SC1: maturer, inmersive and better characters (943)
72%
SC2: Just love it, don't care much about if is better or not. (130)
10%
SC1: WoL story sucks. (128)
10%
SC2: improves all aspects from original. (109)
8%
1310 total votes
Your vote: SC 1 vs SC2: Best plot?
(Vote): SC1: maturer, inmersive and better characters (Vote): SC2: improves all aspects from original. (Vote): SC1: WoL story sucks. (Vote): SC2: Just love it, don't care much about if is better or not.
Various views have been heard about how good is SC2 story so far, especially when compared with Sc Brood War. From "chillhood" to "simply amazing" are some of the comments from the community. What do you think?
Personally prefer by a far margin SC original story, simply because what i see as a better character development, an inmersive sensation for the player and a lot more groundbreaking moments. Also i think that WoL without the Zeratul "mini campaign", the campaign will be a total crap.
I am enjoying the plot from SC2 more so far. I think SC1 felt more developed because there were more angles to shape the story from since there were 6 different campaigns. I think SC2 is doing a great job at continuing the story and I think partly I enjoy it so much because I have been waiting so long for a continuation.
Not a fair comparison. This just tells a part of the story. If all you care about is plot wait until the next 2 expansions are out. By then the choice might be obvious tho.
On August 01 2010 06:24 On_Slaught wrote: Not a fair comparison. This just tells a part of the story. If all you care about is plot wait until the next 2 expansions are out. By then the choice might be obvious tho.
My thoughts exactly. While the story in WoL is indeed a bit "bad", I'm pretty sure they're just laying down the grounds for some epicness for the two expansions.
On August 01 2010 06:24 On_Slaught wrote: Not a fair comparison. This just tells a part of the story. If all you care about is plot wait until the next 2 expansions are out. By then the choice might be obvious tho.
This is a full game and I expect to get a full story. SC1 cannot be summed up with 2 events, and it's likely that any one of the 3 campaigns in SC1 had more storyline than WoL.
On August 01 2010 06:13 mrkent wrote: SC2 WoL entire story is summed as follows.
Zeratul tells Raynor that he needs to save Kerrigan. Raynor saves Kerrigan.
Every other character was not essential to the story. In other words, it sucks.
Also, how the fuck did Kerrigan get beat by a small army when the UED, Dominion, and Artanis combined could not defeat her in the end of Broodwar?
Totally agree.
Imao, i think campaign in sc2 is too noob-friendly. there are 4 degrees of difficulty, but in scbw, you had to go through unless you cheat.
p.s.: I hope Blizzard adds Lan-modus. It spoils fun because it forces players to use battle net which is not a guarantee for latency-free play. I wanted to play some matches with my buddy but we couldn't because he had problem with wireless card. With lan, it wouldnt happen.
Personally I liked SC:BW's story better. However, I feel that it may be because the WoL storyline seems very incomplete, seeing how you're only getting 1/3 of the plot. Additionally, the SC2 storyline seems rather cheesy and almost downright cliche at moments. The whole "choose your path" mission style also doesn't quite help the plot because the underlying storyline is too muddied and undeveloped as a result of a lack of a clear direction. TBH, I never really saw the appeal of the whole "your choice means everything" kinda plot philosophy for video games because while that definitely gives more control to the player, the plots will feel weaker. I mean, the best novels and stories of all time have a clear cut direction. They may throw in twists here and there, but the development of the plot is still solid. By allowing so much (too much) choice, the plot line becomes skewed. Nevertheless, the SC2 storyline is still very enjoyable for me.
SC2 story isn't really bad but it has lots of unnecessary filler missions to reach the 30 mission tick mark. The actual gameplay is miles ahead but the story is underwhelming, I agree. The main problem is that none of the main characters do anything crazy... Mengsk sites on Korhal and gives shitty speeches, Kerrigan is just going for the artifact and Raynor is simply gathering resources or doing random missions to undermine Kerrigan/Mengsk. Its not as directed as SC1's campaign where there were betrayals, sacrifices, epic battles, long arguments and all-around more dark and engrossing storyline.
So SC story was much better/SC2 gameplay was much better.
SC1 story felt much more evil. SC2 has completely emo kerrigan; hybrids are lame; overmind as a "slave" is disregarding everything it said it SC1; zeratul is as emo as neo kerrigan. There were some good moments, and campaign is larger in general, but not enough. The only thing that felt epic to me was first mission on char. The news were annoying. They were meant to be, though...
Overall impression is like when the first screenshots before beta appeared, the tilesets were all greenish/WC3 style. Then it was changed to 'darker', 'more starcraft' feel...this feeling is what campaign lacks.
After reviewing SC1 campaign, it also had a looot of weak points...but everything was new. My argument is, since now it's easily seen how SC2 story line could be made better, it should've been. There was quite some time for develompent, after all.
Overall, all the villains totally sucked. With no epic foe to vanquish, heroes weren't impressive, either.
SC1 has way better plot. But Sc2 has way funner missions. I am greatly dissapointed by the lack of hero missions, especially considering what the engine is capable of, but its still a brilliant campaign. So I don't even care about the plot, it is just so much fun.
On August 01 2010 06:24 On_Slaught wrote: Not a fair comparison. This just tells a part of the story. If all you care about is plot wait until the next 2 expansions are out. By then the choice might be obvious tho.
This is a full game and I expect to get a full story. SC1 cannot be summed up with 2 events, and it's likely that any one of the 3 campaigns in SC1 had more storyline than WoL.
On August 01 2010 06:13 mrkent wrote: SC2 WoL entire story is summed as follows.
Zeratul tells Raynor that he needs to save Kerrigan. Raynor saves Kerrigan.
Every other character was not essential to the story. In other words, it sucks.
Also, how the fuck did Kerrigan get beat by a small army when the UED, Dominion, and Artanis combined could not defeat her in the end of Broodwar?
Totally agree.
Imao, i think campaign in sc2 is too noob-friendly. there are 4 degrees of difficulty, but in scbw, you had to go through unless you cheat.
p.s.: I hope Blizzard adds Lan-modus. It spoils fun because it forces players to use battle net which is not a guarantee for latency-free play. I wanted to play some matches with my buddy but we couldn't because he had problem with wireless card. With lan, it wouldnt happen.
And why do you think a single player campaign shouldn't be "noob-friendly"? I think Brutal is a very good difficulty. Perfect for me at least. Anyone here who thinks it's too easy on Brutal...?
And also, I think the SC: BW campaign was fairly easy. In SC2 you can always go Brutal and get raped a couple of times before you beat it.
On August 01 2010 06:24 On_Slaught wrote: Not a fair comparison. This just tells a part of the story. If all you care about is plot wait until the next 2 expansions are out. By then the choice might be obvious tho.
This is a full game and I expect to get a full story. SC1 cannot be summed up with 2 events, and it's likely that any one of the 3 campaigns in SC1 had more storyline than WoL.
Except it's not. Blizzard has made clear that this is only part of a whole. The only reason it is sold seperately is because you would have a 90mission game that would take years longer to develop if you released it all at once. Plus that game would probably cost like 150 bucks.
This is just a reasonable way of spreading out a single story accross multiple games.
I can't believe this poll. SC2's story is waaaaaaay better than SC1's. I've played both the original and the expansion campaigns from Starcraft countless times, and SC2 leaves the original in the dust in terms of storytelling. There are a few parts that are somewhat contrived, + Show Spoiler [SC2 campaign spoiler] +
The Tal'darim. Seriously, where the hell did these guys come from? It feels like they just made up a generic, unreasonable, evil Protoss tribe just so you could fight against all three races throughout the missions. I'd much rather have an Aldaris that everyone loves to hate causing mayhem and forcing you to fight him
but overall the plot and all elements that prop it up are amazing.
I suppose in terms of raw plot and lore the SC1 campaign can compete, but the voice acting, the cinematics, the storytelling, the dialogue, the humor, the characterization and overall polish of the SC2 campaign simply blow its predecessor out of the water.
More stuff happens in the Terran campaign of SC1 than in the entire SC2 campaign...
Turned out by the Confederacy, Raynor takes up with a terrorist outfit and meets Kerrigan. They do morally questionable things [largely lacking in sc2] in order to overthrow the Confederacy, but Mengsk betrays Kerrigan to the Zerg. Raynor then escapes Mengsk in order to start his own revolution.
There you have multiple betrayals [you cause the death of millions of innocents, also] and SHIT HAPPENS. in 10 missions.
There are three races: Terran, Protoss and Zerg. Terrans are fighting between themselves, Zerg want to devour everything else, Protoss want to stop them.
On the Terran side, the Sons of Korhal, led by Arcturus Mengsk, overthrow the Confederacy and establish the Dominion. Later on, the United Earth Directorate overthrows the Dominion.
The Protoss kill Zerg Cerebrate Zasz, but lose their homeworld of Aiur. They then flee into the Dark Templar world of Shakuras, which is also being overrun, but they manage to cleanse it of the Zerg.
The Zerg take over a few planets and infest the Terran hero, Sarah Kerrigan. The Overmind is destroyed by Tassadar, and Kerrigan takes over the Zerg Swarm. She then proceeds to single-handedly tear through all possible opposition, annihilating the UED in the process and letting Mengsk rebuild his Dominion.
There, all the storyline of SC and BW summarized in 11 lines. It really isn't that spectacular. It's not bad, mind you- I enjoyed it. It's just that the narrative in SC2 is incomparably better, because it's fleshed out a lot better.
Since we don't have the zerg and protoss storylines yet for Starcraft 2, we should only really judge the terran storylines from Starcraft and Broodwar. That said, the original storylines felt a lot of tense, although that's probably due to the differences in the content rating. The retconning of Raynor and Kerrigan's relationship just bothers me (I may be wrong, but I don't remember their relationship developed into a romantic one based from the interactions in the missions).
I don't think its fair to compare the two, since they have different mediums.
SC1 definitely had a more immersed and engaging storyline, but that was because with the briefing room you had long walls of text and characters talking for 5 minutes between missions, which obviously presents an extremely detailed and fast story progression.
Then you have SC2 which leans more towards character interaction and exploration to advance the storyline. this obviously will diffuse the information and progression of the story, which makes it feel less vivid / slower / not as memorable.
SC1 has more focus on the story, SC2 has more focus on interaction.
I liked that in sc a lot of it was left to your imagination. The dialogue was much better. And almost every mission was a big deal. I feel like in sc2, a lot of the stuff you to do is trivial, e.g. escorting the colonists. Some people might prefer that. I prefer the pacing of sc. By the end of it, so much stuff happened and changed throughout.
There are three races: Terran, Protoss and Zerg. Terrans are fighting between themselves, Zerg want to devour everything else, Protoss want to stop them.
On the Terran side, the Sons of Korhal, led by Arcturus Mengsk, overthrow the Confederacy and establish the Dominion. Later on, the United Earth Directorate overthrows the Dominion.
The Protoss kill Zerg Cerebrate Zasz, but lose their homeworld of Aiur. They then flee into the Dark Templar world of Shakuras, which is also being overrun, but they manage to cleanse it of the Zerg.
The Zerg take over a few planets and infest the Terran hero, Sarah Kerrigan. The Overmind is destroyed by Tassadar, and Kerrigan takes over the Zerg Swarm. She then proceeds to single-handedly tear through all possible opposition, annihilating the UED in the process and letting Mengsk rebuild his Dominion.
There, all the storyline of SC and BW summarized in 11 lines. It really isn't that spectacular. It's not bad, mind you- I enjoyed it. It's just that the narrative in SC2 is incomparably better, because it's fleshed out a lot better.
What? SC2 was written by 5th graders for 4th graders. The actual narrative is as follows:
1. Quick breakdown of the mission. 2. Cheesy one-liner. 3. Repeat 1 and 2 until the game is over.
The writing also took a huge hit from SC/BW to SC2. It's a goddamn shame that the best line in SC2 is from SC1 (I will see this sector burned to ashes around me etc etc by Mengsk). Finally, all the lore established in SC1 and Brood War got used as toliet paper. All the major revelations in SC2 basically came out of no where (eg Overmind = good?. Tassadar is "alive"?, Kerrigan = key to salvation? Kerrigan cured of infestation). It's all like a bad fan fic.
Star craft 1 was all about big epic events across the galaxy, but 2 focusses on the Terrans and their allies alone. It is far more personal but doesn't offer the same epic feel. It's really just personal prefference between the two.
PLOT wise, i'd have to say sc1 and brood war - more actual developments take place, more plot turns and more drastic things happen.
STORY wise, meaning the minute to minute personal stuff, sc2 is better. what sc1 did in two minute briefings before missions sc2 filled with a lot of details, optional dialogue and just general atmosphere.
actually most of the plot development in WoL took place in the zeratul missions, which i find kinda funny cos they're HUGE plot developments for so few missions.
The way in which the story was told is far superior in SC2 than it was in the original. There's so much more going on both inbetween and during missions.
As for which story is better, I don't think it's fair to compare just yet. While SC and SC2 are both full games, it really does make a big difference when one of the games has its story told from the perspective of all three races.
I thought the story was enjoyable, but not what I would call high quality literature. I wouldn't call the original game high quality in terms of story, either. Both vanilla and Brood War have their own fair share of plot holes and bad plot twists that a lot of people seem to gloss over out of nostalgia or something.
Dunno, plotwise I think both were kinda lacking for sci-fi or space opera standpoint; however, I like the story because of the characters. SC1 is more epic, but SC2 feels more personal. I would say both are equal because of different small things.
The story really wasn't that great in either of them in my opinion. Surface action, but there's not these mind blowing themes or awesome, complex characters. They both are cool, with certain bad asses but nothing awesome.
On August 01 2010 11:33 0mar wrote: What? SC2 was written by 5th graders for 4th graders.
You know, I was going to write a serious reply, but when I see this, all I read is "Don't feed the troll".
It's not a troll post just like yours isn't an argument. The plot deserves this sort of derogation. I don't understand why anyone would be anything short of enraged by the plot in SC2.
Seriously, the overmind is a "noble" creature? What kind of hippie crap is that? It's a completely Blizzard thing to do to water down the villains to the point where everyone participating is a misunderstood hero. Orcs, for example, going back to their shaman roots after pillaging every town and murdering every human in sight in Warcraft 1 and 2. Turns out they were just being played as pawns by demonic forces. In their hearts they're all sunshines and daisies. So conflict arises and everyone bands together in an unlikely alliance to overcome the greater threat. Meanwhile the orcs trade in "cool" for totem poles and cow people (that are so wide and hunched that I'm still surprised that it answers the question "How do you **** up a minotaur?").
SC2 seems to be following along similar lines. Both Kerrigan and the overmind were completely crapped on to fulfill some hero complex fantasy that doesn't even make any sense. She regained free will when the overmind was killed, and nothing about her behavior in SC1 said she wanted to be "saved." It is in all honesty sexist crap that pervades video games. Everything female quite obviously needs a hero. "Don't give up Jim." The heightening music when Valerian made the big "reveal" said to me that the writers thought that this was a climactic moment when in fact it was a huge cliff that everyone with two brain cells left saw from a mile away (but most the old school SC1 players hoped wasn't coming).
As for the expansions: The zerg expansion will be about Kerrigan still having sway over the swarm (or cleansing the overmind to do that for her...since he's such a noblecreature), and the protoss end will be about everyone banding together to destroy the hybrids. Peace in the universe. Hurrah. So, yeah, what about those 8 billion people you murdered, honey? Does that ever, you know, keep you up at night?
Of course, those are only predictions based on modern Blizzard's homogenized bull**** plot devices. Whether or not they're true, what is true is ironically summed up by the best quote in the game:
"You can't fix stupid."
(Though, yeah, the Mengsk line from SC1 was cool, too).
I won't forgive them for completely screwing up the plot of SC1 and one of the best villainesses of all time because of twists and turns that simply will not be there.
Anyway, I want to balance this out by saying that even though I'm pissed at the plot I am enjoying the rest of the game. The single player gameplay is great. Missions are varied enough to be entertaining. I believe there to be minor balance issues, but I also believe them to be irrelevant. Blizz was patching SC1 well beyond release and I'm sure that will continue with SC2. Not to mention that any minor balance changes will be upset all over again by the obvious release of new units in (hopefully) both expansions.
Quit trolling the campaign. Sure there are more characters then you need, but it's not like you couldn't get attached to them.
Plus one of the posters commented on how Zeratul told Raynor to save Kerrigan and he did. I don't think that's where this story goes at all. I think the future Zeratul saw was the one where Raynor kills the Queen of Blades. Because it wasn't Kerrigan that needed to be saved it was the Queen of Blades.
If the overmind had any rational thought to her taking over and being a way to destroy the Zel Naga, it clearly has been undone.
I have to agree with most people; the original story line had more appeal to it. I'm not exactly sure what makes the difference, but I would have to say it's the different point of views that came in the Starcraft 1 missions. The SC2 storyline is still decent, and I'm really enjoying the single player gameplay. The missions are super fun.
On August 01 2010 15:06 Jonoman92 wrote: not really a fair poll, considering we only know 1/3 of sc2's plot so far. Of course the sc1 plot had much more development vs 1/3 of sc2's.
Plus if you factor in sc1+sc:bw then one could say it's almost like only 1/6 of the plot as from sc1/bw.
The problem is that blizz had 26 missions to flesh out the story yet they failed to do so. We know it's only the first 1/3 of the plot, but it could have been a damn good 1/3 had blizz hired some better writers.
Yeah, BW plot was definitely better, but the SC2 campaign was more fun. And don't give the "IT'S ONLY 1/3 THE GAME" BS. It's a fully released game. Even if there are expansions coming, you can't ignore the fact that BW and SC2 WoL BOTH HAD 26 MISSIONS. Tell me, which one had deeper, more complicated plot lines in those 26 missions?
People say "well it's only 1/3 of the story!" - yet it was 29 missions, roughly equal to either SC or BW. The side-quests/characters didn't add anything to the story IMO, waste of time that could have been spent on the main narrative. At least the campaign gameplay is a ton more fun this time.
After finishing the campaign, I found myself horribly underwhelmed. The story... the fuck? Sooo the Overmind is really just a trapped soul, Kerrigan isn't really a bitch (even though she killed 8 billion+people), and Tassadar isn't really dead.
On August 01 2010 06:13 mrkent wrote: SC1 entire story is summed as follows.
Tassadar sees the zerg are invading and needs to destroy the overmind to stop them. Tassadar destroys the overmind.
Every other character was not essential to the story. In other words, it sucks.
Oh look, guess that means that plot sucks too huh? It's a meaningless exercise, you can sum up the plot of anything like that if you want. Want me to do it with Lord of the Rings? Cause I can, and I bet you know how it goes.
Anyway, for SC2, I don't think its even close to a fair comparison. The plots are different animals and they both have their pros and cons. Starcraft 1 had the plot set on a much grander scale than SC2 so there was less character development and more big stuff. There were more cataclysmic events, more planetary scale engagements, but that's just sort of the nature of the beast. Especially if you do all the available missions, SC2 really shows you a lot about the characters involved. You get to know Raynor a whole lot more (and I bet you didn't even think that was possible, but anyone who finished the Covert Ops story gets to see just how vengeful he's become and his outlook on the future).
Oh, and as for all you people who are shocked by Kerrigan's defeat at the end of the campaign: she didn't get beaten in open conflict. They actually emphasize that quite a bit at the beginning of All In. You're hopelessly outnumbered and doomed to die. She wouldn't even be there in the confrontation if she wasn't worried about the artifact going off. You only "won" because you were able to survive long enough to use the artifact. Its not like half the Dominion just marched into Char and put a bullet in her head or something -- almost the entire fleet gets wrecked the instant you get there! Also, why do you think Mengsk had Tychus go along with Raynor anyway? He knew he couldn't openly assault Char (and, again, no one ever does, only a rag-tag group of survivors manage to engage ninja skills to blow an artifact) so he knew that if he ever had a chance of killing Kerrigan, it would be by letting Raynor get to her first.
The lack of mengsk hurts the sc2 storyline. Mengsk added a real umph of epicness to the terran campaign. The Sc2 campaign feels a bit too much like a bunch of random thing raynor did with his time than a systematic campaign consisting of these events. Sure things are more fleshed out in sc2, but the fleshed out events are more minor bits of the universe rather than game changers.
I really feel that the lack of a direct toe to toe battle with mengsk hurts the quality of the campaign.
edit: That's not the say they didnt do a good job. The missions were fun. Best RTS campaign to date. Next time maybe a little less gimmicy with a focus on one unit, but over all excellent job.
Anyone find the whole mengsk tychus connection wierd? Did mengsk really think big enough to snipe kerrigan/ allow Media blitz to happen/ all of the damage raynor did?
Also while i'm on the rant... the introduction of valerian did absolutely nothing. Not enough exposition.
Anyone find the whole mengsk tychus connection wierd? Did mengsk really think big enough to snipe kerrigan/ allow Media blitz to happen/ all of the damage raynor did?
Also while i'm on the rant... the introduction of valerian did absolutely nothing. Not enough exposition.
Yeah, they did seem to stretch that connection a bit with the Media Blitz mission. I wouldn't buy an argument that he allowed it to happen because if the media equipment and/or the buildings that housed them were sabotaged Raynor would be forced to withdraw his forces. Thus protecting the Findlay operation without harming his reputation. Better to have a crippled media than a media that's destroying you.
That in mind, I'm forced to believe that Findlay hid the mission from Mengsk. Which requires quite a leap of faith to buy. I'm not saying it's impossible, but you have to want to believe that to make it work. Personally if I was going to imprison someone in a suit I'd assume they wanted to screw me. So I'd do everything possible to monitor their actions at all times.
Anyway, it's a lot of grey area that requires the player to fill in the gaps. If you want to believe you can probably come up with something that fills in the holes. I just don't feel it's worth it to look for consistency in this one area given the ocean of glaring inconsistencies in the rest of the story.
Valerian I'm guessing they'll develop later. It'd be kind of a waste of the voice actor if they don't. If it's not Wentworth Miller it sure as hell sounds like him.
...though after watching Prison Break I'd have guessed he'd have better voiced a ghost or something. Something a little cooler than Mengsk's snot-nosed brat.
After reading all this, it seems we should wait until LoV is released and then play the WHOLE campaign. I feel disappointed with WoL too - for me it's too much personal stuff over epicness. If it wasn't for "visions" missions, I could hardly stand the plot's progress.
ahhh i didn't think about the "sc1: WoL story sucks" option. because the Wings of Liberty story DOES suck. i want to change my vote.
edit: wow and activision have made blizzard into a shitty + lazy company with no real story telling capability compared to the old company they used to be. WoW is the worst thing to ever happen to gaming.
I'm extremely disappointed in the SC2:WoL storyline. Damn near every mission was not satisfying with the exception of the first Char mission. As another poster already mentioned; How can HALF of the Dominion fleet defeat Kerrigan when the Dominion, Artanis, and the UED were unable to at the end of SC:BW?!
All the people saying the same BS about how it's only 1/3rd of the campaign. I'd rather play the first campaign in original SC than this and it's about 20 missions less.
Honestly the way the storyline is now moving in SC2:WoL I can see a repeat of bullshit like the Wc3 campaign where Night Elves (Protoss), Humans (Terran) and Orcs (Tauren Marines) all band together to fight the Burning Legion (AKA Hybrids) and the Undead (Zerg). In fact they'll probably be making a last stand at some Xel'Naga temple (Tree of Life). GFG.
On the last note, this game has more storyline holes in it than Swiss cheese and I already pointed out one of them earlier in this rantpost. Voice acting was cheesy at best. None of the characters at all seem serious about anything. The graphics are at best Warcraft cartoonish (Hell you even have a fucking dwarf on your ship). Basically this is a little kid's game. I shudder at the thought of what they will do to Diablo 3.
On August 01 2010 18:46 dNo_O wrote: ahhh i didn't think about the "sc1: WoL story sucks" option. because the Wings of Liberty story DOES suck. i want to change my vote.
edit: wow and activision have made blizzard into a shitty + lazy company with no real story telling capability compared to the old company they used to be. WoW is the worst thing to ever happen to gaming.
No, that happened with WoW, not Activision.
Oh, and as for all you people who are shocked by Kerrigan's defeat at the end of the campaign: she didn't get beaten in open conflict. They actually emphasize that quite a bit at the beginning of All In. You're hopelessly outnumbered and doomed to die. She wouldn't even be there in the confrontation if she wasn't worried about the artifact going off. You only "won" because you were able to survive long enough to use the artifact. Its not like half the Dominion just marched into Char and put a bullet in her head or something -- almost the entire fleet gets wrecked the instant you get there! Also, why do you think Mengsk had Tychus go along with Raynor anyway? He knew he couldn't openly assault Char (and, again, no one ever does, only a rag-tag group of survivors manage to engage ninja skills to blow an artifact) so he knew that if he ever had a chance of killing Kerrigan, it would be by letting Raynor get to her first.
The bullshit super-weapon excuse isn't a good one, even if it does explain her defeat.
Just ask WoW players. Just because you can technically explain the players killing off every major lore character via help in some way doesn't make it good design. It's still fucking terrible design and completely selling out the meat of your lore for more content. Same principle applies. Shitty story that is only viable through some lame-ass excuse. Now don't get me wrong, super-weapons have their place, they're just way over-used.
Starcraft 1 has a poor gameplay in solo but the storyline is quite good.
Starcraft has one of the best solo gameplay ever made in a RTS. Missions are GREAT, upgrades/merc between missions too. Interactions are a nice touch but it lacks a lot of content during the briefing imo. Remember the epic 4-ways briefings in the original.
Moreover i think that the story line is quite cliché and meh. Character development is lacking ( except maybe Tychus ), there are many plot holes and all the ennemies are completly passive whereas in starcraft and broodwar you were always under pressure.
I think that Blizzard was really ambitious with the choices during the missions but it was done quite poorly. I think that they should take a look at old classic RPG who have a great linear story but still manage to allow some choices for the player. I'm not talking of Oblivion or Mass Effect but of Black Isle's rpgs. I think they can make something much more better in the next game.
It also lacked of real cinematics ( and ffs get rid of that "emo epic" music -.- )
On August 01 2010 11:33 0mar wrote: What? SC2 was written by 5th graders for 4th graders.
You know, I was going to write a serious reply, but when I see this, all I read is "Don't feed the troll".
SC2 is thematically childish. Keep prophecies, visions, and destinies out of Starcraft. SC and BW were gritty stories about characters with great ambitions and uncertain futures. None of this fate or change fate crap please.
The only thing I liked SC2's storyline was Finley who they killed. Mengsk (who played such a huge part in SC2) was almost irrelevant. Raynor turned into just this ... guy who's a hero.
On August 01 2010 11:33 0mar wrote: What? SC2 was written by 5th graders for 4th graders.
You know, I was going to write a serious reply, but when I see this, all I read is "Don't feed the troll".
SC2 is thematically childish. Keep prophecies, visions, and destinies out of Starcraft. SC and BW were gritty stories about characters with great ambitions and uncertain futures. None of this fate or change fate crap please.
exactly. Zeratuls vision and the prophecy crap is just that. Crap.
Neither campaign demonstrated the level of storytelling one can find in books, but books and games are different media and currently books are held to much higher standards.
I played the SC Terran Campaign after clearing WoL twice to get a sort of contrast (I played only the Terran one to keep it fair) and I felt that SC's plot had more urgency and momentum. Events of import transpired, linked, and involved the player.
WoL's plot suffered from being open-ended. The restrictions that such a Star Maps system of multiple independent subplots a game places on its story are well evidenced in other games, yet developers still shirk unified yet complex storytelling with this device. This is fair enough since gamers at large place high premiums on other aspects of games, with story being an afterthought, no matter its discussion potential.
although the cinematics in sc2 are good, the storyline seems so dry. In sc1, even though the cinematics were not as good, the storyline felt more engaging.
There are three races: Terran, Protoss and Zerg. Terrans are fighting between themselves, Zerg want to devour everything else, Protoss want to stop them.
On the Terran side, the Sons of Korhal, led by Arcturus Mengsk, overthrow the Confederacy and establish the Dominion. Later on, the United Earth Directorate overthrows the Dominion.
The Protoss kill Zerg Cerebrate Zasz, but lose their homeworld of Aiur. They then flee into the Dark Templar world of Shakuras, which is also being overrun, but they manage to cleanse it of the Zerg.
The Zerg take over a few planets and infest the Terran hero, Sarah Kerrigan. The Overmind is destroyed by Tassadar, and Kerrigan takes over the Zerg Swarm. She then proceeds to single-handedly tear through all possible opposition, annihilating the UED in the process and letting Mengsk rebuild his Dominion.
There, all the storyline of SC and BW summarized in 11 lines. It really isn't that spectacular. It's not bad, mind you- I enjoyed it. It's just that the narrative in SC2 is incomparably better, because it's fleshed out a lot better.
sc2 in 1 line: Raynor gets artifact and "saves" Kerrigan with it because Zeratul told him to do so.
nothing else was really relavant. sure raynor "exposed" mengsk but he didnt really DO anything to change his reign... all the other missions (jamacan dude/dr. chick) were fluff that coulda easily been omitted.
iono.. i just feel like the sp coulda packed A LOT more punch if they released all three stories with each mission being relevant to the story rather than fluff missions to show off their new engine (devils playground for example had SO much more potential ). shame really. coulda cut out alot of the bullshit and added in other races- 50 missinos perhaps? i wouldnt mind waiting.. OR release the mp by itself ($40 maybe) and keep working on sp till whenever its ready haha (for another $40?) or somethin like that :D
There isnt as much story in SC2 because after a 12y break blizzard needed to re-introduce the story so far. From what I've seen it seems like many of those people who never played SC1 think the WoL-story is awesome. Everything is new to them.
When you played SC1 however, you know the background already. So there are like 20 missions with very little stuff going on. Once you finally reach the point where things start moving the campaign is almost over.
It would be interesting to know how a guy playing WoL before classic SC1 would think about stuff. What I have to say is that blizzard storytelling improved quite a bit, but as I played SC1 back then I naturally think the story was much better. Still I hope to see blizzards new storytelling combined with a cool story with twists and stuff. Maybe in the next addon.
No but seriously, SC2's presentation is a decade later, so it has different standards to live up to. I kind of liked the mission choice order thing, kept things interesting. As far as plotlines strictly go though, SC2's was weak/disjointed due to the non-linearity. And SC1's apocalyptic missions were awesome.
i went through, and watched every cut scene and necessary info on SC1 and BW's plot the day before SC2 came out, then finished SC2 campaign in a day. and i have to say, i enjoyed sc1 and BW's storyline quite a bit more.
also, was expecting a 3 part story line, and with mostly terran and limited protoss, was huge disappointment.
can't compare them yet. SC1 hade all 3 parts zerg terran and toss. SC2 has part 1 terran if you compare the terran part in SC1 with terran part in SC2 i think SC2 is better.
sc2 plot isn't even complete yet. that's like judging the LOTR trilogy after watching just the fellowship of the ring. another important thing to note is that most of us were young when we first played the sc1 campaign and had a much more imaginative mind and 12 years of nostalgia to sink in.
I want to say one thing. That one should separate SC1 from BW. So there really should be three comparisons. Not to mention improper use of grammar if you're going with which is the "best" between SC1 and SC2, but I digress.
SC1's plot was great. Flows quite well from beginning to end. For each race you had a fleshed out story. Short ones, to be sure, and hardly indepth. But overall enjoyable and the later missions felt pretty epic.
BW's plot was okay. Just felt like the story was all over the place. But it was still fine. And everything did come together.
SC2's plot was non-existent. Look, I know this is an RTS, and not an RPG. I don't expect epic storylines with in-depth character analysis. But when I finished playing, I felt like nothing happened. Which REALLY sucks because I spent a lot of time watching cutscenes. It's one thing to make a crappy story when you don't really care. But another when you have hours of video that basically says nothing. What really pisses me off is that Blizzard spent a lot of time and money on the cinematics despite having such crappy writers. If you can't write an epic storyline, stick to a simple one. SC1 didn't have a mind-blowing plot. It was pretty simple, but nice enough that makes the missions fun.
About the SC2 plot: Heir Apparent TL Heir Apparent SC2 Coincidence? I think not. Back on topic, BW's story was better, imo. Nothing special but it was well layered (eg. Kerrigan was pulling the strings behind the Terran BW campaign).
You should be comparing the overall plot arch to the plain SC1 Terran campaign. You get about as much story, but with more character development and depth. It's nearly three times longer and has quite a bit more than three times as much dialogue. SC2 WoL has more dialogue than the three chapters of SC1 combined. While less has happened total in the game, more has happened overall for the characters.
SC1's story was meant to give a very quick overview of what was going on. It was more or less a generic sci fi excuse to give some meaning to missions. SC2 is character driven. It's not just "Zeratul tells Raynor to save Kerrigan, so he does." It's about why he does, his crew, how he gets there, etc. SC1 had a memorable story, don't get me wrong, but it wasn't deep either. Trying to write up little one paragraph descriptions is simplistic at best and really doesn't represent the story at all. Was the dialogue cheesy? Yes, but no more than SC1. Seriously, you should go back and play SC1 if you want to make the comparison.
I mean really, the game is based on a character who can best be summed up by this line: Glad to see you, boys. Time to kick some serious butt.
On August 26 2010 04:10 xnub wrote: can't compare them yet. SC1 hade all 3 parts zerg terran and toss. SC2 has part 1 terran if you compare the terran part in SC1 with terran part in SC2 i think SC2 is better.
But again you can't tell yet as a whole.
Yes, you can compare them. This is a BS argument because they had 26 missions and they had less story than 10 did in the classic SC. Stop throwing this out. WoL is a stand-alone game and it is expected that it gives us a quality story worth $60, not some piece of trash story that's out-classed by its predecessor that was made 12 years ago.
You should be comparing the overall plot arch to the plain SC1 Terran campaign. You get about as much story, but with more character development and depth. It's nearly three times longer and has quite a bit more than three times as much dialogue. SC2 WoL has more dialogue than the three chapters of SC1 combined. While less has happened total in the game, more has happened overall for the characters.
SC1's story was meant to give a very quick overview of what was going on. It was more or less a generic sci fi excuse to give some meaning to missions. SC2 is character driven. It's not just "Zeratul tells Raynor to save Kerrigan, so he does." It's about why he does, his crew, how he gets there, etc. SC1 had a memorable story, don't get me wrong, but it wasn't deep either. Trying to write up little one paragraph descriptions is simplistic at best and really doesn't represent the story at all. Was the dialogue cheesy? Yes, but no more than SC1. Seriously, you should go back and play SC1 if you want to make the comparison.
I mean really, the game is based on a character who can best be summed up by this line: Glad to see you, boys. Time to kick some serious butt.
What were you expecting?
I was expecting the game to actually deliver. You say that WoL was supposed to do those things, but it doesn't do any of those things at all. Not only was the writing terrible, they failed on the execution.
Starcraft 1 had a real story with depths plot changes during missions and truely deep characters. Starcraft 2 got some smalltalk on a ship. Oh and some Missions with a wannabe plot that unfortunately makes no sense whatsoever (if you have to find fishy excuses to make a story work in any way at all then its not a good story).
why do you people keep on saying that sc/bw had ten missions per race...?? it was ten for each race in the original (you remember that starcraft game without lurkers and medics?) and then close to ten missions per race in the expansion
so close to 60 missions in total from sc1, and around 80-90 for sc2 in fact, if sc1 had one more expansion it'd probably have more missions than sc2
either way, sc1 still had a darker, more focused, more mature storyline and atmosphere sc1 didn't have stupid voice-actors for toss and zerg characters either seriously, zeratul in sc2 sounds like he has a dildo rammed up his ass. toss doesn't need anymore associated gayness thanks
edit: btw for sc1, i consider episodes 1 and 5 (both the terran episodes) to be the best plot-wise. toss story was pretty good too the zerg episodes weren't that great imo, prbly due to their constant position as antagonists
On August 26 2010 04:10 xnub wrote: can't compare them yet. SC1 hade all 3 parts zerg terran and toss. SC2 has part 1 terran if you compare the terran part in SC1 with terran part in SC2 i think SC2 is better.
But again you can't tell yet as a whole.
Yes, you can compare them. This is a BS argument because they had 26 missions and they had less story than 10 did in the classic SC. Stop throwing this out. WoL is a stand-alone game and it is expected that it gives us a quality story worth $60, not some piece of trash story that's out-classed by its predecessor that was made 12 years ago.
You should be comparing the overall plot arch to the plain SC1 Terran campaign. You get about as much story, but with more character development and depth. It's nearly three times longer and has quite a bit more than three times as much dialogue. SC2 WoL has more dialogue than the three chapters of SC1 combined. While less has happened total in the game, more has happened overall for the characters.
SC1's story was meant to give a very quick overview of what was going on. It was more or less a generic sci fi excuse to give some meaning to missions. SC2 is character driven. It's not just "Zeratul tells Raynor to save Kerrigan, so he does." It's about why he does, his crew, how he gets there, etc. SC1 had a memorable story, don't get me wrong, but it wasn't deep either. Trying to write up little one paragraph descriptions is simplistic at best and really doesn't represent the story at all. Was the dialogue cheesy? Yes, but no more than SC1. Seriously, you should go back and play SC1 if you want to make the comparison.
I mean really, the game is based on a character who can best be summed up by this line: Glad to see you, boys. Time to kick some serious butt.
What were you expecting?
I was expecting the game to actually deliver. You say that WoL was supposed to do those things, but it doesn't do any of those things at all. Not only was the writing terrible, they failed on the execution.
Lol the first 10 missions of SC1 did not have more then the first part of the SC2 trilogy. Also it is not a BS argument it was made to be just like sc1 with part 1,2 and 3 this is just part one and is not a stand alone game. only diff is they made it split to get more game play and more units and never things down the road for MP. But really its like saying you read one third of a book and calling it bad.
There are three races: Terran, Protoss and Zerg. Terrans are fighting between themselves, Zerg want to devour everything else, Protoss want to stop them.
On the Terran side, the Sons of Korhal, led by Arcturus Mengsk, overthrow the Confederacy and establish the Dominion. Later on, the United Earth Directorate overthrows the Dominion.
The Protoss kill Zerg Cerebrate Zasz, but lose their homeworld of Aiur. They then flee into the Dark Templar world of Shakuras, which is also being overrun, but they manage to cleanse it of the Zerg.
The Zerg take over a few planets and infest the Terran hero, Sarah Kerrigan. The Overmind is destroyed by Tassadar, and Kerrigan takes over the Zerg Swarm. She then proceeds to single-handedly tear through all possible opposition, annihilating the UED in the process and letting Mengsk rebuild his Dominion.
There, all the storyline of SC and BW summarized in 11 lines. It really isn't that spectacular. It's not bad, mind you- I enjoyed it. It's just that the narrative in SC2 is incomparably better, because it's fleshed out a lot better.
That's my opinion. I find overall no RTS has ever really had a good story since it's probably an innate characteristic that is hard to change.
Aside form the cool cutscenes (which usually weren't directly related to story), I found that sc1 didn't really give much quality story. It's good overall, like the plot and stuff, but it's simply not a game you get immersed in like most adventure adventure or RPG games.
Both SC2 and SC1 had their downsides. SC2 was rather dumbed down (not that SC1 was sophisticated) with regards to some of the story telling; SC1 had almost nothing except conversation telling the story, and it's not like there was loads of good conversation either — much of it was just filler stuff, equivalent to the briefings of sc2.
Terran Campaign in SC wasnt that good, Zerg and especially Prottos made Singeplayer a great experience. If it is gonne be the same as in original SC , we can expect a lot from next expansions. So basicly i agree its too early to judge sc2 story, we need a full shape.
On August 26 2010 04:10 xnub wrote: can't compare them yet. SC1 hade all 3 parts zerg terran and toss. SC2 has part 1 terran if you compare the terran part in SC1 with terran part in SC2 i think SC2 is better.
But again you can't tell yet as a whole.
Yes, you can compare them. This is a BS argument because they had 26 missions and they had less story than 10 did in the classic SC. Stop throwing this out. WoL is a stand-alone game and it is expected that it gives us a quality story worth $60, not some piece of trash story that's out-classed by its predecessor that was made 12 years ago.
You should be comparing the overall plot arch to the plain SC1 Terran campaign. You get about as much story, but with more character development and depth. It's nearly three times longer and has quite a bit more than three times as much dialogue. SC2 WoL has more dialogue than the three chapters of SC1 combined. While less has happened total in the game, more has happened overall for the characters.
SC1's story was meant to give a very quick overview of what was going on. It was more or less a generic sci fi excuse to give some meaning to missions. SC2 is character driven. It's not just "Zeratul tells Raynor to save Kerrigan, so he does." It's about why he does, his crew, how he gets there, etc. SC1 had a memorable story, don't get me wrong, but it wasn't deep either. Trying to write up little one paragraph descriptions is simplistic at best and really doesn't represent the story at all. Was the dialogue cheesy? Yes, but no more than SC1. Seriously, you should go back and play SC1 if you want to make the comparison.
I mean really, the game is based on a character who can best be summed up by this line: Glad to see you, boys. Time to kick some serious butt.
What were you expecting?
I was expecting the game to actually deliver. You say that WoL was supposed to do those things, but it doesn't do any of those things at all. Not only was the writing terrible, they failed on the execution.
Lol the first 10 missions of SC1 did not have more then the first part of the SC2 trilogy. Also it is not a BS argument it was made to be just like sc1 with part 1,2 and 3 this is just part one and is not a stand alone game. only diff is they made it split to get more game play and more units and never things down the road for MP. But really its like saying you read one third of a book and calling it bad.
Did Blizzard spend several years making WoL?
Did it cost me $60 ($100 for the Collector's)?
Then yes, it is a full game. Stop buying into this trilogy bullshit. If Fellowship of the Ring was a P.o.S. story, this excuse wouldn't fly for it either.
And yes, more happened in Episode I than all of WoL - there was basically nothing worth noting that happened except for the Artifacts + Char. The rest of the missions were useless filler that didn't even influence the story in any way.
Playing SC1+BW the two weeks before SC2's release I feel like SC1+BW is nothing extraordinary in comparison to SC2. The entire BW Terran campaign was painfully boring to me and I didn't care about any of the characters one bit. Except maybe Duran but I knew he was going to backstab the UED almost immediately so it just felt blah to me. All of BW was briefings and mission dialogue which was pretty lame to never get a cinematic throughout the duration of the chapter until the end. Also the dialogue in SC1+BW is not anything special so I don't really see how people complain so much about the SC2 dialogue. This is pretty negative so I should say overall I loved SC1+BW's campaign but I feel the need to play Devil's Advocate here.
I felt more engaged in the SC2 storyline even if it was a less complex portion of the story because of all the extras you got after each and every mission. I don't really feel like the missions are fillers either. You're goal is to network with other people to take down the Dominion and you start with nothing. Every mission you were picking at the Dominion's propaganda machine and it finally comes to a head when you finish Media Blitz. Then you have to go to Char so it kind of left the fate of the Dominion hanging in the balance for the future of SC2. Completing the entire SC2 campaign really fleshes out Raynor's character in my opinion even if it was cheesy at times.
They were all enjoyable and each one progresses the story. SC1+BW packed more storyline into the game but there are periods in it where I honestly just did not care about what the briefings were saying to me. SC2's story has less meat but completing each mission gave you some tidbits in the Hyperion before you got briefed on your next mission which I think gave it the extra immersion that brings it up to SC1+BW level.
Overall I'd say there's really no point in arguing over this. Enjoy them for what they are as a progression of the StarCraft universe.
WoL was such a disappointment. I kinda had a feeling going in that it couldn't live up to expectations, but Blizzard has never let me down before, so I gave them the benefit of the doubt. Not anymore.
The flaws have already been mentioned: cheesy, cliche dialogue, one-dimensional characters, disjointed pacing, and weak execution. I'm baffled at how some people could think this is actually better than the original...
It could be possible that the next two installments are drastically better than this one (although I doubt it), but even then, WoL will still be a disappointment to me. The execution was just not on par with what I've come to expect from a Blizzard game. *crosses fingers for D3*
On August 26 2010 05:47 Sanguinarius wrote: We have only 1/3rd of the SC2 story. Thats like comparing sc2 to just the terran and zerg campaign from classic SC........
That is a fair thing to say. If we compare WoL to the original terran campaign(comparing 26 missions to 10), then sc easily wins. There was much better character development and storytelling in the original sc. There was also not a lot of fluff and filler in the original sc when compared to sc2. Most of the sc2 campaign can be cut out and you wouldnt know it if you had never played it before.
SC1 had a good plot and nice character development. BW had a decent plot (better towards the end, slow start imo though).
SC2 has no plot worth mentioning, aside from "Kerrigan becomes human at the end, with the help of Raynor". Everything else had nothing to do with anything really. We have very flat characters with poor motives, such as emo Raynor bent on the destruction of Mengsk's 1984-like regieme, and spending 90% of the campaign focusing on it. Suddenly, he goes "oh, we can go meet up with Kerrigan on char, yeah, lets do that.. wait, what about Mengsk? oh who cares". Meanwhile the story introduces some meaningless side characters, plot holes and pointless plot choices that have no bearing on the actual storyline.
And it is fair to compare SC2 WoL to SC (or BW), though not both together imo. Still, both SC and BW had a lot more development than WoL.
"Raynor is kick-ass" this is the reason why Blizzard made it into this type of storytelling in SC2 .. the filler characters like Tosh, that lady scientist, damn pansy Horner are like lame dudes..
SC:Original was more like Epic tale of 3 races clash together: SC:original - Last Mission .. a Tale of sacrifice, new but shady future, and freedom .. and doesn't have that pansy Matt Horner .. so yeah
BW was just a sequel for kerrigan IMO and the terran arch there sucked .. its was like a massive massive FILLER ..
and these people about 1/3 of the story?? WTF are you guys high?
its about storytelling .. and the storytelling in SC2 are full of filler and one-liners .. now compare that to SC:original, use just any arch .. lets say protoss or terran. NO FILLERS .. FULL OF PSI BLADES SLICING GAUSS RIFLE BLAZING ACTION PUMPED STORY TELLING .. no pansy ass Horner bitching about revolution ..
On August 26 2010 09:09 Franco wrote: SC1 had a better storyline by far.
The best part of SC2 is located in the protoss missions.
F.
So true .. plus to Dark Void has that line from John Hannibal Smith kekekekeke
On August 26 2010 09:19 Lightswarm wrote: even if u compare the terran missions in the original, its still a better story than sc2 so far. any1 who says otherwise luv disney movie too much
On August 01 2010 06:13 mrkent wrote: SC2 WoL entire story is summed as follows.
Zeratul tells Raynor that he needs to save Kerrigan. Raynor saves Kerrigan.
Every other character was not essential to the story. In other words, it sucks.
Also, how the fuck did Kerrigan get beat by a small army when the UED, Dominion, and Artanis combined could not defeat her in the end of Broodwar?
Tychus sort of was, but yeah, it was a little stripped and basic. You can't reduce the sc1 story that simply because it basically had a more intricate plot.
On August 01 2010 06:13 mrkent wrote: Also, how the fuck did Kerrigan get beat by a small army when the UED, Dominion, and Artanis combined could not defeat her in the end of Broodwar?
I LOVED playing the SC2 campaign but was absolutely appalled at the story. It was completely linear, contrived, bland, and even with all the missions it seemed very uneventful. Almost none of the campaign missions actually seemed to affect anything, the reasoning behind many aspects of the campaign are never explained, there is no depth to the characters but the campaign seems to expect you to feel for/relate to them (Like when General Warfield decides to join Raynor's cause. IIRC the only time you ever saw him before that was in one of those News Report videos that you may not have even watched and then they just throw him in with the group at Char), and there was so little interaction between the other races. Yeah Mengsk was around but you only ever communicate with him ONCE. The only times you communicate with Kerrigan she says like 2 sentences "I forgot how resourceful you were Jim, I won't make that mistake again." and then she just leaves. It felt like you were alone in the Koprulu sector with just the Hyperion crew.
I think what disappointed me most was the dialogue. God, it was so simple and at times it felt like they just threw in some big words to make it sound more intelligent but really just made it sound awkward. Jim Raynor is a fucking idiot in WoL, anyone who hasn't played SC1 campaigns should be wondering "How the fuck did this guy become a commander? He's just a drunk baffoon." The characters and dialogue in the original were so much stronger and interesting with all the backstabbing and switching sides. (Like with Stukov & Duran and the affect it had on Dugall, that final cinematic was sooooo good, unlike the final one in WoL.) Sometimes I would just start a mission up, watch the intro conversation between characters and then cancel and go on to the next mission without actually playing the level(or power overwhelming and blaze through for the in-game stuff). It was like watching a movie.
On August 01 2010 10:10 Last Romantic wrote: More stuff happens in the Terran campaign of SC1 than in the entire SC2 campaign...
Turned out by the Confederacy, Raynor takes up with a terrorist outfit and meets Kerrigan. They do morally questionable things [largely lacking in sc2] in order to overthrow the Confederacy, but Mengsk betrays Kerrigan to the Zerg. Raynor then escapes Mengsk in order to start his own revolution.
There you have multiple betrayals [you cause the death of millions of innocents, also] and SHIT HAPPENS. in 10 missions.
The missions in SC1 campain were so meaty. Every mission drove the story forward, every mission was essential for continuing the plot (Except the intro L2Play missions) or developing the characters. The WoL Campaign was about as long mission-wise as the whole SC and BW campaigns but it felt like nothing really happened! Just look at Kerrigan, she's supposed to be mostly human now but she still has Zerg dreads and all that Zerg acne.
That last part was a joke but seriously, no comparison between the plots of SC1 &SC2. Vanilla SC wins hands down.
we should wait to see the expansions, the storyline till now looks great, but not great enough as SC or BW separated, an aspect to remark for me is that WoL is pretty predictable, while sc or bw were so damn changeable that you could expect anything from any character, almost unpredictable when played by first time, many important and trasendent conversations, while WoL almost only 3 or 4 were really important, but still have to wait to take a veredict to doom sc2 or to raise it equal or above sc1.
By the moment, I dont expect sc2 to be above to sc1 in plots.
The worst thing is that SC2:WoL has retconned and polluted the lore to an irrecoverable extent and now there's just no turning back. WoL's story is utter crap, and the expansions can do nothing about it since they have to address WoL's directly.
The only solution would be to go back to the drawing board and come up with SC2 all over again.
Alas, SC's story has been perverted into some sort of bad fanfic written by Blizzard itself, what a disgrace.
All the bitching at Blizzard in this thread about their mishandling of the Starcraft narrative with WoL, really makes me feel vindicated thanks goise <3.
SC plot was pretty bad, it didn't go much further than introducing the races and main charachters. SC:BW plot had things going in full motion and was really exciting.
Did someone legitimately say that SC2 was too easy compared to SC's campaign? I spent most of the terran campaign in SC1 seeing how many kills I could get with Raynor's vulture with micro...In fact it was so simple that I tried to use only 1 control group at a time for every mission..
On August 26 2010 17:25 DreXxiN wrote: Did someone legitimately say that SC2 was too easy compared to SC's campaign? I spent most of the terran campaign in SC1 seeing how many kills I could get with Raynor's vulture with micro...In fact it was so simple that I tried to use only 1 control group at a time for every mission..
they made the campaign without macro/micro mechanics ..
and its not really about the gameplay in the campaign because if you want good gameplay, play the multiplayer feature .
It still shocks me to read about SC2 having 'no plot' and things like the SC1 story being so epic... it's... weird.
SC1 Terran campaign: Meet Raynor. Zerg invade. Saved by Mengsk. Find out government used Zerg. Join SoK rebellion. Mengsk betrays you. Protoss crush Zerg. Mengsk assumes power. You defeat Mengsk.
There's a lot of dialogue in there to show character relationships, but people are complaining about the lack of plot. SC1 had a very, very simplified plot. You could compare that to the core plot of SC2 without any of the subplots. So strip out the Colonist missions, Tosh missions, and Rebellion missions. So we're trimming from the 26 for the complete story to 15 for the 'core' story.
SC2 Terran campaign: Meet Raynor. Rebel against local military. Zerg return. Hunt down artifact pieces. Zeratul returns and shows the prophecy. Rescue Moebius forces. Hunt down more artifacts and ally with Mengsk son. Find out artifacts purpose and attack Char. 'Deinfest' Kerrigan.
It's a more personal story, but there is in fact more plot... and that's without what people are calling pointless side missions and such. You know, ignoring that the side missions all form their own plot which can be inserted between 'The Dig' and the Prophecy missions.
It's just odd to me. People are entitled to their opinions and if you didn't like the plot more power to you. I thought Avatar sucked, but it's still the most successful movie of all time. Doesn't make my opinion wrong. No plot though? I wouldn't go there. Just because something is derivative doesn't mean it's hollow.
On August 27 2010 01:38 harky wrote: SC1 Terran campaign: Meet Raynor. Zerg invade. Saved by Mengsk. Find out government used Zerg. Join SoK rebellion. Mengsk betrays you. Protoss crush Zerg. Mengsk assumes power. You defeat Mengsk.
There's a lot of dialogue in there to show character relationships, but people are complaining about the lack of plot. SC1 had a very, very simplified plot. You could compare that to the core plot of SC2 without any of the subplots. So strip out the Colonist missions, Tosh missions, and Rebellion missions. So we're trimming from the 26 for the complete story to 15 for the 'core' story.
SC2 Terran campaign: Meet Raynor. Rebel against local military. Zerg return. Hunt down artifact pieces. Zeratul returns and shows the prophecy. Rescue Moebius forces. Hunt down more artifacts and ally with Mengsk son. Find out artifacts purpose and attack Char. 'Deinfest' Kerrigan.
SC1's Terran campaign was indeed very simple, but I feel like you've inserted some fluff into your summary of the WoL campaign.
Zeratul's mini-campaign can be skipped entirely, despite its limited relevance. I enjoyed it, but its first three missions are all preparation for the revelation made in Utter Darkness.
We've already met Raynor and are aware of his stance against the Dominion. Essential events originating in WoL include: end of Zerg military dormancy, awareness of artifact, awareness of and alliance with Valerian and Moebius according to not fully disclosed motives, acquisition of artifact, use of artifact. This can be covered in 5 missions.
Ways this is inflated: A few learn-to-play, learn-the-history missions in opening. Artifact with one purpose divided into several functionally identical parts, each given its own mission. Final artifact use operation also partitioned.
Now I'm not opposed to dividing military operations into multiple missions, as that can be sensible and engaging. I mostly enjoyed playing WoL's finale. I just feel that WoL's plot isn't due so much credit.
To critics of critics who attest that WoL should be given allowances based on its status as one of a trilogy: I'm disappointed that you are fine with allowing games to be assessed at such an undiscriminating standard compared to every other entertainment media. In any other media where a work tells a story, say in movies or in books, every release is judged as it is: a full fledged release. No allowances were made to the beginnings of iconic series such as Ender's Game, The Matrix, or Fellowship of the Rings.
If we allow ourselves to be contented out of hand, we are doing everyone involved a disservice by hobbling writers' creative aspirations and precluding opportunities for gamers to get that much more enjoyment out of gaming. Trust me, writers in Blizzard's employ can do much, much better, but if they don't need to, they'll be told not to, especially if the marketing department tells them the more puerile the story, the better.
I was a latecomer to broodwar, started playing it about a year and a half ago and watching OSL and proleague as well. Didn't play the single player though until SC2 beta was out, so I think it's fresher in my mind than most.
The dialogue, character development, and plot in SC:BW were imho not any better than SC2. What I mean is, in SC:BW, it was cheesy throughout, you had Raynor dropping lines like "You kids remember to play nice from now on" that make you just roll your eyes, but you also have lines like Mengsk swearing to burn the whole sector if that's what it takes to get power that make your ears tingle (while still recognizing how they are just playing on stereotypes). Similarly, in SC2, it was cheesy throughout with Raynor dropping over-simplifying one liners every chance he gets, but also there were epic lines like "terrible, terrible damage" and "I guess sometimes you just got a choice to make".
My one complaint, In SC2, it seems like I didn't get attached to any characters like I did to kerrigan, pre-infestation. In fact, I chose + Show Spoiler +
Nova and purging the infested terrans just to get rid of Tosh and the doctor chick
. The only character that I enjoyed was Tychus, + Show Spoiler +
so i wish it had been Horner working for moebius all along, so we could have gotten rid of one more douche
.
Otherwise, SC2 gameplay is way way better. more varied missions, more tech choices, more interactivity with the map and the characters. BW felt like you were doing the same thing over and over again, just to get extract a little more plot.
Most of the problem with sc2 I think wasn't the missions or the story itself, but the way it was organized. A lot of people complain that most of the characters/missions seemed irrelevant, that's mostly due to the organization. The system of branches and being able to do whatever whenever makes it seem unessential to the story. Had they organized it in a more linear way tieing everything together probably would have made the story seem alot better.
For instance instead of just randomly throwing the colonist missions in - say they were colonists from mar sara. You start the game the same way - liberation day and then grabbing the artifact piece (its kind of funny if you think about it - you liberate the colonists just for them to get killed by zerg). Now you do the first colonist mission - helping the colonists to your base. Then the survival mission to get you and the colonists off the planet. Then you can continue on that series of colonists missions and now it seems more important and tied in. If all the "side missions" had been tied in like this - I think it would have been a much stronger story.
I also think that people are a little bit nostalgic about sc1/bw. Don't get me wrong - it was good, but not nearly as good as some people talk it up.
The "it's only one third of a trilogy" argument I'm seeing is really stupid. It's a full game, or is supposed to be.
That said I didn't like the characters, the story, or the cinematics. All those elements in the original were much darker and more mature, I'll comment on the cinematics specifically. I still remember watching that wounded dragoon crawl it's way up to a terran encampment in the original and get executed, then the base is instantly demolished as the arbiter flies overhead and reveals the rest. Still gives me chills. In SC2 we got stuff like Kerrigan throwing hadoken psyballs at Zeratul.
All of that aside, I thought the missions themselves were really well thought out and fun to play. I liked the different difficulties. The achievements and tech patterns added great replay value.
The apparent redemption of Kerrigan is something I can't help but get pissed about. She was such a great villian! My head almost exploded while watching the best video game baddie in history carried into the sunset in slow motion. ARRGGG!
The SC1 story is better but the sc2 campaign gameplay is WAY better ( as expected). Lots of original mission objectives and fun upgrades make a better experience than the missions in SC1 which had very little diversity.
Tassadar's Obi-wan Kenobi The Overmind's the orcs Kerrigan's Darth Vader, only she lives after coming back to the light side.
Char was only overwhelmed because of the artifact though, remember what a look-alike of that did on Shakuras? That made sense to me, because Warfield was losing badly before that thing arrived.
On August 27 2010 01:38 harky wrote: SC1 Terran campaign: Meet Raynor. Zerg invade. Saved by Mengsk. Find out government used Zerg. Join SoK rebellion. Mengsk betrays you. Protoss crush Zerg. Mengsk assumes power. You defeat Mengsk.
There's a lot of dialogue in there to show character relationships, but people are complaining about the lack of plot. SC1 had a very, very simplified plot. You could compare that to the core plot of SC2 without any of the subplots. So strip out the Colonist missions, Tosh missions, and Rebellion missions. So we're trimming from the 26 for the complete story to 15 for the 'core' story.
SC2 Terran campaign: Meet Raynor. Rebel against local military. Zerg return. Hunt down artifact pieces. Zeratul returns and shows the prophecy. Rescue Moebius forces. Hunt down more artifacts and ally with Mengsk son. Find out artifacts purpose and attack Char. 'Deinfest' Kerrigan.
SC1's Terran campaign was indeed very simple, but I feel like you've inserted some fluff into your summary of the WoL campaign.
Zeratul's mini-campaign can be skipped entirely, despite its limited relevance. I enjoyed it, but its first three missions are all preparation for the revelation made in Utter Darkness.
We've already met Raynor and are aware of his stance against the Dominion. Essential events originating in WoL include: end of Zerg military dormancy, awareness of artifact, awareness of and alliance with Valerian and Moebius according to not fully disclosed motives, acquisition of artifact, use of artifact. This can be covered in 5 missions. .
Our definitions of 'fluff' vary greatly. The only thing you may consider fluff would be, "Meet Raynor. Rebel against local military." I could have just joined the two with an 'and'. Sorry, but Raynor is not the same man from SC1 and part of the plot is reintroducing him. Also, while you can skip the missions, you can not skip getting the crystal and receiving the prophecy. It's a major plot point and the only way to avoid it is to hit escape to skip the cutscene. Not sure that's canon.
If you were to boil the plot down to the 5 missions you described it would indeed be a pile of crap. It would be lacking in direction and overly simplified. There are missions that you could possibly combine, but doing so would require you to change the story and it's probably not even possible to do with SC2's engine. For instance you could rebel against the local authorities, then return to your base and meet Tychus there, go get the artifact (which is somehow right there), then wait for evac there and fight off the Zerg. There you go, one mission. Would be pretty cool too. Is that really any better than splitting it into 3 missions? You'd need cutscenes or boring "walk over there" objectives anyway, so why not have separate maps?
Seriously, why are we trying to call exposition 'fluff'? If you give too much information at once the story gets bogged down. By spreading it out and allowing the plot to keep pace you're not adding 'fluff' at all. Would you want to play a game with 5 missions that each take ~2 hours to complete? Why would that be better than 10 that takes ~1 hour, or 15 that take ~40 minutes? That's what you're be doing by making it 5 missions.
"Oh SC2 is only 1/3 of the whole plot... it will get better! etc. etc. imagine if you only played Terran campaign of BW etc. etc."
Both of the SC Original and BW stories were standalone stories. I payed for a full game with SC2, why the fuck shouldn't I get a full standalone story?
I may be generalizing, but I feel as if all the people who are defending SC2 over BW have A) never got to finish the SC/BW story B) fall into the age range/maturity level which the cheesy action movie lines appeal to
The SC2 story feels like a 12 year old's fan fiction to me.
I'm not saying that SC/BW's story was a great literary achievement by any means, but at least it wasn't terrible.
SC1's plot was much better. This is the problem with all multiple-path games with a single ending. There isn't enough of a concrete direct path that cements the story.
The whole poll is just inherently a joke. It is comparing a single part of a 9 part story to every single part that preceeded 7. Of course it's going to fall short.
Wait for it.
I preferred WoL over the Overmind chapter of the series as far as plot goes. Overmind started off very slow, and the final few missions hardly made any sense. Why does the overmind want to become "manifest"? What does it even mean? Why pick Aiur? Why does it have to be at a Xel'Naga temple? It claims that it's to "assimulate" the protoss, but it didn't need to be "manifest" to assimulate Kerrigan, and it sure as shit didn't need to b manifest during the countless years it spent evolving the swarm. The whole idea of making itsself so vulnerable on the protoss homeworld for unexplained reasons was just lame. And then broodwar apparntly fails to follow up on the overminds motivation which was to assimulate the protoss. Kerrigan had more than ample time to make good on that promise.
And I really don't like that we had to wait until WoL (12 years!!!) before the Overminds actions and motivations made any sense. So now that we know what the overmind knew, I actually now consider the overmind campaign to be one of my favorites as opposed to my least favourite.
On September 27 2010 21:54 Billy_ wrote: The whole poll is just inherently a joke. It is comparing a single part of a 9 part story to every single part that preceeded 7. Of course it's going to fall short.
Wait for it.
That said, I preferred WoL over the Overmind chapter of the series as far as plot goes. Overmind started off very slow, and the final few missions hardly made any sense. Why does the overmind want to become "manifest"? What does it even mean? Why pick Aiur? Why does it have to be at a Xel'Naga temple? It claims that it's to "assimulate" the protoss, but it didn't need to be "manifest" to assimulate Kerrigan, and it sure as shit didn't need to b manifest during the countless years it spent evolving the swarm. The whole idea of making itsself so vulnerable on the protoss homeworld for unexplained reasons was just lame. And then broodwar apparntly fails to follow up on the overminds motivation which was to assimulate the protoss. Kerrigan had more than ample time to make good on that promise.
And I really don't like that we had to wait until WoL (12 years!!!) before the whole Overmind chapter could be fully understood.
Yes, lets bring the entire Protoss race to the Zerg to assimilate them instead of actually invading the Protoss homeworld. Oh, and why the hell would Kerrigan follow up on the Overmind's plans in BW? She's free once he's dead.
Your questions just show us that you paid absolutely no attention to the actual story when you played SC/BW.
On September 27 2010 21:54 Billy_ wrote: The whole poll is just inherently a joke. It is comparing a single part of a 9 part story to every single part that preceeded 7. Of course it's going to fall short.
Wait for it.
That said, I preferred WoL over the Overmind chapter of the series as far as plot goes. Overmind started off very slow, and the final few missions hardly made any sense. Why does the overmind want to become "manifest"? What does it even mean? Why pick Aiur? Why does it have to be at a Xel'Naga temple? It claims that it's to "assimulate" the protoss, but it didn't need to be "manifest" to assimulate Kerrigan, and it sure as shit didn't need to b manifest during the countless years it spent evolving the swarm. The whole idea of making itsself so vulnerable on the protoss homeworld for unexplained reasons was just lame. And then broodwar apparntly fails to follow up on the overminds motivation which was to assimulate the protoss. Kerrigan had more than ample time to make good on that promise.
And I really don't like that we had to wait until WoL (12 years!!!) before the whole Overmind chapter could be fully understood.
Yes, lets bring the entire Protoss race to the Zerg to assimilate them instead of actually invading the Protoss homeworld. Oh, and why the hell would Kerrigan follow up on the Overmind's plans in BW? She's free once he's dead.
Your questions just show us that you paid absolutely no attention to the actual story when you played SC/BW.
You didn't answer any of my questions.
Hint: my biggest question was why the overmind would succeed in the Auir invasion, only to make itsself vulnerable before beating them into the ground. Maybe I misunderstood the intentions, but I was under the impression that the overmind didn't even have a physical body before the end of the campaign where you see a giant tentacle monster popping up. To take physical form at such an early stage in a planetary invasion just didn't seem to be a smart decision based on what I knew before WOL.
And why is the overmind needed for assimulating the protoss when Kerrigan is obviously capable of evolving the species.
But whatever, WoL has already provided an explanation to the whole thing.
The original SC storyline was pretty meh. Pretty much the story for every race was, ruling power is corrupt/silly, kill them while ownin some zerg. Now SC:BW, that was rather nice. The number of plot twists is rather high and there are some massive story arcs that work. Plus theres more emtion from characters because you enjoy using the units thoughout the campagin. TBH Kerrigan dying in SC was pretty meh, but Felnix finally dying in SC:BW was rather sad.
If you want to be fair, you should compare just the Terran campaign from one of the games to WoL, not all the 3+3 campaigns from SC1+BW to just one Terran campaign in SC2. Otherwise the answer is pretty obvious.
Overall the comparison is like between a full feature movie and TV series. In SC1 a lot more of a story is being told, but less into details. In SC2: WoL the whole story is very focused around just a few events, not much to tell really, but rather the details you enjoy being shown.
Neither story is particularly great. SC2 certainly tries to tell a decent story much more than SC did but it's ruined by the terrible writing and bad character animation during conversations.
Also, not really story related but the character designs lack any sort of cohesion. All the women look like something out of Final Fantasy CG while Tychus and Raynor are more comically exaggerated than the guys in Gears of War and then you have somewhat normal looking people, like Matt, too. Poorly done IMO, I was really disappointed with it.
There, all the storyline of SC and BW summarized in 11 lines. It really isn't that spectacular. It's not bad, mind you- I enjoyed it. It's just that the narrative in SC2 is incomparably better, because it's fleshed out a lot better.
SC2 has a better medium to tell the story, but Sc1 still felt like a better story. The new plot lacks story twist; it's too linear.
Blizzards story telling is starting to become very generic. Kerrigan in WoL is basically Arthas from Wrath of the Lich King. The only difference being the conclusion. Kerrigan was redeemed and Arthas was destroyed.
I do hope that SCII will take advantage of the WoL ending to bring back the old shades of grey of SC which had been mostly absent ever since the UED came in. Selendis hardly seems the type who will want to side with Kerrigan, hybrid or not. Putting my hopes on her becoming the next Aldaris.
StarCraft and its expansion definitely had a better storyline, but I believe it was also a different group of people working on the game. StarCraft 2: WoL felt like it was rushed, since they decided to make the game into three different sets of stories instead of giving us a bit in each in one game.
The story in SC2 was okay... definitely not something I really expected from blizzard, but it's not terribad. Let's just hope they make Heart of the Swarm or Legacy of the Void better.
SC2 had so many filler missions that contribute basically absolutely nothing to the story. The main characters all say cheesy and cliche lines stolen from movies. Character development is so damn poor and they made a joke out of SC1's lore.
I think WoL is the result of an on the spot financial decision to separate SCII into three games. All those sideplots and crap are rushed fillers written by a 2nd rated writer that are created not to be epic or even logical, but rather to fit the gameplay.
I hope you are reading our reactions, Blizzard. The public consensus is that your WoL storyline is epic fail.
I don't know what's worth saving in Kerrigan. She had her freewill since the day that Overmind was destroyed. How is deinfestation going to magically make her a better person?
On August 01 2010 17:22 Sabu113 wrote: The lack of mengsk hurts the sc2 storyline. Mengsk added a real umph of epicness to the terran campaign. The Sc2 campaign feels a bit too much like a bunch of random thing raynor did with his time than a systematic campaign consisting of these events. Sure things are more fleshed out in sc2, but the fleshed out events are more minor bits of the universe rather than game changers.
I really feel that the lack of a direct toe to toe battle with mengsk hurts the quality of the campaign.
edit: That's not the say they didnt do a good job. The missions were fun. Best RTS campaign to date. Next time maybe a little less gimmicy with a focus on one unit, but over all excellent job.
Anyone find the whole mengsk tychus connection wierd? Did mengsk really think big enough to snipe kerrigan/ allow Media blitz to happen/ all of the damage raynor did?
Also while i'm on the rant... the introduction of valerian did absolutely nothing. Not enough exposition.
the villains really didn't do anything villainous while in the spotlight... it saddened me doubly so by the fact the queen of blades won some most evil bad guy thing in sc2 also they ruined her artwork, hardcore
I don't know what's worth saving in Kerrigan. She had her freewill since the day that Overmind was destroyed. How is deinfestation going to magically make her a better person?
Well not really. She was freed from the direct controll of the Overmind but from what I could gather, she suffered from the same compulsion it did.
On August 01 2010 06:13 mrkent wrote: SC2 WoL entire story is summed as follows.
Zeratul tells Raynor that he needs to save Kerrigan. Raynor saves Kerrigan.
Every other character was not essential to the story. In other words, it sucks.
Also, how the fuck did Kerrigan get beat by a small army when the UED, Dominion, and Artanis combined could not defeat her in the end of Broodwar?
The majority of her army was still gone invading the Dominion and hadn't returned yet. Plus they didn't kill the zerg army, they just survived until the artifact could do all the work.
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.
The main characters all say cheesy and cliche lines stolen from movies.
Haven't they always been like that since 12 years ago?
they made a joke out of SC1's lore.
Yeah, I don't agree. The overminds motivation for wanting to make its self mortal was not explained at all until WoL. I don't know what happened to Tassadar, but I can understand why he would admire such devotion and sacrifice from the overmind to save his Zerg from death. Arcturus has always had a really short temper and had been prone to childish outbursts pretty much every time someone disagreed with him in Rebel Yell. Jim and Zeratul are both really sad for obvious reasons. And Kerrigan always talked a lot of shit. Her whole personality in the overmind campaign could be summed up as "I AM THE STRONGEST AND I WILL KILL YOU IF YOU QUESTION ME!" She had better writers though, that's for sure.
I hope you are reading our reactions, Blizzard. The public consensus is that your WoL storyline is epic fail.
Not really.
I don't know what's worth saving in Kerrigan. She had her freewill since the day that Overmind was destroyed. How is deinfestation going to magically make her a better person?
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.
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.
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?
"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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
@Hautamaki: wrong. It's (not only) the lack of character development or meaningful events that has grieved and despaired us about the sequel's plot, but the fact that what does take place is all crap at best and insulting at worst.
Namely, and for example:
1.- The whole idea of Kerrigan being magically deinfested, "redeemed" and carried away into the sunset. 2.- The characters becoming caricatures of their former selves (Arcturus -> loud, predictable fool, Zeratul -> senile, wispy old man, Kerrigan -> emo chick with empty taunts and even emptier dialog). 3.- The introduction of new key plot elements that suck and are extremely lame, such as the prophecy, and the overmind/zerg being probably "good". 3.- The whole b-movie feel, instead of the gritty and serious (in a good way) theme of the original. 4.- The happy/cartoony theme to it, in which the heroes can't fail, have "main character powers" (Hyperion boarding Valerian's ship anyone?) and everything works out in the end.
With all this, there's no hope for the expansions to have a good plot. You just can't work around all the crap plot elements they introduced in WoL. Blizzard's lost its marbles and right now we're all in denial about it, but the sooner we accept it the better.
For example, wouldn't you tell your past self to save some money and avoid Star Wars Ep. 1/2/3 if you could? Yeah, few franchises have been ruined so hard as SW was, but Starcraft comes damn close.
Blizzard's lost its marbles and right now we're all in denial about it, but the sooner we accept it the better. For example, wouldn't you tell your past self to save some money and avoid Star Wars Ep. 1/2/3 if you could? Yeah, few franchises have been ruined so hard as SW, but Starcraft comes damn close.
This would be true, except most of us won't buy HotS for it's singleplayer . Its just a bonus really.
On October 03 2010 05:46 Craixs wrote: even if I just compare the plots from the 10 terrans BW mission there is more to the history than there was in these 29 mission in sc2
No... just, no. There really wasn't.
Hardly anything happened in BW compared to WoL.
There were about 2 or maybe 3 missions in BW which might be relevent to SCII.
Protoss escape to Shakuras Fenix dies
Most of the remainder of the campaign was all about the UED who come from nowhere, and then get utterly annhilated with the captains last words to earth amounting to something like "We're doomed, we can't win, and we should just stop trying". Are we sure that the message even got back to Earth?
BW ends with a pointless new overmind dying, and Kerrigan taking it's place. But we already knew this from the SCI epilogue so it doesn't count. Our heroes undo all of the damage which the UED have done to the dominion. BW didn't do much to develop any of the characters that lived. Zeratul and Artanis both acted really dumb, because the writers couldn't think of a way to make Kerrigan look clever. Jim gets pissed off at Kerrigan over Fenix. That's about the only serious BW development which WoL had failed to address.
In WoL Jim helps Valarian to succeed his father. We're introduced to several new supporting characters, and surprisingly most of them survived to fight another day. Something happens to Kerrigan. We're not positive on what exactly, but it is probably important to the story, and it is clearly a very important part of Jim and his development as a character. Hansen is probably done with SCII Not expecting much from Tosh, but he, like Hansen are both still open cases so it's not impossible for them to feature in the expansions.
Now that I think about it, the decision to cast some top-model/actress (Trica Helfer) as Kerrigan instead of good ol' Glynnis Talken (the excellent previous voice actor) most likely involved someone getting laid at Blizzard in exchange for the job favor (Metzen). Just a conjecture, though.
On October 03 2010 03:44 ghostunit wrote: @Hautamaki: wrong. It's (not only) the lack of character development or meaningful events that has grieved and despaired us about the sequel's plot, but the fact that what does take place is all crap at best and insulting at worst.
Namely, and for example:
1.- The whole idea of Kerrigan being magically deinfested, "redeemed" and carried away into the sunset. 2.- The characters becoming caricatures of their former selves (Arcturus -> loud, predictable fool, Zeratul -> senile, wispy old man, Kerrigan -> emo chick with empty taunts and even emptier dialog). 3.- The introduction of new key plot elements that suck and are extremely lame, such as the prophecy, and the overmind/zerg being probably "good". 3.- The whole b-movie feel, instead of the gritty and serious (in a good way) theme of the original. 4.- The happy/cartoony theme to it, in which the heroes can't fail, have "main character powers" (Hyperion boarding Valerian's ship anyone?) and everything works out in the end.
With all this, there's no hope for the expansions to have a good plot. You just can't work around all the crap plot elements they introduced in WoL. Blizzard's lost its marbles and right now we're all in denial about it, but the sooner we accept it the better.
For example, wouldn't you tell your past self to save some money and avoid Star Wars Ep. 1/2/3 if you could? Yeah, few franchises have been ruined so hard as SW was, but Starcraft comes damn close.
1. I don't have a problem with Kerrigan being deinfested. It's a retribution storyline along the lines of Star Wars with Vader and I expect we'll see plenty of cool things going down with her in HOTS. It makes perfect sense that she's being positioned as a potential good guy leading into the zerg campaign.
2. I don't agree with that characterization at all, and furthermore you have to consider that this entire game was basically told in the first person from Jim Raynor's perspective. You see the characters how he sees them.
3. I'm not sure where you got this amazing gritty and serious feel from the first games; the style/sense of humor was basically the same, the only difference is that Blizzard had way more tools at their disposal in the second game. Maybe that meant you were able to fill in more blanks with your imagination and basically create your own experience with SC1 more, but honestly I greatly appreciated all the little touches Blizzard put in to draw the player in to their world.
4. I don't have a problem with hero characters being heroic either.
I saw this entire game as mainly a character study of Jim Raynor, and of how, with a little help from an old friend and a lot of impetus from coming events, he picks himself up, dusts himself off, and goes back to his true calling, which is fucking up the evil plots of bad guys. Meanwhile, a greater force/new enemy is being introduced (obviously extremely similar to the Warcraft 3 storyline) and it turns out that unpleasant decisions will have to be made to fight this new enemy.
Bottom line is that I had a blast playing through the campaign, the storyline was perfectly solid, and the way it was told was basically incomparable to SC1 which had nothing more than wall of text mission briefings and a few in-game lines of speech.
I saw this entire game as mainly a character study of Jim Raynor, and of how, with a little help from an old friend and a lot of impetus from coming events, he picks himself up, dusts himself off, and goes back to his true calling, which is fucking up the evil plots of bad guys.
Raynor does absolutely nothing through the entire game but drinks in a bar being all emo about Kerrigan. When the deus ex machina of getting her back appears, he jumps on it and kills one of his best friends for her.
Character study? Study of what? Only character from WoL worth mentioning is Tychus, and that's only if you play through the game again knowing what his deal with Arcturus is. Only then you can appreciate how he struggles between "old times" and striking "a deal with the devil".
Bottom line is that I had a blast playing through the campaign, the storyline was perfectly solid, and the way it was told was basically incomparable to SC1 which had nothing more than wall of text mission briefings and a few in-game lines of speech.
Blizzard's lost its marbles and right now we're all in denial about it, but the sooner we accept it the better. For example, wouldn't you tell your past self to save some money and avoid Star Wars Ep. 1/2/3 if you could? Yeah, few franchises have been ruined so hard as SW, but Starcraft comes damn close.
This would be true, except most of us won't buy HotS for it's singleplayer . Its just not a bonus really.
Honestly SC2 story is atrociously bad. I really don't care about deinfestation, It's a concept I'm able to swallow just as infestation itself.
SC2 characters behave unnaturally. Where in SC1/BW the evil character were cunning and commited bad things - the way evil should do things. In SC2 both Kerrigan, Tychus are hollywood like stupid/no brain characters. They could not commit evil even if their had supervilian abilities. SC2 must have the worst dialogs ever. They wanted every sentence to sound super cool, but ended up sounding super lame. The news character who is pro-mengsk goes mental breakdown in the end... give me a break, and kate give me a bj k? The doctor who is somewhat attracted to Raynor gives him a lame cheek kiss for goodbye. Wtf man? Is the target audiance really 10 year old boys&girls?
SC2 characters behave unnaturally. Where in SC1/BW the evil character were cunning and commited bad things - the way evil should do things. In SC2 both Kerrigan, Tychus are hollywood like stupid/no brain characters. They could not commit evil even if their had supervilian abilities.
Please elaborate. I can only assume that you're complaining about Mengsks reaction to the Korhal broadcast and Kerrigans lack of manipulation, seeing how people love to whine about these two "flaws" in particular.
Arcturus was as intelligent in WoL as he has always been, but he had character flaws. He was cold, calculating and manipulative, but he has a very short temper. Consider the little sample which you find on the adjuctant, the infamous "I will rule this sector or see it burn to ashes around me". And later, his reaction to Raynor in the briefing room after Jim told Arcturus to fuck off. Does that remind you of the WoL Arcturus? It should. Here is Arcturus, complacent in his power, master of the universe and then some guy who he has been hunting has the unmitigated audacity to attack HIM on his own throne world?! Not only that, but he gets a proverbial kick in the balls from the message which Raynor uploaded. To top it off, one of his reporters bitch slaps him across the face with said infamous quote. He may be smart and cold, but he has his limits. At least he didn't act surprised when the Queen bitch of the Universe broke her promise of a truce in Brood War, so he can't possibly be as dumb as the SCII haters make him out to be.
As for Kerrigan, people are basically accusing her of not been cunning enough. I don't know what possible use that Kerrigan could have for a rag tag band of cretins on a battlecruiser who happen to be in direct competition for her artifacts. No way in hell that Arcturus is dumb enough to be manipulated by her again, and besides, he already has everything he wants, so Kerrigan has no leverage on him. She did discover the location of the data cores, at least half of the artifacts, and ambushed Zeratul on the prophecy planet. Is that not enough cunning for an arch villain with so little screen time? To be fair, a lot of Kerrigans cunning in BW came from her protagonist powers of weakening her enemies mental faculties (See the paragraph on Arcturus), which was more a result of poor writing than a character trait. Also, Duran.
As for Tychus, well I think he was meant to be the dumb, reluctant traitor the whole time.
In BW Kerrigan manipulated the dark templar in order to get control over the swarm and get rid of the new overmind. Sure you could call this a stupid idea, but they were desperate and later on Kerrigan corrupted/kidnapped Rashagal which literally brought zeratul to his knees(a chapter from Sun Tzu's Art of War : you should seize what your enemy holds most dear). Yeah Zeratul sound a bit gay in SC2, his voice in SC1 was definitelly better. Also he acts more like an older person(compared to SC1). However he could have changed after the Rashagal incident.
If Tychus was super demetial, then Raynor should have known better - this whole event does not make him smart eigher. Although his feeling of "paying the debt to an old friend" could cloud his judgement. However if someone tries to kill you in rage - throwing ship stuff at you, this kind of behavior can't be made up after a good night sleep and deserves further consquences.
I really don't have a big problem with Arcturus, he may be just getting old or he drinks too much.. whatever his character developement is not the problem. The only problem is the NEWS. The NEWS sound like anti Mengsk propaganda - because Kate - smart&beautiful is trying to present the truth, the other one looks like a pedophile. Well if Mengsk was any good as an emperor, he would have get rid of Kate right away. And this could have been in the story if the wanted to, so in one mission you could save her(probably only by accident though).
On August 01 2010 05:54 socal50 wrote: to be fair, sc1+bw had a story that touched on all three races. here in sc2 so far, youve only got a third of the story
to be even fairer, playing just the terran campaign for broodwar beats wol by itself
On October 04 2010 01:46 LastWish wrote: In BW Kerrigan manipulated the dark templar in order to get control over the swarm and get rid of the new overmind. Sure you could call this a stupid idea, but they were desperate and later on Kerrigan corrupted/kidnapped Rashagal which literally brought zeratul to his knees(a chapter from Sun Tzu's Art of War : you should seize what your enemy holds most dear). Yeah Zeratul sound a bit gay in SC2, his voice in SC1 was definitelly better. Also he acts more like an older person(compared to SC1). However he could have changed after the Rashagal incident.
I don't think Kerrigan did any manipulating of the Dark Templar. She aided them a bit, but it is clear that the Dark Templar were already planning on killing cerebrates and fetching plot devices to activate the tower which was to be forgotten for plot conveinience after the first time it was used at the protoss campaign end. It seems like she used her ghost skills to get close enough to Razagal to do whatever it is she did to enslave her mind, but that plan would have failed if Aldaris hadn't been an idiot (for plot convienience) and warned Zeratul while he had a chance.
I know Kerrigan is supposed to be clever, but the execution of the whole plot was simply bad. And not only because of the Templar chapter.
I'm going on a bit of an unrelated tangent here, but It was a variety of things which made Broodwar such a terrible sequel for me. Main ones been the UED in general, and how so very much of the BW events felt like filler in the great scheme of things. Hardly any character development occurs, and the plot development simply goes in a full circle rather than change any of the factions in a meaningful way. Except for the UED who only seemed to exist as nothing but a disposable obstacle or a random RPG encounter. And we could just skip BW and be unsurprised to find Kerrigan leading the Zerg charge since the SCI epilogue has already told us.
I think BW would have been a good stand alone game, and I've tried really hard to convince myself that it is a good sequel. But the bottom line is that BW is and will always be the worst part of the SC series for me. Unless they do something really horrible with the SCII campaigns.
Why do people hate the idea of Tassadar returning when they don't even know what it means? Going into hypotheticals here, but wouldn't it be a pretty good plot twist if Tassadar and the Overmind somehow managed to merge into one form? They are opposites of a whole and Tassadar is one of the few Protoss who could wield both energies.
I think, that in sci-fi their should only be a minimal, most necessary amount of plot devices being used. That would be above light travel, alien species et al.
In the Starcraft universe we currently have:
warp jumps
genetic engineering
cloaking devices
psionic power
telekinesis
mind control
mind melting
prophecies (perfect forecasts with unknown origin)
hallucinations
truly immortal beings (preservers)
resurrections
immortal souls (Tassadar)
some parallel sphere (void)
some soul-like powerful being (dark voice)
deus ex machinas, which send out energy waves, which can distinguish between different kinds of species.
A lot of this things are needed, to create a universe with a lot of epic dramas and action. But they forgot to draw the line at some point. They just went over-the-top with it, in my opinion.
According to the wikipedia article about plot devices: A contrived or arbitrary plot device may annoy or confuse the reader, causing a loss of the suspension of disbelief. However a well-crafted plot device, or one that emerges naturally from the setting or characters of the story, may be entirely accepted, or may even be unnoticed by the audience.
There are a lot of other well-written articles on wikipedia about this subject.
I wouldn't care if this is some pointless action rpg. But the singleplayer campaign really should tell a good, coherent, logical story.
On October 04 2010 10:04 Billy_ wrote: Why do people hate the idea of Tassadar returning when they don't even know what it means? Going into hypotheticals here, but wouldn't it be a pretty good plot twist if Tassadar and the Overmind somehow managed to merge into one form? They are opposites of a whole and Tassadar is one of the few Protoss who could wield both energies.
I guarantee you Kerrigan will become infested again, and everyone will be like "OHHHH SHITTTTT" like when Kerrigan became human again. I swear they are gonna pull the lich king ending on Kerri.
For those of you who don't(didn't) play wow, basically when you kill the lich king, you get an ending cinematic, and in that, even though Arthas is dead, someone else had to take place of him as the new lich king to stop the undead from going apeshit on everything around them.
On October 03 2010 03:44 ghostunit wrote: @Hautamaki: wrong. It's (not only) the lack of character development or meaningful events that has grieved and despaired us about the sequel's plot, but the fact that what does take place is all crap at best and insulting at worst.
Namely, and for example:
1.- The whole idea of Kerrigan being magically deinfested, "redeemed" and carried away into the sunset. 2.- The characters becoming caricatures of their former selves (Arcturus -> loud, predictable fool, Zeratul -> senile, wispy old man, Kerrigan -> emo chick with empty taunts and even emptier dialog). 3.- The introduction of new key plot elements that suck and are extremely lame, such as the prophecy, and the overmind/zerg being probably "good". 3.- The whole b-movie feel, instead of the gritty and serious (in a good way) theme of the original. 4.- The happy/cartoony theme to it, in which the heroes can't fail, have "main character powers" (Hyperion boarding Valerian's ship anyone?) and everything works out in the end.
With all this, there's no hope for the expansions to have a good plot. You just can't work around all the crap plot elements they introduced in WoL. Blizzard's lost its marbles and right now we're all in denial about it, but the sooner we accept it the better.
For example, wouldn't you tell your past self to save some money and avoid Star Wars Ep. 1/2/3 if you could? Yeah, few franchises have been ruined so hard as SW was, but Starcraft comes damn close.
1. I don't have a problem with Kerrigan being deinfested. It's a retribution storyline along the lines of Star Wars with Vader and I expect we'll see plenty of cool things going down with her in HOTS. It makes perfect sense that she's being positioned as a potential good guy leading into the zerg campaign.
2. I don't agree with that characterization at all, and furthermore you have to consider that this entire game was basically told in the first person from Jim Raynor's perspective. You see the characters how he sees them.
3. I'm not sure where you got this amazing gritty and serious feel from the first games; the style/sense of humor was basically the same, the only difference is that Blizzard had way more tools at their disposal in the second game. Maybe that meant you were able to fill in more blanks with your imagination and basically create your own experience with SC1 more, but honestly I greatly appreciated all the little touches Blizzard put in to draw the player in to their world.
4. I don't have a problem with hero characters being heroic either.
I saw this entire game as mainly a character study of Jim Raynor, and of how, with a little help from an old friend and a lot of impetus from coming events, he picks himself up, dusts himself off, and goes back to his true calling, which is fucking up the evil plots of bad guys. Meanwhile, a greater force/new enemy is being introduced (obviously extremely similar to the Warcraft 3 storyline) and it turns out that unpleasant decisions will have to be made to fight this new enemy.
Bottom line is that I had a blast playing through the campaign, the storyline was perfectly solid, and the way it was told was basically incomparable to SC1 which had nothing more than wall of text mission briefings and a few in-game lines of speech.
1. Why must she be redeemed? The fuck, I liked where it seemed to be going at the end of BW, where at some point Raynor would kill Kerrigan. The redemption/uninfestation was so out of the blue and stupid, it just totally killed the feel of SC2 for me.
2. You don't see it from Rayor's perspective, otherwise the game would be first person. I'm more than sure that Raynor doesnt view Zeratul as senile and old, Kerrigan as emo and certainly doesn't take Arcturus for a fool. Especially Mengsk, what the fuck happened to him? He's supposed to be extrememly cunning and dangerous, and yet in sc2..? He must've suffered from brain degeneration. And what happened to Kerrigan's QUEEN BITCH of the universe? And I do remember Zeratul having a much more extensive vocabulary
3. I liked the original's atmosphere much better. There was a lot of humor(Fenix in BW Zerg campaign was LOL), but at the same time everything felt so dark and serious.. compare SC to WoL (both are full games, don't pull the one episode bullshit) SC1 just had so many better/epic moments than WoL does. Compare the opening cinematic of WoL to BW's or SC1's..
4. You seriously didn't have a problem with how the fuck Raynor and Tychus was able to fight their way through an entire BC? Or the fact they were stupid enough to try to board a BC when they were outnumbered 3 to 1? Main characters doing heroic things are cool and all, but there is a certain threshold that SC2 crossed too many times.
2. You don't see it from Rayor's perspective, otherwise the game would be first person. I'm more than sure that Raynor doesnt view Zeratul as senile and old, Kerrigan as emo and certainly doesn't take Arcturus for a fool. Especially Mengsk, what the fuck happened to him? He's supposed to be extrememly cunning and dangerous, and yet in sc2..? He must've suffered from brain degeneration. And what happened to Kerrigan's QUEEN BITCH of the universe? And I do remember Zeratul having a much more extensive vocabulary
Trololololol.
Perhaps I can put things into perpective for you.
Arcturus: You there boy (Jim), wait on my flagship so that I can deal with you later!
Kerrigan is Zerg rushed
Jim: FUCK YOU!
Arcturus: You're making a terrible mistake! Don't even think to cross me!
5 minutes later Jim walks out after blowing up the ion cannon from deep within enemy territory.
Brood War:
Arcturus: You backstabbing bitch, we had a deal!
Kerrigan: Lol, I payed you back for feeding me to the Zerg!
What do you think of your beloved emporer NOW? Most of the shit he got into in WoL could have been prevented from the very beginning of the SC series, and he was actually dumb enough to be surprised by Kerrigan. Sounds to me like Arcturus was always herping on the derp ever since we met him.
Btw, did anyone notice the difference in the music when credits start rolling?
Starcraft 1: Tassadar has just blown up the overmind, sacrificing himself in the process. Credits have a quiet, almost ambient soundtrack.
Starcraft 2: Heroics, the sunset. BADASS GUITARS!!!!11 TERRANS OF TEH NIGHT!!!!111
It really felt bad listening to the SC2 song while you slowly start to realize that the ending really was there and no punchline is coming to somehow save the whole thing.
On October 04 2010 10:04 Billy_ wrote: Why do people hate the idea of Tassadar returning when they don't even know what it means? Going into hypotheticals here, but wouldn't it be a pretty good plot twist if Tassadar and the Overmind somehow managed to merge into one form? They are opposites of a whole and Tassadar is one of the few Protoss who could wield both energies.
Oh please no no no no no. This seems to set SC on the very wrong path... Reminds of the Heroes series, where at some point(3rd series) everything goes terribly wrong - time becomes a terrible mess, some heroes have powers beyond competition. Now the only way to beat this mess is to create and idiot of both the super hero and the observer(= read the watcher/player).
Please don't go this way. Less power more cunning, strategy tactics. Educate players don't make them even more dumb.
On October 04 2010 10:04 Billy_ wrote: Why do people hate the idea of Tassadar returning when they don't even know what it means? Going into hypotheticals here, but wouldn't it be a pretty good plot twist if Tassadar and the Overmind somehow managed to merge into one form? They are opposites of a whole and Tassadar is one of the few Protoss who could wield both energies.
I'll do you one better!
If Jim Raynor could somehow wedge himself into that merge, they'd have created a super duper advanced hybrid capable of sustaining all three races at the same time! Just think of the energies...
On August 01 2010 05:54 socal50 wrote: to be fair, sc1+bw had a story that touched on all three races. here in sc2 so far, youve only got a third of the story
yeah, it's like comparing apples and oranges sc1:bw should be compared to WoL + HotS + LotV
On October 04 2010 14:46 Touch wrote: The Hanson and Tosh missions felt like they were fillers, relating in no way to the storyline, whole thing was so bull.
The gameplay was all good, but the plot, god damn.
yeah, you can finish the game without playing a single hanson or tosh mission these are side missions, since you need cash to improve your units, but you don't have to complete them in order to finish the game achievements are another thing altogether
these missions also fit into the story, since Raynor is now a mercenary, doing contracts for anybody that will pay, and collecting stuff along the way
On October 04 2010 10:04 Billy_ wrote: Why do people hate the idea of Tassadar returning when they don't even know what it means? Going into hypotheticals here, but wouldn't it be a pretty good plot twist if Tassadar and the Overmind somehow managed to merge into one form? They are opposites of a whole and Tassadar is one of the few Protoss who could wield both energies.
Oh please no no no no no. This seems to set SC on the very wrong path... Reminds of the Heroes series, where at some point(3rd series) everything goes terribly wrong - time becomes a terrible mess, some heroes have powers beyond competition. Now the only way to beat this mess is to create and idiot of both the super hero and the observer(= read the watcher/player).
Please don't go this way. Less power more cunning, strategy tactics. Educate players don't make them even more dumb.
Yeah, it was just a quick hypothetical I thought of when I quickly read previous comments. But my point is that it's not really rational at this point to react negatively to Tassadar because first of all it would require us to jump to conclusions based on very weak conjecture. And I hear people complain that it trivialized his sacrifice of Broodwar. Well I felt that Tassadars image had already been damaged in BW when it was discovered that the overmind came back (with all of the character of the asteroid from that movie Armageddon) and when the Protoss chose to piss away all that Tassadar fought for by allying with Kerrigan. Nothing in WoL had undone the results of Tassadars martyrdom which brought the DT and the conclave closer together. But we can't all share the same opinions can we.
After the Zeratul missions I wouldn't be surprised if SCII did include some kind of duel between super saiyan Kerrigan and the BAMF from utter darkness. But why can't a story have it both ways? WH40K was packed full of super weapons and monsters, but I don't see why that had to equal dumbed down stories.
There are three races: Terran, Protoss and Zerg. Terrans are fighting between themselves, Zerg want to devour everything else, Protoss want to stop them.
On the Terran side, the Sons of Korhal, led by Arcturus Mengsk, overthrow the Confederacy and establish the Dominion. Later on, the United Earth Directorate overthrows the Dominion.
The Protoss kill Zerg Cerebrate Zasz, but lose their homeworld of Aiur. They then flee into the Dark Templar world of Shakuras, which is also being overrun, but they manage to cleanse it of the Zerg.
The Zerg take over a few planets and infest the Terran hero, Sarah Kerrigan. The Overmind is destroyed by Tassadar, and Kerrigan takes over the Zerg Swarm. She then proceeds to single-handedly tear through all possible opposition, annihilating the UED in the process and letting Mengsk rebuild his Dominion.
There, all the storyline of SC and BW summarized in 11 lines. It really isn't that spectacular. It's not bad, mind you- I enjoyed it. It's just that the narrative in SC2 is incomparably better, because it's fleshed out a lot better.
What u do is totally like a guy who try to sum up movie in 5 seconds (check out some of his clips like Titanic in 5 seconds on utube). SC+BW plot really come with a lot of twist, drama like when kerrigan was left behind or kerrigan trick Admiral Duke to kill his loyal minion (forgot the guy name - kind of a russian one) or when Kerrigan control a protoss VIP (forgot the name as well) which Tassadar has to kill her in order to free her from Kerrigan control. Seriously, it feel more like a movie than SC2 plot which is quite straight forward. Anw, its quite unfair to SC2 since BW really add a great deal to the content of SC, so maybe just w8 and c what will happen with the next expansion before I can really confirm anything. Finally, its suck to not be able to play Z in the campaign, wth, really SC+BW do a much better job than this
Um.. don't you all think, that this poll is missing one option?
- It's not the whole story so I'll restrain myself from giving not relevant answer.
No? Oh, it's just me then. A lot of you guys are comparing one terran only campaign to the whole story set in the entire universe in 6 previous parts. Please remember, that the first 10 chapters of original starcraft was terran only too, not a whole lot of intergalactic battles. Like someone here or there said earlier: this whole campaign will include two points: 1. Kerrigan planned it all (the deinfestation, too) 2. All of the races unite and battle one big scary evil. Basically blizzard will pull the frozen throne ending.
On October 04 2010 21:00 kudlaty_true wrote: Um.. don't you all think, that this poll is missing one option?
- It's not the whole story so I'll restrain myself from giving not relevant answer.
No? Oh, it's just me then. A lot of you guys are comparing one terran only campaign to the whole story set in the entire universe in 6 previous parts. Please remember, that the first 10 chapters of original starcraft was terran only too, not a whole lot of intergalactic battles. Like someone here or there said earlier: this whole campaign will include two points: 1. Kerrigan planned it all (the deinfestation, too) 2. All of the races unite and battle one big scary evil. Basically blizzard will pull the frozen throne ending.
This point has been brought up many times and it's been thoroughly explained that this is an absolutely terrible excuse. This game was sold as a stand-alone game with as many mission as either SC or BW and took significantly longer to make with a much higher budget and a lot better resources/technology available. This makes your point a terrible excuse to try to justify a bad story.
On October 04 2010 21:00 kudlaty_true wrote: Um.. don't you all think, that this poll is missing one option?
- It's not the whole story so I'll restrain myself from giving not relevant answer.
No? Oh, it's just me then. A lot of you guys are comparing one terran only campaign to the whole story set in the entire universe in 6 previous parts. Please remember, that the first 10 chapters of original starcraft was terran only too, not a whole lot of intergalactic battles. Like someone here or there said earlier: this whole campaign will include two points: 1. Kerrigan planned it all (the deinfestation, too) 2. All of the races unite and battle one big scary evil. Basically blizzard will pull the frozen throne ending.
This point has been brought up many times and it's been thoroughly explained that this is an absolutely terrible excuse. This game was sold as a stand-alone game with as many mission as either SC or BW and took significantly longer to make with a much higher budget and a lot better resources/technology available. This makes your point a terrible excuse to try to justify a bad story.
It's better than the Dark Templar campaign of Brood War. Most stories require some kind of plot and/or character progression. The DT campaign had none of this. I don't think many people would have considered WoL acceptable if it were so inconseqential and poorly plotted.
And before you ask, yes, the broadcast, Valarians appearance and the Char missions were all more relevant and eventful than that one chapter. And probably the entirety of Brood War if the games installation recap is any sign of relevence. Even the plot device of the artifacts show more promise than the temple did.
How is this even comparable? SCI plot was overwhelmingly better. You don't even have to factor in the either of the protoss or zerg campaigns. The two Terran campaigns alone from SC/BW absolutely own WoL.
SCI:
- Raynor narrowly escapes the zerg and eventually unites with Mengsk's faction to topple an oppressive government. Ultimately establishing a new tyrant and losing a friend (or so he thinks!). This campaign ends with the ominous ascent of Mengsk.
- Despite facing total annihilation from two other alien species, the Terrans still find time to destroy each other.
- Objectives were direct and strategic; every mission made me feel like I was advancing the plot towards a purpose.
BW:
- Even better this time. We are introduced to a totally new Terran faction, from Earth no less. Right off the bat, we have two strict goals: 1) Topple Mengsk and execute him 2) Subjugate the Overmind and the Zerg. Fuck Yes, let's go in and dominate everything!
- Again, every mission has a distinct reason to it that yields us a rigidly structured story. Destroy nukes or battlecruiser fleet -> weaken military capabilities. Capture another battlecruiser fleet -> strengthen own military capabilities.
- Plot Twists? Sure, Duran is seemingly infested and works for Kerrigan, while Mengsk has escaped. The Overmind is yours, but there still lingers the ominous presence of Kerrigan. Can't wait to play the zerg campaign.
WoL:
- I'm apparently gathering artifacts, for money I guess. All we know is Tychus works for an organization that wants them for most of the story...k. Not only is this like a boring fetch quest, but in terms of plot it's always the same. Go get artifact -> stupid protoss tribe opposes you because the campaign has to have you fight toss somehow.
- Dr. Hanson and Tosh mean nothing but take up a lot of the story. Hanson either dies or leaves without apparently discovering her lolcure to zerg infestation. Tosh either dies or simply joins your cause with his team, a pretty bland resolution considering all you do for the guy.
- ....the overmind is good (way to shit all over the original), Tassadar is now a ghost, there's now a prophecy (ewww), and some mysterious antagonist wants to rule the universe and leave everything in total darkness -_-;;. None of this carries much weight, however, due to the fact that the missions are optional and Raynor refers to them as if they were some odd dream after a hangover.
- The rebellion against Mengsk doesn't accomplish very much.
- The actual objective that carries any real significance is poorly tacked on only at the end of the story, with little build up. Deus Ex Machina ending with a mystical artifact that destroys all nearby zerg but conveniently reverts Kerrigan to human. Tychus dies revealing his retarded mission in the process (except we already kinda know from the beginning...).
How is this even comparable? SCI plot was overwhelmingly better. You don't even have to factor in the either of the protoss or zerg campaigns. The two Terran campaigns alone from SC/BW absolutely own WoL.
I absolutely could not have worded it better myself. 100% agree.
Don't forget about the dialogue either.
"You speak of knowledge, Judicator? You speak of experience? I have journeyed through the darkness between the most distant stars. I have beheld the births of negative-suns and borne witness to the entropy of entire realities... Unto my experience, Aldaris, all that you've built here on Aiur is but a fleeting dream. A dream from which your precious Conclave shall awaken, finding themselves drowned in a greater nightmare."
To
"TIME IS SHORT! THE ARTIFACTS ARE THE KEY!"
And what about badass levels? They went down 9000 notches.
Marine: Sir, we've 86'ed this cerebrate. We shouldn't have any more problems with those sunken colonies Sir, this cerebrate's been whacked. We shouldn't run into any smacked up ultralisks anytime soon. Let's wax these critters!
That's called badass.
Not, "HALP, WE'RE SURROUNDED BY ZERG AND ARE GUNNA DIE"
A real report would be: Sir, we've just had a whole cargo ship full of whoopass dumped on us. We ran into a new strain of Ultralisk, and it took a lotta pepper to bring it down. To top it all off, recon reports the critter's been reincarnated by a nearby cerebrate, and it's on its way back for more!
Or "Sir, these sunken colonies aren't being affected by anything we hit'em with. I bet there's one'a them cerebrate critters pumpin em full of energy nearby."
All the quotes from SC1 were SO memorable. SC2 just shit all over the dialogue.
On October 04 2010 21:00 kudlaty_true wrote: Um.. don't you all think, that this poll is missing one option?
- It's not the whole story so I'll restrain myself from giving not relevant answer.
No? Oh, it's just me then. A lot of you guys are comparing one terran only campaign to the whole story set in the entire universe in 6 previous parts. Please remember, that the first 10 chapters of original starcraft was terran only too, not a whole lot of intergalactic battles. Like someone here or there said earlier: this whole campaign will include two points: 1. Kerrigan planned it all (the deinfestation, too) 2. All of the races unite and battle one big scary evil. Basically blizzard will pull the frozen throne ending.
This point has been brought up many times and it's been thoroughly explained that this is an absolutely terrible excuse. This game was sold as a stand-alone game with as many mission as either SC or BW and took significantly longer to make with a much higher budget and a lot better resources/technology available. This makes your point a terrible excuse to try to justify a bad story.
It's better than the Dark Templar campaign of Brood War. Most stories require some kind of plot and/or character progression. The DT campaign had none of this. I don't think many people would have considered WoL acceptable if it were so inconseqential and poorly plotted.
And before you ask, yes, the broadcast, Valarians appearance and the Char missions were all more relevant and eventful than that one chapter. And probably the entirety of Brood War if the games installation recap is any sign of relevence. Even the plot device of the artifacts show more promise than the temple did.
so now you are comparing a full game with 27 misssions TO one arc in broodwar. Way to contradict your own statement. As for plot device, THEY BOTH EQUALLY SUCK because they do exactly what you need them to. Except the protoss where simply cleansing zerg off a planet while raynor wanted to save kerrigan.
On October 05 2010 03:38 Pandonetho wrote: And what about badass levels? They went down 9000 notches.
Marine: Sir, we've 86'ed this cerebrate. We shouldn't have any more problems with those sunken colonies Sir, this cerebrate's been whacked. We shouldn't run into any smacked up ultralisks anytime soon. Let's wax these critters!
That's called badass.
Not, "HALP, WE'RE SURROUNDED BY ZERG AND ARE GUNNA DIE"
A real report would be: Sir, we've just had a whole cargo ship full of whoopass dumped on us. We ran into a new strain of Ultralisk, and it took a lotta pepper to bring it down. To top it all off, recon reports the critter's been reincarnated by a nearby cerebrate, and it's on its way back for more!
Or "Sir, these sunken colonies aren't being affected by anything we hit'em with. I bet there's one'a them cerebrate critters pumpin em full of energy nearby."
All the quotes from SC1 were SO memorable. SC2 just shit all over the dialogue.
I think that's a great point. The whole "SC2 dialogue was fine because that's what space cowboys sound like!" argument is so wrong. In SC1, the terran dialogue had its own style and humor attached to it. They didn't sound as grandiose as the Protoss, but they made up for it with general badassery. In SC2, every cliche'd line spewing from Raynor's mouth made me want to puke.
People arguing that SC2 dialogue was actually better than SC1 makes me sad for humanity =(
"You speak of knowledge, Judicator? You speak of experience? I have journeyed through the darkness between the most distant stars. I have beheld the births of negative-suns and borne witness to the entropy of entire realities...
I definitely think SC1 had the better plot, in comparison to what has happened so far. I'm looking at Mutaahh's post right now and I agree it's hard to compare an unfinished story to a "finished" one, but SC1's characters and plot really stuck with me. Maybe it's just nostalgia factor, or maybe not. I guess I'll go play it again sometime and get back to ya. Honestly, I felt like SC2's plot was ripped off of a fairly cliche sci-fi movie. And oh god, the dialogue... but I guess it was bearable enough for me to finish playing it. Actually, I really liked playing the missions themselves.
Maybe blizzard was trying to appeal to the masses? I dunno. I mean, I have several casual friends who happened to like to story and stuff. Or maybe they were distracted by the fancy graphics @_@
On October 05 2010 09:09 Mutaahh wrote: Comparing a completed story, vs. an uncompleted one is a very hard discussion.
edit, yes I know, it has been said before. But I want to warn people so they wont waste their time on it ^^
And what about the people who are just comparing the Terran Arcs individually to WOL.
Blizzard back then could make 10 episodes with more gravitas than the half assed crap they did with 30 episodes of WoL.
You do realise that nothing productive happened in BW, right? Apart from Kerrigans ascension which we already knew from the SCI epilogue.
The UED were nothing but a disposable obstacle who existed only as a thorne in the side of all the other factions. Maybe if they did some lasting damage, or if stukov, or gerard or someone survived to continue playing a role. I did like the people in the UED campaign, so it's just a real bummer that their eventual fate was to be the BW equivilent of SCIIs Tal'Darim.
Shakuras was arguably the worst and most pointless chapter out of all of them which was basically a weak attempt to make Kerrigan look manipulative and cunning even though her supposed motive of killing the cerebrates had been done before she ever introduced her self like an idiot, who then revealed herself in the middle of a DT war zone like an idiot who only escaped because Zeratul let her get away with killing Aldaris like an idiot, and because Aldaris was too much of an idiot to warn Zeratul until the very end..
How is any of that not worse than WoL? The fight with Aldaris followed by the "grand" reveal of Kerrigans so called manipulations struck me as a bad parody, and no amount of speculation and supposition that I saw on the forums made it any better.
On October 05 2010 09:09 Mutaahh wrote: Comparing a completed story, vs. an uncompleted one is a very hard discussion.
edit, yes I know, it has been said before. But I want to warn people so they wont waste their time on it ^^
It's not really that hard of a discussion. You paid how much for SC and BW? Probably as much for both as just WoL, even inflation included. Yet we got this story.
Unfortunately, I think that the WC3 "every side should just band up against one enemy" routine is going to go on in the next expansions. I really hope I'm wrong though; I'll be the first one worshiping Blizzard when on the first mission of HotS, Kerrigan reinfests herself and starts taking control of the Swarm once more (maybe after offing Horner Fenix-style?).
On October 05 2010 09:09 Mutaahh wrote: Comparing a completed story, vs. an uncompleted one is a very hard discussion.
edit, yes I know, it has been said before. But I want to warn people so they wont waste their time on it ^^
It's not really that hard of a discussion. You paid how much for SC and BW? Probably as much for both as just WoL, even inflation included. Yet we got this story.
They were both $60.
WoL had less story overall but it was less rushed than the 3 in 1 style of the 90's and if you don't agree than consider what it offered in gameplay. I don't see a lot of people claiming that SCII was not worth $60.
In SC1, you had some rather compelling dialogues. You didn't get any of that in SC2.
When Zeratul gave this monologue, I had nerd chills go down my spine... so poetic and striking...
"You speak of knowledge, Judicator? You speak of experience? I have journeyed through the darkness between the most distant stars. I have beheld the births of negative-suns and borne witness to the entropy of entire realities... Unto my experience, Aldaris, all that you've built here on Aiur is but a fleeting dream. A dream from which your precious Conclave shall awaken, finding themselves drowned in a greater nightmare."
On October 05 2010 12:44 Mooshfu wrote: In SC1, you had some rather compelling dialogues. You didn't get any of that in SC2.
When Zeratul gave this monologue, I had nerd chills go down my spine... so poetic and striking...
"You speak of knowledge, Judicator? You speak of experience? I have journeyed through the darkness between the most distant stars. I have beheld the births of negative-suns and borne witness to the entropy of entire realities... Unto my experience, Aldaris, all that you've built here on Aiur is but a fleeting dream. A dream from which your precious Conclave shall awaken, finding themselves drowned in a greater nightmare."
I call it senile, but we can't all be right.
I have journeyed through the darkness between the most distant stars. I have beheld the births of negative-suns and borne witness to the entropy of entire realities...
And again, WTF does this mean? Is he talking in metaphores? How is it relevant to everything else he said in this dialog?
Zeratul might not have had decent dialog for the SCII campaign, but instead of hearing him talk in riddles about his life story we are givin a memory crystal in which we can witness and take part in his poetic experiences of witnessing the entropy of entire realities.
Also Artanis had an excellent speech at the final protoss mission. And he didn't speak in metaphores.
On October 05 2010 12:44 Mooshfu wrote: In SC1, you had some rather compelling dialogues. You didn't get any of that in SC2.
When Zeratul gave this monologue, I had nerd chills go down my spine... so poetic and striking...
"You speak of knowledge, Judicator? You speak of experience? I have journeyed through the darkness between the most distant stars. I have beheld the births of negative-suns and borne witness to the entropy of entire realities... Unto my experience, Aldaris, all that you've built here on Aiur is but a fleeting dream. A dream from which your precious Conclave shall awaken, finding themselves drowned in a greater nightmare."
I have journeyed through the darkness between the most distant stars. I have beheld the births of negative-suns and borne witness to the entropy of entire realities...
And again, WTF does this mean? Is he talking in metaphores? How is it relevant to everything else he said in this dialog?
Zeratul might not have had decent dialog for the SCII campaign, but instead of hearing him talk in riddles about his life story we are givin a memory crystal in which we can witness and take part in his poetic experiences of witnessing the entropy of entire realities.
Also Artanis had an excellent speech at the final protoss mission. And he didn't speak in metaphores.
I don't know why it matters what literary devices he uses but but his experiences he cites are literal, and his dream/nightmare comments are metaphors (English 101?)
He is responding to a criticism that suggests he is not knowledgeable and he retorts by citing his life experiences, which are clearly remarkable as can be told by their descriptions...
On October 05 2010 12:44 Mooshfu wrote: In SC1, you had some rather compelling dialogues. You didn't get any of that in SC2.
When Zeratul gave this monologue, I had nerd chills go down my spine... so poetic and striking...
"You speak of knowledge, Judicator? You speak of experience? I have journeyed through the darkness between the most distant stars. I have beheld the births of negative-suns and borne witness to the entropy of entire realities... Unto my experience, Aldaris, all that you've built here on Aiur is but a fleeting dream. A dream from which your precious Conclave shall awaken, finding themselves drowned in a greater nightmare."
I call it senile, but we can't all be right.
I have journeyed through the darkness between the most distant stars. I have beheld the births of negative-suns and borne witness to the entropy of entire realities...
And again, WTF does this mean? Is he talking in metaphores? How is it relevant to everything else he said in this dialog?
Zeratul might not have had decent dialog for the SCII campaign, but instead of hearing him talk in riddles about his life story we are givin a memory crystal in which we can witness and take part in his poetic experiences of witnessing the entropy of entire realities.
Also Artanis had an excellent speech at the final protoss mission. And he didn't speak in metaphores.
I don't know why it matters what literary devices he uses but but his experiences he cites are literal, and his dream/nightmare comments are metaphors (English 101?)
He is responding to a criticism that suggests he is not knowledgeable and he retorts by citing his life experiences, which are clearly remarkable as can be told by their descriptions...
That piece of dialogue is a work of art.
Yeah we're obviously meant to think that his experiences were remarkable, and the whole speech really was effective. I'm simply suggesting that maybe sharing Zeratuls remarkable experiences through the Ihan crystal was better than hearing some vague recap of his life. It would have worked a lot better with a decent voice actor, and if 90% of Zeratuls dialog wasn't a tutorial, but I digress.
On October 05 2010 09:09 Mutaahh wrote: Comparing a completed story, vs. an uncompleted one is a very hard discussion.
edit, yes I know, it has been said before. But I want to warn people so they wont waste their time on it ^^
And what about the people who are just comparing the Terran Arcs individually to WOL.
Blizzard back then could make 10 episodes with more gravitas than the half assed crap they did with 30 episodes of WoL.
You do realise that nothing productive happened in BW, right? Apart from Kerrigans ascension which we already knew from the SCI epilogue.
The UED were nothing but a disposable obstacle who existed only as a thorne in the side of all the other factions. Maybe if they did some lasting damage, or if stukov, or gerard or someone survived to continue playing a role. I did like the people in the UED campaign, so it's just a real bummer that their eventual fate was to be the BW equivilent of SCIIs Tal'Darim.
Shakuras was arguably the worst and most pointless chapter out of all of them which was basically a weak attempt to make Kerrigan look manipulative and cunning even though her supposed motive of killing the cerebrates had been done before she ever introduced her self like an idiot, who then revealed herself in the middle of a DT war zone like an idiot who only escaped because Zeratul let her get away with killing Aldaris like an idiot, and because Aldaris was too much of an idiot to warn Zeratul until the very end..
How is any of that not worse than WoL? The fight with Aldaris followed by the "grand" reveal of Kerrigans so called manipulations struck me as a bad parody, and no amount of speculation and supposition that I saw on the forums made it any better.
Nothing productive?
Protoss:
They lose an entire homeworld and transition to shakuras, two opposing factions of protoss learn to coincide with each other. Aldaris is killed. Artanis rises as a new young leader.
Terran:
To compare the UED to the Tal'darim is just downright insulting. The Tal'darim pretty much get raped each encounter and then talk shit about getting revenge but never deliver. The UED actually did dethrone Mengsk at some point and actually did capture the overmind. They also serve as the reason for Fenix, Raynor, and Mengsk allying with Kerrigan.
Zerg:
Aside from Kerrigan's epic victory: Zeratul discovers the hybrids and Duran's true purpose, Razegal dies, Fenix dies, and Duke dies.
WoL:
Kerrigan becomes human again (she's probably even still infested). We get a vision of a coming apocalypse. In 29 missions of Terran campaign, this is all we get. This may have been passable if the story was paced better and the prophecy missions were not optional. Valerian and the plan to invade Char simply came too late in the story. The Terran campaign would have been infinitely better if this was mostly Raynor finally settling his score with Mengsk. Tychus could have been potentially awesome as well for a plot twist if his mission to simply kill Kerrigan wasn't total bullshit.
On October 05 2010 09:09 Mutaahh wrote: Comparing a completed story, vs. an uncompleted one is a very hard discussion.
edit, yes I know, it has been said before. But I want to warn people so they wont waste their time on it ^^
It's not really that hard of a discussion. You paid how much for SC and BW? Probably as much for both as just WoL, even inflation included. Yet we got this story.
They were both $60.
WoL had less story overall but it was less rushed than the 3 in 1 style of the 90's and if you don't agree than consider what it offered in gameplay. I don't see a lot of people claiming that SCII was not worth $60.
Obviously not multiplayer wise, but the campaign was truly atrocious (not getting into IMBA multiplayer issues either). Filler campaigns where no matter which choice you made, you were right?
Okay, so 1) Hanson was a psycho who would infest herself in order to save her people...as long as you chose to ally with the protoss in that last mission! Otherwise you were a "good man" for saving everyone.
2) Daniel Tosh was a supervillain....unless you completed his quest chain, then he was the one person who had the compassion/clairvoyance to warn you about Tychus (which you didn't heed regardless). What absolute tripe.
Linear stories which actually admit they're linear are much more entertaining than those who say "choices matter" when they absolutely don't in the slightest, IMO.
On October 05 2010 09:09 Mutaahh wrote: Comparing a completed story, vs. an uncompleted one is a very hard discussion.
edit, yes I know, it has been said before. But I want to warn people so they wont waste their time on it ^^
And what about the people who are just comparing the Terran Arcs individually to WOL.
Blizzard back then could make 10 episodes with more gravitas than the half assed crap they did with 30 episodes of WoL.
You do realise that nothing productive happened in BW, right? Apart from Kerrigans ascension which we already knew from the SCI epilogue.
The UED were nothing but a disposable obstacle who existed only as a thorne in the side of all the other factions. Maybe if they did some lasting damage, or if stukov, or gerard or someone survived to continue playing a role. I did like the people in the UED campaign, so it's just a real bummer that their eventual fate was to be the BW equivilent of SCIIs Tal'Darim.
Shakuras was arguably the worst and most pointless chapter out of all of them which was basically a weak attempt to make Kerrigan look manipulative and cunning even though her supposed motive of killing the cerebrates had been done before she ever introduced her self like an idiot, who then revealed herself in the middle of a DT war zone like an idiot who only escaped because Zeratul let her get away with killing Aldaris like an idiot, and because Aldaris was too much of an idiot to warn Zeratul until the very end..
How is any of that not worse than WoL? The fight with Aldaris followed by the "grand" reveal of Kerrigans so called manipulations struck me as a bad parody, and no amount of speculation and supposition that I saw on the forums made it any better.
Nothing productive?
When I say nothing productive I don't mean that nothing happened. Stuff did happen, but it was all just temporary damage and all of the factions and characters end where they began. Auir was defeated in SCI, BW had nothing to do with it. Shakuras is invaded by two cerebrates who somehow managed to slip past Fenix and Raynor unnoticed. Or something. I'm sure there is a reasonable explanation, but the game didn't deliver one. But I digress again. Well, there was an invasion on Shakuras and they fixed it with a bitof grocery shopping which was used to power up a magic bullet to save the planet.
The UED may have been more effective than the Tal'Darim, but how does that justify focusing a campaign on them? They come from out of nowhere, and their singular focus is to make life harder for Kerrigan. It would actually be better if we were controlling the Tal'Darim and for them to do everything that the UED did. At least then we'd be familiar with them in SCII and that they're more relevant than some Terran group which exists only to be defeated and sent back home millions of light years away.
Honestly, you could remove a lot of the Broodwar campaign and it wouldn't mean much. Most of the long term character and plot development came in the final third of BW. It's where all of the damage that the UED had done had been undone. It's where all of the great tragedies and betrayals happened, and I didn't feel like that the UED and Shakuras chapters did enough to justify their existence when compared to SCI. In my opinion.
BW wasn't boring, but it was of little consequence in regards to plot and character development.
On October 05 2010 09:09 Mutaahh wrote: Comparing a completed story, vs. an uncompleted one is a very hard discussion.
edit, yes I know, it has been said before. But I want to warn people so they wont waste their time on it ^^
It's not really that hard of a discussion. You paid how much for SC and BW? Probably as much for both as just WoL, even inflation included. Yet we got this story.
They were both $60.
WoL had less story overall but it was less rushed than the 3 in 1 style of the 90's and if you don't agree than consider what it offered in gameplay. I don't see a lot of people claiming that SCII was not worth $60.
Starcraft Battle Chest sells for as low as 15 USD. I got it back in 2000 for 20 USD. Please don't straight-up lie if you want to hold a constructive discussion. It really doesn't help anyone or accomplish anything.
Basically WoL had a chance to be less rushed storyline. Too bad it never went anywhere with it. They went big with the mission count and then tried to spread the storyline extremely thin all over it.
I think BW campaign was a little let down after the original one, but it still had a lot of decent moments and in general it didn't wreck the original legacy like SC2 does.
On October 05 2010 16:03 Bacillus wrote: Basically WoL had a chance to be less rushed storyline. Too bad it never went anywhere with it. They went big with the mission count and then tried to spread the storyline extremely thin all over it.
I think BW campaign was a little let down after the original one, but it still had a lot of decent moments and in general it didn't wreck the original legacy like SC2 does.
I can agree on that it was spread thin, but I had fun playing it, and it made more sense than some parts of BW which I've mentioned more than once.
It had character and plot development. It involved a rebellion against Arcturuses leadership which seems to have been succesful and I like where it appears to be going. Logically HotS will involve Kerrigans revenge against Mengsk, and Valarian stepping up as the new leader. And we don't know who Kerrigan is anymore, but that artifact has an interesting history behind it If Hansens speculation is correct.
As to whether or not it wrecks the legacy of the original, well that sounds like a subjective opinion. I can go into various reasons why BW might have subjectively ruined the original too, but I can't make you agree with me.
On October 04 2010 21:00 kudlaty_true wrote: Um.. don't you all think, that this poll is missing one option?
- It's not the whole story so I'll restrain myself from giving not relevant answer.
No? Oh, it's just me then. A lot of you guys are comparing one terran only campaign to the whole story set in the entire universe in 6 previous parts. Please remember, that the first 10 chapters of original starcraft was terran only too, not a whole lot of intergalactic battles. Like someone here or there said earlier: this whole campaign will include two points: 1. Kerrigan planned it all (the deinfestation, too) 2. All of the races unite and battle one big scary evil. Basically blizzard will pull the frozen throne ending.
This point has been brought up many times and it's been thoroughly explained that this is an absolutely terrible excuse. This game was sold as a stand-alone game with as many mission as either SC or BW and took significantly longer to make with a much higher budget and a lot better resources/technology available. This makes your point a terrible excuse to try to justify a bad story.
Yes, well, I'm still holding my ground. This game was sold as a stand alone version, although this shouldn't have to be brought up, because it STILL isn't the whole single player scenario. They said it right then with the "3 parts" announcement. "We will be selling this game as a 3 parter" or some crap like that. Don't remember exactly. Basically the message was from the very begining: You want multiplayer in it's entirety? Buy basic game. You want single player in its entirety? But three parts. Period. End of story. That's why this argument have never had any significance. That's why this poll is lacking, and the campaign AIN'T. (Because it's lacking the ending, lol)
You want multiplayer in it's entirety? Buy basic game
And if you want to buy it for the multiplayer, you are going to need all 3 games. Or are you daft enough to think Blizzard isn't adding anything new with each expansion?
The decision to split the game may come back to bite them in the ass.
In terms of single-player, it won't be worth buying because the story sucks and will continue sucking.
In terms of multiplayer, judging from the extremely conservative approach Blizzard took to design SC2, I doubt there will be any major or interesting changes to the game, and paying 60$ just for a couple more units doesn't sound appealing at all.
They may be riding on nothing more than fanboyism and brand recognition by then.
Now, if the expansions add stuff like a 4th race and new game mechanics then yeah, it will be worth paying for. But really, what are the chances of that?
I obviously voted for SC1 for obvious reasons but I'll admit I really did like the EE-Han Timing Crystal sequence.
The protoss heroes making a pointless last stand on the edge of the universe felt like... well it felt like I was playing SC1 again.
Ofc even during that sequence, they had to really really obviously over and over again telegraph the fact that you needed to save Kerrigan and ally with the Zerg or else "behold or future Jim Raynor."
On October 06 2010 08:29 Strayline wrote: Ofc even during that sequence, they had to really really obviously over and over again telegraph the fact that you needed to save Kerrigan and ally with the Zerg or else "behold or future Jim Raynor."
The funny thing is I recall at least one thread where the OP believes this is canon.
Hard question to answer for me because I think Sc1's overall plot is superior, but the dialogue, voice acting and execution of Sc2's plot blows it out of the water.
Hard question to answer for me because I think Sc1's overall plot is superior, but the dialogue, voice acting and execution of Sc2's plot blows it out of the water.
SCII is merely a continuation of the plot which was foreshadowed in BW. they both had extreme lows (half of Jims dialogue of WoL, the one liners and UNN, and most of the protoss campaign of BW which was just plain awful for so many reasons)
I think that the main things that SCII does fails at compared to the original as a story is the general lack of urgency and pacing which is kind of natural when it comes to non-linear RPG light games. First one was darker and grittier, and SCII toned it down in some areas, which can mostly be blamed on the CNN parody. The protoss, colonist and Char missions gave me the old SCI feeling, so at least SCII had it where it counted the most.
This coming from someone who is barely versed in the supplementals of SC such as the manuals and novels. I don't really consider any of it cannon by default, and don't care much about how serious blizzard are about novel and manual continuity.
Honestly, you could remove a lot of the Broodwar campaign and it wouldn't mean much. Most of the long term character and plot development came in the final third of BW. It's where all of the damage that the UED had done had been undone. It's where all of the great tragedies and betrayals happened, and I didn't feel like that the UED and Shakuras chapters did enough to justify their existence when compared to SCI. In my opinion.
...
Honestly you could remove a lot of SC2 campaign and it would mean much in getting rid of lot of messy things. In next campaign Arcturus should wake up and realizing WoL was just his bad dream. Or maybe it's Raynor who should wake up and realize it's an Inception!
Honestly, you could remove a lot of the Broodwar campaign and it wouldn't mean much. Most of the long term character and plot development came in the final third of BW. It's where all of the damage that the UED had done had been undone. It's where all of the great tragedies and betrayals happened, and I didn't feel like that the UED and Shakuras chapters did enough to justify their existence when compared to SCI. In my opinion.
...
Honestly you could remove a lot of SC2 campaign and it would mean much in getting rid of lot of messy things. In next campaign Arcturus should wake up and realizing WoL was just his bad dream. Or maybe it's Raynor who should wake up and realize it's an Inception!
An easy way of improving BW? Not having the SC ending spoil the ending for us "Kerrigans time of ascension has come" (paraphrased).
Look, I'm not saying that BW was awful or something, just that too much of the game passed by with hardly anything to show for it in the end. The UED were nothing but some threat that the protagonists were fighting against like the confederacy, or the renegade broods, or the Tal'darim. What we got in the Terran campagin was essentially the equivilent of spending a SCII campaign as the Tal'Darim, running around space and making life a little bit less convienient for Jim by taking artifact pieces. Was it really neccesary to get the UED point of view only to annhilate any chance of them having a lasting legacy?
Honestly, you could remove a lot of the Broodwar campaign and it wouldn't mean much. Most of the long term character and plot development came in the final third of BW. It's where all of the damage that the UED had done had been undone. It's where all of the great tragedies and betrayals happened, and I didn't feel like that the UED and Shakuras chapters did enough to justify their existence when compared to SCI. In my opinion.
...
Honestly you could remove a lot of SC2 campaign and it would mean much in getting rid of lot of messy things. In next campaign Arcturus should wake up and realizing WoL was just his bad dream. Or maybe it's Raynor who should wake up and realize it's an Inception!
An easy way of improving BW? Not having the SC ending spoil the ending for us "Kerrigans time of ascension has come" (paraphrased).
Look, I'm not saying that BW was awful or something, just that too much of the game passed by with hardly anything to show for it in the end. The UED were nothing but some threat that the protagonists were fighting against like the confederacy, or the renegade broods, or the Tal'darim. What we got in the Terran campagin was essentially the equivilent of spending a SCII campaign as the Tal'Darim, running around space and making life a little bit less convienient for Jim by taking artifact pieces. Was it really neccesary to get the UED point of view only to annhilate any chance of them having a lasting legacy?
Yes, it was a great experience. Nothing lasts forever and I actually don't like how they try to attach you so much to one side in SC2.
The greatest part about sc1/bw was that there were many many sides, and each of them were equally represented, leaving the player the choice to decide their favorite, who was good/bad, right/wrong.
SC2 is a pretty cheesy black-and-white narrative. The only real complexity I thought was Tychus. I also don't like how you played a small rebel force practically the entire game, it lacked epicness. It was totally cheesy how you landed on the Dominion Capital and fought them on their capital, let alone the invasion of Char with only half the dominion fleet? hahahahaha get real blizzard
in SC1 you started out small and ended up controlling entire nations. it was almost like every mission you completed earned you a promotion to control a larger portion of the military.
Honestly, you could remove a lot of the Broodwar campaign and it wouldn't mean much. Most of the long term character and plot development came in the final third of BW. It's where all of the damage that the UED had done had been undone. It's where all of the great tragedies and betrayals happened, and I didn't feel like that the UED and Shakuras chapters did enough to justify their existence when compared to SCI. In my opinion.
...
Honestly you could remove a lot of SC2 campaign and it would mean much in getting rid of lot of messy things. In next campaign Arcturus should wake up and realizing WoL was just his bad dream. Or maybe it's Raynor who should wake up and realize it's an Inception!
An easy way of improving BW? Not having the SC ending spoil the ending for us "Kerrigans time of ascension has come" (paraphrased).
Look, I'm not saying that BW was awful or something, just that too much of the game passed by with hardly anything to show for it in the end. The UED were nothing but some threat that the protagonists were fighting against like the confederacy, or the renegade broods, or the Tal'darim. What we got in the Terran campagin was essentially the equivilent of spending a SCII campaign as the Tal'Darim, running around space and making life a little bit less convienient for Jim by taking artifact pieces. Was it really neccesary to get the UED point of view only to annhilate any chance of them having a lasting legacy?
Yes, it was a great experience. Nothing lasts forever and I actually don't like how they try to attach you so much to one side in SC2.
The greatest part about sc1/bw was that there were many many sides, and each of them were equally represented, leaving the player the choice to decide their favorite, who was good/bad, right/wrong.
SC2 is a pretty cheesy black-and-white narrative.
Yeah, it was a pretty fun experience and I liked meeting Duran. Maybe I'm just crazy, but I do not like the idea of taking control of the UED when they were destined to become nothing more than the next confederacy/renegade zerg/taldarim to be swept aside. I think that Warfield and Tychus were meant to add some ambiguity to the black/white narrative. Tychus wouldn't have hesitated to leave the marines for dead back on Mar Sara, or answer Hansens distress call. And Warfield turned out to be a pretty good guy. These characters were both very much the opposites of Jim and Arcturus, and still they were fighting for the same cause.
I honestly thought SC2 had one of the worst stories and presentations of any modern game.
Not only is the story completely asinine and rape the shit out of lore (I almost broke my monitor during the Overmind cutscenes) but the dialogue crossed a territory beyond cheesy/fun into plain stupidity. It made the Expendables seem like East of Eden.
I honestly don't understand how you go from grey with the UED/Duke/Mensk, etc. in BW to completely black/white in SC2.
Not to mention the cut scenes were hugely disappointing and filled with non sequitur. HOW IS TYCHUS GOING TO RAPE SOMEONE WHEN HE'S STUCK IN A SUIT?
EDIT: Before SC2 released, I went back and rewatched the entire BW story play out and it honestly wasn't very good either. I think most people have blinders about it. Metzen is perpetually an awful story teller. Duran is like the only thing that really stands out.
On October 07 2010 04:15 Jibba wrote: EDIT: Before SC2 released, I went back and rewatched the entire BW story play out and it honestly wasn't very good either. I think most people have blinders about it. Metzen is perpetually an awful story teller. Duran is like the only thing that really stands out.
what did you find not very good about it? I'm curious because I had the exact opposite reaction. Compared to most games I play nowadays, SC1's story resonates pretty strongly with me still. Ironically, Duran was probably the one person I actually forgot through the years.
The things that stuck with me most were the presentation, music, and dialogue. It just had this gravitas to it that made it feel so much cooler than most games I play now. Most games either try too hard and fail or don't try at all.
Episode IV (The Stand) was a decent campaign, but then it degenerated swiftly. I don't think that the UED belongs into the Starcraft universe at all and the fact, that they were using terran technology is utter non-sense. I also don't like the idea of cerebrates being able to merge into a new overlord. DuGalle trusts some stranger more than Stukov. It's unlikely that the Protoss would just help Kerrigan because of the UED's agenda. I didn't really care at all about the main protagonists anymore.
On October 07 2010 04:15 Jibba wrote: EDIT: Before SC2 released, I went back and rewatched the entire BW story play out and it honestly wasn't very good either. I think most people have blinders about it. Metzen is perpetually an awful story teller. Duran is like the only thing that really stands out.
what did you find not very good about it? I'm curious because I had the exact opposite reaction. Compared to most games I play nowadays, SC1's story resonates pretty strongly with me still. Ironically, Duran was probably the one person I actually forgot through the years.
The things that stuck with me most were the presentation, music, and dialogue. It just had this gravitas to it that made it feel so much cooler than most games I play now. Most games either try too hard and fail or don't try at all.
Broodwar had some nice briefing room dialogue and atmosphere. But Duran and Kerrigan definitely had to carry a lot of the story. The rest of BW was average at best. However I did like the profound character development that Razagal had on Zeratul who doesn't seem to want to become the new patriarch. I'm betting money on Zeratul becoming to the SC series what Aragorn was to LotR.
Let's face the facts people. Even if you thought the BW story was bad, I won't argue that point. But at the very least, the freaken dialogue was way better (not to mention the voice acting).
I think that first option sums it up perfectly, I mean that sc1 story and all of the characters, just pure badassness, theres just somthing there that other games dont have
On October 07 2010 11:59 Pandonetho wrote: ^ Can't say I disagree at all...
Let's face the facts people. Even if you thought the BW story was bad, I won't argue that point. But at the very least, the freaken dialogue was way better (not to mention the voice acting).
Sorry, but why was the dialogue of WoL bad exactly? I know that BW dialogue was more extensive and tactical, but what else is different? The original SC and BW had less one liners, but they alos had less dialogue overall. I wan't disagree that Raynor had several bad one liners "Time to kick this revolution *sunglasses* INTO OVERDRIVE" YEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAH
sigh
He also had some pointless one liners, but I seem to have a higher tolerance to those than most of the haters. He did have a pretty good hero moment on Char, right up until "Some things are just worth fighting for", which made me cringe slightly. The rain was a bit too heavy handed, but that's got nothing to do with dialogue so leave it be.
Kerrigans dialogue wasn't very extensive and kind of missed some opportunities to banter with Jim in a couple of the artifact missions, but they can make up for lost time in the expansion which will be the true test of Blizzards writing abilites as far as she is concerned.
Tychus and the minor characters had their fair share of cheese and cliches, but I mostly liked them.
I liked the brief Protoss dialogues on in utter darkness. Wish I could say the same for the fallen-whatever-it's-called.
I liked Toshes dialogue.
The banter between Jim and Matt about Kerrigan and Arcturus was enjoyable.
SC2 dialogue : I liked Tosh's dialogue the best probably. The first lieutenant(forgot the name) was fine aswell. Tychus would have been fine, were there no bullshit suit-prison, rage-kill-jimmy and kill kerrigan plot. Worst dialogues (top 3): 1. Zeratul 2. Tassadar + Overmind 3. News team
On October 07 2010 04:15 Jibba wrote: EDIT: Before SC2 released, I went back and rewatched the entire BW story play out and it honestly wasn't very good either. I think most people have blinders about it. Metzen is perpetually an awful story teller. Duran is like the only thing that really stands out.
what did you find not very good about it? I'm curious because I had the exact opposite reaction. Compared to most games I play nowadays, SC1's story resonates pretty strongly with me still. Ironically, Duran was probably the one person I actually forgot through the years.
The things that stuck with me most were the presentation, music, and dialogue. It just had this gravitas to it that made it feel so much cooler than most games I play now. Most games either try too hard and fail or don't try at all.
I can't recall exactly which parts and I can't find the website that had the entire 2 campaigns relisted (with cutscenes and briefings) but it had largely to do with most of the Protoss sections.
On October 07 2010 16:57 LastWish wrote: SC2 dialogue : I liked Tosh's dialogue the best probably. The first lieutenant(forgot the name) was fine aswell. Tychus would have been fine, were there no bullshit suit-prison, rage-kill-jimmy and kill kerrigan plot. Worst dialogues (top 3): 1. Zeratul 2. Tassadar + Overmind 3. News team
I think this is probably my worst 3 as well but I'd put Raynor in at #4. He's like an emo alcoholic that gives way too much information away to anyone that will listen and who has to add an awful platitude every time he speaks. Not my vision of Raynor. :|
That whole crap between him, Tychus and Matt... "trust me, I know this guy." Only the dumbest of the dumb leaders say that and it always backfires, in the history of every story ever. I swear to god, he reads just like Stallone in the Expendables.
I don't think Jims stupidity in WoL was an accident. Two examples:
SC1, that fourth Zerg mission. He goes all the way to a Zerg home planet just because he had a vivid dream of Sarah calling out for help. Smart people would probably chalk it up to bad dreams caused by traumatic loss and betrayal. Jim is not one of the smart people.
Brood War: He risks his freedom, and life to rescue Arcturus from the UED. This didn't have to be dumb, but when we hear from Jim in the Zerg campaign he says "Oh, btw I forgot to ask Kerrigan why she wanted me to capture Arcturus lol". Or maybe he did ask, and didn't believe her, but I wouldn't put it past him.
It's because I remember Jim like this that I can accept him running off like a damn fool once he was found out by the Mengsk flagship.
One thing I think they did well in SC and improved on it in wc3 was mixing story elements within the mission, getting new objectives ,stuff like meeting duran for the first time or discovering the content of the chrysalis, those little things make the story more immersive. In SC2 I can only think of Haven's fall where Matt tells you about the doctor locking herself in the lab.
Also i replayed SC and BW recently and i thought all the non-terran campaigns were not as good as people remember. In SC zerg the missions were: guard chrysalis, guard chrysalis, escort chrysalis, guard chrysalis, kerrigan comes out, rednecks get owned in a cutscene, dungeon crawl, mirror match, final battle
Protoss campaign: introduce one protoss guy so the briefing room won't feel so lonely, random fighting zerg, rednecks get owned in a cutscene, find tassadar, omg he's a good guy!!, dungeon crawl, mirror match, final battle
Protoss in BW: worst campaign of them all, boring artanis is introduced for chatting purposes, zerg invasion, collect magic problem solving crystals, pwnd. Also there is the mandatory mirror match somewhere in there which could have been avoided if people could exchange 2 sentences with each other. Kerrigan kills the dude and they let her go ??
Zerg in BW: "grrr UED is evil help me beat them" "but you're evil too" "yeah but they're way eviller" "hmm ok, better help an alien swarm over some government we don't know" "there u go kerrigan we helped you destroy their most important weapon which was guarded by 3 siege tanks and a dozen marines" " i betray you, DIE secondary characters !!" "omg kerrigan you bitch you betrayed us like we totally thought you would" " now i will kill off everyone and rule the world, except you mengsk and zeratul coz we need you for SC2"
The only thing that made terran campaigns better for me were the characters of arcturus and stukov. things like tone of voice changing when he got provoked really made a lasting impression on me.
too bad stukov died from "i know the truth but i will only reveal it after they send an army to kill me" syndrome.
On October 07 2010 19:42 SimpleReally wrote: One thing I think they did well in SC and improved on it in wc3 was mixing story elements within the mission, getting new objectives ,stuff like meeting duran for the first time or discovering the content of the chrysalis, those little things make the story more immersive. In SC2 I can only think of Haven's fall where Matt tells you about the doctor locking herself in the lab.
Also i replayed SC and BW recently and i thought all the non-terran campaigns were not as good as people remember. In SC zerg the missions were: guard chrysalis, guard chrysalis, escort chrysalis, guard chrysalis, kerrigan comes out, rednecks get owned in a cutscene, dungeon crawl, mirror match, final battle
Protoss campaign: introduce one protoss guy so the briefing room won't feel so lonely, random fighting zerg, rednecks get owned in a cutscene, find tassadar, omg he's a good guy!!, dungeon crawl, mirror match, final battle
Protoss in BW: worst campaign of them all, boring artanis is introduced for chatting purposes, zerg invasion, collect magic problem solving crystals, pwnd. Also there is the mandatory mirror match somewhere in there which could have been avoided if people could exchange 2 sentences with each other. Kerrigan kills the dude and they let her go ??
Zerg in BW: "grrr UED is evil help me beat them" "but you're evil too" "yeah but they're way eviller" "hmm ok, better help an alien swarm over some government we don't know" "there u go kerrigan we helped you destroy their most important weapon which was guarded by 3 siege tanks and a dozen marines" " i betray you, DIE secondary characters !!" "omg kerrigan you bitch you betrayed us like we totally thought you would" " now i will kill off everyone and rule the world, except you mengsk and zeratul coz we need you for SC2"
The only thing that made terran campaigns better for me were the characters of arcturus and stukov. things like tone of voice changing when he got provoked really made a lasting impression on me. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkYIlvOHhjk
too bad stukov died from "i know the truth but i will only reveal it after they send an army to kill me" syndrome.
It's a rather negative way of looking at the SC story. Agreed with you on BW though. And you left out the best part, Kerrigan claiming the credit for "manipulating" the templar into finding the magic problem solving crystals which would kill all of the cerebrates.
Um, No Sarah. Really sorry honey, but you got it all wrong. They already knew about the crystals, where they could find them and how to use them. The only thing you did was to make them suspicious which nearly resulted in them finding out about you controlling Razagal for reasons which you had never explained. Sorry dear, but you messed up big time.
One thing i didn't like in SC2 is the inconsistency in Raynor's character. They keep saying he's a bitter drunk who's depressed and whatnot, and he's drinking every other scene, but when it comes to interacting with others and making decisions he seems perfectly fine to me. When Matt told Raynor "do you see what you're becoming?" my first thought was "what the hell is he talking about, some examples would be nice"
On October 07 2010 20:59 SimpleReally wrote: One thing i didn't like in SC2 is the inconsistency in Raynor's character. They keep saying he's a bitter drunk who's depressed and whatnot, and he's drinking every other scene, but when it comes to interacting with others and making decisions he seems perfectly fine to me. When Matt told Raynor "do you see what you're becoming?" my first thought was "what the hell is he talking about, some examples would be nice"
I think that they were going to make Jim more grimdark at one point. Don't know why they changed it. I guess that they might have decided that it wouldn't be believeable for Jim to be as flawed as they've portrayed him as (blind faith in Tychus, killing protoss fanatics for cash, charging at battlecruisers like a lunatic etc), and also an irresponsible drunk on top of all that.
Check the time recordings, Matt complains to Jim at 3:00 in the morning, and 5 hours later he;s STILL in the cantina.
I haven't played the SC1 or BW campaigns. I thought the SC2 campaign was really good, but reviewing this topic it does raise some points. Nothing really happens untill the end. I'll play SC1 later tonight to compare and see if I've missed somethign awesome!
On October 08 2010 02:37 icclown wrote: "... and to all the enemies of humanity, seek not to bar our way, 'cause we shall win through - No matter the cost!!!" no less than epic
Yeah I'm waiting for the day when we finally get invaded by some alien species for our standing president to use this line. Sign me up!
On October 08 2010 02:37 icclown wrote: "... and to all the enemies of humanity, seek not to bar our way, 'cause we shall win through - No matter the cost!!!" no less than epic
Yeah I'm waiting for the day when we finally get invaded by some alien species for our standing president to use this line. Sign me up!
Hahah, I'd be first to sign up to fight off alien invaders and terrorist scum like Jim Raynor!!!
There is absolutely nothing remotely of that quality writing or voicewise in SC2, REMOTELY.
Seriously, if anyone can watch an SC2 cutscene and say it even somewhat compares with that level of epicness, sophistication, writing, and character development, they are a fucking moron.
There is absolutely nothing remotely of that quality writing or voicewise in SC2, REMOTELY.
Seriously, if anyone can watch an SC2 cutscene and say it even somewhat compares with that level of epicness, sophistication, writing, and character development, they are a fucking moron.
Ahhh, the best cutscene of SC1 and BW. It's so epic.
Calling the corronation speech a character development is subject to what you think of Arcturus. If you think he was lying scum the whole time then that would make it a reveal, not a development. It would be a development if his discovery of the confederate use of the emitters simply pushed his rage to new heights. I think that both possibilites have merit, so yeah, I guess it can be a development if you want to think of like that.
As for SCII Tychus definitely had a major character arc. He was intentionally unsophisticated I suspect, but he was definitely in a bad situation after accepting what he undoubtedly thought was a win/win deal until he found out about Jim and Sarah.
I think Tychus could have been much more than they made him to be. Too bad the game is too passive in that regard you can't even confront him about having a deathtrap in his suit let alone try to persuade him. Also how many times did Tychus announce he wants to shoot kerrigan, only for raynor to act all surprised when he sees him aiming at her in the end.
On October 08 2010 19:01 SimpleReally wrote: I think Tychus could have been much more than they made him to be. Too bad the game is too passive in that regard you can't even confront him about having a deathtrap in his suit let alone try to persuade him. Also how many times did Tychus announce he wants to shoot kerrigan, only for raynor to act all surprised when he sees him at her in the end.
We may never know. All I know is that Jim survived three major wars, his potential GF, his optimism, and had his friend frozen for years for him. There ain't a therapist or counsellor alive with a big enough band-aid for such a crapsack life. I don't think it's a stretch to assume that Jim was just in denial, I've known people in real life who have had their common sense impared by less than what he's gone through.
I'd rather that Blizzard handled the Tychus issue better, but I'm satisfied enough with my own conjecture that it didn't ruin the campaign for me.
But putting all things together, SC BW has a few cut scenes that are just freaking awesome but they also have some bad ones. SC2 never really had a bad cut scene.
I would say the Arcturus speech is the best of all.
So, I would say SC BW had the two best cut scenes with Arcturus and the Kerrigan/DuGalle ending was top notch (the Tassadar from SC was good too) but SC2 had better consistent cut scenes. I just enjoy the Tychus/Raynor fight in the bar everytime I watch it.
There is an extremely well-written post in the Campaign section of the official forums that outlines pretty much everything wrong with SC2's plot.
I'm not saying BW is perfect, mind you. It's just that SC2's plot is simply terrible. If you enjoyed the plot at all, let me just say I am very concerned for you and hope you get better soon.
On October 11 2010 16:22 .Aar wrote: There is an extremely well-written post in the Campaign section of the official forums that outlines pretty much everything wrong with SC2's plot.
I'm not saying BW is perfect, mind you. It's just that SC2's plot is simply terrible. If you enjoyed the plot at all, let me just say I am very concerned for you and hope you get better soon.
How old are you?
Think I know the one you're talking about, and it;s mostly nit picking and presumption.
But hey, fanboys will be fanboys. Shouldn't expect them to not be full of shit. For example, half the time a popular game get's a score lower than 9,3 at Gametrailers, or the shitstorm that Dantes new look caused.
I ain't saying that Andrew is completely wrong, just that I either
A. Don't give a shit about his trivial problems, or B. realise that the thing with the overmind may or may not have been a good idea, (depends on where the expansions go with it) but that there are people who are simply anti-retcon, anti-change, anti-whatever-it-is-that-they-do-not-want, and are inconsolable that the overmind has more depth to it than an urge to eat some protoss.
I enjoyed the SCBW storyline better. If you think about it, WoL never really had a storyline, just a goal. For example in SC1 there were always twists and turns while in SC2 all we were told was that we had to get get money and research points to eventually invade Char, and so we simply grinded it out.
Basically SC2 is not really a storyline like SC1, but an adventure.
On October 11 2010 21:56 craz3d wrote: I enjoyed the SCBW storyline better. If you think about it, WoL never really had a storyline, just a goal. For example in SC1 there were always twists and turns while in SC2 all we were told was that we had to get get money and research points to eventually invade Char, and so we simply grinded it out.
Basically SC2 is not really a storyline like SC1, but an adventure.
SC2 tried to be an RPG without the elements of an RPG that make RPGs work.
Here's the difference: Every piece of plot in Starcraft and Brood War moved the story forward. Starcraft II was seemingly written so World of Starcraft can come grace us with its Skinner Boxxy appendages. Whether you thought either was compelling, Starcraft and the expansion had much, much tighter writing.
On October 12 2010 23:51 MichaelJLowell wrote: Here's the difference: Every piece of plot in Starcraft and Brood War moved the story forward. .
If this were true than why was the protoss campaign of BW such a train wreck? It wasn't even consistent with the established characters of SCI, unless you thought they were all naive idiots back then. And Kerrigan had one of the most forced and awkwardly written manipulations in gaming history. And the UED weren't even established characters and for some reason they're brought in just to be taken out. What about the new overmind? The whole point of the UED campaign was to defeat Arcturus and capture the overmind. That would be like controlling the fucking Tal'Darim the middle of the SCII minicampaign prelude, just so that we could take the artifacts for the second time as Jim .
If you can't find any problems with BW then you've clearly got your head up your ass and are incapable of sharing an objective opinion.
I said "tighter". "Tighter" as in "more relevant information was dispersed on a line-to-line basis". If you can't understand the definition of "tighter" then you've clearly got your head up your ass and are incapable of sharing an objective opinion.
On October 12 2010 23:51 MichaelJLowell wrote: Here's the difference: Every piece of plot in Starcraft and Brood War moved the story forward. .
If this were true than why was the protoss campaign of BW such a train wreck? It wasn't even consistent with the established characters of SCI, unless you thought they were all naive idiots back then. And Kerrigan had one of the most forced and awkwardly written manipulations in gaming history. And the UED weren't even established characters and for some reason they're brought in just to be taken out. What about the new overmind? The whole point of the UED campaign was to defeat Arcturus and capture the overmind. That would be like controlling the fucking Tal'Darim the middle of the SCII minicampaign prelude, just so that we could take the artifacts for the second time as Jim .
If you can't find any problems with BW then you've clearly got your head up your ass and are incapable of sharing an objective opinion.
well to be fair the UED does bring about the existence of an earth like planet and the faction can be brought up on multiple occasions should the writer intend to do so in similar fashion to the taldarim. Its not bad writing, its good writing. You might not like it but atleast it gives them a terran alternative to the dominion for a set of missions should they choose to do so.
Basically its stuff within the context of the universe, Alien artefacts, and prophecies and destroy everything living hybrid badguys feel ALOT worse writing and game wise than kerrigans mindcontrolling the dark templar matriarch.
Essentially in a nutshell the difference between the two games is that "Starcraft 1" is far more realistic (as a plot) then "Starcraft 2". Releasing convicts in space to colonize other planets rather then giving them all the death penalty sounds like a possibility. But there's even holes in this story too, I mean; where did the Terrans get that advanced technology? How did they know how to use Vespene as a form of gas? Where did the technology from cloaking come from? However, the plot about a confederate government being attacked by a terrorist group sounds like a possibility too. Then out of now where two alien species show up and start obliterating everything in their path, eh...It's a possibility but what took the protoss and zerg so long to show up while the Terrans were building their entire government? Starcraft 1 had some really bloody, dark, and gloomy scenes (The head explosion on the space ship, The hyralisk acid being spat through the marines face, The dragoon dismantling the general, and the zergling chopping through the Terran face on the brood war intro). Sure it was of mature content but it gave the game a "realistic feeling". Starcraft 2 is waaay to cartoony. There's hardly any blood in the cut scenes from the humans and when the blood from the hydralisk splashes on general warfields face it doesn't even stick or drip off lol But back to the storylines Starcraft 2 is more of a sci-fi action flick while Starcraft 1 was created from a more realistic approach. Look at the starcraft 1 unit concepts (The marine suit, firebat suit) That's a realistic version of a combat suit. Then take a look at the starcraft 2 marine and firebat suit, it's very unrealistic. The suits in SC1 were proportinate to the body of the marine while the SC2 suits are far bigger then the person inside. The choose your own path thing was really fucking stupid too. This isn't R.L. stines Goosebumps series where choose your own story by turning to such and such page and such and such chapter. This is a video game that should have one direct storyline so everybody could follow. It went from reality to fantasy. I'm not impressed from an authors prospective on the story or the plot. It seems like they're trying too hard. Another thing I found really stupid was the whole "Dark Voice" thing and how he overwrites the Zergs brain functions to destroy the protoss. That's so unbelievable and really stupid.
I went back and replayed SC after I finished the SC2 campaign and was wanting more. I have to say, I think my memories of it were better than the reality. Thoughts....
1. I had forgotten how much the plot meanders around. Especially in brood war there are sidequests and things which really only exist to have you experience all the race matchups. Not to mention the fact that the protoss campaign in bw doesn't really tie in to the zerg/terran campaigns at all.
2. There were some sublime moments, but there were plenty of dumb ones I forgot about. All that stuff about merging the "light" and "dark" energies of the protoss didn't age well and the whole Stukov/DuGalle betrayal was weird.
3. There wasn't much of it. I mean you had the 2/3 minutes of talking before each mission and any talking that happened during the mission and that was it.
On the other hands WOL has its problems. I liked having more story. I loved the point and click adventure feeling to the in-between missions portion because you got to talk to all of the characters all the time. But it suffers from not having a middle or and end and the whole artifact thing is a huge McGuffin.
BW is pretty straight forward imo, I don't see how you guys can say it was SO DEEP and IMMERSIVE. It's another simple alien vs alien vs human with a little civil war on the side.
On October 12 2010 23:51 MichaelJLowell wrote: Here's the difference: Every piece of plot in Starcraft and Brood War moved the story forward. .
If this were true than why was the protoss campaign of BW such a train wreck? It wasn't even consistent with the established characters of SCI, unless you thought they were all naive idiots back then. And Kerrigan had one of the most forced and awkwardly written manipulations in gaming history. And the UED weren't even established characters and for some reason they're brought in just to be taken out. What about the new overmind? The whole point of the UED campaign was to defeat Arcturus and capture the overmind. That would be like controlling the fucking Tal'Darim the middle of the SCII minicampaign prelude, just so that we could take the artifacts for the second time as Jim .
If you can't find any problems with BW then you've clearly got your head up your ass and are incapable of sharing an objective opinion.
well to be fair the UED does bring about the existence of an earth like planet and the faction can be brought up on multiple occasions should the writer intend to do so in similar fashion to the taldarim. Its not bad writing, its good writing. You might not like it but atleast it gives them a terran alternative to the dominion for a set of missions should they choose to do so.
Basically its stuff within the context of the universe, Alien artefacts, and prophecies and destroy everything living hybrid badguys feel ALOT worse writing and game wise than kerrigans mindcontrolling the dark templar matriarch.
A lot of things in BW had amazing potential. I generally like to think that nearly anything can make for a good story if the story telling is well done, and I find that BW didn't live up to its potential. The UED were a decent concept, but the executuion failed. They existed merely to push the plot along. Just like the Tal'darim of WoL, except without killing them all in the end.
And I;m well aware of WoLs failings, but they aren't anywhere near as understated as Broodwars.
On October 13 2010 08:38 ibreakurface wrote: SC2 > BW
BW is pretty straight forward imo, I don't see how you guys can say it was SO DEEP and IMMERSIVE. It's another simple alien vs alien vs human with a little civil war on the side.
What? There's far more deception and intricacy in BW than SC2. There's 3.5 sides in WoL (only 2 of which are playable) while SC/BW had over 6. Some parts of the story and dialogue in SC/BW are pretty bad (especially the Protoss stuff) but the story was a lot less straight forward. The only reason SC2 has "twists" is because the lore team seems to be making them up as they go.
I mean, Mensk actually starts as a likable character, and the position of Kerrigan/Duke/Tassadar/etc. is all over the place. Besides Tosh, I didn't find any of the characters very surprising or compelling.
Maybe it's a common theme that all Protoss campaigns are terrible. To me it feels like SC/BW was science fiction, while WoL is fantasy. It's all about faith and magical benefits.
Also, the Raynor-Kerrigan connection still bothers me. Sure, they're nice together for about 10 missions but that's it. Then he becomes washed up and loses his edge because she's gone? It's a pretty sloppily put together romance, imo.
On October 12 2010 23:51 MichaelJLowell wrote: Here's the difference: Every piece of plot in Starcraft and Brood War moved the story forward. .
If this were true than why was the protoss campaign of BW such a train wreck? It wasn't even consistent with the established characters of SCI, unless you thought they were all naive idiots back then. And Kerrigan had one of the most forced and awkwardly written manipulations in gaming history. And the UED weren't even established characters and for some reason they're brought in just to be taken out. What about the new overmind? The whole point of the UED campaign was to defeat Arcturus and capture the overmind. That would be like controlling the fucking Tal'Darim the middle of the SCII minicampaign prelude, just so that we could take the artifacts for the second time as Jim .
If you can't find any problems with BW then you've clearly got your head up your ass and are incapable of sharing an objective opinion.
well to be fair the UED does bring about the existence of an earth like planet and the faction can be brought up on multiple occasions should the writer intend to do so in similar fashion to the taldarim. Its not bad writing, its good writing. You might not like it but atleast it gives them a terran alternative to the dominion for a set of missions should they choose to do so.
Basically its stuff within the context of the universe, Alien artefacts, and prophecies and destroy everything living hybrid badguys feel ALOT worse writing and game wise than kerrigans mindcontrolling the dark templar matriarch.
A lot of things in BW had amazing potential. I generally like to think that nearly anything can make for a good story if the story telling is well done, and I find that BW didn't live up to its potential. The UED were a decent concept, but the executuion failed. They existed merely to push the plot along. Just like the Tal'darim of WoL, except without killing them all in the end.
And I;m well aware of WoLs failings, but they aren't anywhere near as understated as Broodwars.
But the UED get the best cinematic in the series.
Plus, Stukov and Duran still have a large role in the official story (even if Blizzard chooses to ignore them.)
Jibba... I hope you aren't implying that the SC1 Protoss campaign is bad.
If you are I might have to use my powers of telepathy to slap you through the internet.
And... I'm having difficulty understanding how Raynor got so obsessed with Kerrigan too. Sure, the thing at Tarsonis where he finds out that Arcturus is just as bad as the confederacy would have been a real kick in the balls. And losing Sarah who at the very least Jim was protective of and friendly towards. And Kerrigan spareed Jims life even when she at her most evil during BW, so that must have meant something to him.
But I think WoL could have done more on it's own end. Maybe indicate that Kerrigan had maintained a psionic link with Jim through the years which was the cause of the recurring nightmares he kept having. Something like what was read about in the queen of blades novel.
The way I see it was pretty much just a crush, and then it sort of inflated after the tragedy and Jim spent a lot of time mentally thinking about "what might have been if Mengsk wasnt an a-hole scenarios.
On October 13 2010 13:21 Billy_ wrote: Jibba... I hope you aren't implying that the SC1 Protoss campaign is bad.
If you are I might have to use my powers of telepathy to slap you through the internet.
The dark energy & light energy stuff was stupid, especially the idea that only Dark Templars can kill cerebrates. I'm getting mixed up whether it was SC or BW. Looking back through the campaigns now, and I think the SC1 story deserves some credit. The Conclave is way more interesting than the DTs. I think the only part of the BW P story I liked was Kerrigan taking control of Razsagal.
I didn't post in that other thread about the Taldarim, but it seems to me that all Protoss are fanatics, hence the zealots and templar.
On October 13 2010 13:21 Billy_ wrote: Jibba... I hope you aren't implying that the SC1 Protoss campaign is bad.
If you are I might have to use my powers of telepathy to slap you through the internet.
The dark energy & light energy stuff was stupid, especially the idea that only Dark Templars can kill cerebrates. I'm getting mixed up whether it was SC or BW. Looking back through the campaigns now, and I think the SC1 story deserves some credit. The Conclave is way more interesting than the DTs. I think the only part of the BW P story I liked was Kerrigan taking control of Razsagal.
I didn't post in that other thread about the Taldarim, but it seems to me that all Protoss are fanatics, hence the zealots and templar.
Yeah, I hear you and totally agree, but that light and dark stuff originated from the overminds talk about the temple and crystals and assassination of zasz. The protoss were just a natural follow up and was pertinent to the character development of the conclave and the DT .
I liked the protoss campaign for the conflict, civil war and the way that Aldaris and Tassadar grew as characters. I hated the second one, because it neglected to follow up on the cultural developments, portrayed Razagal as not all that different from Aldaris when we first met him (unless you assume that Kerrigan had full control of Razagals speech) and gave us some bullshit which barely connected to the main plot which only truly began 2/3 of the way through BW. Oh well. DT could have been interesting and distinctive but BW sort of missed the mark.
I'm not going to say that I disliked BW. I actually enjoyed it, but it was really lacking in the heart that made SC1. The original was more than just a batte for supremacy, but that was pretty much the whole of BW. There was no corruption, no civil war, no terrorist hero betrayed by asshole terrorist leader who at first seemed like a decent guy. It was just a straight up good vs evil brawl against an enemy which was barely had any development before been wiped out. It doesn't measure up very well to the amounts of character and faction development of SCI.
On October 13 2010 13:21 Billy_ wrote: Jibba... I hope you aren't implying that the SC1 Protoss campaign is bad.
If you are I might have to use my powers of telepathy to slap you through the internet.
The dark energy & light energy stuff was stupid, especially the idea that only Dark Templars can kill cerebrates. I'm getting mixed up whether it was SC or BW. Looking back through the campaigns now, and I think the SC1 story deserves some credit. The Conclave is way more interesting than the DTs. I think the only part of the BW P story I liked was Kerrigan taking control of Razsagal.
I didn't post in that other thread about the Taldarim, but it seems to me that all Protoss are fanatics, hence the zealots and templar.
I actually really liked the whole light and dark energy idea, it seemed to fit very well into the story for me. Not to mention there is such a thing as dark energy in real life too! COINCIDENCE?!
On October 11 2010 16:35 Billy_ wrote: How old are you?
Think I know the one you're talking about, and it;s mostly nit picking and presumption.
But hey, fanboys will be fanboys. Shouldn't expect them to not be full of shit. For example, half the time a popular game get's a score lower than 9,3 at Gametrailers, or the shitstorm that Dantes new look caused.
I ain't saying that Andrew is completely wrong, just that I either
A. Don't give a shit about his trivial problems, or B. realise that the thing with the overmind may or may not have been a good idea, (depends on where the expansions go with it) but that there are people who are simply anti-retcon, anti-change, anti-whatever-it-is-that-they-do-not-want, and are inconsolable that the overmind has more depth to it than an urge to eat some protoss.
Yeah man, just look at his silly nit picking of various tiny, trivial matters like the entirety of Brood War being treated as non-canon or the shoehorning-in of random, enormous, inexplicable plot devices like, I don't know, a prophecy that foretold all of the events in the entire first game and its expansion. Who cares about his trivial problems with the plot like the gargantuan retconning of previously well-established characters like... oh for example, just the Overmind and Kerrigan, the two main villains in the first game. Clearly he's just an angry fanboy blowing tiny misteps out of proportion and he needs to adapt to change, because the WoL campaign was fantastic.
...But seriously, the WoL campaign (and I loved the campaign from a gameplay perspective and think it's probably the best campaign of any RTS I've played, in competition with maybe just DoW2's) was a jumbled, incoherent mess. Critical, well-established plot points from the first game were retconned into oblivion or just ignored entirely, various character-defining moments have now been trivialized into non-canon territory in favor of new, exciting plot arcs like "OH MAN IT TURNS OUT, HE WAS IN LOVE WITH HER ALL THIS TIME AND HE BROKE DOWN AFTER ALL THAT AND LOOK MAN HE EVEN KEEPS A PHOTO AROUND WITH HIM AT ALL TIMES THAT'S JUST DEVOTION DUDE". I mean, this is like Twilight-level writing here and it's an insult to everyone that enjoyed the vastly superior writing of SC-BW.
Whether it's Activision taking a heavier hand in marketing the franchise to a wider audience, or just a matter of too many team members leaving Blizzard, something has changed and while I enjoyed the campaign immensely, for every one moment of true brilliance there were probably five narmtastic moments (like the endless parade of Michael Bay lines culminating in probably the most laughable epic war moment speech ever) and whether you think WoL was just the setup to a grand, franchise-spanning mytharc or this was a deliberate move to distance the plot from SC-BW and start anew, there's no excuse for just how mouth-droppingly awful it was, and while I can see children and people who've never played SC-BW thinking it's great, I weep for all who have never enjoyed the plot of SC-BW and don't even know what they've missed and now spend time debating over the motives of our new spectacular villain, the brilliantly-named DARK VOICE!
You know what BW and SCI had that SCII did not? A middle and and ending. You know what else SCII had that BW didn't? A beginning which actually props up the main story unlike the hollow protoss campaign of BW which only serves a function when we find out about Kerrigan and Razagal but was already heaviliy implied. So technically it's already better than BW, because the plot is actually going somewhere as opposed to nowhere which is superior unless you subjectively disagree.
"You're infested. you're dead already" If Raynor wanted to kill Kerrigan then people would complain that Blizzard retconned SCI where Jim shows more than professional interest and then rushes off to Char to try and take her back from the Zerg. Blizzard can't win. He never liked infested Kerrigan in BW, never liked her in WoL either.
The overmind wasn't retconned because it didn't specifically state what it wanted from Auir. It just said that it wanted to be "perfect". Nothing about assimulation, or evolution. In this case, "perfect" meant freedomd from the overiding directive in the hands of Kerrigan.
And what plot points were ignored entirely? Fenix? How would that go?
Jim: Fenix!
Matt: o_O You okay sir
Jim: What, don't you guys remember him dying on Korhal?
Matt: No
Tychus: No
Egon: No
Rory: No
Hill: No
Hansen: No
Tosh: No.
Jim: Oh, okay then. Lets go rob some trains!
What else happenes in BW that you thought was pertinent to WoL? The way that the UED came, saw and got annhilated after controlling the overmind with their pharmaceutical compainies?
The destruction of the psi disruptor?
What did you want from BW?
You're confusing some retcons with explanations you didn't like. This also applies to a lot of the nitpicks in that US forum. Some of them aren't even nitpicks, but bad reading comprehension. Zeratul seeing the hybrids of BW DID happen, Duran goes I am "a" servant of "a" higher power, implying more than one. Maybe Zeratul has been on the hunt for the past few years and met other servants? In WoL Zeratul clearly recognises the Hybrids because his reaction is "abomination!". If he was confused his reaction would be "o_O lol wat. Like I said, bad comprehension.
EPT
. Its just a bonus really.
