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On October 26 2010 03:21 Billy_ wrote:
No it doesn't. Like I said, people only see what we want to see. Just because you think you know the story and characters better than the people who wrote them means nothing. I don't care that you have an opinion, I care that you're arrogant and act like everyone but you is wrong. Pull your head out son, the world doesn't owe you shit. And for the record, the plot would have workd, implied romance or not, Jim did expressed quite a lot of guilt and self blame in SCI.
No it doesn't? No what doesn't? Good rebuttal, by the way.
Where did I state I "know the story and characters better than the people who wrote them"? If an official Blizzard writer is going to come down here and explain why my interpretation is wholly incorrect, I wholeheartedly welcome them, and indeed, even if what I garnered differs from their vision, it doesn't make my criticisms of their technique invalid.
Also, "you're arrogant" is not rhetoric. And "the world doesn't owe you shit"? What does that even mean? If you don't care about people's opinions and are going to outright dismiss posts entirely through personal insults, then save everyone a bit of time and don't even post, I daresay we can get by without your valuable contributions. And in the meantime, how about you grow up a bit and stop resorting to childish attacks on the internet? This isn't high school.
On October 26 2010 03:24 Deckkie wrote:
I strongly get the feeling you didn't see the blizzard Q&A.
Also, there is and always has been romance between Raynor and Kerrigan. (read the books)
lastly they said that Fenix wasn't forgotten and that there would come more about that in the following chapters...
I did watch the Q&A actually, but as a longtime WoW player and someone who anticipated SC:Ghost I've learned to take everything Blizzard says with a grain of salt. I'll reserve my judgment for when the expansions actually come out.
As an aside, imagine if Fellowship of the Ring consisted of just the following paragraph: Frodo finds a magic ring and teams up with Gandalf, Aragorn, and associated hobbits and elves and dwarves and journeys across the land to defeat Sauron. Along the way they are separated and Gandalf falls into an abyss, Frodo later decides to continue the journey alone. To be continued!
Claiming the story will be cleared up in later iterations is not a valid storytelling technique, and does not excuse poor and ambiguous writing. Nor is claiming the audience has somehow misinterpreted a writer's intention a valid defense. If Tolkien had come out after Return of the King claiming Sauron and the orcs were the good guys all along and everyone who had just naturally assumed they were evil after three volumes expositing how evil they were were all wrong, how do you think that would've gone down?
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Kerrigan was once human and was betrayed horribly by Raynor's arch enemy Mengsk, so it doesn't make much sense to compare her to Sauron. It makes perfect sense to me that Raynor would become more and more regretful/sad/bitter as time went on and he watched how Mengsk used her as a stepping stone to gain power. Plus he probably had no idea she could be saved anyways, didn't he decide to try and save after Mengsk's son convinced him?
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10387 Posts
hey this sounds like how Bleach is being written, no planning in advance of the story so it starts off pretty good but becomes shittier as it goes on
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Don't really understand how they fkd up the story and characters so bad.
Metzen and the older blizzard devs are still around, and the new guys were in charge of the gameplay so it had nothing to do with it.
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On October 26 2010 04:13 Treemonkeys wrote:
Kerrigan was once human and was betrayed horribly by Raynor's arch enemy Mengsk, so it doesn't make much sense to compare her to Sauron. It makes perfect sense to me that Raynor would become more and more regretful/sad/bitter as time went on and he watched how Mengsk used her as a stepping stone to gain power. Plus he probably had no idea she could be saved anyways, didn't he decide to try and save after Mengsk's son convinced him?
I was actually thinking of the Overmind when I made that comparison, but it does apply somewhat to Kerrigan. The whole of BW established her as an evil mastermind that manipulated everyone around her, including Raynor, in her rise to ultimate power. Now we're supposed to believe that this hitherto diabolical villain is actually just an unwilling pawn to some unbeknownst greater power?
And the whole sudden switch to rescuing her plot is the entire character derailment. Raynor had, over the entirety of SC-BW, grown to swear death on Kerrigan. Even if she could be de-infested it doesn't excuse her crimes for which Raynor swore revenge. To suddenly discard this and attempt to "save" her is massively out of character unless you have some radically different interpretation, which is your right of course, but it's not very supported by actual ingame material.
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On October 26 2010 05:19 Krigwin wrote:Show nested quote +On October 26 2010 04:13 Treemonkeys wrote:
Kerrigan was once human and was betrayed horribly by Raynor's arch enemy Mengsk, so it doesn't make much sense to compare her to Sauron. It makes perfect sense to me that Raynor would become more and more regretful/sad/bitter as time went on and he watched how Mengsk used her as a stepping stone to gain power. Plus he probably had no idea she could be saved anyways, didn't he decide to try and save after Mengsk's son convinced him? I was actually thinking of the Overmind when I made that comparison, but it does apply somewhat to Kerrigan. The whole of BW established her as an evil mastermind that manipulated everyone around her, including Raynor, in her rise to ultimate power. Now we're supposed to believe that this hitherto diabolical villain is actually just an unwilling pawn to some unbeknownst greater power? And the whole sudden switch to rescuing her plot is the entire character derailment. Raynor had, over the entirety of SC-BW, grown to swear death on Kerrigan. Even if she could be de-infested it doesn't excuse her crimes for which Raynor swore revenge. To suddenly discard this and attempt to "save" her is massively out of character unless you have some radically different interpretation, which is your right of course, but it's not very supported by actual ingame material.
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.
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On October 26 2010 02:35 Billy_ wrote:
Seriously though.... Jim wanting to save Kerrigan is just consistent character development. So he gave up on saving her and threatened her, big deal. Doesn't change the fact that he once liked her, rushed to her aid before she hatched on Char, and then got told by Valarian that he might not have to kill her.
No. It isn't character development. There's nothing what makes Raynor change his mind. And, he can't suddenly have been romantically involved with Kerrigan. They met for the first time in SC campaign. They worked together for like 3 missions. That's all. Did Raynor have dreams or something about how things could have been if events had been different and he fell in love with her that way or what?
You don't hate someone so badly you want to kill her with your own hands then and there, then not see each other for like what 3 years? And then you suddenly not only think you can save that person but you also are in love with that person?
It is just bad story telling to not even try to cover up that plot hole. You call it character development? It is a complete lack of such a thing.
And how did he like her? There was only Kerrigan saying 'you pig' as she was reading her mind. And that may have been their first and last meeting.
Fact that he suddenly believes people can be deinfester, they start hunting artifacts for money, and then artifact turns out to be a zerg deinfester, it's all extremely badly done. I personally could have done better. But the thing is, Blizzard did market research and they discovered that it doesn't matter how good or bad the story is. So they choose not to waste rescources and profit on it. With the last few Hollywood movies we have had, like the Star Trek one, anything is good.
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On October 26 2010 03:24 Deckkie wrote:Show nested quote +On October 26 2010 03:11 Krigwin wrote:On October 26 2010 02:15 Billy_ wrote:
You seem to have missed the whole life-as-a-slave theme that's been following Kerrigan ever since the beginning. On October 26 2010 02:22 Billy_ wrote:On October 26 2010 02:19 DiracMonopole wrote:
Why did Raynor want to rescue Kerrigan? Didnt he swear over Fenix's dead body that he would one day kill her? He said and did a lot of things. Why does everyone act like that thing with Fenix invalidate everything he did and said which were all pro-Kerrigan? You know, back before she got infested and seemingly irredeemably evil until Valarian made Raynor a deal regarding the artifacts? I swear, these forums are proof positive that people are tunnel visioned and only see what they want to see. On October 26 2010 02:35 Billy_ wrote:
Seriously though.... Jim wanting to save Kerrigan is just consistent character development. So he gave up on saving her and threatened her, big deal. Doesn't change the fact that he once liked her, rushed to her aid before she hatched on Char, and then got told by Valarian that he might not have to kill her. You know, if you really enjoyed the babby's first RTS story of WoL, and are taking the official Blizzard stance of "don't take SC-BW too seriously, we're making a somewhat new plot here out of our ass", that's fantastic, I hope you really enjoy the expansions, etc., but don't try to argue with people who actually liked SC-BW and think things like a sequel should be somewhat true to the original and not retcon everything into a steaming pile of garbage. It's been explained a dozen times and clearly you just don't care, but for everyone else here reading, let me sum it up here: First, the implied romance garbage. Nowhere is this really implied unless you're doing some kind of mind-meld with the Blizzard writers - they have one short exchange of quips when they first meet and people are taking this to mean he's deeply in love with her? Yes, he tries to save her - because she was one of his unit and was abandoned to the enemy, if she was a dude he'd do the same, it doesn't have to imply romance - especially since right after that she reveals how irredeemably evil she has become and is no longer the same person he knew. She then goes on to betray and kill Fenix, whom if you'll remember fought side by side with Raynor to the extent of fending off hordes of Zerg on Aiur, and Raynor swears over his corpse he'll get revenge on Kerrigan himself. Fast forward to WoL, and what happens? Raynor has discarded his blood oath and fights to keep Kerrigan alive, to the point of shooting his own man, a romance plot is shoehorned in seemingly out of thin air, and all the previous exchanges where Raynor realizes Kerrigan is beyond saving and even if she wasn't, she still deserves to die for her crimes, totally forgotten. This is not "consistent". This is bizarre retcon garbage. I haven't even gotten to how contrived and nonsensical the whole "magicky Xel-Naga de-infesting device" plot arc was. The most pathetic thing is the entire "Raynor carries human Kerrigan off" scene, which obviously Blizzard was working towards all along, could have very easily been done well, as countless people have suggested, by making it happen at the end of the third campaign. If this was the story Blizzard now intends, that's fine, the retcons could have been handled gracefully, but instead the whole thing was pulled off extremely poorly and makes WoL look like trash compared to SC-BW. I strongly get the feeling you didn't see the blizzard Q&A. Also, there is and always has been romance between Raynor and Kerrigan. (read the books) lastly they said that Fenix wasn't forgotten and that there would come more about that in the following chapters...
Read the books? Are you freaking kidding me? So now I have to read a bunch of shitty books, the graphic novel and buy the limited edition StarCraft cereal so I can get enough box tops to unlock the super secret short story to understand the game? Fuck That.
Secondly, even if the books add in a romance, that's an enormous retcon from what is established in SC/BW. Raynor and Kerrigan knew each other for only a few days. They flirted a couple times and that was it. Just bad writing all around. From what I've heard, the StarCraft books aren't well-written at all either.
Blizzard writers are hacks. An objective look at SC2's writing will show that. I've never seen a game written so badly. Frankly, the professionalism of the voice actors is astounding. To say that tripe with a straight face requires far more virtue than most of us can muster. The entire plot is a disjointed mess. There's no continuity between missions. Characters motives randomly appear and disappear with no real logical course. SC2's plot is written like a bad fanfic. Seriously, if you read SC2's plot in 2002 on a Geocities website, you'd think it was trash because it is trash.
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On October 25 2010 09:41 TedJustice wrote:Show nested quote +On October 25 2010 08:21 Kimaker wrote:On October 25 2010 00:21 Polydamas wrote:
I think SC2 story was made for an entirely different audience than SC BW story. Popular/teenage culture has changed a lot in all these years. Things have gotten really shallow. Prime example to me is how Raynor and Kerrigan suddenly have a romantic relationship. Did they suddenly fall in love somewhere between BW and SC2? Raynor and Kerrigan didn't even know each other during the SC storyline. Then in BW she turned zerg and Raynor said he wanted to kill her.
You have CLEARLY never played BW SP. That, or I just got trolled. They definitely knew each other. But I see his point. Raynor made one cheeky comment about her (in his head), and suddenly they were romantically involved?
xD
Can't really argue that point.
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On October 26 2010 00:43 Krigwin wrote:Show nested quote +On October 25 2010 18:19 Honeybadger wrote:
I loved the ending to WoL. Sure, it's not in tune with the normal "everything fucking sucks and everyone dies" mentality of depression that it normally follows. But goddamnit, it's about time Raynor finally had his luck change. Terran are always torn apart by corruption, subterfuge, and natural human tendencies. But following the idealistic rebel gave it an opportunity to not completely suck ass.
Seriously. I loved the slightly hammy results. It's more Firefly than Brood War. But Firefly was a goddamn astounding show. Please stop comparing WoL to Firefly, you are starting to personally offend me.
Why? the music and overall feel or the characters is spot-on.
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On October 26 2010 05:09 klauz619 wrote:
Don't really understand how they fkd up the story and characters so bad.
Metzen and the older blizzard devs are still around, and the new guys were in charge of the gameplay so it had nothing to do with it.
You want to know why? Just watch this.
Blizzard actually have competent writers but they weren't the ones in charge.
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On October 26 2010 05:09 klauz619 wrote:
Don't really understand how they fkd up the story and characters so bad.
Metzen and the older blizzard devs are still around, and the new guys were in charge of the gameplay so it had nothing to do with it.
The problem is that Metzen just doesn't really care for internal consistency anymore. This was very clear in the BlizzCon Q&As when fans pointed out major contradictions in the stories and the guy could barely give an answer. My personal favorite was when a little kid was asking how Goblins and Worgens could become Death Knights and WoW, and Metzen was completely stumped by it.
Another problem with Blizzard writers in general is that they've become too obsessed with making their franchises like action movies. The constant horrible attempts at "cool" one-liners, cinematics that focus more on mindless action rather than plot or drama, and so little regard for making characters and actions make sense that even a little kid can see it. It just seems like ever since The Burning Crusade in WoW, the writers all collectively lost their minds and became lazy. It's a shame too, because it used to be a lot better.
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They had already sliped before that no hots before 2012 ...
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Writing like that leaves the opportunity for more plotholes, but the plot is a bit more dynamic I guess. Keeping note of what characters and things have happened or done what helps make your story more coherent and less contradictory but formulaic. Planning ahead helps make the story seem more airtight too. As long as it makes sense and doesnt forget to sensibly tie up loose ends I'll be happy.
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That's quite crap statement from ign right there. They know the rough stuff about where the story leads, but its obvious they don't know each and exact detail, that is something that will come as they progress with the games.
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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?
Actually she did buddy. I've read the biography :D
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i dont know why most of the people judge blizzard for the wol story beeing shit so THE HOLE STORY must be shit aswell.
sc1 had all 3 storys in one game. i guess if they made sc1 in parts the protoss story would suck too.
u have to see wol as a part of the story. ofc they dont fire all the storytwists and awesome stuff in one part. ~~
wait till the story is complete then judge.
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On October 26 2010 06:00 Xtar wrote:Show nested quote +On October 26 2010 02:35 Billy_ wrote:
Seriously though.... Jim wanting to save Kerrigan is just consistent character development. So he gave up on saving her and threatened her, big deal. Doesn't change the fact that he once liked her, rushed to her aid before she hatched on Char, and then got told by Valarian that he might not have to kill her. No. It isn't character development. There's nothing what makes Raynor change his mind. And, he can't suddenly have been romantically involved with Kerrigan. They met for the first time in SC campaign. They worked together for like 3 missions. That's all. Did Raynor have dreams or something about how things could have been if events had been different and he fell in love with her that way or what? You don't hate someone so badly you want to kill her with your own hands then and there, then not see each other for like what 3 years? And then you suddenly not only think you can save that person but you also are in love with that person? It is just bad story telling to not even try to cover up that plot hole. You call it character development? It is a complete lack of such a thing. And how did he like her? There was only Kerrigan saying 'you pig' as she was reading her mind. And that may have been their first and last meeting. Fact that he suddenly believes people can be deinfester, they start hunting artifacts for money, and then artifact turns out to be a zerg deinfester, it's all extremely badly done. I personally could have done better. But the thing is, Blizzard did market research and they discovered that it doesn't matter how good or bad the story is. So they choose not to waste rescources and profit on it. With the last few Hollywood movies we have had, like the Star Trek one, anything is good.
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.
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On October 25 2010 00:05 Acritter wrote:Show nested quote +On October 24 2010 23:37 Deckkie wrote:On October 24 2010 23:34 tacrats wrote:On October 24 2010 23:31 Mothxal wrote:On October 24 2010 23:25 tacrats wrote: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. Just because you disliked the single-player, don't pretend the rest of the world agrees. Hardly any writers know how a story will end. In fact, knowing often makes for a worse story, since then the story can be somewhat artificial and drawn out, since the pacing might not be accounted for in the original idea. any self-respecting individual would agree sc2 SP sucked. You should see the SP more as a movie. the books go way deeper into the story line. well at least they did for SC and BW. And I personally did like the SP a lot. (Maybe some more baseless missions) Ignoring the concept that a story can be fine if you need supplementary material for it to not suck: Calling something a movie doesn't excuse it from having a horrible storyline. Sure, movies can have simpler storylines because they just don't have the room for anything more complex, but there's still good and bad storytelling within movies. Example? Compare Star Wars IV to I. IV didn't have a complex storyline, but it had solid characters that acted out their parts with nothing out of character. I had a much more complex storyline that couldn't be fully understood without reading the books, a set of characters that (outside of being impossible to care about) did not always make sense, such as the wise Jedi master Qui-Gon using the force to cheat and browbeat people every other scene, and completely worthless exposition with the little organisms that cause the force. Sound familiar? That's right, Starcraft 1's Terran campaign was far from complex (Zerg attack, ally with rebels, overthrow government, discover leader to be evil), but all of the characters acted in line and you could have emotions for all of them, whether pitying Kerrigan or hating Mengsk. Most of all, that story was IT. There wasn't anything else you should go read for clarification, except possibly the lore guide if you felt ambitious. Then, in SC2, you have Raynor going back on his promise during Mission 8 of the SC:BW Zerg Campaign (True Colors; he promises to kill Kerrigan some day) and suddenly falls back in love with her for no apparent reason, you get near-emotionless characters like Matt Horner to empathize with, the Overmind is retroactively written to be a poor being working against fate, and none of it makes any more sense than Mengsk sending out Tychus with a bomb strapped to him with orders to kill KERRIGAN, not Raynor. The SC2 story was horrible, and something Blizzard should be ashamed of. None of this is to say that the individual missions were bad. In fact, they were all very enjoyable, and on average better than the SC1 missions barring any influence of story (it feels cooler to be capturing the Overmind than bringing Medics to certain locations). The story just happens to be awful. Also, if this hasn't been done already, could I request a mod send this to the SC2 SP subforum?
Man! You make it sound really terrible!
I guess that's because it is.....
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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.
More likely you are confusing one of those books with SC BW. If I am wrong at least have the guts to point it out. This is both weak and not bringing this discussion any further. Do you really want to bait me into a 'yes' 'no' 'yes' 'no'?
Mission 5 in Starcraft is the first mission with Kerrigan. Never does it become clear Kerrigan and Raynor already know each other. Mission 7 is where Kerrigan gets abandoned. Only mission where Kerrigan and Raynor interact, and actually meet personally, is mission 5. Raynor calls her 'darling' once. But obviously this is just macho nonsense. She even tells him to shut up, which was probably exactly what Raynor expected her to say.
And it's not just that where the story is messed up.
The whole thing about the overmind being tricked and Tassadar still being alive and there being some mysterious force and some mysterious prophecy is all bad. SC2 is made for people that were 2 years old when Starcraft was released.
It is stupid you people even try to argue against all this. Metzen would probably proudly admit he retconned everything. Look at some of the questions he got at all those lore Q&As. He just makes a big joke out of it.
Tychus line is weak.
Artifact line is weak.
Overmind being tricked is weak.
Tassadar being alive is weak.
Raynor being in love with Kerrigan is weak.
And I bet Metzen would gladly admit all of this he made up only a few years ago. When they made SC BW they already made a sequel for Warcraft. Don't tell me he couldn't have known there was going to be a sequel to SC and BW. And even if he didn't know, you have to use your writing skill to mold the plot the way you want it without it getting weak. That's the whole thing about plot writing that takes skill. You have to wrestle with it and tame it. A story has a mind of it's own and you have to trick it into the direction you want it to go in. That takes skill. You can't just whisk stuff over and leave gaping plot holes or retcon stuff. You have to set up a story. If everything that happens only depends on everything that is on the next page/next mission, then your story sucks, period. It is about introducing a character on page 40 that becomes essential way at the end of the story. If you don't know how the story ends you have to finish it once and then redo it completely or you are at the mercy of the story itself, for the good or the bad.
You people are just denying the art in writing plot lines, calling plot holes and retcon 'character development'.
Go watch those youtube videos someone else linked by broodmywarcraft. He points out a lot of stuff.
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