pewdiepie said his piece

Comments

  • Completely agree on what he said. Especially the thing that telltale keeps introducing new characters and when the season ends, they'll be gone anyway. S2 only had Kenny and Clementine as returning characters, the rest was completely new. S3 only had Clementine (not counting the flashbacks) and S4 only has Clementine as well (and maybe Lilly) as a returning character. Whats the point of introducing all these new characters, when they won't be used again in a following season?

  • VainamoinenVainamoinen Moderator
    edited September 2018

    That choices never mattered was instrumental in the concept since TWD Season 1.
    That characters were introduced just to die is what The Walking Dead is all about.
    The resulting hopelessness of both constitutes the entire iconicity of the series.

    If Kjellberg wanted a game with more hope, he could have played another game series, honestly. That certainly is what I did.

    I have no idea whether Let's Players have contributed to Telltale's demise. But I do know that Kjellberg's defense is basically the same that you hear from software pirates: "Actually, we're helping and spreading the word". Yeah, possibly. Or you're giving away the entirety of the creative content away for free out of Telltale's pockets.

    Recently WadjetEye released their adventure game "Unavowed". It had an actually branching narrative, but according to the developer, it had that explicitly so streamers wouldn't be able to show the whole game. And honestly? I think it's a great game, but not as great as it could be, BECAUSE of the branching narrative that was shoehorned in.

    I must say, I don't see any insight in this video, at all.

  • What do you mean 'That choices never mattered was instrumental in the concept since TWD Season 1' When was that ever a thing? In a game where it literally starts of with: 'this game series adapts to the choices you make, the story is tailored by how you play'

    Vainamoinen posted: »

    That choices never mattered was instrumental in the concept since TWD Season 1. That characters were introduced just to die is what The Wa

  • He hasn't played Batman either, which had probably the best instance of when your choices actually do matter.

  • Pewds is just saying what everyone else does, he has no clue whata he actually talking about. I dont think it has to do anything with the story. I dont think thats the main reason. What i think its bad decisions made by former CEO, they dont care about their fans but the fans are the ones that in the end matter. Nor the employes. They announced TWAU just to give a reason to say we listen and they would never listen to us again. This is already mentioned but its true, they need their own IPs to be known for. I guess Pete tried to fix things but as he said he ran out of time. I just wanna hear what Pete has to say about all of this.

  • Pewds is exactly right on the fucking money with TWDG 100%. There was barely a sense of continuation throughout the walking dead games because most of the cast were dead with the exclusion of Clementine. That was a major problem, there was no point in caring if they were just going to end up dying or disappearing with no return.

  • The comics handle the characters dying and keeping you caring about what's going on much better, his point about characters dying is right on the money. The characters dying one by one works in season one because you didn't see it coming.

  • edited September 2018

    So far as my opinion goes...

    I never buy games on a whim. If I'm going to spend money on something that I will own, I want it to be absolutely worth it. MC:SM was an exception to that rule (not to say that it was terrible, but it didn't blow me away). YouTube essentially saved games like Halo by allowing its fanbase and community to grow, and it's playthroughs like Nerd^3's Alpha Detective for Assault Android Cactus that introduced me to some of my favorites. The only reason I don't buy games- even when I respect what they do right- is because they overall don't appeal to me personally.

    I do agree that TellTale overall became too big for its britches- there are multiple job reviews on the internet describing the frustration of working in a small company trying to be a television network. I don't, however, think that it's the TellTale formula that's inherently bad.

    One of the greatest aspects of The Walking Dead: Season One has less to do with possible branched storytelling (though this season has managed it best), and more to do with the player's mindset. Lee is a character who starts out with nothing but a reputation that only one or two people know about, and was designed to be the ideal companion to work with in a zombie apocalypse. This sort of narrative design helped to put players in the shoes of the character; even though Lee has his own personality, it was never difficult to relate to him and his situation,. Every possible decision in this game gets the player thinking about what they would do in the zombie apocalypse; every option is realistic and valid, helping to add pressure to what the player wants to do, all while mentally racing against a timer. To ensure that the plot maintains direction, Clementine acts as a cornerstone for the player's goals and sense of morality.

    In other words, the choices in TWD only exist to immerse the player, and for no other reason. Difficult decisions- no matter how much those decisions actually impact the story- are what make this series so iconic. The only reason the results of such decisions work is because they act as punishments for the player; when Lee decides to have his arm cut off, you're forced to sit through the experience with him.

    As to why later games don't quite capture this, I can think of two reasons. One, the stories simply aren't interesting (this varies from game to game). Two, the way choices are handled (not in terms of branched storytelling, but in virtually every other aspect) is immersion-breaking due to poor execution. Writing for choices is not easy, because they have to be realistic for the world and provide accountability, but when handled well they can provide the true appeal of this kind of game; the appeal of sweating bullets over a point-and-click adventure.

    TL;DR - TellTale may not have done their best, but what they've gotten wrong has almost nothing to do with their format or reputation for choices that don't matter.

  • edited September 2018

    Im wondering did they really went bankrupt. I think this is their excuse to not pay money back and save a little money they have got left and not make it even worse it already is, so they decided the smart thing is to stop before it gets even deeper.

  • Also, AJ.

    @Vainamoinen Moderator

    Have you always been here? I don't think I've ever seen you around.

    KaiMaestro posted: »

    Completely agree on what he said. Especially the thing that telltale keeps introducing new characters and when the season ends, they'll be g

  • If that’s the case then that is fucked up

    Bruno113 posted: »

    Im wondering did they really went bankrupt. I think this is their excuse to not pay money back and save a little money they have got left and not make it even worse it already is, so they decided the smart thing is to stop before it gets even deeper.

  • He seems to have liked ep 2 quite a bit more than ep 1. Still complained about the fact that they just introduce a new cast season after season and it's hard to care about the new characters after a while. Valid point, definitely the biggest issue with the Telltale series. But I think Telltale has done a really good job of not just assuming you care about characters and actually giving you time to care about them. Either way, glad he liked it

  • i would like to know that too. i never saw this mod either.

    DabigRG posted: »

    Also, AJ. @Vainamoinen Moderator Have you always been here? I don't think I've ever seen you around.

  • To be honest,i have to agree with Vainamoinen here. If he really wanted to play a game with more hope,he should've played something like Tales from the Borderlands or Batman: The Telltale Series. :/

  • Vainamoinen has been around for quite a long time as I remember it. Btw does you name (Väinämöinen) come from Kalevala? Because I can not for the life of me think of any other way you could have come up with that name.

  • The comics are more hopeful despite of how dark they are, with Telltale it became a given that every character was but Clementine would be dead by the end of it(give take one or two) Even though season one killed everyone off, you didn't see it coming.

    rhyeece posted: »

    To be honest,i have to agree with Vainamoinen here. If he really wanted to play a game with more hope,he should've played something like Tales from the Borderlands or Batman: The Telltale Series.

  • He's an old school mod; he's been a moderator since like 2010, but he partially moved on around like 2014, checking in more sporadically after that point.

    DabigRG posted: »

    Also, AJ. @Vainamoinen Moderator Have you always been here? I don't think I've ever seen you around.

  • VainamoinenVainamoinen Moderator
    edited September 2018

    Disagreed, @JawaEater. It was Telltale that started not showing every main character death in gruesome, horrible detail. Kirkman wouldn't have missed the chance to show every blob of brain tissue when Clementine shot Lee in the head. We had a lot of fans of the comics on here back in 2012, they didn't even get it. "They didn't show Lee's/Carly's/Doug's/Katja's/Duck's death, so he/she must be alive then". They were used to having the point of hopelessness driven home with a flagpole. Telltale opted for "dignity preservation" offscreen deaths, which was basically unheard of in the comics.

    And let's not forget that Lee's greatest hope ultimately came true.

    Should Season 4 never be completed, we might well think that it's been an enduring victory. Fan canon, so to speak.

    And, right you are Sniper. That mid-2009 register date isn't fake. And I didn't want to miss a good long farewell party. ;)

    @ulop22 : The first forum I registered in, ever, was a Lord of the Rings forum. They had so many Gandalfs I couldn't possibly register as one. Also, vbulletin didn't handle umlauts too well. So. Yeah. You're quite right about the source of the name.

    JawaEater posted: »

    The comics are more hopeful despite of how dark they are, with Telltale it became a given that every character was but Clementine would be d


  • ....

    He's an old school mod; he's been a moderator since like 2010, but he partially moved on around like 2014, checking in more sporadically after that point.

  • I'm not talking about gore, the characters are able to accomplish a lot more, even though anyone can die and a lot do, they're still able to have multiple characters who are around for years with they're deaths sneaking up on you. It's not a given that every other character other than carl and rick will die in a story arc to be replaced by new cast in the next one.

    The comics are more disturbing, but it ultimately amounts to more. With season one you didn't know everyone would necessarily die, it worked as a standalone story and was very unpredictable.

    Vainamoinen posted: »

    Disagreed, @JawaEater. It was Telltale that started not showing every main character death in gruesome, horrible detail. Kirkman wouldn't ha

  • @JawaEater Not sure about that, really. If you compare character progression on a conversational/textual basis, a single Telltale episode will easily amount to like 10 to 30 comic issues.

  • True, but it amounts to nothing because they all die except for Clem, and you know every season gonna be like that.

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