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.

The warhammer rebrand doesn't entirely make sense in the context of MESBG. It's a legal requirement for GW to keep the MESBG license and brand separate from the warhammer brand, I think "Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game by Warhammer" is probably a violation of that

 FrothingMuppet wrote:
Interesting spot - all FW Custodes are available from the 40K Custodes entry, even though not playable in that game.

Don't all the FW Custodes units have 10th rules?

 FrothingMuppet wrote:
Titans are hiding away in Horus Heresy, Forces of the CUlt Mechanicum, Titan Legions. Not locatable from the 40K list and 'searching' returns a list of items matching the search term, picking one brings up that item alone with no breadcrumb trail or option to link off to a wider associated collection.

So the search function is too sensitive? Wonderful...

Urgh the new site is horrid.

I just tried to check an older previous order and instead of being able to change it by pages as before, they've gone for the gakky awful 'show more' button. And of course, if you go into the order to check what it was for and return, the 'show more' reverts back to the start of the list again and not to the point you are checking. So now you have to open each order in a new tab to have any hope of checking old ones.

A very minor annoyance sure, but the site also looks horrid. I'm sure they will be patting themselves on the back and any negativity will be seen as people being "haters" and "Not liking change", but its awful. The old store was at least functional.

Right. Without a doubt the worst iteration of the GW website. Can we go back to the mid-00's version please?

Man, the new site looks like complete garbage. Reminds me of how every time I go to reddit I have to sneak in the "old" into the url to get a website that looks even remotely decent, except there is no option for that here. The old site wasn't amazing by any means, but compared to this? Just wow what a swing and a miss.

We are the Warhammer.
Lower your expectations and surrender your wallets.
We will add your website and brand distinctiveness to our own.
Your customers will adapt to service us.
Logic is futile.

 Mallo wrote:
Urgh the new site is horrid.

I really don't understand what they were thinking. Navigation and layout should not be a burden for the customer.

When you get to any section with a selection of images scrolling from left to right (like, halfway down the first page) the 'page up' and page down' keys cease scrolling the page and instead become used to go side to side on that. Just another on a massive list of tiny annoyances that really add up.

Is there a single feature to this new site - beyond combining GW and FW, which could have been accomplished while maintaining the previous framework - that is actually an objective improvement on what was there yesterday?

 Shakalooloo wrote:

Is there a single feature to this new site - beyond combining GW and FW, which could have been accomplished while maintaining the previous framework - that is actually an objective improvement on what was there yesterday?

I would guess that the improvement is on server load, rather than functionality - they have sacrificed the bells and whistles in favour of not overloading the website when traffic is heavy. Although the fact that they've done all of this and still apparently have a queue system is more than a little bewildering.

I know I'm not everybody, but I won't shop at a shopping mall that charges for parking, and I won't shop on a website that puts me in a queue.

 CragHack wrote:
I just don't get how people can be happy about free FW shipping...It has been there before, for even less. 300euros+ gave you ups tracked, while orders from, I think, 80+ were regular untracked.
GW, on the other hand, would charge +12 for tracked(?) for anything below 100. So it's more of a loss than a win, no?

Speaking of website. It's ugly. I hate it. So glad there's only very few things I still want from them. RIP FW website.

On the Swedish site it was 1500 SEK for free Forge World shipping (not sure if it was tracked or not) while GW proper was free standard shipping over 600 SEK. Now it's 600 SEK and you can mix and match.

 insaniak wrote:

 Shakalooloo wrote:

Is there a single feature to this new site - beyond combining GW and FW, which could have been accomplished while maintaining the previous framework - that is actually an objective improvement on what was there yesterday?

I would guess that the improvement is on server load, rather than functionality - they have sacrificed the bells and whistles in favour of not overloading the website when traffic is heavy. Although the fact that they've done all of this and still apparently have a queue system is more than a little bewildering.

I know I'm not everybody, but I won't shop at a shopping mall that charges for parking, and I won't shop on a website that puts me in a queue.

Honestly I can't even work out what "bells and whistles" they've saved on. The core functionality should be about the same. Most of the things that we are noting as missing are things like additional search filters and descriptions or static visual assets. About the only thing that might count is the removal of the 360images, which could again be done on the previous site by just removing them.

Plus the one single page, the landing page, that actually has some semblance of colour and branding has a huge video on loop. Which kind of suggests that load on the site wasn't a concern.

Honestly considering how similar parts of it are to the community pages I wonder if this is purely GW deciding that they want a single website platform and chose to use the community software they've been running with a "store addon". Bolted it on and threw it out there. IT might be why the store is so bland, esp if its an addon that isn't as well developed/featured because the core part of it was more for news/blogging than as a pro store front.




This reminds me a bit of the time GW made a big noise last itme they improved FW mail ordering and pricing and combined it with GW's shipping system. Which was the big splash news only to get marred by the fact that in doing so they also added FW to the main store's currency conversion for localised stores which resulted in most overseas customers seeing a massive price increase on a day that GW had made big ads (for at least a week or two in build up) that prices were coming down for postage (thus encouraging loads to wait, save and get ready to buy stuff).

Again its the "we did something awesome you want..... and we then blighted it with something "

At my last job, I was involved in working with some programmers that the CEO hired to build a new warehouse management system from the ground up. The lead programmer had no experience in logistics, and the person leading the project from our side had no experience working with programmers... and the end result was that we went from processing a basic order in less than 30 seconds on our old system to the same order taking around 3 minutes on the new.

This website reminds me of that. It's like a webstore designed by someone who has never used a webstore.

 insaniak wrote:

This website reminds me of that. It's like a webstore designed by someone who has never used a webstore.

Or has a software package that they've no idea how to code for so they are using the store's most bland default values for everything because they've utterly no idea how to do anything more.

Which could explain why all the 360 are replaced with servitor icons and why there's no branding logos or anything anywhere save on that 1 splashpage.

It reminds me of my own efforts building a small website. Took ages to do the most basic of things because I've zero experience and there are bits that are not as ideal as I'd have liked because, again, I didn't have the experience to do it; nor to easily sift through google search results to find the right information*



*an increasing requirement these days; and what I found esp with website stuff because you can easily get swamped in articles years old or way out of date that rank high; or you have to find the old article that actually went into detail instead of being 5 lines of text interspaced with an ad on every line.

There is a live chat feature in the contact us section of the more questions section when you scroll down the front page.

They have hours of operation (understandable) but if you are having trouble finding something you can ask the poor guy/gal on the other end how to find it.

I'd imagine this design is again that flex-boiler-plate layout so it works on both mobile and a browers. Which of course means it works primarly for mobile.

I've never opened the damn thing on my browers before, and ain't gonna bother anyway. Merging everything together and "streamlining" any experience has, and will, always be a mistake.

 lcmiracle wrote:
I'd imagine this design is again that flex-boiler-plate layout so it works on both mobile and a browers. Which of course means it works primarly for mobile.
.

Does it, though...?

Chopstick wrote:
They removed all filters, genius. What is this some kind of site for illiterate people?

The unit type filters and race filters for AoS are still there but under a new tab. After you choose a game system at the bottom below the factions is stuff like Rules and Codex/Ways to Play/Terrain/Unit Type.
But that also means you can't filter by faction AND unit types. You either get all SM kits or vehicles from all factions but you can't have only SM vehicles which is really dumb


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I can only say two positiv things about the new store: 

Its faster and you can now sort by material, everything else feels worse.

Filters are worse, the design is worse, the number of clicks to get what you want is worse

Final thoughts after revisiting - such a poor UI design on both web browser and phone. Nothing about the landing page screams you've come to an online shopping portal without scrolling down multiple times, and when you do find something to interact with to get to a system or new release, the unfiltered landing pages of randomly organised minis leaves me shaking my head (example: clilcking on the Fulgrim Transfigured in the 'New and Exclusive' section took me to a Heresy landing page that starts with a Space Wolf Praetor and 11 other random minis before hitting the 'show more' tab, none of which are Fulgrim, or an Emperors Children figure - truly bizarre.

I had a much longer rant typed out listing my complaints of both mobile and browser interactions but deleted it as its not healthy ranting on the internet. All I'll say is I preferred the old design, but can make this work for those infrequent times I need to order online from direct.

GW deserves a price for this, the golden raspberry of webstores or something.

My personal favourite: If you don't know that any of the "specialist" games exist, try finding them. It's like a bizarre hybrid of a wiki and a webstore, cluttered with marketing material. A complete wasteland of UI that could but should not and a UX that reminds me of an escape room. It's so dumb, it might already be entertainingly mysterious, but isn't....it's just dumb. It's everything that is wrong with the 40K app, turned up to 11.

Bravo GW, you never miss a chance to feth up. Hopefully they will get their stuff together and afterwards tackle that also the black library (which also is an escape room of a Webshop) are merged in there.

 insaniak wrote:
It's like a webstore designed by someone who has never used a webstore.

I mean... most design is like that.

 GiToRaZor wrote:

My personal favourite: If you don't know that any of the "specialist" games exist, try finding them..

Under other games so it's not particularly convoluted way. Just under one sub menu

 kodos wrote:

 Olthannon wrote:
This also means they've done away with the GW logo completely, which seems like a bizarre move.

given that they are working for several years now to replace the "Games Workshop" brand with the "warhammer" brand this looks more like the final step rather than a bizarre move

remember this is "the warhammer hobby" not the games workshop hobby, renaming the stores to Warhammer stores but still having a GW online store was more bizarre

Not so much that, more it's an iconic recognisable bright logo, as opposed to something in black and white. It's like replacing a bright blue bird with a black X or something.

tneva82 wrote:

 GiToRaZor wrote:

My personal favourite: If you don't know that any of the "specialist" games exist, try finding them..

Under other games so it's not particularly convoluted way. Just under one sub menu

Yes that's my biggest problem with this site. I don't play AOS but I do play warcry. In the old site, in order to go to the products I wanted, I had to click on "Boxed Games" from the top menu and then select warcry from the side filter.
Now I have to scroll down and find AOS and then scroll again all the way down to find Warcry and click on that.
The absence of a basic menu is unacceptable for me. But I guess it's a marketing thing like the stores that the entrance on one side and the exit is all the way to the other side so you have to look at the store.

Edit: Ok I just realized the "SHOP" is actually a menu.... so I guess it's not that bad....

I'm noticing more and more stupid things every time I try to do anything on the site. If you scroll down past the obnoxiously large video on the homepage (breaking the first rule of homepages, which is to direct users to where you want them to go) you eventually get to a section that allows you to "shop by setting". You can see the logos for 40k, AoS, HH (twice, for some reason) but you can only actually click on the logo that's in the middle. You have to use the annoying arrow buttons to cycle the logos until the one you want is in the middle before you can select it.

I've worked on many, many web projects and the video being front and centre is classic middle management meddling in action. Some genius has decided they need a big glossy, over-long video in there because it's so cool and engrossing. Any competent web designer would be screaming at them to put some sort of buttons or clickable images to direct people to the shop. Either they didn't have a competent designer or they were shouted down thanks to excessive executive meddling. I'm hesitant to blame the designers entirely because I've seen the latter happen far too often.

The navigation issues are a classic example of the designer not understanding the client. The same thing happened with the old app for 9th, which functioned but was barely usable because the designers understood how to technically make things work but not how the game itself functioned. This feels similar. No filters for unit type or role and no sense of any sorting whatsoever in the 40k section is a good example.

Slipspace wrote:
I'm noticing more and more stupid things every time I try to do anything on the site. If you scroll down past the obnoxiously large video on the homepage (breaking the first rule of homepages, which is to direct users to where you want them to go) you eventually get to a section that allows you to "shop by setting". You can see the logos for 40k, AoS, HH (twice, for some reason) but you can only actually click on the logo that's in the middle. You have to use the annoying arrow buttons to cycle the logos until the one you want is in the middle before you can select it..

Reminds me of an old meme about flash intro popups. The website equivalent of trying to wander into a shop with the manager at the door saying "hold on, before you begin, I'm going to spend 10 minutes selling the company to you!"

Obnoxious...

Edit - found it

 straken619 wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

 GiToRaZor wrote:

My personal favourite: If you don't know that any of the "specialist" games exist, try finding them..

Under other games so it's not particularly convoluted way. Just under one sub menu

Yes that's my biggest problem with this site. I don't play AOS but I do play warcry. In the old site, in order to go to the products I wanted, I had to click on "Boxed Games" from the top menu and then select warcry from the side filter.
Now I have to scroll down and find AOS and then scroll again all the way down to find Warcry and click on that.
The absence of a basic menu is unacceptable for me. But I guess it's a marketing thing like the stores that the entrance on one side and the exit is all the way to the other side so you have to look at the store.

Edit: Ok I just realized the "SHOP" is actually a menu.... so I guess it's not that bad....

Yeah. Shop, other games. There's all the games by setting on their own.

Maybe not best system ever but for me there's lot bigger issues in the site than this. It's not that much different to old boxed games.

But yeah not fan of this. At least the sluggishness of yesterday has passed so it's not major PITA to just try it but overall feels like why GW would pay for this...Merging 2 stores ought to be easier and cheaper without new store...

It just baffles me that GW wouldn't want to have the names of all their current games - big and specialist - right up front on the top banner. A Logo for each one that makes it a super simple one click affair to enter that games part of the site.

They had it on the old one for all the non-specialist games; they coudl easily have just added a second row of tabs for those and doubled their apparent game library. Esp if their intent is to have specialist games become akin to main line and last for a long while.

Why is Necromunda hidden away behind another slot where you have to know its there to get to it. Why isn't it at least listed in the games list on the tab?

This is fundamentally the same issue as on the previous website.





Ultimately this site appears to "function" as a store. It just does nothing for advertising, marketing, ease of use, branding, lore, atmosphere nor anything. So yeah I'm guessing it will still generate sales for GW which might be all the managers care for.

 Overread wrote:
Why is Necromunda hidden away behind another slot where you have to know its there to get to it. Why isn't it at least listed in the games list on the tab?

Could be more of that toxic interdepartmental rivalry stuff coming to the fore?

I know nothing about web dev, so I’m speaking purely as a consumer, but assuming both sites used the same setup…. Why didn’t they just merge them and simply rebrand the domain instead of overhauling everything, for the worst?

Seems like it would’ve been easier for both us as consumers and their devs. This is terrible to navigate, it breaks every other time you click something, and there was nothing wrong with the layout of the previous sites. They were quite convenient if you wanted to peruse the GW/FW catalog or needed some info, like what base sizes come with the model, or you needed a picture of a specific angle of a model.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Could be more of that toxic interdepartmental rivalry stuff coming to the fore?

Wouldn't be surprised. I can imagine there'll be people internally celebrating the death of Forgoworld's website...