Blog: Does Walking Dead really tailor itself to your actions?

[BlankCanvasDJ]

Originally Posted by JByrne

I don't know. I feel that thematically, ending the game without any kind of extensive epilogue is probably appropriate.

One of the big themes of the game is about parenthood. Most parent know, or at least hope that their children will outlive them. What happens once their gone is out of their hands. All you can do is prepare them, give them the emotional tools they need to carry on.

That's why the after-credits scene is so note perfect. How it ends on such a huge question-mark. You don't know for certain if the figures are Christa and Omid, friendly or unfriendly, or even for sure if their not walkers (they're probably not, but that's still a 'probably'). For you, Clementine's whole future ends on a question-mark.

All you can hope for is that you did the best you could.

Yes. This.

The story was about Lee finding redemption (and, in the process, fatherhood). Once there was no more Lee, the story was over. What happens to Clem is unclear because that's a whole different story. Maybe it's Season 2's story.

[The13thRonin]

I think too many people make excuses for Telltale like "but the choices really did matter..."

Give me one example of a choice that actually changed anything... You try to save Larry... He dies... You help Kenny with Larry he dies... You help Kenny with everything except Larry... He hates your guts... You don't help Kenny with anything... He hates your guts. You don't help Shawn... He dies... You help Shawn... He dies... Ben is alive... Kenny dies... Ben is not alive... Kenny dies... You don't help Lily... She takes the RV... You help Lily at every turn... She takes the RV... You stick up for and help Larry... He hates you... You're terrible to Larry... He hates you.

All the decisions that we thought mattered like Clementine eating human flesh or whatever because "Clementine will remember that" just get completely tossed to the wayside. Did she remember it? She certainly didn't show that she remembered it. Why even have the throw-away "Clementine will remember that line?" It might as well be "Meh... This choice was meaningless... You might as well be asshole Lee for all the good it will do you... You're still going to die, Clementine will still look up to you and you'll probably be less frustrated by the other characters."

You don't say "the player's choices matter" and then give them all meaningless choices that don't change the story at all. Maybe a branching story would be hard to do where didn't characters cause different events to happen or not happen but lots of things are hard. Making the Cry Engine was hard... Creating Skyrim was hard... Just because something is hard doesn't make it worth doing. A game is the only true 'interactive' medium. If you don't tap into that then we all might as well be reading the comics.

Most of you have obviously not done a second play-through of the game.

[Alyais]

As far as bugs are concerned I experienced very little and they did not affect my gameplay negatively.

I am fine with choices that didn't mean much or that some choices didn't have a HUGE impact. I think its easy to have every choice to have a massive weight but that makes the story flow from one suddenly dramatic event to another. The walking dead, like a good story, chooses instead to have some choices mean less or not at all. This increases the immersion of the game, makes the game more consistent, and makes it feel real.

[The13thRonin]

You mean:

Originally Posted by Alyais

The walking dead, chooses instead to have ALL choices mean less or not at all.

No matter how we all played the game we all got the exact... The EXACT same ending.

[geomon19]

This game series adapts to the choices you make.
The story is tailored by how you play.

That quote is the first thing you saw in every chapter you played. Apparently some people still don't know what that meant. It never meant that different choices equaled completely different outcomes. It didn't in Episode One. It didn't in Episode Two. It didn't in Episode Three. It didn't in Episode Four and it sure didn't in Episode Five.

If you thought that it did, I'm sorry but you were wrong.

[Gman5852]

Originally Posted by Chanut_N

The most fucked up part is about the people going with you searching for Clem at the start of episode 5.

Doesn't matter because the boat will still be stolen even if you leave the boat with 4 guys.

That is the part that ticked me off with this game. That big of a build up for one scene that reverts back later.


Everything else however was fine. The game never once said the story would change, you guys just can't read. It said the story would be TAILORED to how you play. If you tailor a shirt, it has a personal touch, BUT IT IS STILL A SHIRT! You ever complain that your tailor made shirt doesn't have a third arm slot? No, that's stupid. Same thing here, it is still this one story, but it has your personal touch now.

[JabbaDaHuttX7]

Originally Posted by Gman5852

That is the part that ticked me off with this game. That big of a build up for one scene that reverts back later.


Everything else however was fine. The game never once said the story would change, you guys just can't read. It said the story would be TAILORED to how you play. If you tailor a shirt, it has a personal touch, BUT IT IS STILL A SHIRT! You ever complain that your tailor made shirt doesn't have a third arm slot? No, that's stupid. Same thing here, it is still this one story, but it has your personal touch now.

Really. Then how about "Live with the profound and lasting consequences of the decisions you make in each episode?"

And I didn't feel like I got to tailor a shirt in episode five. It felt more like patching one up.

[Alyais]

Originally Posted by The13thRonin

You mean:



No matter how we all played the game we all got the exact... The EXACT same ending.

I'm not sure how this affects your experience?

First off I want to clarify that Telltale is, in no way, bound to the ending we all received being canonical. Secondly and more importantly, Clementine's decisions after Lee's departure and despite any of his advice does not affect the weight of your decisions. Clementine wasn't a robot that did what you always told her. She was a person. Perhaps regardless of your final words she would always have left the city? Perhaps something happened between her leaving Lee and that cutscene we do not know about?

You received a cliffhanger cut scene. Its not canonical if Telltale so chooses and the actions in the scene are independent of Lee's decisions. Telltale did such a good job of making me feel like Lee's decisions were the decisions of the man and not "the player".

[Alyais]

Look, anytime you tell a story you consider three things.

1. Immersion.
2. Consistency of Story.
3. Entertainment.

You make a decision, consciously or not, to sort these three in order of importance. In the case of Telltale they created an interactive and immersive video game where they wanted your decisions to make an impact but not at the cost of their story. Their story and entertaining you came before your desire to feel like every decisions you made affected the world after your departure.

(That being said, I bet a lot of Lee's decisions will be relevant in season 2).

Your decisions did make a difference in the experiences that Lee Everett had. Of course, whether or not you chose dialogue option 1 or 6 would have no meaningful affect on the piano about to fall on your head. Some things, despite your decisions, are beyond your control. I loved that Telltale chose to make some of my decisions irrelevant because I felt less like a player and more like a real person.

[Plan_R]

It became fairly obvious after episode 2 that your choices don't change the story but change how the characters in the story react to you. Complaining that a download game doesn't have vastly differing outcomes is people holding on to a pipe dream. The choices carry enough weight, even if they don't lead multiple endings.

[moonkid]

"This game series adapts to the choices you make. The story is tailored by how you play."

This is the message that greets the player at the beginning of every episode of Telltale’s The Walking Dead game. But is it true?

After finishing the final episode last night, I resisted the call of the pillow and had a bit of a dig around some spoiler-heavy threads on the game’s official forum. Like me, most people had really enjoyed the experience, but there was one recurring negative response. In essence:

“The decisions I make don’t actually change anything! Everything’s the same at the end! Telltale are liars!”

Read more: http://digitalspiritguide.com/how-te...-into-feeling/

[TheWalkingBread]

I made this account specifically to answer your question.

It does. 100%.
I gave up at Ep. 1 because I already knew what was going to happen, and the start was kind of slow. And yes, again. It does.

The reason for TellTale games making it so Lee dies no matter what, is because there are several accounts of replayers. The ones who just replay the game, the chapter, that one moment, just to get the perfect ending. Because he's attacked by surprise. There is no way not to get scratched after you pick up Clementine's hat. And it's just not of his personality to deny picking up the hat. NO ONE wouldn't pick up the hat. Unless you don't have feelings, or you were making the wrong choices on purpose.

Another reason is because there'd be too many endings. And, they already had an ending in plan. It'll resolve around Season 1, and there was no way for that ending to happen without Lee dying. The ending would be 100% different with Lee alive, and it's really hard to script. Really. YOU try scripting that. It already takes a month to make each episode.

An example of things that can change based on your decisions.

1. Doug or Lilly/Carley?
2. Give her the gun or don't?
3. Kill Duck or have Kenny kill him?
4. Who is your team?

These are all based on how people feel about you based on your choices. And can most likely effect Season 2 (this has been confirmed)

[Gman5852]

Originally Posted by moonkid

"This game series adapts to the choices you make. The story is tailored by how you play."

This is the message that greets the player at the beginning of every episode of Telltale’s The Walking Dead game. But is it true?

After finishing the final episode last night, I resisted the call of the pillow and had a bit of a dig around some spoiler-heavy threads on the game’s official forum. Like me, most people had really enjoyed the experience, but there was one recurring negative response. In essence:

“The decisions I make don’t actually change anything! Everything’s the same at the end! Telltale are liars!”

Read more: http://digitalspiritguide.com/how-te...-into-feeling/

Well if people actually knew what "tailor made" meant, they wouldn't be complaining.

Tailor made does NOT mean changing things wildly, never did, never will. If you have a shirt tailor-made for you, it means the sleeves are shorter or longer to match you. It doesn't have a 3rd sleeve for you. Same for this game, it's tailor-made for you, characters will think differently about you based on your actions, it WON'T change the story for you.

How hard is it for people to figure this out?

[JabbaDaHuttX7]

Originally Posted by Gman5852

Well if people actually knew what "tailor made" meant, they wouldn't be complaining.

Tailor made does NOT mean changing things wildly, never did, never will. If you have a shirt tailor-made for you, it means the sleeves are shorter or longer to match you. It doesn't have a 3rd sleeve for you. Same for this game, it's tailor-made for you, characters will think differently about you based on your actions, it WON'T change the story for you.

How hard is it for people to figure this out?

If you have something tailor-made for you it doesn't have to be a shirt. It could be a sock, or a pair of underwear. It could even be a shirt with three sleeves, if I expect it to -- a shirt with three sleeves would also be tailor-made. The analogy is meaningless because everyone can see what they want.

Telltale did say that you had to live with the 'profound' consequences of your actions though.

[Gman5852]

Originally Posted by JabbaDaHuttX7

If you have something tailor-made for you it doesn't have to be a shirt. It could be a sock, or a pair of underwear. It could even be a shirt with three sleeves, if I expect it to -- a shirt with three sleeves would also be tailor-made. The analogy is meaningless because everyone can see what they want.

While true people can take things differently, that will happen no matter what. There are people that took what telltale said of BTTF and thought it would be GTA. You can't just let them off the hook because they interpreted things differently. When tailor made was said, people shouldn't expect "EVERYTHING WILL CHANGE FOR YOU", and complain about it. And then when things DO change, they just go "well Lee still died! Well Carly still died!" and completely ignore all that has changed.

Telltale did say that you had to live with the 'profound' consequences of your actions though.

And did we not? I had to live with knowing I stabbed a man with a pitchfork, that Lilly got away with our car after killing my friend, that I saved Ben's life and arguably gave him a worse death, and that I willingly let an 9 year old girl go to a place that could've potentially have people that would shoot her on sight.

Sounds like living to my actions to me.

[DrRadon]

The game is tailored to you. You decide who you are. It´s not like an uncharted were the character you play always stais the same. If you act like an ass people will remember it and their reactions to you will be different.

In the preorder forum they actually said that when i asked them so no need to feel robed on my part. The only thing i was a bit sad about was that the ending of episode 4 did not change to much of episode 5s beginning while being called "changing the experience drastic" in the last talking dead episode.

[Atarius]

People need to realize that having multiple endings is a horrible experience. There's a reason when you grow up you no longer read those books where they allow you to dictate the path of the story by turning to X page for this or X page for that.

[moonkid]

Just out of curiosity - did any of you guys actually read the blog post that was the basis for this thread? It looks like TheWalkingBread didn't, because their response doesn't relate to it at all. And then it seems like everyone else has just riffed off what they said. I'd be interested to know if anyone has any feedback on the actual article.

[Rambo297]

Originally Posted by TheWalkingBread

An example of things that can change based on your decisions.

1. Doug or Lilly/Carley?
2. Give her the gun or don't?
3. Kill Duck or have Kenny kill him?
4. Who is your team?

1. Whatever... They Die at the same moment...
2. What effect does it have?
3. Same as 2.
4. Team... it doesn't change anything... Just possibility to cut your arm by other person...

[CaliforniaBear]

I think they wanted to do a lot more but realized that they bit off more than they could chew and had to scale it down quite a bit. Hopefully this has been a learning experience for them and they will be able to do a lot more with season 2