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On February 19 2011 01:23 HollowLord wrote:
Personally speaking I just hate the use of prophecy as a storytelling device in anything, not just Starcraft. Using a 'Prophecy' raises a large number of questions for me:
Who made the Prophecy?
What gave them any credibility?
How were they able to foresee the future?
And a plethora of other questions that never get answered in rarely any storyline. Whenever I see a prophecy it reeks of bad storytelling, and when I saw: "The Zerg race came... as was foretold" I immediately became suspicious.
This isn't to say that a Prophecy can be used properly, but you need to take in account something seriously important. If you assume that someone is capable of seeing the future, you must also assume that this is common knowledge, enough so to be accepted by the general public. Therefore, you must question the fact that despite having been warned about the Zerg, the Protoss were still caught COMPLETELY off-guard by the attack, with the majority of the population having no idea what was happening. Instead of having listened to the prophecy from the very beginning and gathering their entire army, the Protoss were in the middle of a political power struggle and a modern-day witch hunt when the Zerg Swarm appeared.
My point is: Fuck prophecies as a storytelling device, they cause more problems than they solve.
Edit: Though I did have fun with the actual missions, I thought they did a great job. Especially loved that one where you have to Purge the Infestation.
Ever consider that the Dark Voice, or whoever he is, planted the so-called "Prophecy" with the idea that some naive Protoss would find and adhere to it?
I agree that the Prophecy feels a tad out of place; however it fits in better with Protoss than any other race. There are still two more chapters to this incomplete story that can further elaborate on this prophecy.
Additionally, the argument with Tassadar not being dead and it retconning the events in SC1 is irrelevant. Tassadar himself never said in SC2 why he returned. Instead he changed the subject. This could also be a trick by the Dark Voice. Although I'm not betting any money that I'm right, it's still a good possibility. Consider what Tassadar was trying to say: the Zerg are not really the enemy and that they were being manipulated the whole time; saving Kerrigan is the key to the Protoss' and the universe's salvation based upon a questionable vision of the future by the Overmind. What...we're suddenly supposed to believe in a vision of the future by the Overmind?
Isn't the Protoss-Zerg hybrid created by melding a Protoss and a Zerg...? Didn't Tassadar slay the Overmind by channeling his light and dark templar energies (Protoss energies) in an attempt to neutralize and destroy the Overmind's (Zerg) energies? Could there be a possibility that the wills and bodies of the Overmind and Tassadar merged in the explosion creating some sort of super Hybrid? Who and what exactly is the Dark Voice? A fallen Xel'naga? A more intelligent hybrid? Are hybrids actually Xel'Naga?
We don't know because the story is not finished. We'll have to wait for two more expansions until we can finally rightly judge the story.
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I registered for the sole purpose of addressing this thread (though I might participate in the community in the future). I feel I should address some points made in this thread.
The prophecy.
The protoss as a race in starcraft have always been mysterious, the storytellers do a good job of explaining the least possible about them and their technology, skipping any unnecessary techno-babble. This is very effective for a race with such advanced technology as trying to explain it from a perspective a human would understand would only diminish it and cause outcries of "herp derp this isn't scientifically plausible". I see the prophecy as no different, it is no more fantasy than any other protoss abilities (mind reading by any psionic, psi storm and feedback are essentially more spells than science, etc). Infact, the prophecy is not even the doing of the protoss themselves, but an even more advanced civilization the Xel'Naga. They are as often pointed out of pretty much god-like power, and I see no reason for time to function the same way as it does to mortals and therefore no reason for the prophecy to not be accurate. I hope all these people saying how they're so knowledgable about sci-fi know what a universal civilization (the Xel'Naga are often described as transcending what we consider the universe) is capable of.
Tassadar:
As pointed out above, I am sincerely hoping though Tassadar isn't dead, he is not alive either, rather becoming something else caused by the massive energies he unleashed when he killed the overmind.
Tosh's Voodoo doll:
As a psionic I see no reason for this to be considered magic. He is merely using the doll to channel his abilities more effectively, and it is likely more of a gimmick (and a funny one, haters gonna hate).
The love story:
I found it rather cheesy as well, though it is but a part of Raynor's motives. I have no doubt that if he wasn't faced with an opportunity to save Kerrigan he would destroy her (though maybe not personally). What I do find as pretty bad is Raynor impulsively killing Tychus when he attempts to do the same to Kerrigan, his old friend as is reiterated time and time again. Bros before hoes? Was there really no room for talk?
All in all, the story is what I expected it to be. It should be compared to a movie not a book, and obviously a highly american one (as the terrans are depicted in such a way throughout the franchise). I don't even mind Arcturus not being overthrown, I never thought raynor would be capable of such a feat by himself (I predict he might be able to help valerian usurp the throne later on, though what would this really accomplish).
That being said, there are many many little things that they did wrong, the deus ex machinas and phlebotinums are everywhere. Protoss not being mad when you side with Ariel? Do motherships grow on trees? Also omniscient characters - Zeratul: "The great hungerer? Might it be refering to the Overmind?" (fucking leap of logic right there).
I expect the future 2 expansions will change the tone of the narrative to fit the other races and give a more complete feeling to the story, as I find WoL fits the terran theme but not that of the whole starcraft lore. As for comparing it to original SC story, you guys are just being irrational. It was good, but you are comparing the whole game to just one part of SCII trilogy (and knowing blizzard it won't stop there either, they'll milk it forever) and saying not enough things get done.
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On February 19 2011 01:23 HollowLord wrote:
Personally speaking I just hate the use of prophecy as a storytelling device in anything, not just Starcraft. Using a 'Prophecy' raises a large number of questions for me:
Well to me, prophecies suck simply because they are a convenient and boring way to railroad a story in a particular direction.
A lot of flavor from well-written characters comes from the fact that the story is driven by their own decisions and interactions. It's almost always more interesting to have a major event happen because of a personal decision rather than "because the prophecy said so". Raynor for example would have had much more development if his decision to save Kerrigan was decided by his own will rather than the fact that he had to do it because of a prophecy. We would have seen more of Raynor's inner conflict. We might have seen Raynor think back to when he promised to kill Kerrigan. Hell, we might have actually had Fenix be mentioned for once.
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To further address the Prophecy qualm, do not forget what Duran said at the end of the secret mission in BW:
Zeratul: "Have you any conception of what you've created here? Do you have any idea what this... this Hybrid is capable of?"
Duran: "Of course I do. This creature is the completion of a cycle. Its role in the cosmic order was preordained when the stars were young. Behold the culmination of your history."
This is the first hint of a prophecy, and it wasn't introduced in SC2.
It might also be interesting to note what Duran said just moments before this:
Duran: "No. Young Kerrigan could not have engineered this grand experiment. Although her rebirth into the Zerg Swarm has sped up my progress, I can assure you that this endeavor is quite beyond her narrow understanding."
So this implies one of two things:
-Blizzard slightly retconned this by instead making Kerrigan a wrench in the Dark Voice's plans (rather as an unforeseen, but beneficial situation).
-What I mentioned in an earlier post is correct in that the Overmind is again manipulating everyone to serve its own purpose.
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Final mission "All In"--"You'll pay for this treachery!" Kerrigan, the Queen of Blades.
What treachery? It's a copy and pasted villain line, but treachery actually means betrayal. I'm pretty sure coming to Char to kill Zerg wasn't a betrayal, it's simply TvZ in the Koprulu sector. It wasn't even Mengsk, who did betray Kerrigan, whom had since betrayed him anyway, but Raynor. The line was bad and doesn't make sense.
OP has some good points about people going to extremes to nit pick, but the story had some bad parts to it.
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Yeah, when Kerrigan said that I just realized that the whole mission I hadn't been listening to dialog written by a human, but instead random lines copy-pasted from the "Cliche Angry Villain Lines 101, first edition". How more lazy can one get than that?
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On February 26 2011 04:14 HungShark wrote:To further address the Prophecy qualm, do not forget what Duran said at the end of the secret mission in BW: Show nested quote +Zeratul: "Have you any conception of what you've created here? Do you have any idea what this... this Hybrid is capable of?"
Duran: "Of course I do. This creature is the completion of a cycle. Its role in the cosmic order was preordained when the stars were young. Behold the culmination of your history." This is the first hint of a prophecy, and it wasn't introduced in SC2.
It's embarrassing that this actually makes me feel slightly better about the prophesy. Downright shameful. :p
@HungShark and HarbingeR-2.0-: There is room in the canon for Tassadar's reappearance—I think it was Adun himself who first vanished mysteriously after channeling the khala- and void-energies at the same time, although why he hasn't popped up to deliver cryptic advice is anyone's guess.
I think what we're upset about—even if we don't identify it—is that the original Starcraft played out like a sci-fi story. It wasn't perfect by any means, but now Starcraft II is incorporating so many archetypes(many clichéd now) from traditional fantasy storytelling, and we're struggling with difficulties we never expected to have with a science fiction story.
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I don't think that actually makes the prophecy any better. It just sucks, period.
Besides, saying that something was "preordained" doesn't imply prophecy in the mystical sense of it. For example, one could be the leader of a large organization, and upon nearing the conclusion of a decades-long project say that the results had been "preordained" long ago, and it's often the case. That's the way Duran said it.
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Really, is the story that important?
What was so FAR WORSE in SC2 than in any other previous blizzard games, was the staging and how the characters acted.
Characters: One dimensional/flat. Cliche. Pretended coolness on the niveau of six year old childs.
Staging: Unsurprising, Hollywood type. Extremely predictable and embarassing to watch for adults imo. Trying to squeeze out a cool or epic feeling whenever possible, but remaining 100% transparent in the effort trying to act like that, thus it's just bad.
The story just becomes unimportant facing such deficiencies in presentation. While it's also just boring and normal and cliche, apart from all feelings how friggin far-fetched all of this is. ("Oh sure, there is a random artifact which existed since far before our times cleaning up this unique mutation" YEAH MAKES PERFECT SENSE -.-)
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On February 27 2011 03:40 teekesselchen wrote:
... apart from all feelings how friggin far-fetched all of this is. ("Oh sure, there is a random artifact which existed since far before our times cleaning up this unique mutation" YEAH MAKES PERFECT SENSE -.-)
Hmm, I just thought about it. At first I would've refuted you saying both the artifact and the Zerg were made by the Xel'naga, but now I remember its stated everytime that it's a Protoss artifact (though it looks Xel'nag-ish so it may just be terrans being ignorant). Still, these fragments were in the possesion of the tal'darim the whole time and not once did they try to use it, meaning they're either dumb and didn't know what it does (REALLY dumb since terrans could figure it out) or don't care about the zerg destroying most of their civilization and pretty much everything else.
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On January 23 2011 17:24 NSGrendel wrote:
Good storytellers do not off the most interesting and charismatic character at the end of the first act.
The demise of Tychus is fail.
You don't actually know if Tychus is dead. Raynor could have shot a very well placed shot into his transmitter w/ Mengsk? (*hoping)
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On March 01 2011 08:53 Temporarykid wrote:Show nested quote +On January 23 2011 17:24 NSGrendel wrote:
Good storytellers do not off the most interesting and charismatic character at the end of the first act.
The demise of Tychus is fail. You don't actually know if Tychus is dead. Raynor could have shot a very well placed shot into his transmitter w/ Mengsk? (*hoping)
Blizzard has specifically said that Tychus is dead. Hell, look at the single player screen after you beat the campaign.
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it's not that the Wings of Liberty of storytelling is bad. In fact, it's kinda good, and there have been far worse story telling from a lot more other RPGs.
It's just that for a game as great a caliber as SCII, i expected it to be better, like, maybe Battlestar Galactica-better.
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Even if the "Dark Voice" planted the prophecy and was posing as Tassadar who turns out is really dead... the whole thing still sucks. Just as bad.
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One thing about the "SC2's main focus is multiplayer so why do you care about the story" argument is actually valid: SC and BW were not really expected to be the biggest e-sport ever, if the word "e-sport" even existed or was commonly known among gamers back then. In other words, back then the story was more important because people were still playing most games offline. I hope HotS proves that wrong.
That's not to say Blizzard didn't make a lot of stuff on release of SC and BW that helped multiplayer (like LAN...), but to paraphrase their "humble" responses to some of their games' reception, the multiplayer "far exceeded their hopes and expectations."
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On February 26 2011 02:21 HarbingeR-2.0- wrote:
I registered for the sole purpose of addressing this thread Welcome to the TL community 
On February 26 2011 02:21 HarbingeR-2.0- wrote:
I expect the future 2 expansions will change the tone of the narrative to fit the other races and give a more complete feeling to the story, as I find WoL fits the terran theme but not that of the whole starcraft lore. As for comparing it to original SC story, you guys are just being irrational. It was good, but you are comparing the whole game to just one part of SCII trilogy (and knowing blizzard it won't stop there either, they'll milk it forever) and saying not enough things get done. Yes, I also think that WoL suits the terran faction. While I not agree with many of Blizzards decisions about the story, the overall campaign experience – including the story – was good. May be not as über-great we have expected, but I don't feel ripped off.
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On February 26 2011 06:45 Ansinjunger wrote:
OP has some good points about people going to extremes to nit pick, but the story had some bad parts to it. Yes, there is no denying that the story has some weird parts which could have done better.
I think it is ok to be picky about retconning, plotholes and other issues. But the story knowledge the nitpickers possess is not as clear and defined as they think. They make a lot of assumptions to connect the dots and reason from there.
I am still waiting for a fan-made campaign which not only impresses by the mission design and effort they put it, but actually has a story which is widely considered well-written. If the SC1 story is that good, fans could remake the SC1 campaign. I wonder if the audience would conclude that those remade SC1 story would be overall better than the actual WoL campaign.
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arguing purpose of crappy writing is different from arguing that there is quality of writing. you've only managed to do the first. crappy writing is still crappy. regardless of purpose.
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Hate to disappoint you dude but that was drawn in 1997, so was most of his other stuff. Metzen worked on BW too you know.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://www.sonsofthestorm.com/images/metzen/StarCraft_Metzen003b.jpg)
