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 -Loki- wrote:
The problem is what changes can also affect the possibility of what you want to see change diminish. What I'm personally seeing is more and more and more stuff that means the chances of 8th edition being the complete overhaul 40k needs less and less and less likely. Every new army, every new formation, every new unit is something that will need to be rewritten in an overhaul edition. 3rd could do it because 2nd didn't have a huge wealth of stuff to mvoe over. it had so little they could get away with 'get you by' lists in the rulebook itself. There's just so much stuff in 40k now, made worse with the last year of releases, that fixing 40k, to me, just isn't possible anymore.

Mostly that was about some dismissing the existence/amount of factual changes from GW because a certain aspect they would like changed hasn't done so. But for this:

It's being said that 8th most likely won't be a complete overhaul, but it will include the game being streamlined quite a bit. "War Scrolls" in some form are rumoured to be in it, which would make overhauling each and every unit possible. Personally I see only good things about an online "war scroll" approach, you could get rules with the models/from the web, and GW could easily update them into the online files should an "oops" get into a units rules. Also, wouldn't need to buy that many books and GW wouldn't need to print them and make erratas a week after. All in all, would save a lot of the hassle.

Mostly I worry about the new players. Even some experienced people struggle with how Formations, Battle Forged, Detachments, and Detachments Of Formations work. (The last is a term I wish they named differently, that is certain to confuse a lot of people.)

I expect some rules will be completely removed and the game in general streamlined. I expect the way units rules are published, updated and released will change. Unfortunately, I'm not sure if balance will improve a lot. There is just so much material that has to be accounted for.

Army building is said not to change, atleast a lot. You can sort of tell from the new Traitor Legions book that it has been made with the new edition in mind, and perhaps even a new future CSM Codex/whatever it will be called in 8th. It's written in a way that basically the whole contents of the CSM Codex could change and the Traitor Legions book would still function just fine.

Bough more from GW in the last year than the last 5 years combined, Battle of calth and prospero were good "value", but now i wanted to buy Bloodbowl and 15000 yen (roughly 150$) for 24minis and slightly updated rules is somewhat steep IMHO

As long as GW stays afloat long enough to get some Specialist Games back into circulation, I'll remain content. Haven't been tempted once by any actual models they've put out since the 40k Chaos Cultists (I think, cultists? Renegade guard?) from that 40k box a while back (Dark Angels vs Chaos).

That said, a new scale Epic 40k and Necromunda would get me back on board. Maybe even revamped Mordheim.

~iPaint

Oh, a GW profits thread?

[insert generic complaint]

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
Bough more from GW in the last year than the last 5 years combined, Battle of calth and prospero were good "value", but now i wanted to buy Bloodbowl and 15000 yen (roughly 150$) for 24minis and slightly updated rules is somewhat steep IMHO

See, that doesn't bother me, because you don't need to buy more. It's priced pretty well for a standalone game. Sure, Star Players are tokens rather than miniatures with the very clear intention of selling the Star Player models later, but I forgive FFG for doing that in Imperial Assault, so it would be hypocritcal to fault GW for doing it in Blood Bowl. The price point, even in Australia, seems fairly reasonable especially for the typically high production values of a GW product (that's one thing I can't, and won't, fault them on - a new GW game unboxing is a great feeling).

The difference to AoS and 40k is that while they're generally cheaper per model (depending on what box you buy), that box is one of adozen or two more you need to buy. A slightly higher cost per model for a one off purchase is pretty normal. I pay about the same for Malifaux models.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Runic wrote:
It's being said that 8th most likely won't be a complete overhaul, but it will include the game being streamlined quite a bit. "War Scrolls" in some form are rumoured to be in it, which would make overhauling each and every unit possible. Personally I see only good things about an online "war scroll" approach, you could get rules with the models/from the web, and GW could easily update them into the online files should an "oops" get into a units rules. Also, wouldn't need to buy that many books and GW wouldn't need to print them and make erratas a week after. All in all, would save a lot of the hassle.

Mostly I worry about the new players. Even some experienced people struggle with how Formations, Battle Forged, Detachments, and Detachments Of Formations work. (The last is a term I wish they named differently, that is certain to confuse a lot of people.)

I expect some rules will be completely removed and the game in general streamlined. I expect the way units rules are published, updated and released will change. Unfortunately, I'm not sure if balance will improve a lot. There is just so much material that has to be accounted for.

Army building is said not to change, atleast a lot. You can sort of tell from the new Traitor Legions book that it has been made with the new edition in mind, and perhaps even a new future CSM Codex/whatever it will be called in 8th. It's written in a way that basically the whole contents of the CSM Codex could change and the Traitor Legions book would still function just fine.

Yeah, this is what I expected. But, to me, an overhaul is what the game needs. 3rd edition wasn't the best system in the first place, and 8th edition will be the 5th iteration of it. It's bursting at the seams.

It's a shame as well, because I'd be perfectly happy to get back into 40k if that, and balance in general, is what was fixed. Almost everything else about the company has been an about face.

GW has been changing for the better, I can only hope it remains like this.

All I need now isthe "Sigmarisation" of the 8th edition so 40k stops being the bloated mess it is right now. Maybe, just maybe, I'll stop buying 40k models only for painting and instead actually start playing with them too.

 -Loki- wrote:
It's not GW running out of ideas that is the problem, it's customer burnout.

As a Tyranid and Dark Angel player, how am I burnt out? As was said before unless you buy EVERYTHING, while it's a fast pace, it's a good pace. Like you said before was a very slow pace and unless it was your army you are still waiting. So I can't understand how this would be any different? Like I said, I play Tyranids and Dark Angels. How is this fast pace burning me out? I got what Genestealer Cult and that was it. For a lot of people Genesteler Cult is not even Tyranid so they got nothing. Even if people collect 4 armies or more, the pace is still good.

I HATE the slow pace GW had before, just like you said. This pace is great because I don't buy everything. So unless you collect a lot or just plain buy everything GW puts out, this is the great pace GW is doing. It's keeping everything fresh where before it seemed GW was stale.

I buy all their dice and try to get most of the books (for the fluff, art, and to know my enemies).

Where it get pricey is the fact I play multiple armies (and I buy into cool stuff like deathwatch), age of sigmar, lotr, and I buy all their specialist games (I've become more of a boardgamer and aos guy these days with kids and limited time).

Davor wrote:

 -Loki- wrote:
It's not GW running out of ideas that is the problem, it's customer burnout.

As a Tyranid and Dark Angel player, how am I burnt out? As was said before unless you buy EVERYTHING, while it's a fast pace, it's a good pace. Like you said before was a very slow pace and unless it was your army you are still waiting. So I can't understand how this would be any different? Like I said, I play Tyranids and Dark Angels. How is this fast pace burning me out? I got what Genestealer Cult and that was it. For a lot of people Genesteler Cult is not even Tyranid so they got nothing. Even if people collect 4 armies or more, the pace is still good.

I HATE the slow pace GW had before, just like you said. This pace is great because I don't buy everything. So unless you collect a lot or just plain buy everything GW puts out, this is the great pace GW is doing. It's keeping everything fresh where before it seemed GW was stale.

I suspect a large portion of GW's revenue lies with people who own many armies for 40k and WHFB/AoS and those are the people who are going to get burnt out.

If you only collect 1 or 2 armies then probably less so, but even then it's easy to get burned out especially if there's poor rules sapping peoples' enjoyment.

Then get burned out on rules bloat, where every new unit needs it's own set of special rules and some players get sick of it after a while.

Ruin wrote:
Now to just make some decent rules for 40k and that profit can be even larger...

It would be ground breaking because 40K has never had decent rules, but in light of these news we can hope.

 Therion wrote:

Ruin wrote:
Now to just make some decent rules for 40k and that profit can be even larger...

It would be ground breaking because 40K has never had decent rules, but in light of these news we can hope.

If 40K had decent rules or even better excellent rules then the high prices we complain about at least would have worth to them then. Because of the crappy rules in my opinion, is why the prices GW asks for are not worth it.

I agree we can only hope for the best but expect the worst.

Davor wrote:

 Therion wrote:

Ruin wrote:
Now to just make some decent rules for 40k and that profit can be even larger...

It would be ground breaking because 40K has never had decent rules, but in light of these news we can hope.

If 40K had decent rules or even better excellent rules then the high prices we complain about at least would have worth to them then. Because of the crappy rules in my opinion, is why the prices GW asks for are not worth it.

I agree we can only hope for the best but expect the worst.

GW has finally realized that communicating with customers is good for business. They have also finally acknowledged the existence of the internet. Now if they would only realize that a deep and competitive rule set with tournament support is good for business, and we'd truly be entering a new era. X-Wing? Competitive. Very popular. MTG? Competitive. Very popular. Dota 2 / League of Legends / CS:GO? Competitive. Very popular.

I was on the verge of selling all my 40K, I repurposed my old Skaven for kings of war I hadn't been in an actual GW store in around 2 years. I have picked up far more other company systems in that time I have jumped into KOW, dropfleet & dropzone, Konflikt 47 and got back into 2nd edition Deadzone, I really lost touch and interest in GW altogether. Then slowly but surely there was a change, little snippets of news of things to come, like most people I just thought "heard this rumour before" and then they did come. No matter what, you can't please all the people all the time, it is utterly impossible but in the past year they have made a LOT of people happy with a varied, interesting and high quality release schedule. I am 100% surprised I am saying this but I am back on board with GW, will this trend continue, I really do hope so.

Davor wrote:

If 40K had decent rules or even better excellent rules then the high prices we complain about at least would have worth to them then. Because of the crappy rules in my opinion, is why the prices GW asks for are not worth it.

I broadly agree with this but for me personally the unwitting vandalism of the fluff over the years (and the sheer tragedy is that was the Old World) means that I doubt that I will be returning even if 40K finally gets a good ruleset (although I thought that 2nd ed was at least decent).

Quite simply I no longer need GW, there are more than enough companies today that produce high quality wargames and miniatures which are sufficiently popular that you can easily find a game.

Heh, somewhere, deep inside my soul, a voice is shouting 'See! See! I told you that getting rid of Kirby and Merrett would help! '

I still hate AoS, and it still isn't being much played in my area of Maine*, but I have seen some very positive changes - the bundles, in particular.

Knowing that GW is in the hands of somebody that is at least starting to realize that it is the market that determines what sells, not what the CEO claims is what sells.

The Auld Grump

* The local Warhammer store claims that Space Marines outsell all of AoS put together - but that Silver Tower is also doing much better than AoS, much, much better sales than I might have expected. (They still have most of their initial order of Aos - but have had to reorder Silver Tower.)

 TheAuldGrump wrote:
Heh, somewhere, deep inside my soul, a voice is shouting 'See! See! I told you that getting rid of Kirby and Merrett would help! '

I still hate AoS, and it still isn't being much played in my area of Maine*, but I have seen some very positive changes - the bundles, in particular.

Knowing that GW is in the hands of somebody that is at least starting to realize that it is the market that determines what sells, not what the CEO claims is what sells.

The Auld Grump

* The local Warhammer store claims that Space Marines outsell all of AoS put together - but that Silver Tower is also doing much better than AoS, much, much better sales than I might have expected. (They still have most of their initial order of Aos - but have had to reorder Silver Tower.)

Are you near Portland? Because we have over a dozen going across the Warhammer and Crossroads store right now. With a little more steam we'll be back into tournaments and such.

 -Loki- wrote:

The idea of GW blowing its load isn't about releasing all of their pent up ideas at once, it's about the customer base having the money to buy it and the enthusiasm to do anything with it. Month after month there's releases that customer base has been screaming for, but it's mostly getting thrown in the to-do pile while the next months set of shiny stuff is released. What used to take 3-4 months of spaced out releases is just thrown out there all at once. They might have lots left to release, but if they keep up this pace, they're in danger of just burning people out. That's bad for the hobby as a whole, because when someone is burned out like that, they might not go to another game and then come back to 40k, they might just sell everything and find something else to do.

Release burnout isn't really a thing though. Very few people are buying one of everything. Warhammer 40K is a fairly broad product line. If they can sustain new product releases, and they spread them out across their model ranges, it provides a good source of steady income. And it also means those products are available for new players too. As a player, new Genestealer Cult gets me excited. New Thousand Sons don't. Thus Thousand Sons aren't in danger of burning me out. But they might excite somebody else.

GW's strategy is actually pretty sound right now, assuming they can carry the inventory (I have to assume they believe they can). If you're a "Buy one of everything!" player, you're in the minority as far as GW customers go.

Daedalus81 wrote:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:
Heh, somewhere, deep inside my soul, a voice is shouting 'See! See! I told you that getting rid of Kirby and Merrett would help! '

I still hate AoS, and it still isn't being much played in my area of Maine*, but I have seen some very positive changes - the bundles, in particular.

Knowing that GW is in the hands of somebody that is at least starting to realize that it is the market that determines what sells, not what the CEO claims is what sells.

The Auld Grump

* The local Warhammer store claims that Space Marines outsell all of AoS put together - but that Silver Tower is also doing much better than AoS, much, much better sales than I might have expected. (They still have most of their initial order of Aos - but have had to reorder Silver Tower.)

Are you near Portland? Because we have over a dozen going across the Warhammer and Crossroads store right now. With a little more steam we'll be back into tournaments and such.

Yep - and I work about a block away from the Warhammer store.

I am not all that surprised that it is doing better at Crossroads - they are good people, with a staff that actually enjoys the games.

Sadly, Crossroads is a bit too distant for me to walk to.

It has also been more than a month since I have last been to the Warhammer store - while I don't think that the ratio between 40K and AoS is likely to have changed all that much, there is always the Christmas push.

On the plus side for AoS - I gather that Island of Blood is being repackaged for AoS - and will include both types of bases. (I honestly think that AoS and Warhammer are different enough that each would have an audience - and that part of the local disdain for AoS stems from the way GW handled the transition - blowing up the Olde World was just plain a bad move.)

I had avoided Island of Blood - I disliked 8th edition only slightly less than I hate Aos - but was hired to paint the models for Kings of War... I was very much impressed by the High Elves, less so by the Skaven (Rat Ogres excepted) - but the High Elves alone were enough that I would not have felt scammed if I had bought the box.

If the price is reasonable, I may break my moratorium on AoS - though the figures would be repurposed for KoW and RPGs.

I do not know enough about Silver Tower to have any idea why it would be outselling AoS by a significant ratio - my own reaction was to llok at the price and look no further.

I actually have a GW item on my Christmas wish list this year - the Deff Kopters from AoBR, which have made a comeback, separately packaged. (I am playing GorkaMorka - and getting my arse handed to me by a woman that is not even a gamer.... I am having a blast.)

*EDIT* Just to be clear - I think that GW is doing a better job this last while than in quite a long time previously - they are at lest responding to customers. That said - I think that their next step needs to be mending fences with independent retailers, such as the above mentioned Crossroad Games & Hobbies - it is where a huge portion of GW's money comes from - they need to start treating the independents as allies, not competition. This is much more important than whether I, personally, like or despise AoS. The independent retailers are where GW has the most room for expansion.

The Auld Grump

 TheAuldGrump wrote:
Heh, somewhere, deep inside my soul, a voice is shouting 'See! See! I told you that getting rid of Kirby and Merrett would help! '

Ain't that the truth!