EPTI have no problems with the mission archive etc, and it was an interesting idea to try to make it non-linear as you can choose your own path or whatever, so of course it is understandable that ther are some logical inaccuracies. However, it seems to me as if the whole single player campaign was designed with gameplay in mind, and not story. Resulting in a pretty good gameplay but horrendeous storyline. And to be honest, if I want to enjoy the gameplay, I will be playing multiplayer, not single player...
The criticism of the WoL story is (mostly) wrong - Page 2
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DennizR
Sweden653 Posts
I have no problems with the mission archive etc, and it was an interesting idea to try to make it non-linear as you can choose your own path or whatever, so of course it is understandable that ther are some logical inaccuracies. However, it seems to me as if the whole single player campaign was designed with gameplay in mind, and not story. Resulting in a pretty good gameplay but horrendeous storyline. And to be honest, if I want to enjoy the gameplay, I will be playing multiplayer, not single player... | ||
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[F_]aths
Germany3947 Posts
As I recently went back to Fallout 1, I saw that the game is still as good as I remembered. Some part in me hopes that I will once be unemployed so I have the time to play it once again. And then Fallout 2. And then Planescape Tourment. As I also went back to Broodwar, I was surprised how clunky it all felt. The mission design in quite standard. The terran story is weird. First we help Mensk who betrays us, then in BW the UED appears. Often I was just "wtf? Why would he ... I not even ..." I really think that beside all achievements of the original game, the story is not one of them. Nor is it one in the today's installment call WoL. But it still serves it purpose. Raynor was quite bald in SC1, like Mensk, now but have full hair. How is that possible? Why is a battle cruiser so tiny compared to a marine in both games? Why must I endure the action-movie like dialogs in WoL? Because it's just a game. I still remember how I rushed my first playthrough because I was so eager to know the end of this campaign's story. There were some things I did not like (and still I don't like them.) But overall, Blizzard did a good job with the campaign even though some retcon irritated me. | ||
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FeyFey
Germany10114 Posts
I always liked blizzards storys for games. A sweet to read "Why did this happened" story ... briefing filling from Mission to Mission. Next part ... what has happened so far story. Really liked the where is the clerik and why is there now a paladin story. from war1 to war2. They made awesome storys with just such an simple concept, and their background storys where always really nice and deep for a game. Probably with growing employees you need the "good writers" that make tv serie stories and all. Because the Pen and Paper nerds can't put up good fantasy and scifi stories *G*. PS: not knowing what the characters would do next in sc1 is ... guess most people knew after 1 or 2 briefings that mengsk is just a politician who wants more power and that at some point raynor will have enough of him. | ||
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shoop
United Kingdom228 Posts
(a) lots of people like to bash blizzard as if blizzard owes them anything rather than the other way around (b) reducing the quality of the campaign to a single "sucks" or "rocks" is extremely one-dimensional; especially the many haters seem to be oblivious to the parts of the campaign that are in fact exceptionally well done (mission design, voice acting, upgrades/research, user interface, character animation, gently introducing gameplay and background story to new players, ...). (c) About the story: sure there are plot holes, but many people who complain have not the faintest clue as to storytelling in a production like this. Everyone is entitled to say "I don't like X", but if you are clueless, it is very poor style to say "Here we go again, blizzard messed X up so bad" or something like that (edit: next post is a good example) So I agree with the general tone of the OP although some arguments seem a bit forced. | ||
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da_head
Canada3350 Posts
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[F_]aths
Germany3947 Posts
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Haemonculus
United States6980 Posts
Now I enjoyed the campaign missions, but honestly I feel it's a totally valid complaint to say that the characters in WoL are seriously lacking. Arcturus is supposed to be a brilliant manipulative villain, offering each character something they want, or tricking them into thinking what they want. The books flesh this out further; He's a criminal mastermind. In WoL he's your stereotype "stupid oppressive dictator". Kerrigan also, is manipulative, brilliant, headstrong, etc. Tricking her enemies into working together to destroy her foes, backstabbing them at the perfect times. She put it well, she's queen bitch of the universe. Personally leads the assault on (what she believes to be) Tassadar's base. In SC2 she's... kinda dumb? "Grrrrr Jimmy you tricked me!" etc. Trolling through random buildings while Raynor's base is a mere few miles away. So silly. And then the whole Xel Naga thing, the threat of the hybrids, etc. I think I've played this game before in Wc3 and Mass Effect. Commander And the zerg being a bunch of misunderstood animals, manipulated into being evil? Whhhatttttt.... really? It bothered me enough in the warcraft universe that the Orcs were really all noble and honorable and shit, just corrupted, but whatever. The wc universe isn't supposed to be serious, so I was alright with it. But please don't make the zergs a bunch of good guys. Ravenous cruel all-consuming space bugs please. Kerrigan being human again? Wow you killed your most interesting character to give the story a sappy happy love-story ending. Cool beans. | ||
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Teivospylol
Djibouti47 Posts
in sc1 raynor always got dealt a terrible hand, he even was bald and had a unibrow, but he handled his business and came out best as possible with a great attitude that made you think "awesome" in sc2 i did not get that attitude from him at all, instead i feel as if they should have made raynor obese and then his physical appearance would have supplemented his depressing drunk mannerisms completely. the only good character from the campaign was Tychus and then they killed him off (of course he'll probably come back as the zerg king because lolblizzardtwist) | ||
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Koshi
Belgium38797 Posts
Love story = check Bad guys became good guys = check Fighting against a common enemy = check Plot deciding prophecy = check If you have 10 years to make a 5 hour story. Can you at least make it consistent with the novels? Towards OP: You made a very well constructed post, and I salute you for that. But the core of the story should have filled the hearts of the old players with joy. While the gameplay should attract the young "noobs". But the story was made to sell copies, and the gameplay was made to sell copies. Brutal does not mean roflcopterstomping through it when you play the game for 2 weeks. | ||
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Feb
98 Posts
is the raynor-kerrigan relationship being defined seriously that big a problem for people? personally i always thought the ambiguity surrounding it in sc1/bw to be pretty stupid, and defining it as love to be a smart move as otherwise raynor's odd loyalty towards her even after infestation seems completely non-sensical. i liked the story overall, but i did find the majority of the new characters to be extremely boring, and the mengsk plot to be absolutely ridiculous (he's using tychus to spy yet lets tychus completely ruin his reputation?), but everything involving characters without the surname mengsk generally worked for me, if not being somewhat boring at times (in particular i wish there were greater narrative consequences to siding with tosh/nova and hansen/selendis). could they have done better? absolutely. but it's hardly as big a trainwreck as the star wars prequels. | ||
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Beirut
United States673 Posts
In SC1, only considering the Terran campaign, there was a ton of stuff going on. You took Raynor from being a nobody Sheriff, to allying with an interstellar terrorist against a tyrannical government, to manipulating a global population of Zerg invaders, to the downfall of the Terran confederacy. The characters were great, the dialogue and voice acting was believable, and the events were catastrophic for the universe you were so quickly engrossed in. Keep in mind I didn't even include any content from the last 20 missions of the game. All of that was completed in ten missions. In SC2, the campaign made me feel like some type of interstellar antique collector... a mercenary team engaging in lame and uneventful jobs that had no place in the greater fate of the Koprulu sector. That is, when it wasn't confusing me with new, unestablished relationships and/or characters. The dialogue was unemotional and silly. Tychus Findlay was a badass character, but I can only take him saying stuff like, "Yeah, I'll fry em like back in the day Jimmy," a couple times before it gets old and ridiculous; OK, we understand that you guys used to work together and that you're a badass or w/e, we don't need that reinforced over dozens of lines of mindless, poorly written dialogue. I will admit that some of the cinematic content was well-done and very emotional. I remember two exact instances of this: 1) when Kerrigan was being overrun by the Zerg armies at New Gettysburg. Sadly enough, this was a scene from the first game, and most of its emotional involvement stemmed from SC1's superior character attachments. 2) The final scene when Jim Raynor walks out of the Hive with Kerrigan in his hands. I think this was very well-done cinematically, but distinctly remember thinking, "Wow what a great scene... I just wish the ending hadn't sucked so hard." In conclusion, the campaign just didn't do anything. I don't feel like I accomplished anything by playing it. At the end, I felt like I had reunited two people whose love for each other was unfounded and sort of made-up, whereas by the end of the SC1 campaign, I felt like I had just been witness to several catastrophic upheavals in the Koprulu Sector, and to the galaxy as a whole. Thanks for reading. Back to my econ homework haha. | ||
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Zato-1
Chile4253 Posts
On January 23 2011 22:57 Phenny wrote: I found the story to be excellent, I loved every minute of it. This. The story from Starcraft was pretty good and the story from Brood Wars was pretty bad, but WoL's story and particularly its execution and attitude were immensely enjoyable to me. On hindsight, the characters are probably a bit too predictable and flat, but the WoL campaign ranks as one of the most fun gaming experiences I've ever had. | ||
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Spawkuring
United States755 Posts
My criticisms are mostly the same as what many other people mentioned. Mengsk never comes off as a convincing villain in SC2, doing nothing more but having silly propaganda shows and somehow being outmaneuvered by Raynor despite having Tychus in on the whole thing. Kerrigan does very little of note in the campaign, and is more of a plot device than an actual character since her importance basically revolves around her place in the whole prophecy crap. Zeratul also does nothing but get railroaded on the silly prophecy plot, and every other minor character is basically just a cardboard cut-out of fiction archetypes. Swann is never anything more than the tech guy. Stettman is never anything more than the science nerd guy. Even Tosh and Hanson do little despite having 1/3 the campaign dedicated to them. I always love how Tosh goes on about how Nova won't join Raynor, yet he himself does absolutely nothing when the major Save-Kerrigan plot point kicks into gear. WoL may have been 30 missions long, but I can honestly say that more happened in the 10-mission long SC1 terran campaign than this. The only thing important that happens in WoL is saving Kerrigan, everything else is a minor side-plot at best. Even the whole overthrow Arcturus side plot gets shelved away once Valerian comes in, and the campaign epilogue even states that Arcturus still stays "securely in his throne" despite the whole leaked recording incident. SC2 may have great production values, but I personally find it to have a far weaker story than SC1/WC3. Even BW, with all of its flaws, was much better because it still had some of the most memorable moments in gaming (Brood War intro cinematic, Brood War ending cinematic, Fenix's death). P.S. And the saddest part is that even game reviewers, who normally suck up to Blizzard, have to admit that the story sucks. Check this link here for all the things reviewers have had to say about it: http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/374721415?page=76#1512 This one too: http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/1568011928?page=1 | ||
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Fumi
529 Posts
On January 24 2011 11:02 Feb wrote: i'm not sure i follow most of this argument. is the raynor-kerrigan relationship being defined seriously that big a problem for people? personally i always thought the ambiguity surrounding it in sc1/bw to be pretty stupid, and defining it as love to be a smart move as otherwise raynor's odd loyalty towards her even after infestation seems completely non-sensical. i liked the story overall, but i did find the majority of the new characters to be extremely boring, and the mengsk plot to be absolutely ridiculous (he's using tychus to spy yet lets tychus completely ruin his reputation?), but everything involving characters without the surname mengsk generally worked for me, if not being somewhat boring at times (in particular i wish there were greater narrative consequences to siding with tosh/nova and hansen/selendis). could they have done better? absolutely. but it's hardly as big a trainwreck as the star wars prequels. The forced relationship (plus character changes, they kinda go together) is probably the thing that bothers me the most about the whole story. I didn't like most other things for reasons people posted in this thread repeatedly, but I didn't really mind them either. But when it comes to the two most important characters in this campaign, it gets hard to ignore. I don't really see any ambiguity regarding it in sc1. I only see a few witty comments from a guy who thinks his old partner is hot. Could that have developed into a relationship? Maybe, after the whole plot is resolved and Kerrigan is back to normal, helping Raynor throughout the other expansions or something. But WoL pretty much comes and says "Oh remember these two? Yeah, they were like really in love with each other since forever ago, just letting you know.". Another thing that makes this romance incredibly annoying is the fact that the whole fight against Kerrigan's swarm felt like it had the sole purpose of getting the two "back" together. What Koshi said is kind of what I think as well. The way the love story was handled, the changes on Raynor's looks and personality, his actions, everything seems pretty much geared towards teenagers to create a badass hero. The new looks and attitude, I mean, come on. That scene where he beats up Tychus is the perfect example. And of course, a badass hero needs to be a chick magnet (I'm surprised they didn't make Nova fall in love with him too), and he's got to go in an epic journey to rescue the one he likes. About the characters being boring, I agree. I didn't mind it much since they're pretty harmless, and we got to play Zeratul for a few missions, but nice side characters would help ignoring the problems I listed above (by the way, I'm surprised I still didn't see someone getting offended at Tosh's character archetype, I'll take that as a good thing). The missions themselves were a lot of fun. Would be kinda cool to see Raynor as a vulture in the vulture mission, but can't have everything. | ||
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Cathasaigh
United States285 Posts
On January 23 2011 23:38 DennizR wrote: I did not enjoy the story, felt way too standard and cliché. Of course people will expect the characters to behave as in SC1 since they are supposed to be the same characters, same names and everything. Raynor, Mengsk and Kerrigan were all multi-dimensional and interesting in SC1, but completely predictable and boring in SC2. I have no problems with the mission archive etc, and it was an interesting idea to try to make it non-linear as you can choose your own path or whatever, so of course it is understandable that ther are some logical inaccuracies. However, it seems to me as if the whole single player campaign was designed with gameplay in mind, and not story. Resulting in a pretty good gameplay but horrendeous storyline. And to be honest, if I want to enjoy the gameplay, I will be playing multiplayer, not single player... If you want to enjoy game play, then play a game... like sc2 single player for instance. If you want to enjoy a story then go read something don't play a game and complain that the story wasn't good enough. | ||
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Fumi
529 Posts
On January 24 2011 16:01 Cathasaigh wrote: If you want to enjoy game play, then play a game... like sc2 single player for instance. If you want to enjoy a story then go read something don't play a game and complain that the story wasn't good enough. I don't get this. So a game with a single player campaign can't have its story criticized because it's a game? What, do you think games aren't a valid form of storytelling? There are games out there with bad story or no story at all, mostly because they're centered on the multiplayer, and you could argue SC2 falls into that category as well, but I disagree. Most of us here are fans of the original game, and while its story isn't the deepest thing ever, it still had a very solid story and well constructed characters, which we remembered for many years. It is fair to expect Blizzard to live up to that, at least a little bit. | ||
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[F_]aths
Germany3947 Posts
On January 24 2011 03:59 Haemonculus wrote: May be he still is this kind of man, but he don't needs to trick anyone we're with in the campaign. We now have Valerian for that.First of all, you should know by now that the battle.net forums are a total mess. I wouldn't really take anything posted by the trolling masses there seriously. Now I enjoyed the campaign missions, but honestly I feel it's a totally valid complaint to say that the characters in WoL are seriously lacking. Arcturus is supposed to be a brilliant manipulative villain, offering each character something they want, or tricking them into thinking what they want. The books flesh this out further; He's a criminal mastermind. In WoL he's your stereotype "stupid oppressive dictator". About the race team effort to fight the Dark Voice or the misunderstood zerg or the deinfested Kerrigan: I really think you jump to conclusions here. Some alternatives: Only some guys (the "good" guys) of each race are supposed to fight the evil. The zerg, even though they are manipulated, are by no means a race which seeks to establish a dialog between them an other races. Kerrigan is supposed to be the leader of the swarm in HotS, either fully infested or not, she still can fulfil her role as the leader of the swarm. | ||
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[F_]aths
Germany3947 Posts
On January 24 2011 11:26 Beirut wrote: The SC1 campaign progressed through the mission intro and some dialog during the mission. The actual missions had little to do with the story: Build a random base on a random planet, raze a random enemy base. SC2 does a much better job to get you a feeling "I am actually here. My presence means something. Also I can decide what I do next." Those decision are of course limited, but since we also have armory upgrade / laboratory / mercenary options and because of the mission order influences the units we have access to, it feels meaningful (while it is in fact not really for the SC2 story.)In SC1, only considering the Terran campaign, there was a ton of stuff going on. You took Raynor from being a nobody Sheriff, to allying with an interstellar terrorist against a tyrannical government, to manipulating a global population of Zerg invaders, to the downfall of the Terran confederacy. [...] All of that was completed in ten missions. I found the SC1 story itself not very appealing even though 12 years ago I was much easier to impress than today. On January 24 2011 11:26 Beirut wrote: I consider some dialogue emotional. Some other lines were outright silly, yes. In SC2, the campaign made me feel like some type of interstellar antique collector... a mercenary team engaging in lame and uneventful jobs that had no place in the greater fate of the Koprulu sector. That is, when it wasn't confusing me with new, unestablished relationships and/or characters. The dialogue was unemotional and silly. On January 24 2011 11:26 Beirut wrote: I was somewhat disappointed that I was not able to bring Mensk down. But on the other hand, Blizzard at least surprised me. I so expected to bring that guy to justice ... but then I hold Sarah in my arms (or Jimmy did, at least.)I will admit that some of the cinematic content was well-done and very emotional. I remember two exact instances of this: 1) when Kerrigan was being overrun by the Zerg armies at New Gettysburg. Sadly enough, this was a scene from the first game, and most of its emotional involvement stemmed from SC1's superior character attachments. 2) The final scene when Jim Raynor walks out of the Hive with Kerrigan in his hands. I think this was very well-done cinematically, but distinctly remember thinking, "Wow what a great scene... I just wish the ending hadn't sucked so hard." On January 24 2011 11:26 Beirut wrote: We invaded Char and assembled an artifact which did the unthinkable. We still don't know the true purpose of the artifact. We also don't know (but we guess) who supplied Mensk with Hybrid technology. Kerrigan did not buy the "Dr. Narud charade", so didn't we ... or did we?In conclusion, the campaign just didn't do anything. | ||
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Tyree
1508 Posts
In BW (spoilers), the Protoss+Dark Templar, Dominion and the UED attacked and tried to bring Sarah down, in that last mission Kerrigan was successfull and chased them all away. In WoL we are supposed to believe that Raynor+his crew+ his arcade machine and some Dominion troops came to Char, and not only blasted their way through a lava infested planet but also caught Kerrigan alive!!??!? All this says, is that Blizzard wants a pretty, hot, woman on the cover of HotS, thus they need to turn Kerrigan "face" (meaning GOOD), so that they have a character in the Zerg campaign that the players can stare at her ass (look up Miranda in ME2). A Zerg campaign with Zerg Cerebrates and possibly a new Overmind would be cool but dosent sell as much as a hot piece of ass on the box cover. That is 1 complaint out of 1000 i have, and trust me, NONE of them are about the dialog or the missions. I found the actual gameplay and mission variety to be superb and even better than SC and BW. The story however has alot of issues, like how they are reclying the tired "races band together to fight off the big evil" (see Warcraft 3). Blizzard in general has a huge problem it seems with playable races fighting in their games, they made their Orcs stale and basically made almost every race in WoW "good", just like the Zerg are being nutered now to be a good race that is just missunderstood or misguided. When Raynor fought the Toss in the campaign in WoL, it had to be some crazy Toss faction that is clearly "evil". This is Blizzard 101, cant have the Orcs and Humans fight, it has to be Orcs vs Evil Human faction, or Human vs Evil Orc faction. Again i need to stop myself because i can go on and on about this, but from a pure gameplay view SC2 is a excellent game and missions are very varied and fun to do, moreso than any RTS game ever made, and trust me, ive played them all since Dune. | ||
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MindRush
Romania916 Posts
They could use the dragoon model from SC1 instead of stalker and with same characteristics, or use a lighter model. Or the Tal'Darim are hypocrites. For me it's irrelevant, the story is great. | ||
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