Why was season 1's story better than 2?
Season 1 writers:
Sean Vanaman
Mark Darin
Gary Whitta
Season 2 writers:
Nick Breckon
Andrew Grant
Pierre Shorette
JT Perry
Eric Stirpe
Hopefully telltale brings back the originals.
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Yeah, the writers for S2 were okay but Telltale definitely lost a lot of potential without the input of the original writers from S1.
Because nostalgia.
Mark Darin was working on Season Two but for what I read he only did some additional design work. Btw. they can't bring Sean Vanaman back because he left Telltale Games.
I think I have legitimately lost count of how many times I have seen this exact same post
First off, i'll go on record to say that I think the Season 2 writers have produced high quality work, as evidenced by Faith (Pierre Shorette) and the more recent Atlas Mugged, which Pierre also wrote. There is little question of the abilities of these writers who quite clearly put their heart and soul into what they do.
This is gonna be a bit long, but I haven't really talked at length about this before and it's rather disappointing that I'm seeing comparisons made between the seasons' writers, often saying that season 1 was better because the writers were better. This is far, far from the truth.
Now, writers between the seasons. An extra 2 writers doesn't seem like much, but there are drawbacks to having inputs from many sources when it comes to story-driven material. The recent Telltale panel faced a question about who would be writing season 3, to which Pierre said that they just work on who's available, which makes sense because they head up many projects. But it is also impossible to ignore the glaring problems that such a system would cause.
Season 1 benefitted from a head writer who had a vision for how the story and development of EACH character was going to progress. That was THE project at the time, so writers collaborated under one head writer. There were little to no inconsistencies in story and characters as a result of the head writer's vision, which was adhered to across all episodes, even those which were done by different writers. They were both good episodes in their own right, but what made the whole season work was that the episodes remained... Consistent.
With the second season, writing inconsistencies were prominent, not necessarily through bad writing as such, but from the sheer amount of input that writers had upon each episode. It became apparent with the minor details, ranging from character personalities to words they used (Clem swearing is affected by writing, rather than player decision in some cases, most notably in episode 2 on the bridge).
For example, Luke's characteristics and personality matched almost perfectly for what I feel they were supposed to represent in Episodes 1, 2 and 5, all written and co-written by Nick Breckon. Now compare characters and story between the episode groups (1,2,5) (3,4). All of a sudden, Luke grows more reckless, selfish in between 3 and 4, about the self as evidenced by his 'picking the right sides' speech. It's a problem that extended to determinant characters as well. Sarah seemed to have some identifiable story direction under Breckon, as did Nick. Then, when new writers were called to write an episode, they obviously have to imprint their own ideas onto the episodes. This made it slightly weird playing through episodes, as it seemed to ping from one part to the next with no real sense of direction.
What we were left with were subsequent episodes that failed to adhere to what the previous writer had left them. It's like having the first four Harry Potter books written by J.K Rowling, then changing to George R.R. Martin for the final three. Both are extremely talented writers, but unless one of them decides on a clear direction for story and characters, inconsistencies are inevitable.
The HUGE problem this creates is that it's misconstrued as bad writing where it's actually something that's not as bad and easier to fix. They will probably still stick to writer rotation for season 3, but the last thing that season 2 should be criticised for is bad writing. What they should do is employ a writer to work specifically under each series and have sub-writers rotate between series adhering to the head writer's vision.
Sorry for the long post, but the writers are not the problem and I don't like seeing it being portrayed as such when it has been shown that they are more than capable.
A well written post.
Well said, I agree. One thing I would like to add is that the writers should be given a bit more freedom as far as episode length goes. It's like having to write an essay on a subject you have studied thoroughly. You write it, you put all the information in and you weave it as such that all the ideas connect with eachother. Then, you are forced to strip parts of it away to stay within the limit. Of course there will be some inconsistencies. If they were able to fit more story into the second Season, I feel like it would have even surpassed the first one.
You were saying that they should have a writer work for specifically each series, it seems Nick Breckon is that writer right now. I haven't seen his name on any other Telltale product, only The Walking Dead, and he was Season 2's head writer. Nick is, in my opinion, probably one of the best writers at Telltale, his episodes were the best written wise and had some great character development and impactful choices. But I agree, all the guys who wrote for this series are highly talented and successful and I hate seeing these talented guys bashed because they were on Season 2.
Sean Vanaman left Telltale to form Campo Santo, so he's not coming back. Gary Whitta never worked at Telltale, he was just called in to write Episode 4. And Mark Darin was involved with Season 2, he was the head designer for episodes 1 and 4 and had an additional writing credit on 4.
And as UKilledKenny said in the post above, I'm tired of seeing the writers for Season 2 bashed, especially since they have all proven to be very talented writers. Pierre wrote Faith, Zer0 Sum, and Atlas Mugged, Eric Stirpe also had a writing credit on Mugged as well, Andrew Grant wrote Iron From Ice, and J.T. Petty has written some very successful video games in the past. Nick Breckon hasn't had his name on any other Telltaele project, but his episodes in Season 2 were the best when it comes to writing. The problem is not the writers, it's making sure all the writers are on the same page, a problem they seemed to have fixed with TFTBL and GOT, which gives me great confidence going into Season 3.
Very well said, and makes sense. Consistency is the key to a well made story.
Campo Santo? I've never even heard of that... what a waste, his potential could have been better served under Telltale, it would have been great had he returned to work on Season 3.
Tell me something I haven't heard 2000 times now
I am going to explain this the easiest way i can without my opinion.
Season 1 Scores Vs Season 2
Season 1:
Metascore 92
based on 12 Critics
User Score 8.6
based on 986 Ratings
Season 2
Metascore 80
based on 14 Critics
User Score 8.2
based on 75 Ratings
I would say the critic meta scores reviews are more accurate.
Campo Santo is making a new game called Firewatch, it looks fantastic so far, there are some trailers and previewed footage of the game on Youtube. And it's not a waste, this is his own game, his company, he's making the decisions, he doesn't need to be under Telltale's thumb, if anything, it serves his talents better because he can do what he wants. And the series is fine under it's current direction, Nick Breckon is fully capable of taking this series down the right path, we don't need Vanaman anymore. Sure it'd be nice if he came back, but Breckon is a suitable and perfect replacement for him.
Yeah Metacritic is super accurate.
They are... in general. Again i stated that the User data was more likely skewed because of the inaccurate Numbers between comparisons.
Every Time you do something like this, i feel like you are trolling me, to rip into season two.
Do what? I can't respond to someone who goes on the same board as I do?
You know what you do... Check your post history, don't be obtuse.
The only time I've replied to you in my latest 25 posts are in this thread. I don't see what "I'm doing".
Its okay i forgive you. I am in a forgiving mood today. I might even have a chocolate chip cookie. Carpe Diem
k
All a matter of opinion on who's got the better story. This topic is really pointless. All you did was say "this is better than this" and then point out who wrote it. Just trying to start an argument in the laziest way possible?
Because Sean Vanaman is the best.
IMO I think Season 1 had many advantages over Season 2. The writers especially seeing as they had more experience and were consistent and had an exact idea on where they were going with everything into place. They also had time to make it good instead of trying to rush a plot with many loose ends into an episode in a short 90 minutes (not to say Season 1 didn't have any but they were much less noticeable and spread out) also with another project on the side which explains why S2 had poor length and acknowledgement of your choices as well as lack or lost character development. Imagine if only Lee and Clementine were the only characters to see the light of day. Season 1 was unique because we knew everyone in the group and we were faced with many problems that posed a constant threat and was shown stronger than it's sequel. Clementine as a protagonist didn't do it for me I didn't really think of her the same way. Of course I still cared but her being emotionless all the time just sucked what was perfect about her in S1. Concluding it there are many things in S2 that just seemed like the writers were on a timed delay or they let things fall through the cracks
I was tired when I posted this topic, and admit that it was over simplified. I believe the writers were more the symptom of the problem. They may have wanted to do many different things but were denied. My opinion is that Telltale put more resources into their first game in order to hook their fans, and then took the money to put into other projects (Game of Thrones for example), and didn't reinvest the same resources into the following TWD game. To put it simply they hooked their fans with the first game, and created a cheaper version to increase profits. All I know is yesterday I fired up the first game again after a long layoff. I played for 6 hours straight because the story is so good. For me that's a long time to play a game with no break. The all around quality is so much better.
I think the story of season 2 in itself was very good, it's just that there were so many ways for it to have been even better. I get that Clem is and should be the main focus but secondary characters, as proved in season 1, can be used to supplement the story to great effect. I don't know whether extra episode times would have made a difference to story direction, but I think it would have definitely given characters more meaningful development.
Better characters. Longer episodes. More compelling choices. Just generally better atmosphere and more of a unpredicatble element to the story.
I think S1 also benefited from the fact that Vanaman wrote 1, 3, and 5 in particular. The beginning, middle, and end. It gave the story a "spine" to work off of. Even if episodes 2 or 4 were weak, you'd be able to balance them back out with the next episode.
Breckon, however, did 1, 2, and 5. That leaves an open gap for episodes 3 and 4. Two episodes provide a wide enough gap to cause more problems and inconsistencies, which leaves him with only the finale to try and balance things out. I imagine that also results in even more pressure for the finale. Not only do you have to work off of what the other writers left you with, you also have all the normal pressures of trying to deliver a good finale.
"episodes 2 were weak"
............right, okay.
I didn't mean that episode 2 was actually weak. I was saying that if it was hypothetically weak. Like, imagine in some bizzaro alternate universe, it ended up like Amid the Ruins. You could still potentially recover from that come episode 3.
I felt that the writing and overall quality of Season 2 was just as good if not better than Season 1 in most cases. The issue with Season 2 was playing as a little girl. Don't get me wrong I adore the Clementine character and she was the best element of Season 1, I just didn't feel involved in S2 as I was viewing the world through the eyes of a kid. Playing as Lee I felt the weight of expectation on my shoulders, people were relying on me and letting them down could get everyone killed. I felt like if I got a load of people playing as Clem it was kind of to be expected as I was just a child.
Even though I enjoyed season two, I think season one, for me, was more compelling, mainly because I preferred the characters and their development. Young, innocent Clem who you had to protect and help adapt to the new world, the tentative friendship with Kenny who was a decent guy but had a stubborn view on his priorities, the burgeoning attraction with Carley, Lilly's slow breakdown, even Ben was a good character. I think season two suffered, for me, because I expected a similar affinity with the new cast of characters. Although I really liked Luke, Pete and Nick, I really didn't click with Rebecca, Alvin and Carlos (they were jerks to Clem in episode one), I didn't mind sacrificing Alvin to let Kenny have a shot at Carver - actually I was quite happy he was gone.
Another reason that I preferred season one was that the story over the season felt like an adventure; there are happy moments between the struggle - Clem putting bugs on Duck's pillow, "urban", the swing at the dairy, Duck playing as Robin, the joy in starting the train, cutting Clem's hair, hanging Omid over the bridge to cut the coupling...actually Omid in general - tender and hilarious moments between the darkness. Season two, in all respect, feels like a slog; it is darker, more brutal. It is just the difference in tone that I didn't expect - but I still enjoyed season two.