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.

Back in the day, GW had an official forum linked to their website. Basically like this forum but for Gameswork Shop games. Don't remember why or when it was shut down. Maybe mid 4th edition. Anyway, do you think it would help or hurt GW if they brought back the old forum or keep it dead?

I think it could be useful. Especially a section similar to YMDC. Maybe if they saw how often some questions come up, they might churn out a faq or two.

Well, calling it a forum might be a bit generous. It was more of a BBS.

Most company forums are gak storms. of course, they're free to ignore the gak completely and use the form for nothing more than the annual advertisement of upcoming product posts. Just having the forum in itself presents an image that the company cares about its customers, an image GW could afford to reinforce.

The PP forums are not a gakstorm. Neither is the Infinity forum. Nor, in fact, any of the official forums of other, smaller games.

It was only ever GW's forum that was a gakstorm. They even took down their facebook page because everybody and their dog were there complaining about absolutely everything the company did.

If they recreated an official forum, it would be a nightmare. Even Dakkadakka is a gakstorm compared to other company's official boards (hint: because all the GW gamers go here). A GW board would be much, much worse.


- Edited by insaniak. Please keep the language family-friendly -

 Skylifter wrote:
The PP forums are not a gakstorm. Neither is the Infinity forum. Nor, in fact, any of the official forums of other, smaller games.

Yeah, I spent quite a bit of time on the WOTC Star Wars Miniatures forums, and also on the Wizkids forums for Pirates of the Spanish Main. Both were on the whole quite well behaved, and had awesome communities.

Not to mention developer feedback and processes for actual, official rules clarification.


The GW forums were a gakstorm because GW let them get that way, and then decided that it was too much bother to actually try to fix them.

Aside from the occasional missive from the studio in the Games Dev forum, they were never really there as a portal for communication between fans and company, though. Just somewhere for people to complain about Squats, and share their new, awesome idea for an army. And ask rules questions that might, maybe, get an answer from one of the games devs... but most likely not.


The problem wasn't that the boards were full of GW-fans. That should be the exact opposite of a problem. The problem was lack of adequate moderation, and lack of communication from the company.

Pretty much all 'official' forums suck. They have 95% fanboy content, rest 5% complain about everything and get attacked by 95%.

There are so many stupendously active Warhammer forums that I don't see what GW would gain by their own forum.

Backfire wrote:
Pretty much all 'official' forums suck. They have 95% fanboy content, rest 5% complain about everything and get attacked by 95%.

There are so many stupendously active Warhammer forums that I don't see what GW would gain by their own forum.

Actual communication and discussion with fans? A place where it at least seems like they are listening to their customers? Both of which lead to consumer goodwill. I think we can all agree that GW needs some of that.

Backfire wrote:
There are so many stupendously active Warhammer forums that I don't see what GW would gain by their own forum.

Customer appreciation, would be the big thing.

One of the biggest complaints right now is with the state of GW's rules and the lack of decent product support. That complaint could be nixed almost instantly with just a little customer interaction from the Games Devs.

Turning around that perception that GW don't care about their own rules would go a long way towards making some of those who turned away more interested in playing the game again.