True, but Telltale is a small company, and these thing can cause a lot of damage in the games they are making (Like Twd s2). I mean almost the entire game community looked at them like supreme story writers & they won so many GOTY awards, now their storytelling, design is going back to the style of games like "Puzzle Agent" simple, and if you think through out the whole story, just confusing (I even watched TftB and Minecraft SM, and the pacing is awful).
They (managers or whoever is in charge of giving tasks) seriously need to see if there are some passionate employees that want to work on something that they want. People can see that.
I'm suprised how they even managed to make the TWD at all.
Hmm, well, the sum up at the end made it seem like thats what the general takeaway was. Another reason to complain about the games. I person… moreally think fans know a little bit too much about what's going on behind the scenes. If all this is true, then its pretty unfortunate, but a lot of office environments have horror stories posted by disgruntled employees, Im sure.
I knew something was up playing twd s2 felt rushed and story was bit of a mess they cut out so much gameplay too. With so many games now oxenfree, until dawn, LIS, new quantic dream coming out telltale cannot force schedules over quality of games the market to full of these stories games to get that arrogant. They make so much profit so to hear of these work conditions is a disgrace no excuse for this. They need to wake up and treat workers better it will make better games so more profit it's the smart thing to do
I knew something was up playing twd s2 felt rushed and story was bit of a mess they cut out so much gameplay too.
I'm probably beating a dead horse at this point, but things like shorter episodes and the removal of puzzles aren't limitations from Telltale working on more games. They made changes like that because they want people to think of their games like interactive stories that they can play in one sitting ever since Walking Dead: Season 1 validated those design choices in their eyes. They have said that they think puzzles will confuse the modern audience and ruin pacing, and as for shorter episodes, they explained they wanted people to play episodes in one sitting, although they have thankfully since gone back to making slightly longer episodes.
When I say "modern audience," I don't mean everyone who came on after Walking Dead: Season 1 - I mean everybody who came during Walking Dead: Season 1, and I'm noting that because when I explained this to people in the past, they sometimes act like Telltale betrayed them and that it was everybody who came after Season 1 who is a "modern fan" that Telltale made these changes to cater to in order to simplify the games. People like to think that Walking Dead: Season 1 was catered to "core gamers," but in Telltale's eyes, they had this thought process even during Walking Dead: Season 1.
This is a process Telltale has undergone since Back to the Future, Jurassic Park, and Walking Dead: Season 1. This is not a new change that started for Wolf, Walking Dead: Season 2, and everything since. If you only have played a Telltale game or liked them any time during or after Walking Dead: Season 1, then they would consider you part of the modern audience that gave them encouragement to leave out puzzles, hubs, etc, since they most likely think their older games were not successful as Walking Dead - at least, in part - because they had too many puzzles/hubs/etc that got in the way of the story.
I think we just like the story, role-playing parts of the games more than the classic puzzle parts. Sometimes the puzzles are just to obtuse and frustrating. We started focus more on the story side and people seemed to like it!
Early series like Sam & Max Save the World and Tales of Monkey Island felt a lot like those classic adventure games, humorous adventures with lots of puzzles to solve and witty dialogue to navigate. As Dennis Lenart, director for season two of The Walking Dead puts it, they were often aiming to stimulate the player's brain with challenging puzzles. That finally changed in 2012 with the first season of The Walking Dead.
"With The Walking Dead, one of the reasons it’s been so successful is because we focus less on the head and just aim straight for people’s hearts," Lenart explains.
I knew something was up playing twd s2 felt rushed and story was bit of a mess they cut out so much gameplay too. With so many games now oxe… morenfree, until dawn, LIS, new quantic dream coming out telltale cannot force schedules over quality of games the market to full of these stories games to get that arrogant. They make so much profit so to hear of these work conditions is a disgrace no excuse for this. They need to wake up and treat workers better it will make better games so more profit it's the smart thing to do
Might explain why multiple people have left the company also this may be unrelated, but telltale really needs to make a new game engine. That would probably help
Is it really a good idea for them to be making so many games if this is what comes of it? I remember that tweet Job made on how they put their blood, sweat and tears into the finale of Tales from the Borderlands, and now I dread to think what else if these reviews are true.
I actually feel bad for being so sour over Season 2 now. I had no idea this was going on, or if it still is. Deadlines, stress, I don't care what the excuses are, they have got be more organized so that there aren't problems like those reviews mention, and treat their employees better. I just hope that's the case now or they're working towards that.
I knew something was up playing twd s2 felt rushed and story was bit of a mess they cut out so much gameplay too. With so many games now oxe… morenfree, until dawn, LIS, new quantic dream coming out telltale cannot force schedules over quality of games the market to full of these stories games to get that arrogant. They make so much profit so to hear of these work conditions is a disgrace no excuse for this. They need to wake up and treat workers better it will make better games so more profit it's the smart thing to do
Might explain why multiple people have left the company also this may be unrelated, but telltale really needs to make a new game engine. That would probably help
Yeah, here's a fine example of why you shouldn't just stick to updating an engine for several years.
I mean, the game itself is already pretty mediocre on PC, but these 2 ports, especially the 360 version, just make the experience even worse. The horrible screen tearing, the framerate drops, the ugly graphics and textre loading problems, and worst of all, the fucking load times, in spite of there being several btter looking and performing multiplat games on these 2. It's what you get for either using an updated version of Unreal Engine 1 or 2. I'm not sure which, because after 3D Realms scrapped their work on the Quake 2 engine, is when the project became mess.
Might explain why multiple people have left the company also this may be unrelated, but telltale really needs to make a new game engine. That would probably help
License one then? Surely there must be some affordable yet more capable engines that TT could license. I think they can even get that engine's dev to give them some instructions if necessary? At least I think remember reading something about KH3's team getting some help from Epic Games, when they started moving over their assets from Luminous to UE4.
They would lose some profits from licensing engines instead of using their own engine. That might sound like a minor concern, but Telltale's games are both sold and produced cheaper than your typical large release, so it would be a bigger loss for Telltale than it would be for a typical studio selling a large title for full price.
License one then? Surely there must be some affordable yet more capable engines that TT could license. I think they can even get that engine… more's dev to give them some instructions if necessary? At least I think remember reading something about KH3's team getting some help from Epic Games, when they started moving over their assets from Luminous to UE4.
Yeah that's true. Creating a brand new engine would probably also require a decent budget, if they want it to be a nice uprgrade over the previous one. Either would be better than sticking with the current one. I'd say the current one could be the main reason why their games perform pretty poorly on both 7th and 8th gen consoles. I think the higher costs in AAA have to do with things like marketting and also the scope of the project, plus the tech used in the game. Facial capture, motion capture, etc. I believe they all add to the cost of a game, don't they? Wouldn't TT maintaining the same art styles their current games have with some improvements, plus programmers having less difficulty porting the game to other platforms, due to the engine having been created with support for them since the beginning help with costs?
I mean, the Tool probably didn't have native support for the PS3 and Xbox 360, considering it was created before those 2, right? That could explain stuff such as the bad framerate drops and stuttering, plus general unoptimization. The PS4 version of GoT isn't safe from it either, as it has plenty of stuttering, and at one point in episode 6, it turned into a slideshow. I'm pretty sure nothing is wrong with my PS4, considering every other game runs as it should.
Look at DNF, it looks like garbage on the PS3 and 360, it runs like garbage and the load times are awful. One of the main reasons for this was due to the version of the UE they used not really being compatible with them. I never fully understood if they used UE1 or 2 in the final version. But really, with all the stuff they added througout DNF's long development cycle, the engine is more like a Frankenstein monster.
They would lose some profits from licensing engines instead of using their own engine. That might sound like a minor concern, but Telltale's… more games are both sold and produced cheaper than your typical large release, so it would be a bigger loss for Telltale than it would be for a typical studio selling a large title for full price.
In all honesty, I wouldn't blame it on the engine in DNF's case (it is still part of the problem, but it's not the biggest problem). My working theory is that the quality of a game is halved every time it switches developers, and DNF went through 3 different developers, so yeah, do the math.
Yeah, here's a fine example of why you shouldn't just stick to updating an engine for several years.
I mean, the game itself is alr… moreeady pretty mediocre on PC, but these 2 ports, especially the 360 version, just make the experience even worse. The horrible screen tearing, the framerate drops, the ugly graphics and textre loading problems, and worst of all, the fucking load times, in spite of there being several btter looking and performing multiplat games on these 2. It's what you get for either using an updated version of Unreal Engine 1 or 2. I'm not sure which, because after 3D Realms scrapped their work on the Quake 2 engine, is when the project became mess.
I can't believe over half of these reviews. specially like Jennifer said that literally anyone can leave a review. God, The Walking Dead Season 2 is over can we stop bringing that shit up. Does TFTBL mean nothing to anybody. Clearly they put tons of love into their work.
The engine isn't actually the reason why Telltale's games have low resolutions and don't have a lot of enhancements that modern graphics cards can handle. That's actually a deliberate choice by Telltale, as they support systems as low as possible (such as low end PCs and Macs, iPhones, iPads, and Android devices). That low end bar has been raised in the Telltale Tool over the years (the PCs and second generation iOS devices that could run their early games on the low end of the bar won't play their games now, at least not without serious lags and graphical glitches), as the engine has been upgraded with new graphics capabilities, but it's still fairly low by modern standards as Telltale wants to support as many devices as possible (they've stated many times that iOS is one of their best selling systems, accounting for a quarter of their sales across all platforms, and there have been a lot of bug reports and comments from people with PCs that are at the low end of the minimum requirements, or even below them).
If they switched to something like the latest Unreal Engine, they'd still go for the low end of the graphics capabilities of the engine, as they'd still want to support the low end of the devices on the market to get the biggest market share possible. So, even with the new engine, there wouldn't be any difference visually in their games from those using the Telltale Tool.
Plus, it would actually likely cause their various ports to be more buggy then they already are, since just using an existing engine doesn't mean you can ship it and it will automatically play identically for all platforms without bugs (Arkham Knight's PC port is proof of that). Telltale has over 15 years of experience with their engine, and they still have problems with bugs, especially in the console and mobile ports (and especially in the ports to systems they have never supported before, or only have a short history of supporting, as there is a learning curve with those systems as the developers get used to them). Switching to an engine where the team doesn't have any familiarity would only make these kind of problems worse.
Might explain why multiple people have left the company also this may be unrelated, but telltale really needs to make a new game engine. That would probably help
I wonder if anyone there has considered trying to unionize, or at least fight for better labor conditions. Boss won't like it, but the wors… moret they can do is fire people. Considering the burnout rate, that doesn't seem like a very steep consequence.
This company seems to have poisonous management and executives who are either unwilling or unable to fix the problem. More generally, It seems like video game designers are often overworked, underpaid and generally treated like garbage.
Hmm, well, the sum up at the end made it seem like thats what the general takeaway was. Another reason to complain about the games. I person… moreally think fans know a little bit too much about what's going on behind the scenes. If all this is true, then its pretty unfortunate, but a lot of office environments have horror stories posted by disgruntled employees, Im sure.
The fact that they have over 300 employees and have seemed to have gotten better at release scheduling in recent times, hopefully, will help with crunch time situations.
To be fair, that depends on how those new staff members are being used. If some of the comments from reviews are truthful, then it seems like Telltale is adding a large amount of people to one job on a team instead of finding a way to allow that one job to be handled in a more efficient manner. If that's the case, they might want to consider the Law of Marginal Diminishing Utility:
The law of diminishing marginal productivity shows us that instead of continuing to increase the same input, it might be better to stop at a certain level, increase a different input, or produce an additional or different product or service to maximize profit.
As an example, let’s consider a pizza restaurant that wants to increase profitability. Increasing the amount of cheese (the input) that goes on each pizza can create a more delicious product and sell more pizzas. But at some point, the pizza reaches an optimal cheese level. The amount of cheese must be balanced with the crust thickness, amount of sauce and other pizza toppings, if any. If the restaurant continues to add more cheese to the pizza beyond the optimal level, its sales will decline because customers will not enjoy pizzas that leave them with a mouthful of cheese and little else.
A larger staff size can help, but it matters how they are used. Assigning too many people to one particular job can actually make things less efficient. Instead of adding more people onto a project, revising some of their schedules or processes might help. Continuing to focus solely on adding more people to a certain process doesn’t always help, and can sometimes actually slow down work if too many people are added to an individual process. If those new workers are taking on new (or expanded) roles, that is a good thing, but it isn't a good thing if too many people are taking on one role in a team like some of the reviews have claimed.
Of course, we are only fans looking on the outside in and we aren't staff members that know the full situation, so I'm really just playing armchair business man right now, but that's just food for thought if those reviews are genuine and not exaggerated.
It probably has gotten better there in recent times. The fact that they have over 300 employees and have seemed to have gotten better at rel… moreease scheduling in recent times, hopefully, will help with crunch time situations.
If you look at the website those reviews come from, Glassdoor, rather the website that's linked to the fan fiction writer that has a beef with Telltale, there are more good reviews then there are bad. Note that a lot of the bad reviews are from people that stated they didn't work there very long, which usually isn't a good sign for how things actually are (while some of them are probably genuine, the fact that their stated time at the company is so short does raise some red flags- as some of them might have been people who were fired and left a bad review in spite).
I also just signed up for the site and saw that they let you leave a review for a company without any proof that you actually ever worked for them - tha… [view original content]
[I am only a volunteer Moderator - my opinions are my own]
[Pulls out trusty B.S. degree from Business School of Armchair Analytics] (Hint: The BS does not stand for “Bachelor of Science”, nor does it stand for “Blind Sniper”)
Let’s say, that, rhetorically speaking, these reviews and their criticisms are true. In that case, I would say that it would not hurt for Telltale to evaluate how limitations can actually act to their benefit and encourage them to focus on trying to commit to their planned vision of the story instead of holding back episodes and trading off a predictable work schedule in pursuit of making minor changes from fan feedback. At face value, this whole thing may give off a presumptuous and arrogant vibe as if I could do better, but this is not an attempt at criticism - rather, it is constructive feedback as someone who is first and foremost a passionate fan of Telltale.
Below, I’m going to talk about some important ideas – namely:
Limitations and constraints – Pick the battles worth fighting for, or think outside the box
Paradox of Choice
Committing to your original vision ensures a consistent presentation
The benefits of Limitations
When you first mull on the idea of limitations and benefits being beneficial, it might sound counter intuitive. However, if thought of and applied in the right context, limitations can actually be applied in a beneficial context, causing you to channel your creative ingenuity in certain ways by either causing you to think outside of the box, or by causing you to choose your battles and push harder for the ideas that are worth buckling down on and applying focus to.
For example, let’s take a look at how it worked for various writers:
In 1960, two men made a bet.
There was only $50 on the line, but millions of people would feel the impact of this little wager.
The first man, Bennett Cerf, was the founder of the publishing firm, Random House. The second man was named Theo Geisel, but you probably know him as Dr. Seuss. Cerf proposed the bet and challenged that Dr. Seuss would not be able to write an entertaining children’s book using only 50 different words.
Dr. Seuss took the bet and won. The result was a little book called Green Eggs and Ham. Since publication, Green Eggs and Ham has sold more than 200 million copies, making it the most popular of Seuss’s works and one of the best-selling children’s books in history.
[…]
What Dr. Seuss discovered through this little bet was the power of setting constraints.
Setting limits for yourself — whether that involves the time you have to work out, the money you have to start a business, or the number of words you can use in a book — often delivers better results than “keeping your options open.”
On one end of the extreme, it worked for the whimsical writing of Dr. Seuss. But, on the other end of the extreme, it also worked in conveying soul-crushing anguish in so few words:
For sale; baby shoes. Never worn.
An article I found on Fast Company elaborates on various examples of how limitations can work in one’s favor, with the short story above being one of the examples discussed. I’m not going to quote the article here, but you can read it below, as it talks about this in more detail and makes several excellent points. It’s from the same publication that Telltale fondly recalls being awarded 2014’s ‘Most innovative company in gaming’ from on their Company Info page, so you know it’s written from a publication Telltale respects.
As a matter of fact, limitations have even worked to Telltale’s benefit in the past. As we all know, since Telltale’s games are story based, they are not as intricate or elaborate as a high end retail game in terms of production quality. However, Telltale used this limitation to their advantage and thought outside of the box when deciding how to make their first Season of Walking Dead look. Instead of trying and attempting to make a realistic art style that would have been out of their scope for (what at the time was) a smaller indie studio, they thought outside of the box and created a comic-inspired art style that stood out even more than a muddied, generic, and realistic artstyle would have.
Compare this screenshot from Telltale’s first Season of Walking Dead…
…to Activision’s attempt at Walking Dead having a realistic art style on a budget:
...and similarly, you can look at the art style for games like Wolf Among Us or Game of Thrones too. If that level of clever ingenuity can be applied in giving us amazing art styles, imagine how refined and polished revisions to the story would be if that same level of ingenuity was applied to the writers by placing a limit on what revisions you added.
Paradox of Choice
Remember my B.S. degree I mentioned that I had from the Business School of Armchair Analysis?
Well, turns out that I also have a super cool B.S. Degree in Cognitive Neuroscience from Armchair Analysis as well!
In a nutshell, there is a general paradox that finds: The more choices people have, the less satisfied they are with each potential choice. This is elaborated upon in the quote below:
We’re conditioned to think that more choice is always a good thing, but in the past few years, studies have discovered something called decision fatigue. The research helps explain why decisions are so much harder at the end of a work day and why we’re tempted by the candy in the checkout lane after a marathon grocery trip.
Our cognitive resources are regularly depleted because we’re fighting an uphill battle every day — physically and mentally, both at home and at work.
Going off of the Glassdoor reviews, I am pointing this out in the context of writers and executive staff making revisions to the story.
If you allow yourself to spend an indefinite amount of free time revising the story and cinematic presentation of the game in place of a predictable schedule, you may not feel as satisfied if you constantly are pondering over the possibilities of which revisions to make, or what to add and remove. Going off of what I said earlier, committing to a particular vision of the story from the get-go and forcing the limitation on writers of only allowing minimal revisions can allow writers to push harder and passionately fight for and refine the ideas that they do want to include into the story, which in turn, can allow the ideas that do pass through to be more focused, realized, and polished– adding some strength to the narrative and cinematic presentation of the game in a different manner than responding to fan feedback through script revisions.
Commitment to your original vision ensures a consistent tone and presentation throughout the story
Changes to clarify your original vision or intent are OK – but as a fan, I personally feel that making entire additions or subtractions to the story based on fan feedback might not always be beneficial. Walking Dead: Season 1’s changes to the story were beneficial because those changes were made in the context of clarifying the message you were trying to get across from the start (Examples: trying to make the choice to drop Ben less binary by making Ben screw up more, making Larry more sympathetic, adding Clementine into more scenes with tough choices, etc), whereas it seems that the revisions for newer series are not exclusively being used to clarify the message you originally wanted to across, but rather to outright change or add/subtract to your story from fan feedback in ways that aren’t acting to clarify your original message (such as adding shipping references in Tales from the Borderlands, or allegedly changing various plot elements in Wolf Among Us and Game of Thrones to surprise fans who had beforehand accurately predicted certain plot elements would happen).
These changes can be beneficial and make the story feel tailored to fans, but sometimes, they can also feel abrupt to us, with characters suddenly changing their disposition between episodes, or plot points that were teased in earlier episodes being suddenly dropped without explanation or closure in later episodes (sometimes, these revisions can even contradict plot points or character traits in earlier episodes). Examples can include:
Characters in Walking Dead: Season 2 abruptly changing their disposition between some of the episodes (Rebecca seems to turn around on Clem a lot quicker than what would feel natural to the story in Episode 2, same with Jane in Episode 4)
The “Lucky Bullet” not being used in later episodes of Tales from the Borderlands
Ignoring the “A Bullet Saved is a Bullet Earned” mindset in later episodes with Fiona getting lots of ammo each episode
Tector and his Machine Gun in the Episode previews for Tales from the Borderlands. ‘Nuff said.
In general, the teaser trailer for Wolf Episode 2 seemed to tease lots of interesting plot points that were dropped, as was also the case with the original Episode slide for Episode 3 of Wolf. A particular example of this can be the Bigby/Beast fight, which in the teaser, seemed to have a more natural set-up whereas in the final version of the episode, Beast's appearance feels less natural and a little out of the blue
The tarot cards in the Wolf Among Us seem to be foreshadowing concepts in earlier episodes, but they eventually get dropped in later episodes.
By focusing on a commitment to your initial vision and giving less priority to making minor changes from fan feedback, this could act to Telltale’s benefit in several ways:
Staff will have a more predictable and organized work schedule – this will lead to a higher quality of work if they aren’t “designing scenes before they are made.” By committing to a vision from the start and only allowing for a smaller scale of fan feedback changes, staff would theoretically be allowed to allocate their time to polishing content and improving it instead of spending that same amount of time (allegedly) revising or restarting their work from script revisions and additions. This will also put less stress on the staff.
Additionally, this could give more time for Quality Assurance to catch potential bugs or issues if Telltale commits to a certain vision. QA can also have more time to make sure content is polished on their end if less time is spent with other people revising or starting over on their work.
Fans will be able to enjoy episodes quicker if episodes aren’t held back longer to incorporate fan feedback as much
As a fan (with my ~totally legitimate~ B.S. degree in Armchair Analysis Business Management) , I would recommend sticking to minor revisions that are smaller in scale and easier to implement, like the changes for Walking Dead: Season 1, instead of making entire revisions/additions/subtractions based on fan feedback in the later titles. This will most likely allow for quicker releases, more time being spent on allowing for improved cinematography and production qualities in titles (due to less time being spent on revising work from updated scripts), and more potential time freed up for additional Quality Assurance.
Personally speaking, if I have a choice between…
waiting three to four months for an Episode with the following changes:
Telltale wanted to include references from fan interactions (PRO)
Telltale improved the context a choice was presented in while considering interaction from previous episodes (PRO)
long episode waiting periods (CON)
potential errors and less time for QA because others (allegedly) had to spend time revising/starting over on content (potentially resulting in less polish in some other areas of the presentation too) (CON)
high amounts of stress allegedly being placed on staff (CON)
various plot points teased in earlier episodes being dropped because they don’t fit the new script revisions (Tales from the Borderlands Examples: “A Bullet Saved is a Bullet Earned”, Tector on the machine gun, etc) (Depends on context, but as fans, we do notice odd changes like this)
…or
waiting a few weeks for an Episode while considering the following:
Telltale can’t include revisions or improvements from fan feedback… (CON)
…but, they can stick to their original vision and make only minor changes to fan feedback (Depends on context, but could potentially be PRO)
Without additions/subtractions or revisions to the story, the story will feel more natural without having certain changes feel abrupt (such as a character’s demeanor) (Mostly a PRO, could depend on context)
Predictable schedule (PRO)
Cinematic elements of the game’s presentation and QA will both be more polished without constant revisions taking away from time that could otherwise be spent polishing and refining content behind the scenes (PRO)
Working conditions for staff at Telltale will improve from less stress if their work has a predictable schedule and more time allocated to polishing content instead of revising or starting over (PRO)
…then I would choose the latter option, if all we miss out on are revisions. I can appreciate the lengths Telltale is willing to go through to give us a great episode, but upon evaluating the cost these changes and revisions allegedly come at (if these reviews are truthful), I would be much more comfortable with the latter if it resulted in more predictability for us fans and a better working environment for the staff members at Telltale, in place of the former choice resulting in episode revisions. Even without revisions, I have strong faith that Telltale’s writing will remain at the high quality it has been at for previous titles, and I would be excited to see more predictable releases that were also able to have more polish at the cost of revisions.
I understand that, as a fan, these reviews do not provide the full context and that there are always two sides to every story (usually with the truth lying in the middle ground), but even so, I personally feel concerned with some of these alleged choices behind the scenes if it comes at such a cost to the well being of others who are working on making these games for us. As I said above, this monstrous body of text does not come from a place of criticism or arrogance from thinking I could do better, but rather from a place of concerned and constructive feedback as a fan. Part of what I love about Telltale is how they make an effort to listen to people and give us venues to affect their output as fans, and I hope that those values can be appreciated here as well.
Based on what I've read, it seems like the final game was never going to be any good. The current version was started by 3D Realms and then finished by Tryptich, which consists of former 3DR employees, who had next to no funding. If what I've read was true, the development of the game was a mess at 3DR, mostly thanks to the head of the project, George Broussard. Every time he played a game and found some gameplay element that he liked, he insisted on adding it to DNF. Based on what I've read, they had to start cutting levels and making that ones that would be in the final version shorter, because of the 360 using DVDs and the PS3's RAM, even though the game looks pretty bad and there are several multiplats that look far better and have a bigger scale. The thing regarding the DVDs is also kinda stupid, since some 360 games used 2 discs, but mostly due to FMVs.
Gearbox... I don't really know what they did. I guess they helped with the bug fixing? THe 360 and PS3 ports were handed off to another studio. Seems like the most they did was help with the marketting and put their name on the box.
In all honesty, I wouldn't blame it on the engine in DNF's case (it is still part of the problem, but it's not the biggest problem). My work… moreing theory is that the quality of a game is halved every time it switches developers, and DNF went through 3 different developers, so yeah, do the math.
[I am only a volunteer Moderator - my opinions are my own]
[Pulls out trusty B.S. degree from Business School of Armchair Analytics]
(Hi… morent: The BS does not stand for “Bachelor of Science”, nor does it stand for “Blind Sniper”)
Let’s say, that, rhetorically speaking, these reviews and their criticisms are true. In that case, I would say that it would not hurt for Telltale to evaluate how limitations can actually act to their benefit and encourage them to focus on trying to commit to their planned vision of the story instead of holding back episodes and trading off a predictable work schedule in pursuit of making minor changes from fan feedback. At face value, this whole thing may give off a presumptuous and arrogant vibe as if I could do better, but this is not an attempt at criticism - rather, it is constructive feedback as someone who is first and foremost a passionate fan of Telltale.
Below, I’m going to talk about some important … [view original content]
That is ignoring that Telltale was at less than one hundred people before/during Walking Dead: Season 1, and are currently at over 320 people on top of their games being more simple to produce than a typical video game. People really like to scapegoat Telltale working on more than one project at once.
If these reviews are true and not exaggerated, I personally think Telltale should look into using limitations to their benefit by forcing themselves to limit how many revisions they make from fan feedback so that staff aren't as stressed out, we fans can have a more predictable schedule, and staff can have more time to polish/refine episodes or spend more time for quality assurance if they aren't spending that time beforehand to make revisions that are allegedly burning staff members out.
As counter intuitive as it sounds, forcing limitations onto yourself can actually force you to channel your creativity towards the fewer battles that genuinely are worth fighting for, or limitations can also encourage you to think outside of the box (see the Walking Dead comic art style example).
If they would Work on fewer Games At the Same Time, they wouldn't have to hire more workers And they could've made the Games bigger/better or just a better Performance. And they would have had Time to Update the Engine properly.
That is ignoring that Telltale was at less than one hundred people before/during Walking Dead: Season 1, and are currently at over 320 peopl… moree on top of their games being more simple to produce than a typical video game. People really like to scapegoat Telltale working on more than one project at once.
Doing things like making the games "bigger/better" or having "better performance" or "updating the engine properly" also require more workers. A company sizing up isn't a bad thing, and if anything, is usually a sign of positive growth. However, a lot of it depends on how the additional staff and the overall work is being allocated as well.
If they would Work on fewer Games At the Same Time, they wouldn't have to hire more workers And they could've made the Games bigger/better or just a better Performance. And they would have had Time to Update the Engine properly.
Thats right. And TTG being bigger is good, too. But TTGs "Quantity over Quality" Concept was just a Bad Move. They should've Update the Engine properly to make the Developing a bit easier, before they wanted to work on 4-8 different Games At the Same Time. They should've prepared themselfes better.
Doing things like making the games "bigger/better" or having "better performance" or "updating the engine properly" also require more worker… mores. A company sizing up isn't a bad thing, and if anything, is usually a sign of positive growth. However, a lot of it depends on how the additional staff and the overall work is being allocated as well.
I'll agree with you updating the engine would strongly benefit them in some areas for sure. That being said, doing something big like revamping an entire engine would cost a lot of money - both in terms of the costs of developing/test a new engine (and getting it to run on PC/Mac/Consoles/Mobile/Tablets), and in terms of profits lost from not making a game instead. I'm not entirely defending that mindset, but I'm explaining it from a practical, economic point of view.
Again, I agree that a new engine at some point would probably be beneficial in ways for Telltale.
Thats right. And TTG being bigger is good, too. But TTGs "Quantity over Quality" Concept was just a Bad Move. They should've Update the Engi… morene properly to make the Developing a bit easier, before they wanted to work on 4-8 different Games At the Same Time. They should've prepared themselfes better.
Well, it's more of a Long-term process. But they don't Need a completely New Engine. They just have to improve it to the extent, that it Runs smoothly on Consoles. The Engine in it's current State just can't handle fast cuts between different Camera Angles. And it is very Slow with loading animations And such. These Things Are quite "easy" to fix. (With easy i don't say instantly, But with enough People with good Knowledge on how this Engine works, it wouldn't take that Long). They could try to hide it, by doing more "One-Shots" or by doing less switches between different Camera positions. But that isnt the solution. They could try to put some sorts of longshots of the landscape or something, to give the Engine enough Time to load the animations.
I'll agree with you updating the engine would strongly benefit them in some areas for sure. That being said, doing something big like revamp… moreing an entire engine would cost a lot of money - both in terms of the costs of developing/test a new engine (and getting it to run on PC/Mac/Consoles/Mobile/Tablets), and in terms of profits lost from not making a game instead. I'm not entirely defending that mindset, but I'm explaining it from a practical, economic point of view.
Again, I agree that a new engine at some point would probably be beneficial in ways for Telltale.
I'm not the most technically minded person, with my only programming knowledge coming from RPG Maker and coding a choicescript story, but to my knowledge, companies rarely make a new engine, so I'm glad you clarified that you don't think they need a new one. I mean, the Unreal Engine, for instance, is not a complete revamp for each new release, is it (applies to Unity too)? Rather, the engine has been revamped enough to be considered good enough for a major new release. It's quite irritating really when people say companies need new engines, unless I've been wrong all this time. And I always find it a laugh when people using RPG Maker are told to create their own engine like it's so easy, especially when the people are likely the sole developer. Or that argument is used for the choicescript games/stories. Writers aren't often programmers and well . . . all they want to do is tell an interactive novel/story.
Regardless, my perspective is that if they have something that works, there's no need to build a new engine. That doesn't mean I think they can't/shouldn't update it though when they can. From what I can make out, they're doing that, but just not to the same degree that some people would like. Or not in the areas that people want. Generally, I've found the engine fine myself though. It does what they do well, which is present what are essentially interactive movies. That said, I noticed on Tales from the Borderlands that the notifications suddenly disappeared from episode 4 onwards (not a big deal at all) on the PC, and that character's lips would be moving in MC:SM without any audio on the PS4 (a bigger problem). Basically, it seemed out of sync. I don't know whether console releases are generally fine though, as it's my first time playing a TTG product on them as I normally play on my laptop, and I've only played the 1st two episodes. But it does indicate a few issues/bugs that could use some ironing out. Not sure those are engine problems though. Everything else has generally ran smoothly. Rather, it seems more like a Q&A/testing issue with the problems limited to the individual projects and not the engine itself.
Well, it's more of a Long-term process. But they don't Need a completely New Engine. They just have to improve it to the extent, that it Run… mores smoothly on Consoles. The Engine in it's current State just can't handle fast cuts between different Camera Angles. And it is very Slow with loading animations And such. These Things Are quite "easy" to fix. (With easy i don't say instantly, But with enough People with good Knowledge on how this Engine works, it wouldn't take that Long). They could try to hide it, by doing more "One-Shots" or by doing less switches between different Camera positions. But that isnt the solution. They could try to put some sorts of longshots of the landscape or something, to give the Engine enough Time to load the animations.
It saddens me to my core to hear how awful the people at TT are treated if this is true. These guys are responsible for making the most amazing games I've ever played, but at such a terrible cost. It would certainly explain a lot of things looking back at their games. However, I would not be surprised if this is all made up. Let's just say that some TT fans can be very cruel and extremely harsh for silly reasons.
Thats a good Point. It could Be a Problem of the Q&A, But there Are some scenes in TftBL, where the Game stops for about 5 seconds to load the Next QTEs/animations. And many other TTG have scenes, where it Stops. Lets all Be Honest here: The Telltale Tool is Not optimal in it's current State. But TTG COULD solve this Problem, by releasing the First Episode later, so that they have more Time polishing the Episodes. They're Doing it with TWD: Michonne right now. But i would still hope, that TTG updated the Engine sooner or later. I mean i Heard, that the Telltale Tool has DirectX 8 Support. I mean Thats Pretty old. The Games could run Way smoother, If they updated the Engine with DirectX 10 or Even 12 would Be Nice.
I'm not the most technically minded person, with my only programming knowledge coming from RPG Maker and coding a choicescript story, but to… more my knowledge, companies rarely make a new engine, so I'm glad you clarified that you don't think they need a new one. I mean, the Unreal Engine, for instance, is not a complete revamp for each new release, is it (applies to Unity too)? Rather, the engine has been revamped enough to be considered good enough for a major new release. It's quite irritating really when people say companies need new engines, unless I've been wrong all this time. And I always find it a laugh when people using RPG Maker are told to create their own engine like it's so easy, especially when the people are likely the sole developer. Or that argument is used for the choicescript games/stories. Writers aren't often programmers and well . . . all they want to do is tell an interactive novel/story.
Regardless, my perspective is t… [view original content]
It's possible, but you have no real proof of that. I feel like you're begging the question, while a lot of the reviews show some consistenc… morey in content, the writing structure is all over the place. That would suggest different people complaining about a lot of the same problems. So either one person engaged in a clever, overly complicated plan to smear telltale on some website (accomplishing nothing) or these are real people with real problems. Occam's Razor makes it overwhelmingly likely these are probably real.
Now, there are more positive reviews on Glassdoor and some of them comment that a lot of these issues are improving, and maybe some of this is just from a handful of disgruntled employees, but clearly, there are some problems in management. Let's just say these aren't the only negative reviews, either.
And I hate to say it but they explain a lot, too. Likely, a part of this is growing pains. They've had huge expansion and are trying to deal with it. But my sympathies go out to these employees.
[I am only a volunteer Moderator - my opinions are my own]
[Pulls out trusty B.S. degree from Business School of Armchair Analytics]
(Hi… morent: The BS does not stand for “Bachelor of Science”, nor does it stand for “Blind Sniper”)
Let’s say, that, rhetorically speaking, these reviews and their criticisms are true. In that case, I would say that it would not hurt for Telltale to evaluate how limitations can actually act to their benefit and encourage them to focus on trying to commit to their planned vision of the story instead of holding back episodes and trading off a predictable work schedule in pursuit of making minor changes from fan feedback. At face value, this whole thing may give off a presumptuous and arrogant vibe as if I could do better, but this is not an attempt at criticism - rather, it is constructive feedback as someone who is first and foremost a passionate fan of Telltale.
Below, I’m going to talk about some important … [view original content]
Yeah, here's a fine example of why you shouldn't just stick to updating an engine for several years.
I mean, the game itself is alr… moreeady pretty mediocre on PC, but these 2 ports, especially the 360 version, just make the experience even worse. The horrible screen tearing, the framerate drops, the ugly graphics and textre loading problems, and worst of all, the fucking load times, in spite of there being several btter looking and performing multiplat games on these 2. It's what you get for either using an updated version of Unreal Engine 1 or 2. I'm not sure which, because after 3D Realms scrapped their work on the Quake 2 engine, is when the project became mess.
Telltale have made the best games I've ever played but the way the staff are treated is horrible although who is to say that rival companies could write these reviews to try and sham others
Telltale have made the best games I've ever played but the way the staff are treated is horrible although who is to say that rival companies could write these reviews to try and sham others
There's a huge amount of commodity fetishism in the video game industry. I think it might be part of the reason companies can get away with treating their workers like crap.
Good games are so engrossing they almost "take on a life of there own" and thus consumers (us) rarely consider the labor and exploitation that went into creating them.
There's a huge amount of commodity fetishism in the video game industry. I think it might be part of the reason companies can get away with… more treating their workers like crap.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Is8aN0-wTrQ
Good games are so engrossing they almost "take on a life of there own" and thus consumers (us) rarely consider the labor and exploitation that went into creating them.
Comments
True, but Telltale is a small company, and these thing can cause a lot of damage in the games they are making (Like Twd s2). I mean almost the entire game community looked at them like supreme story writers & they won so many GOTY awards, now their storytelling, design is going back to the style of games like "Puzzle Agent" simple, and if you think through out the whole story, just confusing (I even watched TftB and Minecraft SM, and the pacing is awful).
They (managers or whoever is in charge of giving tasks) seriously need to see if there are some passionate employees that want to work on something that they want. People can see that.
I'm suprised how they even managed to make the TWD at all.
That does explain a lot.
I knew something was up playing twd s2 felt rushed and story was bit of a mess they cut out so much gameplay too. With so many games now oxenfree, until dawn, LIS, new quantic dream coming out telltale cannot force schedules over quality of games the market to full of these stories games to get that arrogant. They make so much profit so to hear of these work conditions is a disgrace no excuse for this. They need to wake up and treat workers better it will make better games so more profit it's the smart thing to do
I'm probably beating a dead horse at this point, but things like shorter episodes and the removal of puzzles aren't limitations from Telltale working on more games. They made changes like that because they want people to think of their games like interactive stories that they can play in one sitting ever since Walking Dead: Season 1 validated those design choices in their eyes. They have said that they think puzzles will confuse the modern audience and ruin pacing, and as for shorter episodes, they explained they wanted people to play episodes in one sitting, although they have thankfully since gone back to making slightly longer episodes.
When I say "modern audience," I don't mean everyone who came on after Walking Dead: Season 1 - I mean everybody who came during Walking Dead: Season 1, and I'm noting that because when I explained this to people in the past, they sometimes act like Telltale betrayed them and that it was everybody who came after Season 1 who is a "modern fan" that Telltale made these changes to cater to in order to simplify the games. People like to think that Walking Dead: Season 1 was catered to "core gamers," but in Telltale's eyes, they had this thought process even during Walking Dead: Season 1.
This is a process Telltale has undergone since Back to the Future, Jurassic Park, and Walking Dead: Season 1. This is not a new change that started for Wolf, Walking Dead: Season 2, and everything since. If you only have played a Telltale game or liked them any time during or after Walking Dead: Season 1, then they would consider you part of the modern audience that gave them encouragement to leave out puzzles, hubs, etc, since they most likely think their older games were not successful as Walking Dead - at least, in part - because they had too many puzzles/hubs/etc that got in the way of the story.
Fan asks why they moved away from puzzles in their games in Minecraft: Story Mode Reddit AMA:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Minecraft/comments/3ow502/were_telltale_games_makers_of_minecraft_story/cw10ql0
Article: How Walking Dead turned Telltale into the HBO of Gaming:
http://www.theverge.com/2013/12/10/5193494/how-the-walking-dead-turned-telltale-into-the-hbo-of-gaming
Might explain why multiple people have left the company also this may be unrelated, but telltale really needs to make a new game engine. That would probably help
Is it really a good idea for them to be making so many games if this is what comes of it? I remember that tweet Job made on how they put their blood, sweat and tears into the finale of Tales from the Borderlands, and now I dread to think what else if these reviews are true.
I actually feel bad for being so sour over Season 2 now. I had no idea this was going on, or if it still is. Deadlines, stress, I don't care what the excuses are, they have got be more organized so that there aren't problems like those reviews mention, and treat their employees better. I just hope that's the case now or they're working towards that.
I agree a new engine would probably help in some parts, but keep in mind that making a new engine from scratch is much easier said than done.
Yeah, here's a fine example of why you shouldn't just stick to updating an engine for several years.
I mean, the game itself is already pretty mediocre on PC, but these 2 ports, especially the 360 version, just make the experience even worse. The horrible screen tearing, the framerate drops, the ugly graphics and textre loading problems, and worst of all, the fucking load times, in spite of there being several btter looking and performing multiplat games on these 2. It's what you get for either using an updated version of Unreal Engine 1 or 2. I'm not sure which, because after 3D Realms scrapped their work on the Quake 2 engine, is when the project became mess.
License one then? Surely there must be some affordable yet more capable engines that TT could license. I think they can even get that engine's dev to give them some instructions if necessary? At least I think remember reading something about KH3's team getting some help from Epic Games, when they started moving over their assets from Luminous to UE4.
They would lose some profits from licensing engines instead of using their own engine. That might sound like a minor concern, but Telltale's games are both sold and produced cheaper than your typical large release, so it would be a bigger loss for Telltale than it would be for a typical studio selling a large title for full price.
Yeah that's true. Creating a brand new engine would probably also require a decent budget, if they want it to be a nice uprgrade over the previous one. Either would be better than sticking with the current one. I'd say the current one could be the main reason why their games perform pretty poorly on both 7th and 8th gen consoles. I think the higher costs in AAA have to do with things like marketting and also the scope of the project, plus the tech used in the game. Facial capture, motion capture, etc. I believe they all add to the cost of a game, don't they? Wouldn't TT maintaining the same art styles their current games have with some improvements, plus programmers having less difficulty porting the game to other platforms, due to the engine having been created with support for them since the beginning help with costs?
I mean, the Tool probably didn't have native support for the PS3 and Xbox 360, considering it was created before those 2, right? That could explain stuff such as the bad framerate drops and stuttering, plus general unoptimization. The PS4 version of GoT isn't safe from it either, as it has plenty of stuttering, and at one point in episode 6, it turned into a slideshow. I'm pretty sure nothing is wrong with my PS4, considering every other game runs as it should.
Look at DNF, it looks like garbage on the PS3 and 360, it runs like garbage and the load times are awful. One of the main reasons for this was due to the version of the UE they used not really being compatible with them. I never fully understood if they used UE1 or 2 in the final version. But really, with all the stuff they added througout DNF's long development cycle, the engine is more like a Frankenstein monster.
In all honesty, I wouldn't blame it on the engine in DNF's case (it is still part of the problem, but it's not the biggest problem). My working theory is that the quality of a game is halved every time it switches developers, and DNF went through 3 different developers, so yeah, do the math.
I can't believe over half of these reviews. specially like Jennifer said that literally anyone can leave a review. God, The Walking Dead Season 2 is over can we stop bringing that shit up. Does TFTBL mean nothing to anybody. Clearly they put tons of love into their work.
The engine isn't actually the reason why Telltale's games have low resolutions and don't have a lot of enhancements that modern graphics cards can handle. That's actually a deliberate choice by Telltale, as they support systems as low as possible (such as low end PCs and Macs, iPhones, iPads, and Android devices). That low end bar has been raised in the Telltale Tool over the years (the PCs and second generation iOS devices that could run their early games on the low end of the bar won't play their games now, at least not without serious lags and graphical glitches), as the engine has been upgraded with new graphics capabilities, but it's still fairly low by modern standards as Telltale wants to support as many devices as possible (they've stated many times that iOS is one of their best selling systems, accounting for a quarter of their sales across all platforms, and there have been a lot of bug reports and comments from people with PCs that are at the low end of the minimum requirements, or even below them).
If they switched to something like the latest Unreal Engine, they'd still go for the low end of the graphics capabilities of the engine, as they'd still want to support the low end of the devices on the market to get the biggest market share possible. So, even with the new engine, there wouldn't be any difference visually in their games from those using the Telltale Tool.
Plus, it would actually likely cause their various ports to be more buggy then they already are, since just using an existing engine doesn't mean you can ship it and it will automatically play identically for all platforms without bugs (Arkham Knight's PC port is proof of that). Telltale has over 15 years of experience with their engine, and they still have problems with bugs, especially in the console and mobile ports (and especially in the ports to systems they have never supported before, or only have a short history of supporting, as there is a learning curve with those systems as the developers get used to them). Switching to an engine where the team doesn't have any familiarity would only make these kind of problems worse.
Unions are fuckin commie joke
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To be fair, that depends on how those new staff members are being used. If some of the comments from reviews are truthful, then it seems like Telltale is adding a large amount of people to one job on a team instead of finding a way to allow that one job to be handled in a more efficient manner. If that's the case, they might want to consider the Law of Marginal Diminishing Utility:
A larger staff size can help, but it matters how they are used. Assigning too many people to one particular job can actually make things less efficient. Instead of adding more people onto a project, revising some of their schedules or processes might help. Continuing to focus solely on adding more people to a certain process doesn’t always help, and can sometimes actually slow down work if too many people are added to an individual process. If those new workers are taking on new (or expanded) roles, that is a good thing, but it isn't a good thing if too many people are taking on one role in a team like some of the reviews have claimed.
Of course, we are only fans looking on the outside in and we aren't staff members that know the full situation, so I'm really just playing armchair business man right now, but that's just food for thought if those reviews are genuine and not exaggerated.
[I am only a volunteer Moderator - my opinions are my own]
[Pulls out trusty B.S. degree from Business School of Armchair Analytics]
(Hint: The BS does not stand for “Bachelor of Science”, nor does it stand for “Blind Sniper”)
Let’s say, that, rhetorically speaking, these reviews and their criticisms are true. In that case, I would say that it would not hurt for Telltale to evaluate how limitations can actually act to their benefit and encourage them to focus on trying to commit to their planned vision of the story instead of holding back episodes and trading off a predictable work schedule in pursuit of making minor changes from fan feedback. At face value, this whole thing may give off a presumptuous and arrogant vibe as if I could do better, but this is not an attempt at criticism - rather, it is constructive feedback as someone who is first and foremost a passionate fan of Telltale.
Below, I’m going to talk about some important ideas – namely:
The benefits of Limitations
When you first mull on the idea of limitations and benefits being beneficial, it might sound counter intuitive. However, if thought of and applied in the right context, limitations can actually be applied in a beneficial context, causing you to channel your creative ingenuity in certain ways by either causing you to think outside of the box, or by causing you to choose your battles and push harder for the ideas that are worth buckling down on and applying focus to.
For example, let’s take a look at how it worked for various writers:
(Read in more detail at http://jamesclear.com/dr-seuss)
On one end of the extreme, it worked for the whimsical writing of Dr. Seuss. But, on the other end of the extreme, it also worked in conveying soul-crushing anguish in so few words:
An article I found on Fast Company elaborates on various examples of how limitations can work in one’s favor, with the short story above being one of the examples discussed. I’m not going to quote the article here, but you can read it below, as it talks about this in more detail and makes several excellent points. It’s from the same publication that Telltale fondly recalls being awarded 2014’s ‘Most innovative company in gaming’ from on their Company Info page, so you know it’s written from a publication Telltale respects.
(Read in more derail at http://www.fastcompany.com/3027379/work-smart/the-psychology-of-limitations-how-and-why-constraints-can-make-you-more-creative)
As a matter of fact, limitations have even worked to Telltale’s benefit in the past. As we all know, since Telltale’s games are story based, they are not as intricate or elaborate as a high end retail game in terms of production quality. However, Telltale used this limitation to their advantage and thought outside of the box when deciding how to make their first Season of Walking Dead look. Instead of trying and attempting to make a realistic art style that would have been out of their scope for (what at the time was) a smaller indie studio, they thought outside of the box and created a comic-inspired art style that stood out even more than a muddied, generic, and realistic artstyle would have.
Compare this screenshot from Telltale’s first Season of Walking Dead…
…to Activision’s attempt at Walking Dead having a realistic art style on a budget:
...and similarly, you can look at the art style for games like Wolf Among Us or Game of Thrones too. If that level of clever ingenuity can be applied in giving us amazing art styles, imagine how refined and polished revisions to the story would be if that same level of ingenuity was applied to the writers by placing a limit on what revisions you added.
Paradox of Choice
Remember my B.S. degree I mentioned that I had from the Business School of Armchair Analysis?
Well, turns out that I also have a super cool B.S. Degree in Cognitive Neuroscience from Armchair Analysis as well!
In a nutshell, there is a general paradox that finds: The more choices people have, the less satisfied they are with each potential choice. This is elaborated upon in the quote below:
(Read in more detail at https://blog.bufferapp.com/are-you-too-tired-to-make-good-decisions-the-rise-of-decision-fatigue)
Going off of the Glassdoor reviews, I am pointing this out in the context of writers and executive staff making revisions to the story.
If you allow yourself to spend an indefinite amount of free time revising the story and cinematic presentation of the game in place of a predictable schedule, you may not feel as satisfied if you constantly are pondering over the possibilities of which revisions to make, or what to add and remove. Going off of what I said earlier, committing to a particular vision of the story from the get-go and forcing the limitation on writers of only allowing minimal revisions can allow writers to push harder and passionately fight for and refine the ideas that they do want to include into the story, which in turn, can allow the ideas that do pass through to be more focused, realized, and polished– adding some strength to the narrative and cinematic presentation of the game in a different manner than responding to fan feedback through script revisions.
Commitment to your original vision ensures a consistent tone and presentation throughout the story
Changes to clarify your original vision or intent are OK – but as a fan, I personally feel that making entire additions or subtractions to the story based on fan feedback might not always be beneficial. Walking Dead: Season 1’s changes to the story were beneficial because those changes were made in the context of clarifying the message you were trying to get across from the start (Examples: trying to make the choice to drop Ben less binary by making Ben screw up more, making Larry more sympathetic, adding Clementine into more scenes with tough choices, etc), whereas it seems that the revisions for newer series are not exclusively being used to clarify the message you originally wanted to across, but rather to outright change or add/subtract to your story from fan feedback in ways that aren’t acting to clarify your original message (such as adding shipping references in Tales from the Borderlands, or allegedly changing various plot elements in Wolf Among Us and Game of Thrones to surprise fans who had beforehand accurately predicted certain plot elements would happen).
These changes can be beneficial and make the story feel tailored to fans, but sometimes, they can also feel abrupt to us, with characters suddenly changing their disposition between episodes, or plot points that were teased in earlier episodes being suddenly dropped without explanation or closure in later episodes (sometimes, these revisions can even contradict plot points or character traits in earlier episodes). Examples can include:
By focusing on a commitment to your initial vision and giving less priority to making minor changes from fan feedback, this could act to Telltale’s benefit in several ways:
Staff will have a more predictable and organized work schedule – this will lead to a higher quality of work if they aren’t “designing scenes before they are made.” By committing to a vision from the start and only allowing for a smaller scale of fan feedback changes, staff would theoretically be allowed to allocate their time to polishing content and improving it instead of spending that same amount of time (allegedly) revising or restarting their work from script revisions and additions. This will also put less stress on the staff.
Additionally, this could give more time for Quality Assurance to catch potential bugs or issues if Telltale commits to a certain vision. QA can also have more time to make sure content is polished on their end if less time is spent with other people revising or starting over on their work.
Fans will be able to enjoy episodes quicker if episodes aren’t held back longer to incorporate fan feedback as much
As a fan (with my ~totally legitimate~ B.S. degree in Armchair Analysis Business Management) , I would recommend sticking to minor revisions that are smaller in scale and easier to implement, like the changes for Walking Dead: Season 1, instead of making entire revisions/additions/subtractions based on fan feedback in the later titles. This will most likely allow for quicker releases, more time being spent on allowing for improved cinematography and production qualities in titles (due to less time being spent on revising work from updated scripts), and more potential time freed up for additional Quality Assurance.
Personally speaking, if I have a choice between…
…or
…then I would choose the latter option, if all we miss out on are revisions. I can appreciate the lengths Telltale is willing to go through to give us a great episode, but upon evaluating the cost these changes and revisions allegedly come at (if these reviews are truthful), I would be much more comfortable with the latter if it resulted in more predictability for us fans and a better working environment for the staff members at Telltale, in place of the former choice resulting in episode revisions. Even without revisions, I have strong faith that Telltale’s writing will remain at the high quality it has been at for previous titles, and I would be excited to see more predictable releases that were also able to have more polish at the cost of revisions.
I understand that, as a fan, these reviews do not provide the full context and that there are always two sides to every story (usually with the truth lying in the middle ground), but even so, I personally feel concerned with some of these alleged choices behind the scenes if it comes at such a cost to the well being of others who are working on making these games for us. As I said above, this monstrous body of text does not come from a place of criticism or arrogance from thinking I could do better, but rather from a place of concerned and constructive feedback as a fan. Part of what I love about Telltale is how they make an effort to listen to people and give us venues to affect their output as fans, and I hope that those values can be appreciated here as well.
Based on what I've read, it seems like the final game was never going to be any good. The current version was started by 3D Realms and then finished by Tryptich, which consists of former 3DR employees, who had next to no funding. If what I've read was true, the development of the game was a mess at 3DR, mostly thanks to the head of the project, George Broussard. Every time he played a game and found some gameplay element that he liked, he insisted on adding it to DNF. Based on what I've read, they had to start cutting levels and making that ones that would be in the final version shorter, because of the 360 using DVDs and the PS3's RAM, even though the game looks pretty bad and there are several multiplats that look far better and have a bigger scale. The thing regarding the DVDs is also kinda stupid, since some 360 games used 2 discs, but mostly due to FMVs.
Gearbox... I don't really know what they did. I guess they helped with the bug fixing? THe 360 and PS3 ports were handed off to another studio. Seems like the most they did was help with the marketting and put their name on the box.
Where's my TL:DR bruh?
They should've worked on 1 project per half-year And NOT At the Same Time. It's a Little sad If Those Reviews Are legit.
That is ignoring that Telltale was at less than one hundred people before/during Walking Dead: Season 1, and are currently at over 320 people on top of their games being more simple to produce than a typical video game. People really like to scapegoat Telltale working on more than one project at once.
If these reviews are true and not exaggerated, I personally think Telltale should look into using limitations to their benefit by forcing themselves to limit how many revisions they make from fan feedback so that staff aren't as stressed out, we fans can have a more predictable schedule, and staff can have more time to polish/refine episodes or spend more time for quality assurance if they aren't spending that time beforehand to make revisions that are allegedly burning staff members out.
As counter intuitive as it sounds, forcing limitations onto yourself can actually force you to channel your creativity towards the fewer battles that genuinely are worth fighting for, or limitations can also encourage you to think outside of the box (see the Walking Dead comic art style example).
If they would Work on fewer Games At the Same Time, they wouldn't have to hire more workers And they could've made the Games bigger/better or just a better Performance. And they would have had Time to Update the Engine properly.
Doing things like making the games "bigger/better" or having "better performance" or "updating the engine properly" also require more workers. A company sizing up isn't a bad thing, and if anything, is usually a sign of positive growth. However, a lot of it depends on how the additional staff and the overall work is being allocated as well.
Thats right. And TTG being bigger is good, too. But TTGs "Quantity over Quality" Concept was just a Bad Move. They should've Update the Engine properly to make the Developing a bit easier, before they wanted to work on 4-8 different Games At the Same Time. They should've prepared themselfes better.
I'll agree with you updating the engine would strongly benefit them in some areas for sure. That being said, doing something big like revamping an entire engine would cost a lot of money - both in terms of the costs of developing/test a new engine (and getting it to run on PC/Mac/Consoles/Mobile/Tablets), and in terms of profits lost from not making a game instead. I'm not entirely defending that mindset, but I'm explaining it from a practical, economic point of view.
Again, I agree that a new engine at some point would probably be beneficial in ways for Telltale.
Well, it's more of a Long-term process. But they don't Need a completely New Engine. They just have to improve it to the extent, that it Runs smoothly on Consoles. The Engine in it's current State just can't handle fast cuts between different Camera Angles. And it is very Slow with loading animations And such. These Things Are quite "easy" to fix. (With easy i don't say instantly, But with enough People with good Knowledge on how this Engine works, it wouldn't take that Long). They could try to hide it, by doing more "One-Shots" or by doing less switches between different Camera positions. But that isnt the solution. They could try to put some sorts of longshots of the landscape or something, to give the Engine enough Time to load the animations.
I'm not the most technically minded person, with my only programming knowledge coming from RPG Maker and coding a choicescript story, but to my knowledge, companies rarely make a new engine, so I'm glad you clarified that you don't think they need a new one. I mean, the Unreal Engine, for instance, is not a complete revamp for each new release, is it (applies to Unity too)? Rather, the engine has been revamped enough to be considered good enough for a major new release. It's quite irritating really when people say companies need new engines, unless I've been wrong all this time. And I always find it a laugh when people using RPG Maker are told to create their own engine like it's so easy, especially when the people are likely the sole developer.
Or that argument is used for the choicescript games/stories. Writers aren't often programmers and well . . . all they want to do is tell an interactive novel/story.
Regardless, my perspective is that if they have something that works, there's no need to build a new engine. That doesn't mean I think they can't/shouldn't update it though when they can. From what I can make out, they're doing that, but just not to the same degree that some people would like. Or not in the areas that people want. Generally, I've found the engine fine myself though. It does what they do well, which is present what are essentially interactive movies. That said, I noticed on Tales from the Borderlands that the notifications suddenly disappeared from episode 4 onwards (not a big deal at all) on the PC, and that character's lips would be moving in MC:SM without any audio on the PS4 (a bigger problem). Basically, it seemed out of sync. I don't know whether console releases are generally fine though, as it's my first time playing a TTG product on them as I normally play on my laptop, and I've only played the 1st two episodes. But it does indicate a few issues/bugs that could use some ironing out. Not sure those are engine problems though. Everything else has generally ran smoothly. Rather, it seems more like a Q&A/testing issue with the problems limited to the individual projects and not the engine itself.
PS: Sorry for going off on a tangent as well.
If those reviews are real does that mean that Telltale is treating their employees like Konami?
It saddens me to my core to hear how awful the people at TT are treated if this is true. These guys are responsible for making the most amazing games I've ever played, but at such a terrible cost. It would certainly explain a lot of things looking back at their games. However, I would not be surprised if this is all made up. Let's just say that some TT fans can be very cruel and extremely harsh for silly reasons.
Thats a good Point. It could Be a Problem of the Q&A, But there Are some scenes in TftBL, where the Game stops for about 5 seconds to load the Next QTEs/animations. And many other TTG have scenes, where it Stops. Lets all Be Honest here: The Telltale Tool is Not optimal in it's current State. But TTG COULD solve this Problem, by releasing the First Episode later, so that they have more Time polishing the Episodes. They're Doing it with TWD: Michonne right now. But i would still hope, that TTG updated the Engine sooner or later. I mean i Heard, that the Telltale Tool has DirectX 8 Support. I mean Thats Pretty old. The Games could run Way smoother, If they updated the Engine with DirectX 10 or Even 12 would Be Nice.
All i'm saying is , this may not be a reliable source. Some more information would be nice before making a final judgment.
Not to mention Telltale's style for the Walking Dead fits since the game is set in the same continuity as the comic.
New review.
https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Telltale-Games-Reviews-E256429.htm?sort.sortType=RD&sort.ascending=false&filter.employmentStatus=REGULAR&filter.employmentStatus=PART_TIME&filter.employmentStatus=UNKNOWN
This game couldve been much better but became a very generic.fps graphics were good but didnd do much for gameplay
Telltale have made the best games I've ever played but the way the staff are treated is horrible although who is to say that rival companies could write these reviews to try and sham others
As Jennifer pointed out, it is really easy to make an account and write a review on the site.
There's a huge amount of commodity fetishism in the video game industry. I think it might be part of the reason companies can get away with treating their workers like crap.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Is8aN0-wTrQ
Good games are so engrossing they almost "take on a life of there own" and thus consumers (us) rarely consider the labor and exploitation that went into creating them.
That's... Pretty hot.