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Speaking of Telltale games every single one of those stupid adventure games falls apart when you realize you have zero influence on how the story pans out. The only thing in the he is choice, and those choices do not matter. At that point it's basically a poorly written, terribly animated tv episode.
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Jul 15, 2020 17:18
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Manager Hoyden posted:Speaking of Telltale games every single one of those stupid adventure games falls apart when you realize you have zero influence on how the story pans out. The only thing in the he is choice, and those choices do not matter. At that point it's basically a poorly written, terribly animated tv episode. i played the start of walking dead and very quickly realized this and never played another TT game.
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Jul 15, 2020 17:21
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Strongly agreed. It’s the same with the various new lovely version of CYOA books you can get on your phone.
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Jul 15, 2020 17:23
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I think the weird sudden stop in game's dialogues might be a mix of the voice actors not knowing what kind of scene they're doing plus what their own annotations look like in the script. Most folks will read out loud and write directions, like when to pause for a breath, slow down or advance, change intonations, etc. In this case, there's probably some point where they did a full stop, as the text ended but had no idea why, thus the awkward interruption.
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Jul 15, 2020 17:31
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Manager Hoyden posted:Speaking of Telltale games every single one of those stupid adventure games falls apart when you realize you have zero influence on how the story pans out. The only thing in the he is choice, and those choices do not matter. At that point it's basically a poorly written, terribly animated tv episode. The Wolf Among Us has collectibles, the Book of Fables entries. You can miss some of them, not because you didn’t collect them, but because you chose to to area B instead of area A. To collect them all you’ll need to replay the episode (or maybe an episode has chapters, can’t remember). So if you like the game enough to unlock every achievement you’ll have to replay it and are rewarded by seeing the illusion of choice in its ghastly visage.
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Jul 15, 2020 17:32
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I wasn't as quick on the uptake but in Episode 3 I realized the Carly/Doug(?) choice amounted to a couple of lines at the end of Episode 1, a few lines at the beginning and end of Episode 2 (since the character you chose is off-camera for most of it) and a few lines in Episode 3 before they get unavoidably murked On the bright side TellTale never updated their lovely engine or development style, everyone realized it was poo poo and they folded HARD Tales from the Borderlands was the only one I played with good enough writing to get over the jank and meaningless decisions.
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Jul 15, 2020 17:33
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Riatsala posted:On the bright side TellTale never updated their lovely engine or development style, everyone realized it was poo poo and they folded HARD I'm not sure how thousands of workers being mistreated and eventually fired with no benefits is the bright side.
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Jul 15, 2020 17:39
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Riatsala posted:I wasn't as quick on the uptake but in Episode 3 I realized the Carly/Doug(?) choice amounted to a couple of lines at the end of Episode 1, a few lines at the beginning and end of Episode 2 (since the character you chose is off-camera for most of it) and a few lines in Episode 3 before they get unavoidably murked Tales of the Borderlands never tried to market itself as 'your decisions have meaning!', it's clear every choice you make in that game is simply based around what cool stuff you want to see, and it's awesome for it. Oh, uh except for (uh, episode 3 or 4 ending choice?) when you're given a choice of letting Jack take you over, but it's not really one.
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Jul 15, 2020 17:44
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I heard rumors that a fourth Brothers in Arms game was in development so I decided to try Hell’s Highway again since I’ve played the first two to death and drat this game has a lot of problems. The game tries way too hard to be Band of Brothers and the writing is really bad. This is compounded by a poo poo ton of unnecessary drama all wrapped up into cutscenes which you can’t skip. And why is there now someone with a massive English accent fighting in my American Airborne unit? I’m not a massive stickler for historical accuracy but it seems to me like they just added him so they could check a box or something. Baker controls like a boat and runs at a speed equivalent to a small child which makes it really hard to flank Germans. The squad AI is garbage. Sometimes your units won’t go to the place you order and other times when you order them to a wall they’ll place themselves in such a way that none of them can even see the enemy. Then they’ll just sit there and complain and do nothing to fix it. The game has solo sections, because what I want from a series know for squad based combat is solo sections where I have to walk down hallways and slug it out with enemies. Why do I have to cycle past my lovely pistol in order to reach my other useful gun? The cover system doesn’t make a lot of sense. If you press the ‘go into cover’ button by a wall you’re pretty much invincible, but if you just crouch behind the wall you’re still able to get shot and killed. This was all stuff I noticed on the first level and a half of the game, don’t think I’ve ever uninstalled something so fast in my life.
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Jul 15, 2020 17:51
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Samuringa posted:I think the weird sudden stop in game's dialogues might be a mix of the voice actors not knowing what kind of scene they're doing plus what their own annotations look like in the script. Most folks will read out loud and write directions, like when to pause for a breath, slow down or advance, change intonations, etc. In this case, there's probably some point where they did a full stop, as the text ended but had no idea why, thus the awkward interruption. Don't get me wrong, I said "voice acting" but it's not the actor's fault. It's the script, the direction, or how the recordings are used by the devs.
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Jul 15, 2020 18:22
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moosecow333 posted:And why is there now someone with a massive English accent fighting in my American Airborne unit? I’m not a massive stickler for historical accuracy but it seems to me like they just added him so they could check a box or something. Which character was that? Off hand, other than the British tank units who shows up a few times, I don’t remember any of the accents being wildly out of place.
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Jul 15, 2020 18:27
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A Mike Dawson. Apparently the game even goes out of its way to state he was born in England. And sure, he could have moved to the states and what not but it seems like such a weird choice to make for a new character.
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Jul 15, 2020 18:46
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Lobok posted:I used to think it was a case of switching to different audio files but I have no idea. With live theatre there’s a lot of stuff like that, or like actors unnaturally pausing lines after a joke, etc. Usually that has to do with making sure the line doesn’t get stepped on by the audience reaction. What you’ve described sounds more like an actor not picking up his cue fast enough, because of course not. Morpheus posted:Tales of the Borderlands never tried to market itself as 'your decisions have meaning!', it's clear every choice you make in that game is simply based around what cool stuff you want to see, and it's awesome for it. It was all fairly cosmetic but I thought it did a good job letting me choose between a Rhys who was ultimately a much more decent person than Jack from the start, or a Rhys who needed to become Jack to figure out it wasn’t really him.
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Jul 15, 2020 19:20
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The Borderlands TellTale game was their best game because: 1) The dual protagonist system was interesting. Having a conversation you were both sides of was a great culmination. 2) The tone was lighter, so I was more comfortable making natural choices, instead of worrying about what the "right one" was. Like I know long-term none of the choices matter in any of their games, but even still the other games had me meta-gaming actions instead of just doing what I felt. 3) Loader Bot.
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Jul 15, 2020 19:55
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moosecow333 posted:A Mike Dawson. Apparently the game even goes out of its way to state he was born in England. And sure, he could have moved to the states and what not but it seems like such a weird choice to make for a new character. Darkseed crossover with Brothers in Arms? I'm listening.
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Jul 15, 2020 20:12
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"telltale died because everyone realized their games are actually bad" is a real galaxy brain take I tell you what
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Jul 16, 2020 02:54
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I liked the Telltale games. They didn't hold up to repeat playthroughs but they were fun and enjoyable
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Jul 16, 2020 03:01
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CJacobs posted:"telltale died because everyone realized their games are actually bad" is a real galaxy brain take I tell you what I don't think it's too far off. I played the first walking dead and liked it okay and thought "if they change up a few things and push the concept a bit further I'll get the next one" and whelp. Was good enough for me to play 1 of them, was probably good enough for others to play 1-3 or whatever before they got sick of no advancement too. At a certain point novelty wears off and repeated problems build up annoyance until people have enough. Or other people advance a medium/genre and you're stuck looking not as good as before. I wouldn't say they were always bad, but like pretty-much anything they were always flawed, and spamming out tonnes of them while making almost no changes or improvements brought out those flaws.
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Jul 16, 2020 04:45
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i think "TellTale is a onetrick pony" or "lacks innovation" is more precise. thats what i thought at the time.
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Jul 16, 2020 04:54
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People told me walking dead had a good story and then episode two was some of the stupidest poo poo I've ever read.
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Jul 16, 2020 05:00
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I never got through the entirety of episode 2 but it really was a meatgrinder. I mean sure 1 also offed a ton of characters, but not within minutes of them getting screen time.
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Jul 16, 2020 05:02
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Riatsala posted:I wasn't as quick on the uptake but in Episode 3 I realized the Carly/Doug(?) choice amounted to a couple of lines at the end of Episode 1, a few lines at the beginning and end of Episode 2 (since the character you chose is off-camera for most of it) and a few lines in Episode 3 before they get unavoidably murked
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Jul 16, 2020 05:53
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Telltale was perfectly good for what it was made for: give us a new Sam & Max game and revitalize the adventure games as a A-list genre. Shame that they decided to become IPR-hoarding visual novel company instead of keep making adventure or story-driven puzzle games.
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Jul 16, 2020 08:03
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They also died because they had way to many irons in the fire. They spend a shitton of money on licences and tried to develop a lot of games at the same time while also reaching the limit of what their engine could do on the technical side. the management was just terrible at that company. The games still sold in decent numbers but decent numbers are only good enough for a small company and Telltale expanded massively to cover all the licences they bought. Pretty much every game had to be a blockbuster at that point to keep the company going and that was just never realistic.
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Jul 16, 2020 08:41
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Yeah they had like 300 employees and an office in San Francisco so they were just hemorrhaging money and like Shai-Hulud said, decent money isn't doing it when you have that sort of situation.
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Jul 16, 2020 10:31
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I never understood the complaint that Telltale's games only offered the illusion of choice and that it's ruined if you peek behind the curtain to see how it works. Like... just don't do that and enjoy the illusion. Are you standing up at magic shows to complain that the rabbit wasn't really in the magician's hat?
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Jul 16, 2020 13:04
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Shai-Hulud posted:They also died because they had way to many irons in the fire. They spend a shitton of money on licences and tried to develop a lot of games at the same time while also reaching the limit of what their engine could do on the technical side. the management was just terrible at that company. This. The downfall of Telltale is well documented and shockingly it has gently caress-all to do with "everyone suddenly universally agreed with my opinion, that all of their games were trash garbage, and they instantly shrank into nothing and disappeared overnight  "
John Murdoch has a new favorite as of 13:11 on Jul 16, 2020 |
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Jul 16, 2020 13:06
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Necrothatcher posted:I never understood the complaint that Telltale's games only offered the illusion of choice and that it's ruined if you peek behind the curtain to see how it works. if I remember correctly, Telltale were going around saying their games had all this choice and that it effected future episodes of games etc, which it did not...that's why people were so upset about it, esp as the company started winding down and putting even less effort into their games.
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Jul 16, 2020 13:07
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LifeSunDeath posted:if I remember correctly, Telltale were going around saying their games had all this choice and that it effected future episodes of games etc, which it did not... But they did have choices that affected future episodes and seasons. Just like, not all of them.
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Jul 16, 2020 13:15
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Necrothatcher posted:I never understood the complaint that Telltale's games only offered the illusion of choice and that it's ruined if you peek behind the curtain to see how it works. The thing is, when you put that much emphasis on choices mattering, it encourages additional playthroughs to see what could have happened differently... which shatters that illusion completely when the answer is “basically nothing”
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Jul 16, 2020 13:18
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Necrothatcher posted:I never understood the complaint that Telltale's games only offered the illusion of choice and that it's ruined if you peek behind the curtain to see how it works. it's more like going to a magic show where the magician doesn't even bother to use clever angles, the invisible strings are all painted neon and he picks the rabbit up out of a hutch and places it into the hat right in front of you
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Jul 16, 2020 13:18
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Ugly In The Morning posted:The thing is, when you put that much emphasis on choices mattering, it encourages additional playthroughs to see what could have happened differently... which shatters that illusion completely when the answer is “basically nothing” I mean, I guess - but I don't think the games encourage you to replay them and it seems like you're intentionally spoiling the fun for yourself. I only ever played through any Telltale game once, never looked up alternate paths and thought they were pretty fun.
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Jul 16, 2020 13:21
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In most choice-based narratives I accept the illusion of consequence even if the overall story structure doesn't diverge that much. Video games are expensive productions and it's usually more interesting to me when things COULD have gone differently rather than how divergent those story paths actually are. However, some Telltale games get really annoying with this because they're like "this thing you didn't want to happen and specifically chose against happening happens anyway five minutes later." Why even frame it as a decision if you're just going to overwrite the player no matter what they do.
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Jul 16, 2020 13:24
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Necrothatcher posted:I mean, I guess - but I don't think the games encourage you to replay them and it seems like you're intentionally spoiling the fun for yourself. If the major mechanic of a game is large dynamic narrative...replaying to get different results is the only "game" there is...otherwise it's just an animated movie with pointless quicktime events. They may not have wanted for players to replay because they knew their changing story lines were pointless and not actual content though...but that's exactly my problem with the game.
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Jul 16, 2020 13:26
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LifeSunDeath posted:If the major mechanic of a game is large dynamic narrative...replaying to get different results is the only "game" there is...otherwise it's just an animated movie with pointless quicktime events. They may not have wanted for players to replay because they knew their changing story lines were pointless and not actual content though...but that's exactly my problem with the game. If you don't want an animated movie with quicktime events then I can see why you have problems with Telltale games. Like, I'm not holding them up as some pinnacle of narrative or game design, but they're fun distractions and I think gamers had unrealistic expectations about them.
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Jul 16, 2020 13:31
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I enjoyed the Telltale games but only because I played through them with a group of friends. That said, that illusion of choice did start to get grating, as I started simply not caring about the choices the game presented because, why bother? Especially in Walking Dead where 90% of the time everybody you've been introduced to in the episode is going to perish in some untimely incident in like ep 4 or 5 of the season anyway. Again, why Tales of the Borderlands was the best one, where choices are such ones as "Do you want your big robot to have rocket launchers or saw blades?"
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Jul 16, 2020 13:32
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Yes, the unrealistic expectations of being told their choices matter and that turning out to be, basically, a lie.
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Jul 16, 2020 13:33
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Leavemywife posted:Yes, the unrealistic expectations of being told their choices matter and that turning out to be, basically, a lie. If a developer lying to me to makes the story more tense then they can go nuts. cf Hellblade.
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Jul 16, 2020 13:36
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Necrothatcher posted:If a developer lying to me to makes the story more tense then they can go nuts. Technically not a lie!
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Jul 16, 2020 13:37
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It's amazing how pissed off people get about Hellblade because of that. People see it or hear about it and they get mad and refuse to play on principle because how dare a game have stakes!  But then when someone politely spoiler tags the real deal they get mad and refuse to play on principle because how dare a game developer lie to them!
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Jul 16, 2020 13:48
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