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answering real questions from players, not just pre-approved ones from their minion youtubers or websites.

I think it would be a good thing to hear from the actual designers how they were thinking in regards to certain rules, factions, gameplay mechanics etc.

I mean other companies do it, like Blizzard for example (not that things always turn out the way they said it would but hey). A state-of-the game of sorts.

I don't believe so, no.

Forge World did at their Open Days.

They used to at Games Days. But 'real questions from real players' tended to be utter rubbish.

When are the squats coming back?
When is X faction getting updated?
Why is unit Y so terrible?

On and on. The number of insightful questions with real answers (that could be given in a minute or two) was basically zero.

They have been doing at UK Games Expo the last couple of years - though not this year, for obvious reasons - but I agree with Voss on the quality of questions.

I have considered asking what sort of question they'd be able to provide a answer to as my first question, but I suspect that would get a non-answer...

Yeah, I think the last QA session I heard about had
'We cannot answer that question at this time' as the most common answer, and no one in the audience took the hint, and just kept asking the same kind of questions.

The narrative then became that the QA was a failure that was totally their fault for not pre-screening questions.

 Dysartes wrote:
They have been doing at UK Games Expo the last couple of years - though not this year, for obvious reasons - but I agree with Voss on the quality of questions.

I have considered asking what sort of question they'd be able to provide a answer to as my first question, but I suspect that would get a non-answer...

I mean basically they're not going to be able to answer anything about the future. Everything they are currently allowed to say will already be common knowledge, or be a planned announcement at the event.

Questions they can reaosnably answer will be about how or why they did things. Things about the process.

You're probably right - I was going to ask about the many problems with the CA2019 MFM, and what steps they'd taken to prevent them in the future, but that seems a little old hat now.

GW can't even get FAQs right when they have the time to sit down and think about them, there's no way they'd be able to answer questions on the fly in a way that wouldn't turn out to be a total disaster.

For rules questions specifically they have a mailbox you can send questions to, but they don't respond directly, and it's very unlikely your questions will make it into a FAQ unless you can get a bunch of other people to send in the same question.

I am going to be that guy here and just say it.

Why in the hell would GW EVER do an open QA session? Have you seen how awful the community is to those people (sure, I get it, people are upset at the company, but it is people behind the company, so yeah, it would wear on me for sure)?

The best thing GW can do at this point is to keep their playtesters close, keep feeding them material to test, and keep releasing things. The community would never accept goodwill towards them, and they would look at everything with cynicism, so honestly, there is little impetus for them to do so.

Hell, I'm honestly shocked they still have their social media accounts running (save for the fact that they are almost de facto required for any company nowadays).


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Voss wrote:
Yeah, I think the last QA session I heard about had
'We cannot answer that question at this time' as the most common answer, and no one in the audience took the hint, and just kept asking the same kind of questions.

The narrative then became that the QA was a failure that was totally their fault for not pre-screening questions.

and if they would have screened the questions a bit better, the community would be up in arms about them "cherry picking"

I'm sure they're crying all the way to the bank.

yukishiro1 wrote:
I'm sure they're crying all the way to the bank.

because clearly everyone who works for GW that may get dumped in front of the community clearly make millions.
clearly.

My bad.

Yeah, if you think Dakka is bad, imagine having to face a room packed full of gamers asking stupid questions. Over and over. And over.

Been there, like everything else, its a lose/lose proposition for GW.

Having seen a bunch of those at Games Days in the US, back when they did them, half the session was people asking 'joke' questions. Snarf snarf. And GW couldn't give out any info on upcoming stuff, so what's the point.

 Cruentus wrote:
Yeah, if you think Dakka is bad, imagine having to face a room packed full of gamers asking stupid questions. Over and over. And over.

Been there, like everything else, its a lose/lose proposition for GW.

Having seen a bunch of those at Games Days in the US, back when they did them, half the session was people asking 'joke' questions. Snarf snarf. And GW couldn't give out any info on upcoming stuff, so what's the point.

Yeah, I went to some of the Games Days US back in 2002(ish). It was a gak show then. It would be that times 911 now.

Hardly anyone in the community is rude to individual GW employees, except for the higher-ups. You seem to be mistaking hostility towards the corporation for its corporate decisions with hostility towards individuals. I'm sure you can find someone here or there who takes it too far, but it is absolutely untrue to suggest that the 40k community is either rude or hostile towards average GW employees.

Luckily, GW employees themselves aren't as confused about it as you seem to be. They mostly know perfectly well the difference between frustration and hostility towards the company and towards themselves as individuals, and they don't take stuff personally, just like anyone else who works for any major corporation and gets used to separating themselves from the company.

Those events are useless because they don't provide anything meaningful - any meaningful question can't be answered by some random dude on the spot - not because the attendees are rude to the individual GW employees who used to show up.

What Cruentus said!

I was in the seminar when the new Cadians had just dropped way, way back when. The questions that followed had to do with...Squats and what other new codices would be coming down the line.

yukishiro1 wrote:
Hardly anyone in the community is rude to individual GW employees, except for the higher-ups. You seem to be mistaking hostility towards the corporation for its corporate decisions with hostility towards individuals. I'm sure you can find someone here or there who takes it too far, but it is absolutely untrue to suggest that the 40k community is either rude or hostile towards average GW employees.

Citation Needed. Even just a simple scroll through the mentions of GWs public facing people reveals how complete and total a lie this statement is.

Hundreds of thousands of people play GW games; the percentage of any of them who have ever been personally rude to individual low-level GW employees is absolutely tiny. If you want to continue to believe that large portions of the community are terrible people go for it, though if you did believe that, it seems like playing the game would be a pretty miserable experience.

yukishiro1 wrote:
Hundreds of thousands of people play GW games; the percentage of any of them who have ever been personally rude to individual low-level GW employees is absolutely tiny. If you want to continue to believe that large portions of the community are terrible people go for it, though if you did believe that, it seems like playing the game would be a pretty miserable experience.

You don't need a large percentage of the people who play GW games to have ever been personally rude to low-level GW employees before a large percentage of GW employees have had players be individually rude to them, you know.

yukishiro1 wrote:
Hundreds of thousands of people play GW games; the percentage of any of them who have ever been personally rude to individual low-level GW employees is absolutely tiny. If you want to continue to believe that large portions of the community are terrible people go for it, though if you did believe that, it seems like playing the game would be a pretty miserable experience.

Acknowledging that a particular community has problems is the first step towards addressing those problems. But you go right ahead and continue to spout off on how the Warhammer community is nothing but sunshine, rainbows and hugs. The rest of us living in reality know better.

One of the earliest critical survival skills learned in this game is how to curate the population of folks you interact and play with. That happens for a reason.

Have you never read any of the threads from people who have been "bAnNeD" from a GW store? Or those people who feel like a GW employee trying to sell anything to them is some kind of offense?

Yeah. The percentage is fairly high--even discounting that a chunk of it is likely internet tough guy-isms.

Dakka definitely has its problems with civility, though ironically it's the people who are more pro-GW who tend (I repeat, tend, before one of those very people goes off on me) to be more personally hostile and rude than the ones who are anti-GW. The community overall, however, is overwhelmingly respectful to individuals, whether other players or GW employees. If your local community is different, you have my sympathy.

But don't let me convince you of that, if you prefer to think that the 40k community is full of terrible people, go for it.

Voss wrote:
They used to at Games Days. But 'real questions from real players' tended to be utter rubbish.

When are the squats coming back?
When is X faction getting updated?
Why is unit Y so terrible?

On and on. The number of insightful questions with real answers (that could be given in a minute or two) was basically zero.

They still do at the likes of LVO, and players still ruin the opportunity exactly as you described. I was tearing my hair out at the last one with the number of questions that were some slice of 'what are the releases you haven't shown us yet?'

I've seen it in person. The joys of retail... at least GW staff make more than your average retail worker to compensate, but still. They have to put up with the general public, which is a hell in itself that I don't wish on anyone.

We've had people verbally dressing down our local GW staff for prices being so high, as though they set the prices themselves. Calling them out for "favouritism" and in one case "discrimination" because they wouldn't give a discount. This is all stuff that goes on in any shop, not just GW... and that's from people who were actually there in the shop.

Look at how people behave online, in other Q&As and particularly in AMAs, but also on things like Twitch feeds - the added layer of anonymity only exacerbates things, leading to people actually making death and rape threats against people they've never met, because they know they won't face any consequences for it.

If you believe GW wouldn't face all of this doing a Q&A... well then, I have a bridge to sell you.

Yeah, but that's just the retail experience. It's actually substantially less bad in the hobby industry (and most other specialized niches) than you see in general retail. I mean if you want to say people in general are terrible go for it, I'm not gonna disagree with that. But the 40k community is better than people overall, not worse.

yukishiro1 wrote:
Hardly anyone in the community is rude to individual GW employees, except for the higher-ups. You seem to be mistaking hostility towards the corporation for its corporate decisions with hostility towards individuals. I'm sure you can find someone here or there who takes it too far, but it is absolutely untrue to suggest that the 40k community is either rude or hostile towards average GW employees.

Luckily, GW employees themselves aren't as confused about it as you seem to be. They mostly know perfectly well the difference between frustration and hostility towards the company and towards themselves as individuals, and they don't take stuff personally, just like anyone else who works for any major corporation and gets used to separating themselves from the company.

Those events are useless because they don't provide anything meaningful - any meaningful question can't be answered by some random dude on the spot - not because the attendees are rude to the individual GW employees who used to show up.

hostility towards a corporation directed at an employee is still abuse of the individual, and this forum should provide relatively adequate examples of exactly how awful the community is.

I would also like to say that I am hardly confused about this. If no one allowed the abuse they receive at the hands of the public to get to them and get under their skin, then why is the attrition rate in retail so stupid high (especially when accounting for retail to retail or other entry-level service position)?

No, the community is a gak show. The player base, ill grant, is far from it, but the community that is verbal about their Warhammer experience is absolutely awful.

 Super Ready wrote:
Look at how people behave online, in other Q&As and particularly in AMAs, but also on things like Twitch feeds - the added layer of anonymity only exacerbates things, leading to people actually making death and rape threats against people they've never met, because they know they won't face any consequences for it.

If you believe GW wouldn't face all of this doing a Q&A... well then, I have a bridge to sell you.

Having attended events with GW Q&A sessions - as recently as June 2019 - I can confirm that... they don't face any of that sort of carp. I want to say it was the head of the design studio and one of the senior WHC guys fielding the questions, but I might be wrong there.

Were they to do an AMA on Reddit, I can believe they might - but they have the sense not to do that, and only run them IRL.

Yeah, that's just wrong. People ask stupid questions for sure, but it's not like it's a braying mob out for blood. That's just not how fan gatherings work. There's the occasional odd-ball or even hostile person, but they're very much the exception. Almost nobody pays money to attend an event to be hostile.

People will make death threats at a disabled 15 y/o raising money for charity on Twitch, it is pretty hard to judge a community for abuse happening on Twitch. Likewise with retail, my experience as a clerk was good, but I had an amazing boss and some good managers. I once jokingly told my old boss to restart stocking my favourite soda but in a big company things are often very top-down. I think GW does a great job at most things especially customer complaints and producing high quality plastic crack, they even recently translated 40k into Danish.

But feeling bad for the team managing rules when they intentionally mess up the pts or when they produce a crap codex because nobody gives a damn about the faction? Or because it is someone's pet faction so it becomes op, nope, that does not fly and they deserve to be told off. A group of amateurs could balance pts ten times better.

Pts are really damn important if you think people pulling their models apart for a game advantage is a sad sight. The things I want answered are "how did CA MFM 2020 happen?" "how will you prevent it from happening in the future?" "Can the community help by pushing for a slower schedule, a temporary delay on all future products or by providing input on pts?"

yukishiro1 wrote:
Yeah, that's just wrong. People ask stupid questions for sure, but it's not like it's a braying mob out for blood. That's just not how fan gatherings work. There's the occasional odd-ball or even hostile person, but they're very much the exception. Almost nobody pays money to attend an event to be hostile.

Yeah, tell that to Wizards of the Coast employees at Gencon, or the FW booth at Gencon, or a host of other venues I have been too that have had these large game companies present. I've been to Gencon several times, Adepticon several times, and can go back as far as Games Days US 20 years ago and the negativity and outright rancor within the community is a very real thing. Also, stupid questions are a thing. The hyperbole of a braying mob is entertaining for sure, but they don't have to be carrying pitchforks for it to be a stressful, negative, and hostile event.

Why would you trust them to answer anything? Every answer they've ever given is some canned PR bullgak or vague non-answer or "we can't say anything about that but keep following our gakky community site for information" type answers.

So no, they've never done an actual sort of dev water cooler thing where they legit explain what their thought process is, likely because they don't really have one. There has been some vague references but never anything that can actually be discussed or learned from.