For some reason I feel like a kid/low IQ person that actually enjoyed the storyline so far.
There's nothing wrong with liking the story. In fact, I think that's my main criticism in regards to Gradius' review. While I respect what he's done (don't get me wrong, I agree with a lot of his points and he's completely right in claiming they made both WoL and HotS worse games than they could have been), it's very much possible to pick apart the decisions of nearly all characters in pretty much every story to make stuff seem ridiculous. When you have the complete oversight, you lose the human reality that characters in videogames too would make mistakes and that these characters are meant to go through their decisions in real-time. In a nutshell, like they say: in hindsight it's easy to be wise. It doesn't make you a worse person if you enjoy something just because you enjoy it.
To me the main difference between SC/BW and SC2 is that one looked like a line of decisions and consequences, not always for the best, while the later looks too much like a movie script where things step aside for the main character. I guess that's the problem of focusing on one character.
This may have been the largest most pivotal issue of it all: the feeling and the setting worked very well for me, and some of Raynor's actions in WoL resonated quite well with me. The issue is that overall nearly all the characters sucked, and the characters were the prime focus of the game's story - at least way more so than in SC1 and Brood War. SC2 is practically an RTS with RPG elements; it just fails at the characters within that RPG. This is probably why so many people said they still enjoyed playing it and liked the game or its gameplay, but hated the story.
There's nothing wrong with liking the story. In fact, I think that's my main criticism in regards to Gradius' review. While I respect what he's done (don't get me wrong, I agree with a lot of his points and he's completely right in claiming they made both WoL and HotS worse games than they could have been), it's very much possible to pick apart the decisions of nearly all characters in pretty much every story to make stuff seem ridiculous. When you have the complete oversight, you lose the human reality that characters in videogames too would make mistakes and that these characters are meant to go through their decisions in real-time. In a nutshell, like they say: in hindsight it's easy to be wise. It doesn't make you a worse person if you enjoy something just because you enjoy it.
Tying into this...
If you can admit that many of the criticisms are valid, yet still enjoy the story anyway, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, and it's a respectable position. Most people however, can't understand why others dislike the story.
Tosh - I still think you either picked Nova out of sheer curiosity or you expected better characters. But sure, I guess I can understand why you thought Tosh was about to betray you. Still, the Dominion assassin isn't much of an upgrade. Tosh has been helping you all game, and you benefit from his help too. Sure, he's a shady figure and a pirate, but so is Raynor, so that should make them good friends. Nova on the other hand is a Dominion assassin. For all we know, it's literally her job to kill or capture Raynor. Oh wait, that's what happened in HoTS, even if you side with her anyway. :P
If you want to do me a favour, re-try the campaign's first 10 levels or so and all the time make sure to hold a mindset that you are completely alone in the depths of space with a humongous task in front of you that requires multiple stepping stones of progress before you can even begin solving it. Pay more attention to the environments you're in and the feeling of the situation than the specific characters. I think WoL captured that feeling very well and that was exactly what I liked about it.
Well that's just the thing. If I was actually Raynor and my life, as well as my crews', was on the line every single day, I would not have:
1) Ignored the kill-switch in my best friend's suit. Especially with the warnings that the mind-reader aboard the ship gives you.
2) Attempted to dock and board what I assumed was Arcturus's own imperial battlecruiser.
3) Given the size of Raynor's Raiders, most of his missions would have failed if he didn't have meters of plot armor. Attacking and defeating the fleet of the executor for instance.
Quote:
This may have been the largest most pivotal issue of it all: the feeling and the setting worked very well for me
Me as well. The universe really did feel alive.
I just wish more effort had been put into the news casts.
Tosh - I still think you either picked Nova out of sheer curiosity or you expected better characters. But sure, I guess I can understand why you thought Tosh was about to betray you. Still, the Dominion assassin isn't much of an upgrade. Tosh has been helping you all game, and you benefit from his help too. Sure, he's a shady figure and a pirate, but so is Raynor, so that should make them good friends. Nova on the other hand is a Dominion assassin. For all we know, it's literally her job to kill or capture Raynor. Oh wait, that's what happened in HoTS, even if you side with her anyway. :P
I think in the end we very much agree with eachother, mostly, but I felt I owe you a small response to the Tosh point; one thing that also probably played a role was that I knew Nova was the main character of StarCraft Ghost. I didn't knew much about Ghost, but it stood to reason to me that Blizzard wouldn't make the main character of one of their games (Dominion-style) evil. This probably made me a lot more subsceptible to trusting her over some guy I knew literally nothing about.
So yeah, you may be right. I don't think it'd be a 99 to 1 situation in terms of how much sense choosing Tosh makes over choosing Nova if you ignore outside influences (like my 'A-canon' knowledge about Nova), but I don't think I could help but argue for at least 80/20.
@Mozared: Go The story that was supposed to be told in SC: Ghost is the one you can read in Spectres. And while Nova isn't evil, she was Mengsk's pet, she knew it and that is what she wanted to be... think about it.
I'm curious to see what Bizzard will make of her now.
EDIT: It is sad that they can't use Schroedinger's Tosh anymore, I feel he could have been developed as an interesting character and used in side stories if they wanted to, but Nova is still alive and kicking, will Valerian 'inherit' her?
The small BC fleet must've been either mercs or Dominion ships. The latter would be contradictory, since they didn't even strike the Hyperion, and they had quite the chance.
CGI would be highly unlikely, as would in recorded/in-game inter-mission cutscenes. The only 'Hybrid' character that'd be shown, if he were, would be Amon, and I pretty much bet it'd be like or worse than the Diablo III ending.
Battlecruisers, in actual lore, aren't like the units you build in matches. In a realistic view, they cost high to make, the Raiders don't have the tech to have them (In WoL you only get them as Dominion Battlecruisers from Valerian) and they cost even higher in manpower and resources to upkeep them. And the Raiders in both WoL and HotS are awfully short in number and resources (That's contradictory as well, given they even manage to fight against large armies and Zerg) for even two Battlecruisers.
About WoL it's not true that Raynor had only one BC, on the Tosh cicle ending cutscene we see that it had a small bc fleet
Doesn't really matter because the Raiders keep acting as if they're incredibly weak some missions, but extremely powerful in other missions. It's very contradictory to have Raynor be challenged by a small-time merc such as Mira or Orlan, and then go on to singlehandedly cleanse planets of zerg infestation (Haven, Meinhoff, etc.)
I don't know what those BCs are in that cinematic, but the evidence makes me doubt that they're Raynor's. Why is the Hyperion by itself when he meets Valerian? Why do they need to get battlecruiser schematics from Valerian? Apart from that cinematic, there's not a shred of evidence that Raynor's fleet actually grew.
Battlecruisers, in actual lore, aren't like the units you build in matches. In a realistic view, they cost high to make, the Raiders don't have the tech to have them (In WoL you only get them as Dominion Battlecruisers from Valerian) and they cost even higher in manpower and resources to upkeep them. And the Raiders in both WoL and HotS are awfully short in number and resources (That's contradictory as well, given they even manage to fight against large armies and Zerg) for even two Battlecruisers.
I thought Valerian gave you the schematics for BCs, meaning that you actually build them. Which makes no sense because Swann claims there's no way they have the hardware to mass-produce something like the Odin. By that logic, they shouldn't be able to produce battlecruisers either.
Doesn't really matter because the Raiders keep acting as if they're incredibly weak some missions, but extremely powerful in other missions. It's very contradictory to have Raynor be challenged by a small-time merc such as Mira or Orlan, and then go on to singlehandedly cleanse planets of zerg infestation (Haven, Meinhoff, etc.)
To be fair, it's reasonable to assume here that these planets weren't heavily under Zerg siege and that Raynor showed up early in the race. Also, does he actually confirmedly 'cleanse planets of infestation'? I don't recall that - I only remember him 'doing specific missions' on those planets, no mentions of him actually cleansing the entire things.
I thought Valerian gave you the schematics for BCs, meaning that you actually build them. Which makes no sense because Swann claims there's no way they have the hardware to mass-produce something like the Odin. By that logic, they shouldn't be able to produce battlecruisers either.
Battlecruisers are an issue, I guess. I've always assumed that the Battlecruisers you build in the campaign are of a way smaller and less influential class than the Hyperion. This way the only real anachronism is that bit in the third Mar Sara mission when the Hyperion first shows up in all its huge glory.
Please i know that in-game action and cutscene action are two different worlds... You are taking me as an idiot? :D
Ok WoL was contradictory... But was more avvincent to follow of HotS, there was a bit of Mystere, you didn't know ending from intro cutscene, you don't have the queen of a merciless swarm fight for vengeance for the death of her lover (Twilight is still worse)... I mean was good to follow, nonsenses and other stuffs not considered... Also the ending... Flying zerg angel that fly away after FAIL like a noob vs mengsk lose alwais against a badass "i made a deal with the devil" and a headshot like a pro...ù
I don't think too we will see Hybrids on CGI... I hope to see it on cutsenes that uses SC2 Engine
Yes Mozared is right... On Meihoff we only have to siege against some infested and fly away as faster as we can... And on Heaven we had a colony infested, not the Whole planet... The 100% infested planet was Char, where Valerian showed us a low APM rate, haha noob!
You guys are too focused on mass producing high tech. Have you ever thought that a small group like the Raiders can't afford to mass produce and then lose INFANTRY units? We know they barely have the numbers to fill the Hyperion (they carried many more men from the Bucephalus in Flashpoint). Damn, we may even have a very good approximation in the Flashpoint book. A single mission in WoL could have a player losing the entire Raiders if you count all the units.
There is no way the Raiders could have gone through all the missions in WoL and HotS considering they all live in the Hyperion. Even Mengsk in SC1 fought much smaller battles, could have had more men, and used the Zerg as a massive help to invade Tarsonis. But remember: things are twisted to fit gameplay. BCs aren't produced in the field like that. Marines aren't trained in a few seconds. That's how the game translates having those beforehand or acquiring them somehow. We have to keep that in mind or chasing the details here can get pretty ridiculous. Even then, ideas like Swann making the Thor out of the Odin between missions is simply insane.
Most of WoL was specifically developed with the "screw lore and realism" in mind. Doing things by that book would take too long, too much work and extrapolate the near 30 mission limit mark, hence all this corner cutting like mass producing Marines, making BCs and Thors and having stuff the Raiders, in a realistic perspective, would never have not even in a million years.
Also, remember the campaign and story were made with gameplay in mind, meaning that Blizzard, if they wanted a unit in the mission, they'd put it, no matter what. I can only imagine the direction heading for developing missions like Korhal or Valhalla, like "this unit will be here and that's it. I don't care how, I don't give a damn, find a way to put lore in it!".
Raynor got rid of the infestations on both of those planets. The battle.net loading screen text says so itself:
"The infestation on Meinhoff has been cleared, and the colonists have been relocated to the garden world of Haven."
"The infested colonists on Haven have been purged. An infested Dr. Hanson was among the casualties."
^-that's straight from the game. Obviously it's not an entire planet, but it's still impressive. Just like defeating the Fleet of the Executor (the same force that glassed planets wholesale in SC1). Or breaking open the most highly guarded prison in the sector. Or launching a successful attack against Augustgrad.
there was a bit of Mystere, you didn't know ending from intro cutscene
You kind of did. The big old "plot twist" at the end where it turns out that Tychus was working for Mengsk all along was revealed in the intro cinematic. Not to mention the hamfisted foreshadowing where the one psychic mindreader aboard the ship keeps dropping subtle hints that "HEY DUMMY, TYCHUS IS GOING TO BETRAY YOU!" :P
Even Mengsk in SC1 fought much smaller battles, could have had more men, and used the Zerg as a massive help to invade Tarsonis. But remember: things are twisted to fit gameplay.
Furthermore, the Sons of Korhal were established as a powerful faction with actual military resources. In the SC1 manual, they're listed right up there with Umoja and Moria. They have their own BCs, wraiths, and military hierarchy.
If Blizzard wanted to give the impression that the Raiders were like that as well, they should have:
1) Not have Raynor telling us that the Raiders consist of a single battlecruiser and its skeleton crew.
2) Put forth some better evidence that their fleet or army grew. They paid for mercenaries sure, but that was from the artifact money. Show more than one battlecruiser in a cinematic.
3) Not spend the game doing odd-jobs to make enough money just to operate. The SoK didn't have to do this in SC1. I'm not saying I didn't enjoy the side-missions, just that they serve to make Raynor's Raiders look small.
hahahaha ye you can add that one to the list lol
There's nothing wrong with liking the story. In fact, I think that's my main criticism in regards to Gradius' review. While I respect what he's done (don't get me wrong, I agree with a lot of his points and he's completely right in claiming they made both WoL and HotS worse games than they could have been), it's very much possible to pick apart the decisions of nearly all characters in pretty much every story to make stuff seem ridiculous. When you have the complete oversight, you lose the human reality that characters in videogames too would make mistakes and that these characters are meant to go through their decisions in real-time. In a nutshell, like they say: in hindsight it's easy to be wise. It doesn't make you a worse person if you enjoy something just because you enjoy it.
Tying into this...
This may have been the largest most pivotal issue of it all: the feeling and the setting worked very well for me, and some of Raynor's actions in WoL resonated quite well with me. The issue is that overall nearly all the characters sucked, and the characters were the prime focus of the game's story - at least way more so than in SC1 and Brood War. SC2 is practically an RTS with RPG elements; it just fails at the characters within that RPG. This is probably why so many people said they still enjoyed playing it and liked the game or its gameplay, but hated the story.
If you can admit that many of the criticisms are valid, yet still enjoy the story anyway, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, and it's a respectable position. Most people however, can't understand why others dislike the story.
Tosh - I still think you either picked Nova out of sheer curiosity or you expected better characters. But sure, I guess I can understand why you thought Tosh was about to betray you. Still, the Dominion assassin isn't much of an upgrade. Tosh has been helping you all game, and you benefit from his help too. Sure, he's a shady figure and a pirate, but so is Raynor, so that should make them good friends. Nova on the other hand is a Dominion assassin. For all we know, it's literally her job to kill or capture Raynor. Oh wait, that's what happened in HoTS, even if you side with her anyway. :P
Well that's just the thing. If I was actually Raynor and my life, as well as my crews', was on the line every single day, I would not have:
1) Ignored the kill-switch in my best friend's suit. Especially with the warnings that the mind-reader aboard the ship gives you.
2) Attempted to dock and board what I assumed was Arcturus's own imperial battlecruiser.
3) Given the size of Raynor's Raiders, most of his missions would have failed if he didn't have meters of plot armor. Attacking and defeating the fleet of the executor for instance.
Me as well. The universe really did feel alive.
I just wish more effort had been put into the news casts.
I think in the end we very much agree with eachother, mostly, but I felt I owe you a small response to the Tosh point; one thing that also probably played a role was that I knew Nova was the main character of StarCraft Ghost. I didn't knew much about Ghost, but it stood to reason to me that Blizzard wouldn't make the main character of one of their games (Dominion-style) evil. This probably made me a lot more subsceptible to trusting her over some guy I knew literally nothing about.
So yeah, you may be right. I don't think it'd be a 99 to 1 situation in terms of how much sense choosing Tosh makes over choosing Nova if you ignore outside influences (like my 'A-canon' knowledge about Nova), but I don't think I could help but argue for at least 80/20.
I choose Tosh because he had that "like a boss" and "surprise mada faka!" style that i love :D
:D
@Mozared: Go The story that was supposed to be told in SC: Ghost is the one you can read in Spectres. And while Nova isn't evil, she was Mengsk's pet, she knew it and that is what she wanted to be... think about it.
I'm curious to see what Bizzard will make of her now.
EDIT: It is sad that they can't use Schroedinger's Tosh anymore, I feel he could have been developed as an interesting character and used in side stories if they wanted to, but Nova is still alive and kicking, will Valerian 'inherit' her?
What was your favourites cutscenes on hots? For me are intro and the warfield death cutscene (really intense)
@DEFILERRULEZ: Go
Definitely the intro and Kerrigan vs Amon
About WoL it's not true that Raynor had only one BC, on the Tosh cicle ending cutscene we see that it had a small bc fleet
@DEFILERRULEZ: Go
The small BC fleet must've been either mercs or Dominion ships. The latter would be contradictory, since they didn't even strike the Hyperion, and they had quite the chance.
I think is some allied ships of raynor fleet, or tosh's bcs or mercs? We will never see a Hybrid on a LotV CGI cutscene ??
@DEFILERRULEZ: Go
CGI would be highly unlikely, as would in recorded/in-game inter-mission cutscenes. The only 'Hybrid' character that'd be shown, if he were, would be Amon, and I pretty much bet it'd be like or worse than the Diablo III ending.
Battlecruisers, in actual lore, aren't like the units you build in matches. In a realistic view, they cost high to make, the Raiders don't have the tech to have them (In WoL you only get them as Dominion Battlecruisers from Valerian) and they cost even higher in manpower and resources to upkeep them. And the Raiders in both WoL and HotS are awfully short in number and resources (That's contradictory as well, given they even manage to fight against large armies and Zerg) for even two Battlecruisers.
Doesn't really matter because the Raiders keep acting as if they're incredibly weak some missions, but extremely powerful in other missions. It's very contradictory to have Raynor be challenged by a small-time merc such as Mira or Orlan, and then go on to singlehandedly cleanse planets of zerg infestation (Haven, Meinhoff, etc.)
I don't know what those BCs are in that cinematic, but the evidence makes me doubt that they're Raynor's. Why is the Hyperion by itself when he meets Valerian? Why do they need to get battlecruiser schematics from Valerian? Apart from that cinematic, there's not a shred of evidence that Raynor's fleet actually grew.
I thought Valerian gave you the schematics for BCs, meaning that you actually build them. Which makes no sense because Swann claims there's no way they have the hardware to mass-produce something like the Odin. By that logic, they shouldn't be able to produce battlecruisers either.
To be fair, it's reasonable to assume here that these planets weren't heavily under Zerg siege and that Raynor showed up early in the race. Also, does he actually confirmedly 'cleanse planets of infestation'? I don't recall that - I only remember him 'doing specific missions' on those planets, no mentions of him actually cleansing the entire things.
Battlecruisers are an issue, I guess. I've always assumed that the Battlecruisers you build in the campaign are of a way smaller and less influential class than the Hyperion. This way the only real anachronism is that bit in the third Mar Sara mission when the Hyperion first shows up in all its huge glory.
Please i know that in-game action and cutscene action are two different worlds... You are taking me as an idiot? :D
Yes Mozared is right... On Meihoff we only have to siege against some infested and fly away as faster as we can... And on Heaven we had a colony infested, not the Whole planet... The 100% infested planet was Char, where Valerian showed us a low APM rate, haha noob!
You guys are too focused on mass producing high tech. Have you ever thought that a small group like the Raiders can't afford to mass produce and then lose INFANTRY units? We know they barely have the numbers to fill the Hyperion (they carried many more men from the Bucephalus in Flashpoint). Damn, we may even have a very good approximation in the Flashpoint book. A single mission in WoL could have a player losing the entire Raiders if you count all the units.
There is no way the Raiders could have gone through all the missions in WoL and HotS considering they all live in the Hyperion. Even Mengsk in SC1 fought much smaller battles, could have had more men, and used the Zerg as a massive help to invade Tarsonis. But remember: things are twisted to fit gameplay. BCs aren't produced in the field like that. Marines aren't trained in a few seconds. That's how the game translates having those beforehand or acquiring them somehow. We have to keep that in mind or chasing the details here can get pretty ridiculous. Even then, ideas like Swann making the Thor out of the Odin between missions is simply insane.
@SoulFilcher: Go
Most of WoL was specifically developed with the "screw lore and realism" in mind. Doing things by that book would take too long, too much work and extrapolate the near 30 mission limit mark, hence all this corner cutting like mass producing Marines, making BCs and Thors and having stuff the Raiders, in a realistic perspective, would never have not even in a million years.
Also, remember the campaign and story were made with gameplay in mind, meaning that Blizzard, if they wanted a unit in the mission, they'd put it, no matter what. I can only imagine the direction heading for developing missions like Korhal or Valhalla, like "this unit will be here and that's it. I don't care how, I don't give a damn, find a way to put lore in it!".
Raynor got rid of the infestations on both of those planets. The battle.net loading screen text says so itself:
"The infestation on Meinhoff has been cleared, and the colonists have been relocated to the garden world of Haven."
"The infested colonists on Haven have been purged. An infested Dr. Hanson was among the casualties."
^-that's straight from the game. Obviously it's not an entire planet, but it's still impressive. Just like defeating the Fleet of the Executor (the same force that glassed planets wholesale in SC1). Or breaking open the most highly guarded prison in the sector. Or launching a successful attack against Augustgrad.
You kind of did. The big old "plot twist" at the end where it turns out that Tychus was working for Mengsk all along was revealed in the intro cinematic. Not to mention the hamfisted foreshadowing where the one psychic mindreader aboard the ship keeps dropping subtle hints that "HEY DUMMY, TYCHUS IS GOING TO BETRAY YOU!" :P
Furthermore, the Sons of Korhal were established as a powerful faction with actual military resources. In the SC1 manual, they're listed right up there with Umoja and Moria. They have their own BCs, wraiths, and military hierarchy.
If Blizzard wanted to give the impression that the Raiders were like that as well, they should have:
1) Not have Raynor telling us that the Raiders consist of a single battlecruiser and its skeleton crew.
2) Put forth some better evidence that their fleet or army grew. They paid for mercenaries sure, but that was from the artifact money. Show more than one battlecruiser in a cinematic.
3) Not spend the game doing odd-jobs to make enough money just to operate. The SoK didn't have to do this in SC1. I'm not saying I didn't enjoy the side-missions, just that they serve to make Raynor's Raiders look small.