GW 2 Devs/Playerbase Twitter Discussion

[Zalani.9827]

@DaShi.1368 said:

@Ashen.2907 said:

@DaShi.1368 said:He post was basically, "I think you're writing sucks. Now smile for me."

This is factually inaccurate.

I paraphrased to describe what a woman may feel on the receiving end of his post. I thought that was obvious. I hope it clearer now.

....As a woman I thought he was fine.

Playing the victim card just makes girls like me seem like we can't take criticism without getting all weirdly personal about it.

I don't care what gender they are, if they have a problem with my work I will talk it out with them like a normal person without immediately going to personal attacks. Since I find having to resort to personal attacks to get a point across to be pathetic frankly.

[slayerking.3581]

@DaShi.1368 said:

@slayerking.3581 said:

@DaShi.1368 said:

@slayerking.3581 said:

@DaShi.1368 said:

@slayerking.3581 said:

@DaShi.1368 said:

@Ashen.2907 said:

@DaShi.1368 said:He post was basically, "I think you're writing sucks. Now smile for me."

This is factually inaccurate.

I paraphrased to describe what a woman may feel on the receiving end of his post. I thought that was obvious. I hope it clearer now.

Clear as mud! Not one thing said by Deroir was offensive or rude at all. All you are doing is clutching at straws. Whether it was a male or female it was a response to a public post that got a reply totally uncalled for by ANYONE male or female. Instead of offering her professional opinion she went full kitten and when you have your employers details out in public view and abuse someone like she did on something about working at that company prepare to be sacked and again male or female.

Deroir didn't ask for her professional opinion.

No he/she politely gave a retort to an open piece then got abused and slammed as sexist, That is not the way a professional acts.

Again, I don't agree that it was polite. You'll have to convince me otherwise to move forward in your conversations with me. Unless you just want to hear yourself talk. In that case, I understand why you relate to Deroir so much.

See you're being rude now for nothing, Is it so hard to talk about something without being rude? Maybe you should go back and read what Deroir posted again and again if necessary. Deroir was extremely polite, put their points across in a polite manner and instead of a polite response or no response got abused for literally nothing.Just so you know I have been programming since the 80's and also a builder, Yes I have idiots that try to tell me how to do things or what I should be doing but I don't abuse them for it and I AM a complete kitten hole! I just giggle to myself and ignore them. If JP thought that's what was happening then she should have ignored it or been more diplomatic about the response.

I'm so sorry I hurt your feelings. But that doesn't change the fact that I've not convinced that he was polite. I don't understand why you are responding to me, without addressing it, when it is the crux of everything else you've written.

Again you result to being rude shows what sort of person you are! I have addressed it many times it's just you refuse to look. You have you blinders on and are going in a straight line of the man is wrong. How about you go read what what JP originally posted and what the response was.For your information I don't care who calls who whatever the fact is her quick response was her undoing simple as that. It's a shame but the company has a standard to keep and JP didn't keep those standards in the eyes of her employer, so nothing that you or I say matters in the slightest.

[morrolan.9608]

@squallaus.8321 said:

@melodyca.8921 said:

Im staying away from the game for awhile. I don't need to deal with a bunch of whiny duebros who resent female gamers and hate female developers. The world is changing and people need to learn to accept that.

Except they are not present in this case.

Yeah they are, like I said the controversy was discussed in the kotaku in action sub reddit and then it appears a number of sockpuppet twitter accounts were made to brigade Price's twitter.

[Azrielvon.7836]

@Zalani.9827 said:

@DaShi.1368 said:

@Ashen.2907 said:

@DaShi.1368 said:He post was basically, "I think you're writing sucks. Now smile for me."

This is factually inaccurate.

I paraphrased to describe what a woman may feel on the receiving end of his post. I thought that was obvious. I hope it clearer now.

....As a women I thought he was fine.

Playing the victim card just makes girls like me seem like we can't take criticism without getting all weirdly personal about it.

I don't care what gender they are, if they have a problem with my work I will talk it out with them like a normal person without immediately going to personal attacks. Since I find having to resort to personal attacks to get a point across to be pathetic frankly.

This is exactly what I'm saying. I literally had 0 problems discussing with female colleagues but I do admit I'm more reserved in my opinions until I know that they're not the SJW type. This is the kind of equality we should strive for.

[cherrie.8907]

I am really glad Anet took this matter seriously.

As for people bashing on ANet for "firing" either JP or Fries, I'd like to remind everyone that none of you apart from the parties involved knows what really went down. You do not know what contracts were signed, you do not know if there was any previous history involved and you do not know how the talks went down.

@DaShi.1368 said:

@"squallaus.8321" said:Now we get to the heart of it. Why should Derior give special treatment in the way that he "talk to women". I think he rather be gender neutral.

This is nonsense. Try again later.No, Princess Snowflake. This is the real deal.

You know why people keep on asking you why you think Deroir was inappropriate to JP over and over?because he wasn't and your arguments - nor her agruments - do not hold up.The only rude, inappropriate, toxic person in the whole trio was JP, and not for the first time, either.

[Belorn.2659]

@morrolan.9608 said:

@DaShi.1368 said:

@"Victus.9301" said:ArenaNet you are freaking cowards, at best this is a kitten "talk with HR" situation, but no gotta appease the mob calling for blood. Glad to see we haven't progressed at all from 2014.

I"m surprised they aren't calling her a witch.

Its interesting, this controversy was cross posted to the kotaku in action sub reddit, which is the sub reddit where kitten types frequent. With the result being at least some of the controversy has been inflamed by them and now they are sticking around. So congrats MOB you've made GW2 the mmo for gamergaters, not sure you really want that.

Alternative they could have made GW2 the mmo who celebrate when cancer victims dies. With that kind of friends you don't need enemies.

[tibbletoad.9528]

I knew of the woman getting fired, but who was the other one?

I feel it was a good response to it all.

Why are some of you losing respect for the company because they fired her?

[TheGrimm.5624]

There are at least three sides to all things. Key is balance. If Anet holds players to one standard, they also need to hold the devs to the same. Its that simple. You bring things out of balance, be prepared to face the lose of income.

[Cwnannwn.7681]

Just chiming to add a voice to the statement that firing the writers over was anet taking the coward's way out over nonsense.

Also once again streamers are rewarded for being whiny babies.

[Zero Of Shadow.2576]

i have to say, it has been an interesting read, and i don't really care for what happens one way or another, i noticed a lot of the people in this thread are trying to argue ethics, rather then buisness.

but i think the thing to consider is: as long as you are discussing your job, you are, in turn, representing it, regardless of "where" you are doing so, which is why so many jobs don't hire for things as simple as pictures of you drinking on your social media, cause your public presence will always be related to the business.

https://twitter.com/DeroirGaming/status/1014280605599748096this is what started the ordeal, and reading through it, he was civil, and simply stating his personal opinion on the type of storytelling he enjoys, which appears to be the fallout multiple choice method?

but other then that, it was civil and completely polite, until she replied.

and yes, she has a right to respond however she wants, both good and bad, as long as it doesn't break any twitter rules.

but you also change your audience when you work for a company, and bad PR is bad PR, when you are (quite literally) discussing something pertaining to the game (the AMA), you are in turn, representing your company, so you need to respond as if you are being watched, cause you are.

looking through several other things posted about her (infinity war, as well as her quite frankly, un-needed comment on TB) she has a very abrasive personality, one that can very well hurt the appearance of a company and its assets, and if thats the case, should make a private(see: literal private, not personal) account for that.

if someone acted like she did in game, they'd probably get a temp ban/perma, depending on which part we wish to look at, and if that is the precedent they choose to set, it applies to people who work there also.

edit: as a quick aside, you can also just block people on twitter and not engage them, instead of being rude to them, which woulda ended this thing before it started, there is no need to engage people you think are judging you or what say you

[Manasa Devi.7958]

@DaShi.1368 said:

@Morg.5986 said:

@DaShi.1368 said:Go to your first post and read from there.So by all of this logic, I could knock someone's head off tomorrow because what a dude went through 30 years ago? In what world does this make sense?

I thought we were having a reasonable discussion. Reductio ad absurdum is disingenuous. I'm very sorry you went there.

The absurd and the disingenuous have been very abundant in what you've been writing in this thread. I have to giggle at you accusing someone else of it.

[aspirine.6852]

@tibbletoad.9528 said:I knew of the woman getting fired, but who was the other one?

I feel it was a good response to it all.

Why are some of you losing respect for the company because they fired her?

I don't. I would have lost it if they did not fire such a vile and bitter woman.

[Shoyoko.7309]

I'm disappointed that there are many people here who are ready to blame the community "toxicity" on this recent drama of JP saying that we are the reason for the possible decline of the game and accusing us of over-reacting. It was one of us that gave a constructive feedback that JP took as an insult; she continued to double down and further insult not only deroir but any other players that would decide to respond, and as that wasn't enough, another dev chimed in to also state that we were all wrong and support the disrespect thrown at us.I understand that devs are human beings and deserve respect but so all of us in this community, JP did not show respect on any level even if it was to a complete stranger. Anyone that says that the arenanet are keeling over to a whiny mob and saying she was a victim of a mob bullying did not consider the bullying she was doing, she intentionally continued to accuse, villify and insult deroir and other potential players.This is not ok, the forum didn't overreact, there is no justification.

[Zabi Zabi.3561]

@"TheGrimm.5624" said:There are at least three sides to all things. Key is balance. If Anet holds players to one standard, they also need to hold the devs to the same. Its that simple. You bring things out of balance, be prepared to face the lose of income.

When in fact because ANET did something we will see more players coming in because they did something about the problem.

Company doing something about an Employee being nasty to the fans would = a gainWhile company doing nothing about an Employee being nasty to the fans would = a loss

I said the same thing about the Solo star wars movie where one of the producers / directors whatever was basically insulting the fans and people didn't go and see the movie. Hence why it wasn't good in theatres in terms of tickets being sold.

Yet while watching "The Quaterings" video on youtube about the subject I was looking through the comments, some were even saying they would play GW 2 because of Anets recent decision.

[Wolfeen.6310]

Thanks a lot for this, we will miss Peter Fries, sacrificing 13 years of work @Anet just because he overreacted in order to defend a colleague before watching what that colleague said and processing it.

I didn't expect you to take such a decision, obviously it's hard, but I hoped for this to happens and I'm really glad it did happened. This definitely makes me confortable with the company, knowing you place ethic and community opinion above any political opinion.

Good luck now for the next chapter of Living Story, and please if you start to recruit people once again, take care of their past, as JP was announce by reddit community as a drama queen, when she joined you.

[FyzE.3472]

@Cwnannwn.7681 said:Just chiming to add a voice to the statement that firing the writers over was anet taking the coward's way out over nonsense.

Also once again streamers are rewarded for being whiny babies.

Hello there. Before you go ahead and make baseless statements like that, please read the gw2 reddit or watch some YT videos on the matter. The guy did not want anything to do with it. He was asked by Anet not to comment on the matter and he did not. Like a man. He did not let hes feelings or what ever cause him the position he currently has. Unlike certain individual!

[PlayforFun.6803]

Thank you for taking action against this horrible person. I haven't been able to play GW2 since I heard the tweets.

[slapdot.3760]

Fantastic decision Mike. Thank you for doing the right thing, and swiftly at that. I appreciate your kind of leadership.

[Eloc Freidon.5692]

Its good to hear that in public cases Anet won't defend employees making bad decisions just because they're a women. The real problems are what happens in cases that get successfully suppressed because it doesn't happen to a player that's not part of the partner program.

[Holykitten.3064]

I will say it is a shame that PF was also on the chopping block because he’s been with Anet so long.His comment pointing out “he doesn’t get asked these questions”, stoked the fire imo. JP was responded to because of the content of her post about writing the PC in the Gw2 story, not because she’s a girl.The critique she got was because of the content of that post, not because she’s a girl.Her retweeting Deroir to her 10k followers, captioned “today as a female dev...”, made this about sexism. She made the sexist remark and basically shouted “sic ‘em” to her followers. This is never ok when you are openly talking about your work, representing your employer.

We don’t know the circumstances in which “they are no longer with the company”, nor are we entitled to know. That being said, because of PFs albeit minor involvement, letting them both go was safer for the company than only letting a girl go, if you get my drift.

[ashmonkey.9453]

@Eloc Freidon.5692 said:Its good to hear that in public cases Anet won't defend employees making bad decisions just because they're a women. The real problems are what happens in cases that get successfully suppressed because it doesn't happen to a player that's not part of the partner program.

you do realise a man was fired as well? can you just please stop bringing gender in the equasion it's getting old af.

[Einsof.1457]

I never post on the forums but I wanted to this time to say thank you arenanet for standing up for us. I love and support you guys. I'll continue to support arena net. Thanks again don't ever change. You're a great leader in the industry Mike.

[Thornwolf.9721]

@Mike O Brien.4613 said:Recently two of our employees failed to uphold our standards of communicating with players. Their attacks on the community were unacceptable. As a result, they’re no longer with the company.

I want to be clear that the statements they made do not reflect the views of ArenaNet at all. As a company we always strive to have a collaborative relationship with the Guild Wars community. We value your input. We make this game for you.

Mo

It's good to see a company who does not tolerate this, Im glad you took care of It MO. I do worry the story going forward may suffer but I doubt it; Keep being awesome and being here for us even though we can be little ... unmentionable piles of stuff. We love you, and the A-net team and we might get flustered at you guys but when you love someone/something it can sometimes get easy to let the frustration show. Especially when you are passionate about said thing..

[Iozeph.5617]

I'd say ANet should pull back and reconsider the decision to fire. Further I'd say that we, as a society should pull back too.

This is the problem with social media. People talking in person wouldn't and shouldn't have let things progress this far to the extent that a community or a company's representatives feel ignored or besieged to a point where open hostility is the default mode of discourse.

Having a 'coversation' where the object of your ire or disaffection isn't actually in the room with you so that you're visually and audibly able to gauge the temperature of the room gives you a false sense of courage and a lack of inhibition that leads to people saying things they never would. Whether or not they hold certain beliefs in private is neither here nor there as we should all be grownup enough to acknowledge that that's just the way people are. It's a matter of getting past these beliefs in order to allow society to continue to function in spite of them.

That's not going to go over well with people who feel they have the short end of the stick for one reason or another, but consider; This is why foreign heads of state hold face to face summits rather than simply exchanging nasty letters or tweets. This is why the world we know and love isn't a glowing, irradiated wasteland. Reflect on that.

As for Anet, and any other company where this happens, there should be a set-down/intervention and an ultimatum first to give the employee a chance to make apologies and work past the offence. It's easy for nobody's on the internet, whose social media and forum accounts afford them relative anonymity, to call for blood and firings when their own accounts aren't under the sort of scrutiny that would hamper or destroy their own job security.

And in that line, Anet(any company actually) owes it to themselves to have someone professionally(and if it isn't an actual position yet then it needs to be invented) watching these situations and doing a better job of protecting their staff, because even if it isn't a-list celebrity status working for a software development house, being in an arena where AMAs are considered part of the job paints a target on employees' backs- a burden and a challenge they shouldn't have to face alone. Look at Star Wars to see how far and how wrong it sometimes goes.

Given the arguments above I'd say it's safe to assert that the modern workplace has changed and not for the better. What we have now is just a matter of Anet washing its hands of two people. People they'd otherwise accepted, warts and all, and whom they were glad to have as part of their development team before this mess on social media.

Couching it as though somehow these sorts of views were isolated to these individuals or that firing them to make an example somehow made Anet a better company is childish. Childish on our parts if we believe it. And doubly so on Anet's part for believing we would/should. If anything social media has driven people further apart and enabled these viewpoints, reinforced by the echo chamber nature of the medium, to flourish.

Some of the things they said were off putting but I'm adult enough to have my own opinions and to divorce theirs from a game I otherwise enjoy for what it is. Further, I'd respect a company more for going to bat to the fullest extent for an employee over one that simply cuts and runs when a situation becomes less than ideal for them.

Do that enough, Anet, and nobody's going to want to work for you. There's little enough job security as it is today without having your company stab you in the back.

Everyone involved here should have the humility to admit we've all had a hand in this. Nobody's innocent here. The world overall needs to put down the phone or keyboard for a time and grow up just a little bit.

Again, step back and revisit the decision to terminate, please.

[Shadow Chaser.1948]

Close this thread Please.