"You will take on the role of different members of the Forrester household, and determine their fate through the choices you make; your actions and decisions will change the story around you."
this is what they said
I agree with people who stay the story is more important, honestly. And let's be honest, we all know by now that Telltale may not be as big on the choices as people assume, but is it really that important? I'm not a game developer, but I'm assuming making every choice matter in the future is a pretty difficult job and takes a lot more effort. But I have to say, I wish they made determinant characters last longer than just one episode after their possible death. That's a choice in Telltale's games I wish had more impact, but what can you do.
I always wanted to say, that choices don't matter like we expect them in TTGs, it's a fact. It's just an illusion, but if that illusion fails to work than it sucks. So we want our choices to be important, but for who? For the game/plot/outcome or for ourselves? God I hope this makes sense to you.
So what matters the most to me is not the story-shaping, I just want to FEEL that My choices DO matter, when I make them. And I don't feel that way when I play GoT.. sadly...
On the other hand I felt my decisions were important when I made them in TWD, TWAU or in Tales.
I'm not saying the story isn't good, because it's great, and I enjoy playing as the Forresters, but there's a little charm that's missing. The game keeps punishing you no matter what you do, and that made me break character in the last episodes. I'm looking forward to play the final episode, but I wouldn't cry rivers if they weren't gonna make a second season.
Yes, the novelty is wearing off if you need your choices to make a real tangible difference to the story (which many games don't manage, I might add). Or maybe we should make that 'it has worn off'.
No, the novelty won't wear off for people who enjoy Telltale's stories. (Cue someone saying people are idiots for liking Telltale's laughably bad writing/stories.)
Let me put it into perspective. I'm currently writing an interactive, text based story. I want one read to be of a decent length, meaning I'm aiming for the minimum of 40,000 words seen per read. Which would make it the smallest a novel can be. So far, I've got nearly 4,000 words. Guess how many are seen per read with just one chapter? 1,200 - 1,750. Over half the content is already being missed. The choices, up until now, are rather binary as well in nature.
This is why choices don't tend to alter the story's overall trajectory that much. It's especially problematic when you have tight schedules, you're not free to deliver the product how you want to (i.e. you have publishers breathing down your neck), and you're working with graphics etc. Of course, it's not always the workload that prevents stories having wildly different paths as a result of choices, because sometimes an author/developer might just want to tell their story while giving some interaction to the reader/player. Some stories also work best as a tightly crafted experience. I'll point to TWD S1 here, as I imagine if the story diverged a lot and a character never died, it might not be as highly regarded by people? I should point out though that it's not impossible to deliver a story where choices really matter. It's just that it's hard, and it's best to adjust expectations when seeing the choices matter tagline, so people aren't disappointed.
I like more traditional points and clicks myself, so puzzles don't necessarily bother me. But there eventually, without fail normally, comes a point where I'm stuck and I have to seek out help online. Normally quite often. Like you said, it kills the story's momentum, especially if it's not logical. So yeah, I prefer not being stuck and to not have to wait for ages to progress the story if given a choice.
I always wanted to say, that choices don't matter like we expect them in TTGs, it's a fact. It's just an illusion, but if that illusion fail… mores to work than it sucks. So we want our choices to be important, but for who? For the game/plot/outcome or for ourselves? God I hope this makes sense to you.
So what matters the most to me is not the story-shaping, I just want to FEEL that My choices DO matter, when I make them. And I don't feel that way when I play GoT.. sadly...
On the other hand I felt my decisions were important when I made them in TWD, TWAU or in Tales.
I'm not saying the story isn't good, because it's great, and I enjoy playing as the Forresters, but there's a little charm that's missing. The game keeps punishing you no matter what you do, and that made me break character in the last episodes. I'm looking forward to play the final episode, but I wouldn't cry rivers if they weren't gonna make a second season.
Too be honest it feels kinda meh. If I wanted a story then I'd watch a movie. I'm playing these games because they're supposed to make me fe… moreel as if I have a part in the whole story, not just being a pawn and have an inevitable end every time.
Plus, this was pretty much the reason why people play these types of games, being that choices have consequences. The whole mechanic makes the game have way more replay value.
TftB is on my list. I picked both games up during Humble's recent sale, and I started with Game of Thrones. I just finished Episode 3 of GoT.
I feel like the lack of exploration in GoT is such a missed opportunity. Even if its just a simple layout, its really rewarding to get to know an area and see how it changes over the course of a game. I'm thinking of the Sam & Max street corner. You can't get much simpler than that. Being able to walk around and see firsthand the changes that the plot was having on the area was really interesting. Being able to explore Ironrath would have been a much better way of conveying what's happening. Like, it starts out peaceful, then you can see Whitehill soldiers start moving in, then you can see the effects of starving or getting them drunk. Instead, we're just told that they're drunk or starving. Again, I'm only on Episode 3, but I'm assuming that shit will go down in Ironrath at some point. If that happens, getting to survey the destruction would be so much more interesting than a cutscene or walking in a straight line through it. Even if they let me walk around, it would feel like I'm lacking a point of reference at this point. I haven't been able to walk around the courtyard since Episode 1, and even that felt very restrictive.
You can get away with stuff like this in a series like TWD, where the point is that you're constantly moving from unfamiliar location to unfamiliar location, but when you're revisiting locations, the player should be given the opportunity to explore and get to know everything for himself.
I'd definitely enjoy more exploration and hubs, definitely an element I miss, but I like that TFTB has a few. I'd agree with you that puzzle… mores won't work with a lot of the newer fan base. I enjoy puzzles but at times they definitely halt the progression of the story.
By the way, have you tried Tales from the Borderlands? I'd say it handles the Telltale formula really well. It's even surprised me a few times with how some of the choices have affected the game.
Its much more like Telltale's old style of puzzle-solving adventure games with a bit of Telltale's newer elements sprinkled in (choices, QTEs, dialogue trees, etc). If that's your thing, its an excellent game. If you don't like puzzle solving, you probably won't like King's Quest.
I always loved looking at the things in Sam & Max since the jokes would evolve over the course of the episodes. The donut box, Bosco's gumball machine, the flyers, etc. I'd love for one of the choice based games to have areas that changed, especially based off decisions.
TftB is on my list. I picked both games up during Humble's recent sale, and I started with Game of Thrones. I just finished Episode 3 of GoT… more.
I feel like the lack of exploration in GoT is such a missed opportunity. Even if its just a simple layout, its really rewarding to get to know an area and see how it changes over the course of a game. I'm thinking of the Sam & Max street corner. You can't get much simpler than that. Being able to walk around and see firsthand the changes that the plot was having on the area was really interesting. Being able to explore Ironrath would have been a much better way of conveying what's happening. Like, it starts out peaceful, then you can see Whitehill soldiers start moving in, then you can see the effects of starving or getting them drunk. Instead, we're just told that they're drunk or starving. Again, I'm only on Episode 3, but I'm assuming that shit will go down in Ironrath at some point. If that h… [view original content]
I agree with you , I mean the first time I played I was under the false assumption or rather illusion that my choices would actually matter. It hit me in my second gameplay when nothing changes except the dialogues. Could have put in s little more effort in there , telltale!
On the Walking Dead side of the forums, I think I can speak for the majority when I say that the original or previous version of Season 2 that we pieced together with leaked and axed files was better than what we presented.
Do you have a link to this thread? I check TWD forum from time to time, but I guess I missed this. It sounds really interesting.
I've always suspected that the departure of Sean Vanaman and Jake Rodkin had a lot to do with the state of TWD S2. They did a lot of early work on The Walking Dead Season 2, but they left Telltale to start their own game studio shortly before the second season started releasing. I'm wondering if the cut material was early ideas from them that the remaining writers didn't have a handle on.
Considering that TellTale has multiple people moving from project to project and episode to episode, I don't think it is the teams that are … morethe "issue" (if you are one of the ones upset with the way TellTale does their games). I believe it has more to do with the overall scope of the story. On the Walking Dead side of the forums, I think I can speak for the majority when I say that the original or previous version of Season 2 that we pieced together with leaked and axed files was better than what we presented. It would have had the same people working on it, but the story line would have gone a different direction. So with that, I don't TellTale has "lost their way" or "forgotten how to properly apply [their formula]."
In my opinion from what I have seen with TWD and GOT, it seems like their downfall was that the scope of the season was too big to encompass. I stated in the TWD side of the forums in a thread that Season 2 looked like … [view original content]
I don't think you understand the meaning of the word "change." You expect huge, dramatic changes and when you get small, subtle changes you're not satisfied.
It's not wearing off. Tales is just brilliant and I'm really glad I chose to play GoT too. For me choices have always been just something that helps me to shape the characters in my mind and make me feel that the story truly is for me. Of course they can't know which ideas and shows/books/comics/games are the most suitable to suit this pattern, that's why Game of Thrones occasionally struggles too, not to mention that yes episode five was just weak.
My main problem is that the choices should actually matter when you join the game of thrones, if you can do almost anything without any real consequences it's pointless and people start to not care at all about anything, that shouldn't obviously happen. This is the most obvious when you play as Mira, she's supposed to be involved in serious politics but no matter what she does it's all the same, it's like if you played for example a House of Cards game (that'd be intriguing) and you could do whatever you wanted without a worry because it won't matter anyway. Game of Thrones turned out to be a tricky concept for Telltale to handle, but I still believe they're trying their best if we forgive that one really, really bad episode. I still like it more than The Walking Dead S2 (which is fine enough) and somewhat as much as The Wolf Among Us. Hopefully the last episode will be the best one of the whole series.
I think I can speak for the majority when I say that the original or previous version of Season 2 that we pieced together with leaked and axed files was better than what we presented
To be honest, I still don't think S2 was extensively rewritten as it seems, especially in comparison to say, The Wolf Among Us, where it's quite obvious that there was a series of rewrites that took place.
If anything, it seems more like some scenes and events were switched around, but that's about it. I don't even remember seeing that much axed content. A few stray animation/phoneme files for characters that never ended up appearing, and some unused textures, meshes and models here and there. And the rest of that 'unused' content either ended up being used later down the line, ended up being something different than what people assumed it was, ended up being works-in-progress, or ended up being fake and/or unsubstantiated rumors, like that story about having to choose between Kenny and Luke in the middle of a storm, which there was never any solid proof of, as far as I can tell.
Considering that TellTale has multiple people moving from project to project and episode to episode, I don't think it is the teams that are … morethe "issue" (if you are one of the ones upset with the way TellTale does their games). I believe it has more to do with the overall scope of the story. On the Walking Dead side of the forums, I think I can speak for the majority when I say that the original or previous version of Season 2 that we pieced together with leaked and axed files was better than what we presented. It would have had the same people working on it, but the story line would have gone a different direction. So with that, I don't TellTale has "lost their way" or "forgotten how to properly apply [their formula]."
In my opinion from what I have seen with TWD and GOT, it seems like their downfall was that the scope of the season was too big to encompass. I stated in the TWD side of the forums in a thread that Season 2 looked like … [view original content]
That's funny, most people are complaing about choices after this scene with Ramsey, earlier it weren't that big.
Try to understand, that it was HIM who was playing with you. He gave you a choice, but he knew he's better than you and you wouldn't hurt him, no matter how hard you try. He's smarter, he's wild. He was having fun, he was just TESTING you. Is it that hard to understand?
Exactly just like when he was testing Theon when he had the razor blade shaving Ramsay's beard and told Theon that Robb Stark had died. Testing him to see if Theon would kill him.
That's funny, most people are complaing about choices after this scene with Ramsey, earlier it weren't that big.
Try to understand, that … moreit was HIM who was playing with you. He gave you a choice, but he knew he's better than you and you wouldn't hurt him, no matter how hard you try. He's smarter, he's wild. He was having fun, he was just TESTING you. Is it that hard to understand?
Everyone is all like "wow you guys are at it again, it's a game, I love the plot and I play it for the plot","everyone has said this endlessly,we get it".
But we all know that the moment you play the game and you choose a thing and the game has all the reasons to do what you have chosen and it STILL goes its normal course..you will still feel frustrated and dissappointed that the game didn't go your way.
For example :
If you're nice with Finn, he will vouche for you and try to help you escape your execution. Nope, it wasn't enough for the commander to let you free.
If you're a dick to Finn, he will say you killed the guy in cold blood. You still get executed.
If you are honest with Danaerys she won't help you.
If you lie and don't care about her help, she won't help you.
If you get bullied by the Whitehills nothing happens. They still bully you.
If you stand up for the Whitehill bullshit nothing happens. They still bully you and they don't contact the lord to tell him you were a dick to them.
Is this a videogame or am I watching a tv series all over again? Wasn't this supposed to be interactive? I'm just there to occasionally press the left mouse button. Since from 4 dialogue choices I have the same outcome.
Didn't they promise that the choices matter? That means I got ripped off.
Got nothing to do with "wearing off". Their formula, whatever that is, was fine. They just didn't put enough effort into the writing since TWD1 - oh sorry, I meant: They are moving in a new direction. You can choose the impact of the several choices by yourself and develop the possible outcome in your imagination. It's an innovative form of outsourcing.
Everyone is all like "wow you guys are at it again, it's a game, I love the plot and I play it for the plot","everyone has said this endless… morely,we get it".
But we all know that the moment you play the game and you choose a thing and the game has all the reasons to do what you have chosen and it STILL goes its normal course..you will still feel frustrated and dissappointed that the game didn't go your way.
For example :
If you're nice with Finn, he will vouche for you and try to help you escape your execution. Nope, it wasn't enough for the commander to let you free.
If you're a dick to Finn, he will say you killed the guy in cold blood. You still get executed.
If you are honest with Danaerys she won't help you.
If you lie and don't care about her help, she won't help you.
If you get bullied by the Whitehills nothing happens. They still bully you.
If you stand up for the Whitehill bullshit nothing happens. They still bully you a… [view original content]
Got nothing to do with "wearing off". Their formula, whatever that is, was fine. They just didn't put enough effort into the writing since T… moreWD1 - oh sorry, I meant: They are moving in a new direction. You can choose the impact of the several choices by yourself and develop the possible outcome in your imagination. It's an innovative form of outsourcing.
And thats not false advertisement? I dont expect huge dramatic changes, im expecting SOME change that replaying this game wont be total chore later. TWD S1, TWAU did much better in those aspects
I don't think you understand the meaning of the word "change." You expect huge, dramatic changes and when you get small, subtle changes you're not satisfied.
"You will take on the role of different members of the Forrester household, and determine their fate through the choices you make; your actions and decisions will change the story around you."
Didn't they promise that the choices matter?
No they didn't.
That means I got ripped off.
You didn't get ripped off because they're not falsely advertising.
"You will take on the role of different members of the Forrester household, and determine their fate through the choices you make; your actions and decisions will change the story around you."
What is this then?
Comments
The story does change even if the overall outcome doesn't.
i dont think we are playing the same game then
I agree with people who stay the story is more important, honestly. And let's be honest, we all know by now that Telltale may not be as big on the choices as people assume, but is it really that important? I'm not a game developer, but I'm assuming making every choice matter in the future is a pretty difficult job and takes a lot more effort. But I have to say, I wish they made determinant characters last longer than just one episode after their possible death. That's a choice in Telltale's games I wish had more impact, but what can you do.
I always wanted to say, that choices don't matter like we expect them in TTGs, it's a fact. It's just an illusion, but if that illusion fails to work than it sucks. So we want our choices to be important, but for who? For the game/plot/outcome or for ourselves? God I hope this makes sense to you.
So what matters the most to me is not the story-shaping, I just want to FEEL that My choices DO matter, when I make them. And I don't feel that way when I play GoT.. sadly...
On the other hand I felt my decisions were important when I made them in TWD, TWAU or in Tales.
I'm not saying the story isn't good, because it's great, and I enjoy playing as the Forresters, but there's a little charm that's missing. The game keeps punishing you no matter what you do, and that made me break character in the last episodes. I'm looking forward to play the final episode, but I wouldn't cry rivers if they weren't gonna make a second season.
Yes, the novelty is wearing off if you need your choices to make a real tangible difference to the story (which many games don't manage, I might add). Or maybe we should make that 'it has worn off'.
No, the novelty won't wear off for people who enjoy Telltale's stories. (Cue someone saying people are idiots for liking Telltale's laughably bad writing/stories.)
@SerMarve (this is said generally, btw)
Let me put it into perspective. I'm currently writing an interactive, text based story. I want one read to be of a decent length, meaning I'm aiming for the minimum of 40,000 words seen per read. Which would make it the smallest a novel can be. So far, I've got nearly 4,000 words. Guess how many are seen per read with just one chapter? 1,200 - 1,750. Over half the content is already being missed. The choices, up until now, are rather binary as well in nature.
This is why choices don't tend to alter the story's overall trajectory that much. It's especially problematic when you have tight schedules, you're not free to deliver the product how you want to (i.e. you have publishers breathing down your neck), and you're working with graphics etc. Of course, it's not always the workload that prevents stories having wildly different paths as a result of choices, because sometimes an author/developer might just want to tell their story while giving some interaction to the reader/player. Some stories also work best as a tightly crafted experience. I'll point to TWD S1 here, as I imagine if the story diverged a lot and a character never died, it might not be as highly regarded by people? I should point out though that it's not impossible to deliver a story where choices really matter. It's just that it's hard, and it's best to adjust expectations when seeing the choices matter tagline, so people aren't disappointed.
@dojo32161
I like more traditional points and clicks myself, so puzzles don't necessarily bother me. But there eventually, without fail normally, comes a point where I'm stuck and I have to seek out help online. Normally quite often. Like you said, it kills the story's momentum, especially if it's not logical. So yeah, I prefer not being stuck and to not have to wait for ages to progress the story if given a choice.
This. Look at life is strange for example. Their "humor",characters suck shit but they manage to do the choices hella lot better than GoT
True..
Only if this game had replay value...
Or you can just ignore the threads, not reply to them.
"hella"
that was intentional :P
You said the characters suck shit
Hahaha k.
TftB is on my list. I picked both games up during Humble's recent sale, and I started with Game of Thrones. I just finished Episode 3 of GoT.
I feel like the lack of exploration in GoT is such a missed opportunity. Even if its just a simple layout, its really rewarding to get to know an area and see how it changes over the course of a game. I'm thinking of the Sam & Max street corner. You can't get much simpler than that. Being able to walk around and see firsthand the changes that the plot was having on the area was really interesting. Being able to explore Ironrath would have been a much better way of conveying what's happening. Like, it starts out peaceful, then you can see Whitehill soldiers start moving in, then you can see the effects of starving or getting them drunk. Instead, we're just told that they're drunk or starving. Again, I'm only on Episode 3, but I'm assuming that shit will go down in Ironrath at some point. If that happens, getting to survey the destruction would be so much more interesting than a cutscene or walking in a straight line through it. Even if they let me walk around, it would feel like I'm lacking a point of reference at this point. I haven't been able to walk around the courtyard since Episode 1, and even that felt very restrictive.
You can get away with stuff like this in a series like TWD, where the point is that you're constantly moving from unfamiliar location to unfamiliar location, but when you're revisiting locations, the player should be given the opportunity to explore and get to know everything for himself.
Its very good for what it is.
Its much more like Telltale's old style of puzzle-solving adventure games with a bit of Telltale's newer elements sprinkled in (choices, QTEs, dialogue trees, etc). If that's your thing, its an excellent game. If you don't like puzzle solving, you probably won't like King's Quest.
I just want choices to better.
Hate where if you choose to save someone they die in the next episode.
Than there's the whole "Traitor" thing that was purely lame.
Well I liked EP5 so... maybe?
I always loved looking at the things in Sam & Max since the jokes would evolve over the course of the episodes. The donut box, Bosco's gumball machine, the flyers, etc. I'd love for one of the choice based games to have areas that changed, especially based off decisions.
Clearly if you don't like something, you wouldn't want to associate yourself with that.
He's clearly a troll, no doubt on that.
I agree with you , I mean the first time I played I was under the false assumption or rather illusion that my choices would actually matter. It hit me in my second gameplay when nothing changes except the dialogues. Could have put in s little more effort in there , telltale!
Do you have a link to this thread? I check TWD forum from time to time, but I guess I missed this. It sounds really interesting.
I've always suspected that the departure of Sean Vanaman and Jake Rodkin had a lot to do with the state of TWD S2. They did a lot of early work on The Walking Dead Season 2, but they left Telltale to start their own game studio shortly before the second season started releasing. I'm wondering if the cut material was early ideas from them that the remaining writers didn't have a handle on.
I'm critizing telltale as whole, not only GoT
I don't think you understand the meaning of the word "change." You expect huge, dramatic changes and when you get small, subtle changes you're not satisfied.
It's not wearing off. Tales is just brilliant and I'm really glad I chose to play GoT too. For me choices have always been just something that helps me to shape the characters in my mind and make me feel that the story truly is for me. Of course they can't know which ideas and shows/books/comics/games are the most suitable to suit this pattern, that's why Game of Thrones occasionally struggles too, not to mention that yes episode five was just weak.
My main problem is that the choices should actually matter when you join the game of thrones, if you can do almost anything without any real consequences it's pointless and people start to not care at all about anything, that shouldn't obviously happen. This is the most obvious when you play as Mira, she's supposed to be involved in serious politics but no matter what she does it's all the same, it's like if you played for example a House of Cards game (that'd be intriguing) and you could do whatever you wanted without a worry because it won't matter anyway. Game of Thrones turned out to be a tricky concept for Telltale to handle, but I still believe they're trying their best if we forgive that one really, really bad episode. I still like it more than The Walking Dead S2 (which is fine enough) and somewhat as much as The Wolf Among Us. Hopefully the last episode will be the best one of the whole series.
To be honest, I still don't think S2 was extensively rewritten as it seems, especially in comparison to say, The Wolf Among Us, where it's quite obvious that there was a series of rewrites that took place.
If anything, it seems more like some scenes and events were switched around, but that's about it. I don't even remember seeing that much axed content. A few stray animation/phoneme files for characters that never ended up appearing, and some unused textures, meshes and models here and there. And the rest of that 'unused' content either ended up being used later down the line, ended up being something different than what people assumed it was, ended up being works-in-progress, or ended up being fake and/or unsubstantiated rumors, like that story about having to choose between Kenny and Luke in the middle of a storm, which there was never any solid proof of, as far as I can tell.
I feel like we have had this conversation before.
That's funny, most people are complaing about choices after this scene with Ramsey, earlier it weren't that big.
Try to understand, that it was HIM who was playing with you. He gave you a choice, but he knew he's better than you and you wouldn't hurt him, no matter how hard you try. He's smarter, he's wild. He was having fun, he was just TESTING you. Is it that hard to understand?
Exactly just like when he was testing Theon when he had the razor blade shaving Ramsay's beard and told Theon that Robb Stark had died. Testing him to see if Theon would kill him.
Everyone is all like "wow you guys are at it again, it's a game, I love the plot and I play it for the plot","everyone has said this endlessly,we get it".
But we all know that the moment you play the game and you choose a thing and the game has all the reasons to do what you have chosen and it STILL goes its normal course..you will still feel frustrated and dissappointed that the game didn't go your way.
For example :
If you're nice with Finn, he will vouche for you and try to help you escape your execution. Nope, it wasn't enough for the commander to let you free.
If you're a dick to Finn, he will say you killed the guy in cold blood. You still get executed.
If you are honest with Danaerys she won't help you.
If you lie and don't care about her help, she won't help you.
If you get bullied by the Whitehills nothing happens. They still bully you.
If you stand up for the Whitehill bullshit nothing happens. They still bully you and they don't contact the lord to tell him you were a dick to them.
Is this a videogame or am I watching a tv series all over again? Wasn't this supposed to be interactive? I'm just there to occasionally press the left mouse button. Since from 4 dialogue choices I have the same outcome.
Didn't they promise that the choices matter? That means I got ripped off.
Some choices dont matter other choices matter greatly, who did uou choose to have a final stand at the gate, that will change many things
They matter like this
When ethan calls ludd a coward, later on ludd will make note of it.
Got nothing to do with "wearing off". Their formula, whatever that is, was fine. They just didn't put enough effort into the writing since TWD1 - oh sorry, I meant: They are moving in a new direction. You can choose the impact of the several choices by yourself and develop the possible outcome in your imagination. It's an innovative form of outsourcing.
No they didn't.
You didn't get ripped off because they're not falsely advertising.
So it doesnt matter?
in your imagination? What?
Yeah im sure
And thats not false advertisement? I dont expect huge dramatic changes, im expecting SOME change that replaying this game wont be total chore later. TWD S1, TWAU did much better in those aspects
"You will take on the role of different members of the Forrester household, and determine their fate through the choices you make; your actions and decisions will change the story around you."
What is this then?
What a pointless comment thanks
Are you okay?
Yeah, and the story does change. Just not the way you people want it to.