Adam from WAAGH! Drill Teef is back with some advice on change.
Over a year ago, Jervis Johnson wrote an article in White Dwarf (rest in power) about FAQs and how great a job the FAQ staff had been doing, but he was going to tell people to “roll it off” from now on when he answered rules questions. Fast forward to today and we still haven’t had a substantial FAQ since then even though there is a shooting/wound allocation FAQ which literally contradicts the rules.
Part of me believes that was a parting shot from Jervis… a little joke he can chuckle about.
Either that or I’m hopelessly paranoid.
Whatever the case, the time has come to calm the heck down about the new edition and just get zen about it because we need it. Reece wrote a great article about the very subject of why we need a new edition. I just have a few things to add.
Keep in mind that this thing hasn’t been released yet and there’s a whole lot of IFs involved here. I know
Monetizing FAQs
I really think that this was inevitable. They had to find some way to monetize the process of applying FAQs. Well, okay… they had to either monetize the process or modernize the process. I think it wasn’t too hard to guess which one they’d do.
The process as it was had been extremely labor intensive. Customers submitted questions by email and telephone. It’s unknown how, after that, the questions were collected, but it was a manual process involving an email account which was not devoted entirely to FAQs. I can’t imagine the workload involved in collecting and categorizing FAQs. It must have been a nightmare. Then, the most-asked questions had to be distributed to those responsible for answering the questions. Judging by how the Black Library Digital Editions folks fielded rules questions, it seems FAQs go directly to the production team. So, that team had to take time out of their day to pour over a stack of FAQs. These responses, then, had to be merged with a flat-file document with the changes marked in red. Then, these documents had to be sent to a translator. Heavens knows how long that takes or how much that costs. Then, the translated documents all had to be uploaded individually to the website in GWs dev/QA/prod window.
This has all the makings of a costly, time-consuming business process.
Once Again, Giving Us What We Want
Games Workshop, of late, has been committing the sin of actually giving us what we want. Namely, they’ve been releasing content and they’ve actually been talking to us through the Black Library Digital Editions Facebook page. Sadly, that Facebook page got nuked. One can imagine it was due to the internet doucheratti… sad, but true.
I must admit that I have been one of the biggest complainers about the FAQs. I won’t go into too much detail because I don’t want to sound like I’m whining, but my opinion, in a nutshell, is that regardless of who you think good FAQs benefit and whether or not it’s “only for the competitive community”, maintaining a good set of FAQs should be the hallmark of a gaming company that cares about quality and customer service.
For this reason, when Games Workshop tries to monetize this process (assuming, of course, that I am right and that’s what this is about – I certainly could be wrong), I just have no place to complain about it. I would just have no leg to stand on.
They Are, However, Also Trying to Get Me Killed
I have the best wife who ever walked this earth. I really do. I can’t imagine any other female putting up with the stupid shit I do on a daily basis. Having said that, I just can’t justify a $75 doorstop of a book right now.
GW and I will be real chill if they sell me a mini rulebook this go-around. Real chill. But when my FLGS owner asked me if I wanted to pre-order the new rulebook, I told him to call me when he had the details because if it was another $75-$100 book, I just can’t do it.
Yes, I do understand that this is an expensive hobby. Yes, I do plan on buying a giant, hardback, pointlessly cumbersome Ork codex when it comes out for $50, but not another core rulebook. That just has to stop.
I really just can’t justify the cost of another enormous core rulebook. It’s like flushing money down the toilet.
So, We’ll See
I’m excited to see what happens! We’ll find out really soon. Hopefully we all get what we want when Christmas comes in May!
If the rumours are to be believed, it does sound like there are going to be bigger changes than just a monetised FAQ.
The biggest change, which a lot of people seem to underestimate, is the hinted at, Fantasy style, percentage based FoC. I’m a casual player with a couple of modest armies but a >25% troop requirement (or even >40%, as recently reported on BoLS) would mean even I have to go out and buy a load of troops before I can field anything bigger than a 1000 point army. Plus, I’ll be leaving a lot of HQ, Heavy and Elite units on the shelf for a long time to come (and I don’t even spam).
I play CSMs and the ~10 units of Cultists to hit the 500 points required for a 2000 point battle makes me sad. I love cultists but I don’t want to paint, model and field 100 of them. Plus the cost involved (£72/$120 to get the 6 additional units I’d need, at today’s GW prices) makes investing in a new rulebook just the start of the expense!
I guess on the bright side you’ll actually see people run CSM Marines, then, if only because they have to.
To be honest, I still wouldn’t. I’d take a Lord with a mark so I can have Plague or Noise Marines probably. Not because they fit my army theme or because of a tactical choice but because I’d feel forced to pad up to the 25% minimum.
The relative freedom of army composition was one of the best parts of 40K over Fantasy, for me. I hope the rumours are wrong!
The rumors are not to be believed. They are stupid. They talk about percentage allocations for FA, HQ, etc… and don’t take into account all these formations they just released.
GW’s stated policy is to give the player options, and percentages severely restrict that while also curbing sales. Why would they restrict secondary detachments to 25% when they just released three Tyranid dataslates that pretty much all cost more than that?
I saw one that said Troops was a 40% minimum. Oh, so I have to spend 800 points on troops in a 2k army now? Please, tell me more!
Yea I was trying to build lists with those “leaked” % numbers and then I realized how bogus it was. GW would never sell another tank again! I couldn’t even take my centys in a landraider at 1850!
I quite like the idea of a percentage based FOC, particularly if there is a minimum troop requirement and a maximum LOW requirement. That will cut the more ridiculous LOW out of ‘normal’ games of 40k and also mean that people actually need to bring troops to games rather than have them as a burden that unlocks the other stuff in the codex.
The problem with a 25% limit on LoW is that, in a “normal” game (~2k points), you’re pretty much out of luck unless you’re Astra Militarum. If I want to field my Lord of Skulls (by no means a “ridiculous” LoW), I’d have to be playing a 3600 – 4000 point game.
Plus, the issue with being forced to bring troops is that they’re not fun. Right now a lot of troop choices are kept off the table for as long as possible because they are a burden. Many troop choices aren’t fielded at all because they’re simply bad. Not to mention the tedium of moving and tactically positioning 100+ troop models.
The percentage system will also be great for Orks and Sisters of Battle, two armies which desperately need the extra slots, especially at the higher points levels. With tournaments not buying into the double force org with their 1999+1 nonsense, this is a good alternative.
If you have a % based system could we see all the % numbers double to simulate a ‘double force org’? 50% heavy support at 2k doesnt sound so bad at all. AND that could be a cheeky way to make people want to play at 2k.
Its just a re-release of the core rulebook with escalation/stronghold added on. It’s not even 6.5. I have bet money on it.
Monetizing faqs is a terrible idea, I really hope they don’t get round to ever trying to do that, it is so dumb and counter intuitive/productive on so many levels; I can’t think even gw would be stupid enough to believe people would pay to have a copy of a list of codex mistakes.
You do know that the current rumor is that it is a three part book with all of the changes offered for free online right?
Not in any way shape or form a required money grab.
lol that we be a first.
I’ll believe it when I see it!
I’m fine buying a new book. They are ususally fun to look read, I already spend $75-$100 bucks every month or two on GW stuff anyway and the game needs an update. As for the percentage changes I’m fine with it. My standard list already conforms to those percentages anyway. And if I’m not mistaken you can bet your ass the Seer Council, the Daemon Flying circus et al is not going to fit within those percentages
If its a £50+ book then I will be very annoyed. I’m not going to say I’ll quit, but it might push me in that direction. I sat out 2nd and 4th editions. There are so few fun 40k players round here, if any of them quit then it will probably push me out of the game too. Bolt Action/X-Wing here I come!
If it’s an new Rulebook, you will quit, then buy another rule book and mini’s for another games system!? That seems fiscally responsible…
So, everyone hates 40k, rage quits, then re-rage quits if they make a Rulebook to fix it?
Anyhow, I understand the trepidation of purchasing a new RB but realistically if this was Battlefield 5, I wouldn’t hesitate to go out and buy it, sure it’s the same principals as 4 but it’s new and shiny…
Here’s to hoping they keep a large part of this game unmolested, I’ve been having a great time with it!
its not the rule book per se, its just that this is indicative of a whole lot of problems.
1) the constantly accelerating expense of keeping up with 40K in general, a new rule book so close to the last one is just the latest phase of that, along with the incredible cost of ,miniatures
2) the constant meta changes which means to have even a slim chance of winning I must continuously update my army.
3) the lack of FAQ support which has left almost every game full of grey areas that require discussion or house rules
4) horrible retconning of fluff I was attached to, and badly written new fluff that seems puerile
5) and most importantly IMO the sheer length if time it takes to play a game now makes games less enjoyable. I like a lot of aspects of 6th, but they don’t think through the ramifications of new rules or units. Try working out the shooting for a unit of 3 Wyverns according to the book. Do it five or maybe six times in a game. Having fun? So much of the game is hard work with stupidly clunky outdated mechanics.
I can buy the Bolt Action Assault on Normandy starter set and a 1000 point army (making 1300 points in all) for £120, equivalent to updating my 40K rules (which I only paid for 2 years ago and which renders Stronghold Assault and Escalation obsolete) and buying maybe two or three units. I know which is the most attractive option right now to be honest.
I ran into this same dilemma in January. Both of the armies that I owned were not able to compete against strong lists, and I wasn’t having much fun with the game. I don’t draw a lot of satisfaction from requesting that my opponent’s take bad lists so that I have a chance to win… so I needed something new.
I looked at the options, and if I wanted to make a competitive 40k list, I would have had to invest several hundred dollars in new models. My alternative was to buy a Dropzone Commander army (where the game is balanced and nearly every model is useful in competitive play) for about $300. This *does* make fiscal sense.
Games Workshop is doing the right thing by releasing a new core rulebook. They need to stop the bleeding, and if done well, a new rulebook will address many of the concerns that the current playerbase has. GW would probably be smart to release a cheap version of the rulebook so as not to give gamers who understand the concept of sunk costs another opportunity to consider leaving the game…
But unless GW fires Jervis or whichever designer or executive is responsible for the decisions that create a perpetually broken game, they won’t fix their long-term problems.
“What do we do now?”
“Um Panic?”
“That is your answer for everything”
I think tht sums up the 40k community in general
Text books are universally known to be overpriced for the sole purpose of gouging ever living crap out of students who have no choice but to buy them. The BRB is more expensive than an equivalently sized textbook and it has not been edited or even double checked for spelling errors. In other words, they’re a ripoff.
Not much you can do about it besides not buying them. While a lot of events require the codex, they don’t seem to require a rulebook. Borrow a friends or learn the new rules at your FLGS?
“gouging (THE) ever living crap…”
I regularly pay 125-30 for softback books. for me, the BRB is a bargain for what you get
man, you need to find a new bookstore…
I feel like you haven’t bought a college textbook recently…
QFT
When I went to University (graduated 2009) an economics textbook was in the 100-150 USD range (admittedly new).
Graduated in ’09, so I haven’t bought a textbook in 5 years, but I’m sure the price of books hasn’t sky-rocketed.
So if you’re paying $150 for a paperback book, you’re definitely getting robbed. That or you’re buying a space shuttle manual, multiple volumes of goodness?
$75 for a rulebook that’s 100 pages of useful information then 400 pages of random worthless crap, and maybe another 100 of fun fluff? Yeah, pretty big ripoff there. I’d rather buy a complete dark vengeance set for the cheap rulebook and have models to craigslist off than buy the full BRB.
My $500 dollar biochem book begs to differ. In my experience textbooks are WAY WAY WAY more expensive than the BRB. My last term in school I payed $1200 for 5 books…
My last term was 2011 too
This brings up a big selling point that my friend (former 40k player) has been trying to sell me on for Warmachine. $75 on a rule book, $50 for a codex, and that not including models, compared to just buying the models, that (gasp) come with rules for the units in the box! DOnt get me wrong, I love GW, but this sped up rolling out of new codexes and digital mini-dexs is getting a bit expensive.
Don’t tell me what to do, Adam.
What if the book was smaller but more expensive with a $100 price tag. Haha every time I spend 100 my wife gets 100 to spend. It’s fair and expensive. Dan you GW.
Time to panic GW went full retard with allowing anything and everything and allowing the poorly conceived magic rules from fantasy into the game.