Season 2 and You: My Friendly rundown of info for newer TTG fans confused about S2 News/Telltale
Blind Sniper
Moderator
As a fan of Telltale prior to Walking Dead, I decided to take the liberty of writing up a friendly explanation to newer fans about the ins and outs of why things are the way they are regarding Season 2 from the perspective of a more cultured Telltale fan. I posted this in the sticky thread, but decided to make a new thread so more would read it. Below, I have attempted to constructively do something about newer Telltale fans getting antsy for Season 2 news, while also listing some facts/explanations about how things aren't as bleak as they seem.
It's quite a long story as you can see below, but I attempted to sum up to new fans why Telltale are doing things the way they are and why older fans insist Walking Dead is the primary focus of Telltale even in the current lack of Season 2 news. I hope my Reader's Digest clears up the confusion for newer fans and explains to you all how Telltale is strongly focusing on Walking Dead even though we don't have news right now.
Telltale, Season 2, and YOU! - A Reader's Digest Summary by yours truly, Blind Sniper
It is reasonable that as new fans that your main concern is Walking Dead Season 2 news and that you are not familiar with the inner workings of Telltale. However, having the benefits and knowledge of being more experienced with how Telltale works as an older fan, I can say that Telltale has never the less been giving special attention to us Walking Dead fans. It's reasonable for you guys to only look towards direct signs of Walking Dead Season 2 news, but what you have not seen behind the curtains is that Telltale has already been hard at work incorporating what made Walking Dead successful into the design for their future games and additionally (by their standards) have actually been hard at work on Season 2 all along.
Telltale is not a typical studio with a large budget and time to spare, but rather a small indie studio who has to spend short amounts of time working on episodes. This causes them them to have less luxuries and flexibility in showing early work in progress content or announcing release dates as they usually only find out info or put the finishing touches on content shortly before we receive it.
How Walking Dead has affected Telltale outside of the game itself - Info for Consideration
King's Quest, a game towards Telltale's older point and click puzzle adventure fan base that was announced in 2011 alongside Wolf Among Us and Walking Dead Season 1, was discretely canceled to make room for Walking Dead Season 2. Fans of the game felt rejected that Telltale canceled one new franchise to make a sequel to another, and some are disappointed as a result.
Wolf Among Us was supposed to be released in Q1 2012 but was delayed twice due to the immense popularity of the Walking Dead in order to add Walking Dead inspired gameplay to Wolf.
Despite the lack of a Walking Dead character in Poker Night 2, Walking Dead still had prominent influence in the game. The premiere trailer was centered around a Walking Dead cameo gag in order to get more attention by association with Walking Dead in the trailer, and the characters in game cracked Walking Dead themed jokes and references. The developers even mentioned they had to can Walking Dead themed unlockable content for Poker Night 2 due to time constraints.
On top of all that, Telltale announced Season 2 of Walking Dead before Episode 2 of Season 1 even released. It was practically unheard of for a game by Telltale to have a second season planned so soon. Sam and Max was the only other series to get more than one season, but even then that was back in the early days of Telltale when they were far less occupied with several games at once. At that time, they needed to convince people that episodic gaming could be done right in the first place so they could make games based off of other franchises and gain a reputation.
400 Days was the first DLC content for Telltale which was fueled out of popularity for the series. Prior to this, seasons were complete after the last episode and DLC or Bonus Episodes were unheard of.
Telltale and the Production of Season 2 - General Timeframes
Even by Telltale's quick episodic standards, keep in mind they only finished Walking Dead Season 1 last November, which was when they halted work on it excluding ports of the game and 400 Days. According to various interviews, Telltale's Seasons typically take 6-7 months of setting up the framework for a game, and afterwards they spend a few months on each episode by having different parts of the team work on different episodes. Irregardless of whether of not the game is a sequel, Telltale still has to spend time improving their engine, creating new assets, fixing bugs, adding improvements, etc.
(Don't worry, Telltale frequently states they have multiple teams working on different games; It's safe to assume work on Walking Dead Season 2 is not being slowed down by other games.)
Wrapping it up
It's easily forgivable to not know where to look (outside of direct Walking Dead news) to see how Telltale is bending over backwards by their standards to give us Walking Dead fans as much as we can, but whenever a fan of Telltale even before Walking Dead like me tries to explain this, we are faced with either typing out long bodies of text like this that fully explain how Telltale actually is bending over backwards for Walking Dead fans afterall, or giving the Reader's Digest version and simply stating that Telltale is focusing on you all without giving proof. Since the backstory and proof are quite long, most people give the short explanation with no proof, hence getting labeled as jealous fanboys.
TL;DR It may not seem like it since you have not directly received Season 2 news yet, but rest assured Telltale actually is bending over backwards to appeal to us Walking Dead fans; just in ways that you can't see unless you look behind the curtains as a Telltale fan and look elsewhere outside of waiting for Season 2 news. The above paragraph gives proof, or if you don't want to read, you can take my word for it.
Forgive those outside of the Walking Dead fan base for being rude to you guys. It's not that more cultured Telltale fans are purposely rude, but it's kind of an unfortunate situation when we are faced with either typing out a long winded explanation (as seen above) or just giving the basic explanation which tends to be ignored and retorted with accusations of being jealous.
Comments
What a great way to put it!
I agree. Thank you so much for this, very useful
I am currently in that phase where I am obsessed with the show and the game, but I understand how hard at work they are.
There's no rush in finishing the game. I just hope they themselves give an announcement or an update of how things are. It sorta satisfies my yearning for season 2. Heck, I wouldn't even mind if they announce tomorrow that the release of the next season will be pushed to one more year if it means they'll perfect the story and everything else about the game.
Awesome, I'm glad this got it's own thread instead being lost in that other one.
Nice job.
Still, a screenshot or two would once a month would definitely whet some appetites, though. The story matters (sorry AMC) with a game like this maybe more so than any other game, and to perfect it, have it stick to the universe, be approved by Kirkman, not mess up anything with the insanely popular tv show, and - oh yeah - not piss us fans off, all have to be handled accordingly.
My experience with TTG is limited to TWD although TWAU is tempting to me. However, my overall opinion is that they could use just a little more PR - they are little too tight lipped about their work. Like I said, a new screenshot here or there would satiate all but the most difficult of fans.
Great post, though.
clapping Well put Sniper. Now if all the people who regularly complain would read this and actually absorb what you wrote here, maybe we wont have to constantly be reading comments that are only complaining. Again, AWESOME JOB Sniper!!!!!