oh really ? I saw some choppy animation but nothing game breaking
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Telltale Games Should be Embarrassed...
- Thread starter Miles Quaritch
- Start date
oh really ? I saw some choppy animation but nothing game breaking
Riedinizzo
Banned
I got bitten by the infamous TWD save bug. Seemingly happened at random...
Yup, tried to play it when it was on PS Plus. Keyword "tried".
Haha, yeah, that's pretty close. It's weirdly inconsistent though, some scenes that play fine on that video were worse for me and vice-versa. The very start was the same though, where the line precedes the scene and it has some awkward catchup.
But like he said, it really takes the wind out of your sails.
dragonbane
Member
JESUS!It think that really is, and it has been for the longest while. I decided to go back hunting for at least their posts about one of the issues I had with them. Here's a quick timeline of the problems and how they handled it on their forums. These are actual quotes from them:
- Puzzle Agent, Released in June, 2010.
- There is an issue with the game, which has a game breaking bug with Nvidia cards from the 4XX series
- The issue is brought up a few days after it is out on their forums
- July 7 - TTG Developer "Will" comes into the forums and ask for a few pointers to try and figure it out
- July 9 - @Will: We've figured out the root of the problem. In short, it's going to take a little while
- July 21 - @Will: Depends on the task and the department, and unfortunately these people are all shared across all projects. More importantly, it's taking a while because we have to not break the wii/iphone versions that are still in development. (working on other versions, game breaking bug doesn't take precedence for them. Wii version was cancelled in the end I think.)
- August 18 - @Will: Hey guys, sorry for the radio silence. I've been off at jury duty and thought people were keeping up on this in my stead. Believe it or not this still has attention internally and I'm hoping to have something to tell you later this week.
- September 7 - @Will: Hey guys, remember me? So, it looks like we have a fix. I'm going to try to get a release build today if possible, but certainly by tomorrow, at which point I'll put up a link to the download in this thread. We'd love for you guys to take a look at it before we push it out to the public at large.
- September 9 - @Will: Slight delay. When that other bug came up with the language localizations, we decided to fix two birds with one stone. Still really hoping for it to come out today.
- September 13 - @Will: I just got out of the weekly production meeting and it seems like the PC version is still the top priority for the week, even despite the setback.
- September 17 - TT Dev Caleb comes in: Hello, everyone! My name is Caleb. You're correct that Will left Telltale earlier this week, but there's no need to worry - I'll keep you informed about this issue from here on out. And I have good news: a fix for the NVidia display problem is absolutely being worked on right now and will be ready soon.
I realize this has been said before in this thread. However, I have been personally testing the fix for this issue, and I know for a fact that it's nearing completion. There are just a handful of remaining problems that need to be resolved.
- October 5 - @TTG-Caleb: Hello again. I'm really sorry for the long delays on this. We haven't forgotten about this bug. We're very close to having an effective fix for it, but unfortunately the people here with the necessary knowledge to finish the fix have been completely swamped with other projects these past two weeks. (Mentions of the people responsible working on something else, game breaking bug in the back-burner).
- November 17 - TTG Developer Amy comes in: I can understand the frustration many people have expressed in this thread. But we are working to fix this. I'd love to be able to give everyone a set date a fix will be released but considering what goes into correcting something like this it's just not possible.
And I know everyone is going to hate hearing this but this issue only affects a small portion of the people who bought the game.
- December 2 - Forum Moderator comes in: It's sad to see the angry mob nature of this thread. Everybody is entitled to his or her opinion though, that's why my way of dealing with this thread as a moderator was to raise awareness of the situation here in our Mod Forum every now and then.
(goes on about how TT is growing and developing several things at the same time, so it is hard for them to deal with things like this. But he also mentions he is not privyy to internal information, so those are just assumptions on his part. In essence, he likely worked offsite and knew nothing of how this had been worked internally.
- December 5 - Patch is released a week after the Steam forums filled with complaints about the issue. The game had just been on sale on a popular bundle together with Recettear. The patch was released onto Steam and they actually forgot to patch their own release for a few weeks there.
It also bears keeping in mind that through all of this, there was never any indication that the game was broken for users with those cards neither on Steam, nor on their own store. There were even a few people jumping in mid-thread and finding out like the rest that it was a known problem.
I never participated on the forum thread, I found out about it after I had my own personal ordeal with them through their customer service, that took ages to answer and just kept giving me false info before I managed to convince Valve I was owed a refund months before. I don't have those mails anymore, but they were about as infuriating as sitting through 5 months of that thread would have I imagined. That wasn't my only issue with Telltale, but it certainly was my last.
Was Puzzle Agent a good game? Sure. Was it worth all this crap? Probably not.
Crab Milk Mickey
Member
Uncertain if it's been mentioned in this thread earlier, but there was also this incident with TellTale damaging a Jurassic Park jeep they borrowed from someone else.
But if nothing else, it's worth repeating that they truly are a shit company.
But if nothing else, it's worth repeating that they truly are a shit company.
A GotY can have flaws, but the flaws with the walking dead literally put the game to a grinding halt. I don't know about you, but a slide show would not be something I look for in game of the year candidates. The terrible frame rates in some videos in this thread shows that it's a hinderance to the game and video commentators stated that the QTEs become unplayable (I didn't have that experience, but I have evidence that others did). When your game is touted to be a choose your own adventure, and then you ship your game with a game save bug (something I did experience 3 times) that doesn't recognize past episodes and brings discontinuity to episodes by reviving characters who died in the past and killing character that are still alive there is something fundamentally flawed with your game. It doesn't matter how good the writing is when you can't see half the writing or a story that is coherent. There were more deserving games than TWD in 2012.
PoweredBySoy
Banned
This is where I stand as well. I've only played The Walking Dead, but after that I'll never buy another PC release from them again. Game breaking bugs (save bug), zero support.
I thought my PS3 was about to die when I was playing Poker Night 2, lucky it was just an awfully made game!
correction... i think a game CAN win game of the year... but even if the GAME won... the STUDIO shouldnt have... especially since the game wasnt that great with its terrible animation/controls/bugs & glitches. (all things that should be taken into account for great developers)
Best Writer...Best Director... maybe... but Developer of the year? no.
I find it unbelievable that they're still using almost the exact same engine they developed back in 2005. It was an unoptimized piece of shit then, and it's even worse now.
I'm sure they've made enough money off the Walking Dead that they could afford to use an established game engine (with a high degree of portability) like Unreal.
Try playing Two Worlds on the 360.
http://xbox360.gamespy.com/xbox-360/two-worlds/817055p1.html
This review is pretty accurate. The framerate in this game is so bad, I haven't really seen another console game perform worse.
http://xbox360.gamespy.com/xbox-360/two-worlds/817055p1.html
This review is pretty accurate. The framerate in this game is so bad, I haven't really seen another console game perform worse.
Well they have some specific requirements and have a lot of inhouse tools so integrating a whole new engine into their pipeline would be a lot of work. But they could at least higher some programmers to overhaul their existing tech. New memory management/Level streaming system and save systems would be a good start. Then they just need to fix the outstanding engine glitches like the Xinput crash on Windows etc and they would be in a much better place.
It's worth keeping in mind that TWAU went into pre-production in 2011 so it makes sense that it would use the same old engine. TWD: Season 2 was also rushed to capitalize on the success of the first season, so makes sense they wouldn't have time for major engine changes. But if they still haven't fixed their shit by the time Borderlands and Game of Thrones roll out then they won't have any excuses.
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
sigh .. this is what happens when you take on 5 freaking projects at a time TT :-/
realistically and rightfully, we should have been on the wait for episode 4 of The Wolf by now, if they had managed to stay anywhere close to their "one episode per month" schedule.
realistically and rightfully, we should have been on the wait for episode 4 of The Wolf by now, if they had managed to stay anywhere close to their "one episode per month" schedule.
Telltale hasn't been a small studio in many years. Even in 2008, when it was just doing Sam & Max and Strongbad, it was 70+ people.
dragonbane
Member
I don't know, but chances are high they didn't fix anything. Stay FAR away from any Telltale games on disc.
Parakeetman
No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
They should be embarrassed about having said they were going to put in inverted aim originally and then later on not do it with the first TWD game.
Ha patches, look at this dreamer over here.
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/208537/QA_Turning_a_Telltale_game_into_a_Telltale_experience.php
It's up to 180 staff members now.
I don't see what requirements they could possibly have that couldn't be handled by Unreal, Source, or any other established engine. These games are extremely simple.
Also, they had no excuse to use this engine for the Walking Dead Season 1, let alone anything after that. I don't care when they started pre-production on Fables, as soon as you notice that your current technology is insufficient for the content you're creating, you make the investment to move to new tech.
quantumnerd
Member
I really don't get went they don't just use Unreal or Unity or Cryengine or something. Their engine is outdated crap by the sound of it. I mean, I know they have their own story scripting system, but it's not like that's hard to port. It's basically a graph with assets strapped on.
Miles Quaritch
Member
ComputerMKII
Banned
I wish the saves would be compatible between PC and Mac. If I want to play on my laptop I have to restart the whole game and make the same in-game choices again. That's annoying.
They may appear simple but they have a lot of tools and code for their branching stories, dialog, scripting etc. Big engines aren't designed for the type of games they make, they are mostly designed for linear action games (with other studios using them as a basis to add their own tech to build different type of games). Moving to a 3rd party engine would mean reworking their entire production pipeline. It's not as simple as just buying a license. They have a lot of legacy tools and tech that are designed to allow them to build the games they make the way they make them. And it's not like they are using the exact same engine, they have made a lot of changes over the years, especially to their renderer (tho it is still shit). Now don't get me wrong they do need to fix their shit and rework their engine as it is basically held together with spit and duct tape. But lets not pretend like moving to a new engine when you have your entire staff trained to use the one you currently have and a whole bunch of proprietary tech and tools designed around it, is a simple task. Especially when you have rolling production with multiple teams working several different projects at a time with very a limited budget. Major engine changes require dedicating a resources away from making games (something they have been struggling to do as it is hence the delays and bugs) to rework tech.
Now post TWD they do have a lot more money and manpower and with new consoles they have a lot of incentive to rework that tech. But licensing a big expensive engine like Unreal or Cryengine (both cost ~$1m for reports I have seen for full source access, that they would need to build their games) and throwing the baby out with the bath water just isn't a very good idea. If they were going to go for an existing engine Unity is the only one that makes sense. Changing engines would mean months of work, whether they build themselves or have to build on an existing engine.
monkey0506
Neo Member
Every TellTale Game I've ever played (Sam & Max, Back to the Future, Tales of Monkey Island, Strong Bad, Jurassic Park, The Walking Dead) runs flawlessly on my Windows 95 Tandy PC with a Pentium III processor. I don't know what the hell you're all complaining about.
yes I know, they run like butter on my PC, but man do they chug on 360/ps3
Corpsepyre
Banned
This is odd. The game runs super smooth for me as well on my shitty old laptop. Don't know why it's running like Crap for others.
I'm complaining about my save file that wasn't detected 3 times in a row, forcing me to start over until I tinkered around in my computer for 2 hours to figure out how to fix it.