Compared to some of the stuff I've seen on other forums we are pretty tame here to be honest. There are places where if you ask people for help it's almost guaranteed they will ridicule or insult you. When I've needed help with for example modding people here have been super nice, spending quite some time with me just to make my silly game work properly.
Reminds me of one time it took me literally one post on MMO forum to be called "whiny noob that should just stop playing" (I just asked if there was a trick to grinding certain daily dungeon). That was my one and only post there
If three humans are in the room, there will be six opinions.
Its a term I thought had stopped being used but SOMEONE used it on Anthem. BioWare magic when used within the studio refers to a particularly bad bit of development that causes crunch. It isn't good or cool. Its naming a crappy thing in order to make it seem better, or ok. Much of this channel is dedicated to trying to improve process so that "BioWare Magic" or whatever other studios call it can disappear forever.
Chapters: 0:00 "BioWare Magic" 0:40 The Hockey Stick 1:41 Terrible 2:30 DO Something 3:06 Naming it Doesn't Make it Better 4:04 Its not JUST BioWare 5:16 Anthem 6:02 We can do BETTER
No it isn't and no it wasn't. It's a community that allows people to generally talk how they want which means there are certain individuals who use the opportunity to vent their spleen with indefatigable resolve, they are neither the majority nor representative of the average poster/viewer.
I've always intensely disliked the 'a few bad apples' analogy when it comes to spaces like a forum. Yeah it's digital, but some of us have been in this shared interest space for almost a decade, that deserves more than a dismissive hand wave of 'toxic.'
Emily C Taylor pentapod "If we ALL put 'working on our puns' on our development goals, they can't punish ALL of us, surely" "Or they can just get rid of all of us" "It's cool, who needs a design team anyway" #overheardintheoffice
Post by Unicephalon 40-D on Jan 18, 2022 16:30:22 GMT
The hockey stick is awful, as he said, it should be stepped one, where you get to iterate and test the game etc.
[ LegendCNCD / AsariLoverFI ] Waiting for ME5 - Look's like sometime in 2186, everything went to hell. We got out just ahead of it! MEA & ME1 (>>>> 3 > 2) -- DAI > DAO > DA2 -- 3500h+ & maxed out all 02/2020 in MEAMP, APEX 137001+, DAIMP (558/726/200), ANTHEM, SW BF II - Drinking tears of MP lamers since DooM & Quake in 90's softknees.bandcamp.com/ Go go go! I will destroy you! Watch out! Enemies everywhere! You must die!
Compared to some of the stuff I've seen on other forums we are pretty tame here to be honest. There are places where if you ask people for help it's almost guaranteed they will ridicule or insult you. When I've needed help with for example modding people here have been super nice, spending quite some time with me just to make my silly game work properly.
Sometimes I wish I can say the same but I’ve had some terrible experiences on here.
Compared to some of the stuff I've seen on other forums we are pretty tame here to be honest. There are places where if you ask people for help it's almost guaranteed they will ridicule or insult you. When I've needed help with for example modding people here have been super nice, spending quite some time with me just to make my silly game work properly.
Reminds me of one time it took me literally one post on MMO forum to be called "whiny noob that should just stop playing" (I just asked if there was a trick to grinding certain daily dungeon). That was my one and only post there
I’ll give BSN this, as bad as it can be sometimes, it’s better than places like No Mutants Allowed.
Its a term I thought had stopped being used but SOMEONE used it on Anthem. BioWare magic when used within the studio refers to a particularly bad bit of development that causes crunch. It isn't good or cool. Its naming a crappy thing in order to make it seem better, or ok. Much of this channel is dedicated to trying to improve process so that "BioWare Magic" or whatever other studios call it can disappear forever.
Chapters: 0:00 "BioWare Magic" 0:40 The Hockey Stick 1:41 Terrible 2:30 DO Something 3:06 Naming it Doesn't Make it Better 4:04 Its not JUST BioWare 5:16 Anthem 6:02 We can do BETTER
I see we're doing the catchy thumbnail emotes now.
Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, Mass Effect Andromeda, Anthem, Mass Effect Legendary Edition PSN: InquisitorBunny Prime Posts: 430 Prime Likes: 1114 Posts: 2,399 Likes: 8,701
Sometimes I wish I can say the same but I’ve had some terrible experiences on here.
That's sad, as far as I can remember my experiences here have been very positive, better than the OG forum. Maybe I've forgotten any bad things happening, but in general people here seem reasonable (even those some refer to as trolls) than those I encounter in other places. To me this is best gaming community I've been a part of, and sure we are small and pretty low key at the moment but I still greatly appreciate that this place exists and that people over the years keep being devoted to threads like these.
"He is the most foul, cruel, and bad-tempered rodent you ever set eyes on... He has got huge, sharp -- eh -- he can leap about -- look at the bones!"
Its a term I thought had stopped being used but SOMEONE used it on Anthem. BioWare magic when used within the studio refers to a particularly bad bit of development that causes crunch. It isn't good or cool. Its naming a crappy thing in order to make it seem better, or ok. Much of this channel is dedicated to trying to improve process so that "BioWare Magic" or whatever other studios call it can disappear forever.
David Gaider @davidgaider Mark out there telling it like it is. "BioWare Magic is bad process and lack of completion urgency." Yup.
One question is: "Why on EARTH would anyone compare such a terrible system to magic?"
It's like how science can seem like magic to those who don't understand science. This probably originated from those high up enough to have little awareness of what was actually happening.
To them, I suppose, the way the teams would get their shit together and, on a consistent basis, turn projects that seemed to be floundering into -- ta da! -- great games in a very short time seemed like pure wizardry.
It wasn't, of course. The "pivot point" Mark talks about always came after many many months - or years - of people further down the chain ringing alarm bells of how THIS IS NOT WORKING! DO SOMETHING!!
And they would. Eventually. Crunch and desperation to make up the shortfalls.
After each project, we'd have this big show of post-mortems where we'd talk about what went wrong. We'd get our anger off our chests, vows would be made to change... and were then quietly filed away and ignored.
Why? Because those projects were all, in the end, successes.
You reward success, right? Lead a project where the processes were so bad you ended up having death crunch to the point where half the team left the company after ship? Well, did it sell well? It did? Yay! You're now a hero!! Clearly you did SOMETHING right!
What's more, success meant those projects now became benchmarks. If it took X months to do Y then, it should now take X (or less! because this time we'll be somehow smarter!) to do it in this project. Never mind that X was only achieved through blood and sweat and tears.
There was magic at BioWare, don't get me wrong. And still is, I expect. The magic is passion. People who love what they do, and will make huge sacrifices to make games fans will adore.
Passion can be abused, however. And there's nothing even remotely magical about THAT.
David Gaider @davidgaider Mark out there telling it like it is. "BioWare Magic is bad process and lack of completion urgency." Yup.
seb hanlon @hanlsp It’s blood magic.
Your blood, and mine, and every comrade in arms who saw the sun going down on the project and lit pieces of themselves on fire so there’d be light enough to finish.
David Gaider @davidgaider God, it hurts how much that's absolutely true.
seb hanlon @hanlsp Painful truths and good coffee, that‘s my jam
Sometimes I wish I can say the same but I’ve had some terrible experiences on here.
That's sad, as far as I can remember my experiences here have been very positive, better than the OG forum. Maybe I've forgotten any bad things happening, but in general people here seem reasonable (even those some refer to as trolls) than those I encounter in other places. To me this is best gaming community I've been a part of, and sure we are small and pretty low key at the moment but I still greatly appreciate that this place exists and that people over the years keep being devoted to threads like these.
For a long time it was illegal to say that you've liked Andromeda and Anthem.
Have you met reddit? Sure there are some more aggressive posters on here but I have yet to see someone PM you death threats because they looked at your post history and found out you're a woman.
Kaidan, Cullen, and Alistair... I think I have a type.
Have you met reddit? Sure there are some more aggressive posters on here but I have yet to see someone PM you death threats because they looked at your post history and found out you're a woman.
I've been through worse like Dragon Age Wiki and Fallout forums. Doesn't discount the fact that BSN has toxicity.
The Dragon Age subreddit seems like a pretty chill place, honestly.
Heard some bad things about it specifically how they bullied a Youtuber into stopping covering Bioware games. But the Dragon Age fanbase was pretty horrible to me when I first joined. So I'm not surprised when I heard that.
The Dragon Age subreddit seems like a pretty chill place, honestly.
I think some of it depends on when someone joins forum or reddit or whatevs - I expect for things to pick up after next DA drops. Whether it will turn nastier may depend on who will show up on BSN when the time comes.
TBH, as much as I'm waiting for next DA, I do like the quiet, niche atmosphere where things are kinda slow-ish, compared to galloping topics and threads - they're fun for a while or in short bursts, but in the long run it's easy to get overwhelmed and the inherent negative bias makes negative interactions stick out more, compared to chill, casual discourse.
“The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.”
Its a term I thought had stopped being used but SOMEONE used it on Anthem. BioWare magic when used within the studio refers to a particularly bad bit of development that causes crunch. It isn't good or cool. Its naming a crappy thing in order to make it seem better, or ok. Much of this channel is dedicated to trying to improve process so that "BioWare Magic" or whatever other studios call it can disappear forever.
David Gaider @davidgaider Mark out there telling it like it is. "BioWare Magic is bad process and lack of completion urgency." Yup.
One question is: "Why on EARTH would anyone compare such a terrible system to magic?"
It's like how science can seem like magic to those who don't understand science. This probably originated from those high up enough to have little awareness of what was actually happening.
To them, I suppose, the way the teams would get their shit together and, on a consistent basis, turn projects that seemed to be floundering into -- ta da! -- great games in a very short time seemed like pure wizardry.
It wasn't, of course. The "pivot point" Mark talks about always came after many many months - or years - of people further down the chain ringing alarm bells of how THIS IS NOT WORKING! DO SOMETHING!!
And they would. Eventually. Crunch and desperation to make up the shortfalls.
After each project, we'd have this big show of post-mortems where we'd talk about what went wrong. We'd get our anger off our chests, vows would be made to change... and were then quietly filed away and ignored.
Why? Because those projects were all, in the end, successes.
You reward success, right? Lead a project where the processes were so bad you ended up having death crunch to the point where half the team left the company after ship? Well, did it sell well? It did? Yay! You're now a hero!! Clearly you did SOMETHING right!
What's more, success meant those projects now became benchmarks. If it took X months to do Y then, it should now take X (or less! because this time we'll be somehow smarter!) to do it in this project. Never mind that X was only achieved through blood and sweat and tears.
There was magic at BioWare, don't get me wrong. And still is, I expect. The magic is passion. People who love what they do, and will make huge sacrifices to make games fans will adore.
Passion can be abused, however. And there's nothing even remotely magical about THAT.
Negative and positive.
On the negative front this does add some gloomy forecassts on all the recent departures and what not that keep happening. Sure the end of the year is a time for culling of the heard, but still...and I cannot imagine Covid has made this any easier on them as I have also talked on could also be either contributing to crunch, stress, or just a general re shuffling of priorities.
On the positive note though one has to wonder how much things can change. You get smarter you realize mistakes have been made and you work to correct them. Bit distressing that the solution sometimes seems to be 'throw the baby out with the bath water' rather then trusting the people who were there and made the problems not to fix them and move on...which could be giving them too much credit. But really there are signs and comments that EA has at least revevaluated certain things, not the least that the game still isn't even out yet.
Patreon (for my writing, posting chapters of my novel)
David Gaider @davidgaider Mark out there telling it like it is. "BioWare Magic is bad process and lack of completion urgency." Yup.
One question is: "Why on EARTH would anyone compare such a terrible system to magic?"
It's like how science can seem like magic to those who don't understand science. This probably originated from those high up enough to have little awareness of what was actually happening.
To them, I suppose, the way the teams would get their shit together and, on a consistent basis, turn projects that seemed to be floundering into -- ta da! -- great games in a very short time seemed like pure wizardry.
It wasn't, of course. The "pivot point" Mark talks about always came after many many months - or years - of people further down the chain ringing alarm bells of how THIS IS NOT WORKING! DO SOMETHING!!
And they would. Eventually. Crunch and desperation to make up the shortfalls.
After each project, we'd have this big show of post-mortems where we'd talk about what went wrong. We'd get our anger off our chests, vows would be made to change... and were then quietly filed away and ignored.
Why? Because those projects were all, in the end, successes.
You reward success, right? Lead a project where the processes were so bad you ended up having death crunch to the point where half the team left the company after ship? Well, did it sell well? It did? Yay! You're now a hero!! Clearly you did SOMETHING right!
What's more, success meant those projects now became benchmarks. If it took X months to do Y then, it should now take X (or less! because this time we'll be somehow smarter!) to do it in this project. Never mind that X was only achieved through blood and sweat and tears.
There was magic at BioWare, don't get me wrong. And still is, I expect. The magic is passion. People who love what they do, and will make huge sacrifices to make games fans will adore.
Passion can be abused, however. And there's nothing even remotely magical about THAT.
Negative and positive.
On the negative front this does add some gloomy forecassts on all the recent departures and what not that keep happening. Sure the end of the year is a time for culling of the heard, but still...and I cannot imagine Covid has made this any easier on them as I have also talked on could also be either contributing to crunch, stress, or just a general re shuffling of priorities.
On the positive note though one has to wonder how much things can change. You get smarter you realize mistakes have been made and you work to correct them. Bit distressing that the solution sometimes seems to be 'throw the baby out with the bath water' rather then trusting the people who were there and made the problems not to fix them and move on...which could be giving them too much credit. But really there are signs and comments that EA has at least revevaluated certain things, not the least that the game still isn't even out yet.
Time for Game devs to unionise
*Looks at ActiBlizz hiring a union busting lawfirm and silencing people speaking to HR*
IMHO and based on my employment with both unionized and non-union companies ...
Unionized companies were generally excessively dysfunctional before they became unionized (and continue to be excessively dysfunctional after unionization). The bureaucracy of unions, and the "us versus them" culture they nurture, likely will not help upper management to make prompt decisions nor improve game quality.
Corporations who seem to care about their employees generally are not unionized, and have much more nimble and collaborative decision making.
John Epler @eplerjc: Having been in this industry for a while, one thing has proven out, time and time again. Success belongs to the team, and failure belongs to leadership. No game is a one-person show, or even close.
On the negative front this does add some gloomy forecassts on all the recent departures and what not that keep happening. Sure the end of the year is a time for culling of the heard, but still...and I cannot imagine Covid has made this any easier on them as I have also talked on could also be either contributing to crunch, stress, or just a general re shuffling of priorities.
On the positive note though one has to wonder how much things can change. You get smarter you realize mistakes have been made and you work to correct them. Bit distressing that the solution sometimes seems to be 'throw the baby out with the bath water' rather then trusting the people who were there and made the problems not to fix them and move on...which could be giving them too much credit. But really there are signs and comments that EA has at least revevaluated certain things, not the least that the game still isn't even out yet.
Time for Game devs to unionise
*Looks at ActiBlizz hiring a union busting lawfirm and silencing people speaking to HR*
Erm ...
All that ???will??? be improved by Microsoft's recent purchase of Activision. LOL
John Epler @eplerjc: Having been in this industry for a while, one thing has proven out, time and time again. Success belongs to the team, and failure belongs to leadership. No game is a one-person show, or even close.
Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, Mass Effect Andromeda, Anthem, Mass Effect Legendary Edition PSN: InquisitorBunny Prime Posts: 430 Prime Likes: 1114 Posts: 2,399 Likes: 8,701
Maybe I'm biased as a Swede where the unions are really strong, but I could never imagine not belonging to the union. It's given me so much and they have my back when I need them, and where I work I have 31 days of vacation not counting holidays or extra days off we have. And that's just one of the nicest bonuses they've contributed. I've heard American friends say they only get like what, 5 days a year? And no sick pay if you happen to catch the influenza? I can't imagine the stress working under these conditions.
But that's just my view of things.
"He is the most foul, cruel, and bad-tempered rodent you ever set eyes on... He has got huge, sharp -- eh -- he can leap about -- look at the bones!"
Maybe I'm biased as a Swede where the unions are really strong, but I could never imagine not belonging to the union. It's given me so much and they have my back when I need them, and where I work I have 31 days of vacation not counting holidays or extra days off we have. And that's just one of the nicest bonuses they've contributed. I've heard American friends say they only get like what, 5 days a year? And no sick pay if you happen to catch the influenza? I can't imagine the stress working under these conditions.
But that's just my view of things.
I mean the information sounds reallllllllllllyy out of date.
Patreon (for my writing, posting chapters of my novel)