GW 2 Devs/Playerbase Twitter Discussion

[infocrash.3275]

My 2 cents, as a new player, had i seen a developer of this game talking down to a player who was not being disrespectful to her like she did i would have de installed the game and never look back. I started playing about 2 weeks ago and I spend a bunch of money on the game because I want to support this game, had i seen that conversation before i read about what Arena net's action i would have dropped everything and never looked back.

[Sojourner.4621]

> @"hopper.6830" said:

> > @"Orcagami.5901" said:

> > Just want to add to the voices saying that this decision was hastily and poorly executed. The comments were rude to be sure but for the community and the company to escalate it to a fireable offense is disappointing. I had a lot of trust in Anet prior but this rash decision has shattered any confidence in the company. Regardless of your feelings towards JP, this only paints a picture of GW2 to outsiders as intolerant of female devs and those that would stand up for them. All those months of community outreach and this is what GW2 is going to be known for. I can no longer recommend this game in good faith to others if this gets brushed under the rug.

>

> I agree -- MO's kneejerk response is hugely disproportionate and clearly an emotionally charged reaction motivated by insecurity in GW2's image. If the devs' behavior was unprofessional, then MO deciding to go straight for the nuclear option is unprofessional to the nth degree. Possibly MO found the way that the devs engaged with the partner streamer was embarrassing to GW2's image, but the shortsightedness in how this was handled has turned into a way bigger embarrassment for the community. This flare up is all non-players or on-the-fence GW2 players are going to remember about the game for a long while. I sink hours into GW2 every day but now the simple act of logging in makes me feel queasy. There are no winners here.

 

I am of course of mixed opinions regarding this. It has become increasingly common for jobs to require people to sign a social media clause at their place of business. My last three jobs have all required this, and I am required to issue one to every new employee at my current one right along-side the "I won't sexually harass my co-workers" sheet. The clause basically states that if the employee is found to in any way negatively represent the business on any form of social media be it Facebook, Youtube, Reddit or Twitter or any number of other options then they are subject to immediate termination. We actually have a person who, full time, crawls social media for any mention of our company at all positive or negative and responds accordingly. Do I personally want to believe in giving people second chances? Yes, but that's not actually my choice to make. I think ANet handled this in the only way they were able to.

[morrolan.9608]

> @"infocrash.3275" said:

> My 2 cents, as a new player, had i seen a developer of this game talking down to a player who was not being disrespectful to her like she did i would have de installed the game and never look back. I started playing about 2 weeks ago and I spend a bunch of money on the game because I want to support this game, had i seen that conversation before i read about what Arena net's action i would have dropped everything and never looked back.

 

Its worth noting other anet devs have insulted players in the past on this very forum with nothing being done. This only happened because they were content creators.

[Miss Lana.5276]

> @"DeceiverX.8361" said:

> Unlike conventional sports where biology plays a huge factor in things, there's no biological reason for women not to be able to compete with guys in the digitl landscape, which is big to potentially breaking down a lot of this problem.

 

Great post, but I disagree with this. On the whole, women's reaction times are slower than men's across the board. Of course there are always outliers where the opposite is true, but as a statement of generality this is true, which would usually result in a win for the man. The only other option is one you've already covered in your post (a women-only section of the sport), but from what I've seen those are usually filled with women who are doing it for the entirely wrong reason, which comes down to them doing it out of spite for men, rather than love for the game itself.

[DeceiverX.8361]

> @"twobears.5713" said:

> > @"DeceiverX.8361" said:

>

> > There are strides being made, which is good, as I believe one of the OWL players is a girl. We need to encourage women to play games and foster the desire to play competitively as men are shaped to do (and earn their places in the top spots) to break the sexism by proving the naysayers wrong, rather than trying to force the issue. Unlike conventional sports where biology plays a huge factor in things, there's no biological reason for women not to be able to compete with guys in the digitl landscape, which is big to potentially breaking down a lot of this problem.

> >

> >

>

> The reason that you see a higher number of women playing Overwatch, which translates into the rarity of someone like Geguri being found at the highest levels of play, is due to the fact that Blizzard is better at fostering a supportive environment for women and minorities than ANet. I didn't really feel that way until yesterday, where I came back to do some inventory shuffling in DR to find map chat reading like a Breitbart comment section. Blizzard, while hosting its fair share of controversies, seems better at keeping the far right elements that pepper gaming spaces in check. This stands in stark contrast to the situation we see here, where those elements essentially run the show.

 

I'm not sure about what strides Blizzard has made historically since I never really played WoW, but ANet has a long and positive history of including minorities and fairly progressive subjects in its game, especially GW2. There are a lot of nods towards LGBTQ+ heroes in GW2 (outside of Marjory and Kasmeer) and female badasses have been a huge part of the franchise since GW1, as well as black characters and African-inspired settings. We've openly been endorsed to run LGBTQ+ rallies in-game with ANet supporting them and cracking down on people trying to crash them. I'd argue ANet has been way better than Blizzard, honestly. Panderia was seen as endearing by the Asian audience (moreso than the western one, funnily enough), but let's not pretend it didn't just play harshly on tropes that could easily have been scorned as being slightly racist; and many did make the accusation still.

 

I'd like to remove the politics from this as well. I know first-wave feminists like my 103-year-old grandmother who are registered independent and have voted "conservative" in the past with much more nuanced political opinions as well as downright sexist "liberals" who I've disassociated from. Let's step back from the political tribalism for a moment and examine the issue of sexism in games independently rather than trying to align it into some kind of agenda with only loose ties with roughly half our population. Finger-pointing won't resolve the problem. We need to come together as a community. You won't find me complaining in DR or complaining about people complaining in DR. If people are spouting blatantly terrible things, use the report function. Please be mindful this ordeal is pretty heated, though; JP made some older tweets that literally stated "F- people from [country of origin]" which are now beginning to get exposed. People are pretty upset ANet let an employee get away with that. There is a fairly substantial base of players with that heritage, so we can't just lump them into being a radical negative. That doesn't help anyone, because it's just another assumption made about someone else, which is why we're here right now.

 

Back on topic of competitive female gamers, I have absolutely no idea if more women play Overwatch proportionally to other games. That's not a statistic I know to reference to be true or not. GW2 does have a pretty good female base, from my limited anecdotal experience, though, even in the competitive modes. The point I was making is that the handling of the pro scene is done well there and we should strive to foster our female base by encouraging them to play and play competitively, as the competitive aspects of games is traditionally what women have been most intimidated by and where the sexism is most rampant, and that we should not regress or try and force change that won't be appreciated. It's not a task I can achieve alone. If it were, we wouldn't have sexism in games, because I'd have fixed it already if I could.

 

I encourage everyone, please contemplate the verbiage of what you post here and in public chat in-game, and take a page from your own advice if you're frustrated by what you've seen before you comment; it's not for the public to really need to see unless you can word what you're saying eloquently. Gaming culture does have a bit of a problem, and we need to be the change - it benefits everyone. Let's be mindful of what happened here - that this woman absolutely said some pretty vile things with ANet's label beneath her name in a very unprofessional way, and to correct people who may be misinformed or not fully informed on the issue in a polite fashion - and move on. Calling people out, harassing them, sentiments preaching hate or bigotry or divisiveness or tribalism... that's not what we're about or should be about.

 

> @"Miss Lana.5276" said:

> > @"DeceiverX.8361" said:

> > Unlike conventional sports where biology plays a huge factor in things, there's no biological reason for women not to be able to compete with guys in the digitl landscape, which is big to potentially breaking down a lot of this problem.

>

> Great post, but I disagree with this. On the whole, women's reaction times are slower than men's across the board. Of course there are always outliers where the opposite is true, but as a statement of generality this is true, which would usually result in a win for the man. The only other option is one you've already covered in your post (a women-only section of the sport), but from what I've seen those are usually filled with women who are doing it for the entirely wrong reason, which comes down to them doing it out of spite for men, rather than love for the game itself.

 

I've seen some of these studies but the general consensus I've seen is that the degree of the difference is nearly insubstantial to be honest such that input lag and peripheral sensitivity starts being about the same if not a bigger factor. A number of professional League of Legends players on the top teams have played with wireless peripherals which increase latency comparably. There's a way higher correlation and gap between better reaction time and physical fitness, and a lot of pro-level players are out of shape as well. Reaction time really only matters in a few circuits of specific kinds of games (like arcade Street Fighter), while strategy-oriented play and decision-making and communication are much more significant at achieving success in most major competitive games today, and is usually something games are designed around (accessibility is a big topic in development today).

 

Not to say that womens' leagues are out of the question, but the evidence really just isn't pointing to the fact we've hit the biological upper limits on gaming where we need to make that distinction. At least not yet. If we can see a proportional representation of women (or even a figure somewhat close to it) even coming close to approaching the "pro" scene or even really taking a vested interest in competitive gaming, it may be worth considering, but I'd really hate to see an unnecessary separation of players in what could very well result in something like the WNBA-equivalent of pro play; without the same degree of competition, in the current state of things, women's-only leagues would be relegated to less-flashy and competitive gameplay and subsequently suffer tremendously as a consequence, even without major biological roadblocks like the blatant disparity in height/weight/muscle density which traditional athletics are so dependent on.

[Loli Ruri.8307]

Laughing at the people trying to play this as # gamer gate again. Uhhhhh, gamer gate was about reforming the gaming industry in a positive direction. It was never about misogyny, sexism, or any form of bigotry. The Gaming Journalist industry was in need of desperate help. Sadly they didn't want to reform or change, and now they are irrelevant, replaced by YouTube and Twitch. The individual who inspired it all, Zoë Quinn, was not a good person. Not only that, it was revealed in email leaks, that those who were creating the dilemmas in the community, were also the same people who were calling out names such as misogyny and sexism, namely the Gaming Jouralists and their cronies. They created the bogey man they so desired to fight against. They were out of touch with the consumers, and still are. They were doing what is known in politics as "framing your enemy". Donald Trump used this effectively in the 2016 elections, framing his enemy. The sad part is, the enemy was gullible enough to fall for it hook line and sinker. As has been said, how bad do you have to be to lose to that? The reality is however, JP is just as bad as that. A politically motivated individual who is zealous to push the oppressed narrative, one that sadly falls along the lines of Identity Politics, one of the cancers of the modern world; a divisive strategy to create segregation, by the people who you could actually consider as Communists.

 

Let me counter her narrative.

 

I am also in the industry as a woman myself. I have participated in game development and fictional storytelling, as well as software engineering. I know how to setup servers as well as handle public relations. I have all of these skills because of not only training, but also the experience of many years. But this doesn't make me more important that anybody else. The problem with JP is, she believed she is better than others simply because of being somebody, and then used that position in a manner that was totally inappropriate to further her political agendas. I don't even know how anybody could get behind fighting sexism by being the most sexist person around. Last I checked, men are half the population. That's a lot of enemies to create by being a misandrist. And worse off, these are paying customers... And the worst part, she lacks reason and accountability. As a woman myself, I know that men love women. This narrative that men are attacking women, is preposterous! I won't buy into it, I don't believe it, I don't see it happening to me and my colleagues. I know terrible people do exist, like JP for example, but these are the exceptions, not the normal. She should have worked on creating the right kind of positive culture that nurtures a harmonious relationship between men and women. Instead she went down the path of the dark side, and went into the divisive segregation known as IP. RIP I would have fired her too.

[Ephemiel.5694]

> @"morrolan.9608" said:

> > @"infocrash.3275" said:

> > My 2 cents, as a new player, had i seen a developer of this game talking down to a player who was not being disrespectful to her like she did i would have de installed the game and never look back. I started playing about 2 weeks ago and I spend a bunch of money on the game because I want to support this game, had i seen that conversation before i read about what Arena net's action i would have dropped everything and never looked back.

>

> Its worth noting other anet devs have insulted players in the past on this very forum with nothing being done. This only happened because they were content creators.

 

When did that happen?

[CursedShaitan.9720]

AreanaNet just lost a 13 year customer over their decision to fire her. Disciplinary action is one thing but firing was excessive. I will be deleting all my characters in both Gw2 and GW including my 13 year old Necromancer with FoW armor that has thousands of hours of play time logged. My single most used player character in any game ever. I was honestly so excited to return to my favorite game franchise with path of fire....but first they insult Jeremey Soule, then they screw over their lead dungeon designer, now they expect their female employees to politely tolerate sexism. As a kid I actually used to dream about working for ArenaNet as a developer. The prospect genuinely excited me for years, but now as I approach the end of my education I see we do no share values and I can not associate with your company in anyway.

[Linken.6345]

> @"omgitsbees.8137" said:

> > @"Sondergaard.8469" said:

> > > @"omgitsbees.8137" said:

> > > Something else I keep seeing get swept under the rug is that Jessica Price was literally encouraged to speak her mind and be loud, by her very employer. She told ArenaNet during her interview process with the company that this is how she acts on social media and she had no plans of stopping, and they gave her the thumbs up. It's super telling that Arena Net is okay with firing a woman for speaking her mind.

> >

> > It's one thing to have an opinion and speak your mind. It's quite a different situation to step away from opinion and launch an all out verbal assault against a community of players.

>

> Again, this is not at all what happened.

 

It totaly is exactly what happened.

[Loli Ruri.8307]

> @"CursedShaitan.9720" said:

> AreanaNet just lost a 13 year customer over their decision to fire her. I will be deleting all my characters in both Gw2 and GW including my 13 year old Necromancer with FoW armor that has thousands of hours of play time logged. I was honestly so excited to return to my favorite game franchise with path of fire....but first they insult Jeremey Soule, then they screw over their lead dungeon designer, now they expect their female employees to politely tolerate sexism. As a kid I actually used to dream about working for ArenaNet as a developer. The prospect genuinely excited me for years, but now as I approach the end of my education I see we do no share values.

 

So you're deleting your characters and such because Arenanet said no to sexism? Or does sexism only work if it's against women? If your values is like this, I don't want you working for Anet either.

[twobears.5713]

> @"DeceiverX.8361" said:

> > @"twobears.5713" said:

> > > @"DeceiverX.8361" said:

> >

> > > There are strides being made, which is good, as I believe one of the OWL players is a girl. We need to encourage women to play games and foster the desire to play competitively as men are shaped to do (and earn their places in the top spots) to break the sexism by proving the naysayers wrong, rather than trying to force the issue. Unlike conventional sports where biology plays a huge factor in things, there's no biological reason for women not to be able to compete with guys in the digitl landscape, which is big to potentially breaking down a lot of this problem.

> > >

> > >

> >

> > The reason that you see a higher number of women playing Overwatch, which translates into the rarity of someone like Geguri being found at the highest levels of play, is due to the fact that Blizzard is better at fostering a supportive environment for women and minorities than ANet. I didn't really feel that way until yesterday, where I came back to do some inventory shuffling in DR to find map chat reading like a Breitbart comment section. Blizzard, while hosting its fair share of controversies, seems better at keeping the far right elements that pepper gaming spaces in check. This stands in stark contrast to the situation we see here, where those elements essentially run the show.

>

> I'm not sure about what strides Blizzard has made historically since I never really played WoW, but ANet has a long and positive history of including minorities and fairly progressive subjects in its game, especially GW2. There are a lot of nods towards LGBTQ+ heroes in GW2 (outside of Marjory and Kasmeer) and female badasses have been a huge part of the franchise since GW1, as well as black characters and African-inspired settings. We've openly been endorsed to run LGBTQ+ rallies in-game with ANet supporting them and cracking down on people trying to crash them. I'd argue ANet has been way better than Blizzard, honestly. Panderia was seen as endearing by the Asian audience (moreso than the western one, funnily enough), but let's not pretend it didn't just play harshly on tropes that could easily have been scorned as being slightly racist; and many did make the accusation still.

>

> I'd like to remove the politics from this as well. I know first-wave feminists like my 103-year-old grandmother who are registered independent and have voted "conservative" in the past with much more nuanced political opinions as well as downright sexist "liberals" who I've disassociated from. Let's step back from the political tribalism for a moment and examine the issue of sexism in games independently rather than trying to align it into some kind of agenda with only loose ties with roughly half our population. Finger-pointing won't resolve the problem. We need to come together as a community. You won't find me complaining in DR or complaining about people complaining in DR. If people are spouting blatantly terrible things, use the report function. Please be mindful this ordeal is pretty heated, though; JP made some older tweets that literally stated "F- people from [country of origin]" which are now beginning to get exposed. People are pretty upset ANet let an employee get away with that. There is a fairly substantial base of players with that heritage, so we can't just lump them into being a radical negative. That doesn't help anyone, because it's just another assumption made about someone else, which is why we're here right now.

>

> Back on topic of competitive female gamers, I have absolutely no idea if more women play Overwatch proportionally to other games. That's not a statistic I know to reference to be true or not. GW2 does have a pretty good female base, from my limited anecdotal experience, though, even in the competitive modes. The point I was making is that the handling of the pro scene is done well there and we should strive to foster our female base by encouraging them to play and play competitively, as the competitive aspects of games is traditionally what women have been most intimidated by and where the sexism is most rampant, and that we should not regress or try and force change that won't be appreciated. It's not a task I can achieve alone. If it were, we wouldn't have sexism in games, because I'd have fixed it already if I could.

>

> I encourage everyone, please contemplate the verbiage of what you post here and in public chat in-game, and take a page from your own advice if you're frustrated by what you've seen before you comment; it's not for the public to really need to see unless you can word what you're saying eloquently. Gaming culture does have a bit of a problem, and we need to be the change - it benefits everyone. Let's be mindful of what happened here - that this woman absolutely said some pretty vile things with ANet's label beneath her name in a very unprofessional way, and to correct people who may be misinformed or not fully informed on the issue in a polite fashion - and move on. Calling people out, harassing them, sentiments preaching hate or bigotry or divisiveness or tribalism... that's not what we're about or should be about.

 

I thank you. Your veiled accusation that I am somehow the problem has certainly confirmed the correct nature of my decision to abandon the game that I have enjoyed so. I wish your community the best in the future, although I am not welcome in it.

 

Goodbye.

 

[infocrash.3275]

> @"morrolan.9608" said:

> > @"infocrash.3275" said:

> > My 2 cents, as a new player, had i seen a developer of this game talking down to a player who was not being disrespectful to her like she did i would have de installed the game and never look back. I started playing about 2 weeks ago and I spend a bunch of money on the game because I want to support this game, had i seen that conversation before i read about what Arena net's action i would have dropped everything and never looked back.

>

> Its worth noting other anet devs have insulted players in the past on this very forum with nothing being done. This only happened because they were content creators.

 

Look, it was over and beyond that she was fired, they shoulkd have said to her to apologized to the customer/s and removed "works in GW from social media. so maybe she refused or she is a weird-o because she in on theverge saying that people harassed her for being female.

[Chorazin.4107]

> @"Sojourner.4621" said:

> I am of course of mixed opinions regarding this. It has become increasingly common for jobs to require people to sign a social media clause at their place of business. My last three jobs have all required this, and I am required to issue one to every new employee at my current one right along-side the "I won't sexually harass my co-workers" sheet. The clause basically states that if the employee is found to in any way negatively represent the business on any form of social media be it Facebook, Youtube, Reddit or Twitter or any number of other options then they are subject to immediate termination. We actually have a person who, full time, crawls social media for any mention of our company at all positive or negative and responds accordingly. Do I personally want to believe in giving people second chances? Yes, but that's not actually my choice to make. I think ANet handled this in the only way they were able to.

 

A lot of people have pseudonym accounts for their personal lives whereby they can post what they like without any company affiliation. Specifically because of events like this, I suggest to JP if that is the way she wishes to conduct herself on public forums she invest in one. Because the interaction with Deroir would not be acceptable at any company I have worked for.

 

Also a lot of the time the social media clause is written directly into your main contract nowadays, along with all the usual creative content ownership, intellectual property deeds. etc etc

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

Personally I'm still in disbelief that this has happened. Mostly because I've seen the opposite happen about a dozen times. Normally, when confronted about this behavior, they double down and the company they're a part of backs them fully. It is what happened with the comic book industry. It is what happened with journalism. It is what happened with most independent forums that I used to visit. It is what happened to most television shows I used to watch. It is what happened to Magic: The Gathering. It is what happened to countless videogame studios. It is what happened to social sciences. It is what happened to Canada. What do you mean "Canada isn't an industry"? Maple Syrup is a thing!

 

Anyway, the point being that way too many businesses put complete faith into far-left extremism, and it goes horribly. The businesses assume that all of these people preaching about microaggressions and the patriarchy know what they're talking about, and that everyone disagreeing with the message is proof of the message. GW2 appeared to be right on that track, with Arenanet being "An ideals driven company" and all that. I expected GW2 to give in and Get Woke, Go Broke eventually. When I said that the next LWS4 update would have Tiami go into a diatribe about mansplaining, I was serious. But when Mike dropped the hammer on JP hard, it restored my faith in the company.

 

The sad part is, I don't think JP is going to learn from this. "SJWs always double down" is a phrase for a reason. She'll get snatched up by another game developer that values her stances, and she'll continue man-hating and mass blocking for eternity. Because the moral of this story can't possibly be "treat customers well," "not all adversity is sexism," "branching dialogue is a good thing," or "misandry is bad, too." The moral is "There's a massive conspiracy of alt-right extremist men secretly in control of the gaming industry, and we need to prune our customer base and refuse to serve them." How could it be anything else? But hey, I've been wrong before.

[Crab Fear.1624]

There are a bunch of long essays in this thread. Am I supposed to randomly chose a page, then randomly choose a post that I may disagree with, and finally write my own five to seven paragraph essay?

 

to quote Forrest Gump or someone who sounds like him "it's not what you say, but how you say it"

 

oh and uh "keep your twitter account private or set up your troll account and bash your critics that way "

 

 

[miraude.2107]

> @"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

 

I understand the decision you made but as someone who is a co-founder, I'd have expected more from you as well to also stand by the views of ArenaNet and reread your rules of conduct, specifically that first line and a few points within it.

 

_The following Guild Wars 2 Rules of Conduct (the “Rules of Conduct”) govern basic interaction within the Guild Wars 2 game and websites._

 

Parts of your community that you listend to are still harassing them. I don't see the game surviving at all if you don't hold your community to the same standards you want to hold your developers at. Please gives us an actual front page post that's more than a paragraph about why you thought firing two developers was best, how the company will deal with the loss of two developers and how much this delays you and that honestly, you didn't do this firings based on panic and emotions. Do remember you had to lock Price's ArenaNet reddit arrival post because of the way the community acted towards her;

 

 

So Mr O'Brien, please think carefully about how you move ahead. Your blanket statement has given harassers and trolls free reign. When I see comments like this:

 

“Nobody at Arenanet is safe from the hand of reddit. We’re literally running the company now, they’re in fear of the very users they seek to consort with... The moment a dev steps out of line or try to talk back to a player, guess what, they’ll know we got their hands on their throat and we can squeeze any time we like.”

 

In reddit and now in some of the discord groups I'm a part in. I feel like one of the few games I still enjoy is gonna become a game I'll have to shelve.

 

 

 

 

[Melody.7493]

> @"Miss Lana.5276" said:

> > @"Melody.7493" said:

> > I think it's partly because female players are less likely to speak up about being female, which gives the impression that there aren't as many as there are. It almost feels like if you say "I'm a girl" or correct people when they gender you wrong, you're trying to be a special snowflake or something. Also it feels hard trying to bring even the smallest amount of feminism into mapchat because of all the trolls. It's easier to just keep your gender to yourself, which probably contributes to the problem of women not having much of a presence in mmos.

> >

>

> Or "dude" could be the way they refer to people in general without knowing - or potentially caring - about someone's identity. I personally do this an awful lot. I'm a woman but I don't feel the need to call out every person that "mislabels" me. Especially because the females in-game that I know as being loud about their gender are terribly manipulative, who feel the need to pull the woman card out every time someone disagrees with them.

>

> An attitude like that negatively effects the way I view other women in games. As a rule of thumb I know I won't get along with them, and outside of a handful of women, this has mostly held true.

Personally I think it's sad that so many people do have this view of gamer girls as manipulative attention seekers. That stereotype doesn't represent the vast majority of women who game, who just blend in and let people assume they're male because they don't want to be associated with that stereotype. Honestly whenever I do see someone being demanding because of their gender, I'll just assume they're either a preteen or a troll.

 

As for their gaming skills, I absolutely believe that one day girls will be able to compete in the highest levels. The way I see it gaming is a bit like learning to play an instrument; the younger you are when you start the better your skills. Girls start gaming at a later age than boys, because gaming isn't really something little girls are meant to enjoy. I know when I was young 90% of my downtime was spent watching my older brother play, but I never started to play myself until late high school. As gaming becomes a more acceptable hobby for girls we'll see women rise up the ranks and compete on equal footing.

 

 

[sunlounger.1925]

So an arenanet partner can say whatever he wants but an arenanet employee can not. Seems about as legit as a 3 dollar bill.

[Loli Ruri.8307]

> @"miraude.2107" said:

> > @"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

>

> I understand the decision you made but as someone who is a co-founder, I'd have expected more from you as well to also stand by the views of ArenaNet and reread your rules of conduct, specifically that first line and a few points within it.

>

> _The following Guild Wars 2 Rules of Conduct (the “Rules of Conduct”) govern basic interaction within the Guild Wars 2 game and websites._

>

> Parts of your community that you listend to are still harassing them. I don't see the game surviving at all if you don't hold your community to the same standards you want to hold your developers at. Please gives us an actual front page post that's more than a paragraph about why you thought firing two developers was best, how the company will deal with the loss of two developers and how much this delays you and that honestly, you didn't do this firings based on panic and emotions. Do remember you had to lock Price's ArenaNet reddit arrival post because of the way the community acted towards her;

>

>

>

> So Mr O'Brien, please think carefully about how you move ahead. Your blanket statement has given harassers and trolls free reign. When I see comments like this:

>

> “Nobody at Arenanet is safe from the hand of reddit. We’re literally running the company now, they’re in fear of the very users they seek to consort with... The moment a dev steps out of line or try to talk back to a player, guess what, they’ll know we got their hands on their throat and we can squeeze any time we like.”

>

> In reddit and now in some of the discord groups I'm a part in. I feel like one of the few games I still enjoy is gonna become a game I'll have to shelve.

>

>

>

>

Alt right, harassers and trolls, it's all identity politics. You can call out kittens all day long, but the reality is, this woman was actually being terrible by "action", with the Anet name to bear. This was not a once off. This was something that was unjust. If it is not okay towards women, why is it justifiable against men? Please think about this and look at what she actually said, in response to those who were trying to be reasonable.

[WingLegacy.7159]

> @"CETheLucid.3964" said:

> > @"WingLegacy.7159" said:

> > Enough Anet close this thread....

>

> > @"CETheLucid.3964" said:

> > What? You don't find all the crazies with alt accounts that have no real posting history jumping out of the woodwork entertaining?

> >

> > Oh. Right.

>

> I want to clarify here that I'm poking fun at myself. I'm a random crazy with no real posting history coming out of the woodwork. That's why I said "Oh. Right."

>

> I notice now however you're also pretty new to the forums yourself so I'm sorry for any misunderstanding there. I don't think your crazy. I think your initial sentiment is naive but the later one is fair. The thread ran it's course around page 10.

>

> I think it's about keeping it up for the sake of the community so everyone gets an idea of what's happened and what's going on if you weren't actively following the debacle on reddit prior. It'll be closed soon enough.

>

> Gotta let everyone their ooh and ahh and their alts their .02 cents. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

 

Dont post that much im just a looker mostly. But celebrating for the loss of their jobs is just too much. I've played Gw since pre searing so no im not new to all this BS.

[StonedCat.3518]

Wow. As someone who’s played GuildWars since the beginning and poured well north of $1000 into various special editions and MT this is extremely disappointing. Firing two people over a Twitter spat is a pretty huge overreaction, especially when many of those baying for blood seem to be doing so in bad faith - claiming it’s about “respecting for the customer” while pushing what is effectively an anti-essjayw political agenda.

 

By capitulating so completely to pressure from this part of the GW community it appears as though ArenaNet has taken sides on the issue. And frankly, the side they chose is not one I agree with.

 

Finally, as someone who works in the software industry, seeing a 12 year veteran at ArenaNet get fired for *being a little mean on the internet* makes me think that ArenaNet doesn’t really care about their employees very much. And it *certainly* doesn’t have their back.

[Voltekka.2375]

What we have learned so far: its 2018, feelings are more important than facts.

It is ok to be obnoxiously rude and sexist, on social media, but god forbid any action is taken against that.

[CursedShaitan.9720]

> @"Loli Ruri.8307" said:

> > @"CursedShaitan.9720" said:

> > AreanaNet just lost a 13 year customer over their decision to fire her. I will be deleting all my characters in both Gw2 and GW including my 13 year old Necromancer with FoW armor that has thousands of hours of play time logged. I was honestly so excited to return to my favorite game franchise with path of fire....but first they insult Jeremey Soule, then they screw over their lead dungeon designer, now they expect their female employees to politely tolerate sexism. As a kid I actually used to dream about working for ArenaNet as a developer. The prospect genuinely excited me for years, but now as I approach the end of my education I see we do no share values.

>

> So you're deleting your characters and such because Arenanet said no to sexism? Or does sexism only work if it's against women? If your values is like this, I don't want you working for Anet either.

 

I'm guessing I didn't put enough emphasis on their treatment of Jeremey Soule and their former lead dungeon designer. Together their music and level designs made Guild Wars and they were treated very very poorly. This simply signals to me that the company still undervalues their employees and expects them to absorb verbal abuse like machines. It is very much about this series of continued behavior and not a single event. Anet essentially spit in the face of the greatest video game music composer of our time and it took a lot for me to forgive that.

[Loli Ruri.8307]

> @"StonedCat.3518" said:

> Wow. As someone who’s played GuildWars since the beginning and poured well north of $1000 into various special editions and MT this is extremely disappointing. Firing two people over a Twitter spat is a pretty huge overreaction, especially when many of those baying for blood seem to be doing so in bad faith - claiming it’s about “respecting for the customer” while pushing what is effectively an anti-essjayw political agenda.

>

> By capitulating so completely to pressure from this part of the GW community it appears as though ArenaNet has taken sides on the issue. And frankly, the side they chose is not one I agree with.

>

> Finally, as someone who works in the software industry, seeing a 12 year veteran at ArenaNet get fired for *being a little mean on the internet* makes me think that ArenaNet doesn’t really care about their employees very much. And it *certainly* doesn’t have their back.

She wasn't simply being a little mean. She was being a vulgar sexist misandrist. If you are okay with that, while holding a company's name on your shoulder, you probably shouldn't be employed for very long either. No man chose to be born with the genitalia they have, nor should they have to "man up" and deal with such abuse as customers from somebody who clearly is a terrible human being who is being sexist on multiple occasions.

[Menoitios.8375]

> @"StonedCat.3518" said:

> Wow. As someone who’s played GuildWars since the beginning and poured well north of $1000 into various special editions and MT this is extremely disappointing. Firing two people over a Twitter spat is a pretty huge overreaction, especially when many of those baying for blood seem to be doing so in bad faith - claiming it’s about “respecting for the customer” while pushing what is effectively an anti-essjayw political agenda.

>

> By capitulating so completely to pressure from this part of the GW community it appears as though ArenaNet has taken sides on the issue. And frankly, the side they chose is not one I agree with.

>

> Finally, as someone who works in the software industry, seeing a 12 year veteran at ArenaNet get fired for *being a little mean on the internet* makes me think that ArenaNet doesn’t really care about their employees very much. And it *certainly* doesn’t have their back.

 

I doubt it had anything to do with how being "a little mean on the internet" and more with what they were actually saying. You don't call someone sexist for giving constructive criticism, you just don't talk to people like that period, it's very unprofessional. Also, people have been fired for a lot less and I am sure ArenaNet, like most companies, has policies in place that outline what is and is not acceptable, including in/on social media posts, especially when talking explicitly about your work with / for the company.

 

This is not about respecting the customer, I don't even think that is why they made the decision that they did. If anything it has to do with the fact that ArenaNet is a business, this was a PR nightmare, and they had to make a decision as a business. Was this their initial decision? Who knows? Personally, I'd like to believe there was more to it than just "you're fired". From what I know of ArenaNet I am sure they thought long and hard about this before making a decision because it was a tough decision to make.