How did they screw up the single player that bad?

[Eligor]

But Chris Metzen is still the lead writer, not Andy Chambers/Brian Kindregarn, right? :P

No? Well, ok... :/

Yup. Brian Kindregan is indeed the lead wroter.

[Aldrius]

It would have been nice to see Mengsk being less two-dimensional in WoL. In Sc1, it was clear that Mengsk was a pragmatist and in a universe as bleak as SC, pragmatism is a very good trait to have in a leader when survival is on the line.

He wasn't really multidimensional in StarCraft 1. But he was a bit more vindicated and a bit less comically over the top. He was portrayed as capable and effective, but there was nothing really ambiguous about him, he was a pretty evil bastard.

Like I think the news broadcast from the end of the BW Terran campaign and the news broadcasts in WoL are perfect examples of the two games' different styles.

BW Terran - INCREDIBLY tongue in cheek. Dry. But still hilariously goofy.
WoL - Just... over the top ridiculous. Sort of amusing, but way too comical. Like the one in BW was played straight, and the PLAYER knew how ridiculous it was. But anyone watching the WoL broadcasts on their own is going to know how stupid they are.

They were just so much more childish.

[Turalyon]

All this talk about lead writers makes me wonder wonder why James Phinney (the other lead writer/story guy for the original Sc1) didn't have any input for Sc2...

He wasn't really multidimensional in StarCraft 1. But he was a bit more vindicated and a bit less comically over the top. He was portrayed as capable and effective, but there was nothing really ambiguous about him, he was a pretty evil bastard.

I stand corrected. Mengsk in SC2 was not two dimensional as I had said since Sc1 Mengsk was more or less that (stern but seemingly 'good' at first and then megalomaniac evil at the end) if you want to boil it down to that extent. However, compared to the one-note 'moustache twirling, son-of-a-bitch evil' that is Mengsk in Sc2 (and possibly since BW even), it's hard not to say that Sc1 Mengsk is multi-dimensional.

[SomePerson2314]

Its simple, the people who made SC1 didn't make SC2, at least not all of them

Blizzard knows SC2 was going to sell just because of the title, and they didn't work as hard as they had to with SC1, its sad but its true

[phazonjunkie]

All this talk about lead writers makes me wonder wonder why James Phinney (the other lead writer/story guy for the original Sc1) didn't have any input for Sc2...



I stand corrected. Mengsk in SC2 was not two dimensional as I had said since Sc1 Mengsk was more or less that (stern but seemingly 'good' at first and then megalomaniac evil at the end) if you want to boil it down to that extent. However, compared to the one-note 'moustache twirling, son-of-a-bitch evil' that is Mengsk in Sc2 (and possibly since BW even), it's hard not to say that Sc1 Mengsk is multi-dimensional.

Flanderization: It happens, deal with it. And not just with Mengsk either, apparently all returning characters underwent some level of it, especially so with Kerrigan.

[Turalyon]

Flanderization: It happens, deal with it.

Aaaah, the cornerstone of high-brow entertainment...

[Drake Clawfang]

Blizzard knows SC2 was going to sell just because of the title, and they didn't work as hard as they had to with SC1, its sad but its true

Yeah no, no. No.

I agree with the sentiment about not feeling pressued in the campaign, it never felt like I was leading some small ragtag band of rebels like the Raiders are supposed to be. It felt like SC1 and SC2 where I was the general of a large army.

Besides that, I seem to be in the minority in that I don't think they "scewed up" the single player, and am not sure in what capacity that comment was made so I don't know how to reply further. I'm playing through it again for fun and both mission and storywise it's perfectly fine.

The Hyperion crew were not "yes men" to Raynor. Matt often questioned his trust in Tychus, he and Tosh had to develop their respect for each other and at once point Tosh flat refuses to speak to you because Raynor is distrusting, and Tychus made it regularly known he didn't care for playing hero by helping people for no profit. That said though, what could any of them really do about it? SC1's story was "don't like your commander? Betray them, there's plenty of other factions who will take you". But this game, Tychus has to stick around for his mission, Tosh is relying on Raynor to free his comrades, and Matt has been with Raynor all along and is not about to desert him. And if they did decide to betray Raynor and desert, where could they go anyway?

So yeah, how did they screw up the single player? They didn't.

The final mission in SC2 was a gimmick mini game where you had to use some weird nova device as a get out of jail free card.

Agreed that SC2 relied too heavily on gimmick missions, the exact opposite problem of the original game where it was "you've got a new unit or two in this mission, go destroy everything". But the energy nova was hardly a "get out of jail free card".

Just playing the Terran campaign on youtube, there are like 8 completely multidimensional characters

Well I'll assume you mean all of SC1, because there weren't 8 characters in just the Terran campaign. Duke and Aldaris were about as one-dimensional and cliched as they come, Daggoth and Zasz were just generic advisors and occasionally Zasz got lippy, Fenix was cool but he wasn't particularly deep, Overmind same deal, he was awesome but his character was pretty much non-existent. The only really multidimensional characters I see are Raynor, Kerrigan, Mengsk, Zeratul and Tassadar. Now, out of SC2's current cast none of them stand out to the same degree except Tosh and maybe Swann and Warfield, but it's the first game, let's see how the rest of the trilogy goes. For all we know in the sequel Warfield is gonna be torn between his respect for Raynor and having to fight him as a rebel while Tosh goes off on his own and forms his own faction.

[Gradius]

Aldaris definitely wasn't one-dimensional. Aldaris changed his entire stance at the end of SC1, but then reverted to it, only it turns out he was right, which made him awesome. Tassadar was sort of one-dimensional, but I think his struggles were whether or not to fight the conclave. Fenix convinces him that yes, fighting the dogmatic conclave is the right path if they want to save their homeworld. Then afterwards Tassadar changes his mind.

Besides that, I seem to be in the minority in that I don't think they "scewed up" the single player, and am not sure in what capacity that comment was made so I don't know how to reply further. I'm playing through it again for fun and both mission and storywise it's perfectly fine.

Plenty of reasons.
1) Wrong kind of humor in all the wrong places. The newscasts were largely jokes, even though they're basically the player's only window into the outside world. As a result, the campaign itself ends up looking like a joke. The epic atmosphere before All-In on Char was ruined if you watched the newscast where all they reported on was Donny going insane & being found naked clad only in his socks.

And look @ the first mission newscast:

Lockwell
Actually, the only civilian deaths appear to be collateral damage from overzealous Dominion Security Forc-

Vermillion
Thanks Kate! You heard it here first -- Jim Raynor, killing women and children on Mar Sara.

Come on, seriously, is this supposed to be real? And the fact that Kate has a job there is itself a joke.

As for the rest of the humor in the campaign, it was a bit generic. Still funny, but I would have liked to see darker humor befitting the universe - something that wouldn't seem like it's made for little kids.

2) Total lack of twists or epic moments. Arthas killing Terenas in War3, or Tassadar tricking Kerrigan in SC1, all these moments surpass anything I've seen in SC2. The only "twist" in SC2 was spoiled from 13 miles away at the very beginning of the game.

3) The minor characters were handled bad. Katchinsky, Stetmann, Annabelle? I don't know anything about these guys, and the few lines of dialog they had when you clicked on them didn't help. And on a personal note, the character & voice acting of Hanson was godawful, as 1 dimensional as it gets.

4) Lack of a coherent plot. We got introduced to the Zerg invasion, but it's mish-mashed with the other goals of taking down Mengsk and hunting for artifacts. Who can truly say what this campaign was about? It's called Wings of Liberty, so that makes me think of the revolution against Mengsk, but not really.

5) Tychus being a spy for Mengsk was a silly & contrived plot device. If Tychus was in contact with Megnsk, why didn't he warn him about the attack on Korhal? Seems a bit useless to have a spy in Raynor's Raiders if it gets zero use. He had plenty of time between stealing the Odin & sitting in it while being shipped to Korhal. Raynor didn't even do anything upon learning that his best friend had a bomb in his suit.

6) Some of the dialog is pretty bad. It seems that the campaign was written by like 300 different people, and it shows. My advice is to replace the guy who wrote these lines:

Civilian
My brother went off to the mine last week. He disappeared!

Civilian
Bad guys are thatta way!

Warfield
Look at that thing. (giant platform exploding)

& whoever wrote the Zeratul talking to himself lines. As well as the cheesy cinematic where Raynor's speech is accidentally broadcasted over the radio and it's timed to end when the clouds part to let sunshine through upon the marines' visors.

6) Retcons. There have been lots of them, but some of them reek of lack of attention to detail. I don't like the Overmind retcon most of all, but that aside the entire mission where Tassadar comes back is important enough to have been a cinematic. But as Freespace told me, I guess it was more important to have Raynor share a beer with Tychus. Tassadar doesn't even get his own portrait for that important scene. The fly that Tychus squashed with his cigarette had 100x more work put into it than Tassadar's recycled Archon portrait.

And what exactly is the prophecy Zeratul was gathering for example? After he gets to the final shrine he says it "speaks of one who shall break the cycle of the gods". But apparently this isn't the real prophecy and needs to be translated again by 3 preservers. Kerrigan apparently already knows the prophecy and tells Zeratul:

Kerrigan (telepathic - in his head)
Why not surrender yourself to oblivion, Zeratul? Wouldn't it be better to end your struggle now than witness the final agonizing moments of your species?

Zeratul
The foreboding prophecy weighs heavily on my heart. I'd best reach the remaining shrines before she reconsiders letting me live.

So Zeratul already knows his race will be destroyed? Then why does he act so surprised when Tassadar tells him, and what's the point of this mission anyway?

Also, Stetman. How does he discover things that the Dominion seemingly doesn't have? Especially when Hanson calls the Hyperion's science expertise "non-existant". If you read any of the bios of Hyperion's crews, such as Stetman & Katchinsky, they're all apparently prodigies & geniuses.

[Drake Clawfang]

Aldaris definitely wasn't one-dimensional. Aldaris changed his entire stance at the end of SC1

Yes he did, in the expansion. Again, first game. Seems to be that everyone was expecting the level of storytelling and characterization form Part 1 of the trilogy that we got from the entirety of the original game and BW. Not Blizzard's fault or problem.

2) Total lack of twists or epic moments.

Nova's appearance, the discovery of the Adjutant with Mengsk's war crimes, Hanson's possible infestation. Agreed that the twists with Tychus and Valerian, as well as Zeratul's appearance, were spoiled.

3) The minor characters were handled bad. Katchinsky, Stetmann, Annabelle? I don't know anything about these guys, and the few lines of dialog they had when you clicked on them didn't help. And on a personal note, the character & voice acting of Hanson was godawful, as 1 dimensional as it gets.

Agreed.

4) Lack of a coherent plot. We got introduced to the Zerg invasion, but it's mish-mashed with the other goals of taking down Mengsk and hunting for artifacts. Who can truly say what this campaign was about? It's called Wings of Liberty, so that makes me think of the revolution against Mengsk, but not really.

Agreed, but the flaw there isn't the story itself, its Blizzard choosing to give us branching paths. The story would probably seem better if it was just the Artifact and Horner mission paths we went through.

The original game also had some sudden shifts in focus, to be fair. The Protoss campaign went from fighting the Zerg to tracking down Tassadar to fighting the Conclave back to fighting the Zerg. The entire subplot of the Protoss civil war was kind a waste of time, and besides that was the Conclave really so stupid as to send their head generals to fight a couple wayward deserters as opposed to fighting the alien race invading their home?

5) Tychus being a spy for Mengsk was a silly & contrived plot device. If Tychus was in contact with Megnsk, why didn't he warn him about the attack on Korhal? Seems a bit useless to have a spy in Raynor's Raiders if it gets zero use. He had plenty of time between stealing the Odin & sitting in it while being shipped to Korhal. Raynor didn't even do anything upon learning that his best friend had a bomb in his suit.

Agreed, this was poorly handled.

6) Some of the dialog is pretty bad. It seems that the campaign was written by like 300 different people, and it shows.

Agreed, but there were choice bits of dialogue in the original game that were cheesy too.

"You'll be the doom of us all!"

"WHO is this HUMAN, Tassadar?" (and people say Maar was hammy)

"You got a lot to answer for, little girl"
"I've always wanted to have you killed. This is kind of exciting for me."

6) Retcons. There have been lots of them, but some of them reek of lack of attention to detail. I don't like the Overmind retcon most of all, but that aside the entire mission where Tassadar comes back is important enough to have been a cinematic. But as Freespace told me, I guess it was more important to have Raynor share a beer with Tychus. Tassadar doesn't even get his own portrait for that important scene. The fly that Tychus squashed with his cigarette had 100x more work put into it than Tassadar's recycled Archon portrait.

Agreed that the Tassadar thing, as it stands, was stupid. HOWEVER, if they actually go somewhere with this and Tassadar is actually going to make more than a one-off appearance, we'll see.

And what exactly is the prophecy Zeratul was gathering for example? After he gets to the final shrine he says it "speaks of one who shall break the cycle of the gods". But apparently this isn't the real prophecy and needs to be translated again by 3 preservers. Kerrigan apparently already knows the prophecy and tells Zeratul:

So Zeratul already knows his race will be destroyed? Then why does he act so surprised when Tassadar tells him, and what's the point of this mission anyway?

Agreed fully that the Zeratul missions were badly handled. I think Blizzard felt they had to throw in some foreshadowing for the upcoming overarcing plot, but they did it badly. The secret mission and a couple more hints in the normal missions would have sufficed for such.

[/quote]Also, Stetman. How does he discover things that the Dominion seemingly doesn't have? Especially when Hanson calls the Hyperion's science expertise "non-existant". If you read any of the bios of Hyperion's crews, such as Stetman & Katchinsky, they're all apparently prodigies & geniuses.[/QUOTE]

Well, if you want to let it go with such, depending on difficulty the Dominion does have these things - shrike turrets and tech reactors are pretty common, the Hercules wasn't created with Stettman's research, just enhanced, and some of the other things like microfiltering we can't tell if the Dominion has or not. As well the research stuff that is in the multiplayer, like the raven and planetary fortress, the Dominion has it.

[Turalyon]

Agreed, but there were choice bits of dialogue in the original game that were cheesy too.

"You'll be the doom of us all!"

"WHO is this HUMAN, Tassadar?" (and people say Maar was hammy)

"You got a lot to answer for, little girl"
"I've always wanted to have you killed. This is kind of exciting for me."

The delivery and proper context are important factors in determining cheesiness.

Those lines are cheesy only when isolated as you've written them. Also, they're not obvious one-liners - they're said as part of a conversation. For example, that line from Aldaris (Who is this human, Tassadar?") is not cheesy at all. The venom that Paul Eiding infuses into that single line speaks volumes about the sort of character Aldaris is (a xenophobe with a superiority complex stuck up his ass). Aldaris didn't say that line for laffs or to sound cool, this line was a way for him to express his disdain for a lesser being interjecting on matters way beyond him, let alone even his business.

The cheesiness of the lines in WoL are due largely in the context in which they are presented, too. I think the reason why people find WoL's lines to be more cheesy is because the whole setup for the WoL scenario (and SC2 in general) is obviously "overblown" and "trying too hard to be epic". When you intersperse that with obvious comedic (whether good or bad) elements such as the news reports, you get a more uneven context with which you see those lines.