Maybe, maybe not. Since Ties That Bind was broken into two parts, that could be a reason why it was so short, and the remaining episodes could be the usual 90-120 minutes, at least that's what I'm hoping.
Telltale fans are never satisfied. If the episodes are only a bit over an hour they're too short, but then if they're 2 hours, it's too long or the episodes are a "filler". People can never be satisfied. I don't care how long it is, as long as the story is good and our choices matter.
I completed both episodes in an hour each roughly so its a bit disappointing and it couldve gave them more of a chance than to do more than 5 mins for that flashback.
Yeah ive seen plenty of people complaining about games being too long, not just here, but thats what saves are for. Personally I love long games I like to feel like I got my moneys worth but other people like a tv show/movie type experience its impossible to please everybody
Telltale fans are never satisfied. If the episodes are only a bit over an hour they're too short, but then if they're 2 hours, it's too long… more or the episodes are a "filler". People can never be satisfied. I don't care how long it is, as long as the story is good and our choices matter.
I prefer it when the episodes take around 2 hours to finish, one hours worth of gameplay isn't enough and you can't really get to know the characters well. I am going to wait till all the episodes are out before i buy walking dead season 3, I want to feel like I got my money's worth.
Spending 20-30 dollars on a game that is roughly 5 hours isnn't worth it. If I hear that the rest of the episodes are shortbI will wait till I can buy it cheaper
Yeah ive seen plenty of people complaining about games being too long, not just here, but thats what saves are for. Personally I love long g… moreames I like to feel like I got my moneys worth but other people like a tv show/movie type experience its impossible to please everybody
Short or not the game is great. I would prefer it to be longer but I still loved it, all this backlash over an episode being an hour long is really overdramatic.
Of course, now that another Telltale game is out people will complain about episode length. If the episodes are a little over an hour long, people hate it. If it's two hours long, people hate it. Can they just stop complaining?
If Telltale wants to do shorter episodes, I think something better to consider would be releasing a larger amount of episodes that were cheaper, like something closer to a TV Season.
Instead of buying a five or six episode Season with $5 episodes for 90-120 minutes of gameplay on average every month, what if they charged 2 or 3 dollars for 10 to 12 biweekly episodes at around 45-60 minutes?
Games like Season 1 of Walking Dead had more self contained episodes with a collective plot, whereas other games after have treated their episodic formula as five parts of one story (with quicker pacing) instead of five self contained stories with a larger narrative threading them together.
With their current direction where they are trying to treat their games as literal interactive shows (to the point of emulating the Netflix menu for Batman, New Frontier, and presumably their new games going onward), I think that the new model I proposed could actually be kinda interesting.
A visual, to simplify my idea:
Old Format
Episode Count: 5-6 Episodes.
Episode Price: $5.
Episode Duration: 90-120 minutes on average.
Episode Delivery: Episode released every 1 to 2 months
Episode Revision: Produce and Revise Episodes live in production
Total gameplay time on average: 5 Episodes * 1 hour 45 minutes = 7.5 hours priced at $25 ($5 per Episode)
My proposed new format:
Episode Count: 10-12 Episodes
Episode Price: $2 or $3 (Maybe even $2.50)
Episode Duration: 30-60 minutes on average
Episode Delivery: Episode released every 2 or 3 weeks
Episode Revision: Produce several of the episodes in advance at once, stick to minor revisions if any at all
Total gameplay time on average: 10 Episodes * 45 minutes = 7.5 hours priced at $25 ($2.5 per Episode)
If Telltale wants to do shorter episodes, I think something better to consider would be releasing a larger amount of episodes that were chea… moreper, like something closer to a TV Season.
Instead of buying a five or six episode Season with $5 episodes for 90-120 minutes of gameplay on average every month, what if they charged 2 or 3 dollars for 10 to 12 biweekly episodes at around 45-60 minutes?
Games like Season 1 of Walking Dead had more self contained episodes with a collective plot, whereas other games after have treated their episodic formula as five parts of one story (with quicker pacing) instead of five self contained stories with a larger narrative threading them together.
With their current direction where they are trying to treat their games as literal interactive shows (to the point of emulating the Netflix menu for Batman, New Frontier, and presumably their new games going onward), I think that the new model I proposed could … [view original content]
As I said above - it also helps with episode pacing issues. With newer games like TWD Season 2, Wolf, onward, they try to frame their stories as a TV show instead of self contained stories - this would help them be able to pace their stories similar to a TV show, while also mitigating complaints of short episodes since that would be expected, while people would still be able to have so many episodes around the typical 5-6 month period.
A 60 minute episode with quick pacing hurts a lot more if you paid $5 to play 1/5th of the Season than it would if you paid $2.50 to play 1/10th or 1/12th of the Season.
The only "downside" would be that Telltale would have to make several of their episodes in advance without rewrites, but in my book, that is not a bad thing as I do not think Telltale should be rewriting or improvising major or substantial parts of the story in live production of a Season.
Yes rewrites hurt the narrative focus of season 2. This would take some planning on their part...always a gamble...I am thinking maybe charging 35 for 5 2 hour plus episodes. I think length is probably being hurt by the fact that costs are rising on engine development and the need for larger teams. You know...they should be open about such things...I think people would understand that if explained.
As I said above - it also helps with episode pacing issues. With newer games like TWD Season 2, Wolf, onward, they try to frame their storie… mores as a TV show instead of self contained stories - this would help them be able to pace their stories similar to a TV show, while also mitigating complaints of short episodes since that would be expected, while people would still be able to have so many episodes around the typical 5-6 month period.
A 60 minute episode with quick pacing hurts a lot more if you paid $5 to play 1/5th of the Season than it would if you paid $2.50 to play 1/10th or 1/12th of the Season.
The only "downside" would be that Telltale would have to make several of their episodes in advance without rewrites, but in my book, that is not a bad thing as I do not think Telltale should be rewriting or improvising major or substantial parts of the story in live production of a Season.
They could always go Mega-Monkey! (Bonus points if you get that reference.)
Offer the player a choice between a shorter episode or a longer one. Produce the longer episode but cut less important decisions and scenes from the shorter one. That gives an impatient player the opportunity to finish it quickly, and then replay the longer version if interested.
Comments
Maybe, maybe not. Since Ties That Bind was broken into two parts, that could be a reason why it was so short, and the remaining episodes could be the usual 90-120 minutes, at least that's what I'm hoping.
I seriously hope they see all this backlash they're getting and take longer episodes into consideration.
But telltale has gotten plenty backlash before and they never took anything into consideration so who knows.
Telltale fans are never satisfied. If the episodes are only a bit over an hour they're too short, but then if they're 2 hours, it's too long or the episodes are a "filler". People can never be satisfied. I don't care how long it is, as long as the story is good and our choices matter.
I completed both episodes in an hour each roughly so its a bit disappointing and it couldve gave them more of a chance than to do more than 5 mins for that flashback.
Yeah ive seen plenty of people complaining about games being too long, not just here, but thats what saves are for. Personally I love long games I like to feel like I got my moneys worth but other people like a tv show/movie type experience its impossible to please everybody
I prefer it when the episodes take around 2 hours to finish, one hours worth of gameplay isn't enough and you can't really get to know the characters well. I am going to wait till all the episodes are out before i buy walking dead season 3, I want to feel like I got my money's worth.
Spending 20-30 dollars on a game that is roughly 5 hours isnn't worth it. If I hear that the rest of the episodes are shortbI will wait till I can buy it cheaper
I'm willing to bet that the next three episodes will be fairly long.
After such positive reactions to their recent longer episodes, I doubt they'd go back to doing shorter ones.
Short or not the game is great. I would prefer it to be longer but I still loved it, all this backlash over an episode being an hour long is really overdramatic.
Of course, now that another Telltale game is out people will complain about episode length. If the episodes are a little over an hour long, people hate it. If it's two hours long, people hate it. Can they just stop complaining?
Honestly if they are an hour or so a episode I think that's good but longer wouldn't hurt in my opinion considering a season pass is around 24.00$
Most likely yes.
If Telltale wants to do shorter episodes, I think something better to consider would be releasing a larger amount of episodes that were cheaper, like something closer to a TV Season.
Instead of buying a five or six episode Season with $5 episodes for 90-120 minutes of gameplay on average every month, what if they charged 2 or 3 dollars for 10 to 12 biweekly episodes at around 45-60 minutes?
Games like Season 1 of Walking Dead had more self contained episodes with a collective plot, whereas other games after have treated their episodic formula as five parts of one story (with quicker pacing) instead of five self contained stories with a larger narrative threading them together.
With their current direction where they are trying to treat their games as literal interactive shows (to the point of emulating the Netflix menu for Batman, New Frontier, and presumably their new games going onward), I think that the new model I proposed could actually be kinda interesting.
A visual, to simplify my idea:
Old Format
Episode Delivery: Episode released every 1 to 2 months
Episode Revision: Produce and Revise Episodes live in production
Total gameplay time on average: 5 Episodes * 1 hour 45 minutes = 7.5 hours priced at $25 ($5 per Episode)
My proposed new format:
Episode Delivery: Episode released every 2 or 3 weeks
Episode Revision: Produce several of the episodes in advance at once, stick to minor revisions if any at all
Total gameplay time on average: 10 Episodes * 45 minutes = 7.5 hours priced at $25 ($2.5 per Episode)
Blind Sniper...you have something there.
As I said above - it also helps with episode pacing issues. With newer games like TWD Season 2, Wolf, onward, they try to frame their stories as a TV show instead of self contained stories - this would help them be able to pace their stories similar to a TV show, while also mitigating complaints of short episodes since that would be expected, while people would still be able to have so many episodes around the typical 5-6 month period.
A 60 minute episode with quick pacing hurts a lot more if you paid $5 to play 1/5th of the Season than it would if you paid $2.50 to play 1/10th or 1/12th of the Season.
The only "downside" would be that Telltale would have to make several of their episodes in advance without rewrites, but in my book, that is not a bad thing as I do not think Telltale should be rewriting or improvising major or substantial parts of the story in live production of a Season.
Yes rewrites hurt the narrative focus of season 2. This would take some planning on their part...always a gamble...I am thinking maybe charging 35 for 5 2 hour plus episodes. I think length is probably being hurt by the fact that costs are rising on engine development and the need for larger teams. You know...they should be open about such things...I think people would understand that if explained.
They could always go Mega-Monkey! (Bonus points if you get that reference.)
Offer the player a choice between a shorter episode or a longer one. Produce the longer episode but cut less important decisions and scenes from the shorter one. That gives an impatient player the opportunity to finish it quickly, and then replay the longer version if interested.
I swear to god if episode 3 is 60 minutes long... Boy, can't wait to see the aftermath of that.
Ugh ...I will cut you for even typing that....god I hope not.
I much prefer the longer episodes. Hated the first 2 TWD: S3 short episodes, lol.