I may be in the minority here, but...
I never really considered Carley and Doug to be the greatest determinant characters in a Telltale Game (or TWD series, at the very least). I mean... At the end of the day, they're just filing the same shoes. They do similar things [that lead to the same outcome]. They die in the same place. One replaces the other. You can reveal your past if Carley's still alive and you can flirt with her, but that's it.
Please don't misunderstand. I'm not saying they're BAD characters, far from it. Both of them are in my top favorite Season 1 characters. I'm just saying that they're not very good determinant characters.
Ben (and more recently, Conrad) work way better as determinant characters. If they're killed off, they're not there (obviously). But if they're still alive, they do things that are exclusive to them... Albeit that's not much, since they only talk and subsequently, die (Conrad's still alive though), but their dialogue has meaning (Ben standing up for himself/Conrad apologizing for his behavior).
Any thoughts?
Comments
I think I see what you're getting at. With the Carley and Doug situation, as Lee, you had to choose to save one of them in order to progress. There's still a spot that's filled if you let one of them die.
But with Ben (since I haven't seen Conrad's scenes yet), the story can change pretty significantly if you drop him from the tower - mostly by how others view your actions, but the whole rooftop-impalement thing doesn't go down if you choose to let Ben fall.
Carley, Doug and Ben all serve a purpose if you save them, but the necessity of saving either Carley or Doug means that you're still getting something either way. If you don't save Ben, there's one less person in your crew, and Kenny's lost saving Christa instead.
...I hope I'm getting this right
Basically.
their writing suffered like the Virmire survivor...totally different character talking the same line...
and their survival? depended on your sexual orientation...
Well Carley and Doug's determinant status's were brilliant because although both scenario's ended exactly the same way for the 2 characters, we were given very noticeable changes such as, as you said, revealing your past or "flirting" with her, with Doug he made a nifty security system at the motor inn where as it was ordinary in Carley's scenario. They added extra interesting things such as Doug eating the biscuits Brenda gave which added amusement to the scene. Doug used a lazer pointer on Andy where as Carley shoots at him.
Sadly though because of the way Telltale is these days, determinant characters feel like they have no purpose anymore and if there is a scenario where we save one character over another, we hardly see any differences at all apart from a few dialogue changes.
For me Carley and Doug's determinant status's were the best
Yeah, I always considered Ben to the best. Though Conrad might just be a worthy opponent.
I wouldn't go as far as to say that they were literally saying the same lines, since there were noticeable differences (in their writing), but they were minor at best (save for Carley's death scene vs Doug's death scene).
I don't know... I liked the differences that were given to us, but... I didn't like how I was forced into saving one of them... Don't get me wrong, if I was given a choice not to save anyone, I would totally ignore it, but it's the the thought that matters.
It seemed odd that ANF does make good determinant characters after Kenny/Jane/Edith failed miserably.
They could have EASILY included Kenny/Jane/Edith into the story of Season 3, they just decided to erase the history of the past 2 games so they can reboot the series which to me is a big shit on the original fans
Telltale after the first set of flashbacks:
Well now it seems they are trying to fix it by bringing back Kenny/Jane/Edith in another flashback, as a poor recompense for those cardboard caricatures that somehow found their way into the next season and ruined our lives.
But why bother?? We already know their god awful outcomes. When was this confirmed btw?
Reddit AMA.