Walter Discussion

[Dr. Safety]

On 6/3/2020 at 12:09 PM, Mike23Ua said:

You guys think I’m joking but do you seriously realize how different and unique of a character Walter would be if he could not craft or use items like the Shovel or the Pitchfork?

Sorry to keep coming back to this but after giving it some thought I actually really like this downside. It fits the character, however I think being able to craft a shovel should be possible, but only for graves and stumps. A pitchfork should be fine. In addition to it, if Klei really wanted to hammer home the Boy Scout aspect, he should be unable to start fires with a torch or fire staff (unless targeted at an enemy). Obviously I’m putting no thought into that one besides “hehehe Boy Scout” but just food for thought. If anyone else wants some insight on possible downsides (or upsides), in the spoiler I have included the Boy Scouts of America Outdoor Code. 

Spoiler

As an American, I will do my best;

To be clean in my outdoor manners,

To be careful with fire,

To be considerate in the outdoors,

And to be conservation minded.

 

[user1464576869]

On 6/3/2020 at 3:00 PM, taako bell said:

why is everyone acting like this? "oh, this character is boring because of these assumptions i have about what the gameplay might be like."

you can't tell if a character is good or not simply by looking at their design. it's a single drawing, that hints at one of his perks.

also, i don't know where you even got the idea that he's a rehash of warly from. these are all suggestions and ideas for what his perks might be like.

I didn't mention gameplay. But now that you've brought it up it isn't anything more specific based on the one screenshot for me than the general broad disappointment and low expectation of all characters I have anyway as of late. But who gives a plop.

No I'm talking visual design. I find it boring because the screenshot doesn't convey any personality, it's a real bland expression for someone falling into a vortex. Even if the screenshot is but one single image to critique that's not my fault is it. It's a terribly bleak first impression. Other DST characters in the past have had such expressive caricatures integrated into their design from day one, you knew everything they're about just from their face alone.

This face, this "oh nooouu... fallin..." expression is boring, and speaks to an all around generic innocent kid character. It's nothing of weight. And frankly I'm sick of characters all being the same innocent misunderstood innocent sweet boy innocence. Yawn. I don't find it real human enough, not honest enough, I doubt it could be a relatable character to anyone, what actual kid has this reaction to vortexes? What human has this kind of grey body language?

If I made a scout character in the old spirit of DST I'd make it of someone from imperfect sin and uncouth motives. A scout bully perhaps, someone who's overly prideful over their marks and thinks less of everyone in their own insecurities. Maybe even combined with that they virtue about their supposedly good nature because of the implied stature of scouts being nice but obviously is an annoying stark contrast to this bumbutt kid's true personality. A hypocrite self proclaimed leader that doesn't adhere to his own standards and demands on how people around him should behave in good nature, some sort of scout code nonsense he made up or read. It's a little bastard but at least he has character, at least he's human and real and not wallpaper paste. Kids can be terrifying, cruel and mean too, a true lord of the flies inspired piece. That's interesting.

No, who knows what comes from one screenshot after this. By all means Klei. Surprise me. Please.

[freddiums]

8 hours ago, Cosheeta said:

I didn't mention gameplay. But now that you've brought it up it isn't anything more specific based on the one screenshot for me than the general broad disappointment and low expectation of all characters I have anyway as of late. But who gives a plop.

No I'm talking visual design. I find it boring because the screenshot doesn't convey any personality, it's a real bland expression for someone falling into a vortex. Even if the screenshot is but one single image to critique that's not my fault is it. It's a terribly bleak first impression. Other DST characters in the past have had such expressive caricatures integrated into their design from day one, you knew everything they're about just from their face alone.

This face, this "oh nooouu... fallin..." expression is boring, and speaks to an all around generic innocent kid character. It's nothing of weight. And frankly I'm sick of characters all being the same innocent misunderstood innocent sweet boy innocence. Yawn. I don't find it real human enough, not honest enough, I doubt it could be a relatable character to anyone, what actual kid has this reaction to vortexes? What human has this kind of grey body language?

If I made a scout character in the old spirit of DST I'd make it of someone from imperfect sin and uncouth motives. A scout bully perhaps, someone who's overly prideful over their marks and thinks less of everyone in their own insecurities. Maybe even combined with that they virtue about their supposedly good nature because of the implied stature of scouts being nice but obviously is an annoying stark contrast to this bumbutt kid's true personality. A hypocrite self proclaimed leader that doesn't adhere to his own standards and demands on how people around him should behave in good nature, some sort of scout code nonsense he made up or read. It's a little bastard but at least he has character, at least he's human and real and not wallpaper paste. Kids can be terrifying, cruel and mean too, a true lord of the flies inspired piece. That's interesting.

No, who knows what comes from one screenshot after this. By all means Klei. Surprise me. Please.

again, you are making huge assumptions about the character as a whole because of one single frame.

you have nothing to back any of this up. you have nothing that proves he's a bad, boring character. you have nothing given to you that would make you assume "well he's probably just gonna be the same old boring uwu soft boy."

you can't take any of klei's characters and claim "see i'm correct in assuming this because all their child characters are one-dimensional and way too innocent" when wendy and webber would be your only examples, and you can't even say "well, even if i don't specifically have anything from ds or dst i still think this trope would apply" because klei has consistently subverted obnoxious tropes like that.

your only real evidence of him being a boring, innocent, childish and immature character is that he was afraid of dying.

like, i'm sorry, is your logic here that he's not allowed to feel fear? that him expressing weakness makes him a bad character? frankly, i'm even more sick of people acting like characters are either 1. capable of being vulnerable people with real weaknesses or fears or 2. interesting characters. you're acting like the only way to make a character good is to make them a terrible person.

like, let's be real, what did you expect? what would you feel, as a real person, if you were pulled into the constant? what expression would you prefer over fear? and what 'grey body language' do you expect from someone being pulled into a portal? genuinely. sketch me an example that you believe would be a step up.

this irrational hate of any character that doesn't seem to fit your expectations is honestly 10x more boring than anything klei could do. you're not open to other types of personalities, and you think the only "realistic" thing to do is make everyone absolutely insufferable. and the fact that you think klei are all widdle babies writing characters straight out of a childrens cartoon is completely mind-boggling to me considering maxwell, wendy, willow, wilson, wx-78, and wigfrid. not to mention that you seem to believe the only way to give a character flaws is to make them awful people.

i don't understand the logic that people aren't allowed to display emotion. i don't understand the logic behind 'the old spirit of dst' as if all the old writers have been replaced or as if they're trying to coddle to some imaginary audience full of children. not only is this a strangely and irrationally nostalgic phrase -- the writing and general storytelling of DS has only grown more interesting as time goes on, really -- but it shows a real misunderstanding of how characters and storytelling work in the first place.

and even if your assumption were right, that this were a sweet innocent little boy sucked into the constant with no fault of his own, why would that matter? why would that completely prevent klei from telling a story with his character? why do you think that children who are children and who act like children on occasion are inherently boring and bad characters? you've convinced yourself that children aren't allowed to be children if they want to be interesting and le super deep you guise, and that klei as they are now is incapable of making interesting characters, then applying those beliefs and assumptions to a single frame of a character you know literally nothing about beyond a slingshot and a uniform.

that's what i find ridiculous here. you're prattling on about how this is a boring, one-note and one-dimensional character when you don't even have a single line of text, not a single quote or expression or action to back up your claim, just one art piece with the most neutral expression possible in the situation. you know nothing about this character, and you still stick your nose up and claim "well, it's just not the real old spirit of DST," and demean klei's ability to tell stories.

it's not at all cash money of you, and that's all i have to say about the matter.

 

edit: also the fact that you didn't mean gameplay makes the fact that you brought up warly even more strange to me, since he doesn't even remotely have a similar design to warly beyond his skin tone and hair texture, and i don't understand how that's a flaw.

[BreadScientist]

Wendy doesn't even fall under the concept of "innocent child", in fact her design is specifically to evoke this idea and then turn it on it's head. Wurt, Arguably Wormwood, and Webber all vaguely have this personality but all of them have things that make them unique beyond it. Wurt is at least a little more engaging because she's a fish monster and having her be innocent and into candy and storybooks seems like a funny idea to me. She also has personality beyond this concept. Webber has so much more to his character, especially the parts related to him being eaten by a spider that has fused with him. Wormwood... Well, I can 't stand wormwood's character but I don't even think he counts as "innocent child"

41 minutes ago, taako bell said:

-snip-

off topic but is your name a reference to The Adventure Zone?

[Mike23Ua]

18 hours ago, Dr. Safety said:

Sorry to keep coming back to this but after giving it some thought I actually really like this downside. It fits the character, however I think being able to craft a shovel should be possible, but only for graves and stumps. A pitchfork should be fine. In addition to it, if Klei really wanted to hammer home the Boy Scout aspect, he should be unable to start fires with a torch or fire staff (unless targeted at an enemy). Obviously I’m putting no thought into that one besides “hehehe Boy Scout” but just food for thought. If anyone else wants some insight on possible downsides (or upsides), in the spoiler I have included the Boy Scouts of America Outdoor Code. 

  Reveal hidden contents

As an American, I will do my best;

To be clean in my outdoor manners,

To be careful with fire,

To be considerate in the outdoors,

And to be conservation minded.

 

Honestly I just want every playable character they add to the game to feel truly unique and different almost to the point that it feels like your playing a completely different game altogether-

I will provide three examples to show what I mean- When you Play as Willow a good Majority of your Time is going to be spent gathering hound tooth, spider silk, sanity manipulating items and carrying 2-3 Bernie in your inventory and Sewing kits so that if One Bernie Dies- You can rush in and repair him while a second enlarged to fight.

Role- Personal Field Medic/Nightmare Fuel Farmer.

When you play as Wortox you will spend your time killing things to gather souls you can eat the souls to restore your hunger meter because regular food won’t restore hunger much on Wortox, and you can release your souls to heal not just yourself but everyone near you.

Role- Group Medic.

When you Play as Wendy you will spend most your time playing with your own personal variation of the divining Rod, to locate lost things for Pipspook and gather potions you can use on your sister to help better aid her in battle, Abigails petal bestowment buff also throws Wendy into the following category:

Role- Team Damage Booster.

Every character needs diversity, they need to stand out and be even further unique then what they currently are.

And so far the reworks/DLC characters have seemed to accomplish this goal.

[user1464576869]

26 minutes ago, taako bell said:

again, you are making huge assumptions about the character as a whole because of one single frame.

Yes. Yeah.

Sorry, did I say anything else? Was that a secret? Does it matter? No one knows anything but a single frame, entire thread is rooted in assumptions. Why not make some then.

I'm not really aware that Klei subverts anything about tropes, tropes even seemed to be their strongest asset back in the day. Do pull up some examples, I wouldn't mind thinking about that.

In any case, well, so my assumption is based off of his face, I find it tame, and the entire design all around bland, that it doesn't convey much about who he is except generic innocent person, true or not, that's what he looks like. I've got nothing against that he's afraid, if anything I truly believe he doesn't express that emotion (or even combinations of other emotions along with that fright, which would be ideal) good enough, that's what I meant.

As for character flaws, I don't know where you personally have decided to draw the line between flawed and terrible. But I'd take interesting over bland and safe any day. It obviously can be done to such absurd and humorous lengths that you love to hate someone, or just love love. Isn't WX technically terrible, just wants all living to die no questions asked? But it's absurd and funny so whatever.

DS writing has grown childish, safe and boring. You can have opinions on that, but I have seen no reason to change mine on this subject. Neither do I don't know the inner workings of Klei but it certainly seems that they've switched teams around, or people around. Even if they haven't, the writing is still different so it ultimately doesn't matter to me.

The reason I write about my dismay is because I believe Klei once held a unique gem in the gaming industry unlike anything else. And it's being tarnished by their own misunderstanding of it. Or perhaps their own grudge over what it was, can't rule out that they just didn't like the edge. Which is a shame, meddling with art if you ask me, but they're free to do so. If you can't see the difference or won't admit any difference then whatever? But I see a piece of work with a refreshing set of uncouth figures close to deserving this eternal purgatory they are in and having to approach it with their humorously flawed snark.

If it was one thing each character had in common it was that they had some kind of sin attached to them that made the whole experience complete. It was a theme. And I'm sorry but holding hands, acting sweet, baby-like and telling stories over a cosy fire just isn't earned if you ask me. They haven't confronted their flaws for that yet, among other complaints. Not to mention how they ret-con and rephrase our previous understanding of the characters as to make them out as just perfectly bland. Removing their flaws altogether.

This is a somewhat related tangent but this theme is why Wes works so great, he is (or was) the only truly innocent character, that's the joke, even if he's of no harm, people just hate mimes that much. Hahahah brilliant. It's even why Wes memes grew in the first place, since every character so far projects some kind of toxin that lends us to believe DS people deserves to be in the constant; why is Wes here? He must've done something, must be hiding some true darker evil deep inside. It's such an intricately crafted joke, well fantastic job.

And all of it undermined by the new characters being introduced as.. almost Wes clones? Innocent, but, like, dunno, they're gross, or spiky, or dressed in some, monster ish stuff. Superficial flaws. Book cover stuff. No snark, no wit, no fun.

Ultimately, it is entirely an opinion piece of mine. Although one that's based on measurable things naturally.

[freddiums]

4 minutes ago, Cosheeta said:

-snip-

i'm busy rn and dont have the time or energy to respond to this rn but:

genuine question, if you dislike klei's writing so much in the modern day and you find the majority of the characters boring and too safe then why are you still playing the game with such a huge story component to it?

[user1464576869]

46 minutes ago, taako bell said:

i'm busy rn and dont have the time or energy to respond to this rn but:

genuine question, if you dislike klei's writing so much in the modern day and you find the majority of the characters boring and too safe then why are you still playing the game with such a huge story component to it?

Ah, now you've absolutely got me there.
 
I just like to lament on what was lost from the story. If I can voice my critique there's the sliver of hope in me that Klei will take it to heart. I'm also convinced the game would fall into obscurity - and/or resort to cheap monetization as a crutch for sales after public disinterest over the change in tone on what made the game successful in the first place - if nothing is done about these disappointments.

And uh, well, here we are, loot drops, daily login prizes, skin economy, and dodgy social profile linking for premium currency.

Clearly a lost cause then, I am one of the fools for staying. But I'd like to imagine there is some point in addressing Klei forums about it. Seems unfair to just have a fanbase fade away silently. Just leave the team bewildered as to what happened; in theory anyway, it could be cold calculated cash to have it replaced with whales on purpose. So for now I'll be that sorry disgruntled consumer leaving a message hoping someone somewhere considered it for the future. I'm ambitious over the subject anyway so I get my kicks from stretching the conversation muscles either way. Would be a bonus to find people on the same page in the process, common interests, a shot in the dark, conversation, so on.

I like the question, it's intriguing, because boiled down; the game has swapped it's identity on us, how am I to react on that?

[Tom_P_Moleman]

20 hours ago, Dr. Safety said:

... It fits the character, however I think being able to craft a shovel should be possible, but only for graves and stumps. ...

  Reveal hidden contents

As an American, I will do my best;

To be clean in my outdoor manners,

To be careful with fire,

To be considerate in the outdoors,

And to be conservation minded.

 

Please, let this poor soul just have a shovel! You are vicious monsters for expecting this boy scout to dig up a pit latrine merely with his bare hands. 

[mafmafworld]

i don´t really think his expression is blank bc he´s emotionless, if you look closer, his hand is like as he was gripping on someone´s hand and suddenly he let´s go/or the pother person let's go. In that moment Walter takes a moment to realize he just released the hand that was trying to save him/or realizes the person who was holding him couldn't grip on him anymore or literally let him go out of malice. In other words, that could be the expression of someone who realizes their life just ended in seconds.

[Mike23Ua]

Hopefully we get more news next week.

[Harrowick]

Well, my Steam wallet is ready for his release on the 18th/25th! I'm excited. 

[Aquabard]

On 5/28/2020 at 7:31 PM, reverentsatyr said:

Hey guys! It's been quite a while since I posted here, but I've still been watching from the shadows regularly. Anyways, the point of this thread is to discuss what we think/want Walter's to do in the game.

So it looks like Walter's default skin is in a boy scout uniform, so I'm sure he will evolve a lot around survival stuff(unless he's more of a bratty boy who pays no attention to lessons during scouts). Like maybe his fire/torch light radius will be a little bigger, he regains more stats from sleeping in tents and bed rolls, stuff like that.

His main perk is most certainly that slingshot in his back pocket. What I'm hoping to see with the slingshot is that Walter will be able to make special ammo for it. Like normal pellets made from rock, explosive pellets made from rock and gunpowder, fire pellets from rock and a red gem, ice pellets from rocks and a blue gem, and sharp pellets from rocks and stingers. As Walter unlocks new crafting stations and recipes, I would want to see him invent new and more unique pellets as he grows more accustomed to the wilderness, like pellets made from purple gems and moon and ruins materials.

I definitely don't want the slingshot to do wimpy damage like the darts and boomerang. I want normal pellet ammo to kill a pig in like 4 hits. Anyways, if Walter comes with perks similar to what I talked about above, I think it will already make for a pretty interesting character (I'd still want a little more to him than what I just talked about, though).

As for his downsides, I have no ideas for that. He looks pretty young, so maybe he will be more vulnerable to the elements and will get hot and cold faster than the other survivors.

What do you guys think? What do you want to see Walter be able to do?

All of those are good saggestions but i think he would also have a badge machanic were if hedoes surtain things he gains abilities like the abilitie to make unique ammo for his sling shot

 

[Harrowick]

Something tells me we're in for news on Friday/next Friday, seeing as how Wormwood and Wortox's character pages were revealed on Fridays if I recall correctly. I'm flippin' hyped for anything during these times, gotta stay excited somehow. 

[WkingDisaster]

Walter has mental outbreak every 10 minutes;

Walter has diarrhea whenever he eats;

Walter panics when night falls;

Walter faints when monster appears;

Therefore, not to come Walter decides.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

3 minutes ago, WkingDisaster said:

Walter has mental outbreak every 10 minutes;

Walter has diarrhea whenever he eats;

Walter panics when night falls;

Walter faints when monster appears;

Therefore, not to come Walter decides.

[Stussylook]

Will Walter be on don’t starve pocket edition?

[Mike23Ua]

8 minutes ago, Stussylook said:

Will Walter be on don’t starve pocket edition?

Probably not, Walter is Dont Starve Together Exclusive.. Like Winona, Wurt & Wortox.