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  1. #1

    Default Lessons Learned at LVO - Clarifications

    First off, I’d like to thank for all of the positive and negative feedback for my first attempt at writing an article addressed to the 40k community. While I understand that web forums are generally perceived as a breeding ground for vitriol and nerd raging, I’m pretty pleased with the respectful, constructive back and forth I’ve been having been those of you who’ve replied.

    To address a few things that didn’t seem to come off so clearly in my original post, I am not opposed to net discussion when it comes to building lists. My point is that you may be doing yourself a disservice by putting something on the table that you were told was better, but may not be what you were really looking for when it comes to your personal preferences. All forums serve as a great resource for our community to connect through our common love of this hobby. Yes, sometimes we get so narrow minded in our beliefs, but when you put all of that aside, it’s pretty amazing how passionate many of us are about this hobby. It’s a shame that there seem to be so many cracks in the community that some see it as a gap that can never be bridged, but we are nowhere near that level of conflict and there are way more ways that the perceived polar opposites of ‘competitive’ and ‘fluffy’ cross over in their values.

    What I meant to convey originally was the overall goal of my series of editorials is that we need to start looking at the different routes in which we can not only maintain the population of this community, but grow by both retaining long time players and bringing new ones into a culture and community that we can all be proud of.

    For a long time, GW was seen as a company that was slow to react, which kept the customer’s financial investment in 40k manageable, but it may have been too static to retain players in the long term due to the belief that nothing about your army and how it could be played would not and could not change until the release of their next update. 2013 was the dawn of GW’s shift from a monthly release schedule to one that could be marketed similar to the culture we live in that feeds off of instant gratification and mass consumption. We all were pleasantly surprised at the inaugural advent calendar’s releases, but a lot of them were simply discarded with the idea that formations and dataslates were just going to be a outlier in comparison to the ‘normal’ releases. Boy, were those people WAAAAAAY off.

    The thing about our community is that we’re so conservative in our openness to change, that we ignore previous trends and experiences in the face of inevitability. Escalation and Stronghold came out before the advent calendar in 2013. Nids came out in January 2014 and their Rising Leviathan digital releases “saved” their codex with the release of skyblight therefore pushing events to then allow formations so Nids could apparently compete, which in retrospect is very amusing since skyblight has been largely discarded by those who wanted more variety. The winner of LVO, along with the trend of other tyranid armies being successful (it’s not all flyrant spam and it’ll trend back down to 3 max once people realize there’s a ceiling for their effectiveness at the cost of the rest of their lists utility) have proven that all they ever needed was the ability to self ally through a 2nd detachment and even that could be proven to be a fallacy later on, only time will tell. The next big change that came to us was the release of Imperial Knights. Good god, these things were intimidating out of the gate and there’s still a large portion of our community that thinks they are unstoppable.

    At this point, I think we all know where I’m going with the whole gradual acceptance in the community of things that were ignored at their release after a variable amount of time. So why is this relevant to my original post about being creative in your list building? The answer is that despite our frustration with the release pace GW has decided to adopt; we only have ourselves to blame and we need to hold ourselves accountable. It’s widely accepted in business that it’s more cost effective to keep current clients than it is to sign up a new one, something that puzzles many of us about the current strategies of GW’s business practices. The funny thing about it is that I see this as a reaction to our community’s culture and the rise in competition from other game systems.

    When you look at a forum post that is asking for list criticism or help, you will more than likely see an exchange where someone is told that if they want to win, they should insert X for Y, because X is so much better than Y in regards to points efficiency, etc. The problem with this approach to helping someone is that it doesn’t take into account the OP’s models on hand, budget, meta, intentions, goals, play style, etc. and therefore can possibly hurt more than help. This culture of winning, where we assume that someone is seeking advice because they want to be a winner, or when you see a tournament result or find a ‘broken’ combination, shows when it comes to GW’s sales for certain units and this isn’t exclusive to the ‘competitive’ players alone. Because of these observed patterns in sales, it makes so much sense that they wanted to test the waters with rapid releases, and while they have lost some business to long time players who are sick of the rat race, they more than make up for it because of us addicts who stick around and the influence we have on new players in our community of buy, buy, buy, consume, consume, consume.

    I’m not asking any of you to give bad advice, nor am I telling you to stop spending money at your LGS, but stick with me for a bit and see if the bigger picture clears up for you. If we move towards a community that doesn’t rush out to buy the next best shiny thing and give good, well thought advice to those who are seeking it, we build a supportive community at all levels, retaining players and keeping new ones who are pleased with the community they’ve become a part of. Since you’re not going out and buying new models every week, you no longer have to scour the eBay auctions or discount online sellers and can actually afford to spend more at your FLGS, keeping their doors open, therefore giving your community a place to continue to meet and play. (Again, I’m not saying it’s wrong to bargain hunt, I’m just saying that at a slower pace of spending on the hobby, you can afford to support local businesses) Does my point come across any clearer now?

    We need to all be responsible and hold ourselves accountable for the ways that we contribute or don't contribute to the community. If we continue on this path, I fear that when GW eventually stops putting out content, our hobby will lose a majority of our player base with those who stay being divided into very distinct groups that don't interact with one another. It's kind of up to us.


    What’s next on my docket?
    “The Actual and Perceived Culture of Winning: Why It’s Bad for the 40k Community, Your Wallet, and Your Confidence.”

  2. #2

    Default

    I am tired. Not sure if I am reading correctly, but did you just say that we shouldn't be taking internet lists just because people say they are better, and yet you say Flyrants should be capped at 3? Isn't that a double standard there? You are saying others are wrong but yet you are right?

    Also like you title for your next topic. I will call it "Winning with Plastic Toy Soldiers and Why we must."

    Nice little post you got there. Will reread it again when I hopefully am fully awake and can read properly.
    What is the most important rule? That we should do whatever the hell we want, but preferably in the best interests of Games workshop when possible? :P Ill go with that

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