Petition - Bring Back Hobby Articles

[iamfanboy]

OK, Druuchii, I know you're not going to want to hear this, but...

they don't care about you.

Having already purchased at least one or more armies, as far as they're concerned you're dead and gone.

Why bother helping you, when they could be selling more SPACE MARINES to the ten-year-old kid who just walked into the store?

I understand using steps to help focus painting (I, myself, wrote down a step-by-step rubric for every army I painted when it came to doing basic colors), but they aren't going to bring back those articles. they've already chosen to take them down so they can publish them in a 'how-to-paint' book, and GW ain't in the habit of giving away freebies.

[trigger]

I'm sorry I resent the above remark, although Space marines are the poster boys of 40k that does not mean they are just for kid.
I have been collecting 40k for 20 years , I have had every army bar necrons , some of them 2 or 3 times. But as it is I only have my wolves now, because that is what I started with they are my army.

Another comment on thus thread about there only for beginers , well buger that.
They did an article on painting preaditors for space wolves and I still used it.

Now I get some people are brilliant painters naturally , but I for one am not , I never have been painting is painstaking tiresome for me hense my very slow blog, so any help GW do put up is very much appreciated.

At the op , start a proper online pertition and post up a link , I will sign it.


http://www.badwargamers.co.uk/

[iamfanboy]

I'm sorry I resent the above remark, although Space marines are the poster boys of 40k that does not mean they are just for kid.
I have been collecting 40k for 20 years , I have had every army bar necrons , some of them 2 or 3 times. But as it is I only have my wolves now, because that is what I started with they are my army.

Another comment on thus thread about there only for beginers , well buger that.
They did an article on painting preaditors for space wolves and I still used it.

Now I get some people are brilliant painters naturally , but I for one am not , I never have been painting is painstaking tiresome for me hense my very slow blog, so any help GW do put up is very much appreciated.

At the op , start a proper online pertition and post up a link , I will sign it.


http://www.badwargamers.co.uk/

Actually, I think Space Marines are one of the hardest armies to win with regularly; everyone goes to tournaments expecting to face at least 80% space marine or marine equivalent armies, so overcoming that is a real challenge.

BUT that doesn't change the fact that most new players start with Marines, or that most GW store employees put Marines forth as the 'easiest starter army'. If you have a problem with facts maybe you should look into some de-sensitivity training....


Back on topic though, I thought I'd do something helpful and try hitting up the Wayback Machine to see if old articles are archived that way. I remember YEARS ago that worked for me.

Guess what? Games Workshop changed their website so that only the VERY FRONT page (the one that asks what country you're from!) gets archived. It's as though it were custom-designed to AVOID the Wayback Machine!

I'm not even kidding. I can find a version of the website from 2001 on the Wayback Machine, but anything after their big website redesign? Nada.

Now, it's HARD to avoid the website archiving machine. You have to very intentionally craft your website so that only a portal gets snapshotted, and then futz around with the internal urls so that they don't make sense to the Wayback Machine. I always wondered why GW had such funky urls... now I know.

So the only conclusion I can draw is deliberate ashattery: GW doesn't want to share with the Internet at large, so they will not share.

On the other hand, if you want to look at a painting guide from 2001, here's one for a high elf archer.

http://web.archive.org/web/200102111...elf_archer.htm

[Scaryscarymushroom]

For a full idea of the scale put the following search string into Google and look at all the dead links:

"stage by stage" site:games-workshop.com

*googled*

About 6,890 results (0.14 seconds)

That is a LOT of articles. Even if it's 5 pages to each article that's over 1,000.

[thinkerman]

Would be nice if they had a classic articles and new articles database.

Thinking all the oldschool bits from past WD's etc and more sratch building for the classic and for the modern using current kits, a little scratch building and re-imagined versions of classic terrain.

Ideally too someone uses there brain and puts a realistic budget to a terrain articles - were all not set to spend over £300 on some uber wizards tower no matter how impressive so there needs to be some middleground, say combining one or two terrain kits (tower and a hill for example) with some wooden coffee stirrers, PVA glue, bits of kits etc and sand to make a border outpost/firebase

[rodmillard]

The purpose of this thread is as a petition to request the following from GW:

"Games Workshop, please make available to your customers in one form or another, the full range of freely available hobby articles that you recently removed from your web site. These articles were a valued resource in the support of our hobby and their removal without notice is unsatisfactory."

The aim would be to reference this thread in an email or letter to GW customer services and management to try and pressure them to address the situation?

Many thanks for your time. The purpose of this thread is simply to address whether we want these articles back or not.

I sympathise with the sentiment, and would sign the petition in a heartbeat.

But I have news for you: people ignore petitions.

I work in the Local Planning Authority (as an archaeologist, not a planner, but anyway...) Every major development will pick up at least one petition for and/or against it - but however many signitures they have they are treated in exactly the same way as a single letter from an individual. If you really want to make an impact, then all 51 people who voted "Yes" should write to the address in WD (on paper, with a pen, because the human mind finds handwritten physical letters are harder to forget than email). I know I will be.

[M'ichal]

yeah, I posted about this somewhere else, glad to see someone pushes this forward. Most of these articles were actually NOT outdated and used paints IN the range. Why the heck would they do this? I would understand if WD had decent articles, but WD guides declined greatly in quality. Again I say - where are the masterclasses? The Feb issue is ABYSMAL and they have the adacity to write on the blog: "Don't forget to also pick up February's copy of White Dwarf while you're there, as it has plenty of information about how to use the new Sourcebooks, a couple of great painting guides"...yeah right... The January WD had a decent Vampire guide, I'll give them that, some sections even got to 4-5 stages...but otherwise? Those guides are low quality.

I suspect it is just a pure business move and is all about $$$ - why keep online guides when they can force you to buy WD in hopes that it'll have some useful schemes for you. Or sell you they're fantastic MS/How to books.

I hope I am proven wrong and some articles re-appear.

Also a tip for the future - write down your schemes. I'm sure glad I do, cause I can't remember all the mix ratios and such and I'm a consistency freak.

cheers

[Marked_by_chaos]

Prediction - when the new paint range is released as the big thing for march or april it is accompanied by a new how to paint citadel miniatures (or more than one). They have probably taken the articles down, both because they will refer to obsolete products they no longer stock and also because they want you to buy the new guides.

Would be cool if they had a "how to paint citadel armies" and had stage by stage guides for 3 or 4 units for all armies a bit like some of the really old guides (i.e. before WD 180)

[M'ichal]

Prediction - when the new paint range is released as the big thing for march or april it is accompanied by a new how to paint citadel miniatures (or more than one). They have probably taken the articles down, both because they will refer to obsolete products they no longer stock and also because they want you to buy the new guides.

Would be cool if they had a "how to paint citadel armies" and had stage by stage guides for 3 or 4 units for all armies a bit like some of the really old guides (i.e. before WD 180)

that makes sense from the marketing point of view - more ppl will buy the book if they have no other sources.

But unless they are changing like 50% of the paint range (which would SUCK), most of the articles would still be viable.

I guess we'll see.

Oh, and as to the masterclasses - I actually bought some models BECAUSE of the 'Eavy Metal paint jobs and the fact that they gave me articles which I can use to mimic their great work as closely as possible. There should be at least 3-4 masterclasses a year, AT LEAST.

[Druchii Monkey]

Amusingly (as much as i can retain some sense of humour in this situation) although they've removed the pages, some of the resources (e.g. PDFs) they had associated with the pages are still up there. This was one of the guides i quite liked and the associated PDF is still available (for now):

'Eavy Metal Faces Redux:
http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_...aces_Redux.pdf

Oh, and here was the orginal one - download it now while you still can - 'Eavy Metal Faces:
http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_...asterclass.pdf

[M'ichal]

grab it while you can, good find

[Druchii Monkey]

A few more, some of these a little dated, some i never knew existed - all currently freely available off the official GW web site (for now):

Sergeant Lorenzo - Space Hulk Terminator Marine (hugely recommended):
http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_...al_Masterclass

Captain Sicarius (very current):
http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_...ng_Masterclass

Chaos Lord (very current):
http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_...asterclass.pdf

Harry The Hammer:
http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_...Background.pdf

Orks:
http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_...g_Orks_40k.pdf

Eltharion:
https://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA...s_WFB.pdf_.pdf

Anja Wettergren (actually linked to from the White Dwarf archive):
http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_...nja_Wettergren

Tau Fire Warriors (outdated - actually linked to from the White Dwarf archive):
http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_...sFireCaste.pdf

Some sort of Catachan Codex (outdated - not painting related):
http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_..._Catachans.pdf

[Spectrar Ghost]

Hm. That Catachans Codex looks like it's an update of the old 3Ed Codex to fit the 4Ed Guard Codex. Mentions Doctrines. Outdated now though.

[Druchii Monkey]

Hm. That Catachans Codex looks like it's an update of the old 3Ed Codex to fit the 4Ed Guard Codex. Mentions Doctrines. Outdated now though.

Thanks, noted. The thing i really want to find is the Dark Elf Corsair stage by stage - unfortunately like pretty much all of the 100+ articles GW removed there were no PDFs.

Update on Plan of Action

Just to update you all, the plan at the moment is to wait until Monday next week and then send a letter to Jervis and to Mark Wells referencing this petition. If anyone else wants to write in as well that would be great.

The Jervis postal address is:

Jervis Johnson
c/o White Dwarf
Design Studio
Games Workshop
Willow Road
Nottingham
NG7 2WS
United Kingdom

The address i'm planning for Mark Wells unless someone knows something more specific is:

Mark Wells
CEO
Games Workshop
Willow Road
Nottingham
NG7 2WS
United Kingdom

I will try and make them brief letters so they stand the best chance of getting read. I'll keep them polite and to the point referencing this petition.
The message in summary will be.

"Games Workshop, please make available to your customers in one form or another, the full range of freely available hobby articles that you recently removed from your web site. These articles were a valued resource in the support of our hobby and their removal without notice is unsatisfactory."

[M'ichal]

yeah, sounds good man, thanks for doing this

[Craze_b0i]

Yeh thanks for doing this.

I am not impressed with the GW response so far, I refer to the OnG guides often and I have not seen one single paint colour in them that is OOP. And if those guides are so-outdated then what about the books they tell us to go and buy instead, they were not written yesterday either...

[zoggin-eck]

I think you're overreacting, personally.

I think it's pretty obvious that GW would take them down in response to changes to the paint range.

Perhaps they have a change of style to the articles, the way they are presented or the format? Things like this mightn't bother someone just looking for an old how to paint article, but it's important to the people setting the site up. In my line of business suppliers change catalogues/pamphlets/websites/signage and product books at the drop of a hat, sometimes for something as simple as a logo/identity change. Often seemingly vital information is now missing, but it's usually because of a change in the product or items discontinued.

Personally, I'd like them to keep every single article up, modelling/hobby as well as gaming, but I don't act surprised when they change things on something as made up as a web site. Give it a go by all means, but bear in mind how useless petitions can be. Even worse, you seem to think a poll on a forum actually means something!

[Druchii Monkey]

The poll so far means 87% of people who have responded want those articles back. That's fairly decisive.

Even with a new paint range, archiving the articles would have been a possibility, or letting people know they would be updated - not to worry they would be back soon.

Your point about business suppliers is understandable i suppose, apart from the fact that the 100+ articles were for hobbyists, and the full range of GW colours seem to still be on sale on their web site. That's a pretty odd message to suppliers is it not, or is it actually the case that communication with suppliers goes through other channels, so actually your point about suppliers is completely moot.

Further, in terms of difficulty doing this from a "setting sites up point of view", i know what is involved, i work on sites like the GW web site day in day out. Putting these articles somewhere more sensible, may have been a hassle, perhaps even at a push half a day's work for GW, but no they didn't do it. They took them all down to the point where i have specifically requested just one from GW customer services that i am half way through and they say they are unable to provide it. I don't buy it. It would have been easy to take the links to the articles down but allow deep linking. Why didn't they.

I am also concerned based on the feedback i have received from GW so far, that they think the combination of (a) the low level of detail in What's New Today, (b) the White Dwarf articles, (c) an additional How to Paint painting guide of reasonable coverage sold to the customer, and (d) being able to talk to staff in store is enough.

It certainly sounds like this ought to be enough. However the coverage of the 100+ articles they took down was far far in excess of the above. For Dark Elves as an example they had painting guides for all three unit types in the battalion box. For practically every army both fantasy and 40K they had coverage of how to do the basic units, and also how to put together the most complex kits. These articles gave me the confidence and support to get back into the hobby after a long time off, and some of them such as the Dark Elf Corsair article and Cold One Knight article were of an outstanding quality.

The message i want to send to GW is that these sorts of articles are hugely beneficial, and that it is highly commercially relevant and beneficial to GW for these to be offered for free on their web site as they were before. It is also that some level of notice would have been appropriate. The guides act as a shopping list for paints, and a way for me to make my army look vaguely like the ones in the books. Additionally, for me, sometimes a few good tutorials can be the key driver in what models i purchase.

I am a huge fan of GW as a company, the best case scenario for me assuming they are coming out with a wide sweeping paints change soon, would be if they made all the 100+ articles that will be out of date available for a week so people can download them if they want, then when they update their paints, they bring out a new How to Paint guide and update as many of the articles that were up there that they can, and put them up as freely available. If the paint rumours are legit which is looking almost definite at the moment.

[shelfunit.]

In someways - with the new paint range coming out - I can understand why the articles were removed. Is their customer turnover so massive or desperate to keep them in business that they expect everyone will simply throw away their old paints and rush out to buy these new ones?

[M'ichal]

Maybe they will be re-released with the paint names changed? And the customer rep couldn't tell you that for obvious reasons. That would be forgiveable...but then if some paints are going away, it might be unlikely - new articles would have to be written.