Bioware to Fix Error-Laden Mass Effect Novel

[Beryl77]

I want to point out that this is nothing new. Dietz ruined the Halo 'verse well before he set about mutilating the Mass Effect one.

I LOVE the Halo EU novels, but the second one--written by Dietz is like reading a walkthrough rather than a book. An unfinished walkthrough. Written by a five-year-old. With a piece of dried poo.

How is this dumbass still allowed to write books??? I've read CRACKFICS that were better-written than his stuff. Freaking Full-Life Consequences was better than his Halo novel. He needs to be blacklisted from the official novel community.

I've heard that his "own" books aren't bad, it's the tie-ins he fucks up but his reputation makes me wonder why Bioware/EA thought that it's a good idea to hire him to write Deception.

 

[Baresark]

I'm glad they are fixing this. I don't care to read the books but now the internet can move on from this.

Also, what is that hideous picture next to the article?

 

[Baresark]

With the amount of errors and stuff, did anyone from the game's writing team even read the drafts? Why weren't they editing? And why did Chris tweet that the book was good?

To promote the book and by extension promote ME. I'm sure he didn't read it. Or he didn't pay attention to it when he was reading it.

 

[Baresark]

It's good that Bioware listen to the fans and also takes action but I doubt that a number of changes are enough. This "book" is an abomination. The only way to rescue it, means it has to be rewritten by some other writer.
It's not just the lore that has many holes.
The characters are destroyed. They act completely different than before for no apparent reason. Kai Leng, Kahlee Sanders and David Anderson will never be the same again unless the book is rewritten.
The story is often stupid and nonsensical not just because of the lore. Certain things that happen just don't make any sense.
The writing is just bad. I don't know why he wrote in such bad style, I've read another book by Dietz and that was at least average. Here he writes like he has never written a book before.

You can say that I exaggerate but I think that there are just too many things wrong with this book.
Still, I appreciate it that Bioware at least wants to change it. To be honest, I did not expect that to happen. I thought that they would simply wait until fans forgot about this.

Its a VIDEOGAME BOOK, Of course its going to suck! Even if it got everything right canon wise it would still suck! Videogame books just fucking suck and it will always be that way. Just like paying your taxes

Why would a book automatically suck if it's based in a world created originally for a video game? Maybe back in the day when the depth of worlds/characters in games was as deep as a paddling pool.. but these days the quality and size of game universes rivals any mediums realms.

The Mass Effect universe is my favourite sci-fi universe bar none (I prefer it to Star Wars, Trek, B5, the list goes on), and I really liked the previous 3 books by DK, and I never read novels.. to be honest, Video Game novels have got me back into reading, which I am greatful for, and find books tied into games to give my gaming another layer of satisfaction, knowing back stories of characters you meet and places you go: it's so good.

The Deus Ex, Dragon Age and Star Wars Old Republic books have done the same for me, expanded my gaming to include even more lore content to enhance the total experience. So I put it to you sir, that they do not 'suck', but in fact 'rule'.

cheers.

I'm with you, they don't have to suck. There are lots of property tie in novels that are awesome (the prequel novel to the last Terminator film was about 1 billion times better in my opinion, than the movie). That said, there are reasons why certain tie in books suck. The Dragon Age novels for example are just cliches of the videogame they came from and it drives me nuts. I'll say this though, I hate when people assume something is going to suck.

 

[Kashrlyyk]

Do fans that bought the error-laden version the fixed versions for free? Does Bioware actually expect the fans to pay twice?

 

[spectrenihlus]

Well, E-books are here, so patches and DLC for books may not be such and weird idea. But I'm glad they'll do am updated version of this book, since three former were good.

How, pray tell, would DLC for books work? The only thing I could imagine may be a preview to the books sequel?

Short story inserts?

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

You know he's right, "Fixing the book" pffft that book should be kept the shitty way that it is. Everyone knows that you're not supposed to respond to complaints and actually try to fix the mistakes you made, you're supposed to just sit down and let people ride you like the ***** that you are and not do anything about it...people, I swear.

Also in an unrelated topic WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?!

Ok, I understand you like Mass Effect, but really? We are obviously making fun of them for releasing an error-laden book that needed fixing in the first place.

 

[TheCruxis]

Well I guess this sounds promising. If nothing else it at least shows that Bioware is listening to fans (when enough people scream) allthough I would prefer if they didn't give out such crappy things from the begining.

Now if only I could get my money back from buying the faulty version of the book. You don't really expect me to buy the book twice now do you Bioware?

 

[everythingbeeps]

And with this, gentle readers, we have come full circle. Bioware is going to patch a book. It's now only a matter of time before they announce extra chapters as DLC.

XD i say thats a good business model :tf:

I would actually relished the day that books can be patched XD

They've been patching Kindle books for a while now. Certainly not changing the actual content as in this case, but fixing typos and formatting issues and all that other stuff.

And this makes me wonder: if someone bought the Kindle version of this book, will their copy be patched at no charge? Or will they have to rebuy it like all the poor schmucks who bought the physical book?

 

[4173]

Patching books isn't new. This is only remarkable because of the atrocious research and editing for a book with a [relatively] sizable audience.

 

[Strazdas]

at least they are out and admitting they made a fault, unlike, say, ubisoft.

 

[Falseprophet]

It was about a year or two ago that Ubisoft was looking to hire someone to manage all the lore of the Assassin's Creed setting. Not sure what came of that, but it sounded like a really smart business decision on Ubisoft's part.

As fans become more and more invested in the lore and nitty-gritty of their favourite fictional settings, I think it behooves content creation companies to hire content managers to keep on top of all this stuff. Especially if the company wants to expand their IP outside of their traditional medium into spin-offs like books and webseries, etc. If they want these peripheral stories to be taken seriously by fans of their original brand and not seen as a cynical cash-grab, they should treat their own IP with as much respect as their devout fans do.

 

[Sampsa]

Well, E-books are here, so patches and DLC for books may not be such and weird idea. But I'm glad they'll do am updated version of this book, since three former were good.

How, pray tell, would DLC for books work? The only thing I could imagine may be a preview to the books sequel?

Well, what happened meanwhile stylish DLC comes first into mind. Maybe the Whole Story (sorry LRR) would require some puchases like the ME2 DLC with Batarian relay destruction. And if the book is not so much into canon alternate endings for paragon / renegade etc.

 

[Amgeo]

I really hope that the edited version of the book turns out to be really good and becomes super-popular, and that like five or ten years from now the error-laden versions turn into collector's items and sell for like a couple hundred bucks.

 

[Therumancer]

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.

Problem with that idea is that editing a book is a LOT cheaper than refunding EVERY BOOK THAT WAS SOLD. Most games, when they are unplayable at launch don't get refunded, they are just patched. Calling it non-canon could of been done, and would of been cheaper, but than you have to explain to your investors why your not selling the book that you spent their money to publish.

I understand a lot of the reasons behind it. My basic attitude is that when your dealing with a big enough IP to brach into multiple kinds of media like "Mass Effect" they need to look at the big picture rather than the profit/loss of a specific product. You do a half arsed job to fix something like this and you still wind up with a giant turd stuck onto the IP, and with that precedent you wind up with more and more similar things happening until the IP literally gets dragged down from carrying so much crap. In the process of getting dragged down the money "saved" by say not recalling a novel like this gets lost in the 11th hour anyway as people futilely attempt to save it, or carried away by investors jumping off the sinking product... when honestly by using some standards and taking short term losses the property could survive longer and make everyone a lot more money.

Mass Effect is three dimensional enough where I could potentially see it going from games, books, and comics into TV and Movies and such... sort of like what Star Wars did in reverse, but that potential is meaningless if nobody bothers to take care of the property at this sensitive stage... one or two products like this that the rights holders don't respond properly to can sink the entire thing.