Confusing quality...

edited November 2012 in The Walking Dead
Am I missing something or what. In the film and television business. The quality of production gets increased as to reflect the success of the first installment.

In this installment. We see a fairly complete a nice looking first product. Keep in mind the story aside is pretty complete and solid. I'm talking game quality.

Specifically twitchy scene cuts, to confusing/ bad animation. Lets not forget disappearing characters in scene. To top that. The long and acquired pauses between emotional lines. Also the switching to everyone's face after something happens.

After playing through episode I was excited for II. Now on IIII it's really hard not scream at the super reduced quality. It's almost like you don't care and you think we'er all stupid animals that can't tell the difference.

Now with one more episode to got. I keep thinking. I should bear through this just so I can say. "What ever you do. Don't hire that company to make your new product."

How about stepping back up to episode I quality for the finish line.

G

Comments

  • edited November 2012
    I actually think the quality improved in some areas (art design, character modeling, etc), but as far as having issues with the tech I agree. See my link to my thread I just posted: http://www.telltalegames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=39480
  • edited November 2012
    quality vs time debate. do you want the product now so you can play it or do you want good quality and get the game 3 or 4 months down the line per episode? a lot of people want the next episodes now so cuts in something have to be made do meet demand. if this had been planned to be released in full at a unknown date they would have as much time to put what they want in it. however people would complain that its taken so long to complete like how people are complaining about bioshock's push backs. in the end it will be awesome and bug free however most people don't appreciate this and will still complain that it took so long. so in the end you tend to the majority of people that want it now.
  • edited November 2012
    Okay, my original attempt to reply was way too long. Video games and television are completely different. A TV series can change anything it wants between episodes, but a game can only change between [full] releases. Furthermore, Telltale always uses the same engine for everything, leaving very little room for an overhaul in mechanics.

    What Telltale needs is a bigger quality control center. Their staff is too small to catch the bugs that have gotten through or to help with those problems after they've already hit the market. I don't know when they can do that, but I hope it's one of their priorities.

    With everything else you said (focusing on characters faces, pauses between lines), it sounds like you're less talking about quality and more about direction. Directing doesn't change with budget. I don't think there's anything weird or jarring about the way scenes play out. But you might want to talk about direction specifically if you think it's effecting the tone of the game. You might find others who agree.
  • edited November 2012
    also depends on what your system specs are if using a pc..

    no matter the age of the pc if the spec isn't better than the minmum requirements the games gonna suffer.
  • edited November 2012
    Yeah, I'm one who thinks that the quality got better, especially when I seen ep. 4 (which visually looked better than the previous installments). I've been lucky not to have seen a lot of bugs during my play through, the first one I remember getting was on the train during ep.3. I believe the pauses between speeches could have something to do with the multiple choices players can choose and the game having to find and adapt those choices to the players story being created. I've only played the game on a console, PS3.
  • edited November 2012
    The quality get better with each installment. But there are some problems that can only be fixed with an engine upgrade.
    Telltale has been using the same engine for years now. They improve it bit by bit, but it's still the same tech.
    I remember when I played Back To The Future's first episode on PS3, the graphics were pretty bad, it was very washed out with no anti aliasing.
    Then episode 2 came and everything was improved. I was pretty impressed. You can clearly see it.

    The same thing can be seen across Sam & Max Episodes.
    They learn with their mistakes and fix it in future releases.
    That's what a good company should always do.

    The Walking Dead has been using the engine at it's finest. The best version of the engine since the beggining of the company.
    They fix some bugs here and there, but I don't see it getting any better than this.
    Some bugs will still remain though. Uou can see some of the same bugs on all TT Games if you played them all like me, so you end up getting used to it.
    That's why you can't see graphical improvements between Walking Dead episodes, because there is nothing more to get better at. At least for now. Making any more improvements would require a lot of coding behind the engine and you can expect that for Season 2 I'm sure.

    I've been a Telltale fan since the begging and I know what they are capable of.
    If you don't like the engine then go play other games, nobody is stopping you.

    Have a great weekend. ;)
  • edited November 2012
    Cod is a great example of game that is populer with the angry children. But the game engine hasent been inproved in ages even though they most likely have more than enough money.
  • edited November 2012
    I think the game's just fine. I'm here to give you some advice. Use commas.
  • edited November 2012
    im pretty sure they stuck with these kind of graphics and engine because it gave kind of a comic book look to it, which i think was their intention. As for emotional parts and directing, i think its sorta at the same level as it has been. like Aeons said, youre thinking more towards directing rather than graphics.
  • edited November 2012
    Yeah maybe it is the PS3. After getting through ep4, it's noticeably better. Thanks for the comments and thoughts.
  • edited November 2012
    I disagree. Television show pilots usually have a bigger budget than the normal episodes. Even the Walking Dead tv show. The budget for the first season was much larger than the 2. Also more time was spent on episode 1 than the rest of the episodes, much like in television much more time is spent on the 1st couple of EPs at the start of the season than the later episodes.
  • edited November 2012
    I agree with you about the bugs, they have gotten out of hand. Besides the personal experience of having to replay all three of my saves after they were wiped, now we're seeing major youtube commentators running into problems. (Tobuscus has had game breaking issues twice, this latest switched some of his choices like Carley and Doug..)

    quality in terms of facial animation, movement, I have nothing but good things to say about. There are hiccups but it's not game breaking. It's endearing and the little emotions characters show based off what you say is brilliant!
This discussion has been closed.