anyone know any younger gamers? As a test how about giving them the current white dwarf and whatever white dwarf you think was good in the past and seeing which one they like better?
anyone know any younger gamers? As a test how about giving them the current white dwarf and whatever white dwarf you think was good in the past and seeing which one they like better?
My daughter is 9 and asked what's the point of reading a magazine with hardly any words.....Originally Posted by lurker1
I miss Chris Farley.
This last edition was so bad I couldn't bring myself to buy it. I got to flip through it in the store and I saw nothing of real interest besides the Vampire Counts fantasy stuff.
Newest member of J.A.D.E.D.
I just posted this in the WD November 2012 feedback thread, pretty much sums up how bad WD has gotten over the years:
Picked up this months copy of WD for a read. I also dug out my copy of Dark Future for some nostalgic playing. Inside the box was WD 107 (October 1988) so i thought it would be worth a read to. So, two issues, 24 years apart.
WD 395 (Nov 2012)
Pages 136
Cost £5.50
Contents (excluding adverts and BUY ME! 'sections'):
Army of the month
Standard Bearer
Battle Report
The Rivals
Blanchitsu
Citadel Hall of Fame
Parade Ground
Kit Bash
Battleground
Paint Splatter
Jeremy Vetock
My score - 3 - Below average, but not as bad as the last few years
WD 107 (Oct 1988)
Pages 80
Cost £1.50
Eldar Harlequin Jet Bike - stats & background
White Line Fever Preview (Dark Future expansion)
Slaves to Darkness - errata for WHFB 3rd ed
Three Wheelers - using trikes in Dark Future
Extra Time - extra rules for Blood Bowl - Cheerleaders, Foul! and medics
Norse - WHFB 3rd ed army list
Element of Risk - WHFRP scenario
Realm of Chaos - The Lost and the Damed - Chaos Renegade Army List for WH40K
Battle Report (Think it was the first ever)
Eavy Metal - Converted Dark Future Cars and die-cast car conversions (Yup, how to use a NON GW product in a GW game!!!)
My score - 8 - A plethora of articles for whatever system you play, and despite the WHFB and 40K rules being 5 editions old, they were still an interesting read.
Basically, in 50 pages less, WD 107 had twice the content. Maybe the current WD staff should look into their back catalogue for inspiration.
I was amazed by how little is actually in WD these days compared to when i first started reading it. I only picked up this months WD on a whim, i haven't read a copy in well over a year now.
"In war it does not matter who is right, but who is left."
Winston Churchill
Apparently that's just nostalgia. What consistantly gets overlooked is the fact that - as you show - we can go and pick up these old copies (just got my copy of 107 to have a look through too!) and do a full side by side comparison now. We do not have to rely on "clouded" memories, which is basically nostalgia is. Well done for still having a copy of Dark Future as well, sadly I started around the Heroquest release of '89 and DF was shortly phased out after that...
Member of J.A.D.E.DTrying to convince Warseer that GW are anything less than perfect is like trying to teach a horde of zombies that lettuce is a perfectly acceptable alternative to brains.
Lest we forget
Exactly. I'm going to save Col Frost's post and use it to bludgeon the next person to make that outright false 'nostalgia' accusation.
I had a fair amount of old copies. Granted, not as old as the ones you guys have, but still old enough to be regarded as "from the good old days", and I really didn't see that much more content that was interesting compared to later editions. There was more, yes, but not to such a degree that you could say "twice the content" like Col. Frost implies.
Maybe it's not nostalgia, looking back at the older WDs with rose-tinted glasses, but it certainly is looking at newer editions with very brown/black-tinted glasses on. I was guilty of the same thing. I flicked through a year old WD a couple of weeks ago, which I bought from one of those old mag value packs, and got angry for the lack of content. Then, when I went back to it, it actually appeared there was some really cool background information on an army in it, that I had overlooked. Not missed, overlooked. And it wasn't from the latest release from that period, the Tomb Kings, either.
Then again, I do agree on some points about the latest two editions. They could be a whole lot better, and you would guess they learned from their mistakes, but I will still give them some time to redeem themselves. I still say everyone should mail them your thoughts. Just don't expect your thoughts to have any effect in the next three months, as those WDs have already been printed.
My Project Log of Everything - Fun stuff for everyone!
Warhammer Battle Day - Time for Epic Battles
Warhammer 8th games played : 26
Storm of Magic games played : 2
OK... the RTG argument fails, so now we have the B/BTG... Again, I repeat. We have the older WDs and we have the newer WDs. We can compare them side by side. The newer WDs are devoid of anything that could be labeled as content. Look - I want the new WDs to be worth reading, I really do - if they were worth reading I would get a subscription and I would shout from the heavens that they were great. Sadly I cannot as they are not. I agree on one point though - Col Frost was wrong about the "old" WDs having "twice the content" as the newer ones, it's more like several times.
From the reviews nothing has changed - for the better. The new WDs have more pages, but all that has been added is more adverts. If they were going to learn it would have been seen in the "new" WDs and they would have learnt from the previous few years worth of dross. Under the current management of GW WD will not improve in the next few, or even few dozen issues. Don't waste your time writing an email that will be glanced at and a) if is written in glowing terms about the new WD will be read and shown to the higher ups or b) if negative will be binned, spend that time looking for better Wargaming magazines - ones that survive on the strength of their content and writing, not the strength of their fans willingness to pay to see pictures and price codes.
Member of J.A.D.E.DTrying to convince Warseer that GW are anything less than perfect is like trying to teach a horde of zombies that lettuce is a perfectly acceptable alternative to brains.
Lest we forget
Anyone see the contents of the upcoming Crusade of Fire campaign book. All of that books contents we could have expected to have gotten as White Dwarf content up to 10 years ago. Now gwPLC expect their customers to shell out €35+ for the privillage. Aparantly we should ex[ect to see more of these on the horizon as well.
The 5 Rules of Page 5 - MKII
1) Thou Shalt Not Whine
2) Come Heavy Or Don't Come At All
3) Give As Good As You Get
4) Win Graciously And Lose Valiantly
5) Page 5 Is Not An Excuse
I never understand these sorts of complaints. It mystifies me when people say 'WD has no content.'
My answer to that is 'what do you call 'content''.
People seem to think that 'content' must simply be rules and game additions, but thats a really narrow view of content.
Just to put some background on this, I have copy of every issue of white dwarf (accept no 2!!!) and I collected them in date order from 127 onwards (the others have all been picked up subsequently.) Obviously prior to issue 95ish the magazine was a completely different affair dedicated to any game that games workshop sold prior to them actually being a games manufacturer, so we can leave them to one side.
Back when I first bought WD it was all 'rules' for want of a better word. The games were all new(ish) they didnt have 'codexes' in fact the first add ons to the games were simply reprinted bundles of white dwarf articles.
The magasine fills a completely different role now, if you dont like that role, simply dont buy it. Instead spend your money on what GW produce to replace those parts of white dwarf - the codexes, warhammer armies and add ons like this campaign book.
I do find it ironic that these sort of comments come at a time when WD is actually moving back to its earliest days. The only difference being that whereas half the magasine was taken up with product reviews for games it DIDNT make, the new one is taken up with product reviews for games it does make.
Not at all. It is, to be fair the very definition of content. A wargaming magazine (which WD purports to be) should have useful articles in as many facets of wargaming (despite the increasing narrowness of GWs definitions of it) as possible. The should contain actual interviews with staff that are not essentially them saying "because it was really cool!!!!" (currently that is barely paraphrasing them), painting/"hobby" articles that explain various techniques in depth to go along with the beginner guides. They need to put in interesting (not we released a new model so here is a vague notion of things it might be able to do in a battle where both armies are set up to make it shine) battle reports, possibly tied in to new scenarios, or played out to the scenarios in the BRBs. New rules are always useful, as are excerpts from codexes/rule books - to give a taster to the pottential customer. New releases need to be shown, but not to the tune of 52 pages. A single page per release is more than enough.
The vast majority of the WD compilations were from prior to them switching to their own magazine. By the time 127 (the one with a green dragon on the cover?) came around they already had numerous games and expansions out - Waarrgghh the orks!, Ere we go for Rogue trader, both realms of chaos books, countless WHFRP expansions etc, etc. Yes, a lot of the older WDs had a fair number of rules. They also had multiple painting and modeling articles, short stories. Now you have 50+ pages of adverts at the begining, and 10-15 nearer the end, along with aa fairnumber in the middle. That is not a magazine - that is a catalogue.
Cannot disagree with this, although now they attach small pamphlets with the rules/armybook/codex updates in which sort of forces the purchase if you want to stay upto date.
But that just is not the case. WD is now further from it's begining than ever. All that the new WD has provided is a retro cover. WD has reviewed games GW has made (and going by the letters pages back then, with tremedously bias) since GW began making games. The problem is when these reviews are just marketing, not an actual review of the game, but a basic buy, buy! BUY!! advert.
Member of J.A.D.E.DTrying to convince Warseer that GW are anything less than perfect is like trying to teach a horde of zombies that lettuce is a perfectly acceptable alternative to brains.
Lest we forget
.
Im sorry to get argumentative over the first sentence, but what you are saying is very definitely a narrow view of content. Its like saying that a photography magazine should only talk about how to take good photos, but not review cameras.
Im totally confused as to what your point here is. The first book of the astronomicon which was the first white dwarf complelation book was released in 1988 a few months before Slaves to darkness. The compendium was 1989 and the lost and the damned 1990. Basically my point was that it was almost entirely white dwarf articles (2 books) before they released any non white dwarf stuff. That even before you consider that half the stuff in Slaves to darkness was previously in white dwarf first or was subsequently republished as filler in White dwarf.The vast majority of the WD compilations were from prior to them switching to their own magazine. By the time 127 (the one with a green dragon on the cover?) came around they already had numerous games and expansions out - Waarrgghh the orks!, Ere we go for Rogue trader, both realms of chaos books, countless WHFRP expansions etc, etc. Yes, a lot of the older WDs had a fair number of rules. They also had multiple painting and modeling articles, short stories. Now you have 50+ pages of adverts at the begining, and 10-15 nearer the end, along with aa fairnumber in the middle. That is not a magazine - that is a catalogue.
But thats just not true. Im sorry but people stick blinkers on and shove their fingers in their ears and bleat on about how the good old days were much better, when its really not the case.But that just is not the case. WD is now further from it's begining than ever. All that the new WD has provided is a retro cover. WD has reviewed games GW has made (and going by the letters pages back then, with tremedously bias) since GW began making games. The problem is when these reviews are just marketing, not an actual review of the game, but a basic buy, buy! BUY!! advert.
Lets look at this, and Im picking out WD compeletely at random based on the ones that come out of the packing box first (yes my wife made me put them in the loft after our daughter was born, she said it wasnt suitable for a little girls room....)
WD 6 1978
22 pages long
4 pages of adverts
1 contents page
8 pages of rules
1 page of comic
8 pages of reviews
WD 123 1990
82 Pages long
20 pages of advert and model catalogue (back pages)
1 Contents page
2 News pages
16 pages of painted models or just artwork
6 pages of battle report
34 pages of rules suppliments
3 pages of commentary on evy metal
Most recent WD (sorry if this isnt exact, its on my ipad as apposed to in print.)
4 pages of contents
40 pages of reviews/newstuff
5 pages of pure adverts*
5 pages of interview/persons army
9 pages of game designers/ painters/ authors talking
12 pages of battle report
15 pages of painting methods
6 pages of modelling info
12 pages of behind the scenes commentary
4 pages of new rules.
*Before anyone says it I realise that they put their adverts into other things, such as the first 40 pages. But it is better done and less 'this is an advert' and is informative about the product, rather than simply the double page spreads that they stick in for 'look at the lovely stuff that forgeworld does'
I dont mean to be funny, but it looks like its exactly what you are asking for. Your own post says this - should have useful articles in as many facets of wargaming.
Thats exactly what it is. In fact, its far more that now that it has ever been. The very early WD were basically rules and reviews of products, nothing else. The WD from the late 80s to mid 90s were basically rules rules and more rules (with a battle report and a couple of modelling articles thrown in). The very latest WD are the first WD to actually cover a bit of everything in every WD. For example WD 123 has out of its 80 pages, 4 pages dedicated to Warhammer Fantasy. That would never happen in the current white dwarf, sure it wont be a 50/50 split, but it will provide articles and info to both main systems (all three systems again soon...)
No matter what GW do people will not be happy with WD. They could go back to any era of WD and copy it exactly, double the page count to the current amount and people would complain its to rules heavy, not enough painting or whatever.
If you dont like it, dont buy it, I dont understand this constant insistence on bashing everything.
Last edited by Maidel; 16-11-2012 at 23:15.
That's fine - my definition of content is anything that is not blatent advertising. Anything that doesn't add to the game, be it additional rules, scenarios, background, battle reports, painting/modelling articles, indepth reviews/interviews is not content. Going by the "content" of the current WD the analogy would be better suited to it beinga photography magazine with nothing but pictures and adverts for cameras, with the vast majority of any "articles" being taken up by how cool it was to take said pictures and the make of the camera used to take them.
My point was that there were relatively very few "compilation" books relative to actual "official" GW expansions, and that of those that there were, very, very few were released after WD became a GW only magazine. The way I read your post was that the majority of GW expansions were just compilations from WD, which was not the case (although as I said, there were a couple) - appologies if you meant something else. Yes there were a number of extracts from both StD and LatD in WD, but barely 10-20 pages between the two books (which have well over 500 pages between them) does not count as filler.
Sadly it is though. The same can be said of those who canot find it in themselves to complain about anything GW do "now" - these people will be saying the same thing in 10years time (assuming GW lasts that long) - that now is the greatest ever and that 10 years ago people were looking through RTGs
This doesn't tally with the majority of reviewers copies which have a minimum of 50 pages of adverts prior to anything that resembles an article, and an additional 10+ pages of where to buy things at the end. I'll need to see a copy before I can fully comment on that list. Also could you be more specific (contents wise) on what the 15 pages of painting methods were and the same for the modelling info. As far as the vast majority of reviewers wereconcerned the battle report was barely worth its name - being a few paragraphs and the rest filled with giant pictures.
You seem to be confused as to WD 123's contents - there are no less than 6 pages of a fantasy battle report. To say this would never happen in the "new" WD is probably true, but then it is twice the size of the old WD, so I don't think that scaling up to 12 pages is stretch of the imagination, and neither is it unlikely that in a WD that would focus on 40K that fantasy would only get 12 pages of content - it has happened inside the last year. The trouble with saying the 90's WD were just rules, is that whilst generally not inaccurate what is better - having something you buy contain things you will look at time and time again and actually use, or a few pictures of things you can buy now and a couple of pages of someone waffling on about how amazingly great they are? The content of the current WDs is so horrifically superficial they can be flicked through in a few minutes, after which time you will have gleened everything there is. The older WDs had articles that you could go back to time and time again and (often) take more than aday of sparetime to read through.
It's possible, but there would be far fewer people complaining than are now. People rarely complain about getting more content.
Don't worry, I stopped buying them a year or so ago, and I will only bash something that deserves to be bashed - as I have said, if WD was worth reading and provided useful content I would be amongst the first to cheer it through the streets.
Last edited by shelfunit.; 17-11-2012 at 08:24. Reason: spelling etc
Member of J.A.D.E.DTrying to convince Warseer that GW are anything less than perfect is like trying to teach a horde of zombies that lettuce is a perfectly acceptable alternative to brains.
Lest we forget
It's much harder doing this from the iPad, sorry for an incomplete response.
One thing I do find very disingenuous of your posts is that it's entirely based on what other people say, you even admit you aren't seen the wd, so how are you making your opinions?
Just a note, the electronic version doesn't appear to have the 10 pages of store listings at the end like the printed version.This doesn' tally with the majority of reviewers copies which have a minimum of 50 pages of adverts prior to anything that resembles an article, and an additional 10+ pages of where to buy things at the end. I'll need to see a copy before I can fully comment on that list. Also could you be more specific (contents wise) on what the 15 pages of painting methods were and the same for the modelling info. As far as the vast majority of reviewers wereconcerned the battle report was barely worth its name - being a few paragraphs and the rest filled with giant pictures.
The reason why it doesn't tally is that when people post these things they post with an agenda in mind.
There are only 5 pages of advertising. When I say this I mean there are only 5 pages that solely contain an actual advert like the older magazines did. Eg new store opening, look how wonderful this double page picture is advertising forge world.
There are 40 or so pages detailing the new products, I didn't hide it, I listed it as 'reviews/newstuff'. This isn't me being biased, it's me being fair. In the old wd they had an advert that was a full page that dud nothing other than show a page of black and white models. That was it. They then had pages showing painted models and that was it. Now you have 2-3 pages on each new box set. Yes this is 'advertising' I'm not going to pretend it's not, but it's just not the same as showing a picture of the box and a big banner headline saying 'now for sale.' It goes into what the models are, how they can be assembled and shows lots of different pictures of the options (including 360 views on the iPad version).
Again it is still advertising, I'm not denying this, but it's not 40 pages of classified ads which I'd how people imply it is.
As for the battle report, I'm not the best placed to comment. I've NEVER liked battle reports in wd, but I know that people do/did so I can't comment on how useful this one is, but what I will say is that the old battle reports were half a page of text and a full colour map showing what was happening with some photos thrown in. I can't see a difference here accept its all done with photos.
The painting is a full 5 pages of indepth methods of how to do certain techniques and colour schemes and 6 pages showing people models painted in similar methods with text.
Again, I come back to the point I made at the beginning. Stop listening to other people and go make up your own mind. It's impossible to have this discussion properly, it's like me saying I hate Aston martins because of xyz, but xyz are all other people's regurgitated opinions because I've never driven an Aston Martin.
The majority of what youhave written I do not disagree with - a fair amount of it is how it makes the reader feel - and to me that is that it is blatent advertising with no actual content. I don't mind seeing other peoples models - that's essentially wya 'Eavy Metal was and that was generally interesting to look at.
When I was buying WD there were a number of posters (Lord Damocles mostly) who I felt encapsulated my opinions on the various elements of that months WD almost to the letter. I have no reason to think that this will have changed over the course of a couple of months. The analogy with Aston Martins is flawed as in it I would have driven for them for a very time before accepting they were rubbish, it is also flawed as Aston Martins have not suffered a complete faliure of quality or standing in the motoring world.
Member of J.A.D.E.DTrying to convince Warseer that GW are anything less than perfect is like trying to teach a horde of zombies that lettuce is a perfectly acceptable alternative to brains.
Lest we forget
Sorry, I come back to my very first point. Define content.The majority of what youhave written I do not disagree with - a fair amount of it is how it makes the reader feel - and to me that is that it is blatent advertising with no actual content. I don't mind seeing other peoples models - that's essentially wya 'Eavy Metal was and that was generally interesting to look at.
The content that YOU are looking for isn't there. That's absolutely fine. There is no content in hello or ok that I care to read, that for me is all advertising and gossip. But my wife reads them quite avidly. Therefore to say it has no content is wholly incorrect. It has nothing I am interested in.
I'll go into some more detail. The chaos warshrine 'advert' is 3 pages long. 1 page is a full picture of what is a huge model (which I actually don't like, but that's not the point.) the next 2 pages contain 9 pictures which are close ups or alternative parts to make different configurations, 4 paragraphs detailing what a warshrine is and 10 point descriptions.
Yes it's an advert, but it's something I'm interested to read. I don't know what a warshrine is, I don't play chaos. Is that 'content' well I come back to defining what content is. For me it's no different to the old wds that would review a product (eg the ad&d monstrous manual) and write 5-10 paragraphs about what they thought about the product. But obviously as its a model there's quite a few pictures.
Don't talk rubbish. I have every WD as far back as issue 7 onwards. I can see for myself by taking any two WDs and reading them one after the other and deciding which is better. And while some of the older issues were of variable quality, the newer ones are without exemption total crud. This isn't "blinkers" or "fingers in my ears" but a direct comparison. Don't make out like I'm a child bereft of comparative cognitive skills... don't pretend like I'm looking back through rose-tinted glasses. I'm not, and it's a pathetic argument to pretend that the vast numbers of people pointing out the decline in quality are all making it up.
Only the dead have seen the end of the war.
I've done nothing of the sort. I'm not denying that the magazine isn't completely different now. It fulfills a completely different purpose.
The quality is not worse, in fact the quality of the magazine itself is 1000x of times better than the quality of the old ones.
Quality of magazine is not the same as the change of content.
The magazine is COMPLETELY different to how it used to be, the content is completely different. Does it cater to a veteran audience? No, probably not. Am I saying everyone should rush out and buy it? No, completely not.
Am I saying that the magazine is well made, well produced and has lots of content. Yes. Just because that content isn't the content that you want doesn't make it worse, it just means its not aimed at you.
Anything that isn't blatent advertising, as I have already said. Sadly this is what now comprises of 50% + of WDs pages,.
You are right - I have no interest in reading a publication that contains more than 50% advertising. Were I to pick up WD on the belief that it contained wargaming (admitedly in the narrow field of GW games) content I would be sorely disapointed. Your wife reads Womans weekly as it (I assume) contains articles and content tailored to women, it being adveertised as a womans magazine.
It's not the pictures of the new products that is the problem - it is the constant reproduction of them throughout the magazine. It is the fact that these same pictures can be seen on the GW website. It is the needless volume of them in a magazine which could easily have a page of pictures at most (including writing space) per new release and then direct the viewer to visit the shop to see more. The only publications which show pages and pages of the same thing are catalogues. They too have descriptions of what they are and multiple images of the products various configurations.
If that purpose is to appeal specifically to children buying toys then yes, it is completely different now - as I say it is now a catalogue.
Your argument seems to have jumped the shark here. If you are talking about the quality of paper it may have merit, but the quality of WD has in no way objectively improved in anyway.
You are correct. The difference occurrs when the change in content is from useful, re-readable articles to advertising, this reduces the quality heavily.
It caters to the audience that has no interest in anything other than seeing new releases. It caters to people who have probably never read anything other than comics before. What it doesn't cater to is people whowant a wargaming magazine.
No one has said the magazine isn't produced to a high physical quality. It has lots of pages, but again as has been trawled through before - this is not content, or rather it is not content that warrents the term. Adverts relative to actual useful content is a huge step down, not a sideways step.
Last edited by shelfunit.; 17-11-2012 at 10:01.
Member of J.A.D.E.DTrying to convince Warseer that GW are anything less than perfect is like trying to teach a horde of zombies that lettuce is a perfectly acceptable alternative to brains.
Lest we forget
The entire magazine has ALWAYS been blatant advertising. Even when it did reviews on nongw products it was still advertising because they sold those products in the store.Anything that isn't blatent advertising, as I have already said. Sadly this is what now comprises of 50% + of WDs pages,.
Do you like this set of ork rules? Well that's great, here's the models to go with them.
The difference I see now is that rather than 20-30% of the magazine being taken up with actual adverts, full pages advertising store openings and such like, they actually build it into a mini article that tells you what it is, how it can look and what it does.
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