Less of the living, more of the dead in S2

[Robert Morgan]

Something I noticed while flipping through the latest comic issue of THE WALKING DEAD is that the living tend to be a much greater threat to Rick's group than the actual zombies. Kirkman probably intended this to be ironic, but when story after story tends to be less about humans vs. zombies and more about humans just being assholes to one another, the title of the series starts becoming a little redundant.

Look, I get it: When the system goes belly-up, most people would probably exploit a lawless world to their own ends rather than trying to re-establish civilization. This isn't anything new in the zombie genre. Hell, the group in Romero's NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD basically fucked themselves over because they were unable to work together as a team.

But we're not dealing with a feature film, we're dealing with a story stretched out over multiple episodes. Having selfish/desperate humans act as the antagonists chapter after chapter can become even more depressing and dreary for the player than dealing with hordes of the undead.

I'd personally like to see the next season take place further along the WD timeline, where there are almost no living humans left (at least within driving distance) aside from your little group, and the only outside menace you need to worry about is the menace responsible for the apocalypse in the first place. It would make the atmosphere twice as intense and claustrophobic, IMO - almost more like Romero's original movies than anything made after 28 DAYS LATER.

Those are my thoughts, anyway.

[thestalkinghead]

i think the best bits were when humans were the dangerous part, and that is basically the point of TWD "Fight the Dead. Fear the Living" if there were no living foes they would basically be completely safe except for the risk of a massive herd of zombies, so i actually think the opposite, i think more living people in season 2 would be better

[Crixus]

Respectfully i gotta disagree, I prefer the human antagonists alot more than just the walkers. In season 2 i hope that there will be a group like Woodbury or Negans Group which we go against, perhaps have an episode where both groups are having a huge battle and due to all the noise and gunshots a herd comes and both groups get caught up in the herd and it will be complete chaos! But yeah I want the main antagonist/s in season 2 to be Humans and not Walkers.

[StanleyStutters]

I like having human antagonists, and when you think about it, it's more realistic that way. Zombies are slow, unintelligent, and can only kill if they get right on top of you. Once they've survived and lived in the zombie apocalypse humans would be able to set themselves up pretty nicely and be able to handle the zombies relatively easily. The more time passes, the less of a threat zombies are.

Other humans, on the other hand, are a much bigger threat. They are capable of deception, they can work in groups, they can harm you from much longer distances, etc. I still want zombies to be a real threat in S2 (and I'm sure they will be), but I'd love to see either a person or another group show up and cause problems for us.

[trd84]

Zombies don't make a good antagonist over a long period of time. You need that human element. And I think it being a series rather than an hour and a half movie, makes that need for a human antagonist even greater.

[zjs]

It's a quintessential characteristic of The Walking Dead, so it won't be changing for any game or future game.

That said, I do agree somewhat. People like the bandits are believable: those who leech off others, abandon rules in the style of Lord of the Flies and often seemed like people who would have previously been pretty undesirable anyway. I can understand the motivation of those such as The Governor - to some extent - in the idea of protecting one's group at all costs.

However, I really don't think the majority of people would be quite so antagonistic to normal, civilisation establishing, groups as much as they are in TWD. Walkers are a problem when they're not in hordes; so the perceived lack of danger is a falsity.

Take the St John brothers. It made for a great storyline, and they were well written, but it was a bit like... really? Already? Cannibalism made sense in the world of The Road, where the Sun no longer shone, years had passed and nothing really survived or grew. A few months after the apocalypse, in pastured land with a warm climate, with plenty of Sun, rain and room for farming as it was A FARM made the turn to cannibalism pretty unbelievable. They did it, ostensibly, to keep giving food to the bandits, but I'm sure growing vegetables, collecting eggs and perhaps killing animals like chickens would have been far, far, easier.

[Zeruis]

Kirkman has intended that the whole idea of The Walking Dead is that the living are more dangerous than the zombies. Because of this, TWD focuses more on human drama rather than zombie action.

Having said that, that's the entire reason why I hated episode 4. It focused mostly on zombie action rather than human drama. In general, Telltale did a good job of balancing out the human drama and zombie action during season 1. I'd like it to stay that way for season 2.

[thestalkinghead]

Originally Posted by zjs

It's a quintessential characteristic of The Walking Dead, so it won't be changing for any game or future game.

That said, I do agree somewhat. People like the bandits are believable: those who leech off others, abandon rules in the style of Lord of the Flies and often seemed like people who would have previously been pretty undesirable anyway. I can understand the motivation of those such as The Governor - to some extent - in the idea of protecting one's group at all costs.

However, I really don't think the majority of people would be quite so antagonistic to normal, civilisation establishing, groups as much as they are in TWD. Walkers are a problem when they're not in hordes; so the perceived lack of danger is a falsity.

Take the St John brothers. It made for a great storyline, and they were well written, but it was a bit like... really? Already? Cannibalism made sense in the world of The Road, where the Sun no longer shone, years had passed and nothing really survived or grew. A few months after the apocalypse, in pastured land with a warm climate, with plenty of Sun, rain and room for farming as it was A FARM made the turn to cannibalism pretty unbelievable. They did it, ostensibly, to keep giving food to the bandits, but I'm sure growing vegetables, collecting eggs and perhaps killing animals like chickens would have been far, far, easier.

i agree that people would get along more than TWD says they would in real life, but i think once large groups formed there could be conflict due to limited resources/territory between two big groups, like how people get along well inside woodbury but a rival group is a threat to their well being.

and maybe it was a bit quick to turn to cannibalism but i think Danny St. John was a bit sick in the head before the apocalypse, so he may have quickened the families decision to do it

[Mark$man]

I liked humans being about as much or more dangerous than humans, it makes a more interesting storyline. But hey, it ain't for everyone, and I admit I wish there was a little more action throughout the season, it can be less than episode 4, but a little more than episode 3 each episode. Eh, shouldn't complain though, I loved season 1 so I can't say I'd hate it otherwise

[double_u]

I can see the OP's point. For the comic and TV series, I think the point that people are the real threat is basically a dead horse. We get it: a lot of people will do nasty things in the absence of law and order. At the same time, it's hard to tell a good story without human antagonists. Zombies are great for a feature film, but for something that last longer like a whole series, they are too dumb to be an interesting enemy even if sometimes they share similar goals with people (i.e. need food).

So yeah, I agree that the TWD's whole premise isn't really new, shocking, or even refreshing at this point but it's also what keeps it interesting.

However, I will say that it does bug me that good people get screwed over constantly without a break. I mean just look at the game, all the good characters except Clem are dead because of others. Yes, I get it the TWD is supposed to be all grim dark, but the darkness isn't very realistic. Like others have said, a lot of people won't be as antagonistic as TWD claims. But it's one of those unrealistic features that is needed to keep the entire franchise going. It's kinda like Star Trek where all shit in the universe is always thrown at Enterprise to the point people should wonder, "Man, wtf is up with their bad luck?"

[Rock114]

I like humans being the antagonists. Personally, I'd like a "Governor" type character to be the main antagonist of Season 2, someone we know is actively trying to kill us/take what we have. Not like the walkie dude who we only got a few bits of before the very end, but someone who we have seen, know who they are, and know that they want us dead.

[Crixus]

Originally Posted by Rock114

I like humans being the antagonists. Personally, I'd like a "Governor" type character to be the main antagonist of Season 2, someone we know is actively trying to kill us/take what we have. Not like the walkie dude who we only got a few bits of before the very end, but someone who we have seen, know who they are, and know that they want us dead.

^This. Please Telltale this!

[DreadMagus]

I like a good mix.

I want zombies in my zombie apocalypse, but at the same time human antags add drama and story value if done right.

[Kaserkin]

I think we should have more zombie-related deaths. In the main group, only Doug/Carley, Duck, Chuck and Kenny got killed by zombies.

[Jaded X Gamer]

Originally Posted by double_u

It's kinda like Star Trek where all shit in the universe is always thrown at Enterprise to the point people should wonder, "Man, wtf is up with their bad luck?"

I have a theory on that actually. I think the Enterprise is the Federation's ship specifically marked for galaxy threatening disasters. The Federation doesn't actually tell the people on it that, but I think they always staff it with what they think are their very best troops and equipment and any time anything slightly dangerous happens they send the Enterprise and just tell them it's a "routine assignment".

Every other ship is off doing boring routine stuff like charting stars or surveying comets, but anytime one of them sees anything remotely suspicious, they high-tail it out of there and the Federation reassigns the Enterprise without telling them they think something is up. They just say "You're the only ship in range." Notice like every time another Federation ship is in these situations it always gets wiped out?

I think it's really obvious in Star Trek V when the newly made Enterprise doesn't even work and they still send it on assignment. They can't pull the no ship in range excuse since they’re still in star dock so they say "There aren't any ships in range...with an experienced crew." The Enterprise is the Federation’s go to solution for everything wrong in the universe. That's why several generations later a completely different crew in a completely different Enterprise end up in the same situation as the original every week.

Anyways, on topic. Speaking for only the game, I don't think you have non-stop bad luck as much as that's what was focused on. There's apparently three months where no one was bitten or died and another few weeks after with bandit attacks where no one was killed either. It's just you always rejoin the story right before something bad happens.

I think that could have been reigned in a little with just a few more spots to breath. One of my favorite parts in the game was actually just in the drug store in the first episode where you get to walk around and talk to people. Same at Hershel's farm. I get as the story moves closer to a conclusion there would naturally be less of that, but I think there could have been a few more parts like that.

Specifically at the end of episode three, it would have been cool if like at the end of the first episode, you walked through the train and just got a feel for everyone. Especially since the group changed so drastically in that episode. Another good time for that would be after you first get into the manor in episode four. You're kinda railroaded towards the attic and then Kenny wants to go after the boat. Would have been nice if there was a beat where you could talk a little to everyone in between, instead of just Christa, Omid and Clem briefly.

As for the dead thing, you're pretty much right that there simply isn't a lot you can do a lot with them and in something longer than a movie it's even harder to keep them interesting to an audience, so human conflict often trumps them for anything story focused in the zombie genre.

I feel one undead element missing from the Walking Dead game is there wasn't really much of the angst involved with seeing people you know come back as zombies. At least not people you liked anyways. There's the Clementine nightmare, but it's just a nightmare. Duck is either shot or left behind before he turns. You see Brie come back, but I don't think many of us really liked her all that much.

The drug store in episode three seemed like a really natural place to have a moment like that. Instead of the helicopter pilot guy it should have been a zombified Doug or Carley (whichever got left behind). Then when you get back to the motor inn you could talk to whichever one survived about what you saw.

Originally Posted by Rock114

I like humans being the antagonists. Personally, I'd like a "Governor" type character to be the main antagonist of Season 2, someone we know is actively trying to kill us/take what we have. Not like the walkie dude who we only got a few bits of before the very end, but someone who we have seen, know who they are, and know that they want us dead.

Honestly the governor just annoyed me. He's so ridiculously over the top he might as well have been wearing a sandwich board sign that read "I am a bad guy! LOL!" I know there are horrible people out there, but I feel that having someone so transparently evil actually kinda kills the drama and in these kinds of stories I find some moral conflict is more interesting than the traditional good/evil dichotomy.

Spoilers for the comic.

The time when some of Rick's crew rob the Wal-Mart near Woodbury and kill some of their people in process, under different circumstances, might have made an interesting moral gray area our "heroes" could have entered. Could have created for some interesting conflict about where you draw the line between survival and humanity. But at this point the Governor has already established himself as so ludicrously irredeemably evil that it just boils down to good guys fighting bad guys.

I actually found the conflict between Rick's people and the prisoners more interesting. The one guy was a psycho, but the rest of them weren't and they had been staying there for months when all these other people come in, take over and some of them treat them like shit and hurl accusations at them. I wish that had actually gone on a little longer, I felt there was some potential there for some interesting conflict. Maybe have the prisoners try to get people not happy with Rick to come over to there side while the covertly plan a revolt.

I actually liked the stranger because he does have some kind of legitimate grievance. He ballooned that out into a crazy revenge fantasy that really only made sense to him, but it did start with something that was effectively a rock and a hard place decision. Imagine if it was flipped flopped. If someone stole all your supplies, you go after them, kill a bunch of them only to realize they were just a bunch of starving people with kids who didn't know what else to do.

[zjs]

Originally Posted by Jaded X Gamer

I feel one undead element missing from the Walking Dead game is there wasn't really much of the angst involved with seeing people you know come back as zombies. At least not people you liked anyways. There's the Clementine nightmare, but it's just a nightmare. Duck is either shot or left behind before he turns. You see Brie come back, but I don't think many of us really liked her all that much.

The drug store in episode three seemed like a really natural place to have a moment like that. Instead of the helicopter pilot guy it should have been a zombified Doug or Carley (whichever got left behind). Then when you get back to the motor inn you could talk to whichever one survived about what you saw.

Honestly the governor just annoyed me. He's so ridiculously over the top he might as well have been wearing a sandwich board sign that read "I am a bad guy! LOL!" I know there are horrible people out there, but I feel that having someone so transparently evil actually kinda kills the drama and in these kinds of stories I find some moral conflict is more interesting than the traditional good/evil dichotomy.

I actually liked the stranger because he does have some kind of legitimate grievance. He ballooned that out into a crazy revenge fantasy that really only made sense to him, but it did start with something that was effectively a rock and a hard place decision. Imagine if it was flipped flopped. If someone stole all your supplies, you go after them, kill a bunch of them only to realize they were just a bunch of starving people with kids who didn't know what else to do.

Lee's brother? Clementine's parents?

On that point: why didn't Chuck reanimate? You find him half eaten in the sewers.

It works very well when it relates to losing someone. The finale draws a lot of its emotion from losing Lee to turning; the scene with Duck draws its emotions from the same base and the scene in the meat locker is so charged because of it. I think telltale are actually more skilful in using this sadness/expectation to tell the story, without resorting to the funfair ghost train style of 'shock horror' that results from the actual turning. I mean, all it adds is a "totally unexpected" change in which the character scrambles away before being forced to brutally kill the new walker.

I agree on The Governor. His character, in the t.v. series at least, is antagonistic almost for the sake of it. Every action is ludicrously over the top. An injured stranger? CUT OFF HIS HEAD AND KEEP IT IN A JAR. A group of seemingly friendly, militarily trained men? PUMP ALL OF OUR AMMO INTO EACH OF THEM BEFORE EVEN TRYING TO TALK etc. However much anyone tries to justify it with the 'he was just making sure they didn't attack' baloney; the only justifiable response is that he's deranged and almost comically over the top. Not killing the injured man and then speaking to his unit would've - I'm almost certain - yielded many more well trained members of Woodbury. Instead, the guys are completely ambushed and surrounded so there's no threat, and yet they shoot without even bothering to talk to them.

This was why Kenny wasn't my 'bro' so much as he was a very effective storytelling tool and one of the best character arcs. He follows a 'protect my family at all costs' path, becoming more and more pragmatic and willing to get his hands dirty, and loses them all despite this, causing him to re-evaluate himself and his choices. It's what Shane's character in the series should have been and started out as, before he went full evil.

The supplies weren't really the crux of it though. That he was more of a lunatic, and not too dissimilar to the woman in the camp who saw themselves as Clem's protector was the meat of it, really. The supplies were a nice attempt to tie it in, and shocked me a lot at first with the reveal, but they were more of a secondary grievance to his paranoid delusions.

[aerial-ballet]

Originally Posted by zjs

On that point: why didn't Chuck reanimate? You find him half eaten in the sewers.

He shot himself in the head with his last bullet. At least that's what Lee mutters when he finds his body in the sewers.

[Jaded X Gamer]

Originally Posted by zjs

Lee's brother? Clementine's parents?

I think the problem with them is we never really got meet them before they reanimate. I do agree those were great scenes. Well Lee's brother was. With Clem's parents it seemed kinda odd they were still together after death. (Guess they took different wedding vows.) With them I thought it would have made more sense to see the dad at the hospital, where he likely died and see the mother later somewhere else. Maybe even find a clue on the dad that suggested the mother did make it, only to crush it later in the crowd.

But back on point, yeah they use the threat of people coming back as zombies to great dramatic effect, I'm not arguing that. I guess I really just wanted one instance of someone you liked and interacted with at length to come back as a zombie and you have to finish them off. Just once would have been plenty. Like I said, Doug or Carley coming back as a zombie in the drug store would have been interesting. Or Chuck even. (Lee mentions Chuck probably shot himself, which is why he didn't come back.)

And yeah, I know the supplies being taken was just the jumping off point for the Stranger's insanity. I was saying I'd like to build on that though, specifically how difficult decisions could create conflict between groups of otherwise normal individuals. Have someone with a real beef who doesn't go crazy. Or try to prod the player into acting crazy like the stranger, maybe through a series of seemingly evil things happen to them only to reveal there were non-evil reasons behind it.

[trd84]

Originally Posted by Kaserkin

I think we should have more zombie-related deaths. In the main group, only Doug/Carley, Duck, Chuck and Kenny got killed by zombies.

Ben and Lee.

[zjs]

Originally Posted by Jaded X Gamer

I think the problem with them is we never really got meet them before they reanimate. I do agree those were great scenes. Well Lee's brother was. With Clem's parents it seemed kinda odd they were still together after death. (Guess they took different wedding vows.) With them I thought it would have made more sense to see the dad at the hospital, where he likely died and see the mother later somewhere else. Maybe even find a clue on the dad that suggested the mother did make it, only to crush it later in the crowd.

But back on point, yeah they use the threat of people coming back as zombies to great dramatic effect, I'm not arguing that. I guess I really just wanted one instance of someone you liked and interacted with at length to come back as a zombie and you have to finish them off. Just once would have been plenty. Like I said, Doug or Carley coming back as a zombie in the drug store would have been interesting. Or Chuck even. (Lee mentions Chuck probably shot himself, which is why he didn't come back.)

And yeah, I know the supplies being taken was just the jumping off point for the Stranger's insanity. I was saying I'd like to build on that though, specifically how difficult decisions could create conflict between groups of otherwise normal individuals. Have someone with a real beef who doesn't go crazy. Or try to prod the player into acting crazy like the stranger, maybe through a series of seemingly evil things happen to them only to reveal there were non-evil reasons behind it.

I think we can agree that both the parents being together and the Stranger can be chalked up to the hasty writing in episode V. There was no reason not to have inserted the parents into their own separate scene; perhaps in one of the rooms in the (strangely deserted) hotel. Would've added more to it.

Now, let me know if you know any better (as with Chuck), but is there any particular reason for the shift in focus from Clem's parents to the Stranger, beyond his sinister 'you're here soon' message and his later kidnap of Clem? It seemed to me that the majority of the story had always been heading towards finding Clem's parents (right from when you first meet her), which is often clarified and reiterated. Given that Clem and Lee are the central focus, and that Lee's family are done and dusted before the end of episode I, this is logical. However, the story suddenly shifts to the Stranger and her parents become an afterthought - a five second cut scene, shambling together amongst a horde of walkers. Even the aftermath is awful, with Clem supposedly dragging Lee somewhere safe

--- this is completely off topic, but relates. I've seen people criticise animations such as the car battery in the bag and the blowtorch in the back pocket, but these were largely animation based while Clem dragging Lee wasn't just an artistic error; it was a real suspension of belief ---

I know what you're driving at, but what I'm really saying is that it worked better not having this happen. Duck might not be a character you really cared about, but he was important in the story and within the group. His death really is an emotional scene, not least because it encompasses Katja's suicide. I can't help but feel a lot of that poignancy would be lost if you went from choosing who should do it to his reanimation and a subsequent QT event. My Lee was one of the 5% of Lee's who never got a bullet in his head, but a reanimated character such as Lee would also have cheapened the emotional impact somewhat. Can't think of any other character they could have done it with, given that you're out of the pharmacy very soon after saving Carley/Doug.

It would be good to see the shoe on the other foot; but you'd really need to see real, impacting, determinable, choice for that to actually work.