How dead actually is Starcraft?

There's been a bunch of debates about this on youtube, and all that, and people seem to get really angry if you even suggest that Starcraft is dead. I've been under the impression that despite the fact some people still play it, and there's still contests going on, but how dead is it really? I know in terms of lore it's pretty much gone, mostly due to the fact that Blizzard didn't even try to make SC2 line up reasonably with its origin. But honestly, in terms of gameplay, was SC2 really a failure? If the story had been good or at least reasonable, would SC be more popular than it is right now?

When people say it's dead, I feel like they're comparing the player base to fortnite, DOTA, LoL, etc and come to the conclusion that Starcraft must be dead because it doesn't have the numbers that these games have. But lets objectively look at this:

-On twitch, there's an average of 7000 people watching SC2 in the last 90 days(https://sullygnome.com/games/90/watched). That means that, at any moment, there's 7000 people watching people play starcraft.

-According to this site (https://www.rankedftw.com/stats/popu...r=-2&sy=c&sx=a), there's around 200k 1v1 being played every day in the world.

-Here's a popular sc youtuber(https://www.kedoo.com/youtube/en/cha...6bRoj-5QRmqt_w). He has 2.8M monthly views.

I think it's safe to say that starcraft is alive and well. These stats are good, especially for a game that's almost 10 years old.

I don't think that having a good story would have significantly changed what happened. The thing about starcraft is that it's like a high quality buffet. You have too many good meals on the table for your dinner to be ruined by one plate. And to be honest, the reality is that there's very few people that dig deep into stories the way that we did. In fact, I think that regular gamers actually had a generally positive view of the story. If you look back at all the reviews from IGN and etc, everyone was praising it iirc (though there was complaints that it was cheesy). In other words, the plot was satisfactory for the rest of the world, there's just our little niche that is bitching about it.

I guess so. It's just...well, even years after Mega Man has put out a game, there's far more love going on for it, it seems like. Nowadays Starcraft feels like Warcraft's little brother. I was watching this video of Blizzard's top ten mistakes, and they didn't even mention Starcraft once. It's one thing for people to be
playing the game, but fan life takes on angles of its own, you know? Not to mention that there's no real excitement for the franchise's future anymore.

Thanks for the links, though. It's kind of hard to find objective stuff out there, and honestly, I'm kind of curious what kind of stats SC vanilla got back in the day. Not that Twitch was around back then.

I don't think there's any easy way to get old stats. Maybe if iCCup kept records it would give some indication but I couldn't find anything. What I remember from before the sc2 announcement though is that the sc fandom was weaker than it is right now or anyways that's how it felt to me. Like the post activity on blizzforums, teamliquid and the official forum during that time was weak. Even the competitive scene didn't have a huge reach. People were playing warcraft 3 and then of course WoW was the big thing so it definitely felt like SC was WC's little brother back then. More so when they killed SC:G. That's how I remember it anyways up until sc2 was announced.. then it blew out for a bit. Overall I'd say the SC fandom was strong from 1998 to maybe 2004 and then it went on life support until 2007.

As for excitement for the franchise, if anything, whenever I see a blizzard article on gaming sites, there's always a guy in the comments that asks for a SC MMO or a revival of SC:G. At the same time I get what you're saying. Honestly, I don't get why there's so much fan activities for Mega man comparatively. Or forget Mega man, how can there still be this many people into Final fantasy 8. It's not even a franchise, it's one game that's 20 years old but somehow there's more people drawing fanarts and writing fanfic for it than there is for starcraft. It's kinda interesting really. I guess Starcraft is just missing some critical elements to gather the kind of fan love you're referring to.

Starcraft is probably the most popular traditional RTS and it is a televised sport in South Korea. RTS in general isn't a very popular genre due to its learning curve.

The Starcraft story is hardly the worst video game story. Video game storytelling in general isn't very good, so Starcraft doesn't really stand out as particularly bad. Since most gamers expect bad stories, they don't really pay much attention to why it is bad.

However, since it isn't remotely good it doesn't attract the same kind of attention as Mega Man or Final Fantasy. Those games have healthier fandoms due to a combination of better writing, better character design, easier gameplay... oh screw it. The real reason is because those games have pretty boys for fangirls to obsess over. Most fanfiction and fanart is made by women. Women like pretty boys with angsty backstories. It's not rocket science. Starcraft's shitty writing and shallow characters don't attract the creative fans who look past the surface.

Although those of us criticizing the story have very different ideas of precisely where it went wrong. Most critics seem to think SC1/BW are perfect and SC2 was bad, but I'm in the minority of people who think the franchise was always poorly written. I could gone on for hours explaining why the writing was always poor and I have done so many times before. At this point I find it more constructive to write the plot of a reboot rather than keep complaining.

If you want Starcraft to have a healthy fandom, you need characters with actual depth and stories that aren't blatantly nonsensical. And that depth needs to be shown onscreen, not relegated to licensed fiction nobody reads.

Why do you think Game of Thrones has so much fanfiction? Because 1) its characters have more depth than a piece of plywood and 2) the story occurs organically as a result of the characters' actions rather than author fiat. Both of those criteria Starcraft utterly fails at every step of the way.

Remember how season 8 of GoT was the worst? Starcraft has been like that since the beginning. The quality has always been low so that most fans, being used to low quality, don't realize it could be so much more.

The same could be said for Warcraft. WC1 and WC2 are too vaguely sketched out to be criticized, but Warcraft 3 is where things started going wrong. In WC1/2, the factions act of their own accord. In WC3+, we have various plot devices that take control away from the characters. Over at Scrolls of Lore, Marthen has been working on a rewrite of Warcraft that makes it morally ambiguous and politically complicated (IIRC s/he's educated as a historian). Among other things, the Scourge is turned into an actual nation-state with citizens and whatnot, and the Burning Legion is changed to multiple unrelated demon armies that attempted to invade Azeroth over its history. In my opinion all the changes make Warcraft feel more believable.

I'd like to see more treatments like that for Starcraft. That is, an attempt to write the history of the Starcraft world as if you're a historian writing about a real world, rather than the hackneyed schlock crapped out by Metzen while he was dealing with his drug addiction and girlfriend issues. There's absolutely nothing about the Starcraft plot that feels like it could happen believably; that's how reliant it is on nonsensical plot devices and everyone acting like idiots.

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Originally Posted by sandwich_bird

I don't think there's any easy way to get old stats. Maybe if iCCup kept records it would give some indication but I couldn't find anything. What I remember from before the sc2 announcement though is that the sc fandom was weaker than it is right now or anyways that's how it felt to me. Like the post activity on blizzforums, teamliquid and the official forum during that time was weak. Even the competitive scene didn't have a huge reach. People were playing warcraft 3 and then of course WoW was the big thing so it definitely felt like SC was WC's little brother back then. More so when they killed SC:G. That's how I remember it anyways up until sc2 was announced.. then it blew out for a bit. Overall I'd say the SC fandom was strong from 1998 to maybe 2004 and then it went on life support until 2007.

As for excitement for the franchise, if anything, whenever I see a blizzard article on gaming sites, there's always a guy in the comments that asks for a SC MMO or a revival of SC:G. At the same time I get what you're saying. Honestly, I don't get why there's so much fan activities for Mega man comparatively. Or forget Mega man, how can there still be this many people into Final fantasy 8. It's not even a franchise, it's one game that's 20 years old but somehow there's more people drawing fanarts and writing fanfic for it than there is for starcraft. It's kinda interesting really. I guess Starcraft is just missing some critical elements to gather the kind of fan love you're referring to.

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I'd always remembered the SC community as fairly okay before SC2's announcement, but that may have been because I hung out at Blizzforums, and the Warcraft/Diablo crowds there would hang out in Chit Chat and such. Likewise, at fanfiction.net it seemed like the writers there were reasonably good for fanfic level writers, rather than the pairings we've been getting for a while.

I know this is going to sound narrow, but even if we don't see it right now, the utter oblivion of SC2's story means that there's nowhere really to go. Starcraft had good gameplay before SC2 (and I'm told that SC2 plays reasonably well) so absent of any real gameplay innovation, a sequel was never necessary. The only thing that really required closure was the story. That's probably why they went with SC:G rather than SC2 at first, because BW ends with no real reason for humans to fight Protoss, no reason for Protoss to fight anyone, and the Zerg weakened by Kerrigan's constant fights and the loss of the cerebrates/2nd overmind. Thus, any real fighting would have to be done on a far smaller, not RTS scale.

After SC/BW, there was so much potential in every direction, in terms of the hybrids, Duran, Duran's masters, Kerrigan's intentions, Light+Dark Protoss potential, human political turmoil...but it all got squandered. This story potential could have served for many different styles of game, but now...I just don't know where to go.

People still play it for the gameplay, but eventually it's just going to fade out.

In summary: "Starcraft" as a game is fine and will keep on going, because it's primarily known as a game. "Starcraft" in terms of story and lore? ... Not so much.

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Originally Posted by Nissa

I'd always remembered the SC community as fairly okay before SC2's announcement, but that may have been because I hung out at Blizzforums, and the Warcraft/Diablo crowds there would hang out in Chit Chat and such. Likewise, at fanfiction.net it seemed like the writers there were reasonably good for fanfic level writers, rather than the pairings we've been getting for a while.

I know this is going to sound narrow, but even if we don't see it right now, the utter oblivion of SC2's story means that there's nowhere really to go. Starcraft had good gameplay before SC2 (and I'm told that SC2 plays reasonably well) so absent of any real gameplay innovation, a sequel was never necessary. The only thing that really required closure was the story. That's probably why they went with SC:G rather than SC2 at first, because BW ends with no real reason for humans to fight Protoss, no reason for Protoss to fight anyone, and the Zerg weakened by Kerrigan's constant fights and the loss of the cerebrates/2nd overmind. Thus, any real fighting would have to be done on a far smaller, not RTS scale.

After SC/BW, there was so much potential in every direction, in terms of the hybrids, Duran, Duran's masters, Kerrigan's intentions, Light+Dark Protoss potential, human political turmoil...but it all got squandered. This story potential could have served for many different styles of game, but now...I just don't know where to go.

People still play it for the gameplay, but eventually it's just going to fade out.

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I think you are 1) blinded by nostalgia and 2) in love with the idea of what Starcraft could be rather than what it is and what Blizzard can do with it. #2 is true for me too. Boy is it ever.

Considering Blizzard's track record (just look at every game story they've written, this isn't rocket science), it is highly unlikely that your proposed Brood War II would have been better than the Starcraft II that we got. If it was released fairly shortly after BW, your nostalgia would probably blind you to its extreme storytelling flaws just as you are blinded to the extreme storytelling flaws of SC/BW.

I don't believe there was much story potential after BW's downer ending, at least not without feeling like a cop-out. Of course, that would be perfectly in keeping with SC/BW's bad writing overall. Pretty much every key plot point is a cop-out.

The writing of Starcraft II isn't really much worse than that of SC/BW. It just has way more opportunities to show off how bad the writing is by virtue of having a much larger canvas to work with.

The plot of SC/BW is presented as episodic dialogues by low-res talking heads. Because there isn't really that much for a player to engage with, it is very easy to miss the problems with the story. Especially if the player is a minor, since minors are hardly known for their skill at literary criticism. And it's a video game story, which as a medium has extremely low standards by default.

SC2 came out over a decade after SC1 and technology had matured radically in that time. So had the kids who played SC1, so had their tastes. SC2 wasn't protected by nostalgia goggles and it had vastly more audiovisual engagement, so returning players got the full blast of Blizzard's bad writing in gorgeous high-definition.

I mean, I personally admire your dedication but I feel like you're shooting yourself in the foot by refusing to recognize Starcraft's flaws. I can point them out for you if you like in a short essay or something.

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Originally Posted by Turalyon

In summary: "Starcraft" as a game is fine and will keep on going, because it's primarily known as a game. "Starcraft" in terms of story and lore? ... Not so much.

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I can't wait until the next Starcraft game comes out and butchers the lore even worse like what Blizzard did to Warcraft. I'm holding out hope that an increasingly awful story will convince more bitter fans to engage with me when I propose rebooting the story to give it better writing, rather than just constantly regurgitating impossible fantasies of Blizzard writing an alternate timeline that caters to the vague demands for better writing that Blizzard has consistently shown they are incapable of providing no matter how much money they invest.

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Originally Posted by Mislagnissa

I can't wait until the next Starcraft game comes out and butchers the lore even worse like what Blizzard did to Warcraft.

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Eh, it can't be any worse after Sc2 since those that hated it already or don't care for it will just ignore it. The next story will only cater/matter to the existing fanboys.

It's safe to say that, if there's a plot at all in the next game, it will be bad. Giving the narrative less exposition is probably the best thing they could do for the story itself. Misla is spot-on on that one. What made the older Blizzard stories good, was their more subtle nature. A return to form would do wonder. That's not to say that they need to go back to talking portraits but instead to let the players figure it out more often.

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Originally Posted by sandwich_bird

It's safe to say that, if there's a plot at all in the next game, it will be bad. Giving the narrative less exposition is probably the best thing they could do for the story itself. Misla is spot-on on that one. What made the older Blizzard stories good, was their more subtle nature. A return to form would do wonder. That's not to say that they need to go back to talking portraits but instead to let the players figure it out more often.

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I doubt that would fix it. Even affording the benefit of the doubt to SC1, the key plot points still don't make sense due to Metzen constantly rewriting them and making things up on the fly.

Based on the manual's presentation of the backstory, you would expect the zerg to start invading planets and abducting people by the millions in order to process their genomes for the rare psychic mutations. This never happens in the game. Instead, the zerg mindlessly follow the psi-emitter plot device and effortlessly steamroll all opposition despite the manual stating they are at an extreme disadvantage.

The manual doesn't give a clear timetable for the zerg's invasion so it's easy to assume they could deal with the terrans fairly easily, but the novels contradict that by presenting the terrans as a credible threat to the degree that the zerg invaded subtly up until the Confederacy somehow pissed them off by deploying psi-emitters. There's some plot holes there because it isn't explained 1) why the zerg would be mindlessly attracted to psi-emitters despite their intelligence and their own usage of psychic beacons to lure prey and their purpose in the sector being to harvest psychic mutants, nor 2) where they get the extra forces that seemingly come out of nowhere to invade the frontier after psi-emitter deployment.

Metzen's execution simply isn't satisfying, not compared to the story I can devise myself based on the manual's setup.

Does anyone aside from the hardcore geeks, really sweat or care about the exact plot points/plotting? It's never going to be fully immune against fridge logic and I don't think that any of that is what made Sc memorable anyway.

It's clear that Sc's narrative is really about plotting, such that even the character development you do see is slaved to the plot (Sc2 is especially egregious of this even despite being more "character focused" since it's all in service of some grander plot). So until someone can write a believable and relatable character within the confines of that universes setup and without some overarching plot, it's still going to reek of artifice. It's also the reason why I find the smaller and unrelated short stories set within the universe more interesting than any of the mainline stuff we've had or potentially going to get in the future.

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Originally Posted by Turalyon

Does anyone aside from the hardcore geeks, really sweat or care about the exact plot points/plotting? It's never going to be fully immune against fridge logic and I don't think that any of that is what made Sc memorable anyway.

It's clear that Sc's narrative is really about plotting, such that even the character development you do see is slaved to the plot (Sc2 is especially egregious of this even despite being more "character focused" since it's all in service of some grander plot). So until someone can write a believable and relatable character within the confines of that universes setup and without some overarching plot, it's still going to reek of artifice. It's also the reason why I find the smaller and unrelated short stories set within the universe more interesting than any of the mainline stuff we've had or potentially going to get in the future.

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I have two things to say about that:

Firstly, the canon plot is stupid. In earlier drafts, like the manual, the key plot points made sense and served as a decent basis for telling stories. Then stupidity like Raynor, Queen of Blades and Amon took over the plot at the expense of good writing and internal consistency. It simply isn't possible to tell a good story period without throwing those characters in the garbage where they belong.

Secondly, the first contact war could totally support a character-driven war narrative a la Game of Thrones. The sheer scale means that there are few stories you could NOT tell. It steps on the toes of Warhammer 40,000 in that regard. The alien cultures of the protoss and zerg have so much room for exploration.

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Originally Posted by Turalyon

Does anyone aside from the hardcore geeks, really sweat or care about the exact plot points/plotting? It's never going to be fully immune against fridge logic and I don't think that any of that is what made Sc memorable anyway.

It's clear that Sc's narrative is really about plotting, such that even the character development you do see is slaved to the plot (Sc2 is especially egregious of this even despite being more "character focused" since it's all in service of some grander plot). So until someone can write a believable and relatable character within the confines of that universes setup and without some overarching plot, it's still going to reek of artifice. It's also the reason why I find the smaller and unrelated short stories set within the universe more interesting than any of the mainline stuff we've had or potentially going to get in the future.

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That was my particular problem with the SC novels. They didn't work most of the time for that reason (that and their narrative is really bad). Liberty's Crusade was just a retelling of story we already knew with no new angles besides a fanfiction protagonist, Shadow of the Xel'Naga forced everybody in when it would have worked better as a matter of locals, the "Dark Templar" trilogy forced everybody in when it should have just been a Protoss story, etc. That's why my favorite of the novels is SCG: Nova, because it's very narrow in setting and primarily concerns one person -- not that it's actually good, it's just better than the others.

Yeah, I guess the problems started when SC:Ghost was cancelled. Having a game like that would have fleshed out the Umojans and the Morians, who to this day aren't even up to the level of set dressing.

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Originally Posted by Nissa

That was my particular problem with the SC novels. They didn't work most of the time for that reason (that and their narrative is really bad). Liberty's Crusade was just a retelling of story we already knew with no new angles besides a fanfiction protagonist, Shadow of the Xel'Naga forced everybody in when it would have worked better as a matter of locals, the "Dark Templar" trilogy forced everybody in when it should have just been a Protoss story, etc. That's why my favorite of the novels is SCG: Nova, because it's very narrow in setting and primarily concerns one person -- not that it's actually good, it's just better than the others.

Yeah, I guess the problems started when SC:Ghost was cancelled. Having a game like that would have fleshed out the Umojans and the Morians, who to this day aren't even up to the level of set dressing.

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To this day I still don't understand just WHY Blizzard cancelled Ghost.

I found Liberty's Crusade meh, the only thing that book gave was a little more view in Michael Liberty, but it was a shame they didn't try to follow it up with future books. He was briefly mentioned again in Spectres, but that didn't really count.

The DT Saga was better because it explained more protoss history, but I can see why you rejected this because of the SC2 lore.

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Originally Posted by Mislagnissa

Firstly, the canon plot is stupid. In earlier drafts, like the manual, the key plot points made sense and served as a decent basis for telling stories.

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Well, the point I was trying to make was that even the plot in the manual/earlier drafts are kinda stupid, too, in a way, since it's all a contrived setup. The details of that setup or whatever one conceives are just minutiae that only us geeks care about.

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Originally Posted by Mislagnissa

Then stupidity like Raynor, Queen of Blades and Amon took over the plot at the expense of good writing and internal consistency. It simply isn't possible to tell a good story period without throwing those characters in the garbage where they belong.

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I don't know about that. Characters starting out as broad archetypes (Raynor being the everyman/audience surrogate, the Queen of Blade being the antagonist with a meaningful connection to all the other characters and Amon being the existential threat/big bad) don't necessarily mean they're bad forever more. Like tropes, they just need to be used well. Good stories utilise tropes but in a much more effective way than bad ones.

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Originally Posted by Mislagnissa

Secondly, the first contact war could totally support a character-driven war narrative a la Game of Thrones. The sheer scale means that there are few stories you could NOT tell. It steps on the toes of Warhammer 40,000 in that regard. The alien cultures of the protoss and zerg have so much room for exploration.

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If I wanted my Starcraft to be more like Game of Thrones and/or Warhammer 40K, why would I not just go enjoy Game of Thrones/WH40K instead? ;)

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Originally Posted by Nissa

That was my particular problem with the SC novels.

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Heh, I knew there was a reason I never got around/felt motivated to reading them lol.

To me, Sc1 wasn't epic or feel that way just because it was about the big things and big events that occurred but rather because it was about the smallness of it and how individual/little things can have an impact in that small world and moreso to others within that small world. The short stories that got released in between the Sc2 installments captured that feeling the most, I think. Sure they were about inconsequential nobodies who would never have chance at tilting the status quo of that universe at large, but those stories were so focused and felt epic in and of themselves, it eclipsed whatever huge gamechanging "epic" event/plot point that did happen in the main narrative (The Overmind is defeated! The UED are defeated/The Queen of Blades becomes the uncontested top dog! The Queen of Blades is deinfested! The Emperor of the Dominion is finally overthrown! The seemingly unstoppable existential threat that is Amon is defeated!).

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Originally Posted by Nissa

That was my particular problem with the SC novels. They didn't work most of the time for that reason (that and their narrative is really bad). Liberty's Crusade was just a retelling of story we already knew with no new angles besides a fanfiction protagonist, Shadow of the Xel'Naga forced everybody in when it would have worked better as a matter of locals, the "Dark Templar" trilogy forced everybody in when it should have just been a Protoss story, etc. That's why my favorite of the novels is SCG: Nova, because it's very narrow in setting and primarily concerns one person -- not that it's actually good, it's just better than the others.

Yeah, I guess the problems started when SC:Ghost was cancelled. Having a game like that would have fleshed out the Umojans and the Morians, who to this day aren't even up to the level of set dressing.

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Among many, many other problems with the lore.

I agree that the personal stories are generally better. I still feel that Blizzard's ridiculous plot points tarnish their success. "The Teacher" short story was a nice twist on the idea that you could enslave the zerg, but the twist comes across as stupid because of Kerry's existence and the fact that it completely contradicts all the times before and after that zerg were successfully enslaved without problem. As a result, it comes across as a wacky side story of some idiots getting killed in circumstances that shouldn't be possible in the first place.

It's frustrating. It took me about five minutes to rewrite the premise to something more satisfying and internally consistent.

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Originally Posted by Turalyon

Well, the point I was trying to make was that even the plot in the manual/earlier drafts are kinda stupid, too, in a way, since it's all a contrived setup. The details of that setup or whatever one conceives are just minutiae that only us geeks care about.

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I said a bunch of times before that I know that the original setup was contrived. But I accept it because the macguffin trope isn't inherently bad. What matters is the execution.

The zerg's shtick is that they assimilate useful biological traits from the species they hunt. If they are in the terran sector waging war on the terrans and the protoss at the same time, then they need a pretty good justification for spending so much effort. What useful trait would the terrans have than the zerg don't already possess?

Let's be real here: there's no good reason for including the terrans at all besides a space magic excuse like purity of form. Purity of form is pretty much the least absurd reason I could think of. And even then it's still only a temporary solution since you can't have the zerg succeed without ending the terran arc forever. Hence why I'm not interested in exploring past the first contact war because there's no story past that point. At least no good story, anyway.

Just having the terrans randomly in the way while the zerg are traveling to Aiur is not remotely satisfying. It makes zero sense the zerg would waste resources on the terrans when they more important priorities. That's one of the many, many reasons why the canon is so bad.

What would you propose replacing that plot point with, and why/how would that be qualitatively better?

I mean, there's no reason why the zerg had to be after the protoss in the first place. The '96 website didn't give them any reason for invading the galaxy. Of course, the inclusion of the terrans was still a lazy plot contrivance. The only reason there were terrans at all was because the protoss invaded koprulu to claim and study ancient xel'naga ruins that might give some insight into the invading zerg. This isn't even a good reason, since the preview provides absolutely no explanation for why this would ever be necessary. The zerg are invading, the protoss are defending, what is the point of studying some random ruins in the middle of nowhere? Why those ruins in that part of space?

The determinant is a macguffin, sure, but it's the least ridiculous explanation out of every lore iteration before and after.

But I'm willing to change my mind if you can put forward a sufficiently compelling alternative. No, random coincidence and red herrings don't compel me in these circumstances. Not without completely rewriting the story around that so it isn't a waste of words.

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Originally Posted by Turalyon

I don't know about that. Characters starting out as broad archetypes (Raynor being the everyman/audience surrogate, the Queen of Blade being the antagonist with a meaningful connection to all the other characters and Amon being the existential threat/big bad) don't necessarily mean they're bad forever more. Like tropes, they just need to be used well. Good stories utilise tropes but in a much more effective way than bad ones.

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Alright, I concede that the basic ideas aren't inherently bad. However, if I used them myself they'd be unrecognizable as the same characters because I can't write stupid.

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Originally Posted by Turalyon

If I wanted my Starcraft to be more like Game of Thrones and/or Warhammer 40K, why would I not just go enjoy Game of Thrones/WH40K instead? ;)

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Neither of those is Starcraft. Neither of them has the things I like about Starcraft.

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Originally Posted by Turalyon

Heh, I knew there was a reason I never got around/felt motivated to reading them lol.

To me, Sc1 wasn't epic or feel that way just because it was about the big things and big events that occurred but rather because it was about the smallness of it and how individual/little things can have an impact in that small world and moreso to others within that small world. The short stories that got released in between the Sc2 installments captured that feeling the most, I think. Sure they were about inconsequential nobodies who would never have chance at tilting the status quo of that universe at large, but those stories were so focused and felt epic in and of themselves, it eclipsed whatever huge gamechanging "epic" event/plot point that did happen in the main narrative (The Overmind is defeated! The UED are defeated/The Queen of Blades becomes the uncontested top dog! The Queen of Blades is deinfested! The Emperor of the Dominion is finally overthrown! The seemingly unstoppable existential threat that is Amon is defeated!).

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Yep, the starcraft games rehash the same outline over and over. It's ridiculous.

As I said, this awful foundation tarnishes any good stories written in the universe. That's why I can't write fiction without abandoning canon. My standards are simply too high.

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Originally Posted by Turalyon

I don't know about that. Characters starting out as broad archetypes (Raynor being the everyman/audience surrogate, the Queen of Blade being the antagonist with a meaningful connection to all the other characters and Amon being the existential threat/big bad) don't necessarily mean they're bad forever more. Like tropes, they just need to be used well. Good stories utilise tropes but in a much more effective way than bad ones.

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Yeah but Blizzard didn't know how to do that effectively for SC2, since everyone knew you can't play another betrayal game yet again.

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Originally Posted by Mislagnissa

I said a bunch of times before that I know that the original setup was contrived. But I accept it because the macguffin trope isn't inherently bad. What matters is the execution.

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But all you're offering is just another setup (a more consistently contrived one though it may be) that purports to have better "execution" without any examples of said "execution" in practice (ie: like an actual story for us to look at). If the issue really is with the execution of the story, it's not really the setup you have to change, but the execution of the story in Sc1 that needs fixing, right? You can dismiss the Sc1 story all the like but you're not actually fixing the problem by starting again and rejigging the premise because that doesn't really guarantee that the story that plays out from this rejigged seteup/premise will have any better execution.

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Originally Posted by Mislagnissa

The zerg's shtick is that they assimilate useful biological traits from the species they hunt. If they are in the terran sector waging war on the terrans and the protoss at the same time, then they need a pretty good justification for spending so much effort. What useful trait would the terrans have than the zerg don't already possess?

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The Zerg deem the Terrans as insignificant and unworthy of assimilation were it not for this "psionic potential", so if we take that away, what else do Zerg do unworthy biological specimens they encounter along the way? They just purge them to "purify the strains". Sure, it's not a nice and engaging hook on paper but it's still faithful and realistic to the ethos of the Zerg. If you have to put a "shtick" on why the Zerg attack Terrans, you could have other mundane reasons (who said it has to be a special reason?) like gathering biomass or heck, even better, as a tactic to purposefully draw out and observe Protoss behaviour (since they respond due to the responsibilities of the Dae'Uhl) which the Overmind actually intended to do according to the manual.

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Originally Posted by Mislagnissa

Let's be real here: there's no good reason for including the terrans at all besides a space magic excuse like purity of form.

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Not entirely. The whole shtick of the Terrans is that they are there because they are just unfortunate. They're just there at the wrong place and the wrong time. Contrived sure? But what isn't in any fictional universe? It's no worse an excuse and less-on-the-nose than having them have some magical property that something else wants.

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Originally Posted by Mislagnissa

Just having the terrans randomly in the way while the zerg are traveling to Aiur is not remotely satisfying.

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Well, that's real life for you, buddy. Shit happens in life and for the Terrans in the K-sector, they don't just get shit, they've got the worst and runny kind...

I don't find the magical macguffin reason any more comparatively satisfying honestly. It just makes it seem more artificial and a fiction - that everything has to have some kind of physical/inherent meaning for it to happen. That setup stuff isn't really that important to me beyond scratching my nerd interest in fluff.

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Originally Posted by Mislagnissa

I mean, there's no reason why the zerg had to be after the protoss in the first place.

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What? It's there in the manual. It can be reduced down to the Zerg wanting to be constantly "better" (with their own concept of what they deem "better") and they find info that makes them believe Protoss will make them "better" (if not the "best") by a lot. So they go and try to find them.

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Originally Posted by Mislagnissa

But I'm willing to change my mind if you can put forward a sufficiently compelling alternative. No, random coincidence and red herrings don't compel me in these circumstances.

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I doubt anything I would put down would suffice since what's compelling to one is largely subjective. Afterall, the Terrans having a magical property/purity form/macguffin that is sort after by the alien menace is really just another random coincidence - it's just one that you subjectively choose to ignore as being one in order to suit your preferences. ;)

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Originally Posted by Mislagnissa

Neither of those is Starcraft. Neither of them has the things I like about Starcraft.

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Then why refer to them as something that Starcraft should emulate/be more like? It's why others are confused about what you want. You don't want Starcraft as it currently is to be Starcraft and you don't want Starcraft to be anything else, so just what the heck is "Starcraft" if it's not any of these things? Why not create a whole IP to meet your fanciful whim instead of trying to co-opt and force another thing into something nebulously not that thing but insisting that it still is that thing?

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Originally Posted by Turalyon

But all you're offering is just another setup (a more consistently contrived one though it may be) that purports to have better "execution" without any examples of said "execution" in practice (ie: like an actual story for us to look at). If the issue really is with the execution of the story, it's not really the setup you have to change, but the execution of the story in Sc1 that needs fixing, right? You can dismiss the Sc1 story all the like but you're not actually fixing the problem by starting again and rejigging the premise because that doesn't really guarantee that the story that plays out from this rejigged seteup/premise will have any better execution.



The Zerg deem the Terrans as insignificant and unworthy of assimilation were it not for this "psionic potential", so if we take that away, what else do Zerg do unworthy biological specimens they encounter along the way? They just purge them to "purify the strains". Sure, it's not a nice and engaging hook on paper but it's still faithful and realistic to the ethos of the Zerg. If you have to put a "shtick" on why the Zerg attack Terrans, you could have other mundane reasons (who said it has to be a special reason?) like gathering biomass or heck, even better, as a tactic to purposefully draw out and observe Protoss behaviour (since they respond due to the responsibilities of the Dae'Uhl) which the Overmind actually intended to do according to the manual.



Not entirely. The whole shtick of the Terrans is that they are there because they are just unfortunate. They're just there at the wrong place and the wrong time. Contrived sure? But what isn't in any fictional universe? It's no worse an excuse and less-on-the-nose than having them have some magical property that something else wants.



Well, that's real life for you, buddy. Shit happens in life and for the Terrans in the K-sector, they don't just get shit, they've got the worst and runny kind...

I don't find the magical macguffin reason any more comparatively satisfying honestly. It just makes it seem more artificial and a fiction - that everything has to have some kind of physical/inherent meaning for it to happen. That setup stuff isn't really that important to me beyond scratching my nerd interest in fluff.



What? It's there in the manual. It can be reduced down to the Zerg wanting to be constantly "better" (with their own concept of what they deem "better") and they find info that makes them believe Protoss will make them "better" (if not the "best") by a lot. So they go and try to find them.



I doubt anything I would put down would suffice since what's compelling to one is largely subjective. Afterall, the Terrans having a magical property/purity form/macguffin that is sort after by the alien menace is really just another random coincidence - it's just one that you subjectively choose to ignore as being one in order to suit your preferences. ;)



Then why refer to them as something that Starcraft should emulate/be more like? It's why others are confused about what you want. You don't want Starcraft as it currently is to be Starcraft and you don't want Starcraft to be anything else, so just what the heck is "Starcraft" if it's not any of these things? Why not create a whole IP to meet your fanciful whim instead of trying to co-opt and force another thing into something nebulously not that thing but insisting that it still is that thing?

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Forgive the formatting and rambling. I’m typing on phone.

I don’t understand how you can be confused about what I want when I’ve made it clear many times.

I want a story that isn’t shit. The canon storyline is shit. It is a Swiss cheese of plot holes and Metzen’s druggie ex-girlfriend fantasies.

Arguing that my fanfiction isn’t Starcraft... that doesn’t help anyone. Canon is shit anyway and nobody except me actually wants to write anything good with the IP. Even the best writers will still be writing diamonds covered in shit unless they reboot the canon like I do. This fandom is severely anemic because most of the good writers were scared off by the shit writing.

Even Blizzard doesn’t give a shit about canon considering the complete lack of a real continuity. They don’t even care enough to go back and rewrite the lore for consistency like they did in Warcraft Chronicles. Not that Warcraft Chronicles doesn’t have loads of storytelling problems, but at least they tried to revise the continuity for consistency. I can’t imagine how they would do that for Starcraft without it still being badly written. Their recap of SC1/BW in the WoL manual and old/dead SC2 website outright omitted the plot holes and heavily glossed over the events to make them seem reasonable at first glance. I will give whoever got the job of writing that recap credit for obviously being way smarter than Metzen. Low bar, I know.

And I did propose an original IP that liberally ripped off starcraft, remember? We discussed it at length. But nobody actually gives a shit and won’t read my original universe. I’d get a lawsuit from Blizzard anyway, so fanfiction is the only choice I have. If you want to change my mind, then go revive the original universe thread. I even tagged it #starcraft clone. I’m happy to discuss space elves and whatever if you are.

Anyway...

This is fiction. It’s all arbitrary. I don’t understand why you keep trying to argue you’re right and I’m wrong. Either one of us could write better than Metzen because he’s obviously a bloody moron. It doesn’t matter what premise we choose.

I think the determinant is a sufficient reason for the zerg to invade the terran sector. So I use it to explain the zerg invasion in my stories. You can even read them if you want.

Yes, for the zillionth time, I know that the determinant is a bloody macguffin. If you think it doesn’t work and want a better explanation that badly... Okay, let’s assume the terran sector is centered on Earth and ATLAS didn’t get lost a bazillion light years away, and the protoss empire claims/claimed the Orion Arm where the terran sector is. Terrans engage in cyberpunk dystopia, study protoss/xel’naga ruins, cyborg mutant criminals, reverse engineer alien tech to create psychic powers and basically give themselves nascent purity of form. Does that satisfy you? Your proposed solutions aren’t any less arbitrary. You outright stated your own solutions are all nigh impossible coincidences anyway, how is the determinant any worse in that regard so as to make you hate it so much?

(Also, thanks for inspiring in me this idea. I never thought of it before. However, next time please try to suggest constructive ideas rather than force me to scramble for rebuttals and rationalizations against your attempts to knock over my sandcastle.)

If believe you can do better without it, then go write your own story and please stop telling me what/how to write.

The reason I used GoT and 40k as examples is because:

I like the character driven narrative and politics in GoT. They are a model that I would strive to emulate. Starcraft canon politics are shit tier by comparison. So I would rewrite SC politics to emulate GoT.

SC is basically a rip-off of 40k. 40k emphasizes the small-scale storytelling you praised, so it’s a model to emulate. However, SC giving actual personalities to the zerg made them superior for storytelling compared to tyranids. You can do vastly more with zerg than tyranids. (Obviously I’m ignoring shit tier characters like QoB.)

At this point, I highly doubt we’ll ever be able to have constructive discussions since you obviously don’t like anything I write. Just go revive the bloody clone thread already since you seem to have less problem with it.

@Misla

All my replies are merely food for thought. It's not my fault your confirmation bias can't permit you to see them as nothing more than un-constructive criticism/bashing.

I'm calling you out that's for sure, but I'm not telling you to do anything. I don't really care one way or another how you write your fanfic, I'm just putting down an opinion (I never claim to be right nor have intent to be so because the instant I do, I know I am most certainly not) because you've put this on an open forum and because others may be interested in following this, not just you.

A common theme I keep picking up is that your replies betray your stated intent. You say you want criticism but you seemingly don't. You say you're not doing it for self-aggrandisement, but you seemingly are. You say you're interested in others thoughts/open-minded, but not really and only of a particular kind that supports your bias. It's absolutely reasonable for me to ask why you are even bothering at all to put this on a forum or even ask for others input - and I say all this with no intent to offend, mind you.

You say you just want to make an alternate universe of SC. However, your motivation and underlying rhetoric about how shit/terrible/bad the actual thing we got and how good your version is going to be makes it hard for anyone to consider/engage your premise seriously when all you're doing is bandying about by saying you seek to emulate these other "better" works and shifting the setup around without giving any samples of your actual writing. You have nothing of substance to your absolute assurance that your story or any story that comes from this setup will be better than the apparent "shit" we got.

Also, I also don't get why you'd get upset or expect a different/better reaction from people who do respond to your premise by only saying "it's nice" and/or "well, it's not Starcraft" when they're all legitimate responses in a forum that is dedicated to the Starcraft we did get. It's kinda like you going into someone's home and telling everyone who lives there how much better there home can be, letting slip that it's really just a shithole, then expect them to thank you for telling/suggesting this to them and you feeling even more upset than the people who live there when they don't reciprocate your feelings!

Trying to argue that Starcraft is nothing more than the soap opera dynamics between Ray, Kerry and Arty is absurd. The question of what is and isn't Starcraft will be rendered moot by whatever Blizzard does next to continue the story. The story of Ray, Kerry and Arty is dead and gone. Whatever comes next won't have them.

Starcraft is about conflict between terrans, zerg and protoss. That's what it has always been about. I fully expect whatever story continuation comes out will do some lazy hack job to justify a conflict between them with cosmic consequences or whatever. I don't expect any consistency whatsoever.

Although the morale problems at Blizzard means that it might be a while before they do anything with Starcraft. Most like they'll either do DLC for StarCraft 2 or Heroes of the Storm. If they make a new game, it will likely be mobile shovelware.

In any case, caring about the Starcraft story is pointless. As far as stories go, it is a complete mess. Plot holes galore, idiotic characters, etc. Blizzard clearly never cared about it, so why should we?

I mean, you could create something halfway decent by rebooting the story. Reboots happen for loads of IP with good results, like My Little Pony and Transformers. Starcraft is at the point where a reboot is a pretty healthy choice, healthier than continuing the existing pseudo-continuity. It is continually going to be retconned so extensively that it might as well be a reboot, so why equivocate?

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Originally Posted by Mislagnissa

Trying to argue that Starcraft is nothing more than the soap opera dynamics between Ray, Kerry and Arty is absurd. The question of what is and isn't Starcraft will be rendered moot by whatever Blizzard does next to continue the story. The story of Ray, Kerry and Arty is dead and gone. Whatever comes next won't have them.

Starcraft is about conflict between terrans, zerg and protoss. That's what it has always been about. I fully expect whatever story continuation comes out will do some lazy hack job to justify a conflict between them with cosmic consequences or whatever. I don't expect any consistency whatsoever.

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There's always a way to tie them together, though ironically enough prior to any info we had on SC2 there's been those who've also tried to see if it was possible to unite all 3 races against a common enemy, but we didn't need Amon for that.

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Originally Posted by ragnarok

There's always a way to tie them together, though ironically enough prior to any info we had on SC2 there's been those who've also tried to see if it was possible to unite all 3 races against a common enemy, but we didn't need Amon for that.

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I have always thought that was a ridiculous idea that required completely ignoring how blood feuds work in reality and mutilating the characterization of the factions.

Why would you go to the effort of creating three sides, each with dramatically different history, motives, aesthetics, etc... only to systematically destroy what makes them unique to force them together?

Because of story. People and nations naturally band together from time to time, and so expecting these factions not to do so is silly. Particularly in the face of something devastating to the entire sector. What needed to happen is another expansion set (or something not unlike one) to settle the arcs of the main characters, and possibly even eliminate the Zerg as a major threat, so that the sequel or spin offs resulting could focus on smaller stories. Every story only has so much value, which is why multiplayer is important to keep players interested.

And no, eliminating the Zerg doesn't damage the story. Since they're basically roaches, having them linger on outer worlds and/or reappear from the darkness is far from implausible. Not to mention that the hybrids could at that point take on more of a villainous role.

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Originally Posted by Nissa

Because of story. People and nations naturally band together from time to time, and so expecting these factions not to do so is silly. Particularly in the face of something devastating to the entire sector. What needed to happen is another expansion set (or something not unlike one) to settle the arcs of the main characters, and possibly even eliminate the Zerg as a major threat, so that the sequel or spin offs resulting could focus on smaller stories. Every story only has so much value, which is why multiplayer is important to keep players interested.

And no, eliminating the Zerg doesn't damage the story. Since they're basically roaches, having them linger on outer worlds and/or reappear from the darkness is far from implausible. Not to mention that the hybrids could at that point take on more of a villainous role.

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The scenarios in canon make as much sense as the Nazis, Taliban and Israel teaming up against America. The author (in this case Blizzard) contrived scenarios to force the three races to team up and ignoring compelling reasons they would not. Pretty much all canon alliances were poorly contrived.

EDIT: The zerg actually were the sector devastation you mention. Where the story went wrong was when it changed their role to space orcs.

EDIT: The character arcs are already settled. Blizzard officially said so. Any sequels will be about original characters. Raynor, Kerry, Mengsk and Amon are either dead or gone forever. They are never coming back.

It does not make much sense for Raynor to team up with Tassadar in SC1 considering that the latter incinerated billions of innocent people. No, the "ends justify the means" is not a good excuse at all. The terrans should be demanding that the protoss leader go on trial for war crimes. Remember Nuremberg? Even if you ally with them for the short term for whatever reason, the terrans would logically still demand a tribunal after. (Furthermore, the planets being incinerated was contrived by the narrative. Metzen needed it to force the plot to make Mengsk into emperor.) That is why I devised the alternate explanation that Tassadar actually tried to stop the genocides, not take part in them. That way, he had an easier time (albeit still difficult) convincing the terrans to accept his help.

It makes absolutely no sense for the zerg to ally with other species of their own volition. They see everything else as food. Metzen had to mutilate their characterization in order to get them to behave as Kerry pets and whatever. Hence we get the "corrupt" zerg acting like peaceful space orc hippies, while the feral and primal zerg are unrepentant monsters.

Considering the volume of short stories that were written before and during the SC2 status quo, as it were, I think there could be an infinite number of stories told against a back drop of the three races fighting over the sector. There is no need to eliminate the zerg (whatever that means in this context). Quite frankly, the events of BW and SC2 should have been impossible after the zerg devastated the terrans and protoss in SC1, but we got them anyway.

Are we talking your hopes for canon or fanfiction? Because I highly doubt Blizzard will do anything like what you suggest. They probably ignore everything that came before in favor of some wildly implausible story with original characters revolving around another galactic war called the Third Great War or the Second End War or some other odd name that feels somehow trivializing of the events.

Blizzard cannot write well and their canon will never be a solid foundation for good stories. We have seen more than enough evidence for that. I expect in another decade or so that you guys will finally come around to my point of view after Blizzard consistently fails to meet expectations. Assuming this forum does not die in the interim.

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Originally Posted by Mislagnissa

I have always thought that was a ridiculous idea that required completely ignoring how blood feuds work in reality and mutilating the characterization of the factions.

Why would you go to the effort of creating three sides, each with dramatically different history, motives, aesthetics, etc... only to systematically destroy what makes them unique to force them together?

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Because to me, you can't expect them to fight each other indefinitely. Look at our history and the tribal problems in the past. At some point someone has to come up with a different approach than just "kill everyone."

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Originally Posted by Mislagnissa

I mean, you could create something halfway decent by rebooting the story. Reboots happen for loads of IP with good results, like My Little Pony and Transformers. Starcraft is at the point where a reboot is a pretty healthy choice, healthier than continuing the existing pseudo-continuity. It is continually going to be retconned so extensively that it might as well be a reboot, so why equivocate?

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As long as Blizz is holding the rights to the Starcraft IP, a reboot isn't going to happen. It's also not profitable for them to do so since otherwise, we'd see more story/campaign content by now. Keep on dreaming/working on that fanfic though! :p

For me, the Starcraft universe works better as a one and done kinda thing (I would've been satisfied with just Sc1 really even though I do include BW as part of it). It may not have been to your liking or some things were just plain asinine fridge logic but eh, it had it's moments and that was enough. Sure, I speculated on what would/could happen next but I felt better imagining this stuff and not wanting to actually see a sequel. I never thought of the universe and story as being expansive as Wh40K, where things would just go on endlessly nor the need for it to continue (or, in other words, a franchise). It felt self-enclosed and was better for it because it was eventful and the status quo shifted heavily in that time.

Although there are many of the following I enjoy when done in interesting ways and are not inherently "bad", I generally distrust most things that are prequels, sequel, reboots, remakes, spinoffs and crossovers because they're usually all about capitalising on and exploiting nostalgia to prop some agenda (which I collectively call all of it 'sequelitis') rather than a bonafide attempt to try something novel and innovative. So a reboot of Starcraft is no guarantee that it'd be "better" since the likelihood of it turning out to be either pointless, derivative, worse than before in other ways or all of those things is higher, not less. There are exceptions of course but I'd have to see it to believe it and the chances of even seeing that, are slim.

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Originally Posted by ragnarok

Because to me, you can't expect them to fight each other indefinitely. Look at our history and the tribal problems in the past. At some point someone has to come up with a different approach than just "kill everyone."

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Remember when others told you to be more credulous? You still are not credulous enough.

Nobody expects peace after a few years of fighting a galactic war with billions of civilian deaths. That is blatantly absurd.

It took millennia for humanity to reach the peace we have now, and it is still extremely uneasy. One mistake and we have nuclear war.

Furthermore, you are ignoring my point about this requiring mutilating the factions by destroying their uniqueness and motives. The protoss and zerg are aliens, not funny looking humans. They have alien psychology and societies.

That is not the kind of attitude you should have if you intend to write serious military fiction or xenofiction. To write that well, you need to study a variety of fields and get way outside of your comfort zone and preconceptions. Otherwise your fiction will not be believable.

I suggest reading military fiction and xenofiction to get a better idea of how things work. Blizzard fiction is not a remotely good teacher.

I've read dozens of WWII books, Mislag. I know how there's still tension problems today. You can argue that the only reason such full scale wars aren't happening anymore because in the nuclear world, something like that would mean total extinction of the human race.

Having said that, I'm curious to know what xenofiction you'd suggest first.

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Originally Posted by ragnarok

I've read dozens of WWII books, Mislag. I know how there's still tension problems today. You can argue that the only reason such full scale wars aren't happening anymore because in the nuclear world, something like that would mean total extinction of the human race.

Having said that, I'm curious to know what xenofiction you'd suggest first.

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Blizzard is terrible at writing military fiction, so I would have thought your reading experience would have made you more aware of that. Tactics, strategy, logistics, right?

There is not much xenofiction in general, much less about group minds, but tvtropes has a xenofiction page listing some examples. Kindle only seems to return a novel about a bee worker’s POV.

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Originally Posted by Mislagnissa

Blizzard is terrible at writing military fiction, so I would have thought your reading experience would have made you more aware of that. Tactics, strategy, logistics, right?

There is not much xenofiction in general, much less about group minds, but tvtropes has a xenofiction page listing some examples. Kindle only seems to return a novel about a bee worker’s POV.

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Yeah, such tactics are considered utter BS. I still remember back in HotS's "Fire in the Sky" mission, where you have to keep awakening the scourge nests to wreck the Gorgons. And I was watching that mission and I couldn't understand the Dominion's stupidity for putting the Gorgons in the trench. All they had to do was fly the ship higher and they could have fielded more.

And it didn't matter if you use the "WWII in space" concept. Even if we assume flying too high meant crap accuracy, this is killing the zerg we're talking here. You're not supposed to spare ANYONE, so accuracy is irrelevant.

Uh, Mislag, what Rag seems to be saying that Blizzard would do better by being more on the realistic side. While realistic = good may not always be true, the fact of the matter is being realistic by ceasing eternal war is a better idea than eternal war. People can only stomach so much violence. Eventually they'll go to extremes to stop a determined enemy (Nukes), have not enough resources to continue (the wars fought against Brian Boru in Ireland), realize that political means are better at getting what they want (United Nations), realize that economic means are better at getting what they want (Post WWII Japan), realize that manipulating the ideals of the simple minded is better than outright war (muslim terrorists combined with sympathetic propaganda), cultural melting removes the threat (Norse invaders integrating into Irish society), or, indeed, a bigger threat exists to encourage people to ally (former Soviet satellites negotiating peace with each other in the attempt to unite together against Russian control).

The only reason eternal war makes any sense at all is because of the Zerg. Zerg are animals genetically coded to fight. Real people get sick of war over time, even if they aren't already openly opposed to it.

Actually Nissa, since you brought up the topic of post WWII Japan, I hope you know that their actions in the war wasn't total BS. Look at all the European actions in their brutality in colonizing Asia before that, and then they got drunk on power thinking it was their destiny to rule Asia forever. You can argue all you want, but in a way Japan's actions merely sped up the inevitable.

It's the same thing in the SC universe: no one wants the war to continue forever. The Q here is who would be the first to find a permanent solution to it all. To a degree (and this is before SC2 was out) I felt this could have been a reason for why Mengsk wanted Valerian's info on Xel'naga artifacts and such back in the DT Saga, as sooner or later you'd think the Dominion people would expect him to put an end to the swarm for good.

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Originally Posted by Nissa

Uh, Mislag, what Rag seems to be saying that Blizzard would do better by being more on the realistic side. While realistic = good may not always be true, the fact of the matter is being realistic by ceasing eternal war is a better idea than eternal war. People can only stomach so much violence. Eventually they'll go to extremes to stop a determined enemy (Nukes), have not enough resources to continue (the wars fought against Brian Boru in Ireland), realize that political means are better at getting what they want (United Nations), realize that economic means are better at getting what they want (Post WWII Japan), realize that manipulating the ideals of the simple minded is better than outright war (muslim terrorists combined with sympathetic propaganda), cultural melting removes the threat (Norse invaders integrating into Irish society), or, indeed, a bigger threat exists to encourage people to ally (former Soviet satellites negotiating peace with each other in the attempt to unite together against Russian control).

The only reason eternal war makes any sense at all is because of the Zerg. Zerg are animals genetically coded to fight. Real people get sick of war over time, even if they aren't already openly opposed to it.

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I am glad that we can agree the zerg are supposed to be monsters.

The problem here is manifold. Blizzard has a history of devising absurd excuses for war to continue their stories, with Warcraft being even worse in this regard. I have no doubt that SC3 or the equivalent will be just as bad.

But this is precisely the sort of thing I address in my fan-fiction reboot pitches. The first contact war has only been going on for a decade or so in my timeline, but there was plenty of opportunity for alliances. The difference is that this is a character-driven narrative: there is nothing that would convince everyone to set aside their differences and team up. The zerg have their own problems and cannot steamroll all opposition to force an alliance, that is why they are harvesting people for research. The protoss empire considers the whole thing a minor border dispute because their space covers an eighth of the galaxy and many hundreds of worlds at the least.

I don’t understand your criticisms and I feel we are talking about completely different things.

Oh, well, I was only trying to support what Rag was saying in how factions teaming up makes sense, not make an overall point in what you guys were talking about.

Anyway, if we all could get back on topic about whether or not SC is dead, that would be great. There's other places to discuss fan AUs.

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Originally Posted by Nissa

Oh, well, I was only trying to support what Rag was saying in how factions teaming up makes sense, not make an overall point in what you guys were talking about.

Anyway, if we all could get back on topic about whether or not SC is dead, that would be great. There's other places to discuss fan AUs.

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Blizzard is still making skins and co-op commanders. Fiction is still being licensed. SC does not currently seem to be dead, but it definitely is not their current focus.

WC3 is being remastered and revised, so it is possible that SC2 might receive similar treatment in the future. WC3R might very well introduce skins and co-op commanders as DLC.

Although Blizzard has never remade any of their games so far until WC3R, it is always possible that they might do remakes of WC1, WC2 and SC2 as DLC for WC3R and SC2. The remakes would of course have dramatically rewritten storylines for consistency with newer games, but probably introduce wholly new inconsistencies because this is Blizzard.

In any case, I would not expect good writing from Blizzard. The plot of SC3 or the equivalent DLC will be awful and full of retcons.

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Originally Posted by Mislagnissa

I am glad that we can agree the zerg are supposed to be monsters.

The problem here is manifold. Blizzard has a history of devising absurd excuses for war to continue their stories, with Warcraft being even worse in this regard. I have no doubt that SC3 or the equivalent will be just as bad.

But this is precisely the sort of thing I address in my fan-fiction reboot pitches. The first contact war has only been going on for a decade or so in my timeline, but there was plenty of opportunity for alliances. The difference is that this is a character-driven narrative: there is nothing that would convince everyone to set aside their differences and team up. The zerg have their own problems and cannot steamroll all opposition to force an alliance, that is why they are harvesting people for research. The protoss empire considers the whole thing a minor border dispute because their space covers an eighth of the galaxy and many hundreds of worlds at the least.

I don’t understand your criticisms and I feel we are talking about completely different things.

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Monster is only a relative term. I don't condone the Evolution story for trying to change the zerg to become something else, though the trust factor happened too quickly. Something like that can't happen in just a matter of hours. You'd need years before even the slightest chance of a bridge can be built.

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Originally Posted by Mislagnissa

Blizzard is still making skins and co-op commanders. Fiction is still being licensed. SC does not currently seem to be dead, but it definitely is not their current focus.

WC3 is being remastered and revised, so it is possible that SC2 might receive similar treatment in the future. WC3R might very well introduce skins and co-op commanders as DLC.

Although Blizzard has never remade any of their games so far until WC3R, it is always possible that they might do remakes of WC1, WC2 and SC2 as DLC for WC3R and SC2. The remakes would of course have dramatically rewritten storylines for consistency with newer games, but probably introduce wholly new inconsistencies because this is Blizzard.

In any case, I would not expect good writing from Blizzard. The plot of SC3 or the equivalent DLC will be awful and full of retcons.

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Once again, it shows you continue to see the only "success" the SC2 storyline did was it failed everything. I keep telling you, not everyone is going to reject it like that. It doesn't make them wrong or you right. I still want to see if they'll try to explain it away in SC3, if they ever get to it, rather than just take the shortcut with the whole "Oh everyone is only in it for the multiplayer, so no one will notice if the story has its contradictions" approach.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ragnarok

Monster is only a relative term. I don't condone the Evolution story for trying to change the zerg to become something else, though the trust factor happened too quickly. Something like that can't happen in just a matter of hours. You'd need years before even the slightest chance of a bridge can be built.

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The Zerg are monstrous space bugs. Only a complete idiot, like Blizzard obviously, would want to turn them into bloody space hippies. That bloody ruins them. It would be like treating the Cthulhu meets Hello Kitty comics as dead faced serious rather than the comedy they are.

The zerg are not rachni or formics. They are the devouring swarm. Have you played Stellaris? The devouring swarm civic is mechanically incapable of diplomacy and can only interact through warring with and eating other species. That’s how the zerg should be.

Kerry and Zagara are [insert misogynistic expletives] who deserve [insert descriptions of torture in hell here].

Please don’t try to convince me otherwise. It won’t work. Talk about something else, PLEASE.

If the tyranids had personalities like the zerg did, I would switch to WH40k in a heartbeat. But because bloody gatekeepers told me that isn’t allowed (40k fans can go [insert more expletives]), I’m stuck with you guys.

Look, I cannot find any bloody fandoms that cater to my tastes unless I put all the bloody years of effort and millions of dollars I don’t have to make my own Starcraft clone. You could easily find several fandoms for your tastes. Please stop trying to take this away from me. I don’t have anything else.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ragnarok

Once again, it shows you continue to see the only "success" the SC2 storyline did was it failed everything. I keep telling you, not everyone is going to reject it like that. It doesn't make them wrong or you right. I still want to see if they'll try to explain it away in SC3, if they ever get to it, rather than just take the shortcut with the whole "Oh everyone is only in it for the multiplayer, so no one will notice if the story has its contradictions" approach.

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Pretty much everybody (except you it seems) acknowledges that Starcraft story is shlock. It was definitely created as an afterthought. That’s how Blizzard writes everything, so I don’t understand why you are so upset. Just accept it: Blizzard can only write shit. They have always written shit and they always will.

Video games in general have shit standards, so this isn’t anything new.

I don’t understand why I continue to frequent these forums when discussion is both pointless and actively hostile to my mental health. You are absolutely no fun to talk to. You suck the happiness right out of me like some kind of dementor.

Must be my masochism, I suppose.