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On August 12 2010 11:51 Spawkuring wrote:
In addition, I also don't take kindly to how all the characters got retconned or derailed in SC2:
SC1 Raynor: Infuriated by Kerrigan's murderous spree and swearing to kill her over Fenix's death.
SC2 Raynor: Lovesick drunk who only cares to save Kerrigan and completely forgets about Fenix.
SC1 Kerrigan: Sinister villain who relies heavily on cunning and manipulation rather than brute strength.
SC2 Kerrigan: Generic villain who relies on brute strength, and has absolutely no role other than being a walking plot device.
SC1 Zeratul: Warrior poet with a sophisticated yet still down-to-earth manner of speaking who maintains a powerful aura of mystery, intelligence, and power.
SC2 Zeratul: Wispy old man who slooooooooowly speaks in pointless riddles, horribly cliched dialogue over prophecies and hope, and constantly speaks to himself over the most obvious things which make him sound senile. (I mean I know it's for tutorial's sake, but christ Blizzard, there IS a way to give a tutorial while still maintaining a character's personality)
SC1 Mengsk: Honorable man who gradually becomes a power-hungry dictator, but still extremely charismatic with a strong prescence.
SC2 Mengsk: Nothing. Has so little role in the story he might as well not exist. Just take every mention of "Mengsk" and replace it with "evil bad guy" and you pretty much keep everything intact.
I hate retcons precisely for this reason. Even if they don't cripple the story, they end up making it a lot less engaging because there's really nothing fans can get attached to since they can just get rewritten entirely by the next game/novel, especially since the character changes have either no explanation or a very shallow one. They teach story consistency in writing class for a reason.
This, and the ops post really highlight many problems with the campaign that I didn't realize, and imo they aren't too bad on first playthrough, but if you look at the time, money and hype blizzard put into the campaign, it's dissapointing they let the storyline slip so much.
It wouldn't be such an issue if bnet 2.0 was fully featured and perfect, but it's barely functioning and if the campaign is going to have lasting value, storyline is 90% of that.
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On August 12 2010 19:05 -Archangel- wrote:Wow, whiners convention. 95% of these things can be explained in game, and some remain a mystery to be revealed in the next two games (as it should be). For anyone that actually want to discuss things I again direct you to my post that you decided to ignore (probably because you got no real counter to it): http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewpost.php?post_id=5970404 I've now read several of your posts, and I'm under the impression that you're annoyed that people don't understand or take to heart your arguments and keep complaining. I'm following your explanations, and I'm sure that you can make sense of most of the backstory.
But do you really think that everybody would be having a better experience of the campaign if they understood the story as well as you've explained it? Is the lack of clarity of what's really going on and who's really pulling the strings the only obstacle that prevents people from enjoying the campaign? I tried to give an argument in my earlier post why I think there's more wrong with the campaign than the backstory, and that the real reason that people complain is simply because ultimately they weren't satisfied.
Please don't just dismiss us as "whiners". Do you not think that some valid arguments have been made here why the narrative in the campaign is handled poorly? There is no sense of satisfaction at the end because the plot is so badly executed that there is very little build-up, and almost no pay-off for the long mid-section of the campaign. Sure, I also wanted to colonists to succeed, but was it really helpful to bring that little episode into the greater narrative? What point did it serve?
In the end, even if all the 'plotholes' and the weaknesses of the backstory are sufficiently explained, the narrative of the campaign becomes no tighter and no more focused. The problem with the ending is not that we are missing the next two campaigns, but the fact that we didn't work to deserve the ending! It was just given to us after we had milled around for twenty missions on unrelated errands. Some people are asking "Where's the rest?", not because they didn't understand the campaign, but because they didn't feel like they had contributed anything!
You did an excellent job at clarifying many of the story points. But please don't get annoyed that some of us still find the campaign lacking, and please don't dismiss us as "whiners". Thank you!
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all you people picking on plot holes and all you trying to fill them should consider that pretty much every story will have questionable things, the difference is that when a story is good and solid enough people won't start looking at things that they don't like. it's only when the story is weak when people want to try to explain why they didn't like the story and consequently finding plot holes, inconsistencies, etc.
I also made a rule for myself after the LOST fiasco, if you at any point start wondering about the WRITERS intentions instead of just enjoying the story then that means the story is bad and doesn't deserve you energy.
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I'm disgusted by how video game review sites such as Gamespot gave this game 9.5/10. Of course, the gameplay is unquestionably fun, both in single and multi player, the map editor has potential and the music is awesome, but how the hell did Blizzard manage to shit the bed so badly with the storyline? When you build up SO much hype, only to deliver B-Movie quality dialogue and plotlines, something is wrong with your writing staff. Admittingly, not all games need an excellent storyline to succeed, but with such emphasis on giving the player interaction with the Hyperion's crew, you think they'd revaluate the authenticity of each character! As someone mentioned a page earlier, the amount of retconning is abhorrent. Raynor forgets how important Fenix was to him, Kerrigan's distinct lack of cunning or any remotely interesting characteristics, Mengsk being portrayed as an oblivious fool, and then of course, Zeratul.
Jake Ritschell would roll over in his grave if he saw what Zeratul has become.
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The story is really my only disapointment in the Starcraft 2 experience.
The whole story just feels terribly cliched and b-movie-ish.
I mean come on, the ending is the hero walking into the sunset whilst carrying his love interest/damsel in distress which he just rescued. Give me a god damn break.
I hope Blizzard hires new writing staff for the 2 expansions, cause this was pretty pathetic.
I just wanna emphasise that everything else about Starcraft 2 is perfect IMO. They absolutely nailed the single player RTS gameplay, with the upgrades and interesting gameplay mechanics during the missions. Story is the only problem.
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about the media blitz thing, everyone should think about it.
We all know that the Queen of Blades hates Mengsk (for obvious reasons), and will probably kill him soon enough. Mengsk knowing this, will probably do all he can to save himself from death. Mengsk knows Raynor is "attached" to Kerrigan and would do anything to save her. That being said, Mengsk knows that if anyone can get near Kerrigan, that would be Raynor, so he sends out Tychus as a spy and eventually kill Kerrigan.
Now back to Media Blitz, for arguments sake, Mengsk knows that Tychus is in the odin, but why would he let Tychus blow his cover right? If Mengsk wants any chance to get rid of Kerrigan, he needs to leave Tychus alone and let him do his dirty work with the Raiders, if Mengsk prepared for the assault, then that would blow Tychus' cover and eventually prevent him from killing Kerrigan. It was basically a gamble, he'd rather risk losing power, than a chance to kill Kerrigan.
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+ Show Spoiler +On August 12 2010 11:51 Spawkuring wrote:
What I don't understand is how the best story they could come up with is a blatant copy+paste of Warcraft 3's story. I mean, inspiration is one thing, but ripping-off is another. It's only the first campaign and we're already seeing strong signs of how it's gonna turn out.
The Burning Legion Hybrids led by Sargeras the Dark Voice are coming to unmake everything the Titans Xel'Naga created, and we have no choice but to work together since the orcs zerg aren't really that evil and were just enslaved. Don't worry though, because Thrall Kerrigan will free them and give us the hope we need.
The potential of SC2's storytelling is great, but they didn't pull it off well at all. SC1 and WC3 may be primitive, but Blizzard did an excellent job of working with what they had. The BW intro still trounces over any WoL cinematic, and the Overmind's opening speech alone beats out anything Kerrigan said in WoL.
In addition, I also don't take kindly to how all the characters got retconned or derailed in SC2:
SC1 Raynor: Infuriated by Kerrigan's murderous spree and swearing to kill her over Fenix's death.
SC2 Raynor: Lovesick drunk who only cares to save Kerrigan and completely forgets about Fenix.
SC1 Kerrigan: Sinister villain who relies heavily on cunning and manipulation rather than brute strength.
SC2 Kerrigan: Generic villain who relies on brute strength, and has absolutely no role other than being a walking plot device.
SC1 Zeratul: Warrior poet with a sophisticated yet still down-to-earth manner of speaking who maintains a powerful aura of mystery, intelligence, and power.
SC2 Zeratul: Wispy old man who slooooooooowly speaks in pointless riddles, horribly cliched dialogue over prophecies and hope, and constantly speaks to himself over the most obvious things which make him sound senile. (I mean I know it's for tutorial's sake, but christ Blizzard, there IS a way to give a tutorial while still maintaining a character's personality)
SC1 Mengsk: Honorable man who gradually becomes a power-hungry dictator, but still extremely charismatic with a strong prescence.
SC2 Mengsk: Nothing. Has so little role in the story he might as well not exist. Just take every mention of "Mengsk" and replace it with "evil bad guy" and you pretty much keep everything intact.
I hate retcons precisely for this reason. Even if they don't cripple the story, they end up making it a lot less engaging because there's really nothing fans can get attached to since they can just get rewritten entirely by the next game/novel, especially since the character changes have either no explanation or a very shallow one. They teach story consistency in writing class for a reason.
Spot on man. Couldn't have said it better myself.
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A user called Mattrex posted a very interesting analysis of the problems of the storytelling on the Battle.net forums, especially about the two mission choices. In summary: The choices you make don't affect the future, as choices do in real life, but rather the past reality of the fact. Example: Save the colonists -> there never was a serious infection in the first place. Incinerate the colony -> the doctor had been infected all along.
Edit. Some random links. Here is a book that the Blizzard should make its writers read. Here is an article on making choices in gaming.
Edit 2. A very thorough write-up of problems with the story, focusing on giving references from the original manual and the SC1/BW: Extensive retconning greatly weakens story, on the US Battle.net forums.
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I must say, i enjoyed the campaign but also became gradually disappointed.
I'm not gonna call this a bad game or so but i really hope Heart of the swarm will have a much darker story.
complaints:
first of all: the cheesy storyline - i'm fanboy enough to not nag about where blizzard is taking all the main characters (except 1, see next), but they really did it pretty bad (i could compare it with all the cheesy storylines of those no-story movie blockbusters) and i was constantly annoyed by it. (It felt like the target audience of this game are 12 year olds, maybe it is, but that's a shame)
second: kerrigan, WHAT HAVE THEY DONE?! She appears in every decent villain list and now they're gonna make her a good girl? If she's not incredibly bad ass in heart of the swarm this is gonna suck so hard it's gonna hurt. (maybe she'll turn up in 'crappiest villain' lists) I could smell it incoming from miles away but i was sure that was just to create some tension, wrong 
choices: it's cool they put it in but i could've lived without it, especially if that would've given us a better story
rendered cutscenes: they are still inferior to the prerendered ones and i have a feeling there are less prerendered cutscenes than in sc1, which again is a shame, because blizzard is superb in cinematics imo
good stuff
in general, i did like the mission objectives and mission events and all the extra stuff you don't get in multi
conclusion
the single player 'framework' is good, but the story is still in beta :s
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My only complaint: The cinematics were shit, and there were very few.
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This was about as good as 1/3 of a game can be. Once all 3 parts are out maybe this will make sense but for right now, this storyline has been killed. If this was an attempt at a cliffhanger, it failed. If this was an attempt at finishing the storyline off, it failed. If this was an attempt to foreshadow things, it failed. Not to mention the failure of the plan to turn it into an esport, and overall balance failure. I won't go into any more detail as there's literally tens of thousands of posts that all say it already. Why some people think this is a perfect game, I have no idea.
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i loved it. u guys are over reacting.
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The ending of the brood war and the beginning of SCII are not well connected.
There is no real character development worth mentioning. Raynor feels like a different person compare to his SCI counterpart. Mengsk is portrayed as your average generic dictator.
How the fuck did the Tal'darim get hold of Stalker, dark templar, Colossus, voidray and motherships? Aren't they supposed to be Protoss exiles?
There is no explanation regarding what the hell happened during the 10 year period between brood war and this war. Why didn't Kerrigan unleash her entire swarm upon the weaken factions at the end of brood war? I was extremely disappointed when no explanation was offered in the campaign.
Tychus' death was also too abrupt. There should have been more foreshadowing, like a secret communication with Mengsk right before the final battle. I don't know how Mengsk junior figured out how an ancient artifact is supposed to cure infestation. Wouldn't it have been more interesting if it came out as a surprise? Mengsk junior also received minimal development, like everybody else in this story. He seemed more like a plot device, a mean of providing half of the dominion fleet, rather than a solid character.
My complaints go on and on. Let's get it straight. SCII's storyline is something an average person with decent imagination can write out in a week. SCI was more full of twists, developments and resemble something that can be called epic.
And wtf is with the space cowboy theme? I know that Raynor was kinda like that back in SCI, but he wasn't full of cliche cowboy lines out of a random movie. It was fun at first, but I started hating it after a while. It made Raynor more generic.
The only part I did like about the campaign is that it's pretty fun on Brutal.
On August 16 2010 06:25 FindingPride wrote:
i loved it. u guys are over reacting.
I don't think we are. This isn't a sequel of a two year old game. We waited 12 years for this. SCI set the standard and the fans had high expectations. I played starcraft and watched it on television when I was like 7 or 8. It was the very first video game I ever came into contact with. After all the hype and the promise of a single player that would blow our minds, it failed. The missions are fun on brutal, yes, but the storyline sucked and failed all of my expectations.
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I believe somebody said it best with two words in this thread or another:
+ Show Spoiler +
That being said, it just feels like WoL took place in a whole new universe aside from SC1 and BW. The differences is in the story telling. I love that blizzard is trying to make a better story telling experience, and usually this would be better, but that is certainly not the case this time.
SC1/BW felt like everything was constantly leading to some sort of endgame, some sort of overarching goal. In WoL, it feels much more like Jimmy Raynor and Co.'s Adventures in Space. There was never any sense of "the galaxy is riding on me" or "hey, I just set up the queen bitch of the univserse." No, instead the story and the like seemed more akin to something I would have seen on a saturday morning cartoon years ago.
WoL was an utter disappointment. There were good parts to it. I loved unlocking new research so I could read the new report on the crystal and the chrysalis. But not many.
In short: Unless the story changes up a great deal (which I highly doubt), I am just going to pretend WoL never happened, and there was nos story follow up to BW.
EDIT: Also, does anyone feel that the protoss missions and the very last terran mission were the only ones that actually advanced the SC story in any way? As a whole I mean, Tychus and Jimmy having a hissy does not exactly change the fate of the universe I would thing.
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I'm not entirely sure where I stand on this, there were parts of the campaign that were fantastic, and other parts that fell short.
The first couple of missions were about as good as they could get for that early in the game. We were introduced to all the new characters, got a little back story, good intro to the gameplay for new players. But after you board the Hyperion the story just stalled. There were about 15 missions in the middle that could have been completely cut and nobody would care about the parts of the story you missed. All that happened with the five artifact missions was the Protoss always saying "This land is sacred! blah blah" You stealing the artifact and then "we got to get out of here fast" repeat x5. You had 5 missions with the doctor that were all together useless. the 5 missions with Tosh had no impact on any part of the story, and almost nothing happened with Mengsk (something I was really looking forward too). The Zeratul missions were pretty decent, even if they did retcon a bunch of stuff that happened in Starcraft.
Finally we get to the end, which was actually pretty good but could have gone better. The entire assault on Char consisted of only 3 missions, I think if they spread it to 5 it would not only feel more epic, but also eliminate the sudden end to the game. I think something like this could have worked better.
1. You have to break through the outer defenses to land on the planet, you land on a space platform in orbit and lure the zerg there with a psi disruptor and then blow the station, leaving you an opening to land.
2. Hyperion is under attack by the remaining perimeter defenses, this goes exactly like the cinematic when you first get there, the first mission remains unchanged.
3. You are under heavy fire and are losing your foothold, Selendis comes in with a protoss fleet to help push back the zerg, in this mission you control both protoss and terran.
4. same choice mission as before
5. same final mission
Obviously I am not a professional writer, but I think something similar could have been done to make the assault feel a little more epic.
I wouldn't, however, change any of the gameplay elements, the missions were all really fun to play with some great twists to traditional RTS games, I just think they could of wrapped a better story around those missions.
The game suffers from trying to be non-linear. I never truly understood why linear games are bad, non-linear works in certain genres like RPG's, but with an RTS there is literally no point in having choice between the missions, because ultimately the whole game will suffer because most of the missions you do are just filler.
Also, first post!
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Some mod should sticky this thread.
Reason: the thread's theme is being indirectly repeated in newer threads such as "[D] Why is the Terran Race so strong in Single P?", "Ending cinimatic (spoiler)", etc.
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You know, it's funny, my only complaint about the campaign was cheesy dialogue.
I didn't mind 'filler' missions at all. They were fun and worked with the story. Especially if you do a run through as being a white knight, or a gritty bastard. Hell, even if you do the missions you get a chance for character decisions at the end of each of the two filler arcs. Also home to two of the coolest missions.
I also liked a few of the character changes. The loss of Fenix references does make me a bit sad as that was a very important moment, but I did like what was done with Raynor. The lack of focus on Mengsk makes sense as that was a very major event. There's a lot of mystery about how he got to his current power, why the Zerg left him alone, etc. Kerrigan had by far the least change, I'm not sure why anyone would complain. She stalks you, she lets you go, she teases you. All the while it's obvious that something bigger is going on. It was a great lead in for Heart of the Swarm. Is she good? Won't know until we see the rest. I doubt she is, Prophecy or not. The Zeratul complaints are odd as well. He was made to sound more like a Dark Templar and spends his entire time on camera injured from a fight with Kerrigan. I suppose everyone forgot about the impact that killing the Matriarch had on him.
There are also a few problems I've seen with people interpreting plot holes. A good one is the doctor when you do the final colonist mission. I've seen it referred to a few times (even a few posts above) as a plot hole. In both cases there certainly is an outbreak at the location you go to if you side with the Protoss to purge it. If you instead try to save the colonists you find yourself at a completely different location which is not infested and save colonists from being purged for no reason. Likewise the doctor does not lock herself up in the Hyperion and get herself infected, which happens during the mission. People seem to have selective memory when regarding plot holes.
I don't know. Maybe because the story and gameplay tied in so well and the gameplay was so fun I'm simply more able to ignore the faults of the story.
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Trying to be too dramatic like a movie with small plot progression. When in fact a shitload of things happened in the SC1/Broodwar campaign with lots of conquests
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I liked the campaign
...it´s scifi it´s meant to be "bad"and "cheesy"
Loved all the references and all that.
It wasn´t that much different from the original I don´t get all the complaining, I actually played through the SC and BW campaigns just before SC2..
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where in sc2 you hear or see narud? people here keep talking about him and i didnt see him anywhere in the campaign...
PS. what i hate is the fact that zeratul shows raynor how the universe will end and that only queen of blades can save it - and what does he do? he gets rid of queen of the blades ASAP -.- makes no sense at all
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EPT
