Bioware to Fix Error-Laden Mass Effect Novel
- Thread starter The Wooster
- Start date
I know it ruins the joke, but "book patching," commonly referred to errata(and not to be confused with erotica) predates game patching by quite a bit.
Whoa, way to generalize there. There have been some pretty decent videogame tie in books. Heck, the first Mass Effect book wasn't bad. It was a good intro to the universe even before the games came out and it gave us the backstory to Captain Anderson. And there have been other good ones too, like some of the Warcraft and Diablo books. Are these masterpieces by any strech? Hell, no! But do they all suck? No, as well.SurfinTaxt said:
Yes, it's a videogame book, that doesn't mean that there shouldn't at least be some amount of quality. If read a few videogame books which weren't bad, like the three Mass Effect novels before Deception. Deception is a book that I wouldn't touch with a 12 foot pole. "It's a videogame book" isn't an excuse for this atrocity.SurfinTaxt said:
I vaguely recall coming across the exception to that rule years ago, but I can't remember what it was for the life of me.SurfinTaxt said:
Might have been the Alpha Centari stuff.
Could be worse, they could thread the game's story line into it so that certain junctures only make sense if you've read the tie ins, or introduce characters without any explanation as to who they are if you haven't read the book. I mean, Bioware would never do something like that to one of their franchises like Mass Effect or Dragon Age.SurfinTaxt said:
Great.Grey Carter said:
So they're going to patch the 100 or so tech, lore, and obvious plot errors.
However, unless they just rewrite the book from scratch, they aren't going to be able to fix the flat (and therefore boring) descriptions of action scenes, characters acting entirely out of character, or the terrible story that makes your typical tie-in novel look like fucking Shakespeare.
the blatant fridge-stuffing of three beloved characters for no reason.
Sorry Bioware - no. Too little (albeit right on time). Releasing a mildly altered version where Quarians aren't running around in rags and the guns work right doesn't fix the larger issues - Dietz is a hack and should not have been given this project in the first place.
Bioware, if anyone there is reading this, just cut your losses and declare the whole mess non-cannon.
Honestly, I'm not sure why you decided to go with this book in the first place. If you declare it non-cannon, you can release some ME3 DLC featuring Gillian. I'd pay $10 for a Shadow Broker-esque DLC mission featuring Gillian. I won't pay $7 for a novel with writing that terrible. In fact, I won't pay ANYTHING for it. Ever.
The first three, all by Drew Karpyshyn, are actually quite good. The pacing in Ascension (book 2) is a little off (it takes a long time to get going) but the story and character are really well done. Books 1 and 3 have better pacing and equally good stories.ChromaticWolfen said:
Of course, Book 4 (I can't bring myself to type its name) is written by Dietz, who is a hack. He was wrong for the material, wrong for the universe, and just... ugh. I just want to punch the misogynistic bastard.
That's the thing, the first three weren't bad. They were actually pretty good. Not great, but good stories about interesting characters doing interesting things. They had the feel of the Mass Effect games, and they provided back story and character development to Anderson.SurfinTaxt said:
Prior to this, Mass Effect's tie-in books were actually of surprising quality. Still kinda lame when compared to real sci-fi lit (see Lois McMaster Bujold or Orson Scott Card's early work), but a lot better than the average shlock.
You know, as I've been saying since my PnP RPG days, it would be nice if in situations companies like this not only declared something non-canon, but actually instituted a recall and refund on products.
Correcting "errors" in something like this is kind of pointless, and hurts the lore and franchise. It's sort of like how companies like Palladium and WoTC/TSR/Hasbro/whever has D&D have made revisions within differant printings of the same "edition" of a PnP book, or how sometimes there will be differances between printings of a given novel. I remember actually sitting down with differant printings of RIFTs, say the main book or Silver Anniversary copy and finding other pre-Ultimate Edition copies that had differances in them. A major shock in that community came about when the now-ancient "RIFTS Japan" was released and some of the classes were listed as having special abillities referancing mechanics that were not in the game originally. Say if you had an original copy of RIFTs, explaining that some Ninja could make a dodge against ranged weapons with less of a penelty was a "WTF" moment. It was referring to the stupid addition of a -10 to all dodges against ranged attacks without the defender being able to use his dodge bonus (now infamous) that simply wasn't in the game before more recent printings and thus probably like 90% of the people were oblivious to. Not to mention how paticularly dumb this rule was to begin with, even if you understand the reasoning which is an entirely differant cup of beans.
The point is that companies need to take responsibility for the things they do, and crap printed products that do damage to an established property. Just as a toddler toy that represents a choking hazard gets recalled with a sincere apology, the same should happen to bad RPG books, or lore-destroying novels like this one.
To be honest, I'm avoiding "Deception" intenitonally, even if I don't normally read much game tie-in fiction. I would however like a side by side analysis as to whether or not this is a worse affrong to the established universe it claims to represent than the famed Harry Potter fanfiction "My Immortal" (which I did try and read... but it causes almost physical pain, I kid you not). Perhaps an idea for an episode of "No Right Answer"? Perhaps an extra long pod-cast edition featuring readings of both works one after another... the guys from Drinking games could stop by with booze to help kill the pain part way through.
Correcting "errors" in something like this is kind of pointless, and hurts the lore and franchise. It's sort of like how companies like Palladium and WoTC/TSR/Hasbro/whever has D&D have made revisions within differant printings of the same "edition" of a PnP book, or how sometimes there will be differances between printings of a given novel. I remember actually sitting down with differant printings of RIFTs, say the main book or Silver Anniversary copy and finding other pre-Ultimate Edition copies that had differances in them. A major shock in that community came about when the now-ancient "RIFTS Japan" was released and some of the classes were listed as having special abillities referancing mechanics that were not in the game originally. Say if you had an original copy of RIFTs, explaining that some Ninja could make a dodge against ranged weapons with less of a penelty was a "WTF" moment. It was referring to the stupid addition of a -10 to all dodges against ranged attacks without the defender being able to use his dodge bonus (now infamous) that simply wasn't in the game before more recent printings and thus probably like 90% of the people were oblivious to. Not to mention how paticularly dumb this rule was to begin with, even if you understand the reasoning which is an entirely differant cup of beans.
The point is that companies need to take responsibility for the things they do, and crap printed products that do damage to an established property. Just as a toddler toy that represents a choking hazard gets recalled with a sincere apology, the same should happen to bad RPG books, or lore-destroying novels like this one.
To be honest, I'm avoiding "Deception" intenitonally, even if I don't normally read much game tie-in fiction. I would however like a side by side analysis as to whether or not this is a worse affrong to the established universe it claims to represent than the famed Harry Potter fanfiction "My Immortal" (which I did try and read... but it causes almost physical pain, I kid you not). Perhaps an idea for an episode of "No Right Answer"? Perhaps an extra long pod-cast edition featuring readings of both works one after another... the guys from Drinking games could stop by with booze to help kill the pain part way through.
What upset me the most wasn't the errors, it was the fact that the Executive Producer of the damn games said that he read and enjoyed it on his Twitter.
Sadness.
Sadness.
Why go read a pretty average book like Game of Thrones? Go read Foucault's Pendulum or The Name of the Rose. (You can see I'm a Eco worshipper.)SurfinTaxt said:
A Song of Ice and Fire books are dreadfully tedious and drones on an on and never fucking stops and everybody is an arsehole.
See how it goes both ways?
If people want to read video game books I have no problem with that, just as people are free to read tedious dross like GRR Martins books.
