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I read the long, multi-posting contribution of a user in the Battlenet forums. I read many postings on TL which criticize Blizzard for a poorly written story. Blizzard must be proud of having fans who pay so much attention. But some fans forget to consider some important things.
1) The story serves as a hub to get into the missions. Not the other way round. SC2 is still an RTS game, not a Warhammer 40000 RPG. Blizzard intentionally allowed some logical inconsistencies like the mechanics of the mission archive.
2) Often, some official books are quoted to proof that some figure in the game acted wrong. But the games speak for them self and can be understood without reading any novel or even the short stories on the official SC2 page. Many franchises have a much deeper and complex story in their expanded universe.
3) If someone cite a quote of a character of a previous game, they assume that the character spoke the truth. But the character could have been misinformed, or he could try to deceive you. May be the character forgot some things he said a long time ago. Cut him some slack, please!
4) There will always be some small errors and some greater plot holes. This is true for almost any franchise. To be honest, I am really annoyed about many contradictions in the Star Trek universe, because I will never know what “truly” happened. But it is still an inspiring franchise.
5) SC2 fails to explain why the Taldarim, a protoss tribe of a traditional faith, imprison Dark Templars, but use Dark Dragoons (aka Stalkers.) SC1 fails to explain why every terran faction has access to the same array of unit types. Some things are dictated by the demand of the gameplay and limits in the budget. Yes, Blizzard should have payed some more attention to those things. But one have to compare what they made wrong with the things they did right.
The mission design is excellent. Not only "Find exit of dungeon, hero must survive", "Survive XX minutes" or "build base, raze the enemy". The campaign also offers replay value. If the missions are too easy for you, try to play with additional limitations. The overall production value of the campaign is outstanding: Explanation and even videos of unit upgrades, many optional character interaction, clickable items around you. With very few exceptions, anything is rendered with excellent graphical quality. Yes, the manual is quite thin, but you could buy the Collector’s Edition with the art book (which I did, the art book really worth the money.) The WoL webpages offer detailled biographs even of small characters plus background story and a lot of data for many planets in the SC universe.
Now I want to get a bit into the beginning of the story. We learn that Raynor is still in love with Sarah, even though four years ago he promised to kill her. I must ask, do you do anything which you promised even just four months ago? Isn’t love illogical in the first place? Why does he love Sarah even though she became such a monstrosity? Well, he can, because he is human after all. Do not forget he is very often drunk. Raynor’s behaviour is erratically, at best. This is well illustrated by most of the first missions. Here he fights some Protoss fanatics, there he saves some colonists. If you like a more linear story, you can play the mission of each branch one after another.
The story does include many cliches and many cheesy dialog. Why would Chris Metzen and his team dare to not ask us how exactly the story should develop? Oh wait … it’s their franchise. Aimed for a 2010 audience. Instead of giving some die-hard SC1 fans exactly what they want, they dare to go into mainstream to attract new fans to the franchise. Imagine – noobs playing Starcraft! This is the end of the world, because it belongs to us! We liked it like it was. We want back the talking heads. We want back the weird Broodwar mission. And we want back the “original” story of a rebellion leader who turned out to be a dictator himself and betrayed his friend.
We have so fond memories of this stuff because we played it a long time ago. Not because it was actually so good. We just got used to it.
RETCON. Retroactive continuity belittles the story of the previous games. The appearance of Tassadar disappointed me more than it surprised me for good. But the prophecy in general was needed for two things: First, we learn that Kerrigan must not die; while we already reckon that Tychus will attempt to kill her. Second, we get Zeratul into the game, which allowed the Protoss mini campaign. Since LotV will be the last expansion, Protoss fans get at least a few missions to play right now.
The prophecy branch also brings some fantasy / mystery / Warcraft feeling in the story. A good change from the all-metal environment on the Hyperion. If you don’t like it, just ignore it. Zeratul missions can be completely skipped. Blizzard gave you the mission freedom by a reason: Within some borders, you can create your own WoL story line. You also don’t have to decide to team with or kill Ariel or Gabriel. (Both have name of Angels … a coincidence?)
Finally, about how the story resolves. The WoL story does not resolve. It is the first part of a three-campaign story. No, Jimmy and Sarah will not live happy ever after. They are together just for this moment. The cruel fate will separate them again.
And no, the zerg are not a misunderstood race. Zerg are still a vile and mean and thirsty for blood. Just because they were used does not mean they are in fact a noble race.
Of course, everyone is free to dislike the story anyway. But accept that the WoL story is canon now. Cut it some slack and enjoy as much as you can instead of looking into the old manual if you can find another contradiction to the WoL campaign.
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general summary of my thoughts surrounding all types of story criticism, WoL or otherwise
well said
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Your argument seems to be that a cliched story with crappy writing attracts more new people to play SC2. I don't think this is a very good argument. The purpose of a story is to compel people to continue playing the campaign instead of just skipping to multi-player. For SC2, the story did the exact opposite for me. The missions are fun, but I had to grit my teeth through all the shitty dialogue. The story seriously hurt an otherwise excellent campaign.
I'd argue that if the campaign had better storytelling and stronger writing it would attract even more people to the game. Bottom line is that SC2's story is the worst of all recent Blizzard games. It just cuts against the grain of Blizzard's usual standard for quality.
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Sorry, I cant give such a cliched story with plot holes a free pass.
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On January 23 2011 09:31 Serpico wrote:
Sorry, I cant give such a cliched story with plot holes a free pass.
Free pass for what?
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On January 23 2011 07:45 [F_]aths wrote:
3) If someone cite a quote of a character of a previous game, they assume that the character spoke the truth. But the character could have been misinformed, or he could try to deceive you. May be the character forgot some things he said a long time ago. Cut him some slack, please!
This just sounds like a weak excuse for an inconsistent plot/story. Everything in the past is then questionable, nothing is concrete. Maybe Character A's memory is sketchy, maybe he was being mind controlled, maybe he was joking, maybe he was lying, maybe he's plain stupid.
The story does include many cliches and many cheesy dialog. Why would Chris Metzen and his team dare to not ask us how exactly the story should develop? Oh wait … it’s their franchise. Aimed for a 2010 audience. Instead of giving some die-hard SC1 fans exactly what they want, they dare to go into mainstream to attract new fans to the franchise. Imagine – noobs playing Starcraft! This is the end of the world, because it belongs to us! We liked it like it was. We want back the talking heads. We want back the weird Broodwar mission. And we want back the “original” story of a rebellion leader who turned out to be a dictator himself and betrayed his friend.
There's nothing daring about dumbing down your franchise in order to make more money. There's nothing daring in being unoriginal.
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well put indeed. i'll direct friend to here instead of explaining in length.
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1) You're telling us the story sucks for a reason, and then you go on to say that the story isn't so bad after all. And lol@intentionally allowing logical inconsistencies. IT WAS ALL PART OF THE PLAN GUIZE
2) Without the novels or short stories, characters like Matt Horner, Nova, and Tosh are plastic dummies.
3) A deep underlying purpose that's recited in WoL's little manual is not something a character is likely to forget.
4) You're making the "everyone makes mistakes" argument while simultaneously claiming the mistakes aren't mistakes at all.
5) Rights do not excuse wrongs.
I'm not even mad, broskibro junior.
On January 23 2011 14:09 machine wrote:
well put indeed. i'll direct friend to here instead of explaining in length.
Thanks for the input, one-post possible sockpuppet. Now you don't have to think about anything yourself; you can just answer any complainers right to this thread.
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really great post. i also agree that people are being much too harsh. i loved sc2s story and your right about the "The story serves as a hub to get into the missions," part. although i still feel any game thats not straight up half cutscenes/reading dialogue will have a less grand story than say a movie or a book.
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well said, well created 
Blizzard did so a good job with this. I was a bit disappointed that the story didn't seem as "deep", but I mean it's only the first expansion. Either way, yes I see what you mean, the missions themselves were the focus (or so it seems). The story is a bit less memorable, but this way the missions have a lot of replayability :D And by the 3rd expansion, may be the story will even satisfy the old SC1 story style fans while having even better missions.
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United States22883 Posts
Since when was Raynor in love with Kerrigan? He had the hots for her, but Blizzard went the easy (and lame) route by making it a love story.
There was a lot of stupid shit in SC1 as well, but the Prophecy just falls out of place in a SC series. It plays more into fantasy than science fiction.
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Good storytellers do not off the most interesting and charismatic character at the end of the first act.
The demise of Tychus is fail.
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None of this changes the fact that the dialog was nauseatingly, insultingly cheesy- that was the main problem for me.
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And no, the zerg are not a misunderstood race. Zerg are still a vile and mean and thirsty for blood. Just because they were used does not mean they are in fact a noble race.
sigh.... did you play the protoss campaign portion? Zeratul makes contact with the overmind and suggests that the thing is a sensitive creature with actual feelings, PUH-LEEZE!
But yeah, the campaign was great game play wise but why do people revere FF7 so much? Because of it's game play? Because the story is so memorable. Will people remember SC2's campaign down to the last detail? Doubtful but then again maybe so because of how shallow and surprisingly dull it was. Yea I get that this is part 1, but SC1 had 3 parts as well and none of the endings of each campaign were THIS bad. It even continued into BW flawlessly, I have doubts that HoTS will really match that level of genius. Sure this is an RTS game, I get it, but why even have a campaign at all then if that's all this is? There is no reason to have a campaign at all if the story is this bad, might as well give an option to have zero dialogue and just play each mission in a row. I mean, why do I need to know what I'm fighting the zerg/protoss for anyways if it's merely an RTS game?
SC2 is a great game, but it's shame that SC1 was so great because now we have to live in it's shadow and forever talk about how it's infinitely better than SC2's story.
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On January 23 2011 09:15 Newbistic wrote:
I'd argue that if the campaign had better storytelling and stronger writing it would attract even more people to the game. Bottom line is that SC2's story is the worst of all recent Blizzard games. It just cuts against the grain of Blizzard's usual standard for quality. This is the first Blizzard game with a somewhat non-linear campaign. They need to learn how to use it best.
I was disappointed to not getting the old SC1 feeling in the campaign. But considering SC2 just a game, the story was good enough for me.
In my personal experience, people who are not familiar with SC1 are generally like the SC2 campaign. They may be complain about the silly running gag of Kate Lockwell who is interrupted by Donnie Vermillion, but they consider the story to be fun and having depth.
We, the old generation, don't only know SC1, we also followed Blizzard lore panels and used other resources. We also had two games (SC1, BW) while WoL is just one game so far. Most of us also know some of the SC1 inspirations like Starship Troopers, Warhammer 40k, the Alien movie series and other franchises. We have very narrow expectations and are just afraid of change, because it could turn out that our version of the universe is not canon.
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On January 23 2011 14:03 BasilPesto wrote:Show nested quote +On January 23 2011 07:45 [F_]aths wrote:
3) If someone cite a quote of a character of a previous game, they assume that the character spoke the truth. But the character could have been misinformed, or he could try to deceive you. May be the character forgot some things he said a long time ago. Cut him some slack, please! This just sounds like a weak excuse for an inconsistent plot/story. Everything in the past is then questionable, nothing is concrete. Maybe Character A's memory is sketchy, maybe he was being mind controlled, maybe he was joking, maybe he was lying, maybe he's plain stupid. Of course, a franchise should be reasonable. In most cases, a character should not undergo an implausible change. But we cannot take every single word some character said as the irrevocable truth. Even though if we feel that the writers retconned it, we need to give it some leeway or we will never be happy anyway.
Show nested quote +The story does include many cliches and many cheesy dialog. Why would Chris Metzen and his team dare to not ask us how exactly the story should develop? Oh wait … it’s their franchise. Aimed for a 2010 audience. Instead of giving some die-hard SC1 fans exactly what they want, they dare to go into mainstream to attract new fans to the franchise. Imagine – noobs playing Starcraft! This is the end of the world, because it belongs to us! We liked it like it was. We want back the talking heads. We want back the weird Broodwar mission. And we want back the “original” story of a rebellion leader who turned out to be a dictator himself and betrayed his friend. There's nothing daring about dumbing down your franchise in order to make more money. There's nothing daring in being unoriginal.
- First, the campaign required me to join Arcturus Mensk in the first place. But I intended to obey every order from my original superiours. I did not want to be a rebell then. Sooo easy how Blizzard tried to give us the feeling that, since we are with Jimmy, we are special -- because we are choosen to join a rebellion.
- Then, the betrayal. Now it turned out, everything was in vain. In fact, everything we did, made it even worse because we helped Mensk. I played the campaign with no satisfaction. Later, the Bitch of Blades killed several of our friends. How original is such writing?
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WoL was by no means great but it was standard vanilla that should appeal to 13-14 year old kids. What i felt most was that it was a rewind ... very little of sc1 and sc2 events are refferenced or indeed relevant - and it makes sense since they wanted to appeal to a new audience as well and hitting them over the head with 12 year old lore would have been scary.
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On January 23 2011 16:22 Jibba wrote:
Since when was Raynor in love with Kerrigan? He had the hots for her, but Blizzard went the easy (and lame) route by making it a love story. It worked for me. During the SC1 campaign I always felt that she is his girl. In the light of the events (his girl got infested and so on) of course his feelings did not had highest priority.
As the infested Kerrigan spared Jim's life, I knew that there is something more between those two than the campaign revealed.
On January 23 2011 16:22 Jibba wrote:
There was a lot of stupid shit in SC1 as well, but the Prophecy just falls out of place in a SC series. It plays more into fantasy than science fiction. You can skip it. In my first playthrough, I did skip it because I considered it (and still considers it) just a fan service. As I played it in my second, third, and fifth playthrough (the fourth was for the Hurry it's Raid Night achievement) I actually liked the change from a rebel's life.
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I found the story to be excellent, I loved every minute of it.
Of course everyone's gunnna have different opinions and all but I'd rate the story pretty damn high in terms of video game stories.
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EPT
