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On March 23 2013 23:57 mutantmagnet wrote:
Can we stop pretending if we actually use our brain cells there are a bunch of elements in the story that pull you out whether or not you know about the previous games? (looks at sCCrooked )
There's no pretending about it. If you liked this story or you supported it, it means you find simplistic basic-level writing with highly-predictable recycled storylines with random interjections from plot lines that are neither relevant nor helpful to the main arc, but rather harmful and even destructive to the main story somehow favorable.
If these are indeed your standards, there's nothing wrong with it, but stop lying to yourselves that this is anything other than the cold hard facts. You like more simple, more predictable things you've already seen a million times before.
Its this outright denial of their very personal traits that makes the defenders look so silly. Its like religious zealots who answer with random "doctrine" or "scripture" readings whenever you try to pose a serious question to them that an established association should have no trouble answering. It goes far beyond stories like this, but into movies as of late, the takeover of technology vs talent in the arts and many other facets of our daily lives that are being played for profit rather than good product.
I just wish people could be honest instead of pretending that they're all connoisseurs for liking Grade 1 reading.
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On March 24 2013 03:48 sCCrooked wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2013 23:57 mutantmagnet wrote:
Can we stop pretending if we actually use our brain cells there are a bunch of elements in the story that pull you out whether or not you know about the previous games? (looks at sCCrooked ) There's no pretending about it. If you liked this story or you supported it, it means you find simplistic basic-level writing with highly-predictable recycled storylines with random interjections from plot lines that are neither relevant nor helpful to the main arc, but rather harmful and even destructive to the main story somehow favorable. If these are indeed your standards, there's nothing wrong with it, but stop lying to yourselves that this is anything other than the cold hard facts. You like more simple, more predictable things you've already seen a million times before. Its this outright denial of your very personal traits that makes the defenders look so silly. Its like religious zealots who answer with random "doctrine" or "scripture" readings whenever you try to pose a serious question to them that an established association should have no trouble answering. It goes far beyond stories like this, but into movies as of late, the takeover of technology vs talent in the arts and many other facets of our daily lives that are being played for profit rather than good product.
Your vitriolic attack on a VIDEO GAME STORYLINE and those who enjoy it is far more silly than anything else posted in this thread. 'Tis also funny that you mention doctrine when your post seems copy and pasted from the Hipster's Guide to Internet Self-Righteousness. Not everyone interfaces with various forms of media alike; I love complex and confusing novels in addition to abstract art, but when it comes to video games, I don't mind the occasional breezy popcorn tale that simply serves as a gameplay vehicle. This societal extrapolation nonsense, blaming those who enjoy the game for the general degradation of "taste" in the arts, is narrow minded judgement wearing the clothes of critical theory.
In other words, get off your high horse and put down the red plastic gavel.
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On March 24 2013 04:01 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On March 24 2013 03:48 sCCrooked wrote:On March 23 2013 23:57 mutantmagnet wrote:
Can we stop pretending if we actually use our brain cells there are a bunch of elements in the story that pull you out whether or not you know about the previous games? (looks at sCCrooked ) There's no pretending about it. If you liked this story or you supported it, it means you find simplistic basic-level writing with highly-predictable recycled storylines with random interjections from plot lines that are neither relevant nor helpful to the main arc, but rather harmful and even destructive to the main story somehow favorable. If these are indeed your standards, there's nothing wrong with it, but stop lying to yourselves that this is anything other than the cold hard facts. You like more simple, more predictable things you've already seen a million times before. Its this outright denial of your very personal traits that makes the defenders look so silly. Its like religious zealots who answer with random "doctrine" or "scripture" readings whenever you try to pose a serious question to them that an established association should have no trouble answering. It goes far beyond stories like this, but into movies as of late, the takeover of technology vs talent in the arts and many other facets of our daily lives that are being played for profit rather than good product. Your vitriolic attack on a VIDEO GAME STORYLINE and those who enjoy it is far more silly than anything else posted in this thread. 'Tis also funny that you mention doctrine when your post seems copy and pasted from the Hipster's Guide to Internet Self-Righteousness. Not everyone interfaces with various forms of media alike; I love complex and confusing novels in addition to abstract art, but when it comes to video games, I don't mind the occasional breezy popcorn tale that simply serves as a gameplay vehicle. This societal extrapolation nonsense, blaming those who enjoy the game for the general degradation of "taste" in the arts, is narrow minded judgement wearing the clothes of critical theory In other words, get off your high horse and put down the red plastic gavel.
This is the kind of misinterpretation and wrongful reaction I was expecting and predicted. Once again, its the company's duty to provide a good product. The complete murder of the storyline was upsetting to many.
Most of your response is simply nonsensical and doesn't deserve answering, but your conclusion that I'm on some high horse is quite obviously incorrect. I spoke completely objectively without emotion when I said that the storyline possessed those qualities. Deciding to like and favor those qualities in your tastes in writing/media/etc is perfectly fine. Just don't deny your preferences to be what they are. The definitions of those words are not up for debate. Its you who place the derogatory or positive connotation on it.
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I thought Hots story was better than WoL's. But still quite bad overall, and terribly disappointing to someone who grew up with and loved the sc1 story. There are tons of plot holes, under developed characters, and lots of ridiculous, childish dialogue. Not sure why anyone would defend Blizzard on this. It's clear that their writing team has been just God awful lately (WoL and D3). If anything we should be demanding more of such a big and prestigious company. I don't see why we should be happy with a mediocre at best story-line from arguably the best game developer there is. Recent blizzard games are becoming bad and childish. SC, diablo and warcraft series' deserve better than this.
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On March 24 2013 03:48 sCCrooked wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2013 23:57 mutantmagnet wrote:
Can we stop pretending if we actually use our brain cells there are a bunch of elements in the story that pull you out whether or not you know about the previous games? (looks at sCCrooked ) There's no pretending about it. If you liked this story or you supported it, it means you find simplistic basic-level writing with highly-predictable recycled storylines with random interjections from plot lines that are neither relevant nor helpful to the main arc, but rather harmful and even destructive to the main story somehow favorable. If these are indeed your standards, there's nothing wrong with it, but stop lying to yourselves that this is anything other than the cold hard facts. You like more simple, more predictable things you've already seen a million times before. Its this outright denial of your very personal traits that makes the defenders look so silly. Its like religious zealots who answer with random "doctrine" or "scripture" readings whenever you try to pose a serious question to them that an established association should have no trouble answering. It goes far beyond stories like this, but into movies as of late, the takeover of technology vs talent in the arts and many other facets of our daily lives that are being played for profit rather than good product.
I'm confused by your response. I didn't like the HOTS storyline and haven't indicated otherwise in the past few pages. I did find proof for your argument that atleast one reviewer likes it and that was all I was supporting.
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On March 24 2013 04:07 sCCrooked wrote:Show nested quote +On March 24 2013 04:01 farvacola wrote:On March 24 2013 03:48 sCCrooked wrote:On March 23 2013 23:57 mutantmagnet wrote:
Can we stop pretending if we actually use our brain cells there are a bunch of elements in the story that pull you out whether or not you know about the previous games? (looks at sCCrooked ) There's no pretending about it. If you liked this story or you supported it, it means you find simplistic basic-level writing with highly-predictable recycled storylines with random interjections from plot lines that are neither relevant nor helpful to the main arc, but rather harmful and even destructive to the main story somehow favorable. If these are indeed your standards, there's nothing wrong with it, but stop lying to yourselves that this is anything other than the cold hard facts. You like more simple, more predictable things you've already seen a million times before. Its this outright denial of your very personal traits that makes the defenders look so silly. Its like religious zealots who answer with random "doctrine" or "scripture" readings whenever you try to pose a serious question to them that an established association should have no trouble answering. It goes far beyond stories like this, but into movies as of late, the takeover of technology vs talent in the arts and many other facets of our daily lives that are being played for profit rather than good product. Your vitriolic attack on a VIDEO GAME STORYLINE and those who enjoy it is far more silly than anything else posted in this thread. 'Tis also funny that you mention doctrine when your post seems copy and pasted from the Hipster's Guide to Internet Self-Righteousness. Not everyone interfaces with various forms of media alike; I love complex and confusing novels in addition to abstract art, but when it comes to video games, I don't mind the occasional breezy popcorn tale that simply serves as a gameplay vehicle. This societal extrapolation nonsense, blaming those who enjoy the game for the general degradation of "taste" in the arts, is narrow minded judgement wearing the clothes of critical theory In other words, get off your high horse and put down the red plastic gavel. This is the kind of misinterpretation and wrongful reaction I was expecting and predicted. Once again, its the company's duty to provide a good product. The complete murder of the storyline was upsetting to many. Most of your response is simply nonsensical and doesn't deserve answering, but your conclusion that I'm on some high horse is quite obviously incorrect. I spoke completely objectively without emotion when I said that the storyline possessed those qualities. Deciding to like and favor those qualities in your tastes in writing/media/etc is perfectly fine. Just don't deny your preferences to be what they are. The definitions of those words are not up for debate. Its you who place the derogatory or positive connotation on it.
You are asserting that a person's artistic taste can be measured and judged based on their reception of a single work. This is childish. You are asserting a uniform standard in artistic critique that conforms with your chosen frame of reference, that being something about "qualities". This is childish. You are assuming that because someone likes a simple video game story that they then must also enjoy simple storylines elsewhere. This is childish.
If you'd like me to define any of the words that I use so that you are able to better understand what I am saying, please, just ask. It must be upsetting when you are unable to understand those who disagree with you.
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On March 20 2013 21:58 wo1fwood wrote:
I'd also just like to quickly note that now that I have finished with my thoughts and whatnot, that it is unlikely I will write a review on a Blizzard title again. I can only handle so much critical analysis and especially in this instance, somewhat disenfranchising thoughts, and I know you probably have similar feelings regarding this. So I should apologize for what I had to do here as I felt it necessary to explain how unacceptable I've felt this kind of writing/execution is from a company that supposedly is one of the "best" in the business (they do so many things right, why not this).
Also this was intended to go in the Campaign forum, so I would request that it be moved there when that subforum goes up.
Very good read. I agree, Blizzards story telling is very bad, they cover it up with flashy CGI movies and attempts at emotional connections.
The game is good, not great, and a little quick. It also seems easier that WOL campaign (on Brutal).
P.S. The fight with the Prime beasty on Zerus also reminded me of that crappy game Diablo 3.
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Being a philistine isn't a moral failing; people shouldn't be so offended by this thread. All the OP is pointing out is that the plotline of this game is a simplistic, trope-ridden mess and that it insults his tastes in fiction.
If anything, the problem with this thread is that the OP overestimates the SC2 audience.
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On March 20 2013 21:58 wo1fwood wrote:
I didn't really like Diablo III, and they're making me feel like I'm playing Diablo III again? I almost lost it at that point. But enough of that.
So..., if you had not played Diablo III, you would have enjoyed that moment more. That really make sense...
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On March 24 2013 04:24 mutantmagnet wrote:Show nested quote +On March 24 2013 03:48 sCCrooked wrote:On March 23 2013 23:57 mutantmagnet wrote:
Can we stop pretending if we actually use our brain cells there are a bunch of elements in the story that pull you out whether or not you know about the previous games? (looks at sCCrooked ) There's no pretending about it. If you liked this story or you supported it, it means you find simplistic basic-level writing with highly-predictable recycled storylines with random interjections from plot lines that are neither relevant nor helpful to the main arc, but rather harmful and even destructive to the main story somehow favorable. If these are indeed your standards, there's nothing wrong with it, but stop lying to yourselves that this is anything other than the cold hard facts. You like more simple, more predictable things you've already seen a million times before. Its this outright denial of your very personal traits that makes the defenders look so silly. Its like religious zealots who answer with random "doctrine" or "scripture" readings whenever you try to pose a serious question to them that an established association should have no trouble answering. It goes far beyond stories like this, but into movies as of late, the takeover of technology vs talent in the arts and many other facets of our daily lives that are being played for profit rather than good product. I'm confused by your response. I didn't like the HOTS storyline and haven't indicated otherwise in the past few pages. I did find proof for your argument that atleast one reviewer likes it and that was all I was supporting.
I didn't mean you as in you specifically so much as I meant "you" the people defending the storyline as being good.
You are asserting that a person's artistic taste can be measured and judged based on their reception of a single work. This is childish. You are asserting a uniform standard in artistic critique that conforms with your chosen frame of reference, that being something about "qualities". This is childish. You are assuming that because someone likes a simple video game story that they then must also enjoy simple storylines elsewhere. This is childish.
If you'd like me to define any of the words that I use so that you are able to better understand what I am saying, please, just ask. It must be upsetting when you are unable to understand those who disagree with you.
Once again your entire first part doesn't even make sense. Its like you're trying to respond to points that haven't been made and it just makes you look silly. Not to mention its sad to see such an emotion-bound egomaniac trying desperately to establish dominance on the internet. You've actually resorted to attempting to be some sort of silly holier-than-thou rambler instead of producing any actual material. The one lacking comprehension here is clearly not me, however I doubt someone of your caliber has the capacity to understand why this case has already been proven by your own posts beyond any possible alternative conclusion.
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LOL so I checked out the official TEAM LIQUID thread on the story and a majority (54%) find the story an improvement on wol or steller overall. The folks like gatesleeper who though the story was horrible at are 30%.
This is the case of a small small but loud minority here bashing a great story. You cant even muster the numbers in team liquid to say otherwise. No where close to it in fact. 30% LOL.
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=402932
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On March 24 2013 05:11 DaveVAH wrote:LOL so I checked out the official TEAM LIQUID thread on the story and a majority (54%) find the story an improvement on wol or steller overall. The folks like gatesleeper who though the story was horrible at are 30%. This is the case of a small small but loud minority here bashing a great story. You cant even muster the numbers in team liquid to say otherwise. No where close to it in fact. 30% LOL. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=402932
Posting this in every thread you can find on this topic?
TL is an educated authority on playing video games not on writing or reviewing fiction. Polling TL readers on this subject is not going to yield a determination on whether HOTS is well written. It will tell us whether or not it is up to the literary standards of TL readers (which may or may not be at an early high school level).
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On March 24 2013 05:16 Cyrak wrote:
Posting this in every thread you can find on this topic?
You mean the two threads it was relevant on?
On March 24 2013 05:16 Cyrak wrote:TL is an educated authority on playing video games not on writing or reviewing fiction. Polling TL readers on this subject is not going to yield a determination on whether HOTS is well written. It will tell us whether or not it is up to the literary standards of TL readers (which may or may not be at an early high school level).
So the even TL posters are not elite enough for you? All I have to say is that again you folks are a small minority within a minority. Enjoy shouting on top of your lungs but I doubt many will hear your or care what you have to say.
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Im curious. As a creative experiment could those who are well versed is SC lore make Wings and Swarm work given the known established constraints and settings set by its predecessor? Like make inferences and connections that while not expilicitly stated or even inferred in the actual game/story, but are still well within logical reason and ultimately "make it work."
That would be interesting.
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On March 24 2013 05:26 DaveVAH wrote:Show nested quote +On March 24 2013 05:16 Cyrak wrote:
Posting this in every thread you can find on this topic?
You mean the two threads it was relevant on? Show nested quote +On March 24 2013 05:16 Cyrak wrote:TL is an educated authority on playing video games not on writing or reviewing fiction. Polling TL readers on this subject is not going to yield a determination on whether HOTS is well written. It will tell us whether or not it is up to the literary standards of TL readers (which may or may not be at an early high school level). So the even TL posters are not elite enough for you? All I have to say is that again you folks are a small minority within a minority. Enjoy shouting on top of your lungs but I doubt many will hear your or care what you have to say.
Elite at what? Can you not grasp the idea that playing competitive video games and consuming fiction are two different pursuits that don't particularly overlap?
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On March 24 2013 05:11 DaveVAH wrote:LOL so I checked out the official TEAM LIQUID thread on the story and a majority (54%) find the story an improvement on wol or steller overall. The folks like gatesleeper who though the story was horrible at are 30%. This is the case of a small small but loud minority here bashing a great story. You cant even muster the numbers in team liquid to say otherwise. No where close to it in fact. 30% LOL. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=402932
This is the kind of person that points to box office numbers or imdb ratings as evidence that a film is good. Look how proud you are, so assured in your victory that you have won this argument by using the "Popularity = Good" fallacy, with zero self awareness.
On March 23 2013 20:09 DaveVAH wrote:
FYI Gatekeeper. I am 29. I have read songs of ice and fire and most of G.R.R.Martins other books. I have played the baldur's gate series, planescape torment, witcher series, sc1/bw and many others. The problem is most likely with you and not the quality of the material here.
29 years old and you think A Song of Ice and Fire is the pinnacle of literary storytelling. That speaks well enough for itself.
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Wow this is actually quite a wonderful review of the game, I have to congratulate you on a very thorough review of a game that I was hoping to be good.
I haven't visited TL in a very long while as I stopped paying attention to WoL since it grew stale over a year and a half ago and an imbalanced Hots beta did little to hold my interest as well. I did not buy Hots because I am not interested in buying it, I already wasted 60$ on WoL so I'm not making that mistake again.
I watched the Hots let's play to see if the story had improved from WoL, in some aspects it did but in the end a turd with chocolate chips on it its still a turd. I thought that in this game being completely devoted to the Zerg we would see Kerrigan going back to her old self (BW) instead of this cutesy zerg princess who just can't help herself to be in love with a man who not long ago (BW) wanted to kill her when she's not too busy getting her revenge. I didn't find some of the changes they made to the campaign to be bad, some things were good and some things were awful like the boss battles BUT at least they added some variety from WoL.
I entirely agree 100% with your view of where Blizzard's intentions are now days, the Blizzard of old is gone to never return and instead we have this Zynga like Blizzard that delivers games only to please kids and new comers to the game instead of delivering a game that will please the old fan base. WoL was the last game that I bought from Blizzard as I do not see them really making good games and I think you're probably right about this being the WoW effect, its quite evident how much they have sided with this fan base, seems to me every new game they try to make its made exclusively to get those 10 million people who still play that god awful game to buy the new one. You can obviously see that in D3 and how dumbed down it is and now again in Hots with how they have nerfed the MP and the SP resembles more to an RPG than an RTS. I really just disliked WoL for many reasons the story being the least of its issues since I was a MP only player, the game its just so dumbed down from how BW was that it has lost all of its spectacle and instead we get what WoW players would like if they were to play RTS, tank units who can take tons of damage, gigantic maps so they can just max out before even meeting their enemy and just terrible combat to make it easier for them to approach the game instead of just encouraging people to discover and engage in a far more complex but satisfying game.
Game developers now days are afraid of throwing gamers any semblance of a challenge because they might get scared away and not buy their game, you can see this not just in Blizz's Zynga-like games but with almost every developer out there and its a shame. Games are no longer made for our generation.
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On March 24 2013 06:05 Gatesleeper wrote:Show nested quote +On March 24 2013 05:11 DaveVAH wrote:LOL so I checked out the official TEAM LIQUID thread on the story and a majority (54%) find the story an improvement on wol or steller overall. The folks like gatesleeper who though the story was horrible at are 30%. This is the case of a small small but loud minority here bashing a great story. You cant even muster the numbers in team liquid to say otherwise. No where close to it in fact. 30% LOL. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=402932 This is the kind of person that points to box office numbers or imdb ratings as evidence that a film is good. Look how proud you are, so assured in your victory that you have won this argument by using the "Popularity = Good" fallacy, with zero self awareness. Show nested quote +On March 23 2013 20:09 DaveVAH wrote:
FYI Gatekeeper. I am 29. I have read songs of ice and fire and most of G.R.R.Martins other books. I have played the baldur's gate series, planescape torment, witcher series, sc1/bw and many others. The problem is most likely with you and not the quality of the material here. 29 years old and you think A Song of Ice and Fire is the pinnacle of literary storytelling. That speaks well enough for itself.
Can you objectively describe a work and derive what's good from it by only following the general guidelines of what makes specific stories great?
I understand people's troubles with HotS, but from the tone of many such posters it seems to me that they know what "higher-art" is.
Imo it is very hard to quantify the quality of literature(let's say only related to games). And if so, I would like to see what you people consider as something great.
Personally I enjoyed the campaign. The dialogue was cheesey at some points, the storyline was awkward generally, some characters like Abathur seemed really great while others had little to add to the storry(like Stukov).
As far as video games are concerned there's very little games that I can remember that would blow my mind story/dialogue-wise. Only PS:T comes to mind and that's a game that's more similar to a reading adventure than anything else and on top of that is in the genre of cRPGs which are most of the time story-focused.
RTS games tend to have "weaker" writing than RPGs and that's what I've come to expect from them. When I think back I can't remember a RTS game that would just stand out with its story. Dune, the Earth series, Sacrifice, Homeworld all had interesting stories, characters and the latter two(especially Sacrifice) great characters&writing as far as characters are concerned. But they were just that, great - not something to make a fuss about as far as story is concerned.
One thing to note is that modern games have shifted in terms of how storylines are presented. Back then almost everything was presented in text form with little graphical "interference" like we get in modern games with everything being shown as if it was a movie. Most of the old games that you play, your imagination takes care of the graphical-aspects of the story(you imagine most of the stuff being described, the limitations of engines/graphics in general made you do this) - now it's very different.
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On March 24 2013 06:05 Gatesleeper wrote:
29 years old and you think A Song of Ice and Fire is the pinnacle of literary storytelling. That speaks well enough for itself.
So now you are attacking the ice and fire series? You are on thin ice pal. cracked, fragile and ready to burst thin ice.
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I understand your point of the starcraft story losing in quality, however I see it as less of a problem.
Its a video game, if your playing it solely for the story you might as well read a book.
You are of course right with the points you bring up.
Just relax and see Blizzard for what they are - Still produce excellent games, yet with their best times behind them, their priorities, devteams and everything has changed, and no crying will ever bring them back.
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EPT
