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On October 26 2010 11:58 Krigwin wrote:Show nested quote +On October 26 2010 05:25 Treemonkeys wrote:
She unwillingly became a zerg, so yeah, she was an unwilling pawn. Everything she did in BW were things she obviously wouldn't have done as a human, when she was human she didn't even want to use the zerg against her enemies. This is all in game material, from SC and BW no less.
Actually if you think about it further, in SC/BW, Rayner went through a transition where he tried to interact with Kerrigan and slowly had to realize that she was not the same. If he learned that it would be possible to make her human again, it makes complete sense that he would change his mind about killing her. I don't know how many times I'm going to have to repeat this before people get it: no it doesn't, because Raynor swore to kill her. Why? Because she betrayed him, Fenix, Mengsk, Zeratul, the rest of the Protoss, and killed basically all of his friends and is a threat to his entire race. Then in WoL Raynor does a complete 180 from "if I have to kill you myself" to "I will save you no matter the cost". This is called character inconsistency. It would've been different if they at least put in a dialogue between Raynor and Horner before the last mission explaining Raynor's logical motivations for rescuing her or something instead of shoehorning in these terrible contrived side plots ie; schoolboy romance and ancient prophecy nonsense. Show nested quote +On October 26 2010 08:46 Honeybadger wrote:
Why? the music and overall feel or the characters is spot-on. I'm being facetious, I just really like Firefly. Show nested quote +On October 26 2010 10:26 Billy_ wrote:
It seems like you need to refresh your memory. That, or you're deliberately twisting the events of both games in your favour. Either way, go replay the games, read a summary or something, and then get back to me once you get your facts straight. I have better things to do than to point out stuff that should be as plain as day if you actually remembered the events. How ironic for you to say this when you're the one deliberately going with Blizzard's retcons and shoehorning in romances and prophecy nonsense where there were none beforehand so it can go with your romanticized view of what the plot should be. Also, "you need to refresh your memory" is not rhetoric either. In logical discourse you present ideas and evidence, not your half-assed interpretations and fanboy opinions. By the way, I replayed both games the day before SC2 launched, so I'm not speaking from nostalgia, WoL really is that awful in comparison. Show nested quote +On October 26 2010 11:37 Nightfall.589 wrote:He also spent over a decade revising his books. WoL story has not impressed me, and the writing (Dialogue) was a lot worse then I hoped for. + Show Spoiler +It's time to kick this revolution into OVERDRIVE. + Show Spoiler +Because some things... ARE JUST WORTH FIGHTING FOR.
This is text book character development. I guess nobody can change how the feel about things that happened in the past and maybe have an outcome that is different than one they previously believed in. I guess having a flat dull character is the better than maybe someone that changed their mind about something years later?
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This is text book character development. I guess nobody can change how the feel about things that happened in the past and maybe have an outcome that is different than one they previously believed in. I guess having a flat dull character is the better than maybe someone that changed their mind about something years later?
Doing a complete turn-around on a character's feelings without any good explanation isn't character development - it's shitty writing.
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I've never read the books, but I thought that a romantic relationship between Raynor and Kerrigan was implied on some degree (or at least that's how I felt when I first played through the SC story). Raynor was obviously upset at Arcturus for marooning her to be killed and it's clear that he had some hopes that she could be redeemed. These hopes were pretty much crushed in the storyline of Brood War where she basically stabs everyone in the back and nearly wipes them out. After she killed Fenix, it's then that Raynor came to the conclusion that there isn't any hope for redemption, which is why he vows to be the one to kill her. Of course through all this, he did still want Kerrigan back, not the Queen of Blades, but the Kerrigan he knew before her infestation. His resolve was founded on the belief that she would never again be who she was before her infestation.
Wings of Liberty presents a way for him to get that Kerrigan back, which is why he finds hope again and decides to save her. What he sees before him isn't the murderous Queen of Blades, but rather the girl and comrade he marooned on a planet swarming with Zerg all those years ago. He couldn't save her then so he saved her now.
The Kerrigan-Raynor dynamic always seemed pretty straightforward to me and that's how I saw it. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's just my 2 cents on that issue...
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hey, you know what?
Michael Ende never knew that his story would never end, when he started writing The Never-Ending Story...
You get it? Because it's a never-ending sto...... yeah ok, not funny, nvm...
Anyway, I didn't think that the Sp was so bad, of course there were some really 'cliché' turn of events, but for a video game storyline, it's still really good IMO. Even though some people hated it, some people, like me, enjoyed it.
If they already had the complete plot set in mind, I don't think they'd do a better story, it would probably only feel like side quests everywhere just to get to the main event which concludes everything...
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On October 26 2010 12:53 Stratos_speAr wrote:Show nested quote +
This is text book character development. I guess nobody can change how the feel about things that happened in the past and maybe have an outcome that is different than one they previously believed in. I guess having a flat dull character is the better than maybe someone that changed their mind about something years later?
Doing a complete turn-around on a character's feelings without any good explanation isn't character development - it's shitty writing.
There is plenty of good explanation in the storyboard to justify why he changed his mind about Kerrigan. Kerrigan had a chance to kill Raynor in the past and she let him go. There is even more stuff going on that wasn't included in WOL but will hopefully be revealed later on in the current series.
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On October 25 2010 00:15 mutantmagnet wrote:Show nested quote +On October 24 2010 23:22 Theston wrote:
Of course they don't.
Do you think J.K. Rowling knew how her seventh book ended when she wrote the first? Tolkien and JMS knew how to plan out their story arcs. Rowling wasn't even planning to make an arc from the get go, Blizzard was and should've planned better. Their writing department has become terrible compared to what it was during the SC/BW era but I'm hoping this bit of news means they've heeded the backlash to WoL narrative and retcons and are in the midst of trying to make it better. As bad as their department has become I find it hard to believe they didn't have a preplanning phase that sets the general idea of how each campaign should play out. Regardless I won't buy HotS if the story gets bad reviews because that was my primary reason for buying WoL and the narrative in general was low quality elementary school material and the revisions and newest extrapolations on SC/BW pissed me off.
Just caught this thread, and a minor correction here is that Rowling did in fact know a general arc and had the final chapter for book 7 written very early on in the series (iirc she wrote it while she wrote book 1).
And my god, how awesome would it be if Blizz got Straczynski to write for StarCraft. I would probably cream myself and definitely actually play the SP.
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On October 26 2010 11:14 LegendaryZ wrote:Show nested quote +On October 26 2010 11:03 Fanatic-Templar wrote:
This was also the case in the Original. Kerrigan's infestation was a late addition, or in other words Infested Kerrigan/TheQueen of Blades was not part of the original story of StarCraft. Just out of curiosity, what is your source for this information?
Blizzcast #2, linked here. An interview with Chris Metzen.
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On October 26 2010 12:53 Stratos_speAr wrote:Show nested quote +
This is text book character development. I guess nobody can change how the feel about things that happened in the past and maybe have an outcome that is different than one they previously believed in. I guess having a flat dull character is the better than maybe someone that changed their mind about something years later?
Doing a complete turn-around on a character's feelings without any good explanation isn't character development - it's shitty writing.
If you can think of a better example than Kerrigan becoming indispensible according to Zeratul or Valarians chance of removing her infestation so that she would hopefully be beack to how she was before she became bad then I'm all ears.
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On October 26 2010 12:41 Baarn wrote:
This is text book character development. I guess nobody can change how the feel about things that happened in the past and maybe have an outcome that is different than one they previously believed in. I guess having a flat dull character is the better than maybe someone that changed their mind about something years later?
Not really. Proper character development is when a character progresses from A->B->C->D through a logical series of events. When a character abruptly changes from A->D with no real explanation as to why, then it's character inconsistency.
There are plenty of reasons why Raynor could have changed his urge to kill Kerrigan, but they were never explained in the game. He suddenly loses his goal for revenge, forgets about Fenix, and just mopes around, and this is all before he meets with Valerian. Maybe a novel might explain it, but to me the fact that you have to use an outside source to justify something is bad form. We paid $60 for this game; it should be a complete experience. Even moreso considering that Blizzard kept trying to justify their decision to split the game into three. It's very bad when you have to force players to fork over extra money for books just to properly tell a story, especially since we're expected to pay $80 or more for the next two parts.
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On October 26 2010 13:26 Spawkuring wrote:Show nested quote +On October 26 2010 12:41 Baarn wrote:
This is text book character development. I guess nobody can change how the feel about things that happened in the past and maybe have an outcome that is different than one they previously believed in. I guess having a flat dull character is the better than maybe someone that changed their mind about something years later? Not really. Proper character development is when a character progresses from A->B->C->D through a logical series of events. When a character abruptly changes from A->D with no real explanation as to why, then it's character inconsistency. There are plenty of reasons why Raynor could have changed his urge to kill Kerrigan, but they were never explained in the game. He suddenly loses his goal for revenge, forgets about Fenix, and just mopes around, and this is all before he meets with Valerian. Maybe a novel might explain it, but to me the fact that you have to use an outside source to justify something is bad form. We paid $60 for this game; it should be a complete experience. Even moreso considering that Blizzard kept trying to justify their decision to split the game into three. It's very bad when you have to force players to fork over extra money for books just to properly tell a story, especially since we're expected to pay $80 or more for the next two parts.
You'll get your complete experience once the next 2 expansions are complete. I'm confident it will all be tied in for the ones that missed out on the prior games and that storyline with it.
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On October 26 2010 13:28 Baarn wrote:Show nested quote +On October 26 2010 13:26 Spawkuring wrote:On October 26 2010 12:41 Baarn wrote:
This is text book character development. I guess nobody can change how the feel about things that happened in the past and maybe have an outcome that is different than one they previously believed in. I guess having a flat dull character is the better than maybe someone that changed their mind about something years later? Not really. Proper character development is when a character progresses from A->B->C->D through a logical series of events. When a character abruptly changes from A->D with no real explanation as to why, then it's character inconsistency. There are plenty of reasons why Raynor could have changed his urge to kill Kerrigan, but they were never explained in the game. He suddenly loses his goal for revenge, forgets about Fenix, and just mopes around, and this is all before he meets with Valerian. Maybe a novel might explain it, but to me the fact that you have to use an outside source to justify something is bad form. We paid $60 for this game; it should be a complete experience. Even moreso considering that Blizzard kept trying to justify their decision to split the game into three. It's very bad when you have to force players to fork over extra money for books just to properly tell a story, especially since we're expected to pay $80 or more for the next two parts. You'll get your complete experience once the next 2 expansions are complete. I'm confident it will all be tied in for the ones that missed out on the prior games and that storyline with it.
Blizzard advertised WoL as a full experience, therefore I'm going to judge it as one. And even if they didn't hype it as such, I still would judge it as a complete product because it costs as much as one ($10 more than a complete product to be exact).
And to be honest, I fail to see why we need HotS to explain why Jim lost his thirst for revenge. WoL could have easily done that seeing as how Jim Raynor was the goddamn main character of it. 30 missions and numerous cinematics and Blizzard couldn't take the time to explain why Jim apparently doesn't give a shit about Fenix anymore? That's just too jarring for me.
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for all intent and purpose, raynor killed kerrigan the queen of blades and saved kerrigan the ghost
so i don't see what's wrong with that. he still hates the QoB's guts during WoL.. sounds like the same old raynor to me
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On October 26 2010 13:33 Spawkuring wrote:Show nested quote +On October 26 2010 13:28 Baarn wrote:On October 26 2010 13:26 Spawkuring wrote:On October 26 2010 12:41 Baarn wrote:
This is text book character development. I guess nobody can change how the feel about things that happened in the past and maybe have an outcome that is different than one they previously believed in. I guess having a flat dull character is the better than maybe someone that changed their mind about something years later? Not really. Proper character development is when a character progresses from A->B->C->D through a logical series of events. When a character abruptly changes from A->D with no real explanation as to why, then it's character inconsistency. There are plenty of reasons why Raynor could have changed his urge to kill Kerrigan, but they were never explained in the game. He suddenly loses his goal for revenge, forgets about Fenix, and just mopes around, and this is all before he meets with Valerian. Maybe a novel might explain it, but to me the fact that you have to use an outside source to justify something is bad form. We paid $60 for this game; it should be a complete experience. Even moreso considering that Blizzard kept trying to justify their decision to split the game into three. It's very bad when you have to force players to fork over extra money for books just to properly tell a story, especially since we're expected to pay $80 or more for the next two parts. You'll get your complete experience once the next 2 expansions are complete. I'm confident it will all be tied in for the ones that missed out on the prior games and that storyline with it. Blizzard advertised WoL as a full experience, therefore I'm going to judge it as one. And even if they didn't hype it as such, I still would judge it as a complete product because it costs as much as one ($10 more than a complete product to be exact). And to be honest, I fail to see why we need HotS to explain why Jim lost his thirst for revenge. WoL could have easily done that seeing as how Jim Raynor was the goddamn main character of it. 30 missions and numerous cinematics and Blizzard couldn't take the time to explain why Jim apparently doesn't give a shit about Fenix anymore? That's just too jarring for me.
Is Fenix the only reason you found the character development jarring?
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United States793 Posts
On October 24 2010 23:25 tacrats wrote:Show nested quote +On October 24 2010 23:21 MrLonely wrote:
Legitimate storymaking technique. Stephen King doesn't know how his stories will end either, and I consider him a pretty good writer. Stephen King is a good writer and can pull that off. If WoL was any indication (ex: magix saves kerrigan raynor carries her off into the sunset), blizz doesnt have good writers anymore. So the fact that they have no idea what they are doing is going to result in a terrible, terrible story.
This isn't really fair... I don't think its that outlandish to think that a species of near limitless technological advancement created an item the inner workings of which is unexplainable using the scientific knowledge accumulated by the races in question.
Arthur C. Clarke formulated the following three "laws" of prediction:
When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is probably wrong.
The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
The last part of that quote is often mistakenly attributed to Einstein.
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On October 26 2010 11:58 Krigwin wrote:. Show nested quote +On October 26 2010 08:46 Honeybadger wrote:
Why? the music and overall feel or the characters is spot-on. I'm being facetious, I just really like Firefly.
My best friend looks and sounds exactly like mal. It's amazing.
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On October 26 2010 13:33 Spawkuring wrote:Show nested quote +On October 26 2010 13:28 Baarn wrote:On October 26 2010 13:26 Spawkuring wrote:On October 26 2010 12:41 Baarn wrote:
This is text book character development. I guess nobody can change how the feel about things that happened in the past and maybe have an outcome that is different than one they previously believed in. I guess having a flat dull character is the better than maybe someone that changed their mind about something years later? Not really. Proper character development is when a character progresses from A->B->C->D through a logical series of events. When a character abruptly changes from A->D with no real explanation as to why, then it's character inconsistency. There are plenty of reasons why Raynor could have changed his urge to kill Kerrigan, but they were never explained in the game. He suddenly loses his goal for revenge, forgets about Fenix, and just mopes around, and this is all before he meets with Valerian. Maybe a novel might explain it, but to me the fact that you have to use an outside source to justify something is bad form. We paid $60 for this game; it should be a complete experience. Even moreso considering that Blizzard kept trying to justify their decision to split the game into three. It's very bad when you have to force players to fork over extra money for books just to properly tell a story, especially since we're expected to pay $80 or more for the next two parts. You'll get your complete experience once the next 2 expansions are complete. I'm confident it will all be tied in for the ones that missed out on the prior games and that storyline with it. Blizzard advertised WoL as a full experience, therefore I'm going to judge it as one. And even if they didn't hype it as such, I still would judge it as a complete product because it costs as much as one ($10 more than a complete product to be exact). And to be honest, I fail to see why we need HotS to explain why Jim lost his thirst for revenge. WoL could have easily done that seeing as how Jim Raynor was the goddamn main character of it. 30 missions and numerous cinematics and Blizzard couldn't take the time to explain why Jim apparently doesn't give a shit about Fenix anymore? That's just too jarring for me.
Your interpretation because of cost and the reality of you willingly buying into a 3 part series to only read one book for the entire story is jarring.
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Errr, sc2 SP was bad? Are you kidding?
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On October 26 2010 13:39 Francis wrote:Show nested quote +On October 26 2010 13:33 Spawkuring wrote:On October 26 2010 13:28 Baarn wrote:On October 26 2010 13:26 Spawkuring wrote:On October 26 2010 12:41 Baarn wrote:
This is text book character development. I guess nobody can change how the feel about things that happened in the past and maybe have an outcome that is different than one they previously believed in. I guess having a flat dull character is the better than maybe someone that changed their mind about something years later? Not really. Proper character development is when a character progresses from A->B->C->D through a logical series of events. When a character abruptly changes from A->D with no real explanation as to why, then it's character inconsistency. There are plenty of reasons why Raynor could have changed his urge to kill Kerrigan, but they were never explained in the game. He suddenly loses his goal for revenge, forgets about Fenix, and just mopes around, and this is all before he meets with Valerian. Maybe a novel might explain it, but to me the fact that you have to use an outside source to justify something is bad form. We paid $60 for this game; it should be a complete experience. Even moreso considering that Blizzard kept trying to justify their decision to split the game into three. It's very bad when you have to force players to fork over extra money for books just to properly tell a story, especially since we're expected to pay $80 or more for the next two parts. You'll get your complete experience once the next 2 expansions are complete. I'm confident it will all be tied in for the ones that missed out on the prior games and that storyline with it. Blizzard advertised WoL as a full experience, therefore I'm going to judge it as one. And even if they didn't hype it as such, I still would judge it as a complete product because it costs as much as one ($10 more than a complete product to be exact). And to be honest, I fail to see why we need HotS to explain why Jim lost his thirst for revenge. WoL could have easily done that seeing as how Jim Raynor was the goddamn main character of it. 30 missions and numerous cinematics and Blizzard couldn't take the time to explain why Jim apparently doesn't give a shit about Fenix anymore? That's just too jarring for me. Is Fenix the only reason you found the character development jarring?
If you mean character development as a whole, then my problems go far beyond Raynor forgetting Fenix. Some examples off the top of my head:
- Raynor forgetting Fenix and revenge
- Mengsk having no presence in the story other than randomly making minor speeches
- Every single side character having no real backstory or character. All of them are just walking archetypes. A big example of this was when Blizzard gave Stettman that extremely detailed backstory in the website, yet not a shred of it was presented in the game itself.
- Characters often seeming bipolar due to the non-linear nature of the missions. One minute Raynor is buddy-buddy with everyone, then he is screaming at them for not wanting to go to Char, then back to saving innocent lives while having an optimistic attitude, then suddenly being depressed because he's worried about Kerrigan.
- Everything about Zeratul and the prophecy rubbed me the wrong way. I don't know, but the prophecy plot device really tends to do more harm than good.
- Kerrigan losing all sense of cunning and cruelty that she had in SC1. Now is just some generic villain who spouts threatening one-liners and is more of a plot device than an actual character.
There's some more, but those are just some I can think of.
On October 26 2010 13:46 Baarn wrote:
Your interpretation because of cost and the reality of you willingly buying into a 3 part series to only read one book for the entire story is jarring.
If a person is going to write a multiple part series, then it has to be excellent from the start. Nobody reads a story that only gets good at book 3. Harry Potter wouldn't have gotten popular if the first book was complete shit. Wings of Liberty from start to finish has nothing but bland characterization, horrible plot devices like the prophecy, and horribly cheesy dialogue. Luckily its saving grace is that the actual gameplay is great, but I would never give the story good ratings other than its production quality.
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I'm sure a lot of these things you're complaining about were intentional. Kerrigan and Arcturus seem to be intended for the expansions, and Kerrigan had no reason to be cunning. If you want to know why characters were different in Broodwar, it is because the whole context was totally different.
You should save artifact #5 which leads to Valarian and do the prophecy and Matt horner missions first. Character development works out a lot better that way. That part of the nin-linearity was obviously bad.
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On October 26 2010 14:03 Francis wrote:
I'm sure a lot of these things you're complaining about were intentional. Kerrigan and Arcturus seem to be intended for the expansions, and Kerrigan had no reason to be cunning. If you want to know why characters were different in Broodwar, it is because the whole context was totally different.
You should save artifact #5 which leads to Valarian and do the prophecy and Matt horner missions first. Character development works out a lot better that way. That part of the nin-linearity was obviously bad.
Personally I disagree with that. There was plenty of room in WoL for Kerrigan and Arcturus to be dangerous because every story needs villains for heroes to interact with. I felt that a major weakness of Wings of Liberty was that Jim Raynor did nothing but kick everyones' asses with no real threat of danger, and because of that it completely ruins the fear and dangerous presence that Kerrigan and Arcturus were supposed to invoke in players. Blizzard could have easily put in a scene/mission where either Kerrigan or Arcturus put Raynor's army in extreme danger and have them barely escape, or perhaps a scene where Raynor tries to defend an objective (like an artifact) and loses it due to being outsmarted or outgunned. Either way, it would have done a lot to make the villains be more credible.
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