Telltale Crossed The Line

[TomaO2]

I'm assuming nothing, you are the one that is being rude to me. I don't need to read other posts you make to know how you are treating ME, thanks.

My first post in this thread didn't talk about you at all. I made the specific point that my interest might fade after episode 5, this is because I bought the season pass on steam so I'm obliged to finish it at this point but I'm not happy with the way it's gone so I made a post here. At no point did I say I wouldn't finish the game.

Now you are suggesting I might have been banned already and came back just to mess with you. Arrogant much? Man, take your own advice and leave me alone. Every post I made was on topic because the thread is about how this game "crossed the line". So I have posted what I don't like and all you do is be rude and keep saying that what I say is invalid because I didn't do enough research beforehand.

Whatever though. Since you say I should ignore you I guess that just means you are telling me you just like to troll people and are therefore not worth listening too. I'll keep that in mind from now on.

[Master of Aeons]

TomaO2 will remember that.

[the_herbalist]

"this is a staff announcement.....will TOMA02 please put his toys back in the pram, I repeat will TOMA02 please put his toys back in the pram.....thank you...."

[Milosuperspesh]

to be honest your initial blurb was so long things got lost in my understanding of what the you're saying cos it was all over the place and in some cases irrelavant.

did specifically complain about your doing research NO i mean't other who don't SHOULD, but it's too fking simple for some to do that, but people would rather blame others for their problems then face them themselves..

so i disagree, get over your self then you make me out to be the bad guy who's arrogant now ?

and just an fyi i wasn't in anyway being rude or arrogant just stating my opinion, but as is often shown some people think thats a crime.

[ihateepisodethree]

Originally Posted by Master of Aeons

It's a storyline. No video game with a story has ever let you deviate from its railroad for longer than 15 minutes. Look at Heavy Rain and Mass Effect, no choices "matter". [Nothing remarkably changes until the very end of Heavy Rain when characters can suddenly die, and there are multiple endings. Even the most simple of games can have multiple endings - they mean nothing to the argument of choice.] The PAX video clears up a lot of the definition of "tailored", if you haven't seen it. They use the clothes metaphor: they are fitted to your dimensions, but you're not making clothes from scratch.

That said, there's a huge "branching" decision coming up in episode 4 that seems to somewhat contradict this. You're gonna have to wait for that to see how much this game can deviate from its storyline before coming back to the single ending that was promised.

So, to close on a pithy rewording: If you think telltale or any game manufacturer has the capability to deliver "branching plots", "countless choices with several subplots" and "80 gigs of optional, redundant choices"...then you are sorely mistaken. We're probably 20 years from recapturing Choose Your Own Adventures in Video Game form.

I would settle for some meaningful choices that at least change the path of the story and characters involved.

The Doug + Carly choice appeared to be one. The decision to try save Larry (or not) appeared to be one.

The was the worst part of episode three for me it closed all of the interesting storylines that were left over from episode 1 &2 and the choices of previous episodes really had zero impact on how they were closed.

I mean one of the thing that drew me to the game was the dialogue options and agonizing over every big decision wondering if I made the right move. Now looking back it just seems like I wasted my time and it was pointless.

[ihateepisodethree]

Originally Posted by Master of Aeons

It's a storyline. No video game with a story has ever let you deviate from its railroad for longer than 15 minutes. Look at Heavy Rain and Mass Effect, no choices "matter". [Nothing remarkably changes until the very end of Heavy Rain when characters can suddenly die, and there are multiple endings. Even the most simple of games can have multiple endings - they mean nothing to the argument of choice.] The PAX video clears up a lot of the definition of "tailored", if you haven't seen it. They use the clothes metaphor: they are fitted to your dimensions, but you're not making clothes from scratch.

That said, there's a huge "branching" decision coming up in episode 4 that seems to somewhat contradict this. You're gonna have to wait for that to see how much this game can deviate from its storyline before coming back to the single ending that was promised.

So, to close on a pithy rewording: If you think telltale or any game manufacturer has the capability to deliver "branching plots", "countless choices with several subplots" and "80 gigs of optional, redundant choices"...then you are sorely mistaken. We're probably 20 years from recapturing Choose Your Own Adventures in Video Game form.

That's really not what I'm talking about. Look at the first witcher for example. Their was one overarching storyline but you had three various groups you could align yourself to get there (squirrels, order, or stay neutral) each with their own individual subplots that's what I would have liked to seen from telltale.

It didn't have to have optional missions but it could have continued to focus on the power struggle within the group (Lee, Lily and Kenny) with the player having the option of taking control or throwing his support behind either Kenny or Lily.

To me that was one of things that originally drew me into the game.

[Viser]

Originally Posted by ihateepisodethree

That's really not what I'm talking about. Look at the first witcher for example. Their was one overarching storyline but you had three various groups you could align yourself to get there (squirrels, order, or stay neutral) each with their own individual subplots that's what I would have liked to seen from telltale.

It didn't have to have optional missions but it could have continued to focus on the power struggle within the group (Lee, Lily and Kenny) with the player having the option of taking control or throwing his support behind either Kenny or Lily.

To me that was one of things that originally drew me into the game.

Sigh... Telltalle ISN'T Bioware. That would require some planning for episode 3 and more voice-acting and stuff, and even if there was that power struggle, in the end people would end up whining because "it doesn't make a difference, because now Lilly is gone, Kenny doesn't care anymore, choices don't even matter, whine whine whine".

[ihateepisodethree]

The Witcher is made by CD Projekt RED not bioware.

I doubt they are much bigger then Telltale (probably alot smaller). The difference is they focus on quality not quantity.

I wouldn't be opposed if AMC gave the rights to another company to make a proper decision based Walking dead game. Maybe bioware, CD Projekt RED, square enix, or Obsidian Entertainment.

[Cyreen]

Originally Posted by TomaO2

Why make a narrative based game only to kill all the people in it early on? As games go, this one is exceptional in it's willingness to kill off major characters.

The main character is Lee.

His motivation is Clementine.

The story will end when the main character either fails or succeeds in regard to his motivation. Everyone else is fodder (welcome to The Walking Dead). If that's unacceptable, play something else.

[Viser]

Originally Posted by ihateepisodethree

The Witcher is made by CD Projekt RED not bioware.

I doubt they are much bigger then Telltale (probably alot smaller). The difference is they focus on quality not quantity.

I wouldn't be opposed if AMC gave the rights to another company to make a proper decision based Walking dead game. Maybe bioware, CD Projekt RED, square enix, or Obsidian Entertainment.

My mistake. They only used Bioware's engine. But seriously, I've played the first chapter of The Witcher and I stopped because it was getting boring and repetitive. It was just too long and the story wasn't all that interesting. Telltale has an amazing story going on with this game, and a lot of people seem to disagree on the choices mattering or not subject.

I'm sorry if the game is not working for you, but I'm completely satisfied with the choices mechanic, and I'd say most people would agree Telltale is doing an amazing job with this, especially on the story part.

[Cyreen]

Originally Posted by TomaO2

You have to get to episode 3 before you find out how bad it REALLY gets and then I hear that they want it to get worse for the final two.

From Gary Whitta's article for PlayStation Blog:

...well, if we’ve done our job right you’re going to hate us for some of the decisions this episode forces you to make.

It pretty much speaks for the entire game to date and he's talking about episode 4 in specific.

[Viner16]

Ah God... do we have to make a decision revolving Clementine, but either decision is shitty in a different way?

[ihateepisodethree]

The story is decent. I just don't think it fits with gameplay of a choice given game. Thats the rub for me.

In episode three I kind of felt a couple of things were forced. Lily and I were BFF's (I played both sides of kenny and Lily uptil her dad dying). So when she snapped it was kind of out of character for my canon playthrough.

In another play-through, where we were enemies it was completely in line in her charcter. She was broken and had noone in the group she could talk to or trust. You could see the cracks forming.

katjaa is a lesser extent the same thing. She displayed a strength that kenny could not throughout episode 1& 2. She remained calm cool and collected under the toughest scenarios (gun to her head, running out of food, fixing up injuries) even when her son was dying she was calm.

Now some people have mentioned it may have been a front and she may have been putting on a brave face for the good of the group. I don't know to me there was no signs she was capable of killing herself. It just seemed a little forced considering my interactions with Katjaa.

Which is one of issues I have. You would think over the span of how many months we have spent in a group my interactions would have some bearing on her decision making process. But nope it's bullet to the head either way.

Both deaths were preventable in my book. I would have liked my interactions with both characters to have made some sort of impact on the events that unfolded.

[Viser]

Okay, Lee's interactions with Lilly had absolutely nothing to do with her snapping and killing someone. As we all know, she cared only about protecting the group her own way (by staying at the motel instead of leaving, for example), and she honestly thought she was protecting the group by killing the traitor, and she was pretty sure about who it was as well(even if she was mistaken if you saved Carley), so that was completely not out of character.

About Katjaa's death, remember when she says she loves Duck more than life itself? That's all.

[Cyreen]

Originally Posted by ihateepisodethree

Which is one of issues I have. You would think over the span of how many months we have spent in a group my interactions would have some bearing on her decision making process. But nope it's bullet to the head either way.

Who the hell are you/Lee in relation to Katjaa and her dying child, especially in comparison to her husband?

[ihateepisodethree]

Originally Posted by Cyreen

Who the hell are you/Lee in relation to Katjaa and her dying child, especially in comparison to her husband?

Probably her best friend?

But that wasn't the point. I would like to think our conversations and time together as friends made some impact along the way on the decisions she made.

I guess not. Lily was going to blow away Carly and Katjaa was going to bow out regardless of what was said. Should have just called her a fat cow the entire game for the difference it would make.

[Cyreen]

Originally Posted by ihateepisodethree

Probably her best friend?

I would think the honour of best friend belongs to her husband. As her friend, she does thank Lee/you. Whether you agree with her choice or not, it was her's as a mother to make.

[Milosuperspesh]

in ep1 katjaa tells lee upon meeting him and clem the world has changed for the worse and she hoped it would get sorted out "going back to our lives"

duck dying/turning proved to her the world isn't going to be fixed anytime soon.. in other words she lost all hope and kenny was loosing it before duck..

so she took the only option left to her.

[Vainamoinen]

Originally Posted by ihateepisodethree

The Witcher is made by CD Projekt RED not bioware.

I doubt they are much bigger then Telltale (probably alot smaller). The difference is they focus on quality not quantity.

You are sorely mistaken. CD Project is more than three times as big as Telltale Games (TTG has just passed the 100 employee threshold, while CDP has been above 300 for a while/ as of 2008). CDP made more than 40 million $ in 2007 alone, and I assure you that in Poland, they can get far more workforce for that money than Telltale in the US. In 2007, Telltale would have killed to be anywhere in the vicinity of making millions. CD Project published The Witcher ... Telltale Games published CSI: Hard Evidence. See where this is going?

[Master of Aeons]

Originally Posted by ihateepisodethree

Probably her best friend?

But that wasn't the point. I would like to think our conversations and time together as friends made some impact along the way on the decisions she made.

I guess not. Lily was going to blow away Carly and Katjaa was going to bow out regardless of what was said. Should have just called her a fat cow the entire game for the difference it would make.

So, to use a real world analog, you have a dog. You feed it at the right time and play with it. Its name, you decided, is Frisky. After owning him for five weeks, Frisky is hit by a car and killed. Does that immediately make you question the worth of loving him?

No, or I at least hope not. The decisions in the game are arbitrary because there is never supposed to be a right answer or "optimal" playthrough. If you kick everyone who gets near you, you'll have the same story as if you loved everyone and cursed the gods when they were taken too soon. I'd like a game with more deviating plotlines too, but I'd never try to take back a choice because it didn't change the universe. Pet the dog or kick it - he always dies eventually.