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On August 06 2010 04:48 orgolove wrote:
This is exactly my complaint on western-style story driven games. I.e. mass effect, dragon age, even oblivion. All these games have at most maybe ~35% of total missions that cater to the main story. the remaining 65% of missions is fluff. Why the hell do western games focus so much on side missions?
When I see games advertise "OVER 500 SIDE MISSIONS" I just facepalm. Instead of having a main storyline that takes <10 hours and have 20 hours of side missions, wouldn't a 30 hour main mission have a much more capability to produce epic stories?
Compare that with the excellent Final Fantasy series. FF4/5/6 all had an overwhelming majority of their quests devoted to the main story. Thus we can literally have five different versions of the main map, before and after apocalypse, etc etc - instead of getting distracted by side missions. We can also understand much more in terms of character development and how they relate to the main story. This is how it should be done.
YES, 100% yes! This is why I can't stand western RPGs, their stories are all so bland and all over the place! People complain that ff13 was too linear, but it was 100% character development and not 100% universe development! And guess what, I liked Vanille a lot more than I liked Shepard, any way you spin it... Another example of a western "rpg" with like 30 hours of side missions would be FFTA2, which could have been a fun game but the story was bland, the characters were bland, the game play wasn't as good as FFT or FFTA, but hey, at least we had all those side missions. Give me a FF or a Star Ocean any day...
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On August 06 2010 04:55 Endymion wrote:Show nested quote +On August 06 2010 04:48 orgolove wrote:
This is exactly my complaint on western-style story driven games. I.e. mass effect, dragon age, even oblivion. All these games have at most maybe ~35% of total missions that cater to the main story. the remaining 65% of missions is fluff. Why the hell do western games focus so much on side missions?
When I see games advertise "OVER 500 SIDE MISSIONS" I just facepalm. Instead of having a main storyline that takes <10 hours and have 20 hours of side missions, wouldn't a 30 hour main mission have a much more capability to produce epic stories?
Compare that with the excellent Final Fantasy series. FF4/5/6 all had an overwhelming majority of their quests devoted to the main story. Thus we can literally have five different versions of the main map, before and after apocalypse, etc etc - instead of getting distracted by side missions. We can also understand much more in terms of character development and how they relate to the main story. This is how it should be done. YES, 100% yes! This is why I can't stand western RPGs, their stories are all so bland and all over the place! People complain that ff13 was too linear, but it was 100% character development and not 100% universe development! And guess what, I liked Vanille a lot more than I liked Shepard, any way you spin it... Another example of a western "rpg" with like 30 hours of side missions would be FFTA2, which could have been a fun game but the story was bland, the characters were bland, the game play wasn't as good as FFT or FFTA, but hey, at least we had all those side missions. Give me a FF or a Star Ocean any day...
I think the side quests cater to gamers' desire to customize their characters get everything they possibly can in a game. But I agree that writers should devote more attention to the main storyline rather than 500 side quests.
I like it when the side quests reveal stories about the characters or their pasts, but some games take it too far. In particular, I get really annoyed when the game get impossibly difficult without having gotten items and goods from side quests. I mean, if the game is designed so that "side quests" are in fact, necessary, why not just make the main quest longer?...
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On August 06 2010 04:48 orgolove wrote:
This is exactly my complaint on western-style story driven games. I.e. mass effect, dragon age, even oblivion. All these games have at most maybe ~35% of total missions that cater to the main story. the remaining 65% of missions is fluff. Why the hell do western games focus so much on side missions?
When I see games advertise "OVER 500 SIDE MISSIONS" I just facepalm. Instead of having a main storyline that takes <10 hours and have 20 hours of side missions, wouldn't a 30 hour main mission have a much more capability to produce epic stories?
Compare that with the excellent Final Fantasy series. FF4/5/6 all had an overwhelming majority of their quests devoted to the main story. Thus we can literally have five different versions of the main map, before and after apocalypse, etc etc - instead of getting distracted by side missions. We can also understand much more in terms of character development and how they relate to the main story. This is how it should be done.
orgolove, do those titles that have an extensive single-player campaign have *any* multiplayer to speak of, or have multiplayer at all? (AFAIK, *none* of the FF PC titles has any MP; however, I have no idea if this is true of the Sony console versions.) ME and ME2 have some multiplayer (however, the first title does have a pretty well-developed single-player campaign, complete with branching), and I have not played DA or Oblivion.
SC2: WoL has a problem, and a major one; by concentrating mostly on a single race (the Terrans), yet supporting multiplayer (including having all three races being playable), how the heck do you introduce new game-players to the Protoss and/or Zerg during the single-player campaign? That is what that entire Zeratul *backstory* sub-branch is designed to do; give new players a real option rather than *just* playing as Terrans in multiplayer. (I have no idea as to whether or not there is a similar Zerg-based sub-branch.)
Lastly, you missed my other comment regarding the importance of the side/backstory to the whole of the plot (as well as linking SC, BW, and SC2). We suspected (because of what we knew in SC/BW) that Sarah Kerrigan was well and truly screwed over by Arcturus Mengsk (as was Jim Raynor). Not only did that get confirmation, we find out that Kerrigan/Raynor/the Confederacy were not even the biggest screwees; if anything, the ZERG (the bugs Terrans and Protoss have loved to hate) were screwed over the most (yes; even more so than Sarah Kerrigan). (We also find that certain tribes of Protoss got the BOHICA Treatment as well.) While this side/backstory does tie up loose ends for those of us familiar with SC/BW, it's critical as *backstory* for those of us with no previous SC/BW history! Without it, it's like coming into the story in the middle.
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Your poll is essentially "Do you want it better or not?" Of course no one is going to vote no.
That being said I found the missions much more enjoyable than I originally anticipated, and only found myself 'disliking' a select few. A handful of the missions I found absolutely brilliant, such as a few of the zeratul missions as well as the "blow up the tunnels" mission.
The story wasn't a problem for me until I stopped playing missions and tried to piece the story together. There are a lot of holes, and a lot of super cheesy moments/decision.
I did experience a little bit of that "grind" feeling, but mostly because I burned through the campaign on brutal in three nights. I kind of deserve it! Overall though I believe the "interest level" of the missions themselves were much higher on average than blizzard's other games. The story itself was the wince worthy part for me, and I've since found that to be the popular opinion on these boards as well.
EDIT: Also there as been a startling relation between difficulty level and fun level. Most folks who played brutal had a blast, where as most the folks on easier difficulties thought it was "ok" or even disliked it.
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I absolutely PREFER games that are heavily linear and give you a few choices around 60% of the way through the game but around 85% they forcefully reconvene you back to a linear state.
I felt the story was absolute TRASH in SC2 compared to the first one. I felt like there was no significance these random Protoss we we killing. They weren't part of hte main protoss force we were fighting or anything, just random ass Protoss fantatics apparently worshipping some shit or no real apparent reason. Kerrigan seemed not as devious, there was no driving force really, rather "we need moey, let's go to this random place and get some credits."
I hated the storyline, as far as I'm concerned as a successfor from BW the story was around a 3/10. No repercussions for releasing spectres, etc. No real relations or connections between teh races at all. Even the relation between Raynor and Mengsk felt weak to me, unlike SC1 and BW.
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On August 06 2010 04:55 Endymion wrote:Show nested quote +On August 06 2010 04:48 orgolove wrote:
This is exactly my complaint on western-style story driven games. I.e. mass effect, dragon age, even oblivion. All these games have at most maybe ~35% of total missions that cater to the main story. the remaining 65% of missions is fluff. Why the hell do western games focus so much on side missions?
When I see games advertise "OVER 500 SIDE MISSIONS" I just facepalm. Instead of having a main storyline that takes <10 hours and have 20 hours of side missions, wouldn't a 30 hour main mission have a much more capability to produce epic stories?
Compare that with the excellent Final Fantasy series. FF4/5/6 all had an overwhelming majority of their quests devoted to the main story. Thus we can literally have five different versions of the main map, before and after apocalypse, etc etc - instead of getting distracted by side missions. We can also understand much more in terms of character development and how they relate to the main story. This is how it should be done. YES, 100% yes! This is why I can't stand western RPGs, their stories are all so bland and all over the place! People complain that ff13 was too linear, but it was 100% character development and not 100% universe development! And guess what, I liked Vanille a lot more than I liked Shepard, any way you spin it... Another example of a western "rpg" with like 30 hours of side missions would be FFTA2, which could have been a fun game but the story was bland, the characters were bland, the game play wasn't as good as FFT or FFTA, but hey, at least we had all those side missions. Give me a FF or a Star Ocean any day...
100% agreed. Linear is so much better. I didn't like Dragon Age's story that much because the side quests took so much time, I barely remembered the main story once I finished doing the side quests.
I really wished they made the campaign linear. I did the Zeratul crystal missions, had Raynor talk to his crew about them, then when it was time to invade Char, nobody else remembered why they needed Kerrigan alive in the first place.
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There were plenty of filler missions in SC1 too that had little to do with the overall arc of the story. Either way, people will complain. I ALWAYS see complaints about linear games and how they should be less-so. Blizzard can't please everyone.
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On August 06 2010 05:09 B1nary wrote:Show nested quote +On August 06 2010 04:55 Endymion wrote:On August 06 2010 04:48 orgolove wrote:
This is exactly my complaint on western-style story driven games. I.e. mass effect, dragon age, even oblivion. All these games have at most maybe ~35% of total missions that cater to the main story. the remaining 65% of missions is fluff. Why the hell do western games focus so much on side missions?
When I see games advertise "OVER 500 SIDE MISSIONS" I just facepalm. Instead of having a main storyline that takes <10 hours and have 20 hours of side missions, wouldn't a 30 hour main mission have a much more capability to produce epic stories?
Compare that with the excellent Final Fantasy series. FF4/5/6 all had an overwhelming majority of their quests devoted to the main story. Thus we can literally have five different versions of the main map, before and after apocalypse, etc etc - instead of getting distracted by side missions. We can also understand much more in terms of character development and how they relate to the main story. This is how it should be done. YES, 100% yes! This is why I can't stand western RPGs, their stories are all so bland and all over the place! People complain that ff13 was too linear, but it was 100% character development and not 100% universe development! And guess what, I liked Vanille a lot more than I liked Shepard, any way you spin it... Another example of a western "rpg" with like 30 hours of side missions would be FFTA2, which could have been a fun game but the story was bland, the characters were bland, the game play wasn't as good as FFT or FFTA, but hey, at least we had all those side missions. Give me a FF or a Star Ocean any day... I think the side quests cater to gamers' desire to customize their characters get everything they possibly can in a game. But I agree that writers should devote more attention to the main storyline rather than 500 side quests. I like it when the side quests reveal stories about the characters or their pasts, but some games take it too far. In particular, I get really annoyed when the game get impossibly difficult without having gotten items and goods from side quests. I mean, if the game is designed so that "side quests" are in fact, necessary, why not just make the main quest longer?...
I dunno, I just don't agree with character customization in terms of personality in a game, it's very hard for writers to make a good story out of what you chose (assuming there are more than one variables in the story line). So for every change, you need a whole different story and ending, or else it just ends up feeling cheap. I'm all for customizing gameplay and character attributes/abilities, as well as changing things about local lore (not game changing lore).
A good example would be going into a town in Chrono Trigger (just using CT because it's so popular), and deciding if Chrono should help a fleeing criminal or help catch him. If you helped him it could be beneficial, but it could also be beneficial to help catch him. However, once you chose, it shouldn't have a major impact on the game. Having it effect your experience in the next town is a good idea (maybe it's a thieve's den, maybe the criminal's brother is there), but making the criminal a piece of Lavos is probably not a good idea (or in any serious relation to an important antagonist), because it would change Lavos's opinion of you, and you have potential multiple endings (or an ending that doesn't fit the main story).
Thats why Western RPGs can't have a single story or a single ending, because they spend the whole game trying to figure out who the main character is instead of building the story around him.
It's almost a game of 20 questions (is your chacter good, is he evil, is he straight ect).
Jrpg- "Ok, we have a red headed character from Guardia, he is going to meet a blonde princess at the Guardia fair and X + Y will happen, causing Z plot event to move the story forward."
Western-"Ok, we have a player created character from where ever the player decides, he can go where ever he wants and decide what to do. He will have plot decision A(+-1) and B(+-1). If he choses to do the moral decision on A, we will call it A1, same with B. Depending on A and B choices he can meet Marle(A1B1), Robo(A1B-1), Magus(A-1B1), or Lucca(A-1B-1). Each character will have a different path deemed C D E F, each with different plot fulcrums."
Westerns would work if you had a different writer for each story path, but it's unreasonable to pay that many writers. So instead of 5/1 (5 writers divided by one story) you end up with 5/x (x being the amount of story variables). It speaks for itself that Jrpgs tend to have better stories, they have more writers working on a single piece.
In Starcraft 2 its different though, there is only one ending, so Tosh's missions and the Doctor's missions feel like "filler," which is completely understandable. You just have to look at it from Raynor's perspective, why is he helping these people? For money to upgrade his army, or for new units to eventually use against the Zerg? Or maybe it's just to get in the Doctor's pants, it's all up to what you want to think. The point is that it doesn't matter what you think because you are doing them anyways, for which ever end you think your trying to meet. Thats the genius of Starcraft 2's campaign, immerse yourself and you'll have fun. Look at it clinically, and you won't get the same result. Thats how I see it anyways.
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The missions from a story perspective were pretty weak. As far as I can remember they were all just "Let's go get some money, Jimmy!" or "Oh noes, my colonists!" Pretty weak stuff.
I would like them to keep the upgrade, tech, mercenary elements (with changes just so the campaigns aren't all the same). Those were a lot of fun, and I enjoyed customizing my army to my play style.
What I could with more of is the "choice" missions, in particular the penultimate mission in which you decide to sabotage ground or air for Zerg. That is to say, a linear storyline with some simple forks that could affect some or all of the succeeding missions, either through enemy strength or the capabilities of the player's forces. I think that is a lot more fun than have 20 missions that everyone does anyway, but just having them done in whatever order ( I will admit that the unit unlocking method did make things a little interesting).
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On August 06 2010 05:57 Cofo wrote:
There were plenty of filler missions in SC1 too that had little to do with the overall arc of the story. Either way, people will complain. I ALWAYS see complaints about linear games and how they should be less-so. Blizzard can't please everyone.
But at least the BW missions were consistent and flowed naturally. In the SC2 campaign for example, if you did the Zeratul missions, no one ever mentions the prophecies or what not ever again. What missions you did had no bearing whatsoever on the game beyond the the second last mission.
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I enjoyed the missions and did not find them boring, but I do agree that the story could of been told much better. Most of the campaign can be removed and you wouldnt lose anything as far as the story goes, which is disappointing for me. Starcraft and Broodwar had so much story packed into those small campaigns, but sc2 is half filler missions(but still fun for me).
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i won't deny a portion the missions lacked something to make me actually care about the plot behind them. frankly the plot itself wasn't all that engaging to me. i felt like batman answering the call to save the day from the evil bad guys in most of them, except raynor isn't nearly as awesome as batman and the bad guys aren't nearly as clever as batman's bad guys. the zerg and terran forces were really boring to fight in general, the only time i even liked going against zerg was on char and on that one escort civilians mission because they came in big enough waves for it to actually be somewhat challenging. 6 zerglings and like 2 hydras and 2 roaches is not going to freak me out too much no matter how you spin it.
the protoss missions were awesome, as soon as i got them i wanted to immediately do all of them over the terran ones because it was all very relevent to the story and the missions were almost all different from standard mass harvesters, mass imba SP units, crush idiotic AI missions. zeratul was fun to use too, and tosh as well for that matter, and i wish they gave you more hero missions because the only ones i even remember pretty much all involved a hero (prison break with tosh, tychus in the odin, zeratul's memories, etc).
i thought the actual story-telling itself was great and even though the terran campaign had moments of dull plot, they did good to avoid MP style missions in SP, and the narration within the missions made me feel like i wasn't just grinding, even if i knew that not every mission was significant. it was fun for me to play single player, and that's happened in exactly 0 RTS games for me. but no, it definitely doesn't hold a candle to what i'd expect out of a well-developed RPG story in terms of having an epic story. i didn't expect it to, in terms of expectations it met and exceeded them and the only reason i'd complain is because i agreed with the minor point this thread made.
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I voted no.
The problem is not the side missions: i actually enjoy them. There are other things that happen in the universe while you are trying to collect various artifacts and the side characters adds to
If you dont like the side missions then simply skip them.
The problem I find is:
- Weak main plot: collect artifact pieces, invade char (in 2.5 missions), then blow it up on char.
- Over used plot mechanic: 3/4 artifact piece is guarded by the same protoss group
- Side story can have a little more influence on the main plot beside granting you access to units.
You take a look at the campaign of sc1 and wc3 and they offer a large progression in storyline. I guess I expected much much more after they cut sc2 into 3 games.
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A-fuckin-greed. Nonlinear games fucking blow and have 0 story, typically. Dragon Age I never beat but it seemed to be pretty epicly nonlinear, but SC2's story fucking SUCKED.
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ya kinda felt the whole campaign was a filler lol
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Didn't Blizzard want WOL to have more of a 'mercenary buy upgrades, get troops' feel?
And then HOTS was suppose to be more RPG orientated?
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Strong linear story is the best way to convey a story. Look at the Final Fantasty series as stated by an above user. More importantly look at COD4 with its seamless integration of cut scenes and action. Blizzard should take COD4 as an exmaple of what the campaign should have been
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On August 06 2010 04:48 orgolove wrote:
This is exactly my complaint on western-style story driven games. I.e. mass effect, dragon age, even oblivion. All these games have at most maybe ~35% of total missions that cater to the main story. the remaining 65% of missions is fluff. Why the hell do western games focus so much on side missions?
When I see games advertise "OVER 500 SIDE MISSIONS" I just facepalm. Instead of having a main storyline that takes <10 hours and have 20 hours of side missions, wouldn't a 30 hour main mission have a much more capability to produce epic stories?
Compare that with the excellent Final Fantasy series. FF4/5/6 all had an overwhelming majority of their quests devoted to the main story. Thus we can literally have five different versions of the main map, before and after apocalypse, etc etc - instead of getting distracted by side missions. We can also understand much more in terms of character development and how they relate to the main story. This is how it should be done.
I would disagree. The way you want the story like FF series is the the main reason the lastest FF13 fail miserably. Not all game should have main story get mayor of the game and side quests should provide the terms of char development. They can do what ever they want as long as it keep you interesting most of the time and give you the sense of caring for the characters, well this is what SC2 has done nicely.
I just say non-linear story is nothing wrong. It's just the way of SC2 didn't fit some people taste. Or maybe it's really poor handle.
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I don't mind the non-linearity. I didn't mind the filler missions (they were fun!) or the filler characters - what I disliked was the marked lack of continuity created by the non-linearity. Matt Horner is a particularly glaring example.
+ Show Spoiler +Do the protoss missions. Talk with Matt. He knows that Kerrigan (possibly) is necessary for the survival of the human race.
Do the artifact missions. Matt blows up on you about Kerrigan and Mengsk. Also, Jim goes wacko. Swann may say something similar, I don't quite recall.
Finish Media Blitz. Another complete change.
I think if they had managed to integrate just that one aspect - 'knowledge that Kerrigan is needed' - which may have required a few more cinematics (Matt could even say that the prophecy is rubbish or something, maybe a trick by the overmind), it wouldn't have had that suddenly jarring, shattering of my suspension of disbelief.
I have other complaints about the storyline, but everyone's already discussed those enough.
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Take Baldur's Gate. Take Icewind Dale. Some of the greatest RPGs of all time. And both had tons of side-quests. I agree that these are RPG's, and we are in the RTS land, but I believe that what Blizzard tried to do is really great. You can't be ALWAYS saving the galaxy. The side-quests add feeling, spice and realism to the whole story. It is easier to emphasize with the story and characters that way.
Personally, I am right there sitting at the Cantina bar next to Raynor with a whiskey in my hand, listening to Suspicious Minds, every time I finish a mission  .
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EPT
