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 gorgon wrote:
I like the current WD. I don't buy it regularly, but I certainly buy it more often than I did the previous bloated-but-still-strangely-content-light $12 version. I can justify 400 pennies to read about and see pretty pictures of new merchandise. Plus they're actually putting rules in the magazine now, after having avoided that for years.

The problem with the whole "WD used to be great" thing is that WD had a number of evolutions during its history, and everyone's favorite era isn't the same era. In some cases folks are "remembering" the best of a few eras, all mashed together. And honestly, people have complained about it being nothing but a catalog since around WD100 or so, when the changeover happened. It's a 25-year old complaint.

If I want battle reports, I can find a huge variety online, in text or video form. Tactics and detailed hobby articles I can find on a host of forums too. It doesn't make a lot of sense for their editorial team to spend time on those. And really, I know WD isn't aimed at longbeards like me anyway.

Still, at $4 as an occasional buy? Sure, why not.

Speaking for myself, I gave up on WD about issue 115, when it became apparent that GW were ceasing support for anything except their own games. It's gone downhill even further since then, though. It really is only about selling the latest products now.

Fair play to GW if they can convince users to actually pay them for being advertised to.

WD had turned itself around and was, in my opinion, fantastic for the year prior to it splitting into WD:W and Visions. There were regular columns by Jeremy Vetok, Jervis Johnson, Phil Kelly and others. As I mentioned... it was, in my opinion, fantastic!

After the split things remained good for awhile, basically it was taking everything they were doing from the monthly magazine and simply dividing it up over a few weeks and the old pattern of big monthly releases (i.e. all the new models, books, gaming aids, etc. revealed all at once) were spread out over several weeks along with it. This worked for me, quite well in fact - It kept me regularly engaged. At the time I felt like they had actually improved upon what I already thought was fantastic.

Sadly, there is a definitive moment in time were they sadly and once again, lost their way.

The break-point was when GW decided to make all of their writers/authors for all of their publications 100% anonymous. Once this happened, all of the regular WD columns disappeared... after which, the only thing left to print was info on the new releases. From this point forward WD:W had literally become nothing more than a sales bulletin for the weeks release(s). Quite sad. If you think about it... This is yet one more thing Matt Ward fethed up for GW as he was the impetus for making all of their publications 100% anonymous.

It would be great if WD:W could go back to what they were doing ~2 years ago when they first started.

Matt Ward is to blame, eh? I see.

I thought it was Jervis. Or Gav Thorpe. Or whoever it was before that.

This is yet one more thing Matt Ward fethed up for GW as he was the impetus for making all of their publications 100% anonymous.

Nope. He was long gone by then.

I thought it was Jervis. Or Gav Thorpe. Or whoever it was before that.

I blame Matt Ward for people blaming Jervis. If he hadn't left, Jervis wouldn't have had the chance to pull the sword from the stone and we could continue to blame Matt. For everything.

WD had turned itself around and was, in my opinion, fantastic for the year prior to it splitting into WD:W and Visions. There were regular columns by Jeremy Vetok, Jervis Johnson, Phil Kelly and others. As I mentioned... it was, in my opinion, fantastic!

This era was a missed opportunity in my opinion. The magazine itself had hit a level of quality that it hadn't previously hit and they were still at least making an effort at sincere battle reports and hobby items. Th problem for me was that that's also the era that saw them throw out all the rules in order to make the battle reports into extended ads for the new stuff. "Hey everyone! CSM just got released! Phil's going to make a random/rediculous army made up of one of EVERYTHING against ....oh who cares. NEW ARMY!"

I kind of checked out at that point. I was willing to pay the higher price, but the content (in my opinion) just hasn't been as good since .... well, see my earlier post in this thread. And then GET OFF MY LAWN!

I think I have bought two weekly WD since the change. Not very impressed, articles where nothing but a bad sales pitch. Nice pictures and painting photos but nothing I can't find on the Internet for free.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 gorgon wrote:
I like the current WD. I don't buy it regularly, but I certainly buy it more often than I did the previous bloated-but-still-strangely-content-light $12 version. I can justify 400 pennies to read about and see pretty pictures of new merchandise. Plus they're actually putting rules in the magazine now, after having avoided that for years.

The problem with the whole "WD used to be great" thing is that WD had a number of evolutions during its history, and everyone's favorite era isn't the same era. In some cases folks are "remembering" the best of a few eras, all mashed together. And honestly, people have complained about it being nothing but a catalog since around WD100 or so, when the changeover happened. It's a 25-year old complaint.

If I want battle reports, I can find a huge variety online, in text or video form. Tactics and detailed hobby articles I can find on a host of forums too. It doesn't make a lot of sense for their editorial team to spend time on those. And really, I know WD isn't aimed at longbeards like me anyway.

Still, at $4 as an occasional buy? Sure, why not.

Speaking for myself, I gave up on WD about issue 115, when it became apparent that GW were ceasing support for anything except their own games. It's gone downhill even further since then, though. It really is only about selling the latest products now.

Fair play to GW if they can convince users to actually pay them for being advertised to.

The thing is WD was always about selling product way before it went GW only. Except back then it was reviews and articles for whatever new or popular system GW (as the primary mail order shop/distributor at the time) was pushing. The 3rd or 4th page between the editorial and Critical Mass was always a full page list of new products.

Golden period for me was around 190 - 240, not sure if that's right but certainly from around 190. My first ever issue was 196, I went back and grabbed a load from 180 onwards as it covered Necromunda coming into play.

Andy Chambers, Jervis, Gav Thorpe, Jake Thornton, Paul Sawyer among a host of other writers producing good modelling, gaming and fluff articles. Loved it.

If it went back to a monthly title and moved away from being so in your face in terms of advertising I'd buy it. As it is I've probably picked up two weekly editions and one copy of Visions.

Yes, 190 had a free plastic Necromunda Orlock, and 191 was where the issues started getting thick! Think those were among my first copies as well. Could be a time & place thing, but I think they genuinely did have a good balance of essentially adverts, painting guides, design articles, battle reports, "exclusive content" (specialist rules/cut this out and glue it to cardboard) and even terrain and the like in card middle pages.

I think it worked best as a magazine when there frankly were more games to cover, which meant when they were at least putting out their own board games/specialist games, meaning that there was more likely to be a bit of something for everyone.

I think it went downhill sometime around issue #300. I was a subscriber, but when it split I stopped it.
The new weekly WD is very light on content for it's cost; then again WD magazine was getting pretty light as well for a few years before the split.
I do miss my monthly dose of GW goodness, but the magazine I had subscribed to all those years ago had ceased to exist.

Won't lie, I buy the new WD on a semi regular basis, typically once a month, but depending on the content (rules, scenarios, paint splatters, etc.) more often. Prior to the new format I was not buying WD. I do have fond memories of "old" white dwarf, e.g. issues covering from 40k 2nd ed. to around 4th ed. when I stopped buying WD because it had increased dramatically in price very quickly and had become just a giant advert,with tons of wasted pages (store lists, etc.), ridiculous and poorly written battle reports, and no value add what so ever.

Things I like about the new WD format;
Printing quality and paper choice
frequency - I like the weekly release format, much more suited for the internet age
value added content such as rules and scenarios and occasionally free item
Plant splatter - I genuinely look forward to it.
Price per issue - I know it costs more annually, but the $4 US price point makes it an easy impulse buy and since I don't buy every issue, I am okay with the price.

Things I don't fancy;
The frequency of what I call empty issues, i.e. those issues that have absolutely no content that appeals to me or offers any value add and the tendency to be all or nothing based on the release.
Shrink wrapping - cheap ploy to increase sales to prevent "previewing" the issue
Still missing legitimate battle reports/strategy articles of WD form back in the day.
Low page count per issue which pretty much rules out any chance of more in depth articles.

So whereas the old WD before it was retired constantly rated a 1 out of 4, the new WD sometimes rates a 4 from me with on average being a 2.5 so solid improvement.

 notprop wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 gorgon wrote:
I like the current WD. I don't buy it regularly, but I certainly buy it more often than I did the previous bloated-but-still-strangely-content-light $12 version. I can justify 400 pennies to read about and see pretty pictures of new merchandise. Plus they're actually putting rules in the magazine now, after having avoided that for years.

The problem with the whole "WD used to be great" thing is that WD had a number of evolutions during its history, and everyone's favorite era isn't the same era. In some cases folks are "remembering" the best of a few eras, all mashed together. And honestly, people have complained about it being nothing but a catalog since around WD100 or so, when the changeover happened. It's a 25-year old complaint.

If I want battle reports, I can find a huge variety online, in text or video form. Tactics and detailed hobby articles I can find on a host of forums too. It doesn't make a lot of sense for their editorial team to spend time on those. And really, I know WD isn't aimed at longbeards like me anyway.

Still, at $4 as an occasional buy? Sure, why not.

Speaking for myself, I gave up on WD about issue 115, when it became apparent that GW were ceasing support for anything except their own games. It's gone downhill even further since then, though. It really is only about selling the latest products now.

Fair play to GW if they can convince users to actually pay them for being advertised to.

The thing is WD was always about selling product way before it went GW only. Except back then it was reviews and articles for whatever new or popular system GW (as the primary mail order shop/distributor at the time) was pushing. The 3rd or 4th page between the editorial and Critical Mass was always a full page list of new products.

Would be interesting to find out what the word count was then vs. now (up to the fabled 'giant' issue).

I think it's a mix of things, subjective/objective. More games in the past meant that there was probably something in there you wanted to read, but also I think people become more jaded/cynical about advertising as they get older. So maybe about 30:70 in terms of me being less responsive vs. the mag being a pile of steaming horse cack.

I'm not going to count up for you mate but WD circa #90-100 had three column pages and plenty of them (maybe four columns on the letters page) and not of the giant font you get these days either.. Graphics were of course less of a thing back then so less space lost to them.

So not really a comparison really.

Ad count wouldn't really be too different from what you get with WI these days I would suggest. The odd full pagers through out and 6-7 pages of small adds for mail order companies at the back.

Tycho wrote:

This is yet one more thing Matt Ward fethed up for GW as he was the impetus for making all of their publications 100% anonymous.

Nope. He was long gone by then.

Not to get to much into a pissing match here, but Matt Ward's actions during his tenure with GW; which drew such ire and hatred from fans are what spurred GW to make all of their publications anonymous. His exact time of departure is completely irrelevant.

well... the last issue is sold out, anyway. Can't get it for love nor money.

Not to get to much into a pissing match here, but Matt Ward's actions during his tenure with GW; which drew such ire and hatred from fans are what spurred GW to make all of their publications anonymous.

Thats complete conjecture though.
Also it assumes GW listened to its fan base about Wards weaknesses and took action.
Not bloodly likely.

Its more likey GW went "anonomous" because their more recent codicies are collaborative publications, hence some of the really crazy balance issues. Easier to put GW design studio than list every geezer that wrote a paragrpah.

I bought White Dwarf 109 and White Dwarf 110 (most recent two) in order to get the 40k rules for the Death Watch board game miniatures.

Otherwise, no. I don't buy it.

 kronk wrote:
I bought White Dwarf 109 and White Dwarf 110 (most recent two) in order to get the 40k rules for the Death Watch board game miniatures.

Otherwise, no. I don't buy it.

I am going to guess that you were not happy when you found out those rules were released online for free.

On topic. I do not care for white dwarf nowadays since all their painting tutorials became very simple.

 Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:
well... the last issue is sold out, anyway. Can't get it for love nor money.

It seems that's because it contains something of actual value, which means people actually want to buy it. From what I can tell demand has been so low more stores are only getting in 2 or 3 copies.

There wasn't any online in the early 1980s.

I got the latest one yesterday.

Had some nice Genstealer/Hybrid painting guides, 40k rules and other stuff on Deathwatch. Its not bad for two quid.

I did buy the Deathwatch graphic novel at the same time, that I'm not so enamoured with.

 Toofast wrote:
White Dwarf is a way for GW to charge their customers for advertising rather than paying for it. I haven't seen anything I would call useful in a WD in a looooong time.

Yea because things like the war convocation isn't useful.

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Cue x years of moaning that a Genestealer codex hasn't been made.

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