Mistakes in ANF - Is Telltale lazy? (Spoilers)
I'm a guy who cares a lot about details and I'm worried about the future of The Walking Dead because at some parts the game seems so sloppy.
For instance; Telltale re-uses a victim in episode 2 of ANF, he gets eaten by two different walkers and another guy who is lying down gets "bitten" by a walker that has no jaw, I mean what the hell?
Also if you ask Eleanor if she is a doctor in Prescott she will say she is not a doctor, however she claims to be a doctor in the junkyard in front of Gabe.
What mistakes did you find and what do you think of it?
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The whole Eleanor thing isn't a mistake. She is a trained medic not a doctor and that's the closest thing they have to a doctor so that's how they refer to her. Eleanor says herself "I'm what passes for a doctor around here."
As for the reused models thing, I never notice it until nitpickers on the forums point it out, so I don't really care.
So no, I don't think Telltale is lazy.
Telltale has reused walkers and assets in all games, I guess because Prescott wasn't so important and they don't have an unlimited amount of character models they just reuse some for those scenes.
Just think of TWDG like Spongebob!
Its' flashbacks clearly give us the message that choices don't matter, barely any of the characters entertain me, the graphics and designs look like total shit, and the game crashes over and over again for me.
Or in short, yes they're lazy.
Notices the lack of design in like; menu's, choice screens, environment around characters disappearing,characters from S2 in S3, choices branching for 30 seconds, no hard-gripping choices that bite you in the ass no matter what, obvious wrong and right choices, model seizures in the background, choices between new characters and Cle-
ok I'll stop now before getting even further.
Another one is; "Kenny will Remember that" right before he gets devoured by a group of walkers. Seriously Telltale? -_-
Reusing models for your main characters in your most popular game after over 2 years of development is lazy.
Eh, they're known to do this. It's kind of a telltale thing. Kind of like when Carley remembered something then got shit half a second later. It's sort of a "taking it to the grave" thing.
"Lazy"...give me a fucking break.
I think some users here have a completely wrong depiction on how game development or specificly episodic game development works.
There is a big difference between "lazyness" and "incapability due to the insane restrictions in the time they have and the tool they have to work with."
It's not just Black and White.
Classic nitpicking 101....like the they used the same models for main characters...yet when you point out differences...they go silent and yell about something else. I am sure they do reuse parts of models...it does make sense...or reuse furniture...well that too makes sense. But of course I will agree this is a double edged sword...they do need to keep mindful of what models are in what scene..I akin it to more of an editing error.
Remember that driver you had the choice to kill or let live right before you meet Clem? Well he is reused during the fall of Prescott as a civilian. He gets killed off real quick, but if you notice (like me) you'll realize keeping that character alive is probably pointless. Just some variation to Clem's dialogue is all that major choice will affect. Should've used a different model to keep the illusion going just a bit longer imo.
And we got the choice to tie up Jesus or not when we first meet him, but that choice never gets animated properly. Always uses the opposite choice you make.
Then there's the choice dialogue preview that sometimes doesn't reflect what is written. Like the choice to "tell him off" and several others throughout the game just make no sense when spoken.
TNF blaming Javier for killing their people. Even though Javier never kills anyone in my play through.
A way to explain this is that Badger is manipulating Max. To avoid any suspicions for killing innocent people Badger uses Javier as a scapegoat. Badger picks Javier as it is the only person that Max has seen; therefore the only person Max can visualise attacking their crew.
It is still very immersive breaking in the episode though considering they could blame Clementine instead.
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Also on that note, you know the one black dude with the dreads? The one that shoots Edith? The one that Javier shanks in the neck with a pair of shears? The one that appears at the very end of episode 2?
That guy's model is also used as a random civilian in Prescott.
I believe Lonnie is killed when you pistol whip him in the temple.
I am oddly confused about Lonnie's current status. I just assumed that Javier greatly damaged his mouth, which is the reason why I when I saw him (or a lookalike) again in Episode 2, he was covering his mouth with a mask.
Yeah probably, but you shouldnt act like its fact we know what the hell is going on in that fucking place.
Again, That's not how game development works. Things aren't as easy as you think. The devs don’t have the choice which project they work on next. They also don’t decide, when an Episode has to be finished.
I want to emphezise, that i'm not saying, that Telltale did everything right. They absolutly fucked up certain parts of the game, but these things doesn't have anything to do with "Lazyness". I mean, think about it. Which seems more realistic:
"You know? I'm just gonna stop creating new character models, because i just don't want to do it anymore. Let's just re-use some models or something."
OR
"Damn. We have to release the episode in the next month and due to the constant rewrites, we couldn’t finish all of the character models. We have to re-use some parts to get it done by time."
Again, i'm not defending Telltale here. But instead of "Lazy", i would describe this whole situation as "Missmanaged".
Kenny=David
The guy who confronts Javier at the junkyard and then who you talk to at the end of episode 2 is Andrew St John with a hat. Really, have a look. They reused the strangers car that Elenore and Kate ride. They reused the outside of the caravan where you find Luke and Sarah. They reused the RV from season 1 and 2.
That's why I wondered what we did to Lonnie that warrants a bullet to our brain
"Okay i made Kenny out of David's model, I think were done here"
"Should we maybe play through a few times to make sure there aren't any errors?"
"......Nah."
Edited for spelling because i actually proofread my work
I'm not fixing it.
Wait, WHAT?! The guys still DIES later on in the background? You're shitting me right...? So he's not coming back at all? It wont matter?
Well, time to mash buttons because nothing fucking matters clearly.
I saw him too. Still don't know if he's dead or not.
God this is all such a mess.
Max? I don't think he's reused. I don't know that they'll be able to reuse models from S2 as it's a new engine, but I don't see them not doing it had they found a way.
In the truck after Javier is caught in the cabin at the junkyard
Javier "..."
Rufus "STFU"
I saw Eric Stripe's Tumblr recently. An anonymous user asked him, "So... The peoples' feedback on the first episodes of A New Frontier. As I'm sure you're aware, they've been... how do I put this? Not so positive. How are you dealing with that?"
And this was his answer, "I’m not on Walking Dead, so it doesn’t really affect me personally; definitely a bummer to see though. It especially bums me out to see people throwing around insults like “lazy” when that couldn’t be further from the truth."
After watching others play it, I realized how lazy they have become.
To small episodes, almost no walking around, when they you can, you have almost no dialog to get invested in the characters... It's hard to believe that I can get invested like I was in season 1 with Kenny, Clem, Carley etc.
Quicktime events has evovled to "press: X X X X X" WOW.....
It's sad cause, I'm so much in love with TWD, checking news every single day after last season for years.... They are destroying A MASTERPIECE series... Let's hope Job meens "our" feedback
He looks too much like Andy to not be reused to me.
Has anyone seen that female walker wearing shorts that seemed to follow Clem around. Seen in A House Divided and No Going Back and maybe season 1 too.
Exactly what I think. Most, if not all, of the problem aren't there because of pure lazyness. They're there, because of restrictions in their time and tech.
I get that people are frustrated, but they should really think before posting things "Lazy" without knowing, what the fuck actually happened.
I think the problem here is that people have had their hopes crushed one too many times by Telltale
They ain't willing to give them the benefit of the doubt anymore
What a fucking disgrace of a game.
The guy you save from the walker at the Prescott in episode 2 shares the same head model with Rufus (The truck driver who you can kill or spare).
Which is understandable if you consider the marketing and PR before launch.
But calling Telltale out because of minor flaws, that had existed in their most beloved games for years now, seems rather...well, lazy to me. I'm talking about things like re-used modells and animations btw.
And i'm not saying, that we shouldn't talk about it, but we should focus on the real problems first. I mean, we survived many re-used models and animations before, because every Telltale Game is full of them.
Man that's pathetic. It's gotta be a new group of people working on this game or something. Just freaking depressing.
I honestly think that one is a conscious decision.
Better engine = excuse to make higher fidelity graphics.
The hallway in S2 looks... well, boring. It looks fucking boring. Look at it. It looks like a hallway of cheese or some shit. Just a bunch of flat, yellow walls with nothing visually enticing about it. Now compare it to the higher detail of the S3 version, and it just looks more visually engaging in comparison.
As for a color, yes, it's off, but something I noticed about the Jane flashback is that the color palette is largely muted. It has this overtone of cooler colors to everything, which makes the whole thing feel more... dark? Bleak? It certainly makes Carver's office, which looks vibrant if not lively in S2, look cold and dead in the S3 version.
What I'm getting at is that the overall aesthetic of the Jane flashback screams "artistic liberties" to me, or more simply put: they had an excuse to make Howe's look cooler than it did in S2, so they took the opportunity while they had it, continuity be damned. It looks cooler than it did in S2, so who cares?
Maybe, since it's a flashback, Clementine doesn't remember exactly how it looked, and that's why it's different?
That's probably giving Telltale too much credit.
I'll admit that it's a good theory.
How about when you sneak up on Jesus he had his coat and hat set up like a dummy. But when you turn around he's wearing the same coat and hat. Pretty damn lazy right there to be very certain.
It's a little thing, but when the walkers overrun the gas station later in episode 2, Conrad will blame Clementine for the fall of Prescott even if you chose to open fire.
When Clem tells Tripp to calm down, Conrad just comes out of nowhere and goes "we wouldn't even be in this mess if it wasn't for you!" It also made Conrad seem like even more of an ass.