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Waypoint: Telltale's ancient tech is badly hurting their games

D

Dinjoralo

Member
Tovarisc said:
More or less why also Bethesda keeps reheating their ancient engine. Games are unstable, buggy and technologically behind, but they sell like bread.
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The other thing being that nobody makes these absurdly "sandboxy" open worlds that Bethesda does. Games like The Witcher 3 or Breath of The Wild are great games, but they don't compete in the same space as Skyrim.
Meanwhile, Telltale's got good competition from games like Life is Strange, or some other story-driven point-and-click games I know exist but can't research right now.
 
T

Tovarisc

Member
StrongBelwas said:
But where is Wolf Among Us season 2?
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I guess they killed it by gutting 1st season and ruining its episodic release so they could push more TWD. Wait for those episodes was insanely long and like they 100% abandoned it.

It was first and last time I purchased TT title.
 
E

Eylos

Banned
After GoT i decided to purchase only Well received games from Tell tale

The story is a Very bad fan fiction
 
Pagusas

Pagusas

Elden Member
I just see TellTale as the dumping ground for TV/Movie IP's now, they basically picked up the slack of the 90's crap movie game makers.

You got to feel bad for the souls of the dev staff, they have to realize they are making sub-par products, I know they employ some very talented people who they are wasting.
 
Deft Beck

Deft Beck

Member
ElBoxyBrown said:
Yes but Telltale is a brand that studios and the majority of people know.
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We've had a tiny bit of competition from developers like Dontnod, even if Square Enix didn't exercise the developer's brand as heavily as Telltale does. People know "Life is Strange" and that's it.

I think there's plenty of room for more competition.
 
R

Renekton

Member
Tovarisc said:
More or less why also Bethesda keeps reheating their ancient engine. Games are unstable, buggy and technologically behind, but they sell like bread.
Click to expand...
Transitioning team to new tech/workflow can lead to big disruptions and retraining, see Mass Effect Andromeda.

Having said that, Persona team got excellent results after dumping Gamebryo.
 
T

Tovarisc

Member
Still amazes me that TT was able to convince Disney / Marvel to give GotG rights to them. Especially now that Marvel is on binge guarding their IP's very closely and want only high quality products done with them.
 
E

ElBoxyBrown

Banned
Deft Beck said:
We've had a tiny bit of competition from developers like Dontnod, even if Square Enix didn't exercise the developer's brand as heavily as Telltale does. People know "Life is Strange" and that's it.

I think there's plenty of room for more competition.
Click to expand...

There is but whenever anyone thinks of an IP that they want transformed into a story driven experience, they think Telltale. The studio has marketed itself well in that front. Game writers that put story first over everything else. I feel like other studios need to push as hard as Telltale in that regard to get a chance at these IPs.
 
G

Gattsu25

Banned
The last Telltale game I bought was Tales From the Borderlands after hearing all of the fan praise it was receiving and the tech that they're still using got me to quit before I even got to the end of the first episode.
 
V

Van Bur3n

Member
heckmanimation said:
its not just their tech, its their gameplay imo. advance that shit. innovate people. god!
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Yep. To think they've already made so many games with the same damn lame formula. Same terrible engine, same unfulfilling gameplay, and worst of all, choices that have never mattered to how the story unfolds whatsoever. And the still keep claiming they do with every game.

I had my fill of it after The Wolf Among Us. Sick of their games and how many they've made with little innovation.
 
Z

Zafir

Member
Nothing new.

Part of the reason I stopped buying their games unless they're on a cheap Steam sale.

It's a real shame too. Liked telltale a lot back when they made point and click adventure games.
 
K

kaioshade

Member
TetraGenesis said:
I certainly don't buy TellTale games anymore.

It's funny how my perception of them has changed.

Post-Walking Dead, I thought of them as these bold, brilliant pioneers of the industry, doing what no one else seemed capable of.


Now I just view them as a joke.
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Same here, I have Walking Dead S1 & 2. Wife bought A Wolf Among Us & GoT and while we enjoyed those, it was Game of Thrones that started souring us. Friend bought Batman, and had no end of issues.

But aside from people here on GAF, i wonder if enough people are still buying their games.

*edit* And from a technical standpoint, Life is Strange stomped all over anything Telltale did.
 
T

The real Butters

Member
I picked up batman not to long ago but yikes, The performance on ps4 is so bad. So so so bad. I mean, 5-10 fps bad. Very slow and stuttery.

I can't believe they're allowed to release a product like that. It burnt me so bad I'm not picking up guardians :(
I really enjoyed season 1 of walking dead and wolf among us though.
 
A

Ahasverus

Member
The Witcher 3 is a better visual novel than Telltale will ever make, and it doesn't make me want to gouge my eyes out. I'm never buying a Telltale game again.
 
T

Tjamato88

Member
Not surprising it's been like this forever. Hopefully they go back and rebuild their engine but at this point I really doubt it.
 
A

Alienous

Member
What they need is competition.

They've got a weird mainstream monopoly on that type of adventure game. I can think of Until Dawn and Quantic Dream's games that occupy a similar space, but not much else.

Once another developer embarrasses them they'll have the incentive to move away from outdated tech.
 
G

Gattsu25

Banned
Van Bur3n said:
Yep. To think they've already made so many games with the same damn lame formula. Same terrible engine, same unfulfilling gameplay, and worst of all, choices that have never mattered to how the story unfolds whatsoever.

I had my fill of it after The Wolf Among Us. Sick of their games and how many they've with little innovation.
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I don't care if the choices don't diverge that much as long as the consequences feel natural to the choices I made. The Walking Dead season 1 is a classic in my mind because almost everything in that game flows together well.

I also have a strong preference for NEVER (under any circumstance) loading a save to experiment or starting a second playthrough on any of these narrative focused adventure games. The story that I experienced first is the story that I leave with. The desire to experience everything in a game is something that I recognized for the experience killer that it was a looong time ago. That type of mindset I feel will lead to feeling unfulfilled in all but the most shallow of ways (got that platinum trophy guys *puke*).
 
N

Nielm

Member
The Wolf Among Us looked great on this engine and had a great artstyle, I thought TWD did too. Now, it looks very outdated and needs to be changed.
 
E

ElBoxyBrown

Banned
Alienous said:
What they need is competition.

They've got a weird mainstream monopoly on that type of adventure game. I can think of Until Dawn and Quantic Dream's games that occupy a similar space, but not much else.

Once another developer embarrasses them they'll have the incentive to move away from outdated tech.
Click to expand...

Other devs have already embarrassed them with better tech. Until Dawn is a good example. It's just that they don't sell as well as Telltale and/or gain publicity.
 
S

sirap

Member
Batman was tolerable because the actual action scenes were few and far between. GoTG was the game I finally gave up on, everything just felt stiff and lifeless.

Not only that was Star-Lord character model looked ugly as sin. Gamora feels like a Mass Effect Andromeda reject, and the hitches and pauses between animation transitions absolutely destroys my enjoyment of the cutscenes.
 
H

Hoje0308

Banned
Telltale is on a list of publishers that don't get money from me until after their games have seen a deep sale. Still think this might be too forgiving, considering the trash they've released.

t26 said:
Dontnod ran into budget problem by the time they get to Episode 5.
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And? Do you have a point? Like that, despite their budget problems, Dontnod still managed to easily outclass Telltale where tech is concerned?
 
A

Alienous

Member
KingBroly said:
I have to wonder how a new engine would screw up their production cycle.
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Probably. They've gotten pretty efficient at churning their games out. At this point I wouldn't be surprised if they develop a template game first then insert the characters and locations in when they get a new contract.

The frozen food of gaming.
 
B

benicillin

Banned
Nielm said:
The Wolf Among Us looked great on this engine and had great a artstyle, I thought TWD did too. Now, it looks very outdated and needs to be changed.
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Eh, I think the The Walking Dead S3 looks genuinely good. The GotG art style is a bit strange but I kind of like it at times.
 
Falchion

Falchion

Member
I beat Batman: The Telltale Series yesterday on Xbox and you wouldn't believe how bad the framerate issues were throughout my entire playthrough. It was constantly dropping and freezing, sometimes for several seconds and it was almost never smooth. Can't believe how poor their engine still is.
 
B

Brazil

Living in the shadow of Amaz
I fucking adore Tales from the Borderlands, really enjoy the Guardians of the Galaxy IP, and had a lot of fun with TWD S1 and Wolf Among Us, but I do not feel at all inclined to buy another Telltale game that's still based on their old crap engine.

The day they show up with new tech, though, I'll probably be there for that game day 1.

heckmanimation said:
its not just their tech, its their gameplay imo. advance that shit. innovate people. god!
Click to expand...

Coming from TftB, they do have some good gameplay ideas that go beyond their usual formula... But it's almost impossible to properly implement stuff like that in their current engine. That game had stuff like an actual inventory and some puzzles that required input beyond the usual click this click that, but it's all clunky as hell.

It's very clear that their tech limits their creativity in that way.
 
DOWN

DOWN

Banned
They just get licenses because they make cheap games that run on iPhone 5S

I hate their production values and they have a lot of bad voice actors. I can't believe TWD season 1 was so awarded.
 
G

Gator86

Member
RoboPlato said:
Their updated engine was a joke. Stuff like Tales from the Borderlands ran at 1080p and mostly 60 on the PS4 and looked nice because of that. The "new" engine just killed framerate and resolution while not looking any better.
Click to expand...

I'm consistently confused when I think about Tales from the Borderlands. It's like it was made by an entirely different company.

I continue refusing to buy an Telltale series for more than 5 bucks. They just don't give a shit about the quality of their games.
 
C

CaptainAmeijin

Member
I don't exactly understand the hate that Telltale Games gets for its technical issues. They're noticeable and inconvenient, especially in games that rely heavily on quick-time events, but unless you're playing on last-gen systems I don't see how technical issues could absolutely ruin your experience.

Personally, I thought Batman was good; in some ways, really good. The combat was far more engaging than anything they've done before and I think the investigations were really well handled... if not underused. The plot wasn't perfect but it was far better than Game of Thrones, which suffered from the heavy weight of canon on its back. Batman took a fresh take on the usual villains and themes and even if I wasn't a fan of how they handled his parents' murder, I think the game benefited from those twists.

I still think they could do better. They could do a lot better, both with graphics and gameplay. Games like Until Dawn and Life is Strange best anything that TTG has done in that regard. But to suggest that their games are hot garbage is a massive hyperbole.
 
S

sirap

Member
CaptainAmeijin said:
I don't exactly understand the hate that Telltale Games gets for its technical issues. They're noticeable and inconvenient, especially in games that rely heavily on quick-time events, but unless you're playing on last-gen systems I don't see how technical issues could absolutely ruin your experience.

Personally, I thought Batman was good; in some ways, really good. The combat was far more engaging than anything they've done before and I think the investigations were really well handled... if not underused. The plot wasn't perfect but it was far better than Game of Thrones, which suffered from the heavy weight of canon on its back. Batman took a fresh take on the usual villains and themes and even if I wasn't a fan of how they handled his parents' murder, I think the game benefited from those twists.

I still think they could do better. They could do a lot better, both with graphics and gameplay. Games like Until Dawn and Life is Strange best anything that TTG has done in that regard. But to suggest that their games are hot garbage is a massive hyperbole.
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No it's not. Telltale games run at sub-native resolutions and low frame-rates even on modern consoles.

Hell, screw performance...I've even had one instance where the lip-sync breaks entirely for a good 5-10 minutes in Batman.
 
A

Anung

Un Rama
The engine has been a technical mess for a long time but even the writing has took a huge decline since TWD1 and TWAU. Game of Thrones and Batman were all over the place quality wise.

They've become complacent in more ways than one.
 
Laieon

Laieon

Member
Bluth54 said:
I haven't bought a telltale game in years despite the fact they work on a lot of IPs I like
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This is my situation as well. Last game of their's I played was either the Wolf Among Us or The Walking Dead Season 2, depending on which came out last.

I really want to play The Walking Dead Season 3 since Season 1 is one of my most memorable games I've ever played and I thought 2 was pretty good too, but I really don't want to sour the experience I had with 1.
 
AmuroChan

AmuroChan

Member
It baffles me that not more gaming outlets call out Telltale on their engine and very few even penalize them when reviewing their games.
 
M

MissCauthon

Member
Ive always been turned off by these telltale games, the graphics are just terrible to me. Dont know of its just the engine or what.

SPOILER, this is just an opinion, think about it before you send your pitchfork up my ass.

:)
 
C

CaptainAmeijin

Member
sirap said:
No it's not. Telltale games run at sub-native resolutions and low frame-rates even on modern consoles.

Hell, screw performance...I've even had one instance where the lip-sync breaks entirely for a good 5-10 minutes in Batman.
Click to expand...

I'll agree that the games don't play like smooth jazz, but we're probably just on different wavelengths on performance. Things like that... don't really bother me unless they actively get in the way of gameplay or persist for a good portion of the game. And still, games like Breath of the Wild get massive praise despite serious framerate issues; clearly performance isn't top dog around here. I can at least understand gripes about gameplay or narrative.
 
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