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

[dee23]

Originally Posted by 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)

If you choices in season 1 have been confirmed to cross over to season 2 why are you saying most likely? Either it hasn't been confirmed and it is most likely to happen or it's been confirmed full stop. I agree that saving Carly or Doug makes a difference even if it's just aesthetic and brief because one will be in the 2nd episode and one won't but that is the only significant change in the game based on your choices of the 4 points you listed.

If you give irene the gun she kills herself if you don't she takes it from you and kills herself. If you shoot Duck or Kenny shoots Duck it makes no real difference. Both Lee and Kenny are in the scene next to each other any way. It doesn't effect your friendship, Kenny's mood or behavior, it's purely about what you the gamer thinks is best. Should I take the burden off my friend or should I let him be the one to kill his son. As for the 4th point of who is in your team, the game decides this for you after episode 1. Ben can die at the end of ep4(you have to add him to your group in ep2) if you choose not to save him or die in ep 5. Who you pick to come with you to save to Clem makes no difference since you go back to the house and reunite with anyone you left there and look for Clem as a group. The decision to go alone in ep 4 is only with regards to Vernon's base which the game transports you to after you make your decision who to go with or rather they make the decision to go with you. The members of the group are predetermined to live or die regardless, though Doug,Carly and Ben can die at different times they are still the ones that will die and Christa will still survive till the end of ep5.

With regards to Telltale's reason's for killing of Lee I don't think you or I can truly say for sure unless we worked on their staff team, all we can do is speculate. Personally I think it was done for shock effect (killing the stories protagonist)to pull the rug from beneath us. If his death was necessary for Clementine's development Rick Grimes would have died a long time ago. Carl would have learned more from Rick in life than Clementine would learn from Lee's death. Personally I would have preferred for Lee to have died after reuniting Clementine with Christa and the story ending than Lee failing to bring Clementine to Christa before he died, her leaving the city by her self and us getting another season to play as another character. But that's just me.

With regards to how people feel about you based on your choices all of the people in Lee's original group were dead(Clementine aside), Christa and Omid came in the game late and didn't really know much about how you treated other group members in earlier episodes. The people that were in you group even if you treated them bad they will still play their part for sequences to play out. I completely rebuffed Kenny in Ep 5 after he refused to help me find Clem in ep 4 and in ep5 he was a complete different person, asking how I was etc. I practically blanked him through out ep 5. The only time I remember responding to him before he died was in the attic when I called him a bastard, yet Telltale wanted to give him a heroic send off where he is encouraging me to go without him, like I needed encouraging.

Choice matters? It is the illusion of choice and we are disillusioned if we think the game could play out any differently based on our choices. The game merely makes you feel in control of your choices. Women have been doing this to men for centuries and millenia. Making men think that they were in control and that they thought of an idea when really,they were prompted by suggestion.

Still a great emotional game though but lets call a spade a spade. Choices matter in Heavy Rain, choices in the walking dead game do not, not in the grand scale of things.

With regards to the comment about it being too long for them to have multiple endings, when you consider how significantly shorter the episode was I think they could have had at least 1 alternative ending. The 2 ways that the choices we made could of mattered would have been if there was an alternate ending from the one we all received or if the surviving group members were different based on our choices, though I accept the latter would have been very difficult and time consuming they could have had 2 endings which were computer generated based on the feed back of your actions in game.(I don't mean having an ending where Lee lives) Having the guy on the radio remind me that Telltale were keeping track by telling me all of the things I have done which I already know I had done is not a consequence of my actions. He would have kidnapped Clementine regardless.

[dee23]

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?

Firstly the issue is not with the "tailor made" claim it's the claim that choices matter, big difference. Secondly I haven't seen any posts or comments about people wanting the story to change. The same way dialogue options don't change the story is the same way scenery changes wouldn't have to change the story since they could be small variations. The difference is scenery changes would make the gamer feel their choices mattered and add replay value. The basis of the story would remain, Lee would still die, Clementine's parent's would still be walkers and Clementine would still leave the city. Come to think of it I'm not sure that having different survivors by the end of episode 5 from the beginning of episode 5 would have necessarily changed the story either since they could have died off in season 2 as I don't believe the final walking dead game will end with Clementine alone and destitute. An example of an alternate ending I made in previous posts still involved Lee dying, just not dying in the shop but dying after passing over Clementine to her new care takers. I don't see how that would have changed the story just the cliff hanger or the season's ending.

Regarding the point of how characters opinions shaped by your actions were the tailored made experience there are inconsistencies with that and contradictory behavior. If that was such I would have been considered a saint in the eyes of the guy on the radio since I didn't take his food. Now, I have worked in the mental health field and I know from first hand experience that a paranoid delusional person like Clementine's abductor would have sided with me once he had seen how I treated Kenny from ep 3-5, the person he claimed to be after in my play through and the fact that I didn't steal his stuff I should not have appeared responsible for his circumstances yet it had to play out that way for everybody. Where is the tailor made experience there. I didn't want that, my actions in the game should not have reflected his response to me. That was as of the rack as you can get if where using clothing metaphors. Regarding Kenny I kept pushing him away and was generally ungracious towards him in ep5 but he just kept coming back, smiling like we were still friends. It seemed disjointed. He was telling Christa how we had gone through so much, implying that we were friends really and I responded calling him a bastard and he was still happy. Then in his final moments he was acting like we were best friends and I hated the guy and didn't hide it from ep3 on wards.

From what I have read everybody is pretty much in agreement that it was a great game, people are mostly commenting on the little impact choice actually made when it seemed to be a big point in their advertising campaign. I loved the game. Did I think choices mattered? No

[anonymau5]

As I said before

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.

[KingOfTheDead]

There is no games where choices really matter. Even mass effect its just brung up pick a game where choices really matter except heavy rain

[dee23]

Originally Posted by Noble

You were given choices, but choices don't mean they change anything in the end. Say you're driving somewhere, you can take several different routes to get there -- they may go in different directions but in the end they all take you to your destination.

The journey is more important than the end.

I don't know, that seems like someone being told they have to drink two drinks but they can choose what drink they drink first. If I choose for Lee to walk over the walk way with the banner first it breaks, if I choose for Lee to wait for christa and omid to cross over before sending Lee over it breaks to force Lee apart from christa and omid. I'm not sure i'd say the outcome is altered enough for the games journey to feel that different. The point is that these variations are too small. If Lee and Christa were parted at another point in the game then yeah, like if it was a different scene. But if we are talking about journey's i'm pretty sure my play through would cover the same scenes,people and places as everyone else.

[TheRickGrimes]

Originally Posted by 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)

1. Doesn't matter, they both die in the end.
2. Doesn't matter, she takes the gun in the end.
3. Doesn't matter, Kenny 'dies'/goes missing in the end.
4. Doesn't matter, you all get back together in the end.

[CarScar]

This game doesn't matter how the game reacts to your choices, it's how the players react emotionally. I don't know about you but I was heavily embedded into this game emotionally.

Saving Doug or Carley, for example, you get to have the pleasure of meeting and getting to know someone. Have a romance or a bromance. I get it, they're not real, but the creators wrote them so realistically that I was actually really fond of them.

Point being, this game isn't a standard game where I'm just driven to win, in this game I'm actually driven emotionally. I wasn't driven for the need to win the game when I was looking for Clem, I actually wanted to save her because she means something to me. I know it's horribly sappy, but it's just special and I'm disappointed people actually have the views like "oh I saved Carley and she didn't help me beat the game so like what was the point in saving her!!"

[Pyrofrost]

Originally Posted by CarScar

This game doesn't matter how the game reacts to your choices, it's how the players react emotionally. I don't know about you but I was heavily embedded into this game emotionally.

Finally, someone gets it.

[The13thRonin]

Originally Posted by Pyrofrost

Finally, someone gets it.

Um no... Are you deliberately ignoring the large amount of pages that people have linked to in this thread showing that Telltale promised lasting consequences and a branching story? Please go actually open the official promotional page for the game, read it, come back.

[CarScar]

Originally Posted by The13thRonin

Um no... Are you deliberately ignoring the large amount of pages that people have linked to in this thread showing that Telltale promised lasting consequences and a branching story? Please go actually open the official promotional page for the game, read it, come back.

That was a way to get more attention to the game (I know that it's a dirty trick, they shouldn't have done it), but I honestly don't see why people should care so much though. This is the first time I felt so emotional over a game in my life and I'd be surprised if you could honestly say you didn't too. They deserve NOTHING but praise.

I could honestly say the plot would likely suffer if the writers had to design multiple outcomes to the game. Would you want that? Would you want another Mass Effect?

Yeah you could feel bitter that "omg me giving food to Larry didn't do anything WHAT THE FUUUUUU" or you could have fun with this AMAZING GAME. I'm not even fucking wanking it too, this game is simply amazing.

As I said before too, this game isn't about how your decisions effect gameplay, it's how it affects you personal. I mean sure me saying "I'll... miss you" to Clem didn't have any effect on the game, it did however make me cry. I'd rather have that emotional connection rather then what you people wanted. Unless you wanted both, well then good luck finding a gaming company that's capable of that shit.

[Pyrofrost]

Originally Posted by The13thRonin

Um no... Are you deliberately ignoring the large amount of pages that people have linked to in this thread showing that Telltale promised lasting consequences and a branching story? Please go actually open the official promotional page for the game, read it, come back.

No, I'm not. I honestly read every post in this thread (seriously) and my thoughts on the issue can be found here: http://www.telltalegames.com/forums/...501#post734501

Read THAT, and then come back and talk to me. Also, stop being an ass. #lawyer'd

[Tyrant]

I think a lot of players had fun despite their choices actually mattered. But developers need to think about the effect and even more potential for mainstream success if choices ACTUALLY mattered to the point where it would compete with similar games such as Fallout 3/New Vegas and Heavy Rain.

The choices are great, characters are realistic. I see a lot of players are emotionally invested. It's one of the best games I've played this year, but it can be even greater if choices mattered. That's all.

[demonteddybear]

"Some may prefer to call what the Walking Dead does with its plot “cheating”, but in fact all art involves the creation of something out of nothing. And thus all art is – from this perspective – illusion. The trick is in constructing your meaningful story so that the audience can’t see the strings. Or – even better – so that its impact is emotionally powerful enough that they stop caring that there are strings. The Walking Dead is a great game (and in my view a great work of art) because by the time you see the strings, it has you by the throat"

The article is dead on and it is why I love the game so much. Its draws you in. Even though you know that it will send the same no matter what you do, it does not at the same time. Who is with you through the story, who has your back, who will leave you to die if you can't save yourself. Is so much more powerful to me playing this game then if everyone gets the same ending. Its not the destination but the journey.

[Jymn]

I played episodes 1-4 straight through without reloading or reading anything about the game. I was emotionally invested (though not as much as other games I’ve played, I think because I knew all along that every single character was completely fricking doomed)
I was planning to play through again and see some other possibilities. I went to the internet to see what those other possibilities might be...and I was severely disillusioned to find out that no matter what I did the same people would be with me.
I hadn’t been expecting changes to the overarching narrative (we get on the train, Duck and Katjaa die tragically, Clem gets kidnapped, etc) but I had expected who I’d be with to be a variable. It still wouldn’t “really” effect the plot because no matter who you had with you characters would still take on the same roles: one person wants to stay put, one person wants to keep moving. Who those two characters are doesn’t matter to the plot but it does change things for the player emotionally. The player chooses who to side with, but then the walkers force the plot forward regardless. Ultimately, who your companions are is just extremely fancy window dressing, it doesn’t represent a branch in the plot. It wouldn’t be especially hard to script, but it would be a bitch to render all the possibilities.

Anyway that’s the level of “tailoring” I was expecting based on the way it felt when I played through the first time. I felt like I had effected who lived and who died, but in reality I hadn’t. That was disappointing.

And when I stopped to think about it I definitely felt as if my decisions didn’t matter:
the teacher and not-Ben student both die immediately no matter what
Kenny won’t listen to you if you try to protect Larry, no matter how nice you’ve been
Lilly will up and shoot someone for no reason no matter how gentle of a mediator you’ve been
Omid breaks his stupid leg no matter what you do
Vernon betrays you no matter how nice you’ve been
Kenny will heroically sacrifice himself no matter how much of a jerk you’ve been
The crazy guy at the end is mad at you whether you stole his food or not.

The problem has nothing to do with this or that press release, or even the fact that I couldn’t effect those events. What leaves me feeling annoyed, or even betrayed, is that while I was playing the game it MADE ME THINK I could effect those type of things, when in reality I couldn’t.

Maybe Telltale was trying to say that the cruel hands of fate rule us all, that it’s hopeless to try to effect the actions of others. Maybe leading us to feel guilty about events we ultimately had no control over is part of some profound existential message...

Or maybe Telltale just bit off more than they could chew and ended up delivering a product with fewer options than they had hoped.

[Doctanian]

Yeah, it does, but that doesn't excuse TellTale of misleading marketing.

"A tailored game experience – Live with the profound and lasting consequences of the decisions that you make in each episode. Your actions and choices will affect how your story plays out across the entire series." - That's the description from the Steam store.

There's a video on TellTale's Youtube Channel called "Choice Matters." In it, the Episode 3 designer says that in the comics, Rick makes choices that drastically effect his chances of survival. He's basically using weasel words to give you the illusion that your choices will matter without saying it. And when people complain they can just point back and say "we said it tailored to your choices." Watch it, the whole video gives the impression we'll make choices that matter, when in actuality, the choices yield the same results no matter what. Ben always dies. So does Carley and Doug. Clem always gets kidnapped. Lee always perishes. So choice doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things.

That's the problem people have with it and if you ask me, it's a valid complaint. People can keep trying to write it off, but it's a valid issue with many gamers who thought the game was going to be more... consequential. As for me, I could care less, I just wanted a better written ending than what we got.

[Doctanian]

Originally Posted by Jymn

Or maybe Telltale just bit off more than they could chew and ended up delivering a product with fewer options than they had hoped.

That's a bingo.

[The13thRonin]

Originally Posted by Pyrofrost

No, I'm not. I honestly read every post in this thread (seriously) and my thoughts on the issue can be found here: http://www.telltalegames.com/forums/...501#post734501

Read THAT, and then come back and talk to me. Also, stop being an ass. #lawyer'd

So what you're saying is your thoughts on the issue are more authoritive than Telltales own official marketing which comes straight from the development team?

Also... Complains about other person being an ass... Ends his post with "#lawyer'd"... Nope...

If you want an example of how to write a relatively good post that disagrees with someone by attacking the argument and not the person please refer to CarScar above you. I might not agree with CarScar but I respect his ability to discuss a point of difference like an adult.

[JackSchirmer]

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?

Is this a bad joke? Of course it's not true.

TTG made a nice little interactive comic, sold it as something else entirely, and managed to piss of a lot of the people who would have otherwise enjoyed this adequate time-passer.

It was like your buddy fixing you up for a blind date, telling you the pleasant, very average girl you were meeting was a supermodel with a Phd. If he'd been honest, it could have been a perfectly decent evening. Instead, you spent dinner wishing she was even remotely as advertised.

It was far worse, of course, for pc users. The little relevance your choices had vanished entirely when the software couldn't manage to carry from one episode to the next the necessary but very small handful of variables.

As for the gameplay, what a thrill! Only by staring at the vase falling on Clem does it finally miss her. What a treat it was, to discover it took something completely unintuitive for you to escape listening to her skull caving in one... more... time.

Well, we knew the fix was in, what with the completely random journey over to the rooftop and belltower, then the completely random return to the mansion. Talk about cheap-o location recycling. And they couldn't even give us the catharsis of a happy ending where we get some clue as to whether Clem made it five feet past the door? [Rolls eyes]

Very weak, Telltale. Very weak, indeed.

[JackSchirmer]

"So choice doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things."

Choice doesn't matter in the minor scheme of things in episode 5. What's particularly sad is the game's few defenders have been rapidly reduced to claiming, "But it's how you FEEL about the choices you made that's important!"

"So what you're saying is your thoughts on the issue are more authoritive than Telltales own official marketing which comes straight from the development team?"

I laughed. Because if there's one thing we can trust more than politicians, it's marketing teams, right? Good one.

[JackSchirmer]

If I played the game without making a single story choice, which is separate from action
choices like shooting a weapon or climbing a ladder, the story would adapt in such a way that it would flow to the end result. Without me, as a player, Lee would have been bitten , the stranger would have died, and Clem would still be facing an uncertain future, alone.

(How many times do we need to read this stuff?) We felt cheated in the finale because of the story ending, not the ability to affect the scenes within it. Controlling the scenes is what makes TWDG a game. Otherwise, we are merely mashing 'turn the page' buttons on a well thought out visual book.

In fact, it takes about 10-15 hours to read a good book. We did that in five episodes running about 2 hours on average (perhaps more for some). So yeah... we played an active role in a book that was graphically displayed... great idea and that is the only thing I really walked away with. The ending of this season was poorly thought out and made people question does this story adapt to the choices you make? Simply put... No.

This bore repeating. It's an excellent summary of what is, after all, very little more than a pleasant interactive comic with a weak ending.