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PurpleXVI posted: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. I was going to disagree, but I think I pretty much agree. Arthas is a great character to follow up through the Human and Indead campaigns to the point that he kills Uther, after which he's not as interesting. The Orcs campaign, I thought, was alright. Though all I remember of it was the ending cinematic. I didn't like the Night Elf campaign, but that's mostly because I have a bias against Elves in most fantasy. The pointy-eared bastards...
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Nov 14, 2023 19:43
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Uther said piss
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Nov 14, 2023 20:21
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Lt. Danger posted:no, of course, I wouldn't count that as a contradiction. a rough list: 1. The SC1 manual does not say that at all. It notes three original colony worlds (Tarsonis, Moria, and Umoja), and that during the period before the Guild Wars (Confederacy vs. Combine), Tarsonis established 7 more colonies for itself. It does not say that the Kel-Morian Combine was happy with just one world for the entire time until they were conquered by the Confederacy, nor does it say that the Umojan Protectorate stayed solely on Umoja for all time either. And to the contrary, what it does say is that "The might of the Confederacy continued to grow as its 'Prospectors' claimed world after world with their reckless expansionism.", after the Guild Wars. To me this says that the Confederacy is looking at 10+ worlds just by itself, nevermind the Umojans who are also Terran and have ?? worlds. E: Then there's apparently also numerous pirates and other nebulous "colonial factions", so who fuckin' knows. Protoss entries just put the Terrans at "more than a dozen" worlds, which technically could mean 30 or even a hundred, though at that point the wording feels a bit off. 2. I'm not sure where you're getting those numbers from. I haven't played Brood War in at least 20 years, so I'm not really in a position to confirm or refute, but I would look at point #1 as already making them rather unlikely. However, there certainly is a pattern in life returning astoundingly quickly to glassed planets. The Confederacy glassed Korhal, the Protoss glassed Chau Sara and Mar Sara (and probably Brontes and Dylan IV too, though it doesn't say specifically I think), and yet they get to have life on them in BW and SC2. 3. That is not a contradiction. You can have two different things you need to accomplish; in this case building the might of the Swarm (I don't recall anything about them specifically looking for something special, so much as biomass and maybe getting lucky with special things like human psionics) and finding Aiur. That they happened in short order can certainly be seen as narrative convenience, though. Hell, maybe the Overmind jumped the gun when it lucked upon the location of Aiur and that's why it eventually got murked. 4-7. Again, not played BW for ages so I don't remember much of that, but I can take a poke: 4. The idiot ball may not be a contradiction, but it can most certainly qualify for bad writing sometimes. Depends on the characters and the situation. 5. Solders holding the idiot ball for the chain of command is not much of a stretch. I do recall yelling at people to call out Duran though, so I'm with you there. 6. I don't recall Protoss being immune to infestation (I thought they just suicided/mercy-killed every time), but even if that's true, a parasite isn't full infestation, and iirc Raszagal was a Dark Templar and a great big deal was made of the divide back then. 7. I also don't recall the Xel'Naga ever being said to be immune to infestation. You may recall I earlier mentioned a pet theory that the cerebrates might have been the remains of the Xel'Naga, but that just shows I didn't read the Zerg entries in the manual back in the day (or forgot them). But, just having done so, it sounds very much like the Xel'Naga were all infested. Their minds and memories consumed by the Overmind and used to further engage its horrible evolution engine. It even mentions consuming protoss too, to relate back to point #6. I can see taking that "consume" wording to mean it ate them as purely themselves, by some other means, but I never figured there were any immunities in play and they just got infested into the Zerg whole. Felinoid fucked around with this message at 22:19 on Nov 14, 2023 |
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Nov 14, 2023 22:05
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Lt. Danger posted:where does Infested Duran come from? Kerrigan was a unique prize for the zerg, and she couldn't have infested him herself because he is a xel'naga agent Isn't the implication that he was faking it? Kerrigan believed she managed to successfully replicate an infestation similar to hers, meanwhile Samir "Dr Narud" Duran was secretly laughing at all these dumb idiots thinking he was working for them. I don't remember, does he betray Kerrigan during Brood War? He certainly isn't on the Swarm's org chart anymore but I don't remember when it happened.
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Nov 14, 2023 22:22
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Omobono posted:I don't remember, does he betray Kerrigan during Brood War? He certainly isn't on the Swarm's org chart anymore but I don't remember when it happened. Nope. His last in-mission appearance was in the secret mission where Zeratul refers to him as Kerrigan's consort, make of that title what you will, and then I think he's in the briefing for the final Zerg mission as Kerrigan's second in command but doesn't appear in the map. Presumably he left the Swarm between games but I don't think it's ever actually stated anywhere.
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Nov 14, 2023 22:25
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Considering the nature of it, I think when the current LP gets to Brood War, those points are going to come up. I recall this coming up when Legacy of the Void came out, and everyone continued saying SC1 had better writing. I think the reality is that less IS more when it comes to Blizzard games and story. The world of Diablo isn't very important. You go through the dungeon levels and kill Diablo, and your character sets up the sequel. The Butcher is memorable because all he says is "aaaahhhh fresh meat!" and was a major roadblock of a miniboss. What purpose does he serve to the larger world? If we were to say that Blizzard was all flash and no substance (without getting into the fact that the gameplay tended to be very tight, which is a larger point in them being memorable) then adding more story just makes that more evident.
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Nov 14, 2023 22:37
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Duran is stated by Kerrigan to have "disappeared" between the second-last mission and Omega. Probably to go scare the piss out of Zeratul and decide he doesn't need to babysit Kerrigan for his plans anymore.
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Nov 14, 2023 22:42
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Duran disappears late in BW - in the briefing for the last mission, Kerrigan complains that she cannot find him (e: beaten) the question with Duran is how does he insert himself into Kerrigan's organisation? does he just pretend like the Overmind made a second infested human and he was there all along? if Kerrigan infested him, how could she not know he was xel'naga? again, none of these questions are insoluble, for both SC1 and SC2 - but one gets defended and the other doesn't. they're both badly written! Felinoid posted:I haven't played Brood War in at least 20 years, so I'm not really in a position to confirm or refute why would you write several hundred words defending the writing quality of a game you don't really remember that well tho I checked the game script and you can scrub point 2 - the post-terran campaign epilogue says "nine of the thirteen Terran worlds", not ten, my error - ten is the total number of colonies founded in the original star system including Tarsonis, Moria and Umoja. the manual later says the Confederacy "consists of nearly a dozen planets". none of these numbers add up, even if you charitably add extra unmentioned colonies, because by the end of SC1 act 1 the total number is thirteen the manual says the Overmind's specific interest in humanity is their psionic potential which will let it "combat the protoss on its own terms". in the game, this is never actually necessary or even mentioned, and the only obstacle is the location of Aiur I will say most of the SC1 nitpicks are problems with the manual - BW is worse on its own terms
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Nov 14, 2023 23:12
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Lt. Danger posted:why would you write several hundred words defending the writing quality of a game you don't really remember that well tho Not defending, clarifying. You seem to have missed that I agreed with a couple of your points writing-wise. And I like dissecting things; it's a hobby. Anyway, just found the "nearly a dozen" you referred to and... E: Jeez, how did I skim over the game bit being thirteen Terran worlds. Yeah that's hosed up. That could maybe be justified as like 11 Confederate worlds and 2 Umojan worlds, but man, that's such a stretch. For the psionics, yeah that's why the Overmind is coming at Terrans specifically, but I don't think that's the main point of their expansion as a whole. The psionics is just a bonus that has them lancing a spearhead out at us instead of just growing in all directions. E: Ah, right. Original point was about dropping Kerrigan. Like I said earlier, maybe Overmind got too eager once it had the location of Aiur. It is dumb for what is supposed to be a mastermind, though. Felinoid fucked around with this message at 23:51 on Nov 14, 2023 |
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Nov 14, 2023 23:35
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I think the solution is to simply admit that not all the writing teams were communicating with each other about scale. The Manuals put the various Protoss characters at several hundred years old, with only Razsagal herself being over 1000, and it being very explicit that this lady is old, even for a Protoss. Zeratul claims to have served her loyally for many millenia.
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Nov 14, 2023 23:36
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That makes perfect sense. Serving Razsagal is such a dull job that centuries feel like millenia
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Nov 14, 2023 23:43
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Lt. Danger posted:Duran disappears late in BW - in the briefing for the last mission, Kerrigan complains that she cannot find him (e: beaten) Was him being xel naga even in bw? I just remember him being a mysterious person doing mysterious things and the fact that he actually pulled off the overmind's (and the xel naga's at that point, I think?) dream goal of purity of mind and essence. Who Duran was was just oooooooh mystery. Much like what he was actually after with what he was doing
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Nov 15, 2023 01:12
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FoolyCharged posted:Was him being xel naga even in bw? I just remember him being a mysterious person doing mysterious things and the fact that he actually pulled off the overmind's (and the xel naga's at that point, I think?) dream goal of purity of mind and essence. Nah. The exact line is that he is "a servant of a far greater power". Honestly, saying he's a Xel'naga is like the least imaginative answer to the question of what Duran is. A starcraft sequel could have taken his plot thread in many directions. Xel'naga are pretty definitely supposed to be dead and gone, Starcraft is the story of a bunch of ancient alien nerd biological experiments getting into conflict with humans and each other. SC2's writers went for the boring idea. Makes me think of the end of Herbert's Dune saga. Herbert died before he could write his seventh book and give an answer as to what Daniel and Marty actually are, but there's plenty of foreshadowing and other clues that suggest some possibilities. Humans from far outside known space, an offshoot of the scattering? Some biological weapon made by advanced science? Face dancers who achieved free will? Something else? The later Dune books get really, really *weird* but they're never *obvious*. The continuation by his son and Kevin J. Anderson just made them killer robots. If you're completely unfamiliar with the Dune books that last paragraph probably made zero sense, but the point I'm getting at is, sometimes later writers picking up the first writers' ball go for the obvious cliches and tropes. That happened in many, many ways in SC2. Just wait til bisby gets to HotS, it's gonna be a ride.
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Nov 15, 2023 03:58
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All I know is that I'm currently working through the third Dune book and I am now very much looking forward to meeting Emperor Daniel Atreides and his sworn nemesis Duke Marty Harkonnen or whatever
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Nov 15, 2023 05:25
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As bad as Kevin J. Anderson is I would still take him over SC2. Maybe that's too harsh but even if his work is popcorn-y and oblivious at least it's usually fun. You're absolutely on the money though that he can't hold a candle to a luminary like Frank Herbert; the contrast is embarrassing. I also agree that Duran being something new who was digging around in Xel'Naga toys would be a lot more interesting. Opens up a lot of possibilities to take the story new places, whereas constraining it to the past is limiting.
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Nov 15, 2023 05:28
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aniviron posted:As bad as Kevin J. Anderson is I would still take him over SC2. You don't have to hand it to ISIS, actually.
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Nov 15, 2023 05:46
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I see no controversy in saying that SC1 was also badly written (it is a Blizzard game after all  ), but it had more empty spaces to let players make up their own explanations.
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Nov 15, 2023 10:21
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I think it's also easier to give the plot issues in SC1 a pass just due to how limited the tech was at the time, where everything has to play out with just talking heads playing a canned animation at each other and 'in-engine' cutscenes consisted of the game grinding to a halt so people can talk. Anything more detailed than that required a full pre-rendered cinematic, and even then, a good number of them were pure Rule of Cool fodder that had no real impact on the story as a whole (I love you Sarge, thank god for cold fusion, feel that hot love come up your tail pipe).
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Nov 15, 2023 10:50
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Starcraft definitely leans WAY in on Rule of Cool cinematics. The key in 1 is definitely that 1 is, y'know, the first one. So all these Rule of Cool cutscenes DO serve a purpose, which is establishing the world that they're building up, setting its tone and its style. Which they do VERY well -- "I Love You Sarge" takes place so drat early on and it does a ton to tell you exactly what kind of space cowboy bullshit you're going to be dealing with. Likewise "Thank God for Cold Fusion", which also establishes just how bloody and violent the whole setting is going to be right alongside being goofy, at least any time the Terrans are on screen. Like, yes, you've already seen whole planets get eaten and people explode like water balloons filled with salsa when they run out of hit points, but those aren't nearly as front-and-center as a dude getting a Hydralisk claw through the back of the head while he's drinking a beer on camera. You definitely notice in Brood War that the prevalence of cutscenes for the sake of having cutscenes has dropped WAY down, which, Brood War is also an expansion so that's understandable from a finance and resource standpoint. But it works, as well, because now the scene is already set, don't need to do that again, so it focuses on what matters. There's also the difference that SC1 is actually very sparing about putting its major plot characters into its cutscenes. They rattle on frequently in the pre-mission briefings and in-mission dialogue, but that's a different kind of exposure. This is a sharp contrast to SC2 where there I can confidently say there isn't a single cutscene without a major character in it. As a result, the major characters get WAY more exposure in SC2 because they're getting way more screen time, meaning they have to be stronger and more complex characters to hold up longer under the lights... which doesn't seem to be a step Blizzard's higher-ups were willing to take. So they tend to come across as quip machines rather than people.
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Nov 15, 2023 11:11
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It's also pretty apparent that most of Starcraft 1's cutscenes were made before they'd figured out a lot of what was actually going to be in Starcraft. Outside the campaign endings they generally have very little to do with the plot events or show anything other than the most basic units. But who cares? They set the tone and are a lot of fun. And that extends to the game's writing as a whole. All those plot holes Lt Danger brought up are, in their own words, nitpicks - they're things that might bug you if you're already invested in the story and the game. No one's going to fail to get invested because the story wasn't totally clear on how many worlds the Terrans had settled. The difference is more fundamental, about whether the stuff being written is the cool kind of dumb rather than the boring kind.
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Nov 15, 2023 11:25
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I don't think the contrast between what the SC1 manual says about the Overmind and what the Overmind does in game is as much as contradiction as a change in the direction of the story between when the manual content was written and when the game came out... but I really wish they'd leaned into the manual's version of things. I will die mad (well, maybe just pretty annoyed) that the Zerg ground spellcasters aren't little mini-Kerrigan infested Terran psykers. Their spells could do the same thing as the Defiler spells, hell they could even be called Defilers for all I care. That just would have been cool af, too me.
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Nov 15, 2023 13:06
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My take is that the big difference between the writing in SC1 and 2 is how seriously they take themselves. It's the difference between the good kind of cheesy and the bad kind of cheesy. SC1 is very much the product of a bunch of dorks (and I use that term affectionately) saying "Hey let's take our favourite sci-fi flicks and put them all in a blender and use it as the backdrop for these little guys killing each other." I've talked about this a bit in the SC1 LP but like the origins of the Dark Templar is literally the devs just sitting around and saying "Dude... What if the Protoss had ninjas?" Like that's where their scarves come from and everything. Battlecruisers were designed by them just smashing random shapes together until they found something that looked neat. There's a certain sort of charming simplicity to it - it's just dudes who like Alien and Starship Troopers and general cool sci-fi things enthusiastically sharing that love through this RTS they've created. Like you ever seen Parks and Rec? You know that episode where each department has to make a mural? And Leslie sees the one by I think the fire department or someone and they're just like "We just had fun with it and put a bunch of things we like. Here's a lady in a bikini with a cheeseburger for a head" and that's very much what SC1 makes me think of (including, unfortunately, the casual misogyny - this is Blizzard, after all). I think by the time of SC2 they'd started to believe their own hype too much and were really set on telling this grand, sweeping space opera story that they just didn't have the writing chops to pull off. I think this is especially evident in a cutscene we're about to see - I think it plays after the next mission, in fact Raynor rescuing Warfield. And in this cutscene, every single action and every single line of dialogue is as cliched as humanly possible. And this could have been an amazing cutscene if it'd been a bit more playful but the problem is that, to me at least, it comes across as completely sincere. Like the writers genuinely weren't aware of how cheesy it is. And, like, I'm sure they were, I'm sure it's supposed to be at least a little tongue in cheek and that just got a bit lost in the execution, but to me that speaks to SC2 as a whole. For me, this game's writing could have been hugely improved not even by changing anything but just by adding a dash of self-awareness. Moments here or there that suggest that the writers know that this is closer to a high school tabletop RPG story than a modern sci-fi classic and that it's just kind of goofy fun. But I think what happened is Blizzard saw all the people raving about SC1 having a great story and WC3 having a great story and they missed the asterisk: when people say those games have great stories, that's relative to what you generally expect from an RTS story. But they missed that bit and it went to their heads and they started believing, or at least acting like they believing, that they were the narrative giants of the video game world.
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Nov 15, 2023 16:43
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JohnKilltrane posted:But they missed that bit and it went to their heads and they started believing, or at least acting like they believing, that they were the narrative giants of the video game world. A plague that affects many. See also, 
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Nov 15, 2023 16:53
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Redeye Flight posted:So all these Rule of Cool cutscenes DO serve a purpose, which is establishing the world that they're building up, setting its tone and its style. Which they do VERY well -- "I Love You Sarge" takes place so drat early on and it does a ton to tell you exactly what kind of space cowboy bullshit you're going to be dealing with. The goofy redneck aesthetic is almost completely gone by SC2 also. SC2 Raynor starts out drinking in a western bar, but the tone is that he's a cool dangerous hard drinking cowboy. Contrast this to the opening cinematic of SC1 where there's a handful of rednecks doing some sort of space salvage. They're making gross stupid jokes and giggling to each other instead of doing Marvel quips. I think one of the actors is doing a 90s Cheech Marin impression? The overall vibe is a bunch of goofballs handling space age equipment. The contrast between expectations: "sci-fi space guys but goofy rednecks" is your basic nugget of humor to build around. It's not genius worldbuilding, but for a 90s RTS that's a fun concept. There's a thin veneer of it left in SC2 but anytime there's a character on screen they have to be a cool sexy quipping person.
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Nov 15, 2023 19:21
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Maybe that's part of why SC2 falls face first into a pile of ultralisk droppings. They try so hard to make it cool and epic.
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Nov 15, 2023 20:15
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I think the biggest description of the change in tone is just thinking about anyone in sc2 pulling a beer out of a nuke and dropping "thank goodness for cold fusion." .... Actually, Tychus would totally do that, but he's the exception that proves the rule.
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Nov 15, 2023 20:16
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To me, the scale of the tonal shift comes through most clearly in the way characters talk: the last remnants of the low down space redneck vibe as it comes through in accents are Jimmy, Tychus, and Arcturus. Notice that no one else really talks with a drawl besides them? It's especially noticeable when comparing Valerian to his dad: he talks so proper! Everyone does besides those three and, like, the SCV and marine voice lines. Everyone else is a Serious Scifi Character ready to do epic lines. I think the only new character besides Tychus with an accent in a similar register is Warfield, and he's kinda more doing Badass Action Movie Black Soldier voice.
GunnerJ fucked around with this message at 20:30 on Nov 15, 2023 |
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Nov 15, 2023 20:28
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this is Goldilocks criticism. "this game is camp in the right way, but this game is camp in the wrong way. when Raynor swore bloody revenge on Kerrigan for betraying him and murdering his friend, it was funny and self-aware, but when Tychus Findlay took a poo poo break in the middle of a battle it was trying too hard to be serious". SC2 has voodoo slapstick, a Ron Burgundy parody-of-a-parody, all the silly unit quotes and tongue-in-cheek armoury/upgrade descriptions... maybe it was you guys who got hyped up for the return of Starcraft, only to discover it was merely adequate all along?Tenebrais posted:All those plot holes Lt Danger brought up are, in their own words, nitpicks - they're things that might bug you if you're already invested in the story and the game. No one's going to fail to get invested because the story wasn't totally clear on how many worlds the Terrans had settled. The difference is more fundamental, about whether the stuff being written is the cool kind of dumb rather than the boring kind. ah-ah-ah, not what I said. some of the SC1 contradictions are nitpicks with the sloppy manual - but the kindest reading leaves the zerg aimless and meandering, and BW is weak on its own merits. I don't think it's a huge issue if your manual and backstory is incoherent but I do think it should disqualify you from official "good writing" status SC1 is at best standard sci-fi fare carried by very strong voiceacting and sound design
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Nov 15, 2023 20:36
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I don't know enough about american accents to place Swann's but I'd say he's in the same general tone? You are right though, everyone else feels a bit more Noble Sci-Fi Archetypes. I guess making the story generally about Raynor's rebellion against the Dominion bends away from that tone to begin with. It's hard to imagine Raynor making hard decisions about the righteousness of his cause while in the background a couple of pilots are finding out if you can use a Viking's machine guns to cook steaks.
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Nov 15, 2023 20:36
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Tenebrais posted:I don't know enough about american accents to place Swann's but I'd say he's in the same general area? Swann is a full tilt blue collar New Yorker accent.
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Nov 15, 2023 20:38
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Cythereal posted:Swann is a full tilt blue collar New Yorker accent. Yeah I reworded to be clear I didn't mean geographically (since, as mentioned, I don't know). But the whole blue collar thing does fit in, I think.
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Nov 15, 2023 20:39
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Tenebrais posted:Yeah I reworded to be clear I didn't mean geographically (since, as mentioned, I don't know). But the whole blue collar thing does fit in, I think. Maybe, but a kind of southern drawl is distinct enough that it gives a very different sense of place to a character who speaks with one, even if Swann's Brooklyn tough-guy accent is broadly "blue collar" too. There's a cultural difference imparted by Swann's accent compared to Tyhcus's. But I could see it being in the same neighborhood, yeah.
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Nov 15, 2023 21:02
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I think the most tonally jarring part has to be all the incidental dialogue surrounding the orb. I forget how Wholesome Redneck Jim interacted with the Protoss and their Space Elf Magic vibe, but musing about apocalyptic prophecies and plot magic telling you that Kerrigan must live just does not at all jive with the Space Cowboy Guerilla War Hero vibe that they're trying to establish elsewhere.
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Nov 15, 2023 21:03
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Lt. Danger posted:this is Goldilocks criticism. "this game is camp in the right way, but this game is camp in the wrong way. when Raynor swore bloody revenge on Kerrigan for betraying him and murdering his friend, it was funny and self-aware, but when Tychus Findlay took a poo poo break in the middle of a battle it was trying too hard to be serious". SC2 has voodoo slapstick, a Ron Burgundy parody-of-a-parody, all the silly unit quotes and tongue-in-cheek armoury/upgrade descriptions... maybe it was you guys who got hyped up for the return of Starcraft, only to discover it was merely adequate all along? Tychus, in general, is the old goofiness slipping in and we're saying we liked him going "hot drat, this thing has a pisser!" right in the middle of a battle. We wanted more of that. Sc2 to sc1 is kind of like RA3 to RA2, but in the other direction. They were both plot light dramas surrounded by goofiness and played with a straight face, but wheras RA3 forgot the straight face, SC2 tried to go all in on the epic melodrama and the brief little spurts of comedy like Donny and Tychus feel like reminders of what could have been, amusing as they are. If it was going to slip I prefer the way red alert did, because time curry trying to keep a straight face at the poo poo they had him saying was still gold.
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Nov 15, 2023 21:46
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FoolyCharged posted:Tychus, in general, is the old goofiness slipping in and we're saying we liked him going "hot drat, this thing has a pisser!" right in the middle of a battle. We wanted more of that. There's a massive amount of daylight between SC1 and RA2. Starcraft 1 isn't humourless, but it is taking itself seriously for 95% of the run. I can only assume people thinking its campy are applying nostslgia goggles to stuff they know isn't defensible.
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Nov 15, 2023 22:04
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Tenebrais posted:while in the background a couple of pilots are finding out if you can use a Viking's machine guns to cook steaks. From stories I've heard of real life militaries this is actually extremely realistic
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Nov 16, 2023 00:13
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I miss the tiny mushroom clouds on the critter explosions. The SC2 ones are a bit...messy.
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Nov 16, 2023 02:19
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The view I get from reading the thread is that a lot of the people involved are coming at it to tear it down. It's hit that point where nostagia basically carries the first game, but the second becomes cool to bash. Compare starcraft to Star Wars, The original trilogy is a cultural touchstone for a lot of people who just overlook stupid stuff because they get goosebumps at "I am your father". The prequel trilogy was REVILED by the population to the point it kick started Red Letter Media with a review that's longer than the work it's based on. But now, you can walk into most places and say "Hello there" and immediately get a responding "General Kenobi". I'd guess that this is in part because the Prequels are old enough to drink, and the kids who grew up watching them, have the same sort of nostalgia Goggles applied to that as their parents and elders did to the OT. With SC2, you have the same sort of interactions. We all have fond memories or Big Game Hunters, and "I'm queen bitch of the universe", and we write "I love you sarge" and "Cold Fusion" off as acceptable camp because we were exposed to it when we were younger. When these games came out there was HUGE hype behind the story. Everyone was chomping at the bit to figure out what was going to happen in Heart of the Swarm, and Legacy. I know when I first played through the campaign, I didn't really notice plot holes you guys are casting about. I just wanted to know what's happening next and see how Matt reacts to Mira Han. Yes they stepped away from the Southern Aesthetic, but I think that's a good thing. In the 20 years that had passed since SC1 had come out, it wasn't exactly great PR to have one of your factions constantly running around with the literal Stars and Bars on it. I suppose all of this is basically pointing out that we're doing the exact opposite of English class. Taking something that's really quite shallow and attempting to investigate it as if it's Tolstoy.
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Nov 16, 2023 03:11
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Unless you're an exceptional writer, more words do not make better writing. You don't use two words when one will do, and Starcraft 2 prefers to use four. This magnifies its flaws, especially as it clearly is made to be taken more seriously as a whole story than Starcraft/Brood War was.
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Nov 16, 2023 03:33
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I don't know, I kind of agree with SC1 being a special sort of camp. It tried to be serious, but that kind of over-the-top serious of heavy metal albums, kind of like Warcraft 1 and 2. SC2 tries to wind it down into something more realistic that takes itself more seriously and I don't really think that works. SC1 I can also forgive a lot because it tries very little related to melodrama, while 2 sure wants its characters and their VERY. SPECIAL. EMOTIONS. to be taken extremely seriously.
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Nov 16, 2023 03:41
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