I think I figured out what was missing from the Single Player Experience

[TheProgramer]

It appears too me that everyone agrees that SOMETHING was missing from the SC2 singleplayer experience that was included in the SC1 singleplayer experience. I have heard many theories but I think I figured it out:


In SC1 when the level was a winter wasteland, I felt like I was in a winter wasteland; and when a desert, I felt like I was really in a desert, likewise in space - space, jungle - jungle, and so forth.

In SC2 I do not.


In SC1 when I was defending I truly felt like I was in peril and defending for my life. When I was attacking and trying to take over a world, or an area, it truly felt like an uphill battle.

In SC2 I always feel like I have the upper hand, even in missions where I wasn't supposed to feel that way.


In SC1 when I won I felt the loss that it took to get there and when I won I didn't always feel like I won (the Protoss are forced to fight each other and I feel bad, or Fenix dies, etc.)

In SC2 when I won I felt like I won never felt that way except when 1 thing and that was when the Doctor becomes Infested, and that can be avoided.


In SC1 there were many twists and turns, nothing ever turned out the way it was "supposed to" or was "expected to" (Raynor revolts from Mengsk, but he helped him get to power, or Fenix dies, or Zasz dies, Kerrigan become leader of the swarm, she betrays people, and on and on).

In SC2 the only that that comes close to that is if you decided to Kill Tosh, there’s really the only twist that meant anything, the joining with the Emperor's Son wasn't the hugest thing in the world, and didn't defy too much expectation.


Do you guys agree?


*Now we must of course keep in mind we have only seen 1/3 of the game so perhaps we should only compare the Singlplayer to the first or second Terran Campaign.

[evillesh]

Dunno, to my mind sc1 mission at some point were too long so that I was bored to death and was forced to use cheats to get faster to the cinematics/story.
sc2 seems fine to me.

[Wankey]

I agree with all the points. Here are mainly the reasons for this:

Starcraft 1 was based on realistic, dystopian designs. Things were dirty, and raggity. The Protoss weren't shiny, they were sort of a predatorial race, akin to the Predators. The Zerg were more akin to Alien, a very organic race.

In Starcraft 2, none of these really work here. The art style is very close to World of Warcraft in anyway you want to put it. It is merely the next generation of the World of Warcraft art style. Units are big are bulky, often times unnecessarily bulky like the marine. Ships don't feel utlilitarian, and moreso cartoonish. Battlecruisers in Starcraft 1 felt like their were built to endure years of fighting. Battlecruisers in Starcraft 2, even the cinematic ones, look like an artist's wet dream or silly with it's bulging bridge and fat sides.

The protoss turned from a predatorial race, to a futuristic generic shiny Egyptian race. This ultimately strips the Protoss of any alien like features because everything they have feels very much Egyptian in nature or "Dark Elves" in nature.

Look at the original carrier, very alien, very organic even, very out of this world like:


Look at Starcraft 2's carrier, very humanistic, overly majestic and full of royal family kind of designs - lots humanistic features. It also has a lot of frivolous useless things on it like wings or structural things that doesn't help with anything.


Lets compare the battlecruiser:


The polygons have gotten higher but not better. The new battle cruiser again has frivolous useless parts. The old battle cruiser felt like death incarnate. It was cold, dark and sinister. The new battlecruiser has shiny lights, nice decorated egyptian looking icons and other odd design attributes. It's also a hell of a lot fatter.

Also the original Starcraft battlecruiser image shows off a lot more emotion than the new image. Break, unwaver vs everything in your face kind of feel.

So there's not a lot in Starcraft 2 to associate with, since none of the units / races feel utilitarian, none of them feel believable. They're all over designed with frivolous things that doesn't really work.

Hell, even the Wraith lost its sleek-ness to become a overly cartoony version:



You can clearly see from these images that the original Starcraft was much more human, and real and less of science fantasy and more science fiction. Units didn't have frivolous things, and people behaved as you expect them to behave or have motives that made a lot of sense.

Starcraft 2 team decided to make the game look like a game, and less like a real depiction of what was happening in this fictional universe. They botched on effects like shaders to an area where there really doesn't have any reflection. I don't understand why sand has a shader effect, sand pretty much dulls all effects, and should be the best time to stop using any shader effects. Except in Starcraft 2, everything has a nice shiny reflective shader to it. Everything is shiny, Battlecruisers, which have gone through years of hardship is shiny! Marines, the grunt of the army... is shiny! Even siege tanks are shiny. I don't think tanks reflect any shine off them other than off their scopes.

Another reason is the people in the game. None of them have any real character nor does if feel like a struggle. This is probably because most of Blizzard has the same kind of feeling. When they made SC1, they didn't have much cash, and quality had to be top notch. A lot of those people were incredibly talented and demanded perfection.

Literally there are entire scenes where the heroes have blank stares on their faces. It's just ridiculously sad how bad some of the animations are, compared to all the work being done elsewhere.

Even Mass effect didn't have such bland expressions and characters are that SOO boring. For example, Rory Swann, what a suck up, one dimensional New York guy. There isn't much more to him than that. Igon Stetman, stuttering shy nerd guy, that's IT. I can sum up nearly every single side character in Starcraft 2 with one or two words. In Starcraft 1, you could write volumes, and people have certainly done so.

I hope they learned a lot of lessons from WoL and put them in HotS, but I'm still expecting Attack of the Clones style sequel.

[JackhammerIV]

Let's ask ourselves an important question:
Was Starcraft I focusing more on story and single player than Starcraft II??

I would answer yes. Starcraft II feels like an amazing multiplayer with a mediocre single player attached. Starcraft I feels like an epic singleplayer with an amazing multiplayer attached.

Can't really blame Blizzard for what they did. They know that the multiplayer of Starcraft was what sold so many copies. So obviously for the sequel the multiplayer should be the most important thing. The singleplayer suffered for it but really Blizzard did what any smart developer would do. Focus on the aspect that made their original game huge and last over 10 years.

So Blizzard will do the same thing with the expansions. Focus on the multiplayer and how each expansion will add to SC2's multiplayer experience. Starcraft has become a franchise focused on the multiplayer. For any game franchise like this it means singleplayer suffers. It's unfortunate but that's the way it is. The obvious sign of it is this: most companies release a "demo" before release to build up hype. This shows what the game is focused on. Blizzard didn't release some special prequel missions to hype up SC2's singleplayer. They had a huge beta test to get everyone excited about multiplayer.

That is why I find it surprising so many people get so emotional and critical of SC2's story. If we all gave it some thought it would have been obvious when they opened the beta that the singleplayer wouldn't match up to Starcraft I.

[Twilice]

Nah, the missions them self were nice. Only the way the branching missions and story was handled was bad. (not the story from start to end, but the story in between)

[TheRabidDeer]

Wankey, I have a few questions to ask:
1) The original carrier, does it even resemble the ingame version? To me, that just looks like a banana, it has no shape at all even when compared to the carrier that exists in BW. From what I recall, many people were wondering if that was even a carrier or if it was a planet destroyer or something... right?
2) You are telling me you dont feel threatened by the SC2 BC? It makes more sense logically. It has lots of firepower from different areas, and a hugely powerful yamato cannon and is a BATTLE CRUISER that has huge amounts of people onboard. When I see the SC2 BC I see something that is advanced, expensive, and absurdly powerful. When I see the BW BC I see something that is created on a fringe world with a limited budget that is powerful.
3) How can you compare an ingame model of the wraith with a cinematic version of the wraith? Honestly? You cant be serious here, and are grasping at straws.

Anyways, I have said it before, and I can say it again. I enjoyed the SC2 single player. I agree that I didnt really like the branching style, but everything else was good. I liked that I could pick upgrades, I liked that there was enough content, I liked the general story and the humor involved, I liked that each mission has extra stuff that you can do/find.

PS: To the Programer, what difficulty did you play as the first time through? Personally, playing through on hard/brutal the first time made the missions quite fun. If you played on normal/easy and have these feelings then its only your own fault. The first time through in particular is important because your 2nd time through will naturally be easier, which makes hard/brutal easier.

[Eligor]

Apologies for the hyperbolic style, but I couldn't disagree more with your counter-arguments.

Wankey, I have a few questions to ask:
1) The original carrier, does it even resemble the ingame version? To me, that just looks like a banana, it has no shape at all even when compared to the carrier that exists in BW. From what I recall, many people were wondering if that was even a carrier or if it was a planet destroyer or something... right?

It doesn't matter whether it resembles the in-game carrier 100 % or not (for that matter, the Carriers in SC 2 concept art resemble the in-game model even less!). The quality of an image is not necessarily determind by exact/precise/mathematic resemblance to something (unless it's a plan for building something), a crappy 8-bit picture may offer a more faithful representation of the in-game Carrier yet you would hardly say it's a better image.

What matters is that it's a superb image with a level of atmosphere and impact not found in any of the imagery in SC 2. I realize that such things may be subjective and debatable, but give me one image from SC 2 that as menacing, atmospheric and memorable.

2) You are telling me you dont feel threatened by the SC2 BC? It makes more sense logically. It has lots of firepower from different areas, and a hugely powerful yamato cannon and is a BATTLE CRUISER that has huge amounts of people onboard. When I see the SC2 BC I see something that is advanced, expensive, and absurdly powerful.

Have you ever seen any large piece of military technology before? Sure the SC 2 image has a slightly (ever so slightly) greater amount of detail, but even the plain texture of the armour plating looks fake and plastic, while the plating in the StarCraft image looks like dull, yet still metallic (and very THICK) steel armour (all done with technically inferior graphics, yet looking much more real), very much of the sort you can see on a large modern naval battleship. And would any builder of a ship put those huge glowing parts on it that INSTANTLY make it a such ready target (even Protoss ships in the original StarCraft didn't GLOW)? And finally, do you really find the colour palette of overtly saturated pinkish hues and neon glows threatening? Or tasteful? The more I look at Blizzard art the more I conclude that post WoW they shouldn't have been allowed anywhere near digital colouring!

The SC 2 Battlecruiser does look expensive though, precisely like a large Leisure Cruise ship would.

3) How can you compare an ingame model of the wraith with a cinematic version of the wraith? Honestly? You cant be serious here, and are grasping at straws.

Er, no. The comparison is actually between the original StarCraft model of the Wraith and the SC 2 ingame model of the Wraith insofar as they resemble the cinematic/reaslistic representation, or not look like an inflated balloon version of the original craft (what the SC 2 model is guilty of).

[TheRabidDeer]

Eligor, its obvious we dont see things the same way. Personally, I dont see how you can find the SC2 BC to be perceived as being made out of plastic and not menacing, but you see the flat seemingly weaponless BC of BW to be terror inducing.

I also dont see how the lacking of a few details in the wraith in the SC2 ingame model in comparison to the original SC model from what appears to be a cinematic makes the wraith different. If you added a few more details to the ingame model version they would be identical (apart from the larger weapons on the wings in the SC2 ingame version).

In regards to the carrier, I personally dont think that a giant whale is very menacing and it doesnt present much atmosphere. When I see that picture of the super-carrier I think of some kind of giant tame animal passing by posing no threat to anything around it. You might have a different opinion of it because of the background you inherently know about it.

All in all, the comparisons presented are there with bias. Carriers is cinematic vs concept art. BC is a decently fair one, though I dont know where the SC2 picture came from. Wraith is ingame model vs cinematic. They are hardly an even grounds of comparing between the two. Even aside from that, everything said is just personal opinion and cant really be argued about. Its possible to question why people feel that way, but honestly what you and wankey describe just makes no sense to me.

[Eligor]

Eligor, its obvious we dont see things the same way. Personally, I dont see how you can find the SC2 BC to be perceived as being made out of plastic and not menacing, but you see the flat seemingly weaponless BC of BW to be terror inducing.

I also dont see how the lacking of a few details in the wraith in the SC2 ingame model in comparison to the original SC model from what appears to be a cinematic makes the wraith different. If you added a few more details to the ingame model version they would be identical (apart from the larger weapons on the wings in the SC2 ingame version).

In regards to the carrier, I personally dont think that a giant whale is very menacing and it doesnt present much atmosphere. When I see that picture of the super-carrier I think of some kind of giant tame animal passing by posing no threat to anything around it. You might have a different opinion of it because of the background you inherently know about it.

All in all, the comparisons presented are there with bias. Carriers is cinematic vs concept art. BC is a decently fair one, though I dont know where the SC2 picture came from. Wraith is ingame model vs cinematic. They are hardly an even grounds of comparing between the two. Even aside from that, everything said is just personal opinion and cant really be argued about. Its possible to question why people feel that way, but honestly what you and wankey describe just makes no sense to me.

You start your arguments at the details, while Wankey's critique is about the whole tone and spirit of the thing being off (and how it's expressed in those details). The SC 2 wraith model may objectively and inedepently be a very good and well made 3D model, but when compared to the SC 1 sprite as a representation of what a Wraith is supposed to look and feel like, it loses badly.

As for the Carrier, for me just how it hangs in the air "the way bricks don't" (to quote Douglas Adams), the almost organic yet still metallic nature of its texture, the fog, the framing branches, the luminous clouds and the silhouettes of mountains behind and the strange Protoss structures in the distance are enough to make it a beautifully eerie and yet uncomfortable image. It's a picture that opens a window on another world, and that you want to step through, it implies things existsing beyond the horizon. There's no image in SC 2 that carries so much atmosphere and narrative import in it, and this is just a single image (I don't know who the guy making these loading screens were, but he's hands down the best artist Blizzard ever had).

Of course, de gustibus non est disputandum, but hell, SC and SC 2 are two separate universes! And Blizzard clearly cares little for what it did a decade ago and is set on pursuing a path that I (personally) don't find as exciting or worthwhile.

[Nenol-phoenix]

The one thing I disliked the most about the campaign is that most of the missions, with the exception of the last ones are just: mass the unit introduced in this mission to win, also, it doesn't encourage players to expand, most of the missions you just have to turtle and build whatever Swann brought in this time. I know many of the missions in vanilla and BW also were about turtling, but you needed to have more variety to your army, at least that's how I felt. I'm against the idea that most of the missions need an specific gimmick but most people seemed to like it.