OK, I'm posting this one thing and then I'll be on my way.
First off, I don't necessarily care for Hepler's writing, and yes, I think Dragon Age 2 could have been handled better. But having witnessed some of the abuse (yes, abuse) that was hurled her way on Twitter, no one deserves that. No one. First off, being overweight has no ability to affect your writing. It's something that people use to hurt other people. It was name-calling and mud slinging and nothing more. Many of the comments and supposed quotes were completely inaccurate.
Second, Hepler doesn't even work at the studio that's working on Mass Effect 3. She has no effect on the decisions that are made at that studio. She doesn't write for Mass Effect, she writes for Dragon Age, so if the Mass Effect studio decides to give Shepard gay romance options, that was their decision, not hers. Their decision to add a story mode was not her decision either. The fact is, they need to reach a wider demographic than the people that it's been reaching. Without money, they cannot produce more games and the only way to get the money they need is to give more groups that little something that might encourage them to buy the game. Besides, not all gamers are white, straight, and male. And even if you are, not everyone you meet in life is, and let me just say, her writing of Anders hitting on male or female Hawke came across as a real life situation. We don't always get hit on someone we want to have sex with.
Third, having played the ME3 demo already, and played through the story mode FIRST out of curiosity if nothing more, I found myself pleasantly surprised. I'm not one of those gamers that plays through a game to get all the most difficult achievements. I don't have all of the achievements for any of the games I've played. Often, I find levels on Mass Effect that are harder than veteran extremely difficult for me. Having a 'casual' mode where you can still play the story without needing to invest the whole of your brain into it was a pleasant surprise. I'm a mother of two, have a son in elementary school, a husband in Afghanistan (yeah, my husband fights for this 'freedom of speech' you used to abuse a woman), and I don't have all the time in the world to invest into a video game because I work from home. I would have ended up staying up too late playing this game trying to get through it the first time, just like I've done with nearly every other game I've played.
Fourth, there's a little thing that's been bothering me about this whole situation in general, and maybe I'm out of line for saying this. I'm sure someone will disagree with m e and call me a femi****, a misandrist, a whatever. The whole blame, the whole of the hatred, the whole of the epic fiasco bull (explitive) was aimed at one person out of the hundreds who worked on one series of game. The whole failings of the sacred video game industry was put on the shoulders of ONE PERSON. And that person happened to be female. No blame, no hate, no stupidity was aimed at the male lead writer, nor any other employee. The fact is this, Jennifer Hepler did her job. A job she's been doing for years, not one that 'a bloke lost' as it was so eloquently put towards me on twitter when I stood up and spoke in her defense. People saw her post about having a vagina and a game industry job and "OMG, SHE ISN'T RESPECTING US". And yet, the excuses I got when I called out the misogyny of those twitter posts, pointed out the hatred towards her that wasn't critique, it was just hate was that she wasn't respecting them. Why should she? You weren't respecting her, either? A person can only expect from other people what they, themselves give. If you want respect, you'd better do something worthy of it.
Now, I'm going to put in a little side-note here, because it's frustrating from the position of a woman who stood aside other fans (not necessarily of Hepler. Among those who were standing in support were fans of various TV shows, games, movies, books, etc) were subject to the SAME ABUSE. A friend of mine who survived cancer was told that they hoped she relapsed and died. Another friend of mine was called a word that is probably out of the terms of use on this forum so I wont say it. I was called a (explitive) writer, a dirty Jew, and a sexist. For standing up for a woman who was being abused, we were, in turn, abused.
I keep hearing the "it was just criticism" excuse, but it wasn't. I know criticism. REAL criticism is when you point out flaws in a manner to actually have them fixed. Calling someone a bad writer, a fat (explitive), and all the varied other insults I saw flung are not criticism. Telling someone you think they should quit, hope they miscarry, hope they kill themselves, that they should just die; this is NOT criticism. This is hate, bullying, and stupidity.
Do unto others, as you'd have them do unto you. Treat others with respect and you will be respected. And most importantly, don't be a jerk.
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