I really hope the ending of 400 days doesn't determine who appears in Season 2
I've seen a number of people who talk as if everyone going with Tavia at the end is the clear-cut 'good' thing and that if someone chooses not to go you've messed up somehow, which means metagaming things so that you get all of them.
I really hope TT subverts this assumption by having any 400 days characters they intended to be in Season 2 show up regardless of which route you took. So if Shel and Becca went with Tavia, then you'll encounter them in the survival community. If you don't, then you end up encountering them elsewhere in the wilderness, with corresponding changes in dialogue and circumstance.
My first playthrough of 400 days? Only Bonnie accompanied Tavia. I lost everyone else. And if the game makes me feel like I'm being punished for that, when the reasons why the 400 survivors accompanied her were often so random and arbitrary and unpredictable, then I have to admit I'll find it pretty annoying.
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My guess is that you'll meet up with everyone at some point or another. I'd doubt they'd completely cut out characters like that.
What ? I really hope it does, on the contrary : if Telltale forced 400 days characters regardless of player's playthroughs, that would be a huge f*ck you to us, and a huge contradiction with Telltale's "motto" that our choices tailor the story.
If you regret your playthrough of 400 days, replay it until you are satisfied with the results.
It's like saying "I really hope episode X doesn't determine who is still alive in next episode, because I fucked up in my first playthrough and actually I want --- to be alive even if he died in my game"
The choices are tailoring the story. If a 400 days character survives and are intended to show up, you find them in different circumstances. Vince goes to the survival community? Maybe he's found defending the walls. Vince chooses not to go? You find him as a half-starved survivalist in the wilderness, and much more of a lone wolf. Your choice has tailored the game; it just hasn't erased the guy from the narrative because someone from on high decided you made the 'wrong' decision.
Or else, if a character is to be removed, cut it in the other direction for a few of them: if they go with Tavia, they die from disease or a bandit/walker attack before you meet them. If they don't, you find them in the wilderness somewhere, safe and sound. Now that would screw with people's expectations pretty damn nicely.
I don't regret a single choice I made in 400 days and have no intention of making a new game with walkthrough-pulled decisions that let me keep everyone. I just see no logical sense in turning 'this game adapts the story to your choices' to 'this game will arbitrarily decide which choice is right and wrong and directly penalize you for not agreeing with the writers.'
"And if the game makes me feel like I'm being punished for that" Your actions always have consequences, so yea you're being "punished" in a way and thats the attractiveness of telltale's games.
I agree. It'd be a bit disappointing if the characters who didn't go with Tavia are just preemptively killed off or dropped from the story.
If they have a big role we may just see them all together by season 2 anyway, but I would like to see some different scenarios based on who left rather than a clear good or bad outcome. Maybe a subversion on what everyone thinks is the bad ending, where the people who stayed at camp are the first people able to assist Clementine.
The best kinds of moral choices are the ambiguous ones. Those are the real attraction.
Whose foot do you shoot off? Danny the friendly rapist who claims he's innocent? Or Justin the asshole con artist who is guilty and not the least bit embarrassed to admit it?
Want that choice to have meaning and present an interesting moral dilemma for the player, no matter how many playthroughs you go through? Then have the answer as to which was right be ambiguous. Want to make it so someone can get the 'right' answer (shoot Danny!) by looking up a walkthrough online? Then have Vince show up in Season 2 if you shot Danny and not show up if you shot Justin. Or vice versa.
The former is more interesting than the latter.
I have to apologize, I didn't read your original post carefully.
Turns out I agreed with you from the beginning. Please take these thumbs up as excuses.
But I will add one thing : I don't want Telltale to force 400 days characters in Tavia's group regardless of who joined her in our playthroughs, because the writers realized later that it would be better if at least X and Y would be in the group when you first encounter it.
And I won't accept any excuses like "X may have refused to join in your playthrough, but in this case he'll say he changed his mind as soon as he saw the others leave without him".
Characters who joined the group must first appear in the group, characters who refused to join must first appear... elsewhere. I'm fine with the latters joining later for better reasons (sudden zombie attack on their little camp for instance) if their presence is needed for the story.
The thing is we don't even know if Tavia is good or evil. There's a chance that her community might turn out to be place like Woodbury. Vince and Shel stayed behind in my game and I don't consider it as a messed up outcome, because those were my choices and making different choices just to get everyone with Tavia would be uncool. BTW I wish to see both of them together with Becca in the game. Although it is said that 400 days isn't directly part of the main storyline, so we might not see any of them.
I think a lot of people assume season 2 will take over from 400 days, which would indeed mean that some people should not appear in season 2.
Me however, I have a strong suspicion that 400 Days was what we will see at the end of season 2, and that we'll meet everyone from 400 Days well before the Tavia ending. In other words, season 2 will be about how the characters from 400 Days met and got together.
(There is a pretty good timeframe that can be used in TWD - we know that around 14 months (400 days, duh) after the outbreak people will start reorganising and rebuild societies, and playing after that would be pretty pointless - the same way you can't have WW2 action take place in 1946 for example for the simple reason the war ended in 1945. So any story we will get regarding a zombie apocalypse in Kirkman's world will take place within these 14 months.)
In the comic books timeline is currently about two years after the apocalypse (Carl was 7 when the comic started, but now he is 9) and the world is still as brutal as it was earlier, even if the comic is currently more about wars between the communities of the living than about surviving in the wild and avoiding walkers. However the walkers are still there and I believe that also the current comic universe would offer interesting background for an adventure game.
I think that TT staff is going to be more tricky!
In fact, i bet that the characters that 400 Days introduced to us are not the PC. I think that it's side characters that are being depicted and introduced, like Nate, Eddie, the bold guy from Shel's story.
Thats my thought but clearly i dont see the main protagonist playing a big role in season 2, i mean a bigger than those quoted up.
Your assumption that the zombie apocalypse must be of a limited duration has no basis. We don't know how much of humanity is left to rebuild, for one thing. For another, the walkers already defy all logic; you'd think that after 400 days, for example, the majority of them would have rotted away long ago, but nope. You'd also think that a horde of slow shambling corpses who can be easily distracted and directed into open areas by loud noises, who have no ability to attack at range, who stop moving when you destroy the head and so forth would actually be a fairly simple threat for a professional military to deal with, but no again, since the implication is that there is no government or military left.
Very likely, in Kirkman's world, the predominance of the walkers and the desperate struggle for survival is not a temporary setback. its permanent.
Two years, really? I haven't read the comics, but IMHO it points to one thing really:
Kirkman needs to eat, so he stretches his story as far as he can. But its ok, lot's of creators do that (MASH went on for ten years within a war that lasted two. Some kind of record right there I think).
Any extension of a zombicalypse further than say 1.5 years or so is just lazy. There is after all a limit to how many people there are in the first place, not to mention that there ARE in fact military forces that can bring down millions of zombies - those left, reinforced by newly deceased, will still not be around for long because they will freeze, rot away or simply get destroyed in accidents. That of course not counting the tens of thousands that ordinary people will destroy.
That is of course as long as we assume people and society actually exist and act in a realistic manner towards a serious threat and that military forces exist (which I think we can assume, since an attack helicopter can be found crashed in the drug store in season 1).
Example: According to wikipedia, Macon, Georgia, USA has about 155 000 inhabitants. A single M1A2 Abrams which is the main battle tank for the US forces is equipped with two machineguns with about 10,000 rounds plus one 120mm tank gun with an assortment of shells up to I think around 40, plus the fact that it can be sealed against the surroundings and weighs over 60 tons and has an operational range of 426 km. I think it's safe to assume that before a tank like this needs to be withdrawn to refuel and resupply, it could very well kill say at least 30 000 zombies, simply by travelling around. That is one tank. Now add everything else the military can throw at the undead - artillery, planes, helicopters and infantry to just mention a few, and you can pretty much clear out entire Macon even if the city just keeled over one day and everybody there died.
But as I'm the generous guy, lets say the military has about the same thought processes as an amoeba and only kills a fraction of these, that cold and heat and accidents don't matter - and you still have Lee and Rick and everybody else out there doing the bulk of the destruction of the undead - and you'd still come to the same result, namely that the walkers are gone in just a couple of years, siomply because they are slow, stupid and easy targets.
So yeah, any zombie story talking more than 1,5 years or so is just writing for the food on the table.
Every zombie apocalypse scenario is based on two assumptions. First is that military has collapsed during the first days of the apocalypse, because they were unable to understand how the infection spreads and how zombies are stopped until it was too late and it has already spread to soldiers. (Apparently no one has heard about common tropes of zombie fiction in zombie apocalypse stories.) Second is that the majority of world's population has turned and humans are a small minority.
In any case The Walking Dead has always been about the survivals and other humans are often much more dangerous than the walkers. That is especially true in case of Woodbury and in case of current war between the survivor communities. And the fact that the survivors fight with each others makes it more difficult to build any working society. Besides that also the fact that everyone who dies becomes a walker makes it difficult for people to live together and while walkers decay eventually there's a constant supply of new walkers.
I not really for some not showing up at all based on the decision to go or not however the characters being in different cricumstances would be great. Maybe to the extent of not meeting some for a longer period than others
400 Days isn't very long for an episode and doesn't have a lot of substance to it. The game is pretty shallow in comparison to how significant the end feels to many, so I doubt it will have a very significant impact. It's not required for season two, and many of those who played it when it was released will just replay it instead of using their save because it's not very mermorable. If it had been released last month instead of instead of months ago it would have been more interesting. I can't remember my decisions, but I remember it felt like I might as well be flipping a coin and knew I would have to wait several months before there was even a possiblility to explore the characters any further which made it worse. I remember hearing Vernon was dead which was great news, but also disappointed the entire group wasn't dead.
It's a bit odd at the moment for me in the sense that just before 400 Days was released I did my third playthrough of season one, so when I started 400 Days the first two times I used my third and second playthroughs respectedly, only getting Bonnie to join Tavia on Plathrough 3 and then the whole group on Playthough 2. Now that Season 2 is announced and having just finished Episode 1 of WAU I have finally played 400 Days on my first playthrough, this time getting all the group except Russell to join me. So I'm interested to see how this will affect Season 2 for me in each of my games.
One think that you may not see is the reaction of the society to such an apocalypse.
In a realistic world, ther will be first panic of the population. And if you actually add it to the surprise of a zombie apocalypse, it gives to the zombie team the advantage. And then what to do with the not dead bitten ones ? Should army fire on sight on citizen ? ETC ETC
"walkers are gone in just a couple of years, siomply because they are slow, stupid and easy targets.
So yeah, any zombie story talking more than 1,5 years or so is just writing for the food on the table."
And then someone gets sick/dies while everyone is sleeping and everything starts again, all this because the guy keeping guard was fat and couldn't reach the alarm in time.
Regarding the pop-culture zombie tropes, no, you are correct, and I think that in most media (Left 4 Dead is an exception) there is no such thing as zombies in-universe.
However, a military force does not just crumble like a cookie before a bulldozer - sure, the zombies would most likely kill a lot of soldiers, but a lot of these soldiers will be 100% protected in vehicles - which as I said, would amount for a lot of kills.
You are also kind of right in that a lot of this zombie-media is about the dangers of other humans - which is to be expected with humans only two meals from barbary and all that. However, one thing that rallies people are a common enemy - during the winter of 1916, Russian and German soldiers that had fought each other bonded together to fight off a very large, dangerous and aggressive pack of wolves. And this was during the height of WWI when the Germans and Russians did their best to kill each other, but both sides considered the wolves to be a greater threat.
So yeah, we would most likely see bands of bandits like the ones in s1e2, but sooner or later people gets pissed off being bullied by them and starts organising their defenses - which in turn is why we in the western world actually have functional socities and are not picking each other off from the roof tops.
But neither of those points explain why a zombiecalypse would last for so long? If everyone is out to get each other and zombies takes bites out of everyone, then very, very soon there would be no humans left.
Doesn't really affect me.. I'd have only lost Vince, and he was near the bottom of my list. As long as I get Becca and Shel I'm good.
If Becca and Shel aren't important characters then I am going to be pissed
)
It has been part of the genre since Romero that civilized society and military collapses early and that things go only worse. Things just don't turn better in zombie apocalypse fiction, best people can hope is finding (often temporary) safe haven. It would make a bad fiction if instead of being completely unprepared, panicking and reacting too slowly to the fast spreading infection the military would kill all the zombies during the first days of the outbreak. And this zombie apocalypse scenario offers good opportunity for social commentary about the worst parts of the human society, which is the reason why people as whole never work together, but are selfish and driven by their fears and prejudices.
Which in turns the whole thing into a parody if you strip the story of all realism. A certain event can only go on for so long before it ends - the black death literally killed itself, WW2 only lasted for six years and so on. Having a zombie apocalypse lasting for more than ,5 years or so just shows that the creator is only thinking about the money, not on telling a comprehensive story.
But that's exactly the thing. You're trying to logically point out why a zombie apocalypse as depicted in The Walking Dead wouldn't last much beyond two years. I agree with everything you're saying here. But logically speaking, the whole premise is absurd, even setting aside the fantastic elements. I don't think a 'zombie apocalypse' as depicted in this series would even amount to much of an apocalypse.
Simply put, after the initially bewildering first few days, when they're figuring out what's going on and how to counter it, any army worths its salt would make mincemeat of the zombies shown in this series. Seriously. If you stand on a high wall, they can't touch you. They're too stupid to know when to retreat or regroup or take cover from incoming fire. They're slow, meaning most people who are in decent shape could outrun one of them. If you make use of loud noises, you can direct them wherever you like, meaning you can guide thousands or hundreds of thousands or even millions of them into huge open fields...which then make fantastic kill zones for the air force, lots of juicy targets for bombing runs. After initial losses to surprise and confusion, it would become as clear to the army as anyone else that the cure to future infection is a bullet to the brain, meaning any future casualties will receive a mandatory shot to the head after death, denying the zombies additional reinforcements.
And this isn't counting ordinary citizens and law enforcement who are armed. Certainly many of them would also figure out just how easy it is to outmaneuver these hordes of shambling brainless corpses and start taking them down in massive numbers. Even if the first few days saw a massive jump in the number of zombies, the numbers would start dropping sharply as these mindless creatures are set up against armed humans with functioning brains.
The Walking Dead zombie apocalypse makes no sense. It has never made sense. It would kill a lot of people and devastate the country, but it would be well on its way to being contained much, much sooner than even 1.5 years, I think. The only way you would see the nonsense The Walking Dead shows, such as a crashed helicopter or an overrun tank or the general implication that the military has been routed by these things, is if the collective IQ of the world suddenly plummeted sharply alongside the first outbreak.
So as an initial condition of entry to the series, thinking too hard about the initial premise probably needs to be set aside. The zombie apocalypse will go on for as long as it produces drama, which means probably forever. It will also be as severe as drama dictates, which means so severe humanity may never recover, and certainly not within the lifespans of any of the main characters. That makes no sense, but when has it ever?
In a realistic world there would be no zombie apocalypse at all because a mix of police, military, and random people with guns would make very short work of them. Hell in the original Night of the Living Dead rednecks beat the zombies.
The condition for this scenario is that the surviving humans are idiots.
After the initial outbreak, and after it quickly becomes clear to anyone who survives the first few days that the destruction of the brain is the key to preventing the dead returning as walkers, the destruction of the brain would become an immediate first step upon anyone expiring. In whatever kind of society forms after this whole thing is cleared up, this would certainly be a given thing.
And after it becomes clear that someone dying unexpectedly in their sleep could result in their return as a walker and yet more infections, any group which wouldn't set a rotating guard shift to prevent just such a thing pretty much deserves whatever it gets.
Many zombie movies aren't actually that serious at all, some include subtle elements of comedy, but others are outright parodies like Shaun of the Dead. Some works start years after the initial outbreak and tell a good story, so I disagree with you on that account. And the apocalypse probably has duration, but because it's horror fantasy and not a real world, the apocalypse ends after everyone is dead and there is no food left for zombies. It would make a lousy apocalypse if the humans would win easily.
In any case let's get back to actual topic, which is the game series and not the realism or lack of realism of the entire genre, the game happens in comic book's world and there apocalypse is still going after the 400 days. Also they have said that some time has passed between the series and Clem is older, so I assume that we will be exploring more current stage in the comic book's timeline. If that is good or bad thing is matter or opinion.
I'm pretty sure that Clem will meet up with the whole 400 Days cast at one point or another. What I'm guessing is that Clem will first find whoever was left at the camp (since she seems to be traveling alone in the countryside), leading them to head to Tavia's community. If everyone went with Tavia, I'm thinking that there will be some signs towards the settlement, leading Clem to head there alone.
I fully agree here. However, there is this thing called "suspension of disbelief". I can set aside a lot, including the silly notion that dead would walk again. But this suspension only go so far and at some point it stops and I must say no. And one of these points is the timeframe - I can't without the help of a large dose of illegal drugs say that a zombiecalypse lasting more than 1,5-2 years would be feasible, good or anything but rubbish.
That's not a bad idea, in my first play though she would be just meeting Russell if that happened. I'm curious how significant this community of Tavia's will end up being.
Everyone went with Tavia in my game and Bonnie goes regardless so that says to me that TT wanted to make sure at least one person went with Tavia. I think that's why everyone believes getting everyone to go, is the right choice. It also makes sense because it gives a setting for season 2.
You may come across the others, the camp or the places from their story but I would imagine if that is the case it would either be a deserted or full of walkers. You may possibly see walker versions or corpse of characters that stayed behind though I would imagine Vince is most likely to make it out alive if he stayed behind. You have to remember it's a choice and consequence game so there will be consequences that may feel like punishment for making a 'wrong' decision.
Ofcourse it could work the other way and you only come across the camp but it seems far less likely (especially if everyone goes with Tavia) and if that's the case, why make one character go with Tavia regardless?
I agree with the point you make about dead bodys or walkers, I'm guessing Clem will come across the camp and who stayed there (my case Russel and Vince), and will see them as walkers or someone getting eaten wich will emply they were killed. And then you will go to safe area and meet whoever went there (my case Wyatt, Bonnie and Shel). But after that I'm guessing the area won't be very safe and will be overrunned and only some of the charatchers get to go with you.I think Bonnie will allways go, since she's the one that allways goes witth Tavia, but after that youu may only choose one. I think that would be interesting, and will happen around episode 2 or 3
I would find it hilarious if it turns out that going with Tavia is the wrong choice which leads to bad ending (and Bonnie is always doomed). But personally I think that TTG has something more interesting in reserve than simply making one of the options good and other bad. We don't know if those 400 Days characters are even a direct part of Season 2's story and maybe we don't see what happens to them until 400 Days Part 2 DLC.
You'll have a hard time analyzing a zombie apocalypse from a realistic/logical point of view. Just saying
Again, all together now:
SUSPENSION
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DISBELIEF
I actually agree, if you see this game and a wrong where you either do the good choice or the bad choice I think you've missed the point of tha game... each one survives as you can...There are no good or bad decisions, there are decisions taht's it... And each one has their consequences and you have to deadl with them... Dividing this game in good or bad decisions is totally not understanding the game in my point of view... By that point of view saving Carley or Doug is making a choice between a good or a bad decision...
"A certain event can only go on for so long before it ends - the black death literally killed itself, WW2 only lasted for six years and so on. Having a zombie apocalypse lasting for more than ,5 years or so just shows that the creator is only thinking about the money, not on telling a comprehensive story."
Ice age says otherwise and makes 5 years look like nothing.
Either way in my post i never said TWD (Comic/tv) was a flawless story but just that we should be somewhat less "logical" when judging those types of stories, because... they're dead people walking, you know not possible in real life.
Suspension of disbelief is relative when it comes to horror fiction and you'll have to accept some things as granted if you want it to make any sense. Zombie fiction and horror in general isn't very realistic. Besides zombies horror offers you such realistic things like people who have been dead for centuries and can control the living with blood and sexual desires, giant mutant insects, psychopaths who are impossible to kill, weird space aliens who can replace and mimic humans, demons and elder gods who rule entire dimensions of horror and come through portals into this world.
Zombie invasion which lasts for years doesn't sound weird at all if you compare it to the rest of the genre. I think that World War Z tried to explain why the military and society failed (I haven't actually read it, so I'm not sure why, but I have heard that unlike most zombie fiction it also explains the events of the initial outbreak and after that the first decade of the zombie war).