A Rant Regarding the Current State of Telltale (ALSO MAJOR SPOILERS FOR ANF AHEAD)
Hiya. Y'all probably know me on here by now so I'm gonna vent my frustrations on Telltale's recent... Decisions. And since I haven't made a thread on here in a while and I'm especially angry at the recent episode of Telltale's "Number One" series, I thought I'd post a little rant here.
So, I was just scrolling through YouTube listening to Chouzetsu Dynamic, and I see a title on the recommended videos list. A video titled "Kenny's death scene: Season 3", and I'd like to give an especially big Fuck You to RabidRetrospectGaming. And not just a big fuck you I mean a huge fuck you. But anyway, after getting pissed as shit for a while, I decided that since the cat's out of the bag and I chose the Jane ending anyway, I decided it'd probably be alright to watch the video to see how it ends. And of fucking course Kenny's death was just as stupid and avoidable as Omid's. Gave me a bit of Dejavu honestly.
So after that, I thought to myself "Okay, they pointlessly killed off Kenny. But it's alright, maybe his character was supposed to end anyway and we had to give one last goodbye. It's fine! Jane's a fresh new face and we've probably only hit the tip of the iceberg with her! And I was pleased to find that RabidRetrospectGaming decided to spoil HER untimely demise in the fucking title as well. Once again, fuck you RabidRetrospect, and I hope you realize how big of an asshole you are.
So I said "well fuck, maybe at least her ending will be meaningful" and with anger and frustration building, I watched the video. Now before I get to what REALLY pissed me off about this, I just wanna say that the fucking cop-out with the family being bandits and abandoning Clem, Jane and AJ only being a brief, poorly written mention through exposition is, how can I put this, the dumbest fucking thing I've ever seen. But now on to the really upsetting thing.
Suicide. Jane committed suicide. I really don't know where to begin with this. One thing I'd like to say is that it was a good choice on Telltale's part to bring the issue with Luke from Season Two back, and have that be the driving force. So I want to congratulate Telltale on making something in this scene make sense. Now, everything else was really, really, REALLY fucking stupid. And I mean really stupid. So stupid that it makes me wonder if Telltale's writers just left for a day to fuck around with other shit. and they hired one of the Jane haters to write this entire flashback themselves because fuck this entire scene.
First off, Jane wouldn't commit suicide. That's not what her character has been made up to be at all, and it's something we'd see more akin to Kenny doing. Second, Jane has done some selfish actions, but she wouldn't leave Clementine and an infant child to take care of themselves and left them to stumble upon the body, and she ESPECIALLY wouldn't do that knowing that she would come back as a walker, the rope would snap and if Clem didn't find her Jane would have devoured her and the baby in their sleep. Jane sure as fuck could be selfish, but never that fucking stupid. Third, I'm pretty sure Jane would try aborting the baby before anything else, abortion pills aren't a super uncommon thing to find in the apocalypse, Glenn and Maggie found some for Lori after one fucking trip. Fourth, If she was so fucking afraid of having the baby then why the FUCK did she have sex with Luke with no fucking protection? And finally, way to make none of our fucking choices matter anyway and despite people deliberately trying to keep Kenny or Jane alive you got them fucking killed off anyway!
Are you fucking serious?! Did you learn nothing from Season Two?! Because it sure as fuck looks like you didn't! "Oh look at that! Our least well received game among critics and the community is Walking Dead Season Two! How about we do that again!". I'm trying really hard to stay calm but as I'm writing this I'm getting progressively more pissed off. And it's not even the Jane thing, whether you love or hate Jane doesn't matter fucking whatever, that's just you. But you literally made it so that NONE of our choices matter! Not in the fucking slightest! I haven't even played the full episodes yet (considering they won't be out until tomorrow) but this ALONE is enough to put this as not only the worst game of 2016 for me, but quite possibly the worst Telltale episode of any game they've made. FROM TWO FUCKING SCENES.
And the mods can get pissed at me all they want. Give me a perma-ban for all I care but this is fucking unacceptable especially when they obviously know damn good and well how poorly received the second season was! I know how hard the guys in the staff have been working on the game and I appreciate that, but when your game doesn't do the one thing that you ALWAYS advertise it to do, which is tailoring the story around your choices, then you have FUCKED. UP.
But that's not all! How about the broken release of Batman which I wasted 5 bucks on? How about the constant quality dips between the 3rd episode and the 5th? How about making EIGHT episodes of Minecraft: Story Mode but never being direct about whether or not Wolf will get a second season? How about the fucking abysmal mess that was the wait time between episodes for Tales from the Borderlands? Maybe the fact that this website is broken as all fucking shit? Oh, and now you're working on two more series before fixing your current ones? Gotta love the terrible dubbing for voices and awkward animations! Ooooh and I love the visual, audio AND save glitches that get worse with every passing year, and the list goes on and fucking on.
I fell in love with Telltale through The Walking Dead and their older games are fucking brilliant to me, which is why it hurts so much that The Walking Dead was the big thing that put me into this mindset, but when a company you love fucks up time and time again, no matter how much you love their older stuff your patience and love will be put to the test, and this is a test I really can't commit too.
Did you know I never once played Batman? The first episode was so fucking broken for me that I never got a chance to play it. I saw 3 clips of it on YouTube and nothing else, and got all my other info from spoilers that this broken fucking site failed to hide since the spoiler tags don't even say WHAT it's spoiling anymore. And I didn't even watch someone else play it outside those clips because of how fucking badly I was burned by the first episode, which by the way never started working for me because for some reason I didn't even receive a patch. It's a shame too because I was really fucking hyped for Batman, but at that point I just didn't fucking care. And I won't be picking up OR watching A New Frontier either, because in just 2 short five minute clips, you managed to completely turn me off from the series.
I love the community on these forums, I love a lot of the telltale games, I love most of the mods on here and I especially love seeing the dev team interact with other users on here and have such a good time with what their doing. But this is absolutely unacceptable.
I'm going to give Guardians of the Galaxy a chance, and after that I'm done. Telltale, you have tested my patience time and time again, and you managed to kill the love I had for you that was so strong that I defended you from every bit of hate at some points. And I'm definitely sure I'm not the only one you made feel this way. You guys can do so much better but you don't, and it hurts especially bad considering how good the newer games look and how great the QTEs are now, but all that effort is wasted on broken releases that can only be played with monster computers, and piss poor attempts at story-writing. I'm genuinely sorry, but it seems that Minecraft: Story Mode was probably the last Telltale game I'll be buying.
Comments
A little reactionary, don't you think? S2 was awful and I'm glad Telltale acknowledged how awful it was.
To me it felt like after Tales From the Borderlands I noticed a dip in quality.
TL;DR skrub.
I couldn't agree more. I think I might quit Telltale completely.
I agree.
It's funny because I just logged in with intention to post my own little rant.
Long story short: The golden era of Telltale Games is long over. They were the best in 2012-2014 in my opinion, with TWD Season 1, The Wolf Among Us and Tales from the Borderlands being their best offerings (Drama-Noir-Comedy bundle)
I have to say that I have a lot of mixed feelings towards Telltale since TFTB concluded. I took a look at the credits of TWD S3 and I barely knew any names on the list with an exception of our lord Jared Emerson-Johnson. Other than that, I've got a feeling like the best writers and developers left telltale after TFTB or something. The writing in most of their new games (maybe with an exception of Batman) makes me laugh everytime when I am clearly meant to feel suspension or drama. TWD Michonne was so poorly written that it felt more like a sitcom to me...
Now while TWD S3 overall seems decent so far, I do feel the controversy regarding flashbacks. Kenny's death felt like it was written on the lap 2 days before the VO recording session or something, it felt out of place and extremely bland to me. The terrible part for me was also the choice of location, most main characters died in somewhat memorable locations while Kenny dies randomly on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere... That was just awful. Pretty much same for Jane, her suicide felt out of character for me. I am not surprised that they died as they already had a determinant status since the S2 finale, and it is unlikely for any dev to carry a franchise with so many determinant characters, but the way they died was disappointing.
Also, I do have some criticism towards the new engine. I was a bit thrown off with Batman but it felt fitting with the theme of the game. I've got a weird feeling like they toned down the cell-shading a lot since Batman. It worked well there, but in TWD S3 the graphics are a bit odd-looking to me, they seem to rely more on cascaded shadow mapping rather than cell-shading which was iconic and gave this cool comic book feel to their games. Now it feels like a wierd mix of comic-book wanna be and something that is half-photorealistic. Also, the character models of the legacy characters (Kenny, Jane, Edith) are bloody awful. Absolutely. Butchered. Why, just why?
On top of that, we all know the performance is much worse than in the older TTG games, surely it is natural for the requirements to go up but seriously this is a game with comic-book graphics, not Frostbite 3. Optimization is obviously not a strong side of the engineers at Telltale.
Oh it's also worth mentioning that back in "golden age" we were getting episodes which were at least 1.5 to 2hrs long. Now one episode is barely 1-1.5hrs long. I am also a bit disappointed with the fact that all of their new games are based on the big properties, I really can't help but feel like they are just starting to care about their income more than about their audience. There is very slim chance right now for them to announce a game based on niche franchise, which would be nice to do from time to time to bring a breath of fresh air.
I have to say, I still like TTG but they have been clearly going downhill for the past 2 years. I loved The Walking Dead Season One a lot, The Wolf Among Us is a game which legitimately helped me deal with depression and I love it to bits, Tales from the Borderlands gave me a lot of laughs and giggles. But everything after that feels just... kinda flat. Even character eyes are lacking depth now. It's just sad. I spent last 3 years praying every evening for Telltale to announce another season of TWAU or TFTB but after seeing what they did to the oldschool characters in TWD S3, I am starting to feel like maybe it's for the best if they won't make it.
I know this post will probably get hated as much as possible, it's just my opinion and it's fine if you disagree but at least let's keep the conversation fairly respectful.
Love you Telltale, but I'm just gonna stick to replaying your older titles.
Okay, I'll give you a summary then. I'm pissed at Telltale for their poor decisions and I won't be purchasing another one of their games unless Guardians of the Galaxy is promising enough to warrant anything other than watching someone else play it.
Acknowledged it? They did the exact same thing here but worse.
I agree with most of your comment, nearly all of it really, but this:
is the most important thing here. Both your comment and my post are probably going to get plenty of hate from people who disagree, but what's important is that we remain respectful no matter what side of the discussion we're on.
Agreed even though i thought the episode was ok. I'd like to play E2 right afterwards, but THAT keeps happening:
LMFAO
I agree in most part with your rant...
And I fucking HATE the fact that the channel you mentioned, and also AFguidesHD ( I swear to God.) posted God-Damn 5 minute SPOILER videos BEFORE the GAME IS RELEASED! with every single outcome mentioned in the title, getting recommended to me.
Kenny's death was badly done. Alright, some might find his death poetic, finally getting eaten by walkers saving Clem and AJ, when most assumed he got eaten at the end of Season 1. But AFTER an EFFING CAR CRASH?! ugh....
However, I personally really enjoyed S 2, though I do admit that some bits of it were too much. (Clem being the resident handyman...)
The thing is Jane didn't mean anything to me and neither did S2 Kenny, so their shitty deaths didn't bother me and I felt like the way those deaths were handled were Telltale acknowledging that S2 Kenny and Jane were both terribly written characters in a meta sense but that's kind of an interpretation. I honestly didn't care, I found it hilarious.
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I haven't seen an argument that solid since "Kill yourself because I don't agree with you, fag!"
...Oh wait.
I couldn't agree more. All of my thoughts about how bad this was going to be, have came true. Kenny/Jane death in the first fucking episode. Mariana one of the only characters I liked in this episode, dead.
Fuck Telltale and their bullshit shock value! Kenny the only character other than Clementine to still be in the game since the first episode of Season 1, and he dies by a car crash! What made it even worse, is it didn't make me feel angry or sad, it just made me feel... nothing.
I'm really disappointed Telltale. And I wish I didn't buy your Season Pass, but I guess my faith in your games got the best of me.
Never again!
I've been really upset with Telltale lately, but I don't think you did a great job of highlighting reasons why they're messing up. This mainly seems to be a response to Kenny/Jane.
Yeah, it was kind of that emotion when a show you really like ends. You're not shocked or angry or sad, you just don't know what to do because you can't believe it's just over. Kenny's death was glossed over so much and it was so stupid. And I'm someone who doesn't even like Kenny and I thought he deserved FAR better than that. His eyepatch was pretty sick tho.
Not really, this has been kind of a building thing for me. I've been making comments for the past 3 months or so on Telltale's screw ups, it's just that the Kenny and Jane thing is what pushed me over the edge.
I never thought that Telltale can make a more shitty death scene than Nick's (EP4) and Omid's
it's more the tales team knows what they are doing [batman] and twd is still lost.
I find it ironic how Telltale even realizes themselves how they fucked us over on that one and just forgot to remove the insider joke or something.
I came back from the dead to acknowledge how you've still been using pictures that aren't you for many years. Pathetic.
and you still act like an entitled brat, but no surprise there.
Thanks for putting an image in my head where you're typing very fast and breathing heavily on the keyboard.
After seeing how they kill off Kenny/Jane just to give us Javier .... :'D
Yeah I don't care about those "new characters" as long as they keep killing off the old ones.
I don't want to know him don't want to get attached like I and many more players did with Lee and Kenny/Jane, because in the end, because of telltale's lazy writing, they will just fuck it up anyway and kill them.
That's it. I thouht No Mans Sky was the biggest fraud of the year, but telltale managed to overthrow my theory.
GG Telltale I won't spend a coin on this piece of shit of a game.
I know I must just be regurgitating what's been said countless times already, but I just finished the first two episodes - and what the actual fuck? The new, graphics engine is amazing (really top notch), the choices have been difficult and decent, and I have found myself engrossed, but it's actually comical how badly they fucked up Jane & Kenny, which really did sour my experience.
We waited over two years for this? It's as if Telltale took a bunch of fake scenarios people made up as jokes, and then actually wrote them as the real thing. Kenny dies in a car crash? Giving a driving lesson? By comically flying out the front window (silently) like in a cartoon? And you can't even stop him from turning, to at least draw a parallel with Lee? He's your most infamous character, and one of your most popular - he's one of only two characters to still be around from the very first episode, and you give him this? After this long a wait? And Jane just offs herself? Within five minutes?
I wish I left Kenny at Wellington now, I really do, in fact I would have rather shot him - anything would have been a better send off than this travesty - this meme of a demise. It was like an SFM parody. The only emotions his "death" brought me were mild amusement mingled with disbelief. The moment he starts going, "We'll be sitting on the beach drinking lemonade in the happily ever after--" I was like, 'fuck, there's only one way this type of speech ever ends.' And then wham. Talk about predictable.
And yes, talking of, I can't be the only one who predicted David was not only alive, but a member of the New Frontier long before the reveal?
So then I watched Jane's version on YouTube and just laughed. If that's what Telltale intended, they succeeded. But I assume it's not. I just thought they were going to finally step up this time - make these particular choices really matter, but I was wrong. I wasn't even expecting much. They could have even still died in the first episode, and I would have been happy had we spent some real time with them first, and had their death actually done justice to the characters, who are so iconic by this point. Same with Wellington. We could have at least spent a bit of time there, but nope, none of it matters, you can blink and miss the flashbacks. This is what people were looking forward to most.
And they knew this. Telltale know how obsessed fans are with Jane, Kenny, and all the different endings, and they know how passionately they've argued over them for 2+ years, and yet they were content, to give this lazy, insulting, rushed, sloppily written afterthought to address them? I'm a pretty ardent Telltale apologist, you'll be hard pressed to find many posts where I'm critical of them, but there's no way around it - they've really fucked the fans here. And coming off all the technical issues of Batman, and the radio silence about GoT Season 2, it's pretty egregious.
Still, I'm trying not to be entirely negative - I played Part I and II start to finish, and enjoyed doing so, but the whole thing was and still is plagued by this feeling of betrayal, dissatisfaction and just disappointment really. Maybe this feeling will subside, but I doubt it.
Okay, after thinking about it some more....the Kenny and Jane flashbacks are VERY poorly executed no matter my own opinion on S2.
Sorry if I came off as rude.
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Hey all! So I never, ever, ever post here. I mean, I do but not very often. I logged into this account just to reply to this here thread! Fun Fact: I found out that I created this telltale account on the 19th of December in 2013! That's today, three years ago! How time flies, been playing these games for the past three years. Now, I'm a huge fan of the choices matter idea, I mean, the first telltale game I played was Jurassic Park and it was more like an interactive movie, but the story was so intriguing that I loved it, so of course, I have fond memories of the Christmas three years ago when I played that game.
I've seen a ridiculous amount of negativity absolutely all over the place. I've had a very positive outlook on life and the universe over the past few months, and it's hard (almost uncomfortable sometimes) to look at things negatively. It's the greatest feeling ever, coming from someone who was unfortunately once a rather, very cynical skeptic. Trying to shower the place with positive energy, but it's just not workin' up in here! Over on the Steam community forums I'm getting similar negative vibes all over. It sucks, but it's understandable.
I have played each of the Telltale games that I own, multiple times, with the exception of Jurassic Park, which I've only played once. So it's still just a nostalgic memory, which probably isn't good.
The games I own include: Minecraft Story Mode (which is criticized often by people who have never played it, but I'm tellin' ya there's a reason it was given eight episodes), Game of Thrones, Tales from the Borderlands, The Walking Dead Season 1 and The Walking Dead Season 2. I am a big fan of the telltale formula, even if it is simply the "illusion" of choice, it's enough for me to have an enjoyable experience and I think that's what's most important to me.
I'm going to quickly rush to the point because I feel like I'm dragging this backstory along a little too much: I certainly feel ya when it comes to those YouTube spoilers, I had both beginning spoiled for me partly by video titles and the rest was done thanks to forum threads. Major bummer that there's so much going around before the game has even released on all platforms, I feel like this is the kind of response that most movie reboots receive, where the majority are scared that attention will be drawn to the franchise that they love and they don't want those memories to change. I'm not a user who experiences bugs in my telltale games, not even slight graphical glitches, although in Season 1 of the Walking Dead, Kenny did teleport a couple times, so if I had to judge the old games versus the new ones, I'd say the new ones are doing better when it comes to stability and visuals. Very easy for the nostalgia goggles to cloud our vision!
I'm personally pretty happy that Clementine isn't super playable this season, I like that it switches things around a bit. I'm excited to see my Clementine thinking for herself based on the decisions I made as her in the previous season, I honestly like the idea of Forging a new attachment to the next Protagonist, in awe of how cool this Clementine is.
The entire point of this post that I'm clearly failing to build up to, is that all of this negative talk has genuinely discouraged me from purchasing the game. I know, what a swing from the optimistic outlook. Dunno, I normally never let the opinions of others get to me, but I'd never believe the whole "If someone says it enough you'll start to think it's true" thing, until right here, right now. So much sadness and anger, just don't think it's worth it. Maybe once all of the episodes have been released, if it hasn't been spoiled by YouTube titles and thumbnails, I'll give it a go. But as someone who can't quite afford to pick up any game that I want at any moment, I gotta be careful, want maximum enjoyment out of a purchase. Telltale haven't screwed me over or anything in the past, I mean I had my issues with some scenes in Season 2, and maybe a couple gripes with Game of Thrones (which I've played more than any other Telltale game, a good 130+ hours sunk into that thing), I still don't know.
Thanks for reading, I guess it was a little bit pointless, but I felt like giving my two cents! Stay cheery everyone!
I don't recall that argument Boo.
No wonder they said it wouldn't matter if you played the first two seasons.
If you was playing since S1 you got fucked.
Yeah I got spoiled by YT videos. Their videos titles are too spoilery 100% of the time
No I didn't say you made that argument, I'm saying it's just as uninspired and unoriginal as when people tell me to commit suicide because they don't agree instead of making an actual argument.
I type very fast regardless of whether I'm angry or not. It's in my blood. My grandmother types far faster than I do. As for breathing heavily, nice fat neckbeard joke. Original/10. So much for being civilized.
Honestly, I'm fucking done with all the lies that have been fed to me by companies, people and the media throughout the year, I had so much hope for A New Frontier, I even defended it frequently telling people that "They won't just kill off Kenny and Jane, they're not stupid enough as to be blind to the large backlash they'd get from that" but, of course, yet again, I am proven wrong.
Personally, I am very passionate about story-telling, when I read stories, watch them through imagery/film and listen to them, I love finding the continuity and progression within them, heck, I myself write stories and I try to make sure that the reader knows a character well enough to understand their decisions with little doubt, but I feel as though A New Frontier has completely slaughtered two of the most complex characters in the series and not to mention a whole season's worth of fucking content.
I'm not one for swearing but I am honestly in rage mode right now, HOW MANY FUCKING THREADS HAVE WE HAD ABOUT SEASON THREE AS WELL AS KENNY AND JANE?!?!? There have been hundreds, possibly even thousands!! IF TTG's story-writers ever stood foot in the Forums, they'd know how passionate the fan base is about these two characters and how sick many of us are about the lack of impact our choices are supposed to have.
I am particularly mad about how they lured allot of us into believing that our choices will affect the game. They gave Kenny and Jane, determinant characters, ridiculous deaths - not to mention Edith whom we don't even get to know personally!!! It's lazy writing and I'm honestly sick of it... it sucks as well as I, personally, think that 'Batman' was such an amazing series for me and I'm sad to feel hugely let down by TTG only days after appreciating them allot more. Is this how they're going to continue to treat their fan base? Because if so, I think I'll leave for a while again, not from the forums but from supporting TTG.
To be honest, I'm hoping for big Youtubers like Pewdiepie, Jacksepticeye, Yogscast Hannah and Cryatoic etc. to continue calling TTG out on their bullshit because I've reached the point where I'm sick of it and I'm no longer going to blindly defend it.
Sorry for the rant but I just feel hugely mislead about A New Frontier, I'd like to know their justifications for killing Kenny and Jane this way, I'd like to see proof that Clementine's personality even differs and, despite everything, I'm hoping that the rest of the season is phenomenal because I'm not just going to settle for 'alright' personally, I loved Season One and I actually really enjoyed the second even more despite it's huge flaws but I think my strong affection might end here for The Walking Dead Game Series and I'm dearly hoping it doesn't. I hope TTG starts listening to their fan base, I think we all deserve honesty and quality at this point, especially those of us who've been supporting TTG even prior to their big hit.
Should've read between the lines![:\](https://community.telltalegames.com/resources/emoji/confused.png ":\")
I was hoping it would've been similar to Mass Effect but nope, I think Bioware is the only developer I can trust to make quality adventure games that actually have choices with effects.
This video clip from South Park seems very appropriate now considering the many consumer's outrage to the controversy behind the development of Season 3, and especially with the anti-climatic deaths of Kenny and Jane:
Casual reminder she abandoned AJ in a blizzard, surrounded by walkers, and tried emotionally manipulating Clem thru a deranged, instigated fight. So, yea, she never cared for AJ at all, and only likes Clementine as a substitute for her pathetic sister.
Um, because its the apoc and they're surrounded by death constantly and wanted a way to relieve stress for a few minutes? And seriously do you think they'd carry condoms?
God you guys are the biggest babies.