Jennifer Hepler leaves Bioware due to threats by fans

[Terminal Blue]

Here's the thing though, if you "just want the story bits" and don't like the actual game bits, WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU PLAYING A VIDEOGAME? Videogame stories are fucking awful anyway compared to pretty much every other storytelling medium, and that goes triple when they ignore their one strength over other media, interactivity. The very thing you seem to agree with Hepler should be done away with.

We have these things.

They're called roleplaying games.

It's a like a story.. but with interactive elements and mechanics to resolve conflicts.

Sometimes, though, people like playing without dice and resolving conflict through consent.

That's not the wrong way to play the game.

It's a different kind of roleplaying.

 

[Sparrow]

Jesus Thri, we get it. You used to work for BioWare. Try to at least conceal your bias.

How is his bias relevant to the question? I'm not terribly familiar with the specific sections Hepler wrote, and couldn't say with any authority whether her writing is "good" or "bad". Given she found employment as a writer, I suspect it is at least "average", if not necessarily to my taste, but what do I know?

Just substantiate your argument. Show some examples of her writing and demonstrate why it's bad. That's fair, isn't it? That's how proper argumentation works.

The phrasing of his response revealed his bias. It wasn't simply put, ie "Why do you think that?" No, instead it was some snarky response to something he disagreed with.

In response to why I think she's a terrible writer, there are a few reasons. Chief among them however is her part in turning most of the character in Dragon Age 2 bisexual. Now there are a bunch of reasons why I dislike that, and before anyone says anything it's not because I'm a homophobe, but the main reason I disliked it so much is because of the character Anders. In between Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age II, he'd suddenly become bisexual. I get it's not a big deal for some people, but I'd be just as pissed if a gay character suddenly turned straight in between two games. The thing that especially gets me about it is that Anders even gets creeped out by the idea of a guy having sex with him in DA:O. There's a specific line where he replies to a joke about guards at the Mages Tower coming onto him, to which he replies "Eww." Essentially, they retconned a character to make him a viable romance option. They altered his character to make him part of a game mechanic. To me, that's just shoddy writing.

 

[Seydaman]

...Really? Are people so cruel?

It's a fucking game, regardless of how you feel about the quality of its writing, threats are never, in any way, okay. This is why the media gangs up on videogames.

 

[GloatingSwine]

Here's the thing though, if you "just want the story bits" and don't like the actual game bits, WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU PLAYING A VIDEOGAME? Videogame stories are fucking awful anyway compared to pretty much every other storytelling medium, and that goes triple when they ignore their one strength over other media, interactivity. The very thing you seem to agree with Hepler should be done away with.

We have these things.

They're called roleplaying games.

It's a like a story.. but with interactive elements and mechanics to resolve conflicts.

Sometimes, though, people like playing without dice and resolving conflict through consent.

That's not the wrong way to play the game.

It's a different kind of roleplaying.

Pen and paper roleplaying is almost completely irrelevant to computer roleplay, because computer roleplaying games don't have a GM who can adapt the story as the players interact with it. Which is why computer RPGs are invariably highly challenge focused, predominantly combat challenge focused because it turns out that that element is what computers are actually very good at doing.

And even the games that do have alternative methods of resolution don't have a fucking fast forward button that just makes the combat go away, they generally require more skill and strategising to avoid combat than they do to engage in it.

 

[___________________]

Getting death threats from nerds eh? Yes, that is something to worry about. Watch out everyone, Eugene is going for his inhaler.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

Here's the thing though, if you "just want the story bits" and don't like the actual game bits, WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU PLAYING A VIDEOGAME? Videogame stories are fucking awful anyway compared to pretty much every other storytelling medium, and that goes triple when they ignore their one strength over other media, interactivity. The very thing you seem to agree with Hepler should be done away with.

She never asked for interactivity to be removed, she asked for a way to bypass repetitive and tedious combat sequences in order to get to the other parts of the game. This could work in any number of games where combat is mixed up with puzzles, NPC interactions or moral dilemmas.

Imagine that you are playing The Witcher 2 for example (chosen specifically because it has NPC interactions and moral dilemmas outside of combat, a complex storyline with moral gray areas and lots of choices with no right answers and a frequent complaint levied against it is that the combat is frustrating) and you could decide to select the option "less combat" which would make the player face less enemies and deal more damage in order to shorten the combat sequences. You still get to the good parts of character interactions, story development and the choices but you don't have to spend 45 minutes in that god damn swamp killing those annoying nekkers that keep respawning just so you can complete the troll side quest.

Honestly, I really don't see why this has caused such an outrage among gamers. She is suggesting the idea that players should be able to tailor their gaming experience to suit their own preferences, so that more people can enjoy the same game. Just like in the Dark Souls Easy-mode discussion it is borderline stupid to rail against the idea, because you aren't losing anything if it isn't your cup of tea whereas others might be getting something out of it. How is that a bad thing?

 

[Ravinoff]

Good riddance, far as I'm concerned. I didn't even play DA:O and I found the story of DA2 utterly insufferable. And don't even get me started on Anders, if there was an option to punch him in the face every time he opens his idiot mouth, I'd take it.

 

[GloatingSwine]

Here's the thing though, if you "just want the story bits" and don't like the actual game bits, WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU PLAYING A VIDEOGAME? Videogame stories are fucking awful anyway compared to pretty much every other storytelling medium, and that goes triple when they ignore their one strength over other media, interactivity. The very thing you seem to agree with Hepler should be done away with.

She never asked for interactivity to be removed, she asked for a way to bypass repetitive and tedious combat sequences in order to get to the other parts of the game. This could work in any number of games where combat is mixed up with puzzles, NPC interactions or moral dilemmas.

No, she did not.

She did not make any intimation that she wanted to bypass "repetitive and tedious" sequences, she wanted to be able to bypass all combat sequences because she doesn't like them. Not because they aren't good, but because she does not like them in principle.


People need to stop telling this lie. Hepler did not want a way to skip combat because it was repetitive and tedious but because she's shit at it and thinks other people who are shit at combat in videogames would want to skip it in Bioware games so they can get at more of her contribution (rather than just playing other videogames that did have things they were good at and liked in instead).


Even if she were talking about skipping repetitive and tedious combat the answer would not be to skip it but to make it not repetitive and tedious in the first place!

 

[Monster_user]

She doesn't like it because it is repetitive, she hates it because she has no skill, and no desire to gain that skill.

Doesn't mean your points are any less valid, it's just that you and Helper disagree on why.

Here's the thing though, if you "just want the story bits" and don't like the actual game bits, WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU PLAYING A VIDEOGAME? Videogame stories are fucking awful anyway compared to pretty much every other storytelling medium, and that goes triple when they ignore their one strength over other media, interactivity. The very thing you seem to agree with Hepler should be done away with.

She never asked for interactivity to be removed, she asked for a way to bypass repetitive and tedious combat sequences in order to get to the other parts of the game. This could work in any number of games where combat is mixed up with puzzles, NPC interactions or moral dilemmas.

Imagine that you are playing The Witcher 2 for example (chosen specifically because it has NPC interactions and moral dilemmas outside of combat, a complex storyline with moral gray areas and lots of choices with no right answers and a frequent complaint levied against it is that the combat is frustrating) and you could decide to select the option "less combat" which would make the player face less enemies and deal more damage in order to shorten the combat sequences. You still get to the good parts of character interactions, story development and the choices but you don't have to spend 45 minutes in that god damn swamp killing those annoying nekkers that keep respawning just so you can complete the troll side quest.

Honestly, I really don't see why this has caused such an outrage among gamers. She is suggesting the idea that players should be able to tailor their gaming experience to suit their own preferences, so that more people can enjoy the same game. Just like in the Dark Souls Easy-mode discussion it is borderline stupid to rail against the idea, because you aren't losing anything if it isn't your cup of tea whereas others might be getting something out of it. How is that a bad thing?

Agreed.

For those who keep arguing that she is talking about skipping gameplay, what then is a dialog tree?

The dialog tree is the gameplay. A game like Mass Effect has a dialog tree with so much interactivity and entertainment value that it is the best part of the game. The combat in games is merely an annoyance. I've struggled against the overwhelming odds more times than I can count, and compared to endless horde survival modes in modern games (or Kobayashi Maru scenarios), there is much less challenge.

The combat is simply not as engaging the 9,999th time as it was the first time. Adding new combat options helps some, but only goes so far. I've gotten to the point I don't care about the numbers, I care about the dialogue, the reactions of my opponents. The only bad guys I really like to fight anymore, are the grunts in Halo.

 

[RA92]

People deserve to have their video games taken away and sent to their rooms till they fucking grow up.

 

[GloatingSwine]

And there are games for those people, those games are called films. (Cheat code: Press >>)

So are you saying everyone who like the Bioshock Infinite game solely for story should just go watch a movie instead?
How narrow.

If you don't like FPS combat, why play an FPS where the overwhelming majority of your time will be spent doing something you don't like?

She doesn't like them, because she struggles with it. She never said games should do away with it. She simply said that it should be an option.

It is an option though, just play different games.

And I'm sorry, but not all the stories in videogames suck.

No, just almost all of them.

People play Bioware games solely for the story. Even in their advertisements, their biggest selling point is how the player is going to get an awesome story with their choices mattering. Almost all of the threads relating to Bioware and BSN revolve around the characters, the choices you can possibly make with said characters, and the outcome of those choices.

But I suspect the vast majority of the people who play Bioware games for the story also like the actual gameplay elements of videogames, because if they didn't they wouldn't be playing fucking videogames in the first place!

For Bioware fans- interacting with the characters is the game.
Bioware games for all intents and purposes are Western videogame novels. A popular genre in Japan where those kinds of games are very widespread. An example of such games would be Hatoful boyfriend.p

Bioware games are fuck all like visual novels. Also: Visual novels are fucking terrible. Really, if you want to read a book read a fucking book. Japan just likes them because, let's face it, most of them are porn.

And those things did not involve hand eye co-ordination, reflex skills, combat, or any other thing she is terrible at. Perhaps except inventory.

They're still challenge elements. It doesn't matter what type of challenge elements they are, they're still present because that's the thing that seperates videogames from other media. If someone is bad at combat they shouldn't demand games with lots of combat change to cater to them, they should play games with different challenges that are more fun for them!.

That analogy is poor. Aside from the fact that salads are still a food, that would be the same as said chef simply requesting that they provide other foods then just fish and lobster.

No, again you're putting words into Hepler's mouth that she didn't say, she did not say "I think we should include more diverse elements in our games as well as combat", she said "people want to skip past the combat to get at dialogue".

She is explicitly calling for the challenge element of the games to be removed because she doesn't like that challenge element. She is not calling for it to be replaced with anything, she is calling for it to be removed. (NB: If a challenge can be skipped at the player's behest, it's no longer a challenge.)

 

[GloatingSwine]

I repeat: if an employee from EA or Zynga had said what she said, we wouldn't even be having this conversation. You'd all be agreeing with me, hopping on the old bandwagon, and my posts would have been forgotten within 24 hours and wouldn't have been drummed up into this HUGE multi-page argument. But no, she's from Bioware and may have been involved in making some games we like, initiate defense sequence immediately! YOU all made this a big deal, not me. I was perfectly content to say my piece and move on.

If someone from EA had said it they'd be talking about putting in a fast forward button and charging you a dollar to use it...

 

[Terminal Blue]

Pen and paper roleplaying is almost completely irrelevant to computer roleplay, because computer roleplaying games don't have a GM who can adapt the story as the players interact with it.

No, they have preprogrammed choices which adapt the story as the players interact with them. It's a more limited form of engagement, but it's still engagement and some people (freaks that they are) find that element more enjoyable than hammering a mouse button to make a fictional person swing a sword.

Which is why computer RPGs are invariably highly challenge focused, predominantly combat challenge focused because it turns out that that element is what computers are actually very good at doing.

In most recent bioware games, there will be points where the player will go for sustained periods of time without any combat. A good example is the opening visit to the citadel in Mass Effect 1, it takes well over half an hour (assuming not skipping dialogue) to get from one combat scene to the next, and that assumes you know what you're doing and won't just wander off for an explore.

Dragon Age Origins has several novels worth of dialogue. You can spend many hours in dialogue and exploration without encountering combat at all.

Indeed, one of the big complaints people had about DA2 (and one of the ones I'd agree with) is that it was padded out with unnecessary combat everywhere, seemingly out of fear that people would get bored if there was too much talky talky and not enough hacky slashy. Well, turns out a significant portion of the fanbase aren't playing the games for that.

Don't assume that your core engagement with these games is the same as everyone else. I think that was kind of Hepler's point, wasn't it? There are countless games which purely focus on hack and slash dungeon crawling. Why are you playing Bioware games if that's all you're looking for? The combat has never been anything special. Go play Torchlight 2, or Dark Souls, or even NetHack. You have entire genres dedicated to giving you what you want, if Hepler wants one game to give her the option to play how she wants I don't frankly see what the problem is or indeed how it impacts on you.

 

[Monster_user]

Let's get to the root of that by looking at actual definitions of "video game":

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/video%20game = an electronic game played by means of images on a video screen and often emphasizing fast action

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/video+game = An electronic or computerized game played by manipulating images on a video display or television screen.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/video+game = any of various games played using a microcomputer with a keyboard and often joysticks to manipulate changes or respond to the action or questions on the screen.

Do note that in every case, we've got similar themes as to what is required:

1) The device has some form of video display.
2) The device is "playable" (will get into that next).
3) The device is manipulated with external input devices such as joysticks.

Now, a game that lets you skip everything except the dialogue still fits 1 and 3. But does it fit 2? Well, no. You're not participating in any sort of activity at all. Your button pushes are akin to your finger turning the page in a book, or the buttons on your remote that control the movie. Are those activities "play"? Not in the slightest. You're in engaged in the activity, you're just there to turn the pages and let the story play out.

Most dialog is not interactive. However, some dialogue sequences are puzzles, and some are more interactive than others. I would go to the ME3 interrogation scene as an example. Another example is the classic Monkey Island game, it had a sword fight which was handled via absurd dialog, not playable combat. Interactive dialogue where you both explore, and direct the narrative is rare, but it is still gameplay.

Also, I would claim that "Choose your own adventure" books are a form of play. Perhaps more passive than most video games, but still a form of play.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

I repeat: if an employee from EA or Zynga had said what she said, we wouldn't even be having this conversation. You'd all be agreeing with me, hopping on the old bandwagon, and my posts would have been forgotten within 24 hours and wouldn't have been drummed up into this HUGE multi-page argument. But no, she's from Bioware and may have been involved in making some games we like, initiate defense sequence immediately! YOU all made this a big deal, not me. I was perfectly content to say my piece and move on.

So you start a discussion about something and when people disagree with you you accuse them of being intellectually dishonest and actually not thinking what they claim to be thinking but are rather just opposing you because they are fan boys? Nice, that's really classy.

See, you wanted to say your piece, the rest of us wanted to say ours. That's how discussion works and it is the integral difference between a forum (which, as the name suggests, is meant to exchange ideas and opinions) and a blog (in which you can say whatever you want and stop any attempts at replies). If you really wanted to say your piece you could have just done so and walked away. But your insistence on coming back belies the fact that you aren't content with saying your piece and moving on, so the problem is not us but your perceived need of getting the last word in.

At least be mature (since you are accusing many who disagree with you of being immature) enough to respect that people can hold an opinion different from your own without accusing them of being fan boys or disagreeing with you just for the sake of disagreeing. It is unbecoming in any discussion, but particularly so when you try to assume a moral high ground of being the only civil and sensible poster.

 

[MrBrightside919]

Most trolls just want comedy. "Hamburger Helper" jokes are not the same as death threats. All you need is one crazy person.

So what we have here is an aledged, 2 year old death threat and many Escapists (not you) just looking for an excuse to go all doomsday about the state of gaming.

All trolls look the same to me...their "jokes" just meld together after a while...

 

[Delerien]

As far as i know it's by the way not possible to skip the dialogue in DA or ME. You can skip cutscences which often consist of dialogue, but there is a difference. You still have to make the choices during the dialogue so the interactivity there is not removed. I don't really see why the combat should be treated differently.

 

[Terminal Blue]

As far as i know it's by the way not possible to skip the dialogue in DA or ME. You can skip cutscences which often consist of dialogue, but there is a difference.

In ME3 you could play in "Action" mode, which takes out most of the dialogue and roleplaying options and makes all the conversations effectively scripted cutscenes.

There's also "Narrative" mode. It doesn't exactly skip the combat, but it makes it very, very easy to the point of not really requiring any skill or effort at all.

Frankly, I think there's probably a lot of future in that kind of system. It's a bit crude and reeks of dividing players into marketing demographics, but overall it's quite a nice touch. I imagine almost everyone buying the game played it in default roleplaying mode, and frankly, I don't think they lost a single tiny thing from the existence of those alternate modes.

If anyone is offended by the mere fact that these things exist, then all I can say is that I hope I never meet them because they sound really insecure.

 

[Bruce]

For a lot of games combat serves as filler, it doesn't actually add to the game, and sometimes avoiding combat is more fun than actually engaging in it. Think about Dishonored for example, or better yet Fallout.

Fallout did it so well that you could actually achieve an evil pacifist run if you wanted.

So, I think it is a pity she didn't have a bit more of an influence over Bioware - the pacifist run option was once a staple of Western RPGs.