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The Greatest Moment in Starcraft
No, the link isn't what you expected. Perhaps you expected to see Yellow crying, or FlaSh v Jaedong, or perhaps even Mvp v Squirtle. No. You see I am one of a select few members of the gaming community that appreciates single player. That link addresses the finality of The Trial of Tassadar, mission 8 of the Protoss campaign from the original Starcraft, and with it, the end of civil war between the Conclave and Tassadar's forces. From there Tassadar, Zeratul, Fenix, Raynor and the rest proceed to finish off the Overmind, but not without heavy losses. I bring attention to this clip due to the conversation held by Aldaris, Judicator of the Conclave, and the Dark Templar Prelate, Zeratul. To me, this was the single greatest conversation in all of gaming. The wisdom and experiences of this ancient forsaken protoss is awe-inspiring, and that is only matched by the livid rage and blindness held upon him by Aldaris. Now, I compare that scene, one of Zeratul's finest moments, to this, to what he has become: a forsaken waste.
Perhaps I am not being fair here. The context is completely different. Before, Zeratul was fine either way, regardless of how Aldaris responded. But he of course would prefer Aldaris saw reason, as it would save time, energy, and protoss lives. It's kind of like that moment in Harry Potter's trial in The Order of the Pheonix, when mid-trial Dumbledore tries to convince, a blind Fudge Voldemort had returned, to which he angrily refused to believe.
Now though, in HotS he knows that Kerrigan must live no matter what, thanks to the Overmind's vision. Plus Zeratul saw the hybrids in the Brood War secret mission, after which and I quote "Left with the unsettling knowledge of the Hybrid, Zeratul returned to his ship and left the dark moon behind. Unable to explain his numbing discovery to his companions, he could only sit and fear for the future of the universe..." Understandably, such a discovery, as Duran and the dark moon would be unsettling, and hard to grasp. Therefore, it is somewhat understandable that Zeratul is not the same badass as before. To top it all off, Jack Ritschel, the voice actor for Zeratul died shortly after Brood War was released.
Okay, so that is the counter-argument. I now ask you to review both clips, and recognize how terribly warped Zeratul has become as a character. His role has completely changed from the wise and powerful old mentor type figure that should not be trifled with to the cliche "The end is coming" guy. Recall how until Blizzcon 2014 we were under the impression that Zeratul would be the main character for Legacy of the Void. Even that was taken from him, as now we are Artanis instead.
My point is simple, Blizzard have destroyed one of their greatest creation, and in doing so, proven their inability to reproduce their original success. I don't know why they did what they did, but the differences between Starcraft 1 campaign and Starcraft 2 campaign are unbelievable.
Starcraft 1 was a story of war. It was a story of deception, betrayal, alliances, and mortal enemies. It was the story of James Raynor, a farm boy who wants to do the right thing in the galaxy. It was the story of Tassadar, this incredible selfless hero, who would stop at nothing to save his people, and his homeworld. It was the story of Kerrigan, this powerful human who became a brutal, murderous monster. It was the story of Zeratul. the glue that held it all together.
Starcraft 2....for those of you who don't know, one of the more recent expansions that came out for World of Warcraft was titled Mists of Pandaria. As you can see, the trailer is extremely childish, cliche and silly. Many called it World of Warcraft meets Kung Fu Panda and I don't blame them. That is what happened to Starcraft with the release of Wings of Liberty. I mean look at this crap.
How can that compare in any way to this.or this. Or this...
The glorification of Brood War knows no bounds, and it is surely tiring to those that did not play it, or those that prefer SC2. But those arguments stem from multiplayer. My argument stems from the campaign. Zeratul and the rest of Starcraft 1 has been sorely insulted by the campaigns of Wings and HotS.
We have seen the trailer from Blizzcon as well at the Campaign panel and it is quite clear that this campaign will be exactly like Wings and HotS and thus I have little faith it will be satisfactory. Nonetheless I know eventually I will probably purchase that game because I know no matter what I do, Blizzard wins. Had it not been for Morhaime I doubt Legacy would be in production. I mean, why waste their time when Hearthstone alone promises far more revenue, let alone World of Warcraft, Overwatch etc
I can only hope that Blizzard will return to its beloved roots, but until it does, I can still look back and glorify the hero of my gaming life.
Shoutouts-to those people that are pretty cool and stuff, some say they even have as much pashun as I do:
DongRaeGu
The_Templar
SetGuitarsToKill
Lorning
boxerfred
yosu-
lichter
shellshock
sOs
ninazerg
Zealously
stuchiu
Jer99
FrostedMiniWheats
Elentos
Seeker
HuK
Fionn
CosmicSpiral
Aeromi
TheBloodyDwarf
GumBa
TheDwf
Yorkie
Circumstance
SantosPhillipCarlos
Die4Ever
San
KingofDaHipHop
Has
Baller
and anyone else I forgot (I'm sorry to those that I did)
 
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I gave lichter a shoutout, so is this a 5/5 blog or a 1/5?
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The BW is story is actually so good. Sometimes I imagine what the SC2 story could have been like, instead the pile of cliched crap that it is.
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awesome blog, sc1/bw's campaigns dialogue and theme were so great... sc2's campaign was innovative in gameplay, but it's story was just gross... here's to 5k more posts <3
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There are multiple threads in the blizzard forum with similar content. Yet everyone knows what Blizz is doing in the sc2 campaign and why they are doing it (you can hold the same discussion over diablo 2 vs diablo 3 storyline and to some lesser extend over the wc2 vs wc3 storyline). It's easier to write and it appeals to a broader audience.
I agree with you when you say that sc1 and bw campaigns and sc2 campaign literally have nothing to do with each other. The characters have turned into clichés that act based on soap opera emotions all the time. After all the shit that Kerrigan has done there should be no way that Mengsk junior allies with Kerrigan f.e..
However on an objective lvl I have to add that the clip you provided didnt give Aldaris good reasons to overthing his position. "You are dillusional and there's more than you can imagine out there" isnt much of a reason but more of a insult. The whole "I have seen nada nada nada" thing makes him look cool in the viewer's eyes, but is bound to fail with Aldaris, who even asks where Zeratul is coming from. If he told him instead that the cerebrates are being reborn he might have convinced him. Zeratul isnt very precise in this dialogue either, so they just took that (annyoing) part of his personality and made him wc3 Medivh.
I agree that the scenes you posted out of Hots are pretty bad however. I have to add though that I dont think the basic story of HotS is that bad. Kerrigan going for revenge on Mengsk once she regains her human consciousness is perfectly believable. Kerrigan struggling between her need of (Zerg) power and her (human) love for Raynor as well. Zeratul trying to use her against the fallen Xel Naga makes sense too, even though I dont see how it is relevant for her.
The way it plays out with all the cliché scenes is pretty bad though, especially considering how many bs moments there are. Kerrigan pinballs between remembering everything she did as QoB and feeling no remorse at all for the millions of innocents her swarm slaughtered. She gets scenes where she feels hurt by being called a monster and decides to let the civilians leave yet a second later a Queen reports that another planet was zerged. It's overall just sloppy execution, they try to make her look human while she takes over the swarm and slaughters half of humanity.
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Agreed, the missions themselves were relatively enjoyable enough, but Blizzard clearly decided that we wouldn't notice the massive retcon etc
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I didn't find Brood War's campaign particularly good (I can't stand anything from western games in general), but the voicing was, as was common with blizzard titles predating wc3, consistent and high quality. For Brood War it was a lot more about presentation than content to me. But sc2 is... a joke. It's mostly due to the fact no one really hires writers anymore and they had no QA on their actors, and used interns for non-essential roles. The best you get is some tumbler kid power tripping and making a huge mess (lol bioware). Sc2 doesn't even have that. I couldn't help but just laugh all throughout the campaigns. I'm not even giving LoTV the gratification of that. The dialogue and characters just seem like a huge troll to me. It's like someone is screaming "lol, I'm getting paid to write this hee hee" and that's all you really can make out between the bad post processing and fastcuts.
The unit dialogue is extremely repetitive and uninspired as well. I won't even mention the zerg audio. I'm sure that's been done to death by now.
I liked Mists of Pandaria in some ways. I didn't like they used the same actor for every single Panda in the entire game and then applied this loudness war frequency crunch on his voice so it's unbearably distorted. I think they tried a different route from Cataclysm, and I find it was a lot better than Cataclysm. Though that more has to do with Cataclysm being just as bad in Starcraft 2 in that literally every time they attempted to be grimdark it came off as slapstick instead. Lol... deathwing... so cringeworthy.
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don't forget duran's exquisite and fitting departure from the sc universe, as well as infested stukov. lol...
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thanks for this great blog.
Had it not been for Morhaime I doubt Legacy would be in production. I mean, why waste their time when Hearthstone alone promises far more revenue, let alone World of Warcraft, Overwatch etc
i have been saying this for a long, long time.
i think we can add Frank Pierce to this comment though. he is the executive producer of SC2.
I really preferred the over all story arc in SC1 as you do, and for many of the same reasons.
All the top dogs at Blizzard are engineers; they are not expert story tellers. they are great game engine designers who found some story tellers to work for them and stumbled upon a great story in SC1. It is no big suprise that they fumbled clumsily with the great story formula they came up with in SC1. However, SC2 is a great feat of software engineering.... again no surprise coming from the top dogs at Blizz who are all engineers by trade.
The speech you mention in your post was 1 of the greatest ever made. However, for my money, the #1 speech in all of gaming occurred after the 10th mission of the very first campaign in Vanilla SC1 by Mengsk. But, that's totally subjective.. everyone has their own personal favs. "and to all the enemies of humanity seek not to bar our way... for we shall win through.. no matter the cost".
SC1 took the RTS genre to unimaginable heights and watching it happen was exhilarating. By the time SC2 made it onto the scene the big budget RTS game had gone the way of Pac-Man, Flight Simulator, and the Cathode Ray Tube.
The PC-Mouse-and-keyboard RTS genre, just like the dot-eating-maze-game genre, are far from dead.
Both however... are obsolete.
http://www.craveonline.ca/gaming/articles/794945-top-10-dead-video-game-genres-deserve-great-comeback-xbox-one-ps4/2
At this point , most publishers treat their RTS Studio the way ESPN handles their hockey department. Katey Strang, as sexy as she may be, can't even skate.
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On April 13 2015 20:02 JimmyJRaynor wrote:thanks for this great blog. Show nested quote +
Had it not been for Morhaime I doubt Legacy would be in production. I mean, why waste their time when Hearthstone alone promises far more revenue, let alone World of Warcraft, Overwatch etc
i have been saying this for a long, long time. i think we can add Frank Pierce to this comment though. he is the executive producer of SC2. I really preferred the over all story arc in SC1 as you do, and for many of the same reasons. All the top dogs at Blizzard are engineers; they are not expert story tellers. they are great game engine designers who found some story tellers to work for them and stumbled upon a great story in SC1. It is no big suprise that they fumbled clumsily with the great story formula they came up with in SC1. However, SC2 is a great feat of software engineering.... again no surprise coming from the top dogs at Blizz who are all engineers by trade. The speech you mention in your post was 1 of the greatest ever made. However, for my money, the #1 speech in all of gaming occurred after the 10th mission of the very first campaign in Vanilla SC1 by Mengsk. But, that's totally subjective.. everyone has their own personal favs. "and to all the enemies of humanity seek not to bar our way... for we shall win through.. no matter the cost". SC1 took the RTS genre to unimaginable heights and watching it happen was exhilarating. By the time SC2 made it onto the scene the big budget RTS game had gone the way of Pac-Man, Flight Simulator, and the Cathode Ray Tube. The PC-Mouse-and-keyboard RTS genre, just like the dot-eating-maze-game genre, are far from dead. Both however... are obsolete. http://www.craveonline.ca/gaming/articles/794945-top-10-dead-video-game-genres-deserve-great-comeback-xbox-one-ps4/2At this point , most publishers treat their RTS Studio the way ESPN handles their hockey department. Katey Strang, as sexy as she may be, can't even skate.
I agree with a lot of your points, my mistake for forgetting Pierce. I also agree the Mengsk speech was awesome, SC1 Mengsk was a really fun character. In regards to SC people being engineers not story tellers, wasnt Metzen part of sc1 story team? If so how did he fuck up sc2 so badly?
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On April 13 2015 22:57 Cricketer12 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 13 2015 20:02 JimmyJRaynor wrote:thanks for this great blog.
Had it not been for Morhaime I doubt Legacy would be in production. I mean, why waste their time when Hearthstone alone promises far more revenue, let alone World of Warcraft, Overwatch etc
i have been saying this for a long, long time. i think we can add Frank Pierce to this comment though. he is the executive producer of SC2. I really preferred the over all story arc in SC1 as you do, and for many of the same reasons. All the top dogs at Blizzard are engineers; they are not expert story tellers. they are great game engine designers who found some story tellers to work for them and stumbled upon a great story in SC1. It is no big suprise that they fumbled clumsily with the great story formula they came up with in SC1. However, SC2 is a great feat of software engineering.... again no surprise coming from the top dogs at Blizz who are all engineers by trade. The speech you mention in your post was 1 of the greatest ever made. However, for my money, the #1 speech in all of gaming occurred after the 10th mission of the very first campaign in Vanilla SC1 by Mengsk. But, that's totally subjective.. everyone has their own personal favs. "and to all the enemies of humanity seek not to bar our way... for we shall win through.. no matter the cost". SC1 took the RTS genre to unimaginable heights and watching it happen was exhilarating. By the time SC2 made it onto the scene the big budget RTS game had gone the way of Pac-Man, Flight Simulator, and the Cathode Ray Tube. The PC-Mouse-and-keyboard RTS genre, just like the dot-eating-maze-game genre, are far from dead. Both however... are obsolete. http://www.craveonline.ca/gaming/articles/794945-top-10-dead-video-game-genres-deserve-great-comeback-xbox-one-ps4/2At this point , most publishers treat their RTS Studio the way ESPN handles their hockey department. Katey Strang, as sexy as she may be, can't even skate. I agree with a lot of your points, my mistake for forgetting Pierce. I also agree the Mengsk speech was awesome, SC1 Mengsk was a really fun character. In regards to SC people being engineers not story tellers, wasnt Metzen part of sc1 story team? If so how did he fuck up sc2 so badly?
The story making process at Blizzard is completely different from 1996/97 as compared with 2007/8/9. And, its still considered a secondary process within this now massive company. Their motto is "Gameplay First".
Blizz was only a year or two removed from barely making the rent when they made SC1. That breeds a different mind set about what makes a good story. In making the story of SC1 , 1 or 2 guys could just go off on their own and do anything they wanted. The SC2 story line was probably met with 3 management layers of approval.. story boards... almost hollywood level vetting. This is what i think happened.
taken all on their own, the stories of WoL and HotS are ok. not great... not horrible... that's my opinion.
However, WoL and HotS are incongruent with the SC1 story line.
I can see why some people love the WoL story.. and it has its cool moments. i loved when Horner woke up Raynor from a drunken stupor. The argument they had was sweet.
Because the SC2 story line is so incongruent with SC1 story line i know of no one who loves both. Maybe some Blizzard employees love both?
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moktira
Ireland1542 Posts
I agree so much with this blog, the SC2 story pissed me off so much and took away so much from great and compelling characters. I used love the discussions in mission briefings and at end of SC/BW missions. And then HotS comes along with these ridiculous cutscenes and some generic love story between Kerrigan and Raynor, the man who swore to kill her -- they weren't even really in love in BW.
They ruined far more characters than Zeratul, anyone who had been established was destroyed, even the dead with that ghost of Tassadar crap.
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On April 14 2015 00:22 moktira wrote:
I agree so much with this blog, the SC2 story pissed me off so much and took away so much from great and compelling characters. I used love the discussions in mission briefings and at end of SC/BW missions. And then HotS comes along with these ridiculous cutscenes and some generic love story between Kerrigan and Raynor, the man who swore to kill her -- they weren't even really in love in BW.
They ruined far more characters than Zeratul, anyone who had been established was destroyed, even the dead with that ghost of Tassadar crap.
I agree, but with Zeratul being my favorite character, his departure in character from SC1 affected me more than the others did, (though it goes without saying that they disappointed me as well) As far as Tassadar, their reasoning was that they needed to quickly convince Zeratul of the Overmind vision, and the only way that would happen is if he heard it from someone he trusted, hence Tassadar
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I think the part of SC2 campaigns that I find most insulting is the actual mission gameplay. WoL was okay even though every mission tended to be easiest with the strategy of massing mm with the appropriate support unit.
HotS however was a slap in the face. There are probably 2 or 3 missions where you spend a reasonable amount of time on more than 2 bases (there are almost 30 missions in the game). Probably a third of the missions have no macro involved. The part that made me most upset was the mission where you finally got to use infested Terrans. Lo and behold, they aren't the infested sappers that one shot a bunker (and anything unfortunate enough to be in the blast radius). No that would be too interesting. Instead they're units that auto spawn from controlled areas and can't be managed in the slightest.
If I had a favorite mission in any RTS ever I would pick Omega, the final mission or Brood War. Halting your enemies' aggression whilst eliminating them one by one with surgical calculated strikes. Slowly growing to become unstoppable, the numberless masses of your hive crushing all remaining resistance. The game then ends with the iconic Queen of Blades and Dearest Helena cut scenes.
Directly compare this to a mission in HotS that ends with Kerrigan fighting a boss from Diablo 3. If it weren't so rage inducing, it may actually be comedic.
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On April 14 2015 04:59 claybones wrote:
I think the part of SC2 campaigns that I find most insulting is the actual mission gameplay. WoL was okay even though every mission tended to be easiest with the strategy of massing mm with the appropriate support unit.
HotS however was a slap in the face. There are probably 2 or 3 missions where you spend a reasonable amount of time on more than 2 bases (there are almost 30 missions in the game). Probably a third of the missions have no macro involved. The part that made me most upset was the mission where you finally got to use infested Terrans. Lo and behold, they aren't the infested sappers that one shot a bunker (and anything unfortunate enough to be in the blast radius). No that would be too interesting. Instead they're units that auto spawn from controlled areas and can't be managed in the slightest.
If I had a favorite mission in any RTS ever I would pick Omega, the final mission or Brood War. Halting your enemies' aggression whilst eliminating them one by one with surgical calculated strikes. Slowly growing to become unstoppable, the numberless masses of your hive crushing all remaining resistance. The game then ends with the iconic Queen of Blades and Dearest Helena cut scenes.
Directly compare this to a mission in HotS that ends with Kerrigan fighting a boss from Diablo 3. If it weren't so rage inducing, it may actually be comedic.
yup Omega is one helluva mission, and though it doesn't really compare, the last mission in hots on brutal is a bit annoying, took me a few tries before I finally got it, I used roach hydra swarm hosts with the drop pods as kerrigan's final ability, worked pretty well, that level was fun, the rest (there were only 20 not including the evolution missions) were pretty meh. On the infested terran one I used mass infestor with a few swarm hosts, that was fun
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Mexico2170 Posts
What are you talking about, "My pleasure Darling, Always was" is a great ending 
But yeah, it's kinda lame that zeratul is not the protagonist of LotV, but I don't think his role has deviated that much from the original game. Part of it is because we haven't seen anything of him other than his appearances with Kerrigan and Raynor, so we haven't seen him as much The only time we have seen him is on the Protoss Campaign in WoL. There, I feel the concept is very similar to what you are depicting here. A fearsome and wise warrior, who knows lots of stuff and knows that something is not right. He knows that people here are overlooking certain things and calling victories when they are only making their defeat easier. On the first video you linked, in the conversation against the conclave, Zeratul tells Aldaris that he and everyone are a fool by thinking they are winning the war against the zerg, when in reality they are doing nothing. Isn't that exactly what is happening on sc2 though? Everyone is super happy with the victories and they don't realize theres a bigger problem looming on the horizon, until of course, Zeratul tells them.
I mean, I don't see him all that different, he's still the only badass that knows what's up and has to go looking around the universe making people not fuck things up. He saw the end of his civilization, he saw his own death, he has been traveling alone for years trying to come up with solutions, he is troubled, and keeps fighting. "The prophecy is uncertain, there is always hope".
You may say that they fucked up jim raynor, or kerrigan, or whatever character you want, but it seems to me Zeratul is still mostly the same? IDK how he'll be in LotV, he is sure to have an important role, I just hope heroes of the storm isn't a spoiler about its future
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Canada8157 Posts
here's to a 5k more 
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I entirely agree about the difference in quality in plot. The Brood War storyline while suffering from a few minor incongruities was written as an epic. The Starcraft II story was written to cater to the lowest common denominator. The corny love story angle, the ghost of Tassadar, the return of Duran were all weak attempts to appeal to the different audiences.
Gratz on 5k either way.
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i agree that the brood war plot was written with more finesse and professionalism than the SC2 "plot", but i definitely think a lot of the adulation is owed to rosy-eyed nostalgia and BW vs SC2 animosity. i mean sure there was a lot of elaborate, shakespearian betrayal going on, but in terms of characterization and morality it wasn't really much more than "okay". the characters aren't actually developed that far beyond their surface traits. raynor and kerrigan are both held up by ezmode sympathy because raynor never does anything overtly wrong and anything kerrigan does wrong can technically be excused by mengsk and the zerg. mengsk and the UED villains don't do much other than lust for power and periodically manipulate people.
if you're comparing it to SC or to video game plots in general, yes it's quite good. if you're comparing it to science fiction and fantasy in general, ehh. i think people overblow it. i really don't think in terms of literary merit that the dialogue is impressive at all. like the original star wars trilogy when you go back and watch it there are actually quite a few cliched lines that can evoke sighs or eye-rolls from an unbiased adult observer
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All this shout-out deserves 5/5 stars.
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EPT
