General Video Game Thread
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@lithium
There were supposed to be more multi-lance missions in the game. Unfortunately, this was one of the features to go during development due to HBS' lawsuit issues. -
To be fair by the time I got to the final missions there I had enough spare mechwarriors/mechs to field multiple lances anyway. I mean you need the spare mechwarriors to keep running mission after people are inevitably dinged a little.
The spare mechs because you end up with a lot of them from salvage and can make money faster if you never need to stop for repairs. Plus it can be handy to have a mixture of low and high heat builds so that you can adapt to local climate conditions.
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So it didn't take me as long as I thought it would. I now can field two full lances of assaults and two full lances of heavies.
Mechwarriors less of an issue, I always kept extra's due to not liking to wait 72 days if someone nearly died.
Now I just got to figure out how to save APC's that get targeted and killed before I can even move...
Hello! Long time listener, first time caller...
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Perhaps this will interest people: https://games.slashdot.org/story/18/07/08/0150207/game-company-fires-two-employees-who-complained-about-mansplaining-on-twitter
- He who takes offense when not intended is a fool. He who takes offense when intended is a greater fool.
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@arkandel I plan on making a video on it. Well not on it, but originally on what it's like to be a female gamer / streamer from my point of view. I had an idea where I would get some guy friends to record some typical lines that happen, since I'm not a guy, but I told them ahead of time what sparked it because the woman who was fired was honest about her feelings about Total Biscuit's passing. (And obviously I can't speak for her, but having worked with him, and others who have who said the pretty much the same thing, it didn't come off to me that she was cheering his death.) But at the time I wasn't sure if I would include all this.
I got mansplained how she was wrong and how I was wrong, etc. When I just said okay, I'm not going to argue this I'm stepping out of the chat now, I got a very snippy Sorry not sorry for not being an echo-chamber, and two the guys who had said they would do the lines that they didn't think it was something they could get behind. (Them being brothers, and one of them the roommate of the mansplainer.)
I've written so many different versions of the script now, going back and forth, the only thing saving me so far has been my voice.
I just know that after all this ArenaNet isn't going to be getting any more of my money; not just for the firings, but just because of how the community is so toxic and hateful, gleefully gloating how she has been fired and someone posting on Reddit how they pretty much have ArenaNEt by the balls now (paraphrasing).
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@insomnia said in General Video Game Thread:
the only thing saving me so far has been my voice
You know people who can read these things for you.
It might even be hilarious to have a man reading your anti-mansplaining script.
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos -
@thenomain I do! But most of the guys I know who could are nice guys and honestly I can't picture them saying assholish things to me, or any other random female they bump in to while gaming. (The one who mansplained to me, I actually forgot that he was even in the group chat, he so rarely talks, and he was one of those "I'm not voting for Trump or Clinton, I want to see the world burn!" types. He actually said that to me, so not just type, I guess.
I will slide in to your DMs if you want? >.>
(Also, along with my voice, my video card has died, so it's not like I can edit right now anyway.).
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@thenomain said in General Video Game Thread:
It might even be hilarious to have a man reading your anti-mansplaining script.
In the industry we call that pulling a @surreality.
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So right now I'm floating the idea of having women read the mansplain lines. @Insomnia is afraid that she doesn't know enough women who would do this, so I'm looking for volunteers to read lines like:
So is this your boyfriend's channel?
And:
Oh good, we need a healer.
PM me and/or Insomnia if you're a woman who wants to be a mansplainer for the irony and luls. Thanks.
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Every time people act like that in some manner of gaming forum (not just forums, I mean as in venue for communication) I think back to when I played Guildwars 2 after launch.
I was in one of the top competitive guilds for World v World v World PVP, we were the main force on our server and our server kept bouncing between positions 2 and 3, every time we got into no 2 we would be up against the dread power of the French and their French Canadian allies and be knocked back to the no 3 slot.
Still the main person who lead us in battle, coordinating merciless offensives and herding the swarm of cats that was a huge MMO guild? She was a 40 something nurse with a broad Brummie accent and an endless supply of amazing curses who did not take any shit from anyone.
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@arkandel said in General Video Game Thread:
Perhaps this will interest people: https://games.slashdot.org/story/18/07/08/0150207/game-company-fires-two-employees-who-complained-about-mansplaining-on-twitter
I read this on one of the RPG forums. She was fired by Paizo a few years ago for pretty much the same thing, although they kept it really low key. The only nice thing I can say about her, is that at least she won't be doing harm to role-playing or video games in the near future. Hopefully the next professional words she utters are "Would you like fries with that?"
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@tyche said in General Video Game Thread:
Hopefully the next professional words she utters are "Would you like fries with that?"
The message this incident sends to any game developer - or any developer, especially female ones - is disgusting, and best summarized in the original article:
"If Reddit wants you fired, we’ll fire you. The quality of your work doesn’t matter. Your personal space, your personal social media, is not yours; you are on the clock 100 percent of the time. We own you. You’re not allowed to be yourself, you’re not allowed to get frustrated, and you’re not allowed to have your own space to breathe. Get out there and make sure the players have a good time. And make sure you smile while they hit you."
Anybody who thinks that employment on the basis of mob rule is a good thing... I just can't even.
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@faraday said in General Video Game Thread:
Anybody who thinks that employment on the basis of mob rule is a good thing... I just can't even.
Whether it is a good thing is irrelevant. It is the thing, and being naïve to the clear and present danger of venting your spleen publicly is no excuse. A male writer was also fired for defending Jessica Price; ArenaNet is an equal opportunist idiot when it comes to dismissing for lashing back at Twitter trolls.
“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
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@ganymede said in General Video Game Thread:
It is the thing, and being naïve to the clear and present danger of venting your spleen publicly is no excuse.
There may also be a few other things at work here.
We don't know if she had previous issues within the company directly re: taking criticism. She works in a collaborative environment. If she behaved towards her coworkers as she did towards the Twitter users that responded to her (who was not, btw, a troll in his behaviors: I saw the thread, because it was RT'd on my timeline, before it all blew up), then she needs to learn how to interact in that environment and take criticism.
The user in question did compliment her and was very polite in his approach. I have seen, directly, how these guys approach all devs. Not just female (I've seen examples of 'mansplaining' before and it gets gross. This was not it), but all of them. He was polite. He was trying to engage. This wasn't a random gamer. He's a huge contributor fan-side on ArenaNet. He's had content he inspired in the game. I think the 'Reddit, we are legion hurr hurr' is disingenuous at best and Reddit assholes trying to take credit. The guy in question was probably not involved in that leg of the whole exchange.
She made it about gender, he did not. He never brought up her gender. He never pulled a 'Okay honey...' sort of spiel (which I have seen before). She's the one who brought gender into it. I personally think that if she had not RT'd the exchange with a snipe at him, it would have been fine.
But I think it really goes back to point one: we don't know if she's had other incidents. We don't know if she's had problems at work with taking criticism, too. What if she handles feedback from her coworkers in this same light? If she does, then maybe it is time for her to move on and do something else.
Do I think the gamers/Reddit/4chan at large handled it poorly? Yes.
Do I think she handled it poorly? Yes. She should not have RT'd it with an attack on the Twitter user.There's a reason a lot of people have their 'I am a <writer/artist/dev> at company' Twitter and then their personal Twitter that doesn't have any mention of said company at all these days and carefully curate the two. She had her Twitter branded. She was posting about her job, ArenaNet, etc. on the main one. It may have been 'her' Twitter, but she was still representing the company while on it and she attacked a fan. Not just 'a fan,' but one who has been one of their community leaders.
Saying the quiet parts out loud since 1996.
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@auspice
That was my take away from the whole thing. I do not see Arenanet in the wrong on this one - although I think Peter should have probably been suspended, that was the only heavy handed result I think came out of it. -
@auspice said in General Video Game Thread:
It may have been 'her' Twitter, but she was still representing the company while on it and she attacked a fan. Not just 'a fan,' but one who has been one of their community leaders.
There has to be some separation between personal and professional lives. She wasn't engaging in hate speech or any sort of illegal activity. Firing someone and taking away their livelihood because they were rude to one person on the internet on their own time and on their own private Twitter account is abhorrent to me.
Now if there was some kind of larger pattern, prior warnings, a company policy against engaging with users on your social media, etc. (none of which have come to light but admittedly we don't know the whole story) then that's different. But this happens time and time again and I think it's wrong.
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@faraday said in General Video Game Thread:
There has to be some separation between personal and professional lives.
In general I agree with you, but in this case it was her responsibility as well to separate those two aspects of her lives, and she didn't manage it very well.
It'd be quite inappropriate for example if I got fired because of comments I made on my Facebook feed about politics in general; it's not my employer's business to regulate what I do outside of work hours when it entails non-work stuff.
However if on my FB feed I was engaging customers and referring to the products I'm working on as part of my job then in many ways I am representing the company - or it could very easily, not to be mentioned fairly, taken that way.
- He who takes offense when not intended is a fool. He who takes offense when intended is a greater fool.
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@faraday said in General Video Game Thread:
Now if there was some kind of larger pattern, prior warnings, a company policy against engaging with users on your social media, etc. (none of which have come to light but admittedly we don't know the whole story) then that's different.
That's why I'm saying we don't know the whole story. The way she retweeted him and attacked him? That's really, really poor behavior and shows someone incapable of taking.... well, I mean, it wasn't even criticism. She was basically trying to call attack dogs down on someone she didn't like. You just don't do that. She didn't engage in hate speech herself, but she sure did encourage it. The people who did engage in it on her behalf got replies of agreement/appreciation from her.
I'm not going to defend her. Should she have been fired? Maybe not. Not if it was a first incident. But I'm not going to call her blameless, either.
Saying the quiet parts out loud since 1996.
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@arkandel said in General Video Game Thread:
I am representing the company - or it could very easily, not to be mentioned fairly, taken that way.
Nevertheless I believe that "don't ever say something dumb that makes the company look bad or we'll fire you on your first offense" is an idiotic company policy. Counsel her, make her apologize if she's wrong, tell her to stop even vaguely representing the company on twitter... there are any number of reasonable approaches short of the "off with their head!" that the internet clamors for these days.
ETA in response to @Auspice's comment: Oh I'm not defending what she said, only her right to say it without getting fired IF that was the only thing she did. I really wouldn't be surprised if that were the case. Especially because I think the company would have said something about it in their press release instead of trumpeting what amounts to a zero-tolerance policy to talking back to customers on private social media accounts.
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@auspice said in General Video Game Thread:
She didn't engage in hate speech herself, but she sure did encourage it.
Also... are we talking about the same thread? The one I read was just her rant-replying to somebody whom she perceived as mansplaining and calling them an "asshat" for doing it. I don't think that's how people should treat each other on the internet, but that's still a far cry from "encouraging hate speech".
