Is anybody interested in brainstorming ideas for a demo mission? Gameplay, story, whatever.
I reached the point where just writing about a sandbox setting is not satisfying me anymore. I want to make a mission map that puts my ideas into practice. The Galaxy editor content is now so diverse that I probably don't even need custom content to represent most of the factions that I can imagine.
Long story short, the setting I brainstormed lets you take factions that existed at any point in the starcraft lore (or wholly original factions) and pit them against each other within a generic first contact war setting that mashes the various canon wars together. Overmind's swarm versus Cerberus' enslaved zerg, Protoss Empire versus Ihan-rii, Protoss Empire versus Tau Ceti terrans who want vengeance for genocide, Confederacy versus Dominion, Confederacy versus UED, etc. I suppose it is like Heroes of the Storm in that respect.
There are so many possibilities that I am not sure what anyone would be interested in. And on top of the story I have to devise fun gameplay gimmicks to keep things fresh. Zerg evolution, terran or protoss technology development, multiple choice upgrades/unit variation/etc, multi-outcome objectives, map geography (e.g. cliffs, hazards, etc), etc.
The most detailed idea I have so far is a single mission where you play as Overmind's zerg fighting to recover some of Cerberus' enslaved zerg. I haven't sketched out much beyond the basic objectives and outcome: you need to attack some hive mind emulators controlling enslaved zerg bases while fending off attacks from terrans and cerberus zerg, each liberated base becomes neutral and so you need to bring swarm queens to spray their hives with medic spray to take control of them, and you win when you reclaim all of the enslaved hives and don't need to destroy any enemy bases. Also, a secondary objective I imagined is that you could target some infested buildings the terrans were experimenting on, which gives you access to some aberrations they created. That's it so far. I have no idea what the story would be, since the Overmind's swarm are unknowns as far as canon characterization goes.
Advice? Suggestions? Critique? Any help would be appreciated.
I have started working on a google doc exploring an alternate universe that aims to be less silly than canon and serve as something of a “greatest hits” of lore bits.
If you encounter generic units you will need some kind of lore related motive for them to be there. If your campaign uses completely unique units then there is no need but it is a lot more work.
I think I understand what you mean now. You are saying that we use the Starcraft lore to justify having Starcraft units. You misunderstand what I mean. I do not suggest dropping the Starcraft setting, just tweaking it to remove the elements that get in the way of storytelling.
The elements I mean would be the xel'naga plot, the destruction of Aiur, the queen of blades ruling the zerg, etc. Those sorts of things get in the way of the stories something authors want to tell so they basically set their campaigns outside Koprulu in the belief that this magically solves those problems.
Why do we need to set our stories outside of Koprulu? Why not rewrite Koprulu? The setting introduced in the SC1 manual was serviceable, no?
If you encounter generic units you will need some kind of lore related motive for them to be there. If your campaign uses completely unique units then there is no need but it is a lot more work.
I do not understand what you mean. I do not advocate ignoring the lore completely, just the bits that get in the way. Like the events of the games. The SC1 manual’s open-ended status quo is the last point in which the lore was the most consistent, and the plot of the actual games all seem to take place in slightly different universes.
I have decided to revisit this thread. Enumerate is really just one person's response to a problem with Starcraft lore that affects everyone. The lore is convoluted and riddled with plot holes due to twenty years of changing writers and constant retcons. Obviously none of it was ever planned in advanced, as shown by SC1 ending its narrative more or less permanently by killing off the Overmind who planned to eat the entire galaxy. It is not surprising that the sequels had to made stuff up to maintain a similar level of urgency.
Aside from the Shadow Wars and Scavengers comics, Blizzard is not spending effort on continuing the lore. They canceled any future story DLC. In fact, their newest IP Overwatch has no plot. I'm not holding out hope for any future sequels.
A question I have for everyone, campaign creators especially... should we really continue using the lore as it is? The custom campaigns we do have typically only exhibit the most tenuous connection to the game lore. What does that say about the lore? Is it not sufficient for the sorts of stories we want to tell?
I tried posting a short piece going into more detail about my thoughts on enumerate, but the forum marked it as spam because it exceeded some arbitrary character limit. This is very frustrating to me.
I've tried to post this multiple times before but the forum automatically marks text beyond a certain length as spam.
Over at the blizzard forums ToxicDefiler wrotea huge post for an alternate Starcraft universe, "Enumerate," which rewrites key plot points to create a sandbox for custom campaigns. Basically the idea goes that Starcraft had an intriguing premise about the zerg invading koprulu to part of an overarching goal to invade the protoss and they all had these extensive histories and empires, but the canon games did not really use this backdrop effectively. So ToxicDefiler massively expanded the scales and wrote a broadly sketched timeline covering major historical eras like the Great War and the Brood Wars (yes, plural). There aren't any demigods like Kerry or Duran controlling everything: Enumerate uses the grimdark military scifi setting as a backdrop so that creators can tell their personal stories about their commanders and soldiers fighting in the various theatres like the Koprulu sector and the Protoss galactic empire.
A condensed timeline and full document are available on google docs. I liked the idea but thought it could use some more refining in certain areas. I won't go any further in case the excessive text get this topic marked as spam again. If anyone wants to discuss it feel free to reply.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I opened a discord specifically for discussing alternate universes: https://discord.gg/qbt2bH4
Is anybody interested in brainstorming ideas for a demo mission? Gameplay, story, whatever.
I reached the point where just writing about a sandbox setting is not satisfying me anymore. I want to make a mission map that puts my ideas into practice. The Galaxy editor content is now so diverse that I probably don't even need custom content to represent most of the factions that I can imagine.
Long story short, the setting I brainstormed lets you take factions that existed at any point in the starcraft lore (or wholly original factions) and pit them against each other within a generic first contact war setting that mashes the various canon wars together. Overmind's swarm versus Cerberus' enslaved zerg, Protoss Empire versus Ihan-rii, Protoss Empire versus Tau Ceti terrans who want vengeance for genocide, Confederacy versus Dominion, Confederacy versus UED, etc. I suppose it is like Heroes of the Storm in that respect.
There are so many possibilities that I am not sure what anyone would be interested in. And on top of the story I have to devise fun gameplay gimmicks to keep things fresh. Zerg evolution, terran or protoss technology development, multiple choice upgrades/unit variation/etc, multi-outcome objectives, map geography (e.g. cliffs, hazards, etc), etc.
The most detailed idea I have so far is a single mission where you play as Overmind's zerg fighting to recover some of Cerberus' enslaved zerg. I haven't sketched out much beyond the basic objectives and outcome: you need to attack some hive mind emulators controlling enslaved zerg bases while fending off attacks from terrans and cerberus zerg, each liberated base becomes neutral and so you need to bring swarm queens to spray their hives with medic spray to take control of them, and you win when you reclaim all of the enslaved hives and don't need to destroy any enemy bases. Also, a secondary objective I imagined is that you could target some infested buildings the terrans were experimenting on, which gives you access to some aberrations they created. That's it so far. I have no idea what the story would be, since the Overmind's swarm are unknowns as far as canon characterization goes.
Advice? Suggestions? Critique? Any help would be appreciated.
I have started working on a google doc exploring an alternate universe that aims to be less silly than canon and serve as something of a “greatest hits” of lore bits.
Feel free to critique or suggest: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BPucJLVfcCcuqwfn9G5HavaUBCShkMhkpT3TJW2ehYo/pub
I have decided to revisit this thread. Enumerate is really just one person's response to a problem with Starcraft lore that affects everyone. The lore is convoluted and riddled with plot holes due to twenty years of changing writers and constant retcons. Obviously none of it was ever planned in advanced, as shown by SC1 ending its narrative more or less permanently by killing off the Overmind who planned to eat the entire galaxy. It is not surprising that the sequels had to made stuff up to maintain a similar level of urgency.
Aside from the Shadow Wars and Scavengers comics, Blizzard is not spending effort on continuing the lore. They canceled any future story DLC. In fact, their newest IP Overwatch has no plot. I'm not holding out hope for any future sequels.
A question I have for everyone, campaign creators especially... should we really continue using the lore as it is? The custom campaigns we do have typically only exhibit the most tenuous connection to the game lore. What does that say about the lore? Is it not sufficient for the sorts of stories we want to tell?
I tried posting a short piece going into more detail about my thoughts on enumerate, but the forum marked it as spam because it exceeded some arbitrary character limit. This is very frustrating to me.
I've tried to post this multiple times before but the forum automatically marks text beyond a certain length as spam.
Over at the blizzard forums ToxicDefiler wrote a huge post for an alternate Starcraft universe, "Enumerate," which rewrites key plot points to create a sandbox for custom campaigns. Basically the idea goes that Starcraft had an intriguing premise about the zerg invading koprulu to part of an overarching goal to invade the protoss and they all had these extensive histories and empires, but the canon games did not really use this backdrop effectively. So ToxicDefiler massively expanded the scales and wrote a broadly sketched timeline covering major historical eras like the Great War and the Brood Wars (yes, plural). There aren't any demigods like Kerry or Duran controlling everything: Enumerate uses the grimdark military scifi setting as a backdrop so that creators can tell their personal stories about their commanders and soldiers fighting in the various theatres like the Koprulu sector and the Protoss galactic empire.
A condensed timeline and full document are available on google docs. I liked the idea but thought it could use some more refining in certain areas. I won't go any further in case the excessive text get this topic marked as spam again. If anyone wants to discuss it feel free to reply.