Thanks from the Creative Director of ANF
Alyssa_TTG
Former Telltale Staff
Hi, folks of the forums!
It's been quite a half-year since we shipped the first two New Frontier episodes. I just wanted to take a moment, now that the season finale is out, to thank you guys for your generous feedback, for your honest criticism and unvarnished truths, and above all, for your support.
I know that many of you have been fans of the franchise for far longer than this season. And I wanted to take a moment to appreciate that -- this forum is a place that I have been going to frequently as a place to get critical feedback, as a sanity check, and as a place to validate assumptions and to identify problems. It's been fantastic to see the robust discussion of each episode as it comes out. The energy, attention to detail, and depth of feeling that you all have demonstrated is absolutely impressive, and it's helped me and the team learn, grow, and get better.
I feel incredibly lucky every day that I go to work -- to work on this franchise, to spend time with these characters, and to have you all out there playing our games and watching our backs. Thank you for caring so much about our characters and their stories -- and thank you for caring about Telltale. As long as you're out there, we'll get to keep doing this.
Thank you.
Alyssa
Comments
Thank you.
Thank you too. I'm sorry for all "hate-comments" that add no constructive criticism. Hopefully the negative feedback does not scare you away, but see it as proof of how much people (me included) care about the characters and the series as a whole. Adding new ideas (such as having two main characters for example) prevents the game formula from getting old and boring, but change itself is not automatically good. But no need to tell you that really, I'm sure you all know that.
A New Frontier had it's moments that showed you still have "it" in you, but didn't live up to my expectations as a whole. Yet I'm convinced that there is lots of potential to improve, when everyone works together and takes a look at the criticism and general in-depth fan feedback from the community.
EDIT:
My personal advice that I want to share the most is.. please. Improve in terms of character value. What you did to Jane, Kenny, Wellington, Tripp and Ava was not okay. By doing stuff like this, you cause the people to get numb to deaths and prevent us from bonding with your characters. "Because they all die anyway". Having Conrad around is a nice start, but meaningless if that only applies to one character, especially one that only a very small minority of the playerbase liked and kept alive.
And don't rush the season with too much action. Season One had the perfect balance of action and "build-up moments for story and characters". Like, the Episode 5's opening-flashback with David, Javi and their dad was perfectly done. It was great and gave me that true, great "Telltale" feeling. We need more like this instead of action.
I'd recommend Jacksepticeye's talk at the end of his E5-playthrough. He shares more in-depth criticism and can word his opinion a lot better than I can.
I'm not sure what to say after all what happened to this franchise and it's fans but what can I say is I hope you guys get back to what made you the company that I've joined for....and I ain't telling what they was because it's obvious...but thank you guys for listening to fans and trying your best to fix this and I hope you all good luck in season 4 #myclementine
I don't know why I expected information about the Clementine series in that post.
It wasn't... a great season and I'm sure you know why.
Clem's new look is... eh. I prefer the old look. RIP Lee's legacy haircut.
Don't let others and my criticism to affect you too personally. Most of us including me are criticizing because we care and want all of you to do better and succeed.
Hopefully Telltale can fix themselves and start making good games again. I used to love the games you made, but I can't truthfully say that now...
Every criticism I could give has already been said before, so I won't bother, but please take them into consideration as you work on your future games.
Thanks for getting in touch with the community though!
If there's one thing I'll commend Telltale for, is that you are all incredibly humble, but also very open to criticism. I honestly think that as each episode of ANF released, it increased in quality. Thank you, for making this an experience worth taking. I wasn't always a fan of every decision made, but I can admire you're effort and I can admire everything you all have done right. I'm pleased that you can face this community, as brash and hard-line as it may be, with a smile and open arms. Personally, ANF proved that, whilst it has it's problems and it has a while to go to reach it's full potential, that your team is constantly adapting and fitting in changes for the better. I promise that if you keep this attitude up and keep striving for better, the community will be on your side in no time and Telltale's "good" games will once again become excellent.
Thank you. You did an amazing job! My advice for S4(or whatever it ends up being called):
-Give Javier and Clem equal play time
-Don't throw away the emotional impact of the E5 endings by having everyone die anyway
-The impact choices had in E5 was incredible! It was the first time I genuinely felt like decisions I made truly mattered. Keep it up!
-Maybe...just maybe bring back a character from Season 1 or 2 with an unknown status(cough...Christa....cough)
-I was so glad to see the return of the character stats screen from Season 1, as well as the song during the ending credits of this episode. I loved how in S2 every episode had a song to accompany it. It really added a lot of emotion. I would love to see that make a full comeback.
Regardless, I trust you guys will do an amazing job.
PS: Thank you for keeping Conrad alive through the entire season.
Look I won't sugar coat this, but cmon, this season hurt many people. It wasn't good, it was extremely disappointing and most of all a let down on telltales part, you've made great games before so we know you were once capable of doing it, so why try to fix what isn't broken? The walking dead S1 and S2 were great games and to my knowledge so was tales from the borderlands (I haven't had chance to play any other telltale games atm) however I've heard things from many other people, and they all seem to have the same agreement, that ANF was telltales worse game. Short play time and Clem not being protagonist was two of main issues people had with the season, there are many more, however I don't want to be here too long. Please for future games you create, go back to your old ways of making enjoyable and fun games, have ANF as an example of not what to do anymore, and hopefully you guys take this as constructive criticism and I don't get banned, here's hoping. P.s you did really well on the Kate and gabe death scenes, they were heartfelt, they made me feel like I was playing the walking dead, like I once felt before.
Thanks for posting, it's good to see staff on the forums.
I hate Clementine's new look though. Also I wish the season actually had an ending. Actually, why was the season 4 episodes? Seems kind of tacky to make us pay for 5 episodes but then get 4. I thought this would be the biggest season yet? Yet it had shorter episodes, less gameplay, and less locations.
Thank you. I can't say I loved the season but overall I enjoyed it. The last episode was good.
I especially liked what you guys did with Jesus. A good cameo that was well in character and that didn't take from the main characters.
Amen.
I replayed ANF a lot. While it has flaws, I had fun with it and I plan to play it again and again.
Here's some things I liked about ANF:
Javier Garcia - this is kind of cheating because I am also a bi hispanic from Maryland who's father passed from cancer. I also have an annoying nephew, haha. not only that, but my family was mad I wasn't around. i'm not saying "omg he's so me so he's great." I'm saying you really made a believable character with Javier. His premise alone is what made me pick up the season.
The Kate and David relationship (to an extent) - I love love love how through episodes 1-4 your relationship with Kate and David could be entirely different. I did not like how in episode 5, David was angry with me even though I always sided with him and never romanced Kate. I feel that could be handled better.
I enjoyed the flashback variety. I've played the game four times now and I've only done the wellington flashback. And yet i played it differently everytime. I cant wait to try the jane and kenny ones.
Bi Javier was a nice surprise
Conrad living to the end was awesome. Determinants were handled very well. I hope next season they go MIA/appear briefly instead of dying.
The choices were much more significant than previous seasons. Episode 5 has so many different endings I still need to replay them.
Some things I think need work for next season:
The length - No excuse for 1 hour length episodes. More choices are nice but there was severe lack of character development for Javier, Tripp, Ava, Eleanor, etc...
No hubs - Really need areas like the motel
Not enough puzzles - I recall the one puzzle with pushing the car and turning on the car but that's it
pre-established relationships - It was hard to care for the Garcia family for a long while because we didn't know them yet were expected to care about them. That resulted in a majority siding with clem instead of Javier's family. I think a new set of characters + characters we met in previous seasons (Javier, Luke, etc) would be a better fit
That's all I can think of right now. I might edit in more. But I really enjoyed ANF. I do hope we get to see Javier again. And that he doesn't die!
andmaybeluketooplease
thank you Alyssa for taking time to read the positive and negative comments...
i don't know if your new to telltale or was here when season one was out but the quality and standard s1 set is the benchmark,im afraid for me DLC'S And the previous games are a huge let down. the little remaining 'alive' characters from season 1 should be used to make a final proper season,'my clementine' is still wondering where Christa is,if Lilly is alive,and if Kenny made it again from very bad odds..
Id like to try and get to Florida,no more communes or communities,less action more character development,less deaths,i could go on and on ...
Amen.
No problem, Alyssa_TTG. You guys make some of the best choice-decision games I've played. Can't wait for Guardians of the Galaxy, episode 2!
Yeah, sorry you have to see a lot of harsh (and sometimes a little exaggerated) criticism from the people on there. Hey, at least they love the franchise enough to get invested. It's tough to get, but it's a part of the job, and you also get praise sometimes too! I enjoyed the game, and loved some of the episodes, and I think some edits you guys made in the later episode based on feedback contributed to that. Hope you are successful on your next project!
I don't know who was responsible for Clem's haircut, but that was a travesty.
The fact that I'm even complaining about something like the haircut speaks volumes about the poor quality of this season.
Thank you for dropping in Alyssa. This season has been an experiential journey for all of us. It's my hope that if you take anything away from our feedback - it's that we want/need more time. I can't think of a single character this season that wouldn't have benefited greatly from it, regardless of who was a fan of whom. There were some fantastic things that A New Frontier brought, and I think it could have rivaled Season One with that added development.
I do hope the next settlement Clementine runs into has someone that's a former hair stylist. Now that would be a fun choice for players to make and customize their own Clementine or Main Character for their session that would likely be easy to implement ( without affecting many dialogue options ) and something light hearted as a choice.
Or something about the person complaining.
Please refrain from making passive aggressive comments about forum users that will only start conflicts
Yeah, Hiro
that's my job
Tfw a member is telling the moderators to abide by the rules.
Look, I don't want to hurt your feelings but this new season of The Walking Dead was weak and lackluster. This game pissed off a lot of fans, especially the old ones. I enjoyed this game but it is definitely the worst Telltale game Telltale has ever done in my honest opinion. It hurts so much to hear it but it's true.
Thanks, Alyssa. You're the coolest! PS. Can I borrow a pen from your desk?
Me and a zillion others think you guys are getting better and better. You probably know that since I imagine you do your own in-house metrics. But still, squeaky wheel and all that. People are much more likely to complain when upset and say little or nothing when content. Just please keep that in mind because there are few things more frustrating than a tyranny of the toxic whiners. I hate for you guys to not experiment with different protagonists (as long as we come back to Clem sometimes which seems to be the plan for the next season) and gameplay formulas because overly negative people seem to have a lot of time on their hands to fixate and obsess and inundate you with negativity, making it seem like they're a bigger demographic than they really are. Sometimes I'm reminded of Kathy Bates in Misery. So many complainers are like mini-dictators.
Also, Clem's new look is awesome. Don't get intimated and back down! And thank you for having the courage to make one of the possible ANF finale endings a happy one. That was actually a breath of fresh air. It doesn't have to be a depressing Everybody Dies ending every time. Again, thanks!
You're welcome Alyssa and try to improve as best you can in the future.
This is what ANF has done to us...
Your welcome a million! I absolutely love this series and easily get excited for every episode. It's so good to see that you appreciate us too.
You're welcome Alyssa and just know we are not being harsh just to be harsh, we are being harsh out of love because we want to see you guys do better, I could go on a long paragraph but I'm too lazy to right now. So yeah, cheers!
Hi there!
Thanks for stopping by! I imagine some of the feedback from various sections of the larger fan base can be harsh at times, but the fan base as a whole appreciates staff interaction. It's encouraging to know that you guys are taking forum posts into consideration, and even the more harsh critics can agree that they care because you guys created a story that got people so invested in the first place. This Season overall had some really cool moments, and the way that previous choices tied into the final section was quite detailed it seems; I don't think fans have yet fully pieced together all of the story logic that can cause the different permutations, which is a good thing!
This. I really love how the writer's THE WRITERS come to there own forms and interact and talk to there fans! It really does show that they are listening and taking all the feedback in weather it be negative or positive. Just goes to show how awesome Telltale games really are!
Bit of a stretch there.
You're welcome!
I feel sooooooo guilty now
Why?
I don't know.
Wow. Thanks for checking in, I guess.
I'm not sure how you keep your cool with all these negative comments flying around, but somehow... you do. Good for you!
I was one of the few who did like the story of this season, regardless if it was centered on Clem or not. Keep doing what you do, learn from what people like and don't like, and you'll get a widely accepted season once more.
Hurt? You must mean disappointed, right? I feel bad for anyone who was emotionally devastated because a video game didn't meet their expectations.