Why all the secrecy?

[Wolfshade]

If you could do that, you could choose your own salary.

I think most people have an idea that, we are now in a new ruleset therefore my army will be updated, sometime, so with that in the back of the mind people may very well be saving all or part of their hobby budget. I suppose the question is how do those who have had their dex updated spend?

[Wildeybeast]

The problem with those spending habit assumptions is that people do that anyways. I can't tell you how many people I know who were 'waiting for X codex to get a release', or waiting until after the new release to see if GW dropped the ball with the new codex.

Well yeah, plenty of people still do that. My point is, if they know when said release is coming, they will definitely save their money, but if there are no details, they are more likely to succumb to temptation.

[Anggul]

Well yeah, plenty of people still do that. My point is, if they know when said release is coming, they will definitely save their money, but if there are no details, they are more likely to succumb to temptation.

Which is extremely underhanded.

I feel so sorry for anyone who actually spent money on the so-called 'Codex: Inquisition' expecting a new, decent representation of the Inquistion, which turned out to be copy pasted from the GK codex with Warlord Traits and three Relics chucked in. They purposely avoid spelling out what the digital editions actually contain.

[ElectricPaladin]

I actually don't think that this is true. I'm sorry, but the fact is that there isn't a lot of shenanigans that you can do to get someone to spend more than they are actually going to spend. Not more than they think they are going to spend, but more than they are actually going to spend. No amount of secrecy is going to make me have more disposable income. If I spend January's budget on stuff for one army, and then get surprised in late January by the release of new stuff, I'll just wait until February. It's not like it's going anywhere.

Well, actually it is, because GW's supply lines are all ****ed up, but the fact is that between eBay and just waiting for a little while, I'll eventually get what I want.

Perhaps you're right and that's GW's logic, but it's pretty poor logic in my mind. People are going to spend the money they have, not the money you wish they had.

[xNickBaranx]

I'm not going to read through everyone's responses because I know most of them will be just a bunch of lashing out without any understanding of the past that lead us to where we are now.

I worked for GW in the era from 1998-2001. Back in those days we had the GW Intranet. It was an internal web source for all manner of GW documents so that the many far flung regions could access important company information. I never once used it for anything other than following the latest play test manuscripts for all of the different armies that GW made.

We would all download these documents excitedly, accidentally leak info to our customers because we were frothing fanatics, and generally muck everything up for GW.

Muck it up how?

For example: The 3rd Edition play test version of Sisters of Battle had Frateris Militia Squads of up to 50. If I remember correctly they could be equipped with 2 weapons. With Faith Points or whatever system it had, they were, on paper, FANTASTIC! So what happens?

People get wind of this, they start assembling squads of 50, and then there's a design change and GW decides for whatever reason the squads of up to 50 Frateris Militia are a bad idea, so they scrap it.

The GW Fan-base is soooooo rabid that when the Codex appears in WD or wherever and it doesn't have that - the community feels absolutely screwed. They've got their models converted, they've been working on them for the last 6 months to a year. And then the Codex drops and they aren't there.

That is why GW stopped putting play test codexes on the company intranet, and that's why GW doesn't do open play testing. The Fan-Base is too fanatical. Once they hint that something is going to exist, and then it doesn't, the fan base is ready with the torches and pitchforks.

Small companies can get away with so much more than GW can. Between the scale, the prior investment, the up to 30 years of patronage on the customer end and development on the company end - it is the Titanic moving through a gaming sea while most other companies are speed boats - small and adaptable. People will see. Some of these other companies will change as they grow and their fan base takes on a life of its own.

[wbravenboer]

Had a nice chat with my local GW store manager yesterday, they had a meeting last week to meet the new boss, and a tour of the factory. He told me that there used to be intern network, but leaking got to obvious, people got fired and so on. The deal with New Line Cinema is already mentioned, and a lot of people don't realise the impact this had on te company. Any, really any leaking would jeopardize the business and got them fined, so a lot of tightening is due to that contract. One of the anecdoted I heard from him, that they had a beautiful Smaug model made, and NLC was not satisfied with it, they had to DESTROY the mould; costs; 300.000 pounds. So I think they are not too unhappy if the contract ends. Another interesting bit was that the dwarfs were already finished in 2012, playtesting was done after the models were already in the vaults. They can change only so much during testing, and people will ALWAYS find stuff 'broken', balance is impossible, not without drastically change the nature of the races and game-rules. Want balance? Play historical, all the same stats en powers.
Another good point was the small companies being faster with bringing out their models, certainly true, a lot of companies already produce 'copies' of GW models, and also the IP is immensely important, that is why Space Marines will go Adaptes Astartes for instance.
But from what I heard, it is going to be a good year for GW, lots of new stuff, new ideas, new people, so far I like it.
A last little thing from my store manager; he curiously went another way in the factory, and ran into a few pallets filled with Imperial Knights.

[Lord-Boofhead]

Which is extremely underhanded.

I feel so sorry for anyone who actually spent money on the so-called 'Codex: Inquisition' expecting a new, decent representation of the Inquistion, which turned out to be copy pasted from the GK codex with Warlord Traits and three Relics chucked in. They purposely avoid spelling out what the digital editions actually contain.

I spent money on it and was happy with what I got. a way to field Inquisitors with out stupid arse Grey Knights.

I'm sorry you were disappointed it didn't come with free daemonette lapdances.

[Lord-Boofhead]

I know it's a crazy idea but maybe professional designers know more about the art of Games design than basement dwelling kneckbeards?

[RatboyScree]

In my opinion GW need to get back to their roots and maybe they might with the new weekly magazine, I remember when new units such as warpspiders where produced and rules put into white dwarf way before they even looked at putting together a codex.

Prices are the next thing that needs to be looked at,with prices as they are it is hard for new people especially in the current economic climate to play as they cannot afford the models, and when a new edition can completely remove the playability of a unit/warmachine then people are gonna be turned off from playing when the next edition comes out and makes everyones old codex suddenly feel like it has a countdown over it's usability.

As someone else has said before holes in the model range can also be annoying with my Daughter hoping in vain that the Heirotitan model will eventually be created having been dashed when i got the same response from both forge world and games workshop that they had no intention to fill that gap any time in the near future ( nor the Farseer/warlock on jetbike that i've been waiting for since rogue trader days)

I'd also like to see true line of sight removed as it stifles imagination when attempting to make scenic bases and can create that which i hate the army made for tournaments ... I kid you not i saw one player who used nothing but the crouching eldar ranger to limit his opponents ability to shoot back

I'd also like to see people fielding armies that look like the fluff would have you believe the army looks like. Maybe the next rules change for 40k could make selecting an army look more like 2nd edition epic where you selected a company which entitled you to up to 3 support units and 1 special OK I'm not suggesting we need 9 tactical squads and a command squad all in rhino's to be allowed to play maybe cut it down to 2 units of collumn A allows you to take 1 of collumn B and for every 4 collumn A you can take 1 Collumn C and no special characters outside a reasonable sized game

[DarkLink]

I wouldn't say that GW's game designers are profession, outside that they do technically get paid to do it. But, seriously, their rules are full of loopholes and typos, and when we the players ask questions they either ignore it, respond with a nonsensical FAQ that is only obliquely related, or tell us "don't worry about it, this is a beer and pretzels game".