Breckon shouldn't be off the writing team but...
He definitely shouldn't be the head writer. He's still valuable but should not be writing episodes alone. He just isn't as good a writer as Vanaman and it shows. Season 2 was so poorly orchestrated and written. It was bad enough Season 2 didn't have the voice acting or soundtrack to make scenes more emotional but the writing is a problem. We need someone who can write a character like Lee and give us more in choice diversity
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i agree with the writing part, but i personally didnt care much for the soundtrack in either games
Part of the reason Lee's death was so emotional was because of the music
I wouldn't put the blame solely on Breckon, more on Telltale in general. He deserves some of the blame, but it's more on Telltale for giving him writers that were already busy on other games like TWAU or TFTBL or were just plain incompetent. The episodes he wrote had little problems (All That Remains, A House Divided, and No Going Back), these episodes had important choices, hubs, great character development, and were overall well written episodes. It was Episodes 3 and 4 that people have the problems with. Episode 3 was written by Pierre Shorette, who at this time, was already working on TWAU but was most likely on the beginning stages of developing TFTBL. Episode 4 was written by Eric Stirpe and J.T. Petty. The problem here was that Stirpe was a designer for TWD, TWAU, and TFTBL (probably further along in development and required more attention, not to mention he had an additional writing credit on the first episode of TFTBL, which Shorette wrote) and Petty doesn't even work at Telltale. Now that's on Telltale for not giving Breckon writers focused solely on TWD, but it's also on Breckon for not letting them in on everything that was going on, only a brief generalization of what was going on. If he allowed them to be more in the loop, maybe they could have written their episodes better and had choices play more of a role, but it's also on Telltale for having these guys focused on multiple projects at once instead of having separate teams.
Overall, Nick Breckon is definitely the guy I want as head writer, his episodes are always well-written, not only with choices, but also when it comes to important themes, symbolism, and foreshadowing. He's not Vanaman, no one can replace him, but he is the perfect replacement for him, not to mention that Breckon and Vanaman are friends, so that probably had a role in him getting the job in the first place. But Breckon needs to, in Season 3, either write all the episodes or have the guys know everything that is going on, or Telltale needs to give him people focused solely on The Walking Dead.
I have to disagree. Important choices? Like helping Christa or not, Covering or Saving Luke and that god awful "Can I go with you" option. His writing is hollow and sometimes even laughable. The deaths and characters he wrote were either flat, or hilariously badly written. Luke, Bonnie and Kenny's deaths were either badly written or missed something extraordinary. When compared to Season 1 Season 2 was shameful
Season 2 has one of my favorite soundtracks in gaming. Ever.
ಠ_ಠ
Telltale's writing might've been inconsistent this season and I may [definitely] have at one point or another whined about several points within the plot to no end [particularly those involving lakes] but I thought the voice acting and soundtrack were the highlights of this season, just as how the graphics and quick time events were a step up from Season 1. That said, I don't think if I can say who should do what and not as if they've failed and shouldn't be given them another chance, because that's silly, but I do think they should plan the next season out better, have it properly structured and not go pulling it apart midway through to make something else out of it that just struggles to hold itself together. So frankly, they can have the top voice actors, music, animation and fancy gameplay going and keep improving those things, but if they don't nail the story all the way through for Season 3, I'm not buying.
And I'm not mad btw XP I just love pulling this emoticon face:
ಠ_ಠ fear me Blue Berry Waffle King, fear meee.
I didn't say all the choices were important, but they were more important in his episodes. Helping Christa I'll give you, very stupid and not important (I assign blame where it's due), but let's not act like every decision is always going to have consequences, I could easily give you several choices in Season 1 that had literally no impact at all, many of which were in Vanaman episodes. Covering or helping Luke was important because it affects your relationship with Bonnie. You can kill her, she can be mad at you for not helping him, or she can be thankful that you tried, in which case you have a nice conversation with her about past regrets. The, "Can I go with you," was clearly a substitute choice added in the last minute because they took out the ability to kill Mike, so they had to settle for that, give them more time, maybe they could have came up with something better.
The characters he wrote were flat? Oh, so that explains Nick, one of the most developed characters of Season 2, Carver, who everyone praises in Episode 2, which he wrote, but everyone complains about in Episode 3, which he didn't, Walter, a guy who never seemed to lose who he was, even with the world the way it was, Pete, a man who tried to be like a father for his nephew and, despite their fights, only wants what's best for him, and Luke, which in the episodes he wrote, was very caring and a thoughtful and cautious leader.
And I have to disagree with the deaths, to some extent. Now the version where Luke dies if you decided to cover him is bad, no doubt, but the one where you go and help is actually not that bad, he dies protecting Clem, but he ends up giving up his own life in the process. Bonnie dies as a result of your choices, and Kenny's death where you shoot him first I thought was a very emotional and tearful scene where Kenny finally got what he had been asking for for a long time, death.
I liked the whole season, thought it had great music and voice acting and if it depended on me Breckon would write the entire S3 on his own.
Oops?
We would be better off with Breckon writing the whole season, I love his writing style and he is the best fit to replace Vanaman, in my opinion of course.
For Breckon
Same. I really liked most of what he did and to keep it consistent I'd rather have him writing the whole thing.
#ForBreckon
Kenny's death would have made me shed a tear had there been some music. Nick was irrelevant and lost every bit of character development he had after Episode 2 as did Luke. He was the head writer so he must have known they were going to replace Luke with Jane. And they did it for the sake of being "unpredictable". I'm not a pro writer but ruining an entire plot for the sake of being "unpredictable" is ridiculous. I blame him for Kenny vs Jane which made me want to puke every second I had to see it.
Ekhem.
well
sure it didn't
Plus all credit songs. "Sountrack wasn't emotional enough." Really, dude?
Um, his death did have music, how can you say that's not a beautiful piece by JEJ:
Click here
The episodes Nick was in after he became determinant were not written by Breckon, that fault lies with Shorette, Stirpe, and Petty who wrote those episodes, same goes for Luke, who I thought had some great development in the final episode, written by Breckon and Shorette.
How do you know they changed the plot, has it ever been said, maybe Jane was planned from the start?
I agree, I have no idea where he is coming from with that argument. Both seasons have tremendous music, but you forgot one song from your list:
Click here
Oh, I love this one. Thanks, Jack.
It was pretty apparent that it was going to be Luke vs Kenny as seen when it was foreshadowed at the Moon Star Lodge. If it wasn't then they really fucked up plot wise
Yes, the whole Kenny vs. Luke debate was started as a result of A House Divided, and they did write it to seem like it was supposed to be between Luke and Kenny. Now you may be right that they changed it because they wanted to be unpredictable, I'm not saying that it's not possible. But couldn't it also be possible that at some point after episode 2, there was a major rewrite of the story.
There a lot of signs that can point you to this conclusion. I heard somewhere that Carver was given a bigger role as a result of Michael Madsen becoming his voice actor. The screen shot for In Harms Way shows Rebecca giving birth but that doesn't happen until Amid the Ruins, some of the scenes in the teasers either are cut or happen in the next episode, and Mike originally supposed to being one of the guys in the woods that attacked Christa are just some of the things that changed, were scrapped, or replaced in future episodes.
Now the whole thing surrounding the situation is not proven. Maybe you're right in that the writers tried to set it up to be unpredictable, maybe they intended it to be Luke and Kenny but had to rewrite it for some unknown reasons, we don't know what happened in that writers room. And until we are given confirmation, we cannot say if it was a rewrite, writing meant to be unpredictable, or what.
Disabled slurs aren't really welcome.
Season 2's soundtrack was one of it's strong points, and Anadel definitely contributed to it
Can we get Mark Darin to write Season 3, please?
Sorry ID heat of the moment. I didn't mean it in a literal way its changed. Sorry if I offended anyone
I liked Nick Breckon, he was a hell of a lot better than the people who wrote episode 3 and 4.
As someone with Starved for Help being their all-time favorite episode, I second this
I agree the plot fell apart and I felt the writing was weak. After Ep.2, the story fell apart for me and I lost interest in the season. But the soundtrack and voice acting wasn't good? Please. Those were some of the highlights of the season.
All good, dude.
The whole Season Clementine felt like a robot
Clementron
"His name was... * LEE * ... He taught me how to... * SURVIVE * ... He is the reason I keep my bolts short."
While I agree that Nick Breckon is a good writer that started Season 2 off in a strong note with the first two episodes, especially when compared to the third and fourth, I still think he needs more work with his writing after playing the fifth episode. I don't have much problems with All That Remains and A House Divided, but No Going Back wasn't a strong finale compared to No Time Left, and the overall writing was a drop in quality compared to the first two episodes.
These are some of my problems with No Going Back:
I'm not going to lose sleep over Nick Breckon continuing to write for the Walking Dead Telltale games, but I'm hoping that he improves on the writing, focus more on character development, and avoid taking the easy way out just to justify the character's motivations.
At this point, the best writing team Telltale could have would be Nick Breckon, Mark Darin, and Pierre Shorette. Dream team right there, but I'd still prefer Breckon as head writer.
Yeah I know, the Breckon defender is back. I just have one question, if not Breckon than who should replace him, it's not like Telltale has a lot of people to go off of. Let's look at every single writer that has ever written on the game:
So, when you look at this list, there really isn't any one good enough, qualified, or available to be head writer other than Breckon. You may not like him, but he's the best we got.
the soundtrack was one of the best parts of season two and the voice acting was fine some would argue clem's isn't but i think that was intentional
I found season 2 to be very well written. Sure it had some problems, but found them to be minor and blown way out of proportion. I understand that this community is very passionate about this game and even the slightest thing they find wrong can get a bit out of hand, but to want a head writer to step down just seems ridiculous. I found the voice acting spot on for the characters and how they reacted to both happy and dark situations were totally believable. The soundtrack was one of the best parts to this game, it fits the theme of TWD universe and S1 soundtrack (since most of it's a remix of the original stuff). Then again this is all my opinion the same as it's your opinion, but Telltale thinks that Nick Breckon did a well enough job to keep writing for the rest of the season so it looks like it may continue that way.
Agreed. The sound track was very good in both games.
Just like J.T.petty didn't work at telltale yet worked on the dreaded episode 4,why couldn't Telltale go back and hire there ex employee Vanaman ??
to write season 3.
I know, please Telltale
Breckonisn'tbest
when are people gonna understand that vanaman left and started his own company he isn't just gonna come back like that
Okay, but only Pierre for the ending of the episodes. He did all of Episode 3 and forgot to include Nick anywhere besides "The beds are hard" and "Senpai Luke will come save us, do you believe Clementine? For I am Nick-chan."
That brought a tear to my eye. How did you make it?
Nothing is impossible. Big fan of your videos btw
It would have been nice to see Nick play a bigger role, but after looking back, I can't help but feel Shorette was rushed in making that episode, either that or he had to settle for writing an hour and a half episode instead of a 2 hour episode. Look at his work, Faith from TWAU and Zero Sum from TFTBL, both of these episodes are incredibly well written, but are also over 2 hours long. In Harms Way is an hour and a half, and I can't help but feel that he wanted to do so much more with the episode had he been given a little more time, but he had to settle for an hour and a half. Maybe if he had a little more time, he could written something for Nick and other characters.