Do our choices even make a difference?
Do our choices really matter.
During the First Season of Walking Dead. Choices made a difference. Depending on if you took Kenny's side or not. His attitude towards you changed based on if you help him out. He even says "I won't leave a friend behind" it felt personal. Yet I can't help the feeling this season its not the case.
My point,in EP3 No matter if you took blame for Reggie. He still got shoved off the roof. If you decided to help Luke or Not. He still got caught. Remember the dog in EP1, two choices but same outcome no matter if you killed it or left it. Same with EP2, it didn't matter who you ran to. That guy still died
Only difference is time you got to spend with him before he did. My point is. I thought our choices were supposed to shift the game. In EP3, it didn't matter if you helped Kenny or not. Carvter still took the entire group.
Like they did in Season 1. in EP5 Kenny recounts everything you did for him, and based on your actions it made a difference who came with you as a group to find Clem. Am I crazy or we are given the illusion of two choices yet they both lead to same road. I thought they were supposed change the game.
TLDER: Our choices don't make any if a slight difference.
During the First Season of Walking Dead. Choices made a difference. Depending on if you took Kenny's side or not. His attitude towards you changed based on if you help him out. He even says "I won't leave a friend behind" it felt personal. Yet I can't help the feeling this season its not the case.
My point,in EP3 No matter if you took blame for Reggie. He still got shoved off the roof. If you decided to help Luke or Not. He still got caught. Remember the dog in EP1, two choices but same outcome no matter if you killed it or left it. Same with EP2, it didn't matter who you ran to. That guy still died
Only difference is time you got to spend with him before he did. My point is. I thought our choices were supposed to shift the game. In EP3, it didn't matter if you helped Kenny or not. Carvter still took the entire group.
Like they did in Season 1. in EP5 Kenny recounts everything you did for him, and based on your actions it made a difference who came with you as a group to find Clem. Am I crazy or we are given the illusion of two choices yet they both lead to same road. I thought they were supposed change the game.
TLDER: Our choices don't make any if a slight difference.
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Honestly there were thousands of threads about this following ep 3 of season 1 when the Carley/Doug split ended.
Also that moment with Kenny happened in ep 5 of season 1 and was probably one of the few moments choices mattered in season 1, we're at ep 3 of season 2
However, I am somewhat sympathetic to Telltale at this point because it takes them an incredible long time in-between episodes already. Imagine if they had to personalize or even deal with two (or more) different stories? We would get an episode once a decade.
I love the game and of course I would want the choices to matter more but overall I understand that is very unlikely.
Also it made a difference if he came with you at the end to find Clem or Not. Your right that's ANOTHER choice we made early in EP1, that that impacted the game. That choice made a DIFERENCE, without Carely you couldn't tell people about your past. I'm asking you to take off you rosey vison "I LOVE TELL TALE" glasses and actually make an honest comment about our choices impact in season 1 and season 2.
Is that too hard?
I don't think this season is really any different in this regard. In Season One, Lily killed Doug/Carley no matter how much you supported her or what choices you made. Characters you saved early died later to help manage the butterfly-effect spinning out of control. This is one of those things that's a limitation of playing a video game, as opposed to writing your own story where anything can happen.
I think that the seeds of you choosing sides, you choosing how to interact/teach Sarah, etc are there this season. The closer we get to the end, the more potential to really see dynamic differences in the story based on that.
And no, no matter what you said to people throughout the game they still helped you find Clem. They just didn't come with you in the first 5 minutes of the game. After you get back to the house they all come with you anyway.
It doesn't matter if you dropped Ben or not, Kenny still "dies". At the exact same point in the game.
Cutting off your arm? Lee still dies.
So yes, TWD has always been the illusion of choice. In season 1 as well as season 2. I am aware of this, and I don't care in the slightest. For me it's about the journey and the characters. I don't care if Kenny dies no matter what I do, I care about how I view his character throughout the game and his relationship with me. These are the places your choices matter.
If you were a game developer you would find it almost impossible to make an actual multi-threaded storyline where your choices actually made a huge difference. There are simply too many variables. Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Heavy Rain are all good examples of this. Heavy Rain tried to do it, but it ended up having a huge impact on the quality of the story since the endings all seem cluttered and out of place.
Bottom line - the more you want your choices to matter the more the story and character development will suffer. Like Nick, he didn't have any character development because he is determinant. Spending a lot of time on his character would be a waste of time for TT since a lot of players wouldn't experience this. And what of those players? If you had it your way, Nick would still be important for the story. What of the players that don't have Nick anymore? Their story would have to progress in a totally different way. It's the butterfly effect. Simple decisions can have huge consequences. And the death of a person is not a simple decision.
So the only way they can avoid this problem is by giving you an illusion of choice - by giving Nick less/no character development. You feel like he's alive because of you, but he doesn't really make a difference.
I get why your saying "They don't have time to make the game as good as first one" then why even bother. If your not going use the same recipe that made this game a sucess in the first place. Giving us the illusion of a choice. I like games. Our choices make a difference.
That's all.
This series adapts to your choices, it's not going to completely change the story for your benefit. It even used to say that in plain text at the start of every episode in Season One. You don't completely alter the story. But you change the opinions of characters around you and your own character.
Bioware (just for example) is a AAA studio with million dollar budgets and an army of programmers and their games really only have one ending as well, its just the window dressing might be different. Its extremely, extremely difficult to do true player determinant ending trees in a video game.
youtube.com/watch?v=2uloDnuUoZU
Telltale Games in a nutshell.
I agree, that some people were to die in Season 1, like Larry. No matter what you did. Yet I felt like our choices made a difference in overall game. I feel like honestly half these people are going die in some random attack, so it won't matter if you were nice to them or not. Am I alone in wanting a game where our choices matter.
If your reply is "Tell Tale doesn't have time to make season 2 as good as season 1" maybe they should make time. They can't go back once season is done and make our choices more meaningful.
That's all.
- How I interact with Sarah. Will she learn to toughen up and be able to survive?
- Supporting Kenny versus Luke. This seems like it's being set up to come to a head at some point in the near future.
- The struggle to maintain Clem's innocence versus Clem getting colder and more calculating out of necessity.
- Alvin. He still died, but by saving him in Ep2, he got to die on his terms, helping to protect the woman he loves.
- Cutting off Sarita's arm. Assuming that she's able to get away from the horde and not bleed out, her potential survival could have a meaningful impact on both Kenny and my Clem.
There's no good way to create a variable story that follows every possible thread to an entirely unique conclusion. No games really do this, even ones made by giant companies. They go with a modular design, where your choices can activate module scenes to plug in/be left out at specific places. The only way to do what I think a lot of folks expect Telltale to do, is to write your own story. Telltale's created a TV-like game; I'm certain their writers want to create as much variety is feasible, within the natural confines of the style of the game. But it's not as simple as thinking about every possibility and writing it; there is a lot of programming, art, design and various other factors to take into consideration.
Think of it this way. Ask yourself whether or not you believe that the Telltale writers take pride in their work. Wouldn't you? Wouldn't anyone who is writing for the most exciting, popular title in regards to storytelling? I'm sure that they do, too. But there are limitations that they have that your imagination just doesn't.
Erhm. Sorry. Anyway, Kenny sacrifices his eye no matter what you do, even if you were going to give yourself up (I am feeling like Telltale is for some reason intentionally pussying out on the non-walker inflicted child violence scenes, thus not allowing Clementine to take punishment for Reggie at the greenhouse and the group after Luke got caught. Excluding slaps, I guess.)
So yeah. They seem to have ultimately given up actually making our choices matter and focus on writing a story that the mindless majority of the community wants them to write. Nick barely had any voice at all during Episode 3, which really annoyed me because he, Rebecca and Sarah are pretty much the only characters whose "stories" I truly care about at this point. Nick had Pete, Rebecca had Alvin and Sarah had Carlos. I also love Sarita but I have a feeling that she is just a disposable prop to have die in the name of milking more feels out of Kenny fans, which really saddens me. I do not like admitting it, but Kenny is getting way too much attention.
The narrative and character development is unbalanced. The advertised gameplay is sickeningly lacking. Some characters have shields. Interesting characters are killed off before we can hear their story (Alvin), while characters with already completed stories live on so that Telltale can keep milking feels out of them when they need a selling point. Surprise me, give me twists! Like Luke, could he possibly be bitten? Would they dare be ruthless and kill off someone who seems to have a shield from death until way late in the season? I wonder.
...Yes, I am a bit bitter. But it is an affectionate flavour of bitterness. I WANT this game to be good, but each episode just comes off more railroady. Maybe I should just stick to Wolf Among Us, at least it has a point... Sigh.
That explains so much...
Kenny only spent time with his other son Duck, which made Doug socially awkward, and that is why we didn't care about him....
#kennyhas2sons