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On March 22 2013 20:04 Saturio wrote:Show nested quote +On March 22 2013 19:25 baba44713 wrote:
This is not a case of stuff being bad because the creative team isn't good, this is stuff being bad BECAUSE IT HAS BEEN DELIBERATELY AND METICULOUSLY MADE SO - in another words, you are being served this crap because Blizzard story team thinks this is the only type of content you are able to enjoy. I totally agree with this. The bad things didn't happen because they made a mistake or just aren't good enough, they just chose to make it like this (as evident from the chris metzen interview where he proclaims that starcraft is "just about a boy and girl"). On one hand this probably means they're still capable of making quality games if they chose to, but in all likeliness they will keep going in the same direction with LotV, taking the story and presentation in a totally different direction than most sc1/bw fans apparantly want.
Which just baffles me no end. If we could embrace and appreciate the SC1 storytelling a decade ago, when most of us were in our young teens, then why couldn't the teens of today do the same? Why must the assumption be that kids are dumb and shallow and unable to appreciate more complex set of characters and more nuance? Everything is just so hamfisted, like the playerbase couldn't posssibly deal with anything beyond a airplane food package equivalent of a plot.
As it is, by the time the end cinematic had played out, I found myself having a rather depressing moment of clarity. I didn't care about this story anymore. The coolest video game hero/anti-hero/villain ever was now just a flat caricature.
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On March 22 2013 19:25 baba44713 wrote:
What truly bothers me is the utter lack of criteria of the kids for whom the story is supposedly tailored to.
I mean, it used to be that the best media forms made for, ok, "younger" folks was the one that didn't actually desperately try to aim for that particular demographic but rather make a product of universal quality. I mean, I was a kid in 80's and 90's and yes, my criteria were lower, but I could still see the difference between something that was actually really good and something kinda crappy (even though that yes, I would still watch and enjoy the crappy stuff too). And yes, I enjoyed games like Diablo and SC1, I thought they had amazing cutscenes and really enjoyable stories and if anything I understood those games didn't treat you like an idiot.
So I must say that sorry, I apologize, but SC2 (as far as the storyline and its presentation goes) *does* treat you like an idiot. Everything is spelled out and often repeated as if the player has the attention span of a goldfish and would forget who and what is being shown to him unless being constantly reminded of it. There's unnecessary eye candy galore, from Kerrigan's bodysuit and thong to gratuitous Michael Bay explosions and choreographed fight scenes that just jump out of nowhere and do nothing for the story except for amusing the player so he wouldn't get bored by the expository dialogue that immediately follows it. And the worst culprit of course being total disrespect for the characters of the original game whose appearances are changed, whose personalities are rewritten, whose backstories are retconned, and who are all too often resurrected only to serve as a token "old character cameo" even though the role they have is either pointless or does not suit the character at all. This is not a case of stuff being bad because the creative team isn't good, this is stuff being bad BECAUSE IT HAS BEEN DELIBERATELY AND METICULOUSLY MADE SO - in another words, you are being served this crap because Blizzard story team thinks this is the only type of content you are able to enjoy.
So, ok, SC2 is apparently not tailored for me since I am over 18. But to everyone for whom this story is supposedly tailored... man, you should be insulted. I'm not saying you should not be a fan of this new Starcraft, or that you shouldn't be enjoying the lore or even the new setting, but geez, at least recognize when somebody is treating you like you're an idiot. Acknowledge that creative directors show an amazing disregard for your intelligence and that YOU DESERVE SOMETHING BETTER. Stop settling for this mediocrity because that's the best you can hope for in the future - had the backlash for what WoL story did to Starcraft been greater I'm sure HotS would have been at least a tiny fraction better. Now we have what we have, and the chances of the final part actually being good (or at least acceptable) have never been lower.
According to Forbes, 80% of their income comes from WoW. They continually are losing subscribers and the only way they've been able to stem the tide of people leaving the game has been by dumbing it down. BW was big--but was it freaky that big outside of Korea? Compared to games like The Sims?
Blizzard is dumbing it down because that is what the customers keep asking for.
Do you remember reading their interviews about Warcraft 3? They got tired of players just hiding their heroes in the back of the base safe from harm, so they decided to make hero characters ridiculous in order for players to not be scared to get them. Warcraft 3 sold big and was a big success outside of Korea. Same thing happened with WoW.
So what do we get out of SC2? We get quest lines and plot dialogue as spelled out and hand held as wow, hero characters as strong Warcraft 3. Why? Because that's the only product white people actually buys from Blizzard. Blizzard is making their products like WoW because that is the product they have that people buy and pay for the most.
So no, it's not them trying to insult our intelligence. It is our spending history as a community that forced blizzard to produce this product.
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I liked the story. Waaaaay better than WoL. However, I can't seem to warp my head around the fact that the Zerg/Kerrigan just don't seem menacing anymore. Now Kerrigan is going to sacrifice herself (seeing as she knows she has no chance against Amon). Wtf, you're the Queen of Blades and you're going to sacrifice yourself in the hope that you can save the universe? Never did like the whole prophecy aspect whereas the hybrid aspect is awesome. Finally, I didn't like the way Duran died. Could have been done better.
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On March 22 2013 20:49 McBengt wrote:Show nested quote +On March 22 2013 20:04 Saturio wrote:On March 22 2013 19:25 baba44713 wrote:
This is not a case of stuff being bad because the creative team isn't good, this is stuff being bad BECAUSE IT HAS BEEN DELIBERATELY AND METICULOUSLY MADE SO - in another words, you are being served this crap because Blizzard story team thinks this is the only type of content you are able to enjoy. I totally agree with this. The bad things didn't happen because they made a mistake or just aren't good enough, they just chose to make it like this (as evident from the chris metzen interview where he proclaims that starcraft is "just about a boy and girl"). On one hand this probably means they're still capable of making quality games if they chose to, but in all likeliness they will keep going in the same direction with LotV, taking the story and presentation in a totally different direction than most sc1/bw fans apparantly want. Which just baffles me no end. If we could embrace and appreciate the SC1 storytelling a decade ago, when most of us were in our young teens, then why couldn't the teens of today do the same? Why must the assumption be that kids are dumb and shallow and unable to appreciate more complex set of characters and more nuance? Everything is just so hamfisted, like the playerbase couldn't posssibly deal with anything beyond a airplane food package equivalent of a plot. As it is, by the time the end cinematic had played out, I found myself having a rather depressing moment of clarity. I didn't care about this story anymore. The coolest video game hero/anti-hero/villain ever was now just a flat caricature.
Sc1 is not very complex, and you seem to remember. I'm currently in the process of going through it again and it's not very complex at all. It's free form and abstract, which allows us to fill story gaps ourselves, but it's not very complex.
And Kerrigan is anything but flat in HotS. She's vengeful, but guilt ridden, powerful, but haunted. She can destroy armies by herself but gets stabbed when a shapeshifter plays with her guilt ridden brain.
The problem is not the number of layers, the problem is in the execution of layers.
"Are you ready to sacrifice everything" should have been an actual cutscene showing us how scared she was of losing her humanity--but then showing how her desperate need for vengeance overcomes that fear.
Valarian shouldn't have needed to ask her to spare humans--her broods should be the one asking why they're sparing so many humans and force Kerrigan to find an answer other than "because I still feel like I'm part of them"
She shouldn't have gotten power by killing primal Zerg--imagine if she decided to become strong again through abather? We hear about how painful the process is when Zagara is transformed and so when Kerrigan decides she needs to be stronger they actually show abather tearing her apart, replacing tissue, blood, and everything. Or, imagine if she got stronger by overcoming her emotional problems, as she loved Jim less, and cared about humans less, she tapped into her Zerg more. But no, we instead play highlander for about 3-4 missions. We also play on an ice planet for 3-4 missions for no real reason as well. It was the same problem with WoL--why rob trains when you're trying to save the galaxy?
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On March 22 2013 21:04 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On March 22 2013 19:25 baba44713 wrote:
What truly bothers me is the utter lack of criteria of the kids for whom the story is supposedly tailored to.
I mean, it used to be that the best media forms made for, ok, "younger" folks was the one that didn't actually desperately try to aim for that particular demographic but rather make a product of universal quality. I mean, I was a kid in 80's and 90's and yes, my criteria were lower, but I could still see the difference between something that was actually really good and something kinda crappy (even though that yes, I would still watch and enjoy the crappy stuff too). And yes, I enjoyed games like Diablo and SC1, I thought they had amazing cutscenes and really enjoyable stories and if anything I understood those games didn't treat you like an idiot.
So I must say that sorry, I apologize, but SC2 (as far as the storyline and its presentation goes) *does* treat you like an idiot. Everything is spelled out and often repeated as if the player has the attention span of a goldfish and would forget who and what is being shown to him unless being constantly reminded of it. There's unnecessary eye candy galore, from Kerrigan's bodysuit and thong to gratuitous Michael Bay explosions and choreographed fight scenes that just jump out of nowhere and do nothing for the story except for amusing the player so he wouldn't get bored by the expository dialogue that immediately follows it. And the worst culprit of course being total disrespect for the characters of the original game whose appearances are changed, whose personalities are rewritten, whose backstories are retconned, and who are all too often resurrected only to serve as a token "old character cameo" even though the role they have is either pointless or does not suit the character at all. This is not a case of stuff being bad because the creative team isn't good, this is stuff being bad BECAUSE IT HAS BEEN DELIBERATELY AND METICULOUSLY MADE SO - in another words, you are being served this crap because Blizzard story team thinks this is the only type of content you are able to enjoy.
So, ok, SC2 is apparently not tailored for me since I am over 18. But to everyone for whom this story is supposedly tailored... man, you should be insulted. I'm not saying you should not be a fan of this new Starcraft, or that you shouldn't be enjoying the lore or even the new setting, but geez, at least recognize when somebody is treating you like you're an idiot. Acknowledge that creative directors show an amazing disregard for your intelligence and that YOU DESERVE SOMETHING BETTER. Stop settling for this mediocrity because that's the best you can hope for in the future - had the backlash for what WoL story did to Starcraft been greater I'm sure HotS would have been at least a tiny fraction better. Now we have what we have, and the chances of the final part actually being good (or at least acceptable) have never been lower. According to Forbes, 80% of their income comes from WoW. They continually are losing subscribers and the only way they've been able to stem the tide of people leaving the game has been by dumbing it down. BW was big--but was it freaky that big outside of Korea? Compared to games like The Sims? Blizzard is dumbing it down because that is what the customers keep asking for. Do you remember reading their interviews about Warcraft 3? They got tired of players just hiding their heroes in the back of the base safe from harm, so they decided to make hero characters ridiculous in order for players to not be scared to get them. Warcraft 3 sold big and was a big success outside of Korea. Same thing happened with WoW. So what do we get out of SC2? We get quest lines and plot dialogue as spelled out and hand held as wow, hero characters as strong Warcraft 3. Why? Because that's the only product white people actually buys from Blizzard. Blizzard is making their products like WoW because that is the product they have that people buy and pay for the most. So no, it's not them trying to insult our intelligence. It is our spending history as a community that forced blizzard to produce this product.
In World of Warcraft, people complained when you actually had to read the quests, when powerful items weren't handed to you, when the tactics needed to defeat a boss weren't exceedingly obvious and required thought, and so on. Some of these complaints were sensible, but they had a cumulative effect of dumbing down the game so much that all the hand holding has become obnoxious to me. At every step of the way Blizzard listened to a part of their audience that demanded these changes, and so in the end they get what they deserve, but it might actually be that most people are perfectly happy with the state of Blizzard these days and that it's just us elitists that are cynical. My intuition tells me that those who are dissatisfied in this thread and other places are probably a minority, but I don't have the figures.
I do find it offensive that they couldn't even make Brutal difficult, even the hardest difficulty mode had to be catered to casual players so they aren't ever confronted with the fact that there are limits to their ability. (which I personally find a healthy thing to be confronted with)
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Blizzard is dumbing it down because that is what the customers keep asking for.
Do you remember reading their interviews about Warcraft 3? They got tired of players just hiding their heroes in the back of the base safe from harm, so they decided to make hero characters ridiculous in order for players to not be scared to get them. Warcraft 3 sold big and was a big success outside of Korea. Same thing happened with WoW.
So what do we get out of SC2? We get quest lines and plot dialogue as spelled out and hand held as wow, hero characters as strong Warcraft 3. Why? Because that's the only product white people actually buys from Blizzard. Blizzard is making their products like WoW because that is the product they have that people buy and pay for the most.
So no, it's not them trying to insult our intelligence. It is our spending history as a community that forced blizzard to produce this product.
I'm pretty sure this is a case of self-fulfilling prophecy.
You assume your customer base is dumb. You create a product for dumb people. Product is sold, therefore you conclude that your presumption was right. Of course, there is an alternate explanation which is that people buy your product not *because* of it being dumb but rather *in spite* of it being dumb, but there's no way to prove this, is it? There's no alternate version of SC2 with an intelligent story being sold poorly. After all, the only feedback you get is forums, but of course this is the internet, meaning the forums will be chokeful of the vocal nay-sayers and aye-sayers which makes it all but impossible to get the clear picture.
What Blizzard-of-old built his reputation on was releasing a ridiculously polished high quality product. You didn't need to read the reviews or do research if you were interested in a Blizzard game, their name was the only stamp of approval you needed. What Blizzard-of-new is doing is tailoring there games by looking at their profit margins. And this shows. Blizzard reputation is getting hurt, and getting hurt heavily. No matter what their profit studies state, I'm pretty sure the ACTUAL reason for good sales is brand recognition, the fact that the old Blizzard brand still holds some weight.... but I'm not sure this is sustainable in the long term.
Storywise, if WoL was Blizzard's "Avatar" (dumb story gets saved by good polish and high production values), than HotS is its "Prometheus" (stuff getting just a bit too dumb for masses not to notice, in spite of production values being high). You can get away with treating masses as a bunch of idiots, but there's a limit how far you can get away with it and how damaging it is in the long run. Personally, I'm looking forward to LotV's story just as much as I'm looking forward for Prometheus 2 - I'll probably check it out, but I really do not expect anything beyond being mildly interested and generally disappointed, and I'm pretty sure I will not blindly shell out money for something that has Blizzard (or Ridley Scott) stamped on it ever again. 
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i hope blizzard doesn't read much into this garbage thread. The story has to be told in a way to get a wide variety of missions.E.g in op's post he is complaining about duran and a battle for hadokens and destroying temples.. But ignores the gameplay it offers..
The mission is trying to encourage you to act fast. I was certainly disppointed in the infested marines abilities as i found them lackluster.But story has to be driven that way to make sense of all the missions. If they kept a stereotypical "kerrigan is already strong enough and just go to korhal and kill mensk in the first 3 missions".You would have never even heard of the original home world of the zerg or meet abathar for reasons why zerg needs to evolve or that the zerg was a tool of AMON.
I hate the very notion of this thread, complaining about the story when its tailored to support a wide variety of missions
To be brutally honest i would have preferred it sc1 style where all 3 races where in each campaign and playable. But for what it is, i found HOTS alot better than WOL.
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On March 22 2013 21:40 johnny123 wrote:
I hate the very notion of this thread, complaining about the story.
What a strange sentiment. Storytelling is a key element of single player, many would say the most important. If the storytelling is bad, the single player is bad. For many, single player is a huge part of the game and a primary motivation for buying it. We complain about multiplayer all the time and it's (rightfully so) considered perfectly reasonable. Complaining about the quality of the story should not be any less taboo.
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On March 22 2013 21:32 baba44713 wrote:Show nested quote +
Blizzard is dumbing it down because that is what the customers keep asking for.
Do you remember reading their interviews about Warcraft 3? They got tired of players just hiding their heroes in the back of the base safe from harm, so they decided to make hero characters ridiculous in order for players to not be scared to get them. Warcraft 3 sold big and was a big success outside of Korea. Same thing happened with WoW.
So what do we get out of SC2? We get quest lines and plot dialogue as spelled out and hand held as wow, hero characters as strong Warcraft 3. Why? Because that's the only product white people actually buys from Blizzard. Blizzard is making their products like WoW because that is the product they have that people buy and pay for the most.
So no, it's not them trying to insult our intelligence. It is our spending history as a community that forced blizzard to produce this product.
I'm pretty sure this is a case of self-fulfilling prophecy. You assume your customer base is dumb. You create a product for dumb people. Product is sold, therefore you conclude that your presumption was right. Of course, there is an alternate explanation which is that people buy your product not *because* of it being dumb but rather *in spite* of it being dumb, but there's no way to prove this, is it? There's no alternate version of SC2 with an intelligent story being sold poorly. After all, the only feedback you get is forums, but of course this is the internet, meaning the forums will be chokeful of the vocal nay-sayers and aye-sayers which makes it all but impossible to get the clear picture. What Blizzard-of-old built his reputation on was releasing a ridiculously polished high quality product. You didn't need to read the reviews or do research if you were interested in a Blizzard game, their name was the only stamp of approval you needed. What Blizzard-of-new is doing is tailoring there games by looking at their profit margins. And this shows. Blizzard reputation is getting hurt, and getting hurt heavily. No matter what their profit studies state, I'm pretty sure the ACTUAL reason for good sales is brand recognition, the fact that the old Blizzard brand still holds some weight.... but I'm not sure this is sustainable in the long term. Storywise, if WoL was Blizzard's "Avatar" (dumb story gets saved by good polish and high production values), than HotS is its "Prometheus" (stuff getting just a bit too dumb for masses not to notice, in spite of production values being high). You can get away with treating masses as a bunch of idiots, but there's a limit how far you can get away with it and how damaging it is in the long run. Personally, I'm looking forward to LotV's story just as much as I'm looking forward for Prometheus 2 - I'll probably check it out, but I really do not expect anything beyond being mildly interested and generally disappointed, and I'm pretty sure I will not blindly shell out money for something that has Blizzard (or Ridley Scott) stamped on it ever again.
WoW was hard, and subtle, and highly complex. Most fights were almost impossible to win without perfect execution from 40 people. But membership kept dropping off, so they dumb if down and it goes back up, the. I drops again, so they dumb it down and it goes back up. Rinse and repeat. It's not a case of self fulfilling prophecies--it's literally what they've had to do to keep a market presence.
I'm not saying I agree with it--but if you've ever tried pub raiding you'd see that all people want is loot and not complex execution. Join random pubs and you will see the demographic blizz has to keep happy.
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A lot of people complained about the evolution "missions" and their (lack of) purpose/meaning. That's because in some sense they aren't really missions. Blizzard guys usually still say HotS has 20 missions, so they don't even count the evolution ones. The purpose of those was not gameplay in itself - there is no challenge in them - but to show each evolutionary option interactively, instead of with a short video. I thought that was a great decision. For example, I didn't choose the deep burrow for swarm hosts, but since I used it a little bit in a toy mission, I still knew what it is today when Wolfdor mentioned it in GSTL.
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On March 22 2013 21:40 johnny123 wrote:
If they kept a stereotypical "kerrigan is already strong enough and just go to korhal and kill mensk in the first 3 missions".You would have never even heard of the original home world of the zerg or meet abathar for reasons why zerg needs to evolve or that the zerg was a tool of AMON.
We've already heard of the homeworld of the zerg. Zerus is not a newly created concept. What it is, however, is entirely retconned from how it was explained in sc1, and I think much the same of anything regarding Amon.
I give credit to WoL/HotS for giving a greater variety of missions, though I kind of feel like the large, strategic missions have been neglected. The story was required for none of that, though.
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On March 22 2013 21:44 McBengt wrote:Show nested quote +On March 22 2013 21:40 johnny123 wrote:
I hate the very notion of this thread, complaining about the story.
What a strange sentiment. Storytelling is a key element of single player, many would say the most important. If the storytelling is bad, the single player is bad. For many, single player is a huge part of the game and a primary motivation for buying it. We complain about multiplayer all the time and it's (rightfully so) considered perfectly reasonable. Complaining about the quality of the story should not be any less taboo.
As i said, the story was not bad, and it had to be written in a way to get a wide variety of missions. I was pointing out to the OP where he said why does kerrigan even need to evolve into this primal zerg to defeat mengsk when the zerg swarm is strong enough already as if its stupid story telling. When i try to say the story has to be written in a way to make sense of the missions.
Blizzard could easily have proposed such an idea and just kill menghsk off within the first 3 missions without any need for going to zerg homeworld to kill prime pack leaders or any off the other stuff they put into the game. But that wouldnt be any fun would it? I dont have any quims with the story telling.. Well i do but its not anything to do with whats being mentioned here.
My only problem with hots story is that Kerrigan fought really hard to get Jim freed from the capture and all jim seemed to care about is complaining about why she turned back into queen of blades. No hug? no kiss'es?
thats my only gripe.
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On March 22 2013 21:40 johnny123 wrote:
i hope blizzard doesn't read much into this garbage thread. The story has to be told in a way to get a wide variety of missions.E.g in op's post he is complaining about duran and a battle for hadokens and destroying temples.. But ignores the gameplay it offers..
The mission is trying to encourage you to act fast. I was certainly disppointed in the infested marines abilities as i found them lackluster.But story has to be driven that way to make sense of all the missions. If they kept a stereotypical "kerrigan is already strong enough and just go to korhal and kill mensk in the first 3 missions".You would have never even heard of the original home world of the zerg or meet abathar for reasons why zerg needs to evolve or that the zerg was a tool of AMON.
I hate the very notion of this thread, complaining about the story when its tailored to support a wide variety of missions
To be brutally honest i would have preferred it sc1 style where all 3 races where in each campaign and playable. But for what it is, i found HOTS alot better than WOL.
You have it backwards. The story should determine the mechanics. If the mechanics are bland, it's because the story is bland.
It makes sense that she would bee line her way to mengst. It also makes sense that she would get her ass handed to her, losing too many Zerg or feeling bad about killing too many civilians. Maybe abather gets good of a female ghost and starts infesting her and Kerrigan freaks out and turns the whole Zerg army away.she realizes she's too weak/human to kill so many people and decides that the only way to achieve her goal is to lose her humanity.
Those transitions are the important parts of storytelling. Without them, we spend cutscene after cutscene being given exposition instead of being shown narrative.
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On March 22 2013 08:55 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On March 22 2013 08:42 antelope591 wrote:On March 22 2013 08:35 Thieving Magpie wrote:On March 22 2013 08:06 antelope591 wrote:
I voted the campaign as average...not to great but not too terrible either. As usual there's people on both sides exaggerating the badness/goodness of the story when the truth is somewhere in the middle. Take the example of the "good post" in the OP. Why doesn't Kerrigan just waltz into Korhal and kill that random guy Mengsk without seeking more power? Srsly? Mengsk the emperor of the Terran Dominion which is the strongest its ever been and owns a whole system of fortified planets. Human Kerrigan and one leviathan is enough to take on the whole dominion now? Is that A+ posting?
I did have my own issues, major being the Duran storyline had an extremely shitty conclusion considering he was my fav char from the first games. Hopefully there's some mention of him in the next game. And Stukov coming back was stupid as hell. But even with these issues the game still kept me engaged and wanting to see what happens next. And the starcraft lore/universe is still more interesting that 99% of anything else out there video game wise. This new phenomenon on harping and complaining about every single issue in a videogame is extremely annoying with big name games. Its perfectly reasonable to assume that mengsk is strong. But don't tell us that, show us that. She spent half the game telling us "I need to be stronger" but she never actually did anything. She attack mengst troops twice before leaving for zerus. And she beat them handily both times. Why would we ever feel like shes weak when the only time she's shown as weak was when her friend died. What you do during player controlled missions is a terrible way to assess strength. The same way you could say your little group of rag tag Terrans in WoL went to Char and crushed/held off the entire swarm on the way to reverting Kerrigan back to human form. Does that mean that the Zerg were really weak as hell the whole time and can't hold off even a small Terran fleet? Of course your player controlled character is gonna win every battle otherwise you're not gonna make much progress through a campaign. In sc1 Raynor kills an infested cc => gets imprisoned for killing civilians Raynor needs to be saved by Mengsk Dominion forces surrounds Raynor and friends => have to use zerg to break out Kerrigan turtles against Zerg and Protoss => gets left behind End of terran campaign is humanity is in shatters, allies are lost, no hope available. But at least Protoss can burn planets and are obviously stronger than zerg. Zerg missions have them find out a way to beat protoss => auir falls. Both Protoss and Terran have been beaten by zerg. Protoss missions: You (as toss) take antiga, then go off to protect another sector => cut scene to antiga getting retaken and zeratul dying. You then kill a cerebrate => only to realize that they can't be killed. You find out how to kill them (DTs) => only to find out old hatreds won't allow them to be used You try to unite the tribes => failure, you now have to depend on Jim raynor's help instead. You get to the last mission. No Terran support, no protoss support, just a marine who lost his lover and a templar made an outcast of his people. You make a hail mary and kamikazi into the overmind. So no--it is very much possible to show you losing despite winning everything. BW Protoss wins a phyrric victory of "yay we're not dead, lets start from scratch" Terran has to gain an overmind in order to have a chance agaisnt zerg. And then the final stretch of the game it turns out they were all being manipulated by Kerrigan the whole time. All the victories before then were fake, all part of the bad guy's plan to win. And she did, the bad guys won. ------------------------------ Hell! Even in WoL you had to spend the first few char missions just gathering the troops together since they were scattered, beaten, and defeated. Even a mission or two was just "oh shit, Kerrigan is here, save who we can do our best" Lots of the side quests in each mission in WoL was "such and such are trapped, save them" You had to slowly gather your army. That sense of danger is nowhere in HotS.
I agree as far as SC1 but one point we all agree on is that the story in SC1 was superior in all facets so that point is moot. I disagree about WoL I don't feel the sense of danger as you call it was any more present there than here. You slowly build up your forces in HoTS same as in WoL. Obv there's no sense of danger to kerrigan cause blizz isn't gonna kill of their main char....same as there was no danger for Raynor in WoL. Troops scattered over Char is pretty much = drop pods scattered over Korhal. The last few missions were pretty much a copy of each other, gather your army and go to enemy's home planet and take them out. I don't see how you can put one over the other. Except its a lot more realistic to me for Kerrigan and the swarm to take on the Dominion than a small terran fleet to take on the whole swarm.
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I thought WoL's story was simply boring, background noise for the actual missions. HotS was at least occasinally fun with it's awkward dialogue and so on. I can only hope they continue down this path in LotV and take a few lessons from something like Birdemic.
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On March 22 2013 21:56 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On March 22 2013 21:40 johnny123 wrote:
i hope blizzard doesn't read much into this garbage thread. The story has to be told in a way to get a wide variety of missions.E.g in op's post he is complaining about duran and a battle for hadokens and destroying temples.. But ignores the gameplay it offers..
The mission is trying to encourage you to act fast. I was certainly disppointed in the infested marines abilities as i found them lackluster.But story has to be driven that way to make sense of all the missions. If they kept a stereotypical "kerrigan is already strong enough and just go to korhal and kill mensk in the first 3 missions".You would have never even heard of the original home world of the zerg or meet abathar for reasons why zerg needs to evolve or that the zerg was a tool of AMON.
I hate the very notion of this thread, complaining about the story when its tailored to support a wide variety of missions
To be brutally honest i would have preferred it sc1 style where all 3 races where in each campaign and playable. But for what it is, i found HOTS alot better than WOL. You have it backwards. The story should determine the mechanics. If the mechanics are bland, it's because the story is bland. It makes sense that she would bee line her way to mengst. It also makes sense that she would get her ass handed to her, losing too many Zerg or feeling bad about killing too many civilians. Maybe abather gets good of a female ghost and starts infesting her and Kerrigan freaks out and turns the whole Zerg army away.she realizes she's too weak/human to kill so many people and decides that the only way to achieve her goal is to lose her humanity. Those transitions are the important parts of storytelling. Without them, we spend cutscene after cutscene being given exposition instead of being shown narrative.
and what makes you think that way you explained is a better way to tell the story? i bet anything that if blizzard told the story you said it should be, it would be RIPPED to pieces just like how this is.
Its a fucking b-movie fantasy story. Get over it . Nothing will ever make sense.. The story was good for what it was. She turned back into queen of blades because she thought raynor was dead and that was her only reason to stay human to begin with. She had nothing but vengeance on her mind and it showed threw the story telling that she was sacrificing the zerg for her own agenda . Even the zergs were asking why should they care about killing menghsk or sparing humans when they should be going after the real threat, amon.
That makes more sense to me why she went back to being queen of blades than you saying "she realizes she is to human to kill many people".
Your story telling would be quite frankly horrible.
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On March 22 2013 21:59 antelope591 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 22 2013 08:55 Thieving Magpie wrote:On March 22 2013 08:42 antelope591 wrote:On March 22 2013 08:35 Thieving Magpie wrote:On March 22 2013 08:06 antelope591 wrote:
I voted the campaign as average...not to great but not too terrible either. As usual there's people on both sides exaggerating the badness/goodness of the story when the truth is somewhere in the middle. Take the example of the "good post" in the OP. Why doesn't Kerrigan just waltz into Korhal and kill that random guy Mengsk without seeking more power? Srsly? Mengsk the emperor of the Terran Dominion which is the strongest its ever been and owns a whole system of fortified planets. Human Kerrigan and one leviathan is enough to take on the whole dominion now? Is that A+ posting?
I did have my own issues, major being the Duran storyline had an extremely shitty conclusion considering he was my fav char from the first games. Hopefully there's some mention of him in the next game. And Stukov coming back was stupid as hell. But even with these issues the game still kept me engaged and wanting to see what happens next. And the starcraft lore/universe is still more interesting that 99% of anything else out there video game wise. This new phenomenon on harping and complaining about every single issue in a videogame is extremely annoying with big name games. Its perfectly reasonable to assume that mengsk is strong. But don't tell us that, show us that. She spent half the game telling us "I need to be stronger" but she never actually did anything. She attack mengst troops twice before leaving for zerus. And she beat them handily both times. Why would we ever feel like shes weak when the only time she's shown as weak was when her friend died. What you do during player controlled missions is a terrible way to assess strength. The same way you could say your little group of rag tag Terrans in WoL went to Char and crushed/held off the entire swarm on the way to reverting Kerrigan back to human form. Does that mean that the Zerg were really weak as hell the whole time and can't hold off even a small Terran fleet? Of course your player controlled character is gonna win every battle otherwise you're not gonna make much progress through a campaign. In sc1 Raynor kills an infested cc => gets imprisoned for killing civilians Raynor needs to be saved by Mengsk Dominion forces surrounds Raynor and friends => have to use zerg to break out Kerrigan turtles against Zerg and Protoss => gets left behind End of terran campaign is humanity is in shatters, allies are lost, no hope available. But at least Protoss can burn planets and are obviously stronger than zerg. Zerg missions have them find out a way to beat protoss => auir falls. Both Protoss and Terran have been beaten by zerg. Protoss missions: You (as toss) take antiga, then go off to protect another sector => cut scene to antiga getting retaken and zeratul dying. You then kill a cerebrate => only to realize that they can't be killed. You find out how to kill them (DTs) => only to find out old hatreds won't allow them to be used You try to unite the tribes => failure, you now have to depend on Jim raynor's help instead. You get to the last mission. No Terran support, no protoss support, just a marine who lost his lover and a templar made an outcast of his people. You make a hail mary and kamikazi into the overmind. So no--it is very much possible to show you losing despite winning everything. BW Protoss wins a phyrric victory of "yay we're not dead, lets start from scratch" Terran has to gain an overmind in order to have a chance agaisnt zerg. And then the final stretch of the game it turns out they were all being manipulated by Kerrigan the whole time. All the victories before then were fake, all part of the bad guy's plan to win. And she did, the bad guys won. ------------------------------ Hell! Even in WoL you had to spend the first few char missions just gathering the troops together since they were scattered, beaten, and defeated. Even a mission or two was just "oh shit, Kerrigan is here, save who we can do our best" Lots of the side quests in each mission in WoL was "such and such are trapped, save them" You had to slowly gather your army. That sense of danger is nowhere in HotS. I agree as far as SC1 but one point we all agree on is that the story in SC1 was superior in all facets so that point is moot. I disagree about WoL I don't feel the sense of danger as you call it was any more present there than here. You slowly build up your forces in HoTS same as in WoL. Obv there's no sense of danger to kerrigan cause blizz isn't gonna kill of their main char....same as there was no danger for Raynor in WoL. Troops scattered over Char is pretty much = drop pods scattered over Korhal. The last few missions were pretty much a copy of each other, gather your army and go to enemy's home planet and take them out. I don't see how you can put one over the other. Except its a lot more realistic to me for Kerrigan and the swarm to take on the Dominion than a small terran fleet to take on the whole swarm.
No, you don't seem to remember, you're saving random packs of marines from the first mission onward. In HotS you would bump into a cave or you would hear a "my broods will join you if you go here" message. In WoL you find out people are trapped out there and you're being asked to save them. It's in the first mission and many missions after that way before we get to drop pods. The narrative was also different. With Kerrigan, you're setting up a strike force to make a beachhead. With WoL it was Raynor realizing a dumb plan was set in motion and he had to fix the dumb plan before everyone was killed.
So yes, the missions were mechanically similar--but the narrative was significantly different.
And no, I don't think the BW narrative is innately better--I'm just showing how an RTS can have you be losing despite winning all the missions.
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On March 22 2013 11:55 zbedlam wrote:
Raynor: "Damn kerrigan you look banging in that ghost outfit"
Kerrigan: "Yeah. I'm a sexy independent woman nobody can stop me! Hey Raynor I wuvvles you."
Raynor: "Sweet babe, so when can we hook up?"
Kerrigan: "Right after I get over my daddy issues by butchering billions of humans because my surrogate daddy abandoned me to the zerg, you cool with that?"
Raynor: "Yeah, I'll help you with that so we can hook up after k."
Zeratul: "Kerrigan wtf calm down you crazy bitch here some visions of power should calm you down for a bit. Jesus christ."
Raynor: "What the fuck kerrigan what happened to the ghost outfit and whats up with the tentacles. You know I'm more into the ghost in a shell look rather than this shit."
Kerrigan: "Its not you its me, its just these zerg queens were here for me when you weren't im so sorry let's go kill some humans"
Raynor: "GG friendzoned whatever, maybe I still got a shot she's permanently naked now so thats a plus I guess. Lets murder some more people just doing their jobs they probably worship the xel'naga or something evil."
Kerrigan: "Sweet Mengsk is dead im off now Raynor later bro."
Raynor: "Wow, shoulda gone for Nova, could tell she was totally into me."
Pretty much how i saw this too. Such a good description, lol. Blizz should read it and seriously reconsider the quality of their presentation and storytelling.
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EPT
