The story is tailored by your choice

[der_ketzer]

Originally Posted by Valkama

I don't even care if the choices meant nothing in the end I just wish the path of getting there would have been more diverse.

Sure. If you want 2-3 months between all episodes this would be possible. I am certain they tried with the Doug / Carley thing but it lead to longer breaks between episodes. (I personally thought they't kill them off in episode 2 which they didn't to my great surprise.) I also thought the car situation at the end of Episode 2 would have a bigger impact on Episode 3. Similar to the Doug / Carley thing but it didn't because that would basically mean making 4 episodes with every possible choice.
Episode 2 would be quite odd too. Just imagine Lee saying no to going to the farm. They could just have ended the episode at that moment. Or inserted another path but the episode was late already as it was. How much longer would that have actually taken?

[Devlonir]

Originally Posted by Rink

What is the upside of the game being always the same no matter what you do again? And what is the problem in people wanting to achieve something and thus replaying the game, is that bad? I don't really get your point.

There is no problem in that, and I enjoy that a lot in some games as well.

It is just that TTG's TWD game was made to not be like that. It was meant to be a tailored story, not a story where you define everything that happens but where your actions do change the way things occur.

When I heard this game will not have any ending/choice which was clearly better than others, I knew I would love this game. As although your choices have less impact on the world as a whole, they have a great impact on the small things.

And I appreciate TTG for that subtlety.

[StreetsAhead24]

Choice wise it was very limited and linear but it doesn't hinder the fact that it was a phenomenal game. It was more about how Lee dealt with the circumstances at hand rather than drastically changing or altering a path.

If you want to play a game where your choices drastically alter the path of astory and leads to branching paths I suggest you play The Witcher 2 ; ), another great choice-based game

[Evinshir]

What I find funny is how people are trying to make "tailored" sound like it *isn't* about your choices. Then we get this ridiculous "it's a shirt that still has two sleeves" example.

The thing is, the story isn't tailored. Not really. Your decisions don't actually change anything. You don't change character's motivations, the tone of the story doesn't change to fit the Lee that you play...

Edit: To clarify - Kenny still fights with Lee, He still gets morose, Lilly still acts paranoid, Larry still doesn't trust you, Ben still feels guilty and wants to kill himself, Christa and Omid still want to help Clem... none of the scenes actually have a different *tone.* If you play Lee as a kind peace maker, the Stranger still accuses him of being a murderer and a monster. Larry still hates you. None of the conflict scenes play dramatically differently in their tone and most of the characters don't really show a change in personality. About the *only* time the game genuinely felt tailored was the end of episode 4. Then episode 5 pretty quickly works to force everything back towards a single uniform finish that tonally ignores pretty much everything you did.

What it does do is use smoke and mirrors to trick you into thinking the story is being tailored to fit you. Unfortunately Episode 5 then blows all of that away.

To use the tailored shirt example, it's like the tailor saying you can have a shirt and the colour and cut will be suited to you, then you get the same shirt as the other guy but yours is too tight. When you complain, the guy in the other shirt says "but your shirt is red whereas mine is scarlet. He never promised you that it would be a perfect fit."

The thing is, you're still both standing there wearing the same shirt.

[RoboSheriff]

oh my god its a disscussion between members from the 2008 and the 2012 who will win

[dx1]

Originally Posted by RoboSheriff

oh my god its a disscussion between members from the 2008 and the 2012 who will win

I'm "from the 2010", maybe I win?

I read about player's choices with almost no impact and no multiple endings. I could quote here, but the thread has only two pages now, so scroll a little.

It was stated that the characters that were not Lee gave a four letter word about what decisions you made and what snappy answers you gave or how silent you were. You ever met a bunch of totally strangers and had their basic behaviour changed in a couple of months or even days?

The other big thing here was the world spinning and stuff happening, no matter what you wanted your Lee to think about that. Strangers behaviour at a much bigger scale, but let's focus on the main part: Lee's death. There's this new book by Jenny Erpenbeck, "Aller Tage Abend", in which a woman dies five times. From only days old baby to an old woman. She mades different experiences in different lifes but no matter what, she eventually dies. My PC Lee differs a lot from the one on my Xbox, but they both are dead. And both they saved little Clem. But they are completely different in character. That didn't save them. So what? The world is spinning.

[funyahns]

Well of course Kenny is still going to act the same. Lilly is still crazy and her father is a jerk. If you wanted to impact the story of them and make them better you have to hit them before they are grown adults. A couple little extra kindnesses would not really change Kenny being so sad after losing his family. Or Lilly from trusting.

I knew they were not going to arc that far off of how the main story flows. They really could not. They would have had to develop 5 times a much content if the split came late. Imagine if you have left with Lilly and had totally different story line to play.

[Doctanian]

Lol at all the people trying to defend TellTale.

[anonymau5]

Honestly, from what I could tell, TellTale wanted to make the choices in the game matter a lot more. Viewing episode one, there was a lot of things that could affect possible episode two. However, they gave themselves one month between each episode, forcing them to cut corners, making most all of the characters interchangeable. So, hopefully for season 2 people will be more patient and let TellTale make the game they want.

[Valkama]

Originally Posted by der_ketzer

Sure. If you want 2-3 months between all episodes this would be possible. I am certain they tried with the Doug / Carley thing but it lead to longer breaks between episodes. (I personally thought they't kill them off in episode 2 which they didn't to my great surprise.) I also thought the car situation at the end of Episode 2 would have a bigger impact on Episode 3. Similar to the Doug / Carley thing but it didn't because that would basically mean making 4 episodes with every possible choice.
Episode 2 would be quite odd too. Just imagine Lee saying no to going to the farm. They could just have ended the episode at that moment. Or inserted another path but the episode was late already as it was. How much longer would that have actually taken?

I would have no problem waiting an extra 2-3 months if it would end up making the game better.

[Evinshir]

Originally Posted by anonymau5

Honestly, from what I could tell, TellTale wanted to make the choices in the game matter a lot more. Viewing episode one, there was a lot of things that could affect possible episode two. However, they gave themselves one month between each episode, forcing them to cut corners, making most all of the characters interchangeable. So, hopefully for season 2 people will be more patient and let TellTale make the game they want.

That's pretty much the impression I got too.

I think they had intended for episode 5 to be much more variable, but maybe they couldn't figure out how to make it work within the time frame they had given themselves. Hopefully with Season 2 they will follow the television model and have multiple episodes already completed before publically releasing the first episode and then have more time to get things closer to their intent.

I imagine that season 1 has been a bit of a trial by fire for them with this style of storytelling - given that their previous games have been completely linear.

I hope that they will continue to build on the style that they went with in The Walking Dead for their other games too. They have the writers, I believe TTG has the skill to really meet the challenge.

[DreadMagus]

Originally Posted by Evinshir

The thing is, the story isn't tailored. Not really. Your decisions don't actually change anything. You don't change character's motivations, the tone of the story doesn't change to fit the Lee that you play.

The thing is, you're putting to much of your own definition of what it should be, rather than accepting what it is.

If TTG had said that the game alters and you take different paths to an ending based on your actions... you might have a point.

But they didn't.

Let's look at "The story is tailored by your choice" literally.

The story is what happened to Lee and Clem through five episodes. That's the story TTG gave us.

"Tailored by your choices" - you have choices that alter events in game. Conversations, how people react to you, who has your back and who doesn't, and even who lives and who dies at key times. Those are things you control that alter how the story is presented.

That's all they ever offered. People are just trying to find hidden meanings that aren't there.

[Rink]

Well this is your view. Of course there are other views as you can see here. But for me it isn't the definition of tailored that is the problem.

It wouldn't have costed nothing to have some characters say goodbye in episode 5 instead of killing them if you made the right/wrong choices beforehand. Instead they just killed off all characters that "had to die" so in season 2 every player of season 1 had exactly the same backstory. Well this makes sense if the walking dead is a movie or a comic, but in a game like the walking dead I expect that my choices do somehow influence what happens to my group at least as well as choices others in the group make. Now choices others in the group made decided over life and death of others and it mattered (kenny sacrificing himself, ben ****ing up killing others, clementine saving molly etc etc) and nothing we do and decide ever has that impact (other than game over or the character dieing shortly afterwards). And that feels bitter. I would like to see the game changed if I sacrifice a lot for the group and I would like to have it turn out differently as if I played a sociopath.
I enjoyed the game, but this really hurts replayability and to take that control away from the player seems like a strange thing to do.

[JabbaDaHuttX7]

Originally Posted by DreadMagus

The thing is, you're putting to much of your own definition of what it should be, rather than accepting what it is.

If TTG had said that the game alters and you take different paths to an ending based on your actions... you might have a point.

But they didn't.

Let's look at "The story is tailored by your choice" literally.

The story is what happened to Lee and Clem through five episodes. That's the story TTG gave us.

"Tailored by your choices" - you have choices that alter events in game. Conversations, how people react to you, who has your back and who doesn't, and even who lives and who dies at key times. Those are things you control that alter how the story is presented.

And judging from that, one could consider that the experience was not a tailored one.

I really don't think there's a need to explain what is a remarkably simple phrase to people who don't consider that their experience was 'tailored' to their specifications. To some extent it's the same as "live with the profound and lasting consequences of your actions" (which was also an advertising phrase for the game), but a bit more subtle -- it's only true/false if you believe your actions had a profound/minor effect on the game's story.

So if you believe that the changes you can make to your story is justification enough for the "it adapts to my specifications" line, fine. It's not a blatant lie, but it can be misleading for some.

But I don't know if games should be judged according to the exact advertising standards set by the people who developed them. It doesn't sound very objective.

[DreadMagus]

Which brings us back to my original point - people are applying their own meaning to the phrase and then getting mad that it doesn't follow their own expectation of it.

[Atarius]

All I hear from the people that are disgruntled about "tailored experience" is:

"Oedipus didn't have any choices! Story sucks!"

[Havocbeast]

You know, if they didn't even give us choices, we wouldn't even be having these conversations about the choices we make. Just be glad we even get a chance to "tailor" our experience.

[JabbaDaHuttX7]

Originally Posted by DreadMagus

Which brings us back to my original point - people are applying their own meaning to the phrase and then getting mad that it doesn't follow their own expectation of it.

No, people have different expectations as to its meaning. We know what it means, we just don't agree with it. It's relative.

[DreadMagus]

Well, some people just aren't happy with what they have - they feel they need more.

Never understood it.

[DreadMagus]

Originally Posted by JabbaDaHuttX7

No, people have different expectations as to its meaning. We know what it means, we just don't agree with it. It's relative.

And not really relevant.

To use a crude example, if a person goes into a FPS expecting RPG gameplay, they're only going to be disappointed.

Being unhappy with a game is fine, everyone has their own likes -- but being unhappy because it didn't play the way you thought it should is a bit silly.