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I will agree that SC:BW characters were occasionally tiresome and that I didfrom time to time wish they would shut up already so I could get to killing bases.
But up until HotS I didn't actually experience anything positively cringeworthy in Starcraft games. And I have barely started playing and here was Raynor spouting the most embarrassing lines imaginable. "Forget all of it! This is about you and me! ...I moved heaven and earth to bring you back, Sarah.... I never gave up on you Sarah!.. Give me a kiss Sarah!... I can't live if living is without you, Sarah!". Aargh, make him stop! And Kerrigan then turns and shows that the back of her suit more then closely resembles a thong and I feel like a jackass for actually being excited about playing this - it felt like going to the concert by a great band I love and realizing I bought tickets for the Justin Bieber tour.
By the time dinosaurs popped up I actually started enjoying myself again. Sometimes when stuff becomes too sad it wraps around into funny and all's well again. 
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On March 18 2013 19:41 Gatesleeper wrote:Show nested quote +On March 18 2013 19:22 Cereb wrote:On March 18 2013 19:10 BurgerFreak wrote:On March 18 2013 19:06 Cereb wrote:The story was so good! One of the best stories of anything I Have seen so far -All the interesting things we learn about the Zerg and all the new interesting zerg characters we get introduced to -The way Kerrigan was stuck somewhere between being Sarah and being the Queen of Blades -The development between Jim and Sarah -How incredible the scenes looked! I was so emotionally invested in this! They really made me care about the characters! When they claimed Jim to be dead I felt just like Sarah in that seen and for the first time actually did want Megnsk head on a platter! The scene with Warfield was brilliant too - her choice to kill Warfield before saving the soldiers was so interesting to me! The prison scene was just so heartfelt and I swear I had a tear coming down my cheek towards the ending of the game! The entire story was just so moving. Blizzard said they wanted us to understand how the Zergs are and why and that is exactly what I feel like I know now. The new characters did a great job each representing a part of what it means to be zerg. Evolution, obedience, and the connection to the swarm. Even the humans Valerian and Horner and great development in this. Also, every scene was a work of art! The music, the way it looked, the battles and the characters! It all blended together really well. It's funny, I was actually considering making an appreciation thread for the campaign but of course the haters beat you to it. I can understand not liking a story but just keep it to yourself at least if you are gonna do it in a way this OP did – it’s just too obnoxious. The poll speaks for itself, despite the ridiculous bias in the OP, most people still enjoyed the story. All the people I know, who aren’t attempting to look cool on an internet page, were blown away by the story just like me. I have a friend just like this, I went to see a movie with him one time, and I am never making that mistake again. Jesus Christ wannabe critics are so annoying. I wish the opening post would just be neutral because now it comes off as a hate thread when in actuality it’s nothing like that despite the OP’s attempts. Some might still jump the bandwagon unfortunately, but that doesn’t stop the rest of us to share our thoughts and feelings The point is. You cannot claim that the story, writing and dialogue of SC2 compared to SC1 is better. It's objectively wrong. It's just flat out wrong. It's not even opinion and bias. It's a fucking fact. Writing, storytelling and dialogue exposition has basic rules and techniques, if it needs to be GOOD, and not fucking mediocre or horrible. It's what seperates great inspireing writing from bad. It's what seperates weak minds from great minds. It's what seperates dumb people from smart people. If you think reality shows are the best thing ever compared to all the other literature, entertainment etc. that has been done.. Then I truly feel sorry for you. I wish you would make an actual point amidst your hate that I could respond to I guess I could respond to the BW vs HotS story. The only reason I could see people critiquing the story over BW was that BW had more twist and was darker. Everyone had their bad sides that were portrayed well in that game but the characters are just more well developed in this game. It's not really a fair comparison cause in BW all we had were the mission briefings and some very sort clips whereas the cutscenes in this more or less resembles a movie giving it an advantage. Who knows, if BW have had the same tools it might have had the opportunity to have just as much development of characters and opportunity to get to know them better. Now BW was definitely amazing - especially for it's time but don't let nostalgia and hate blind your judgement Also there are no facts in this debate. This is my opinion and that was yours. No reason to be spiteful Mr. BurgerFreak :p It's weird to see people having this notion that we need to be "kinder" to SC2's story because of such and such reasons. "It's not really a fair comparison cause in BW all we had were the mission briefings and some very sort clips whereas the cutscenes in this more or less resembles a movie giving it an advantage." So we should be more lenient with SC2 because the people who made SC2 chose to make the game in such a way that it's harder to tell a good story? If anything, we should be harsher to SC2, our standards should be raised. It's the year 2013, Starcraft 1 was 15 years ago. We've all grown up in those 15 years, the video game industry has grown up in those 15 years(well...), so why is it so unfair for us to expect Starcraft to have grown up too? Or hell, not even grown up, but maintained the level of maturity it had 15 years ago? If the story and writing of SC2 was at the level of SC1/BW and not a drop better, a lot of people still might've complained. They would've said what I just said, "I've grown up 15 years, but Starcraft has not! It's the same as ever: impressive storytelling to a young teenager but only average to an adult." But what we got wasn't stagnation, it was devolution, it was regression from something that's impressive to a teenager to something a 14 year old might roll his eyes at. And that is what makes HotS and WoL so bad, the game should've grown up, but instead it got dumbed down. Way down.
I don't think anyone expected HotS to be any good though. Blizzard clearly sees Starcraft as a franchise with bankable characters. In an alternative world they could have hired a talented writer with a strong creative vision and let that person write the story, but they won't, because it would interfere with their need to have the iconic moments built around their main characters that the fans want.
Kerrigan, for instance, is not a compelling character in my opinion. The overmind is a lot more suitable for this type of story, but he's too impersonal as a villain. Blizzard much rather likes Kerrigan with her super magic powers and human appearance, who can do combat with other super powered characters. It should be insane that in a space RTS, a main character's notion of improving her chances to invade a planet is based on leveling up, but that's the way it is: franchise (comic book) story telling.
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I don't think anyone expected HotS to be any good though I did, it's great.
Also, this: + Show Spoiler +On March 15 2013 10:53 Lauriel wrote:Show nested quote +On March 15 2013 07:47 SgtCoDFish wrote:
Jesus tittyfucking christ I can't follow the train of thought that leads people to call others idiots and telling them they should be ashamed of themselves for having different tastes or enjoying things you didn't.
Do the people who're actually getting aggressive about this really feel they're so intellectually superior? Bloody hell
I can understand if people didn't like it, but some people are taking it waaaaaaay too far. I remember some youtube video that was something like "It's OK to not like things, but don't be a dick about it"
That pretty much sums this up. This a thousand times. I'm not going to feel ashamed of myself over anything, much less what some guy on the internet says about a story in a video game, and neither should anyone else. Furthermore, trying to beat people down who disagree with you and insulting their intelligence over something so simple as an opinion on a story is a tactic that should be reserved for kids who don't know any better, not people who (I hope) have gone through puberty. As for the story itself, I liked it. I didn't adore it and get misty eyed over it, and there were parts I definitely think could have been handled better, but yeah, a solid B from me, if I were to give it a rating. A few things people have brought up that I just wanted to respond to. These are just my interpretations, but I think they're fairly accurate. "Why is Kerrigan so nice? Why don't they all hate the shit out of her? How could they just forget all the things she did in BW!?!?!?!?!?!"Kerrigan in HoTS is not the Kerrigan we saw in BW, and not just because Blizzard felt like it. The Xel'Naga artifact gave her back (most) of her humanity, and changed her from who she was as the Queen of Blades. Hell, she didn't even remember what she did as the Queen of Blades. I suppose you could have all the characters still want to execute her immediately upon her changing back to human, but...does that make a whole lot of sense? Not to me. Even when she becomes the Queen of Blades again, she's not the same as in Brood War. She's regained lots of power, but her humanity is still intact, at least on an emotional level. You're allowed to hate that, but that's why she acts like she does. There's more of a reluctance and humanistic element to her character now than there was prior, due in large to her transformation. "What's with all the LOVE CRAP!? Raynor swore to kill Kerrigan in BW! JESUS!"Again, she was different then than she is now. Furthermore, Raynor was in a fit of absolute rage when he said that (as I recall, it's been a while since I've played BW). It stands to reason that he'd still be holding on to the way he knew her before she was infested, even if he didn't want to think about that. People aren't always exactly rational in moments of emotional stress, and even in HoTS, it's clear it's still on his mind. Furthermore, HoTS takes place 3 months after Kerrigan regains her humanity. I don't think it's completely unreasonable to think that in that time their relationship would have changed, and they'd have become closer, especially because Raynor is essentially dealing with an entirely new person than the one who killed his friend. Just my take on it. "The BW story was so much more mature! It was so much darker! There were twists and turns! Now we just get the same stupid 3 races against the ancient god cliche!"There's some truth to that, but I can guaran-damn-tee you that if SC2 had been released in 1997, and HoTS in 1999, that people would be shitting themselves over the storyline (and I was around then and playing games, so I feel qualified to say that). Part of the glory of BW was that there were *lots* of unanswered questions, and mystique around the characters. We knew some things, sure, but there were more questions than answers. As things get explained, people see how characters interact, and some of the fog of war gets lifted from the story (see what I did there?), I think people are disappointed that the story isn't going in the direction that they imagined it would in the 12 years they've had to think about it in their head. But, guess what? The hybrid existed in BW. Duran was still Duran. I'd bet a good chunk of change that, while details weren't ironed out at the time, the developers in 1997 knew what story they wanted to tell, and I don't think a lot has changed. Again, you're allowed to hate the story, but I'm not convinced that what they're telling us now is somehow different than what they planned years and years ago. Anyway, just my take on a few points. I wish people here would be a little more reasonable with their discussions, and not try to face-bang everyone who disagreed with them until they just give up and do something else. Anyway, cheers. Enjoy the multiplayer. I know I will!
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I have to admit the storytelling was not strong, but I did not expect it to be. Most major motion pictures have boring, predictable, Holywood plots. This is no different. However, it was a great Campaign overall.
Graphics: 10/10
Gameplay: 8/10 (too easy and need more macro/smash missions)
Story: 5/10 (cheesy and not quite up to expectations)
Overall: 9/10
Bring on LotV!
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"Indeed. When I slew the Cerebrate on Char, I touched briefly with the essence of the Overmind. In that instant, my mind was filled with its thoughts, and I tell you now our worst fears have come true.
"The Zerg were indeed created by the ancient Xel'Naga, the same beings that empowered us in our infancy. But the Overmind grew beyond their constraints, and has at last come to finish the experiments they began so long ago."
Now imagine being Zeratul, reading the Overmind's thoughts, you read something like " first xel naga came, named (X), he created me, then another xel naga came, named (Amon) and told me to destroy the most powerful other creation of the xel naga, which after attacking my masters and consumed them this race turned out to be the protoss"
Would you think something along the lines of "Amon is a traitor" or something like that, or would you think "the Xel Naga made the Overmind to finish the experiment and eat us?"
And before anybody calls me out on the "the Overmind only knew about the protoss after meeting them, many years, etc",nope, the Overmind started it's space travel specifically searching for the protoss, again i quote word for word from the starcraft manual which everyone seems to know but nobody seems to read:
Through dissecting the memories of the Xel’Naga*, the Overmind was made aware of the myriad races that had at one time or another been influenced by the ancient race.The Xel’Naga had kept a detailed genetic history of each race, giving the Overmind a clear understanding of their respective strengths and weaknesses. Most importantly,the Overmind learned of an exceedingly powerful race that lived near the galaxy’s fringe known only as the Protoss. The Overmind knew then** that the Protoss and the Zerg would eventually be caught in an inevitable,apocalyptic conflict
*Just after eating them
**Perfect hook for an overriding directive.
about zerus being a lifeless world...
Although extremely small, worm-like, and possessing no ability to manipulate their physical surroundings, the Zerg adapted to survive.They developed the ability to burrow into the flesh of the less vulnerable species indigenous to Zerus.
As the Zerg incorporated more and morehost creatures into their fold, they began toassimilate their various genetic strains andprocesses.
However, as diverseas the range of host creatures became, therewas always the undeviating drive to consumeonly the most evolutionarily advanced speciesencountered.
Totally lifeless, at least initially ah?
The Overmind coalesced into a semi-sentient being that represented the primary drives and instincts of all of the Zerg strains. As time passed, the Overmind developed the rudiments of personality and advanced intellect.Although the Overmind directed the actions of every creature within the swarm, it did so through the use of secondary agents
Interestingly enough, the first mention of "swarm" in the zerg backstory is just after the Overmind was created, before they never call the Zerg "the Swarm", so it is obvious that while beastlike and not sentient, they were independent first.
As the swarms continued to grow and strengthen, the Overmind turned its thoughts towards its own future. It realized that withina few short centuries its race had assimilated all of the indigenous life upon Zerus
So the Overmind has eaten all non-zerg life on the planet, this is not a problem since Zerus is only inhabited by zerg-infested primal species in the campaign.
Tbh, the more i re-read the starcraft manual, the more space there is for Amon and the primal zergs stuff...
Unfortunately there is a wrench in the works:
The Zerg left the lifeless, burning world of Zerus and laid waste to every planet they found along their path towards the Protoss Homeworld
so there are 2 possibilities
1)It's a wording problem:that a vulcanic world is burning is no surprise, there's tons of lava in the HotS depiction too, the problem is that "lifeless" adjective, however it really isn't that stringent considering that it already was populated only by the zerg in the same ways you can say locusts leave lifeless wastes beyond them (but there are still locusts, so it's not really lifeless  )
2)It's a retcon of 2 lines of starcraft manual, in which case i invoke Tropes are not bad
Well it's nice to see someone who liked the story give a detailed, evidence backed answer to their opinion. But I don't think anyone here ever questioned Kerrigan's feelings about Raynor. She's always been sympathetic towards Jim, even at her very worst (see her dialogue with him after she kills Fenix. "you don't know what you're talking about Jim", or "he died in combat, like all Protoss want", she's rationalizing, and is almost apologetic).
I think there's a ton of people here that are questioning that, but i'm glad we agree at least on that point :D
What I, and a lot of have problems with, is Raynor's attitude towards Kerrigan.
we find Raynor lovesick and conflicted, not the wrathful avenger he claimed he would be at the end of BW.
I'd actually say that more than lovesick, it's guilt and having basically become a unimportant space rebel doing nothing but small acts of "terrorism" to barely survive, that has destroyed him. Let's not forget what the basic ispiration for Raynor's character is:
Jim Raynor was created by Chris Metzen and James Phinney. He is based on the undercover police officer of the same name in the film Rush.[6]
Chris Metzen describes Raynor as an "honest cop in a universe full of demigods walking around."
He never was the Punisher, so i don't see vengeance ever being the prime motive moving him, instead of "arresting/stopping" villains.
Until we come to the final mission when James Raynor comes to assist Kerrigan in killing Mengsk and his Dominion Forces. For me, that was the absolute last straw, and a slap in the face.
The way i see it, he would've helped even the old backstabbing, murdering queen bitch of the universe so long as he believed her not to be the biggest threat out of the 2; besides, his crew grows restless in WoL when he is helping the dominion overthrow the old QoB, it is only natural that they'd want to do what they originally enlisted with Raynor's Raiders for.
PS. i think this is the last wall post i write, i'm tiring horribly >.< besides, what i'm trying to convey is
1)the atmosphere of HotS is far, far superior to that of WoL, it really captures the nature of the zerg, evolve, and stuff, so much better than i had expected tbh, and as a protoss player that is saying something.
2)the story has gotten much better since WoL, which had a terribad mission-to-story ratio, which was the worst thing possible
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United States22883 Posts
I think the heart of my issue is that SC2 is a hero story, while SC1/BW felt more like a political/military story. Metzen has confirmed that he sees Starcraft, at its heart, as a hero love story, and I want to see the story as harder science fiction. The difference is like the difference between typical Tolkien-ish fantasy, and Game of Thrones. Through SC1 and BW, Raynor could be the most prominent character in the story, but ultimately he was just a small pawn and I'd rather they'd just moved on from him, and found another institutionalized character who had to make it through difficult circumstances.
Instead, they wanted him to be a hero and latched on to him in a way I thought was both poorly written (he's an emo, drama queen drunkard in WoL, and unlike Max Payne, who is far less emo, he doesn't have a sense of irony or any self awareness) and tiresome. I think Raynor became a loser, and they should've ditched him. Now there's no getting around him being tiresome as long as they wanted it to be a hero story, and that's fine, but they didn't have to make him so unlikeable. In WoL and HotS, he's selfish, irrational and sometimes borderline tyrannical. While this is going on, Blizzard keeps saying "This is an epic love story! You should care about this!" but my reaction to that is "screw Raynor/Kerrigan and screw Raynerrigan."
I could tolerate a love story if I actually enjoyed the characters, but through WoL and HotS I've actively come to dislike Raynor (who I liked before) and am a bit bored with Kerrigan (who I thought was awesome before.) These aren't people I want to root for anymore, and the people I was hoping they'd pay attention to actually have diminished roles.
The particulars of the story and retconning are problematic, but not critical to me. What is critical is that I don't find hero as compelling as grittier anti-hero stories, who exist within an institution and often fight against it (think The Wire), and that if they're going to do a hero story, I'd like it to be about interesting and/or likable characters. I don't think Raynor fits either of those categories and while Kerrigan can be likable, she's less interesting as a standard vengeance seeking hero than a warped, evil goddess.
My ideal outcome for LotV is that Raynor is permanently destroyed by the Protoss for the shit he did, and Kerrigan becomes unhuman (not simply Zerg) again.
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On March 18 2013 23:19 Stratos_speAr wrote:
1) For those of you that are saying, "Well everything is explained in the books! You need to read the extra lore!" First, that is a sorry excuse for poor storytelling. When the medium is video games, the story should at least be consistent between your video games; books and whatnot are extra background story. They shouldn't be necessary to keep the plot consistent. Second, the books are fucking terrible. Every book written for one of Blizzard's universes since the War of the Ancients/Sin War/the Dark Templar trilogies have been utter trash.
Thanks for putting that out there. When I talked about why using the books to defend the game is stupid, I stopped just short of calling the books trashy, because I've never actually read any of them, and I'm not comfortable with making definitive judgement calls on things I haven't experienced first hand. But everything I've heard and know about them lead me to believe they're not real literature or worth reading.
About 10 years ago, I read a review for the three Starcraft novels that had been written at the time, Liberty's Crusade, Shadow of the Xel'Naga, and Speed of Darkness. The writer of the review slammed them so hard in such an intelligent way that it was at that point I dropped any notion of seeking them out and reading them. He talked about how Shadow of the Xel'Naga was by far the worst, and written by someone who clearly had never played Starcraft. I vaguely remember him saying that Speed of Darkness is the only one of the three that comes close to being a decent sci-fi novel, mostly because it was a standalone story and didn't try to mess with the established lore of the series.
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about zerus being a lifeless world...
Although extremely small, worm-like, and possessing no ability to manipulate their physical surroundings, the Zerg adapted to survive.They developed the ability to burrow into the flesh of the less vulnerable species indigenous to Zerus.
As the Zerg incorporated more and morehost creatures into their fold, they began toassimilate their various genetic strains andprocesses.
However, as diverseas the range of host creatures became, therewas always the undeviating drive to consumeonly the most evolutionarily advanced speciesencountered.
Totally lifeless, at least initially ah?
Yup. Read the manual. It says, and I quote, "The zerg left the lifeless, burning world of Zerus..." (pg 53). The Zerg left Zerus a lifeless rock.
The Overmind coalesced into a semi-sentient being that represented the primary drives and instincts of all of the Zerg strains. As time passed, the Overmind developed the rudiments of personality and advanced intellect.Although the Overmind directed the actions of every creature within the swarm, it did so through the use of secondary agents
Interestingly enough, the first mention of "swarm" in the zerg backstory is just after the Overmind was created, before they never call the Zerg "the Swarm", so it is obvious that while beastlike and not sentient, they were independent first.
"Over a surpisingly short amount of time, the strains grew to resemble a terrifyingly ravenous and unified race." (pg 52). This is said before the Overmind was created.
As the swarms continued to grow and strengthen, the Overmind turned its thoughts towards its own future. It realized that withina few short centuries its race had assimilated all of the indigenous life upon Zerus
So the Overmind has eaten all non-zerg life on the planet, this is not a problem since Zerus is only inhabited by zerg-infested primal species in the campaign.
Still not consistent. The Zerg were a unified race and Zerus was left a lifeless, volcanic rock.
Tbh, the more i re-read the starcraft manual, the more space there is for Amon and the primal zergs stuff...
Then you're not reading carefully enough.
Unfortunately there is a wrench in the works: The Zerg left the lifeless, burning world of Zerus and laid waste to every planet they found along their path towards the Protoss Homeworldso there are 2 possibilities 1)It's a wording problem:that a vulcanic world is burning is no surprise, there's tons of lava in the HotS depiction too, the problem is that "lifeless" adjective, however it really isn't that stringent considering that it already was populated only by the zerg in the same ways you can say locusts leave lifeless wastes beyond them (but there are still locusts, so it's not really lifeless ) 2)It's a retcon of 2 lines of starcraft manual, in which case i invoke Tropes are not bad
I should've read your whole post. That said, it's undoubtedly a retcon and a crappy one at that.
PS. i think this is the last wall post i write, i'm tiring horribly >.< besides, what i'm trying to convey is
1)the atmosphere of HotS is far, far superior to that of WoL, it really captures the nature of the zerg, evolve, and stuff, so much better than i had expected tbh, and as a protoss player that is saying something.
2)the story has gotten much better since WoL, which had a terribad mission-to-story ratio, which was the worst thing possible
I actually agree with you. HotS is definitely better than WoL. That said, they're both still absolute shit in every measurable category of writing.
I mean really, we can argue about retcons all day long, but the fact is this.
1) If the effort of keeping the SC universe consistent and coherent is so difficult and convoluted, Blizzard has already failed at their writing, even if it does end up consistent somehow.
2) Even if it is consistent, it just isn't good. SC/BW wasn't driven by any one character; it was about racial conflicts on a large scale. If 40K is the largest scale you can get to, it was smaller than that, but it was much larger than this ridiculous focus on Raynor and Kerrigan. Their characterization, lack of character development, and scripts make them both incredibly unlikable and cliche, and since Metzen has this ridiculous fetish with making this a character-driven love story even though that was never the case in SC/BW, it's turned the story to complete shit. The retcons aren't the biggest problem with the writing; it's the plot points, the script, and the general characterization. Although the retcons make the poor quality of the writing stick out that much more, even if everything in previous canon lined up with what Blizzard wanted, it would still be terrible writing. There is almost nothing good about the story whatsoever. Pretty much the only passably good thing they did was Abathur and the attempt at showing the conflict and change in Kerrigan (it wasn't good, but at least it was noticeable).
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Anyone else thinks that Kerrigan just looks ridiculous? Like, that she kept her pretty human face is just creepy, though not really intimidating.
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I never understood that there are people who genuinely care about the lore. They're terribly written stories by unimaginative writers, and I find it highly annoying and distracting from the actual fun of the game. It's a game about a supposedly brutal war between a bunch of races, and all you need to create is an atmosphere where failing to act leads to your destruction. There's no need for cliche emotional storylines, it's like cutting 20 minutes of soap opera into black hawk down or zero dark thirty.
They could have just gone the XCOM route, with much fewer time wasted on developing a storyline/shiny movies, and actually offered some choices in the campaign and like a clickable warmap or something, offering some kind of 'strategical view'. In its current form I find the campaign tedious and not worth playing at all. There is literally no excitement and I'd rather just play MP.
There are much more interesting things you can do in RTS campaigns than adding RPG elements, and blizzard is just stuck with trying to apply a catch-all format to all it's games. They steal so much from their other games, recycle so much of what they did that once was actually cool, it's simply not original anymore.
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On March 19 2013 00:42 baba44713 wrote:
Because we are not talking about any gaming company, we are talking about Blizzard.. which actually meant for something before.
On March 19 2013 01:02 Kamakiri wrote:I think we need to accept that Blizzard really is "any game studio" nowadays, at least when it comes to creating single player campaigns. They have lived on their well earned reputation from BW,D2,WC3 etc long enough. The single player experience in all the games that have been released after these games have been nothing but big disappointments for me. Quality, eye for detail, astonishing creativity, amazing story telling are all attributes that Blizzard once deserved, but not any more in my opinion. It is really sad, but Blizzard is just another game company for me now, they were something much more before. emo rant over
I just wanted to touch on this notion, because it's something that's been bubbling just under the surface of a lot of things we've been saying: Blizzard should've done much, much, better.
Blizzard circa 2004 was the best video game company in the world, bar none. The only ones that I can think of that came close are Valve and Bioware. I picked 2004 as the turning point for Blizzard, with the release of World of Warcraft. It was a great MMO, I played it through 2 expansions, but no one's going to argue that WoW had a great story or writing (where's the vioce acting?), and at worst, WoW was something that made Blizzard money so they can hopefully focus their creative energies on other projects.
Here are the games Blizzard released in the 9 years before WoW: Warcraft 2, Diablo 1, Starcraft 1, Diablo 2, and Warcraft 3. Each one of these games and their expansion packs were stunning achievements of gameplay and storytelling for their time. It was with these games that Blizzard established their devoted fanbase.
Here are the games Blizzard has released in the 9 years Since 2004: 4 WoW expansions, SC2 Wings of Liberty, Heart of the Swarm, and Diablo 3.
I won't speak to the WoW expansions, because like I said, it is what it is. But those other three games, they cannot hold a candle to Blizzard's previous output. I think the reason why in my poll on page 1 so many people preferred to vote for the story being just "pretty terrible" as opposed to "worst" is because they played and remembered Diablo 3 (thankfully, I dodged that particular bullet).
Is it so unfair for me to expect the best video game company in the world to make the best video games? Is this the best video games can offer us in terms of storytelling? Well, I know for a fact that they can do much, much better. I've played Half Life 2, Portal, Bioshock 1, Knights of the Old Republic, Mass Effect 1/2, Braid, etc. I've seen what video games can do with story and narrative. For then people to look at HotS and say "well, that's what we're getting. That's what we should expect." is an insult.
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On March 19 2013 05:01 Jibba wrote:
I think the heart of my issue is that SC2 is a hero story, while SC1/BW felt more like a political/military story. Metzen has confirmed that he sees Starcraft, at its heart, as a hero love story, and I want to see the story as harder science fiction. The difference is like the difference between typical Tolkien-ish fantasy, and Game of Thrones. Through SC1 and BW, Raynor could be the most prominent character in the story, but ultimately he was just a small pawn and I'd rather they'd just moved on from him, and found another institutionalized character who had to make it through difficult circumstances.
Instead, they wanted him to be a hero and latched on to him in a way I thought was both poorly written (he's an emo, drama queen drunkard in WoL, and unlike Max Payne, who is far less emo, he doesn't have a sense of irony or any self awareness) and tiresome. I think Raynor became a loser, and they should've ditched him. Now there's no getting around him being tiresome as long as they wanted it to be a hero story, and that's fine, but they didn't have to make him so unlikeable. In WoL and HotS, he's selfish, irrational and sometimes borderline tyrannical. While this is going on, Blizzard keeps saying "This is an epic love story! You should care about this!" but my reaction to that is "screw Raynor/Kerrigan and screw Raynerrigan."
Oh god, I just realized the parallels between Entertainment News/Supermarket tabloids telling us that we need to care about Brennnifer or Brangelina and the Blizzard story writing team telling us we need to care about Raynerrigan.
God, I hate you for coining this phrase.
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On March 19 2013 05:28 Gatesleeper wrote:Show nested quote +On March 18 2013 23:19 Stratos_speAr wrote:
1) For those of you that are saying, "Well everything is explained in the books! You need to read the extra lore!" First, that is a sorry excuse for poor storytelling. When the medium is video games, the story should at least be consistent between your video games; books and whatnot are extra background story. They shouldn't be necessary to keep the plot consistent. Second, the books are fucking terrible. Every book written for one of Blizzard's universes since the War of the Ancients/Sin War/the Dark Templar trilogies have been utter trash.
Thanks for putting that out there. When I talked about why using the books to defend the game is stupid, I stopped just short of calling the books trashy, because I've never actually read any of them, and I'm not comfortable with making definitive judgement calls on things I haven't experienced first hand. But everything I've heard and know about them lead me to believe they're not real literature and worth reading. About 10 years ago, I read a review for the three Starcraft novels that had been written at the time, Liberty's Crusade, Shadow of the Xel'Naga, and Speed of Darkness. The writer of the review slammed them so hard in such an intelligent way that it was at that point I dropped any notion of seeking them out and reading them. He talked about how Shadow of the Xel'Naga was by far the worst, and written by someone who clearly had never played Starcraft. I vaguely remember him saying that Speed of Darkness is the only one of the three that comes close to being a decent sci-fi novel, mostly because it was a standalone story and didn't try to mess with the established lore of the series.
Can I just say, that of the Starcraft novels (I have read many of them), those three are the absolute worst of the worst! I don't think they've done a very good job expanding to other media in the past (Most of the books range from average-but-lame to terrible and the comics are awfully drawn and inconsequential) but I also have enjoyed all of the campaigns and I never felt like the books were necessary to understanding them one way or another.
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On March 19 2013 06:06 Sherlock-Canada wrote:Show nested quote +On March 19 2013 05:28 Gatesleeper wrote:On March 18 2013 23:19 Stratos_speAr wrote:
1) For those of you that are saying, "Well everything is explained in the books! You need to read the extra lore!" First, that is a sorry excuse for poor storytelling. When the medium is video games, the story should at least be consistent between your video games; books and whatnot are extra background story. They shouldn't be necessary to keep the plot consistent. Second, the books are fucking terrible. Every book written for one of Blizzard's universes since the War of the Ancients/Sin War/the Dark Templar trilogies have been utter trash.
Thanks for putting that out there. When I talked about why using the books to defend the game is stupid, I stopped just short of calling the books trashy, because I've never actually read any of them, and I'm not comfortable with making definitive judgement calls on things I haven't experienced first hand. But everything I've heard and know about them lead me to believe they're not real literature and worth reading. About 10 years ago, I read a review for the three Starcraft novels that had been written at the time, Liberty's Crusade, Shadow of the Xel'Naga, and Speed of Darkness. The writer of the review slammed them so hard in such an intelligent way that it was at that point I dropped any notion of seeking them out and reading them. He talked about how Shadow of the Xel'Naga was by far the worst, and written by someone who clearly had never played Starcraft. I vaguely remember him saying that Speed of Darkness is the only one of the three that comes close to being a decent sci-fi novel, mostly because it was a standalone story and didn't try to mess with the established lore of the series. Can I just say, that of the Starcraft novels (I have read many of them), those three are the absolute worst of the worst! I don't think they've done a very good job expanding to other media in the past (Most of the books range from average-but-lame to terrible and the comics are awfully drawn and inconsequential) but I also have enjoyed all of the campaigns and I never felt like the books were necessary to understanding them one way or another.
Well thanks for your input. Unfortunately, other people in this thread have been wielding the novels (Flashpoint comes up the most) like they're holy texts against us heathen unbelievers who haven't read them.
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I'm actually hoping now that LotV isn't played through Zeratul's/Artanis' point of view, but through a Taldarim charater's point of view (or maybe narud/duran's, if for some reason he's not really dead), resulting in a partial bad-guy victory and setting the story up for a final chapter.
As unlikely as it sounds, think about it. It would be a Protoss campaign, as promised, it would appease us who are looking for a twist in the storyline and, importantly, it would allow Blizzard to milk us for more money in the form of an 3rd expansion.
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The entire change from BW's universe of Starcraft to SC2 WoL+HotS's version has been horrendous for me.
First let me touch on those defending it because they seem to wield only a few arguments:
-The writer sees it as a love story
-The novels
-Its on par or slightly better than WoL.
The first in and of itself is a convoluted thought because its the company's job to make something that will retain their current fanbase and attract new ones. If the writer is just making this into whatever he wants with no regards for the people buying it, it will drive a lot of people to simply stop caring altogether about the storyline of Starcraft. I won't touch the novels simply because I haven't read them and from what I've seen they weren't anything to talk about.
I've seen a lot of people in this weird "middle" area where they think it was "decent" or "ok" or "eh it was alright". When the hell did this become alright for the consumer? The purpose of a company is to provide the best services or products to the customer at a competitive price. When you settle for a "C" or "B" product, you're actually telling the entire land of industry "Hey, its ok to make shitty products that are no more than boring drivel because we'll keep buying them and at an increased rate of frequency too." I was always under the impression that consumers deserved "A-level" products. Why are you defending the inadequate product? That actually hurts everything in the long run and will keep us driving down this path of "pay more often and more for everything even though its shittier".
Back to the storyline, I felt like I was watching a bad soap opera. I don't even know these characters anymore. Raynor is possibly the whiniest most pathetic excuse for a hero character I've ever seen and Kerrigan has lost all allure. She went from evil hellbent queen of the relentless mass to some bumbling emotionless wreck with a slight identity crisis.
So I tried looking at things positively. I thought, "Alright, maybe they just wanted some character development." Then the plot holes started popping up, retcons, etc and I started to hate it again. According to what we've seen so far, the entire purpose of this intergalactic war spanning hundreds of worlds, involving huge populations of these 3 species and the entire ancient prophecies/knowledge of the Xel'Naga was so a transformed human-to-zerg woman can become zerg queen and quit the job. "A sexual relationship with Raynor" is not an ending. Its an abomination in what should've been a storyline about the Zerg dealing with all this new development. Instead we get this pointless side-story about them going after Kerrigan and turning her human which somehow solves everything. Screw the ancients, the human betrayal, the Protoss agenda and lets watch this ridiculous kissing scene.
This is what people are settling for when they say anything other than criticism of what's being sold to them. You shouldn't get rewarded and praised for "C"s.
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On March 19 2013 05:38 Grumbels wrote:
Anyone else thinks that Kerrigan just looks ridiculous? Like, that she kept her pretty human face is just creepy, though not really intimidating.
I do. I felt like they should have either kept her as ghost kerrigan w/Zerg locks or put a bit more effort into altering her appearance from her previous zerg form.
Frankly, the whole process of having to go through the Kerrigan transformation again on Zerus was incredibly stupid. It makes the WoL campaign feel like even more of a joke. Kerrigan still has remnants of her Zerg powers at the start of the game in human form, it would've made more sense if she slowly transformed back into her Zergified form naturally. It complements the gameplay of the HotS campaign better as well.
Instead we get some bs ancient spawning pool that wtfZergs Kerrigan instantly again.
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On March 19 2013 07:26 FrostedMiniWheats wrote:Show nested quote +On March 19 2013 05:38 Grumbels wrote:
Anyone else thinks that Kerrigan just looks ridiculous? Like, that she kept her pretty human face is just creepy, though not really intimidating. I do. I felt like they should have either kept her as ghost kerrigan w/Zerg locks or put a bit more effort into altering her appearance from her previous zerg form.
It won't be allowed in the new installment of the Starcraft franchise which requires Kerrigan to be recognizable, she's too iconic to be altered in such a way, people buy this game specifically because she is on the cover. It's of course very convenient that when she immerses herself in a pool of magical primal essence she returns exactly to this iconic form, but now as a more sympathetic protagonist. She even has the same powers as she had before - although the story claims that she is more powerful than as the old Queen of Blades, there is no actual way to tell since she is always limited only by plot constraints.
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And there is the usual talk again: BW was genius and SC2 is stupid.
Does anybody even remember the story of BW?
At the start it says the UED has been watching the Koprulu sector all this time. How? How many light years is earth away again? Then they gather their forces and go to the koprulu sector. How did they do that? The kolonist ships send took years to arrive, that's how far away earth is suppose to be. Their goal, the manual continues, is to capture the new overmind with psychics. How do they even know there is a new overmind? The Protoss don't even recognize it when they are close to Char. Is the UED that much more awesome? Also the SC1 manual said psychics were banned on earth, now they have strong enough psychics to control the overmind? Then they arrive and all their units are identical to the terrans here. The SC1 manual states for each unit how the kolonists designed it, so the earth forces should have none of these units. Besides that, earth has had years more scientific discovery. Where is their high tech stuff? Are they really armed with pointed sticks?
Before you even start playing BW you have to swallow so many retcons, physic impossiblities and nonsense to get into the story.
The first campaign doesn't make it up much. Protoss flee to Shakuras. There Kerrigan meets them and says she is back to normal now the overmind is dead. Do they really believe that? She controls her own brood for pete's sake and comes flying in an overlord. Artanis even blurts out the line "Kerrian's changes, she no longer seeks to enslave anyone". This has got to be the single most retarted moment in SC history.
Then they go collect the chrystals. One of them is right next to the new overmind. So they weaken it to pacify the broods. Why don't they kill the overmind? Isn't the overmind the biggest thread to the Protoss? Isn't Zeratul, the guy who will kill the overmind later, RIGHT THERE? Are they really leaving an unconcious overmind with pacified brood behind alive?
They do and meet Aldaris. Aldaris explains to them that Rashagal is being controlled by Kerrigan and they need to help him stop her. No wait, he doesn't. He just taunts the other Protoss. And just when you think this is because he must assume we are also in league with Kerrigan, he starts to warn us but Kerrigan kills him. It's like one of those romance movies were a misunderstanding drives the lovers apart and you just want to hit them because if they just talked for 1 second at the beginning none of the drama would have been there.
This is just the first campaign but here's the summary: the BW story is driven by lots of characters acting like complete idiots. The amount of retcons, plotholes and out-of-character moments make SC2 look like top literature.
And it was FUN!
All you had to do was turn off that part of your brain that keeps asking those nagging questions like "why do I have to kill Stukov if Duran just openly betrayed me in the previous mission?" and just enjoy the good parts. All you have to do to enjoy SC2 is the same.
More then people misunderstanding the SC2 story, more then people having too high standards or double standards, and more then whatever you think of the quality of Blizzard's writers,
The biggest problem people have in this topic is that they have forgotten how to have fun!
I could tear down the BW story, show you that for each plothole in SC2 there is a bigger one in BW. But you know what would be ever better then competing in which story is more terribly written? Trying to enjoy the good parts as much as possible. Bile or sugar, you choose how to live.
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On March 19 2013 08:22 Splines wrote:
And there is the usual talk again: BW was genius and SC2 is stupid.
Does anybody even remember the story of BW?
At the start it says the UED has been watching the Koprulu sector all this time. How? How many light years is earth away again? Then they gather their forces and go to the koprulu sector. How did they do that? The kolonist ships send took years to arrive, that's how far away earth is suppose to be. Their goal, the manual continues, is to capture the new overmind with psychics. How do they even know there is a new overmind? The Protoss don't even recognize it when they are close to Char. Is the UED that much more awesome? Also the SC1 manual said psychics were banned on earth, now they have strong enough psychics to control the overmind? Then they arrive and all their units are identical to the terrans here. The SC1 manual states for each unit how the kolonists designed it, so the earth forces should have none of these units. Besides that, earth has had years more scientific discovery. Where is their high tech stuff? Are they really armed with pointed sticks?
Before you even start playing BW you have to swallow so many retcons, physic impossiblities and nonsense to get into the story.
The first campaign doesn't make it up much. Protoss flee to Shakuras. There Kerrigan meets them and says she is back to normal now the overmind is dead. Do they really believe that? She controls her own brood for pete's sake and comes flying in an overlord. Artanis even blurts out the line "Kerrian's changes, she no longer seeks to enslave anyone". This has got to be the single most retarted moment in SC history.
Then they go collect the chrystals. One of them is right next to the new overmind. So they weaken it to pacify the broods. Why don't they kill the overmind? Isn't the overmind the biggest thread to the Protoss? Isn't Zeratul, the guy who will kill the overmind later, RIGHT THERE? Are they really leaving an unconcious overmind with pacified brood behind alive?
They do and meet Aldaris. Aldaris explains to them that Rashagal is being controlled by Kerrigan and they need to help him stop her. No wait, he doesn't. He just taunts the other Protoss. And just when you think this is because he must assume we are also in league with Kerrigan, he starts to warn us but Kerrigan kills him. It's like one of those romance movies were a misunderstanding drives the lovers apart and you just want to hit them because if they just talked for 1 second at the beginning none of the drama would have been there.
This is just the first campaign but here's the summary: the BW story is driven by lots of characters acting like complete idiots. The amount of retcons, plotholes and out-of-character moments make SC2 look like top literature.
And it was FUN!
All you had to do was turn off that part of your brain that keeps asking those nagging questions like "why do I have to kill Stukov if Duran just openly betrayed me in the previous mission?" and just enjoy the good parts. All you have to do to enjoy SC2 is the same.
More then people misunderstanding the SC2 story, more then people having too high standards or double standards, and more then whatever you think of the quality of Blizzard's writers,
The biggest problem people have in this topic is that they have forgotten how to have fun!
I could tear down the BW story, show you that for each plothole in SC2 there is a bigger one in BW. But you know what would be ever better then competing in which story is more terribly written? Trying to enjoy the good parts as much as possible. Bile or sugar, you choose how to live.
All that about the UED is completey valid, I had the very same thoughts when I was a teenager playing Brood War for the first time. This is a civilization of humans that developed seperately from the Terrans for hundreds of years, and the only difference in technology they have now is that they have medics and valkyries? That is very weird. Or like I mentioned before, the manual says the Zerg assimilated many many species into the Swarm, so why are there only like 12 different Zerg units in the game? The answer to both these plot holes is that it's an RTS game and the plot is constrained by the gameplay.
I won't argue that SC1/BW was an airtight, plot hole free affair, but it was much better written and a deeper story. Your analysis of the Protoss BW campaign shows you are deeply familiar with it, in fact you remember it better than I do. I'm going to go back and look at the Protoss BW campaign so I can speak better to your criticisms against it. For what it's worth, it's generally agreed upon that both Protoss campaigns in SC1 offer the least in terms of good storytelling, and that BW is generally a tier before SC1 (You seem to agree, all your criticisms are leveled against only BW).
But you then go on to say that "for each plothole in SC2 there is a bigger one in BW" and that sounds like a hyperbole to me. When you say "the amount of retcons, plotholes and out-of-character moments make SC2 look like top literature." you seem to actually suggest that SC2 is better written than SC1/BW, which is a farcical thing to say.
"More then people misunderstanding the SC2 story..." - What does this mean? Please, enlighten me to the misunderstood depth and nuances of the SC2 story. Turn your obviously competent critical eye to SC2 and show me how it was a better game than SC1, or even comes close. Teach me how to "enjoy the good parts as much as possible" by showing me these supposed good parts, because I'm not seeing them.
You set out to disprove the notion of "BW was genius and SC2 is stupid." by "tearing down" the BW story. I don't put SC1/BW on any pedestal, and I don't rank them amongst the top video game stories ever told, but they were, for their time and even today, pretty good. So, not "genius", but they were good, and much, much better than anything we've seen in SC2.
So we'll let that stand where it is: SC1/BW was not genius. Now disprove the second part of the notion, that "SC2 is stupid" Please tell me how and why SC2 is anything but stupid.
P.S. Welcome to Team Liquid forums, were you linked here from another site or have you just been a lurker for years and never made an account?
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EPT
