I think skybound have rewrote episode 4.. YES!!! IT'S FOR THE BETTER!!
https://telltale.com/community/discussion/123015/quality-spike-in-episode-4#latest
^ Check out this thread for info
I was a little concerned at first when it became apparent skybound had taken time to rewrite episode 4, as it would be different from telltale's original view, but then I remembered that Adam Douglas was the one who wrote it originally and tbh I'm GLAD skybound have decided to rewrite it.
Not to hate on Adam as I'm sure he was rushed by poor telltale management at the time, but he the lead writer for "From The Gallows" (s3 ep5) and had contributions to the terrible Ep 1 which killed kenny and Jane in poor taste.
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Rude and presumptuous a bit there, don'cha think?
Though who didn't have a contribution to Part 1 of ANF?
Adam helped write Episode 1 of The Final Season, and look how that turned out...
I don't believe that the rewrites are going to affect the Ending, as they have had the same plan for the Ending since November 2017, according to Gary Whitta. So, what we see in Episode 4 may have always been what was planned since it was first pitched and settled on
How is it for the better?
Also Telltale wrote TFS from the ENDING first and worked out the rest. Meaning, Telltale actually outlined how Clementine's story was going to end firstly before even making a single episode.
Good news is Michael Kirkbride said on Reddit that there are no changes or alterations to the script, they are simply tightening and focusing on what they have planned for Episode 4, so there won't be any changes to the Episode 4 script on a major level, nor will the Ending be altered, the most that will be changed is maybe some lines of dialogue or minor stuff
Come on OP. If something were to be rewritten, then it would have been rewritten anyway, because everyone working on it is from Telltale. All Skybound is doing is paying the developers and giving them a place to work in. The project is just resuming. Not only that but Skybound don't have any reason to rewrite.
It was the higher ups who were to blame for ANF. The writers were given very little to work with and to no fault of their own, they had to make the best of what they had at the time, so assuming this guy is a bad writer is honestly arrogant
I'm sorry, but rewrites don't always mean that huge parts of the story were changed. They said they rewrote certain things in ep 4. Those things can range from the complete change of content to merely switching some words out. The obsession of rewrites and how they're always bad in these forums were always a little ... off. There is not a single piece of literature that hasn't been rewritten at some point to some extend.
Telltale' best work had big und even partially documented rewrites, like Borderlands or Wolf and they still turned out excellent.
We don't know how things were originally supposed to turn out in these cases, but I always say that there must always be a reason to change things mid-developement and those guys know their stories better than we do, so who are we to claim that some scrapped concepts are better than the final release we got? We don't know shit.
Of course that's not to say that rewrites are never bad, since we all know at least one game that severely suffered from hefty rewrites due to poor management but these are the exception, not the rule.
So, please don't get immediatly triggered if you read rewrites or rewritten somewhere.
Also about Adam Douglas: I think you're really unfair here. He had bad luck to get involved with a game that was obviously in developement hell. Saying he is a bad writer because of that is pretty shitty. He wrote S3E5? Okay. He also wrote S4E1. So, what now?
That episode's been written by half of all Telltale employees.
this.
Exactly.
About that, S4 EP1 I feel is just a tad overrated from my point of view, or maybe it's just that to me, it wasn't amazing. For example, the missing character development from half the cast - what if that were intentional to give a different vibe to the story than how it had always been in prior Telltale games? Maybe why I don't like it as much as everyone else does is because it's trying to be something else and I should accept that, I should accept the new Clem and AJ and Abel, but man if there's anything I've got to say it's that this doesn't feel like an 18+ game. And with all the swearing it seems like they're mocking how kids swear.
You tell me.
When they say there have been rewrites, we don't know the extent of them. It could be a few, small changes while keeping the overall integrity of the original story, or it could be a large part of the plot. In this case, however, it's far more likely to be the former, rather than the latter due to the limited time and how far along they are in production. The overall ending has probably not changed one bit, it's more likely tiny plot details or revisions to a couple of scenes.
Depending on the circumstances, how they're brought about, and how much time they have to work on them, rewrites can be either good or bad. Both TWAU and TFTBL had some huge rewrites to them, but they were often given a lot of time to hammer out key details in order to fit the new narrative going forward, and those games are often discussed as Telltale's finest games. Something like ANF is an example of rewrites hurting the game, because they were not decided upon by the team, but forced by meddling executives who made them do it with little extra time and resources. As a result, the end product was rushed, created certain plot holes, or left questions or certain plot threads left unanswered, and when they were wrapped up, they felt very disappointing.
You also need to remember that, while this is Skybound making the game, it's still members of the original Telltale TFS staff. While I'm unsure Adam Douglas was one of the people they got back to work on the game after Telltale's closure, I highly doubt they changed his overall script drastically, and that he didn't have some sort of say or voice in the changes that were made to it.
And back onto Adam Douglas, I'll be the first to admit that I have criticized aspects of his writing in the past. However, as time has gone on and we have learned more about the internal climate of Telltale, the culture of the company, and just how bad things really were, I'm not sure we can pin all of the blame for Episode 5's failings on Mr. Douglas. Now I still think his inclusion of David's "A soldier is a soldier" bullshit speech was his doing, and I hold him fully responsible for that, but he wasn't given a hell of a lot to work with thanks to the way the season had been developed. The episode was set up to fail, and it seems like they were just trying to make a halfway decent episode with what little they were given to work with. Even Season Director Kent Mudle expressed his feelings towards ANF in a recent Tumblr post, where he said fans have a right to be disappointed and that the team was made of highly talented people who were given a shit hand from the start and did what they could to make it passable and as enjoyable as possible for the fans. So it's not completely fair to bash Mr. Douglas for everything wrong with From the Gallows, especially when he was either the lead writer or a co-writer for the first two episodes of TFS, and both have turned out exceptionally well.
It's honestly sad that this isn't much of an exaggeration. I've actually fact checked this, but Ties That Bind Pt. 1 had a total of 7 main writers. The first two seasons combined, only had a total of 8 writers. TTB Pt. 1 also had a whopping 10 Additional Writing credits, so overall, that's 17 people that had some sort of writing credit on the first episode of ANF (and since designers also have a had in the writing process of an episode, you can probably throw them in as well). You can't paint a clearer picture of just how many rewrites and changes that episode, and the season as a whole, went through than that.
Goodness, I didn't even consider the additional and supervising writing credits.
That thing must've been broken down, disjointed, and reassembled at least 5 times completely.
i don't know if you remember, but A New Frontier turned out to be the worst season ever because of rewrites.
Because of the management that was at Telltale. Since Pete Hawley came in, product quality rose dramatically. Michael Kirkbride said on Reddit in December that the plot won't be touched, they are just tightening and reviewing everything to make it as excellent as possible for us.
It turned out to be the worst season because of incompetent, abusive, and meddling management that forced rewrites with very little time to work on them, not necessarily because rewrites are bad. As pointed by me and others, games like TWAU and TFTBL turned out amazing, maybe even better, because of their rewrites, which ranges from small to drastic. When given the proper time, resources, and the right circumstances, rewrites can be a good thing.
Rewrites, redo's in general, happen in every form of media, every single day. Very rarely will the first thought that comes to your mind be in the final draft, and even then you might find something you would've liked to change. Remember, in school you were always told to review your work before handing it in, most commonly for spelling and grammar errors, but if you were a diligent student, sometimes you'd even rephrase a line or two just cause it sounded better.
Hell, chances are your favorite story ever had some sort of rewrite, reshoot, redo, redesign, re-something. It wasn't perfect from conception.
Skybound can rewrite episode 4 as many times as they like as long as we don't get a mass effect 3 type ending
S4 EP1 is not overrated at all,it's just a really good episode
but you're right about that,and i already accepted that,that doesn't mean it's bad or anything but yeah it's very different when you compare it to season 2 or 1.
I haven't noticed that at all,i think it's fine.
Eh, somewhat?
I mean, on one hand, it's primary purpose is to introduce the main characters, establish the principal [starting] cast, and set up the main storylines/conflicts; much like All That Remains. And it does that well enough, plus a few neat ancillary stuff.
On the other hand, there were a few comments about how jarring and somewhat sudden the third arc and it's involved characters is. And people are proven to inflate it's supposed quality in comparison and/or spite of A New Frontier.
And either way, it is the first episode, with at least some of what that often means.
Here's Kent's explanation about this.
That episode may have had more writers than the entire Mass Effect Triology, which spanned 60-100+hours. Christ, things were a mess.
Told you guys. We're getting the story that was meant from the beginning.
Kent literally out here preaching to my choir...or I'm preaching to his....nah, my pride says he's preaching to mine. Still, I'm glad he clarified, though he shouldn't have had to. Maybe if they used a different word from the jump it would've been perceived differently. Maybe refering to the rewrites by their drafts would've calmed some minds.