Preston Watamaniuk, the CD on Anthem, once told a frustrated Producer that the Writer tasks couldn’t be scheduled as rigorously as he wanted because “Writing is like Jazz”.
I’ve held onto that phrase ever since.
Now, before any other Producers (or backseat Producers) clutch their pearls, I *don’t* mean “Writers can’t be scheduled”. Of course they can. Don’t be silly.
What it means is that, when it comes to creative tasks, velocities can vary. You must take into account factors like inspiration, “juice”, and the need for iteration to achieve a vague definition of quality.
Those factors don’t mesh well with a scheduling system that wants to break down tasks into minute detail, like you often can with other groups like Programming. Writing being different, however, does not mean it’s *irresponsible* - at all.
So what makes writing like Jazz? The need to account for that artsy-fartsy “creative process”. Yes, I will take three naps. Yes, we will spend an entire afternoon arguing about Sailor Moon. Somewhere, after all that, we’ll get ‘er done. If we’re good, that is. 😉
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I'm relieved to see that the Mass Effect/Amazon deal is for a potential TV series and not a movie. Even so, the possibility (and likewise for Dragon Age) makes me cringe just a little, unlike many fans who appear... excited?
Let me explain. (Thread)
For starters, ME and DA have a custom protagonist. Meaning said TV show will need to pick whether said protagonist will be male or female. Boom, right off the bat you've just alienated a whole bunch of the built-in fan base who had their hopes up.
Secondly, those protagonists are designed to be a bit of a blank slate, one that the player fills out with their decisions. That's not going to work for a passive medium. So, suddenly, the protagonist will have their own personality... and their own *story*. That will be weird.
The Australian & NZ dev communities are small, lovely, and protective of each other. In the short time I've been part of it, I've quietly heard plenty about what Jennifer has done - and personally watched her drive one talented young man out of the industry entirely.
The difficulty then, as now, is that Jennifer positioned herself publicly as not only a figure of influence but also a marginalized voice who is - by all appearances - on the side of woman in games. Challenging that, especially as a guy, was unthinkable. Yet... here we are.
The fact that Jennifer weaponized her own victimhood could end up damaging the position of every other female and minority dev who are all already trying so goddamn hard... it's disgusting. I demand the @IGDA take note and take action.
"If you could Zack Snyder DA2, what would you change?"
Wow. I'm willing to bet Mark or Mike (or anyone else on the team) would give very different answers than me, but it's enough to give a sober man pause, because that was THE Project of Multiple Regrets.
I mean, it's the most hypothetical of hypotheticals. It's never gonna happen. I wouldn't be surprised if EA considered DA2 its embarrassing red-headed stepchild. We'd also need to ignore that in many ways DA2 was as good as it was bad BECAUSE of how it was made.
But that aside?
First, either restore the progressive changes to Kirkwall we'd planned over the passing of in-game years or reduce the time between acts to months instead of years... which, in hindsight, probably should have been done as soon as the progressive stuff was cut.
May as well make this its own thread. First, the Laws of Naming Things, written after many long years during which naming *anything* in the game was the most contentious thing the team could ever do.
Example 1: "Qunari". At first, everyone hated it. "It sounds too much like canary". "The Qun is way too difficult to pronounce." Etc. etc. 6 months later, no-one wanted to change it. That's what they were called... what else could they be?
Example 2: The DA world was not supposed to be called "Thedas". That was a temp name: "THE/DA/Setting". But we left it too long, and when we sat down to give it a proper name... nothing else sounded right. In our minds, the name had stuck.
I was going to write up my coming out story for #NationalComingOutDay, but then I thought... wow, this story is really irrelevant now, isn't it? (thread inc)
By irrelevant I mean... well, when I was growing up, there were no examples of gay anything I could look to. Did you know that Liberace and even Boy George were initially thought to be straight? Eccentric, sure, but straight. Being gay was simply... 𝑑𝑒𝑣𝑖𝑎𝑛𝑡.
I remember a TV special called "An Early Frost" that came on TV when I was a teenager. It was about AIDS. Everything that I first heard that related to gayness which wasn't about 𝑠𝑒𝑥 was about AIDS. Gay sex meant death, and to many... we deserved it.
Look. If your first response to millions of women telling us they're afraid of and systemically oppressed by men is to worry at how all this talk will negatively impact "the good ones"...
...you're probably not one of "the good ones".
"Oh, you're just virtue signalling," sneers Skippy the Masculine Wonder.
Look, Skippy. The bar is pretty low right now. Considering how many men aggressively signal their boorishness, never mind anything approaching "virtue", let's not pretend to worry about sincerity just yet.
And, yes, I am sub-tweeting Skippy, someone I know IRL. Deal with it, Skippy.