Former BioWare Writer Plans to Work on New RPG

Amaror

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Ed130 said:
TheDrunkNinja said:
Wait wait wait...

So, this woman is loathed and hissed at by the Escapist community for the simple fact that she herself doesn't like to play video games?

Um. Alright. How should I put this? Um, "get over it"?

I don't get it. I thought we were more open-minded about these kinds of things.
Partly. She isn't regarded as a particularly good writer either.

The decision to turn every romancable character bi-sexual was hers. I could understand the Pirate Whore and possibly one other, but all of them?

Its rather lazy writing and renders the characters dependent upon Hawke, which was one of the reason why I enjoyed Varric and Aveline more than them.

EDIT: It also makes a normal friendship with the characters much harder, part of this is due to only having Saint, Arsehole and Moron for dialogue choices which when the Saint choice will start/restart the romance leaves players who wanted Emo the Elf to become bash brothers with Hawke out in the cold.
Not to forget that that horrible DA 2 version of Anders was an abomination she created. Justice and Anders were AWESOME characters in Awakening and they managed to kill both characters, with just ONE character. Amazing.
Zachary Amaranth said:
Ed130 said:
The decision to turn every romancable character bi-sexual was hers. I could understand the Pirate Whore and possibly one other, but all of them?
Isn't this a series where you can dress your allies as you please and even order them around like puppets?

...I don't get it. They can e attracted to both sexes as you deem fit? O NOES!

Sorry if it seems like I'm trivialising this, but I can't see any problem.
Yes you are trivialising this, because one of the strong points of every Bioware game were always the good characters. Sexuality is a big part of someone's character and just making all characters bisexual kills that part of the characters because it's then basically non existant anymore. It's fine to have bisexual characters in the game. DA Origins had two, one of each gender. The male one was sexually really open, so he always starts to flirt with you, no matter the gender. It can make you a bit uncomfortable, but it fits into the character.
In DA 2 every one of your companions starts to flirt with you. It doesn't matter if you're already in a relationship with someone or not, it doesn't matter if it fits their characters to be initiating the flirtations, they need to go flirt with hawke so the player can have oh so much choice
 

Nghtgnt

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HBaskerville said:
...Clearly Miss Helper does not think this game is just a rip off. Far from it. Shameful that the Escapist lets this kind of writing pass on the site. Shameful.
Eh, this isn't the first time The Escapist has been guilty of really bad journalism, but yeah, if I were running the site that and the other problems with the article that people have mentioned would make me embarrassed to have something like that article published as is.
 

nuttshell

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Retrograde said:
However, let's not take the piss. You sully the very powerful word 'brilliant'...
I also sullied other powerful words: great journalism, integrity, best intentions...
That's because I was being sarcastic. I know, I know, this is a forum on the net and I shouldn't have even tried but still...
 

nuttshell

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Retrograde said:
It's funny because there are people that think what you think for real and we both know this!
Yea but I was pretty sure that the condensed, exaggerated praise would be enough to tell. ;_;
 

Adam Jensen_v1legacy

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Knight Templar said:
She has said she liked the LotR films, but perhaps you meant the book in which case I'd like to know why you think not being a huge fan is a problem?
She doesn't have to be a huge fan. I'm not a huge fan. I'm not a fan at all. But I know the value of LoTR books.
How can you take seriously a writer who works for a company that makes fantasy RPG's and yet said writer doesn't like a classic work of fantasy literature, yet she likes fuckin' Twilight?
 

Knight Templar

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Adam Jensen said:
Knight Templar said:
She has said she liked the LotR films, but perhaps you meant the book in which case I'd like to know why you think not being a huge fan is a problem?
She doesn't have to be a huge fan. I'm not a huge fan. I'm not a fan at all. But I know the value of LoTR books.
Thats not what you were previously attack her over.
If your position has changed to "She doesn't know the value" then you will need to support that one, no trying to get me to make your arguments for you.


How can you take seriously a writer who works for a company that makes fantasy RPG's and yet said writer doesn't like a classic work of fantasy literature, yet she likes fuckin' Twilight?
You just said that liking it is irrelevant.
So if I were to use your standards the answer is: with great ease.
 

Something Amyss

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Amaror said:
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!
 

beez

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I don't actually care about Dragon Age 2, nor SW:ToR (it had much bigger, much more basic issues than writing). I hated DA2 so I didn't finish it, got my refund and moved on, I'm not going to try DA3 either (I love the Mass Effects and DA:O to death tho). So that's that.

HOWEVER, according to THIS [http://www.themarysue.com/hepler-quits-xbox-update/], her harassment debacle and its connection to her quitting her job seems purely like a press generated issue (PR stunt?), since she expressly stated she didn't leave because of it.

I do condemn harassment of game industry people, however.
 

LiquidGrape

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mechalynx said:
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.

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

Ishal

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Zachary Amaranth said:
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.
I think the main thing is the situations the characters are in. Bioware is fond of layering plots and (attempting) intrigue in their stories. In Dragon Age there was the "small" evil, the little nastiness you had to deal with such as the werewolf thing. Then there is the "big" evil in Teryn Logain and behind it all is the Dark Spawn. The way characters feel about all this stuff (if they have opinions on it, not all do) is appealing to some people. It forces the player to care about certain things. In Mass Effect if you wanted to do the quests or missions associated with your crew, you got wrapped up in an overarching plot. Mordin and the genophage, for example.

As for the flirting, I can only assume you're referring to Zevran. I didn't think he was that great either. A big thing about Dragon Age is that it was very true to what it wanted to be, at first. It set itself up as a new fantasy world just like Ebberon or Forgotten Realms D&D settings. By now we've all seen how Bioware games have been formulaic, but I think that played to their advantage. Do something enough times and eventually you'll get good at it, right?

I don't think the characters were that great, but Bioware going in the direction of DAII was a mistake. It broke the formula they've been doing for so many years. Unsurprisingly the result is them falling flat on their faces.
 

Strain42

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While I have nothing against Hepler, and I am absolutely disgusted by the way the internet treated her, I just have no interest in supporting this game.

I couldn't even play through the first Mass Effect game because I was bored out of my skull. Why would I want to buy a game that's apparently Mass Effect-ish but so far sounds equivalent to a The Asylum movie for video games?

If she ever wants to start up her own Kickstarter on a game that interests me, I'm all for it, but this just doesn't sound like a game for me.

On that note, I think it's pretty hilarious that she referred to it as a rip-off. I don't think it belittles the project. In fact I think it shows just how well this woman knows gamers. If she hadn't called it that, then everyone else would have when they saw it. This way she sets it up as a joke, takes the wind out of the sails of a lot of would be "haters" and still probably draws a lot of interest from people who like Mass Effect style gameplay and would like to play more games like it.
 

Adam Jensen_v1legacy

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Knight Templar said:
She doesn't have to be a huge fan. I'm not a huge fan. I'm not a fan at all. But I know the value of LoTR books.
Thats not what you were previously attack her over.
If your position has changed to "She doesn't know the value" then you will need to support that one, no trying to get me to make your arguments for you.[/quote]
It's the same thing. How can she value it when she thinks that movies are better and that Twilight is better?
 

Mausthemighty

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Why do people care about the inclusion of Hepler? Her writing isn't that bad... I have to say most of the characters from DA2 were good.
Except for Anders. He went from nice and funny Alistair replacement to annoying vengeful abomination terrorist. His character was ruined.
 

freaper

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Apr 3, 2010
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Let's hope that she can start writing right from the start and that she won't get heckled throughout development, which is what happened for the Mass Effect series.
 
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Adam Jensen said:
Knight Templar said:
She doesn't have to be a huge fan. I'm not a huge fan. I'm not a fan at all. But I know the value of LoTR books.
Thats not what you were previously attack her over.
If your position has changed to "She doesn't know the value" then you will need to support that one, no trying to get me to make your arguments for you.
It's the same thing. How can she value it when she thinks that movies are better and that Twilight is better?[/quote]

The same way I can value what Led Zeppelin did for the music world while not being that big of a fan of them.

Also, you have said it several times. Do you have any proof that she likes Twilight more than LotR? Not that it makes all that much difference, taste being subjective, but you should back up the key points in your argument.