While I do think that that BW story is not really that good, they at least have consistent characters and don't rewrite things when it gets inconvenient. For example, Aldaris character development was really good and interesting. He starts out as an old fashioned protoss, but later became a bit more open with Tassadar's influence. During BW, we were lead to believe that he went back to his old self, but later found out he actually had a legit reason to distrust the Dark Templars and Kerrigan.
While BW is far from a masterpiece, it at least had an entertaining story. In terms of scale, BW would be a 6/10 for me while SC2 would be a 2/10.
The problem with SC2 is that it retcons the story and character development that happened during BW. If you are writing a sequel, as a writer, you should at least read the prequel. They pretty much ruined Raynor and Kerrigan's character.
On August 17 2020 04:05 Nemesis wrote: While I do think that that BW story is not really that good, they at least have consistent characters and don't rewrite things when it gets inconvenient. For example, Aldaris character development was really good and interesting. He starts out as an old fashioned protoss, but later became a bit more open with Tassadar's influence. During BW, we were lead to believe that he went back to his old self, but later found out he actually had a legit reason to distrust the Dark Templars and Kerrigan.
While BW is far from a masterpiece, it at least had an entertaining story. In terms of scale, BW would be a 6/10 for me while SC2 would be a 2/10.
The problem with SC2 is that it retcons the story and character development that happened during BW. If you are writing a sequel, as a writer, you should at least read the prequel. They pretty much ruined Raynor and Kerrigan's character.
Consistent characters? I have to disagree. The characters behave as convenient for the plot, even if that means they have to perform actions that are inconsistent or outright idiotic.
Aldaris is a perfect example of this. His characterization, like most characters in SC1/BW, is actually fairly shallow (owing much to the limitations of the game format). He didn't actually become more open that I could see, he just stopped fighting Tassadar because the story needed a team-up at the climax. Tassadar or Zeratul don't ever say anything to explain why the dark templar should be accepted despite the history of bad blood between them (which is only explained in the manual that very few people actually read), except as an alliance of convenience against the contrived plot device powers of the zerg (which are a whole other can of worms). It should be simple for Zeratul to explain that the dark templar found an alternative path that allows them to avoid internal warfare and provide the empirical data to Aldaris (like that emotional suppression comparison somebody said upthread), even if that doesn't sway Aldaris initially but it would go a long way to making his softening seem believable. Zeratul does nothing like that, instead he mocks the Empire's accomplishments with space-goth poetry and lectures Aldaris for being a bigot despite said bigotry having a very good historical justification in the eon wars and the dark templar wars that the khala was created to prevent.
Speaking of which, Tassadar's characterization is pretty inconsistent too. He makes wild leaps of logic (like assuming that only dark templar can kill cerebrates despite having a grand total of two data points and not even knowing that cerebrates were capable of resurrection in the first place; the whole resurrection sub-plot is so clumsy that I suspect it was added by hasty rewrites during development because the writer couldn't think of a genuinely convincing way to have the protoss team-up), surrenders to his political enemies in order to halt bloodshed and then cheerfully accepts rescue that involves more bloodshed by his allies, and ultimately decides to crash his ship into the enemy leader even though his ship could bombard it from orbit with the same effect or some other dark templar could stab it without further loss of life. (Funny trivia: when asked some years later, the writer couldn't remember why he killed Tassadar in the first place. I'm wondering the same thing myself. His sacrifice seems to operate entirely on the rule of cool.)
Then in Episode 4 of BW, Aldaris starts another war because he discovered lady Raz was being mind-controlled by Kerry. What's nonsensical about this sub-plot is... well, everything. Kerry and Raz have never interacted long and secretly enough for Kerry to do this to her (a situation like that would immediately arouse suspicion in everyone, not just Aldaris; seriously, imagine if a former terrorist leader with known psychic powers asked to be alone with your president/prime minister for extended periods of time), the protoss are themselves psychic to a degree far above humans and therefore should have already interrogated Kerry to ensure she wasn't going to betray them (and not doing so is blatant idiocy, in fact the most sensible option is to rip all useful info from her mind and hold her prisoner), there's no possible way that Aldaris could know or even suspect Kerry was mind-controlling Raz without reading their minds or observing them interacting in a suspicious fashion (which should have also tipped off everyone in a similar position to see such manipulation), and there's no logical reason that the refugees would attack the dark templar without Aldaris telling them all his suspicions to justify doing so since they're linked by the khala.
The plot of Episode 3 could have made slightly more sense if the writer actually stopped to make an actual case for the dark templar, although that doesn't fix the other idiosyncrasies.
The plot of Episode 4 is not salvageable because it seemly operates on the assumption that everyone besides the characters with speaking parts are mindless zombies and that said main characters always act like idiots to further Kerry's evil plot. To say nothing of the plot devices that keep coming out of the woodwork, like the magic zerg-killing temple or Kerry suddenly being able to control zerg because her high midichlorian count lets her do whatever the plot requires.
Episodes 1-3 have key plot points that don't make sense without a ton more explanation (and often not even then), but Episodes 4-6 are a Swiss cheese of plot holes that can't possibly be filled without rewriting the story from scratch.
Episode 1 is the strongest and least silly plot in terms of character writing, but it doesn't fit with the interstellar scaling or the two alien invasions. It would have worked much better as a self-contained story that only took place on a single planet (or better yet a single country or city) and didn't involve the aliens at all.
Overall, the plot of Starcraft is very clumsily written. It definitely feels like it was rewritten several times without care taken to ensure details matched up. It doesn't feel like it was proofread at all, because this sloppiness would have been picked up by any competent editor.
I don't say all this because I dislike Starcraft. I adore the premise and the gameplay. I just don't feel Blizzard did a good job with the single-player campaigns.
Again, the plot doesn't feel organic and the plot threads do not line up in a satisfactory manner.
Please do an opinion piece on phantom menace.
Please do that on the entire sequel trilogy.
As for your tastes, wouldn't comment because your obviously entitled to your own opinion, but citing GoT for good storytelling is a rather bold claim.
ASOIAF is good in story telling, not amazing (paces issues, distances issues, A Dance With Dragon, ...), like, it's solid. World building is really great : wouldn't consider it LOTR level but pretty close, and it's still developping, so it has some time to expand.
GoT story telling, on the other hand, is more like F-... I mean, season 1-3, it kinda stick to the book plot (not minor details, but it's understandable considering it's a 10x50min TV show, not a 1.5k page book), so it's pretty good, but then you're spiralling into oblivion of crap after that.
I'm currently playing through the SP campaigns again (I just finished SC vanilla) and from what I can gather many of the motives you handwave away as "X simply decide(s) to to YZ without explanation" are actually explained. The Zerg for example were under heavy siege by the protoss, so they had to fend them off. Ultimately the Zerg lost the overmind, so their forces were scattered. Meanwhile Kerrigan's arc was sidelined due to the main story arc, she gets mentioned again at the end of the SC campaign. Likewise Aldaris didn't just stop pursuing Tassadar. As far as I understand it, he had sent Artanis after Tassadar, but Artanis ultimately switched sides and so Aldaris was out of options.
Again, the plot doesn't feel organic and the plot threads do not line up in a satisfactory manner.
Please do an opinion piece on phantom menace.
Has anyone else written about the last jedi on a webzone such as this? I think it could lead to some very interesting discussions!
As to the OP. Brood War is simply a different style of writing or genre compared to SC2. One is more action oriented and blockbuster focused, (SC2,) and the other is more contemplative and has as slower, but bigger scale (SC1). + Show Spoiler +
On August 12 2020 09:45 pebble444 wrote: from a youtube comment, this sums up pretty much what i think about it:
"You know, these days people always talk about how "primitive" game stories were before 2005, but from where I'm standing, it seems to be the other way around. People who wrote games back then were nerds who had an appreciation for old school sci-fi, fantasy and literature. Now it seems to be written by hollywood dropouts, jampacked with every cliche in the book."
and here is the cinematics related to that comment, after you finish the first Terrain campaign:
yes of course videogame stories are sometimes limited and conditioned by the game-play. still, your advocating that the story is "bad" confuses me. Case if you listen to the speech and the video i posted, and you call it "bad" , i can' t really relate to what your taste is.
I get a sense that the SC1 writers were fans of Gene Wolfe and Frank Herbert. Sure they might not have the workshop fine tuned literature writing skills as the greats, but they imitated them very well considering the medium and limitations.
As for Game of Thrones being the intellectual proof of maturity, I can only say that it has always been and always will be a very good soap opera, (albeit impeccably cast and produced). And there is nothing wrong with that. But it certainly isn't the be all end all fantasy series. HBO might have went more mainstream towards the end, but they did elevate Martin's writing in a lot of ways. I can't fault them for streamlining the later seasons, as the author has been kicking the can down the road since book 4.
On August 18 2020 06:58 Magic Powers wrote: I'm currently playing through the SP campaigns again (I just finished SC vanilla) and from what I can gather many of the motives you handwave away as "X simply decide(s) to to YZ without explanation" are actually explained. The Zerg for example were under heavy siege by the protoss, so they had to fend them off. Ultimately the Zerg lost the overmind, so their forces were scattered. Meanwhile Kerrigan's arc was sidelined due to the main story arc, she gets mentioned again at the end of the SC campaign. Likewise Aldaris didn't just stop pursuing Tassadar. As far as I understand it, he had sent Artanis after Tassadar, but Artanis ultimately switched sides and so Aldaris was out of options.
That doesn’t address any of my critique. My critique wasn’t that their motives weren’t explained, but that their actions were inconsistent with their motives and the setting in a way that was never explained.
Ignoring for a moment that Kerry’s inclusion contradicts the zerg’s mass-produced devouring swarm shtick, she was infested to fight on Aiur because the zerg presumably wouldn’t win without her. Then she is sent to fight elsewhere that is not Aiur, and the zerg don’t suffer negatively from her absence on Aiur. What was the point of infesting her and worshiping her as a messiah then? To force episode 2 to be a loose sequel to episode 1? To set her up as the future leader in the sequel hook?
I didn’t say Aldaris stopped pursuing Tassadar. I said he teamed up with the dark templar without the story making any real attempt to reconcile their philosophical differences. I went over this in detail a few posts above.
These aren’t even complex critiques. These are very simple, surface-level analyses of the plot. These should be obvious to most people who stop to think about the plot.
On August 12 2020 06:08 TaLIfy wrote: Years later I came back, when my tastes had matured and I was consuming fiction like Game of Thrones
Again, the plot doesn't feel organic and the plot threads do not line up in a satisfactory manner.
Please do an opinion piece on phantom menace.
Has anyone else written about the last jedi on a webzone such as this? I think it could lead to some very interesting discussions!
As to the OP. Brood War is simply a different style of writing or genre compared to SC2. One is more action oriented and blockbuster focused, (SC2,) and the other is more contemplative and has as slower, but bigger scale (SC1). + Show Spoiler +
On August 12 2020 09:45 pebble444 wrote: from a youtube comment, this sums up pretty much what i think about it:
"You know, these days people always talk about how "primitive" game stories were before 2005, but from where I'm standing, it seems to be the other way around. People who wrote games back then were nerds who had an appreciation for old school sci-fi, fantasy and literature. Now it seems to be written by hollywood dropouts, jampacked with every cliche in the book."
yes of course videogame stories are sometimes limited and conditioned by the game-play. still, your advocating that the story is "bad" confuses me. Case if you listen to the speech and the video i posted, and you call it "bad" , i can' t really relate to what your taste is.
I get a sense that the SC1 writers were fans of Gene Wolfe and Frank Herbert. Sure they might not have the workshop fine tuned literature writing skills as the greats, but they imitated them very well considering the medium and limitations.
As for Game of Thrones being the intellectual proof of maturity, I can only say that it has always been and always will be a very good soap opera, (albeit impeccably cast and produced). And there is nothing wrong with that. But it certainly isn't the be all end all fantasy series. HBO might have went more mainstream towards the end, but they did elevate Martin's writing in a lot of ways. I can't fault them for streamlining the later seasons, as the author has been kicking the can down the road since book 4.
I never got the impression that the writer (Chris Metzen) was a fan of Herbert or Wolfe. He was clearly trying to write a Star Wars style heroic fantasy. The plotting is very haphazard and doesn’t flow organically at all. It relies heavily on plot contrivances like emitters, temples, psychic dreams, resurrection, and such. Several times characters behave because it suits the plot rather than their motives or reasoning, like Kerry being a messiah to bug monsters or Tassadar being cheerful at being rescued rather than angry.
On August 12 2020 10:50 reincremate wrote: The tragedy of Reynor and Kerrigan is drama of Shakesperean magnitude and the game's sociopolitical commentary is so deep you can drown in it. Also the graphics in the cutscenes are really good, unlike games today.
This man incapsulated my thoughts exactly, Shakesperean!
On August 18 2020 06:58 Magic Powers wrote: I'm currently playing through the SP campaigns again (I just finished SC vanilla) and from what I can gather many of the motives you handwave away as "X simply decide(s) to to YZ without explanation" are actually explained. The Zerg for example were under heavy siege by the protoss, so they had to fend them off. Ultimately the Zerg lost the overmind, so their forces were scattered. Meanwhile Kerrigan's arc was sidelined due to the main story arc, she gets mentioned again at the end of the SC campaign. Likewise Aldaris didn't just stop pursuing Tassadar. As far as I understand it, he had sent Artanis after Tassadar, but Artanis ultimately switched sides and so Aldaris was out of options.
That doesn’t address any of my critique. My critique wasn’t that their motives weren’t explained, but that their actions were inconsistent with their motives and the setting in a way that was never explained.
Ignoring for a moment that Kerry’s inclusion contradicts the zerg’s mass-produced devouring swarm shtick, she was infested to fight on Aiur because the zerg presumably wouldn’t win without her. Then she is sent to fight elsewhere that is not Aiur, and the zerg don’t suffer negatively from her absence on Aiur. What was the point of infesting her and worshiping her as a messiah then? To force episode 2 to be a loose sequel to episode 1? To set her up as the future leader in the sequel hook?
I didn’t say Aldaris stopped pursuing Tassadar. I said he teamed up with the dark templar without the story making any real attempt to reconcile their philosophical differences. I went over this in detail a few posts above.
These aren’t even complex critiques. These are very simple, surface-level analyses of the plot. These should be obvious to most people who stop to think about the plot.
Infested Kerrigan made unexpected decisions that went against the Zerg cerebrate. In the campaigns it becomes obvious that she doesn't like being told what the right move is, and the cerebrate scolds her over it.
About Aldaris teaming up with the Dark Templar: does that happen in the BW campaigns? I still have to replay those.
Edit: I'm currently reading through the synopsis from Aldaris' biography in the SC Wiki and it gives a pretty clear explanation for why Aldaris would no longer oppose the Dark Templar.
The subsequent success of the rebels efforts against the zerg, vindicating Tassadar's beliefs, caused the Conclave to send Aldaris with an apology.[15] The Overmind was destroyed thanks to Tassadar's sacrifice, but the battle for Aiur was lost and the Conclave destroyed.
Unfortunately I don't have my SC & BW manuals anymore, so I don't know whether or not this is a retcon. I only know some of the plot points were partially skipped over in the campaigns and explained further in the books.
So far I just don't see the major plot contrivances or inconsistent world building that you see. Sure, it's not top tier writing, but I don't think there's anything majorly wrong with the plot or the world building.
On August 18 2020 06:58 Magic Powers wrote: I'm currently playing through the SP campaigns again (I just finished SC vanilla) and from what I can gather many of the motives you handwave away as "X simply decide(s) to to YZ without explanation" are actually explained. The Zerg for example were under heavy siege by the protoss, so they had to fend them off. Ultimately the Zerg lost the overmind, so their forces were scattered. Meanwhile Kerrigan's arc was sidelined due to the main story arc, she gets mentioned again at the end of the SC campaign. Likewise Aldaris didn't just stop pursuing Tassadar. As far as I understand it, he had sent Artanis after Tassadar, but Artanis ultimately switched sides and so Aldaris was out of options.
That doesn’t address any of my critique. My critique wasn’t that their motives weren’t explained, but that their actions were inconsistent with their motives and the setting in a way that was never explained.
Ignoring for a moment that Kerry’s inclusion contradicts the zerg’s mass-produced devouring swarm shtick, she was infested to fight on Aiur because the zerg presumably wouldn’t win without her. Then she is sent to fight elsewhere that is not Aiur, and the zerg don’t suffer negatively from her absence on Aiur. What was the point of infesting her and worshiping her as a messiah then? To force episode 2 to be a loose sequel to episode 1? To set her up as the future leader in the sequel hook?
I didn’t say Aldaris stopped pursuing Tassadar. I said he teamed up with the dark templar without the story making any real attempt to reconcile their philosophical differences. I went over this in detail a few posts above.
These aren’t even complex critiques. These are very simple, surface-level analyses of the plot. These should be obvious to most people who stop to think about the plot.
Infested Kerrigan made unexpected decisions that went against the Zerg cerebrate. In the campaigns it becomes obvious that she doesn't like being told what the right move is, and the cerebrate scolds her over it.
About Aldaris teaming up with the Dark Templar: does that happen in the BW campaigns? I still have to replay those.
Edit: I'm currently reading through the synopsis from Aldaris' biography in the SC Wiki and it gives a pretty clear explanation for why Aldaris would no longer oppose the Dark Templar.
The subsequent success of the rebels efforts against the zerg, vindicating Tassadar's beliefs, caused the Conclave to send Aldaris with an apology.[15] The Overmind was destroyed thanks to Tassadar's sacrifice, but the battle for Aiur was lost and the Conclave destroyed.
Unfortunately I don't have my SC & BW manuals anymore, so I don't know whether or not this is a retcon. I only know some of the plot points were partially skipped over in the campaigns and explained further in the books.
So far I just don't see the major plot contrivances or inconsistent world building that you see. Sure, it's not top tier writing, but I don't think there's anything majorly wrong with the plot or the world building.
I have gone over this multiple times. The plot is a haphazard mess written by a writer who is infamous for bad writing. It relies extensively on lazy plot contrivances like emitters, messiahs, psychic dreams, magic temples, character idiocy, etc. Plot threads do not line up, characters behave inconsistently to service the plot, information is given in a clunky manner, etc.
On August 18 2020 06:58 Magic Powers wrote: I'm currently playing through the SP campaigns again (I just finished SC vanilla) and from what I can gather many of the motives you handwave away as "X simply decide(s) to to YZ without explanation" are actually explained. The Zerg for example were under heavy siege by the protoss, so they had to fend them off. Ultimately the Zerg lost the overmind, so their forces were scattered. Meanwhile Kerrigan's arc was sidelined due to the main story arc, she gets mentioned again at the end of the SC campaign. Likewise Aldaris didn't just stop pursuing Tassadar. As far as I understand it, he had sent Artanis after Tassadar, but Artanis ultimately switched sides and so Aldaris was out of options.
That doesn’t address any of my critique. My critique wasn’t that their motives weren’t explained, but that their actions were inconsistent with their motives and the setting in a way that was never explained.
Ignoring for a moment that Kerry’s inclusion contradicts the zerg’s mass-produced devouring swarm shtick, she was infested to fight on Aiur because the zerg presumably wouldn’t win without her. Then she is sent to fight elsewhere that is not Aiur, and the zerg don’t suffer negatively from her absence on Aiur. What was the point of infesting her and worshiping her as a messiah then? To force episode 2 to be a loose sequel to episode 1? To set her up as the future leader in the sequel hook?
I didn’t say Aldaris stopped pursuing Tassadar. I said he teamed up with the dark templar without the story making any real attempt to reconcile their philosophical differences. I went over this in detail a few posts above.
These aren’t even complex critiques. These are very simple, surface-level analyses of the plot. These should be obvious to most people who stop to think about the plot.
Infested Kerrigan made unexpected decisions that went against the Zerg cerebrate. In the campaigns it becomes obvious that she doesn't like being told what the right move is, and the cerebrate scolds her over it.
About Aldaris teaming up with the Dark Templar: does that happen in the BW campaigns? I still have to replay those.
Edit: I'm currently reading through the synopsis from Aldaris' biography in the SC Wiki and it gives a pretty clear explanation for why Aldaris would no longer oppose the Dark Templar.
The subsequent success of the rebels efforts against the zerg, vindicating Tassadar's beliefs, caused the Conclave to send Aldaris with an apology.[15] The Overmind was destroyed thanks to Tassadar's sacrifice, but the battle for Aiur was lost and the Conclave destroyed.
Unfortunately I don't have my SC & BW manuals anymore, so I don't know whether or not this is a retcon. I only know some of the plot points were partially skipped over in the campaigns and explained further in the books.
So far I just don't see the major plot contrivances or inconsistent world building that you see. Sure, it's not top tier writing, but I don't think there's anything majorly wrong with the plot or the world building.
I have gone over this multiple times. The plot is a haphazard mess written by a writer who is infamous for bad writing. It relies extensively on lazy plot contrivances like emitters, messiahs, psychic dreams, magic temples, character idiocy, etc. Plot threads do not line up, characters behave inconsistently to service the plot, information is given in a clunky manner, etc.
It’s a video game from the late 90s, it’s doing ok against that backdrop.
I don’t really count any of those things as particularly contrived anyway, they all largely fit. The Xel’Naga shaped the Protoss, who were their favoured child in a sense (they seem more similar to them than Zerg anyway), makes perfect sense that Protoss could figure how to make use of abandoned Xel’Naga tech. Psychic dreams make sense when you have psychic characters. Emitters as tech kind of make sense as some potential weapon against rebellion inclined people.
There isn’t really a Messiah until SC2 where it does get genuinely awful in terms of general storytelling.
I mean I’ve enjoyed discussion in this thread but your real bone of contention with the story seems to be more that it isn’t another, differently focused story. Something more grounded and more focused on political intrigue, grounded military and tech capability and without mystical artefacts and the like.
Which is fine, those tend to be my tastes generally but for what they were going for it’s perfectly serviceable, most characters have consistent motivations, most things make sense in-universe etc.
SC2’s story on the other hand really is a complete shitshow...
I watched a bit of your videos, and really a lot of your points are that cutscenes don't match gameplay detail. That's not really a criticism in the plot, but more on the campaign missions. I view the plot as something different from the gameplay. You are complaining about the zergs and protoss being retarded in the actual gameplay and connecting to it to zergs and protoss being retarded in the story.
Gameplay doesn't reflect the story unless there were cutscenes in the gameplay that adds to the story. For example, in an RPG game fighting against random mobs doesn't mean anything in the story a lot of times when you are just grinding level.
The thing is a game will always have limited mechanics compared to a real story. Another example for sc in this case, billions of zergs in the cutscenes but there are only a couple dozen in the game. Well obviously, the game can't accommodate that many units in the game. Or hydralisk uses their scythes in cutscenes, but not in games. That one is probably more of a design decision as they would overlap roles with zergling and ultralisk which again is gameplay mechanics. Lorewise, most units probably have multiple weapons but no need for it gameplay wise. For example, ultralisk can probably kill units simply by stepping on them.
You will be writing a shitty book worse than sc2 if you try to include gameplay mechanics into the story. An example of that would be everyone would have unlimited ammos, and other things that just does not make sense.
Well I do agree the vanilla sc story is pretty bad, but it does a good enough job of introducing you to the universe and introduce you to interpersonal drama between the characters. It does have problems though with world building being vague. In general, I would say that the game was just not a good medium for storytelling.
I do have many criticisms of the plot myself especially in vanilla sc, but I still enjoyed the bits of story presented in the campaign especially the protoss ones.
Edit: Just to add your main criticisms about zerg seems to be about them not being some single organism like race which makes them "inconsistent". That's not inconsistent, that's just them going in a different direction from your idea. They are more of a hivelike insect race which follow their queen/leader. In the past, that was the overmind and the cerebrates, and later on Kerrigan.
While I do agree that your idea is more interesting, they're not being inconsistent.
For Protoss, your claim of them being "inconsistent" is about them being some kind of "enlightened" race. It's called a plot twist. While they seem wise, they are actually very religious and illogical "zealots(hence, the unit name)." You find that they also fight against each other though not as much as Humans. This is why they pursued Tassadar even though the Zerg was on their footstep on Aiur. Aldaris had his pride as a Protoss that they would not lose to the Zerg, and that capturing Tassadar who went against their religious code is more blasphemous. That's just the average zealot being illogical and happens all the time in Humans too. Again, that's not being inconsistent, they just went a different direction than what "YOU" expected.
It does have problems though with the terran and zerg campaign feeling fragmented, and we don't really get a scale of how big each empires are and at what scale they operate.
On August 18 2020 06:58 Magic Powers wrote: I'm currently playing through the SP campaigns again (I just finished SC vanilla) and from what I can gather many of the motives you handwave away as "X simply decide(s) to to YZ without explanation" are actually explained. The Zerg for example were under heavy siege by the protoss, so they had to fend them off. Ultimately the Zerg lost the overmind, so their forces were scattered. Meanwhile Kerrigan's arc was sidelined due to the main story arc, she gets mentioned again at the end of the SC campaign. Likewise Aldaris didn't just stop pursuing Tassadar. As far as I understand it, he had sent Artanis after Tassadar, but Artanis ultimately switched sides and so Aldaris was out of options.
That doesn’t address any of my critique. My critique wasn’t that their motives weren’t explained, but that their actions were inconsistent with their motives and the setting in a way that was never explained.
Ignoring for a moment that Kerry’s inclusion contradicts the zerg’s mass-produced devouring swarm shtick, she was infested to fight on Aiur because the zerg presumably wouldn’t win without her. Then she is sent to fight elsewhere that is not Aiur, and the zerg don’t suffer negatively from her absence on Aiur. What was the point of infesting her and worshiping her as a messiah then? To force episode 2 to be a loose sequel to episode 1? To set her up as the future leader in the sequel hook?
I didn’t say Aldaris stopped pursuing Tassadar. I said he teamed up with the dark templar without the story making any real attempt to reconcile their philosophical differences. I went over this in detail a few posts above.
These aren’t even complex critiques. These are very simple, surface-level analyses of the plot. These should be obvious to most people who stop to think about the plot.
Infested Kerrigan made unexpected decisions that went against the Zerg cerebrate. In the campaigns it becomes obvious that she doesn't like being told what the right move is, and the cerebrate scolds her over it.
About Aldaris teaming up with the Dark Templar: does that happen in the BW campaigns? I still have to replay those.
Edit: I'm currently reading through the synopsis from Aldaris' biography in the SC Wiki and it gives a pretty clear explanation for why Aldaris would no longer oppose the Dark Templar.
The subsequent success of the rebels efforts against the zerg, vindicating Tassadar's beliefs, caused the Conclave to send Aldaris with an apology.[15] The Overmind was destroyed thanks to Tassadar's sacrifice, but the battle for Aiur was lost and the Conclave destroyed.
Unfortunately I don't have my SC & BW manuals anymore, so I don't know whether or not this is a retcon. I only know some of the plot points were partially skipped over in the campaigns and explained further in the books.
So far I just don't see the major plot contrivances or inconsistent world building that you see. Sure, it's not top tier writing, but I don't think there's anything majorly wrong with the plot or the world building.
I have gone over this multiple times. The plot is a haphazard mess written by a writer who is infamous for bad writing. It relies extensively on lazy plot contrivances like emitters, messiahs, psychic dreams, magic temples, character idiocy, etc. Plot threads do not line up, characters behave inconsistently to service the plot, information is given in a clunky manner, etc.
I disagree with all of that, and I'm seeing that you're not making much of an effort to support your claims. - Plot is a haphazard mess Ok, but what exactly? As I've been able to show in previous comments, the things you've pointed out previously can be explained. - Writer infamous for bad writing That doesn't seem like a valid argument to me, even if I accept it as true. - Plot relies extensively on lazy plot contrivances (emitters, messiah, psychic dreams, magic temples, character idiocy) The emitters are a valid plot device. Messiah? What messiah? Psychic dreams are a valid plot device. Magic temples are a valid plot device. Character idiocy is a valid plot device. So you're listing things you don't like, but at no point do you explain why you don't like them. You call them lazy, but I don't think they're lazy. They seem to be fitted perfectly to the scope of the SC campaigns. If you want to read a multi-part book series from some grand novelist, then GoT would be your pick. Just because the SC campaigns aren't on that level of intricacy doesn't make it "lazy". - Plot threads do not line up Which ones? - Characters behave inconsistently to service the plot Which ones and in what way? - Information is given in a clunky manner What do you mean by "clunky"?
Years ago, I tried to play through the original SC2 campaign with the sole purpose of following the story and the different plots. It was hopeless, weird psi-disuptor abuse, lure zerg to kill enemies, Mengsk abandoning Rainor and Kerrigan for no reason, Kerrigan turning Zerg for unknown reasons, and when they even introduced the hybrids and the Xel'naga as another master force at the end, I just gave up trying make sense of it. They could absolutely have done a much better job.
Playing the campaign was fun, though, and I came to peace with that the story is completely secondary to the gameplay: You NEED to play every matchup and every unit needs a proper introduction.
The WC3 stories were much cleaner imo, with the Orc campaign being absolutely awesome. Drink from a read fountain and all your units become "chaos orchs", how cool wasn't that?
yeah SC2 story seems terrible overall, or maybe just not very good or interesting idk WC3 is cool plus it has amazing musics and stuff too D2 super cool in that respect overall^^; maybe just LOD very end worldstone stuff isn't amazing conclusion but intro so cool
Xel Naga is actually an important part of the overall scenario described in the manual btw, which i think is really cool I'd give SC story a 9/10 maybe, BW closer to 8/10 i suppose there are a bunch of things that are weird about BW, like Protoss "trusting" kerrigan for little reason seeming too unwise for what they are presented to be before, Earth forces coming in and having the same technology and weapons as the confederates is quite weird and suddenly they're even able to overwhelm the Z.. mmh ok. Z easily getting to just spawn a new Overmind and P not having any expection of that seemed odd, but why not. Hard to get into more details i don't remember everything lul. Felt a bit weird for which reasons Protoss fight each other. How many years were supposed to have passed where confederacy had no contact with Earth? Or perhaps there was secret contact. Scenario isn't that bad and well presented, did enjoy playing through the campaign. The part with the hybrids at the end felt bit like filler open ender for sequel idk.
I didn't play the SC(original) campaign for a long time but I don't think there's anything I dislike about the story really liked it tbh
Cutscenes not explicitly showing story plot point is neither good nor bad inherently- it's just different way of doing things. I rather like them. They don't add to the plot points of the story, but they are excellent at building atmosphere. This is my all time favourite:
I don't think there's a single SC2 cinematic that nails this atmosphere. The intro to Diablo 1 does the same- it's dang impressive what they did with such limited computing power.
I think it builds out the universe- stuff is going down in different parts of the galaxy.
On August 23 2020 06:52 Slydie wrote: Years ago, I tried to play through the original SC2 campaign with the sole purpose of following the story and the different plots. It was hopeless, weird psi-disuptor abuse, lure zerg to kill enemies, Mengsk abandoning Rainor and Kerrigan for no reason, Kerrigan turning Zerg for unknown reasons, and when they even introduced the hybrids and the Xel'naga as another master force at the end, I just gave up trying make sense of it. They could absolutely have done a much better job.
Playing the campaign was fun, though, and I came to peace with that the story is completely secondary to the gameplay: You NEED to play every matchup and every unit needs a proper introduction.
The WC3 stories were much cleaner imo, with the Orc campaign being absolutely awesome. Drink from a read fountain and all your units become "chaos orchs", how cool wasn't that?
I played the campaign last time around 20 years ago, yet I still remember the "why's"; I don't think you were paying attention to what's said, given how simple the overall story is, or you are lacking the arguments to support your stance / trolling.
All the psi-stuff was there to show that Zerg were drawn to psionic/psychic powers (like that of a Terran ghost, which is how the Confederacy tried to weaponize the Zerg and why Mengsk wanted to stop it from happening).
Mengsk did not abandon Raynor, he left Kerrigan to die after her position was overrun by the zerg after she completed her objective (and why it happened was perfectly explained by both the mission objectives and the fact she has strong psionic powers, i.e. the Zerg are drawn to her). Raynor then left Mengsk and vowed revenge.
Kerrigan turning to Zerg was explained, too - again, she has strong psionic powers, Overmind/The Zerg are interested in that, saw her potential and decided to turn her. It wasn't her decision, she was to become a powerful tool for the Overmind.
They introduced hybrids only in a 'secret' mission in the BW campaign (since they were planning for it in the sequel), there was pretty much no focus on that in either SC1 or BW. The only other "hybrids" that were present in the campaign were the zergified versions of units/buildings, which is just zerg infestation and ties to one of the game mechanics.
The biggest problem with SC2 story is it's all flash over substance. It was told in a more hollywood-esque way, to its detriment, and all interesting themes were somehow made even more shallow than in the technologically limited prequel.
Just because the story itself is more verbose does not make it better, and just because SC1 and BW are lacking in that regard does not make them bad.
I think both SC1 and BW had good (not excellent), fun stories and more interesting, consistent characters having believable relationships precisely because not everything was spelled out for the player and acted out in front of him.