Forbes' article on Retake Mass Effect

I just want to commend the tremendous effort that Kihten and all the other admins went to, putting all the comments together into a cohesive response could not have been easy. Also everyone who took the time to answer the questions deserves praise for taking time out to be involved.

I also want to thank Paul Tassi (I'm going to comment at Forbes in a moment) for his even handed approach when reporting on this issue.

My only comment to Andy Borkowski (or the new account PureSophistry he has set up) is this. I believe in positive reinforcement, one of the reasons I think this forum works so well is because we can show our appreciation through rating each other's posts, it gives us incentive to be our best. So, it was with great reluctance that I gave you a disagree, the first negative rating I have ever given out. The reason I did this is because you do not appear to be taking valid criticisms on board and setting up a new account only reinforces this belief. However; just like BioWare can win my trust back through their actions, so can you.

Hi guys! On behalf of the team, I'd like to thank you again for throwing in your support behind this Forbes article. If it's not too much to ask, I know most of you are aware that BSN is like a minefield. I am promoting this article in BSN anyway. It's a heavy risk but the priiize

Anyway, here's the link and I'd appreciate it if some of you guys would help me moderate inflammatory comments to keep this thread alive. Thank you!

http://bit.ly/HYehUm

NooooooOOOoooo pleeeeease please, i beg you ! stop it !

Done and my response:

Excellent response! I read it in BSN. Much appreciated Suzie

I can't, I love making fun of Jacob and using this emoticon I think it's such an accurate depiction of my facial expression when I joke around lol

I simply adore children - but I could never eat a whole one!

Hey guys I know this forum is about the Forbes article, but I think you guys will like this one too. Its from GameFront, on of the few gaming sites that has supported us from the beginning, and its a really good article.

http://www.gamefront.com/mass-effect-3-ending-change-could-have-empowered-game-writing/2/

Not to take anything away from kihten for her interview., which was awesome by the way.

Well I just saw that this is already posted on the front page, so I feel like an idiot.

oh snap. only on the first sentence and i'm already on board with this article.
no spotlights here, it's all good ^_^ also this article rocks!
after the announcement + pax + holiday weekend, it's nice to feel a little victorious today with all this good press & re-establishing ourselves on HTL, Twitter, BSN, etc.
*fistbump*

But but Kihten.. I can't decide if I'm a Shenko or a Shekarian... how do I decide?

hmmm Shenkorian?

Simple, leave kaiden in virmire. Problem solved

Um, I haven't been over there yet, but isn't there a rule, #34 or some such, that handles this kind of situation?

Ahh yes, quite a great site, if that's what you're looking for.

Simply put, well done ma'am.

I've seen alot of consumer advocate interviews and yours was top shelf.

/salute

Hold the Line

Why is this an issue? We are all members of the same movement. Leaders and voices will emerge, it doesn't matter where from. There are no authority figures but there ARE voices. The fact that she extended the olive branch and didn't come down on Eric was a sign of her recognizing that the other side of an issue discussed days ago within the movement itself is proof that we are all together on this one. The point of the article was to see what we (everyone involved- not a single site or a single social media forum) thought, and she has proven time and time again that she's willing to work with EVERYONE involved and not single anyone out... I couldn't ask for a better, more eloquent person to represent us in this article.

I am finding more and more that in your comments you are insistent upon giving the issue of fracturing the group more attention than its worth. I personally don't mind it when anyone from the movement represents us as intelligent, thoughtful, and active in the community. For what its worth she's a member of BOTH communities and reserves the right to represent both, just as most of us in this forum do (let's face it, Andy... we're all Here and there... and all over the internet for the same reason). We only divide if we go about condemning the actions of one group or the other... and as far as I see it... we're not there. I'm pretty sure all of us believe that to do so is counterproductive. So let it go. Plenty of us are more than happy to live and let live... Why aren't you?

Andy, I hope you don't mind me using just this part for my reply, it's just to ensure that users have less scrolling to do because my response is going to be pretty long. For those reading my reply, Andy's full post is here.

I'm going to say something that may surprise you - there is no rift. You've brought the apparent division between the two groups up a few times. But there is no division between the FB group and HTL. How do I know this? Because we are the FB group. I would wager a guess that most of us on HTL are part of that group. We write comments and discuss matters there, just as we do here. Just as we do on BSN. There was never any kind of issue with the FB group. Never any sense us us vs them because we are "them." If they were different groups, then we would all be double agents.

Before I continue, let me make clear, while I'm a moderator at HTL, I'm expressing my own views, and not making any "official" statement on behalf of HTL. "Volion" who is the admin of HTL, doesn't represent me or my views, neither does Eric or any of the other organisers at FB. And that's the whole point. HTL was set up for Retakers to discuss the movement and share ideas. Everyone is welcome here. We also encourage people to sign up at the Facebook group and to continue discussions at BSN and anywhere else the ME3 issue is being discussed. Yes, you read that right. For all this talk of a rift, we're telling people to go to Facebook. The bottom of this very webpage has a link to the Facebook group. This talk of a division between the groups is, frankly, ridiculous.

The cupcake campaign is a perfect example. It originated right here on HTL. It was then discussed on Facebook. I first read about it on BSN.

There is something of a division between individuals, that's true. But a statement from Eric on his FB page or a statement made here by a HTL staff member about relationships between the sites has absolutely nothing to do with the thousands of people in the movement. It's a debate on organisational structure, nothing more.

There is no leader of Retake. Never has been. There are people who have set up websites and provided resources, which we are all grateful for but it doesn't make their voice any more or less important than anyone else's. This movement exists only because of the thousands of people that take part. That has always been our strength. The Child's Play drive for example, was conceived and organized by an individual but it was made successful by all the people who donated.

We like to say that we act through consensus. It's not PR spin meant to make people feel like they are involved. It's the reality. HTL has staff. We have moderators like myself, we have PR people. We don't exist to represent the movement. We don't try to represent the movement. The purpose of the HTL PR and creative staff is basically to try to find a way to implement ideas that have come from the community, if those ideas have reached a broad level of consensus. But here's the thing. It's not necessarily going to follow that pattern all the time. An idea may crop up here and then someone over at BSN may have the best resources to enact it and if the consensus is that this should happen, it will.

I'm a moderator. My only job here is to moderate. Basic stuff like merging threads, prevent trolling etc. I received no instructions saying that I had to be careful what I say because it may not represent the leadership's opinion. Why? Because there is no leadership. If there was, I'd have been removed from my position long ago.

The interview with Forbes wasn't just one person giving her opinion. Those answers came from the community. That's how we work. Nobody sets themselves up as the leader of the movement. A long time ago on a forum far, far away...BSN to be exact, we had the discussion about having a spokesperson or a leader. You may have even been part of the discussion. The consensus was that we didn't need one. That the way we would work is that someone comes up with an idea and if enough people (a majority) like it, we'd go ahead with it. When it came to media interaction, it wasn't something we sought but if journalists wanted to speak to an individual, nobody had a problem with that as long as it was clear that the viewpoints expressed were that of the individual and not necessarily of the movement as a whole. In the case of this interview, it was the HTL community's opinions that were put forward, not those of one person representing the community.

I'm sure you remember, back when you did your first interview with Eric, you posted a thread about it on BSN, talking about interviewing the leader of Retake and people on that thread were confused because nobody had told them that they had a leader. You clarified that you were talking about the creator of the Facebook page and people on the thread made it clear that he wasn't the leader of the movement, that there was no leader. He was just the person who created the Facebook page, something we all appreciate of course.

Ever since then, you have continued to refer to him as the leader of Retake. That's something many people have an issue with because as I explained above, there is no leader. Whether the organisers of the Facebook page want to refer to themselves as leaders or whether I want to declare myself lord and master of all things Retake is irrelevant. The movement is fluid and exists in more than one place. If the Facebook group organisers come up with ideas for the movement they want to enact that will help the movement, we will embrace it wholeheartedly. But in the end, organisers is what they are. It's what the HTL staff is. There are no leaders. The movement can't function without the thousands of people supporting it. Those people don't confine themselves to any particular group or website.

As such there can be no rift in the movement itself if the division is about which is the "official" Retake site. Because there is none. You only have to look at the hundreds of comments on the Facebook group itself from people who had no idea that there was supposed to be a distinction between "official" and "unofficial" with regard to where the movement congregates.

My apologies. This was longer than I thought it was going to be.

Everything He said!

Thank you Vadakin for saying what I was feeling and thinking.
Lan

@Vadakin, usually my eyes glaze over at the sight of a giant wall of text, or I just skim and hope I got the important parts, but I have to say I read every word, and thought that your post was extremely well written and thoroughly though out. I agreed with it totally. Win for you, sir.

I was very pleased with how you guys managed to take all our feedback and distill them into a fairly clear and well-presented consensus. You were honest without being overly biased towards any specific subset of the fans who are looking for a better ending. Very well done.

Kudos!