Blachman201 said:Hoo, boy. More "gaming journalist" whining from "Badass Digest" about how "GAEMR ENTITALMANT RANZ AMUCK!!1!"CloudAtlas said:Another site reporting on the this fanfic:
http://badassdigest.com/2014/01/20/super-fan-believes-hes-better-than-the-entire-mass-effect-3-writing-staff/
Not quite as positive as some other articles out there.
What is it with with the attitudes of guys like that? The argument from this and similar articles is basically:
"When you, as a consumer, buys something, you have a right to get what you pay for and complain if you don't get what you want. Unless, of course, some third party - like ME(!) for instance - determines that what you've paid for is Art, in which case: Shut up, you dirty, ungrateful, stupid, self-entitled pleb! Why? Because: Fuck you! That's why!"
Look, I really, really don't care about the ending anymore, what has happened has happened, I accepted that long ago. But that argument and the kind of pompous, self-righteous attitude that spawns it still makes my blood boil.
Especially because I fully expect to one day read something along the lines of "Well, Halo 7 sure had a weird and anti-climatic ending, but at least it was no Mass Effect 3, amirite guize?!" And it will be written by one of these hacks.
You know, the tone matters too. This guy chose to preface his work with pretty much "BioWare's ideas sucked, mine are much better". That is 'pompous, self-righteous attitude' right there, it's arrogance, hybris and disrespect.
He could have also written something along those lines in his intro:
"I love the Mass Effect universe and am deeply grateful to BioWare for creating it. I know many people loved ME3, and I wanted to love it too, but I couldn't. There were some things in the story that I thought weren't done well "objectively", some that just didn't match my personal preferences, and some that fall in the grey area in between. There was some squandered potential. That's what motivated me to write this stuff (...)"
And then you sorta lay out your vision, your goals, what Mass Effect was to you, what it meant to you, what you understand as the core themes, the core motifs, the core message of the games. Then you identify the problems you saw, be it mechanical stuff like plotholes or stuff that you feel conflicts/waters down/doesn't help these core themes, and provide suggestions as to how you think it could have done better, with explaining why you are changing what you are changing, what you intend to achieve with that, how you think it would benefit the overall narrative, and never making changes without a reason.
What you're writing will still be fan fiction, and you still alter the artistic vision of the creators of the work to some degree, but you're doing it from a place of love and respect, and that can already make all the difference.