Hanging up the Rage Hat
I have had enough with being the editor behind the Rage releases. It makes me fight 
fenris_lorsrai and generally be pissed off with her and the other Rage head. In the end, not worth it. Though I will now spend time bitching where all can see. I don't know what this says about me. Probably that I'm still angry. Anyone surprised? It's just been a crappy crappy week.
I got involved with Rage as a playtester back at the beginning of the fan made sets. At the time I was mostly roped in by my ex and Fenris. And playing cards is the standard form of interaction among my family, so not so strange that I'd go for it. Then I got to proof the things on the card plates. There were a number of other playtesters who also worked to proof things. Then the cards get published on line. tada, more cards.
I think I've spent the past month getting bitched at over the original set for not catching things the first time, despite that being three years ago. This is patently unfair since at the time I wasn't even doing the proofing as a professional job and even with professional jobs there are usually a few things that get overlooked. Also I was proofing off of an itsy bitsy PDF where sometimes it was a challenge just to read the letters. Expecting me to realize the stuff lacked a period would require I had a magnifying glass. I also got bitched at for not checking the keywords despite the fact that I was never asked to keep track of the terminology. At the time I played much less Rage, and was going with the theory that the experienced people knew what they were doing when they picked their words. Silly me. I got over this a while ago and would not be bringing it up if I were not listening regularly to disgusted comments about how the editing sucked.
I did another set which I officially edited (proofing is grammar and punctuation level, editing is word choice level). The work nearly drove me mad listening to Fenris torture the English language because she claimed to be writing to make the cards airtight to prevent rules lawyers. In some cases, this was necessary. In other cases, this was ridiculous in the extreme. This experience should be filed under things that make my head hurt.
I edited the revised Frenzy rules and many attempts at revising the Battlefield rules.
I was taking my masters exams when the next set was due to be released, so did no editing on it. I think the most gratifying part of that time was hearing about the complaint and clarification requests from foreign speakers who were having difficulty understanding the cards. Invisibility is the way of the editor, grasshopper. That people saw I was missing from the sets by the shape of the hole I left, though never saw me in the work I did earlier, made me happy.
Now comes the next set of horror, Ahadi. I was determined to see that what was produced was a quality product. Instead I am saddled with bosses who flat out ignore me, but keep asking me to continue.
I left the boards and quit the lists at one point because the fighting over Battlefields and the infamous Mangle were spilling over into real life and the work just wasn't worth it to me. I have spent my time brushing up on the rules of play and card construction, and was determined Mangle should be overhauled more. I did not have any direct interface with the Rules Team at all, which just left me arguing with Fenris who had given up on the issue in the Rules debate when I considered it to be the most important one. Songs of Fire was determined to publish a Mangle which might as well have been left untouched.
With my master's done, Least Wanted done without me yet with an obvious me shaped hole, and Battlefields sidelined (I don't like the current trend in the Battlefield playtest and was considering retiring from play the same way I retired from Babylon 5 with the release of the Drakh), Fenris asked me to come back. And silly me for agreeing.
I became much more involved in Rules Team chat with Songs of Fire's retirement and Fenris insisting that I should write to the others rather than having her do so in her capacity of playtest head. Aside from editing, I made the rules team look at issues of long term planning in their design so that they would not just be making stuff to make stuff. I made them get a long term faction plan. I also solved part of the problem of long term design for the Ajaba, who only appear in Africa.
So what went wrong? Silly me, after doing the above I turned to focus on the work I was actually supposed to be doing. And I got to look at the raw text which I blew up to 16 pt size so there was no chance of missing a period. But, Fenris decided to argue with me about the technical side of the editing I was doing. Not even the phrasing, but the nuts and bolts where slashes and commas go. Because the other way around looks cooler even if it is utterly incorrect. She also decided to argue with me because I was doing research on the rules of the game so that the appropriate keyword would be used despite the fact that she was simoultaenously bitching at me for the last set and the lack of appropriate keywords and not getting it right the first time. So checking the keywords with a fine-toothed comb is not my job, but if the correct keyword is not used, it is my job. Make up your mind what the hell it is you want me to do and if i'm not supposed to do it, stop picking on me for not doing it last time! If I'm busy looking for a job and I want to point to the fact that I worked on Rage as experience then the editing is going to immaculate.
Then I also get to work with Picks at Flies who apparently flunked math. Things were going good up until I was doing the numbers and he was failing to listen to me. 10 +3+7 does not equal 26. It equals 20. The problem is slightly more complex than that, but in the end, addition and some subtraction is all it amounts to. No calculus degree required. Have I mentioned before that I hate when people who can not do basic elementary school math are trying to run anything I'm working on? These are people who should have their heads caved in with bricks for being stupid because you can say that 10+3+7 equals 20 repeatedly and it will just not sink in with them. And its my job as editor to keep telling him the numbers don't add because I'm the editor and I have to make sure the printed product is correct.
He also rearranges the database repeatedly without apparently consulting anyone and changes how moots and boardmeetings listed work. Despite the fact that he does not understand how to run a moot or boardmeeting deck from what i've seen of his construction. Leaves me with the urge to smack him for messing up things he completely fails to understand.
Final blow came today with Fenris claiming I'd never sent her the Ajaba solution, making up one of her own, having it be wrong because she was apparently pulling crap from the internet rather than looking for the e-mail I sent out, blaming me for having her books so she couldn't find it herself, blaming me for not sending the email, saying when I produced the e-mail it was not clearly marked (It was under the on-going conversation of new users for stuff, in which we were talking about how to give stuff to underrepresented character keywords. It was a solution to give Ajaba an additional character keyword that would give them access to old stuff and new stuff. Granted, it did not say AJABA in big bold letters, but it was an entire section of the letter, so obviously she's just not reading what I write. I find this darkly humorous since it is the third time that she's lost something I sent her, yet she complained endlessly about Song of Fire never reading his e-mail. Pot calling the kettle black much?)
So fuck it. They can release the alien from Mars set for all I care. Garou can grow eight arms and use were-elephant gifts. Picks's monsters can take over the earth. Setites can all commit ritual suicide because Set told them to. Fuck it. I don't want to hear about Rage ever again. I'm sick of being ignored when I'm doing my job and telling them the things they need to hear about how to spell and do basic math.
This does mean no Rage storyline from me. I will post the completed first chapter tomorrow when I'm less sleepy. It was supposed to come out mid-August, but due to the wait on finishing the previous storyline, it was not released.
And if someone wants to take issue with me not correcting and editing my journal, forget it. Its a journal. If I started editing it as if it was a professional document I should be shot since I despise journals in general.
fenris_lorsrai and generally be pissed off with her and the other Rage head. In the end, not worth it. Though I will now spend time bitching where all can see. I don't know what this says about me. Probably that I'm still angry. Anyone surprised? It's just been a crappy crappy week.
I got involved with Rage as a playtester back at the beginning of the fan made sets. At the time I was mostly roped in by my ex and Fenris. And playing cards is the standard form of interaction among my family, so not so strange that I'd go for it. Then I got to proof the things on the card plates. There were a number of other playtesters who also worked to proof things. Then the cards get published on line. tada, more cards.
I think I've spent the past month getting bitched at over the original set for not catching things the first time, despite that being three years ago. This is patently unfair since at the time I wasn't even doing the proofing as a professional job and even with professional jobs there are usually a few things that get overlooked. Also I was proofing off of an itsy bitsy PDF where sometimes it was a challenge just to read the letters. Expecting me to realize the stuff lacked a period would require I had a magnifying glass. I also got bitched at for not checking the keywords despite the fact that I was never asked to keep track of the terminology. At the time I played much less Rage, and was going with the theory that the experienced people knew what they were doing when they picked their words. Silly me. I got over this a while ago and would not be bringing it up if I were not listening regularly to disgusted comments about how the editing sucked.
I did another set which I officially edited (proofing is grammar and punctuation level, editing is word choice level). The work nearly drove me mad listening to Fenris torture the English language because she claimed to be writing to make the cards airtight to prevent rules lawyers. In some cases, this was necessary. In other cases, this was ridiculous in the extreme. This experience should be filed under things that make my head hurt.
I edited the revised Frenzy rules and many attempts at revising the Battlefield rules.
I was taking my masters exams when the next set was due to be released, so did no editing on it. I think the most gratifying part of that time was hearing about the complaint and clarification requests from foreign speakers who were having difficulty understanding the cards. Invisibility is the way of the editor, grasshopper. That people saw I was missing from the sets by the shape of the hole I left, though never saw me in the work I did earlier, made me happy.
Now comes the next set of horror, Ahadi. I was determined to see that what was produced was a quality product. Instead I am saddled with bosses who flat out ignore me, but keep asking me to continue.
I left the boards and quit the lists at one point because the fighting over Battlefields and the infamous Mangle were spilling over into real life and the work just wasn't worth it to me. I have spent my time brushing up on the rules of play and card construction, and was determined Mangle should be overhauled more. I did not have any direct interface with the Rules Team at all, which just left me arguing with Fenris who had given up on the issue in the Rules debate when I considered it to be the most important one. Songs of Fire was determined to publish a Mangle which might as well have been left untouched.
With my master's done, Least Wanted done without me yet with an obvious me shaped hole, and Battlefields sidelined (I don't like the current trend in the Battlefield playtest and was considering retiring from play the same way I retired from Babylon 5 with the release of the Drakh), Fenris asked me to come back. And silly me for agreeing.
I became much more involved in Rules Team chat with Songs of Fire's retirement and Fenris insisting that I should write to the others rather than having her do so in her capacity of playtest head. Aside from editing, I made the rules team look at issues of long term planning in their design so that they would not just be making stuff to make stuff. I made them get a long term faction plan. I also solved part of the problem of long term design for the Ajaba, who only appear in Africa.
So what went wrong? Silly me, after doing the above I turned to focus on the work I was actually supposed to be doing. And I got to look at the raw text which I blew up to 16 pt size so there was no chance of missing a period. But, Fenris decided to argue with me about the technical side of the editing I was doing. Not even the phrasing, but the nuts and bolts where slashes and commas go. Because the other way around looks cooler even if it is utterly incorrect. She also decided to argue with me because I was doing research on the rules of the game so that the appropriate keyword would be used despite the fact that she was simoultaenously bitching at me for the last set and the lack of appropriate keywords and not getting it right the first time. So checking the keywords with a fine-toothed comb is not my job, but if the correct keyword is not used, it is my job. Make up your mind what the hell it is you want me to do and if i'm not supposed to do it, stop picking on me for not doing it last time! If I'm busy looking for a job and I want to point to the fact that I worked on Rage as experience then the editing is going to immaculate.
Then I also get to work with Picks at Flies who apparently flunked math. Things were going good up until I was doing the numbers and he was failing to listen to me. 10 +3+7 does not equal 26. It equals 20. The problem is slightly more complex than that, but in the end, addition and some subtraction is all it amounts to. No calculus degree required. Have I mentioned before that I hate when people who can not do basic elementary school math are trying to run anything I'm working on? These are people who should have their heads caved in with bricks for being stupid because you can say that 10+3+7 equals 20 repeatedly and it will just not sink in with them. And its my job as editor to keep telling him the numbers don't add because I'm the editor and I have to make sure the printed product is correct.
He also rearranges the database repeatedly without apparently consulting anyone and changes how moots and boardmeetings listed work. Despite the fact that he does not understand how to run a moot or boardmeeting deck from what i've seen of his construction. Leaves me with the urge to smack him for messing up things he completely fails to understand.
Final blow came today with Fenris claiming I'd never sent her the Ajaba solution, making up one of her own, having it be wrong because she was apparently pulling crap from the internet rather than looking for the e-mail I sent out, blaming me for having her books so she couldn't find it herself, blaming me for not sending the email, saying when I produced the e-mail it was not clearly marked (It was under the on-going conversation of new users for stuff, in which we were talking about how to give stuff to underrepresented character keywords. It was a solution to give Ajaba an additional character keyword that would give them access to old stuff and new stuff. Granted, it did not say AJABA in big bold letters, but it was an entire section of the letter, so obviously she's just not reading what I write. I find this darkly humorous since it is the third time that she's lost something I sent her, yet she complained endlessly about Song of Fire never reading his e-mail. Pot calling the kettle black much?)
So fuck it. They can release the alien from Mars set for all I care. Garou can grow eight arms and use were-elephant gifts. Picks's monsters can take over the earth. Setites can all commit ritual suicide because Set told them to. Fuck it. I don't want to hear about Rage ever again. I'm sick of being ignored when I'm doing my job and telling them the things they need to hear about how to spell and do basic math.
This does mean no Rage storyline from me. I will post the completed first chapter tomorrow when I'm less sleepy. It was supposed to come out mid-August, but due to the wait on finishing the previous storyline, it was not released.
And if someone wants to take issue with me not correcting and editing my journal, forget it. Its a journal. If I started editing it as if it was a professional document I should be shot since I despise journals in general.