Wings of Liberty Story: How I would tell it better - Page 3

On August 04 2010 05:44 Unentschieden wrote:


Well I´d say YOU are the one that didn´t get it.
As the review quite clearly explained the cheesy and cliche plot is regrettable but not the real issue - SC itself was just as bad but it worked.
The real core issue is that the modular Mission structure breaks vital elements of storytelling above all Tension and a consistent Narrative.



It´s nice IF Blizzard would use the results of the "sidemissions" in the addon (they said they wouldn´t though) but they really SHOULD have used them in THIS game. But they weren´t even able to use the sidemissions with a single ending. The Prophecy is NEVER mentioned outside of itself - would have been strange if Raynor rambled about saving Kerrigan to save the universe to a player that skipped the Zeratul Missions.

Yeah my point about them being side missions has more to do with them being optional and not really building on the single beginning (Mar Sara) or the single end (Char). They have some impact on the universe if you do them, but it's not the core story being told as the actions are never referenced on Char or in collecting the artifacts.

Look above all,and i repeat myself,IT IS A GAME,and Blizz wanted Player to have freedom to approach each mission the way they wanted,and in a game like starcraft,the available units and tech u have,make for a immensely different experience...........thats the only reason the story was approached at a none linear angle for the majority of the game...

what i believe is brilliance,that all these plotlines,can be taken at any order an yet they still somehow influence the ending,NOT DIRECTLY SPELLING IT OUT FOR U......because then blizz would have to say this happened first and this second............and that mean no gameplay choice,each mission is stuck at the same order always....no diff tech,no diff units> no replayabily...

Eh, this whole discussion really boils down the Blizzard's choice to have the modular mission structure and really, they can't win -- Had they not done it the single player would've been a lot more underwhelming gameplay wise and have a whole lot less replay value while doing it does cost you some narrative experience I guess.

On August 04 2010 06:23 Keren wrote:
Eh, this whole discussion really boils down the Blizzard's choice to have the modular mission structure and really, they can't win -- Had they not done it the single player would've been a lot more underwhelming gameplay wise and have a whole lot less replay value while doing it does cost you some narrative experience I guess.

As for most of the other complaints, I find it really cute how every single poster who complains honestly thinks they know so much better. "Kerrigan's dialog was terrible, obviously!" "The Dark Voice is a stupid bad guy!" "Everyone's gonna ally together and it'll be boring!" Seriously guys, have some faith, don't you think Blizzard has thought of it already? Maybe its not an accident, maybe there's a purpose and you just don't get it. I've defended Kerrigan in this game before and I'll say it again, 4 years alone with a bunch of Hydralisks as conversation buddies listening to voices in your head is gonna make you a little crazy and aloof - comes with the territory and I freaking love her dialog.

The Dark Voice is a one dimensional bad guy - yes. And as the OP himself said so was Sauron. Did that make it a bad narrative? You can criticize Lord of the Rings for a lot of things, but it is a critically acclaimed piece of literature -- sometimes the point is exactly that the bad guy is just bad. I mean honestly, this game, and in all honesty, most all narratives told nowadays, are too heavy handed on the moral gray area. Sometimes the bad guy is just fuckin evil. We already have Raynor torn between doing the right thing and the vengeful thing, Kerrigan, who is literally schizophrenically evil/good, the protoss who are fractured into fanatics and loyalists among whom, if you know much about the connecting plot between BW and now, are themselves not getting along very well (The templar castes are still not playing well with each other), I really don't need the bad guy to be some tormented soul who you kind of pity but have to kill anyway. Sometimes I just wanna save the universe -- And in the shadow of that a great story can be told, where we get to see everyone's true colors.

And as for everyone banding together, honestly, do you really think it's gonna be that simple? Yeah there will be motivation to do so but you do expect Mengsk and the survivors of Aiur to pick up arms alongside Kerrigan and Raynor? I'd wager a whole lot of money that it is in the shadow of doom, on the eve of oblivion, that we will see the true hearts of the characters involved. The Dark Voice isn't unequivocally evil because Blizzard didn't have anything else in mind (they coulda just used Kerrigan again!), but its instead because they have a story to tell -- one in which the Dark Voice is integral.

On August 04 2010 06:33 mkfk1 wrote:
I bet this DocSnyder guy works for blizzard or some hardcore blizzard fan boy or something.

On August 04 2010 06:33 Half wrote:


First of all, calm the hell down. You know what they say right? Its usually those who shout the loudest who know the least. Step back away from the computer, do a little stretch, and sit down. You'll feel much better.

Usually bad writing in can't be objectively judged too well. In Starcraft 2, the entire design behind the writing was so gawdaweful it actually can.



nope.

Let me illustrate. Throughout the entire game, you fight the Tal'Darim on Five Separate occasions. In the first game, you fight the Confederacy on five separate occasions.

On a narrative level, the Tal'Darim should be at least close to the level of development given to the Confederacy. We should know their motives (remember, Ulrejaz is dead, so its unknown), we should have a reason to fight them beyond stealing their stuff. We should feel like they are an interesting and developed faction we wish to know more about.

Was this accomplished? You literally cannot argue yes, because the only dialogue ever present for five missions that developed this plotline were threads uttered by an anonymous purplish looking. This would be the equivalent of playing half of a campaign in Starcraft 1 and not having a single interesting antagonist.

The vast majority of missions are fillers. The narrative pacing was awful. The writing, which shouldn't have been awful, becomes awful because it is allowed to stand in a vacuum. Blizzard writing can't stand in a vacuum. This has absolutely nothing to do with the non-linear structure, just poor narratives.

OP, I can empathize with your frustration and what you're trying to do. I feel like its a bit misguided though. I'd recommend summarizing your points into bulletins and posting on the blizzforums. In addition, you should change your tone. Not that I had a problem with it, but generally developers hate being lectured on how to do their jobs by fans. It should be worded as criticism or suggestion, not "here is my dissertation on how to construct a proper video game narrative".

You have a lot of good ideas there. But theirs also too much "mental masturbation" for it to be taken seriously by anyone who gathers feedback. Just be concise and levies criticism with the campaign.

On August 04 2010 06:45 Stratos_speAr wrote:


Terrible comparison. LotR is a fantastic piece of literature with so much more to it than a one dimensional villain. Just because WoL and LotR share one thing in common (a fairly one-dimensional bad guy) doesn't mean you can compare them. It's not just that WoL had a one-dimensional Dark Voice - it's that every single facet of the story was absolutely pathetic and the writers of this shit should've been fired. There wasn't one even remotely deep character throughout the entire thing and the story reeks of cliches and rip-offs from their own games, not to mention basically throwing everything from BW straight out the window.

it's that every single facet of the story was absolutely pathetic and the writers of this shit should've been fired. There wasn't one even remotely deep character throughout the entire thing and the story reeks of cliches and rip-offs from their own games, not to mention basically throwing everything from BW straight out the window.

On August 04 2010 06:44 DocSnyder wrote:



Thats not true,im actually on a salary,oh and Blizzards is trying to assume control of the world and make people like sc2s plot,so we can band and fight the hybrids together.....

On August 04 2010 06:33 Half wrote:


First of all, calm the hell down. You know what they say right? Its usually those who shout the loudest who know the least. Step back away from the computer, do a little stretch, and sit down. You'll feel much better.

Usually bad writing in can't be objectively judged too well. In Starcraft 2, the entire design behind the writing was so gawdaweful it actually can.



nope.

Let me illustrate. Throughout the entire game, you fight the Tal'Darim on Five Separate occasions. In the first game, you fight the Confederacy on five separate occasions.

On a narrative level, the Tal'Darim should be at least close to the level of development given to the Confederacy. We should know their motives (remember, Ulrejaz is dead, so its unknown), we should have a reason to fight them beyond stealing their stuff. We should feel like they are an interesting and developed faction we wish to know more about.

Was this accomplished? You literally cannot argue yes, because the only dialogue ever present for five missions that developed this plotline were threads uttered by an anonymous purplish looking. This would be the equivalent of playing half of a campaign in Starcraft 1 and not having a single interesting antagonist.

The vast majority of missions are fillers. The narrative pacing was awful. The writing, which shouldn't have been awful, becomes awful because it is allowed to stand in a vacuum. Blizzard writing can't stand in a vacuum. This has absolutely nothing to do with the non-linear structure, just poor narratives.

OP, I can empathize with your frustration and what you're trying to do. I feel like its a bit misguided though. I'd recommend summarizing your points into bulletins and posting on the blizzforums. In addition, you should change your tone. Not that I had a problem with it, but generally developers hate being lectured on how to do their jobs by fans. It should be worded as criticism or suggestion, not "here is my dissertation on how to construct a proper video game narrative".

You have a lot of good ideas there. But theirs also too much "mental masturbation" for it to be taken seriously by anyone who gathers feedback. Just be concise and levies criticism with the campaign.

On August 04 2010 06:59 DocSnyder wrote:


Again youre opinion,i can argue all of it,Like Raynor having no reason to steal theyre stuff......

Gee lets see on one side we have nonsensical fanatics,that believe the Artifacts belong to Gods,who were just a race themselves,not gods,the civilized protoss know this,so theyre not worshiping the artifact,instead just cherish them as a relic of the past(witch if they knew what it was capable of thyd also use it,hence the"If only we had known"),instead thise guys kill people on sight if they land on the planet,because the think theyre defilers.....

And on the other side we have Raynor fighting for a very real cause,freedom for the people from theyre oppressive regime,hes lacking badly in funds and is ready to give up.....

WHo has more right here?

On August 04 2010 06:58 mkfk1 wrote:


Blizzard is indeed trying to exert control. Everything from e-sports, to b-net 2.0 regulation, to map publishing, to selling 3 games because "there are too much story to fit into one", and now we have WOL where more than half of the missions are fucking fillers.


And yes, we will all fight the hybrid on the 3rd or even 4th expansions to protect the world tree...I mean the K- sector. Who knows, maybe the UED will sent a 2nd fleet with fillers to collect minerals and artifacts for a 5th expansion.

Blizzard if you are reading this, I want half my money back, because you sold me half a game.

On August 04 2010 07:03 Half wrote:


That isn't an opinion. Its an objective fact. I'm not kidding.

Saying "The Confederacy was more heavily explored and developed the the Tal'Darim", in this case, is a fact because the discrepancy is so severe.

Also your punctuation and grammer are so bad I gave up trying to read it half way through. Sorry.

I actually liked the overarching plot. My really big gripe is about the optional missions. I hated them. That structure dragged down the story.

It would be one thing if the player was given a choice between which of two missions to complete first but the player had to complete both of them before advancing further in the story. It's another thing to have missions that are completely optional and have the game assume that the player never completed them.

I could understand if the Haven and Tosh arcs were left optional. But the game shouldn't have allowed the player to continue to Char without first completing the Zeratul and Horner arcs. The story assumed that only the Tychus arc was completed, which made the last arc have too many bad plot holes.

The ending was way too short, too. There were just way too much loose ends that they should've had a long cinematic and some more lines of text to explain things. We don't even have a good bridge to the next expansion.

On August 04 2010 07:04 DocSnyder wrote:


Yeah and i want my youth back,oh and cookies.....

U kidding me with this,now people are making demands and threats at Blizz,LOL

Jesus frigging christ,they didnt force you to buy the game...cant stop lathing................. . . . . .

On August 04 2010 07:13 mkfk1 wrote:


No, but they make a bad single player, and over hyped it with false advertisement such as their panel at blizzcon about "so much story that it cant fit into one game". What a load of bull crap.

I will definitely pirate their expansion next time before making a decision buying. At least I am a smart consumer, unlike you who happen to be a brainless blizzard fan boy.