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United States97274 Posts
On March 23 2013 02:55 figq wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2013 02:51 Thieving Magpie wrote:On March 23 2013 01:28 figq wrote:
What, that can't be right. Pretty sure in multiple interviews different Blizzard guys have mentioned that the highest percentage of accounts in WoL have not completed the campaign. On any difficulty. Keep in mind the highest number of people is the group of those who never tried multiplayer and don't know esports exists. I can't speak about game completion, I can only speak about the interview I saw. If its true that not only did a majority of players not complete brutal, but not even be able to finish the campaign--then I can't see a better reason why HotS feels a bit easier by comparison. Yes, it was deliberate, and they said it in advance. WoL campaign was super hard, apparently, for the most players (most of them haven't heard of TL etc), so HotS was supposed to be much easier. For similar reasons they added training mode and vs-AI-ladder mode for the multiplayer. They try very hard to involve more players deeper into the game.
It doesnt surprise me. I knew people that played that didnt know you should make like more than 1 barracks and stuff like that. They would play sc2 for like a month, stay at the bottom of bronze skill, and then quit the game. I probably know 3 or 4 people that were like that, so it doesnt surprise me that there would be a lot more. Some people just dont get rts
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On March 23 2013 04:24 Shellshock1122 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2013 02:55 figq wrote:On March 23 2013 02:51 Thieving Magpie wrote:On March 23 2013 01:28 figq wrote:
What, that can't be right. Pretty sure in multiple interviews different Blizzard guys have mentioned that the highest percentage of accounts in WoL have not completed the campaign. On any difficulty. Keep in mind the highest number of people is the group of those who never tried multiplayer and don't know esports exists. I can't speak about game completion, I can only speak about the interview I saw. If its true that not only did a majority of players not complete brutal, but not even be able to finish the campaign--then I can't see a better reason why HotS feels a bit easier by comparison. Yes, it was deliberate, and they said it in advance. WoL campaign was super hard, apparently, for the most players (most of them haven't heard of TL etc), so HotS was supposed to be much easier. For similar reasons they added training mode and vs-AI-ladder mode for the multiplayer. They try very hard to involve more players deeper into the game. It doesnt surprise me. I knew people that played that didnt know you should make like more than 1 barracks and stuff like that. They would play sc2 for like a month, stay at the bottom of bronze skill, and then quit the game. I probably know 3 or 4 people that were like that, so it doesnt surprise me that there would be a lot more. Some people just dont get rts
Some people just don't have the hand speed as well.
I knew someone who read TL everyday, played at least 1-3 ladder matches a day, and he said Easy Mode WoL was one of the hardest games he'd ever played, but after several months of laddering, he found playing through normal was not as difficult.
He now does not play any RTS game--too stressful.
Will he have an easier time with HotS? Maybe. But I can promise you that he won't think it is easy.
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On March 23 2013 04:24 Shellshock1122 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2013 02:55 figq wrote:On March 23 2013 02:51 Thieving Magpie wrote:On March 23 2013 01:28 figq wrote:
What, that can't be right. Pretty sure in multiple interviews different Blizzard guys have mentioned that the highest percentage of accounts in WoL have not completed the campaign. On any difficulty. Keep in mind the highest number of people is the group of those who never tried multiplayer and don't know esports exists. I can't speak about game completion, I can only speak about the interview I saw. If its true that not only did a majority of players not complete brutal, but not even be able to finish the campaign--then I can't see a better reason why HotS feels a bit easier by comparison. Yes, it was deliberate, and they said it in advance. WoL campaign was super hard, apparently, for the most players (most of them haven't heard of TL etc), so HotS was supposed to be much easier. For similar reasons they added training mode and vs-AI-ladder mode for the multiplayer. They try very hard to involve more players deeper into the game. It doesnt surprise me. I knew people that played that didnt know you should make like more than 1 barracks and stuff like that. They would play sc2 for like a month, stay at the bottom of bronze skill, and then quit the game. I probably know 3 or 4 people that were like that, so it doesnt surprise me that there would be a lot more. Some people just dont get rts
I had no idea about stuff like that until a friend gave me a link to the GOMTV Invitational.
It seems obvious in retrospect, but it isn't at first glance, particularly if you come with a 'build 1 thing, unlock next better thing, continue' mindset.
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United States97274 Posts
On March 23 2013 04:51 Dfgj wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2013 04:24 Shellshock1122 wrote:On March 23 2013 02:55 figq wrote:On March 23 2013 02:51 Thieving Magpie wrote:On March 23 2013 01:28 figq wrote:
What, that can't be right. Pretty sure in multiple interviews different Blizzard guys have mentioned that the highest percentage of accounts in WoL have not completed the campaign. On any difficulty. Keep in mind the highest number of people is the group of those who never tried multiplayer and don't know esports exists. I can't speak about game completion, I can only speak about the interview I saw. If its true that not only did a majority of players not complete brutal, but not even be able to finish the campaign--then I can't see a better reason why HotS feels a bit easier by comparison. Yes, it was deliberate, and they said it in advance. WoL campaign was super hard, apparently, for the most players (most of them haven't heard of TL etc), so HotS was supposed to be much easier. For similar reasons they added training mode and vs-AI-ladder mode for the multiplayer. They try very hard to involve more players deeper into the game. It doesnt surprise me. I knew people that played that didnt know you should make like more than 1 barracks and stuff like that. They would play sc2 for like a month, stay at the bottom of bronze skill, and then quit the game. I probably know 3 or 4 people that were like that, so it doesnt surprise me that there would be a lot more. Some people just dont get rts I had no idea about stuff like that until a friend gave me a link to the GOMTV Invitational. It seems obvious in retrospect, but it isn't at first glance, particularly if you come with a 'build 1 thing, unlock next better thing, continue' mindset.
exactly. I'd be like... dude you only have 1 rax. and he'd be like "yeah I only need 1 to get a factory. why would I build another?" I kind kind of remember being the same way for some things like engineering bays and upgrade stuff. It just seems to second nature now ^^
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On March 22 2013 22:13 NightOfTheDead wrote:Show nested quote +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.
This is so good. I wish they expanded on Nova rather than just have her there to provide some 'linkage' between the pointless WoL side-missions and HotS.
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I really liked the broad strokes of this story. Kerrigan's character development actually made sense to me
what I don't like, and hope they alter, is that sc2 seems kind of canned hollywood now on all the little things. In sc:bw, you had the overmind. even while you were playing zerg, you got a sense that nobody understood it and everybody feared it. Kerrigan is kind of approaching that level again, but not quite the same. Keep something from us!
And tassadar, you just knew he was a bamf. There were a couple core storylines followed through from start to finish, and this focus on each one made the side ones seem authentic even if they weren't explained or explored. You could just trust there was something going on.
in hots, it's just kind of "oh look here's one mission for this thing" that's actually really big. or maybe I'm getting jaded because it took me forever to beat each scbw mission and these were a breeze (although I haven't tried ultra)
but I got chills at that final cutscene. hots has redeemed actiblizz for this franchise, although I won't be playing d3 ever again
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I was wondering what other people thought of the portrayal of evolution in Starcraft 2. I was initially a bit peeved at how they mangled the concept, but then I felt that as long as they conveyed the spirit of it correctly it would be okay, so it could function on the level of a fable that could still give you an intuition on the real thing. (kids do play these games after all)
(I also think that the story line has been confusing in terms of time scales. I've read about the Xel Naga being ancient because they lived a million years ago and the overmind spending 'thousands of years' on Zerus or Char, which are all not that much in terms of evolution and climate development and so on. )
I suppose you could look at essence hunting as being about capturing DNA sequences that you merge with your own genetic code, which in the real world isn't that far-fetched, as it's what happens with genetically modifying food. It wouldn't have a lot of effect short term, you wouldn't instantly transform or something silly like that. And most of the time it would kill you long term since experimenting with your DNA is very risky (see radiation poisoning), certainly it wouldn't make you immortal as some sort of vampire who replaced blood with essences.
In any case, one could sort of come up with a world where organisms don't have random mutations, but rather, they take existing genetic code and use it to replace or add on to their own. And of course if you had just one original DNA sequence to start with, then you could still create all possible DNA sequences, or at least something equivalent to it. Even if the original sequence is atomic and can't be broken up in more parts. This is because you can just append the sequence and so in effect you are counting. Now, in a world (however far-fetched) where this is the basic mechanism used, I would think it's somewhat equivalent to evolution, so if one takes it as a fable it might work, since a lot of the concepts do overlap.
However, in SC2 it's really more about vampires stealing life essence, it doesn't really analyze it as something analog to evolution. So there is no notion of the semi-randomness of evolution (instead it's targeted acquiring of powers), no notion of evolution not being improvement necessarily (here it always makes you stronger), and as a result I thought it didn't really work as a portrayal.
I hope any of this makes sense...
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On March 22 2013 22:31 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On March 22 2013 22:16 baba44713 wrote:
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.
I'm saying it's a self-fulfilling prophecy when it comes to Starcraft. WoW is a MMORPG, Starcraft is an RTS. You can't really compare neither the SP nor the MP portion of an RTS to an MMORPG, it's an entirely different gameplay experience. MMORPG is basically a hamsterwheel, so you need to cater the gameplay to suit the hamsterwheel mentality - keep it simple and give only the illusion of progress. What people expect from SP RTS is two things - good, engaging story and well-crafted missions. In other words, your goal should not be to tailor the experience in such a way to keep the player playing that campaign indefinitely - you want him to do just one (or perhaps few) playthroughs, but make it a great, memorable experience. And HotS truly miserably fails here - while the missions and the gameplay are somewhat enjoyable, story-wise there's truly nothing really memorable (I'm pretty sure future generations will not in 10 years or so fondly reminiscent about that time when Raynor and Kerrigan finally smooched, nor when they needed to feed giant turtles, nor when some weird russian mutant who was supposed to be known to them asked them to wreck a prison, nor even when they were "cathartically" skewering Mengsk while spouting hammy lines about vengeance). So yes, I still think that saying "let's apply WoW mentality to Starcraft because if WoW folks want their extra helping of dumb then for sure Starcraft fans want the same thing, too" is a self-fulfilling prophecy. We do not necessarily want the dumb, we just get stuck with it because it was expected from us to want it, and since we apparently readily paid to get our dumb the first time over well then here's an expansion pack with 150% more dumb, bon apetit. So TL;DR If Blizzard decides to keep this up, by the time "the cult of the dumb" rightfully explodes in their face, the situation may just be insalvagable. At least for the portion of their fanbase who aren't into MP that much (and whom I think may have already jumped ship after Diablo 3 and HotS). Hard ore gamers will buy sc2 because of things like MLG and GSL. Blizz knows this and so they don't bother aiming multiplayer for that demographic. Their experience with casual gamers is that the more hand holding the better. And so they're sticking to that plan. Diablo 3 and Sc2 gets released. Sc2 gets big, d3 not as much. Overall, their plan worked. That's not some self fulfilling prophecy that is market predictions that has made them more money than not. Do I think it's a bad plan? Yes, I do. But it's not out of disrespect to the audience intelligence. They just realize that the audience who doesn't care too much but might play 1-2 missions a week needs a lot of coddling. David Kim once said in an interview that 90% of WoL accounts had not completed brutal. Think about that statistic in reference to how "easy" the campaign is.
i would have bought Hots purely for the campaign. I played Wol for 2 years and gave up on it, because the game didnt give me fun. I still love the Starcraft story and would like to see a worthy continuation. But from streams and this thread i figured, i wont do it, since the story is basically BS.
So yeah, Blizzard is loosing customers as the guy you qouted said.
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On March 23 2013 06:29 Grumbels wrote:
I was wondering what other people thought of the portrayal of evolution in Starcraft 2. I was initially a bit peeved at how they mangled the concept, but then I felt that as long as they conveyed the spirit of it correctly it would be okay, so it could function on the level of a fable that could still give you an intuition on the real thing. (kids do play these games after all)
(I also think that the story line has been confusing in terms of time scales. I've read about the Xel Naga being ancient because they lived a million years ago and the overmind spending 'thousands of years' on Zerus or Char, which are all not that much in terms of evolution and climate development and so on. )
I suppose you could look at essence hunting as being about capturing DNA sequences that you merge with your own genetic code, which in the real world isn't that far-fetched, as it's what happens with genetically modifying food. It wouldn't have a lot of effect short term, you wouldn't instantly transform or something silly like that. And most of the time it would kill you long term since experimenting with your DNA is very risky (see radiation poisoning), certainly it wouldn't make you immortal as some sort of vampire who replaced blood with essences.
In any case, one could sort of come up with a world where organisms don't have random mutations, but rather, they take existing genetic code and use it to replace or add on to their own. And of course if you had just one original DNA sequence to start with, then you could still create all possible DNA sequences, or at least something equivalent to it. Even if the original sequence is atomic and can't be broken up in more parts. This is because you can just append the sequence and so in effect you are counting. Now, in a world (however far-fetched) where this is the basic mechanism used, I would think it's somewhat equivalent to evolution, so if one takes it as a fable it might work, since a lot of the concepts do overlap.
However, in SC2 it's really more about vampires stealing life essence, it doesn't really analyze it as something analog to evolution. So there is no notion of the semi-randomness of evolution (instead it's targeted acquiring of powers), no notion of evolution not being improvement necessarily (here it always makes you stronger), and as a result I thought it didn't really work as a portrayal.
I hope any of this makes sense...
The main problem I have with the whole essence thing is that I feel that it's a major retcon on the Protoss/Zerg relationship.
Previously, the difference between the two races is that the Protoss have purity of form, meaning powerful bodies, powerful minds, and advanced technology, and the Zerg have purity of essence, meaning a concentrated purpose that doesn't fall victim to civil war. With HotS however, we now learn that the Zerg are basically just Protoss (strong bodies that are prone to civil war), and that purity of essence really just means a substance that they absorb from other creatures. And the Overmind itself is just Amon's corruption.
Makes the whole form/essence dynamic lose all meaning in my opinion. The desire to avoid civil war was the entire reason the Xel'Naga deemed the Protoss a failure, so then they make the Zerg, which we are now supposed to believe are MORE civil war-happy than even the Protoss? It doesn't make sense considering that the Protoss' main goal after the Aeon of Strife was to reclaim their broken mind-link that caused the Xel'Naga to abandon them. Either I'm missing something, or there's a huge retcon afoot.
I really don't know why Blizzard took the race in this direction. It's certainly not new or fresh since the Primal Zerg are just Dark Templar in Zerg clothing. What was the point?
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On March 23 2013 06:42 Cele wrote:Show nested quote +On March 22 2013 22:31 Thieving Magpie wrote:On March 22 2013 22:16 baba44713 wrote:
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.
I'm saying it's a self-fulfilling prophecy when it comes to Starcraft. WoW is a MMORPG, Starcraft is an RTS. You can't really compare neither the SP nor the MP portion of an RTS to an MMORPG, it's an entirely different gameplay experience. MMORPG is basically a hamsterwheel, so you need to cater the gameplay to suit the hamsterwheel mentality - keep it simple and give only the illusion of progress. What people expect from SP RTS is two things - good, engaging story and well-crafted missions. In other words, your goal should not be to tailor the experience in such a way to keep the player playing that campaign indefinitely - you want him to do just one (or perhaps few) playthroughs, but make it a great, memorable experience. And HotS truly miserably fails here - while the missions and the gameplay are somewhat enjoyable, story-wise there's truly nothing really memorable (I'm pretty sure future generations will not in 10 years or so fondly reminiscent about that time when Raynor and Kerrigan finally smooched, nor when they needed to feed giant turtles, nor when some weird russian mutant who was supposed to be known to them asked them to wreck a prison, nor even when they were "cathartically" skewering Mengsk while spouting hammy lines about vengeance). So yes, I still think that saying "let's apply WoW mentality to Starcraft because if WoW folks want their extra helping of dumb then for sure Starcraft fans want the same thing, too" is a self-fulfilling prophecy. We do not necessarily want the dumb, we just get stuck with it because it was expected from us to want it, and since we apparently readily paid to get our dumb the first time over well then here's an expansion pack with 150% more dumb, bon apetit. So TL;DR If Blizzard decides to keep this up, by the time "the cult of the dumb" rightfully explodes in their face, the situation may just be insalvagable. At least for the portion of their fanbase who aren't into MP that much (and whom I think may have already jumped ship after Diablo 3 and HotS). Hard ore gamers will buy sc2 because of things like MLG and GSL. Blizz knows this and so they don't bother aiming multiplayer for that demographic. Their experience with casual gamers is that the more hand holding the better. And so they're sticking to that plan. Diablo 3 and Sc2 gets released. Sc2 gets big, d3 not as much. Overall, their plan worked. That's not some self fulfilling prophecy that is market predictions that has made them more money than not. Do I think it's a bad plan? Yes, I do. But it's not out of disrespect to the audience intelligence. They just realize that the audience who doesn't care too much but might play 1-2 missions a week needs a lot of coddling. David Kim once said in an interview that 90% of WoL accounts had not completed brutal. Think about that statistic in reference to how "easy" the campaign is. i would have bought Hots purely for the campaign. I played Wol for 2 years and gave up on it, because the game didnt give me fun. I still love the Starcraft story and would like to see a worthy continuation. But from streams and this thread i figured, i wont do it, since the story is basically BS. So yeah, Blizzard is loosing customers as the guy you qouted said.
You and me not liking the plan does not mean it is a bad plan. I'm simply pointing out that they aren't trying to insult the intelligence of TL regulars and stream watchers--they really didn't make the campaign for those people.
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On March 23 2013 06:47 Spawkuring wrote:
I really don't know why Blizzard took the race in this direction. It's certainly not new or fresh since the Primal Zerg are just Dark Templar in Zerg clothing. What was the point?
And they are also like the orcs in Warcraft 3. Thought of as monsters, then Metzen has an epiphany and decides that it would be cooler if they were revealed to have more 'depth' to them, even though I disagree with his notion of what depth means.
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On March 23 2013 07:08 Grumbels wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2013 06:47 Spawkuring wrote:
I really don't know why Blizzard took the race in this direction. It's certainly not new or fresh since the Primal Zerg are just Dark Templar in Zerg clothing. What was the point? And they are also like the orcs in Warcraft 3. Thought of as monsters, then Metzen has an epiphany and decides that it would be cooler if they were revealed to have more 'depth' to them, even though I disagree with his notion of what depth means.
Really they're like Skeletons in Diablo 2, I mean, yeah, sure, they were evil in Diablo 1, but it turns out the necromancers could use them for good--not all things are stuck in their--
There is no such thing as originality. Just fresh takes on things that have been around for ages. The dark templar is not unique, no more than drow are unique.
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On March 23 2013 04:24 Shellshock1122 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2013 02:55 figq wrote:On March 23 2013 02:51 Thieving Magpie wrote:On March 23 2013 01:28 figq wrote:
What, that can't be right. Pretty sure in multiple interviews different Blizzard guys have mentioned that the highest percentage of accounts in WoL have not completed the campaign. On any difficulty. Keep in mind the highest number of people is the group of those who never tried multiplayer and don't know esports exists. I can't speak about game completion, I can only speak about the interview I saw. If its true that not only did a majority of players not complete brutal, but not even be able to finish the campaign--then I can't see a better reason why HotS feels a bit easier by comparison. Yes, it was deliberate, and they said it in advance. WoL campaign was super hard, apparently, for the most players (most of them haven't heard of TL etc), so HotS was supposed to be much easier. For similar reasons they added training mode and vs-AI-ladder mode for the multiplayer. They try very hard to involve more players deeper into the game. It doesnt surprise me. I knew people that played that didnt know you should make like more than 1 barracks and stuff like that. They would play sc2 for like a month, stay at the bottom of bronze skill, and then quit the game. I probably know 3 or 4 people that were like that, so it doesnt surprise me that there would be a lot more. Some people just dont get rts
Haha, sounds like me before i watched the GSL.
"ooh, you get more then 1 base so you can build more stuff"
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On March 23 2013 07:27 Assirra wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2013 04:24 Shellshock1122 wrote:On March 23 2013 02:55 figq wrote:On March 23 2013 02:51 Thieving Magpie wrote:On March 23 2013 01:28 figq wrote:
What, that can't be right. Pretty sure in multiple interviews different Blizzard guys have mentioned that the highest percentage of accounts in WoL have not completed the campaign. On any difficulty. Keep in mind the highest number of people is the group of those who never tried multiplayer and don't know esports exists. I can't speak about game completion, I can only speak about the interview I saw. If its true that not only did a majority of players not complete brutal, but not even be able to finish the campaign--then I can't see a better reason why HotS feels a bit easier by comparison. Yes, it was deliberate, and they said it in advance. WoL campaign was super hard, apparently, for the most players (most of them haven't heard of TL etc), so HotS was supposed to be much easier. For similar reasons they added training mode and vs-AI-ladder mode for the multiplayer. They try very hard to involve more players deeper into the game. It doesnt surprise me. I knew people that played that didnt know you should make like more than 1 barracks and stuff like that. They would play sc2 for like a month, stay at the bottom of bronze skill, and then quit the game. I probably know 3 or 4 people that were like that, so it doesnt surprise me that there would be a lot more. Some people just dont get rts Haha, sounds like me before i watched the GSL. "ooh, you get more then 1 base so you can build more stuff"
I remember playing SC1 and thought Vultures were the strongest units in the game since it said they had 20 damage. I just didn't realize what concussive meant.....
I'm not saying Vultures bad--but I thought they went toe to toe with dragoons who also did "20" damage lol
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On March 22 2013 22:31 Thieving Magpie wrote:
David Kim once said in an interview that 90% of WoL accounts had not completed brutal. Think about that statistic in reference to how "easy" the campaign is.
I never played brutal because I could get almost all the achievements on normal or hard. Completing every level on the hardest difficulty just for 1 achievement didn't appeal to me.
I'm also not the sort of person who upon completing a game wants to play a more difficult version of the same game. So few players completing brutal difficult doesn't mean "too hard", it may mean "not worth it".
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On March 22 2013 23:53 Saigon2246 wrote:
I had fun with the campaign even though the storyline was completely horrible and non-sensical.
The makeout scene between Raynor and Kerrigan was so cheesy and lame that I was truly embarassed.
I don't remember any fight scenes between Nova and Kerrigan, am I missing something? Or you mean the Dominion's attack at the beginning? Because there were no direct engagement betwen them.
Stukov's appearance was entirely absurd and pointless.
Was Duran and Narud actually the same person?
One thing I still don't understand: Valerian Megsk's role. First question when it comes to him: how can he be trusted? He's the son of the snake himself. How can he operate outside of his father's supervision? How can he own a scientific research project, a fleet, an army? Is there a point when he and his father become enemies? In fact, I don't remember any particular scene where Mengsk mentions his son. Like, is he really his son, just because he tells so? My bet is that in Legacy of the Void it will be revealed that he is a Xel Naga agent or Amon himself.
In HoTS after changing back Kerrigan, suddenly the Dominion can launch a full scale attack on them, and the rebels' only option is to flee. Wasn't in WoL, that they have almost won the revolution against Mengsk? How could they become so weak suddenly?
I felt Stukov's appearance was a neat reference to BW and it allowed us to learn more about Narud/the Hybrids. Obviously there's more story involving stukov that we don't know about yet.
Yes, Duran and Narud were the same person. The fact that Stukov is involved in Duran's defeat is another reference to BW that I greatly enjoyed.
Your questions about Valerian would be answered if you read the novel Flashpoint. It's all explained there.
They hadn't almost won the revolution against Mengsk...they just dealt a major blow to his reputation and caused some rioting. The amount of damage they actually did to the Dominion was miniscule. As for why they were so weak, that is also explained in Flashpoint.
Also, a common complaint I'm seeing is "Kerrigan getting reinfested makes WoL story meaningless". No, it doesn't. The Xel'Naga artifact removed Amon's influence from Kerrigan, allowing her to maintain her personality and free will as a Zerg. The Queen of Blades that comes from Zerus is completely different from the Queen of Blades that was the result of the Overmind, and that would never have been possible if she hadn't been de-infested in WoL. The story of HoTS is the direct result of the WoL story.
So many of these complaints are the result of people not understanding the story. The story isn't perfect, by any means, but I still greatly enjoyed it and the campaign. And I'm glad they finally killed Mengsk, I half expected him to escape again.
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On March 23 2013 10:41 uanime5 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 22 2013 22:31 Thieving Magpie wrote:
David Kim once said in an interview that 90% of WoL accounts had not completed brutal. Think about that statistic in reference to how "easy" the campaign is.
I never played brutal because I could get almost all the achievements on normal or hard. Completing every level on the hardest difficulty just for 1 achievement didn't appeal to me. I'm also not the sort of person who upon completing a game wants to play a more difficult version of the same game. So few players completing brutal difficult doesn't mean "too hard", it may mean "not worth it".
What David Kim is saying is that you can't say something is too hard if you haven't beaten it yet. That's like saying that the pizza tastes awful without ever having tasted it.
Its a valid argument--you can't really ever say something is too easy and have the majority never completed it.
There are many "valid" and "possible" excuses to bring up to try to shut up David Kim's argument--but it still does not refute his initial statement that you can't call something too easy if most people have not even beaten it.
I'm not saying I agree with him--I know that after about a few missions I realized that there was no point to feel challenged since the narrative was so un-engaging that there was no real reason for me to fully experience the game. I switched to easy mode just to finish the game as fast as possible.
Do I "know" if Brutal is too easy or not--no idea. I have a feeling it might be easier than Blizzard hoped it would be, but like most others I did not find the story engaging enough to find out. Which means I can say that the story bored me--but I can't really say that the game was too easy for me.
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i was gonna write a thread about how stupid the SC2 story is but Zoomacroom pretty much summed up all the rage I had about this damn noob story
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I tried brutal last night to see if it was better. The first few missions were decently hard, but once Kerrigan hits high enough level it was back spamming mini-brood lord roaches and a-moving like a champ. I'm fine with the story being available to everyone, but isn't that why multiple difficulty levels exist? Why must the campaign be so mechanically easy even on brutal?
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EPT
