ANF timeline issues
I've been replaying ANF so I'll have a save to import into TFS since my ANF save was lost when I reformatted my hard drive. Anyway, I'm becoming keenly aware of how the rewrites resulted in the ANF timeline being a complete mess.
An example, Clem meets up with Ava and ends up joining with New Frontier when they're just a group of people living out in the wilderness. They kick her out and take AJ from her, and we don't know how much time has passed between then and "current" time but based on Clem's model not changing at all between the Clem/TNF flashbacks and the "current" events, it couldn't have been very long, a couple months at most. Yet somehow TNF grew and took over the large, established community of Richmond. Weird, but ok. But here's where it really gets wild. When Joan is giving her big speech before she hangs David, she talks about Richmond operating a certain way for years. Years? YEARS!? Ok how long has it supposedly been since Clem got kicked out, because she hasn't grown a damned bit. We know they mentioned a hard winter and we eventually find out that that's when AJ was sent to the ranch so based on the final Clem flashbacks from when she got kicked out we know it's been at least 7 or 8 months because the leaves on the trees were still fully green meaning it was at most late summer (leaves hit peak color around Richmond in late October) and the "current" time is also summer because leaves are green and the New Frontier people are growing their crops, of which the corn is fully grown so it's probably closer to a year because corn is planted in late spring and takes on average 3 months to mature, so basically all of summer.
Ava guessed Clem was 13 and Clem didn't correct her so we can assume that was accurate, and given that we know she was 11 in season 2 (she told Bonnie she was) her being 13 seems about right. This is also backed up by one of the Clem/Jane/infant AJ flashbacks. One of the flashbacks has a "13 months later" transition card, from Clem at Howe's with Jane, 13 months later, to Clem running through the forest with AJ, when she meets Ava, so during that specific scene AJ was what, 14 months old at most (13 month time skip + 1 month old at most in the flashback)... Which means Clem was either almost 13 or just barely 13 at the time she met Ava. If, as previously established based on foliage and crops and the "hard winter" that necessitated AJ being sent to a ranch, it's been near a year, at least, since Clem was kicked out, then that'd put her at around 14 at the end of ANF.
In conclusion, either TellTale screwed up the timeline and lost track of how much time was supposed to have passed at various points in the season, or they couldn't be bothered to make more age appropriate models for Clementine during her various flashbacks. Either way, it makes my head hurt trying to make sense of it all so I'm gonna stop.
Comments
My head hurts too now, oh well my fault. Yeah it doesn't really make any sense but you could say that when the New Frontier were in the wilderness, well, it was just a small group. This doesn't make sense either though as Head Of Security and Head Of Medicine were camping and not in Richmond, whilst Joan theoretically would be, but eh it's just an idea that doesn't sound right.
let's just say that Anf as a whole is one big mess and that we can't make any sense out of it.
But even that doesn't work no matter how much you try to make it fit because Clem didn't know New Frontier had taken over Richmond, which she'd have known when she joined them if they were already based out of Richmond.
This is mostly true but honestly, I still prefer it to season 2.
For real? Really? Yes! Thank you. Honestly, I prefer s2 over anf but ep 4 and 5 were horrible and compared to the entirety of anf they auren't as good. Though From The Trash was worse than No Going Back.
And then you've got TFS, which will hopefully smash everything (no pun intended) into oblivion. I don't think I'm gullible, but this game could be better than s1.
ANF has a ton of timeline problems. After the Jane Flashback it says only 13 months later when in reality it should be closer to 2 years.
More so, after the episode 4 Kenny flashback, it says "1 Month later" which makes no sense. That would mean within 1 month Kenny dies, Clem meets Ava, Clem joins ANF, stays with them long enough to get branded, then doesnt like them anymore, gets kicked out over Aj, then Ava comes and tells Clem to go to Prescott, so now we are all caught up. It makes no sense.
Not to mention Clem knew about Richmond for some reason, but then we hear New Frontier took over Richmond, which Clem didnt know, which would mean in like 1 week New Frontier took over Richmond, even though they act like its been their base for years.
Top-notch writing, tall-tale.
Honestly, a lot of aspects of ANF seem just as thrown together, I stopped trying to make sense of it long ago. The Collection isn't particularly good, but god, it's made so much better by being able to play until the end of S2 and just importing that save instead of ANFs.
Without reading the OP, yes, ANF's timeline is weird and inconsistent.
The Garcias aren't given too much backstory during the outbreak and had four years of scavenging and circular(?) migration under their belts, so they get a pass. Although they apparently lived in Baltimore...
How long the New Frontier was physically and later officially/symbolically a thing is also up in the air, but we can at least assume the mark itself was around for about two years.
Clementeen's time with the New Frontier under normal circumstances should've been fairly substantial, at least about a month in length, for the story twist and associated drama to feel satisfying and open for elaboration. Her flashbacks instead make it seem like it could've only been a week, if that.
The Season 2 flashbacks don't help much either, as they are relatively indistinct and yet spaced out from each other(especially Jane's) and require times for Clementine to reach the northern east part of Virginia from one or two states away so she and AJ can meet Ava.
And then there's the discrepancies with how long the New Frontier has occupied Richmond. It's painfully obvious in the version of the story that the premiere was cobbled from that Richmond being under New Frontier control is only about a month conquest at best, as Clementine had friends living there with AJ presumably in their company and it was close enough to Prescott to be reached by car within a night's travel(if even that, given Badger's crew and Max were able to travel there and back relatively easily), yet she and the others had no clue until ThatPaulGuy told them. However, Above the Law has Joan explain that they've been there for nearly a year and Thicker than Water takes it further by implying that the Council has been in power for multiple.
Wait what? You can do that?
The thing that completely kills Season 2 for me is how eventually all the adults are relying on the 11 yr old kid to solve all their problems and make the decisions. It's so off the wall unrealistic it just kills the whole season for me. It started great but yeah... that whole 'let's all defer to the 11 yr old for everything' thing killed it for me. I still maintain that Clem was too young to be playable in season 2 for that very reason. Telltale had to give the players agency to help direct the story but the only way to do it was to make the other characters defer to and depend on Clem, and at 11 yrs old it's just stupid to think a bunch of adults would depend on her as heavily as they did. I mean yeah, them relying on Clem in a few situations, sure, "go through this small hole that no one else can fit through" or "climb that rickety tower that won't hold anyone else," but not nearly as much as they did.
Yea one of the news items on the site details the save importer, it unfortunately doesn't work the the stand alone versions but you can import saves from S1 and 2 of the Collection.
@Miguel_1219 yup, one of the main reasons I finally bought the preorder, hoping to finish both seasons by Tuesday.
Well... shit. That concerns me a great deal. It makes me wonder if they really are just gonna pretend like ANF never happened.
And that’s a bad thing?
.
Oh shit, does it?!
Objectively, yes.
Debatable.
And how are you finding it? I'm gonna use my ANF save which contains imported s2 which contains imported s1, but I can tell it'd probs be a pain to play the collection. It looks like some SFM mod tool, the only remaster which looks decent is Michonne but the orginal Michonne already uses the 'Semi-perfect' reworked engine.
Oh, and then there's the dozens of problems too. ''Lee, why did Lily do that to Doug?''
After all talk about S1s enhanced graphics, I'm less than impressed and would easily trade them in for the original presentation and credits music. The main menu is just a Netflix selection, plain as day and starts with that awful title screen and "music" or whatever that crap ANF had before connecting to the server, the game itself doesn't seem to run much better than the last gen ports. The main and probably only positive is being able to do a series run without having to subject myself to ANF, which threw out as many decisions on purpose as the collection sounds like it does from bugs. Hoping the saves in the good games in the series don't bug out seems preferable to digging through my hidden list to dig up ANF and forcing myself through that after S1 and 2, so I'll put up with it.
Still on S1 right now, about halfway done episode 2. Only been able to play for a few hours after I get in around 2am, once I get home Saturday night I'll have no where to be and no kids to watch for 2 days, hoping nothing comes up and I can finish S2 by Tuesday lol
Yes. Yes it is because if they actually do scrub ANF from the canon, pretend it never existed, then ANF was rendered entirely pointless and a complete waste of money when it was supposed to be part of Clem's story.
Oh I see. It's not so much scrubbing ANF but is giving you the opportunity to skip it if you want to. I deduce this based on the fact that it'll accept a partial season 1 save file. There's no way they'd be scrubbing the entirety of season 2, as well, since AJ didn't arrive until late season 2 and he's a focus of TFS. Therefore, because they'll let you import as far as you have, partial season 1 (though it's odd they'll allow a partial season 1), a completed season 2, or a completed season 3, the only logical conclusion is that if you import a season 2 save, the game will random gen in any season 3 references that may come up, and if you import a season 1 save, it'll random gen any season 2 or 3 references that may come up.
We'd have essentially wasted 25 dollars, but other than that, I'm not sure what else of value would be lost.
On a good machine, S1 and S2 run at 60fps 1080p. That's how it is on ps4 at least. Why don't you just play that? Man, all the pre-reworked engine games are so good. Their menus and music and UI is brilliant. Look at Tales, Wolf, TWD S2. And here we have Minecraft s2 which has the Netflix menus, kek.
Honestly, just to take the play through into TFS fresh. I haven't heard much more about save issues in the collection that I have about peoples issues with them when S1 first launched, and ANFs issues with importing S2 saves, hoping my luck keeps on up that front as I've never had any issues with save games. As I said, it's really the only thing good about the collection having played S1 and 2 on 2 generations of consoles. It's been a number of years since I did a full play through of S1 and 2, this is more about going into the game with my choices and reasoning as fresh in my mind as the games themselves. Just a time consuming habit of mines, it gets particularly excessive in some of the longer series.
Ah ok.
Well it didn’t really succeed in that department did it now.
Yes? Yes it did. I swear season 2 was such a mistake. People hate ANF because they couldn't play as Clem again. Clem was about as relevant in season 3 as she was in season 1 but because season 2 let people play as her everyone hates on season 3 because "I wanna play as muh clem hur dur"
No, people hate it because it was terrible, not because "muh Clem durrr".
Always hilarious to hear people whine about S2 despite it being more successful and better received on literally every level.
Fucking rewrites.
Oh boy... that’s definitely not a main reason for people hating it, their is SO many problems with ANF. I mean dude... did you play From the Gallows? In the end of it all did it really feel like it succeeded in being a Walking Dead game? Because me, and a ton of others, think it failed miserably.
Indeed to this day I still do not get a good 70% of what went on with that game and why.
As much as I hate ANF we all have to admit that Telltale has always fucked up TWD timeline and time passing in general, but let's try... Considering Jane's flashback ( We don't know how many time they spent together, we can assume something around 1-2 months since Jane's pregnant belly isn't really apparent ) Clem should be 12 and a half or turning 13 in ANF, no way she would be already 14. They didn't tell us how many time passed after she left ANF, but it's just silly to think that she left it and for almost 1 year and a half she stayed close just for AJ without even knowing if he was alive or not. If AJ is 5 years old in the final season after all then it's been 7 years since the beginning of the apocalypse, not 9 years like a lot of people assume right now. Man, saying that '' this character is ... years old '' is easy, keeping a cohesive timeline? Not so much.
Telltale can easily fix this in TFS or just by releasing an artbook or something like that with an official timeline.
Are people trying to claim that not playing as Clem isn't a reason why ANF is hated? After months and months of people on this board complaining as the season went on that Clem wasn't getting an equal amount of playing time as Javier? I beg to differ! That played a huge part in why people dislike ANF.
ANF suffered from rewrites immensely (episodes 1 & 2) but it also suffered from the opposite problem. Those new scripts (episodes 3 - 5) needed at least several revisions each before they were anywhere near something you could call finished.
It was a huge problem, but definetly not the only one
No, people are trying to claim that there were many reasons in addition to that as to why ANF is so disliked. There's someone trying to claim that people only dislike it because you don't play as Clem, that's probably what confused you. But no one would say ANF is bad for just that one reason.
Very true. It's like they went with the first draft of the rewrites and went with it. Honestly, at times, it feels as though even the writers kind of gave up on it towards the end and just said "We'll put the real thought into the next season."
That is indeed a reason why a number of people looked down on it and claimed that being able to play the same story through her eyes would've made them like it better.
They still haven't fixed the remaster?
fuck me.