BioWare apologizes for Mass Effect novel errors

@Banefire76 Like I told BuBsay, I was just clowning. If you enjoy the novels then by all means support it. Different strokes for different folks.

@BuBsay Lol, I was just clowning. Video games are for any and all to enjoy. I just found it funny how gamers are so dedicated to a game that they would buy and rant about a side novel. Just my 2 coppers but to each his / her own. Enjoy.

Dietz has written alot of stuff in the military Sci Fi action type books so he is a well connected author in that regard and i think we got into this video game book writing biz after Halo Flood but one thing id like to point out is that is the only halo book he was envoled with. Hes a great author he really is but hes not that connected with the games at all. I think hes like 50 now and served in the military thats where he gets his background knowledge not from video games

well i dont read any game novels cause they never seem to follow along with the what actually happens in the game. Dietz is a great sci-fi writer read legion of the damned seriers its awsome. but when it comes to game ones they arent that connected to the story. Im thinking of Halo Flood the second halo novel and Master chief was not really anything special except wearing special amor no dietz is just a good author but hes not connected with the game. THE BEST GAME NOVELS EVER ARE THE GEARS OF WAR NOVELS the author for those is actually on the story writing staff for the games themselves so she (i think its a she) so everything very intemimently there awsome

Bioware really seems to keep dropping the ball. There was DA:2, which did nothing to progress the story of the awesome DA:O, despite partial cliffhangers.. The story leaks for MA:3 required that they change the story, and now this... plus, reports are that DA:3 will not continue the character progressions of DA:O or DA:2! What are they doing over there?

All authors of video game novels should be required to have played and read, in their entirety, all games and previous novels to which the current novel makes reference. Besides, isn't an editor or some other knowledgeable person suppose to read and approve each chapter after it's written? Sloppy, very sloppy.

Wow, It's almost as if the author never played a Mass Effect game and only read some brief notes of the previous books. Go figure their are over a dozen pages of continuity errors.

I'm at page 130 in this one. It's really not THAT bad. There's quite a few lore mistakes, but the tale itself is kinda entertaining. Not defending it though. Bioware should definitely have caught most of these errors.

Book errors happen all the time. Even acclaimed writers like JK Rowling and JRR Tolkien make mistakes. The problem is why this slipped out in the first place.

Just a bit lazy i think. they should figure though that the most people who will read them are fans from the games who like the story, so they should have done a better job with this in the first place. bad Bioware!

A flawed edition can be worth a lot of money over time, take stamps for instance, it's the misprints that command the largest price tags. To be fair though we are talking about a Mass Effect book not a major work of literature.

let's hope they won't make errors in Mass Effect 3!

This shows how devout/enthusiastic the Mass Effect fans are, 400 pages on the BSN forum and this is front page news on all the gaming websites... ME is the new Star Wars yo..

no apologize for Dragon Age 2 ?

@Gelugon_baat Considering these editions will be worth a lot in the future...talking about thousands of dollars...I'd say you received more than a compensation...

Congratulations! 50 years from now, those comics will be worth millions. Millions i tell ya, MILLIONS!!!

@ 7_armageddon_7 The other books were written by Drew Karpyshyn who's also the lead writer of the 3 Mass Effect games.

@7_armageddon_7 I should also add that the books (prior to Deception) did a great job in filling in the blanks between the games and also expanded the Mass Effect universe. Revelation was my personal favorite due to how well it meshed with the first Mass Effect game.

@7_armageddon_7 In this case that is exactly what happened but you would also be wrong. The first three Mass Effect books Revelation, Ascension, and Retribution were written by Drew Karpyshyn, the lead writer for the Mass Effect series. They were of the highest quality at least in terms continuity. (I personally loved all three books.) It has also been said that the Mass Effect Wiki was also used a source to keep storyline straight. Drew Karpyshyn did not write Deception due to a time crunch so it was given to a different author. For some reason, William C. Dietz did a poor job source checking his work. The reason this book was so poor was because the others were so good.

@texasgoldrush While that is true that their writing has over time gotten better I'm still wary for the quality of future Bioware games after the fiasco that was Dragon Age II. Now I know that the game was severely rushed (Wasn't Dragon Age: Origins in the works for about 6 years? Where as Dragon Age 2 was only in development for around a year. And it REALLY showed) but what's to stop that from happening again now that they're under EA? Also, I find it funny that a good amount of critics praised DA 2's "Superior combat engine" when Dragon Age: Origins actually took planning and strategizing and preparing, where as Dragon Age 2 was smash your face against the Left mouse button until you win.

In other news though, jeeze, that is a lot of lore errors. Not much wonder Bioware wish to fix it considering how much they put into making their stories for the games as meticulous as possible. It's one of the great things that makes Bioware games. I'm guessing the main game lore writers weren't used as proof readers (busy I'd imagine) so that this slipped under the radar.

Heh, goes to show how much things have changed when gamers now call other gaming fans nerds whilst using a means of communication created by nerds. How the world has turned when condemners come cap in hand wanting to get in on what was 'nerdy' once upon a time and want to have an opinion still.

It's too bad when these tie-ins are just written by some contract author specializing in writing for franchises. Means that the books are just an extra source of income and that there wasn't much effort put into it.

uuuuh....get back to making video games??

Maybe next time don't have William Dietz write anything for you. Halo: Flood is honestly one of the worst books I have ever read.

@KidsNDad The first ME3 file that leaked was incomplete and extremely outdated. By that file, Aria still has omega, but in the recent comics, she loses it to Cerebrus. No, they will change a few things, not the entire script. And I have seen the even bigger leak, and no it doesn't suck, its the dumb fans that do. And did you know that EA's whole library is the second best reviewed according to Metacritic, behind only Nintendo....such an big bad company...lol. Yes, they have some screw ups, like Ultima IX, but fans give them crap without checking the facts.

@supertom I am sorry I missed your question. I agree that games are art but they have not had the time to mature as an art form the same way books have. If you think about video games are kind of in the teenager stage. I am sure as they become more popular and more people have time to create the games they want the medium will mature and produce art on the level of other mediums.

its funny how there ppl on here dissing nerd & yet there on (i guess you could call) a nerd forum, stop trolling & go do something else other than wasting time abusing ppl

@Man42 ALL Star Trek books are not canon, and that goes for video games. The only real canon comes from movies and the shows.

@Tripwolf No, Bioware has gotten BETTER at writing than in the past. The Mass Effect series is much better written than KOTOR, take the nostalgia glasses off. Even BGII's characters pale in comparision to ME2's. DAII would have been great if they didn't rush it like the last two Ultima games.

so, the guy who writes the book doesn't really know the game?

unsurprised-I have read a lot of sci fi novels based on series -star wars , star trek , transformers and so on. I have see a lot of these glaring errors in these novels and its generally the mark of someone who doesn't do their homework or is a sloppy writer in the first place. I think the biggest problem is the writer taking liberties with the universe. These sorts of things feel like their out of place when you compare them to the rest of the story as a whole.

Wow that sucks big time.

Bioware is confused with the multiplayer crap

@Rocker6: lol! Well done young man :D

Maybe next time they'll get someone who actually plays the games to write the book...

@ stabby_mcgee I like how everyone probably read only the first line of your post before deciding to thumbs down you, lmfao.

@biggest_loser [quote="You"]In other news! "Gamers get a life!" :D[/quote] Says the biggest loser of all :P

errors+not fixing this til the next printing=collectors item.

Why didn't they put Drew Karpyshyn on it?

In other news! "Gamers get a life!" :D

The Mass Effect books are pretty good, it's easy to dismiss them as marketing fodder and maybe the first book kinda was to an extent but Ascension and Retribution were really good. My only gripes are that in the games you can't really follow up on the plots of them much because they don't revolve around Shepard so he/she is kinda in the dark. I have to ask though why didn't Drew Karpyshyn write this or even Timothy Zahn, you know how politically oriented it would have been if Zahn would have wrote it? Whatever, glad to know they effed up and admitted it and are going to fix it.....though it shouldn't have to be that way, just saying.

What a bunch of nerds, complaining about the poor quality of a product that they bought with their hard earned money. What are they going to do next? Return the defective product back to the store and ask for their money back? Only nerds can conceive of such madness.

Much like their movie counterparts, game novels are a joke. Get real writers like Tim Zahn. I'm sure he wouldn't mind writing something from the ME universe.

@JabbaRancor Oh, I realized I didnt really care only after reading ^^

Jesus, sorry for my previous snarky response. I just read the catalogue of errors and all I can say is 'wow'. Some of that stuff really is nitpicking, but a lot of those points are truly facepalm worthy. Star-shaped Citadel? Batarian Embassy? Batarian slave raids on the Turian homeworld? Battle of the Citadel: a succesful ambush by the Reapers? That is just awful.

The irony of the book title :)

it was more then just simple errors, it was like no research was done and the writer ignored every thing the other 2 books did, it was a "part 3" book after all..

Huh, I'm surprised they even care.

I am a hardcore gamer in that I own every system and a gaming pc, not to mention I've actually worked in the industry as a tester for Sony games. I am also a book snob I worked a Borders for three years before they crashed and burned. I hold a great love for stories in my heart and that is why I read books and that is also why I play video games. There really isn't much difference for me. I remember when I was really little playing pit fall wondering why the man was doing what he was doing and where he was going, I'd make up stories to make it more interesting. I love video games, books and movies but I love video games most of all because they are longer than movies and more interactive than books. It's true not all games have great stories or even good stories. Not all games should even be played for their stories at all, but that is usually the only reason I play. You will rarely ever see me playing a game with out a deep plot. Games like Assassins Creed, Mass Effect, and Bioshock have brought some truly fantastic science fiction into this world. If when you play a game like that you don't see a great story, it's probably due to your lack of imagination or inability to comprehend the fantastic nature of the story structure. I'm currently loving Skyrim and I'm pretty sure I've read every single book in the game world. Skyrims overarching storyline might not be the most original but there are some really great little stories to be found in the world and the real magic in this game is that you get to create your own story. So if you don't like the story in this game it's really no ones fault but your own. Be it video games or books I will continue to enjoy stories in both mediums.