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On April 16 2013 14:35 Jerubaal wrote:
Shitting on everything that's popular is fashionable, I get it.
There were several moments in the game where I actually cared about the characters (namely Kerrigan), something that didn't really happen in WoL, BW or 99% of the games I play.
Frankly, the biggest thing I picked up from this review is you. You start off by telling us how disappointed you were in some other Blizzard games. That should have sent out huge red flags. That's like reading a restaurant review that starts out with the writer talking about how much they hate snooty French chefs. The rest of the article reads the same way.
I'm not trying to single out the OP; as you can see there are 30+ pages of this, and, frankly, I think this is the result of a population that has long outstayed itself in a particular medium.
Are you saying that Starcraft's core group of fans are too old and wise to still be playing games? Pretty sure that's what you're saying. Whats wrong with people playing games at older ages. There are tons of movies that are advanced enough to engage not-kids, whats wrong with gamers expecting their entertainment choice to also evolve to that level.
For the record I rather enjoyed the HoTS campaign. The story was pretty predictable but that didn't bother me so much because the mission's themselves were a ton of fun on their own.
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On April 17 2013 08:58 wo1fwood wrote:
Where do I begin with this... First of all I hope you realize that you just responded to the person who originally wrote this piece, and I shouldn't need to mention how that reflects on your reading comprehension (not to mention the topics or things that you stated that I originally covered in the OP... but didn't). Secondly, if I am making such massive mistakes in my original analytical efforts, then why haven't you shown us what the conceptual problem is and why? Please, either take the time to explain how and where I've gone wrong in my analysis (which you haven't), or just don't respond.
Regarding the canon works, and I suspect you initial problem with this position. If you are referring to canonical works as being novels, or books, I would love to see a convincing reason as to why the use of or reference to this material is acceptable and a good idea in telling a convincing story. The problem is, not one person in these 34 pages has come up with a convincing argument to explain why referencing these other materials and their potential benefits outweigh the problems that relying on these things create (in fact, if Blizzard is trying to reach as wide an audience as possible using this canon material actually undermines this very principle by forcibly excluding a certain demographic of people). You can disagree with this just fine, but until you tell us why you disagree, your statement doesn't mean anything.
Additionally, If you are going to refute someone's argument or position you need to actually refute that position through evidence, and not through attempts at misdirection. What I mean by this is that many people who have disagreed with whomever in this thread have simply brought up or asked subsequent questions to try to seed doubt into the original argument, but this doesn't refute anything at all until you yourself have convincingly answered this question (all aspects of this question, which regarding your quip on the khaydarin crystals you have as of yet not done), and then presented your ideas. It's like saying "ooo, shiny object!" while conspicuously not answering or refuting the position originally stated. It's a lazy attempt at misdirection, it's entirely vapid, a less than subtle ad hominem, and quite honestly needs to stop.
Edit: I should add that you are not the only person who does this as the internet is full of this behavior, but regardless it still doesn't add anything substantive to a discussion and is precisely why I asked in the OP to specifically not do this.
When an owner of content creates new content and calls it canon-it is canon by definition. You not liking it does not make it non-canon. Blizzard owns the IP of Starcraft, they create content they consider canon--it is now canon. Its the same way in Starwars, its the same way in Lord of the Rings with the posthumous release of Simirilian, and its the same in Starcraft. Its how canon has always worked and its how canon will always work.
You failing to show that a lot of your problems with the plot twists and choices in SC2 also happened in SC1 also shows either a poor understanding of SC1, or is an attempt to slander SC2 by choosing to ignore the same faults present in SC1. I would like to believe that you're not malicious and simply didn't get SC1 all that much, if I'm wrong and you're a malicious bastard choosing to slander SC2 then by all means tell me.
Canon is determined by the owners of a product--which negates most of your post. You not reading the books is not blizzard's fault, its yours. You not wanting to include blizzard's works is not blizzard's fault, it's yours. You obviously were not the type of fan who actually was madly in love with the story and read all the books and content that Blizz has released through the years. You simply played the videogame and enjoyed it--once again, that is not blizzard's fault that you choose to ignore content, that's yours.
Most of the silly and arbitrary things that happened in SC2 also happened in SC1, and you're either too blind to see it or you're choosing to ignore it--which invalidates a good chunk of your post as well.
The only part I agreed with was your conclusion that the execution of SC2 is obviously aimed for a younger generation and that you and I disagree with that--but just because its aimed at a younger crowed does not make it a failure, it just means we are not the demographic. You disagreeing with that is once again not Blizzard's fault, but yours.
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Does it not make sense for Blizzard to cater the campaign for younger people anyways? The campaign for Starcraft has always been sort of like a tutorial for the multiplayer. Everything about it is designed to get new players prepared for the multiplayer, which is a good thing. For this game to survive as an esport it needs new blood, and I'm pretty sure everyone above the age of 20 that wanted to try it out already has.
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On April 18 2013 01:00 AnomalySC2 wrote:
Does it not make sense for Blizzard to cater the campaign for younger people anyways? The campaign for Starcraft has always been sort of like a tutorial for the multiplayer. Everything about it is designed to get new players prepared for the multiplayer, which is a good thing. For this game to survive as an esport it needs new blood, and I'm pretty sure everyone above the age of 20 that wanted to try it out already has.
I dislike that Blizzard is making a kid-centric campaign as much as I dislike that McDonald's makes bad tasting burgers--but its their product, and I'm willing to respect that.
I can't call McDonalds a failure just because I wanted a T-Bone steak and all they have is quarterpounder with fries.
I also can't get upset that HotS is catered towards more casual gamers + Show Spoiler +(mostly because it never gives you a chance to "figure out" a puzzle and keeps telling you every piece of information you needed to know. Where to move, when attacks are coming, etc... if they simply removed those aspects of the game and simply made players have to learn when timing attacks came and what tiny animations bosses made before striking instead of a giant red lane of light telling you "BAD! DON'T STAND HERE!") where even though attacks were so tiny and minuscule, since you didn't know when they came you had to always be alert.
Because the truth is that the actual missions in HotS and WoL were 10x better than the missions in SC1 and BW. And if they didn't tell you exactly when everything was coming and what direction they were coming, it would be 10x more difficult that any mission SC1 or BW had. + Show Spoiler +For example, the train missions in WoL. Imagine if they didn't tell you which train was coming? And they don't even tell you that two at a time are coming? And the only way to know is to constantly scout 5-6 different parts of the map and see when a train is coming. And then have the AI send out patrols before the trains move out to snipe off 2-4 of your scouts to make it even more hectic. You won't know where to position your army, how to intercept the trains, and moving out to collect defiler bones suddenly becomes a huge risk because what if while you're out on bone hunts the train moves by you without you noticing and without warning you autolose the mission.
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Magpie, you continually show us with your posting that you have entirely missed secondary inferences or primary pieces of import to your understanding of this topic, and due to your posting and your incredibly derisive behavior I will not respond to you in this thread again. You and I disagree on some things, perhaps a lot of things, but I have at least taken the time to fully examine my position while you have still not grasped some of the finer points that are staring you in the face. Please stop posting in this thread until you can do so in a more cordial and less irreverently accusatory manner.
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On April 18 2013 03:43 wo1fwood wrote:
Magpie, you continually show us with your posting that you have entirely missed secondary inferences or primary pieces of import to your understanding of this topic, and due to your posting and your incredibly derisive behavior I will not respond to you in this thread again. You and I disagree on some things, perhaps a lot of things, but I have at least taken the time to fully examine my position while you have still not grasped some of the finer points that are staring you in the face. Please stop posting in this thread until you can do so in a more cordial and less irreverently accusatory manner.
I pointed out exactly what is wrong with the original post of this thread, why it is insufficient and is dependent on ignoring aspects of the product that you personally dislike. You're wanting to pretend that canonical works aren't canon, you're desire to accidentally forget the plot points and narrative arcs in the SC1/BW campaigns that were exactly like the same plot points in the WoL/HotS campaigns that you hate. I pointed out exactly what is wrong with the OP--but much like your "analysis" you still maintain the practice of ignoring things points that you disagree with.
I agree with your conclusion--I've said that many times in this thread. I agree that the product is childish and I wish it was better. That fact that you used bad argumentation to state it does not mean I disagree with your conclusion. I know you put a lot of work into this OP, I can tell because its really long, and you must feel proud of it. It even has pictures, I get that, pictures are hard to paste right, I know its a labor of love. But don't ignore the frame of logic the creator of a product used to piece together and create the product. WoL and HotS is based off canon--you ignoring canon and then saying WoL and HotS doesn't make sense is a ludicrous stepping point.
If you want, I could even go on a step by step breakdown of things you did wrong--such as suggesting its misogynistic for Kerrigan to cry when someone she loved dies. There is absolutely NOTHING misogynistic about that. Feminism isn't creating the female into a superhuman without flaws--feminism is showcasing a female character in its full form both in their strengths, and their weaknesses. If you had shown that she cries whenever she's under pressure and keeps crying non-stop throughout the story, then you'd have a point, (+ Show Spoiler +mostly because it would suggest that *because* she's female she cries and hence they make her cry even at completely inopportune times simply because they believe that females cry a lot
But did I bring that up in my earlier post? No--why? Because I thought it'd be nicer to say that your post has a lot of flaws and ignores a lot of points for the sake of reinforcing a conclusion you already came to instead of actually analyzing the work. I could go on--you make a lot of mistakes in your post and it would take a lot of time to piece it together, but I could. Why don't I? Because it would be a pointlessly long post that could be summed with "you miss and ignore a lot of points in your post."
Once again, I'm sorry to point those things out to you, I know that if a post is long we're not supposed to talk about mistakes it makes, I know that you dislike the concept of having spent so much time on something that's wrong, and I know its annoying to have someone who agrees with your conclusion to dislike your methodology and analysis. But if you want to play the high ground card on someone--do it to someone who is attacking you and not attacking your post. Your OP has a lot of problems with it from a purely academic standpoint. Between cherry picking information, misinformed close readings and outright ignoring of similarities to past products--it's a mess.
Now you can ignore this post and pretend it didn't happen, if you could do it to Flashpoint you can do it to this post, but don't accuse me of ad-hominem when all I'm talking about is your post.
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On April 18 2013 01:00 AnomalySC2 wrote:
Does it not make sense for Blizzard to cater the campaign for younger people anyways? The campaign for Starcraft has always been sort of like a tutorial for the multiplayer. Everything about it is designed to get new players prepared for the multiplayer, which is a good thing. For this game to survive as an esport it needs new blood, and I'm pretty sure everyone above the age of 20 that wanted to try it out already has.
No, SC2 had no intention of being a tutorial for multiplayer at all. I'm pretty sure Blizz said so themselves (although I can't remember for sure). Anyway, it's quite obvious that the campaign was not meant to be a tutorial. The campaign does not AT ALL play like how the multiplayer does, and there was no access to playing as Terran or Protoss in the campaign.
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Great articulation on a narrative that was so shallow it didn't deserve this type of cross-examination. After WoL, I really did not expect much as far as a coherent or interesting story.
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I can't call McDonalds a failure just because I wanted a T-Bone steak and all they have is quarterpounder with fries. I don't think this comparison is relevant, because McDonalds never had T-Bone steak. A better analogy would be coming back to a grill when you ate well, only to find the only meal they have now is a low-quality burger. It may be true that it is not any worse than what you have in plenty of other places, but this sort-of-okay-ish is not what I expected when I came there.
You're wanting to pretend that canonical works aren't canon, you're desire to accidentally forget the plot points and narrative arcs in the SC1/BW campaigns that were exactly like the same plot points in the WoL/HotS campaigns that you hate. I really can't agree with that. There is no part in SC1 or BW where the hero rescues the mass murderer he loves and carriers her towards the sunset. Nor is there a point where someone is known to have a killing device in his suit and everyone forgets it until the inevitable betrayal. There is no prophecy or plot to magically revive a long dead god too-powerful-to-be-defeated-until-it-happens-anyway.
The real similarity I see is the artefact vs Uraj and Khalis, which were one of the most criticized part of Brood War in their time.
Of course Brood War had flaws, but not the same as SC2 and not on the same scale. Plus, how are the imperfections in Brood War relevant to the discussion? I love the SC1 story because of its strong points, not because I thought it was perfect. I've read a fair amount of valid criticism about the Brood War storyline, and it didn't change my opinion much because everything I liked remained true. It doesn't make SC2 any better either.
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On April 18 2013 17:27 Telenil wrote:Show nested quote +I can't call McDonalds a failure just because I wanted a T-Bone steak and all they have is quarterpounder with fries. I don't think this comparison is relevant, because McDonalds never had T-Bone steak. A better analogy would be coming back to a grill when you ate well, only to find the only meal they have now is a low-quality burger. It may be true that it is not any worse than what you have in plenty of other places, but this sort-of-okay-ish is not what I expected when I came there. Show nested quote +You're wanting to pretend that canonical works aren't canon, you're desire to accidentally forget the plot points and narrative arcs in the SC1/BW campaigns that were exactly like the same plot points in the WoL/HotS campaigns that you hate. I really can't agree with that. There is no part in SC1 or BW where the hero rescues the mass murderer he loves and carriers her towards the sunset. Nor is there a point where someone is known to have a killing device in his suit and everyone forgets it until the inevitable betrayal. There is no prophecy or plot to magically revive a long dead god too-powerful-to-be-defeated-until-it-happens-anyway. The real similarity I see is the artefact vs Uraj and Khalis, which were one of the most criticized part of Brood War in their time. Of course Brood War had flaws, but not the same as SC2 and not on the same scale. Plus, how are the imperfections in Brood War relevant to the discussion? I love the SC1 story because of its strong points, not because I thought it was perfect. I've read a fair amount of valid criticism about the Brood War storyline, and it didn't change my opinion much because everything I liked remained true. It doesn't make SC2 any better either.
BW brought us:
Hybrids
Resurrected Overminds
Magic Psion Towers that mind controlled Zerg
Earth humans instead of expanding on Terran narratives
Hybrids
Psychic humans
Unkillable ultralisks
Unkillable brain slugs
Religious zealots
Money missions
Earth having the *exact* same tech as The terrans
Etc...
Heck, as Duran said, the hybrid plans have been around since the stars were whatever. So yeah, "mystical prophecy" actually started in BW
Not to say that BW is bad--I loved it and I agree that I like the product better. But the OP did not illucidate *why* BW is better. A lot of the flack he gives the HotS and WoL narrative *is* fixed by simply reading up the canon. A lot of the plot points that are ridiculous either started from OR were copies of BW plot points.
The real problem with WoL and HotS is execution. Let me put it this way, if you replay the BW missions, you know what happens mission wise? Nothing. No real instructions, no warnings, nothing but black. So you hide and turtle and scout never knowing what's out there. You become completely immersed in the mission. So even though the ai only attacks you 1-3 times, and with such a tiny force it's laughable, you were immersed in the mood and feel of danger and suspense. And as you go through the missions you only get tiny tidbits here and there, never enough to see the whole picture. I'm playing through the missions right now, and plot wise NOTHING happens in SC1. Pretty much missions 7-9 are the only relevant missions if you want to learn more about arching plots in the Starcraft story. Missions 1-6 merely sets you up for 3 missions of story and the last mission is just a "get the hell out of here mission." The Zerg campaign is not faring better. The first three missions are sitting on an egg, the next few missions is Kerrigan figuring out her powers, it's not till the later missions where we actually find out overarching plots of things happening in the Starcraft universe.
What made BW good was that plot points were set up both thematically and structurally before being presented. Missions were explorations of the map and learning to problem solve on your feet--not a step by step guide dance dance revolution style of how to beat the mission. As I've been saying it has been the execution of the story and not the literal story itself. Magic crystals and puppet Overminds is 2/3 of the plot in BW, but you don't remember that because the plot was hidden by good world immersion. When Duran showed up all infested--did we get 5-10 minutes of dialogue explaining what happened? No, he said "my queen" and we just ran with it despite how random it was. BW was not going to bog down its story with explanations of why the plot is moving--BW expected you to project your own explanations. No monologue of "I tricked the humans!" No monologue of "and that was how I avoided detection" no monologue of "the Zerg now has 2 ghosts infested and here's why Kerrigan is different!" None of those stupid never ending monologues that fill the brim of WoL and HotS. No constant "and this is the plot of the story" moments. BW did not have a lot of plot, and it didn't explain its plot, like a good book it simply spent its time immersing you into a world of violence and death and only in rare moments does it reward you with story. Most other times you sat there in your base as a 12 year old boy wondering "what's out there in the darkness" and only when you had 200 supply did you move out. You spent your time building impregnable walls because you never knew what was coming. WoL and HotS illucidate to much. They explain too much, they guide too much. You spend 90% of the game listening to instructions instead of being able to immerse yourself in the narrative.
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WoL and HotS illucidate to much. They explain too much, they guide too much. You spend 90% of the game listening to instructions instead of being able to immerse yourself in the narrative.
^ This. I think the biggest issues with the story of SC2 can be broken down to --
"They use a lot of words but don't really say anything" which breaks me out of my engagement with the story since I'm CONSTANTLY being reminded that this is just a game by how the characters act. I would rather have all the characters,
"Say a whole lot with very few words" -- Like that introspective scene where Kerrigan gets the gun for the first time. Nice moment. Then I'm thinking eehhhhh when she outright kisses JIM (never mind her childishly flexing her muscular control of the swarm with convenient amnesia that never gets touched or developed again in the story...) Naturally my favorite character is Abathur+ Show Spoiler +... do we have a pole on who's the favorite character on TL or BNet yet?
SC2 I can turn the voices off and still retain most of my enjoyment. BW the characters talked a LOT more than in SC2 (Pre mission breifings,) but the characters felt alive, dynamic, more than just the single-minded personality of rage we see kerrigan, and more relate-able than the love-me , love-me-not Jim Raynor.
Really, it feels like Blizz made the campaign first, and THEN added the story at the end to fit the budget for the gameplay, using the bare minimum rubric for character / world building to pass a casual inspection. + Show Spoiler +If I was 2-3 years younger, I probably wouldn't have had nearly as much problems with it as I do now
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EPT
