Games Day Australia 2011 Review Options

[Numpty]

Hi Guys,

I just thought I'd put some comments here to see whether others felt the same as I did about Games Day Australia (Oct 1st 2011). Basically my thoughts are that it was quite disappointing.

First the Good!

- Towards the end of the day, I got to have a great chat to a number of the GW people who had flown in. They were very accommodating and very helpful.

- Some of the the Q&A sessions were quite interesting.

- all the staff were great, always helpful, always cheerful and very enthusiastic.

Things that could be better for next year (if they do it again):

- Have the special guests run actual seminars not Q&A. I thought these were a lazy way of running things. In the one I went to, none of the guests introduced themselves nor what they did and had done. It would be great if they ran a simple or masterclass 'How to...' session, based around their expertise. Even go as far as having a video camera and screen showing what they are doing. Could have miniature painting, terrain painting/making, sculpting, story writing, game designing, etc.

- More quick activities where you can win prizes. They had the table where the Stompas had to shoot down all the Baneblades, but they could have made this into a short 20 (ish) player game when each person gets a shot. The one who shot the most tanks wins a prize.

- A Games Day discount at the store. But an offer for turning up to Games Day would have been good. I had money in my pocket to spend, but didn't spend it because there was no incentive.

- No Prices on any products (excluding FW catalogue) . There were staff around but I didn't want to bother them on every item. It was too much effort.

- Forge world needed to have some more miniatures built and on display. Given we don't see many FW mini's I thought they would have a number of them set up so we could see as I've seen online from other Games Days around the world. I would have bought some more FW mini's as I was wanting to have a look at them first hand, but giving us a catalog that was quite out of date wasn't very helpful. Even handing us or showing us a list of what they physically had there would have been useful as I wouldn't have bothered waiting if I had known some of the items would just be ordered anyway.

- Display tables: I was expecting some/one display table (diorama) to be set up specifically for the day. Not the end of the world that it wasn't there but disappointing.

- More licensed suppliers. E.g. THQ and Fantasy Flight selling games. Also a bigger and better display of the Specialty games.

- Better organized painting and modelling competitions. I went passed a number of times but it seemed that people were just sitting around making what they wanted when they wanted. If they organized it so that each session lasted X time then rotated the people through, then that would have been more interesting to me. I'm sure I saw a couple of people just wander off with three quarters of a stompa.

- Some teasers about what is coming up/in the works.

- Too many gaming tables , I didn't go to Games Day to play, I went to learn and to see what else is out there.

- Very few Displays to show off what can be done with GW . A lot of the excitement about GW products is the aspirational value of the hobby. We collect because we want the ultimate army, GW should have an 'the ultimate' army or something else incredible there to give us something to strive for and inspiration.

- Queue for FW. Because of the line for FW I missed a couple of the Q&A sessions. This was my own fault for not ordering ahead, but I thought I would be able to see the mini's and that there would be some benefit to getting them on the day.

- Providing a timetable before the event so I could plan my trip

- If you weren't interested in gaming on the day, there was very little to do. You could have been in and out in about 30 minutes (excluding the 1 hour FW line). It really felt like I paid $75 to walk into a glorified GW store. I was expecting more and was disappointed.It really just felt like the organizer spent all their time lining up stores and the tables, and forgot to think about what customers would want to do once they got in there.

I would go next year but only if I knew the format had changed significantly.

Cheers,

Ant

[Heble]

all valid points... basicly what I thought of the 2000 games day. Disapointing that nothings changed.

[AJenko]

+ 1. to the above

In addition I felt the club designated area to be too far away from the main area (For example we were near the back with the resting area).

Little support for the LotR games (only one table). Yes i know its not to popular, but its one of the ranges they support.

The $75 is a joke, considering a there was a $25 pass that allowed you to get in the door (as long as you had a ticket holder with you), and the 'limited edition, exclusive ticket model' was available for $23 each.

Regardless I managed to take 250 odd pictures of the tables, models, armies of parade, golden daemon, random mates, and even a Forge World future release for anyone interested here:

http://s1211.photobucket.com/home/AJenko/index

Edit: Also request that this should be put in the Gaming News and Rumours or Off Topic Area

This post has been edited by AJenko: Oct 2 2011, 07:00 PM

[The Dark Angel]

Ha love this pick.........modelling for advantage are we?

I'll just put Seth on a Trygon base, I'm sure my opponents will love that.


Also like the comment about people nicking stuff from the conversion area, amazed they had anything left at the end, but for $75 I suppose you feel you must get your money back somehow



This post has been edited by The Dark Angel: Oct 2 2011, 07:10 PM

[Starfire]

That's atrocious.

[Assaultguardsman]

Sounds exactly the same as 10 years ago.

[For the Horde]

nothings changed!!

[cmdr_roy]

So we pretty much could have made this thread a week ago with the same content yeah?

[ÆON]

I entered MOAB and chose to go to Games Day.

I got to see people I havent seen in years from Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne.

Got some Ltd stuff you cant get elsewhere (GW Beer Coolers, Posters, FW GD Models, etc)

Had a chat to Phil Kelly and got him to sign some stuff; Eldrad FTW!

I had fun and got some games in with some good gamers.

I was surprised at how spacious it was and that the crowd wasnt too loud; was really good.

That said; I did go as part of the tournament package; and if they were to offer it again I would go again as it was fun.

I would not have spent $75 to get in the door thou; only as part of a tournament.

[drusus]

- Have the special guests run actual seminars not Q&A. I thought these were a lazy way of running things. In the one I went to, none of the guests introduced themselves nor what they did and had done. It would be great if they ran a simple or masterclass 'How to...' session, based around their expertise. Even go as far as having a video camera and screen showing what they are doing. Could have miniature painting, terrain painting/making, sculpting, story writing, game designing, etc.

I am guessing you went to the last Seminar? Earlier seminars (Game development and design studio had the guys either introduced by one of themselves or introducing each other.) definitely touched on there pass work and history with the company. My biggest complaint was that the two I went to seem to have people missing out on questions even though there was a gap between seminars.

- Some teasers about what is coming up/in the works.

Unfortunately wasn't going to happen, were very tight lipped in the seminars as well

[FatDamien]

>>"I didn't go to Games Day to play, I went to learn and to see what else is out there. "

Called Games Day

Not show you next year's releases Day

This post has been edited by FatDamien: Oct 4 2011, 07:03 PM

[mightymouse]

This post has been edited by mightymouse: Oct 4 2011, 08:39 PM

[HairyDave]

All in favour of renaming "gamesday" to "show next years release day" say - AYE!

You can call it whatever you want as long as they move it to a different weekend next year.

[Tiny]

Can someone tell me what they've done in teh pic? I dont play 40k so looks like a normal game.

[Three Headed Monkey]

I think it's the jetbikes on overly large bases.

[chromedog]

Depends on whom packed the box.
Jetbikes have come with both large and small bases.
Even the new DE ones.

[BorisBC]

Depends on whom packed the box.
Jetbikes have come with both large and small bases.
Even the new DE ones.

I think they are Hellions, according to the gee dub website they come with the small flying base, which is a touch smaller than those bases.

[goth_wazdakka]

They would've used the larger stands for stability purposes and mass handling

[rattman]

Apparently some of the GW satellite GW store screwed up golden daemon entries

A friend asked the manager about entering the open, manager said he was flying down for it and would take his entry down.

Goes in thursday before to find the manager has flown out already and his entry stilling sitting in the display case. The pleb running in the shop had break the bad news that he didn't take it down

We would have been able to get it down there with more than 2 days notice

[neil]

They could be the old metal hellions that didn't stand up very well on small bases. The big bases are pretty much all disadvantage for the DE player..