to the area.

1.) We are talking about the company that for no reason deleted all foreign (except French, due to Canadian law) product names from their product boxes and blisters.
2.) Just printing one issue for all Western languages saves a bit of money. Esp. when they expect sales to go down even further. And it shows how much GW respects their customers in Spain, Italy and Eastern Europe.

I sent this to Jes recently. It pretty much sums up my feelings.

Hi Jes,

You asked for constructive criticism on the new formats of Games Workshop’s magazines, and I have some thoughts that I will respectfully lay out for your consideration.

The new White Dwarf format is pretty good. There was some good content in Jervis’ article this time around, the rules previews are nice and all in all it was a quick and fun read with some useful hobby content. If my White Dwarf subscription had continued with this magazine, I would be most pleased.

Warhammer Visions however, falls completely short. I thumbed through the whole magazine in less than five minutes. There is literally no content as any content space is taken up with very brief and obvious statements in three languages. The battle report had literally no use as there was no description of any tactics, tricks or even the actual army lists that were used. Paint splatter was so abbreviated as to be unusable. And again, a large chunk at the end of the magazine is taken up with the worldwide GW directory which should simply be available on the website, not in print. The photos, while lovely, are something we could just as easily peruse on the website instead of paying for a monthly photo book.

As Visions is what is taking the place of my subscription, I will be cancelling said subscription on Monday and asking for a refund of my remaining issues.
If White Dwarf was available in subscription format, I would be continuing to the end. But unfortunately Visions is not what I signed up for and not what I, nor my gaming group are looking for.

I appreciate that this format change was a big decision, but I think it was misguided. Restricting the availability of White Dwarf to stores only really hurts those of us who don’t have a local Games Workshop store available. Cutting all useful content out of the magazine that is available for home delivery only serves to put salt in the wound.

I do hope that this new format will be changed significantly, as I have been a fan of White Dwarf since 1994 and enjoyed the insight into the hobby it provided. My group would be much better served by keeping the content in the new White Dwarf as a monthly magazine and letting Warhammer Visions be a quarterly magazine that focuses on Golden Demon entries, and cool photos that haven’t made their way to the website yet.

Respectfully,


My name here

In the other thread in Dakka Discussions, someone posted their fairly cut-and-paste answer from Jes.

One of my favorite lines from Jes' response:

Jes Goodwin wrote:
Warhammer: Visions is not for everybody, granted. If you like gaming more than collecting or painting, then it's probably not for you

Bloodwin wrote:

 Valkyrie wrote:
... why do they need to print in three languages?...

Because they are trying to be a "classy" magazine.

It's because it saves them money printing it 3 times.

Having seen both versions now of the new WD spin-offs, the whole concept is a poor one. They just took WD and split it into two new magazines with added pictures in Visions. What WD needed was to go back to the 90s and incorporate more original content only available to the magazine, or the on-line version of the magazine, and really make it unique. This could certainly include more pictures of well painted models, but didn't necessitate a separate magazine. Given the advent of the internet, the only hope for a magazine, hard copy or on-line, is for there to be truly unique content.

I predict this new dual format will last less than a year and they will re-launch WD again. Maybe that is the whole plan anyway. In any case, when they do re-launch WD I suggest the following:

1. Unique campaign ideas and wargear.
2. Original story material and fluff not re-printed elsewhere.
3. Continue putting out Armies on Parade and Blanchitsu
4. Most importantly - Bring back 'EAVY METAL painting tips and walk-thrus. Paint Splatter is a big disappointment. With the internet, the techniques on offer are so rudimentary as to be near worthless. Arguably any painting techniques one could want are available for free on-line, but at least the days of 'EAVY METAL saw pro-painted models with detailed (usually) tips and recommendations. Paint Splatter tips are available anywhere, and most are too basic for even a beginner to stay interested. You want to be the premier miniature painting magazine, then offer your readers the very best painting tips.

I make no apologies if this sounds harsh, I feel i've earned the right. I've been reading and purchasing WDs since 1992, so it is simply very disappointing to see what has transpired. I got high hopes, though, that WD will be re-born and return to greatness.

I view this change as pretty disastrous for GW insofar as I will now not spend any money on Visions where I would have picked up the odd issue of White Dwarf that interested me beforehand.
Warhammer Visions is absolutely redundant for myself in the face of sites like 'Cool Mini or Not' and the painting sections of forums such as Dakka and beyond which are able to provide more content than Visions ever will and is available as a resource for free.
Sure Visions is proffessional painting of studio armies but that doesn't really matter when you can find technically superior paint jobs from amateurs, semi pros and freelance artists from many sources on the web, all for the cost of an internet connection!
Visions might be handy for an ol' grognard (I'll get there one day!) without access or time for the internet but given how 'net savvy' everyone and their dog is these days ist just seems to be a strange direction to take, especially if you're after the younger market. I'd never have bought any magazine for £8 when I was a kid! (I'm not about to start now, either!)

Honestly. Once home printing of miniatures gains traction Games Workshop are absolutely finished, their refusal to accept the 21st century (and all that it entails) will be their undoing. There's no way they'll adapt, the iceberg of modernity will sink their enormous ship soon enough.

Has anyone emailed to express their views as of yet?

Lots of people have. They all got the same cut and paste reply back. See the thread in General Discussions.

What I can't help but wonder is if they think that the average GW gamer will be buying all of the magazines for any given month. At my (Canadian) store, the weekly was $5 and the monthly was $13.

That's $33 dollars a month for the (admittedly dismal) content we used to receive for $10 plus a bunch of extra filler (a ton of small format pages of pictures of last months painted releases we've already seen).

As to the alleged response from Jes about Visions. Since when are painted pictures of models hobby content? How do you convey hobby instruction without text?

This whole thing feels like we need Larry David standing in the background looking awkward and ashamed.

Hm classy, sure when i am entertaining my friends in my luxurious Villa, showing them my new Maybach company car, i really want to have a Warhammer Vision on my lounge table. NOT!

Well, at least there is a page with game rules (such as it is) which is more than can be said for the entire past year.

There is a blank page in a digital magazine, does anyone really think they give a gak if people aren't happy with the content?

Joyboozer wrote:
There is a blank page in a digital magazine, does anyone really think they give a gak if people aren't happy with the content?

The blank page is for adding your own content?

 Shandara wrote:

Joyboozer wrote:
There is a blank page in a digital magazine, does anyone really think they give a gak if people aren't happy with the content?

The blank page is for adding your own content?

Maybe you want to write down notes with a sharpie?

 d-usa wrote:

 Shandara wrote:

Joyboozer wrote:
There is a blank page in a digital magazine, does anyone really think they give a gak if people aren't happy with the content?

The blank page is for adding your own content?

Maybe you want to write down notes with a sharpie?

"hello, I'd like to return this IPAD dEvice."
"certainly sire, why?"
"I tried writing my password but it didn't work!"
"well sire we can fix that for you if you would like."
"will that be cheaper then a new one?"
" sire, I'l do it for free."
*turns on iPad, revealing the word "password" written in sharpie on the screen*

If anyone is interested I have made a video review of the first White Dwarf Weekly.

You have a very nice wristwatch BTW

Redskin has a watch fetish.
Ow. That would hurt.

 Astroman wrote:
Having seen both versions now of the new WD spin-offs, the whole concept is a poor one. They just took WD and split it into two new magazines with added pictures in Visions. What WD needed was to go back to the 90s and incorporate more original content only available to the magazine, or the on-line version of the magazine, and really make it unique. This could certainly include more pictures of well painted models, but didn't necessitate a separate magazine. Given the advent of the internet, the only hope for a magazine, hard copy or on-line, is for there to be truly unique content.

Try to explain the concept of "hobby content" to a GW manager who thinks that the hobby only consists of buying the products.

Good thing that now it becomes financially relevant that the GW managers are totally incompetent to lead a gaming company.

This whole scheme and execution of the dual magazine format leads me to think this is a "placeholder" or transition format that leads to three possible outcomes:

1) They plan on no-longer publishing the magazine so Kirby can slash more overhead to show profit. Just fulfill remaining subscriptions and that is all. It is competing with their micro (transaction) - publications anyway.

2) A completely different format / distribution method is in the works: they may farm this out to a marketing / publishing company but could not wait for the internal restructuring.

3) They want to go completely digital in publication and will splash the new format once they are ready, in the meantime we have this new recycle-light-in-content-anyone-could-do magazines.

I would like any other theories to add, aside from that, place your bets. I am leaning toward #2, not sure why...

Only 1 makes sense, options 2 & 3 are seriously hindered by producing such sub-par content.

Though I'd have thought dropping it and offering any outstanding subscription value as credit would work better than releasing a completely pointless magazine with the aim of killing it off.

But I'm more inclined to believe that they just genuinely expect people to buy it anyway.

Not that I really think this but could they deliberately be throwing out sub-par garbage as someone said above to fulfill subscription obligations and then, in light of the cancellations/anger, state that they are discontinuing the magazine, and then show how much money they cut?

I don't really see them being that stupid as they'd be hurting their already-bad reputation with all the complaints, but this IS GW we're talking about...

all the good content is in white dwarf daily

So I downloaded the White Dwarf: Visions magazine on the weekend- it was ama- oh wait no sorry. It was awful. Just a frakking picture book! No real juice to the content whatsoever. Needless to say I will not be downloading it again.

 Talizvar wrote:
This whole scheme and execution of the dual magazine format leads me to think this is a "placeholder" or transition format that leads to three possible outcomes:

1) They plan on no-longer publishing the magazine so Kirby can slash more overhead to show profit. Just fulfill remaining subscriptions and that is all. It is competing with their micro (transaction) - publications anyway.

2) A completely different format / distribution method is in the works: they may farm this out to a marketing / publishing company but could not wait for the internal restructuring.

3) They want to go completely digital in publication and will splash the new format once they are ready, in the meantime we have this new recycle-light-in-content-anyone-could-do magazines.

I would like any other theories to add, aside from that, place your bets. I am leaning toward #2, not sure why...

Another theory is that they have noticed a revenue increase in WD sales during their "reboot" 2 years ago and decided to try it again, but with a bigger sticker price and content that is less expensive to produce. They know that this revenue increase is very short termed so they are trying to maximize profits on it and will probably cancel the magazine after a few months (or 1 year to let new subscriptions run out).

On the other hand they release the WD Daily so that "fans" can get the usual content that they used to have in the old WD, but for 3 times the monthly cost.

It is a rather brilliant plan if you think about it.

Madrilous wrote:
If anyone is interested I have made a video review of the first White Dwarf Weekly.

Is the feedback from the GW staff on the Tyranids all positive? Do any of them have anything negative to say other than, I wish this model could take X or cost a minimal amount of points less? I suspect they are following the PP model where they release rules for certain models in the magazine running up to a book release, and then release the book with the same rules. PP has been doing this with No Quarter for years, meaning you can buy the magazine you care about now or the book later.

While I don't think Weekly WD is for me, due to the poor price/content ratio, I do have room for something like Warhammer Visions. I think the broad concept is a good one - a whole lot of high quality images of well painted miniatures. The problem seems to be the small format combined with the perfect binding, and of course the recycling of images even within the magazine.

I buy a few art books, Forge World books, and even GW art books. I used to buy the old GD collection books as well when they were available locally. I'm not fussed that there are better pictures online for free, because as far as I'm concerned, printed material often fills a different niche - which is why I buy forgeworld books and the Horus Heresy books (novels and FW volumes) when I could easily torrent both. gak, all the codexes are "available online for free" but I'm happy to buy a nice book (from US sources - not at Aussie prices, admittedly). But buy, nonetheless.

So yeah, if done well I'd be quite happy to buy and collect Warhammer Visions as a collection of printed nicely painted models. Unfortunately it appears that it's a middling effort at best, but we'll see how it pans out.

A 36-page White Dwarf? Sorry, not so much.

I'd love to see a return to the old quality of WD - as we had during the WFB3 and RT eras (though even then there were complaints about it no longer taking external advertising and reviews of non-GW products). Or the quality of the mag when Paul Sawyer was at the helm, but those days are gone, I can buy Wargaming Illustrated on and off, and his is what we have now - a magazine stripped of all content for the sake of some e-commerce items, so it ain't gonna happen.

 Azazelx wrote:
While I don't think Weekly WD is for me, due to the poor price/content ratio, I do have room for something like Warhammer Visions. I think the broad concept is a good one - a whole lot of high quality images of well painted miniatures. The problem seems to be the small format combined with the perfect binding, and of course the recycling of images even within the magazine.

I buy a few art books, Forge World books, and even GW art books. I used to buy the old GD collection books as well when they were available locally. I'm not fussed that there are better pictures online for free, because as far as I'm concerned, printed material often fills a different niche - which is why I buy forgeworld books and the Horus Heresy books (novels and FW volumes) when I could easily torrent both. gak, all the codexes are "available online for free" but I'm happy to buy a nice book (from US sources - not at Aussie prices, admittedly). But buy, nonetheless.

So yeah, if done well I'd be quite happy to buy and collect Warhammer Visions as a collection of printed nicely painted models. Unfortunately it appears that it's a middling effort at best, but we'll see how it pans out.

This pretty much sums up my feelings too. Issue #2 will be important, I think.

Having received WV, I rang to cancel my 23 year sub, but it was £22 back or another 7 issues, so I've decided to let it ride in the hope that WV gets to the point it is worth £3. Or when it folds after issue 2 I'll still get £18 back. Absolutely certainly will not be renewing.

Real shame - WD, Private Eye and Viz have been my subsricption based companions for a long time, only 2 left now. It's like Silent Running :(

just bought my copy of Visions - shan't be buying it again.
& as I would have to go into town & pay the extortionate parking charges to get my hands on the weekly mag or subscribe for the whole year I don't think I'll ever buy that either.
Normally I'd flick through the monthly WD when it hit the shelves in Sainsburys (usually on a Tuesday, sometimes as late as Thursday!) & then buy it if I thought I saw something interesting. This option is no longer available especially as Visions is completely sealed.
<Nice way for WD to die>.