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On February 07 2011 00:49 DennizR wrote:Show nested quote +On February 06 2011 18:38 Aknazer wrote:
I think Raynor had a change of heart in regards to Kerrigan (compared to his view at the end of BW) due to the prophecy missions. Remember that the whole prophecy timeline is what would happen should Raynor follow through with his emotions at the end of BW and kill Kerrigan (or allow her to be killed by Tychus). So now he's torn. The person he seemed to of fallen for in SC, then completely hated due to her actions in BW, now can potentially be saved AND that person is somehow the savior of the universe.
While I don't think WoL was the best of storytelling (too many cheesy 1-liners among other things. A few 1-liners is alright, but they were over-used imo) Raynor's actions seem plausible given the storyline. Raynor has a picture of Kerrigan in the beginning of the story, making some lame remark when you press on it. Way before the whole prophecy story-arc.
True, but also the prophecy arc is about what happens should he let her die. He could still have feelings for the old her (who he obviously had feelings for and had "shacked up with" in the words of Tychus) while hating and wanting to kill the current her. What I took away from the whole prophecy thing is that while he has conflicting emotions, ultimately he was going to let her die (either he would have killed her or let Tychus do it), and that the prophecy is what would happen should he follow through on that vow from the end of BW.
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Plot holes don't matter as long as they're minor. But: "damn, Jimmy, for the most wanted man in the sector, you ain't that hard to find," "tychus Findley, they let you out early for good behavior?" is retarded
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SC2 gave us Donny Vermillion and Kate Lockwell. I forgive everything. I loved those two. In fact, I was more excited to watch the next newscast than playing the next mission lol.
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The campaign isn't AS bad as people try to make it out to be. Sure it has many flaws, and yeah it did feel a bit rushed but it's sure as hell the best RTS campaign that I have ever played. I just hope that they make the missions feel like you are actually doing something in HoS. Do that and add some bad ass cut scenes and I'll be a happy camper.
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On February 09 2011 10:09 KevinIX wrote:
SC2 gave us Donny Vermillion and Kate Lockwell. I forgive everything. I loved those two. In fact, I was more excited to watch the next newscast than playing the next mission lol.
for me:
first time was funny, second time was alright, from then on it was all facepalm.
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i've been thinking too that in sc1 and bw, they make you feel part of it because they always address and talk to you as if you were another character that's part of it all (a commander, a cerebrate...). maybe that's another reason why the story is a little bit more immersive and a lot more charming. in WoL when the story unfolds you don't really exist.
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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.
You're telling me Blizzard devoted an entire fucking department, the cinematic department, the size of in any other company would be an entire fucking studio, as a "Hub to do the missions"?
The Fuck. No, the Story in Unreal Tournament 2003 was a "Hub to make you play the deathmatches".
The Story in SC2 is meant not only as a hub, but as a motivator, to make you care about playing the missions, because you care about watching the plot development, and it failed at that unimaginably.
The rest of your points are basically strawmans because nobodies core criticism is some random inconsistency. Nobodies asking for a masterpiece here, but the plot of SC2 isn't even coherent.
So many design decisions make zero sense. If the plot is emotional centered around Kerrigan, then why does she only interact with Raynor in two missions prior? Shouldn't she be a core antagonist in the story? And because she wasn't, the ending was entirely meaningless because the story wasn't moving towards this conflict.
If you notice, every single mission in the Original SC moves the plot forward, so it creates a desire for the play to know more. Half the missions in SC2 are entirely tangential to the core plot. Random Mining missions? Or how about the fact that the core plot mover missions, the artifact missions, had absolutely zero plot value besides "We got another one", and there isn't even clearly established motive why your spending so much time pursueing them. The enemy you fight the most are Tal-Darim protoss, yet the game elaborates absolutely nothing about them, and then pretends the antagonist is someone else despite almost zero prior conflict with them. I literally know more about say, the Kel-Morian combine, from a single mission in SC1, then the Tal-darim, which I fought seven times.
I'm not even kidding, a six year old could write a better plot. The best written part of the entire SC2 campaign was the Zeratul missions, not because they were well written, but because they at least made logical and emotional sense.
The main problem I have with the criticism is that people refer to SC and BW as having much better plots and writing. As was pointed out, they were just as cliche.
It did. Look, the Video game genre isn't developed enough where titles like cliche are even relavent. As far as literature is concerned, everything in it is lowbrow. The point is that SC1 and BW and Wc3, had incredibly cliche plots that fulfilled there purpose as game design. The produced highly defined characters with memorable moments and motivated us to keep playing. The plot was at least coherent, we're not even talking about good by literary standards, just coherent as in everything makes some tangential level of sense.
I mean, after playing SC2, are there any memorable quotes? Any memorable characters (Maybe Tychus...maybe). Yet somehow I can still quote random characters from Wc3 despite having played that campaign once seven years ago.
I think its easy to dismiss SC2 plot criticism as being RPGtards who are expecting something they shouldn't even be expecting from games. It really isn't that. We're talking about a plot structure that simply doesn't even function as a working plot.
You know the Archetypal Summer Blockbuster? The one wrought with cliches, shallowness, and overuse of tropes and archetypes? That's Wc3 and Sc1. And thats fine. I'm not expecting philophical enlightenment from my strategy games, I'm expecting a working and "fun" plot that drives the story forward. SC2 is Trolls.
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On February 06 2011 13:34 mutantmagnet wrote:Show nested quote +On January 23 2011 07:45 [F_]aths wrote:
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. You underestimate the intelligence level of us critics. I hope that I don't. The arguments from the critics are not false. But there are other arguments of at least same importance which require some compromise for an overall better game.
On February 06 2011 13:34 mutantmagnet wrote:
True Blizzard allowed those logical inconsistencies to happen but that's because the writing team has lost their way. The story elements in SC and Broodwar played a great deal into enhancing the gameplay experience. At that time it was great. Looking on it today I think it feels dated and not so great. The talking heads drive the story while the actual mission does little. We have some dialogue in the missions, but it still feels like another random mission (either a dungeon, a base raze or "hold 20 minutes".) The story itself is also not too interesting, at least this is my impression.
On February 06 2011 13:34 mutantmagnet wrote:
A portion of that team that did Starcraft back then are doing the story now which is why I'm saying they lost their touch instead of saying this team is terrible. Companies like Bioware, and Bethesda have shown writing teams can handle making storylines that account for the random order in which hub style missions can be played. An RTS works different than an RPG story. In WoL you play the missions, not the story. The story is an excuse for the next mission. The game you play is the upgrade or achievement metagame. In WoL the story still worked for me so that I was eager to see how it develops.
On February 06 2011 13:34 mutantmagnet wrote:The number of things they did right storywise is very very small. Haters gonna hate.
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On February 09 2011 10:09 KevinIX wrote:
SC2 gave us Donny Vermillion and Kate Lockwell. I forgive everything. I loved those two. In fact, I was more excited to watch the next newscast than playing the next mission lol. This particular news duo was especially hard for me too accept. How got Kate the job if she values freedom of speech that much? The Vermillion Live show is obviously a parody on Fox, I got this; it still feels out of place for me. They could have done so much more with the newscast: Instead of just commentating Raynor's last actions, they could have give us a glimpse of the surrounding world.
But the newscast is optional. With exception of the first one (where Raynor shoots the tv set) I can skip it entirely. However as I played the game, I missed no single news cast. They could have done this better but it was not that bad.
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On February 10 2011 11:37 Half wrote:Show nested quote +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. You're telling me Blizzard devoted an entire fucking department, the cinematic department, the size of in any other company would be an entire fucking studio, as a "Hub to do the missions"? The Fuck. As a matter of fuck, I do.
Yes, the story also acts as a motivator. It worked for me. In SC1, I did not want to join Mensk in the first place. In WoL, I actually wanted to earn credits. And I wanted get back to Kerrigan. Blizzard did a good job with the "Ghosts of the past" trailer. They remembered me that I abandoned Kerrigan and that I am somehow responsible for her fate. They motivated me to bring Mensk down (ok, he is a tyrant, but he also seperated me from my gf!) and to save my red-haired princess.
For the most parts of the story I struggly to earn credits to upgrade my goliaths and other hardware. Then the entire revolution thing becomes irrelevant as we can side with the son of our arch enemy and use an unknown but powerful artifact to de-infest Kerrigan. This is weird, yes.
On February 10 2011 11:37 Half wrote:
If you notice, every single mission in the Original SC moves the plot forward, so it creates a desire for the play to know more. Half the missions in SC2 are entirely tangential to the core plot. Random Mining missions? Or how about the fact that the core plot mover missions, the artifact missions, had absolutely zero plot value besides "We got another one", and there isn't even clearly established motive why your spending so much time pursueing them. The enemy you fight the most are Tal-Darim protoss, yet the game elaborates absolutely nothing about them, and then pretends the antagonist is someone else despite almost zero prior conflict with them. I literally know more about say, the Kel-Morian combine, from a single mission in SC1, then the Tal-darim, which I fought seven times. Yes, this critique is legit. It does not rely on quoting SC1 manuals or novels but it spotlights some weaknesses of the WoL story.
I agree with the entire paragraph. Blizzard could have done this better.
The point is that SC1 and BW and Wc3, had incredibly cliche plots that fulfilled there purpose as game design. The produced highly defined characters with memorable moments and motivated us to keep playing. The plot was at least coherent, we're not even talking about good by literary standards, just coherent as in everything makes some tangential level of sense.
This is true for SC1 and WC3 without their expansion. In both BW and TFT I have the strong feeling that Blizzard already used up the entire story and quickly made something up.
In WoL I have the feeling that they endlessly changed the story to improve it, but due to lack of experience with the non-linear design they messed some things up.
On February 10 2011 11:37 Half wrote:
I think its easy to dismiss SC2 plot criticism as being RPGtards who are expecting something they shouldn't even be expecting from games. It really isn't that. We're talking about a plot structure that simply doesn't even function as a working plot.
You know the Archetypal Summer Blockbuster? The one wrought with cliches, shallowness, and overuse of tropes and archetypes? That's Wc3 and Sc1. And thats fine. I'm not expecting philophical enlightenment from my strategy games, I'm expecting a working and "fun" plot that drives the story forward. SC2 is Trolls. I would not go that far. WoL changed the tone of the story, from the gritty, dark SF to a western-in-space-story. I watched Clint Eastwood movies with an even sillier plot, but it worked.
May be - I haven't thought this out yet - it is because both some Clint Eastwood movies as well as the WoL story work more on an emotional level than on a reason.
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I could see that you might think WoL took it up a notch, but the SC1 terran campaign was already "western in space". In every video the humans talk/act like hicks. Zergling road kill, marines drinking booze with a nuclear cooler, etc. Then when you meet raynor it's "I'm Jim Raynor, marshall of these parts..." Then you're fighting the confederates will all sorts of civil war references.
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When compared to the quality of stories in other Blizzard games, the one in WoL falls firmly short of our expectations. It is far from the worst story ever written as many people here are suggesting, however, it certainly was FAR below the standard of quality we've come to expect from Blizzard. I sincerely hope that Heart of the Swarm can redeem Blizzard in that regard. Thankfully unlike most other developers, the game play in both SP and MP is awesome - personally I'd rather have a lackluster story and perfect game play then bad game play but an award-winning story.
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I feel the story is weaker with this 'fantasy' approach as it loses some of the true grit feeling the original held.
Just my .02c
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I thought WoL was good cheesy fun and I enjoyed it. However, I was left wanting more from the story, and I thought the ending was just lame. Maybe HoS and LoV will take the story farther and be less cheesy while retaining the good fun (and I don't really see how it could be any other way: playing as Zerg, we're not going to get the same sort of humour from playing with humans. It's gotta be darker, so maybe that sci-fi feel will be better). WoL was a disappointment, but not so much a disappointment that I regret playing it or buying the game
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On February 12 2011 03:17 SichuanPanda wrote:
When compared to the quality of stories in other Blizzard games, the one in WoL falls firmly short of our expectations. It is far from the worst story ever written as many people here are suggesting, however, it certainly was FAR below the standard of quality we've come to expect from Blizzard. I sincerely hope that Heart of the Swarm can redeem Blizzard in that regard. Thankfully unlike most other developers, the game play in both SP and MP is awesome - personally I'd rather have a lackluster story and perfect game play then bad game play but an award-winning story.
Not sure you you can say SC1/BW, the Dialblo games, or the Warcraft games have a higher standard. They all seem pretty average to me.
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i actually don't mind the inconsistencies and poor explanations in WoL, probably because the actual gaming experience is so fun. but also if you think about it, all the weak explanations raynor gets for why things are taking place throughout the story kinda make sense when you consider that the other characters driving the story (arcturus, valarian, tychus primarily) have more complicated motives than raynor. raynor is just an idealist that's starting to get worn out and tired, and his main drives are to set things right one way or the other. but the search for the artifacts - which from your perspective as raynor are a kind of a lazy, convenient plot device - is driven by the more complex motives of valarian, mengsk and tychus, all for different reasons. tychus lied to raynor the entire game, and valarian just used raynor. mengsk was using tychus to get close to raynor and ultimately kerrigan as well, and even though he wasn't in charge of the events that led to kerrigan being rescued (valarian was obviously), he had no qualms with taking advantage of the situation to try and have her assassinated.
combine all that with the secret mission which reveals some connection between mengsk and the hybrids which has yet to be explained, and basically you get this - WoL is setting up a lot of plot seeds which will be addressed in the next two expansions. raynor is a pretty simple guy with pretty simple goals. he's just in the middle of a lot of more overarching story elements which haven't been tied up yet. even though i liked following his personal struggle and the more character-based kind of story of WoL, i think the much more interesting plots will be followed up on in the next two campaigns. The hybrids, mengsk's involvement in them, what happens to kerrigan and the zerg, etc etc all still need to be addressed.
tl;dr version: basically i'm kind of a fanboy so i'm gonna like whatever they do more or less, but i honestly do think WoL was meant to set the trilogy up more than anything.
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Great post imo. I myself found the story way above average in games. And the campaign gameplay was just spectacular . Very impressive for an RTS.People seem to forget that this isnt a signle player RPG..
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On February 09 2011 10:09 KevinIX wrote:
SC2 gave us Donny Vermillion and Kate Lockwell. I forgive everything. I loved those two. In fact, I was more excited to watch the next newscast than playing the next mission lol.
yeah they were worth looking forward to so much more than how the main story continues for me as well
and thats a bad thing
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On February 12 2011 09:52 Cyber_Cheese wrote:Show nested quote +On February 09 2011 10:09 KevinIX wrote:
SC2 gave us Donny Vermillion and Kate Lockwell. I forgive everything. I loved those two. In fact, I was more excited to watch the next newscast than playing the next mission lol. yeah they were worth looking forward to so much more than how the main story continues for me as well and thats a bad thing
They needed a SCII version of Glenn Beck.
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EPT
