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On September 28 2010 10:53 Billy_ wrote:Show nested quote +SC2 had so many filler missions that contribute basically absolutely nothing to the story. Depends on your definition of filler. I'm pretty much used to playing RPGs where you spend a lot more time on character development and learning about the game world, so I actually felt as if most of the missions offered something.
Meh, I play RPGs as well, who doesn't? The missions offer very little plot content and didn't even develop the characters or the setting very well. The RPG element doesn't fit well into an RTS context.
I don't know. She basically became an entirely different character when she became infested, and he said something about giving her full control as long as she didn't interfere with its plans.
Err, has this been mentioned anywhere?
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[Poll]SC1 vs SC2: Best plot?
Anyone ever told you that you should do stand-up?
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On September 28 2010 12:52 buhhy wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2010 23:48 danl9rm wrote:
How can we have a poll on a finished product vs. a game that is 1/3 (at most) complete? Honestly, people need to stop using this argument. SC2 WoL is 30~ missions long. SC1 is 30~ missions long. Also SC1 is game sold at full price. SC2 is a game sold at full price. They are comparable.
Also, they planned to make Brood War before SC1 was even released. So that's even more of a reason to compare them
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On September 28 2010 12:57 buhhy wrote:Show nested quote +On September 28 2010 10:53 Billy_ wrote:SC2 had so many filler missions that contribute basically absolutely nothing to the story. Depends on your definition of filler. I'm pretty much used to playing RPGs where you spend a lot more time on character development and learning about the game world, so I actually felt as if most of the missions offered something. Meh, I play RPGs as well, who doesn't? The missions offer very little plot content and didn't even develop the characters or the setting very well. The RPG element doesn't fit well into an RTS context. Show nested quote +
I don't know. She basically became an entirely different character when she became infested, and he said something about giving her full control as long as she didn't interfere with its plans.
Err, has this been mentioned anywhere?
"Let not a terran survive" - Overmind.
"Leave now Jim, and never seek to confront the Zerg again" - Kerrigan.
Disobeyed a direct order.
"We're going to kill billions" - Arcturus
"Are you insane?!" Kerrigan
Infested Kerrigan was just generally very different. A lot more aggressive, but apparantly still rather insecure.
Read this http://sclegacy.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7280
Describes Kerrigans character in great detail.
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On September 28 2010 12:52 buhhy wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2010 23:48 danl9rm wrote:
How can we have a poll on a finished product vs. a game that is 1/3 (at most) complete? Honestly, people need to stop using this argument. SC2 WoL is 30~ missions long. SC1 is 30~ missions long. Also SC1 is game sold at full price. SC2 is a game sold at full price. They are comparable.
All your argument implies is that SC2 is going to cost more and have more missions which will equal a longer storyline. This does not mean the story isn't still 1/3rd complete.
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I miss the lots-of-drama skype conferences from the original
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I miss the lots-of-drama skype conferences from the original
This.
I think a lot of what was missing in the WoL plot was NPCs interacting with each other not just Raynor
Like when Raynor and Kerrigan react to Mengsk's order to abandon Kerrigan, or Duran convincing DuGalle of Stukov's 'treachery' or Zeratul and the rest of the protoss being mentored by the Matriach; and these 'conferences' precipitate EVERY mission
Most of the dialogue in WoL is one-on-one conversations that are entirely optional... and because the player can choose the sequence they happen in, if they happen at all, they have have little continuity and play a very minor role in the NPC's interaction with each other and their effectiveness as characters in the campaign
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The sc2 campaign is definitely the "funner", more interactive one, I got a huge kick on the first (only atm) play through. This is expected from a newer game. However, it seriously lacks in the story development. Sure it turns a simple plot into a fun game, but it leaves you with a sense of...nothing really happened. I would like more lore bits, and not in the way "zeratul missions" did it.
The sc1 campaign trumps in it's pretty sick storyline. There only major wtf plot hole is seeing kerrigan trick every single protagonist 10 times over. The story plays out like a captivating novel, not brushing over any detail. Hell, they had small walls of text between missions, or after campagns, describing the aftermath of the missions you undertook.
I sincerly hope that blizzard does not continue this trend of 1-dimensional plots. It would be a huge disappointment to our waiting. The game is one thing, but we've been waiting for the end (resolution, at least partial) for years, the last thing we need is some durr hurr cliche piece of shit.
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On September 29 2010 05:33 danl9rm wrote:Show nested quote +On September 28 2010 12:52 buhhy wrote:On September 27 2010 23:48 danl9rm wrote:
How can we have a poll on a finished product vs. a game that is 1/3 (at most) complete? Honestly, people need to stop using this argument. SC2 WoL is 30~ missions long. SC1 is 30~ missions long. Also SC1 is game sold at full price. SC2 is a game sold at full price. They are comparable. All your argument implies is that SC2 is going to cost more and have more missions which will equal a longer storyline. This does not mean the story isn't still 1/3rd complete.
It wouldn't have been out of reach to write a plot that felt like it was going somewhere even within 30~ missions. The side missions could have had lasting impact on the plot, but they didn't. So effectively, only maybe 40% of the missions was used to advance the plot.
And hey, Halo was a trilogy, yet each of the games' plots felt complete, not like 1/3's of the entire story.
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you know i didn't think that the plot of sc1 was all that fantastic. I think people just have a lot of nostalgia. So i'm going with sc2 just cuz i thought the campaign had more fun missions.
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Someone mentioned it felt like a bad fanfic. I disagree.
It was definitely superior to Full Life Consequences. Not by much, mind you, but still superior.
Seriously, the Zerg are not controlled by a "noble" creature. Never have been. Theyve never been the type to "react" rather than swarm either, but that's another arguement entirely. Kerrigan should never have been saved, and shouldve been the ultimate enemy. Maybe the only force that could stop the Xel'naga's return, but still the enemy. Zeratul 's little cameo was far too forced. The minor characters were just that. Minor. Their arcs were too short for any real development, too irrelevant to the main plot to have mattered, and the characters themselves were hardly humanized. The female doctor, for example. Her fate was obvious from the start, but even still it left a bad taste in my mouth. Horner was a decent character...till he disappears completely at what could have been his defining moment. Tosh/Nova are equally interesting...for the duration of Tosh's arc. And I'll say it again, the Overmind was, is, and always will be evil. Its goal is to conquer the universe, and Kerrigan's shouldve been too.
Epic fail, no amount of greatness in the next two chapters can fix it. ANd the foreshadowing clearly shows the likelyhood of greatness in the next two games is slim to none.
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Are you kidding? It's not even a contest; the original SC campaign wins hands down. I have a hard time even comprehending that this is a bona fide question.
Think of how many memorable moments SC1 had (not even including the expansion pack)...are we forgetting so quickly?
- The opening cinematic in which the Protoss mothership's shadow slowly envelops the salvage pilot's cockpit, only to vaporize him and the planet out of existence.
- Having to bail out that snide UED commander when his battlecruiser goes down to the Zerg.
- The briefing moment in which you finally realize that Megnsk has completely lost his marbles.
- The moment at which you realize that Kerrigan isn't coming home, as hordes of the very Zerg you were protecting wash over your base.
- The cinematic with the marines blowing up the space station ("yeh...I got yer Zerg right heeeere").
- The opening of the Zerg campaign in which you realize that Kerrigan is not dead, and that you are going to be in charge of ensuring that she is reborn into the swarm.
- Finally unleashing Kerrigan near the end of the Zerg campaign and actually controlling her. She was the coolest hero unit ever (tentacle attack!).
- The moment at which Tassadar's secret motives are revealed. You all remember how cool it was when the DT units were first revealed in Tassadar's solo mission.
- The cinematic where the marine nails the dragoon way off in the desert, only to have several more warp right in front of him (my favorite cinematic in all SC games ever).
- The ending in which Tassadar kamikazes his carrier into the Overmind.
There are too many to count. On the flipside, I don't think any of my emotions were piqued during WoL's campaign anywhere near as much as they were during any of the instances above (with the possible exception of the "In Utter Darkness" campaign, but only because some old heads turn up and because the music gets all soft and epic near the end of the battle). In the end though, the whole game amounted to a rather lame scavenger hunt: find the pieces of the artifact and then use it to kill the last boss. How is that a cool story? And honestly, I think the whole thing about using the artifact to bring Kerrigan back is ludicrous. How contrived is that, honestly? What the hell is the artifact anyways? It seems to be a chunk of metal capable of doing whatever lazy plot device the writers undertake to contrive (in 5 minutes or less).
Some people here have mentioned the sense of urgency that SC2 lacks in its campaign. I completely agree. Every mission in SC was reactive to some new event. There was always the element of uncertainty going into every new mission. You became absorbed in where the story was going because that's the pace that it moves: literally from mission to mission. In SC2, it seemed that the urgency was gone; we would bide our time coasting the galaxy searching for artifacts in what I see as a contrived and lazy way to create a campaign structure. And when you did do something of significance, it did not seem to affect anything at all. For instance, you go through painstaking effort to expose Mengsk or break out the prisoners, but nothing happens from it in terms of the overall story (except for his broadcasts getting angrier). Even these "pivotal" missions really did nothing at all and the payoff was really disappointing.
Character development was pathetic. Mengsk didn't have anything to do but yell at the camera, and Tosh was your typical mysterious dark horse without a real personality. Kerrigan didn't do anything at all but taunt you from a distance. She didn't engage in any sort of conversation at all or have any dialog departing from the usual "you're going to die" banter. Contrast this to SC1 in which she was a fleshed out and interesting character with a full spectrum of emotions. It was sort of like what happened with Episode 1-3 when compared to the original Star Wars trilogy...all the characters became sort of one-dimensional, killing any affinity you have for them. In the end, only Tychus saved the roster from being a complete disaster. And that dude on the bridge with you...Mr. Personality?...I can't even remember his name he was so forgettable.
The overall feel seemed to lose a lot of its character as well. Whereas SC1 was gritty and dark with a cool low-budget feel to it, SC2 just seemed to me as overly-polished and sterile. To me, it was like comparing Avatar to Aliens.
Finally, I know that this was part to do with SC1 as well, but the whole idea of a hybrid is completely stupid. It's about as cool and intriguing as the fucking Pred-Alien.
Come on...this one's not even close.
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On September 29 2010 11:46 stealthrider wrote:
Someone mentioned it felt like a bad fanfic. I disagree.
It was definitely superior to Full Life Consequences. Not by much, mind you, but still superior.
Seriously, the Zerg are not controlled by a "noble" creature. Never have been. Theyve never been the type to "react" rather than swarm either, but that's another arguement entirely. Kerrigan should never have been saved, and shouldve been the ultimate enemy. Maybe the only force that could stop the Xel'naga's return, but still the enemy. Zeratul 's little cameo was far too forced. The minor characters were just that. Minor. Their arcs were too short for any real development, too irrelevant to the main plot to have mattered, and the characters themselves were hardly humanized. The female doctor, for example. Her fate was obvious from the start, but even still it left a bad taste in my mouth. Horner was a decent character...till he disappears completely at what could have been his defining moment. Tosh/Nova are equally interesting...for the duration of Tosh's arc. And I'll say it again, the Overmind was, is, and always will be evil. Its goal is to conquer the universe, and Kerrigan's shouldve been too.
Epic fail, no amount of greatness in the next two chapters can fix it. ANd the foreshadowing clearly shows the likelyhood of greatness in the next two games is slim to none.
Sorry that you dislike the meta plot of SCII.
Most of this amount to "they changed it, now it sucks". The rest is just HotS speculation, and griping about minor characters. Things can always be better, but it's usually more fun to try and focus on the good rather than what could have been.
Much as I enjoyed the extreme left/right political views that the Protoss and the Zerg had originally stood for, I enjoyed the focus on characters and themes of revenge, redemption, uber evil and so on, and am curious to see how Kerrigans time in the carapace has affected her. I'd certainly expect her to be a lot less trusting and naive than she was with Arcturus, she might even still retain the whole bad ass persona.
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Starcraft 1 because it has 3 races
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SC1 no doubt. But, it feels like Blizzard is holding things back for the future...
At least I hope so!
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Character development was pathetic. Mengsk didn't have anything to do but yell at the camera, and Tosh was your typical mysterious dark horse without a real personality. Kerrigan didn't do anything at all but taunt you from a distance. She didn't engage in any sort of conversation at all or have any dialog departing from the usual "you're going to die" banter. Contrast this to SC1 in which she was a fleshed out and interesting character with a full spectrum of emotions. It was sort of like what happened with Episode 1-3 when compared to the original Star Wars trilogy...all the characters became sort of one-dimensional, killing any affinity you have for them. In the end, only Tychus saved the roster from being a complete disaster. And that dude on the bridge with you...Mr. Personality?...I can't even remember his name he was so forgettable.
The most striking part of this post I found was the comparison to the star wars original episodes, which is a perfect analogy. Honestly, SC1 was just full of great writing, fleshed out characters, and brilliant pacing. SC2 is sluggishly paced, has some really, really bad dialog, and nonexistent characters. They basically pulled a George Lucas with the game in that they completely forgot what made the original Starcraft an absolute thrilling tale to play through, instead focusing on all pretty shit like 3d rendered cutscenes.
To be more specific, almost everything Raynor said was groan worthy (I'll admit some of this lines from sc1 were straightforward and action heroy, but he had some good ones and the fact that you spend SO MUCH TIME hearing him spit out some dumb shit in WOL is just so bad). The doctor woman had pretty poor acting (maybe justified since she was infested). Zeratul and Tassadar's voice was butchered (this hurts really hard since Zeratul's voice was SOOO GOOD in sc1, it gives me chills to this day). Finally (too much more to list), Kerrigan didn't do or say SHIT the entire game. Where the fuck was this devious queen of blades from sc1 that was a mastermind of manipulation? Why didn't anybody remember that this fucking bitch killed one of Raynor's companion's Fenix (NOBODY MENTIONED FENIX WTF)
It's so frustrating, I doubt they can save the story, but I really hope they do. I honestly really love the technical aspects of some of the mission designs in SC2, some of the most fun I've had in singleplayer RTS games, while others were just macroing marines and medics (which is still kinda fun, frankly). It's so sad, so very very sad that I waited 10 years for the sequel to SC's story and I get this shit. I know Starcraft is a multiplayer game, but the original shows how great an RTS singleplayer experience can be if you have a great story to back it up.
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On September 29 2010 12:34 Billy_ wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2010 11:46 stealthrider wrote:
Someone mentioned it felt like a bad fanfic. I disagree.
It was definitely superior to Full Life Consequences. Not by much, mind you, but still superior.
Seriously, the Zerg are not controlled by a "noble" creature. Never have been. Theyve never been the type to "react" rather than swarm either, but that's another arguement entirely. Kerrigan should never have been saved, and shouldve been the ultimate enemy. Maybe the only force that could stop the Xel'naga's return, but still the enemy. Zeratul 's little cameo was far too forced. The minor characters were just that. Minor. Their arcs were too short for any real development, too irrelevant to the main plot to have mattered, and the characters themselves were hardly humanized. The female doctor, for example. Her fate was obvious from the start, but even still it left a bad taste in my mouth. Horner was a decent character...till he disappears completely at what could have been his defining moment. Tosh/Nova are equally interesting...for the duration of Tosh's arc. And I'll say it again, the Overmind was, is, and always will be evil. Its goal is to conquer the universe, and Kerrigan's shouldve been too.
Epic fail, no amount of greatness in the next two chapters can fix it. ANd the foreshadowing clearly shows the likelyhood of greatness in the next two games is slim to none. Sorry that you dislike the meta plot of SCII. Most of this amount to "they changed it, now it sucks". The rest is just HotS speculation, and griping about minor characters. Things can always be better, but it's usually more fun to try and focus on the good rather than what could have been. Much as I enjoyed the extreme left/right political views that the Protoss and the Zerg had originally stood for, I enjoyed the focus on characters and themes of revenge, redemption, uber evil and so on, and am curious to see how Kerrigans time in the carapace has affected her. I'd certainly expect her to be a lot less trusting and naive than she was with Arcturus, she might even still retain the whole bad ass persona.
SC2 would be an acceptable (not *great*m but acceptable) story if it was a standalone game.
It's a sequel, though, therefore continuity is paramount. Having major characters go through such dramatic changes and play such incredibly minor roles compared to the original is unacceptable. That there are so few story revelations compared to SC1's focus on twists and turns just shows that the writers really didn't grasp the original concept, or chose to ignore it.
Bad fanfic sums it up pretty well I'd say.
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On September 30 2010 06:39 stealthrider wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2010 12:34 Billy_ wrote:On September 29 2010 11:46 stealthrider wrote:
Someone mentioned it felt like a bad fanfic. I disagree.
It was definitely superior to Full Life Consequences. Not by much, mind you, but still superior.
Seriously, the Zerg are not controlled by a "noble" creature. Never have been. Theyve never been the type to "react" rather than swarm either, but that's another arguement entirely. Kerrigan should never have been saved, and shouldve been the ultimate enemy. Maybe the only force that could stop the Xel'naga's return, but still the enemy. Zeratul 's little cameo was far too forced. The minor characters were just that. Minor. Their arcs were too short for any real development, too irrelevant to the main plot to have mattered, and the characters themselves were hardly humanized. The female doctor, for example. Her fate was obvious from the start, but even still it left a bad taste in my mouth. Horner was a decent character...till he disappears completely at what could have been his defining moment. Tosh/Nova are equally interesting...for the duration of Tosh's arc. And I'll say it again, the Overmind was, is, and always will be evil. Its goal is to conquer the universe, and Kerrigan's shouldve been too.
Epic fail, no amount of greatness in the next two chapters can fix it. ANd the foreshadowing clearly shows the likelyhood of greatness in the next two games is slim to none. Sorry that you dislike the meta plot of SCII. Most of this amount to "they changed it, now it sucks". The rest is just HotS speculation, and griping about minor characters. Things can always be better, but it's usually more fun to try and focus on the good rather than what could have been. Much as I enjoyed the extreme left/right political views that the Protoss and the Zerg had originally stood for, I enjoyed the focus on characters and themes of revenge, redemption, uber evil and so on, and am curious to see how Kerrigans time in the carapace has affected her. I'd certainly expect her to be a lot less trusting and naive than she was with Arcturus, she might even still retain the whole bad ass persona. SC2 would be an acceptable (not *great*m but acceptable) story if it was a standalone game. It's a sequel, though, therefore continuity is paramount. Having major characters go through such dramatic changes and play such incredibly minor roles compared to the original is unacceptable. That there are so few story revelations compared to SC1's focus on twists and turns just shows that the writers really didn't grasp the original concept, or chose to ignore it. Bad fanfic sums it up pretty well I'd say.
Alright then, I guess you can just put it behind you and ignore the expansions now. I played the original right before WoL, and then once more after. I did not notice anyone acting out of character, except for the possibility that Kerrigan is a split personality now, but that would be a bit of an assumption. Also the new information on the overmind makes sense when you think about it. I know it was originally explained by saying it wanted to be "perfect", but I thought it was a pretty weak explanation considering that it resulted in the overmind becoming vulnerable.
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I like that SC2 took/is taking plenty of time to develop its plot. IMO comparing SC2 negatively with SC1 is like comparing a 150 pg Hardy Boys book with the first 150 pages of The Brothers Karamasov and bitching about a lack of dramatic plot events while Doestoevsky is still setting up the characters and the situation compared to the fact that Joe and Frank already uncovered the thieves and saved the day a number of times in their 150 pages.
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EPT
