I just found out why the plot sucks!!!

Omg you guys. It's because of the developmental social heirarchy.

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Originally Posted by From Wiki

Development team

Developers can range in size from small groups making casual games to housing hundreds of employees and producing several large titles. Companies divide their subtasks of game's development. Individual job titles may vary, however roles are the same within the industry. The development team consists of several members. Some members of the team may handle more than one role; similarly more than one task may be handled by the same member. Team size can vary from 20 to 100 or more members, depending on the game's scope. The most represented are artists, followed by programmers, then designers, and finally, audio specialists, with two to three producers in management. These positions are employed full-time. Other positions, such as testers, may be employed only part-time.

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Designer

A game designer is a person who designs gameplay, conceiving and designing the rules and structure of a game. Development teams usually have a lead designer who coordinates the work of other designers. He is the main visionary of the game. One of the roles of a designer is being a writer, often employed part-time to conceive game's narrative, dialogue, commentary, cutscene narrative, journals, video game packaging content, hint system, etc. In larger projects, there are often separate designer for various parts of the game, such as, game mechanics, user interface, characters, dialogue, etc.

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Development teams usually have a lead designer who coordinates the work of other designers. He is the main visionary of the game.

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Unfortunately, blizz never really gave a lot of consideration to the lead designer I don't think. I'm getting the feeling that people like chris metzen stepped in to 'accentuate' certain things, while the lead designer just had to shovel out the basic product.

The end result is that the game is still good - but it lacks the touch of older blizz games, where blizz new that attracting an individually loyal player base was srs business. These days, they're all about larger markets (of course, it's still a nerd market - but it's of what I consider 'stupid nerds'; or people that just say 'oh look it's fantasy' or 'oh look it's sci-fi' or 'oh look, the next shiny title').

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TLDR; Basically, the actual designers are the ones that devise the plot and the gameplay of the game. These are the things that make games fun. However, artists (the guys that makes games look pretty on the other hand), are given top priority because they are considered first! In other words, they're more entitled.

And rarely a community will have enough energy to address the concerns of everyone - after all, it's a job (albeit one that pays a salary). Wikipedia suggests that this heirarchy applies to most companies - so it would certainly apply to blizzard.
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TLDR (for the TLDR); Read above, you lazy bastard.

StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty
Designer: Dustin Browder
Writers: Brian Kindregan (lead writer), Chris Metzen (story) James M. Waugh (additional dialogue)

So in essence. Dustin, the designer, had nothing (luckilly) to do with the story, but mostly on the game mechanics. Metzen and Kindregan did the story. So is this why some people think the story is bad?

I think its other things than the developmental social hierarchy. In this case, based on the claims made in the wiki (I say it that way cause this is not what I learned in game developement class :P) its actually a good thing the hierarchy was not followed. Dustin's strength is gameplay, not story... so thank Tassadar he didn't do the story! That would be... bad.

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Dustin's strength is gameplay, not story...

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How do you know for sure? He might also be a good writer. People, being that they're human beings, are capable of more than one strength.
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If I was hired as lead in a department for just one singular quality, and an artistic quality (in this case, writing) at that, then that'd be a pretty cushy position - compared to the work required in coding and graphics. Just saying.

It's possible that Brian Kindregan is a close friend with the man on the inside.

And he uses his reputation for video game writing* (really not hard and hardly extensive compared to how hard it should be for most artists) to get ahead and get cushy with the dumb nerds ("omg he wrote ME 2 so he MUST BE AWESOME WRITER NO DOUBT FOREVAR.")? Shameful really.

* Video game writing is very easy. Even the 'excellent plot lines'. Really, excellence in video game plots means that it is at least half arsed and that some attention to writing was given. But it is by no means exceptional, or even good. Or difficult and full of effort (unlike computer programming). Effort can be put towards writing, however. It's just that, it's not there.

How many video game writers have written real books? Real fiction?

Seriously - I'm just saying, writing in a video game (while appreciated and justly lauded), shouldn't be boasted in someone's credentials as their selling point. Ever - at least in this day and age. Because it isn't hard to do.

I could probably bang out a story that would defeat FFVII in terms of 'epic awesomeness', but the fan boys/girls would beat me down - namely, due to the fact that it'd need publishing as a video game (instead of say, a book) before it had a decent enough measured assessment for said 'awesome ness'.

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Originally Posted by solidsamurai

How do you know for sure? He might also be a good writer. People, being that they're human beings, are capable of more than one strength.

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He might be a good writer, its not that. Its just, Brian Kindregan was one of the writers for Mass Effect 2. Its hard to top that, especially being a guy who specializes in game design.

There is a reason why Dustin is not credited as a writer for StarCraft 2 along with Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2, Command & Conquer: Generals and as game design director for The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth series. Its because he does gameplay, not story.

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Originally Posted by solidsamurai

If I was hired as lead in a department for just one singular quality, and an artistic quality (in this case, writing) at that, then that'd be a pretty cushy position - compared to the work required in coding and graphics. Just saying.

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Never tried writing a book I take it :P
Being a writer is not as cushy position as you might think. Once you get a deadline, your writing suffers. That could be a factor in SC2, not the hierarchy. In fact, as a graphics artist myself, I have a way easier job than the writers do.

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Never tried writing a book I take it :P
Being a writer is not as cushy position as you might think. Once you get a deadline, your writing suffers. That could be a factor in SC2, not the hierarchy. In fact, as a graphics artist myself, I have a way easier job than the writers do.

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Complete bull.

Mass Effect 2 is hardly writing. It's 'good' for video game writing. You didn't address that point, sir.

And yeah, I'm a wannabe writer - I have a bit of an idea of what it's like to write a book. I know that sometimes you have to improvise things like dialogue when there's deadlines coming up. And an outline helps, as does flexible thinking (you can't just visualize a singular plot idea and pursue that; when you have writer's block, you probably end up writing something completely different - but so what? If you're a decent writer, you can still make it an enjoyable read).

But Brian? I mean c'mon - you can't get any cheesier with what he came up with. And he was the lead. Seriously. It sounds like he was just all "okay guys, brain storm a story for me - I'm gonna go get coffee and then do some more PR".

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Originally Posted by solidsamurai

Complete bull.

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Still not the hierarchy that is to blame.
And Dustin still does not do stories in games because he is a games designer not a writer, unless said games is called Heavy Gear.

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Originally Posted by solidsamurai

Mass Effect 2 is hardly writing. It's 'good' for video game writing. You didn't address that point, sir.

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But this is a dicussion about video game writing. And most seem to say that Mass Effect 2's (and probably 1) story is better than SC2. It might be "bad" book writing, but its good game writing.
And I did not address it because you edited it in after/during I did mine.

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Originally Posted by solidsamurai

And he uses his reputation for video game writing to get ahead and get cushy with the dumb nerds ("omg he wrote ME 2 so he MUST BE AWESOME WRITER NO DOUBT FOREVAR.")? Shameful really.

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Maybe because he wants to do it instead of being storyboard artist?

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Originally Posted by solidsamurai

How many video game writers have written real books? Real fiction?

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No idea. Not much of a reader anyway...

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Originally Posted by solidsamurai

I could probably bang out a story that would defeat FFVII in terms of 'epic awesomeness', but the fan boys/girls would beat me down - namely, due to the fact that it'd need publishing as a video game (instead of say, a book) before it had a decent enough measured assessment for said 'awesome ness'.

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So its basically not that easy to write a story for a game after all...

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Originally Posted by solidsamurai

But Brian? I mean c'mon - you can't get any cheesier with what he came up with. And he was the lead. Seriously. It sounds like he was just all "okay guys, brain storm a story for me - I'm gonna go get coffee and then do some more PR".

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Thats... pretty much what he did... simplified. Metzen probably came up with the story arc. Brian filled in the "holes" with his writing.

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Originally Posted by solidsamurai

. . .
How many video game writers have written real books? Real fiction?

. . .

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How are video games not real fiction?

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Maybe because he wants to do it instead of being storyboard artist?

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The fact that he has the right to choose what he does in contract with blizz indicates in itself the sheer cushiness of his job. And he's an executive by technicality. Jeeze.

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So its basically not that easy to write a story for a game after all...

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The exact opposite. Sorry, but how do you draw that conclusion? I said that it's difficult to get a book published when you write a story with merely video game level plot quality expectations.

If you were writing for a video game company, then it depends on how much they value your writing I suppose (note that things like coding and graphic design leave a lot to look after - writing, meanwhile, is just words on paper; graphics and the results of coding leave a lot more to look at in a short interval). And how much they truly care about the plot and if that investment is worth it - that decision rests with the executive producer (or position with different title but equivalent privileges).

Actually, it might be simple to publish crap in book format for some people - it's just that the book won't sell unless you have a Christopher Paolini scenario (the guy who wrote trashy cliche fantasy as a product of his youth and ended up getting big bucks when he hit age 20, maybe because of some major marketing benefactors or something).

TLDR: No, writing for video games is easy, because they don't really value it when the sell-point game potentially hinges on other things like gameplay, immersiveness (graphics, sound, voice acting, lay out of levels, etc.), and balance (only ever necessary for some games - hence, it's a special department). If it's anything like an ordinary career, you'll be given more tasks than writing - that includes the necessity of storyboarding and some other tasks too. Companies look for expansive resumes for just this reason.

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Originally Posted by solidsamurai

TLDR: No, writing for video games is easy, because they don't really value it when the sell-point game potentially hinges on other things like gameplay, immersiveness (graphics, sound, voice acting, lay out of levels, etc.), and balance (only ever necessary for some games - hence, it's a special department). If it's anything like an ordinary career, you'll be given more tasks than writing - that includes the necessity of storyboarding and some other tasks too. Companies look for expansive resumes for just this reason.

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I disagree. Video game writing is not 'easy' for reasons outlined here. While bad writing is easy to achieve, good writing is considerably more difficult. Same as programming - bad programming is easy while good programming is difficult. It's just that the audience, and consequently the industry, expects more from the latter. If people held writing to the same standards as other aspects in video gaming, this would become apparent.

Specific to Starcraft II, I think the most likely 'reason' for the quality in writing is due to how Blizzard went about designing the game. Take a look at this answer by Browder when asked if mission ideas were saved for use in sequels:

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Originally Posted by Dustin Browder

Not really. We definitely had ideas for Protoss and Zerg-specific mechanics, but if we had a good idea, it was going in Wings of Liberty. We needed every idea we could get. I’ve heard of people being afraid of using their ideas now when they can hoard them for later, but no, we definitely don’t do that. We try to jam everything we can into whatever’s in front of us. We have the courage and confidence to know that, you know what, later on, we’ll do more work, and we’ll have more ideas, and we’ll think up some cool stuff. We had ideas for missions about spreading creep and missions about warping that obviously wouldn’t work as well in a Terran campaign, so we didn’t use them. But if it was a mechanic that would work for any race, it got used.

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From this answer, it can be inferred that missions were designed before, or at the very least independent of, the storyline. As such, the story had to be written to connect the missions together - with what we got as a result. But as for the dialogue, that's on the writer.

Now, the reason why I say 'reason' with quotation marks is because such development structure can still be made to work, as seen by other games from which the current benchmark for acceptable writing is being derived from. However, they're likely to be 'in spite of' rather than 'because of'.

Oh, I get it.

Well, thanks for bringing to rest this issue then, sir.

I still think Brian's job is cushy though.

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Originally Posted by solidsamurai

Actually, it might be simple to publish crap in book format for some people - it's just that the book won't sell unless you have a Christopher Paolini scenario (the guy who wrote trashy cliche fantasy as a product of his youth and ended up getting big bucks when he hit age 20, maybe because of some major marketing benefactors or something).

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Paolini only got published because his parents are con artists; they own a vanity press. I can't say enough about this travesty, so I'll leave it there.

However, I will say that Paolini's ability to write, insomuch as grammar, story structure, and literacy is concerned, outstrips 90 percent of the population.
I'm serious. Having browsed Fanfiction.net and corrected/reviewed college homework and short essays, writing is a rare gift. Rarer than it ought to be.

As for your instance of a video-game writer writing a full novel, Joseph Statten. Writer for the Halo games, does most of the dialog and the story. Wrote "Contact Harvest", one of the franchise novels.

Yeah, you're probably going to say that he only got it published because it's a video game novel (Which are all trash, amiright?) and he's got a horde of fanboys to buy them up. The truth is, Contact Harvest stands up all on its own merits as a novel, and isn't well-regarded in the Halo community because Statten's writing style is so different from Eric Nylund, who wrote the initial Halo novels.

And the Halo novels tend to be fairly good, really. Nylund's writing is a little dry, but enjoyable. And William C. Dietz is... well, William C. Dietz.

Funny that you mention Paolini and fanfiction in the same post. Eragon is the only book of the Inheritance Trilogy I've fully read (and I saw the film...unfortunately...) and it struck me very much as reminiscent of a 'fanfiction style. In other words, a hit on ff.net, but as a published work...well, not exactly my favourite fantasy novel.

And since deviation from the main point of this thread has been started already, I'll go ahead and say that Contact Harvest isn't as good as the works that came before it because of Staten's writing style itself rather than any deviations, how as good as the Covenant side is, the human side seemed to be struggling to find a 'voice' if that makes sense. As for Dietz, personally I think he's been maligned far more than he should be. I'm talking from ff experience here, but I'll say directly that writing a novelization is hard. Very hard. The type of hard where recently, what was two minutes of dialogue took me over an hour to write due to the need to interspace it with narrative and thought. Coupled with novelizing a FPS, and a limited word length, it's surprising that The Flood is as good as it is. Certainly above what I've felt to be a steady decline of quality that began with Ghosts of Onyx.

Having read three of Dietz's novels, The Flood stands in the middle. Heaven's Devils ranks low in both the novels of his I've read and StarCraft novels as a whole for me, while The Gathering Storm is, in a word, excellent.

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because Statten's writing style is so different from Eric Nylund, who wrote the initial Halo novels.

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I actually enjoyed Eric Nylund's scientific dwelving into the universe. So that's contrary to the fanboyism. But yeah, halo is still largely vulnerable to fanboyism and thus fiction that risks being largely underpar.

I didn't really enjoy contact harvest as much as a lot of the other sci fi I've read. I mean, it was okay. Maybe I'm being too rough on the book, I don't know. I gotta read more.

I've read several of Dietz's books.

Logos Run: I didn't like it.

Death Day and it's sequel: Pretty good. (The sequel is even better than the first one.)

Contact Harvest: I liked this one. (Halo books in general are pretty cool.) But I thought Dietz wrote another one instead and that one was critically panned.

Heaven's Devils: Awesomesauce!

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Originally Posted by Hawki

Having read three of Dietz's novels, The Flood stands in the middle. Heaven's Devils ranks low in both the novels of his I've read and StarCraft novels as a whole for me,

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So..in your opinion, Heaven's Devils ranks low as an SC novel.....And yet, iirc, you said you actually liked 'Queen of Blades'?:confused::rolleyes:

Despite the lore butchery & crappy writing, Queen of Blades was somewhat fun to read. Can't say the same for HD. :/

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Originally Posted by Gradius

Despite the lore butchery & crappy writing, Queen of Blades was somewhat fun to read. Can't say the same for HD. :/

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'Yeah yeah, I know it's a steaming shit sandwhich, but it tastes pretty good all things considered, so I'll go ahead and finish eating it.'

Btw, what didn't you like about 'HD' besides the fact that there weren't any protoss in it?.......Or have I answered my own quetion?:D

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Originally Posted by phazonjunkie

Btw, what didn't you like about 'HD' besides the fact that there weren't any protoss in it?.......Or have I answered my own quetion?:D

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I just couldn't bring myself to care about the characters, and the pace was sluggish. I, Mengsk was way better.

Also it didn't have any protoss in it. :P

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Originally Posted by Hawki

Funny that you mention Paolini and fanfiction in the same post. Eragon is the only book of the Inheritance Trilogy I've fully read and it struck me very much as reminiscent of a 'fanfiction style. In other words, a hit on ff.net, but as a published work...well, not exactly my favourite fantasy novel.

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Yeah, I guess my point is that it WOULD be a hit on Fanfiction (Although he'd probably have to file it as a Star WarsXLoTR crossover) because he's a better writer than the average Fanfictioneer. About the 80th percentile.

Not God's own gift to Literature by any means, but about the level of Kevin J. Anderson.

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Originally Posted by Hawki

(and I saw the film...unfortunately...)

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My condolences.

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Originally Posted by Hawki

And since deviation from the main point of this thread has been started already,

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Well, the original issue seems to have been resolved, so no reason not to pursue this tangent.

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Originally Posted by Hawki

I'll go ahead and say that Contact Harvest isn't as good as the works that came before it because of Staten's writing style itself rather than any deviations, how as good as the Covenant side is, the human side seemed to be struggling to find a 'voice' if that makes sense

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Tellingly, the Covenant sections are what I remember the most, even after three readings. With the human sections, they were good, but a lot of them were fairly extraneous. Could have been fixed if he didn't use established characters...

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Originally Posted by Hawki

As for Dietz, personally I think he's been maligned far more than he should be. I'm talking from ff experience here, but I'll say directly that writing a novelization is hard. Very hard. The type of hard where recently, what was two minutes of dialogue took me over an hour to write due to the need to interspace it with narrative and thought. Coupled with novelizing a FPS, and a limited word length, it's surprising that The Flood is as good as it is. Certainly above what I've felt to be a steady decline of quality that began with Ghosts of Onyx.

Having read three of Dietz's novels, The Flood stands in the middle. Heaven's Devils ranks low in both the novels of his I've read and StarCraft novels as a whole for me, while The Gathering Storm is, in a word, excellent.

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Have yet to crack open "At Empires Edge", even though it's been sitting on the bookshelf since Christmas. Might have gotten a few pages in, but Zahn, Bear, and Niven have conspired to push him off the reading list.

From what I've read of his works, though, and what I've heard others say, he's really not good with characters, is he?

As for the 'steady decline' in the quality of Halo books, I'd say that it's hardly steady. Cole Protocol was a series of missed opportunities, your mileage may vary on Evolutions, but I can't help but feel that Cryptum is on par with the original Nylund novels.

Karen Traviss's entry into the franchise, of course, has the potential to go any which way. Which is what makes it so exciting. XD

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Originally Posted by Kimera757

I've read several of Dietz's books.

Logos Run: I didn't like it.

Death Day and it's sequel: Pretty good. (The sequel is even better than the first one.)

Contact Harvest: I liked this one. (Halo books in general are pretty cool.) But I thought Dietz wrote another one instead and that one was critically panned.

Heaven's Devils: Awesomesauce!

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Logos Run: I've spent many an hour staring at that book in Hastings, wondering... pick it up? Wait for it to pop up at the used book store? Play it safe and stick to Terry Pratchett?

-Death Day: Haven't even heard of it...

-Contact Harvest: Written by Joseph Statten, not Dietz. Dietz wrote The Flood, which was panned by the fans because of its shortcomings.

As a novelization of a game, most of it is skippable. We've played it, and reading about the Master Chief barreling down hallway after hallway just isn't the same. The characters and events that took place, but weren't featured in the game, is the novel's strongest parts. And even then, most of the characters were kinda flat...

-Heaven's Devils: Like all StarCraft books, I approach it cautiously, with a can of beer at the bedside and padding on the far wall.

My precautions are entirely justified, as I had to spackle and repaint the drywall after I read a certain "Shadows of the Xel Naga".

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Originally Posted by solidsamurai

I actually enjoyed Eric Nylund's scientific dwelving into the universe. So that's contrary to the fanboyism. But yeah, halo is still largely vulnerable to fanboyism and thus fiction that risks being largely underpar.

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Not quite sure how fanboyism and scientific-ish approaches to a franchise are exclusive. Care to elaborate?

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Originally Posted by phazonjunkie'

So..in your opinion, Heaven's Devils ranks low as an SC novel.....And yet, iirc, you said you actually liked 'Queen of Blades'

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Yeah, pretty much. I guess it's something of a guilty pleasure. Then again, I'm the type of person who has Nova as my second favourite StarCraft novel, has 2001: A Space Odyssey as my second least favourite sci-fi movie and actually considers the film version of Battlefield Earth to be good.:eek:

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Originally Posted by Gradius;

I just could bring myself to care about the characters, and the pace was sluggish. I, Mengsk was way better.

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And for the record, that's how I feel about both Heaven's Devils and I, Mengsk as well.

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Originally Posted by Quirel;

Not God's own gift to Literature by any means, but about the level of Kevin J. Anderson.

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I actually consider Anderson a bit better in the realm of experience. While I don't need to bring Shadow of the Xel'naga into this, I would say Saga of Seven Suns is better than Inheritance. Characters were less compelling, but the setting felt far less generic.

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Originally Posted by Quirel;

From what I've read of his works, though, and what I've heard others say, he's really not good with characters, is he?

As for the 'steady decline' in the quality of Halo books, I'd say that it's hardly steady. Cole Protocol was a series of missed opportunities, your mileage may vary on Evolutions, but I can't help but feel that Cryptum is on par with the original Nylund novels.

Karen Traviss's entry into the franchise, of course, has the potential to go any which way. Which is what makes it so exciting. XD

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In experience, only for Heaven's Devils in regards to characters. IMO, The Flood and The Gathering Storm had good characters and development for said characters.

As for the steady decline, I'll come out and say that Cryptum continued said decline for me. As for Traviss, I've had a bit of a mixed experience with her. Her Gears of War novels are okay, but I feel that each has been less good than the last, to the extent where I haven't picked up Anvil Gate yet. City of Pearl was good, but there's four more books in the series I've yet to read.

And yes, I haven't read any of her Star Wars novels despite being a relatively established author for the series. As to why, I refer to my earlier comments on being a sci-fi oddity.:p And, you know, that Mandalorians and clone troopers are OVERRATED.:eek:

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Originally Posted by Hawki

Yeah, pretty much. I guess it's something of a guilty pleasure. Then again, I'm the type of person who has Nova as my second favourite StarCraft novel, has 2001: A Space Odyssey as my second least favourite sci-fi movie and actually considers the film version of Battlefield Earth to be good.:eek:

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As a science fiction oddity, you've gone from 'mere curiosity' to the level of 'take this one in for analysis'. :D

I will admit, though, I don't enjoy 2001: A Space Odyssey so much as I respect it. When you think about it, it's probably one of the few hard sci-fi movies out there, where Kubrick and Clarke went out, made solid predictions about what society and technology would be like once we started 'crawling out of the cradle'.

Comparatively, a lot of sci-fi movies are "Jaws in Space!" or "Technology X runs amok!" Nothing explicitly wrong with that (Unless you're pissing on the source material, ala "I, Robot") but it certainly makes 2001 unique.

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Originally Posted by Hawki

And for the record, that's how I feel about both Heaven's Devils and I, Mengsk as well.

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Have yet to read Heaven's Devils but I thought I, Mengsk was fairly good. StarCraft, it seems, is a difficult universe to write for without following the basic plotlines of "Fight over McGuffin X" or "Hold out against the Zerg!" (Again, nothing explicitly wrong with these plotlines, but it's nice to see something different) and I, Mengsk deftly avoided both of those.

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Originally Posted by Hawki

I actually consider Anderson a bit better in the realm of experience. While I don't need to bring Shadow of the Xel'naga into this, I would say Saga of Seven Suns is better than Inheritance. Characters were less compelling, but the setting felt far less generic.

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That's all that separates Anderson from Paolini. Experience, and there's barely even that! Anderson started pecking away at a typewriter... what, 45 years ago? He's barely learned anything since, and he's still the literary equivalent of a 5 dollar hooker!
*Goes outside and blows off steam*
Ok, back. Let's just say, the 'prequels' he co-wrote to the Dune universe did NOT endear him to me. As for the Saga of the Seven Suns, certain ideas he presented may have been interesting, but they were killed off by his lack of literary chops. A lot of events and characters were tacked in to pad the story out to seven books, but weren't adequately integrated into the narrative.

I don the Hat of Hypocrisy for this, but there's only one proper length for a story, and that's 'Long Enough.' I've only ever read one series that was justified in spanning a seven-book arc, and that series was NOT written by Anderson, Goodkind, Eddings, or Jordan.

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Originally Posted by Hawki

In experience, only for Heaven's Devils in regards to characters. IMO, The Flood and The Gathering Storm had good characters and development for said characters.

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Having picked up "At Empires Edge" and read through two chapters, his prose is already problematic.
To be honest, I don't think I've ever seen this many exclamation marks in the narrative. :confused:

Will keep reading. :D

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Originally Posted by Hawki

As for the steady decline, I'll come out and say that Cryptum continued said decline for me.

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D=

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Originally Posted by Hawki

And yes, I haven't read any of her Star Wars novels despite being a relatively established author for the series. As to why, I refer to my earlier comments on being a sci-fi oddity.:p And, you know, that Mandalorians and clone troopers are OVERRATED.:eek:

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Well, the natural path of all things in the Star Wars universe is as follows:
Exposure > Popularity > Overhyping > No Longer Interesting

It happened to the Jedi, it happened to the Mandelorians, it happened to the Clone Troopers... If I wasn't so tired, I would write something like "Exposure leads to Popularity, Popularity leads to Overhyping, Overhyping leads to being written by second-rate writers, and it's all downhill after that."

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Let's just say, the 'prequels' he co-wrote to the Dune universe did NOT endear him to me.

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Gah! I know exactly what you mean. If only I could "unread" them in my mind...

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Originally Posted by Quirel

As a science fiction oddity, you've gone from 'mere curiosity' to the level of 'take this one in for analysis'.

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Oh god, not analysis! Wait, please...I can show good taste! That's why I like Stargate: Universe more than SG-1 and the Star Wars prequel trilogy more than the original!

Wait a minute...

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Originally Posted by Quirel

I will admit, though, I don't enjoy 2001: A Space Odyssey so much as I respect it. When you think about it, it's probably one of the few hard sci-fi movies out there, where Kubrick and Clarke went out, made solid predictions about what society and technology would be like once we started 'crawling out of the cradle'.

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To be honest, my respect for the film mainly lies in the realm of special effects, and it doesn't help that the final Jupiter section seems devoted to them. Clarke himself I respect, but that mostly lies in the realm of the novel. Granted a film can't go into as much depth as its host novel, but even so, the plot felt paper thin and disjointed. Like The Fifth Element, more style than substance, but unlike that film, its McGuffins remained too vague to really leave much of an impact.

Still, it did give us HAL. And that, I'll remain eternally greatful for.:p

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Originally Posted by Quirel

StarCraft, it seems, is a difficult universe to write for without following the basic plotlines of "Fight over McGuffin X" or "Hold out against the Zerg!" (Again, nothing explicitly wrong with these plotlines, but it's nice to see something different) and I, Mengsk deftly avoided both of those.

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I'm going to go on a bit of a shameless plug tangent, but in all honesty, the format of "x vs. y" is quite common for sci-fi games as a whole and certain non game sci-fi medias as well (Aliens/Predator comes to mind). In the realm of plot-based multi-chapters, the ease at which one avoids a "x vs. y" scenario depends on the ammount of background material avaliable, as well as familiarity with said background material. Of course, this is just in the realm of fanfiction, but I find that it's more the grasp of a universe that determines the ease/lack of it in writing more than the nature of the universe itself, which while it plays a part, matters more. I guess that's why in my case I've been able to devote a Sonic the Hedgehog story to pondering on the nature of racism and prejudice whilst reducing Doctor Who to such an x vs. y scenario, when traditionally it would be the other way round (not that I'm ignorant of DW, but while I've followed STH since 1991/'92, I'm pretty ignorant of everything pre-2005 for DW). I, Mengsk, I think, succeeded because McNeil knew the universe well enough to have a good mix of old and new material and weave them together.

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Originally Posted by Quirel

I've only ever read one series that was justified in spanning a seven-book arc, and that series was NOT written by Anderson, Goodkind, Eddings, or Jordan.

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Kind of the same for me, in my case, Harry Potter. I've also read the Heptalogy that is The Chronicles of Narnia but in regards to being a series of seven, you could easily skip out The Magician's Nephew and The Horse and His Boy and the series wouldn't suffer for it.

Hey, just be glad Anderson didn't write StarCraft II's campaign.

Huh, Anderson vs. Meyer, who's worse?

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Originally Posted by Hellgrinder

Hey, just be glad Anderson didn't write StarCraft II's campaign.

Huh, Anderson vs. Meyer, who's worse?

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Anderson is capable of writing good novels. Sometimes. He wrote good X-Files stuff. His Dune House trilogy was pretty good too (the Butlerian Jihad stuff, on the other hand, was execrable). It seems his real problem is inconsistency. Sometimes he writes good stuff, and sometimes he writes crud like Shadow of the Xel'Naga.