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Regarding story quality, lets just say that I started reading this LP and thought "Huh, I can't really remember anything about HoTS" and watched a LP on youtube of it, turns out I memory holed the entire thing...  And zerg is my favorite race!
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Nov 13, 2023 21:09
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I honestly enjoyed HotS, and LotV to a lesser extent (barring the epilogue). Not saying the writing wasn't a trainwreck, but the gameplay was fun at least.
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Nov 13, 2023 21:25
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I enjoyed all the campaigns and am interested to see the thread discussion because I don't really know why people are complaining about the story so much. It's not good but Blizzard has never been good at writing that I can recall? Like I thought Diablo and Starcraft were amazing when I first played them as a teen, then I've played them as an adult and the dialogue is just awful overwrought poo poo I'd be embarrassed to hear from a 14 year old dungeon master.
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Nov 13, 2023 21:49
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Going to wait to respond until after a certain point in HoTS, don't want to risk spoiling it 
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Nov 13, 2023 22:10
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in terms of honest-to-god narrative contradictions SC2 is a lot better than SC1/BW
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Nov 13, 2023 22:29
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Heart of the Swarm is my favorite campaign, mostly because it involves playing as the Zerg, but also because I find outright terrible writing to be a lot more entertaining than broadly middling writing.
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Nov 13, 2023 22:33
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Grand Fromage posted:I enjoyed all the campaigns and am interested to see the thread discussion because I don't really know why people are complaining about the story so much. It's not good but Blizzard has never been good at writing that I can recall? Like I thought Diablo and Starcraft were amazing when I first played them as a teen, then I've played them as an adult and the dialogue is just awful overwrought poo poo I'd be embarrassed to hear from a 14 year old dungeon master. For me it's absolutely that less is more when it comes to Blizzard writing. If this stuff was a lot more spare I'd be more forgiving of it. And the characters may have been flatter but they were more vibrant despite that. Blizzard has tried to make more involved plots with more complicated characters since then and, while I think they hit a peak on it early in Warcraft 3, promptly fell off after that. Like Tychus is one of the best characters in this because he's so flat and just having a grand old time while most everyone else is trying to very grimly tell us how serious everything is.
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Nov 13, 2023 23:17
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disposablewords posted:For me it's absolutely that less is more when it comes to Blizzard writing. If this stuff was a lot more spare I'd be more forgiving of it. And the characters may have been flatter but they were more vibrant despite that. Blizzard has tried to make more involved plots with more complicated characters since then and, while I think they hit a peak on it early in Warcraft 3, promptly fell off after that. Like Tychus is one of the best characters in this because he's so flat and just having a grand old time while most everyone else is trying to very grimly tell us how serious everything is. And even at their peak of it, the ongoing warcraft 3 lp is a pretty good showing that it wasn't nearly as high of a peak as my rose colored glasses remembered.
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Nov 13, 2023 23:42
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Blizzard games' writing has always been at its best when it's campy. When characters are chewing the scenery at each other. There's a couple of characters that are reliably the most popular (especially in the later two campaigns, which have one of them each, and if you've played them you know who they are) because they are exactly that. Starcraft 2 spends too much time on stuff that isn't camp and fun, and the parts that are often have to twist the plot in weird ways to make it work, like Raynor and Tychus storming Mengsk's flagship. Deep character relationships, introspective soul-searching, reasonable diplomacy - Blizzard has never been good at writing these things. Fundamentally Starcraft needs hammy heroes and villains shouting at each other, because Rule Of Cool reigns supreme and Starcraft 2, above all else, fails to be cool enough.
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Nov 14, 2023 00:00
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StarCraft Too's writing simply isn't quite bad enough to be good for example: Jim should have had a signature catchphrase, like maybe whenever he spills his drink or a planet is destroyed he says "Aw, rabbits!"
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Nov 14, 2023 00:16
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FoolyCharged posted:And even at their peak of it, the ongoing warcraft 3 lp is a pretty good showing that it wasn't nearly as high of a peak as my rose colored glasses remembered. The thing about warcraft 3 is that the first campaign had great writing and the overwhelming majority of players didn't get further than that, so it gets a much better reputation than the last two campaigns deserve.
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Nov 14, 2023 00:18
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Yeah, count me in as a SC2 liker, if we're admitting to things. It's dumb action sci-fi poo poo, but that's pretty much what I expected and what I wanted from the campaign of an RTS in 2010. The narrative broadly serves to give all these missions reasons to happen, and give me opportunities to go "oh that's wild" as they dream up a bigger robot to make bigger explosions. It's got easy to understand characters doing cool action movie things at each other, and at the end of the day this is a game about smashing space armies against each other, so I think it's the right direction for them to take it. I do think it's interesting how much the criticism here seems to be rooted in SC/BW and the wider lore, it definitely feels like the Big Complaint, the thing that takes it from being silly to being bad, is that it's not sufficiently faithful to the tone or lore. That's an entirely valid criticism, to be clear - as a universal rule, direct sequels should be follow ups to their originals - but it's notable to me that a lot of people here were just wanting a fundamentally different type of game to the one Blizzard ended up producing. I'd love if they somehow managed to make a genuine remake of the first games (as opposed to the recent "remaster") with the same story and mission structure but acceptably modern mechanics and graphics, because there is zero chance of me playing them in their current state and it would be interesting to have this dissonance experience in reverse.
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Nov 14, 2023 00:45
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I also can't stress enough how important I think the surrounding art style and mood are to the writing, especially when it's spare, like RTS writing tends to be. The art style and mood changed pretty dramatically between games, and that is so crucial in how the writing gets internalized.
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Nov 14, 2023 00:53
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FoolyCharged posted:And even at their peak of it, the ongoing warcraft 3 lp is a pretty good showing that it wasn't nearly as high of a peak as my rose colored glasses remembered. Nah WC3 is mostly fine.
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Nov 14, 2023 00:55
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RevolverDivider posted:Nah WC3 is mostly fine. Yeah the ongoing LP is made by someone who actively hates Warcraft playing on story difficulty. It's not really a fair examination of the game nor is it intended to be.
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Nov 14, 2023 01:01
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Deformed Church posted:I do think it's interesting how much the criticism here seems to be rooted in SC/BW and the wider lore, it definitely feels like the Big Complaint, the thing that takes it from being silly to being bad, is that it's not sufficiently faithful to the tone or lore. That's an entirely valid criticism, to be clear - as a universal rule, direct sequels should be follow ups to their originals - but it's notable to me that a lot of people here were just wanting a fundamentally different type of game to the one Blizzard ended up producing. I think part of this is just that it's easy to point to. Like, it's not actually a problem that the Terran Dominion is a sprawling empire with settled worlds all over the sector, including ones that were supposed to be glassed in Starcraft 1 or its backstory. They didn't write in enough time for it to realistically reach that state, but it's a perfectly fine position for a story to be written in. But it's easier to point to things being retcons or just flying in the face of established canon than it is to articulate why an evil god manipulating the story so far from the shadows is less engaging than the science projects of an extinct race fighting each other over a destiny they barely understand. Why watching a character read a prophecy about who the bad guy is is less fun than being introduced to him by spending a campaign as his servant. I could go on but the worst offenders are in campaigns we haven't reached yet. A lot of the rest comes down to plot elements that just don't quite tie up. On which note, I wonder if the Tosh/Nova choice would have gone down better if it didn't come up until you'd already met Valerian. Nova's offer makes a lot more sense if Raynor is already working with the Dominion.
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Nov 14, 2023 01:14
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FoolyCharged posted:And even at their peak of it, the ongoing warcraft 3 lp is a pretty good showing that it wasn't nearly as high of a peak as my rose colored glasses remembered. Nah, Cythereal just really hates the franchise. Warcraft III isn't amazingly written or anything, but it's solid.
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Nov 14, 2023 01:23
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I mean yeah I hate Warcraft as a franchise, but it baffles me to see people defending a plot that centers on a cryptic weirdo who gets shitloads of people killed because he refuses to explain what's happening, then a bunch of doofuses who kill each other until a wizard tells them to stop and then the story arbitrarily decides that they win. I know exactly where SC2 gets its cryptic dumbass prophecy poo poo from, and he wears a fancy robe in WC3.
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Nov 14, 2023 01:26
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Warcraft 3 has some really incredibly memorable moments, but if you look at everything through an objective lens, much of the plot is driven by characters who are supposed to be experienced and wise doing a lot of really dumb poo poo and everything falling into place "because I said so". Much like bitcoin, Warcraft 3 has some super high peaks. Unfortunately, also like bitcoin, Warcraft 3 also has some astonishingly bad lows. Kith fucked around with this message at 01:33 on Nov 14, 2023 |
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Nov 14, 2023 01:29
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It’s also an RTS from the early 2000s. It’s got some really memorable highs and most of the rest is just to suffice moving the gameplay along which is the star. It’s basically the same deal as SC1 to SC2, just still mostly sparse enough it doesn’t get as bad as 2. It also helps most of the campaigns besides Undead RoC are extremely fun to play and well designed though reforged botched a lot of that. Nothing in 3 is really as offensively dumb and overwrought as SC2 gets
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Nov 14, 2023 01:32
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SirSamVimes posted:Nah, Cythereal just really hates the franchise. I don't think all the narrator padding the LP has helps or anything, but the Orc and Night Elf campaigns were pretty dire. The Human one was fine and the Undead one was fine when it wasn't chasing elves in a forest, in my opinion. So it's like 1.5 campaigns that are okay, and another 2.5 that could each be one mission instead of like 3/8. They seemed like they didn't have enough ideas to fill out the full duration of the game they had in mind so they just stretched the one they had. SC1 all three campaigns were reasonably focused on what they wanted to do. The Human campaign were about rebelling against a tyrannical government only to discover (gasp) the new boss was as bad as the old boss. The Zerg campaign was about rolling back some of the curtains to see there was a bigger picture going on than the humans knew about, and then the Protoss campaign is about struggling against the backwards traditionalist establishment to see the bigger picture and defeat the Zerg. Is the actual moment to moment writing better? I think so, it doesn't get cringey and try to be overly cool, but it doesn't really matter if it is or not. The story feels like a big deal because of the maps you play. Meanwhile, here even if you like the story and the gameplay you need to like them on completely separate levels because they don't really have much to do with each other. Lt. Danger posted:in terms of honest-to-god narrative contradictions SC2 is a lot better than SC1/BW SC1 doesn't seem to have any, though the LP hasn't gotten to the expansion yet. Raynor just appearing and being friends with Tassadar is weird, but not a contradiction per se or anything. Shastahanshah fucked around with this message at 01:42 on Nov 14, 2023 |
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Nov 14, 2023 01:38
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Eh. The human campaign was pretty good, but the undead campaign is a painfully long time of filler elves and the orc campaign is just straight filler. And that's before getting into how the story fucks with the gameplay something fierce. Long before that lp people looked back and noticed that the first half of the game is the humans and undead show despite their being ostensibly four races in the game. To the extreme point that one of the four playable races doesn't even show up until halfway through campaign 3/4.
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Nov 14, 2023 01:43
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I think the filler elves part is actually pretty evocative honestly. For them it's the destruction of their race, for the Undead it's Tuesday. Sylvanas ends up in eternal torture, Arthas didn't really do it for any other reason than to gently caress with her. I think broadly, and this is true for Wings as well. When you take a microscope to the plot of these games there are threads left hanging and bits and pieces that don't work. But if I'm honest, I couldn't have told you about the problems with Wings of Liberty's plot until I saw this LP because I didn't do something like delay Haven as long as possible because why would I? I didn't immediately ponder the orb for like 5 straight missions because why would I? Yeah if you play in an intentionally very silly order as directed by the thread the game's logic begins to creak, but the first time you play through, the illusion of choice maintains itself relatively easily and makes the narrative more interactive. The reactivity in the news reports makes you feel more involved in the world. It might not hold on a repeat playthrough but I also just don't think it really needs to because by then the hooks are in and you're probably here for the gameplay which is, honestly, really good. I suppose the above doesn't bear out for people who played SC1 and Brood War and loved the plot, but I've said this before and I'll say it again. Wings held up incredibly well for a complete newcomer to the series and I'll stand by that.
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Nov 14, 2023 02:05
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The thing is that the in narrative logic also cracks if you do it instantly because the actual problem is that the game pretzels itself into making the player always right. Same for the game dumping the previous games to scrape off a few names and concepts and make something entirely new that doesn't fly quite as well.
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Nov 14, 2023 02:10
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SIGSEGV posted:The thing is that the in narrative logic also cracks if you do it instantly because the actual problem is that the game pretzels itself into making the player always right. Same for the game dumping the previous games to scrape off a few names and concepts and make something entirely new that doesn't fly quite as well. To be fair, you can't know the game is twisting itself to make you right until you go through again to try the other choice. For a first time through, you wouldn't notice - it would just look like you picked the right option.
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Nov 14, 2023 02:11
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Well, you could be a weirdo who keeps saves and tries to see which is the better choice. Potentially.
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Nov 14, 2023 02:18
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Tenebrais posted:To be fair, you can't know the game is twisting itself to make you right until you go through again to try the other choice. For a first time through, you wouldn't notice - it would just look like you picked the right option. So, approximately 10s after beating the first map option, when I opened the archives to play the other version of the map? Natural 20 posted:I think the filler elves part is actually pretty evocative honestly. The first two elf missions could have been cut entirely and the plot wouldn't change at all. And as for the part I bolded: the game very clearly marks marathoning the orb as the objectively correct choice. The protoss forces in the orb missions are completely devoid of any of the upgrade structure and they provide oodles of research. It only takes seeing one orb mission to recognize the orb missions are a huge power boost for all the other missions in the game.
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Nov 14, 2023 02:22
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In terms of how fun the WC3 missions are, for a first playthrough the only real stinker is Key of the Three Moons, the rest is at least passable. Where Wyverns Dare invokes some mild déjà vu to Cry of the Warsong with it's south -> north layout but it plays differently enough and it executes it's zeppelin gimmick much better than it's Undead equivalent so I didn't really mind it. The campaign's main weakness for me is the low replayability in hero based dungeon maps(which Blizzard thankfully cut back on massively for SC2 after completely overdosing on them with The Founding of Durotar) and defense missions, though that is more of a general RTS issue rather than a Blizzard one.
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Nov 14, 2023 02:25
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FoolyCharged posted:So, approximately 10s after beating the first map option, when I opened the archives to play the other version of the map? Yeah, I just don't think you played through the game like most people did. And that's fine, the game's flaws become apparent with your approach and it's absolutely fine to think less of it as a result. Lord loving knows I've Fire Emblem opinions that come from the exact same place. But I do just think that SC2 (WoL, not the rest) holds well on what I'd consider to be a relatively typical first playthrough. Natural 20 fucked around with this message at 02:57 on Nov 14, 2023 |
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Nov 14, 2023 02:43
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RevolverDivider posted:Nah WC3 is mostly fine. In terms of storytelling, the Human campaign is good, the Undead campaign is okay but not noteworthy because it wastes a lot of time and develops no characters, the Orc campaign is hot garbage and the Night Elf campaign is okay but not noteworthy because once again it wastes a lot of time and develops no characters. The very first campaign does a LOT of heavy lifting in terms of good memories, everything I remember from the game and remember even vaguely fondly as being cool or interesting is from the first campaign. The rest of them work fine in terms of gameplay, but aren't really structucally sound in terms of storytelling.
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Nov 14, 2023 02:52
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I am very sorry for bringing up WC3 as part of my point on the arc of Blizzard's writing re: quantity vs. quality.
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Nov 14, 2023 03:08
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You can mark me down as another person who immediately pondered the orb to completion. Not only does it give you an obvious huge power boost, but it really marks itself as being of plot importance.
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Nov 14, 2023 03:28
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disposablewords posted:I am very sorry for bringing up WC3 as part of my point on the arc of Blizzard's writing re: quantity vs. quality. it's a great example of the 2000s video game philosophy: as long as you have a strong first act it doesn't matter if you forget to do anything with the next thirty hours, sunk cost fallacy will carry most people the rest of the way
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Nov 14, 2023 03:41
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Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:it's a great example of the 2000s video game philosophy: as long as you have a strong first act it doesn't matter if you forget to do anything with the next thirty hours, sunk cost fallacy will carry most people the rest of the way Which is honestly fine in a game like Warcraft 3 because the gameplay is good enough to keep you hooked even if the narrative isn't really making sense anymore if you think about it for more than 3 seconds. Starcraft 2, as well - I largely agree with Natural 20 here that the first playthrough experience is very good if you both aren't intimately familiar with the first game and are playing through it organically instead of how the LP is approaching it.
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Nov 14, 2023 03:59
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I definitely remember WC3 as having a good story, but if pressed, the only scene I remember is “succeeding you, Father,” and that wasn't even a particularly sensible scene. Style goes a long way.
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Nov 14, 2023 04:25
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Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:it's a great example of
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Nov 14, 2023 07:32
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According to my ancient memories of playing when the games were new: WC3 the gameplay was good and the campaign stories were good but I have no memory at all of what happens in anything except the human campaign. WoL the gameplay was good and the campaign story was stupid but memorable HotS the gameplay was mediocre and the story was stupid but I've forgotten it
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Nov 14, 2023 08:02
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Tenebrais posted:To be fair, you can't know the game is twisting itself to make you right until you go through again to try the other choice. For a first time through, you wouldn't notice - it would just look like you picked the right option. Which for the Tosh/Nova combo is immediately, because that's the only way to figure out if you want ghosts or spectres more.
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Nov 14, 2023 08:48
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aniviron posted:You can mark me down as another person who immediately pondered the orb to completion. Not only does it give you an obvious huge power boost, but it really marks itself as being of plot importance. +1 to this. I didn't really think about the upgrades, but it meant getting to play different race for a while + it was more plot relevant than the missions I had open.
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Nov 14, 2023 08:55
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Shastahanshah posted:SC1 doesn't seem to have any, though the LP hasn't gotten to the expansion yet. Raynor just appearing and being friends with Tassadar is weird, but not a contradiction per se or anything. no, of course, I wouldn't count that as a contradiction. a rough list:
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Nov 14, 2023 19:11
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