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Ahh what the hell, it was a pretty fun playthrough. Simple story aside, it was reasonably told and had some decent moments. Could have been longed out a bit more but I think everyone always feels that way.
I'll give benefit of the doubt and say that Sarah flipping between "I miss him so much" and "KILL MENGSK, KILL EVERYONE" was probably the idea, as was Jim's "We're like, so, totally, done" and "Love you lots". But love does shortcircit the brainium and makes people act wierd like they did.
I'll also assume that the prison ship knew Sarah was going to destroy them so planted the gun with Jim knowing he would be faced with a re-zerged Sarah.
I think the story could only have paled in comparison to SC1 since focus seems to have shifted to focusing on Jim and Sarah rather than a galactic war with the Space Marines Terrans & Eldar Protoss facing off against Tyranids Zerg and a huge internal struggle between various factions. Personally would have preferred more of the Galatic warness but oh well. I do also think it's so damn hard to top a previous outing for anything where peoples first impressions were along the lines of "Wow that was the most awesome thing ever". Sortof like FF X-2.
For the next expansion I'll put money on Zeratul being the focus. He will let Jim know what Sarah is up to, and they will triple team Amon. Jim and Sarah die, somehow defeating Amon together in the process with the power of love (Naruto style). Zeratul story will probably involve some Protoss politics and maybe touch a bit on the origin of Amon.
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Well, the story is pretty bad. But after all it is more a question of too high expectations, if you are disappointed.
Too much money involved means you got to dumb it down for the masses so you get the good reviews from superficial people who are the largest consumer base, which you are actually trying to make money off.
It's the same with the big film studios: If you are directing a movie with big budget, you'll have so many people sitting in your neck telling you how your story has to be adapted to cater a bigger audience, that you'll not be able to write a proper story.
Still i'm a bit disappointed myself, but i have to remember that this is more a problem of the way the entertainment industry works, so there's no point in whining about this particular example. 
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To rationalize this, let's take a look at it from what would most likely be their perspective:
The brood mothers are basically all queens that manage their own hives and all work under Kerrigan. They probably felt that it was a good idea to introduce one of them in order to show that if Kerrigan does actually die, then there'll be one brood mother suitable to replace her. The catch was that all zergs are usually primitive in their ways, which is why they needed to introduce another character that can actually help with "improving" the zerg into more efficient and sentient beings. So they brought in Abathur. They put a plausible backstory that wouldn't interfere with the current lore and also fix the problem.
Next stop they introduced the primal zerg, explaining the zerg's origins and why the zerg we see now were all just thoughtless and mindless creatures that followed the orders of a central brain-type organism. They needed a plausible counter towards both Mengsk and the Xel Naga. The theory was that if the zerg under the hivemind and subsequently the Queen of Blades were all vulnerable to the control of the Xel Naga, then there's no point in having a story for them because they'll all be mind-controlled as is and would complete the prophecy where only Protoss is left standing and die to hybrids. These zerg that we are used to had to have a "pure form" before they became what they are, and this pure form, having been unaltered would be unaffected by the mind-controlling, thus making them capable combatants against the impending doom. Their disadvantage was that they were so primitive and had no allegiance to any party, and would have died anyway if it weren't for someone intelligent and cunning leading them. But would they accept anybody besides their own? That's why the Queen of Blades had to be resurrected, but in a way that would allow her to be much stronger and fit to lead both the swarm and the primal zergs. They also managed to make good use of the Xel Naga artifact in that, by collecting most of what made the Queen of Blades the way she was, the control the Xel Naga had over her had been taken away as well (which validated the whole Wings of Libery campaign's storyline, as it was the biggest factor hindering the whole "Kerrigan is the key to saving the universe" line of thinking Zeratul had). If Kerrigan, who had lost most of her powers and control over the swarm would remain the same, she would have had no chance in hell to win the war.
As for why they brought back Stukov, they needed someone that could sympathize with Kerrigan on the same level. Stukov was a good character and it was probably just them wanting him back in some way which led to him being brought back from the dead initially, but they found reasons to justify him being brought back (which was more information about Samir Duran/Shapeshifter/etc. and a Terran that knew both Zerg and Terran perspectives, and was unrelated to the mind-controlled swarm and the Dominion. As for how he managed to get resurrected, well, those Xel Naga are gods, so as creators they would logically have the power of resurrection.
Now this part at the station was pretty rushed, because they tried to do too many things at once, which was to strengthen Kerrigan's resolve, bring more insight as to what it is they actually should be fighting, touching more on the hybrids, showing just how much stronger the Primal Queen of Blades actually is compared to her old self, ending the Samir Duran storyline and showing just how much Kerrigan actually liked Raynor. If they actually expanded more and were given more time to do so, we'd probably have had a better scenario for this. After all, it took Blizzard quite a few years to make Wings of Liberty, and its story was a lot more refined and much longer due to this.
The Tal'Darim were shown as the corrupted servants of the Xel Naga during Wings of Liberty already, by doing the whole storyline with Zeratul's visions. Raynor didn't have much of a choice but to assist Findlay because of his guilt and because they were in desperate need of resources to fuel their rebellion against the Dominion. Narud was quite possibly doing the whole triple-agent thing, as he was shown to have been on the side of Terrans in general, fighting against the Zerg swarm. On the other side he was fueling the hatred of the Tal'Darim against Terrans so that the Protoss would not only fight against the Zerg, but against the Terran as well. Then he actually works for the Xel Naga, who effectively want to wipe out all living sentient beings in the universe. Makes sense that he'd want these races to kill each other to make it easier on himself, right?
Kerrigan, even despite being the Queen of Blades back then still lost to Raynor, who was backed up by the Dominion. Her line of thinking was pretty simple in that "if I were a helluva lot stronger, this wouldn't have happened". Her obtaining so much power wasn't necessary to kill Mengsk, but it was absolutely necessary to fight against the Hybrid and the Xel Naga. Her hatred for him was so strong that she always wanted to kill him herself, which is more wrath and pride working against herself, and has brought her to defeat more than a few times already (and almost dying on the final scene). Kerrigan always gets too confident and underestimates Mengsk when she has the advantage, which is why she keeps losing to him when it counts, and this was a good lesson for her as a leader because she shouldn't be standing in the field too often when she's the most important being not just in the Swarm, but in the whole alliance of Terran, Zerg and Protoss against the Xel Naga.
As for the antagonists not having much lines, blame it on the plot being rushed and them having to deal with two separate storylines (Revenge, Survival). Otherwise we'd have had the same amount of length as Wings of Liberty.
They were hot for each other in Starcraft 1 already, even if it was just mostly implications. It would make sense that they'd want to be all over each other once Kerrigan got her rationality and humanity back, and Raynor couldn't wait anymore to tap dat ass, plain and simple (face it, he's been thinking about her from the time they were working together, up until the events of Wings of Liberty). Look at how much of a mess Raynor was when he thought Kerrigan died, and after realizing she'd turned into a Zerg abomination. Whenever talks about Kerrigan popped up in Wings, Raynor always became impatient, irritable and irrational. He also carries around a photo of her. He tries his best to get her back to what she once was. Aren't these signs enough? On the other side of things, Kerrigan's liked Raynor while working with him, and after all those years that she hadn't "seen" him, as she had been blindly following the Overmind and the Xel Naga's whispers, you'd expect her to have a bit of yearning. Then once she got her humanity back, she remembered all the times that Raynor did everything he could for her. It's only natural that she'd have fallen madly in love with him after all this.
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Fuck everyone ITT who thinks they can speak on my behalf and berate me if I think the campaign wasn't garbage. How fucking dear you think you are of a higher intelligence then those who enjoyed it, it just means you're a MASSIVE condescending ass whole. I respect people who can negatively critique the campaign in a fair manner but if you let your dislike of the campaign form judgements of others you can go to hell.
/end rant.
User was warned for this post
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On March 15 2013 07:33 mordk wrote:
There's one thing about all the complaints I don't really ever begin to understand. Why are people so upset that Jim loves Kerrigan and doesn't have the guts to kill her?
I seriously do not understand how anyone who played SC doesn't really know Jim was ALWAYS in love with Kerrigan. This was always as obvious as it gets. And I got that when I played SC, being like.. 14? It isn't weird at all for me that Blizzard took this course for the Raynor-Kerrigan plot line, it seems rather obvious to me that Jim wouldn't be so heartless to just kill her, since he is hopelessly in love with her and has always been.
Otherwise, I agree, the story is weak, but I still have enjoyed the campaigns immensely.
I also liked the new characters, even though I agree that they're kinda forgettable. I have my hopes up for Zeratul, main character of LotV.
I've always thought there's 2 main problems with the people complaining.
First, people have COMPLETELY UNREALISTIC expectations of this game's story, of Diablo's storyline, and of any game's storyline really. If compared to more mature storytelling media, there's only a handful of good stories throughout the ENTIRETY of gaming's history. And that's fine, because it's evolving, it's a very young media. If you want deep storylines without the cheesiness, the plotholes, etc, either pick your games really carefully, or go back to books and movies.
Second, people seem to have a nostalgia-filled vision of the original SC's storyline. While it wasn't nearly as cheesy as this one, the truth is SC's storyline was pretty basic, and just as bad as this one. Blizzard's writers weren't geniuses then, and they aren't now. That doesn't stop me from enjoying it though, you just need to look at it for what it is and get off that high flying cloud you people live in. Please remember most of us were KIDS when we played starcraft. OF COURSE IT WAS IMPRESSIVE.
Exactly how I feel about all of this. If you go into most video games expecting ASOIAF quality writing, you're going to be sorely disappointed 99% of the time.
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On March 15 2013 08:47 Huragius wrote:
The more I read these forums, the more I realise how full of shit most of you are. Hating/Being disappointed/Making stupid jokes about Blizzard and it's games is like a fashion on TL now (and in god forbidden places like reddit and b.net forums). You are NEVER satisfied about anything. Making hundreds of hate posts about WoL campaign during first two months, crying about no LAN existence since launch of WoL till now and pointing it in every god damn fucking tournament thread when someone gets a lagg (and it's pretty clear to non-stupid people why lan doesn't exist), whining about balance and game design (early WoL- pressure builds and timing attacks ruins the game, late WoL- turtle fest kills the game), crying about maps being too small and with too many harass options in early months of WoL, then crying about maps being too big and very turtlish during last 7 months of WoL. Whenever Blizzard made a U.I or B.net changes, there were hundreds of post yelling that they should have done that looooong time ago (most of the times they were late, but making mass whining threads (and pretending that it's a feedback thread for a Blizzard, or a dissccusion) about such a thing ? Really ?). Then Diablo 3 came. Oh dear god. The shit I have read from stupid and raging people... The game was not perfect, far from it. But it was nowhere as bad as people made it seem to. Everything was bad to them. Same happened with GW2. But that's not the most annoying part. What annoys me the most, is that people like to shit on blizzards games so much, while praising games like Torchlight 2 and PoE (Diablo 3 Killers !) as it was a miracle. I saw tens of these miracles games like PoE/TL2 in TL: hyped, praised and etc. And of course when I saw such 'reviews' of these games I always tried them out and boy I was so fucking disappointed. Disappointment came from both: medium-quality games and stupid people, who hyped them up for no particular reason.
Some people are hating because they got an impression that Blizzard has became an evil e.sport corporation. Which is bad for e.sports (Duh!). People like this word around here. Sadly, not many realise how e.sports actually work and develop. But it's like this in many things, people who know very little, tries to speak very loud.
Some are hating because Blizzard games no longer meet their expectations. Which is mostly due to a fact that they grew up (to some point). Everyone talks how amazing BW/Wc3 story lines were. About Diablo 1/2 and etc. These games left such a strong impression because they were very little/young when they played it. I had a similar feelings, till I tried to replay some of the games (those mentioned above). And I was kinda disappointed. Story lines were not bad by any means, but they were far less amazing than when I played them 5-8 years ago.
Some people are hating because they think that disliking many things makes their 'taste' somehow superior to others. Not being admired by anything, always finding ways to criticise everything, finding ways how to put other's work down and etc. All are signs of great taste, right ? Err, not really.
And the most stupid part of the community are just hating... because it's popular thing to do. People do a lot of stupid shit just because it's popular, and this is not an exception.
About HotS campaign: I actually kinda liked it. It was an improvement from WoL campaign. Some things were kinda dull, but overall I was pleased to a certain degree. Not the best story line I have experienced, but It was nowhere as bad as raging gamers are making it to be.
During long time I have been proven, that taking most of the community's feedback/'reviews'/opinions- is a very shitty idea.
Thank you for saving me the time of writing almost the same thing, raging, hating and shiting on blizzard is now what "cool kids" do apparently.
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On March 15 2013 18:58 NightOfTheDead wrote:
Story and all the hard work of BW character development was pretty much butchered.
1. Kerrigan says she doesnt remember being QoB, proceeds with furious rage to attack Zeratul on sight. Even if she had the memories, no way she hates Zeratul more than anything else, it is the other way around. Just stupid.
2. WoL story was meaningless, except for protoss part. Everything got reset.
3. Why 2 chapters are only about killing fking Mengsk? And nothing else going on on the side, except for some dark voice babling for 2 seconds. Mengsk was nothing at the end of Brood War, just a pawn in grand scheme of things. There were much more stuff going on around.
4. Duran having lived for millenia comes up as total imbecile, havent done anything rather than creating few hybrids. Sure i loved Kerrigan destroying him, but so much character development for nothing?
5. Many storylines from BW just plain forgotten, every character in Sc2 is totally different that they were in BW. Dumbed down at best, and just plain stupid at worst.
6. Complex universe from BW is gone. Everything revolves around go, fetch, kill.
1. I don't think it is ever implied that she has forgotten EVERYTHING as the QoB? Doesn't she say at one point that she didn't lose full control while being the QoB but that she felt an influence? Anyway, she obv just assumed Zeratul came to kill her?
2. No it didn't why the hell would you think this after actually playing the game? If anything this game made the ending of WoL even more impactful! Kerrigan regained power but kept her humanity! That is a lot more impactful than a weak Kerrigan that has her humanity back, right? Or do you only go by the physical appearance of a character?
3. Because Mengsk is a well established villain in SC2. ESPECIALLY for you know the character you control in this game.
4. We don't know everything Duran has done and we do not know exactly what he has accomplished. We only know that if Kerrigan had died he would have been succesful in destroying the universe. Quite a feat imo, since we can savely assume nobody in our own universe has been able to accomplish that, so far.
5. Forgotten in a way that they aren't mentioned is true, doesn't mean they are forgotten by the writers. Didn't notice characters being completely different. The story has been dumbed down a bit but that doesn't have to be a bad thing, dumb stories can still be good, check Harry Potter and the other children stories that are loved by all ages because they are well written. And there is a good reason why it is dumbed down: gaming is different since the SC and BW era. Games like SC2 need to sell a ton of copies to make the venture profitable and for that it has to be more accesible.
6. I wouldn't say it's gone. With the way the campaigns are structured it just feels like it's gone.
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The story was OK, but generally a bit bland, but that's no surprise. Starcraft games have never had particularly epic or interesting story.
I had issues with some things, but they didn't ruin my enjoyment of the campaign.
Personally I would have loved it if they had a slightly varying story depending on a path kerrigan took; She could remain mostly human, or eventually appear reinfested, depending on what choices one made in-game (not necessarily straightforward choices), and maybe even what abilities one chose for her (obviously the abilities aren't permenant in this one). Biggest problem with that would be that there'd be either no high quality video of her at all, or twice the work of making such videos because two different models (and their corresponding actions and resulting events) would have to be done separately.
Obviously these are pretty high-level standards to ask for though.
Zoomacroom wrote:
Who are all of these ridiculous Zerg characters coming out of the woodwork and why should I care about them? Is this Chris Metzen's idea of characterization? Why is Stukov back from the dead? We literally saw him explode into a pool of blood in BW with a tragic death scene, and he does nothing of significance here. Did someone in the office just suggest that it would be cool and then everyone realized they hadn't retconned a dead character in this game yet? How could Duran be resolved so terribly? I just run into him randomly in a space station, he tells me that I suck and can never win, and then I have to blow up temples so Kerrigan can win in a battle of psychic hadokens? And then we get fantasy scene #9001 where a shapeshifter turns into the form of someone important to you and you fall for it even though you know they're a shapeshifter, twice in the same scene? what the !@#$ is this %^-*
How freaking cowardly is it to retcon the Tal'Darim to be servants of the Dark Voice once everyone points out that Jim Raynor was basically an imperialist supervillain in WoL? Like, "Oh by the way, you shouldn't feel bad about invading their world and violently robbing them of the objects of their faith because surprise, they were possessed by Satan! the whole time!" And for that matter, how does it make any sense at all that the Tal'Darim were working for Narud if Narud repeatedly commissioned Raynor to steal Xel'Naga artifacts *from* the Tal'Darim in WoL?
Why does Kerrigan need so much power to kill Mengsk? He is JUST A GUY. She got the better of him several times in BW with her regular "power level." Everything we see in both the story and game mechanics suggests she could just take her brood, attack Korhal, and kill him. She was able to kill billions within a few hours in her initial invasion in WoL. Why does killing Mengsk demand that she reinfest herself, undoing the only thing of significance that happened in WoL? Why are they so insistent on pushing this theme that she'll do anything for power that she doesn't appear to need to accomplish her goals?
Why do the game's antagonists have no speaking lines that say anything other than "you suck and you'll never beat me?"
Why are Jim and Kerrigan so hot for each other all of a sudden in SC2? I don't think we ever got anything more than a debatable implication that they were an item in the BW story. But they're exchanging sloppy makeouts within the first twenty minutes of this story. Is it just like, there is an attractive man and an attractive woman on screen, of course they have to be all over each other?
These are mostly quite good points, most of which I thought of as well, but I didn't think it ruined things too much.
I wouldn't say the Tal'darim were reconnected except for the strange incongruency with stealing the artifacts from them. It's perhaps not too strange though, since how would he explain himself or operate (or how would the story work) if he had one of the pieces of the artifact?
While I kinda thought the same thing about kerrigan's power to kill Mengsk, I think the events at the end of WoL really borked her/their power, which is a perfectly reasonable explanation.
Stukov just died, he didn't necessarily die in an explosion of blood, that's just broodwar's graphical limitations at work. If you knew anything about SC lore, infested Stukov appeared/was-metioned in other SC stuff (novels?), so that event happened long ago and doesn't have much to do with HotS. People like that character, so I think a lot of people like that he made an appearance.
The biggest issue I had with Stukov was that he looks terrible. He doesn't look like Stukov at all. I guess Raynor and Arcturus look totally different too, but Stukov was in a cinematic so I don't think it's as comparable with Raynor and Arcturus who weren't in cinematics. Stukov looks like a generic battlecruiser captain with a stupid glowing hole in his cheek; what's with that?
I'm also not a fan that it looks like he gained 400 pounds, but I guess the infested part can sorta explain that. But considering infestation generally/often doesn't change one's build much (infested civilian, infested doctor Hanson, kerrigan, etc.), it doesn't follow well.
What's your issue with the zerg characters? How would you have a storyline or the sort of thing WoL or SC1 had without zerg characters? SC1 had overmind and numerous cerebrates, plus an "infested terran" and even an 'infested'(corrupted/whatever) protoss. I guess some sort of story could be done with kerrigan doing everything in the hyperion, but that doesn't work at all with the way the story went.
Why do the game's antagonists have no speaking lines that say anything other than "you suck and you'll never beat me?" That's a pretty good point. I don't know how different the dialogue is in length compared to something like BW (it's hard to count the number of words), but it could use more conversation (drama) I guess.
On March 15 2013 18:38 Tachion wrote:
So what was Jim doing with a fully loaded weapon on his hip while he was in his cell? I'd imagine that would complicate prisoner transportation quite a lot if all the inmates kept weapons.
Yeah I wondered that too. Things like this don't bother my enjoyment of the game, but it does make me wonder WTF is going on with the development crew.
One pretty big thing you didn't mention that I had a small issue with was there was no appearance of Tosh at all (aside from his back in the background of a scene). I was kinda hoping for him since they mentioned him being part of the cannon. Turns out they're just justifying Nova being an enemy? Frankly I don't think it's necessary to justify Nova being an enemy; she's a mercenary so it doesn't matter if he worked for him once. Obviously can't expect any terran character in a zerg campaign, but it seems like they put every other terran hero in the game except him (and I guess Egon too)
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nah story was good, made sense to me, opened up the zerg a bit more, dont forget in the end you are playing a game, half the design is making you actually believe ur the most powerful thing in the space. (as a zerg player i already hit the game running as all my mechanics are down). WOL was very stop starty for me cos my zerg mechanics dont translate so the story was slower to a point i stopped caring about it and just trying to complete the missions (hard diff of course!). HOTS just let me play, listen and read all of the stuff and gave me a good 3 day experience(with reasonable playtimes). come on . . . cant be laughed at that ive completerd most xbox releases in 8hrs or one sitting . .wtf is that about? disks are 1000 times bigger these days with 1000x bigger personnel, as a programmer, its no easier to program games today than it was 25 yrs ago, and they produced upwards of 60 hr games . . on 4-32mb!!!!!! you have the personell.....Nah, story was good. GJ blizz.
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On March 15 2013 19:08 Gatesleeper wrote:
You present it like it's a 50/50 situation though. If Blizzard had made the game I wanted, do you think there would actually be a large portion of people here complaining about things like:
"The narrative was too grand and sweeping, the plot was too complex and layered! I wanted a simplistic story with a predictable arc."
"There wasn't enough development of the Raynor/Kerrigan love story, I really wanted that! They never even kissed, what a ripoff."
"The villains in this game were too morally ambiguous and emotionally complex, I really like my bad guys to twirl their moustaches when they tie the lady to the train tracks."
"There was too much exploration of the Protoss in this game. I thought this was supposed to be the Sarah Kerrigan expansion, I think it should've focused 95% of the time on what she was doing."
"There weren't enough psionic laser battles."
And this one has nothing to do with the story, but I couldn't resist: "This game was too hard. I tried to play it on Brutal on my first try and couldn't get past the third mission! I know the default difficulty is Normal and that there is even an intermediary difficulty called Hard, but the hardest difficulty in a game should not be that hard!"
What a world that would be, I sincerely hope it's not ours.
I agree with this. Some people might be willing to settle for less, particularly when it comes to video games (a product in which narrative is often not considered as a central pillar, existing in an industry where the overall standard of narratives is still pretty low), but people wouldn't complain about receiving more from their video game narrative.
As an aside, do you guys think there's a difference between a good story/narrative (which for me means simply that I enjoyed it - and is therefore a rather subjective valuation that is difficult to debate), and a well written story/narrative (something that I consider to cover elements such as plot holes, and character inconsistency - and hence more open to objective analysis)? Or do you think they are really the same thing?
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On March 15 2013 19:08 Gatesleeper wrote:Show nested quote +On March 15 2013 18:40 Roblin wrote:On March 15 2013 18:19 Gatesleeper wrote:On March 15 2013 18:05 Roblin wrote:
there is not a single story conceived by humankind in all of recorded history which was praised by everyone and hated by noone.
it is very unrealistic to think SC2 would somehow be an exception. If I had a penny for every time someone has pulled out this terrible argument to defend a story, I would have enough money to hire a team of writers and programmers to make an alternate version of Starcraft II that doesn't suck. Then I could play that game, forget this one ever existed, and live happily ever after. Too bad nobody actually has that much money to go and make a game like that. Well, except for mega profitable video game companies like Activision Blizzard, which has a revenue in the billions. But of course that's terribly "unrealistic" of me to expect a company like that to produce a good story in a video game. I see flaws but liked it anyway, I have not yet seen a movie, read a book, played a game, read a comic or heard a fairytale where I have never seen a flaw. For the record, I have read a lot of books, seen a lot of movies, played a lot of games, read a lot of comics and when I was a child my mother told me many fairytales. I never said it was unrealistic to expect blizzard to make a story you liked, if you were the lead director i'm pretty sure you would have liked the end result, and the 50% of the players that like what you like would also enjoy the story, but what about the other 50%? they would dislike it as passionately as you dislike it today. it is unrealistic to expect a story to appeal to everyone, but if a person makes a story that he/she likes, then odds are there will be tons of people that like it, and tons of people that don't. tldr: it is not unrealistic to expect a story that someone likes, but it is unrealistic to expect a story that everyone likes. you just happened to be in the group that didn't like it. tough luck, live with it. You present it like it's a 50/50 situation though. If Blizzard had made the game I wanted, do you think there would actually be a large portion of people here complaining about things like: "The narrative was too grand and sweeping, the plot was too complex and layered! I wanted a simplistic story with a predictable arc." "There wasn't enough development of the Raynor/Kerrigan love story, I really wanted that! They never even kissed, what a ripoff." "The villains in this game were too morally ambiguous and emotionally complex, I really like my bad guys to twirl their moustaches when they tie the lady to the train tracks." "There was too much exploration of the Protoss in this game. I thought this was supposed to be the Sarah Kerrigan expansion, I think it should've focused 95% of the time on what she was doing." "There weren't enough psionic laser battles." And this one has nothing to do with the story, but I couldn't resist: "This game was too hard. I tried to play it on Brutal on my first try and couldn't get past the third mission! I know the default difficulty is Normal and that there is even an intermediary difficulty called Hard, but the hardest difficulty in a game should not be that hard!" What a world that would be, I sincerely hope it's not ours.
if blizzard had made the game you wanted, there would be people saying the following things:
"the narrative and voice-acting was bad"
"the plot sucked and doesn't make sense, also, <presents numerous plot holes>"
"the characters are too one-dimensional"
"the plot was too focused on <character name>"
"<character name> was almost completely ignored!"
"the campaign was really cheesy and awkward"
"the lore is ruined!"
on the other hand there would also be people saying these things:
"I liked the voice-acting"
"the plot was great"
"I especially like <character name>, he/she was awesome"
"I enjoyed playing from <character name>s perspective"
"the side-missions where you play as <character name> felt really refreshing"
"the campaign was really original"
"I like the backstory presented in <mission>"
well look at that, that's basicly what people are saying about the HOTS campaign, and what people said about WOL campaign, and what people said about the terminator movies, and what people said about the alien movies, and what people said about harry potter, and what people said about eragon, and what people said about lord of the rings, and what people said about naruto, and what people said about mary poppins, and what people said about the orient express, and what people said about star wars etc. etc. etc.
face it, just because you like something doesn't mean everyone else wants the same things, there will be people that want more X, there will be people that want less Y, there will be people that like how much Z you had, but want it in a different way than was presented.
your likes and dislikes are not some standard templates that everyone follows.
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@Roblin : so everything is equal because everyone is entitled to his opinion ?
Wow that's some deep pilosophy right there !
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On March 15 2013 19:15 Vintlocke wrote:Show nested quote +On March 15 2013 18:58 NightOfTheDead wrote:
Story and all the hard work of BW character development was pretty much butchered.
1. Kerrigan says she doesnt remember being QoB, proceeds with furious rage to attack Zeratul on sight. Even if she had the memories, no way she hates Zeratul more than anything else, it is the other way around. Just stupid.
2. WoL story was meaningless, except for protoss part. Everything got reset.
3. Why 2 chapters are only about killing fking Mengsk? And nothing else going on on the side, except for some dark voice babling for 2 seconds. Mengsk was nothing at the end of Brood War, just a pawn in grand scheme of things. There were much more stuff going on around.
4. Duran having lived for millenia comes up as total imbecile, havent done anything rather than creating few hybrids. Sure i loved Kerrigan destroying him, but so much character development for nothing?
5. Many storylines from BW just plain forgotten, every character in Sc2 is totally different that they were in BW.
6. Complex universe from BW is gone. Everything revolves around go, fetch, kill. Everything got reset? I guess you mean besides that minor part where she got cleansed from Amon's "taint". Oh, and the part where the energy released during that cleansing was used to resurrect Amon? Oh, and where Kerrigan got a more human character, which is er... basically the entire foundation the HoTS story is build upon? Useless WoL story man GG Blizz... =/ Bash the story all you want, but when you are saying WoL is meaningless that is simply not true.
That is correct. Although what i meant with nr.2, is that this plot line is too dragged down across 2 chapters, with not much else going on in the once amazing BW universe.
Interesting thing is if the artifact was meant to cleanse 'the taint', and then later she became 'primal' or 'natural' by herself, what is it that Mengsk used on her in the end? Wasnt it the same artifact? Why did it affect her again? Or is it that it affects all zerg, like a zerg genocide tool, both primal and tainted? How did Mengsk get it? Did Raynor offer it to him after WoL freely?
Anyways, i dont hate on Hots, i enjoyed it a lot actually. I just hate the laziness of writters. They really did bad job however you look at it.
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On March 15 2013 21:37 corumjhaelen wrote:
@Roblin : so everything is equal because everyone is entitled to his opinion ?
Wow that's some deep pilosophy right there !
Everyone is entitled to an opinion, that doesn't make it correct, nor it has anything to do with the actual (lack of) value of the setting & story of the campaign.
If you enjoyed it, you enjoyed it - be happy with it. I agree with you that people can be dicks, however, in the end, these people are trying to make Blizzard raise the bar from preteen storytelling to an atmosphere and dialogue that's at least borderline intelectual.
Arguments to this and 'no, you're wrong, it's just your opinion' are a bad thing, because it means that the current level of storytelling is reaching is main target and it's unlikely that it will change. Which is, again, a big problem.
It was summed up pretty simple in an earlier post
bw: Fenix: "The Khala awaits me, Kerrigan. And although I am prepared to face my destiny, you'll not find me easy prey!"
Kerrigan: "Then that shall be your epitaph."
hots: Mengsk: "Korhal will endure, as will I."
Kerrigan: "Nice quote. I'll engrave it on your tombstone."
For what it's worth, they could've retold Cinderella and I wouldn't have had a problem. But give it substance, make me sweat, immersed, whatever.
^My opinion, obviously 
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On March 15 2013 19:15 Vintlocke wrote:Show nested quote +On March 15 2013 18:58 NightOfTheDead wrote:
Story and all the hard work of BW character development was pretty much butchered.
1. Kerrigan says she doesnt remember being QoB, proceeds with furious rage to attack Zeratul on sight. Even if she had the memories, no way she hates Zeratul more than anything else, it is the other way around. Just stupid.
2. WoL story was meaningless, except for protoss part. Everything got reset.
3. Why 2 chapters are only about killing fking Mengsk? And nothing else going on on the side, except for some dark voice babling for 2 seconds. Mengsk was nothing at the end of Brood War, just a pawn in grand scheme of things. There were much more stuff going on around.
4. Duran having lived for millenia comes up as total imbecile, havent done anything rather than creating few hybrids. Sure i loved Kerrigan destroying him, but so much character development for nothing?
5. Many storylines from BW just plain forgotten, every character in Sc2 is totally different that they were in BW.
6. Complex universe from BW is gone. Everything revolves around go, fetch, kill. Everything got reset? I guess you mean besides that minor part where she got cleansed from Amon's "taint". Oh, and the part where the energy released during that cleansing was used to resurrect Amon? Oh, and where Kerrigan got a more human character, which is er... basically the entire foundation the HoTS story is build upon? Useless WoL story man GG Blizz... =/ Bash the story all you want, but when you are saying WoL is meaningless that is simply not true.
Amon's taint was indeed a very minor part. Take out the taint and the story would still have been exactly the same, except less stupid. We wouldn't have needed a retcon for the Overmind's existence and motivations. We wouldn't have had to facepalm when Raynor, warned by a prophecy of the end of the universe that can only be stopped by Kerrigan, decided to attack her without knowing what the hell his new weapon did or in what capacity Kerrigan was needed in the future. We likewise wouldn't have had to facepalm when Duran, the guy supposedly working for Amon, tells Raynor of a weapon that he knows will remove a very powerful piece from Amon's army.
But the actual actions in the plot would have been the same. Raynor would still deinfest Kerrigan, because he didn't do it for reasons that had to do with Amon. Kerrigan would still reinfest herself, because she did it to kill Mengsk. Overmind would still kick ass and infest Kerrigan, because we had a perfectly good explanation for why it did.
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On March 15 2013 20:08 MoonfireSpam wrote:
For the next expansion I'll put money on Zeratul being the focus. He will let Jim know what Sarah is up to, and they will triple team Amon. Jim and Sarah die, somehow defeating Amon together in the process with the power of love (Naruto style). Zeratul story will probably involve some Protoss politics and maybe touch a bit on the origin of Amon.
ymmd!
thank you for letting me smile! 
to add: Protoss story will be centered around zeratul(ofc.) and the reuniting of the Protoss and taking aiur back. thats my guess
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I'm so tired of everyone jumping on the hipster train and trying to make up reasons to hate Blizzard for everything they do. Last night I completed the story the first time through and I really enjoyed the entire thing. Every angry post here that I've seen bashing it for one reason or another is pretty baseless and weak. Someone already mentioned it earlier, but that seems to be "what the cool kids do" these days. The story for HotS was very entertaining IMO and I find it funny that we have so man literary masters on the TL.net forums. I don't think I've ever seen people try so hard to hate something.
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I think what bothers me more than anything about some of the critics on this thread is that sheer over-the-topness of the hyperbole used. The assertion from most of them that if you didn't literally want to choke on your own vomit and die and then get resurrected just to disembowel yourself and tear out your intestines and put them in your mouth and then shit and choke to death on your own feces before throwing yourself off of a cliff overlooking canyon full of pointy things tipped with poison and venomous snakes while thanking your lucky stars that you were about to be put out of your misery so you didn't have to live in a world where such a story was allowed to exist that you're a simplistic moron who doesn't know their ass from a hole in the ground.
Sorry, it just wasn't that bad. I understand if you hate it, because somebody always hates something, and that's fine. Just stop with the aggressive pretension and condescension - it makes it hard to take someone seriously. Not trying to be a jerk, just how I feel about it.
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Was HOTS really supposed to be a really deep storyline that some people expected more than what it is? Kerrigan was shown to be more "human/emphatic" here so it shows she has lost her full-on Zerg/monster persona. I think that at least counts for something. And the expression of that led to Jim helping here in the last mission. I don't think that is so wrong from a story standpoint.
Personally, I have a few questions though that I wish were actually addressed.
Is the leviathan really that gargantuan compared to a battlecruiser? That sense of scale just detracted from the overall concept I guess. If you go back to the HOTS opening cinematic, how big was the battle cruiser that crashed into the city? Then increase its volume exponentially by, I don't know, 8? It was just too extreme for me already. Too exaggerated.
Why was the ancient one (zerg) so freaking huge while the rest of the primal zerg dwarfed in comparison? Aren't the primal zerg supposed to have originated from the primordial spawning pool which was also the origin of the primal zerg? Who did the ancient one eat then to get so freaking huge? And why was the battle a reskinning of D3's Act 2 boss. I mean why did they see it fit to reuse some of the assets?
I liked the idea of the primal zerg though and that was actually a refreshing concept. I do wonder though if they could be an unlocked alternate race in a custom map maybe so that it adds a bit more variety to the custom games? They appear to have a different "focus" as they weren't re-engineered to be optimal anyway but simply adapt. So I am curious, but they don't seem to have a "hatchery/drone" only a spawning pool. Hehe!
Correct me if I am wrong, but basically, wasn't it just Zeratul that managed to point Kerrigan towards a way to restoring/improving her QoB state? If not for Zeratul, Kerrigan would have simply just massed up Zerg and attacked Korhal right?
I also didn't manage to completely follow how Jim ended up with the gun, I initially thought the gun flew into the cell when the doors were popped by Sarah, but it appears that wasn't the case.
Other things that were wierd in my opinion:
Some of the upgrades didn't make sense to me anymore. I mean, Skeleton King (Zombie) Ultralisk? Really? How is that an "evolutionary trait you are supposed to be able to copy/adapt to"? I feel like they are injecting too much Dota mechanics into some gameplay of the HOTS campaign which I personally didn't find appealing.
Why wasn't the impaler a choice of evolution of the Hydralisk for multiplayer? Is it really that imbalanced to use that as a mechanic? I mean the unit needs to burrow to attack and it isn't a splash attack so why wasn't it an option they chose from to incorporate to the zerg multiplayer units? Is it because spine crawlers can also move?
I was actually surpised the campaign didn't have the inject mechanic for larvae. I actually liked that. Personally, the inject mechanic made zerg too difficult for me. I was used to the SC and SC:BW mechanic of just waiting for larvae to spawn from multiple hatcheries that the inject larvae mechanic crippled me in unit production. I really would have preferred they try and see that as a multiplayer mechanic again, rather than inject. But that is just me.
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EPT
