On March 21 2013 05:35 papalion wrote: Thank you for your very long insight. Although I'd rather see it as an outsight.
So, could you please define "mature" in this context? What is a mature story? Romeo and Juliet, where two teenagers from rivaling clans fall in love with each other? What about Faust, where the Devil is betting with God on a guy who thinks is really clever? Or Don Quijote, a crazy nobleman who is travelling through a post-mediaeval spanish region, thinking he is a knight? All these, and I can bring up dozens of more stories if you wish, have extreme simple plots at first. Even more, I claim those stories are only successful because their protagonists behave romantic, which in essence is childish.
To summarize, I do not know a "mature story", because there are only successful stories that are not mature. Well-written, or well-narrated stories with extreme childish plots.
To span the arc to SC: The SC story was never ever in range of the examples above. Also in my opinion the BW story was the worst part of the SC universe that was made. Feel free to hate me now for killing your sacred cow, but if you look at all parts of SC, the development from SC to BW is confusing, narrow, far-fetched, and, sorry, childish. Look at those things you yourself point out, all those dialogue examples lead to this point. But I really enjoyed it, with one exception: The UED, the reasons for this have been pointed out a lot of times before.
Now to SC2: Raynor and Kerrigan both act sometimes like children, you are right. But it makes sense. If you think about it and throw away your nostalgia, they do not act like grown-ups, as you say, no, they don't. Why is this bad? Literature is full of similar behaviour. Stories start to become interesting when people behave like this.
Also you say there are some things in the SC2 story that are not made clear in BW or new or transformed characters that do not make sense. OK? Could you point out the problem with this?
Is Frodo a far-fetched character, because Tolkien did not mention him in The Hobbit? Let us stay with Middle Earth: Is The One Ring a strange, idiotic, or even scary transformation from the simple magic item in The Hobbit? Not to me, because it is a sequel!
In my opinion you are missing some crucial points, and forget to compare the story to other stories.
I also played Blizzard RTS games from the beginning, from WC: Orcs and Human to HotS. So I feel free to say: Stop poking meee! In other words: No matter how elabourated your post is, a lot of other people on this forum who share your opinion like to make us, who like the story, feel bad.
Also, I do not like Game Of Thrones, although I like Lena Headey and Sibel Kekili.
No matter how I disagree with you, I thank you for your long and interesting post.
You completely missed the point in every possible way.
The problem isn't using cliche plot points or whatever. The problem is made up of two things.
1) Consistency. Adding new things in sequels is fine (like your LotR example). The problem is that SC2, when compared to SC/BW, contradicts what was previously established and/or acts like something was previously established when it clearly was not. Romantic stories are fine. Romantic stories randomly thrown in that radically change and retcon everything about the established lore and universe are not.
2) Presentation. Again, it's perfectly fine to have romantic characters. The problem is when the presentation is incredibly poor. HotS's script is painfully cliche; full of one-liners that the writers want to be memorable, but instead they come across as incredibly fake, convoluted, and obnoxious. Everything down to Izsha's script during your missions sounded incredibly awkward. It's one thing to use eloquent language that humans never do when you're in a far-passed medieval time or are a different species (such as the Protoss or the Overmind + Cerebrates), but pretty much every character in WoL/HotS (including Kerrigan) is (at least primarily) human, and they talk in a dialect that is very comparable to ours. Using trashy Hollywood-esque one-liners and awkward sentences doesn't cut it in terms of the script.
On March 21 2013 02:07 [F_]aths wrote: The OP is good, yet missing an important point:
SC2 is made to sell to a large audience, not just to SC1 fans.
you missed the point of the post. It´s not about satisfing hardcore sc1 fans and ther expectations, it´s about writting a good story, following your own primise, let charachters do plausible things and don´t tell us kerrigan and jim are a couple when they never where.....
All these expectation of the SC2 story are build upon personal experience with SC1. For example, you would probably not demand a believable story from C&C Red Alert. I am however discontent with many SC1 story decision as well. (The rebel leader turns out to be the new tyrant, the sacrificed Sarah survives the betrayal and is reborn as villain ... BW introduced the UED as new faction which I found extremely lame to introduce earthlings in the Koprulu sector. The mystery around Duran was a cheap way to create material for discussion.)
Instead of saying Jimmy and Sarah never were close, I rather assume untold parts of the story. Still, seeing Kerrigan fly away like a princess with magic powers broke my suspension of disbelief.
The thing is that games like Red Alert and even SC1 had SIMPLE STORIES which FIT AN RTS GAME. They have "acquire this resource" or "defend this position" kind of missions in there.
But what does SC2 have? Those missions are bathed in this love story which totally blunts any urgency of a mission, because you dont ever have any "defend these civilians" kind of missions which really have an impact or could punish you if you fail / decide not to do them or so. It all gets sacrificed for a cheesy story which has no real place in an RTS game. Mistrust and hate and betrayal are all fine, but love doesnt fit!
If HotS had stuck to the "Kerrigan goes after Mengsk" path they could have made a nice and interesting campaign where these two kinda play chess against each other with each of them taking a move, but everything is overshadowed by that love story and this is bad. Sure enough Raynor didnt play a big part during most of the campaign, but the end really is Hollywood style.
There probably was a one-sided love relationship in SC1 with Raynor thinking Kerrigan quite hot and then going on a rampage to save her. She probably didnt really love him that much (she is a career girl with a job after all) but fell for him when he rescued her in WoL.
Complex character developing love stories work for an RPG but not an RTS ... but then they want to sell books too and there they want to be cheesy as cheese can be for maximum sales.
Just because you don't like to have love in this universe doesn't automatically not fitting.
While the OP is very well written (which I admit even though I don't agree to some points) many postings in this thread are not. I see a lot of bitter nerds here, not able to stand a love cliche in the SC2 story line.
An RTS is a game about CONFLICT and STRATEGY; love is about "happy times", getting together and having fun and those are kinda the opposite to each other. So they dont fit and its not just "my preference" ... unless you can come up with an explanation of why people who love each other (but never actually were together) would rip apart a lot of planets in the process.
The key is in the telling and that whole "Oh Jim" part of Kettigan is too much. They could have done the same campaign with an "I'll rescue that Raynor guy because he was nice to me" reasoning behind it and everything would be fine, but nooo they had to have their stupid and cheap dialogues / monologues instead. With the focus on the love story Mengsk had to take a full backseat and that was really terrible, because he became the two-dimensional cardboard villain instead of the scheming and manipulating badass we knew from SC1 ...
Your vision of an RTS being about upper-case conflict and strategy maybe not apply to anybody. The dialogues in SC1 weren't any better. I still remember how 'This is Jimmy' and Sarah met. I moaned.
On March 21 2013 04:52 Disengaged wrote: No, I highly doubt that they forgot how to tell a good story. Its been like 13-14 years since the first two games and times change. The audience changes. I believe that even if Blizzard kept their style with WoL and HOTS as they did with the first two games that the audience from back then wouldn't be good enough for good business. They aren't stupid and are pretty damn smart. Its just that that need more people to buy their game to make it seem justifiable in my opinion.
Indeed. While I do want a good story, I also want good production value. That means I must accept a story which appeals to a wide audience.
On March 21 2013 06:31 Emzeeshady wrote: Also is there anyone that honestly thinks SC: BW was far superior in terms of writing to SC2? Please look at them with an unbiased review. Neither are fantastic but I think SC2's are slightly better.
I think they're about the same really. The SC1 story was darker than the SC2 story. Certain parts of the SC2 story that are supposed to feel urgent get shoved aside for ZOMGVENGEANCE! and that's really the only complaint I have with it. I'd put Brood War slightly ahead of SC2 as far as the writing goes, but not nearly as far as some people with rose tinted glasses claim.
Very thorough post man. I appreciate it very much. I actually agree with most if not all of your reservations about the single player story except I've chalked it all up to it being another Blizzard fail and have already written them off as just another mainstream gaming developer forgetting their roots.
There are however a lot of things I disagree with so let me post them here and see what you think. Like you, I've been a fan of Blizzard games for years. I never read any of the suplementary materials. I had my disallusion with WC3, then after careful analysis realized that the things I blamed that story for have always been present in Blizzard games but I was to young to understand.
Some comments
Shouldn't Raynor be concerned about Kerrigan lapsing into old behavior of being the Queen of Blades, or at the very least concerned with all the Zerg in the facility now?
Maybe a little. But she send them back into the holding cells, makes it clear she purposly made sure there where no casualties and did it to mess with Valerian, something Raynor liked to do in WoL as well. No reason for him to freak out I'd say.
So why would Jim come though? Guilt.
Honestly there is little to believe love was his motivator just like you said. However there is even less reason to believe guilt was his motivator. I'd go for the fact that Raynor is the 'knight in shining armor' type of guy and leave it at that. Although flying to a zerg infested planet partially occupied by dominion forces on the off-chance that his dream: 'The Dream' cutscene was actually a real vision is pretty damn extreme if not motivated by somthing as powerful as love.
Raynor's love for Kerrigan was not presented to the players very well in Brood War. This is a story problem that lies in BW not in SC2. Her feelings for him are presented a bit more clearly as she constantly leaves him alive and feels the need to justify her actions towards him which she does to nobody else. It is somewhat poor storytelling of BW.
I'm noting this because the emotional breakdown and lack of fortitude in the character development of Kerrigan at this moment seems to disempower her a lot, and subverts the idea that Kerrigan was one of the best ghosts in all of the Koprulu sector.
Woah, stop it right there! Tell me if you've hear this story before: protagonist lives happy with love interest. Villain kills/kidnaps love interest, protagonist goes have revenge. Love interest is only used as a motivator for the protagonist but serves no purpose other then a potential 'reward' for the protagonist. HotS is a gender-inversed version of a very typical somewhat sexist game story.
If Mario has a sexist story because he has to rescue a helpless woman, then a story were the woman rescues Mario can't also be sexist because she cannot live without the man. If you play it like that, you're always right.
Fact is, Kerrigan is a badass in the story and Raynor spends 90% of his time needing to get rescued (and this trend continues in the final mission). Kerrigan can solo almost every mission and never doubts her capability to defeat Mengsk while Raynor is quite wimpy in this campagin. I'm not seeing any disempowerment here at all.
The misconception about Kerrigans and Raynors characters in BW The 'kill you one day' quote been used a lot while critisising WoL and now HotS, however I feel this comes from a misunderstanding of Kerrigan and Raynors character.
Raynor We are introduced to Raynor as the 'hero' of the story. He does all the good guy things and is described as 'knight in shining armor'. As I mentioned before, he goes to Char, knowing it's dangers on the extremely unlikely chance he might be able to get Sarah back. This is a guy that will go to hell and back to rescue people, especially Sarah.
Kerrigan When we last see Sarah Kerrigan, the human, she is engaged with the Protoss. Why? "The Protoss are comming to destroy the entire planet not just the Zerg." She believes she is saving the people on Tarsonis. Even though the fall of Tarsonis would be victory for her side, she cannot accept that amount of collateral damage. But isn't the planet going to be wiped out by the Zerg lured by the Psi-Emitters? Yes, however Kerrigan believes: "Once we've dealt with the Protoss, we can do something about the Zerg. Arcturus will come around, I know he will".
Sarah 'dies' trying to protect her enemies because of her attempt to save innocent civilians.
Fast Foreward to her hatching from the crysalis. She slaughters Raynors men, her old companions, and leaves Raynor alive. This is THE pivitol moment in her characterisation. On the one hand she is shown to be completely different from the person I just described by casually murdering her old compatriots. On the other hand there is still some of her old personality left that makes her leave Raynor alive. From this moment on we, the players, are left wondering for each of her actions if it is her old personality, her zerg side, the overminds influence or possibly even her old personality but with more power. This makes her such an interesting character as we can never predict how she will act.
In Brood War she tries to convince everybody that she is back to her old self and it was all because of the will of the overmind. Remember this quote:
Let her go Zasz. The greatness of her spirit has been left to her; that the swarm might benefit from her fiery example. Fear not her designs for she is bound to me as intimately as any Cerebrate.
There is the implication that she still has free will although she is also bound to the Zerg. The notion that she only did what she did because of the Overmind forcing her, is one that we as players know to be false.
Raynor again Unlike Zeratul and Artanis (facepalm) Raynor doesn't buy it. He 'loves to believe she's on the level, but part of me just knows better'. Raynor has witnessed the slaughter of his men AND how she left him alive. He knows part of the Queen of Blades is still the Sarah he cared about and part of her is Zerg. He hopes that with the overmind gone, there is still enough Sarah left but is very suspicious. Then Kerrigan kills Fenix showing him that there is little of the woman he loved left, although her agitation at Raynors anger shows there is still some of it.
So what should we have expected from Raynor in WoL? From the above we should expect that Raynor no longer believes the Queen of Blades can find salvation and should be killed. What do we see him do in WoL?
He mourns Sarah as though she was dead and acts hostile towards the Queen of Blades. In short Raynor starts out acting exactly like we should expect based on his actions in Brood War. And because he is in no way capable of harming her, he goes after his other enemy, Acrturus instead.
Then the Artifact happens. This is were many people seem to misunderstand who Kerrigan was in BW. As I mentioned before, the genius of her character was that you never knew wether it was the 'real' Kerrigan or her Zerg part acting. Neither does Raynor. So when the option is presented to him that maybe, all the evil she did was only because of her Zerg influence and he can undo that influence, he can 'end' the Queen of Blades and get Sarah back. This is a maybe because it is also possible that the old Sarah 'was' in control and liked what she had become. She mentions this twice in SC1.
We don't know which and neither does Raynor. This is why the 'kill you one day' quote is so misunderstood. Raynor has proven to be the kind of guy that would go to Char headlong into the swarm on the small chance he might get Sarah back and he does this again. If he's right, the Queen of Blades will be 'dead' anyway, if he's wrong he dies. So Raynor goes all-in.
Raynor would never choose revenge on one entity over rescuing another.
Back to the OP [/QUOTE]For no apparent reason, Kerrigan is pissed to see Zeratul and initiates a fight.[/QUOTE] He's a Dark Templar. They are assassins. She believes the Protoss are about to kill her and deny her her vengence on Mengsk. Zeratul is no pushover, she believes she's in for the fight of her life.
Zerg on Zerus. So Zerus went from vulcanic world to lush jungle world. Yup, that's a retcon. I believe the idea was that the Primals somehow got split up from the rest of the Zerg before the Overmind formed, thus being forgotten by the Overmind and never being part of the hive mind. Still, it's obvious they wanted a slighty different backstory for the Zerg and retconned a lot. You can think about this a lot, but ultimately it doesn't make sense and never will. Kind of like the backstory of the UED.
I also wondered why they in the cinematic had to show Mengsk and that he had acquired the artifact
Foreshadowing. Called a Genius Bonus on TV Tropes. I missed it the first time too. Guess I'm not a genius.
Stukov Let's not spend too much words on him. His infestation story was written by other writers. Blizzard didn't want him in the canon originally (or at least were not sure if to include him) but fans kept asking about him on lore panels so they included him as a bonus for those fans. Lazy and cheap or rewarding your most loyal lore fans? Can't please them all I guess. I was neutral about the whole affair.
The Hybrids are also finally revealed to have a purpose, in that they siphon off (and store?) the psionic powers of others in order to gather this energy to revive/awaken/free, do something for Amon (how is this transferred?). This is also the purpose of the artifact. It may have destroyed most of the Zerg infestation of the Queen of Blades (wait, most? see ahead), but its purpose in Wings was to take her psionic energy and apply it to Amons rebirth.
Zerg don't have psionic powers. They use the power of the void, like the Dark Templar. So the artifact is void-power-related I guess. Then again, that contradicts miss Hanson's assumption about the artifact. She DID pick up that the artifact was YOUNGER then the Xel'naga, implying somebody ELSE made it for a DIFFERENT PURPOSE. I admit I don't really care if the space-magic is lore-tight but there's more elements to this then in your post so I suggest more study is required should anybody care.
Rescuing Jim Raynor. I already explained how I disagree with your view on their relationship. In my view, this is the curcial moment. Raynor banked everything on the artifact removing all her Zerg tendancies. Seeing her back as Queen of Blades volentarily changes his hopes that the artifact could change everything and implies that killing Fenis WAS Sarah's own choice after all and not the Zerg influence. This breaks all his hopes. Kerrigans offer to let him kill her confuses him however, so he leaves not knowing what to think.
As Raynor tries to come to terms with what he's witnessed, Valerian negotiates with Kerrigan for the civilians and she agrees. The old Queen of Blades would never have agreed. Because of this, Raynor helps her out in the final mission. For Raynor and ourselves, Kerrigan's true personality is left ambigous. Again, Raynor is left wondering if THIS Queen of Blades can be trusted but her actions during the assault on Korhal speak in her favor.
Psi Destroyer More of the Primal-Zerg-Split-Before-Overmind stuff.
I thought it was cool it was included. Normally in stories you'd have a tool as powerful as the Psi-Disruptor that never get's mentioned again after it's used. Here it all comes back. This gives me hope that the Shakuras Temple is going to be mentioned again. For a videogame this is a lot more coherent world building then usual.
The Artifact I found it easy to believe Arcturus would wait with using the Artifact untill after he taunted Kerrigan personally. That and using it only when Kerrigan is right next to it would decrease the chance of her escaping. Remember he cares nothing for his men. If this gave him a slight advantage he would do it.
I also don't get why people say it does something different now. It shoots lightning. The lightning destroys Zerg or Zerg parts of people. Considering it burns the Zerg to a crips in All-In I'd expect it to hurt a lot when it changed Kerrigan back the last time and does so again now.
Has the quality of the story really changed since Brood War? Do you remember this mission?
In it, Raynor and Fenix agree to attack the neutral nation of Kel-Moria, steal their minerals and kill their security guards. Fenix even mocks them for being 'greedy' because they stay out of the war and focus on economy instead, all the while stealing their stuff. Worse still, Fenix shoots a hole in their command centers so queens can enter and invest the miners allowing them to be used as involentary suicide bombers in the next mission. Woah. That's some seriously dickish move right there!
If you can accept this as canon, without feeling that Fenix' and Raynors characters have been ruined forever, you can accept anything in SC2. This is the most character-breaking moment in the franchise by far. If this kind of disregard for storytelling was in SC2, the shitstorm would have been uncontrolable.
Conclusion On the one hand, I feel like there are a lot of misconceptions about the story of Starcraft which fuel a lot of contempt for the story unnessarily.
On the other hand, I feel that people have very unrealistic expectations. A similar analysis of BW or even vanilla would reveal so many terrible story elements as I showed with just 1 mission.
On the third hand, the story isn't that great. Don't think I'm defending the story as a zealous fanboy. I even admit I hate the whole Amon plotline. It sounded cool in BW but in hindsight, I cannot imagine any way for it to play out that I would really like to see. I just don't like the black&white thinking that makes people put BW on a pedestal and SC2 in the garbage bin. SC1 certainly had some beautiful english lines that SC2 is sorely missing.
On the fourth hand, Blizzard has changed the way they write stories. From WC1 to HotS, Blizzard has slowly moved away from the 'nations at war / every mission is a region on the map to conquer' to a more personal story. It's very possible this style does not suit you and therefore newer Blizzard games will not be appealing to you. If you look at all their RTS games, you can see this trend slowly happening. That, I believe, should be a real discussion. Which do you like better?
On March 21 2013 06:31 Emzeeshady wrote: Also is there anyone that honestly thinks SC: BW was far superior in terms of writing to SC2? Please look at them with an unbiased review. Neither are fantastic but I think SC2's are slightly better.
Then you're being willfully delusional. BW may not have been fantastic, but SC2's script is fucking atrocious, and it blows my mind that people think it's comparable. The sheer amount of contradictions, cliches, and cringe-worthy one-liners in the SC2 script makes them borderline impossible to sit through.
Compare these,
You speak of knowledge, Judicator? You speak of experience? I have journeyed through the darkness between the most distant stars. I have beheld the births of negative-suns and borne witness to the entropy of entire realities. Unto my experience, Aldaris, all that you've built here on Aiur is but a fleeting dream! A dream from which your precious Conclave shall awaken, finding themselves drowned in a greater nightmare. (Zeratul, speaking to Aldaris)
You'll regret that. You don't seem to realize my situation here. I will not be stopped. Not by you, or the Confederates, or the Protoss, or anyone! I will rule this sector or see it burnt to ashes around me! (Mengsk, speaking to Raynor)
I come to you in the wake of recent events to issue a call to reason. Let no human deny the perils of our time. While we battle one another, divided be the petty strife of our common history, the tide of greater conflict is turning against us, threatening to destroy all that we have accomplished. It is time for us as nations and as individuals to set aside our long-standing feuds and unite. The tides of an unwinnable war are upon us and we must seek refuge on higher ground lest we be swept away by the flood. The Confederacy is no more. Whatever semblance of unity and protection it once provided is a phantom... a memory. With our enemies left unchecked, who will you turn to for protection? The devastation wrought by the alien invaders is self-evident. We have seen our homes and villages destroyed by the calculated blows of the Protoss. We have seen first hand our friends and loved ones consumed by the nightmarish Zerg. Unprecedented and unimaginable though they may be, these are the signs of our time. The time has come my fellow Terrans to rally to a new banner. In unity lies strength; already many of the dissident factions have joined us. Out of the many we shall forge an indivisible whole capitulating only to a single throne. And from that throne, I shall watch over you. From this day forward let no human make war upon any other human. Let no Terran agency conspire against this new beginning, and let no man consort with alien powers, and to all the enemies of humanity: seek not to bar our way. For we shall win through, no matter the cost! (Mengsk, Episode I ending cinematic)
To this.
Gabriel Tosh: You guys did good. Now me and my Spectre's will finish the job. We'll kill Mengsk, and burn his Dominion to the ground. Matt Horner: Overthrowing Mengsk is just the start. This is about building a better tomorrow. Don't you see? We just released every scientist, philosopher and free thinker that ever challenged Mengsks' rule. That was our real victory today. Gabriel Tosh: You really that naive? Tomorrow there'll be a new Mengsk. And another one after that. Your great shining dream of the future is just an illusion. Jim Raynor: So if it's all so bleak, why are you here Tosh? What do you get out of all this? Gabriel Tosh: Same thing as you brother. I don't quit 'till Mengsk is dead Matt Horner: Vengeance doesn't factor into this. Our revolution is about freedom. Jim Raynor: You'll see that better future Matt. [turning to Tosh] Jim Raynor: But it ain't for the likes of us
General Warfield: The Xel'Naga artifact's been assembled. I hope to God it does what we think it does. Tychus Findlay: Damn straight. Bettin' our asses on some alien piece of crap don't sit right with me. Jim Raynor: I hear ya, Tychus. But I was bankin' everything on that I'd be quit already. 'Cause here we are in the mouth of hell, an' we made it this far by leanin' on each other. General Warfield: Whether it's blind luck or damn-fool courage - in all my years, I've never seen anything like what you two jokers have pulled off. Jim Raynor: That thing may be the key to stopping the Queen of Blades - but it's our sweat and blood that'll make it happen. After everything we've been through, past all the fire and fury... the one thing I know - is that we can count on each other to get the job done. Or die trying, if that's what it takes. Jim Raynor: [It stops raining and everyone is bathed in sunlight] ... because some things are just worth fighting for.
Kate Lockwell: Sir, do you still stand by the sentiment that selfless devotion to the people is the basis of your rule? Arcturus Mengsk: Well, of course! I was called upon to serve the greater interest of humanity! Personal power was never my goal! Kate Lockwell: Then how would you characterize this statement? Arcturus Mengsk: [recording] ... I will not be stopped. Not by you or the Confederates or the protoss or anyone! I will rule this sector or see it burnt to ashes around me... Arcturus Mengsk: I... I won't STAND for this! You jackals think you can come in here and question ME? This interview is OVER!
Zeratul: The final piece of the prophecy. It speaks of one who shall "... break the cycle of the gods..." Karass: Most ominous. But if the Queen of Blades seeks this prophecy, we must keep it from her. Zeratul: The rest is obscured... what? Sarah Kerrigan: You might peel away the prophecy's layers, Zeratul - but you cannot outrun the doom that awaits us all! [Kerrigan's minions unburrow] Zeratul: We cannot prevail against so many! Karass: I will stand against the Queen of Blades while you escape with the fragments! Zeratul: I will not abandon you! Karass: This prophecy is more important than either of us! Reveal its secrets, Zeratul! The future rests on it!
Tassadar: Greetings, brother. I speak to you... from the Beyond. Zeratul: Tassadar! But... you died... slaying this cursed Overmind! Tassadar: I have never tasted death, Zeratul - nor shall I. But that is a tale for another time. I have come to tell you of this creature's... courage. Zeratul: Courage? It was an abomination! Tassadar: Not always. The zerg were... altered. A single over-riding purpose was forced upon them: the destruction of our people. The Overmind was formed with thought and reason... but not free will. It screamed and raged within the prison of its own mind. Zeratul: Who did this? Why? Tassadar: I know not. But the Overmind found a way to resist its all-consuming directive. It created a chance... a hope of salvation. The Queen of Blades. Zeratul: Madness! Tassadar: Only she can free the zerg from slavery - and in so doing, save all that is... from the flame. Zeratul: I do not understand, brother. Tassadar: Forget what you know, Zeratul. The Overmind saw a vision... the end of all things. And now you must see it too. Zeratul: No! This vision! I cannot bear it, stop!
I mean really, COME ON. If you try to tell me that the SC2 script is better than the SC/BW one, then I'm sorry, but you're just objectively wrong. Just copy/pasting that brought back how pissed off I am at how terrible WoL was.
I don't understand what people have against the viking in the opening cinematic. It's obviously that he sacrificed himself to give the tanks time to siege up. If I was in that situation playing SC2, I would have landed the viking also so the tanks gain a few seconds to siege...
In it, Raynor and Fenix agree to attack the neutral nation of Kel-Moria, steal their minerals and kill their security guards. Fenix even mocks them for being 'greedy' because they stay out of the war and focus on economy instead, all the while stealing their stuff. Worse still, Fenix shoots a hole in their command centers so queens can enter and invest the miners allowing them to be used as involentary suicide bombers in the next mission. Woah. That's some seriously dickish move right there!
If you can accept this as canon, without feeling that Fenix' and Raynors characters have been ruined forever, you can accept anything in SC2. This is the most character-breaking moment in the franchise by far. If this kind of disregard for storytelling was in SC2, the shitstorm would have been uncontrolable.
I don't know if you're trolling but your description of that mission is laughable. I question if you actually know the story of BW, or even watched that video that you linked. Kel-Moria isn't a neutral nation, Fenix isn't mocking them, he's incredulous that they would still keep trying to mine resources instead of running when the UED are slaughtering everyone, Fenix helps infest the command centers because that would help Kerrigans assault, ...
Just watch the video again. Also, explain exactly what you think Raynor and Fenix's characters are like. You want dick move? Protoss glass entire planets with billions of innocents on it just to slow down the zerg invasion.
I agree and I think the problem is Chris Metzen copy/pasting dialogue from Steven Seagal movies these last years. Can't be helped, probably easiest way to get the story done with your feet on the desk.
Just read through all of that, was a pleasure to read really. Thanks a lot for not sounding like a whiny bitch either which makes most posts like these infuriating to read.
In general I agree with most your sentiments albeit some stuff would fall under nitpicking to me, that said even nitpicking can be appropriate and it does hold true that there are plenty minor issues.
I'm personally just really disappointed that Blizzard's writing and storytelling just does not match their overall production quality. I mean shit, even though I love the gameplay and (most) of the presentation in the campaign I just constantly was disappointing in storytelling and their writing quality.
I really have to wonder why this is the case and can't come up with a much better explanation other than that probably Chris Metzen has become this kind of George Lucas that has simply degenerated in terms of his storytelling quality (for normal reasons such as being responsible for too many huge franchises etc.) and none dares to say "no, this is stupid Chris". Even the other higher ups are probably all friends with him and it's just darn awkward to go ahead and call him out.
I've gotten the collector editions for WoL, Diablo 3 and HotS and in all of them there are parts where you feel like Chris Metzen is hampering the storytelling. For example in Diablo 3 it was apparently him who proposed the female Diablo and most people were against it (says so himself in the behind the scenes stuff). Guess what, it made it into the game (and while I have nothing against a female Diablo per say it did turn out badly, considering that it wasn't executed well at all).
After Diablo III blizzard could only do better. That is why I am somewhat positive about HotS. The magic in the gaming industry is just gone. Blizzard isn't the only one suffering from it. At least the magic that I always felt when I was younger, the urge and joy while playing games. Maybe we are just getting old...
Technically I suppose Google has always been an advertising company, but for the better part of the last three years, it didn’t feel like one. Google was an ad company only in the sense that a good TV show is an ad company: having great content attracts advertisers.
I felt the same about Blizzard. It wasn't just that they made great games, they had great content that attracted gamers. Content that made people care about their games in a personal way.
The way they have gone through each of their franchises, one by one, each offering a hope to long time fans that a different outcome was possible has been detrimental to the brand. At this point, if Kerrigan sprouted butterfly wings and Raynor started an AA group, it wouldn't register.
In addition, growing up I had a faint notion about the companies behind the games I played or even the differences between developer and publisher, etc (even ones I liked). With Blizzard being the exception. I cared about Blizzard but only because I cared about their games first. From there, educating myself about the gaming industry only seemed relevant from that vantage point.
I used to be interested in debating the merits of the (Blizzard) games but at this point I know for a fact that you literally have to be a non thinking individual to swallow whole most of what's being sold to us. Its especially aggravating interacting with folks who will actually try to advance that the SC2 is story is better. I'm not interested in being part of that kind of a community.
That isn't to debase or discredit the equally vibrant StarCraft community that bonded on the multiplayer side (and even that has a lot of contention) and I honestly wish the best for them in regards to esports (really).
As it is, I no longer have any buy in the future of Blizzard Activision.
- - - @Splines
Raynor's love for Kerrigan was not presented to the players very well in Brood War. This is a story problem that lies in BW not in SC2. Her feelings for him are presented a bit more clearly as she constantly leaves him alive and feels the need to justify her actions towards him which she does to nobody else. It is somewhat poor storytelling of BW.
Hahahaha xD You've got to be kidding me. SC2 is faulty not because it really is, but because the storyline from 10 years earlier on, couldn't anticipate the bullshit we're trying to sell you on.
I saw at a Blizzcon Q&A where a fan asked a question if SC2 was heading the same way as WoW, where all the races team up in the end against the evil Xel Naga and you could just see Metzen and the other guys thinking *oh shit he knows*. It's the worst possible ending I can imagine and that is most likely what is going to happen. I am so disgusted by this thought. Does anyone know where to find that Blizzcon Q&A? I'd love to see that fan ask the panel that again.
Since WoW expansions, Diablo 3, WoL and now HotS I have completely lost any "faith" in Blizzard story telling. I read the whole article and pretty much agree with everything you say. I kinda accepted the WoW stories cause I only cared about playing with my friends and story came last in that game.
WoL was the first indication that something was horribly wrong with the writing team and it's only snowballed on from there.
With Diablo 3 I just lost it, I couldnt believe they turned one of my favorite franchises (especially Diablo 1) into such vile bullshit storytelling, a rush of emotions just came over me and I knew Blizzard storytelling was dead to me. This is not even including the poor game design choices which is for a whole other discussion.
I had to put the difficulty to Casual on the few last missions just to get it over with, just show me the last cinematic so I never have to play another second of that dreadful campaign.
On March 21 2013 07:18 Koshi wrote: After Diablo III blizzard could only do better. That is why I am somewhat positive about HotS. The magic in the gaming industry is just gone. Blizzard isn't the only one suffering from it. At least the magic that I always felt when I was younger, the urge and joy while playing games. Maybe we are just getting old...
Go play some of those old games. Planescape: Torment comes to mind. You are not getting old. The storytelling died somewhere between here and there though.
On March 21 2013 04:45 Penev wrote: Wow, that was quite the read and I agree with most of it. It's so strange to witness time and time again this "aiming for younger audiences and the masses" by game developers and movie makers alike. It's a completely wrong approach too because the older original works were much better and they were the ones that made the franchises in the first place. Why not just make these stories enjoyable for everyone. The people who don't see the difference don't care anyway and you don't lose the interest of the rest. So strange.. Did they just forget how to write and present a good story?
No, I highly doubt that forgot how to tell a good story. Its been like 13-14 years since the first two games and times change. The audience changes. I believe that even if Blizzard kept their style with WoL and HOTS as they did with the first two games that the audience from back then wouldn't be good enough for good business. They aren't stupid and are pretty damn smart. Its just that that need more people to buy their game to make it seem justifiable in my opinion.
I loved WoL and HOTS and had huge fun in both games. The story isn't great but it isn't bad either like all of these other people are making it out to be. Can it be better? Obviously, and Blizzard can do it too, but they rather not because they don't want to take the risk. Is it possible they will take the risk on Legacy of the Void? I doubt it but anything can happen.
I enjoyed WoL and HOTS story for what they were and that was a decent continuation from the first two games.
And yes, I've played SC1 and Brood War.
If both the SC2 stories would have been written/ presented better the sales would've been the same is what I was trying to say in my post. Maybe even better but at least the same. Audiences didn't change, the producers did. They are wrong but it doesn't matter as long as sales are good (enough) sadly.
I don't believe that sales will be the same. Maybe in the US but not worldwide. Again, not everywhere has the same internet penetration even till today. I got hooked into StarCraft because I lived in a place where single player was the only real option. You will not believe how exciting it was to play multiplayer by modem. A good story has people coming back, sharing the game, and people caring about the product. If I didn't care about the original SC, I wouldn't have bothered with WoL.
On March 21 2013 07:18 Koshi wrote: After Diablo III blizzard could only do better. That is why I am somewhat positive about HotS. The magic in the gaming industry is just gone. Blizzard isn't the only one suffering from it. At least the magic that I always felt when I was younger, the urge and joy while playing games. Maybe we are just getting old...
Go play some of those old games. Planescape: Torment comes to mind. You are not getting old. The storytelling died somewhere between here and there though.
I don't think the magic is gone. I just think that big companies that make games for profit are losing it. Blizzard, EA, and Activision being the big companies.
I'm almost 100% certain at this point that if Riot decided to make an competitive RTS, that it would blow SC2 out of the water.
On March 21 2013 06:39 vitruvia wrote: fancy words, shallow review. I remember use to read a similar review on shawshank redemption, and boy was he arrogant.
And your critique of his review lacks fancy words and even more shallow. It fact, it also lacks basic grammar.
EPT
