11391 réponses à ce sujet

[ABCoLD]

Heh, just sending in torn off covers of the book would be a fun means of letting people's feeling be known in a physical way. Include a polite note that you expect a form letter apology at the least and a self addressed, stamped envelope.

[J4N3_M3]

AVPen wrote...

J4N3_M3 wrote...

Thumbs up, my friend - the reading comprehension of this novel barely goes beyond that of an 8th grade level, which frankly insults my intellegence (hell, I was reading the Dune novels back in 8th grade, so this sh*t is really hard to slog through...). <_<

Basically this. I haven't read that far yet and some things in the book just make me facepalm. I read through Twilight just to see if it was really that bad as everyone said, only to find that not just the story was bad but also the writing. Seriously BAD writing. And I am seriuosly shocked AGAIN to find another book where the writing is obviously on a level of "either writer or editor didn't give a flying fart about it" and this is as you say insulting to the reader's intelligence. 

So many writers work so hard on improving their craft, on improving their writing to make it better, to make it good, yet BAD CRAFT like this gets published. I am sorry, I find this a slap into the face of every writer out there who takes their work seriously. 

[IllusiveMike]

I'd wager Bioware knows, and is displeased with the reception. But, this is about marketing, they're not going to say anything negative until well after March 6, and possibly never (trying to be professional and all).

It seems apparent that the novel was more of a marketing tool --> Another thing gearing up fans (allbeit a failure) for ME3, so they couldn't exactly demand a rewrite that would delay it past the game's launch.

A tactful admission it is only semi-canon or at least that the game controls and supercedes any inconsistencies would be nice.

[CDRSkyShepard]

By the way, I thought I'd post about a relevant discussion my housemates and I had.

We steal each others' cereal all the time, sometimes to each others' chagrin... (You know where this is going, right?)

From now on, in our house, stealing cereal will be known as "Pulling a Kai Leng."

I love my housemates.

[XXIceColdXX]

SpartHawg948 wrote...

ddv.rsa wrote...

JoeLaTurkey wrote...

So..should we post to the facebook pages?

Sounds like a good idea for people with Facebook. Twitter and other social networking sites could work too.

Hey everyone... for those who don't know, I'm one of the admins at the Mass Effect Wiki. I've been skimming this thread, and first I want to say thanks for all the kind words said about our letter. We're just trying to do our part to bring this matter to the forefront and seek some redress (or at least an acknowledgement of the concerns of fans everywhere) from BioWare, as are you folks here.

Now, regarding the points above, about Facebook and social networking, here's what I can add. We've posted the full text of our letter to the Facebook page for the Mass Effect Wiki, where it has gotten good reception, and have asked others to share it. We've also had a few folks from Facebook and the Wiki forward the letter to the Twitter accounts of Casey Hudson, Mac Walters, Chris Priestly and Jessica Merizan. And, for what it's worth, since that was done, Jessica Merizan has liked the Wiki on Facebook and also liked a comment referring to the fact that she and others at BioWare were sent copies of the letter. 

Hopefully this adds a little bit to the discussion. Keep up the good work here, and we'll keep working on our end. Hopefully BioWare will listen to the fans on this one...

Unity! Great to see us all working together through this mess. Interesting to hear Jessica Merizan liked the Wiki and liked that Bioware were sent copies of the letter.

[What a Succulent Ass]

So many writers work so hard on improving their craft, on improving their writing to make it better, to make it good, yet BAD CRAFT like this gets published. I am sorry, I find this a slap into the face of every writer out there who takes their work seriously. 

This is why I resent this book so much. If it were written beautifully (or hell, decently, even) I could take the lore errors with minimal nerd butthurt. But when the writing is both donkey bollocks bad and can't even be arsed to be accurate?

Nope.avi.

[ElitePinecone]

IllusiveMike wrote...

A tactful admission it is only semi-canon or at least that the game controls and supercedes any inconsistencies would be nice.

I'd like this, except that the *only* significant things that happen, at all, in Deception are that characters die. 

The Biotic Underground and Grim Skulls and M'Lani and Hal McCann and the other tiny things mentioned in the novel are irrelevant. They'll never come up in the IP ever again. 

We can write off many of the smaller lore errors as mistakes that should've been avoided. The larger ones are much more difficult, and will probably cause a huge headache to anybody trying to codify the canon. The timeline issues alone are... egregious. 

But characters can't be half dead. 

Gillian, Nick and Hendel don't appear in ME3. They'll probably never be mentioned again in the universe. 

If this book stays canon, they died in ludicrous circumstances, having acted out of character for an entire book, to indulge a storyline that itself is almost nonsensical. 

[XXIceColdXX]

Id love it if this whole debacle gives Bioware a wake up call about protecting their own franchise. It would be great if this backlash is the turning point to getting better continuity and lore accuracy in future releases.

[AlphaJarmel]

Seriously? That image with the difference between dislike and hatred is nitpicking at its finest. It's also possible it fits as well.

[NPH11]

J4N3_M3 wrote...

You basically put into words how I felt reading the opening paragraph. It sounds so amateurish. I probably could've written a better paragraph than that, especially if I was being paid to do so.

[LPPrince]

I'm back, and it seems we've expanded even more while I was sleeping.

We've got a never ending amount of fuel, lets use it.

I've read through the pages I missed and my goodness.

Its staggering.

[NPH11]

LPPrince wrote...

I'm back, and it seems we've expanded even more while I was sleeping.

We've got a never ending amount of fuel, lets use it.

I've read through the pages I missed and my goodness.

Its staggering.

Welcome back to the frontlines.

[J4N3_M3]

AlphaJarmel wrote...

Seriously? That image with the difference between dislike and hatred is nitpicking at its finest.  

yes it is.  it's what is being done to every writer who sends their written work off to an editor - well usually anyway. given the editor knows what they're doing. so again: Dietz produced this bad writing AND after that, his editor didn't care enough to point out obvious writing mistakes such as this. 

[XXIceColdXX]

LPPrince wrote...

I'm back, and it seems we've expanded even more while I was sleeping.

We've got a never ending amount of fuel, lets use it.

I've read through the pages I missed and my goodness.

Its staggering.

With this thread going to sleep makes it quite a catch up read when you get back

Modifié par XXIceColdXX, 01 février 2012 - 09:03 .

[SomeKindaEnigma]

J4N3_M3 wrote...

Lol this entire paragraph bothers me.  I wrote better stuff when I was in creative writing in middle school

[J4N3_M3]

and I could take this even further to an imaginary discussion between writer and editor about how "not liking" and "extremist" don't belong into the same context but dismissing it because "eh it's only a scifi novel based on a computer game, no one of importance is gonna read it, or the readers won't be smart enough to get it."

i am sure you get my point. This is offensive to any reader's intelligence. I refuse to be offended by so called writers who seem to have such a low opinion of their readers.

[LPPrince]

jreezy wrote...

LPPrince wrote...

I'm back, and it seems we've expanded even more while I was sleeping.

We've got a never ending amount of fuel, lets use it.

I've read through the pages I missed and my goodness.

Its staggering.

If only good events were this productive.

I know.

I had to catch up on near 30 pages I missed. Twas wonderful.

Guess we'll hit 400 today.

[AlphaJarmel]

J4N3_M3 wrote...

AlphaJarmel wrote...

Seriously? That image with the difference between dislike and hatred is nitpicking at its finest.  

yes it is.  it's what is being done to every writer who sends their written work off to an editor - well usually anyway. given the editor knows what they're doing. so again: Dietz produced this bad writing AND after that, his editor didn't care enough to point out obvious writing mistakes such as this. 

In the contex of this paragraph, dislike does technically work.  Dislike and hatred are subjective calls and so therefore he might have a greater dislike, or hatred as he viewed it, of something else.  The way he talks about extremism is in regards to social norms and so in a very tolerant or politically correct society, dislike could be viewed as extreme.  In our society there are people who racially profile and don't feel comfortable around other races, if they voiced said complaints or thoughts then they would be viewed as a racist but I doubt many view themselves as such.

[What a Succulent Ass]

AlphaJarmel wrote...

Seriously? That image with the difference between dislike and hatred is nitpicking at its finest. It's also possible it fits as well.

Not really. Dietz violates the writer's cardinal rule (show, don't tell) at least four separate times in one paragraph. There are two levels of meaning to a word - denotation and connotation. Using words in contexts that do not suit both meanings risks either evoking the wrong feeling in the audience or (in this case) boring the sh*t out of them with unconvincing, stale narrative. The better a writer gets at balancing both aspects of meaning, the better a writer becomes.

Tl;dr - You can be Lan Samantha Chang and create images with words, or you can be Dietz and insult readers' intelligence by smearing crap on a page.

[NPH11]

SomeKindaEnigma wrote...

Lol this entire paragraph bothers me.  I wrote better stuff when I was in creative writing in middle school

"That made him an extremist, not to mention a racist, and that was fine with Leng"

This reads like something out of a schoolbook on why racism is bad. It's also a completely useless statement as we can infer his racism and extremism from the fact that he hates Batarians and sees them as a threat to humanity. Most people who are racists are also pretty fine with it, I can't imagine a racist who hates the fact that they're a racist.

Yesterday, when I entered this thread, I thought "Wow, the novel can't be that bad.". This opening paragraph set the tone for the rest of the novel in my eyes.

[Grey34]

good lord 323 pages wow just simply wow