@larrytheseinfeld:
Aaaaaaaaand it looks like we have a Redditer in the buildin' lol.
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@leinad44 said:
I hate the internet sometimes, I really fucking do.
I hate it all the time, I have no idea why I use it so often.
Ugh, I hate Reddit. Worse than 4chan. Reddit's filled with stuck up assholes. That said, her opinion as I understand it is just bad game design. No reason to hate her for it, but if all you want is cutscenes go watch television. The game doesn't need combat but it needs gameplay. Good game design integrates all the game's systems into one cohesive experience. If a game is well designed taking out one system will make the game worse off, otherwise why would that system be included to begin with? Reddit's response was absurd and offensive, but she probably shouldn't be working in the game's industry judging from what she's said.
Alright, this is just craziness. I find the actions of the Internet to be generally detestable here, but that's not new, or unique to this situation. That's what the internet is sometimes: a collection of people that hate a specific person, sometimes illogically. However, Bioware's actions are highly unprofessional. If you're the fucking general manager, you should be conducting yourself properly in public. In conclusion:
@Pinworm45 said:
Both parties are fucking retarded.
@Animasta said:
@TheGorilla: she's a writer though, so her opinion on gameplay stuff doesn't matter
Someone writing a movie script should enjoy movies; the same goes for novels or comic books.
An example would be novelists that decline from writing the scripts for movies based on their work, or why when "Hollywood script writers" do the narrative in a game, it's usually garbage.
Writing for different mediums require different approaches, and skills, and emphases.
@Animasta said:
@Wrighteous86: she can not like playing games and appreciate & be good at the kind of story telling that games are good at
Allow me to be a troll for a moment and say she CAN be good at it, but she's NOT.
But she isn't a good writer. At all.@Wrighteous86: she can not like playing games and appreciate & be good at the kind of story telling that games are good at
Last few logs to throw on the fire. In addition to the interview I linked, I did some digging and found these images that were linked in the reddit thread (but probably originated on 4chan).
It's that last quote that may have been fabricated.
@SagaciousJones said:
@VisariLoyalist said:
from what I hear (from other redditors) the original thread was full of quotes that don't actually exist
For what it's worth, you can read the original interview that's at the root of all this vitriol here:
http://web.archive.org/web/20101118135928/http://killerbetties.com/killer_women_jennifer_hepler
What is your least favorite thing about working in the industry?
Playing the games. This is probably a terrible thing to admit, but it has definitely been the single most difficult thing for me. I came into the job out of a love of writing, not a love of playing games. While I enjoy the interactive aspects of gaming, if a game doesn't have a good story, it's very hard for me to get interested in playing it. Similarly, I'm really terrible at so many things which most games use incessantly -- I have awful hand-eye coordination, I don't like tactics, I don't like fighting, I don't like keeping track of inventory, and I can't read a game map to save my life. This makes it very difficult for me to play to the myriad games I really should be keeping up on as our competition.
And with a baby on the way in a few months, my minimal free time (which makes it impossible for me to finish a big RPG in less than six months already), will disappear entirely. If there was a fast-forward feature on games which would let me easily review the writing and stories and skip the features that I find more frustrating than fun, I'd find it much easier to keep abreast of what's happening in the field.
For me, the portion of this quote in which she complains about things that many games are based around really suggests to me that she isn't working in the right industry. It is one thing to not be good at games, or to not have enough time to play them. But to actively suggest that you don't like fighting in games, using tactics, or using a map/ keeping track of inventory while working for a company who creates role playing games in which you fight enemies, using tactics, while keeping track of an inventory and using a map seems incredulous to me. You don't necessarily have to like all of these things, but to actively dislike the gameplay portion of a product that you are creating seems like it doesn't really mesh well with the goal of interactive entertainment. Especially since one might hope that the writers of these games have experience playing the product that they are creating, to determine if everything meshes well...
As for the option of skipping the gameplay portion of the game, I don't know that I am completely against the idea. However, I love that given the option of skipping both cutscenes and gameplay, someone could literally skip through the entire product. Speed runs for that game suddenly reduce to a minute or less. But if that is how people want to spend their time and money, who I am I to suggest otherwise?
Anyone thinking that you need to like games to work in the games industry is naive.
A paying writing job is a paying writing job, and people will adapt their style for money and experience.
That quote in the picture? Not fabricated. Posted on Bioware forum.
It's that last quote that may have been fabricated.
@Tim_the_Corsair said:
Anyone thinking that you need to like games to work in the games industry is naive. A paying writing job is a paying writing job, and people will adapt their style for money and experience.
I don't think you need to. I think it makes it easier to write to the style suited to the platform on which you're writing.
If she wrote a game with a well-received story, and said she didn't play games, I don't think anyone would care.
Given her work both inside and outside of the industry, people are focusing on that comment, hoping it's a way to get her out of her position (an unproductive and unlikely goal as it may be). The problems with Dragon Age II go far beyond her influence, even if she is near the forefront. Mike Laidlaw probably is more to blame than anyone.
@Tim_the_Corsair said:
Anyone thinking that you need to like games to work in the games industry is naive. A paying writing job is a paying writing job, and people will adapt their style for money and experience.
It is one thing to have that kind of person working as a writer for a game at a lower level position, but I expect that Bioware, one of the of major players in the role-playing games business, could find someone who truly wishes to write for a video game (and not dislike half of the experience of a video game). Surely there are other people who would jump all over the chance to do this job for more than just money and experience, and to be one of the senior writers for their games.
@Wrighteous86 said:
@Animasta said:
@Wrighteous86: she can not like playing games and appreciate & be good at the kind of story telling that games are good at
Allow me to be a troll for a moment and say she CAN be good at it, but she's NOT.
Iknow that I played DA2 I'm just saying, hypothetically, she could.
@Vegetable_Side_Dish: Can you post a link? Googling the quote doesn't get me anywhere and I'd like to see some solid proof.
I, uh, did find this, though.
@Sooty said:
@JTMosh said:
I absolutely agree with her on the skipping gameplay segments comment. I'm playing through Alan Wake right now and the story bits and atmosphere are easily the best part of it. The combat isn't bad but there's just so much of it that it makes me not want to play.
I don't think that's a good solution in a way though, your game should be fun enough to play during those sequences. If Uncharted 3 had a skip button I'd be using it so much, the combat sections in that game get old fast.
I'm glad someone said this. If you don't like the gaming part of video games, and don't like the game part of the game you're playing, then why keep playing? Well, story, but the number of video game stories that are worth slogging through bad gameplay for is tiny at best.
It just irks me that people say "Yeah, I'm a gamer, but I only play for the story". That makes no sense, the story alone isn't even gaming's biggest strength in terms of delivering an experience. The game part goes in that package too, and if a person doesn't enjoy that then I don't see a reason for playing.
*shrugs shoulders*
Meanwhile, the Bioware, um, "lady" does seem to be dragging a lot of anime and non-game influence into Bioware. Let's see, there's a Dragon Age anime coming and rumors of a Mass Effect anime and that Liara statuette that so many people on The Escapist hated.
@SagaciousJones said:
@Vegetable_Side_Dish: Can you post a link? Googling the quote doesn't get me anywhere and I'd like to see some solid proof.
I, uh, did find this, though.
I'm pretty sure that BioWare has come out and said that this is a fake.
@RetroVirus said:
@SagaciousJones said:
@Vegetable_Side_Dish: Can you post a link? Googling the quote doesn't get me anywhere and I'd like to see some solid proof.
I, uh, did find this, though.
I'm pretty sure that BioWare has come out and said that this is a fake.
It's telling how plausible it sounds these days, though.
@RetroVirus: http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/141/index/5481839/1&lf=8
Direct quote.
Normally I wouldn't care about any of this, but she serves as a convenient avatar of Dragon Age 2 for me to project my hate onto.
Also those 4chan threads are pretty good.
Eh, I don't understand why people are trying so hard to "fix" Bioware. The eventual decline into mediocrity was always going to happen after the EA buy out, it was just a matter of how and when. If this women really is part of the problem then shes just one small part of a larger issue.
Alright, so wait a tick...
This chick wanted to have an OPTION made available in games that would let someone WHO CHOOSES to skip parts of a game do just that? People got UPSET over someone wanting an OPTION?
...and then they went on to harass her, make her feel like shit for suggesting an OPTION, and trying to publicly defame her...
...and then Bioware higher-ups came in and said "hey, go fuck yourself"...
...and there are people that are bitching about the higher-ups who believe in this person, their employee, coming out in defense of her?
Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with people? Why the fuck is it that someone offers up a way for video games to gain more popularity and enter the lives of more people...and people have to lambast that person because they offered up a fucking opinion about a fucking option that WOULD NOT BE MANDATORY IN THE LEAST FUCKING BIT?! It's so fucking stupid! What's wrong with adding an OPTION? I play a lot of fucking games, and you know what?
Meanwhile, those games that have fast travel and ways to skip walking for miles upon boring miles on end in your fucking video game get listed at the GAME OF THE FUCKING YEAR...
...but this chick offers up something that would allow people to customize their gaming experience to what they want...and there's a fucking problem with it?
I just...goddamn...I'm fucking out of here.
We could solve the world's energy problems if we could figure out how to harness the energy of internet hate because fuck me can the internet make a little go a long way.
@Animasta said:
@Wrighteous86 said:
@ShadowConqueror said:
Dragon Age 2 sucked./thread
except not because if she was the single cause of why it sucked, she still doesn't deserve being verbally abused like she was.
Oh, she probably was only a small part of why DA2 was awful. I meant "/thread" because that's all this is really about anyway. People are using her as a punching bag or a pinata to unleash their hatred for DA2 on. It has nothing to do with anything else.
Hamburger Helper doesn't deserve the vitriol she got for the reasons she got it. I think, and God forgive me, it's like the situation with Harlan Ellison. He was fascinated by the idea of writing for a video game, but didn't play them and had no real interest in them. That's how we got the seminal I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream adaptation. I don't know if he ever picked up a game to play it, but I do know that it doesn't matter if you like games or not, what matters is if you're a writer or not.
Hamburger Helper is no writer. She's terrible. She's god-awful. As a devotee of Bioware games, I wanted to rip my eyes out during certain parts of DA2 (And I liked the game, dammit). Low-and-behold, those cringe-worthy moments were produced by Ms. Helper.
If she deserves anything, it's a slap on the wrist for piss-poor writing. I don't think she should be fired or kicked to the curb or beaten to death with bags of bricks, but I do believe she needs to rethink her philosophy on what constitutes good dialogue, good characters, and good romance.
Hint: It does not mean changing every fucking thing about Anders and turning him into a whiny bitch.
What a stupid ball of stupid stupidity. I just don't get the mindset of people like this...at all. Also this makes me appreciate the Giant Bomb community a lot. Thank god we don't get people sinking to these levels. (usually)
I was getting all ready to defend her, then I when I opened that link and saw "Hamburger Helper" edited into the name space, I lost it.
I was in that Reddit thread when it happened. Fortunately, I wasn't there when the mass amount of hate happened. Anyway, let me say a few things on that matter...
@SoldierG654342 said:
We could solve the world's energy problems if we could figure out how to harness the energy of internet hate because fuck me can the internet make a little go a long way.
That was pretty brilliant.
Also, can we all agree on the fact that a very large majority of redditors are self-important, circlejerking idiots that don't even deserve the little attention they get? It's one thing to be upset with someone's work, but to go beyond that and start ripping them apart as a person? That's pathetic and disgusting. Those tools wouldn't say half of the things they do if every post they made was accompanied by their name and address, because we all know that it wouldn't take long for someone to pay them a visit and teach them their place.
Yeah, I visit the site to catch interesting stories or videos, or even some funny pictures, but man ... once I started getting deeper into it I realized how much I didn't ever want to be associated with that community. Post a picture of Neil Patrick Harris? CIRCLEJERKOMGOMGUPBOATS! Post a cat picture? CIRCLEJERKOMGOMGUPBOATS! Look who I ran into today (usually a picture of a random, possibly obscure celebrity) CIRCLEJERKOMGOMGUPBOATS! Post about "back in my day..." anything nostalgic. CIRCLEJERKOMGOMGUPBOATS! Jon Stewart/ Stephen Colbert? CIRCLEJERKOMGOMGUPBOATS! Bad pun thread? CIRCLEJERKOMGOMGUPBOATS! Beating the holy hell out of memes. CIRCLEJERKOMGOMGUPBOATS!
The premise of the site is alright, but the community is annoying as hell.
@Animasta said:
@TheGorilla: she's a writer though, so her opinion on gameplay stuff doesn't matter
I hope that's sarcasm or you might actually be a crazy person. Do you really think Bioshock would be Bioshock if Ken Levine didn't like games?
@TheGorilla said:
@Animasta said:
@TheGorilla: she's a writer though, so her opinion on gameplay stuff doesn't matter
I hope that's sarcasm or you might actually be a crazy person. Do you really think Bioshock would be Bioshock if Ken Levine didn't like games?
writers are writers man. they are not gameplay programmers or designers. As I said earlier in the topic, you can appreciate the structure of games without liking games. same thing with musicians.
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