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 vict0988 wrote:
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?"

I don't "feel bad" for them, but I certainly don't blame them for not wanting to just open a can of worms that there is no advantage for them to do so. It's also worth mentioning that you are attributing motives to them that are simply not shown. Saying they did this on purpose because GW hates me, and that they deserve to be "told off" just completely underlines the point I am making in that the community is hot garbage.

Not everyone in the community is a raging dumpster fire, there are lots of great people, many of who post here, and I enjoy their comments and their content, but as a general rule, yes, the vocal community has shown itself to be nothing more than odious towards GW. It makes no sense for them to engage in that way when it cannot help them at all because let's be honest, there is NO answer they could provide to the community that would satisfy your questions in a satisfactory manner.

Hell, they could fall to the floor, screaming "mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa" and I've doubts that even that would be met with anything less than disdain.

Edit: Everyone is a game designer until they are asked to be a game designer. No, sir, a group of amateurs could not actually balance the points ten times better. Its absolutely laughable that the community at large thinks they are better game designers. Designing a game is difficult. Balancing a game that is as complex as WH40k, or WM/H, Infinity, etc is extremely hard work, and requires a lot more effort than anyone in the vocal community is willing to even entertain.

Have you seen the episode of the simpsons when homer gets the job of voicing poochie and he does a Q&A:

“In episode 2F09, when Itchy plays Scratchy's skeleton like a xylophone, he strikes the same rib twice in succession, yet he produces two clearly different tones. I mean, what are we-- to believe that this is some sort of a-- a magic xylophone or something?“

This is how I think a 40K Q&A would go

Seabass wrote:

I don't "feel bad" for them, but I certainly don't blame them for not wanting to just open a can of worms that there is no advantage for them to do so. It's also worth mentioning that you are attributing motives to them that are simply not shown. Saying they did this on purpose because GW hates me, and that they deserve to be "told off" just completely underlines the point I am making in that the community is hot garbage.

Not wanting to take responsibility for mistakes and not wanting to make an effort to improve is understandable if you've worked at a company for years and the byline has been that balance is for trolls, just forge a narrative and use homebrew rules if we miss stuff. GW does not hate me, but they made a s6 ap3 d1 weapon the same cost as s7 ap4 d2, that is intentional bad balance and a clear lack of care.

Not everyone in the community is a raging dumpster fire, there are lots of great people, many of who post here, and I enjoy their comments and their content, but as a general rule, yes, the vocal community has shown itself to be nothing more than odious towards GW. It makes no sense for them to engage in that way when it cannot help them at all because let's be honest, there is NO answer they could provide to the community that would satisfy your questions in a satisfactory manner.

Yes, "we decided ca20 pts were not important so we had the intern do it" "we'll do it ourselves next time and properly test all the pts and avoid making options of clearly inferior value cost the same as those of greater value" "we have made a number of surveys for the community to engage with to get an idea of how wrong we got things with ca20".

Hell, they could fall to the floor, screaming "mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa" and I've doubts that even that would be met with anything less than disdain.

I don't care if anyone feels guilty, I want GW to do better, make the game more fun for me to play and more popular so I can find games when and qhere I feel like it.

Edit: Everyone is a game designer until they are asked to be a game designer. No, sir, a group of amateurs could not actually balance the points ten times better. Its absolutely laughable that the community at large thinks they are better game designers. Designing a game is difficult. Balancing a game that is as complex as WH40k, or WM/H, Infinity, etc is extremely hard work, and requires a lot more effort than anyone in the vocal community is willing to even entertain.

Awww buhuu is the pure innocent wittle company you are white knighting for being critisized for being unable to tell a hyperphase sword from a warscythe? Unable to recognise whether Guardians or Guardsmen need the bigger nerf? GW is a big boy company and CA19 was pretty awesome, ca20 was not up to GW's modern standard.

 vict0988 wrote:

Seabass wrote:

I don't "feel bad" for them, but I certainly don't blame them for not wanting to just open a can of worms that there is no advantage for them to do so. It's also worth mentioning that you are attributing motives to them that are simply not shown. Saying they did this on purpose because GW hates me, and that they deserve to be "told off" just completely underlines the point I am making in that the community is hot garbage.

Not wanting to take responsibility for mistakes and not wanting to make an effort to improve is understandable if you've worked at a company for years and the byline has been that balance is for trolls, just forge a narrative and use homebrew rules if we miss stuff. GW does not hate me, but they made a s6 ap3 d1 weapon the same cost as s7 ap4 d2, that is intentional bad balance and a clear lack of care.

Not everyone in the community is a raging dumpster fire, there are lots of great people, many of who post here, and I enjoy their comments and their content, but as a general rule, yes, the vocal community has shown itself to be nothing more than odious towards GW. It makes no sense for them to engage in that way when it cannot help them at all because let's be honest, there is NO answer they could provide to the community that would satisfy your questions in a satisfactory manner.

Yes, "we decided ca20 pts were not important so we had the intern do it" "we'll do it ourselves next time and properly test all the pts and avoid making options of clearly inferior value cost the same as those of greater value" "we have made a number of surveys for the community to engage with to get an idea of how wrong we got things with ca20".

Hell, they could fall to the floor, screaming "mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa" and I've doubts that even that would be met with anything less than disdain.

I don't care if anyone feels guilty, I want GW to do better, make the game more fun for me to play and more popular so I can find games when and qhere I feel like it.

Edit: Everyone is a game designer until they are asked to be a game designer. No, sir, a group of amateurs could not actually balance the points ten times better. Its absolutely laughable that the community at large thinks they are better game designers. Designing a game is difficult. Balancing a game that is as complex as WH40k, or WM/H, Infinity, etc is extremely hard work, and requires a lot more effort than anyone in the vocal community is willing to even entertain.

Awww buhuu is the pure innocent wittle company you are white knighting for being critisized for being unable to tell a hyperphase sword from a warscythe? Unable to recognise whether Guardians or Guardsmen need the bigger nerf? GW is a big boy company and CA19 was pretty awesome, ca20 was not up to GW's modern standard.

Who is saying they don't take responsibility for the mistakes they make. If a product is bad, it doesn't sell, and if products don't sell, I'm pretty sure someone's head is going to roll for it. That's kind of the way business work. They may not be confessing to *you* their responsibility in creating whatever rules you feel are intentionally bad, but assuming no responsibility is taken when this is their business is wholly inaccurate.

At this point, I'm not sure this is about GW anymore than it is your own ego and the personal slights you feel so oppressed by.

I've said it several times, and I'll keep saying it. The criticisms levied towards GW are fine, the fact that you feel entitled to tell someone off because they made decisions you disagree with about a game that is ultimately a hobby and a past time, with almost 0 real-world consequences, speaks volumes as to why they shouldn't engage the community beyond media that they can explicitly control the content of. Got a problem with the cost of X weapon vs Y weapon, that's fine, I get that. Demanding responsibility to be taken and answers are given to you, after stating that they deserve to be "told off" is unreasonable and tantamount to verbal abuse if the "told off" statement carries the typical connotation with it. Criticism is fine, there are lots of things I disagree with. Being an entitled gamer that thinks you can "do it better" and thinks the staff needs to be brought to heel is absolutely awful and only proves my point.

Also, its a lot less about "white knighting" and more about "don't be an entitled, self-indulgent little jerk".

Didn't they scale back the Q&A sessions after the Battle Bunnies Escher 'incident'?

beast_gts wrote:
Didn't they scale back the Q&A sessions after the Battle Bunnies Escher 'incident'?

What was the "incident", beast?

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.

This 100000%. They did Q&A at the adepticon previews and I straight up started leaving as soon as they got that point because of the amount of useless fething mouth breathers bleating the same damn questions.

'Will my army get updated?!' "Generic positive non-answer, next question"

"But will MY army get updated tho!?'

Player Q&A tend to be entirely worthless because of all the waterheaded morons asking the same 5 idiotic questions.

 Dysartes wrote:

beast_gts wrote:
Didn't they scale back the Q&A sessions after the Battle Bunnies Escher 'incident'?

What was the "incident", beast?

A GW staffer (Tony Cottrell) made a poor joke in a Necromunda Q&A session, then apologised for it when he realised it hadn't gone over as he'd expected. The Battle Bunnies blog then 'reported' the joke as a misogynistic attack, and social media picked up on it. The blog quickly backed down (their apology below), but the damage had been done. I wasn't at the session, but know people who were, and saw the social media storm.

Hi all

On Saturday I put up a summary of the seminar which I attended and I would like to apologise for incorrectly and out of context reporting the words of Tony Cottrell. This post was taken down very quickly too. I have the upmost respect for the man and think what he has done for the hobby and Forge World could be matched by no other. His presentations are brilliant and the way he interacts with his audience is fantastic.

My personal opinion is that there was no malice or prejudice in the joke, but in written word and out of context it can be construed differently.

I will be more careful in my comments in the future, but I believe I may be stepping back from reporting from seminars in the future and leaving it to the company itself.

Sincerely.

Drake Seta

Wayniac wrote:
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.

Even if they did want to do a dev watercooler thing it'd be impossible to slog through the endless loop of 'are x,y,z factions gonna get new models? are x,y,z factions gonna get new rules?'. Even if they did make it through all of that garbage, then they just end up with people like you asking troll questions like 'why are you such a dummyhead! he-he-he-ha!'

What the heck Seabass, why do you want to talk about my emotions and ego?

You've been going to a restaurant for years, good location, nice view, but the food is a bit up and down. Every time you go you ask for seabass with boiled potatoes, first time the waiter comes out with steak and fries, next time fried haddock with salad, but then last time you got seabass with fried potatoes which was pretty close to what you have been asking for every time. Now you go and they serve you pasta and fishsticks so you go and leave a bad review on Yelp, they served the right fish last time and the side was almost right, but now it seems to be not only not what you asked for but something from the kids menu. No ego, no emotion, just the restaurant failing to complete the order.

 vict0988 wrote:
What the heck Seabass, why do you want to talk about my emotions and ego?

You've been going to a restaurant for years, good location, nice view, but the food is a bit up and down. Every time you go you ask for seabass with boiled potatoes, first time the waiter comes out with steak and fries, next time fried haddock with salad, but then last time you got seabass with fried potatoes which was pretty close to what you have been asking for every time. Now you go and they serve you pasta and fishsticks so you go and leave a bad review on Yelp, they served the right fish last time and the side was almost right, but now it seems to be not only not what you asked for but something from the kids menu. No ego, no emotion, just the restaurant failing to complete the order.

and would that situation warrant "Telling them off" of just not patronizing the restaurant? Would that situation require reasonable discourse to fix the issue, or would it require you blaming the person who made it as the bearer of the mistake and calling into question their competency, the responsibility of such a grave mistake, and demand an action plan as to how they would address this grave offense?

More to the point, would you treat it like an isolated event or assuming it was intentionally made wrong to slight you in some way?

I speak to emotions because emotions are very telling. The rationale, motivations, and intent are all often viewed through the lens of observable emotions. I have a Ba. in psychology, a Ba in applied behavioral sciences, a Ma in psychology, and am currently finishing my Ph.D. in Clinical psychology, so yes, I have a tendency to pay attention to the precise wording and emotional gravity given towards a statement.

You can wave all the degrees around you want, you cannot assume emotion from text. It's quite literally one of the pitfalls of it. Ever heard of Poe's Law?

 Grimtuff wrote:
You can wave all the degrees around you want, you cannot assume emotion from text. It's quite literally one of the pitfalls of it. Ever heard of Poe's Law?

That's the one that says to be cautious when using ravens in prose, right?

 Dysartes wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:
You can wave all the degrees around you want, you cannot assume emotion from text. It's quite literally one of the pitfalls of it. Ever heard of Poe's Law?

That's the one that says to be cautious when using ravens in prose, right?

(I presume you know already, but still...)

It's where in a purely text based environment, unless you know the intent of the author you cannot determine if someone is being sincere in their (sometimes extreme) views or is being a parody of it.

I am prone to exaggeration and parody on occassion which might make my intent and general demenour harder to grasp, although in thread I believe I have been genuine. Add to that English being my second language and English words and phrases potentially having multiple meanings and you cannot guarantee what someone is feeling.

Let's take telling someone off: If you tell someone off, you speak to them angrily or seriously because they have done something wrong. In this case I meant a serious business-like you got x, y and z pts wrong very obviously, you ought to value viability over having every option cost the same or a multiple of 5 and all pts changes should be viewed in terms of % change, further this obviously better unit should not have gotten off easier than this obviously worse unit. Not: ey mate ur a uckin knobhead for messin wit me army ya know I ought ta slug ya and take yer job and mess wit your wife.

I don't understand the difference between reasonable discourse to fix the issue and making an action plan. The latter is just a more structured version of the former but given that I am but a humble fan I am not in a position to have a conversation but the developers are in a position to develop an action plan, I think it is reasonable to say that GW having a discussion with a Discriminating Deathmark Assassin might waste everybody's time even if they cared to have it.

Best of luck with your PhD. I have a 10000pt investment in the restaurant, leaving is a poor option for me if the collective psychic anguish of Dakka's xenos players might get the writers into gear and get me my seabass and boiled potatoes.

 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.

Does anyone remember the AOL chat room? What a nightmare that was.

 Grimtuff wrote:
You can wave all the degrees around you want, you cannot assume emotion from text. It's quite literally one of the pitfalls of it. Ever heard of Poe's Law?

so...context and specific word choice cannot be used to draw reasonable conclusions about the state of someone's position? Yeah, no. and Poe's law really doesn't apply here, unless you are making the inference that absolutely no position can be determinant from parody based solely on the words used.

In that case, you may want to back yourself up just a bit on that one.

but wait: smiley face. This means I'm joking.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 vict0988 wrote:
I am prone to exaggeration and parody on occassion which might make my intent and general demenour harder to grasp, although in thread I believe I have been genuine. Add to that English being my second language and English words and phrases potentially having multiple meanings and you cannot guarantee what someone is feeling.

Let's take telling someone off: If you tell someone off, you speak to them angrily or seriously because they have done something wrong. In this case I meant a serious business-like you got x, y and z pts wrong very obviously, you ought to value viability over having every option cost the same or a multiple of 5 and all pts changes should be viewed in terms of % change, further this obviously better unit should not have gotten off easier than this obviously worse unit. Not: ey mate ur a uckin knobhead for messin wit me army ya know I ought ta slug ya and take yer job and mess wit your wife.

I don't understand the difference between reasonable discourse to fix the issue and making an action plan. The latter is just a more structured version of the former but given that I am but a humble fan I am not in a position to have a conversation but the developers are in a position to develop an action plan, I think it is reasonable to say that GW having a discussion with a Discriminating Deathmark Assassin might waste everybody's time even if they cared to have it.

Best of luck with your PhD. I have a 10000pt investment in the restaurant, leaving is a poor option for me if the collective psychic anguish of Dakka's xenos players might get the writers into gear and get me my seabass and boiled potatoes.

If this is based on miscommunication, then I apologize. But to speak to someone angrily even in that context can easily slide into the realm of verbal abuse, and no one deserves to be abused. If we are framing it around "this is bad and this isn't, and here is why" that, in my estimation, is criticism, and no one should have an issue with that. I certainly don't. I do have a problem with the idea of berating some poor rules dev because player A didn't get the things he wanted in the edition, which I HAVE personally seen (not at GW, but certainly at Wizards of the Coast among other companies at conventions). Keep in mind, when people talk about telling people off, that term is synonymous in the US with berating, blasting, or other such terms that carry with them a more visceral interaction. If you meant something different, then please accept my honest apology for the miscommunication.

So in that context, does my position make more sense? I feel like we have reached a relative understanding of the subject at hand. I am glad this has happened.

Smileys make me cringe because I grew up on 4chan so I only use them when texting girls. One of my favourite moments on Dakka was when I jokingly said that an Eldar podcast was to blame for CA20 and someone said I was crazy and conspiratorial. No need to apologize, you did not insult me. I will consider using more smileys in the future

It would probably be endless rounds of people trying to say edgy stuff to try to be in a viral video or something like that, or possibly people yelling out dusty TTS jokes.

 ArcaneHorror wrote:
It would probably be endless rounds of people trying to say edgy stuff to try to be in a viral video or something like that, or possibly people yelling out dusty TTS jokes.

I wish that was how Q&A sessions with GW went. At least that would be cringe comedy instead of just straight up cringe.

Adepticon's last Q&A session lasted about half an hour and consisted of maybe 25 questions. Of those, 20 were people asking when their army was getting a codex or new models. The other 5 were questions that had already been answered in the presentation.

Yeah, they're not usually toxic (there was that one where there was a kerfluffle because of someone's joke in bad taste), they're just boring and useless.

Isn't the Content of the questions telling tho that something ain't right?
When 20 out 25 questions related Model and rules Updates one does wonder...

I agree that a real-time event where people ask questions will end in disaster or boredom.

I think it would be a vastly superior solution if they would release a community article on a regular basis where they answer selected questions.

On the topic of to topic of the toxicity of this community... the reason why codices no longer have their authors listed in them is because codex authors have received death threats. 'Nuff said.

Went to a great many Q&A sessions at past events.

And as others have said, the questions were remarkably samey.

It got to the point where the panel would try to save time during introductions, by confirming “no” is the answer to ‘are Squats coming back’, plus a couple of others.

Sometimes an interesting question would be asked, and interesting answers garnered. Rooty toot toot my own trumpet, but I asked one about how projects are decided upon, including who’d get to do what. This was years ago, so not gonna paraphrase the answer, as it may well be completely wrong!

Rest of the questions were about Squats, and pricing. Because clearly the people with real clout over the pricing are the people who do the designing.

There are some times Q&As at Seminars, and again it’s all much the same. Of particular frustration given set time restrictions are people who ask a question that’s already been raised, just with different wording.

Best way forward I can think of is for GW to do online chats, ala Von Cast, where people can send in questions in advance. Sure, few will get answered, but at least they’ll have a chance to sift through, see if any are actually interesting.

I don't think we will ever see a "live online" Q&A with questions from customers, mainly because it's difficult to keep up with all of the questions but also some of the comments put forwards are generally disruptive. If any do happen, it will be either pre-arranged questions or open to twitch subscribers rather than everybody. I don't think there is any sinister motive for this but GW will want to answer questions and give the best answers for the things that they are passionate about. I also think that because some people are able to hide behind internet persona's, they will often ask questions they would never dream of if they had to do it in person.

I've been lucky enough to have been able to go to some Q&As in the past and they are good. You will hear some samey questions but you will also hear some good ones. The best ones to go to if you are ever lucky to, are the Open days as you get to meet with the studio staff and chat to them. Everybody I have met in this fashion, have been very approachable and will chat about all sorts of stuff. Naturally some of it they won't talk about because they can't (like where is X Primarch model) but they are good to talk to.

They've done loads of live QA chats fairly informally in Twitch. In general though its a bit of a nightmare because you have so many users asking so many questions that you've a large chance of missing out; but it does happen. It's just mostly informal stuff rather than "give us secrets on what is coming".