BioWare Apologizes for Mass Effect: Deception Errors [Comic: Chapter 16 - Complete]

EmCeeGramr said:
okay

so

clear your mind

is it cleared? good.

now then. imagine some tattooed secret agent assassin dude. he has sneaked into an unoccupied apartment. he is placing wiretaps all around for clandestine black ops shit.

suddenly, he is reaching into a cupboard. he is pulling out a box of Oops! All Crunch Berries and pouring it into a bowl.

he is voraciously chowing down on this cereal

"I'M AN ADRENALINE JUNKIE! THIS IS MY APARTMENT NOW! *munch much* I'M FUCKING KING OF THE JUNGLE!! *crunch*"

*spirit animal gorilla rises up behind him and beats chest as this ninja-looking motherfucker just tears into this cereal*
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*wipes tears*
WOW, I should not be writting this but my mocha is all over me now.Hahaha

Krogan Krunch Cereal needs to have a audio ad in the game
 
charlequin said:
The sad thing is that the idea of some jackwagon operative who breaks into the hero's apartment and eats his cereal is actually kind of hilarious. In a Mass Effect novel it's just dumb, but in something else (probably a movie so you can just show it instead of having to belabor the point), with the right tone, it might work. BUT NOW IT'S RUINED FOREVER THANKS A LOT WILLIAM C. DIETZ.
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It's the kind of quirky thing you'd expect from a Tarintino film.
 
EatChildren said:
I was about to say the exact same thing. Or maybe something from the Coen brothers.
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I could see that as well. It's definitely a case of poor execution rather than something that is conceptually terrible. That probably goes for most of this book, although I'll never actually read it myself.
 
Chapter 07:

xSyRb.jpg
 
The_Technomancer said:
Conceptually there is a way to spin the cereal eating in an interesting way. This guy just doesn't have nearly the needed talent.
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There's definitely a way to properly construct that scene.

I laughed because somehow Kai Leng gets a rush from bugging an apartment. On Kai Leng's résumé this would be a pretty boring nondescript entry.
 
How can you get Omega wrong!? It's three hallways. Three shops, a nightclub where you don't fuck an Asari. And apartments.
Oh, and the plague hallways, but let's ignore those for now
along with a red hue. How is there day/night cycles there!? HOW!?
 
You get Omega wrong but not playing beyond 30 minutes of Mass Effect 1 and not caring about the franchise whatsoever to the point that the most basic of research isn't done.
 
EatChildren said:
I was about to say the exact same thing. Or maybe something from the Coen brothers.
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That crystallizes for me exactly why it's so crappy: because there's pretty much nothing worse than someone trying to pull off a stylized film director's signature vibe and totally bombing it.
 
LumpOfCole said:
You get Omega wrong but not playing beyond 30 minutes of Mass Effect 1 and not caring about the franchise whatsoever to the point that the most basic of research isn't done.
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Seriously. There really is no excuse when you can get all the information you need via a google search. You don't even need to have played Mass Effect 2 to be able to describe Omega, you just need to care enough to do a 5 second google search and visit the ME wiki. You've got pictures and lore and information.

Love the comics btw. They are so good.
 
ThoseDeafMutes said:
People don't eat cereal in the future? Why not? We already know that you can buy ramen on the Citadel.
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It's not that they don't eat it. It's not a detail you would focus on, unless the point was to show that even in the far future they're still like us. There probably aren't long passages about going to the toilet, but I assume they still do that too.
 
Aaron said:
It's not that they don't eat it. It's not a detail you would focus on, unless the point was to show that even in the far future they're still like us. There probably aren't long passages about going to the toilet, but I assume they still do that too.
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There totally were mens and womens restrooms on the ship in ME2. There was also a sidequest dedicated to picking food up for the chef, lol. I just disagree that it couldn't have worked in the novel if it was written well. It's not like eating cereal was some focal point of the story, it's just something he did when he was there (apparently).
 
ThoseDeafMutes said:
There totally were mens and womens restrooms on the ship in ME2. There was also a sidequest dedicated to picking food up for the chef, lol. I just disagree that it couldn't have worked in the novel if it was written well. It's not like eating cereal was some focal point of the story, it's just something he did when he was there (apparently).
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Actually, with how it's written eating the cereal was the end point of the scene, signifying he had come to take control of the apartment he broke into. It's absurd because it's made to be significant, not that it's there at all.
 
I find it odd that a trained Assassin would eat a bowl of cereal on the scene. Sure it might be refreshing and delicious but it seems highly unprofessional.
 
jgminto said:
I find it odd that a trained Assassin would eat a bowl of cereal on the scene. Sure it might be refreshing and delicious but it seems highly unprofessional.
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Your problem is that already there you have put more thought into it than the writer.
 
One thing that makes me wonder - even though Dietz is responsible for the writing etc., isn't the basics of the story thought up by BioWare folks? The book belongs to the story canon after all, so I doubt they gave Dietz a free pass to put whatever shit he wants. Aren't then blunders like turning Gillian into a non-autistic revengeful 18-year old BioWare's fault and not his?
 
It seems very little or no outside editing was done. There are lots of places that Dietz writes the wrong name or spelling of characters, like referring to Gillian as Kahlee or mixing up alien name spelling multiple times (names he establishes).
 
Mr_Zombie said:
One thing that makes me wonder - even though Dietz is responsible for the writing etc., isn't the basics of the story thought up by BioWare folks? The book belongs to the story canon after all, so I doubt they gave Dietz a free pass to put whatever shit he wants. Aren't then blunders like turning Gillian into a non-autistic revengeful 18-year old BioWare's fault and not his?
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I would say half of the blame goes to Bioware if only because Casey Hudson tweeted about his "review" of the book and pimped it as some amazing thing. So he either lied to the fanbase and never saw it or, and this is worse in my eyes, read the book and approved of everything in it and deliberately mislead the fanbase.

If the latter happened it shows how little Bioware cares about their worlds anymore, and somewhat validates our complaints about how they're always showing off combat combat combat and never anything else.
 
Derrick01 said:
If the latter happened it shows how little Bioware cares about their worlds anymore, and somewhat validates our complaints about how they're always showing off combat combat combat and never anything else.
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BioWare is strangely bipolar about this things. I know you'll dig for positive reinforcement of your bitterness wherever you can find it, but in terms of listening to their fans BioWare is so attentive I'd argue they go too far. Many of the reoccurring characters, romance choices, scenarios, and set pieces are chosen based on fan demands. Hell this public apology and promise of revised edition is them doing exactly that.

But yes, this should never have happened in the first place. I blame Dietz for being a talentless hack and half arsing the entire thing, and I blame BioWare for neglecting to pick up on his mistakes and showing a poor appreciation for their own universe. I don't blame Hudson for shilling the book on twitter, because that's his job, but for that same reason I don't respect him.
 
EatChildren said:
BioWare is strangely bipolar about this things. I know you'll dig for positive reinforcement of your bitterness wherever you can find it, but in terms of listening to their fans BioWare is so attentive I'd argue they go too far. Many of the reoccurring characters, romance choices, scenarios, and set pieces are chosen based on fan demands. Hell this public apology and promise of revised edition is them doing exactly that.

But yes, this should never have happened in the first place. I blame Dietz for being a talentless hack and half arsing the entire thing, and I blame BioWare for neglecting to pick up on his mistakes and showing a poor appreciation for their own universe. I don't blame Hudson for shilling the book on twitter, because that's his job, but for that same reason I don't respect him.
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Yeah I don't blame him for shilling, I'd expect him to do it if the book was just plain bad instead of what this is. But what he did was borderline unethical behavior but who knows, maybe he was short on time and just quickly scanned through the book? I like Casey too, he seems to be a cool guy to be around so this disappoints me greatly. I'm glad that at least they acknowledged the problems this time.
 
How possible is it that Bioware made Dietz aware of the Invasion comic and how its ongoings conflict directly with Deception's turn of events and unveilings?
 
So who is this Dietz guy and how does he manage to get work? Because if someone who writes that poorly can get a writing gig I think I'm ready to quit my day job.
 
Derrick01 said:
Yeah I don't blame him for shilling, I'd expect him to do it if the book was just plain bad instead of what this is. But what he did was borderline unethical behavior but who knows, maybe he was short on time and just quickly scanned through the book? I like Casey too, he seems to be a cool guy to be around so this disappoints me greatly. I'm glad that at least they acknowledged the problems this time.
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Nah, I agree with the unethical stance. Expected, but still a totally lame, deceptive (PUN INTENDED) thing to do. This is why I don't trust anybody.
 
IPoopStandingUp said:
So who is this Dietz guy and how does he manage to get work? Because if someone who writes that poorly can get a writing gig I think I'm ready to quit my day job.
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This may hurt his chances in the future. I wouldn't be shocked if the holders of the license have noticed how fans have started to take notice of his name and talked about avoiding his books in the future.
 
Was amazed at some of what I read in the doc there regarding errors when the news first broke. Despite having read the first three books, I still wait for impressions first on new entries to any given series. This was almost an exception as I lingered over the Kindle pre-order button a few times past. Lesson reinforced.

But to see it blow up in such a fashion as this thread has been quite entertaining in and of itself.
 
Zomba13 said:
Seriously. There really is no excuse when you can get all the information you need via a google search. You don't even need to have played Mass Effect 2 to be able to describe Omega, you just need to care enough to do a 5 second google search and visit the ME wiki. You've got pictures and lore and information.

Love the comics btw. They are so good.
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The thing is he wouldn't necessarily have to have played the games either. Presumably Dietz would have easy access to whatever Mass Effect story bible exists, or at least way more information than most people. There's really no excuse for the the many instances of complete ignorance to the franchise displayed here.
 
jgminto said:
I find it odd that a trained Assassin would eat a bowl of cereal on the scene. Sure it might be refreshing and delicious but it seems highly unprofessional.
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"He thought he was a silent killer, but his presence was betrayed... by the snap, crackle and pop"
 
Did he take that cereal with milk? I mean, I probably would notice some missing cereal in my apartment, but I would definitely notice some missing milk.
 
Mr_Zombie said:
One thing that makes me wonder - even though Dietz is responsible for the writing etc., isn't the basics of the story thought up by BioWare folks?
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If the novel process works at BioWare anything like it works at other gaming companies with licensed quasi-canon novel lines, they send the guy some reading material and a single-page bullet-point list of stuff that needs to happen, then give it only the most cursory examination before printing it.
 
EatChildren said:
But yes, this should never have happened in the first place. I blame Dietz for being a talentless hack and half arsing the entire thing, and I blame BioWare for neglecting to pick up on his mistakes and showing a poor appreciation for their own universe. I don't blame Hudson for shilling the book on twitter, because that's his job, but for that same reason I don't respect him.
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Seriously...who at Bioware read this fuckin' mess and gave it the green light prior to printing?
 
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