People finally starting to wake up and accept that working on 4 games at once is hurting TWDSeason2?
Clem_is_awesome
Banned
"Third time's a charm" -- What i said a couple of days after beating episode 2. I was so happy knowing that we'll go to a camp, the PERFECT place to have tons of hubs and people to talk to. What made me even more hyped about going to the god damned camp? the fact that all the playable 400 days characters were confirmed in the game files. What did i get instead? Probably the most rushed episode in the history of TWD.
Now i'm seeing a lot of threads popping up with a good amount of thumbs up where people are actually agreeing that the episode felt super rushed and had very poor writing for what we expected.
Now let's talk about the biggest problems with this episode.
My biggest issue with this episode is Carver. From episode 1 we're being hyped about this super bad dude "Carver" going around killing LOTS of people we already know from the past(Roman and the scavengers at the river). Episode 2 trailer comes out and there we have Telltale hyping up this character again, played by Michael Madsen and also putting "Who is Carver?" in their Playing Dead vids and all. They even got Anadel to compose an insanely amazing track just named "Carver". On episode 2 we're told in some parts that Carver is a very intelligent man. We get descriptions like "Clementine and her group learn what it’s like to live under the heel of a leader whose intelligence is rivaled only by his propensity for brutal violence." and that leads us to believe that this guy is some genius mastermind with a really dark agenda that we'll get to see in episode 3. The episode comes out and it turns out he really isn't that smart and that the camp really isn't that safe. Then Carver dies and that's it. He had no character development in the episode. Even Bonnie and Troy had more lines and screen time than him. Super disappointed.
Second issue. 400 days characters. We play the 400 days DLC and we end up loving most of the characters. By the end of it we're left with this cliffhanger that we're going to some community. Tons of speculation and hype start building up as we find out Tavia's community might be Carver's community. SO MANY QUESTIONS START COMING UP. "How are we going to interact with the 400 days characters?" , "Was Tavia's community good from the start? did Carver eventually take over after some time?" ,"Becca will be older, how is she going to interact with Clem? "I can't wait to interact with all my favorite characters from 400 days!". All this twitter hype about "YOU NEED TO PLAY 400 DAYS" then the episode comes out and every single 400 days character has either 1 or 2 lines and they're all assholes now. It's very very unlikely that we'll see them again and i don't even wanna see them again to be honest.
Third problem. Some of the writing. There are tons of stuff left unexplained after Carver's death and it's stuff that will probably never be explained. We didn't know what happened to the people who got shot at the river and the ties they had with Carver. We never got to know who was George and why Alvin killed him. Rebecca's complete change of personality. We're being led to believe that the Cabin Group can't really be trusted and that they're hiding something. It turned out the Cabin Group didn't really have any skeletons in the closet and there really is no reason to believe there will be any more trust issues in episode 4 or 5 since most of the cabin group is dead now. Telltale made a big emphasis on this Luke vs Kenny thing that started in episode 2 but as of now there really is no way that anyone will pick Luke over Kenny after how bad Luke screwed up in episode 3. It's all a mess.
It's clear how this huge workload of working on 4 games at once and the constant switch of writers, directors and designers between all games is hurting season 2's quality. The 90 minute per episode formula just doesn't work for this game.
Don't get me wrong, episode 3 was great by itself but i don't like settling down for something like this knowing that Telltale can do better and has done better in the past with season 1. All i can hope now is that Telltale gets a reality check some day and they go back to working only on Season 3.
Now i'm seeing a lot of threads popping up with a good amount of thumbs up where people are actually agreeing that the episode felt super rushed and had very poor writing for what we expected.
Now let's talk about the biggest problems with this episode.
My biggest issue with this episode is Carver. From episode 1 we're being hyped about this super bad dude "Carver" going around killing LOTS of people we already know from the past(Roman and the scavengers at the river). Episode 2 trailer comes out and there we have Telltale hyping up this character again, played by Michael Madsen and also putting "Who is Carver?" in their Playing Dead vids and all. They even got Anadel to compose an insanely amazing track just named "Carver". On episode 2 we're told in some parts that Carver is a very intelligent man. We get descriptions like "Clementine and her group learn what it’s like to live under the heel of a leader whose intelligence is rivaled only by his propensity for brutal violence." and that leads us to believe that this guy is some genius mastermind with a really dark agenda that we'll get to see in episode 3. The episode comes out and it turns out he really isn't that smart and that the camp really isn't that safe. Then Carver dies and that's it. He had no character development in the episode. Even Bonnie and Troy had more lines and screen time than him. Super disappointed.
Second issue. 400 days characters. We play the 400 days DLC and we end up loving most of the characters. By the end of it we're left with this cliffhanger that we're going to some community. Tons of speculation and hype start building up as we find out Tavia's community might be Carver's community. SO MANY QUESTIONS START COMING UP. "How are we going to interact with the 400 days characters?" , "Was Tavia's community good from the start? did Carver eventually take over after some time?" ,"Becca will be older, how is she going to interact with Clem? "I can't wait to interact with all my favorite characters from 400 days!". All this twitter hype about "YOU NEED TO PLAY 400 DAYS" then the episode comes out and every single 400 days character has either 1 or 2 lines and they're all assholes now. It's very very unlikely that we'll see them again and i don't even wanna see them again to be honest.
Third problem. Some of the writing. There are tons of stuff left unexplained after Carver's death and it's stuff that will probably never be explained. We didn't know what happened to the people who got shot at the river and the ties they had with Carver. We never got to know who was George and why Alvin killed him. Rebecca's complete change of personality. We're being led to believe that the Cabin Group can't really be trusted and that they're hiding something. It turned out the Cabin Group didn't really have any skeletons in the closet and there really is no reason to believe there will be any more trust issues in episode 4 or 5 since most of the cabin group is dead now. Telltale made a big emphasis on this Luke vs Kenny thing that started in episode 2 but as of now there really is no way that anyone will pick Luke over Kenny after how bad Luke screwed up in episode 3. It's all a mess.
It's clear how this huge workload of working on 4 games at once and the constant switch of writers, directors and designers between all games is hurting season 2's quality. The 90 minute per episode formula just doesn't work for this game.
Don't get me wrong, episode 3 was great by itself but i don't like settling down for something like this knowing that Telltale can do better and has done better in the past with season 1. All i can hope now is that Telltale gets a reality check some day and they go back to working only on Season 3.
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the carver thing: disk one final boss. i called this before the episode even came out. for those that don't know what this term means it is a villain set up to be the main villain but dies half way through the story.
In regards to Luke screwing up... I don't blame him. The guy looked a wreck. He was hungry and tired, don't blame him for messing up but it was still a stupid thing to do. And they really, really messed up the 400 Days character portion. Such a terrible, terrible waste. Especially when these guys are renowned for adventure games you'd think it natural to have a part where you walk around and talk to people. Having determinant characters like the 400 Days characters having conversations like that would've been really, really nice. I played 400 Days prior to this episode and now even after playing this I felt like 400 Days was actually completely pointless. And one thing I was really looking forward to was being sassy Clem to Becca. Even one dialogue tree would've been nice towards them but nope, nothing. Just one or two lines and that's it.
And I really hope we do learn more about the group. But now something tells me it's just wishful thinking. Only Luke, Rebecca and Nick remain (if you saved him that is). Honestly, the main thing I've loved about Season Two the most is Clementine's character development and how it's going to go from here, and it still is the main thing I'm looking forward to. But no doubt about it, Telltale need to get back to the drawing board on Episode 4 or at least spend more time on the writing and voice acting. I found Reggie's voice acting rather poor. Everyone else was good, especially Gavin Hammon. He was fantastic in this episode.
Well written Clem_is_awesome. I felt they really wasted all the effort they put into building Carver up by A: making him a fairly simple psychopath leader type dude and B: killing him on the first episode he makes a major appearance. Not to mention the narrative arc feels weird now.
It feels like they switched plots halfway through, like Carver was going to basically be an extremely effective and efficient but sometimes (keyword: SOMETIMES, and only when he feels he has to) brutal dictator, then they just swapped him for a dime a dozen murderous evil despot who likes beating children to maintain order, losing all of our respect for the character instantly.
Not to mention the episode 1:2 disconnect. Episode 1: The Cabin group barely trusts Clem, nearly killed her twice to protect themselves, now we think we have to work on building trust for the future episodes (like in walking dead season 1). Two seemingly big choices occur to dramatically impact our relationships with the group, whether or not we try to manipulate Rebecca, and who we save at the riverbank. Carver is literally the scariest thing on earth (Or is He?): Carver is an unknown quantity at this point, and we don't know if we should be trusting Carver more or the Cabin group, due to a buildup of subtle clues and foreboding warnings from the Cabin survivors, especially since they could be lying. Several well done scenes that are designed basically to hurt our feels (Sam, Clementine doing self surgery).
Episode 2: After pretty much 12 hours since the previous episode, suddenly Carlos and Rebecca like Clem, and with the smallest of apologies from Rebecca, and Carlos apparently forgetting his harassment of the previous night, is now caring and concerned for Clementine. Carver is now being talked down some more, but the more inquisitive of us are wondering how sincere our 'comrades' are, considering Luke forcing Clem to help him on the bridge if you tell him you don't want to go, and Carlos and Rebecca mysteriously having a change of heart, some of us think they could be lying. We meet Kenny, that is adequately done (I wouldn't say well by the Telltale standard). Extras include some dumb puzzles: Put key in hole. Put star on Tree. Woohoo. Carver storms in and Captures the group of 4 able bodied fighters with 4 of his own, taking only one Casualty on offense and killing only one defender/hostage to ensure victory. This more or less paints Carver as an evil, but calculating Villain.
Episode 3: Carver is beating children and murdering the shit out of people for small mistakes, making him an obvious madman. Fake morality choices where we can more or less lie to Carver to satisfy his E-Peen in the hope that we can manipulate him later, that then mean nothing when we jump slam him into the dirt, followed by Kenny's impersonation of Gordon Freeman. New characters and actors get hyped up by Telltale partners (IGN) that only Cameo for one episode (then die), and not even that well. (Check out the other threads about opinons on the actor of the new one armed guy (I don't remember his name FFS, Yet I remember Jane and Mike.). 400 days characters that are determinant (i.e. Not Bonnie) have the barest of cameos despite massive hype generation by Telltale.
What the author of this thread said earlier about Carver's camp being shit really needs to be stressed again: the camp was really, really not safe between Walker break ins and Carver murderising people, making it a no brainer decision to get out of there instead of getting to know the camp (which of course we couldn't).
TL:DR: Rebecca-Carlos Characterisation change without warning, Carver's simplification as a villain.
Episode was pretty good in my opinion: it just could have been so much better.
Ep3 had very little up until the final 5 minutes, which is agonizing when remembering how much care TTG put into the other scenes in the previous episodes. I'm going to call it here, "In Harm's Way" is going to be the "Around Every Corner" of Season 2. They put too much focus on a locale instead of the characters, Crawford in S1E4, and once again with Howe's Hardwares in S2E3.
Its pathetic enough that they take on two new series, when they already have problems releasing episodes on time.
They need to pick a series and stick with it. Taking on two many projects at once is going to cause a drop in quality and they will regret it eventually. They will be reduced again to a "Budget" studio they once were, known for those awful Jurrasic Park and CSI games.
Who thinks writer changes are hurting the series?:
I personally think that these weird switches in characterisation of Carlos, Rebecca, and Carver can be attributed to it.
It felt More or less like the second or third author was like: 'Oh shit: he wrote us into a corner, we don't know how exactly he was thinking or what he had planned, quick, change the characterization to fit!'
While it could be true that the first author simply lacked foresight, I think he made something truly complex in the first episode, but still workable to a satisfying Telltale conclusion (I.E: Character development.)
It could also be that the writers are writing while in the same mindset as the first three episodes of the walking dead season one, which took place with up to two months in between each episode, allowing for characters to have changes in characterization (even if subtle and based off of your choices) over these unseen break periods.
That or the writers just realized how hard it is to empathize with people unwilling to empathize with Clementine.
Compared to season one where we could empathize with Larry because we were Lee, and although he didn't empathize with us, he did empathize with her, so we could empathize with him.
Alright I'm done spamming the word empathize,
Still, I really did enjoy this episode, even though it was short. Plus I loved the moment where Clem pounced on Carver. :3 So this where I could say, Clem got the "jump" on Carver. *wink* *wink*
I worry that if it gets too much, Telltale will drop a series, or the quality will severely lack.
And I feel we won't see the others again. Telltale will probably say Shel, Becca and the others died during the walker attack.
Compare that to Walter: 20 minute Cameo: instant fan hit. Dies in the same episode. We get to know Walter so much in that episode, hence why we like him, and we were sad and angry to see him die. We have yet to have that opportunity with many dead group members now, Alvin, Carlos, Potentially Nick, but yet now we will never.
I don't know why, but Telltale got me way more attached to the season one characters somehow, I felt like I knew all of them, even the ones I didn't get along with (for me it was Lilly and Larry, I really liked Kenny simply because our goals aligned from the start: Protect the children). As a result I was much sadder to see them go, even Ben, and especially Chuck and Kenny and his family.
I'm pretty sure it was the hub areas though, where we got to talk to each character individually and see how they were doing, which allowed us to monitor the development of every character as the narrative progressed, and maybe help them with a personal problem or have them unexpectedly help us with one of our dilemmas. Basically allowed us to get to know the characters at our own pace, and only if we chose, since we could just ignore and stay away from Larry for example if we wanted to.
Anyway that's my 5 cents. Some big caps lock stuff for people in a hurry/wanting a summary:
TL:DR:ANY/MORE HUB AREAS=BETTER CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT.
CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT IN A CHARACTER BASED DRAMA =PRETTY DAMN VITAL AND BECOMES MORE GLARING AS THE SERIES PROGRESSES.
(spoiler pic)
i.imgur.com/flpXNU2.jpg
And now Borderlands and Game of Thrones are toppling them of too. Two projects was bad enough but four? Jesus are you fucking kidding me...
400 days was well worth my money. I was able to see those characters again, with a hint that they'll be even more important in the future, and I understand all of their backgrounds. I would've loved the plot direction to somehow involve us working with Carver's team or getting to know them at least (such as us staying in one place for more than one episode).
I'm not sure if other games are distracting the developer. Power to them. If anything they should be motivated to hire more people. Eventually another development studio will realize the simple formula of Telltale's awesome success and try to replicate it. I'd love to see more games follow the style of TWD. (point click, character focused, episodic, etc). This is a rule of economics. Either Telltale will speed up their process or others will replicate it and cut into that profit.