If you are a writer - How Season 3 will looks like ?
We all know that a lot of people don't like The Walking Dead: A New Frontier (Season 3) so I want to hear your story now. If you are a writer, how this season will looks like ? 
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If I were doing S3...It would be a retelling of the first 4 years with Javier...to build up the characters. We are told that Kate was the smart one and that she kept things strait and logical...yet we never see that.
The kids...what was it like for them? We should be invested in their characters.
Episode 1: For All Seasons
We start as the beginning of ANF started.which I thought was extremely well done. The first episode would deal with Hector turning and the 3 Months staying in the house. Dealing with bandits that try to take their stuff who were friends of David and Kate...Kate would save Javi's life....end with them leaving the house
Episode 2: Time to Live
Would finish out the first year of the apocalypse the van gets a flat and Javi goes for set in an auto shop. Kate has her hands full with the kids as Gabe runs off because he sees a car that looks like the one his father left in. (You would play as Kate as you have to save Gabe...bonding moment for Kate and the Kids)
Episode 3: Time to Die
Year 2 of the apocalypse...the kids are growing and finding clothes is an adventure in itself as is teaching them how to survive when Kate and Javi themselves are just barely making it. They meet a man name Eric who is dying of cancer...he teaches Kate and Javi some survival tricks.(This is a character building episode) Eric asks only one thing...they watch over him and make sure he does not turn when he dies. We learn Kate's mother died of cancer. Javi and Kate share their feelings for each other.
Episode 4: Time to Laugh
Even in the apocalypse there are worse things than walkers....carnies. A community made up of people who are used to living on the road..this traveling group sets up for one hell of a carnival. But in the apocalypse nothing is as it seems...the bright lights and music draws the walkers to the carnies who try and thin out the herds so communities can grow. The entertainment gets deadly when a hurricane hits just as the largest herd ever seen descends on them. Purely an adventure episode giving the kids some time to enjoy the carnival atmosphere (stay away from the 100% all natural hot dogs). Year 3 ends
Episode 5: Time to Cry
The beginning of the 4th year of the apocalypse and we find Javi and Kate sleeping together in an abandoned hotel...outside of a Six Flags...the kids remember a time when their mother was alive and they stayed at the same hotel. Flashbacks to show a softer side of David. A gang of Bandits try to catch Kate and the Kids...The Hotel burns as the Garcia clan tries to escape the bandits and a herd of burning walkers....Final scene shows them on the road passing a sign that reads Prescott Airfield.
(I wrote this for another thread) It is easy to judge the writing of any given season...but it is infinitely harder to write a season with all the choices available and carry over detriment characters with meaningful dialogue because in the back of your mind you question how many people will see this scene.
For all the things ANF does well or wrong, never forget that the work the writers do and the thoughts that go into the writing are not easy. Writing for a game like this is way harder than for a game like Uncharted or even The Last of US....those games are very linear in how the story spools out. And while Telltale games are not overly complicated in plot...they are more complex.
For me..I do enjoy ANF...but it is one massive mess...and when EP 5 hits I am going to go Episode by episode and point out how things could have been improved. 20/20 armchair writing for the win.
Interesting project....Try to write an episode how you would have done season 3...but keep in mind you need to include choices and be mindfull of each impact those choices will have....you will write some scenes up to 3-4 times with variance due to choices...and those choices may compound due to other choices...this is usually why in any one episode there is maybe 5 things that matter...and of those 5 only 1 or 2 mean much for the story as a whole.
As an amateur writer...
This is shit.
I could give a long explanation but I'm REAAAALY fucking tired after a long day of being friendzoned and writting my stories (need to have everything figured out from the begining... and rewrite it a couple times for it to be good)... So explaining why this is so bad will have ti wait until tomorrow.
(Edit: With shit, I mean ANF is shit... I think I offended someone again)
-Replace the New Frontier with Wellington
-Make the season 2 endings matter. Perhaps the New Frontier has AJ as well as Kenny or Jane depending on whomever you kept alive at the end of the second season.
-Give Kate a little more personality.
-Get rid of Gabe altogether.
Make it about Javier, David and Kate. No kids.
Make Clem find a community with Jane, or Kenny or herself with or without aj. Don't make Jane pregnant. Making Clem find a good community.
Then changing the scene to how the new frontier started and the story could've proceeded to go as planned.
Conrad's fate could've been decided by going to help him get free from a walker as the horde approached or by leaving him to be eaten. You could've then decided to lie about it or tell el and tripp the truth.
You could've said he was a lost cause. Stayed silent. Said I'm sorry, I just froze up. Said if I could go back in time I would save him, but I can't. What's done is done.
You should've seen the look on his face. It was priceless. Or laughed all crazy and insane like. I would've removed the timer. I would just love if you had the options to be a crazy person.
That's actually a pretty clever idea to whoever came up with it.
It's tough for me to say how I would change the season overall because there a lot of things right at the beginning that I would change and depending on how those changes would have played out the entire season could end up being completely different with absolutely no semblance to A New Frontier.
For one thing, I would make there be only one playable character. No playing mostly as Javier and occasionally switching to Clementine for a few minutes each episode. I know this seems like a small change considering how little you actually play as Clem, but it's still a change I would make because I feel, given the nature of The Walking Dead's universe, playing as just one character, and therefore learning who you can trust as one character, making alliances as one character, seeing how others think of you as one character, etc., is necessary.
The next big changes I would make branch off into two categories: one where you play exclusively as Javier and one where you play exclusively as Clem. If Javier is the playable character, I think his family should be eliminated from the story. Either the player knows nothing about his family to begin with or they get killed off right at the beginning or something. I also think Javier should be a lone survivor; not only does he not have biological family, but he doesn't have any friends or a group he belongs to or anything. The reason why I would do this is because I think Seasons One and Two did it right. Someone in another thread (I don't remember who) said that Lee was so effective as a playable character in the first season because he was a blank slate. He didn't know any characters beforehand and neither did the player (well, except Glenn and Hershel if you follow the show or comics, but they were both in the game so briefly, that hardly counts). This made all of Lee's decisions, regardless of what they were, realistic since the one actually making the decisions, the player, knows just as much about anyone as Lee does. In Season Two, we start off with only Omid and Christa, both characters the player already knows and has opinions about, just like the playable character, Clementine. Both of them are gone pretty soon into the game, however, and then Clementine is a blank slate just as Lee was. She gets to know the new characters the same way the player does. So the problem with A New Frontier starting off with the player controlling Javier and with Javier having a family that he's still with is that it separates the player from the character too much. All of a sudden there are characters that the playable character cares immensely for but that the player knows almost nothing about. Let me give an example for why this kind of thing is problematic: if the game gave me the option to save either Clementine or Gabe, knowing that the other was sure to die, I would save Clem with no hesitation. That's a problem. As the player, it makes sense since I, personally, have a history with Clementine from playing the first two games, and I just met Gabe recently so I don't give a fuck about him. But for Javier, on the other hand, this decision would be immensely out of character. All of a sudden, Javier is saving a girl he hardly knows over his own nephew who he's been surviving with for four years during a zombie apocalypse. So that's where the problem lies. Any decision I made as Lee made sense since my history with the other characters and Lee's history with the other characters are one and the same. That isn't the case with Javier since there are characters he knows and cares about that the player doesn't and there are characters (Clem) that the player knows and cares about that Javier doesn't. This makes the matching of the player with Javier just ripe with conflicts of interest. One could argue that Telltale could just give the player options that are in character for Javier given his history with his family, and for the most part I think this is what they do, but I find this extremely restricting. As Lee, you could tell someone to fuck off if you didn't like them or you could ally yourself with anyone you wanted and either way it was perfectly in character. As Javier, you're limited by what Javier would actually do in relation to his family, which puts much more limitations on the player for how they can react to others as Javier. For this reason, I think it's best to play as a character with no ties to any characters at the beginning to allow for a more natural connection between the playable character and the player that I felt was much better executed in Seasons One and Two than in A New Frontier. However, this also means that Clementine would have to be eliminated from the game. Since the player has history with Clem but Javier doesn't, having her in the game makes the player act towards Clem in a way that doesn't necessarily make sense for Javier to. Another hypothetical example: if Clem was introduced in this game by just walking up to Javier and asking him for all his food and supplies, I would have given them to her because I, the player, care about Clementine. Javier, the character, has no reason to care about Clementine; she's just some girl he doesn't know. You could make the argument that maybe Javier is just a nice guy who sees a kid in need, but the point is that there are several instances in which Javier would end up acting towards Clementine in ways that are out of character for him because the one actually making the decisions is someone who already knows Clem. I think you guys probably get the idea by now, so I'll stop repeating myself. Needless to say, if both Clem and Javier's whole family never made appearances in the game, the entire season would be much, much different.
The other option is that Clementine is the only playable character. In this version, as many people have said, I would want the ending that players got in Season Two to matter. However, I also realize the difficulties of starting a story from five possible ending points (1. Stay with Kenny, 2. Go to Wellington, 3. Stay with Jane, let in family, 4. Stay with Jane, don't let in family, 5. Be alone). Due to this, I unfortunately think that it is inevitable that whoever the player ended up with in Season Two would have to die (a la Omid), or at least be separated from them (a la Christa). Let's say, for the sake of argument, that Javier and his family are in this version of the game, albeit unplayable. This would be fine since Clem would be meeting them for the first time along with the player, making any interactions the player chooses organic, as described in the previous paragraph. If the story asks for Clementine to eventually meet up with Javier and his family, then I think it should be done in the same way Clem met the cabin group in Season Two. Season Three would start off with Clem and whoever the player ended up with in Season Two, they spend some time surviving together and have some scenes exclusive to the player's Season Two ending. Then whoever the player ended up with in Season Two is killed, or preferably just separated from so there's hope of running into them again and thus making the Season Two ending seem like it mattered somewhat rather than not at all. Clem would probably end up never meeting up with them again, however, just as she never met up with Christa again, due largely to how unrealistic that would actually be (I know, it was kind of unrealistic for her to find Kenny again, but it wasn't impossible, which is why I'll let it slide. However, TWO unlikely reunions of that sort happening to the same character is kind of verging on impossible, so I think that should be avoided.). Where Clementine meets up with Javier could also be determinant on the Season Two ending. For example, if the player ended up with Kenny, she could meet Javier in Florida, whereas if she was with Jane she could meet Javier somewhere around Howe's, or if she was at Wellington she could meet Javier somewhere around there. She would then join Javier's group and they would take her somewhere, maybe Prescott. There could also be some scenes that are determinant on where Clem met Javier; a Florida-exclusive scene, a Howe's-exclusive scene, a Wellington-exclusive scene, etc. This could give yet more meaning to the Season Two ending the player got. However, if we're going to be realistic about writing something like this, then eventually the story will have to come together regardless of the Season Two ending, thus why Javier would take Clem to Prescott (or whatever other one specific place the story warrants) regardless of where or how they met. From there, the rest of Season Three could be the same as A New Frontier, just from Clem's perspective, or it could end up being completely different. The problem with this option is that it would probably end up being too similar to Season Two; playing as Clementine but slightly older, starting off with characters from the previous season only to have them disappear soon, meeting up with a new group of people and learning who you can trust and who you can't, and so on. Due to this, I think the Javier option I gave in the last paragraph is probably the better option, despite its lack of Clementine.
So those seem to me to be the two options based on how I would do it: either play as Clementine, try to have the Season Two ending matter a little bit, but ultimately return to a clean slate status anyway, or play as Javier, or anyone else who wasn't previously a character, and be a real clean slate. Technically there is a third option, which would involve the player playing as a previous character who isn't Clementine. Options for this would have to be limited to characters that are not determinant, since it wouldn't make sense to play as a character that could possibly have died already, or characters whose fates we technically don't know. I think this pretty much limits the choices to either Lilly or Christa. Technically we don't know the fates of most of the 400 Days characters, but they were also such minor characters ultimately, it would seem weird to take such a minor existing character and make them the sole playable character of an entire season. I think playing as Lilly or Christa could be interesting, but could also be problematic since the player already has their pre-conceived notions of both of them. Another reason Lee worked so well as a playable character is because not only did he not know any characters any more than the player did, but the player didn't know him either, so they weren't restricted by what they felt like would be in or out of character for him, so they could make him act any way they wanted. If you were suddenly thrown into Lilly's shoes, you might feel obligated to act in a way you don't want to because you feel you need to make the decision Lilly would make, not necessarily the decision YOU would make. I still think playing as Lilly or Christa could be interesting, but maybe as just a DLC or something and not a full season. Let me know if there are other characters I'm forgetting about like Lilly or Christa who are not dead or determinant, so they could also be potential playable characters in this scenario.
Well, I think I've gone on long enough. If you took the time to read this whole thing, you're amazing. Also, please keep in mind that all the changes I suggested are based on my opinions and you can obviously disagree with them, but please don't get angry or hate me for my opinions. I hope that even if you disagree with my points you at least found them interesting.
Well, some things I noticed is that they don't seem to be thinking in a videogame when writing this. The particular thing about videogames is that, for the first time since the "Make Your Own Adventure" books, the player is a character in the story (kind of), and that's AWSOME if you think about it. You're in a zombie apocalypse, doing your stuff like killing people and such. It's almost like a Matrix.
But it seems like Telltale forgot about this. They see us as an external expectator rather than a character. They expect us to care about someone just because the character we're playing as cares about them, without giving us a reason to care about them ourselves. They threw us with Kate, Mari and Gabe, and just because Javi love them, Telltale expects we love them too.
Not even expect, but FORCE us to care about them. In Season One, the only character you were forced to love, playing as Lee, was Clementine. And it never felt forced, you could still be a "bad parent" if you wanted to. Kenny, Lilly, Carley, Ben, Christa, Omid... you can worship or hate them depending of your actions, even if it was just a little. It made the player feel like they had control over the relationship. In ANF, not even they force you to care about your family, when the only character you truly care about is Clementine, but also gives them no personality, or unlikeable personality. I already said, I liked Kate and Gabe for reasons I'm not going to discuss right now, but I see that most le the players don't like them at all. The only character of the family that was likeable at all was Mariana, and we all know what happened to her.
Another thing regarding character development, is that you don't get to know the character. Yeah, you know them after a while, but like I said before, I believe that the right way of making videogames is transforming the player into a character themselves. That means, evolving with the character. At the begining, you don't know the game, what is going to happend, and neither does the character. You don't know any other character but the PC, neither do they. You're both naive. When you meet other people, you both start and grow in the relationship at the same time, in the same way. You both see the horrors if the writer's perverse minds that they put in the Game, and you change with the PC. You ARE the PC. Or at least that's how it should be. Maybe that's why I found it so hard ti relate to, for example, Max, from Life Is Strange: almost all her relationship were there from before, she sees things in people since the begining that the player doesn't, because she knew the characters for longer than the player, and the player couldn't figure out until later (or never, in my case) why Max loves Chloe, her abusive and possesive friend, so much.
The same aplies to ANF, but worse. In ANF, you have your family, that Javier knows but you don't, and Clementine, who the player knows and loves, but Javier doesn't. I believe this causes a terrible disconection between Javier and the player. You're not Javier, Javier isn't you, and now you're not a character, but an expectator in an interactive movie. And it doesn't help that the choices doesn't matter (besides Conrad and maybe some more), that the characters you're suposed to love mean nothing to you, that the story is bland and improvised... it's a long list.
In my opinion, if Telltale wanted to make a third Season, they should have either stayed with Clementine, a character we all know and love, or create a new character from zero, being alone at the begining and evolving with them. I can think of ways to connect this hypotetical character with Clementine's story soma way, or who knows, maybe we play as them 50/50 in Season 4. I could elaborate more If had the time, but there are still things to discuss. For example, the story itself.
Until now, I wrote a critique from the point of view of an amateur game writer. Now, let me tell you what my inter Amateur Book Writer thinks:
The story doesn't really seem to be going anywhere. Javi get's himself and his family involved into Prescott (Pan States? lol), then Richmond, then the zombies are in... It almost remindes me of the old Disney Princess movies, where the story kind if happends to the protagonist. Javier and his family are just drifting with the tide, doing little stuff themselves. The biggest thing they do is steal pudding and gas. slow clap. Also, the character's motivations aren't clear. They want to take Joan down because...? I mean, maybe David has his reasons, but the rest? IT'S THE FUCKING ZOMBIE APOCALIPSE WHO CARES ABOUT THE RIGHT THING TO DO RUN LIKE HELL.
Also, can we talk about the main theme of the Season? Family drama. No, no the thin limits between good and wrong, not the loss if faith and/or hope, not protecting the innocence, not wheter you choose to let yourself feel and suffer, as long as you can also feel love, or just close yourself and not suffer the loss if another loved one, not the definition of streght and weakness, not the meaning of freedom... nah. The message is Family is Important. The whole game is about family drama. Couldn't Telltale come up with anything better?
(Plus, the ANF leaders go with Joan that easily? I mean, that sounds like, way too easy writing. I do it too, but only when I can figure it out yet and I don't want to get stuck... I always go back and fix it later to make it make sense. They forgot about the last part).
And this, I can't really explain, but It feels like Telltale didn't really put their hearts in the story. They just wanted to make another Season, with anything they could think of. I don't know how I can tell this is what happend, but I know when a job lacks inspirstion. They didn't sit down for hours to listen music and draw stuff and read philosophy until their minds felt like storm clouds and they felt something in their throat... this story was made to make money. I can tell. They put just the right ammount of effort to sell it. Maybe if they started with a lonely character, maybe if they didn't force relationships, maybe if they thoght of a better topic to tslk about, make the player think about the meaning of their own existance... It could have been a great game, but Telltale already lost me.
Season 2 would've had only one ending. Wellington. All of S3 would be set in Wellington, and we would play as Clem. Christa would be at Wellington and she would be killed at some point. S3 would end with Wellington being overrun.
If I were the writer this is how I would have done differently. I won't make a full-season rewrite, so I will simply explain how I would have started the Season off.
If we are going to start 4 years into the Apocalypse, I won't start with Javier and his family split away from David and being alone. No, I would start with Javier and his family actually with David and in Richmond. I think it would be very interesting if instead of another survivor road trip traveling group, we will start immediately in a post-apocalyptic community. The flashback in Episode 1 would serve just fine, with the tweak that Javier and David headed off together instead of separately.
We briefly look around in Richmond and interacting with its residents, in this case, Tripp, Eleanor, Conrad and Francine are part of the community and thus already have a fair rapport with Javier. Also interacting with Kate, Mariana and Gabriel, maybe get a sense of how life is in Richmond. Unfortunately life is hard in Richmond. Despite their attempt to make a long-lasting community, they are constantly harassed by The New Frontier, forcing Javier to go on a supply run. During one of these supply runs, Javier got separated from his team and ended up in an area where he will encounter Clementine.
That's just a little bit how I would have established the beginning
Thank you.
I remember first reading that in another thread. Really fluid in ANF, and also a cool callback for older fans lol
Very well thought out. Sometimes I wish people on the internet had creative control of the series lol. I know exactly what you were talking about in the first, since I've seen many express it and I have myself, but throwing the player into prebuilt relationships was terrible for a lot of people. There were many options they could have taken with S3, unfortunately they went with the least common denominator, trying to appeal to old fans, draw in new fans, appeal to casual fans with the "uper derb protag is a good Negan fighting a bad group with romance! ROMANCE!"
The game feels so over the place as a result, where as in S2 I knew exactly what I was getting into. And it may have taken a nose dive during episode 4, but it kept my focus and remained pretty strong throughout. I'm not even sure I'll care if anyone but Clem dies this season, because the first 4 episodes did a poor job of building up the new characters outside of telling us how cool Javier is.
where's clem in all this tho
Now that's real good. Bravo.
No Clem at all...this is to build up the characters that will meet her in what I would call...Telltale Games TWD S4: A New Frontier
Also Season 4 would have Clem and Javi Playable...but in different Episodes...Ep1 would be Javi....he would meet Clem...probably the same way...EP 2 would have been from Clem's pov....we would learn about the NF and how she lost AJ....the entire episode would be a flashback but would not reveal what happened to Kenny and Jane....but there would have been some good scenes with them that would show that Clem and they were happy until something happened.
Season 3 would be about the Garcia clan....IMO...the only way you could grow to know these people is see the 4 years through their eyes.
Thanks
I've been thinking and this what I came up with:
I would prefer if ANF didn't have all of the family drama. Not only that, but I was hoping Javi would be more serious, like how he was in the trailer. I like him, but the "good guy who cares about his family" character is kinda boring. You're forced to care about his family, which is hard for me to do. Yeah, I don't hate Kate and Gabe but they definitely aren't my favorite characters..They aren't the most interesting.
Though, I do think David is a such a great written character. My version of season 3 would definitely include him.
If I am a writer for season 3's walking dead game I would still continue the new story of Javier Garcia but at this point more focus on Clementine story too. Because Clementine is the original main character for a long time way back in season 1! As I'm writing the story I wouldn't kill Kenny/ Jane because they are everything to Clem and AJ.
Episode 1- Ties that Binds Pt 1
Same start of the story of Javier when his father died. After all the tragic event Javi meets Clem same as the game itself. But this time AJ and Kenny / Jane got separated to Clem. Then Javi finds his family together with Clem and Tripp/ Eleanor. Same story till the end of Episode 1.
Episode 2- Ties that Binds Pt 2
Same story that TTG wrote but different flashbacks this time Clem, AJ and Kenny/ Jane meet AVA at the mini house and they join the new frontier at this point Kenny/ Jane didn't allow them to join the ANF same as what happen to Wellington when Kenny didn't allow to join the group only the kids. So AJ and Clem joins the ANF.
Episode 3- Above the Law
Same story... But this time Clementine isn't always off screen she was with Javi at the whole time when they are reunite at the forest. At this point you have a choice that you will side with Clem or with David. Or stands up for Clem for AJ separation.
Episode 4- Thicker than Water (Blood)
Same story. This time there is a chance to tell Clem that you will help her to find AJ. (at the McCaroll Ranch).
Episode 5- From the Gallows (THE CRAZY PLOT TWIST... )
After Javi and his group to fight till the end to win... Finally Javi and Clem goes to the Ranch after they go there, there was a guard patrolling the group and when they call the leader of the group. The man who go outside was LEE and Clem was shocked and he hugs Lee! xD
BONUS: I don't know what is the purpose why the TTG ask us if we shoot Lee or not... What is the purpose of that!!!
Heheheh. I used to be pretty decent at writing stories but haven't tried in years, guess I can give it another shot
I have more ideas but I don't want to go filling up the entire discussion
please tell me what can be improved or what seems cool to you.
The season starts off with Clementine approaching Wellington, or in Wellington depending on if you left Kenny to join wellington, and Jane/Kenny is no where to be seen. You go on a supply run with Edith, where you are attacked by the new frontier and you bring the fight to wellington, and manage to defeat them but with heavy losses. Clementine meets Javier on a supply run, after he was exiled by the new frontier and they executed his family, the whole season is just a conflict with the new frontier, going to other settlements to rise up and fight the new frontier who attack Wellington once more and other settlements nearby. Episode 5, Wellington and Prescott launch a major assault on Richmond and capture all of the new frontier. It is then revealed that Christa is the leader of the new frontier, and she was the person who executed Javier's family, it is then revealed that Kenny and Jane are also part of the new frontier, but they join Clementine at the end of a massive shootout. Javier then becomes the leader of the new frontier after killing Christa.
I don't want David as a antagonist it's copying the show much happier with the way tt did him