The Mass Effect 3/BioWare Thread

[Roguey]

But it's someone who's looking past the misogyny and seeing the real issue? Not the general populace and probably won't reach them, true.

 

[racofer]

Because she licked a PSP.

All of the above.

Because she licked a PSP.

Thats it? That's what she is famous for? She would be better off licking and sucking dick. At least that's a respectable profession.

Bioware is really scaping the bottom of the barrel with this one alright.

Pretty much yes, that's all the reason behind her inclusion in ME3.

That and pictures such as this one:

She fits in Bioware games just right.

 

[Mangoose]

But it's someone who's looking past the misogyny and seeing the real issue? Not the general populace and probably won't reach them, true.

Ah, I see. Yes, thankfully exceptions exist, otherwise ITZ would be here a lot faster than it is.

Edit: Still, they had to write

Inclusion! It’ll get everybody to stop believing that games are only für basement dwelling, antisocial nerds! Just as soon as we can some of the people who play sie to stop acting like basement dwelling, antisocial nerds!

Why? Is there some moral standard of acting or talking that I'm aware of? If you are walking on the street and some drunkard hurls epithets at you, do you run home and cry on the internet? Why is there such a stigma against people saying "bad things"? It's even less morally wrong online than in reality, to be honest, because you can't incite public riot or physical violence.

 

[CROmagnon]

Pretty much yes, that's all the reason behind her inclusion in ME3.

That and pictures such as this one:

She fits in Bioware games just right.

Yeah, real sexy! A truck driver in drag playing video games. That's about to take a dump.

Thank you for the explanation but I still don't get it what is so great about her.

 

[lulurkinglurkerlurk]

Because X360gamersPs3 in general over internet want scopie her naked wet boobs and she is a host on IGN shows. So EA managment do theirs math and hire her. Its obvious for what target ME3 is aimed for.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

rex has aged like a motherfucker.

 

[treave]

A person who works in the game industry who doesn’t like playing games? I mean, what is there in a game besides combat? Well, in the case of titles like Bioware’s Dragon Age and Mass Effect, there’s dialogue and character interaction. A ton of it. They’re considered to be a part of the RPG genre, which means you’re playing a role… and you’re given opportunities to play that role in dense social interactions, as well as in real-time or strategy combat situations.

This is at the heart of why the misogynerds are so angry: the industry is changing, it’s been changing for a long time, and it’s no longer the sole domain of misogynist nerds like them. The sheer entitlement that these people have, that games should cater to them and only to them, is astounding. For them, making games more accessible and inclusive is the exact opposite of what games are for: bragging rights. It’s not cool to tell people you beat a game when the option to skip combat entirely is there, is it? But games aren’t just skill challenges any more; some games are more interested in telling a story with the player, rather than blocking most people from even finishing them.

Seems to be that a general consensus on the feminist blogs is coalescing around the idea that anyone against Hepler is both misogynist and also an advocate of Call of Duty mindless button pusher style gaming (TOTALLY UNLIKE MASS EFFECT BROS), so Hepler defenders are lovers of equality AND of 'smart' gaming.

I wonder how that came about. "We shouldn't skip combat" = "Combat is the ONLY thing that's important, I don't want no story in my Bioware games."?

It's just a pity Bioware sucks at story and character interaction too.

 

[Sacculina]

http://www.themarysue.com/inclusion-what-jennifer-heplers-story-is-all-about/

Some of the comments are encouraging, though.

The game industry teaches people that game developers are all geniuses, and that gaming keeps getting better year after year. There are no problems with this vision as long as people are satisfied with the games being released. But when a game comes out that's less than satisfactory, the cracks start to show. This is why people can so vehemently defend Bioware; they're constantly being told by the gaming media, advertising, and other fans that Bioware has great writing and their games are the best rpgs evar. When a game comes out that is definitely not a good RPG, a portion of the fanbase has this illusion shattered for them and they instantly become bitter trolls who can't stand change or don't understand Bioware's "VISION" in the eyes of the faithful.

Hepler is just the unlucky recipient of this pent up anger. Even those who have recently abandoned Bioware probably still love their earlier games (I can sympathize; I really liked BG1 and BG2 but everything they've done since then has paled in comparison). So they look for a target; a scapegoat they can blame for the decline. And then Hepler makes stupid comments about how she hates gameplay, and how anyone who doesn't love her work is either sexist or homophobic, like she's some kind of writing god and all who criticize her are heretics who should be shunned from society if not burned at the stake. I can understand the anger coming from these people.

The problem with all this anger is that Bioware won't understand where it's coming from and just dismiss it as mass trolling, as if thousands of people have nothing better to do than try to hurt their feelings. Good game developers listen to criticism; they recognize that anger has a purpose, and people are only angry because they care about the game in question. The worst reaction from fans is silence - it means they just don't care. But I digress. The devs at Bioware have surrounded themselves with a cult of faithful sycophants and any criticism is dismissed by dozens of loyal posters. Jokes about ding dong bannu aside, the worst part of that forum isn't the overzealous moderation, it's the echo chamber effect where any voice of dissent is shot down by other posters. It's demoralizing to post legitimate criticism only to be called a troll, or have all your carefully thought out points be called wrong for stupid reasons. Why even bother posting criticism when the reaction is universal? Then the disillusioned forum goer will either slip back into the fold, or flee to /v/, the Codex, or other sites where their opinion won't be so universally rejected. The Bioware forum goers probably think they're perfectly reasonable people, too; they are only sticking up for the best rpg developer evar. Bioware can do no wrong, so anyone who tries to criticize them is either mistaken or just a troll. If you think they've made a mistake, just look at all these posts by people who disagree with you!

So basically, the state of things at Bioware are the result of the game industry's masturbatory self-praise and rejection of any meaningful criticism, and Bioware won't learn anything from this because of how sheltered they've made themselves. As their games continue to decline in quality, their audience will grow smaller and their reputation with gamers will suffer. If Bioware wants to save themselves from being assimilated by EA, they need to hire some better writers, hire some community managers to assess criticism from fans, and generally work on restoring their reputation for good RPGs rather than the action/dating sims they're becoming known for. I doubt that'll happen, though.

Mandatory

 

[racofer]

A person who works in the game industry who doesn’t like playing games? I mean, what is there in a game besides combat? Well, in the case of titles like Bioware’s Dragon Age and Mass Effect, there’s dialogue and character interaction. A ton of it. They’re considered to be a part of the RPG genre, which means you’re playing a role… and you’re given opportunities to play that role in dense social interactions, as well as in real-time or strategy combat situations.

This is at the heart of why the misogynerds are so angry: the industry is changing, it’s been changing for a long time, and it’s no longer the sole domain of misogynist nerds like them. The sheer entitlement that these people have, that games should cater to them and only to them, is astounding. For them, making games more accessible and inclusive is the exact opposite of what games are for: bragging rights. It’s not cool to tell people you beat a game when the option to skip combat entirely is there, is it? But games aren’t just skill challenges any more; some games are more interested in telling a story with the player, rather than blocking most people from even finishing them.

Seems to be that a general consensus on the feminist blogs is coalescing around the idea that anyone against Hepler is both misogynist and also an advocate of Call of Duty mindless button pusher style gaming (TOTALLY UNLIKE MASS EFFECT BROS), so Hepler defenders are lovers of equality AND of 'smart' gaming.

I wonder how that came about. "We shouldn't skip combat" = "Combat is the ONLY thing that's important, I don't want no story in my Bioware games."?

It's just a pity Bioware sucks at story and character interaction too.

It wouldn't surprise me if these feminazis started their own version of the Codex dedicated to "smart" games like DA:O and ME, while calling themselves the last bastion of true RPGs.

 

[Menckenstein]

They'd call it RPG Watch

 

[racofer]

 

[treave]

It wouldn't surprise me if these feminazis started their own version of the Codex dedicated to "smart" games like DA:O and ME, while calling themselves the last bastion of true RPGs.

Nah, they're more focused on feminism rather than game genre. The zillions of feminazi gaming blogs are to them what the Codex is to us. Even better than the Codex, actually. A true hivemind. Though they may dwell on different servers, their minds resonate as one.

The game industry needs more Heplers, not less, and any and everyone who participated in this any of the number of times it’s come around is what’s wrong with modern games and gamer culture. End of story line.

 

[felipepepe]

Reading those things I really feel old...new age "RPG Fans" crying for BioWare to give them back their "basement dwelling old-school RPGs", like ME 1 and DA: Origins...

It's like a Golden Spiral of RPG Decline.
[reminder: photoshop something smart based on this]

 

[waywardOne]

One of us? (marysue)

• Anonymous
  Personally I share the harassers opinion, regardless of the excess of their actions. The fact is that Brandes Hepler is in fact a pretty bad writer who chose the wrong medium to express herself, and then tries to justify her point of view by pulling the “womanhood” argument in what I actually consider to be a fairly offensive and cliched view of women in general, or by making poor comparisons with other media that don’t relate at all.
• 
  
• To make things clear let’s try to evaluate what’s really going on in here with all the insults on her twitter: These people are not hating on her because she’s woman. There are plenty of women working for the game industry (including writers) who are frequently praised even by die-hard gamer communties: think about Amy Hennig, who wrote for the universally praised Legacy of Kain series; think about Mary deMarle who was a lead writer for the Deus Ex and Myst franchises, both of which are venerated by the same hardcore gamers which are now targeting Hepler.
• 
  
• Now let’s take a look at Hepler’s own arguments, and try to make some sense out of them. She claims she dislikes playing the games, which is already a controversial claim by itself. Writing for a medium you don’t enjoy or don’t understand is the first major step to do it wrong. Any writer who calls him/herself a professional must acknowledge the demands and limitations of the medium and adapt his/her style to it. This explains why writing a book is substantially different from writing a script for a movie, just like the former is substantially different from writing a script for a TV show. If don’t acknowledge these particulars and limitations, and instead prefer to complain about them, then you’re bound to commit mistakes, even if you’re the most talented writer that ever set foot on the surface of the planet. Complaining is exactly what Hepler does, when she mentions ridiculous features like a skip combat button and procceeds to compare it to the fast foward option of a DVD player. First of all, videogames are not films (even though she likes to act like they’re the same) and second, if you wanted to establish a comparison, books and movies are probably the worst two you can pick. This is because videogames derive from a completely different branch: board games; RPGs, and in particular Bioware RPGs, are even more associated to board games since their gameplay derives directly from Dungeons and Dragons rulesets. Now when you play a board game, you don’t do it for the story, you do it for the challenge of the gameplay. The same thing could be said about videogames. If you suddenly want to skip the most interactive and defining parts of a genre, for the sake of the story, combat for RPGs, puzzles for graphic adventures and matches for turn-based strategy games, you might as well be watching slideshows or movies instead. Plot acts as a complement to video games, and not the other way around. If you don’t have time to grind through combat or upgrade your party, because you have to take care of your kids (something that men do nowadays as well, by the way), then you should be reading books instead. Major game companies frequently adapt the game plots to prose and publish them either in novel or comic book format, which is good news to all the gameplay haters. Perhaps Bioware should assign Ms. Hepler to write these instead.

 

[Black]

They'd call it RPG Watch

O dang, son, ice cold burn.

 

[Valestein]

Another hepler thread where Xor's post was quoted http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/13/index/9371574/3

 

[Oriebam]

Where the fuck is hoopy when you need him, now I'm going to look like some sort of asshole

My wife likes the sims and sucked at Mass Effect combat. Those two facts have nothing to do with her vagina.

Mass Effect is supposed to be pretty easy even on Veteran, I think it's actually p. hard to die on the lower difficulties

that combination of likes and dislikes is a clearly woman thing, I don't get your point

and please don't make me regret not posting a disclaimer about what I mean with "woman thing", bro

Genuine feminists would be punching this fake butthurt crowd in the face... if they didn't hit like a girl.

tell me more about jan-u-wyne feminists being reasonable people, ignore this if I interpreted wrong

A lot of the people writing to her are being genuinely misogynist.

Saying that is like saying we're genuinely racist or anti-semitic(only mentioning this because of the massive kyke butthurt @watchwitz), a lot of the people writing to her are trolls, and making sexist comments doesn't automatically make them woman/sex-haters

Would still fuck, you're being faggots.

also

They weren't insulting her gender, they're insulting her work until she had to escalate the drama by hiding from the critics behind a vagina. Still, I wish that people didn't take the bate. They could have chosen to stay objective and focus on her writing ability, but I guess you could say that Hepler out smarted the haters because her vagina bait has discredited all legitimate criticisms. I ****ing hate what they said the Hepler, and for everyones information there have been female writers that were respected by gamers long before Hepler. Legacy of Kain anyone? Uncharted? Assassins Creed? Myst? Deus Ex? Gray Matter? All had female main writers, and these games are praised and considered to be some of the best examples of game writing. They were accepted because they had talent, so they've never had a cause to hide behind vaginas regardless of how they see females in gaming. .

Also, I like this post that someone else made regarding Bioware and it's community.

*Xor's post*

ignoring the mention of Uncharted... what the fuck did Deus Ex really have female writers? the one that's over a decade old, in case any of you faggots think it's about the new version, I mean fuck people here are already referring DE:HR as Deus Ex, and they probably played the original why does this shit happen, it should be a fucking bannable offense, so heretic it is... I mean, the guy said pre-herples games then he mentions DE:HR what what disregard this

by the way, some biowaste in that thread said derpler is allegedly being phone harassed, what

I'm guessing this is either fake or overblown, but that's definitely crossing the line, not that it stops me from enjoying this delicious new shitstorm

 

[Sacculina]

Where the fuck is hoopy when you need him, now I'm going to look like some sort of asshole

If it takes a hoopy to make you look like less of an asshole, what do you reckon that implies?

that combination of likes and dislikes is a clearly woman thing, I don't get your point

I like The Sims 2 and hate Mass Effect. Please explain why I should have a vagina. Thanks, by the way, for falling right in line with those who've turned it into a sexist issue.

 

[Oriebam]

Did you read the part about the disclaimer

having long hair, for example, is a woman thing, at least where I live, do you understand now


what I said about looking like an asshole was a way of saying I am not a misogynist or a anti-feminist or whatever it is people see hoopy as(regardless of being right or wrong, or of how much bullshit he supposedly pulled) because to some people it would look like I am defending misoginy, or whatever

oh. This kind of defeats the point of me bitching about disclaimers.

 

[treave]

I like The Sims 2 and hate Mass Effect. Please explain why I should have a vagina. Thanks, by the way, for falling right in line with those who've turned it into a sexist issue.

Clearly, you should prove you are NOT a female by showing tits or GTFO.

Thank you.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

I dunno bro. I enjoyed Sims 2 more than Mass Effect too, and I've got some pretty bangin' tits if you ignore all the hair.

 

[Sacculina]

Clearly, you should prove you are NOT a female by showing tits or GTFO.

Sorry, Sacculinae do not possess mammary glands.

having long hair, for example, is a woman thing, at least where I live, do you understand now

Let me put it this way:

I like playing The Sims 2 more than Mass Effect because:

(1) The Sims 2 is actually fun to play whereas Mass Effect has terrible gameplay and Mark Meer.

(2) I'm a woman.

Please explain why you would automatically assume (2) rather than (1).

Edit: Fuck it, this is getting too GD.

 

[treave]

Just meaningless lulz comments, brolina, you're gonna end up like Hepler if you take it too seriously.

 

[Captain Shrek]

The Sims 2 is exactly what is killing great games. People are more interested in Social media than actual game-play. This allows social aspects of game to grow but then destroys development of game mechanics. Mass effect is an exact result of that: Focus more on relationships (deviant too) than the game-mechanics.

 

[Valestein]

Reddit and 4chan should keep this up and go after new targets like Walters,Hudson,Gaider,etc.

 

[Skittles]

The Sims is fine. You build a bloody house and people live in it. Sometimes 'God' murders those people in convoluted house related ways. Its mechanics worked fine.

Mass Effect on the other hand is what? A shooter? An RPG? A space opera epic movie? Its dialogue was bad, its worlds were empty, character builds were essentially pointless and its shooting was awful, except when you abused it.

Shitty design is what kills games. What you're saying is like claiming that Tetris is the cause of the downfall because it's a simplistic casual game that would end up spawning shit down the line and mini games in our beloved genre. Quit being a histrionic dumbass.