Former BioWare Writer Plans to Work on New RPG

[mechalynx]

I'll back this if they'll actively refuse to hire her. While the blame for the sub-par writing rests mostly on Gaider's shoulders, we have her to thank for turning DA romances into Twilight.

Conjecture. Gaider is the only one who has ever spoken of his particular romantic writing as trying to emulate the hooks of Twilight (not the actual contents, mind you). Do you even known what Hepler was responsible for writing in that series? I can name a few things:

The Anvil of the Void quest line.
The Dwarf Commoner origin.
Basically most of Orzammar.
Bethany.
Leandra.
Elthina.
The Legacy DLC for DA2, by many regarded some of the best DLC BioWare ever put out.

Now, I'm not claiming some kind of objective grand quality of writing on any of this, but most of her critics seem to have a woefully two-dimensional knowledge of her actual input while she was still at BioWare.

Actually I did know about her writing the things you mentioned and I am not impressed with any of it. The only part of the Legacy I somewhat liked was the confirmation of the existence of the Lost City. SOme of the best ever from Bioware? That would be on the Mass Effect side. Hardly any DLC that the DA team put out comes even close to that quality.

Basically most of Orzammar? That's not saying much, unless you can point exactly which parts they were. I'm pretty sure she wrote Branka/Hespith, but that's about it.

My assumptions of her digging Twilight come from the dev diary interviews she did. Literally everything she had a hand in writing is either bat-shit insane or woobie. Her characters are never anything more than a cardboard cut-out, completely two-dimentional.

I did say that I mostly blame Gaider for the nose-dive of the quality from DA:O to DA2, since he's the one OKaying everything he doesn't write. I doesn't mean that Hepler's off the hook for being a shit writer. I'm fine with you thinking she's great and all, but from what I've seen of her, both with BioWare and her comic, I can never agree with your point of view. I don't dislike her because it's the rad thing to do. I dislike her because I resented DA2 the more I played it and to this day only finished it once. And when I looked for the reasons behind the changes from DAO and Awakening, I found her and Gaider square in the middle. I don't want him fired though, as he doesn't suck as much as she does (again, read her comic). I only wish he'd reel a lot of his shit in. And by his shit, I mean the kind he throws around outside of the games.

However, I can see no hope for Hepler.

And yes, while it is years old, her thoughts on making games more appealing to women by adding skip combat option makes me not want to share gender with her. I sincerely doubt she thinks differently today.

So please stop repeating the same old tired talking points ad nauseam when they are born of nothing but ill-gotten contempt.

Ill-gotten contempt? What does that even mean?

I'll change my views on her when she starts showing signs of improvement.

Seriously, ill-gotten? I didn't steal it or murder anyone to get it. Nor am I bleating with unwashed masses because all the popular kids do it. I do it because I genuinly dislike the product she put out and I paid for.

 

[Amaror]

Yes you are trivialising this, because one of the strong points of every Bioware game were always the good characters.

That's funny. It really is. The characters in the Dragon Age games were just as good (or, more realistically, just as bad) as any Bioware game in recent history. Even the ones Hepler wasn't on.

I've never got the "good characters" thing. They're cardboard, stock characters that people seem to imprint on. Maybe that's it. Maybe it's the Gordon Freeman/Link scenario.

It's interesting that a character swinging both ways is sufficient to disrupt the "quality writing" behind Vanilla McBland.

I mean, ermagerd, people are flirting with you! That ruins their characters because reasons!

Ok, so you don't like Bioware characters. I don't think their bland or cardboard in any sense, but hey, everybody has a different opinion.
Just to be sure, you didn't play DA 2 yourself, did you?
The reason why the idea that everybody is bisexual was bad for the characters was that it didn't fit into it.
With exeptions (Like the pirate girl) the bisexuality just didn't fit to the characters and the times they tried to hit on you didn't fit into the moment that was currently going on. You're just back from an adventure, discovering something really important .. "Hey, wanna Cuddle, Hawk?"

 

[NeedsaBetterName22]

You know, the whole Hepler thing leaves me conflicted.

On the one hand, the treatment she received from the "community" was absolutely disgusting. I feel ashamed to share a hobby with the people who threatened her.

On the other hand, every time she speaks, I become more convinced she's not the type of person we want in the game industry. For one, there's her statements gameplay and story segregation, which make it seem like she'd be more comfortable writing novels or screenplays than game scripts. Dismissing the importance of gameplay is not something a game writer should ever do. It'd be like a novelist dismissing the importance of word choice, or a film writer dismissing the importance of actors.

Now she refers to the game as a "rip-off" right away, and hiring her is supposed to be a bonus tied to a stretch goal?

Sorry, but that rubs me the wrong way. A lot.

While not wishing Hepler any ill at all, I remain convinced she'd be more comfortable and successful in a different industry.

Pretty much my position. She's a hack, but criticism should be directed at her work and statements, not at her body, gender, etc. Obviously death threats are a whole new level of stupid.

What's happening to those melons?

Oh, that. Y'know those invisible wolves that dwell in the valley and do the bidding of the evil Duke?

Yeah?

Well, the farmers are finding out they like watermelon...in THAT way.

Urgh.

Stop staring. They get mad if people stare.

I'd really love it if they took it even further and let you romance a watermelon companion. It never says anything, but you can talk to it and say things like 'you're such a good listener' and 'you're the only one who really understands me'. Then the bad guy smashes the watermelon in Act 3 to show how serious the situation is.

 

[Matthi205]

Good news for the Hepler hater crew: Getting Hepler on the team is a STRETCH GOAL. A stretch goal they're unlikely to reach by my calculations at the moment. At support of about 50k per 3 days median (currently, that's about as much as they're getting) they're going to reach their 500k goal and make the game, but won't hire Jennifer Hepler, who is located at a far 750k stretch goal. So feel free to pledge, her getting hired is improbable anyway.

I don't quite get the hate she gets. She wrote a few NPCs and a quest for DA, then wrote some characters in DA2, then was senior writer for DA3 (DA:I). She isn't the one responsible for the shitty ME3 ending (shitty because it doesn't resolve anything at all, and is probably not even real - judging by the end of the ending cutscene). She's not the one responsible for having the Illusive Man turn absolutely ridiculously evil towards the end of ME3 (for poorly expained reasons, because the Reaper's way of using him would have been much more subtle than it was). She isn't the one responsible for Miranda being the most unlikeable character in ME2 apart from the Collector General.
She might even be just a victim of how work was distributed at BioWare, instead of having her write a story she was probably told "this is the story that we want you to write, and you're going to bloody write it in a way that sounds good".

 

[Knight Templar]

It's the same thing.

No it isn't.
You yourself already noted that you're not asking for her to like the books, and don't have such feelings yourself anyway.

You are contradicting yourself here, these are mutually exclusive positions you're trying to argue.

How can she value it when she thinks that movies are better

I do that, so it shouldn't be too hard. Additionally you said you value it and yet don't like it at all, so you are a counterpoint to your own argument. Kinda impressive really.

How can she value it when she thinks that movies are better and that Twilight is better?

This is yet another change of argument. We've gone from not liking something, to not seeing its importance and now thinking something else is better, when that is not something you have shown any evidence for and isn't self evident, and frankly I'm not sure its even relevant.


See what I meant when I said you couldn't?

 

[T_ConX]

People think Jennifer Hepler is a terrible writer because games she has worked on tend to have terrible writing. HOW MISOGYNIST!


Not to mention that the ENTIRE controversy was partially manufactured by Bioware...


On a more positive note, it would seem that funding for the game has effectively flatlined. It would seem that the 'Misogynist Troll Hoard' has either deemed Ambrov X a non-issue, or thinks the best way to sink this ship is to not draw attention to it. Don't be surprised if a week or two from now Loreful starts making unsubstantiated claims that they're getting rape/death threats in a desperate move to secure last-minute funding.