People News David Gaider leaves BioWare

[Gondolin]

Why? It is almost medieval setting. Color of skin depend on place of living. Only modern means of transportation give ability to different races live together. Before that - it was rare. And suddenly DA:I setting became modern USA.

Actually, that's not very different from Tolkien's Beleriand.

 

[Jools]

Just great. Now we'll have to deal with more companies (whichever he'll end up workjng for) dishing out SJW, LGBT, incloosive romance simulators.

 

[DeN DarK]

Why? It is almost medieval setting. Color of skin depend on place of living. Only modern means of transportation give ability to different races live together. Before that - it was rare. And suddenly DA:I setting became modern USA.

Actually, that's not very different from Tolkien's Beleriand.

Exactly where in Tolkiens books people of different HUMAN races was MIXED together like in modern USA? If i remember correctly (maybe I wrong) - in Tolkiens books human races was very separate. Plus it seems Tolkiens world larger. Still if it is true - then it is bad too. But it isn't so noticable.

Actually maybe from the POV of modern American teenager it may be not very noticeable. It is one of many things - forgivable by itself but in complex they give very strong feeling that DA-I is made as very bland SJW tagline - not as game.

 

[Kz3r0]

Just great. Now we'll have to deal with more companies (whichever he'll end up workjng for) dishing out SJW, LGBT, incloosive romance simulators.

 

[Prime Junta]

Only modern means of transportation give ability to different races live together. Before that - it was rare.

If you're not of African origin, you have reasonable odds of carrying some of Genghiz Khan's genes.

Put another way, it wasn't rare at all. There have always been migrations of people, in trickles or in floods, and all but a few backwaters were ethnically mixed, to a greater or lesser extent.

(But then there have always been backwaters with inbred populations as well. If you happen to be from one of those backwaters, you might well sincerely believe that inbreeding is the norm rather than the exception.)

 

[Gondolin]

Exactly where in Tolkiens books people of different HUMAN races was MIXED together like in modern USA? If i remember correctly (maybe I wrong) - in Tolkiens books human races was very separate. Plus it seems Tolkiens world larger. Still if it is true - then it is bad too. But it isn't so noticable.

Tolkien's races lived apart, but extended visits were pretty common. At least in good times. Intermarrying was very rare, but it still happened.

 

[kris]

Just great. Now we'll have to deal with more companies (whichever he'll end up workjng for) dishing out SJW, LGBT, incloosive romance simulators.

Are you sure about that? I havent really gotten a feel for that, I mean, whether it was actually Gaider that wanted to write characters that way or the company that wanted characters written that way.

what is really clear though is that this is something that been more and more prevalent for every new game they churned out and most certainly can be seen in the characters he wrote. From the cooler and more grounded ones with just a few romances, to everyone being romanced all ways and a fan-fiction character like Cole. I see it as very possible that him leaving the company mean he will go back to writing closer to what he did before. But I surerly cant tell if as said this was a change in his persona or change in policy.

What I am very sure about is that this wont make a change for the direction of Bioware which I am certain he had little say in. Nope, we will keep on seeing the horror characters of DAI or the extreme characters of ME2 (they are so extreme!).

Regardless of quality though, I think he knows pretty well what their customers like and managed to write characters that became well-liked by fans, despite some being of questionable quality.

 

[Jools]

What I am very sure about is that this wont make a change for the direction of Bioware which I am certain he had little say in. Nope we will keep on seeing the horror characters of DAI or the extreme characters of ME2 (they are so extreme!).

Indeed. No arguing there.

 

[Eirinjas]

Put another way, it wasn't rare at all. There have always been migrations of people, in trickles or in floods, and all but a few backwaters were ethnically mixed, to a greater or lesser extent.

This ^^^. Egyptian mummies have been found to have plants in them indigenous to South America, they've found ancient Chinese artifacts in Druid caves in Ireland, and Vikings are known to have arrived in North America hundreds of years before that dipshit Italian came anywhere close.

 

[Eirinjas]

Ya know, anyone secure in their masculinity would have no problem being exposed to gay romance opportunities in a video game - they're (make believe) opportunities, no one is forcing you to engage in it.

 

[Excidium II]

Faggot. Men getting emoshunal is already p. pathetic then you have two men in "I can't fight this feeling anymore" mode and holy fuck. That's why Zevran was at least nice because he straight up offers his holes with no bullshit.

 

[Eirinjas]

Faggot

 

[Ismaul]

Remember men, if you don't want to be faggots, better offer up your holes with no bullshit.

 

[eremita]

Yet another laughable thread. The reason why DAI sucks is not writing which is actually pretty decent, with a lot of CC and quite complex conflicts. As for SJW bullshit, not only there's little of it, but your character has options to be negative about it (so DAI is a game which allows you to be anti-SJW - being able to express your opinion about something is one of the pillars of roleplaying games). As for romances, they're like 2% of the game content and are completely avoidable. And are not that bad to be honest, at least Cassandra who was written by Gaider. BTW, Cassandra is straight, so tell me again about Gaider pushing his agenda... you dumb idiots.

The reason why DAI sucks is that the game is combat oriented (like every other Bioware game) yet its combat system is average at best and quite clunky. Another reason are MMO-like side quest and bad itemization. If this game wasn't created by Bioware, nobody would bitch about the nonsense present in this thread. Only then you would be able to see that Gaider's work in this game is actually alright or at least would be able to have a normal conversation about it.

I wish him well, he's a good designer and competent writer, who understands RPGs more than majority of current developers. Teaming up with Avellone would be great.

Codex really suffers under the plague of tryhards...

 

[Azrael the cat]

It's always hard to get a fix on what Gaider himself wants in a game, because he reacts so irritably to internet criticism. It doesn't matter what the feature is, or even if it's something where he's on the record as having opposed its implementation, as soon as people on the internet start criticising his team over it, then Gaider is going to post about how it's the best feature ever implemented in gaming, and that everyone who thinks otherwise is an asshole with no taste and that he hopes that they hate every game he makes from now on because he cares that little about what they think!

It might just be an over-stimulated sense of having a duty to protect his underlings from criticism, but he's never made a secret of his disdain for internet feedback. And I can understand, to a point - he used to engage quite readily, but he adopted that attitude around the same time that Bioware got big enough that you can find vocal communities of people taking every possible side of any argument about their work. At that point, community feedback is probably a shit-shoot, just a sea of contradictory demands with no way of knowing which comments reflect widely held concerns, let alone being able to divide them into any sort of useful demographic like 'the hardcore perspective' or 'the casual perspective'. He does seem to cope worse than most though, but that's what community managers are for.

Thing is, he's had enough interesting ideas cut from games that he's worked on (and they almost always edge towards the 'genuinely interesting/hardcore and removed for fear of alienating the masses' category), and had enough attempts at revising errors in previous games, that he clearly doesn't think that literally everything that Bioware ever does is perfect. But he speaks like he does, and he's so uniform in refusing to publically admit any failing whatsoever, that you just can't tell at all what his views really are. I suspect that for the 12 months after release, he really is convinced that they did a brilliant job, and that he genuinely becomes more convinced of that the more internet criticism he faces. Plenty of people are like that - they can't see their work critically until the outside attention falls away.

 

[Roguey]

Brent Knowles said that it's Bioware policy that they defend every aspect of their games even if it's something they're personally disappointed with (e.g. he had to do this with NWN).

 

[Delterius]

But he speaks like he does, and he's so uniform in refusing to publically admit any failing whatsoever, that you just can't tell at all what his views really are.

Brent Knowles said that it's Bioware policy that they defend every aspect of their games even if it's something they're personally disappointed with (e.g. he had to do this with NWN).

This is extremely true and its somewhat ironic that they can't see how destructive this can get. One of the major contributors to hysteria on the BSN forums were the BioWare employees themselves. I don't mean Stanley Woo's moderation even. I mean times when David Gaider bothers to post about how the camera didn't zoom back during Dragon Age 2's release not because console memory capacity made that a lower priority, but rather because the Art Department worried players wouldn't get to see the ceillings. Guess what people thought of that.

 

[Sceptic]

It might just be an over-stimulated sense of having a duty to protect his underlings from criticism, but he's never made a secret of his disdain for internet feedback. And I can understand, to a point - he used to engage quite readily, but he adopted that attitude around the same time that Bioware got big enough that you can find vocal communities of people taking every possible side of any argument about their work.

I agree with your points but I don't understand why it's a bad thing. Getting feedback from all directions lets you see exactly what works for who, and therefore why it could and couldn't work for this or that demographic, and more importantly it should let you see something from an outside perspective. It's very common in my work to find someone who doesn't work in your specific field and run ideas past them - one of the reasons I love my current workplace is that I have people who work in literally the same room I do and have nothing to do with my group or the type of work we do, and we end up constantly bouncing ideas back and forth because we can see each others' work in a completely different light. Gaider (and anyone else in his position - singling him out would be unfair, considering how the entire gaming industry works) should be able to filter useful critique from the usual internet noise easily. Instead he plunges into the thick of it, writing long-winded passive aggressive rants about how he doesn't have time for this - without of course every noticing the irony. This kind of attitude will alienate people even when you're a great writer, but when you're merely mediocre? forget it. Most people tend to be more forgiving of flaws and mistakes when you're not defending them as if you were the second coming of James Joyce.

 

[kwanzabot]

david gaider to me is kind of like mike tyson, funny as fk without realizing he's funny

ugly as fuck, gay and prone to depression and now unemployed

 

[DeN DarK]

Tolkien's races lived apart, but extended visits were pretty common. At least in good times. Intermarrying was very rare, but it still happened.

I prefer quote from book ) But lets say I trust in you words, fellow codexsier.
Not very like half of the population was another race from people who lived in country.

 

[DeN DarK]

Yet another laughable thread. The reason why DAI sucks is not writing which is actually pretty decent, with a lot of CC and quite complex conflicts. As for SJW bullshit, not only there's little of it, but your character has options to be negative about it (so DAI is a game which allows you to be anti-SJW - being able to express your opinion about something is one of the pillars of roleplaying games).

What the heck it was? Complex conflicts? Lot of CC??? Little of SJW and char can be negative about it????? RLY? Give me the same tablets you are on - because I played that DAI crap and it is quite opposite.
*mutter to himself* combat oriented your ass...

It's always hard to get a fix on what Gaider himself wants in a game, because he reacts so irritably to internet criticism. It doesn't matter what the feature is, or even if it's something where he's on the record as having opposed its implementation, as soon as people on the internet start criticising his team over it, then Gaider is going to post about how it's the best feature ever implemented in gaming, and that everyone who thinks otherwise is an asshole with no taste and that he hopes that they hate every game he makes from now on because he cares that little about what they think!

Good words. Gaider can have or can have not been involved in SJW crap in DAI. Still he is known for his attitude towards any criticism and how easly he can drift to "everyone who thinks otherwise is an asshole with no taste and that he hopes that they hate every game he makes from now".

 

[an Administrator]

Didn't know he is gay

 

[DeN DarK]

If you're not of African origin, you have reasonable odds of carrying some of Genghiz Khan's genes.
Put another way, it wasn't rare at all. There have always been migrations of people, in trickles or in floods, and all but a few backwaters were ethnically mixed, to a greater or lesser extent.
(But then there have always been backwaters with inbred populations as well. If you happen to be from one of those backwaters, you might well sincerely believe that inbreeding is the norm rather than the exception.)

Lol. Tell me about it. I am from Russia. We all have more Genghiz Khan's genes than you can imagine if you read something about our history. Still you don't find many mongolian faces between Russian nation (we are actually Federation - not one-nation country we have many other nations living here)
But point taken. If we speak about forceful occupation - mass mixes was avaliable. With rapes and killings. And it wasn't equality thing too - occupants had higher positions. Tell me, good sir, how in Thedas setting (near medieval Europe-thing from DA:O pov) populations became so mixed that it became modern-USA-like? Another question - than if things you say are true - than Witcher 3 is full of racism? Almost all characters white people there. Are you agree? )
Another point - compare DA:O and DA2 and DA:I in that regard. They are very different. More colored people added for sake of "equality". But if in ME it is logical thing here it is SJW crap. Because Boiware really like SJW crap.

PS. Some problem with posting function. Hope I didn't post it like 7 times.

 

[Gondolin]

I prefer quote from book ) But lets say I trust in you words, fellow codexsier.
Not very like half of the population was another race from people who lived in country.

Tolkien's races had kingdoms, but no countries as such. Half the population of Valinor did actually move to Beleriand and there was some tension between them and the Sindarin. It seems that the Noldor tended to select Arbitrary, Zealous and Arrogant at chargen. Humans wondered into Beleriand from nobody knows where and were allowed to settle here and there. The dwarves stayed in the mountains and just visited the elves and humans now and then. Wartime alliances were pretty common among elves, humans and dwarves.

Later on, in the Second Age...

At the same time, Orcs once again became "well-armed and very numerous, cruel, savage, and reckless in assault. In the battles that followed the Dwarves were outnumbered, and though they were the most redoubtable warriors of all the Speaking Peoples they were glad to make alliance with Men."[3] The Orcs were all the more easily defeated by the new combination of Khazad-dûm's heavy infantry and the horsed archers provided by Men, and the Longbeards consequently came to dominate the northern and central Hithaeglir and the lands east of there, although Khazad-dûm had always "regarded the Iron Hills, The Ered Mithrin, and the east dales of the Misty Mountains as their own land".[3] Ultimately, these Men then assisted the dwarves of Khazad-dûm "in the ordering of the lands that they had secured".[3]

With the foundation of the Noldorin realm Eregion to the west of Khazad-dûm around the year 700,[7] friendly relations between the Longbeards and the Elves became firmly established. Many of the Elves then became involved in the development of Khazad-dûm's mansions as a consequence, and it "became far more beautiful"[7] during this period. This friendship also resulted in a massive subterranean extension westwards: the Dwarrowdelf's habitable parts remained in the eastward side, but passages were delved through miles of rock that terminated at a gigantic stone portal outside this elven realm — The West Gate — "which opened out into their country and was chiefly used by them."[3] Celebrimbor, the Lord of Eregion, used mithril lettering on the dwarf Narvi's behalf when the latter built these, to create an inscription that read Im Narvi hain echant. Celebrimbor o Eregion teithant i thiw hin: "I, Narvi, made them. Celebrimbor of Eregion drew these signs."

 

[DeN DarK]

Tolkien's races had kingdoms, but no countries as such. Half the population of Valinor did actually move to Beleriand and there was some tension between them and the Sindarin. It seems that the Noldor tended to select Arbitrary, Zealous and Arrogant at chargen. Humans wondered into Beleriand from nobody knows where and were allowed to settle here and there. The dwarves stayed in the mountains and just visited the elves and humans now and then. Wartime alliances were pretty common among elves, humans and dwarves.

With this I agree. War alliances and separated living. But elves, dwarves and orcs are not races of people. They are different species. In DAI in that regard we see elves and dwarves who live apart from each other (refreshingly elves are "lower" than humans). And that is made in DA very nicely in my opinion (and mage-problem too).
But human races mix is very artificial and appear only in DA:I.
SJW I say. How dare someone don't agree with obvious?