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Fable's Narrative Lead Announces Departure

Raonak

Banned
Never a good sign when people leave mid project.

a quick scroll through her twitter tells me everything I need to know. she was fired, likely has always been unqualified for the position. when the going gets tough virtue hires quickly become untenable business propositions. funny watching Hollywood and the gaming industry scrambling to climb out of the massive hole they've been smugly digging for nearly a decade. get fucked.
What. You just literally made half that shit up.

Why do you assume she's an unqualified virtue hire? She has credentials and prior work experience. Where is the logical leap you took to get there besides the fact she's a woman...?

If it was a guy, would you assume he was automatically qualified and just got fired/left for other reasons?
 
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Humdinger

Member
I don't see why people have to paint this as some kind of disaster. It seems quite reasonable to suppose that the main narrative direction has been 90% accomplished at this phase. It's not as if a narrative director has to stay through the whole production. Laying down the narrative structure would be something they would do in the early phases. You would craft the main story arc, the main characters and plot points, and the ending. That comes during early development of the game. At this point, she can step aside and let others flesh things out. It's not like she has to write every line of dialog.
 
FH is a racing game and has mediocre racing so I'm hoping they can transition genres and stay focused.
That is the worst take I have ever seen. To this day Forza Horizon 3 is the best racing game ever released.

Meme Day GIF


Its events and mechanics are intertwined with the best elements of the entire car racing genre.
 
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FingerBang

Member
Anyone that uses the word "y'all" in a tweet, certainly makes my eyes roll.
She fucking has her bluesky handle in her name. You know what that means. If that's the lead write, expect a lot of activism in the game. Great.

You do realise that she's a woman and therefore some people on this forum will fail to see any value in her work ever.
You're not wrong. You can blame it on sexism. I blame it on affirmative action, ESG, and intersectional feminism being shoved down our throats but something something alt-right am I right? It's going to get worse and maybe it's a good thing.
 

Varteras

Gold Member
Sounds like one of those "modern tech" hires, writes "side hustles" and spends alot of her time on her social profile.

This will be a good thing overall for the franchise going forward.

The more these companies shed diversity hires, the better. That kind of shit is just someone patting themselves on the back. It doesn't actually make a better product, a better service, or even a better work environment. In the words of my gay friend, "Stop pandering to these useless clowns who just whine to get what they want. I worked hard to have the skills and knowledge I do. I would be insulted. Don't you dare hire me just because you're low on some cocksucker quota. Hire me because I know my shit and am fucking good at what I do. Anyone should be ashamed to be hired for something they don't qualify for over someone who does".
 

StueyDuck

Member
The more these companies shed diversity hires, the better. That kind of shit is just someone patting themselves on the back. It doesn't actually make a better product, a better service, or even a better work environment. In the words of my gay friend, "Stop pandering to these useless clowns who just whine to get what they want. I worked hard to have the skills and knowledge I do. I would be insulted. Don't you dare hire me just because you're low on some cocksucker quota. Hire me because I know my shit and am fucking good at what I do. Anyone should be ashamed to be hired for something they don't qualify for over someone who does".
Look I can't say she was a diversity hire because I really don't know much of her career.

But there is a large amount of self centered egotistical personalities in tech at the moment where their Twitter profile is more important than actually doing their job. Those people posting "a day working at meta" and it's just them partying for 12 hours and working 1 are all going to get the axe over time and it's a good thing because at the end of the day they are just an extra hurdle to get anything past or done.

I'm sure everyone did the exercise at school/college where your lecturer gives you a simple task like stack papers, staple them then file them, then over time you add more people, one handling stapling and one handling filing etc then eventually when you are at 5 or 6 people your output diminishes, that's basically what all these big tech companies did to themselves and they are all waking up, and sadly when you aren't the one pulling your weight or if you are one causing roadblocks etc it's gonna be your head over say Jane who writes great stuff, on time and is easy to work with.
 

TheInfamousKira

Reseterror Resettler
I think all of this dogpiling and massive unsubstantiated claims spawning like minnows in a pond to be quite sick. Honestly, people here (the usual bigots and children) don't like the art style or messaging of the game and it's promotional material and they're now taking any detail that could be construed as a loss for the dev team and celebrating it, irrespective of the lives of the Hard working devs who have no say in things like character design. This jovial mean spiritedness is misplaced, juvenile, short sighted, and cruel.

It's also fucking hilarious, get wrecked, Fable, kek
 

StueyDuck

Member
I think all of this dogpiling and massive unsubstantiated claims spawning like minnows in a pond to be quite sick. Honestly, people here (the usual bigots and children) don't like the art style or messaging of the game and it's promotional material and they're now taking any detail that could be construed as a loss for the dev team and celebrating it, irrespective of the lives of the Hard working devs who have no say in things like character design. This jovial mean spiritedness is misplaced, juvenile, short sighted, and cruel.

It's also fucking hilarious, get wrecked, Fable, kek
Maybe don't go full resetera and call people you don't agree with a bigot...

People are allowed to have their opinions.
 

phant0m

Member
To be fair, she not the Narrative Director. The Narrative Director of Fable is Martin Lancaster, former lead scriptwriter from Rocksteady on Arkham Knight. He's been working on the game since 2018, i think he is more the "leader" of all the story and writing part of Fable.

Still not a good sign.

This is actually fair. And to that point they probably don't have a ton of work for someone mid-level at this point. The main story beats are done, quests written, and she's probably above fine-tuning dialogue lines and in-game text descriptions.
 

tmlDan

Member
Maybe this is good? I didn't like the writing in the trailer, to me, it wasn't funny and that's what i hope for in a fable game. Obviously, I don't know who wrote that (likely Martin) but im being positive
 

MagiusNecros

Gilgamesh Fan Annoyance
Kind of not related to her, but why the hell they always announce their departure (or firing)? This is the only industry that does that, to my knowledge.
Are gaming hires more narcissistic than anyone else?
Probably. Some of em have very high opinions of themselves.

As for announcing it on Social Media I imagine it's to claim you left on good terms and the company has a positive self image even if the opposite is true. It comes off as a very weak PR statement. Pretty clear to see since it's so common.

Peculiar don't you think they they announce their departure very shortly after the backlash of Fable girl that looks like a guy?

Probably a lot more to this story behind closed doors at the office. Probably won't hear about it either.
 

Fuz

Banned
Peculiar don't you think they they announce their departure very shortly after the backlash of Fable girl that looks like a guy?
Was there really a backlash? Or is it just here?

Because, while if is a pretty big forum, we are in a decided minority.
 

MagiusNecros

Gilgamesh Fan Annoyance
Was there really a backlash? Or is it just here?

Because, while if is a pretty big forum, we are in a decided minority.
I'm seeing videos about it come up in my YT feed...so it isn't just NeoGAF.

Think some controversy sparked on Twitter/Social Media because someone fixed the character by making them look like an actual pretty girl using AI. Difference is staggering IMO.

aWG2Pz3_460s.jpg
 
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TIGERCOOL

Member
What. You just literally made half that shit up.

Why do you assume she's an unqualified virtue hire? She has credentials and prior work experience. Where is the logical leap you took to get there besides the fact she's a woman...?

If it was a guy, would you assume he was automatically qualified and just got fired/left for other reasons?
She's often cited as an industry vet but every credit prior to dishonored DOTO was a literal who project or 2$ dating game on steam. Fun fact about DOTO: the lead admitted that his all female writing staff was by design, and he even hired some based on their anti-patriarchal twitter posts alone (it shows).

That was her big break, which lead to her work on Control where she piggy-backed on Sam Lake's work. Now it seems she spent a good chunk of her time on Fable writing two self-congratulatory books about her "well earned" industry success. She didn't remain with Remedy after a smash success. She was either dismissed or prematurely vacated her position with Playground Games. Observe the smoke.

I can't see a single original, interesting or funny thought on her twitter; just retweets of woman's lit and general activist content with paper-thin commentary tacked on. Beneficiaries of the modern mind-virus are easy to spot, as they are often the most vocal and visible proponents of it. This isn't a condemning of all women in creative positions, it's a function of critical thinking.

The failure and destruction of every promising or beloved intellectual property is rooted in this practice. Forgive me for noticing.
 

MagiusNecros

Gilgamesh Fan Annoyance
Remember that there's an algorythm tuned on your personality behind those suggestions.
I do enjoy gaming gossip so it's probably why it shows up.

Seems to be the trend that I see Ugly is good and Beauty is bad coupled with all the mixed views on AI generated art, AI Voices and what have you. I think some content creators are starting to make content with AI generated voices now. It's becoming quite interesting to read about.

It's slowly becoming a reality that you won't know what's real anymore. Like Vtubers was one thing but add in AI and it's slowly getting out of control.
 

Raonak

Banned
She's often cited as an industry vet but every credit prior to dishonored DOTO was a literal who project or 2$ dating game on steam. Fun fact about DOTO: the lead admitted that his all female writing staff was by design, and he even hired some based on their anti-patriarchal twitter posts alone (it shows).

That was her big break, which lead to her work on Control where she piggy-backed on Sam Lake's work. Now it seems she spent a good chunk of her time on Fable writing two self-congratulatory books about her "well earned" industry success. She didn't remain with Remedy after a smash success. She was either dismissed or prematurely vacated her position with Playground Games. Observe the smoke.

I can't see a single original, interesting or funny thought on her twitter; just retweets of woman's lit and general activist content with paper-thin commentary tacked on. Beneficiaries of the modern mind-virus are easy to spot, as they are often the most vocal and visible proponents of it. This isn't a condemning of all women in creative positions, it's a function of critical thinking.

The failure and destruction of every promising or beloved intellectual property is rooted in this practice. Forgive me for noticing.

Yeah, once again, you're literally pulling shit out of your ass to fit your own narrative.

You have no insider information whatsoever. You're making up how much input she had or didn't have on control.

And worst of all you're literally using tweets to judge her writing abilities 😂

You're just mad that she doesn't share the same political views as you. Guess what? most people don't. There's no shortage of people like her in creative fields like writing and they aren't all being gifted free jobs.

What you fail to understand is that you are actually the one with a mind virus that is poisoning your view of the world. You seem to attribute everything to politics, when in reality it's all just business.
 
This could be nothing or another indicator of problems with development. When it comes to Microsoft lately it feels it falls on later. Hope there isn't anything there and play ground games is a great developer but they've never made a game like this before. We heard a rumor already they were having trouble with the engine being designed for racing games and not for action 3rd person.
 

RagnarokIV

Member
Should have had Ayoade as the narrative lead, main character AND director to be honest. The guy is a legend, hilarious to the bone and a treasure.
 

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
a quick scroll through her twitter tells me everything I need to know. she was fired, likely has always been unqualified for the position. when the going gets tough virtue hires quickly become untenable business propositions. funny watching Hollywood and the gaming industry scrambling to climb out of the massive hole they've been smugly digging for nearly a decade. get fucked.

Certain people quickly tell on themselves in threads like this. There's only one future that people like you want to see.
 

Corndog

Banned
Yeah, once again, you're literally pulling shit out of your ass to fit your own narrative.

You have no insider information whatsoever. You're making up how much input she had or didn't have on control.

And worst of all you're literally using tweets to judge her writing abilities 😂

You're just mad that she doesn't share the same political views as you. Guess what? most people don't. There's no shortage of people like her in creative fields like writing and they aren't all being gifted free jobs.

What you fail to understand is that you are actually the one with a mind virus that is poisoning your view of the world. You seem to attribute everything to politics, when in reality it's all just business.
Not supposed to discuss politics here.
 

PeteBull

Member
It wasn’t in engine footage. Go look at the trailer again.
If its not a gameplay, and cutscenes arent gameplay, it can be called all kinds of funky words, just compare spiderman 2 teaser trailer vs actual gameplay, from recent downgrades/bullshot trailers, and u will see we are right there.
We judge game's gameplay and graphics by actual gameplay footage, not in engine/ ingame cutscenes or w/e dev thinks of how to call no actual gameplay :)
 

Corndog

Banned
If its not a gameplay, and cutscenes arent gameplay, it can be called all kinds of funky words, just compare spiderman 2 teaser trailer vs actual gameplay, from recent downgrades/bullshot trailers, and u will see we are right there.
We judge game's gameplay and graphics by actual gameplay footage, not in engine/ ingame cutscenes or w/e dev thinks of how to call no actual gameplay :)
It has very short gameplay scenes. Whether they are bull crap or not I don’t know.
 

PeteBull

Member
It has very short gameplay scenes. Whether they are bull crap or not I don’t know.

Lets compare it to real gameplay which hopefully will be shown this or latest next year, then we can make some proper judgements, coz teaser trailer for spiderman2 was supposed to be gameplay too, or that teaser trailer of uncharted 4, infamous 60fps footage, and we all know how it tuned out, Microsoft got many similar cases, like first "in engine" halo infinity trailer, to not look far ;D
 
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