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I don't know if its aggressively "Fine" but I'd say it is certainly aggressively white! White on white with a side of white and a boundary of white! The most bland I've ever seen and super strange for a whole company where their primary settings are flavoured by being grim dark

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
And now in true GW fashion, they've released a FAQ for the website launch HAHAHAHAHAAHAH

https://www.warhammer.com/en-GB/warhammer-com-launch-faqs?

Pfft! I'll wait for the balance dataslate...

 zedmeister wrote:
Indeed. For example you had the whole Imperial Armour: Fires of Cyraxes debacle where, it was vaguely rumoured, that the main 40k studio insisted on it getting shitcanned so as not to meddle with their, at the time, precious 8th edition. I may be misremembering, but I believe there are older, very vague rumours of inter-departmental strife betweeen FW and the main studio as well. Thunder stealing, showing up and the fact that FW were able to showcase and interact with the fanbase a lot more freely...

Then there's the boxed games division, grabbing products from the pipeline to put things out to justify their existence (Shadow War: Armageddon is a good example of this).

 Lord Damocles wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
If you need to give your customers a faq for your new website, your new website probably isn't very good.

It just means GW is listening! /s

They've changed guys. They have a Facebook page and everything!

I still genuinely believe they did change. Diversifying their portfolio, opening the specialist games studio, supporting games and reintroducing start collecting boxes were meaningful changes that were good for customers.
Unfortunately over the last 5 years or so they've started changing back. More frequent price increases, replacing start collecting with more expensive combat patrols, no more digital books, using FAQs as a crutch to fix broken products, increasingly poor communication, "only hands" and now this gak show of a website. I'm sure there's more that I've forgotten. They still make some good products but in terms of the way they run the company 2023 GW might actually be worse than 2014 GW.

It seems to me to be bonkers that they've made this huge change in the run up to Christmas. There's going to be so much upheaval because of this site change/merger. They'll be putting out fires and answering customer complaint emails for weeks, and all at a time when they're supposed to be receiving by far the most orders of the year. Seems to be sheer lunacy to me.

The site itself is bad. It's so hard to look at, especially on the Firefox web browser, just a wash of harsh white, illegible font choices, a maze of drop down menus, that are tiresome to navigate. The fact that they released the website not fully functional is also barmy to me. So I can't send my wishlists to my friends and family, now? Again, in the bloody run up to Christmas?

Why not just wait until March or April to do this? Once the Christmas rush is over and all the gift vouchers have been spent in the new year? I just don't understand GW management's thinking sometimes, or even if they actually ARE thinking...

Also seems to be a missed opportunity (GW's favourite thing!) to not to a webstore release mini.

I mean, the last time they did this we got these two.

I just realised that resizing the window below about 1600 pixels (give or take, I didn't measure it) causes the "shop" button to disappear and be replaced by the 3 lines.... but on the other side of the page. Then when you click on it, instead of being a side bar it fills the whole screen.

Except I view most webpages at 1280 pixels (2560 pixel monitor, but have the browser set to half width).

Who the feck comes up with these designs? Do they really think it's a good idea to make it harder to find the "shop" button? Or even have a "shop" button at all (what was wrong with the product listing being across the top like it used to be)? And make it feel like a menu quest to get to the product you want?

Like, sure, you can search for the item you want if you know the name, but that implies you know what you want ahead of time. Why make it more difficult for people to view the range?

EDIT: Okay, that was partly my bad, I had the browser zoom set too high, it's not 1600 pixels, it's more like 1000 when it switches views, so if zoom is 100% then it displays fine at 1280 pixels.

It's still not clear to me how FW is going to work in Australia though.

One thing I do like is that it's easier to view images in an embiggened form. The old site was terrible for that.

AU$20 flat rate to post FW to the GW store down the road regardless of order value.

Can get to free posting to my flat depending on the total order value (maybe AU$100)..

Also seems to meltdown and have an error if it mixes FW and non-FW lol.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
It's still not clear to me how FW is going to work in Australia though.

Given the price disparity, I'd argue it doesn't.

I was playing around with the odd quantity limits. The Terminator Chaplain in the Oz store is limited to 3 copies. I somehow managed to add three, and then a separate batch of three.


Also, if you want more than 10 of anything, you have to select 10 and add to cart, and then select another batch and add them to cart. Can't just enter a number.

Also also, there doesn't appear to be any way to view the cart without adding something to it, and then clicking the 'View Cart' button in the two seconds it remains on the screen.

 insaniak wrote:
I was playing around with the odd quantity limits. The Terminator Chaplain in the Oz store is limited to 3 copies. I somehow managed to add three, and then a separate batch of three.


Also, if you want more than 10 of anything, you have to select 10 and add to cart, and then select another batch and add them to cart. Can't just enter a number.

Also also, there doesn't appear to be any way to view the cart without adding something to it, and then clicking the 'View Cart' button in the two seconds it remains on the screen.

To be fair, not too many customers are going to get 10 of any one thing from GW. 10 individual things, sure. I wouldn't be surprised if they had some weirdness for buying 10 of any given thing in the previous iteration of the website either. This sort of 'experimenting' doesn't really showcase any issues, just shows the upper limits of the site that few, if any, people are going to experience.

'Its not going to bug out that often in normal use that I'm defining by decree' is not a successful storefront, nor a good (or satisfactory) software design decision.

Especially not for a company that's partially dependent on FOMO, whales and scalpers for big sales..

drbored wrote:

To be fair, not too many customers are going to get 10 of any one thing from GW.

Sure. It was just an oddity that occured to me as an offshoot of seeing if it would let me get around the lower ordering limits.

Being able to just enter a number instead of selecting from the drop-down is a personal preference. It's not a deal breaker, but would annoy me every time I have to tick a box.

Not being able to get to your shopping cart is a definite issue, though.

chaos0xomega wrote:
If you need to give your customers a faq for your new website, your new website probably isn't very good.

Amen.

And if you have to queue up for a webstore like it's midnight on New iPhone Day...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And Arbies are still sold out...

I am sad.

I do not like chasing after people to give them money.

 insaniak wrote:
Also also, there doesn't appear to be any way to view the cart without adding something to it, and then clicking the 'View Cart' button in the two seconds it remains on the screen.

 insaniak wrote:

Not being able to get to your shopping cart is a definite issue, though.

Cart is the weird looking basket icon top right between the search glass icon and 3 bar menu icon. Just have to scroll to the top.

 MajorWesJanson wrote:
Cart is the weird looking basket icon top right between the search glass icon and 3 bar menu icon. Just have to scroll to the top.

Ah, so it is. I think I dismissed that icon as a trashcan.

I did not think GW could make a website worse than the one they already had.

Boy, did they prove me wrong!

I doubt very much I'll be using it in the future. Easier and cheaper to just peruse a usable site, like Miniature Market.

 Stormonu wrote:
I did not think GW could make a website worse than the one they already had.

Boy, did they prove me wrong!

I doubt very much I'll be using it in the future. Easier and cheaper to just peruse a usable site, like Miniature Market.

I haven't used the old website to actually buy something but it still hurts that the new website is worse as it is the best place to look up all pictures of the models. I lost count how many times their 360° shots helped me notice some details that I forgot to paint

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Also seems to be a missed opportunity (GW's favourite thing!) to not to a webstore release mini.

I mean, the last time they did this we got these two.

"Celebrate the release of the new GW web store with this exclusive blind, albino gobbo model!"

That Shop looks like it was halfway released too early without any bugfixes done before the start.

Chikout wrote:

I still genuinely believe they did change. Diversifying their portfolio, opening the specialist games studio, supporting games and reintroducing start collecting boxes were meaningful changes that were good for customers.
Unfortunately over the last 5 years or so they've started changing back. More frequent price increases, replacing start collecting with more expensive combat patrols, no more digital books, using FAQs as a crutch to fix broken products, increasingly poor communication, "only hands" and now this gak show of a website. I'm sure there's more that I've forgotten. They still make some good products but in terms of the way they run the company 2023 GW might actually be worse than 2014 GW.

I tend to agree, apart from the last sentence. 2023 GW is (mostly) just mind-bogglingly incompetent; 2014 GW had a real maliciousness running in the background. It felt like Kirby, et. al. actively despised their customer base.

 The Phazer wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Isn't that also rolled in with the warehouse inventory system and such? Not just the website front end

No, that was the figure for the expenditure in the current FY. Later in the report it also said that the total spend to date on the "new platform for our webstore" was £4.9m. Granted, it could be very clumsily written and mean the warehouse systems as well but it doesn't say that and it would be an extremely unusual way to describe that in a financial report.

https://assets.ctfassets.net/ost7hseic9hc/7cfv9PJCBejp8hwsTrRqeA/329a5d998b3b40deac3e67d41e468f00/2022-23-half-year-report-final.pdf (page 6)

The "platform" in this case is almost certainly the entire inventory management system that hooks into the stock figures on the website and also manages the production scheduling. They are notoriously fiddly and difficult to get working correctly. As a result they are expensive to implement, though I agree with a previous poster that companies need to start wising up to this and demand fixed price contracts from the suppliers and implementation teams.

As far as the website itself goes, the cost really shouldn't be that high. The main cost will be getting the info from the old databases into the database for the new site but a competent database administrator. Data architect should be able to do that for a reasonable (And fixed) price. The website is nothing special and actually looks like it's almost entirely an out-of-the-box system, which probably accounts for all the little niggles and things that aren't quite working right. It's a classic sign that the developers either didn't fully understand the system or weren't paid enough to customise it, so just went with whatever core functionality they had that was close enough to the requirements.

My new error of the day comes from viewing the FAQs on my phone. They're supposed to be anchor links to the answers further down the page, but on my phone they don't work, so clicking the FAQ link basically does nothing and the layout means it's not obvious the info is further down the page. Having the questions as the title of an expanding accordion section with the answers inside would have solved this and is a fairly standard approach, which is one more reason why I'm fairly sure the people who worked on it either didn't have the time or the knowledge to do it properly. The other alternative is that upper management decided to get involved, which is sadly a very common reason for websites to suck.

Another funny thing I just noticed in the filters is that there isn't actually any generic traitor allegiance for HH anymore, just Traitor Space Marines.
If you want ruinstorm daemons you either have to know what they are called and search for them or try to get to them though the unit type filter that also has all the other stuff.
I thought they might have just thrown them in with the Traitor Legions but that isn't the case as far as I can see.

A product recall on the Squig plushie from Koyo is hidden away right at the bottom of the page

 The Phazer wrote:


There are two claimed insiders on Reddit and 4chan who both claim it is in house, but y'know, they are anonymous sources on Reddit and 4chan so take that for the very little it's worth. But the 4chan post said the same about the budget as Valrak before he did FWIW.

Saying it before Valrak doesn’t give any validity to either.

Just means he grabbed his latest regurgitation from there, or his special ‘source’ got it there or the same place as those.

It’s the hit discussion topic so he’s just putting out a video on it for views, and being over budget KS just a good talking point for it to pile on.


On the site, really hate the missing View all.
Didn’t mind menus but only went there once. Will go explore more deeply, and probably dislike it more as I go

 CancelledApocalypse wrote:
It seems to me to be bonkers that they've made this huge change in the run up to Christmas. There's going to be so much upheaval because of this site change/merger. They'll be putting out fires and answering customer complaint emails for weeks, and all at a time when they're supposed to be receiving by far the most orders of the year. Seems to be sheer lunacy to me.

The site itself is bad. It's so hard to look at, especially on the Firefox web browser, just a wash of harsh white, illegible font choices, a maze of drop down menus, that are tiresome to navigate. The fact that they released the website not fully functional is also barmy to me. So I can't send my wishlists to my friends and family, now? Again, in the bloody run up to Christmas?

Why not just wait until March or April to do this? Once the Christmas rush is over and all the gift vouchers have been spent in the new year? I just don't understand GW management's thinking sometimes, or even if they actually ARE thinking...

I have no trouble believing that whoever thought this webstore design was a good idea also thought that the switch would happen flawlessly. Push a button, get it up and running and get some extra attention and store visits in this most crucial time of the year. What could possibly go wrong?

 The Phazer wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Also seems to be a missed opportunity (GW's favourite thing!) to not to a webstore release mini.

I mean, the last time they did this we got these two.

"Celebrate the release of the new GW web store with this exclusive blind, albino gobbo model!"

Isn't the new Necron Lord the tie in model for this? It's pixely and technological, it's missing pieces and isn't ready for release yet. Granted, they didn't paint it white...

I mentioned earlier in the thread my order for the Rogue Trade reprint had vanished.
GW have said that orders after the 20th Oct would be added to the system soon.
My order was on the 14th October, so I emailed customer service asking if this order is still in the system or had been lost.

The reply I just received was:

Hello,

Thanks for your email.
We really appreciate you taking the time to send us your thoughts on our new webstore.
Your feedback will be passed to the Ministorum Technomancers to look into.
Please note that they will not be able to send you a personalised reply, but rest assured it will be looked into as soon as possible.
Kind regards,

Jeez. I didn't submit any feedback or make any comments. I just wanted to be assured that my order is in the system still and I will get the goods I paid for. I certainly don't want to wait 180 days for them to tell me, "sorry, we have no records of your order, the item is no longer available."

Sounds like they must have been flooded with messages and have defaulted to a single static reply for everything related to the webstore until they can get things under control. Esp if they are getting a LOT of messages on the same topics (ergo the same core problem)

I just hope they can sort it out before monday so I can make my order without worrying that it will vanish into the ether

Anyone notice that the Shop Online link from the Warhammer Community site still shows GW and FW( which of course redirect to the new site). I wonder how long until that’s obliterated. Oh well, end of an era and all that.

I usually try to stay away from the GW bashing the community loves to do whenever ANYTHING happens....

But man, that page is big step into the wrong direction.
I literally could not find anything.
Even a search for "bloodbowl" was lacking like half of the stuff.

Search mismatches have been rife for ages.
Aeronautica Aeldari searches shows the Marines aircraft in every search.
Their tagging has been bad, so searches are bad.

 Gimgamgoo wrote:
I mentioned earlier in the thread my order for the Rogue Trade reprint had vanished.
GW have said that orders after the 20th Oct would be added to the system soon.
My order was on the 14th October, so I emailed customer service asking if this order is still in the system or had been lost.

The reply I just received was:

Hello,

Thanks for your email.
We really appreciate you taking the time to send us your thoughts on our new webstore.
Your feedback will be passed to the Ministorum Technomancers to look into.
Please note that they will not be able to send you a personalised reply, but rest assured it will be looked into as soon as possible.
Kind regards,

Jeez. I didn't submit any feedback or make any comments. I just wanted to be assured that my order is in the system still and I will get the goods I paid for. I certainly don't want to wait 180 days for them to tell me, "sorry, we have no records of your order, the item is no longer available."

I'm in a a similar situation. Got this reply:

Thanks for getting in touch.

All orders placed before the 20th of October 2023 are already available in your order history.

Orders placed on Games-Workshop.com and ForgeWorld.co.uk after the 20th of October 2023 will be added to your Order History in the coming days

Not sure they even read my question...

I do feel bad for the customer service folks though, not their fault but they are the ones who have to deal with the fall out.