[Story spoilers!!] Heart of the HOTS continued - Page 46

On March 21 2013 12:40 McBengt wrote:
Just finished the camapign, and it is with a heavy heart I must conclude that Blizzard no longer aims its storytelling at me. From WoL to D3 to this, the proliferation of flat stereotypes, cringe-worthy dialogue, obnoxiously overstated narratives, a complete abscence of nuance and inexplicably shallow character interactions tell me that Blizzard markets its storytelling to adolescents with a poor sense of imagination.

Kerrigan, Mengsk, such awesome characters in SC1, now reduced to this. I weep for what is to come. I can honestly say I dread the single player in LotV more than I look forward to it.

On March 21 2013 11:30 Forikorder wrote:


Kerrigan is the swarm, as the top command noone can disobey her, Abathur even objects when she tells him to start making the broodmothers more sentient because that increases the odds of them being able to rebel

there is no wiggle room, Abathur CANNOT betray Kerrigan



TBH i dont remember him ever actually saying that the Essence was crap he never saing high praises of it but he never really called it worthless

and again, there are ghosts, there are other benefits to Terrans (LIKE THE BRAIN) and there are indiginous creatures on the world, Kerrigan may be lending Dehaka transport to other worlds as reward for his assistance

also remember Dehaka doesnt collect essence for power, power is a trap, Dehaka collects essense for no reason other then to collect essence so that he constantly changes and evolves i dont think he cares about getting stronger only about being different

On March 21 2013 14:20 Thieving Magpie wrote:


The characters aren't any different--their presentation is.

On March 21 2013 20:14 McBengt wrote:


The presentation pretty is the characters in a medium like an RTS game. They've been dumbed down, and so they appear drastically different even though their core motivations are the same.

On March 21 2013 20:38 Thieving Magpie wrote:


They haven't been dumbed down, we're just seeing more of them than we really need to.

In SC1 and BW we barely get any kind of character development. We just get bits and pieces of what they're going through in a very abstract manner. This allowed for us to project the in between character build ups.

For example. In sc1 Sarah and Jim firs meet and Sarah calls him a pig. Then a few missions later they're friendly with each other. Blizzard doesn't show us the two of them becoming friends, nor does blizzard have them say something cheesy like "I'm glad we're friends now." Instead, by not showing us how the two became friends we become free to put the pieces together ourselves. We think "oh? Something must have happened that changed from when they first met and now."

The problem with sc2 is that they don't leave room for interpretation.

As an example, in the end when we get kerrigans VoiceOver when she talks about how she lost everything. And then she proceeds to list it down for us "humanity" "the man I love" etc.... There was no need to tell us that, nothing is left to the imagination. When she says I gave up everything, we are free to say "she must still love Raynor, or she must still be human enough to care or whatever.

Sc2 has too much character insight and too much explaining and fleshing out. Blizzard had a chance to give us 30 missions of the characters acting out their motivations and us interpreting those actions. Instead they went backwards, they have 30 missions of them ruling out interpretations.

On March 21 2013 21:22 McBengt wrote:
It's wierd, I disagree about not being dumbed down part, but agree with most other points. That's what I meant by "obnoxiously overstated". It's like they don't trust the player to do even the most rudimentary thinking when it comes to the plot, everything has to the tattooed on the inside of your eyelids.

On March 21 2013 21:22 McBengt wrote:
I really feel though that someone like Kerrigan, with so much potential as a character, is just perplexingly flat. The way she just throws off the humanity that the man she loves went through hell to give her back without even a pretense at deliberation is...confusing. No hesitation, no apprehension, not even a philisophical reflection on what she was doing. Just, "well I'm here now, I guess I'll go be a zerg again".

On March 21 2013 21:22 McBengt wrote:
And Mengsk lost his awesome persona of insidious demagogue and his understated intensity, now he's just a delusional bad guy. "Haha, you will never win, humanity will win through, I am invincible!" Dude what? We have just smashed your armies, taken your city and are surrounding your palace with billions of zerg. I refuse to believe someone like Mengsk would be unable to do a basic assessment of his current situation. He seems, well, stupid. I could be wrong, but to me they seem like different people.

If Mengsk had the artifact this all time why doesn’t he use it to kill all zergs attacking Korhal like the Raiders did in Char?
If Mengsk has the artifact why doesn’t he use disinfest Kerrigan and prevent her from destroying the city and his palace?

On March 21 2013 22:00 Existor wrote:

Maybe because artifact lost all its power?

That is downright wrong! Obviously a zerg CAN actually revolt against the leader of the swarm - or else you are going to come up with a really good explanation for the conversation between Kerrigan and the broodmother Zagara about whether or not she really wants to contest Kerrigans leadership and fight her for control... There is plenty of wiggle room - this is not even considering what happens if a stronger leader (Amon) swoops in and takes control of the swarm.

starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Dehaka

Whilst he does not care specifically about becoming stronger he cares about utility. He finds terrans entirely void of any especially useful characteristics (thereby calling their essence crap) and holds no respect for their ingenuity because he prefers to evolve the tools needed for survival rather than invent them. Furthermore we see absolutely ZERO graphical change to Dehaka at any point suggest a lack of evolution (or lazy graphics - your pick). Besides, as argued earlier, quantity should not be the deciding factor when it comes to essence, rather quality. And you have killed ZERO new types of units in the missions between his complaint and his satisfaction.

EDIT: Or are you really going to claim that Abathur is less intelligent than Zagara? I think the only point in time where the Zerg was actually unable to revolt was when it was directly controlled by the Overmind. With the death of the Overmind it seems to have become more of a right of the strongest as no one, not even Kerrigan has the same ability to control as the Overmind did.

On March 22 2013 00:05 Forikorder wrote:


that conversation only happened AFTER she had Abathur do heavily modifications to Zagara allowing it

and notice we have not once seen the Hybrid controlling Zerg except in the distant future after Kerrigan is dead



oh man the FAN MADE Wiki what perfect back up for your evidence

if i remember wasnt his only complaint when they were in space where there was no essence?



yes i am, Abathur wouyld only allow himself to ahve jsut enough brain matter to allow him to focus on a single task at a time he wouldnt want to be able to mutliutask and juggle multiple scenarios and get distracted by higher purposes hed literally want a one track mind

Kerrigan has more ability to control then the Overmind, the only problem happened when she got de-infested and lost control of the swarm, as we know with Zasz's brood once you lose control of a brood its much harder to get it back so she couldnt jsut immediately force all broodmothers back in the fold from Char

If that is the answer then that fact should have been made clear by the game The artifact was described as a dry sponge that can drain energy and psionic power, so that explanation doesn't make much sense to me.

he didnt use the Artifact because he had the psi destroyer, after the Zerg destroyed that he COULD ahve used it to delay the taking of his palace but then Kerrigan knows to stay the fuck away and hed have to have the Artifact in an open position in which case the Hyperion jsut strafes it and blows it sky high

he wanted to kill Kerrigan so he kept it hidden

1) The modifications are to Zagaras intellect - not anything else.

2) Abathur was created by the Overmind, not himself - he has no more say over his brainmatter than we do - unless you suggested he de-evolutionised which is straight up retarded and nowhere suggested.

3) The fanmade wiki with sources - I have a hard time linking you to the ingame-sequence where Dehaka says those direct words as it is not on youtube yet and I can't be arsed to sit through that hopeless drivel once again to remember exactly where it was. But no, he quite literally states his dissatisfaction with the terran essence.

4) This is not the first time the swarm has been fragmented. They were also fragmented right when the Overmind died and the only reason Kerrigan ended up in control was because she killed the competition (with some help) - at that time she only controlled around half the swarm. If she was as powerful as the Overmind when it comes to controlling why didn't she just use her psionic powers to force the other half under her control? Why did she have to physically beat Zagara back into the fold? Because she was still her terranlike self? Why then did the broods ask for permission to rejoin the swarm instead of simply doing it (which would have happened was it a purely psionic control she had over them).

5) The artifact has been used as a deus ex machina throughout - it is fine to resort to that in a desperate attempt to make sense of it all, but it does not make the storywriting any better - just reinforces how absolutely terrible it actually is: "it is magic".

On March 22 2013 00:40 Stratos_speAr wrote:


The temple was incredibly simple; it destroyed all life. Simple, difficult to use, had a purpose. Yea, it might be slightly deus ex machina-esque, but at the same time, it's a very generic tool that destroys all life, including Protoss (that's why they all had to get inside the temple).

On the other hand, the artifact, when it fits the story, can

1) Kill any Zerg (and ONLY Zerg) in the area
2) Completely subdue Kerrigan with some kind of "dog whistle" mode that only she's attuned to
3) De-infest Kerrigan
4) "Sponge up" psionic power
5) God only knows what I've forgotten or what hasn't been explicitly shown to us but has been implied

Really? This thing is incredibly convoluted and just so happens to fit the needs of the plot perfectly. Such a terrible plot device.

On March 22 2013 00:32 Forikorder wrote:


Abathur specifically warns Kerrigans that upgrade to broodmother would increase there ability to rebel



he didnt de-evolutionized himself, he evolutionized himself since thats his job, his JOB is to make the swarm as perfect as possible, since his sole job is to evolve the swarm hed shed anything from his DNA that didnt let him do that job more effeciently and since the Overmind especially was all into the whole "noone can go against my will" hed have made Abathur as unable to rebel as possible

it was shown he has a large amount of freedom, all the morphs and upgrades he himself created he just asks Kerrigan which one shed like to field



dissatisfaction? perhaps, i am not satisfied eating vegetables but i do anyway cause there good for me

jsut because hes not satisfyed doesnt mean hes not getting bonuses

i dont think he ever stated that he hates terran essence (which is what i thought we were arguing about)



it was stated at the end of BW she was strong enough to control the entire swarm by herself

she had to physically beat Zagara back into the brood because, like i already said, in Vanilla SC (and in BW as well really) it was already proven its much harder to get control of a brood then it is to keep control of the brood and Zagara was strong enough to resist the Queen to that extent at least

the broodmothers asked to come back because they knew they betrayed there queen and tried to get on her good side so she doesnt take there brood and kill them



you mean like the Xel'Naga temple on Shakuras THAT DID THE EXACT SAME THING?

On March 21 2013 21:56 Warpish wrote:
It's ridiculous. The dialogs are terrible and the Dominion's tactical decisions make no sense at all (one Gorgon at a time, seriously!).