Starcraft reboot ideas discussion thread

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"Why not just use sc2 though? sc1 editor is simpler but pretty much no one will play a map made in sc1 these days."

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The SC2 editor is ungodly difficult, I've been experimenting with it for 7 years and haven't released anything beyond some skin packs.

If he's having trouble getting things to work in SC1's editor, the SC2 editor is definitely not recommended. (especially since he's even more hard on the Sc1 purist side than I am, and most of SC2's stuff doesn't look like or function like SC1's counter parts)

also, its not true anyway, there's plenty of people playing SC1 campaign content, including numerous people recording said content both big and small (me included) if he can get people like Jayborino or something to play his maps, hell have good exposure.

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Originally Posted by KaiserStratosTygo

The SC2 editor is ungodly difficult, I've been experimenting with it for 7 years and haven't released anything beyond some skin packs.

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Then how do you explain the people on SC2 mapster and their use of the editor? Seems they made it look easy

I was going to make a new thread in the vein of this one but then I decided to just re-post in this thread.

Nissa, I thought about ways to make you reconsider your position to leave SC1 as it is. So I am going to use the forgotten plot points from the manual as my support. See, under your position these plot points cannot be resolved even though I think they are much more interesting than the direction canon went. (Although I doubt anything I say could sway you.)

The original Starcraft manual introduced a number of plot points and foreshadowing that were never picked up the games. Rather than giving the story room to breathe and exploring the potential of these plot threads, Metzen decided to end Rebel Yell with the Dominion taking over and the protoss and zerg leaving for parts unknown. Starcraft 1 ended with the Overmind being killed and the protoss devastated, destroying any chance of a decent sequel. That did not stop Metzen from pulling sequels out of his ass and further forgetting these potentially interesting plot threads. Because of various plot contrivances and retcons, it is not possible to revive these plot threads.

For example:

• Protoss have a galactic empire... lolnope! they're irrelevant losers!
• Confederacy fights Pirate Militias... no longer possible because Confederacy was killed off in the first act (which wasn't planned, and boy does it show)
• Sons of Korhal seek justice/vengeance... ditto
• Umoja seeks alliance with protoss and overthrow of Confederacy... Blizzard turned Umoja into a joke
• KMC seeks to reclaim the territory and resources stolen by the Confederacy... ditto; the UED played a bigger role than both combined, and UED was nothing but a bizarre footnote
• Akilae tribe seeks to defend humanity from the zerg... because the war with the terrans was magically resolved in act one, we never got to see terrans and protoss really interacting beyond the plot of Insurrection (Raynor's alliance is a fucking joke)
• Ara tribe does not care for the fate of humanity... ditto; despite the protoss being genocidal, we never see the terrans seek vengeance
• Dark Templar show up and throw a wrench in Conclave’s plans... we got a civil war, but they never really interacted with terrans; Alarak had more interaction with terrans
• Zerg are trying to assimilate terran psychic genes before the protoss destroy them... Metzen forgot this in favor of jerking off to Kerry and turning the protoss into wimps

There were probably loads more but those are off the top of my head.

Metzen admitted that absolutely none of the events in the SC1 campaign were planned, and boy does it show. Having the first trio of campaigns end with the fall of Tarsonis, or better yet the fall of Antiga prime, would have given far more room for the plot to breathe and all these plot threads to be pulled in.

Insurrection is pretty much what SC1 should have been. It isn't perfect, but by limiting itself to a single planet it gives itself far more room to maneuver and explore its plot.

Warning, young lad, I am both stubborn and happy to agree to disagree. I do not easily change my mind, as regards literary potential. :D

I'm not saying that Blizz never did anything wrong, I'm saying that I like Starcraft for what it is. The problem with what you say is that you act like the plot went off the rails after the first 1/6 of the story, when honestly, it flows pretty well from there.

Yes, it's a problem that they sort of disregarded the other planets the Protoss have/had, but we don't know all that much about the Zerg invading them, either. Even after BW, it was possible to bring in other Protoss worlds, explaining if/why Protoss are still there.

The Confederacy wasn't killed off. They were destroyed as a national entity, but as Duke states in BW, Mengsk wasn't exactly sitting pretty. Despite the conquest of the main Confederate world, people from other worlds and different loyalties were giving the Dominion a hard time. As a writer, it would be easy to say that some Confeds were biding their time while bigger events were going on. Remember, Duran claimed to be a Confederate. Given that people were working with Duran, it's entirely probable that this is the truth, though of course Duran was working with them for his own ends.

Sons of Korhal seek justice? What are you talking about? The Sons of Korhal are the little rebel force that Mengsk led until he destroyed the Confederate government, at which point he renamed them the Terran Dominion. They are not a separate group.

Umoja and KMC are not jokes, they are merely absent. Given the heavy Protoss/Zerg focus in BW, they were merely disregarded for the time being in favor of telling bigger events. Starcraft doesn't exactly have a good format for telling stories about every single faction at the same time. That said, it was perfectly possible for a post BW game to give them both the stories they deserve.

I do not understand your point about the Akilae -- Tassadar's faction was associated with humans, not the entire tribe. Nor was war with the Terrans resolved at this point. Tassadar chose to back off, and then there was war with the Zerg to deal with. It is presumable that there were fights between the Protoss and the Dominion (and KMC, Umoja, human space pirates) that the main story simply had no time to touch on. Since we're hanging out with the Zerg at that point, we the audience simply didn't get a chance to see much of the goings on between humans and 'Toss.

Ara did technically care about humans, sort of. They had that whole Dae'Uhl thing where they're supposed to watch out for "lesser" races or whatever. Their choice to get Chau Sara and such was based on the idea that destroying these worlds wholesale was better for both Protoss and Terran interests. Yes, it would have been interesting to see vengeance, but the main humans in the area were the Dominion, and Mengsk is too political to fail to realize that it's better not to fight with the Protoss, given the conflicts elsewhere. The Zerg are pretty dangerous, and revenge is for people who can afford to get it. So if vengeance happens, it will be because a faction either chooses to bind together and get it, or else a small group or individual will perform some act of violence in the attempt to disrupt human/'Toss relations.

Again, SC2 doesn't count. It is nothing. It is a forgery of the Starcraft we know and love. Remember that everything I say, unless specifically stating otherwise, assumes that SC2 does not exist. Also no, we had no civil war (and it technically wouldn't have been a civil war anyway, because a "civil war" is between two parts of the same nation, and the DTs are not in the same nation as the Khalai). There's plenty of time to include factional distress now, because of Kerrigan "resting" from her conquest.

Your last point is your own assumption. The Zerg do in fact assimilate psychic genes, and Kerrigan is the representative of this. She's the Overmind's pet, yes, but given that the Zerg invade Aiur not long after her infestation -- which, as you'll remember, is the entire reason for assimilating psychic genes -- it means that they have accomplished this goal, and are now ready to move on to the next phase.

I disagree. Starcraft didn't do what you wanted it to, but that doesn't mean that it wasn't good. I mean, if you hated the plot after it was only 1/6 done, then are you really a fan of Starcraft at all?

The six BW campaigns are not the plot of Starcraft, they are Metzen's version of how the story could go (with help from Phinney to prevent total disaster). It was never planned in the first place and was clearly being made up as it went along, as you can see by the plot falling apart after Rebel Yell and Metzen admitting precisely that in an interview. In fact he expressed embarrassment with how bad his early writing was.

Metzen's story suffers from shoving too much into a single game, losing all sense of scale, and shoehorning incongruous fantasy elements and mythic superheroes. The franchise had enough material to focus entirely on the Koprulu sector before the Confederacy was overthrown for multiple games. The conflict between the Confederacy and the pirate militias, the Ara and Akilae tribes... all of that was set up as major plot points in the manual and in the first game they are vestigial or forgotten.

If the story was rebooted, it could focus on its energy on the Koprulu conflict and explore all those forgotten plot points without having to write around the stupidity of SC/BW.

1. No. The plot of BW did not feel made up as it went along. It was showing the rise of Kerri/the Zerg as a part of the second act of a story structure (ala Empire Strikes Back). There were faulty elements, but it made sense as a part of a three act structure.

2. Losing all sense of scale? Not really. This is a game with several multi-planet factions. The scale was already large enough to begin with.

3. Again, you're looking at it wrong. The game never stated that there was a problem specifically between Ara and Akilae, but rather Tassadar's faction and the Conclave, as a facet of the Templar and the Judicator -- both of which contain more than one tribe. Your use of terms not used much in-game is strange.

Your inability to debate the specific points of my arguments drains my ability to discuss this with you further. I come to this website in the hopes of sharing my love of Starcraft with other people. If you think 5/6 of the game is "made up as it went along," then why are you even here? It really stifles conversation when in every single thread you go on so insistently about Enumerate/your opinions, when all of us have perspectives we want to discuss. Please go write your own stuff, and appreciate that some of us are here to have fun and share something that we like, even if it is flawed.

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Originally Posted by Nissa

1. No. The plot of BW did not feel made up as it went along. It was showing the rise of Kerri/the Zerg as a part of the second act of a story structure (ala Empire Strikes Back). There were faulty elements, but it made sense as a part of a three act structure.

2. Losing all sense of scale? Not really. This is a game with several multi-planet factions. The scale was already large enough to begin with.

3. Again, you're looking at it wrong. The game never stated that there was a problem specifically between Ara and Akilae, but rather Tassadar's faction and the Conclave, as a facet of the Templar and the Judicator -- both of which contain more than one tribe. Your use of terms not used much in-game is strange.

Your inability to debate the specific points of my arguments drains my ability to discuss this with you further. I come to this website in the hopes of sharing my love of Starcraft with other people. If you think 5/6 of the game is "made up as it went along," then why are you even here? It really stifles conversation when in every single thread you go on so insistently about Enumerate/your opinions, when all of us have perspectives we want to discuss. Please go write your own stuff, and appreciate that some of us are here to have fun and share something that we like, even if it is flawed.

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I think the story we got is not good, too ambitious for the limited space it had, and that we could have gotten a much better story if the writers had limited the plot to just one or two planets at most and given the plot time to breathe and find itself. I find your inability to recognize this irritating. If you want a Brood War 2, there are numerous custom campaigns which do just that. Don't jump into a discussion with me about alternate histories with the sole intent of shutting my voice down. There isn't much else to discuss, to be honest.

Metzen stated in multiple interviews that he was making up the plot as he went along. He did not plan out the series before writing the game script and the story changed numerous times during development. Episodes 1 to 3 were written as a self-contained trilogy which neatly severed every plot thread introduced in the manual. Brood War was not planned in advance and Metzen made it up when the higher ups demanded a sequel, and it too is a self-contained trilogy. There are clear inconsistencies between the manual, the first trilogy and the second trilogy such that they don't really make sense as part of the same universe unless you ignore said inconsistencies. BW is full of plot holes that others have explained at length: the plot is ridiculous and breaks down under any kind of in-depth analysis.

The scale might be large in the abstract, but it's obvious that Metzen doesn't actually understand the scales involved. The games don't actually communicate to the audience a genuine understanding of how long skirmishes, wars or travel times should last. The times and distances are irrelevant and it would be reasonable to assume all the game events took place in however many hours it took to beat the game for all the difference it makes. For example, it took ATLAS 30-60 years to travel to Koprulu (and it was lost in warp space at the time so this may not actually reflect controlled FTL capabilities) and the zerg 60 years to travel there (from wherever they were at the time). In the games, it takes no significant time at all for the zerg to travel to Aiur or the UED to travel to Koprulu. Much is made about the Overmind's inability to find Aiur, but no-name pirate Schezar visits it off-screen with ease. In fact, the official timeline shrunk the time between Duke's defection and the fall of Tarsonis from a reasonable six months to an absurd month-and-a-half based on one statement in a licensed comic book released in 2010. At least, the wiki's timeline did and I have no idea if Blizzard kept a detailed timeline or updated it timeline to account for the comic.

The Ara/Akilae conflict over humanity's fate is written in the manual under the tribes section. It was replaced in the game by the Tassadar/Conclave conflict, which is fought over the khalai/nerazim schism. It would have come into play if the game explored the conflict in Koprulu, but Metzen arbitrarily decided to reduce the Koprulu conflict to the background of Rebel Yell. Raynor and Tassadar ally off-screen, which is much sloppier compared to exploring their interaction on screen.

The manual set up is clearly written from the POV that the plot of the game will focus entirely on events within the Koprulu sector and take advantage of the shifting web of alliances and rivalries foreshadowed by the faction biographies. This did not happen in the game because Metzen decided to rush right into a war for the fate of everything. Insurrection is pretty much how this should have been handled. Starcraft could have told countless stories focusing on the three-way war in the Koprulu sector if Metzen wasn't so absurdly ambitious.

Mislag can say whatever he wants. But the Ara/Akilae thing seems like fanon/misinterpretation.

It's mentioned they disagree with each other in the manual yes, but the Akilae don't have a monopoly on disagreeing with the judicators and vice-versa... Who cares?

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The Ara/Akilae conflict over humanity's fate is written in the manual under the tribes section. It was replaced in the game by the Tassadar/Conclave conflict, which is fought over the khalai/nerazim schism.

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One could argue that "It was represented in the game by the Tassadar/Conclave conflict." Tassadar's particular solution to the problem is the Dark Templar.

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Originally Posted by Gradius

Mislag can say whatever he wants. But the Ara/Akilae thing seems like fanon/misinterpretation.

It's mentioned they disagree with each other in the manual yes, but the Akilae don't have a monopoly on disagreeing with the judicators and vice-versa... Who cares?

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You can say anything is fanon/misinterpretation depending on your POV. I think Metzen's campaigns are fanon/misinterpretation because there are numerous inconsistencies with the manual.

I don't like your logic here because it is the same sort of logic that kept the Umojans and KMC stuck in obscurity while pulling the UED and Tal'darim out of Metzen's ass. The manual said that the Akilae wanted to protect humanity, while the Ara didn't care for them. This is a perfectly serviceable plot hook for a schism within the protoss where those tribes lead opposing factions composed of members from many tribes who share the same views long before the nerazim show up.

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Originally Posted by Visions of Khas

One could argue that "It was represented in the game by the Tassadar/Conclave conflict." Tassadar's particular solution to the problem is the Dark Templar.

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Good thinking, but I don't see it. Metzen's approach was sloppy and contrived: the terrans became irrelevant after Episode 1 because of his writing choices but he still forced in pointless cameos anyway. If he wanted the terrans to have a major role for the entire game, he should have kept the story set in Koprulu for the entirety of the game. Reading the Queen of Blades novel showcases how absurd the plot became.

The Revelations short story showed that Tassadar was leading rescue efforts on Mar Sara, so it would have been the perfect time for him and Raynor to team up and take the story in a completely new direction. Unsurprisingly this is never mentioned in the games. Indeed, Tassadar offering assistance on Antiga Prime was cut from the game because it introduced him too early or something, even though his appearance in the zerg campaign is equally jarring.

Again, Insurrection is my go-to example for getting all this right. You could have set the campaigns on Mar Sara and showcased the interactions between the Mar Sara Militia, the Koprulu Expedition and the Sons of Korhal.

Like, I don't know, the campaigns could have gone like this:

Mar Sara Arc
Terran: The Confederacy antagonizes the Mar Sara Militia, leading them to ally with the Sons of Korhal.
Zerg: the zerg hunt for psychics, bringing them into conflict with the Mar Sara Militia, the Confederacy and the Protoss. They investigate Confederate experiments and rescue zerg from enslavement.
Protoss: Tassadar, representing the Akilae, squabbles with Aldaris, representing the Ara, over the fate of the Mar Sarans. After rescuing as many civilians as possible, Tassadar incinerates the planet before the zerg can follow the dropships. He receives hails from Umoja and decides to accept their offer of an alliance, so they direct him to the SoK they are secretly funding.

Antiga Prime Arc
Terran: The SOK lead rebellion efforts on Antiga Prime, but Mengsk's increasingly morally questionable methods lead many including Raynor to rethink their devotion to the cause.
Zerg: The zerg presence on Antiga Prime is initially minimal, but increases when the psi-emitters are detected. The zerg speculate on the reason why the terrans did so, noting inconsistencies in tactics between the emissions on the fringe worlds and those on Antiga Prime. The Confederacy begins deploying enslaved zerg, though their efforts are crude and ultimately fail. Mysterious protoss wearing unknown colors appear and cause problems for the zerg, managing to assassinate several cerebrates (not permadeath, just regular death since cerebrates are replaceable in this AU) and delaying the zerg's invasion.
Protoss: Tassadar is alarmed to discover that psi-emitters have been activated on Antiga Prime and suspects the Confederacy is responsible, as they did plan on using zerg against other terrans according to black-ops intel. Tassadar meets Zeratul and they find common cause protecting the terrans, but Tassadar does not disclose this to Aldaris. The schism between the Akilae and Ara factions erupts into open violence. Antiga Prime is incinerated after Tassadar openly allies with the SoK.

Tarsonis Arc:
Terran: Magistrate, Raynor and Kerry are horrified by the destruction of Antiga Prime and try to reason with Mengsk numerous times. Mengsk later leaves them to die at the hands of the zerg.
Zerg: the zerg capture the ghost academy and infest the trainees, one of which is Raynor's supposedly dead son John. They capture Kerry and take their prizes to Char and other hive worlds (as they have been doing the entire time), not knowing they are being followed by the tal'darim cultist Ulrezaj.
Protoss: Tassadar and Zeratul are disgusted to discover that the SoK planted the psi-emitters on Antiga Prime and Tarsonis, provoking them to break off their alliance and help the Confederacy to avoid total government collapse. The Confederacy reorganizes as a client state of the Dominion, along with UP and KMC. Aldaris learns that Tassadar was colluding with the heretics and sends an inquisition led by Tassadar's battle brother Artanis (who is of age with Tass here, not half his age as in canon).

Or something along those lines.

There’s a bunch of background lore that doesn’t get touched on all the time. Who cares? The decision to save terrans by Tassadar was still a factor in the game though. What is your point? What does any of this have to do with asspull factions? Nice non-sequitur.

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Originally Posted by Gradius

There’s a bunch of background lore that doesn’t get touched on all the time. Who cares? The decision to save terrans by Tassadar was still a factor in the game though. What is your point? What does any of this have to do with asspull factions? Nice non-sequitur.

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There was no reason to introduce new factions when the existing ones covered all our bases. Reading the manual in isolation gives me all sorts of expectations about how the various plot threads introduced there will play out. It is perfectly reasonable to predict that Kerry and Tassadar will team up judging by their sparse bios and the open-ended nature of the manual.

I would expect something like the earlier seasons of Game of Thrones in space, but the game consistently failed to meet my expectations and turned all those interesting plot threads into footnotes at best. Umoja and Moria were single mission objectives at the best of times, while the UPL was pulled out of the woodwork and retconned into a sympathetic parody of itself. The broods and tribes were barely mentioned (if at all) despite the pages allocated to them in the manual.

There is this thing called the "law of conservation of detail." In short, writers should not introduce details that will never play a role in the story. If the pirate militias, zerg broods and protoss tribes will never play a role in the story, then they never should have existed in the first place. But they do exist and their storytelling potential is vastly more interesting than anything Metzen crapped out. Hell, Metzen makes the Kerry/zergling erotic fanfiction looks like Shakespeare.

Or, tl;dr, I am pissed off and bitter that Metzen wasted my time with all this fascinating lore only for the actual game to throw it in the garbage then go off on wildly unrelated tangents that had nothing to do with what attracted me to the franchise in the first place.

It’s a background lore manual... What are you also mad that the game didn’t talk about random unit lore as well? :confused:

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Originally Posted by Gradius

It’s a background lore manual... What are you also mad that the game didn’t talk about random unit lore as well? :confused:

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We got short stories about an Overlord seeking revenge and an Infestor brainwashing a marine. That's more than we got about the pirate militias, tribes and broods combined.

Do you genuinely not care that the Starcraft story is a far cry from what it could have been in some idealized alternate universe or are you so utterly desensitized that you only come here out of morbid curiosity?

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Originally Posted by Mislagnissa

Reading the manual in isolation gives me all sorts of expectations about how the various plot threads introduced there will play out.

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Originally Posted by Mislagnissa

I would expect something like the earlier seasons of Game of Thrones in space, but the game consistently failed to meet my expectations and turned all those interesting plot threads into footnotes at best.

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Think I found your problem. Curb your enthusiasm, dude. ;)

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Originally Posted by Mislagnissa

There is this thing called the "law of conservation of detail." In short, writers should not introduce details that will never play a role in the story.

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I disagree that this should be a universal law for story writing. This "fluff" contributes to world-building and it serves to give one an illusion of depth to what is really just a made-up world. They don't all have to be part of or included in the main focus of a story, but they enrich the world/universe the story is set in. Good fiction is about selling you the concept that the universe they present could exist within certain parameters.

Case in point, is the manual for the game Homeworld. It goes into painstaking and lengthy detail about all the history, peoples and factions on Kharak but none of it is required to enjoy or understand the story it presents. Why is it even there then, you ask? Well, I don't want to spoil it if you haven't played it but once you reach the third mission, the enormity of the feels you get is magnified 10-fold if you've read the manual.

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Do you genuinely not care that the Starcraft story is a far cry from what it could have been in some idealized alternate universe or are you so utterly desensitized that you only come here out of morbid curiosity?

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Jesus man, you don't get it. It's simple: we like the game. What you think would make it better is your opinion. It's not fact, it's an opinion. Why do you try to force it on everyone? You can share it, that's what this place is for, but you have to stop with the drama...

After having a bunch of pointless arguments about the determinant and the Overmind's knowledge of Aiur's location, I decided to open up a third thread for my favorite alternate universe Enumerate. To start off, Enumerate is an AU bible for Starcraft which more or less ignores the plot of the games in order to create a sandbox for custom campaigns. The advertised divergences include: no Kerry, no xel'naga, no UED and Tassadar lives. Links to the relevant materials are in my sig.

There are many other divergences which draw from the original manual.

• The protoss hold a huge galactic empire
• The Overmind knows the location of the protoss home world
• The zerg cannot effectively fight the protoss without the determinant
• The determinant results in many zerg breeds with human core genus

For the most part I adore Enumerate, but it still has a few flaws IMO. The major flaw I will note is that it adheres to the overall structure of canon events even when this makes no sense.

• Example: the zerg and protoss withdrawing after the fall of Tarsonis. This only happened in canon because Metzen needed it to for the story he was trying to tell, but it is detrimental to the story Enumerate is trying to tell. The reason for this isn't ever explained in EN.
• Example: the Ara/Akilae schism not playing a role during the Koprulu conflict, despite foreshadowing in the manual. This suggested that the protoss would fight a civil war, ally with the terrans (e.g. Umoja who tried to make contact in the past), dark templar ally with terrans, or any number of other possibilities. For a setting based on the original manual, this is a surprising oversight.
• Example: the dark templar having a deus ex machina that kill broods. This plot point was only introduced by Metzen in the game because he had rewritten the protoss into wimps doomed to lose against the zerg, when in the manual (and thus Enumerate) the zerg only just stand a chance with the determinant against the protoss' galactic empire. There is no reason for the dark templar to have that deus ex machina or for cerebrates to have instant resurrection. Retribution provides an example of how the plot could work without those.

There are minor flaws here and there with less effect on the broad strokes.

• For example, Enumerate misunderstands the KMC as a powerful government when it became a client of the Confederacy after the Guild Wars. Even if this is an intentional change (which isn't mention in EN), it seems unnecessary as I thought the KMC made more sense as trying to reclaim their territory from the Confederacy using the Great War as an opportunity.
• EN also soundly ignores the units and factions introduced in SC2, even when this isn't necessary. There's no reason to avoid using any of the units introduced in SC2 alongside those from SC1, or to rewrite the zerg queens so they don't have a command role (this goes back to gameplay and story segregation). While it makes no sense to add primal zerg when the regular zerg already do the same thing, the tal'darim make perfect sense as a nerazim branch or something.

Feel free to chime in with your thoughts, critiques and others.

Wait? No Xel'Naga? Even the awesome star-faring scientists of the manual? Nrrrgghhhh

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Originally Posted by Gradius

Sure. Enumerate is nice and would be nice to have.

Now what?

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Is there something more specific you would like to talk about? Any criticisms, sudden inspirations?

I gave a few critiques of Enumerate myself, such as what to remove or what could be added.

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Originally Posted by TheEconomist

Wait? No Xel'Naga? Even the awesome star-faring scientists of the manual? Nrrrgghhhh

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I gave the wrong impression. The extragalactic scientists who died a bazillion years ago are still in the backstory. You can read all about it in the links I gave.

Eh, Brood war seems pretty "fly by the seat of your pants" to me other than the Kerrigan is now a god tier strategist stuff.

I also agree with Mislagnissa that the sense of scale diminished (especially in the Protoss BW campaign where its almost entirely about a treasure hunt)

Even in Kerrigan's campaign she has like 3 different filler missions

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Originally Posted by KaiserStratosTygo

Eh, Brood war seems pretty "fly by the seat of your pants" to me other than the Kerrigan is now a god tier strategist stuff.

I also agree with Mislagnissa that the sense of scale diminished (especially in the Protoss BW campaign where its almost entirely about a treasure hunt)

Even in Kerrigan's campaign she has like 3 different filler missions

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The treasure hunt was vital. Remember what Zeratul said, that even if killing all the zerg on Shakuras would help Kerrigan's agenda, it was still their only chance of survival.

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Originally Posted by sandwich_bird

Jesus man, you don't get it. It's simple: we like the game. What you think would make it better is your opinion. It's not fact, it's an opinion. Why do you try to force it on everyone? You can share it, that's what this place is for, but you have to stop with the drama...

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I certainly try to do what you suggest, but nobody is interested in discussing it. People here only seem to be interested in discussing canon, mostly to complain and criticize it. Nobody seems to be interested in genuinely constructive discussion.

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Originally Posted by ragnarok

The treasure hunt was vital. Remember what Zeratul said, that even if killing all the zerg on Shakuras would help Kerrigan's agenda, it was still their only chance of survival.

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The xel'naga temple on Shakuras is a blatant plot device that does not even pretend to make any sense. How do they know that the temple will kill the zerg? How did they know where the control crystals were? Why were there control crystals in the first place? Why were the crystals stolen? Why could they not be replaced?

An identical but much more sensible plot device would be the Dakaran superweapon from Stargate SG-1. While it is a blatant plot device to stop an overpowered villain, it actually has a valid reason to exist on its own and to do the things it does. The "superweapon" was a simple terraforming device, so it can be modulated to destroy specific forms of life but not others. The difficulty was in calibrating it so that the bad guys would be destroyed but not everyone else, and figuring out a way to ensure it would extend to cover the entire galaxy. It also reappeared in later episodes whenever a villain wanted to kill everyone until it was destroyed by another group of villains to prevent it from being used that way again.

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Originally Posted by Mislagnissa

People here only seem to be interested in discussing canon, mostly to complain and criticize it.

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I think you've done most of the complaining and hard criticising. I've been in plenty of discussions here with others about "canon" without resorting to complaining and hard criticism.

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Originally Posted by Mislagnissa

Nobody seems to be interested in genuinely constructive discussion about Enumerate

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Fixed for ya. You only consider it "genuinely constructive discussion" when it pertains to Enumerate and not anything to do with the Sc games.

Besides, there's not much to talk about anymore since all that there was to talk about Sc happened ages ago and that Sc2 doesn't really inspire one to talk about it for long before one quickly realises how inane such discussions get. It's why this forum's quiet.

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Originally Posted by Turalyon

Fixed for ya. You only consider it "genuinely constructive discussion" when it pertains to Enumerate and not anything to do with the Sc games.

Besides, there's not much to talk about anymore since all that there was to talk about Sc happened ages ago and that Sc2 doesn't really inspire one to talk about it for long before one quickly realises how inane such discussions get. It's why this forum's quiet.

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That is precisely why I think Enumerate is the only constructive avenue of discussion. Starcraft suffered from the writers writing each entry as a self-contained story and making up the overarching plot as they went along. Enumerate plans ahead to outline a galactic war as a sandbox for self-contained stories.

Since nobody is interested in following my actual thread dedicated to enumerate, I will just recap myself here. The only contention I had with enumerate was that it completely ignored the SC2 tech trees despite ostensibly being intended for the SC2 engine, ignores the tal'darim even though evil dark templar is a perfectly functional idea (just look at Ulrezaj), forgot a few plot points from the manual that could have been explored (umojan/protoss alliance, ara/akilae schism), and kept plot points that weren't necessary anymore (cerebrate invulnerability).

Aside from that the only problems I could see coming up would be that the timeline ends when the Overmind returns and doesn't really explore the galaxy outside the context of the Great War, although those are quite minor since it already hits all the high points most people would be interest in anyway.

But if I had to continue that line of thought, I'd use the custom campaigns Annihilation and Ignos as my examples. Both take place outside Koprulu so they could tell their own stories without worrying about Amon and crap (although they still contradict canon even then). Both focus on independent protoss tribes that follow the Khala yet employ Nerazim (i.e. they use the SC2 protoss "daelaam" tech tree). Both include independent broods of zerg, like the Daggerfang brood who were minding their own business before evil terrans arrived to enslave them and the primal zerg hordes that are inexplicably present on planets once trod by the xel'naga or something.

Trying to explain these in the context of enumerate is actually quite easy. The pseudo-daelaam are schismatics who accepted the Khala in concept but refused to force nonbelievers to submit to the Khala's Law and left the Empire in disgust, or even date to the Aeon of Strife (the concept of protoss schismatics who aren't nerazim is fairly common in custom campaigns dating back to BW's release, such as the Flame Knives and the Kharnikhan Empire). The daggerfang brood are part of the zerg swarm that wasn't assigned to fight the Koprulu War yet, since the zerg are a galactic civilization. The primal zerg encountered on the abandoned worlds are descended from zerg who were lost and forgotten (equivalent to the "forgotten fleets" of Tyranids in Warhammer 40k).

In fact, primal zerg can be introduced into enumerate as the degenerate descendants of the real zerg (the opposite of their canon origin, but one which explains why they would show up wherever the plot requires) or as engineered metamorphs, if it ever becomes necessary to include them. I honestly don't see the appeal since the real zerg do everything better, so they pretty much have to be combined with the metamorph concept to make sense. Metamorphs are a concept dropped from SC2's development which generated their own mutations by eating people without those mutations, even though that makes no sense. I would reinterpret the concept as metamorphs being derived from defilers, which have re-purposed their "cancer factories" (the lore literally calls them that) to replicate the armaments of other breeds.

But I digress... I believe that if people gave it chance, enumerate could inspire new and interesting discussions.

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Originally Posted by Mislagnissa

Starcraft suffered from the writers writing each entry as a self-contained story and making up the overarching plot as they went along. Enumerate plans ahead to outline a galactic war as a sandbox for self-contained stories.

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Meh, all fictional stories are "made up as they went along", it's only just a matter of how well that aspect is taken advantage of or disguised. At the least, Starcraft 1 has a compelling story and dared to shake its status quo as that story progressed. Enumerate has nothing of the sort and is just another version of the manual/initial setup really. Hypothetically, any stories written from this alternate setup are not guaranteed to be any better/different/less "made up" than what we already have with the current setup.

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Originally Posted by Turalyon

Meh, all fictional stories are "made up as they went along", it's only just a matter of how well that aspect is taken advantage of or disguised. At the least, Starcraft 1 has a compelling story and dared to shake its status quo as that story progressed. Enumerate has nothing of the sort and is just another version of the manual/initial setup really.

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Yes. So is every canon game because they rehash the same plot with the names changed. Enumerate was never intended to be a story itself, it was intended to be a sandbox for other people's stories. We had this argument already, I fail to see why this is a problem, and I do not understand why you keep forgetting this because I say it pretty much every single time this comes up.

While Rebel Yell has a fairly decent if rushed story, the zerg and protoss campaigns declined dramatically in quality. The status quo remained unchanged across the games because they rehash the exact same plot of terrans ineffectually rebelling against oppression, zerg slave masters trying to eat everyone while claiming to hold the moral high ground, and protoss doing melodramatic line readings while the zerg whoop their pansy asses before they pull a deus ex machina out of said asses. The entire time the aliens play second fiddle to terrans, ultimately being enslaved by terrans or effectively becoming funny looking terrans themselves.

The benefit of Enumerate is that it recognizes this and seeks to improve rather than remaining painfully oblivious and repetitive. Since the canon endlessly rehashes the same plot, Enumerate just condenses all those into a couple of arcs to avoid being repetitive, with each arc shaking up the status quo of the previous by redrawing the political landscape. It stops at the point where not-Amon/Second Overmind shows up because there is no way to continue without feeling repetitive.

In fact, the author complained that he found the protoss painfully bland and used that as the reason why the protoss are underutilized in the timeline (relatively speaking, since they are vastly over-utilized compared to canon). I think that does the protoss a disservice, but I admire the honesty.

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Originally Posted by Turalyon

Hypothetically, any stories written from this alternate setup are not guaranteed to be any better/different/less "made up" than what we already have with the current setup.

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I have only ever seen evidence to the contrary. All of the best custom campaigns about the zerg and protoss, what few exist since most are about terrans for obvious reasons, have been those which contradicted canon to give them their own initiative. Unsurprisingly, they behave exactly as I expect they would under Enumerate.

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Originally Posted by Mislagnissa

Yes. So is every canon game because they rehash the same plot with the names changed. Enumerate was never intended to be a story itself, it was intended to be a sandbox for other people's stories. We had this argument already, I fail to see why this is a problem, and I do not understand why you keep forgetting this because I say it pretty much every single time this comes up.

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I say this because Sc1's story is Ok/fine/serviceable and in-line with the initial setup in the manual. You're the only one that says it isn't.

Enumerate being a "sandbox for other peoples stories" is not really necessary since we already have that in the form of the original manual. If one didn't like Sc1's story (which really is what your position boils down to at the end of the day), they don't need to go to Enumerate to rewrite their own fanon version, they can just use the manual to interpret it any way they want and focus on the parts they're interested in to make their own story.

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Originally Posted by Mislagnissa

While Rebel Yell has a fairly decent if rushed story, the zerg and protoss campaigns declined dramatically in quality.

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What flaws that are present in the writing can be isolated solely at the structural level (eg: plotting, pacing etc) and has nothing to do with the contextual setup of the story.

I'm getting pretty sick of how every thread is devolving into a discussion of Enumerate. Let's make this clear: Mislag is the only one who cares, Enumerate is not the "only constructive avenue of discussion", and rebooting the franchise can mean any number of things, dependent only on the creativity of the person doing the rebooting.

I think the series should be "rebooted" in the sense that there should be a sort of time reversal. As in, Starcraft:Ghost should have come out or else there should have been a second expansion set to settle certain story points and allow the franchise to continue unimpeded by them. Probably both. Raynor should step down from a major character to a side character, Kerrigan should either die or be somehow otherwise taken out of the plot (maybe turned into a fully-Zergified cerebrate with less independence?), Zeratul should come into focus for seeking answers about the Xel'Naga (who should in turn remain mysterious for an indefinite amount of time) and be encountered at certain points. Artie should become more prominent, but because he is so young and inexperienced, older Protoss should join him in prominent roles for the Protoss side of things.

Mengsk should live. If Valerian, or any other child of Mengsk, exists, then they should exist either as rivals or try to diminish and hide their association with him. At no point should Mengsk be replaced, even if he is killed. If he is killed, the Dominion should either dissolve, or have a form of government other than a general monarchy/tyranny. Mengsk's value as a character hinges on the fact that he knows things and has a proper buildup. No character should come up as a major villain without comparable buildup to Mengsk.

There should also be more Zerg characters. Given that the Overmind could have been brought back, it should likewise be possible to bring back the cerebrates, given that not all of them were killed by the DT -- it may also be possible to generate a new cerebrate. Other than this, certain humans might be infestible to create new characters, or possibly animals infested to become sentient characters.

I could go on, but I got stuff to do.

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Originally Posted by Turalyon

I say this because Sc1's story is Ok/fine/serviceable and in-line with the initial setup in the manual. You're the only one that says it isn't.

Enumerate being a "sandbox for other peoples stories" is not really necessary since we already have that in the form of the original manual. If one didn't like Sc1's story (which really is what your position boils down to at the end of the day), they don't need to go to Enumerate to rewrite their own fanon version, they can just use the manual to interpret it any way they want and focus on the parts they're interested in to make their own story.

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If I tried that I would only end up recreating enumerate. It is simply that good.

This all kind of makes me wish I had the budget for making a full SC1 reboot.

I'm sure Misla wishes this too but we've heard plenty from him about this. Sounds like you got some ideas though. How would you reboot Sc1 if you did have the budget, Grad? Would you rewrite things that have already happened (like Misla would), make a tangential story that occurs at the same time of the Sc1 events but that don't conflict with it or set it up in the future/past Sc1/Sc2 events?

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Originally Posted by Gradius

This all kind of makes me wish I had the budget for making a full SC1 reboot.

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Join the club.

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Originally Posted by Turalyon

I'm sure Misla wishes this too but we've heard plenty from him about this. Sounds like you got some ideas though. How would you reboot Sc1 if you did have the budget, Grad? Would you rewrite things that have already happened (like Misla would), make a tangential story that occurs at the same time of the Sc1 events but that don't conflict with it or set it up in the future/past Sc1/Sc2 events?

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- Full reboot, covering only SC1 events.
- I'd have a combination of rewriting things that happened and keeping them but basically cover the same events.
- No "lost Earth" tropes. Earth and the Terran colonies communicate and have the same level of tech, but Earth is just really far away.
- Just straight up more characters and planets. More Protoss empire stuff. More Terran Generals, and finally exploring Moria and Umoja. More zerg cerebrates.
- I'd keep several SC2 units and characters at my discretion.
- The zerg campaign would need new characters and just have more stuff going on. I'd like to see the invasion of ancillary protoss and terran worlds and other sub-plots.
- Raynor needs to gather the Umojans and Kel-Morians and have them fight on Aiur.
- Infested Kerrigan needs to be a weakling compared to the protoss and lead an infested army instead.

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Originally Posted by Gradius

This all kind of makes me wish I had the budget for making a full SC1 reboot.

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My pie-in the sky dream is to make enough money to be able to bankroll my own SC1-style RTS ... maybe some day ..

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Originally Posted by Gradius

- No "lost Earth" tropes. Earth and the Terran colonies communicate and have the same level of tech, but Earth is just really far away.

...and finally exploring Moria and Umoja.

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This one's an interesting change. What level and sort of communication would this entail? Are the K-sector Terrans still outcasts/scum of the Earth that were thrown away like they were originally depicted? If they communicate and are of the same tech level, are we to assume they're all still actually UPL? If they are all still collectively "Earth", how would you reckon/justify the initial formation of the Confederacy, KMC and UP when the supercarriers first entered the K sector?

I suppose you could still have the K-sector Terrans still be part of Earth up until the big Sc1 war starts and then communications to Earth break down or the K-sector Terrans collectively stop communicating. This could then justify the original story arc of Mengsk trying to take control still taking place (he'd still start off being a rebel but against the Earths control of the K-sector colonies and not the Confederacy for example) and open the way for the creation/exploration of these other factions (like Moria and Umoja) due to having lost communication to Earth. It would even justify Earth sending a force to investigate only to arrive after the events of Sc1 finished (ala BW with the UED).

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- Raynor needs to gather the Umojans and Kel-Morians and have them fight on Aiur.

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I think the Protoss would not be okay with this. If you meant that Raynor's followers should be from these worlds, sure, but a large army of humans on the Protoss homeworld would probably make the 'Toss less than happy.

But I think your Kerrigan idea is good. It seems like it would tie-in better with the Overmind's hypothetical intentions. Like she's supposed to be someone who will help transition humans into the swarm, but with the Overmind's death, she basically gets her own army.

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Originally Posted by Turalyon

This one's an interesting change. What level and sort of communication would this entail? Are the K-sector Terrans still outcasts/scum of the Earth that were thrown away like they were originally depicted? If they communicate and are of the same tech level, are we to assume they're all still actually UPL? If they are all still collectively "Earth", how would you reckon/justify the initial formation of the Confederacy, KMC and UP when the supercarriers first entered the K sector?

I suppose you could still have the K-sector Terrans still be part of Earth up until the big Sc1 war starts and then communications to Earth break down or the K-sector Terrans collectively stop communicating. This could then justify the original story arc of Mengsk trying to take control still taking place (he'd still start off being a rebel but against the Earths control of the K-sector colonies and not the Confederacy for example) and open the way for the creation/exploration of these other factions (like Moria and Umoja) due to having lost communication to Earth. It would even justify Earth sending a force to investigate only to arrive after the events of Sc1 finished (ala BW with the UED).

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I was thinking more that the Koprulu Terrans are analogous to the lawless Terminus Systems from Mass Effect (still outcasts/scum, yes) and that Earth has its own problems and is far away enough that they don't really care what Koprulu Terrans are doing.

I also just want there to be more terran sectors period, maybe from colonization ships or UPL colonies. When Schezar said "I'll leave this blasted sector for good" in Enslavers it didn't really make much sense because it's like...where the hell's he gonna go? Back to Earth?

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Originally Posted by Nissa

I think the Protoss would not be okay with this. If you meant that Raynor's followers should be from these worlds, sure, but a large army of humans on the Protoss homeworld would probably make the 'Toss less than happy.

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They're on the brink of annihilation and would be stupid to refuse help. Especially Tassadar who's more open-minded. What the Judicator think doesn't matter at that point.

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Originally Posted by Gradius

- Infested Kerrigan needs to be a weakling compared to the protoss and lead an infested army instead.

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Why propose this? Wasn't the whole point of Infested Kerrigan was her being a powerful entity?

I do not find Raynor and Kerry’s (and Tassadar’s) involvement as larger than life fantasy heroes believable in a grim and gritty scifi setting. They are believable as commanders on a single battlefield on a single planet out of countless, but not galactic scale legendary heroes.

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Originally Posted by DonnyZeDoof

Why propose this? Wasn't the whole point of Infested Kerrigan was her being a powerful entity?

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An infested human being a powerful entity is dumb when every other infested Terran is a driveling zombie. Plus what Mag said. Kerrigan is there to round out the Zerg cast and be a foil for celebrates, not to be some one woman army powerhouse.