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Kibayasu
Mar 28, 2010

Part of the problem seems to be how they juggled the characters in light of their ending. Rumours of a rewrite aside the ending of Kenny vs Jane with Clem caught in the middle was probably in their mind for a while but by the end of episode 3 barely any one in the main group had died. Correct me if I'm wrong but of the main group only Alvin, potentially Nick, and Pete can die before the end of episode 3? Besides having a smaller core group to begin with, by the end of episode 3 of the first game Larry is dead, Lily is gone/dead, Duck and Katjaa are dead, both Doug and Carley are dead. Not that characters should be killed off quicker just to make the writing easier but the deaths in the first game were utilized in the narrative and gameplay much better prior to and after their exit.

But since the ending they had for Season 2 was Clem alone with Kenny and Jane over the course of just 2 episodes they had to remove Nick (potentially), Sarah, Rebecca, Luke, Mike, Carlos, Sarita, and Bonnie. There just isn't enough meat left in the game to give that many characters a meaningful out of the story, by death or otherwise especially since you can't give them nearly as much character as the smaller core group of the first game over the previous episodes since over half the first episode is really just Clementine.

Kibayasu fucked around with this message at 05:36 on Jan 6, 2015

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Mazzagatti2Hotty
Jan 23, 2012

JON JONES APOLOGIST #3

A big flaming stink posted:

more I think about it the more Sarah's deck death just seems like an absolute waste. Episode 3 and 4 displayed a really great contrast of Clementine's outlook, with 3 being a descent into the :black101: aspects of being a hardened survivor to 4's caring about others even if they are a burden. Frankly Sarah is a ridiculous liability in her state that totally could get someone killed but dumping her due to that is full Crawford. I was actually curious if they were trying to set up the dynamic from season 1 where the player feels responsible for someone else and tailors their decisions around whats best for them. Kind of like Clem taking up the spirit of Lee.

I mean hell, the sheer determination required to get her out of the mobile home was probably the most exciting part of the episode for me. Afterwards you have that moral debate with Jane bringing up the central theme of surviving for yourself vs living for family and it seems like the arc is going places. Plus it seemed like the perfect time for a callback to the pinky swear.

And then we got deck falls, everyone dies. Sure her death cut me good, but especially with the :effort: character reactions it just leaves a real sour aftertaste.

I get that AJ was supposed to be the subject for that bond but christ its a loving baby, its not a character its a plot device.

That's why I feel they missed a major opportunity with having multiple endings. Whether or not Sarah's death was still railroaded, I would have loved to see your potential endings impacted by major choices your character has to make like whether or not it's worth it to risk your life for someone like Sarah. Doing something like that would have gone a long way towards making her death more meaningful.

A. Beaverhausen posted:

I just never gave a poo poo about the baby. It was a really poor shoehorned attempt at feels.

I agree, I felt like AJ was introduced way too late in the story to really give a chance at building emotional investment, especially since they really didn't make much of an effort in having the player build a strong relationship with her mother.

I wonder how things would have gone if Christa had a stronger presence in the early part of the season and Rebecca's character was left out altogether. I feel like most season 1 players would have more of an attachment to her baby, since it's an idea that's been floating around in our minds for a couple years now. Just change AJ to OJ and we'd be good to go!

laplace
Oct 9, 2012

kcab dneb smra ym semitemos tub ,reh wonk I ekil leef I
I've said it a few times but I found it deeply problematic that you could play the game and actively refuse the baby all the time and say things like "I don't want to hold it" "here take it", to the point where people would actively notice that you didn't want anything to do with the baby, only to have it shoehorned on you at the last minute because Clem has to be a bastion of light and good and take the baby because CLEM LOVE BABBY. It was ridiculous character whiplash and honestly my Clem probably would have just left AJ in the car and just been pissed at Jane for arbitrarily getting someone murdered and causing conflict.

Antifreeze Head
Jun 6, 2005

It begins
Pillbug

laplace posted:

I've said it a few times but I found it deeply problematic that you could play the game and actively refuse the baby all the time and say things like "I don't want to hold it" "here take it", to the point where people would actively notice that you didn't want anything to do with the baby, only to have it shoehorned on you at the last minute because Clem has to be a bastion of light and good and take the baby because CLEM LOVE BABBY. It was ridiculous character whiplash and honestly my Clem probably would have just left AJ in the car and just been pissed at Jane for arbitrarily getting someone murdered and causing conflict.

It was off screen, but Clem read A Modest Proposal, so she knows what's up.

Grand Prize Winner
Feb 19, 2007


That kid didn't look Irish, though.

Rabbit Hill
Mar 11, 2009

God knows what lives in me in place of me.
Grimey Drawer
Just dropping into this thread to ask if Season One had a thread here?

I spent all day Saturday playing and beating the game, if everybody cried at the end like babies, just like me.

Kibayasu
Mar 28, 2010

Rabbit Hill posted:

Just dropping into this thread to ask if Season One had a thread here?

I spent all day Saturday playing and beating the game, if everybody cried at the end like babies, just like me.

If I wasn't a bitter, cynical, and socially maladjusted man-child I definitely would have cried at the end.

Season 1 did have a thread but if you're asking if its kosher to talk about Season 1 in the Season 2 thread I think that's fine for such a narrative and character driven game.

Rabbit Hill
Mar 11, 2009

God knows what lives in me in place of me.
Grimey Drawer
(Uh, I seem to have left an entire phrase out of my second sentence -- "and I was wondering if everybody...")

Thanks, I'll come back to this thread when I'm done with season 2 because I don't want to be spoiled, but I was curious to know if it was possible to (spoilers for season 1)save Carley from being shot and bringing her with you to the end of the game, and if keeping your arm vs. cutting it off made any appreciable difference to the storyline? (I opted to cut it off.)

E: Found it - season 1 thread

Rabbit Hill fucked around with this message at 18:17 on Jan 26, 2015

Kibayasu
Mar 28, 2010

Rabbit Hill posted:

(Uh, I seem to have left an entire phrase out of my second sentence -- "and I was wondering if everybody...")

Thanks, I'll come back to this thread when I'm done with season 2 because I don't want to be spoiled, but I was curious to know if it was possible to (spoilers for season 1)save Carley from being shot and bringing her with you to the end of the game, and if keeping your arm vs. cutting it off made any appreciable difference to the storyline? (I opted to cut it off.)

No (same with Doug) and to my knowledge the arm does cause one difference in the scene with the Stranger but not to the ultimate ending.

Prokhor Zakharov
Dec 31, 2008

This is me as I make another great post


Good luck with your depression!

laplace posted:

I've said it a few times but I found it deeply problematic that you could play the game and actively refuse the baby all the time and say things like "I don't want to hold it" "here take it", to the point where people would actively notice that you didn't want anything to do with the baby, only to have it shoehorned on you at the last minute because Clem has to be a bastion of light and good and take the baby because CLEM LOVE BABBY. It was ridiculous character whiplash and honestly my Clem probably would have just left AJ in the car and just been pissed at Jane for arbitrarily getting someone murdered and causing conflict.

There was a lot of this in S2. Arvo was one of the worst parts for me, the guy tries to ambush murder us in the forest and even captive freaks out and threatens us. Oh but we're supposed tof feel sorry for him because he's a cripple and makes Puss In Boots eyes at us when we threaten him back. In a real apocalypse scenario that group would have slit his throat and dumped him in the nearest ditch without a second thought.

Rabbit Hill
Mar 11, 2009

God knows what lives in me in place of me.
Grimey Drawer

Kibayasu posted:

No (same with Doug) and to my knowledge the arm does cause one difference in the scene with the Stranger but not to the ultimate ending.

That's good -- I don't have the guts to play the game again and risk having terrible emotions so soon after the first time.

I ended the game with Kenny, Omid, and Christa still alive. Couldn't get rid of Ben fast enough. I was looking for ways to kill him off long before the option presented itself. :argh:

laplace
Oct 9, 2012

kcab dneb smra ym semitemos tub ,reh wonk I ekil leef I
I think the thing with Arvo that didn't bother me as much as the babby (though he did bother me) was just that Clem wasn't really the person dealing with him, so I didn't feel so invalidated when people didn't listen to me when I was like "just loving kill him already", because it's like... if I had the choice or agency to murder him I would have but the game never directly presents that as a choice in the same way it presents other options.

I really, really would have liked the choice to shoot Mike in the loving face though because Clem doesn't deal with Betrayal.

gay skull
Oct 24, 2004


Oh good, I came here to bitch about Arvo. Why in the gently caress did everyone but Kenny trust him, and the decisions tried to push you into trying to feel bad for him?

Yeah, we robbed his medicine not because Bonnie wanted to get high, but because we had a woman who's about to have a kid, like, TODAY and all we have is a jacket and some water. That's kinda more important than his unseen-at-the-time sister.

And then he pulls a crew of armed Russians out of his rear end who tried to kill us, and we all just up and believe him on the house deal? I know that turned out to be true (mostly), but come on. Everybody but Kenny went way too easy on that little poo poo.

And now he's practically confirmed to return in S3 because he didn't die. I hope he has a glorious death.

And while I'm here, I'm really thinking the next season will have different protagonists per episode, kind of like 400 days but expanded out into an entire episode per character. That's at least what I'd like to see, I like the one-shot format.

gay skull fucked around with this message at 00:09 on Jan 30, 2015

Accordion Man
Nov 7, 2012


Buglord
Because the writing for Season 2 wasn't that good compared to 1 so all they could come up with was some really contrived conflicts.

WIFEY WATCHDOG
Jun 25, 2012

Yeah, well I don't trust this guy. I think he regifted, he degifted, and now he's using an upstairs invite as a springboard to a Super Bowl sex romp.
Season 1 was an insanely good videogame/experience. Season 2 was poo poo from a butt.

Coolguye
Jul 6, 2011

Required by his programming!
The writers admitted in an interview that one of their goals was to turn people around on Kenny, who was one of the most beloved (if divisive) characters in Season 1 - and also the only person besides Clem who's, frankly, not a bit player. Everyone else is either dead or so underexposed that nobody could possibly give a poo poo about them.

That sort of goal is a real problem since it doesn't make anything resembling sense in the context of storytelling. The Invisible Hand of God saying 'okay, now everyone will see this person as an rear end in a top hat, regardless of anything they do' isn't something a lot of people can relate to, so when they experience that poo poo happening in a story they just go 'wait what'.

That doesn't just seem like a problem with the writing, it comes off as a problem with the writing management. Someone in control should've been there to say 'that is a terrible aim and we should talk about something that's not terrible.'

Accordion Man
Nov 7, 2012


Buglord
Yeah, that explains a lot.

They did an especially lovely job of that too because Kenny was far and away the most reliable and sensible character in the group.

PriorMarcus
Oct 17, 2008

ASK ME ABOUT BEING ALLERGIC TO POSITIVITY

Accordion Man posted:

Yeah, that explains a lot.

They did an especially lovely job of that too because Kenny was far and away the most reliable and sensible character in the group.

Every single one of the new group was a combination of idiotic, monstrous or dangerously unadjusted to the state of the world. It's no wonder that Kenny built a ski-slope utopia only to have it hosed over the same night the new group stumbled upon it.

Coolguye
Jul 6, 2011

Required by his programming!
pete was cool

but he was also hosed within 30 minutes of his introduction

Prokhor Zakharov
Dec 31, 2008

This is me as I make another great post


Good luck with your depression!

PriorMarcus posted:

Every single one of the new group was a combination of idiotic, monstrous or dangerously unadjusted to the state of the world. It's no wonder that Kenny built a ski-slope utopia only to have it hosed over the same night the new group stumbled upon it.

Realtalk I was ready to walk out with Kenny literally the moment he appeared cause that group was powerfully retarded. They keep going "oooooh we're being hunted by some crazy guy!! you have to save us literal child!!" While the entire time my reaction was a solid:

Urdnot Fire
Feb 13, 2012

Coolguye posted:

pete was cool

but he was also hosed within 30 minutes of his introduction
Same with Walter. And Matthew seemed chill too, though he only lasted 30 seconds after his intro :v:

1stGear
Jan 16, 2010

Here's to the new us.
I killed Kenny and don't really consider him an rear end in a top hat. Just a broken dude who'd been through too much. Like putting down Old Yeller.

PriorMarcus
Oct 17, 2008

ASK ME ABOUT BEING ALLERGIC TO POSITIVITY

1stGear posted:

I killed Kenny and don't really consider him an rear end in a top hat. Just a broken dude who'd been through too much. Like putting down Old Yeller.

You already do that in the first episode though.

GenderSelectScreen
Mar 7, 2010

I DON'T KNOW EITHER DON'T ASK ME
College Slice

1stGear posted:

I killed Kenny and don't really consider him an rear end in a top hat. Just a broken dude who'd been through too much. Like putting down Old Yeller.

That was my reasoning too. Also let me watch as Jane begged me to come back as I left her stupid rear end to freeze.

Pharmaskittle
Dec 17, 2007

arf arf put the money in the fuckin bag

Yeah, I liked Kenny a lot, but I still killed him. He was just a hundred percent broken and deserved to be done. Jane was also too crazy to save. Clem on her own again, since everyone else is too far gone

Momomo
Dec 26, 2009

Dont judge me, I design your manhole
I really don't think Kenny should have returned in this season at all, really. His character arc was over, we did not need him to completely take over the narrative of Clem's development.

Throughout the season I sort of flip flopped on him, I guess? Overall by the end I was really sick to death of his poo poo, so I felt like he needed to go.

lotus circle
Dec 25, 2012

Jushure Iburu
So don't worry

Momomo posted:

I really don't think Kenny should have returned in this season at all, really. His character arc was over, we did not need him to completely take over the narrative of Clem's development.

Throughout the season I sort of flip flopped on him, I guess? Overall by the end I was really sick to death of his poo poo, so I felt like he needed to go.
As someone who likes Kenny, I agree. Once he showed it up it felt like a lot of the story began to revolve around dealing with him and it took away from Clem's story, especially after episode 3.

It feels like a lot of rewriting was done because everything seemed to go off the rails once the Carver stuff ended. The majority of the season 2 group died between the end of episode 3 and episode 4, either having deaths that left no impact (Carlos and Nick) or felt pointless and rushed for drama (Rebecca and Sarah especially) and then Luke dies in a stupid way mid-way into episode 5.

Yes it's Walking Dead and I'm not saying everyone needs to make it to the end, but gently caress even Lee's group didn't die this quickly and the new characters that did come on midway were immediately likable and you cared about them. It only took me the very last parts of episode 3 in season 1 to like Omid and Christa, but they spent a whole episode with Jane in season 2 being the center of attention and I couldn't give a poo poo about her because she's an abrasive loner who projects her dead sister issues onto Clem. The same goes for characters like Sarita, who seems to only have existed to be killed off so they could give Kenny even more stupid drama, and Nick who seems like he'll be important but stops playing any role in the story after episode 2.

That said I let Kenny live and felt rewarded for the ending I got for dealing with him, but I'm glad he'll probably never appear again because of how he became a determinant death. Same for Jane.

bobjr
Oct 16, 2012

Roose is loose.
🐓🐓🐓✊🪧

Out of season 1 only Chuck really stands out as a wasted character I think, while season 2 it feels like all but one or two characters aren't wasted.

DeathChicken
Jul 9, 2012

Nonsense. I have not yet begun to defile myself.

Man, gently caress Kenny. I gave up on his rear end in Season 1 when I didn't smash Larry's head with a cinderblock, so he took *every last opportunity* to whine about how Lee had no loyalty to him for the rest of the game. Get over it, jerk. :colbert:

lotus circle
Dec 25, 2012

Jushure Iburu
So don't worry

bobjr posted:

Out of season 1 only Chuck really stands out as a wasted character I think, while season 2 it feels like all but one or two characters aren't wasted.
Chuck was severely wasted and I still remember liking him more than most of the cabin group.

Prokhor Zakharov
Dec 31, 2008

This is me as I make another great post


Good luck with your depression!

DeathChicken posted:

Man, gently caress Kenny. I gave up on his rear end in Season 1 when I didn't smash Larry's head with a cinderblock, so he took *every last opportunity* to whine about how Lee had no loyalty to him for the rest of the game. Get over it, jerk. :colbert:

Kenny realized you were bitchmade from day 1.

rypakal
Oct 31, 2012

He also cooks the food of his people

Prokhor Zakharov posted:

Realtalk I was ready to walk out with Kenny literally the moment he appeared

I assume to shoot him the back of the head because he was the worst loving character in s1.

Momomo
Dec 26, 2009

Dont judge me, I design your manhole
Complaints aside, I will say Kenny is probably the most consistently written character in the series. A selfish rear end in a top hat that plays both sides by trying to make you feel sympathetic, making you question whether you like the guy or not.

ja2ke
Feb 19, 2004

It has now been years since these story discussions back in 2011 (man does time fly!) so I am likely misremembering some details here, but this is my recollection of how Chuck came to be and why he is underused:

In early season one pitches, Chuck was Michonne - a character sho shows up when things are at their worst, tells you to get your poo poo together, and moves on - but the locations and timeline didn't work out at all so that was dropped from the story. That character arc didn't exist at all in episode 3 for a while and then it got reintroduced as Chuck the Hobo, initially amost as a joke, then it stuck.

Also, there was a time when Chuck could optionally live through the opening of ep 104 and exist through the first 2/3 of that episode, but it got cut down because episode 4 was already so big that it would have been impossible to produce on the already slim late-season schedule. I think that Chuck initially could optionally die in the end of 103, which would determine if he made it to 4. There was a good scene Gary Whitta wrote with Chuck eating beans in that abandoned manor house but I can't remember any more details than that. When we realized he was causing a ton of production bloat it was decided to at least let him go out a heroic badass at the start of 104 but I agree that he was underused. He was never meant to be a big character, but then both Vanaman and Whitta used him so well... But his time in the series was apparently fated to be short no matter what.

I think internallu he was always seen as a late add that was "one more thing" on top of everything else, so he was easy to make an argument for cutting or trimming out of the story. This attitude is almost impossible to shake when you're living in the moment. At the time of episode 103 it was almost impossible to get traction even on recognition of Omid and Christa as New Real Characters, because they weren't in the origibal group we spent so much time with. But in hindsight I think that getting over those hesitations is the only way to keep a Walking Dead story great over time. Walking Dead is a story of never ending churn, with new characters that could last years or minutes, but if you and the creator can't convince yourself that the new characters are just as important and worth fighting for and worth internalizing as full humans, as your "old friend" characters are, you're going to keep running into the same pitfall of not really knowing what to do with a character and deciding to just let them languish and die as zombie chum to further an old characters story. It's SO HARD to avoid, especially with the smaller cast the game sometimes has compared to the comic, but for instance maybe we could have killed Ben at the start of 104 and had that death launch Chuck into a new and surprising direction, instead of killing the newest character off to keep the same old characters propped up.

ja2ke fucked around with this message at 17:00 on Jan 30, 2015

Contra Duck
Nov 4, 2004

#1 DAD
I'm sure this has been asked a lot but checking the last few pages and the OP didn't turn up anything so here goes - I lost my season 1 saves when my hard disk died, is there any tool out there that can let me recreate it?

Prokhor Zakharov
Dec 31, 2008

This is me as I make another great post


Good luck with your depression!

rypakal posted:

I assume to shoot him the back of the head because he was the worst loving character in s1.

The worst character of s1 is better then the best of s2

Rabbit Hill
Mar 11, 2009

God knows what lives in me in place of me.
Grimey Drawer
I played and finished season 2 this Saturday.

I had heard that season 2 wasn't nearly as good as season 1 but I enjoyed the first couple of chapters well enough -- I was thinking maybe people's disappointment was due mainly to the setting no longer being novel and the story being kind of more of the same.

Hahaha.

It wasn't until the flashback to Lee in the RV -- at which I instantly started crying -- that I realized I didn't care about any of the season 2 characters, and it wasn't even the setting that had made me enjoy season 1 so much (I don't care about zombies, but I do love some post-apocalyptic survivalism). It was pretty much single-handedly the bond between Lee and Clementine. Without anything remotely as emotionally involving in season 2, it just wasn't enjoyable.

I guess the developers didn't want to repeat themselves with creating a similiar emotional bond between two characters in the sequel, and then it seemed like maybe they were trying to do that with the baby, with Clem filling Lee's role for the baby, but.... no. All I could think of was that newborns have to eat about every two hours, so that baby would have been dead within a day. Its continued existence was more than a little ridiculous.

At the very end of my first playthrough, I sided with Jane (because I was thinking "unstable impulsive person vs. stable rational person ") and promptly told her to gently caress off when her plan was revealed (little Clem's first curse words! :3:) and ended up alone. That didn't sit well with me, so I went back and saved Kenny (this time thinking "unstable person who loves me like family vs. 'stable' person who will abandon me in my sleep if I twist my ankle") and felt satisfied by letting him drop me off at Wellington. Kenny got his closure and Clem got to lay down her burden and sleep peacefully for once.

Lee really was the best. Too bad everyone in season 2 was so awful (well, except Kenny -- Kenny is someone's crazy redneck uncle, but goddamn it, he's family). I couldn't kill Sarah fast enough. I don't give a poo poo how sheltered you are, YOU ADAPT. AND sheltered doesn't account for someone standing and staring at a pair of garden clippers for five minutes like a dumbass and then loving up pruning a plant worse than a big retarded baby, GOD SARAH GET IT TOGETHER. Clem gave her nothing but tough love after that and she still didn't learn anything, so her number was up pretty quick.

Rabbit Hill fucked around with this message at 18:36 on Feb 3, 2015

IShallRiseAgain
Sep 12, 2008

Well ain't that precious?


Why does she have white hands?

IShallRiseAgain fucked around with this message at 18:50 on Feb 2, 2015

Shard
Jul 30, 2005

Did they ever release an official soundtrack for Season 2?

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TexMexFoodbaby
Sep 6, 2011

by LITERALLY AN ADMIN

Spikeguy posted:

Did they ever release an official soundtrack for Season 2?

No. I don't think they ever even released one for Season One. But if they did one of you better tell me where it is right now.

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