Thanks to Nick Breckon for trying to make this season good.
Nick Breckon is a great writer, he wrote episode Season 1 Episode 1 and 2 and now Episode 5.
We had the....
- Fantastic Opening with Omids death
- We had the ' who will you appeal to ' scene, which I really liked.
- We learned of carver who shot up people at the river
- We had the only type of good development - Alvin in the window
- We had the river scene which tried to tie in some of the 400 days people in too with Romands death.
In episode 2 we had...
- The Nick/Pete scene
- Learning more about Sarah and how she wants to fit into the group more
- The choice to teach Sarah to use a gun
- We had the introduction of Carver, EP2 Carver wasnt a psycopath that killed for no reason
- We had the choice to let Sarah snap at her dad if you say ' You told me to distract her! '
- We had the 5 day hike which had Rebbecca say sorry.
- More Carlos with the Shack by the bridge
- We had more development from Nick and a choice to give the watch to him if you stole it.
- Alvin and the peach cans
- We had a heartwarming scene with Kenny at the fireplace
- Walter & Matthew were the first Homosexual couple in the game.
- We meet Carver again. Carver isnt a Governer clone at this point.
- We have 2 Determinant characters! Your choices DO matter this episode.
When episode 3 was written we had nothing that good.
- No Development at all
- Nick got 5 lines this episode
- No good hubs
- Alvins death - This was done alright
- Clementine - an 11 year old girl, having to sneak through a mall with armed guards to get a walkie talkie.
- Lukes magic appearance, how did he sneak into the camp?
- The introduction of Jane and Mike - Jane never speaking at all and Mike who seemed alright.
Episode 4 came along and...
- Saritas poorly written death
- Kenny shouting at at 11 year old girl.
- Nicks shitty death.
- Jane constantly talking about Jaime.
- Jane saying you remind her of Jaime
- Jane getting almost all the Development this episode.
- Jane and Lukes OOC Fuck session.
- The choice to steal meds - which is useless because you still get called out on it at the end.
- Sarahs death at the deck.
- Useless choices like ' Did you hold the baby '
- Why didnt luke cry about his best friend of 20 years dying?
- Why did a pregnant woman cry about it MORE than luke did?
Since episode 3 and 4 was written by different people, there was no consistency at all.
Hopefully we will get a good send-off for season 2 as the only good writer is doing it.
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Comments
Yep, S2 started off pretty good. We believe in you Nick Breckon!
Yeah, I pretty much love Nick Breckon.
IBelieveInNickBreckon
In Nick Breckon we trust. Telltale's Best Game Director
Looking back at how many people were unhappy with Nick Breckon's writing....this is a pleasant surprise for me. Considering I also believe he wrote the two best episodes in this season, especially episode two who is easily in top 3 among both seasons.
IBelieveInNickBreckon
The main reason why I'd care about him being back is the hope that he'll acknowledge Christa's existence. At this point, she's the only supporting character I'd love to see more of.
IWantToBelieve
Sean Vanaman was a bit better.
You deserve a like and recognition.
But seriously you made perfect sense with everything you wrote you should join the shame on you telltale thread.
What is OOC BTW XD
I believe he will create a solid conclusion to what was an ok season of TWD. I wish he would've steered the other dummy writers into a better direction with the episodes he didn't have main control of... I wish sean vanaman and jake rodkin came back too... then I'd believe in Nick Breckon a bit more...
"Out of character."
I would disagree with the original poster's reductive perspective, though. There are plenty of faults with the first two episodes and upsides of the next two episodes that were unacknowledged. For example:
1: Carlos & Rebecca's personality change between Eps 1 & 2, making the former come across as a hypocrite and the latter seem bipolar rather than just hormonal.
2: Weird time-skips that smooth over necessary character development - I'd rather have played through the 5 days in which Clementine had to earn the trust of the group, rather than just ASSUME that it happened.
Nick Breckon
Pierre Shorette </3
Episode 4 writer - After killing Sarah and Nick in that way, you can pray for mercy when you meet me.
Yap, s2 had a strong start because of Nick so it's a shame he didn't direct all the episodes.
First remember Rebecca motives were influenced by her pregnancy and hormones she probably calmed down after a night of sleep,Do you think being threatened by an eleven year old whom you just met is hostile and frightning.It's not A smart guy would call it bluff and an mature person is always smarter than a kid.
Second Carlos personality hasn't changed , in episode 1 when he is talking about his daughter if you talk back at him , in episode 2 he will greet clementine with a stern look on his face .Carlos worries about his daughter's safety are crucial he will put anything with eyes and logic to look after his daughter.
Time skip is better , you can see that the group obviously accepted Clem as their own , when Luke asks Clementine if she wants to stick with them.
I think it'd be better to keep one writer, different people - different ideas. You can't just write a piece of a story with the next pieces in mind if those next pieces aren't going to be written by yourself. That's like oil in the water.
Carlos came off as being fine with letting Clementine die in the shed in episode 1, even admonishing her for not being content to let her wound fester. Then he had the gall to protest to Luke that Clem is "just a little girl" at the bridge - though I guess he may have been thinking more on a practical than moral level.
I would hesitantly agree that the writing and design of All That Remains was indeed more impressive than that of Amid The Ruins, but I don't want to blindly praise Breckon or trash the recent episodes regardless of my distaste for some of the writers' decisions.
For example, I actually love the dilemma presented with Arvo due to the parallels with Clem's previous encounters with bandits, the unflattering light it puts Jane in, and the fact that there are consequences for threatening a weak person regardless of how you felt about it. I was actually okay with Luke's suppressed reaction to his friend's death, due to the way he breaks down at the episode's end and begins to constantly snap at Kenny. I actually liked that Sarita was doomed either way, regardless of my thoughts on how the character herself was used throughout the entire season.
Yes, he is. That's why I'm happy. Another dumb writer would ruin the finale of Season 2.
If anything, I just hope he manages to thematically tie it back to the opening of the Season. Remember how Omid's death was the catalyst of Clem & Christa's misery? We're first introduced to 11-year-old Clem alone with a bitter Christa with no baby in sight. Having Clementine return to Christa with the new baby would provide a hopeful, satisfying conclusion to this almost constantly bleak storyline.
Yeah. Man, I don't know who in Telltale had this idea to assign more writers to Season 2, but he should be shot the same way as Troy.
I believe in Nick Breckon and I think he'll manage to tie the opening with the end and maybe possibly explain the massacre at the river (if it's still explainable, I want to know so badly what happened in there, because Roman is one of the victims)
And I'm not saying that Pierre and the guy who wrote ep 4 (let's call him George) are writing bad, just...they should be additional, giving some ideas to Nick Breckon, because that's what they're best at, not being in charge of whole episodes. There are sure a lot of arguments about the plot and such, so I think only one writer should be in charge of episodes, while the rest (like Pierre and George) should be additional.
Also, I should give the credit to that even though Episode 3 and 4 storylines was a mush of wasted writer potential, I liked the story. In most part. Because the deaths were handled so badly. I liked only Alvin's, Rebecca's and Sarita's deaths (I liked Sarita's death thanks to the animators though, she died in such a beautiful way. Don't call me a psycho, just...I'm praising the animators here XD)
I hope to be writer for TTG one day and make everything peaceful in the storyline xD
I'm sorry but as much as I love Nick Breckon for the work he did on the first two episodes [and am happy he'll be working on the last one] I gotta go stand up for the guys that worked on Episode 3 and 4 on a few things:
When episode 3 was written we had nothing that good.
No Development at all
Not entirely true. You get development on Sarah's character to see that something might not be right with her besides Carlos being overprotective of her. You have Bonnie opening her eyes to what an ass Carver is and finally getting the balls to cut from the camp and helping the group cut from the camp is the right thing. You have Carver himself telling Clem a cruel take on what humans beings must do to survival, and the fact too that it shows Carver's a pretty messed up guy and what a leader shouldn't be. You get some development on Luke's character revealing he won't take a human life and the lengths he'd go to help his friends. The same is shown again for Kenny that too shows what lengths he's willing to take to protect Clementine and how he handles 'revenge' when it comes to smashing Carver's face in.
Which also brings us to development on Clementine's own character on whether she can stand up for Sarah who might be viewed as a liability to some, and if she should be a witness to Kenny beating Carver to death [and prove to Carver she's the same as him] or leave and keep her from seeing that. That's another thing the season is about, on letting you decide how much Clem should stick to her morals, whether it's forgiving or defending people, or just have her become solely a strong badass that'll watch a guy gets his skull smashed in.
Clementine - an 11 year old girl, having to sneak through a mall with armed guards to get a walkie talkie.
Because she is the main character, and the game sets up pretty well that she's the only one that can pull it off because everybody else is stuck there in that outdoor 'prison' and none of the adults can use that rope thing to get onto the roof because it can't support much weight. They didn't have a choice but to ask for her help, because if they could get onto the roof and do all that dangerous stuff instead, they would've done.
Lukes magic appearance, how did he sneak into the camp?
Troy's a lame watchguard. It's shown a lot with the fact he was able to flag Kenny and the others down to talk to them not long after Clementine when Troy wasn't looking. That and he might've snuck in when the walkers were attacking, or used the cover niiiiight.
Kenny shouting at at 11 year old girl.
He just lost his girlfriend who pulled him back from the brink, and we know what Kenny is like. He was upset and hurt and for that to happen to him was like losing Katjaa and Duck all over again. Kenny's not mentally strong willed like other characters. Do you remember what he was like when Duck was dying and he refused to accept it? How much he still wanted to get to Savannah to find a boat when he had no family left to rescue. When it comes to loss of those he loves Kenny just can't take it well, and it'll lead him to snap at people like an adult like Lee, a teenager like Ben to a young girl like Clementine, because that's just who he is. He gets mad when he's hurt and he can't help that.
Jane and Lukes OOC Fuck session.
Hehe XD sorry I had to put that gif in there. I still can't take that scene seriously. But I think it was intentional to show the guy screwed up. Although by then he's lost most of the cabin group in the span of about 2 weeks [along with Nick and Pete that he'd known since he was young] so Jane taking advantage of him with an offer like that after losing everyone so quickly and not having had sex in two years, no surprise.
The choice to steal meds - which is useless because you still get called out on it at the end.
We still don't know the whole story or why Arvo was hiding the meds in the first place. He might've been hiding them secretly for another group or because he was planning to escape and lied to his own group save his own skin, whether the meds were taken or not.
Useless choices like ' Did you hold the baby '
Maybe it's something that can be viewed differently depending on if you've had children or not?
Why didnt luke cry about his best friend of 20 years dying?
Luke is not Kenny. Characters have different ways of coping with grief. Nick got depressed and wanted to give up, Sarah shut down, while Kenny nearly disregarded everything that was going on around him and could only focus on Sarita who was beginning to turn. Luke's way of coping might be to keep things in and focus on the matter at hand, and given there were walkers at the door trying to get in and Sarah hadn't moved or listened to him for hours despite everything he'd said, he was probably getting stressed out about how to get them both out there alive and couldn't dwell on his friend until after he spoke with Rebecca. Not everybody break will down in tears over somebody dying. Some might not even cry for months and then suddenly they just crack.
Why did a pregnant woman cry about it MORE than luke did? Since episode 3 and 4 was written by different people, there was no consistency at all.
We didn't get to see all the conversation there, so we don't know what Rebecca and Luke talked about while Clementine was in the tent.
Nick is determinant character. We have to acknowledge that the game has to be able to function with both versions, one verson where Nick is still alive and one where he isn't. So the game can only really bring up things here and there without deviating too far off course [like Rebecca bringing up Alvin or little things where Nick would add in on a conversaton, but the discussions will still flow without him even if he isn't there]. It's the same Luke not mentioning Nick's death in Episode 3, because many players might've saved him and for Luke to go on about Nick [if he were dead by then] when he didn't have time to sit around to talk and needed to save everyone might not flow well with the narrative, or be right for a character that doesn't speak about loss too much. Collapsing down in a mess like Kenny did won't help anybody...nor will porking XD
But back to Nick, it could also be the lack of mention on him from Luke is because it'll be saved for a later scene, where by then Nick is dead in both versions whichever the player picked and there will be a crossroad where the dialogue will swap; one where Luke might mention he found Nick at the ski lodge as a walker and took him out, and the other perhaps where Nick volunteered to leave Luke and Sarah to go get help. We've seen this done already in Episode 4 where the dialogue swaps depending on if Sarah made it out of the motor home alive or not, so it's possible.
Plus Rebecca's having a baby! Do you realize what that does to your hormones? I'm pretty sure Luke would be falling apart too if he was having painful contractions and having to push a baby out of his-nevermind XD you get my point.
Also I don't know about you, but Luke looked pretty shell-shocked at the news. And if the death fake out at finding Nick in the cellar in Episode 2 is anything to go by, Luke cares.
Other than, I kinda agree with a lot of the other things you mentioned for Episode 3 and 4. Jane talking about her sister got over kill at a point with the nailfile for me. But personally I didn't like how Troy kept talking and hogging the spotlight, it was Troy overload! x_x
I agree with everything you said.
Pierre and George might've done a good job with the plot, just...some things weren't handled well. Not everyone is perfect, even Nick Breckon. I still wish him to write every episode though and probably nothing will change that ;/
I am positively sure that Nick Breckon will do a good job with the Season 2 finale. He is the only known writer that we have who wrote in Season 1. Sure it was only 400 Days DLC, but I still enjoyed the DLC. I also think he have smart ideas such as the dog bite. I have never seen it happened in comics and it was understandable how it could be confused for a walker bite. Nick also handled the character interactions quite good, such as the Kenny and Clementine reunion.
I just wished that he was more involved with episode 3 and 4. Not that I didn't enjoyed them, (I enjoyed episode 4 immensely.) but I think it could have been better with his involvement.
I am also quite pleasantly surprise too.
Hey, Nick Breckon
"You got this. You got this mother fucker."
Please just let Nick write all of season 3 also. I know it would be high pressure and stressful writing every episode. But you could clearly see he wanted to do something bigger and better with Nick and Sarah's characters. But the writers for episode 3 and 4 were like "nope scratch that". He gave us simple meaningful moments with Kenny and Luke. Which just involved sitting down and talking about our stories thus far. Two of my personal favourite moments of the whole season.
The other writers are just trying to create tension around every corner. Which isn't needed because it's getting predicable. They aren't giving certain characters any development what so ever. So I agree. Nick Breckon writing episode 5 gives us hope. #TeamNick
So who were the people who were killed at the river? I can't remember what their story was.
Funnily enough, one of Episode 4's writers (there were two) was JT Petty. As in, 'Petty attempt at making a good episode.'
I remember that I didn't like All That Remains.
Then I replayed it and OH MY GOD is it so much better than In Harm's Way or Amid The Ruins.
I'm glad that Breckon's writing Episode 5. His episodes are either instantly good, like A House Divided, or they mature with age, like All That Remains.
On the flipside, I liked Amid The Ruins on the whole when I first played it, but playing it again I can't seem to note any redeeming qualities it has.
I was replaying the entire season to kill time, and got up to the bit where they first go to sleep after meeting Reggie in Episode 3. And after 2 good opening episodes, I was bored with Episode 3. I didn't want to play it, because I knew I was just in for another hour of disappointment, followed by another hour and a half of something even worse, Amid The Ruins.
Roman, Victor, and a bunch of people supposedly shot up by Carver. They also never got brought up again during episode 3 unless you count the episode preview.
I'm actually pretty excited to see Nick writing Episode 5. He drew me back in with Ep 1 and had me hooked after Ep 2. You can do it Nick!
Personally I don't care who writes it, as long as they write a coherent story. Firstly episode four was a mess, there's no getting around it. I know it, you know it and tell-tale knows it by now. Whoever wrote that god awful gibberish needs to be sacked and never work for tell-tale again. There again though, they are just as much to blame for letting it be released like that, instead of trying to sort it out.
It's obvious that time was the problem. Tell-tale had the story in mind and laid it out what they wanted to happen Suddenly, up pops this so called writer, probably says something along the lines of, oh I can do better than that. Then up comes the quick re-write. By the time he finishes, it's too late to change anything, so they release it hoping that no one will notice what a balls up it was. Problem is though, people do notice.
You know . . . you people calling the writers of episode 3 and 4 noob writers and saying they should be fired, especially when I remember all of the complaining about episode 1, do you read books? If so, do you like every single book that your favorite authors write?
It's disrespectful to the extreme. I guess Stephen King should be out of a job and should never write again because I enjoyed Salem's Lot and Under the Dome, but found few, if any redeeming qualities in Insomnia. I'm sure every single one of Robert Kirman's issues are surefire hits as well. I won't even bother getting into how hard it is to write anything good.
I'll acknowledge that comparing Stephen King and Robert Kirkman with Telltale's writers is wrong, especially as these are the first episodes from these writers (I think?), but it shows that no-one is perfect and there's also a lot of subjectivity. Just because you think something is poor doesn't mean the writers are actually bad or that they deserve to be fired..
And Nick really isn't this messiah you're treating him as. As mentioned, I remember all of the complaints about episode 1. No character development! Despite the fact we had 30 - 40 minutes with the new characters if I'm correct with my maths, and there are seven(?) of them. We don't even spend all of that time with them. Oh, the dog was poor writing (we even had people asking experts about dog behavior apparently)! Carlos is a piss poor doctor! Bad writing locking Clementine up in the shed! It was stupid Clem stitching herself up! Omid dying was stupid! Time skip sucked! Poor writing because what happened to Rebecca's baby was never explained!
Just a few things I remember. And sorry, but all I hear about every episode is 'waah! waah!' Normally, I'm civil, as people who've seen my posts will attest to. But I'm getting fed up. Why? Discounting all of the complaining and all of the immaturity I see every day here, you have to acknowledge that there has been plenty of complaining about Nick's writing and I myself had no problems with it. It's also putting the other writers down and it's not like they're given free reign over what to write without any sort of discussion. It is also totally uncalled for to say that they should be fired. Learn some respect and how to put your opinions across civilly. And, while I know you people love to hear this, you should try writing a good story yourself. I have, and I first published a short story over a year ago, at 3,500 words in length. It was received well enough rating wise, and in that time, I've only published one other short story. It took me two years to get that one finished, meaning I dug it up. Everything else I'm never satisfied with.
Rant over. And I should state that criticising is fine, but doing it in a disrespectful way isn't.
PS: Don't reply to this expecting me to answer back, as I'm honestly done with pretty much everything here. I really can't believe the entire Playing Dead commotion and that's partly what led to this post here. There are far more worthwhile things to get worked up over. And I don't know if you'd believe it, but an article about a kid being kidnapped and having his eyes removed for no reason at all has never generated as much hate as I see directed at Greg. I weep for humanity. On the plus side, there was a touching article about a kid born with no ears, but he had an operation done to give him ears, using some material from his rib cage. He can now hear.
Yeah, while I agree that the episodes that Nick wrote were better, they were far from flawless and saying that people should get fired is rather disrespectful (though I still agree that Telltale should hire better writers; just look at what the writers of Season 1 accomplished)
On an unrelated note, does writing fanfiction count as writing a good story? :P
Sorry but Vanaman has a special place in my heart for breaking it with Season 1's amazing story.
Episode 5 has to be amazing, A House Divided is still my favorite episode.
All the episodes of The Wolf Among Us were written by two people I believe.
deep sigh
I hear ya.